Every Mother's Son (23 page)

‘Mrs Hart. She calls on Ma sometimes.’ Maria began to wish she’d never mentioned it when she saw her grandmother’s scathing expression.

‘Trying to climb up ’ladder, is she, your ma?’ She gave a scornful snigger. ‘She’ll not get further than ’bottom rung.’ She pushed a cup and saucer towards Maria. ‘Not wi’ her background.’

Maria stared at her and her eyes filled with tears. But she drew herself up straight and pushed the cup and saucer back to the middle of the table. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as politely as she could, ‘but I won’t have tea after all and I’ll wait outside until you’re ready, Da.’ She left the table and walked to the door, and then, turning, she said to her grandmother, ‘I won’t be calling again. My mother taught me to be polite. What a pity that yours didn’t. Goodbye.’

‘Why?’ Fletcher said dismally as Maria went out of the door, closing it firmly behind her. ‘Why do you always have to be so controversial and upset everybody? Maria is ’sweetest girl you could ever wish to meet.’ In truth he was astonished that his daughter had stood up to her grandmother. ‘She’d never do or say owt to hurt anyone, but she’ll stick up for her family, I’m pleased to hear, and especially Harriet. How dare you?’ he went on, anger suddenly rising. ‘How dare you insult her mother in that way?’

‘She’s not good enough for you,’ Ellen said prosaically. ‘You could’ve done better if you’d listened to me.’

‘We’ve been married nigh on eighteen years and I’ve never met anyone I’d rather be with.’ Fletcher’s voice became heated. ‘I love Harriet. She’s ’onny woman I’ve ever loved and I’ll be with her until ’day I die, and,’ he added, ‘I don’t know why you think you’re such an expert on marriage considering ’
success
you made of yours!’

Ellen’s lip curled. ‘Aye, well that’s another story entirely,’ she sneered. ‘And it’s fortuitous that you called today because I’ve made a decision and tekken steps to rectify a few things.’ She pushed Fletcher’s tea towards him. ‘Tea’s getting cold.’

‘I don’t want it. It’d choke me. And I’m leaving.’ He looked at her. He was coming close to hating her, and thought what a terrible thing that was to think of his own mother. But if it came to a contest between her and Harriet, it would be no hardship to walk away from her.

‘Please yourself. Mebbe you can afford to waste good provisions, but I can’t.’ She eyed him narrowly. ‘But before you go I’ll tell you what I’ve decided on. I spend a good deal o’ time on my own—’

‘That’s your own fault,’ he broke in.

‘And I spend most of ’time thinking,’ she went on. ‘And so I thought I’d put things right and tell ’truth, bring it all into ’open you might say, ’stead of keeping it hidden as I have done all these years.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Which is why I asked if you saw owt of Christopher Hart.’

Fletcher swallowed. Dismay filled him. She wasn’t still going on about this crazy idea that he should be Christopher’s Hart’s heir?

‘I thought that if you did see him you could be the one to tell him, but no matter. And I suppose it’ll be in your favour when he sees that you’re capable of running your own farm.’

‘Get to the point,’ he said in a low voice. ‘What have you done? What mad scheme are you planning?’

She gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘Not mad. Just ’truth. It’s time my story was told. So I’ve asked ’bailiff to tell him to call. Tell Christopher to call. Telled him to say that it’s a personal matter. I’m expecting him any day now. He’ll know that it’s important.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Melissa left Christopher sleeping in the chair and went out into the garden to wander around the rose beds. The new young gardener understood perfectly what she wanted and had recommended various types of sweet-smelling roses that lasted all summer long. She paused to breathe in one particular deep carmine rose with a fragrant scent. The previous year she had often gathered one or two blooms to take into the house, even though she knew they wouldn’t last so long as on the bush. But she didn’t pick them now; there were many buds still to open and she decided to wait.

She was uneasy, and had come outside to calm herself. The note from Thompson, which she had left on the side table next to Christopher’s chair, had disturbed her, and she wondered what Ellen Tuke wanted and why she should say it was a personal matter. Should I tell Christopher what I suspect? she thought. And yet if I am wrong about his former relationship with Ellen Tuke and the question mark over her son, would he be angry that I had distrusted him? Would our marriage suffer because of it?

She walked slowly back to the house and saw her husband with his back to the window, his head bent as if reading something. He’s found the letter, she thought, and was thankful that she had come outside. It will give him time to assimilate the contents, and I’ll know by his expression whether or not he is disturbed by them.

When she walked into the sitting room Christopher was pacing the floor, the note in his hand. ‘Have you seen this?’ he asked irritably. ‘If it’s not one thing it’s another.’

‘It’s from Thompson, isn’t it?’ she wavered. ‘Something he forgot to mention – about a fence? Not like him; he’s obviously not at all well.’

‘Not that!’ he said edgily. ‘That’s easily fixed.’ He waved the note about. ‘Ellen Tuke wants me to call on her. As if I haven’t enough to do without trailing down to Brough Haven! It will be nothing that Thompson couldn’t deal with, except that I’ve sent him home and told him to rest.’

Melissa felt a sense of relief. Christopher had nothing on his conscience after all. Ellen Tuke was merely an irritant to a man who had too much to do.

‘Can I help?’ she offered. ‘Shall I go to see her? I could tell her that you are very busy just now with Thompson being ill.’

He considered for a moment and then sat down. ‘No, that wouldn’t work. She seems to think that because she’s known me for so long she is owed my personal attention.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll go in a day or two. Blasted woman,’ he said beneath his breath.

When he did decide to visit it was three days later. He had attended to several things that Thompson would normally have dealt with, including sending a carpenter to fix the broken fence, and drafted out an advertisement for a bailiff or farm manager to go into local and national newspapers and farming magazines. ‘I could do with a secretary as well as a bailiff,’ he had complained to Melissa.

He left the horse and trap at the end of the lane and walked to Ellen Tuke’s cottage. The door was firmly closed, and he cursed beneath his breath. Don’t say she’s out when I’ve come especially, he thought impatiently. He knocked firmly on the door and when there was no response he knocked again.

‘All right, all right, I’m coming. Don’t knock ’door down,’ a peeved voice called out, and then came the rattle of a door bolt. Christopher remembered how when old Mrs Marshall was here she always had the door open in the summer, and often sat in her doorway looking out at the rippling water of the Haven.

‘Yes?’ Ellen opened the door. It took her a moment to realize that it was Christopher Hart standing there. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d given up on you. I thought ’bailiff hadn’t given you my message.’

‘He did, several days ago, before he went home sick. I am extremely busy and came as soon as I could,’ he said bluntly. She was the only one of his tenants who spoke to him in such a discourteous manner. ‘He didn’t say anything about its being urgent.’

‘Come on in,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s waited so long that a few more days won’t matter, but I want it out in ’open.’

He refused her offer of a drink, muttering that he had a lot to do, but he sat down at her bidding. She sat opposite him and folded her hands across her apron. ‘It’s good to see you, Christopher. I’ve not seen you in a while,’ she said, her voice becoming girlish in a way that made him wary and was at odds with her initial greeting, her lined grey face and her old-fashioned hand-made pleated bonnet. She looks very old, he thought, older than she should, for she’s younger than I am. Her face was deeply etched with lines, not of laughter but of what looked like a lifetime of bitterness and spite.

‘No,’ he said uneasily. ‘Thompson normally handles the tenancies and rentals, but he will be leaving soon. As soon as I get a new manager I’ll inform all the tenants that someone else will be calling.’

She looked sharply at him. ‘I don’t want a stranger visiting me,’ she said. ‘You can call for ’rent when it’s due.’

He gave a nervous cough. Why did he always feel vulnerable in her company? ‘It’s only due once a year, Ellen. Surely you don’t mind that? Or you can send it with someone. But in any case, I’ll expect the new agent to call to make sure all is well with the tenancy and the property.’

They stared at each other for a moment and then Christopher cleared his throat. ‘So what was it you wished to speak of that Thompson couldn’t handle?’

‘I said it was personal,’ she snapped. ‘We don’t want other folk knowing our business, especially not when I’ve kept it close to my chest all these years. Fletcher’ll be …’ she paused, pressing her lips together as she considered, ‘what, forty-five, won’t he?’

Christopher stared at her. ‘I have no idea,’ he said, wishing that she would get to the crux of the matter. ‘Look, Ellen, tell me the problem because I really must be going. I have a lot to do.’ He pushed his chair back as if to stand up.

‘No,’ she said abruptly. ‘I haven’t even started. We can’t put this off any longer. I want it settled afore I die.’

‘Wh— Are you ill?’ he said, startled.

‘No, I’m not. I’m hale and hearty as far as I know, but we’re neither of us getting any younger and I want my son to have his rightful place.’

‘Ellen,’ he sighed, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about and I am so very busy; can you please tell me what it is that’s troubling you? Is your son in difficulties? You know that he’s not one of my tenants, don’t you? But if he’s having problems he’s welcome to come and discuss them with me and I’ll try to advise him.’

‘He’s not having problems,’ she said. ‘Not that I’d know if he was.’ She leaned towards him and lowered her voice. ‘But it’s Fletcher we must discuss. I’ve kept quiet all these years, not disturbed you in any way, have I? Not wi’ your mother – she wouldn’t have been pleased, I knew that – nor your first wife either?’

Vaguely he stared at her and shook his head. I think she’s failing, he thought. She seems to be rambling. Perhaps I ought to get the doctor to call, although her son should be doing that.

‘I waited, you see, for ’right time.’ She gazed into space and whispered so that he could barely hear her. ‘But somehow ’right time never seemed to come, and then you had sons wi’ your second wife, but they don’t really count.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘It’s ’first son that matters in society, so it’s got to be now. I don’t want to leave it any longer.’

This time he did get up; he’d send a message to her son telling him that his mother was unwell.

‘You can’t go yet,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to hear me out. Face up to your responsibilities.’

‘What responsibilities?’ he said irritably. ‘I have given you a roof over your head, Ellen, re-housed you as I try to do with many of our long-term tenants. What more do you want?’

‘Don’t you understand?’ She gazed at him fiercely. ‘I want our son – Fletcher – to be given his rightful place before I die. The place that he deserves.
Our
son; your eldest son and heir to Hart Holme Manor.’

Christopher stared at her. Had the woman gone off her head? What was she talking about? She had a triumphant smile on her face as she folded her arms in front of her and waited for him to respond.

‘I – I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, both indignant and confused. ‘My eldest son is Charles. What are you implying?’

‘I’m implying nowt,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘I’m
telling
you that Fletcher is your son.’ She pointed a stabbing finger at his chest. ‘You’ve onny to look at him to know.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous! How can you accuse me of all people of such a thing? You and I had a friendship of a sort when we were both little more than children, but as for anything else …’ He looked back over the years. He had been fond of her when he was young, it was true, but nothing more than that. He’d been lonely, the only son, remote parents and no close companions, and he’d spent much time down in the kitchen with the servants, but as for any impropriety—

‘Denying it, are we?’ Ellen said slyly. ‘Are you telling me you’ve conveniently forgotten that night of your coming of age party?’

‘What?’ He gazed at her in bewilderment. ‘You’ve just told me that your son is forty-five years old! How the blazes am I supposed to remember so far back? It takes me all my time to think what happened yesterday! What on earth has put this into your head?’

But he recalled other times when she had made comments that he hadn’t understood. When her husband Nathaniel and their younger son had perished in the estuary he had offered his condolences and she had murmured to him, ‘It’s come at last,’ as if there were something significant in their drowning, and he hadn’t known what she meant. But good heavens, he thought, even that tragedy was twenty years ago.

‘You were drunk,’ she said. ‘Drunk as a lord. You were drunk and we went down to ’bottom of ’garden, and …’ She paused for effect, and Christopher shuddered at the idea of her suggestion. ‘It was there,’ she added, with an odd kind of expression on her face. ‘I could tek you to ’exact spot.’

I don’t think you could, he thought. Not since Melissa transformed the garden.
Melissa!
She’s bound to ask what Ellen Tuke wanted, and he heaved a silent relieved breath that she hadn’t come on his behalf to ask what was troubling Ellen, as she had volunteered to do. But whatever was he going to tell her? How was he to explain the accusations of this crazy woman?

Ellen frowned. ‘You’re not telling me that you can’t remember? It was ’servants’ and ’tenants’ party, not your official one.’

‘I don’t remember either of them,’ he said. ‘As you say, I was drunk. I wasn’t a drinker and somebody had given me something strong. I didn’t remember anything until I woke up in my own bed the next afternoon. You’re mistaken, Ellen. It wasn’t me. I wouldn’t have been capable.’