A Mother's Love (18 page)

‘Your silly old work can wait,’ she retorted when he mentioned unread letters. ‘I want you to myself for a little while. Later we’ll have supper and then go off to bed. Worry about work in the morning, my love. Tomorrow’s a new day.’

But even then she was unable to relax, all sorts of ideas tumbling through her head.

‘We really ought to see about getting someone for the housework. No one too expensive – I can still do the cooking – but cleaning will get hard for me. We could afford that, couldn’t we? And another thing: I think it’s about time we went to see your parents, Matthew. With our first baby soon to be born, we ought to visit before it gets too late for me to travel. For the sake of properness.’

Unable to stay still, she got up to potter about, straightening up the silk embroidered antimacassars on the sofa, patting the matching cushions. All Aunt Sarah’s work, they were exquisite. She was very proud of them, of her aunt’s talent.

‘After all, they’ll be our baby’s grandparents, and they’ll being to wonder why you persist in staying away. It was different when you had no reason to see them, but they must be getting curious about me by now. I know you aren’t a close family like mine are.’ He never failed to emphasise that point whenever she mentioned meeting them. ‘But this is different.’

At first she had been quite happy not to meet them. Before Matthew came on the scene, she had always felt herself to be part of the elite of the area. After all, her family were in business; she had been educated to an extent while most girls in these parts had hardly seen the inside of a classroom; and she always had nice clothes, even if some were handed down from her sisters – although she always had her own shoes.

She knew of children who never had any shoes to wear, who lived in cast-off rags, running alive with vermin. Her mother would warn her never to play with such children – and that wasn’t just snobbishness.

Her cheeks, rosy from good if plain food, had compared startlingly with the under-nourished pasty faces, runny noses and scabby mouths she would see in the street, and she had heard how they slept four or five to a bed. She had only shared a bed with Annie until Clara had got married, and then she’d had a room of her own.

So by comparison, she had always felt a cut above the lower denizens of London’s East End; had often pined that her father felt it not necessary to move his family to nicer surroundings. Then Matthew had come along, well spoken, well bred, startling the wits out of her by choosing her to wed. She was still amazed, even to this day, bearing his child, that her upbringing, falling so far short of his, should have been no barrier to him.

Until then, it hadn’t concerned her to wonder how the upper classes lived. She had never been allowed to go up West to gawp at carriage folk as some poorer-class girls did, so there had been nothing in her insular world to destroy her own sense of her family’s standing. Matthew had spoken a lot about his family at first, but as their wedding approached, he’d mentioned them less and less and had even baulked at any idea of taking her to meet them.

Growing acutely conscious of her own upbringing, she had in some ways been relieved. She would have felt awkward and stupid, introduced to his stuck-up parents. But by now her years with him had made a difference. She had gained confidence knowing that when the need arose, she could speak as well as him … he … him … She’d have to ask him about that one. Grammar was her downfall. She would have to watch that, but she felt confident she could hold up her head with the best of them where speaking proper was concerned.

‘It might be nice if you could write to your parents and say we’re thinking of going to see them,’ she suggested after they had eaten supper: cold boiled bacon, tomatoes, mashed potato and lots of bread followed by rice pudding, making up for the few sandwiches they’d had during the move.

The day was beginning to tell on her at last. Matthew helped her with the dishes then guided her back to the parlour afterwards with the suggestion that she take herself immediately off to bed.

‘You’ll be fit for nothing tomorrow, my dear.’

‘At least it’s Sunday tomorrow.’

‘Yes, but you still shouldn’t overdo things, my love.’ He might at last have the opportunity he’d been looking for all day to read the rest of that letter. He ached with dread of what else Constance might have to say. He had gone through the day like a man in a dream, forcing himself to act naturally, but all the while his innards had been churning relentlessly.

‘Your parents’ll be so happy to know we’re expecting our first child,’ Harriet murmured as she stood gazing around the now complete and comfortable room.

The sofa was against the wall opposite the fireplace, the footstool just where her feet could reach it. The rug in front of the grate would store the warmth from the fire in winter, transferring it to slippered feet. The baby would play on it, safe behind the brass fender which, like the brass fire-irons, now shone from polishing with Glitto. Matthew’s leather upholstered armchair to one side of the grate looked as though it had been there since the house had been built, so naturally did it fit the room.

She covered a pleasurable yawn with her hand and did not notice the quick look the last three words of her remark drew from him as she went on happily: ‘I am about ready for bed. Just think, Matthew, our new room. All that space. I never thought I’d ever have a house like this … Are you coming up now, Matthew?’

Matthew dismissed from his mind the fact that Harriet had somehow overlooked Sara as being her firstborn. But then, she was correct if it came to splitting hairs. And anyway, he had something else on his mind.

‘I’d better write the letter to my parents first,’ he said quickly and she smiled.

‘You can do that in the morning.’

‘I should go to the shop in the morning,’ he excused. ‘Things to be sorted out for Monday. The quicker that letter is written …’

She nodded from the doorway. ‘Well, don’t be too long, my love.’

Her eyes were bright with love for him. He got up, walked across the room and kissed her lightly on the brow. From the wide hallway, he stood watching her climb the broad flight of stairs, smiling her on her way, but the moment she disappeared from view, he hurried into the dining room, where the pile of untouched morning post still lay on the sideboard.

Searching, he found the envelope, dragged out the crumpled letter, smoothed it and began to read from the third paragraph:

… I am writing to tell you that my intention to seek you out and avenge myself of the wrong you did me was very real indeed. I went so far as to buy the train ticket for London, except that in my haste I fell headlong in the ticket hall, spraining my ankle so badly I could not walk …

A stab of relief penetrated the fear in Matthew’s heart. She had fallen and lost the baby, surely. If that was so, the fates had truly exonerated him. She would have no claim …

He read on hastily.

I was helped to my feet by a gentleman so considerate that he bade me rest on a seat while he bought me a cup of strong sweet tea to revive me. I have since that day been walking out with him and we are now become engaged to be married.

But do not labour under any misapprehension, Mr Craig, that I write to you out of any sense of forgiveness or to relieve your conscience, but rather that you will not flatter yourself as a gallant and I your sad victim. Although I shall never forgive you your caddishness, I merely wish to prick that bubble and to assure you that despite your abysmal behaviour, I am now very happy, and in case you did think to gloat, that I no longer even care to trouble myself enough to wish you ill.

I will not say yours truly but merely sign this letter:

C. Milne-Pitford (Miss)

Gloat, she said. Matthew could not have felt less like gloating as he put a match to the letter, then dropped it into the grate to watch it burn. He felt very near to tears of relief as he slowly stirred the blackened remains into oblivion until not a sign of it remained.

Wiping the end of the brass poker clean with his hands, he hurried to the kitchen to rinse them clean under the cold tap. He’d learned his lesson. Never again. Never again.

In her bright south-facing parlour Harriet sat with her sisters sipping afternoon tea and munching biscuits. She felt pleased and proud, seeing her new home afresh through the admiring eyes of Clara, and Annie’s too, whose hardly veiled envy was as rewarding as any praise.

She had positively relished showing them over the house, and had revelled in the reactions of each. Both sisters’ homes were just as nice as hers, but it was as good as a tonic no longer to have to endure the looks of pity they had cast in her direction when they visited those cramped rooms over the shop in Hackney Road.

It was a noisy afternoon with Clara’s seven-year-old Henry, his five-year-old sister Alice, and Annie’s two boys, Robert and Albert, playing on the rug, but she didn’t mind. It was nice to know she had the room for them to play. Sara was playing with another addition to the family: Annie’s little girl, now eighteen months old. The latest addition, Clara’s William, who had come along after two miscarriages, was asleep, despite the noise of play around him, being rocked protectively on his mother’s lap.

‘When do you think you’ll be visiting them?’ asked Annie in between sipping tea. Harriet shrugged.

‘It’s a bit late now.’ She patted the bulge beneath her loose-fitting lounge dress that helped to hide it. She’d be heartily glad when she could get back into something nice and tight-fitting instead of this shapeless thing dangling from her shoulders by straps and bows.

‘I couldn’t very well travel with only a month to go. I’d be so uncomfortable, and it’s dangerous. I’ll wait now, till the baby’s a few months old, then Matthew will take us by train.’

‘Took his parents long enough to ask to see you,’ Annie said pointedly. ‘A baby on the way before they ever bothered. I’d have felt almost as though they didn’t much approve of me, if I’d have been you.’

Harriet hid the prick of indignation. She was sure there had never been anything like that. It was just that …

‘They’re not a close family,’ she explained huffily, because she’d explained this before when Annie had said much the same thing. Annie could be so annoying at times. ‘I have told you before that Matthew spent more of his young days away at public school and at Oxford than with them.’

‘Ah yes,’ echoed Annie, whose husband, Robert, had had to pull himself up by the bootstraps to get where he had got, in line for promotion very soon to under-manager of the bank where he was employed. ‘Public school and Oxford. Yes, you have told me.’

‘Well, I’m glad I’m not you,’ Clara said, putting her empty cup back on the little round table beside her. ‘Having to go and meet your in-laws after all this time – especially grand ones. Doesn’t it make you feel just a bit frightened?’

She had meant it to be sympathetic, but sounded to Harriet almost as spiteful as Annie.

‘Why should I?’ she snapped. The happy afternoon was turning sour. ‘I’m as good as them. Mrs Craig’s letter was very nice.’

She recalled Matthew’s almost painful joy as he opened the letter. He had once told her that he took after his mother in looks, and as he read aloud, she could almost envisage the woman who had written the words he relayed. They were words of regret for the time elapsed since she last saw him, how much she missed him, how she longed to see him again.

He hadn’t read everything out. At one point he had fallen silent, his gaze moving down the page, his face growing serious. Then, realising she was waiting to hear more, he had brightened and resumed reading aloud: his mother, eager to see the new baby when it was born, was proud of him, soon to become a father. But she knew he had left out a part of the letter, and had prompted ‘Does she mention me?’ He had looked startled for a second, but had nodded briefly and hurried on to convey that his family sent their love and were looking forward to seeing him … ‘Us,’ he altered almost with the same breath. He had stuffed the letter into his pocket, so she had not read it herself. But it was his letter, his prerogative not to show it to her if he didn’t wish to.

‘She sounds a nice woman,’ she added, mellowing towards Clara.

Sara’s cheeks glowed rosy from the warm sunshine and the stiff warm breeze in Victoria Park. Her father had come home the previous evening with a mysterious but intriguing flat parcel for her. Her mother had not been pleased.

‘You spoil that child far too much,’ she said sourly as Sara tore open the wrapping with delighted squeaks. As a flat surface of blue and red tissue paper began to show, Sara frowned.

‘It’s a kite,’ Matthew told her, and as her frown deepened he knelt beside her. ‘You’ve seen the children in the park flying kites in the sky on the end of strings?’

Sara’s face cleared, her frown replaced by a look of excitement. ‘Can me fly it, Daddy? Up in the sky! Can me fly it up in the sky?’

‘Tomorrow,’ he promised. ‘It’s getting dark now. We’ll fly it tomorrow morning. It’s Sunday tomorrow.’

It had been a wonderful afternoon. Daddy was always ready to play with her. Mummy never was. The kite became a symbol of his love as she watched its triangular shape rise up under his firm hand, going up and up, whipping and diving, getting smaller and smaller until it looked like such a tiny thing – a tiny dot. Then he had given her the string to hold and she felt the tug on her fingers – so strong for something so small – and she squealed with delight. The afternoon flew by. She was sorry when he took the string from her to wind the lovely kite in, back to the ground in readiness to go home.

‘Make it go up again. Can it, Daddy?’ she pleaded, but he was looking a little concerned as he gathered up the kite.

‘We should have been home half an hour ago, my pet. Mummy will have had dinner ready and we’re not there. She’ll be cross.’

The thought of Mummy being cross quietened Sara’s pleas. She didn’t like it when her mother scolded her, didn’t like the sting of the smack on her arm or leg. But worse was the way her daddy looked when she did it. It made a great hole come inside her chest that she didn’t understand, and that was as bad to bear as the stinging smack Mummy would give her.