Chaff upon the Wind (27 page)

And now there was another love in her life too; a tiny, helpless child whom she already loved devotedly. He was Jack’s flesh and blood and he deserved to be brought up by his father.

‘I – will come and live with you, Jack.’ Even as she said the words aloud, she felt as if she were stepping into a void, into the unknown and a sudden tremor of fear shook her.
Resolutely, she lifted her head. This was as much for Johnnie as for herself. ‘Your son,’ she said softly, ‘should have a father.’

It was difficult now for Kitty to see her mother. Because their house was attached to the station, there was hardly ever a time when her father was unlikely to come through the
door. But once a month, the stationmaster took the train to head office and was gone all day. Luckily for Kitty, the following day was one such occasion. So, when Jack disappeared off to work the
following morning, she fed Johnnie, wrapped him warmly in a shawl and carried him to her old home.

As she walked, she thought again how surprised she had been when Jack had made no attempt to make love to her the previous night. She felt disappointed. During the months away from him, she had
longed for him, for the feel of his arms about her, for his loving. And she had hoped he had missed her too. Now, she was hurt that, although he had got into the double bed beside her, he had
merely kissed her cheek, turned on his side and fallen asleep immediately, while she had lain awake into the early hours, her young body burning for his touch.

As Kitty opened the door, her mother turned from the range, her tired eyes lighting up at the sight of her daughter. ‘Kitty, I’m so glad you’ve come.’ She bustled forward
and drew Kitty and the child into the warmth, pushing her gently into a chair and taking the shawl-wrapped bundle into her arms. ‘There, there now, me little bairn,’ Betsy crooned.

‘Me dad’s not here, is he?’ Kitty said.

‘No, no, we’re quite safe today,’ her mother said with only half her attention for she was unwrapping the shawl and inspecting the sturdy limbs of the little boy she believed
to be her first grandchild. Kitty felt a sudden stab of guilt at the thought but pushed it resolutely away.

‘Mam, I’d better tell you straight away. I – I’m going to move in with Jack.’

Her mother raised her gaze and her eyes were deep pools of anxiety. ‘Aw lass, aw me lass,’ was all Betsy could say. ‘Are ya sure? He’s no good. Cut loose, girl, while
there’s still time. Mebbe I could talk ya dad around. Mebbe you could come back here.’

Kitty shook her head. ‘No, Mam. You know me dad. I must say I never expected him to be quite so hard, but . . .’ She shrugged and sighed. ‘If that’s how he feels, I know
he’ll never change his mind.’

Betsy shook her head. ‘No, you’re right. I know that if I’m honest.’ She was silent a moment, seeming to struggle with herself, then the words burst from her, tumbling
from her mouth as if she could not get them out quickly enough. ‘It’s not all your fault. It’s the past. It’s raked all that up again. It’s my fault an’
all.’

Kitty stared at her mother. ‘Raked all what up, Mam? What are you talking about?’

Betsy bit her lip and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the range. ‘Mebbe it’s time I told you about it, lass. Mebbe you’ve a right to know, and – and if
nothing else, it’ll help you to see why your dad is acting the way he is. Being so hard on you, like.’

Kitty was silent as Betsy Clegg’s head came up very slowly until her eyes met her daughter’s questioning gaze. Gently she rocked the child in her arms until the infant’s eyes
closed and he slept while Betsy stared straight ahead, seeming to see, not the cluttered kitchen of the house she had shared with her husband for over eighteen years, but images from the past. A
past in which Kitty had no part.

‘If I . . .’ Betsy began slowly, ‘if I tell you something, Kitty, do you promise me that you will never mention it to ya dad that I’ve told you, nor tell any of your
brothers and sisters about it?’

Kitty stared at her mother. Not more secrets and more promises, she thought, but aloud she said quietly, ‘Yes, I promise.’

Again there was a long silence as if Betsy were struggling to say out loud things that had lain hidden and unspoken of for years.

‘I worked at the Manor once. Years ago . . .’

‘I know that. Mrs Grundy told me.’

‘Oh aye, and what else did Mrs Grundy have to tell you?’ There was a trace of resentment in her tone, but gradually she relaxed again when Kitty wrinkled her brow, trying to
remember.

‘Nothing really,’ Kitty said, ‘though there were times when she would say summat I couldn’t quite understand. But whenever I asked her what she meant, she’d just
clam up.’

‘Aye well, she were a good friend to me all them years ago and I ain’t ever had cause to think her otherwise.’

Kitty waited and her mother paused again.

‘It’s all so long ago now. Not that you ever forget, you know, but – well – you sort of bury it. When I worked at The Manor, I was only your age and Henry Franklin
– the man you call “the master” now – he was about twenty-two. A right young rogue, he was . . .’ Yet the term was used fondly and, even as Kitty watched, her
mother’s face seemed to soften and her eyes glazed over at the memory.

‘He was a fine figure of a man, tall and with such a beautiful head of chestnut hair I always thought it was wasted on a man. Mind you, you couldn’t have called him handsome.’
She giggled, almost girlishly. ‘His nose was too big. But he had this kind of – of air about him. Dashing that’s it. He was dashing.’ Betsy Clegg was savouring her memories.
‘He was what they call “an eligible young bachelor” and though his family weren’t aristocracy, his father had a good job as Sir Ralph Harding’s farm bailiff and they
were much respected and comfortably off. Mind you, his mother came from a bit better class than the Franklins and always tried to make out her family were out the same drawer as the Hardings at the
Hall, but they weren’t. They still aren’t, even though they farm in their own right now.’

Patiently, Kitty waited, knowing that eventually her mother would come to the point.

‘He had an eye for a pretty girl and – well – I suppose I was young and giddy and took his flirting and his flattery far too serious.’

Again she stopped and glanced down at the sleeping child in her arms. Then she raised her gaze again, looking straight at her daughter. ‘I – I fell for him, Kitty, just like I
’spect you’ve fallen for Jack Thorndyke. That’s why I can’t blame you and, though I’m disappointed and worried what will come of it all, I do understand what it
– it’s like to love a man that much that you’d do anything for him.’ Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘Anything he asked of you.’

‘Oh Mam,’ Kitty breathed. ‘What happened?’

Flatly, Betsy said, ‘I got pregnant. That’s what happened.’

Kitty gasped, staring at her mother in horrified disbelief. Then as her jumbled thoughts began to make more sense, she said hesitantly, ‘Oh Mam, you don’t mean that I’m –
that he’s my . . .’

Swiftly, even before Kitty had finished voicing the question, her mother reached out and patted her daughter’s hand. ‘No, no, lass, you’re your dad’s child. I mean, John
Clegg’s your real dad.’

‘So . . .?’ Kitty had to know, but now she hesitated, her mind reeling with all the possibilities. Had her mother, all those years ago, given birth to a child and given it up to
someone else just as Miriam Franklin had done? Had Kitty a half-brother or half-sister somewhere? The questions whirled around her mind, but her mother was speaking again and even now, after all
the intervening years, there was still sadness in her voice. ‘Of course, his family were horrified. His mother sent me packing. In her eyes it was all my fault and I’d caused trouble,
you see, by naming him as the father.’

‘Oh Mam,’ Kitty breathed, knowing what her mother must have suffered.

‘But I was lucky, Kitty, more lucky than I deserved to be. My parents stood by me and would have let me keep the baby and helped me bring it up, but – but the baby – a little
boy—’ again she glanced down at the baby boy in her arms and there were tears in her voice as she whispered, ‘was stillborn.’

Kitty reached across and clasped her mother’s hands tightly in her own, but could think of no words to say.

There was a long silence in the room before Kitty asked hesitantly. ‘And me dad?’

‘He was a groom at the Franklins’ and of course he knew all about it. But about a year after – after it had all happened, he started coming to see me and – and said
he’d marry me.’

‘Did he love you? Did you love
him
?’

‘In a way, I’ve come to love him. I’m grateful to him and he’s been a good husband to me and a good father, but . . .’ She stopped and her silence said more than
her words.

‘But you have never forgotten Henry Franklin, have you, Mam?’

There were tears in her mother’s eyes as she pressed her lips together and shook her head, not trusting herself to speak now.

‘And me dad, did he love you?’ Kitty urged.

Betsy lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. ‘I really don’t know, Kitty. I – I always had the feeling that he made the offer thinking that in some way Mr Henry would be
grateful to him, would see him all right. But after we was wed, well, it sort of backfired on him and he was sacked over something quite trivial. I even forget exactly what it was about
now.’

‘Was that how he came to get a job on the railway then?’

Betsy nodded. ‘He started as a porter and he hated it. He’s hated it all these years, even when he got to be stationmaster, a position with some status to it. All he ever wanted, he
said, was to work with horses. That’s why he’s so bitter at the bottom of him.’

‘And deep down he blames you and now I have, as you say, raked it all up again.’

Her mother nodded but Kitty was thinking now that this was what the hints and half-remarks up at the Manor had been about. And why Mr Franklin thought she had been trying to drag up the past
again. That’s what he had meant about ‘a little blackmail’. It had nothing to do with the secrets of the present, but with the scandal from the past.

‘So after you left, Mam, Mr Franklin married his wife, did he?’

‘Oh aye,’ Betsy said bitterly. ‘His mother couldn’t get him safely married off quick enough. Almost the first suitable girl that came along was snapped up and he was
married to her.’ Betsy sighed. ‘I feel sorry for her, really. I always have done, she’s a lovely lady and she hasn’t had a happy marriage, or much happiness with her
children to my way of thinking. Miss Miriam’s a spoilt little madam and her boy, well, if he makes old bones, it’ll be a miracle.’

Kitty said nothing about Miriam Franklin, knowing, more than anyone else, just what trouble her wilfulness had led her into and the heartbreak she had indeed caused her gentle mother. But of
Edward she said, ‘He’s much better now, Mam. He’s going to boarding school and he’s grown and filled out. Why, he’s taller than me now.’

‘Really? Well, I am pleased to hear that. Really I am. But Kitty, promise me you’ll keep this to yourself. It’s not that your dad doesn’t know all there is to know, but I
don’t want him reminded any more. And please, please don’t tell young Milly, or the others.’

‘Of course not, Mam. I promise.’ She gave her promise gladly, but in that moment Kitty was sorely tempted to spill out the details of the other secret, but her promise was sacrosanct
and must, in Kitty Clegg’s mind, be kept.

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing, Kitty, that’s all.’ Betsy’s eyes were worried as she helped her daughter pack her few belongings to move
to the cottage with Jack. ‘He’ll never marry you, you know, not even to give his son a name.’

‘I know, Mam, I know,’ Kitty said quietly.

Betsy sighed and then, more brightly, said, ‘I’ve found you some baby things I had packed away upstairs. Tek ’em, lass, because I don’t reckon I’ll be having any
more bairns mesen.’ She smiled down at the baby. ‘I’ll just have to enjoy me grand-bairns now, at least when I can get the chance.’ For a moment, mischief sparkled in Betsy
Clegg’s eyes and despite the sadness and hardship life had brought her, Kitty knew that it was from her mother that she had inherited her strength of character.

Again she felt a pang of conscience that the child Betsy believed to be her flesh and blood had no connection to her. And yet, Kitty thought now, there was a connection, one she had not known
about, could not have known about until today. The child might not be Betsy’s own grandchild, but he was certainly the grandson of the man she had loved all those years ago, and, if Kitty was
right, had continued to love down the years.

‘Oh Mam.’ She moved across the space between them and put her arms about Betsy’s thickening waist, feeling tears spring to her eyes. ‘I’ll bring him to see you
whenever I can. When me dad’s away. It’ll be our little secret.’

‘Yes, yes, love,’ her mother said patting her back. ‘And don’t tell our Milly. Though I ses it as shouldn’t about me own, that girl’s got a spiteful streak in
her.’

Kitty leaned back and looked into her mother’s face. ‘I haven’t seen her since I came home. Is she still at the Manor?’

‘Oh yes. Ses she’s going to take over as cook when Mrs Grundy finally retires. Though when that’ll be, your guess is as good as mine.’

‘She’s ambitious, then, I’ll say that for her. I would never have thought it of Milly.’

‘She’s changed a lot while you’ve been away. Put on a bit of weight and it suits her. Her skin’s a better colour. She’s not bad looking now, but she’ll still
have to make her own way in the world.’ Betsy sighed. ‘Same as you, Kitty love, though I can’t say I’m happy about the way you’ve chosen. Not happy at all.’

Kitty forced a bright smile on to her mouth and hugged her mother once again. ‘I’ll be fine, Mam. As long as I’ve got little Johnnie. And no one –
no one
,’
she repeated as if saying it aloud would make it so, ‘can ever take him away from me.’

While Jack worked, Kitty moved her belongings and the clothes her mother had given her for the baby into the cottage. Between caring for little Johnnie’s needs, Kitty
scrubbed and cleaned the little home and prepared a tempting meal in readiness for Jack’s return that evening. As he stepped through the door, ducking his head beneath the low doorframe, Jack
sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘By, that’s a fine greeting for a chap after a hard day.’ He chuckled and smacked Kitty’s backside playfully. ‘But you should be
careful not to tire yourself. It’s not that many weeks since ya birthing, is it?’