Every Mother's Son (34 page)

Harriet patted the top of his head. ‘Well, don’t worry, Joseph,’ she murmured. ‘I’m not planning on dying just yet.’

‘Tom’s here,’ Lenny said, looking out of the kitchen window as he heard the rattle of Tom’s trap. ‘I’m going with him. We’re picking Granny Rosie up.’

‘I’m coming as well then.’ Elizabeth said as she stood up. ‘Will you, Joseph?’

Joseph nodded. ‘I wish our Daniel was here. He doesn’t know yet, does he?’

‘He doesn’t, and we can’t tell him, cos we don’t know where he is except that he’s in Italy,’ his mother said. Fletcher muttered that he’d bring their trap to the door and through the window she saw Tom greet him, punching a friendly sympathetic fist on his shoulder. She breathed her thanks for Tom’s support. He’d been a loyal friend to Fletcher and all of them throughout their lives.

Tom and Lenny, with Elizabeth and Joseph, drove off to collect Rosie. They would all meet at the church. Because Fletcher and Harriet didn’t want the children distressed, arrangements had been made for Ellen to be brought to the church by the undertakers in whose premises she had been lying since the inquest. The undertaker and his men were dressed completely in black, with top hats, and had employed a mute to walk in front of the carriage.

Fletcher looked at Harriet and raised an eyebrow. He imagined what his mother might have said.
Wasting good money
was what came to mind, but he felt he had to show an outward respect even though she had been so controversial throughout her life for as long as he could remember; and for reasons that he couldn’t begin to describe he was glad that she wasn’t to be buried in the same churchyard as Noah, who had always been the butt of her anger and frustration.

To Harriet’s surprise, Mary, the Hart children’s nanny, was waiting outside the church door. ‘I didn’t think that many folk would be here,’ she whispered. ‘I thought I’d mek ’numbers up.’

She beckoned Harriet closer as the undertaker, Fletcher, Tom and Lenny lifted the small coffin on their shoulders. ‘Mrs Hart brought me when I said I’d like to come. She’s waiting in ’carriage just up ’lane.’

‘Oh, that was good of her,’ Harriet whispered back, before bringing up the rear with Maria and Dolly, both looking pale and tearful. Joseph and Elizabeth clutched Rosie’s hands as they entered the church door, the parson intoning, ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.’

‘I think she’d like a word after,’ Mary continued, not hearing him. ‘Master’s not well.’

The question of what Mrs Hart wanted a word about occupied Harriet’s thoughts throughout the service, which fortunately wasn’t long as Ellen hadn’t attended the church. The parson, who had never been welcomed at her door, apparently deduced that as there was only family, and Mary, who sat in a pew at the back of the church, there wasn’t anything he could say that they didn’t already know. He concluded the service at the graveside with a hymn, ‘Oh, God to know that thou art just; Gives hope and peace within.’ And finally a verse from Psalm 39. ‘I held my tongue and spake nothing; I kept silence, yea even from good words; but it was pain and grief to me.’

‘Amen,’ Fletcher and Harriet breathed in unison, and she squeezed his hand as she saw a tear run down his cheek as he threw soil on the coffin, before turning away.

Melissa Hart was waiting at the gate for Mary, her carriage discreetly further away from the church. Fletcher touched his hat but didn’t speak, but Harriet dipped her knee and walked with Mary to meet her.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Harriet. Please convey my condolences to your husband,’ Melissa said quietly. She hesitated, and, turning her head and murmuring so that Mary wouldn’t hear, said, ‘My husband is unwell and confined to bed, otherwise he would have come.’

‘I’m sorry to hear—’ Harriet began, but Melissa waved away her sympathy.

‘When it’s convenient I’d like to speak to you, Harriet. I – need some advice – from your husband, if he wouldn’t mind? Not yet, of course, whilst he’s in mourning, but whenever it would be convenient – if it’s not an intrusion.’

‘Of course it’s not,’ Harriet assured her. ‘Fletcher will be back at work tomorrow. Why not come on Sunday afternoon?’

She saw the relief on Melissa’s face. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I do appreciate … I – I need to make some changes whilst Christopher is ill. He – it’s exhaustion, the doctor says. He’s very troubled – Christopher, I mean – and I must help him all I can. Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I won’t keep you now. You’ll want to get home.’

‘What was that about?’ Fletcher asked when she reached his side.

‘She’d come to collect Mary,’ Harriet told him, ‘but she also said that her husband would have come except that he’s ill; ’doctor’s been to see him and he’s suffering from exhaustion.’

Fletcher gave a wry grimace.

‘And she wants to come and see us. I suggested Sunday.’

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why so pally?’

‘We’ve allus been able to talk to each other,’ Harriet said softly, realizing that he was tense. ‘Always able to confide. But she wants to talk to you as well.’

‘I want nowt from them,’ Fletcher said brusquely. ‘Just because there was an accident of birth, he needn’t think he has to compensate me.’

‘I don’t think it’s that,’ Harriet said slowly. ‘I don’t think it was about him. It sounded to me as if she wanted something from us, or at least from you.’

Maria picked up the post that had arrived whilst they were out; Dolly swung the kettle over the fire and put the cloth on the table, setting it with cutlery and condiments and crockery. Harriet didn’t comment but saw how Dolly did these things without prompting and thought how she had settled down since working for Mrs Topham; she had grown up since leaving home.

Harriet had prepared food in advance so that they could eat straight away. Fletcher, Lenny and Tom would want to change into their work clothes and go outside as soon as they had eaten. Tom had said he would take Rosie home later.

‘Here’s a letter from Daniel,’ Maria squealed. ‘At least – it’s got a foreign stamp on it.’

‘Can I have it?’ Joseph jumped to snatch it.

‘No!’ Maria held it out of reach. ‘It’s not addressed to you.’

‘I meant ’stamp,’ Joseph objected. ‘I’m collecting foreign stamps.’

His mother held out her hand for the letter. ‘It won’t be much of a collection. We onny know Daniel who’s sending to us from abroad.’

She turned the envelope over in her hand. ‘It’s a proper letter,’ she said, feeling the thickness. ‘Not just a card this time. We’ll wait for your da to come in before we read it.’

Rosie sighed. ‘I miss that boy. I hope he didn’t go just on my account. I know you’re a man short on ’farm now he’s not here.’

‘He needed to go, Rosie,’ Harriet observed, still turning the envelope over and over. ‘How else could he find out his ancestry? He’ll be sorry not to have been here for Granny Tuke, though.’ Even though she regarded him as nothing to do with her, she reflected. How cruel she was to treat him so coldly, just as she had his father. She gave a deep sigh that came from the bottom of her heart. I hope that one day I’ll be able to forgive her.

Fletcher came in from putting the horse and trap away. ‘Hoss is going lame. She’s cut herself on a fence post or summat. Needs a poultice on it; what do you think, Joseph? Are you up to doing it?’

Joseph averted his eyes from his father’s. ‘Don’t know. Can’t our Lenny do it?’

His father shook his head. ‘You’ve got to start sometime.’

‘We’ve got a letter from Daniel, Da,’ Maria broke in, averting attention from Joseph, who was still not happy around horses.

‘Oh aye. What’s he got to say?’

‘We waited for you,’ Harriet smiled, relieved that the letter would be an antidote to the gloom of the funeral. She slit it open with a knife from the table. ‘Oh, two letters,’ she said, pulling out a folded sheet of notepaper with
Granny Rosie
written on it. ‘One for you, Rosie.’

Rosie took it and stared at it. ‘I daren’t read it,’ she whispered.

‘We’ll read ours first.’ Harriet suddenly felt happy. Daniel had been so constant in keeping in touch, even if there had been only a few hastily written words on a postcard. But this was a long letter, two pages of tightly written lines, as if he didn’t want to waste the paper. She rubbed a page between her fingers. Good paper too, she thought, and wondered where he’d got it from.

‘“Dear Ma, Da and everybody,”’ she began. ‘“You must have thought that we’d got lost as it’s a few days since I wrote to you, but there’s so much to tell you and I don’t know where to begin, except to say it might be a good idea if you read this letter first before giving Granny Rosie hers.”

‘Don’t open your letter yet,’ Harriet interrupted the reading to tell Rosie. ‘We’ve to hear this one first.’

She continued reading aloud. ‘“I told you we were in Genoa. I can’t recall whether I told you how we got here from Switzerland, although you might have heard from Mrs Hart. I think Beatrice has written to her.”’

Daniel went on to explain about the Haflingers and the donkey, but not how they had bought them, and Harriet looked up at Fletcher. ‘How’s he been able to afford to do that?’ she said.

Fletcher just shrugged and indicated she should continue. Tom came in and sat down quietly to listen. Dolly made a pot of tea and poured it for everybody.

‘“And so we came down into Genoa and found lodgings where we left the ponies so that we could explore on foot. This is such a wonderful place but I’m going to save that for when I come home—”’ Harriet breathed a relieved sigh. So he’s coming home after all. Of course he is, she chastised herself, and continued reading about going into a trattoria by the harbour and asking if anyone had heard of the Orsini family.

She read on to herself and then gave a shriek. ‘Rosie! He’s found someone related to ’Orsini family.’

‘Never!’ Rosie struck her hand on her chest. ‘Oh, my word!’

Harriet scanned the letter, hardly believing what she was reading. ‘Daniel says – he says that he’s sitting in the house of his
grandfather
,
Marco Orsini
, on top of a hillside in the small town of … Ver-nazza.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper and she handed the letter to Fletcher, because she couldn’t read on when she’d seen Rosie’s shocked expression.

Rosie whispered, ‘I must be dreaming. Is Marco alive? Does he remember me? Does he say if he does?’ Her eyes filled with tears and her voice became husky.

Harriet stood up and went to sit on the arm of Rosie’s chair. ‘I think that’s why Daniel’s written to you separately,’ she murmured. ‘He mebbe thought you’d want to read it privately.’

‘I’ve no secrets from any of you.’ Rosie began to sob. ‘I’ve no secrets at all. You’re my family.’

Harriet put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Of course we are, and you are ours.’

‘Harriet.’ Fletcher had continued reading the letter, but to himself, not out loud. ‘Harriet, there’s more,’ he said quietly. ‘And not onny about Marco Orsini. This concerns you.’

Harriet put her hand to her mouth. ‘It’s not bad news, is it?’

‘No, far from it. You’ve waited a long time for this.’ He passed the letter back to her. ‘You’d better sit down in ’chair. Dolly, mek your ma another pot o’ tea, strong wi’ sugar!’ He gave an odd kind of ironic grimace. ‘What a strange sort o’ day. First a funeral and then a discovery.’

Tom got up, and taking the kettle from Dolly, who was looking from her father to her mother in some bewilderment, filled it up from the tap and hung it over the fire.

Harriet glanced at Fletcher and then at all the children. ‘Maria,’ she said, ‘best get ’food out of ’pantry. It’s getting late.’

‘Leave it, Maria,’ said Fletcher. ‘There’s no hurry. This is more important.’

What can be more important than finding Marco Orsini and knowing that Daniel will be coming home, Harriet thought. He seems to have been away for such a long time. He
has
been away a long time.

She sat down again. ‘“But even more amazing, Ma, is what I have to tell you next and I hope you’re sitting down. You’re not going to believe this, for not only have I discovered my grandfather, Marco Orsini, who is a perfect gentleman, but also an uncle and a cousin. How, you might be asking and trying to fit the connection. But you’ll find it impossible until I tell you that your long-lost brother Leonard was married to one of Marco’s daughters, who died giving birth to a girl called Calypso Francesca Maria. Leo, as he’s known here, and Calypso are sitting next to me as I write.

‘“Ma, I’m as stunned as you must be, but he’ll write to you himself in a day or two, now that he knows where you are. He says he came to look for you twenty odd years ago, but couldn’t find you; he onny knew that your mother had died. Tell my sisters and brothers that they have a beautiful Italian cousin.

‘“I’ll write again before we leave for our journey home via Rome, the
ancestral
home of the Orsinis.

‘“Your loving son and brother,

‘“Daniel”.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

By the Sunday, Harriet was still reeling from the news that Daniel had given her. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she kept saying to whoever happened to be near. ‘Leonard is alive and well, and prospering too by ’sound of it. Fancy him being in Italy all this time, and I might never have known but for Daniel going on another mission entirely.’

It was Maria who was on the listening end of the conversation as she and her mother cleared up after the midday meal. Dolly had gone back to work at Mrs Topham’s after having had time off for the funeral. Joseph was outside doing jobs for his father; Fletcher was determined that the boy would get over his fear of horses and had set him to sweeping out the stables. Elizabeth was dusting the sitting room, where a fire was already burning in anticipation of Mrs Hart’s visit.

‘I’ll finish in here, Ma,’ Maria told her. ‘Why don’t you go and sit down and wait for Mrs Hart? You could mebbe start a letter to Uncle Leo.’

‘That sounds strange.’ Harriet put down her washing up cloth. ‘I can’t think of my brother as Leo.’

‘But we’ve already got a Lenny,’ Maria said. ‘We can’t have both with ’same name.’ She put her head on one side. ‘I quite like ’sound of Leo – and Calypso! Isn’t that lovely!’