i 3d091ef367b6a8bf (37 page)

.* He

548closed his eyes tightly and put his double fist on his brow as if to steady his racing mind. Then after a long moment he made a sound like a sigh. He had imagined that made him and her half-brother and sister, but it just meant they were cousins.And that's what it had all been about. They were cousins. And that man, the one who had a bad reputation, the one who had deserted his wife and mental child for years, until the woman he was living with died and he returned to the house. He had heard nothing of them for years, not even their name mentioned.I'm . . . I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you.'(Oh, you should, you should.' He was holding both her hands now, reassuring her. 'I . . . I only wish you had told me earlier and then I would have understood their reaction towards me.'They . . . they have been good to you.''Yes. Yes, I know, I know, and I've always wondered why? But he ... he in a way is my uncle?''Yes.' She made a slow movement with her

549head. 'In a way, yes. But . . . but never claim it. You . . . you won't, will you?*He paused just a moment before saying, 'No. No, I won't. Rest easy.'In ... in the bottom drawer'-her head was moving again-'there is a tin box. Fetch it.'When he laid the small round tin box on the bed he noticed the writing on the rim: 'Doctor J. C. Murray's Ozonized Snuff*. It showed a pestle and mortar in the middle and in between them the words, 'Trade Mark'.'Open it.'When he opened it he saw a small, greylooking chamois leather bag. It was stiff to the touch and after Lily made a signal to him to open it, he did so.He did not tip out the coins but handed the bag to her and it was she who, turning his hand over, poured the five sovereigns on to his palm.He stared at them for a moment before lifting his eyes to her and saying, 'What do they mean? What do they stand for?''That's . . . that's what was paid for you.'

550'Paid for me?''Yes. Pu . . . pu . , . put them back and . . . and never use them. But remember the price . . .'She stopped now and gritted her teeth, and at this he roughly bundled the sovereigns and the tin to the foot of the bed; then he went to the table and poured out first a dose of the doctor's medicine and then a measure of laudanum into another glass. When he took them to the bed she almost grabbed both glasses from him and one after the other she swallowed their contents. Then, as her hands dropped onto the counterpane, still holding the glasses, she let out a long slow sigh, and smiled wearily at him as she said, 'Everything will be all right now.'He took the glasses from the counterpane, after which he put the money back into^ the bag and returned it to the tin box, which he replaced in the drawer. He didn't fully understand her last words about the payment; but he wouldn't trouble her any more tonight. She would go to sleep now.He arranged her pillows, and once more wiped her face and hands with a dampened Eau de Cologne pad; then he was about to

551take his seat when she held out her arms to him and, drawing his head down to hers, she kissed him, and, her voice quite light-sounding, she said, 'I want you to remember something, and it's this. I've never regretted havin' you from the minute you were born, and, if it is possible, each day I've become prouder of you.'He laid his cheek gently against hers for a moment but he could utter no words. He was choking with heart-breaking emotion, for the only thing he possessed in the world was about to leave him. From now on he would have nothing, no one of his own. Those up there, even Amy, who had all become suddenly related to him, they were strangers. And the father he had found, what of him? He glanced towards the chest of drawers. That money, those five sovereigns. She had said, That's what was paid for you.' Was that what he had paid her for his pleasure? If that was so he would one day ram them down his throat.He started slightly when she said, 'Goodnight, Joe.'She never called him Joe, always Joseph, 552but he answered her, saying, 'Good-night, dear.''I'll sleep well tonight.'That's good.' He leant forward and gently arranged the bedclothes around her shoulders, and then he sat back and waited . . .It was five o'clock the next morning. He was in the kitchen making up the fire when the door opened and Douglas came in and he said immediately, 'I'm sorry, Joseph. Mrs Filmore lay down for what she promised herself would just be an hour. I was to waken her. But I fell asleep, too. I'm terribly sorry. How is she?''She died at a quarter past three.'*Oh God!' Douglas put his hand to his head. 'And you alone here. Oh, I'm sorry; and there's been one or other of us here for the past week.''Don't worry. There was nothing you could do. Anyway, it was as I would wish it. She went in her sleep.' *'Look, come on up to the house.

I'll get the girls to come down and do what is necessary.''It's all done.'What!9

553'I've seen to her.'Douglas's face was screwed up, expressing a mixture of disbelief and astonishment, as he said, 'Oh, you shouldn't! It ... well, I mean, it . . .''She's my mother. I've tended her for weeks, haven't I?'Douglas now stared at the young man who had somehow suddenly become strange and distant in his manner. But that's what shock and bereavement did to people, so he said, 'Well, anyway, come up and have some breakfast.'Thank you, but I'm not at all hungry.''Oh, very well. But . . . but there'll be things to see to, the undertaker and . . .''Yes. Yes, there will. But there's plenty of time.''Of course, of course . . . Well, Mrs Filmore will be down shortly.' . . .Douglas was walking slowly up the drive as he told himself that shock played havoc with some people, but of course he knew it was coming, didn't he?

In fact she had lingered on longer than any of them thought she would. Yet the young fellow seemed 554strange, aloof, as if he were on the defensive. But what about?He stopped dead. Had she told him?

No. He shook his head. If she had, his attitude would have been entirely different. He could have imagined that he would have been pleased at the relationship; the fact that he was a full cousin to Amy wouldn't have deterred him, no matter how it was deterring both Bridget and himself, Bridget even more than himself for she had always looked for traits of Lionel in him. He himself could honestly say that he had never glimpsed any. Yet, as Bridget said, you did not know what went on in another's mind. But, oh, he'd be glad when the young fellow got himself away to Cambridge. That kind of life would likely blow the cobwebs off him and also obliterate his young love. Well, he hoped so, indeed he did. But then, thinking like that, what about Amy? What about her cobwebs? There was a great deal of Bridget in Amy, the determination to get to the bottom of anything, whatever the cost. Oh, dear, dear. And now there was the funeral to see to, although he would like to bet, from that young gentleman's manner this morning, he would see to that,

555too, himself. Dear, dear! life was trying at times. It would be much easier if one didn't have offspring, just a wife, a wife like his dearest Bridget.And then the question arose again, weighing him down: should he, or should he not have told her? He had thought if he could be alone with her just before she died then he would say to her. 'You are right, Lily, your husband was innocent. My brother was the guilty man. But it was no use exposing him, because the man . . , your dearest husband, was already dead . . .' But he had been unable to do so; the chance to be alone with her before she died had been denied him, for not once had he sat by her bedside: that vigil had been shared between her son and Bridget, relieved during the day by one of the maids. So, he shouldn't blame himself because another factor to this business might have ensued: if she had had strength enough to respond to such news she might have passed the knowledge on to Joseph, and then what would have happened? He felt he knew: she would divulge his parentage.Well, hadn't that to come out sometime? But who was to tell him?j 556It was as Douglas looked into the grave that there swept over him, as in a wave of heat, a sense of regret so deep that it brought beads of perspiration out onto his brow, and in his mind he was shouting down to the elaborate brass-bound coffin: Oh, Lily, Lily, I'm sorry. I should have told you in order to make up for the years you've lived in sadness, merely existing. Over the past few days I've come to know how you must have felt for him. You suffered all your life for loving as I myself do. Yes I do, for love is a suffering because it's threaded with fear, fear for your loved one, fear of being deprived of the fear itself. Oh, Lily, forgive me.The clods were falling on the coffin. The people were moving away.

Bridget was crying bitterly. As he took her arm he saw his daughter come and stand close to Joseph, and he stretched out his other hand and gently turned her about, leaving the young man standing alone by the grave . . .Joseph's eyes were dry. He had shed no tears over his mother's going, because all his emotions seemed to have gathered into a block inside his chest and become frozen, I557emitting a feeling that could only be cornpared with that of a winter chill.As he turned from the grave and walked amidst the headstones to the path, he could see in the distance the carriage and the group around it. They were waiting for him, but he wished they weren't; he wanted to be on his own.As he stepped onto the path a man, who had been standing on the grass verge, approached him and, stopping in front said, 'Hello, lad.'Joseph looked at him in some surprise, not because the man had spoken, but because of his way of address. When he went on to say, 'You don't know me, but I was your ma's half-brother. Me name is Mick Whitmore . . . Never heard of me?'Joseph shook his head. 'No,' he said.

'No, I'm sorry.''No need to be sorry, lad. She always kept herself to herself. I can remember the day she left home to marry your dad. I was seven at the time. I can even recall that I missed her. We all missed her, me two sisters and me other brother. He was only three, and he died afore he was five. Me two sisters . . .

558well, they might be living in Timbuktoo for all I see of them, but that doesn't worry me. They are both married and comfortable down in Yorkshire somewhere, and I'm married meself, and comfortable.

Many's the time I thought I'd look her up, but then she cut adrift and she was carrying her burden and I didn't want to push in, nor me wife. It was a great pity about your dad because most people had a good word for him, apart from his mother. By! she was an old bitch. Well, she swore his life away, didn't she?

He would never have swung if it hadn't been for her. But she's got her deserts. She's in the Gateshead Workhouse now, I hear, and . . .''What did you say about being . . . swung . . . ?''Well, you know, your dad. He'd only married Lily a matter of months . . . well, you know,'-the man's head was nodding now-'he killed his brother. You must know . . .' His voice trailed off and he said, 'Oh! God Almighty!

She never told you?'Joseph made no sign, he just stared at the man who had suddenly become related to him.

559'Why? Oh, she should have told you that. But it's a wonder somebody hasn't thrown it at you, lad, knowin' what people are. Well, you know, as I said, your dad was hung for killin' his brother and his mother stood up in ;ourt and said that she had heard him threaten him. Of course, I was only a bairn /hen this happened, but I heard it so often from me mother over the years that it could lave happened yesterday, and you know, it /as the people who took Lily in, at least, the ran Mr Filmore, who found the brother in Ithe wood and he had just been talkin' to fyour dad a short while before. 'Twas all a (funny business. Eeh! lad, I wouldn't have [spoken about it if I had thought you hadn't (have known. It seems impossible, you know, that you didn't, 'cos the owner of the factory where Joe worked, she married Mr Filrnore, didn't she? I mean, well what I understand is, you live in their lodge . . . and you | mean to say they've never let on?'The words came out slowly now as he | said, 'No, they've never let on.''Eeh! lad, that's funny, odd if you ask me. I But mind, lad, there's a lot of people, me ma I included among them, who stood by the fact

560that your da had nowt to do with that business. It was one of Andy Davison's lot, they said. 'Twasn't him himsel' because he was in hospital at the time, so I understand, but he had a lot of cronies, an' they knew that your da's brother had potched them from time to time. It was a nasty business. But oh lad, I'm sorry.' His head now wagged. 'And . . . and you don't mind me makin' meself known to you?''Oh no.

No, of course not.'He had a father to whom he could make no claim, but now he had an uncle, or a stepuncle, who was holding out his hand to him. He took it, and the man said, 'Look, I don't want to push, never have, but if you feel like droppin' in for a cup of tea anytime, we live at thirty-six Mount Pleasant Road, Birtley. I've got no family: there's just me and the wife,*but you'll be more than welcome, lad.'Thank you. Thank you. I'll remember.'They nodded at each other, and then the man stood aside and let him walk up the path to the square, where Douglas was standing by the coach.Douglas did not enquire who the sympathizer was, nor did Joseph volunteer any in-561formation. He got into the coach and took his seat beside Bridget, opposite to Amy and her father, who was also his uncle, and he wanted to lean forward and say to him, 'Why didn't you tell me that my father was hanged for murdering a man?' Then there sprang into his pain-ridden mind the thought: But he wasn't my father; he was someone called Joseph Skinner, someone his mother had loved.He lay back against the leather-padded seat and closed his eyes. Well, at least he wouldn't have that on his mind, too.

But why hadn't they told him? The whole thing was like a spider's web, and there in the middle was the spider and the spider was his father. He must see him. He must look on him even if it be only from a distance.

They were in the kitchen of the Lodge when Amy asked, 'Where are you going?'Tm going to visit my new-found step-uncle.''Oh. The man who you were talking to in the cemetery?''Yes.''Where does he live?''InJBirtley,''How long will you be away?'Joseph looked into the large brown eyes, thinking, Strange, but I'm really on an equal footing to you, class-wise now, even if I am really a bastard. Your father is my uncle. No step here. You are my full cousin. This being so, you would have thought, now that we are coming out of the dark ages of dear old Victoria, that they would see the situation in an 563enlightened fashion. But no, we are still in the status quo.He answered her now, 'I don't know.'There's only a week before you go up to Cambridge.''Yes, that's true, only a week.'She took a step towards him, saying quietly, 'I know how you must be feeling, but . . . but don't push me out.''Please, Amy.''There you are, you see.' She tossed her head to the side. That's what I mean. That's all we've got out of you, any of us, for days now, two words: Thank you. No, thank you. Yes, perhaps.