Tangled Threads (35 page)

The doctor nodded, satisfied. ‘And the surname,’ he asked gently, aware that not only was the young girl’s father missing, but there had been no sign, no mention even, of the
baby’s father.

Eveleen had to say, ‘I don’t know.’ Then she was obliged to say, haltingly, ‘The child is my brother’s, but – but they weren’t married. Rebecca is . .
.’ Tears blinded her for a moment as she was forced to say hoarsely, ‘. . . was our cousin.’

‘In such circumstances,’ the doctor’s voice was infinitely kind, ‘the child takes the mother’s surname. ‘Unless the father is here.’

‘He isn’t,’ Eveleen said shortly, unable to hide the resentment in her tone.

The doctor nodded understandingly but probed no further. ‘In that case then, I’m afraid that the father’s name cannot appear on the birth certificate.’

Eveleen flinched. The child would be registered as illegitimate and the stigma would follow her all her life.

‘Shall you put her into an orphanage?’ The doctor’s tone was gentle but his question appalled Eveleen. Her head snapped up and she looked directly into the man’s eyes.
‘Oh no,’ she said, determinedly. ‘Never. I’ll look after her. She’s my responsibility now.’

Eveleen stood beside the bed and looked down at Rebecca’s still and silent form. Her face was pale, but two bright spots of colour still burned in her cheeks. Eveleen
picked up the girl’s limp hand and held it to her cheek. It was still warm and Eveleen, though she knew it was hopeless, for a moment fancied that Rebecca was only asleep.

‘Poor darling,’ she whispered. She closed her eyes and held Rebecca’s hand to her lips. Against the slim fingers, she promised, ‘I’ll look after your little one. I
promise.’

Another promise made. Another burden to carry. And yet, she thought as she whispered ‘goodbye’ to her cousin, what else can I do?

She left the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her and stood a moment at the top of the stairs to wipe away the tears that filled her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, squared her
shoulders and went downstairs.

Entering the kitchen, she found Win sitting in Mary’s chair, feeding the baby.

‘Where’s my mother? She could be doing that.’

Win’s eyes softened as she looked down at the tiny mite in her arms. ‘I don’t mind.’ Then she cast her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Your mam’s gone upstairs. To the
top floor, I reckon. She says she’s going to sleep in the room your Jimmy had.’

Eveleen nodded but her heart sank. She had a feeling that her mother was slipping into one of her moods.

‘Win, could you look after the baby for a day? I’ll have to go to Flawford to see my uncle. He has to know. Besides . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know what he
wants to do about the funeral.’ It was already late to be setting off to travel to Flawford, but Eveleen could delay no longer.

‘Of course I can, mi duck. But what about your mother? Doesn’t she want to look after her?’

Eveleen shook her head and her mouth tightened. ‘I suspect my mother has taken to her bed for a while.’ She glanced at Win, unwilling to confide all her family secrets, yet the woman
had been so kind. So she told part of the truth but not all of it. ‘Years ago she lost a baby and this has brought it all back.’

Win nodded sympathetically. ‘I’ll look after them both, love. And I’ll see to poor Rebecca too.’ The woman sighed and said sadly, ‘I help ’em into the world
and I help ’em go out of it.’

Touched by her thoughtfulness, Eveleen hugged her.

‘There, there,’ Win murmured, patting Eveleen’s back, trying to give her some crumbs of comfort. ‘Off you go. You go and do what you have to. You haven’t got an
easy job either, love.’

Eveleen was lucky. A carter gave her a lift part of the way and soon she was turning into the narrow street in Flawford. Her heart was beating fast as she stepped into the
yard. The noise of machinery came from the workshops. That was where he would be.

As she walked towards the door leading up to the stairs to where her uncle sat at his frame, Andrew Burns was coming down.

He stopped on the bottom step and stood looking down at her. His face was in shadow, but she could feel the tension in him. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

Eveleen opened her mouth to say that she must speak to her uncle first, but no sound would come. Sorrow choked her and tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

He stepped down and came to her, holding out his arms. Sobbing, Eveleen clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder. ‘Did she lose the baby?’ he asked gently.

Against him Eveleen, still unable to speak, shook her head.

She felt his whole body tremble as he breathed against her ear. ‘Oh no. Dear Father in Heaven, no!’

Eveleen raised her tear-stained face and drew herself gently out of his arms. ‘Will you – will you go and fetch my uncle down, please?’

The young man nodded as if now he too were unable to speak. He turned and dragged himself back up the stairs.

Eveleen leant against the whitewashed wall and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her uncle was standing at the turn in the stairs looking down on her. He came slowly down to her, his
gaze fastened on her face as if he was trying to read there what the dreadful news was before she even spoke.

As she stood before him, Eveleen thought these were the hardest words she had ever had to say in her life, harder even than breaking the news to her mother about her father’s death. Then
there had been other people with her. Jimmy had been there and their neighbours.

Now, Eveleen faced her forbidding uncle alone.

‘Uncle Harry. I’m so sorry. Rebecca, she – she’s gone.’

Harry frowned and asked harshly, ‘Gone? What do you mean gone? Run away?’

‘No, no.’ She was handling this very badly. Giving him false hope when there was none. Then the words came out in a rush. ‘No, she had the baby. A girl, but – but she had
such a bad time. There was nothing the doctor could do. She – she died, Uncle Harry. This morning. Rebecca died this morning.’

The man’s big frame was immobile and his expression did not alter, except perhaps that the frown deepened. He was motionless for several minutes before he said steadily, ‘Thank you
for telling me, Eveleen.’

Then, to Eveleen’s amazement, he turned and began to climb back up the stairs to his work.

She caught hold of his arm. ‘Uncle Harry. What am I to do? What do you want me to do?’

‘Me?’ His voice was hard, as unforgiving as ever, and his words chilled her. ‘Why should it be anything to do with me?’

‘She’s your daughter. I thought—’

‘Then you thought wrong.’

He pulled free of her grasp and clumped up the stairs. Eveleen stared after him unable to believe what she had heard. Then she blurted out, ‘She was calling for you. The last words I heard
her say were, “I want my father”.’

He paused. He stood still for a long moment but he did not look round. Then slowly he continued his way up the stairs.

Eveleen stumbled her way to her grandmother’s cottage, opened the door and went in without waiting for an invitation.

Bridget was sitting in her usual chair before the fire. She glanced up at the sound and, unlike her son, read the dreadful news in Eveleen’s face before she spoke. ‘So one of
’em’s gone then? Which? Or is it both?’

Eveleen sank down into the chair opposite and stared at her grandmother. ‘He – he doesn’t seem to care,’ she said, still in shock at her uncle’s response.

The old woman’s face worked before she said, ‘He cares, but he can’t show it. He hides behind this unforgiving front. But underneath . . .’

Eveleen, regaining some of her senses though her uncle’s attitude had left her reeling, said, ‘You could have fooled me.’

‘So,’ Bridget was looking at her granddaughter. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

Eveleen related the dreadful events of the past day and night, ending with, ‘The baby’s strong and healthy. We’re going to baptize her Bridget.’

The old lady smiled wistfully. ‘Another little Bridie,’ she murmured. She lapsed once more into a perfect Irish brogue. ‘Ah me dada would have been that proud, so he
would.’

‘Is that what they called you, Gran?’

Bridget nodded. ‘Me dada always called me Bridie.’ She smiled gently as she remembered but her eyes were sad and watered as she gazed into the flickering flames in the grate.
‘Michael O’Hallaran,’ she murmured, slipping into the Irish brogue once more, the speech of her childhood. ‘The foinest Irishman that ever drew breath, so he was.’
There was silence between them before she murmured, ‘We should never have left Ireland.’

‘Why did you?’ Eveleen prompted gently, though she knew something of the story already.

Bridget sighed deeply. ‘The potato failure in ’forty-five. Not one year, but four years in a row. A lot of families left then. Some went to America. We came to England. I was about
nine. To London first and then, because my father got work as a hosier, we moved to this area. Later, of course, I married Alfred and I’ve been here ever since.’

‘Your husband must have been a very clever man to have built all this from nothing.’ Eveleen waved her hand briefly to encompass the cottages, the yard and the workshops.

‘I don’t know about “clever”. He worked hard, I know that. All the hours God sent, as they say.’

There was another long silence before Eveleen, rolling the name around in her mind, then spoke it aloud. ‘Bridie. I like it. That’s what we’ll call Rebecca’s little one.
Bridie.’

As she was leaving, with still nothing resolved about Rebecca’s funeral, Eveleen found Andrew waiting for her by the gate.

‘Did she suffer?’ he asked bluntly.

Eveleen could not meet his eyes and her hesitation told him the answer. He groaned and said bitterly, ‘Tell that brother of yours if I ever set eyes on him again I’ll kill
him.’

Eveleen pulled her shawl closely around her shoulders. ‘You’ll have to stand in line then, because if I ever catch up with him, I’ll kill him an’ all.’

‘What do you mean?’

Of course, she reminded herself. Andrew didn’t know. None of them here knew about Jimmy. The last time she had visited Flawford, it had been to ask for her uncle’s permission for
them to be married.

Gently she said, ‘He ran away. The day I was here last time, when I got back, he’d gone.’

‘You – you mean, he never married her?’

Eveleen shook her head.

Andrew punched his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘I wish I’d known. I wish you’d told me, Eveleen. I’d have married her, if she’d’ve had me. I’d have
given her baby my name.’

Eveleen reached out and touched his arm. The lump that seemed to have been constantly in her throat since the previous day grew. This man’s love for the dead girl overwhelmed her. After
her own disastrous romance, she had never thought that such an unselfish love existed in any young man.

But before her stood a young man who would have done anything for the girl he loved.

‘I’m sorry, Andrew,’ she said.

They stood together in silence until he said, ‘What’s – what’s going to happen to her? Are you bringing her back here?’

Eveleen shrugged helplessly and told him of her uncle’s attitude. ‘I don’t understand him. He won’t even tell me what he wants me to do.’

‘Bring her back here,’ Andrew said firmly. ‘Have a service in the chapel for her’ – he nodded across the road – ‘and have her buried in the cemetery.
I’ll look after her grave.’

‘Are you sure? Won’t my uncle . . . ?’

‘Never mind about him. Do it, Eveleen. It’s what Rebecca would have wanted.’

Eveleen nodded. ‘She was calling for him. For her father. Her last words were of him.’

‘Did she – did she ever ask about me?’ The young man’s decisiveness deserted him.

‘Of course,’ Eveleen answered quickly. Too quickly. ‘When I got back last time, she wanted to know how you were.’

Andrew smiled sadly. ‘Good try, Eveleen. But you don’t fool me. But thanks for the lie.’

He turned away before she should see the tears that brimmed in his eyes begin to fall.

‘What on earth are you spending all our savings on her funeral for?’ Aroused from her lethargy, Mary now screamed at Eveleen. ‘We’ll never get home at
this rate if you go squandering every penny we’ve earned.’

‘Just remember who it was who earned us that little bit extra that we could put away,’ Eveleen shot back. Mother and daughter glared at each other, then Mary’s glance fell
away.

‘It should be Harry paying for it all, not us,’ she muttered.

‘I’d agree with you there, Mam, but since Uncle Harry wants nothing more to do with his daughter, not even her funeral, I don’t have much choice.’

‘Why are you taking her all the way back to Flawford? You don’t need to do that.’

‘Maybe not.’ Eveleen was trying very hard to hold on to her patience. ‘But Andrew says it’s what Rebecca would have wanted. It’s the least we can do.’

Mary shot another resentful glance at her daughter, but said no more. It was not the least they could do and they both knew it. But in their hearts both women knew it was what should be
done.

‘Oh have it your way then,’ Mary muttered, and climbed the stairs to the top-floor room where she slammed the door as if she meant never to open it again.

Two black horses, groomed to shine in the pale sunlight, pulled the enclosed box-like hearse in which the coffin rested. High on the driving seat a man in a black coat and silk
top hat held the reins and the long whip in black gloved hands. The sad little funeral party set off from the back street in the city and into the country, Eveleen driving the pony and trap she had
hired behind the hearse.

‘I ’spect we’ll be the only ones there,’ Mary grumbled. ‘That lot’ – she referred with scathing bitterness to the villagers of Flawford –
‘won’t come to a sinner’s funeral.’

Mary had taken a lot of persuading to come, but Eveleen had managed it. Now she sat in the trap clutching Rebecca’s tiny baby, who was warmly wrapped in a lace shawl that Win had given
them.

‘Andrew will be there.’ Of that, Eveleen was confident. ‘And what about Gran? Won’t she come?’