The Cuckoo's Child (22 page)

‘You can check with the bank, sir.'

‘Then I suppose he did. But why on earth—?'

‘We'd be interested to know that ourselves, sir. Meanwhile, it would be helpful if you could recall what your grandfather did in the days immediately prior to his death?'

‘I don't know that he did anything out of the ordinary. Apart from going up to London to change his will,' he added bitterly.

‘Presumably you didn't know about the new will he'd made?'

‘Why should I?'

‘Well, it was in his desk drawer—'

‘Look here, I was not in the habit of going through my grandfather's desk.' He had flushed darkly. ‘Nor would anyone else in this house do such a thing.'

Womersley held up a pacifying hand. He thought it very likely true.

‘I don't know what you're insinuating by all this but you've talked to Whiteley Hirst and you must know by now that my grandpa and I had our differences. But we understood one another. I loved him, in spite of what you might think, I—' He stopped, uselessly. ‘Well, talk of the devil. Here is Miss Harcourt now,' he said, turning to look out of the window as the sound of a car engine was heard. ‘With Tom Illingworth.'

It had not occurred to Laura until she and Tom left the train at Huddersfield to wonder how they were to get to Wainthorpe. The tram once more, she would have assumed, had she thought about it.

‘Wait here, if you please,' he said as they emerged on to the Corinthian columned forecourt. ‘I won't be long.'

He disappeared for about ten minutes and just as she was beginning to wonder where he was and feeling abandoned, a motorcar drew up noisily beside her with Tom in the driver's seat. She stared at this rather battered looking marvel, with two front seats, a bench seat behind, and open sides. He jumped out to help her in, pleased at her look of astonishment as he settled her in the front passenger seat, perched high above the road.

‘Whose car is this?'

‘Mine, for the moment. I have it on approval for a few days, from a man Gideon knows. Cross your fingers that it keeps going, though it hasn't stopped so far. I shall probably keep it. Do you have a scarf with you?'

‘No.'

‘Then take this and tie it round your hat. Otherwise you're very likely to lose it.'

He had thought of everything. A scarf which she suspected belonged to his mother, a travelling rug, a foot muff, even a dust-coat, in which she found herself covered from chin to toe once she had buttoned it up. He cranked the starting handle and after only a few doubtful coughs the engine caught and he leaped in beside her, fiddled with some levers and they were off. A few bumps at first, but gradually the car began to run better and Laura was soon enjoying the exhilarating speed at which they were travelling – twenty miles an hour, he said, and she could believe it. In fact the experience was quite pleasurable, if you closed your nose to the smell of burning oil, and the noise; if you sat tight on the buttoned leather seats, which were in fact comfortable and well-sprung – and just as well they were, since the ride was by no means entirely smooth.

‘Jolly, isn't it?' Tom reached his hand outside to slap the side of the car as though it were a horse. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the engine. He seemed entirely to have recovered his good humour.

When they reached Wainthorpe she said, ‘Will you stop at Cross Ings, please? I'd like to see your mother, Tom.'

He threw her a quick glance. ‘Are you sure?' But when she replied with certainty that she was, he said nothing further and eventually drew the car into the silent, weekend mill yard.

They found Sarah, not in the best parlour where they'd had tea, but in the big, comfortable room that served as the main living room and kitchen, a room with a square scrubbed table in the middle and a range where the fire burned brightly.

Everything was tidy and Sunday-quiet, not even the hum of the mill from behind the wall. Sarah was sitting in a rocking chair, reading, wearing a cream shantung blouse, fastened by a small gold bar brooch at the high neck, and a belted dark blue skirt that showed off her still slim waist.

‘Look who I've brought to see you. I promised I'd bring her back, didn't I? And Mother, I've told her. She knows now.'

Sarah took hold of Laura's arms and looked gravely into her face before enveloping her in a warm hug then settling her into a chair by the fire.

‘Mrs Illingworth, when Tom brought me here the other day,' Laura said shyly, ‘I couldn't think why I felt so much at home. Now I know why, of course. This used to be my home.'

‘You were too little to remember it. You weren't yet two when you left us.'

‘All the same . . . Tom has told me why I was sent away – because of . . . of Mrs Beaumont.'

Sarah's eyes rested on her flushed face. After a moment, she said, ‘Don't make too much of that. I've known Amelia Beaumont all my life, we went to school together, and she was always self-willed, but there's no real harm in her.'

‘Then why did she do such a thing?'

‘Well.' Sarah hesitated. ‘It's a long story.'

‘We'd better have a cup of tea, then,' Tom said.

‘You'll want something more than a cup of tea – you won't have had any dinner, I suppose?'

‘I'm not hungry, really, Mrs Illingworth.'

‘Are you sure? Well, if you say so . . .'

Laura would have liked nothing more than to seize on this chance to talk of her mother, but she had to learn how Amelia had managed to take her away – and why. Sarah moved the kettle from the hob on to the coals, brought the violet-patterned cups and saucers from the sideboard in the best room, while Tom fetched milk from the cellar, and from the corner cupboard a tin containing parkin, the spicy ginger cake Sarah had baked when Laura had first had tea here.

‘Well, you see, it was when my husband, Tom's father, was the office manager, here at Cross Ings. It was on a day when Ainsley had to stay at home, up at Farr Clough, on account of he'd slipped on the floor of the carding room and broken his ankle. Easy done, with all that grease everywhere.'

As he couldn't get down to the mill, Ainsley had sent for his bookkeeper. Tom was at school and Sarah and the child went up the hill with him. It was late summer, the bilberries were out up on the moor and Sarah had taken a basket to gather some for a pie. They had walked up Syke Beck Lane, Henry Illingworth carrying little Laura, and by the time they got to the top, where the bilberries grew in profusion among the heather, she had fallen asleep in his arms. She didn't waken when Sarah laid her on the grass on her shawl and when Henry left, took her basket to gather the berries, keeping an eye on the still sleeping child a few yards away, straightening up from the back-breaking work every few minutes. She soon had enough fruit, and decided to call it a day. As she started towards where she had left the little girl, she saw the shawl still lay spread on the grass, but the child had gone.

‘My heart stopped, I'll tell you! It hadn't been but a minute since I'd last looked, and I thought at first you'd wakened up and toddled off by yourself. I was terrified you might have fallen into the beck and got carried away. I seemed to search for a lifetime, but it was all over in five minutes, you know. I looked up and there was my husband with you in his arms.'

They had met, he and Amelia, on the path from Farr Clough, Henry on his way back to where he had left his wife and Laura, and Amelia coming towards him with the child in her arms. Laura was kicking and crying, frightened at being held so tightly by a stranger, and Henry had snatched her back, demanding an explanation. But Amelia had fled, sobbing.

Laura was shocked. ‘Why would she do something like that? Do you think she meant to harm me?'

Sarah shook her head. ‘I've thought and better thought about it but no, it wasn't that. It was more likely – likely she wanted to keep her eye on you as you grew up, stop your grandfather getting too fond of you. Ainsley had always had a very soft spot for your mother.' She hesitated, then added quietly, ‘Happen to turn him against you, if she could.'

‘She wouldn't have done that, surely, to a child?' Laura exclaimed.

‘There's not much Amelia wouldn't do, especially for her children, never forget that! But I've told you, I've known her all my life, and whatever she is, I don't believe her capable of hurting a child. Mind you, I pity anybody that gets the wrong side of her. She was always high strung, liked her own way, you know, and I don't reckon she's changed much. She could be frightening, even then.'

‘But what did she hope to gain by doing something so – well, pointless, snatching a baby like that?'

‘I don't suppose she saw it as pointless – maybe she thought she could make Ainsley believe your place was with your real family, not with me. But he wasn't as daft as all that, he knew what Amelia was like, that she could have made life miserable for you at Farr Clough. He was right to send you away, where she couldn't touch you.'

‘And I was lucky, the people he sent me to were as good to me as you had been.'

‘I only did my best,' Sarah said quietly, bestowing on her a warm, loving look. ‘But oh, how I missed you when you went! God is good, to send you back, Laura.'

Fifteen

‘You're nervous of meeting them all.' Tom paused with his hand on the door of the motor he had brought to a halt in front of Farr Clough. He had come round to hand her out, but Laura sat where she was, hesitating.

‘Is it so obvious? Well, yes, to be truthful, I believe I would rather face Sim with his teeth bared at the moment,' she admitted with a shaky laugh. With all that had happened over the last few days her confidence had taken a battering and she was no longer as blithely sure of herself as she usually was. ‘In fact . . . Maybe you would just stay with me, just until I've told them?'

He helped her down from the car. ‘Do you need to ask? You should know that I will. I will stay with you – always, Laura, if you will let me.' He spoke urgently, gripping her arm, and she was conscious of his size and strength, some new purpose in him. ‘
Will
you let me?'

Shock and the suddenness of it made her heart thump painfully.

‘It's too soon, I know. This isn't how I meant it to be, none of it. We should take time to get to know each other better . . . though I for one—'

She pulled her arm free. ‘Please, Tom, no. I – I don't know. No, don't ask me . . .'

A painful moment of silence ensued. The silence grew.

‘You're right, of course,' he said stiffly, at last. ‘I should not have spoken. There are things you must know before . . . things I should have told you—'

He swore under his breath as the door was flung open and Gideon came out.

Their eyes held for a moment or two longer, but Gideon was waiting and in the end they had to move towards the house. Too full of what he had to say to have noticed anything, Gideon told them the police were here again, and abruptly relayed the shocking news they had brought with them about his grandfather.

‘You mean – are we to understand he was attacked . . . killed?' Tom repeated.

‘There doesn't seem to be much doubt about it. They're waiting in Grandpa's study, the police. They've been cross-examining everyone here, and now they want to see both of you. I warn you, they've been through all his papers, and they know everything, Laura.'

‘What? Why do they want to see me?'

‘I think, Laura, ‘Tom said, ‘that other business will have to wait for the time being.'

Gideon threw them a mystified look, but then he shrugged and went with them into Ainsley's study where the police were waiting, introduced them and informed the chief inspector that he had told the newcomers about the recent developments. ‘You don't want me any more?'

‘Not for the moment, sir.' The door closed behind him and Womersley said, ‘Please make yourselves comfortable, Miss Harcourt, Mr Illingworth.'

He was sitting behind the desk in Ainsley's chair, a ponderous man of similar build to Ainsley. Comparisons stopped there, yet for one horrified moment Laura had the impression that it actually was her grandfather himself sitting there, as he had on the day she had arrived at Farr Clough, the clock ticking companionably behind him.

‘This is a miserable business for you to return to,' he continued, ‘but I just have a few questions about the day Mr Beaumont died, which won't take long. No doubt you've had a tiring day.'

That, Laura felt, was the least of it. The previous sleepless night, and everything that had happened today to turn her life upside down, culminating in what had just passed between her and Tom, the undercurrent of feeling still running between them, was beginning to make her feel light-headed. But he was an avuncular presence, this policeman, with a strong local accent, stolid but unthreatening. His sergeant, a fidgety, sharp-eyed, well-dressed young man with scrubby fair hair, who was perched on the edge of the desk, notebook at the ready to take down everything she said, no doubt, unnerved her more. ‘We've been in London.'

‘So I understand. I take it you went to see the solicitors who drew up Mr Ainsley Beaumont's new will?' Womersley's voice had taken on a different tone and Laura looked at him sharply. ‘I must tell you that we have seen the will, and read the correspondence between Mr William Carfax and your benefactor.' He tapped the file in front of him on the desk. ‘It seems we must congratulate you, Miss Harcourt. You are a very fortunate young lady.'

Laura stiffened. ‘My benefactor, as you call him, was my grandfather.'