The Tulip Girl (28 page)

She smiled to herself when she remembered the look on Harriet Trowbridge’s face when she had moved all her belongings, such as they were, from the tiny room along the landing into the
master’s bedroom. The woman had said nothing but the high colour on her cheeks, her tight mouth and eyes that sparkled suspiciously with tears of either disappointment or rage – Maddie
could not have said which – spoke loudly her feelings.

‘You needn’t bother on my account,’ Maddie said tartly now and brushed the downy head of her tiny infant with her lips. ‘I don’t care if he knows or not. John has a
father.’

Nick jumped visibly and his eyes widened. ‘You’re – you’re not calling him that, are you?’

Maddie blinked. ‘Yes. Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Does – does me Mam know?’

‘Nobody knows yet. I’ve only just decided. We said we’d leave the naming until we knew whether it was a boy or a girl. Well, now we know. And his name’s John.’

‘So – so Mr Frank doesn’t know?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Er – well, I think you’d better see what he ses.’

‘Why. What’s wrong with the name?’

‘Nothing. But . . .’

‘But what?’

Nick waved his hand and said, ‘Oh nothing. See what Mr Frank ses.’ He turned as if to leave when Maddie said, ‘Nick, there is someone I’d be ever so grateful if you would
tell.’

He turned back to look at her.

‘Jenny. Would you go and see her for me, please? And ask her to visit?’

He pulled a face. ‘All right. Just so long as she doesn’t start following me about all over the place again.’

As Nick left the room, Maddie lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. She felt elated, triumphant. She had her baby. A fine, healthy son. The birth had been surprisingly easy. All
those old wives’ tales about being in agony for days had not happened for Maddie. She hadn’t even had time to wait for the midwife to arrive and Frank had delivered his own
grandson.

The baby snuffled in his sleep and Maddie laid her cheek against his head. ‘Oh John, part of me longs for your real daddy to see you. I’d love to see you in his arms and see the
pride and joy in his eyes, just like it was in your grandad’s when he handed you to me for the first time. But you’re never going to know your real daddy, my darling boy. He – he
doesn’t want to know us any more. Either of us.’

In the privacy of the bedroom, Maddie allowed the tears to fall. Just this once, she told herself.

‘You never miss a trick, do you, you little hussy, to humiliate me?’

Maddie was startled from a light sleep to find Harriet bending over her. ‘What – what on earth are you talking about?’

‘It’s not enough that you’ve taken the only man who’s ever shown me any real kindness, but you have to stick the knife in and twist it, don’t you? Wanting to call
your little brat, John. Oh, but you’re clever, I’ll grant you that. Cleverer than even I’d given you credit for.’

Maddie blinked, feeling vulnerable and helpless under the woman’s verbal attack that felt as if at any minute it might turn physical. Weak from the labour of her child’s birth,
relatively quick and easy though it had been, for the first time in her life, Maddie felt threatened.

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked in a voice that sounded far firmer than she felt.

‘You know very well what I’m talking about.’ She leaned closer and Maddie could feel the angry woman’s spittle raining on her face. ‘Oh I under-estimated you. That
was my mistake. I thought I could get my revenge on you, but I was wrong. But . . .’ the face came even closer so that their noses were almost touching, ‘I aren’t finished yet,
girl.’

Suddenly, she straightened up, turned and left the room.

Maddie sank back against the pillows. ‘Well,’ she said aloud and glanced down at the cradle beside her where her son slept on, serenely undisturbed. ‘What on earth was all that
about?’

She heard Jenny’s excited chatter on the landing even before the door opened and she was rushing headlong into the room. ‘I came as soon as I could. Nick came to
the shop to tell me. How are you? Where is he? Can I hold him? Ooh . . .’ The last was a long-drawn-out sigh when she bent over the cradle. ‘Isn’t he just perfect?’

Maddie laughed. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. You might not think so if he woke you every three hours, even all through the night, demanding to be fed.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Jenny murmured, never once taking her gaze from the baby. ‘When will he wake up? Can I hold him if he does?’

‘Of course you can, but come and sit by me.’ She patted the bed beside her and Jenny came reluctantly and perched on the edge, but still her glance was on the child.

‘I’m sorry I missed your wedding,’ Jenny said.

‘Me too, but – well – in the circumstances it all had to be done very quietly.’ She paused a moment before she said hesitantly, ‘Jen, there’s something
I’ve got to ask you. A big favour.’

‘’Course. What is it?’ Jenny was still only half listening. She was leaning away again, watching the baby and his every tiny movement.

‘Jen, listen to me a minute. This is important.’

Jenny giggled. ‘Sorry, Maddie, but I love babies. You know I do.’

Maddie remembered now how the only time she had ever seen Jenny really happy at the Home was when a baby had arrived. Sometimes she had been allowed to help in the nursery. Maddie had thought,
at the time, that it was because it took her away from the other girls’ teasing, but now she realized it was because Jenny had genuinely loved the little mites.

‘What is it, Maddie?’

Maddie took a deep breath. This was very difficult for her. ‘You know I never tell lies, that I always try to be truthful?’

Jenny nodded.

‘Well, I have to ask you to help in a little – well – not exactly a lie but not quite telling the truth. Mr Frank wants people to think that the baby’s his. That way, if
there’s any trouble because I was underage when I conceived, it’ll be him they’ll come after not – not Michael.’

‘Well, I can try,’ Jenny’s tone was doubtful, ‘but I think everyone in the village knows it’s Michael’s and that’s why he’s gone away. Mrs
Trowbridge saw to that. It was her that told Mrs Grange, ’cos I asked her and she said it was. I know Mrs Grange’s a bit of a gossip, Maddie, but she’s not malicious. Not like Mrs
Trowbridge.’

So, Maddie thought, she had been right. She sighed. ‘Oh,’ she said flatly, ‘so it’s too late to kill the gossip then?’

‘’Fraid so, but I shouldn’t worry about anyone coming after Mr Frank. If they’d been going to do that, they’d have done it by now. By the time the rumour did get
round the village and probably PC Parsons got to hear of it, Michael was long gone.’ She leant forward. ‘Have you ever stopped to think that Mrs T might have deliberately spread the
rumour once Michael was safely out the way so that Mr Frank wouldn’t be blamed?’

Maddie stared at her. No, she hadn’t thought of that. ‘She wouldn’t . . .’ She began and then stopped. She had been going to say, ‘She wouldn’t do that to
help me’, but now that she thought about it, such an action was not to help her but to save Frank and that Harriet Trowbridge would most certainly have done.

Maddie closed her eyes and shook her head and lay back against the pillows. ‘Oh, it’s all too much. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should just let well alone.’

‘What did you put on the birth certificate?’

Maddie pulled a face. ‘Frank wanted me to put his name but when it came to it I couldn’t. I explained it all to the Registrar and he said that in the circumstances it would be best
left blank. If the real father isn’t there to say he’s the father, then I couldn’t put Michael’s name on anyway.’

‘Oh well,’ Jenny patted her hand. ‘At least he’s got his mum’s name on the certificate and the name Brackenbury that’s really his. That’s a lot more
than you and me have got, Maddie.’ She paused and then asked, very softly, ‘Do you ever wish you did know who your real family are? Why – why they left you like they
did?’

Realistically, Maddie said, ‘Not really,’ and added wryly, ‘I might not like what I find out. Why, does it bother you?’

Jenny glanced down at the patchwork quilt covering the bed and traced her finger around the hexagon-shaped patterns. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘It does bother me. I have the
strangest feeling sometimes that I ought to know, I mean, that I ought to be able to find out.’ She looked up then, straight into Maddie’s eyes. ‘For both of us really.
We’re so alike. And it was funny how we were both left outside the same orphanage in the same way and only a few months apart. We might be related. We might even be sisters. Oh Maddie,
I’d love to be your real sister.’

‘Your head’s full of romantic notions, Jenny Wren. Real life’s not like that.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Look what’s happened to me. I fell in love with Michael
and I really thought he loved me in return. And what happens? Off he goes leaving me with a bairn. If it hadn’t been for the goodness of his father, I’d be living in Mayfield Wood by
now. No, Jen, don’t get any romantic dreams of someone turning up to claim you as their long-lost daughter. We’re the bastards of some trollop, just like Mrs Potter always said we
were.’ She paused and looked at the crestfallen face of her friend. She reached out and took her hands. Then she smiled, ‘But I grant you, it is just possible we could be sisters. You
were newborn when you were abandoned, but I wasn’t. I was at least a month old, they thought, if not more. So shall we settle for that, eh?’

‘Oh yes, Maddie. Yes.’ Jenny wrapped her arms about Maddie and hugged her close almost squeezing the breath from her.

‘How are you feeling, love?’

Frank came and sat on the side of the bed and took her hand in his.

Maddie had been asleep and now she roused herself, yawned and stretched and glanced immediately to the cradle at the side of the bed.

‘You were both sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake you, but I have to talk to you,’ Frank whispered, his voice so low that she could hardly hear him.

‘Don’t tell me. The name.’

Frank nodded.

‘Mrs T was up here a while ago, but I really couldn’t understand what she was on about. She was talking in mysteries.’

There was such a look of deep distress in his eyes that Maddie said at once, ‘Oh I’m sorry if the name means something to you I didn’t know about.’ Her mind was running
riot. Perhaps it was the name of someone in his family he’d lost, perhaps . . .

‘It’s not me it upsets, but Harriet. Like I told you before, I’m not at liberty to explain everything to you. All I can tell you is that it was her husband’s name.
Nick’s father’s name.’

‘I see,’ Maddie said slowly, though even now she did not fully understand.

‘It brings back tragic memories for her. She thought you’d done it on purpose, but I’ve told her that’s nonsense. How could you possibly have known her husband’s
name?’ He paused. ‘What did make you think of that name, Maddie?’

‘I honestly don’t know. I just like it, I suppose.’

‘Well, it would be kinder if you could think of another name you like.’

‘Of course,’ she agreed readily.

Frank raised her hand to his lips in an old-fashioned courtly gesture. ‘Thank you, my dear.’

‘Is there a name you like, Frank?’

He smiled sadly, ‘Well, the obvious one is Michael, isn’t it?’ Her face tightened and seeing it, he hurried on, ‘But of course that’s not a good idea for several
reasons.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘What about Adam?’

‘Adam.’ Maddie repeated the name once or twice savouring the sound of it. ‘Yes, I like it.’ Her eyes clouded for a brief moment, feeling for a moment the acute loneliness
of one without any blood relatives to call her own. ‘I wonder what my own father’s name was?’ she murmured wistfully.

Moved, Frank took her into his arms. ‘Don’t, love. We’re your family now.’

Maddie returned his hug, comforted by his kindness and yet her heart still ached for Michael.

Her face buried against Frank’s shoulder, she screwed her eyes tightly shut as if trying to blot out the memory of his face. I won’t think of him, she vowed. He’s gone for
ever. I won’t even think of him again.

But she knew it was a vow she could not keep.

The first day that Maddie ventured downstairs, she was greeted with an ecstatic welcome from Ben. She made a huge fuss of the dog and then carefully introduced him to the
wriggling, gurgling little baby in the pram.

‘How do you think he’s going to be with him, Frank?’ Maddie asked quietly, as Ben stood looking into the pram, his nose resting on the side, his tongue lolling, his tail
wagging.

‘I think he’ll be all right, but we should watch him at first.’

But it seemed that Ben, robbed of his four-legged charges, undertook to stand guard near the pram every time it was set outside in the front garden or the yard.

Fondling the animal often, Maddie would bury her face in his rough coat and whisper, ‘He’s little Michael, Ben. And you miss his daddy, as much as me, don’t you?’

The dog, seeming to understand, would whine and try to lick her face in comfort.

Once Maddie was really up and about again, the household slipped into a routine, though it was an uneasy one. Harriet rarely spoke to Maddie, except when she was obliged to do so, but her manner
towards Frank, instead of being resentful, seemed to Maddie to be even more fawning than before.

Though it irritated her, it did not really bother Maddie, but there was something that did worry her far more. She was anxious for the safety of her child. Soon she would have to return to the
fields for, in another few weeks, it would be planting time again and it would not always be practical for her to take the baby with her. There was no alternative but to leave the child in the care
of the housekeeper. I’d sooner leave him with Ben, Maddie thought to herself.

The first morning she returned to outdoor work, Maddie worked in the glasshouses, close to home and went into the house every hour to check on the child.

‘I thought he might be hungry,’ she made the excuse, which she hoped was a plausible one since she was still breast-feeding him.