A Song Twice Over (5 page)

Perhaps it might even make Liam chatter again.

‘Sure and we'll see
grand'maman
Odette in a minute,' she told him, realizing by the way he continued to droop and drag so listlessly at her skirts that he did not believe her.

‘Liam …?' And once again she felt that tug of anxiety, hastily suppressed, since the parting from Odette, which had brought on all his brooding, was over now. She had told him, often enough, that it soon would be. Had he no faith at all in her? Well – he'd soon see. But when the door opened it was not Odette who stood there, but a woman as old and grey as granite, a tall and upright sentinel guarding her property against the intruder, and enquiring, with a heavily raised eyebrow, by what right this bold young woman, clutching her carpet-bags and her whimpering infant, presumed to enter it.

‘What can I do for you?' The deep voice with its broad vowels of the industrial West Riding clearly did not expect it to be very much.

‘I'm Cara Adeane.'

‘Aye?'

What more could the woman need to know but that? And why had Odette not suddenly come running up behind her, laughing and crying both together, taking them both in the breathless, loving embrace which had always made the cuts and bruises of childhood – hers
and
Liam's – seem better, the pain less, the broken bone or the broken heart certain to mend? Fiercely she wanted her mother and was quite ready now to be sharp-spoken about it.

‘I'm Cara Adeane.'

‘Aye. So you said. I'm Sairellen Thackray. What does that tell you?'

Cara bit her lip, knowing she had been told to mend her manners. And although she was by no means intimidated by the reprimand, she could see nothing to be gained at this stage by giving battle. This grim woman held the key to her mother's whereabouts and if charm was required to obtain it from her, then charm it would be.

‘I do beg your pardon, Mrs Thackray.'

The woman nodded, her manner signifying ‘Aye, lass – it's as well you do.'

‘But I believe my mother and father are expecting me …?'

‘Indeed?'

Cara's mouth had gone dry. ‘Mr and Mrs Kieron Adeane?
Doctor
Adeane? They
are
here …?'

Of course they were. Even her father would not do this to her. She refused to believe it. But if he had …? Suddenly the grey town at her back menaced her as a gamekeeper's trap menaces the running fox, alien streets swarming with furtive or ferocious hands ready to seize her and hunt her down – unless she went to earth or somehow kept on moving – as surely and savagely as a pack of hounds.

And there was Liam.

The woman spoke again, her voice harsh and unwilling.

‘Well, it's like this, my lass …' And perhaps, rather than wishing to be unkind, she simply saw no point in offering sympathy in a case – like this one? Dear God? – where no practical help could be given.

‘Yes?' Cara's mouth was parched now and her throat aching.

‘Your mother's out – don't ask me where. Why should I know her business? And your father's gone.'

Gone? The word had only one meaning for her at that moment. And it was unthinkable.

‘No,' she said and repeated it so that Liam, hearing her panic – and since Odette was not there after all – wrapped himself around her legs and began to whine again.

She did not hear him, her whole mind on her father. All her life he had been footloose, spendthrift, unreliable. Wonderful. All her life he had been
there
. She had quarrelled with him many a time, told him to take himself off and good riddance. She had loved him. No man – when he was being kind – had ever been kinder. Or more amusing. More
alive
. She knew already that she would never stop missing him.

‘Steady, lass. He's not dead, if that's what you're thinking …?'

Of course he wasn't. Thank God. But then – where the devil …?

The answer came quickly, gruffly, wanting the whole sorry business over and done.

‘He took himself off, lass – last Tuesday morning. To America.'

And as there had been grief, so now there was anger, and a familiar desire to break something, coupled with a new and strange desire to laugh, so that it was in a state as near hysteria as she had ever been that she first entered the house of Sairellen Thackray; aware, through all the turmoil in her head, that the words, ‘You'd best come inside,' had been spoken grudgingly, out of no concern either for her or Liam but because the indomitable Mrs Thackray did not care to entertain the neighbours to any spectacle of grief or anger or betrayal on
her
doorstep.

The kitchen was small and steamy and very hot; and, in terms of the back-breaking effort involved, painfully clean, the stone floor meticulously scoured, the walls washed white, the big cast-iron range gleaming with black lead. A good housewife, Sairellen Thackray, that much was certain, a woman who bleached and scrubbed her kitchen table and carried her rag rugs out into the backyard every morning to be shaken and beaten free of dust. A woman whose bed linen, hanging now to dry around the fire, gave off a bracing odour of strong soap and lye, an impression of strong hands scrubbing and wringing, never ceasing until the job was done, a strong, straight back adapted by nature for the carrying of burdens.

Heavy burdens. And she had always had plenty of them to carry. Her own. Not Cara's.

‘Sit down then,' she said and Cara, still feeling dry and sick, sat obediently on a hard wooden chair by that spotless wooden table, paying no heed either to Liam or to the young man sitting quietly in the chimney corner his shoulders hunched over a book, her mind given wholly to whatever Sairellen Thackray chose to say.

And since she was not, in fact, unkind by nature but simply economical and realistic, it would not be the whole story.

There had been a letter from America. That, at least, seemed straightforward.

‘You have an aunt, I hear, in New York. In a fair way of business, according to what your father told me. She sent for him to join her. Wanted his advice, she said –
he
said – in extending her property. Made up her mind to it very sudden, it seems. So did he. As I understand it he's to send for your mother – and you, very likely – when he's able.'

Cara closed her eyes.

‘What else?' she said.

A great deal, if the indomitable Sairellen should decide to tell it. But having watched Odette Adeane sink into grief like a woman sliding into deep water, she was not certain how much this girl – Kieron's child by her face and figure but perhaps Odette's in spirit – could endure. And the girl could not afford to collapse. The matter was as simple as that. As Sairellen could not afford to look after her if she did.

Sairellen Thackray was not generous with her affections, reserving them as she reserved her physical stamina, her occasional treasures of fresh eggs and butter, the benefit of her sound advice, strictly for the few she called her own. But, if she had allowed it, she could have grown fond of Odette Adeane, a woman whose disposition was so sweet and loving that she not only saw the best but usually managed to bring it out in everybody. Yet her selfless acceptance of her husband's abandonment – because what else could one call it? – her heart-rending efforts to conceal her distress so as not to distress him; the way she had kept on insisting so cheerfully that she could manage very well alone, right up to the moment of his departure; the way she had broken down immediately after it, had all irritated Sairellen. Noble, perhaps. But if so, then Sairellen had no patience with nobility, knowing that in Odette's place she would have been far more likely to have brained him with a sledgehammer and taken whatever he had in his pockets for herself. And for her children. The man was a scoundrel. Anyone who did not happen to adore him – as not a few unaccountably did – could see that. And now here was his daughter who might be just as ready to make excuses for him, and to pine for him, as Odette.

A handsome girl, there was no denying, although that had always had its disadvantages in Sairellen's experience, leading, as it did, to the kind of temptation which, in young Miss Adeane's case, had evidently not been resisted. A flighty girl, then, by the look of her and not much given to honest toil either, if she took after her father. And Sairellen was ready to dismiss Cara entirely – being unwilling to waste her time on those who could not help themselves – had not the sea-blue eyes suddenly turned green in their anger, like a cat.

‘I see.' And the young voice was curt, sarcastic, offended. ‘I expect my aunt only sent enough passage-money for one.'

‘I expect so.' Sairellen looked better pleased.

‘I expect so too. She never liked my mother. But she sent him a single ticket once before and we spent it on taffeta for summer dresses. Why should he be after taking it now?' Sairellen shook her head.

‘All right. You don't know. But you can tell me
when
she sent it, can you not? And how long after that did he write to me? Do you know that?'

‘I do.' And the dates were supplied accurately, in full knowledge of their implications.

‘I see,' repeated Cara, closing her eyes again, seeing inwardly, as clearly as Odette and Sairellen had seen, in their different fashions, how adroitly her father, in the very act of grasping his own opportunity, had still managed to save his conscience. For who could really accuse him of abandoning his wife in a strange city when he had first taken the precaution of summoning their daughter to look after her?

‘I'll send for you, my darling. I'll make you a queen in America.'

Not even his loving, trusting Odette had believed him. She had not blamed him either. And Sairellen had marvelled, not for the first time, at the depth of devotion that could be aroused in a good woman by a feckless man.

‘God keep him,' Kieron Adeane's abandoned wife had said, with sorrowful, selfless tears which meant ‘He couldn't help himself. It was his last chance. How could I stand in his way?' pouring beneath her closed eyelids. ‘God keep him.'

‘If I ever see him again,' said Kieron Adeane's daughter, her blue-green eyes snapping open once more, ‘I'll more than likely strangle him.'

‘Aye.' Sairellen Thackray answered her and then, without speaking another word, got up and set a mug of hot tea in front of her and relieved her of her child, putting him down on the hearth-rug beside a basket overflowing with kittens of which, in the complex depths of his misery – his contemplation of yet another strange new world without Odette – he took no notice.

‘So you'll strangle him, will you?'

Cara's hands, clenching themselves into fists and then uncurling to show their long fingers, their square, serviceable palms, looked quite capable of it.

‘That I will.'

‘
If
you see him again. How do you rate your chance of that, young lady?'

‘Unlikely.'

Sairellen nodded, made the brief, sardonic grimace that was her smile and sat down at the other side of the table as grudging in her respect as she had been in her initial welcome – or lack of it. And, once again, it was not unkindness, just the simple good sense of survival. She had no place, in her home or in her heart, for Cara. And it would be as well – in fact it would be kinder – to say so now, and have done.

‘That's right, lass. Unlikely. Happen your mother thinks the same, although she's not saying. So I'll tell you the rest now, while your temper's high and you're better able to stand it. According to his lights he left your mother provided for.'

‘Yes. That he did. He provided her with me. And what I want to know is why he didn't just send her back to Dublin?'

‘There is a reason, lass, if you'll let me come to it.' Sairellen, who was not of a talkative disposition, who used speech to convey orders or information rather than engage in conversation, did not like to be interrupted. ‘He waited until he had your letter, saying you were coming over. Then he left your mother with a decent roof over her head – mine – and in decent employment, so she could keep it there. He left her some money too, as much as he had, I reckon. Told her to buy a new bonnet. That was ten days ago. The money went first. Then the job. That's where she is now, unless I'm much mistaken – pleading to be taken back again. And unless she is – or finds something else … I expect you'll know where I'm leading.'

Too well. In meticulous, miserable detail. But first, before getting down to that, there must be other avenues to explore?

‘There was a milliner,' said Cara sharply. ‘A Miss Baker? My father wrote to me about her – said she had given my mother a job and was – a friend?'

‘Aye. There's a Miss Baker.' Sairellen sounded unimpressed. ‘She turned your mother off, without a character and with wages owing to her – by your mother's reckoning. Last Thursday.'

‘She did
what
?' Cara was shocked, enraged, could hardly believe it. For her mother was the most gifted embroideress in Dublin. In Paris. Anywhere. Conscientious. Attentive to customers. A soothing influence in the most volatile of work-rooms. A marvel of tact. Honest in the extreme. Miss Ernestine Baker – unless she happened to be half-witted – should have been glad,
grateful
, to employ her, anxious not to lose her rather than wishing to turn her off.

‘I dare say,' said Sairellen, her eyes glinting with a sharp, faintly bitter humour. ‘But it was this way, lass. Your mother fell into a daze once your father'd gone. Sat here, at this table, staring at the wall and missing her work. Two days she did that, leaving Miss Baker up to her eyes in straw bonnet shapes and osprey feathers. And when she did go back, it seems Miss Baker caught her crying into the hatboxes …'

‘That's not a reason to refuse her a reference. Not if she was fond of her …'

‘Who told you that?'