Chaff upon the Wind (28 page)

Kitty felt a tremor of fear pass through her. In her anxiety to please Jack, she had not stopped to think that she must play the part of a woman who had recently given birth. Hiding her face,
she bent over the pan of soup bubbling on the range, stirring the liquid and trying to regain her composure, while attempting to visualize how a young mother would be feeling.

She had stayed with Miriam just over six weeks. And besides, Miriam Franklin had seemed to make a remarkably quick recovery, no doubt because she had not had the drain on her energy of caring
for the child. Desperately, Kitty searched in her mind for the memory of how her mother had been when she had given birth to her youngest child. Kitty had been a young girl and had helped her
mother, not only at the birth itself, but during the weeks following her confinement. But how long had it been, Kitty asked herself, how long before Betsy had been up and about and doing her own
housework?

She straightened up, pressing the palm of her hand into the small of her back as if weary. ‘Oh we’re tough, us country girls,’ she laughed and, composing her features, turned
to face him. ‘No lying abed for our sort, ya know.’

Thankfully, Jack seemed to lose interest in the topic as he attacked the mound of steaming beef and potato pie she placed before him. Silently, Kitty sighed with relief.

In the lumpy feather bed Kitty snuggled close to Jack, laying her head against his chest and listening to the deep thud of his heart. His hand touched her shoulder and his
fingers tugged at the tiny buttons on the front of her cotton nightdress and then his hands were caressing the roundness of her breast. She put her arm across him and lifted her face up, searching
for his mouth as he raised himself on one elbow and leaned over her, pushing her on to her back. She lay unresisting, opening her arms invitingly, her body already beginning to respond to his
touch. So long she had been denied his loving that she craved him with a passion that almost frightened her in its intensity.

His mouth was gentle on her lips, his hand stroking her breast and then she felt him move down, running his palm across her stomach, down, down until he touched her private place. She gave a low
moan of pleasure and began to arch herself towards him, welcoming, beseeching . . . Then his hand moved away, up again, over the flatness of her belly. His mouth moved from hers and he buried his
face in her breasts, his mouth searching for the nipple, his lips sucking it, his tongue encircling it. She gave a cry as a spasm of ecstasy that was almost a pain gripped her groin and she drove
her fingers deep into the thickness of his hair, pulling him against her and increasing his ardour so that he opened his lips wider and her breast filled his mouth, his tongue sucking hard now.

Then suddenly he pulled himself up from her and straddled her, sitting on her groin so that his weight crushed her and she gasped out. ‘Jack, you’re too heavy, don’t . .
.’ she began to protest, but then his fingers dug into her shoulder and, in the darkness, she felt his breath upon her face as he leaned down over her.

‘You bitch! You’ve no more given birth to a bairn in the last few weeks than I have.’

‘Jack . . .’ she began, but his fingers dug deeper.

‘You thought you’d trap me, didn’t you? But you hadn’t reckoned on me knowing what it feels like to lie with a woman who’s bin with child. Aye, an’ my child
at that. Well, I know, Kitty, oh yes, I know the feel of a woman who’s given birth and I tell you, you haven’t. Ya’ve no milk . . .’ His anger was vicious now and cruelly he
gripped her breast and squeezed it till tears smarted her eyes and she cried out not in pleasure but in pain.

‘The truth, Kitty, I want the truth. Where did you find a bastard to try to trick me with, eh? Some gyppo’s?’

‘No, no, Jack, I swear,’ she gasped. ‘The boy is yours. He is your son. You’ve got to believe me . . .’

‘Why should I, ’cos he’s not yours, is he?’ His grip was vicious again. ‘Is he?’

‘No, no,’ she cried in pain. ‘But he is your son.’

‘Then whose . . .?’ he began and then suddenly, in the darkness, he was still, with a stillness that was far more ominous than his anger.

‘It’s hers, ain’t it?’

Kitty said nothing, but a heaviness filled her that had nothing to do with Jack’s weight pressing her down.

‘It’s Miss Miriam Franklin’s bastard.’

‘Oh Jack, Jack,’ she was babbling now, crying and clinging to him, oblivious to the pain he was inflicting upon her. ‘She was going to give him away, to strangers, have him
adopted. Jack, I couldn’t bear to think of your son being brought up by strangers. The moment I held him, I loved him. I know I shouldn’t have tried to deceive you and I’m sorry,
but she – they made me swear to keep it secret. No one must ever know, Jack. But they were going to give him away and I – I couldn’t bear that.’

‘So,’ he spat, ‘you want my child, do you? You want my bastard so bad that you’d take another woman’s to try to trick me, eh?’

‘Listen, Jack, please listen to me . . .’ she begged.

‘I’ve heard enough – more than enough. But let me tell you something, Kitty Clegg. I’ll mind you never – ever – bear a child of mine. You hear me?
Never!’

Then he was astride her, thrusting into her, using her body to take his revenge upon her. At the moment of his climax, in a final act of punishment, he withdrew from her, leaving her empty and
bereft.

He raised himself from her now and rolled over on to his back. Lying beside her in the darkness, he neither spoke to her nor touched her again.

Kitty curled herself into a ball of misery and sobbed into her pillow.

‘I’m leaving on Saturday and giving up this cottage. The work’s finished round here.’

Kitty stared at him. ‘Where are we going?’

His eyes glittered. ‘Who said anything about “we”?’

‘I see, so that’s it. I’ve been good enough to clean your house and cook for you and care for your son for the past three months – and warm ya bed . . .’

She hesitated, thinking back again to the night Jack had found out that she was not Johnnie’s natural mother and, worse still, had guessed at once just who had given birth to his son. That
fact – that Johnnie was indeed his son – he had never since questioned, but his anger at her deception, which he saw as her way of trying to force him to marry her, was devastating. The
following morning he had risen and left the cottage without speaking to her. On his return in the evening, she had placed a meal in front of him and he had eaten it in total silence without even
looking at her.

As he had finished, mopping the gravy with a piece of bread until the plate was so clean it scarcely needed washing, she had stood in front of him. ‘I suppose you want me to leave?’
she said quietly.

He had looked up at her then, a hard, calculating expression in his eyes. ‘You can do what you like, Kitty Clegg, but my son stays with me.’

She had gripped the edge of the table, her face white, and leaned towards him. ‘Never. I’ll never leave him.’

He had shrugged. ‘As far as I’m concerned then, you can stay. He needs looking after, at least while he’s so small, and . . .’ A lascivious, leering look had come into
his face. ‘And so do I. There’s a surprising lack of pretty girls around here,’ and then he had added cruelly, ‘now that Miss Miriam Franklin is no longer –
available.’

Kitty turned away swiftly to hide the tears in her eyes. She was angry with herself for being so stupid, yet she could not, would not, leave the baby, and, to her chagrin, she had to admit that
she did not want to leave Jack either.

Why, oh why, was she so besotted with him? She could see him for exactly what he was and yet he held her heart in the palm of his hand and she would grasp at whatever he offered if only she
could stay with him.

They had settled into an uneasy life together, but over the weeks that followed Kitty was determined to win him back and to make him forget her deception. Though, at first, he used her roughly
in their bed at night, little by little her tenderness had drawn from him a kinder response.

Yet now here he was callously telling her he was moving on and not even asking her to go with him.

‘So, you’re leaving us after all, then?’

He shook his head. ‘You, mebbe, but not the boy. My son comes with me.’

‘Don’t be daft, Jack. How can you look after a tiny baby?’

The huge shoulders shrugged. ‘I’ll manage. He’s not that small now. Six months old and growing fast. Besides, what was good enough for me is good enough for my son.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I travelled round with my dad and my uncle. They ran the threshing set afore me.’

Slowly Kitty moved forward and sat down at the table, staring at him across it. ‘You mean – you mean, you didn’t have a mother?’

‘Must have had at some point, but I don’t remember her.’

‘Did she die?’

‘I reckon.’

‘You mean, you don’t know?’ Kitty, with mother, father, brothers and sisters, could not imagine what his life must have been like.

‘She was never mentioned.’

‘Never?’ Kitty was scandalized. ‘Your father never told you anything about your own mother?’

‘No. All I can remember is travelling around with them – me dad and his brother, that is – staying here and there. Sometimes sleeping rough, sometimes finding lodgings.
It’s all I’ve ever known. And it ain’t done me no harm.’

Kitty was silent, just staring at him. For the first time, she felt real pity for this man who had never known a mother’s love. ‘Were they – your dad and your uncle –
good to you?’

Again, his shoulders lifted. ‘It was a tough life, I suppose, and I had to work hard, right from being a bairn. But it meks a man of you, Kitty. I’ve never been ashamed of me
background, or bitter about it.’

‘And that’s the sort of life you want for your son, is it?’

‘Never done me no harm,’ he repeated.

‘Then what about me? Are you telling me you don’t want me to come, because if that’s the case, then . . .?’

He did not wait for her to finish her sentence, did not wait to hear her vow, yet again, that she would never, ever, let him take Johnnie away from her. Instead he said, ‘You can come
along if that’s what you want. But I warn you, Kitty, you take me as I am, ’cos I aren’t going to change.’

‘What about Ben Holden and his family? Do they come along too?’

‘Oh Ben . . .’ There was a sneer in his tone. ‘He’s the perfect husband and father. No, his family live here, in Tresford, and they stay put. He comes back home whenever
he can, but we’re often away weeks at a time.’

But he’s the faithful type, Kitty said to herself. Ben Holden won’t be taking up with other women all over the county when he’s away from his wife.

She pulled in a deep breath and for a long moment, she stared at him. She knew what to expect: a gypsy’s life, following Jack wherever his search for work took him. Living in tumbledown
shacks or even beneath a haystack. But if she put up with the hardships, cared for him and his son, maybe she could win him back. Maybe she could wipe out the bitterness in his heart and make him
love her. In spite of everything, she could not stop herself from loving him. And now, she understood him better.

Resolutely, she lifted her chin and said quietly, ‘I’ll come with you, Jack. I still love you.’

For a moment, he returned her steady gaze, but then he glanced away, gave a grunt, rose from his chair and left the cottage without another word. Kitty stared after him, seeing her life
stretching before her down the years, trailing in Jack’s wake, following him wherever he went, having to be content with the crumbs of his brusque affection. Yet, still, she could not bring
herself to break free from him.

‘Kitty.’

She straightened up from where she had been bending over the flowerbed, a trowel in her hand, and was surprised to see who was standing at the gate leading into the garden of the cottage.

They were back in Tresford, in time to help with another harvest. They were earlier this year for it was only July but Kitty welcomed the respite from their nomadic existence and was looking
forward to several weeks, even months, in the area. Soon there would be plenty of work here for Jack and they had been lucky that the little cottage was still available. It had not been easy
following Jack from village to village with a young child.

‘You ought to stay put in one place, Kitty,’ Jack had said irritably. ‘Like Ben’s wife.’

‘Oh aye, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jack? Playing the bachelor again while I stay safely tucked away somewhere.’

‘I am a bachelor, Kitty,’ he had said cruelly. ‘And don’t you forget it.’

‘I’m hardly likely too, am I,’ she had snapped back, ‘when everywhere I go the finger points at me for the fallen women I appear to be.’

He shrugged, completely uncaring. ‘It was your choice.’

Kitty had been silent, knowing he spoke only the truth. But Jack’s next words, ‘I don’t know why you don’t stay in Tresford,’ had stayed with her, and now that they
were back once more in the place she called home, she felt she never wanted to leave it again.

There was only one tiny fear in Kitty’s heart. At any moment they might run into Miss Miriam and she would see her son.

She smiled a genuine welcome at her unexpected visitor. ‘Why, Master Edward, what are you doing here?’ She dropped the trowel on to the earth and rubbed her dirty fingers on the
hessian apron she wore for gardening. She glanced at the child who, walking strongly now on his sturdy plump legs, was pushing a wooden horse on wheels that Jack had made for him. The toddler had
stopped in his play and his dark blue eyes were upon the stranger.

Edward was coming forward, smiling down at the boy. He dropped to his haunches to bring his eyes on a level with the child’s. ‘My word, there’s no mistaking whose boy he
is.’

Kitty’s heart seemed to jump inside her chest. No, no, it wasn’t possible. Surely Edward hadn’t seen a likeness to his sister? So much so that . . . But his next words
dispelled her panic.

‘He’s his father’s double, isn’t he?’