Chaff upon the Wind (47 page)

She was happy, Kitty told herself a dozen times a day. She had a wonderful husband who adored her. They lived in a small house on Sir Ralph’s estate and Edward was now
his estate manager. And wonder of wonders, she even had a small staff of servants so that if she wished she could be idle from morning till night and not feel guilty about it. Johnnie was growing
into a fine young man. Edward treated him as his own son and, in turn, Johnnie now seemed to think of him as his father.

They never spoke of his real father, for Jack Thorndyke had disappeared from the district taking his threshing set and Milly Clegg with him.

Her father, John Clegg, had struck the entry of Milly’s birth from the frontispiece in the family Bible and had decreed that her name should never again be mentioned in his hearing. Kitty,
it seemed, had been forgiven. Now that she was Mrs Edward Franklin, her father strutted about his station platform, his chest puffed out like a pouter pigeon, telling anyone who would listen about
his daughter who was married into the Franklin family and connected to Sir Ralph at Nunsthorpe Hall.

Two years after their marriage, Kitty presented Edward with a son, Joe. The following year their daughter, Amy, arrived and then another son, whom they named Harry after Edward’s
father.

She had wondered, a little fearfully, whether when she held her own child in her arms, she would feel any differently towards Johnnie. She need not have worried. Her love for the boy was
deep-rooted and he could not be supplanted by any new arrival, not even her own flesh and blood.

Kitty had everything she had ever dreamed of, so why did she still not dare to let herself be completely happy?

She knew why. She knew very well why. There was still a niggling doubt, a tiny cloud that refused to go away. For every time Miriam visited their house, or Johnnie went to the Hall to ride the
pony, which Kitty suspected was kept entirely for him, the cloud grew darker and more ominous.

It was on Johnnie’s fifteenth birthday that Edward came into the sitting room and closed the door so that no one else might overhear their conversation. As he came slowly towards her, his
face sombre and his eyes troubled, Kitty knew that the storm had broken and the heavens were about to open and sweep her away.

‘My darling . . .’ He took her hands in his. ‘Miriam has asked me to talk to you.’

She pulled away from him and stepped back, putting her hands over her ears. ‘No, no,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I won’t listen. She’s not having
him. Not after all these years. He’s mine. Just because we’ve children of our own now, nothing has changed. He’s still my boy. He still doesn’t know. Think what it could do
to him.’

Edward put his arms about her, but she resisted, keeping herself stiff and unyielding in his embrace.

‘Dearest, just listen. He will have to be told some day and the longer we leave it, the harder it becomes. Besides, Miriam doesn’t want to take him away from you. At least . .
.’ Here even Edward hesitated, for the truth was that Miriam wanted to acknowledge the boy as her son and openly take him to live with her at the Hall. He had known how desperately hurt Kitty
would be, for he now knew, better than anyone else other than Jack Thorndyke and Kitty herself, just how much she had suffered all these years right from the moment she had first taken
Miriam’s newborn baby into her arms. Whatever mistakes she had made, his darling Kitty had paid a thousandfold since. And through it all, her love for the boy had been the bedrock of all her
actions.

And now Johnnie’s real mother wanted to claim him.

‘Come and sit down, Kitty.’

‘No, no,’ she struggled against him. ‘No, I don’t want to listen.’

But at last he calmed her enough to have her sit beside him. With his arm about her and her head resting against his shoulder, Edward talked quietly to her, all the while feeling her whole body
trembling against him.

‘Miriam has changed. Guy’s death – and her part in it – affected her deeply. She wants to do something with her life. She found some sort of solace in her efforts during
the war, but that was over long ago. She cannot,’ he gave a wry smile, ‘even return to her Votes for Women campaign for it seems that particular war is won too. She’s very lonely
and feels there’s no purpose to her life.’

Kitty hiccuped miserably, but said nothing. Edward’s arm tightened about her. ‘She has told Sir Ralph everything and he . . .’ Here Edward paused momentarily and his voice
dropped a tone as if becoming deeper with emotion. ‘He being the wonderful man he is, has been very understanding and has said that he’s willing to treat the boy as his own grandson
– the grandson he can never have now.’

Slowly Kitty raised her swollen face to look into Edward’s eyes. After a long silence she said flatly, ‘That’s it, then.’ And she added with bitterness, ‘I
can’t fight Sir Ralph and all his money.’

‘Kitty, Kitty,’ Edward remonstrated gently, ‘that’s not like you. Besides,’ he said, forcing a lighter, teasing note into his voice, ‘money doesn’t come
into it, for don’t you know that I intend to be a millionaire one day and dress you in diamonds from head to toe?’

Kitty tried to smile. She knew Edward would do just that, if he could. She knew that he would do anything in the world to make her happy and yet here he was, asking her to do the very thing that
would bring her utter desolation.

She sniffed and a sob welled in her throat. He held out a clean white handkerchief.

‘Johnnie will hate me, despise me for what I did. He’ll think – like Jack did – that I used him, a tiny baby, to make Jack marry me. And I didn’t, I
didn’t.’ Fresh tears spurted, then she added with supreme honesty, ‘Well, not entirely.’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ Edward soothed and secretly cursed the very name of Jack Thorndyke yet again.

‘We’ll have to explain everything very carefully to Johnnie. Will you entrust that to me, my dearest, because I think . . .’ Even as he spoke, a noise sounded outside and they
heard Johnnie’s voice.

‘Please come in. She’ll be in the sitting room. She won’t mind, honest . . .’

The door opened and the youth, who was almost a young man now, stood there. ‘Mam, Mrs Harding’s here. We’ve been riding – right up through the woods and . . .’ He
stopped as he became aware of the scene before his eyes, of Edward’s arm about his mother’s shoulder, of her swollen and red-eyed face. ‘Why, Mam, what’s the matter?
Whatever’s wrong? It’s not one of the young ’uns, is it?’

His immediate concern for his younger brothers and sister touched her and she put out a trembling hand towards him. He covered the space between them and dropped to his knees in front of her,
his guest forgotten. But Kitty glanced beyond him to see Miriam standing there in the doorway. Their eyes met and all that had happened since the day that Kitty had become Miss Miriam
Franklin’s maid was between them in that instant.

‘I . . .’ Miriam began and made as if to turn away. ‘I won’t stay. I – I’ll go . . .’

Edward stood up. ‘No, Miriam, come in. Perhaps it would be better if you were here.’

He turned to look down at Kitty, the question obvious in his eyes, seeking her permission to tell the boy here and now while they were all present.

It had come so fast, this moment she had dreaded, and she wasn’t ready. She needed more time. Desperately she scrabbled through her mind for some excuse, any excuse to put off the awful
moment.

Yet there was none. She had known, deep in her heart, that this day would come. She could no longer hold back the inevitable.

She nodded and bent her head, twisting the white handkerchief in her hands. A little embarrassed now, Johnnie was patting her hand, not knowing quite what to say, while Edward ushered Miriam to
a chair beside the fire and called for the little parlourmaid to bring some tea for them all.

When they were all seated, Edward began with great gentleness. ‘Johnnie, you are on the threshold of manhood and there are things you should know before – before perhaps you hear
something from the wrong people. Country folk have long memories . . .’ He paused and cleared his throat, while Johnnie stared at him with his dark blue eyes, eyes that were so like Jack
Thorndyke’s. And yet the boy was not like his father in character. There was a gentleness and a maturity about him that had never been evident in Threshing Jack’s fickle nature.

‘I don’t want to speak ill of anyone, Johnnie, for as you grow you will learn that love, infatuation – call it what you will – in the young can bring both great pleasure
and, sometimes, enormous heartache. Your father . . .’ They all heard the hesitation and Kitty, and no doubt Miriam too, knew just how much Edward struggled to be fair in his telling of the
story. ‘In his youth your father was a very handsome chap and, before his accident, a fun-loving man who – whom the girls all loved.’

Johnnie, seeing how Edward was having difficulty, smiled and said, ‘Oh I know. A lad at school once told me that his older sister was probably my half-sister. “I suppose,” he
said, “she’s half-sister to both of us ain’t she, ’cos my dad’s not her real dad, yours is.” ’

The three adults in the room glanced at each other, and Kitty whispered, ‘When was this, Johnnie? You never told me.’

‘Oh years ago, Mam, not long after you got married. You know what kids are, and of course I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to be hurt.’

Kitty felt tears prickle her eyelids yet again and she brushed them aside. Really, she thought, impatient with herself, I don’t seem to be able to do anything but cry.

Johnnie was looking towards Edward again, waiting.

‘Well, you see, your mother – um . . .’ Here the story was getting very difficult, very delicate. Edward gestured with his hand towards Kitty, for at this moment, to Johnnie,
she was his mother. ‘Fell in love with Jack Thorndyke, but . . . but she was not the only one.’ His glance went across the small space to his sister. ‘You see, Johnnie, so did
Miriam – Mrs Harding.’

There was silence in the room and Kitty watched as the boy’s glance went from first one to the other. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said at last. ‘What are you trying to
tell me?’

Miriam leaned forward and said softly, ‘Johnnie – I’m your mother – your real mother.’

The boy’s eyes widened and his lips parted a little.

‘I too thought I was in love with Jack Thorndyke and I – I became pregnant by him. I was sent away. No one knew, not my father, not even Edward then. Only my own mother and –
and my maid, Kitty, knew. We – Kitty and I, that is – stayed away until after you were born and then, when we returned, everyone thought you were Kitty’s.’

They could all see that the boy was struggling to understand, to take in and to come to terms with what he was being told.

Gently, trying to make it less painful, Edward said, ‘Try to imagine how it was for a young girl like Miriam. Our father – you know what he’s like . . .’

The boy nodded.

‘Then you can guess how he would have – well – I don’t quite know what he would have done.’ Here brother and sister exchanged an understanding look.

‘I do,’ Miriam said quietly. ‘I was the apple of his eye. He would probably have killed me, and most certainly he would have cast me off. And besides . . .’ Now it was
Miriam’s turn to twist her fingers together. ‘I am trying to be honest with you, Johnnie. It’s important that we should all be honest. I – I have to admit that when you were
born, I didn’t want you. Didn’t want to have anything to do with you. I would have put you up for adoption, given you away, anything, just to be able to return to my girlhood and forget
that your birth had ever happened. And, but for Kitty, that would have happened.’

Now the boy’s glance came slowly round to look at her and Kitty trembled afresh, fearing to see censure in his eyes. But there was only a surprisingly detached kind of curiosity.
‘Why? Why did you take me then?’

‘I loved Jack,’ she said simply. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of his son being given away to complete strangers. But then, when I held you, it was as much for you as for
Jack or myself. More really, for I loved you from that very first moment you slipped into the world. It was as if you
were
mine.’ She swallowed painfully, knowing that now she must
take up the story. ‘When we came back my family were very upset, believing that it was me who had given birth out of wedlock. For a long time my father would have nothing to do with me,
although my mother was more understanding.’ She paused a moment wondering whether to explain why, but decided not. Time enough another day for that particular skeleton.

‘And my father? Jack Thorndyke? What about him?’

Kitty blushed at the telling, knowing how it must hurt Edward too, but it had to be said. ‘I told him you were his son, though I never, ever actually said you were mine, only – only
led him – and everyone else – to believe that to be the case by – by, oh what’s the word . . .?’

‘By implication,’ Edward said softly.

She glanced at him gratefully and went on, ‘Yes, that’s it. By implication. But – but when he – he touched me, he knew I hadn’t given birth. He said . . .’
Her voice faded and she lowered her head almost in shame. ‘He said he’d lain with plenty of women who’d had bairns, some of them his and he – he just knew.’ There was
silence and then she added more strongly, ‘And then he guessed just whose child you were.’

Kitty heard a gasp and looked up to see Miriam’s startled face. ‘He knew? Even then?’ Astonishment was in her tone.

Kitty nodded. ‘He said if I stayed with him, kept house for him and worked for him, he’d keep the secret. I lived in terror for years, thinking that if I did the slightest thing
wrong he’d – he’d tell.’

‘My God!’ Miriam let out a most unladylike oath. ‘He’s blackmailed you all these years, Kitty, and you let him?’

‘What could I do? At first I still – you know, felt something for him – but slowly, the way he treated me killed any love I had for him. Then I only stayed because of Johnnie.
I thought he should be with his father. And when Jack had his accident, well, I couldn’t leave him then, could I? He really did need me for a while.’