Every Mother's Son (7 page)

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘It was how you met Jane, wasn’t it?’

‘Mm, yes, a similar way, that’s true,’ he mused, swirling his brandy in the glass. ‘Except that my parents had already earmarked several possibilities.’

He smiled, and Melissa thought that he was still very handsome, although he’d been looking rather tired lately. She thought, rather sadly, that there was little possibility of her having any more children, and she would dearly have liked another daughter. But I’ve given him three sons, she told herself, and he’s pleased about that.

He lifted his head and continued, laughing, ‘My father looked at their income and my mother at the suitability of the daughters.’

‘Well, it does work quite well, I suppose,’ Melissa agreed, ‘and although I didn’t realize it at the time, I dare say my parents arranged that I should meet Albert, even though we were very young.’ As Beatrice and Charles are now, she reflected. But Albert died of influenza before they could marry, and it was a chance meeting with Christopher several years later, after he was widowed, that drew them together, for love rather than convenience.

Her thoughts ran back to their guests, to the young men and women who might be attracted to someone here tonight and so begin the precarious process of courtship. Enquiries would be made; families and fortunes would be looked into to assess their quality and durability. Again her thoughts ran back to Stephen and Maria. She must, for her own peace of mind, put a stop to any developing friendship.

Casually, she remarked, ‘Daniel Tuke and his sister Maria are mingling very well. It seems your fears that they would be ill at ease were unfounded.’ She took a sip of brandy. ‘Tell me again, darling, because I forget the detail, how did you come to meet their grandmother, Ellen Tuke?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Maria couldn’t wait to tell her mother about the party. She’d given her father a potted version of it as they drove home, but he seemed to be rather sleepy. He was usually in bed by this time, and she didn’t think he was listening.

Harriet had waited up for them although she was ready for bed and in her nightgown, with a warm shawl round her shoulders and her hair hanging down her back.

‘Oh, Ma,’ Maria burst out as soon as they went into the kitchen, where her mother was making hot drinks for them. ‘I’m so pleased that I was persuaded to go. It’s been lovely. I’d such a good time. We had lots to eat, didn’t we, Daniel, and I tried some fruit punch, and although I didn’t play any games I helped with ’dressing up.’

‘And spent time with Stephen Hart,’ Daniel grinned. ‘Don’t forget that, will you?’ He shook a finger at Maria, and turning to his mother joked, ‘You’ll have to watch her, Ma or she’ll be ’lady of the manor afore you know it!’

Harriet turned sharply. ‘What! What do you mean?’

Maria blushed. ‘He’s being silly.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Stephen hadn’t wanted to be at ’party either, or play games, and so we talked about what we did like to do. He wants to farm. He doesn’t want to go to university after he’s finished school but his father expects him to.’

Harriet exchanged glances with Fletcher, then, looking at her daughter’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, said softly, ‘Don’t get any ideas above your station, Maria. His parents will have mapped out his future and it won’t include you.’

Daniel protested. ‘That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? If Stephen—’

Fletcher cut in. ‘It might be unfair, but that’s ’way it is. We’re all equal, but there’re some who are more equal than others. I’ll tek my drink upstairs, Harriet.’

Harriet handed him his mug of cocoa. ‘I’m coming up too. Turn ’lamp down whoever’s last to bed.’

Daniel finished his drink. ‘I’m going up, Maria. Are you staying?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m going to sit by ’fire for a bit. I’ll see to ’lamp.’

She sat by the banked-down fire and cradled her cup between her hands. Of course Daniel was only joking, but why had her mother been so swift and negative, and then her father, rebutting any suggestion of friendship between her and Stephen? They had only had a friendly talk, which she had found quite easy, and she hadn’t been shy with him, which she often was with people she didn’t know very well. But he was down to earth, she thought; quite ordinary, and unlike Charles who, although he treated her kindly, always seemed superior.

She gave a little smile as she thought of the moment when her father had arrived to fetch them home and Daniel had come to find her. Stephen had put out his hand to say goodbye, and as she bobbed her knee he had taken hers, and given it a little squeeze. ‘It’s been very nice to see you again, Maria,’ he had said. ‘I hadn’t realized that it had been so long since we last met. Perhaps I could call at your farm next time I’m home from school and we can talk again? Would your parents mind, do you think?’

She’d said that they wouldn’t, and then thought that maybe he wanted to talk to her father about farming and wasn’t coming to see her at all. But he had kept hold of her hand and only dropped it when he saw that Daniel was watching.

Daniel was climbing into bed in the room that he shared with Leonard, who was asleep and gently snoring, when he heard his parents talking next door.

‘You’ll have to speak to her,’ his mother was saying. ‘Ask her. If it can happen once it can happen again.’

‘Nowt can come of it.’ Fletcher’s reply was muffled. ‘Lad’s away at school for most of ’year. Besides, I don’t believe her. We know that she can lie.’

Daniel drew in a breath. Surely they weren’t speaking of Maria, who was as honest as the day was long? But then he knew they weren’t when his mother answered irritably, ‘You must tell her we need ’
truth
, that our children’s lives depend on it. They have three sons and we have three daughters.’

He lay on his bed thinking. They’re talking of the Harts, but who else? And why have they mentioned the Harts’ sons and not Beatrice? And why not my brothers and me? He turned over and thumped his pillow to cradle his head. Another mystery to solve.

A few days later Charles rode alone to Dale Top Farm to talk to Daniel but he had forgotten that his friend would be busy; Harriet told him he was repairing fences somewhere nearby. ‘You can go and talk to him, but don’t hold him up. Remember that he’s a working lad and he has to earn his keep.’

‘Oh, sorry, Mrs Tuke.’ He looked repentant. ‘I should know, shouldn’t I? Daniel is always reminding me that he’s a man and I’m still a schoolboy!’

Harriet laughed. She’d always liked Charles; she enjoyed his ironic humour and although he was obviously a young gentleman, he wasn’t overbearing or pompous and she could see why he and Daniel got on so well.

Maria came into the kitchen whilst they were talking and blushed when she saw Charles, who gave her a polite nod. ‘Hello, Maria,’ he said. ‘I told Stephen I was coming over to see Daniel and he sent his regards to you. I think he would have liked to come too but he’d arranged to go out with the bailiff to visit the farms.’

Maria blushed even more, and Charles, seeing her discomfiture, said awkwardly, ‘Well, I’ll go and have a word with Daniel if I may.’

‘Come back and have a bite to eat if you’re still here in half an hour or so,’ Harriet told him. ‘That’s when ’men come in.’

‘Oh, thank you, I will. I’ll make sure I’m still here! Do you want me to round everybody up?’

‘No.’ Harriet smiled. ‘They’ll know; they won’t need reminding.’

Charles could see Daniel and Tom Bolton in one of the fields. Daniel was wielding a hammer whilst Tom held the fence steady.

Daniel looked up as Charles approached. ‘Well, it’s all right for some folks wi’ nowt to do but disturb them that’s working.’

Charles grinned. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten what day it was. The last of the visitors have gone today; they seem to have been here for ever. Not that I’m grumbling; they’re good company.’ He saw Daniel’s wry expression. ‘Well, some of them!’

‘I heard your party had gone well, Master Charles,’ Tom said.

‘Yes,’ Daniel grinned. ‘I gave a good report on you youngsters.’

Charles sighed. ‘We were all very well behaved, Tom, especially in front of old gentlemen like Daniel, otherwise we might not have been.’

‘You clear up here, Daniel.’ Tom collected his tools. ‘I’m going down to ’bottom field to fix ’gate. I’ll see you up at ’house in half an hour.’

Charles gazed after him. ‘Your mother said that no one would need reminding when it was time to eat.’

‘That’s because we start work so early,’ Daniel remarked. ‘It’s onny just getting light when we come outside. So what brings you here?’

Charles hesitated, then said, ‘Do you recall the conversation we had at the party about going to Rome? Were you serious? Bea said that you weren’t. That you’d only said it because of Hanson.’

‘I did.’ Daniel buttoned up his jacket. ‘But I’ve been thinking about it since and I would like to go. I promised Granny Rosie when I was young, although I don’t suppose she’d hold me to it.’

‘Promised her what?’ Charles bent down and picked up a bag of nails.

‘To go and look for my grandfather. It’s complicated. She said he was a seaman, from abroad, but she doesn’t know where. Somewhere hot, at any rate.’

‘But if she doesn’t know where, how will you ever find him? The world is huge!’

‘Don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘But if I needed an excuse to travel, then I have one, and,’ he wrinkled his nose, ‘I’d like to know more about my birth father’s family. He wasn’t really a Tuke – my ma said that Granny Ellen brought Noah up because Granny Rosie wasn’t able to. I think,’ he said confidingly, ‘that she probably wasn’t married to my grandfather.’

‘Ah!’ Charles said meaningfully. ‘So what you’re saying is that your birth father was born out of wedlock to an unknown foreigner?’ They set off up the field towards the house, and he murmured, ‘How very interesting. So you think that you might travel to look for him?’ He glanced at Daniel, who appeared to be pondering on the subject, and added, ‘And if you decide that you will, do you think you could wait until I’ve left school, because I really would like to come with you.’

Daniel blew a silent whistle. ‘Would your parents allow it? To travel with me?’

His face broke into a grin and Charles felt a fleeting surge of envy. He was so handsome, dammit, even he could see it and he was sure that Beatrice did; she was always dreamy after being with him. ‘Why not with you?’ he asked.

‘Well, I’d have thought that they’d rather you went with some of your
chums
from school,’ Daniel answered. ‘Not a farmer’s labourer like me.’

‘I thought you were a farmer’s son, just like me,’ Charles said laconically. ‘Is there a difference?’

‘You know very well there is. Your father isn’t a farmer, he’s a landowner. Come on,’ Daniel urged. ‘Let’s get a move on, or there’ll be no grub left – sorry,
old fellow
, I mean luncheon.’

‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could go together?’ Charles continued. ‘We’d have such a great time, no parents to say what we should be doing or what path we should be taking.’

Daniel frowned. ‘Mine don’t,’ he said. ‘Although I suppose they took it for granted I’d join Da and Tom at the farm, as I did too. But don’t mention it yet. I need to think it through and talk to Granny Rosie.’

Charles was curious about Daniel’s natural father, probably more than Daniel was. ‘Are you like your father – in looks, I mean?’

They opened the gate into the yard and secured it behind them. Daniel leaned on it and looked back over the meadow. There was still a rime of frost shimmering on the surface, which probably wouldn’t clear all day. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I was only a week or so old when he drowned in ’estuary. I suppose I look like him; I don’t look like ’rest of ’family, do I? You’ve onny to look at my sisters and Joseph to know they belong to Fletcher. Lenny looks like Ma, though,’ he added. ‘Although she says he’s the spit of one of her brothers.’

‘I didn’t know you had any uncles,’ Charles remarked. ‘Do you ever see them?’

Daniel shook his head and turned towards the house. ‘I think they were lost at sea when she was young.’ An idea struck him. ‘I’d never thought o’ that. Mebbe that’s why I’ve got this feeling about going to sea, cos of Ma’s family and nothing to do wi’ my grandfather at all.’

‘How lucky you are to have such a diverse family,’ Charles said. ‘Mine is quite ordinary in comparison.’

CHAPTER NINE

Fletcher took the horse and trap down Elloughton Dale early one Sunday morning, heading towards Brough. He hadn’t asked any of the children if they’d like to come with him. If they had asked him if they could, he would have made the excuse that he was only going to check that his mother had plenty of provisions as more snow was threatened; but they didn’t ask, as they were all busy with things to do of their own.

They were all growing up so fast, he thought; the older ones, if they wanted to, could visit either of their grandmothers on their own without having to be taken. They saw Rosie regularly, except in winter when she only walked up the dale to see them if the days were fine and dry. ‘I’m not walking up that track in ’teeth of a gale,’ she asserted. ‘I’ll see you all in ’spring.’ But someone, Harriet or Daniel, Maria or Dolly, always called at least twice a week.

But they don’t visit my mother, he brooded. She doesn’t make them welcome and they have to search for something to talk about. But he had something to talk about, or at least ask about, which was the real purpose of his visit today.

The wind was whistling across Brough Haven, whipping the waters up to a froth as he turned down the lane that led to the waterfront and the cottage where his mother now lived. She hadn’t wanted to leave Marsh Farm; when Fletcher returned from America on hearing of the double loss of his father and Noah, she wanted her and Fletcher to run it together. ‘I can stop here as long as I want,’ she’d said. ‘Master Christopher allus said so.’

She had such plans for him, she’d told him, and he remembered his shock and the gleam in her eyes as she’d whispered the devious schemes she had nurtured for years; but those plans didn’t include Harriet, whom he loved, or Daniel either, and since that time, after his rejection of her propositions, even after so many long years, Ellen had never again spoken to or even asked about Harriet.