Shadow Baby (36 page)

Something to do, somewhere to go. She liked to try and think up treats for herself, cheap treats. Even though she was happy at work she needed to get out of her dismal attic in her free time at the weekend and it was always a problem. There was church on Sunday and market-wandering on Saturday afternoon (she worked in the morning) but otherwise her pastime was walking. She walked until her legs ached and her biggest expense was having her boots soled and heeled. Her walks often took her up Stanwix Bank and out along the Brampton Road nearly as far as St Ann’s and very often she turned the other way at the top of the bank and went left and down Etterby Street and up the Scaur past the Arnesens’ and Miss Mawson’s houses and along the road to Rockcliffe, though she never went far enough to reach the village. She felt conspicuous walking along the country roads on her own, and preferred the streets of the city or at least its parks. Rickerby Park, Bitts Park, Linstock - she knew them all well. And the river, the river Eden, became so familiar to her she knew its every twist and turn as it meandered through the parks. No one ever spoke to her, but then why should they, since she did not know them. Once she saw Miss Minto in the

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distance, descending the steps beside the bridge into Rickerby Park with her arm on a man’s, and she hid until they had gone past. She dreaded encounters with people from work, who would see her exposed as lonely and without family on a Sunday.

All the time she was walking she was thinking about where she could live. She did not want to stay for ever in her attic and craved a better place, somewhere she could turn into a home. It was impossible ever to buy anywhere, she had no such delusions of grandeur, but she had heard of places that could be rented for reasonable rates and even of places where preferential treatment was given to single working women. These were not in Stanwix of course, they were nowhere near Etterby Scaur, which would have been her heart’s desire. Stanwix was only for the well-off. It had huge, grand houses overlooking the river and then it had streets like Etterby Street for the not quite so affluent. The places she heard about were at the other side of the city near another river, the Caldew. She had walked there, over the Viaduct and down through the industrial suburb of Denton Holme. There was a factory near the waterfall and some little houses near it, and here some of the women at Arnesen’s lived and liked it. Evie thought that with time and if she were lucky, and if there were a vacancy, she might aspire to one of the houses. They were built in closes and had only two very tiny rooms in each and no bathrooms, and a shared privy in a yard, but she didn’t mind that. She would be able to settle there and be her own mistress.

She thought sometimes of Ernest and Muriel and wondered if they had searched for her and how long it had taken them to give up. Twice she thought she caught sight of Ernest in the market, and on the second occasion was almost certain it had been him. What would he have done if she had walked up to him and made herself known? But it never occurred to her to do so. She was much too frightened of what he might do, even though commonsense told her he could have no hold over her now. She had been frightened when she saw him - there was a little leap of fear in her stomach - but afterwards she had felt strangely pleased. None of her foolish dreams had come true - she hadn’t found her mother - but her life now was better than it ever could have been if she had stayed with Ernest and Muriel. She had found work she was good at, she had a trade, whereas stuck in the Fox and Hound she would have remained a skivvy all her life. And she had a place of her own for which she

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herself paid and was not dependent on charity. She had been right to escape the loveless claims of her mother’s cousin, even if her true objective had not been achieved. If Ernest had stopped her she ought to have been able, she reckoned, to act with dignity. He would be impressed that she was now an apprentice seamstress at a firm like Arnesen’s, she might have had the pleasure of seeing him quite shaken by such a triumph. Probably he and Muriel would have envisaged her obliged to take to the streets or reduced to the workhouse, or working as a servant in circumstances far worse than she had endured while with them. Thinking all this through, Evie quite made up her mind that next time she thought she saw Ernest she would indeed challenge him.

But it was Muriel she saw, Muriel dressed all in black and getting out of a coach in front of the Town Hall as Evie passed it on an errand for Miss Minto one Wednesday afternoon. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared, and Muriel saw her too and recognised her, and said, ‘Evie!’ Evie blushed and smiled hesitantly, unsure how Muriel would treat her, and ready to fly if there was any unpleasantness. But Muriel was not disposed to be the least unpleasant. On the contrary, she hailed Evie as sent by the angels to help her find her way to a firm of solicitors in Abbey Street where she said she had business before going to her brother-in-law’s public house in Caldewgate. ‘It is so long since I was ever in Carlisle,’ Muriel said, clutching Evie’s arm, ‘and I am bewildered, I don’t know where I am any more. You can take me, Evie.’ There was not, Evie noted, a single exclamation as to the great changes wrought in her own appearance and not a single question as to her health or status. Muriel treated her as though they had just parted the day before and nothing had changed. But everything had changed, and Evie knew she must make this clear. She explained that she was not at liberty to accompany Muriel. She was working at Arnesen’s and was on an errand and must return within twenty minutes. Muriel looked startled. She ran her eyes over Evie and seemed at last to notice the difference and be amazed. Across her face Evie saw the memory of what had happened more than two years ago begin to return. Muriel frowned and said, ‘You ran away, you little hussy, after all we’d done for you. It was shameful, shameful. We should have set the police on you.’ Firmly, Evie removed Muriel’s hand from where it still rested on her sleeve and said she must go, but this changed Muriel’s attitude yet again. ‘Oh, Evie, don’t go!’ she said,

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half moaning and her eyes filling with tears. ‘You were like a daughter to me and it is a daughter I need now. Ernest is dead - yes, dead, last week. Come back with me to the Fox and Hound. We will let bygones be bygones and you shall share the house with me and everything.’

The idea was laughable. Evie shook her head and said she was sorry but she must go at once, whereupon Muriel became excited and came up close to her and said, ‘I have something you will want, Evie, in my very bag here, something that is yours and I will give it to you if you will meet me.’ Not believing her but desperate to get away, Evie agreed that after work she would return to this spot and meet Muriel, and then she left her and ran to Robinson’s haberdashery where she had been going. Looking back as she entered the shop she saw Muriel still standing there, motionless, in danger of being knocked down by all the hurrying people if she did not move soon, and Evie felt suddenly sorry for her. Muriel without Ernest was harmless. There was no need to be either afraid of her or unfriendly. Even if there was nothing of interest in her bag she would still go to meet her and give her a little attention. All the rest of the afternoon Evie wondered all the same what it was that Muriel might have to give her. Money? It seemed unlikely. Muriel was a widow now and in control of whatever sum Ernest had left, but she would not be inclined to give any of it to a hussy who had run away. What, then? Something she had forgotten to take when she left the Fox and Hound?

Muriel was waiting, her bag at her feet. She looked more composed and greeted Evie calmly. ‘Where can we go?’ she asked. Evie shrugged. She had no idea and hoped Muriel did not expect to be taken to her attic. ‘Robinson’s is closed and so are all the cafes,’ said Muriel, ‘we will just have to sit on a seat somewhere until it is time for the coach back to Moorhouse.’ They walked together to the cathedral and here they sat on one of the seats in the precinct. Fortunately it was a beautiful summer’s evening and there was no danger of catching cold. ‘I cannot go to them,’ Muriel said as soon as they were seated. ‘I could not live among them.’ Evie presumed she meant the Caldewgate Messengers and murmured her sympathies. ‘They are not even my own family. I never liked them. They were cruel to your mother and cruel to old Mary.’ Evie held her breath, remembering vividly how she had done so every time Muriel started on one of these rambling trains of thought. ‘Cruel people, and

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greedy. No, I couldn’t live with them, but I can’t live on my own and there’s no one will come and run the pub, and I can’t manage and so there’s no help for it, I will have to go back to Newcastle and live with my sister and be useful, but I don’t want to, I don’t want to at all.’ She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘Oh dear, Evie, it is an awful thing to be widowed and no children to do all the managing and caring, no daughters to take me in.’ Evie bowed her head respectfully but said nothing. ‘But I have got something for you, Evie, and I must give it to you before I go for that coach. Oh, it is a long ride and no welcome at the other end, but I shan’t come here again. I brought all Ernest’s papers here, to the solicitors, and they are all in order and thank the Lord I am provided for and there is no trouble, but this was among them, and it is yours by rights, I suppose, Evie. It was given to us at the Home when we came and rescued you and took you away. Here, it might mean something to you.’

Shuffling among all the belongings in her capacious bag, Muriel came up with an envelope and handed it to Evie with an air of someone bestowing great wealth. Evie recognised the envelope at once. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and put it into the pocket of her jacket immediately.

‘Aren’t you going to look inside it?’ asked Muriel indignantly.

‘No,’ said Evie, ‘I know what is inside it. I remember it. It was in my ribbon box and Mary gave it to me. Shall I carry your bag to the coach stop for you?’

Quite put out, Muriel nevertheless accepted the offer and the two of them walked to where the coach was already standing, and Evie helped Muriel board it. She did not look at Evie once she was seated. Evie felt relieved to be spared any false emotion and walked rapidly home. Only then did she take the certificate out and smooth it lovingly with her hands until the creased and worn piece of paper seemed real again and not the figment of her imagination she had almost come to believe it was. There was her mother’s name and date of birth, and there was her own name and date of birth, and there were the official signatures and marks. And this time she knew what to do.

Next day she went straight to Mr Arnesen, bold as never before, and asked to speak to him. She chose her time well, knowing exactly when he would be there, in his own office, and not preoccupied. He

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smiled to see her. He was fond of her, she knew that and had always rejoiced at his approval.

‘Well, Evie, and what can I do for you?’ he asked

‘Please, sir, will you look at this and help me? I want to find my mother and don’t know how, and I have this, sir, and believe it might be used to find her if only I knew how.’ She placed the certificate on Mr Arnesen’s desk with an unusual confidence which he noticed and was amused by.

‘Well now, Evie,’ he started to say, and then he looked at the certificate and stopped. Evie saw him go quite still. He put a hand either side of the piece of paper before him and went on staring at it for a long time. Then he looked up at Evie and she saw how intent his stare had become. ‘Your name is Messenger?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why did I not know that?’

‘Sir?’

‘You are Evelyn Messenger?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good God. I knew you only as Evie. Good God. I never thought to ask … I ought to know the names of all my staff … I thought I did … but I knew you only as “little Evie”.’

Uncomfortable now, Evie went on standing there, pleased that Mr Arnesen seemed so unaccountably impressed, but confused as to why. He got up from his chair and came round to her and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Evie, look at me.’ But it was he who needed, it seemed, to look at her. He searched and searched her face until she started to tremble and then he sighed and said he could recognise nothing, and then he went and sat down again, this time holding his head as though it hurt.

‘Evie,’ he said, ‘you must give me time to think.’

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LONG BEFORE Henry came home with his dreadful news, Leah had felt full of foreboding She felt heavy and dull and could not seem to concentrate on the simplest of matters. Her abstracted air had already worried her husband, who had asked if she was still plagued with that violent headache which had come upon her the day he had sent the pink silk home. She was not. Her head did not so much ache as feel like a weight too heavy for her neck to carry. And all around her she saw ominous signs which made her heart thud. Nobody else could see them. The mirror above the parlour mantelpiece turned black overnight and frightened her when she came down in the morning. She pointed a trembling finger at it and said, ‘Look!’ but Henry, when he looked, said he’d noticed clouding occurring earlier and that the mirror must always have been faulty, and he would never buy anything at Hope’s auction again. The clock which had always kept perfect time stopped, the crystal vase that had been her motherin-law’s shattered of its own accord, and the camellia outside the back door shrivelled and died - but Henry found rational explanations for all these untoward happenings.

Leah knew it was all to do with the girl. That scrawny young girl had disturbed her peace of mind. And, though she pretended to herself that she did not understand why this should be, she knew that, in truth, she was simply refusing to acknowledge the possible reasons. She did not want to think about them. The girl, Evie, had come into her house, all innocent and welcomed, and had poisoned the atmosphere. Leah never wanted to see her again. She never wanted to look at that humble figure or see her pale, pale face with its huge dark eyes that never seemed to blink and had so little expression in them. Evie made her shudder. A ghost had crossed