Whisper on the Wind (72 page)

‘No I will
not
leave it! What nonsense have you got into your head, now?’

‘You don’t know, Polly? Gran never told you? Then come with me to her desk and I’ll show you. All written down, in letters and diaries …’

‘Oh, I know about the desk, and the diaries.’ Not so long ago she had found the desk unlocked, and letters that had plainly been read. And one of the diaries open, still, at the third day of January, 1904. ‘You left that desk open. I locked it, and put the key back in the dish.’

‘So do you know anything about what was in those letters?’ Roz whispered. ‘Did you never suspect that –’

‘That there was a reason that Ridings never had a son? I didn’t suspect, lass – I
knew
!’

‘You knew? All along, you knew about the – the –’

‘About your gran and her sister Mary? Aye. Your gran told me.’

She walked over to the dresser, opening the drawer, taking out a freshly-laundered tray cloth, setting out china cups and saucers the way she had done in Hester Fairchild’s time; the way it would be done as long as Polly Appleby served tea in this house.

‘When did she tell you? Were you always close?’

‘No. I was but a housemaid here, and young, like your gran. She was the Mistress, remember. Servants spoke when spoken to. But that morning she was in the library – she always opened her letters in there – and I’d gone in to put more coal on the fire.’

‘I didn’t know there had been a library …’

‘Oh, goodness me, yes. A grand room, it was. The door was to the right of the main stairs – about six feet away from where the staircase seat is now, in the ruins.

‘Full of books, and portraits hanging on the wall. The desk stood between two tall windows that looked out on to the parkland and there were big leather armchairs …’

‘And you were putting coal on the fire?’ Roz prompted, calling her back from her dreaming.

‘Aye.’ A morning’s work it had been, lugging buckets of coal and baskets of logs around all the rooms, seeing to it that none of the fires went out. Fires in the sitting-room, in the front hall and the morning-room and the library. And at four in the afternoon, a fire lit in the dining-room and in the bedrooms, too. Pathetic, now, the weekly hundredweight of rationed coal. ‘And your gran said, “Good morning, Appleby,” and I curtsied, and nodded. I was just carrying out the bucket when she cried out, so I ran to her.

‘Well, we knew she’d lost her bairn – servants knew everything that went on, though they’d never have dreamed of repeating one word of it down in the village – so I thought it was something to do with that, you see, and her not being over it properly, like.

‘But when I asked her if she was all right, she looked at me and began to sob; terrible tears they were, so I comforted her and then, drawing herself up all dignified and drying her eyes she said, “Appleby, you must never tell anyone that I wept.
Never
, you understand?” I think that was the beginning of our closeness – and we were pulled closer by the war, of course. The last war, I’m talking about, when we both lost our men …’

She lifted the teapot, making a great to-do of filling the cups, taking calming breaths, as if she were upset by it, still.

‘Go on, Polly?’

‘She told me, years later – it was just about the time the Master and Tom got taken – that there could never, even if he’d lived, have been another son. Her sister Mary had found out, you see. Your gran told me all about it.’

‘About the haemophilia?’

‘About that. And as time went by, she told me more. Ridings had been burned, by then, and your gran left with hardly enough to live on, but I still came to do. I was the only servant she had left by that time.’

‘And her only true friend, apart from my mother. Did you know my mother well?’

‘That I did. I carried the meals up to the nursery many a time in the good days. A pretty child; dark-haired with big brown eyes. There was a nanny, then, and a nursery maid. Aye, and a day nursery and a night nursery. Everyone waiting for a little lad to be born, no one knowing why there never was one. Not even me, then.’

‘And Toby, my father?’ Roz prompted. ‘Tell me about him, because I’ve only ever seen photographs. How did they meet?’ Ships and shoes and sealing-wax. Talk about other things; about anything rather than what she didn’t want to know. ‘Was it a love affair, him and my mother, or was their marriage arranged?’

‘Arranged? Nay, not
that
marriage!’

‘They had to get married, Poll?’

‘
Had
to? Indeed they did not, Miss! It was a love match, right from the moment they met. There was no arranging about the way those two felt about each other.’

‘Yes, I think I understand.’ Like Paul and herself. Right from the very moment they’d met. Loving, wanting – crackling between them like electricity in the air. ‘I know.’

‘Your mother – Janet – was in London for the Season. Young lasses getting presented at Court, though in truth I often thought it was mothers trying to find husbands for them all. It was an expensive carry-on and one your gran could ill afford. But an elderly friend – a highly-titled lady – presented your mother to the King and Queen and chaperoned her at balls and parties.’

‘And at one of those grand balls my mother and father met?’

‘Nay. Your mother wasn’t in the market for a husband – not the way things were. They met in Regent Street, in London. Your mother dropped her handbag and everything spilled out and this young man stopped to help her pick everything up. Just qualified as an architect, he had, and with hardly a penny to his name. And it happened,’ Polly clicked her fingers dramatically, ‘just like that. She would have no other. And he loved her so much that he accepted the way things were.’

‘That any sons they had could be in danger of having haemophilia?’

‘Yes. He thought nothing of it and they were wed in St Mary’s. So lovely Janet looked; so very happy. And none save me and your gran knowing they’d never have bairns.’

‘But they
did
, Polly. And because of that
I
can never marry. It wouldn’t be fair to any child to wish a thing like that on it. I wasn’t meant to marry Paul and our little boy wasn’t meant to be born. Yet I wanted that baby, Polly. It was all I had left. Even when I found out about the haemophilia, I still was glad we’d made him.’

Her eyes filled with tears. Polly gathered her to her, whispering to her to let it all come out.

And when Roz had said she was sorry and dried her tears, they sat drinking their tea from the blue-rimmed china cups.

‘Now then,’ Polly said, ‘shall I tell you something? Your gran left it to me to tell you. And only, she said, if you needed to know. It was up to me, really.’

‘Yes, but I found out, Polly; doing something I shouldn’t have done – reading other people’s letters.’

‘No, Roz, you
didn’t
find out. We’d decided, you see, never to tell you. There was no need for you to know – that’s why she never said a word. You see, that thing ended with your mother. Miss Janet passed nothing on. She knew she mustn’t. You’ve talked a lot about your red hair, lass. All the Fairchilds dark, you said, and us telling you you were a throwback from a long-ago Fairchild. And your gran and me wishing you’d shut up about it …’

‘Polly.’ Roz took in a deep, disbelieving breath, then whispered, ‘You’re trying to say I’m not a Fairchild?’

‘I’m saying it. You’re
not
, thanks be. You were adopted when you were three days old.’

‘Oh, God!’ Not a Fairchild? Not a part of all this and no ancestors going back to long before the Tudors? ‘I’m – I’m an unwanted child!’

‘No! And never let me hear you say that again, do you hear me? You were wanted; more wanted than any born rightly a Fairchild and don’t you forget it! And your gran loved you because you were all she had left to love and depend on to give Ridings a son. Yes, she worried about Ridings even when it was nothing but a glorified ruin! This place was important to her and it’s got to be important to you because you
are
a Fairchild! You’re the only one that can carry it on.’

Carry it on? Have children for Ridings, with Paul dead?

‘Then who really am I, Polly – or don’t you know?’

‘Not rightly. And you can poke and pry till you’re blue in the face, you’ll find nothing that can say you’re not a Fairchild born. There was no legal adoption; no going to court, no special birth certificate. Folks – kindly folks – helped your mother and father, even though they might have broken the law doing it. They knew their desperate longing for children – and Lord only knows there were enough unwanted bairns in those days. But your birth certificate would stand up in any court of law, so you’ll tell nobody about this –
nobody at all
, do you hear?’

‘Nobody.’ She was still reeling from the shock of it. Thrown at her, out of nowhere; right between the eyes and her head still spinning from it. She was like Kath; unwanted – well, by her real mother. She and Kath
were
sisters! Foundlings, the pair of them. Small wonder they’d grown so close.

‘Another cup?’ Polly demanded. ‘And don’t be getting yourself all upset over it. You had to be told. You’d got it into your head you could never marry – there was nothing for it but to tell you the truth. And if you’ve got the sense you were born with, you’ll take those letters and diaries and you’ll burn the dratted lot, because that’s what she’d have done if she’d known her time had come. She’d have done it for sure!’

Burn them? Yes. Then no one would ever know. Because Gran had intended that no one ever should. Only Polly, her friend.

‘Maybe you’re right. Polly. You knew Gran better than I ever did and loved her every bit as much. She was determined I was a Fairchild – okay – so that’s what I am.’

‘Good. A bit of sense, at last. And I think we’ll see if that teapot’ll take a drop more water. Talking sense into you is a thirsty job. Want another cup?’

‘Please. But, Polly – can’t you even guess who I really am?’

‘No. Your mother found this lass one night, wandering the streets of London and sobbing fit to break her heart. She was pregnant, that lass, and her folks had thrown her out. Daren’t go back home, she said, until she’d got rid of the bairn. Got rid of it, Roz, and Janet breaking her heart for a child in her arms. So she took the poor soul in – gave her work as a servant and cared for her until her time came.’

‘It’s my mother you’re talking about, isn’t it?’

‘No, Roz. I’m talking about the lass who had you. Janet was your mother, and never forget it. When you were born, you were given up to be a Fairchild. And wanted by them, and loved –
always.
’

‘And that’s all you know?’

‘It’s all Janet told your gran; that, and that the lass who had you had bright red hair, and green eyes. And that her name was Megan. Where she came from, where she went, no one ever knew but Janet and Toby and it died with them that December day, in a car crash.’

‘In Scotland,’ Roz whispered.

‘Yes. Killed instantly. Together, as they’d have wanted to be.’

‘But in the wilds of Scotland, Polly – and in December? No wonder the car skidded out of control. What on earth made them go up there at that time of the year?’ She had never understood it – them leaving her at Ridings with Gran, though afterwards she was grateful that they had.

‘What on earth but a child, Roz. A baby boy they were going for, to be adopted all legal through an adoption society. Janet and Toby and you were going to have Christmas with your gran, and they’d have brought a son back with them – a boy for Ridings.’

‘Oh, Polly – can’t life be cruel?’

‘It can and it is; the more so if you’re a Fairchild, it seems.’

‘Maybe it’s as well that little boy didn’t come here. Just think; somewhere there’s a young man who might have been my brother.’

‘There is. A lad about seventeen, he’ll be now. I’ve often thought about him – hoped some other couple took him. Your gran once mentioned that she’d thought of trying to get him herself, but they’d have had no truck with her. Too old, they’d have said she was, to be adopting.’

‘Poor Gran. And I blamed her for not telling me about the haemophilia …’ She covered her face with her hands and began to cry quietly.

‘Now then, lass. That’s quite enough or you’ll be making a mess of your face. You could never weep prettily, so off you go upstairs and wash your face. Never let me see you getting upset again about what I’ve just told you. And that’s an order, Miss!’

‘Oh, Polly – my dear, lovely Appleby – what you told me didn’t make me cry. It was being wanted so much; being so very loved. That’s why I was crying; for those two people who made me theirs, and for Gran, who loved me so much. And tomorrow I’ll do as you say. You and I will burn those letters and diaries.’

‘That we will. It don’t do to hold on to the past. And if it’s all right with you, I told Arnie to come straight here after school, so upstairs with you. It won’t do to let him see you’ve been crying.’

Oh, my word no. The mistresses of Ridings didn’t weep in public. They never had, and they never would!

Arnie waved to Kath who was driving the tractor into the stackyard at Home Farm, then headed for the orchard. He was glad it was too cold for the pigs to be out, now; relieved they’d been put back in their sties. A terrible waste of good windfall apples it had been, letting pigs gobble them up.