Without Sin (41 page)

As she left the bedroom, Clara shook her fist at Meg. ‘You’ll live to regret this. I’ll have that child. One day – mark my words – I’ll have that
child.’

As she heard the woman go down the stairs and bang the front door behind her, Meg laid her lips against the baby’s head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘So
sorry that I ever thought of giving you away. Forgive me.’

The baby slept in her arms, calmly unaware of the drama his arrival into the world had caused.

When she felt well enough, Meg walked to the surgery to see the doctor. There was nothing unusual about a young mother visiting her doctor and Louisa welcomed her with open
arms.

‘Let me hold him. Oh . . .’ As she took the baby boy into her arms, Louisa’s eyes shone and her face took on a soft glow. ‘Oh, Meg, he’s lovely – beautiful.
How lucky you are.’ For a moment her face clouded. Longing showed clearly in her face.

‘What’re you going to call him?’

‘I – haven’t decided on a name yet.’

‘You’re not calling him after his father, then?’

Meg gave a start and then realized that Louisa meant the name ‘Percy’. She shook her head. ‘No.’

Shyly, Louisa said, ‘Well, some mothers call their baby boys after the doctor who attended them. I mean, you did have a bad time and Philip . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

Meg almost laughed aloud.
If only you knew
, she thought. Instead she said brightly, ‘I’ll ask Philip what he thinks.’

‘Do.’ Louisa smiled. ‘And I’ll put the kettle on. Come and have tea with me afterwards.’

When it was her turn to go into the consulting room, Meg stood for a moment inside the door until Philip looked up and saw her there with his son in her arms. She saw him start, the colour flood
into his face and his anxious glance towards the door.

‘It’s all right. I’m the last patient. Louisa has gone back into the kitchen.’

But he was still agitated. ‘Why have you come? Is something wrong?’

‘No, but I wanted to ask you what you’d like me to call him.’

‘Call him?’ Philip said, a little stupidly.

‘Well, yes, I thought you ought to approve. After all, he is—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Philip held up his hand, palm outwards, as if to fend her off.

Meg smiled mischievously, enjoying Philip’s discomfiture. ‘Louisa suggested I should call him after my doctor. How do you feel about that?’

Philip’s look of absolute horror made her smile, but he misinterpreted her amusement, believing that was what she intended. He clasped his hands together. ‘Oh, please, Meg.
Don’t do that. I beg you. There’s – there’s been gossip already and if – if you were to name him after me, then – then Louisa might begin to suspect.’

Meg put her head on one side, enjoying his discomfort. ‘But it was she who suggested it.’

Beads of sweat shone on Philip’s forehead. He caught hold of her hand. Tears in his eyes, he pleaded, ‘Meg, please. Promise me you won’t call him after me. It’d start the
tongues wagging all over again. It could ruin my career. Look . . .’ He stepped closer. ‘I’ll give you some money. I’ll pay you a monthly allowance, if you like. Help you
get away from here – anything . . .’

She stared at him, seeing him suddenly for what he was. A man who had given into his craving for her who yet was not man enough to stand by her now. He was selfish and self-centred. He’d
been unfaithful to his wife, yet now all he really cared about was his precious career. He didn’t want anything to do with his son. He had not even looked at the baby once since Meg had
entered the room.

He wanted nothing to do with the child – or her. He wanted them both out of his life.

He hadn’t loved her, Meg realized. He’d lusted after her. In a searing moment of truth, Meg saw herself too for what she had become. She did not like the picture. In the beginning
she’d deliberately led Philip on, finding sweet revenge in seducing Louisa’s husband. She’d betrayed her kind and devoted husband when Percy had needed her most. She looked down
at the sweet, innocent infant in her arms, the child she had been tempted to give away. What sort of mother was she? What sort of woman was she? Shame swept through her.

By offering her money, Philip made her feel like a common woman of the streets, but she was worse than any of them. At least they did what they did with an open kind of honesty. She had been
devious, manipulative, cruel to her poor mam . . . The list was endless. No wonder Jake – who’d once loved her – hated her. But no one hated her more at this moment than Meg
herself.

She pulled herself free of Philip’s pleading hands and took a step back. But the distance between them was so much greater now than that one step. Meg lifted her chin and her green eyes
sparked with resolution.

‘I don’t want your money, Philip. Or you. I’ll take care of
my
child.’ Her lip curled with contempt. ‘And don’t worry yourself. Your dirty little
secret’s safe. I’d rather people think he’s Percy’s son than have you as his father.’

She turned and walked across the room towards the door, pausing only to say, ‘Oh – please give my apologies to your dear wife. I am unable to accept her invitation to take tea with
her.’

When Meg felt well enough to reopen the shop, taking the child with her, customers were once more in short supply, no doubt under Clara’s instruction. At the end of the
week a letter came from Mr Snape to say that her landlord required her to vacate both the shop and her home unless she could pay the two months’ rent she already owed and another month in
advance. By the same post two letters came from suppliers threatening her with court action if their accounts weren’t paid within fourteen days.

Late that evening, carrying the baby in her arms, Meg walked to the little cottage where the dressmaker, Miss Pinkerton, lived, along the road from her own home. It was almost dusk when she
arrived and the nervous spinster peered out of her front-room curtains before she opened the door to her.

‘Why, Mrs Rodwell, you’re out late – and with the baby too. Come in, come in. Let me make you some tea.’

Miss Pinkerton bustled about her tiny kitchen and when they were sitting on either side of the fireplace in her front room, Meg said, ‘Miss Pinkerton, I’ll come straight to the
point. I’m being evicted by the Finches.’

‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry, but I have to say I’m not surprised. Clara Finch is a vindictive woman.’ It was the second time that word had been used about Clara, Meg
thought, but she said nothing about the latest reason for Clara’s wrath. Miss Pinkerton believed that Miss Finch was still seeking revenge for what she considered a miscarriage of justice.
‘So where will you go? What will you do?’

‘I wondered if you would be interested in taking over the shop.’

‘Oh!’ The little woman nearly dropped her teacup in her surprise and blinked rapidly behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. Her reaction reminded Meg suddenly of Percy and she
realized just how much she was missing her kindly protector. When she’d recovered a little, Miss Pinkerton shook her head. ‘Oh, dear me, no. I’m too old to take on something like
that. And besides,’ she bit her lip. ‘I may have to give up dressmaking altogether sooner than I had anticipated.’ She touched the rim of her spectacles. ‘My eyesight, you
know. The fine stitching is getting too much for me.’ She looked down at her hands holding the cup in her lap. ‘I, too, am beginning to lose business.’

Meg’s mind was working quickly. She leant forward. ‘So why don’t we join forces?’

Miss Pinkerton raised her head. ‘I – don’t understand.’

‘You could still serve in a shop, couldn’t you, whilst I took on all the sewing? Percy taught me a lot. I used to do quite a bit for him.’

‘Dressmaking isn’t the same as tailoring.’

‘But I can sew well. And I still have Percy’s sewing machine. He taught me how to use it. Don’t you see? You could soon teach me dressmaking.’

‘But Miss Finch? If she knew, wouldn’t she . . .?’ Miss Pinkerton’s voice trailed away.

‘She needn’t know. I wouldn’t be in the shop but in the back, or when I find another place to rent I could work at home, just like you always have.’

‘But I’m too old—’

‘How old are you?’ Meg asked candidly.

‘Fifty-five.’

‘And what are you going to do for the rest of your life? How are you going to earn a living?’

‘I – don’t know. That’s what’s been worrying me. I own this house. My aunt left it to me, but once that’s gone—’

‘It’ll be the workhouse,’ Meg said bluntly. She saw the little woman shudder and pressed home her point. ‘But it needn’t be like that. I can give you advice about
the shop. It’s only failing because Miss Finch has set all her friends against me.’

‘I know,’ Miss Pinkerton said. ‘She’s tried to stop me doing any alteration work for you.’

Meg’s face was grim. ‘So you know I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t failed in the business. I’ve been hounded out of it. The only problem I’ve got is
finding somewhere else to live. They’re turning me out of my home as well.’

‘Well, you could come here,’ Miss Pinkerton ventured tentatively, but Meg shook her head. ‘No. It’s very kind of you, but if we’re to do this together and try to
keep it from Miss Finch I could hardly live here, could I? She’d never let you take on the shop if she thought you were having anything to do with me.’

Miss Pinkerton’s face brightened. ‘I have a cousin lives in the street – Laurel Street – behind your shop. In fact’ – she was getting quite excited now. Two
spots of colour burned in her cheeks – ‘I think if you go out of Florrie’s yard and walk a little way along the passageway that runs between the backyards, you can get into Mr
Rodwell’s – oh, I’m sorry, I still think of it as his.’ The little woman noticed Meg’s puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself very well.
My cousin lives alone since she lost her husband and she lets out two rooms, more for the company than anything else.’ She leant forward as she added, ‘And her last lodger has just
left. She’s looking for someone else.’

‘But would she mind having a baby in the house?’

‘Mind? She’d be thrilled, but you’d have to be prepared for the possibility that you might lose him.’

Meg’s eyes widened and her heart thumped. Surely Miss Finch hadn’t . . . ? But behind her spectacles, Miss Pinkerton’s eyes were twinkling. ‘My cousin, Florrie, will
likely take complete charge of him.’

Meg smiled as she relaxed and murmured, ‘I shall be very glad of her help.’

Events moved much faster than even Meg had dared to hope. Eliza Pinkerton took only two days to accept Meg’s suggestion that she should take over the shop. The little
spinster suddenly seemed revitalized, finding a new purpose in her drab, monotonous life.

‘I have a little money put by,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I can pay off all your suppliers, although I won’t be paying Theobald Finch your back rent.’

‘I think he’ll be only too pleased to relet the shop so quickly – and to be rid of me.’ Meg told Eliza the current rent and advised, ‘Don’t let him put it up
much more than that.’

‘I won’t. And now I’ll take you to meet my cousin.’

Meg was apprehensive. What if Miss Pinkerton’s cousin did not want such a scandalous woman beneath her roof? She need not have worried. Florrie Benedict was round and jolly – a big
woman with an even bigger heart. She was energetic and forthright to the point of bluntness, but that frankness was tempered with a ready laugh.

‘Oh, so you’re the scarlet woman I’ve heard so much about. Bowling poor Percy Rodwell off his feet and pinching him from under Clara Finch’s nose.’ She laughed
heartily, a deep belly laugh. ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.’ She pulled a comical face. ‘I’ve no time for the woman, never have had. And the power she and
her brother wield in this town – well – there ought to be a law against it. My late husband worked for the council for a while and what Theobald Finch used to push through in the
council meetings was nobody’s business. Ought to have been investigated, if you ask me.’ She laughed again. ‘Still, nobody ever did. Now, let’s have a look at this little
babby of yours. See if we can tek to each other . . .’

Florrie took the child into her arms, nestling him against her ample bosom. She walked up and down the room with him, crooning softly. ‘We’ll get along just fine, won’t we, my
little man?’ Looking up, she demanded, ‘What’s his name?’

‘Robert Jake.’

Florrie’s smile broadened. ‘Now fancy that. My little grandson’s called Robert. Isn’t that strange? But my daughter lives down south and I don’t see them very
often.’ She looked down again at the baby lying placidly in her arms. ‘You’ll be my little Robbie here, won’t you?’ As if answering her, the baby gurgled and waved his
arms about and Florrie laughed loudly.

Meg moved her few belongings from Percy’s house to Florrie’s. The two rooms she’d been given upstairs were well furnished, so there was little in the way of furniture she
needed to keep. It had belonged to Percy’s parents, so was old and worn, and she sent most of it to the local saleroom, where it raised her a few precious shillings. For the first time since
Percy had died Meg felt safe. She wanted to live quietly, away from prying eyes and vicious tongues. The fewer people who knew where she was the better. Eliza and Florrie revelled in the intrigue.
Eliza didn’t want the Finches to know Meg’s whereabouts any more than Meg did. For the first time in her life Eliza Pinkerton was someone. She was the proprietor of a genteel shop and
– with Clara Finch’s innocent backing – her business flourished.

‘I’m pleased to see you here, Miss Pinkerton. You deserve to do well. I’d just like to know where that little hussy has disappeared to. She still has something I want.
Something I want very badly. If you hear word of her, you will let me know, won’t you?’

Clara fixed the little woman with her steely stare, but Eliza blinked behind her thick glasses and smiled back innocently. ‘Of course, Miss Finch. Now, may I show you my new line of gloves
. . .’

Florrie, too, revelled in the deception. It was she who took Robert out in an old perambulator and all she said if anyone enquired about the baby was, ‘Oh, this is little Robbie.’
It’s not my fault
, she told herself,
if they think it’s my grandson come to stay with me for a while, now is it?