Mary's Child Read online

  She shrugged, ‘I’ll leave that empty.’

  ‘And the child – have you given her a name?’

  Martha smiled mockingly, ‘Yes, I have. She’s Chrissie.’

  Arkenstall froze in the act of putting the disclaimer in his pocket and glared at her. She smirked up at him, enjoying his anger. Then he swallowed it and buttoned his overcoat, picked up his hat. ‘Let me know when you are leaving. I will meet you at the station.’

  ‘I’ll do that, never you fear.’ She was still grinning as he let himself out of the bedroom.

  He crossed the kitchen and the midwife held that door open for him. He paused a moment then and said softly, ‘I paid the messenger you sent to say the child had come, but this is in case he cheated you.’ He shoved a folded pound note into her hand and walked out on her muttered thanks.

  In the street he took a deep breath, glad that the worst was over.

  He walked up the street to number eight. All the houses were the same but this one had a front doorstep a shade whiter than most, a passage scrubbed cleaner. Letting himself in, he walked down the passage to the Carters’ door. He took off his bowler and knocked at the kitchen door again. The young woman who opened it was dark-haired and slim, a white apron knotted about her trim waist. She smiled as she peered up at him, his face in shadow from the gaslight in the passage behind him.

  He asked, ‘Mrs Carter?’

  ‘Yes.’ The smile faded a little as she became wary and realised he did not belong there.

  He said, ‘My name is Arkenstall. I am a solicitor. I understand you have a child here and I would like to talk to you about her.’

  ‘What about her?’ The smile had gone now. Mary Carter’s hand had tightened on the door, ready to slam it in his face, but then she decided that would not do. Reuben Ward, father of the family who lived upstairs, might come home drunk, staggering up the passage, at any time now. She did not want him to see this man at her door. Nor did she want to answer Arkenstall’s questions there.

  She opened the door wider and said reluctantly, ‘You’d better come in.’

  Arkenstall entered and noted the scrubbed table, the oven that gleamed from black-leading and the clean linoleum on the floor. A stocky young man got up from an armchair beside the fire, a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms, and Arkenstall said, ‘Mr Carter?’

  Harry’s answer was a guarded: ‘Aye.’ He, too, was suspicious of this well-dressed stranger.

  Mary would not be thought ill-mannered and asked, ‘Would you like to sit down, sir?’ She indicated the other armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace.

  ‘Thank you.’ Arkenstall sat, bowler held on his knees, but the young couple stood, looking down at him.

  Mary came straight to the point and demanded again, ‘What about Chrissie?’

  Arkenstall blinked at that use of the name, silently cursed Martha Tate, but said evenly, ‘Are you aware of the claims made by the child’s natural mother as to her parentage?’

  Mary’s lips pursed. ‘That I am. She didn’t give any names but I know the young feller left her in the lurch.’

  Arkenstall detected her hostility but went on, ‘I represent the father of the young man accused. My client does not believe his son was responsible, nor does he accept any liability, but he wishes to ensure the child is properly cared for. He recognises your taking the child as an act of kindness and instructs me to tell you that you will never want.’

  Mary asked, narrow eyed, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that he is prepared to pay a reasonable allowance to cover the cost of raising the child.’

  ‘No!’ Mary almost shouted the word. Harry, startled, laid a hand on her arm. She took a breath, steadied herself and went on, quieter now but still definite, ‘Not a penny! We want nothing off you! If that young fly-by-night’s father has something on his conscience he can pray! He’ll get no help from us in easing it!’

  Harry squeezed her arm and said gruffly, ‘Go canny now, lass.’ But the gaze he turned on Arkenstall was just as hostile as hers.

  Mary put a hand over Harry’s. ‘All right, all right. But that young feller took advantage of that lass, promised her the moon then left her when she fell for the bairn.’ She eyed Arkenstall and went on, ‘My Harry’s not a boozer like some, and I’m a good manager. The bairn is ours now, with a decent home and a decent life in front of her. The rest she can leave behind. All we want from you is to get out of here and leave us alone.’

  Arkenstall stood up. ‘Very well.’ They stepped aside to let him pass but he paused then and asked, ‘May I see the child?’

  Mary hesitated, suspicious again. ‘She’s just been fed. I was going to put her to bed now.’ She hesitated still, but then decided, ‘I can’t see any harm in you having a look at her. Let him see, Harry.’

  So Arkenstall stepped forward and peered down at the small pink face, the eyes closed, a wisp of dark hair. He did not see any resemblance to the alleged father of the child but she was only a couple of days old. As for any likeness to the mother, Martha Tate . . . ? He decided there was not. There was only innocence in this small face. But maybe that would change as she grew – to be what?

  Mary said defensively, ‘She’s clean, well fed and healthy.’

  Arkenstall smiled at her. ‘I’m sure she is. But I can see that.’ He moved on to the door and opened it. He paused again for a moment then, hat in hand, to glance once more around the kitchen, comfortably warm with the fire in the grate compared to the chilly bareness of the passage. He knew that providing linoleum for the passage would be an expense shared with the family living in the three rooms above, and if they would not or could not pay . . . He said, ‘I think the child will do well with you. Good night.’

  As the door closed behind him Mary moved into Harry’s encircling arm, so he held her and the child. He stroked her hair and soothed her. ‘There now, he’s gone. Calm down.’

  She looked up at him, defiant. ‘I’m not sorry. I meant every word and I stand by what I said. That lass was badly done by.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘You would if you’d listened to her, like I did.’

  ‘All right, you’ve sent him off.’ He was silent a moment, then added, ‘Mind you, one o’ these days we might wish we’d taken that money he offered.’

  ‘Never!’ She pushed away so she stood at arm’s length. ‘If we took that money then in a few years the father might try to claim the bairn back, and if he could show he’d paid for her keep all along because he’d meant to have her, then they might give her to him.’

  ‘Could they?’ Harry was appalled. ‘They’ were the courts and the law; he knew nothing of either, wished to know no more.

  Nor did Mary. She shrugged. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I’ll not trust them. I’m thirty now, we’ve wanted a bairn for nearly ten years and thought we’d never have one. Now I have I’m not going to risk losing her.’

  Arkenstall went to the railway station a week later, splashing through the puddles spotted with the falling rain. Inside the high-roofed, echoing concourse there were the mingled smells of damp serge, coal smoke, steam – and horse manure from the cabs ranked outside. Martha Tate stood by the ticket office. She wore a coat, shoes and silk stockings and a wide-brimmed hat that all looked new. So did the umbrella she held out from her side so its folds, collapsed now she was sheltered from the rain, would not drip on her finery. Arkenstall thought that there was some of the first fifty pounds he had given her; the umbrella alone must have cost four shillings. She was a handsome woman now and the heads of a number of men turned as they passed. She saw that and preened herself.

  Arkenstall touched a hand to the brim of his hat. ‘Good morning.’

  She sniffed, glanced out at the rain and answered, ‘Only because I’m getting out of here and back to London.’

  ‘You have work there?’

  ‘I’ll soon get some. I’m known on most o’ the halls down there,’ she said with careless confidence.r />
  Arkenstall believed her. He had made it his business to find out about Martha Tate, billed as ‘Vesta Nightingale, Dance and Vocals’. He had learnt that she had talent but suspected it was being squandered. He took an envelope from his pocket and passed it to her.

  She took it, pulled off one of her gloves with sharp white teeth and counted the banknotes inside the envelope. She held it close to her breast as if it was a child, her red lips moving. Satisfied, she put the envelope away in a handbag carried over her arm.

  ‘Right, then. I’m off.’ She turned towards the ticket-barrier.

  Arkenstall said, ‘I went to see the child’s new parents. I think she will be happy with them.’

  Martha shrugged. ‘I expect she will.’ Then defensively, ‘She wouldn’t have had much of a life wi’ me.’

  Arkenstall agreed, ‘No . . . ’ He lifted a hand to his hat but she was already walking through the gate in the barrier. He finished, speaking softly to himself but the words addressed to her retreating back, ‘No, I don’t suppose she would.’

  He could have taken a cab from the station – three of them stood outside, the horses with their heads hanging – but instead he chose to jump on a horse-drawn tram that was just starting to move away. He paid his twopence to the conductor and flipped another penny to an urchin who ran alongside turning cartwheels. He saw it caught in one quick-grasping, grubby palm and heard the yelled, ‘Thank ye!’ Then he moved inside to a seat. It was time to report to his client.

  When he got down from the tram the rain had stopped and a watery sun was peeping through clouds driven on the wind. He walked now, because he welcomed the exercise and took pleasure from it, and from being quit of his office for a while. That was why he had taken the tram rather than a cab. He breathed deep of the clean air, sweet after the smoke and dust down by the river.

  This was Ashbrooke, a different part of the town, where there were quiet, wide streets lined with trees and large houses. His client lived in one of those houses. It stood high and wide in its own grounds, surrounded by a high wall, with rooms on three floors and, oddly, a tower rising tall out of its centre. Arkenstall lifted his gaze to the room at the top of it. He knew that was his client’s study, where he liked to work, looking out over the intervening houses to the river and the sea. The wrought-iron gates stood open now, leading to a carriage drive which ran through a belt of trees, then a close-cut lawn, to a turning circle outside the front door.

  Arkenstall walked up the drive, boot heels crunching on the gravel. A flight of six broad, shallow steps lifted up to the front door. That stood open but there was an interior door inside the porch thus formed, with a stained glass panel above a glittering brass door knob and letter-box. He yanked at the bell-pull beside the front door and waited.

  He heard no sound of the bell, ringing somewhere deep in the house, but in seconds the door was opened by a maid, smart in black dress with white apron and cap. She bobbed a curtsy and held the door wide so he could pass in.

  ‘The master’s expecting you, sir.’ She took his hat and gloves as he removed them, then his overcoat as he shrugged out of it.

  ‘Thank you.’ Arkenstall followed her along the hall. There was a fragrance from a vase of flowers on a side table and a smell of floor and furniture polish. He glimpsed, through an open door on his right, the gleaming floor of the long dining-room-cum-ballroom that stretched from front to rear of the house. But the maid led him to a door on the left of the hall.

  She knocked on this, opened it and announced. ‘Mr Arkenstall, sir.’ Then stood back.

  The room looked out on the front of the house. It was large and high-ceilinged, furnished with a chesterfield and several leather armchairs. There were pictures on the walls, all of ships built in the Ballantyne yard, and three round tables crowded with framed photographs, vases of flowers and an aspidistra. A big fire burned in the grate and there were two bay windows. Arkenstall’s client stood at one of these, had turned at his entrance and now came towards him.

  George Ballantyne was a shipbuilder. He was in his early fifties, tall and broad-shouldered, a powerful man both physically and in the affairs of the town; a thousand men worked for him in his yard on the river. His dark hair was still thick, though greying at the temples. He was clean shaven in an age when most men wore beards, with only a thick, wide moustache above the mouth set firm. A pair of startling blue eyes looked out at Arkenstall as Ballantyne greeted him.

  ‘Good morning, Ezra. Have a seat. Would you like anything? Coffee?’ He neither drank nor served alcohol in his house before noon. When Arkenstall refused Ballantyne told the waiting maid, ‘Thank you. That will be all.’

  The maid left, closing the door quietly behind her, and the two men sat in armchairs facing each other across the fire. Arkenstall recalled sitting at another fireside a few nights ago with two young people staring at him, defiant and suspicious. He began his report.

  ‘I followed your instructions. When I heard that the child was born I called on the mother . . .’ He recounted his interviews with Martha Tate and then the Carters and finished, ‘I have just come from the station where I paid the balance of fifty pounds to Miss Tate and saw her go through to take the train to London.’ He reached into an inside pocket and passed a paper to Ballantyne. ‘That is the undertaking she signed, written in the form we agreed.’

  Ballantyne glanced at it and nodded, then put it away in his own pocket. He sighed. ‘An unpleasant business.’ And when Arkenstall nodded agreement, he asked him, ‘Did you see the child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A girl, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’ Arkenstall hesitated a moment but then decided to get it over with. ‘The mother named her Chrissie. The Carters have honoured that.’

  Ballantyne jerked upright in the chair and glared. ‘Chrissie! That damned woman! How dare she call her brat after Christopher – my son!’

  Arkenstall thought she was at liberty to call the child whatever name she wished, but he did not say so. That was not the point.

  ‘She did it to anger me! Because she cannot prove a word of her allegations! It is no more than spite! Evil!’

  Arkenstall agreed and could understand George Ballantyne’s rage. Now Ballantyne went on, ‘I refuse to believe my son fathered that child. She met him in that public house near the theatre, that cannot be denied, but he was one of a crowd. I think she became pregnant, then read of his death and decided to attempt to blackmail me. That’s the truth of the matter. I am certain my son did not . . . sleep with her.’

  Arkenstall was not so sure, but thought that in his kind of work he had probably seen more of the seamier side of life than had Ballantyne. He did not say so. Instead he said, soothingly, ‘In any event, you can put it from your mind now. The woman has taken her money and gone.’

  Ballantyne shook his head and growled, ‘It will not be as easy as that. I remember her from that one time she tricked her way into this house, sat in this room and tried to blackmail me! I’ll never forget her – never!’ He sat in silence for a minute or more, letting his rage subside.

  Arkenstall waited for him and leaned back to let his head rest against the lace antimacassar on the back of the chair. His gaze strayed to the mantelpiece and the photograph that stood at its centre. It was a head and shoulders portrait of a young boy staring round-eyed at the camera. Arkenstall pointed and guessed, ‘Your grandson?’

  George Ballantyne nodded. ‘That’s Jack, taken a week ago.’ His lips twitched in a smile. ‘He’s just two years old now.’ He lapsed into silence again while he gazed at the photograph. Then he said quietly, ‘The woman has her money, but what about the child?’

  The solicitor answered, ‘I think she has found a good home. In fact, I’m sure of it. Her adoptive parents struck me as being of a good type – sober, thrifty, hard working.’

  Ballantyne questioned, ‘And money?’

  Arkenstall shook his head. ‘They will take nothing.’

  Ballantyne sighed. ‘You m
ade that clear . . .’ The gravel of the drive crunched under the wheels of a carriage that drew up outside the windows, the horses nodding, a coachman on the box. Ballantyne stood up. ‘But now you must excuse me. I have to go to the yard. Richard is still in South America trying to drum up orders there for a ship or two.’ Richard was his elder son, brother to the dead Christopher. ‘So all at the yard is left to me.’ He put his arm around Arkenstall’s shoulders as they left the room. ‘I’m grateful for your help with this business, very grateful. I think we have seen the end of it now.’

  They rode into town in Ballantyne’s carriage and he set Arkenstall down outside the solicitor’s office. This was in a tall, old building near the bottom of High Street East, surrounded by chandlers and merchants selling ships’ stores. Other solicitors had moved up into the town but Arkenstall preferred to stay. He went in, sat at his desk on the top floor and made notes. Faintly, muted by the glass in the tall windows that looked out over the river, came the clattering of the riveting hammers in the shipyards spread along both banks of the Wear.

  Then he sat for some time lost in thought. He wondered about the two infants: the two-year-old Jack, son of a shipbuilder, grandson of another, eventual heir to the Ballantyne yard; and the newborn girl, fatherless and rejected by her mother.

  George Ballantyne thought he had seen the last of the business.

  Arkenstall wondered . . .

  Chapter 2

  June 1897

  Chrissie Carter laid the baby in the cradle with a confident thump, tossed the blanket over it and tucked it in with a poke of her stiffened fingers. Then she turned and laid the table for her man coming in from work for his dinner, collected her washing from the line, ironed it, picked up her basket and walked to the shops. She was three years old now.

  The baby was a rag doll, the cradle and blankets just two scraps of cloth. There was an old tin plate and a spoon, but the table itself, the pots and pans, the basket, existed only in her mind. The ‘shops’ were a windowsill a dozen yards along the street from the square yard of pavement that was her ‘house’. She walked back to it with her imaginary shopping, past the other children in her part of the street, the boys playing marbles in the gutter, the girls swinging round a lamp-post, sitting in the loops of ropes tied to the top of it.