Father Unknown (30 page)

‘It gives me the shudders to think of little kids reading them and thinking what a wonderful person he is.'

‘You don't think it's possible that someone could be a bad person and still write good books?'

‘Are you trying to make excuses for him? I saw the way he smiled at you. He thinks he can magic anyone into doing what he wants.'

‘He magicked you once.'

Millie kicked at a chair. ‘I know. And I keep thinking what might have happened if he hadn't left Tamara's mum. Imagine if he'd stayed here, and I'd kept going to their house. I hate him for making me feel like that.'

‘Don't!' Suzie found the thought unbearable.

‘And there's something else,' Millie muttered. ‘That Dan Curtis at the club. He gives me the creeps now.'

The doorbell rang.

‘Get it, will you?' she asked Millie.

Next moment, Alan Taylor walked into the conservatory. He was wearing an open-necked shirt, instead of his dog collar. He gave her a broad grin. ‘Can I sit down?'

‘Of course. Would you like a cup of coffee?'

‘No thanks. I can't stop. But I've got some good news to report. At least, I hope you'll think it's good.'

‘About the Dawsons? That was quick.'

Suzie had rung him the day before, after they got back from Burwood. They had left Tamara with her aunt, her future still uncertain.

‘No time like the present. I told him what had happened. And I didn't mince words. What Tamara went through, and what could have happened to her, were a direct consequence of the way he treated her. It nearly led to her death. That shocked him. But he understands straight talking, I'll say that for him.'

‘You were braver than we were.'

‘He's not fundamentally a bad guy. It's just that his moral code is different from ours. I wish I could get him to see that the light of the Gospel shows up those punitive bits in the Old Testament he's so fond of in a whole new way. We're living in a new era. Christ moves us on, from law and punishment to grace and mercy. He thinks I'm a dangerous liberal. But it's scared him. I've warned him what will happen if he uses violence on Tamara again. Or Lisa. I'm not putting either of them in danger, even if it means the end of his career.'

‘He has other ways of bullying, besides hitting her,' Millie said.

Alan turned his face to her, thoughtfully. ‘You're right. The three of them are going to need help. And friends.'

‘I shouldn't have just left Lisa to him,' Suzie said quietly. ‘She only lives round the corner. What worries me more is that it was us who told Reynard about Tamara's pregnancy. Without us, he wouldn't have known she was carrying his child.'

Tom stepped in from the patio. ‘You should worry?
I
was driving the car.' His deep-blue eyes were still troubled.

Alan looked at them steadily. ‘We can't all have the wisdom of Solomon. Everything you did was because you cared for her. She knows that.'

‘She's coming home to her mum, then?' Millie asked.

‘At the end of the week.'

‘Terrific!' Millie sparkled with delight.

‘And you'll tell me straight away if you're worried about her?'

‘You bet I will.'

He rose to go. ‘It won't be easy. For any of them. They'll need people like you around.'

When he had gone, Suzie turned back to her laptop, where she had been checking an overflowing in-box. ‘Look at this,' she cried. ‘It's just come in. It's from Pru.'

The others gathered round her. Nick came in from the garden to look over her shoulder.

‘She must have written this almost as soon as she got home. Look, she's attached a picture.' She clicked on the download.

They were looking at a long, low, white building. The clap-board walls had a distinctively American look. On one end of the roof was a small structure with a bell. The photograph might have been taken a century ago. Men in their Sunday best, with bowler hats. Women in blouses with leg-of-mutton sleeves, whose dark skirts reached the ground. Girls in white starched pinafores. Boys in tight jackets. At the bottom of the picture was written:
Come-to-Good
.

‘Adam's chapel,' breathed Suzie. ‘The one he founded, right back in the eighteenth century, after he'd started to make his way in the timber business. Johan could never have imagined that, when she had to stand barefoot in a white sheet and confess her sins before the whole village. Not bad for a “base child”.'

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The people, places and institutions in this book are fictitious. But I am indebted to many real-life people and organizations who have done so much to help my own family history research in ways which have inspired this book, or have given me other advice. They include the following:

Devon Record Office:
www.devon.gov.uk/record_office.htm

Westcountry Studies Library:
www.devon.gov.uk/index/community/libraries/localstudies

Genuki genealogical website:
www.genuki.org.uk

Access to Archives:
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a

Arthur Warne,
Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century Devon
. David & Charles, 1969

Eve McLaughlin,
Illegitimacy
. Varneys Press, 2009

National Archives: BT 98 (information on crew lists)

Tom Davy, for his talk to Devon Family History Society conference

Brenda Hopkin, for the Clarkson-Clayson research

Mary Evans, for advice on dialogue

While I have given free rein to my imagination here, many details owe their inspiration to people and places in my own family history research:

Adam's baptism record – baptism in 1727 of Jane Nosworthy, daughter of Jane, a base child. St Andrew's, Moretonhampstead, Devon.

Birth of William Eastcott – Mary Arscott, baptized one month after the marriage of Sarah Arscott to William Lee. St Michael's, Doddiscombleigh, Devon.

Elizabeth Radford's marriage after her father's death – Jane Nosworthy of Moretonhampstead, who bore one child out of wedlock, and married Walter Hutchings one month after her father's death, when she was six months pregnant.

Charlotte Downs and her illegitimate children – Elizabeth Bushell of Deal, Kent, mother of three illegitimate children.

Adam's apprenticeship indenture – indenture of Thomas Mathews of Chulmleigh, Devon, 1737.

The lease on Hole – lease for Rose Barton, Rose Ash, Devon, between George Smith, knight, and Henry Eyme alias Zeale, yeoman, 1616.

Corley Barton – Rose Ash Barton, Rose Ash, Devon.

Norworthy – Great Wooston Farm, Moretonhampstead.

The stone barn – Laployd, Bridford, Devon.

The theft of gooseanders – Manor Roll of 1510 for Morchard Cruwys, Devon.

The shift from Clarkson to Clayson – this is not recorded in the south-west, but it is in Kent.

The bastardy bond – John Turner of Chulmleigh for Mary Baple's child, 1758.

The runaway apprentice – John Pook of Berry Pomeroy, Devon, 1776.