No Greater Love (56 page)

‘Perhaps Mr Herbert might lend us some money?’

Alice pulled a face. ‘I doubt it is something he would have much enthusiasm for. Besides, Pearson’s is contracting now that the war is over and the demand for arms and ships has dropped. Herbert can no longer afford to be the kind of patron that my father was.’

‘You’ll consider it, though?’ Maggie pressed her.

‘Indeed,’ Alice nodded vigorously. ‘No matter what my brother thinks, I will help with what I have.’

Maggie drank her tea in triumph and their talk turned to Christabel and when she could next visit.

By December Alice had found a likely house for the experiment in the west of Newcastle and was contacting sympathetic individuals and charitable bodies for funds. She used her Pearson name for all it was worth, but this soon drew the disapproving interest of her brother. He demanded to know more about the scheme and who was involved.

Annoyed by his sister’s evasiveness, he had her followed and soon discovered her involvement with Maggie Heslop. It was not long before he learned that she was none other than the infamous Beaton woman who had so damaged his family’s interests in the days before the war.

Herbert came storming down from Oxford Hall just before Christmas and tore into Alice.

‘I suppose this is the woman Henry and Georgina talk about so much,’ he fumed. ‘I’m horrified to think you’ve been allowing them to mix with such a woman. Worse,
encouraging
them to see her. But then you’ve always been such an appalling judge of character. Well, it’s not going to continue. I forbid you to take them to that woman’s house or I’ll never let you have them here to stay again. Do you understand, Alice?’

Alice swallowed her indignation and tried to reason with her brother. ‘Maggie Heslop is a friend of mine and respectably married to a Methodist preacher and prosperous businessman. All that suffragette business is long over. And the children enjoy going to see the Heslops. Why spoil their fun, Herbert? Besides, the Heslops are holding a party for them after Christmas, it’s all arranged.
^’

‘Fun?’ Herbert thundered. ‘With a suffragette and one of those radical preachers! Imagine what Felicity would say if she knew the children were consorting with such riffraff! No, it must stop.’

Alice would probably have bowed to her brother’s will, as she had so often in the past, if he had not added with such contempt, ‘And as for this nonsense about a home for fallen women, you’ll not have it in my constituency. We don’t want to be seen encouraging immoral behaviour. I’m baffled by why you should want to sully the Pearson name by involving yourself in such a farce.’ He poured himself a large brandy and laughed mirthlessly. ‘You’re much too old still to be trying to shock me with your petty posturing. I’ll not indulge you like Papa did. Stick to your depressing photography if you must, but leave the politics to me.’

Alice sat stunned for a moment, quite wounded by his patronising contempt. Did her brother really hold her in such little regard? Then something within her finally gave way, some inner wall of restraint came tumbling down, breached by years of frustration and hurt at the way her brother treated her. In that instant, she saw how futile had been her attempts to win his approval as she had tried to do with her father, in order to feel wanted and of worth within the great Pearson dynasty. But it was plain he had never viewed her as anything more than an eccentric, recalcitrant female who had refused to be married off to further the family fortunes and was therefore valueless. She looked at Herbert’s disdainful, bloated features and realised he cared nothing for her, in his eyes she was merely a nuisance that had to be controlled. How had she allowed him to use and manipulate her for so long?

She stood up and faced him, ignited by her new-found rage.

‘Don’t you scold me like some wayward hunting dog of yours!’ she cried. ‘Whatever my interests in the past, or the reasons behind them, I’m quite serious about this home for unmarried mothers and I’ll set it up without your help - and in your precious constituency. You’ll not stop me this time, Herbert, so don’t cross me!’

He slugged his brandy and laughed in disbelief. ‘Tut-tut, Alice, aren’t you a little old for throwing tantrums? And what could you possibly threaten me with, eh?’

Alice glared at him. ‘I could go to the newspapers with an interesting story,’ she said menacingly. ‘About how Herbert Pearson MP paid for a baby girl to try and salvage his rotten marriage. A sweet creature called Georgina whom her so-called parents show absolutely no interest in.’

Herbert, his brandy glass halfway to his lips, froze in surprise.

Alice ploughed on before he could deny it. ‘But the irony is she’s really called Christabel after the famous suffragette, so named by her real mother who was also a well-known suffragette on Tyneside. Have you any idea whose child you’re nurturing, Herbert? It would really be very funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Georgina was born to one of those fallen women you so despise.’

He was gawping at her open-mouthed, stunned by her attack. ‘You’re making this whole preposterous story up,’ he spluttered. ‘You’re a vindictive bitch, Alice, just because you can’t have your own way for once. Little Georgie is our child.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous! Georgina isn’t your daughter, Herbert. No one really believes Felicity bore you a second child. You’ve slept apart for years and we both know who Tish would rather be sleeping with, don’t we?’

She saw Herbert turn puce at the allusion to Felicity’s affair with Poppy Beresford. He advanced on Alice with the brandy glass raised menacingly as if he would dash it into her face.

‘Shut up! Shut up!’ he bawled.

But Alice could not stop now as the frustration and anger of years came pouring out of her. She wanted to hurt him, wanted to see him reduced to tears as he had so often reduced her.

Standing her ground, she cried, ‘Can’t you guess whose bastard child you’re rearing, Herbert? Do you know whose little girl is being brought up as a respectable Pearson? Georgina -
Christabel
- is the illegitimate child of Maggie Beaton and that so-called agitator George Gordon. You probably don’t remember how he was blacklisted from Pearson’s at the beginning of the war - just another casualty of petty Pearson vindictiveness. Now wouldn’t that make a fascinating story for the papers?’

‘You’re lying!’ Herbert was apoplectic. ‘Georgina’s real name was Martha Brown, not Christabel. She was orphaned. She’s nothing to do with that evil Beaton woman!’

Alice shook her head in triumph. ‘No orphan, Herbert. Just look at her - she’s the double of Maggie, with those startling eyes and the dark ringlets. She reminds me of her mother every time I look at her!’

Herbert let out a strangled sound like a trapped animal and hurled the brandy glass over her head, smashing it against a lacquered tallboy. The look that blazed in his eyes was pure hatred and Alice flinched from him, fearing he would seize and throttle her.

But he turned without another word and rushed blindly from the room, banging into furniture in his haste to get away from her. For minutes afterwards, Alice stood breathing fast, her heart racing painfully. Her elation at having for once defeated her brother gave way to foreboding at what she had done.

She walked to the window and peered down at the sweep of frosted drive, watching Herbert roar away in the family Bentley that he liked to drive himself. What had she done? Alice trembled. And what would she tell Maggie now that she had certainly ended any possibility of her ever seeing Christabel again?

Maggie read the Christmas letter that had arrived that morning with delight. Millie was lighting the lamps and there was a warm smell of orange and ginger punch filling the room, spiced with cloves and cinnamon. The Christmas decorations sparkled around the mantelpiece and doorway and the Nativity scene was laid out in anticipation of Christabel and Bella wanting to play with the figures. She and John had just returned from the mission where he had been taking a Christmas Eve carol service.

‘It’s from Rose - Rose Johnstone!’ she told John and Millie. ‘I can’t believe she’s written to me after all this time.’

‘That’s canny. What does she say?’ Millie asked immediately.

‘She’s back in the area, teaching. Her mother died earlier in the year.’ Maggie scanned the letter. ‘She heard about our marriage, John,’ Maggie smiled at her husband.

‘Is that why she’s written?’ Millie snorted. ‘Cos now you’re respectable?’

‘No,’ Maggie laughed. ‘She’s heard about the appeal for the home and wants to help. It says here that her uncle left her a small legacy, so she’s got a bit extra put by.’

‘That’s very generous of her, Maggie,’ John commented.

‘Isn’t it,’ Maggie agreed. ‘Eeh, it’d be grand to see Rose again after all these years. I thought that much of her when I was younger - she had a great influence on me, John. It was wrong of me to let things come between us like they did ...’

She fell silent, thinking back to her militant days when she had set up home with George. It was the breach of morals that had most offended and upset her friend, and Rose’s condemnation had hurt Maggie deeply. But that was all in the past and she was thankful that she was to be allowed the opportunity of being reconciled with her former teacher.

They were pouring out a celebratory drink of the mild fragrant punch when there was an urgent knocking on the front door.

Maggie’s delight at seeing Alice appear on Christmas Eve evaporated as she quickly took in the woman’s agitated gestures and distraught face. Alice came swiftly to the point and told Maggie of the awful confrontation with her brother and his refusal to allow Maggie to see Christabel again.

‘I’m afraid I was so angry at his threats to jeopardise the home and stop the children from seeing me that I told him everything about Christabel,’ Alice admitted. ‘I really thought he was going to hit me, he was so outraged.’

Maggie sat down stunned. ‘He knows I’m Christabel’s mother?’ she gasped.

Alice looked at her helplessly and nodded. ‘And that George is the father,’ Alice added hoarsely.

Maggie looked at John’s pained face and said in a hard, dull voice, ‘Then he’ll never allow me to see her again. After all this struggle, I’ll never see Christabel again, will I?’

No one contradicted her. There was a heavy silence in the cosy room.

‘I’m so very sorry, Maggie. I’ve ruined everything for you,’ Alice said in agitation.

‘At least you stood up to your brother over the home for unmarried mothers,’ John said, trying to salvage some hope from the devastating news. ‘That is something to strive for, isn’t it, my dear?’ He looked pleadingly at Maggie but knew that at that moment it was no comfort to his wife. Her figure seemed to have shrunk under the weight of the news, her face was desolate. It frightened him to think that the main joy in Maggie’s life, to see her daughter, had been stolen from her.

Maggie felt a creeping cold numbness in her stomach. ‘I can’t think about the home just now,’ she said in a colourless voice. ‘I can’t think of anything.’ She stood and walked swiftly from the room, unable to bear their helpless pity.

John went out after her. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie,’ he began.

‘No, don’t touch me!’ Maggie shrank from his reach. ‘Nothing you can say can make me feel any better, so don’t try. I just want to be left alone.’

Pulling her shawl over her head, she rushed from the house and ran blindly through the ill-lit icy streets.

At times she slipped and fell, but she just picked herself up and kept on walking, nowhere in particular just away, as if she could escape the horrible truth that the Pearsons had finally denied her the one happiness that gave her life meaning. How cruel, to have her daughter snatched away just as she was getting to know her properly and as the girl was growing to love her in return.

Maggie found herself in the centre of town, the large bulk of the cathedral looming before her in the dark. The bells rang joyously. For a moment she was tempted to go in and seek refuge, but the thought of weakening made her angry.

^‘
Where are you?’ she cried, looking up at the crowned dome of the church. ‘Why do you allow such things to happen?’

She stumbled on as people stopped to stare at her ranting. The streets were full of revellers going between the pubs or returning home. Their cheery, flushed faces and jocular calls made her feel all the more alone and miserable. Tears streamed down her face as she walked aimlessly towards the quayside.

Suddenly, her arm was grabbed by a passer-by. Maggie tried to shake off the man’s hold, but he clung on. ‘Maggie?
^’
he demanded. ‘Is it you, Maggie?’

She would never have recognised the becapped, thin-faced man who accosted her, but she knew his voice at once.

‘George?’ she queried.

‘Aye, it’s me. What the hell are you doing down here on your own the night?’

When she did not answer, he peered closer and saw her pinched, tear-stained face and noticed that her frail body was shaking. Seeing her so close, he could see how she had aged around her dark eyes. Were they lines of laughter or pain? he wondered suddenly and the anger that had been welling up inside him at the sight of his former lover dissolved at once. He held on to her arm and steered her off the street and into the snug of a nearby pub.

It was fuggy with smoke and the smell of warm bodies, but Maggie did not protest as George pushed her gently into a corner seat, ordering a rum and ginger from the barmaid. An elderly man smoking a clay pipe and belching contentedly nearby reminded her of her Uncle Barny, but she noticed no one else, so panic-stricken was she by the abrupt meeting with George. They did not speak until the drink arrived.

‘Get that down you,’ he ordered gruffly.

She sipped at the strong-tasting drink, feeling it burn its way down her throat and warm her numbed body. She stared at him, taking in the gaunt face and the prematurely greying hair and the lines of suffering around his mouth and eyes. He looked so much older, yet the warm brown eyes were those of the man she had loved and the sound of his familiar voice sent warm shivers through her.