Someone Special (26 page)

‘Change at Ruthin,’ the conductor said automatically.
‘Goin’ to take the littl’un on the fair? I wouldn’t mind a go on the gallopers meself!’

Hester muttered something noncommittal and tucked her change into her old black leather purse. Nell, who had been uncharacteristically quiet all morning, gave a small bounce in her seat.

‘A fair, Mum? Can we go? Can we?’

Hester, who was simply acting on the impulse to put as much ground as possible between her and Matthew, nodded quickly. ‘Yes; why not? I wouldn’t mind going round the fair. It’s ages since I’ve been on a roundabout or a cakewalk.’

It had stopped raining by the time they got to Wrexham. They got off the bus and stood uncertainly in a wide street, with shops either side and a big inn at one end. Seeing them staring, a fellow-passenger, a plump woman with a tiny boy attached to one hand, stopped for a moment.

‘Fair’s down there, dear, on Eagles’ Meadow. See? I daresay the little girl would like to buy a fairing, have a go on the rides.’

‘I would, I really would,’ Nell said. ‘Come on, Mum, let’s go and have a look.’

They descended the long, green slope of the meadow to where the fair, all bright awnings and loud music, was enticingly spread out before them, and Nell tugged at her mother’s hand again.

‘Mum? Are you very sad? Would you rather not go on the fair?’

‘I am sad, but it’s no use being sad, darling. You and I have got to make our own way in the world now. And if it would make you happy to go on the fair, then that’s just what we’ll do. Only I will have to get a job of some sort, and you’ll have to go to school one day.’

‘Can’t we go back? Not ever?’

Hester took refuge in adult vagueness. ‘Perhaps one
day, love. But Mr Geraint will want the lodge for someone else, you see. I can’t drive a motor car or work on the land.’

‘But you can cook and clean and run the castle,’ Nell pointed out. ‘And if Daddy’s dead, all the furniture and things are yours, so why are we running away?’

Hester looked at her with mingled annoyance and admiration. The acuteness of her! She was only seven, but she could put two and two together in a very practical fashion.

‘Darling, I’m sorry I told you a fib, Daddy isn’t dead. But do you remember I once talked about a lady called Mrs Cledwen, who lived up at the castle once?’

‘Ye-es. When I was really small.’

Hester nodded, holding the small hand warmly in her own.

‘That’s right. Well, she went away. I think Mr Geraint didn’t like her any more. And that’s how it is with Daddy and me. He – he doesn’t like me any more and wants me to go. I can’t tell you any more than that, but we can’t go back, either of us.’

She looked down at her daughter. Nell’s small, heart-shaped face was solemn, intent. Hester could see her daughter was doing her best to understand.

‘Doesn’t he like me any more either, Mum? Was it because I got caught in that cave and he and Mr Geraint had that fight?’

‘Oh, I don’t think they had a fight, love,’ Hester said gently. ‘Gentlemen like Mr Geraint don’t fight with their servants. If you heard their voices raised it was probably because they were arguing over how best to get you out.’

The black shining bell of hair swung from left to right in a slow, determined negative. ‘No, Mummy, they had a fight, really they did. Daddy said it was his
little girl trapped and that Mr Geraint didn’t give a toss, and then Mr Geraint said, in a really horrid voice, that I was
his
little girl. And then they hit each other; I heard them.’

Hester was bereft of the power of speech. She stared at the child as though Nell were not a child at all but a witch. Then she recovered herself and gave Nell a hug. Her little girl was truthful and intelligent; she was simply reporting what had happened while Hester had been fetching help.

‘Do you know, Nell, I think you’re right, they must have had a fight. I don’t know what was said, but I knew in my heart that someone had said something. Nell, darling, that’s why Daddy doesn’t want us to live with him any more. Because you aren’t really his little girl.’

‘Then whose little girl am I?’ Nell asked plaintively. ‘I love Daddy, I don’t mind if he isn’t my real Daddy, so I don’t see why he should hate me just because I’m not his real little girl.’

‘He doesn’t hate
you
,’ Hester said quickly. ‘He hates me, because I let him believe that you were his little girl.’

‘Then whose girl am I?’ Nell said again, her voice quivering. ‘I must be someone’s girl, mustn’t I?’

‘Yes darling, of course you are. You’re my little girl, my very own little Nell. And now let’s go and see if we can have a ride on that roundabout, and we’ll buy ourselves a cake and some ginger beer, shall we? I’m awfully hungry!’

‘Oh, if I’m still yours, then it’s all right,’ Nell said, giving a little skip as they walked down the long green hill. ‘I’m hungry too, Mummy. Can we get some chips?’

Geraint fetched Matthew from hospital after three days. Riding back in the Lagonda, with Geraint driving and Matthew sitting in the passenger seat, they were very quiet. Apart from generalities, Matthew did not say a word until the car drew to a halt outside the lodge. Only then did he turn and look directly at his employer.

‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’ he said bluntly. ‘She’s taken
my Nell, too. I shouted at her, you see, called her names. I weren’t in my right mind, of course, but she didn’t know that.’

Geraint shot a cautious glance at the other man. For three days he had kept off the subject of Hester and the child, hoping to find them in the meantime, but he had no idea where they’d gone. He had travelled to Liverpool, visited the orphanage where Hester had been brought up, the convent school where she had been educated, all to no avail. She had not been back, they had had no word. And in all that time he had not managed to discover just how much, if anything, Matthew remembered. And since he had no wish to lose his chauffeur, handyman and farm manager all in one, as well as the best housekeeper he had ever possessed, it behoved him to tread carefully.

‘Yes, they’ve gone,’ he said. ‘Did Mrs Coburn come to visit you in hospital, Matthew? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

Matthew shook his shaggy head. His hair needed a trim and he had cut his chin twice, presumably while shaving; tufts of cottonwool clung to his unhealthy looking skin, looking like some mould growth.

‘No. I went home to the lodge. Or I think I did. They told me off at the hospital for runnin’ away, so I must have, mustn’t I?’

He sounded miserably uncertain, but Geraint thanked his lucky stars. The concussion had fogged Matthew’s mind; perhaps they would get through this whole business without Matthew remembering precisely what it was that had happened to put him in hospital. And Hester was bound to come back, bringing the child. She would find Matthew complacent once again, Geraint more thoughtful and much less demanding. They would all pick up their lives and jog along comfortably again, he was sure of it.

But Matthew was waiting for an answer, so he pretended to think deeply, then nodded. ‘Yes, you may
have reached the lodge. I found you lying in a puddle on the side of the road; if I’d not found you, well, least said soonest mended, eh?’

Matthew cleared his throat. ‘You saved my life, Mr Geraint, they told me so at the ’ospital. And I’m grateful, very grateful. Only, without my Hester and little Nell, I can’t think my life will ever be much.’

‘Good God, man, they’ll come back!’ Geraint exclaimed, turning to stare at his passenger. ‘This is just a whim, a temporary thing. Hester wouldn’t leave us!’

Matthew shook his head again.

‘No, she won’t come back,’ he said with unhappy certainty. ‘I called her a whore; I said I’d kill her if she stayed.’

‘You …
what
?’

‘And I don’t even know why I said those wicked things,’ Matthew confessed miserably. ‘I never had no cause, she was the best was Hester. They said in the hospital my mind weren’t my own, ’cos of the concussion. Couldn’t we put a message in the newspapers, Mr Geraint, saying as how I’m terrible sorry but I’m in my right mind now, and want ’em back?’

‘You said you’d kill them?’

It was worse than Geraint had feared, far worse. No wonder the poor kid had fled, taking her beloved daughter with her. For the first time for days Geraint remembered his own threats: blackmail, she had called them. No wonder she had gone. Matthew was right, she would never come back.

‘I did, Mr Geraint. But I never would’ve … I wouldn’t hurt a fly, I wouldn’t, let alone them I love.’

All this time they had been sitting in the car outside the lodge with the engine running. Now Geraint turned off the engine and got out, going around to open the front door for Matthew.

‘I know you wouldn’t hurt her, Matt, but she must have
believed different and this does put a different complexion on things. We’ll do our best to get a message to her, but it’s not going to be easy. You’ll have to resign yourself to a long wait.’

Matthew nodded dully and shuffled in through the front door. Geraint thought the man had aged twenty years in the last three days and told himself vengefully that if he ever got hold of Hester he’d give her a good spanking. Life without her was going to be bad enough, without having Matthew stumbling round in a daze, doing his work at a snail’s pace, getting things wrong, making mistakes.

As he was going inside, Matthew turned round. ‘I’ll put up wi’ a wait, so long as she does come back,’ he said wistfully. ‘She’s the apple of my eye, is Hester, and Nell’s another. I don’t reckon I’ll ever amount to much without ‘em.’

‘I’ll draft an advertisement tonight,’ Geraint promised. ‘Will you be fit for work tomorrow, Matthew? Only there’s a deal been left undone these past few days.’

He wondered whether Matthew would remind him that he had only just risen from his hospital bed but the man’s eyes brightened and he straightened his shoulders slightly.

‘Oh ah, the fellers don’t go along too well without someone to tell ‘em yea or nay,’ he observed. ‘I’ll be back on the job first thing in the morning, Mr Geraint. I’ll soon get them sorted!’

7

THE DOCTOR’S WAITING
room was crowded. Nell, sitting numbly at Hester’s side with a piece of towel wrapped around her crushed fingers, had long stopped crying and was dozing uneasily, her head on her mother’s arm.

Hester looked down at her with a heavy heart, seeing as if for the first time the dirt-streaked face, the tumbled hair, the faded, too-small cotton dress. What had she done to her little girl? In the six months since she had run away from Matthew she had been too busy just trying to keep them fed to take a long, cold look at their circumstances. But because she had to remain in this stuffy little room until the doctor was free, she had, at last, time to look back over those months. On top of everything else today was the twenty-first of April, Nell’s eighth birthday, and with the best will in the world Hester had been unable to do much to celebrate the occasion. She had no money, no prospects, and after what she had said to Mr Hicksome, she would certainly have no job. Indeed, she told herself, with a momentary resurgence of her old spirit, she did not want a job with that wicked old skinflint. Not that she had always regarded Mr Hicksome as a wicked old skinflint. Indeed, eight weeks ago he had seemed more like a saviour.

Hester and Nell had not remained in Wrexham, it was too near Rhyl, a mere thirty miles inland, so after they had visited the fair she had made her way to the railway station and taken tickets to the only other place in Britain that she felt she knew: the city of Liverpool. She was well aware that she could not go back to the Sister Servina Convent. She had disgraced herself with the good nuns by getting in the family way, but she was grimly determined
that nothing would part her from her child. Still, she did have some knowledge of the city and was able to find a job of sorts, and a roof over her head. She worked for a greengrocer and slept in a dreadful lodging house, but at least the greengrocer had been glad of Nell to fetch and carry for him and had allowed them to stay together.

Then there had been the notice in the paper. Not that she had seen it, she had only heard about it from a customer. ‘Ever so romantic it is,’ the old woman had said when telling Mr Ransome, the greengrocer, about the advertisement in the
Echo
. ‘A feller advertising for his wife an’ kiddie to come home.’ She had beamed toothlessly across the counter at Hester. ‘Same name as you, chuck, though not the kiddie, the kiddie’s name was Helen, not Nell.’

As soon as the shop closed, Hester had seized Nell and hurried her back to the lodging house. She shared a filthy slip of a room with another woman and her two children but she had only stayed long enough to tell Jess that she was leaving.

‘I’ve gorra better job,’ she gabbled breathlessly, clutching her skimpy bedroll. ‘See you some day, Jess.’

Back she had hurried to Lime Street Station with a bewildered Nell at her side. More travelling, until the money ran out, then another brief job followed by another flit. Hester was convinced that Matthew, or Geraint, or both must have guessed she would make for Liverpool, why else should they advertise in the
Echo
? So it stood to reason that she must be far, far from the city or they would find her. Matthew meant to kill her, Geraint to take Nell from her. Neither Matthew’s murderous desires nor Geraint’s cupidity could be risked.

They travelled indiscriminately for a while, sometimes on foot, sometimes by bus or train. But at last they reached a place where Hester felt safe, a sizeable town on the very edge of Norfolk, where Hester had once
more obtained work, this time as a housekeeper to an elderly widower, Mr Hicksome. She was travel-stained and weary, not at all the sort of person most people would employ as a cook-housekeeper, and had been almost tearfully grateful to Mr Hicksome for giving her a chance.

And in King’s Lynn, for the first time, Hester began to relax a little. She and Nell shared a tiny, stuffy attic room with a ceiling so low neither could stand upright, and a round window which did not open. The house was damp and difficult to keep clean for it was hard up against the railway line and smoke from the trains smuttied the house day and night. Hester was beginning to believe it got to her lungs as well, for she began to show alarming signs of illness – she, who had never ailed in her life. What was more, though Mr Hicksome had offered her a low wage, he had made no objection to Nell’s presence, so when he began to dock her money each week, taking off a penny here for food, tuppence there for fuel and lighting, Hester did not have the will to complain. She needed the job so desperately and was so drained of energy and hope that she did not even consider contesting the deductions. She had a hacking cough which wouldn’t go away and her back ached and ached all the time so that even in bed at night the pain would wake her. She got through her housework somehow, cooked meals as nourishing as she could manage on the money Mr Hicksome allowed, and simply stumbled through the days in a nightmare of weakness and misery, tumbling into bed at midnight only to wake again in an hour or two with worries whirring in her head.