The Emerald Valley (29 page)

‘So what happened?' Amy asked through dry lips.

‘Well, I suppose she must have palmed off the baby on her husband,' Annie Roberts said. ‘It could have been his all along, for all I know. Whichever, we didn't hear any more from her. She knew she had her master in me, and if she'd taken Llew to court we would have wiped the floor with her. So that's it. Now you know the story – and much good may it do you. As for her, I don't ever want to see her or hear her name again.'

Amy's nails were digging deep crescents in the damp palms of her hands.

‘You won't be seeing her again.'

Annie Roberts'eyes narrowed. ‘I beg you pardon?'

‘She's dead,' Amy said.

Annie's mouth opened in an expression of surprise, then she shrugged.

‘Oh well, I'd be a hypocrite if I said I was sorry.' Then, as the thought struck her, she sat forward, looking closely at Amy, ‘How do you know she's dead? Why are you here, Amy, asking all these questions?'

Amy swallowed at the lump of nerves that was pulsing in her throat.

‘Because she came to see me the day before she died,' she replied.

In that first startled moment Annie Roberts'face was a picture of disbelief. Then a murderous expression darkened her features.

‘The mischief-maker! That's her all over! Oh – I wish she'd come to see
me
! What did she say?'

‘That she was in need of financial help. That Llew had been sending her money since her husband had been killed underground. And she couldn't understand why it had stopped.'

‘The minx! Llew … sending her money! As if he – would and without you knowing!'

‘I think he must have been sending it,' Amy said. Admitting it aloud was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. ‘It all fits together too well and what you have told me simply confirms it.'

‘But don't you see – the father of her child could have been any one of half-a-dozen. She's no proof, she never did have.'

‘Llew must have thought it was his,' Amy said softly.

‘What?' Annie Roberts was speechless.

‘Llew must have thought it was his,' Amy repeated, as if she was trying to explain to herself. ‘And if it's true – if that little boy is his son – then we must do something about it.'

‘Like what, may I ask?'

‘I don't know. But we can't let him go into the Union or an orphanage.'

‘Why can't we? It's no business of ours.'

‘How can you say that?' Amy demanded. ‘If he is Llew's son, it means he's your grandchild. Doesn't that count for anything with you?'

Mrs Roberts drew herself up. ‘Don't try to make me feel guilty, Amy. I don't believe Llew had a son and that's an end to it.'

‘Then you won't help me?' Amy asked in a small voice.

‘Help you? What do you mean – help you?'

Amy stood up, pacing the cold blue carpet square.

‘Last night I lay awake for hours, thinking. And I made up my mind. If there is a chance that that boy is Llew's son, no matter who his mother was I'm going to see he's looked after. It's what Llew would have wanted.'

‘Amy – have you taken leave of your senses?' Annie Roberts got to her feet also. ‘You don't want to broadcast the past now; it's over and done with. And think how people would talk! They'd love to have something to say about us. You can't drag Llew's name through the mud – not now, when he's not here to defend himself. You can't
do
it!'

‘And I can't stand by and see his son go into an orphanage,' retorted Amy.

‘So what do you think you can do?' Annie Roberts asked unpleasantly.

‘I don't know. Offer him a home, I suppose, if it comes to that.' Amy was amazed to hear herself saying aloud the half-formed thought which had bombarded her during the night.

‘A home … Amy, now I know you're not feeling well. Sit down, put your feet up, let me make you a cup of tea …'

‘There's nothing wrong with me,' Amy said deliberately. ‘And I'm sorry if you don't like the idea, Mrs Roberts, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do what's right. There's a little boy, about seven years old, left all alone in the world and he might be as much your grandchild as Barbara or Maureen.'

‘Oh, what rubbish!' Annie Roberts had always made a great show of her affection for the girls and resented the fact that Charlotte saw a great more of them than she did – though whenever she was asked to help out with baby-sitting or something similar she was invariably too busy with the pattern of chores which must be adhered to or die! ‘Amy, for goodness'sake, you mustn't go saying such things outside these four walls. Think of the poppy-show you'll make of yourself! Think of
us
if you can't think of Llew – his father, for instance, with the insurance rounds … and Eddie too. Men would be cashing in their policies rather than have them knocking at the door and seeing their wives when they were out of the way at work.'

‘Oh, how stupid!' Amy retorted.

‘It's not stupid. “You can't trust those Roberts men where there's a woman concerned” – I can just hear them and what they'd say now. That sort of thing spreads like wildfire. And then what about Eddie's ambitions for the council? Who would vote for him if it was known that his brother –'

‘Eddie's quite capable of looking after himself, I'm sure,' Amy cut in.

Annie Roberts was almost wringing her hands.

‘Then if you can't think of them, Amy, at least think of
me.
Oh,
duw
, the shame of it! I could never hold my head up again. We'd have to move away, somewhere we're not known, start all over again – and I'm not sure I could stand it at my age. Oh
duw, duw
…'

Amy moved impatiently. ‘Don't make it any harder for me, Mrs Roberts, please.'

‘And what's
your
mother going to say about all this, I'd like to know? For the Lord's sake, Amy …'

Amy felt sick as a glimpse of what lay in store for her – the arguments, the difficulties, the opposition, the gossip – flickered in front of her eyes. But resolutely she pushed it all away.

‘I'd better be going.'

‘Amy – don't go! Please, talk it over first …'

Amy opened the door. ‘I don't want to talk.'

‘Amy – please … oh, you don't know how this is upsetting me …'

‘I wonder, Mrs Roberts, if you have any idea how
I
feel about it?' Amy said wearily. ‘It's all been a complete shock. But at least I'm glad to say that I still know right from wrong.'

‘Amy …'

Tears were stinging her eyes, but she was determined not to let the older woman see them. She marched out of the house with head high, ears deliberately deaf to the frenzied pleadings of her mother-in-law who followed her, flapping and distraught.

‘Amy – I can't bear it! Amy, for the Lord's sake …'

The smells of the morning hit her – the garden fresh after the recent rain, hot tar from the tar-spraying machine that was being pulled slowly up the main road by a plodding council horse. Smells from another, far-off life when everything had been simple and sweet … and she ached suddenly with the overwhelming desire to return to it. But it was no good. There could be no going back; she could only go on.

Amy brushed her eyes with the back of her hand. Could she shoulder this new burden? As she had said to Llew's mother, if she did not, she would be unable to live with herself. But could she live
with
it?

Into her mind's eye came a sudden vision of Charlotte, her mother. When she had been young it had always seemed to her that Charlotte was a tower of strength. Of late Amy had forgotten that earlier, childhood vision, for it was blurred now with the passage of years and with Charlotte as she now was – middle-aged, a little tired, no longer a fighter because she had no need to be. But life had not treated her gently, she had had troubles and to spare – two children buried in infancy, a son lost in France, another standing in court on a murder charge, a husband whose health she had seen slowly but surely destroyed.

All those things and more, countless trials, countless griefs, yet somehow she had remained a rock in the eyes of all her children.

If only I can be like her! Amy thought. If only to my own family I can be the rock that she has been to us. Can I do it? I don't know! I'm
me
, not her – Amy, not Charlotte. I'm the little girl with ribbons in my hair, spoiled youngest daughter, petted, loved … how can I be like that?

You can be because you have to be.

It was like a voice inside her, firm, cold almost. It brought no comfort, only a sense of bleak despair. She didn't
want
to be the rock Charlotte had been. She didn't
want
the family to lay their troubles on her. She wanted to be free, careless, happy Amy. But what she wanted had very little to do with it, for she couldn't choose. Well … she could. She could choose to get on a train and go as far as possible from Hillsbridge and from those who would depend on her. But she
wouldn't
do it. So, when there was nothing left but to do what you had to do – well, then, you did it.

Amy caught her lip between her teeth, mentally squaring her shoulders to accept the burdens that were being placed there.

‘I won't opt out. I won't take the coward's way, like Mrs Roberts, saying ‘I can't stand it'and ‘I can't bear it'and ‘it upsets me'.

I'll be strong if it kills me. I'll do what's right even if I'm crucified for it. And God grant that the tears I shed in the process, I am able to shed alone.

If Amy had encountered opposition to her plan to carry on Llew's haulage business, it was nothing to the opposition she met when she attempted to ‘do right by'Llew's illegitimate son.

There were so many people to face – so many explanations to make – and all the while trying to be discreet.

Mrs Moon, at least, was one busybody Amy was able to avoid. She had got shot of the Welsh boy who had been orphaned under her roof at the very first opportunity, and by the time Amy had made up her mind to take responsibility for him, he had been removed from the lodging house to the Manse; there the minister and his wife were looking after Huw while enquiries were made as to any relatives the boy might have in Wales. But it seemed there were none and the minister, in consultation with the other leading figures in the parish, had agreed that there was little alternative but to send Huw to an Industrial School. It was far from being an ideal solution – Industrial School was the new name for Reformatory School and for a boy to be sent there along with hardened young trouble-makers and criminals for no better reason than that he had been orphaned, seemed rough justice indeed. But what alternative was there?

And then Amy Roberts had arrived, knocking at the Manse door with a story that was almost unbelievable. The shocked minister and his wife listened to what she had to say; agreed to keep the details of Huw's parentage confidential and considered the offer she had to make – that she was willing to take in the boy and give him a home and perhaps later, when the Bill now going through Parliament was made law, to adopt him formally.

‘Without going into it all thoroughly, I don't know whether
that
would be possible,' the minister said anxiously. ‘What I do know is that it's a magnificent offer and legal adoption or not, as the boy has no relatives, I can see no reason why he should not come to you and be grateful for it.'

Amy nodded. ‘I would give him a good home, I promise. I shall need a day or two to make the necessary arrangements, of course, but after that …'

‘It's not going to be easy for you, Amy.' The minister thrust his hands deep into his pockets, regarding her seriously. ‘You must remember that as a woman alone …'

‘I've already given it a great deal of thought,' Amy said, anxious to avoid a lecture, ‘and I'm sure it's what Llew would have wanted.'

‘If you say so.' The minister rocked on his heels. ‘And if it's God's will, I'm certain He will give you the strength to carry it through.'

Amy's face momentarily betrayed her scepticism. Privately she could not help feeling that the events of the last months indicated that she had somehow fallen out of favour with God.

The minister smiled, briefly and sadly.

‘On a more practical level, I hope you will feel able to turn to me, as His representative, if you need to do so. Now, perhaps it would be a good idea for me to have the boy down and tell him what you propose to do for him.'

Amy felt a quick flicker of apprehension. She was more nervous of facing the boy with his sharp urchin face and those disconcerting blue eyes than she had been of confronting any of the figures of authority.

‘You won't tell him … ?'

‘I see no need for that. We don't want to make things any worse for the poor boy than they must be, do we?' Alice …' He turned to his gentle but colourless wife, hovering in the background. ‘Fetch Huw down, will you?'

The moment the boy came into the room, Amy sensed his antagonism. Cleaner and tidier Huw might be, but he was also somehow wilder, a young cub facing a hostile world alone. In vain Amy tried to tell herself that after all he had been through his defences were bound to be up – that did not help. Faced with his mutinous, resentful expression she felt it was she who was on the defensive, she who was the vulnerable one.

The minister made the introductions, explaining the situation in simple language he might have used to a Sunday School pupil.

‘This is Mrs Roberts, my boy. She has offered to look after you and give you a home.'

The boy stood there, lower lip jutting, eyes narrowed with a hatred that turned Amy cold inside.