The Judge's Daughter (25 page)

‘She probably reminds you of the mother you lost.’

‘It’s not so simple, but it is something like that, yes.’

With that, Denis had to be content.

They reached Bamber Cottage to find Agnes and Fred in another heated exchange. Helen looked at Denis and he looked at her. In that moment, both realized that the recent past could be laid to
rest. They were good friends, and both felt comfortable about it.

Agnes was in full flood. ‘I know what you’re saying – I’m not deaf and I’m not daft. You’ve told me so often that it’s probably printed through me like
a stick of Blackpool rock. Eva makes your curtains. Yes, she needs her sewing machine and no, it can’t stay down here. The spare bedroom can still be a bedroom – we can put the Singer
in a corner.’

‘That means she’ll have to go upstairs to work. She can’t do stairs all the while.’

‘I can.’

Fred and Agnes turned and stared at Eva. Not since the wedding had she disagreed with her husband. She was of the generation that recognized the superiority of mankind over womankind, but she
was putting her foot down with all her twenty stones behind it.

‘Put it upstairs,’ Eva said.

‘Bloody women,’ Fred cursed.

There followed an uneasy couple of hours during which Fred and Eva were separated from half their worldly goods. Although Fred fought right down to the last picture of the Sacred Heart, he was
forced to see sense. When the cart pulled away, the Grimshaws had a house in which it would be possible to live and move in a normal fashion.

Eva made the final cup of tea.

‘Are them cellars dry?’ asked Fred.

‘Very,’ replied Helen. ‘The boiler’s down there. It’s a big one, because it heats a big house. Stop worrying, please, Mr Grimshaw. If you find you need something,
it will be no trouble to have the item returned to you.’

Fred gulped a mouthful of hot tea. He studied Miss Helen Spencer. ‘You’re all right, you are,’ was his stated opinion. ‘Feel free to drop in for a cuppa whenever
you’ve a mind.’ He looked at Denis and Agnes. ‘See? Not all rich folk are toffee-nosed.’

Helen Spencer went home a happier woman. Knowing that Louisa, the Makepeaces and the Grimshaws were her friends, she felt almost capable of coping.

Agnes phoned her two friends from the newly installed telephone in her cottage. Only if she canvassed their opinions could she make any changes to arrangements.
‘Isn’t she crackers?’ was Lucy’s typically direct response.

‘She’s lonely.’ The line crackled while Agnes waited. ‘Are you there, Lucy?’

‘I’m here. Look, don’t tell her it’s a regular thing. If we don’t get on, we can go back to the way it was before.’

Mags too agreed to the temporary admittance of Helen Spencer to their Thursday meetings. Agnes replaced the receiver, wondering whether she had done the right thing. She, Lucy and Mags had a
long history and shared common ground, but Miss Spencer was very much the outsider. Would their evenings be spoiled? ‘Somebody has to help her,’ she told herself out loud. Agnes was no
psychologist and no expert in any field connected to the behaviour of her fellows, but she knew need when it hit her in the face. Helen Spencer was needful and Agnes was there to help.

When Thursday arrived, she made a few scones and cakes, found Mags’s favourite parkin at the shop, put crisps in a bowl for Lucy. Unsure of Helen’s preferences, she threw together a
few thinly cut sandwiches, removed the crusts and hoped for the best.

Lucy arrived in fine fettle. She and her new husband were selling their bungalow and buying a barn just a few miles from Agnes’s house. ‘It’s huge,’ she crowed. ‘We
can have visitors to stay and there’s loads of land.’ She paused. ‘Where’s Helen Wotsername?’

‘Coming.’

‘Remember the fit she threw at the party? Everybody in the legal community talked about it for weeks.’

‘Then they’ll be leaving some other poor soul out of the gossip while they deal with her.’

‘What’s the matter, Agnes?’ Lucy sank into a chair. ‘It seems ages since I saw you and you’re in a mood.’

Agnes told the tale of the move to Bamber Cottage. ‘It was hell,’ she concluded. ‘Hot day, pregnant, Pop on one of his hobby horses, Eva too big to get past the furniture
– it was a farce. Helen Spencer sorted it.’

‘Ah.’

Agnes dropped into the chair opposite her friend’s. ‘There’s a terrible sadness in her. She spoke to Denis and he says she thinks it’s something that happened, but she
was too young to remember it. What’s more, she seems to believe it was something too bad for a young child to cope with, so it’s in a parcel at the back of her head.’

‘Well, let’s hope it’s not in the lost property department at the post office.’

‘It’s not funny, Lucy. She’s got a terrible life.’

Mags arrived. The other two were repeating their approval of her new face when Helen knocked.

‘Come in,’ said Agnes. ‘Denis is at the pub with Pop. I don’t know who to feel sorry for – Denis or the landlord.’

They settled into seats, picked at food, drank tea.

‘I’m grateful to you,’ Agnes told Helen. ‘Goodness knows what we would have done without you.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. We’ve huge cellars and Father’s wines take up a very small part. I thought your grandfather was very amusing.’

Agnes snorted. ‘You can say that when you’ve lived with him for twenty years. I love him to bits, but he would make a saint swear. Nan could manage him – she just gave him a
certain look when he went too far. I’ve borrowed Nan’s selection of looks, but he doesn’t take much notice of me. Thank God he’s over the stroke. If it wasn’t for his
funny walk, you’d hardly know he’d suffered. Now, everybody else suffers. Since he was on that Granada programme, he’s decided he’s in charge. Honestly, he couldn’t
run a bath, let alone a business. Thank God again for Eva’s acumen – and Pop’s near enough to us now, of course.’

A small silence hung over the room.

‘I know,’ said Mags eventually. ‘It’s a lovely evening – why don’t we go for a walk?’

They left the house in two pairs, Lucy with Agnes, Mags with Helen. At the top of the main street, Agnes got one of her ideas. She pointed to the pub. ‘Let’s go in.’

Helen looked at Mags. ‘I’ve never been in a pub before.’

‘Time you got educated, then,’ Mags answered before grabbing her companion’s arm and following the other two into the Farmer’s Arms. ‘You’ll enjoy it,’
Mags promised.

Denis and Pop were playing darts. The pub was about half full, and many of its occupants became silent on seeing Helen Spencer in their midst. Agnes marched up to her husband and her
grandfather. ‘Three teams,’ she said. ‘Two in each. You and Denis, me and Lucy, Helen and Mags. Lowest scorers buy the drinks.’

‘I never played darts before, either,’ Helen whispered to Mags.

‘Just pretend the board’s your dad. Don’t kill any customers and watch Denis – he’s silent but deadly when it comes to darts.’

It was a hilarious evening. Nobody died and Helen managed to hit the board on most occasions. There was a small contretemps when Fred was accused of overstepping the line before throwing, but
all ended well. Mags and Helen, the losers, bought the drinks, then they all crowded round a table and argued about the game.

‘I haven’t had much experience,’ said Mags.

‘I’ve had none,’ added Helen.

Fred guffawed and declared that darts was a game just for men. Agnes battered him about the head with his cap, Fred complained of ill-treatment by his own granddaughter, Lucy pretended to smile.
There was in Lucy a reluctance to accept Helen Spencer, Agnes thought. Helen was older than the others, was quieter and less easily drawn into fun. But Agnes liked her. In spite of the Denis
business, in spite of her reticence, the woman was all right in Agnes’s book.

The women left the men to their drinking, Lucy driving Mags homeward as soon as they reached the Makepeace cottage. It was sad, Agnes thought, that Lucy could not even try to accept the new
addition to their group. After waving off her friends, Agnes took Helen into the house. ‘That’s the last time I play darts in heat like this,’ she declared.

Helen smiled in agreement. She felt strangely comfortable in the company of Denis’s wife. She had expected Mags Bradshaw to be a closer friend, but there was in Agnes a dependable and
supportive nature that was much admired by Helen. Agnes knew how to join in, where and when to have fun, how to speak up for herself. There was no fear in Mrs Makepeace, but there was respect for
all around her.

‘Do you like living here?’ Helen asked.

‘I do. We both do. I don’t know how we’ll go on with Pop so near – he’s a caution. I love him dearly, but he can stretch my patience from here to Manchester and
back. It’s even worse since his stroke. I always knew we’d get him well again, because he’d the devil in his eyes even when he was flat out and unable to speak. He’s the
same, but different. Everything has to be done now and in a great hurry.’

‘That’s because he’s looked Death in the face,’ said Helen.

‘Maybe.’ Agnes sighed. ‘If he carries on as he is, he’ll die a rich man. There’s a long queue for his houses and he’s branching out into bigger things, Lord
help us.’

‘Oh? What’s he doing?’

‘Play houses for back gardens – Wendy houses, I think they’re called. Eva just says yes to everything he suggests. Meanwhile, the grass at the back of his house is dying,
because he has bigger pieces of wood for the outside houses and he covers them in tarpaulin.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘Yes. Eva’s not been married to him for more than a few weeks and she’s under his thumb already.’

Helen nodded thoughtfully. ‘He must have a big thumb.’

Agnes laughed heartily. ‘He likes large women. Nan was big till near the end. He says a big woman’s the best hot water bottle available to man.’

Helen stared through the window at a darkening sky. ‘You are so lucky, Agnes.’

‘I know.’

‘You love people.’

‘Not all people.’

‘But you approach them with an open mind and heart. I am . . . closed down, I suppose.’

‘Your father.’ This, from Agnes, was not a question.

‘Yes. Lately, though, I have changed. In a sense, I appear to have woken up, yet in another I seem to be grabbing a childhood I never had. Control slips away from me at times.’

‘Yes, I saw that at the party.’

Helen told the tale of the wedding reception, including the part played by Denis. ‘I’ve stopped drinking,’ she said. ‘The expression on your husband’s face on
seeing me drunk would have stopped a bull smashing a gate.’

Agnes could almost taste the woman’s misery. She wanted to jump up and shake her, wanted to drag her away from Lambert House and the man who had spoiled her life, but it wasn’t her
place. ‘I’m always here, Helen,’ she said. ‘When it gets too much, come to me. Don’t suffer by yourself, because you do have friends.’

Helen turned her head slowly and faced Agnes. ‘There’s Louisa. Louisa is the reason I am staying.’

‘She married him with her eyes open,’ said Agnes.

Helen nodded. ‘The sighted make as many mistakes as the blind. She knows now that she is just an incubator. He wants a son.’

‘Yes, Denis said.’

‘Once he has his son, Louisa will be of no further use.’

Agnes wished that her visitor would cry, but it was clear that some of the hurt went beyond tears. No one liked Judge Spencer, and his daughter had travelled past dislike and was walking
alongside hatred where her father was concerned. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ve lived for over thirty years with my father, Agnes. Yet it’s as if I was born again just recently. There’s something . . .’

‘What?’

‘Just something. Tell me, Agnes – what’s your earliest memory?’

Agnes pondered. ‘I remember sitting outside the house – presumably in a pram. And being held over a tin bath in front of the fire while my hair was rinsed – I remember that.
Don’t know how old I was.’

Helen bit her lip. ‘I have a not-quite memory. It’s similar to a dream that’s forgotten the instant you wake. Sometimes, I grab the edge of it, but it unravels like a badly
knitted sleeve as soon as I try to concentrate. There was noise. I do know there was a great deal of unusual noise.’

‘And then?’

‘Nothing.’ Helen looked down at her folded hands. ‘Like Louisa, you make me feel better. Almost normal.’

‘You are normal.’

‘Am I? Is it normal to imagine yourself in love with a married man? Or to stand in the middle of a social gathering and decry the host – my own father? Is it normal for all those
people at the party to disappear from my sight and slip beyond hearing while I have a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old?’

‘You are not mad,’ Agnes insisted. ‘You are damaged. I know he’s a tartar. I’ve seen and heard him for myself. Kate Moores, too, knows that life hasn’t been
easy for you – so does my Denis. Helen, look at me. I’ll be here, Denis’ll be here, Kate and Albert will be here – even my Pop and Eva will be here. You know where to
run.’

‘Thank you.’ At last, the tears flowed.

Agnes, hanging on tightly to the tense body of Miss Helen Spencer, wondered whether she had bitten off more than she could chew. This lady had more than a chip on her shoulder – she
carried a whole yard of lumber. What on earth had happened to reduce Helen to this? Why had she no friends and why didn’t her father love her? And could Agnes be what Helen needed? Was a
special doctor required?

Helen straightened. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I like you.’

‘And I like you. Look after that stepmother of yours, but come to us if it all gets too much. We’ll be here. We may not have much, but you’re welcome any time.’

When Helen had left, Agnes sat very still in a chair by the window. Dusk was falling fast, but she didn’t bother with any lighting. In her heart, she walked every weary and unwilling step
of Helen Spencer’s homeward journey. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she swore aloud. ‘I’ll try to make a difference.’ Nan had always said that life was about making
a difference, preferably for the better. Wisdom from the mouths of the uneducated was often raw and special. ‘I’ll try, Nan,’ she repeated. Helen Spencer needed saving. She
deserved to be saved.