A Mother's Love (7 page)

‘What if she does?’ Matthew stopped what he was doing and came over to her. ‘Neither of us have anything of which to be ashamed.’

‘Except that I’ve only been a widow two months. It does look bad, Matthew. I have to hide the key every time my parents come to see me and shoot the bolts you put on. It’s so underhand, so furtive. I wish we didn’t have to keep it secret, but I know we do have to – for months yet, at least long enough until everything looks respectable. What would people say if they knew? What would Aunt Sarah think?’

He wiped his hands clean of ink and took hers. ‘It’ll remain our secret, I promise.’

‘Except that she’s so uncanny at winkling out the truth. I’m sure she’s clairvoyant enough to read a crystal ball.’

She hadn’t meant it as a joke but he threw back his head in an explosive laugh, tugging her towards him in amusement. She remained rigid in his embrace, her mind racing over these past two months.

From the way Matthew Craig had looked at her that day of the auction, she had realised that she was still a catch, even saddled with a baby. Of course, the door connecting the two parts of the building would have to be permanently sealed, for decency’s sake, and she had had every intention of boarding it up. For the time being it was left locked, and the key hung on a hook at the top of the stairs in case of an emergency. A woman on her own – who could say when she might need help quickly?

There had been no emergency the day after Matthew Craig took over the shop. The baby had been crying most of the day, driving her to distraction. More to escape its incessant noise than anything, she’d lifted the key from its hook and popped her head round the door to apologise for the noise.

He seemed surprised to see her there, but very understanding, his smile wide and warm.

‘I hardly noticed. Far too wrapped up sorting out the interviews I’m trying to arrange with some of those poor women around here.’

Boyishly enthusiastic, he told her of a far different band of women striving to end the oppression suffered by their lesser sisters.

‘I hope my journal helps their cause. They need as many voices as they can get.’

Harriet smiled grimly, remembering Will. Matthew gave her a look that hinted he’d read in her smile some shadow of a past fear still lurking inside her. He said nothing, but she felt him to be an ally, even though he knew so little about her and she about him.

As he closed up for the day, intending to go home to the flat he’d found in Teale Street, she offered him a cup of tea. By the end of the week she was adding a sandwich for midday. The following week he asked if she might help with a bit of filing now and again. She said yes, and again yes when he suggested she take a breath of fresh air with him that Saturday evening.

‘It will do you good, cooped up in those rooms of yours,’ he said so quietly that it brought tears to her eyes.

To escape if only for a short while the claustrophobia of being cloistered with the baby day in, day out, she had flung herself at the offer, begging half an hour of Mrs Hardy’s time to keep an eye on the child on the pretext of having to post a letter.

She prayed as she walked beside him that he wouldn’t misconstrue her ready acceptance, and see her as common as a picked-up woman of the streets. But he was a perfect gentleman. Keeping a foot of space between them, he told her something of himself, his life at Oxford, his ambitions for his journal, pleasant everyday things.

He told her his father was in property: ‘A sort of estate agent. He’s always yearned to be on a par with the professional people he touches elbows with, but I think he thinks they still regard him as a common tradesman, even now. That’s why he wanted me to take up a profession. Law, he had in mind; It might have made him feel on the same footing as them. But I’m afraid I’ve been a disappointment to him, becoming a tuppenny publisher instead. That’s what he calls it.’

Matthew chuckled with mild self-deprecation, a full, deep-sounding chuckle. He had a deep voice for a thin person and was so well spoken that at first she had felt obliged to put on what she termed her best voice, but as they swapped life stories and she grew more at ease, the flattened vowels crept in again. He didn’t seem to notice at all. In fact he confessed with a tinge of amusement that his mother had spent her entire married life living down the fact that she was the daughter of an ironmonger.

‘No one dare risk life and limb mentioning it. Mother is very much part of Winchester society, well up in her Lit. App. Society … Literary Appreciation,’ he expanded to Harriet’s puzzled look. ‘She would like to see me marry well. Last year she played matchmaker with a certain Victoria Elliot-Cobbdon, but I shied well away from that.’

It was good to laugh with him. With Will truly laid to rest, and the baby forgotten for the while, Harriet thought she had never felt so free.

The following Sunday he had asked if she’d care to go with him to watch the official opening of the new Tower Bridge. It was such a wonderful day, watching it from the river, sharing the excitement of the occasion, mingling with other people and no baby to drag on her, for she had once again left Sara with a surprisingly willing Mrs Hardy.

But it made the rest of the week all the more dreary. Trying to cope with Sara, she counted the days to the next Sunday, when Matthew had offered to take her to see Crystal Palace, her first ever visit. They watched the Brock’s firework display afterwards and on the tram coming home he gently threaded her arm through his, saying he hoped she didn’t object. Object? How could she when she was overcome with gratitude?

That night, for the first time, she didn’t dream of Will trying to drag her down to only he knew where. They still hovered, the dreams, like bats in the dark ready to flap at her at any moment when shallow or disturbed sleep made her vulnerable. But Matthew was becoming her saviour. None of this did Aunt Sarah know. As far as anyone in the family was concerned, she was still the grieving widow – and it was just as well for her and Matthew that it stayed that way for the time being.

Matthew watched Harriet at the compositor’s bench, the tall stool half-hidden by the folds of her black skirt. Head bent on its slender high-collared neck, auburn hair smoothly coiled but for a curl of fringe, she was totally absorbed inserting type from the wooden case into the narrow metal sticks and then into a galley. Her fingertips stained by ink of previous printings, she tied the lines of type together into a block, to be proved for errors.

Matthew smiled tenderly. ‘You do that very well, my love.’

The previous night, strolling arm in arm through the October dusk, he had kissed her on the cheek. Her hand touching the place, she had smiled up at him, grey eyes reflecting the light of the street lamp.

He could still feel the cool smoothness of her cheek. It made his heart pump like a steam hammer. He had never been in love before. During his Oxford days, he had thought he was on a couple of occasions, but he had never before experienced such tenderness of feeling, such longing to protect as he felt now.

Harriet’s lips thinned with concentration. ‘I’m getting better and better. I bet I could get proper work doing this – if I was a man.’

‘You could,’ he agreed, smiling at her Queen’s English. He could even smile at the many errors she made typesetting it.

Two months before, she had found him sitting at the compositing bench, setting up the next month’s issue. Realising he was being watched, an unusual stab of embarrassment had made him assume a note of flippancy.

‘I know. I need a compositor. But I can’t afford to pay a man for a while yet. I did hope my father might finance me a little, but he has no faith in me. So until the journal pays its way, I have to do this myself.’

Moving forward, standing on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder, she had touched his arm to steady herself, the warm, womanly smell of her making his heart race. ‘Can I try?’

‘It’s not that simple.’ Near choked by that pounding heart, his voice was hoarse. ‘You must be able to spell …’ Confusion made him fumble the words badly but she didn’t seem put out.

‘I can do that. I went to school just like my brothers. I learnt all they did – or nearly all.’

‘There’s more to it than that. It’s a skilled job.’

‘It doesn’t look that difficult. You could teach me.’

He’d turned to see her face tight with determination. Until then, he had seen her as helpless, a delicate creature thrown out into the world, in need of support. This new enthusiasm to do a job meant for men – he nearly laughed, but those set lips stopped him. Thin lips were said to denote a hard core, a cold heart. Thin hers might be; but at rest, softly moulded along the closure, they contradicted hardness, betrayed an inner insecurity. No cold heart there. Nonetheless, he realised there was a certain concealed stubbornness in her.

He conceded. In a week or two she would give up in frustration and hand it all back to him. Eventually he would engage a typesetter but until he could afford one, he would give Harriet tuition, and reset the errors she had made after she retired to her rooms. She had learned after a style and he remained happy to correct the errors she still made.

‘Women don’t get this sort of job, anyway,’ she now said ruefully. ‘I wish I was a man and not stuck with looking after a …’

She stopped, her eyes filled with a haunted look he’d seen before.

‘I’ll shove the kettle on for some tea,’ she said abruptly and after struggling down from the stool, nearly slipping, made for the kitchen.

Matthew began slowly stacking the new copies of
Freewoman.
‘Not stuck with looking after …’ His mind completed the sentence she had left unfinished. Harriet hardly ever spoke of her daughter. He could understand her avoiding mentioning her late husband; it was natural for her to be guarded on the subject. But her own daughter?

Harriet had not yet allowed him up to her rooms and that was as it should be. But now he wondered whether it was not so much from a need to be discreet as to keep the baby out of sight. Why? She was a perfectly normal child – six months old now, a pretty little thing from what he’d seen of her, although he rarely saw her except when Mrs Hardy took her or brought her back, seemingly more in charge of her than the child’s own mother. Something should be said. After all, he could be Sara’s stepfather one day.

He took the opportunity after taking Harriet to see Little Titch, the comedian, at the recently refurbished New Lyric in Cambridge Road. Emerging from the cloying odour of close-packed bodies and the tang of orange peel into the freshness of a rainy night, he hailed a hansom and helped Harriet in. As the cab moved smoothly off, he confronted her gently.

‘Sara seems happy with Mrs Hardy,’ he said casually.

It was a bad start. He felt her stiffen immediately and knew this wasn’t going to be simple. The more he was getting to know Harriet the more he realised how easily she could change from being coyly happy to becoming almost defensively hostile.

‘I was thinking of Mr Hardy,’ he hedged hastily. He had a fleeting image of the small man with bent legs and amiable features. ‘Does he mind her being there so often?’

‘Why should he? He’s never said he does.’

‘No, I mean …’ He wasn’t saying what he meant at all.

Harriet was gazing out of the cab window, intently interested in passing carriages, pedestrians hurrying home through the rain, vendors on the kerb braving the downpour.

Matthew made another attempt at saying what he meant. ‘Why do you refer to Sara as “her” or “the baby”? You never mention her by name.’

‘I do.’

‘Hardly ever.’

‘I do.’

‘I don’t think so, Harriet.’

‘Matthew, I do!’

The exchange was threatening to degenerate into a farce. Harriet began playing with the corner of her lace handkerchief, head bent.

‘You never talk about her, Harriet,’ he persisted more forcefully.

With sudden venom, she turned on him. ‘What’s so special talking about her? I thought you were interested in me, Matthew, not her.’

‘I
am
interested in her. She’s your child and I hope I shall see more of her – if all goes well.’ He didn’t elaborate any further, but Harriet suddenly snuggled close to him.

‘Don’t let’s talk about her. Let’s talk about us.’

His arm tightened significantly around her. ‘And the future.’

She was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘I didn’t have a very good start in my marriage, did I? One year.’

‘I know, my sweet. But you might think to start again, some day.’

He heard her sigh. ‘Sometimes it’s so lonely up there in my rooms, just me and the … and Sara. I’d like to think there was more than just that. But not yet. Not so soon after … You know how people talk.’

Matthew held her close, wanting so much to propose properly, but it was still too soon. As she said, people talked.

In the hallway his kiss lingered. She didn’t push him away.

‘May I come upstairs, Harriet?’

‘Mrs Hardy’ll be bringing the baby back.’

‘She needn’t know I’m here. I’ll wait in the shop till she goes.’

They spoke in whispers. It sounded so clandestine, he turned it into a small joke. ‘I could make friends with Sara.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m sure we’d get along very well.’

Harriet’s laugh was low and meaningful. ‘One day you might have to.’

‘That’s an odd thing to say, might
have
to.’ But he was encouraged. ‘May I?’

‘What?’

‘Come upstairs.’

She tilted her head, listening to the growing patter of rain on the stained glass of the hall door. ‘I think you’d best go on home before it gets any heavier, Matthew.’

He gave up. He would have to learn to be patient, that was all.

In a cab jogging through the steady downpour, he listened to the light rhythmic clop of hooves on the wet cobble blocks. He wished he hadn’t suggested going upstairs. He was almost glad that she had refused. Christmas, he would ask her then. He was certain she would say yes. They would marry a year from then, a decent enough interval, he thought.

Umbrella held firm against the slanting rain, he alighted from the cab outside his lodgings, paid the man and hurried on inside.