A Mother's Promise (46 page)

Maynard held her at arm’s length, smiling and gently squeezing her hands. ‘No, my dear, I was just the catalyst. You would have come to the same conclusion with or without me.’

‘I wish you’d stop using those big words,’ Hetty said, torn between tears and laughter. ‘But I will miss our chats, Maynard.’

He released her hands to take a small shagreen case from his breast pocket. He took out a gilt-edged calling card and gave it to her.
‘This is the address of my office in Wapping. If you need help or advice in the future you know where to find me.’

She tucked it safely away in her reticule. ‘It’s such a pity you have business in Liverpool. We could have travelled back to London together. I would have enjoyed that.’

His reply was lost in the general confusion as passengers eager to disembark surged towards the gangway. Maynard took Hetty by the arm and she couldn’t help noticing how even the most forceful characters moved aside to let them pass. He insisted on seeing her safely to the railway station, and, ignoring her protests, he purchased a first class ticket for her. ‘I wouldn’t have my daughters travel anything other than first class and you must humour an old man’s whim, my dear.’ He summoned a porter to carry Hetty’s suitcase and proffered his arm. ‘Allow me.’

She smiled as she linked her hand through his arm. ‘Your daughters are very lucky to have you for their father. If mine had lived he would have been as kind, but not so blooming rich.’

Maynard’s laughter caused heads to turn as people hurried past them on their way to the platforms. Some people smiled and others looked slightly shocked at the sight of a middle-aged man with a young woman who might or might not be his daughter. ‘We seem to attract
the attention of others wherever we go,’ he said, coming to a halt at the barrier. ‘But then people are always ready to believe the worst.’

‘Let them. I don’t care.’ Hetty stamped her foot, and meeting his amused gaze she giggled. ‘Don’t care was made to care, don’t care was hung, don’t care was put in the pot and boiled till he was done – that’s what Granny would say.’

‘I would like to meet that lady one day; she sounds a lot like my own formidable grandmother. You and I have more in common than you know, Hetty. Goodbye, my dear.’

The porter cleared his throat. ‘Best hurry, ma’am. The London train is due to leave in two minutes.’

‘Goodbye, Maynard. Thank you so much for everything.’ She tried to smile but unaccountably there were tears in her eyes and her lips trembled. She had only known him for such a brief time, and yet he seemed to have come to represent the father whom she had loved so dearly and lost. A tactful cough from the porter reminded her that the train was about to depart, and she hurried through the barrier without a backward glance.

It was early evening when Hetty arrived back in Princelet Street, and it was raining. The wet cobblestones glistened in the lamplight, and
the air was heavy with chimney smoke. People were drifting in and out of the pub on the corner, and every time the door opened a waft of beer and spirit fumes belched into the street. Nothing had changed since Hetty’s departure less than a month ago and it seemed as though she had never left Spitalfields. Her time in Philadelphia was rapidly fading from her memory like a bad dream. She paid the cabby and, picking up her case and bandbox, she stood for a moment, looking up at the façade of Nora’s house. It might not be as grand as the Wyndhams’ mansion in Washington Square, or as elegant as Miss Heathcote’s house in Mayfair, but it was her home, and she was glad to be back. She did not have her key and so she knocked on the door. The sharp rat-a-tat echoed throughout the house, followed moments later by the sound of footsteps pitter-pattering on the bare boards. ‘Who’s there?’ Jane’s voice was muffled by the thickness of the oak door but it occurred to Hetty that she sounded nervous.

‘Jane, it’s me.’

The door opened slowly and Jane peered out. She stared at Hetty as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, and then she let out a shriek and flinging the door wide open, she threw her arms around her, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘Oh, Hetty, thank God you’ve come.’

Stunned by this unexpectedly enthusiastic welcome, Hetty followed Jane down the narrow passage and into the kitchen. ‘Granny, Nora, look who’s here,’ Jane cried. ‘It’s Hetty, she’s come home.’

Granny dropped the ladle she was holding and it fell into the pan causing the liquid to spill over, hissing and bubbling as it hit the hot coals. Nora rose from her seat in the chimney breast and waddled towards Hetty with her arms outstretched. ‘You’ve come back just in time, girl.’

Abandoning their reading primers, Sammy and Eddie leapt up and ran to Hetty with shrieks of delight. Natalia dropped her bread and jam and it fell to the floor. ‘Hetty, Hetty,’ she cried, struggling to get down from the chair where she was secured by the strings of an apron.

‘Well, this is a welcome and a half,’ Hetty said, dropping her luggage on the flagstone floor. ‘I should go away more often.’

‘You won’t say that when you hear what’s been going on in your absence,’ Granny muttered darkly. ‘Gallivanting off across the ocean after a man. I never heard of such a thing.’ She stood arms akimbo, glaring at Hetty. ‘And it looks like you’ve come home without him. Turned you down, did he?’

Jane hurried to Hetty’s side. ‘Don’t be
unkind, Granny. Hetty’s home and that’s all that matters. Everything will be all right now.’

‘Did you bring us a present?’ Eddie demanded, tugging at Hetty’s sleeve.

‘Be quiet, stupid,’ Sammy said crossly. ‘You don’t ask questions like that. It ain’t polite.’

Hetty bent down to give them both a hug. ‘I didn’t have time to go shopping, boys. But I’ll make it up to you, I promise. If you’re very good I’ll take you to Lowther Arcade and you can choose something extra special.’

‘You spoil them,’ Granny muttered, turning back to the pan and retrieving the ladle. ‘And you didn’t answer my question. Where is he, then? That fancy man of yours?’

‘Leave her be, Mattie,’ Nora wheezed as she bent over to release Natalia from the chair. ‘Hetty will tell us in her own time.’ She set Natalia down on the floor. ‘There you are, ducks. You show your auntie how well you can walk now.’

‘Hetty,’ Natalia cried, holding out her chubby arms and toddling towards her.

Hetty picked her up and kissed her jammy cheek. ‘Hello, poppet. I’ve really missed you.’

‘Put her down,’ Jane said impatiently. ‘It’s time she was in bed anyway, and I’ve got something to tell you that won’t wait.’

‘No bed.’ Natalia wrapped her arms around Hetty’s neck, holding on for dear life and
eyeing her mother with such a mutinous expression that Hetty couldn’t help smiling. This little scrap of a girl was going to be quite a handful when she grew up, but she was totally adorable. Hetty felt her heart swell with love and happiness to be home with her family. She turned to Jane with a placating smile. ‘I’m sure it will keep for another five minutes or so. Let me put her to bed, and then we’ll talk.’

‘Hurry up then,’ Jane said crossly. ‘You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when you find out what’s been going on.’

Hetty chuckled as Natalia planted a wet and sticky kiss on her cheek. It was good to be home and Jane was probably being over-dramatic as usual. She hitched Natalia onto her hip. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can and then you can tell me everything, Jane.’

‘I will, don’t worry,’ Jane said with an ominous frown. ‘And you boys can go to bed too. You’ve got school in the morning.’

‘Not me,’ Sammy protested. ‘I ain’t a baby.’

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ Granny said, advancing on him with a purposeful step.

‘All right, I’m going.’ Sammy snatched up an oil lamp and backed towards the door. ‘I’ll carry the lamp for you, Hetty. Talia don’t like the dark.’

Eddie followed Hetty as she carried Natalia
out of the steamy kitchen and he clutched her free hand. ‘There might be bogeymen upstairs.’

Hetty smiled down at him. ‘There’s no such thing, Eddie.’

‘Granny says there is,’ Eddie countered. ‘She says they’ll come and get us if we’re naughty.’

Hetty gave his fingers a squeeze. ‘It’s what grown-ups say to children to make them behave. Don’t worry about it.’

‘I’m glad you’ve come home,’ Eddie said softly. ‘I missed you.’

Sammy glanced over his shoulder as he mounted the staircase. ‘I bet I missed her more than you did.’

‘There’s no need to argue about it,’ Hetty said, smiling. ‘I’m home now and I’m never going away again.’

‘Do you promise?’ Sammy stopped on the second step, holding the lamp so that he could see Hetty’s expression. ‘Cross your heart.’

‘Yes,’ Eddie echoed. ‘Cross your heart.’

Hetty rubbed her cheek against Natalia’s soft curls and was rewarded by a sleepy smile. ‘I promise that I will never leave you again. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

This seemed to satisfy them, and after Hetty had settled Natalia in her cot she stayed upstairs to supervise the boys while they washed their hands and faces, making sure they scrubbed behind their ears and cleaned
their teeth. She helped Eddie into his night-shirt, and was amused to find that Sammy was shyly aware of his growing body and spurned her offer of assistance. When they were ready for bed, she tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. She lit a candle and left it burning on the mantelshelf in their room, and then made her way downstairs taking the oil lamp with her. It was comforting to be able to pick up the threads of her old life again, and the simple task of putting the children to bed was reassuring in its normalness. At the foot of the stairs, she paused, listening for sounds of pattering feet or the horseplay that often ensued when the boys went to bed early, but all was quiet. Perhaps Granny’s dire warnings of bogeymen still played on their minds, or maybe they were simply tired. She headed for the kitchen to find out exactly what was troubling Jane. It was probably something and nothing; Jane loved to exaggerate.

The table was set for supper and Granny was ladling soup into china bowls. Nora had already taken her place at the table and Jane was cutting slices from a loaf. She looked up as Hetty entered the room. ‘You took your time.’

‘I haven’t seen the nippers for almost a month. I wanted to see them safely tucked up in their beds.’

‘Sentimental nonsense,’ Granny said, holding out a plate filled with savoury-smelling soup. ‘Do something useful and pass this to Nora.’

When they were all served and seated round the table, Hetty looked from one to the other with her eyebrows raised. ‘Well? What’s been going on? And where are Dorrie and the boys? And why isn’t Tom here? You haven’t called the wedding off, have you, Jane?’

‘No, nothing like that,’ Jane said, shaking her head. ‘Tom is working nights and Dorrie, Wilfred and Stanley are with Miss Heathcote in Berkeley Square.’

‘They are? Why? I don’t understand.’

Granny dropped her spoon with a clatter. ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake, Jane. Tell her the worst and be done with it.’

Jane’s lips trembled and her eyes were magnified by unshed tears. ‘Miss Heathcote sent a note to say that Dorrie was to live in the big house, and then her man came to take Wilfred and Stanley because Dorrie wouldn’t stay without them.’

‘But why?’ Hetty demanded. ‘Why would she do such a thing?’

‘I dunno, but that ain’t all. This very morning, Cyrus Clench come to the coffee shop and made me hand over the takings. He said Miss Heathcote was going to put a proper manager in and he took the keys off me and
he locked the shop up. I run straight to the market to find George and told him what had happened.’

Hetty stared at Jane in disbelief. ‘What did he say?’ she asked faintly.

‘You know George,’ Nora said with a grim smile. ‘He said he was going to see the old girl and he took off in a great hurry.’

‘And that’s the last we saw of him,’ Jane murmured tearfully. ‘I’m sorry, Hetty. I dunno what’s got into the old girl, but I ain’t done nothing wrong. Honest.’

Hetty leapt to her feet. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this the minute I walked in the door?’

Jane’s face paled alarmingly and she clutched her swollen belly. ‘Don’t shout at me.’

Nora reached across the table to pat Jane’s hand. ‘Don’t get upset, ducks. It won’t do the baby any good.’

‘It’s no use getting at Jane,’ Granny said, frowning. ‘You shouldn’t have gone off like that and left everything to a daft girl like your sister. If you want to know what’s been going on you should go straight to the old cow in Berkeley Square.’

‘Don’t worry, I will, but first I’m going to see George.’ Hetty moved swiftly across the room to retrieve her bonnet and cape. She hesitated in the doorway, torn between guilt and anger. ‘I know that I’m to blame for some of this, and you were right, Granny. Charles was just stringing me along. All the time he was sweet-talking me he was secretly engaged to his blooming cousin.’ Her voice broke on a sob and she fled from the room.

Outside the rain was coming down in a steady drizzle that showed no signs of letting up. Hetty went in search of a cab but without any success, and she ended up walking all the way to Cottage Green. By the time she reached George’s lodgings she was soaked to the skin and close to exhaustion. It had not occurred to her that he might not be at home, but when no one answered her urgent summons she stepped back to peer up at the windows. She knocked again, and this time she was rewarded by the soft padding sound of bare feet on wooden floorboards. The door opened and George stood there, half naked, with a towel wrapped round his waist and water pooling on the floor at his feet. ‘Hetty! What the hell are you doing here?’

She had received more enthusiastic welcomes but she didn’t care. A bubble of near hysteria rose in her throat and she giggled nervously. ‘You’re wet, George.’

‘You caught me taking a bath.’ He stood aside, holding the door open. ‘You look like a drowned rat yourself. You’d better come in.’

The giggle turned into laughter and then Hetty found she couldn’t stop. Clutching his towel about him, George hooked his arm around her shoulders and led her into the kitchen where a tin tub had been placed strategically in front of the fire. He guided her to a
chair and handed her a scrap of towelling. ‘So you came back then?’