Tangled Threads (37 page)

‘Take no notice of the old sourpuss,’ Helen whispered. ‘But just you watch yourself with old man Carpenter. I reckon he’s got his eye on you.’

For once the remark didn’t bother Eveleen. She just grinned and said, ‘Better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave, eh?’

Helen pretended to wince as if being Josh Carpenter’s darling was the worst fate she could imagine. Eveleen chuckled as she left the workroom to make her way to Josh’s office.
Halfway along the corridor, she was surprised to see Josh lumbering towards her.

‘Eveleen, I wanted to catch you before you get to the office to explain.’ He mopped his brow with his handkerchief and, breathless from hurrying, said, ‘You know you asked me
to find out for you about you caring for the child?’

Eveleen nodded.

‘I didn’t quite know how to set about it so I thought Mr Richard would be the best person to ask.’ He paused a moment but when Eveleen remained silent, waiting for him to go
on, he continued. ‘I thought he’d know about the law, you see, or he’d certainly know someone who did. He’s got friends among solicitors and people like that.’

Get on with it, Josh, Eveleen wanted to say, but steeled herself to stay silent and wait patiently.

‘I gave him all the details, but he says he’d like to talk about it to you himself. They’re waiting in my office for you now.’

As she hurried away all Eveleen was thinking, her heart in her mouth, was, I hope he’s not going to say I can’t keep her. Oh dear Lord, please don’t let him say that, she
prayed to the huge figure in white sitting up there in Heaven. In her anxiety, it hadn’t registered in her mind that Josh had said ‘they are waiting for you’, so when she reached
the office, she was surprised to see not only Mr Richard sitting there, but also his father, Mr Brinsley Stokes.

The two men half rose from their seats as she stepped through the door. How polite they are, she thought, irrationally at such a moment, to get up out of their chairs for the likes of me.

‘Sit down, my dear,’ Mr Brinsley said. His voice was deep and his eyes were filled with concern. ‘Mr Carpenter has told us something of the recent tragic events in your
life.’

This was the first time Eveleen had been really close to the man who had been her mother’s sweetheart and lover. This was the man who had caused her mother so much pain, who had deserted
her when she had needed him the most. And, although he couldn’t possibly know it, his show of kindness towards Mary’s daughter now felt like a further act of betrayal to the girl.

He was more than twenty years too late.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been troubled, sir. I thought Mr Carpenter might be able to help me. That’s all. I didn’t intend him to worry you with my problems.’ Her
hostile glance included Richard. ‘Either of you.’

Father and son glanced at each other and then Mr Brinsley cleared his throat and leant towards her, resting his arms on the desk. ‘But we would both like to help you, my dear. Please
believe me. Now, I’ve asked my solicitor to find out what all the legalities are so that you can keep the child and bring her up as your own.’

‘I can’t afford fancy solicitor’s fees.’ Eveleen knew she was being unfair. The man sitting before her couldn’t know who she was or even begin to guess at the
reason for her rudeness.

‘Don’t concern yourself about the cost,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll see to all that.’

Eveleen’s chin defiantly went a little higher and there was no hint of the gratitude that should have been there in her tone. ‘Thank you, sir, but I’ll manage.’ As long
as it doesn’t cost more than a farthing, she thought dryly.

Her antagonism was fuelled by Richard saying, ‘I told you she’d be prickly, Father.’

Eveleen glanced at him and felt her mouth tighten. If you only knew, she thought. I could wipe that smile off your face in five seconds flat.

Brinsley cleared his throat. He shuffled some papers on Josh’s desk unnecessarily and was obviously ill at ease. ‘There’s something I would like to ask you, my dear. I hope you
don’t mind?’

Eveleen knew she was in no position to refuse, so she sat there, her face like a thundercloud, while he struggled to find the right words. ‘Er – the names Mr Carpenter gave us. Well,
I just wanted to ask you. Er . . .’ Still he did not seem able to phrase the question.

With blinding clarity, Eveleen suddenly realized what he was trying to say, but she kept silent. She took pleasure in seeing the man struggle.

‘Your mother, Mary?’ His dark eyes were looking directly into Eveleen’s. ‘Was her name really Mary Singleton before she married?’

Eveleen nodded, watching him closely. ‘Yes,’ she said with deliberate emphasis on every word. ‘She used to live in Flawford in Singleton’s Yard in what they call
Ranters’ Row.’

She was quite unprepared for the effect her words had. There was such a look of longing and of loss deep in Brinsley Stokes’s eyes. The colour drained from his face, leaving it ashen. His
hands, still lying on the desk, trembled and he seemed, suddenly, to find difficulty in breathing.

‘Father? Father, are you all right?’ Richard was bending over him, his hand already on the older man’s shoulder.

Brinsley waved one hand and said huskily, ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’

He pulled in a painful deep breath and looked straight into Eveleen’s wide-eyed gaze. Now it was Eveleen’s turn to pull in a sharp breath. She was shocked to see unshed tears
brimming in the man’s eyes.

Brinsley closed his eyes and sighed. ‘It must be,’ he murmured more to himself than to anyone else. ‘It can’t be a coincidence. It must be her.’

‘Oh it is, Mr Stokes.’ She could not stop the words spilling out of her mouth, could not hide the years of resentment against him. ‘It is the girl you deserted and left
pregnant more than twenty years ago.’ Bitterly, thinking of Jimmy, she added, ‘It seems as if history repeats itself in our family.’

Richard’s hand was still resting on his father’s shoulder and she saw it tighten, but at this moment she dare not meet the younger man’s eyes. She kept her hostile gaze
directed solely at Brinsley Stokes.

He was staring back at her, his colourless lips slightly parted in a gasp. ‘Deserted? And – pregnant? Mary was – pregnant?’ His face worked, threatened to crumple as he
whispered, ‘You say she was expecting a child?
My
child?’ Even Eveleen, determined to detest this man, to make him suffer as much as it was in her power to do so, could not fail
to hear the incredulity in his tone.

All the anger and the hurt against him, and now Jimmy too, seemed to boil up inside her. ‘Don’t try to tell me you didn’t know.’ Remembering the more recent denial by her
brother, she added, ‘Don’t you dare to say it wasn’t yours.’

He was shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘I didn’t know about the child. I swear I didn’t. But no,’ he added hoarsely. ‘I’m not going to deny that it’s
mine.’

‘Oh!’ That, more than anything, surprised her.

He leant on the desk and buried his face in his hands and groaned aloud.

‘Father,’ Richard was anxious now. He turned angry eyes towards Eveleen. ‘I think you’d better leave.’

Brinsley looked up. ‘No, no. I’m fine.’ He patted his son’s hand that still rested on his shoulder. ‘Really.’ Then, suddenly brighter and with renewed spirit,
Brinsley began to flash questions at Eveleen. ‘How is she? Is she well? And the child? Was that – is that you?’

Eveleen shook her head. ‘No, she had a baby boy.’ Still needing to twist the knife that she had already plunged in deep, she said, ‘She gave birth to him in a ditch with only a
gypsy woman to hold her hand.’ Her voice flat, she added, ‘The child died and my mother nearly died too.’

He was shaking his head again. ‘And I never knew.’ He was gazing at Eveleen as if trying to find a likeness in her features to his lost love. ‘I must see her. Do you think she
will see me?’ The yearning in his tone was evident and against her will Eveleen found her resolve to hate him begin to crumble.

He sounded sincere. If she let herself, she could almost believe that what he said was true. That he had not known about her mother’s pregnancy. But even yet she was not prepared to
forgive. ‘I was told you went away. That you left her.’

‘I – did. My parents arranged for me to go away to London to learn other aspects of our trade. But I explained all that to Mary in a letter. I wrote to her time and again . .
.’ His voice faded away as realization came to them all. ‘She never got the letters, did she?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eveleen said truthfully, ‘but it sounds very unlikely.’

‘But what happened? Why – why did she – have to give birth in such dreadful circumstances? I don’t understand.’

‘Her family treated her very harshly and she ran away from home. She found work on the land, but after she lost the baby she was very ill. Then she met my father. He—’ Her
voice broke now in the telling. ‘He was a wonderful man, who loved her dearly. She was happy with him, I think, through the years.’ She stopped and there was an unspoken
‘but’ lying between them.

Brinsley cleared his throat and tried to speak, though she could see that he was deeply affected. ‘Do you think,’ he asked again, ‘she would see me?’

‘I don’t know,’ was all Eveleen could answer him. ‘But I’ll ask her.’

‘No, no,’ Mary’s voice began to rise hysterically. ‘No, I don’t want to meet him. I – I can’t.’

Eveleen stood looking down at her. Despite the protest, she thought that there was a tiny part of her mother that still longed to see Brinsley Stokes again. She had been too quick to refuse, too
vehement.

‘You said the other day that you wanted to see him.’

‘
See
him, yes, but not to meet him. Not to have to talk to him.’

‘He says, Mam, that he knew nothing about you being pregnant.’

Mary’s head snapped up. ‘He’s lying then.’ There was a pause and Eveleen saw the doubt creep into her mother’s eyes. ‘Isn’t he?’

Eveleen sat down. ‘I’m loath to admit it, but he – he seemed genuinely shocked when I told him. But you know me, Mam,’ she added, ‘I can’t trust a man further
than I can throw him.’ She smiled, trying to lighten the tension with a little humour. ‘And most of ’em I can’t even pick up!’

A small smile flickered on Mary’s mouth but it did not reach her eyes, clouded with doubt.

Eveleen leant back in the chair and gave herself a few moments’ respite. The baby was quiet and she and Mary had had their supper. A few minutes’ respite before she began her evening
work at the stocking-machine wouldn’t hurt. ‘Maybe I’m wrong, Mam. Maybe there are some men you can trust.’

‘You could trust your dad,’ Mary murmured, gazing into the glowing coals in the range.

Eveleen closed her eyes and thought about her father. She could see his face so clearly she almost believed that if she opened her eyes he would be standing there in the room with them. He was
smiling that slow smile and his eyes were twinkling with mischief, just like they had when she was being particularly stubborn.

Then the vision of him faded and a picture of Stephen Dunsmore’s face thrust its way into her mind’s eye. Fair hair and blue eyes that had once been bright with passion and desire
had turned, overnight it seemed, so cold. The mouth that had kissed her so tenderly and whispered such promises had, in the end, uttered only lies. When his father had handed him the reins of
running the estate, the power had gone to the young man’s head and she was no longer ‘suitable’.

Then that final insult when he had ridden by on the day of their departure. He had deliberately ignored her. She could never forgive him for that.

She dragged her thoughts resolutely away from Stephen and stood up. ‘This isn’t getting the work done.’

But Mary was still daydreaming. ‘What does he look like now?’ The wistful note in her tone made Eveleen pause and force herself to say quite truthfully, ‘He’s –
he’s a very handsome man.’

‘He always was.’ The longing that she had heard in Brinsley Stokes’s voice was echoed now in her mother’s.

‘I wonder,’ Mary murmured, ‘if he really didn’t know.’

Eveleen sighed inwardly and sat down again. This was not the time to be worrying about work. Tonight her mother’s need was greater than Eveleen earning a few more coppers, precious though
those pennies might be.

‘I made myself believe he’d deserted me,’ Mary went on. ‘I clung to that thought.’

It was an odd thing to cling to, Eveleen thought. It would have seemed more natural to hold on to the belief that he had not known. Her mother’s next words explained it. ‘The anger
kept me going, you see,’ she said simply. ‘If I could blame him more than I blamed myself, then I could survive.’ She shook her head. ‘Only my poor little baby
didn’t.’

It was all tangled up with her harsh upbringing, Eveleen thought. Mary had needed someone to blame. She had not been able to forgive herself for bringing supposed shame on her family nor for the
death of her child. Blaming Brinsley for what she had believed had been his desertion of her had given her a focus and had eased her own conscience.

Softly Eveleen asked, ‘Mam, what do you really want? Do you want to see him?’

‘I . . .’ Mary began. Slowly she nodded and whispered, ‘But I’m so afraid.’

For a few days they let the matter rest, but Brinsley Stokes was impatient. Once more Eveleen was called to Josh Carpenter’s office, much to her supervisor’s
annoyance, to find Brinsley pacing up and down the tiny space in front of the desk.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said his tone testy with impatience. ‘Have you told her? What did she say? Will she see me?’

Eveleen remained standing and faced him squarely. ‘She’s like me,’ she said, her tone betraying nothing. ‘She doesn’t quite know what to believe.’

The man continued his pacing and ran his hand distractedly through his neatly combed hair, leaving it ruffled and sticking up in all directions.

Relenting, though only a little, Eveleen said, ‘Give her a little more time. Part of her wants to see you, yet she’s so afraid.’

‘Afraid? Of me?’ The idea appalled and saddened him. ‘But we loved each other. Oh I know we’ve married other people since and it reassures me to think that she knew
happiness with your father.’ He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I’ve been happy with my wife. She’s a lovely woman, a good woman, but . . .’ He hesitated and for a
moment seemed uncertain. Eveleen caught a glimpse of the young man he had once been. A little shy perhaps and diffident. So obedient to his parents that he had never questioned, had never dreamed
that they would deceive him. As she stared at him struggling to find the right words, Eveleen felt some of the ice around her heart beginning to melt.