The Innkeeper's Daughter (18 page)

‘I’m going in now;
today
,’ Sarah had said stubbornly. ‘I’m going to see my brother.’

‘Your brother?’ Bella repeated stupidly. ‘Which brother?’ To her knowledge her mother hadn’t seen any of her remaining family in years.

‘Bart.’ Her mother wrapped her shawl across her shoulders
and
picked up her basket. ‘You don’t know him. I haven’t seen him since afore William was born. Hurry up, Nell,’ she called.

‘But, Ma.’ Bella was almost in tears. ‘Don’t take Nell. She could help with—’

‘No, Nell’s coming wi’ me. I don’t like going all that way on my own.’

‘What about Henry?’ Bella implored. ‘How can I watch him when I’m serving food and drink?’

Sarah shook her head indifferently. ‘You’ll manage, I expect. You’re very capable, Bella. Tek him into ’taproom wi’ you and you can keep an eye on him. And Joe’ll be here.’

‘Joe!’ Bella said, exasperated. ‘He’s worse than useless,’ and she covered her face with her hands, trying not to cry.

Nell came into the kitchen, done up in her best skirt and blouse and looking very uppish because she was going out for the day. Now she had left school she was supposed to help in the house with chores and baking, the laundry and cleaning the inn, for they had lost old Annie who had succumbed to rheumatism and could no longer turn the handle of the mangle or squeeze out the floor cloths. But Nell was lazy and did as little as she could possibly get away with, and persisted in declaring that one day she was going to be a singer.

After they had gone Bella had sat down on a kitchen chair and sobbed. Henry had trotted towards her and put up his chubby arms to her. She lifted him up and he patted her face, his mouth trembling as he comforted her, which made her cry even more.

Her mother said nothing about the trip when she came home and Bella didn’t ask her, mainly because Nell looked so smug, as if she had a secret which Bella knew nothing about, so in a fit of pique Bella left all the dinner dishes for her to wash and dry and put away.

But now she knew the reason for the excursion into Hull. Her mother had received three letters over the past month, but hadn’t said who had sent them, and this morning she had received another. Joe hadn’t particularly noticed the others
arriving
but today he had been outside when the postie arrived and had taken the letter from him.

‘Who’s ’letter from, Ma?’ he asked, handing it to her. ‘Who do you know in Hull?’

Sarah sat down and slit open the envelope with a table knife and brought out two sheets of thick notepaper. She read the contents before answering. ‘My brother Bart,’ she said. ‘I asked him to do a little job for me, and he has.’

She went up to her bedroom, taking the letter with her, and said nothing more about it until later in the day when they were all sitting at the table having tea before opening the inn.

She took the letter from her apron pocket and held it up. ‘I asked my brother to look for a place for us in Hull,’ she said. ‘And he’s found one. We’re flitting. We’re tekking over a public house.’

Bella and Joe had looked at their mother as if she had lost her senses, which Bella was inclined to believe she had. It was Joe who found his voice first. ‘What ’you talking about, Ma? Why would we want to live in Hull? We’ve got a nice place here!’

Sarah’s eyes moved stubbornly from Joe to Bella. ‘Cos I want to,’ she said. ‘It’s where I belong. It’s where I come from. I want to go back.’

Bella glanced at Nell, who gave a smirk and raised both her eyebrows and shoulders in wilful dismissal. ‘Nowt to do wi’ me,’ she muttered, and then gave a self-satisfied smile. ‘But I shan’t mind.’

There was nothing Bella could find to say to express her astonishment, dismay and absolute dread of leaving the only home she had ever known, so she excused herself from the table and escaped from the kitchen and ran up to her room.

It’s not that I wouldn’t ever want to leave, she thought as she curled up on her bed, it’s just that I’d always want to come back. I imagined that ’Woodman would always be our family home. And when she recalled the question that Jamie Lucan had asked – ‘If I should go away for a time and then come
back,
would you still be here?’ – she remembered her reply. I said yes. Never imagining that I wouldn’t be.

Bella knew that once her mother had made up her mind about a situation she wouldn’t be deflected from it. It was how she used to be before Joseph died, so to some extent she had made a partial recovery, and Bella wondered how long she had been planning a return to her home town. She hardly ever spoke of Hull and Bella had assumed she had cut all ties with her family. Now she realized that she hadn’t.

She heard a clatter coming from the labourers’ room and rose from her bed. The men, who had been taken on by a local farmer to plough and harrow the fallow fields in readiness for sowing the winter corn, were going down for their supper and she must serve it, no matter what turmoil she was in over the news her mother had announced.

If I refused to go, what would happen, she thought, pouring water from the jug into the bowl and rinsing her face. Ma couldn’t manage a public house or a hostelry on her own without me to help her. Joe would be a liability and Nell, well, her sister would be useless in running such an establishment. Ma would have to have paid help, or maybe this newly discovered brother would help her. She felt tears gathering again and wiped them away with the towel. And I can’t abandon Henry. He’s mine even more than he’s Ma’s and he’d be lost without me.

The inn was packed that night and Bella was pleased; she thought that perhaps her mother would realize what a profitable business they had here, good enough for them all to have a living, although she would be the first to admit that their needs were few: they were not extravagant people and on the edge of a small village there were no temptations. Hedon was the nearest market town and as they had a goat for milk, grew their own vegetables and baked their own bread and cakes, and the butcher called once a fortnight, there was rarely any need to travel there, except perhaps to buy sundries such as cotton from the haberdasher’s.

Her mother was pleased that they were so busy and pointed out after they had closed for the night that they must make an effort to make as much profit as possible, for they would need plenty of money for the move to Hull. She seemed to have suddenly found an enthusiasm for life.

‘But, Ma,’ Bella implored. ‘We’ve a good business here, and this is our home! What’s ’advantage of moving into Hull? We don’t know anybody there. They’ll think we’re country bumpkins with straw in our hair.’

‘They’ll soon find out we’re not,’ Sarah said adamantly. ‘They’ll soon find out we know a thing or two.’

‘Not about town life, we don’t,’ Bella argued. ‘We onny know about country matters, about haymaking an’ pigs an’ sheep.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Nell butted in. ‘I want to go. There’re theatres an’ concert halls an’ places like that. I can’t wait to get there.’

‘And will you have money to spend in those places?’ Bella answered sharply. ‘How will you pay? Are you planning on getting a job of work?’

Bella wondered if her mother had another plan or if she would continue to hold the purse strings. And would Nell stay to help them manage this unknown public house or leave to go into service, which is what she would have done if she hadn’t been born into a family-run establishment? And, Bella wondered, would it need four of them to make it pay? They must have a discussion, she decided, and thought that if her role wasn’t essential, if her mother was going to take charge, perhaps the way was open for her to follow her dream after all.

Ideas began to flow through her head. If her former teacher was willing, perhaps she could go back to school to help with the children, and maybe she could take lodgings in the village if the small wage Miss Hawkins had mentioned was enough to pay for them. But then she reconsidered. What about Henry?

‘I’m not going to stop wi’ you, don’t think that I am.’ Nell interrupted Bella’s meandering thoughts. ‘I’ve allus said I’m
going
to be a singer. And I am. Tell her, Ma. Tell Bella what we’ve decided.’

Their mother sat down and clasped her hands together. ‘Nell’d be no good in such a place,’ she said a little sheepishly. ‘We know that, don’t we, Bella? So what we’ve decided is that as she’s so set on being a singer, then that’s what she can try to be. She’ll try to get an audition. There are places in Hull where she can go. And then there’d be you and me to look after ’public house, and Joe to do ’heavy work.’ She looked pleadingly at Bella. ‘I’ll do more than I have done, Bella. I’ve not been well since your father died, but once I’m back home again I’ll be all right.’

She heaved a huge sigh. ‘But I can’t do it without you, Bella, an’ that’s a fact.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

WHAT WAS HER
mother thinking of? And how horrified her father would have been, were Bella’s thoughts. He would have been devastated to learn that his youngest daughter was going to earn her living on the stage. It was not a fitting occupation for a young and innocent girl, especially one coming from a rural community deep in the countryside.

But that apart, Bella was convinced that her sister had persuaded her mother that going back to live in Hull was the best thing she could do. She’s so sharp, Bella considered bleakly. Much more than I am. She’s viewed the situation and having seen that Ma was uneasy and unhappy without Father has sought for a distraction; she’s planted an idea in her mind rather than wait for time to settle her which is what I was doing, and it worked. She’s clever, I have to admit that, and she knows that I’ll follow Ma because of Henry.

‘Why didn’t you ask me first, Ma?’ Bella said quietly. ‘Or Joe? Don’t you think that as we both work at ’Woodman then we should have been in ’discussion before you made a decision?’

Her mother looked embarrassed. ‘Well,’ she muttered, ‘I was going to, but you know how I’ve been since your father went. I’ve not known what I was doing half of ’time and then having Henry …’ her voice tailed away, ‘and when Nell suggested I write to Bart and ask his advice—’

‘Ah!’ Bella said softly. ‘And I expect that Nell helped you write ’letter, did she?’

‘She did.’ Her mother seemed surprised at Bella’s perception. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to put.’ She turned to Nell. ‘I should have told them. I said at ’time we should tell Joe and Bella.’

Nell shook her head. ‘I don’t remember you saying that, Ma. It was you that said you’d like to go back to Hull. You said that you didn’t belong in ’country. That you were a townie.’

‘Yes,’ Sarah answered vaguely. ‘I believe I did say that.’

‘Is it too late to change your mind?’ Joe asked bluntly. ‘If you haven’t signed a contract or owt we don’t have to go. It seems to me that our Nell has persuaded you for her own ends.’

So it’s not just me, Bella thought with relief. Not just me that thinks that Nell has been scheming.

‘I’m sorry.’ Sarah wrung her hands. ‘I’ve signed ’contract. Bart found this public house which he thought was suitable and sent ’details. It’s in ’middle of ’town and he said it can be made into summat once we’ve done it up a bit. I’ve paid a deposit to secure ’tenancy. That was ’receipt and contract that came today.’

‘And when did you go to see it, Ma?’ Joe asked. ‘Is it a big place? Will it keep all of us?’

Sarah glanced at Nell. ‘I – I haven’t seen it,’ she whispered, ‘but Bart said he thought it was in a good situation.’

‘You haven’t seen it! You’ve paid out money for a place you haven’t looked at!’ Bella couldn’t believe that her mother could make such a mistake, or that she would allow her brother whom she hadn’t seen in years and her fifteen-year-old daughter to persuade her that it was a suitable proposition.

‘We’ll cancel it,’ Joe said decisively and Bella was pleased that he had drawn sides with her. ‘We’ve got to look at ’place first.’

Their mother shook her head. ‘We can’t,’ she muttered. ‘I’m sorry if you think I’ve been foolish, but I’m sure it’ll be all right in ’long run. But I do want to go back to Hull, and I’ve written to ’owner of ’Woodman to terminate our tenancy.’

Joe and Bella agreed that it was out of their hands. The contract seemed to be in order although neither of them had sufficient understanding of such matters to notice any flaws.

‘It’s come from ’brewery,’ Joe said, after looking at it, ‘so it must be set in stone.’

Bella put her head in her hands and wept. ‘I can’t believe that we have to leave,’ she sobbed. ‘How could she? How could Ma have done this without consulting us? How could she have been persuaded by Nell that it was ’right thing to do?’

Joe sat across from her by the low fire in the snug where they had gone to talk. ‘It might not be that bad, Bella,’ he said, taking a long draught from his tankard. ‘It’ll be different, anyway, and we’ve both been tied here since we were bairns. Haven’t you ever wanted to get away?’

She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘No.’ She thought how odd that it took something as drastic as this for her to have a conversation with her brother. ‘Well, yes,’ she admitted. ‘I wanted to train to be a teacher, and then when Father knew he was ill he said I had to stay here to help Ma.’

‘You still could be,’ he said. ‘Me an’ Ma could probably manage, providing it’s not too big a place.’

And providing you stayed off the drink, she thought, but didn’t say, because there were times when Joe did try to stop, but then failed miserably, just like now when he had had to pull himself a tankard of ale before sitting down to talk.

‘And Henry? Who’d look after him?’

Joe shrugged. ‘He can go to school,’ he said. ‘He’s four, or very nearly. He won’t need looking after.’

A strange school with children he didn’t know, Bella thought. Children who would make fun of his country accent and his lameness. She’d already spoken to Miss Hawkins about Henry’s starting school after Christmas; she’d been reading to him and teaching him his letters, and now she’d have to tell her that he wouldn’t be going.

And if I don’t go with them, who would put Henry to bed at night if Ma was serving in the bar? No, she couldn’t bear to think of leaving him to fend for himself, as some children
had
to. Neither did she think that Joe and her mother would manage alone, especially as her mother had specifically said that she couldn’t do it without her help.