Authors: Janet MacLeod Trotter
Two young boys ran up the steps ahead of them, their faces rosy and well nourished, to alert the staff. A pleasant-faced nurse showed them into a large schoolroom and went off to find the housemother. Maggie looked around her in astonishment. There were bright maps and pictures adorning the walls and one corner had been given over to a play area with dolls and toys like a children’s nursery.
Maggie lowered herself carefully into one of the miniature benches attached to the infant desks and breathed in the smell of ink and chalk and children. For a moment she was transported back to her own classroom where Rose Johnstone had nurtured her passion for learning and she remembered that she had once yearned to be a teacher. Where was Rose now? Maggie sighed to herself and thought how differently her life had turned out.
‘I like the feel of this place, John,’ she murmured, listening to the clatter of feet on a staircase beyond the door. ‘It’s so different from St Chad’s.’
‘I quite agree,’ her husband nodded, picking up an exercise book and flicking through its pages. ‘It has the atmosphere of a happily run home.’
Maggie felt her spirits lighten at the thought that her daughter might have been here for most of her two years of life, breathing in the fresh country air and cared for by kind people.
When the smiling housemother appeared, Maggie’s optimism increased further. The woman was about Rose Johnstone’s age, neatly dressed in a suit rather than a uniform and with a concerned and interested demeanour.
She stretched out her hand in greeting. ‘I’m Lucinda Cooper, the housemother here. What a way you’ve come! If you had given me some warning I could have made arrangements for you to stay in the village.’
‘We didn’t have time,’ Maggie answered, returning her smile.
‘I apologise for the abruptness of our arrival,
’
John intervened, ‘but we’ve come on a matter of some urgency.’
‘You’ll take tea with me then?’ Miss Cooper suggested. ‘While we discuss the matter.’
She ushered them into a small sitting room across the hall. As they followed her, a stream of small children came hurrying in from outside, their pink faces muffled in scarves and hats. They squealed and chattered as they took refuge from the sleety rain, cajoled and fussed over by an older woman in a brown cape.
Maggie’s heart lurched as she scanned the faces of the small girls, wondering ... But they appeared older than Christabel, already fluent in speech. They disappeared in a giggling band while their nurse tried to curb their noisy exuberance.
Inside the cosy sitting room, a coal fire blazed and teacups and teapot were already laid out on a gate-legged table. The furniture was ill matched and a touch shabby, but the walls were lined with pictures and bookcases, denoting the interests of Miss Cooper.
As she poured tea, she chatted to them about the running of the home to put them at their ease. Then she turned to Maggie and fixed her with a direct look.
‘But perhaps your interest doesn’t lie in the management of the home,’ she said. ‘You have some particular concern?’
‘Yes,’ Maggie blurted out. ‘We’re trying to find my daughter, Christabel.’
Lucinda Cooper’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
‘Your daughter? Christabel you say?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, we have no child named Christabel Heslop.’
John interjected quickly, ‘No, the child is not mine.’ He stopped suddenly, aware of Maggie’s discomfort, and wished he had not been so quick to disown the girl.
‘She carries my maiden name, Beaton,’ Maggie explained bashfully. ‘We believe her name was changed from Christabel to Martha when she arrived from St Chad’s. She’ll be nearly two now.’
‘Ah,’ Miss Cooper exclaimed in understanding, ‘the child came from the orphanage at St Chad’s.
’
Maggie nodded eagerly. ‘Is she here, then? Do you know my Christabel?’
The woman’s brow furrowed. ‘There was a Martha Brown who came to us from St Chad’s a little less than two years ago, a sweet baby. It’s very possible that the surname was changed as well as the Christian name.’
‘Can we see her?’ Maggie questioned eagerly. ‘Please!’
Miss Cooper looked at her with sad compassion. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, but little Martha - Christabel - was adopted over a year ago.’
Maggie felt her mouth and throat go dry.
‘Are you quite sure about this?’ John demanded, reaching to hold Maggie’s hand.
Lucinda Cooper nodded. ‘Quite sure.’
‘But she can’t be,’ Maggie gasped, closing her eyes. ‘She’s mine!’
‘We had no idea the natural mother had any interest in Martha,’ Miss Cooper answered quietly but firmly. ‘In fact we did not know of your existence, Mrs Heslop.’
‘Who adopted her?’ John asked forlornly.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.’ The housemother was adamant.
Maggie opened her eyes and looked at the other woman with such desolation that she flinched.
‘Please,’ Maggie whispered, ‘I have to know. I need to know that my Christabel is in good hands - caring hands.
’
Miss Cooper hesitated, then shook her head again. ‘I really can’t give away their identity. All I can say is that your daughter will want for nothing in her new life. I can show you a photograph of her if you wish.’
Maggie could not speak, merely nodding her head vigorously.
Lucinda Cooper crossed over to a filing cabinet and pulled out one of the drawers. She rummaged for a minute and returned with a binder. From it she drew a photograph and handed it to Maggie.
She stared down at the small child in the picture. She was wearing a tailor-made outdoor coat and hat and buttoned-up boots beneath flounces of petticoats. But it was not the expensive clothes that interested Maggie, it was the enquiring look on the little girl’s face. She was not smiling at the camera but gazing at it in curiosity with round dark eyes, her petite face framed by dark ringlets. In that moment, Maggie had no doubt that this was Christabel; it was as if she already knew this inquisitive infant. The eyes seemed to look at her directly, accusingly, as if to ask why she had not been there to claim her.
Maggie’s eyes brimmed with tears and she broke down in front of the concerned housemother.
John took her to him and tried to comfort her, but she was overwhelmed by her grief. Lucinda Cooper withdrew to give them time alone together to come to terms with the bad news, carefully locking away the file while leaving the photograph of Christabel on the table.
Maggie made a supreme effort to pull herself together, blowing hard into John’s cotton handkerchief.
‘Look at her, John,’ she insisted. ‘Look at her before we leave and know that she exists.’
Reluctantly John picked up the picture and glanced at the stubborn-faced child that challenged him. He was struck immediately by how like Maggie she was, the same oval eyes and determined mouth. It was a sudden relief to him that Christabel held no resemblance to George Gordon and he thought sadly how he could have cared for this child, even grown to love her.
Maggie heard his small involuntary gasp. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s nothing,’ he stammered. ‘I just thought…’
‘What, John?’ Maggie persisted. ‘Tell me, please.’
John took a deep breath and pointed to something in the background of the photograph. Maggie peered at the out-of-focus building behind Christabel. She had been far too absorbed in the girl to notice anything else.
‘Does it remind you of anywhere?’ he asked, almost in a whisper. ‘Look at the domes; cupolas they call them.’
Maggie knew at once what he was thinking. She froze at his side.
‘Oxford Hall?’ she whispered.
John nodded ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘The Pearsons?’ Maggie gasped. ‘Please God, no!’
But as she stared again at the well-dressed child in front of the hazy mansion, she was afraid John was right. Suddenly she thought of Alice Pearson and her love of photography and wondered if her adversary had been the one to capture Christabel’s puzzled gaze.
The Armistice was declared on 11 November, and just before eleven o’clock the noise of clanging and hammering in the shipyards stopped. Trams halted, horses were held and children in the playgrounds stood still; the world seemed to hold its breath as the bugles sounded out the end to the war. Maggie had been crossing town on her way back from seeing Susan when the hour struck.
With the traffic and bustle of the city calmed, she could hear clearly the chirp of birds. The moment was unexpectedly poignant as everyone around her became lost in their own private world of remembrance. She thought sadly of George, though the pain of grief for him had lessened since her fondness for John had grown, and her new agony over losing Christabel to the Pearsons overshadowed all other emotions.
After their depressing trip to Hebron Children’s Home, Maggie had scoured the local press for any mention of another child in the Pearson household. She could find no announcements about a daughter but she found a picture of the MP, Herbert Pearson, shaking hands with Red Cross workers with his family arrayed behind him. There stood his thin wife and a boy of about eight or nine dressed in a fashionable sailor’s suit. Beside him was a small girl with dark ringlets under a fur hat. The photograph in the newspaper was blurred, but Maggie was convinced the girl was Christabel.
For a week she had rowed with John about confronting the Pearsons and asking for her daughter back, but he had been firmly against any action. There was no law to protect orphans or to give her the right to claim Christabel, he pointed out endlessly. Maggie had grown so desperate she thought of posing as a nursemaid and snatching Christabel, but she knew such action would be futile. It was her helplessness and rage that kept her pounding the streets of Newcastle, unable to settle to her work at the Co-operative Guild or return home to her husband.
But for these few brief moments, she was forced to be still. The quietness wrapped itself round her like healing bandages and she realised she was so tired of fighting. Her desire to see Christabel gnawed at her like toothache but for the first time she doubted her own strength to carry on the battle. There seemed to be too much opposition ranged against her, she thought bleakly.
As the traffic moved again, Maggie turned for home, thinking suddenly of her brother Jimmy. As far as she knew, Tich had survived the carnage in Flanders and for that at least she was thankful. Maggie felt a faint lifting of her mood to think she might see her brother again soon.
That night the sky was lit with bonfires burning all night on the slag heaps around the edge of the town and people took down the dark green blinds from their windows so that the whole street shone with cheery light.
Later in the week a ‘Victory Tea
’
was held in the street, with tables dragged out onto the cobbles and Union Jacks strung along the railings. Somehow the women managed to produce a feast of cakes and fruit and ham sandwiches for the children to enjoy, and talked to them excitedly of their fathers coming home. Maggie would have preferred to hide indoors but Millie and John persuaded her to join in the street party.
Maggie watched numbly until one small girl from the house across the street, who often chose her doorstep on which to play her games of ‘house’, climbed onto her knee. Suddenly, to Maggie’s consternation, Sally burst into tears.
‘What’s wrong, pet?’ Maggie asked, cuddling the girl to her.
‘It’s that man,’ the girl sobbed.
‘Which man, Sally?’
‘There’s a strange man coming - I’ve seen his picture and Mam says he’s going to live with us in the same house and I’ve got to sit on his knee and give him a kiss!’ The child howled once more.
Maggie rocked her comfortingly in the raw November air and kissed her cold cheek. ‘Don’t be frightened, hinny,’ she crooned. ‘It’s your da, not a strange man. You’ll soon get to love him.’
‘No I won’t!’ cried the girl.
Maggie felt unexpectedly distressed by the girl’s fear. Was this how Christabel would have felt about George returning to them? She forced herself to smile at the confused girl.
‘Bet he’ll bring you summat back from France.’
Sally stopped sniffing. ‘Do you think so?’ she asked, suddenly interested.
‘Aye,’ Maggie nodded.
‘But I’ve got nothing for him,’ Sally worried.
‘Yes you have, bonny lass,’ Maggie assured her. ‘You’ve got yourself and your mam and that’s all he’ll be wanting.’ Suddenly she was overwhelmed by everyone else’s joy and laughter and felt an unbearable stab of loss.
John saw at once that Maggie was distressed and swiftly handed Sally over to Millie, steering Maggie indoors. He pulled her into the dining room at the back of the house, away from the excited noise of the party. He tried to hold her close but she struggled to be free of him.
‘Why me?’ she raged, tears streaming down her face. ‘What have I done to your God to be suffering like this? Will I never be able to stop thinking of George and Christabel and what should have been?’
John stood stern-faced but hung on to her hands. ‘You have to give it time,’ he told her.
‘Time?’ she spat.
‘Yes, time!’ he answered. ‘You’re not the only one in this world to suffer, you know. I know what it’s like to lose those closest to me too. Don’t you ever think how I’ve suffered?’ he shouted.
Maggie was taken aback by his anger. It was true; she often forgot how his first wife and baby had died, for he never mentioned them. But her own personal agony was too all-consuming to be able to think of his.
‘But I’m in so much pain!’ Maggie rasped. ‘Why do we have to suffer? What’s the point of it all? All this death and misery? Why?’
John was shaken to the core by her hurt and lack of belief. It was like watching her drowning before his very eyes and he fought to throw her a lifeline, knowing if he said the wrong thing now he would lose her for ever.
‘I don’t know,
’
he answered in a low, intense voice, his grip digging into Maggie’s bony hands. ‘All I know is that there must be a purpose to pain - you have to make it matter!’
She looked at him in bewilderment.