Shelter from the Storm (10 page)

‘Has she said it was me?’ If she had then there was no help for it. All his denials would go unheard and he would be obliged to marry her. If she had said so then it was because something dreadful had happened and she needed him to lie for her, to accept her in deceit, to believe that there was no other way.

‘She has said nothing but it could be nobody else. She knows no one, she goes nowhere. The young man we wanted for her she would have nothing to do with. Are you denying it?’

‘Talk to her,’ Joe said, and he walked out with his father’s insults raging in his ears. He could still hear them when he got upstairs to his room, but after he shut the heavy door the noise was almost drowned out. He turned the key in the lock just in case his father was energetic enough to come up the stairs and rage further. The door was stout, it had kept his father out a good many times before. It wouldn’t fail him.

*

Her mother sat doing nothing and crying afresh from time to time. She kept out of the way, as though she knew the sight of her was too much for them. Her father had gone out. When he came home in the late evening he called her into the sitting room and demanded that she should tell him who the boy was.

‘It was … it was somebody I didn’t know, somebody I’d never met before—’

‘Esther Margaret, it isn’t any use to lie.’ She hated the patient note in his voice. ‘We know who it was.’

‘You know?’ She thought back. Maybe somebody had seen her with Dryden, walking in the country, coming in or out of the barn, standing talking on the Cutting Bridge or even when he had left the house the first time they had been together. It had been such a precious memory; now it seemed so tawdry. ‘How could you know?’

‘I went to see his father.’

Esther Margaret wanted to laugh; at least the part of her that wasn’t ready to cry or scream did.

‘We did everything we could to keep you away from him because he comes from bad stock. People think just because they have possessions, just because they have power over other people, that they can take what they like, do what they want. We tried to save you from yourself. He has bad blood in him, no good will come of it, but now we must make him marry you. You’ll have to go there and live with them, we wish you well of it, we won’t be coming to visit. You have made your bed, in spite of all our efforts to guide you, and so you must lie on it.’

And then she realised. They thought Joe had done it, sweet, lovely Joe who was the most honourable person she knew.

‘You went to see Mr Forster?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Nothing. Not much. He didn’t deny it.’

Esther Margaret felt her insides twist. If only she had agreed to go away with Joe. If only she had had more sense then, she could have been free, she could have had for herself the nicest man in the area, perhaps in the whole world, who hadn’t even the sense to deny that she was carrying his child, who cared so much for her that he was prepared to do anything to help. She wished she could have said that it was Joe’s. She almost thought that
despite what she had done Joe would take her, marry her, that she could have her wish come true, she could wind back the days. She saw that he was not weak, that he was strong enough to support the mistakes she had made. If she chose, if she was weak enough to involve him, Joe would save her. And she was only glad that she cared too much about him to do that to him, that her better side would not let her accuse him because all she had to do was say it was him and there would be nobody to stop it. Joe had put that power into her hands, given himself like some awful ancient sacrifice. For people who did not know better he was ready to burn. Joe cared nothing for his existence and she had been stupid enough to turn him down.

‘It wasn’t Joe.’

Her father shook his head and looked sorrowfully down at the floor.

‘You can’t shield him. He must answer for what he did and you must marry him. It’s your own fault.’

‘It wasn’t Joe.’

Her mother turned a tear-stained face towards her.

‘Who taught you to lie? Who taught you to deceive us and in such a way? We tried to bring you up respectably. We are … we are important people in this village. How will we hold up our heads? His mother was a slut who ran off and his father is a drunkard who is ruining the village. Could you choose anybody worse? You did this to spite us when we did everything we could for you. We found a nice young man for you—’

‘I went with Dryden Cameron,’ Esther Margaret said clearly.

It shut her mother up, that was the first good thing about it, and then their faces showed disbelief.

‘He came to the house the day that you went to visit Aunt Florrie. We spent all day upstairs in my bedroom and the Sunday after in an old barn just above Bridge In.’

Her mother sobbed, broke down, would not have it, said over and over that it was not true, that Esther Margaret was just saying such things to hurt her feelings, and her father said that it
was no use her trying to protect Joe Forster by making wild accusations, that she was being ridiculous; had she lost her mind?

‘It was nothing to do with Joe. You can’t make him marry me for something he didn’t do. I went with Dryden Cameron and he didn’t force me, so don’t think it. I wanted to.’

‘You couldn’t do such a thing,’ her mother managed. ‘You are a wicked girl to cause us such pain. You couldn’t have, not with him.’

There was a look on their faces that she would remember all her life. The best they could contrive was to make the most hated young man in the village their son-in-law. They would have no choice if she continued to deny that the baby was Joe’s and insist it was Dryden’s. They could not send her away against her will, though the idea of being married to Dryden was enough to make anybody go cold. She had no choice.

Vinia had taken to going to bed before Tom came in drunk at night, but this time he was early and she was not undressed before he came upstairs. She had learned to gauge how drunk he was. She preferred it when he was so drunk that he couldn’t manage the steep stairs because then he would have to sleep on the settee, but very often he would make the stairs and be just sober enough to undress before he fell into bed. She had no objection to that either. It was preferable to being pawed before sleep. It was obvious to her, however, that Tom was not drunk, because he asked her who had been there. He didn’t tell her how he knew somebody had been there. All he said was, ‘Has my mam been round?’

‘Esther Margaret called in.’

‘What did she want?’

It was no good putting him off.

‘She’s in bother.’

Tom paused in undoing the buttons on his shirt.

‘What, real bother?’ He stared for a moment longer and then started to laugh. ‘Never in this world!’ he said. ‘That prissy little cow? What brave lad got inside her knickers, then?’

It was with a certain bitter satisfaction that she told him.

‘Dryden.’

Tom didn’t react at all as she had thought he would. The laughter died.

‘How do you know?’ he said flatly.

‘She told me.’

‘She could be lying.’

‘What would be the point of that? What girl would claim Dryden as the father if she could claim anybody else?’

‘The bloody stupid little sod!’ Tom said, and wrenched his shirt off. He stood for several minutes calling Dryden every name he could think of, and then neither of them said anything more until they got into bed and lay there, thinking about it.

‘He’ll have to marry her,’ Vinia said.

‘Aye, I suppose he will. There are worse reasons. We don’t seem to be able to do it.’ And he blew out the candle and turned his back on her.

*

Esther Margaret could not imagine what Dryden would say. She was sure that he would refuse to marry her, that he would not have anything to do with her, and she lay in bed at night and shivered thinking of what would happen then. To be an unmarried mother was unthinkable. She had already decided that she would not give the baby up. She would never give it up, not for any reason on earth, and if that was so then she could not stay here. She imagined wildly that she would go to her mother’s distant cousin, who was the only relative who lived away, in some remote little fishing village in Northumberland, and she would … she would do what? She couldn’t think. Her days were filled with being sick and feeling ill and her nights were full of dread and terror.

She wanted to see Dryden before her father got round to it, but he was difficult to catch at home; his shifts varied and she was unused to such things, and on Sundays he was only to be found in the pub, or so Mrs Clancy said. Mrs Clancy thought she was pursuing Dryden for romantic reasons and was inclined to laugh about it. Esther Margaret had to press her to find out when he was at home and Mrs Clancy was either not truthful or was
disinclined to answer her questions. She wanted to tell Dryden before her father reached him so that if he was going to be cowardly about it she would know straight away. She finally caught up with him on the street early one Saturday evening.

‘I’m going to the pub,’ he said, trying to brush her aside.

‘This won’t take long,’ she said, hurrying after him. ‘Dryden, please. It’s … it’s important.’

He stopped.

‘Look,’ he said, and he found her face, glanced away, and then looked more determinedly at her. ‘You’re a lovely lass, Esther Margaret, but I don’t care for nobody that way. I’m sorry if you think I did it wrong. It wasn’t meant to hurt you.’

Esther Margaret grabbed his sleeve as he began to set off again. Dryden waited.

‘I’m expecting,’ she said. She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but really there was no good way to tell somebody something like that, especially when he had just confessed to you that he didn’t love you or want you. Dryden stared.

‘Give over,’ he said, and started to walk away. She ran after him.

‘Please, Dryden, listen.’

‘I don’t have to listen. You can’t be. We hardly did it. I’ve been with lasses dozens of times and it’s never happened. You’re daft, you are. You go to church too much.’

‘Please, Dryden.’ She clutched at his coat pocket.

‘How do you know?’ he said.

‘I am’.

‘You’ve been with another lad? You went with Billy Robson?’

‘No. No.’ Her fingers clutched hard at the material of his coat.

‘You’re just saying it.’

‘Why would I?’

Dryden turned away as best he could given that she had both hands fastened in the front of his coat. People were looking, some of them slowing down, watching and listening, two things
he was trying not to do. Esther Margaret thought it must be somebody else beseeching Dryden Cameron to believe she was carrying his child. It could not possibly be the so respectable Esther Margaret Hunter, who was too high and mighty to work, who could have run away with the pit-owner’s son or married her father’s assistant manager, who went to church every Sunday and said her prayers night and morning and embroidered tray cloths with her mother in the sitting room. It could not be her standing in the main street crying over a lad like Dryden Cameron, who got drunk and went with low women and had no home.

‘Please, Dryden.’

‘Let go of me.’ Dryden unlatched her fingers from the material of his coat and walked on. Esther Margaret couldn’t move. She stood, watching him move away, and the tears ran down her face.

She went back to her house. Her mother must have been listening for her because when Esther Margaret had gone up to her room she followed her.

‘You can’t marry a lad like that,’ she said. ‘We’d never be able to hold up our heads in this village again. You must go to the mother-and-baby home in Newcastle. You could have the baby and we would find a home for it and then you could come back—’

‘And you think nobody would know?’

‘Nobody would know for certain.’

‘My baby.’

‘His baby. You have forgotten what he is, Esther Margaret, what his father did. I believe, though you have not said so, that he forced you. You have only to say he did and it will be his shame not ours.’

‘They would kill him,’ Esther Margaret said softly.

‘He’s evil.’

‘And then I would have to live unmarried, bringing up a child here, and know nothing else ever but the knowledge that I had killed its father.’

‘He deserves to die.’

‘No. I told you. He didn’t force me. I wanted him.’

Her mother blushed beetroot.

‘You couldn’t,’ she said, and put a hand up to her throat.

‘Why couldn’t I? Just because you wanted me to like another lad, a lad who I think is awful, who molested me. Dryden didn’t do any of that and he was second best. You know he was. You knew I cared for Joe but I couldn’t have him.’

‘You can’t marry Dryden Cameron,’ her mother said, beginning to cry.

‘I can’t marry anybody else.’

*

Tom was waiting for Dryden in the pub. They were both early and Tom seemed keen to leave and go somewhere else, to a pub they didn’t normally go to where none of their friends would be, the Station Hotel in the main street. He sat Dryden down at a table well away from everybody else and got the beer in and then looked seriously at him.

‘You’ve got a problem,’ he said.

‘Who, me?’

‘Don’t pretend, Dryden. Esther Margaret Hunter.’

Dryden didn’t want to look at him, and he didn’t want his beer either.

‘You’re going to have to marry her.’

Dryden glared at him.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You’re going to go there and offer.’

‘What would I want to do that for?’

‘Because if she says that you did to her what your father did to my mother you’ll end up dead in a back street. Nobody likes you. People will say that you did it — all she has to do is give people the idea that it happened.’

‘Do you think I did that?’

‘You only have two choices. Either you marry her or you end up dead.’

‘I don’t want to marry her. I don’t even like her. It was just … something to do on Sunday afternoons, that’s all. She’s serious and … churchy and … You don’t really think I would—’

‘Other people would be glad to think it. Go over there and offer before Mr Hunter starts telling people or before he comes to you.’