Josephine Cox Sunday Times Bestsellers Collection

Tillie looked round from buttering his fingers of freshly-baked bread. She added some little squares of cheese for Jamie to nibble on while she cooked his soft-boiled egg. ‘He’s a year and six months old,’ she enlightened Bridget. ‘A real little boy now, no longer a baby.’ She chuckled girlishly. ‘He walked along the sofa-edge yesterday, and his fat little legs went all bandy.’

Bridget laughed. ‘If he keeps on like that, it won’t be long before he’s off to work with his pack on his back,’ she teased.

The women were tender with the little lad, as he had been born with one of his legs shorter than the other, and found it hard to balance. Bridget studied the child’s features. Unlike his mammy, whose eyes were golden-brown, he had the darkest eyes; his hair, though, was the same colour as hers – the shiny rich brown of ripe chestnuts.

Like his mammy, the child had that same quick smile and infectious laughter; though these last two years Lucy had not laughed overmuch, because she was lonely and sad, though as with every deep emotion, she tried hard not to show it. But Bridget knew, and she wondered now about the man who had come to her door. ‘There was a man here today,’ she told Tillie, who had returned with the egg-cup and spoon, and a small beaker of milk for the child.

‘I know.’ Tillie was as discreet as ever. ‘I heard him knocking the door down. He was determined to be heard.’

‘Lynette answered the door, didn’t she?’ Bridget wondered if Tillie knew more than she was saying.

‘Yes, I was changing this one’s napkin. The others were out. They’re still out, as far as I know.’ She held the beaker-lip to Jamie’s mouth again, cautioning him when he snatched at it and almost sent it flying. ‘Why?’

Bridget thought a moment, then in a quiet voice she told Tillie, ‘Lynette described him to me.’

‘Did she?’ The girl wiped the child’s mouth and put the beaker to the floor. ‘I didn’t see him.’ But she had heard him. She had heard them. Yet she never spoke of what she heard in this house. Bridget had given her a roof over her head and she never questioned or judged what went on here.

Bridget was quiet for a time, then she spoke, again in a quiet voice as though she was deep in thought. ‘I’ve a feeling it’s him!’

Tillie had spooned a helping of yolk into the child’s mouth, but it was now all over his face, so she was wiping him with the flannel she had in her pocket. She looked up at Bridget’s statement. ‘Who?’

‘Edward Trent – the baby’s father. I think Lucy told you how things started with him. He followed her home from Wavertree Park one day and was all over her, the bad bugger. Had his way with her, promised the earth then cleared off about three months later. After that, her parents split up and she lost her home. Fat lot of good her so-called boyfriend was then, eh?’

Having finished the feeding, Tillie lifted the child out onto her lap. ‘Crikey!’ Her eyes grew wide as saucers. ‘I thought he’d upped and gone to sea. Got fed up wi’ working on the docks, didn’t he? An’ he ain’t never been in touch since.’

‘That’s right – and good shuts to him. But bad pennies have a way of turning up again. And he was a bad penny if ever there was one – though she never saw it.’

‘She loved him, that’s why.’ Lucy had spoken long and deep to Tillie about her sweetheart, the father of her child. ‘He was good to her, wasn’t he?’

‘Not all the time.’ Bridget’s expression hardened. ‘I reckon he used to hit her – oh, not so’s you’d notice from the outside, but he hurt her all the same. Even her mam an’ dad warned her against him. She couldn’t see what he was truly like, though. She loved him, y’see? She still loves him, even after he buggered off and left her with child.’

Bridget was afraid for Lucy. Afraid of why Edward Trent had come back. What was he after? As far as she was concerned, the man was no good, and never would be.

‘He never even wrote to her, did he?’ Tillie had not forgiven him for doing that to her friend. Poor Lucy had been frantic for a long while, not knowing which way to turn, wanting to tell him about his son once Jamie was born, but with no idea how to contact him.

Bridget didn’t answer because her thoughts were miles away. What’s he up to? she mused silently. Why is he here after all this time?

It seemed the very same question was crossing young Tillie’s mind. ‘Why do you think he’s come back?’ she said apprehensively.

Her employer shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ She recalled what Lynette had told her. ‘He came looking for her, that’s for sure. And he’s gone to find her as we speak.’

She sighed. ‘I only hope Lucy has enough sense not to be taken in by him a second time.’

Chapter 7 (#ulink_341a3c5a-08c4-5cd2-b6fe-2ea41742d490)

UNAWARE OF DEVELOPMENTS at home, Lucy drove her energy into the last task of the day. ‘Almost done now,’ she told the curious magpie who had been watching her for the past ten minutes or so. ‘Another few good wallops, and there won’t be a speck of dust left.’

Raising the beater, she brought it down against the rug so hard that it danced on the clothes-line; another good hard wallop, and the dust flew in all directions, not as much as when she had first brought the rug out, but enough to give her a coughing fit, and send the startled magpie off to the skies.

‘Cowardly creature!’ she called after it. ‘Mind, if I had wings, I’d be off too.’ Oh, and she would an’ all! Away above the chimney-tops ever so high, she would raise her head and flap her wings fast and furious until she was across the oceans, then she’d keep going until she reached some tropical paradise. But she wouldn’t go alone, oh no. Wherever she went, she would take her darling son with her.

From the office window upstairs, the tall, elegant woman watched Lucy as she worked; the squire’s secretary could hear Lucy’s voice raised in song, but that wasn’t unusual, because during her working day, whether inside or out, Lucy’s melodious singing could be heard all over Haskell Hall. ‘You’re a good soul, Lucy Baker,’ Miss McGuire murmured, putting down her fountain-pen. ‘Hardworking and happy as the day is long.’

As she watched Lucy hoist the rug from the line and drop it to the ground, she was taken by surprise when the girl suddenly looked up to see her there. ‘I won’t be long,’ she called out. ‘I’m finished just now.’

Lucy quickened her steps towards the house, the hot breeze playing with the hem of her skirt, her feet bare as the day she was born; with the rug carried in her arms, like a mother might carry a bairn, she made a fetching sight.

When a moment or two later, Lucy burst into the kitchen, Miss McGuire was waiting for her. ‘For the life of me, Lucy, I don’t know why you beat the rug when you could use that new vacuum cleaner. It was bought to suck up the dirt and dust from the floor, after all, and to save the staff here from heavy work.’

‘I do use it,’ Lucy protested, ‘but it’s not very good. Sometimes things get stuck in it and it won’t work, and then old Jake has to see to it, and while he’s doing that I still have to beat the rugs.’ She prodded the one in her arms. ‘This one is no good at all. It’s got long fringes and they go flying up into the workings and then it’s the devil’s own job to free them. It’s much quicker just to give it a sound beating on the clothes-line.’

The squire’s secretary tended to agree, but did not say so. Instead she looked down at Lucy’s bare feet. Small and neat, they were covered in a film of dust, and there was the tiniest leaf sticking out between the toes. ‘Never mind the rug,’ she retorted. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me why you aren’t wearing your boots?’ Exasperated at the times she had asked the young woman to always wear her boots for fear of hurting herself on the harsh ground, she groaned. ‘Just look at your poor feet, Lucy … covered in dust and picking up all the debris from the ground. One of these days you’re bound to get an injury. I’ve asked you so many times to wear your work-boots, I’m worn out with it.’

Lucy looked down at her feet. ‘I’m a mucky pup, I know,’ she conceded, wiggling her toes to be rid of the leaf, ‘but I feel so uncomfortable with the boots on. I’m sorry, Miss McGuire. I’ll try to wear them, I promise.’

‘And how many times have you said that?’ The secretary rolled her eyes. ‘And how many times have I seen you running about in your bare feet? It isn’t as though you’re a child, Lucy. You’re a grown woman of nearly thirty, for heaven’s sake, and you have a little one to think of. What would happen if something fell on your feet and broke them? How would you go on then, eh?’

‘I know, and I’m really sorry,’ Lucy repeated. ‘I promise I’ll try to keep the shoes on.’ Lucy hated wearing shoes of any kind, almost as much as she hated cold porridge.

‘Mind you do then.’ The secretary was a kindly sort. She had little to do with the housekeeper’s staff here at the Hall, but she had always had a soft spot for Lucy.

‘Anyway, enough of this. It’s time you went home,’ she told Lucy now. ‘There hasn’t been a day in the past fortnight when you’ve left on time.’

‘That’s ’cause I like to finish all my work before I go,’ Lucy explained.

‘I know that, all too well,’ came the reply. ‘But you must leave time for yourself … and the child.’ The secretary tried hard not to be shocked by the young woman’s situation as an unmarried mother. The squire never listened to gossip so he remained ignorant of Jamie’s existence; however, some of the other staff were aware of her status and shunned Lucy because of it.

‘Oh, I do!’ Lucy answered eagerly. ‘When I’m not working here, I spend every passing minute with him.’ A look of sheer joy lit her face. ‘You can’t know how much I love him. No one can.’

Dorothy was fond enough of Lucy to tell her, ‘I’m sure I do know how much you love him. All I’m saying is this: it’s no wonder you still haven’t found a man to take care of you and the child, what with you working all hours, and here you are already twenty-nine years of age. Most young women are safely married and settled in their own home at that age.’ This didn’t apply to her either, she acknowledged sadly.

When she saw the downcast look on Lucy’s face she was mortified. ‘I’ve spoken out of turn, my dear. I didn’t mean to be cruel. It’s just that you’re such a lovely young woman and I do care what happens to you. I’d hate to think you were destined to spend your life all alone.’

‘It’s all right, Miss McGuire, I don’t mind.’ But she did, and now her thoughts were filled with memories of a dark-eyed man who had quickly come into her life and filled her days with fun, and then just as quickly gone out of her life, without so much as a how’s your father!

But she had not forgotten him. She never would. Especially when he’d left her with child, and it had caused so much trouble at home that she was made to leave in disgrace – and soon after, her mother and father split up and went their separate ways. And now she had no family at all, save for her little boy, who was everything to her.

‘Go on then! Be off with you, before the housekeeper finds you another job to do. And don’t worry. I’ll let her know you’ve gone.’

The woman’s voice invaded her thoughts, and when she looked up, the kindly secretary was already on her way down the long corridor.

Dragging the rug through the kitchen, Lucy got it to the drawing room, where she rolled it out before the big fireplace. ‘All done for another day.’ Sometimes Lucy sang, and sometimes like now, she talked to herself, and then there was the time when she got caught dancing on the sofa-table and almost got her marching orders from the housekeeper.

It was the same at home. Often Bridget would say, ‘For the love of God, will ye sit still and be quiet!’ But she couldn’t. There was too much life in her, and it wasn’t her fault.

Without wasting any more time, Lucy ran to the cupboard where her two pairs of shoes were lined up: black lace-up boots for work, and daintier shoes with ankle-straps for going home in. Taking out the ankle-strap shoes, she put them on and, flicking her long hair out of her eyes, she hurried out of the back door, her voice raised in song and her feet skipping as she went.

By the kennels at the side of the house, Lucy stopped to pet the hounds. She had a marvellous way with animals; whenever they had the chance, the squire’s hounds would follow her everywhere, and while everyone else would stay clear of the bull in its pen, Lucy could often be seen defying instructions to lean over the gate and stroke its nose.