‘So, young feller-me-lad,’ the woman said, looking down on him and smiling, ‘I thought you were one of my nieces’ bairns, but mebbe you’re not?’
The boy shook his head, and said throatily, ‘I’m afraid I’m not.’
She raised her eyebrows humorously. ‘A school friend of Louisa’s?’
Again he shook his head and blinked at her.
‘And do you have a name, so that we can seek out your ma and tell her where you are? She’ll be worried sick about you, I don’t doubt.’
He considered for a moment. ‘I don’t think she will be worried,’ he said. ‘She knows I’m able to look after myself. I don’t need any supervision.’
Louisa’s father, who had taken up a chair by the fire opposite his father, gave a caustic grunt. ‘Never met a lad who didn’t,’ he muttered.
The woman leaned against the table and indicated with her forefinger that the boy and Louisa should come closer.
‘You’re not from these parts, that’s for sure, and ’word is that you’re a useful boy. So how is it that you’re on your own with no ma or da to look out for you? Bearing in mind,’ she added, ‘that you don’t need any supervision?’ Without waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘Are we allowed to ask this useful boy’s name? And if we do, will he give it honestly?’
This was the moment he had been expecting, and he was prepared. He didn’t want to tell a lie but neither did he want to give his real name, especially not now that he had met someone else called Jack. Arthur Crawshaw had said to his mother many times in his presence that the boy deserved a more redeeming name than the one she had given him, but his mother had never replied. He wasn’t sure what redeeming meant, but this woman deserved an answer, for she had been very pleasant towards him so far.
‘Robin Jackson,’ he said. ‘That’s my name, and my last abode was in London.’
He saw her try to hide a smile as she asked, ‘Well, Robin Jackson. Will your father and mother be at their London abode now, or in this district?’
‘My father might be dead,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known him. I don’t know where my mother is.’ And that was the truth, he thought, for his mother could by now be on a train back to London, and he had chosen to say London for there was not a single chance of anyone trying to find anybody in that great city, unlike Brighton where they might.
‘Send him off wi’ a flea in his ear, why don’t you,’ Jack mumbled from his place by the fire. ‘He’s nowt to do wi’ us. Why ’you mekkin’ such a to-do about him?’
‘I wouldn’t send a dog out at this time o’ night, let alone a child,’ his mother said sharply. ‘He can stop tonight and we’ll mek enquiries at ’Sun in ’morning.’
Robin heaved a deep breath and chanced a smile at Louisa, who grinned from ear to ear.
‘Oh, goody,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Gran. Where will he sleep? He could sleep on ’floor in our room, cos there isn’t any room in our bed.’
‘No, we’ll mek up a bed on ’little sofa in here; he’s too big to sleep in a room full o’ girls.’
‘I’ll sleep down here wiv him.’
They all turned at Molly’s voice; she had crept downstairs unseen and unheard and was now standing by the door that led to the hall. She came towards Robin and slipped her hand into his. ‘I like him,’ she announced.
‘Do you, my lovely?’ Peggy drew the child towards her and sitting down she lifted her on to her knee. ‘But you see, big boys have to have their own bed and can’t share wi’ girls.’
Molly looked across to her father. ‘But Da’s big and he sleeps wi’ Ma ’cept sometimes she don’t want him to.’
‘That’s because they’re married, you see, just like me and your grandda,’ Peggy explained. ‘And we share a bed.’
‘Then I’ll marry this boy,’ Molly said passively.
Robin turned to her. ‘We’re not old enough to be married yet,’ he told her. ‘Shall we wait for a bit? We’ve to finish school first.’
Molly’s lips trembled. ‘I’m not allowed to go to school.’ She buried her head in her grandmother’s ample bosom. ‘And I want to.’
‘But I need you here; you’re such a comfort to me,’ her grandmother said softly. ‘And I’d miss you if you weren’t here.’
‘And I would too,’ her grandfather’s voice boomed from his chair by the fire. ‘Who’d help us to feed ’hens if you were at school all day, eh?’
Molly slipped off her grandmother’s knee and on to her grandfather’s, where she snuggled up close to him. ‘All right then,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll stop at home wi’ you owd folk.’
Robin, watching closely, wondered why the little girl couldn’t go to school, and why it was that the grandparents were so loving towards her, whilst her father gazed moodily into the flames and said not a word to her.
He was shown where the privy was at the bottom of the garden and was most intrigued by it; like a little shed, he thought, with a wooden seat with a hole in it. When he came back in, all the girls were waiting to pump water to wash their hands in the deep sink in the room off the kitchen that Louisa called a scullery, and when they had finished he did the same before they all gathered at the supper table.
Robin thought he had never in his life eaten so much food in one day. After having a good breakfast at the Hedon Arms and an enormous midday dinner at the Sun Inn, he was now sitting down to eat a supper of pork pie, cold pressed meat with pickles, and hard-boiled eggs with bread and butter, and in the centre of the table was a huge fruit cake and cheese to
