‘Well, I wonder how the owners would feel about paying a smaller fee and including my bed and board in lieu of my entertainment?’ She smiled. ‘So I would sing for my supper, and lunch and tea as well?’
‘What a marvellous idea,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I’ll ask them. Mrs Lucan and her family are always open to ideas and suggestions to enhance the attractions of the hotel. Where are you staying? I’ll slip round with a note as soon as they decide.’ He smiled. ‘Are you sure you won’t have some coffee?’
‘Perhaps I will after all,’ she agreed. ‘Why not, indeed?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As Christmas drew near and the children at school practised their carols, Robin began to feel rather sad. Although he was loving being at school and being given challenges in the lessons, he’d never been away from his mother at Christmas before, he thought as he sat in the schoolroom with Louisa to eat their midday bread and beef. Louisa called it dinner, but he couldn’t work out why, when they had another hot dinner when they returned to Granny Robinson’s house after school.
It had been decided that Louisa, Emma and Rosie and their parents would be moving to the other house after Christmas. Jack was cleaning and painting it with the help of Aaron, and Susan had been sewing curtains from material that Granny Robinson had found in the bottom of a cupboard. Granny Robinson said it was good hard-wearing material and would be suitable for keeping out any draughts; Susan hadn’t liked the colour but when it was suggested that she could dye it she said it would do for the time being.
Robin had thought that perhaps Susan was rather lazy, and that if Louisa’s granny had offered to do it for her she might have agreed, only Granny Robinson didn’t offer.
He knew that he would miss Louisa when they went. Molly was staying with Granny Robinson and Aaron and not moving with the others, and although he thought she was a nice little girl he liked Louisa better than anybody, even more than Ben, who was Louisa’s cousin and sat next to her in class.
Molly was starting school for a trial period after Christmas. The headmaster had told Mrs Robinson that he would make an announcement in assembly before they broke up for the holiday, to tell the children that no one must tease Molly or call her names. Robin wondered why anyone would do such a thing, but sometimes Molly could be difficult if she didn’t get her own way. She was also telling everyone that she was going to sit next to Robin and he was a little worried about that too. She was such a chatterbox that he thought he might not be able to concentrate on his schoolwork.
When the girls’ Auntie Jenny had come to visit, he’d seen her give a cardboard box of wrapped parcels to her mother and he’d guessed that they were Christmas presents for her nieces. Then she’d glanced at him and although he pretended not to notice he saw that she was whispering that she hadn’t brought anything for him, but then she shuffled about in another bag and handed her mother something else. He hadn’t expected a present, because after all she hadn’t known he was there, but he knew he would feel outside the circle when parcels were being handed out if he didn’t get one too.
Then he wondered if he should leave and try to find his mother, for he thought that she might be lonely without him, but he had no idea of where she might be. ‘Louisa,’ he said. ‘Where do you think my mother might have gone?’
Louisa was about to take a bite of bread, but she stopped. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about her. Does she work? Some ladies do, especially if they haven’t a husband to give them any money.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘she does. Or at least it’s a kind of work, although it isn’t hard work, not like scrubbing floors or working in a shop.’ He wondered if she’d got a booking in one of the Hull theatres, but then thought that he’d better not mention it to Louisa in case she accidentally told someone who then might tell a policeman and he didn’t want his mother to get into trouble for having left him behind.
I’d be quite happy to stay here, he thought, as long as I could see my mother sometimes and know that she wasn’t unhappy.
‘We could go and search for her in the school holidays if you like,’ Louisa said. ‘But where would we start looking? I don’t think she’ll be in Paull. She might be in Hedon, but I think Gran would have found out. She knows everybody in Hedon, so somebody would have told her.’
‘I don’t know what my mother would do in Hedon. I don’t think it’s her kind of place.’
‘What is her kind of place?’ she asked, and then took a large bite of bread and beef so she couldn’t speak again for a few minutes.
‘Somewhere like London or Brighton,’ he said gloomily. ‘But that’s no good, because they’re both a long way away and I haven’t any money for the train.’
‘If it’s such a long way, why did she come?’ Louisa asked eventually, chewing on a piece of meat. ‘Does she know somebody who lives round here?’
He nodded. ‘Erm, yes, I think she did, once.’
It wasn’t quite a lie, he thought as he continued to eat, although the old woman that they had called upon couldn’t have been her mother, because he had heard her say quite distinctly that she hadn’t got a daughter; so either Delia had gone to the wrong house or else her parents had moved to live somewhere else. And maybe, he thought in sudden clarification, she’s gone to look for them.
He felt slightly happier now that he might have solved the puzzle, because
