‘I’ll make ’tea,’ Susan offered, ‘and I’ll take mine up. I’m ready for my bed. I’m exhausted with all the jobs we’ve done, and there’s still more to do.’
She brought in a tray of tea and some biscuits and cheese, and then, having made cocoa for herself, said goodnight and took her drink upstairs.
‘Getting into practice?’ Jenny murmured, her lips against the cup. ‘Or was it something I said?’
‘I think she finds you rather forbidding.’ Her mother gave a wry smile.
‘Me!’ Jenny said in mock astonishment. ‘Never. I’m such a soft touch.’
‘I think not,’ Peggy said. ‘But don’t prevaricate with me, young woman; you forget I brought you up. I know just what you’re like, so come on, let’s hear how you and young Robin got on in Hull and why he’s so sure he can stop with us.’
‘Well,’ Jenny recognized that this was the ultimate challenge, ‘if you say he can’t, then that’s an end to it, but he really wants to.’
‘You know what I mean, so tell me,’ Peggy said quietly, ‘and also tell me why it’s a secret. I don’t keep secrets from your father.’
‘I realize that, Ma,’ Jenny said softly. ‘But there are other people who shouldn’t know, so the fewer people who are told the better, for the time being anyway.’
‘Go on then, get on with it,’ her mother urged impatiently. ‘Don’t shilly-shally.’
So be it. Jenny heaved a big breath. ‘Robin’s mother – is Dorothy Deakin.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘No husband?’ Peggy asked, her forehead creasing in bewilderment.
Jenny shook her head; ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Ma, whilst I was away at school and taking my exams, some – lad assaulted her! She didn’t tell anyone and didn’t even know she was pregnant, but her mother guessed and when her father was told he took his belt to her, and I don’t think it was the first time either. They turned her out of the house and told her never to come back. Her father was a tyrant, and I never even guessed; never had an inkling of the kind of life she’d been living since she was a child.’ Jenny’s voice broke. ‘She never once said. She kept everything to herself.’
They heard the scullery door open and the sound of the men talking and taking off their boots. ‘She doesn’t want them to know where she is or what she’s doing,’ she added swiftly. ‘Seemingly she wrote to them every year, God knows why; but they never replied.’
She stopped talking as her father and brother came in. ‘Still jawing, then?’ Jack muttered as he unfastened his coat and took off his cap. ‘Beats me what women find to talk about.’
‘Men usually,’ Jenny said icily; she could hardly bring herself to look at her brother. ‘And the reasons why some women choose to stay single.’
‘Oh-oh!’ Aaron sucked in a breath.
‘Not every man, Da,’ she said gently. ‘Not men like you.’
Peggy took herself into the scullery and pumped water into the kettle, giving herself time to digest the information she had been given. She shivered, the cold air of the scullery giving her goose pimples after the heat from the kitchen fire. She heard the dog bark from his kennel, probably in response to a fox. She peered out of the window but could see nothing but blackness and the reflection of the small paraffin lamp that sat on a shelf behind her.
How could anyone turn their own daughter out of her home? Their own flesh and blood. It wasn’t right, especially if it wasn’t her fault; they should have got ’police out searching for ’culprit. Or perhaps they thought they’d be tainted by her shame; that it would be a reflection on them. I remember her as a sweet young lass, rather shy. Who could have done that to her? Some lad – or maybe even a grown man from ’village who caught her as she was walking home. She was always on her own, running errands, shopping down in ’village; anybody might have noticed her.
She picked up the kettle to take to the range. That last day she called here, she was in such a state; why didn’t she tell me? Was that ’same day it happened – or later? Was she running here, to ’nearest place? Frightened? Did she ask for our Jenny, or did she know she wasn’t at home? I can’t remember what she said; I thought she was going to pass out. I brought her inside, made her a cup of tea, I think. She sighed. It was a long time ago.
She placed the kettle on the hook over the fire and as she turned to sit down she glanced across at Robin, fast asleep on the sofa. Poor bairn. So where’ve they been all this time? And where’s his mother staying now? There’s more to this than I’ve yet been told.
‘Davis Deakin was in ’Humber Tavern,’ Aaron said abruptly, which made Jenny and her mother jump; it was as if he had been reading their thoughts. ‘He’s a miserable owd beggar! Never has ’time of day for anybody. When you think how long he’s been fishing in these waters alongside all ’other Paull Shrimpers, you’d think he’d have summat to say, wouldn’t you? And even if’ – his rare anger surfaced – ‘even when they say how do to him, he onny nods, never looks anybody in ’eye.’
No one commented until Jack asked suddenly, ‘Where did their daughter go? Dorothy? Did she leave ’district? I don’t remember seeing her in years.’ And then, just as abruptly, and it seemed to Jenny, who was watching him as a cat might watch a mouse, that he might have been reminded of something, he asked if Susan had gone to bed.
‘Only just missed her, have you?’ she said slyly. ‘Isn’t that just typical of men, conveniently forgetting their womenfolk?’
Aaron tutted gently. ‘Our Jenny’s got a bee in her bonnet about summat, Mother. Have
