He put his chin in his hands and gave a deep sigh. ‘I have an uneasy suspicion that she might be carrying a child.’ He sighed again. ‘And it isn’t mine.’
‘And the issues she wished to discuss with you?’
‘Well, she wishes me to spend more time there, and to inform our parents that we can’t travel to see them during the New Year because she is ill.’
‘She could write to tell them that,’ Delia suggested.
He gave a grimace. ‘She can be a cunning minx. She knows it will be believable coming from me. Her parents know her very well, my parents less so. I believe that when she asked me to spend more time with her it was her way – if in fact she is expecting a child – of showing that it will naturally appear to be mine. And it most certainly is not!’
Delia gazed at him. ‘Yet if there isn’t any proof that she is carrying her lover’s child, it will be natural for everyone to think it is yours. Your only hope is that you are mistaken. It seems unlikely, doesn’t it, after so many years, that she would now conceive a child?’
They were both silent for a few minutes, and they were brought fresh coffee and biscuits. It was as if the woman who served them realized they were in serious conversation. Delia gave her a warm smile as she thanked her.
‘And so what will you do?’ she went on.
‘I don’t know what to do. If she’s expecting a child and I deny it is mine, she will be classed as a fallen woman. If I accept it, I will be expected to bring up a son or daughter I haven’t fathered.’
‘What tangled lives we lead.’ Delia shook her head dejectedly. ‘We’re like actors in a play, or characters in a book. And yet …’ She paused. ‘It’s real life and it can be tragic or sad, comic and – unbelievable.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Robin felt sad when the day came for the girls to move to the other house, but he kept busy, helping to pack bags and crates into the wagon, sitting on top of them with Louisa as Jack drove the short distance round to Foggit’s farm, and then passing them down to Jack and Aaron when they pulled up in the yard where the agent was waiting with the keys.
It was a long, low, boulder-and-brick house with a pantile roof facing the estuary. Off the large kitchen, which had a range and a stone sink, was a short staircase to the first floor where there were three bedrooms. It had a scullery similar to Peggy’s and a parlour behind the kitchen. At the end of the building a barn was attached and behind it, across the back yard and set apart from the house, were a privy, a pigsty and a cowshed; beyond that a paddock, a kitchen garden and a large field for livestock.
Over the fence was a smaller field where two goats cropped round a stunted apple tree. By the fence a short-haired terrier-type dog was barking frantically and hoarsely at them. A woman with a shawl over her head stood at the door of a rundown cottage, shouting at the dog to come in, but it took no heed.
‘Who lives there?’ Robin asked Louisa. ‘That’s a very noisy dog.’
‘It’s Mr Deakin’s house,’ she said, her voice low. ‘That’s Mrs Deakin calling the dog. You’re best not speaking to them, Robin. All ’bairns in Paull are scared of them.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘They just are. Mr Deakin’s a fisherman but he doesn’t talk to any of ’other fishermen and he doesn’t like bairns. That’s what Grandda says, anyway.’
‘Have you just got one grandfather and granny?’ It had struck Robin that there was only one set of grandparents helping with the move.
‘No, Ma’s mother and father are our grandparents as well, but we don’t see them much, cos they live ’far side of Hedon. Ma takes us sometimes and they give us a penny, or a bonbon.’
Peggy and Susan arrived in the trap with boxes and bedding, bringing the other children along for the ride. Robin and Louisa followed them into the house.
‘You’d best light a fire, Jack,’ Susan said when she put her nose inside. ‘It smells damp.’
‘It’ll not be damp,’ Peggy remarked. ‘It’s not been empty that long. It’s just a bit cold, that’s all. There’ll probably be kindling and logs in ’barn, and you ordered coal, didn’t you?’
Jack ignored Susan’s request to make a fire; the agent had gone and he and Aaron were bringing in the heavier furniture like the kitchen table and benches; Robin carried in a box and Louisa did too.
Peggy looked up. She had no intention of making a fire. She decided that Susan’s lessons in homemaking should begin immediately. She began to unpack a box of saucepans and put them on a low cupboard shelf. ‘I’ll leave these here, Susan, and you can put them wherever’s best for you when you’re ready.’
Susan ignored her. ‘Jack, are you going to mek that fire? It’s freezing in here.’
‘Fetch some kindling in, then,’ Jack said. ‘Did you bring some paper or old straw to start it?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered sharply. ‘I’ve been busy, in case you haven’t noticed.’
Peggy banged down a heavy pan, her resolve failing. ‘Look, you finish unpacking and I’ll mek ’damned fire, and when I’ve done that I’ll nip home and bring a pan of stew. That’ll save you having to do anything for supper.’
She put on the coat she’d just taken off and her rubber boots and went out to the barn, bringing back kindling, a small bundle of dusty straw that she’d gathered up from a corner, a few
