He looked across at her; she had interrupted his flow and he was unsure of how to continue. ‘That’s all very well, but we have to mek recompense somehow.’
‘You’ve already done that,’ she said softly. ‘You took my son, a boy you didn’t know, and kept him safe in your home.’
‘Aye, well,’ he murmured. ‘We’d have done that for any youngster to keep ’em from harm.’
Delia nodded. They would, she understood that, and she felt a tightness in her throat at their kindness to a child they hadn’t known was their blood; and I, she thought wretchedly, I did wrong by just leaving him with people he didn’t know.
‘Come and sit down, Delia.’ Peggy patted the chair next to her. ‘Kettle’s boiling, Jenny. Mek tea and bring ’biscuits out of ’barrel, would you?’ Her voice was hoarse after her weeping and Delia guessed that she would be worrying about what was happening between Jack and Susan. ‘We might not resolve everything today,’ she went on, ‘but mebbe we’ll mek some headway.’
‘Mrs Robinson,’ Delia began, ‘I didn’t come with the intention of causing trouble.’ Inside her head, she could hear her former self, the shy insecure Dorothy, contrite and apologetic and taking the blame for any mishap, even when not of her making. She sighed out a breath to dispel the image of that young girl. She had gone; she was no more. ‘I came to thank you for looking after my son, and to say that I couldn’t wish for better grandparents for him.’
‘So does that mean that you’d be happy for us to continue looking after him?’ Aaron chipped in; he seemed close to tears. ‘For a bit longer at any rate?’
‘Cos we’d like to,’ Peggy added. ‘It would break our hearts to watch him go and never see him again.’ She pressed her handkerchief to her nose. ‘Cos he’s a grand little lad.’
Delia swallowed, and wondered how it was that Peggy and Aaron had both come to the same conclusion, for it didn’t appear to her that they had had any discussion. Perhaps that was what happened when two people had had a long and amicable marriage: each understood the other’s needs and intentions.
Jenny silently poured tea and took the lid off the biscuit barrel. She had kept very quiet and seemed quite shaken by the turn of events. Maybe she’s not quite as brave as she makes out, Delia thought. Perhaps she hadn’t realized the impact the disclosure would have on her brother; they were very close when they were young, Delia remembered. Jenny had said some harsh things about him and his wife, but perhaps now she regretted them.
Silently, they drank their tea, Peggy topping hers up again from the teapot, and then Jenny said quietly to her parents, ‘You’ve agreed that you’d like Robin to stay with you, and I think, Delia, that you’d be happy with that?’
Delia nodded, unable to speak, and Jenny continued, ‘So do you think that before making any final decision, you might like to find out what views Jack and Susan might have?’
‘What’s going on?’ Susan asked as she and Jack crossed the yard and unfastened the gate that led on to Foggit farm; they had unanimously agreed to keep the name as everyone local knew it as that. Jack and Aaron had created a pathway from cracked old stone and rubble to make it easier for the children to walk across the grass if it were wet or muddy when going between the two houses. Eventually, Aaron and Jack had decided, they would open up some of the joint fields to make better grazing for more sheep and pigs.
‘Let’s wait till we’re inside,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a lot to say.’
‘Who was that woman? Was it Robin’s mother?’
There was a long pause until he managed eventually to say, ‘Aye, it was.’
‘Really? She’s not as I expected,’ Susan said. ‘I thought she’d be – well, disreputable, a bit of a slattern, you know?’
‘I don’t know why you’d think that; the lad was clean and tidy and well-spoken when he first came.’ Jack took off his boots as they entered the kitchen and gazed round. It looked cosy; the fire was glowing in the range and there was a good smell coming from the oven. Susan had obviously prepared food before coming over to find out when he was coming home.
She shrugged. ‘Yeh, but she left him, didn’t she? Left her son with complete strangers.’
‘Except that we weren’t.’ He flopped down into a chair by the fire and Susan thought pensively how like his father Jack was, with similar mannerisms and habits.
‘What?’ She was opening the oven door and had only loosely grasped his comment.
‘I said that we weren’t. We weren’t strangers. Delia knew us. She used to live in Paull.’ Jack put his hands to his head and closed his eyes.
She came and sat opposite him. ‘What’s up, Jack? Why were you and your ma so upset? She was crying.’ She gazed at him, and then leaning forward she took his hands away from his face. ‘And so were you,’ she whispered. ‘What’s happened? You’ve got to tell me.’
He clenched his eyes shut and took a shuddering breath. ‘You’re never going to forgive me, Susan, but you’re stuck wi’ me till death us do part, isn’t that what we promised?’ He opened his eyes, which were red and swollen, and Susan looked away, unable to meet his gaze.
‘I’m sorry.’ His words were choked. ‘I was young and stupid and I didn’t really know you well back then, afore we married, but I knew Delia, Dorothy as she was then, and – I took advantage of her.’
‘What you talking about?’ Her voice rose. ‘What do you mean you didn’t know me well? We had—’ She stopped, hesitating as if not knowing what to say. ‘You took advantage of her? What’s that supposed to mean?’
He stood up and began to pace about. ‘It means that cos of my
