A Woman Unknown Page 0,113

stay with Mam in Wakefield.’

‘What about school?’

‘There’s no point in them enrolling in a new school until we get to Helmsley. Mam will put them through their paces. She’s good at times tables.’

I could have said no, but it seemed mean to deny them hospitality after all they had been through. If they were staying here, I would lock my filing cabinet, hand the key to Sykes for the duration and de-camp. Aunt Berta was still at Kirkley Hall and had asked me to go back to London with her early next week.

I looked at the children, happily climbing trees, and thought of the cramped situation at the house in White Swan Yard.

‘Mary Jane, there’s a house I sometimes rent in Robin Hood’s Bay.’

‘Oh we don’t want to marry in Robin Hood’s Bay. Where is it anyway?’

‘It’s near Whitby.’

‘We don’t want to go near Whitby, all fish and wind and Dracula.’

‘I was thinking of the children and their grandmother. I have to go to London, but before I go, I could drive them to Robin Hood’s Bay, for a holiday by the sea.’

Their grandmother, my birth mother, the woman I call Mrs Whitaker. Now would be our opportunity for us to get to know each other a little, with the buffer of my niece and nephew to smooth out any awkwardness.

Mary Jane waved to Austin who was sitting on the low branch of a tree. ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. It’ll take a bit of organising at such short notice, but it’ll be a good run for my new motor. The luggage could be sent on by train.’

‘And I have a favour to ask.’

‘Oh yes?’ I said lightly, keeping the dread from my voice. What could it be now?

‘Will you be my maid of honour, or I suppose it will be witness in a registry office?’

‘What about Barbara May?’

Barbara May was her elder and closest sister, and Mary Jane’s maid of honour when she married Ethan.

I had said the wrong thing. Her face crumpled into a copy of Disappointment from the Five Boys chocolate advertisement.

‘We’ve fallen out over it. She’s telling me it’s too soon for me to marry again. Do you think it’s too soon?’ She did not wait for me to answer. ‘It’s either marriage, or living over the brush. And I’m thinking of the children, starting again at a new school. I don’t want gossip. It’ll be bad enough that we’re different names, but Harriet is adamant that she won’t change her name, little madam.’

‘It’s not too soon if you don’t think it’s too soon.’

Mary Jane, who is normally the most self-possessed of women, suddenly burst into tears. ‘It will be too soon, and it will be too late. I should have married Roland years ago. And if I marry him now, it will be like turning back the clock and rubbing Ethan out of existence. Ethan swept me off my feet, but it was always Roland who was there, always Roland who was my soul mate.’

‘Then marry him. Look forward, not back.’

She nodded miserably.

Polishing off a couple of jam tarts cheered her up.

Mary Jane seemed so relieved and relaxed to have steamrollered me into agreeing that she and Roland could move in that she fell into a sound slumber, snoring gently.

All that remained was for me to break the news to my housekeeper. Mrs Sugden would probably get on well with Mary Jane, and if she did not, then at least she has her own quarters.

I watched the children playing, hiding among the trees. My little wood would have looked quite different with a fine piece of Cromer sculpture at its heart.

Cromer’s trial was imminent. I hoped not to be called. He would plead guilty, Marcus had told me, because he had already confessed, and because he could not bear to have Caroline Windham take the stand against him and point her fine finger at his broken and dastardly heart.

‘Mrs Shackleton!’

The man’s voice came from behind. I turned, and just for a second could not place him because his appearance was so unexpected. He was smartly turned out, cleanly shaven and had his unruly hair plastered to his head. It was Eddie, the punch-drunk boxer, Deirdre Fitzpatrick’s faithful swain.

‘Mr Flanagan.’

‘I’ve summat to tell you.’

Mary Jane did not wake, but she might.

Something in Eddie Flanagan’s look told me that his words were for my ears only. ‘We’ll go inside, Mr Flanagan.’

If this was some new concern about the errant Deirdre, he