Every Mother's Son by Val Wood Page A

have to reassure her that he would always come home. He looked sideways at Charles, wondering whether this would be a good moment to broach a subject which had been worrying him for some time, and decided that it would.
    ‘There is summat to think about,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I don’t have much money, onny what I’ve saved over this last year. If I am allowed to go I’ll be travelling on a shoestring.’
    ‘I’ll have my allowance—’ Charles began.
    ‘No!’ Daniel was adamant. ‘I’m not borrowing or allowing you to pay. If we’re travelling together we should start out wi’ same amount o’ money.’
    ‘Right,’ Charles agreed after only a slight hesitation. ‘That’s fair enough.’
    At nine o’clock, Fletcher and Tom were the last to finish. The casual workers had gone up to the house to collect their wages from Harriet, Lenny had already had his supper and gone upstairs, and Daniel was checking on the horses before he finished, tired and aching and ready for his bed.
    ‘I, erm, I feel I should just mention …’ Tom began as the two men set off towards the house. ‘It’s nowt to do wi’ me, but …’
    ‘What?’ Fletcher asked. Tom wasn’t usually reticent in coming forward with a question. He and Fletcher were boyhood friends and knew most of what there was to know about each other.
    Tom paused at the field gate. ‘Young Hart,’ he said. ‘When he was here today.’
    ‘What about him? I thought he worked all right,’ Fletcher said. ‘For a young gent.’
    ‘He did,’ Tom agreed. ‘I’m not disputing that.’
    ‘Well, what then?’
    ‘I’ll tell you if you give me a chance,’ Tom admonished him. ‘Just listen. I might be wrong but I think ’penny’s dropped wi’ him. Didn’t you notice how he kept glancing at you as if he was puzzled over summat?’
    Fletcher frowned. ‘No. Like what?’
    Tom sighed. ‘Are you not right sharp at ’minute? Or …’ he hesitated as if embarrassed, ‘is it because you didn’t think I knew?’
    ‘Knew? Knew wh—’ Realization struck him like a hammer blow. He took a deep inhaling breath. ‘You mean …’
    ‘Yeh.’ Tom looked away into the distance. ‘About your ma, and … I’ve allus known. I heard when I was just a nipper, playing under ’table at Aunt Mary’s house. Not from Mary,’ he added quickly, ‘she wasn’t there and wouldn’t have allowed that sort o’ talk if she had been. I can’t remember where she was, out in ’garden fetching her washing in or summat, but I heard ’other women whispering about your ma and Master Hart, and you.’
    ‘All that time ago?’ Fletcher was astonished. ‘You’ve known all these years? Ma didn’t tell me till I was a grown man just back from America!’
    ‘Yeh, I reckon she decided to tell you after Mr Tuke and Noah drowned in ’estuary. There was nobody to dispute it then, was there?’
    ‘And you’re saying that young Charles spotted the likeness between his father and me? Never!’ he said. Then: ‘Is it so obvious?’
    ‘As plain as ’nose on your face,’ Tom said. ‘I suppose I’ve allus seen it because I knew, but as you’ve got older you’ve got more like him.’
    ‘I didn’t believe her the first time she told me – too shocked to tek it in, I suppose – but Harriet allus believed it, and that’s why Maria’s gone into service. She and Stephen Hart became friendly and Harriet was nervous about it. If Christopher Hart is my father, and my mother insists that he is,’ he said reluctantly, ‘then I’m their brother, or half-brother or summat, and my bairns are … I don’t know, related, anyway. What I don’t understand,’ he blurted out, ‘is if Ma thought she’d kept it such a big secret, how is it that other folk knew about it, like those women you heard talking?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Tom admitted. ‘But that’s ’joy of living in a country district. Everybody knows everything about what’s going on, but it goes no further and they