The Spinning Wheel

by Claire Lorrimer

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

The year is 1902. The love affair between a young aristocrat and the seventeen-year old daughter of his tutor ends in sorrow disgrace and grief humiliation. He is sent away to Europe to forget while his lover, pregnant and ruined, is left behind. She bears a child, Harry, who is fostered by the Pritchetts, a humble and caring family. Harry grows up in idyllic surroundings with Alice, his foster-sister, sometimes going up to the big house to play with the beautiful but spoilt Madeline. Though secure at the Pritchetts', nothing can prepare Harry for the revelation of his father's true identity. Years later the truth finally does emerge, and he is claimed by his father's relatives. But Harry finds he cannot forget the care of those who had brought him up - especially Alice with her deep and enduring love.

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 464

Sample

‘How much further do we have to go?’

Cynthia, Lady Merstam, turned to peer anxiously at her sister. How young she looks! she thought, and, with her frown deepening, how pale! ‘Only fifteen miles, Dorothy. Are you feeling any better?’

The dark-haired girl seated beside her in the landau shook her head. ‘The pain seems to come and go,’ she whispered.

So it was not indigestion, the older girl realized with dismay. Her sixteen-year-old sister had first complained of feeling unwell after they had left The Plough Inn, where they had stopped for luncheon. She had supposed that Dorothy, who had had a plentiful helping of jugged hare, followed by apple pie and cream, had overindulged. Now, as the girl’s face screwed up in pain and she clutched at her stomach with a gasp, Cynthia was forced to acknowledge the more likely cause: the jolting of the carriage over the rough roads had brought on premature labour.

Had she made the wrong decision to hire a coach, she wondered? It would have been so much quicker and easier to have caught the train to Brighton. But this would have meant risking someone they knew recognizing them. It would have been too awful if, after all these months of concealing Dorothy’s pregnancy from everyone – not least their parents – the truth were now to be discovered. She had planned so carefully, so skilfully, pretending in the early months that her young, unmarried sister was putting on weight as did so many young girls of her age. When, by the seventh month, concealment was no longer possible, Cynthia had arranged a shipboard cruise in the Mediterranean, knowing that their parents would approve of the suggestion that Dorothy should accompany her married sister in order to broaden her education. Unaware of his young sister-in-law’s condition, Cynthia’s husband had raised no objection to his wife’s choice of companion.

They had returned to England a fortnight before the expected date of birth, at which point Cynthia had written to their parents to say that Dorothy must remain with her for the time being as she had contracted an infectious fever while abroad and was under doctor’s orders to remain in bed. She and Dorothy had then departed for Brighton, where Dorothy was to remain in a discreet nursing home until her child was born. The unfortunate baby was then to be taken to an orphanage, its parentage remaining unknown.

This was the only part of Cynthia’s plan with which Dorothy had been unhappy to comply. It was her baby, she had protested in floods of tears, albeit a bastard! She knew she could not keep it but she loved the baby’s father. However, Gervaise Harvey was still not twenty and his father, the Earl of Kinmuire, would never allow them to marry. The time would come when Gervaise would inherit the title and he was expected to make a suitable match in due course. Dorothy’s family held no pretensions to aristocracy. At sixteen, still not ‘out’, there was no question of Dorothy fending for herself or her child – and she was well aware of it.

Cynthia, ten years older and already married, knew that sentiment must not be allowed to cloud the issue. Not only would Dorothy be a social outcast, but so would their parents. True Victorians, they would have been scandalized had they been aware that their younger daughter had allowed herself to be seduced like some ignorant servant girl. It was more than probable that Papa, a professor, would have turned Dorothy out of the house were he to know the truth. Mama would be held to blame for allowing Dorothy to remain unchaperoned long enough for the two young people to have given way to ‘the carnal sin of unmarried passion’. It was by threatening to tell their parents the truth that Cynthia had been able to dissuade her sister from any further talk about keeping in touch with her child.

In many ways, Cynthia thought with a sigh of exasperation, Mama was to blame. Dorothy had been a sickly child from birth, as a consequence of which she had been given a great deal of freedom. The governess who had kept such tight control of Dorothy’s life had been dismissed when Cynthia had married and their father had tutored Dorothy himself. Unsupervised when she was not ill in bed or doing her lessons, Dorothy had been able to keep assignations with the young titled undergraduate who came to their house in Oxford for his tutorials. The two young people had managed to spend long hours together on the River Cherwell throughout the term, and inevitably were caught up by the heady tide of first love. With the ingenuousness of extreme youth, Gervaise had confessed his love to his father and promptly been packed off to Heidelberg by his intractable parent to complete his education there.

Unaware of what had been happening, Cynthia was appalled when on a summer visit, her little sister had confessed her condition. It had required all Cynthia’s practical ingenuity to devise a plan to conceal the truth from her husband and their parents. Until now the plan had worked perfectly and their parents remained unsuspecting. What she had not allowed for, Cynthia told herself bitterly, was that a first baby could be born early. She gave another anxious look at her sister. There should still be two weeks to go, weeks when ostensibly Dorothy was convalescing in their country house near Redhill.

‘Could we stop for a minute, Cynthia? I … I think I may have had an accident!’

Tears, partly of pain and partly of shame, coursed down Dorothy’s cheeks as she stared in dismay at the patches of dampness on her travelling coat spreading slowly on to the seat of the carriage.

‘I did not know I was doing it,’ she sobbed, but her words were cut short by another stab of pain.

Having given birth herself, Cynthia realized with horror that there was no doubt that Dorothy’s waters had broken and that she had gone into labour. With a growing feeling of panic, she stared out of the window. As far as she could ascertain in the grey light of the January afternoon, they were crossing a wide expanse of common land. There was no sign of habitation.

‘Where are we now?’ she called out to the driver.

‘Calking Common, ma’am,’ came the reply.

Cynthia frowned. They were not yet over the South Downs, always a slow part of the road to Brighton, with the horses travelling at no more than walking pace.

Dorothy was now slumped sideways, her eyes closed, her hands clenched as she was racked by pains that seemed to be coming with increasing frequency. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she moaned and then, as she clung to her sister’s hand in a desperate plea for reassurance, she whispered: ‘Could I have eaten something which has poisoned me? It hurts. Badly. Are we nearly there?’

‘Not too far,’ Cynthia lied. ‘We’ll stop at the next village. Perhaps you’ll feel better if we have a short rest.’

For a few minutes, Dorothy did not reply. Then she said quietly, ‘I think the baby is coming.’

Cynthia bit her lip as she put a comforting arm round her sister’s shoulders. The younger girl’s pains were rising in crescendo and seemed to be coming at regular intervals. She should not have countenanced a halt for lunch, but then she had not anticipated that one of the horses would cast a shoe and they’d have to find a forge to get it replaced. She glanced out of the window again. They had crossed the common and were driving through a small village. It was growing dark, and now and again Cynthia glimpsed the faint orange glow of a lighted window. Should they stop, she asked herself? They would need medical help, and since Dorothy could not possibly have her baby here in the landau or on the roadside, they would have to seek shelter. Their identities would become known. They must try to reach Brighton at all costs.

‘The young lady is unwell,’ she called out to the coachman. ‘Go as fast as you can, please.’

‘It’s getting dark, ma’am,’ the man replied. ‘I’d best light the lamps.’

Cynthia fretted while he climbed down and set a match to the two oil lamps on either side of the carriage. She knew it must be done but the extra delay was all but unbearable. Dorothy was moaning now, her cries quite audible to the coachman as he climbed back on to his seat. As they left the village, he urged the horses into a trot. Despite the springs, the carriage jolted over every bump. Two miles beyond the village, Dorothy screamed. She was writhing now and her ungloved hands were digging into Cynthia’s arm.

‘Stop the coach!’ Cynthia ordered. As it drew to a halt and the driver came to the window, she forced herself to keep calm. ‘I fear my sister is too ill to go on,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to go back to the village. Find a doctor if you can, but bring help. Do you understand? And please hurry!’

Hearing the cries coming from inside the carriage, the coachman needed no second admonishment to hurry. Nor, indeed, was he as ignorant as his passenger supposed. A married man with six children, he knew a pregnant woman when he saw one and the young lady had been unable to conceal her bulk when he had assisted her into the carriage. Nature being what it was, he reflected as he unhitched one of the carriage horses and rode back towards the village, babies had a way of coming into the world when they thought fit and not always when it was convenient. Nevertheless, a gently reared girl – and this one was barely more than a child – shouldn’t have been travelling in her condition.

With a sigh, he looked ahead for the sight of a dwelling where he could enquire of one of the villagers if there was a doctor in the vicinity. He stopped at the first farm cottage he saw. A woman came to the door, holding up an oil lamp to peer at her unexpected visitor.

In answer to the coachman’s question, she shook her head. ‘Doctor’s laid up,’ she said flatly. ‘Broke his leg last week out hunting. My hubby was one of them as helped carry him back on a gate. If’n you wants doctoring, you’d best ask Nurse Wilks. She be village midwife and next best thing to …’

‘Where does she live?’ the man interrupted, trying to keep his patience. He did not like to leave the ladies on the side of the road unprotected.

‘Her lives in number four … Beacon Cottages, that is. But like as not you won’t find her in. She’ll be helping Martha Pritchett with Will’s tea most likely, he getting home from work soon after sunset and liking his tea soon as he gets in. Her lives at number three. Beacon Cottages is in Chalk Lane, first on your right ’bout half a mile yonder.’

As the man followed the direction indicated, it started to rain – a cold, steady downpour which decreased visibility. It was some time before he found Beacon Cottages and, as he stood waiting for the door to be opened, the rain dripped down inside the collar of his heavy overcoat. He shivered, thinking anxiously of the problems awaiting if the nurse were unwilling to go with him at this time of the evening and in this dreadful weather.

He need not have concerned himself. The midwife stopped only to go next door to fetch her bag and rain cape. A buxom, smiling Sussex woman, she allowed herself to be lifted astride the steaming back of the carriage horse and clung cheerfully to the driver’s waist as she waved goodbye to her neighbour and the two young children who were staring out of the tiny window above.

Two miles away Cynthia glanced repeatedly at the fob watch pinned to the velvet lapel of her travelling costume. She had removed her coat, which she had placed behind Dorothy’s head as a makeshift pillow. The coachman had been gone for less than an hour but it seemed an eternity and she was terrified lest the baby should arrive before help came. She had not the faintest idea what she should do, and as Dorothy’s moans became anguished screams, she feared her sister was going to die. Frequently Dorothy begged to be allowed to do so, tears of pain and self-pity pouring down her face. She was crouched now on all fours on the narrow floor of the carriage, her hands clawing into the upholstery of the seat and tearing at Cynthia’s skirt.

The midwife, when she arrived, paused only to order the coachman to pass her one of the carriage lamps before opening the door and peering inside. She gave a brief ‘tut-tut’ and, stepping past Cynthia, unceremoniously lifted Dorothy’s skirt and petticoat and pulled down her drawers.

‘Won’t be long now,’ she said brightly. Seeing from Cynthia’s face that she was not far from hysteria, she added, ‘Nothing to worry about as I can see, ma’am. First baby, is it?’ She heaved Dorothy on to the seat as if she bore no weight. ‘You’re doing fine, m’dear, but don’t push till I say so. Got here just in time.’

Speechless, Cynthia gazed at the newcomer who seemed as impervious to her own wet apparel as she was to the bizarre scene she was attending. She appeared to be not only immensely capable but also resourceful.

‘If you can spare your petticoat, ma’am? We’ll need summat to put Baby in.’

‘She can’t have it here!’ Cynthia cried. ‘I must get her to Brighton. It’s all arranged. Can’t you give her something to stop it?’

‘Can’t stop nature,’ Nurse Wilks said cheerfully. As Dorothy’s cries quietened momentarily, she added, ‘Before its time, is it? Reckon as how the poor young lady never expected to have her first in a carriage! Never you worry, though. I’ve brought little ones into this world in worse places than this. On your way to Brighton, were you?’

Cynthia nodded. There could be no danger in admitting this much.

‘We can’t have the young lady being bumped about in a carriage when this is over,’ the midwife continued. ‘Be at very least a week afore she’ll be fit for a journey. Best get a room in Calking, ma’am. The Drover’s Arms’ll put you up. It’s not very grand but clean as a whistle.’

Cynthia had given no thought to ‘afterwards’. Now her heart sank. They must get to Brighton. The matron of the nursing home had promised to remove the baby after its birth and before Dorothy had had time to become accustomed to it. Now, with the fates so set against their carrying out this plan, would they ever be able to continue their anonymity? It might still be possible. The coachman could take them to the local inn, where she could book a room for herself and Dorothy under assumed names, reward the driver handsomely for his assistance and send him on his way, none the wiser. There was, she decided, no alternative.

Dorothy’s child – a boy – was born at eleven o’clock that night after a protracted and difficult birth. Despite the long hours in appallingly cramped, cold conditions, Nurse Wilks had remained infallibly cheerful, encouraging her patient and reassuring Cynthia. She had only once looked concerned, when for a minute or two after its birth the baby gave no sign of life. Hand held to her mouth in a state of shock at all she had been forced to witness, Cynthia had been overcome with a desire for the lifeless infant to remain so. Her own child had been stillborn and if Dorothy’s child were likewise so, it would solve so many problems. But the baby had started breathing. After hours of intolerable pain, Dorothy refused even to look at it. The midwife sighed.

‘Happens from time to time, ma’am,’ she said to Cynthia. ‘Give her a day or two and she’ll feel different.’

‘No!’ Cynthia cried involuntarily, adding quickly, ‘she’s only a child herself and I know she doesn’t want to nurse the baby. We’ll have to get a bottle for it.’

‘Time for that in the morning. Folks round here don’t fancy that newfangled way of feeding bairns, so there aren’t no bottles in the village shop. Have to go into Burgess Hill if’n that’s what you want. First thing is to get it some clothing.’ Nurse Wilks smiled cheerfully. ‘Happen we could borrow something for the poor little mite from Martha Pritchett.’

She finished her ministrations to Dorothy, who was now lying exhausted and uncaring in a half-sleep, and turned back to Cynthia. ‘Martha Pritchett lives next door to me, ma’am. I delivered her little girl two weeks back and she, being a healthy soul, is not short of milk. Maybe you’d like to have the baby wet-nursed till its mother is feeling better?’

For the first time since the dreadful ordeal had begun, Cynthia began to see a ray of hope. She was exhausted and Dorothy even more so. They could rest at the inn until Dorothy was fit enough to return home to convalesce. The baby could stay with the wet nurse in Calking until she, Cynthia, could make fresh arrangements to leave it at an orphanage. Perhaps, she thought, she could take it into Brighton herself? But she dared not leave Dorothy alone in her weakened state. Who knew what she might blurt out if she left her in the hands of a stranger.

‘I would pay this woman well for taking the child!’ she said eagerly. ‘Do you think she will agree to nurse it?’

Nurse Wilks nodded. ‘Her’s not the problem. They could do with the money, Will Pritchett being only under-gardener at The Grange. But the cottage is very small and there’s two little ’uns as well as new Baby. One up, one down is all the rooms there is. Maybe the young lady wouldn’t feel it suitable.’

‘No, indeed, my sister would be only too happy to have the baby cared for,’ Cynthia broke in. ‘We never expected this to happen so soon. We were going to buy a suitable layette in Brighton and engage a nurse for the child there.’

Nurse Wilks nodded, before adding practically, ‘Best be on our way, ma’am. It’s cold as charity and the sooner the poor young lady’s tucked up in a nice warm bed the better. She’ll be needing towels and suchlike. I can pick them up at my cottage while you’re talking to Martha Pritchett.’

With the horses held to a walking pace lest the jolting cause harm to Dorothy, it was the best part of an hour before the carriage came to a halt outside Beacon Cottages. The rain had stopped and there was no sound other than the faint bleating of sheep on the grassy downland, the dark silhouette of which was just visible beyond the dwellings. One of the horses, long overdue for a feed, neighed suddenly, causing a dog in a distant farmhouse to start barking.

Eight feet above the carriage, behind a tiny casement window of the cottage, four-year-old Alice Pritchett stirred out of her sleep. As the horse neighed a second time, she eased her thin body from beneath the slight weight of her little brother’s arm and stared out of the window. Fascinated by the sight beneath her, she rubbed her eyes, wondering if she could be dreaming. A fine carriage with two horses and a coachman outside their cottage! Such a spectacle was rare enough even in the yard of The Drover’s Arms.

Pushing her long corn-coloured hair out of her eyes and scratching her head, Alice pressed her nose to the latticed windowpane. It was bitterly cold in the tiny room, which had space for no more than the bed in which she and her brother slept. It was not really a bedroom but part of the upstairs landing which had been curtained off when the arrival of the new baby had necessitated the removal of their bed from their parents’ room to make way for the cradle. At the top of the stairs there was now only space enough for a single person to walk sideways into her parents’ bedroom.

Alice instantly recognized the first person to leave the carriage as their neighbour, Nurse Wilks. Open-mouthed, she watched as the midwife knocked on the door but, hearing her parents’ movements through the thin-walled partition, she scrambled quickly back beneath the quilt. A moment or two later she saw a gleam from their oil lamp through a chink in the curtain and heard her father’s voice muttering, ‘Whosonever can that be at this hour’, as he went downstairs.

Holding her breath, wide awake now as her curiosity mounted, Alice listened to her father’s raised voice, then Nurse Wilks’s quieter tones. She saw her mother, holding a lighted candle, go downstairs. Alice listened, then knelt once more at the window as the carriage door opened. Her mouth gaped in astonishment as she saw a fine lady climb out of the carriage holding a bundle and, sheltering it beneath her coat, hurry in through their front door.

Now there were more voices, only partly audible to the listening child, followed by the wail of a baby.

‘… more than enough on your hands with our own little ’un …’ Alice identified her father’s deep tones.

‘… as easily feed one as two, Will, and we need the money. Please …’ Those, she knew, were her mother’s softer tones, pleading.

‘… easily die if we can’t find …’ That was Nurse Wilks’s voice.

Next came the sound of a voice Alice did not recognize. It was clear, not unlike that of Miss Tester, the schoolmistress who sometimes allowed Alice to clean her brass and paid her a halfpenny for the work.

‘I do assure you, I will make it well worth your trouble …’ There was a chink of coins being placed on the scrubbed kitchen table, then her father’s voice, mollified, saying, ‘T’won’t cost nowt to feed the babe till you can make arrangements, ma’am, but it’s Mrs Pritchett I’m worried for. T’aint long since she birthed our Jenny and …’

‘Only for a day or two, Mr Pritchett. I’d be so very grateful.’

‘Poor little mite.’ That was her mother crooning as she did when she nursed Alice’s new baby sister. She was soft-hearted, was her mum, and never spoke sharply to her two-year-old brother, Billy, who’d been born with a foot twisted the wrong way. Sometimes Alice resented the scoldings only she received, often accompanied by a rap on the knuckles, but a glance at Billy’s foot – which always made her want to cry – brought understanding. Even now he couldn’t walk properly.

Now, more than anything in the world, Alice wished she was brave enough to creep downstairs and see the infant they had been talking about. Was it a little girl, like their baby, Jenny? Or a boy, like Billy? How would her mother manage with two babies? But the steep wooden staircase led directly into the kitchen and she dared not risk being noticed. Reluctantly Alice accepted that she would have to wait until morning to see the new arrival.

Downstairs farewells were being said. Outside, the coachman had turned the horses in the entrance to one of the farm fields. Alice watched as the lady came out of the house and the driver helped her into the carriage. As they drove away, the front door closed and Alice heard her mother say, ‘You go on back to bed, Will. You’ve to be at work in the morning. I’ll stay down and see if the poor little mite wants a feed. See that, Will. It’s more than two weeks’ wages the lady gave us. Now I can buy Alice a winter coat, and those new breeches you’re needing. ’Tis like it was God intended, Will.’

‘More like an accident, if you ask me, Martha. What’s gentry doing driving around the countryside in that condition? It ain’t right, no matter Nurse Wilks saying as how the babe was birthed ’afore its time.’

‘That’s not our business, Will. Best not think on it.’

‘Mebbe not, but that there baby is our concern. Get it fed quickly, my girl, if you must, and come back to bed. It’s bitter cold here.’

Her father’s footsteps went past the curtain. Alice heard the springs of the big brass bedstead groan as he climbed in. She snuggled back beside her brother’s warm body, and shivered. It was, she thought, only two weeks past Christmas and, so her Dad had said at teatime, there could soon be snow. She loved Christmas and wished it was not behind them. Most of all, she loved the nativity scene that was always put up in the church – the pretty statue of the Virgin Mary, the animals, the silver paper star and, not least, the cradle with a life-size baby doll in it that was Jesus.

As she cuddled still closer to the warm body of her sleeping brother, Alice considered the story they’d been told in Sunday School about the birth of Jesus. That, too, had happened at Christmas and late at night. The Holy Babe had been unexpected – except by the Wise Men – just like the baby downstairs. If it had had a home to go to and a cradle to lie in, the lady wouldn’t have had to bring it here in the middle of the night for her mum to look after.

The following morning Alice, usually reluctant to leave her warm bed, was first to go downstairs. Her mum, already up and dressed, allowed her to pull back the blanket to look at the dark-haired infant, which, she told Alice, was a boy. Her mind still a little confused by thoughts of the infant Jesus, Alice was certain that God had sent this baby on purpose for them to take care of.

‘We’ll keep him, won’t we, Mum?’ she said as she gazed down at the child. He was sleeping peacefully in the makeshift cradle her mother had improvised from one of the dresser drawers, their own baby, Jenny, occupying the Pritchett cradle.

‘Only for a day or two, Alice,’ her mother answered as she riddled the kitchen range and the first glimmer of warmth stole into the room. ‘Now lay the table for breakfast while I get Billy dressed, and stop talking. Your dad’ll be down shortly.’

Alice’s hazel eyes filled with tears of disappointment as she obediently put a loaf of bread on the wooden table, together with a bowl of dripping, and placed a jug of milk on top of the range.

Her father’s arrival kept her silent until they had finished their meal and he had departed to work. As soon as the door closed behind him, she tugged at Martha’s skirt.

‘Please, Mum, can’t we keep him? I’ll take care of him, honest. He won’t be no bother to you.’

‘Hush, Alice. You don’t understand,’ her mother said, not unkindly. ‘He don’t belong to us. Any road, you got our Jenny to take care of – she’s your own sister. This ’un got his own family what’ll be wanting him theirselves.’

Martha Pritchett had no way of knowing that, not half a mile away, Cynthia Merstam had different plans for the baby’s future. After a sleepless night ministering to Dorothy, she had come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be gained by taking the child to an orphanage when there was a family such as the Pritchetts who might be persuaded to bring him up as their own. For all their obvious poverty, the tiny cottage had been spotlessly clean, and in the circumstances it was ridiculous to be snobbish about an unwanted, illegitimate child. The Pritchetts had no idea who she or Dorothy really were. Like the landlord of The Drover’s Arms, they believed her to be a Mrs Robinson and the baby’s mother, a Mrs Keynes. If they could be persuaded to keep the infant, it would relieve her of the problem of how to get it to Brighton without leaving Dorothy alone. Although physically her young sister was recovering well from the birth, mentally she was very far from well. When she was not actually sleeping, she was weeping hysterically. Nurse Wilks had said it was not uncommon for a new mother to suffer from depression, especially after Dorothy’s ordeal giving birth on the highway and without her husband at hand to comfort and support her. But Cynthia was terrified lest Dorothy might blurt out the truth – that she had no husband and that she was mourning the loss of Gervaise’s child.

She called once again to see the Pritchetts at a time when she knew the husband would be home from work. She had already assessed that despite being a man of few words, he was the one who determined how his family’s life was conducted. Martha Pritchett, she sensed, was a warm-hearted woman who proudly indicated how – despite the way it had come into the world – the baby was clearly thriving in her care. There was the little girl too, who played into Cynthia’s hands, bursting into floods of tears when her father said he would not consider keeping the baby for a whole year.

‘Mrs Keynes is very far from well,’ Cynthia repeated. ‘You must appreciate my problem, Mr Pritchett. The baby was born prematurely and Mrs Keynes had not yet made preparations – no nurse engaged, no nursery. Her husband is abroad and she has no close relative to assist her. Naturally, I would make it worth your while, and I’d pay you now in advance. Surely if your wife has one infant to look after, a second is little extra work? Mrs Pritchett does seem to be managing very well indeed.’

‘Tis a fact, Will, what the lady says – I can manage well enough.’

The man’s expression remained unchanged, and he ignored the little girl’s pleadings as she tugged at the edges of his waistcoat.

‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, but it don’t seem right somehows. We’re poor folk and,’ he added with a pertinent wryness, ‘we ain’t got no nursery either.’

Cynthia permitted herself a gentle smile. ‘No, but I can see how beautifully you keep your house and I have every confidence in your wife, Mr Pritchett. It would only be for a year. By then Mrs Keynes will have had time to make proper arrangements.’

‘We could do with the money, Will,’ Martha said persuasively, and turned to her elder daughter, who had stopped crying and was now promising her father that she would help take care of the baby. ‘Hush your mouth, Alice. Tis naught to do with you. Upstairs, now, and see to Billy. I can hear him crying.’

‘So do I have your agreement, Mr Pritchett? You’ll foster the child for a year?’

When Cynthia left half an hour later, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She would leave it to Nurse W