“Lord, no! Sorry. In the early years of the last century, it would have been; but I couldn’t say any surer than that. Poor little mite. Can you imagine, leaving a baby out like that? No knowing if anyone would find it or if it would just lie there and suffer to the end. Terrible thing to do.” Mo slurps her tea. “Mind you, in those days once you had a kid no one would touch you, I suppose. Not for work or for marrying or nothing else.” She shakes her head. “Rotten bastards.”
“Do you know where they found him? Where in the country, I mean?”
“Well, here, of course. In Barrow Storton. He was a local baby, whose ever he was.”
I take this in, and I almost tell them what I think, but I don’t. It seems suddenly too big, the incredible, disturbing, seasick idea that I have; and the way it chimes with something Dinny said to me in the café yesterday.
“Why do you ask?” Mo says.
“Oh, just curious. I’ve been looking into the history of the Calcotts, and what have you, since I’ve been back. Shuffling through what I remember, trying to fill in the gaps,” I shrug. Mo nods.
“It’s always the way. We wait until the people who could answer our questions are dead and gone, and only then do we realize we had questions to ask them,” she says, somewhat sadly.
“Oh, I’m not sure Meredith would have answered any questions of mine, anyway,” I say wryly. “I was never her favorite.”
“Well, if it’s the history of the house you’re after, you should go and talk to old George Hathaway, over at Corner Cottage,” Keith tells me, leaning his sinewy elbows on his bony knees.
“Oh? Who’s George Hathaway?” I ask.
“Just a pleasant old boy. He ran the garage on the Devizes road most of his life. Retired now, of course. But his mother was a maid at the big house, back in the day.”
“How far back?” I ask eagerly.
“Oh,” Keith flaps a gnarled red hand over his shoulder, “right back. You know, they used to go into service at an early age, back then. I think she was only a girl when she started there. Before the first world war, it would have been.” I breathe deeply, excitement tickling the palms of my hands. “You know which one Corner Cottage is? On the way out of the village, toward Pewsey, where the lane bends sharp to the left? It’s the little thatched place with the green gates just there.”
“Yes, I know it. Thank you.” I smile. I leave them shortly afterwards, as Honey starts to drowse on the sofa and Mo takes the baby from her, puts her down in the carrycot.
“Come again, won’t you? Bring Beth-it’d be nice to see you both,” Mo says, and I nod as the cold outside makes my nose ache.
I go straight to Corner Cottage, which sits by itself on the outskirts of Barrow Storton; walls that were once white now streaked and gray. The render is cracking in places, the thatch is dark and sagging. The gate is closed, but I let myself in, cross the weed-choked driveway. I knock three times, hard; the heavy knocker so cold it burns my fingers.
“Yes, my love?” An old man, short and spry, smiles at me, keeps the chain on the door.
“Um, hello. Sorry to bother you-are you George Hathaway?” I say, hurriedly marshalling my thoughts.
“That’s me, my love. Can I help you?”
“My name’s Erica Calcott, and I was wondering if-”
“Calcott, you say? From the manor house?” George interrupts.
“Yes, that’s right. I was just-”
“Just a tick!” The door shuts in my face, opens a second later without the chain. “Never in all my years did I expect a Calcott to arrive at my door. What a turn up! Come in, come in; don’t dawdle on the step!”
“Thank you.” I step inside. The interior of the cottage is clean, tidy, warm. Pleasantly surprising, compared to the exterior.
“Come on through. I’ll put the kettle on and you can tell me whatever it is that brings you here.” George bustles ahead of me along a narrow corridor. “Coffee suit you?” The kitchen is low and crowded. The usual build up of paraphernalia-biscuit tins, spatulas, rusting sieves and onion skins; but other things besides. Things that speak of the absence of a woman about the house. A black and greasy engine part on the table. A set of spanners on top of the fridge. George moves with a speed and deftness that belies his years. Neat curls of white hair around a thin face; eyes a startling pale green, the color of a driftwood fire.
“I’ve only just got back myself, last night-you’re lucky to find me home. Been at my daughter’s for Christmas, over in Yeovil. Lovely to see her, and the grandkids of course, but just as lovely to be home again, isn’t that right, Jim?” He addresses a small, fat, wire-haired mongrel, which waddles from its basket to investigate my legs. It has the penetrating aroma of elderly dogs everywhere, but I scratch behind one of its ears, all the same. Pungent grease gathers under my nails. “Here you go. Sit down, my love.” He passes me a mug of instant and I cup my hands around it gratefully, slide onto a chair at the enamel-topped table. “You’ve moved into the big house, now, have you?”
“Oh, not really, no. We’ve been here for Christmas-my sister and I. But I don’t think we’ll be staying on permanently,” I explain. George’s face falls.
“Now that’s a shame! Not selling up, I hope? Shame for the place to fall out of the family, when it’s been in it so many years.”
“I know. I know it is. Only, my grandmother was rather specific about the terms of her will, and… well, let’s just say it might be very hard for us to keep to them,” I say.
“Ah, well, say no more. None of my business. Families is families, and they all have their ins and outs, Lord knows, even the grand ones!”
“Perhaps especially the grand ones.” I smile.
“My mother worked for your family you know,” George tells me, pride in his voice.
“I know. That was why I’ve come to see you, actually. The Dinsdales put me on to you-”
“Mo Dinsdale?”
“That’s right.”
“Lovely lady, Mo. Bright as a button. Normally, it’s the menfolk that brings a car in for work-I used to run the garage, you know, on the Devizes road. But when that big wagon of theirs needed fixing it was always Mo that came in with it, and she watched me like a hawk! Needn’t have-I knew better than to try to pull the wool over her eyes. Lovely lady,” George chuckles.
“I was wondering if your mother ever used to talk about the time she spent working at the manor?” I ask, sipping my coffee, letting it scald my throat.
“If she ever talked about it? Well, she never stopped talking about it, my love-not when I was a lad.”
“Oh? Did she work there a long time, do you know? Do you know when she started there?” I am keen, I lean toward George. Beneath the table, Jim sits on my foot, plump and warm. George grins at me.
“It was the length of time she worked there that was the cause of all the natter!” he says. “She was let go, you see. Only eight or nine months after she started. It was a bit of a source of shame, in our family.”
“Oh.” I can’t hide my disappointment, because I doubt that she can have learnt much in so short a time. “Do you know why? What happened?”
“Lady Calcott fingered her for stealing. Mother denied it with every breath she had, but there you go. The gentry didn’t need proof back then. Off she went packing, with no character reference or nothing. Stroke of luck that the butcher here-my dad-was in love with her from the second he set eyes on her-she married him soon afterwards, so she wasn’t without means for very long.”
“Which Lady Calcott was it? Do you know the year your mother was there?”