In January 1914, a couple of weeks after the ball, Adam Jefferson went to the United States to study new cold store techniques and buy new equipment. In the six months that he was away, the newly but already strongly established firm of Jefferson and Benton built steadily on strong foundations. Jack kept the yard and the now-completed cold store running efficiently and well. The sales of ice, both manufactured and natural, were steady. Molly, her initial efforts now bearing fruit, turned her attention to tracking down, haggling over and ordering the high-quality supplies that the business demanded, and found herself enjoying the tasks immensely. Her brisk figure became well-known in the docks as she hunted down her small cargoes in person, watching their handling like a hawk – for fruit and flowers particularly could be easily damaged by careless treatment – persuading their passage with smiles and a quick tongue through the customs, always the first to have her trucks loaded and away. She persuaded Jack that their transport, both motorized and horse-drawn, should be smart and distinctive. Blue and chocolate brown were the colours she chose, with golden, decorative lettering proclaiming to the world that Jefferson and Benton were purveyors of only the highest quality luxury items. She used the information that Adam fed her back from America to good advantage, and for the day-to-day problems she had Joseph Forrest to advise her. They now had an established circle of customers whom she visited regularly armed with a tempting list of the new delicacies that she could, at a price, provide. By April the Jefferson-Benton store was working to capacity. As the spring sunshine strengthened in promise of a glorious summer Molly surveyed their order books with justifiable satisfaction.
‘You should buy an ice-making machine of your own for the summer, you really should,” she said to Annie one day. ‘You can get small ones, you know, specially for shops like yours—”
“And what do we use for money? Buttons?” Annie said, her voice full of laughter. Her new baby, born in February, had been another boy, Robert Edward – she intended, she had informed Molly, to produce the whole of the West Ham football team for the nineteen thirties.
“They aren’t all that expensive.” Molly, smiling, dangled a piece of ribbon for the baby to reach for. Aware of silence she looked up. Annie was standing, grinning at her, hands on hips.
“You and your big ideas, Molly girl. I remember saying to Charley the first day I met you – remember, the picnic, that hat with the cherries? – that girl, I said, is going places. And I was right, wasn’t I? But we aren’t all on our way to our first million, you know love. Some of us are quite happy with what we’ve got.” The words were spoken lightly and certainly not intended as criticism, yet they startled Molly. Walking back to The Larches she thought about them. Ever since the day that she had walked in, footsore and determined, on John Marsden she had believed that she was working for one thing and one thing only, to establish for herself and later for her family some kind of security in a frighteningly insecure world. Now, she suddenly realized, she had that security. Yet still she worked, still she planned, and Annie’s quiet content was beyond her. Ambition, she mused, was a strange thing. It might, as in her case, start as a driving necessity, an essential to keep body and soul together in a grim world, but who could tell when it took over as a force in its own right?
Wasn’t it Adam who had once told her that success, like love, was an addictive drug? She smiled a little ruefully. Of course it had been Adam. Who would know better about either?
As she turned, her mind abstracted, up the path of The Larches she almost bumped into a tall young man whom she did not at first recognize and who surprised her by doffing his hat politely and murmuring “Good evening, Mrs Benton,” as he passed her.
“Was that young Chris Edmonton I saw leaving just now?” she asked Nancy.
“Yes, it was. They’re organizing a march for Saturday. He had some leaflets for me to deliver.”
“He’s married now, isn’t he?”
“Yes he is.” Nancy’s voice was expressionless.
“What’s she like?”
“Felicity? Oh – young, pretty, I suppose. Well-connected. A bit stupid.”
Molly laughed. “I don’t suppose Christopher thinks so.” She paused and then added in face of Nancy’s dour expression, curiously, “Does he?”
Nancy stood up. “I’m sure I don’t know. It isn’t anything we discuss. Here – these are the notes on a couple of girls I interviewed today.” She tossed a file on the desk and then stood looking down at Molly, her face uncertain. “Moll, I’m sorry, there’s something I have to tell you. If I don’t then someone else will.”
“Oh?” Molly shuffled through the papers. “What is it?”
“It – concerns Danny.”
That stilled the busy fingers. Molly lifted her head. “What about him?”
Nancy spread helpless hands. “There’s no easy way to say it He’s been playing truant. And now – he’s started to steal—”
“What!”
“I’ve known he’s been playing truant for some time. I should have told you, I know. But he promised—” Nancy stopped. There was a long, tense silence.
“You’d better tell me it all.”
Jack sat in silence in the dark parlour and listened to Molly’s tale told in an even, drained tone that spoke more of her distress than any histrionics might have done. Nancy’s revelations had hit her like a bombshell. “He’s been playing truant for months. Nancy’s caught him several times. And others have seen him. He always had an excuse when Nancy mentioned it – you know what he is – she didn’t know what to do for the best. He kept promising her faithfully that it wouldn’t happen again. She didn’t want to cause trouble. But now – stealing again! From Nancy. From the girls’ pockets and purses. And from God only knows who else—” Her voice cracked a little.
Jack’s face, the still-vicious scar gleaming high on his cheekbone, was rigid with anger. He slammed his hand violently onto the arm of his chair. “By Christ, that’s enough! I’m going to take the hide off that lad!”
She shook her head. “What good will that do? This is my fault. My fault!” She buried her dry face in her hands.
“What are you on about?” Jack’s voice was rough, but not unkind. “Your fault?”
She lifted her head. “Yes. My fault. I should have known. I should have spent more time with him. I should have remembered—” She stopped. Jack watched her. The sounds of the house were loud in the silence. Above them, in Nancy’s rooms, the girls’ laughter pealed. In the hall outside the door a floorboard creaked, but neither of them noticed it. “Well,” she went on, more composedly. “Now I know, and now I will do something. I want him to leave school. If he wants money so badly, then let him earn it At the cold store, under your eye. He didn’t want to stay on at school anyway. It was I who insisted. But I’m not having him leave to run wild with these – friends – of his. I want you to take him on—”
Jack moved violently from his chair. “Damned if I’ll—”
“For Harry’s sake, Jack. And for mine. Please.”
Jack ran his hands distractedly through his hair.
“—And then – there are things I should tell him, aren’t there? We can’t keep quiet for ever. Apart from anything else, there’s the money. He comes into it on his twenty-first birthday. What will we tell him? How will we explain—?” She stopped, and her expression changed as she stared over Jack’s shoulder at the opening door.
Danny leaned against the jamb, one hand negligently in his pocket, his eyes veiled. “Secrets?” he asked.
No one spoke.
The boy shut the door behind him and walked with a kind of tense grace into the room. Fury suddenly suffused Jack’s face. “You little – you’ve been listening at the door!”
“Yes, I have.” Danny did not flinch from Jack’s sudden movement towards him.
“Jack, no!” Molly moved between them, her hands flat against Jack’s huge chest. He stood for a moment, breathing heavily, glaring at the tall, slight figure of the boy over Molly’s head. Then he turned from them both, his hands bunched, his jaw corded with anger.
Molly turned to face her son. “I think you’d better sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.” His voice was pure insolence.
“Sit down.” She did not change her tone. “I’ve no intention of talking to you until you do.”
The fragile veneer of his arrogance cracked a little. He stood uncertainly before his mother’s iron composure then, with bad grace, dropped into the nearest chair.
Molly remained standing, looking down at him. “I assume that what your Aunt Nancy has finally brought herself to tell me about is true?”
The boy shrugged.
“Answer your mother,” Jack snapped.
Danny threw him a look of sheer hostility.
“Well?” Molly asked.
Silence.
“That’s answer enough, isn’t it? You heard, I assume, what I was saying just now – about your leaving school and working at the cold store?”
The red head lifted then, and he looked at her, a blaze of malice in his blue eyes. “That’s not all I heard.”
“I didn’t imagine that it was.” Molly struggled to hold her temper, saw Jack turn away, sensed the effort he was making to contain an impulse to violence. “Very well. Since you are obviously determined to make this as painful as possible for everyone, then I suppose that’s the way it has to be. Though these are hardly the circumstances that I would choose—”
“Well, it isn’t your choice, is it?” The words were curtly rude. ‘I heard you say something about money. Money that’s coming to me when I’m twenty-one. I want to know about it. I’ve a right to know about it—”
Molly’s voice when she spoke was expressionless. “A few years ago you were left a sum of money. A little over a thousand pounds. The bank has invested it for you. You will come in to the capital sum and any profit that has accrued on your twenty-first birthday. You may not touch a penny before that day.”
He waited to see if she were going to continue. When it became apparent that she intended to say no more he made an impatient gesture. “And?”
“And what?” she asked, very hard.
“Where did it come from? How is it that I have money?” There was an edge of violence in his voice. He narrowed his eyes, watching his mother. “Who’s Harry? Did he leave me the money? What had he to do with me?”
Molly bit her lip, her hard-held composure shaken. “Danny, believe me, this isn’t the time—”
The boy leapt to his feet “Tell me!” Slowly the pale young face, hard as bone, turned towards Jack. “Why don’t you tell me – Dad?” The cruel emphasis on the word was blindingly deliberate and left no doubt as to its meaning. Danny was standing very close to Jack, looking into the square, scarred face as if purposely goading the man to force. “Who was Harry?”
Jack was as still as stone. “He was my brother. And your father.” Molly flinched from the pain in his voice.
“Aah,” Danny said softly. “That explains it.” He lifted a hand to his own face. “I never could understand why I should look like you, yet you never wanted me.”
“No!”
“That isn’t true!” Molly and Jack spoke in unison, Jack’s voice passionate.
“Oh yes.” Danny kept his eyes on his mother. “Oh, yes it is. I heard him say it. Heard him. Not my son, he said, but yours.” In the stunned moment of silence that followed his words he smiled, and turned to where Jack stood, his face shadowed. “What should I call you from now on? Uncle Jack?”
Jack used a vicious and explicit word. Danny lifted a provoking chin, staring at him. Molly saw, suddenly, the hurt in the full, young, downturned mouth. She put a hand to her son, who pulled back from it as if it had been a burning brand. “Well?” he asked Jack.
“Go to hell.” Jack stormed past them and out of the door. Mother and son were left looking at one another in the quiet room.
“I’d like to hear the rest,” he said. “Did the money come from my father? From Harry? I thought none of the Bentons had any money until you came along?” The words were not kind.
Molly took a breath. “The money was left to you by a woman named Ellen Alden. I married her son, Sam. He died. When Ellen was killed in an accident, the money came to you as her grandson—”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.” He glanced at the door through which Jack had left. “I thought you married him?”
“Afterwards.” Molly was aware of how badly it sounded, but could do nothing about it. “Sam was a good man,” she added. “He accepted you as his own. He—” she swallowed “—loved us both very much.” Not a trace of sympathetic emotion showed on the boy’s face.
“So, let me get this straight,” he said with an exaggerated interest. “You must admit it’s a little complicated. Penniless Irish girl gets herself in the family way. Then what? Why didn’t Harry marry you?”
“Oh, Danny, it’s all so difficult—” She stopped at the derisive expression on his face. “Harry went to South Africa,” she said, stonily. “He died there.”
“What of?”
“Dysentery.”
His mouth twisted. “That sounds about right. So then you married – what was his name? – Sam. Who conveniently upped and died. That would be about the time you started the agency, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve often wondered,” he said softly, “where the capital came from to start it all.”
“Sam left me a little.”
He looked at her in flat admiration. “Well, well. That was a happy chance, wasn’t it? And then you were free to marry him.” Again the jerk of the head, the refusal to speak the name. “I’ll say one thing. At least we know now where I get it from, eh? I may not be his son, but I’m sure as hell yours—”
She slapped him, open-handed, with all her strength. The heavy ring she wore caught his lip and blood sprang, bright as rubies. He did not move; only the hard face changed. The bloodied mouth trembled. After a moment the long lashes swept down as the boy squeezed his eyes shut to prevent the tears. Bright lamplight haloed his head, glinting like flame in his thick hair. The hurt of years showed suddenly in his face.
Molly spoke his name, very softly. He shook his head fiercely, rejecting her, rejecting the love in her voice. Then, abruptly, he broke. He bowed his head into his cupped hands and sobbed like the child he was. Molly sank to her knees on the floor, drawing him gently with her. He pillowed his head on her lap and cried as if his heart would break, while her fingers moved in his hair, smoothed his damp forehead. At last the tearing sobs eased, and he lay in silence, his hot, wet face turned from her.
“Danny, I’m sorry,” she said. “Sorry that it seems that we tried to deceive you. But there’s something that you must understand.” She lifted his face with her hand. “What Jack said that day he said in anger. Anger not at you, but at me. You’ll understand when you’re older. For now you must take my word for it. He didn’t mean it. Not the way it must have sounded. He’s been a true father to you. He loves you as his own. Don’t make him suffer more than he already has. He doesn’t deserve that from you. Truly he doesn’t.”
Danny sat back on his heels, sniffing.
“Growing up is always a painful business,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry we’ve made it even more difficult for you. Tomorrow’s a new day. You start work, start your life as a man. Look forward, not back. You have your life in front of you. We’ll help you all we can.”
He did not answer, but, resting his head again on her lap, lay like a tired child, his eyes closed, the tears still marking his cheeks. “What was my real father like?”
She looked down into the wilful, handsome young face with something like foreboding. “You’re his living image.”
Adam arrived back in London in the first, sun-gilded days of June, a week or so after the clash with Danny. Molly met him, briefly, at Forrest’s offices and the sight of him, as always, aroused those conflicting emotions that any contact with him inevitably did. He looked bronzed and healthy; his limp was considerably lessened. They had no private communication beyond that they conveyed by a certain capricious gleam in his eyes when he looked at her, and she was happy to leave it so. She had long since dismissed their moments of intimacy on New Year’s Eve as being the product of too much champagne and too little self-control, an impression that was reinforced on this occasion when Etta monopolized both his attention and his conversation and he did not, as far as Molly could see, put up any great defence.
“Well, my dear,” Joseph said expansively to Molly, “you’ll be at our little house party next weekend?”
“Yes. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good. Good. If the weather holds, then I think you’ll find it all quite pleasant. I’m looking forward to having you cheer us on. Adam’s crewing for me—”
“And if anything will ensure that you lose the race, then that will—” Adam’s face was alight with laughter. Molly found herself recoiling from the physical impact of his sudden appearance at her shoulder.
“How uncommonly modest of you.”
He was still laughing. “I thought we agreed at least that I knew my own shortcomings?”
“Excuse me a moment.” Joseph moved away from them.
“I’ve a lot to tell you,” Adam said to Molly.
“And I you. The ‘Grand’ in Regent Street has joined us, did you know? And I’ve found a firm in Scotland whose salmon is of much better quality than the people we’ve been using.” She knew her own perversity, and could not prevent herself. He raised his eyebrows.
“Adam,” Etta called sharply from the other side of the room where he had left her. “A moment, please. The guest list for Saturday—?”
He frowned. “You look as if you’ve lost a little weight, Molly. Is something wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m perfectly all right.”
“Adam—” Etta moved elegantly between them, smiling brilliantly. “You really mustn’t monopolize him, Mrs Benton. Adam, Joseph is asking for you.”
Adam eyed her coolly. Her look challenged his. Molly turned away from them both.
“Will you be joining us at the weekend, Mrs Benton?” Etta asked smoothly.
Molly tried to keep the pure dislike from her voice. “Yes, we will. Thank you for the invitation.”
Etta tucked an arm through hers and steered her away from Adam. “All these awful things that are happening in Ireland, my dear. Tell me, aren’t you absolutely worried out of your life about your people? I’ve heard talk of civil war.”
Molly carefully extricated her arm. “There is always talk of civil war, Mrs Forrest,” she said, very clearly. “And as for Ireland, she has my heartfelt sympathy. She can ill afford to lose more blood. But my own people are well able to look after themselves. The O’Dowds always could. Now, if you will excuse me—?” Brusquely she turned away, reaching for her wrap.
“Going already?” Joseph called from the other side of the room.
“There’s work waiting for me at the office,” she lied. And with the thought of the coming weekend heavy in her mind, she escaped.