After that night Harriet became aware that Noah frequently left the farm on Friday and Saturday evenings, but now, if she was awake and had gone to sit downstairs, she made sure that she was back in bed before midnight so that there was no confrontation with him.
She wanted to ask his mother where he might be going, but Ellen was taciturn and didn’t encourage conversation and Harriet guessed that she was worrying over Fletcher. She seemed to have no empathy with Noah, which seemed odd to Harriet. I’d have thought she’d be glad to have one son at home.
The time dragged, even though she tried to keep busy and do most of her usual jobs on the farm. I’d have had to keep working if I’d been pregnant in Hull, she thought, and being under the eye of a mill foreman would have been much worse. At least here I can sit down occasionally and take my time over milking and feeding the animals.
One Saturday evening, when they had finished supper and cleared away, Ellen was preparing vegetables by the sink for the next day’s meal and Mr Tuke was snoring by the fire. Ellen had given Harriet some white cotton material and she was sewing a layette at the table by the light of the lamp when she became aware of Noah looking at her and chewing on his fingernails.
She attempted a hesitant smile but he didn’t respond and simply stared at her, then, abruptly, got to his feet and headed for the door. ‘Don’t lock up,’ he muttered to his mother as he went past her. ‘I might be late.’
Mrs Tuke watched his back as he slammed out of the door and silently shook her head, then bent it again to finish what she was doing.
A few minutes later Harriet heard the striking of hooves across the yard and knew it wasn’t the old mare that Noah was riding. When Ellen came to sit down opposite her, Harriet murmured, ‘Where do you think he’ll be going? To ’alehouse?’
‘Mebbe.’ Ellen glanced at her husband, who was slumped back in the chair with his mouth open. He’d become flabby and corpulent over the summer, demanding larger portions of meat, more butter on his bread and potatoes, more cream on his apple or bramble pies; Ellen turned her face away from him with an expression of distaste. ‘Mebbe not.’
‘Where then?’ Harriet persisted. ‘He’s tekken ’stallion so he’s riding hard.’
Ellen gave an indifferent shrug. ‘Reckon that’s what he’s doing then.’ She looked again at Mr Tuke and her lips curled. ‘Stallions, ’pair of ’em. Like father, like son.’
Harriet put down her sewing. ‘What?’ She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you so innocent that you don’t know, or can’t guess?’ Ellen’s voice was cutting.
Harriet put her hand to her mouth. Did she really want to know where her husband had gone on a wet and windy night? Though October had been a mellow month, now they were in November the weather had turned foggy and damp, so what, she wondered, was so urgent or important that Noah had to saddle up and canter off when it was almost bedtime?
Stallions, Mrs Tuke had called her husband and son, although looking at Mr Tuke, sprawled so slovenly in his chair Harriet couldn’t imagine him ever being virile or attractive to any woman.
‘So,’ she murmured. ‘Do you think that Noah has gone to meet a woman?’
Ellen Tuke clasped her hands in her lap and didn’t speak but gazed at Harriet pityingly, her lips curled. Then she took a heaving breath and said slowly, ‘I thought that being a townswoman you’d be worldly, but I gather that you’re not.’
‘I’m trying not to think about it.’ Harriet lifted her eyes to her mother-in-law. ‘But if it’s not just one woman, then—’
‘A brothel,’ Ellen stated flatly. ‘That’s where he’ll have gone. No point in beating about ’bush. There’s nowhere else he could go. Any half-decent woman will be within her own four walls at this time o’ night.’
‘So – where?’ Harriet whispered. She’d always thought of herself as a woman of the world. She’d met enough men at the various alehouses and hostelries where she’d worked over the years to know when they were on the lookout for a willing woman, and she noted the areas where the brothels were in order to steer clear of them after dark. But she had never thought that she would marry a man who would go looking for such places because his wife wasn’t available.
‘Where?’ Ellen scoffed. ‘I could mek a guess at a couple o’ places, but there’s one in particular where they’ll tek any man, young or old, rich or poor, if he dare tek ’chance of coming out unscathed.’
What was it she said when I first arrived? Harriet tried to remember. Something in response to Mr Tuke’s probing question to Noah about where they’d met. Was it a brothel, he’d asked, and – yes, Ellen had said there was no need to travel to Hull to find one, that he’d be able to find one closer to home. And Mr Tuke had been angry and told her to shut her mouth.
Was this how she knew? Had Mr Tuke been to a brothel seeking a woman when his wife was pregnant?
Harriet shuddered. If that was where Noah had gone, the worry was what would happen after she’d given birth. Would Noah seek her bed again? Would he pay for a woman’s services when he had a wife at home? And if he had been with those women, were they clean? And if they weren’t, would he pass on a disease to her?
Mr Tuke suddenly snorted and sat up and looked at them both. ‘What?’ he rasped. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, Mr Tuke,’ Ellen responded calmly, ‘that you might as well be in bed as snoring by ’fire.’
‘I wasn’t snoring,’ he growled. ‘Don’t ever snore,’ but he heaved himself out of the chair and went to the door and out of the porch, leaving the door wide open so that a cold draught blew into the kitchen. Mrs Tuke tutted and got up to close it after him. He was back within a few minutes and headed for the stairs.
‘Nivver snore,’ he grunted. ‘Nivver in my life.’
Mrs Tuke waited until they heard the bedroom door bang shut and then she said, as if there hadn’t been any interruption, ‘It used to be in ’centre of Brough, but folk got sick of seeing men going in and out, and men didn’t like it either in case their wives found out. So the madam,’ she added scathingly, ‘found another place on ’outskirts of town and although this was a long time ago, to ’best of my knowledge she’s still there.’
‘From Mr Tuke’s time?’ Harriet asked. ‘Surely …’ She wanted to say that the madam would be too old, but that would imply that Mr and Mrs Tuke were old too.
Ellen got up from the table and came to sit in Mr Tuke’s chair, motioning Harriet to sit opposite her. She gave several deep lingering sighs, and after a moment or two said, ‘I found out that Mr Tuke frequented Miriam Stone’s establishment and gave him an ultimatum.’ She shifted about in the chair and gazed at the coals in the fire, chewing on her lip. ‘It was her bed or mine.’ She glanced sideways at Harriet. ‘Mebbe you’d mek a different decision, but I don’t need to know about it.’
‘Of course not,’ Harriet said meekly. ‘Noah’s your son, after all.’
Mrs Tuke, deep in thought, silently shook her head.
Then Harriet had a sudden thought which filled her with dismay. ‘I – I suppose it’s difficult for young men,’ she ventured. ‘When they live so far out from other folk; I mean, erm, where do they go to meet decent young women?’
‘It’s no different for young girls,’ Ellen snapped. ‘They meet lads at work or on neighbouring farms …’ She hesitated. ‘Like I did.’ Then she added, ‘You wouldn’t catch Fletcher going to places like Miriam Stone’s. I warned him off her when he was just a lad.’
Which was what I wanted to know, Harriet thought, but wondered how Ellen would know whether or not Fletcher had visited the place. He wasn’t likely to tell her, and if she had warned Fletcher, why hadn’t she issued the same warning to Noah?
‘Mrs Tuke – Ellen,’ she started. ‘When my child is born, I hope it’ll bring you some happiness.’ She paused. ‘I know you miss Fletcher, it’s onny natural that you’d miss a child when it left home, especially your firstborn, but if Fletcher had been a girl and not a lad she’d have left home to marry by now and you’d mebbe have had grandchildren by her already. I know you’ll never think of me as your daughter, and I can’t think of you as my mother, having had a good relationship wi’ my own …’ she choked back a sob as she remembered her mother and how special their bond had been, ‘but, I hope you’ll be able to care for my child, whether it’s male or female, because it’ll be of your own blood and you’ll be ’onny grandparent, apart from Mr Tuke, that it’ll have.’
Ellen Tuke stared at Harriet with such intensity that Harriet began to feel uncomfortable, and then she saw a range of emotions pass over the contorted face: confusion, uncertainty, sorrow, pain and finally anger.
‘No,’ Ellen hissed. ‘I won’t be able to care for it. I’m sorry for what I’m about to say, and you’ll think that I’m an unnatural, unfeeling woman and I’ll tell you that I wasn’t allus like this, but fate dealt me a nasty blow. I won’t love your child because it is not of my blood. Noah is not my son.’