Free More Tales of the West Riding by Phyllis Bentley

brought Ada as his wife and Kate as their baby girl. But he couldn’t marry her in time, you know.”
    â€œBut do you think Grandfather Hallam knew about this?” I stammered.
    â€œOf course he did!” shouted my father. “He just kept his mouth firmly shut and married Joshua’s sister Hannah, so it was all in the family, so to speak. A family secret which of course they all kept.”
    The hint of a slight tinge of possible moral blackmail by Grandfather Hallam in this situation disturbed me; I dismissed it at once, for I knew my grandfather’s character. But would Joshua have felt equally secure? Would the marriage of the nobody Thomas Hallam to the sister of the rich Joshua Milner have been accompanied without any pressure? Yes, I thought so; for they loved each other. All the same, I sought reassurance.
    â€œDid he ever mention it to you—Grandfather Hallam, I mean?”
    â€œNo. Never. Your Grandfather Hallam,” said my father, calming, “was a man of steel will and perfect integrity. He would never breathe a word to anyone, I am sure. Your grandmother certainly never knew.”
    â€œHow do you know, then?”
    â€œGarrett Clough told me.”
    â€œGarrett Clough?” I was stupefied. “But when?”
    â€œMy dear, by one of life’s little ironies—a great one, in this case—it was on the very night of Ben and Kate’s wedding. Garrett Clough got drunk at the reception and old Mr Clough practically threw him out and he wandered round the Annotsfield pubs and finished up at the Station, on his way to catch a London train. Of course, he missed one, and then some kindly porter pushed him out on the platform, and I was just walking along—we were coming back from Blackpool, you know; it was an excursion train and there was a considerable crowd and I became separated from the Hallams, and here was Garrett Clough clinging to my arm and sobbing on my shoulder. Of course I urged him to pull himself together and all that sort of thing, and eventually I managed to push him into the London express which came in on theother side of the platform, and he hung out of the window shouting at me. I’ve plenty to weep for!’ he shouted. ‘My son’s just married a bastard, the daughter of a—’ I won’t use such a word to you, Rose,” said my poor father. “But he meant Ada, you know. Oh yes, he meant Ada. And the moment I began to think about it, of course, I saw it all.”
    â€œBut how did Garrett Clough know?”
    â€œTrust Garrett to know Annotsfield scandal! He made plenty himself. And I reckon he had told Ben at the reception. He was just in the mood to do it.”
    â€œTold Ben! But surely Uncle Joshua must have told Ben when Ben and Kate first planned to be married?”
    â€œJoshua tell Ben! Not he. Ben might have duffed, as we say in Yorkshire; he might have called the marriage off. I don’t doubt,” continued my father in a kinder tone, “that your Great-uncle Joshua married Ada when he could. But it would be later, and in some registrar’s office in some far-off southern place, or London, you know, where nobody up here would hear of it. But a marriage after Kate was born wouldn’t make her legitimate, would it?”
    For in those days such was indeed the harsh law.
    â€œIt’s a terrible story, father,” said I.
    â€œAye. It all depends on Joshua’s will now, doesn’t it? If he’s
named
Ada and Kate as his beneficiaries—Catherine Mary Clough, you know—that’ll be all right. But if he’s just said “wife” and “daughter”, they may be in for a lot of trouble. Especially Kate. I don’t know enough law to say. In any case the daughter matter may come out and be talked about in Annotsfield, because nowadays newspapers publish wills.”
    â€œUncle Joshua was far too shrewd not to tie it all up tightly,” I