Free The Cuckoo's Child by Marjorie Eccles

don’t bother me with your sums. You wouldn’t diddle me, Amelia.’
    That was true, and waste of any kind was anathema to her. Amelia had taken thrift in with her mother’s milk. Nothing was ever wasted in the Chadwick household, and the same rules applied under Amelia’s jurisdiction here at Farr Clough. She was quietly satisfied to see that this week she had even saved a shilling or two. That, and seeing that his house ran as smoothly as his business at Cross Ings, was the least she could do. It was her way of paying Ainsley back for everything he’d done.
    She had always known that her escape from skivvying in that low-down old Tyas Arms, being nothing more than the publican’s daughter, lay in getting herself married. When Theo had put a ring on her finger – only just in time, before the twins were born – Ainsley hadn’t batted an eyelid – not in her presence, at any rate. What he’d said to his son was between him and Theo. For a moment she closed her eyes as the old, familiar pain ripped through her.
    But she’d got what she wanted. Folk thought she gave herself airs, but this was only so she could hold her head up in the town – no longer that Chadwick lass from the Tyas Arms, but Mrs Theo Beaumont of Farr Clough, who numbered the wives of the local nobs among her acquaintances.
    She dipped her pen in the ink again. Wages for Mrs Macready, for Jessie, for the new maid, for John Willie and the boy, Zach. A load of best coal cobs, and another of nutty slack, delivered . . .
    All the same, for all his generosity, Ainsley Beaumont wasn’t always an easy man to live with. She had had to tread so careful a path it had by now become second nature. He could be wilful and overbearing, he was hard-headed, though not hard-hearted, and it wasn’t wise to oppose him. Even though lately some of his actions had been downright daft – more than that, dangerous. He’d got hold of some queer ideas and no mistake, such as getting that stranger from London to sort out his old books, when Una could have been put to do it, and without having to be paid a penny for it, either.
    Amelia shielded her eyes with her hand, her elbow on the table. Here it was, not yet seven in the morning, and she was tired. Not physically, but wearied of thinking, worrying, obsessed by fear. What would they say, Wainthorpe folk, if they knew ? How they’d tattle behind their hands!
    She had the beginnings of another headache, too. The headaches were usually a sign, a warning. Please God, not now. She couldn’t afford the dark days, the week – weeks, sometimes – sucked out of her life, that the darkness demanded.
    The news originated from Cross Ings Mill, gathered momentum and by teatime all of Wainthorpe was buzzing with it.
    Accidents regularly happened in any mill, horrific accidents; it stood to reason, in places where there was so much dangerous machinery, and when people working there were not always as careful as they should be in keeping to the rules about unprotected hair and loose clothing which could easily get caught up in the flying and whirling belts and cogs. But this accident had happened outside, not inside, Cross Ings Mill.
    Few people went by the dam, and took care not to get too near if they were forced to do so – no telling what there was in that filthy millpond soup. Not for nothing was it known as the slap-dab. Nobody, that is, apart from the little limbs of Satan who larked around there, running and balancing along the wall for a dare, or simply out of bravado; young lads who’d been told in no uncertain terms that they’d know all about it if their mams heard what they’d been up to. It wasn’t unknown for one of them to fall in. Once, years ago, a little lad had drowned there. But a grown man?
    Who was it? A drunk? A stranger? Surely nobody else would have been such a fool as to let that happen.
    â€˜Epidural