Tomorrow Brings Sorrow Read online

  Why he was even mulling over the stupid idea was beyond him, but it did have some merit. It would finish Jack Fellam. Pater had said that the stables, buying the land and house and setting up his wife, Megan, in that dress-making business she ran, had taken all of Fellam’s inheritance. Yes, they were all making a good living – they weren’t wanting, and he supposed they were comfortably off – but not so as Fellam could start again. That would take an immense amount of money – money that, surely, his father would rather invest in his son than in some groom who had brought scandal to Mater’s family?

  Convinced of this, the idea began to appeal to Terence. He would have to plan it well. No suspicion could fall his way, and no one must get hurt – not human beings anyway, although he supposed he’d have to destroy a few horses. That would be difficult, but then: needs must. As for Fellam, he owned acres of land that he used for no more than training and grazing the horses, so he could turn that into an arable farm. The country would need home-grown supplies. The government had already started to encourage people to grow their own vegetables during the last few months, when war had seemed imminent. Fellam would have to take up the challenge, as they all would. He’d make a good living from that. Nothing to worry about there.

  Perhaps he should befriend Fellam: take an interest in his stables, maybe even offer to help out, on the pretext of wishing to acquire knowledge. Yes, that would be the thing. No one would think I’d have anything to do with destroying something that I took an interest in. I could offer to ride the horses – I’d love that.

  Yes, suddenly the whole plan seemed a real solution: a fire would wipe out Fellam’s business in such a way that he couldn’t start again; and until the right opportunity presented itself to put that into operation, Terence thought, he himself could spend his time around those magnificent racehorses and studs.

  Happy with his plans, he decided to talk to Theresa about getting involved with the stable. See how she reacted. If she didn’t suspect there was any more to it then he’d know it wasn’t a foolhardy plan. Anyway, whether it worked or not, just thinking about it had made him feel better. He started to run. ‘Come on, sis. Race you.’

  4

  Jack

  A Father’s Concern

  Jack Fellam closed the last of the stable doors just as Sarah’s car pulled in through the gates. There was no sign of Megan following behind; it was just wishful thinking that he’d expected her to, when she’d warned she could be late home.

  Sarah didn’t alight from the car immediately, but hung her head over the wheel. Jack looked away; he’d not intrude, even though when Sarah – his only living child – hurt, he hurt. Poor lass, it couldn’t be easy for her, having the man she loved locked away, as Billy was. Her pain was natural, and it was bound to visit her more when she’d had to part from Billy after visiting him. There was nothing he could do to lift that pain from her, or to make things better for her. Not that he wanted to make everything better for her, because although he let Sarah think he was happy with the situation, deep down he wasn’t, and he wished she wasn’t in love with Billy.

  He had to console himself with the fact that there no longer seemed to be any harm in the lad now, though Billy’s actions in the past still visited Jack in the wakeful hours of the early morning and filled him with dread.

  Pulling himself up, Jack told himself that he had to move on; after all, Billy had only been ten when he’d committed the first heinous crime that had changed their lives, and he’d suffered terribly at his father’s hand. Had seen things, too, that no lad should see – things that had turned his mind and made him think it was right to deal with anything you didn’t like by using violence. Then there was Megan, his own lovely Megan, who had been part of the violent past Billy had witnessed, as she’d been beaten near to death and raped by her then-husband, Billy’s father. The memory of this clutched painfully at him.

  Sarah lifted her head and looked over towards him. She didn’t return his wave but got out of the car, turned from him and hurried towards the house. Jack’s heart lurched. He couldn’t bear anything to trouble his lovely Sarah. He hesitated, wondering if he should go after her, but thought better of it and busied himself picking up the horses’ feeding buckets.

  ‘I’ll see to them, Jack. I’ve another half-hour to kill before I knock off.’

  Glad of the distraction, Jack glanced over at Gary, his head trainer. ‘I’ll take you up on your offer, Gary, lad. I’m supposed to check on my ma-in-law to make sure she’s coping when it comes to cooking the meal for us all. She’s not getting any younger.’

  ‘Eeh, you’re under the thumb good and proper, Jack. Go on with yer. By, I’m glad my Jenny don’t work like your lassies do! At least I don’t have to get stuck into women’s work when I get home.’

  Jack laughed at this. He didn’t mind the banter. He and Gary had known each other for years, having worked together for Laura Harvey. Gary often ragged him about having a working wife, but he’d have it no different. It wasn’t the done thing, but it made Megan happy, and that was his main reason for living: seeing her and his ma-in-law and Sarah happy. His worries about Sarah revisited him. She’d acted strangely; it wasn’t like her not to greet him when she returned home, and she’d always have a word with Gary or any of the lads around the stables whenever she came into the yard. The niggling within him turned to deep concern.

  As he went through the gate leading to the path that would take him through the beautiful gardens at the back of his house, Jack felt the usual disbelief. This grand house, with its six bedrooms and two parlours – or ‘withdrawing rooms’, as top-drawer folk called them – was far beyond his own and Megan’s beginnings. He looked up at the building. The sun, now low in the sky, reflected back a golden light from the many windows. His heart jolted with pride. To think that he and Megan owned and lived in such a place!

  In the end, they had a lot to thank Laura Harvey for. He could think of her now without guilt. He and Laura had been two lonely young folk drawn to each other. Their affair had taken place two years after Cissy died, and before he’d woken up to realize that the feelings he had for Megan were more than those of just good friends. What Laura’s jealousy had caused, once she knew he’d fallen for Megan, wasn’t easy to come to terms with. Nor what it led Billy to do. But Megan had forgiven him, and had forgiven Laura in the end, so that helped.

  ‘Take them boots off, Jack Fellam!’

  ‘Eeh, Ma, let me in the door afore you start. By, woman, a man ain’t a man in his own house these days.’ He crossed the kitchen and tugged at the bow tying Issy’s apron. Once loosened, the pinafore hung from her neck and drooped around the front of her. Her reaction wasn’t as quick as it would have been in years gone by – he’d have been in for a clout then – but still he dodged out of her way as, wielding a floury rolling pin, she turned towards him.

  ‘Jack Fellam, you’re worse than having a babby around. Give over, or you’ll find your lugs reddened with this.’

  ‘Ha, you’d never catch me! With you waddling like a duck, I’d be long gone. Here, give us a kiss and greet me as you should greet the head of the house.’

  ‘You may be head of the house, lad, but that don’t include me kitchen, so in here you’ll do as I say or you’ll find yourself as a filling for one of me pies. Now come here and stop taking me on.’

  All his worries left his shoulders as she encased him in her warm embrace and planted a kiss on his cheek – his ma-in-law, Isabel Grantham, always known as Issy, had stood by him, no matter what. She’d taken him in as a lad just home from the last war. His brother and da had been killed in the trenches, and his ma had died with the shock of the news. He’d been a lost soul seeking a new beginning, and he’d found it in her home.

  There he’d first met Issy’s daughter, Cissy, and her friend Megan. He’d fallen deeply in love with Cissy. They’d had a blissful marriage, marred only by the miscarriages poor Cissy suffered after having Sarah; but then along came Bella. Cissy had died
giving birth to Bella, making Jack feel as if his heart had been ripped out of him.

  He shook his head as he remembered the awful events of the following years. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. Bella – me little defenceless Bella. Hatred, never far from his bones, trembled through his body, and he knew that if Billy, his little girl’s killer, stood before him now, he’d strangle the life from him.

  ‘Eeh, lad, it’ll never leave you.’

  He hadn’t spoken of it, but she’d known. It was like that, with Issy. She knew when you were troubled. He came out of her arms. ‘No, Ma, I don’t suppose it will, but like you’ve said many a time afore, we’ve to find a way to live with it.’

  Brushing the flour from where it had rubbed onto his shirt, Issy retied her apron, then surprised him by echoing his own worries. ‘Aye, and to deal with it an’ all. It ain’t over, Jack, not whilst Billy’s still alive, it ain’t. Oh, I know I shouldn’t think like that, as the lad’s doing his time and has had help for his unstable condition, but the fear of him doesn’t leave me, and I worry for our Sarah.’

  ‘I know, but don’t say owt to Megan; she’s enough on her plate, with how Billy is. He’s started being a bit cutting with her of late, and Megan thinking as he didn’t blame her any more. By, it beggars belief how he could even think her responsible for everything in the first place.’

  ‘Well, his dad was responsible for him thinking that way. Bert Armitage was more than evil – he even had Megan thinking she was the cause of his violent ways towards her; so it’s not surprising a young ’un would take it as a truth. But what are we to do about Sarah?’

  ‘There’s nowt can be done. She loves Billy – always has done – so we’re to leave well alone. Where is she, by the way? Poor lass seemed very upset when she arrived back. Didn’t greet none of us, which ain’t usual.’

  ‘She didn’t come in this way. I heard the front door go, and then she called out that she’d see me in a bit, as she wanted to get a bath. By the time I’d gone through, she’d disappeared up the stairs. Oh, Jack—’

  ‘I know, Ma. I fear for her an’ all, but like I say, there’s nowt can be done. We just have to be here if she ever needs us.’

  ‘If only Sarah could return the love Richard has for her. How much better our lass’s prospects would be then. Eeh, that’d be the best thing as could happen, in my books.’

  ‘You’re an old romantic, Ma. Those feelings you think Richard has for Sarah are all wishful thinking.’

  ‘No, lad. They’re true all right.’ Issy touched her nose. ‘I know.’

  Jack smiled to himself. Young Richard would be the perfect husband for Sarah. A long-lost brother of Megan, Richard was a handsome, well-set-up lad. He took after his father in wanting to become a doctor and was just beginning his training.

  Bridget, Richard’s ma, had given birth to Megan when she’d been a lass of just sixteen. Her circumstances had been such that she’d had to give up her babby. When, by an amazing coincidence, mother and daughter were reunited, Megan found she had two half-brothers, Richard and Mark. And lovely lads they were, too. By, he’d love Richard and his Sarah to get together. But there was no use speculating about it. Sarah loved Billy and always had done, since they were young ’uns together. He couldn’t see that changing.

  Jack shuddered as he thought this and, though he was not given much to praying, he directed a plea at the God that he’d often felt had let him down. Please look after me little Sarah. Let there be no more – please don’t send us any more to bear . . . But if you have to, then let it be on my shoulders, not Sarah’s, and not Megan’s or Issy’s.

  5

  Richard

  Life’s Tangles

  ‘Bridget, darling, what is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, to tell the truth, Edward. It is nothing Megan has said in her letter, more what she hasn’t said. I’ve just got this feeling . . .’

  ‘That’s your imagination, dear. Your motherly instinct is always in top gear, making you think something is wrong with Megan. It’s always the same, and then you find you had nothing to worry about.’

  ‘No, not always. The whole time we were trying to find her, I used to say I felt things weren’t right for her – and I was right then.’

  ‘Let’s start with what the letter does say, shall we?’

  ‘Megan says she’s trying to get Billy released. She feels he may do something really bad if he is cooped up in that secure mental hospital much longer. But she doesn’t sound happy about it.’

  Richard had let his parents’ conversation go over his head. He’d been engrossed in what the post had brought for him, but now unease entered him on hearing his mother’s words. Billy, free. But that would mean Sarah and he . . . Oh God! ‘Is it likely they will set him free, Father?’

  ‘It’s possible. It has been nine years since his incarceration. I haven’t kept up with his medical condition lately, but I’ll see what I can find out. I’m due at a meeting of the Trust this afternoon, so I’ll look up Dr Hutting’s number in the directory of psychiatrists that’s kept at the hospital. Last I heard, he was in charge of Billy’s case.’

  Richard nodded. He knew the finding out wouldn’t be a chore. A vibrant personality at seventy years old, his father would still be going strong in his career as a surgeon to this day, had it not been for the slight tremor that now afflicted him. As it was, he remained active as a member of the Leicestershire Hospital Trust and enjoyed getting involved.

  As a lad, Billy had been in a secure mental institution in the area, but had moved up to Leeds at the age of sixteen. Since then Richard hadn’t seen anything of him, and didn’t wish to, either. He voiced that now. ‘Well, I – for one – hope he doesn’t come out. Oh, I know I haven’t met him many times, but when I did, I didn’t like him. Sorry, Mother, I know he is your grandson and my half-nephew, but, well . . .’

  ‘I know, dear. We can’t choose our relatives. I’m always wishing things were different – not about finding Megan, of course. The years after she was taken from me, at her birth, were hell for me. Finding her was a completion of who I am. Her circumstances, when we did find her, were appalling enough for us all to come to terms with. But to have the problem of her son, my grandson Billy, on top of that, and all he was capable of and carried out – well, that marred the reunion of Megan and me.’

  ‘Look, old girl, I’ve told you before that you cannot change things; and Megan is happy with Jack now. All the violence she suffered is behind her, so you have to stop worrying about it all.’

  ‘I don’t think it is behind us, I—’

  Richard rose and left the room. His mother looked close to tears, and he knew it was best to leave his father to comfort her.

  They made a striking couple, he thought as he reached the door and looked back. They were holding each other: Father, tall, slender and with white-grey hair, and Mother, younger than his father by about twelve years, and still retaining her graceful beauty. A rush of love for them both assaulted him.

  Although he had inherited his father’s love of medicine, Richard took after his mother in looks, having the same very dark hair and oval eyes. Many times she’d told him he was a mirror image of her own father. ‘Every time I catch sight of you when I’m not expecting to, my heart stops, as it seems that my dad has come back to me. You look exactly like him – the same deep-blue, smiley eyes and your tall, strong build, though my father got his physique from working down the pit from the age of six or seven.’ She’d go on to say that sometimes her dad’s image was like a haze in her memory, and at other times was crystal-clear. ‘I was only little when he died, but the locket my mam gave me, which had a picture of them both, kept him alive for me.’

  Going off at a tangent, she’d tell him how she’d left the locket with her baby, and how it had been the cause of her and Megan finding each other all those years later. Then she would resume talking about Richard’s resemblance to his grandfather. ‘You know, my mam once told me that my dad had an Italian in
his ancestry, but that nothing was known of him.’

  Richard smiled at this romantic notion as he walked through the hall. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he passed by, he thought there might be some truth in the Italian heritage and vowed to get his mother to tell him more about her family. There seemed such a mystery surrounding his maternal grandparents, and nothing about their names gave a clue to anything out of the ordinary: Will and Bridie Hadler. Definitely not Italian-sounding!

  Wanting some air and some time to consider his own thoughts, he took his jacket off the coat stand and went outside. The chill in the air surprised him. The last few days had been warm and sunny, making all the speculation about war seem as though it belonged somewhere else. The buff envelope with its War Office stamp that had arrived for him this morning had reminded him that it didn’t.

  Crossing the cobbled yard, he reached the gate. Beyond lay acres of softly rolling landscape. Their house, on the outskirts of Market Harborough, stood on an incline, affording them views far and wide of this part of Leicestershire, on the border of Northamptonshire.

  To his left he could see the many church towers and spires of the villages, dotted here and there amidst the farmland. Some of the fields had been harvested and ploughed, whilst others were pastures with herds of cows idly chewing away on the grass; and some still boasted their crops of wheat swaying in the breeze, making the scene look like a patchwork quilt of browns, greens and yellows. To his right lay the more densely built-up area of the town itself, a place with much history to it. In particular, he loved the seventeenth-century grammar school building at its centre; criss-crossed with old beams and looking as though it was supported by stilts, it told of a bygone age.

  As Richard leaned on the gate, the only sounds to disturb his thoughts were those of the wildlife variety: birds twittering, and the occasional sheep or cow telling the world whatever. He looked back at the rear of their home, a large detached house – rural, peaceful; a happy place – the front of which looked out over the Welland Valley, with its ever-changing kaleidoscope of colour reflecting the seasons. A lovely place, but one that belied the trauma that the two loving people who lived there had experienced, before marrying and giving life to him and his younger brother Mark. Their heroic actions in the Great War were enough for anyone to endure in a lifetime, working as they had done in sparse tents behind the front lines. His father being a surgeon and his mother a nurse, they had battled to save lives, with minimal equipment and in horrendous conditions. But even worse than that was what his mother had suffered as a young girl.