Lucy Gordon: This Is My Child

He looked up from his papers. “I was rather surprised to receive your call, Miss Haynes. It’s true I was thinking of employing someone to care for my son, but I hadn’t advertised yet.”

“Somebody mentioned it at Ayleswood School,” she said. “I’m working there at the moment.”

“So you told me on the phone.” He gave her a sharp look. “There are eighty pupils at that school. Would you have applied to look after any of the others?” he demanded abruptly.

“No-”

“Then why David?”

“I couldn’t help noticing him—”

“Considering that he’s been in trouble constantly for the last few months, that isn’t surprising.”

“I don’t believe David is a naughty child,” Melanie said quickly. “Just unhappy. Of course I know that his mother isn’t here anymore—”

“His mother left me a year ago, for another man. She—didn’t choose to take her son. I’m glad of that for my own sake, but it’s had an unfortunate effect on David.”

“I can imagine,” Melanie said in a low voice.

“I wonder if you can picture just how bad it is.” Giles Haverill’s mouth twisted wryly. “Truancy, petty theft, lying—all the things that lead to delinquency later on if they’re not curbed now.”

“I should rather say, if they’re not cured now.”

Giles shook his head. “My son isn’t ill, and I don’t believe unhappiness excuses wrongdoing. I want to do everything I can to make him a happy child again, but that doesn’t include turning a blind eye when he does things he shouldn’t. No son of mine is going to grow up badly behaved because I didn’t lift a finger to prevent it.”

Melanie gripped her hands together out of sight, wondering how long she could conceal her dislike of this man with his harsh judgments. He spoke of making his child happy, but there was no love in his voice, just an iron determination to arrange things in the way he wanted.

“Did you know David was adopted?” Giles Haverill shot the question at her.

“The—school records didn’t mention it,” Melanie replied.

If he noticed her cautious choice of words he gave no sign. “My wife couldn’t have children,” he said. “Perhaps that’s why she left him behind.”

“Does he know he’s adopted?”

“Yes. We told him as soon as he could understand. It seemed best for him to grow up knowing it naturally. But it adds to the problem now. He feels he’s lost two mothers—if you can dignify the first one with the name of ‘mother.’ A woman who gives up her newborn child is beneath contempt. Don’t you agree?”

“I—surely you should hear her side of it?” Melanie stammered.

“I don’t think there can be any justification. However, let that pass. I must also tell you about Mrs. Braddock. She’s a welfare worker who’s taken far too close an interest in David since he’s been misbehaving. She’s been writing reports talking about how ‘disturbed’ he is, and how he needs to be ‘closely observed.’” A sudden cloud of black anger transformed his face, and he said swiftly, “To dare say that my son— my son …”

Melanie stared, appalled at the rage that had distorted his handsome features. He looked cruel and ruthless, capable of anything. He saw her looking at him and recovered his composure. “She’s started hinting about taking David into care, putting him with foster parents who could ‘give him a normal home,’ as she puts it.”

“But he’s used to you,” Melanie protested. “Surely this woman can’t think it will be good for him to lose you, as well as your wife?”

“That’s what I said to her. But, as she pointed out, I haven’t been around too much. I have a large business to run, and I’ve mostly left the care of David to Zena. When she left I thought I could manage, but it wasn’t that easy.” He saw her wry face and said sharply, “I’m not a ‘New Man,’ Miss Haynes. I don’t pretend to be. I’ve tried to raise David as my father raised me, to have a sense of responsibility, and be able to take on the task of running Haverill & Son. It’s a very big job and it needs a man trained virtually from the cradle.”

“I see.”

“I wonder if you do,” he responded, quick to pick up the chilly note in her voice. “I made sure he had the best education money could buy because he’s going to need it, and he justified my faith in him. Right from the start he was ahead of the class. In his nursery school he could read while the others were playing in the sand pit.”

“I expect he knew there’d be hell to pay if he couldn’t,” Melanie couldn’t resist saying.

“I’ve always let him know that my expectations of him were high. I think children respond to that. And he did respond—until recently. Now it’s a story of truancy and idleness and frankly—”

“Frankly you feel he’s letting you down,” Melanie challenged him.

He looked at her hard for a moment. “Yes.”

She’d meant to play it cool, but her temper was seething out of control. “Then I don’t know why you don’t let Mrs. Braddock have him. Unsatisfactory goods, to be returned.”

“Because he’s mine, ” he asserted bluntly.

“But he isn’t, is he? Not by blood.”

“Blood has nothing to do with it,” he said, dismissing the whole of nature with an arrogant sweep of his hand. “He’s mine because I say he’s mine, because I’ve made him mine. And I don’t let go of what’s mine.”

Their eyes met for a long moment. Then Giles Haverill recollected himself with a start, realizing that he’d come perilously close to defending and explaining himself. It was his rule never to do either of these things, but this young woman had lured him out from behind his protective barriers in a few minutes. He had two contradictory impulses: to get rid of her before she troubled him further, and to confide in her the hell of confusion and misery in which he was living. He found that he couldn’t choose between them, which alarmed him even more, because indecisiveness was foreign to his nature.

“Coffee?” he asked, retreating to safety.

The abrupt change of subject caught her off guard. “Thank you—er—yes—”

“I should have offered you some when you came in, but I’m so distracted these days that I forget my manners.” He went to a percolator by the wall and poured her some. “Milk? Sugar?”

“Milk, no sugar, thank you.”

“Tell me about yourself,” he said when he’d served her and sat down. “You said in your letter that you left school at sixteen. No university?”

“It didn’t attract me. I have two sisters and a brother, who all went.”

“But you were the odd one out? I wonder why.” He gave a sudden grin, which illuminated his face, giving it a mocking look that was unexpectedly pleasing. “Black sheep?”

“Yes,” she said impulsively. “I was the naughty child of the family. Everyone said so.”

“So you and David have something in common. Careful! Don’t choke.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Went down—wrong way.”

He waited until she was calm again. “What was the matter? Did you mind my saying you and David had something in common?”

She flinched from his penetrating eyes, afraid lest they discern just how much in common she had with his son. “Not at all,” she said quickly. “I’m glad of it. I think David needs just the kind of understanding that I can give him. I know how naughtiness grows out of misery.”

“Was your childhood as unhappy as that?”

“It’s no fun being the black sheep.”

“But that’s all in the past. I’m sure your parents are proud of you now.”

There was a long pause before Melanie said, “I’m not in touch with my family anymore—not for some years.”