Chrissie's Children Read Free

in the yards anyway.
    She paused a moment outside the front doors of the Railway Hotel, smoothed down her dress and ran her hands over her hair. She had washed it in rainwater from the butt the night before so that
it shone. She took a deep breath and walked in, thin and nervous and straight in the back.
    In the Ballantyne house an hour earlier Chrissie put down the letter from Elsie Massingham and swore silently yet again that she would hold this family of hers together. She
looked around the oval breakfast table, set in the window at one end of the huge dining-room that ran from front to back of the house. The other, long table that would seat more than a score of
people was set back against the wall, its polished surface gleaming and empty save for a bowl of flowers from the garden. Overhead hung the huge chandelier, sparkling with reflected sunlight. She
remembered dancing in this room with Jack, just the two of them, the night Matthew was conceived, and later when she and Jack were engaged.
    A smile twitched her lips then, remembering. Jack caught that smile as he entered. He was tall and lean in a dark blue suit and white shirt with a starched collar. There were flecks of grey now
at the temples in his thick, black hair. He dropped a briefcase, bulging with work he had brought home the previous night, on a vacant chair and asked, ‘Penny for them?’ But Chrissie
pressed her lips together and shook her head, eyes laughing. As he passed behind her chair he touched her shoulder and she shivered and leaned back into his hand for a moment.
    He moved over to the sideboard, greeting the boys as he went: ‘Morning, Tom, Matt. Where’s Sophie?’ though he guessed the answer to that.
    Tom, a sixteen-year-old copy of his father with the same black hair and neat in a dark blue suit, but dark eyed, answered, ‘Morning, Dad. I think I heard her. I expect she’s busy
with something in her room, be down shortly,’ making an excuse for his sister, as usual.
    Jack did not believe him and cocked a cynical eye at Chrissie, but accepted the explanation. ‘Hum.’ He picked up a hot plate from the sideboard and helped himself to eggs, bacon and
sausages from the dishes there. He said again, louder, ‘Good morning, Matt!’
    His younger son was not quite sixteen, lanky in baggy grey flannel trousers and a white cricket shirt open at the neck. His sandy hair was unruly and growing down to his collar. He turned from
staring vacantly out of the window and blinked vague light blue eyes at his father. ‘Sorry. Good morning.’
    ‘Dreaming again,’ Jack said half affectionately, half irritated, then shook his head and sat down opposite his wife.
    Betty Price, the maid, a rosy-cheeked country girl smart in black dress, white apron and cap, bustled in with fresh coffee and toast. She set them on the table then whisked up Chrissie’s
and the boys’ emptied plates and carried them out. Chrissie automatically watched to see it was done properly, as she supervised all the work of the house. She had done it all herself in her
time.
    Now she handed the letter to Tom, asking him, ‘Pass that to your father, please.’
    Tom obeyed and Jack took it, brows raised, then read as he ate. Chrissie followed the example of the boys and buttered toast, going over the contents of the letter in her mind. Elsie Massingham
had written from California that her husband Phillip had lost every penny he had in the Wall Street crash of 1929 and two years later was sacked from his job as a film director. Since then he had
failed to find work. Elsie wrote: ‘It seems he antagonised the studio bosses, refusing to abandon his principles and do as he was told.’ Now he had suffered a nervous breakdown and run
off. He had left a note saying that he would not be a burden and would rather live the life of a tramp.
    Chrissie had invested her money in Phillip’s company, Massingham Films, when he was a near-penniless, crippled ex-officer. She was