The foreign-looking young woman handed her ticket to the ticket collector, stared at him for a moment, then passed through the barrier. She was the last of a dozen people to leave the platform and his look followed her. She was a foreigner. He could tell by her dress; she had strange-looking clogs on her feet and a black cloak hung from her shoulders right down to the top of them. She had a contraption on her head that was part hat, part shawl, with a fringe, and strings from it, like pieces of frayed twine, were knotted under her chin. Another odd thing about her was, although her skin was brown her hair was white and frizzy, like that of an old Negro’s, yet her face was that of a young woman. She reminded him of a man that used to live near him who had white hair and pink eyes. They said he was an albino. He had been an oddity.
When the young woman reached the main thoroughfare she seemed slightly bemused; the traffic was so thick, and the Saturday evening crowd were pushing and shoving. She stepped into the gutter and the mud went over the top of her clogs. She stared at one face after another as if she had never been in a crowd before, as if she had never seen people before.
She walked on like someone in a daze. She skirted the stalls in the market place and when she heard a boat horn hooting she stopped and looked down the narrow lane that led to the ferry, then she went on again.
She was half-way down the bank that dropped steeply to the river when again she stopped. And now she put her hand inside her cloak and pressed it against her ribs. Then she turned her head upwards and gazed into the fading light.
Two men paused in their walking and looked at her, and she brought her head down and stared back at them. And when they looked at each other in a questioning way she ran swiftly down the bank away from them, her clogs clip-clopping against the cobbles.
On the river-front now, she hurried in a purposeful way along it until she came to where had stood the square of waste land, and here she looked about her in some perplexity, for the ground was now railed in, its railings joining those which surrounded the boatyard. Her steps slowed as she approached the alleyway; the light was almost gone, and when she went to open the gate and found it locked, she rattled it, then knocked on it, waited a moment, and, now almost in a frenzy, took her fist and banged on it.
When there was still no reply she looked up and down the alleyway before hurrying towards the far end where it terminated at the river wall; and now she did what she had done a number of times before when Jimmy had bolted the gate from the inside, she gripped the last post of the fence where it hung out over the river and swung herself round it, and so entered the boatyard.
Now she stood perfectly still looking up towards the house. There was a light in the window of the long room. Again she put her hand inside her cloak and placed it over her ribs, then slowly she went towards the steps and mounted them. She didn’t open the door but knocked on it.
She heard the footsteps coming across the wooden floor towards it, but it didn’t open. A voice said, ‘Who’s there?’
She waited a second before answering, ‘Open the door, Jimmy.’
There was complete silence all about her now, no movement from inside the room. She said again, ‘Open the door, Jimmy, please. Please open the door.’
Again there was no answer. She heard the steps moving away from the door. She turned her head and saw the curtains pulled to the side; she saw the outline of Jimmy’s white face pressed against the pane. She held out her hand towards it.
She didn’t hear the footsteps return to the door; nor was there any other sound, not even any movement from the river. It seemed to her that she was dead again. Her voice high now, beseeching, she called, ‘Jimmy! Jimmy, it’s me. Open the door. Please open the door.’
When at last the door opened it seemed it did so of its own accord; it swung wide and there was no one in the opening. She stepped over the threshold and looked along the room to where Jimmy was backing slowly along the side of the table towards its far end, and she stood, with her hand on the door and said, almost in a whimper, ‘Don’t be frightened, Jimmy, I’m . . . I’m not a ghost. It’s . . . it’s me, Janie. I . . . I’ve been bad. I . . . I wasn’t drowned.’ She closed the door, then leant her back against it and slowly slid down on to the floor and slumped on to her side.
Jimmy gazed at the crumpled figure but didn’t move. He had never been so terrified in all his life, he wanted to run, jump out of the window, get away from it . . . her. Yet . . . yet it was Janie’s voice, and she said she was Janie. That’s all he had to go on, for from what he could see of her, her skin was like an Arab’s and her hair was white. Janie had been bonny, and her skin was as fair as a peach and her hair brown, lovely brown.
When she moved and spoke again, he started.
‘Give me a drink, Jimmy, tea, anything.’
As if mesmerized now, he went to the hob and picked up the teapot that had been stewing there for the past hour, and with a hand that shook he filled a cup, spooned in some sugar, then slowly advanced towards her.
He watched her pulling herself to her feet, and as he stood with the cup in his hand, staring wildly at her, she passed him and went towards a chair, and after a moment she held out her hand and took the cup from him, and although the tea was scalding she gulped at it, then asked, ‘Where’s Rory?’
The gasp he gave brought her leaning towards him, and she asked softly, ‘Nothin’ . . . nothin’s happened him?’
His head moved as if in a shudder and then he spoke for the first time. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said.
‘I . . . I was washed up there. I don’t remember anything about it but they told me . . . at least after a long time when the priest came over the hills; he could speak English. The fishing-boat, it found me off Le Palais. I was clinging to this wood and they thought I was dead. I must have been in the water for a long time swept by a current, they said, and . . . and when I came to meself I didn’t know who I was. I . . . I never knew who I was till a month ago.’
‘Just a month ago?’
‘Aye.’ She nodded slowly.
He gulped twice before he asked, ‘Well, how did you get on? Who did you think you were?’
‘Nobody; I just couldn’t remember anything except vaguely. I seemed to remember holding a child. I told the priest that, and when he came next, he only came twice a year, he said he had inquired along the coast and he’d heard of nobody who had lost a wife and child. There had been great storms that year and lots of boats had been sunk. He told me to be patient an’ me memory’d come back and I’d know who I was. It . . . it was Henri who brought it back.’
‘Who’s Henry?’
‘He was madame’s son. They’re all fisherfolk, she looked after me. Life was very hard for them all, so very hard, much . . . much harder than here.’ She looked slowly around the room. ‘I . . . I remember how I used to talk about guttin’ fish as being something lowly. I had to learn to gut fish. They all worked so hard from mornin’ till night. It was a case of fish or die. You don’t know.’ She shook her head in wide movements. ‘But they were kind and . . . and they were happy.’
Jimmy gulped. His mind was racing. This was Janie. It was Janie all right. Eeh! God, what would happen? Why couldn’t she have stayed where she was? What was he saying? He muttered now, ‘How did you get your memory back?’
It was through Henri, he couldn’t understand about me not wantin’ to learn to swim. The young ones swam, it was their one pleasure, and this day he . . . he came behind me and pushed me off the rock. It . . . it was as I hit the water it all came back. He was sorry, very sorry I mean that it had come back.’ She looked down towards the table and up again suddenly. ‘Where’s Rory? Is he up home?’
Jimmy turned from her. He was shaking his head wildly now. He lifted up the teapot from the hob, put it down again, then, swinging round towards her, he said, ‘You’ve . . . you’ve been away nearly . . . nearly two years, Janie, things’ve happened.’
She rose slowly to her feet. ‘What things? What kind of things?’
‘Well . . . well, this is goin’ to be another shock to you. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Janie. It wasn’t that he wasn’t cut up, he nearly went mad. And . . . and it was likely ’cos he was so lonely he did it, but—’ now his voice faded to a mere whisper, and he bowed his head before finishing, he got married again.’
She turned her ear slightly towards him as if she hadn’t heard aright; then her mouth opened and closed, but she didn’t speak. She sat down with a sudden plop, and once more she looked around the room. Then she asked simply, ‘Who to?’
Jimmy now put his hand across his mouth. He knew before he said the name that this would be even harder for her to understand.
‘Who to?’ She was shouting now, screaming at him.
If he had had any doubts before that this was Janie they were dispelled.
‘Miss . . . Miss Kean.’
‘What!’ She was on her feet coming towards him, and he actually backed from her in fear.
‘You’re jokin’?’
‘No, no, I’m not, Janie. No.’ He stopped at the foot of the ladder and she stopped too. With one wild sweep she unhooked the clasp of her cloak and flung it aside, then she tore the bonnet from her head and flung it on to the cloak. And now she walked back to the table, and she leant over it as she cried, ‘Money! Money! He married her for money. He couldn’t get it by gamin’, but he had to have it some way.’
‘No, no, it wasn’t like that . . .’
She swung round and was facing him again, and he noted with surprise that her figure was no longer plump, it was almost as flat as Charlotte Kean’s had been before her body started to swell with the bairn. Eeh! and that was another thing, the bairn. Oh my God! Where would this end? He said now harshly, ‘It’s nearly two years, you’ve got to remember that. He . . . he was her manager, and . . . and she was lonely.’
‘Lonely? Lonely?’ She started to laugh; then thrusting her white head forward, she demanded, ‘Where’s he now? Living in the big house? Huh! Well, his stay’s goin’ to be short, isn’t it, Jimmy? He can’t have two wives, can he?’
‘He didn’t know, you can’t blame him.’
‘Can’t blame him? Huh! I was the only woman he’d ever wanted in his life, the only one he would ever love until he died. You . . . you know nowt about it. Can’t blame him, you say!’
‘You should never’ve gone; it was your own fault, you going on that holiday. I . . . I told him he shouldn’t have let you.’
‘But he did, he did let me, Jimmy. What he should have done the day I left was come after me and knock hell out of me an’ made me stay. But he didn’t, did he? He let me go.’
‘You know why he let you go. It was because of John George, that business, an’ you sticking out and wanting him to go and give himself up. You’re as much to blame as he is, Janie, about that. But he’s not to blame for marryin’ again, ’cos how was he to know? He waited a year, over a year.’
‘That was kind of him. Well now, what are we going to do, Jimmy, eh? You’ll have to go and tell him that his wife’s come back. That’s it . . . just go an’ tell him that his wife’s come back.’
He stared at her. This was Janie all right, but it was a different Janie; not only was she changed in looks but in her manner, her ways, and as he stared at her he couldn’t imagine any disaster great enough to change a woman’s appearance as hers had been changed.
She saw his eyes on her hair and she said quietly now, ‘I mean it, Jimmy. You’d better go and tell him. And . . . and tell him what to expect, will you?’ She put her hand up towards her head. I . . . I lost all me hair. I was bald, as bald as any man, and . . . and they rubbed grease in, fish fat, an’. . . an’ this is how it grew. And . . . and living out in the open in the sun and the wind I became like them, all brown ’cos of me fair skin likely.’
She sat down suddenly on a chair and, placing her elbows on the table, she lowered her face into her hands.
Don’t cry, Janie, don’t cry.’ He moved to the other side of the table. And now she looked up at him dry-eyed and said, ‘I’m not cryin’, Jimmy. That’s another thing, I can’t cry. I should cry about the children and the master and mistress and how I look, but something stops me . . . Go and fetch him, Jimmy.’
‘I . . . I can’t, Janie. It would . . ’
‘It would what?’
‘He’d . . . he’d get a gliff.’
‘Well, if he doesn’t come to me, I’ll have to go to him. He’ll get a gliff in any case, and he’d far better meet me here than . . . than up home . . . What’s the matter? . . . What is it now?’
‘Your grannie, Janie, she’s . . .’
‘Aw no!’ She dropped her head to the side and screwed up her eyes, then after a moment said, ‘When?’
‘Last year, after . . . shortly after she heard the news.’
‘And me da?’
‘He . . . he went to Jarrow to live with . . . he took lodgings in Jarrow. There’s new people in the house, an old couple. An’ the Learys have gone an’ll. I never thought they’d ever move but he started work in St Hilda’s Colliery, and it’s too far for him to trek in the winter. They live down here now in High Shields. It’s all changed up there.’ He wanted to keep talking in a hopeless effort against what she was going to say next, but she stopped him with a lift of her hand as she leant back in the chair and drew in long draughts of breath, then said, ‘I don’t think I can stand much more. And I’m so tired; I haven’t been to sleep for . . . aw, it seems days . . . Go and fetch him, Jimmy.’
The command was soft, but firm and brooked no argument. He stared at her for a moment longer; then grabbing his coat and cap from the back of the door, he dragged them on and rushed out. But once down in the yard he didn’t run; instead, he stood gripping the staunch post that supported the end of the house as he muttered to himself, ‘Eeh! my God! What’s gona happen?’
Charlotte straightened the silk cravat at Rory’s neck, dusted an invisible speck from the shoulder of his black suit, and finally ran her fingers lightly over the top of his oiled hair, and then, standing slightly back from him, she said, ‘To my mind you’re wasted on a gaming table.’
‘I’m never wasted on a gaming table.’ He pressed his lips together, jerked his chin to the side and winked at her.
Her face becoming serious now, she said, ‘Be careful. The more I hear of that man, Nickle, the more perturbed I become.’
‘Well, you couldn’t ask for a quieter, better mannered or refined gentleman, now could you?’
‘No; that makes him all the more sinister. It’s really unbelievable when you think of it, but I’m glad that he knows I’m aware of what he is. I wish I had been there when he put his tentative question: “Your wife, of course, knows nothing of our little . . . shall we say excursions into chance?” ’
He took up a haughty stance and mimicked, ‘ “Sir, my wife knows everything; she’s a remarkable woman.” And she is that.’ He put out his hand and slapped the raised dome of her stomach, and she laughed and tut-tutted as she in return slapped at his hand. Then her manner becoming serious again, she said, ‘Well, there’s one thing I can be assured of, he won’t try any of his underhand business on you, because if he wants to silence you he’ll also have to silence me. Who are you expecting tonight?’
‘Who knows! My, my! It gets more surprising. You should have seen the look on Veneer’s face when he saw me there, in the Newcastle rooms I mean. I thought he was going to pass out. I nearly did meself an’ all. I couldn’t believe me eyes. Him, a staunch supporter of the Temperance League! They would burn him at the stake if they knew. Just imagine the ladies of this town who wave the banners for temperance getting wind of what their Mr Veneer’s up to . . . And you know something? I’d gather the kindling for them; I never could stand him. I remember your father once sending me on some business to his office. He spoke to me as if I were so much clarts. Sorry, madam.’ He pulled a face at her. ‘Mud from the gutter.’
She was now standing in front of him holding his face firmly between her hands, and she said with deep pride, ‘Well, we’ve shown them. You’ve outwitted two of them already in business deals, and that’s only a beginning. What’s more, you’re the most fashionably dressed, best-looking man in the town, or the county for that matter.’ She tossed her head.
He didn’t preen himself at her praise, but he said, ‘I keep sayin’ you’re a remarkable woman, and you are. Every day that passes I discover something more remarkable about you. The very fact that you raised no protest at my gaming amazes me.’
‘What is one evening a week? As long as your failings only embrace cards and wine I’ll be content.’
He bent towards her now and kissed her gently on her hps, then said, ‘You can rest assured, Mrs Connor, that these shall be the limit of my failings. But now for orders.’ His manner changed, his voice took on a sterner note. ‘You are not to wait up for me, do you hear? Stoddard will pick me up at twelve, and when I get in I shall expect to find you in bed and fast asleep. If I don’t, then there’s going to be trouble.’
‘What will you do?’
He stared at her for a moment before replying, ‘I’ll take up the other vice.’
‘No, don’t say that.’ There was no flippancy in her tone now. ‘Not even in joke say you’ll take up the third vice. That’s something I couldn’t bear.’
‘You silly woman, don’t you ever believe anything I say?’
‘I want to.’
‘Well, what can I say to make you believe it?’
She looked into his eyes. They were smiling kindly at her and she only just prevented herself from blurting out, ‘Say that you love me. Oh, say that you love me.’
‘Go on.’ She pushed him from the room and into the hall. It was she who helped him into his coat and handed him his hat and scarf. Then she stood at the top of the steps and watched him go down them and into the carriage, and she waved to him and he waved back. Then stretching out his legs, he leant his head against the leather upholstery and sighed a deep contented sigh.
They were nearing the gate when the carriage was brought to an abrupt halt and he heard Stoddard shouting, ‘Whoa! Whoa, there!’ then add, ‘Who’s you?’
He pulled down the window and looked out, and there in the light of the carriage lamps he saw Jimmy. Quickly opening the door, he called to the driver, ‘It’s all right, Stoddard,’ then to Jimmy, ‘Get in. What’s up? What’s happened?’
As the carriage jerked forward again Jimmy bounced back on the seat, and again Rory demanded, ‘What is it? What’s happened now? Have they sunk another one?’
‘No.’ Jimmy shook his head. It’s nowt to do with the boats.’
‘Well, what is it? Something wrong at home?’ Rory’s inquiry was quiet, and when again Jimmy shook his head, he said almost angrily, ‘Well, spit it out, unless you’ve just come for a chat.’
‘I haven’t just come for a chat, and . . . and I’ve been hangin’ around for nearly an hour waitin’, waitin’ to see if you’d come out on your own.’
‘Why?’ Rory was sitting forward on the seat now. Their knees were touching. He peered into Jimmy’s white face, demanding, ‘Come on, whatever it is, tell us.’
‘You’re going to get a gliff, Rory.’
‘A gliff?’
‘Aye, you’ll . . . you’ll never believe it. You’d . . . you’d better brace yourself. It’s . . . it’s something you won’t be able to take in.’ When he stopped, Rory said quietly, ‘Well, tell us.’
‘It’s . . . it’s Janie.’
Jimmy’s voice had been so soft that Rory thought he couldn’t possibly have heard aright; Jimmy’s words had been distorted, he imagined, by the grinding of the carriage wheels, so he said loudly, ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, it’s Janie.’
‘Janie?’ A sudden cold sweat swept over his body and his own voice was scarcely audible now when he asked, ‘What . . . what about Janie?’
‘She’s . . . she’s back. She’s . . . she’s not dead, she wasn’t drowned . . .’
Rory didn’t utter a word, no protest, nothing, but his body fell back and his head once more touched the upholstery, and as if he had been shot into a nightmare again he listened to Jimmy’s voice saying, ‘I was petrified. It was her voice, but . . . but I wouldn’t open the door at first. And then . . . and then when I saw her, I still didn’t believe it was her. She’s . . . she’s changed. Nobody . . . nobody would recognize her. It . . . it was the shock. Her hair’s gone white, and her skin, her skin’s all brown like an Arab’s in Corstorphine Town. It’s the sun, she said. She’s . . . she’s been in some place in France miles off the beaten track. She talks about a priest comin’ once every six months. She’s changed, aye. I knew you’d get a gliff but . . . but I had to come. If . . . if I hadn’t she would have turned up herself. Eeh! she’s changed. What’ll you do, Rory? What’ll you do?’
His world was spinning about him. He watched it spiralling upwards and away, taking with it the new way of living and the prestige it had brought to him. Sir, he was called, Master. She had given him everything a woman could possibly give a man, a home, wealth, position, and now a child. He had never been so happy in his life as he had been since he married her; and his feelings for her were growing deeper every day. You couldn’t live with a woman like that and receive so much from her and give nothing in return; something had been growing in him, and last night he had almost told her what it was, he had almost put a name to it. He had never thought he would be able to say to another woman, I love you. That kind of thing didn’t happen twice, he had told himself. No; and he was right, that kind of thing didn’t happen twice. But there were different kinds of love. It was even appearing to him that what he was feeling now would grow into a bigger love, a better love, a fuller love. Charlotte had said there were better marriages based on friendship than on professions of eternal love.
He had once sworn eternal love for Janie, but he knew now that that had been the outcome of a boy’s love, the outcome of use, the outcome of growing up together, seeing no one beyond her . . .
She couldn’t be back. She couldn’t. No! No! Life couldn’t play him a trick like that. He had gone to the Justice before he married Charlotte and the Justice had told him it was all right to marry again. “Drowned, presumed dead,” was what he had said. And she was dead. She had been dead to him for nearly two years now, and he didn’t want her resurrected.
God Almighty! What was he saying? What was he thinking? He’d go mad.
‘Rory. Rory.’ Jimmy was sitting by his side now, shaking his arm. ‘Are you all right? I . . . I knew it’d give you a giiff; she . . . she scared me out of me wits. What are you gona do?’
‘What?’
‘I said what are you gona do?’
He shook his head. What was he going to do?
‘She’s back in the boathouse; she wants to see you.’
He stared dumbly at Jimmy for a time, then like someone drunk he leant forward and tapped on the roof of the carriage with his silver-mounted walking stick, and lowering the window again, he leant out and said, ‘Well get off here, Stoddard; I . . . I’ve a little business to attend to.’
A few minutes later Stoddard was opening the carriage door and pulling down the step, and when they alighted he said, ‘Twelve o’clock, sir?’
‘What? Oh. Oh yes; yes, thank you.’
‘Good night, sir.’
‘Good . . . Good night, Stoddard.’ He walked away, Jimmy by his side, but when the carriage had disappeared into the darkness he stopped under a street lamp and, peering down at Jimmy, said, ‘What, in the name of God, am I going to do in a case like this?’
‘I . . . I don’t know, Rory.’
They walked on again, automatically taking the direction towards the river and the boatyard, and they didn’t stop until they had actually entered the yard, and then Rory, standing still, looked up at the lighted window, then down on Jimmy, before turning about and walking towards the end of the jetty. And there he gripped the rail and leant over it and stared down into the dark, murky water.
Jimmy approached him slowly and stood by his side for a moment before saying, ‘You’ve got to get it over, man.’
Rory now pressed a finger and thumb on his eyeballs as if trying to blot out the nightmare. His whole being was in a state of panic. He knew he should be rushing up those steps back there, bursting open the door and crying, ‘Janie! Janie!’ but all he wanted to do was to turn and run back through the town and into Westoe and up that private road into his house, his house, and cry, ‘Charlotte! Charlotte!’
‘Come on, man.’
At the touch of Jimmy’s hand he turned about and went across the yard and up the steps. Jimmy had been behind him, but it was he who had to come to the fore and opened the door. Then Rory stepped into the room.
The woman was standing by the table. The lamplight was full on her. She was no more like the Janie he remembered than he himself was like Jimmy there. His heart leapt at the thought that it was a trick. Somebody imagined they were on to something and were codding him. They had heard he was in the money. He cast a quick glance in Jimmy’s direction as if to say, How could you be taken in? before moving slowly up the room towards the woman. When he was within a yard of her he stopped and the hope that had risen in him flowed away like liquid from a broken cask for they were Janie’s eyes he was looking into. They were the only recognizable things about her, her eyes. As Jimmy had said, her skin was like that of an Arab and her hair was the colour of driven snow, and curly, close-cropped, curly.
Janie, in her turn, was looking at him in much the same way, for he was no more the Rory that she had known than she was the Janie he had known. Before her stood a well-dressed gentleman, better dressed in fact than she had ever seen the master, for this man was stylish with it; even his face was different, even his skin was different, smooth, clean-shaven, showing no blue trace of stubble about his chin and cheeks and upper lip.
Her heart hardened further at the sight of him and at the fact that he didn’t put out a hand to touch her.
‘Janie.’
Aye, it’s me. And you’re over the moon to . . . to see me.’ There was a break in the last words.
‘I thought . . . we all thought . . .’
‘Aye, I know what you thought, but . . . but it isn’t all that long, it isn’t two years. You couldn’t wait, could you? But then you’re a gamblin’ man, you couldn’t miss a chance not even on a long shot.’
He bowed his head and covered his eyes with his hand, muttering now, ‘What can I say?’
‘I don’t know, but knowin’ you, you’ll have some excuse. Anyway, it’s paid off, hasn’t it? You always said you’d play your cards right one day.’ She turned her back on him and walked to the end of the table and sat down.
He now drew his hand down over his face, stretching the skin, and he looked at her sitting staring at him accusingly. Jimmy had said she had changed, and she had, and in all ways. She looked like some peasant woman who had lived in the wilds all her life. The dark skirt she was wearing was similar to that worn by the fishwives, only it looked as if she had never stepped out of it for years. Her blouse was of a coarse striped material and on her feet she had clogs. Why, she had never worn clogs even when she was a child and things were pretty tight. Her boots then, like his own, had been cobbled until they were nothing but patches, but she had never worn clogs.
Aw, poor Janie . . . Poor all of them . . . Poor Charlotte. Oh my God! Charlotte.
‘I’m sorry I came back.’ Her voice was high now. ‘I’ve upset your nice little life, haven’t I? But I am back, and alive, so what you going to do about it? You’ll have to tell her, won’t you? Your Miss Kean . . . My God! You marryin’ her of all people! Her! But then you’d do anything to make money, wouldn’t you?’
‘I didn’t marry her for . . .’ The words sprang out of his mouth of their own volition and he clenched his teeth and bowed his head, while he was aware that she had risen to her feet again.
Now she was nodding at him, her head swinging like that of a golliwog up and down, up and down, before she said, ‘Well, well! This is something to know. You didn’t marry her for her money. Huh! You’re tellin’ me you didn’t marry her for her money. So you married her because you wanted her? You wanted her, that lanky string of water, her that you used to make fun of?’
‘Shut up! My God! it’s as Jimmy said, you’re different, you’re changed. And yet not all that. No, not all that. Looking back, you had a hard streak in you; I sensed it years ago. And aye, it’s true what I said, I . . . I didn’t marry her for her money, but it’s also true that I didn’t marry her ’cos . . . ’cos I was in love with her.’ He swallowed deeply and turned his head to the side and, his voice a mutter now, he said, ‘She was lonely. I was lonely. That’s . . . that’s how it was.’
‘And how is it now?’
He couldn’t answer because it was wonderful now, or at least it had been.
‘You can’t say, can you? My God, it’s a pity I didn’t die. Aye, that’s what you’re thinkin’, isn’t it? Eeh! I wouldn’t have believed it. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.’ She was holding her head in her hands now, her body rocking. Then of a sudden she stopped and glared at him as she said, ‘Well, she’ll have to be told, won’t she? She’ll have to be told that you can have only one wife.’
As he stared back at her he was repeating her words, ‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ for he couldn’t believe what he was recognizing at this moment, that it could be possible for a man to change in such a short time as two years and look at a woman he had once loved and say to himself, ‘Yes, only one wife, and it’s not going to be you, not if I can help it’—What was he thinking? What was he thinking?
He was trapped. Standing before him was his wife, his legal wife, and he’d have to tell Charlotte that his wife had come back and that she herself had no claim to him and the child in her couldn’t take his name. He couldn’t do it. What was more, he wouldn’t do it. He heard his voice saying now, clearly and firmly, ‘I can’t tell her.’
‘You what!’
‘I said I can’t tell her, she’s going to have a ch . . . bairn.’ He had almost said child, so much had even his vocabulary changed.
There was complete silence in the room, until Jimmy moved. He had been standing at the side of the fireplace and now his foot jerked and he kicked the brass fender, which caused them both to look towards him. And then she said, ‘Well, it’s going to be hard on her, isn’t it, bringing up a bairn without a father? But then, her way will be smoothed, money’s a great compensation. Oh yes, money’s a great compensation. You can make things happen when you’ve got money. I had four sovereigns. The mistress give them to me to buy presents for you all to bring home. I put them in me little bag, an’ you know me an’ me little bag. Whenever I changed I used to pin it under me skirt, and when they found me there was me little bag still pinned under me skirt. But I didn’t know anything about it until I got me memory back. Madame, the old woman I lived with, had taken it, but when I came to meself and wanted to come home and didn’t know how, the son put the bag into me hand. He was very honest, the son, and so I travelled in luxury all the way here. First, in the bottom of a cart with pigs; then for miles on foot, sleeping on the floors of mucky inns; then the boat; and lastly, the back end of the train, like a cattle-truck; and—’ and now she screamed at him—‘you’re no more sorry for me than you would be for a mangy dog lying in the gutter. The only thing you’re worried about is that I’ve come back and your grand life is to be brought to an end. Well, if you don’t tell her, I will; I’m not gona be pushed aside, I’m gona have me place.’
‘Janie. Janie.’ His voice was soft, pleading, and she stopped her ranting and stared at him, her face quivering but her eyes still dry. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll do what I think is right. In . . . in the end I’ll do what I think is right. But give me a little time, will you? A few days, time to sort things out, to . . . to get used to—’ He gulped in his throat. ‘You can have what money you want . . .’
‘I don’t want your money. Anyway, ’tisn’t your money, you’ve never worked for it, it’s her money.’
‘I do work for it, begod! and hard at that.’ His voice was loud now, harsh. ‘I work harder now than ever I’ve done in me life. And now I’m goin’ to tell you something, an’ it’s this. Don’t push me; don’t drive me too far. This . . . this has come as a surprise. Try to understand that, but remember I’m still Rory Connor and I won’t be pushed.’ He paused for a moment, then ended, ‘I’ll . . . I’ll be back the morrow night,’ and on this he swung round on his heel and went out.
Jimmy, casting a look at Janie, where she was standing now, her hands hanging limply by her side and her mouth open, turned and followed him. In the yard he saw the dim outline of Rory standing where he himself had stood earlier in the evening against the stanchion post, and he went up to him and put his hand on his arm, and held it for a moment before saying, ‘I’m sorry, Rory. I’m sorry to the heart of me, but . . . but you can’t blame her.’
‘What am I going to do, Jimmy?’ The question came out as a groan.
‘I don’t know, Rory. Honest to God, I don’t know. Charlotte ’ll be in a state. I’m sorry, I mean I’m sorry for Charlotte.’
‘I . . . I can’t leave her, I can’t leave Charlotte. There’s her condition and . . . Oh dear God! what am I goin’ to do? Look, Jimmy.’ He bent down to him. ‘Persuade her to stay here out of the way, don’t let her go up home. Look, give her this.’ He thrust his hand into an inner pocket and, pulling out a chamois leather bag, emptied a number of sovereigns on to Jimmy’s palm. ‘Make her get some decent clothes; she looks like something that’s just been dug up. I could never imagine her letting herself go like that, could you?’
‘No. No, Rory. I told you, she’s . . . she’s changed. She must have gone through it. You’ll have to remember that, she must have gone through it.’
‘Aye, and now she’s going to make us all go through it.’
As he moved across the yard Jimmy went with him, saying, ‘Where you makin’ for? Where were you going’?’
‘To a game.’
‘Game? Does Charlotte know?’
Rory stopped again and said quietly, ‘Aye, Charlotte knows and she doesn’t mind. As long as I’m happy, doing something that makes me happy, she doesn’t mind; all she minds is that she’ll ever lose me. Funny, isn’t it?’
They peered at each other through the darkness. ‘Where you goin’ now, back home?’
‘No, no, I’ll . . . I’ll have to go on to the game. They’re expecting me, and if I didn’t turn up something would be said. Anyway, I’ve got to think. I’m . . . I’m nearly out of me mind.’
Jimmy made no reply to this and Rory, touching him on the shoulder by way of farewell, went up the yard and out of the gate.
He did not go straight to Plynlimmon Way but walked for a good half-hour, and when at last he arrived at the house Frank Nickle greeted him with, ‘Well, Connor, we thought you weren’t coming, we’ve been waiting some—’ he drew from the pocket of his spotted grey waistcoat a gold lever watch attached to a chain across his chest—‘three quarters of an hour.’
‘I . . . I was held up.’
‘Are you all right? Are you unwell?’
‘Just . . . just a bit off colour.’
‘No trouble, I hope?’
‘No trouble.’
‘Then let us begin.’
Nickle’s tone was peremptory, it was putting him back into the servant class as far as he dared allow it. That the man hated him he was well aware, for he knew he was cornered, and had done since the night he came to dinner. But he also knew that he’d have to be careful of him in all ways. However, at this moment Nickle and his nefarious doings seemed of very minor importance.
They went into what was known as the smoking room. It was part office and part what could be considered a gentleman’s rest room, being furnished mostly with leather chairs, a desk, and a small square table, besides four single chairs.
The two men present were smoking cigars and they greeted Rory cordially, speaking generally, while Frank Nickle lifted a china centrepiece from the square table, laid it aside, then opened the top of the table which was cut in the shape of an envelope, each piece being covered with green baize. This done, they all took their seats around the table and Nickle, producing the cards from a hidden drawer underneath, the game began . . .
Three hours later Rory rose from the table almost twenty pounds poorer. At one time in the evening he had been thirty pounds to the good.
He left before the others, and at the door Frank Nickle, smiling his thin smile, said, ‘You weren’t your usual brilliant self tonight, Connor.’
‘No, I think I’m in for a cold.’
‘That’s a pity. Give my regards to your lady wife.’ The large pallid face now took on a slight sneer. ‘Tell her not to slap her little boy too hard for losing.’
He had the urge to lift his hand and punch the man on the mouth. But wait, he told himself, wait. Give him time, and he would do it, but in another way. He left without further words, went down the pathway through the iron gate and to the road where the carriage was waiting.
Nickle had suggested covertly that it was unwise to come by carriage, servants talked . . . ordinary servants, and to this Rory had replied that Stoddard was no ordinary servant, he was as loyal as Nickle’s own. And anyway, wasn’t he visiting the house for a ‘Gentlemen’s Evening’? They were common enough. How could one discuss the finer points of business if it weren’t for ‘Gentlemen’s Evenings’?
When he arrived home Charlotte was in bed, but she wasn’t asleep, and when, bending over her, he kissed her she pushed him slightly away from her, but holding him by the shoulders, she said, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, come, come, Rory, you . . . you looked strained. Something happened at Nickle’s?’
‘No.’ He pulled himself from her. ‘Only that I lost . . . twenty pounds.’
‘Oh!’ She lay back on her pillows. ‘Hurt pride. Twenty pounds, quite a sum. But still I suppose you must let them have their turn. If you won every time they would say you were cheating.’
‘Yes, yes.’ When he went into the adjoining room to undress she called to him anxiously, ‘There’s nothing else wrong, is there? I mean, he didn’t say anything, there wasn’t any unpleasantness?’
‘No, no; he wasn’t more unpleasant than usual. He was born unpleasant.’
‘Yes, yes, indeed.’
In bed he did not love her but he held her very tightly in his arms and muttered into her hair, ‘Oh, Charlotte. Charlotte.’
It was a long time before he went to sleep, but even then she was still awake, although she had pretended to be asleep for some time past. There was something wrong; she could sense it. By now she knew every shade of his mood and expression. Her love for him was so deep that she imagined herself buried inside him.
At four o’clock in the morning she was woken up by his screaming. He was having a nightmare, the first he had had since his marriage.
Three days passed before Charlotte tackled him openly and very forcibly. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Something is wrong. Now—’ she closed her eyes and lifted her hand upwards—‘it’s no use you telling me, Rory, that there’s nothing amiss. Please give me credit for being capable of using my eyes and my ears if not my other senses. There is something wrong, and I must know what it is. Rory, I must know what it is.’
When he didn’t answer but turned away and walked down the length of the drawing-room towards the window she said, ‘You’re going out again tonight; you have been out for the last two nights supposedly to see Jimmy. When I was passing that way today I called in . . .’
‘You what!’ He swung round and faced her.
She stared at him over the distance before rising to her feet and saying slowly, ‘I said I called in to see Jimmy. Why should that startle you? I have done that before, but what puzzled me today, and what’s puzzling me now, is that you are both reacting in the same way. I asked him if he was feeling unwell and he said, no. I asked him if there had been any more tampering with the boats, he said, no . . . Rory, come here.’
When he made no move towards her, she went swiftly up the room and, putting her arms about him, she demanded, ‘Look at me. Please, look at me,’ and when he lifted his head, she said, ‘Whatever it is, it cannot be so awful that you can’t tell me. And whatever it is, it’s leaving its mark on you, you look ill. Come.’ She drew him down the room and towards the fire, and when they were seated on the couch she said, softly now, ‘Tell me, Rory, please. Whatever it is, please tell me. You said once you would always speak the truth to me. Nothing must stand between us, Rory. Is it that man, John George? Is he blackmailing you? After all I did for him is he . . . ?’
‘Oh no! No! Oh God, I wish I could say he was, I wish that’s all it was, John George. John George wouldn’t blackmail anybody, not even to save his life. I know that, don’t I? . . . Charlotte—’ he now gathered her hands tightly between his own and held them against his breast—‘I’ve . . . I’ve wanted to say this to you for some time past, but . . . but I didn’t think I could convince you because, to tell you the truth, when . . . when all this first started between you and me, I never thought it would ever be possible, but Charlotte . . . Charlotte, my dear, I . . . I’ve grown to care for you, love you . . .’
‘Oh Ror-y, Ror-y.’ She made a slow movement with her head, then pressed her lips tightly together as he went on, ‘I want you to know this and believe it, for . . . for what I’m going to tell you now is going to come as a great shock. If it were possible to keep it from you I would, especially now when the last thing in the world I want you to have is worry, or shock, but . . . Aw God! how can I tell you?’ When he turned his head to the side she whispered. ‘Rory. Rory, please; whatever it is, listen to me, look at me, whatever it is, whatever you’ve done, it won’t alter my feelings for you, not by one little iota.’
He was looking at her again. ‘I haven’t done anything, Charlotte, not knowingly. It’s like this.’ He swallowed deeply on a long breath. ‘The other night, Saturday, when you sent me out so gaily to the game, Jimmy was waiting at the bottom of the drive. He . . . he had news for me . . .’
He stopped speaking. He couldn’t say it but gazed at her, and she didn’t say, ‘What news?’ but remained still, very still as if she knew what was coming.
. . . ‘He told me something amazing, staggering. I . . . I couldn’t believe it, but . . . but Janie, she had come back . . .Charlotte!Charlotte!’
As she lay back against the couch he watched the colour drain from her face until she had the appearance of someone who had just died, and he took her by the shoulders and shook her, crying again, ‘Charlotte! Charlotte! it’s all right. Listen, listen, it’s all right, I won’t leave you, I promise I won’t leave you. I know she can claim through law that . . . that she’s still my wife, but . . . but after seeing her, hearing her . . . I don’t know, I don’t know.’ He lowered his head, ‘She’s no more like the woman I married than . . .’
Charlotte had made a small groaning sound, and now he gathered her limp body into his arms and, stroking her hair, he muttered, ‘Believe me. Believe me, Charlotte, ‘I’ll never leave you. No matter what happens ‘I’ll never leave you unless . . . unless you want me to . . .’
. . . ‘Unless I want you to?’ Her voice was scarcely audible. ‘How . . . how can you say such a thing? I’d want you near me even if I knew you were a murderer, or a madman. Nothing you could do, nothing, nothing would ever make me want to be separated from you.’
‘Oh my dear! My dear!’
They were holding each other tightly now and, her mouth pressed against his cheek, she was murmuring, ‘How . . . how are you going to go about it? Does . . . does she know?’
He released her and sat slowly back against the couch. ‘I’m . . . I’m going down to tell her tonight.’
‘Where is she?’ In the boathouse.’
‘Yes, yes, of course, she would be there. That is why Jimmy was so concerned. It is strange but . . . but already I seem to have lost a family. I liked Jimmy, I liked him very much indeed. I . . . I had great plans for him, a new yard. I had been looking about on my own. It . . . it was to be a surprise for you, and your . . . your people. I thought they were coming to accept me, particularly your aunt, for it was she who from the beginning appeared the most distant. But these past few weeks, in fact only last Thursday when I met her in the boathouse, she was cooking for Jimmy, and she made a joke with me, and for the first time she didn’t address me as ma’am . . . and now . . . Oh! Oh, Rory!’ She turned and buried her face in his shoulder, and when her body began to shake with her sobbing his heart experienced an agony the like of which hitherto he hadn’t imagined he was capable of feeling. It was only the second time he had heard her cry. She wasn’t the weeping type; she was so strong, so self-assured; she was in command of herself and of him and of everyone else.
As he held her tightly to him he dwelt for a moment on the strangeness of life and what two years could do to a man’s feelings, and he realized that no man could really trust himself and say that what he was feeling today he would still feel tomorrow. A few moments ago he had told Charlotte he loved her and would never leave her; two years ago he had told Janie that he loved her and she would always and ever be the only one in his life. What was a man made of when he could change like this? It was past him, he couldn’t understand it. Yet there was one thing at the moment he was certain of, and that was that he no longer wanted Janie but he did want Charlotte, and that what he felt for her wasn’t mere gratitude but love, a love that owed nothing to externals but sprang from somewhere deep within him, a place that up till now he hadn’t known existed.
Janie had refused to take the money that Rory had left. Not until she was back in her rightful place, she had said, would she take a penny from him.
‘But Janie,’ Jimmy had pleaded, ‘you can’t go round looking like that, and . . . and all your clothes . . . well, they were given away, the Learys got them.’
‘Why can’t I go round like this, Jimmy? This is what I’ve worn for the last two years, and as I said, when I’m back in me rightful place then I’ll take money from him for clothes.’
On that night one of the first things she asked when he had come back into the room was, ‘What’s happened to John George?’
‘Oh,’ Jimmy had answered, ‘John George’s all right. He has a newspaper shop in Newcastle . . . and that lass is with him. When he got out he came back and saw her, and she left the man. Her father went after her and threatened both of them, but she said it was no good she wouldn’t go back. They’re all right,’ he had ended.
She had looked at him hard as she asked, ‘How did he come by the paper shop?’
‘Well.’ Jimmy had brought one foot up on to his knee and massaged his ankle vigorously while he said, ‘It was her . . . Charlotte, she saw to it.’
‘She saw to it? You mean to say, after sendin’ him along the line she set him up in a shop?’
‘Aye.’
‘And he let her?’
‘Oh aye, he held no grudge. That’s John George, you know. He’s too good to be true really, or soft, it’s how you take him. But she found out where he was, and she went up to him and talked with him and . . . and well, that was that . . . She’s kind, Janie.’
She had looked hard at him as she said, ‘I don’t know about kind, but one thing’s clear, she’s wily. She’s bought the lot of you. You’re for her, aren’t you, Jimmy? Hook, line and sinker you’re for her. And I’ll bet you’ll be telling me next that all them in the kitchen are at her feet an’ all.’
‘Oh no, Janie, oh no. There was hell to pay. They . . . they didn’t speak to him for ages.’
Slightly mollified, she held out her hands towards the blaze, then said quietly, ‘He doesn’t want me now, Jimmy. You can see it; he doesn’t want me.’
And Jimmy could make no reply to this by way of comfort . . .
Nor could he the next night after Rory had gone, nor last night, because each time they met they seemed to become further apart. They were like two boxers who hated each other. Even if Rory were to leave Charlotte he couldn’t see them ever living together again. He began to wonder why she was insisting on it.
He had just come in from the yard and the sight of her cooking a meal caused him to say, ‘Lizzie . . . Lizzie ’ll be down the morrow; she . . . she comes to bake. What you gona do, Janie?’
‘What do you think?’ She went on cutting thick slices from a piece of streaky bacon.
‘Well, you’ll give her a gliff.’
‘We’ve all had gliffs, Jimmy.’ Still continuing slicing the bacon, she didn’t look up as she said, ‘You didn’t mention it, but I suppose her ladyship’s been supportin’ them up there an’ all?’
It was some seconds before he answered, ‘Rory has, and it’s his own money, ’cos as he said he works hard for it. And he does, Janie. He travels about a lot, seein’ . . . seein’ to different businesses and things . . . and he studies . . .’
‘Studies!’ She raised her head and looked at him scornfully. ‘Rory Connor studies! What? New tricks in the card game?’
‘Don’t be so bitter, Janie.’
She flung the knife down so hard on to the table that it bounced off on to the floor, and, leaning towards him, she cried, ‘Jimmy, have you any idea how I feel, comin’ back here and finding I’m not wanted by nobody? Nobody. Oh—’ she moved her head slowly from shoulder to shoulder—‘how I wish I’d never got me memory back. Do you know something? I was happy back there. The life was hard, but they were good people, jolly, and they took to me.’ She now looked down towards the table. There’s something else I’ll tell you. There was a man there, the son . . . he wanted to marry me. There were few young ones in the village and they had to go miles and miles to reach the next settlement. But . . . but I still had me wedding ring on’—she held out her hand—‘and I said I must be married to somebody. They all worked it out that I’d been with me husband and child and they must have been both drowned ’cos I kept talking about the child afore I came round, so the priest said. He was on one of his visits when I was picked up. It was Miss Victoria. And . . . and then Henri pushed me off the rock and when I came up out of the water I remembered. They were all strange to me. I looked at them an’ saw them as I hadn’t afore, rough fisherfolk, rougher than anything you see round here, livin’ from hand to mouth. They only had two old boats atween the lot of them. It was his, Henri’s boat, that picked me up. He’—Her voice trailed away now, as she ended, ‘He sort of felt I belonged to him ’cos of that.’
When she raised her eyes again to Jimmy she said softly, ‘They all came and saw me off. They walked the five miles with me to where we met the priest and he took me on to the next village in the cart. And you know something? He warned me, that priest. He warned me that things would’ve changed. And do you know what I said to him, Jimmy? I said to him, “Well I know, Father, of one who won’t have changed, me husband . . .’
It was half an hour later when they’d almost finished the meal that Jimmy, scraping the fat up from his plate with a piece of bread, said tentatively, ‘What’ll happen, Janie, if . . . if he won’t leave her?’
‘He’s got to leave her. He’s got no other option, it’s the law.’
‘Janie—’ He chewed on the fat-soaked piece of bread, swallowed it, then said, ‘Rory’s never cared much for the law. I mean he hasn’t bothered about what people think. What if he says, I mean ’cos of the bairn comin’, “To hell with the law!” and stays with her, what then?’
‘What then? Well, she’ll be living in sin won’t she? And she’s prominent in the town, and the gentry won’t stand for that, not in the open they won’t. Things can happen on the side, but if it came out in court that he wouldn’t take me back, and me his wife, and he went on living with her, why neither of them would dare show their faces. There’s things that can be done and things that can’t be done, especially in Westoe; it isn’t like along the riverfront here. And he’ll find that out. Oh aye, he’ll find that out.’
It was at this point in the conversation that the door opened and Rory entered. She did not turn and look at him, and he walked slowly towards the fireplace.
Jimmy, rising flustered from the table, said, ‘Hello there.’
Rory nodded towards him, but gave him no reply. He had taken off his hat and was holding it in one hand which was hanging by his side; then looking at Janie he said, ‘Do you think we could talk quietly?’
‘That’s up to you.’ She did not even glance towards him.
‘I’ve . . . I’ve made a decision.’
She said nothing, but waited, and he glanced towards Jimmy, whose eyes were tight on him. Before he spoke again he stretched his chin up out of the collar of his overcoat. ‘I’m not going to leave her, Janie.’
She made no move in any way, no sign.
‘You’ll take me to court as is your right, and I’ll maintain you, and well too, as is also your right, but . . . but she’s carrying my child and I’m not leaving her.’
Now she did turn towards him and, like a wild cat, she spat her words at him. ‘You’re a swine! Do you know that? You’re a rotten, bloody swine, Rory Connor! And, as I said to Jimmy, you do this and you won’t be able to lift your head up in this town. Aye, and I’ll see you don’t, I’ll take you to court. By God! I will. It’ll be in all the papers; both you an’ her’ll have to hide yourselves afore they’ve finished with you. And her money won’t save you, not from this disgrace it won’t . . .’
As he stared back into her face which was livid with passion, he thought, even if Charlotte were to die at this minute I wouldn’t go back to her; I could never live with her again. His thoughts, swirling back over the past, tried to find the man he had been, the man who had loved this woman, the man who had sworn always to love her, but in vain. And so he said, ‘Do what you think you have to do; if it’ll make you feel any better go the whole hog; but I’d like to remind you that Shields isn’t the only town on the planet. The world is wide and when you have money you can settle where you like.’ He felt no compunction now at throwing his money at her.
He stared at her a moment longer. She was not recognizable to him; the white hair, the brown skin, even her eyes were no longer Janie’s. He pulled on his hat, saying, ‘Well, that’s that; the rest is up to you,’ and, turning, went out; and as he always did on these visits, Jimmy followed him into the yard.
It was a bright evening; the twilight was long in passing. They walked side by side down to the end of the yard and stood against the railing bordering the river. The moored boats were bobbing on the water beneath them. They stood looking down into them, until he asked, ‘Do you blame me?’
There was a short pause before Jimmy answered, ‘No, not really, Rory, no. But . . . but I’m sorry for her. I can see her side of it an’ all.’
‘Well, I would expect you to ’cos she has got a side. And I’m sorry for her too. At this moment I’m sorry for us all.’
He looked up and down the river as he said, ‘Things were going so fine. I was riding high, I was me own man. Even with Charlotte’s money I was me own man, because I knew I was making meself felt in the business.’ He looked down at Jimmy. ‘You know, as I said, we could go away. I thought of that as I came along. We could move to any place in the country, but somehow I don’t want to leave this town. And I know she doesn’t. But anyway, no matter where we go we’ll see you’re all right.’
‘Aw . . . aw, don’t worry about me, Rory, I’ll get through. And you’ve done more than enough already. By the way, I didn’t tell you, ’cos you’ve got enough on your plate, but those buggers down there must have been up to something last night. I heard somebody in the yard, more than one. I . . . I thought they were comin’ under the house, and then a patrol boat came up and stopped—it stops most nights—and I heard nothing after that. I . . . I was a bit scared.’
‘Get Richardson to come along and stay with you.’
‘Aye, I will, but I think I must look for somebody else, somebody single. You see, he’s got his wife and family.’
‘You do that. Tell them they’ll be well paid.’
Jimmy nodded; then he asked quietly, ‘What’s going to happen her . . . Janie? I mean, will she want to go on livin’ here? It’s awkward. She says she’s going up home the night or the morrow. Well, if she does she might decide to stay up there.’
‘Home? Huh!’ Rory tossed his head back. They’ll have a field day with this. Our dear Lizzie will come out with all the sayings back to Noah: As ye sow so shall ye reap; Pride goes before a fall; Big heid small hat. Oh, I can hear her.’
‘I . . . I don’t think so, Rory. You know, I’ve always meant to say this to you, but you don’t see Lizzie as she really is. She’s all right is Lizzie, and I’ve never been able to understand why you still hold it against her. And I look at it this way: after what’s happened to you if you don’t see her side now you never will.’
‘Aye. Aye, I suppose you’re right . . . Well, I’ll be off. I . . . won’t come back as long as she’s here. Come up, will you, whenever you can and let me know how things are going? I’ll want to know when I’m to expect the authorities.’
‘All right, Rory, I’ll let you know. Tell Charlotte I wish her well, and I’m sorry . . .’
‘I will; shell be grateful. So long then.’
‘So long, Rory, so long.’
They looked at each other for a moment longer, then Rory turned away and walked slowly out of the yard.
Jimmy waited a while before returning to the house, and it was as he mounted the steps that he heard her crying. When he entered the room he saw her, her face buried in her arms on the table, her body shaking.
He did not go to her but went and sat by the side of the fire and, following his habit, he brought his foot on to his knee again and stroked his ankle vigorously. It would do her good, he told himself, to cry it out. Perhaps it would wash away some of the bitterness in her.
After a moment he slid his foot off his knee and looked down at the triangular shape made by his legs; he had always hated them for from the beginning they had erased any hope of him ever finding a lass of his own; no lass wanted to be seen walking the streets alongside him. He had gone through a lot of body torment, and occasionally he still did, but these feelings he mostly sublimated in his affection for the family and his love for Rory . . . Aye, and her sitting behind him there.
But now at this particular moment as he looked down at his legs he was in a way grateful to them, for because of them he would never experience the agony that Rory, Janie and Charlotte were enduring at this minute.
Life was funny, it handed out compensations in very odd ways.
‘You’re sure, darling, quite sure?’
‘I’m as sure as I will be of anything in me life. You won’t regret it. I’ll never let you regret it for one moment.’
‘There’ll be a hell of a rumpus. As she said, we won’t be able to lift our heads up in the town . . . Should we leave?’
‘No, no, we won’t leave . . . we won’t leave. We married in good faith; she has no children by you, I’m to have your child. We are as it were the victims of circumstance.’
‘They won’t look at it that way. You know as well as I do what they’ll say. He’s on to a good thing, that’s what they’ll say. He’s not going to give all that up and go back to rent collectin’, or some such.’
‘Do you mind very much what they say?’
He thought for a moment before answering, ‘Yes, I do, because . . . because it won’t be true. I’m staying with you now for one reason only, although I can’t say I haven’t got used to all this—’ he spread his arms wide—‘but if I had retained any feeling for her, as it once was, say, this wouldn’t have mattered.’
‘I know that . . . Oh, why had this to happen? We were so happy, so content; there was only one thing missing in my life.’
‘One thing?’
‘Yes, and then you gave it to me earlier this evening . . . You said you loved me.’
‘Oh, Charlotte!’ He put his hand out and caught hers.
‘When do you think she’ll take proceedings?’
‘Tomorrow likely. The mood I left her in, she’ll waste no time. But you know something? In spite of all I know is going to happen, the scandal, the gossip, the papers, the lot: “Woman returns from the dead. Husband, married again, refuses to acknowledge her”—You can see them, can’t you, the headlines?— Well, in spite of it all, the moment I came back, the moment I stepped through the door and saw you sitting there I had the oddest feeling. It was strange, very strange. I can’t remember feeling anything like it before. It was a feeling . . . well, I can’t put a name to it, a sort of joy. No, no—’ he shook his head—I shouldn’t say joy . . . Certainty? No, I really can’t put a name to it, but I knew that everything was going to turn out all right. I thought, in a way it’s a good job it’s happened; well start a new life, you and me and him—or her.’ He placed his hand gently across the mound of her stomach, and she put her two hands on top of his and as she pressed them downwards she looked into his face and said, ‘I love you, I adore you. Blasphemy that, isn’t it? But to me you are my God.’
He now dropped on to his knees and, burying his face in her lap, murmured, ‘Charlotte, Charlotte, I’ll want no other but you ever, believe me . . .’
When there came the tap on the drawing-room door he turned round hastily and knelt before the fire and busied himself attending to it as Charlotte called, ‘Come in.’
Jessie closed the door softly behind her, came up the room, and, standing at the edge of the couch, she said, ‘There’s . . . there’s a man at the door, sir. He . . . he says he would like to speak to you.’
‘A man?’ Rory got to his feet thinking, My God she hasn’t lost much time. Did he give you his name?’
‘No, sir. He just said it was important, and . . . and he must speak with you. He’s a little man, very little, sir.’
A little man, very little. Who did he know who was very little? Only little Joe.
‘Where is he now?’
‘I’ve . . . I’ve left him in the lobby, sir. He’s . . . he’s a workman type.’
He looked down towards Charlotte. Then went swiftly past Jessie.
When he opened the hall door and looked into the lobby he was looking down on to little Joe.
‘Evenin’, Mr Connor.’
‘Hello, Joe. What’s brought you here?’ His voice was stiff.
‘Mr Connor, I’d . . . I’d like a word with you.’
‘I don’t need to be set-on any longer, Joe, you should know that.’ His tone held a slight bitterness.
‘Tisn’t about that, Mr Connor. I . . . I think you’d better hear me, and in private like; it’s . . . it’s important, very, I should say.’
Rory hesitated a moment, then said, ‘Come away in.’ He opened the door and let the little fellow pass him. He watched him as his eyes darted around the hall. Then he led the way to the office. Once there, he seated himself behind the desk and, motioning to a chair, said, ‘Sit yourself down,’ and when Joe was seated he said, ‘Well, let’s have it.’
‘I thought you should know, Mr Connor, but . . . but afore I tell you anythin’ I want you to believe that I wasn’t in on the other business when they done you over. They’re a dirty crew an’ they’ve got me where they want me, the Pitties an’ him—Nickle. But . . . but there’s some things I don’t stand for, and if they knew I was here the night me life wouldn’t be worth tuppence. But . . . but I thought you should know.’
‘Know what?’
‘Well.’ Joe stretched his feet downwards until his toes touched the carpet; then he leant forward towards the desk and, gripping it, he said under his breath, ‘They’re up to something. I just got wind of it a while ago. They’re gona get at you through your brother. I’ve . . . I’ve seen him. He’s not much bigger than me, and he’s got his own handicap, and . . . and I didn’t think it was fair ’cos of that, so I thought I’d come and tell you, ’cos you always played straight by me, never mean like some of them. And . . . and after that business when you didn’t drag me into it, and you could ’ave, oh aye, you could ’ave, I thought to meself, if ever . . .’
‘Get on with it, Joe. What are they up to?’ Joe now brought his hands from the table and, joining them together, he pressed them between his knees before he announced, ‘They’re gona burn you out.’
‘Burn me out? Here?’
‘Oh no, not here; they wouldn’t dare come up this way. No, the boatyard and the boathouse. Steve Mackin let it drop. They’d been to him for paraffin.’
‘What!’ Rory was on his feet and around the desk. ‘When?’
‘Oh, late on’s afternoon. I . . . I was payin’ him a bet and he said, “Poor little bastard.” ’ Joe now looked from one side to the other as if to apologize to someone for his language, then went on, ‘I said, “Who?’’ and he said, “Connor. Little bandy Connor. But what can you do against those three buggers?”
Rory was going towards the door now. ‘What time was this?’
‘Oh, an hour gone or more. I took a stroll by that way ’cos I thought if I saw him, I mean your brother, I would tip him off to keep clear like, but I saw big Pittie standing at the corner. He was talking to a fellow, just idling like, standing chattin’. But he doesn’t live down that end, and so I thought it wasn’t fair, Mr Connor, an’ so I came . . .’
They were in the hall now and the drawing-room door was opening.
‘What is it?’
‘I. . . I’ve got to go down to the boatyard. Nothing, nothing.’
Charlotte came up to him as he was taking his coat from the hall wardrobe and again she asked, ‘What is it?’ then added, ‘Oh, what is it now, Rory?’
‘Nothing.’ He turned to her, a faint smile on his face. This chap here, well—’ he thumbed towards Joe—‘he’s been kind enough to come and give me a warning. The Pitties mean business; I think they’re going to loosen the boats.’
‘Don’t go.’ Her voice was stiff now. ‘Don’t go, please. Let us go straight to the station; the police will deal with it.’
‘Now, now.’ He put his hands on her shoulder and turned her about, then led her towards and into the drawing-room. Once inside he closed the door, then whispered to her, ‘Now look, it’s nothing. All right, all right—’ he silenced her—‘I’ll get the police. I promise I’ll get the police.’
‘It’s dark; anything could happen; it’s dark.’
‘Look, nothing’s going to happen. Richardson’ll be there with him. He’s a tough fellow is Richardson. Now look, I’ve got to go. You stay where you are.’
‘No, let me come with you. Please let me . . .’
‘No. No. Now don’t you dare move out of here.’ He opened the door and called, ‘Jessie!’ and when the maid appeared he said, ‘See that your mistress doesn’t leave the house until I get back. Now, that’s an order.’
The girl looked from one to the other, then said, ‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir.’
He turned again to Charlotte and, putting his hand out, he cupped her chin and squeezed it before hurrying towards the door, where little Joe was standing.
The little fellow cast a glance back towards Charlotte, touched his forelock and said, ‘Evenin’, ma’am,’ and she replied, ‘Good evening.’ Then he sidled out quickly after Rory.
They hadn’t reached the bottom of the steps before Charlotte’s voice came after them, crying, ‘Wait for the carriage!’
‘I don’t need the carriage. Go back inside. Do what you’re told.’ His voice trailed away as he hurried down the drive.
Once in the lane, he began to run and little Joe kept up with him, but by the time they had reached Westoe village the little fellow was lagging far behind.
Fire. It only needed a can of oil and a match and the whole place would go up like dried hay lit by lightning, and they mightn’t be able to get out in time. If Jimmy was up in the loft he could be choked with smoke. There were so many books and papers up there, and all that wood, oiled wood inside and out, and the tarred beams underneath in the covered slipway . . . He’d kill those Pitties; one or all of them he’d kill them. It had to come sooner or later; it was either them or him. If they hurt Jimmy . . . And she was there an’ all, Janie. To come back from the dead and then be burned alive. And that’s what could happen, if they’d both gone to bed. Those buggers! They were murderers, maniacs.
He was racing down the bank towards the market. Dark-clothed figures stopped and looked after him, then looked ahead to see if he was being chased.
It was as he turned into the Cut that he smelt the smoke, and then he looked up and saw the reflection of the flames. Like a wild horse he tore down to the waterfront and along it. But he was too late. He knew before he reached the crowd that he was too late.
The place was alive with people. He pushed and thrust and yelled to try to get through them. But they were packed tight and all staring upwards towards the flaming mass inside the railings.
Dashing back, he climbed the stout sleepers that he’d had put up to encase the spare land they had bought only a few months earlier. When he dropped on to the other side he saw men dragging a hawser from a river boat, and he ran, scrambling and falling over the debris, yelling, ‘Jimmy! Jimmy!’
He grabbed hold of a man’s arm. ‘Are they out?’
‘Who, mate?’
‘Me . . . me brother.’ He was looking wildly around him. ‘And . . . and Janie.’
‘There’s nobody in there, man. Anyway, look at it, nothin’ could live long in that, they’d be choked with the smoke afore now.’
‘ Jimmy! Jimmy!’
He was hanging over the rail yelling down into the wherries when a woman appeared. She swung round the end post from the passage and he stared into her face, made pink now by the reflection from the fire. ‘Janie!’ He gripped her arms. ‘Where’s . . . where’s Jimmy?’
‘Jimmy? I . . . I left him. I left him here, I’ve been up home.’
‘Oh my God!’
He turned now towards the house and gazed upwards. It looked like a huge torch. Flames were coming out of the two bottom windows but only smoke out of the upper one. As he stared there came the sound of breaking glass. It could have been caused by the heat but instinctively he swung round to Janie, and there flashed between them a knowing glance. Then she put her hand over her mouth as she cried, ‘God Almighty, Jimmy!’
He raced towards the steps, but as he attempted to mount them the heat beat him back. To the side of him two men were playing a hose that spurted intermittent water into one of the bottom windows. His hand was gripping the stanchion of the balustrade over which a sack was lying; it was the hessian hood that Jimmy wore when working in the rain. Tearing it from the railing he dashed towards the men and pulling the hose downwards he saturated the sack; then, throwing it over his head, he went up the steps again, and into the house.
Everything that was wood inside was alight. The floor felt like slippery wet mush beneath his feet. Blindly he flew over it and to the ladder. One side of it was already burning but he was up it in a second and had thrust the trap-door open.
The room was full of smoke, but through it he saw the glow of the burning bookcase at the far end. Coughing and choking he dropped flat on the floor and pulled himself towards the window, and there his groping hands touched the limp body, and it wasn’t until he went to drag it towards the trap door that he realized that both Jimmy’s hands and feet were bound. There was no time to unloosen them. So gripping him under the armpits, he pulled him backwards towards the trap-door, but there he had to pause and stuff the wet hessian into his mouth and squeeze the water down his throat to stop himself from choking.
To descend the ladder he had to get on to his knees, then hoist Jimmy’s slight body on to his shoulder. By now he wasn’t really conscious of his actions, one followed the other in automatic frenzy. Even the agony of gripping the burning rungs didn’t penetrate his mind.
The room now was one inferno of hissing flame and smoke; his coat was alight, as was Jimmy’s guernsey. Half-way along the room he felt the floor giving way, and as his feet sank he threw himself and his burden in the direction where he thought the door was. His lungs were bursting, his whole body seemed to be burning as furiously as the room.
One hand groping blindly, he felt for the opening, and found it. The steps were below. He let Jimmy slide to the ground. He was choking. He was choking. Dimly he was aware of yells and screams and at the same time he felt the whole building shudder. That was all he remembered.
He was alive when they raised the burning beam from him, then beat the fire out of his clothes.
When they carried him to where Jimmy was lying covered with coats, Janie stumbled by his side, and when she went to take his blackened hand, his skin came away on her palm.
As if totally unconscious of the turmoil in the yard she knelt between the two men with whom she had been brought up, and she groaned aloud.
Someone went to raise her up but she pushed the hands aside. The voices were floating over her: ‘We must get him to the hospital. Get a stretcher, a door, anything.’ Then there followed a period of time before a voice said, Here, Mrs Connor. He’s here, Mrs Connor,’ and she lifted her head to see a tall figure dropping on to her knees at the other side of the man who was her husband. She stared at the woman who was putting her arm under Rory’s shoulders and crying to him, such words, endearing words that she had never heard said aloud before. ‘Oh my darling, my darling, dearest, dearest. Oh Rory, Rory, my love, my love.’ Such private words all mixed up with moans.
Janie felt herself lifted aside, almost pushed aside by a policeman. He was directing the lifting of Jimmy on to a stretcher. When they went to take up Rory they had to loosen the woman’s hands from him, and she heard the voices again saying, ‘We must get him to hospital.’ And now the woman’s voice, ‘No, no, he must go home. Both of them, they must come home. I . . . I have the carriage.’
‘They’ll never get in a carriage, ma’am.’ It was a policeman speaking.
‘A cart then, a cart, anything. They must come home.’
There were more voices, more confusion, then a discussion between three uniformed men.
When they carried the two still forms out of the yard Janie followed them. They crossed the waste land to avoid the fire which was now merely a mass of blazing wood to where, on the road stood a flat coal cart that had been commandeered. She watched them putting the two stretchers on to it, and as it moved away she saw the woman walk closely by its side. Then the driver got down from a carriage that was standing by the kerb in the road and ran to her. She watched her shake her head at him, and he went back and mounted the carriage and drove it behind the cart. And Janie followed the carriage.
Even when it turned into the drive and up towards the house she followed it. She stopped only when it moved away to the side, past the cart and towards the stables. She watched the men who had accompanied the cart lifting the stretchers off it. She watched the servants running up and down the steps. Then everyone disappeared into the house, and for a few minutes she was standing alone looking at the lighted windows, until the coachman came racing down the steps, rushed into the yard, turned the carriage and put the horses into a gallop and went past her.
Then again she was alone for a time and she stood staring unblinking at the house. She did not move when the carter and three other men came down the steps and mounted the cart and rode away.
She did not know how long she stood there before she saw the carriage return and the doctor, carrying his leather bag, get out and hurry into the house, but she imagined that it was near on two hours before he came out of the house again.
As he went to get into the carriage she seemed to come out of a trance and, stumbling towards him, asked, ‘Please, please. How is he? How are they?’
The doctor looked her up and down, her odd hat, her cloak, her clogs. She looked like a field peasant from the last century, and not a peasant of this country either. He peered at her for a moment before he answered, ‘The young man will survive but Mr Connor is very ill, seriously so.’ He made an abrupt movement with his head, then stepped up into the carriage, and the driver, after giving her a hard stare, mounted the box, turned the carriage and was about to drive away when a servant came running down the steps, calling, ‘Will! Will!’ When the coachman pulled the horses up, the servant, gripping the side handle, looked up at him and said quickly, ‘The mistress, she says, you’re to go straight on after dropping the doctor and . . . and bring the master’s people. You know where.’
‘Aye. Aye.’ The coachman nodded and cracked his whip and the horses once again sped down the drive.
The servant now looked at the woman standing to the side of the balustrade. ‘Do you want something?’ she asked.
Janie shook her head.
‘Did . . . did you come with them?’
Janie nodded once.
The servant now looked her up and down. She had never seen anyone dressed like her, she looked a sketch, like a tramp, except that her face didn’t look like that of a tramp for it was young, but she looked odd, foreign, brown skin and white hair sticking out from under that funny hat. She said, ‘What do you want then?’
‘Just to know how they are.’
The voice, although low and trembling, was reassuring to the servant. She might look foreign but she was definitely from these parts.
‘They’re bad. The master’s very bad and . . . and the mistress is demented. The master’s brother, he’ll pull through. Come back in the mornin’ if you want to hear any more. Do . . . do you know them?’
‘Aye.’
‘Aw . . . well, come back in the mornin’.’
As the servant went up the steps Janie turned away, but only until she had heard the click of the door; then she stopped and took up her position again, staring at the two upper brightly lit windows.
Rory lay swathed in white oiled linen. His face was the same tone as the bandages. At five o’clock this morning he had regained consciousness and he had looked into Charlotte’s face, and she had murmured, ‘My dearest. Oh, my dearest.’
As yet he wasn’t conscious of the pain and so had tried to smile at her, but as he did so it was as if the muscles of his face had released a spring, for his body became shot with agony. He closed his eyes and groaned and turned his head to the side, and when he opened his eyes again he imagined he was dreaming, because now he was looking into Lizzie’s face. And he could see her more clearly than she could him, for her face was awash with tears. But she was crying silently.
Vaguely he thought, she generally moans like an Irish banshee when she cries . . . then, What’s she doing here? He turned his head towards Charlotte again and her face seemed to give him the answer. He was that bad. Yes, he was bad. This pain. He couldn’t stand this pain. He’d yell out. Oh God! God! what had happened him? The fire. The Pitties! The Pitties. They were murderers. He had always meant to get the Pitties but they had got him and Jimmy . . . Jimmy . . . Jimmy . . .
He said the name a number of times in his head before it reached his lips. ‘Jimmy.’
‘He’s all right, darling. Jimmy’s all right. He’s . . . he’s in the other room, quite close. He’s all right. Go to sleep, darling, rest.’
‘Char-lotte.’
‘Yes, my dear?’
The words were again tumbling about in his mind, jumping over streams of fire, fire that came up from his finger nails into his shoulders and down into his chest. His chest was tight; he could hardly breathe but he wanted to tell her, he wanted to tell her again, make her understand, make her believe, press it deep into her that he loved her. He wanted to leave her comfort . . . What did he mean? Leave her comfort. Was he finished? Had they finally done for him? Was he going out? No. No. He could put up a fight. Aye, aye, like always he could put up a fight, play his hand well. If only the burning would stop. If he could jump in the river, take all his clothes off and jump in the river.
‘Char-lotte.’
‘Go to sleep, darling. Rest, rest. Go to sleep.’
Yes, he would go to sleep. That’s how he would fight it. He would survive; and he’d get the Pitties. Little Joe, he’d make Little Joe speak out . . . and about Nickle. God! Nickle. It was him who was the big fish, aye he was the big fish . . . Aw, God Almighty. Oh! oh, the pain . . . He only needed thirty-five pounds to get the boatyard for Jimmy. If he could get set into a good game he’d make it in two or three goes. He wanted to give Jimmy something to make up for those lousy legs he was stuck with . . . Somebody was scorching him . . . burning him up . . .
‘Drink this.’
The liquid sizzled as it hit the fire within him, then like a miracle it gradually dampened it down . . .
‘He’ll sleep for a while, lass.’
Lizzie took the glass from Charlotte’s hand and placed it on a side table and, coming round the bed, she said, ‘Come away and rest yourself.’
‘No, no; I can’t leave him.’
‘He doesn’t need you now, he needs nobody for the time being. It’s when he wakes again and that won’t be long, come away.’
Charlotte dragged her eyes from the face on the pillow and looked up into the round crumpled face of the woman she had come to think of as Rory’s aunt. Then obediently she rose from the chair and went towards the other room, and Lizzie, following her, said, ‘I would change me clothes if I was you and have a wash, then go downstairs and have a bite to eat. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself lying there along of him, and you won’t be much use to him then, will you?’
Charlotte turned and stared at the fat woman. She spoke so much sense in her offhand way. She nodded at her but didn’t speak.
Lizzie now closed the door and walked back to the bed and, sitting down, stared at her son, at the son who hadn’t given her a kind word for years. As a boy he had liked her and teased her, as a man he had insulted her, scorned her, even hated her, but all the while, through all the phases, she had loved him. And now her heart was in ribbons. He was the only thing she had of her own flesh and he was on his way out.
On the day he was born when he had lain on her arm and first grabbed at her breast she had thought, He’s strong; he’ll hold the reins through life all right. And everything he had done since seemed to have pointed the same way, for he had earned a copper here and there since he was seven. And hadn’t he been sent to school? And hadn’t he been given full-time work afore he was fourteen? And then to jump from the factory into the high position of a rent man. Moreover he had been the best dressed rent man in the town because he made enough out of his gaming to keep himself well rigged out and still have a shilling or two in his pocket. Then his latest bit of luck, marrying into this house. Who would ever have believed that would have come about? He’d always had the luck of a gambling man.
Aye, but she hadn’t to forget that a gambling man’s luck went both ways. And she had thought of that at tea-time yesterday when that ghost walked in the door. How she stopped herself from collapsing she’d never know. Only the fact that Ruth was on the verge of it herself had saved her, for to see Janie standing there, the Janie that wasn’t Janie, except when she spoke. God in heaven! Never in all her born days had she had such a shock. And nothing that would happen to her in this life or the next would equal it. But a couple of hours later, as she watched Janie go down the path looking like something from another world, she asked God to forgive her for the thoughts that were passing through her mind, for there had been no welcome in her heart for this Janie, whose only aim in life now seemed to be the ruin of the man she had once loved, and whose wife she still was. Aye, that was a fact none of them could get over, whose wife she still was. And that poor soul back there in the room carrying a child. Well, as she had always said, God’s ways were strange but if you waited long enough He solved your problems. But dear, dear God, she wished He could have solved this one in some other way than to take her flesh, the only flesh she would ever call her own.
When the door opened behind her she rose to her feet, and going towards Charlotte, she said, ‘I’ll call Ruth and the young maid, an’ I’ll come down along of you and put me feet up for a short while.’
Charlotte passed her and walked to the bed, and, bending over it, she laid her lips gently on the white sweat-laden brow, and as she went to mop his face Lizzie took her arm and said, ‘Come. No more, not now. And them nurses should be here by daylight.’
Out on the landing, Jessie was sitting on a chair by the side of the door, and Charlotte said to her, ‘Sit by the bed, Jessie, please. I’ll . . . I’ll be back in a few moments.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The girl disappeared into the room and Charlotte crossed the landing and gently opened the door opposite, and Ruth turned from her vigil beside Jimmy’s bed and asked in a whisper, ‘How is he?’
‘Asleep.’ She went to the foot of the bed and, looking at Jimmy, she said softly, ‘His hair will grow again, it’s only at the back. He’s sleeping naturally.’ Then she asked, as if begging a favour, ‘Would you sit with Rory just in case he should wake? Jessie’s there, but . . . but I’d rather—’ She waved her hand vaguely. ‘You could leave the door open in case Jimmy calls.’
Ruth stared up at her for a moment, then looked at Lizzie before she said, ‘Aye, yes, of course’. . . .
In the drawing-room, Charlotte sat on the couch, her hands gripped tightly in front of her, and stared at the fire, and when the door opened and Lizzie came from the kitchen carrying a tray of tea and a plate of bread and butter she did not show any surprise.
The time that had passed since nine o’clock last night was filled with so many strange incidents that it seemed to have covered a lifetime, and that this woman should go into her kitchen and make tea seemed a natural thing to do; it was as if she had always done it.
It seemed to Charlotte from the moment she had knelt beside Rory last night that she had lived and died again and again, for each time she thought Rory had drawn his last breath she had gone with him. That he would soon take his final breath one part of her mind accepted, but the other fought hysterically against it, yelling at it, screaming at it: No, no! Fight for him, will him to remain alive. You can’t let him go. Tell him that he must not go, he must not leave you; talk to his spirit, get below his mind, grasp his will, infuse your strength into him. He can’t. He can’t. He must not die . . .
‘Here, drink that up and eat this bit of bread.’
‘No, thank you. I . . . I couldn’t eat.’
‘You’ve got to eat something. If nothin’ else you need to keep the wind off your stomach when you’re carryin’ or you’ll know about it.’
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t eat. But you . . . please, please help yourself.’
‘Me? Aw, I’ve no need to eat.’ Lizzie sighed as she sat down on the edge of a chair. There followed a few moments of silence before Charlotte, wide-eyed, turned to her and said, ‘What do you think?’
‘Well, lass, where there’s life there’s hope they say. As long as he’s breathin’ he’s got a chance, but if you want my opinion, it’s a slim one. He was always a gamblin’ man, but he’s on a long shot now.’ She put her cup down on a side table and her tightly pressed lips trembled.
Again there was silence until Lizzie said quietly, ‘It’s not me intention to trouble you at this time, for God knows you’ve got enough on your plate, but . . . but I think there’s somethin’ you should know ’cos there’s only you can do anything about it . . . Janie. She’s been outside all night sittin’ in the stables, your coachman says. He doesn’t know who she is of course. He told one of your lasses that there was a strange woman there and she wouldn’t go, she was one of his relatives he thought.’
Lizzie now watched Charlotte rise to her feet and, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, go towards the fire and stand looking down into it, and she said to her, ‘When she walked into the kitchen last night I was for droppin’ down dead meself.’
Charlotte’s head was moving in small jerks. The woman, the girl, his wife . . . his one-time wife in her stables? She had a vague memory of seeing a black huddled figure kneeling at Rory’s side in the yard, then again when they had lifted him on to the cart, and for a moment she had glimpsed it again in the shadows of the drive. What must she do? Would Rory want to see her? He had once loved her . . . She couldn’t bear that thought; he was hers, wholly hers. The happiness she had experienced with him in the months past was so deep, so strong, that the essence of it covered all time back to her beginning and would spread over the years to her end, and beyond. And he loved her, he had said it. He had put it into words, not lightly like some unfledged puppy as he had been when he married his childhood playmate, but as a man who didn’t admit his feelings lightly. So what place had that girl in their lives? What was more, he had told her he wanted none of her . . .
‘If he had been taken to the hospital she would have seen him, she would have claimed the right.’
Charlotte swung round. Her face dark now, she glared at the fat woman, and for a moment she forgot that she knew her as Rory’s aunt. She was just a fat woman, a common fat woman, ignorant. What did she know about rights?
‘Don’t frash yourself, ’cos you know as well as I do the law would say she had a right. They would take no heed that his feelings had changed.’ She nodded now at Charlotte. ‘Oh, aye, Janie told me he wouldn’t go back to her, he had told her so to her face, and that must have been hard to stomach. So havin’ the satisfaction that he wanted you, and seemingly not just for what you could give him, it should be in your heart, and it wouldn’t do you any harm, to let her have a glimpse of him.’
‘I can’t.’
Lizzie now got to her feet and heaved a sigh before she said, ‘Well, if you can’t, you can’t, but I’d like to remind you of one thing, or point it out, so to speak. As I see it, you should be holding nothing against her. You’ve got nothin’ to forgive her for except for being alive She’s done nothin’ willingly to you. The boot’s on the other foot. Oh aye—’ she dropped her chin on to her chest—‘it was all done in good faith, legal you might say, but nevertheless it was done. How would you feel this minute if you were in her place? Would you be sitting all night in the stables hoping to catch a glimpse of him afore he went?’
Charlotte sat slowly down on the couch again and, bending her long body forward, she gripped her hands between her knees.
It was some time, almost five minutes later when she whispered, ‘Take her up. But . . . but I mustn’t see her; I . . . I will stay here for half an hour. That is, if . . . if he doesn’t need me.’
She was somewhat surprised when she received no answer. Turning her head to the side, she saw Lizzie walking slowly down the room. She was a strange woman, forthright, domineering, and she had no respect for class . . . of any kind. Yet there was something about her, a comfort.
She lay back on the couch and strained her ears now to the sounds coming from the hall. She heard nothing for some minutes, then the front door being closed and the soft padding of footsteps across the hall towards the stairs brought her upright. She was going up the stairs, that girl, his wife, she was going up to their bedroom, to hers and Rory’s bedroom. And she would be thinking she was going to see her husband. No! No, not her husband, never any more. Hadn’t he told her she could do what she liked but he’d never return to her?
She’d be by his bedside now looking at him, remembering their love, those first days in the boathouse.
‘My wife won’t be there, miss, but you’re welcome.’ She was back sitting behind the desk again looking at him as he told her he was married.
She almost sprang to her feet now. She couldn’t bear it, she couldn’t bear that girl being up there alone with him. She must show herself. She must let her see that she was the one he had chosen to stay with, not someone who was seven years her junior, or young and beautiful, but her, as she was . . . herself.
She was out of the drawing-room and running up the stairs, and she almost burst into the bedroom, then came to a dead stop and stared at the three women standing round the bed, his mother, his aunt and the person in the black cloak who wasn’t a beautiful young girl but a strange-looking creature with dark skin and white frizzy hair; she was young admittedly, but she could see no beauty in her, no appeal.
She walked slowly up to that side of the bed by which Ruth stood and she stared across into the eyes of the girl called Janie. The eyes looked sad, weary, yet at the same time defiant.
A movement of Rory’s head brought their attention from each other and on to him. He was awake and looking at them.
If there had been any doubt in Rory’s mind that he was near his end it was now dispelled. Janie and Charlotte together. Through the fire in his body was now threaded a great feeling of sadness. He wanted to cry at the fact that this was one game he was going to lose. The cards were all face up, and his showed all black . . . dead black. But still he had played his hand, hadn’t he? The game had been short but it hadn’t been without excitement. No, no, it hadn’t. But now it was over . . . almost. He wished the end would get a move on because he couldn’t stand this pain much longer without screaming out his agony. Why didn’t they give him something, a good dose, that laudanum . . . laudanum . . . laudanum . . .
He was looking into Janie’s eyes now. They were as he remembered them in those far-off days before they were married when she was happy, because she had never really been happy after, had she? It was funny, but in a way Janie hadn’t been made for marriage. She looked it, she had the body for it, but she hadn’t been made for marriage, whereas Charlotte. Ah! Charlotte.
Charlotte’s face was close above his. He was looking up into her eyes. Charlotte. Charlotte was remarkable. Charlotte could forgive sins. She was like all the priests rolled into one. There’d been a priest here last night, hadn’t there? He couldn’t really remember. Well, if there had been he knew who would have brought him . . . A dose . . . Why didn’t they give him something?
‘Darling.’
It was nice to be called darling . . . Oh God! the pain. Why the hell didn’t they give him something? . . . Janie had never called him darling. She had said she loved him, that was all. But there was more to love than that, there was a language. Charlotte knew the language. Charlotte . . . Should he fight the pain, try to stay? He could hardly breathe . . . If only they’d give him something.
He closed his eyes for a second; when he opened them again he was looking at Lizzie. There was something in her face that was in none of the others. What was it? Why had he hated her so? It seemed so stupid now. Why had he blamed her as he had done? If there had been anybody to blame it was his father. Where was his father? He was surrounded by women. Where was his father? Where was Jimmy? They’d said Jimmy was near. Jimmy was all right. And his father? His father had a bad leg; his father had been burnt at the blast furnace . . . He had been burnt . . . Burnt. Burnt. He was back in the boathouse gasping, struggling. The floor was giving way. He slid Jimmy from his shoulder. He was getting out, he was getting out . . .
‘He’s asleep again. Leave him be, let him rest.’ Lizzie moved from the bed as she spoke, and Ruth followed her, leaving Janie and Charlotte standing one on each side.
Janie looked down on the man whose face was contorted with agony. She did not see him as the virile young man she had married, nor yet as the boy she had grown up with, but she saw him as the stranger, dressed as a gentleman, who had confronted her in the boathouse. Not even when he had looked into her eyes and recognized her a moment ago had she glimpsed the old Rory, but had seen him as someone who had transported himself into another world and made that world fit him—and having won that world, so to speak, and being Rory Connor, he was determined to hang on to his winnings.
She was the first to turn away from the bed. She knew she had looked at the face on the pillow for the last time and she could not, even to herself, describe how she felt.
As Charlotte watched her walking towards the door she was amazed that the turmoil in her mind had disappeared; she was feeling no jealousy against this girl now, no hate. Amazingly she was experiencing a feeling of pity for her. As Lizzie had said, put yourself in her place; she was the one who had been rejected.
She bent over Rory now and, the tears blinding her, she gently wiped the sweat from his face, murmuring all the while, ‘Oh my dearest, my dearest.’
When the door opened and Jessie entered she said brokenly, ‘I . . . I won’t be a moment. If the master should wake call me immediately,’ and Jessie whispered, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and took her seat beside the bed once more.
On the landing she stood for a moment drying her face and endeavouring to overcome the choking sensation that was rising from the anguish in her heart, as it cried, ‘Oh Rory, what am I to do without you? Oh my darling, how am I to go on now? Don’t leave me. Please, please don’t leave me.’ Yet as she descended the stairs she knew it was a hopeless cry.
In the hall she showed her surprise when she saw Ruth in her cape and tying on her bonnet. Going to her, she murmured, ‘You’re not leaving? You, you can’t . . .’
Ruth swallowed deeply before she said, ‘Just for . . . for a short while; I’m takin’ Janie back home. And there’s me husband, he’s got to be seen to. He can do nothing with his leg as it is. I’ll be back later in the mornin’.’
‘I’ll call the carriage for you then.’ There was a stiffness in her tone.
‘That would be kind.’
‘But why?’ Charlotte was now looking at Ruth with a deeply puzzled expression. ‘I . . . I should have thought you’d have let Lizzie go back and take care of things . . . Being his mother, you would have—’ she paused as Ruth, nodding at her now, put in quietly, ‘Aye, yes, I know what you’re thinkin’, it’s a mother’s place to be at her son’s side at a time like this. Well, he’ll have his mother with him. For you see, lass, I’m not his mother, ’tis Lizzie.’
‘What!’ The exclamation was soft. ‘Yes, ’tis Lizzie who’s his mother.’
‘But . . . but I don’t understand. He’s never, I mean he’s got such a regard for you, I’m . . .’
‘Aye, it is a bit bewilderin’ and it’s a long story, but put simply, me husband gave Lizzie a child when she was but seventeen. Rory regarded me as his mother for years and when he found out I wasn’t and it was Lizzie who had borne him he turned against her. I’m not surprised that you didn’t know. It’s something very strange in his nature that he should be ashamed of her, for she’s a good woman, and she’s suffered at his hands. I shouldn’t say it at this stage, but to be fair I must; many another would have turned on him as he did on her, but all she did was give him the length of her tongue. Her heart remained the same towards him always. She’s a good woman is Lizzie . . . So there it is, lass, that’s the truth of it. Well, I’ll be away now, but I’ll be back.’
When the door had closed on her Charlotte remained standing. The hall to herself, she looked about it; then in a kind of bewilderment she walked down the step into the office and, sitting behind the desk, she put her forearms on it and patted the leather top gently with her fingers. He had admitted to her the theft of the five pounds; he had told her everything about himself; he had confessed his weaknesses, and boasted of his strength; yet he had kept the matter of his birth to himself as if it were a shameful secret. Why? Why couldn’t he have told her this? She felt a momentary hurt that he should have kept it from her. She had wondered at times at him calling his mother, Ruth. He had appeared very fond of the gentle-voiced, quiet little woman, even proud of her. And yet of the two women she was the lesser in all ways, body, brain, intelligence. She remembered that Rory had once referred to Lizzie as ignorant, and she had replied that she should imagine her ignorance was merely the lack of opportunity for her mind always seemed lively.
It was strange, she thought in this moment, that he could never have realized that all the best in him stemmed from Lizzie—for now she could see he was a replica of her, in bulk, character, obstinacy, bumptiousness . . . loving. Her capacity for loving was even greater than his, for, having been rejected, she had gone on loving.
There came a knock on the door and when she said, ‘Come in,’ it opened and Lizzie stood on the threshold.
‘I was wondering where you were, I couldn’t see you. You mustn’t sit by yourself there broodin’, it’ll do no good. Come on now out of this.’
Like a child obeying a mother, Charlotte rose from the chair and went towards Lizzie. Then standing in front of her, she looked into her eyes and said quietly, ‘I’ve just learned that you’re his mother. Oh, Lizzie. Lizzie.’
‘Aye.’ Lizzie’s head was drooping. ‘I’m his mother an’ he’s always hated the fact, but nevertheless, it was something he could do nowt about. I am what I am, and he was all I had of me own flesh and blood an’ I clung to him; even when he threw me off I clung to him.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, my dear.’ When she put her arms around Lizzie, Lizzie held her tightly against her breast, and neither of them was capable of further words, but they cried together.
It was three days later when Rory died. He was unconscious for the last twelve hours and the final faint words he spoke had been to Charlotte, ‘If it’s a lad, call him after me,’ he murmured.
She didn’t know how she forced herself to whisper, ‘And if it should be a girl?’
He had looked at her for some time before he gasped, ‘I’ll . . . I’ll leave that to you.’
It was odd but she had hoped he would have said, ‘Name her Lizzie,’ for then it would have told her of his own peace of mind, but he said, ’I’ll leave it to you.’ His very last words were, ‘Thank you, my dear . . . for everything.’
Through a thick mist she gazed down on to the face of the man who had brought her to life, who had made her body live, and filled it with new life—his life. She was carrying him inside of her; he wasn’t dead; her Rory would never die.
When she fainted across his inert body they thought for a moment that she had gone with him.
Rory’s funeral was such that might have been accorded to a prominent member of the town for the sympathy of the town had been directed towards him through the newspaper reports of how he had been fatally injured in saving his brother from the blazing building, and the likelihood that charges, not only of arson, but of murder or manslaughter as well, would soon be made against local men now being questioned by the police.
No breath of scandal. No mention of former wife reappearing.
Other reports gave the names of the town’s notable citizens who had attended the funeral. Mr Frank Nickle’s name was not on it. Mr Nickle had been called abroad on business.
Two of the Pittie brothers had already been taken into custody. The police were hunting the third. And there were rumours that one of the brothers was implicating others, whose names had not yet been disclosed. Not only the local papers, but those in Newcastle as well carried the story of how there had been attempts to monopolize the river trade, and that Mr Connor’s boats had not only been set adrift, but also been sunk when they were full of cargo.
The reports made Jimmy’s little boats appear the size of tramp steamers or tea clippers, and himself as a thriving young businessman.
The private carriages had stretched the entire length of the road passing Westoe village and far beyond. The occupants were all male. In fact, the entire cortège was male, with one exception. Mrs Connor was present at her husband’s funeral and what made her presence even more embarrassing to the gentlemen mourners was that it was whispered she was someway gone in pregnancy. She wore a black silk coat and a fashionable hat with widow’s weeds flowing low down at the back but reaching no farther than her chest at the front. She was a remarkable woman really . . . nothing to look at personally, but sort of remarkable, a kind of law unto herself.
Another thing that was remarkable, but only to the occupants of the kitchen, was that John George had been present at the burial, but had not shown his face to condole with them nor had he spoken with Paddy who had struggled to the cemetery on sticks. All except Jimmy said they couldn’t make him out. But then prison changed a man, and likely he was deeply ashamed, and of more than one thing, for was he not now living with another man’s wife?
Poor John George, they said. Yet in all their minds was the faint niggling question, Who was the poorer? John George was alive; Rory, the tough gambling man, was dead.
And this was exactly what had passed through Jimmy’s mind when he had seen John George standing against the wall of an outbuilding in the cemetery.
It happened that as they left the grave-side he had become separated from Charlotte. He’d had to make way for gentlemen who had ranked themselves on each side of her. He could not see his father, and so he walked on alone, weighed down with the pain in his heart and the sense of utter desolation, and wondering how he was going to live through the endless days ahead.
It was as he crossed an intersecting path that he saw in the distance the unmistakable lanky figure of John George. He was standing alone, head bowed, and his very stance seemed to be portraying his own feelings.
Without hesitating, he went towards him; but not until he was almost in front of him did John George raise his head.
For almost a full minute they looked at each other without speaking. Then it was Jimmy who said, ‘I’m glad you came, John George.’
John George swallowed deeply, wet his lips, sniffed, then brought out a handkerchief and rubbed it roughly around his face before mumbling, ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, sorry to the heart.’
‘Aye, I knew you’d feel like that, John George. In spite of everything I knew you’d have it in your heart to forgive him.’
‘Oh, that.’ John George shook his head vigorously, then bowed it again before ending, ‘Oh, that was over and done with a long time ago.’
‘It’s like you to say that, John George. You were always a good chap.’
‘No, not good, just weak, Jimmy. And you know, in a funny sort of way I feel responsible for . . .’
‘No! Don’t be silly, John George.’ Jimmy cut in. ‘Now don’t get that into your head. It’s me, if anybody, who should shoulder the blame for Rory’s going. It’s me. If I hadn’t wanted the damned boatyard he’d be here the day. Aye, he would.’
‘No, no, don’t blame yourself, Jimmy. It was just one of those things. Life’s made up of them when you think about it, isn’t it?’ He paused, then asked softly, ‘How’s she, Miss . . . I mean his wife? How’s she taking it?’
‘Oh, hard, though she’s puttin’ a face on it to outsiders. She was more than fond of him you know.’
‘Aye. Yes, I guessed that. Yet it came as a surprise when I heard they’d married. But I got a bigger surprise when she sought me out. I couldn’t take it in. After all . . . well, you know, doing what I did, and the case and things. I’d imagined she was like her father. You knew about what she did for me, like setting me up?’
‘Yes, John George.’
‘And you didn’t hold it against me for taking it?’
‘Why, no, man. Why, no; I was glad; it showed you held no hard feelings.’
‘Some wouldn’t see it that way. What did they think about it in the kitchen?’
‘Oh, they just thought it was kind of her; they don’t know the true ins and outs of it, John George.’
Again they stared at each other without speaking. Then John George said, ‘Well, they’ll never hear it from me, Jimmy. I’ve never let on to a soul, not even to Maggie.’
‘Thanks, John George. You’re one in a thousand.’
‘No, just soft, I suppose. He used to say I was soft.’
He turned and looked over the headstones in the direction of the grave, but there was no rancour in his words. Then looking at Jimmy again, he said, ‘It’s eased me somewhat, Jimmy, to have a word with you. I hope I’ll see you again.’
‘Me an’ all, John George. Aye, I’d like that. I’ll come up sometime, if you don’t mind.’
‘You’d be more than welcome, Jimmy, more than welcome.’
‘Well, I’ve got to go now, they’ll likely be waiting and I’ll be holding up the carriages. So long, John George.’ Jimmy held out his hand.
John George gripped it. ‘So long, Jimmy.’
They now nodded at each other, then simultaneously turned away, John George in the direction of the grave and Jimmy towards the gates, the carriage and Charlotte, and the coming night, which seemed the first he was about to spend without Rory, for up till now his body had lain in the house.
It was as he crossed the intersecting path again that he saw Stoddard hurrying towards him.
‘Oh, there you are, sir. The mistress was wondering.’
‘I’m sorry. I saw an old friend of . . . of my brother’s. I . . . I had to have a word . . .’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’
It was funny to be called sir, he’d never get used to it like Rory had.
They were making their way through small groups of men in order to reach the gates and the carriage beyond when he saw her. Perhaps it was because of the strong contrast in dress that the weirdly garbed figure standing in the shadow of the cypress tree stood out. Both Jimmy and Stoddard looked towards it, and Jimmy almost came to a stop and would once again have diverted had not Stoddard said quietly, ‘The mistress is waiting, sir.’
‘Oh yes, yes.’ Poor Janie. What must she be feeling at this moment? Rory’s wife, his real wife after all was said and done, hidden away like a criminal. But she had come; despite the protests she had come. Her presence would surely cause comment.
So thought Stoddard. But then, as he told himself yet again what he had said to the staff last night, it was a lucky family that hadn’t someone they were ashamed to own because of their oddities. It happened in the highest society, and certainly in the lowest, and you couldn’t blame the master or his folks for not wanting to bring that creature to the fore.
They were gathered in the kitchen. Paddy sitting by the fire with his leg propped up on a chair; Ruth sitting opposite to him, a half-made shirt lying on her lap, her hands resting on top of it; Jimmy sitting by the corner of the table, and Lizzie standing by the table to the side of him, while Janie stood at the end of it facing them all.
She was dressed as she had been since she came back; even, within doors she kept the strange hat on her head. She looked from one to the other as she said, ‘You’re blamin’ me for taking it, aren’t you? After the stand I made you think I should have thrown the money back in her face?’
‘No, no.’ They all said it in different ways, shakes of the head, movements of the hands, mutters, but their protests didn’t sound convincing to her, and now, her voice raised, she said, ‘You took from her. It was all right for you to take from her, all of you. And what had she done to you? Nowt.’
‘Nobody’s sayin’ you shouldn’t ’ve taken it, Janie. We’re just sad like that you still feel this way about things.’
She turned and looked at Jimmy, and her body seemed to slump inside the cloak. She said now flatly, ‘How would any of you have felt, I ask you? Look at yourselves. Would you have acted any differently? And don’t forget, I could have gone to the polis station, I could have said who I was? I could have blown the whole thing into the open, but I didn’t, I kept quiet, I didn’t even go and see me da. I kept out of his way even when I saw him at the funeral. And I won’t see him now, ’cos he’d open his mouth. It would only be natural. But . . . but when she sent for me and . . . and she knew I was going back there, she asked if she could do anything for me and I said aye, yes, she could. I told her, I told her what it was like there. They had nothing or next to nothing. The boats were dropping to bits. It . . . it was she who named the sum. Five hundred, she said, and I didn’t say, yes, aye, or nay.’
‘You mean she gave you five hundred straightaway like that?’ Paddy was peering at her through narrowed lids.
‘No, she gave me a paper. I’ve . . . I’ve got to go to a French bank. She’s puttin’ four hundred and fifty pounds in there; she gave me the rest in sovereigns.’
‘And after that, lass, you still haven’t got a good word in yer belly for her?’
She dropped her eyes from Lizzie’s gaze, then said, ‘I can’t be like you all, fallin’ on her neck.’
‘Nobody’s fell on her neck.’
She turned and looked at Jimmy. ‘No, you didn’t fall on her neck, Jimmy, just into her arms. You were as bad as Rory. I’ve got to say it, it’s funny what money can do, by aye, it is. I wouldn’t ’ve believed it.’
‘Well, you’re not turnin’ your nose up at it, are you, Janie?’
‘No, no, I’m not, Jimmy, but as I look at it now I’m only takin’ what’s due to me, ’cos as things were he would have had to support me. And in the long run it would have cost him more than five hundred pounds ’cos I’m likely to live a long time.’
They all stared at her, Ruth, Lizzie, Paddy and Jimmy. This was the little girl who had grown up next door. This was the young lass, the kindly young lass, who had cared for her grannie, who had been full of high spirits and kindliness. Each in his own way was realizing what life could do to any one of them. Each in his own way knew a moment of understanding, and so it was Ruth who spoke first, saying, ‘Well, wherever you go, lass, whatever you do, our good wishes ’ll go with you. Our memories are long; we’ll always remember you.’ She did not add ‘as you once were.’
‘Aye, that goes for me an’ all.’ Paddy was nodding at her. ‘We’ve had some good times together, Janie, and in this very kitchen. I’ll think back on ’em, Janie.’
Lizzie’s face and voice was soft as she said, ‘As you say, you’ll live a long time, lass, and you’ll marry and have a sturdy family, an’ when you do, name some of them after us, eh?’
Janie’s head was up, her lips were tight pressed together, her eyes were wide and bright; then as the tears sprang from them, they came around her, patting her, comforting her; even Paddy hobbled from his chair, saying, ‘There, lass. There, lass.’
‘I’ve . . . I’ve got to go.’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve got to go.’ Ruth dried her eyes and smiled. ‘And have a safe journey, lass. It’s a long way to go, across the sea to another country. Aren’t you feared?’
‘No.’ Janie shook her head as she blew her nose. I know me way, an’ I won’t have to ride in the cattle trucks.’ She smiled weakly, and Lizzie said somewhat tentatively now, ‘Why didn’t you get yourself a decent rig-out, lass, to go back with?’
‘No, Lizzie, no.’ Again she shook her head. I came like this and that’s how I’m goin’ back. And . . . and you see, they wouldn’t understand, not if I went back dressed up. I’ll . . . I’ll be one of them again like this. But at the same time I’ve seen things, and I know things what they don’t, and I’ll be able to help . . . It’s funny, isn’t it, how life works out?’
As she looked from one to the other they saw a glimpse of the old Janie, and they smiled tenderly at her.
‘Eeh! well, I’ll be away. I’ve got to get the train.’
She backed from them now and, with the exception of Jimmy, they didn’t move towards her, not even to come to the door. Jimmy opened the door for her, and with one backward glance at them she went out, and he followed her down the path. At the gate he said, ‘Look, wait a minute, I’ll go back and get me coat and come down with you to the station.’
‘No. No, Jimmy. Thanks all the same. Anyway, you’re in no fit state to be about yet, never mind walking to the station.’
He took her hand and they stared at each other. ‘Be happy, Janie. Try to forget all that’s happened. And . . . and another thing I’d like to say, thank you for not letting on to them’—he jerked his head back towards the cottage—‘about, well, you know what, the John George business.’
She stared at him blankly. This was the second time those very words had been said to her within a short space.
Yesterday she had stood in that beautiful room and thought to herself with still remaining bitterness, I can see why he didn’t want to come back, for who’d want to give up all this for a boathouse, ignoring the fact that it was the tall black-garbed, sad-looking woman facing her who had been the magnet that had kept him there. Nor had she softened towards her when, in open generosity Charlotte had said, ‘I understand how you feel for he was such a wonderful man,’ but she had blurted out before she could check herself, ‘You didn’t know him long enough to know what he was like . . . really like.’
‘I did know what he was really like.’ Charlotte’s tone had altered to tartness.
She had stared hard at the woman before retorting, ‘I shouldn’t say it at this time, but I doubt it,’ and the answer she received was, ‘You needn’t, for I knew my husband’—the last word was stressed—‘better than most. I was aware of all his weaknesses. I knew everything about him before I married him . . . with the exception of one thing . . .’
‘Yes, and I know what that was,’ she had said. ‘He wouldn’t let on about that.’
It had appeared as if they were fighting.
‘Do you?’
‘Aye.’
‘Well, tell me what you think it was,’ said Charlotte.
She had become flustered at this. ‘It was his business,’ she said. ‘It’s over, it’s best left alone.’ Then she had stood there amazed as she listened to the woman saying, ‘You are referring to the John George Armstrong affair and Rory taking the five pounds and letting his friend shoulder the blame for the whole amount, aren’t you?’
She had gaped at her, then whispered, ‘He told you that?’
‘Yes, he did, but I already knew all about it. I had pieced things together from the events that followed the court case.’
‘And you did nothin’, I mean to get John George off?’
‘He had been stealing for some time. His sentence would have been the same . . .’
She had stared open-mouthed at the woman, she couldn’t understand her. She was a lady yet such were her feelings for a fellow like Rory that she had treated as nothing something that she herself had thought of as a crime and condemned him wholesale for. In fact, so big was it in her eyes that she saw it now as the cause of all that had happened to her—all the heartache and the hardship.
She hadn’t been able to understand her own feelings at that moment for strange thoughts had galloped about in her mind. She had made a mistake somewhere. Had she ever loved Rory? Of course, she had. But not like this woman had loved him.
Perhaps her own mistake lay in that she had liked too many people, and it had sort of watered down her love; whereas this woman had concentrated all her feelings in one direction and had gained Rory’s love in return . . . she hadn’t bought him. It seemed to be the last bitter pill she had to swallow.
. . . ‘The only thing he kept from me was the fact that Lizzie is his mother.’
‘That?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, he always was ashamed of it. Yet I couldn’t understand why ’cos Lizzie’s all right.’
‘Yes, Lizzie’s all right.’
She had asked her to sit down after that, and then she had offered her the money. But even when she took it she still couldn’t like her, or soften towards her . . .
. . . ‘You all right, Janie?’
‘Aye, Jimmy.’
‘Try to forgive and forget.’
‘Aye, I will. It’ll take time, but I will, Jimmy. I’ll marry. I’ll marry Henri. I liked him well enough, but that isn’t lovin’. Still, we’ve got to take what we get, haven’t we?’
‘You’ll be happy enough, Janie.’
‘Aye, well, think on me sometimes, Jimmy.’
‘There’ll never be a time when I won’t, Janie.’ He leant towards her and they kissed quietly, then, her head bowed, she turned swiftly from him and went through the gate and down the narrow path and became lost from his view in the hedgerows.
For quite some time he stood bent over the gatepost. He had been in love with her since he was a lad. During the time Rory courted her he had lived with a special kind of pain, but when he had lain in the loft above them he had suffered an agony for a time because he had loved them both. Now in a way they were both dead, for the Janie he had loved was no more. She hadn’t just disappeared down the road; paradoxically she had died when she had come back to life and showed herself as a strange creature that night in the boathouse. Her resurrection had freed him. Life was odd. Indeed it was. As she had said, it was funny how it worked out.
He knew that a different kind of life lay before him. Charlotte was setting him up in a new boatyard and, what was more, she wanted him to take an interest in business.
Yes, a new kind of life was opening up before him, but whatever it offered it would be empty, for Rory was no longer in it. He ached for Rory, and night following night he cried silently while he wished that God had taken him too . . . or instead. Aye, instead. Why hadn’t he died instead, for he wouldn’t have been missed like Rory was? He had emptied so many lives by his going, Charlotte’s, Janie’s, Lizzie’s, his ma’s, aye and even his da’s, all their lives were empty now . . . Yet free from the scandal that his living would have created. It was funny, weird. In a way it was like the outcome of Lizzie’s saying, leave it to God and He’ll work it out.
He went up the path and into the kitchen that housed the old life.
They were all in the kitchen again, but now they were waiting for the carriage to take them on what had become for all of them, up till now, one of their twice-weekly visits to Birchingham House.
Ruth stood facing Lizzie and Jimmy as, spreading her hands wide, she said, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll have me house to meself for once an’—’ she nodded towards Paddy—‘I’ve got your dad to look after.’
‘But both of us goin’, ma?’ Jimmy screwed up his face at her.
‘Well, now look at it this way, lad.’ Ruth’s tone was unusually brisk. ‘You’re goin’ into business, and it’s on the waterfront, practically at the end of it. Now, unless you’re going to have a carriage and pair for yourself, you can’t make that trek twice a day. Now Westoe’s on your doorstep so to speak. And there’s always the week-ends, you can come home at the week-ends. As for you, Lizzie.’ She turned her gaze on Lizzie. ‘You know, if you speak the truth, you’re breakin’ your neck to stay down there; you can’t wait for that child to be born.’
‘What you talkin’ about, woman? Breakin’ me neck!’ Lizzie jerked her chin upwards.
‘I know what I’m talkin’ about and you know what I’m talkin’ about. And you’ve lost weight. The flesh is droppin’ off you.’
‘Huh!’ Lizzie put her forearms under her breasts and humped them upwards. ‘That should worry you. You’ve told me for years I’m too fat. And anyway, what do you think Charlotte will have to say about all this?’
‘Charlotte will welcome you with open arms, the both of yous, she needs you. Remember the last time we saw her as we went out the door, remember the look on her face? She was lost. She’s no family of her own, she needs family.’
‘The likes of me?’ Lizzie now thumped her chest.
‘Yes, the likes of you. Who better? Now stop sayin’ one thing and thinkin’ another. Go and pack a few odds and ends. And you an’ all, Jimmy. Now both of yous, and let me have me own way for once in me own house with me own life. I’ve never had much say in anything, have I? Now, have I?’ She turned and looked towards her husband who was staring at her, and he smiled; then nodding from Lizzie to Jimmy, he said, ‘She’s right, she’s right, she’s had the poor end of the stick. Do what she says and let’s have peace.’
Stoddard was a little surprised when the two leather-strapped bass hampers were handed to him to be placed on the seat beside him, but then so many surprising things had happened of late that he was taking them in his stride now.
Three quarters of an hour later, when the carriage drew up on the drive, he helped Mrs O’Dowd, as she was known to the servants, down the steps; then taking up the hampers, he followed her and the young gentleman up towards his mistress who was waiting at the door. As the greetings were being exchanged he handed the hampers to the maid, and she took them into the hall and set them down, and when Charlotte glanced at them, Lizzie, taking off her coat, said, ‘Aye, you might look at them; you’re in for a shock.’
A few minutes later, seated in the drawing-room, Lizzie asked softly, ‘Well, how you feeling now, lass?’ and it was some seconds before Charlotte, clasping and unclasping her hands, replied, ‘If I’m to speak the truth, Lizzie, desolate, utterly, utterly desolate.’ Her voice broke and she swallowed deeply before ending, ‘It gets worse, I, I miss him more every day. I was lonely before but, but never like this.’
Lizzie, pulling herself up from the deep chair, went and sat beside her on the couch and, taking her hand, patted it as she said, ‘Aye, and . . . and it’ll be like this for some time. I know. Oh aye, I know ’cos I’ve a world of emptiness inside here.’ She placed her hand on her ribs. ‘But it’ll ease, lass; it’ll ease; it won’t go altogether, it’ll change into something else, but it’ll ease. We couldn’t go on livin’ if it didn’t. So in the meantime we’ve put our heads together, haven’t we, Jimmy?’ She looked towards Jimmy, where he sat rubbing one lip tightly over the other and he nodded, ‘And this is what we thought. But mind, it’s just up to you, it’s up to you to say. But seeing that in a short while Jimmy’ll be working on the waterfront, well, as Ruth pointed out, it’s a trek and a half right back to the cottage twice a day, and in all weathers. And—’ she gave a little smile now— ‘she also reminded him that he hadn’t got a carriage and pair yet, and that he’d have to shank it, so she wondered if you wouldn’t mind puttin’ him up here for a while, ’cos . . .’
‘Oh, yes. Oh, yes, Jimmy.’ Charlotte leant eagerly towards him, holding out her hand, and Jimmy grasped it. And now with tears in her voice she said, ‘Oh, I’m so grateful. But . . . but your mother?’
‘Oh, she’s all right.’ Jimmy’s voice was a little unsteady as he replied. ‘She has me da, and I’ll be poppin’ up there every now and again. She’s all right.’
‘Oh, thank you. Thank you.’ Now Charlotte looked at Lizzie, and Lizzie said, ‘An’ that’s not all, there’s me.’ She now dug her thumb in between her breasts. ‘I’ve got nothin’ to do with meself, I’m sittin’ picking me nails half me time, an’ I thought, well, if she can put up with me I’ll stay until the child comes ’cos I’ve a mind to be the first to see me grandson, or me granddaughter, or twins, or triplets, whatever comes.’
‘Oh, Lizzie! Lizzie!’ Charlotte now turned and buried her face in the deep flesh of Lizzie’s shoulder, and Lizzie, stroking her hair, muttered, ‘There now. There now. Now stop it. It’s the worst thing you can do to bubble your eyes out. Grannie Waggett used to say that you should never cry when you’re carryin’ a child ’cos you’re takin’ away the water it swims in.’ She gave a broken laugh here, then said, ‘There now. There now. Come on, dry your eyes. What you want is a cup of tea.’ She turned towards Jimmy, saying, ‘Pull that bell there, Jimmy, an’ ring for tea.’ Then with the tears still in her eyes, she laughed as she lifted Charlotte’s face towards her, saying, ‘Did you ever hear anythin’ like it in your life? Me, Lizzie O’Dowd, saying ring for tea. What’s the world comin’ to, I ask you?’
Charlotte stared back into the face of the mother of her beloved. Two years ago she had been alone, but since then she had experienced love, and such love she knew she would never know again. But on the day she had bargained for Rory’s love she had said to him that there were many kinds of love, and it was being proved to her now at this moment.
When Lizzie said to her, ‘If you don’t watch out I’ll take over, I’m made like that. Ring for tea, I said, just as if I was born to it. I tell you!’ Charlotte put out her hand and cupped the plump cheek, and what she said now and what she was to say for many years ahead was, ‘Oh, Lizzie! Lizzie! My dear Lizzie.’
THE END