Beyond the Veil of Tears (33 page)

She sipped the tea, wondering how many books Jack had altogether. Books were piled high against every wall, the old bookcase along one wall long since having been overwhelmed. They were stacked
under the one window the room boasted, and then on the windowsill itself, to halfway up the glass. So the room was darker than it might have been. Volume upon volume stood on the table itself,
along with reams of handwritten notes and other papers. She reached over and picked up one of the handwritten pages, entitled ‘The evil of unregulated capitalism and landlordism’.

Another wad of papers bound together had a front page that read:

Intrigued now, the tiredness slipping from her, Angeline reached for another stack of papers tied with string. It was entitled: ‘The condition of the people and the Education Act of
1870’:

Suddenly realizing that these papers might be private, and that May’s brother might not like her going through them, Angeline put them down as though they had burned her. Walking over to
the bookcase, she glanced at some of the titles:
How the Poor Live
by G.R. Sims;
All Sorts and Conditions of Men
by Walter Besant;
Struggles for Daily Bread
by Richard
Rowe – the books went on and on, but she could see few novels or poetry books.

Thoroughly intimidated now, she sat down again at the table. When May had said that her brother had no time for the gentry, she hadn’t said the half of it. What would Jack say, if he knew
who she really was? He would despise her, that much was crystal-clear. And he would probably be right to do so. How could landowners and the aristocracy ignore what was right under their noses? But
then, she had.

She bit on her lower lip, feeling wretched. She was weary and at this moment there was no fight in her. Shutting her eyes, she let the heavy mantle of sleep slip over her.

Jack walked to Portland Park, but after an emotional reunion with May, he flagged down a horse-drawn cab for the return journey. It being a Sunday, the tram service was
limited. They were on their way when he said casually, ‘And this Grace? What do you know about her?’

‘All I need to know. She’s been a good pal to me, Jack. The best. Somewhere like Earlswood has a way of bringing out the real worth of a person, believe me, and Grace is a
diamond.’

‘She’s certainly done a good job convincing you.’ A corner of his lips was pulled up in a one-sided smile.

May shot him a keen look. ‘Don’t you like her?’

‘Don’t be daft, I don’t know the lass.’

‘Well, I do. She’s been through a lot and she’s inclined to keep herself to herself, and who can blame her? But we’ve both decided the past is the past, and we’re
not going to dwell on it. The future is what matters now.’

‘Is that a sisterly way of telling me to keep me trap shut and mind my own business?’

May grinned. ‘If the cap fits . . . ’

‘Aye, all right, I get the message. She’s a saint, and I won’t do anything to upset her. Now what about Mam an’ Da? You want them to know you’re back?’

Now May’s voice was bitter as she said, ‘I don’t want to see them again for the rest of my life. If they’d stood by me, the Franklins wouldn’t have dared put me in
that place.’

‘So it’s you an’ me an’ St Grace?’

‘Don’t call her that. Jack, I know you’re in one room, but if we could just stay till we get work and can rent a room ourselves? Please? It’ll only be for a few days,
till I can walk on this ankle and—’

‘Lass, you don’t have to beg. There’s not enough room to swing a cat, but we’ll manage. There’s five of ’em living in the room next door, poor devils.
What’s your pal going to think about it, though?’

‘She’ll be grateful, same as me.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Thanks, Jack. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

‘Lass, it’s eaten me up inside, knowing you were in that place and what he’d done to you. I’d have given ten years of my life for five minutes alone with that Franklin
swine. I found their estate, you know – Hexham way, isn’t it? Waited about all one Sunday and caught one of the housemaids going back after her day off. Got her talking, made out I was
interested in seeing her again, and she told me the son of the family had just got married and was on his honeymoon in Europe. Doing the tour, she said, and wouldn’t be back for months. First
and last time in my life I’d carried a knife when I went there that day.’

‘Oh, Jack.’ May stared at him, horrified. ‘You wouldn’t have?’

‘Do you know, lass, I would have. If I’d seen him that day I would have – and gone down the line for it. It would have been worth it.’

‘No, no, it wouldn’t.’ May took his hand, pressing it to her face. ‘How can you say that? You’ve always said the way to fight injustice and oppression is in the
courts, to get laws changed and men in government who are for the ordinary people. You said—’

‘I said a sight too much, May, standing on my lofty ideals and preaching from my soapbox. It’s different when one of your own is treated with less consideration than their damned
dogs and horses. Perhaps I needed to learn that. Not that I don’t still hold with doing it legal, like, but action’s needed sometimes, too. I can understand how a man can get so angry
and frustrated that he can do murder now. I couldn’t before.’

‘But murder – violence can never be right, Jack.’

‘I didn’t say it was right, lass. I said I understand it. Now, now, don’t look like that. I haven’t done anything rash, like following the swine to Europe, now have
I?’

‘It’s not funny, Jack.’

‘Believe me, I’m not laughing. Nothing about Franklin and the rest of his kind makes me laugh.’

May said nothing, resting her head on his shoulder as the coach rumbled on. Jack was her big brother and the one person she loved in all the world, and she had never kept anything from him
before. But it had been right to hide who Angeline really was. She had felt bad about it all morning; she still did in a way, but Jack was so very black-and-white about some things. Angeline
belonged to the enemy camp, in his opinion, and nothing she could do or say would change that. And her first loyalty was to her friend. Jack wouldn’t understand that. She wasn’t sure if
she understood it herself, but what she and Angeline had been through together – the asylum, Verity, their support of each other, and especially the last few days of escaping and tramping the
roads – had forged a bond that was stronger even than her love for her brother. With each of her younger siblings she had longed for a sister. Now she had one.

Jack unknowingly heaped coals of fire on her head when in the next moment he murmured, ‘Now don’t worry, lass. You’re home, that’s the main thing. An’ you’re
right, the past is the past, and it’s the future that counts. If you can look at it like that, after all you’ve been through, I’m damn sure I can. I’ll nip to the pie shop
and get the three of us something to eat once we’re back, an’ ask if they know of any rooms coming up round about.’

‘We’ve no money, Jack.’

‘I’ve got enough to tide you over, till the pair of you are back on your feet and working.’

‘We’ll pay you back every penny, I swear it.’

Jack’s big hand covered hers. ‘Don’t be daft – you’re my sister. I don’t want paying back.’

‘Nevertheless, we will.’

‘We’ll see.’

If anyone had told May that she would look fondly on the docks and the filthy streets of her childhood, she would have laughed in their face. But as Jack lifted her out of the cab after paying
the driver, she had a lump in her throat. She was home. She was safe. Even the rank smell permeating the air was comforting, and infinitely preferable to the odour of the lunatic asylum.

They had taken two years of her life in that terrible place, but she could begin again, she told herself as they entered the house and Jack carried her up the stairs in his arms. And as he
fumbled with the door and it swung open and she caught sight of Angeline, fast asleep at the table with her head resting on her arms, she thought:
we
can begin again. Angeline was the
sister she’d never had and they were in this together now, for good or ill.

Angeline opened her eyes, a look of relief on her face as she said, ‘Oh, he’s got you, thank God!’ And as she jumped up and touched May’s arm, May put her arm round
Angeline’s shoulders, drawing her close, and just for a moment the three of them were joined, their heads together and their bodies close.

In the seven years that had passed since the day Angeline had arrived on Jack’s doorstep, she had changed beyond recognition. Not in her appearance; although she had
matured into a poised, reserved young woman, her beauty was still as fresh and radiant as the day she had stepped into King Street. It was in her self-confidence and capability that the real change
had taken place. She was now twenty-five years old, and her new life had given her self-respect as she had learned to stand on her own two feet. Whenever she thought about the old Angeline, it was
with a feeling of pity for the childlike, ingenuous girl who had married Oswald so trustingly and been so ill-used. The new Angeline – or Grace, as she was known to everyone – was a
different creature altogether. And if she sometimes felt a pang of regret that the sweet, naive girl had metamorphosed into a woman who was wary and guarded and who kept folk at arm’s length,
it was gone in an instant. Only May knew her secret, and that was the way it had to remain. And she was content in her new life – or she would have been, but for the ever-present ache in her
heart concerning Jack Connor.

She glanced over at him now, sitting by the fire on the other side of the sitting room with May. The new century had been rung in the night before, amongst much celebrating; and today, the first
one of the new year, most people had a thick head and were feeling the worse for wear. Her gaze lingered on Jack before moving round the room, and as always she felt a little thrill of pleasure
that this was her home and she had the key to her own front door. It hadn’t always been that way.

On their escape from the asylum she and May had spent a few days with Jack, but as it had meant Jack sleeping on the floor and she and May sharing his single bed, it had been a relief for all
three when a room in a neighbouring house had become available. The previous residents, an Irish couple with a young baby, had been clean and respectable, and as they were going back to Ireland to
be with family, Jack had bought the three-quarter-sized bed and two small armchairs the room had held, along with a kettle and a few pots and pans.

May’s ankle had healed within a couple of weeks and she had got work in a rope- and wire-making factory on the other side of the river. Jack hadn’t been too pleased – the women
from this particular workplace were notorious for their foul language, which was worse than any sailor’s – but, as May had commented, a job was a job, and beggars can’t be
choosers. It had been nearly two months before Angeline could use her arm, and as May’s weekly wage of five shillings a week barely covered the one-and-sixpence rent and their food, she had
been anxious to get work, although secretly terrified at the prospect.

May had flatly refused letting Angeline try for a job at the rope factory – ‘They’ll rip you apart, lass, the way you speak an’ all. Anyone a bit different an’
they’re on them like a pack of dogs’ – and so they had decided on shop work. They had borrowed four shillings off Jack and kitted Angeline out at the second-hand clothes market
near Castle Square with a matching dress and coat and a pair of shoes. May had gazed at her in admiration. ‘By, lass, you look the ticket, you do straight. An’ the way you talk could
work wonders in the right job. You ought to aim high.’

Aiming high had meant applying for a job in a draper’s establishment, one of a row of shops in the centre of town near Ginnett’s Amphitheatre off Northumberland Road. She had walked
in on the morning of her interview, looked at the other girls waiting in the small room at the back of the shop and nearly walked straight out again. When she had left the premises an hour later,
she’d got the job. As the slim, elegant manageress had confided some months later, ‘As soon as you opened your mouth, it was yours, Grace. Adds a bit of class to the shop.’

Her starting wage of four shillings a week rose to seven once she was trained, and she and May didn’t spend anything on themselves until they had reimbursed Jack fully for every penny he
had laid out since the day they had arrived in Newcastle.

The shop hours were long – from eight in the morning until eight at night, six days a week – but Angeline loved every minute. The shop prided itself on selling the latest fashions,
but at a much cheaper price than the exclusive establishments that the gentry patronized. The women who frequented it tended to be the wives and daughters of white-collar workers, or other shop
owners and the like.