‘Vin-Vincent McKenzie.’
‘Vincent McKenzie killed your parents?’
‘He – he always wanted my mother, my grandma said so, and then he said I had to marry him and I left the village . . .’
‘It was
him
– Vincent McKenzie?
He
was the man who’d been bothering you?’ Matt asked in amazement. ‘
Vincent McKenzie?
’
Constance nodded. She was suddenly aware she had made a terrible fool of herself, throwing herself into Matt’s arms and not letting him go. Her face burning, she said in a small voice, ‘I’m all right now,’ but when she tried to move away, his arms tightened.
‘Tell me. All of it.’
‘He said there’d been a fall.’
‘There was a fall.’ Matt paused. ‘George and one of Andrew’s lads are in a bad way, but what’s this about McKenzie?’
Constance was mortified. His brother and nephew were injured, is that what he’d come to tell her? But why now at this time of night? And what must he think of her?
When she tried to ease herself away from him again, Matt looked down into her swimming eyes. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he murmured softly. ‘Please, Constance, no more misunderstandings. I love you. I’ve always loved you, and you were right that day. I am an upstart and self-centred and bigoted and stupid, but I love you and eternity wouldn’t be long enough to tell you how much.’
She stared at him, unable to believe the moment was here. Weakly, she said, ‘I didn’t call you stupid.’
‘Well, you should have because I am. All those years ago in your grandma’s kitchen, do you remember? When we looked at each other? I knew then but I was too stupid to do anything about it. You were so young and . . .’
‘. . . there was Tilly,’ she finished for him. It hurt her but it needed to be said. Tilly had been real and he’d loved her.
‘I didn’t love her, Constance. Oh, I told myself I did when we first started courting, but it was more I’d reached a stage of my life where I needed to be
in
love. Even before we got wed I knew it was a mistake but she said she loved me and I’d promised her; she would have been so humiliated if I’d broken it off. Excuses.’ He shook his head. ‘But it seemed the right thing to do at the time. I told you, I’m stupid.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Listen.’ He took hold of her face in his hands. ‘I need to tell you something, something I’ve never told another living soul but you have to understand. I want you to understand. She was expecting a bairn when I married her and I didn’t know, we’d never been together. The baby . . . It wasn’t mine.’
Constance strained back a little way in order to see his face. ‘Rebecca?’ she asked in amazement.
‘Aye, Rebecca. But she
is
mine, Constance. In everything that matters, she’s mine, and I wouldn’t be without her for anything. But I didn’t see it like that for a long time. I made Tilly’s life hell. Right until she got sick, we were at war and that’s not too strong a word for it. And then she became ill and we talked and she told me she loved me. And I think she did. It was one hell of a mess.’
‘Oh, Matt.’
‘And what made it worse when she got sick was that she was so full of remorse, so sorry, and it was all too late. It should have been me that begged her forgiveness because she didn’t deserve the life I forced her to live.’
‘Does Rebecca know?’
‘No, and she never will. She’s
my
daughter. Her father – he’s a nowt.’ And then he smiled ruefully. ‘There I go again, the egotistical side rearing its head.’
She didn’t ask who Rebecca’s father was, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She traced his eyebrows with one finger, looking into the brown eyes that contained heaven on earth. ‘I love you. I always have and I always will.’
Their kiss was long and hard. It had been waiting for expression for a long, long time. And then he traced every contour of her face with his lips in small burning kisses that set her blood on fire.
It was the sound from the sitting room which brought them back to the real world. Wryly, Matt said, ‘Do you think you ought to let that dog out before he eats the door?’
‘He’s worried for me because of Vincent.’
‘Let him out and then tell me, right from the beginning. No, before the beginning. Start with what you know about him and your mother. I need to be very clear about all this.’
Jake, mollified and sitting on the floor at their feet now they had moved to a sofa in the sitting room, Constance began her story. When she finished, Matt’s face was tense, a muscle in his jaw working. ‘And he left here shortly before I arrived?’
Constance nodded. ‘I would have fired the pistol if he hadn’t.’
‘I didn’t see hide nor hair of him, only—’
‘What?’ she asked as he stopped abruptly.
‘That skinny little mouse of a lass who works for him was at the bottom of the lane. She said she was out walking.’
Constance’s brow wrinkled. ‘Polly?’
‘Aye, and you say she warned you about him?’
Constance nodded again. ‘She was nice. Obviously scared to death of him, but nice. I dread to think what her life’s been like all these years, poor thing.’
Matt wasn’t overly concerned about Polly. ‘You’re sure he’s not lurking about outside somewhere?’
‘Well no, not really. I shut the door’ – she wasn’t about to tell him she’d collapsed against it and slid down to the floor, unable to move for a good few minutes – ‘and when I looked out of the window he’d gone. Or there was no one to be seen anyway. I presumed with me threatening to shoot him he’d gone home.’
‘So he could still be within the vicinity?’
‘Matt, I’ve got Jake and I know how to use the pistol.’
‘I’m staying. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’
‘You can’t. What would Rebecca think?’
‘She knows how I feel about you. So does Mam. They were waiting at the pit gates and I told them then. And once I’d got cleaned up at home I sat Rebecca down and explained why I was coming to see you. Constance’ – he was struggling to get the words out, the spectre of her money rising up again despite all he’d told himself – ‘I’m not half good enough for you, I know that. And you’re a lady now. You know how to speak, the right grammar and all that, whereas I . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve got this cottage and you’re well set up. You don’t need a husband, I understand that, and if you want things to remain as they are it would be perfectly understandable.’
‘What are you trying to say, Matt?’ It had to come from him.
‘Will you marry me, Constance?’ he said very softly.
‘Oh, Matt, Matt, of course I’ll marry you.’
Their kiss lasted a long time. Neither of them could bear to let it end and in the murmur of their whispered promises and words of love the past melted away. All that mattered was the present.
‘I love you.’ It seemed incredible she was free to lift up her hand and stroke his face, his dear face. ‘I’ve loved you for so long.’
‘Me too, my darling. Me too. And I promise you McKenzie won’t bother you again, all right? I’ll sort him.’
‘No, Matt. Please, no. Promise me.You don’t understand – he’s not . . . normal. I believe him when he said he killed my mam and da, my granda too. If you could have seen his face you’d have believed him too. He’s dangerous.’
‘Dangerous or no, he needs to be dealt with.’
She clung to him, as though Vincent was in front of them and she was preventing Matt from attacking him. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything until we’ve talked it through. Please, Matt.’ Vincent McKenzie had taken everyone who’d ever belonged to her – her parents, her granda, even her grandma in a way because she had never been the same after her husband had died so tragically. He would try to kill Matt too, she knew it, and Matt couldn’t afford to go rushing in ill-prepared. There was a devil in Vincent, a legion of them.
‘Stop crying. I promise, all right? I promise. Now stop crying. You’re worrying Jake and he might think I’m upsetting you. Considering my leg is quite near his jaws that’s not a good idea.’ Matt pulled her close, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe as he whispered, ‘I never want to let you go again, not ever. I want to remain like this, with you in my arms, for the rest of our lives.’
‘Then let’s.’ She lifted her face for his kiss.
When Polly woke up the next morning she lay for some time staring at the window. It was snowing hard, big fat flakes in their thousands, their millions. No one would find him for days, weeks even. Of course, they might come calling when he didn’t turn up for work but that wouldn’t be for a day or two; they’d think he was off sick or something at first. And she could say he hadn’t come back from the pit after the accident, that he’d told her it could be a long while before the men were all up and so she hadn’t expected him any particular time. She could act a bit gormless, she’d used to do that in the workhouse when she hadn’t wanted to get involved in any bother. And there were lots of men who wanted to do for Vincent, he’d told her that himself. Boasted about it. But no one would be able to prove it wasn’t an accident anyway, he was always striding about the lanes and countryside. Everyone knew that.
Should she feel remorseful for what she’d done? Well, she didn’t. He had been a monster. He’d killed that lass’s parents and her granda, and he would have killed Constance too, that was for sure. And his own mother, he’d done for her. The agony that poor woman had gone through. No, she didn’t feel guilty. In killing him she’d prevented him hurting anyone else, herself included. That was the way she looked at it. God Himself said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in the good book. She had done nothing wrong, and He wouldn’t condemn her. Him knowing the rights and wrongs of the case.
Satisfied with this logic, Polly scrambled out of bed. She dressed quickly, since the room was icy, and as she did so she looked at the grate and promised herself a fire in there for tonight. Vincent had always had one in his bedroom but he hadn’t allowed her that luxury.
Once downstairs, she stood in the kitchen, gazing around her. There was a lightness in her body, a sense of joy, and for a moment she whirled round and round before coming to rest, laughing, against the kitchen table. Bacon. She’d have bacon for breakfast and two eggs and make a pot of tea. She was her own mistress now, she could do what she wanted when she wanted. There was no one to growl at her, no one to shout and curse when she was a bit slow or something wasn’t to his liking. Most of all there was no finger to beckon her.
She ate a hearty breakfast, and as she did so she thought about her situation. She didn’t fool herself that she would be able to carry on living here once Vincent’s body was found. It was a shame because this was a bonny cottage, but Vincent had distant relatives somewhere or other. A cousin in Newcastle she knew about, and perhaps there were more. And they’d be here like vultures once they knew he was dead, although to her knowledge they’d never come when he was alive. Had he left a Will? She contemplated this as she made herself another slice of toast.
He’d said to Constance he had plenty put by that day at the graveyard, she thought suddenly, and he’d had no time for banks – she knew that. ‘Thieves and robbers’, he’d called the banks. So, that being the case, he’d have a hoard hidden somewhere or other, likely a Will too. But where exactly? It had to be his bedroom.
She bit into the hot buttered toast as she considered what to do. She had cleaned every inch of the house and knew every nook and cranny, but she had never lingered in his bedroom. It was a place of torture, of unspeakable indignities, and it had made her flesh creep just to change the sheets on his bed and dust round. But ten to one that’s where he would have hidden his hoard.
Her breakfast finished, she steeled herself to go upstairs to his room. When she opened the door it took a moment or two before she could force her legs across the threshold. It was spick and span, the bed neatly made. Everything was as she had left it after she’d finished her work the previous morning, except for the clothes he’d changed out of on returning home from the pit lying in a heap on the floor. She glanced round the bedroom.
It smelled of him. Her legs started to tremble. A mixture of tobacco smoke and carbolic soap. When he’d first brought her to the cottage when his mother was alive she’d thought the smell was attractive. She had been young and foolish then. Merely a child.
She had actually stepped back out on the landing before she took herself in hand. She had to do this, and do it before his relatives or other folk came sniffing about. And it wasn’t stealing. If anyone had earned compensation for enduring hell on earth, she had. She’d been a slave all her life, first in the workhouse and then when she came here, and at forty-three years of age she wanted peace and quiet. And money could buy peace and quiet.
She entered the room again, telling herself if she didn’t look after number one, no one else would. She could be turned out on her ear with just the clothes she stood up in and quicker than you could say Jack Robinson.
She made herself search every inch of the room, starting with the wardrobe and chest of drawers. She even went on her hands and knees and examined the floorboards to see if any were loose but they were all firmly nailed down. After going back over what she’d done in case she had missed something, she sat down on the big blanket chest at the foot of the bed. She had looked everywhere; perhaps he hadn’t hidden it in here, after all. It could be anywhere. It might even be hidden in the garden somewhere in a weather-proofed box, for all she knew. She wouldn’t put anything past him. He was as cunning as a cartload of monkeys.
It was while she was sitting on the chest looking out on to the landing through the open door that she thought of the hatch to the roofspace. It was a long shot, but she pulled the chest of drawers from the bedroom out on to the landing and climbed on top of it, pushing with all her strength against the hatch. It wouldn’t open at first, and when it finally gave and she poked her head through the aperture she saw immediately that she was on the wrong track. No one had been up there for years, as the thick dust and cobwebs testified.