‘Miss Bell –’
‘Look, Mr Stewart, I’ve work to do and your family will be waiting for you.’
Again Connie cut him short, but in the same instant the doors to the restaurant opened and John Stewart was walking towards them, saying, ‘There you are, man. What do you think you’re playing at? She’s going mad in there, you know how she is. What’s the –’ And then his voice was strangled in his throat and he started so visibly he seemed to give a little jump into the air before freezing, his mouth falling into a wider gape than Dan’s had.
‘It’s all right, I’m not a ghost.’ Connie’s voice was full of icy disdain. John Stewart’s face had gone quite white and for a moment he had looked terrified. ‘Your brother was just about to join you, Mr Stewart.’
‘What the hell. . .’ And then, as he stared at her, he relaxed, swearing softly but forcefully which brought a terse ‘John, please’ from his brother which John totally ignored. ‘You’re the daughter. I see it now! You are the daughter, aren’t you. How did you get –’ He stopped abruptly, swearing again as he swayed and steadied himself with a hand on the wall.
‘Cut it out, John, I’m warning you.’ Dan’s voice was cold but there was hot colour in his face as he turned to Connie and said, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Bell.’
‘Miss Bell.’ It was said slowly, and with a relish that made Connie feel sick. ‘Well, well, well.’ The black eyes were moving all over her now, their light seeming to strip the clothes from her body and penetrate right through to her skin. ‘You’ve grown into a beautiful woman, that’s for sure. Like mother, like daughter, eh?’
‘You leave my mother out of this.’ Connie’s voice was steely, and strangely – considering how she was feeling inside – without a tremor. If the younger brother had changed then so had the eldest, but with John Stewart it looked to be for the worst. The face she remembered as good-looking was now of a mottled complexion, the nose red and faintly bulbous indicating a more than average penchant for drink. And he had gained weight, lots of weight, in fact he was flabby. Flabby and unattractive. Her nostrils flared with distaste. ‘You’re not fit to speak of her.’
‘Ah ha.’ The hard beady eyes were gleaming. It was for all the world as though the slender young woman glaring at him had just paid him a compliment. ‘Fiery little piece, aren’t you, but a bit of spirit can make life interesting. What say you, Dan, eh?’
‘I say you’ve already had enough to drink the night,’ said Dan tersely, his face flaming. ‘Why you had to start at home before you even got here I don’t know. Come away out of it before you make a bigger fool of yourself than you have already.’
‘What?’ John peered at his sibling, his head on one side. ‘Oh, so that’s the way of it, Dan, lad? By, it’d take more than you’ve got to handle this one.’
‘I suggest you go back to the restaurant now, otherwise I shall be forced to call for assistance and have you forcibly removed from the hotel for causing a disturbance. Now, Mr Stewart.’
‘Eh?’ John’s head swung back to Connie who was standing as straight as a ram-rod and eyeing him with unconcealed contempt. For a moment it looked as though he was going to turn nasty, his face flushing turkey-red and his mouth curling into a sneer, then he took a visible breath before making an exaggerated bow that almost had him stumbling drunkenly forward. ‘It’s been a pleasure to renew your acquaintance, Ma’am. A very real pleasure,’ he drawled slowly before giving a wide smile. ‘Is that better?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Dan gave Connie one last desperate look before he hustled his now unresisting brother back into the restaurant, but even after the doors had closed behind them Connie didn’t move for some moments.
She found she was taking deep draughts of air as though she had been running or partaking of some other strenuous exercise which had pushed her to the limit, and she was silently talking to herself, warning herself to do nothing hasty, to be calm, to
think.
Nothing had changed, not really. She had known they were here, in Sunderland, hadn’t she? Of course she had. And, now she was free of the rigid confines of the workhouse, it wasn’t unlikely that some day she would have run into one or other of the Stewarts. It was just unfortunate that it had been all of them, in one fell swoop like that, and especially –
especially –
that hateful beast of a man, John Stewart.
She continued to breathe in and out for some seconds more until her racing heartbeat was under control, and then, as the doors to the restaurant opened to emit a laughing party of guests – one or two of whom stared at her a little curiously as they passed – she forced herself away from the wall against which she was leaning. She hadn’t let herself or her mother down, that was the important thing. She had conducted herself with sobriety. She hadn’t given in to the desire to strike John Stewart; she had behaved like a well-bred young lady. So why, knowing that, did she wish she had torn into him, kicking, biting, clawing at his face with her nails? Because she did. She did. The way he had looked at her . . . It had made her flesh creep.
She adjusted the collar of her dress and smoothed down her hair, willing her fingers not to tremble, before walking swiftly in a semi-circle towards the other entrance to the kitchen. She really couldn’t go back into the restaurant, not tonight. She just didn’t trust herself not to empty a bowl of soup over John Stewart’s head.
A cup of tea. That’s what she needed, a cup of tea to steady her nerves and deal with the quivering in her stomach.
In the organised bedlam that was the kitchen no one noticed her entrance at first. She walked across and sat on a stool to the side of one of the ovens, and it was Mrs Merry, the cook, who glanced her way, caught, no doubt, by the rarity of a stationary human being in the midst of the hullabaloo. And then, at Mrs Merry’s exclamation of concern, several others turned to look at her, and within moments she was surrounded by friendly faces expressing sympathy.
‘Take a breather for a minute, lass, that’s the ticket.’
‘Eee, another down with this flu. Can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘White as a sheet, she is. She should never have come back the night, Mary. You should’ve told her.’
‘Death warmed up. You can’t fight this flu, that’s the thing.’
The comments swarmed about her but Connie, although comforted by the overt sympathy, found it easier to say nothing, accepting the hot drink that was placed in her hands some moments later simply with a nod of thanks.
‘Connie?’ Once the pandemonium was back in full swing Mary sidled to her side, speaking in a whisper as she said, ‘What’s up, lass? It isn’t the flu, is it. You had a gliff or somethin’?’
‘Aye.’ Connie had to stop herself slumping but she wasn’t going to let John Stewart win. ‘You could say that, Mary. It’s him, John Stewart, the one I told you about. The one who hurt Jacob. He’s eating here, with his mam and the rest of the tribe.’
‘Eee, no, lass.’ Mary’s head dropped to the side and she screwed up her eyes behind the spectacles before saying, ‘But he didn’t see you? He didn’t recognise you, did he?’
‘Aye, he did.’ It was bitter. ‘I look like my mam you see. I look just like her, and . . . and he liked me mam in a funny sort of way. You know:’
‘Oh, lass.’
Mary went to put her arms round her but Connie stopped her with a lift of her hand as she murmured, ‘No, don’t, lass. It’s best they think I’ve got the flu, least said soonest mended. I’m going to go home, I don’t want to run into him again. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to control myself twice in one night. I’ll . . . I’ll see you later. All right?’
‘Aye, all right. I’ll get away as soon as I can. But are you sure you feel up to going home by yourself?’
Connie straightened, and her voice was soft but firm and brooked no argument when she said, ‘I’m perfectly all right, Mary. It’d take more than scum like him to worry me, but this is a good job and I don’t want to spoil it by going for him, he’s not worth it. And he might try to provoke me to do just that. I don’t trust him. There’s something, well, sinister about him. It sounds far-fetched but there it is. I remember the way he looked at my mam all those years ago, it’s sort of stayed in my mind somewhere, but I didn’t realise what it meant until he looked at me in the same way tonight. He’s . . . dirty, mucky.’
‘An’ the others?’
Connie shrugged, lowering her head. ‘There was only one other I met tonight, the youngest one.’
‘The one that pulled you out of the snow?’
Connie didn’t look up as she nodded, saying, ‘Aye, him. He’s . . . Oh, I don’t know. He’s not like his brother at any rate.’
‘Perhaps he hides it better than t’other ’un?’
‘No, he’s –’ Connie raised her head, but stopped abruptly, her eyes leaving Mary’s and travelling over the kitchen before she said, ‘You’d better get back to the sink, lass, and I’ll see you later. Let Wilf walk you home, you know he’d jump at the chance.’
Wilf was the young porter who had conducted them to the office on their first visit, and he had made no secret of his pursuit of Mary from almost the first day of their arrival. The fact that Mary had rebuffed him at every turn and laid into him with her tongue nearly as often hadn’t seemed to concern him in the least, and there had been times lately – just the odd one or two – when Connie had suspected that her friend wasn’t as averse to his attentions as she maintained. His wry, wicked sense of humour and cheerful demeanour was very entertaining and he made Mary laugh. That, Connie considered, was a very good sign.
‘Wilf?’ The distraction worked and now Mary forgot all talk of John Stewart’s brother. ‘Not likely. I might be daft but I’m not that daft, lass.’
But she blushed scarlet and Connie determined to have a word with Wilf on her way out and let him know Mary was going to walk home alone. If the terrible attack by her uncle wasn’t going to ruin Mary’s chances of being a wife and a mother it would need patience and perseverance, and Wilf had already displayed those attributes in abundance. Furthermore, Connie knew from little remarks that several of the staff had let slip that he was really smitten with her friend. The two of them seemed to strike sparks off each other, both being quick-witted and amusing, but on Wilf’s side Connie had detected a certain covert tenderness that underlined the young porter’s dealings with Mary.
‘You could do worse, a lot worse, lass.’ Connie got to her feet as she spoke. She just wanted to get home now, home to the little oasis she had created where she was her own mistress and answerable to no one. But Walworth Way was just a stepping stone. She hadn’t mentioned it to Mary yet, she knew her friend found change difficult and only accepted it when it was thrust upon her, but she had plans. Plans to work for herself in some way, a little front-room shop maybe, or something similar. That was what she wanted. And her own home, bought and paid for-yes, that too. Why not? she asked herself fiercely. She could do it. And scum like John Stewart would be forced to acknowledge that she couldn’t be pushed around like her mother had been. Her poor mam hadn’t stood a chance against the likes of him, but her daughter had had opportunities her mam’s generation hadn’t, and, by all that was holy, she’d make them work for her. And if ever the chance came to rub John Stewart’s nose in it she’d take it. By, she would. And glory in it.
Chapter Twelve
‘You know we’ve got to go, now then, so give over, Art. Put up with it for the bairns if nothing else.’
‘The bairns? They’d as soon stay here and you know that.’
‘No, no I don’t. They like playing with their cousins, and bairns always enjoy family get-togethers.’
‘Huh. There’s families and families, lass.’
It was Christmas Day morning, and all over Sunderland folk were celebrating. In the tenement slums of the East End there were a good few children who had woken up to a stocking filled with one present – if they were lucky; the rest of the brown paper parcels consisting of turnips or cabbages and the like would end up in the pot before the day was out. When empty flour sacks on flea-infested mattresses were bedding for whole families, even the bread knife had been pawned, and men were doing ten-hour shifts unloading iron-ore boats, their trousers wet to the thighs and their flesh raw for less than four shillings a shift, Christmas Day was simply a day on which there was no possibility of work.
In Bishopwearmouth too, there were houses where bread and dripping was the Christmas dinner, although the man of the house could be found still sleeping off the carousing of the night before, having arrived home mortallious in the early hours, and yet others where hard-working, decent parents had struggled to make something of the festive season on starvation rations.
Art Stewart’s wife, Gladys, had come from the latter, and the thought of her beginnings was with her when she said to her husband, her voice sharp now, ‘Stop your griping, Art. You don’t know you’re born half the time. If the worst you’ve got to put up with today is your mam and the rest of them you won’t do too bad. There’s plenty who’d give their eye teeth to be sitting down to the sort of meal you’ll enjoy come one o’clock.’