Once she and Mary had reached home, Connie had pulled out the tin bath in the kitchen and stoked up the glowing embers under the big iron kettle on the hob, refilling it several times until the bath water was almost to the edge of the bath and as hot as she could stand it. After wedging the door knob with a hard-backed chair – the normal indication to anyone trying to enter that someone was inside having a strip-down wash or bath – she disrobed swiftly, throwing the clothes to the far side of the kitchen as though they were contaminated, which indeed she felt they were. She had scrubbed at her skin at first, over and over until it was too sore to continue, and then she had washed her hair and cleaned her nails until there wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere on her. And her face had been awash with tears the whole time.
It had helped, a little. Enough to enable her to swallow a bowl of broth, made the day before with a ham shank and split green peas, before falling into bed at just after ten. She had expected to lay awake for hours, and it had been with a sense of amazement that she had opened her eyes at seven the next morning. She felt rested, she told herself, and – and here she had to admit to an even deeper amazement – curiously at peace considering how wretched she had felt before she’d gone to sleep with her world turned upside down yet again.
Perhaps everyone experienced periods of ordinary, mundane living which were savagely rent apart when it was least expected? Or perhaps not. Whatever, when she looked back on her life: the tranquil years before the attack on Jacob; then more years of calm before the horror of her mother’s heart attack and the devastating fire which had taken the last of her family and her home; the monotonous repetition of the years in the workhouse followed by the bitter disappointment when the door to nursing was banged shut with a vengeance; then the last eleven months of composed order and advance, it definitely had followed long controlled plateaus interspersed with explosive highs of such ferocity that each chapter became like a new beginning.
And that was how she had to look at the caustic events of the last two days and all the ugliness they had held – as a means of prompting her to a new beginning. John Stewart, Colonel Fairley, Mrs Pegg – they weren’t going to win, and neither was the sick mind which had written the fateful letter which had led to the Colonel’s actions. How often had she woven her dreams of some kind of little business of her own? Hundreds, thousands. And now her bridges at the Grand were well and truly burnt and it was abundantly clear she would not be receiving any kind of reference.
She sat up in bed, hugging her knees as she glanced across the shadowed room to where Mary was still fast asleep. It was bitterly cold in spite of the faint glow from the banked-up fire in the grate, but Connie was quite unaware of the chill as she let her thoughts travel on. Even if Mary went into work today it would only be a matter of time – days, weeks maybe – before Mrs Pegg found some trumped up excuse to get rid of her. And as for her, she wouldn’t set foot in that place again for all the tea in China.
She shivered, her stomach turning over as she attempted to force the image of Colonel Fairley and what he had tried to do to her out of her head.
The sweet jar held just over forty-five pounds now, that was half the cost of a modest three-roomed cottage in Hendon or the East End or Monkwearmouth. She had been planning, in the back of her mind, to save enough over the next few years to buy a little place and then convert the living room to a shop. A sweet shop maybe, or one selling hot pies and chitterlings and such. But even with the four lodgers upstairs paying the rent on Walworth Way, she needed to be earning a good wage to save enough each week to make sure she wasn’t going to be an old, old lady before she realised her dream. What should she do? She turned her head to the side and looked towards the window, pulling the drapes back an inch or two and staring out into the swirling snow outside.
She felt a moment’s pleasure that she hadn’t got to leave the house and brave the elements for work that morning, and for a second the temptation to snuggle down and sleep the morning away was strong. It would be so easy to do nothing about Colonel Fairley. He had the weight of the establishment behind him and he would use it to his advantage – the upper classes did what they liked, everyone knew that. But. . . she couldn’t bear the idea of creeping away like a small whipped dog either. And that’s what it would boil down to if she went quietly. Colonel Fairley, Mrs Pegg, all the others who had been secretly waiting for her to fall flat on her face for the sin of attempting to make something of herself, they’d have a field day. Aye they would, and no mistake.
Her shoulders slumped, and again the urge to nestle down in the warmth of the covers and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist was strong.
No, none of that! She threw back the covers as she bounced her head in agreement with the admonition. If she started that now it would never end. She had come this far hadn’t she? And by gum, she was going to go a good way further before she was finished. But for now she’d get dressed and get the breakfast going – a cup of tea and a bowl of hasty pudding would serve to keep the worst of the weather at bay, and there was a pint jug of milk to go with the oatmeal and boiling water. Aye, and the cupboards were full an’ all. There was a feeling beyond words that went with having full cupboards. . .
For no reason that Connie could explain she was suddenly back in her granny’s cottage; Larry was crying and blue with cold as he yammered for something to eat, the newborn baby as white and cold as the porcelain dolls in the big shops in Fawcett Street and High Street West, and her granny huddled in her old shawl like a tiny wizened gnome. And her mam, oh, her mam – she had thought her mam was breathing her last. And then the door had opened and the farm boys had brought in food, armfuls of food, and coal and wood. Dan had done all that. And he’d brought the doctor too.
She made a sound like a little moan and on hearing it she said again, out loud this time, ‘None of that. You’re going to get through this, this is nothing. And he was always just a dream. At the bottom of you you knew he was just a dream.’
‘Eh? What?’ Mary emerged from under her covers like Neptune from the deep, and at the sight of her friend’s face – her eyes blinking like an owl’s and her hair sticking up in all directions – Connie couldn’t help smiling as she said, ‘Nothing, lass. I was talking to myself.’
‘Eee, Connie, first sign of madness, that is, as me mam used to tell me da when he was mutterin’ an’ carryin’ on when he’d got his linins on back to front after a night’s drinkin’.’
Mary was doing that more and more now, Connie thought to herself, returning her friend’s grin before pulling her coat round her and making her way to the kitchen. Reminiscing about her family, laughing and talking about the good times they had shared before her childhood had come to such a brutal end and the court case had ripped them apart. It seemed Wilf was working like a healing balm on the deep secret wounds, and the nice things – the warm, happy memories – were coming more and more to the fore. It was good to see. It was very good to see.
And then, as a flustered Mary came padding behind her, her bulky bedspread wrapped round her and trailing on the floor, her friend said, ‘Oh, lass, lass, I’m sorry, I am that. I dinna know what I’m thinkin’ of. It should be me lookin’ after you with yesterday an’ all. Now you get.yourself back to bed an’ I’ll bring a sup of tea, all right?’ Connie found herself smiling again.
‘No one is going back to bed, Mary. You’re going to work – they can’t get rid of you just ’cos you’re my friend – and I’m going to pay a visit to West Wear Street later.’
‘You’re not?’ Mary’s eyes were wide. ‘You’re not goin’ to the police station?’
‘I am.’ Connie was determined Mary wouldn’t see how terrified she was by the prospect of entering the grim brick building with its narrow windows and forbidding exterior. ‘I’m going to report him, lass. I’m going to make sure I’m a sharp thorn in Colonel Fairley’s side if nothing else.’
‘Eee.’ Mary was lost for words for a moment and then she clutched at her stomach, her face unconsciously comical as she said, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to the lavvy, lass. It’s givin’ me the skitters just to think about it. You’re one on your own an’ no mistake.’
Connie was doubly glad of the resolve which had had her up and breakfasted and the living room tidied and put to rights by eight o’clock, because it was then that Lucy Alridge had called.
Mary had been gone some fifteen minutes when Connie heard the knock at the front door, and for a moment, realising she was all alone except for the old lady upstairs who was as deaf as a post and none too steady on her legs, she hesitated to answer it. It was then that she was made to appreciate fully just how much the Colonel’s attack had unnerved her, and she didn’t like the feeling of fear which had flooded her limbs making them weak. She took a deep breath, unconsciously raising her chin and narrowing her eyes as she walked into the gloomy hall, made even darker by the atrocious weather outside, and she didn’t hesitate as she opened the door.
‘Lucy!’
‘Can I come in, Connie?’ And then, as she saw Connie’s gaze move up and down the street, ‘I’m alone, there’s no one with me.’
Connie’s heart was thumping against her ribs at the sight of the woman she had come to think of as a good friend in the last eleven months. Had Lucy come to add her weight to that of her husband and Colonel Fairley? Or maybe she had been sent as a mediator to persuade her to quieten down and accept the status quo? It seemed likely and Connie really didn’t feel up to another battle so soon, but she had noticed the other woman was looking peaky and remembering that Lucy had been ill the night before Connie opened the door wide. ‘Come in.’ She stood aside to let Lucy pass her before closing the door, and then she indicated towards their living room with a wave of her hand.
‘Thank you.’ Lucy preceded her into the room, glancing swiftly at the blazing fire in the shining, blackleaded grate and the warm rosy glow from the curtains and cushions, before she turned to Connie saying, ‘This is lovely, so bright and cosy.’
‘Thank you.’ Connie’s voice, like her face, was stiff, but then in the next moment she was blinking hard, her face suffused with colour, as Lucy put out a gentle hand and touched her bruised cheek, saying, ‘Did he do that? The beast! Oh, the beast. I wish Harold was here to see it, but I made him stay at home. I thought after yesterday that he was one of the last people in the world you would wish to see this morning.’
‘You. . . you believe me then?’ Connie couldn’t accept what she was hearing and her face reflected this.
It caused the older woman to take both of Connie’s hands and draw her over to the saddle which had been placed at an angle before the fire; Lucy pulled Connie down beside her before she said, her voice husky, ‘Of course I believe you, dear. And I told Harold so when he relayed what had happened.’ Here Lucy paused.
She loved her husband, she loved him very much and she couldn’t quite bring herself to tell Connie of the fierce quarrel that had taken place when she had heard of his cavalier treatment of their assistant housekeeper. Of course the trouble was that Harold had a blind spot where Reginald was concerned. It came from the Colonel’s kindness to him when Harold had been suddenly orphaned at the age of twelve. Although left financially secure Harold had found himself alone in the world save for one aged grandmother and spinster aunt and Reginald – a second cousin twice removed or some such thing on his mother’s side. The women had been chary of taking on a lively youngster in the holidays but Reginald, having recently left the army and with time to kill, had made a home for the grieving boy as well as visiting him in term time, first at boarding school and then at university. She couldn’t deny that Reginald Fairley had been good to Harold, but that didn’t blind Lucy to the Colonel’s shortcomings. The man was a lecher. She had had occasion to think so in the past and this with Connie confirmed all her worst misgivings.
‘Connie, dear, I have to ask – as a friend and not in my position as Harold’s wife – did the worst happen?’
‘The worst?’ And then Connie’s face turned a bright scarlet. ‘No, no. I managed to get away before. . . No, he didn’t. . .’
Lucy gave a great sigh of relief, slumping slightly in her seat as she fiddled with the silk scarf at her neck before saying, ‘Could I have a glass of water please, Connie? I confess to feeling a little faint.’
‘Of course.’ Connie fairly flew into the kitchen, returning almost immediately, and it wasn’t until Lucy had taken several sips of the water that Connie said, her voice concerned, ‘You shouldn’t have come, you’re not well.’
‘I’m a little indisposed, that’s all.’ Lucy hesitated. She had only told Harold the news last night. And that in a fit of rage when she had shouted at him – yes, she had actually shouted that she wouldn’t be able to bear giving birth to a child whose father had been responsible for such a severe miscarriage of justice. She had regretted that later. Especially when Harold had actually wept with joy that she was going to have a baby at last after their ten years of marriage. ‘I’m expecting a child,’ she said shyly.
‘Oh Lucy, that’s wonderful. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘Yes, it is rather wonderful but a little frightening too.’ Lucy suddenly leant forward, gripping one of Connie’s hands and her voice no longer sounded like that of a thirty-year-old woman but of a young, nervous girl as she said, ‘That’s one of the reasons why I don’t want to lose your friendship, but only one. There are many more. Connie, I don’t presume to judge your mother –’