‘She did what she had to do.’ It was short and final and indicated that Connie wasn’t going to apologise for her mother now or at any other time.
‘Yes, of course.’ If Lucy had been truthful at this point it would certainly have heralded the end of their friendship, because what she was thinking was, No one has to do that, no one, there are always other means to make a livelihood. However, she was wise enough to keep such thoughts to herself, and she said instead, ‘But whatever happened with your mother is in the past after all. Harold told me about the letter last night’ – and as Connie raised her eyebrows – ‘I didn’t know until then, he had kept the matter from me because I’ve been feeling unwell. It . . . it accused you of certain impropriety too. It was hateful.’
‘I gathered that.’ It was somewhat dry, and their eyes held for a moment before Lucy rose distractedly, placing the glass of water on the mantelpiece before turning back to Connie.
Lucy was feeling awkward, very awkward, and more than a little guilty. Although Harold had been aware of her friendship with their assistant housekeeper he had thought it much more impersonal than it was, and there she had deliberately misled him. No, not misled exactly, Lucy corrected in the next moment. She just hadn’t divulged the depth of it, that was all. Harold was a stickler for convention and she had known it would trouble him if he’d thought she was making a confidante of one of their staff. But Connie was different. She was, she was different, but it would have been difficult to explain that to Harold with his prejudices. But she was making excuses for herself here. The plain truth of the matter was that if she had imparted some of the things Connie had mentioned in the past – her love of books and her literary knowledge and intelligence, her strong ethics and moral beliefs, and the specific fact that she had never had so much as a gentleman caller or man friend in the whole of her life – her husband might have reacted differently when he had first received that dreadful letter, or at least questioned its validity with regard to Connie herself. Of course there was Connie’s mother – she had to confess she had found that shocking, she could still hardly believe it – but she had never approved of the bigoted axiom of the sins of the fathers. Or in this case the mothers. . .
Lucy breathed in and out deeply twice before she said, ‘Connie, I have spoken to Harold and he now understands how wrong he was. Truly he does.’
‘Does he?’ Connie would have liked to have been able to accept Lucy’s words at face value, but a part of her – she wasn’t sure if it was intuition, cynicism or quite what – was saying, No, he wants you to believe he feels that way because you’re expecting his bairn and he doesn’t want you upset about me. The damage had been done as far as Harold Alridge was concerned. He would always be waiting for her to fall, to show herself in what he considered were her true colours.
‘Yes, yes, dear.’ Lucy now reseated herself on the saddle before continuing rapidly, ‘After Harold and I had spoken last night he went to the Colonel’s room and told him he was no longer welcome at the hotel. I understand Reginald, Colonel Fairley, is going to leave for Europe later this morning. He was going to go anyway at the end of the month, he’s just brought the date forward a few weeks. He . . . he won’t be returning. And the matter of Mrs Pegg and the keys has been dealt with. She has received her notice this morning and she won’t be given a reference. Harold would like you to assume the position of housekeeper if you feel able to return to the hotel?’
The last was spoken in the form of a plea, and it moderated Connie’s tone, putting what could be described as a sad note in her voice when she said, ‘You’re asking me to keep my mouth shut, to let the Colonel get off scot free.’
‘No. . . No.’
Aye, she was right enough, even if Lucy didn’t realise it herself. Mr Alridge was fond of his relation, everyone knew that, and that’s why the female staff had put up with the sly nips, suggestive remarks and familiar slaps on the backside the Colonel had indulged in on his visits. There were fifty – a hundred – ready to step into each pair of shoes should anyone be dismissed, and all the cards were stacked on the side of the gentry. The hotel wasn’t different to the rest of the world in that respect, Connie thought bitterly. The poor were expendable.
Look at what had emerged from the enquiry into the terrible loss of life when the
Titanic
had sunk over twenty months ago now. It wasn’t the wives and bairns of the millionaires and upper crust lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic, was it. And the verdict of negligence didn’t explain why the managing director of the owners, White Star Line, got away in the first lifeboat when only twenty of the hundred and eighty Irish passengers were saved. She could remember a Southwick man who had been visiting his granny in the workhouse at the time saying, his tone morose, that the owners had been Argus-eyed in making sure they got the best deal from the Sunderland Forge and Engineering Company who had supplied the electric winches to the doomed liner, but his neighbour who lived in Vena Street and who’d worked as a greaser in the engine room had told him – being one of the few working-class men to survive – that they hadn’t been so vigilant in kitting the ship out with adequate lifeboats.
‘Connie, please, I want you to come back.’
‘I can’t. I really can’t, Lucy.’ Whatever happened now her time at the Grand was finished, she had known that when she’d awoken that morning.
‘The housekeeper’s job is yours, I mean it, and it would be twice the wage you are getting now.’
‘I don’t want it.’ Had she just said that? Connie asked herself with something akin to amazement. She had just turned down over a pound a week – she must be mad.
Lucy Alridge didn’t speak for a moment, but she held out her hand to her and when Connie took it she said quietly, ‘I have no right to ask this of you, no right at all, but. . . but I’m going to ask it anyway. Colonel Fairley is going away this morning and Harold has made it abundantly clear that there is no question of him returning at any time in the future. It hurt Harold very much to have to do that. Oh, I know’ – she flapped her other hand as Connie straightened and went to speak – ‘I know the Colonel has brought all this on himself, but he was very good to Harold at a time when no one else was there for him. He really isn’t all bad, and this, you standing up to him, has taught him a lesson, Connie.’
‘You’ll have to forgive me if I find that hard to believe just at the moment.’
Connie’s voice had been tight, and Lucy nodded. ‘You have every reason for saying that of course, but –’ She stopped, and then said in a rush, ‘I’m asking you not to take this matter any further, for Harold’s sake.’
She had known that was what Lucy was going to say but it still hurt and Lucy must have been aware of this because she continued quickly, ‘I’m sorry. Oh, I am sorry, but Reginald is the only family Harold has and. . . But that’s not a good reason, not for you after what the Colonel put you through.’
Had she purposely chosen those very words? Connie stared at the beautiful face in front of her and Lucy’s eyes, luminescent in their appeal, gazed back. ‘The only family Harold has.’ How could she fight against the shaft of pain that had penetrated her heart at those words? She had suffered enough from losing everyone she held dear. She didn’t want to be the means of making another suffer. But this was different, oh, it was. And the Colonel and Harold were two grown men, not bewildered little bairns. Nevertheless, the empty desolation she had felt standing at the graveside and knowing they were gone from her as she heard the clods falling on the coffins was as real in this moment as when it had happened. She could actually smell the fresh hewn earth, feel the scented warmth of the bright summer’s day and hear a bird singing high in the thermals.
She wanted to bend forward, to wrap her arms round her waist and squeeze tight, but instead she swallowed deeply and her words were precise and to the point when she said, ‘I’ll hold my hand, but for you, Lucy, not Mr Alridge. I can’t pretend.’
‘Oh, Connie.’ Lucy had no voice with which to continue, and after gulping in her throat she lowered her head for some twenty seconds before she raised it to say, ‘In case. . . in case you felt you couldn’t return Harold has made some financial provision. It might take you some time to find another position and this is the least, the very least, we can do. He will write a reference today and you’ll receive it tomorrow. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my dear. I wouldn’t have had this happen for all the world.’
‘I know.’ Lucy’s words, said with such deep sincerity, eased the pain in her heart and brought a lump to her throat, but it was all too much. She just wanted to be left alone now.
‘We can remain friends?’
There was urgency in Lucy’s tone and Connie forced a smile, taking the sealed envelope Lucy proffered as she said, ‘Of course we can.’
‘I don’t have many friends. My childhood was not conducive to it, and although I have social acquaintances –’ Lucy’s voice ended abruptly and she rose from the saddle, turning blindly towards the sitting room door and, after opening it, walking the two or three steps which took her to the front door. Here she turned, saying, ‘Next week? Could we meet for tea next week? Perhaps Tuesday afternoon at say three o’clock at Binns?’
Connie moved her head in an uncertain movement. ‘Won’t Mr Alridge mind?’
‘No, Harold won’t mind.’ Lucy’s face was straight and determined. ‘If we are going to remain friends he will have to get used to my seeing you, won’t he. Till Tuesday then.’
Connie watched the tall slim figure treading carefully along the snowy pavement until Lucy turned, raising her gloved hand in farewell at the corner of Walworth Way and Union Street before disappearing from view. Then she closed the door, leaning against it for a few moments before she glanced down at the pale lilac envelope in her hand.
Had she been foolish to allow herself to be swayed by friendship? Probably. She continued leaning against the door for some seconds and then walked through to the sitting room. But she couldn’t have done anything else feeling as she did. She hadn’t wanted to be able to put herself in Harold Alridge’s shoes, nor to appreciate the pain and concern Lucy was feeling for her husband, but she couldn’t help it. She shook her head at what, at this moment, felt like weakness and sat down heavily on the saddle, staring into the red glow of the fire for some time before she roused herself to tear open the envelope. Mind, she had always known there was virtually no chance of the police accepting her version of events against Colonel Fairley’s once they knew she was Sadie Bell’s daughter. The prospect of having to explain in intimate detail to strangers what had happened was bad enough, but knowing that her story would be treated with scepticism. . .
It was a moment before Connie’s eyes focused on the bank draft in her hand, and when they did she remained absolutely still for a full thirty seconds; she didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Twenty-five pounds. Oh Lucy, Lucy. Twenty-five pounds. Even if she had accepted the housekeeper’s position there was six months’ wages here, a small fortune. And with what she already had in the sweet jar. . . Her heart began to gallop so fast she pressed her hand against her chest.
Would Lucy still have given her the envelope if she hadn’t agreed to say nothing about the Colonel? And then in the next instant she told herself sharply, That doesn’t matter. You’ll never know one way or the other now so don’t waste time thinking about it. Seventy pounds.
Seventy pounds!
She, Connie Bell, had seventy pounds. Seventy pounds’ worth of power. Her mother, all of them, had been trampled on and used and treated like scum because they had lacked money and prestige. The only way she was going to be safe was to protect herself with these things. And money made money. By, it did that; she’d proved it herself when she had been able to put the deposit down on Walworth Way and enable them to live for the last months rent-free. And perhaps that was the way to go now? To rent a place to start off her business? She had been thinking small in buying a tiny cottage and then converting the front room to a shop or something similar, but why not rent a much larger building she could use for tea-rooms too?
The surge of excitement brought her up from the saddle and pacing the floor, the envelope still clutched in her hand. She could do it – she knew she could do it – but where did she start? She didn’t even know how to go about cashing the bank draft. And then, as they had done so often in the past during her childhood, her thoughts turned to Father Hedley. He would know, the Father would know how to go about things; he would advise her. She hugged the envelope to her, closing her eyes tight as she swayed for a moment with her chin lifted high. She’d go and see him this very day, he’d be getting ready for his sermon on Sunday tomorrow so it was best she went today. And then, careless of the bruises and scratches that marked the soft flesh of her breasts and inner thighs under her clothes she twirled round the room a few times, doing something she would never have thought possible after the events of the evening before – laughing out loud.
Chapter Seventeen
Kitty had ceased to compare her Aunty Ida’s house with that of Edith Stewart long ago.
Her aunty lived close to the White Swan in High Street East which lay above the old riverside houses in Low Street, and which was connected by narrow alleyways and passages to the dockside. In the summer the smell from the outside privies and the small lanes linking the streets could be overpowering on occasion, but today it was snowing and freezing hard and the white blanket covered over a multitude of sins.