The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (20 page)

‘But when I asked about it people had nothing to say.’

‘Yes, but you’re a southerner. In places like that they aren’t going to open up to you. Here, if somebody lives four miles away they are almost foreign – just think what you seem like. I’m so glad you went to see the old gentleman. He was obviously pleased to see you or he wouldn’t have told you such things.’

‘I learned that from you,’ Joe said.

‘I would have gone with you.’

‘I think you’ve had enough on your plate and besides, I needed to see him on my own. He’s a lovely old man. I like him very much. I’m going to go and see him a lot.’

He also told her about Toddy – how they were now reconciled, and how much better he felt about it – and about going to see Mr Barrington, and the money.

Her face filled with excitement. ‘Joe, that’s wonderful. That’s a lot of money. If you and Mr Palmer can get the car right you could do all kinds of good things with it.’

They walked slowly over to the river and sat down there on the low stone wall which separated Joe’s house from the towpath. Nobody said anything for a considerable time and Lucy was glad just to watch the river and listen to it industriously chugging its way to Sunderland.

‘Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?’ he said.

She shook her head.

‘I think you ought to.’

He waited.

‘I told Mr Bainbridge part of the difficulty and even then he couldn’t help, yet that was the easiest bit and he has … he has influence, and he and I—’

‘Why don’t you tell me the easiest bit and then we’ll consider the rest,’ he suggested.

Lucy nodded. She didn’t look at him, she didn’t look at anything. All she could manage was the way that the house was crowded and even then she couldn’t get it out of herself without stopping a good deal, so she began to talk of Frederick and how he was lying in the shadows, hoping to be left alone. In truth he had ceased to be a novelty now and the children barely noticed him, but he had lost his chair by the fire, because it was too expensive to keep more than one fire burning for any length of time, as well as the attention of the Misses Slaters.

‘So you see,’ Lucy said stupidly, ‘his life is hardly worth living.’

Joe smiled just a little. She could not see him but she could hear how he let go of his breath in amusement. It was quite dark out there now and it was easier to talk when you couldn’t see. She had not known that the night brought comfort to such things.

‘Frederick could come and live with me,’ Joe said gently, and it made her laugh.

She found a handkerchief up her sleeve and mopped her face as a stray tear escaped. She knew he meant only to make her smile.

‘I don’t think Kitty would take to him,’ she said. ‘And Mrs Formby doesn’t want to leave Rachel Lane and Mr Manson is just horrible and doesn’t care and Edgar doesn’t understand. Rachel Lane is all the Formbys have. I threatened Mr Manson with the newspapers and all sorts of things, but I just can’t think what to do that might really help to make a difference.’

‘All right,’ Joe said, ‘then why don’t we ask the two old ladies if they want to come and live here?’

Lucy stared at him. ‘Oh, Joe, I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I can’t be foisting old ladies onto you.’

‘Why not? If you could persuade Mrs Formby to come here with the children we could do that, but it doesn’t sound as if she would manage it. Whereas the Misses Slaters are the sort of people who have lived in different circumstances. They might like it here.’

‘They wouldn’t come, they wouldn’t impose,’ she said.

‘Are you telling me I can’t charm two old ladies into moving into a spacious house like this? I think you should go back and suggest it to them and when they are done protesting that they can’t I will come and transport them and all their belongings. That will ease the situation some.’ He went inside to check on Tilda and came back – she was still sleeping. He asked Lucy if she wanted to go back inside, but she said she didn’t.

‘So what’s really the matter?’ he said.

Lucy couldn’t tell him. ‘There’s nothing anybody can do about the situation,’ she said. ‘I know there isn’t.’

‘You could just tell me – sometimes that helps.’

‘It’s very personal and it isn’t about me – I don’t want to betray a confidence.’

‘Talk very softly and nobody will hear.’

And so she managed to tell him all about Tilda, leaving nothing out. She felt the burden lifting from her. The words tumbled from her lips and somehow from her mind.

Much later, when she couldn’t think of a single thing to say and Joe had been silent for quite a long time, he said,
softly, so that the words barely reached her, ‘You must wait and she must have care—’

‘But what happens when the baby shows? It’s not the sort of thing you can pretend isn’t happening. I’m scared.’ It was the first time she had admitted such a thing to anybody.

‘When you don’t know what to do, the best thing to do is nothing,’ Joe said.

‘She feels guilty about what she did—’

‘It’s just like war though, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She took on her father when he attempted to destroy her, and she won.’

‘Oh God, Joe, that’s awful. The law doesn’t see it like that—’

‘No, of course not. When your government says you can kill that’s seen as moral; when you take it upon yourself then it’s murder,’ Joe said. ‘She chose, she took the decision—’

‘And the law would say that she must pay the price.’

‘Hasn’t she already done that? Hasn’t her family too?’

‘She wanted to look up to her father and now—’ Lucy stopped. ‘Why is it like this?’

Joe, who had good instincts about such things, she thought, waited. He let her talk and then he sat forward and watched her, his eyes sympathetic.

‘I think you shouldn’t tell Mr Bainbridge anything,’ Joe said, ‘because he would be obliged by law to act – it’s his job, he couldn’t not do it. You don’t want Mrs Formby to have her child hang.’

Lucy shuddered. ‘Tilda has to work, she’s their only source of income.’

‘We’ll help her. Try not to worry. We’ll think of something.’

She nodded. She was just about to suggest that they should go back inside so that she could take Tilda home when Joe said, ‘And you must come and live here, of course.’

That had not occurred to her. She was glad of the darkness because her face and even her neck burned at the whole idea.

‘I couldn’t do that.’

‘Well, what are you going to do? You don’t really want to stay with the Formbys, and if you think I’m going to cook for two old ladies you can think again.’

‘But it’s not respectable.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Joe said in a sigh. ‘I’m not asking you to sleep with me.’

‘Joe!’

‘Well, try not to be such a prude. You and the two old ladies can sleep on the top floor. I don’t. It’s quite private up there. You could get the odd cat visiting you in the night, but that’s all.’

She couldn’t believe he had solved so many of her problems. The thought of living here in this lovely place and having the two old ladies with her, and of the Formbys having the Misses Slaters’ house, which was slightly bigger and better than their own, was such a help. She didn’t know what to say or how to thank him.

There was a long silence during which the moon came out and lit the cloudless sky. Lucy’s mind went over and over the things that Joe had said and she felt relieved, eased,
and then the ginger tom leaped onto her lap and yawned as though they had been talking for too long. For some reason it made her laugh and then Joe laughed too. The cat got down and sat between them, lifted its leg and began washing its bottom.

‘Sorry,’ Joe said, pulling a face. Lucy couldn’t help finding it funny. ‘That’s what they do when they can’t think of anything else. Perhaps we should do the same.’

‘You do and I’m going home,’ she said.

‘I can’t reach anyway,’ Joe said, and then she laughed so much that she felt better.

Lucy talked to the Misses Slaters and Mrs Formby all together, to see what their reaction would be. She put it to them that they could decide among themselves who was going to stay and who to go, but she and Joe had been right. Mrs Formby said immediately that indeed it was very kind of Mr Hardy and they were very grateful to him for all his help and everything with the fire, but she really didn’t want to leave this place. On the other hand she didn’t want the Misses Slaters to go. This was their house, their home. Lucy watched the two sisters glance at one another. They didn’t need to say anything, but it was typical of them that they held back.

Eventually Miss Slater said, ‘It really is up to Mr Hardy. After all, he is a young man – I don’t suppose he wants older ladies living with him.’

Lucy couldn’t quite say that Joe was enthusiastic about the idea, it didn’t sound right, but she did say, ‘He lives alone there with three cats. The place is very big. He wouldn’t say that he wanted you there if he didn’t.’

‘Cats?’ Miss Bethany said doubtfully, and she glanced over at where Frederick slept in the corner.

‘The dog could stay here,’ Mrs Formby suggested.

The two small children were very keen on this idea, but Lucy said, ‘No, Frederick is going with the Misses Slaters to stay with Mr Hardy.’

The children protested loudly, but Lucy was firm. Frederick was going and that was that.

*

The following Saturday Joe came to the house with a cart because, he reasoned, they couldn’t get anything bigger anywhere near the tower house. The small house on Rachel Lane got bigger and bigger as Joe and the man who owned the cart carried all the furniture out of it. It was vicarage furniture, some of it quite enormous now Lucy saw it on the street; no wonder there had been no space in that house.

The trouble was that when the furniture had been completely decanted there was very little left. The house was empty. Lucy requested an afternoon off work, much to Edgar’s annoyance when she told him what she was doing. She asked very politely if she might have a few hours so that she and Mrs Formby could go to the auction rooms. He said nothing, but she could see he was unhappy she had not taken his advice to keep her distance from people, though she didn’t acknowledge his frustration.

Mrs Formby had a tiny amount of money and Lucy didn’t have much, but she hadn’t spent any of her wages other than the food which she bought, and she had become adept at housekeeping on little. So although Mrs Formby protested and said it wasn’t fair to Miss Charlton, Lucy was brisk.

They bought new furniture, much to Mrs Formby’s excitement, and arranged to have it delivered late on the Saturday afternoon. There were several rather old but serviceable
chairs for the sitting room, a table and chairs for the kitchen and three beds with new mattresses and pillows.

The Misses Slaters donated bed linen of which they had an ample supply, and several rather decorative tablecloths which Lucy promptly sold, after she had asked their permission. She got a good price for them at a second-hand shop since they were trimmed with lace and rather gorgeous. It was not the time to be frivolous, she knew. They bought some newish clothes from the market for the whole family. Joe donated a large box of chocolates for Mrs Formby and sweets for the children, and a pretty bracelet in blue glass for Tilda, also from the market.

Lucy left Joe and the old ladies, Frederick being locked into the sitting room, since the cats were all waiting by the outside door when Frederick arrived. Joe told her later and they were not inclined to welcome him and variously spat, hissed and walked away. Lucy felt guilty about this, for they had been there first, but Joe told her that she was not to worry. They would come back.

She stayed with Mrs Formby and saw the new furniture into the house as Clay helped to carry, while the two small children ran about, delighted. Mrs Formby glowed, looking lovingly at her furniture. It was late in the evening by the time Lucy went to her new home. If she had felt self-conscious living in a tiny house with two single ladies, living at the tower house with a young man of her own age was quite another thing entirely.

She thought she would hear, ‘Oh, Mr Hardy, how very kind,’ for the rest of her days.

‘Do you want to see your room? I think we’ve put all your things in there – bags and such. You can go up,’ Joe said.

She nodded. There, upstairs, the room with the door ajar was hers. Joe had opened the window and laid the fire to be lit. It was the room which looked out across the river, straight at the cathedral – the nicest room of all, she was sure. She felt almost as though she were at home. She had longed to be in a room once more which beheld the river so that she could listen to it until she slept. She couldn’t believe how perfect it was.

There was the neat little writing desk which at Rachel Lane had been shoved into a corner and covered in lots of other things, and a lovely bed which she did not recognize, with white linen and an embroidered quilt. At the window was a little dressing table, rather too small and very dainty, like nothing she’d ever had before. She was still looking around when she saw the two ladies watching her from the door.

‘Do you like it?’ Miss Bethany asked.

She laughed and went to embrace them both. ‘You did this for me?’

‘You have done so much for us,’ Miss Bethany said.

The sisters had a room each, such luxury, and they had wardrobes and tiny bookcases full of what she was certain were precious books. They offered to let her read and she took the invitation up gladly. She hadn’t read a book which wasn’t to do with the law for years.

When she got back downstairs again Joe was about to take Frederick for a walk. Frederick had not done anything as energetic as that in years. He merely raised his head when
Joe called to him and then got carefully to his paws, reluctantly following Joe out of the door.

For some reason Lucy said, ‘Can I come?’

Joe looked surprised. ‘Are you sure? I don’t think Frederick is a great walker.’

It was late by then. She’d had nothing to eat and she didn’t think Joe had either, but she was suddenly so very happy. Frederick stopped and sniffed every few yards at first. But after a while he seemed to realize that they were actually going for a walk, and he began to get the hang of it. He was soon trundling along quite happily, catching up when they got ahead.