Now he was calmly and quietly explaining that he needed proof that she was still trustworthy, that she hadn’t been in league with Harold Cunliffe and trying to cheat him.
‘Don’t I prove that every day by collecting the bets for you?’ Jinnie kept well back in the shadows of the back entry, anxious that neither Edward nor Simeon, should they emerge from the mill, would catch sight of them hobnobbing together.
‘And don’t I need to be sure of your undivided loyalty me pretty one.’
‘It was you, wasn’t it, what done poor Harold in?’
Quinn laid one finger to the side of his nose and smiled his most chilling smile. ‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell ye no lies. Just you listen to what old Quinn tells ye, girl, and you’ll be right as ninepence.’
Jinnie rather thought she might never be right again, not unless she slit his miserable throat with her own fair hand. The thought made her shake with an emotion that took her by surprise. Seeing her tremble, Quinn chuckled. ‘Don’t fret, tis nothin’ ye can’t handle. I want you to set up a Draw Club.’
‘What the hell’s a Draw Club when it’s at home?’
The object, apparently, was for her to find fifteen to twenty women who were willing to pay sixpence a week to be members of the draw, which operated like a savings club. ‘Then you gives everyone a number and write these on slips of paper. Each week a number is drawn and that person wins whatever’s in the pot. Some will be lucky and get their winnings in the first few weeks, the others will have to wait longer. It’s a way of encouraging you women to save.’
Struggling to understand, Jinnie thought it all sounded very complicated. ‘So, what’re trying to tell me, that you’re turning soft in your old age?’
‘A philanthropist my lovely. Isn’t that grand!’
Jinnie was highly suspicious and struggled to find the catch. ‘And what do you get out of it?’
‘There now, don’t ye know me too well? Wouldn’t it be grand if I didn’t have me living to earn, like many another.’ Quinn grinned at her. ‘I takes a commission of course. One penny in every shilling.’
‘That’s highway bleedin’ robbery.’
‘It’s no worse than what they’d pay the moneylender.’
Jinnie knew this to be true, knew that some charged more. ‘Hey up, but you aren’t lending them any money. It’s their own money.’
‘So it is, me lovely, so it is.’ He leaned closer and Jinnie shrank back further against the wall as he issued a dire warning in low ominous tones that she’d best not miss collecting a single week’s payment from the women. ‘Or ye’ll be in dead lumber, so ye will. Tell ‘em they has to pay, otherwise I’ll stew ye for me dinner.’ He seemed to find this thought amusing.
A wave of sickness hit her. Here was the snag, a great big net to catch her in. ‘How can
I
make them pay? That’d be a nightmare, to collect sixpence off them week after week.’ Jinnie knew well enough the trouble the rent man had.
‘Aw, they’d pay right enough. Wouldn’t they be sorry to have any accident befall their sweet Jinnie? And if’n they don’t pay, they don’t get a draw.’
Vainly she pointed out the difficulty in keeping up the interest of the ones who’d been given an early draw and must continue to pay up for the remaining weeks. ‘I’d have to keep books, records, nag at ‘em every week to pay.’ It would be a nightmare.
‘It’ll keep ye out of mischief, to be sure. Just don’t forget that ye must pay me my commission, regular, whether they pays up or not.’
‘
What?
’
He cast her a questioning look out of dangerously hooded eyes as he reached for another sandwich; a look which spelled out a warning, that reminded her of the very vulnerable situation she was in. ‘Is there something I’m not making quite clear? Something ye don’t understand?’
Jinnie swallowed, managing a tremulous smile. ‘No. No, Billy. I think I’ve got it right in me head now. I understand. A Draw Club it is.’
‘That’s good. Get on with it then, and see ye make it work. If’n ye know what’s good fer ye.’
Jinnie experienced an unexpected surge of rebellion. She’d fallen on her feet when she’d been rescued by Bella from that hospital. Now she risked losing all that she’d gained: the excellent food that at last was putting flesh on her bones and making her grow healthy and strong, steady employment, the lovely frocks that Simeon kept buying her. And Edward’s love. It was this last and most telling thought which decided her. ‘To hell with it. No, I won’t do your dirty work. Go jump in the bleedin’ canal yourself, why don’t you. See if I care,’ and jerking her chin in the air she stalked proudly away from him.
It was a moment before he moved and then, as always, his reaction was swift and lethal. He had her arm in a punishing grip and she wasn’t going anywhere, not without his say so. Quinn’s mouth came to within an inch of her own, and the menace in his voice seemed to pulsate through her. ‘That’s a terrible cruel thing to be saying to a chap who has done as much fer ye as I have.’
Fury gave her the power to shake him off and Jinnie stood before him, arms akimbo, recklessly shouting at the top of her voice, hoping the whole world might hear. ‘You’ve done
nowt
but what suits your own nasty purpose. I don’t want yer damn money.’
Quinn raised his brows in a parody of surprise. ‘Ye might not want it but ye surely need it. Ye can’t depend on that chap of yours to always provide for you. What’ll happen when he hears about the babby you killed, eh? What’ll he think of his sweet little Jinnie then?’
Despair numbed her and all the fight drained from her. Jinnie couldn’t think what to do. Why was she even risking an argument? Billy Quinn had her trapped like a scared rabbit, no matter which way she turned. Yet if she didn’t fight, and win, wouldn’t he keep on squeezing her, more and more, till she was nothing but a wrung out dish mop.
‘I’m going home right now to tell Edward everything. I’d rather lose him through his knowing the truth, than be in thrall to a nasty bit of tripe like you for the rest of me livelong days. Do yer worst. I don’t give a damn.’ Tossing her head, she turned on her heel and strode away, frantically urging herself not to run. Quinn’s voice drifted after her, sounding clear and sharp in her ears, despite its soft Irish tones.
‘Do you give a damn what happens to Bella?’
She was back before him in seconds, her young face pinched tight with fury. ‘What did you say? What the hell do you know about Bella? You’ve never even met her.’
‘Oh, but I have my lovely. I’ve more than met her. Haven’t I taken her out fer supper, and didn’t I give her a kiss not fifty yards from this spot? Aye, and wasn’t it grand? I reckon she enjoyed it, so I do.’
Jinnie slapped him, right across the face. Until she saw her hand swing across she wouldn’t have known that she had it in her. But there it was, she’d struck Billy Quinn. Now she waited, breathless with terror, to see what he would do next. He’d done something nasty to Sadie, who’d never been seen again, and tossed poor Harold in the canal. Jinnie dreaded to imagine what might befall herself as a result of this latest dangerous act of folly.
But Quinn was chortling with glee. He threw back his handsome head and actually laughed at her. ‘Tis like a flea batting an elephant. Ye’ll not hurt me that way, girl. Ye’ll not hurt me at all, no matter what ye does.’
Then leaning close, he hissed his parting words directly into her face, so close that flecks of spittle spattered her cheeks. ‘If ye don’t want Bella to start having problems with keeping those good looks of hers, ye’ll do as yer told.’ The stink of tobacco and whiskey from his breath remained with her long after he’d strolled away, hands in pockets, whistling softly.
‘How could you have been so daft as to go out with Billy Quinn?’ Bella was locking the clinic doors when Jinnie burst down the stairs like a tornedo.
She was tired and ready to call it a day. The last thing she wanted right now was an argument with Jinnie. Sighing with resignation, she unlocked the door and the two girls went back inside so that Jinnie could unleash the torrent of rage boiling up in her without entertaining all the customers in the shop below.
‘Who told you I’d been out with Billy Quinn?’
‘He did of course. And took great pleasure in so doing.’
‘You know him well, do you?’
‘That’s rich, that is. Know him well? I’ll say I bleedin’ know him well, and if you’ve any sense you’ll make it your business not to.’
Bella put down her bag and considered her little protégé with interest. Was this an example of jealousy? It looked very like it. ‘I don’t think it’s quite fair for you to come storming in here preaching on who I should see and who I shouldn’t. I’ll not have it. Are you as friendly with Billy Quinn as you are with Len Jackson? Oh, don’t look surprised, I’ve heard about your little dinner time get togethers, though I warrant Edward hasn’t. But then you make a habit of keeping secrets from Edward, don’t you Jinnie?’
‘What d’you mean by that?’ The shocked expression in Jinnie’s face revealed she’d been thrown momentarily off her stride at hearing Bella knew about what she’d thought to be secret meetings.
‘I think you know what I’m referring to. You’ve agreed to marry Edward when you’re eighteen and yet still you haven’t told him that you may not be able to give him children. Don’t you think that’s rather unfair?’
Jinnie had the grace to flush, though whether from anger, embarrassment or guilt wasn’t clear. ‘It weren’t me what fabricated that tale about the runaway horse.’
Bella looked sheepish. ‘No, that was my fault entirely, I admit it. Done from the best of motives. Would you like me to explain it all to him? I don’t mind.’
Jinnie flew across the room, fists clenched as if she were coming out fighting in a round of boxing. ‘Don’t try to twist it all round. I’ve not come here to talk about me. I can sort out me own problems. I’ve come to warn you off Billy Quinn. He’s a dangerous man to take up with.’
Bella could feel her own anger growing. She’d certainly no intention of being dictated to by a young girl who was apparently cheating on her fiancé, Bella’s own brother. ‘Quite frankly, I don’t consider it any of your business who I choose to take up with. Perhaps Mother was right and you really are a trollop with a man for every day of the week.’ It was an unkind remark, unworthy of her, but somehow the fire that Billy Quinn had lit in her that night couldn’t easily be extinguished.
Jinnie regarded Bella for a long moment in stunned silence. ‘So, its gloves off, is it? Right, if it’s fighting talk you want, I’ll give it to you.’ She explained then, in graphic and unstinting detail, how it was that she’d come to know Billy Quinn. She was utterly remorseless in the telling of her tale, leaving Bella white-faced and clinging to the edge of the table by the end of it.
‘I don’t believe a word of this. He wouldn’t do all of that - not - not to a child, and that’s all you were when he met you, no more than a child.’
‘I was twelve. Children grow up fast round here. I certainly did. They start half time at the mill at thirteen ‘cause its summat to be a weaver. Top dogs, they are. Not that you’d understand but slum scum like me don’t get taken on at t’mill. Not a bookie’s girl. Bottom of the heap, that’s where they put me, along with beggars, petty thieves and harlots. Even with the decent start you’ve given me, I’ve still had to fight me way in. They didn’t talk to me fer weeks. Back then, Billy Quinn made sure I was unemployable. That way he kept a better hold on me.’
Bella’s weakened knees had driven her to sink into a chair but still she couldn’t find it in her to equate the picture of the man Jinnie painted, to the one she knew. He’d twice come to her aid, been entirely polite and considerate and used no foul language. He could have done with her what he willed yet he’d behaved like a gentleman and stopped, for all he’d admitted he could hardly keep his hands off her. How could they possibly be one and the same? But then she didn’t want to believe it. It was far too dreadful, too shaming. Her own behaviour in particular. Bella could find no words to express what she felt.
‘He hasn’t - hasn’t done owt serious to thee, has he?’ Jinnie’s anger seemed to run out of steam as, watching these thoughts flit across her friend’s face, she grew suddenly anxious.