Forever Yours (7 page)

His teeth ground together, his thick black brows meeting as he turned abruptly and began to walk along Witton Street towards Fulforth Wood.

Heath hadn’t responded to her as a man would to his sweetheart, he reasoned in the next moment. There had been no meeting of lips, nothing intimate. He had merely hugged her and then his mother in much the same way before other family members had hidden the two from his sight. When the group which had included the brother and his wife and bairns had walked away, the girl had been holding Heath’s mother’s arm, and if his memory wasn’t playing tricks there had been another lass with Heath. His frown deepened. Aye, he was sure there had been, although he had been so taken up with Hannah’s ghost that he hadn’t paid too much attention to anyone else.

He continued to mull the matter over in his mind until he reached the cottage, and by then he had come to a decision. He’d make it his business to find out what was what over the next day or two because – excitement surged again, filling his body and causing his breathing to quicken – he intended to have Hannah’s daughter as, by rights, he should have had the mother. And if Heath, or anyone else for that matter, got in his way they would be dealt with. He’d been given a second chance. He knew it.

Polly would have to go.
The thought stilled his hand on the latch of the front door. But only for a moment.

There were ways and means, he told himself grimly. But first he needed to see how the land lay, and to do that he would need to proceed carefully. But he could be patient when necessary. That was one of the things the fools who had under-estimated him in the past didn’t understand. He was cleverer than all of them put together. That was why they scratched a living in filth and muck under the ground like the ignorant animals they were, and he lived in comfort and prosperity.

Pushing open the heavy oak door he walked into the cottage. The appetising aroma of his dinner vied with the smell of beeswax from the many items of fine furniture he insisted were polished every day. Polly appeared in the kitchen doorway with his slippers in her hands. Her voice matched her thin frame, mousy hair and nondescript features. Dully, she said, ‘The water’s hot and I’ll bring it straight up.Your clothes are laid out on the bed.’ It was his custom to wash his face and hands on returning home and change into a clean shirt and his smoking jacket.

Kneeling in front of him she took off his boots and he stepped into his slippers. He did not thank her for her ministrations but walked to the stairs, and behind him he heard her scurry into the kitchen. Her fear of him pleased Vincent; in fact, it was the basis of their relationship. When he’d brought Polly to the cottage from the workhouse twelve years ago, ostensibly to care for his mother who was ailing and see to the house, he’d chosen a girl he could easily bend to his will. His mother had died slowly and painfully, since the poison he’d used had to be given in small quantities to remain undetected, and by the time she’d passed away Polly wouldn’t so much as breathe unless he gave the word. Orphaned and placed in the workhouse as a baby she had been trained not to think for herself since a child but to obey unquestioningly, and he had taken full advantage of this.

He had first taken her on the evening of the day of his mother’s funeral, and once he had found he could subjugate her as he wished, had given free rein to the strong unnatural desires he’d previously kept for the women in the brothel he’d frequented. The indignities he heaped upon her were never spoken about between them; in fact, he rarely spoke to her at all. She did not – and never had – receive a wage; her reward for her services as his ‘housekeeper’ were a roof over her head and being fed and clothed.

The bedroom was as warm as toast when he opened the door, the fire in the small black-leaded grate heaped high with glowing red coals. Every item of furniture in the room was of superior quality, from the James I carved oak tester-bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers, to the pair of leather armchairs with padded arms which stood either side of the window with an oak wash-stand between them. Anyone entering the room could have been forgiven for thinking it was that of a gentleman, and one of some standing to boot.

Once Polly had entered with the water and left again,Vincent did not immediately begin his toilette. After taking off his greatcoat he walked across to the beautifully wrought cheval mirror in a corner of the room, standing and surveying his reflection for more than a minute. He was thirty-four years of age and he wasn’t an unattractive-looking man. His hair was still thick and strong, and although the alcohol he consumed nightly was beginning to show in his heightened complexion, his body still hadn’t turned to fat. He earned a great deal of money and furthermore he’d decked this place out like a palace. Any lass from the village should consider herself fortunate if he asked for her in wedlock.
Wedlock.

The word caused his heart to thud like a piston, the strength of it causing him to lift a hand to his chest. He continued to stand for a few moments more before beginning to undress, and he found his hands were shaking as he undid the buttons of his white linen shirt.

 

A mile or so away in the house in Cross Streets Constance was already in bed. When they had returned from the colliery she’d pleaded a headache after forcing down a few mouthfuls of her grandma’s mutton broth, but the ache wasn’t in her head. It was in her heart.

She lay curled under the faded blankets, the stone hot-water bottle comforting on her cold feet as she reviewed the events of what had been the worst day of her life.

When news of the disaster had broken that morning, she and her grandma had accompanied her granda to the pit gates. Art Gray had been on the late shift so he hadn’t been caught in the fall, but being an experienced rescue worker he’d known he’d be needed. She and her grandma, along with most of the village, had gone to find out how bad the accident was, and once her worst fear had been confirmed and she knew Matt was one of the trapped men, she’d remained at the pit gates with the other folk waiting for news of loved ones. Neighbours had brought bowls of hot broth and warm drinks, but the cold had eaten into bone and sinew; she didn’t think she’d ever be warm again.

Tilly hadn’t joined them until she’d finished work at the post office, but once there had made her presence felt. Listening to her, you’d have thought she and Matt were betrothed at least. Mind, it was Tilly Matt had picked up in his arms and kissed . . .

The memory brought forth a little moan, quickly stifled even though her grandparents couldn’t hear from down in the kitchen.

She shouldn’t have broken through the crowd and run to Matt like that. When she thought about it now it made her face burn with embarrassment, but at the time wild horses couldn’t have prevented her. Had he thought her forward? And what had his mam and the rest of them thought? Tilly, especially.

Tilly knew how she felt about Matt. This time she didn’t moan out loud but buried her face in her lumpy flock pillow. She’d seen the knowledge in Tilly’s face today, and if looks could kill she’d be six foot under right at this minute. All her efforts to steer clear of them when she knew they’d be together in case she gave herself away had come to naught. The Heaths’ house had always been her second home, but now everything had changed. She couldn’t bear it, she
couldn’t
. What was she going to do? What
could
she do?

It was another two hours before she heard her grandparents come upstairs, and she was still wide awake. Her grandma put her head round the door, saying softly, ‘Constance, lass?’ but when she pretended to be asleep the door was closed and she was alone.

As was her custom, she’d cocooned herself under the blankets in the icy room so only her nose was exposed to the air, but after half an hour, when she’d judged her grandparents would be asleep, she crept out of bed, pulling her old faded dressing-gown over the flannelette nightdress her grandmother had made her. Without making a sound she went down the stairs to the kitchen, feeling her way in the blackness.

The kitchen was lovely and warm. The fire in the range was banked down for the night with damp slack, but Constance knew her grandma would soon have it blazing again come morning. The fire was kept going day and night. The only time it was ever allowed to go out was before the chimney sweep called. Her grandma could sort out the cinders, take out the ash, clean and blacken the range and all without burning so much as the tip of a finger. The range fire, and the huge iron oven it heated, was the pivot of the home, and Constance had grown up thinking it was the best place in the world to be. Like her granda always said, a good fire kept body and soul together no matter what else was happening around you.

Although she didn’t feel like that tonight.

Constance plumped down in her granda’s armchair at the side of the range, tucking her feet under her. Looking into the muted glow of the fire, she soaked up the warmth as the tears ran unchecked down her face.

After seeing Matt with Tilly today, she knew she had to face the fact that her grandma was right. Matt was going to ask for Tilly sooner or later – probably sooner, the way he’d kissed her. And she would be expected to be glad for the pair of them, to dance at their wedding and say what a bonny bride Tilly was. And in due course, when Tilly’s belly swelled with Matt’s bairn, she’d have to bill and coo over the baby when it was born. And that bairn would be the first of many; you only had to look at Tilly to see she’d have them like shelling peas, as her grandma said.

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she sniffed a few times. If only she could get away, leave Sacriston for good, or at least for a number of years, but her grandma would never countenance her going. In her class at school there had been eight of them who’d turned thirteen before Christmas. The five boys had gone straight down the pit, but Betsy Kirby and Rose McHaffie had gone into service at big houses miles away – Betsy as a kitchenmaid and Rose at a smaller establishment as the under-housemaid. There were no jobs in the village for girls; securing a position like Tilly had done in the post office was rare, and almost inevitably girls left their homes for a life in service, returning on their half-day or day off once a month if they were near enough to make the journey. When she had mentioned what Betsy and Rose were doing, her grandma had first told her she thought she’d got a job lined up for her helping out in the kitchen at the Robin Hood Inn in Durham Street. When that hadn’t materialised her grandma had gone to see her teacher, Miss Newton, and since Christmas she’d been helping with the little ones. She didn’t get paid for this, but her grandma insisted that if she was patient, a job of some kind would come up in the village eventually. But she didn’t think her grandma believed that, any more than she and her granda did.

Constance liked helping in the infants’ class. She’d found she could manage even the naughtiest children like the Finnigan twins, but she couldn’t do it for ever. She didn’t
want
to do it for ever: it was only right she earned her own living.

She recalled the superior little smile which had played round Tilly’s mouth at Christmas when the other girl had heard what she was doing, and, like then, she squirmed with humiliation. She was as bright as Tilly any day – brighter, in fact – but she didn’t want to make her grandma sad. And her grandma would be sad if she left Sacriston. She had understood that already, even before her granda had had a little word in her ear. Besides, what reason could she give for wanting to go? Not the true one; she’d rather die than admit to that.

It was hopeless. Staring into the red glow underneath the mountain of damp coaldust she looked into a future stretching away in endless days and nights of misery. She wanted to shout and scream against it, to bang her fists on the floor and kick with her heels like the Finnigan twins did in one of their tantrums. And scratch Tilly Johnson’s eyes out.

A little whisper came unbidden in the back of her mind. It reminded her how she’d prayed that day. She had promised God that if He spared Matt, if He allowed him to walk unscathed from the pit and feel sunlight and fresh air on his skin again, to see the blue sky and hear the birds sing, she would be content for the rest of her life, even if he loved Tilly and not her. And she had meant it, she had, but when he had kissed Tilly like that . . .

A bargain is a bargain.
The whisper came again, stronger. Constance wrinkled her face against it, even as she knew she was fighting a losing battle. All the dreams she’d had, everything good and exciting about the future had been tied up with Matt before Tilly had come along. She had never imagined a life without him at its centre. She had been stupid, so stupid – no wonder he still saw her as a silly little bairn. But she wasn’t a bairn. Not any more. Not after today, for sure.

She sat up straighter, her spine stiffening and her mouth pulled tight. And it was only bairns who cried for the moon. She had to get on with things and not wear her heart on her sleeve, not in front of her grandma or anyone else. Today had shown her clearer than anything else what was going to happen, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. He would ask for Tilly and she would say yes. And in one way Constance hoped it would be soon, because this waiting for it to happen was unbearable.

Constance was spared hearing the news of Matt and Tilly’s betrothal from the happy couple themselves. Having gone down with a bad cold the day after the pit accident she had the perfect excuse to stay home the following Saturday afternoon, but when her grandma returned from the Heaths’ in a state of high excitement, she knew immediately what had happened.

Her granda had been snoozing in his chair in front of the fire and she’d been working away on the clippy mat she and her grandma were making, the box of bits of old clean rags at her elbow on the kitchen table. Once the mat was finished it would replace the one in front of the range and the old one would be taken upstairs to one of the bedrooms. This one had lovely coloured patterns in it and would brighten up the kitchen no end, but she wasn’t thinking of the clippy mat when she looked at her grandma.