Lovers Meeting (11 page)

‘I was there just after it happened, Mr Langley. I saw it, then everything went black. I think I must have been wandering the streets until I found myself in Nelson Square.’ She felt tears coming again.

William Langley said, ‘I understand. I want you to care for Charlotte. Will you do that for me, please?’

‘Oh, aye, Mr Langley.’ Rhoda took Charlotte from him and held the orphaned child to her breast. ‘I’ll look after the bairn.’ And she left him to his grief.

In Lisbon, Tom Collingwood seized the two seamen who were grappling on the fo’c’sle and parted them. He threw one to his left and the other to his right. Both of them sprawled on the deck, bloodstained, panting and cursing. Tom rasped, ‘I’ll not have this on any ship of mine! We’ve got steam up and we’re on the point of sailing! Any more trouble and I’ll put that man ashore and leave him here to rot!’

They knew him, as did many another seamen now, to be a fair man but one who meant every word he said. They silently went back to work. Then, as Tom strode aft to the bridge of his ship, the second mate came hurrying. ‘Cable for you, Captain.’ Tom read it and the mate saw shock in his face and asked, ‘Bad news?’

‘Aye.’ The cable was from William, informing Tom that James and Maria had been killed by a lorry. Tom could guess at the old man’s grief. ‘The sooner we get home, the better.’

There was an inquest in Monkwearmouth but the few bystanders who had witnessed the incident had done so from a distance. They did not recognise the man who had stolen the lorry and their description – tall, dark and with a moustache – could have applied to hundreds of men in the area. The verdict was manslaughter by person or persons unknown.

After the funeral William told himself through his heartbreak that his grandchild Charlotte was his responsibility now. Her mother’s people in Argentina had not wanted her to marry an Englishman and had never communicated with her after her marriage. William resolved to do his best for Charlotte, to bring her up as her parents would have wished. First of all, Maria had said she wanted a nurse for the child and that she would advertise in the
Sunderland Daily Echo
. He needed a housekeeper now, too. Someone to take the place of Maria? No one could do that. But he would advertise.

10

September 1908

‘And who the hell are you?’ Hubert Smurthwaite was close on forty years old, bulky and with oiled hair plastered to his skull. His mother had gleefully announced that he would be arriving. The cabman who brought him the two miles from Sunderland station carried Hubert’s case into the hall, collected his fare and sniffed at a small tip. As the cab rolled away behind its tired horse, Hubert tossed his light overcoat at Josie. ‘New, aren’t yer?’

‘Josie Miller, sir. Yes, sir,’ she answered.

Smurthwaite’s little eyes roamed over her, looking through the neat grey dress and seeing the body beneath – and the gold band on her finger. ‘You’re married, then.’

‘Widowed, sir.’

‘You’ll know all about it, then,’ Smurthwaite leered. But at that point he saw his mother emerge from the drawing room and he shoved past Josie to go to her. ‘Mummy! I’m so pleased to see you! Let’s have some tea.’ And he called over his shoulder, ‘You fetch it!’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Josie. She shook out the balled overcoat and as she did so a leather card-case fell from its folds. It lay open, and as Josie stooped to pick it up she saw that one of the cards, the little rectangles of printed pasteboard a gentleman used to introduce himself, had slipped out. The name on the card was ‘Commander H. Sackville, RN’. Josie assumed the card had come from an acquaintance of Hubert’s and replaced card and case in the inside pocket of the overcoat.

She was not to know that, in Nice, a middle-aged Frenchwoman was searching for Commander Hubert Sackville, who spoke French like a native and had promised to marry her. On the strength of that she had lent him the dowry she had saved, to buy a house for them, as he would not come into his inheritance for a month or so. Hubert had invested the money in the casino at Monte Carlo.

Josie hung up the coat and saw that her hands were shaking – with anger. But she told herself that Hubert was a bag of wind and all talk and she must not allow herself to be upset. Her hands were steady when she took the tea into the drawing room.

‘—so if you could let me have a few quid—’ Hubert broke off as Josie entered with the tray. He snapped at her, ‘Put it down there,’ and nodded at the small table near the chesterfield where he and his mother sat. Josie set down the tray, conscious that he was watching her. He ordered, ‘And get out.’ Josie obeyed.

She could sum up Hubert now. He was begging money from his mother and when he got it he would go. That would be good riddance. Josie went on with her duties, encouraged. She was still doing most of Daisy’s work but coping with it. Her only recreation was to walk in the lanes around the house. Sunderland was two miles away and neither omnibus nor train connected the house to it. That did not matter because Josie had no desire to visit Sunderland, let alone Monkwearmouth where lived the giant. By the time the Smurthwaite household moved back to London in May for the summer ‘season’, she would have saved more money and be ready to seek another position. She had precious little saved now.

Hubert got some money from his mother but he did not leave. She gave him too little for him to do so because she wanted him at home for a while to keep her company. Hubert grumbled but stayed. For the next three days he drank through the morning, slept through the afternoon and started on the brandy before dinner. When Josie passed him during his waking moments, he watched her.

On the fourth morning Josie was making his mother’s bed and thought she was alone on the upper floor when he stole up behind her and put his arms around her. Josie gasped with shock and flailed her arms as she tried to break free. Her elbow connected with Hubert’s nose and she felt the jar painfully. A vase went flying from the bedside table and smashed. Hubert yelped, released her and clapped his hand to his nose as it began to bleed. Josie ran out and down to the kitchen.

She expected the summons, which came within minutes. Mrs Smurthwaite was judge while Hubert, a bloodstained handkerchief still held in one hand, was prosecutor. ‘I told her she’d not made your bed properly and she told me to go to hell. Then she threw the vase into my face and ran off.’ He pointed to the chunks of pottery that were all that was left of the vase.

Mrs Smurthwaite sucked in a hissing breath of disapproval and eyed Josie. ‘Well, what have you to say?’

‘It’s not true, ma’am. I was making your bed and Mr Hubert came up behind me and—’

‘How dare you!’ Mrs Smurthwaite cut in. ‘How dare you accuse my son!’

‘She’s a liar as well as a lunatic,’ Hubert put in. ‘Or maybe she’s drunk. We seem to be getting through a lot of whisky.’

‘I’ve a mind to call the police.’ Mrs Smurthwaite glared at Josie.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ Hubert advised. ‘After all, she’s a widow. We don’t want to be too hard on her. And we haven’t got a witness so it would be my word against hers.’ His eyes, gleaming and cunning, were fixed on Josie.

‘They would believe a gentleman, of course,’ said his mother indignantly.

‘Of course,’ Hubert agreed, ‘but it’s the laws of evidence, Mother.’

‘I see,’ she said vaguely, but not seeing at all. Josie saw only too well. If she complained to the police it would be her word against Hubert’s. She did not have a witness, either.

Mrs Smurthwaite said, ‘Then she’ll just have to go. Today – now. I won’t have her under my roof a moment longer.’ And to Josie: ‘You realise you are very lucky my son has decided not to press charges. I’ll give you a week’s pay and you can pack your things and go. Off with you.’ She waved her hand in dismissal.

Josie was ready to weep, but not in front of Hubert. She wanted to fight her case but knew that if she tried she would be forcibly ejected. Hubert would like the chance to do it. So she kept her head high, with the proud lift to it she had always had. She looked down and through Hubert and his mother, turned her back on them and walked away. She told herself she would have had to have left anyway, knew she could not have gone on living under the same roof as Hubert.

A carter come from Sunderland called at the house every day to sell fresh vegetables. An hour later he lifted Josie’s portmanteau on to his cart and climbed up on to his seat. Josie was about to join him when Hubert came out of the house and gloated: ‘I hope this has taught you a lesson, my girl.’

‘I am not your girl,’ replied Josie. ‘And you are not a gentleman. You are a bully and weak. You live off your mother and when she dies the money will run through your fingers and you will die in poverty and alone. Or you will steal and go to jail and die there.’

Hubert stared at her as if struck as she climbed up to join the carter on his seat. Josie’s words planted in him an awful fear. He tried to laugh and said, ‘Rubbish!’

Josie said only, calmly and with certitude, ‘We will see.’

Hubert’s laughter died. The carter cracked his whip and the cart rolled away down the drive. Hubert shouted after them shrilly, ‘Witch!’

The carter glanced sidewise at Josie uneasily. ‘How do you know what you told him?’

Josie grinned at him, feeling better for a while. ‘I’m not a witch! I just told him what he is and what may well happen because of what he is.’

Now the carter grinned with her, relieved. ‘You certainly put the wind up him.’ And they laughed together.

Josie kept on a cheerful face during the long drive into the town, despite her worries. And despite her approaching Monkwearmouth, the home of the Langleys – and William in particular. She saw the smoke hanging over the river where the ships were built and the tall cranes rising stilt-like above the houses. That stirred memories. Then, as the sun dipped towards the inland horizon, a fog swept in from the cold grey sea. Josie shivered at the chill of it as it lay damply on her.

They entered the town by the Newcastle road and as they passed a public house called the Wheatsheaf the carter said, ‘My stable is just at the back o’ here, but I’ll take you on to Monkwearmouth station. You can get a train there and change at the central station for Durham and London.’ A minute or two later he set her down outside the station with its Grecian columns, but he shook his grey head over her. ‘You’ve a lang way to gan, bonny lass.’ Then he drove away.

Josie was left alone in the mist and the gathering dusk and the railway smell of smoke and steam.

‘D’you have the foreclosure papers?’ Reuben Garbutt barked the question as he strode into Packer’s office in Sunderland and slammed the door shut behind him. He would wait no longer. He had struck the Langleys a terrible blow, now he would deliver another that would destroy them. He spent some time with the solicitor and finally arrived at the Langley house in the evening, walking up the carriage drive.

William had taken to dining early because the old cook had given in her notice, saying she ‘couldn’t cope no more’, and the girl had left to take a job in a shop. There was still neither housekeeper nor nurse. William had put an advertisement in the
Sunderland Daily Echo
a dozen times and seen a dozen or more applicants but he had turned them all away. None of them met his exacting standards, particularly for the care of his granddaughter. So Rhoda Wilks was producing makeshift meals with much grumbling. She had told all of this to Garbutt in the frequent letters she wrote to him.

‘Lord! What are you doing here?’ Rhoda, in grubby white apron and cap, opened the front door to Garbutt and gaped when she saw him standing at the head of the steps. The thick fog that had drifted in from the sea in the late afternoon hung around the house, deepening the darkness, grey, damp and smelling of coal smoke. Behind Garbutt lay the garden inside its ornamental iron railings in the middle of the square. Rhoda could only see it was there by the fuzzy yellow bowls of the gas lamps set at its corners. The square was deserted but it could have held a hundred strollers and they would not have been seen.

‘I told you I’d come for you.’ Garbutt saw her surprise and grinned at her. ‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’

Rhoda glanced nervously back along the hall, then took a pace out on to the steps, pulling the door to behind her. She said, voice lowered, ‘He’ll hear you! He’s just finished his dinner and he’s having a glass o’ whisky.’

‘It’s him I want to see.’ Garbutt reached past her to set his hand on the door, but he, too, spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘You don’t need to show me in. I’ll introduce myself.’ He shoved the door open and herded Rhoda into the hall ahead of him. ‘You pack your duds. You’re coming away with me.’

Rhoda whispered, incredulous but happy, ‘
Now
?’

‘In about ten minutes. That’s all it will take me to finish him.’

Rhoda paused at that, one foot on the stairs. ‘What d’you mean? What are you going to do?’

‘None o’ your business. I’m settling a score. I’ve waited and schemed for twenty years to finish off the Langleys and now I’m going to do it. Get on with you!’ And he gave her a shove to start her up the stairs. ‘Don’t keep me waiting.’ Their whispers scurried around the hall and then ceased, were replaced by the swift, repeated creaking as Rhoda climbed the stairs.

Garbutt crossed the hall to the dining room, opened its door and walked in. It was a long room with pictures of ships built in the Langley yard on the walls. The curtains were drawn and light came from a gas chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. The long polished table was bare, its cloth drawn, and at its head sat William Langley. Garbutt saw that his face was thin and haggard now, his hair grey. He peered at Garbutt and asked, puzzled, ‘Who are you?’ He started to rise.

‘Please! Don’t get up.’ Garbutt advanced into the room, smiling. ‘I am from the Shipbuilders’ Finance Company – in fact, I
am
the Shipbuilders’ Finance Company. We’ve lent you quite a lot of money in the past.’

William still stood. ‘Yes, of course. I wonder why Rhoda didn’t announce you? Never mind. What can I do for you, Mr …?’ He held out his hand and waited.