Mary's Child (22 page)

The cook grinned and offered, ‘Jack! A kipper or a sausage?’

He grimaced; ‘Neither!’ He called after Chrissie as she tap-tapped back into the bar, ‘I’d like a pie, Chrissie, please, if you have one!’

‘Two minutes!’

She had given him his pie and was serving in the bar when the policeman came in. He was a big man in his thirties, with the three stripes of a sergeant on his sleeve. He stood just inside the door for a few seconds, his eyes searching the room, then he made his way to the bar, the crowd parting to let him through. He took off his helmet and asked Chrissie, ‘Will you tell Lance I’d like a word with him, please?’

‘Right away.’ She ran up the stairs to the kitchen where Lance sat reading the newspaper and Florence embroidered a dress. Chrissie peeped at it. ‘I like that!’ Then as Florence smiled up at her, Chrissie told Lance Morgan, ‘Sergeant Burlinson’s in the bar and says he’d like to have a word with you.’

Lance tossed the paper aside. Chrissie saw it was open at the page holding advertisements for property and he had marked some places in pencil. He said, ‘I wonder what he wants?’ He kicked off his slippers and reached for his boots standing by the fender. ‘Tell him I’ll be down.’

Chrissie was washing glasses in the sink below the bar when he came to stand near her and ask the sergeant, ‘What’s the trouble?’

Burlinson indicated with a sideways glance: ‘The flash lad in the corner, the one with the velvet collar. Do you know him?’

Lance Morgan’s eyes followed that glance and he shook his head. He turned to Chrissie but she said, ‘No, neither me nor Billy have seen him in here before.’

Burlinson nodded. ‘He’s a local lad, not very old but he’s old enough in sin. He’s been down south for a long time but now he’s shifted back up here. Maybe because it got too hot for him down there. His name is Vic Parnaby.’

Chrissie stared across the bar at the group in the corner. Victor Parnaby! The boy who had made her life a misery for a week or so when she first went to live with Daniel and Bessie Milburn, the boy Frank Ward had beaten. She recognised the boy in the man now.

But the sergeant was going on: ‘His solicitor got him off. He burgled a house and got away with jewellery worth fifty quid. Two witnesses saw him leaving the place and identified him later. But then Mr  Forthrop got up and said, “This man was in my office at that time, taking legal advice.” So he was acquitted.’

Chrissie saw Vic Parnaby look over towards the bar. He saw the sergeant was watching him and his grin was cockily self-conscious. But then his eyes fell and he shifted uneasily.

Burlinson said, ‘Maybe he didn’t do it. But we know what he’s been up to in London and thereabouts and we don’t want him plying his trade up here.’

Lance asked, ‘What trade would that be?’

Burlinson sniffed. ‘Anything that will turn a dishonest penny. He’s been at it since before he left school, but he’s slippery as an eel – only been convicted on petty charges and got off with a month or so inside. Other things, like – well, he courted this girl in London, told her he was working as a clerk while waiting for his inheritance.’ The sergeant let out a bark of sardonic laughter. ‘Inheritance! Anyway, he said it was due any time. Couldn’t give any proof because all the papers were in a safe deposit box up here. He persuaded this lass to draw her money out o’ the bank to elope with him. First night, while she was asleep, he made off with the cash.’

Lance Morgan said with distaste, ‘What did he get for that?’

The sergeant said grimly, ‘Nothing. The girl and her father wouldn’t bring charges because it might damage her reputation.’ He went on, ‘So I suggest you keep an eye on him. We will.’

Now Parnaby drained his glass, stood up and made for the door.

The sergeant put on his helmet and said, ‘Goodnight, Lance, Chrissie.’ He followed Parnaby out into the night.

Sylvia Forthrop wandered into the hall as her husband was shedding his overcoat and greeted him: ‘Did you have a busy day, dear? I’ve been prostrate with the most awful migraine.’

Max Forthrop handed the coat to a bored and languid Della Roberts. ‘A profitable one, but busy, I’ve brought some work home. I’ll be sitting up late tonight.’ Della’s lips twitched. Forthrop felt in the right-hand pocket of his jacket, found the wad of pound notes he had taken from Victor Parnaby and the small package. ‘I’ve a present for you.’ He glanced at Della. She faced him, with her back to Sylvia, and smirked.

Sylvia brightened briefly. ‘Oh, how nice. What is it?’

Forthrop pulled another package from his left-hand pocket and gave it to Sylvia. She took it and dismissed the maid: ‘That will be all, Della.’ She pursed her lips, disapproving, as Della went off with a hip-swivelling walk. But then Sylvia opened the little package and exclaimed with delight, ‘They’re lovely!’ She took the rings from her ears and replaced them with the ones in the box. ‘There!’ She admired herself in the glass on the wall.

Forthrop said, ‘I’m glad you like them.’

She eyed him anxiously. ‘Did they cost you a lot of money?’

‘No more than you deserve, my love.’ A friend of Victor Parnaby had, for a small sum, altered them for him so the original owner would not recognise them.

Sylvia glanced along the hall to ensure none of the servants was listening, then complained, ‘That girl is not satisfactory. Emily has grumbled to me on several occasions, saying Della doesn’t do her share of the work. I’ve noticed that she is very lackadaisical. And Emily says she is always late starting in the morning.’

Forthrop suggested, ‘Maybe you should have a word with her.’ Then he added cunningly, ‘We don’t want to sack her, because it’s a devil of a job finding servants these days, with endless interviews and checking references.’ He knew that would deter Sylvia, who was always ready to take the easy way out.

She sighed and yielded, ‘I’m sure you’re right, dear. I’ll speak to her, some day when I don’t have one of these frightful headaches.’

Max Forthrop thought, Damn the whingeing bitch! But he told himself there was still the package in his right-hand pocket for Della and she would be suitably grateful.

The time was almost eleven, close to closing, and Chrissie darted about the sitting-room of the Frigate, collecting empty glasses. The young men were still gathered about the fire. One of them, Bob Pickering, a pink-cheeked bank clerk, was saying, ‘He’s my mother’s brother and he made a pot of money in Birmingham but he’s going to retire to a house up here. He wants somewhere out in the country, not too big and not too expensive—’

Somebody said, ‘Tightwad!’ and the others laughed.

Bob protested, ‘No! He isn’t! It’s just that he wants peace and quiet, so it has to be right out in the country, and he’s going to alter it to the way he wants it. So if any of you hear of a place  . . .’

Luke Arkenstall shook his head. ‘I don’t think our firm will be able to help. We always seem to act for buyers in the town.’

Jack suggested with false innocence, ‘What about a houseboat? We could build him one of those in the yard. He could anchor it off the pier and he wouldn’t find many people knocking at his door out there.’

More laughter and then the voice of Lance Morgan lifted: ‘Time, gentlemen, please!’ Ten minutes later he was bawling at the last dozen or so drinkers scattered around bar and sitting-room, ‘It’s a hell of a job to get you in and a hell of a job to get you
out
! Time, gentlemen,
please
!’

Chrissie washed the last of two score glasses and set it upturned with the ranks of others to drain. She wiped her slim hands on a towel and dashed through to the sitting-room to collect what glasses remained there. It was empty but for Jack Ballantyne, wide shouldered and long legged, pulling on his overcoat.

He said, ‘Hold on a minute.’

Chrissie halted and asked, ‘Yes?’ She was aware of him hanging over her as he stood between her and the light, his blue eyes on her.

He said, ‘Do you remember me?’ And when he saw her hesitate he prompted, ‘You helped me a few years ago when three roughs tried to knock me about. You were on your cart and you laid into them with your whip.’ He grinned at her. ‘I seem to recall that I wasn’t too grateful at the time. You can put that down to youth.’

Chrissie laughed. ‘That’s all right.’ She hesitated again, then said, ‘I remember you from a bit before that.’

‘Oh?’ Jack’s brows came down. ‘I don’t—’

‘When you talked me into sneaking some food out of your kitchen. You said it wasn’t stealing but me mam thought different.’

Jack put a finger to his lips then pointed it at her. ‘That’s right!
Now
I remember. I’d crept out of bed. We sat in the tree and watched them waltzing in the long room.’

They were both smiling now, at ease, but then he asked, ‘How was it that you were there?’

Chrissie answered, ‘Me mam was waiting on.’ She stopped, because that reminded her that she was a servant and he was one of the class that employed them. Forthrop’s class. She remembered Mary Carter’s warning: ‘Have nothing to do with that sort. They use you and toss you away.’ Like Chrissie’s own mother. And this was Jack Ballantyne, who had a reputation for attracting the girls.

Chrissie, unsmiling now, said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr  Ballantyne, I’ve got work to do.’ She whisked past him breathlessly with a flutter of skirts and reached up for glasses on the mantelpiece over the fire. Jack blinked at this sudden change in her and wondered what he had said to bring it about. He strode forward to ask as Chrissie stepped back again, straight into him. He put his hands on her waist to steady her and himself.

Chrissie reacted instantly, instinctively, kicking out with one foot that raked down his shin and stamped on his toes, punching back with her elbows into his middle. He gasped from the pain and shock of the attack. Chrissie tore away from him and scurried off into the bar with only one backward glance. She saw that he was staring after her, mouth open as if bewildered, or to call her back. Then she was stooped over the sink again, head bent to hide her face, knowing she was flushed and not wanting to explain.

No one noticed, no one questioned her. She worked furiously to clean the bar and sitting-room so they would be ready for opening at six in the morning. But when she lay in her bed that night she could not sleep. She relived the incident, arguing that she had been justified in resisting the young man’s attempt to ‘take advantage’. But then she recalled his face, and doubted. Maybe it had been an accident and she had just stepped back into him.

She was not a fool, was aware of the way the men looked at her sometimes, including Jack Ballantyne. But he had not touched her before. Had he intended to this time? Now she thought not. She would have to apologise. It would be embarrassing but she would have to do it. So, with her mind made up, she slept.

Jack Ballantyne went to bed still outraged. The girl had acted as if he had tried to be ‘familiar’, when he was only trying to save himself and her from falling . . . He stopped there. He had not intended to put his arm around the girl’s waist
at that moment
, although how often had he thought . . .? But he had
not
meant to. So he would have an apology out of her. In his anger he did not consider that if he complained to her employer then the girl might lose her job.

A few days later he left with his grandfather for Germany and Lance Morgan told Chrissie, ‘You’ll be finished here in a week or two.’

It was close to Christmas.

Chapter 14

February 1911

In fact it was more than a month before Florence Morgan wailed, ‘For God’s sake, Lance! No wonder it’s called the Halfway House! It’s in the middle of nowhere!’ And Lance Morgan had sold the Frigate to buy it.

They drove out to it on a bitterly cold morning early in February. Lance, Florence, the two children and Chrissie, all jammed into the pony-drawn trap that Lance had bought, huddled together under rugs for warmth. Dinsdale Arkley was not with them. He had told Lance Morgan, ‘I’m not going out into the wilds. I’ll find another job here in the town.’

Lance reined in the pony, and its breath, like theirs, steamed on the air. The Halfway House lay back a score of yards from the Sunderland to Newcastle road, behind a garden run wild. Beyond the long, uncut grass of the lawn and the dead flowers on their wilted stalks, the house stood like a tombstone.

Alone.

Chrissie stared at it in dismay. They had left the last houses a good half-mile behind them. There was no other building to be seen, though smoke, marking farmhouses, trailed on the wind in two or three places in the distance. Between was the green and brown checker-board pattern of ploughed fields and hedges.

Florence pointed ahead up the road and asked, ‘What’s up there?’

Lance answered, ‘The village.’

‘How far away is it?’

‘About a mile.’

Florence took a breath and let it out as a sigh. Chrissie had never seen her doubt or question her husband before. Florence had not questioned the purchase of the Halfway House, but simply accepted the fact. Lance had never invited her to view the property before now, and this was the day they were moving in.