Mary's Child (27 page)

She paused on a landing to catch her breath and shake out her skirts that had climbed up her legs as she fought, and put up shaking hands to tidy her hair. Then she heard the quick tread on the stairs of someone descending and Jack Ballantyne turned on to the landing. Chrissie swung her hand again, felt and heard the
crack!
, saw the livid weal raised on Jack’s face.

He lifted a hand to it, startled and shaken and cried, ‘What the hell  —?’

Chrissie snapped at him, voice high, ‘Don’t touch me again, ever!’ Then she swung on her heel and ran from him, the tears coming, and hid herself in the staff cloakroom.

Jack, outraged and swearing under his breath, could not find her and had to go back to his work at the yard.

He had not seen Max Forthrop come out of the maid’s cupboard with a hand to his face and limp quickly across into the side corridor. Forthrop was mouthing obscenities. The slut had given him the ‘come on’ with her smiles and ‘Good morning, Mr  Forthrop.’ Then she had turned on him. Or had she not realised, in the darkness, that it was he? No matter. He swore he would settle with her when he was ready.

When Forthrop went to the Palace for lunch the next day Chrissie greeted him as usual. ‘Good morning, Mr  Forthrop,’ she said, and smiled. He was watching for signs of recognition of the attack of the previous day, her eyes falling or turning away. He saw none and told himself that she didn’t know who it was.

Aloud he answered, ‘Good morning,’ and smiled.

Jack Ballantyne did not. He entered a few minutes later, confronted Chrissie at once and demanded, ‘Why did you slap me yesterday?’

She met his glare, her heart beating fast, but she had been hurt, had not thought he would try to take her in that way, and was determined. Besides, there was the other time he had laid hands on her, when he had said it was an accident and she had believed him. She warned him, ‘I haven’t complained to Mr  Ferguson – yet.’

Jack demanded, mystified, ‘Complained to him about what?’

‘Your behaviour in the linen cupboard upstairs.’

‘What the hell d’you mean?’

Chrissie snapped, ‘Don’t use that language to me! And you know what I mean. You – tried to – take advantage of me.’

‘Me!’

Chrissie nodded, lips twitching but chin firm. ‘I saw you behind me as I went into the cupboard. Then you came in and—’ She paused then, uncertain how to say it.

But Jack broke in anyway. ‘I never
got
to the cupboard or whatever it is! I saw you, yes! That was just a second before I entered room seventeen. A few minutes later I came out and as I walked down the stairs you laid into me!’

Chrissie put a hand to her mouth. ‘Room seventeen?’ She knew that was before the maid’s cupboard, and now she doubted – was eager to doubt?

Jack said, ‘Yes. And I can produce a witness to bear me out.’ But as he said it he wondered if his witness would.

He recalled how one of the hotel pageboys had given him a note to say that Milligan wanted to see him. Jack had seen the ship-owner climb into the Rolls and drive off to the yard, but concluded he had returned early. He did not like the sound of that because if Milligan had given the yard an order the settling of details would have taken all the afternoon. Had something upset him? So Jack had hurried up the stairs.

When he had tapped at the door of the room, seeing Chrissie Carter entering the cupboard from the corner of his eye, it was opened quickly by Rhoda Milligan. Jack stepped inside at her invitation, her hand on his arm. As the door closed behind him he realised Milligan wasn’t there and that Rhoda had changed out of her dress into a silken robe. She was wearing little, if anything, underneath it and he caught glimpses of pink flesh. Rhoda was breathing deeply and her mouth was wet.

Now Jack wondered again, would she bear out his account? He reflected uneasily that there was a saying that a woman scorned  . . .

But Chrissie was convinced he was telling the truth. She knew the Milligans had room seventeen, knew Mr  Milligan had gone out, had seen him go. She could guess why Jack Ballantyne had gone to Rhoda Milligan’s room. Yet he had only stayed for a few minutes. Why was she relieved at that?

She had accused him falsely. She lowered her head and whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

Jack took a breath, thankful that he would not have to call on Rhoda Milligan, but still angry. He said, ‘You seem to delight in attacking me. I think from now on we’d better keep some distance between us. I’ll be safer.’ He started to turn away then paused to say, ‘But someone . . . frightened you.’ His anger changed direction now, was levelled at the unknown attacker. ‘I’d like to  —.’ He swallowed the strong language and instead advised, ‘I think you should report this to Mr Ferguson. He’ll want to stamp out that sort of thing.’ And he turned and stalked away.

Chrissie lifted her head, watched his tall figure pass through the swing doors and out of her sight. She would not tell Walter Ferguson about the incident because she did not know who had assaulted her, only that it was not Jack Ballantyne. She was miserable and lonely.

Chrissie was still living with the Morgans, helping in the bar in the evenings and at weekends. That paid for her keep and made her some extra money. So she was there on that Wednesday night when Ted Ward entered. He was flushed, looked excited.

Chrissie wondered what might be wrong but greeted him: ‘Hello, Ted! This is a pleasant surprise!’ Because he rarely came to see her in the week as there was little time between finishing his duties and returning to barracks in Newcastle before ‘lights out’.

He grinned at her. ‘I hope you’ll think so. Can you get out for a few minutes? That’s all the time I’ve got.’ He added, ‘It’s important, Chrissie.’

Lance Morgan was only a yard away and heard the exchange. He nodded. ‘Aye, get yourself away for a walk. A breath o’ fresh air might do you good. You look a bit pale and down in the mouth tonight. So long as you’re back for the last hour, just in case we get a rush.’ He glanced around the half-empty bar and laughed sardonically.

Chrissie whipped off her apron, put on her coat and hat and joined Ted in the street. The lamps were flaring in the dusk and they walked along the busy streets, her arm through his. She asked, ‘What is it, then, Ted?’

He turned into a quiet side-alley, halted and faced her, taking her hands in his. ‘I’m on a draft to India.’

Chrissie whispered, ‘Oh, Ted! Oh,
no
!’

He shrugged. ‘Well, I always knew it would come. The first battalion of the regiment’s out there so I knew I’d get a draft one o’ these days.’ He unbuttoned a pocket on his red tunic and fumbled inside.

Chrissie asked, ‘When do you leave?’

‘We move down to Colchester, where the second battalion’s stationed, in a couple of weeks and go from there.’

Chrissie knew he would be in India for five years. She was still miserable and ill after the row with Jack Ballantyne that day. She had lost Frank Ward and now she was to lose Ted. For once her courage deserted her. She broke down, wailed, ‘Oh, Ted!’ and threw her arms around his neck.

He held her close, stroking her hair, then eased her away and said, ‘Here you are.’ He pulled a little cardboard box from his pocket and held it out to Chrissie.

She asked, ‘What is it?’

‘Have a look.’

She opened the box and found a ring.

Ted said awkwardly, ‘It’s not a diamond, o’ course, not on my money. I’ve had to save for months anyway. And all the time I knew what I was saving for, so it wasn’t any hasty decision, I was going to ask you anyway. Only, now I’m on this draft, it seems the time. If I knew you were waiting for me when I came back, it would make a lot of difference, make it a lot easier for me.’

Chrissie blinked at the ring, knowing that, cheap as it was, it represented most of his pay – just a shilling a day – for the past six months. ‘Are you proposing, Ted?’

‘Aye. Will you have me, Chrissie? Please?’

Chrissie slipped the ring on her finger and put her arms around him again, needing his strength and support. ‘Yes, Ted.’

In the two weeks following their engagement Chrissie ‘walked out’ with Ted every time he could come to her or she could go to Newcastle. She wrote to Frank Ward, telling him of the engagement.

Frank read the letter over and over again before putting it away with the others she had written to him. Then he sent his congratulations to the pair of them, the usual carefully scripted letter he always wrote, beginning, ‘Dear Chrissie Carter, just a few lines  . . .’

Ten days later he received a letter of a different kind from Ida, his married sister. She had ended it, ‘I’ll drop you a line in a week or two and let you know what’s going on.’ He was angry and miserable.

Chrissie was on the station platform to kiss Ted before the train pulled out. He leaned out of the window, waving, until the carriages rounded a bend and took him out of sight. Chrissie had waved her scrap of a handkerchief and now used it to wipe her eyes.

She went back to her work at the Palace and helping in the bar of the Bells. Early one evening, just after the yards had stopped work for the day, she looked up from washing some glasses and saw two young men shoulder in through the door. One was a sailor, in bell-bottom trousers with cap on the back of his head. It was Frank Ward. The other was Jack Ballantyne.

Chrissie knew she had made a terrible mistake.

Chapter 16

June 1911

Chrissie stared, wide eyed, and whispered his name: ‘Frank.’

‘Aye, Chrissie.’

Jack Ballantyne looked from one to the other then held out his hand to Frank. ‘Good luck.’

Frank shook the hand. ‘Thanks for taking the hammer off that feller.’

They grinned at each other then Jack walked on along the passage to the sitting-room. Millie Taylor hurried through from the bar to serve him and Chrissie watched him go then turned back to Frank. She asked, ‘Are you back on leave, then?’

‘Just a couple of days. Compassionate leave, they call it. I got a letter from Ida. She said the old man was badly using me mam again.’

‘Ted never said anything about that.’

‘Ida wouldn’t tell him. Ted could never lift a hand against our da.’

‘But he went round to see his mother before he went away.’

‘She wouldn’t tell him, either. She didn’t tell me.’

A glass rapped on the bar and Chrissie hurried off to take it and fill it. She returned to ask, ‘So what are you going to do?’

Frank said shortly, ‘Done it already.’

He had gone straight from the train to Ballantyne’s yard, keeping a wary eye open for police because he had told Chrissie a white lie: he was absent without leave from the gunnery school. That could mean a spell in cells and his rating as leading seaman delayed. But he would not wait for the Navy’s wheels of administration to turn, so had slipped out of barracks and caught the train from King’s Cross.

He walked in through the gates of the yard past the timekeeper’s office and on down to the shed where his father worked. Some of the men he passed looked curiously at him, out of place in his uniform. He paused in the heat and clanging din of the shed, long, wide and high roofed, resonant with the beating of hammers, filled with the ranked anvils and glowing furnaces. Then he saw his father halfway along and headed towards him.

Reuben Ward was working with two other men and Frank knew them, both drinking cronies of his father. They were younger, in their twenties, and known for violence and drunken brawling. Joe Spragg was a big, heavy-shouldered man. Barney Callaghan was an inch shorter but broad. Spragg looked up as Frank approached and said, ‘Here y’are, Reuben, it’s your lad come to see you, all dressed up in his sailor-suit.’

Reuben turned and grinned. ‘The bad penny turning up. I thought I’d got shot of you along wi’ your brother.’

Frank ignored Joe Spragg and told his father, ‘I hear you’ve been knocking me mam about again.’

Reuben’s eyes narrowed and his grin faded. ‘Oh, aye? Well, mebbe she needed it, and anyway, it’s got damn all to do wi’ you.’

Barney Callaghan said, ‘That’s right. Stop giving your father lip and bugger off, sonny.’

Frank ignored him, too, and reminded his father, ‘I told you once before to leave her alone.’

Reuben started to turn away and snapped impatiently, ‘Oh, run away to hell!’

Frank seized his shoulder and swung him around so they faced each other.

Reuben snarled, ‘You little sod—’ He knocked the hand away and Frank hit him in the face with the other. Reuben staggered, legs tangling, and fell on his back.

Joe Spragg swung a big fist at the side of Frank’s head but the young sailor was not ignoring Spragg any longer. Frank ducked that blow and blocked another, banged three fast jabs into Spragg’s fleshy face, forcing him to back away, putting up his hands. Frank turned as Barney Callaghan swung a punch at him, slipped it and brought over a right that rocked Barney’s head on his shoulders.

Spragg was coming in again and Frank side-stepped, then boxed him around so he had both Spragg and Callaghan in front of him. They started to move apart again so as to come at him from different directions but he did not wait for that. Frank stepped in, blocked Spragg’s heavy swing and hit him high on the jaw. Spragg fell sideways and lay blinking.