Mary's Child (42 page)

Lance Morgan was slumped in his armchair in the kitchen of the Bells and Florence was making a cup of tea when Chrissie burst in on them. She wasted no time and asked at once, ‘Has Forthrop been here?’

Lance blinked at her. ‘Who?’

‘Have you had an offer for the Railway Hotel yet?’

He shook his head and coughed, gasped for breath while she waited, holding hers. Finally he wheezed, ‘No. And who’s Forthrop?’

Chrissie sighed with relief and explained, ‘Max Forthrop. He’s a solicitor, or used to be, with Arkenstall. He was the one who tried to buy the place four years ago.’

‘Ah! Now I remember. You told me about him at the time. No, he hasn’t been here. Why?’

‘He’s told me he’s going to buy it now.’

‘Hang on!’ Lance struggled to sit up in the chair, coughed again and Florence ran to slap his back. Finally he got out, ‘You and him don’t get on.’

Chrissie said drily, ‘You could say that.’

‘Well, don’t you worry. Whoever buys the place, I’ll make it a condition that they keep you on in your job. That’s a promise.’ He said that with determination.

Chrissie saw he meant it but now she shook her head. ‘Forthrop wouldn’t agree to that, but anyway, I wouldn’t work for him.’ She sat on her heels so she crouched at his side and laid her hand on his. ‘Listen, Mr  Morgan. If I give you a cash deposit now will you give me thirty days to find the rest?’

He gaped at her. ‘You? You want to buy the Railway?’

‘Yes. I think I could make a go of it.’

Lance shook his head, ‘No! A lass on her own couldn’t—’ He stopped, chest wheezing as he thought about it, then recalling what she had done in the last four years he nodded. ‘I think you could an’ all. But five thousand? Where will you raise that?’

Where indeed? Chrissie had only the vaguest idea but she answered confidently, ‘I think I can find it. Will you do it?’

Florence jumped in. ‘O’ course he will! Won’t you, Lance?’

‘Aye!’ He nodded and started coughing again but finished, ‘You let me have that deposit and I’ll give you your thirty days.’

She took the cheque, already made out for £800, from her bag and gave it to him. He stared dumbfounded at it for a moment but then he wrote her a receipt in exchange and she left almost running. Now she was almost penniless again and she needed more than £4,000 to close the sale. But she also had a month  . . .

Within the hour Maggie Gurney poked her head around the kitchen door of the Bells and said, ‘There’s a Mr  Forthrop wants to see you, Mr  Morgan.’

Lance exchanged glances with Florence then told the girl, ‘Send him in.’

Forthrop came in smiling with Victor Parnaby trailing him. Forthrop explained, ‘Mr  Parnaby is my business associate.’ Parnaby sniggered. They took the seats offered and Forthrop smiled at Lance. ‘I’ve come to take the Railway Hotel off your hands. I’ll give you £4,900 for it.’

Lance, disliking him on sight, shook his head. ‘You’re too late. I’ve already accepted a better offer.’

Forthrop’s smile vanished and was replaced by a glare. ‘The bloody place only went on the market yesterday! When was this offer made?’

Lance returned the glare. ‘An hour ago.’

‘Who made it?’

‘That’s my business.’

Parnaby muttered, ‘Let me talk to the auld bastard.’

Forthrop hissed, ‘Shut up!’

And Lance, panting for breath but from anger not fear, snapped at Parnaby, ‘I can get a few of the fellers in the bar to handle you, and have Fred Burlinson, the pollis, round here in two minutes. Now get out!’

Parnaby opened his mouth to argue but Florence snatched up the poker from the fireside and brandished it in his face. Forthrop told him, ‘Wait outside.
Go on!
’ Parnaby slouched from the room and Forthrop forced a smile and apologised. ‘I’m sorry. He gets over-excited. Now, Mr  Morgan, about this offer you’ve had: I’ll put another hundred on top of it, whatever it was. And that’s cash on the nail, tomorrow if you like, no ifs, buts or waiting. Was that other offer on those terms?’

Lance Morgan hesitated, then said, ‘I can’t answer that. But I’ve taken the other offer and I’ll have to stick to it. That’s the way
I
do business.’

Forthrop had seen that momentary hesitation and seized on it. ‘I see. It was so much down and the rest later, eh? All right!’ He kicked back his chair and stood up. ‘My offer stands for just one month. At the end of that time I cut it by £100 for every day this drags on. So think about that. These fancy ideas of business are fine if you can afford them, but I reckon you haven’t got long and you have a wife and children to support.’ And he strode out, slamming the door behind him so it shook in its frame.

Florence sank into a chair, her knees trembling. ‘You’ll never sell to a man like that.’

But Lance was thinking of Forthrop’s last words, looking at his wife and remembering his children at school. He did not answer but he thought, God help me, I might have to sell to him come the end of the month if Chrissie can’t raise the money.

Chrissie asked Ezra Arkenstall to handle the sale for her because his son, Luke, had drawn up the deed of partnership with Ronnie Milburn. The old man was bent and wearied by the war, the volume of his work and worry over Luke, in France with what had been the Royal Flying Corps and was now the Royal Air Force. He did not recognise this slim, dark and attractive young woman at first. But then the name rang a bell far back in his memory: Chrissie Carter?

He asked, though it had nothing to do with the sale, ‘The names of your parents, Miss Carter?’

She wondered at the question but was not afraid or ashamed to answer, ‘Harry and Mary Carter.’

‘And your date of birth?’

‘Thirteenth of January 1894.’

He murmured, ‘Just for my records.’ He went on to take her instructions for the purchase of the Railway Hotel, then sent her off with the words, ‘Come to me if you have any difficulties. I will try my best to help.’

When she had gone he stood at his window and stared out across the river packed with ships to the smoke-shrouded huddle of narrow streets and cramped houses where she was born. The little cast-off child had come a long way.

He wondered what old George Ballantyne would say if he knew? He was a friend and a client of many years’ standing, but the Carter girl was also a client and entitled to Ezra’s silence regarding her affairs. No, there was no question of telling George Ballantyne that young Chrissie Carter was trying to buy the Railway Hotel.

Chrissie went to the banks for a mortgage. She dressed carefully in a new dark grey costume and pinned on her most prized piece of jewellery, the brooch given to her by Bessie Milburn on her deathbed. But one after another the bank managers declined to advance more than £2,000 and that only reluctantly. They were amused, disapproving or distrusting, and all of them made excuses of one sort or another. Only one told her frankly, ‘You’re a young, single woman with no assets. If you had a husband, a breadwinner, then we might have been able to do something, but as it is, you’re a bad risk.’

The last one she tried was a small branch. The manager was elderly and had refused promotion in order to stay where he was. He had made a comfortable niche for himself and did not want to move. Chrissie did not know that, of course, nor did she remember his name.

Stephen Lawrence remembered hers. He listened to her plea, examined the figures she showed him, pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. His professional opinion was the same as his colleagues’, but . . . He asked, ‘I believe you worked at a public house called the Halfway House some years ago.’

Chrissie stared at him, startled. ‘Yes, I did. But I don’t remember you.’ She rarely forgot a customer’s face.

He shook his head. ‘No, I was never there. But you were a great help to my daughter, Grace. You brought her home to me.’

Chrissie remembered. ‘She was a nice girl and I knew the man she was with was no good. How is she?’

Lawrence smiled. ‘She took your advice and found a job, then soon afterwards met a young man and married him.’ He pointed to a photograph on his desk, of a fat baby gaping solemnly at the camera: ‘My grandson.’

Chrissie laughed. ‘He looks lovely.’

Lawrence cleared his throat. While he had not taken promotion, his experience and expertise were recognised in that his superiors gave him a lot of reponsibility. He had more room to manoeuvre than managers in other banks in the town. He stretched that to the limit now: ‘I think we can advance up to fifty per cent, £2,500.’

Chrissie maintained her decorum until she was outside the bank, then she went away singing and men turned their heads to follow her with their eyes. And at the end of a week she sat in Arkenstall’s office again and he reported, ‘I’ve sold the aircraft shares and here is a cheque for £1,450.’ These were the shares Chrissie had received when Ronnie Milburn sold his business to a big company when he went to France in the Royal Flying Corps.

Ezra smiled as she first stared in amazement then clapped her hands in delight. He explained, ‘Aircraft companies have boomed during the war years, of course.’ But then he became serious. ‘The other shares, however, those in—’ he looked down at his notes – ‘Massingham Motion Pictures Ltd., are virtually worthless. For that reason I have not sold them at this time. It would not help and they might fetch a better price at a later date.’ He was not, and did not sound, optimistic on that score.

Chrissie calculated quickly in her head. She needed another £250.

Arkenstall said, peering, ‘That is a fine brooch you are wearing, Miss Carter. A recent purchase?’ He did not recall her wearing it before, and while he was no jeweller, it looked expensive to him.

Chrissie glanced down at it, pinned to the lapel of her coat. ‘It was given to me by my aunt. Her husband bought it in India – oh, it must be fifty years ago now.’

‘May I see it?’

She unpinned it absently, her mind grappling with the problem of how to raise another £250. That was twice as much as many a labouring man was earning in a year. Arkenstall took off his glasses and held the brooch up to his eyes. ‘Mm . . . It’s a beautiful piece of work.’

Chrissie nodded. ‘I’m fond of it.’ Bessie Milburn had always said it had ‘cost a pretty penny’.

Arkenstall handed it back after a minute or two and as Chrissie pinned it on again he said, ‘I think you should have that valued. Why don’t you ask Smethurst in the High Street what it’s worth?’

‘I will,’ Chrissie promised as she left, but she had other business to settle first and the brooch would have to wait. She needed a second mortgage. She could not go back to Lawrence; he could lend her no more and had made that plain. In fact he had already gone further than he should and knew he could be subject to censure by his directors if the loan proved to be bad business. Chrissie made the round of the other banks again. Surely one of them would help, now that she only needed £250?

But they would not. They were unimpressed by the fact that someone had put up half the money she needed. They were not prepared to risk theirs. She tried to borrow private capital but some – Arkenstall among them – wanted a more secure investment for their retirement. Others said, some to her face, ‘I’m not lending my money to a bit of a lass.’

She acknowledged bitterly that they would have lent it to Forthrop, a male with money already.

With only two days of her month left she still needed that further £250.

She went to Smethurst in desperation and showed him the brooch. He examined it with his little glass screwed into his eye, took it out once to stare at her in astonishment, then replaced the glass and went on with his scrutiny. Finally he let the glass drop into his palm and blinked at her. ‘It’s Indian, of course. And these stones are diamonds. Did you know that?’ When Chrissie shook her head he said, ‘Well, they are. The face of the brooch is old – two, maybe three hundred years – and it wasn’t a brooch to start with, may have been some other kind of jewelled ornament or part of one. The pin was put on much later, probably just before your uncle bought it.’ He held it out at arm’s length, admiring it.

Chrissie put in brutally, ‘How much is it worth?’

‘Um? Ah!’ Smethurst pondered then decided. ‘Well, a piece like this might be better sold at auction and I’d think it could fetch up to £150, maybe a bit more. Across the counter you should get at least £100.’

He put the brooch down on his little square of black cloth and it lay there and winked at Chrissie. She took a deep breath and gazed at it for a full minute, until Smethurst stirred restlessly, wondering at her silence. He offered, ‘I might go to £140, but as I said, if you want more you’d do better to put it up for auction at a London saleroom.’

Chrissie thought that would leave her with just over £100 to find, which was still a significant amount – it would take a riveter in the yards the best part of a year to earn that. But she could borrow that,
somehow
. She stared at the brooch, remembering Bessie Milburn and the home she had given Chrissie. Then she sighed softly, smiled at the jeweller and picked up the brooch. ‘No. I was just curious. But thank you for your help.’ She pinned the brooch carefully back in her lapel and left the shop. It was all she had of Bessie, to whom she owed so much. She would not part with it.