No Cure for Love (38 page)

Robert put down his cup down carefully on the tea tray, placed his hands on his crossed knee and held his father’s gaze. They all sat in silence for several long moments.

Then his mother spoke. ‘It does not matter. Men are forever men. Not all of them have your iron will to fight temptation,’ she said, looking to both of them to accept her olive branch.

For one fleeting moment Robert tried to imagine any situation that might tempt a man such as his father. He couldn’t.

‘It will all be forgotten when Robert marries,’ continued Mrs Munroe.

‘Marry?’

‘When you marry Caroline, of course,’ she beamed at him. ‘That’s why you’ve come back, isn’t it? To marry Caroline?’

‘Caroline?’ Robert said, furrows appearing across his brow.

An indulgent smile crossed his mother’s face. ‘I have it from her own lips that she is willing to forgive and forget all about your association with Mrs O’Casey. I explained to her that men can be led astray, and a man needs a good wife who will settle his needs.’ She patted his father’s hand.

His father nodded ponderously. ‘I am sure you’re right, my dear. Miss Sinclair, who I have always found a little capricious, shows a great deal of charity in her willingness to forgive Robert.’

He stood up and rested with his elbow on the granite fireplace. Looking around the room for a second, he took hold of his jacket lapels and stretched his chin forward.

‘This young women has given us a Christian example which we would be wise to follow,’ he said, addressing his wife and son as if they were a congregation.

‘I have no intention of marrying Caroline Sinclair, or anyone else for that matter. I don’t know where Mrs O’Casey is’ - a heavy lump settled on Robert’s chest - ‘or if I will ever see her again, but I’ll tell you this. While there is breath left in my body I will never, never stop searching for her. And when I find her, be in no doubt that I intend to marry her,’ he told them firmly, before his father could launch into an impromptu sermon.

His mother’s face drained of colour and his father fixed him with a bellicose stare.

‘O’Casey is an Irish name, is it not?’

‘It is,’ Robert replied.

‘Then would Mrs O’Casey be a
papist
by any chance?’ asked the Reverend Munroe, spiritual leader of the largest Presbyterian church in Edinburgh.

‘She has been raised in the Roman Church,’ Robert agreed.

There was an icy silence.

‘If you persist in this madness of marrying a follower of the Antichrist, then you are no longer my son. Do you hear? I’ll disown you. You will be no part of this family. You have to choose between your family or your paramour. You can’t have both,’ his father said.

Robert sat very still for a moment. The clock, as if aware of the heavy silence, struck the half-hour. A shaft of light that had pierced through the heavy lace hangings at the window fell across the room, showing particles of dust dancing in its light.

An image of Ellen sitting in his rooms reading a book, her hair loose around her shoulders, came into Robert’s mind. She looked up and smiled at him. His father’s voice cut through his thoughts.

‘You find this amusing, do you?’

Robert realised that he must have been smiling at Ellen in his head.

‘See if you find it amusing when I cut you out of my will.’

There was another long, drawn-out silence.

‘I do understand that your position in the Church makes my decision particularly difficult for you, Father,’ Robert said, meeting his father’s unswerving gaze.

Mr Munroe strode abruptly to the door. Robert stood up.

‘You may stay overnight, but be gone by midday tomorrow,’ the Reverend said, pausing at the door. ‘Unless, of course, you come to your senses and repent in the meantime.’

Robert’s mother let out a little cry as the door slammed behind her husband. She turned and faced Robert. Her skirt swished on the wooden floor she came towards him.

‘For goodness’ sake, Rob, if you find her why can’t you just set her up in a house somewhere and stop all this marriage nonsense? Women in her situation always ask for marriage but I am sure she will settle for a properly drawn-up settlement.’

Robert gave a dry laugh. ‘I am sure she would.’

His mother’s shoulders relaxed. ‘Well, then...’

‘But I will not.’ Robert smiled sadly at her. ‘The truth is I have asked her, pleaded with her and begged her to marry me on many occasions and she has always said no. Then after she was all but killed by Danny Donovan, she relented. If I’d been half the man I should have been, she would be my wife by now. But I’ll tell you this, Mother. Nothing will stop me marrying Ellen O’Casey.’ He gave her an apologetic smile. ‘I’ll be gone in an hour.’

He turned and strode across the faded Indian carpet, his mind already on catching the first coach back to London.

‘Robert.’ He turned. ‘Don’t leave. I’ll plead with him, and if you just tell him you’ll consider his words, I’m sure he’ll relent.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He crossed the space between them and took hold of her shoulders. As he kissed her on both cheeks, a sudden rush of affection for his mother swept over him. Looking down at her, he thought she seemed suddenly old. She might not lavish affection on him, and perhaps there was still lingering disappointment that he hadn’t followed her brother into the army, but she did love him in her own way.

Ignoring the emotional restraint that his mother always insisted on, he drew her to him and hugged her. He kissed her springy grey hair and hugged her again. He felt her resistance, then she put her arms around him.

He held her away from him and mother and son stared at each other just for a second.

‘I’ll write to you at the Association’s offices, Mother,’ he said, giving her a brief smile.

Then he turned and strode from the room.

Holding her school books tight to her chest Josie made her way up the Bowery on her way home. Alongside her, chatting and giggling, were Katie O’Malley and Mary Reardon, her two new friends from the Swartz Elementary school.

Her mother had tried to find her a school north of where they lived in the Vauxhall Garden area of the expanding town, but found the day fees were too expensive, so she had to settle for a school in Chambers Street run by a Russian professor. Josie had been somewhat apprehensive about attending a new school, wondering if she would be able to keep up with the lessons. To her surprise, she found she was one of the school’s best pupils, so much so that she had already moved up a class.

She didn’t really miss Wapping much, mainly because she had gained a whole new family, but she did wonder from time to time how Doctor Munroe was faring and where Patrick Nolan was.

She did miss Patrick. Twice in the past week the class teacher had caught her gazing out of the window, daydreaming that Patrick, having been promoted to Captain Nolan, would arrive at Uncle Pat’s and whisk her away to be his wife. She had left a letter with his mother before she and Ellen sailed, telling him Uncle Pat’s address in New York. A little lump caught in her throat as she thought about him. Maybe he’d forgotten her.

From the time in the middle of an Atlantic gale when she found out her mother was carrying Doctor Munroe’s child, Josie had kicked herself daily that she hadn’t gone and told him where her mother had been hiding. She had tried to talk to her mother about Doctor Munroe since they arrived but it only started her mother weeping. Aunt Mary said that wasn’t good for the baby so she stopped mentioning his name, but that didn’t mean she stopped thinking about him or Patrick.

‘Look, there’s Brian Clancy,’ Mary said, turning to Josie and breaking out in a froth of giggles. ‘And he’s with Feggy Smith and Ernie Potter the b’hoys.’

Josie looked towards the three young men lounging outside a general store smoking. They looked a disparate group. Stubby Brian with his freckles and red hair, Feggy thin and dark, and Ernie blond and bony. Although they were as different as three boys could be, they all wore black trousers and frock coats with bright, almost garish waistcoats beneath, and hobnail boots. Each had their long hair oiled, and tied at the back. Ernie and Feggy each sported a tall silk hat, while Brian had on an oversized cap.

Katie lowered her head toward Josie and Mary. ‘Don’t they look fine?’ she said, casting the three lads a sideways glance. ‘Isn’t Brian Clancy just a darling of a man?’

Singularly unimpressed, Josie cast her eyes over them, thinking that not one of them could hold a candle to Patrick.

Brian and his gang, their stance casual but their eyes narrowed, watched Josie and her friends pass. Much to Josie’s annoyance, Mary arched her neck and smiled at the three young men, who then peeled themselves from the wall supporting them and sauntered over to the three girls.

‘Good day to you all,’ Brian said, as the youths fell into step around the girls.

Josie felt a trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades. Her ma wouldn’t like her dawdling on her way home, especially not in the Five Points area of the town and especially not with Brian and his gang. They had a reputation for wildness that they were forever trying to add to, and were already well known to the ward constables for all the wrong reasons.

Ignoring the unwanted company and looking straight ahead, Josie quickened her pace, but Mary and Katie had slowed down. The boys followed in their wake, and Katie simpered at Brian as if he were some sort of hero of old rather than a ginger Irishman only an inch or two taller then herself. Feggy came alongside Josie.

‘Hi, there my pretty Miss Josie,’ he said.

‘Don’t you be calling me your anything,’ she told him.

A roar went up around her.

‘Mind yourself, Feggy,’ Brian said, slipping his arm around Katie’s waist. ‘Young Josie’s got claws and no mistake.’

Feggy spat out his cigarette and gave a wide grin, revealing a missing canine tooth. ‘I like my women with a bit of fire.’

Mary and Katie giggled.

‘Give her a kiss, Feggy, that’ll soon stop her fighting you,’ Mary said, sending Josie a spiteful look.

Another time that remark would have earned Mary a bloody nose and pulled hair, but Josie decided to save her revenge for a more convenient moment and picked up her pace.

They had reached the Bull’s Head tavern. Josie weaved her way through the milling crowd, hoping to lose the spectre of Feggy from her side. If she dashed down Hester Street and then along Essex Street she could get back to Uncle Pat’s. Her mother didn’t like her going down the side streets with their looming tenements, but Josie thought them preferable to fending off Feggy Smith all the way home.

Gathering up her skirts she dashed over the road. A male voice called her name but Josie pressed on as she caught sight of Feggy following after her.

Stretching her legs and dodging a milk cart she headed across the street. Just as she got to the corner of Hester Street she felt her books begin to slip out of her grasp. Before she could reposition them they plummeted to the floor, their white pages flapping in the wind. Irritated by the delay, Josie gathered them up and was just about to continue when someone caught her arm.

‘Josie—’

She whirled around and brought the flat of her hand hard against her assailant’s face. The crack of palm on cheek echoed around the narrow street.

‘Take your filthy hands off me, Feggy Smith, before I take your eyes out,’ she said showering the young man behind her with slaps and punches.

He curled away from her blows. ‘Josie—’

‘How is it you think you have leave to call me by my name?’ she screamed, her hair loose and her books again on the damp cobbles. She started to punch lower. If he turned towards her a bit she would knee him right where it hurt. ‘My Uncle Pat will have the constable on yer, if you lay so much as a hand on me.’

The young man she was so aggressively pummelling managed to take a step back and straighten up. Josie’s head spun and she dropped her arms by her side.

She couldn’t believe it. He looked the same yet different, and it wasn’t just the barely healed scar crossing the chin. He must have grown an inch a day because he was now close to six foot. He had filled out in a muscular way, but the dark curly hair and the softness in his green eyes were still the same.

The widest of smiles spread across Josie’s face as she leapt up and clasped her arms tight around her assailant’s neck. ‘Patrick!’

 

Her basket on her arm, Ellen made her way down Seventh Street towards her brother’s small house at the end. She put her free hand to her back and stretched and the ache eased a little. She smoothed her hand over her swollen stomach and smiled.

By the fifth day out from London, just as they reached the swells of the Atlantic Ocean proper, Ellen stopped pretending to herself that she was suffering from seasickness and accepted the fact that she was with child. She had sobbed for a full day with a mixture of joy and regret as deeply held memories came back to her, memories of Josie’s brother, a child cold and lifeless in her arms; memories of making love with Robert. She prayed that his child would not share the fate of her son.

She had spent a great deal of time on the voyage in wondering what her brother Joe would say when she arrived carrying a child but with no husband alongside. He was six years her senior and had always been very much her older brother. The memory of him, standing with a docker’s hook in his hand, next to her father as he demanded that Michael O’Casey do the right thing by her, replayed in her mind each night.

It had been over twelve years since the newly married Joe and his wife Mary had sailed for America. She had carried Josie down to the docks to see them off. Their family and Mary’s had even held a wake for them as no one ever thought to see them again in this life. But when he dashed towards her on the quayside in New York and enveloped her in a bear hug, Ellen knew that she was home, and from that day to this no word of reproach had passed his lips.