Our Lizzie (51 page)

*   *   *

Later that afternoon Edith Cardwell dressed in black, grimaced at herself in the mirror, because it definitely wasn't her colour, and went down to the builder's yard, bowing her head like a queen at the condolences offered by people she met in the street. She was filled with fiery satisfaction at what she was about to do.

She walked into Emma's office without knocking and said with immense relish, “You're fired.”

Emma could only gape and wonder if Mrs. Cardwell had gone mad. “I'm afraid you can't—” she began.

Edith interrupted. “Oh, but I can fire you now. My husband is dead, you see, so I'm the owner of this business and I'd like you to leave my premises immediately.” She leaned across the desk, her face a twisted mask of viciousness. “And if you think I don't know you were carrying on with my husband, you must be even more stupid than you look.”

Emma gasped and sat down. “James is dead?” She couldn't control her voice, which wobbled. “How?”

“None of your business, you trollop! Just get your things together and leave.”

Too shocked and upset even to weep, Emma began to gather her possessions. When she went out to the storeroom for a box, she found Edith dogging her footsteps.

“I'm making very sure you don't steal anything. And hurry up, will you?”

Just as Emma had finished clearing the desk of her things, Walter came in, staring from one of them to the other. “What's up?”

Edith turned to him. “My husband is dead and now that I'm in charge, I'm not having his whore working here.”

Walter swallowed hard. “James is dead?”

“I just said so. And I'm warning you now that you'd better pull your socks up, too, or
you
will be out of a job as well.”

He folded his arms. “I wouldn't work for you if you paid me double, missus. Nor will any other self-respecting tradesman if you talk to them like that. Who the hell do you think you are?”

Edith gasped and drew herself up. “I'm the widow of your late master and now I'm your employer.”

“Nay, that you're not. I'm not sunk so low I have to work for a nasty bitch like you. You made him miserable for years, which is why he turned elsewhere, but you're not spoiling my life.” He turned to Emma, who was trying not to sob as she crammed the last of her things into the box. “I'll carry that for you, love, then I'll come back for my tools.”

And he put his arm round her shoulders and led her out without a backward glance at Mrs. Cardwell, standing in solitary possession of a business she knew not the first thing about.

*   *   *

The morning after his father's memorial service, Frank didn't go to school but hung around in the back yard of the builder's, which stood empty and forlorn-looking. He couldn't understand where Walter was. Or Miss Harper. And why was the front door shut? The yard was never left unattended during business hours.

When his father was alive, Frank had loved coming down here—sawing bits of wood, helping Walter clear up. He wasn't sure what had happened on the day the telegram had arrived, but his mother had come back from the yard in a raging fury and he had overheard her talking about “that woman” in such tones of anger that it had been a while before he realised she was talking about Miss Harper. And “that nasty old man” seemed to be referring to Walter.

What had Miss Harper and Walter done wrong, then?

The short memorial service hadn't seemed right, somehow, or the absence of a coffin. It had upset Frank that there was no body to bury. He'd have liked his father to lie in the churchyard with his grandfather and his great-grandfather and all the other Cardwells. He was going to lie there himself one day.

At the service, his mother had leaned against Major Gresham all the time, fluttering her eyelashes and letting him support her. That had sickened Frank. And the Major—who was in charge of a supply depot and had never been to the Front, so didn't count as a real soldier in the boy's eyes—kept saying he'd come round whenever he could to comfort her, help her with the business.

Today Frank was supposed to go back to school and carry on as if nothing had happened. His mother wouldn't even talk to him about the future of the yard. But he wasn't going to school yet. He was going to do as his father had asked first.

When the school bell rang faintly in the distance and he knew there'd be no teachers out on the streets, he left the yard and walked to the rooms of his father's lawyer, prudently taking the back lanes to get there.

He went into the front office and said firmly to the lad, “I need to see Mr. Finch. It's urgent.” The lawyer was going to come round to his house to read the will that afternoon, but his mother had said it was no concern of Frank's, so he might as well go back to school. But his father's letter said differently.

At first they didn't want to let him in, but when he told them about his father and showed them the last paragraph of the letter, they got pitying looks on their faces and changed their minds. He hated people pitying him, absolutely hated it!

Mr. Finch was sitting behind his desk, but he got up and came to join Frank in the big leather armchairs in front of the fire. “Sit there, lad, and warm yourself a bit. Eeh, I'm sorry about your father. He was a good man.”

“Yes.” Frank was learning not to answer such comments, just push them aside in his head, because they made him feel like weeping and he was the man of the family now, so couldn't let himself be weak.

“I believe your father left you a letter asking you to come and see me?”

“Yes.”

“I was going to see your mother this afternoon, then send for you tomorrow. Your father made certain provisions under his will and I promised him I'd tell you about them myself if—if necessary.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The main thing is that he has left the business and everything he owns to you, my boy, except for a small share that's left to Miss Harper.”

Frank sat and thought this over for a moment. “Not to my mother?”

“No.”

“Miss Harper wasn't at the service today. Or Walter.”

“Yes. I'm afraid your mother has dismissed Miss Harper. And Walter left with her.”

Another silence. Then, “But if I own the business now, I can ask them to come back to work for us, can't I?”

“Yes. You can, indeed. Though it'd be better if I did it. I hope you don't mind, but I'm now joint guardian of you and your sister—together with your mother, of course—and trustee of the business till you grow up?”

“If the business is mine what will Mother do, sir? For money, I mean.”

“Well, she already has an inheritance from her father, besides which your father arranged that the business was to pay for household expenses and servants. Your mother will have enough money to live on, believe me. But he expected you to look after her as you get older—unless she remarries. He—um, seemed to think you would want to work in the business when you left school.”

Frank's face brightened. “Oh, yes! I love going down to the yard.” After another silence, he added, “My mother won't like how things are left, will she, sir? She'll get upset.” She'd probably start screeching and wailing. He hated it when she got like that.

“I dare say she will. I'll go and explain things to her while you're at school.”

The boy wriggled uncomfortably. “I should have gone there this morning. I'll be in trouble.”

“I'll write you a note explaining you had to see me first.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

Mr. Finch sighed as he watched the lad leave. What a fine young fellow Frank was, a real chip off the old block. He sighed again at the thought of what lay ahead. It was not going to be pleasant. Edith Cardwell was a nasty piece and always had been.

And after dealing with her, he'd have to go and see poor Miss Harper. A pleasant young woman, that. But it was going to cause talk James leaving her a share of the business, and they could all guess why he'd done it.

*   *   *

A few days later, as dusk was falling, there was a knock on the front door of number one Maidham Street. Sam dragged Lizzie along the hall to answer it because he had found he couldn't even leave her in the kitchen alone without her trying to run out of the back door—good thing he'd got that padlock on the gate. It was wearing, though, keeping an eye on someone all the time, bloody wearing.

Blanche Harper stood on the doorstep with a parcel in her hand. “This came for your wife earlier, Mr. Thoxby. No one was in, so the postman left it with me.” She hadn't been able to get along to deliver it earlier because Emma was still prostrate with grief and shock.

“Here!” She pushed the parcel into his hands, nodded a greeting at Lizzie and turned away. She felt sorry for that poor girl, who looked pale and unhappy, but she had her own troubles, for her sister seemed to have lost the will to live.

Sam stared at the parcel, hefting it in his hand, then turned and pushed Lizzie back into the kitchen, muttering in exasperation, for he'd just about reached the limit with her. He'd have to think of some way to settle her hash, because he wasn't putting up with this much longer. The house was a pigsty and she refused to touch it. He had to force her to eat, to do anything.

“Fine bloody wife you are!” he grumbled as he reached the kitchen. He stared at the parcel again, then noticed the postmark. “Murforth. One of your dear friends sending you a present, eh?” He weighed it in his hand, wondering whether to simply toss it on the fire, then went to get the scissors. Might as well see what it was.

Lizzie stared at the parcel, wondering what it could be and how her friends in Murforth had got hold of her address. Then suddenly a dreadful thought struck her. It was just the same size as—it couldn't be—surely it couldn't be her letters from Peter? The breath caught in her throat, for she could think of nothing else it could be.

Once Sam saw those letters, he'd kill her. She had no doubt about that. Her writing to any man would be enough to send him into a fury, but writing to the man he hated most in the world would surely push him into murder. Her heart began to thump in her chest. Fear curdled her stomach. For all her assertions to Sam, for all her defiance, she didn't want to die.

*   *   *

When Blanche left Lizzie's house, she almost bumped into Percy. “Oh!” Her hand fluttered to her chest. “Oh, I didn't see you.”

“Are you all right, Miss Harper?” She looked so white and worried, he stopped for a moment.

“Yes. I just—you startled me. I was miles away.”

“And how is Emma? I heard about Mr. Cardwell. It's a sad loss.”

Blanche's face crumpled and she couldn't hold back the tears. For a moment the world spun around her and she swayed dizzily.

He put an arm round her instinctively. “You're not well. Let me help you back home.”

She clung to him for a moment, then tried to pull herself together. “It's not me—it's Emma who's not herself. I'm so worried about her.” She didn't dare let go of him because if she did, she might faint right away. There was something warm and solid about him, and he had such a kind face she found herself confiding, “Oh, Mr. Kershaw, what am I to do? She just lies there, weeping, and she'll lose the child if she goes on like this. Oh!” She clapped a hand to her mouth as she realised what she had said, then buried her head in his shoulder, sobbing incoherently.

Percy patted her shoulder soothingly, his thoughts whirling. Emma was expecting a child? Whose? Well, who else's could it be but James Cardwell's? Only he was dead. Not even a body to bring home, they said.

“What am I to
do?
” she wailed against him. “Emma's all I've got.”

Long experience with hysterical women enabled him to soothe her down. People passed the end of the street and some hesitated, but no one stopped. A woman looked out of her front window, then let the lace curtain drop again.

As Miss Harper began to calm down, he realised how embarrassed she would be by this public outburst and gently guided her back towards number seven. The ground was still treacherous, with the last of the snow having turned to ice, which had melted a little during the daytime and then frozen into glassy patches in the hollows at night. He could go and see Lizzie later, he decided, but he couldn't leave this distraught woman to cope on her own.

And anyway, there was Emma. Maybe—maybe he could do something to help her. If only be a comfort to her in her sad hour.

“Shall I come inside and make you a nice cup of tea?”

Blanche gulped and nodded, dabbing her soggy handkerchief to her eyes and muttering in a muffled voice, “S-so grateful.”

Inside the house there was no sign of Emma. Percy sat Miss Harper down and raked up the fire. There was something cheering about a good blaze. He glanced sideways. She was just sitting there, defeat in every line of her body.

She caught his eyes on her and whispered, “I've tried everything, you see. Everything I can think of. But she won't eat or drink. She just lies there. And”—she looked guiltily at him—“well, there
is
the baby to think of.”

“Cardwell's?”

“Yes.” Shame flooded her cheeks with colour. “I know it's not exactly—but she's my sister—and it'll be all she's got to remember him by.”

He went and put the kettle on, then got out the cups. He'd been here often enough to know where everything was, for although Emma never looked at him as a man, she did consider him a friend.

“There you are,” he said soothingly. “Things always look better after a cup of tea. I'll just take one up to Emma, shall I?”

“Oh, she's in bed. I don't think—”

“Maybe I can talk to her, help her face things?”

“Well,” Blanche stirred her tea thoughtfully, then shrugged helplessly. “Why not? You've always been a good friend to us.”