Ragamuffin Angel (42 page)
The look on Kitty’s face told Father Hedley something was afoot but he surmised Kitty didn’t want to talk in front of her aunty, so now he rose from the chair, dusting his black coat free of crumbs as he said, ‘I shall have to be making tracks, Ida, but I’ll look in again in a few days if you’re not up and about.’
‘Oh I shall be, Father, I shall be. You know me, tough as old boots.’
‘I’ve got to be going too.’ Kitty got to her feet, tidying her hair and adjusting her straw hat more securely on the top of her head. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll see the Father out, Aunty Ida.’
‘Aye, all right, lass, an’ thanks for callin’ in.’
Once outside in the street they both unconsciously lifted their noses to the summer air and breathed it in; the dank unwashed smell of humanity had been strong in the house, and it was Father Hedley who broke the silence as he said, ‘You seem troubled, Kitty, or am I wrong?’
They were standing looking at each other on the hot pavement, and now Kitty’s eyes dropped as she said, ‘No, you’re not wrong, Father.’
‘Can I be of help in any way?’
‘Oh, Father.’
It was an answer in itself, and Father Hedley said briskly, ‘Let’s walk a way. I always find walking helps me think, clears the mind. So, you talk and I’ll listen and think, eh?’ And he smiled.
She hadn’t meant to tell him all of it, of the lads’ part in the attack on Jacob, but Kitty found she had to start at the beginning and work through, and when she was finished Father Hedley was silent for some ten seconds before he said, ‘So the lad is going away and neither of them knows how the other feels, not really. That’s it at bottom? Well, for my part I can tell you that Connie saved every penny of the deposit she put down for the business, Kitty, and that this man, this Colonel Fairley, was someone she loathed and detested.’ He, could feel Father McGuigan turning in his grave. Here he was, encouraging the liaison between a heathen and one of the flock, and blatantly. Dear God, dear God. . .
Kitty nodded, but her voice was very quiet and tentative as she said, after a quick darting glance at the black-clothed figure at the side of her, ‘The thing is, Father, I know how Mrs Stewart feels about Connie Bell. She –’ Kitty stopped abruptly. She had been going to say, ‘She is unbalanced about the lass’, but that was the wrong word to use. It suggested an unstableness, someone who was irrational or deranged, and Edith’s obsession with Connie Bell was frighteningly cognitive in spite of the dark emotion at the root of it. There was nothing rash or impulsive about Edith, her hatred of the girl would be channelled into carefully considered and premeditated attacks if she thought there was a chance Dan might resume his pursuit of her.
‘Yes?’ Father Hedley had stopped walking and now he turned Kitty to face him with a light hand on her elbow. ‘How does Mrs Stewart feel about the girl?’
‘She hates her, Father.’ Father Hedley watched Kitty swallow and her eyes blinked before she said, ‘Dan is her favourite you see, always has been, and I really don’t think she’d stop at anything if she thought there was a chance they might get together. She’s very cold, Dan’s mother, and calculating. Aye, calculating and clever.’
They looked at each other for a moment and something clicked in the priest’s brain. ‘Calculating you say?’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘And clever. Are you aware that this Colonel Fairley attacked Connie and that she feels his assault was precipitated by an anonymous letter the hotel manager received?’
Kitty McLeary’s round handsome face had a blank expression for a moment, then her eyes stretched wide and her mouth opened slightly before she shut it with a little snap, only to open it again to say, ‘I’ve known she’s been up to something, her and John, but I thought it was just the private detective.’
‘You think your employer is capable of doing something like that?’
‘Oh aye, Father.’ It was bitter. ‘And much worse.’ And now Dan was going away to fight and she knew it was to put as much distance between himself and everything that reminded him of Connie as he could. The last few months it had been as if he didn’t care whether he lived or died. Something froze in Kitty at the thought, a chill going down her spine.
He had to be made to care.
A man going into battle with nothing to lose and nothing to hope for had little chance of seeing another day.
He had to be made to care.
A man going into battle with nothing to lose and nothing to hope for had little chance of seeing another day.
‘Are you all right, Kitty?’
She came back to herself to see Father Hedley staring at her, and the look on the priest’s face told Kitty her own face was reflecting the sick panic she was feeling. ‘Aye, aye I’m all right, Father,’ she said dully. Oh, Dan, Dan, what have you done? Why couldn’t you have waited one more day before enlisting? She could have told him about the letter then, encouraged him to go and see the lass and try to sort things out. But then if Dan hadn’t told her last night he was going to join up this morning, she wouldn’t have come to see her Aunty Ida and met Father Hedley.
But perhaps it wasn’t too late? Dan might have changed his mind or delayed things maybe? There were always panics at the works; something might have cropped up to prevent him following through? She had to go and see him, and right now. ‘I have to go, Father.’ Her voice was urgent and she was already backing away as she spoke. ‘I’ve. . . I’ve an appointment, I’m sorry.’
‘Aye, you run along, Kitty, and don’t you worry. Bring everything to God in prayer now.’
‘I will, Father. Goodbye.’
Father Hedley stood watching the plump, well-dressed figure of the Stewarts’ housekeeper hurrying down the street but he wasn’t really seeing her; his mind was grappling with a memory – a feeling – from the past, which the expression on Kitty’s face had brought to his remembrance. But it wasn’t possible. As he turned away he put his hand to his head, the scones suddenly becoming lead weights in his stomach. Not that. A letter was one thing, but to torch a place knowing there were folk inside. No, no it wasn’t possible. And yet. . . He recalled his unease at the time, which he had been unable to explain, even to himself. But a woman couldn’t have done that surely? Although Kitty had spoken of the son, John, in the same breath as the mother.
It was all too complicated he told himself in the next instant, and he only had his own gut feeling to go on anyway. The past was the past. But what was evident – here, now, in the present – was that someone, be it Edith Stewart or persons unknown, had meant to do Connie harm with that letter. And he had the notion, and strongly, that the Stewarts were at the bottom of it.
He would pay Connie a visit in a few days’ time. He nodded at the thought. He had been intending to call anyway, to remind her that the church door was always open and she would be needing more help and guidance from the Almighty than ever with the heavy responsibilities she had taken on. And while he was there he would mention that two women living alone, above a little business – small as it may be – needed to be careful about such matters as security and good strong bolts on the doors and windows. Aye, he’d do that.
He passed a group of small children playing with a skipping rope one of them had tied to the jutting arm of a lamppost, their faces merry beneath the dirt despite the fact that the two little girls were in filthy rags and the boys had no backsides in their trousers. They were all barefoot and crawling with lice, but at least they looked well fed; they were the lucky ones. One of the little mites smiled shyly at the old priest as he glanced down at them and he returned the smile, fishing in his cavernous black pocket for one of the bags of bullets he always carried around with him. He left the children sitting in a huddle sharing out the sweets, and as he walked away, the sun beating down on his face and causing a shimmer in the road ahead, the little girl’s smile stayed with him.
There was no need for consternation, none at all, but he wouldn’t wait a few days. He would go and see Connie tomorrow and just tell her to watch out for herself.
Chapter Twenty
It was exactly half past six when Dan walked through the door of Bell’s Bakery & Tea-rooms, and when he came face to face with Mary he steeled himself for a fight, only to have the wind well and truly taken out of his sails when she said, after looking him up and down, ‘Well, it’s taken you long enough an’ all.’
‘What?’
‘You heard.’ And then she further surprised him when she said, ‘I’m just closin’ up. She’s upstairs feedin’ the bairn. You know about the baim?’
‘Yes, yes I do.’
‘She’ll be down in a minute, we’ve another two hours’ or so work to do down here, but if I was you I’d go up.’
‘Go up?’ He stared at her a trifle vacantly, and then pulled himself together enough to say, ‘Yes, I’ll do that, Mary, and . . . thank you.’
‘It’s the door off the tea-rooms, an’ Dan’ – she caught hold of his arm as he made to pass her – ‘you
have
come to tell her you were a bloody fool, haven’t you?’
have
come to tell her you were a bloody fool, haven’t you?’
They stared at each other, both of them perfectly still as the last of the customers sidled past them and out of the front door of the shop, and as the little bell above the door tinkled and then became quiet, Dan looked down into Connie’s friend’s plain little face, and what he read there made his voice subdued and even humble as he said, ‘Yes, Mary. I’ve come to tell her I was a bloody fool.’
‘Aye, that’s what I thought.’ And then she grinned at him – the first time he could remember her doing so – and said, ‘Go on then, what are you waitin’ for?’
Yes, what was he waiting for? Why had he waited all these long weeks? Mary was right, he was a fool, a blind, ignorant, faithless fool. He should have come to see Connie weeks ago, the day after their quarrel when he had woken up in Art’s little study and had known – without a shadow of a doubt – that she could never have done the things that foul report had suggested. She might have sent him packing – she might send him packing today – but at least he would have told her how he felt. Hell, he’d been a fool all right. But pray God Kitty’s feeling was right and Connie felt enough for him to forgive him. He’d do anything: beg, plead, grovel. . .
He didn’t have to grovel.
Connie was sitting in a rocking chair, rosy-red cushions behind her back and wisps of golden hair about her face as she nursed the sleeping baby in her arms, a half full bottle held limply in one hand. She didn’t look up as she said, ‘She won’t have any more so ten to one she’ll be playing us up in another hour. Is that the last one gone?’
And then, when there was no reply, she glanced up and saw him standing in the doorway.
She made no sound but her lips formed his name, and all the things he had meant to say went out of the window at the look on her face.
‘Forgive me? I don’t deserve it and I will never forgive myself, but. . . forgive me, beloved.’ He had moved across the room as he’d spoken, dropping down beside the rocking chair and taking her free hand, carrying the palm to his mouth as he said, ‘I’ve been in hell, worse than hell. I knew you were incapable of those things, as soon as I’d had time to think about it I knew, but I thought you hated me and I’d ruined everything. Have I?’
He had come. All the last months of bitter pain and anguish were gone in a breath. She hadn’t been alive these last months, she knew that now. She had stopped living the day he had left and her heart had started beating again a few seconds ago when she had seen his face. He had come. He had come.
He remained still now, her hand held against his cheek as he waited.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, and then, as his lips took hers and the sleeping child made a little hiccuping sigh, the sight and smell and the feel of him was overwhelming and it made her head spin.
‘I’m a fool, Connie.’
‘No, don’t say that.’ As he drew away to look into her face her voice was tremulous.
‘It’s true. Mary called me a
bloody
fool,’ he added with a touch of wryness, and as they stared into each other’s faces they both found themselves smiling and then laughing.
bloody
fool,’ he added with a touch of wryness, and as they stared into each other’s faces they both found themselves smiling and then laughing.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Dan, she shouldn’t have said that.’ Connie was shaking her head, and then, as they became still again and their eyes held, Dan reached forward and very gently lifted the baby off her lap and into the crib at the side of the chair before drawing her to her feet.
‘I love you my darling, you do know that, don’t you? I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman, and it’s the only thing that matters, I know that now.’
And then they were in each other’s arms, their lips clinging and their bodies endeavouring to merge as they swayed together in an ecstasy that was part pain, part pleasure. When at last Dan released her she leant against his chest, limp and trembling, before she drew back a little to look up into his face. ‘We need to talk, I have to tell you –’
‘No.’ He put a finger to her lips, his other hand caressing the back of her neck. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything, my love. I was a stupid, jealous idiot, I knew that the next morning. I thought. . . I thought you’d washed your hands of me and I couldn’t have blamed you.’
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