Reach for Tomorrow (25 page)

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Authors: Rita Bradshaw

Tags: #Sagas, #Historical, #Fiction

BOOK: Reach for Tomorrow
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Chapter Twelve
 
Rosie married Zachariah on Saturday, 25th July, on the same day when violence erupted at a Miners’ Gala from a crowd angry at the mine owners’ demands for longer working hours and lower wages, and Davey Connor boarded the good ship HMS
Admiral II
bound for England’s green, familiar shores without a backward glance at his adopted country of the last five years and with excitement filling his heart as the ship sailed. The wide expanse of blue-green, froth-crested waves, the endlessly clear sky above and the smiles and elation of the other passengers all seemed to offer a promise, the precise nature of which he wasn’t sure of but which he felt he would understand once he looked into Rosie’s face. And so he stood at the bowrail of the massive passenger ship with his hands gripping the smooth steel and his heart beating with the force of a sledgehammer.
 
Now he was underway, now he had actually made the break and committed himself to going back, he couldn’t believe he had waited five years to see her - and home - again. And yet Rosie had always been with him somewhere deep inside, in the secret recesses of his heart, along with the desire to hear his native tongue and walk familiar northern streets again. He had known he would find her one day, even as he’d fought against the knowledge. And why had he fought it? he asked himself. For a whole host of reasons, but the main one - the one that superseded any other - was the realization he had made the biggest mistake of his life when he had left England. And he would stop at nothing to put things right.
 
He had not questioned what ‘putting things right’ would entail, not yet; it was enough for now that he was going home. The fact that he only had two sets of clothes to his name and a few pounds in his pocket after he had paid his second-class fare could be dealt with. Anything could be dealt with - once he had seen Rosie. It was all that mattered.
 
 
It had been a happy wedding day.
 
The marriage had taken place at St Barnaby’s, mainly to please Jessie, who was a lapsed Catholic, but a Catholic nevertheless, and although the service had been a quiet one without the paraphernalia of bridesmaids and such, Rosie had looked lovely. She had been adamant that she wanted to marry Zachariah quickly and without any fuss, and for his part he would have marched down the aisle the day after they had declared their feelings for each other if it could have been arranged.
 
Rosie had taken Zachariah’s breath away as he had turned from his position at the front of the church at the side of Tommy Bailey to see her walking towards him on the arm of Joseph Green - Rosie’s employer having become a dear friend over the years. The simple white dress in a soft light fabric had just skimmed the top of her ankle-strap shoes, and the lacy little white cap on her shining dark hair and small posy of pink rosebuds had completed the picture of ethereal innocence. Rosie had made the dress herself, a wealth of dreams in every stitch, and as she reached Zachariah’s side and the two of them looked at each other, no one present could have doubted it was a love match. Not that Rosie’s family and friends had questioned it, after the initial surprise. Rosie’s glowing face and Zachariah’s immense pride as they had broken the news had convinced everyone that this marriage was going to be a blessing to them both.
 
Flora and Sally, who was Mrs McDoughty now, had arrived at Benton Street first thing, Sally insisting Rosie borrow her pearl necklace to fulfil the old rhyme
Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue
, and Flora with a small bottle of Chanel No. 5, a newly launched perfume by French fashion queen Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, and tiny seed-pearl earrings which had been her grandmother’s for the something old and something new. Rosie had promised they could leave the blue part to her, and when she had tweaked up her dress to reveal a saucy blue garter complete with tiny velvet rosebuds, which she had made, the three girls had shrieked with laughter. And Flora and Sally had kept the morning full of fun and hilarity in the time before the wedding car - which Zachariah had ordered for Rosie, her mother and Hannah, and her two friends, he himself having spent the night at Tommy Bailey’s - had drawn up outside, knowing that Rosie would be conscious of the missing face on this special day.
 
In the four months since Molly’s departure all Zachariah’s investigations had proved fruitless, and although the matter had been reported to the local constabulary the police had displayed a marked lack of urgency once the full details had come to light.
 
There were times when the thought of her sister wrung Rosie’s heart, and others when she was filled with rage against Charlie Cullen, Ronnie Tiller and all such men. Strangely she never felt angry with Molly, something she had fully expected to do once the shock of her disappearance had worn off, but as the weeks and months had gone by she had become reconciled to the fact that Molly was gone. Her sister had chosen to step out of their lives with a ruthless decisiveness that suggested she had no intention of ever stepping back in, and unless Molly had a change of heart, or a miracle occurred, she would continue to be lost to them.
 
But if she had lost her sister then she had found her mother. When Rosie reviewed the happenings of the past four months it was with a deep sense of gratitude for the good which had emerged from all the turmoil. She had expected Molly’s going to be the final push in her mother’s downward spiral, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. From that very night, when she had sped upstairs fresh from Zachariah’s arms to find her mother still awake and the two of them had cried and talked the night away, Jessie had changed. The drinking had stopped, she had started taking an interest in Hannah and their home, and when Rosie had asked Joseph Green to give her away, and the upright and sprightly fifty-year-old had visited the house to meet Zachariah and the family, Jessie had actually gone and got her hair done for the first time in five years. Rosie felt all this augured well for the future, although occasionally she felt an aching sadness that the transformation couldn’t have taken place earlier, before Molly had gone.
 
But now it was the evening of her wedding day, and the only thoughts running through Rosie’s head were ones of apprehension mixed with curiosity and nervous anticipation about the night ahead. She knew the mechanics of what went on once you were married; Sally had jumped the gun with Mick months before she officially became Mrs McDoughty and hadn’t been in the least bit reticent about what the two of them had got up to. ‘You grin an’ bear it the first time, lass, no pun intended,’ Sally had giggled when Rosie had confided she was in the grip of wedding-night nerves earlier that morning. And then, when Rosie’s puzzled smile had revealed she didn’t understand, Sally had nudged her in the ribs as she’d chortled, ‘You know, lass -
bare
it,’ with a ridiculous leer. ‘It gets better the more you practise an’ I dare bet your Zac knows what’s what. For all Mick’s workin’ with his flippin’ horses he was as green as grass the first time we did it in his mam’s scullery when they’d all gone to bed. Do you remember? You asked me why I was walkin’ funny the next mornin’, but what with havin’ me backside jammed up agen their sink an’ Mick thinkin’ he was ridin’ the winner in the Derby, it was a wonder I come in to work at all.’ Rosie and Flora had been helpless with laughter as the other girl had elaborated further, but now Rosie didn’t feel like smiling.
 
‘Penny for ’em?’
 
Rosie jumped, she couldn’t help it, but as she turned her head and saw Zachariah’s engaging grin she relaxed a little. He had just walked through from the sitting room of their hotel suite to where she was standing looking out at Hartlepool’s sea front from their bedroom window. The hotel was a grand affair and the imposing establishment had rendered Rosie speechless when they had first arrived earlier that evening. There had been bellboys to carry their valises and cases through to their ground-floor suite and when, after a quick freshen-up, they had gone straight through to dinner in the formal dining room, the elegance of the other women’s clothes and the general air of refined prosperity had filled Rosie with awe. Zachariah, on the other hand, had seemed singularly unimpressed.
 
‘I was just thinking about . . . the day and everything.’ As Zachariah approached her Rosie heard herself begin to gabble. ‘It was so nice that everyone could come, although Mrs McLinnie seemed a bit subdued, don’t you think? But Flora’s Peter Baxter seems very pleasant, I really liked him.’ The moment was fast drawing near when she would have to take off the pretty going-away suit she had made with such care, and put on the nightdress and matching negligée in ruched blue lawn and lace, and she wished, she so
wished
they were at home at Benton Street. It was so strange here, so splendid and opulent, and it had the effect of making Zachariah almost a stranger.
 
‘I don’t care about Flora’s Peter Baxter.’ Zachariah’s voice was very soft, and when he took her hand and led her over to the bed the look in his eyes made her go willingly. He sat down beside her before fishing in his pocket and producing a small velvet box, but before handing it to her he leant across and kissed her in a way he had never done before, until when at last he released her she was limp and quivering. But she wasn’t frightened any longer.
 
‘Here.’ He handed her the box as his other hand reached up and stroked the smooth silk of her cheek. ‘Wedding present, Mrs Price.’
 
‘Oh, Zachariah. I haven’t got you anything.’
 
‘I didn’t buy it, lass. It was me mam’s.’
 
He watched her as she opened the small hinged lid to reveal an exquisitely dainty ring worked in fine lacy gold with a half band of tiny diamonds and rubies, and at her delighted gasp he reached out and plucked it from its nest, sliding it onto the third finger of her left hand next to the shining gold wedding band. ‘This is your engagement ring, lass, but I wanted you to have it tonight. Me mam would’ve liked that, bein’ as how she felt about marriage an’ all.’
 
She turned to him, flinging her arms round his neck as she pressed her lips to his for a moment, and then he held her close as he said, ‘Me da an’ me mam might not have bin wed, Rosie, but they loved each other all right. There was only ever one man for me mam, she worshipped the ground he walked on.’
 
Rosie knew what he was trying to say and she nodded slowly. ‘I know your mother wasn’t a bad woman, Zachariah. How could she have been to have had a son like you?’ she said softly. And she must have been strong to have braved the wrath of her fellow northerners. No respectable woman did what Zachariah’s mother had done - not unless they wanted filth flung in their faces by their virtuous neighbours when they stepped outside their front doors, or could put up with being spat on and reviled by all and sundry. But then no one had been absolutely sure about Zachariah’s mother and she had firmly stuck to her story of being wed overseas, Rosie told herself silently. That had been her salvation.
 
‘Me da was a sailor. No.’ He shook his head. ‘More than that, he was a captain, had his own ship, an’ in Denmark where he come from he’d got his own business. He was well set up when he met me mam, but with a wife an’ umpteen bairns over the sea she knew he couldn’t wed her. He set me mam up in her own place - Benton Street - bought it outright in case anythin’ happened to him. An’ once I was on the way he set up a bank account for her along with some bonds an’ such like. The thing is she was scared to death about havin’ a bairn with him away so much an’ she took somethin’. That’s why . . .’ He gestured at his legs. ‘It fair killed her later when she realized what she’d done. She was a good mam.’
 
His voice was defensive and when Rosie said again, ‘I know she wasn’t bad, Zachariah, and it must have been hard for her,’ he nodded slowly.
 
‘Aye, no doubt, but there would be some who’d say she’d brought it on herself.’ A pause, and then, ‘Me da liked to run the odds with the customs blokes, got a right little enterprise goin’ he had, an’ after his ship went down, when I was just startin’ school, me mam started to handle the Sunderland end of it.’
 
Rosie was wide-eyed now but suddenly a lot of things were making sense. ‘She didn’t have to do it, me da had left her nicely set up, but she . . . she liked the excitement, I suppose, an’ it kept her pally with all me da’s mates an’ such. They used to eat us out of house an’ home when their ships were in but me mam liked company. She never got over me da goin’, not really, an’ the way they talked an’ all . . . It comforted her. Not that she was a weak woman, by, no.’
 
‘Did you get involved in any . . . ?’ Rosie didn’t quite know how to describe it. Smuggling seemed a bit strong and yet that was what they were talking about.
 
‘Would you mind if I had?’ Zachariah asked quietly.
 
She thought about it for a moment or two and then shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, not if it was in the past, but if you were doing it now I’d be worried.’
 
‘Well I didn’t anyway, me mam wouldn’t have it an’ likely she was right.’ He touched the ring on Rosie’s finger and his voice was soft when he said, ‘It was me mam’s one regret that she didn’t have his name, legal like. He gave her that ring along with a gold band the day he moved her into Benton Street, an’ although she called herself missus an’ held her head high the gossip hurt her. I used to hear her sobbin’ sometimes when he was away, an’ after, when his boat had gone down, she was bad for months. She still used to have her times of weepin’ for him right up to the day she died. It--’ He stopped abruptly, and when Rosie said, ‘Yes, what?’ he shook his head.
 

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