Tilly True (47 page)

The cab set Tilly down outside her shop, and as she paid off the cabby she felt a surge of pride as customers came hurrying out of the doors carrying their purchases. This was her little empire and it was proving to be a bigger success than she could have hoped. It only needed one thing to complete her world and that was for Clem to understand why she had kept the truth from him and to forgive her. The pocket watch was in her purse and, as Tilly went towards the shop entrance, she made up her mind that she would confess everything, as soon as the right moment presented itself.

A customer carrying a kitchen chair came out of the shop and held the door for her. Nodding her thanks, Tilly went inside and came to a sudden halt, almost dropping her packages. Although the two men talking to Clem had their backs to her, Tilly would have known them anywhere. Seized by panic, she fumbled with the door handle, spilling fruit over the floor as the string bags broke.

‘Tilly.' Clem's voice rang out through the crowded shop and he did not sound pleased. ‘You've got visitors.'

Barney stepped forward, bending down to retrieve an orange that had rolled across the floor and collided with his booted foot. ‘Hello, Tilly.'

Francis made an exasperated tut-tutting noise. ‘Is that all you've got to say to her, Barnaby?' Pushing past Barney, he went to help Tilly pick up her packages. ‘My dear, I'm so sorry about all this. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?'

‘Why did you bring him here? Has Barney told you what he did to me?'

‘I've admitted my sins,' Barney said, holding up both hands and smiling ruefully. ‘Frank has a tender conscience, my love. He insisted that I come and beg your forgiveness in person, although I said I was certain a letter would do.'

‘That's uncalled for,' Francis said, frowning. ‘What you did was a despicable cad's trick. I'm ashamed to call you my brother.'

Thrusting her parcels into Frank's arms, Tilly faced Barney. ‘You never cared for me one bit. Admit it, you bastard.'

Flashing her the smile that once would have melted her heart, Barney shrugged. ‘Come on, dear girl, I'm not as bad as all that. Of course I loved you, in my way.'

‘In your way, yes. In a way you'd loved so many before me.'

‘Tilly, what can I say? I made you happy for a while, didn't I? I showed you a way of life that you'd never have seen without me.'

‘And I'm supposed to be grateful for that?' The words came out in a cat's hiss. Tilly stared at him with narrowed eyes, seeing the handsome, shallow shell that was Barney Palgrave, as if for the first time. ‘What would you have done if our child had lived? Would you have made an honest woman of me? Would you have acknowledged your bastard, or would you have abandoned us?'

‘Child?' Francis stared at Barney, his eyes wide with horror. ‘When – I mean, how?'

‘Please, Frank.' Barney held up his hands. ‘I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how.'

Clem turned to Tilly, his face pale with shock. ‘Child? You never told me, Tilly.'

She couldn't speak. She held her hand out to him, but his stark expression frightened her. All she could do was shake her head.

Barney chuckled. ‘You see what happens, my dear. When you tell lies and keep secrets from the men who love you.'

‘I've had enough of this.' Clem grabbed Barney by the lapels. ‘I blame you for everything, you bastard. Get out of here and take yourself back where you come from.'

Francis slipped between them. ‘It's all right, Mr Tuffin. I apologise for my brother. We're leaving right away.'

‘No, I'm the one what's leaving.' Clem strode to the counter and lifted the hatch. He hesitated, turning his head to look at Tilly. ‘You should have told me everything.'

‘Clem!' His name was ripped from Tilly's throat in a cry of anguish. ‘Clem, don't go. Please stay. I can explain.'

He shook his head. ‘You've told so many lies. You don't know the meaning of truth, Tilly.'

He was leaving her. This time he was really going. ‘No!' Tilly caught him by the hand. ‘Where are you going?'

‘Why would you care where I'm going? You've played me for a fool once too often, but not any more. I'm leaving and I won't be coming back.'

‘Clem, just listen to me. Please.'

Ignoring her impassioned plea, he went into the stockroom and slammed the door.

Tilly would have followed him but Francis caught her by the arm. ‘Leave him to cool down. He'll come round.'

‘No, he won't. You don't understand.' Struggling against a sob that rose in her throat, threatening to choke her, Tilly stuffed her hand in her mouth.

‘He's a good man,' Francis said gently. ‘I could tell that from the first moment I spoke to him. But you were wrong not to tell him what my despicable brother had done to you.'

Leaning against the counter, Barney watched as the last customers shuffled out of the shop, casting furtive glances at Tilly. ‘I seem to have a talent for clearing places,' he said, grinning.

‘This is no laughing matter.' Francis hooked his arm around Tilly's shoulders. ‘You were supposed to love this girl but you've ruined her. I hope you're ashamed of yourself, Barnaby, although I very much doubt if you've got a conscience.'

‘No, I'm afraid conscience seems to be something I lack. You've got my share of it, old chap.' Barney's smile faded as he moved towards Tilly, tilting her chin with his finger so that she was forced to meet his eyes. ‘Francis made me come, Tilly, but I'm glad he did. I did care for you and I never intended to hurt you. I thought I'd disappear abroad and you would forget me in time. I didn't look any further into the future than that.'

‘You know, you are a complete bastard,' Tilly said, controlling her voice with great difficulty. She wanted to rant at him, rage at him and scratch his eyes out, but she knew that he wasn't worth the effort. ‘I thought I loved you, Barney, but now I realise that I was deceiving myself. I'm just as bad as you are for leading people on. Maybe I deserved you. Maybe we deserve each other.'

‘That's more generous than your behaviour warrants,' Francis said severely. ‘You ought to go down on your knees and beg her forgiveness.'

‘I would, but the floor is dirty and I'd ruin my uniform trousers.' Clicking his heels together, Barney made a mock bow to Tilly, raising her hand to his lips. ‘I think we understand each other, don't we, Tilly?'

Looking into his laughing eyes, Tilly experienced an almost miraculous feeling of release; the haunting fear that she might still be harbouring tender feelings for Barney had dissipated like morning mist over the Thames. Her blind obsession for him had been just that and she saw him for what he really was: a charming, selfish, heartless philanderer. Without honouring him with an answer, Tilly turned to Francis, holding out her hand. ‘You were good to me, Francis, and I love Hattie like a sister. Tell her I hope she will be very happy, but I won't be attending her wedding. I've made a life for myself here, and, even though you look down on trade, I'm doing well.'

Gripping her hand, Francis gave her one of his rare smiles. ‘You were always much too good for my brother, Tilly. I'm proud to have known you.'

‘That's done then,' Barney said, heading for the door. ‘I'll say cheerio then, Tilly. No hard feelings.'

Surprisingly, she felt none and she nodded her head. ‘I suppose you're going to Blossom Court now.'

‘You know me too well, my dear. Sorry, Frank, but you'll have to go home on your own. I've got to visit an old friend.'

‘I hope she gives you what for,' Tilly called after him as he went out into the darkness.

‘He's only got a few days' leave,' Francis said apologetically. ‘After that he's going to South Africa to join in the fight against the Boers.'

‘Why did you make him come here, Francis?'

Francis hesitated for a moment before he answered, casting his eyes down to the ground and flushing with embarrassment. ‘I was hoping to spare you this, my dear, but Barney is engaged to be married to a brigadier's daughter. He was granted leave to come home for the wedding and, of course, he had to tell us what he had done. Hattie is devastated. She sends you her love and begs you to forgive our family.'

‘I see.' The only surprise was that she was unsurprised. Perhaps she had seen this coming from the moment Bootle told her that the marriage certificate was a fake. Tilly patted Francis's arm. ‘It's not your fault. Goodbye, Francis.'

‘Goodbye, Tilly, and give Clem a chance. He's everything that Barney is not.'

‘I know that now, Francis. I know that.' Closing the door on him, Tilly turned the key in the lock.

She found Clem in the storeroom tossing his possessions into a cardboard suitcase. ‘Clem, please don't go.'

‘You was free all the time. You had me on a bit of string, Tilly.'

‘No, I didn't. I truly thought our marriage was legal. I wouldn't have gone through with it if I'd known what Barney was up to. I swear I didn't know until after I'd returned from India.'

Turning his head to look at her, Clem's eyes were bleak. ‘But you didn't see fit to tell me, or that you had his baby.'

‘I had a miscarriage on board ship. I wanted to tell you everything, but I just couldn't do it. I was too ashamed.'

‘Were you? Or is that just another of your lies?' He looked away, shaking his head. ‘I've had enough, Tilly. I'm moving back with Abel, if he'll take me.'

‘Please don't leave me, Clem. I do love you, you know I do, and I promise I won't ever lie to you again.'

‘It's too late. Far too late.' Snapping the locks shut, Clem picked up the case and walked out of the door.

Staring blindly after him, Tilly knew that she could not let it end this way. She had made so many mistakes in the past and she had lied her way out of trouble more times than she could remember, but not this time. She ran out through the back door into the stable yard. A powdery covering of snow had fallen and the cobblestones were slippery as she ran stumbling after Clem. He had a head start on her but Tilly kept going, past the stable where Neptune was settled down for the night and the comforting, warm smell of hay, horseflesh and leather. Glancing up she saw Emily silhouetted in the window, stirring something in a pan on her new gas stove. The scene was so homely that it brought tears to Tilly's eyes. She blinked them away, put her head down, and ran along the narrow alley between the dark buildings. When she emerged into Wapping High Street, Clem was already out of sight, swallowed up in the crowd of people shopping or returning home from work in the docks. She raced across the bridge over the entrance to Wapping basin and turned up Bird Street. As she reached Tobacco Dock, she recognised Clem's distinctive limping gait as he was about to disappear into Old Gravel Lane. A dark figure loomed out of an alley, barring her way.

‘Clem!' Tilly screamed his name, but was silenced as a hand clamped over her mouth.

‘Gotcha, your high and mightiness. They was my boys what your man beat up.'

Kicking and struggling, Tilly attempted to bite the hand that was almost suffocating her and was pitched forward so abruptly that she fell against a brick wall, bumping her head. Stars exploded before her eyes but she did not lose consciousness. At first she couldn't think why the man had let her go, but then in the darkness she realised that there was a fight going on. She could see the dark shapes of men fighting; she could hear the soft thud of fists hitting flesh and grunts of pain. Scrambling to her feet, Tilly realised that it was Clem who was in the middle of the scrap, fighting with the fury of a man possessed.

Although he was outnumbered three to one, he had the advantage of having been trained as a professional soldier. Whereas the Old Stairs gang were using sheer brawn, Clem was using his brain. Dodging and diving, he slung one of them across his shoulders and pitched him into the dock basin. An upper cut to the jaw of the next man felled him to his knees and, spinning round, Clem brought his clenched hands down on the neck of the last man, knocking him senseless. Tilly screamed a warning as the man on the ground struggled to his feet, making a lunge at Clem.

‘Got you, peg leg.' He grabbed Clem round the throat, but Clem brought up his hands, breaking the hold and pinning the man to the wall. For a moment they struggled, and the man spat in Clem's face. ‘Kill me then, if you dares.'

‘You're not worth swinging for. But you could do with a bath.' With seemingly superhuman strength, Clem lifted him off his feet and hurled him after his mate. There was a loud splash and the sound of thrashing about in the cold, filthy water.

Trembling with relief, Tilly held her hand out to Clem. He hesitated for a moment and Tilly thought he was going to walk away. Without even a shawl to protect her from the softly falling snow, Tilly was shivering so violently that she could hardly speak, but somehow her cold lips managed to form the words. ‘I love you, Clem. Please don't leave me.'

Fighting to catch his breath, Clem hesitated. Tilly could not see his face in the dark, only the silvery outline of him as the snow clung to his hair and his clothes. ‘Please don't go.' For a heart-stopping moment, she felt her life hang in the balance. And then, taking her hand in his, Clem picked up his suitcase.

‘Let's go home, girl.'

Catching her breath on a sob of relief, Tilly cuddled against him as Clem hooked his arm around her shoulders. A carpet of snow formed a sparkling white pathway ahead of them as they walked home in silence.

Tilly led the way up to her apartment and Clem followed without saying a word. The living room was dimly lit by the streetlight filtering through the windowpanes and the embers of the fire glowed in the grate. With shaking hands, Tilly lit the paraffin lamp on the table and she bit back a gasp of dismay at the sight of Clem's bruised and bloodied face. For a moment they stood, staring at each other, more like combatants than lovers.