Molly

by Molly (retail) (epub)

  But nothing during those happy months could worry Molly for long. As the talk of war in South Africa grew more persistent she ignored it; if Owen Jenkins were particularly unpleasant she shrugged, smiled like summer sunshine and thought about something else. At Linsey Grove she sang in her room, smiled a lot, skipped through the house like a child. Ellen Alden softened a little, since she too approved of Harry Benton, though nothing would have made her admit it. Sam, his Christmas row with his cousin Lucy patched up, his cough eased by the summer sun, moved like a shadow through a life that seemed to belong to everybody but him. In a drawer in his room, buried beneath his winter pyjamas, was an ugly little statuette of a boy and a dog.

  As August approached the paving stones burned through thin-soled shoes, doors and windows were opened to street and garden, the trains were uncomfortably hot.

  One Saturday afternoon Harry declared his intention of allowing Molly to decide what she wanted them to do for the rest of the day. He laughed at the way her great shining eyes lit.

  “Within reason, mind, lass,” he said, wagging a finger. “Visits to the palace are out My best suit’s at the cleaners.”

  “Oh, Harry. Could we go to the West End? To look at the shops?” Not since her arrival in London had she been back to Regent Street. “Just to look.”

  “What a smashing idea.” Annie was on her feet, reaching for her hat. “Moll, you’re a bloody genius. Why didn’t I think of that? Not—” she added, hauling lazy Charley to his feet with a wide grin, “—that I go along with this ‘just looking’ lark.”

  They strolled, arm in arm, from Piccadilly to Oxford Circus and back again, Annie on top of her form, the young men delighted to have what they considered to be the two prettiest girls in the street on their arms, Molly somewhat preoccupied. Everywhere she looked she saw a forlorn figure in too-big boots and a patched and ragged skirt She had felt badly enough then; looking back now she knew in mortification how pathetic she must have appeared.

  They stopped for tea and cakes in a large tea shop; and Molly was perfectly aware of the special attention Harry received from the pretty waitress, and was equally aware of his flattered reaction. She kicked him under the table, to Annie’s uncurbed amusement. They visited one of the larger departmental stores and wandered from floor to floor inspecting with a casual air goods that would have cost all their earnings collectively for a year. Charley bought Annie an emerald green scarf and Harry picked for Molly a pretty lace handkerchief to go, he said, in the pocket of her blue silk shirt.

  “—you can wear it tonight, Moll,” said Annie enthusiastically.

  Molly looked at her blankly. “Tonight?”

  “Tonight. Me sister’s do. —Oh, Charley!” she groaned, turning on him, almost stamping her foot in exasperation, “you didn’t tell them!”

  “I did!”

  “You didn’t,” Molly and Harry said in one breath. “What do?” added Molly.

  “It’s me sister’s birthday. Her twenty-first. She’s havin’ a party and you’re all invited. Oh, damn it, Charley, you should have remembered.” Annie’s face was colouring to match her fiery hair. “You promised you’d tell them.”

  Charley looked uncomfortable. Harry grinned.

  “Sure, it doesn’t matter,” said Molly soothingly. “It isn’t too late. We know now. And we’ll come, won’t we Harry?”

  Harry nodded.

  They were back out on the hot pavement now.

  “I’ll have to go home first,” said Molly, looking down at her Saturday clothes. “I’m going to no party dressed like this. Not when I’ve my best hanging in a wardrobe in Linsey Grove.”

  “Right.” Harry was brisk. “Here’s what we do. Charley, you and Annie get on home. I’ll take Moll home from here; she can get changed and we’ll come straight on to you from there. How’s that?”

  “Fine.” Annie already had hold of Charley’s hand and was towing him into the crowds, “See you later, about eight.”

  * * *

  They reached Linsey Grove just after six; the evening sun was full on the closed door and firmly shut windows. As Molly opened the door a blast of hot air hit them. Molly stopped short. “They must be out,” she said awkwardly. “I didn’t know…”

  Harry shut the door and the slanting golden sun filled the hall with prisms of coloured light; amber rose and green splashed upon the walls. “That’s no problem,” he said. “I’ll wait in the kitchen. Mrs Alden won’t mind. And if she does,” he said, grinning suddenly, “I’ll smile nicely and she’ll forgive me.”

  “One of these days,” said Molly, already swinging around the stairpost and up two stairs, “you’ll rely on that once too often and get the shock of your life.” Laughing, she leaned across the banisters to kiss him lightly. He lifted a light-limned face, his swift-moving hand catching her hair and forcing her head down hard. She felt sharp teeth and tongue, tried to pull back and was held. The dazzling sunlight was liquid gold. She closed her eyes, drove her mouth from her position above him hard down onto his. His free hand lifted to her breast, his fingers moving unerringly to her nipple, strong through the thin material of her blouse, and her mouth opened helplessly to the shock. It was Harry who finally, letting go of her hair, stepped back with a jerky movement.

  “You’d – best get changed,” he said in a voice nothing like his own, looking into eyes that blindly begged and took no count of hurt. The wall was at his back, the light stabbed into his head.

  The girl on the stairs straightened, the wild look dying; he saw the fingers of her small hand grip firmly the smooth wood of the banisters. Then she turned without a word and ran swiftly up the stairs.

  She entered a room aflame with sunshine, the hot silence of the house humming in her ears. She leaned for a moment on the door after she’d closed it behind her; head back, eyes closed, breathing deeply, she was fighting herself. She could still feel the pressure of his mouth on hers, his hand violent in her hair, on her breast. She pushed herself to her feet and marched with a semblance of anger to the wardrobe. She was appalled at her image in the mirror; her cheeks flamed; her eyes were lit as if by a lamp. She threw the blue outfit onto the bed, still fighting the unreasoning anger, flung the curtains across the window, scrambled feverishly from her clothes, and in drawers and camisole top – fashion or no she had discarded corsets during the heatwave – hurried to the washstand. The water that was left in her jug was lukewarm but nevertheless refreshing. She splashed her face and neck and reached for a towel; she did not hear the door open. As she turned, water dripping, towel in hand, Harry stood in the shadowed doorway, a strange, oddly helpless expression on his face. Sunshine fell across the carpet in a bright slash where the carelessly drawn curtains did not meet; the rest of the room was filled with warm rose darkness. She did not move as he came into the room, shut the door behind him and leant on it just as she had herself a few moments before. Neither spoke. She watched him: like a stalking cat he crossed the room, unsmiling. Her hands loose by her side, she remained where she was, perfectly still, the towel dropping to the floor. He reached for her shoulders and with some force he drew her to him and kissed her.

  “Let me see you?” he said, softly. “Just let me see you. I won’t touch you, I swear.”

  The warm silence rushed around them. She watched the muscle throbbing in his jaw.

  “Please?” he said. But neither his eyes nor the tone of his voice pleaded. She battled him in silence, begging him to go; obdurately and just as wordlessly he refused. “I just want to see you,” he said again, the words a breath on the heavy air.

  She bent her head, drawing slowly at the ribbon in the low neck of the camisole. Unlaced, it hung open; she could do no more. He pushed it aside with one long, brown, careful finger. She traced the pattern of the carpet with her eyes, unable to lift her head. With firm hands he slipped the top from her shoulders and she stood naked to the waist, her breasts painful beneath his eyes. Still she could not look at him.

  “Please.” This
time the pleading was there in his voice.

  She stood like a doll as he slipped the drawers over her narrow hips and down to her feet, his hands never once touching her skin. He knelt back on his heels.

  “Look at me.”

  She would not.

  “Look at me.”

  She lifted her eyes; shame and fear and unbearable excitement shadowed her face.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. “Bloody beautiful.”

  She shook her head.

  His vivid eyes ran over her slowly from head to foot; she felt them as she would have felt his hands.

  “I love you,” he said. The first time he had ever mentioned the word. “Christ, I really think I love you.”

  He came up onto his knees as she stepped to him; his face was in her soft belly, her hands buried in his thick, feathered hair.

  From the street came voices, the impatient click of the gate. Molly had never seen anyone move so fast. Harry was on his feet and noiselessly across the room almost before her own mind had registered what she had heard. He did not look back from the door. She heard his swift flight down the stairs, heard too a fraction of a second before she heard Ellen s front door key in the lock, the kitchen door click quietly shut.

  By the time she heard Ellen’s and Sam’s voices, surprised, as they walked into the kitchen and found Harry there, she was almost dressed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sarah Benton watched them all, that summer, with tolerant affection and some few misgivings. She watched Annie wind Charley around her bony little finger, torment and tease him, order him from here to Christmas and back; but she saw too the look in the girl’s eyes, the contentment in Charley’s face, saw him weaned from dangerous company and was satisfied that these two were nothing but good for one another.

  About her daughter’s happiness she was not so certain and, as none knew better than herself, with good reason. If Molly had noticed Nancy’s not-quite-hidden unhappiness, Sarah felt it in her own heart and knew as mothers always know that she could do nothing to ease it. Joe Taylor’s uncompromising attitudes did not make him an easy man to like. Respect, he commanded; and no one could complain of his behaviour, which was at all times rigorously well-mannered. But there was little warmth in the man; and he gave the unavoidable impression that his cold and logical decisions, once made, would never be tempered by circumstance. The thought disturbed Sarah. And while the others walked and picnicked, laughed and teased, kissed and quarrelled, Nancy and her Joe went soberly to church, talked of heavier matters than next week’s outing or the latest music hall song, and Sarah found herself wondering, not for the first time, at the caprices of human nature.

  But if Nancy’s romance was a low-key affair, the same could in no way be said of Harry and Molly. Sarah watched the flame that grew between these two and was torn between the simple pleasure of seeing them together and the worried conviction that nothing so fierce could last. And her worry was more for Molly than for her own indestructible son. She wondered, watching them, if the girl were not perhaps blinded by bright eyes and laughter. Harry had not changed as Charley had; he was still the same restless, unpredictable and occasionally ruthless spirit. The strength of will that drove Molly had all of Sarah’s admiration, but she was certain that the girl had not yet discovered that it had no true parallel in Harry. That their temperaments were very similar was irrefutably true, but Harry had never felt the need for self-discipline, and that was a chasm between them that apparently neither had yet noticed. Yet even taking into account these differences, it was hard to believe, watching them together through the bright summer, that anything could come between them.

  As summer drew into the last autumn of the century it was becoming more and more likely that Joe’s prediction of war in South Africa would be fulfilled. As the Boers, grimly patient, awaited the African spring grass that would feed the horses and oxen of the commandos, the British, too, slowly gathered their scattered reinforcements. Argument raged in Britain as in Africa, and feelings ran high. To any suggestion that the British Government’s handling of the situation in the Transvaal, their uncompromising demand for the vote for British Nationals in the Boer Republic, might be regarded in some quarters as high-handed and provocative, Harry, together with most of the rest of the nation, was scathing.

  “A lesson’s what they need, and it’s what they’ll get. A few stretched necks.”

  “The empire’s safe, then,” Molly said drily and with no smile from her place on the arm of Harry’s chair. “For hanging’s something the British Army needs no lessons in.”

  “Irish rebel talk.” Harry slipped an arm about her waist, not noticing the sudden coldness in her eyes. “Just wait till you see the lads in their uniforms, then you’ll sing a different song. Nothing like a uniform for impressing the girls, eh, Charley?”

  “Your brother,” said Annie to Charley, her eyes on Molly’s rigid face, “can be as thick as last night’s cocoa. It’s a good job you’re pretty,” she added to Harry in a tone as unfriendly as any that Molly had ever heard her employ. “Come on, Moll. Let’s go and help Sarah with the tea. The company’s better in the kitchen.”

  * * *

  At five o’clock on the eleventh of October 1899 the ultimatum issued by Paul Kruger to the British ran out and the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State moved on Cape Colony and Natal. Despite forewarnings the British were far from prepared, with only 15,000 regular soldiers ready to take the field in South Africa, and the 47,000 reinforcements under the command of General Sir Redvers Buller still on the high seas. The Boers wasted neither time nor advantage; before breath could be drawn the news came: Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking were all under siege, and the army that was the pride of an empire had been boxed like chickens into crates. Popular pride was outraged, and the call was for Boer blood; but it was mostly the blood of Britain that spilled on the warm and thirsty soil of Africa at the outset, and as the war correspondents reported, their words, however carefully chosen, told of disaster, of engagements lost by lack of military forethought, won by the marksmanship and resource of the well-mounted, mobile Boer commandos. And patriotic temper and outrage began to build to a fever pitch.

  During a bout of cold weather at the end of the month Molly caught a chill and was immediately and uncompromisingly ordered to bed for the weekend by Sarah.

  “You get on home, my lass. Look at you. Just remember what happened last winter. You’ve got to look after yourself. Here—” she thrust a small bottle into the girl’s hands, “lemon and honey with a drop of brandy to help it along. I doubt your landlady’ll have anything. Harry, get along with you; get the lass home.”

  And Harry, gratifyingly concerned, did. He saw her to the Aldens’ gate, kissed her sympathetically. “Do as Mam says, now. And look after yourself.”

  She nodded miserably. “I’m sorry. I’ve spoiled the weekend.”

  “Don’t be daft.” He lifted her chin with his finger, kissed her small red nose. “It isn’t the end of the world. I’ll have a night out with Ben and the lads. I did have a few friends before I knew you, you know.”

  She leaned her aching head upon his shoulder, stifling misgivings. Harry’s friend, Ben Samson, she knew as a likeable, utterly reckless young man whose attitude of total irresponsibility tended to put at risk anyone within a half-mile of him. His influence upon Harry was not exactly a tranquil one. “I expect you’ll enjoy that,” she said, and then smiling goodbye went into the house and to bed.

  * * *

  He did enjoy it; enough to make him want to repeat the experience rather more often than Molly cared for, though she had more sense than to say so. A couple of weeks later he went out with Ben on a Friday night and swore, groaning, on the Saturday that he’d never go near the man again.

  Molly laughed at the pale face and bruised-looking forget-me-not eyes. “Serves you right,” she said heartlessly. “What on earth did you get up to?”

  “God knows. I think we must have fini
shed up with a tot from every bottle in the place – wherever it was – and there was Ben, fresh as a daisy and ready to start again. He’s got the constitution of a carthorse, that one. I think he’s done it this time. I’m dying.”

  The room was empty. Molly slid from the arm of his chair into his lap, her arms loose around his shoulders, her face in the hollow of his neck.

  “Ouch!” His hand came up to her head, forced back her laughing face with its sharp white teeth and kissed her.

  “You aren’t dying,” she announced with some certainty a few moments later, and was tumbled sharply to the floor for her pains. But despite her laughter his drinking bouts with Ben worried her.

  All through November tidings of the war were called on street corners, and the newsboys did brisk business even though all the news was bad. The sieges were unbroken, the Boers’ hit-and-run tactics harried and defeated the relief columns as they marched in uncompromising military order through a wide and wild countryside that was totally alien to them. Molly ignored the war stubbornly, refused to discuss it, turned on Harry in an anger born of fear when he spoke with enthusiasm of the reported valour of the British troops defending Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley.