Molly

by Molly (retail) (epub)

  He closed his eyes on the sound of her departing footsteps. As the front door clicked firmly shut his mother’s voice called from the kitchen.

  “Sam? Sam, why don’t you come in here and sit with me? It’s nice and warm and I’ve got the kettle on—”

  It was fully half a minute before he could muster the breath to answer her.

  * * *

  At ten o’clock Molly stood up. “I really should go. Sam will worry.”

  Sarah, sitting ramrod-straight in a fireside chair, smiled a small, strained smile. “Thanks for coming, lass. And for the pattern. It’s just what I wanted.”

  It had not been a good evening. For the last hour there had been little conversation; any step in the street outside warranted a pause, a sharp expectant look at the door. It had never happened before that Nancy had not come home from work; no matter how her habits had changed lately always she came home before going out. Tonight there had been no sign of her, nor any message. Sarah had spoken of the bad winter service on the roads, wondered aloud if the girls had been kept behind to work some extra Christmas order; she had checked, at regular intervals, her daughter’s supper spoiling in the oven and had finally subsided into anxious silence. Molly wondered uneasily how much, despite Jack’s efforts, Sarah knew, how much she guessed, about Nancy’s new friends. Jack himself, sitting for the best part of the evening in the corner with his newspaper, had said nothing of Nancy; but both women were aware of the throb of the muscle on the side of his jaw, the listening lift of his head at any sound from outside.

  “I’ll walk you to the stop.” He stood up now, moving towards the kitchen for his jacket and cap.

  “Thanks.” With her coat half-on Molly stopped. They all heard it. Nancy’s voice. A man’s laughter.

  Jack was across the room and at the door in one bound. His mother rose from her chair, her hand pressed hard to her breast.

  “Jack!”

  He stopped, stepped back from the door. Outside, footsteps sounded unsteadily on the path. As the door opened Sarah sank back into the chair. Molly, close to her, put out a reassuring hand. Jack straightened, his face like granite, stared at his sister as she, with chin high and her split mouth set in a defiant line, closed the door behind her and leaned on it, facing them.

  “Nancy, oh, Nancy—” Sarah’s voice, fretted with tears, was all the sound in a full minute.

  “What’s he done to you?” Molly made a move towards her, but like the others was restrained by the total rejection of their concern that was implicit in Nancy’s stance.

  “I’m all right.” The quiet voice was slightly slurred. “Just leave me alone. It looks worse than it is.” As if for the first time, she seemed to taste the fresh blood on her mouth, she lifted a hand to wipe it away, smearing it across her cheek, a ghastly splash of colour on her colourless skin. Her hair was blown wild and tangled about her shoulders, her skirt was stained with mud and vomit. The smell of gin, sickly sweet, hung about her. “I’m all right,” she said again.

  “You look it, by God.” Jack’s voice was raw. “Christ Almighty, you look it.”

  “Jack,” Sarah said, her eyes on her swaying daughter, “that’s enough, we’ll talk tomorrow. Let the lass to bed. She looks as if she needs it.”

  “She looks,” said Jack, viciously and without thought, “as if she’s had it.”

  His mother’s hand cracked hard against his face before he or anyone else could move. Molly’s hand went to her mouth. Nancy turned to the door, her forehead pressed hard to the wood, her eyes tight shut. Jack stood like a breathing statue, the mark of the blow bright on his face. Sarah was trembling.

  “I’m sorry, son,” she said. “I’m sorry. But I’ll not have such—” She could not go on.

  Very slowly Jack’s massive, bunched shoulders relaxed. He spoke to Nancy’s rigid back.

  “You can tell him, our Nancy—” he emphasized the two words grimly, “that it’s working nicely. Wouldn’t he give his right arm to see us now?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” The words were muffled.

  “You know as well as I do what I mean. You know what he’s doing. And you know why he’s doing it.”

  Nancy was shaking her head, back and forth, shaking, shaking, a steady, desperate denial. Sarah was crying silently, her face buried in her hands. Molly put a comforting arm about one who had comforted others so often.

  Nancy turned at last, her head still stubbornly shaking, her hands flat on the door behind her for support. She looked sick; there was a bruise on her forehead, her mouth was blurred and reddened. It had not been a blow that had drawn blood.

  “I’d better leave,” she said into the silence.

  “Aye,” Jack said savagely, “you better had.”

  “I didn’t mean – never wanted – to hurt you all like this—”

  Jack stepped to her. She flinched as he took her ungently by her shoulders. Her face was sheened with sweat.

  “Hurt us?” Jack shook her. Molly had never heard his voice so hard. “Think on, our Nancy. When they talk about you down at the docks, in the waterside pubs—” he saw the look on her face “—oh, ay lass, they do talk you know. How in hell do you think I found out what was going on? When they tell their filthy jokes about Jake Aster’s new bitch, Benton’s the name they use. Benton. Mam’s name. Charley’s name.” He lifted her almost clear of the floor. “My name. So think on this. You stay with him, you keep clear of us—”

  “Jack, no!” Sarah’s voice was agonized.

  “Yes, I say. And either way, our Nancy, you tell that bastard this: if it’s a fight he’s been after, he’s won. If I see his ugly face I’ll break his bloody neck.” He let go of her and stepped back. Nancy stared at him, biting her lip. “God knows,” he said in a suddenly shaking voice, “what’s happened to you to bring us to this.”

  “Leave her alone, Jack. Leave her now. She needs help, not abuse.” Molly stepped between him and Nancy.

  Nancy warded her off with upraised hands. “No. He’s right. I’m sorry. But I don’t want your help. I only wish I did.”

  Almost steadily she walked to the kitchen door, stopped a couple of feet from Sarah. “I’m truly sorry, Mam.”

  Sarah shook her head, unable to speak. At the look in her mother’s eyes Nancy’s face crumpled and tears came at last as she fled the room, leaving a deathly silence behind her.

  Chapter Twenty

  A month went by, and a miserable Christmas had come and gone before anyone heard again from Nancy. Jack had fallen into a bitter and black mood that cast a pall across them all and in the Benton household Nancy’s name was never mentioned. Poor Sarah suffered in silence. She would not speak of her daughter, not even to Molly, but the pain was in her eyes. It was one early day in January when the silence was at last broken.

  The day was foggy; a wreathing blanket of yellow smothered trees and houses, pressed to windows, muffled the sounds of the streets. Molly, holding a Danny whose ever-increasing size and weight made him more difficult for her to handle every day, gazed into the shrouded street, thankful for the glow of firelight that lit the room behind her. Ellen was out and the house was preternaturally quiet. She laid her cheek against the soft, bright head as the baby dozed on her shoulder. She moved gently, swaying, crooning to him in a singsong voice.

  Beneath the dripping, fog-swathed branches of the plane tree the muffled figure of a child paused, looked at the number on the gate and lifted her eyes doubtfully to the house. She hesitated, her hand on the gate, obviously debating whether to enter, then scurried up the path. Molly laid the almost-sleeping Danny in the little day crib by the fire and went into the hall in time to see a crumpled piece of paper pushed through the letter box. Puzzled, she picked it up and took it into the light to read. From the street outside came the sound of running footsteps, swiftly smothered by the fog.

  There was an address on the grubby paper, printed in pencil, the letters oddly formed and distorted: “16, Old Dock Rd. Silvertown. Upstair
s.” Underneath were scrawled the words “for God’s sake help me. N.”

  Molly stared at the thing. She had no doubt whatsoever as to its sender. The desperation embodied in the scribbled scrap of paper appalled her. She had to get it to the Bentons at once. Surely even Jack, faced with this, could not refuse to help his sister?

  The baby stirred in his cot. Outside the fog was thickening with every moment as early darkness closed upon the crowded streets; and as fires and ranges were lit heavy, soot-laden smoke rolled from the chimneys to mingle with and sink through the choking atmosphere that already had people coughing into their scarves and mufflers. Not even for Nancy could she take the baby out in this.

  Where was Ellen? In such an emergency even she could not refuse to help, surely?

  She ran to the window, strained her eyes into the infuriatingly blank wall of fog, glared into the murk as if willing Sam or Ellen bodily to appear. From the street came a happy, tuneless whistling. The boy next door – an urchin of ten who was the only person Molly knew who detested Ellen Alden as much as she did herself – tossed his satchel over the hedge of the house next door, followed it with a skip and a jump and still whistling disappeared up the path.

  Of course. Mrs Johnson, next door. She was a motherly, obliging woman who had happily looked after Danny before in an emergency. Molly flung on her coat and gathered up the protesting baby, muffling him against the fog.

  * * *

  It took an interminable time to get to Park Road. The foggy streets were chaotic with traffic jams that made it quicker to walk than to take the horse-drawn omnibus. The sense of urgency that drove her, half-running through the streets, was unabated when she turned the corner of the Bentons’ road. But when she reached the house her heart sank. The windows were dark; no glimmer of light showed. She flew down the path and hammered on the door; the sound of the knocker echoed emptily. No one was there. She stood on the shadowed step for a moment longer before burying her chin in her collar and her cold hands in her pocket and setting off for Jesse Street, where Charley and Annie lived.

  Jack was there. She heard his voice as Annie opened the door. Annie, flaming head silhouetted against dull yellow gaslight, stared at her in astonishment “Molly! What the blazes are you doing here? Is something wrong? Come in, love. Gawd, what a night—” She ushered Molly into a small, cozy room. Two pairs of surprised blue eyes were turned upon her; Jack and Charley, awkward in the confined space of the little, cluttered room, scrambled to their feet.

  “I went to Sarah’s—” Molly began. She was breathless, and her bare head was netted with beads of moisture.

  “She’s visiting. She’ll be back in an hour or so.” Jack waited.

  “What’s up, love?” Annie asked quietly.

  Molly was watching Jack. “I-I’ve heard from Nancy. At least, I think – I’m sure – it’s from Nancy.”

  Jack turned away, his face like granite.

  “—She’s in trouble, Jack. Asking for help. Please! Look at it at least—” She pulled out the note and held it out. Charley took it glanced at it in silence, then passed it to Jack who, after a momentary hesitation, took it and stood for a long time, studying it. When he lifted his head his eyes were chips of ice in a face harsh with anger. “Get your coat Charley.”

  “I’m coming too,” Molly said. The resolution had formed as she had run through the wreathed and dripping streets. Nothing was going to shake it.

  “Don’t be daft, lass. You don’t know what—”

  “I’m coming. Nancy sent the note to me. She might need me. You’ll not stop me, Jack Benton.” Stubbornly she held his blazing eyes with her own. “If you try, I’ll just follow you. I’m coming.”

  Jack caught the coat that Charley tossed to him from across the room, held it for a moment watching her. “Fair enough,” he said at last quietly, “there’s no time to argue. But stick close, lass. If Jake Aster’s around this’ll be no social visit.”

  * * *

  Old Dock Road was as quiet as the grave, and about as enticing. The black and ugly terraces of houses edged the narrow pavements, crowding together in hostile, fog-wreathed silence.

  Somewhere, very faintly, a piano played; a thin, jangling, nervous sound.

  “Number sixteen,” Molly said, with an effort preventing her voice from dropping to a whisper. “It must be on that side.”

  The street was a dark funnel of swirling mist patches. For a moment the air thinned and Charley, counting along the houses, said, “That’ll be it, I reckon. Just beyond the lamp.”

  “Right.” It was almost the first word Jack had spoken since they had set out.

  The door of the house, one of a three-storeyed row of six, opened directly down three steep stone steps to the pavement, along which ran dilapidated and rusty iron railings that leaned at a wild angle to the wall. There was neither bell nor knocker.

  Jack lifted a fist like a hammer, and sound thundered through the house.

  Nothing happened.

  Charley rattled the door. “It’s bolted from the inside. There must be somebody there.”

  Jack knocked again, hard. Molly glanced nervously over her shoulder. They seemed to be making enough noise to waken the dead. As she opened her mouth to say so a weak light moved beyond the dirty glass fanlight above the door, yellowing the fog, making of it something solid and oppressive over their heads.

  “’Oo is it?” A querulous voice, old, bad tempered.

  Jack hammered on the door again. “Mates of Jake’s. Open up.”

  “All right, all right. Keep yer ’air on.” A bolt was rattled back and the door opened a crack. “’E ain’t ’ere.” A bald head appeared, small, crafty eyes, an unshaven face that looked as if it had not seen soap and water for a week; the old man peered suspiciously into the foggy gloom, “You’ll ’ave ter come back later.”

  “No.” Jack’s hand was on the door, pushing inexorably, his solid working boot planted itself in the widening gap, “We won’t.”

  Something in the voice, in the hard eyes, encouraged discretion. The old man stepped back from the door and it opened wide. He was small – only a couple of inches taller than Molly herself – his dirty shirt overhung patched and filthy trousers. In his hand he carried an oil lamp that smoked and smelled and filled the hall with leaping shadows.

  “What d’yer want?”

  Molly, silently, indicated a dark stairway that rose from the corner of the hall.

  Jack jerked his head at the man who held the lamp. “We’ve come to see the girl. Show us.”

  The man shook his head. “Jake won’t like that. No one’s allowed up there.”

  “Jake,” Jack said quietly, “isn’t going to like a lot of things. Show us.” He moved threateningly and the old man backed away. “No need fer that, Mister.”

  He led the way up the stairs. The passage above was lit by two wall brackets; he put the lamp he was carrying on a small table beside a solid-looking door and fished in his pocket for the key. Jack’s face in the guttering light was stone white.

  As the door swung open Nancy lifted her head and looked at them; and for one moment there was nothing but terror in her eyes.

  “Jesus Christ,” Charley said thickly.

  “Get a cab, Charley.” His brother’s voice, scraped raw with rage, was still quiet. “Quick as you can.”

  Charley stood stock-still for a moment, staring, then he turned and clattered, cursing, down the stairs.

  Molly was on her knees beside Nancy, holding her hand, stroking it, whispering.

  “Oh, Nancy, Nancy dear—”

  The girl’s dazed eyes lifted from Molly’s bent head to her silent brother who stood by the door.

  “Jack? Jack?” Her voice was strained with incredulity, the fear of hope. Her bruised face and tangled hair, the angry welts on her body hardly hidden by the dirty robe that was her only garment were not the only signs of ill-treatment; she was paper-thin, her eyes dark holes in a haggard face. “I didn’t think you’d ever come.
”

  In two steps Jack was by the bed, had lifted her bodily and crushed her to him, his face over her shoulder a sharp-boned delineation of pain, his eyes closed.

  The old man by the door moved, sly as a weasel.

  “Jack!” Molly flung herself forward, too late to prevent the man’s escape but at least quick enough to foil his obvious intention of slamming and locking the door behind him. With surprising agility he ran for the stairs.

  “Leave him,” Jack said, setting Nancy carefully on her feet “He can’t stop us now. Charley’ll be back in a minute. Come on, lass, we’re taking you home.”

  Like a child Nancy allowed herself to be ushered down the stairs to the front door, but when Jack opened it and rolling yellow fog drifted like poison into the hall she shrank back.

  Molly tightened her arm about her. “Come on, darlin’. It’s all right. Charley will be here with the cab—”

  They left the house, not bothering to close the door behind them. Jack was on the pavement, his hands held up to help Nancy down the steep stone steps, when the voice rang out.

  “And where the ’ell,” Jake Aster asked pleasantly, “do you think you’re goin’?”

  He was leaning against the lamp post a, nebulous figure half-obscured by drifting fog, his teeth gleaming like an animal’s as he smiled. There were men standing at his back; Molly saw the wet shine of a blade, the solid hefting of a cudgel. A bald head and old, crafty eyes caught the edges of the pool of light cast by the lamp. The old man grinned at her.

  Jack’s hands dropped to his sides and he turned slowly to meet the other man’s bright and baleful gaze.

  “Seems you thought I was away from ’ome,” Jake said thoughtfully. Then, after a pause, threw in, “Seems you was wrong.”

  The old man cackled, some of the others grinned. Jake pushed himself upright with easy grace. “An’ I thought you loved me, Princess. Disappointed, I am. Disappointed.” He was shaking his head sorrowfully, his eyes narrowed upon Nancy.