‘Did it cost all the money we’ve earned?’
‘Not quite. It’s made a great hole in it, but we’re still in profit, and we’re getting more customers every day. And I got half back on the pram what I’d paid for it.’ She chuckled. ‘That’s not bad, especially when we’ve had the best out of it.’
‘Can I play with the cart?’ His chubby hand roved lovingly over the wheels which were taller even than he was.
‘It’s not a plaything.’
‘Can I polish it then?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ She had already washed and polished the cart, especially where the lettering showed. But she didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm, so told him it was a wonderful idea. ‘Tea first though,’ she declared. ‘Then into your old togs.’ Before she finished speaking, he was waiting at the door. When she turned the key in the lock he was gone, along the passage, up the stairs two steps at a time, and down a minute later, changed out of his school-clothes and into his play-things. ‘Ready, Mam!’ he called as he ran into the living-room where she was waiting at table for him; the fish pie had been left gently baking while she went to the school, and now it was done to a turn.
‘Wash your hands,’ she told him, glancing at the dust he had gathered from the cart wheels.
Several times through the meal Rosie had to caution him. ‘You’ll choke yourself eating as quickly as that, my boy!’ Danny sighed and took his time. But it was plain he couldn’t wait to get out and into that cart. ‘Go on then,’ Rosie agreed. ‘There’s a tin of polish in the kitchen drawer, and a box of polishing rags under the sink.’ Before she could draw breath he was out of the front door, with the articles held firmly in his arms. When she looked out of the front room window a minute later, he was proudly showing the cart to Peggy’s younger brother and sister. ‘That’s me there,’ he said, pointing to the word ‘Son’. ‘And that’s my mam… “Rosie”.’
The big lad shoved him playfully. ‘We know that, you little squirt. Here, let me polish the wheels.’ At first Danny resisted when the lad picked up a polishing cloth. But then the lad’s pretty sister smiled at him, and he went all silly. ‘Do you want a polishing rag?’ he asked shyly. She shook her head and hurried away. ‘Take no notice of her,’ the lad said. ‘She’s a pain in the arse.’
An hour later, Danny came back in. He was covered in polishing wax and smelled like a perfume counter. ‘Can I pull the cart tomorrow, Mam?’ he asked, standing at the door with the polish in one hand and a clutch of rags in the other.
‘I don’t think so, sweetheart.’ Taking the rags and polish from him, she drew him into the kitchen where she proceeded to take off his shirt. She had already run a bowl of hot soapy water for his wash.
‘Why not? I nearly come up to your shoulder, don’t I?’
‘I’m afraid you’ll need to grow just a bit more,’ she explained. ‘The cart is different from the pram, sweetheart. You see, it was much easier with the pram, because you pushed it along. But the cart has to be pulled, and besides, it will be carrying nearly three times as much coal.’
‘I want to help though,’ he insisted, a frown darkening his face.
‘And you will, I promise. Anyway, I don’t know if I could manage without you,’ she said, humouring him.
‘When I’m at school, you’ll have to,’ he solemnly reminded her.
‘Well, then, I won’t put so much coal in the cart, eh?’ she fibbed. That seemed to satisfy him. ‘Now then, get yourself washed and into your pyjamas, and we’ll spend an hour on your jigsaw before bedtime.
They were halfway through the jigsaw when Danny suggested they should bring the cart into the house. ‘In case somebody pinches it.’
‘Now, who on earth would want to pinch our cart?’ The idea was unthinkable.
‘If I can’t pull the cart, can I sit on it then? When it’s not too heavy,’ he quickly added.
‘’Course you can,’ Rosie assured him.
‘I love you, Mam,’ he said, planting a sloppy kiss on her face. ‘And I love our new cart.’ A look of seriousness came over him. Are we rich yet?’ he asked.
‘Not yet,’ she said, laughing. ‘But we’re doing all right.’
‘When will we have enough money to buy a horse?’
‘When we’ve sold a good few cartloads of coal, I should think.’ With that they finished the jigsaw, each of them preoccupied with their own thoughts and growing more bone tired by the minute.
At half-past eight, Danny went to his bed. Rosie went to hers an hour later. ‘It’s up with the lark for us tomorrow,’ she muttered, climbing into bed. But she wasn’t daunted by the thought. In fact, she was happier than she had been in many years.
It was the dark hours when Rosie woke with a start. The circle of light travelled over the bedroom, sweeping from wall to wall and over the ceiling. At first she couldn’t make out what the light was. Then she realised. It was a torch. Someone outside was shining a torch into the bedroom.
Scrambling out of bed, she turned on the overhead light and rushed across the room to open the window. Down below in the street, she could just make out the dark shapes of two men standing in front of the steps. There was another figure at the door, and a fourth one standing beside a car. It was a police car, and the men were uniformed. ‘Sorry to wake you, Mrs Selby,’ said the officer nearest the door. ‘But we need to talk with you.’
Trembling in the cold air, Rosie put on her dressing-gown and went down to open the door. Afraid even to wonder why they were here, she merely stepped aside to let them in. The one who had first spoken to her removed his helmet and stepped inside; his colleague, a tall fellow with a round friendly face, accompanied him. The other two remained posted outside.
Once they were inside the living-room, the round-faced officer addressed Rosie in quiet, considerate tones. ‘Mrs Selby, isn’t it? Husband by the name of Douglas Selby?’
‘That’s right.’ Rosie trembled as she clutched her dressing- gown about her. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself from shivering though the room was still quite warm, and the fire had not altogether died down in the grate. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked nervously, looking from one to the other. Her stomach was churning over. She felt physically sick.
‘Sit down, luv.’ The round-faced officer gestured for her to sit in the armchair. ‘It’s not what you think.’
As Rosie sank into the chair, she wondered how he could possibly know what she was thinking. All sorts of terrible possibilities assailed her mind. Was it Ned… had something happened to him? Or Adam? Oh, dear God above! She couldn’t bear to think on it. Suddenly, her instincts came into play, and every muscle in her body seemed to relax. ‘It’s Doug, isn’t it?’ Yes. She was sure now. But why were they here? Had he got into a fight and been killed? Her thoughts flew to Danny. He would suffer too. Not now, but later, when the truth came out about his daddy, he was bound to suffer.
‘Yes, Mrs Selby. It is. I’m afraid your husband has escaped.’ Unaware that she wasn’t listening beyond those words, he went on to explain how, following an accident some weeks back, when Doug lost most of the toes on his right foot, he had been confined to hospital. ‘Of course there were men posted outside, and he was regularly checked. But somehow he fooled the night duty constable, and managed to get out of the hospital unseen.’
Rosie had not heard a single word, other than that Doug was on the run. Would he try and get right away from this area? Or would he head for home? The idea that he should come here terrified her.
‘Mrs Selby?’ Seeing how the colour had drained from Rosie’s face, the constable sat in the chair beside her, his quiet voice betraying his concern. ‘Are you all right?’
Rosie mentally shook herself. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you were saying?’
Patiently, he repeated everything he had told her. ‘We found a trail of blood along the corridors,’ he revealed. ‘Your husband is obviously in urgent need of medical attention. According to the doctor, he’s lost a great d
eal of blood, and can only get steadily weaker.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘If he turns up here, or if you hear from him, we want to know. Will you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘You haven’t had news of him already, have you? I mean… he hasn’t been in touch?’
‘No.’
‘Do you mind if we look around?’
‘I don’t know. My son’s asleep upstairs. I don’t want him frightened.’
‘It’s all right.’ His face beamed. ‘We may look like big hulking lumps, but you’d be surprised how quiet we can be.’ He jerked a thumb at his colleague who went softly out of the room and up the stairs. A few minutes later he returned, went into the front room, and finally came back to report, ‘Nothing, Sarge.’
‘Right.’ The senior officer nodded at Rosie. ‘We’ll leave you in peace then. Thank you for your time.’ He turned to go, but looked round to instruct her. ‘Lock the doors behind us, and be careful when you go about your business.’
‘What do you mean?’ Fear clutched at Rosie’s heart.
‘I don’t want to worry you unduly. But, well, he did make a threat in court, didn’t he?’
Rosie hadn’t forgotten. ‘Thank you, officer,’ she said, following him to the door. ‘If I hear anything… anything at all, I’ll let you know. And don’t worry, I’ll be careful.’ And she would. Normally she left the kitchen door unlocked of an evening. But from now on, when she and Danny were in the house alone, all the doors would be locked and bolted.
Rosie didn’t go back to her bed. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. So she made herself a cup of tea and piled a few more coals on the fire. ‘You’ll have to get past me to get to him,’ she muttered. If it came to it, she would gladly lay her life on the line for that innocent little boy upstairs.
When the dawn broke through, Rosie was curled up in the chair fast asleep. Tiredness had overtaken her. But when the sun came filtering into the room she opened her eyes. The events of the night came back to her, bringing a new and strange kind of fear.
Her waking instinct was to run upstairs to see if Danny was all right. He was stirring as she came into the room. ‘All right, sweetheart?’ Sitting on the edge of his bed, she stroked the tumble of hair from his forehead.
‘I dreamed about our cart, Mam,’ he yawned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘Can we fill it right to the brim?’
‘You see if we don’t!’ Rosie was thankful that his dreams had been much happier than her own.
Fed, washed and dressed for carting coal in worn old clothes that had seen better days, Rosie and her son emerged to a new morning. The mantelpiece clock struck seven as they went out the front door. Peggy’s mam was just collecting her milk bottles from the step. ‘Morning, dear,’ she called. With thin straggly skeins of hair wrapped round numerous flat tin curlers, and her feet clad in enormous red slippers, she made a frightening sight. ‘Saw your new cart last night. It’ll do you a good turn, will that.’ Taking Danny with her, Rosie went to the other woman. ‘Any news from Peggy?’
‘Only the usual… telling me how she’s going on.’ She looked downcast. ‘I’m sorry, lass, but there’s no word for you.’
‘Oh, it’s not your fault,’ Rosie comforted. ‘Besides, that’s not the only reason I came to see you.’
‘Oh?’
‘I wonder if you’d do something for me?’
‘You’ve only to ask, you know that.’
‘Did you hear anything untoward last night? In the early hours to be exact?’
She shook her head, sending a tin curler clattering to the ground. Bending to retrieve it, she grunted, ‘Can’t say I did. But then, I’ve always slept like a log.’ Hugging the milk bottles she asked, ‘Why? Was there a disturbance?’
Rosie was glad she didn’t need to go into any detail. ‘I just thought I heard something,’ she said. ‘It’s made me a bit nervous, leaving the house empty all day an’ all. Could you maybe keep an eye on things?’
‘Goes without saying, dear.’
Rosie put on her brightest smile. ‘Right then, I’d better make tracks or the best coal will be all gone.’ She hurried Danny away, sat him on the cart with his little legs dangling over the side, and trundled off down the street, dragging the cart behind her.
Peggy’s mam watched until Rosie and son had turned the corner. Shaking her head, she muttered harshly, ‘By! It’s coming to summat when a lovely young woman like that has to fit ’atween the shafts of a cart, like a bloody donkey!’ With that, she thanked her lucky stars, and went indoors to write Peggy a stinging letter.
If Peggy’s mam had stayed on the doorstep a few minutes longer, she would have seen a crouched bedraggled figure sneak out of a doorway some short distance down the street. She would have seen him go, in a slow painful gait, after Rosie and the boy. And never in a million years would she have believed that Rosie’s pursuer was none other than her own husband, now an escaped convict. His injuries had become badly re-infected and his blood was carrying the poison to his heart. He was dying. And he meant to take Rosie and the boy with him.
A short time after Rosie left Castle Street at one end, the dark saloon drew in from the other. Ned was in the passenger seat. Adam was driving. ‘I’m not sure about this, Ned,’ he protested. ‘I’d much rather have gone straight to the hotel. You could have come back on your own once we’d made all our other calls.’
‘That’s an empty argument, and you know it,’ Ned chastised. ‘Castle Street is on our way in to town. It makes more sense to see her now. You said yourself we’ve enough appointments to keep us going ’til dark, and what with everything else, and the pair of us having to get back the day after tomorrow, it won’t leave that much time for visiting.’ Consulting the address on a slip of paper in his hand, he stretched forward to read the number on the door. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘Pull over.’
Edging the car into the kerbside outside Rosie’s front door, Adam was thrilled yet nervous, his knuckles chalk white as he gripped the steering wheel. ‘I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this,’ he groaned.
‘Like I said, it makes sense to call in. We’re practically passing the front door anyway.’
‘I doubt if she’s up at this hour of a morning.’ Adam looked at his watch. ‘Good God, man! It’s not yet eight o’clock. And it’s Saturday. If she’s got any sense she’ll still be abed.’
‘It’s no good you using that as an excuse to drive away. Rosie was never one for staying in bed of a morning, and I can’t see why she’d change the habit of a lifetime now.’ He glanced at Adam and was moved by his plight. There was no doubt that Adam adored Rosie. ‘I wish you’d come in,’ Ned pleaded.
Adam groaned. ‘I can’t, Ned. There’s bad feeling between us, and if I barge in without being asked, it will only make matters worse. Her last letter made it very clear she wanted no contact with me whatsoever.’ The memory of that cold short letter cut through him. ‘I have to respect her wishes. You must know that.’
‘I’m sorry, son.’ Ned still made no move to get out of the car.
‘If you’re going, you’d best get a move on.’ Leaning over, Adam unlocked the door and pushed it open. ‘I know you mean well, Ned, but you’re only prolonging the agony. You go. I’ll wait here.’ He thought it strange he could sound so calm when his insides were in turmoil. It was all he could do not to leap from the car and bang on that front door. To see Rosie again, to feel the warmth of her radiant smile, would be the most wonderful thing.
‘All right. But I’d like to bet that once she knows you’re here, she’ll be straight out to see you.’ He climbed out of the car and poked his head back in to say, ‘Our Rosie was never one for bearing grudges.’
‘It’s not a matter of bearing grudges and you know it.’ Slowly winding the window up, he urged, ‘Go on, Ned. And look, it might be best if you don’t let her know I’m here.’
‘Whatever you say.’
Twice he knocked on
the door, but there was no answer. Turning to look at Adam, who was peering from the car window, he stretched out his arms in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Seems like there’s nobody in,’ he said, expression downcast.
Peggy’s mam was just putting out the empties. ‘It’s no good you knocking on that door,’ she told him sharply, ‘because Mrs Selby ain’t there.’ Regarding Ned through suspicious eyes, she came a step closer. ‘What’s your business with her anyway?’ She hadn’t forgotten how Rosie had asked her to keep an eye on the house.
‘I’m her father-in-law… Ned Selby.’ As he came towards her his face was wreathed in a friendly smile. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen Rosie. We’re in the area and, to be honest, I thought it was time I mended a few broken bridges between me and mine.’
‘Hmh! Ned Selby, you say?’ Retreating up the steps, she eyed him up and down. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you could be Jack the bleedin’ Ripper, ’cause I ain’t never seen you in my life afore.’ Oddly enough, though she knew of Ned Selby, and Peggy had mentioned him umpteen times, Peggy’s mam had never clapped eyes on him.
Ned was faintly amused. Out of the corner of his eye he could that Adam also appreciated the situation. ‘I’ve never been accused of being Jack the Ripper before,’ he told her. ‘Honest, luv, I really am Ned Selby, and if our Rosie was here, she’d vouch for me right enough.’
‘Well, she ain’t here, is she? What’s more, if she was here, you wouldn’t need vouching for, would you?’
‘You’re right, I wouldn’t.’ Reaching into his waistcoat pocket, he withdrew a pen. Fishing out a scrap of paper from his jacket pocket, he asked, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where I could find her.’
‘Nope!’
‘But you won’t refuse to give her a message?’
‘I suppose I could do that all right.’
Pressing the scrap of paper to the wall, he scribbled:
Rosie,
I’m sorry I missed you today, but I’ll call round later tonight. Hope that’s all right? I need to explain why I stayed away. I hadn’t realised how much I’d miss you both. I’m here for only a couple of days, and there’s so much to tell you. Look forward to seeing you and Danny.
More Than Riches Page 38