The Bondage of Love

by Catherine Cookson

  The voice came over the phone now, yelling, ‘If I was at that end, I’d make you eat those words. Bad blood, indeed! You, who’ve never put your foot inside a chapel in your life.’

  ‘Shut up about you and your chapel and get yourself over here! If not, I’m leaving her in the hands of the police. When I took her, you made it definite that you were her legal guardian. You thought of the money, didn’t you? In case I might claim it and use it on her upbringing. And let me tell you something: if you’re not here by this time tomorrow, I shall get the police here to contact your local office. Finally, I’ll leave you with the further knowledge that there are drugs in this case, and she’s implicated.’ He banged down the phone.

  He stood for a moment, his hands covering his eyes; he didn’t know just where he stood: was he or the old man her adoptive parent? He, himself, had never had control of her money. Then, angrily, he marched away and along to his study, saying to himself, ‘Don’t be such a bloody fool. You adopted her; you’re responsible for her. Both of you took on the role of parents.’

  In the office, he sat down at his desk, put his elbows on the table and lowered his head into his hands. There’s one thing certain: Fiona wouldn’t have her back. And the very thought of her being in this house again was nauseating to him. Well, this being so, he’d have to come into the open. There’d be a court case anyway, because the doctor had found a trace of drugs in her blood. ‘Minute compared,’ he had said, ‘but nevertheless, there.’

  Compared with what? The drug addict which she would soon turn into? Oh, yes; once she had started on that, and at her age.

  He sat back in his chair and breathed heavily. There was only one spot of light on the horizon; she didn’t want to come back here. She had told him openly she wouldn’t come back here; she would go and live with her grandfather. Well, then, let her confront the old man with that. And if he would have none of it, then he would see that some arrangements were made for her to be sent to a strict school. There must be such places. And that’s if she wasn’t recommended by the court to be put in a place for unruly girls like herself; somewhere dealing with drugs and stealing.

  He couldn’t believe the thieving part. She had everything she wanted, within reason that is, except for gold charm bracelets and spangles! Lately, she had been sending letters to the old man, and had received answers from him, likely with postal orders in, for he would have been unwise to refuse her money. If he remembered rightly there was a clause written into the trust fund that she would not have the sole use of her money until she was sixteen. She could draw upon it for special items. Well, if she had to go into that school or wherever, he would see that she drew upon it, because he wouldn’t pay another penny towards her keep.

  He got up quickly from the desk and, nodding to himself, said, ‘That’s that! As far as it goes.’ He had work to do.

  Thirteen

  He left his office on the site at half past four, and made straight for the hospital in Fellburn. And now he was sitting by Mamie’s bed. Her head was lowered and she seemed intent on cleaning one fingernail with another.

  He had been talking to her for at least five minutes, and she had taken no heed of him. ‘Well, now, I’ll put it plain to you,’ he went on. ‘My wife,’ he did not give Fiona the usual name of Mrs B that the girl used, but repeated, ‘my wife won’t have you back in our home. Nor do I want you back. That part being clear, it might be news to you that your grandfather and his cousin don’t want you in their house either.’ He did not know why he said this, only he knew, in his mind, it was true. But this statement brought her nail-cleaning to a stop and she said, ‘He will! He will want me…he does!’

  ‘Well, he’ll likely tell you out of his own mouth tomorrow when you meet him. But let me emphasise to you that it will all depend upon the police; Sammy has come around and given them further information, apart from your shoplifting…’

  ‘I didn’t! I didn’t!’

  ‘You are a liar, and you know it. And when Sammy comes fully around, he’ll prove it, and in court. D’you hear? And in a police court, because he has already named some of the men concerned with drugs and whom you know. It is already known to the doctors that you have taken drugs.’

  ‘I haven’t! I haven’t!

  His voice was a growl now, ‘Don’t be stupid, girl! The nurses found two punctures on the top of one arm and some in your hip.’

  ‘They’re scratches! I haven’t!’

  ‘Well, you tell that to the magistrate when you come up before him.’

  With some satisfaction, he now watched the scarlet flush cover her face.

  ‘I’m going to my grandfather’s; he does want me; nobody can stop me.’

  ‘Well then, you tell him that when he comes.’ With this, he got up and walked out.

  The following afternoon found two men sitting opposite Bill in his study. They had both been made almost speechless by the size of the grounds and the house, and more so after they had entered it.

  As blunt as ever, Bill said, ‘You’re surprised, aren’t you, that this is where she’s been brought up?’

  The older man, his lips now moving one over the other, muttered, ‘Houses don’t make characters.’

  ‘You’re right there. You’re right there. As I said to you on the phone, what’s in her has come out from way back. But again I’ll say, not from her mother or father, for neither of them would have bred the lying little thief she’s turned out to be, and all underhand. Oh, yes, for the first we heard of it was when she went missing. And when my lad went after her, having seen her shoplifting with her pal, what happened to him? He was led into what is now known to be a den of drug-pushers, and afterwards was almost murdered. Thankfully, he’s lucid enough today to give the police the whole picture.’

  ‘Well, all I can say now,’ said the elderly man, bristling, ‘is that somebody in this house was very amiss not to notice the condition she was in.’

  ‘She was a girl of almost thirteen; and she was cute enough to know that my wife might have noticed something if she had gone into the pool. But she hasn’t used that for some weeks now, saying it would give her a cold. Always some excuse. But none of us twigged.’

  It was the younger man who was bristling when he said, ‘Well, now, when she’s in this dreadful condition, what do you expect us to do?’

  ‘I expect you to do nothing, sir, but I expect her grandfather to act as a grandfather. And, let me tell you, she wants to go back to him.’ He was nodding towards the older man now. ‘Yes, she wants to go back to you. She says she will never come back here. Nor would we have her. Anyway, you are her legal guardian; and you saw to it when you took charge of her money.’

  ‘Well,’ the younger man was putting in now, ‘why should my uncle be expected to—?’

  ‘Will you please keep out of this? You didn’t want anything to do with her ten years ago, did you? Oh no. So, I am dealing with your uncle.’

  ‘He’s an old man.’

  Bill looked at the older man and said, ‘Old? But not too old to carry on business, are you, sir? I don’t see you as old. But still, if you think you are too old to take her, the magistrates will decide where she is to go, and her money with her.’

  When he saw them both moving in their seats, and the younger man glance quickly at the old man, Bill said, ‘Anyway, the money was put into trust, and that can be gone into and easily dealt with. As yet, her money should hardly have been touched. And then there is the accrued interest.’

  ‘There have been expenses,’ the old man said.

  ‘What expenses?’

  ‘Well, she’s had sums from time to time, and there has been correspondence…’

  ‘Sums? There’s been five pounds, ten pounds, and not very often. I go through the post before anybody gets letters in this house. And last year I should say she had a letter from you twice. As for expenses; what d’you mean, expenses? There’s no expenses in running a trust like this unless you…Did you have a secretary, such as your ne
phew here? Whom I thought, when I last met you, was your cousin or your son-in-law, or some such.’

  ‘There had to be things signed at the bank, and correspondence and—’

  ‘Shut up! Don’t you try to cover up to me. D’you know who you’re talking to? I’m a businessman: I have secretaries, I have accountants; I know how things are run; I am now working on a contract from a trust left by Sir Charles Kingdom. I am also on a committee that deals with a trust for cancer relief.’

  ‘Those…those are different trusts.’

  ‘They all come under the same laws; and we’ll look into the laws, won’t we? And that’s one of the first things I’m going to do when she’s sent into a home.’

  ‘I don’t want to see her going into one of those places.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Bill poked his head towards the old man. ‘Then what is the alternative, if you’re not going to take her?’

  ‘I haven’t said I’m not going to take her. Well, what I mean is, you haven’t given us a chance to speak.’

  ‘Uncle, what about room?’

  The old man almost barked at his companion now, saying, ‘Will you leave this to me, Owen. Please!’

  Again Bill was looking from one to the other, and now he repeated, ‘Room? What d’you mean, room?’

  To this the old man said, ‘Don’t worry. If we have to make room, we’ll make room.’

  ‘All right, you’ll make room. But what is all this about? You had, I understand, a very nice house. What are you talking about,’ he had turned to the young man, ‘not having enough room? Is that what you’re saying?’

  The old man drew in a long breath, and said, ‘My…Owen and his wife are living with us temporarily.’

  The younger man, who was glaring down towards the end of the desk, now had all Bill’s attention. ‘But you and your wife were going up in the world, weren’t you?’ Bill said. ‘You were moving from some village in Wales to The Hill, or the equivalent, into a fine house; and you had made up your mind you didn’t want any children. Apparently it was children or the house, and the house won. You were in big business of some sort, weren’t you?’

  The man still kept his gaze on the end of the desk as the older man attempted to explain, ‘It’s…it’s only temporary. There was a bit of a slump and…’

  ‘Oh! Oh! He’s gone bankrupt, has he?’

  The younger man’s head came up quickly and he snapped, ‘It’s a temporary thing, just temporary. It’ll be all over in no time.’

  ‘Not bankruptcy, lad, not bankruptcy. I don’t know how long ago it is, but you know it’s three years before you can start up again. And then it’s difficult. Well! Well!’ His tone now changing, he went on, ‘Well! Well! You wouldn’t have him down as the secretary to Mamie’s trust, would you?’ A flush crept over the bony face, and the old man spat out, ‘You…you should be careful what you’re saying, what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘Oh, I am careful. I’m very careful.’ He said no more until, after a silence, he asked the old man quietly, ‘You are going to take her, then?’

  The old man’s head came up, but he kept his eyes lowered as he replied, ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose you could say we are going to take her.’ Then he added sharply, ‘At least for a time. At least for a time.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how long you mean by a time, but she comes into her money when she’s sixteen. And if there’s nothing accounted for before, it will be then. And she’s very money-conscious, you know. She’s a spender.’

  ‘She…she will have to conform if she’s under my care. And this I will see to. Oh yes.’ His head was bobbing now. ‘Yes, I will definitely see to it.’

  He rose now, and the younger man with him; and when he said, ‘We will go back to the hospital and get her.’ Bill held up his hand and said, ‘Oh, no. It can’t be done as quickly as that. We’ll have to see the police, because there’s bound to be a case later on. They’ve got two of the scoundrels already. They’re looking for the woman and Mamie’s friend, Nancy.’

  It seemed that the two men were unable to speak a word, and so Bill said, ‘You could go to the hospital and see her, and you’d better take some of her things with you, I’ll have the rest sent on.’

  As he passed them to go out of the room, it seemed for a moment that they weren’t going to follow him. Then they were in the hall and he was calling, ‘Nell!’

  When she appeared from the drawing room, he said, ‘Will you please take these gentlemen upstairs to Mamie’s room, and pack a couple of cases with her dresses, or what clothes she’ll need? Then would you mind driving them to the hospital?’

  Nell, falling in with Bill’s tone, said, ‘Yes, Mr Bailey,’ then led the men upstairs.

  Fifteen minutes later, when the three of them came downstairs again, the younger man was carrying one small case, and on Bill’s look of enquiry, Nell said, ‘The gentlemen didn’t think her clothes are suitable for her. I have packed some of her…plainer underwear, and a dress and coat, also some stockings and walking shoes.’ She was looking straight into Bill’s face, but he said nothing to her. To the old man, he said, ‘She won’t like that; I mean, not having her own clothes.’

  For the first time the old man spoke to Bill through the Bible, saying, ‘Vanity is the breeder of sin; and in this way alone you may have a lot to answer for.’ And on this he marched out, to Nell’s voice saying, ‘Hang on a minute. If I’m to take you in I must get my coat,’ and, on the run, she called to Bill, ‘Tell Fiona, will you? She’s up in the nursery.’

  Bill stood at the top of the steps and watched the two men standing on the gravel drive, their backs towards him. They didn’t move until Nell approached them, when they turned and followed her towards the garage. Bill then closed the door and went back to his study. And once again he put his elbows on the desk and held his face in his hands. ‘Vanity is the breeder of sin. And in this way alone you may have a lot to answer for.’ Does any good deed one ever does turn out right? He had taken Mamie as a child of three and it had taken only ten years of soft living to turn her into what she was today. He had taken Sammy, not only into his house, but into his heart, and although there was nothing legal about it, he knew he had adopted him as a son, and look what had happened to him and what the doctor had said this morning. Even when he got back onto his feet, it would take him a long time to get back to what he had been, for through the kicking he had received, there might be some damage to his kidneys. His ribs were broken, but they would heal in time.

  Time. Time. Oh, he was tired. They were all tired. But this business was only really starting. Wait until the papers got their teeth into it.

  As Bill slowly mounted the stairs, he repeated to himself, vanity is the breeder of sin…you do a good turn, and this is the outcome of it, drugs, shoplifting and sin.

  Fourteen

  Expectancy is more trying than the event itself.

  Who said that? Somebody had; he had heard it somewhere. And it was right, because the headlines hadn’t come down on him regarding the girl in the way he had expected; in fact, in a way, some of them had been kind. And after praising Sammy, the schoolboy, as some of them called him, who had tried to get the young girl in question away from the house of Mrs Polgar, at least that was the name the known drug runner had been living under for some two years in a respectable quarter of the town, what had happened to him in trying to get the girl away? He had come across a drug set-up and immediately recognised one of the men as having worked in a garage. Being a member of a karate club, the young fellow had used all his expertise, only to be felled by a blow on the back of the head, then pounced on. He had then been tied up and put in a plastic bag and left under a jetty to the mercy of the tide.

  The whole report had ended by saying that the young girl was now in the care of her grandfather …

  There was no upbraiding of either him or Fiona. Only one paper mentioned that the girl had been before a magistrate and was told that she had the choice of going into a rehabilitation home, or bein
g placed in the care of her grandfather, for apparently she had stressed she didn’t want to go back home and live with her adoptive parents. Although she had been brought up almost in the lap of luxury for the past ten years, the girl herself wasn’t without means: when she was sixteen she would come into a large sum of money which was held in trust by her grandfather.

  So they had got over that. The next headlines, he supposed, would be dealing with the further charges of drug running. But there were still the Polgars to be traced.

  But tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and it was hoped they would have Sammy home. He had been in hospital for almost three weeks, and although he had been on his feet for the past week, he had found difficulty in walking. But he had been assured that this was simply because he had been, and was still, badly bruised all down the left side. And no matter what he thought, he must, for the time being, make use of a wheelchair.

  He had said to Bill, ‘Wheelchair! I’d rather go on my hands and knees.’

  And to this Bill had retorted, ‘You’ll do as you’re told; you’ll use a wheelchair. We’ve got one at home all ready for you.’

  ‘Well, you’ll not get me into it, Bill.’

  ‘D’you know something, Sammy Love?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not treating me with respect.’

  ‘Oh, I know what you’re going to say…I’ve forgotten the Mr.’

  ‘Yes, you forgot my title.’

  ‘D’you mind that much?’

  ‘No lad’—he punched Sammy on the shoulder—‘of course I don’t; I like it. There’s another title I’d like better. But you only had one da and I wouldn’t want to replace him. What am I saying? Who but an idiot would want you for a son anyway? If you had been bred of me, you certainly wouldn’t have walked into a den of thieves and drug addicts, pushers, murderers, the lot; no, you would have had more sense. Anyway’—he had stood up, embarrassed now—‘I’m going to see the doctor now about getting you home tomorrow.’