‘It would,’ I tell her and I picture Ruth’s parents and brothers and sisters, kneeling in front of the fire, saying prayers for me and the clouds. I wonder if they really are praying, or if it’s just something she is saying to endear herself to me. I feel though that she is genuine, that she would not fib. A honest way is something I need in a maidservant and friend. She reminds me of Nora.
It’s while I’m thinking of the weather and Ruth’s family on their knees with their rosary beads, while I’m imagining rolling clouds and biting rain, that I see him.
It was the movement of the paper, a quick back and forth against his face.
Mr Tubular.
Tubular is here, in a tavern, a few miles from my home, in Ireland.
He has come to find me.
And he has managed to do that.
* * *
‘Are you all right?’ asks Ruth, examining me now in concern.
I barely hear her, there’s no room for her voice in my head.
I look straight ahead, warning my brain to breathe. In and out. Ruth is speaking. In and out. Respond.
‘Yes,’ I say and I force my eyes back to her face and my mouth into a tight smile.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ she says.
‘Maybe I have,’ I say and she laughs. I try to laugh too, but nothing comes out.
It takes me a while to make the connection. To match the face imprinted on my brain to the one shadowing behind the newspaper.
Tubular was here. It was him all right, I could make out the shape of his temples and his eyes. He was watching me. Lowering the paper every minute or two to look across.
I turn my head away, my stomach folding into a knot. He had tracked me down. He had followed me to Ireland.
My current husband had arrived, just as I was about to marry my next one.
The sandwiches arrive on white plates. The teapot steams a little from the spout and drips on to the cheap linen tablecloth as Ruth pours.
I can’t speak. I let Ruth talk on, nodding when I think I should, looking right past her, my eyes darting to where I know he is. How did he find me? Why was he here? Did he think he could take me back, to London?
I lift my sandwich and try to eat it but it sticks to the back of my throat like wet paper. I stop to take a drink. To think.
Unable to resist I look over again, this time letting my look linger. Tubular lowers his paper and waves his hand. Enough to get my attention but not to warrant attention from anyone else.
‘Will you excuse me?’ I say to Ruth and I get up and leave my seat, feeling the rush of my heartbeat in my ears.
He’s aged a bit, more white flecks around his temples. His face looks lined, as if he’s been staying up late, drinking.
‘My dear,’ he says as I approach and he stands up to take my hand. Every square of my skin pricks when he put his lips to my knuckles. The feel of his wet lips makes me want to retch.
I sit without being invited, my jaw set in lock.
‘What are you doing here?’ I hiss. I want to scream at him, to tell him to go away.
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he says. ‘Although I know the answer.’
‘How did you find me?’ I say.
‘There I was, reading my paper over breakfast,’ he says, his mouth set in the curve of a smile, his eyes glistening.
He’s enjoying this.
‘Egg in me hand, just going through the notices like I always do and I see that there’s a Lord in Ireland marrying a woman by the name of Molly Thomas. Molly Thomas, says I - that name’s familiar. That rings a bell. It couldn’t be, could it? And do you know ... it was!’
The notice in The Times. Henry had issued it before he told me. Said it was customary. He thought it would be a nice surprise when I opened the paper to read about our engagement. I’d seen such notices from Ireland in the London papers too. But it had never occurred, at least not in the forefront of my mind, that Tubular would pick up on it. He wasn’t a paper man. But he had picked up on it and he’d travelled all the way to Ireland to find me. Three days before my wedding.
‘What do you want?’ I say. My voice is like something a snake might spit.
‘I want my wife back,’ he says.
I look around again, making sure there was no one listening. I could see Ruth looking over her shoulder wondering who I was speaking to.
‘I can’t speak here,’ I say.
‘Where would you like to speak then?’ he says.
‘I can meet you later. Somewhere else.’
I try to think of a landmark, somewhere he could find, somewhere that wouldn’t raise suspicion.
‘There’s a mound at Dowth, a hill, you can’t miss it.’ I told him. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
It was a place out of town tourists sometimes visited. If anyone asked I could say he was a relation, someone who happened to be passing through the area. Interested in history.
‘Is this about money?’ I say, wondering how high his price might be. He had bought me before, maybe now he wanted his investment back.
‘This is about you,’ he says. ‘And your plan to commit bigamy.’
He had me over a barrel. And he would spill about Oliver too.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HENRY
‘I’m very happy for you Henry.’
Arthur was standing in the great room, his arms clasped behind his back.
‘Thank you,’ Henry replied. He was seated on the low sofa, a book in his lap. He was trying to relax after a busy few days organising last minute wedding details.
‘I think you will be very happy together.’
‘I do too,’ he said. ‘Well that’s the plan anyway. No point going into it if you’re not planning to be happy.’
‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘You learnt the hard way about that, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry, frowning. ‘But let’s not bring all that up. It’s something I’d rather forget about. Hardly my finest hour.’
‘She’ll be very disappointed to hear you are getting married again.’
‘I’m sure she will, but what’s done is done. Besides, she’s married herself now.’
Henry still felt sorry for Charity. After the humiliation she suffered with his last minute decision to cancel their wedding, she had taken back to Carlow and spent a year mourning the loss of her relationship and the future life she’d planned with a man she’d been in love with all her life. After the year, her father told her the only way to deal with her heartbreak was to marry again, and he presented an array of suitors to choose from, all keen to marry into the family and wealth. She went with a mild-mannered man from the same county, who came from a monied background. Henry expected she didn’t love him, but she probably couldn’t bear the thought of a spinster life. She had vowed to never travel to the north-east again because of the memories it dredged up.
‘Well, I am pleased for you - I think she’s a lovely lady, Molly. I think I’d like to find what you have.’
‘You mean Henrietta doesn’t satisfy you?’ asked Henry, raising an eyebrow in mockery at Arthur.
‘Henrietta is a doll. And great fun. But it’s hardly true love.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Henry. ‘Just as well I’m the heir, isn’t it. Brabazon would never survive if it was waiting on you to get married and produce a set of legacy children.’
Arthur looked down at the floor.
‘I’m only joking, old boy,’ said Henry, when he saw his remarks had hurt.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you are lucky to find Molly. Remember that.’
Arthur turned, walked to the drinks cabinet, poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and left the great room, looking mournful. Henry felt a pang of pity for his brother. He wished he could find happiness. Or at least whatever it was he was searching for in the bottom of every glass.
* * *
The wedding was to be held at Brabazon, but Henry had learned from his previous nuptial experience. There wou
ld be no marquees or champagne fountains or chocolate rabbits or expensive niceties - it was to be a small, simple affair, with a short guest list and little fuss. This suited Molly, who was shy in large crowds. She was finding it difficult to adapt to the number of soirees, balls, and parties they were being invited to, but she was learning to smile, to stand, and listen, to put on a brave face in front of the numerous questions and comments she was subjected to. He found that people were drawn to her, fascinated by her fashion sense, by her business sense and by the fact that she had captured Henry’s heart and would soon be Lady Brabazon.
His mood had improved immeasurably since his courtship began with Molly. All the problems he’d faced over the past few years seemed to have faded into the background. He had overcome the bulk of the financial strain from Seymour’s death and the cancelled wedding. He had established himself as a capable landlord of the house and what was left of the land.
Molly and he had decided to keep on both drapery shops after she got married. They were turning good profits and Molly had worked too hard to let go of them.
Their future was bright. They were going to be very happy. That, he was sure of.
Chapter Thirty-Four
MOLLY
Ruth knew there was something wrong, that the man I had met had upset me. I told her he was a relative who didn’t have good relations with my family. She sighed and reached across the table in the tavern and patted my hand. We waited until he left before we made our way out to our carriage and she left me mostly in silence on the way home, my wedding dress in its box making a mockery of who I was. Who I am. A bigamist. A prostitute. A mother who lost her own child.
‘Weddings will always bring out the worst in family,’ she said sensibly, as I watched the road rush by. I felt the tilt as the horse leaned into the steep descent coming into Slane. We cross the river, over the stone bridge, before slowing as he strained, dragging us up the almost vertical slope.
Tubular fills my mind and it races ahead to our meeting tonight. How had I not thought that this day would come? That he would find me? That he would track me down, to here, to my home? I should never have told him where I lived all those years ago. I knew it was a mistake, saying the words out loud in that pit of a place.
What could he want from me? And how could I make him leave? I didn’t think he had it in him. The gumption to leave London and follow me, here. I didn’t think he’d care enough. I never thought he was one for revenge, that he’d come to haunt me, to hurt me.
If he talked, it was the end of Henry and me. It would be the end of all that I knew here. I would be disgraced - I wouldn’t even be able to return to the shop. Who would buy from there, knowing of what I’d done in London, of my reputation, that I’d been a whore? And that I had a son out there somewhere, who I’d just left behind?
I listen to Ruth’s gentle voice, lilting as she talks. She’s excited about the wedding, about the dress in the box, about the finery she would see in three days’ time. She talks of how lovely I will look and how she is going to be part of that, making me beautiful.
Beautiful on the outside. Soiled and dirty on the inside.
I was a disgrace.
* * *
Tubular was there before me. Early. A smirk on his face. There was a time when I thought he was a good man. That he did care for me and wanted the best for me. But his love for me had disappeared the day I had. And now, he wanted revenge.
I dismount my horse and feel his eyes on me. I look nothing like the girl in London. I’d filled out, my hair styled, my dress a fine material and cut to my shape.
‘Ireland suits you,’ he says as I stand to face him.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s my home.’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s not.’
I’d forgotten how small he was, how ill statured and weaselly he looked. He was nothing on Henry. Henry was a finer, truer man than he would ever be.
‘What do you want?’ I say. ‘What do you really want?’
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘You are my wife. And I want you.’
I shake my head. He couldn’t be serious. How could we have a future now? After all that had happened and all that had passed?
‘No,’ I say. ‘I am no longer yours. You bought me. But I am no longer yours.’
‘You are my wife,’ he says. ‘And you are mine. You do belong to me.’
I watch him pat his breast pocket and open the flap of his jacket. His fingers flitter and take out a white piece of paper. He opens it up to show me our marriage certificate, the calligraphed letters curving round into a decoration. He holds it in front of me and reads in a mocking voice.
‘Molly Thomas,’ he says, tapping at the paper in his hands. ‘Married. Cotton. That’s me. I own you, whether you like it or not.’
‘You don’t own me,’ I say, my voice quiet.
‘Oh, you think I don’t,’ he says. ‘But the truth is very different.’
‘How much?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’ he says.
‘How much to see you gone?’
‘This is not about money,’ he says and he laughs. ‘I don’t need money. What I need is my wife. Back in my kitchen. Back in my bed.’
‘Hah,’ I say, scoffing at the thoughts of me ever joining him in that way again.
‘Oh, you laugh,’ he says. ‘But it didn’t stop you climbing into bed with hundreds, thousands of others.’
His words sting. It has been so long since I’d been confronted with my past, since I had to face what happened to me and what I had done. I was quiet for a moment. Thinking. I had been prepared to give him money. To take what I was pouring into Brabazon and reroute it to him.
‘Stopped searching for your boy, have you?’ he says. ‘Your precious Oliver?’ He follows it with a throaty laugh, one that reaches into my very core and makes me take my strength and come at him, flailing, my hands making contact with his face.
‘Oi,’ he says grabbing my wrists and holding me in place. He was small, but he was strong and he stops me in my tracks. ‘All right, calm down, calm down. I actually came to give you some news.’
I stop moving, and watch his face for a smirk.
‘News?’ I say.
‘About your boy. I know where he is.’
‘Where?’ I say, surrendering to his hands, to his grip, which he loosens when I stop fighting him. His words swirl through my head. I wasn’t even sure if I was hearing correctly.
‘The police were in touch. They found a boy in Newcastle. They think it’s him.’
‘Newcastle?’ I say. ‘But how did he get there? Newcastle?’
‘Yes, well, I didn’t want to go to see without you. And then I read the notice in the paper. And here I am now.’
He was lying. It couldn’t be true. But Newcastle? It did make sense. It would explain why I never found him in London, after all the streets I’d walked. He never turned up, because he was never there in the first place.
‘You need to come back with me,’ he says. ‘We can go to see him together. And if it’s him - well - we can start up where we left off.’
‘And if it’s not?’ I say.
‘I will file a petition for divorce,’ he says.
I couldn’t read his face. I didn’t know him to be a liar. He was wily, yes. A peruser of prostitutes. But not someone who had proven themselves so dishonest that I expected nothing but lies from his mouth.
He steps towards me and reaches out.
‘Molly,’ he says gently. ‘I’ve missed you. We had a life together. I know you were upset ... devastated at what happened. But we could have had our own children. We would have gotten him back if you gave it time.’
I bowed my head. News of Oliver. It was all I had dreamed of; all my waking thoughts had imagined. And now this news, three days ahead of my marriage. To a good man, who loved me and I him.
I had to go back.
I had to see if it was him. This was the first positive news I’d had in ye
ars. And if they had contacted Tubular, notified us at that address, well then it had to be Oliver.
‘I’ll go back with you,’ I say, quietly. ‘But if it’s not him, I wish for the divorce. You must petition like you say.’
‘Of course,’ he says.
‘I will have to tell my fiancé. We’ll need to delay the wedding.’
‘Yes.’
We were standing at the bottom of the mound, our horses pulled in from the road.
We are silent but I’m thinking about how I can tell Henry. Should I tell him the truth? Or make up a lie and a reason to suddenly depart to England?
‘What is this?’ says Tubular, pointing at the hill behind us which rises from the earth like a beehive.
‘It’s a tomb,’ I say.
‘Let’s climb to the top,’ he says.
‘No,’ I say. This was not the time for sightseeing. But Tubular had turned. He was climbing the mound, clasping at the clumps of grass like I used to when I was child. I watch him get to the top and stand surveying the view, watching the houses all around, small lights in the windows.
‘Come up,’ he says. I didn’t want to. My head was whirring. But I found myself walking towards the mound, climbing, smelling the earth in my hands, remembering what it was like to scale this height.
I view the land around me, my eyes drawn, as always, to where my family home had been.
I feel Tubular standing close, feel his breath on the back of my neck. His hands wrap round my waist and I get his hands and fling them from my body. But he persists and steps in closer, again.
‘Molly,’ he says gently. ‘I know this is hard for you. I know it’s a shock. But I’m still your husband. It’s still me.’
I remember the smell of him, now that it was here in my nostrils, on my skin. I remember his bony fingers, pressing my flesh.
I feel him kissing my neck.
I was going to have to go to England with him. I was going to have to get through these next few weeks to get back to my son.
‘You know what you are?’ he says. ‘You know, even under that fine dress and that lady’s hair style, you’re nothing but a whore?’
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