He thought of the pleasure it would be to get his hands around her neck and slowly strangle her as she had slowly strangled him over the last twenty years, but he’d have to pay for that pleasure, and there were more ways of killing a cat than drowning it. The revenge he was about to take was small compared with that which he would like to vent on her, but nevertheless it was already bringing him some satisfaction.
He would have thought she wouldn’t have cared a damn what happened to her brat. Apparently she had let it go when it was a baby, but it seemed that it did matter still. All this fuss about his bastard leering at his son. And those two old dried pumpkins going round like scalded cats. Oh, it was damned funny. Damned funny.
As she moved another step towards the window he stopped and said, ‘You came to see my son, didn’t you? Because he was, to use the phrase of your class, keeping company with our bastard.’
‘Mr Rosier!’
‘She’s used to plain speaking in her business. They are.’ Bernard Rosier slanted his eyes towards Mr Hewitt; then, returning his gaze to Katie, he went on, ‘It would be a sin, wouldn’t it, if anything happened between them? Oh my! My! What was the phrase the dear Misses Chapman used, ‘A sin before God and man’. I understand from the dear ladies that they didn’t want their adopted child to know about her disgraceful birth, so they came here and appealed to me to send my son packing to some far place so their dear child would not be contaminated…Do you know something?’ His body was swaying slightly now and he bent towards Katie again. ‘That was the first I’d heard of my son’s association with this Miss Sara Chapman. And what did I do? Forbid my son to associate with his half-sister? Not at all, not at all, I encouraged it. I have never done so much encouraging in my life as I have done this last few weeks.’
‘Sir, you are a low, low animal. The…’
‘I’ve told you to be quiet, haven’t I!’ Bernard Rosier was glaring at Mr Hewitt. ‘Nobody asked you here, so unless you want to be thrown out keep your mouth shut.’
Slowly his eyes returned to Katie’s deathly white face, and, his voice low now, he said, ‘There was something else I learned too, only a few days ago when the dear Misses Chapman were here, and that was you haven’t seen your daughter since she was a year old. Dear! Dear! That is a shame. But’—he raised his hand now in a generous gesture towards her—‘I can rectify that. I have a great surprise for you. Do you know that your daughter, our dear daughter, Miss Mulholland, is upstairs at this moment?’
This couldn’t go on. It couldn’t go on. She would do something, as she had done once before. If there was anything to her hand she would pick it up and…and beat him with it. She could see herself doing it. But what had he said, just this minute? Sarah, Sarah was upstairs…? Her Sarah. Her fingers were pressed tight across her mouth again, and now she watched him turn his head slightly over his shoulder and bellow ‘Kennard!’ When the door was opened almost immediately, he said, without turning round, ‘Tell Mr Daniel to come to the library at once, and to bring…his wife with him…at once.’
Kennard, his countenance still imperturbable, closed the door again, and as Katie swayed and looked wildly about her Mr Hewitt quickly pushed a chair forward and assisted her to it.
Bernard Rosier, no longer needing to guard the exit in any way, walked to a table on which stood a decanter and glass, and pouring out a full glass of whisky he threw it off in three gulps; then, turning towards the door, he stood waiting, his glance flitting every now and again to where Katie sat with Mr Hewitt by her side, his hand on her shoulder.
Katie’s eyes, too, were on the door and when it opened her heart leapt painfully, but she didn’t move. Her eyes were now riveted on the tall, slim young girl coming into the room, and it was as if she was looking down the years to herself, as she was when she first met Andy. Only this young girl had a poise she never possessed. She watched her walking slowly forward, followed by a young man.
He it was who glanced round him, first towards his father, and then to the seated woman, and he stared at her a moment as if puzzled, before turning to his father again and saying, ‘You wish to see me?’
Bernard Rosier moved forward, and as he did so he picked up a snuffbox from a small table and, snapping it open, lifted a pinch of snuff between his first finger and thumb, dabbed it into the hollow between the first finger and thumb of his other hand, then applied it to his nostrils, before saying, ‘Yes, I do. But not only me; don’t you see we have visitors?’
The young man looked towards Katie and Mr Hewitt again, and he was more perplexed still by the distress he saw in both their faces, especially in the woman’s. Turning to his father, his shoulders visibly stiffening, his voice curt, he said, ‘Would you kindly tell me why you wished to see me, to see us?’ There was no deference in his manners as befitted a young man of nineteen speaking to his father, but Bernard Rosier did not seem to notice this. He was smiling widely as he moved forward again and took up his position a few yards from where Katie was seated and from where the young girl was standing, one hand on the back of the couch, and, turning his attention to her, he said, ‘I want you to look at this person dressed up as a lady.’ He flapped his hand disdainfully towards Katie. ‘Does she remind you of anyone?’
Katie and her daughter looked at each other. Katie’s hand was now gripping the neck of her cape. She forced herself to sit still, not to move towards this flesh of hers that she longed to touch.
‘No.’ The word sounded precise, definite, and brought a loud laugh from Bernard Rosier.
‘You must look in the mirror, my dear. Side by side you must look in the mirror…for this’—he bowed to her—‘this person is your mother.’
Again Katie was holding her daughter’s gaze. Their eyes stretched, they looked at each other for what seemed an interminable time, and then nothing Katie had suffered in her life pained her as much as the syllable that the girl now uttered.
‘No!’ she cried, and it was as if she was casting away something repellant.
‘Yes,’ Bernard Rosier put in. ‘Look at the eyes. Aren’t they proof enough? This person passed you on to the Chapman ladies when you were a year old. I understand you were brought up on the idea that you are the daughter of their sister. You are not. This is your mother.’ Again he flung his hand out towards Katie, before ending, ‘And she’s a trollop.’
‘I am not. How dare you! How dare you!’ Katie was on her feet, her anger overcoming her fear. Controlling her trembling limbs and lips, she appealed to this girl, this utter, utter stranger, saying, ‘I am your mother. I am, but…but I am not what he said. I am a respectable woman.’
‘Huh!’ They all looked at Bernard Rosier now, who was standing with his arms flung wide as he cried, ‘A respectable woman! Owning more than half the brothels in Shields. A respectable woman who lives with a Swede, and he one of many.’
‘Father!’ It was a shouted command, and Bernard Rosier’s arms dropped to his side and he turned slowly and looked at his son, and asked in a quiet voice that sounded more terrible than his shouting, ‘Yes?’
‘Stop this! I don’t know what devilry you’re up to now, but I say stop this. All right. This…this lady is Sara’s mother. And what does it matter? What do you hope to gain by this exposure?’
‘Exposure? Tut-tut!’ The voice was still quiet. ‘You call this reunion between mother and daughter exposure? You have used the word too soon. If you had used it after what I am going to say now it would be in its right context.’ He moved slowly past his son and went towards the girl, who had her back to the couch now, her hands stretched down on each side of her gripping the upholstery, and when he put his hand out towards her she shrank from him, saying under her breath, ‘Don’t touch me.’
His hand in mid-air, he now surveyed her before repeating her words softly. ‘Don’t touch you?’ he said. ‘But I have a right to touch you, my dear. You see, I am your father. I begot you when your mother was a scullery maid wallowing in slops in the kitchen back there.’
It was not Katie who screamed but her daughter. She stood with her hands covering her cheeks and letting out one scream after another.
The library door now burst open and Kennard appeared, only to come to a stop just within the room. He stared towards his master struggling in the grasp of his son, but he made no move to interfere, and then he himself was knocked aside as Andrée came into the room. After one glance which took in the situation, he grabbed at the man uppermost to him and, gripping the collar of his coat, he wrenched him upwards; then, retaining his hold, he looked down at the other man on the floor, the man who by instinct he recognised, the man he had wanted to see for a long, long time.
‘You swine! You filthy, filthy swine!’ The young man was struggling to release himself from Andrée’s hold and his body was shaking as if with sobs; and he was sobbing, he was crying without tears…‘I’ll kill you! I will! I’ll kill you for this. I…I should have guessed you were up to your devilry with your advice to…to go ahead, to get…get it over…I will. I will. I’ll kill you.’
Bernard Rosier had pulled himself unaided to his feet, and he now stood swaying as he passed his hand over his face, down to his neck on which his son’s hands had left their mark.
Then, looking at him, he said between gasps, ‘I’ll give you the chance any time you like; but just remember, they’ll hang you for it. And what will your widow do then, poor thing?’
The young man was again struggling in Andrée’s grasp, and Andrée, still keeping his hold on him, looked at Rosier and said one word in Norwegian. It sounded as if it were issuing from the depths of a cavern and, although not understood by anyone there, the scorn and hatred in it was apparent, and it roused Rosier once again to fury.
‘Get out! Get out, the lot of you, Scum! Out of my house.’ He glared towards Katie now, screaming at her, ‘You! Get out of my sight, and your whoremaster with you.’
Katie, Mr Hewitt, Kennard, and even Daniel Rosier had all to hang on to the great bearded man; the only person who didn’t move was the girl who still stood with her back to the couch. Pushing, pulling, pleading, they edged Andrée towards the door and into the hall, and no-one took any notice of the sallow-faced, dowdily dressed woman who stepped aside and stood against the wall. And when the big, bearded man, shaking off those around him, straightened his clothes and, looking back towards the library door, yelled, ‘I’ll be back. Remember I’ll be back,’ she turned and slowly entered the library, and without even looking in the direction of her husband she walked to the couch, where the girl was still standing as if glued to the floor, and taking her gently by the arm she led her out of the room and up the stairs.
Chapter Six
Sitting at a discreet distance from Katie’s bed, Mr Hewitt dropped his gaze from her strained and painfully sad face. And in answer to her question he said, ‘I’m sorry, but there is no message—no message at all.’
Katie swallowed over the lump in her throat. The wound her daughter’s ‘No’ had inflicted was still wide open. That ‘No!’ that had held such rejection, such denial of the relationship, that she wondered how she would be able to live with the pain of it all her days.
‘She didn’t say anything to…to these people, the Charltons, about me?’
‘They didn’t say so. They…It might seem strange to you, but they weren’t shocked in the least about the matter, any part of it; they are very modern people. They…they apparently had done everything they could to bring the young people together, and they were witnesses at the marriage…of course they were unaware of the circumstances then. But now they think it right, even proper, that the marriage should remain as it is. Apparently’—he bowed his head again—‘neither of the parties was for an annulment. They are passionately attached to each other, so I understand, and were quite prepared to take the consequences of this union.’ He raised his head now and, looking at her again, said, ‘I understand that Mr Charlton travelled with them and saw them on the cross-Channel steamer.’
‘Where…where are they going?’
‘That, the Charltons said, they didn’t know, and I believe them. Young Mr Rosier promised to write to them when they were settled, but I think they intended to travel first. You see, although he’s a minor his…his father’—again the eyes dropped from Katie’s—‘his father was agreeable to the marriage. I think his mother, too, although, of course, she was not aware of the circumstances. This, in a way, leaves him free. Apparently there is a clause in the will whereby he can draw a limited yearly sum from his inheritance until he is thirty, when he will come into the whole. The Charltons seem to think that it is the best thing that could have happened—I mean them leaving the country; for the marriage would not have been tolerated here, not in their society. Abroad no-one need know. Moreover, they were afraid of what he might be driven to do had he stayed in England. Apparently he has always disliked his father.’
Katie now pulled at a piece of down that was sticking out from a stitch hole in the eiderdown, and she rolled it hard between her finger and thumb. There was someone else who might be driven to do something; who, she felt, was just waiting an opportunity to do something. She had been in bed for two days and she had hardly let him out of her sight, but it couldn’t go on. If only he was away and had time to cool down. She had never wished him from her since they had first met, but she wouldn’t know a minute’s peace or ease until he was safely through the piers.
When Mr Hewitt, after bidding her a sincere goodbye, quietly took his leave she got out of bed and began to dress; and she was in the middle of her dressing when Andrée came into the room, saying, ‘Now, now, what are you up to?’
‘I can’t stay in bed, Andy, I just can’t.’
‘You know what the doctor said, rest for a few days.’
‘I’m not sick, Andy, not that kind of sick. I’ll be better up and about. It might take my mind off things, but I doubt it. You were talking to Mr Hewitt?’
He nodded; then, putting his arm about her, he said, ‘It’s for the best that they should go abroad. Try to look at it like that.’
She wouldn’t have minded them going abroad in the least; she wouldn’t have minded them staying together, although it wasn’t right—it was, as they said, a sin against nature; but what she did mind was her daughter rejecting her, like Joe had done, only worse. Not a word. Just that ‘No!’
‘Kaa-tee.’
‘Yes, Andy?’
‘I think we must tell Theresa.’
Swiftly she pulled herself from him, but, facing him, she cried, ‘No, you mustn’t do that, Andy.’
‘She knows there is something wrong, Kaa-tee.’ His voice was patient. ‘She’s worried. She asked me last night what we were holding back from her. She feels cut off, out of it.’
‘Far better that than her know the truth. Every time that…that devil has lifted his hand against me she has done something. And let’s face it, Andy, things have got worse, not better. If she had left things as they were in the first place my father would have been alive, even perhaps today. I can’t help saying it.’
‘We have been over all that, Kaa-tee. You have also said that but for her and all that happened as a result of what she did we would never have met, haven’t you?’
‘I know, I know. But you mustn’t tell her.’
Andrée straightened his back and his voice was firm when he said, ‘I feel she should know. She is ill, Kaa-tee. Dr Leonard told me last night that her time is short, it could happen any moment. She might have a few weeks at best, or just a few days, or even a few minutes. It could happen any time.’
‘Then if you told her it could shorten
her life?’
‘No, no. I don’t see it that way. How I see it is that she is going to die feeling shut out from something that concerns you, something that is upsetting you, that is making you ill. She saw the state you were in when you came back the other day. The tale of the horse bolting didn’t carry water with her. She’s an astute woman, as you know, Kaa-tee. Apart from the trouble she has caused, there is the other side. She has been good to you, and also you mustn’t forget…she loves you.’
Katie bowed her head, and as he lifted her hand to his bushy cheek he said, ‘I am going to tell her.’ And to this she made no reply.
It was as they finished lunch that Andrée said quietly, ‘I’m going up to the yard for a while,’ and the simple words brought Katie springing up from her chair, crying, ‘What are you going to the yard for?’
‘What am I going to the yard for? Oh, my dear.’
He shook his head and gave a little smile. ‘What do I usually go to the yard for? For my orders.’
‘You said the other day your boat wouldn’t be back until the end of the week.’
‘Yes, but I’ve got to go and make arrangements; there’s lots of things to be done.’
‘No, no, don’t go, Andy. Don’t go.’
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