Dancing in the Moonlight

by Rita Bradshaw

  Jacob stared at the couple. He didn’t have a clue where this was leading, but if it was a prelude to giving him the sack it was a funny way to go about it.

  ‘I went to see me solicitor in Bishopwearmouth last week, lad.’ Abe took over again. ‘Stamp & Stamp in the High Street – do you know ’em?’

  Jacob shook his head, somewhat bemused.

  ‘I changed things, so when I pop me clogs everything comes to you, with a stipulation that you look after Dolly as you would your own mam, and let her live in the house as long as she’s alive, with a monthly allowance. We’ve a fair bit in the bank; never had nowt to spend it on, having no bairns, I suppose, and with the business and all, I think it’s fair to say you’ll be set up for life.’

  Jacob was sitting bolt upright in the chair now, his face portraying what he was feeling. ‘But – but – I’m no relation. I mean, there must be someone else closer.’ He shook his head, bewilderment and amazement vying with disbelief. ‘It’s very good of you, Mr Williamson, more than good, but . . .’ Again he shook his head, his eyes stretched wide. ‘I – I can’t let you do it.’

  ‘It’s done, lad.’ Abe grinned at him. ‘And it’s as the pair of us would want. But I think you could call us Abe and Dolly now, don’t you think? Seeing as we’re nearly family.’

  Jacob stared at the couple, who were beaming at his obvious surprise and shock. He had known they thought a lot of him, but this, this was . . . He could find no words to describe it. They had said they thought of him as a son, and in truth for a long time now they’d been more than just employers to him. He got to his feet and they rose with him, and when he stammered, ‘I-I don’t – know what to say,’ Dolly stepped forward and took him into her arms, saying, ‘Don’t say anything, lad. Just get better, that’s all we want.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He was hugging her and as Abe joined them the three of them stood together, their arms round each other. ‘Thank you, thank you so much. I can’t believe it.’ He didn’t know if he was laughing or crying; maybe it was a bit of both, and certainly Dolly’s face was wet by the time they drew away.

  ‘It’s up to you, lad, but we wondered if you’d find it easier to move in with us at home rather than make the journey back and forth, when you’re able to come back? You could perhaps come and see your folks at the weekend. That way I could go through matters appertaining to the business in the evenings when we’ve had our meal, show you the paperwork and the financial side and things like that. It’s just a thought; sleep on it and let us know. We’ve plenty of room – four big bedrooms, as you know – so we won’t be on top of each other.’

  Jacob looked into the kindly face of the blacksmith. He didn’t have to think about the offer, it was just what he needed. He had been dreading continuing to live next door to where Lucy had been. There were too many memories, too many things to remind him every moment of what he had lost. It wasn’t too extreme to say there had been times when he’d thought he was losing his mind over the last weeks, instances when he could have sworn he heard her voice through the wall or calling from the yard outside. Of course, the fact he wasn’t sleeping most nights didn’t help. His mam said he was low physically and mentally because of what had happened, and it was early days. She was probably right, but he knew he would never be the same now that Lucy had vanished. That was the nub of how he was feeling, and perhaps moving away from Zetland Street and making a new start would give him peace of mind.

  A new start . . . As he stood on the doorstep waving goodbye to Abe and Dolly some time later, the words reverberated in Jacob’s mind. That was the way he had to look at things from this day forth. Whatever Lucy had felt for him, or not felt, didn’t matter now. He had to forget her. He’d thought he knew her as well as himself, but it had been a delusion. It was a lesson for the future: once bitten, twice shy. He nodded at the thought, his mouth grim.

  He squared his shoulders, waving once more as Abe and Dolly turned the corner. Then he stepped back into the house, shutting the door behind him.

  Abe and Dolly had asked him to wait until they had gone before he broke the news to his family and he wasn’t surprised to see his mother peering round the kitchen door. Her brow was creased with worry for him, and a sudden rush of love for her took him by surprise. He grinned at her. ‘Stop frettin’, they weren’t here to give me the push, all right? Just the opposite, if anything. It’s good news for a change. Put the kettle on, I could do with another cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  They listened with open mouths, and then came a storm of questions and congratulations and, from his mother, a few tears of joy. ‘Who’d have thought it, our baby brother a man of means,’ Frank said to Ralph, winking as he did so.

  ‘And him nothing more than a whippersnapper.’ Ralph shook his head. ‘And gormless into the bargain, don’t forget that.’

  ‘Oh aye, definitely gormless. I’m surprised he knows one end of a horse from the other when he’s shoeing ’em, but then with two legs at each end he can’t go far wrong.’

  The chaffing and laughing were at their height when Tom walked into the kitchen from the hall a minute or two later. He had recently acquired a motor car, which he parked in the street under the gas lamp, and Enid had promptly given him a key so that he could use the front door when he visited. He stood just inside the doorway as he glanced around, his voice faintly patronizing as he said, ‘Had a few the night, have we?’

  ‘Not a one, lad, not a one.’ Enid almost danced over to him. ‘It’s our Jacob, you’ll never guess. Abe was here, and he’s making Jacob his heir. Look on him as a son, they do. Everything’ll be his one day. The house, the forge, everything. What do you think about that?’

  Tom’s eyes shot to his brother and Jacob returned the look, straight and unblinking. He knew exactly what Tom would think about it. Frank and Ralph had pulled his leg, but he knew they were chuffed for him, and his mam and da were over the moon. Not so Tom. Oh no. He’d be spitting bricks inside.

  There was a moment’s silence and then Tom raised his eyebrows, coming further into the kitchen. ‘Is that so?’ He smiled at Jacob, his mouth wide, but his eyes cold. ‘Well, aren’t you the dark horse. How did you pull that one off?’

  Jacob made himself smile back. He wasn’t about to give Tom the satisfaction of rising to the bait, although he was aware of the insult beneath the friendly-sounding words spoken in a jocular fashion. ‘The sun shines on the righteous, Tom.’ He forced a natural-sounding chuckle as though the exchange was nothing more than one brother ribbing another. ‘But I don’t suppose you know much about that.’

  For a moment Tom lost his smile and the facade slipped, and Jacob glimpsed what was beneath. It reminded him of the evening he had gone to his brother’s house, an evening that had prompted all sorts of thoughts during the long painful days and nights when he was lying in the hospital wondering who had done this to him. Could Tom have been lying in wait for him that dark May night, prepared to beat him to death in cold blood? Or had he sent his minions to do his dirty work? It was possible. Jacob wouldn’t put anything past his brother these days. But he had come to the conclusion that, for all his faults, Tom wouldn’t put their mother through the agony of losing a son. Tom had always thought a bit of their mam, he’d give him that.

  But he could be wrong. The fine hairs on the back of Jacob’s neck prickled. Looking at his brother now, he could be wrong. Whatever, once he was back at the forge he’d be on his guard, and he’d made up his mind he’d talk to Abe and Dolly about getting a couple of guard dogs. Big brutes. The bigger, the better.

  The brothers stared at each other a moment longer, but when Tom turned to face the rest of the family his smile was back and it was reflected in the tone of his voice when he said, ‘They say every cloud has a silver lining, but I reckon Jake’s must be lined with gold. How about a drink to celebrate? You got any of that French brandy left that I brought a couple of weeks ago?’

  ‘Aye, one bottle, lad. I’ll get it.’ Enid bu
stled out of the kitchen to fetch the brandy from the sideboard in her hallowed front room, beaming as she went. It was good to see her eldest and youngest getting on at last. They said God works in mysterious ways, and she wouldn’t have wished Jacob to be beaten within an inch of his life to bring about the reconciliation, but the way Tom had visited the hospital every day spoke for itself. Blood will out. She nodded happily at the old adage.

  In the kitchen, Tom spoke quietly and quickly once his mother was out of earshot. ‘I want you three at Potato Garth at ten tomorrow night. Jed’s sending a couple of his blokes and they’re in charge, all right?’

  Aaron’s jaw tightened. ‘I don’t like working with any of them lot across the river, I’ve told you that.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut.’ Tom’s voice was low, but deadly. ‘You don’t like it, you know what to do, but the dole pays peanuts, Da. Don’t forget that, and things are getting tighter. I’ve got a list of men as long as my arm who’d be glad of the work I put your way – all of you’ – his gaze included Frank and Ralph, who hadn’t opened their mouths – ‘so think on.’

  Aaron stared at his son, his teeth digging into the flesh of his lower lip so that the action seemed to drag his head down and his shoulders with it. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want the work. I didn’t mean that. We do. We all do.’

  Jacob couldn’t witness the humiliation a moment longer. He stood up, his voice curt as he said, ‘I’m tired, I’m going to bed.’

  He met his mother in the hall, returning with the bottle of brandy, and she caught his arm. ‘You not having a drink, lad?’ And as he shook his head her voice changed, becoming sharper. ‘He’s falling over backwards to be nice, but you don’t make it easy for him, Jacob. One drink wouldn’t hurt, now then.’

  He loved his mother very much, but he wanted to shake her till her teeth rattled. For years she’d chosen to close her eyes to the way Tom spoke to their da and the rest of them, and there were none so blind as those who didn’t want to see. And yet he couldn’t put the blame wholly at his mam’s feet. His da had gone into it with his eyes open, he was reaping what he’d sown. Damn it, he was sick of the lot of them. If he hadn’t been going to Abe’s he’d have moved out anyway. ‘I’m tired, Mam. It’s been a long day,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Aye, all right.’ Telling herself it was still early days in his recovery, Enid said no more, but her annoyance was evident in that she didn’t wish him goodnight, but marched past him into the kitchen where she shut the door with unnecessary force.

  Jacob stood for a moment or two staring after her. A few months ago, even a few weeks, he wouldn’t have liked to go to bed at odds with his mother, and it disturbed him that this made no impact on his emotions now. He was changing, he told himself. He had changed, and he wasn’t sure if he liked the new Jacob.

  Then he shrugged the thought away. Everyone changed – it was part of life’s pattern – and maybe this was just the final stage of severing the umbilical cord. The attack, Lucy leaving him, and everything he’d hoped for the future being blown to smithereens was part of it, but the other side of the coin was Abe and Dolly and all they were offering him. The Sister in charge of his ward at the hospital, a stern, gimlet-eyed woman who had inspired fear in her staff and patients alike, had come and sat on his bed one night in the early hours when he couldn’t sleep and had got himself into a bit of a state. He’d told her about Lucy, blubbering like a baby to his shame, and she’d been kindness itself, holding him like his mam would have done and waiting until he’d pulled himself together. She’d fetched him a cup of tea and one for herself, sitting by the side of the bed and talking of this and that to pull him out of his misery. Just before she’d resumed her duties she’d leaned across and brushed the hair from his brow. ‘You’re young, Jacob,’ she’d said softly, ‘and for now you can’t see the wood for the trees, but believe me when I say that when one door closes another opens. I’ve been a nurse for more years than I care to remember and I’ve seen it time and time again. Concentrate on getting well and wait for that door to open and, when it does, you walk through it, lad. All right?’

  He had nodded, not really believing her, but after she’d disappeared to see to another patient he’d found he could settle down for sleep, and it had been his first long, deep sleep since he had come round from the coma.

  And now that door had opened. Tom’s loud laugh came from the kitchen followed by an obedient chorus from his family, grating on his nerves. It had opened and he was going to walk through it and make a good life for himself, or his name wasn’t Jacob Crawford.

  And Lucy? He would forget her. In time.

  Tom was thinking along different lines as he drove home later that night. There was barely an hour that passed when he wasn’t thinking about Lucy – the desire that had been a fixation from when she was little more than a child having grown into an obsession with her rejection of him. He had been sure she would see reason and come back with her tail between her legs, within a day or so of leaving. With four bairns in tow and Donald having washed his hands of them, was there any other choice? But the days had turned into weeks and still no word from her. No word for him. He could scarcely believe it.

  After a month he had paid a visit to the Sunderland workhouse in Bishopwearmouth after it had occurred to him that that was the answer. She’d placed the youngsters into the house and gone off to find work of some kind, but Lucy being Lucy, she would go to see them on visiting days. He could trace her through her siblings and, with her soft heart and caring nature, she was probably thinking she had made a terrible mistake by now in leaving them there. He would use that.

  He had been excited that day when he’d gone to see the master of the workhouse and, having convinced himself he was right, was bitterly disappointed and angry when he was proved wrong. Vowing to himself he’d take it out on her hide when he did find her, he was forced to accept that he was back at square one.

  But he could be patient. He nodded at the thought as he drove into The Green and came to a stop, continuing to sit in the car as he stared blindly through the windscreen. He had been the first, and Lucy was his. She was leading him a hell of a dance right enough, but that was part of the game. Say what you like, she had wanted him that night deep down. They were all the same, playing the coquette while telling you with their eyes they were ripe for it.

  He eased himself out of the car, standing for a moment as his eyes swept his surroundings. He’d come a long way since he was a snotty-nosed bairn playing in the back lanes around Zetland Street and he intended to go further still. She would be the wife of a wealthy and influential man and, once that ring was on her finger, he’d bring her to heel.

  His body hardened as he visualized exactly how he would subdue and subjugate her, and as he turned towards the house he stopped. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. His loins were burning for a woman and he knew the very one who would do. Kitty had been as innocent as they come when she’d first been brought to the brothel by the father who’d sold her for a good sum to the Kanes, but she’d learned fast and didn’t mind a bit of rough stuff as long as she was kept supplied with the white powder she craved. Aye, a servicing by Kitty would help him sleep, and the good thing about a whore was that they didn’t mind whose name you called out when you were using them.

  He got back in the car, driving round the deserted green and turning in the direction of Monkwearmouth. As he drove, his mind was on the pleasures of the next hour or two, but it wasn’t Kitty he was envisaging beneath him, but the girl who continued to elude him and torment his waking and sleeping hours.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘So, what do you say, lass?’ Perce sat, his great red hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on Lucy’s white face. It was ten o’clock in the evening. The children were asleep and, a few minutes before, Lucy had sat down with the fishmonger to hear their fate. She had been praying all day that Perce would find it in his heart to keep Ruby and John and the twins, but neve
r in her wildest imaginings had she considered him saying what he had.

  ‘But . . .’ She swallowed past the constriction in her throat. ‘Why would you want to marry me?’

  There was an inflection in her voice that made Perce sit up straighter. ‘It’s not for that, lass,’ he said hastily. ‘I mean, not with you carryin’ the bairn an’ all. I wouldn’t expect—’ He had turned as red as a beetroot. ‘What I mean to say is: that side of things wouldn’t happen until after the bairn comes an’ you’re feelin’ all right.’

  She wanted to get up and run out of the room, out of the house, to keep running and running. Instead, she said tremblingly, ‘Then why?’

  Perce cleared his throat. ‘Seems to me you’re in a fix,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘An’ me, well, you know how it was with the bairns when you first came. Matthew, he’s took to you, an’ I don’t know how he’d be if you went now. An’ Charley, he already looks on you like his own mam. You’ve put things right again, that’s how I see it, an’ young Ruby and John are good little workers an’ all.’ He waved his hands helplessly, not knowing how much to say. He had been thinking hard all day and, although he’d loved his Ada, he knew Lucy was a cut above. He’d never get the chance to marry a bonny, bright lass like her again. Course, it was too soon after Ada and the tongues would wag, especially when Lucy started to show, but he’d weather the storm.

  ‘But if you feel like that, couldn’t I stay and things remain as they are?’ Immediately Lucy had spoken she knew she had shocked him.