‘Oh! Daddy, you wouldn’t divorce her, would you?’
‘Don’t be such a dumb female, Kitty.’ Jonathan poked his head towards his sister. ‘Mother will be the one to get the divorce. Father will just agree to it.’
‘I know that, string fingers.’ Now Kitty pulled a face at him; then, looking at her father, she said, ‘That’s how it would be, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s how it would be.’
William now asked, ‘How much do you think Grandma was worth?’
‘Oh, William’—Joseph pulled a face—‘your guess is as good as mine. The factories alone brought in a small fortune; then, scattered around the towns, she has more than fifty houses, some large, some small, but all paying rent, and they’ll go on paying rent.’
‘And if mother doesn’t divorce you, she’ll only get about ten pounds a week out of all that! It’s dreadful, dreadful! Why did she do it?’
‘Oh, I can tell you why she did it…because your grandfather left me this house. She wouldn’t have minded it going to Malcolm; in fact that’s what she wanted, because Malcolm was legitimate. But I, being the bastard son of your other grandfather, oh, she couldn’t tolerate me because she had hated him, right from the day she first met him, I think. And anyway, you know all the story, all the circumstances that led up to the tragedy, when your great-grandfather shot him…and me, too.’ He smiled now. ‘But there you have the reason why your mother is being made to suffer. To put it simply, because she married me.’
Bertha, who had spoken little during all the conversation, said now in a very small voice, ‘I’d kept hoping that…well, that Mammy would come back. But now that will never happen.’
Joseph put out a hand and patted his daughter’s plump cheek, and as quietly he repeated her words, ‘No, dear, that will never happen,’ and even as he ended, he rose from the table and went from the room, the feeling of loneliness that had pervaded his being since Liz’s going deepening further.
In his bedroom he went straight to the side table and took up the phone and when the voice on the other end of the line spoke the number he paused for a moment, then said, ‘Hello, Amy. It’s Joseph here.’
There was another pause before her voice came, saying, ‘Oh, hello.’
‘I…I just want to say, I think it’s damnable, I mean the will. I…I can’t understand her.’ Why was he saying that? He understood the old vixen all right; but he went on, ‘I’ll make it all right for you. You can have the divorce any time you like. They can get it through pretty quickly these days…Are you there?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m here.’
He knew by her voice that she was crying and so he said now, ‘Don’t upset yourself, please. It’ll be all right.’
‘Joseph.’
‘Yes? Yes, Amy?’
‘Could…could I see you?’
‘See me? Of course, of course.’
‘Could you come down tomorrow?’
‘Yes, any time. What time would suit you?’
‘Whatever will suit you.’
‘Well then, I’ve got to be in Hebburn around ten. Say eleven?’
There was another pause before she said, ‘Yes. Yes, thank you. That’ll be fine.’
‘All right. All right, Amy. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Joseph.’
Seventeen
He was held up in Hebburn; the lady wouldn’t make up her mind about the house. She didn’t know whether it was too big or not big enough, and then she discovered, as if at the last moment, that it was situated on the outskirts of Hebburn and really near Jarrow, but, as she remarked, the best end. Yes, he agreed with her, it was the best end and that it was a very nice house and it had belonged to a doctor. It wasn’t until he said to her, ‘Why don’t you bring your husband and let him decide for you?’ that she coyly looked at him and replied, ‘I am a widow, Mr Skinner,’ and he almost closed his eyes and sighed as he realised that this lady needed a house as much as he needed to jump into the freezing waters of the Tyne at this moment, for the snow was already two inches deep outside.
In no polite voice, he said, ‘Mrs Green, I have another appointment. There is a client waiting for me’—he looked at his watch—‘and I’m already late for it. I’m afraid I’ll have to shut up the house,’ and with these last words he inclined his head towards her.
She stumped out of the front door and as he was turning the key in the lock she cried at him, ‘You are no businessman, Mr Skinner. You have lost a good customer.’
He faced her squarely. ‘It’s the third house I have shown you in the last few days, Mrs Green,’ he said. ‘The other two were furnished and I had to put the people to inconvenience to stay while you made your rambling inspection. Now, if you’re really in need of a house then there are other estate agents who will be quite willing to serve you. And I’m sorry I cannot offer you a lift back to the centre of the town, but there is a bus stop over there.’ He pointed.
‘You mean to leave me here standing in the snow?’
‘No, Mrs Green. I’ve noted that you are a very good walker. As I said, there’s the bus stop.’
‘I’ll report you to your office.’
‘Do that, Mrs Green, and I’ll be the first one to open your letter.’
After turning the car around, he could see her marching head up in the air towards the bus stop, and he began to laugh; and continued to laugh at intervals until he was passing through Tyne Dock, when it occurred to him that he hadn’t laughed like this for a long, long time. Altogether, he thought, he must have spent a full day of his time on Mrs Green, but that after all it had been worth it: for a few minutes he had felt lighter than he had done for months. But now there was the problem of facing Amy. However, there could be no doubt she’d be glad to see him, knowing that he’d be with her all the way in getting a divorce.
Twenty minutes later he rang the bell, and when Ada opened the door she greeted him with, ‘Oh! Hello, sir. But why do you bring such weather with you? Isn’t it awful? Who’d live here, I keep asking myself? Come in. Give me your coat, sir. The mistress went upstairs just about five minutes ago, but I’ll tell her. Go on in the sitting room; there’s a lovely fire on.’
He smiled at her but said nothing, then went across the hall and into the sitting room. He hadn’t been in this room for some time and it appeared to him now, as it hadn’t before, to be rather shabby and dated.
Standing with his back to the fire, he looked about him, thinking, ‘Well, I don’t think she’ll stay long here. Once she has the money she can do what she likes and I wouldn’t blame her for getting away from this place. Yet Bridget had always looked upon it as a kind of palace. Well, modes and tastes change, as in everything else. Look at the fancy little boxes they are sticking up on every piece of spare land they could get their hands on.’
He turned now and looked down on the fire and asked himself why he wasn’t feeling agitated at meeting Amy? Probably because he was going to do something for her to make up for past hurts. But then, he must remember, in any case she could do it for herself…get a divorce naming Liz. Liz being dead, of course, there could be no corroboration of any admission he might make. What he must point out to her, and tactfully of course, was that he would have to give her evidence. There were ways and means. It had to be paid for, but nevertheless, he would do that, lawful or otherwise.
When the door opened he swung round; and be became speechless at the sight of her. He hadn’t seen her since Alice’s wedding. She had looked very white and drawn then, and he had kept in the background at her mother’s funeral, but now she appeared to have hardly any flesh on her. He took a couple of steps towards her, saying, ‘I’m terribly sorry I’m late. I had a client, one of those, you know, who want to look under the floorboards. I’ve shown her three houses in the last ten days and I still don’t know what she wants.’ Even as he was saying this he told himself he knew exactly what Mrs Green wanted, but Amy would never have appreciated being told the cold facts, such as they were
; she could never stand another woman looking at him. Oh, what was he yarping on about to himself? He said to her, ‘Aren’t you feeling well? Oh, I suppose that’s a stupid thing to say at this time.’
‘Sit down,’ she said.
So he sat down in the armchair to the side of the fire, and he watched her slowly lower herself into the corner of the couch.
‘It’s dreadful weather,’ she said.
‘Yes. Yes, it is that.’ He nodded in affirmation.
Her next question surprised him. ‘How is your business going?’
‘Oh, you mean the estate agency? Oh, that’s…’
‘No, I meant the Grove House business, with your guests.’
He was a little time in answering; then he said, ‘Going very well, Amy, surprisingly so. There’s seven guests upstairs. But I think before we take in any more, we’ll have to get a matron, or someone like that, you know. John’s very good; in fact, he’s excellent. He runs the show, but he always did, didn’t he?’ He smiled at her, but she didn’t return the smile, she just continued to look at him and wait for him to go on; and so he went on, hesitantly now, saying, ‘Well, it was his suggestion. As he put it, men are all right in their place and so are maids, but he seems to think it needs a kind of matron or sister, someone like that, to oversee things. You see, I’m out all day and it’s he that runs the show. Now there’s generally only Willie and myself at home in the evenings and then that time is taken up discussing the business side connected with the guests; but the girls are expected today…’
‘How many can you take?’
‘Oh, we can take twelve comfortably. They’re in the main corridor, you know. It leaves the other one private. We’ve got a lift in now, and it’s a Godsend. It saves a lot of running up and down the stairs with trays, and I know how heavy that can be.’ He pursed his lips now. ‘I had some weeks of it at one time, you know.’
‘Yes. Yes. I can remember. Would…would you like a cup of coffee?’
‘Yes. Yes, I would, Amy. Thank you.’
She got up, but she didn’t pull on the bell near the fireplace. He watched her walk to the door, then listened to her steps going across the parquet floor in the direction of the kitchen, and he turned now and leant his elbow on the arm of the chair and supported his head in his hand, and like that he let out a long slow breath. They were so polite to each other, like strangers meeting on a train; and she looked awful…well, not awful, she looked ill. She’d had to nurse her mother for months. However, he had to broach the subject of the divorce, but how would he go about it?
It was some time before she returned, and he was surprised to see her carrying a tray with two cups on it. He rose quickly and took it from her; then when she was seated, he handed her a cup and, taking the other, he sat down.
After sipping at the coffee, he placed the cup back on the side table and, looking at her squarely now, he said, ‘Well, we’d better get down to the business of why we are meeting, hadn’t we, Amy?’
‘Yes. Yes, Joseph, just as you say, we’d better get down to business.’
She, too, had put her cup aside now and she sat looking at him until he said, ‘I must say, Amy, I think it is a dastardly thing your mother has done to you, dreadful! And it would seem out of character if I didn’t know the reason, and I’m to blame for that.’
She didn’t contradict him but sat looking at him. Her eyes looked enormous in her white face, their expression one he hadn’t seen there before and he couldn’t explain it to himself. She didn’t really look like the Amy he knew; she must be ill. He found he was feeling deeply, deeply sorry for her. His voice was very low as he said, ‘About the divorce, Amy. I shall make it as easy as possible. I know you could have got it some time ago because of…my association with Mrs Lilburn, but as you know, she died and I don’t know whether any admission on my part would be valid as evidence for a divorce. But there are other ways…and I will take one so that you don’t have to wait to inherit money that is rightfully yours in any case. Again, I say, it is scandalous, but still it is done and I can only make it as easy as possible for you…’
‘How much do you think my mother was worth, Joseph?’
‘Oh—’ He widened his eyes, pursed his lips again, shook his head and said, ‘Well, I know she got about sixty thousand for the two factories as they stood. She’d had a lot of new machinery put into the blacking side, hadn’t she? And an extension. Then she had bought vans and all kinds of things. Oh, I’m sure it was sixty thousand for both of them, although I wasn’t given the full details at the time. In her eyes’—and now he couldn’t keep his bitterness from his tone—‘I was merely the caretaker. We both knew that.’ His face was straight now and he bit on his lip before going on, ‘Then she owned over fifty houses, and if we are talking about properties apart from rents…oh, well, I’d have to do some homework. Taking it altogether, I would say, about one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five thousand, because, you know, her money had been accumulating right back from her father’s time.’
She drew in a sharp breath before she said, ‘You are over a hundred thousand out. Three hundred thousand is nearer the mark.’
‘Really! That’s amazing. But I’m not surprised, no, because there were investments and things like that. Now and again she tried the stock market, didn’t she?’
‘I didn’t know about that. I only know I don’t want any of it.’
He leaned back, drawing in his chin and looked at her as if trying to get her into focus; then he said, ‘What did you say?’
There was the slightest of smiles on her lips now as she said, ‘You were always in the habit, Joseph, of saying to me, “You heard what I said.”’
‘Yes. Yes, that was a pet phrase of mine, I suppose. But you said you wanted none of it…not any of it.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you mean by that? You just have to get the divorce and it’s yours. And, of course, I understand there was another clause: no part of that money is to come to my assistance. Well, I don’t need it, so you needn’t worry about that. I don’t want a penny that belongs to her, and I might as well tell you I never did. It hurt me when she used to pay my staff; but you didn’t understand that.’
‘There were lots of things I didn’t understand, Joseph. I didn’t understand I had become a great trial to you. I didn’t understand when to stop holding on, hanging on.’
‘Oh, please!’ He put up his hand and his fingers wagged tentatively towards her as if to stop her flow; but to no effect, and it was as if she was determined to be heard when she said, ‘Let me talk, please, Joseph. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever valued, which was when I lost you; but in a strange way it was a good thing. It’s like an operation: I was cut open and I saw all my bad bits. But the awful thing is I knew I couldn’t do much about them. They were part of me. I had a kind of disease and that disease was you, and it was the means of ruining me. For years, Joseph, I was unhappy living side by side with you in that house, knowing that I had lost your love and that it was through my own fault. But that pain was nothing to what I’ve endured since I left the house and you, and the fact that you had found love somewhere else almost destroyed me. Yet, at the same time it was strange that I was unable to put the whole blame on you. In fact, no part of it, for I had a lot of time in which to look back on our lives together and I realised that right from the beginning…I wanted…I wanted; without giving, I wanted; and my mother aided me in this way. Whatever I wanted I got; except she never wanted me to have you, because she had this fixation about your father. And what is so unfortunate, Joseph, is, I’m still wanting. But…but I think, in a different way, more understanding. I know what I want and it isn’t that money, it’s…it’s…’ Her voice broke, her head went low and her whole body began to tremble, and when a hard sob came from her throat, he got up swiftly and sat down beside her on the sofa and, taking her hand, he said, ‘Oh, don’t, Amy. Don’t give way. It’s all right, I’ll do whatever you want in this mat
ter about the divorce or…’
‘I…I don’t…I don’t want a divorce.’
‘You don’t? But…but you stand to lose all that money!’ She lifted her head and turned her tear-stained face towards him. ‘Joseph.’
‘Yes, Amy?’
‘Will…will you take me back? I’ll…I’ll be different. I won’t demand. I’ll do anything you ask: keep in the background or the foreground, anything. I’m so lonely, Joseph, lost. Lost…Oh, Joseph.’
When his arms went about her, her head fell on his shoulder and the emotion in her body shook his own, and when she began to gasp for breath and almost choke and her unintelligible words became a wail, he rocked her backwards and forwards as he would have a child, saying, ‘There, there, now. There, now. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.’
His own eyes were moist now, and his heart was battering against his ribs as his mind told him she would have to come back with him no matter how he felt.
The Black Candle Page 54