It had been difficult enough to organize the visit, such was the protocol, an etiquette made even more complicated by the fact that Ruby was now dead and not personally able to authorize those in charge of this place to admit him, let alone grant him an audience with the young lady in question, a Miss May Robertson. Finally after what Herbert considered an unnecessarily prolonged correspondence the visit was approved under the conditions laid out in the Reverend Mother’s final letter.
A quarter of an hour after his arrival and ten minutes after he had finally sat down on one of the hard and very upright wooden chairs the door in the chamber on the far side of the grille was opened and two nuns came in with their heads bowed ahead of another nun who entered with her head up and her hands folded in front of her inside her sleeves. In turn she was followed by the person Herbert had come to see, a young woman in what appeared to be a blue-black shapeless dress over which she wore a long white pinafore. Her hair was tucked up out of sight underneath a triangular headscarf made of the same material as her dress.
‘Peace be with you.’
Herbert peered through the grille.
‘You must be the Reverend Mother.’
‘I am. Quite so. And this young lady is Miss Robertson.’
The girl bobbed a half curtsey as Herbert strained to get a good look at her, but thanks to the intricacy of the grille and the gloom of the parlour he could hardly make out her features at all. Besides, once she had briefly looked at him in greeting, she immediately bowed her head again in the same manner as the two nuns each side of her, neither of whom had looked up from the floor since entering the parlour.
‘May? Come and sit down here please, beside me,’ the Reverend Mother instructed as she walked to the chairs their side of the grille. ‘Do please be seated yourself, Mr Forrester. We will not waste time on any formalities since we only have five minutes together, so I will leave it to you to ask Miss Robertson whatever it is you wished to ask her.’
Now she was sitting directly opposite him the other side of the heavily ornamented grille Herbert got a closer look at the young woman whom he understood to be seventeen and a half years of age. She seemed to be of average height, although there was no telling what sort of figure she might have, thanks to the deliberate shapelessness of the convent uniform, nor of her colouring since all vestiges of her hair were kept equally firmly out of sight by the tightly tied and fixed headscarf. She kept her eyes cast down as well, looking at her hands which lay folded in her lap, so Herbert had no idea either of the colour of them nor of the state of her complexion. All he could tell was that she had slender wrists and shapely long-fingered hands. Otherwise she could have been just anybody, which was exactly how the nuns in whose charge she had been placed when she was four years old wished her to be considered. There was nothing special about any of their charges, not at least as far as their looks were concerned.
According to what Jane had told Herbert all that mattered to the nuns was the spiritual well-being of the girls in the convent. As far as appearances went the girls had to keep themselves scrupulously clean at all times. When they washed they were made to do so with carbolic soap, scrubbing brushes and pumice stones until their skin looked as though it had been polished. But they were not allowed to admire the fruit of their labours as there were no looking glasses anywhere in the convent, and because all the holy pictures were hung above head height there was no way the girls could even catch a sight of their reflections in the panes of glass which protected the images of various blessed and sanctified people and the omnipresent paintings of Christ pointing to his Sacred Heart. Girls when they first arrived were warned that vanity was a sin, and specifically cautioned that the crime of trying to catch sight of their own image in any way whatsoever was punishable.
Herbert didn’t know whether such things were true or whether they were just the usual hysterical exaggerations he always heard told about papists. What he did know was that the young woman sitting opposite him with her head meekly bowed and her hands demurely clasped was Ruby Sugden’s daughter, a fact which was quite unknown to the girl herself. Resolved that her daughter should not follow her into the same profession, Ruby had asked her sister to look after her child until she was old enough to be sent away to school where she would stay as if she was an orphan, until having received the full benefit of a good education she would be sufficiently well placed to earn a proper place in society, either working somewhere acceptable such as a milliner’s shop or perhaps somehow even winning the post of governess to a good family. From conversations with various of her most regular and trusted clients Ruby had understood that the most likely way she could achieve this aim for her child was through a convent education, and this particular convent had come highly recommended by one of her most notable regulars, whose own three daughters had been educated by the enclosed order of the Sisters of St Philomena which was housed in a convent some ten miles north of Whernside. Here Ruby had been assured her daughter would get not only an excellent education but also the very best moral and spiritual guidance. Moreover the nuns were fully accustomed to taking in girls with no questions asked, obviously in the hope that on finding themselves technically orphaned the great majority of such pupils would turn to God and the Virgin Mary in loco parentis, and then as a final part of the logical process in due time themselves become brides of Christ.
This was something which Ruby had never for a moment contemplated, believing that regardless of what the nuns might try to instil into her daughter, blood as always would finally out and May Robertson would grow up to be the true daughter of Ruby Sugden, albeit without knowing her true parentage and without having to earn her living the preposterous way that her mother had been made to earn hers. She had also been convinced she was doing the best thing for May, believing that had she brought her up in Trafalgar Crescent her daughter would have had no proper chance in life at all. Even if she had kept May away from the business, as Ruby preferred to think of her career as a madam, May would inevitably have found out exactly what her mother did, and even if consequently she had disowned Ruby it would still be something to haunt her for the rest of her life. Not only that, but more than likely the truth of her upbringing would catch up on May herself at some later date, perhaps after she had found herself employment or even a husband. No one wished to marry a bastard, Ruby knew that well enough, but the bastard daughter of a whore would stand no chance whatsoever.
But when she found that she was dying and – according to her own book of rules – doing so prematurely, Ruby suddenly and understandably became anxious about her only child. The way she had foreseen it Ruby thought she would still be alive when May left the convent and unknown to her daughter would have been able to pull a few strings for her in York. Several of her clients, men who had formed a great attachment to Ruby over the years and had good reason to be grateful to her for a variety of reasons, had already although not specifically promised to help when the time came. But then when the time had come and a great deal earlier than Ruby had envisaged not one of these promises was fulfilled. All those who had pledged their help reneged to a man and the mortally ill Ruby suddenly found herself friendless.
All but for the unswerving loyalty of one man.
She had always been reluctant to call on Herbert, because the things Herbert had done for her he had always done without ever being asked. Somehow he instinctively knew when Ruby needed help, whether it was financial, physical or emotional, so when on the night he had got so drunk she had first indicated that there might be something he could do for her it was an exceptional occasion, and afterwards, once Herbert had returned home, Ruby let the matter rest. There were two reasons for doing so. Firstly she regretted the fact that she had found herself about to ask for his help directly, and secondly since she had done so she believed that sooner or later Herbert would remember and return to help her without having to be prompted. This was the way it had always been. Like Herbert, Ruby believed that the moment he had saved her life
had bound them together in some undefinable way and that since that momentous day they had developed an almost telepathic sense of communication.
Finally of course she had written to him, but not for the reason Herbert supposed, not because she needed his direct help, but initially because she felt there was something troubling him and she wanted him to tell her before she left this life. The letter under her pillow had been written weeks before and when she had summoned Herbert to her bedside she had not intended to give it to him. But then when out of the darkness that was beginning to close in around her she felt him take her hand and had slowly recognized his fine handsome face, she forgot her best intentions and remembered the daughter whom she had not seen for over thirteen years. Why she did so she had no idea. She had made some sort of small provision for May out of the little money she had managed to save up and she still believed that one or two of her gentlemen might come through with their promises to help May when she finally left the convent. Yet the moment she knew Herbert had come to her bedside she also knew that it was to him that she must entrust the future of her daughter, not just for the good of May but somehow for Herbert’s own good as well.
She realized this so clearly as she lay there with her head on one side, staring at the man she had loved all her life but whom she had never once taken into her bed, looking straight into his honest grey eyes and yet unable to say one word of sense to him. She knew there was something terrible troubling him just as she knew that May was to be the instrument to bring an end to Herbert’s suffering, so she wanted to bequeath her daughter to him because somehow she knew this was the right path for them both, but try as she had she could find neither the breath nor the strength in her dying body even to begin to explain this conviction.
Then as she began to slip away towards the edge of the world and into whatever awaited her in the beyond, she remembered the letter under the pillow and knew that if she gave it to him May would become his anyway. What was meant to happen would happen without Ruby having to explain because when Herbert Forrester gave his word on something, it was his bond. Everyone in York knew that. Everyone who knew Herbert Forrester knew it. Ruby knew it best of all because Herbert and she had been as one since the day they both had so nearly drowned.
The request in the letter was simple. Herbert had read it before he had left Ruby’s house that day. He had opened the shutters in the corridor outside her room, and while Rose began to lay her dearly loved mistress out by the light of a watery sun which had now broken through the autumn rain clouds he read her last words to him. He did not know she had a daughter, she wrote, but she had, she was called May and she was in a convent where she had grown up as if she was an orphan. The time had come for her to leave but since it was also Ruby’s time to go there would be no one to help May behind the scenes. May was never to know her parentage, that Ruby insisted. There was as far as she knew no-one else alive on this earth who knew it either, certainly not the father who had never been aware he had got Ruby pregnant and anyway was long since dead, killed in a duel over an unpaid gambling debt.
If it proved possible, all Ruby wanted was not for Herbert to provide for her, but simply to use some small part of his considerable influence in the town, or perhaps even in London, to see May employed in a position which would suit a young lady such as her, an orphan who had received an excellent and unsullied education at the hands of the Sisters of the Order of St Philomena who themselves would all personally vouch for the goodness of her character. Ruby had always received completely confidential accounts from the Reverend Mother as to May’s progress, and although naturally it had been necessary to destroy these reports lest they were later used to identify May’s mother, they had proved to Ruby that she had made the right decision. Miss May Robertson was of exceptionally good character, a highly intelligent and articulate young woman who had never caused the nuns one moment of any real concern during all the years they had brought her up.
So Herbert should have no difficulty finding her some form of suitable employment, Ruby imagined. And if he was willing to do so and should he do so successfully, in as much as he had promised to help he was also to promise that would be the end of his commitment. Once May was safely settled into a good job then Herbert was to play no further part in her life. On reading this letter Herbert was to promise this would be so, in memory of his and Ruby’s loving friendship.
Yet Herbert did not give his word posthumously, and he had no idea why he did not. He certainly promised to do the first part of Ruby’s bidding, namely to ensure that her daughter found a position suitable to her character and standing. Yet he did not promise to keep the second part of the bargain, not yet at least. Something prevented him from doing so and he knew not what. All he knew was that he must arrange to visit the girl as soon as possible so that he could assess her for himself. Until he did that he considered it would not be possible to promise to have nothing more to do with her, because it would not be fair on the girl.
At least that is what Herbert told himself.
As he had left the house in Trafalgar Crescent for the last time he had however enquired as to the extent of the debts which were obviously owed to the people still waiting outside the front door. They presented him with their various accounts which he then immediately settled out of his own pocket. Afterwards he directed his cab to the nearest undertakers of quality where he arranged and paid for in advance a proper and decent funeral for his oldest and dearest friend. In his arrangements he included a card in memory of those far-off days when he had rescued a little girl from the water.
Those whom he loved so long and sees no more
Loved and still loved – not dead –
But gone before.
B.
Now he sat opposite her daughter on the other side of a grille in a Catholic convent high on a Yorkshire hillside. According to his fob watch already a minute of their allotted time had passed without either of them saying a word.
‘Have you enjoyed your time here, Miss Robertson?’ he finally asked out of desperation. ‘Now that the time has come for you to leave?’
‘Yes thank you, sir,’ May replied in an exceptionally pretty voice. She looked up briefly and perhaps she smiled at him, Herbert thought, but because of the wretched grille and the dimness of the light he had been quite unable to see.
‘I need to know what your plans are when you do actually leave here, Miss Robertson,’ he said. ‘You have a small bequest left you, by an anonymous donor who recently passed away, and one of the conditions of this bequest is that you use it to find a proper situation for yourself and somewhere suitable to live.’
‘The convent does run a home with laundry employment for those girls who have no homes to go to, Mr Forrester,’ the Reverend Mother interposed. ‘There is no real need to concern yourself with that particular worry, nor indeed as far as employment goes. Most of our orphaned girls who have not been called to a vocation become lay teachers either here or in one of our other convents.’
Something in the woman’s manner annoyed Herbert. He wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps it was because she was reluctant to give up her authority over the girl, or because she had failed to persuade May to take the veil. As a result he very nearly blurted out that the last thing her mother would have wanted would have been for her daughter to spend her life as a nun or a lay teacher in a remote convent stuck away up on the side of a distant Yorkshire hill, never seeing or knowing life, never loving or being loved. But because he knew that would ruin everything at one fell swoop he held his tongue and turned his attention back to May.
‘Is that what you want, Miss Robertson?’ he asked. ‘Or have you not fully thought out what is to happen to you once you leave here for good? Because if that is the case, which I feel it most likely is—’ He raced on, fearful because their time was running out and he wanted to stop either the Reverend Mother or indeed May herself from prevaricating. ‘Because if the latter happens to be the case, that you have not yet decided what
you will do when you leave here,’ he recapped quickly, ‘then I would very much like it if you came and saw me in my offices in York. Reverend Mother here has fully checked my credentials during the time we corresponded and I am in a position to help you. As well as being one of the trustees looking after the matter of your small bequest.’
He had invented this last bit, safe in the knowledge that the nun would have no way of knowing whether it was true or false. He knew it would give him further credibility, however, just as he knew that he must get this girl out of this place and as far away from it as possible. Her destiny did not lie within these walls, of that he was equally certain, and as long as he could make the arrangement now in front of May and the gimlet-eyed nun there would be no way such an avowedly holy woman could go back on her word, particularly since the two novice nuns were still in attendance.
‘You have half a minute left, Mr Forrester,’ the Reverend Mother said, never once having consulted any timepiece whatsoever. Yet when Herbert checked against his own watch which lay open on the counter in front of him he saw that her assessment was completely accurate.
‘I understand from your Reverend Mother it would be possible for you to come to York next Wednesday, Miss Robertson, with a chaperone of course. Reverend Mother has the address and all the details, so if you could just perhaps give me an indication whether or not this would be suitable – ?’
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