Josie nodded. She hadn’t liked Pearl and now she felt awful because she hadn’t.
‘Barney was the gentleman I met once at Vera’s house, wasn’t he?’ Oliver said after a moment or two.
Josie nodded again. ‘When you came up to Sunderland to see a friend of yours,’ she agreed.
‘I think we both know why I came up to Sunderland.’ He smiled and she half smiled back, but she felt shaken and disturbed. ‘What are the funeral arrangements?’ Oliver asked Gertie.
‘It’s tomorrow morning, early, so there’s no chance of going,’ Gertie said. ‘I let them all back home know that you two weren’t due back till late tonight so they don’t expect us.’
‘Thank you.’ Josie felt doubly guilty now as a sense of relief made itself known. She would have gone if there had been time but she wouldn’t have known what to say to Barney, or Prudence either for that matter. Prudence had thought the world of Pearl. She’d be absolutely heartbroken . . .
‘Well, lass, this took us all by surprise. I never thought that she wouldn’t get better, did you?’
Prudence shook her head. She knew Vera was wondering why she wasn’t more upset, and she was sorry Pearl had died, it was terrible, but she couldn’t pretend to something she didn’t feel. Not any more. Not with Vera. For years now she had squirmed at Pearl’s treatment of Barney, and only she knew how awful it had been in that house. Not that she wished Pearl dead, never that, but it had happened and that was that.
As they entered the church and took their seats, Prudence glanced across to where Barney was sitting, his head bowed and his hands joined as they hung down between his knees. Pearl’s parents were on one side of him and Betty on the other, but he appeared oblivious to anyone else.
‘First Shirley, then Frank and now this.’ Vera’s voice at the side of her brought Prudence’s head turning, and Horace - on Vera’s other side - nodded mournfully. ‘They say it goes in threes so please God this is an end to it. What say you, lass?’
‘Aye.’ Prudence nodded in her turn, and then she wondered what Vera would say if she came out with the truth and told her she was the happiest she’d ever been these days.
When she had first gone to live with Vera and Horace she knew it had been on sufferance. Oh, not that anything had been said, Vera was too nice for that, but she’d known all right. And it had been difficult, the first few weeks. Her hands had still been paining her a lot then, and she’d felt . . . Oh, she couldn’t have described to anyone how she’d felt in those dark days. She had prayed she wouldn’t wake up when she’d laid her head on the pillow more times than she could remember, and the river had beckoned to her more than once. It would be easy, she’d thought, just to let herself fall into the river and for the waters to close over her head and end all the struggling and heartache and pain. She’d spent hours in the little room designated to her; thinking, thinking, thinking until she’d felt she was going mad. She was never going to be married, never going to have bairns or be loved, never even have any real friends. She was an oddity, a freak, that’s what she was. And then, to put the tin lid on it, she’d come out in a rash all over her face and torso.
It had all come to a head that day she’d looked in the little hand mirror in her bedroom and seen the gargoyle she’d become looking back at her. At least that’s how she’d felt at the time. And she’d thrown the mirror to the floor where it had smashed into a hundred pieces, and Vera had come running up and thought she’d dropped it because of her hands and told her not to worry, she’d get another one. And she had screamed at Vera that she didn’t want another mirror! Why would anyone want to see what she saw when she looked in one? And then somehow she’d found herself in Vera’s arms sobbing her heart out and once started she hadn’t been able to stop. Horace had gone for the doctor when she was still crying an hour later, and he’d given her something to make her sleep. And Vera had been there when she’d woken up, and they had talked. For hours they’d talked. And everything had changed after that. She couldn’t remember her mam much but she couldn’t have thought more of her if she’d lived than she did Vera. That’s how she felt now. And Horace was kind. Oh, he was. And easygoing. He didn’t gripe about much, Horace.
‘Come as somethin’ of a bolt out of the blue to Barney an’ all.’ Vera was whispering as befitted the solemn occasion, and again Prudence nodded, whispering back, ‘He’ll be all right, Vera. It’s terrible, but it’s not as if he and Pearl were as close as you and Horace or anything, is it?’
‘No, no. You’re right there, lass. Aye, you are, an’ I’ve always said God works in mysterious ways.’
‘His wonders to perform,’ Horace chimed in.
‘What?’ Now Vera turned fully to him. ‘What are you on about?’
‘Isn’t that the next part of that verse? God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform?’
‘It might be.’ Vera clearly didn’t like being caught out on something she didn’t know, and she sniffed before she said, ‘But I would hardly call Pearl’s death a wonder, Horace.’
‘I wasn’t sayin’ that, now was I?’ He leaned forward, appealing to Prudence, who was secretly amused. These two were like a double act at times but now was not the time to smile. Poor Pearl. As Horace settled back in his seat, Prudence glanced at the back of Marjorie and Stanley’s heads. And her poor parents. But at least there were no little ones left motherless, that was something. And Pearl hadn’t bothered to come and see her in hospital when she’d first hurt her hands - and that was before she’d got ill. Barney had come, and he’d said Pearl found hospitals upsetting but that she’d sent her love. That day, Prudence had realised that she didn’t actually want Pearl to visit her, which had been a great surprise at the time.
Barney turned round once as the service began, his eyes searching out Prudence, and when she inclined her head at him he nodded back before facing the minister again. He was glad his sister was here. He hadn’t seen much of her since she had been living with Vera, and to his surprise he had found that he missed her. She was an intelligent lass, Prudence, and they’d had some good cracks together, but moreover he didn’t have to pretend with her. He knew that most people would cast him in the role of heartbroken husband, and respect for Pearl prevented him from telling the truth, but the pity and sympathy in people’s faces had him wanting to stand up and shout, ‘Don’t none of you feel sorry for me! Feel sorry for Pearl, aye, in as much as you would for any young life cut short, but not me.’
A stifled sob from Pearl’s mother at the side of him brought his head towards his mother-in-law, but she was staring rigidly ahead and did not glance at him. Barney had gleaned enough over the last years to know who he had to thank for Pearl being the way she was in the bedroom and out of it, but there was no doubt her mother had loved Pearl in her own way. Marjorie Harper had had a deeply possessive streak where her only child was concerned, and she’d projected all her warped ideas about the intimate side of marriage on to her daughter, along with the compulsive desire she had to control every aspect of her husband and her marriage. Pearl’s father had never spoken of his relationship with his wife, but within weeks of being wed Barney had read what was in the other man’s eyes and recognised it for what it was. How Stanley had stuck Marjorie for nigh on thirty years he didn’t know.
Barney slanted his eyes at the couple beside him. Pearl’s parents were sitting stiff and straight and without any part of them touching, but there was no doubt both were deeply distraught. But then again, if Pearl hadn’t died he’d be in the same boat as Stanley unless he had upped and skedaddled, and what man worth his salt did that?
By, in all his wildest imaginings of how things were going to work out he’d never thought it would be like this. And he wouldn’t have wished Pearl’s end on anyone. Not that he’d been allowed to be with her when she died. Pearl’s mother had been sleeping on a put-you-up at the side of her daughter’s bed ever since Pearl’s first collapse and had made sure Barney didn’t contaminate her daughter with h
is foul presence for more than a minute or two a day. If she could have surrounded the room in barbed wire and kept him out completely, she would have. They had taken Pearl to hospital, that last forty-eight hours, but Pearl had just got distressed when he had tried to sit near her and take her hand, and so the doctors had advised him to leave her to her mother. But he had gone in to see her after it was over and her father had taken her mother home, and he had hardly been able to recognise the young, pretty lass he’d fallen in love with so many moons ago. He’d felt a sense of desolation then, standing looking down at what once had been a living, breathing human being, and memories from the past - from their courting days - had come flooding in. But those days hadn’t been real; he knew that now. They had been an illusion.
The service was not a long one and after the burial in the churchyard the funeral entourage returned to Barney’s house in Jesmond. Pearl’s mother had wanted to see to the meal which, although consisting of various cold meats and such, was substantial, and Barney had let her, knowing Marjorie needed to be able to do something. It was as he was filling everyone’s glasses that Vera spoke to him for the first time that day, her voice quiet as she said simply, ‘I’m sorry, lad.’
‘Aye, thanks, Vera.’ Barney felt he didn’t need to say any more. Vera being Betty’s sister would know the marriage had not been all it should be; they were as close as bricks and mortar, those two. ‘It’s hit her mam and da hard.’
Vera nodded. And then she forced herself to say, as naturally as she could, ‘Gertie wrote me an’ said she’d explained them down in London wouldn’t be able to make it, Oliver an’ Josie only just gettin’ home from their honeymoon late last night an’ all.’
‘Aye, she did.’ Barney drew in a long breath. He had kept his mind from thinking about Josie, or more particularly Josie and Oliver, because he had known there was only so much he could take and he needed to get this day over.
And then Vera surprised both Barney and herself when she said what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t say, certainly not on this particular day: ‘She’s got a new life now with how things have gone for her, her success and all. It’s all different, lad. Not that she’ll forget her roots and her old friends, Josie’s not like that, but it wouldn’t be natural if she didn’t shake off the dust so to speak, would it?’
Barney raised his head and looked at Vera, and his lips moved, but he didn’t speak until he turned and looked across the packed sitting room. And then he said, his voice flat, ‘It’s a good turn-out. Marjorie and Stanley will take some comfort from that. Marjorie sets great store by such things.’
‘Aye, well everyone to their own, lad.’ Vera was feeling mightily uncomfortable and, searching her mind for something to say, she added, ‘Will you keep this house up now?’
Barney shook his head. ‘I’m selling it. I’ve been told I’ll make a nice profit on it. And I’m leaving Ginnett’s.’
‘Oh aye? You had the offer of another job then?’
‘No.’
Vera inhaled deeply and tried again. ‘So you’ll be doin’ what? Going back to the concrete works or lookin’ for something else in the theatre line maybe?’
‘I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided. I might take off for a bit, travel around.’ And then, when the silence stretched and lengthened Barney turned again, and what he read on Vera’s face caused him to say, and curtly, ‘It’s all right, Vera. London won’t be one of my calling places.’
Vera didn’t protest her innocence of the unspoken accusation, she merely looked at him for a moment or two before nodding slowly, and what she said was, ‘One town is very much like another in my book.’
No, one town was not very much like another, not when it had Josie in it. Barney watched Vera move away and for a moment he had it within him to hate her for the none too subtle plea to stay away from Josie. What did she think he was, anyway? Pearl barely put to rest and Josie just married; did she really think he was going to hightail it to London and plead his cause? Barney had decided to go to Glasgow, or perhaps Edinburgh. He’d make a bit out of the sale of the house, even after he’d paid the Building Society their whack, and he owed no one nowt. He needed to get away for a time, right away. Aye, that’s what he’d do. He would go to Scotland and if things turned out right he might even stay there for good.
‘You all right, Barney?’ Prudence was at his elbow.
He nodded. ‘And you?’
‘Aye.’ She had hoped to have a quiet word with him today but there was as much chance of that with friends and family milling around as flying. She hadn’t known quite how she was going to approach what she needed to say, it being a delicate subject, so perhaps it was better left unsaid anyway. She got on all right with Barney now and she didn’t want anything to upset that.
She hadn’t liked the look of the little ferret-faced individual who had spoken to her in the market a few weeks ago, but within a moment or two of him opening his mouth she had realised he had approached her for a purpose. He had known where she lived and her name and where she’d come from in Newcastle; he’d have had to ask questions and probe a bit to find that out.
She’d been tempted to tell him to be off about his business initially, especially when he had laid a claw-like hand on her coat-sleeve to detain her, but her curiosity had been stronger than her unease. He’d been careful in what he said, but it had been enough to indicate that he was aware she was the person who had tipped Bart Burns the wink all that time ago, and at that point she had to admit she’d become interested. And so she had swallowed her distaste and walked with him for a while, and although they had parted without anything of real importance being said, and without him stating the reason he’d spoken to her in the first place, she had gleaned enough to understand that the small Irishman had no more time for Josie Burns than she had. It was only when she was within sight and sound of Vera’s that she’d suddenly remembered the description the police had given of the accomplice who had been with Josie’s father that night at her da’s, and it seemed to match the little man to a T.
She should have told Vera about the meeting straight away, of course, but she hadn’t wanted to bring that whole unpleasant episode up, not with the part she’d played in it. Vera made no secret of the fact that she thought the sun shone out of Josie’s backside.
Aye, perhaps all in all it was better to say nowt. She might not see the man again anyway, so what was the point in stirring up a hornet’s nest, and if he wanted to settle a score with Josie that was his business.
Decision made, Prudence continued to stand at Barney’s side, and she felt no sense of guilt when she put all thoughts of Josie Burns and the man who clearly intended her harm out of her mind.
Chapter Sixteen
‘I’m sorry, Oliver, but just as you are a product of your upbringing, so am I.’ Josie was speaking with studied calmness but the atmosphere in the drawing room was anything but tranquil. ‘You were brought up in a house full of servants, you said yourself you couldn’t recognise half of them, so I can understand that your attitude to Constance and Ethel and Mrs Wilde differs from mine. Why can’t you offer me the same consideration?’
‘Because it isn’t a matter of consideration.’ Oliver had been pacing the fine Persian rug in front of the blazing fire, but now he stopped in front of the chair upon which Josie was sitting and stared into her face, holding her eyes. ‘They are servants, for crying out loud.’
‘They are human beings whom we employ. I am employed by whichever theatre wants my services and you are employed’ - here Josie checked herself. She had been about to say, ‘And you are employed by me’ - ‘by your clients. It’s all the same.’
‘It is not all the same and you know it. Mrs Wilde and the maids are in service and they live here in my - our - home.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘You cannot speak to them as if they were . . . were . . .’
‘Equals?’ Josie put in icily.
‘Yes, exactly. What do you expect
our friends are going to think if the servants are allowed to become familiar? These people have to be kept in their place or they won’t be slow in taking liberties, I can assure you.’
‘I don’t think speaking to people as if they have feelings constitutes giving them a licence to run wild.’
‘Josie!’ His voice was a bawl.
‘Don’t shout at me.’ She had shot up from her seat with such abruptness that Oliver was surprised into taking a step backwards, but her voice had not been loud. ‘I won’t be shouted at, do you hear me? Nor will I be bullied. And while we’re on the subject of your friends, I have heard and seen the behaviour of some of them, both to those they consider beneath them and to each other, and it does them no credit.’
Oliver frowned angrily at her words. Yet if he had spoken the truth at this point he would have had to agree with her, and had he but known it, his concurrence would have persuaded Josie to meet him halfway and set the tone for any future compromises. Unfortunately, he would have looked on such an admission as a failing.
‘My friends are not under discussion here,’ he said icily, ‘and not one of them has to explain their behaviour to you, but I will say I would have thought you to be more grateful for their ready acceptance of you as my wife.’
‘Then you thought wrong.’ Josie seemed to have grown in stature, so tensely did she hold herself. She was remembering the dinner-party they had attended the previous evening, a few days after their own delayed wedding reception. There had been a couple there she was sure hadn’t been at the first event although Oliver had seemed to be on very friendly terms with them. A Lord and Lady Stratton. Godfrey Stratton had been quite pleasant, she supposed, in a stolid sort of way, but his wife had gone out of her way to ignore her, or that was how Josie had felt at the time. The woman’s attitude had made her feel awkward and ill-at-ease all evening, especially when she visited the powder room; Stella Stratton had been there, holding court to a group of ladies, and had stopped speaking very pointedly when she had entered. Josie had been determined not to be intimidated, although her legs were shaking when she emerged from the little cubicle into the larger area filled with mirrors and several small stools to one side of the two wash-basins.
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