The Glowing Hours

by Marina Oliver

  'That were just ter keep that dratted Florence 'appy. 'Er wouldn't 'ave give me 'ouseroom if I 'adn't.'

  'Sensible Florence! I wish I could do the same!' She moved the bucket. 'At least keep out of my way while I wash the floor. It isn't easy having it all to do on Sundays.'

  'Nell, luv, you was allus the best. I knows I didn't allus treat yer right, but now we'm on our own, let bygones be bygones, eh?'

  'It's too late. I can't forgive you the things you did. Not just the beatings you gave me, and the others, and the way you terrified poor Amy so that she ran away. It was how you treated Ma. I suppose she loved you once, but I don't know how she could have done unless you were very different when you were young.'

  'We'm all different when we'm young. Yer ma were real lovin', and 'er were as pretty as you am now. Then 'er changed, 'ad no time fer me.'

  'Can you wonder at it, with sixteen children to look after?' Nell exclaimed. She still trembled with fury whenever she thought of the treatment he'd subjected them to.

  He grew defensive. ' 'Tweren't my doin'! We teks the kids the good Lord sends.'

  'And try to provide for them! Which you didn't, most of the time. You spent your money on drink and whores like Janie Pritchard. If you hadn't been with her the night of the fire you might have been able to save them.'

  ' 'Ow d'you know where I was?'

  'Everybody knew. You hadn't been near home that night.'

  'Yes I 'ad! I come 'ome when they was all abed.'

  'You did? You never said! Then why didn't you smell the gas? It must have been leaking for hours before the explosion.'

  'It weren't leaking when I was 'ere, 'cause I turned it on. Was lookin' fer more matches. Used me last one ter see me way across room. Fire was almost out. It were perishin' cold, and that's why I went out again, find me a bit o' comfort!'

  A dreadful suspicion crossed Nell's mind. 'Did you find them? The matches?' she demanded.

  'Yes, course I did. They was on table.'

  'Did you light the mantle?'

  'Must' 'ave done.'

  'Did you turn it out when you went?'

  ' 'Ow should I know? Ain't yer gonna finish that floor? Young Tom'll be 'ere soon.'

  'Tom? What do you mean?'

  'I told 'im ter come this afternoon. Nell, I mayn't 'ave been a good pa sometimes, but now I'm gonna insist yer does what's right. Fer yer own good, mind. An' poor little Amy's. Tom's a good lad, an' 'e's gorra good position. An' 'e's just bought a big new 'ouse out Bearwood way. Plenty o' room, I went ter look at it. 'E'd look after all on us. So yer's ter say yer'll wed 'im when 'e asks.'

  Nell rose slowly to her feet. She was tempted to tip the bucket of dirty water all over him. Only the thought that she'd then have to mop it all up again stopped her.

  'Pa, listen to me! I will not marry Tom Simmons! I don't even like him, let alone love him. And I certainly won't marry him just to provide you with a nice comfortable home! I can keep myself and Amy better than you ever did, but if you don't get a job you'll have to go and find somewhere else to live! I mean it!'

  'Yer can't throw me out, me gal! If yer tried it the Barnardo's folk 'ud tek Amy back!'

  'I don't think so. Not when they heard what you've just told me. About leaving the gas on the night of the fire. And being so drunk you forgot to light it before going off to visit your trollop! It was you killed Ma and all the little ones! As well as Frank! I had to have you here when they came and inspected us, to see whether we were fit to look after Amy, but they won't take her back now. I don't need you any more. You can stay because you're my father, but only as long as you behave yourself!'

  *

  Kitty glared out of the window at the wonderful view of mountains and forest, the sea glinting silver in the far distance. Her gaze swung to the foreground, where old Jacques was opening the massive iron gates to let her husband's Fiat out of the high-walled compound in which the villa was set. At least she wouldn't have to endure his increasingly ineffective lovemaking for a while, nor his complaints that respectability seemed to have stifled her flair for inventive provocativeness. She was tired of doing all the work, and saw no point now she was the Principessa.

  She turned back to the elegant writing table, and the partly-written letter. Although he insisted on reading them first, he didn't forbid her to write letters. 'It's a magnificent view, and we are miles from the nearest town. Wonderful solitude! We don't go out much, or entertain as yet. Cesare insists we are still on our honeymoon. He says that when we go to Rome later in the winter I will be prostrate from meeting his family and the constant round of pleasure. He is very protective of me, won't permit me to lift a hand for myself, and showers gifts of clothes and jewels on me.'

  She paused. Of late she'd had suspicions that he never really intended to introduce her to his family. It was true that he provided her with magnificent jewels, but he made it plain they were heirlooms to be passed on in time to the next Prince. And when she could never show them off to anyone there wasn't much point in having them, or the gowns. She would have preferred to go shopping to choose her own clothes, rather than have a dozen dresses sent up from Nice every month. In fact if she didn't soon escape from this luxurious prison, where the only people to talk to were Jaques and his equally ancient wife Marietta, she would go stark, raving mad.

  'Italian husbands are deliciously jealous, Nell dear. It is so comforting to feel cherished, to have no decisions to make other than what to wear or eat. Give my fond wishes to everyone, and say I long for the time when thay can come and visit me, either here or in one of our Italian homes, though I have yet to see them!'

  *

  Tom was furious. The old rogue, he'd deliberately caused him to come all this way, and Nell wasn't here. Neither was her father. He hammered on the door again until a neighbour put his head out of his own door.

  'Give over, mate! Can't us 'ave a kip Sunday afternoons?'

  'Where are they? I was expected. Has anything happened to them?' Tom asked quickly.

  The man shrugged. 'Saw little gal with 'er friend, young Phyllis. They was goin' off somewhere, hour or more ago. 'Aven't seen t'others, but there was a right lot o' shoutin' ten minutes since, both on 'em yellin' fit ter bust!'

  Tom trampled on the herbs Nell had planted in the small front garden in his frantic eagerness to get to the window. He peered through. Everything looked normal, the table had been cleared after dinner, the fire in the grate was banked down, and the chairs were set neatly under the table. His shoulders drooped. They must have gone out after all. Mr Baxter had been having him on. If Nell had known he was coming she'd have waited. The shouting was probably normal, he'd heard the old man had a vicious temper when he was drunk, and if he had to live with the old devil he'd shout too, so he could hardly blame Nell for unladylike behaviour.

  He turned away. He'd go and visit one or two friends in the neighbourhood, perhaps be invited to tea, and come back later on when someone would be at home.

  *

  It had been a splendid party. Many of the former dancers, girls who had been in the first troupes but who had now married, came, bringing their husbands. Gwyneth had been toasted for her birthday, and her future at the Folies-Bergère.

  'It doesn't seem real,' she said to Edwina and Nell as they cleared away the glasses afterwards. 'It's not my birthday until tomorrow, I hope it won't be bad luck celebrating early.'

  'We had to have it today if you're going to Paris tomorrow,' Edwina said briskly.

  Gwyneth smiled. 'I don't mean to be ungrateful, Edwina, I've enjoyed being back here. But the Folies-Bergère is so special!'

  'And you can't wait to get back. I understand. Now who can that be at the door?' Edwina went to open it and almost immediately came back, her face white. 'Gwyneth, it's your father, he says.'

  'You dare doubt my word? What sort of vile establishment do I find you in? Though I suppose as you've lied to me since May I would expect you to look on all men as corrupt. I came here,' he ranted, loomin
g over Edwina, 'and you swore to me my daughter had not been here! I went all the way to Paris again, and spent weeks searching for her in London. You were guilty of deception, and fraud, and unlawfully depriving me of my daughter! I have a good mind to lay charges against you!'

  'It wouldn't do you the slightest bit of good, my man.'

  They all swung round at this intervention, in Timothy's most condescending, upper class drawl.

  Gwyneth spoke first. 'I thought you'd gone home?'

  'I came back, fortunately. The door was on the latch so I let myself in. So this deplorable specimen is your father? You may as well know now, Mr Davis, that Gwyneth has been with me since she escaped your clutches.'

  'But – that can't be true! A friend – from Cardiff – was in Birmingham and saw her at the theatre! Dancing! Almost naked!'

  'My girls are respectably dressed!' Edwina said indignantly.

  'Gwyneth has been staying at my house, respectably chaperoned by my housekeeper and her family, who will swear to that, because she was terrified of what you might do if you found her unprotected. What do you think a court would say to a Minister who beat and imprisoned his own daughter and took a malicious delight in starving her?'

  'I didn't beat her, or starve her! And a man has the right to control his daughter and punish her if she's defiant and rebellious!'

  'It will be your word against ours.' He let the threat hang in the air, then Gwyneth spoke.

  She looked at Mr Davis, her expression grim. 'You're too late, Father. I'm free of you tomorrow. You have no power over me then. I can go to Paris without your permission, and I intend to do so.'

  'Or you can get married.'

  Gwyneth looked at Timothy and opened her mouth, but no words came. He gave her a brief smile and took Mr Davis by the arm.

  'I think you should go,' he suggested gently but inexorably, steering the Minister to the door. 'I'll ask Gwyneth to write to her mother. And don't worry, I'll look after her.'

  When he came back into the big dance studio where the party had been he found Gwyneth standing where he had left her. Nell and Edwina had vanished, and he smiled at their tactfulness.

  'Gwyneth, darling, I couldn't leave you. I know we agreed you would stay with Edwina tonight, ready for the train tomorrow, but I couldn't go home without you. Don't leave me. Come with me to South Africa.'

  Slowly Gwyneth shook her head. 'I'm very fond of you, Timothy, but I can't.'

  'Don't you understand? I love you! These past few months I've seen what it could be like if you were always with me, and I thought you loved me too!'

  She sighed. 'Yes, I think I do – '

  'Then you'll come?'

  'But I can't give up the dancing.'

  'Darling, you can dance, start your own dancing school out there, I'm sure there's a place for it. All I want is for you to be with me.'

  She shook her head. 'I had so little time at the Folies-Bergère, which was so wonderful. When I was a child, and dreamed of being a dancer, I never thought I could be anything but a moderately good dancer. To actually be there, on that stage, a part of the thrill of performing with the best chorus in the world, one of them, one of a team – it's impossible to describe! I won't give that up just to become another dancing teacher in some country far away, one I might not even like.'

  'Not even to be with me?'

  'With you?' she asked, suddenly angry. 'You've made it very plain how it would be, me hidden away in a discreet little love nest, not offending your uncle and his friends! Well, Timothy, it's been fun while it lasted, and I've been grateful for the place to stay, but – '

  'Be quiet! I want to marry you, Gwyneth! I'm not suggesting anything else!'

  'Marry? But – you always said – '

  'What I always said is beside the point! It isn't what I'm saying now. Now I know I can't do without you, and be damned to what my family and friends will say! I want you, and I want you as my wife.'

  For a long moment Gwyneth looked at him, neither of them moving, then he stepped forward, arms outstretched. Suddenly she moved, warding him off.

  'No, Timothy. I'm sorry, truly sorry. I think I love you too, but I have to dance. Dancing is my life. It's what I must do.'

  *

  Nell and Amy walked home, Amy chattering excitedly about her first grown up party, and what people had said to her. Nell didn't hear. She had been so shocked at Gwyneth's devastated face when finally Timothy had gone.

  'I wanted to, but I couldn't,' Gwyneth had sobbed to them later, and after a while Edwina had taken her upstairs.

  'I'll put her to bed, Nell. Amy's in the kitchen with Patsy, you'd best get her home.'

  'I'll come in the morning before she leaves. If she's fit to go.'

  'I think I'll telephone Paul. She's so distraught, she needs something to calm her.'

  It was a moment before Nell became aware of someone else at her side. Then Tom spoke.

  'It was good of Gwyneth to ask me to her party,' he said stiffly. 'I've been trying to speak to you for weeks, Nell, but you are always so busy.'

  'Have you been hanging around outside?' she asked, astonished.

  'I wasn't hanging around, as you put it!' He was indignant. 'I wanted to offer to walk you home, but first that older man stormed in, then Timothy, so I didn't want to interrupt.'

  'It was kind of you,' she tried to mollify him, 'but we really are just round the corner. The new house is much closer to the Hagley Road, only a few minutes' walk along Francis Road and I'm almost home.'

  'And most of the way along Friston Street, too.'

  'Tell me about your work,' she said hastily. 'What's been happening since the General Strike?'

  The subject lasted all the way to her door. 'The miners didn't appreciate the sacrifices all the rest of the workers made, they wouldn't agree to end the strike on the best terms we could get for them. At Bournemouth, the TUC Conference in September, there was such a lot of disagreement. I don't think such a concerted action will ever happen again, even though it was so well organised. The miners have been drifting back to work, especially here in the Midlands, in Warwickshire and Cannock Chase, though the rest of them are still discussing terms.'

  'Where's Amy?' Nell asked suddenly. As soon as Tom had joined them she had skipped ahead. 'Oh, the door's open, she must be inside. Thank you for walking home with me, Tom. It was kind of you. But it's late, long past Amy's bedtime, and she has to be up for school tomorrow. You'll have to be at work too.'

  He began to speak again, but she smiled and firmly shut the door, leaving him outside.

  *

  Amy ran ahead. Tom was a pompous old bore and she hoped Nell wouldn't marry him. As she started along the path between the small front gardens she realised their light was on. Pa was home early. Then she recollected that they were much later than usual, it must be nearly midnight. The pubs would have closed long since. She pushed open the door and went into the kitchen. He wasn't there, but she could hear sounds above. Then she frowned. Those sounds were coming from their bedroom, not his. How could he have got in? Nell always locked the door and took the key with her. If Pa was messing about with their things she'd hate him worse than she did now!

  She crept cautiously up the stairs, her eyes widening as she saw their door sagging open. It looked as though Pa had taken an axe to it, breaking it near the lock. Inside he was bending over the chest of drawers, and then he straightened, uttering a grunt of satisfaction. He held something up which gleamed and shone, reflecting the light and sending back sparks of brilliant colour.

  'That's Nell's patch-box!' Amy shouted, forgetting her fear of him as she leaped forward, snatching at his hand. 'You were stealing it!' she accused as she seized the patch-box, which in his surprise he let go.

  'Give it 'ere!' he ordered, but Amy backed away, and then suddenly turned and hurled herself down the stairs. She heard his heavy footsteps lumbering after her and panic took over. She didn't even notice Nell standing by the hooks on the wall, her arms raised as
she hung up her coat and hat. Clutching the patch-box to her Amy fled through the door and along the path, Pa yelling and running after her.

  'Amy! Pa! What is it?' Nell demanded, and as neither of them took any notice grabbed her coat. She was dragging it back on as she ran along the path after them, just in time to see Amy, Pa in hot pursuit, turn the corner into a deserted Ledham Street.

  Amy knew only that she had to get away. He was gaining on her. She was so tired, it was late, but she forced her legs to carry her along Ledham Street, round the corner, and across another road. Then she saw they were approaching the canal, and on the wharf there would be places to hide, to dodge him while she got her breath back and tried to think. She darted down an alley but he was close behind her and followed. She could hear him panting, swearing and calling her name. If he caught her he'd kill her!

  He almost grabbed her, but she dodged and dived for the shelter of some barrels. They were right on the edge of the wharf and she managed to squeeze into a small space between two piles. Then, her heart beating painfully, she realised she was trapped. He had only to drag the barrels aside and he could get at her.

  *

  Nell saved her breath for running. She hadn't known Pa could run so fast, and she was terrified he would catch Amy. She had no idea why he was chasing the child, but the memory of what had happened the last time he'd driven her in panic from the house kept her running. The streets were deserted, there was no one to call to for help. Suddenly she realised they had vanished and she stopped, listening. She heard his shouts and after a moment knew they came from an alley to the side. Dimly she recalled it led down to the canal wharf, and she searched wildly for the narrow opening. Here it was! She sped along it, and as she came out into the open saw her father heaving at a pile of barrels, swearing viciously as he struggled with them.

  'Pa! Let Amy be!' He swung round, startled, and the barrel he'd been tugging at slipped. Slowly it began to fall, and as Nell screamed a warning her father saw it and tried to move aside. He staggered as his foot caught on a rope stretched taut between two posts, and the barrel caught him full in the chest, and both fell with one mighty splash into the murky water several feet beneath.