The Runaway

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘It’ll never be true,’ she whispered. ‘Suppose they find out we’re not married?’ She was full of fear at the enormity of the plan.

  ‘Nobody knows us there. How could they find out?’ Oliver could not contemplate anything upsetting the arrangements he had made with such care. ‘Nobody will know. We’ll travel to Manchester separately. I’ll get an early train and meet you off yours.’

  Rosie packed her best dress, a blue shantung with a small bustle, which a dressmaker had made for her. She put in her good skirt, three silk blouses and a velvet shoulder cape. She wore a mauve hat, large brimmed and heavy with silk flowers and velvet ribbon. The sun warmed her back, early in the morning, as she carried her bag down Wallgate, feeling the edges of the stones through her thin-soled shoes.

  She would have blushed to tell the lies she had ready in case anyone stopped her. She was glad she saw no one she knew as she reached the station unseen, out of breath and flushed from the effort of leaning backwards to compensate for the weight of the heavy bag on the hill.

  ‘A single ticket to Manchester, please,’ she asked of the clerk behind the tiny arched opening.

  ‘Off on holiday, then, Mrs Hadfield?’ The man lived in the next street.

  They were a respectable family and Rosie felt that he must see right through her lies as she replied. ‘It’s my sister in Yorkshire … she wants me to stay with her for a couple of weeks.’ Her face reddened as the man gave her a ticket.

  Oliver was waiting on the platform in Manchester and her heart gave its usual lurch when she saw him, head and shoulders above the other passengers, searching the crowd until his eyes lit upon her.

  The Southport train was almost full. Oliver had bought first-class tickets for them. They sat at opposite sides of the compartment, by the window. Rosie studied Oliver as they steamed across the green Lancashire plain. He was even more handsome than when she had first met him and she marvelled at his continuing love for her. The five years since his arrival in Middlefield had brought changes. He was still occasionally impetuous and boyish but this side of his character was less evident than his sharp intelligence and swift mastery of the world of business.

  It was going to be wonderful to have him to herself for two whole weeks. The new factory would take his attention when they returned. The speed with which he and his partner had moved to wrest advantage from potential ruin had drawn admiration from all the mill-owners and clever businessmen in Middlefield. The same men who had cautioned the young marketeers and foretold disaster were now beginning to talk of Oliver’s astuteness.

  Cold fear clutched her when she imagined life without him. Soon she must tell him that she carried his child, but not yet. Soon she would thicken more noticeably; already her breasts were becoming fuller. Oliver’s method of prevention was the oldest in the world but there had been times, many times, when nothing but completion would do. They would have their holiday, their two weeks of carefree enjoyment before they faced the problem of her pregnancy. There was no place for an abandoned woman, if Jim turned her out, and there was every chance that he would, since the baby could not have been his.

  ‘Soon be there, Mrs Wainwright,’ Oliver said, catching her eye and bringing a smile to her wide mouth. ‘Wait till you see the sea, eh?’

  With brakes scraping and steam shooting upwards as the pressure released the train drew to a halt and they alighted from the stuffy carriage into a different world.

  Southport was flat, its streets wide, tree-lined avenues where well-shod residents of the splendid houses strolled the neatly tiled pavements. The air was clean with a faint tang of the sea on its breath as it rustled through the branches of the sycamore, beech and horse-chestnut trees the town had in abundance.

  Flowers bloomed in neat beds and borders at every turn. Scarlet geraniums hung in profusion from wrought-iron brackets under deep glass canopies above the heads of the people who walked beneath them. These shoppers needed never fear to alight from their carriages even in inclement weather.

  The town was full of life. Lord Street, the main boulevard, had elegant shops and fashionable restaurants along the mile and a half of its length and the clients of these establishments desired as much to be seen as to see the fine displays of expensive wares artistically arranged for them.

  Rosie gripped the side of the open carriage with her left hand and held Oliver’s hand tight with her right. She had never seen a town like this. They turned into Lord Street from London Square where a line of hire carriages moved slowly forwards to pick up passengers, empty carriages joining the back of the line at the same time, in easy-moving harmony.

  ‘Middlefield square would fit into this twice over.’ She clutched Oliver’s hand. ‘Look! Over there – the wheel chairs for hire. Oh! See here – the trams. Look at the people on top holding parasols.’ She turned to face Oliver as the carriage, out of the slow-moving procession that had left the station, began to bowl along smoothly, unlike the jolting and lurching of carriages in hilly, narrow Middlefield.

  ‘I can see for miles. Oliver. The roads go on for ever. Ooh, look at the dresses. How beautiful the women are!’

  Oliver was relaxed against the upholstery. He had been here before, with Albert and Edith, and could point out, with a proprietorial air, the places she might overlook in her excitement.

  ‘We’ll be passing the Winter Gardens on our right soon, Rosie. Here we are,’ he told her. ‘I’ve asked the driver to stop for a minute.’

  The horses seemed to know exactly what was expected of them. They drew up in front of the imposing entrance without so much as a twitch of the reins.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sign boards proclaimed at the entrance, where three sets of double doors opened to receive the public, that inside could be found, ‘The Wonders of The Aquarium. The Finest in the World, Containing Europe’s Biggest Alligator, Sharks, Sturgeon, Octopods and many varieties of Shells. Conservatory and Theatre, Concert Room with Concerts Twice Daily, Outdoor Firework Displays and Refreshment Room.’

  ‘I’ll take you there tomorrow. You’ll like the aquarium,’ Oliver promised.

  They climbed back into the carriage and the driver turned the horses up the gentle rise towards the promenade and Rosie’s first sight of the sea. The tide was out and people walked the tight-ridged sand, carefree and barefoot in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

  ‘What are those contraptions, Oliver?’ Rosie pointed to five or six long, wheeled sand yachts whose owners were unfurling the high sails. ‘Oh! Look. That must be the pier!’

  They read the announcement at the entrance, telling the times of sailings from the pier head to Bangor and Beaumaris, Jarrow and the Isle of Man.

  ‘Shall we go on a trip, Oliver?’ Rosie asked eagerly. She could not contain her excitement.

  ‘Aye. We’ll do everything, love. First we’ll find the house, and unpack.’ The carriage drew up before a tall house of shiny red brick. A short flight of steps, under a portico with cream-plastered columns, led to the heavy front door and stained-glass windows of the porch.

  It was a mansion. Rosie’s knees were knocking with fear. She had never spent a whole night with Oliver. Not in a bed. Suppose the woman discovered that they were not married and ordered them to leave? She could have turned and fled.

  Oliver prised the bag from her white-knuckled grasp. ‘Don’t worry, love. I’ll do the talking.’ He gave her a quick hug before the door opened and they were welcomed into the wide hall of a comfortable guest house by a jolly little woman of around sixty years.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Wainwright? Did you have a good journey?’ She led the way up the carpeted stairs and down a long passage to a room overlooking the quiet street. ‘We take one family at a time, so you are the only guests. If you want anything, just knock at the door downstairs – the one next to the dining room.’ She beamed at them. ‘Dinner’s at six. It gives people time to get out for a concert. Shall I put a pot of tea out for you?’

  ‘No, thank you. We’ll unpack an
d rest before dinner.’ Oliver was on his own ground. He was used to hotel living.

  The room was spacious. Red and cream roses were arranged in a glass bowl on the high, mirrored dressing table and the carpet was patterned with the same colours against a deep blue background. At the two windows, which reached almost from floor to ceiling, fresh white lawn curtains gave privacy while heavy blue tapestry ones were hung from brass poles and fastened to the wall with silk tassels. A large bed faced the window, piled with soft pillows over a fringed counterpane. Brass bed knobs shone from energetic polishings and the whole room reflected back at them from two ornate mirrored wardrobes.

  Oliver put their bags beside a marble-topped washstand. ‘This will do us nicely,’ he told the woman. The moment the door closed behind the old dear Rosie fell backwards on to the bed.

  ‘Phew! What an ordeal!’ She pulled off her hat and hung it from the brass knob of the bedhead. ‘Does she suspect we’re not married?’

  ‘Of course she doesn’t.’ He was teasing her, laughing at her fears. ‘You’re timid, aren’t you, Rosie? Under that serene face you’re all turbulent emotions.’

  She loved it when he looked at her that way, the quick spark of fire, the light in his eyes, one minute teasing, the next taking her in his arms.

  ‘Come on, lass,’ he said. ‘Take your coat off.’

  Rosie smiled her long, slow smile. She stretched out in mock languor against the cream counterpane. ‘You take it off,’ she invited. He undressed and she watched him, wide-eyed, as he placed his clothes over the bedside chair and went to the window to untie the cords that held the curtains. There was no self-consciousness in his actions. To Rosie, who had been taught to think of nakedness and sin as synonymous, his joy in his powerful body was a revelation. Her own modesty seemed to her a foolish denial of her femininity and an affront to his open pleasure in her.

  He sat beside her on the bed as, leaning on one supportive elbow, he began to unbutton her clothes with deft hands; hands practised in the art of bringing her to the brink of expectation and need as they moved expertly over her body.

  ‘What if …?’ she started to ask, but his mouth silenced her protests in deep kisses that brooked no questions. He freed her arms from the loosened blouse and she dug her fingers into the firm muscles of his back, her taut nipples pressing into his chest.

  He tugged at the restricting band of her skirt with unusual impatience and dropped it to the floor. Later they would make love slowly; now they were in a state of urgency that the tensions of the day had heightened.

  ‘I love you, Rosie Hadfield,’ he said, between kisses. ‘I want you – you beautiful, sensuous woman. You respond to my every touch, don’t you?’

  His mouth left her lips and moved hungrily, searchingly towards her breast, pulling invisible strings inside her, making her moan with longing.

  He raised himself above her, watching her face, aware of the strength of her need, tantalising her with delay, in command of his body. She lay still, luminous eyes half-closed, strands of dark hair straying over her face, every nerve in her body reaching out to him.

  ‘Now?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes … Oh … quickly,’ she whispered urgently, and the pull of her arms brought him into her, carrying them higher and faster with every movement, until, locked into each other’s responses, one body obeyed the demands of the other.

  They would never forget the holiday. For two weeks they walked in the streets together, rode horse-drawn trams to parks and gardens that were only minutes away from the town centre. Rosie learned to swim at the public baths in the Ladies Plunge Pool while Oliver read the papers in the reading room or played billiards with strangers in the games room. They paddled in the sea, took a steamer to Liverpool and even ventured on to the ice of the Glaciarium.

  Midweek, they went to Sampson’s photographic studio. Provided the weather was bright, they were told, appointments were made between the hours of 10.30 and one o’clock. The photographer posed them in his sunlit yard beside an ornamental Greek urn, against a backcloth of lurid mountains. Rosie let her hair down for the picture and the photographer draped her shoulders in a fringed shawl and gave her a bouquet of roses to hold.

  They made love in the afternoons and again before dinner. They made love before breakfast and quite often in the early hours of the morning when fishermen’s carts woke them as they rattled by on their way to the shrimping grounds. It was going to be hard to part when the time came and as the second week drew to its end a frenzy seemed to overtake them. A frenzy that owed much to the need to return to their individual lives again where they must hide their need for one another.

  As the day of departure drew near Rosie began to dread the return to Middlefield. She had pretended to herself that they were a married couple, that they would never live separate lives again. She knew that Oliver was starting to miss Middlefield and wanted to be back in the world he knew, of business dealings, of setting up the new factory. He was not a man who could easily cope with leisure. Even on this holiday he had kept up with the movements of the stock market.

  They went for a last drive around the town Rosie felt she wanted to live in for ever, before arriving at the station on the last day. She was silent as the train steamed towards Manchester. A dread of facing Jim and the girls descended on her. They would be waiting to hear about her holiday with Agnes and she was not a practised liar.

  Oliver saw her on to the train to Middlefield. ‘I’ll spend an hour or two in Manchester, love. I’ll catch a later train so nobody will see us together.’

  Oliver reached Middlefield at eight o’clock that evening. He had spent three useful hours in Manchester with some cotton brokers and was hoping to spend an hour with Albert.

  Outside the station, on the little rise where the cattle market joins Wallgate, Mr and Mrs Hadfield held on to Rosie. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ the old man said as Oliver came towards them. ‘Don’t start pretending you don’t know!’ He shook Rosie roughly.

  ‘Hey, you! Wainwright!’ Wesley Hadfield’s voice rang out above the noise of departing passengers.

  Oliver stopped in his tracks. ‘Rosie? What are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t look surprised. You only saw her a few hours ago,’ the old man snarled. ‘Just you come up to t’house. You’ve got some explaining to do.’ He let go of Rosie’s arm and set off up the hill, bent almost double but covering the ground with a speed that would have done credit to a far younger man. His wife, cloaked and hooded, kept pace beside him.

  Oliver turned to Rosie. ‘What is it, love?’ He saw her tear-stained face. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Come to the house with me, Oliver.’ She could scarcely speak for the choking sobs that racked her. Oliver put his arm protectively around her shoulders.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he assured her. ‘What’s going on, love?’ His heart missed a beat. Surely nothing had happened to Jim or her children?

  ‘Come on! Get a move on!’ The old man halted, only moving on when he saw that they were coming towards him.

  Rosie could barely speak audibly. ‘They – they’ve found out, Oliver. Agnes came to Middlefield to see me and I’d said I was with her. They’ve sent Jim and the children to Bradford. Now they say I’ve got to go.’

  Oliver held her, half-carried her to the house. There were questions he must ask her and she was almost hysterical. How dared these people speak to her as they were doing?

  Old Mrs Hadfield slammed the front door and stalked ahead of them. The living room was almost empty of furniture. Ash spilled out on to the cold hearth. Rosie’s high brass fender had gone. A wooden chair and small cupboard were all that was left in the room she had furnished so lovingly.

  Wesley Hadfield’s face was distorted with rage. He stood with his back to the fireplace. ‘What have you to say for yourself?’ His voice was harsh with age, though powerful with anger. ‘Bringing a respectable family down to the level of the gutter! Taking your cheap pleasure from a
cheap woman and leaving her poor husband and children to suffer!’

  ‘Rosie’s no cheap woman, old man! Hold your tongue!’ Oliver, tight-lipped and angry, made a move towards Rosie who sat, crumpled in the chair, clutching the cupboard as wracking sobs tore through her.

  The old man leaped between them and raised his stick to stop Oliver from going to her. ‘You have made her cheap! The wrath of the Lord will be upon you!’ His eyes were wild. ‘If I were a young man I’d horsewhip you.’

  The old woman stood, stony-faced, beside her husband. ‘And her expecting a bastard child! Did you think my Jim would bring it up as his own? Did you think a decent man would shelter a child brought forth in sin? Did you?’ She filled herself out with God-fearing indignation. ‘She’s not fit to breathe the Good Lord’s air!’

  There was silence.

  ‘How did you find out?’ Rosie whispered.

  ‘Agnes told us. We held her hand on the Bible and made her tell us the truth. We knew you were with him – the man who led you from the paths of righteousness,’ Wesley Hadfield shouted.

  ‘Rosie? Is it true? A child?’ Oliver saw the answer in her eyes.

  ‘And the sins of the father shall be upon the children. Unto the third and fourth generation!’ the old man screamed. ‘And the Lord said “Vengeance is mine”.’

  Rosie’s sobs were tearing at her. ‘Stop! Stop!’ she begged.

  A terrible anger came over Oliver. ‘Quiet!’ he ordered, in deceptively calm tones. He stood head and shoulders above the bitter old man. ‘I’ll not hear another word against the woman I love. None of you is fit to tie her shoelaces. Rosie has worked all her married life for her children and your sick son and she’s been a damned good wife and mother. Little thanks she’s had! You’ll not speak to her like that.’

  He pulled Rosie gently to her feet. ‘How long have you had to listen to this? These ranting bigots? I wish I’d been here when they started their self-righteous bloody humbug.’