‘Let her go, Mother. Let her leave quietly.’ Ben rushed to Beth’s aid, but all his strength could not prise his mother’s fingers away. She clung to Beth like a leech. In the candlelight he was shocked to see the blood oozing from beneath her fingernails and leaving a thick crimson trail down Beth’s arm. ‘Let her go!’ he yelled, desperately trying to force himself between them. ‘Christ! Look what you’re doing to her!’
‘Tell your father!’ Esther was like a mad woman. ‘Tell him how you’ve lain with Tyler Blacklock… lain with him and brought shame on yourself and on the name of this family.’ She was laughing now, stripped of all pretence, her eyes revealing the virulent hatred that had silently eaten away at her for too long.
‘For God’s sake… let her go, Mother!’ Ben was amazed and terrified by his mother’s determination. Suddenly he screamed aloud as she touched the burning candle to Beth’s loose flowing locks, laughing insanely when Beth frantically snuffed out the sizzling flames that crept through her hair. Ben tried desperately to twist his mother away, but Beth clung all the harder. Summoning every ounce of strength, he slid both his arms over the small hard body knocking the candle to the floor and pinning her against the dresser. She was sobbing now, trembling uncontrollably, and watching Beth’s every move as she retrieved the candle and placed it on the dresser.
‘Whore!’ she yelled, turning her attention towards the door, where Richard Ward stood, whitefaced and visibly shocked. ‘She won’t tell you, so I will,’ she screeched. ‘Your precious Beth is carrying his bastard! Do you hear me? She’s carrying Tyler Blacklock’s bastard! Don’t you think that’s ironic?’ Her laughter was chilling to hear.
But in a moment it had died away and in its place there came a look of shocked disbelief as she saw the big man spread his hands out against the door jamb and jerk his face upwards, his expression one of incredible pain. When in almost the same instant he bent forward, clutching at his chest and his legs buckling beneath him, Esther knew she had gone too far. ‘Dear God, Ben! Your father!’ She clasped her hands over her mouth, only her eyes visible in the small wicked face.
Beth had also seen her father go down, and was at his side even as her mother was crying out. Falling on her knees she cradled him to her, startled when he pushed against her, as though fighting her off, his eyes staring up, silently condemning. In all of her life she had never seen such a look in her father’s eyes. It shook her to the core. He spoke only one word, but it was said with such vehemence that it struck her to the heart. ‘NO!’ He put both his hands against her and tried desperately to thrust her from him.
‘Get your filthy hands off him, you trollop.’ Ester raged at her. ‘Can’t you see, he doesn’t want you touching him?’ She forced Beth away. As she straightened up, Beth was horrified to see her father’s body shudder uncontrollably, before becoming deathly still. It was Ben who voiced her innermost fears. ‘God help us. It’s too late… I think he’s dead!’
Esther’s trembling voice rent the air, as she screamed at Beth ‘If your father’s dead, it’s you that’s to blame!’ Like a mad thing she launched herself at Beth, tearing at her hair, her face, all the while screaming how she had murdered her own father, how she was not fit to bear his name, and how: ‘I knew all along it would come to this. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.’
‘Get out, Beth!’ Ben held his mother in an iron grip, his eyes bulbous with fear as he yelled at his sister:’ Get out! For God’s sake… get out of here.’ As she pulled away, bruised and bleeding, he gave her another order, one that was astonishing to Beth. ‘Don’t ever come back here,’ he warned in sombre voice. ‘Go to your man, and leave us alone.’
‘Now!’ Esther echoed, struggling from Ben’s hold and dropping to her husband’s side. ‘Put her out now. Don’t let her stay another moment in your father’s house. She can send for her things later. I want her out now… this minute.’ There was wildness in her eyes as she stared up. ‘If I see you again, I swear I’ll not be responsible for my actions!’ The look she gave Beth was curiously triumphant. And when she glanced at her brother’s hard-set face, Beth knew in her heart that he, too, blamed her for everything that had happened here. She knew also that she had no one left in the world. No one but Tyler, and the child she was carrying.
In that moment before she turned away, Beth glanced lovingly at her father’s still body. His eyes were closed, but she could still see the unforgiving look in them – the terrible accusation. The pain was gone from his face, but it was not gone from her heart. She loved him. Nothing would ever change that. She had lost him. But Death had not taken him from her. No. It was nothing so simple as Death that had parted them. It was her love for Tyler. And it was something else also… the same mysterious thing that had caused her mother’s hatred of her. Whatever it was, it belonged to a past that had nothing to do with her. It was a long-ago enigma, something between Richard and his wife. A profound yet ambiguous thing that could have been resolved only by the two people who had created it.
One more loving glance at her father and Beth turned away, the tears streaming down her face and her heart lying like a lead weight inside her. She was vaguely aware of Ben telling his mother, ‘I must fetch help. Don’t worry. I’ll get Miss Mulliver to sit with you.’ She felt like a stranger – unwanted, unimportant. Suddenly she felt the house closing in on her, and had to get away… get to Tyler. He would know what she must do. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she went quickly up the stairs and into her room.
A few moments later, Beth left the house. The air was shockingly cold. The bitter, stiff breeze was creating small isolated patches in the fog, and the morning sky was fast infiltrating the darkness. The streets were deserted, with only intermittent sounds penetrating the silence… the curdling mewl of marauding felines, and the merry ditty of a late night reveller. Beyond the square could be heard the rumbling wheels of passing carriages, and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. These familiar sounds were a comfort to Beth. She thought about the new life forming inside her, and suddenly felt a sense of purpose.
At the end of the square, she paused and looked back. She recalled the events of the night, and pain struck deep inside her. She thought about the manner in which her father had stared at her, as though he had never known her, as though she had betrayed his trust and brought him unbearable shame. And Ben? What of him, her life-long soulmate and friend? He, too, had shown revulsion towards her. She remembered the way she had found him in the kitchen – head bent into his hands, and the anguished look in his eyes when he raised his head as she came through the door. That puzzled her. It was almost as though he knew what terrible things were to follow. Was she to blame? Dear God above… had she really caused her father to collapse? She had a compulsion to go back; to look on his face just once more. It was so strong that she half-turned, her steps eager to carry her back. But a deeper, more urgent instinct warned her against it. In her mind’s eye she could see inside that house; see Ben’s forbidding face as he ordered her on to the streets; and the hatred in her mother’s voice followed her even now. Her father’s eyes though… the way he had looked at her. That was what hurt the most. The way he had looked at her. She would never forget.
Raising her face to the brightening sky, she murmured, ‘Take care of him, Lord.’ Then, changing the small portmanteau into her other hand, she braced her shoulders against the chilling wind and hurried her footsteps from the square. Somehow, she knew that she would never again set foot in this part of the world. The realisation did not sadden her. She was saddened only by the thought that she would not see her father again; saddened too by the knowledge that she had not been able to live up to his expectations. But then, he had never spoken of what these were exactly. Now, when she thought more deeply on it, she realised that she and her father had never really spoken on any serious issue. And so she recalled older, more cherished memories, of when she was very small, and her father was her greatest comfort. But that had not lasted too long. Esther had seen t
o that. Esther Ward. Her mother. The woman whose hostile face would ever darken Beth’s heart.
Now, as she hurried to her man, she deliberately thrust the painful images from her mind. Tyler would have the answers. She would tell him of the child she was carrying. They would be a family then, starting out together on a new life. In all her unhappiness, that thought alone brought her comfort. All the same, Beth’s heart was sore at what had happened. There was little she could do just now, but in the not-too-distant future, she would contact old Methias. He would reply, she was certain. He would send news of her father.
* * *
‘He’s gone, I tell yer, an’ bloody good riddance!’ Florence Ball was not too happy at being got from her bed at this hour of the morning. Not when she had only just nodded off after the earlier fracas.
‘Gone?’ Beth’s heart sank to her boots. ‘When? Do you know where he’s gone?’
‘No, I bleedin’ well don’t.’ The woman poked her round flabby face out of the half-open door. ‘But I’ll tell yer this much, lady… the bugger had better not show ’is face round these ’ere parts agin.’ She made no mention of the fact that she had seen her two lodgers beat him to the ground and continue to beat him even while he lay there helpless. She made no mention of the fact that shortly before she returned to her bed, he had been scraped off the pavement and carted away by the authorities, no doubt to the mortuary. And above all she made no mention of her own daughter having been in Tyler Blacklock’s room in the dead of night; because then she might have had to explain the events that followed. Oh, no! She’d been around long enough to know when to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t want the authorities beating a path to her door. Once they got their teeth into you, they never let go.
Instead, she told Beth, ‘The swine went off in the dark hours when we were all abed, an’ there’s till two weeks’ rent owing.’ A crafty thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘’Ere! You’re ’is fancy bit, ain’t yer? Happen you should settle ’is bill.’
Ignoring her suggestion, believing the woman to be an opportunist, Beth asked again: ‘You’ve no idea at all where he might have gone? Did he leave a forwarding address… a note for me, perhaps?’ She was desperate.
‘A “forwarding address”?’ the woman repeated in a shrill voice, pressing her fat head to the door frame and indulging in a screeching fit that rocked the mounds of flesh all over her body. ‘Oh, la de dah!’ she mocked. ‘Since when did any lodger of old Ma Ball’s leave a “forwarding address”?’ She raised her head and tried to compose herself. ‘There ain’t no note neither,’ she told Beth in between bursts of cruel laughter. ‘So yer might as well piss orf out of it. Go on! Sod orf, I tell yer! Your sort don’t fit well in this street, wi’ yer posh frocks an’ la de dah ways.’
She would have slammed shut the door, but it was wrenched from her grasp and flung open to reveal her daughter, clothed in a vivid purple dressing robe, with an almost transparent flesh-coloured nightgown beneath. Florence Ball’s shock at suddenly seeing the girl there was quickly replaced by indignation. ‘What the ’ell d’yer think yer doing, yer silly little cow?’ she demanded. ‘Get back to yer bed. Ain’t yer caused enough trouble ter be going on with?’ She suddenly eyed Beth and stopped abruptly, before she might have spilled out the entire night’s events.
‘You go to bed, Ma,’ the girl retorted. Unable to sleep, she had heard the knock on the door and feared it might be a constable. When she realised it was not, she had crept down the stairs and eavesdropped from behind the door. Still embittered by Tyler Blacklock’s rejection of her, but compensated by the thought of her just ‘reward’, she did not want Elizabeth Ward to be sent away so easily. ‘I’m ashamed that you’d leave the poor thing standing on the pavement in the cold and damp,’ she said now, regarding her mother slyly. ‘You get off to bed, Ma. Leave the lady to me, eh?’ Dropping back into the shadows, she whispered ‘You do want another two weeks’ rent, don’t you?’
The older woman’s eyes glittered in the light from the candle she was holding. ‘Aye, ’appen yer right,’ she said loudly, in a tone of apology. ‘I’m forgettin’ me manners, I reckon.’ She now addressed herself to Beth. ‘Yer look starved wi’ cold, dearie. An’ o’ course yer want ter know all about ’ow yer feller took ’is leave.’ She opened the door wider. ‘You come inside, dearie,’ she said with a smile that lost her eyes in waves of fat, ‘an’ we’ll ’ave a proper chat, eh?’
When Beth was seated at the kitchen table and the two candles on the mantelpiece were lit, Florence saw how the girl was slyly gesturing for her to be gone. Feigning a yawn, she told Beth, ‘I’m that tired, I think I’ll tek meself back ter me bed. My Fanny ’ere can tell yer what yer need to know.’ At the door she cast a warning glance at the girl and put a stiff grubby finger to her mouth, effectively telling her to keep her mouth shut about the night’s events. When the warning was acknowledged, she smiled a cunning tight-lipped smile, nodded her head, and ambled away – the anticipation of an extra two weeks’ rent putting a song on her lips and a spring to her step.
‘I’m sorry to have got you both from your beds,’ Beth apologised, ‘but it’s important that I find Mr Blacklock.’ She tried desperately not to betray her panic at finding that he had already gone.
‘Want a drink, do you?’ The girl had sensed that Beth was in some kind of trouble and it pleased her. She had the bitch at her mercy now, and she intended to make her suffer. But she had no intention of rushing it. Oh, dear me, no. The pleasure in killing a rat was to watch it squirm. And that’s what she wanted to do with Tyler Blacklock’s woman before she dealt the final blow… she wanted to watch her squirm.
‘No, thank you all the same,’ Beth replied. ‘I just want news of Tyler. When did he leave? Did he give you or your mother any idea which way he was headed?’ In her mind she went over every word of their last conversation. ‘North’, he had said, or to ‘the Southampton area’.
‘’Fraid not.’ The girl went to the dresser and opened the lower cupboard. Dipping into it, she raised a gin bottle aloft. ‘Sure you won’t take a nip?’ You’ll need it, she thought with cruel satisfaction. When Beth shook her head, she shrugged her shoulders and poured herself a healthy measure into a small tumbler. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, suddenly giggling. ‘The old trout would skin me alive if she knew I’d been at her tipple.’ Fetching both tumbler and bottle to the table, she seated herself in the chair opposite Beth, quietly regarding her for a moment before raising the tumbler to her mouth and swilling its entire contents straight down. Coughing and spluttering, she poured out another measure, holding the tumbler to her face and rolling it from side to side while she again quietly regarded Beth.
‘Me mam’s right,’ she lied. ‘Your precious Tyler still owes her a fortnight’s rent. But the bugger’s gone – took off like a thief in the night… lock, stock and barrel.’ Her eyes narrowed as she thought of the callous way he had bundled her out of his room. She watched the effect her words had on the woman opposite, and her bitterness was pierced with delight. ‘Handsome man, ain’t he?’ she asked now, her devious plan unfolding and the silver-haired fellow’s promise uppermost in her mind. ‘One for the women, ain’t he? You can never trust a man like that.’
Already regretting having entered the house, and seeing that the girl was tipsy, Beth chose not to dwell on her insinuating remarks. Instead, she asked once more, ‘You have no idea where he might have gone?’ She stood up, preparing to leave. There were other questions she might have asked, but she felt it would be futile. Tyler had gone, just as he had said he would. But she had never believed he would go without somehow letting her know where and maybe indicating the general direction he would take. Dear God, where would she find him now? Panic began to take hold, but she forced herself to stay calm.
‘Well now, I am surprised.’ The girl swilled down a mouthful of gin. ‘You mean to tell me you really don’t know where he’s gone? I would have thought he’d tell you. I mean, you’re a good catch by any
standard.’ She eyed Beth up and down before laughing, a deep unpleasant laugh. ‘But then, come to think of it, it isn’t that surprising after all, because he was a secretive bugger, wasn’t he, eh?’
‘What do you mean?’ There was something in the tone of the girl’s voice that put Beth on her guard.
‘I mean exactly what I say.’ The girl swayed dangerously as she pushed out of the chair to face Beth with a look of cunning. ‘Don’t think you were the only one who knew Tyler Blacklock,’ she said meaningfully. ‘You see, he didn’t mind bandying his favours about… if you know what I mean.’ She began giggling. But then her expression darkened as she went on, ‘I wonder whether you’d be so eager to find the bugger if you knew what he’s been up to. I wonder if you’d think him such a fine fellow if I told you that…’ She paused, relishing the look on Beth’s face, and wanting to prolong her pain a while.
‘It’s obvious I’m wasting my time here.’ Angered by the girl’s innuendos, Beth grabbed her portmanteau from the floor and turned away.
‘We slept together… me and Tyler.’ The words sailed through the air with venom. ‘I’ve lost count of the times we made love,’ she added quietly. When Beth paused, keeping her face to the door, she went on in a harder voice, ‘It’s best that you know. Tyler Blacklock is a rogue… a bad ’un.’
Beth turned now, her dark eyes intense as she warned the girl, ‘If I were you, I’d be very careful.’
‘Oh, well, now… you might just be right there, because you see – that’s just what I ought to have been… “careful”. The fact is, your wonderful Tyler has had his way with me once too often.’ She laughed aloud, patting her stomach with the flat of her hand and saying in a quieter voice, ‘He may have skulked off like the villain he is… owing me mam a two week rent and all… but worse than that, the bugger’s left me with a belly full!’ She flung open her dressing robe and arched her stomach forward. The nightgown was so thin her navel was clearly visible.
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