by Maggie Hope
‘Shall I get a beach hut again?’ he asked, confident of her answer, but she shook her head and backed away.
‘No, Matthew, no!’
‘Oh, come on, don’t be coy,’ he said, smiling his charming smile. He looked down at the curve of her breasts, outlined by the thin dress she was wearing, and ran his tongue over suddenly dry lips. He was impatient with her reluctance. Hell’s bells, it was too late now for her to act the shy virgin!
‘No, Matthew. I won’t let it happen again. Please go away.’ She turned and walked rapidly down the street, through the station yard and across the road to the chapel which stood at the top of Diamond Street. She looked behind her but there was no sign of him and she felt a surge of relief. But just in case, she walked along Milton Street to the next right turn, Emerald Street, and down it to Marine Parade. Two sharp lefts and she was back in Diamond Street. Thank goodness Matthew seemed to have taken her at her word, he had gone.
She was wrong. Inserting her key in the front door, she opened it and was just closing it after her when he came out of nowhere and put his foot in the door.
‘Let me in, Hetty,’ he insisted.
‘No. Go away!’ she whispered. She cast a swift glance behind her, fearing to see her landlady was about, but the hall was deserted. Matthew was quick to see her trepidation.
‘Let me in or I’ll raise a ruckus,’ he said, and he wasn’t smiling.
Hetty was desperate. At any moment the landlady might come, or another boarder. Of course, it didn’t matter that she might lose her room now, she was going anyway. But she didn’t want anyone to think she was anybody’s ‘fancy woman’, as Morton Main called it. She opened the door wider and stood back reluctantly, feeling there was no help for it.
‘All right then, hurry up,’ she whispered. ‘Right to the top of the house and don’t make a noise, please don’t.’
Once inside her bedroom she closed the door behind him and leaned on it. Automatically she said, ‘Sit down,’ and he moved towards the bed.
‘Not there!’ she said sharply. She pulled forward a small wooden chair and he shrugged, humouring her.
‘What is the matter with you?’ he demanded, voice booming in the little room so that she shushed him quickly.
‘Not so loud!’
‘We could speak quietly together if we sat on the bed,’ he suggested. He was mad for her. Now that they were alone in a bedroom, poor though it was, he couldn’t wait. He tried another tack. Sitting down on the chair, he sat back, tilting it on to the back legs and folding his arms.
‘You look lovely when you’re agitated like that,’ he said. ‘Lovely enough to eat.’
‘Don’t be silly, Matthew, I know you’re trying to flannel me. Now, I don’t know why you’ve come here—’
‘Yes, you do!’
Hetty felt herself blushing even more. She was beginning to realise she had made a mistake in allowing him into the house. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve told you how I feel. I don’t want you, I don’t want to see you again, now will you go?’
She started to walk past him to open the door but as she passed he grabbed her arm and pulled her down on his knee.
‘There! Isn’t that better? Now come on, be a good girl, give me a kiss.’ He held her easily with one hand and cupped the other round her chin. ‘You little witch,’ he murmured as he found her mouth. She struggled but his arms were like iron, his hands running over her. She was gasping for breath when he moved his lips to the hollow of her neck, one hand still firmly holding her, the fingers of the other fiddling with the fastening of her dress. But how could she scream or shout? It was her bedroom, she was trapped. And then it happened.
There was such an almighty crash the whole street must have heard it, let alone anyone in the house. The wooden chair had collapsed under them, smashed to bits. A round, carved leg rolled over the floor, the rest was in a heap under Matthew. Hetty herself was on her back, dazedly staring up at the stained ceiling, her dress up around her hips showing her stocking tops and knickers. The top button of her bodice was open.
‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ demanded a harsh female voice. The door was open and the landlady stood there, legs apart, hands on hips, mouth agape as she took in the scene and jumped to her own conclusions about what it meant. The shock on her face turned to blind, blazing anger.
‘You’d use my house for a brothel, would you? Would you? Why, I’ll—’
Hetty scrambled to her feet, pulling her dress together, running a hand over her hair. ‘It was the chair,’ she said, almost crying. ‘The chair broke.’ She stared in astonishment at Matthew as he laughed. He stood up, taking his time. Why, he was actually enjoying this, she realised. He put an arm around her shoulders.
‘Come on,’ he said to the angry landlady. ‘I was just waiting for Hetty, we were going out for a meal. Now be careful what you say or you could be in trouble yourself. After all, that was an unsafe chair. Look at it, not fit to sit on.’
The landlady exploded. ‘It wasn’t meant for two to sit on!’ she shouted. ‘You get out of my house. You’ve got a bloody nerve, you have, talking about the law. Go on, out!’
‘I’ll go when I’m ready, you stupid old hag,’ he said pleasantly.
‘Go on, Matthew,’ Hetty implored him.
‘Oh well, if you want me to,’ he answered. ‘I’ll wait on the front, shall I?’
Hetty wished the floor would open and swallow her, she couldn’t look at the landlady. She nodded dumbly, couldn’t trust herself to say any more.
‘You do that. This baggage will not be more than five minutes, I guarantee that.’ The landlady was white with anger now.
Hetty got out her straw box and began packing her few things under the baleful glare of the older woman. She fastened the leather belt which held it together and pulled on her coat. Summoning as much dignity as she could muster, she brushed past her, dropping the keys in her outstretched palm and walked down the stairs and out of the front door.
Matthew was there. She could see him sitting on a seat facing the sea, his back to her. Resolutely she turned the other way though she hadn’t an idea where she was going. The bane of her life he was, she thought as she trudged up the street. He spoilt everything; she was hard put to make a living because of him.
Then why did she feel such a response when he made love to her? Why, when she hated him? She could still feel his lips on hers, his hands on her body, her treacherous body.
‘Hetty, Hetty, you’re going the wrong way.’ Matthew was running after her. She tried to run too but was hampered by her box and he caught her and swung her round to face him.
‘Matthew,’ she cried, ‘please leave me alone! Go away, and leave me alone.’
He dropped her arm and stood back. The look on her face was one of such despair and loathing that it penetrated even his self-confidence. She ran off up the street and he watched her go. He was confused. Oh God, he was confused! Hetty was the only girl who had ever made him feel like this. He’d thought, once he’d broken down her defences, she would be like all the others – hanging on to him until he was sick to death of her.
Hetty rounded the corner and went off somewhere, he didn’t know where. After a moment he walked slowly up the road too, through the station yard to where he had parked his car. What a mess he had made of today, just because of a pitman’s brat, a skivvy from his father’s kitchen. He called her everything ugly he could think of but in his heart he knew they were empty words. She was well and truly under his skin. He had never thought it could happen to him and yet of all the girls in the world it had to be her who conquered him.
Frowning savagely, Matthew crossed over to his car and started the engine, turning to back up Windsor Road and return to the moors where no doubt his father would be waiting, ready to lash out with his tongue once again for Matthew’s supposed failings. As he passed the bus stop his attention was drawn to the queue just moving on to the bus for Smuggler’s Cove. And there was Hetty, hea
ving her box on before her. He braked sharply, causing the car behind him to toot loudly in protest. Then, smiling broadly, he drove on.
Chapter 13
Thomas Pearson arrived at Fortune Hall at one o’clock in the afternoon. He had decided to go there first to try to find out more about why Hetty had been dismissed, obviously he hadn’t been told the whole story. Also, he might be wrong in thinking she would go to Saltburn. Surely someone at Fortune Hall would know where she had gone? He had walked the last few miles from the main road where he had alighted from the bus and now strode across the heather, the studs in the soles of his pit boots striking sparks off the occasional patch of rock bared by the grazing sheep.
‘Me boots’ll stand up to the walking best,’ he had said to Maggie when she’d objected to his wearing them. ‘Anyroad, we can’t afford to have my shoes soled and heeled again.’
All the way he had worried about Hetty. Where was the lass? He blamed himself for it all. Maybe she would have come straight home when she got into trouble if only he’d been more firm with Maggie.
‘I said nowt,’ he told a peewit, startled from its nest by his approach and skimming over the heather crying plaintively. ‘I say nowt when I should speak out and too much when I ought te keep me mouth shut.’
But how could he have said anything to Maggie when she was nigh out of her mind about losing the little ’un? He’d let it go, thinking he would wait until she was calmer, more rational, like. Then the months, nay years, just went and there never was a good time. Though he had tried. Oh, aye. But Maggie got that upset, she was past herself. He’d thought it best to let it lie, especially when Hetty was away in a good job that fed her and gave her a roof over her head.
‘I always intended to come and see her, try to explain to the bairn,’ he said to himself now. But there was no denying the guilt which rose in him when he thought about Hetty. He had come to the top of a rise in the ground; there was a road of sorts, though unmade. He looked up at the sky, breathing deeply. By, he could really have enjoyed this day out in the open air. The moor was grand, stretching away on all sides, with ridges and banks and distant wooded patches. These last few years while times were bad he’d spent his time in the open air just looking to snare a rabbit for the pot or maybe even a hare.
He thought of the pit: the low seams, some of them only two feet six inches, pressing on him as he lay on his side wielding a pick, or taking the skin off his back as he crawled backwards through the goaf, the part from which the coal had already been won, at the end of the shift. But he loved the pit; friend and enemy at the same time it was.
‘Obsessed you men are, and with a flaming hole in the ground,’ Maggie would say. ‘It’s all you can talk about.’ It was true, he admitted to himself. Off shift they would gather at the corner end and squat on their hunkers and talk of the pit, the bitchy seams as well as the good ones. It was a brotherhood.
Yet he loved the sky and the fresh air, though there was nearly too much here for a pit lad like him. He grinned at the thought then frowned as he realised he had almost forgotten why he was here: he had to find his bairn.
Richard Fortune was crossing the farmyard leading his horse when Thomas came striding across the cobbles, scattering a gander and his geese before him. Thomas ignored them though the gander honked and threatened to no avail. Richard murmured to his horse and stood waiting, his heart sinking for there was no mistaking who this was. Hetty could have been no one’s child but Thomas’s; they had the same dark hair and eyes and fresh complexion, though his was marked with blue scars from the coal.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Richard and waited, thinking it was a good job his father was at Harrogate yet again and so couldn’t confront or be confronted by Hetty’s father.
‘Afternoon,’ said Thomas, who had yet to eat the sandwiches which Maggie had put up for him. They were still in his bait tin in the pocket of his jacket. ‘I came to find out where our Hetty is,’ he began without preamble. He surveyed Richard from the toes of his polished boots to the top of his head. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? I mean who came up to Morton Main yesterday?’
‘It was,’ admitted Richard. ‘Look, if you wait until I’ve stabled my horse, we could go inside. I’m sure you could do with a spot of lunch or something after such a long walk?’
‘I’ve got me bait, thank you,’ said Thomas. ‘What I want to know is, where’s my lass? An’ why was she sent off? I know our Hetty an’ I don’t think for a minute she did anything wrong.’
Richard looked about him and saw Sam over by the cow byres. He called him over and gave the horse to him before answering Thomas.
‘Look, Mr Pearson, I think we should go inside. We can talk quietly there.’
‘Well, if you like,’ conceded Thomas, and followed him through the kitchen door. Richard was for going straight through to the front of the house but Thomas spied Sally Dunn, who was sitting at the kitchen table finishing off her meal.
‘Sally?’ he said, pulling up short. ‘Do you know owt about this? Or where our Hetty is now?’
She shot Richard a quick glance and blushed a fiery red. ‘No, Mr Pearson, I don’t,’ she mumbled. ‘I wasn’t here, like.’
‘We’ll go through, Mr Pearson,’ Richard insisted. ‘Sally can’t tell you anything as she says. She wasn’t even here at the time.’
Sally stared at the remains of her dinner, thinking, By, but I could! She could tell Mr Pearson, a chapel man an’ all, how his precious daughter had been caught with Matthew Fortune in the middle of the night. Shameless she was! But just then one of the bells rang, the one from Mrs Fortune’s bedroom, and Sally had to rush upstairs to attend to it.
Richard took Thomas into the sitting room and offered him a chair.
‘I’ll stand, thanks,’ said Thomas, stiff and unbending. He held his cap in his hands before him and as Richard regarded him he thought that the miner had a pride about him, and an honest, open expression which reminded him yet again of Hetty.
‘Sit down, man,’ he said gently. ‘Have a drink, for goodness’ sake.’ Though he wondered just what his father or Matthew would have to say if they should come home and find a labouring man ensconced in their sitting room. But thankfully Matthew was out today also and unlikely to come home for hours.
Thomas hesitated before nodding his head and sitting on the edge of a comfortable leather armchair, and succeeding in looking very uncomfortable indeed.
‘Have a drink?’
Richard went to the tantalus and held up the whisky decanter but put it down hastily when Thomas glared at him.
‘In the middle of the day? Not that I drink anyroad. I’ve heard of men that go so far as to drink in the daytime, as though night time wasn’t bad enough.’
‘Em … yes. Well.’ Richard almost said he wasn’t a drinker himself but instead continued, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t know where Hetty is. I’m afraid my father was so furious when he saw her with Matt – when he saw she had someone upstairs with her, that he sent her packing. I’m afraid—’
‘For goodness’ sake, man, don’t be so afraid all the time!’ snapped Thomas. ‘You’re sorry and you’re afraid but that doesn’t tell me where my lass is, does it? What were you doing, letting a young lass go off on her own like that with nowhere to go if you were afraid for her? An’ what’s more I don’t believe a word of what you’re telling me. If there was a man upstairs with our Hetty, then I’m telling you, it was none of her doing. He must have gone up there after her.’
‘I didn’t know she had nowhere to go,’ Richard pointed out, stung. ‘I thought she would go home to you.’
‘Aye, well …’ Thomas went brick red and looked down at the steel toecaps of his pit boots. ‘I’m not saying we’re not at fault,’ he said after a minute’s silence. ‘But I am saying that the lass is missing and she’s got to be found. I know she’s been more or less on her own for five years but she’s nobbut nineteen. An’ I thought she was living in a respectable house. I thought you were concerned abou
t her when you came up to Morton, like.’
‘I am. Of course I am. That’s why I came. She was good to my mother and I thought she deserved a reference. Besides, I wanted to make sure she was all right. I even went to Saltburn and looked for her but I couldn’t find any sign of her.’
In fact, Richard had come home from Saltburn to find his brother Matthew in a rare good mood, humming, ‘Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside.’ He thought of it now. He’d told Matthew where he’d been and his brother had laughed and said he was wasting his time.
‘Saltburn? Saltburn-by-the-Sea, do you mean? I did wonder if she was there.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, she used to go there sometimes,’ said Richard lamely. It was true. He knew Hetty and Ethel had liked to go there on the rare afternoons they had off together.
Thomas got to his feet and glanced at the door. ‘Your father’s not at home?’
‘No, I’m afraid he isn’t.’ Richard bit his lip. There he was, being afraid again. It was obvious this man was not afraid of much; he didn’t have the usual attitude of the servant class. Come to think of it, neither had Hetty. She stood as erect as her father and looked everyone straight in the eye. Oh, why hadn’t he been more thorough in his search of Saltburn at least? He turned his attention back to Thomas.
‘Look,’ he said, on impulse, ‘I’ll give you a lift to Saltburn, if you like? We could look around together. I know the place quite well.’
‘Why should you do that?’ demanded Thomas. ‘Feeling guilty, are you? Is that why you came to Morton, then?’
He was very shrewd, Richard thought, and said aloud, ‘I like Hetty, I’ve told you that. It will only take me a minute or two to change.’
‘Aye.’ Thomas considered. ‘Go on then. I haven’t got all day. And I’d be grateful for a lift.’
Within twenty minutes they were in the car and heading for the coast road. Richard parked beside the sea on Marine Parade and turned to his passenger.