by Gracie Hart
‘Please, Mary-Anne, I can’t face life without you. It is you that gives me strength and purpose.’ John pleaded. ‘There’s a ship I can earn our passage on from Liverpool on Friday, so I’ll be away by Wednesday, which gives you two days to change your mind. I’m lodging down by the docks, you’ll find me down there. Please return with me, Mary-Anne. One day I’ll give you a house like this and more besides, if that’s what you want. And Victoria is such a grand little lass, she takes after you. If it hadn’t been for her I’d never have found you.’
‘Victoria! You’ve met my Victoria?’ Mary-Anne exclaimed.
‘Aye, it was her who told me where I could find you and she gave me a copper or two. She’s a grand little lady, your Eliza has brought her up well. She must want us to stay together, either that or she felt sorry for me when I said I was here to take you back to America because I couldn’t live without you.’ John smiled at the woman he loved.
‘Well, she thought wrong. Now get on your way and don’t hold any hope of me returning with you because my life is here now. After all, we’re not even married, so that just shows how much you love me, John Vasey. You’ve had twelve years to make me an honest woman. I’m about to change my life and this time for the better.’ Mary-Anne went to the door and opened it wide, letting the night air in and making the flames flicker in the oil lamps.
‘I’ll always love you, Mary-Anne.’ John put his hand on her arm. ‘I can’t face life without you.’
‘Aye, well, you’ll soon get over me. Go on, take care of yourself and find somebody better than me. You deserve a better woman than me.’ Mary-Anne watched him put his cap on his head, pull his collar up against the cold and walk out into the dark night. She turned and wiped tears away from her cheeks. A cloak of sadness fell over her; she had loved John Vasey once, but now she needed more from life.
From behind the curtain, Ma Fletcher’s voice came. ‘That man loves you, Mary-Anne. He’s come halfway round the world to find you.’
Mary-Anne sniffed. ‘Well, I don’t love him any more. He’ll never give me what I want and need.’
‘Brass isn’t everything, lass. I hope you know what you are doing, else more hurt will follow,’ Ma Fletcher said softly.
‘I don’t care, he’ll be waiting a long time to hear from me again. The sooner he gets himself home the sooner we can both get on with our lives.’
Mary-Anne had no intentions of returning to John Vasey, not now, not ever.
Chapter 17
It was the early morning, and mist swirled around a group of dock workers. They were all staring at the body that had just been pulled out of the cut. It had taken three or four men to drag the body of the man out of the dirty waters and now they sat exhausted on the cobbled bank. A crowd had already gathered, and was leering at the body. It was their source of entertainment for the day, something to talk about over the supper table and for the truth to be embroidered upon as they fantasised on how his death had come about.
One of the dock workers knelt down at the side of the fully dressed broad-shouldered man. ‘Bloody hell, he’s taken some fishing out.’ He rifled through the drowned man’s sodden pockets but found no evidence of his name and address. ‘Anyone here knows him?’ He looked around at the men and women staring at the corpse. The crowd shook their heads and mumbled to one another as the local Peeler pushed himself through them and stood over the dead body.
‘Right now, you lot, get yourself home. There’s nothing more to see here.’ The Peeler summoned the two young Peelers that had followed him with a stretcher. All three struggled as they lifted up the body and were just about to carry it away when the woman who ran the boarding house ran to them holding a scrap of paper and a dirty knotted handkerchief full of possessions.
‘Here, officer, I know who he is, the poor bugger. He’s been lodging with me, he came over from the Americas looking for his wife. He was drunk again the other night because she had told him to bugger off back without him. The silly fool must have fallen into the cut. He gave his name as John Vasey. Here, he’d obviously known she wasn’t going to go back with him because he’d written this letter, it’s got her address on it.’ The old crone handed John’s letter over to the first Peeler and watched as he read it and opened the handkerchief to reveal a pocket watch, a bible with a pressed flower in it and a few coins.
‘Are you sure that is all he left behind?’ The Peeler asked the old woman.
‘Now, sir, I wouldn’t steal from the dead. I need my soul to go to heaven, so I do.’ The old woman turned her back on the body and the Peelers. She sighed. Sometimes, no matter how honest you were, you’d never be believed that when you’d helped yourself to the gold sovereign within, it was to pay for his board, with perhaps a bit left over. After all, his wife didn’t deserve it and he wouldn’t be wanting it any more.
‘Old woman, did he owe you anything?’ The Peeler shouted after her.
She stopped in her tracks and smiled. ‘That he did. He’d been with me for nearly a week and only paid for the first two days.’
‘Here then, take these few pence, it’s not as if he’ll be needing them where he’s gone to.’ The Peeler shoved the few coins in her grubby hands. ‘You have an extra bed to let tonight,’ he said as he and his colleagues walked away with the corpse of John Vasey.
‘Who the devil is knocking on the door at this time of the morning? I’m not even decent yet!’ Ma Fletcher, still in her nightdress, said as she ate her dishful of porridge next to the newly lighted fire. ‘It’ll be your man coming to plead for you again. Tell him to be on his way and not to bother us again, the poor bugger.’
Mary-Anne wiped her hands on her apron and glanced out of the room’s panelled window. ‘Bugger, it’s a Peeler. They must have had news from America about me being here, but I don’t know how! You know nothing, you just took me in because you needed my help and I needed somewhere to live.’ Mary-Anne warned Ma Fletcher as she opened the door to the unwelcome visitor.
‘Mrs Vasey?’ The Peeler took off his helmet.
‘Yes. What do you want with me at this time of the morning?’ Why had the officer called her Mrs Vasey?
‘I think you had better let me in, Mrs Vasey, and you may need to sit down. I’m afraid I’ve some bad news.’ The officer bent his head and pushed his way inside. ‘And you are?’ He asked Ma Fletcher.
‘I own this place. Mary-Anne lives here with me and looks after me. Now, what are you about?’ Ma Fletcher hated the Peelers. They had always been on her back when dealing with the market.
‘He says he’s got bad news, Ma. Tell me it’s not my Victoria or my sister. They are both all right, aren’t they?’ Mary-Anne shook, watching the officer as he drew the note and handkerchief out of his pocket.
‘As far as I know, Mrs Vasey. I’m afraid it is your husband, John. I’m sorry to say that he lost his life sometime late last night after falling into the canal. The landlady said that he’d been drinking. He was fished out of the cut just below Crown Point Bridge. He left you this letter where he had been staying, that’s how we have tracked you down.’ The Peeler passed Mary-Anne the letter and the handkerchief and watched her eyes fill with tears as she slumped into a chair. ‘His body is being held in the morgue. There are no suspicious circumstances, the letter tells us what state of mind he was in. I’m sorry for your loss. Is it true that you were estranged from Mr Vasey?’
Mary-Anne couldn’t stop her hands from trembling. ‘We were never married. I took his name but we were never wed. That was why I had returned home, that and the fact that I was missing my daughter.’
‘Your daughter?’ The Peeler looked at her.
‘Yes, she’s been living with my sister Eliza Wild. She runs the dress and haberdashery shop on Boars Lane. Grace Ellershaw is the main owner.’
‘I know it well. My wife would very much like me to earn more pay so that she could shop there.’ The Peeler looked embarrassed at mentioning his home life to a woman who had just lost her man. ‘I’m
so sorry for your loss, miss. He must have been feeling low in spirits, and turned to the drink a little too much.’ He glanced at Ma Fletcher who sat silently next to the fire, a shawl hastily wrapped around her nightdress. These seemed like decent people and he was sorry to bring sorrow to their door. ‘We will hold his body in the mortuary for seven days and then give him a pauper’s burial, unless you want to claim the body, miss?’
‘I’ve not much money, I don’t know if I can afford to bury him,’ Mary-Anne sobbed.
Ma Fletcher said in a severe voice, ‘You’ll do right by him, Mary-Anne. You’ll give him as decent a grave as you can, seeing he’s died in disgrace in the good Lord’s eyes. I’ll give you the money to bury the lost soul.’ Ma Fletcher’s hand shook as she held her handkerchief to her nose. ‘We’ll do right by him, officer, he’s not a pauper, and he was a good man. Too caring, if anything.’ Ma Fletcher sighed. She’d warned Mary-Anne that her flippant ways towards John Vasey would bring no good and now this was the outcome. ‘He was a Catholic. We’ll see if the priest will accept him and take him off your hands as soon as possible.’
Mary-Anne hung her head. She wanted to be alone in her grief and to read the last words of John, the man that she did once love.
‘I’ll leave it to you, then. I take it you’ll arrange everything?’ The officer looked at Mary-Anne and then Ma Fletcher.
‘Aye, lad, we will sort it. Thank you for coming out with the news, albeit bad.’ Ma Fletcher watched Mary-Anne show the Peeler out, and, as he gave his sympathies to her once again, she noticed her wipe a tear away as she shut the door behind him.
‘Well, that’s the end of him, lass. There’s no going back to Yank land now. You’ve made your bed so you must lie on it. Let’s hope that your plans for William Ellershaw come to something, else he’s lost his life for nowt.’ Ma Fletcher’s words might have been harsh, but her voice was tinged with sympathy.
Mary-Anne sobbed. ‘I didn’t think he cared that much for me. Why, why did he turn to the drink, Ma? He could have a good life, he was clever and kind when not drinking. He could have found somebody else.’
‘You’ll might find out when you read his letter, lass. I’ll get dressed while you read it and then we’ll have to sort him a funeral.’ Ma Fletcher got up from her seat and made her way to the privacy of her curtained room, leaving Mary-Anne sat reading the last words of John Vasey.
My dearest Mary-Anne,
By the time you read this letter, I will be on my way back to Liverpool. I have realised that you have no intentions of joining me, no matter how much I tell you I love you. I’m sorry that I have caused you pain and have disappointed you, however I know I have only myself to blame. I don’t know if I have the strength to live without you, I’m a broken man, Mary-Anne. Everything and everybody I have ever loved, I have lost. Life holds no more joy for me but I will have to learn to live without you by my side.
My heart will always be yours.
Take care, my love.
John
Mary-Anne wept, then reached for the handkerchief that held the few humble possessions that John had left behind him. He had told her that he had pawned the few things they owned to get to her. But possessions had meant nothing to her when she had first loved him. When had she become so hard-hearted? Was the pursuit of wealth and all its trappings really worth the heartache it seemed to bring? She held John’s pocket watch in her hand and remembered her stubborn Irishman who had once filled her life with hope and love.
Mary-Anne stood in the gloom of the churchyard of St Mary’s. It was dark, lit only with the gravediggers’ lamps as they filled in John’s grave. No one else had attended the graveside, not even the priest to bless his body as he was lowered below into the earth. The priest had muttered that he was concerned that John’s death might have well been suicide and not an accident when told of his death, and suicide was a most unforgivable sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Because of that, John’s body was being buried at the fall of the night on the north side of the churchyard in a place especially saved for the unbaptised, the suicides, the criminal and insane of society. She looked around her at the dark tree branches hanging over the churchyard and at the small tower of the church that John had always attended along with the rest of the Irish immigrant community of Leeds when he had first lived there. She sighed. What a waste of a life, to die like that. Guilt had racked her body since the news of his death and now her heart hurt as she looked down upon his grave.
‘Right, we are off now, missus. We reckon nowt to being here after dark, especially about these unholy souls that are buried in this part.’ The gravediggers looked at her for a second and then disappeared into the fading light, leaving Mary-Anne standing over the fresh grave with a small spray of forget-me-nots in her hands, which she bent down and placed on the unmarked grave.
‘Forgive me, John. I did once love you. But I wanted more, something that you could not give me. Perhaps now we will both be happy. I hope that you will be reunited in heaven with your family, no matter what the priest says. You were a good man at heart. God bless.’
Mary-Anne wiped away her tears as she turned her back on the grave and made her way back to Ma Fletcher’s and her new life. She would never forget John Vasey, and guilt would always settle over her when she thought of her mild-mannered Irishman.
Chapter 18
Mary-Anne stepped out along the flowering banks of the canal’s towpath on her way to visit Victoria. Since John’s death and his burial, she had put her heartache into cleaning Ma Fletcher’s house, which was now spotless. All the pottery had been washed, along with bedding and curtains, the floors were swept, and the house looked suitable for the Queen herself. Ma Fletcher also now looked more like the woman she used to be and was more than satisfied with her bargain with Mary-Anne. She enjoyed waking up to the fire lit and the kettle singing on the hearth every morning.
Now, it was time for Mary-Anne to get to know her daughter better, to assure her that even though John Vasey had turned up looking for her, that she never had any intention of returning to America with him. At one time, she would have followed him even to the ends of the earth, but she realised now he had been too much of an idealist and that he should have known that he would never be able to change the world on his own. That had been part of the problem – he had expected everybody to be perfect, but, unfortunately, neither the world nor the people within it would ever be.
She crossed over the bridge that she had stood on a long time ago. She had been at her lowest ebb – unmarried and undone, pregnant with Victoria – and she had almost had almost thrown herself in. A cold shiver went down her spine as she stopped to look down into the dark, filthy waters of the canal. She herself had nearly ended up in the cut and, as she tried block out thoughts of John fighting for his life, a feeling of desperation flowed over her. She owed a lot to John Vasey. He had saved her life that day when he had stopped her from doing herself harm. Why couldn’t she have been there for him in his hour of need? Poor John, he might not have always been kind to her, but there were times when she could have treated him better.
She thought about everything she needed to do to make Edmund Ellershaw pay for his treatment of both her and her mother. It was all for Victoria’s sake, and she must not lose sight of that, no matter what. She gathered herself together and walked quickly along the towpath, nodding her head in greeting to the barge hands as their horses pulled the heavy barges filled with coal. Coal that might have come from the Rose Pit and should rightly be part of Victoria’s inheritance, she thought, as she climbed the path away from the canalside and followed the road into Woodlesford.
‘Mother! I wasn’t expecting you.’ Victoria rose from her chair and placed her embroidery down on the small walnut table next to the window, where she had been sitting. The maid that had answered the door, curtsied, and left mother and child together.
Mary-Anne looked at the surprise on her daughter’s face. ‘Did you think I’d have disappeared with J
ohn Vasey, seeing you were good enough to tell him where I live?’ Despite Mary-Anne intention to mend bridges with her young daughter, she couldn’t help the tinge of anger that seeped into her words. ‘I thought I made it clear that I did not want to be found by him. Or did you want him to find me? Perhaps for me to return to America with him and then your life could return back to normal?’ Mary-Anne sat down in the chair across from her daughter, removing the hat pin from her small green velvet hat and placing it on the table next to Victoria’s embroidery.
‘No, Mother, I didn’t do it for that reason, you are wrong.’ Victoria dropped her head, realising that even though she had not known her mother long, her mother knew her well enough to realise that she had told John on purpose. ‘I told him because he was in such a state. He was heartbroken, I had to tell him. And when Aunt Eliza saw the news of his death in the paper, she knew that you’d be upset, and she was waiting to hear from you.’
‘Well, my dear, I wish you had said nothing and then he might still be alive today and making his way back to America. As it is, I buried him on Monday. I’m afraid it was as they printed, that he drowned himself in the canal. I couldn’t face Eliza and you before his funeral, it has caused me so much pain.’ Mary-Anne bowed her head and then lifted it up to look at her daughter, realising she felt guilty enough over John without laying blame at her daughter’s feet. ‘I don’t mean to be hard on you. It’s not your fault, Victoria, but it is mine. It seems everything I touch ends up broken and destroyed. But I aim to amend that. This is to be a new chapter in my life and I am not going to let you down. I’m going to make you proud of your mother, just like you are of Aunt Eliza. You are my most precious girl. And although I might be a bit rough around the edges, it is only because I have had to fight for everything I’ve ever held precious to me.’