by Gracie Hart
‘Aye, the old bugger is in a bad way. But I had to come and see you, set something that he said to me straight in my head, before I get in any deeper with you. Now, are you going to let me in, or do you want the whole neighbourhood to hear what I’ve got to say? It would give ’em all something to talk about for days.’ William had no time for being held on the doorstep and the words of his father were starting to burn a spark of doubt in his mind about the woman who was quietly winning his heart.
‘Of course, come in. I’m sorry to keep you on the step, I thought perhaps it was only a quick visit. Come through to the sitting room.’ Mary-Anne held the door open, with her back facing the curtain partition and hoped that Ma Fletcher had retreated behind it, or at least made herself look like a respectable visitor. She glanced around her quickly and noticed the curtain being pulled as William crossed the threshold. ‘Please, go through, whatever it is that’s troubling you, I will answer and if I can, put your mind at rest.’ Mary-Anne watched as William stepped through the kitchen into the sitting room that she had spoken to him once before in. He looked dark and scowling as she sat down next to the window overlooking the late spring garden and balanced his hat on his knee before speaking to her.
‘Damn it, Mary-Anne, I’ve been besotted and entranced by your looks, and aye, I’ve been bloody blind to the woman that you really are. But looking at you now and looking around this house, my father’s got to be wrong, with what he says. He’s just got to be!’ William shook his head and glared at her, trying to see who and what exactly was sitting in front of him.
‘William, what has your father said to make you act this way?’ Mary-Anne felt her heart race, wondering what William was going to say. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘My father says that your mother was his whore and that he had you also and that I’m a fool to even look twice at you. I’m sorry, Mary-Anne, there is no easy way to say these words to you. Is it true? Have you bedded my father as well as me and was it for his money?’ William looked at Mary-Anne and could see the pain that his questioning had brought into her eyes.
Mary-Anne bowed her head and then raised it to look at the man she was in love with. ‘What your father tells you is true. I can’t lie to you because I find myself starting to love you and you would have to know sometime. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, but it would seem my heart will not listen to my head because, believe me, it is in love that I am. As for your father, being bedded by him was not willingly undertaken by my mother or by myself, we both did it to survive.’ Mary-Anne’s eyes were filled with tears as William sprung to his feet.
‘Then I’ve been a fool. I knew you were worth nothing when you left to find a new life with that useless Irishmen. You hadn’t a penny to your name when you left with him. The poor bugger – I bet he had to work bloody hard to set you up in a house like this. It would seem that you take after your mother and have just seen me as a way to have easy brass in your pocket. Did she wine and dine with my father while my poor dear mother sat at home? Did she take my father for every penny she could get out of him, with you following in her shoes after her death, and then latching on to me, thinking that I was fool enough to keep you in a decent lifestyle? I see it all as it is now. I’ve been played like a fool.’ William glared down at Mary-Anne.
‘No, no you are wrong, you couldn’t be further from the truth. My mother asked for nothing from your father, but for him to keep a roof over our family’s heads. The only reason that she lifted her skirts for him was in payment of the rent, which my stepfather had spent in drink at the Boot and Shoe. She died because of your father, her and his baby. As for me, he took my innocence away from me, using me just in the same way as my mother. We were penniless when my mother died and my stepfather left and he took advantage of his power. Taking me to his gentleman’s club for his amusement and for that of his friends, if I had not made good my escape. Please, William, I am no whore, nor was my mother. We were just taken advantage of. Your father was in control of our lives and we had no say in our own unless we wanted to beg on the streets.’ Mary-Anne stood beside William and pleaded, pulling on his arm and sobbing.
William shook her off his arm and looked down at her. ‘You could have done something, I thought you were making good money at the dress shop you and your sister had. My sister spent a small fortune with you both.’
‘That was after the ill deed was done. She was our saviour, her and her friends, including your wife. Eliza and I will be eternally grateful for her support. We would have had to go into the workhouse if she had not come to our rescue because I would never, ever have lowered myself to your father’s abusive ways again. He is an animal and there is not a minute in the day that I don’t regret that terrible night that I spent with him.’ Mary-Anne could see William begin to soften as he realised what had exactly gone on between the Wild family and his father.
‘I know my father is a monster to women, I too can sometimes be that way inclined as well you know. But with you, I thought I had found my perfect lover, that I’d not want for another whore to satisfy my needs. I even had thought, God forbid, that if anything happened to my wife I’d … well, I’m not even going to think about it let alone talk about it.’ William sighed and looked at the sorrowful woman that stood in front of him.
‘But nothing changes the way we feel about one another, William. Don’t let your father win again. If it hadn’t been for him last time, I would have been more accepting of your advances, but I couldn’t stop thinking of him when we were together.’
‘Hmm, perhaps you were thinking of how well he saw to your needs?’ William grinned.
‘No, no, no, I hated every minute and then he expected me to submit myself to him every month. He had complete control over our survival and then when I found myself with child, he cast me aside, not wanting his dirty secret to be disclosed,’ Mary-Anne sobbed. ‘I was in exactly the same situation as my mother, except I had no husband.’
‘With child? Are telling me that you had a child to my father?’ William sat back down in his chair.
‘Yes, but he didn’t recognise her for his. He’s not paid a penny for her education or upkeep. I was too ashamed to name him as the father and I knew that the authorities would not believe me,’ Mary-Anne whispered in tears.
‘I have a sister? No wonder he wants to keep us apart.’ William could not believe Mary-Anne’s confession and stared at her.
‘Yes, indeed you have. I left my daughter Victoria in my sister Eliza’s care when I went to make a new life for myself in America. Victoria is your sister, and your father is all too well aware that she is, that is why he wants to part us. Victoria and I are his dirty secret that could bring his world down, that along with his regular abuse of my mother and other women, I suspect. You would need to ask the miners at the Rose, they would notice all of the women that visited his dirty little office to pay anything owing to him.’
‘Does Victoria know who her father is? And does anyone else know the truth of her parentage?’
‘I told her on my return. I had to, she was getting too friendly with your brother, although it seems that I need not have worried on that score.’ Mary-Anne couldn’t help but smile gently at William. ‘As for others knowing, only those who needed to know. Our old next door neighbours; John Vasey, he had to as he thought the same as you, that I was a loose woman.’
‘Grace, does Grace know?’ William leaned forward pressing Mary-Anne’s hand hard.
‘No, but there is beginning to be a family resemblance between them now she is growing up,’ Mary-Anne sighed.
William stood up and put his hat on his head and said nothing as he made for the doorway.
‘Don’t go! Please, believe me. I was young and innocent. Your father used me.’ Mary-Anne pulled on Williams’ arm but to no avail as he stamped through into the kitchen.
‘I’ve nothing more to say to you. Leave me be, woman, I need to think things through.’ William pushed her away, slamming the door behind him b
efore mounting his waiting horse. Mary-Anne watched as he rode it hard down the cobbles of Speakers’ Corner, not even giving her a backward glance.
‘Well, tha’s done it now lass. That’s your dreams gone and with it any hopes of being well to do. Why you had to tell him the truth, I just don’t know, you silly bugger. You’ve only yourself to blame,’ Ma Fletcher growled from behind the curtain.
‘Shut up, just shut up. What else was I supposed to do? It’s time he knew, else I can never love him properly. I wasn’t going to start out with any secrets between us. My feelings towards him have changed, I no longer look at him as a way to get even with his father. Why should he pay for his father’s actions? Besides his father has told him everything and has put paid to any further relationship, the bastard. You are right, I have probably destroyed my hopes of future happiness.’ Mary-Anne stood in the centre of the kitchen and cried. Would she ever see William again? Had she just put an end to any happiness that she so wished for, just when she thought that she had it in the palm of her hand?
Chapter 29
George looked around him, hoping that no one had spotted him leaving the Molly house on Lands Lane. He didn’t usually frequent the premises in daytime, preferring the cloak of night to hide his pleasures, but today, with numerous worries on his shoulders, he had escaped for an hour or two to be in the presence of his lover, a blond-haired, seventeen-year-old youth who satisfied his every need. There he had enjoyed the pleasures within with the aid of a good bottle of gin.
His brother’s words, shouted out and heard by all his household as his father lay near death’s door, had hurt him. He knew what he was. His love of men was much stronger than that for women, but up to then he had rather stupidly thought that no one else knew his preferences. Now, all the servants tittered behind his back and his mother, although she had not said as much, looked ashamed of him. Only Grace had accepted him for what he was. It was she he was going to see now, at her shop on Boars Lane.
He hoped Victoria would be there too. Though Victoria was only a little girl and probably didn’t know of his proclivities, she seemed to accept him as he was and he felt the need to be with friends willing to do that. He stepped out in his blue breeches and embroidered waistcoat, his swagger stick tapping its way along the cobbled streets to the corner of Boars Lane, where admired himself in the reflection of the shop’s window. His ego had been restored due to his recent romps in the Molly house and now he was able to be George again, a young man who could fit into society.
He entered into the shop, his nose assaulted by the smell of women’s perfumes and his eyes catching the sight of women’s fineries. As he swaggered around the shop he secretly wished that he could be let loose to inspect and examine the fripperies his sister sold.
‘George, I didn’t expect to see you today. Will mother be all right on her own with father?’ Grace stopped in her tracks as she saw her brother making his way to the bottom of the stairs, hoping to find her in her office, no doubt.
‘She’s got the servants, besides my father is not going anywhere. He seems to be stable at the moment, he even attempted to talk yesterday evening, as I’m sure you know. I couldn’t make out what he said apart from the word “pit”, which is just like him because, let’s face it, all he loves is there and not at home.’
‘You really should be more understanding, George. It is all father knows, it is his meaning in life – that and our mother.’ Grace took George’s arm and walked with him up the stairs and into her private office, not wanting anyone else to hear the blatant disregard for her father’s health by her brother.
‘Bah, I don’t think he even has a love for our mother from what William was saying, but then again, he is just the same, no respect for anybody or anything unless there is something in it for him.’ George sat in the chair opposite his sister and twiddled with samples of material that lay on her desk. ‘Our family is a disgrace. I swear, sister, there is only you who is respectable. As for myself … well, everyone heard what the world thinks of me.’
‘Oh, George, don’t you give me that sorry tale. Besides, just look at you, dressed to the nines and a gin to the worse, no wonder William abhors you, you act like a spoilt child, while we, dear brother, work to make a living. Perhaps now that father is ill you will take on some responsibilities. The Rose will need all of your attention if father is not going to improve.’ Grace sighed. She knew all too well her brother’s flaws and knew that the likelihood of George fulfilling his responsibilities would be slim.
‘Tom Thackeray will see that the pit runs right, I don’t want to visit the filthy place more times than I have to. I suggest that we get mother to put it up for sale if father dies. Until then I will look to keeping the accounts in order but nothing more.’
‘Do you know what you need to do? I think that you’d do well to marry, George, just to stop these vicious rumours. Find a wife and settle down.’ Grace looked coyly at her brother, she’d never mentioned her thoughts on the matter of George’s behaviour before, but now she decided it was a good time to say what she thought. ‘You seem to get on well enough with a young girl like Victoria, so surely you can find some other older woman who would be a good catch. Someone with not many assets, who would be grateful to catch the eye of such a wealthy man, and as long as you are discreet, well, you wouldn’t be the first man in our family to seek his pleasures outside of his wedding vows. Take your chance at the Guild Ball, find a suitable woman to entertain and make your courtship of her public, and that will stop the gossip.’
‘Perhaps your friend Eliza Wild? She fits all that you are telling me, although maybe she is too old. But surely you would not want either her nor I to be caught in a love-less marriage. A marriage that I could not commit to fully.’ George looked at his sister, he thought her more respectful of her best friend. ‘As it is, I use her niece as a shield in polite company to quell any suspicious minds. To marry her aunt would be a step too far, even for me.’
‘Perhaps not Eliza, there are more women in the world than the Wilds. It was just a thought, a thought to protect you and our family.’ Grace smiled and watched George fight against his obligations to his family’s name and his own desires.
‘But I’d not be happy. I don’t see you rushing to get married. You will probably die an old maid. So how can you preach to me?’ George hissed.
‘Because as a spinster I am accepted in society, albeit thought of as strange for joining the man’s world of business, but you, dear brother, are not accepted. Besides, I’m not about to give my wealth away to a man who would expect me to stay at home and play nursemaid to him and the children that he would no doubt expect me to carry and raise. I enjoy my independence and as a female this is the only way I can retain it. At least you would not be reliant on anyone once you have received Grandfather’s inheritance. As long as the woman you chose was well clothed and well fed and kept like a lady, I’m sure she would be happy. She would learn to live with your indiscretions and be thankful that she was not at your beck and call each night. I think my idea is superb and I had a feeling that’s why you have always been so friendly to young Victoria.’ Grace glanced across at her brother and could see that he was pondering her suggestion. ‘You could wait for her to grow up, I suppose …’
‘I’ll see. Is Victoria here today? I wanted to check if she is going to the ball next week, and not for any matchmaking reason you’re plotting for when she’s old enough …’
‘Yes, she is with her aunt next door. I’m only thinking that it would appease everybody. At least you would please Father if you had a lady on your arm,’ Grace smiled.
‘I don’t know, I’ll see.’ George rose from his seat and sighed. ‘I’ll go next door and see Victoria. Only as a friend, so you can stop plotting.’
Grace watched as George left her office. She wasn’t happy with her suggestion but she knew it would at least give George the cover for a life of his own. She shook her head. Why couldn’t people let everyone live the lives they wi
shed to live, instead of judging others? She sat back in her chair and thought about her father fighting for his life back at home and the look of despair on her mother’s face as she sat beside his bedside day and night, despite his past transgressions. There was one thing that she was sure of: she herself would never marry; she’d made her own way in the world so far and would continue to do so for as long as God permitted.
Victoria raised her head as the cutting room door opened. ‘George, how good to see you. Come, tell me how have you left your father today? Grace says that she can make the odd word or two out now and that he is able to drink broth.’ Victoria smiled at her visitor and pretended to show an interest in her friend’s father, even if really she had hoped that he had come with news of his demise.
‘Yes, he is holding his own. Mother is tending to his every need and I am keeping an eye on his business interests.’ George sat down on the seat next to Victoria.
‘We hope that he recovers, George.’ Eliza smiled knowingly at Victoria. ‘Your mother must be terribly worried, no one wants to be left a widow at any age.’
‘No, indeed, although he will have made provision for her after his death. But money is not everything, I suppose. His companionship is what she would miss most, as in any good partnership.’ George looked at Victoria and saw her blush slightly. ‘Marriage is about living with someone you can get along with, regardless of their flaws. I’m starting to realise that. My father, God bless him, is not an easy man, yet I’m sure my mother still loves him.’
‘Love should be everything in a marriage. I could not marry without it,’ Victoria said as she fingered her way through the latest pattern book, not realising the looks that George was giving her. ‘I wouldn’t marry a boy that I did not love.’