Forever Yours

by Rita Bradshaw

  She ate a hearty breakfast, and as she did so she thought about her situation. She didn’t fool herself that she would be able to carry on living here once Vincent’s body was found. It was a shame because this was a bonny cottage, but Vincent had distant relatives somewhere or other. A cousin in Newcastle she knew about, and perhaps there were more. And they’d be here like vultures once they knew he was dead, although to her knowledge they’d never come when he was alive. Had he left a Will? She contemplated this as she made herself another slice of toast.

  He’d said to Constance he had plenty put by that day at the graveyard, she thought suddenly, and he’d had no time for banks – she knew that. ‘Thieves and robbers’, he’d called the banks. So, that being the case, he’d have a hoard hidden somewhere or other, likely a Will too. But where exactly? It had to be his bedroom.

  She bit into the hot buttered toast as she considered what to do. She had cleaned every inch of the house and knew every nook and cranny, but she had never lingered in his bedroom. It was a place of torture, of unspeakable indignities, and it had made her flesh creep just to change the sheets on his bed and dust round. But ten to one that’s where he would have hidden his hoard.

  Her breakfast finished, she steeled herself to go upstairs to his room. When she opened the door it took a moment or two before she could force her legs across the threshold. It was spick and span, the bed neatly made. Everything was as she had left it after she’d finished her work the previous morning, except for the clothes he’d changed out of on returning home from the pit lying in a heap on the floor. She glanced round the bedroom.

  It smelled of him. Her legs started to tremble. A mixture of tobacco smoke and carbolic soap. When he’d first brought her to the cottage when his mother was alive she’d thought the smell was attractive. She had been young and foolish then. Merely a child.

  She had actually stepped back out on the landing before she took herself in hand. She had to do this, and do it before his relatives or other folk came sniffing about. And it wasn’t stealing. If anyone had earned compensation for enduring hell on earth, she had. She’d been a slave all her life, first in the workhouse and then when she came here, and at forty-three years of age she wanted peace and quiet. And money could buy peace and quiet.

  She entered the room again, telling herself if she didn’t look after number one, no one else would. She could be turned out on her ear with just the clothes she stood up in and quicker than you could say Jack Robinson.

  She made herself search every inch of the room, starting with the wardrobe and chest of drawers. She even went on her hands and knees and examined the floorboards to see if any were loose but they were all firmly nailed down. After going back over what she’d done in case she had missed something, she sat down on the big blanket chest at the foot of the bed. She had looked everywhere; perhaps he hadn’t hidden it in here, after all. It could be anywhere. It might even be hidden in the garden somewhere in a weather-proofed box, for all she knew. She wouldn’t put anything past him. He was as cunning as a cartload of monkeys.

  It was while she was sitting on the chest looking out on to the landing through the open door that she thought of the hatch to the roofspace. It was a long shot, but she pulled the chest of drawers from the bedroom out on to the landing and climbed on top of it, pushing with all her strength against the hatch. It wouldn’t open at first, and when it finally gave and she poked her head through the aperture she saw immediately that she was on the wrong track. No one had been up there for years, as the thick dust and cobwebs testified.

  Dispirited, she closed the hatch and lugged the chest of drawers back to its original place beside the big mahogany wardrobe in the bedroom. She then began a methodical search of every other room, which took her most of the day. At the end of it she’d had to admit defeat. She hadn’t found so much as a bean.

  After getting herself an evening meal as twilight set in, she filled up the coal-scuttle from the huge covered wooden container just outside the back door, which held their supply of wood and logs and kindling.

  Wherever Vincent had hidden his money it was going to stay hidden, she reflected, as she lit the oil lamps downstairs and stoked up the sitting-room fire. He was cleverer than her. Of course, there was always the possibility despite what he’d said in the past that he had deposited his money in a bank. There was no knowing with him. How could anyone fathom how a mind like his worked? Anyone normal anyway.

  Where was she going to end up, once she had to leave here? As a skivvy somewhere, that was the best she could hope for, and when she grew too old and feeble to work any more she’d likely finish up where she’d started, in the workhouse. No, she’d take matters into her own hands before she’d allow that to happen. She couldn’t swim, and the Wear and Tyne Rivers were deep and fast-flowing in places . . .

  She shook herself as though to throw off the melancholy thoughts. She’d make herself a nice cup of cocoa in a minute and have a slice of the gingerbread she’d made the day before. There was eight ounces of butter and brown sugar and treacle in it – even Vincent hadn’t been able to fault her gingerbread, or any of her cooking, come to that. Maybe she could pick up a job as a cook in a small establishment, even though she didn’t have any references. But first she’d go and tidy Vincent’s room, which she’d left in a mess after her search. It looked as though it had been ransacked and that wouldn’t bode well if anyone came to the house asking where he was and whether they could see round it. She’d been putting it off all day – going back into his room – but it wouldn’t right itself, and once that was done she could shut the door and she wouldn’t have to venture inside ever again.

  Taking one of the lamps, she went upstairs to Vincent’s room and began to put it to rights. It didn’t take long. She had let his bedroom fire go out and, thinking ahead, she now cleared the ash and set a new fire as though she expected him to return any minute. It was as she sat back on her heels having finished and gave a long relieved sigh that she wouldn’t have to cross the threshold of this room again, that her gaze fell on the two mahogany armchairs either side of the window. They were impressive things with padded arms and deep seats, and red hide upholstery. Vincent had had them specially made by a furniture-maker in Chester Le Street. She had always thought them too grand for a bedroom, but that had been Vincent all over – ideas above himself.

  Specially made. A strange feeling came over her, shivery but nice. She had always supposed it was just Vincent showing off, but what if he’d had a different motive for wanting the armchairs made just as he specified?

  Jumping to her feet, Polly sped downstairs and washed her hands clean, and then bounded up the stairs again, her heart thumping fit to burst. Excited but afraid that she was going to be frustrated yet again, she inspected the chairs minutely. They were attractive in a way but too big and cumbersome for her liking; however, the padded arms with turned spindle supports and matching legs were beautifully made. She poked and prodded the seat and back of the chair, but found nothing untoward. It took all her strength to heave one over on to its side and she brought the oil lamp close to inspect the wooden underframe. She experienced a sharp stab of disappointment, since everything looked as one would expect. But then she was looking at the screws which held the bottom of the chair secure. They were slightly rusty but in the slot in the middle of each screw there was the odd silver mark as though a screwdriver had been used recently – tiny scratches which wouldn’t have been noticed unless someone was looking for it.

  There had been a screwdriver on top of the wardrobe. She had assumed it had been left there at some time or other by mistake. Again she climbed on the chest of drawers, she was too small to reach otherwise, and once she was back kneeling by the chair, she found her hands were trembling so much she had to take several deep calming breaths.

  She wasn’t used to handling a screwdriver and it slipped and slid on each screw, but by the time she’d undone several she knew there was something in the cavity in the chair.
When the last screw was out the wood fell to one side and bundle upon bundle of banknotes tumbled out on to the floor, rolling round her and scattering either side of where she knelt. She couldn’t move at first; she merely stared at the money like one mesmerised. And then she stretched out a shaking hand and picked up one of the bundles, all of which were neatly tied up with string. It contained fifty one-pound notes. Shivering with a mixture of cold and excitement she undid another. It, too, contained fifty pounds. And there must be over a dozen or more.

  There were twenty, and the other armchair yielded a further ten, along with a roll of various documents again tied with string. When she smoothed these out she could see they consisted of birth certificates and his parents’ wedding certificate, and a lot of receipts including the stubs for his mother’s funeral and even ones going back as far as when his grandfather had built the cottage. There was no Will. Vincent McKenzie clearly hadn’t considered dying in the forseeable future.

  One thousand and five hundred pounds. Polly plumped down on the blanket box, staring at the piles of carefully bound notes. And he had never paid her a penny, maintaining that a roof over her head and clothes on her back and food in her belly was payment enough. And if he’d been a good man who was struggling to make ends meet, it would have been enough, after her beginnings in the workhouse. But this . . .

  By the time she went to bed that night the money, all but one hundred pounds which she had placed at the back of one of the wardrobe shelves so that anyone looking for it would find it easy enough, was in her carpet bag on top of the wardrobe in her room. She knew exactly what she was going to do. As soon as the weather permitted she would walk the four or five miles to Chester Le Street and deposit the money in a bank, but first she would go to a lady’s outfitters and buy a grand outfit so she would look the part when she saw the bank folk. Likely when Vincent’s relatives came they would sell the house and dispose of the furniture, but that wouldn’t matter now. She was set up.

  She hugged herself tightly, unable to sleep with excitement. She’d have to be canny but she could start looking for a place of her own. She could see it in her mind’s eye. A small cottage with a picket fence and a nice bit of ground at the back where she could grow vegetables and flowers, and where her cats could lie in the sun. She could have chickens. She’d always fancied warm fresh eggs from her own chickens. Oh, it was going to be grand. Grand.

  Chapter 25

  It was a prolonged winter, even by northern standards. February and March were locked in an icy grip with the snow so thick at times it reached the top of the hedgerows and made roads impassable for weeks in the countryside. April came roaring in with bitter easterly winds and more flurries of snow until even the rugged old-timers admitted they’d rarely seen anything like it before. And then, in the last week of the month, the weather did a mercurial turnaround. Overnight, it seemed, a radiant April sun dealt with the snow. Blackthorn and hawthorn sprouted bloom in the hedges, and violets and primroses and the peeping flowers of speedwell carpeted the woods and byways.

  It was another two weeks before Vincent’s body was found. It could have remained where it was for much longer but for a man walking his dog on the other side of the quarry to Appleby Cottage. This side wasn’t so steep, and when the dog chased a rabbit into the quarry, slipping and slithering to the very bottom where, although unhurt, he kept up a steady barking until his owner came to investigate his grisly find, the mystery of what had happened to the master weighman of Sacriston Colliery was solved.

  There was only one mourner at the funeral – the man’s housekeeper. Even the distant cousin who laid claim to the estate didn’t bother to attend. And it was the general consensus of opinion, once the village grapevine had done its work, that the housekeeper had been treated shamefully in having no provision made for her. The cottage was going to be sold and she would lose her home and be turned out on her ear, and that after working for the man for thirty-odd years. Mind, no one was that surprised, not really. McKenzie had been a wicked devil, and whether he’d been out on a walk and slipped in the snow over the edge of the quarry as the inquest into his death surmised, or whether he had been pushed by person or persons unknown, he’d got what was coming to him. So said the village to a man.

  It was a few days after the funeral that Constance went to see Polly, on a beautifully soft May afternoon filled with the scent of flowers and the snowlike pink and white blossom of apple and cherry trees. She had been awake before sunrise, listening to the soaring early-morning song of the skylarks as they heralded in the dawn chorus, and she had known as she’d listened to the birds’ sweet melody that she couldn’t put off visiting Vincent’s housekeeper another day. Since his body had been found, Matt’s sighting of the woman at the end of the lane on the very day he had apparently gone missing had bothered her more than a little.

  Matt had told her to put the matter out of her mind. Whatever had happened – if anything had happened – it was none of their business, he’d insisted. Vincent had been alive when she had last seen him, and when he himself had arrived at the cottage there had been no sign of the weighman. Those were the facts. Anything else was supposition. And frankly, he’d continued, if the woman had had anything to do with McKenzie’s death, he’d like to give her a medal because they could all sleep safer in their beds now he was no more. That was another fact.

  Constance agreed with this. It was the reason she hadn’t mentioned to anyone Vincent’s visit on the night he’d gone missing when his body had been found in the quarry. Far better everyone thought he’d simply gone for a walk as apparently he’d been prone to do, and met with an unfortunate accident due to the treacherous conditions underfoot.

  But he had come to see her. And a short time before that, Polly had warned her about him and been concerned about her. Therefore, she reasoned, it was perfectly feasible that Polly had gathered where he was coming that night by something he’d said or done and she had followed him to the cottage. And after that – who knew. But to find out if Polly knew more about Vincent’s death than she’d said at the inquest was not the only reason she wanted to see her. If the stories circulating round the village were true and Polly was going to be turned out of the cottage within a few days, she wanted to make sure she was able to manage. Doubtless she had some savings, but were they enough?

  The morning was so warm and fresh she decided to walk rather than take the horse and trap. The verges of the lane were a sea of bluebells, reflecting the deep blue sky. Mighty horse-chestnut trees, lush with foliage, displayed their pyramids of bloom whilst the oaks which shaded the lane were decked out in dazzling green and gold. If she was going anywhere else but to see Polly she would be filled with joy this morning, Constance thought, as she set out. Rebecca, and Matt’s parents, had taken the news of their betrothal with beaming smiles and hugs and good wishes, and she and Matt were already beginning to talk about buying a smallholding nearer the coast and having part of it as a paying guesthouse in the future. She wanted him to leave the pit. He had to leave it.

  She breathed in the sweet scent of vernal grass, watching an orange-tip butterfly as it hovered among the bluebells before fluttering off as she thought of Matt working underground.

  He’d nearly lost his life twice to the pit’s voracious appetite for blood. He wouldn’t survive a third fall, she felt it in her bones. Neither George, nor Andrew’s son, had recovered from their injuries and she knew their deaths had shaken Matt hard.

  Shortly after George’s funeral Matt’s father had admitted his days down the pit were over, and the couple had moved in with Matt and Rebecca. Constance had offered to help out, to buy them a house, to do anything they wanted, but Matt had been adamant he wouldn’t take a penny of her money and that his parents were his responsibility. When they were married, he’d said, it would be different, especially if they bought the smallholding and had a working business with the guesthouse, but he had no intention of being a kept man. She knew Ruth would come with them and Matt’
s mam had already talked her husband round. Rebecca was another matter. She and Larry were deeply in love and she wouldn’t want to be too far away from him, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it. Propriety dictated that a widower should wait a minimum of four or five years before marrying again. Matt had told Constance he couldn’t be doing with all that rubbish and they were getting married at the end of the year. She hadn’t argued.

  When she reached Vincent’s cottage she stood looking at it for some time before she could force herself to open the gate and walk to the front door. Ridiculous, but she felt it had a brooding quality, as though it was waiting for him to come home. In spite of the warmth of the morning, she shivered as she knocked.

  It was a minute or two before the door opened and Polly was wiping floury hands on her pinny. On catching sight of Constance, she said, ‘Oh, hello, lass. Come in, come in. You’ve caught me baking. Do you mind coming through to the kitchen? I’ve got a loaf that’ll need to come out of the oven in a tick.’

  Constance found herself at something of a loss as she followed the woman through to the kitchen. The heady aroma of bread was filling the cottage and there was a bowl of fresh flowers in the middle of the kitchen table. In a corner by the range a somewhat moth-eaten tabby cat lay in a wicker basket nursing a litter of kittens. But it wasn’t just the homely nature of her surroundings that took her aback, it was the change in Polly. Vincent’s housekeeper had filled out a little since she’d last seen her, and there was some colour in her cheeks; furthermore she was dressed in a deep red frock with a little lace collar, and even her pinny was a pretty one, edged with broderie anglaise.

  Polly saw her glance at the cat and said, ‘She was a stray. I found her outside one day, brought her in to feed her and she stayed the night. In the morning when I came down she’d had her babies. We’ve taken to each other.’ She looked Constance full in the face. ‘I think she’d been badly treated too.’