by Helen Magee
‘You’re eighteen now, Felicia. Not a child any more.’
His eyes were on mine, hypnotising me as they had always done but I felt strangely removed from the scene.
Into my mind came the picture of the poor women he helped and of one in particular. She could not have been any older than me and she stood there before him in her grim hovel, a younger brother and sister pale from hunger clinging to her tattered skirt as he pressed money into her hands and said,
‘I will return later this evening to see that the money is well spent.’
I had stood there, uncomprehending, thinking only that he never gave them money but the girl’s face rose once again before my eyes and I knew now that she had understood though I had not. I felt sick with disgust then another thought blotted out everything else and I said,
‘Oh, my poor mother.’
It was as if I had struck him. His eyes were black, his skin livid and the ugly red lips curled back from those sharp teeth. His hands came up and wound themselves around my throat like great white snakes, his face was no more than an inch from mine. My mind snapped back and I opened my mouth to scream for help when a voice sounded like a whiplash in the room,
‘Stop it.’
His eyes lost their glazed look and his hands slid from around my throat. I could not move. He turned aside and in the doorway I saw Miss Petheridge. She looked so comical in her calico nightgown, her hair in a plait down her back, that I wondered why I was not laughing.
‘Go back to bed,’ she said to her brother.
That was all but she said it in a voice like iron. He looked at her for a moment and went without a word. I turned to Miss Petheridge. She was looking closely at me and for the first time I saw sympathy in her eyes, then she too turned and left me without a word. She was right. There was nothing to say. I knew what I had to do. I sat huddled on the bed and waited. As soon as dawn began to break over the city I got up and packed my belongings into a valise, then I crept downstairs and out of the silent house. I had only one place to go and I went there.
Mrs Larkin was shocked to see me so early. She bustled about making tea.
‘My dear, you look so ill. What can have happened?’ I couldn’t tell her of course so I merely said,
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Larkin but I couldn’t stay there any longer and I had nowhere else to go.’ I added inconsequentially, ‘I’m eighteen now.’
She looked long and hard at me, then said,
‘Quite right, my dear. It’s no life for a young girl living with two dry old sticks like that and not even related so to speak. You just get your breakfast down you and into bed. You look as if you haven’t slept for a week.’
My lips were dry as I said, ‘What if he comes looking for me?’
Mr Larkin drew himself up. He looked so big and kind and comfortable.
‘Just let him try, my dear. Don’t you worry about that.’
I felt safe again and it was lovely to be tucked up in a warm bed with a hot brick wrapped in flannel at my feet and Mrs Larkin’s smiling face nodding at me.
He did come for me that week but I didn’t see him. Mr Larkin dealt with him. I overheard their conversation later outside my room when they thought I was asleep.
‘Threatened to get the police, he did,’ said Mr Larkin indignantly, ‘Police, I said. It’s me that’ll be getting the police to you and no mistake about it if I see you round here again.’
Mrs Larkin drew in her breath. ‘What did he say to that?’
Mr Larkin’s voice was gruff.
‘Made some threats about hotel managers having to be respectable and a word in the right ear could put us on the streets . . . ’
I heard Mrs Larkin give a sharp cry then Mr Larkin again,
‘Now don’t you worry yourself m’dear. I just told him that his sister wouldn’t be too pleased to know he’d been round here and he went off with his tail between his legs. From what young Miss Felicia has said over the years I had a notion that would do the trick and it did. Seems she’s the only one that can keep him in hand.’
I heard them go off down the stairs, Mr Larkin’s voice still comforting and I lay there and wondered if I had done the right thing in coming to them or if I would just bring them trouble. And what did he mean ‘respectable’? There was no more respectable couple in the world than the Larkins. As the weeks passed, however, and there was no sign of my stepfather I soon forgot the incident and set myself the task of making myself useful to the Larkins.
The next year was like an awakening for me. I had a good head for figures so not only did I help Mrs Larkin in the kitchen and in the hotel but I also got Mr Larkin’s books in order.
‘Well, my dear,’ he said to me one day, ‘with your head for business we might even make this place pay.’
I laughed for I knew the place paid quite well but the books had indeed been in a terrible state and I had been useful. It was an odd place, their little hotel. The guests were mostly business-men from other parts of the country who liked the homely atmosphere and the good food that came out of Mrs Larkin’s kitchen and of course it had an added attraction. I don’t know when I first discovered it but Mrs Larkin broached the subject one day as we were hulling strawberries.
‘The little room at the back, my dear,’ she said tentatively.
‘I know it,’ I said and suddenly I heard myself adding, ‘It’s a gaming room, isn’t it?’
She flushed a little and looked embarrassed, but there was a twinkle in her eye.
‘I didn’t think you’d realised.’
‘I only just have, Mrs Larkin, and to think that all this time I’ve been living in a gambling den, a place of vice and immorality.’
She looked up at me and twinkled again as she saw that I was laughing.
‘There now, and who’d have thought that you’d be able to laugh about that. You surely are improving, my dear, and looking very pretty if I may say so since you stopped scraping your hair back in that silly old bun.’
I laughed again and caught sight of myself in the mirror over the dresser. I did look almost pretty with my usually pale cheeks flushed from the heat of the kitchen and my hair waving around my face and caught into a loose chignon on top of my head. The prettily coloured clothes I now wore helped as well and my grey eyes took colour from the things I wore. I put my arms round the woman and hugged her.
‘I do love you, Mrs Larkin.’
She pushed me away but she was pleased nonetheless.
‘Go on now, we’ll never get these strawberries done and there’s a special evening this evening with high stakes.’ And she winked. I felt very conspiratorial, then a thought struck me.
‘Mrs Larkin,’ I said, ‘when I first came here, you remember my stepfather came to take me back?’
She nodded, her lips pursed, so I went on,
‘I overheard you and Mr Larkin talking after he’d gone. Mr Larkin was saying that my stepfather had threatened him. Something to do with respectability. Was it the gaming room he was talking about?’
Mrs Larkin nodded again.
‘You see, my dear, a small hotel like this doesn’t bring in very much if you’re only the manager and the gaming room brings in that little extra that makes all the difference.’
‘And the gaming room is against the law?’
She stopped what she was doing and turned to me, unusually serious.
‘Well, it is and it isn’t,’ she said. ‘You see, if it was just a few guests having a quiet game of cards or some such then that would be all right but we very often have gentlemen who aren’t guests in the hotel and some of them like to play for high stakes so I can’t say it’s strictly legal.’
‘And my stepfather was threatening to tell the owners of the hotel?’ I said.
Mrs Larkin laughed.
‘Oh, the owners know all right, my dear. They take half the profits from it. No, it’s the police he was going to tell and then the owners would say they knew nothing about it and Larkin and I would be out of
a job.’
‘But that’s unfair!’ I cried.
She shrugged,
‘Life’s unfair, my dear. It was part of the job when Larkin took over the hotel. He knew it was take it or leave it.’
‘And if the authorities get to know it’ll be you who suffer?’
She patted my hand. ‘Now don’t you go worrying yourself. Nobody’s going to get to know about it. It’s very quiet and very select. Why, even you didn’t know it was going on all these months and you’ve been living here.’
I saw that she was right. The entrance to the little room at the back was separate from the main hotel entrance and it must indeed be run very quietly, but I still felt very humble when I realised what a risk they were taking keeping me here after the threats made by Mr Petheridge.
It was some weeks later that Mr Larkin took ill. It was nothing, he said, but he looked quite grey and Mrs Larkin packed him off to bed. She looked worried.
‘It’s an important evening in the gaming room,’ she said softly to me as we came downstairs, ‘a private function and we’d been hoping to build these kind of evenings into a regular thing. That’s why Larkin’s so worried.’
Mr Larkin always handled the money on these occasions, sitting behind a desk on a dais at one end of the room and looking very important and superior in his stiff shirt and buttonhole as he exchanged money for chips and paid out the winnings.
‘I’ll do it, Mrs Larkin,’ I said. ‘You know I’m good with figures.’
She looked shocked.
‘You’ll do no such thing, a young lady of good breeding. It’s no place for you.’
I wore her down eventually for there was no one else to take Mr Larkin’s place and that evening I came downstairs ready to take my place behind the great desk. I was wearing my most sophisticated gown. It was of grey watered silk and had a high frilled collar and sleeves to the wrist. Colours flashed from it as the silk caught the light and were reflected in my eyes.
‘Well now, don’t you look a treat,’ said Mrs Larkin.
‘And perfectly respectable too, Mrs Larkin, so you need have no fears.’
The gaming room was a blaze of light as I entered, and if Ben, the doorman, thought it odd that I should preside for the evening he made no comment but bowed me to my place as if I were royalty. My appearance caused a stir throughout the room and I saw several appreciative looks cast in my direction. My legs felt unsteady as I stood up to explain the absence of Mr Larkin but the room was not large and my voice carried easily through it. As I spoke I was amused to notice the speculative gleam die out of eyes here and there and was glad of my ‘lady’s’ voice and manner for I knew that to be here, a lone woman, presiding over a company of men engaged in games of chance would cause eyebrows to be raised even in the most advanced of drawing rooms.
I sat down and the evening’s proceedings began. I was nervous but running under the nervousness was a thin thread of excitement that came to me from the floor of the room – the thrill of chance. I shivered as it seemed to touch me and I knew my cheeks were bright with excitement. As I looked across the room I noticed a man watching me. He was tall and broad, his fair hair striking against the dark cloth of his evening clothes. He bowed and smiled and his face was so open, so laughing, that I was reminded swiftly of my father and a tiny flame of joy leapt up in me. I smiled back and bowed in turn then my attention was required for my duties.
The evening was well advanced when it happened. There was a scuffle at the door and I looked up. It was my stepfather. I watched motionless as he advanced towards me until his face filled the whole of my vision. I felt sick. I tried to stand but my legs would not support me. He was mouthing at me, shouting obscenities. I put my hands to my ears to stop myself hearing but I could not help it. All around people were standing or sitting stock-still, their faces turned towards us.
‘Like father, like daughter,’ he was shouting, ‘and worse more likely in a place like this. She’s gone now. My sister. My keeper,’ his face was thrust into mine as he said with great deliberation, ‘she cannot keep me away from you any more. I’ll not let you rest, Felicia, my lovely Felicia. We shall see how you compare with your mother.’ And one of those horrible hands came up and touched my hair. I remember thinking – he is mad, quite mad. Then suddenly there was another figure there. I saw the fair head, heard the muttered oath as he swung my stepfather round by his coat collar and cast him to the floor like so much debris. Then I fled.
I had no idea where I was going. I only know that I ran from the room and into the street and did not stop until I could no longer go on. I leaned against what I thought was a wall and stumbled, grasping it for support, but it was not a wall, it was the parapet of a bridge. Below me the waters of the Thames slid past in a pale sheet. It looked so calm, so peaceful. I suddenly felt very tired. The parapet was quite low and I put my hands flat on top of it. I thought of my stepfather and the fact that his sister was, presumably, dead since she was no longer there to keep him from me. I thought of the Larkins and the trouble he would make for them now. I pushed myself out. I felt the air cool on my cheeks, saw the water shining, inviting. Then my arm was gripped in a hand like steel and I was pulled away, back onto solid ground.
‘You little fool,’ said a voice and I looked up into the face of the fair man. I felt faint. I remember saying,
‘It looked so calm, so quiet,’ and then I must indeed have fainted.
When I opened my eyes it was to feel a man’s arms around me and I began to tremble violently.
‘Hush now,’ said a voice very gently and I looked up into the face of the stranger. I tried to speak but no words would come so he picked me up as if I weighed no more than a feather and carried me back to the hotel.
I don’t remember exactly how many days I kept to my bed, only that each day the stranger came to visit, bringing small gifts of flowers or sweets when he came. At first I was silent, listening as he spoke to me, but gradually I began to talk and somehow with him it was not difficult to speak of the fear I had of my stepfather and the life I had led. I found that I was able to tell him all the things I had been unable to tell the Larkins and for the first time in many years I felt clean, purged of all those dreadful memories. His eyes were full of sympathy but laughter was never far from the surface and soon he had me laughing too. His name was Charles Allingham, and he was in London on behalf of his brother’s business affairs.
I heard snatches of conversation between him and the Larkins outside my door.
‘She is much distressed by what has happened.’ This was Charles.
‘Indeed sir and it’s no wonder. The man is a fiend and I understand his sister is no longer alive or he would be kept in check,’ replied Mrs Larkin.
And again,
‘He hates her, sir. It’s his pleasure to make people afraid of him and she has always stood out against him in her way. I remember when he first came to the house after her mother died. Her poor mother, what could she do with a child and nothing to live on?’
And once,
‘Would she be agreeable, do you think?’
‘Well, sir, it certainly seems a solution and the family is well known. You go ahead and write to your brother.’
All this I heard but took little notice of. I had got up and was sitting in the little parlour one morning when he arrived. I was still pale but he could bring the colour to my cheeks with his fun and nonsense. I rose to greet him.
‘You spend far too much of your time coming to visit me.’
He took my hand in both of his and looked into my face. Laughter danced behind his eyes.
‘This is true, Felicia, but then London is so dull at this time of year. It’s either you or Kew Gardens, and flowers make me sneeze.’
I laughed up at him. ‘You must have completed your business by now.’
He was suddenly serious. ‘Yes, and that’s why I’ve come.’
He drew me to a chair and made me sit. ‘Felicia, I am not happy leaving you in Lond
on.’
I shivered in spite of the warmth of the room. Fear of meeting my stepfather had made me keep to the hotel and I had not realised how much I depended on Charles’s visits, not only for the pleasure of his company but from the sense of safety that I felt knowing that he was in London. The thought of his leaving filled me with dread. But he was still speaking.
‘I have spoken to the Larkins and they have agreed that you should no longer remain here.’
I was shocked. ‘But where would I go?’
He smiled. ‘That is what I wanted to talk to you about.’ He drew his chair closer. ‘I have told you of my home at Dryford?’
I nodded. He had described what sounded a lovely old house in the Scottish Borders, where he lived with his brother and nephew. Keep Dryford, it was called and I had teased him about being a Border Reiver. I did so again and he smiled.
‘Not me,’ he said, ‘I’m the English brother. Very respectable.’
He looked down at his hands then up again, before I could ask him what he meant.
‘My brother’s wife has been ill. She has been away from home for some time but is expected back quite soon. The child is still young, only eight, and needs someone to look after him. Also he needs some schooling. His nurse, who was our nurse too, will be kept busy looking after my brother’s wife once she comes home so you see, there is a place for you there if you wish it.’
My hand still rested in his and I looked up at him.