by Maggie Hope
She followed him to the door. ‘Oh yes,’ she said to his back. ‘And no doubt you did that, slaving away as a junior clerk. I can just see it.’
He held the door open for her with exaggerated courtesy.
‘I did as a matter of fact. Now, why don’t you stop acting like the spoilt little girl you are and go and rescue your mother from her boredom? She will be in the drawing-room with my mother.’
‘I’m not as it happens. I’m here,’ said Kate. ‘And I’ll thank you not to speak to my daughter like that. You have no right.’ She had been walking through to see if Georgina was ready to go when she heard the angry voices.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Robert who was already feeling he had gone too far. Especially the bit about the old family homestead. ‘You’re right, I should not have said that. But the fact remains that her father wanted her to come into the business and I am simply trying to carry out his wishes.’
‘I think we had better go now,’ said Kate, her cheeks red with anger though she kept her voice controlled. ‘Before anything else is said. Goodbye. Please say goodbye to your mother for us.’
Taking Georgina by the arm, Kate swept out and round the house to the drive where Georgie’s car was waiting.
Robert was left gazing after the car as it disappeared down the drive. Kate had looked like an avenging angel as she defended her daughter. She had looked magnificent, her eyes sparkling and with banners of colour on her cheeks. He shouldn’t have talked to Georgina as he did, he thought ruefully. She was just a kid and it was natural for her to be resentful of him. And natural also that she would want to lead her own life. Of course, he would never do anything to take her inheritance from her. In fact she was more likely to be an asset to the business than Bertram was. His spoilt half-brother considered himself a gentleman and as such above working in the office. When he was there he played the lordling, throwing his weight about and treating the other workers with disdain.
Robert sighed. He liked Kate and now he had alienated her. In fact, his feelings came to more than liking if he was honest with himself. She stirred him more than any other woman had done. But he had his mother to consider. He couldn’t hurt her; everything was such a mess of tangled emotions.
Chapter Twenty-eight
‘BUT WHAT DID you find to talk about?’ Georgina asked as she drove down the drive towards the main road. Kate had just been telling her how wrong she had been about Mary Anne all these years, she was such a nice, down-to-earth woman and she didn’t appear to bear any resentment towards her.
‘Oh, she must do, really!’ Georgina exclaimed.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
They were silent for a while as the dusk deepened into dark and Georgie switched on the headlights. She glanced at her mother’s profile but in the dark she couldn’t see what her expression was.
‘You must have resented her though,’ she commented.
Kate sighed. ‘Maybe I did, I don’t know. I’m all mixed up. Anyway, let’s forget about it. How did you get on?’
‘Robert Richards is an insufferable man, really he is,’ Georgie said savagely. ‘I have to report at the works office at nine o’clock sharp Monday morning. So that’s my trip off. I’ll have to tell the others I can’t go.’
Kate looked at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell him to get lost?’
‘I’d lose my inheritance, wouldn’t I? And I’m damned if I’m going to hand it over to the odious Bertie Hamilton just like that. Anyway, I need it for my real work. And it’s mine! Why should I give it up?’
Kate gazed at her set face in the headlights of a car coming the other way. It was more than the money bothering Georgina she knew. More even than having to give up her plans and work in an office for three months or so. It was the humiliation of their position. Georgina had so much of Matthew in her. Kate’s heart ached for her daughter. It was all her fault, she thought, yet again. She had tried to shield Georgina from it while she was growing up but perhaps it would have been better to have told her the truth from the start. She could have held out against Matthew if she had only tried harder, she thought sadly. But Matthew was so used to her doing what he wanted he had expected her to give in to him about most things. And she had been weak.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she said aloud and Georgina turned sharply to her.
‘Don’t say that!’ she almost shouted at her. ‘Why do you always think everything that goes wrong is your fault? It wasn’t your fault, it was Matthew bloody Hamilton’s fault wasn’t it?’
Kate was catapulted out of her introspective reverie as Georgina turned to her, her expression furious; plain to see in the light from an oncoming car. The car swerved and Kate saw the danger immediately.
‘Watch the road, watch—’ she screamed, and put a hand out to the wheel; the car swerved more violently then rocked and the wheels and brakes squealed as Georgina wrenched the steering wheel round to take the car out of the path of the one coming on the wrong side of the road and looking to be aimed directly at them. She never felt the impact, not even the blow as the car hit a tree by the side of the road and her head hit the windscreen and it shattered with showers of glass spraying over everything. Nor did she hear the other car as the driver reversed then sped away. She was spiralling down into nothingness.
Kate stirred and gave an involuntary moan. Her right foot was trapped in the bedclothes; it had gone numb. She tried to free it and a pain shot up her leg, an agonising pain, she’d never felt anything like it before. Her eyes were closed but she could see a light flashing through the lids; cautiously, she opened one eye and suddenly the pain was in her head, sharp and blinding. She quickly closed her eyes again.
There was something across her neck, affecting her breathing. It was warm and sticky and – it was Georgie’s arm. Georgie was hurt! Full realisation came to her and Kate started to scream.
‘Georgie! Georgie!’
‘It’s all right, pet, really. We’ll have you out of there in a jiffy. Don’t you worry, just try to relax.’ The male voice was reassuring. She opened her eyes and tried to look to her right to where Georgie’s head should be.
‘Don’t move your head!’ he said urgently. ‘Keep still. We’ll see to you, don’t try to move at all.’ He turned away. ‘This one is alive,’ he said to someone. ‘Give me a hand here, will you?’
This one is alive, thought Kate, uncomprehending for a minute. This one is alive. Did that mean the other one was dead?
‘Georgie! Georgie!’ she screamed, though the pain in her head intensified unbearably until suddenly it stopped and she sank into oblivion.
‘Hit and run,’ the policeman said savagely. ‘By, I’d string them up by the balls if it was up to me. That young lass, just look at her, she was naught but a bairn.’
The fireman who was trying to free Kate from the tangled metal which trapped her leg nodded, his face grim. He stopped cutting and pulled the hole he had made wider. That should do it, he told himself and got to his feet.
‘That’s it, they can take her. Now for the lass. No big hurry there like. Just as well, she’s going to take some getting out of that lot.’
‘Is there nothing I can do, officer?’
‘No sir,’ said the policeman, not even looking at the man who spoke. ‘It was a hit and run. Just go on, leave the road clear please.’
‘My God! It’s Kate and Georgina!’
The policeman looked closer at the man who had stopped his car a little way up the road and walked back.
‘You know them sir?’
‘Yes. They are … relatives of mine.’
By this time Kate was on a stretcher and being taken to the waiting ambulance.
‘I’ll go with her,’ said Robert. ‘At least I’ll follow her to the hospital.’ He started to walk to his car but was called back by the policeman.
‘Just a minute sir. Can you give me the names and addresses?’
‘Catherine Benfield Hamilton,’ said Robert.
‘And the deceas
ed?’
The deceased. It had a horrible sound to Robert. Only half an hour ago he was talking to her, telling her off rather. Laying down the law to her, getting her into a rage. And now she had been killed in an accident that might have been partly his fault because he got her so angry.
‘Sir?’ the policeman prompted.
‘Georgina Hamilton,’ said Robert. ‘Fern Moor Cottage, near Roseley.’
The ambulance set off, its bell clanging. Robert hesitated but there was nothing he could do for Georgina. Best leave her to the emergency services. He strode to his car, got in and followed the ambulance to the hospital. He was filled with pity for Kate. At one time he had thought he hated her but he hadn’t really known her. And now? He didn’t feel that way any more. And he wouldn’t have wished this accident on anyone. Even if she survived herself it would probably kill her to know she had lost Georgina, she had idolised the girl.
Oh God, what a nightmarish thing to happen! Well, he would go to the hospital with her, stay with her, do what he could. Did she have any other relatives? Blood relatives? He was ashamed to realise he didn’t know.
Kate woke up in a small side ward where all she could see were white walls and a white shaded lamp hanging down above her. She lay there for a moment before the memory of the crash came back, crushing her. She could still feel the weight of Georgina’s arm across her throat, see the impossibly small space on the driver’s side of the car. A space that couldn’t possibly hold a person. Her mind shrank away from it but the sight was burned into her brain. She lay with her eyes closed, not even wondering about her surroundings.
‘Kate? Kate?’
She closed her eyes and pretended she couldn’t hear. She didn’t want to hear anything. All she wanted to do was sink back into the blackness again where she didn’t have to think or feel.
‘Kate, I know you’re there, you can hear me,’ the man’s voice said. ‘Open your eyes, Kate.’
No I won’t, Kate answered him in her mind.
‘Come on now, open your eyes.’
You’re not going to bully me, thought Kate. Desperately she searched for the way back to the blessed blankness. But her foot had begun to throb; she tried to move it but she couldn’t, there was still a heavy weight on it. Was she still in the car? Oh God help me, she cried but her lips didn’t move and there was no sound.
Mr Bedford, the surgeon, looked at her intently. She looked distressed. He lifted an eyelid, her pupil was almost normal. She simply didn’t want to come round, he could swear it.
‘We’ll leave her for a little longer,’ he said. ‘But she must be made to respond tomorrow.’ He took Kate’s notes from Sister and wrote a couple of lines on them.
Robert was waiting outside the side ward; it was he who had arranged for Kate to have a private bed, an amenity bed as they were called now.
‘Well?’ he asked as Mr Bedford came out followed by the houseman: and ward sister.
‘Come into the office, Mr Richards.’
‘I think she is close to recovering consciousness,’ said the surgeon. ‘Are you sure she doesn’t have any blood relations left?’ he asked. ‘No one at all? Only I thought if there was someone it might help.’
‘I don’t think so. But her housekeeper might know. I thought she might help but I was disappointed, I thought Dorothy would have been able to get through to her if anyone could. They are friends though Dorothy is her housekeeper.’
‘Well, I would try if I were you,’ said Mr Bedford. ‘I can’t see any reason why she should be in this state. The police report said she spoke after the accident. Shock of course can do funny things. But it is dragging on too long for my liking, over a week now. I may have to bring in a psychiatrist next week if there is no improvement.’
Robert rang the number of the cottage from Sister’s phone.
‘Nothing’s happened, has it?’ the old lady asked in alarm. ‘I was coming in to see Kate this afternoon. Oh God, tell me nothing has happened!’
‘No, nothing more, nothing has changed,’ Robert reassured her and could hear her sigh of relief loud in the receiver.
‘I’m going out of my mind with worry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to do. And then there’s my poor Georgie, still not buried, it’s time she was allowed to rest in peace.’
‘There is one thing you can do,’ said Robert, ignoring her remark about Georgina. As far as he could see it mattered little to the girl that she was ^till unburied. It had been on his orders. He was sure Kate would want to be at the funeral and if there was any chance at all of her recovering shortly she should be there.
‘Tell me if Kate had any family left in Winton Colliery. Do you know of any?’
Minutes later he was driving along the road to Bishop Auckland. He ought to have rung the steelworks and told them he wouldn’t be in at all today. But they would manage without him, he told himself. He was expected at Hamilton Hall for lunch too, he remembered. Oh well, he would ring from the first call box he came to.
Robert crossed the Great North Road and entered Rushyford. There was a telephone box outside the post office. He put his sixpence in the box and pressed button A when Benson answered.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ his mother said when he explained where he was going. ‘That poor woman, my heart aches for her.’
As he got back in his car and drove along the Coundon road towards Bishop Auckland, he wondered at her. Mary Anne Hamilton was a wonderful woman, he decided. But he knew that already.
Robert drove to Winton Colliery and parked on the end of the rows as his stepfather had done a few times before him. A couple of boys were kicking a ball around on a piece of waste ground across the road from the houses. He walked over to them and they stopped playing and gazed at him.
‘Mr Benfield?’ he asked and held out half a crown. They stared at him and the money but didn’t take it.
‘Is that a Jaguar, Mister?’
‘Yes, it is. Do you know a Mr Benfield? Please.’
‘I might do,’ a boy conceded. ‘Can I have a ride in your motor?’
‘Yes, all right. But tell me where Mr Benfield lives.’
‘Can we have a ride first?’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Robert, exasperated. They whooped and climbed into the front passenger seat together. He drove them round the rows, through the old village and back to where they had started.
‘Thanks, Mister.’ They had the door open and one was already running away.
‘Hey!’ Robert shouted, and grabbed the other. ‘Mr Benfield? I won’t ask again, I’ll just take you to the police station.’
‘Aw, all right,’ the boy conceded. ‘My name is Benfield. We live up the street there, the house at the end. Can I have the half-crown?’
Robert gave him it and he ran off. Robert locked the car before leaving it. Better safe than sorry.
It was Willie who answered the door. He was wearing a clean shirt and old trousers with braces dangling. His feet were bare and his hair damp from a recent bath.
‘Mr Benfield. I’m Robert Richards. May I come in for a minute?’
Willie gazed at him then cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder. ‘Come in then,’ he said and led the way into the kitchen where a tin bath was still standing before the fire. ‘I’ve just come off shift,’ he explained. ‘If you wait a minute I’ll see to the bath.’
Robert looked at the water in the bath which was scummy and glinting with particles of coal dust. ‘Don’t bother for me,’ he said. ‘I understand.’ As he spoke a woman came down the stairs; a woman of about Kate’s age.
‘This is the wife,’ said Willie.
‘How do you do, Mrs Benfield?’
‘Well, what do you want with us?’ demanded June, her chin high in the air and her tone brusque. ‘Slumming, are you?’
‘June!’
Willie was embarrassed and his face flushed. To hide it he sat down on his chair and began to put on his shoes.
‘Are you related to Kate Benfield?�
�� asked Robert, ignoring the woman’s rudeness.
‘She’s my sister,’ said Willie. June made a derisory sound.
‘The tart do you mean?’
Robert’s anger rose swiftly but Willie butted in.
‘June! Keep your mouth shut!’
June stared at him, her eyes glittering and her arms folded across her chest. She opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. Then she turned without another word and went into the other room, banging the door behind her.
‘Kate is my sister, Mister,’ said Willie again. ‘What has happened?’
Robert explained about the accident and the death of Georgina and how Kate was still in a coma. ‘The doctors think if someone of her own came and spoke to her it might help,’ he sighed.
‘I tell you what Mr Richards,’ said Willie. ‘Why don’t you go over and see our Ethel? I think the two of them have got friendly, like. At least, Kate came to see her. West Row, it is, number five.’
‘Thanks, I will,’ said Robert. The two men moved to the door and Willie walked down the yard with him. At the gate Willie paused.
‘I would come but Ethel will be better. And the wife, her brother used to be Kate’s sweetheart, you know. He was killed in the pit and for some reason June hated Kate after that. Seemed to think she was treating the memory of their Billy badly going off with that gaffer.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
‘HOWAY MAN, KATIE, pull yourself together,’ said Ethel. She could have sworn that beneath her closed eyelids, Kate’s eyes moved slightly. ‘Mind, how do you think I feel? I’ve come all this way to see you and you won’t talk to us.’
Ethel looked at the two men at the bottom of the bed, Mr Bedford the surgeon and Mr Richards, who evidently was one of the Hamiltons really. To be honest, she was a bit in awe of them both, especially the surgeon. He reminded her of the specialist who had looked in young Davey’s ears last month. Very la-di-da he’d been. But he had promised he could do something for the bairn. Thank. God for the new National Health Service. Davey would have gone deaf altogether without it. But the specialist said he could fix it with a small operation.