Ragamuffin Angel

by Rita Bradshaw

  She had thought she’d landed in hell on her wedding night.

  Nothing, nothing her mother had told her on her wedding day morning or the odd conversation she’d overheard between her married sisters had prepared her for what he had demanded and what he had done. She had known men laid great store by this thing that happened in the intimacy of marriage, and she had been nervous and not a little anxious to please him that first night. She was plain, she knew that, and until John had come courting she had never had a lad look the side she was on, and so when John Stewart – and him handsome and quite a catch – had made it clear he was interested she had been in seventh heaven.

  She had been as innocent as they come on her wedding night and he had treated her worse than a hard-bitten whore. It had been two hours before she had managed to crawl, quite literally, into the dressing room attached to the bedroom of the suite at the hotel in Seaham where they were residing for their week’s honeymoon, and her legs had gone into spasms for an hour or more.

  The next morning, when the state of her distress had been such that she had threatened to walk home to her mother if he didn’t call a carriage, he had blamed his bestiality on the wine and brandy he had consumed at dinner, and had used all his persuasive powers to prevent her leaving. When that hadn’t worked he had made the visit to her parents’ home himself, promising to bring her mother back with him, but instead he had returned with a letter.

  Exactly what had passed between her mother and John she had never found out, but the letter had been short and to the point. Her parents would not be made a laughing stock by having their daughter – who should have been married years before – returning after one night of marriage, it had stated coldly. She would grow accustomed to the state of marriage and all it entailed, all women did, and she would learn how to please her husband. There was no question of anything else. Her parents would forget this had ever happened and it would not be mentioned again. She was a married woman now and her husband’s responsibility. They were saddened – deeply saddened – by her lack of delicacy and sense of wifely duty, but they trusted that her husband would forgive her and, therefore, so must they.

  She had wanted to die. But she hadn’t died, and later, after endless months of mental and physical torture, she had begun to change and find that the shy, gentle creature who had married John Stewart was gone for ever. And from that point she had begun to fight back.

  ‘Where did you meet this. . . this whore’s brat?’

  Edith’s voice intruded into Ann’s thoughts and brought her back from her dark memories to the scene in front of her, and now she saw Dan’s face was white except for two slashes of red colour across his cheekbones.

  And then they all jumped visibly as Dan shot up, sending his chair shooting backwards to clatter against the ornate, gold-leafed chiffonnier before falling on its side.

  ‘Any more talk like that and I am leaving.’

  Dan saw his mother’s face contract and her eyes narrow, and for a moment she appeared stupefied, but then her voice came low and icy, saying, ‘You dare to talk to me like this? Your own mother?’

  ‘This is all getting out of hand, I’m sure there’s a simple explanation if we all act sensibly and keep our heads.’ Art, as peacemaker, threw his hands wide, and appealed to Gilbert and Matthew as he said, ‘Eh, lads? Perhaps a cup of coffee or a glass of port?’

  ‘All the coffee and port in the world won’t make any difference to the facts, Art.’ Dan continued to stand over the festive debris of the table and his voice was cool, very cool, as he said quietly, ‘I ran into Connie Bell that evening we went to the Grand and I talked to her. That is the extent of my crime.’

  ‘But I thought –’

  ‘Aye, so did I.’ Dan nodded at what Art had begun to say. ‘I thought they’d all gone but not so; it appears she escaped the fire that took the others.’

  ‘The Grand?’ Edith’s eyes were screwed up as she tried to understand the meaning of what Dan had said. ‘She was there? In the restaurant?’

  ‘She’s a waitress, Mam.’ The sneer in John’s voice was reflected in his face.

  ‘She’s the assistant housekeeper,’ Dan corrected grimly, ‘and a fine young woman.’

  ‘Fine . . . ?’ Edith’s face, which had been white, now flushed with ugly colour, and her voice was a low hiss as she said, ‘I forbid you, I forbid you to associate with that girl, Dan. Do you hear me? I forbid it!’

  ‘I am twenty-seven years of age, Mother. You can’t forbid me to do anything.’

  ‘Oh yes I can! You are living under my roof, my boy, and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘That’s soon rectified.’

  ‘Dan? Dan, man, what are you doing?’

  Art caught hold of his brother as Dan walked past him making for the door, and now everyone was standing, apart from Edith and John.

  ‘I’m doing something I should have done a long, long time ago, Art,’ Dan said bitterly. ‘But duty and misguided pity and, aye, and lack of guts if the truth be known, stopped me. But no more, I’ve had enough. I’ve had a bellyful, man.’

  ‘If you walk out of that door don’t think you can come crawling back when it suits you.’

  Dan looked at his mother and his voice, in stark contrast to her own, which had been incensed, was even and almost expressionless as he said, ‘I won’t be back, rest easy on that,’ and after shrugging off Art’s hand from his arm he walked out of the room without another word.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Art’s eyes had followed his youngest brother but now he swung round on John angrily. ‘You’re a damn menace, that’s what you are.’

  ‘Oh aye, that’s right, take it out on me,’ John ground out, with a quick glance at the others. ‘Dan’s running after that trollop’s brat and he’s still whiter than white, is that it?’

  ‘By, man, you’ll open that big mouth of yours once too often one of these days.’

  ‘And you’ll shut it for me? Is that the idea?’

  ‘Leave him, Art. He’s not worth it.’

  As her husband lunged across the table at John, Gladys caught hold of his arm, pulling him back, only for Edith to turn on her, her voice bitter as she said, ‘You dare to criticise my son when you used every trick in the book to get his brother to marry you? Don’t think I don’t see through you, madam, because I do. I’ve been on to you from day one.’

  ‘Right, that’s it, get the bairns.’ Art practically manhandled Gladys to the door where he turned, glancing back at the remaining few round the table as he said grimly, ‘And a merry Christmas to you an’ all,’ before banging the door hard behind him.

  They were ushering the children into their coats and hats in the hall, Kitty flapping about as Gladys tried to explain what had happened, when Dan came down the stairs carrying a small portmanteau and with his outdoor clothes on.

  ‘Dan, Dan, lad.’ Kitty was beside herself, the tears streaming down her plump jowls as she all but threw herself in front of the door. ‘Don’t go like this, lad, please. You know what she’s like, she’ll calm down when she’s had a chance to think. If you go like this, you’ll always regret it.’

  Dan came to her now, and taking her hands in his bent forward and kissed her before straightening and saying quietly, ‘I won’t regret it, Kitty. We both know I’d have gone a long time ago but for you, but I can’t stay another night under this roof. I’ll get lodgings in town somewhere so don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s Christmas Day, lad, there’ll be nowhere open.’

  ‘He’s coming home with us, Kitty, all right?’ Gladys glanced across at Art as she spoke, and as her husband mouthed, ‘Thank you, lass’, she smiled before continuing, ‘We’ve plenty of room since we moved to the square and I don’t think Art’s used his study above once, you can have that, and there’s already a fold-down bed in there.’

  She was speaking to Dan now, and as he shook his head saying, ‘No, no, Gladys, I couldn’t impose like that,’ Art’s voice came back loud and strong saying, ‘Don’t
be daft, man. How could my own brother impose? And the bairns will love it, you know they will. They think the world of you as it is. Now that’s the end of it, it’s settled. You’ll be as snug as a bug in a rug in there, and like Gladys said, the room’s never used. You’ll be doing us a favour, keeping it aired like.’

  ‘She’ll look at it like sticking the knife in, you know that, don’t you? You won’t get any thanks from her.’ Dan gestured with his head towards the dining room – the door of which was still closed – as he spoke.

  And now the likeness between the two brothers was accentuated as Art looked at Dan, his face grim as he said, ‘Between you and me, little brother, that won’t worry me a great deal.’

  Edith heard the front door open and close, and she was aware that the murmur of voices which had penetrated the dining room from the hall had ceased, but she still couldn’t believe that Dan had actually left until Kitty came into the room moments later. ‘Well?’ She raised her eyebrows at her housekeeper, and it was the expression on Kitty’s face – because the younger woman couldn’t bring herself to speak – that told Edith he had gone.

  The two women stared at each other for a second, one with her eyes swimming with tears and the other with a face as hard as iron, and then Edith nodded sharply, as though in answer to something which had been voiced, and said, ‘We are ready for the hot mince pies, Kitty. Please inform Miss Doreen and Miss Ruth that their presence is required in here, and once you have served coffee I would like you to take my four youngest grandchildren to the nursery for a nap. Is that understood?’

  Edith did not wait for an answer, her attitude dismissive as she turned to John and engaged him in conversation regarding some extraneous matter connected with the business, and after a pause Kitty left the room as quietly as she had entered. But behind Edith’s unruffled exterior she was boiling with rage. That Dan, Dan of all people, her Dan, had dared to defy her like this and in front of everyone. After all she had done for him, the sacrifices she had made. She could have expected such ungratefulness from Art-her third born had always been a difficult child, unmindful and rebellious even before he had met that common-born huzzy who had become his wife – but Dan? No, not Dan. Right from the first moment she had seen his face, seconds after he had been born, she had loved him.

  It had surprised her, the depth and quality of the love she had experienced for her youngest child. Until then she had thought herself incapable of loving anyone.

  Her father had been employed in building the North Dock in Monkwearmouth in the 1830s, but by the time she was born, in 1854, he hadn’t worked for years. They had lived in one of a row of foul-smelling hovels opposite the abattoir, and she’d loathed and detested the dirt and stench of her childhood. The walls of their two-roomed cottage had always been damp, and the stone flags on the floor had oozed water and thick slime. It had been cold and dark and detestable, and she had bitterly resented her beginnings and despised her parents and siblings. At the age of fourteen she had put herself into service with a wealthy family in Bishopwearmouth, and from that first day she had never gone home again or even acknowledged to anyone that she had a family.

  She had met Henry Stewart one January evening in 1872. It had been her half day off and she had gone to the Assembly Hall in Sans Street for a levee featuring the ‘Two-Headed Nightingale’, Miss Chrissie-Millie – billed as an astonishing freak of nature possessing two heads, two sets of arms and legs but all blended into one body – and she had pursued him with relentless determination from that night on. She had recognised in Henry an ambition to rise above his surroundings that almost matched her own. By 1874 she had contrived for him to marry her – John being on the way – and from that point she had driven him and herself onwards and upwards, with a single-mindedness that allowed no room for sentiment or finer feelings.

  The physical side of marriage she had used as a means to an end, although she found it deeply repugnant. It produced heirs, necessary to build the Stewart empire, and it also kept Henry dancing to her tune.

  Her children had proved a great disappointment. Mavis and the twins she considered spineless and uninteresting, Art an ingrate, John. . . John she disliked whilst giving him a grudging respect for the ruthlessness he could display when necessary. She never allowed herself to reflect on why she did not like her first born; the reality, that John was in effect a mirror image of herself, would have been too disturbing to contemplate.

  When, six years after the twins were born, she had found herself with child again at the advanced age of thirty-two, she had been beside herself with rage and mortification. Working-class women, the society she had clawed her way out of, went on having bairns like rabbits, ladies did not. She’d vowed this child would be her last and had prepared to tolerate it as she did the others, whilst locking her bedroom door for good against her husband. But then something hitherto unknown had happened to her heart when she had held Dan in her arms nine months later. She had fallen in love.

  And now he had dared to throw her love back in her face! As Doreen and Ruth and her grandchildren joined them again, Edith forced herself to smile and converse naturally, but her mind was racing. It wasn’t Dan’s fault – it was important she saw this clearly. It was that ragamuffin brat, that guttersnipe, who was to blame. She blinked as she glanced down the table at the empty places where her family should have been.

  She had felt a great sense of well-being, even pleasure, when John had come to her that morning years ago and told her what he’d done and the result of it. The death of that huzzy and her family by fire had been a clean end – purifying even – to something which would have continued to fester if it hadn’t been dealt with. Atonement had been needed for Henry’s death – didn’t the Bible itself claim an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? – and there was Jacob’s suicide and Mavis losing her mind. And she had been right to think like that, by, she had. This last episode proved it if nothing else. One of them had escaped and now look at the trouble that strumpet was causing. Assistant housekeeper! And how had a wanton creature like that got such a position? On her back with her legs open no doubt. Men were fools! The whole lot of them.

  But it wouldn’t end here. No, oh no, not if she had anything to do with it. She would see her day with Sadie Bell’s flyblow and teach her a lesson she’d never forget. But she’d tread carefully; there were more ways of killing a cat than skinning it, and if the baggage was aiming to sink her claws into Dan, this required some thought. Did those responsible for maintaining the Grand’s superior reputation know they were employing the results of a trollop’s whoring? Possibly not. Very possibly not.

  Edith raised her head suddenly, glancing round the table with something approaching a benevolent smile as she said, ‘I think we’ll have our mince pies and coffee in the drawing room. How does that sound? And once Kitty has taken the children you’ll find the envelopes containing your Christmas boxes on the bureau.’

  And to the chorus of thanks – Edith’s cheques on such occasions reflected her approval, or otherwise, of their obedience and acquiescence to her authority, and she could be very generous – she inclined her head, her smile widening. This Bell chit would soon be dealt with, her days of masquerading as a respectable woman were numbered, and when Dan returned home duly chastened she would be gracious with him, gracious and forgiving. If she handled this right it might even persuade him to look favourably on Miss Isabel Rotherington, the magistrate’s spinster daughter, who would make an excellent wife, being quiet and pliable, if a little old at twenty-eight. Yes, she would have no trouble with Isabel Rotherington if Dan could be induced to take her. And the prestige and influence a magistrate’s daughter would add to the Stewart name wasn’t to be sneezed at.

  Edith rose from her seat, her demeanour a study in control, and the others followed dutifully, taking their cue as always from the formidable woman who controlled each of their lives.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Connie entered the hotel cold store at the back of t
he kitchen and quickly checked off the items delivered late the previous night from the list in her hand, before retracing her steps into the relative warmth of the scullery and then the kitchen beyond.

  New Year’s Eve. She couldn’t believe the old year was ending and another was about to begin. This time last year she had still been working in the laundry and preparing to apply for training as a nurse, and now. . . She breathed in a deep sigh of satisfaction as she glanced round the almost deserted kitchen, it still being too early for most of the day staff to have arrived. She had decided to come in to work at this time as the day was going to be a busy one and the evening even busier, there being various functions booked, and she had found in the last months she could accomplish twice as much work in half the time in those precious minutes before the workforce appeared en masse. She had been there almost an hour and got through all the jobs she’d intended to do, so a nice cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast were in order.

  She was seated at one of the small tables where the second kitchen maid prepared the vegetables each day, a steaming mug of tea at the side of her and her mouth full of toast, reading a few more pages of Sir Almroth Wright’s anti-women’s suffrage book, which claimed women were inferior to men, when she heard footsteps just behind her. She didn’t look up – the staff would dribble in in their ones and twos now but there was still another twenty minutes to go until the day began officially – being engrossed in the inflammatory book which Connie considered to be the worst sort of bigotry. What with Asquith’s ‘cat and mouse’ bill – the latest strategy in the Government’s clash with the suffragettes which enabled temporary discharges to be given to suffragettes in prison undergoing hunger strikes, only for the women to be re-arrested when it pleased the magistrates – and male mobs attacking suffragettes in Hyde Park and Wimbledon and other parts of the country, was it any wonder women were taking the law into their own hands?