Seth had let go of her and now, as Fred and Walter released James and Patrick, the boys flew to Pearl as she put out her arms to them. For a moment she stared at her three brothers over the heads of James and Patrick. She could hardly take in the fact that they were here, in front of her. After rescuing her younger brothers, finding Seth and the others had been next on her agenda. But they’d found her.
As Fred and Walter came either side of Seth, she said faintly, ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here, and why frighten us like this?’
Seth didn’t answer this directly. His voice gruff with emotion, he said, ‘It’s better you and the lads aren’t seen with the likes of us, lass, and if anyone asks – which they won’t, so don’t worry – you haven’t seen us.’
‘You – you haven’t escaped from prison?’
She saw the flash of white teeth in Seth’s face and his voice held amusement when he said, ‘No, lass. We did our time and were released nice and proper so don’t fret on that score.’
Pearl nodded. ‘Then why . . .’
‘The secrecy?’ Seth’s voice took on a rougher tone. ‘Pearl, when you’ve been inside for any length of time there’s not too many folk over-anxious to give you a job, not one that’s above board leastways. It’s dog eat dog and you either sink or swim. Me an’ the lads didn’t intend to sink.’
Now her eyes were becoming accustomed to the shadows she could see more clearly the faces of the men who were her brothers – and yet not her brothers. They looked – she couldn’t bring herself to say frightening – they looked hardbitten, but then of course they would be, with all they’d gone through. Now Fred and Walter smiled at her, their voices low when they said, ‘Hello, lass.’
She wasn’t aware that she was crying until Seth got a handkerchief out of his pocket, his voice gruff again as he said, ‘Here, wipe your eyes, lass, an’ don’t take on. There’s nowt to cry about. Against all the odds the six of us have survived an’ that’s something to be marvelled at, considering where we come from.’
‘You know Mam’s been dead these past five years or so?’
‘Oh aye, we know all about Mam,’ said Seth grimly.
Pearl peered at him in the darkness. The look on his face told her the three of them were under no illusion about Kitty’s activities after they had been sent to prison. Then he caused her to gasp and put her hand to her throat when he said softly, ‘We know about Fallow an’ all, lass.’
‘It’s all right, Pearl.’ One of the others, she wasn’t sure which was Walter and which was Fred, spoke now. ‘He’s been dealt with.’
‘Dealt with?’ she asked in bewilderment.
‘Aye.’ Seth made a sharp movement with his hand and his brother fell silent. ‘Look, we need to tell you what’s what, but it don’t make pretty hearing. Fred–’ he gestured to his brother – ‘take the bairns up the alley a bit.’
‘We’re not bairns.’ James’s voice was indignant and both he and Patrick had tightened their hold on Pearl.
Seth surveyed the two brothers who had been babies the last time he’d seen them. ‘No, mebbe you’re not at that, but can you keep your mouths shut?’ he said quietly. ‘Young ’uns have a habit of speaking out of turn.’
‘Not us.’
‘Aye, well, likely it’s as well you know, all things being equal. It’ll save any questions about this.’ He handed Pearl a brown paper packet which she accepted gingerly. ‘Look on that as a form of atonement, even if it is years too late.’
Her confusion and fear must have spoken aloud from her face, for Seth saw it. Moving closer but without touching her, he said urgently, ‘You got the bairns out of the workhouse by threatening Fallow, didn’t you, with what he’d done to you all those years ago? He told us.’
‘He told you?’
‘With some . . . persuasion.’
‘Seth—’
‘Just listen, will you? He went to someone, someone who arranges for things to happen. For a price. Only this man recognised the surname of the woman and bairns Fallow wanted out of the way, so he came to us first. Honour among thieves,’ he added with grim self-derision.
‘He – Fallow – paid for someone to kill us?’ She felt faint with horror.
‘It happens, lass, believe me. Only he caught his toe, see? He didn’t expect us to turn up and thank him personally for his blood money.’
‘Sang like a canary, he did,’ Fred said with chilling satisfaction. ‘Once we’d convinced him confession is good for the soul.’
Pearl stared at them aghast. She felt as though she was in the middle of a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. ‘You – you didn’t . . .’
‘He was rotten through and through,’ Seth said dispassionately. ‘He won’t be missed.’
‘You topped him?’ James and Patrick had been listening with avid interest and Patrick couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘How? Was there blood everywhere?’
‘Ssh.’ Pearl pulled Patrick round, bending down close to him. ‘This isn’t a game, Pat, this is serious.’
‘I know.’ The boy stared at her earnestly. ‘But that man wanted to hurt us, didn’t he? They just got him first. I think that’s fair. We didn’t start it.’
This was all beyond her. Helplessly Pearl straightened.
‘My sentiments exactly.’ Seth wasn’t smiling. ‘While Fallow lived, you’d never have been safe – take it from me. If it hadn’t been for Arthur putting two and two together, the three of you could simply have disappeared. Would you have preferred that?’
‘Of course not, but . . .’ She waved her hand weakly. ‘This is all . . .’
‘Forgotten. As of now. Right?’
Forgotten? How could she forget that a man had been murdered, by her own brothers and for her? And then she was thrown into further turmoil when Seth reached out and touched her face gently. ‘I’d have done the same thing ten times over if I could, once I found out what the dirty so-an’-so had done, lass. Me and the lads are not ones for preachin’, we know what we are only too well, but scum like Fallow . . .’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t have done anything else. Me guts used to turn inside out them first few months in gaol, thinking about how you and Mam and the bairns were getting by, but never in a month of Sundays did I think she’d sell her own daughter to a devil like him.’
‘Oh, Seth.’ What could she say? What should she do? He was her big brother and she loved him; at times there had been an ache in her to see him again because even as a bairn she had recognised the honesty of the feeling he had for her and the rest of his siblings. He was a good man. And then she caught at the thought in despair. How could she think he was a good man when he had just told her he was part of the criminal community and hadn’t thought twice about killing a man?
‘We’re going to disappear and you won’t see us again.’
‘No, please.’ She caught at his sleeve. ‘No, Seth. Please don’t leave us.’
‘It’s for the best, lass. There’s enough there for you to be set up till these two are out earning, and then some. And you’re canny, you were always canny. You’ll make sure these two don’t end up like their big brothers.’
‘Seth, no. Don’t go.’ She didn’t care about Fallow or what Seth had done, she only knew she couldn’t bear him to leave her again. Clinging hold of him she buried her face in his neck, shaking them both with her sobs.
He stood, stroking her hair and comforting her, much as he’d done when she’d been a child and he had been her only defence against a violent world. When he pressed her from him it was to hold her at arm’s length while he stared long and hard at her. ‘Lass, it’s a mucky road me and the lads are on, and the way I see it we’re set for life,’ he murmured thickly after some moments. ‘There’s no way back for us but you, you an’ them, you’re different. Forget – forget you ever had three older brothers.’
‘Never.’ She stared back through swimming eyes. ‘I love you – and you two,’ she added to Fred and Walter, who were standing silently by. ‘I do
n’t care what you’ve done in the past, the future’s different. We can all be together, we can.’
Seth’s face was working and for a moment the tough mask lifted and she caught a glimpse of the boy he’d once been. His lower lip trembling, he said, ‘Let me do one thing in my life that’s decent, Pearl. One thing that helps me rest easy at night.’
‘Seth—’
‘No.’ The mask was back in place and as she tried to fling herself on his chest he shoved her roughly aside. ‘You don’t know what we’ve done, what we still do and it’s better you don’t. An’ I’m not bellyachin’, it’s how things are. You two –’ he turned to James and Patrick – ‘you keep your noses clean and look after her, you hear me?’
Pearl wanted to hold on to him but now Fred and Walter were awkwardly embracing her and the moment was lost. As the three melted into the darkness she called out, ‘Seth!’ but he didn’t answer. Short of running after him there was nothing she could do, and instinctively she knew the end result would be the same. He wasn’t going to stay. She was losing him and Fred and Walter once again, but this time because Seth had determined it that way. How could he be so blind, so stupid? He was cruel. No, no, he wasn’t. He was doing this for her, for the three of them. But she didn’t want to be alone again. That was how she felt. She had James and Patrick, but in this moment she felt numbingly alone. She wanted Seth. She wanted to be cared for and protected. She was tired and frightened and cold.
‘Pearl?’ James and Patrick were standing in front of her and she forced herself to respond as Patrick tugged at her wet coat-sleeve. ‘Are they really not coming back?’
‘No.’
‘They’re our brothers, aren’t they? Why can’t they stay?’
Wearily, Pearl picked up the bags she’d dropped when Seth had appeared. ‘They just can’t, that’s all.’
‘That – that’s not fair.’
Patrick’s voice broke and it was the spur which enabled her to pull herself together. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders. ‘Come on, we’re going home. You two are wet through and you’ll catch your death if we don’t get you out of these clothes. You’ll have to strip off and get into bed while I light the fire and the room warms up, and then once the fire’s going we’ll have toast and dripping. How about that?’
In the bustle of sorting her brothers out and lighting the fire and getting some hot tea down them once the kettle had boiled, Pearl didn’t open the brown package immediately. They only had one candle left, and although she lit it initially because the room was as black as pitch, as soon as the fire gave sufficient light she snuffed it out.
While they waited for the fire to die down to a red glow so they could toast the bread, Pearl let the boys eat the fruit they’d bought that day. It was then, sitting in the armchair, that she reached for the brown package, holding it against her chest for a second because it was a link with Seth.
She still couldn’t seem to take in that Mr Fallow was dead. That Seth and the others had murdered him. Murder . . . She shivered. But Mr Fallow had wanted her dead, and the lads. It was only because of that he had come to Seth’s attention in the first place. And this was the money Mr Fallow had paid out for her demise. He had thought he’d been buying men to kill her.
The slim package was tied with string and Pearl fumbled with the knot for a moment. Then the string was loose and she folded back the brown paper. The sound she made as she saw the wad of notes brought James and Patrick scrambling out of bed to her side as naked as the day they were born.
‘Holy Joe . . .’ Patrick reached out a hand and touched the money reverently.
Pearl was too taken aback to admonish him about his language. She stared at the notes and then raised her gaze to Patrick and James. Their faces reflected her amazement and disbelief.
‘How much is there?’ James, the ever practical one, asked.
‘Light the candle.’ If ever an occasion demanded sufficient illumination, this one did. Once the candle was lit and at her elbow, she counted the notes slowly. Sixty pounds. She was holding in her hand sixty pounds. It was a fortune. She could get the boys’ boots mended tomorrow, perhaps even buy them new boots, and some warm clothes, too – they needed another set. These thoughts raced through her mind even as she said flatly, ‘We can’t take it.’
‘What? Why? It’s ours, Seth gave it to us an’ it was his to give.’
‘James, you heard what he said and how he got it. It – it’s not right.’
‘Seth said it was at- atone-’
‘Atonement.’
‘Aye, that’s it. That means makin’ up for something, don’t it? An’ that’s why he gave you it. And whatever you say, our Pearl, it was his to give. Mr Fallow had paid him with it, him and Walter and Fred, so it was theirs. It’s not like they robbed someone.’
She stared at her brother in the flickering light from the candle, her head whirling. She didn’t know what to do. Oh, Seth, Seth, I don’t know what to do.
Patrick settled the matter. ‘Anyway, you can’t give it back,’ he said with immense satisfaction. ‘There’s no one to give it to. Mr Fallow is dead and Seth has gone, and Seth wouldn’t take it back even if you knew where he was. He said he wanted you to have it till we could work and look after you, so that’s that.’
Pearl became aware that the boys were shivering, and as she shooed them back into bed James paused to hug her. ‘Did Mr Fallow hurt you very much?’ he asked hesitantly.
Ushering him into bed where he snuggled down beside Patrick, Pearl nodded. She didn’t want to elaborate on what she had already told them. Maybe if they asked when they were older, she might feel differently.
‘Then this is all his fault, isn’t it? The workhouse schoolmaster used to say that everything we did had consequences . . .’
‘Normally before he caned us,’ Patrick put in.
‘. . . And that if we didn’t want bad things to happen, we had to be good.’
Pearl smiled at the two little faces looking at her so earnestly. Out of the mouth of babes.
Pearl didn’t sleep much that night. Long after the candle had burned away and the fire was reduced to glowing embers, she sat in the darkness listening to the boys’ heavy breathing, her mind racing. The precious brown package was tied up and hidden under her shawl in the chest of drawers, but although she couldn’t see it, it filled her vision.
Slowly the enormity of what her brothers had done for her dawned. Not only had Seth and the others saved her and the lads from something terrible, but they’d given her the means of taking James and Patrick out of this tiny cramped room and hand-to-mouth existence. Sixty pounds would enable her to rent two good-size rooms in a respectable house. The boys would be old enough for Saturday jobs soon, and with what she earned and their extra bit they’d manage fine until the lads left school and started earning properly. They could furnish the rooms with bits and pieces bought cheap from the Old Market or secondhand shops, and they’d be set up. The worry of the immediate future had been taken away in one fell swoop.
Or – her heart began to thump – she could go with this idea that had been gathering strength all night, the idea that carried a certain amount of risk with it.
All through Sunday she pondered what she was going to do, changing her mind umpteen times before once more sleeping badly, in spite of the fact that she and the boys had gone for a long walk in the afternoon. Then she woke up early on Monday morning, her mind made up. At six o’clock she lit the fire and a little while later woke her brothers with two steaming cups of tea.
‘I’m not going into work today,’ she told them. If her idea worked out, her days in the pickling factory were over. ‘Once you’re dressed and ready for school, we’re going to buy our breakfast from that little cafe in High Street East before you go to school, and I’m going into town. I’m going to get you both a thick winter coat and new boots, as your old ones are like colanders. But first -’ she paused, looking at them as they stared at her over the tops of their
cups – ‘first I’m going to look into renting a shop.’
She really had their attention now. ‘A shop?’ Patrick’s hair had been cut so short in the workhouse that it shouldn’t stick up, but somehow it always managed to. ‘What sort of shop?’
‘I’m going to sell pies and puddings and soup, and brawn, definitely brawn, and meat rolls.’ She stood up and began to pace back and forth. ‘Corinda, the Romany lady I told you about, she taught me all about herbs and things, and I was better than her in the end. She said I had a flair for cooking that was born in someone rather than learned. I could do wonders with the toughest meat, and some of the stews and soups the Romanies cooked were better than anything you’ll ever taste, I promise you. And I know how to do it. I can do it. It’ll be hard work at first, of course, and I’ll have to buy all the stuff I need and pots and pans.’ She paused for breath. ‘What do you think?’
Before they could reply, she went on, ‘We’ll rent somewhere with living space above if we can, as it’ll be better to live in, especially at the beginning. Once you get home from school you can help me and at weekends. And I can show you what I do. For the future, you know? When you leave school you can work with me.’ Again she paused, and this time when she said, ‘What do you think?’ she waited for them to speak.
Their faces were wreathed in smiles. Neither boy could think of anything better than living above a shop that sold food. James answered for the pair of them when he said, ‘How soon can we go?’
‘Soon.’ There was a well of excitement bubbling up inside her and it went some way to quelling the words which had come to haunt her through the dark night hours: Born to trouble, you’ll take trouble wherever you lay your head. It’s a curse, and woe betide any man who’s drawn to you. She knew Halimena had always hated her, but in the middle of the night when the human spirit was low she’d had to fight against the old woman’s denunciation.
She wouldn’t believe there was a curse on her. She looked at James and Patrick’s bright faces. But even if there was, she could break it and make a good life for these two. She could say with hand on heart that she wouldn’t have wished Mr Fallow to die at the hands of her brothers, but in all honesty she wasn’t sorry he was dead. That might be wicked, but that’s how she felt. If just one little bairn was saved from what she’d suffered because he was no more, it was worth it.
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