He looked enquiringly across at the manager, now flushed with evident embarrassment, and his eyes lighted upon the pendant, its rose-red depths sparkling like fire on the grimy office desk.
‘Ah, there it is. What a relief.’ Bart picked it up, hooked it back around her neck and smiled at the now silent pair opposite. ‘Family heirloom. It was my dear mother’s, sadly now departed this life. Do I take it that there has been some mistake, and my wife is now free to leave?’
Nobody moved for a long breathless moment. Then the manager cleared his throat and, finally finding his voice, burbled on about how they had assumed the pendant was stolen because why else would three people be hiding in a lifeboat on board a ship bound for Canada? ‘It’s against the law to attempt to stow away.’
‘A youthful adventure, or misadventure, whichever way you look at it. Nothing more. Are you challenging the honesty of my wife?’ The arching of his brows only emphasised the cold anger in Bart’s face.
The manager was huffing and puffing in furious protest while the constable volunteered the information that reformatory lads and lasses generally reoffended, in his experience.
‘Indeed? I wasn’t aware that my wife had ever committed an offence, before today, that is. Being in the reformatory does not, in fact, brand her a criminal. You have some problem with the fact that she was an orphan, and poor? Destitution is not, or certainly should not be, against the law.’
The police constable blustered his way into silence but the managed ploughed on, determined on using the hapless trio as an example to anyone else who might consider attempting to board one of his ships illegally in the future. ‘Reformatory hooligans are nothing but trouble. These other two aren’t even in employment, so are clearly up to no good.’
‘Perhaps they are desperate to leave the country for that very reason, because they are unemployed. Have you never been desperate, with your back to the wall? Then you are a most fortunate man if you have not.’
The silence this time grew ominous. It was Bart who broke it. ‘Well, unless you have any other evidence against my wife, perhaps you wouldn’t mind releasing her, together with her ruthless accomplices? I can vouch for the fact there will be no further assault on your vessels, Canadian or otherwise.’
As the police constable reluctantly unlocked the handcuffs from the miscreants’ wrists, the manager continued to issue dire warnings of the fate awaiting anyone who ever stepped unauthorised on to his dock again.
Bart merely smiled, tucked Ruby’s arm safely into the crook of his own, and led her away. Kit and Pearl followed meekly behind.
Ruby had never known him to be so cold towards her. His reaction seemed deeper than anger, like a skein of steel about to snap. He’d taken her attempt to leave as a personal rejection. Grateful as she was for his intervention which had again saved her from jail, inwardly she grieved for the loss of her dream. There would be no adventure, no trip to Canada to search out her lost brother. In the time it took for Bart to march her back to their house on Quay Street, ungraciously offer her sister a bed for the night, and close the door in the face of her ‘new friend’, Ruby had come to see that she’d lost everything. Whatever show of tenderness there had been between them the other night, there would be no more. All she could think to do now was to hand over the pendant, and give it up forever. Even the feel of it against her skin scalded her with shame.
Bart accepted it without protest and slid the gem into his pocket.
Ruby blinked back tears which, for some reason, were threatening to fall. She cried not for the loss of the pendant but for something indefinable, and far more precious. She had never asked for love from this marriage, nor expected to feel any in herself, but his faith and belief in her she had taken for granted. Now, Ruby realised, all of that was gone.
His expression showed only scathing contempt. ‘Is that really what you wanted? And why Canada, for heaven’s sake? What did you hope to achieve by running off so far?’
‘A new start for Pearl. And to look for our Billy, of course.’
‘Have you any idea of the size of Canada? You have as much chance of finding your brother as you have of locating a flea on a dog’s back.’
‘We found Pearl, didn’t we? Or rather Kit did.’
‘We’ll come to your friend in a moment, though doesn’t it strike you as rather odd that he should suddenly be able to locate her just before the ship sailed? A remarkable coincidence, do you not think?’
A matching anger was rising in her, soaring upwards from the depths of her misery in order to counteract a ridiculous sense of guilt that she had in some way disappointed him. She ripped off the slouch cap Kit had made her wear, letting her nut-brown curls tumble anyhow about her flushed face, glorying in the sudden spark of need that lit in his eyes at the sight of their wild beauty. ‘You’re bound to see only the worst in him.’
‘Because he is sleeping with my wife? Now I wonder why that should trouble me? You would do well to remember, Ruby McBride, that you are mine. Never doubt it.’
‘Damn you, Barthram Stobbs. Damn you to hell!’
They sat at table that evening in total silence, the only sound in the room that of the loud ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. Upstairs, they could hear Pearl pacing the floor, alternately weeping and railing with fury. She had refused to share their supper; even so, Ruby half expected her to come tearing downstairs at any moment and blame her for everything going wrong, as she always had in the past. Pleased as she was to have Pearl here, safe and sound, she’d never quite forgotten how utterly self-obsessed her sister was.
Bart tore at his bread with white, even teeth; drank his soup with one elbow propped casually on the table, and throughout the meal never took his eyes from her face. His stare was unnerving and left Ruby simmering with a rage that she dare not express. When the silence became almost insurmountable, he finally spoke, his voice calm and strangely matter-of-fact.
‘Have you never wondered why it was I wished to marry you, Ruby McBride? Why I was so anxious to share my life with you? Have you never considered that it might possibly have been more than a fancy I felt for you, or that what I feel now might well be akin to jealousy?’
The pounding in his head which had tormented him ever since he’d found her with that ruffian seemed to intensify with each passing moment as he waited, in vain, for her response. Images of the pair of them together would, he knew, produce unendurable torture the instant his head touched the pillow. Yet what could he do to avoid it? He was as trapped as she claimed to be, with no hope of escape. Even now, though she craved physical intimacy between them as much as he did, he was no nearer to possessing her. Ruby McBride was very much her own woman and if it was his misfortune to love her, he must live with the consequences. Where was the point in denying it? Perhaps in admitting his vulnerability, he could in some way exorcise this need for her from his soul, reduce it to a physical necessity.
‘I was captivated by you, by your beauty, by your strength, and by your resolution to hang on to your individuality despite having spent years in an institution. That was no mean feat, Ruby, and it shone out of you like a beacon. I admire that courage in you still, that sense of fiery independence. This woman, I thought, is one who deserves a chance in life. She needs to be cherished.’
She laughed at that, tossing back her brown curls with haughty disdain. ‘You took advantage of my dire circumstances. I was still a young girl who’d never tasted freedom, and you robbed me of that chance. I don’t need cherishing, certainly not by someone who has kept me prisoner as an unwilling wife for years.’
‘The door is unlocked, Ruby. It has ever been so.’ He indicated the general direction with his crust of bread. ‘Where would you run to this time? To your lover?’
Ruby’s gaze was riveted upon his mouth as he chewed, as if reminding herself of every intimate detail of it. ‘He is not my lover! It’s true that I do love him, have always loved him, but we never. . .’
Bart stood up, pushing ba
ck his chair so violently that it fell backwards on to the stone-flagged floor with a crash. ‘Spare me the sordid details. I believe I’ve heard enough excuses for one night. Go and tell that sister of yours to stop that infernal din and then get to bed.’
‘I will do no such thing!’ The thought of making love with him on this night, the one she should have spent with her beloved, gloriously handsome Kit, albeit stowed away in a lifeboat, was more than she could bear.
Bart grasped her by the wrist and thrust her before him up the stairs, informed a startled Pearl to shut her noise, and in one fluid movement swung Ruby into their room and shut fast the door.
She turned upon him with the ferocity of a tiger. ‘Lay one finger on me and I’ll scratch yer bleedin’ eyes out!’
‘I think not, Ruby. You will undress and get into bed like a good, obedient little wife.’
‘I will not!’
He sighed deeply. ‘I do not believe you are in any position to argue.’
‘Because yet again I face possible arrest? Is that the only way you can keep a woman, Barthram Stobbs?’ Ruby saw the impact of her words made him reel, almost as if she had physically struck him, and felt a burst of shame at her own cruelty. What in heaven’s name had she become?
A heartbeat later he stepped forward, his face so contorted by ice-cold rage that for one dreadful moment she thought he might strip the clothes from her back and take her there and then on the rug, against her will. Instead, by some supreme effort, he managed to control himself and, stretching out a hand, traced the outline of her cheek with the tips of fingers that trembled. His latent fury seared into the heart of her, causing it to melt at his touch.
Ruby strove to maintain a denial of her need, to keep her eyes wide open, her heart stony with defiance as he slowly removed the boyish waistcoat, unbuttoned the blue shirt and slid the braces that held up the seaman’s trousers from her slender shoulders. Yet in contradiction to her own wishes, her traitorously weak flesh responded to his touch. It was as if he had lit a fire in her, one that burned and smouldered and could only be doused by him. As she swayed, giddy with need and might well have fallen, he lifted her easily in his arms and dropped her on to the bed.
He took her then as he never had before, with a force that declared his supremacy, his dominance over her. He punished her perceived betrayal with the power of his body but when she cried out, it was with desire not defiance, with passion not agony. The sound was wrenched unwillingly from the depths of her soul for no matter how much she might deny him in the cold light of day, in the secret dark of the night, Ruby knew that she belonged to him entirely.
Over the following days and weeks the rain seemed never to stop. It swept the rubbish from the streets, filled the gutters and lashed the decks of the tug and barges, making them dangerously slippy under foot.
The weather suited Kit’s mood exactly, adding to his all-pervading sense of gloom. He could scarcely take in the cataclysmic effect Ruby McBride had had upon his life. Wherever he walked, whatever he did, he kept coming across that same police constable who had confronted them in the manager’s office. Kit was quite certain the man was keeping a beady eye on him, eager to prove him guilty of some offence or other. He popped up around every corner, tenaciously determined to find Kit up to no good so that he could throw him in jail and toss away the key. His constant presence cramped Kit’s style, for one step out of line and he’d be a goner.
Ruby McBride and that so-called-baron had ruined everything. Not only had he been deprived of the opportunity to enjoy her undoubted charms, and access to her husband’s wealth, now he had a copper permanently on his tail. He’d also lost Pearl and the convenient comforts she freely offered, not to mention a most useful source of income.
Not for a moment was he prepared to allow them to get away with his. Hadn’t Ruby McBride done enough damage to his life already? Once again he felt used by her. She’d strung him along all this time yet must have said something to warn Barthram Stobbs of their plan. She no doubt gave some indication of what was afoot, or how would he have known to find them in that blasted office? Kit suspected she’d either spilled the beans, or made it so obvious by her behaviour that she was up to something that he’d followed her. Perhaps had been doing so for some time. And after all his patience, all the trouble he’d gone to. Never trust a bloody woman!
There was nothing now that Kit wasn’t prepared to do in order to exact revenge. He needed to redress the balance. He felt driven to the limits of his endurance. One way or another, he’d punish them both.
‘You are not my mother.’ Pearl’s strident voice rang out for the umpteenth time as it had done throughout those first few difficult days and during the endless miserable week that had followed.
‘God rest her soul,’ Ruby quietly added. They were walking along Deansgate, a blustery wind making Ruby glad of the shawl wrapped about her head and shoulders. Pearl was struggling to keep control of her ridiculous wide straw hat with the sweeping green feather. Bart had generously provided them with funds and they were looking in shops, trying to find something more appropriate for her to wear than the maroon and purple skirt and fitted jacket she wore constantly. ‘What about this lovely grey twill? It’s both smart and practical.’
Pearl curled her lip with contempt. ‘I’d look like a schoolmarm in that.’ She marched over to another mannequin swathed in pink satin. ‘Now this is more my style.’
‘You’d look like a tart in that.’ Ruby started to giggle. ‘You’d set tongues wagging if you walked about the canal basin in pink satin and no mistake.’
‘Happen I wouldn’t wear it in the canal basin. Happen I won’t be stopping in Castlefield.’
Ruby looked at her askance. ‘Where else would you go?’
‘Wherever I want. Back to Rochdale probably. I’ll live where I like. Dress how I like. Like I say, you’re not me bleedin’ mother.’ She picked up a wide-brimmed hat, swathed in blue spotted net and masses of silk flowers, and placed it on her head as if to prove her point. ‘You’re only my sister! You can’t tell me what to do.’
‘I’m your older sister. And didn’t I promise Mam that I’d take care of you?’ Seeing a floor walker approach, Ruby snatched the hat from Pearl’s head and put it back on its stand, swiftly apologised and hustled her out of the store. ‘Someone needs to see that you’re properly looked after.’
‘Why? That promise only held good till I was old enough to take care of myself, which I am, so you can stop your preaching. I’ll decide what’s right for me, not you.’
Oblivious to the passers-by who jostled them, they stood on the pavement locked in combat, Pearl fighting for her independence, Ruby desperate to carry out her self-imposed duty to the letter.
‘And what is right for you, Pearl? What’s so special about Rochdale that you’re so determined to go back there? Or that pub? There are pubs in Castlefield in need of a barmaid, I’m sure.’
‘I’ll please myself what I do, and where I go. Stop bossing me about, I’ll not have it.’
Ruby gazed with sadness upon her sister. ‘Aren’t you pleased that we’ve found each other again, our Pearl? Don’t you want us to be friends?’
‘I want you to keep your interfering nose out of my affairs, that’s what I want. Where were you when I needed you months, years ago? Living the life of Riley with your rich husband, that’s where. Don’t think you can just swan back into my life, pinch Kit off me and turn my life upside down. It won’t wash.’
‘Pinch Kit? What are you talking about? You and Kit aren’t - are you?’
Realising suddenly what she’d said, that she’d gone too far and Kit would be furious with her, Pearl attempted to backtrack. ‘Well, no, n-not in that way. But he was my friend, and now he’s yours. He’s dropped me completely.’
Ruby reached out and gave her sister a comforting hug, chuckling softly as she did so. ‘What nonsense you do talk. Your obsession over friends always wanting to leave you has to stop, Pearl. Believe me, it is
possible for a person to share friends. Oh, Pearl love, you’ve had a hard time. It’s going to get better from now on, really it is. Just give us a chance. Why don’t we go and have an ice cream in Kendal Milnes, eh?’
But even this treat didn’t mollify Pearl in any way. She kept on and on about how she missed her friends in Rochdale, how she had a little room there, and money of her own to spend.
‘Well, if that’s what’s troubling you, you have your own room at Quay Street, and you can earn some brass helping on the barges. There’s enough work for two of us there.’
‘Swabbing decks in the bleedin’ cold? Not on your nelly.’ They argued all the way back down Deansgate, all through the dinner they ate standing at the counter of a tripe stall at Campfield Market, and were still squabbling when they arrived back at Quay Street with no purchase to show for their morning’s effort. Pearl had disliked everything Ruby had wanted her to buy, and vice versa. They had disagreed on everything and achieved nothing.
Back in the house, Pearl snatched up the carpet bag she’d brought with her for the much hoped for escape to Canada and made to leave without even pausing to take off her hat and coat or have the pot of tea Ruby was offering. ‘No, thanks, I’m off back where I belong. I’d a nice comfy little number going for me there.’
Ruby felt as if her heart were breaking. ‘Oh, Pearl, I’d so hoped we’d get on better, now that we’re all grown up and have been apart for so long. Which pub is it? How will I know where to find you?’
‘Don’t you fret. I’ll pop over to see you from time to time, seeing as how I know where you live now.’ She paused at the door to issue her final shot. ‘It’s too late to try to play mother or even big sister to me now, Ruby. You should’ve taken better care of us years ago. We might never have lost our Billy then, if you had.’
After she’d gone, Ruby sank to her knees and wept, for surely Pearl was right.
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