She waited a full three minutes before her late mistress made her appearance.
Jane Ratcliffe closed the lounge door carefully behind her; then, coming slowly forward, she said unsmilingly, ‘Good afternoon, Emily.’
Emily did not return the greeting but said, ‘Do you know why I’m here…?’ She had almost said ma’am but checked herself in time.
‘No, Emily, I don’t know why you’re here.’
‘I’ve come for an apology.’
‘For what?’
‘You heard, for an apology.’
‘Come—come into the morning room, please.’
‘No, I’m not goin’ into any morning room, missis; what I’ve got to say I’ll say here, where there’s ears cocked at the doors, an’ they’ll be my witnesses…Is he in?’
‘If you’re referring to the master, no, he’s not, Emily.’ Jane Ratcliffe’s voice was trembling.
‘That’s a pity. That is a pity, because it’s him I want to see more than you; but you can pass on what I’ve got to say. I suppose you know about my lad being up afore the bench this mornin’. He was up there because he was defending your daughter—for the second time, mind—against a man who was pestering her, and what did he get? He gets fined one hundred pounds an’ costs. And, you know, he was lucky to just get fined. If it hadn’t been for Van phonin’ next door yesterday an’ tellin’ Madam Councillor, Mrs Irene Brett, that she would stand up in court this mornin’ and yell the truth at her if she dared send my Angus along the line, he would have been along the line at this minute.’
‘Emily! Emily, please, come into the morning room.’
‘I’m not goin’ into any mornin’ room; you can save your breath. And I haven’t finished yet. You know what Van was goin’ to shout at Mrs Brett, do you?’ She bent her body almost double. ‘She was goin’ to shout out the name of the man who gave her the bairn, an’ the name was Mr Brett. Your esteemed neighbour…Mr Brett! That’s who gave her the bairn. And his wife knew it, she knew it; an’ she knew it was because of that he committed suicide…Aye,’ her voice dropped a tone lower as she looked at Jane Ratcliffe supporting herself by the banister. ‘I thought you would need some support. But you didn’t think me or me lad needed any support, did you? You made him out to be the scum of the earth. He was accused of takin’ Van down because he had been seen talkin’ to her once or twice, and all the time under your very noses a man old enough to be her grandfather was having his fun with her; an’ you knew nowt about it. Of course, of course.’ Her voice changed. ‘You could trust people like Mr Brett; he was a gentleman. The same goes for Mr Brian Cornell, another gentleman. He can say what he likes and gets off with it, but because my lad had neither money nor position he didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Will you please go, Emily!’ Jane Ratcliffe’s voice had a faraway sound to it. She was standing stiffly upright now staring straight ahead, and Emily said, ‘Aye, I’ll go when I say this. My Angus is a bloody fool, that’s what he is, for, knowin’ that he was playing into your hands, he goes an’ marries her. He marries her out of sympathy ’cos he finds her living in a filthy dump in Newcastle. Do you know Batterby Bay Road? No. I don’t suppose you do. But your husband will. Oh, aye, there’s not a man in this county who doesn’t know of Batterby Bay Road. It’s where the prostitutes hang out, an’ that’s where he found her. And he brought her from there an’ married her, and he hadn’t,’ she paused, ‘he hadn’t given her the bairn…’
The lounge door was pulled sharply open at this stage and it checked Emily’s spate, and she watched Susan Ratcliffe, or Braintree as she now was, going quickly towards her mother, saying, ‘Come along, dear. Come along.’
As Susan put her arms round her mother she turned and looked at Emily and said, ‘I think you’d better go. You’ve had your say, now get out.’
The young man standing in the doorway didn’t speak, but he looked at Emily for a full minute and she at him before she said, ‘Aye, I’ll go. But I haven’t finished me say yet; this town’s goin’ to hear the truth. Your lot’s treated my lad as if he was a Geordie lout, an’ there’s not one of you fit to wipe his boots. Well, now we’ll see what the town thinks and how the so-called gentleman from next door’ll stand up against Angus Cotton.’
There were two reactions to Emily’s outburst. The one in Bower Place was that Jonathan Ratcliffe refused to listen to his wife’s pleas to move. Angus Cotton wasn’t putting him on the run. All right, let the town know, let them talk, but he wasn’t going to be frightened out of his home by that young slob.
He was still fighting Angus Cotton, more so now than ever, because Angus Cotton had got the better of him. He was in the right and the town would be laughing. Oh yes, behind their hands they would be laughing. Young Cotton had taken the blame of giving Ratcliffe’s daughter a child just so that he could marry her and get his foot in.
Jonathan Ratcliffe was still convinced that Angus Cotton’s motive in marrying Vanessa was to inveigle himself into her family’s good books.
The other reaction took place in the kitchen in No. 24 between Emily and Angus. He had been utterly astounded when she told him where she had been. For a moment he could say nothing, then his wrath poured over her. She was a bloody silly old cow, an interfering, stupid old swine. Why the hell couldn’t she mind her own business! Hadn’t there been enough talk and tittle-tattle without her going stirring things up? All right, all right, he knew he had been wrongly accused, nobody knew better, but that was his business.
‘Thanks!’ Emily screamed. ‘Thanks! That’s what I get. You’re a bloody ungrateful sod. Your name’s been mud in this place for months now, aye, even round the doors. They said you had a nerve, and it was a dirty trick to take a young lass down like that an’ her still at school, and a convent into the bargain. Virgin-huntin’ in the right place, they said. Taking advantage of his mother being up there, they said. Well then, I was determined they weren’t goin’ to say that no longer; they were going to know the truth an’ this is what I get.’
‘You haven’t got half of it yet. For two pins I’d slap yer mouth for you.’
‘Begod you would!’ She thrust her hand back and grabbed up a large sauce bottle from the dresser; but at this moment Vanessa came out of the room. She stood in the doorway and, her voice louder than it had ever been raised in this house or anywhere before, she cried, ‘Stop it! Stop it! I’m sick of you, do you hear, the both of you. I’m sick of your shouting and fighting. You’re like wild animals, the pair of you. That’s all you are, wild animals.’
Perhaps it was surprise that silenced them, for they both turned towards her and made no reply; they just looked at her. Her hair was tangled as if she had been running her hands through it; her clothes looked dishevelled as if she had been lying in them; her face was bloated with crying; she looked tired and weary, but above all she looked an angry woman. ‘All right!’ she said. ‘I’m the cause of all this, but I’m going to end it, I’m leaving.’ She was looking at Angus directly now, ‘Do you hear me? I’m leaving!’ When he still made no comment she went into the room and banged the door.
There was now exchanged between Emily and Angus a shamefaced look before he went slowly across the kitchen and into the room. With his back to the door he stood for a moment watching her pulling her dresses from the hanging wardrobe in the corner, and when she had put them in the case he approached her and said grimly, ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’
She glanced up at him with a look that was new, because it was defiant. She was looking at him as May might have looked at him when she was on the point of telling him to go to hell.
When he put his hand out and caught hers as she went to close the case, she jerked it away, and he said flatly, ‘You’re not leaving. Make up your mind to that; you’re not leaving.’
‘You can’t stop me. If I don’t go now I’ll go once you leave the house; you can’t keep watch over me all the time.’ She was staring straight into his face, and he held her eyes with an
unblinking stare as he said, ‘You know what I said I’d do to you the other night if ever you left me. Well, you might have thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. If you walk out I’ll drop everything till I find you, and I’ll bring you back. Every time you go off I’ll find you and I’ll haul you back again. I mean it.’
She stepped back from him as she asked, ‘Why? Why do you want to keep me here? Yesterday I thought I knew, but not now, because you were disgusted when I told you the truth. You were, you were disgusted. Just because it was Brett who was the father you were disgusted. You had already accepted the situation because you thought I had been with a boy. Why, I could have been with a boy twenty times, fifty times and nothing could have happened and you wouldn’t have known anything about it, but because this happened with Brett once, just once, your whole attitude towards me changed. It was as if you had suddenly heard that I’d had a baby; or, if you thought it was yours, then found out it was Brett’s, you couldn’t have reacted worse. I—I can’t understand you.’
‘You can’t understand me! That’s rich. But then I can’t understand meself. I don’t know why in hell I bother about you, but I do, so there’s a pair of us who can’t understand me. But you think it’s odd I was disgusted when I heard it was Brett, an’ I was disgusted, that’s the right word; and it wasn’t only because he was an old man, oldish anyway,’ he flung his head upwards, ‘but because, well, I liked him. I’d always liked him, and was fool enough to look up to him, thinking he represented something big, something fine, even great.’ His voice dropped. ‘I looked up to him the same as I looked up to you…’
It was his last words that took all the fight out of her. She turned from him and, going to the little table, sat before it and dropping her head on to her arms began to cry, painful, quiet crying.
He remained where he was, looking at her. The defiant woman was gone, and he saw a young girl again. Once, she said. She had only been with him once. He thought back and tried to remember when Brett had gone abroad. It must have been pretty near when it happened, for it was three months later when he came back, at the time when they were looking for somebody to pin it on. He must have known that there was a chance she might fall and he had scurried away like a frightened rabbit, jumped at the opportunity to get away, because he now recalled that when Mr Cribber went into hospital, Mr Bindley was going to get the chance of going out abroad to fill in. He knew this because he often had a word with him at the Tech, where he did spare teaching at nights, but then Brett had gone instead.
She had been left high and dry by them all: Brett, her own family, and now, it must appear to her, that he was another one of them. Quite suddenly it didn’t matter any longer who had been the father of her bairn; it was a thing that was over and done with. He went to the case and, lifting the lid, took out her dresses, one by one, and put them over his arm. Then going to her, he said, ‘Hang these up.’
She raised her tear-streaked face and looked at him for a moment before, getting to her feet, and saying, quietly, ‘No, no, Angus, it’s not going to be like that. I don’t care what you say, or what you do, I’m…I’m going. I’m not living in sufferance any longer.’
‘Sufferance? What do you mean?’
‘Just what I say. You married me because you were sorry for me. I—I thought you loved me; I imagined that you needed me; but now I know that was all girlish imagination. Another reason why you married me was so that you could cock a snook at my folks. Oh, I know, I know.’ She flapped her hand in front of her face. ‘You’ll deny it, but it’s true. You were letting them see, Father in particular, that you could marry anyone you liked, that you were as good as they were. So you married me, but you’ve never said one endearing word to me in all the months since then. Oh, yes,’ her voice was scornful now, ‘you can kiss me and hug me until I can hardly breathe; you can show me how strong you are, what a man you are; but you’ve never once said you’ve cared for me. I could have been that May woman you used to know.’ The impetus went out of her voice and she ended, ‘You don’t really care for me, Angus, so why do you want to keep me? Just to hold me up and say, “Look what I’ve got; someone from Brampton Hill”?’
He was shaking his head slowly at her, bewilderment showing in every feature of his face, and, his voice humble now, he said low in his throat, ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Van, you’ve got it all wrong. Admittedly I was shaken when I knew it was Brett, but the feeling’s past, it’s over. But about the other, how I feel about you, you’ve got it all wrong. You want fancy words. Well, I’m not up to it. It’s almost impossible for me to express how I feel about you in words, but I thought I was showing it in a thousand and one other ways. If it means anything to you, I live in dread every day of you walking out, and that bit about what I would do if ever you left me, about bringing you back, and even polishing you off, it’s just talk, wind, the big fellow bellowing…Look, if you go out of that door now, Van, I won’t try to stop you. I’ll know you’re going because you can’t stand the set-up or me any longer. And don’t worry, I won’t even ask you to come back, because who in their right senses would want to come back to this?’ He flung one arm wide. ‘Not even an ordinary lass from around the doors would have put up with what you’ve put up with. I know all this, and I’ve tried to tell you I know it, but I’m no hand at expressing meself that way. The only thing I can say now, and I’ve never said it afore, not in so many words is…I love you, that I’ve loved you since you were a nipper, and I’ll go on loving you to the end of me days. That’s not saying, if you leave me I won’t take anybody else. I’m a man, I need somebody, but that isn’t love. It’s you I love, an’ it’s you I want. If you go, you go, but if you stay…well…’
All this time he had been holding her dresses over one arm, and now he went and put them on top of her case again, and when he turned round she was standing near him. But he did not touch her, not even when her hands went up to her face in distress and her fingers pressed so tightly across her mouth that her nose was pushed out of shape did he touch her, not until, her body leaning forward, she drooped her head against his shoulder did his arms go around her. And then his face, falling into her hair at the back of her neck, he muttered, ‘Aw, Van. Van. God, don’t you know how I feel about you?’
Her body began to shake again with her sobbing, and, his own voice thick and broken now, he said, ‘It’s a new start; we’ll go on from here, no more looking back. I love you, love you, love you. Do you hear that? Always have and always will. It goes past lovin’, what I feel for you. I need words now. I adore you, Van. Aye, I do. I adore you. Teach me words, Van. Teach me words so as I can tell you just how much I adore you…But there’s one thing I don’t need fancy words for, an’ it’s this.’ He held her from him and looked deep into her tear-blinded eyes as he ended. ‘I’m going to make you a promise and I’ll carry it through by fair means or foul. I mean to put you back where you belong afore I’m finished. Brampton Hill, or even beyond. Now that’s a solemn promise.’
When the shaking of her body increased with her sobbing he took it as a sign that she was pleased with the prospect. He was quite mistaken.
PART THREE
One
It was a week before Christmas, almost eighteen months from the day Angus had left Afflecks. Two things of import had happened to him and Vanessa since that day. First, and most important, was that Vanessa was going to have another baby, and it was due any time now. The second thing, and hardly of less importance, was that Angus Cotton was now a haulage contractor with his own name on ten lorries, and a respectable bank balance, together with a less respectable but equally important horde of five-pound notes in a cavity under the floorboards.
Angus’s rise in the contracting world had been swift, even taking into account the many men who had made quick piles in this line of business. His success had really started when he thought he was finished altogether. It was on the day Fred Singleton asked him if he would buy his lorry because he was moving—the wife wanted to get back to
her people in Doncaster.
Fred had thrown this bombshell on the very day Angus had secured a sub-contract to clear the rubble from a complete street of demolished houses. He had come by the contract through the help of Andrew Fowler, and it was to him he went to say that he couldn’t go on with it; one man and one lorry couldn’t do the job and he hadn’t any cash at the moment to buy Fred Singleton’s lorry. It was at this point that Andrew Fowler said, ‘Why don’t you strike out on your own? Take a chance, borrow the money. Hire a couple of men and take a chance.’
Where, asked Angus, could he borrow the money without any security behind him?
‘From me,’ Andrew Fowler had answered; ‘at five per cent. I won’t be overcharging you or undercharging you. I’m willing to take a chance if you are, and, as you’ve seen, I can push a lot your way. If you take this chance I think you’ll find it very much worth your while—and mine too.’ He had nodded his head slowly. ‘We can come to an agreement.’
Angus didn’t know then whether Andrew Fowler was a bit of a sharpshooter or not, and even now he didn’t know; but what he did know at this present time was that if he kept going ahead during the next two or three years at the rate he had done these past months he would be set fair for the top. And tonight’s little transaction would undoubtedly help it along.
‘Move over, love,’ he said. He dropped onto his knees on the hearthrug as he spoke; and as Vanessa rose to her feet he didn’t immediately pull the mat back but, putting his arms around her waist, he pressed his face against the bulge of her stomach, and shouted, ‘Hurry up, you in there. Hurry up. Do you hear me?’
Vanessa gave a contented laugh, saying, ‘Angus, don’t. Look, you’ll have me over.’
‘’Bout time too,’ he said; ‘’bout time.’ Then poking her stomach again gently he said in a lowered tone, ‘Get a move on, d’you hear? Somebody else has got claims as well as you, you know.’
The Round Tower Page 30