by Dilly Court
‘I’ll think about it,’ Phoebe said, not wanting to hurt Rose’s feelings by an outright refusal. She did not want to admit that witnessing their happiness would only add to her misery. She did not relish the idea of withering into a vinegar-faced widow with a great void where once she had had a heart. She rose to her feet. ‘I think I should go and check on Teddy. I don’t trust Mrs Wagg to stay sober all evening.’
Rose glanced anxiously at Ned, who was chatting amicably to his future father-in-law. ‘Perhaps we ought to go and leave you to enjoy the party.’
Phoebe bent down to kiss her on the cheek. ‘I’m not really in the mood for all this. You’ll understand that, I’m sure. I’ll slip out and no one will notice. This is Judy’s day and I don’t want to spoil it.’
Ignoring Rose’s protests, Phoebe left the room quietly. She collected her cloak and bonnet and edged her way through the crowded taproom, which was filled with tobacco smoke and the babble of men’s voices, interspersed with shouts of laughter. Outside the night air was bitterly cold and the pavements shone with frost. The waves pounded on the pebbles, sucking them out to sea and then spilling them back on the shore in a thunderous clatter. It was a short walk to the house and Phoebe’s cheeks were tingling as she rattled the doorknocker. Her breath plumed about her head in clouds as she waited for Mrs Wagg to admit her.
The door opened. ‘Phoebe. I was hoping it was you.’
She stood frozen to the spot. She could neither move nor speak. The shock had turned her to stone. He was silhouetted in the doorway. His back was to the light, but she would have known him anywhere.
‘Come inside. You look chilled to the marrow.’
Rogue’s hand was warm and his grip firm as he helped her over the threshold. He released her almost immediately but she could still feel the impression of his fingers on hers. She was struck dumb by the unexpected emotion that threatened to choke her. She held her hand to her breast, struggling to regain her breath. She hoped vaguely that he would put her lack of speech down to exertion or the extreme cold.
Closing the door, he turned to her and for the first time she could see his features clearly. His expression was inscrutable. If there had been a glimmer of a smile in his eyes, or the hint of a welcome, she would have fallen into his arms; but there was nothing. She might as well have been looking into the face of a stranger.
‘Let me take your things. You must come and sit by the fire.’ He was so calm, so polite and so practical. He might have been speaking to an aged aunt. Once again his touch sent shivers down her spine. He was standing so close to her that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek, but he moved away to hang her cloak and bonnet on the hall stand. Without giving her a second glance he walked towards the kitchen, and like an automaton she followed him.
The warmth from the range enveloped her as she entered the room. She looked around expecting to see Mrs Wagg, but they were alone. She found her voice. ‘Where is Mrs Wagg? She was supposed to be looking after Teddy.’
‘The woman was drunk. I sent her home.’ He went to the range. The kettle was boiling and the teapot was at the ready as if he had been disturbed in the process of making tea. Phoebe pulled up a chair and sat down, resting her elbow on the table. Suddenly she wanted to laugh. A hysterical bubble rose in her throat but she swallowed hard. ‘I never thought to see the leader of the Paxman gang doing something as mundane as making tea.’ Even to her own ears her voice sounded high-pitched and strained.
‘There is no gang now. Didn’t Rose tell you that we’d disbanded it some months ago?’
‘She said something about Ned taking up farming.’
Rogue filled the teapot with boiling water and set the kettle back on the hob. ‘You look as though you could do with a hot drink. What possessed you to walk home alone? Why didn’t you get a cab?’ There was an angry edge to his voice that was anything but loverlike.
She raised her chin, meeting his gaze squarely. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I came to wish the bride and groom well.’
‘But you scarcely know them.’
‘That’s not quite true. I’ve met them both on several occasions since Ned and Rose have been walking out.’
‘And do you think that your brother is in love with Rose? Or will he tire of her as he did my mother?’
Rogue stared at her for a moment, as if weighing her words carefully before he responded. ‘Why so bitter, Phoebe? Don’t you believe that a man can change?’
She knew that she had hurt him even though his expression was guarded, and once again she struggled against the impulse to hold him and kiss away the frown that furrowed his forehead. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
He poured the tea, adding milk and a dash of sugar to her cup before handing it to her. It seemed to Phoebe that he was playing for time. She wished that he would fight back. She wanted him to tell her that of course he could change; that he was a different man from the gangster she had known. That he loved her still. Her hand trembled as she took the cup from him and she covered her confusion by sipping the scalding brew. ‘Well,’ she said shakily when he did not answer. ‘Do you think your brother will treat Rose well? Or will he abandon her?’
‘I heard what happened to Gino,’ he said slowly. ‘And that you lost your child. I’m truly sorry.’
She could not look him in the face. ‘It’s in the past. I have to move on.’
‘What will you do now? Will you return to London in the spring?’
The sound of the wedding party arriving home saved her from replying. She rose hastily to her feet, setting the cup down on the table. ‘I must check on Teddy. They’ll wake him up if they don’t stop that noise.’ She did not look back as she hurried from the room. She could not bear to be so close to him and yet feel that they were a hundred miles apart. It seemed a cruel irony that he had chosen to visit the house in the full knowledge that she would be present, but without any intention of making his peace with her. She had sensed his inner anger and it hurt more than she could bear.
She had to push past the revellers as they took off their outer garments. Rose was the only one who noticed her and she followed her to the foot of the stairs. ‘What’s the matter, Phoebe? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Perhaps I have,’ Phoebe said tersely. ‘I’m going to make sure that all the noise hasn’t woken Teddy.’ She picked up her skirts and ran upstairs to her room. Teddy was sleeping peacefully and she lay down on her bed, still fully dressed. If she had thought her heart was broken when she parted from Rogue on her wedding day, she realised that it had merely been badly bruised. Now she could feel a physical pain and she was certain that if anyone could look inside her body they would see nothing but tiny shards where once there had been a beating heart. He was unforgiving. It was quite obvious that he felt nothing for her, except perhaps disdain for a woman who thought that she had done everything for the best but had only succeeded in wrecking the lives of those she was supposed to love most.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TEDDY WHIMPERED IN his sleep and she leapt up, rushing over to his cot to make sure that he had not kicked off his coverlet. She tucked it up around his chin, gently stroking his tumbled curls back from his forehead. ‘I’ve been a selfish woman, Teddy,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not the best person to bring you up. I love you with all my heart, little man, but I know now that you belong with Ned and Rose. I’ll always be there for you, but I’m only your sister. You need a mother and a father to raise you to be a good and honest man.’ She dropped a kiss on his forehead and walked slowly back to her own bed.
Next morning she discovered that Ned and Rogue had returned to London on the first train out of Brighton station. Judy and Marcus left later that day for a short wedding trip to Eastbourne, where Marcus was combining business with pleasure as he negotiated a contract with a touring repertory company. Madame Galina and Herbert went off to sign the lease on their new premises and Gussie hastened to her place of employment to hand in h
er notice. Fred was suffering from a hangover but had loaded his ladder onto a handcart and was preparing to go out on his round. Rose scolded him and told him that it would be his own fault if he fell off and broke his neck. He answered with a stoic shrug of his shoulders and lit a cigarette which he held between his teeth as he staggered off down the road. Left alone with Rose and Teddy, Phoebe was about to put on her cloak and bonnet and take him for a walk along the promenade, but Rose waylaid her. ‘What was all that about last night? Why did you run away?’
‘I went to bed because I was tired.’
Rose’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘No. You had a row with Rogue and you went off like a petulant schoolgirl instead of staying and making things right with him.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Phoebe was about to walk away but Rose caught her by the sleeve.
‘Don’t try and fob me off with that nonsense. I know you too well. You’re still in love with him, so why don’t you admit it?’
‘He made it quite clear that he despises me. I thought I was doing the right thing when I married Gino, but everything went wrong. I don’t blame him for hating me. I hate myself for what I did.’
‘That’s utter nonsense. Of course he doesn’t hate you. If he felt like that about you he wouldn’t have come all the way from London especially to see you.’
‘He came to wish Judy and Marcus well. He told me so himself.’
‘And you believed him.’ Rose threw up her hands. ‘You are a stupid pair of idiots. You deserve each other.’
Phoebe shook her head. Suddenly she was too tired even to think. ‘I’m going home to Saffron Hill, Rose. I’ll get the house ready for my grandparents. They’ll be returning in a month or so, and I need to find new clients. I can’t expect them to support me for the rest of my life.’
‘If you do that you’re just running away again. You’re not facing up to the truth, Phoebe.’
‘I don’t know what that is any more. All I know is that I can’t stay here, and I must be practical.’
‘And what about Teddy? Surely you aren’t going to drag him back to that awful place?’
Phoebe laid her hand on Rose’s arm. ‘No. I’ve realised that I was wrong there too. Teddy belongs with his father, and you’ll make him a wonderful stepmother. You’ll have babies and he’ll be part of a proper family.’
Rose’s eyes brimmed with tears and she flung her arms around Phoebe’s neck. ‘That’s wonderful. You won’t regret your decision. I’ll love him and take great care of him.’
Phoebe extracted herself from Rose’s affectionate hug. ‘I know you will, and I’ll be a loving big sister. It will be best for everyone.’
‘And you’re still determined to return to London?’
‘Yes, but I want you to promise that you won’t tell Rogue. It’s better for both of us if we don’t see each other again. He was so angry with me, Rose. I can’t begin to tell you how much that hurt. I’m not going through that again, ever.’
A week later, amidst tears and fond farewells, Phoebe left Brighton and returned to London. It was the middle of March and winter was just losing its icy grip on the city. She spent her time cleaning the house in Saffron Hill and making it ready to receive her family when they returned from Stresa. She put cards in shop windows advertising the fact that she was ready to recommence séances and available for telling fortunes. She put a small advertisement in The Times in an attempt to encourage a more upper class clientele to brave the squalor of the East End, which some of them might consider an adventure akin to a safari where they could view wild species in their natural habitat. She had few takers, but she had the comfort of knowing that she had tried. Some of her old clients began to trickle back, and just as her money from Gino ran out she began to earn enough to keep herself in food and candles. She had nothing left to spend on coal or kindling, but she managed to combat the chill in the old house by putting on extra layers of clothes. She had written to her grandparents and informed them of her decision to return to London, and she had explained her reasons for leaving Teddy in Brighton. Fond as they were of the little boy, she knew that they would respect her wishes that he be raised by his father. They might even forgive Ned Paxman now that he was a reformed character and intent on setting up home with Rose and his son. There would be no question of vendetta.
She settled down to await their return and soon fell into a daily routine of getting up early and going out to market before the crowds had time to congregate. She avoided going to places where she might come across Rogue, although she occasionally gave way to temptation and paid a visit to Wilderness Row, convincing herself that it was simply to discover whether or not he was still in London. Without his gang to organise she could not imagine how he would keep himself occupied or how he would earn his living. She wondered if he had opted to join his brother in Kent and become a gentleman farmer. Somehow she did not see him in that particular role. She told herself that she did not care what happened to him and that it did not matter what he thought of her, but in her heart she knew she was lying. She did care very much. She hated the idea that he had a bad opinion of her, if he even thought of her at all.
The weeks passed and Phoebe received a letter from Ivy telling her that the family would be returning at the beginning of May, although she and Nenzo would remain in Stresa until after the birth of their baby. Rose and Ned were to be married at the end of April and Phoebe had promised faithfully to return to Brighton to attend their wedding. She had trimmed an old bonnet and altered one of her gowns so that it fitted her slender frame. Although she knew she was painfully thin, she had little or no appetite, but it did not seem to matter. Nothing much mattered now. She struggled through each day, a mere shadow of her former self. Her one pleasure was to walk to Charterhouse gardens and sit on a bench beneath the trees as they burst into leaf. Golden daffodils waved their trumpets in the breeze and she could almost imagine she was back in the country. She could see the houses in Wilderness Row clearly from her vantage point, and although she told herself she had just come to this green oasis in the city for a breath of fresh air, she knew that she was deceiving herself. Her reason for coming was simple: she hoped to catch a glimpse of Rogue Paxman. She had no intention of making herself known to him, but she needed to know that he was alive and well. Such information would make it easier for her to sleep at night, and put a stop to the nightmares in which she saw him walking out with a beautiful woman on his arm, or even worse confined in a small, dark prison cell living on bread and water.
She promised herself that this would be her last such visit to the gardens. She was due to travel to Brighton next day, and if Rogue was there, as he almost certainly would be, she would behave impeccably. No one would guess that beneath her serene exterior there was a maelstrom of emotion that threatened to choke the life from her.
She put aside her black mourning clothes and dressed in the gown that she intended to wear to the wedding. She put on the bonnet that she had renovated with such care and tied the blue ribbon at a jaunty angle. If, by chance, she should happen to meet Rogue, she did not want to look like a downtrodden drab. She walked to the park and took her usual seat, shooing away a few importunate pigeons. She sat for an hour or perhaps more; she had lost track of time. The sun had been shining but it disappeared suddenly behind a bank of clouds and it began to rain. She rose hastily and hurried towards a large plane tree for shelter, but before she reached it her attention was drawn to a commotion outside Rogue’s house. She stopped, disregarding the rain that soaked through her thin shawl and dripped off the brim of her straw bonnet. A small noisy crowd had gathered and she could hear a man’s voice raised in anger. Two police constables were in the middle of the fracas and one of them climbed the steps to knock on the door, which was opened almost immediately. Phoebe’s hand flew to her mouth as she saw Rogue standing on the threshold. She moved closer, leaving the gardens and stopping on the opposite side of the street where she could get a better view of the ho
use.
She recognised the man who was causing the disturbance, and the hairs prickled on the back of her neck. Snape was shouting accusations and a torrent of abuse aimed at Rogue, who seemed to be in imminent danger of arrest. She ran blindly across the road, narrowly avoiding being trampled by a drayman’s horse.
‘Stop,’ she cried, as one of the constables laid his hand on Rogue’s arm. ‘Stop. You don’t know what you’re doing. Snape is a liar.’
There was a moment of silence as the crowd parted to let her through, and Snape stared at her with his eyes bulging and a vein throbbing at his temple. He shook his fist at her. ‘Don’t listen to that trollop. She’s his woman and she’ll say anything to protect her lover.’
Before Phoebe had a chance to retaliate, Rogue had taken the steps in one great leap and grasped Snape by the throat, shaking him like a terrier with a rat. ‘You lying little worm,’ he hissed. ‘You’ll take back that slur on a lady’s reputation.’
‘A lady.’ Snape spat the word in his face. ‘She’s no lady. Her ma was a whore and she’s one of a kind.’ He turned purple as Rogue’s fingers closed around his windpipe. ‘Stop him, constable. He’s trying to kill me.’
The more senior of the two police officers moved swiftly to tap Rogue on the shoulder. ‘It’s all right, guv. We’ll take it from here.’
Phoebe leaned against the area railings for support as her knees buckled. She had thought that Rogue was about to be arrested, but it seemed that she had made a terrible mistake. It was Snape whom the police were after and not Rogue. She could tell by the amused glances of the passers-by that she had made a complete fool of herself, and she wished that the ground would open up and swallow her.
‘All right, ladies and gents,’ the younger constable said, opening his arms and shooing the crowd away. ‘The show’s over.’ He turned to Rogue, tipping his helmet. ‘Sorry to have bothered you, sir. This chap’s well known to us. He’ll be up before the beak in the morning.’
