The Gambling Man

by Catherine Cookson

  Since the first national union of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers had been founded in 1851, in every town in the country where skilled workers were employed trade unions had sprung up, to the fear and consternation of the middle classes who looked upon them as a network of secret societies, whose sole purpose was to intimidate honest citizens, plot to confiscate their property, cause explosions and mob violence and bring the country to total revolution if they were allowed to get the upper hand.

  The County of Durham was a hotbed of such people. They agitated in mines, in steel works, in shipbuilding yards, in factories, and it was even whispered they tried to inveigle young women into their ranks; and not only those, let it be understood, from the common herd, but women of education and property.

  Such a one who was suspect in South Shields was Miss Charlotte Kean. She wasn’t accused openly of supporting trade unions because then that would be ridiculous, for she not only held shares in some quite big concerns but owned outright a number of small ones. No, they weren’t accusing her of giving her sympathy to the quarter that would eventually precipitate her ruin through business, but what they did say was, she pushed her nose into too many cultural activities in the town, activities that had hitherto been inaugurated and worked mainly by gentlemen, such as the Public Library that had been opened four years previously.

  This grand building could boast its eight thousand two hundred volumes only because of generous donations from men like the Stephensons, and Mr Williamson, and Mr Moore. What was more, the library had grown out of the Mechanics’ Institute and the Working Men’s Club, and this joint establishment had its origins in the Literary, Mechanical and Scientific Institution which was one of the earliest mechanics’ institutions in the kingdom, having come into being in the November of 1825.

  And who had created such places of learning? Men, gentlemen of the town, not women, or even ladies. Why the efforts of the gentlemen of the town had made The Working Men’s Club and Institution so popular that in 1865 they’d had to seek new premises yet once again, premises large enough to contain now not only a newsroom and library but two classrooms and a conversation and smoking room, besides rooms for bagatelle, chess and draughts, and, progress and modernity being their aim, a large space was set off in the yard for the game of quoits.

  For such progress men, and men only, could be given the credit. But now there were people like Charlotte Kean pushing their way into committees und advocating, of all things, that the library should be open seven days a week. Did you ever hear of such a suggestion that the Lord’s Day should be so desecrated! She had been quoted as saying, if the wine and gin shops can remain open on a Sunday why not a reading room? One gentleman had been applauded for replying that God’s house should be the reading room for a Sunday.

  Then there was the matter of education. She would have made a ruling that no fee be charged for schooling and that a poor child should have admission to a high-class teaching establishment merely on his proven intelligence.

  Some gentlemen of the town were amused by Miss Kean’s attitude and said, Well, at least credit should be given her for having the mentality of a man. However, the majority saw her as a potential danger both to their domestic and business power. To light a fire you needed tinder, and she was the equivalent to a modern matchstick. Look how she was flaunting all female decorum by parading that upstart of a rent collector around the county. Not only had she made him into her manager but she took him everywhere as her personal escort. She was making a name for herself and not one to be proud of. By, if her father had still been alive it would never have happened. He had made a mistake by allowing her to become involved with the business in the first place, because she had developed what was commonly termed a business head. She was remarkable in that way. But they didn’t like remarkable women, neither those who were against her nor those who were for her. No, they didn’t hold with remarkable women. This was a man’s town, a seafaring town; women had their place in it, and they would be honoured as long as they kept their place; but they wanted no remarkable women, at least not the kind who tended to match them in the world of commerce.

  Her manager, too, had his reservations about his employer, and the things she got up to. Yet he granted, and not grudgingly, that she was a remarkable woman. Odd in some ways, but nevertheless remarkable.

  A year had passed since the news of Janie’s death and the old saying of time being a great healer had proved itself true yet once again, for Rory, over the past months, had come up out of despair and settled on a plane of not ordinary but, what was for him, extraordinary living.

  Though Janie still remained in his heart as a memory the ache for her was less. Even in the night when he felt the miss of her he no longer experienced the body-searing agony and the longing for her presence.

  Two things had helped towards his easement. The first was the combination of Jimmy and the yard, and the second—or should he have placed her first?—was Charlotte Kean.

  When, six months ago, he had taken up the position as her manager she had raised his wage—salary she called it now—to three pounds a week. It was incredible. Never in his life had he dreamed of ever being able to earn three pounds a week. To get that much and ten times more by gambling, oh yes, he had dreamed of that, but never as an earned wage. And did he earn it? Was the work he was doing worth three pounds a week, going to the town office in the morning, then around ten o’clock up to the house and the office there, he at one side of the table, she at the other?

  ‘What would you advise in a case like this, Mr Connor?’

  The first time she had pushed a letter across the table towards him he had stared at her blankly before reading it. It was from her solicitor advising her that a certain new chemical company was about to float its shares, and suggesting that she would do well to consider buying.

  Utterly out of his depths Rory had continued to stare at her, for he sensed in that moment that a great deal depended on how he answered her. And so, holding her gaze, he said, ‘I can’t advise you for I know nothin’ whatever about such matters;’ but had then added, ‘as yet.’

  She hadn’t lowered her eyes when she replied, ‘Then you must learn . . . that is if you want to learn. Do you, Mr Connor?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, I want to learn all right.’

  ‘Well, that’s settled,’ she had said. ‘We know now where we stand, don’t we?’ And then she had smiled at him, after which she had rung the bell, and when Jessie opened the door she had said, ‘We’ll have some refreshment now, Jessie.’

  And that was the pattern he followed on the days he didn’t go to Hexham or Gateshead or over the water to Wallsend to cast an eye over her interests, until two months ago, when the pattern had changed and she began to accompany him.

  Journeying by train, they would sit side by side in the first-class carriage. He helped her in and out of cabs, he opened doors for her, he obeyed her commands in all ways, except that he would refuse her invitation to stay for a meal after he had delivered the takings of an evening, or when they had returned from one of their supervising trips. The reason he gave was a truthful one, his brother expected him, he was alone.

  When he first gave her this reason she looked at him with a sideward glance and asked, ‘How old is your brother?’

  ‘Coming up twenty.’

  ‘Twenty! And he needs your protection at nights?’

  And he answered flatly and stiffly, ‘Yes, he does. Only last week a boat he had started to build was smashed up to bits, and it could be him next.’

  ‘Oh!’ She showed interest. Did you inform the police?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you any idea who did it, and why?’

  ‘Yes, both; I know who did it, and why. There’s a family on the river who run the wherries, three brothers called Pittie . . .’

  ‘Ah! Ah! the Pitties.’ She had nodded her head.

  ‘You’ve heard of them?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard the name before. And I
also know of some of their activities.’

  ‘Well, you know what they’re like then.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve a pretty good idea. And—’ she had nodded and added, ‘I can see the reason why you must be with your brother at night. But you, too, must be careful. What they’ve done once they can do again.’

  His head had jerked in her direction as he asked, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, they could break up another boat.’

  ‘Oh. Oh yes; yes they could.’

  So he had stayed at home every night, including Saturdays, up till recently when, the urge rearing once more, he had joined a game, not on the waterfront, nor in the town, but away on the outskirts in Boldon.

  It was odd how he had come to be reintroduced to the Boldon house for he had forgotten he had ever played there. He was in the train going to Gateshead when a ‘find the lady’ trickster took him for a mug. He had followed him into the compartment at Shields, then got on talking with a supposedly complete stranger who boarded the train at Tyne Dock, whom he very convincingly inveigled into ‘finding the lady,’ and, of course, let him win, all the while making a great fuss about his own bad luck, before turning to Rory and saying, ‘What about you, sir?’ It was then that Rory had turned a scornful glance on the man and replied, ‘Don’t come it with me. That dodge is as old as me whiskers.’

  For a moment he had thought the pair of them were going to set about him. Then the one who had supposedly just won peered at him and said, ‘Why I know you, I’ve played in with you. Didn’t you use to go up to Telfords’ in Boldon?’

  Yes, he had played in the Telfords’ wash-house, and in their kitchen, and once up in the roof lying on his belly.

  From that meeting the urge had come on him again, not that it had ever really left him. But he had played no games, even for monkey nuts since Janie had gone.

  So he had got in touch with the Telfords again and he went to Boldon on a Saturday night, where it could be simply Black Jack or pitch and toss. Sometimes the Telford men went farther afield to a barn for a cock fight, but he himself would always cry off this. He didn’t mind a bit of rabbit coursing but he didn’t like to see the fowls, especially the bantams, being torn to shreds with steel spurs. To his mind it wasn’t sporting.

  His winnings rarely went beyond five pounds, but neither did his losses. It didn’t matter so much now about the stake as long as he could sit down to a game with men who were serious about it.

  But now, at this present time, he was also vitally aware that he was playing in another kind of game, and this game worried him.

  He looked back to the particular Saturday morning when, having told her he was married, her reaction had made him jump to conclusions which caused him to chastise himself for being a big-headed fool. But he chastised himself no longer.

  He saw the situation he was in now as the biggest gamble of his life. There were two players only at this table and inevitably one would have to show his hand. Well, it wouldn’t, it couldn’t be him, it could never be him for more reasons than one. Him marry Charlotte Kean, a woman years older than himself and looking, as she did, as shapeless as a clothes prop, and with a face as plain as the dock wall! True, she had a nice voice . . . and a mind. Oh aye, she had a mind all right. And she was good company. Yes, of late he had certainly been discovering that. She could talk about all kinds of things, and he had realized that by listening to her he too could learn. She could make a very good friend; yet even so there could be no such thing between him and her for two reasons: on his part, you didn’t, in his class, make friends with a woman, oh no, unless you wanted one thing from her: on her part, it wasn’t a friend she wanted, it was a man, a husband.

  Oh, he knew where things were leading. And he wouldn’t hoodwink himself, he was tempted all right. Oh aye, he was both tempted and flattered. At nights he would lie thinking of what it would mean to live in Birchingham House in the select end of Westoe and to be in control of all those properties and businesses, all that money. My God! just to think of it. And he would be in control, wouldn’t he? What was the wife’s was the husband’s surely. And there she was, willing, more than willing, to let him take control, him, Rory Connor, once rent collector from No. 2 The Cottages, Simonside. It was fantastic, unbelievable.

  And them up in the kitchen, what would they say if he took this step? Lord! the place wouldn’t hold them. No, he was wrong there. It wouldn’t affect Ruth. As for her, his mother, after one look at Charlotte Kean she would be more than likely to say, ‘My God! everything must be paid for.’ She had a way with her tongue of stating plain facts. It would be his da who would brag. Every man in his shop would know, and it would be talked of in every pub in Jarrow from the church bank to the far end of Ellison Street.

  But what would Bill Waggett say?

  Ah, what the hell did it matter! It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. Anyway, he was all right as he was. Jimmy wasn’t doing so bad; he’d do better if it wasn’t for them blasted Pitties. By, he’d get his own back on them if it was the last thing he did in life. Hardly a day passed but that he didn’t think of them, when he would grab at this or that idea to get even with them. And he would, he would. He’d get a lead one day, and by God, when he did, let them look out! . . . He could have a lead now, right away. With money you had power, and it needed power to potch the Pitties. All he had to do was to say, ‘Thank you kindly, Miss Kean, I’ll be your man,’ and he was home, safe home from the stormy sea, with chests full to the top.

  But what would he really say? He knew what he’d say. ‘I’m sorry, miss, but it wouldn’t work.’

  And, strangely, he realized that when he should say the latter he would be sorry, for, banter as he would, and did, about her in his mind there was a part of him that was sorry for her, and it had been growing of late. He pitied her lonely state, and he understood it because of the loneliness within himself. But although her kind of loneliness had gone on for years and she was weary of it, she was not yet resigned to it. That was why she had set her sights on him.

  But why him? People of her station usually classed the likes of him as muck beneath their feet. And what was more, just think how she’d be talked about if anything should come of it. Lord! any link up with him would set the town on fire.

  He was already vaguely aware that sly looks were being cast in their direction. When they were last in Durham to look over some property along the river bank they had gone to an inn to eat. She had chosen it, she said, because she thought he would like it; it was a man’s place, oak-trestle tables, hefty beams, meat pudding and ale. And he would have liked it if it hadn’t been in Durham . . . the gaol was in Durham.

  Well, he had done what he could in that direction. He had tried to make reparation; he had given Jimmy ten pounds and sent him up to visit John George and to ask him if he would come and see him when he came out. But Jimmy had returned with the ten pounds; John George was already out and they couldn’t tell him where he had gone. For days afterwards he had expected a visit from him, but John George hadn’t come. So he told himself that the business was closed; he had done his best. It was only in his recurring nightmare, when he would relive the awakening to Janie shouting at him, did he realize that his best hadn’t been good enough and that John George would be with him like an unhealed wound until the end of his days.

  But on that day in the inn in Durham, two Shields’ men—gentlemen—had come to their table to speak to Charlotte Kean, and she had introduced him to them. They were a Mr Allington and a Mr Spencer. He knew of both of them. Allington was a solicitor, and Spencer owned a number of small grocery shops. He had started with one about fifteen years ago, and now they had spread into Jarrow and beyond.

  After the first acknowledgment, they hadn’t addressed him again until they were bidding her good-bye, and then they had merely inclined their heads towards him. Oh, he knew where he stood with the gentlemen of the town. He was an upstart rent man.

  Then came
the day when Charlotte Kean showed her hand and brought an abrupt end to the game by laying her cards face up on the table.

  They had returned from Newcastle where she had been to see, of all things, an iron foundry with a view to taking a part share in it. The journey had been taken against the advice of her solicitor. The Tyneside foundries, he had said, were unable to produce iron as cheaply as they once had done; the railways had killed the iron trade in this part of the country. But she had explained, and to Rory himself, that she could not follow her solicitor’s reasoning, for, as she saw it, people would always want iron stoves, kitchen grates, fenders, and railings of all kinds, from those that enclosed parks to small private gates; and then there were bedsteads and safes and such-like. She went on to say she wasn’t thinking of competing with Palmer’s and making ships but merely of supplying household requisites. What did he think?

  He had answered her bluntly, as always, for he had learned that she preferred the truth, at least in most things. ‘I think that I agree with Mr Hardy; he knows what he’s talking about.’

  ‘And you think I don’t?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that you know very much about the iron trade.’

  ‘You are aware that I read a great deal?’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of that, but as I understand it it takes more than reading to get an insight into such trades; the workings of them go deeper than books.’

  ‘The workings might, but I would leave the workings to managers and men, of course.’

  He shrugged his shoulders slightly and smiled as he said, ‘Well, I won’t say you know best, but what I will say is, you’ll do what you want in the long run.’

  That he could speak to her in this fashion was evidence of how far they had travelled in their association over the past year. He now rarely used the term miss, and although from time to time she would call him Mr Connor, it was usually done when in the presence of servants; at other times she addressed him without using his name at all.