The Gambling Man

by Catherine Cookson

  Whatever her servants thought of the situation they treated their mistress’s new manager with respect, even deference, which at one time would have amused him. At one time, too, such subservient attitudes would have given him material for mimicry and a big joke in the kitchen; in fact, his association with Miss Charlotte Kean would have been one big joke. At one time, but not now. Anyway, Sundays were different now. He did not always visit the cottage on a Sunday, he went up only on Jimmy’s urging. He did not ask himself why he had turned against the Sunday gatherings, but he knew that the general opinion was he had become too big for his boots. And that could very well be near the truth, for he admitted to himself that the more he saw of the Westoe side of life the less he liked that in which he had been brought up.

  He had, on this day, gone through a mental battle which left him thinking he didn’t know which end of him was up. It was the anniversary of Janie’s death, and there was no fierce ache left in him, and he felt there should be. He should, in some way, have held a sort of memorial service, at least within himself, but what had he done? Gone up to Newcastle, walked blithely by his employees side as she paraded around a foundry, sat with her at a meal, which she called lunch, at the Royal Exchange Hotel; then had waited like a docile husband while she went shopping in Bainbridge’s. He had sauntered with her through the Haymarket, where they had stopped and examined almost every article in the ironmongery store. Then she had said they would go to the Assembly Rooms and he wondered what her object was, until, standing outside, she looked at the building and said almost sadly, ‘My mother once danced in there. She often told me about it. It was the highlight of her life; she was taken there by a gentleman—and they danced the whole evening through.’

  When she had turned her face towards him he had ended for her, flippantly, ‘And they married and lived happy ever after.’

  ‘No, she married my father.’

  What could he make of that? Her last call was at Mawson & Swan’s in Grey Street, where she purchased a number of books.

  By the time they reached the railway station he likened himself to a donkey, he was so loaded down under parcels, and he thanked God he wasn’t likely to come across anyone he knew. When they arrived at Shields she hired a cab, and they drove through the drizzling rain to the house, and into warmth and comfort and elegance.

  Elegance was another new word he had of late added to his vocabulary; it was the only word to describe this house, its furniture and the comforts of it.

  ‘Ah, isn’t it nice to be home?’ She had returned from upstairs, where she had evidendy combed her hair and applied some talcum powder to her face for her chin had the same appearance as Ruth’s had when she wiped it with a floured hand.

  ‘It’s an awful night; you must have something before you go, something to eat that is. Did Mr Taylor bring the takings?’

  ‘Yes; I’ve checked them, they’re all right.’

  This was a new departure; he no longer went to the office to collect the rents. Mr Taylor had been promoted and so came each evening to the house.

  On the days she did not send him off on tours of inspection he would receive the money from the old man, count it, then check the books, and never did he hand them back to him but he saw himself as he was a year ago, a younger edition of this man. That was the only difference, a younger edition; the old man’s insecurity did not make his own position in comparison appear strong, quite the reverse.

  Only a week ago he had felt he could play his hand for a good while yet, but today, the anniversary of Janie’s death, he had a feeling in his bones that soon all the cards would be laid face up, and as always they would show a winner and a loser; there could never be two winners in any game . . .

  Why not?

  Oh my God! He’d been through it all before, hadn’t he, night after night? He was what he was, that was why not.

  Below his outer covering, his jaunty aggressive air, the look that gave nothing away while at the same time suggesting that what it had to hide was of value, behind all this, only he himself knew the frailties of his character. Yet, in this particular case, he wasn’t going to be weak enough—or did he mean strong enough?—to cheat at this game and let her be the winner.

  And again he told himself he had to stop hoodwinking himself on this point too, because it wasn’t really the moral issue that would prevent him from letting her win, but the fact that he didn’t think he was up to paying the stake. It was too high. Yet he liked her. Oh aye, it was very odd to admit, but he liked her. He liked being with her; she was good company, except at those times when she made him feel so small that he imagined she could see him crawling around her feet. Once or twice she had done this when he had dared to contradict her on some point with regard to the business. And yet she never took that high hand with him when they were in company. At such times she always deferred to him as a woman might to her husband, or her boss.

  She was a funny character; he couldn’t get to the bottom of her. He had never known anyone in his life so knowledgeable or so self-possessed. But then, never in his life had he been in contact with women of her class.

  ‘You will stay for something to eat?’

  He hesitated, then said, ‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled at him, put her hand to her hair and stroked it upwards and back from her forehead; then she said, ‘Don’t sit on the edge of that chair as if you were waiting to take off in a race.’

  His jaw tightened, his pleasant expression vanished. This was the kind of thing that maddened him.

  ‘Oh! Oh, I’m sorry.’

  Now she was sitting forward on the edge of the couch leaning towards him. ‘Please don’t be annoyed. I have the unfortunate habit of phrasing my requests in the manner of orders.’ She made a small deprecating movement with her head. ‘I . . . I must try to grow out of it. All I intended to say was, please relax, be comfortable . . . make yourself at home.’ The last words ended on a low note.

  After a moment he slid slowly back into the chair and smiled ruefully at her.

  Settling herself back once again on the couch, she stared at him before saying, still in a low tone, ‘I’m going to call you . . . No’—she lifted her hand—‘again my phrasing is wrong. What I mean to say is, may I call you by your Christian name?’

  He did not answer but stared at her, unblinking.

  She was looking down at her hands now where they were joined on her lap, her fingers making stroking movements between the knuckles. ‘You see, I . . . I want to talk to you this evening about . . . about something important, if you can afford me the time after dinner. Which reminds me. Would you mind ringing the bell, please?’

  He rose slowly to his feet and pulled the bell by the side of the fireplace, and they didn’t speak until the maid appeared; then she said, ‘Mr Connor will be staying for dinner, Jessie. How long will it be?’

  ‘Well . . . well, it’s ready now, miss, but’—The girl cast a glance in Rory’s direction, then added, ‘Say five minutes’ time, miss?’

  ‘Very well, Jessie, thank you.’

  When the door was closed on the maid, she said, I have never seen you smoke, do you smoke?’

  ‘Yes. I have a draw at nights.’

  ‘My father never smoked. I like the smell of tobacco. About . . . about your Christian name. What does the R stand for . . . Robert?’

  ‘No, Rory.’

  ‘Roar-y. What is it short for?’

  ‘Nothin’ that I know of. I was christened Rory.’

  ‘Roar-y.’ She mouthed the word, then said, ‘I like it. My name, as you know, is Charlotte. My father once said it was a very suitable name for me.’ Her head drooped again, ‘he was an unkind man, a nasty man, a mean nasty man.’

  He could say nothing to this. He was so amazed at her frankness he just sat staring at her, until she said, ‘Would you care to go upstairs and wash?’ He blinked rapidly, swallowed, wetted his lips, and as he drew himself up from the chair answered, ‘Yes. Yes, thank you.�
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  She did not rise from the couch but looked up at him. ‘The bathroom is the third door on the right of the landing.’

  He inclined his head towards her, walked out of the drawing-room, across the hall and up the stairs. This was the first time he had been upstairs and he guessed it would be the last.

  After closing the bathroom door behind him he stood looking about him in amazement. A full length iron bath stood on four ornamental legs. At one end of it were two shining brass taps, at the foot was a shelf and, on it, an array of coloured bottles and fancy boxes. To the left stood a wash basin, and to the left of that again a towel rack on which hung gleaming white towels. In the wall opposite the bath was a door, and when he slowly pushed this open he found he was looking down into a porcelain toilet, not a dry midden as outside the cottage, or a bucket in a lean-to on the waterfront, but something that looked too shiningly clean to be put to the use it was intended for.

  A few minutes later as he stood washing his hands, not from any idea of hygiene, but simply because he wanted to see the bowl fill with water, he thought, I’m a blasted fool. That’s what I am, a blasted fool. I could use this every day. I could eat downstairs in that dining-room every day. I could sit in that drawing-room, aye, and smoke every day. And I could sleep up here in one of these rooms every . . . He did not finish the sentence but dried his hands, gave one last look around the bathroom, then went downstairs.

  The meal was over and once again they were sitting in the drawing-room.

  He had hardly opened his mouth from the moment he had entered the dining-room until he left it. Talk about arms and legs; he could have been a wood louse, and he felt sure he had appeared just about as much at home too at that table as one might have done. Nor had it helped matters that she had been quiet an’ all. She usually kept the conversation going, even giving herself the answers, and now here they were and the game had come to an end, the cards were face up.

  He felt sorry. In so many different ways he felt sorry, but most of all he knew that at this moment he was feeling sorry for her because he could see from her face, and her attitude, that she, too, was in a bit of a spot, and he was wishing, sincerely wishing that it could have been possible for him to help her out of it, when she spoke.

  Sitting perfectly still, staring straight ahead as if she were concentrating on the picture of her grandfather above the mantelpiece, she said, I . . . I really don’t know how to begin, but this thing must be brought into the open. You . . . you are aware of that as much as I am, aren’t you?’ It was some seconds before she turned her head towards him, and now such were his feelings of pity that he couldn’t hold her gaze. He looked down on his hands, as she herself had done earlier and, like hers, his fingers rubbed against each other.

  She was speaking again, softly now, her voice scarcely above a whisper. ‘I am putting you in a very embarrassing situation. I’m aware of that. Even if your feelings were such that you wanted to put a certain question to me, you wouldn’t under the circumstances have the courage to do so, but let me tell you one thing immediately. I know that you have no wish to put that question to me. If you agree to what I am going to ask of you, I won’t be under the illusion it is through any personal attraction, but that it will be for what my offer can bring to you in the way of advantages.’

  His head was up now. ‘I don’t want advantages that way.’

  ‘Thank you at least for that.’ As she made a deep obeisance with her head towards him, he put in quickly, ‘Don’t get me wrong. What I meant was—’ He shook his head, bit hard down on his lip as he found it impossible to explain what he meant, and she said, ‘I know what you meant, but . . . but you haven’t yet heard my proposition.’

  She turned her face away and once again stared at the picture as she went on, ‘Suppose I were to ask you to marry me, you would . . . you would, on the face of it I know, refuse, forgoing all the advantages that would go with such a suggestion, but suppose I were to say to you that this would be no ordinary marriage, that I . . . I would expect nothing from you that an ordinary wife would from her husband. You could have your own apartments, all I would ask for is . . . is your companionship, and your presence in this house, of which . . . of which you would be the master.’ She again turned her face towards him.

  He was sitting bolt upright in the chair now; his eyes were wide and his mouth slightly open. He said under his breath, ‘That would be the poor end of the stick for you, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Poor end of the stick?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Well, if I would be quite satisfied with the poor end of the stick, shouldn’t that be enough for you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No! No! It wouldn’t be right, for as I see it you wouldn’t be gettin’ any more out of me than you do now . . . . So why not let things be as they are?’

  There now came upon them an embarrassing silence, before she said, ‘Because I need companionship, male companionship. Not just anyone, someone, an individual, someone whom I consider special, and . . . and I chose you. What is more, I feel I know you, I know you very well. I know that you like this house, you like this way of living, I know that you could learn to appreciate finer things. Not that I dislike the roughness in you; no, it is part of your attraction, your bumptiousness, your arrogance. It is more difficult to be arrogant when you have nothing to be arrogant about than when you have something.’

  His face took on its blank look. This was the kind of clever talk that maddened him, and he had no way of hitting back except by using the arrogance she was on about. He said gruffly, ‘You seem to think you know a lot about me, everything in fact.’

  ‘No, not everything, but quite a bit. I’ve always given myself the credit of being able to read character. I know a lot of things about a lot of people, especially in this town, and I know what a good many of them are saying at this very moment—and about us.’

  ‘About us?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, about us. Don’t you know that we’re being talked about? Don’t you know they’re saying—’ she now dropped into the local inflexion which patterned the speech of even many of the better-off of the townsfolk—“What d’you think, eh? Kean’s daughter and the rent collector. And her five years older than him and as plain as a pikestaff. She’s brazen, that’s what she is, she’s buying him. And, of course, he’s willing to be bought. He’s no fool, who would turn down that chance? She should be ashamed of herself though, using her money as bait. You can’t blame the fellow. And you know, this didn’t start the day, or yesterday; they were going at it when his wife was alive”? . . . That’s what they’re saying.’

  His face was burning, the colour suffusing it was almost scarlet.

  ‘Oh, please don’t get upset about it; you must have been aware that our association would cause a minor scandal?’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ His answer was vehement. If . . . if I’d thought they’d been saying that I . . . I wouldn’t have gone on. I . . . I was your manager. Anyway, if you knew this, why didn’t you put a stop to it? Why did you let it go on?’

  ‘Oh . . . huh! Why? Well, to tell you the truth, it made me all the more determined to go on. I don’t care a fig for their chatter. What are they after all, the majority of them? Braggarts, strutting little nonentities, men who have clawed their way up over the dead bodies of miners, or of their factory workers. Oh, there are a good many hypocrites in this town. I could reel them off, sanctimonious individuals, leading double lives. You know, you’d think Newcastle was at the other end of the world, and it is for some of them, keeping their second homes . . . It is very strange you know but women talk to me, they confide in me; perhaps it’s because to them I’m unfeminine. But anyway—’ she tossed her head to the side—‘I have no room to speak, at least on the point of clawing one’s way up, for what did my father do for anyone except himself? And for that matter what have I done but talk? But this is where you come in. I have thought that with you I might begin to do things for other people. I—’ her voice dropped—‘I might become so
at peace with myself that I could turn my thoughts on to the needs of others, and there are many in need in this town. And you know that better than I do, because you have been on that side of the wall. You have had to say “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and of course—’ she nodded dt him—‘ “Yes, miss,” and “No, miss,” and it’s only recently and only through you that I have realized how people such as you, in your position, must feel.’

  She now rose from the couch abruptly and, going to the mantelpiece, she put her hands on it and looked down into the fire as she muttered, ‘I am not saying this in order to make the future appear more attractive. If . . . if closer association with me would be intolerable to you, very well, you have only to say so.’

  ‘And what if I did, what then?’ The question was quiet, soft, and her answer equally so. ‘I don’t know, because . . . because I haven’t allowed myself to look into the future and face the desolation there.’

  As he stared up at her he thought, She’s remarkable. By aye, she’s a remarkable woman. He had never imagined anyone talking as frankly as she had done; no man would ever have been as honest. He said softly, ‘Will you give me time to think it over?’

  ‘No!’

  The word was barked and it brought him to his feet as if it had been the crack of a gun. He watched her march down the room, then back again towards him. At the head of the couch she stopped, and he saw her fingers dig into the upholstery as she said tersely, ‘It must be now, yes or no. I . . . I cannot go on in uncertainty. I . . . I’m not asking anything from you but to come into this house and stay with me as a . . . a friend, a companion. You don’t believe it now, but you’ll find out there’s more lasting happiness stems from friendship than has ever done from love. I know you don’t love me, couldn’t love me, and never will . . . No! No! Don’t protest.’ She lifted her hand. ‘Let us start from the beginning being honest. When you lost your wife I knew that you must have loved her deeply, and that kind of love only happens once, but there are other emotions comparable with love. A man can have them towards a woman and be happy. That can also apply to a woman, although’—She swallowed deeply in her throat here before ending, ‘In most cases she needs to love even if she’s not loved in return.’