Friendship's Bond

by Meg Hutchinson

  Conscious of the anger throbbing in Edward, afraid his treatment of her attacker would make Thorpe refuse now to say where Alec could be found, Ann hesitated.

  ‘I . . .’ A deep breath helped her search for the right words. ‘Mr Thorpe and I met yesterday evening. I had been searching for Alec but found no trace of him; Mr Thorpe said he knew where Alec was.’

  ‘But he didn’t tell you there and then.’

  ‘No. He . . . he had a very urgent visit to make and could not spare the time it would take to explain.’

  Edward looked scathingly at the man he held in an iron grip. ‘Couldn’t spare the time,’ he grated, ‘or didn’t you want to miss the chance of having a girl who otherwise wouldn’t come within a mile?’

  ‘She can leave now but she won’t get to know where the boy is.’ The words squeezed with difficulty past the barrier of fingers clasped about his throat but Thorpe’s eyes screeched dark hatred.

  ‘Edward please go . . . just go.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll go,’ Edward answered, but his eyes stayed with those blazing hate. ‘But first Mr Thorpe is going to answer my question: do I take it you have Alec hidden away somewhere?’

  Frantic with fear that Thorpe would take revenge by not disclosing where Alec was, Ann cried out across the room. ‘Mr Thorpe was taking care of Alec, he . . . he promised to take me to him.’

  ‘And was that promise made before or after you slapped her face, before or after you tore the clothes from her? Either way you are going to regret both.’

  ‘Do that,’ Thorpe snarled as Edward’s fist raised again, ‘strike me, Langley, and neither you nor the girl will ever see that brat, you’ll never find him – never!’

  ‘Is that a fact? Then I must be mistaken. Let’s find out shall we?’ At last Edward’s glance shifted to Ann. ‘Miss Spencer, would you be so good as to call my friend? He is waiting downstairs in the hall.’

  ‘I am here, Edward, I could not stay downstairs any longer.’

  With a gasp of incredulity Ann stared at the boy in the doorway. ‘Alec – oh thank God!’

  Alec caught the tilt of Edward’s head signalling that he take Ann down to the hallway.

  ‘So!’ Edward jerked the figure he held on to. ‘You told Ann Spencer the lad she searched for was with you, that she should come get him. That lie was told simply for your own ends and we both know what they were; you didn’t like being refused, did you, that hurt your pride, but hitting a woman did no harm to your self-esteem. My guess is it did just the opposite. Well, we all have fancies and right now mine is to beat the daylights out of you.’

  Edward stared with disgust into eyes now clearly showing fear but the look raised no pity in him.

  ‘Edward . . . please, no more; Alec is safe. Let that be enough.’ Ann had refused to be coaxed away.

  No! Edward resisted her words. The swine had to be made to suffer for what he’d done.

  ‘Edward, please.’ Rushing forward, Ann placed a hand on his arm. Edward struggled to think rationally. Thorpe deserved a beating . . . but what would be the effect upon Ann of witnessing yet more violence?

  ‘Think yourself lucky,’ he said as he threw Thorpe from him, glaring down on the sprawling figure, ‘you’ve got away with it this time you filthy swine, but I advise you to listen carefully: should you approach Ann Spencer again, should you even look in her direction, I will break every bone in your miserable body.’

  Chapter 28

  She had heard little apart from Ezekial’s account of his talk with Samuel Bradley and how he had seen Ann turning into Queen’s Place. That had been dubious from the start.

  Leah stared at the butter muslin she was making into cheese covers.

  Why? she had asked herself. Why would the wench go to the chapel which had openly displayed rejection of both her and the lad? And if not the chapel . . .

  Leah’s needle rested in the cloth.

  Samuel Bradley’s conversation with Ezekial had revealed there was no service that evening so the place would have been closed up. There was only one more building in Queen’s Place and that was Chapel House. But why in God’s name call at the very home she had literally been thrown out of? Yet that was where Edward and Alec had found her.

  She had seen a light from a window, and though she had been reluctant to disturb whoever was inside she felt she must ask if they had seen Alec. Was it Alec had come here asking help?

  It would take more than a pinch of salt to swallow that!

  Oh that might have been the underlying cause of her being in that house; had the whereabouts of the lad been already known then, Leah’s instinct had told her, Ann Spencer wouldn’t have gone near Chapel House and certainly wouldn’t have stayed conversing with Thomas Thorpe.

  But the lad hadn’t been there and Thorpe had not met or spoken with him, so why hadn’t that sly little toerag told Ann so? Why ask her inside when he knew he couldn’t help?

  Except to help himself.

  It hadn’t needed a deal of explanation. Edward’s face looked drawn with a fury she had never seen in him before that night; Alec’s young face looked pale, his eyes darkened with the unspoken thought that all of what had happened was his fault; while Ann, her face coloured with emerging bruises, had run straight up to the bedroom to change her dress for a skirt and blouse of Deborah’s.

  Glancing across the hearth to where Ann sat opposite Leah felt sure even though none of the three spoke of it that Thomas Thorpe had assaulted the girl.

  She had not asked; if Ann wanted her to know it would be of the girl’s own free will.

  But she needed no words from Edward nor none from Ann to feel the truth of her own conviction. The sight of a dress being mended told her enough, a dress she had been informed had torn on a bramble protruding from a hedge: brambles scratch but they don’t bruise. Bruises were caused by a hand, usually a man’s. Lord, she’d seen enough black eyes on women she called on with products from her dairy, seen the scarlet weals on cheeks caused by drunken husbands and sometimes fathers.

  Leah’s glance returned to her needlework but her fingers remained unmoving, her mind preoccupied.

  Had Thorpe been sniffing of the barman’s apron . . . had he been drunk as a bob ’owler? So far gone in beer he hadn’t known what he was about? No, that wasn’t Thorpe’s way; he didn’t visit the alehouses with other men from his workplace nor, so Ezekial had it, did he frequent the Rising Sun or put in an appearance at any other public house in the town.

  A blind? A deception in order to have the congregation, especially the female congregation, think more highly of him? Was he a man who took his ale in secret, did he think by taking a jug to Chapel House instead of his own in Cross Street it would forever go unnoticed?

  Leah’s hidden smile was one of gentle sarcasm. Little managed to stay completely unknown in this town; sooner or later Thorpe’s ‘secret drinking’ would have become public knowledge. Gossip was the lifeblood of its womenfolk and it certainly wouldn’t have been spared by those not sharing in admiration of the so-pious lay preacher.

  So it was safe to say Thorpe had not been drunk and it was safer still to say those marks on Ann Spencer’s face had been caused by no bramble.

  Coals sighed deeper into the bed of the fire. Leah watched the fountain of brilliant sparks disappear into the blackness of the chimney, just as her own bright lively children had been snatched away into the darkness of death. She had known the manner of Joshua and Daniel’s passing, two pieces of paper lying in a drawer in her front parlour had borne the words she had dreaded: ‘killed in action’. She had thought that no words could ever again cut so deeply, that nothing on earth could ever again bring such sorrow. Then Deborah had been found dead.

  Old hurt deepened to almost physical pain and Leah closed her eyes.

  Deborah had fought in no foreign field. Leah breathed hard against her gathering tears. But there were wars of many kinds, some waged silently in the deepest innermost reaches of the heart while others were conflicts of
the soul. These were the battles her daughter had fought.

  What had been the reason? What had brought about the change which had made Deborah lose that happiness she had previously radiated? She had seen the same in Ann Spencer that evening she had returned from searching for the lad: withdrawn, barely speaking a word yet her eyes had been fearful. Then the very next night she had been brought bruised and half-stripped from Chapel House, and the only other body in that house had been Thomas Thorpe.

  No one would convince Leah that man had not struck then tried to rape Ann Spencer just as no one would convince her the death of Deborah had been by suicide.

  Leah looked at the young woman quietly sewing cheesecloths.

  Two pretty young women, both with a patent dislike of Thomas Thorpe. Assault! Attempted rape! Had both girls suffered the same? Had Thorpe abused Deborah until unable to stand any more of it she had thrown herself into the river? Once more Leah’s denial of suicide was absolute. That left one more question. Had Thorpe raped her daughter then murdered her, silenced her to ensure his filth could never be brought to light?

  Dear Lord, Leah prayed silently, hold my girl in Your arms, comfort her with Your love as I would have with mine and if she came before You with any mark of sin I pray You forgive; but Lord I ask no forgiveness for what I carry in my heart. Vengeance, says the Holy Book, be Yours to repay but if Deborah’s death was at the hands of Thomas Thorpe, then I will steal that vengeance from Your holy hand.

  ‘Should you approach Ann Spencer again, should you even look in her direction I will break every bone in your miserable body.’

  Edward Langley’s face had been distorted with anger, his whole frame had seemed to vibrate with rage as he spat the words between clenched teeth.

  Sleep had refused to come so Ann sat at the bedroom window her gaze travelling over pasture silvered by the high moon, at freckles of light stippling the leaves of trees growing tall in the hedges bordering fields, pinpoints of silver-gold, but the beauty of the night was lost in emotions which had pulled at her since hearing that outburst.

  He had made to strike Thomas Thorpe, the tension holding him almost rigid emphasising the fury driving inside him.

  Any decent man would have reacted the same in the circumstances yet . . . Ann conjured up vivid pictures of German sailors with guns in hand, of one grinning while another was snatching her clothes. She saw the figure of Berndt, his ‘no’ a soundless movement of the mouth, prevented from saving her because a rifle was jabbing against his ribs.

  Ann shuddered again at the imagined touch of rough callused fingers pressing into her waist, riding quickly over her hips.

  The page of memory turned. She watched a man emerge from the cabin, a man waving a vodka bottle in each hand. ‘Lars.’ She whispered the name even as, soundless as before, the man mouthed words. Lars was calling to her attacker, but the temptation Lars proffered was not so appetising as the sailor held in her attacker’s grasp.

  Then as though by the hand of the Angel of Mercy the man was gone from her and Lars had supported her as she stumbled across the deck and down to the cabin. Lars’ smile was replaced by the pull of anger while his eyes blazed both pity and loathing, pity for her being subjected to such an ordeal and loathing for its perpetrator; a look clear on the faces of all three brothers, etched deep into their wind-bronzed features.

  The picture faded back into the past yet memory’s book did not close.

  Her waking eyes looked on fields pearled by the soft radiance of a white-gold moon, at leaves pirouetting in a whispering breeze, but Ann’s inner eyes watched a different scene.

  Lamplight shed pallid gleams about a small neatly ordered room where a figure was sent tumbling on to a bed from a blow; a figure then dragged roughly to its feet; a man gripped the back of its neck while at the same time with his free hand ripping its clothing from throat to waist.

  Ann tried to blink away the spectacle but it rolled on, showing a woman’s cheeks flush scarlet as her glance caught that of a second figure in the doorway.

  Edward Langley. Ann felt the heat of shame burn in her cheeks. She had not been swift enough to cover her exposed breasts, to gather the torn cloth together before his glance had swept her naked flesh. Mere seconds were all that look stayed on her, then it flashed to Thomas Thorpe. Incandescent in its rage, it seemed it must consume him in the fires of its fury; but more terrible still, the face turned to Thorpe was contorted like that of an animal ready for the kill. Such rampant need for revenge surpassed all she had seen on the faces of Maija’s sons.

  But what could have evoked such an almost carnal desire for retribution?

  Decency? Regard for a woman? Like Aarno, Berndt and Lars, the friends who had brought her from Finland, Edward Langley had all of those characteristics; yet not once during her time with those brothers did the touch of a helping hand send a lightning bolt along every vein.

  He had thrown Thorpe to the ground, stood over the fallen man while snarling a threat. Then he had snatched up her coat to drape it about her shoulders and in so doing drawn her close against himself, his arms clasped about her as if holding someone he loved.

  But that was nonsense! Unsettled by the strength of remembered feeling Ann sought refuge in the moon-dappled view from her window. Edward Langley had simply steadied her, his hold had been no more than that.

  Why then if she understood the reason could her heart not accept it? Why in every waking moment did her very soul long for what never was nor yet could ever be?

  This should have been Ann Spencer lying on the bed, her legs shyly parting to receive him; her breasts pleasuring his hand as her hips lifting to his thrust pleasured his manhood.

  But she had been snatched from him.

  Langley! He pushed deep into the body spread beneath him, the ferocity of it resulting in a cry of pain. But Thomas Thorpe was deaf to the moan, oblivious to any but the pain of his own bruised pride.

  Langley had dared to enter this house, the house of a minister of the chapel . . . his, Thomas Thorpe’s house; that was one more action to be avenged. The man might think himself immune from retribution, but Thorpe knew better.

  Langley would pay. Langley and the girl both. She would pay with her body; it would be her he would ride, her he would plunge into time and time again.

  His body slapped against flesh heaving to meet the frenzied thrusts, a growl erupting in his throat with the eruption that shook his frame.

  But it had been no growl of satisfaction.

  Away from the bed, pulling on his clothes, his back turned on the girl who no more than scratched the itch of his loins, Thomas Thorpe resumed his thinking.

  Ann Spencer would heal the sore of humiliation biting at his heart but what reprisal would wipe away Edward Langley’s insults? That he would consider long and carefully; he would revel in those thoughts as he would in ones which had Ann Spencer begging for his mercy.

  She was pregnant!

  Thomas Thorpe’s fingers stilled on the button of his trousers, the voice he had not been listening to now suddenly clanging like a bell in his ears.

  The stupid sow was pregnant!

  ‘I can’t go hidin’ of it much longer, Mother already be askin’ about my monthlies.’

  Ada Clews was asking questions. Did that imply she had suspicions?

  ‘So you see I’ll ’ave to be telling her soon.’

  ‘No!’ He turned to the girl, whose own clothing was neatly back in place. ‘You must not tell her, you must not tell anyone.’

  ‘But Mother knows I’ve not seen of a monthly and my excuse of bein’ took with cold in the stomach won’t satisfy her when I be overdue again next month; ’sides I’ll be showin’ afore long and I won’t be able to claim overeatin’ be puttin’ a stomach on me, not with food bein’ the way it is in our ’ouse. It scarce be markin’ the plate for Mother and me, her reckoning Father needs it more cos of work in the iron foundry be so heavy, and the lads he says must have extra what with them labourin’ in the coal
mine.’

  Foundry! Coal mine! Monthlies! Words buzzed like wasps in his head until he wanted to slap the mouth speaking them. But that would add problem to problem, a cut lip was not easily lied about; and neither would a swollen belly be.

  Fastening the last of the buttons, a forced calmness in his face, he looked at the girl now pinning her loosened hair into place.

  ‘You be sure, I mean you might have miscalculated.’

  ‘There be no mistake in my countin’ nor there don’t be none in Mother’s.’

  Several hairpins held between her teeth had caused her reply to be mumbled but Thorpe had caught not only the words but the meaning behind them. Once Ada Clews learned of her daughter’s condition, she would come looking for the man responsible.

  ‘I knows you wanted to wait, that you said to keep our love a secret for a while longer, but my havin’ tumbled puts a different light on things.’

  Yes, her becoming pregnant certainly provided a different perspective. But one thing it did not alter: his resolve not to marry Sarah Clews.

  Chapter 29

  The woman had looked at Alec so strangely.

  Turning cheeses in the cool cellar Ann recalled an event which had occurred during the return from delivering goods to Leah’s customers. The task had not been easy, her nerves jumping with every call, but it seemed the women no longer objected to her, each one sparing a minute of their busy day to enquire after Leah’s welfare. Yet uneventful as the rounds had proved, she had breathed a sigh of relief when at last she and Alec could make their way home.

  They had been halfway along Dale Street, Alec smiling and pointing at a group of brightly painted gypsy caravans on a patch of open ground.

  ‘You’ve a kind face pretty lady.’

  A woman dressed in a tightly knotted shawl and a dark skirt, its voluminous folds caught at one side into the waistband exposing a white cotton petticoat ending several inches above another of red flannel, stepped quickly to the verge.