“What?” Thomas boomed. “Then you’re not the man I thought you were, boy.”
“Oh yes he is,” giggled Doris, raising her finely-arched eyebrows at Luke, flirting outrageously with her eyes and her suggestive voice, and letting the scarlet-tipped nails reach out to stroke his cheek for a brief moment.
Kate felt the most ridiculous surge of jealousy at the way they all seemed to know each other so well, and were so comfortable in one another’s company. Then, as if to cover her confused feelings, Mrs Wood called them all to come to the kitchen if they wanted to eat that day.
Luke held out her chair for her, and then sat opposite her at the long table. He smiled into her eyes and she felt the familiar warm glow at knowing that this kind and considerate man had taken her under his wing. It would be so easy to feel more than gratitude towards him, and warning bells were starting to ring in her head again.
Deep down, there was something more fundamental that nagged away at her conscience. She had made love with Walter so many times; she had had his child growing inside her, and even though the miscarriage had saved her from a terrible disgrace, there were still moments when she grieved for the child that had never had a chance of life. She knew another man would be able to tell that she was no longer a virgin.
At present, Luke simply thought something had happened to prevent the honeymoon trip to Bournemouth taking place, and most likely he assumed that Walter had died shortly before the wedding, and that she was still grieving for him, and loving him. But if she ever allowed herself to fall in love with Luke Halliday, and that love was reciprocated to the point of marriage, how could she bear to see the disgust and censure in his eyes when he discovered she was not the innocent victim of circumstance he obviously believed her to be?
“Eat up, Kate. Don’t you like roast beef and potatoes? I thought you country girls were supposed to have hearty appetites,” she heard Mrs Wood say. “Don’t be shy, my duck. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
“Oh, I love roast beef, and this is simply wonderful, Mrs Wood,” she said hastily.
“And she makes gravy just like mother used to make, doesn’t she, Kate?” Faye said with a grin. “Thick enough to stand a spoon up in it.”
“Don’t you be cheeky, my girl, and who’s this she? The cat’s mother?” Mrs Wood said with a grin, taking no offence. “You just get on with your dinner as well and pass those Brussels round the table before Kate starts to think she’s come to live in a madhouse.”
Kate caught sight of Luke’s smiling face and smiled back. She didn’t think she’d come to a madhouse at all. It was all so homely, just like a big family mealtime at home before they all got too strained to know how to talk to one another.
Chapter Eight
Being an essentially private person herself, Alice Sullivan had always respected another person’s right to privacy so when her daughter Kate didn’t turn up for the midday meal on that particular Saturday, she didn’t think too much of it. Kate often felt the need to be on her own lately and, when she wasn’t working at Granby’s Garments, she spent more and more time tramping about the countryside by herself, trying to get her thoughts in order.
Alice understood that need, even if her menfolk didn’t. The younger girls certainly didn’t, and were always complaining that Kate didn’t play with them any more. But Alice knew her girl had to find her own way of recovering from the humiliation of what Walter Radcliffe had done to her.
Alice’s lips tightened whenever she thought about him. She wasn’t a woman for cursing, but if she had been, she would have cursed the day Donal brought him into the house, so brash and breezy with his fast-talking ways, just the type to turn a gullible young girl’s head. Her heart ached, thinking of the way Kate had looked on that terrible morning when she had read Walter’s letter. Her face had frozen, as if all the life had been taken out of her in a single swoop.
It wasn’t in the Church’s teachings to hate, but Alice had never been as enamoured of the Church as her man professed to be. She always thought it was more of a clinging to the old ways rather than devotion that made him declare that a Catholic was always a Catholic, no matter what happened in this wicked world. But Alice hated Walter Radcliffe with a passion that surprised her.
It was Maura and Aileen who came running downstairs with an envelope clutched in their hands during the late afternoon, and at the sight of it, Alice’s heart turned over. Surely Kate hadn’t left the hateful thing around for the girls to read? It should have been destroyed long ago.
“This was on our Kate’s pillow, Mammie,” Maura said importantly.
“And what were the two of you doing in Kate’s room?” she scolded them, to give herself a moment to think. “Haven’t you been told enough times to respect other folks’ belongings?”
“We were only looking for the book she was reading to us last night,” Aileen said, scowling. “Anyway, this has got your name on it, and Dada’s too, so we brought it down for you.”
A premonition, as keen as a blade, shot through Alice’s gut. She took the envelope, holding it by its corner as if it were red hot.
Seeing the girls’ curious faces, she shooed them out of her kitchen and sent them down to the village on a quickly invented errand.
Alice had always considered herself a courageous woman. Even facing the fact that Donal might not come back from the Front had stiffened her resolve to be the strong one in the family, should it be needed. But she didn’t feel strong now. She stared at the names written on the envelope, and felt as if her bones were turning to jelly and she resisted opening it for as long as possible.
“Don’t be spineless, woman. Take a hold of yourself,” she muttered to herself. “Our Kate wouldn’t have done anything foolish and wicked.”
But she couldn’t deny the horrific vision of her lovely daughter lying face down in one of the Somerset rhines that criss-crossed and drained the moors, her lovely golden hair bedraggled and filthy in one of the near-stagnant ditches. She swayed for a moment, and leant against the scrubbed kitchen table for support, then ripped open the envelope.
It was difficult to focus on the words Kate had written. All Alice felt at first was an overwhelming sense of relief that her girl hadn’t been so browbeaten to have done away with herself, and committed the worst sin against the Church. The relief swiftly changed to something like anger as she wished the intrusion of the Church didn’t keep coming into her mind, when it mattered far less to her than the need to keep her family together. And Kate, of all people, had torn it apart.
The menfolk came into the cottage a short while later, rubbing their hands together at the thought of a hearty evening meal of rabbit pie and vegetables, sniffing the air as if to relish the cooking smells.
“What’s all this, then, missus?” Brogan said jovially, when he saw his wife staring unseeingly out of the kitchen window with no evident sign of food being prepared. “Is it day-dreaming that you’ve descended to now, then? I thought you’d gone past all that sort of caper at your age, and left it to the young ’uns.”
“What’s wrong, Mother?” Donal said sharply, quicker to take note of her pinched face and shadowed eyes than his father. “Has something happened to one of the girls?”
She looked at him mutely, the words of explanation sticking in her throat. He was such a fiercely protective young fellow, caring for his family, and the females in particular, like a mother hen. And having had to do so on many occasions when his father was too roaring drunk to do anything other than be put to bed to sleep off his night’s revelries.
“Not the little ones,” Alice muttered.
“Kate, then. Is it Kate?” Donal said. “Where is she? Why isn’t she here?”
Brogan seemed to have lost the power of speech for the moment, as if for once, he had the gift of sight of the Little People, and knew what was to come, and was totally unable to know how to deal with it.
“You’d better read this, since it’s addressed to us both,” Alice said cho
kingly, turning to Brogan, angry that for all his shenanigans he rarely seemed capable of taking command when it was really needed.
He took the letter and scanned Kate’s words quickly. Donal read them over his shoulder, and in seconds the silence in the cottage was shattered.
“What’s all this!” Brogan roared. “Has the girl taken leave of her senses? Going to London, indeed. And what kind of so-called respectable person lures a young girl away from a decent home? If I get my hands on the woman…”
If it was a woman, Alice thought. That was one thought that she dare not speak, not when her man was looking purple-faced and near to apoplexy now.
Donal exploded next, his hands clenched so tightly together that the veins stood out like ropes behind his knuckles. “What can she possibly want with going to London?”
“Going to the devil, more like,” Brogan bellowed. “I never thought I’d see the day when a daughter of mine sank into a den of sin—”
“For pity’s sake, Brogan, calm yourself or you’ll be having a seizure,” Alice snapped at him, seeing the beads of sweat on his forehead. “And have a bit of trust in your daughter, can’t you? Our Kate was brought up to be a sensible girl, and she’d not have had her head turned by some scheming person.”
“Oh no? What about the Radcliffe scum, then? She didn’t have such scruples about having her head turned by him, did she, woman?”
“Look, we’re getting nowhere by standing here and shouting at one another,” Donal said. “We’ve got to think what to do about this. And Mother’s right. If Kate says the person was respectable, then I’m sure that she was.”
“So what do you plan to do about it, my clever young feller?” Brogan said sarcastically. “Go chasing up to London to bring her back?”
“If I have to. She’s not twenty-one yet, remember.”
“Of course I remember, you young bugger.”
Brogan was roaring again, blustering as usual when somebody had an idea he should have thought of himself. “And how do you suppose we do that? London ain’t exactly a village, by all accounts. She could be anywhere.”
“Give me time to think, can’t you?” Donal retorted. He snapped his fingers. “First we’ll go to the priest.”
“Oh aye, and what’s he going to do, dumb-bell? Say a few Hail Marys and have her miraculously restored to us?” Brogan sneered, his erratic faith rapidly disappearing.
“No,” Donal snapped. “But I’m sure he’ll let us use his telephone to find the number of that hotel where she stayed in Bournemouth. And then we’ll ask the people there for the name and address of the person who befriended our Kate.”
Alice let out the breath she seemed to have been holding for hours. While Brogan panicked, Donal could be relied on to find the solution to everything. She gripped his arm.
“That’s good, Donal. You two go off and do what you can, and I’ll – I’ll –” she finished lamely, never having felt so helpless and disorientated before.
“And you’ll prepare some food, woman, for there’s no sense in all of us starving on account of the girl’s thoughtless behaviour,” Brogan growled.
“Dada’s right,” Donal said. “Keep yourself busy, Mother, and we’ll be back with news as fast as we can. And try not to worry,” he added, knowing it was a useless piece of advice.
They struck out across the fields towards the priest’s house, each of them reluctant to bother the man with their private problems, but knowing there was no other solution to finding out quickly where Kate had gone. And the sooner they got her back, the better.
“So what do you propose we do with the information when we have it?” Brogan snarled, when the silence had lengthened between them.
“We go to London and demand that she comes home, of course. The woman can’t keep her there if you threaten her with getting the law on her for abduction.”
Brogan eyed him uneasily. “It was hardly that, if she went of her own free will, was it?”
Donal scowled too, knowing he was skating on thin ice, but helpless to know what else to do. “We’ll think about that when the time comes,” he said. “Just as long as we make her see sense, and that her place is here with us.”
Father Mulheeny admitted them with a sigh. The Sullivan men never came to his house unless there was trouble, and he thought he’d already dealt with that. Kate had had a bad experience, but she had to put it all behind her now, and be thankful that no real harm had come from her involvement with the Radcliffe man. Privately, he didn’t quite know how he would have dealt with the situation if he’d gone ahead and married the pair of them. Nor how much guilt he himself would have borne for sanctifying the marriage of a bigamist in his church, however innocently. One of the crosses he had to bear was that he could be as vain as the next man in guarding his position in the community. And despite the pious front he put on for his flock, he had his own livelihood to consider. The consequences of how the marriage of a young village girl to a bigamous man might have affected him didn’t bear thinking about.
“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?” he greeted the Sullivan men, distantly polite.
Donal spoke at once. “We’ve come to ask if you have a book of telephone numbers, Father Mulheeny.”
The priest stared at him. Whatever he had momentarily expected to hear, it had been nothing like this.
“Now why on earth would you want such a thing, Donal?”
“To find the number of the hotel in Bournemouth where our Kate stayed for the week,” Brogan put in, unable to keep quiet any longer. “It seems she met a person from London there, and the woman’s evidently turned her head, and now she’s gone off to London herself and we mean to find her and bring her back.”
The priest crossed himself quickly as the rush of words sank in to his brain. Sweet Mother of God, but this could mean any number of things, and remembering his own shameful aknowledgement of the sensual young woman Kate Sullivan had become, he spoke sharply, saying the first thing that came into his head.
“You’re quite sure it was a woman, are you?”
Without really being aware of what he was doing, Brogan Sullivan lunged forward and grabbed the priest by the throat.
“Dada, for pity’s sake, control yourself!” Donal shouted, wrestling to try and pull him off the older man as they both staggered back against the wall.
“Can’t you see what the ould bugger’s implying?” Brogan shrieked. “He’s thinking our Kate’s nothing but a whore.”
Despite the fact that it was the way his own mind had worked, Brogan was having no truck with somebody outside the family putting such thoughts into words. Not even this sanctimonious old bugger. As he saw Father Mulheeny’s eyes begin to bulge in his crimson face, he realised what he was saying and doing, and he let go of the priest’s neck with a feeling of horror.
“’Tis begging your forgiveness I am, Father,” he croaked. “Sure and I don’t know what came over me, and ’twas only fear for my lovely daughter that made me lose my senses for a moment. If I’ve committed a mortal sin against you and the Church for such a despicable attack on your holy person, I can only ask for your complete forgiveness, if you can find it in your heart to be so generous to a sinner—”
“Be quiet, man!” Father Mulheeny rubbed his sore throat tenderly as the babbling tirade went on. Brogan Sullivan, humble, was as much of an embarrassment as Brogan Sullivan, ranting and raving in his cups.
“You’ll know he meant nothing by it, Father,” Donal said swiftly, glowering at his father. “Tis anxiety for Kate’s welfare that’s turned his brain, which is why we’ve come to ask if you can help us with the telephone number we need.”
But the thought had also been put in Donal’s mind now, that the person who had befriended Kate hadn’t been a woman. But that was something he didn’t want to think about yet.
Father Mulheeny was still looking resentfully at the abject Brogan, and thinking that God had surely tested him with the likes of this one. Offering an
eye for an eye wasn’t really in his nature, and he would dearly have loved to throttle the man himself … he sent up a few silent Hail Marys for his own salvation from wicked thoughts, and forced himself to pat Brogan’s arm.
“I’ll overlook your lapse in the circumstances, Brogan, so let’s hear no more about it. A visit to the church for confession might not come amiss, though,” he added, remembering his priestly duty.
“Oh, I’ll do that, Father,” Brogan said, wishing the old fool would get on with what they’d come here for.
“The telephone number, Father,” Donal prompted. “We have the name of the hotel.”
“I’ll have to call the operator to ask for it,” he said importantly. He was one of the few people in the vicinity to have a telephone and preened himself on it.
“And then Donal will be able to speak to them?”
Father Mulheeny looked at him coldly. “Of course. But perhaps it would be best if I were to do the speaking for you, since my position will add some weight to the enquiry. Give me all the details, please.”
It wasn’t strictly church business, but he supposed that since Kate Sullivan was one of his flock, it could be construed as such. And the men agreed thankfully.
Once he had been given the name of the Charlton Hotel, he told them to sit down while he spoke to the operator and was put through to the hotel. They fidgeted, not looking at one another, each more troubled than they cared to admit by this new idea the priest had put in their minds.
“Hello, yes. Is that the Charlton Hotel?” they heard him say loudly a short while later. “My name is Father Mulheeny, and I’m enquiring about a guest who was staying there recently. Her name is Miss Kate Sullivan.”
After a wait he frowned and gave a heavy sigh as he glanced at the silent Sullivan men.
“Then did you have a Mrs Kate Radcliffe staying there?”
Donal clenched his hands as he heard the name, but when he saw the priest nod at them, he swallowed his fury and listened intently to the one-sided coversation.
A Different Kind of Love Page 12
