A Daughter's Choice

by Cathy Sharp

  ‘He hasn’t done anything to us,’ Joe said frowning at her. ‘He could have, Bridget – but he’s left us alone all these years.’

  ‘He left us alone because he knew you could cause trouble for him, Joe. He banked on you letting it go after the man who murdered Mary was executed. Hal Burgess was killed on Maitland’s orders. He was executed because he had made a terrible mistake and Maitland had to have him silenced. We knew that … everyone knew it, but the police could never prove it.’

  ‘Are you saying that you and Joe know this man?’ Tom asked, looking from one to the other, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful. ‘Was he something to do with the fire that killed Mary? I remember that – and the look on Jamie’s face when he came in that day. It should have been his wedding day.’

  ‘Yes. It should have been their wedding day.’ Bridget looked at him, an old grief in her eyes. ‘We didn’t tell you, because you were too young and it had already upset you. We were all devastated by what happened. The fire was set to punish Joe and me – because I knew something about Maitland, and Joe was trying to find out more in the hope of having him caught and punished for his crimes. Joe was supposed to die that night but Mary was staying in the rooms over the shop instead.’

  ‘And my mother never forgave me for letting it be Mary instead of me,’ Joe said. ‘She tried to forget but she never quite forgave me to her dying day – and I can’t forgive myself.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Joe.’ Bridget reached for his hand and held it. ‘I was the one who discovered what he had done to Lainie and I went to his hotel and pried into his things. I took that letter and he told me he would make me sorry. I should have killed him that day when I had his gun in my hand …’

  ‘Maitland is a crook,’ Joe said, looking at Tom and me in concern. ‘But he’s too clever, too powerful to get caught. He has other people to do his dirty work for him. I thought his empire had begun to crumble after the fire, and perhaps it did in some areas, but he’s built his fortune in secret ways, grown richer and more powerful, if anything. He seems to be a respectable man, though I know he’s been dropped from the gentlemen’s club he used to belong to – and he was thrown off a charity committee only recently, though they hushed it up. Nothing seems to touch him; he’s like a huge fat spider in the middle of a web of evil which he controls through fear and greed.’

  ‘He sounds a thoroughly nasty piece of work,’ Tom said, looking anxious. ‘Does this mean that Kathy might be in danger?’

  ‘She might,’ Joe admitted. ‘But only if Maitland suspects that she knows something important – something that could link him to Billy or crime.’

  ‘Kathy doesn’t know anything – at least, nothing that could put him away.’

  ‘Maitland doesn’t care about what she knows,’ Bridget said. ‘If he thinks she’s a danger to him he might …’ she stopped as we heard a loud knocking at the door. ‘I’ll see who it is.’

  ‘We should go away,’ Tom said after Bridget had gone out. ‘Jamie has gone over to Ireland to look at some horses. When he comes back we should tell him that we accept his offer to stay with him at his ranch in America until we get settled in a home of our own. This Maitland fellow won’t bother about you once you’re out of the country and no longer a danger to him.’

  ‘Oh, Tom?’ I stared at him uncertainly. ‘That seems such a drastic solution … to run away.’

  Bridget had come back into the room. She looked at me oddly, as if she didn’t quite know what to say.

  ‘That was the police, Kathy. They asked for you, but I took a message and sent them away.’

  ‘Something about Maitland?’ Tom asked, suddenly alert.

  ‘No, it’s Ernie Cole,’ Bridget said and her face was as white as a sheet. I could see that she was shaken, her hand trembling slightly. ‘They found him hanging over the banisters in his house.’

  ‘Dead!’ I stared at her in horror as the shock hit me. ‘That’s terrible …’

  Ernie probably wasn’t my father, and I had no affection for him whatsoever after what he’d done to me, but it still made me feel sick to think of him dying that way. From what Bridget had told me, I knew that he hadn’t been violent when he was younger, and I understood that disappointment and a feeling of being cheated had made him into the bitter man he had become.

  ‘Good grief!’ Joe exclaimed. ‘He must have killed himself.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what the police seem to think,’ Bridget said, the words coming slowly, deliberately. ‘They believe he was so desperate that he decided to take the easy way out.’

  ‘It isn’t easy to hang yourself,’ Tom said. ‘There was a soldier in France, he hung himself because he was too scared to go back into battle. I had to cut him down while he was still kicking. He died in my arms. I can assure you it isn’t easy.’

  ‘You don’t think …’ Bridget was staring at me and she looked frightened. ‘You don’t think it might not have been suicide?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tom frowned. He stared at her in silence for a moment, and then nodded. ‘You think it might have been Maitland’s men, don’t you?’

  ‘No!’ Joe shook his head. ‘Why? It makes no sense. Ernie wasn’t even Kathy’s father. He tried to kill her. I can’t see why Maitland would do it. No, Bridget, I’m sure you’re wrong. Ernie realized that he was finished and that there was nothing left for him to live for – and he took his own life.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Maitland might not have known the full story,’ Bridget said. ‘Even if he did, he may still have seen it as a way of warning Kathy to keep her mouth shut in future. It worries me, Joe. I don’t trust that man.’

  ‘The children …’ I reached for Tom’s hand. ‘Supposing he harms the children next?’

  ‘He won’t do that,’ Joe said, his face grim but determined as if he had reached a decision. ‘I’ll see that he knows you’re going away, Kathy. You and Tom, and the children. You’ll be safer in another country, and I think you should go as soon as possible. If Maitland hears that you told the police what you know …Yes, Bridget may be right. You should go away.’

  ‘What about the wedding?’ Bridget asked, torn between relief and distress at the thought of our imminent departure. ‘Kathy will want to be married with all her friends about her.’

  ‘Just you, Jamie, Joe and the family – and Billy’s parents,’ I said, looking up at Tom. ‘That’s all we want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why don’t we have the wedding in Ireland?’ Joe asked. ‘I’ll get a message to Jamie. He can set it up for us – and we’ll all go over together. You’ve always wanted to have a holiday there, Bridget.’

  ‘So I have,’ she said smiling at him. ‘Trust you to think of it, Joe. Maggie will love the idea and so will Mick.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and looked at Tom as he held my hand tightly. ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea. We can go on from there to America.’

  Tom looked at me as we went outside to his car later that evening. He was driving us out of London to stay with friends until we caught the ship for Ireland, where our friends and family would join us for the wedding in another three weeks.

  ‘We’ll tell the children it’s a holiday,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to frighten them.’

  ‘I’ve been promising Mickey a holiday for ages,’ I said. ‘He’s excited about it. Besides, I’m sure there’s nothing to be anxious about – it’s just a precaution.’

  ‘It will be an adventure as far as they are concerned – and the start of a new life for us, Kathy.’

  ‘All it means is that we are leaving a little sooner than we might have,’ I agreed. ‘It doesn’t matter, Tom. I’m looking forward to a new life – with you.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ Maggie said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye as she saw me in the cream silk dress and coat I’d bought for my wedding. It was the fashionable shorter length, and showed an expanse of pale silk stockings. My shoes were a deeper shade of cream and I had a small cloche hat, which I wore over m
y new bobbed hairstyle. I knew I looked very different, and I felt as if the dark clouds had fallen away. ‘And so happy. I can see it shining out of your eyes, Kathy.’

  ‘I am happy,’ I said. ‘Not just because I’m marrying Tom – because we are all friends again.’

  Maggie gave me a hug then laughed and apologized. ‘Silly me! I’ll mess all your fine clothes up so I will.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ I said. ‘And Mick has promised to bring you over to America for a long holiday soon – so don’t be thinking that you’ll never see me or the children again, because you will. Even if I have to come back to see you.’

  ‘That daft husband of mine is thinking of emigrating to America at his time of life,’ she said with a little scoffing noise. ‘If he thinks he’s getting me to move to a new country and leave all me friends, he’s got less sense than I thought – but I wouldn’t say no to a holiday.’

  ‘Bridget has promised to come out, too,’ I told her. ‘Jamie wants her and Joe to stay with him for a few months, but she wants to get Amy settled first.’

  ‘That girl will be a trial to her mother before she’s settled,’ Maggie said and frowned. ‘You mark my words, Kathy. Bridget has spoiled her – and now she’s off to stay with her aunt Lainie. And who knows what will come of that?’

  ‘What do you mean, Maggie? Lainie has done well for herself.’

  ‘If you mean being left that dress shop and bit of property in her late employer’s will …’ Maggie sniffed. ‘Well, I suppose she’s respectable now, but I’ve got a long memory and I remember the trouble she was to Bridget when they were younger.’

  Maggie’s dark hints intrigued me, but before I could ask her to tell me more Bridget poked her head round the door and asked if she could come in. She exclaimed over my clothes, told me I was as pretty as a picture and then it was time to leave for my wedding to Tom.

  Once again my wedding was to be a civil one, but not because of a difference in our religions. Tom had told me that he was no longer a practising Catholic.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t believe in God,’ he said, ‘but I’ve discovered that to practice medicine as I want to I need to be free in my thinking and not bound by any doctrine. To my mind there are times when a patient’s well-being is more important than the teaching of any church.’

  ‘You’re not an atheist?’ I was slightly shocked, knowing how devout his sister was.

  ‘No, I’m not that either,’ he said. ‘I believe, but in my own way.’

  ‘That’s how I’ve always felt too,’ I told him and he kissed me gently on the mouth. ‘It’s the way you behave to others that counts. Lead a good life and you’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I did a bad thing when I married Billy without telling him I was having a child and it taught me a lesson.’

  ‘Try to forget all that now, Kathy. It’s over, my love. You don’t need to think about it any more.’

  I had tried to forget, but Billy had been a part of my life and I had only to look at my darling Sarah to remember her father. I could think of him now with regret, and try to remember only the good times.

  ‘Are you happy, Kathy?’ Tom asked as I lay in his arms that night, content after our lovemaking. ‘You are sure you want to go to America? We could always go somewhere else, even back to London if you like? I doubt that there was any real danger from Maitland. Bridget can’t forget what happened all those years ago, but Joe thinks she was probably worrying for nothing.’

  ‘Yes, I think there was a lot more to her story than she told us,’ I agreed. ‘But it doesn’t matter to me, Tom. I’m looking forward to seeing a new country. When I was nursing I had a taste of what life could be like away from the lanes. I was happy enough there sometimes, but I’m glad our children won’t be brought up in that environment. I want more for them than I had – much, much more.’

  ‘You didn’t have much of a life as a child,’ Tom said, pulling me closer to kiss my hair as his hand stroked the arch of my back. ‘I can remember what it was like for us when Ma was alive – all the fighting and bickering, and the times when she was drunk. I was scared of her most of the time.

  ‘I hated it when Bridget said I had to go away to hospital, because I thought I was being punished. Ma fell down the stairs and hurt herself when she had that first stroke. I was haunted by guilt for a long time afterwards, and it was partly my fault because she was shouting at me and I shouted back at her, but while I was away I learned that things could be better and I was determined to do something with my life. Bridget marrying Joe made it a lot easier for me; he paid for me to go to college and supported me through medical school. All I had to do was work hard.’

  ‘And you have,’ I said, snuggling up to him. ‘That’s why Billy was so jealous. You escaped and he didn’t. He never would have even if he hadn’t become involved with Maitland.’

  ‘But you have and Sarah has – I think Billy would be pleased about that if he knew, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Mick is still swearing he wants to emigrate to America, and Jamie has offered him a job. They might end up escaping too.’

  ‘Not if Maggie has her way,’ Tom said and laughed as he looked down at me. ‘They used to have some royal battles in the past and I can see it happening again.’

  ‘Oh, Tom, we’re so lucky,’ I said as he bent his head to kiss me. ‘So very, very lucky.’

  ‘I’m lucky to have you,’ he whispered as he drew me closer, kissing me and caressing me in a way that made my body sing with pleasure. ‘I thought I had lost you, Kathy. You’ll never know how much I regretted that stupid quarrel.’

  ‘You couldn’t have regretted it more than I did,’ I said. ‘We both made mistakes, Tom – but we shan’t make them again. We’ll make a promise now never to let the sun go down on a quarrel. We’ll always end the day like this, talking to each other, loving each other.’

  ‘I like the sound of that,’ he said and drew me to him in a passionate embrace that drove all other thoughts from my mind.

  It was only long after, when Tom was sleeping and I lay content but wakeful at his side, that the thought came into my mind. In America I would be safe, beyond the reach of Maitland and his bullies, but what of Bridget and her family?

  And there was Lainie, too. Bridget had hinted that she was somehow caught up in the old story, though she had never explained what she meant. Perhaps the story was not hers to tell – but it made me wonder. I knew about the fire that had cost Mary her life, but what else had happened all those years ago that was so terrible it still had the power to make Bridget tremble? A shiver ran through me and I was suddenly afraid for my friends. I felt that there was a shadow hanging over them, and that fate had yet more twists in the saga that had begun so long ago.

  ‘Be careful, Bridget,’ I whispered. ‘Please be careful …’

  I was not sure what I was trying to warn her of, but an icy feeling at the nape of my neck seemed to be a premonition of danger for Bridget and her family. I lay for some minutes aware that I was uneasy but not knowing why. There was surely no reason why they should be in danger now?

  My fears were foolish, of course they were – a leftover from the tragic events that had led up to Billy’s death. It was all in my mind, merely shadows. As Joe had pointed out, Maitland had left them in peace for years – why should they be in any danger now?

  I was letting my imagination run away with me. As the feeling of apprehension receded I smiled in the darkness. I was foolish to let anything spoil my happiness. Bridget had Joe to look after her and I had a whole bright new future to enjoy.

  I turned to snuggle into the warmth of my beloved husband, and soon I too was sleeping.

  If you loved these stories read more of Cathy Sharp’s heart-warming novels

  When there is nowhere else to turn, St Saviour’s will give them hope …

  Click here to buy now 978-0-00-811845-7

  Can they ever escape from their past?

  Click here to buy now 978-0-00-811848-8 />
  Will they find a loving home this Christmas?

  Click here to buy now 978-0-00-811851-8

  He’s holding his family together

  Click here to buy now 978-0-00-821161-5

  About the Author

  Cathy Sharp is happily married and lives with her husband in a small Cambridgeshire village. They like visiting Spain together and enjoy the benefits of sunshine and pleasant walks, while at home they love their garden and visiting the Norfolk seaside.

  Cathy loves writing because it gives pleasure to others. She finds writing an extension of herself and it gives her great satisfaction. She says, ‘There is nothing like seeing your book in print, because so much loving care has been given to bringing that book into being.’

  Also by Cathy Sharp

  The Halfpenny Orphans Series

  The Orphans of Halfpenny Street

  The Little Runaways

  Christmas for the Halfpenny Orphans

  The Boy with the Latch Key

  A Daughter’s Sorrow

  A Daughter’s Dream

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