Forever Yours

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘Abroad,’ Vincent muttered in disgust, screwing the paper into a tight ball and throwing it at the wall. He had returned home an hour before and, having finished his dinner, was sitting in his armchair by the fire with a glass of brandy at his side. Since the hot spell had broken the weather had become colder, and October had been ushered in with a sharp nip in the air the week before.

  Constance had not gone abroad. He stared into the flickering flames of the fire. He’d bet his life on that. But where the hell was she? As far as he could ascertain, her grandparents had kept mum on her whereabouts even with their nearest and dearest. Damn their eyes.

  He finished his brandy in one gulp and stood up, too restless to continue sitting by the fireside. He needed to clear his head and decide how to proceed from here if Robson wasn’t going to come up trumps, because he was going to find her. He didn’t believe for one minute she’d left willingly. Since he’d had time to mull it over he was sure her grandparents had forced her to leave with the aunt they’d brought in. What young lass would give up the chance of a life of ease for the drudgery of service? No, Constance had told them of his intentions and they’d reacted like the ignorant scum they were, driven by fear of what their neighbours would say if their granddaughter married the weighman.

  Pulling on his greatcoat he left the house without a word to Polly who had come into the kitchen doorway as he opened the front door. He rarely spoke to her if he could avoid it.

  As it banged behind him, Polly stood quite still for a moment. Then, as though the air had gone out of a balloon, her body relaxed and she walked slowly into the sitting room, staring at his empty chair and the glass on the table beside it. Her gaze moved to the window and she wondered how long he’d be gone.

  Did he know how much she hated him? Her chin gave a nervous jerk. No, she doubted if he even thought she had feelings beyond fear of him. And she did fear him; she was terrified of him, and with good reason. When she had first come to the cottage, she had thought she was the luckiest lass in the world. The comfort and colour and warmth had been dazzling after the grim confines of the workhouse. She thought she’d landed in heaven.

  She gave a bitter ‘Huh!’ of a laugh, picking up the brandy glass and taking it into the kitchen.

  She had thought him handsome in those days. She had even day-dreamed about him secretly when she’d been about her duties. At what point she had come to realise his devotion in always taking his mother’s dinner-tray to the sick woman and feeding her himself wasn’t what it seemed, she didn’t know. Perhaps it had been simply a feeling of unease at first that she couldn’t place. And then he’d been laid up with a bad dose of influenza and there had been three days on the trot when she’d seen to the older woman. By the second day Mrs McKenzie had been able to sit up and feed herself, and by the third the terrible sickness and pain that had her calling out most of the night had ceased.

  When, on the fourth day,Vincent had literally dragged himself into the kitchen, his mother had gone downhill again. And Polly had known, even before she came across him stirring some white powder into a bowl of soup she’d prepared one night. He always sent her into his mother’s bedroom to see to her pillows and get her ready for dinner before he carried the tray through, but this particular night she had waited in the hall and then returned to the kitchen on the pretext of changing her soiled apron for a clean one. By then she’d felt she had to know for sure.

  He had looked at her, that was all. But there had been something in his eyes that had sent terror into her soul. She had already been a little afraid of him, he was such a cold, distant man, but that in itself had been attractive in a strange sort of way. She had gabbled a few words about the clean apron, and he had told her he’d bought a tonic to add to his mother’s food, and the moment had passed.

  Later that evening, when he had been sitting reading the paper in front of the sitting-room fire, he had called her into the room.

  There was a sad case in the newspaper, he’d said softly. It appeared a couple had taken in a workhouse scut as servant, and the girl had abused their kindness by telling all sorts of stories about the master. When the man had accused the girl of stealing from them and explained that was why he’d had to discipline her, which had caused her to lie about him, the baggage had been put away for a long, long time.

  He had raised his eyes at this point and looked at her, the same look he’d given earlier in the kitchen.

  That was what always happened with workhouse vermin if they were foolish enough to bite the hand that fed them; the magistrates knew who to believe in these cases. His voice had been quiet, even gentle. One could kill such a girl and get off scot-free.

  From that night, her fear of him had grown into a dread which could cause her to shake in her shoes, but it wasn’t until the night of his mother’s funeral that hatred and deep revulsion had been born in her. She had known that she was paying, and would go on paying, for not speaking out and trying to save Mrs McKenzie. With her death, demons had been released in her son.

  She sank down at the kitchen table, gazing dully round the room. It was bonny. The whole house was bonny, but for years now she would have gladly traded living here for the hard life in the workhouse.

  According to the matron’s records, she had been about six months old when she’d been found in a rented room next to the dead body of her mother. Neighbours had told the authorities that her father had been lost at sea some weeks previously, and that the couple had been relative newcomers to the area. Certainly no family had come forward to claim her. And so she had been taken to the workhouse nursery. She had been clothed and fed by the guardians, and as she had grown it had been repeatedly drummed into her that she had much to be grateful for. She had sometimes lain in her narrow iron bed at night, shivering in the icy cold dormitory under the thin grey blankets as she listened to the snores and coughs of the other inmates, and imagined a life in which there were no paupers’ uniforms, no infirm wards with their screams and cries and creeping stench, no punishment and beatings, and no labour mistress and matron. And now she knew what such a life was like.

  Polly shook herself mentally. She didn’t know where Vincent had gone or how long he would be, but she’d better get on with the evening chores so he had no excuse to pick fault when he returned. However late he was, she knew better than to go to bed before him. She had only done that once in the days after his mother had died, and there had followed such a night of torment after he had come and dragged her from her room to his, that she hadn’t repeated the mistake. Since then she had waited to see if he expected her to service him or not.

  Service him. She shut her eyes for a moment against the phrase Vincent used for what went on in his bedroom. She had been a virgin when he had first forced her, but even that time she had known that the things he had done to her hadn’t been normal between a man and a maid. It had been as though he was punishing her. And that had never changed. But she had never angered him, never crossed him in any way, so why? Why?

  She stood up, walking into the scullery where the evening’s dirty dishes were waiting. Determinedly, as she’d done many times in the past, she made her mind go blank and mechanically now, like a wind-up doll, she set about washing the pots and pans.

  There was the sharp scent of an early frost in the cold air once Vincent had left the cosy warmth of the cottage. It was going to be another hard winter. All the signs were there. Already the leaves were falling from the trees in their droves, and that morning he’d seen flocks of birds gorging themselves upon the fruits and berries and seeds in the hedgerows and fields, as though they knew the autumn was going to be a short one. They could be snowed in for weeks again.

  He frowned darkly, the rage that had gripped him when he’d read Robson’s letter increasing. By now he’d imagined Constance would be back where he could see her and touch her. He had pictured her visiting the cottage and becoming acquainted with each room, and the two of them taking tea together before he took her back to her g
randparents’. He would court her, as he had wished to court Hannah, and as soon as she was old enough he would make her his wife. That had been the plan. Instead, he was in no-man’s land and it was driving him mad.

  With no conscious plan of where he was going, he followed the road to the crossroads, and there he stood hesitating for a moment. To the right were open fields and Barrashill Wood, and beyond that the villages of Nettlesworth and Kimblesworth.These were small compared to Sacriston, although Kimblesworth Colliery had a workforce of 600 men and boys. Once he had left the village, this road would be dark and lonely, but it wasn’t this which made him pause. He often walked at night and the blackness held no fear for him. The cosh in his coat pocket was protection enough, that and his fists and feet, and he felt more at one with nature in the darkness. He knew the place where a vixen had had her den and a litter of little ones, and deep in Barrashill Wood there was a spot where badgers came to play in the moonlight. But tonight it wasn’t the animals that were on his mind but a need to be near Constance in some way.

  As he walked through the village there was no one about. It was cold and dark and the middle of a working week. Folk would mostly be in bed by now, since mornings started early in a mining community. When he reached the Cross Streets, he hesitated again. Everything in him wanted to make his way to the Grays’ back door and take the old couple by their throats until they told him where Constance was. To choke it out of them.

  He smiled grimly to himself. Wouldn’t the neighbours love that! It’d set the tongues wagging with a vengeance. He’d be the butt of every wit who hated him, and that was all of them.

  He walked on, past the school on his left and the rows of silent streets to his right, but as he drew level with the Colliery Inn the door opened and Art Gray stepped down into the street. For a moment surprise froze Vincent’s tongue. For months now he had watched the older man coming and going to the colliery, hoping to catch him alone. He had even followed him home a few times, but Gray had always been in the company of other miners and he’d had to keep a good distance behind them. He knew Constance’s grandfather frequented the Colliery Inn but it would be more than his life was worth to step inside there, besides which Gray would have his pals around him. But not tonight. Tonight he was alone.

  ‘Hello there. It’s a cold one.’ He kept his voice low and he could see the amazement in the other man’s eyes that he had stopped and spoken. ‘Been having a bevy or two to warm the cockles?’

  It was some seconds before Art said flatly, ‘Just a couple.’

  ‘Here, wait on.’As Constance’s grandfather made to turn away, Vincent caught his arm. ‘I want a quiet word.’

  Vincent could read the old man’s mind as Art turned his head and glanced back towards the door of the inn. He didn’t want to be seen talking to the weighman. If he was suspected of trying to curry favour, the other men would make his life hell. But neither could he refuse the man who held his livelihood in his hands and had the power to make it so he earned less than nothing if he chose.

  Vincent watched him squirm for a moment or two before saying, ‘I was taking a walk. Walk with me.’ It was an order, not a request, and he walked on knowing the man had no choice but to obey.

  They had passed Church Street and St Bede’s Catholic Church and were approaching the graveyard and Blackburn Bridge, the village some distance behind them, when Vincent spoke again.

  ‘Where’s Constance?’ he said softly. ‘Where did you pack her off to?’

  The other man’s footsteps stopped. Then Art was hurrying to catch him up, actually grasping hold of his arm as they reached the bridge. ‘What did you say?’

  They faced each other. It was very dark now they were away from the built-up area of the village, but the sky was clear and the moonlight showed Art’s bewilderment.Vincent stared at him, sure he was playing a part. ‘I asked you where Constance is, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell me. I can make your life not worth living, don’t forget that, and I’m done playing games.’

  ‘Playing games? I don’t know what you’re talking about – and why would you want to know where the bairn is?’

  ‘You know full well.’ Vincent’s voice was a growl.

  ‘The devil I do.’ Art was bristling like a terrier dog.

  ‘So why have you and your wife kept her whereabouts to yourselves, eh?’

  Art moved one lip tightly over the other. McKenzie had hit on the one thing that had bothered him about the bairn taking this job at Ivy’s lass’s place. That and the fact it all seemed to have come about in the blink of an eye. One minute the bairn had been as happy as Larry working at the school with Miss Newton, and the next she’d been adamant she wanted to spread her wings and fly off down south. And when he’d questioned why it all had to be done so quickly, Ivy had added her two penn’orth and said opportunities like the one her Florence was offering didn’t come up that often. There were jobs in service all right, she’d said, but working for the Ashtons was a step above. And then Constance had said she didn’t want anyone knowing where she was, and Mabel had backed her, and when he’d asked why, there’d been some garbled story about the lass wanting to find her feet, and if folk like the Heaths and others knew, they’d want to write and keep in touch. Well, he’d said, what was wrong with that? But the pair of them had made up their minds, and when Constance had got tearful and insisted she didn’t want the worry of having to tell folk how she was getting on, he’d succumbed. He only wanted his granddaughter to be happy, after all. But he hadn’t understood it.

  As Art stared into the glowering face of the man he’d watched grow up, the lad who had always been hanging on their Hannah’s coat-tails at one time but who had grown up into a morose, spiteful individual who’d taken on the contemptible job of weighman, a thought – an impossible thought – was hovering at the back of his mind. Slowly, he said, ‘Why do you think we’ve kept quiet about where the lass is?’

  ‘I told you, I’m done with playing games. She told you I wanted her and you couldn’t dispatch her quick enough, could you?’

  ‘You want her?’Art was glaring now, his rage equal to Vincent’s. ‘She’s nowt but a bairn and you say you want her, and you old enough to be her father!’

  ‘I should’ve been her father.’ Vincent thrust his face close to Art’s. ‘But you and that wife of yours didn’t think I was good enough for Hannah, did you? I know, I know. And so you threw her Shelton’s way and she played the whore with him. But I won’t be crossed again. Constance is mine and I’m going to have her, with or without your consent, old man. Now are you going to tell me where she is, or do I have to beat it out of you?’

  ‘You could try.’ Art was a small man, and slight. He looked like David squaring up to Goliath but he had no sling or stones up his sleeve. ‘But I’d rather see my lass dead than with midden scum like you. I felt sorry for you as a lad, do you know that? With a da like you had and a battleaxe of a mam, you didn’t have much on your side, but my Mabel was right. She always said you were bad. Something inside wasn’t normal, she said, and she warned Hannah time and time again to keep away from you, but my bairn was too warm and sweet, too kind to see the evil in folk.’

  What followed happened so quickly Art had no time to avoid the blow.Vincent had reached in his pocket while the other man was talking and now he brought his cosh full force across Art’s head, the crack as wood hit bone sickening. For a moment Vincent stood poised over the crumpled figure but Art was quite still. Then he bent down and inserted a hand in his jacket. He was still breathing.

  Vincent straightened, his eyes peering in every direction. The night was quiet and peaceful; in the far distance an owl hooted and somewhere in the village a dog barked.

  He had to finish the job. Having come this far, he couldn’t run the risk of Art talking; besides which, if her grandfather died Constance would come home for the funeral. A bolt of excitement made his heart pound faster. It was clear that alive, Gray wasn’t going to help him, but d
ead he might well serve a purpose.

  The burn was higher than it had been for a while after the recent storms, he noted as he lugged the inert body down the bank, positioning it face down in the icy water. He stood for a few moments in case the shock revived Art, but when this didn’t happen he rearranged his legs so it looked as though he’d stumbled and fallen into the water from the bridge. Lastly he checked Art’s heartbeat once more. There was none. The burn had done its job.

  Satisfied, he climbed the bank and continued walking away from the village along Edmondsley Lane. He would skirt round the back of the colliery and make his way home across the fields and woodland. He doubted he would run into anyone the night but there was always the chance if he went back through the village. He nodded to the thought, breathing in the frosty air and beginning to whistle to himself as he strode on. Soon he would see Constance again – and this time she would not escape him.

  Constance did not come home for her grandfather’s funeral. She did not know of it until a full month after he was buried, because Mabel had decreed it so. Ivy travelled to Grange Hall to break the news, and although she did it as gently as possible, the shock to Constance was great.

  Florence had allowed her mother to take Constance up to her private quarters on the floor below the attics, and this in itself had alerted the girl to the fact that something was badly wrong.

  ‘But . . . but how? When?’ Constance stared at her great-aunt. They were sitting in Florence’s two armchairs which were either side of the fireplace. ‘Was it an accident in the mine?’

  ‘No, lass, it weren’t the mine, not this time. Your granda had had a drink or two and it would seem he didn’t go straight home; whether he wanted to clear his head or not it’s not known, although by all accounts he’d not had more than he usually did, but . . .’ Ivy stopped; the grief in Constance’s face was paining her. ‘But anyway, he went for a walk in the dark and slipped off Blackburn Bridge into the water. They said he banged his head and was knocked unconscious, and being face down . . .’