Forever Yours

by Rita Bradshaw

‘If you’re not gone in thirty seconds I’ll let go of this dog.’

  Vincent fumbled in his pocket and Polly saw a flash of silver as he held up a vicious-looking knife. ‘That’d be a pity because I wouldn’t want to hurt him.’ He turned as he spoke, staggering to the open gate and into the lane where he shouted over his shoulder, ‘Keep your eyes and ears open, m’lady, because you never know which minute is going to be your last. But we’ll have a bit of fun before you join your mam, I’ve promised myself that.’

  The door closed on his words and as it banged he looked round and fell over again. He lay in the lane cursing and swearing and trying to get up. The sedative had clearly knocked him for six. The amount he’d had would certainly prevent him doing any harm to Constance tonight, Polly thought, but tomorrow . . . Tomorrow was another day. Another day for Constance and another day for her. And he would be back to his old self by then.

  Without thinking through what she was doing, Polly stepped out from behind the tree where she’d been hiding and walked forward. He didn’t see her for a moment or two, crouched as he was on all fours as he attempted to struggle up. Then he turned his head, and it was clear he was having difficulty focusing his eyes as he mumbled, ‘What the hell? Is that you, Polly? What are you doin’ here?’

  ‘I followed you.’ Her voice was quiet, soft. ‘I was worried about you. You seemed upset tonight.’

  He was upright now, shaking his head as though to clear the mugginess which was fogging his brain. ‘You nosy little scut.’ His words were thick and deep and he was blinking like an owl. ‘But now you’re here you can make yourself useful. I must be sick, I’m going down with something.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’ She went over to him and then her legs nearly buckled as he put his arm round her shoulders and his body draped itself on hers. He was a dead weight.

  ‘Get me home,’ he muttered dully. ‘I need me bed.’

  She said nothing, but as they began to stagger along she saw his eyes were closed and he seemed to be walking in his sleep. Some hundred yards or so from the cottage she had seen a gap in the hedgerow. If she could just get him to there without him knowing . . .

  Somehow she managed it. Vincent was more than twice her weight and her back was breaking when she saw the opening. She didn’t pause as she led him to it. She didn’t pause as they walked to the edge of the old quarry. And she didn’t pause as she twisted herself free of him an infinitesimal moment before she pushed him over the edge with all her might.

  It was a sheer drop and a long way down. She thought she heard a muffled scream, like someone wakening from a nightmare, but then a dull thud sounded far, far beneath her.

  Polly closed her eyes and tried to steady her shaking limbs and then, terrified she’d slip herself on the icy ground, she lay down and wriggled to the edge of the rock and peered over. The moonlight was bright, reflecting off the white landscape all around but it was a moment or two before she saw him. He was lying spreadeagled in the snow at the bottom of the quarry and he wasn’t moving, a black starfish against the pale background.

  She was trembling so much it was a moment or two before she could sit up, and then she sat for some minutes until the quivering in her muscles subsided before she looked again. It was another ten minutes before she wriggled to a safe distance and stood up, and then she retraced her footsteps and began walking home.

  She had almost reached the bottom of the lane when round a curve a dark figure appeared. Stifling a scream, her hand to her mouth, she stood stock still. The relief she felt when she saw it wasn’t Vincent almost made her wet her drawers.

  But of course it couldn’t be him, she told herself weakly in the next moment. Vincent was at the bottom of the quarry and that’s where he’d stay, and she didn’t believe in ghosts. She couldn’t move for a second or so, however.

  Matt glanced at the thin wisp of a woman as he approached her. It was McKenzie’s housekeeper.What on earth was she doing out in the dead of night and here of all places? He stopped as he reached her. She looked scared to death and he made his voice gentle and reassuring when he said, ‘You all right, lass? Is there owt wrong?’

  ‘No, no. I – I was just – just taking a walk.’

  ‘A walk, lass?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.You – you’re Matt Heath, aren’t you? Do you know if all the men are up yet after the fall?’

  ‘Aye, they’re up.’

  She nodded, turning quickly away and continuing down the lane as he stood looking after her for a moment or two.

  Then Matt swung round, his footsteps quickening as he walked until he was almost running towards Appleby Cottage.

  Chapter 24

  Constance had got dressed immediately after she had shut the door on Vincent. Now she paced the sitting room wondering what to do. She had to find out what had happened to Matt. She didn’t think Vincent had been lying, but she had to make sure. But was it a trap? Was he waiting for her out there, hoping she’d take his bait? There had been murder in his eyes, that was for sure.

  Oh, Matt, Matt, don’t be dead. Her face deathly white, she wrung her hands together while Jake, beside himself at her distress and the earlier confrontation, whined and pawed at her skirts.

  There could have been a fall at the pit and she wouldn’t have known. She’d had no need to go out for the last couple of days and had only taken Jake for a walk down the lane to Tan Hills Wood and back. She hadn’t seen a soul.

  Should she wait for first light before going to the village? It would be safer. And she could take Jake with her, along with the firearm. But could she endure a night of not knowing? No, she had to go now. But what if Vincent had been lying and there’d been no accident at the pit? She’d look ridiculous turning up in the middle of the night at Matt’s mam’s if nothing had happened. How would she explain that? But what did looking ridiculous matter if the worst had happened? So her thoughts continued to race as she walked up and down, her stomach churning and her mind spinning.

  When the knock came at the door, Jake went berserk. Bounding into the hall, he threw himself against the wood snarling ferociously, determined that this time he wasn’t going to be thwarted in dealing with the stranger who had frightened his mistress. Constance’s heart was thudding as she picked up the pistol once more. She walked over to the window and peered out, and then mortally offended Jake by dashing into the hall and grabbing his thick leather collar, dragging him unceremoniously into the sitting room and shutting the door on his barking.

  When she opened the front door and flung her arms round Matt’s neck he was too taken aback to move for a moment, then he was holding her tight as he tried to soothe her incoherent sobbing. In the end he whisked her up in his arms and walked into the house, slamming the door shut with his foot. From the sounds coming from within the sitting room he didn’t think it would be a good idea to open the door, so he continued down the hall to the kitchen, but when he attempted to put Constance down she clung the tighter to him so he sat down in one of the big armchairs either side of the range with her on his knee.

  It was a full minute before her storm of weeping lessened to hiccupping sobs, and only when she was calmer did he say bemusedly, ‘I never expected this welcome.’

  ‘He – he said – he said you were dead.’

  ‘Who said I was dead?’

  ‘And he wanted to kill me like he did my mam and da, my – my granda too, but I had a pistol and Jake was growling . . .’

  Matt had stiffened and he eased her away from him so he could look at her, his face full of concern now. ‘Constance, slow down. What’s happened and who are we talking about?’

  ‘Vin-Vincent McKenzie.’

  ‘Vincent McKenzie killed your parents?’

  ‘He – he always wanted my mother, my grandma said so, and then he said I had to marry him and I left the village . . .’

  ‘It was him – Vincent McKenzie? He was the man who’d been bothering you?’ Matt asked in amazement. ‘Vincent McKenzie?’

&nb
sp; Constance nodded. She was suddenly aware she had made a terrible fool of herself, throwing herself into Matt’s arms and not letting him go. Her face burning, she said in a small voice, ‘I’m all right now,’ but when she tried to move away, his arms tightened.

  ‘Tell me. All of it.’

  ‘He said there’d been a fall.’

  ‘There was a fall.’ Matt paused. ‘George and one of Andrew’s lads are in a bad way, but what’s this about McKenzie?’

  Constance was mortified. His brother and nephew were injured, is that what he’d come to tell her? But why now at this time of night? And what must he think of her?

  When she tried to ease herself away from him again, Matt looked down into her swimming eyes. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he murmured softly. ‘Please, Constance, no more misunderstandings. I love you. I’ve always loved you, and you were right that day. I am an upstart and self-centred and bigoted and stupid, but I love you and eternity wouldn’t be long enough to tell you how much.’

  She stared at him, unable to believe the moment was here. Weakly, she said, ‘I didn’t call you stupid.’

  ‘Well, you should have because I am. All those years ago in your grandma’s kitchen, do you remember? When we looked at each other? I knew then but I was too stupid to do anything about it. You were so young and . . .’

  ‘. . . there was Tilly,’ she finished for him. It hurt her but it needed to be said. Tilly had been real and he’d loved her.

  ‘I didn’t love her, Constance. Oh, I told myself I did when we first started courting, but it was more I’d reached a stage of my life where I needed to be in love. Even before we got wed I knew it was a mistake but she said she loved me and I’d promised her; she would have been so humiliated if I’d broken it off. Excuses.’ He shook his head. ‘But it seemed the right thing to do at the time. I told you, I’m stupid.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Listen.’ He took hold of her face in his hands. ‘I need to tell you something, something I’ve never told another living soul but you have to understand. I want you to understand. She was expecting a bairn when I married her and I didn’t know, we’d never been together. The baby . . . It wasn’t mine.’

  Constance strained back a little way in order to see his face. ‘Rebecca?’ she asked in amazement.

  ‘Aye, Rebecca. But she is mine, Constance. In everything that matters, she’s mine, and I wouldn’t be without her for anything. But I didn’t see it like that for a long time. I made Tilly’s life hell. Right until she got sick, we were at war and that’s not too strong a word for it. And then she became ill and we talked and she told me she loved me. And I think she did. It was one hell of a mess.’

  ‘Oh, Matt.’

  ‘And what made it worse when she got sick was that she was so full of remorse, so sorry, and it was all too late. It should have been me that begged her forgiveness because she didn’t deserve the life I forced her to live.’

  ‘Does Rebecca know?’

  ‘No, and she never will. She’s my daughter. Her father – he’s a nowt.’ And then he smiled ruefully. ‘There I go again, the egotistical side rearing its head.’

  She didn’t ask who Rebecca’s father was, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She traced his eyebrows with one finger, looking into the brown eyes that contained heaven on earth. ‘I love you. I always have and I always will.’

  Their kiss was long and hard. It had been waiting for expression for a long, long time. And then he traced every contour of her face with his lips in small burning kisses that set her blood on fire.

  It was the sound from the sitting room which brought them back to the real world. Wryly, Matt said, ‘Do you think you ought to let that dog out before he eats the door?’

  ‘He’s worried for me because of Vincent.’

  ‘Let him out and then tell me, right from the beginning. No, before the beginning. Start with what you know about him and your mother. I need to be very clear about all this.’

  Jake, mollified and sitting on the floor at their feet now they had moved to a sofa in the sitting room, Constance began her story. When she finished, Matt’s face was tense, a muscle in his jaw working. ‘And he left here shortly before I arrived?’

  Constance nodded. ‘I would have fired the pistol if he hadn’t.’

  ‘I didn’t see hide nor hair of him, only—’

  ‘What?’ she asked as he stopped abruptly.

  ‘That skinny little mouse of a lass who works for him was at the bottom of the lane. She said she was out walking.’

  Constance’s brow wrinkled. ‘Polly?’

  ‘Aye, and you say she warned you about him?’

  Constance nodded again. ‘She was nice. Obviously scared to death of him, but nice. I dread to think what her life’s been like all these years, poor thing.’

  Matt wasn’t overly concerned about Polly. ‘You’re sure he’s not lurking about outside somewhere?’

  ‘Well no, not really. I shut the door’ – she wasn’t about to tell him she’d collapsed against it and slid down to the floor, unable to move for a good few minutes – ‘and when I looked out of the window he’d gone. Or there was no one to be seen anyway. I presumed with me threatening to shoot him he’d gone home.’

  ‘So he could still be within the vicinity?’

  ‘Matt, I’ve got Jake and I know how to use the pistol.’

  ‘I’m staying. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘You can’t. What would Rebecca think?’

  ‘She knows how I feel about you. So does Mam. They were waiting at the pit gates and I told them then. And once I’d got cleaned up at home I sat Rebecca down and explained why I was coming to see you. Constance’ – he was struggling to get the words out, the spectre of her money rising up again despite all he’d told himself – ‘I’m not half good enough for you, I know that. And you’re a lady now. You know how to speak, the right grammar and all that, whereas I . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve got this cottage and you’re well set up. You don’t need a husband, I understand that, and if you want things to remain as they are it would be perfectly understandable.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Matt?’ It had to come from him.

  ‘Will you marry me, Constance?’ he said very softly.

  ‘Oh, Matt, Matt, of course I’ll marry you.’

  Their kiss lasted a long time. Neither of them could bear to let it end and in the murmur of their whispered promises and words of love the past melted away. All that mattered was the present.

  ‘I love you.’ It seemed incredible she was free to lift up her hand and stroke his face, his dear face. ‘I’ve loved you for so long.’

  ‘Me too, my darling. Me too. And I promise you McKenzie won’t bother you again, all right? I’ll sort him.’

  ‘No, Matt. Please, no. Promise me.You don’t understand – he’s not . . . normal. I believe him when he said he killed my mam and da, my granda too. If you could have seen his face you’d have believed him too. He’s dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous or no, he needs to be dealt with.’

  She clung to him, as though Vincent was in front of them and she was preventing Matt from attacking him. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything until we’ve talked it through. Please, Matt.’ Vincent McKenzie had taken everyone who’d ever belonged to her – her parents, her granda, even her grandma in a way because she had never been the same after her husband had died so tragically. He would try to kill Matt too, she knew it, and Matt couldn’t afford to go rushing in ill-prepared. There was a devil in Vincent, a legion of them.

  ‘Stop crying. I promise, all right? I promise. Now stop crying. You’re worrying Jake and he might think I’m upsetting you. Considering my leg is quite near his jaws that’s not a good idea.’ Matt pulled her close, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe as he whispered, ‘I never want to let you go again, not ever. I want to remain like this, with you in my arms, for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Then let’s.’ She
lifted her face for his kiss.

  When Polly woke up the next morning she lay for some time staring at the window. It was snowing hard, big fat flakes in their thousands, their millions. No one would find him for days, weeks even. Of course, they might come calling when he didn’t turn up for work but that wouldn’t be for a day or two; they’d think he was off sick or something at first. And she could say he hadn’t come back from the pit after the accident, that he’d told her it could be a long while before the men were all up and so she hadn’t expected him any particular time. She could act a bit gormless, she’d used to do that in the workhouse when she hadn’t wanted to get involved in any bother. And there were lots of men who wanted to do for Vincent, he’d told her that himself. Boasted about it. But no one would be able to prove it wasn’t an accident anyway, he was always striding about the lanes and countryside. Everyone knew that.

  Should she feel remorseful for what she’d done? Well, she didn’t. He had been a monster. He’d killed that lass’s parents and her granda, and he would have killed Constance too, that was for sure. And his own mother, he’d done for her. The agony that poor woman had gone through. No, she didn’t feel guilty. In killing him she’d prevented him hurting anyone else, herself included. That was the way she looked at it. God Himself said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in the good book. She had done nothing wrong, and He wouldn’t condemn her. Him knowing the rights and wrongs of the case.

  Satisfied with this logic, Polly scrambled out of bed. She dressed quickly, since the room was icy, and as she did so she looked at the grate and promised herself a fire in there for tonight. Vincent had always had one in his bedroom but he hadn’t allowed her that luxury.

  Once downstairs, she stood in the kitchen, gazing around her. There was a lightness in her body, a sense of joy, and for a moment she whirled round and round before coming to rest, laughing, against the kitchen table. Bacon. She’d have bacon for breakfast and two eggs and make a pot of tea. She was her own mistress now, she could do what she wanted when she wanted. There was no one to growl at her, no one to shout and curse when she was a bit slow or something wasn’t to his liking. Most of all there was no finger to beckon her.