Mary's Child

by Irene Carr

  After dinner the children were put to bed for a nap. Florence and Lance dozed in chairs before the fire while Chrissie curled up in her little room. The break was welcome; she had been at work since before the dawn. She woke later and went back to the kitchen where she found Florence engrossed in her embroidery.

  Arkley had said Florence was ‘a dab hand’, and Chrissie had found this to be true. Florence had a gift for working with a needle or a sewing machine, could embroider a picture or make a dress or a shirt. Chrissie had sat at her feet to learn her skills. Now she leaned on the back of Florence’s chair for a moment to watch the quick fingers, the darting needle. But then Reginald yelled and she went to see to him, to dress him and his sister and take them to the park for their afternoon walk.

  Later she baked more pies and the evening found her in the bar. Arkley had gone home, finished for the day. In his place was Billy Bennett, short and bald, fat and grinning. Nowadays Lance Morgan spent most of his evenings upstairs with his family while Billy and Chrissie looked after the customers in the bar and the sitting-room between them.

  ‘Hello, Ted!’ She greeted him happily, glancing into the bar as she passed.

  ‘Evening, Chrissie!’ Ted Ward answered shyly. He usually came from the regimental depot at Newcastle on a Saturday or Sunday, sometimes during the week, as now, though rarely. In the evening there was barely enough time for the trip from Newcastle, after falling out from his duties, and returning to barracks before ‘lights out’. He had grown into a strapping young man of close to six feet, standing an inch or two taller than most of the men in the bar. He was a handsome young man, too, who doted on Chrissie, but from a distance. He stood at the bar, smart in his red tunic, and drank his beer slowly, making it last. On a Sunday when he was not on duty, and Chrissie had an hour or two off, he would take her for a stroll in the park. He had yet to kiss her.

  She heard regularly from his brother Frank. He wrote every week, at first from the training ship and later from the cruiser to which he was drafted. They were brief letters written on one side of a sheet of paper in copperplate but laboured prose, all starting: ‘Dear Chrissie Carter, just a few lines to let you know . . .’ and ending: ‘Hoping this finds you as it leaves me, in the pink.’ In between he told her something of his life, though the account was so loaded with naval slang and terminology she only understood half of it. But she replied to them all, and kept them, praying that he was happy.

  Chrissie surreptitiously squeezed Ted’s hand as she paused to glance quickly around the room. She had not been afraid to serve behind the bar because she had been brought up among working men like these. Now she noted the regulars, knowing them all – the jokers, the serious, the friendly and the potentially violent. She had learned how to deal with all of them. Then there were the strangers. A pub like the Frigate, close to the river, always had some seamen off the ships. And sometimes there were others. There was one tonight.

  Chrissie sidled along to tubby Billy Bennett and murmured, ‘The young feller in the corner – I haven’t seen him before.’

  Billy looked over at the group sitting round a table, the stranger among them. He was in his late teens, tall and thickset, with a thin moustache on a narrow, raffishly handsome face. The eyes were insolent and did not stay still. He was flashily dressed in an overcoat with a velvet collar and carried a cane.

  Billy said, ‘Imitation toff. I don’t know him. But we know the ones he’s with.’ The rest of the group were rowdies, petty criminals, almost amateurs. They stole what they could pick up easily. ‘We’d better keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Still at it, Jack?’ Richard Ballantyne smiled at his son and blinked tired eyes. Most of the lights in the offices were out. The yard itself lay silent and empty but for the old nightwatchman. A solitary light still burned in the office used by Jack, where he sat at a desk covered in plans and sheets of figures.

  Jack ran long fingers through his already rumpled black thatch and answered his father, ‘I’ll give it a bit longer. Chivers talked me through the ship so far as she’s built.’ Chivers was the chief draughtsman. ‘I just want to make sure I’ve got it clear in my mind.’

  Richard pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket, flipped open the case and peered at the dial. ‘Dinner will be at eight. That only gives you half an hour. Shall I send Benson back for you?’ Benson was the chauffeur, waiting patiently in the car outside the offices. Richard had bought the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost a year ago.

  Jack shook his head, ‘No, thanks. I won’t be home in time for dinner. Ask Cook to leave something out for me for later. But I might stop for a bite when I leave here.’

  His father nodded acquiescence, but warned, ‘Don’t overdo it.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Jack watched his father stride from the office, shrugging into his overcoat, and thought with affection, You’re a fine one to talk, Dad. Richard Ballantyne devoted his life to his work. When he was not working a twelve-hour day in the yard, he was travelling the world in search of orders to keep the yard and the men at work. Over the years he and Jack had become even closer. They walked, talked and now worked together.

  Richard would go off to Newcastle or York at weekends, two or three times a month, on ‘business’. Jack did not know about Sally Youill, Richard’s mistress, but he was not a fool and for a year or more had suspected the nature of that ‘business’. At first he had been shocked but slowly he decided that so long as his father was happy it was no one’s concern but his.

  Jack bent to his own task again. He had finished with school in the summer, turned down the chance to study at a university and chosen instead to go straight into the yard. He was no stranger to its workings; his grandfather, George Ballantyne, had taken him around the yard almost from the time he could walk. Now he had started to cement that knowledge by working in every department of the shipyard from drawing-office to fitting out.

  He had spent the morning crawling about the bowels of the ship outside on the stocks. At noon he had shed the overalls he had worn for that and donned the suit he now wore to join old Chivers in the drawing-office. The jacket was hung on the back of his chair and he worked with his shirtsleeves rolled up, showing muscular forearms. His hands were big, long-fingered and broad, seeming more suited to the manual work he had laboured at on the ship, than holding a pencil. But he was just as sure in his handling of the plans and papers.

  He worked on, not taking any account of time, until he sat back, satisfied that he had learned his lesson. Only then did he stretch long arms and let his eyes switch to the clock on the wall of the drawing-office. He stood up and put away the plans and papers, lifted his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on. Well tailored, it settled smoothly across his wide shoulders.

  He switched out the light – they had electricity in the offices now – picked up his overcoat and walked out of the yard. He paused a moment to stare up at the pile of the ship on the stocks between the overhanging cranes, all standing black against the night sky. Then he walked on, content.

  The nightwatchman at the gate called, ‘G’neet, Mr Ballantyne!’

  ‘’Night, Fred!’ Jack walked up the bank from the yard, through the narrow streets of little houses that crowded round it. The night was clear but cold, stars prickling a windswept sky. Late as it was, there were still a lot of children playing in the streets. He passed a game of marbles, the cluster of boys not noticing him, intent on the two who were playing. A group of girls chattered among themselves under a lamp, involved in a makebelieve world of ‘houses’ chalked on the pavement.

  Inside five minutes he passed half a dozen pubs but they were not for him. Then he came to the Frigate, standing on the corner, and he shoved open the door, walked along the passage and into the sitting-room. The hissing gaslights around the walls reflected from the polished wooden panelling below them, and from the big mirror over the fireplace. The usual crowd of young men, Luke Arkenstall among them, sat or stood around the fire. They were all son
s of middle-class families – bank clerks or training to be solicitors, accountants, doctors or dentists. One crouched by the fender. He had cleaned off the shovel and was using it as a pan to cook sausages and kippers.

  They greeted him cheerfully. ‘Hello, Jack!’ ‘Come on in!’ ‘What’ll you have?’ That last invitation came from Luke Arkenstall, slim, serious at his work but grinning now, straight and not yet with his father’s stoop.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll have a scotch.’ Jack’s eyes were already on the door to the bar.

  Chrissie Carter entered and Luke called, ‘Let’s have a scotch for Jack, Chrissie, please.’

  ‘Right, Mr Arkenstall,’ and she went to fetch it.

  Jack thought that he, like the others, came here because they enjoyed each other’s company and the laughter. But there was also the girl, Chrissie Carter, with her tiny waist, huge, sparkling eyes and wide mouth. She was long-legged though not tall, quick and nimble, laughing or solemn. Jack admitted to himself that he came here to see Chrissie.

  She returned with the glass of whisky and a jug of water on a tray, set them on a table beside Jack and took the money from Luke. Chrissie stared at the impromptu cook crouching by the fire, the sausages and kippers sizzling on his shovel. She laughed and shook her head, telling them cheerfully, ‘You’re mad, all of you.’

  The cook grinned and offered, ‘Jack! A kipper or a sausage?’

  He grimaced; ‘Neither!’ He called after Chrissie as she tap-tapped back into the bar, ‘I’d like a pie, Chrissie, please, if you have one!’

  ‘Two minutes!’

  She had given him his pie and was serving in the bar when the policeman came in. He was a big man in his thirties, with the three stripes of a sergeant on his sleeve. He stood just inside the door for a few seconds, his eyes searching the room, then he made his way to the bar, the crowd parting to let him through. He took off his helmet and asked Chrissie, ‘Will you tell Lance I’d like a word with him, please?’

  ‘Right away.’ She ran up the stairs to the kitchen where Lance sat reading the newspaper and Florence embroidered a dress. Chrissie peeped at it. ‘I like that!’ Then as Florence smiled up at her, Chrissie told Lance Morgan, ‘Sergeant Burlinson’s in the bar and says he’d like to have a word with you.’

  Lance tossed the paper aside. Chrissie saw it was open at the page holding advertisements for property and he had marked some places in pencil. He said, ‘I wonder what he wants?’ He kicked off his slippers and reached for his boots standing by the fender. ‘Tell him I’ll be down.’

  Chrissie was washing glasses in the sink below the bar when he came to stand near her and ask the sergeant, ‘What’s the trouble?’

  Burlinson indicated with a sideways glance: ‘The flash lad in the corner, the one with the velvet collar. Do you know him?’

  Lance Morgan’s eyes followed that glance and he shook his head. He turned to Chrissie but she said, ‘No, neither me nor Billy have seen him in here before.’

  Burlinson nodded. ‘He’s a local lad, not very old but he’s old enough in sin. He’s been down south for a long time but now he’s shifted back up here. Maybe because it got too hot for him down there. His name is Vic Parnaby.’

  Chrissie stared across the bar at the group in the corner. Victor Parnaby! The boy who had made her life a misery for a week or so when she first went to live with Daniel and Bessie Milburn, the boy Frank Ward had beaten. She recognised the boy in the man now.

  But the sergeant was going on: ‘His solicitor got him off. He burgled a house and got away with jewellery worth fifty quid. Two witnesses saw him leaving the place and identified him later. But then Mr Forthrop got up and said, “This man was in my office at that time, taking legal advice.” So he was acquitted.’

  Chrissie saw Vic Parnaby look over towards the bar. He saw the sergeant was watching him and his grin was cockily self-conscious. But then his eyes fell and he shifted uneasily.

  Burlinson said, ‘Maybe he didn’t do it. But we know what he’s been up to in London and thereabouts and we don’t want him plying his trade up here.’

  Lance asked, ‘What trade would that be?’

  Burlinson sniffed. ‘Anything that will turn a dishonest penny. He’s been at it since before he left school, but he’s slippery as an eel – only been convicted on petty charges and got off with a month or so inside. Other things, like – well, he courted this girl in London, told her he was working as a clerk while waiting for his inheritance.’ The sergeant let out a bark of sardonic laughter. ‘Inheritance! Anyway, he said it was due any time. Couldn’t give any proof because all the papers were in a safe deposit box up here. He persuaded this lass to draw her money out o’ the bank to elope with him. First night, while she was asleep, he made off with the cash.’

  Lance Morgan said with distaste, ‘What did he get for that?’

  The sergeant said grimly, ‘Nothing. The girl and her father wouldn’t bring charges because it might damage her reputation.’ He went on, ‘So I suggest you keep an eye on him. We will.’

  Now Parnaby drained his glass, stood up and made for the door.

  The sergeant put on his helmet and said, ‘Goodnight, Lance, Chrissie.’ He followed Parnaby out into the night.

  Sylvia Forthrop wandered into the hall as her husband was shedding his overcoat and greeted him: ‘Did you have a busy day, dear? I’ve been prostrate with the most awful migraine.’

  Max Forthrop handed the coat to a bored and languid Della Roberts. ‘A profitable one, but busy, I’ve brought some work home. I’ll be sitting up late tonight.’ Della’s lips twitched. Forthrop felt in the right-hand pocket of his jacket, found the wad of pound notes he had taken from Victor Parnaby and the small package. ‘I’ve a present for you.’ He glanced at Della. She faced him, with her back to Sylvia, and smirked.

  Sylvia brightened briefly. ‘Oh, how nice. What is it?’

  Forthrop pulled another package from his left-hand pocket and gave it to Sylvia. She took it and dismissed the maid: ‘That will be all, Della.’ She pursed her lips, disapproving, as Della went off with a hip-swivelling walk. But then Sylvia opened the little package and exclaimed with delight, ‘They’re lovely!’ She took the rings from her ears and replaced them with the ones in the box. ‘There!’ She admired herself in the glass on the wall.

  Forthrop said, ‘I’m glad you like them.’

  She eyed him anxiously. ‘Did they cost you a lot of money?’

  ‘No more than you deserve, my love.’ A friend of Victor Parnaby had, for a small sum, altered them for him so the original owner would not recognise them.

  Sylvia glanced along the hall to ensure none of the servants was listening, then complained, ‘That girl is not satisfactory. Emily has grumbled to me on several occasions, saying Della doesn’t do her share of the work. I’ve noticed that she is very lackadaisical. And Emily says she is always late starting in the morning.’

  Forthrop suggested, ‘Maybe you should have a word with her.’ Then he added cunningly, ‘We don’t want to sack her, because it’s a devil of a job finding servants these days, with endless interviews and checking references.’ He knew that would deter Sylvia, who was always ready to take the easy way out.

  She sighed and yielded, ‘I’m sure you’re right, dear. I’ll speak to her, some day when I don’t have one of these frightful headaches.’

  Max Forthrop thought, Damn the whingeing bitch! But he told himself there was still the package in his right-hand pocket for Della and she would be suitably grateful.

  The time was almost eleven, close to closing, and Chrissie darted about the sitting-room of the Frigate, collecting empty glasses. The young men were still gathered about the fire. One of them, Bob Pickering, a pink-cheeked bank clerk, was saying, ‘He’s my mother’s brother and he made a pot of money in Birmingham but he’s going to retire to a house up here. He wants somewhere out in the country, not too big and not too expensive—’

  Somebody said, ‘Tightwad!’ and the others laughed.r />
  Bob protested, ‘No! He isn’t! It’s just that he wants peace and quiet, so it has to be right out in the country, and he’s going to alter it to the way he wants it. So if any of you hear of a place . . .’

  Luke Arkenstall shook his head. ‘I don’t think our firm will be able to help. We always seem to act for buyers in the town.’

  Jack suggested with false innocence, ‘What about a houseboat? We could build him one of those in the yard. He could anchor it off the pier and he wouldn’t find many people knocking at his door out there.’

  More laughter and then the voice of Lance Morgan lifted: ‘Time, gentlemen, please!’ Ten minutes later he was bawling at the last dozen or so drinkers scattered around bar and sitting-room, ‘It’s a hell of a job to get you in and a hell of a job to get you out! Time, gentlemen, please!’

  Chrissie washed the last of two score glasses and set it upturned with the ranks of others to drain. She wiped her slim hands on a towel and dashed through to the sitting-room to collect what glasses remained there. It was empty but for Jack Ballantyne, wide shouldered and long legged, pulling on his overcoat.

  He said, ‘Hold on a minute.’

  Chrissie halted and asked, ‘Yes?’ She was aware of him hanging over her as he stood between her and the light, his blue eyes on her.

  He said, ‘Do you remember me?’ And when he saw her hesitate he prompted, ‘You helped me a few years ago when three roughs tried to knock me about. You were on your cart and you laid into them with your whip.’ He grinned at her. ‘I seem to recall that I wasn’t too grateful at the time. You can put that down to youth.’

  Chrissie laughed. ‘That’s all right.’ She hesitated again, then said, ‘I remember you from a bit before that.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jack’s brows came down. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘When you talked me into sneaking some food out of your kitchen. You said it wasn’t stealing but me mam thought different.’