Mary's Child

by Irene Carr

  As he sat down to lunch, Prudence, the ill-named girl he was escorting, said tartly, ‘The clerk outside is quite pretty, isn’t she?’

  Jack, his thoughts elsewhere, answered, ‘I suppose so.’ He decided he should have stopped and exchanged a few words with Chrissie Carter. Her smile was apology enough. He reminded himself that she was engaged now. But he could still talk to her – couldn’t he?

  Prudence saw he was not really listening to her and complained, ‘She seemed taken with you. The look she gave you!’

  He came out of his reverie. ‘That’s just her way.’

  ‘I didn’t see her smirk at anyone else like that.’

  Jack snapped, ‘She wasn’t smirking!’ And as Prudence flinched he muttered, ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to say it like that. As I told you, it’s just her way, she tries to make everyone welcome.’

  The girl opened her mouth to say, ‘I’m sure she does,’ but then caught his eye and thought better of it. Too late; the damage was done. She was to weep later, because he ceased to call on her.

  As Jack left the Palace with the girl he looked for Chrissie to speak to her but she was not at her desk. He did not see her for another week and then it was too late.

  It was on a day of bright sunshine, one of the first after the gloom of winter, that Lance Morgan hurried into the foyer and dropped an envelope on Chrissie’s desk. He panted, ‘Came second post this morning. I had to come over into the town so I brought it.’ He grinned. ‘It’s from India – from your young man, eh? I’ve got to catch a tram and get back now. Millie’s on her own and I’m expecting a delivery from the brewery.’ He went out puffing.

  The foyer was empty and Chrissie’s work was up to date. Oddly, the envelope was typewritten. She opened it curiously and took out the letter inside. A photograph fell out and she glanced at it, saw that it showed a grave strewn with flowers. She shuddered with fear but forced herself to read the letter though it shook in her hands. It was signed by the company commander of Private Edward Ward and said that Ted had been killed by cholera at Lucknow.

  And he had died thinking she loved him.

  Jack Ballantyne came out of the dining-room to find her in tears. He halted and asked, ‘What is it?’ Blinded and racked by sobs, she told him. He said, ‘Just sit still,’ and went away.

  Minutes later he returned with Walter Ferguson. She saw Walter’s concerned face as Jack helped her into her coat and led her outside, his hand under her arm. She was aware of riding in one of the new motor taxicabs, of him helping her in at the door of the Bells. Then Millie’s arms went around her.

  Jack called in to see her the next day. They sat in the kitchen behind the bar, just the two of them, but Millie and Lance passed the door every few seconds and the rumble of talk out there in the bar was a background to their own.

  Jack asked, ‘How are you now?’

  Chrissie replied huskily, ‘I’m fine.’ She was pale with dark circles around her eyes.

  He looked handsome, teeth very white in a bronzed face. He said, making conversation, ‘I’ve been away on the Continent with my father: Germany, France, Italy. We were visiting the shipyards there, making sure they aren’t building quicker and better than we are – and looking to pinch any good ideas we saw.’ He grinned at her and she tried to smile, knowing that he was trying to cheer her.

  He went on, ‘I could stay at home now and work in the yard for a bit if I wanted to – my father says he will make the next trips abroad on his own. Somebody has to go to the States and look into things over there. Then there are customers to be drummed up in South America. I still have to make up my mind.’ And he was speaking it. His decision would depend on her but he could not put the question to her now when she was in mourning.

  Chrissie looked at him across the empty width of the kitchen table and from another, different world. ‘Thank you for coming to see me. And for helping me yesterday. It was kind of you.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘I’m glad I was able to help.’ He took a breath then said what was long overdue, what he had tried to say to her before. ‘That row we had a while back . . . I think there were faults on both sides. You made a mistake and I lost my temper, got a bit pompous. So shall we forget it? Start again? Please?’

  Chrissie nodded but did not speak. Now it did not matter what she felt for him.

  Jack fiddled with his hat as the silence lengthened and finally said, ‘Well, if there is anything else I can do . . .?’ He left the question hanging, hopefully.

  Chrissie replied, ‘There’s nothing. But thank you, Mr Ballantyne.’

  Jack went away, his mind half made up now.

  Chrissie went into mourning, took off Ted’s ring and put it away, dressed in black like any widow. She wept not because she had loved him but because she had not and guilt lay heavy on her.

  She would not be the only one to mourn.

  Chapter 17

  April 1912

  The bow of the boat smashed into the sea and hurled it back in salt spray. ‘Are you sure it isn’t too rough, dear?’ Sylvia Forthrop clung to the side of the boat as it pitched and rolled.

  Max Forthrop, sitting in the sternsheets beside his wife, laughed at her fears and reassured her, ‘This is just a bit of a blow! Always looks worse than it is. It will do you good. The wind is already bringing the roses to your cheeks. You look very pretty.’ He smiled at her and thought, Two birds with one stone.

  In fact she was even paler than usual, the cold wind cutting through her. She never went out of doors except on a day of warm sunshine or riding in the Vauxhall motor car. She swallowed now and tried to smile bravely. She did not want to frustrate him. It had been his idea to hire the boat for this, his birthday. He had been like a boy in his excited anticipation. But she had to ask, ‘Not too far, dear. I’m afraid I don’t feel very well.’ She knew she would be violently ill before long.

  Forthrop was intent on his steering, one hand on the tiller, the other on the sheet that controlled the big mainsail. He answered abstractedly, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll be turning back in a minute.’ They were close to the broken water that marked the bar at the mouth of the river between the piers. He was nervous because he had not done this before. When he had hired the boat he had told the boatman impatiently, ‘Of course I’ve handled a boat before. I don’t need anyone with me.’ He was competent to handle the boat, but he was new to this business he was engaged on now.

  He needed the people on the piers and was glad to see the strollers. There were men and women walking arm in arm, hands to their hats to hold them on in the wind. Others leant on the rails fishing or watching others fish – and watching him.

  They saw the little boat start to turn and then hang broadside on to wind and sea. A moment later she had blown over on to her side, mast and rigging lay on the water and she was filling up. The two people who had been aboard her had disappeared under the waves. The watchers shouted, screamed and pointed as Forthrop’s head broke the surface. He stared wildly about him and one man on the pier with a telescope saw his face clearly, panic stricken, hair plastered to his skull. Then he dived under again and was lost to sight.

  The watchers on the pier shouted, ‘There he is again!’ as his head broke water. But he only took another breath and dived once more. They became quieter as time went on, just let out a low groan each time he appeared empty handed. When the lifeboat reached him he was clinging to the upturned boat in the last stages of exhaustion.

  Sylvia Forthrop’s body was washed up some days later. At the inquest the man who had watched from the pier through his telescope said, ‘I saw him come up and look round for her – oh, I don’t know how many times. He’d look and then he’d dive under again to try to find her.’ The coroner gave a verdict of accidental death and extended his condolences to Forthrop, haggard in black.

  He sold the house in Ashbrooke and the Vauxhall motor car, paid off the chauffeur and Emily Prewett, Mrs Garrity and Della Roberts, but found a small furnished house for Della in Villiers
Street, close to the river. He stayed at the Palace Hotel for two weeks while he looked for lodgings for himself and told a sympathetic Walter Ferguson, ‘I can’t stay in the house; it is so empty without Sylvia.’

  Chrissie Carter saw him and for once was sorry for him. She remembered how Mary and Harry Carter had died.

  In the privacy of his room he could relax and smile. Except when he remembered how Sylvia, so frail and always ailing, had fought for her life. She had risen towards the surface again and again, and he had to drag her down, his hand locked in her skirts, again and again.

  But he could put that out of his mind. It had been necessary to sell the house and the car, and his lodgings, when he found them, would be modest. It would be unseemly to make a splash straight away and have everyone talking about him spending his wife’s money. He was going to be a rich man, the wealthiest in this town, and this was another step along the way, a big one. Now he would wait a while, say a year or two, and make his plans.

  His final thought before he slept, content, was that it had all been so easy. Two birds with one stone. He had rid himself of Sylvia’s vapid presence and gained her money that he needed.

  He would not be so nervous next time.

  Old Ezra Arkenstall sat late before the fire in his study at home. As executor of Sylvia Forthrop’s will he knew the value of the estate that had come this early to her husband. He told himself that there was no shred of evidence that – But he would not put the suggestion into words; it was nonsense. This was no mysterious death but an accident like many another on this river. It was witnessed by scores of people. No one would attempt murder – he stopped short, realising he had thought it, then went on – in such an open place and in the light of day.

  No. He reasoned that the truth was that he did not like, had never liked, Max Forthrop. And for no good reason, just his instinct. And that was not infallible. There were other men he had disliked but who had proved honest, good husbands and fathers. Some people were sympathetic while others were not. Just as some became friends and others remained acquaintances. It was as simple as that. There was nothing sinister in the death of Sylvia Forthrop. So he finally went to his bed. But he did not sleep for a long time.

  Dear Chrissie Carter, just a few lines to say how sorry I am. We have both lost Ted. He deserved better than that, to die so young and far away. My ship is going out to join the Mediterranean Fleet. I am not coming home before we sail so will say goodbye now.

  Yours sincerely, Frank Ward.

  Dear Frank, I still grieve for Ted and always will. He was such a good lad. I wish you good luck and hope you do well in the Navy. You will always be in my prayers. All my love.

  Frank did not reply. She wrote to him again care of the gunnery school. The letters were not returned but he never replied.

  She was mourning but she was working, partly still in pursuit of her goal – one day she would be somebody, with a place of her own and money in the bank – and partly to assuage the grief. She put in five and a half days at the Palace Hotel and spent several evenings and weekends behind the bar in the Bells. Lance Morgan had said she was making a pretty penny for a young girl and that was true. She spent little because she did not have the time – and saved a lot. Lance had also talked of her ‘bottom drawer’. That was another memory that hurt.

  Then early one evening a tall, slim young man came into the Bells and smiled at her. ‘Now then, Chrissie.’ He was fair, with a straggling moustache that made him look older than his years. For a moment Chrissie did not recognise him and stared blankly. Then she burst out, ‘Ronnie Milburn! Well I never! What are you doing up here? Come to see your dad?’

  Ronnie’s smile faded. ‘I’ve been round to see him but I didn’t stop long. That Agatha was there, o’ course. She didn’t offer me a drop o’ tea, never mind anything to eat. And me dad just sits in the chair looking into the fire. He doesn’t know where he is, didn’t understand what I said or who I was.’

  Chrissie reached out to touch his hand. ‘Oh, Ronnie! I’m sorry. It’s a shame. Poor Daniel.’ She sighed. ‘I haven’t been to see him because I know I wouldn’t be welcome.’

  ‘I’m not surprised you haven’t gone there.’ Ronnie scowled. ‘That woman sold you. I had a hell of a row with her over that. I suppose that’s one reason why she treats me the way she does now, but I don’t care. To hell with her.’ He dismissed Agatha with a wave of his hand, grinned at Chrissie. ‘But how are you now? I’d ha’ thought a bonny lass like you would ha’ been married afore now. Hasn’t the right one come along?’

  Chrissie answered, ‘Do you remember Frank Ward?’ And when Ronnie nodded, went on, ‘I was engaged to his brother, Ted. But he died in India.’

  Ronnie’s grin was wiped away. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  Chrissie smiled at him. ‘Cheer up. That’s all in the past and I’m all right. How are you getting on? But I’m forgetting – can I get you something? Are you still teetotal?’ And when he nodded she went on, ‘Then what about a cup of coffee? And a bite to eat?’

  ‘Just the coffee, please. I had a good dinner just an hour back.’

  Chrissie brought him the coffee, served a few customers and called into the sitting-room, ‘Don’t burn them and stink the place out, Mr Arkenstall!’ That brought laughter. The old crowd from the back room of the Frigate were packed into the sitting-room of the Bells, Jack Ballantyne and Luke Arkenstall among them. Luke was cooking sausages on a shovel over the fire.

  Chrissie returned to Ronnie. ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’

  ‘The same as I told you a few years back.’ He grinned at Chrissie. ‘I packed in the job with the motor cars and started building aeroplanes.’

  She shook her head and laughed with delight for him. Lance Morgan and Millie looked round in surprise and then smiled at each other approvingly. They had not heard Chrissie laugh since the news of Ted’s death.

  Chrissie marvelled, ‘I can hardly believe it.’ She had not expected the job to last.

  Ronnie pulled a face. ‘Neither can anybody else. That’s the trouble. But it’s true.’

  ‘What do you mean – trouble?’

  He said he had the chance to set up in business on his own, buying a shed as a workshop and making parts for the aeroplanes. ‘There’s room for somebody to do that. I’ve found the shed, got the work lined up, know the people in the business who will come to me. I’ve saved some money myself but I need another couple of hundred and nobody will lend it to me. I’ve tried in London and Weybridge but I’m still a stranger down there and I’m young. I came up here to see if I could get a loan but it’s the same story: I’m too young – and nobody takes the business seriously. They think aeroplanes are just a craze that’ll fade away. But they aren’t, Chrissie. I believe that in ten years they’ll be carrying three or four passengers at a time, maybe from London to Paris.’

  Chrissie said politely, ‘That’s wonderful.’ She did not believe him either. Blériot had flown across the Channel three years before, but passengers?

  He said bitterly, ‘It was a chance for me to be somebody, and not spend the rest of my life slogging away on the floor of some machine shop to make another feller rich.’

  Chrissie could understand that, sympathised with him. She studied him, sitting glumly over his empty cup. Then the bell rang in the sitting-room and she excused herself. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ She called out to Lance and Millie, who were both already serving, ‘I’ll see to it!’ and hurried out to the sitting-room.

  She took the orders, pulled the pints and poured the spirits, then she carried them through on a tray, collected payment, wiped tables, and told the young men who were now trying to bake potatoes, ‘You want your heads looked at.’ Then quietly, pausing before him, she asked, ‘Can I ask you for some advice, Mr Ballantyne?’

  He shoved away from the mantelpiece where he was leaning and followed her out of the crowd. She told him, ‘A friend of mine needs some money to start in business and I
have some savings . . .’

  She did not mention any amount but Jack listened to her story. She finished, ‘I trust him but I think there should be some sort of agreement, something written down. What should I put in it?’

  Jack was startled, had tried not to let his surprise show. A barmaid wanting to invest savings in a business? A young barmaid at that, not some matron in her forties who just might have managed to scrape together a few pounds after twenty-odd years of hard work. But he took Chrissie seriously, thought and said, ‘I think you should certainly have a formal agreement and I know the chap to draw it up for you.’ He called, ‘Luke! Spare a minute?’ And Luke Arkenstall shoved out of the crowd that were baking potatoes.

  Next day Chrissie and Ronnie Milburn went to Luke’s book-lined, cramped and crowded little office – he was an articled clerk, learning his profession in the firm of Arkenstall, Eddrington, Halliwell & Forthrop – and signed an agreement drawn up by him. It made Chrissie a sleeping partner in Ronnie Milburn’s enterprise, taking five per cent of any profits. In return she gave him her savings of £200.

  She walked back across the bridge over the river to the Bells with a feeling of relief. She had divested herself of the money saved for her ‘bottom drawer’. Now the memory of that would not nag at her. She did not need a dowry now because she was not going to marry for a long time. She could save again. She did not think of the money as invested but as a gift because she did not expect to see it again. She had simply nodded acceptance of Luke’s suggestion that she should have five per cent, partly because she trusted him, mainly because she did not care. Five per cent of profits? What profits? She had never seen an aeroplane.

  Chrissie stood again on a station platform later that day. This time she waved farewell to an excited and grateful Ronnie Milburn. As the train pulled away he shouted, ‘Thank you, Chrissie! You won’t regret it, I promise!’