Beyond the Veil of Tears

by Rita Bradshaw

  Jack stopped dead, a look of absolute amazement on his face, and then threw back his head, as peal upon peal of unbridled laughter sounded in the icy-cold air, causing a group of young lads and lassies in front of them to turn round and grin. Angeline felt the colour sweeping her face, but May and Jack were laughing so hard it was infectious. Soon the three of them were helpless, so much so that when an elderly couple passed them and the woman said in a tone meant to reach their ears, ‘I don’t care if it is New Year’s Day, it’s disgraceful being intoxicated at this time of the evening’, it made them worse, not better.

  It was a while before they gained control, and Jack was the last to stop spluttering. He wiped his eyes, before again pulling the girls’ arms through his as he said, laughter still evident in his voice, ‘Talk about a dark horse – where did that come from? Come on, let’s go and meet this husband of yours, May.’ And the three of them walked on, slipping and sliding on the icy pavement with its thin layer of fresh snow.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Angeline was still glowing with the joy at having made Jack laugh, when they reached the inn not far from King Street where Howard was drinking with his pals. He downed his pint on their arrival and came straight out, which Angeline was relieved about. She had never set foot inside a public house, although she knew May had done once or twice in the company of her husband.

  It had almost stopped snowing, with just the odd desultory flake or two floating in the cold air, and once Howard had brought the horse and cart round from the back of the inn, Angeline and May squeezed up beside him on the narrow plank-like seat and Jack sat in the back of the cart on a pile of old sacks.

  The other three kept up a steady stream of banter as the horse clip-clopped its way through streets that would normally have been fairly empty at this time of night on a winter’s evening, but which, due to the holiday atmosphere pervading the town, were relatively busy. Angeline was content just to listen and to hug every moment of the evening to her, knowing it wouldn’t – couldn’t – be repeated.

  They heard the fair before they saw it, as the horse plodded along Newgate Street and then Gallowgate, and then they came into the bottom of the enormous area of land that was Castle Leazes. This was one of the common pastures of the town, where certain citizens had the right to graze their cattle and where, some decades before, the first public park was opened – Leazes Park – in the middle of the pastureland. It was a popular area with Newcastle folk, having bowling greens, tennis courts and a fine bandstand and fountain, with a football ground being situated at the foot of the hundred-plus acres of ground, in a tiny park called St James’s Park. To the left of this the fair had set up, a spectacle of colour in the white world around it. The tantalizing, comforting smells of baked potatoes and roasting chestnuts were thick in the air as they approached the fair, after Howard had tied the horse to one of the big posts at the edge of the open space.

  ‘Isn’t it grand?’ May was quivering with excitement. ‘Come on, Grace, let’s go on the carousel first, and then Howard can try and win me one of those teddies on that stall across there, for the baby. Oh, listen to the hurdy-gurdies, I love hearing them, don’t you? This is better than the Michaelmas Fair, don’t you think?’

  Without waiting for a reply, May dragged Angeline over to the brightly painted carousel, the two men following in their wake. Howard lifted May onto one of the wooden horses, and Jack did the same with Angeline, and when the music started and the revolving circular platform began to turn, it wasn’t the carousel that had brought the colour into Angeline’s pink cheeks.

  The feeling of mass gaiety was something Angeline had never encountered before. Her mama had not considered the travelling fairs a suitable environment for her daughter, and the dances and balls and other social events she had gone to as a young wife had been staid affairs compared to this. This was exhilarating and thrilling, it stirred the blood and quickened the senses, and for a little time at least she felt as one with the folk around her. And the sense of belonging was heady. Throwing caution to the wind, she began to enjoy herself with everyone else.

  Howard won May her teddy, and at the same time Jack spent a fortune attempting to do the same for Angeline. After six attempts at throwing the darts at the dartboard, on a whim Angeline took the three darts from him and, never having held a dart in her life, scored a bullseye on her first throw. Howard promised he would never let Jack forget it.

  May and Angeline screamed and clutched hold of Howard and Jack on the swing seats, which whirled above the heads of the crowd; screamed some more in the haunted house and on the helter-skelter; and had two big toffee-apples apiece in between the rides. Whether it was the magic of the evening Angeline didn’t know, but it seemed perfectly natural for Jack’s arm to be around her waist, or for her arm to be through his as they wandered about the fairground. For the first time in years she felt truly happy and it was more intoxicating than any wine or beer.

  They had just bought some paper cones of hot chestnuts and were standing to one side of the brazier, laughing and talking as they ate them, when Angeline felt a touch on her arm and a voice say, ‘Miss Angeline, is it you?’

  Afterwards she thought of a hundred things she could have said or done, but as she turned and looked straight into Myrtle’s shocked, wide-eyed face, she simply froze. Albert was standing behind his wife and his face expressed the same incredulous disbelief. For what seemed an eternity, but was in fact just a second or two, Angeline found she couldn’t speak, and then somehow she murmured, ‘Myrtle.’

  ‘Oh, it is you! Oh, Miss Angeline! Everyone thought you were dead. I can’t believe it.’

  Angeline was aware of May leaving Howard’s side and coming to stand with her, her arm going about Angeline’s shoulders, and of Jack on her other side standing quite still, but the fairground and the crowd, the noise and the music had melted away and the world had narrowed into the young woman staring at her as though she were a ghost. Which to Myrtle she must have seemed. With a strength she hadn’t believed herself capable of, Angeline reached out and hugged Myrtle briefly, saying at the same time, ‘Hello, Albert. How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right, Miss,’ he said, his deep voice squeaky with shock.

  ‘I . . . I don’t understand, Miss.’ Myrtle’s eyes flashed to the others, before coming back to Angeline. ‘We thought you’d died in the fire – there was a funeral and everything. Mr Golding’ – she stopped abruptly before going on – ‘he said you’d died. He . . . he had you buried next to the baby.’

  ‘Mr Golding?’ Jack’s voice was as thin and sharp as a scalpel.

  Without looking at him, Angeline said, ‘My husband.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Jack, it’s not like you think.’ May’s arm had tightened round Angeline. ‘He was a monster—’

  ‘You knew about this?’

  ‘Aye, I did, an’ it was me who suggested she call herself Grace, and the rest of it, if you want to know.’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’ Jack turned his furious gaze on Howard. ‘Were you in on this an’ all?’

  ‘Don’t start on him.’ May’s eyes were flashing as much as her brother’s. ‘And no, he didn’t know about Grace – Angeline – no one did. It was better that way. He only knew what we said to you: that we met in the asylum and teamed up.’ Turning round, she said to the bewildered Howard, ‘I’m sorry, lad, but it had to be that way. Anyway, I thought you’d had enough to take on board, when I told you what had happened to me and the baby an’ all.’

  Ignoring the rest of them, Angeline again reached out to Myrtle, who now had tears running down her face. ‘Oh, Myrtle,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve missed you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you I was still alive, but barely a day’s gone by when I haven’t thought of you and Albert and the farm.’

  ‘Oh, Miss . . . ’ Sobbing openly, Myrtle hugged her back and they stood together in the midst of the gaiety and laughter and crowds, Myrtle with a hundred mixed emotions teari
ng through her breast, and Angeline with a curious feeling of calm. The worst had happened, and somehow she had always known it would. But she wouldn’t be locked away again. She wasn’t the broken young girl she had been when she’d been incarcerated in Earlswood; she was her own woman now, and she had proved it. She had a job and a home, which no one had given her but herself; she had worked for it and it was her blood, sweat and tears that had made it happen. But Jack, he would hate her.

  Still holding Myrtle, she turned her head and looked at him, and the blazing green eyes in a face that had become as bleached as linen stared back at her, the look in them cutting her to the bone. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began and then stopped when he said, contempt and rage dripping from every word, ‘Who are you anyway? I don’t know you. Everything about you has been a lie.’

  She couldn’t deny it. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So you said.’

  She couldn’t do this with him, not here, not now. ‘Myrtle, will you and Albert come home with me? Are you able to?’

  ‘Now, Miss? Well, aye. Me mam’s got the bairns, and we came into Newcastle for the day, as a treat like. Just the two of us. Aye, we can come back; it don’t matter to me mam what time we get home.’

  Angeline turned to May without looking at Jack again. ‘I’ll see you another day, May. If Howard is still agreeable to us being friends, that is?’

  Howard, bless him, immediately piped up, ‘Whatever you’ve done or not done in the past, lass, is water under the bridge, as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, I couldn’t stop May seeing you if I tried, which I wouldn’t dare to.’

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow evening.’ May’s face was bereft. And to Myrtle and Albert she added, ‘See she’s all right, won’t you?’

  Angeline wondered if Jack would stop her as she walked away with Myrtle and Albert, but no one caught her arm or called out. Telling herself she couldn’t think about him now – that would have to come later when she was alone – she kept her head up and her back straight as they left the park.

  In spite of the circumstances, Myrtle couldn’t keep a note of pride out of her voice as she led Angeline over to a small horse and trap waiting at the edge of the grass. ‘Albert made this himself, Miss,’ she said, pointing at the two-wheeled carriage, ‘and we keep the cart for the farm produce an’ that. He’s made some bits for inside the house an’ all, beds an’ that, and a lovely crib for the babies.’

  It was a squeeze on the seat of the trap, which was only meant for two, but once they were on their way Angeline said, ‘How many children have you got, Myrtle?’, preferring to keep the conversation on them until they were home.

  ‘Three, Miss. Two lads an’ a little lass.’ Shyly now, she added, ‘We called her Angeline, Miss. I hope you don’t mind. In memory like.’

  ‘Oh, Myrtle.’ The emotion was weakening and she didn’t want to cry, fearing that once she got started she would never stop. Swallowing hard, she said, ‘I’m honoured, really. Is she a good little girl?’

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth, Miss, she runs me ragged. The two lads are no trouble, never have been, but she’s a little madam, an’ as bright as a button.’ This was said with some ruefulness. ‘She’s comin’ up for three now and can already write her name, an’ there’s the two lads still have trouble with their ABCs.’

  ‘How old are the boys?’

  ‘They’re twins, Miss. Like two peas in a pod, and they’re six years old, but like I said, they’re not ones for learning. They’d rather be out with their da and me brothers on the farm, but they’re good little lads.’

  Myrtle continued to chat about the children and life at the farm on the way back to the house, for which Angeline was grateful. She only had to put the occasional word in now and again and it gave her time to compose herself.

  Twice, in the middle of her discourse, Myrtle stopped and said softly, ‘Oh, Miss, I can’t believe this, you being here. It’s the answer to my prayer, it is straight’, before carrying on with her tale, and each time Angeline was almost reduced to tears. To know she hadn’t been forgotten, to know she was thought about with such affection, was balm to her sore soul.

  When they neared Garden Street Angeline directed Albert to drive the horse and trap down the back lane so that the horse could wait at the end of the back yard, so they entered the house via the small scullery that led into the kitchen. Myrtle had become silent as they’d neared the house, and now, as she followed Angeline into the kitchen, she said, bewildered, ‘You live here, Miss Angeline?’

  ‘Grace Cunningham lives here, Myrtle,’ Angeline said with a smile, to soften what she was about to say. ‘Angeline Golding died in the fire at the asylum. Or that was the way it was before today. Look, go through to the sitting room and I’ll make a pot of tea and explain.’

  ‘You’ll make the tea?’

  ‘I do all sorts of things now, Myrtle. Cook my own food, clean my own house, work as a secretary and take care of myself.’

  ‘Miss Angeline! And you a lady. What would Mr and Mrs Stewart say? It’s not right.’

  ‘Being a lady isn’t dependent on your station in life, Myrtle. Believe me, when I was married to Mr Golding – well, I suppose I am still married to him, come to that – but when I was living that life, I saw plenty of highborn women who were far from being ladies in their speech and conduct. As for my parents, I hope they’d be proud of what I’ve achieved. And Myrtle, it is right. For me.’ She glanced at Albert. ‘Go through, the pair of you, and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  Once she was alone, she didn’t immediately set the kettle on the hob to boil, but stood with both hands palm-down on the kitchen table as she bowed her head and shut her eyes. Jack couldn’t have found out the truth in a worse way. ‘Miss Angeline.’ If anything was guaranteed to alienate him for the rest of her life, it was that. He would never forgive her. And if he was just May’s brother it wouldn’t matter so much, but he was much, much more than that.

  She raised her head with a gasp as though she was emerging from a bottomless sea of misery, feeling as though she was weeping from every pore of her body, although her eyes were dry. They had been getting on so well tonight, too. And then she immediately overrode that thought with: so what? So what if they had laughed and talked and he’d seemed to like her for once? It could never have come to anything, she knew that. And now her secret was out in the open. Would he betray her to the powers that be? And even if he didn’t, could she ask Myrtle and Albert to say nothing to anyone? There was Howard, too. She rubbed her hand across her eyes. What was she going to do?

  By the time she had made the tea and fetched out a fruit cake, she’d pulled herself together again. She had to be calm and controlled when she talked to Myrtle and Albert. How they must be feeling she didn’t dare think. It had been a terrible shock for poor Myrtle, and she must be feeling hurt and bewildered, and probably resentful too, now it had all had a chance to sink in.

  When she carried the tray into the sitting room they were sitting side by side on the sofa in front of the fire, although they both stood up as she walked in. Angeline told them to sit down and then said straight away, with no preamble, ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you I was alive, Myrtle. But for one thing I didn’t know where you lived, and for another I didn’t think it was fair to put that sort of burden on you. If I could have told anyone, it would have been you, truly.’

  And then Myrtle showed the real depth of her affection when she said, ‘Oh, Miss Angeline, how can you think for one moment I care about that, now I know you’re alive and well? After all you did for me – for us. We can never repay you for your kindness, I know that, but anything we can do for you, no matter what, would be a pleasure. But how did you come to be here?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’ Angeline had poured three cups of tea and cut the cake, which she now offered to them. ‘You see, it was like this . . . ’

  Myrtle and Albert didn’t interrupt once as she related everything, from the moment she had found herself in the asyl
um to the present day. She left nothing out, although her voice faltered when she came to Verity’s death. When she finished speaking they sat in silence for a moment or two, and then Myrtle said, ‘Miss Angeline, I don’t know how to tell you what I need to say.’

  ‘Is it about Mr Golding?’

  Myrtle nodded. ‘Me and Mrs Gibson correspond now and again, and in her last letter she wrote that he’s going to marry the daughter of some rich lord or other. Been after her for a while, because the father wasn’t too keen at first, but he’s won him round, apparently. There was a big engagement ball a few weeks ago.’

  Ridiculous, but she had never thought of Oswald marrying again. Then again, she never thought of him at all, if she could help it. Faintly she murmured, ‘How old is she?’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss, but young, I think. She’s the only child – the apple of her father’s eye – and rich in her own right.’

  Another innocent to the slaughter? But even if this girl wasn’t as young and naive as she had been, she didn’t deserve Oswald. And he was married. She would be condemning this girl to a marriage that wasn’t legal.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Angeline.’ Myrtle looked as though she was about to cry again. ‘But I thought I should tell you.’

  ‘Of course, Myrtle. You did the right thing. It’s just’ – Angeline glanced about her home, which had become even more precious – ‘I thought I could remain Grace Cunningham forever, I suppose.’

  ‘Miss, you don’t have to say anything. What I mean is, me an’ Albert would rather be hanged, drawn and quartered than give you away.’

  Angeline smiled at the dramatic statement. Dear Myrtle! ‘Thank you for that,’ she said softly, ‘but I think we all know I don’t have a choice. My conscience would give me no rest if I let it happen, Myrtle. And perhaps it’s time to face my demons. I’ve hidden away long enough.’ She took a deep breath, feeling light-headed with the suddenness with which her life had taken yet another turn.