by Tania Crosse
He delicately pulled the ripped edges of her blouse together and she stared up at him, her gaze frozen. But deep within her, a feeling of gratitude, of peace and safety, was gathering itself together. And tears of relief trickled unheeded down her cheeks.
‘C–Connor?’ she barely croaked.
‘Who else?’ His arms tightened around her, but she was happy to lean against him. Could hear his heart pounding strongly. ‘We’ll get you home as soon as the storm’s over. Do you know who those two blackguards were?’
‘N–no. W–were they navvies?’
‘I don’t know. I certainly didn’t recognize them. But aren’t there over two thousand of us in the area and I can’t know them all. I don’t know what I did to that fellow just now, but sure me hand knows I hit him hard. And won’t the other one have a black eye to prove who he was.’
‘Oh, Connor, th–thank you,’ Tresca stammered. ‘I . . . I came in here to get out of the storm. I didn’t . . . know they were . . . in here.’
‘Well, you’re safe now, little one. You know I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head.’ Connor exhaled sharply and dropped back against the wall. Neither of them spoke again as they waited for the rain to stop battering on the tin roof, for the door to stop banging in the wind. All Tresca was aware of was her whole body still shaking uncontrollably but curled in the protection of Connor’s arms of steel. Connor O’Mahoney who she hated.
‘I think we can go now,’ he said at length as light began to glimmer through the broken slats of the door. He tried to stand up with her still gathered in his arms, but drew the breath through his teeth in a wince, resting her back on the ground. ‘Are you all right to walk? I think one of them got me ribs.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered hoarsely, though she was feeling stronger now. ‘I wasn’t hurt.’
‘Good. Come on then.’
He helped her to her feet and together they stumbled outside. The sky was still a slate grey, but the wind was dying down and the rain had stopped. Evidence of the storm, though, was all around, with leafy twigs and lengths of broken branches strewn everywhere in the muddy lane. They stood looking all around them, and when their eyes met, Tresca’s opened wide. Blood from a badly split lip had dried on Connor’s chin and one of her attackers wasn’t the only person who was going to have a black eye. He saw her looking, and put a tentative finger up to his mouth.
‘We’re going to look a right pair,’ he said wryly, ‘and I only went into town to have a word with Mr Szlumper about the scaffolding in the tunnel. Hold your coat about you, now. Will you be able to sew on some new buttons, d’you think?’
Tresca almost smiled. It seemed such a minor thing to worry about when Connor had bravely saved her from being . . . well, she couldn’t even think the word. How could she ever . . . ? ‘I can’t thank you enough, Connor,’ she murmured.
‘Sure, wouldn’t anyone have done the same. I’m just glad I were a match for them. And you calling me Connor is thanks enough. I hope you can forgive me for what’s gone before. You know I’d have helped you if you’d let me.’
A watery smile lifted the corners of Tresca’s mouth. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I should have trusted you. I were just so angry about what happened and I suppose I wanted someone to blame.’
‘Sure, I can understand that. But let’s forget about all that now. How is your father? You told me he were quite poorly.’
‘Well, they say he is, but I find it hard to believe.’ She was amazed at herself, talking openly to Connor O’Mahoney like this. And when her nerves were all so taut and ready to snap. But perhaps that was precisely why. ‘The doctor reckons he has a type of cancer, but I just can’t . . . can’t comprehend it.’
‘Ah,’ Connor grunted. ‘Sure that’s hard for anyone to comprehend. That can go on for years, or it can be mighty quick. Let’s hope it’ll be the former case with your daddy.’
Tresca sucked in her cheeks as she walked along beside him. Yes, she hoped the same. It struck her then how odd it was to hear Connor using that particular form of endearment: ‘Daddy’. Connor O’Mahoney, who she always thought of as so self-assured and confident. And then she remembered how he had been with the ducks. Perhaps she had misjudged him entirely.
‘We should be going to the police about this, I’m thinking,’ he said softly. ‘That’s if you feel up to it. It could be difficult for you, going over exactly what happened. Trying to describe those devils.’
Tresca shook her head as the horror rushed at her again. ‘It were so dark, I’m not sure as I’d ever recognize them. All I remember is that they were in working men’s clothes. But, yes,’ she answered, determination strengthening in her breast, ‘I should report it. Some other girl mightn’t be so lucky as I were. But . . . you will come with me?’
‘Of course. And don’t be forgetting they’ll be bearing evidence of what happened on their faces,’ he added, flexing his hand again.
‘Oh, Connor, your poor hand, it’s swelling up. And it’s covered in blood.’
‘Cut it on his teeth, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m not sure if it’s all his blood or mine.’
‘Well, after we’ve been to the police, you must come with me and I’ll patch you up. It’s the least I can do.’
‘So,’ he faltered, his eyebrows dipped, ‘we can be friends from now on?’
She looked up at him and nodded. And something in her heart softened.
Eighteen
‘Aw, my little princess, tell me tidd’n true.’
Tresca blinked at her father. His forehead was pleated, his tall frame stooped, and he somehow seemed to have grown older since she had seen him the previous month. She gazed at him through liquid eyes and took him in her arms, aware for the first time of his frailty.
‘I read ’bout it in the paper,’ Emmanuel groaned. ‘Lets us ’ave the Gazette, they does. An’ when I saw it were you, aw, I were mortal crazed, I were.’
Tresca drew back and looked into his beloved, anguished face. She was so overcome at seeing the change in him that at first she couldn’t think what he was talking about. It was three weeks since the vile incident in the barn and she had been trying desperately to forget about it. Now the horrific memory seared into her once more.
‘Yes, it were me,’ she admitted, trying to make light of it. ‘But nothing actually happened and I weren’t hurt at all. Just very frightened.’
‘But I should’ve been there to protect you,’ Emmanuel complained miserably, ‘instead o’ bein’ cooped up in yere. An’ ’ave they caught they buggers yet?’
Tresca shook her head. ‘No, they haven’t. But sit down afore you get too upset,’ she encouraged, directing him to the hard, straight-backed chair he nevertheless slumped into like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut. Tresca squatted down in front of him and took his gnarled hands. ‘They tried, but I think it’s all forgotten about now. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know if they were navvies or not. There are so many of them working all along the line at the same time. And Connor reckons they’ll be long gone, whoever they were.’
‘Connor?’ Emmanuel’s voice was sharp as he almost spat the name, his strength suddenly returning. ‘So, it be Connor now, is it, not Mr O’Mahoney? That divil what put us in yere.’
Tresca felt a deep sigh in her chest. ‘He’m really not so bad, you know. He took quite a beating when he rescued me, and he’s never complained. And he didn’t know it were me. Not at first. So it isn’t as if he were trying to get in my good books or anything. And, you know,’ she ventured, summoning her courage, ‘he was right to dismiss you. It really is dangerous work. There have been so many accidents and he really couldn’t take the risk of having someone . . . well, you know, among his men. You know that, don’t you, Father?’
Emmanuel’s mouth wilted at the corners. ‘I supposes so,’ he muttered grudgingly.
‘And it isn’t his fault you’ve got this . . . this cancer thing.’ Swiftly changing the subject, she asked, ‘How have you been?’
‘
All the better fer seein’ you. An’ I swears you’ve grown since you got out o’ this place.’
Tresca smiled back. ‘Do you know, I think I have! I’ve had to let down the hem of my skirt. And I’ve bought some material to make myself a new summer dress.’
‘Pretty as a picture you’ll be. My princess be turnin’ into a proper young woman. An’ I sees your lovely ’air be growin’ back an’ all. Every young rascal in town’ll be arter you. So you be careful. Don’t want ort like that ’appening to you again.’
‘Oh, don’t you fret none. Connor’s hardly let me out of his sight. Except when he’m at work, of course . . .’
She broke off abruptly. What would Emmanuel have to say if he knew of the attention Connor had been showing her? The attack and his valiant rescue had caused a seed of understanding to germinate between them. Tresca had even found herself enjoying his company, eagerly awaiting each evening when Connor would call into the dairy on his return from work to make sure she was still all right. At first she had wanted to know how he was, too, seeing the way his eye had swollen up and then turned every colour of the rainbow. The injuries he had collected in his defence of her had now healed and Tresca herself was more or less over the horror of the attack, but they had slipped into a daily routine that she sincerely hoped he was not about to break.
‘O’Mahoney?’
‘Please, Father,’ Tresca begged. ‘Connor’s really very kind. You know how he helped Assumpta, and there’s been other folk, too, but he never says a word about it. I think we misjudged him, you know.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ Emmanuel mumbled. But then his eyes snapped with animosity. ‘But that don’t mean ’er can go thinkin’ ’er can get ’is mucky ’ands on you instead. Old enough to be your father, he be.’
‘He’m thirty-one,’ Tresca informed him, astounded at the way the skin around her neck was prickling defensively. ‘And he’m always the perfect gentleman, so you’ve no worries on that score, I assure you.’
But later, as she walked back down Bannawell Street, she found, quite curiously, that she was thinking not of her father, but of the man he clearly still held a grudge against. It was as if a faint light was dawning deep inside her, growing stronger and brighter with each day that passed. And soon, perhaps, that glimmer would erupt in a glorious explosion of brilliance. She couldn’t wait to find out . . .
‘Connor!’ Tresca’s heart waltzed with delight as he appeared on the threshold. ‘I thought perhaps you weren’t coming today.’
She had tried to convince herself that there was good reason for his not turning up at the normal time, and that, having both recovered from the incident two months ago now, it wasn’t because Connor hoped their relationship would peter out. And what relationship would that be, exactly, she dared to ask herself? One of two friends who happened to be of the opposite sex.
Yet she was intrigued by the tormented, delicious emotion that churned in her breast. She had come to realize that whenever she thought of Connor, her heart began to beat in the most alarming but exquisite way. Now it was summer, he no longer wore a neckerchief, the top buttons of his shirt unfastened and revealing the brown skin at his throat. Tresca wanted to touch it, feel its warmth beneath her fingers. His jacket was usually slung carelessly over his shoulder, his waistcoat accentuating his trim waist. He would saunter into the dairy, often whistling, and then smile at her with those twinkling, peacock-blue eyes that made her heart race.
And then a horrible fear had taken hold of her. Perhaps . . . oh, dear Lord, she prayed not . . . but perhaps there had been another accident. Only the previous week, a minor explosion had occurred when a lighted candle had inadvertently been dropped into a box of cartridges. And a few days earlier, a navvy had been killed when a charge had gone off prematurely. If anything happened to Connor after the way she felt about him now, Tresca would be devastated. Her mind had conjured up a terrible picture of him lying injured among a crater of mud and twisted iron rails, or perhaps buried in the Shillamill Tunnel as Rory Driscoll had been. So when Connor suddenly materialized in front of her, relief and excitement tingled through to her fingertips.
‘I went home first to clean meself up a bit,’ he explained, his generous mouth breaking into that mesmerizing smile. ‘And to collect this. A present for you.’
‘A present?’ Tresca realized now that he was carrying a large wooden box. ‘For me?’
‘Sure, I don’t see anyone else in here,’ he teased.
‘Well, you’d better come through.’
‘Won’t Mrs Ellacott mind? Won’t she be objecting to a stranger coming into her home?’
‘You’m hardly a stranger, Connor,’ Tresca grinned back, and she led him through to the kitchen.
Jane Ellacott greeted them with her usual cheery smile. ‘Mr O’Mahoney, how nice to see you. Will you have some dinner with us? There be plenty in the pot.’
‘Isn’t that so kind of you, but I’ve me own dinner waiting for me. I just wanted to give this to Tresca.’
His eyes glinted mischievously as he set the box on the floor, since the table was taken up with the two place settings and a tray ready laid to be taken upstairs to Mr Preedy. Tresca frowned inquisitively as she knelt down and began to remove crunched up balls of newspaper from the top of the box.
‘I’ll just take Mr Preedy’s meal up to him,’ Jane announced as she ladled a large portion of delicious stew into the bowl on the tray and then carried it out of the room.
‘Go on then, acushla,’ Connor encouraged. ‘But be careful for aren’t parts of it breakable.’
Tresca’s curious eyes met his mildly teasing ones. Goodness, he seemed so attractive to her in his own unique way. She gulped, turning her attention back to the box and hoping he didn’t notice the crimson in her cheeks.
She carefully unwrapped the base of a pretty china lamp, and her hands began to tremble as she stood it on the table. She stared at it, and then back up at Connor whose face was aglow. Perhaps she was mistaken. But when she took out the fluted glass globe with its delicate pink hue, she knew she wasn’t. And a surge of anger whipped through her.
‘It’s the lamp you bought from me when Mrs Trembath wouldn’t take it back,’ she said, her voice flat and expressionless.
‘It is so. What would I be doing with such a feminine thing? Fit only for a lady, so it is.’
‘And you want to humiliate me by giving it back? To remind me of your so-called act of charity towards me?’ she accused, springing to her feet.
Connor’s jaw slackened. ‘No. I thought you’d be pleased to have it back. Didn’t I want to make a present of it to you. To show you how much—’
‘No, don’t tell me! How superior you are to me! How much I needed your help and you—’
‘No, woman! How much I—’
His tone was gruff, harsher than she had ever known it. She went to turn her back on him, but he caught her arm, roughly pulling her towards him. She glared up at him, her eyes narrowed challengingly, seeing the rebellious reply in his. Before she knew it, his mouth came down on hers, hard and demanding.
‘Oh, acushla,’ his lips murmured.
She tried to struggle, pummelling her small fists against his chest, but there was no escape. His hands were in the small of her back, and one of them moved into her hair so that it fell from the little knot she had begun to be able to pin it into. Their bodies were rigid, pressed against each other. But then she felt him relax, his hold soften. His lips withdrew from hers, then returned, searching, gentle, brushing against hers in teasing little kisses before he drew away and gazed down at her, his mouth in a soft curve.
‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I was going to say how much I love you. Didn’t you stir me heart the very first time I saw you. Sure I know I’m a lot older than you, but . . . d’you think you might come to like me one day?’
Her eyes glinted like the flash of the sun on polished steel. ‘Like you?’ she grated. And then her hand shot out and slammed across his
cheek. He stared at her for a moment, his expectant expression fading, and then he lowered his head.
‘Please forgive me,’ he mumbled, not daring to look at her again. ‘We were getting on so well, I thought . . . Just the foolish hopes of a stupid eejit. I think, perhaps, I’d best be leaving you.’
He turned swiftly and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Tresca stood, staring after him. How dare he? She glanced at the lamp, the lovely object that she had chosen for its beauty and elegance. And she had to fight her hand that wanted to hurl it across the room.
‘Oh, has Mr O’Mahoney gone?’ Jane asked, her rosy cheeks flushed from the exertion of going up and down the stairs. ‘What a kind man he is. Oh, an’ what a pretty lamp! It’ll look proper classy in your room. A handsome gift from a handsome fellow. Wouldn’t surprise me if ’er isn’t soft on you.’
‘No, it wouldn’t surprise me, either,’ Tresca muttered back. And lifting her trembling hand, she gently fingered her lips.
‘Oh, Vera, I don’t know what I should do,’ Tresca moaned, wringing her hands in her lap. ‘I feel knotted up inside whenever I think about it.’
‘And you say he’s not been back to the dairy since?’
‘No. And when I happened to see him in the street, he just lifted his hat in that infuriatingly polite way of his. He didn’t say a word, not even good day, and his face were, I don’t know, cold.’
‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?’ Vera reasoned. ‘He declared his feelings for you, and you rejected him. He must feel hurt and embarrassed. It would take any man a while to recover from that, especially someone who’s as sincere as Mr O’Mahoney. Some fly-by-night wouldn’t have taken it so hard.’
Tresca’s eyebrows arched. ‘I know. And I feel so guilty. I want us to be friends and I miss him. I mean, he really overstepped the mark, kissing me like that. But I overreacted about the lamp. It just brought everything flooding back. All the humiliation. How everything went wrong and we ended up in the workhouse. And how my father still blames Connor for it all.’
