Connie’s eyelids blinked and she swallowed deep in her throat. The two women stared at each other for a matter of seconds, before Connie said, ‘With you or without you, I’m going to see Mr Alridge, and right now, Mary. I understand perfectly if you don’t want to come, in fact I don’t think you should. There is no reason why you should put your job on the line.’
Before answering Mary drew in a long breath. ‘Aye, well I thought you’d do what you think best whatever I said but I had to try. I’m just grieved a muck hut like him will win out in the end, an’ he will. He will. But I’m with you, lass. You know that.’
Connie nodded. Yes, she’d known that, and she was grateful, very grateful for it. But it didn’t allay the terrible feeling of aloneness that had gripped her. Nevertheless, she reached out and gripped Mary’s hands for a moment, squeezing them hard before she started walking again.
They met no one on the way to the office for which Connie was eternally thankful, and when they reached Mr Alridge’s door she squared her shoulders, pulling Mary’s shawl more tightly around her before saying, ‘You wait out here. I’ll be all right.’
Mary looked at the beautiful face. It was like a piece of alabaster fired through with dark claret, and suddenly the years rolled away and she was a little lassie again, running home to her mam with the pain in her belly ripping her apart and the blood trickling down her legs. What were these men? They weren’t human beings and they weren’t fit to be called animals – even animals had boundaries they didn’t cross. But when the natural hunger that should be satisfied between a man and a woman within the bounds of wedlock got distorted and perverted the result was frightening. Aye, frightening, and putrid and obscene.
‘I’m comin’ in, lass.’ It was flat and heavy, and after one glance at her friend’s face Connie didn’t argue.
It was a moment or two before Mr Alridge answered the knock at the door, and then his voice was restrained when he called, ‘Come in.’
Colonel Fairley was in there with him. Connie didn’t question how she knew. She just knew.
The Colonel was standing looking down into the glowing fire, his legs slightly apart and his hands clasped behind his back as they entered, and he didn’t turn round or move a muscle. After one swift glance at the portly figure which caused her stomach to rise up into her mouth, Connie kept her eyes on the stiff face of her employer as she said, ‘I need to talk with you, Mr Alridge. I think you know what about.’
Harold Alridge inclined his head slowly, his glance moving from Connie to Mary – standing militantly beside her – and then back to Connie again. ‘The Colonel has just related a most distressing series of events, Miss Bell, but I was hoping this could be dealt with when my wife was present. Mrs Alridge is indisposed and has gone to bed early.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She was. Connie felt her friend might have been some sort of ally against the Colonel, although if Lucy had seen the letter – and worse, believed it – she had to admit that might not be the case. ‘But this won’t wait. Colonel Fairley attacked me tonight and –’
‘What did I tell you?’ The Colonel swung round, looking at his relation as he fairly spat, ‘The chit’s trouble, it’s written all over her and –’
‘Reginald.’ Harold Alridge was out of his depth. One moment he had been sitting there with his mind half on the mountain of paperwork in front of him and the other half on Lucy – this was the third dizzy spell she had had in two weeks and he was worried about her – and the next Reginald had burst in as though the devil himself was after him. And the tale he’d told. . . Mind you, it wouldn’t be the first time a girl had tried to trap a fellow into marrying her with a bit of slap and tickle, and Reginald was worth a bit. He looked into the older man’s face, and his voice was sharp as he said, ‘I’ve told you, it’s best I deal with this and you say nothing for the present.’
So that was the line they were going to take. But she’d known, she had known, hadn’t she? Connie asked herself bitterly, nausea and a deep raw anger pulling her mouth taut.
‘Colonel Fairley has admitted his. . . unwise response to your encouragements, Miss Bell, which he now heartily regrets in view of the present sorry situation. I tell you frankly I would have found difficulty in believing this of you some weeks ago, but – painful though this is for me to say – I think we both know you have been less than completely truthful in your dealings with my wife and myself.’
‘I disagree. I have been totally honest in everything I have said and done whilst in your employ.’ The shaking which had begun to subside was taking hold again, but Connie was fighting it with all her might. She had to make Harold Alridge see. She had to.
‘Ha!’ The Colonel swayed on his heels and it was evident he was about to say more before he caught Harold Alridge’s eye.
‘Then there is nothing you feel you should have told us at your initial interview, Miss Bell? Something which would have had a bearing on your success or otherwise of securing the position of assistant housekeeper at the Grand Hotel?’ asked Harold.
‘No, there is not.’ She wasn’t going to be put off like this, she wouldn’t let them get away with it. ‘I am aware you have received a libellous letter about me, Mr Alridge, and I find it difficult to believe you and Mrs Alridge haven’t given me the chance to defend myself against what was written.’ Connie watched his face stretch a little, and it was clear he was finding her stance surprising, but she went on quickly before her teeth began to chatter. ‘But I’m not here to discuss the letter, not now, and you know it. Colonel Fairley used Mrs Pegg’s keys to come into the laundry room tonight when he knew he would catch me unawares, and he used brute force on me.’
‘You are saying you were not willing?’ Harold Alridge had continued to look at Connie all the time she had been speaking and she could read the disbelief on his face, although his voice was quite dispassionate.
She swallowed deeply, bringing her head forward with the effort it took to swallow her spittle, and then she moved the shawl aside deliberately, lifting her chin as she said slowly and distinctly, ‘Does this look as though I was willing?’
‘She’s done that herself.’ Colonel Fairley flapped his hand disparagingly at Connie’s torn dress. ‘Good heavens, Harold. Do you think I would be so foolish as to do something like that? I told you, the gel is trying to trap me. One minute we’re having a bit of fun and the next she’s talking about marriage and what she’ll do if I don’t jump to. Not on, old man, not on at all and I told her so.’
‘And the scratches?’ For only the second time since she had come into the room Connie faced the man who had touched her more intimately than any other human being ever had, and now her eyes were blazing blue fire. ‘I suppose I’ve scratched myself as well?’ she hissed painfully. ‘You attacked me and I shall prove it. I shall go to the authorities.’
‘You must do as you please, but I wouldn’t recommend it, Miss Bell.’ It was Harold Alridge talking and now he was every inch the public school aristocrat, his tone icy as he surveyed the trembling girl in front of him. ‘I have made certain enquiries of my own during the last few days and it has been confirmed you are the daughter of a Sadie Bell who lived a promiscuous and dissolute lifestyle, and also that you have had men asking for you and waiting for you outside the hotel. This is a hotel, not a place of procurement, and for you to approach guests such as Colonel Fairley –’
‘I didn’t! How dare you say that!’
‘For you to approach guests such as the Colonel, who incidentally has a military record second to none, is unforgivable, and a total betrayal of the trust my wife and I had mistakenly placed in you.’
‘Come on, lass, you won’t do any good here. The blighters have got it all sewn up.’
‘Oh no they haven’t.’ Mary had meant well, Connie knew that, but she had seen the flicker of satisfaction in her employer’s eyes as her friend had spoken, and she was filled with rage and hurt. The strength of her anger had the effect of banishing the weakening physical c
onsequences of the Colonel’s violent assault and firing her with a hatred that brought her ramrod straight. She took a step forward, and there was no hesitation in her tone – neither did it quiver – as she said, ‘I don’t care about his military record or anything else except the truth.’ And then, facing the Colonel, ‘You’re a dirty, filthy swine, that’s what you are, and you know it. A disgusting old man who thinks he can force bit lasses to get what he wants. But you made a mistake with me, Colonel, because I’m not like the rest and I’m not frightened of you. Or you!’ She swung back to Harold Alridge who was standing dumbfounded, clearly unable to believe that this fiery young woman was the cool, sedate assistant housekeeper he had known for the last eleven months. ‘I’m going to the police station come the morrow, and they won’t be able to prove I’ve known men, or even walked out with a lad, ’cos I haven’t.’
She turned so swiftly that she left Mary standing there for a second, and then they were both outside in the corridor, and Mary was saying, ‘You wait outside, lass, an’ I’ll get your things, all right?’ as she trotted along at Connie’s side.
‘I’ll get them. I’ve done nothing wrong and I’m not going to hide away.’
Connie’s forcible entrance into the kitchen brought the normal buzz of conversation and clatter of pans to a standstill, and she was almost through to the staff cloakroom when Mrs Pegg’s stout figure emerged from the adjoining door.
‘Waiting for your keys?’ Connie’s eyes were blazing. ‘You’re going to pay for what you did tonight, Mrs Pegg, because I shall make sure you do.’
‘Wha – What?’
‘You were seen giving Colonel Fairley your keys and you knew exactly what you were about, didn’t you. How one woman could do that to another is beyond me, but you’re not getting away with it. You’ll be lucky to get a job scouring the privies by the time I’ve finished with you.’
There was absolute silence in the kitchen now, even the bubbling and hissing from the enormous copper pots and pans seemed muted, but as Mrs Pegg began to bluster disjointedly Connie brushed past her, using such force the other woman almost fell on her back.
‘By, lass, you gave ’em all what for an’ no mistake.’ As Connie pulled her coat and hat on Mary was almost gleeful. ‘That Mrs Pegg thinks she’s the cat’s whiskers but she’s as common as clarts an’ everyone knows it but daren’t say. But you told her! Did you see her face? She was bustin’ her corsets, the evil old biddy.’
She had to get out of there. Connie found she couldn’t answer Mary, she needed all her remaining strength to walk out of the hotel with some dignity. The shaking was returning and it was much worse. There had been something in the housekeeper’s eyes when Mrs Pegg had stared at her – a flash of something so spiteful and nasty – that had caused Connie’s breath to catch in her throat. She was amazed to be the focus of such resentment. What had she ever done to Mrs Pegg to receive such hatred? But that Mrs Pegg did hate her was in no doubt. All this because the other woman’s daughter was refused the post of assistant housekeeper? She didn’t understand human beings, she told herself silently. If Mrs Pegg and Colonel Fairley were created in the likeness of God then where had He gone wrong?
Immediately the thought came she felt inclined to cross herself for protection against what she perceived as blasphemy, but she restrained the impulse. She hadn’t been to mass for weeks, if not months, except for Christmas Eve and you couldn’t count that. Was this God’s punishment? No, no, He was a loving God. Father Hedley always emphasised that. But then there were more than a few Father McGuigans and their God was one of fire and brimstone. Even the best of the priests were just men, they were, and if the truth be known she dared bet that more than one good Catholic had been secretly relieved when Father McGuigan went to join his Maker some time back. And then, despite her previous assessment, Connie did make the sign of the cross, even as she berated herself for the conditioning of twenty years in the next instant.
‘Connie?’
Mary had noticed the gesture and now Connie said, pushing open the door of the staff cloakroom, ‘Don’t fret, lass, I haven’t gone doo-lally, not yet leastways,’ in answer to the concern in her friend’s voice. Although if she were being honest she really wasn’t sure how much more she could take. . .
Chapter Sixteen
At eight o’clock the following morning Connie had a visitor.
She had had a surprisingly good night, although considering the events of the last forty-eight hours it perhaps wasn’t so surprising that she should sleep the sleep of the dead brought about by utter exhaustion.
Once she and Mary had reached home, Connie had pulled out the tin bath in the kitchen and stoked up the glowing embers under the big iron kettle on the hob, refilling it several times until the bath water was almost to the edge of the bath and as hot as she could stand it. After wedging the door knob with a hard-backed chair – the normal indication to anyone trying to enter that someone was inside having a strip-down wash or bath – she disrobed swiftly, throwing the clothes to the far side of the kitchen as though they were contaminated, which indeed she felt they were. She had scrubbed at her skin at first, over and over until it was too sore to continue, and then she had washed her hair and cleaned her nails until there wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere on her. And her face had been awash with tears the whole time.
It had helped, a little. Enough to enable her to swallow a bowl of broth, made the day before with a ham shank and split green peas, before falling into bed at just after ten. She had expected to lay awake for hours, and it had been with a sense of amazement that she had opened her eyes at seven the next morning. She felt rested, she told herself, and – and here she had to admit to an even deeper amazement – curiously at peace considering how wretched she had felt before she’d gone to sleep with her world turned upside down yet again.
Perhaps everyone experienced periods of ordinary, mundane living which were savagely rent apart when it was least expected? Or perhaps not. Whatever, when she looked back on her life: the tranquil years before the attack on Jacob; then more years of calm before the horror of her mother’s heart attack and the devastating fire which had taken the last of her family and her home; the monotonous repetition of the years in the workhouse followed by the bitter disappointment when the door to nursing was banged shut with a vengeance; then the last eleven months of composed order and advance, it definitely had followed long controlled plateaus interspersed with explosive highs of such ferocity that each chapter became like a new beginning.
And that was how she had to look at the caustic events of the last two days and all the ugliness they had held – as a means of prompting her to a new beginning. John Stewart, Colonel Fairley, Mrs Pegg – they weren’t going to win, and neither was the sick mind which had written the fateful letter which had led to the Colonel’s actions. How often had she woven her dreams of some kind of little business of her own? Hundreds, thousands. And now her bridges at the Grand were well and truly burnt and it was abundantly clear she would not be receiving any kind of reference.
She sat up in bed, hugging her knees as she glanced across the shadowed room to where Mary was still fast asleep. It was bitterly cold in spite of the faint glow from the banked-up fire in the grate, but Connie was quite unaware of the chill as she let her thoughts travel on. Even if Mary went into work today it would only be a matter of time – days, weeks maybe – before Mrs Pegg found some trumped up excuse to get rid of her. And as for her, she wouldn’t set foot in that place again for all the tea in China.
She shivered, her stomach turning over as she attempted to force the image of Colonel Fairley and what he had tried to do to her out of her head.
The sweet jar held just over forty-five pounds now, that was half the cost of a modest three-roomed cottage in Hendon or the East End or Monkwearmouth. She had been planning, in the back of her mind, to save enough over the next few years to buy a little place and then convert the living room to a shop. A sweet shop maybe, or one sellin
g hot pies and chitterlings and such. But even with the four lodgers upstairs paying the rent on Walworth Way, she needed to be earning a good wage to save enough each week to make sure she wasn’t going to be an old, old lady before she realised her dream. What should she do? She turned her head to the side and looked towards the window, pulling the drapes back an inch or two and staring out into the swirling snow outside.
She felt a moment’s pleasure that she hadn’t got to leave the house and brave the elements for work that morning, and for a second the temptation to snuggle down and sleep the morning away was strong. It would be so easy to do nothing about Colonel Fairley. He had the weight of the establishment behind him and he would use it to his advantage – the upper classes did what they liked, everyone knew that. But. . . she couldn’t bear the idea of creeping away like a small whipped dog either. And that’s what it would boil down to if she went quietly. Colonel Fairley, Mrs Pegg, all the others who had been secretly waiting for her to fall flat on her face for the sin of attempting to make something of herself, they’d have a field day. Aye they would, and no mistake.
Her shoulders slumped, and again the urge to nestle down in the warmth of the covers and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist was strong.
No, none of that! She threw back the covers as she bounced her head in agreement with the admonition. If she started that now it would never end. She had come this far hadn’t she? And by gum, she was going to go a good way further before she was finished. But for now she’d get dressed and get the breakfast going – a cup of tea and a bowl of hasty pudding would serve to keep the worst of the weather at bay, and there was a pint jug of milk to go with the oatmeal and boiling water. Aye, and the cupboards were full an’ all. There was a feeling beyond words that went with having full cupboards. . .
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