The Black Mountains

by Janet Tanner

  “But they said he was in perfect health!” Charlotte murmured.

  “That’s nothing to go by, it seems,” Jack told her. “There’s no way you can tell if a person is suffering from this complaint while they’re alive. Nobody could have known.”

  “Well, well, well!” Inwardly Charlotte was jubilant, but she felt too ill to do more than smile weakly. “So they know now it wasn’t our Ted’s fault. They know he didn’t murder him.”

  “Oh, they know that. But …” He broke off, wondering how he could explain to her that murder or not, Ted was still technically responsible for Rupert Thorne’s death. “If an unlawful blow is struck, the striker must take the risk of the condition of health of the person struck,” the coroner had said.

  But Mam looked so poorly he didn’t want to worry her more than he could help.

  “There’s another piece of good news, too,” he said. “I’ve got a barrister for Ted—a first-class chap. He came up to me after the inquest and offered his services, just like that. It seems he knew Rupert Thorne and had no time for him, and he told me that considering the way he treated folk, it’s only surprising no one had taken a swing at him before.”

  “Oh, Jack, that is good. But what’s it going to cost?”

  “Come on, Mam, you were the one who said money was no object.”

  “Yes, but now they’ve found out about this … this …”

  “Status lymphaticus. Yes, I know, but Ted still needs someone to represent him, and I think this chap will be more than reasonable. From how he spoke, he’d do it for nothing if he could. So you see, Mam, things don’t look quite so black after all, do they?”

  “No,” Charlotte said, but already she was drifting again. The effort of understanding what Jack had been saying had exhausted her, but as she lay back against the pillows she was aware of the most tremendous sense of relief.

  “So at least you won’t be involved, Jack,” she said.

  “What do you mean, Mam?”

  She closed her eyes and opened them again with difficulty, seeing him through a red mist. How like John he was! Strange how she should have refused to acknowledge it all these years!

  “You won’t have to get up in court, Jack, and give evidence. There won’t be any need for your name to be brought into it.”

  “Oh no, Mam, it won’t change that. I’m still a witness.”

  “But …” The sweat began to run down her face. Some went into her eyes, or so it seemed, so that they blurred again.

  “Don’t worry, Mam, it’ll be all right.”

  “No!” she said.

  The devil was back, mocking her from the corner. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? That evil, monkey-like face, challenging all her plans, and laughing, laughing …

  “No, Jack, I won’t let you.”

  He started at the hysterical note in her voice, easing her back against the pillows with soothing words, but she straggled into a sitting position again as soon as he released her, her eyes fiery in her flushed face, and the rasp of her laboured breathing filling the room.

  “You can’t, Jack. I won’t let you,” she said again.

  “But why, Mam?”

  The fever was singing in her ears. Why? Why? The reasons clamoured around inside her head.

  Because you’re about to become a teacher, she thought. Because you mustn’t drag your name in the gutter, or folk won’t want to employ you. Because I’ve worked all my life to bring you to this—the future you were robbed of, the future you deserve. You can’t risk it now. You can’t!

  Her lips were cracking, her throat and mouth parched, and she was unsure whether or not she had spoken aloud. Through the red mist, she saw Jack’s anxious face as he leaned over her, and his voice, when it came, sounded a long way off, and distorted, as it had been when she’d spoken to him on the telephone in Bristol.

  “Mam, come on now. It’ll be all right. Don’t worry yourself. Only I must speak up for Ted. He is my brother, after all.”

  “But he’s not … he’s not …” She was babbling now, all the wanderings of the afternoon uppermost in her foggy mind. “You don’t understand, Jack. He’s not your father. He’s not … your father …”

  As the words left her lips, the coughing began again, racking her body, burning her lungs. She gasped for breath, the room spun around her, and the last thing she saw, before the fire enveloped her, was Jack’s face, pale, tight-drawn with anxiety—and so much like his father’s that again his name rose unbidden to her lips.

  “John! John!”

  WHEN the fever subsided, the conversation with Jack was the first thing she thought of.

  She opened her eyes to see the fair head silhouetted against the window, and it all came back to her like a vivid dream.

  For a moment she lay quite still, fighting a sense of panic and trying to sort out the dream from reality.

  Jack’s worried face—that had been real enough. And the doctor, he’d been here, too, mumbling over her and putting his cold hands all over her. But the things she had said, had they been real, too? Dear God, surely she hadn’t actually told Jack the truth after all these years? Surely not!

  She gazed at him, afraid of the moment when he would turn around and she would see his eyes. It would be there, all right, if he knew the truth. There would be no hiding it. Ever again.

  As if sensing that she was awake and watching him, he moved. She cringed away, trying to take refuge in a pretence of sleep, but he was too quick for her.

  “Mam!”

  She swallowed, afraid, still so afraid.

  “You worried us to death, did you know that? Fancy getting pneumonia in the middle of the summer! But you’re looking better now, and no mistake. I’ll call Dad and tell him you’re awake.”

  “Jack!” she said, and he stopped at the sharpness of her tone.

  “Yes?”

  Her eyes fell from his. How could she ask the question that was tormenting her? If she had said something, to mention it now would be to give it importance. But the need to know was overwhelming.

  “Was I … was I really bad?” she asked hesitantly.

  “You were, Mam. Now lie still. I’m going to get Dad.”

  She lay still, but her mind raced. He seemed the same—so did James, when he came in and sat on the edge of the bed—but how could she be sure? How could she ever be sure? If she had told Jack, she would never forgive herself. Never. It would be terrible for him, and it would be a double betrayal of James, into the bargain.

  James. She looked at him as he sat beside her, his leathery face still lined with the anxiety of the last few days, and a tenderness filled her.

  That boy, John, what had he been but a passing fancy? A madness that had lasted a short time only? Maybe she had long since forgotten what it had been like to love James with the crazy intensity of youth, but they were still together, nearly thirty years on from the day they had first met. And what was that, if not love of the most enduring kind?

  Could she have withstood thirty years with John? She very much doubted it. That fiery passion would soon have burned itself out, and she wouldn’t have wanted what was left.

  As for Jack … Looking at the two faces beside her bed, she smiled. They might have nothing in common, but what did that matter? There were plenty of blood relations just as different as they were. And the family bond was there—the living together and sharing good times and bad, and that counted for more, far more.

  She would go to her grave wondering if James had ever suspected, but she was almost certain he had not. His lack of imagination had served him well in this instance as in many others. It simply would not have occurred to him that Jack might not be his son.

  And Jack himself had never suspected. Of that she was positive. The only other people who had known the truth were Rector Archer and possibly Caroline. But he was dead, and it was unlikely she would ever admit to such a scandalous liaison between her husband’s nephew, and a miner’s wife.

  James leaned forwa
rd over the bed, loosening the neck of her nightgown to free a long end of hair that was caught. In the light of the afternoon sun, she noticed his own hair was almost white, and it shocked her. Strange, the way fair people turn white almost overnight.

  “Thank the Lord you’m better, Lotty,” he said, and the emotion in his voice humbled her.

  “Delirious you were at one time,” Jack added, and she looked at him sharply.

  “Delirious? What was I saying?”

  He laughed. “Oh, Mam, I don’t know. Just a lot of nonsense. I didn’t take much notice.”

  She nodded, tired again, and relieved in a way that was almost an anticlimax. Of course she hadn’t said anything. Why in the world should she have ever have imagined for a moment that she might have done? And if she had, he would have written it off as delirium—wouldn’t he?

  As if from a long way off she heard their voices soothing her, urging her to sleep again. But in the instant before it claimed her, she had one piercingly frightening moment when she wondered if she would ever feel her secret was safe again, and the enormity of having been able to keep it all these years filled her with panic. Yet at the same time, she felt lonelier than she had ever done in her life, and with a small, fumbling movement she reached for James’ hand.

  She was still holding it when she fell asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In all her life, Charlotte thought she had never seen anything quite so grand as the assize court.

  Worried though she was about Ted, she could hardly fail to be impressed by the majesty of it all: the vaulted stone walls and carved and polished woodwork, the uniformed policeman at the entrance, the dramatic legal figures who walked the corridors with easy arrogance, fussily curled wigs sitting on their heads, gowns streaming out behind them like broken blackbird’s wings.

  “Are they the judges?” she asked Jack in a loud whisper.

  He shook his head, wishing he had been able to persuade her to stay at home. Although it was two months since her attack of pneumonia, she had never really recovered her strength, and he didn’t think the long journey and the strain of seeing Ted in court would do her any good at all.

  But Charlotte had been adamant. If the worst happened and Ted was sent to prison, she preferred to hear it for herself, rather than have someone else tell her.

  “I can go with you, Jack,” she insisted, and no one, not even James, could move her.

  “You’re going to have to go in by yourself, Mam,” Jack told her as they approached the enormous doors with the small glass panels that gave a restricted view of the court room. “ I’m a witness, so I’ll have to stay out here until I’m called.”

  She nodded. “ I know that.” And away she walked across the polished floor to take her place on one of the public benches.

  Jack turned away, going along the corridor and into one of the ante-rooms to light a cigarette. He’d never been much of a smoker, not like Ted, but just now he felt the need to calm his nerves.

  He didn’t really know why he was quite so nervous. He’d been in grand places before—Buckingham Palace, no less, when he’d been awarded his decoration—but there was something about the atmosphere here that set the blood pumping through his veins and turned his bowels to water.

  Perhaps it was because he was no longer confident as to the outcome of the trial. A few weeks ago, when the post-mortem had disclosed Rupert’s condition, he’d felt jubilantly certain that no jury would find Ted guilty of manslaughter, much less murder. Now, he was not so sure.

  After talking to Winston Walker, the barrister who had offered his services, he realized there was a possibility they might not see Ted as innocent. Thorne had died as a direct result of Ted striking him, and the blow had been an unlawful one. Added to that, Rupert Thorne had been a highly respected citizen—a professional man—while Ted’s mottled career was far less likely to impress.

  Ted was still refusing to explain in court the reason behind him hitting Rupert, too, saying that to drag Becky into it now would do no good and would just defile her memory, for there would certainly be those who would say she had got what she asked for, and this was adding to the worries of the defence.

  “We shall have to talk him into explaining his reasons,” Winston Walker told Jack. “That way, if he’s found guilty, the judge will be more likely to be lenient with him.”

  But so far, nothing either of them had been able to say had done a thing to change Ted’s mind. He was as determined as ever to keep Rebecca out of it, and Jack was seriously worried.

  Didn’t Ted realize he could end up in prison for a very long time over this? Didn’t he even care? After the years he had spent in a prison camp, during the war, one might think he would go out of his way to avoid further incarceration, but he seemed mulishly indifferent, threatening to break Winston Walker’s neck if he so much as mentioned Rebecca’s name.

  The sound of footsteps and voices in the corridor attracted Jack’s attention, and he glanced up. Through the open door he saw a group being ushered into the court and guessed that they must be the jury.

  Twelve good men, he thought, except that there were a few more than twelve, and at the back, trailing along as if she didn’t belong, was a woman …

  Rosa Clements! It hit him like a ball of icy water, and he stood quite still, the cigarette dangling dangerously from his fingers.

  Then he took a step towards her, and at the same moment she turned and saw him. The defences came up in her sloe-dark eyes, veiling any emotion, and her whole frame tightened.

  “Rosa!” he said before he could stop himself. “ What are you doing here?”

  She stopped, detaching herself from the others, and he realized she was not with them at all, but held up by them.

  “Jack! I … I heard about the case. I had to come. Is he …”

  She gesticulated helplessly towards the court, and Jack swallowed at the constriction in his throat. It was the first time he had seen her since she had gone away, leaving him and his proposal of marriage, but he knew without asking that the reason she was here today had nothing to do with him.

  It never had been him with Rosa, he knew that now, but surprisingly it didn’t bother him any more. His passion for her had come and gone, and he had had time to realize how ill-matched they would have been. But he was glad to see her.

  For a moment they looked at one another, then, as the doorway cleared, she moved uncertainly.

  “I’d better go in. Will I be able to see you later?”

  He nodded, grinding out his cigarette into a tin receptacle that looked almost out of place, and following her to the door. As Jack had told Charlotte, he couldn’t go into the court himself yet, but there seemed to be nothing stopping him from looking through the small glass panel in the door.

  Yes, they were all assembled now—counsel, police, jury. And above them all the judge, looking as if he had fallen asleep already. From where he was standing, the dock was outside his line of vision, but he knew Ted would be there, and he wondered how he would be feeling.

  The public benches were immediately opposite the door, and he saw his mother and Rosa sitting there among the handful of other folk who had come in to listen to the case. They were at opposite ends of the seat, both stiff and still, not looking at one another. Funny how his mother had turned against Rosa. She’d always been such a one for standing up for Ada Clements when others ran her down and called her names.

  Through the glass panel in the door, Jack saw the prosecuting counsel rise. He was a dark, whiskery man with a booming voice, but the thick door effectively muffled his words, and Jack could not make out what he was saying.

  In the adjournment for lunch, he and Winston Walker took Charlotte to a small café nearby the courts for something to eat, but the barrister was the only one with any appetite.

  “The things they’re saying!” Charlotte exclaimed angrily. “Awful things, making our Ted out to be a real lout! It’s all I can do to sit there and hold my tongue, Jack!�
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  “Don’t worry, Mrs Hall, we’ll get our turn later,” Winston soothed her, but his calm manner only seemed to irritate her more.

  “It’s all very well for you. It’s not your son they’re on about!”

  “Mam!” Jack said sharply. “Mr Walker’s doing his best for us and don’t you forget it.”

  “Yes, yes, I know.” Charlotte mopped her face with a handkerchief. “And how that Rosa Clements has the cheek to come and listen to every word, I don’t know. Sitting there like that! I’ve never seen anything so brazen!”

  Jack said nothing. He thought that Rosa looked more lonely than brazen, but perhaps the proud determination in her bearing could be taken for that. To say so now would only upset Mam more, and he didn’t want that. But he made up his mind to try and see Rosa when the court adjourned for the day.

  He was called to give evidence half-way through the afternoon. Christ, but it was as bad as taking off for a bombing raid in Belgium, he thought, as he went through the now-open door into the large, yet airless, court. It would have been bad enough if he had been going into the witness box on Ted’s behalf, but he wasn’t. He was there because he had seen the blow struck, and the prosecution would be doing all they could to make it as damning as possible.

  Struggling to keep his limp to a minimum, he crossed the court to the witness box. In the dock, Ted was pale but calm, and the two exchanged a quick, brotherly glance. Then Jack was asked to take the oath, and prosecuting counsel rose, bowing and scraping in the direction of the judge.

  “Your honour, I ask that I may be allowed to treat this witness as hostile. As brother of the accused, I fear he may be less than helpful.”