It was the day before New Year’s Eve at ten o’clock in the morning that Pearl received the telegram bearing the dreaded words On His Majesty’s Service. She had been laughing and joking with a customer when the telegram boy had arrived. The customer was an ex-Army man who’d lost a leg at the Somme, and who engaged in a little harmless flirting along with his pie and peas.
Seth came immediately to her side and they read the telegram together. The words It is with deep regret and then James Henry Croft and Patrick Edmund Croft swam before her eyes before she collapsed in Seth’s arms, moaning piteously before fainting clean away.
When she regained consciousness, she was lying on the sofa in the sitting room of the flat and Nessie was kneeling by her side, her face awash with tears. ‘Oh, lass, lass.’ Nessie took her hands, holding them tight. ‘I’m so sorry, lass.’
‘Where’s Seth?’ Pearl asked vaguely, her head muzzy.
‘He’s seeing to things downstairs.’
‘It can’t be true.’ Pearl struggled into a sitting position. She felt physically sick and fought the weakness. ‘James wrote to me – he said they’re all right.’
Nessie’s eyes looked back at her, shining with tears and a deep sorrow. ‘It was the flu, lass. It’s taking so many, especially men drained by the fighting and all they’ve gone through.’
‘No.’ It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t let it be. They were going to come home and work in the shop, their future secure. She drew in a long shuddering breath. ‘No,’ she said again. They had survived all the fighting, all the terrible slaughter, and they were coming home. Anything else was unimaginable.
‘Lass—’
‘No!’ She wrenched her hands from Nessie’s, the screaming in her head erupting from her mouth.
When Seth burst into the room a few moments later he took in the situation in one glance. He slapped her once, hard, across the face and then gathered her into his arms, holding her tightly as a grief so intense as to be unbearable shook her body, causing her to fight him for a few moments before she went limp.
They were gone. Her boys, her babies, her precious babies. She clung hold of Seth as he rocked her back and forth, his own face wet. She couldn’t stand any more. What had it all been for, if not for her boys? Without them there was nothing. And death was so final, so cold. She wanted to be able to hug them, to tell them she was proud of them, to see their faces and hear their voices. They couldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t let them be dead. Oh, James, Patrick. Patrick, James.
It was midnight. Pearl was asleep, partly through exhaustion and partly because of the medication the doctor had prescribed when Seth, frightened by her sobbing, had sent for him. Seth and Nessie were sitting together on the sofa, their hands entwined and Nessie’s head on Seth’s shoulder. ‘She won’t get over this,’ Seth said softly. ‘That’s my fear.’
‘She will, she will. She’s strong, Seth. You know she is.’
‘Aye, but the lads were her world. They were when she was nowt but a bairn, and after that time with the gypsies it was like she’d never been away from them. Me mam . . . well, she wasn’t a mother if you know what I mean.’
‘Aye, I know what you mean.’
‘It’ll take the joy out of her life – I’ve seen it before with folk. Oh, they go on, they walk and talk and breathe, but something’s gone. I – I was in danger of that before I met you, lass.’
‘Oh, Seth.’
‘Straight up, I was. And through Pearl we met and here we are.
Nessie raised her head and they looked at each other. She touched his cheek with her hand. ‘You can’t do this for her, Seth, whatever she’s done for us.’
‘I know. That’s what’s twisting me guts.’
‘But she has us and the shop – she’s not alone.’ And then she said, ‘That was a silly thing to say, wasn’t it?’
‘You could never be silly.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I want her to be happy, Nessie. That’s all. From when she was born she’s had it rough and I really thought, with the lads coming home and all, things were looking up for her. You know, me and Pearl had been talking about perhaps inviting the neighbours in on New Year’s Eve for a bit of a shindig just minutes before the telegram came. “Plenty to celebrate”, that’s what she said. Dear gussy . . .’
They sat in silence for a little while, each lost in their own thoughts, and then Seth said, ‘Come on, lass. You need your rest and tomorrow’s going to be a difficult day.’
‘I’m coming back to work, Seth. Pearl’s in and out of the kitchen, cooking, seeing to customers, then back cooking. It’s too much. I know the girls try hard, but you and I serving are a good team and it leaves Pearl free to be in the back. That way she won’t have to talk to folk if she doesn’t feel like it.’
They had stood up and now Seth pulled her hard against him, kissing her long and deeply. ‘We’re a good team all right, lass, and not just in the shop. I don’t know why the Good Lord saw fit to give you to me, me being the man I am, but I’m thankful for it. We’ll get the Banns read in the New Year and I’ll come along with you to church – you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘You know I would.’
Seth rubbed his chin, his manner sheepish. ‘I prayed today, down there in the shop while I worked. First time in years. I said if He’d just get Pearl past this and on an even road again, I’d go to church every Sunday for the rest of me life.’
Nessie smiled, a little sadly. ‘You can’t bargain with God, Seth. Anyway, only the other day you said you weren’t sure if He exists, the mess the world’s in.’
‘Aye, I know that, but if He does, it won’t do any harm to hedge me bets, will it?’
‘Oh, Seth . . .’
The thaw which had set in after Christmas had turned the back lanes to quagmires and filled the streets with brown slush. An icy rain battering at the bedroom window woke Pearl in the early hours and instantly she remembered. She lay in the darkness listening to Nessie’s gentle snores and feeling she was in a nightmare, but one from which there was no awakening. Every month her younger brothers had been gone she’d had a dread of the telegram boy. Each time the shop bell had tinkled, her heart had jumped: she’d never got used to the sound. She’d heard of other brothers, sons, husbands and fathers dying, and every single time she’d sent up a prayer for James and Patrick. And then in the last weeks, the heavy weight had been lifted from her heart and she had relaxed, knowing the war was over and they were coming home. Somehow, that made it all the worse now. Her brothers had been cheated – they all had. It was cruel, pointless.
Wearily she glanced towards the window where a glimmer of light from the streetlamp outside showed through a chink in the curtains. The words Halimena had spoken so long ago were dancing in her head. She didn’t think of them so often these days, but now they had come back to haunt her once more. Was it possible to be born to trouble, to take it wherever she went? Did she have a curse on her that affected those she loved? She felt herself slipping into the old abyss of self-recrimination and guilt and sat up sharply, hugging her knees in the cold room.
No, she wouldn’t let that wicked old woman bedevil her. It was the flu that had taken the boys, just as it was taking thousands, millions worldwide, but how could she go on without them? She’d had such plans . . .
Her eyes dry but her heart aching so much it was a physical pain, she listened to the rain beating down as she went over her hopes and dreams for her lads. The shop had prospered so well and her bank balance was so healthy she had the notion she’d start two other shops in different parts of the town, each with living accommodation above. Smaller shops than this one, but places where, in due course when James and Patrick found wives, they could start a family while they managed their own premises. That way they would have been independent. A man needed to be independent.
She bowed her head, a small moan escaping her lips. Oh, her babies, her boys. Pray God it had been quick, she couldn’t bear to think of them suffering and dying slowly on foreign s
oil.
She sat for a long time lost in a morass of utter despair before sliding out of bed and reaching for her dressing-gown. It was still early and quite dark, but she felt her way downstairs to the shop kitchen. She didn’t want to use the light upstairs; Nessie or Seth might hear her and they needed their sleep.
Once in the kitchen she lit the gas mantles and gazed around her. She was the owner of all this and had several hundred pounds in the bank, something she would have considered impossible when she’d first had the idea of the shop. Everything she’d touched in the business had turned to gold. But she would gladly swap it all and live in a hovel if she could have James and Patrick back. She felt as though the mainspring in her life had snapped. When she’d peered down the years she’d seen herself as a kind of grandma to the lads’ bairns, imagined little arms round her neck and James or Patrick smiling at her as she held their offspring. Christmases filled with noise and life and little ones, people she could love and be loved by. When she had lost Christopher she had known she would never feel like that about anyone else, and time had borne this out. Partly, she supposed, because she didn’t want anyone else to take his place.
When Christopher had been wrenched from her, a curious feeling of emptiness deep within had been established, and she knew it would prevail until the day she died. She was glad Nessie had been able to find love again – and thousands of other women did – but she wasn’t made like that. Perhaps she had been wrong to pin all her future happiness on James and Patrick, to expect to live the life she’d been denied as a mother and grandma through them. If so, she was paying for it now.
She made a pot of tea and once it was mashed drank three cups with plenty of sugar. It still felt like a luxury even after all these years, having sugar in her tea. They had been lucky to get a warm drink of any description when she’d been growing up, but at least she hadn’t been incarcerated in the workhouse like James and Patrick. She’d thought she was all cried out, but now she laid her head down on her arms and wept afresh for her beautiful, brave boys.
After an hour or so she washed her face and crept upstairs to get dressed before returning to the shop kitchen. Work was a panacea. By the time Nessie and Seth came down at half-past five everything was in order. Soup was simmering on the stove and the ovens were full, fresh bread permeating the air with its fragrance.
‘Lass, we didn’t expect you to work today. You should be in bed,’ Nessie scolded.
‘You shouldn’t be working either.’
‘There’s nowt wrong with me now and it was driving me barmy up there by myself.’
Pearl nodded. ‘That’s exactly how I’d feel,’ she said quietly.
After that, nothing more was said about her resting.
It was a busy day, in fact they were rushed off their feet as folk bought extra to take home for the jollifications that evening. Pearl was grateful that Nessie had resumed her place in the front of the shop, even though she was worried that her friend might not be fully recovered. She just couldn’t have coped with having to be cheerful with customers today. Hilda and Martha had offered her their condolences but then had worked in silence – unusual for them – and with demand so high she had to concentrate on what she was doing, even though the feeling of desolation was there all the time.
Nessie came bustling into the kitchen midday, insisting Pearl take a break and eat something. Pearl knew her friend meant well and so to please her she forced down a bowl of soup she had no appetite for, and then went straight back to work.
At two o’clock, normally a quieter spot in the day after the lunchtime rush and before the evening trade, Seth was busy in the storage room-cum-scullery off the kitchen sorting out a recent delivery, and Hilda was helping Nessie in the front of the shop, when Nessie again appeared in the kitchen.
Pearl took one look at her flushed face and said, ‘What’s the matter? Do you feel unwell?’
‘There’s a man.’ Nessie stared at her, seeming to struggle for words. ‘He – he’s asking for you.’
‘A man? What’s his name?’
‘He wouldn’t say, but from your description . . . Oh, I don’t know, lass. It might not be.’
Her mind still steeped in grief, Pearl wondered what on earth was wrong with Nessie. What did anything matter, in view of the news they’d had the day before?
‘Do you want me to come and see him?’ she asked dully.
‘Aye, yes, but I’ll just get Seth.’
Bemused, Pearl watched as Nessie hurried past her to the storage room. Turning to Martha, Pearl said, ‘Keep an eye on those pies, they’re nearly done,’ and walked out of the kitchen into the front of the shop. There were a few customers sitting eating and one or two waiting to be served by Hilda. Pearl sensed rather than saw this because her whole being was taken up with the tall figure standing to one side of the counter near the window. He was wearing the clothes of a workingman, except for his high-topped boots, but unlike most workingmen there was no cap on his head.
She caught hold of the doorpost as her head swam. It was Christopher, yet not Christopher. It had been ten years since they’d met and then he’d been a handsome, blond-haired young man. This man was still handsome, but his hair was deeply threaded with grey and he had a neatly trimmed beard, but it was the fact he looked so much older that had her doubting her own eyes. Christopher would be thirty, thirty-one now, but this man appeared all of forty-five and he was big, broad in the shoulders.
And then he spoke. ‘Pearl?’
She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, her mind telling her she couldn’t faint twice in twenty-four hours, she wasn’t the fainting kind. He walked towards her and she watched as he lifted the trap in the counter and came to stand in front of her.
‘Christopher?’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘It’s not possible.’
‘That’s what I told myself when I saw your photograph in the newspaper. They’d told me you were dead.’ She watched him swallow hard but still he didn’t touch her.
Becoming aware they were the focus of attention, Pearl straightened, her voice shaky as she said, ‘Come through to the flat.’ As she led the way to the stairs, Seth and Nessie came out of the kitchen, Seth wiping his hands on his trousers and his face worried. ‘This – this is Christopher Armstrong,’ she managed fairly steadily. ‘My brother, Seth, and his fiancée, Nessie,’ she added, turning to meet the grey eyes of her dreams.
The two men shook hands but no one smiled.
‘I shall be upstairs for a while,’ Pearl said to Nessie, who immediately replied, in a tone that brooked no argument, ‘I’ll bring you a tea tray in five minutes, lass.’
Pearl was aware of Seth and Nessie watching them as she led Christopher upstairs to the flat. He followed her into the sitting room. The room was cold, the fire all but out in the grate. ‘Please sit down,’ Pearl said, as politely as if he was an ordinary caller. ‘I’ll just see to the fire.’
He was still standing when she’d put wood and coal on the fire with the brass tongs. She had tried to pull herself together while she’d busied herself with the fire but now, looking at him, she felt weak at the knees. ‘How – how are you?’
He didn’t answer this. His voice low, he said, ‘I didn’t know you were alive for sure until I spoke to the lady downstairs. I looked for you after I came back ten years ago, but they – the gypsies – they said you’d been drowned. Pearl,’ he hesitated as though nerving himself, ‘are you married or betrothed?’
Dumbly, Pearl shook her head. She couldn’t believe he was here, but it was too much coming on top of the news the day before. She felt numb, disorientated.
‘I’ve never stopped loving you.’ His voice came softly, uncertainly. ‘I’ve mourned you for ten years but I’ve never stopped loving you. There’s never been anyone else.’
The numbness was fading, a feeling welling up that was so fierce she had to put her hand to her breast. ‘Nor for me,’ she whispered weakly.
‘Really?’ A smile lit his face. ‘But
you’re so beautiful, so exquisite. I didn’t dare hope . . .’ His arms went around her and she fell against him as the last of the numbness melted.
‘Beautiful, exquisite’. Only her Christopher had ever spoken like this. It was real, he was here.
His mouth on hers, he kissed her as he’d done all those years ago, but now it was the man, not the boy, who was making love to her, and it was the woman in her who answered with her own lips and body. He was kissing her face, her throat, her hair, murmuring that she was his sweet-heart, his beloved, his dear one.
The madness was only brought to a halt by Nessie – tactful for once – knocking on the sitting-room door. It was a few moments before Pearl said, ‘Come in.’
Nessie was holding a tea tray but her eyes went straight to Pearl’s face, and what she saw there must have reassured her because she visibly relaxed, her voice soft when she said, ‘All right, lass?’
Still within the circle of Christopher’s arms, Pearl nodded.
‘I’ll tell Seth. He’s beside himself down there.’ Looking straight at Christopher, Nessie said, ‘He thinks a bit of his sister, we all do.’
‘So do I, Nessie.’
‘Aye, well, that’ll be what he wants to hear.’ She nodded at them both, put the tray on the table and marched out.
When Pearl glanced up at Christopher he was smiling. ‘A good friend?’
‘The best.’
‘I can understand their distrust of me, but I swear to you I came looking for you . . .’
He stopped as Pearl laid a finger on his lips. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘We’ve got ten years to catch up on.’
He nodded. ‘But first . . .’ He cupped her face in his hands, his mouth coming down to hers once more.
They spent all afternoon and evening in the flat, talking, loving, crying more than once. Christopher held her tight when she told him about James and Patrick, sobs shaking her yet again. Pearl held his hand in hers, stroking his fingers as he told her about Nathaniel and then his father. Slowly the events of the last decade in their lives were unravelled and both were amazed at what the other had accomplished, and the twists and turns their lives had taken. Afterwards, Pearl was shocked that she didn’t once think or worry about the shop, but the truth of it was, it had ceased to exist. It didn’t matter – nothing mattered beyond the miracle of Christopher seeking her out and finding her.
Born to Trouble Page 32
