Ruby McBride

by Freda Lightfoot

  It was some moments before he answered and then it was in a hushed, quiet voice, barely above a whisper. ‘I was very young and recklessly, heedlessly, in love. Tragically, she went into a decline and the wedding was called off.’

  ‘What sort of decline?’

  ‘She became depressed over the fact that our respective families were against the match, which finally resulted in some sort of breakdown. After months of ill health her doctor advised against marriage, saying she was quite unsuited to the sort of demands it would impose upon her. It was all pretty dreadful. I was utterly devastated and swore I would never allow myself to love again. Which is how I came to acquire the barge. I needed a fresh start, a new beginning.’

  For a moment Ruby couldn’t speak, surprised by these revelations as it was the most she’d ever learned about his past and she itched to know more. But seeing him with his mouth compressed and shoulders drooping, she guessed that for once he might well be telling her the truth, and that it pained him to do so. ‘So why did you want to wed me?’ she asked instead.

  He slowed the mare to a walk before cocking his head sideways, so he could consider her in all seriousness with his brandy-coloured eyes. ‘Perhaps I was attracted to your sharp brain.’

  ‘You married me for me brains? I’ve never heard anything so daft in all me life.’ A gurgle of laughter bubbled up in her throat and Ruby simply couldn’t resist laughing, swaying backwards in the carriage so that her body arched unconsciously in provocative abandonment while, unnoticed by her, his eyes slid lingeringly over the curve of her throat and breasts. After a moment, Ruby wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes with the flat of her hands. ‘More likely you picked me ‘cos you fancied me. But you can stop slavering ‘cos you ain’t going to get me.’ There was steel behind the camouflage of humour, which he duly recognised. Yet he had the grace to smile.

  ‘It’s true, I did fancy you from the first moment I set eyes on you. But then you aren’t simply pretty, Ruby, you’re beautiful. Didn’t anyone ever tell you?’

  ‘Sister Joseph certainly didn’t, that’s for sure. Nor did anyone in the reformatory, no,’ Ruby drily remarked. ‘But then there aren’t many good-looking fellas in there, and what chance have I had to meet any out here, with you watching every move I make?’

  ‘I like to keep an eye on what belongs to me.’

  ‘I don’t belong to no one,’ she snapped.

  ‘Yes, you do, Ruby. You are mine. Exclusively. Make no mistake about that. My reaction to you certainly came as a surprise, particularly in the circumstances. However, having decided that I wanted you, I had every intention of getting you. I’m not a man who takes no for an answer.’

  ‘I’d noticed.’

  He gave a lazy smile. ‘I can understand your resenting my forcing you into marriage. How was it Miss Crombie described you? Ah, yes, as having an “individual and determined nature”. But I think you will come to see that our arrangement is for the best.’

  Ruby made as if to interrupt at this point, wanting to protest that surely she should be the one to choose what was best for herself, but he held up one hand to silence her.

  ‘It will be worth it in the end. I shall see that you want for nothing. A house, carriage of your own, servants. I’m a man of means, Ruby. I’ve kept my promises thus far, have I not? Not laid a finger where I shouldn’t. Provided you with a home and employment, food in your belly and clothes for your back. Perhaps it’s time we sealed the bargain. Time you gave me something in return for my generosity. I haven’t even kissed you or tasted any of your charms, and I am your very own, loving husband after all.’ He reached for her and she slapped his hand away, her voice filled with loathing.

  ‘You, keep your promises?’ she sneered. ‘Pull the other leg and see if that’s got bells on it. I told you, you don’t touch me till I say you can, which will be when hell freezes over and not a day before.’

  ‘Whatever the weather in heaven or hell, Ruby, I mean to have you.’ The glitter in those liquid eyes was ominous as Ruby returned his glare with loathing, yet there was a tremor of excitement within her that she didn’t quite understand. She was breathing fast and furious as she desperately strove to stem the tide of panic, which was surely all she was suffering from. Could he be serious? How much longer could she hold him off? She did not ask herself how she would react if she failed in that task. She dare not.

  ‘What about our Pearl? You promised you’d give my sister a home too, if I behaved myself. Which I have, so when are you going to do something about that?’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Ruby. It would be a shame if we were to have a falling out, when we’ve been getting along so well.’

  She edged away from him on the narrow seat, making sure no part of her dress touched him. ‘Not for one minute do I believe all this fanciful talk of fine houses, and I’ve seen little sign of respectability or security. I’m living on my nerves here with all your nasty goings on.’

  He seemed to consider this remark for some time before answering in softer tones. ‘What does a chap have to do to win your heart, Ruby?’

  ‘Try going straight.’ Seeing his eyes narrow dangerously and feeling again that tremor akin to fear, she deliberately adjusted her tone, attempting to lighten it, even managing to smile flirtatiously up at him. ‘A bit of honesty wouldn’t go amiss for a change, now would it?’

  ‘Why do you always see the worst in me? That is so sad. When you smile at me so enticingly, I melt inside. I’m a man with a heart, Ruby, like any other. What was it that Shakespeare said? Something along the lines of, “If you prick me, will I not bleed?”’

  Ruby snorted her disdain. ‘Who’s he when he’s at home? We didn’t do no Shakespeare in the reformatory, and I’ll believe you have a heart when I come across a pig what can fly.’

  ‘Perhaps I have good reason for what I do, have you considered that?’

  ‘Aye, to make your pocket fatter.’

  ‘I mean, you didn’t know about my union involvement, did you?’

  ‘Is that what this is all about? Is that the whole reason why you steal and play tricks on folk? Is that what this morning’s trip was about, union business?’

  He sadly shook his head and she slumped back in her seat, eyes blazing with triumph. ‘Thought not.’

  ‘But maybe you don’t know everything about me, even now. Maybe there are a few more layers still to peel off - rather like an onion.’ He smiled as she lapsed into confused silence, then clicked the reins, urging the mare to a brisker trot. ‘As for that other, more personal matter between us, my patience will not last forever, Ruby McBride. You’d best start expecting a visitor one night to that chaste cabin of yours. And don’t think you can keep me out by locking the damned door. I’ve my own key. Make no mistake about that!’

  Ruby gasped, this thought never having entered her head. ‘Drat you, ... I’ll have a bolt fitted on the inside.’

  ‘The panels are not robust. I can easily take the door off at the hinges once I’m ready to come to you. Oh, and I almost forgot, you may have these as a wedding gift.’ Dipping into a pocket, he pulled out a pendant of sparkling gems which he laid in her lap. ‘It’s a ruby I believe. Appropriate, don’t you think? Not such a wasted morning, after all, eh?’

  She had thought herself so clever, imagined she could hold him off, even persuade him to go straight by working hard with the tug and the barges, and then he’d handed her the pendant. Ruby realised, in that moment, that she had absolutely no control over what he did with her, and never would have. Her desire to reform him suddenly seemed foolish, her efforts at obedience in order to win his assistance in finding Pearl utterly naive. What a soft fool she’d been to imagine he’d even listen to her. Oh, but she was in a proper pickle this time, that was for sure. Escape from the baron would be nowhere near as easy as her previous attempts at flight. He was surely an expert in utter ruthlessness.

  She’d been appalled by the gift. Never, in all her life, had she knowingly performe
d a dishonest act, no matter what the authorities might accuse her of, nor had she any intention of starting now. Ruby refused, absolutely, to accept the pendant, arguing that he should never have stolen it in the first place, and should take it back. which he seemed to think most amusing. ‘Are you accusing me of stealing it?’

  ‘I’m not stupid, I know you stole it. You must take it back this instant.’

  ‘And what would I say to her, Ruby my love? “Well, would you believe it, missus? This ruby pendant fell into me pocket, just as I was being shown around your lovely house. Fancy that!”’

  Ruby thought about this for a moment. ‘You could ask for another viewing, and slip it back when no one was looking.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be appropriate.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Because I say so. My skill lies in discretion and speed. Once having formulated a plan, I move in quickly, carry it out and leave with equal speed. Not even that hawk-eyed butler saw it go, now did he?’

  ‘Soon as they realise it’s missing, they’ll guess it was you what took it,’ Ruby warned.

  ‘What good will that do? How can they find Sir Joshua Parker, when he doesn’t exist? I never return or use exactly the same disguise twice. Besides, she can afford it. Did you see the emeralds dangling from her ears? Made of money, she is. Won’t miss the odd trinket here and there. And for all you know, she may not have come by it honestly herself.’

  Ruby gave up. It was impossible to reason with someone who clearly had his own twisted sense of morality.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The second gin had gone down much quicker than the first, nicely lifting the chill off her stomach. But then it was warm anyway in the tavern, with the press of all the sweaty bodies around her. It stank of coal dust, beer and body odour, but that didn’t trouble Pearl in the slightest. She probably ponged a bit herself, but then who would care or even notice? These men, factory hands and tradesmen of all sorts, were more interested in the contents of their glass and the need to wash the day’s dust and tiredness from their throats.

  All told, Pearl decided, life was pretty good. She’d just enjoyed a substantial dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire with one of her clients, with a couple more lined up to while away a happy and profitable afternoon which would pay for her supper, as well as contributing towards the rent on the room she’d found for herself here in Rochdale.

  The young seaman who had started all of this weeks ago had, in Pearl’s estimation, done her a favour. He’d chanced along at just the right moment. This was the easiest, most pleasurable way of making a living anyone could imagine, and one she might never have considered had she not found herself in such dire straits. Pearl felt as if she were in clover. Since then, of course, there’d been a whole stream of men, young and old, in need of a bit of comfort, whom Pearl was more than willing to oblige. She took great pride in her work, made sure her customers were given the kind of care she felt they needed. Everybody deserved a bit of loving after all. She certainly did and, so far, touch wood, she’d had no trouble from any of them.

  ‘Now then, Pearl. How you feeling?’

  ‘Champion, thanks.’

  ‘Are you working today, lass?’

  She smiled and twirled her empty glass. ‘I’m allus working, love. But I’m busy this afternoon.’

  The man took the glass from her with a grin. ‘Can I see you later then?’

  ‘I always find time for you, Tommy.’

  ‘Aye, yer a grand lass. Do you need a top up of gin?’

  ‘Ta, love.’ That was another thing. She had friends. Folk who talked to her like a human being, instead of a number.

  Tommy came to her in the early evening. ‘Just a quick one, chuck, before supper.’

  He was old and it didn’t take much more than a kiss and cuddle to keep him happy. He just loved to touch her young, firm flesh. Pearl sent him off a happy man, tucking away the shilling he’d given her in the pocket she’d stitched into her skirt. She’d no intention of finding herself on the brink of starvation ever again, nor up the duff. She’d learned ways to stop that little problem happening again. How could she afford to keep a child when she could barely afford to feed herself? She was only sixteen, after all. Her childish plumpness had been replaced by a newly voluptuous figure, one which men appreciated. Her cheeks were rosy and pink, and her dandelion-yellow hair had disappeared beneath a liberal application of henna.

  ‘I’m a survivor,’ she told herself, countless times in a day. She was back in the tavern the next day, and the one after that, it being her favourite place for picking up clients. The rest of the time her pitch was a stretch of road near the gasworks. But it must be carried out with discretion. Not for the world would she risk the rozzers getting wind of her activities since they took a somewhat narrow-minded view of soliciting, as if sex were an activity reserved exclusively for the legally married.

  Pearl kept well away from Salford and Castlefield, the canal basin and the railway arches, because she still had bad memories of Sister Joseph on the prowl down there, the sound of police whistles and Billy screaming the place down. Gave her the shivers just to think of it. And not for one moment did she imagine that the old dragon would be dead, not after only seven years. What’s more, the woman would have a long memory and be short on sympathy for Pearl’s situation, her being a nun.

  It was one evening as she sat enjoying a drink, between clients as it were, that a fight broke out. Pearl paid little attention. Bar-room brawls were commonplace when drink got the better of the men who packed this place to the doors night after night, usually finishing off in the street with a jeering crowd to cheer them on, bets being placed on the likely winner. This one was no different, or at least it seemed not to be, until she heard a familiar voice.

  ‘I’ll beat yer bloody brains in, if’n you call me that again.’

  ‘Nay, it’s true enough. Thou art scum. Nothing less. You were scum when you went into the reformatory, and scum when you came out.’

  Curious to check on her suspicions, Pearl picked up her glass and wandered over. One man was sitting astride the other who lay prone beneath him on the floor. The one on top had his fist raised, preparatory to knocking his opponent’s brains out.

  Pearl bent over for a closer look, eyes wide with surprise. ‘Kit?’

  She would have known him anywhere. The slouch cap still miraculously in place at the back of his head, the thick crop of shaggy black hair, the brilliant blue eyes. The only difference was that his face was now more mature, the lines at each corner of his mouth seeming to harden and sharpen the sunken planes of his face. The once pale skin was now dark and swarthy, no doubt from years spent working on the deck of the reformatory training ship. It was the face of a man who was a youth no longer, a man who had looked into the jaws of his own personal hell and somehow survived. Pearl recognised this in him instantly, and welcomed it as a form of kinship.

  She grinned, lifted her glass and winked. ‘It’s me, Pearl, remember? I was ten when you saw me last, but I’ve grown up now.’

  He paused, fist suspended in the air, the other still clutching the collar of his victim as he glanced up at her with a puzzled air. ‘So you have, Pearl. So you have.’

  ‘How about buying me a nip o’summat, by way of a reunion?’

  ‘Aye, why not?’ Kit Jarvis flung aside the man whose brains, moments before, he’d been about to beat to a pulp, as if he were of no consequence. He took off his cap, smoothed back his hair, then replaced the cap again exactly where it had been. ‘What’ll it be? Same again?’

  As she handed him her glass, a man paused as he passed by, placing a hand on her arm. ‘Are yer working, lass?’

  ‘Not just now, Ted. Happen later.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Kit interrupted. ‘I reckon she might be busy later an’ all.’

  Ruby attempted to bury her concerns in hard work and, perhaps so Bart could prove that he was a hard worker after all, life settled into a routine with the
pair of them working together on the barges. To her surprise, she enjoyed it. They carried cargoes of tobacco to a bonded warehouse on Chapel Street, sisal and alpaca to Liverpool where Ruby scented the salty tang of the sea for the first time in her life. They transported cotton to Blackburn, and regular loads of coal to the various factories linked to the canal basin, often having to break the ice on the surface of the water as they went along so that great shards of it would stack up, one on top of the other, making progress difficult.

  They would pass from the canal basin, crowded with tugs, barges and narrow boats, through the docks with ships displaying flags of every nation. It seemed a miracle to Ruby that these great vessels could sail right into the heart of the city.

  Within no time they’d be over Barton swing bridge which carried the Bridgewater Canal over the Ship Canal, water leaking from the corners of the aqueduct gates. When the big ships came through this would move first, followed by the swing of the road bridge, its arches supported by massive steel girders. Ruby would look out for the man in the peaked cap who operated the gates to stop the traffic, and the children standing on walls and railings to watch the spectacle. She’d feel their excitement as they waited for the big ships to pass through, often accompanied by a tugboat or two; and share their amazement that water, a whole stretch of the canal, could be contained and moved on a bridge, in addition to a road normally bustling with traffic. In no time Ruby would be looking out upon open countryside, where cows grazed in flowered meadows. It was like another world, far removed from memories of destitution and the harshness of the reformatory. It gave her the first glimpse of how it might feel to be free.

  The work on the boats, and Bart’s constant scheming, continued as normal and then one day he took her to another house, this time situated in a terrace on Quay Street, one among a hundred others of similar ilk.

  ‘There you are,’ he announced. ‘Didn’t I say I’d do right by you, Ruby? It’s modest, admittedly, but I trust you won’t turn your nose up at this.’