How splendid, she thought, that she’d succeeded in showing the girl up for what she truly was: a common slut. A good thing too that Bertie should be witness to her shame. Now she. addressed her son with gentle regret, tinged very slightly with reproof. ‘You see what a tangle you have put us all into, Bertie.’
‘Tangle?’
‘By bringing poor Miss Thorpe upon our picnic, you have succeeded only in embarrassing her, and ourselves, by her revelations. I can’t imagine what you were thinking of.’ Margot smiled wearily upon her guests, seeking their sympathetic support.
To Lily’s great surprise, a red stain swept up Bertie’s neck. ‘Steady on, that’s going it a bit strong, old thing. Lily has the right to speak up for her family, if she wants to.’ The sound of his voice, as much as his valiant defence of her, brought Lily’s head round for this was not the conciliatory tone he usually adopted when addressing his mother. He was clearly very angry on Lily’s behalf and meant Margot to recognise that fact.
‘Bertie, it’s all right,’ said Lily, laying a hand upon his arm.
Edward too stepped forward to drop a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘I believe enough has been said. Too much, Bertie. I suggest you leave it there.’
But he shook the hand away. ‘Lily hasn’t embarrassed anyone. It’s no fault of hers what her parents did. That was damned near an insult. Take it back, Mama. Lily’s my friend.’
‘No one needs a friend like Lily Thorpe.’
‘I do.’
‘Stop being naughty, Bertie.’
‘Dammit, I’m not a child!’ He clenched and unclenched the hands held stiffly at his sides, cheeks fiery, while Margot continued to speak condescendingly.
‘Darling boy, you know full well that I have your best interests at heart.’
‘So long as I do as you say.’
‘Run along and talk to Dora, there’s a dear. Your father will see poor little Miss Thorpe back home to where she belongs.’
‘What if I refuse to run along, or let you take Lily home?’
Margot’s eyes flashed. ‘We want none of your temper tantrums this afternoon, Bertie. You’ve brought shame enough upon your family. There are girls whom one marries, and those one dallies with. We all know which sort of girl Lily Thorpe is. She’s practically confessed it from her own lips.’
An awed silence fell upon the assembled company, the only sound that of a wood pigeon cooing in the woods behind them, and the crackle of Bertie’s long-forgotten fire where he’d meant to toast muffins.
Now he met his mother’s gaze unflinchingly. ‘Lily can’t be blamed for her own birth.’ He lifted his chin in a gesture of defiance. ‘I’ve told you, she’s my friend. My very dear friend. Lily’s a good sport and dashed good fun to have around. Not always making jibes at a chap, or wanting to put him down. Dammit, I might even marry her.’
Margot’s face went white then bright red. ‘You’ll do no such thing!’
Bertie put his arm about Lily and pulled her close to his side. ‘I just might.’
The opportunity for revenge was simply too tantalising for Lily to resist. ‘And I might just accept,’ she said. Whereupon, for once in her life, Margot Clermont-Read actually fainted.
Lily stood on the Persian carpet in the ‘little’ drawing room, facing Margot Clermont-Read with head held high. The gloomy landscapes seemed to oppress her, adding to her depression. The heat of the small fire in the grate suffocated her, so that Lily could scarcely breathe. What have you done? a voice asked, somewhere inside her head.
‘What d’you think you are about?’ asked Margot, echoing the thought. ‘Have you no compassion? Are you so out for revenge you would heartlessly ruin my poor boy’s life?’
What followed was the most difficult hour Lily had ever spent in her life. Margot spoke at length about Bertie. How he was a foolish boy who had taken temporary leave of his senses.
‘Fascinated, no doubt, by your cheap feminine allure. What sort of person does that make you, Thorpe?’
Lily couldn’t bring herself even to consider the question. Revenge or no, she’d gone too far, and knew it. It made her tremble to think how she’d dared to stand up to Margot Clermont-Read in the first place. What her mam would say if she knew she’d revealed all the family secrets in that shameful way, Lily didn’t care to consider. Really she’d no idea how to extricate herself from this mess without losing even more face.
Yet even as these thoughts raced through her head, Margot’s switch to the use of her surname, as if Lily were a servant and of no account, infuriated her afresh. If the woman imagined this tactic would intimidate her, then she’d badly misjudged her adversary. As this thought took hold, laughter welled in Lily’s throat. By heck, you had to keep your sense of humour in all of this! What a laugh that Margot Clermont-Read should be in fear and trembling because Lily Thorpe, a girl from The Cobbles, had said she might marry her precious son. Lily pursed her lips tightly together, to keep the laughter in check.
‘Since you refuse to speak, I’ll tell you what kind of person you are - a common whore!’
Lily flinched. What was the woman suggesting now? ‘I beg your pardon, I’m no such thing.’
‘You’ve been seen going in and out of a certain notorious house in Fossburn Street,’ Margot informed her.
Lily gasped. "Oo told you that?’
Margot’s eyes gleamed. ‘Never mind who told me. Is it true?’
‘It’s true I visit, right enough. Rose is my friend. Surely you don’t imagine…’
‘Oh, but I do. And if Bertie were to hear of it, he would think so too.’
What could she say? How could she defend herself without condemning Rose and Nan? Only a blind man or a fool wouldn’t know what went on in that house. But Margot would never believe Lily wasn’t involved. Tarred with the same brush, that would be her opinion.
‘Think what you like, Bertie’ll never believe it.’ Lily could only hope this was true. Then in a calm and reasonable voice, ‘All I ask is justice. You never even came to Dick’s funeral, just sent a few flowers and washed your hands of him. Mr Clermont-Read thought he could buy off my grief, as if it were a business transaction. Neither one of you thought to apologise to, or help, his poor widowed mother.’
Margot wasn’t listening. She drummed her fingers upon the arm of her chair, barely waiting until Lily had finished speaking before continuing with her own line of argument. ‘I would’ve thought that even a woman of your low morals would stop short of such wickedness. Bertie is a sweet sensitive boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. If you care for him in the smallest degree, as you claim to do, you must release him. Would you make him a laughing stock, a pariah among his friends?’
‘Happen my revenge is in seeing you sweat.’ Lily almost smiled, though inside she felt cold and numb, as if this were some other person attacking Margot Clermont-Read and not herself at all.
Margot leaned back in her seat, folding plump, ringed hands upon a stiffly corseted stomach. ‘Ah, of course. In that case, I suspect the matter can be settled quite quickly. Sweating is not something I approve of. We’ll accept, for the sake of argument, that you have won, that you have gained your revenge, or justice, whatever you care to call it. Will that do?’ She reached for her purse and drew out a tightly rolled bundle of notes. ‘There’s twenty pounds. More than you usually get paid for your services, I warrant. Certainly more than your Godforsaken family have ever seen in their entire pathetic lives. Take it and go. But leave my boy alone!’
Lily stared at the banknote as if so much as to touch it would scald her fingers. Then she lifted her furious gaze to Margot’s.
‘Keep your money. If you want to know, I’d no intention of ever going through with it. Bertie only said it to annoy you. I backed him for the same reason.’ She stepped closer and wagged a finger in Margot’s furious face. ‘But I’ve had enough of being treated like dirt. If he asks me again, happen I will marry him. D’you hear me? And spend the rest of my life making you regret you ever c
lapped eyes on Lily Thorpe.’
Bertie, apparently, had suffered a similar painful interview with his father. They’d rarely seen eye to eye, and this did not help matters one bit. To Lily’s great surprise and almost, it had to be said, her triumph, Bertie stuck steadfastly by her. He claimed that after these months they’d enjoyed together, he’d quite fallen for her and no one, not even his snobbish parents, could alter his feelings. Edward was furious.
Lily told him that her own family would see things differently. But in this, she was to be disappointed. They agreed to meet Bertie because Lily asked them to, but their reaction was muted. Clearly uncomfortable in his presence they kept glancing at each other, a bemused expression on each anxious face.
Hannah took the opportunity to speak on the subject to her daughter as Lily helped brew a fresh pot of tea. ‘What are you thinking of, lass? He’s the landlord’s son. One of the nobs.’
‘What of it?’
It was true that Bertie looked incongruous in their shabby kitchen, sitting on a hard stool instead of a brocade-covered sofa, drinking tea from a mug instead of bone china. But not for the world would Lily admit as much.
‘I thought you hated that family, ‘cause of what they did to Dick?’
‘I do hate them.’
‘Then you shouldn’t think to wed their son.’
Even Rose was unsympathetic. ‘You’re mad,’ she said, when Lily spoke of her intentions. ‘He’s a lovely man but weak and foolish. He’ll drive you up the bleedin’ wall in no time. The Berties of this world aren’t made for marriage.’
No one, it seemed, was prepared to see her point of view. Lily persuaded herself that her motive for going through with it was not simply revenge. She liked Bertie as much as she could like any man, now that she’d lost Dick. She’d given up on love, hadn’t she? Much too painful. Bertie was fun, they enjoyed each other’s company, and he’d take her out of The Cobbles. She presented this argument to each and every one of her family and friends, but they were unimpressed.
‘Think again,’ they said.
‘Don’t do it.’
‘You’ll rue the day.’
‘It’s too high a price to pay.’
‘They’ll eat you alive.’
But Lily wasn’t listening.
Nathan Monroe, watching events closely, had the audacity to tell her that she’d be better off with him. He deliberately waylaid her on her way home from the fish market. ‘If it’s marriage you’re desperate for, I might consider asking you meself.’
Lily stared at him, utterly shocked. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘At least I’d be man enough for you. Not a broken reed wanting to get even with a snobby mother who’s anxious to marry her son off to any horse-faced female who crosses his path, simply because she’s rich.’
‘Bertie isn’t a broken reed. He’s kind and amusing and very generous. And he isn’t marrying me to get even with his mother.’
‘You are. Why not him too? In one fell swoop he can get his own back on an over-critical father, and foil his ambitious mother’s plans.’
Lily firmly rejected the suggestion. It was far too uncomfortable. ‘Bertie adores me. He’s said he loves me a dozen times. Not that you would understand the meaning of the word.’
‘At least we’d be of a type, you and me. Two cups from the same pot, eh?’
‘Marry you, a bully and a jail bird?’ Contempt etched every line of her young face as Lily glared up at him, resolutely recalling every trick Nathan Monroe had ever played on her. Successfully managing to ignore the attractive way his eyebrows flared, how the corners of his mouth twitched constantly into that provocative smile. ‘Live for ever in The Cobbles?’ She glanced about the street with disdain. ‘You must think I’ve no brains in me head.’
‘We could climb out of this hole together.’
Lily laughed, the sound loud and strident, even in a street bustling with activity. ‘You’ll never get out of The Cobbles, Nathan Monroe. This is where you deserve to be. Like a rat in a sewer.’
He stepped back from her, bright blue gaze shrewdly assessing, and for some reason she shivered. Foreboding perhaps? Or regret? A fanciful notion, she told herself crossly.
‘I never said for certain that I would ask you,’ he quietly reminded her. ‘I only said I might. That if I did, you’d be better suited to me than to that duck-head.’
‘Thanks again for the generous offer,’ she cockily told him. ‘But I’ll not be so desperate till I’m ninety, blind and senile. Not even with me dying breath would I contemplate marriage with the likes of you.’
Perhaps it was this last confrontation which finally decided her. The very next day, when Bertie again begged her to elope with him, Lily accepted like a shot. No one but Nathan saw them go.
Chapter Seven
Edward Clermont-Read faced Captain Swinbourne in the Steamship Company office and felt closer to hatred for his own son than was right and proper in any father, even one as sorely tried as himself.
He understood only too well that if you failed to achieve status through birth in this world, you needed wealth and influence in order to command any degree of respect and obedience. Ferguson-Walsh had been about to invite him on to the town council, recommend him for a magistracy, Edward was certain of it. He wouldn’t now. In one night Bertie had undermined a lifetime of striving. Men like Swinbourne could look upon him with near contempt.
If this was putting it rather strong, it didn’t seem so from Edward’s point of view. Life was treating him badly at the moment. There was little comfort to be found at home. Margot had almost thrown an apoplectic fit when she’d discovered Bertie’s note saying he’d borrowed the gig to take them to Gretna Green, where he and Lily meant to marry.
‘You do see, Mr Clermont-Read, how appreciated your assistance would be,’ the Captain was saying. ‘In addition, the price of everything - provisions, wood, coal - is rising.’
‘Then put up the damned ticket prices!’
The Captain winced as if struck. ‘I’m afraid I’ve already put them up as much as I dare. Any more and we’d lose customers. Besides which, I’m offering you the chance to increase your investment. The Lucy Ann is a fine ship but out of date and too small to make real money. We’ve packed on as many as six hundred on occasions but with a larger vessel, say one hundred and fifty feet long instead of a hundred, and five feet wider, we could take a couple of hundred more passengers at a push. Which would naturally increase our profits.’
‘And your overheads.’
‘We need to progress, Mr Clermont-Read.’
Edward had seen the overloaded Public Steamers, packed with factory girls from the mill towns and families out on a day trip, far too often to be troubled by any fears about safety. Why should he worry if the ship was too small? Though it was tempting to consider ways of increasing his profits, ready cash was in short supply. A fact which added to his ill humour.
‘Progress? Pah! I’ve spent my life on such a quest.’ He returned to a gloomy contemplation of his personal problems. He’d left Margot in bed this morning, as usual, bemoaning her lot and still refusing to rise because her life was in ruins. She’d been there for nigh on two months. Even Selene was beginning to lose patience with her mother.
Meanwhile the recalcitrant pair had settled in The Cobbles, instructed never to darken Margot’s door again, and all that rot. His son living in The Cobbles, for God’s sake! Yet he had made no protest when Margot had turned the boy out, had he?
From all accounts the Thorpe family were no more enamoured of the situation than they were. Though, by God, they should be, Edward thought. He heard the Captain noisily clear his throat and forced himself to concentrate upon the matter in hand.
‘I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a bad time, Swinbourne. Manufacturing is going through a sticky patch at present. Outclassed and out-priced by the damned Germans. Even the Americans. It’s almost as if the Empire stands for nothing any more. Imports are increasing, which
does me no good at all, don’t you know? Exports are bad, which leaves me a bit stretched. God knows where it’ll all end.’
Captain Swinbourne was not in the least interested in Clermont-Read’s problems. All he cared about was that the man was well-to-do and his largest shareholder, therefore his best bet to touch for a loan at a reasonable rate of interest. So far he was meeting with little success, mainly because of the man’s irascible temper, caused no doubt by the madcap behaviour of that young son of his.
‘It’ll all change when war comes. Iron and steel are the markets to go for, Mr Clermont-Read. And shipbuilding.’
Edward gave the man a sour look. ‘You would say that, of course. There’ll be no war, dammit! Lot of speechifying and posturing, I’ll admit, but it won’t happen. I should’ve invested my money overseas instead of in textiles. Stick with the staples, I told myself. Cotton is safe, always safe. I ship it to half the world, don’t you know? But it isn’t what it was. The future lies with the dominions, or so they tell me, only I’m too old to emigrate and start again.’
Swinbourne laughed as if this were a joke. ‘We both are, but not quite done yet, eh?’
‘I’ve certainly no spare cash to waste any more in playboy entertainments such as this tin bucket. Those days are over. Might ask for me shares back rather than putting more in.’
Captain Swinbourne went white to the lips. This was the last thing he wanted. If Clermont-Read withdrew his goodwill, then he might as well scuttle the Lucy Ann, never mind build a new craft. He’d be finished. ‘Let’s not be hasty,’ he soothed. ‘Perhaps you’ll take a glass of port with me and we’ll see if we can’t come up with a solution.’
But even after two glasses of excellent port and a sizeable slab of Stilton, Clermont-Read still departed without making any promises whatsoever. Captain Swinbourne sank his head in his hands on a wave of despair, so engrossed in his own misery he did not hear the door open or the click of boots on the rough wooden flooring.
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