Storms Gather Between Us

by Storms Gather Between Us (retail) (epub)

  Trudging back towards the ship, he mulled over Miss Dawson’s behaviour, asking himself why he cared so much. Elizabeth was gone from his life. But the feelings this young woman had evoked in him weren’t only because he’d loved Elizabeth, it was something about the girl herself. In such a short time she’d got right under his skin.

  Chapter Eleven

  He’d come home. Hannah, her mother, and sister were eating supper when Dawson arrived, slamming the front door as he came into the house. The three women glanced at each other, put down their cutlery and waited for him to enter the room, anxiety showing in their faces. But he didn’t come in. Instead, he went straight into his ‘study’.

  His voice boomed through the walls. ‘Why is there no fire lit in here?’

  Hannah started to get up. Her mother – unusually – stayed her with a hand to her arm. ‘I’ll go.’

  After Sarah had left the room, Judith rolled her eyes at Hannah. ‘If there’d been a fire lit he’d have screamed at us for wasting fuel in an empty room.’

  ‘I know. We can’t win.’

  They both sighed and picked up their knives and forks but neither had much appetite left. A few minutes later the shouting began.

  The rooms were small but the walls were thick and the two women strained to hear what was being said. Silently, as though reading each other’s mind, they rose from the table and went into the hall and stood outside the door to their father’s study. Wood was thinner than brick.

  Their father’s voice was an inaudible rumble, but their mother’s was clear. ‘I must have been out of my mind when I chose to marry you.’

  ‘You married me because no one else would look at you.’ Dawson’s raised his voice and now clearly enunciated his words. ‘I married you because of Morton’s Coffee. I married you because I thought your no-good father would have done the right thing and handed the company over to me. But he must have despised you as much as I do. That’s why he cut me out and sold the business.’

  ‘He sold the business because he knew you were incompetent. He knew you’d do what you did as soon as you managed to get your hands on it: run it into the ground. Morton’s used to be a healthy business. You ruined it.’

  Judith and Hannah looked at each other. They couldn’t remember the last time their mother had spoken out against their father.

  The reply from Charles Dawson was inaudible – at least the words were. But the sound of their mother being struck was evident, even through the door.

  Defiant in pain, she spoke. ‘That’s your only response. Always the fist.’

  ‘Be silent, woman! Show respect! I am your husband and master. I own you.’

  ‘You’re not a man. You’re weak. You’re useless. A coward. My father was right.’

  Another blow, followed by Sarah’s muffled whimpers.

  Hannah reached for the door handle but her sister stayed her hand. ‘Don’t. It’ll make it worse for her. For us all.’

  ‘You revolt me.’ Dawson’s voice was rising, consumed by rage. ‘You’re like a fat slug. You were always plain. The ugly one. But your sister was a whore. And your daughter is one too.’

  Hannah gasped.

  ‘Don’t you speak of my sister or my daughter. Who, in case you’ve forgotten, is your daughter too.’ Her words were followed by the sound of her crashing against the door.

  Hannah was shaking, terrified at what her father might be capable of. ‘Let’s go in. There are three of us. We can stop him.’

  ‘No. Please, Han. You’ll only make it worse.’ Judith whispered, tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘I should have believed Lizzie.’ Sarah’s voice rose almost to a scream. ‘I was jealous of her. I was stupid. She gave me no cause. It was my fault. All my own stupid fault. And God knows why.’ Her words were engulfed by sobbing.

  The scream was bloodcurdling as he struck her again. ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’

  ‘You’re a hypocrite. All your Bible reading and piety and you’re just a dirty pervert who can’t control his own lust. I’ve seen how you look at Hannah. And it’s exactly what I saw before. The looks you gave Lizzie. My sister. I know what you did to her. I always knew. I just pretended to myself that I didn’t.’

  Judith clutched Hannah’s arm, her eyes wide and filled with tears.

  Hannah tried to pull her back into the kitchen, but Judith shook her off and stood rooted to the spot.

  ‘You raped Elizabeth. You forced yourself on her. Then you made me fling her out of the house. You sent her away. All these years and I’ve no idea where she is. My own sister. You destroyed her, and you’ve destroyed me.’

  ‘Your sister was an adulteress. She plied me with drink and came to my bed.’

  Sarah’s voice was rising. ‘Your bed? You mean her bed. You went into her room and raped her. I saw you in there, passed out drunk on top of her bed.’

  ‘She lured me there. She is Jezebel.’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop lying.’

  Another sound of a blow, then, ‘I’ve told you – Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’

  After a brief silence, Sarah’s voice. ‘Go away. Now. I will tell the pastor exactly what kind of man you are.’

  ‘And why would the pastor listen to a woman?’ He said the last word as though it were something dirty.

  Hannah and Judith realised their father was laughing. ‘The pastor knows what a poor wife you have been to me. He knows what a poor Christian you are. A lazy, idle, useless wife. Only able to give me one son and now barren and shrivelled. You couldn’t even manage to keep my son alive.’

  They could barely hear their mother’s weeping any longer. Those last words seemed to have killed the fight in her.

  Hannah found Judith’s hand. They looked at each other and went up the stairs to their bedroom and locked the door. A few minutes later they heard the slam of the front door as their father left the house.

  Hannah said, ‘Come on. We have to go to Mother now. She needs us.’

  They opened the door to their father’s study and gasped. Their mother was on the floor in front of the empty fireplace, her face bloodied. She moaned and cradling her left hand in her right, said, ‘I think it’s broken.’ Wincing with pain, she added, ‘My wrist took the weight of the fall.’

  Hannah helped her into a sitting position. ‘We need to get you to hospital.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah looked anguished. ‘They’ll ask questions.’

  ‘Well, they need answers. He’s gone too far this time.’ She looked to her sister for support.

  Judith was in tears. ‘Oh, Mother. I can’t believe he could be so cruel. We have to get you to hospital. Maybe I should run to the phone box and call for an ambulance.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah grabbed her younger daughter’s wrist with her own undamaged one. ‘They might tell the police. Then he’ll take it out on you too.’

  Hannah knew her mother was right. ‘We’ll make up a story.’ She thought for a moment. ‘We’ll tell them you caught your heel in a tramline. You tripped and fell and hit your head on the kerb.’

  Judith glanced at her, sceptically.

  Hannah frowned. ‘We must stick to the same story. Now, come on. We need to get you there before he comes back.’

  But he didn’t come back that night. By the time the three women returned from the hospital it was almost midnight. Sarah’s wrist had been painfully re-set and plastered and she had been given some painkillers. Judith made them all a cup of tea and they retired to bed, grateful and relieved that the hospital had treated Sarah, without requiring payment.

  The following morning, when Judith left for work, Hannah went in to see her mother. Sarah’s face was taut and strained. She signalled Hannah to sit on the bed beside her. Hannah took her mother’s hand and asked whether she’d managed to get some sleep.

  ‘Why are you being kind to me when I don’t deserve it? I’ve been a bad mother to both you and your sister.’

  Ha
nnah was about to deny it but Sarah jerked her hand away.

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s not true when we both know that it is.’ She stared past Hannah through the grimy bedroom window. Outside the sky was clear above the lines of roofs and chimney pots. There were no trees. Just long streets of ugly red-brick terraced houses, each identical to the other.

  ‘I never thought I’d end up in a place like this.’ Sarah’s voice was wistful, distracted, as though her words were involuntary rather than considered. ‘It was all so different when I was your age. No shortage of money. New clothes every season. Our house was a happy home. Full of music. Joyful.’ Her eyes remained fixed on the window as though she were picturing the scene. ‘My mother was a good, kind woman. Caring. Loving. My father was devastated when she died. We all were. Everything changed for all of us. You were a baby so you won’t remember her.’

  Her mother’s eyes were brimming with tears. Hannah had never seen her like this. Sarah never betrayed her emotions. Suddenly courageous, Hannah asked, ‘Why did you marry Father?’ As soon as the words were out she regretted them, remembering the cruelty of her father’s words the night before.

  But Sarah gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I was a little crazy then. Headstrong. Thoughtless. Defiant. My parents didn’t like your father. Sometimes I think that’s why I did it. To get attention. To be different.’ She turned her head and looked at her daughter. ‘I’ve never admitted this to anyone, even myself, but the main reason was because I was jealous of my sister.’ She looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. ‘Of Elizabeth. She couldn’t bear Charles.’

  Hannah squeezed her lips together. It was hard to believe that her mother was at last opening up to her.

  ‘Elizabeth’s fiancé, Stephen, was killed in the war. I suppose she must have really loved him, as she had many other suitors after the war but refused them all.’ She closed her eyes and took a breath. ‘Including your father.’

  Hannah suppressed a gasp.

  ‘I suppose I resented her because she seemed to have everything. She was popular. A talented musician. She understood the coffee business better than I ever did and so she was Papa’s favourite. She and Mama loved to read, and they were both musical. I felt left out. All I wanted was to be married and have children. Lizzie didn’t seem to care about that herself. Maybe that’s why I did it.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I went after your father. Threw myself at him. I was very young, and it was my way of getting attention. Mama and Papa had to take notice. Charles is fifteen years older than me and that made me feel special too. More sophisticated.’ She gave a dry brittle laugh. ‘What a stupid fool I was. What a pathetic, silly girl.’

  Hannah was dumbstruck.

  Sarah reached out and squeezed Hannah’s hand briefly, then let it go. ‘But I can’t ever regret having you and Judith.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s a miracle how you both turned out so well with such a useless mother and that… that… man as a father. I should have taken you both and walked out long ago, but there was nowhere to go. No money. And I had your brother to think of until he died, and then each time I was expecting I thought it would be all right but it wasn’t. His anger never went away. It got worse. When Timothy died, your father took it out on me. I was grief stricken and he hit me for the first time. As if it were my fault that Timothy was dead.’

  ‘Oh, Mother! Why did you never tell me this before?’

  ‘I was ashamed. I was hoping you’d never find out. I blamed myself. He kept telling me it was my fault. That I hadn’t taken enough care of Timothy.’ She fixed her eyes on Hannah’s for the first time. ‘He drove Lizzie away. Or rather he made me do it. I threw my own sister out of her home. Our family home. In the middle of the night. Eighteen years ago, and since then I have heard nothing more of her. She could be dead.’ She started to cry again.

  ‘I don’t think she’s dead, Mother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A man. On the beach. He asked me if I knew her. He told me I look like her.’

  ‘You do. Oh, Hannah, every time I look at you it breaks my heart as I remember what I did to my own sister.’

  ‘The man was from Australia.’

  Sarah pulled herself upright. ‘Australia?’

  ‘He said his name was Will Kidd and Elizabeth had been married to his father.’

  Her mother’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘She married him? Mr Kidd?’ The colour had drained from Sarah’s face. ‘I always thought she must have used the ticket my father sent her and gone to Sydney. But I never thought she’d marry that man. What else did he say?’

  Hannah was confused. ‘What do you mean about her marrying that man? Did she know him already? Will Kidd’s father?’

  Sarah ignored the question. ‘What else did he say?’ She repeated.

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t know whether he was telling the truth.’

  ‘He was telling the truth.’ Sarah clutched at her hand, squeezing it tightly. ‘Where is Elizabeth now?’

  ‘The man doesn’t know. He said his father is dead and he lost touch with his stepmother ten years ago. He’s a sailor.’

  ‘You must find him. I must see him. I have to find out. I have to have her forgiveness. I have to tell her I was wrong.’ She gripped Hannah’s wrist tightly. ‘On no account tell your father about this. Never, never, never. Promise me. You have to find this Mr Kidd and tell him I want to meet with him.’

  ‘Please, Mother. Tell me what’s going on.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Hannah decided to go into the office as usual. She had missed several days after her father had struck her, but now the bruising had faded, and she didn’t want to give her father any further excuse to focus his anger on her.

  ‘I thought you had the flu,’ said Mr Busby when she walked into the office.

  ‘I’m well now,’ she replied, avoiding the need to lie. She glanced towards the closed door to her father’s office.

  ‘Mr Dawson is out,’ said the clerk. ‘He’s hardly shown his face here these last several days.’ The elderly man tutted loudly and pointlessly shuffled the pile of papers in front of him.’

  Hannah said nothing. She took her place on the other side of the desk and stifled a sigh.

  ‘You been in the wars, Miss Dawson?’ Busby was uncharacteristically conversational today.

  Hannah touched her cheek. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Your face… I mean… Oh, nothing.’ He looked embarrassed.

  Hannah kept her head down as she worked through the columns of figures and piles of bills. Where was her father? He was increasingly absent from home and his violent temper had become more volatile and unpredictable than ever. Once again, she wondered whether she ought to go to a police station. He had attacked both her and her mother, so her younger sister could well be next. Judith was not as resilient as Hannah. She was frailer, flightier, and, at only just seventeen, less mature and worldly than Hannah. The recent outburst from their father about Judith working longer hours could well lead to something worse. And Judith wasn’t careful enough – sometimes sailing too close to recklessness in her dealings with her father, governed by her own naivety and gaucheness.

  She must focus. Stop daydreaming. The pile of paperwork had grown during her absence. She picked up another invoice and was about to enter it into the ledger when she paused.

  ‘Mr Busby, do you know what this relates to?’ She read out the name of the supplier, Merseyside Maritime Services. ‘I don’t think we’ve had anything from them before. What do they do? It’s for a lot of money. Forty-seven pounds.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Miss Dawson. Isn’t it obvious? They must do what the name suggests.’

  ‘Yes, but what kind of services?’

  Busby gave a protracted sigh. ‘Maritime ones. Don’t you know what the word means?’ He looked at her irritably then lowered his head again.

  ‘But that could mean anything. What services can we possibly require? The coffee goes straight to the wholesal
ers. We don’t ship it on anywhere else. There’s just warehousing and transport costs.’ She waved some other pieces of paper in her hand. ‘I have the bills for that. This is for something else. And we’ve never had an invoice from them before.’

  Another sigh. ‘I have absolutely no idea, nor am I expected to know. If you are determined to find the answer then I suggest you ask your father.’

  Hannah wasn’t going to do that. Frustrated, she carried on working her way through the bills. It was mind-numbingly boring, but also requiring her full attention so there wasn’t even a lot of scope for daydreaming. One thing that was testing her though was the question of how she was going to find and then conceal books to read. The brutality of her father’s reaction to the discovery of The Weather in the Streets ruled out the library – and she didn’t want the librarian pushing her to go to the police. It was too risky. And where in their small sparsely furnished house could she hide a book? How would she afford to buy any now that the library was ruled out? She would have to find another library and go there to read, without withdrawing the books. That was a reasonable plan. Easier as well than trying to read on the seafront or in the park, especially when the weather was cold. Life without the stimulus and escape that books provided was unthinkable.

  Mr Busby scraped back his chair at four o’clock. ‘I have to go early this evening. If Mr Dawson hasn’t returned by the time you leave, please lock the door and leave the key under the fire bucket. And make sure no one sees you doing it.’ He pulled on his overcoat, grunted in farewell and left the building.

  Relieved he had gone, Hannah picked up the bill from Maritime Services again and studied it. The address was unfamiliar. Like most of the other invoices, it was on printed letterhead, but the balance due was written by hand, not typed. Not very professional. She grabbed a scrap of paper and scribbled down the address.

  Just before a quarter to five, she tidied her desk and was putting on her coat when there was a knock on the door and before she could react, it opened. Hannah gasped as the man who had called her Elizabeth stepped inside.