He nodded at her. ‘That’s what I said, eaten alive. How many men do you intend to board…because you won’t get women?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because women don’t usually seek lodgings on a river front, at least I shouldn’t think so, unless they’re of a certain type.’ His eyes twinkled as the colour in her face deepened. ‘You are much too young, Emily’—he shook his head slowly—‘and too beautiful to be a boarding-house keeper on a seafront.’
‘Nonsense!’ Her head wagged. ‘There’s a number of women boarding-house keepers along Thornton Avenue and thereabouts.’
‘There may be…Have you seen them?’
‘… No. But do you have to be an old hag before you can open a boarding house?’
‘Yes.’ He was laughing openly at her now. ‘Yes, I would say you would have to be an old hag before you could safely open a boarding house along here.’
Their gaze held for a moment; then she looked away from him. She had never thought about this side of it; and anyway, she felt that after her experience over the past years she was quite capable of handling any man who got out of place. Looking at him again, she said just that: ‘I’ll be able to handle them.’
‘Well’—he sighed—‘I won’t say you know best, all I can say is go ahead and have a try. When do you propose to open your boarding house?’
‘As soon as I get the place ready.’
‘And how long is that going to take?’
She gave a small laugh now as she said, ‘On my own, much longer than I thought; but I’ve written to Mr Nesbit—he’s the man who painted the outside—an’ asked him to come and give me a hand.’
‘Oh well, if it’s a hand you want.’ He had taken off his coat before she could protest. ‘If it’s just a hand you want I’ve two of them lying idle at the moment. Where do we start?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She was laughing at him now. ‘You in your good clothes, they’d be all over paint afore you knew where you were.’
‘Oh, I can easily get over that. I passed a shop along the way with dungarees hanging outside, all sizes I noticed. They’ll soon fit me up.’
‘No.’ Her hand was out towards him now, and he stopped in the act of putting on his coat, and again she said, ‘No, please, don’t…don’t make it more awkward for me. Go back to the farm. Come…come and see me sometime when I’m settled.’
He finished buttoning his coat, his face was straight, and now he nodded slowly at her, saying, ‘All right, all right, Emily.’ He held out his hand and she placed hers in it, and when he covered it they stood staring into each other’s eyes for a moment; and then quite abruptly he turned from her and went out through the front room.
When she heard the door bang she looked in its direction but didn’t move. She felt an overwhelming urge now to cry just as she had done the first day she had come back into the house.
Do you like me? he had asked. You can love someone and hate them but you can’t like them and hate them.
She liked him. Oh yes, yes, indeed, she liked him. But it could go no further, for as she had said she wouldn’t be able to live with her conscience knowing she was the means of him losing the house and the farm. And it was all eyewash his saying he was no farmer, all eyewash.
Grabbing up her coarse apron now, she put it on and continued with her work; but, as she put it to herself, there was a damper on the day.
Three
Nothing ever turned out as planned. Here she was back in the house of her dreams, all the decorating was done, the place was furnished comfortably, she had even had the wall broken down between the two yards and a gate put in for easy access to next door. She had been sleeping in the house for the past two weeks and was now admitting openly to herself that she was lonely. She was tired of reading, even the little black book had lost its interest. She had to keep stopping herself from locking up, getting on the train and going up yet again to her Aunt Mary’s.
And there was now something puzzling her about her Aunt Mary. She had the idea that her Aunt Mary’s welcome was a little cool these days; and yet she hadn’t troubled her, not all that much.
She kept remembering what her Aunt Mary had said to her three weeks ago. ‘It’s about time you settled in there, isn’t it? If you’re goin’ to run a business you’ve got to be on the spot. If you don’t get down there until eleven o’clock in the day you could be missing people knockin’ on the door.’
Well, apart from going out and doing a bit of shopping she had been in the house twenty-four hours of every day for the past two weeks and she’d had only two enquiries to her advert in the Shields Gazette. And she remembered them both with slight shudders. The first had been a small thin man in a greasy coat. He had a drop on the end of his nose which he kept wiping off on the back of his hand. He said he was a storekeeper in one of the big shops in King Street. She hadn’t even shown him a room. She had kept him standing just within the front door, for when he asked, ‘What’s your charge?’ and she had answered, ‘Twelve and six,’ he had exclaimed, ‘Bloody hell! missis, you must be jokin’. I’m not askin’ to take over the house, I just want a room an’ a meal.’
At this she had barked at him, ‘Well, go and find it elsewhere,’ and almost pushed him into the street. Then going into the kitchen, she had stood biting hard down on her lip to hold back the tears.
Her second applicant hadn’t quibbled about her charge. He said he was second mate on a short trip boat, and he’d be in every other week, and he was willing to pay for a room to be kept permanently for him.
Oh yes, he had been very eager to take up residence with her. He had pushed past her into the front room, then walked through into the kitchen, saying as he went, ‘Oh, aye! All very nice and comfortable an’ white paint! You’re new around here, aren’t you?’
She hadn’t answered, but kept her distance from him; even so, the smell of drink on his breath wafted to her. Then he took a seat and, having thrust his hand into his pocket, slapped down twelve and six on to the table, saying, ‘There, that’s me good faith in advance; I’ll bring me kit along later. And we sail the morrow, so you won’t see me for a week. Now, isn’t that fair?’ She turned about and, hurrying to the front door, yelled from there in no small voice, ‘Get yourself out! I’m full up.’
It was some minutes before he came walking through the front room towards her, and such was the look on his face that she stepped out into the street. But he did not immediately follow; he stood in the doorway leering at her as he said, ‘You’re new to the game, lass; you’ve got a lot to learn.’ Then after a moment he stepped onto the pavement, but before he had time to say anything more she sprang over the step, banged the door, then stood with her back to it.
That had happened the day before yesterday, and she hadn’t seen anyone since, and not a soul to speak to. Last week she had gone round to Creador Street to see Jimmy and his wife, but the visit wasn’t a success. In a way she felt she was embarrassing them. The house was anything but clean, and Jimmy’s wife already looked a slattern, and Emily had thought, If they have a big family it certainly won’t be a merry one like his mother’s.
She sat in the kitchen now, her feet on the fender, staring into the fire. She had made a mistake; she had thought that all she wanted from life was to be back in this little house. And in a way that was true, but not to live alone like this. Nobody should live alone. For the past twenty-four hours she had been debating if she should send for Lucy, but had told herself again and again that would be selfish. It was this boarding house idea that was all wrong. She should have just bought Sep’s house and gone out to work somewhere as a daily, then everything would have been all right. As it was she was now saddled with two houses to look after, and rates to pay on them. What was more, the buying of the furniture, although second-hand, and all the new bedding had made a bigger hole in the money than she had anticipated and what she now had left of the total after paying for the houses and the solicitor’s fees would only last out for another
six months at the most, and then what?
In answer to the question in her mind she said, ‘Oh, I’ll have to talk to somebody; I’ll go to me Aunt Mary’s.’
‘Well, I wasn’t for it from the start.’ Mary was wagging her finger at her.
‘But…but you said it was a good idea, Aunt Mary.’
‘Aye, a boarding house is a good idea, but not for young women like you on her own; an’ lookin’ like you do an’ all. A married couple, aye; or a mother and daughter, aye. Now if you’d thought of takin’ some such place in Newcastle where there’s gentlemen who want residences an’ to be looked after, you would’ve had no trouble with snotty-nosed individuals or second mates who would’ve had me boot up their backsides if I’d been there. But, of course’—she now waved her hand and laughed—‘if I’d been there things would have been different, wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, Aunt Mary.’ Emily’s voice was dull. Was it, she asked herself, imagination or had her Aunt Mary changed towards her? She seemed to have lost interest in her affairs, merely putting up with her visits. And this time was no exception. Well, she wasn’t one to stay where she wasn’t wanted. She’d go back home because, lonely or not, it was her home, and she’d rethink things out. She could likely sell next door now that it had been done up. Yes, perhaps that would solve part of the problem, she would sell next door. But she wouldn’t discuss her affairs any further with Aunt Mary; not at the present anyway. She rose from the chair, sidestepped the latest infant sitting on the mat, and said, ‘I’ll be getting away down, Aunt Mary.’
‘But you’ve hardly got in, lass. Sit yourself down and have a cup of tea and something to eat. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing…nothing, Aunt Mary.’
‘Well then, try and look as if nothin’s the matter. Only to my eyes, you’re makin’ a poor show of it at present. You’re not regrettin’ leaving that hill, are you?’
‘Oh no, Aunt Mary. Oh no!’ Her answer was quick and emphatic.
‘’Cos if you were I’ll give you somethin’ to think on, he was married last week.’
‘Married!’
‘Aye, that’s what I said, married.’
‘Oh well, that’s what I expected.’
Yes, she had expected it, but nevertheless it hurt. ‘I’ll never marry you or anyone else,’ he had said; ‘I’ll never put me name to paper again as long as I live.’ Well, he had put his name to paper, and got a farm at last, a farm of his own. Or would it be his own? She looked sharply at Mary now and said, ‘How did you get to know that?’
‘Oh, I get around here and there; at least, people get around to me. There’s more comes in on a carrier cart than parcels and piglets.’
‘I’ll be away, Aunt Mary.’
‘Well, just as you please, lass. Just as you please.’ Mary walked with her to the door and there, her manner resuming its old friendliness, she said, ‘Come on, lass, cheer up; there’s always something around the corner. It’s surprisin’ what’s just around the corner. Come on, never say die.’
It was almost too much. She bent forward and kissed Mary’s cheek, then hurried away down the street.
When she awoke the next morning there was a rime of thick frost on all the windows, and she shivered as she went downstairs.
She pulled the damper out of the fire and it was soon blazing around the kettle, and as she made herself the first of the endless cups of tea she drank during the day, she told herself it would soon be Christmas.
During the morning she dusted the rooms and prepared herself a meal, and in the afternoon she cleaned the insides of all the windows.
It was as she was finishing the front bedroom window of Gantry’s house, as she still thought of the adjoining property, that she saw the cab coming along the street, and when it stopped opposite her door she pressed her face to the pane and looked downwards. She watched the cab driver pull down a trunk from the driving seat, then go to the open door of the cab and take from someone’s hand a case, a large suitcase; then another and another; and when the luggage was all on the pavement a man stepped out of the cab.
At the sight of him she jumped back from the window and pressed her hand holding the duster tightly over her mouth. Not until the knocker on the front door was banged for the third time did she turn round and hurry out of the room, down the stairs, through the back door and the gate in the dividing wall and so into her own scullery, then through the kitchen and the front room, and to the front door. But she didn’t open it immediately; not until the knocker banged yet once again did she pull back the sneck. Then, drawing the door slowly open, she stared at him.
‘You’ve been some time; I thought you were out.’
She looked from him to where the horse was turning the cab round in the middle of the road, and he looked at his luggage and said, ‘Well, I’d better get these inside, hadn’t I?’
She didn’t offer to assist him, she just stepped back and watched him almost throw the cases into the front room; but the trunk he dragged carefully over the step; and when they were all inside he closed the door and stood looking at her for a second before he moved forward and, taking her by the elbow, turned her about and walked her into the kitchen. There, facing her, he said, ‘Well, what have you got to say to your new lodger?’
For an answer she groped backwards, caught hold of a chair and sat down; and as she had done many years ago when she had faced Sep, she laid her hands palm on top of palm on her lap.
He did not come any nearer to her but laughed as he said, ‘I can pay in advance, twelve and six a week, but the only thing is I’ll want to occupy my room all the time.’
She closed her eyes. Her Aunt Mary. Her Aunt Mary had been in on this. That was why she had appeared funny. They had worked together. Everything she had told her Aunt Mary, her Aunt Mary had told him; and he had taken it from there. She said quietly now, ‘You haven’t, have you? You haven’t given up the farm?’
Now all amusement slipping from his countenance, he answered, ‘As from three o’clock yesterday. And the relief is great. I feel for the second time in my life that I’ve been let out of prison.’
As she stared into his face she couldn’t help but believe that he spoke the truth; yet if it wasn’t for her he would still be there, owner of a fine house and a marvellous farm, a rich man. She said in a whisper now, ‘But you’re left with nothing?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Yet according to the will, I could touch no money, only my share of the profits in the past six months. But I suppose I’m a wily person, Emily. If it isn’t a natural characteristic I must have picked it up in prison. One learns to look after oneself there. So during the period I have been supposedly owner of the farm, I haven’t neglected myself. I often paid visits to Mr Goldberg when I had a fancy for a gold albert or gold cufflinks or studs to match, and similar things like that, and put them down to expenses, under different headings of course…’ He looked to the side before adding, ‘I must have known that day would come when I’d have to go. And at the same time I suppose, being a normal man, I was hitting back at Rona for her subtle cruelty. I also spent money on pieces of good porcelain and silver. I hadn’t realised I had an eye for those kind of things until recent years, and so I have a few possessions in the trunk that will see me through until I start my business.’
‘Your business?’
‘Yes, I intend to start a business, Emily. Oh no’—he raised his hand and smiled again—‘I don’t propose to be a boarding-house keeper. No; I’m going to take up tailoring again, set up a tailoring establishment.’
‘But you said you didn’t like tailoring. That’s…that’s why you sold the shop.’
‘Yes, I did, Emily. But I’ve discovered of late that I like tailoring better than farming. And also I’ve looked around this district recently and there’s not a decent tailor’s shop within a mile. The demand here may not be for fancy clothes but I’ve yet to find a man who doesn’t prefer a hand-made, well cut suit to a shop-bought one, and will g
o out of his way to buy one. I was looking at next door the other day.’ He motioned with his thumb towards the wall. ‘If the front room window was enlarged it would do very well for a showcase.’
Her hands unfolded themselves in her lap and one moved up to her throat, and then up to her lips, and lastly it covered her eyes and, bowing her head she let out a long deep moan; and again she was crying as she had done the first day in the house …
He was kneeling by her side now, his arms about her holding her tightly, saying nothing.
He did not speak, even when the paroxysm passed. And she drew herself from his arms and lay back against the chair gasping. But taking his wallet from his inner pocket, he opened it and, withdrawing an envelope, he took from it a narrow folded strip of paper which he smoothed out and held before her face.
She moved her head to the side but her eyes still blinded with tears made it impossible for her to read what was on the paper; and seeing this, he said gently, ‘It’s a licence, Emily, for whenever you’re ready. But not until; it can be arranged to suit you. There’s no rush, no rush.’
Again the tears were flowing. And now she got to her feet and walked blindly backwards and forwards on the hearthrug; then stopping all of a sudden, she looked at him, and the next moment she was in his arms. But now she was holding him too, and when her mouth touched his he kissed her with such force that they almost overbalanced. Then they were leaning against the side of the table, their faces close, yet apart, looking into each other’s eyes; and she said brokenly, ‘I’ll…I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me,’ and in answer, he said, ‘Emily. Oh Emily! My dearest, dearest Emily. My beautiful Emily, I’ll never forget what you’re doing for me.’ Then closing his eyes tightly he held her to him again and buried his head in her neck. And it was as they stood enfolded in silence that, like the flickering of a picture in a magic lantern, she imagined she saw Sep sitting at the corner of the table and he was looking at her as he had sometimes done when she had done something to please him. When Nick’s lips reached her mouth again, and she answered the pressure of his embrace, she thought, Sep would have liked you; yes indeed, Sep would have liked you.
The Tide of Life Page 46
