‘Oh.’ His face moved into a stiff smile. ‘Thank you, ma’am. Thank you ever so kindly.’
‘You must give me your address before we part, boy; some day I’ll be coming your way and I’ll expect hospitality from you.’
‘Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am. And you’ll get it.’
‘I’m sure I shall, boy.’ She now got up and with short brisk steps walked out of the small cell-like room.
Less than an hour later he was sitting on the hard seat near the window of the second-class compartment. His other side was pressed tightly against a stout lady, which position he found strangely comforting. Outside on the rude platform, stood the lady in the black cape and bonnet. Mrs Wheatley, she said her name was. He felt as he looked at her that he was parting with a lifelong friend, yet twenty-four hours ago he hadn’t known she was alive.
Before he left the Mission house he had taken the last two half-sovereigns from his shirt and had asked her to change one, and when she had done this he had offered her two shillings, and she had accepted them gratefully and dropped them into a box chained to the wall inside the front door of the house.
A whistle blew, there was a noise of escaping steam, the couplings clanged and the train moved away. He waved to her and she waved to him. ‘We’ll meet again,’ she called, and he nodded at her.
Funny, but he wouldn’t mind meeting her again. He’d heard funny things about missionary ladies, always ranting on about God and hellfire, but she had never once mentioned either of them. No, he wouldn’t mind meeting her again. He leaned back against the hard wooden back of the compartment. He was going home. He was going home. He was going home. The wheels were beating it out faster and faster. He was going home.
Chapter Seven
He slipped from the back of the carrier’s cart at the crossroads and Frank Jackson called to him, ‘Will you be able to find your way, lad?’ and he replied curtly, ‘Blindfold.’
He didn’t like Frank Jackson; he had never liked Frank Jackson. He stood in the middle of the road watching the tail light of the cart swinging away into the distance. He was home, he was home. It was like a song on a hurdy-gurdy churning inside him. All the way from London he could think of nothing else but that he was going home, and now he was home.
He lifted his head and sniffed the air. It was different; sharper, thinner, colder, fresher—different…And he was different.
Slowly he turned about and walked along the narrow ridged road that would take him to the open fell. He had only been away for a week, seven days in all, but he was different; he’d never be the same again.
He knew now that when he had left here he’d been a lad, a boy, but now, no matter what he might look outside, inside he was like a man, because it wasn’t age that made a man, but experience, the experience of people. And he couldn’t count the different types of people he had met during the last seven days, both good and bad.
He gauged the spot to leave the road and to climb the bank onto the higher land. Ten minutes later he knew he was nearing the burn and that it was running strongly, for its gurgling was louder than usual. There must have been some heavy rain during the past week, he guessed. He sought and found the stepping stones and was congratulating his judgement in hopping from one to the other when his foot slipped and he went into the water. Usually, it would have just reached his knees, but he found that it was swirling round his waist, besides which it was icy cold. But what did it matter? He was actually laughing as he pulled himself up the bank. Nevertheless, he shivered violently as he walked on again. He would have liked to run to keep himself warm, but that was too risky. He might trip over some small outcrop of rock and stun himself. It had been known. Just two years gone they had found a man frozen to death out here by just doing that, tripping over a rock and stunning himself.
Of a sudden he stopped. He could see the village, pinpoints of dim light in the blackness. He was near the road.
When he reached the road he did run. He ran until he neared the first cottages. Then he brought his running to a steady walk, a walk that befitted someone returning from a journey, a dangerous journey. By aye! He could say that again, and in truth.
He cast a glance towards the blacksmith’s shop. The door was open and inside there was a dim glow from the banked-down fire, and a brighter glow from the window in the cottage next door. There was a warm light coming from the Grey Hen public house and a dim light from the back room of Mrs Beeney’s shop. He saw that Miss Tyler was still hard at work with her dressmaking for her lamp was bright, and she only turned it full up when she was working. And there at the end of the street was the house he looked upon as home, the wheelwright’s shop. There were lights coming from both the upper front window and the side one.
His heart began to beat faster with excitement as he neared the yard, but when he entered it he paused a moment at the sight of a cart standing there. A cart in the yard shouldn’t have been an unusual sight except that this one was ready for the road with a horse in the shafts, and standing to the side of the horse, holding the reins, was Sammy.
He had almost reached the boy before Sammy recognised him, and then with a spring the child was in his arms, clinging to his neck and crying, ‘Oh our Rory! Oh our Rory! Our Rory!’
‘Here!’ Rory laughed gently as he patted the back of his head. ‘What’s up?’
The child, pressing himself slightly away from him and looking into his face, gulped through his tears. ‘I thought you was dead. Everybody thought you was dead.’
‘Me dead? What made you think that?’
‘Well, the man’—he jerked his head towards the trap—‘he came yesterda’ and he’s in there again pesterin’ the missis. I don’t like him and she doesn’t like him; she blames him for Mr Cornwallis dyin’.’
Slowly Rory let the boy slide from his arms, then stood looking down at him before he whispered, ‘What did you say?’
Sammy made no reply, and Rory said again, ‘The master, he’s dead?’
‘Aye, Rory; he…he went yesterda’ afternoon, sudden like, after the man had been.’
‘Oh no! No!’ Rory shook his head and as he did so his hand went to his waist and gripped the circular lump underneath his coats. Blue baccy. He had brought it back and the master was dead. Two men that he had liked were dead, one he could say he more than liked, for in a secret way he had loved Mr Cornwallis more than his father. Both bad men, some people would say, because they were mixed up with the law, but nobody was all black and nobody was all white. ‘What do you say?’ He looked down at Sammy.
‘I heard the man say that if you did come back the missis had to send word over to some place right away. I couldn’t get the name, but it’s in Gateshead.’
Before Sammy had finished speaking there came the sound of voices from the back room of the shop and Rory, bending down, whispered hastily, ‘Listen Sammy, say nowt. Do you understand? Say nowt at all till that man’s gone. Don’t tell the missis I’m back, either, just keep mum.’
‘Aye, Rory; but…but where you goin’?’
‘Just into the shed over there. I’ll hide till he’s left.’
‘Aye, Rory.’
Rory now dashed across the yard and into the shed, and within two minutes he saw, coming out of the back door of the shop, a man in a high bowler hat and a heavy overcoat. He watched him get up into the trap, then turn and look towards the door and say, ‘Now don’t forget, let me know. It’ll be very worth your while.’ Then he looked down at Sammy and shouted, ‘Out of the way, boy!’ before urging the horse forward.
Rory waited some minutes before moving. As he left the shed Mrs Cornwallis’s voice came from the doorway, saying, ‘Come in, child.’ But when Sammy didn’t move she came into the yard, saying, ‘Do you hear me, boy?’
‘Missis.’
Rory watched his mistress’s hands go to the front of her blouse and grip it, and when he stood in front of her her whole face trembled so much she was unable to speak for a moment. Then she said softly, ‘It’
s you, boy?’
‘Aye, missis.’
‘You’re safe.’ Her hands were on his head, moving down his face and over his shoulders, and of a sudden he found that he was in her arms, being held tightly to her; and in turn he put his arms about her and held her. Then she had him by the hand, saying hastily, ‘Come in. Come away in.’
They didn’t speak again until they were in the sitting room. There, in the light of the lamp, she looked him up and down, and her hand went to her cheek as she said, ‘Oh boy! Boy! What a state you’re in. Your new clothes almost in rags. And…and you’re wet.’ She looked down at her own apron now, that had soaked up some of the water from his clothes, and she said hastily, ‘Get them off, boy. Get them off.’ And as she went to take off his coat she suddenly stopped and, looking into his face, said, ‘Are…are you all right, I mean in yourself? You don’t look well.’
‘I’m all right. But missis’—he stopped before taking off his jacket—‘Sammy tells me—’ He moved his eyes towards the bedroom door, and Mrs Cornwallis, lowering her head and the tears flowing down her face now, said, ‘Yes, boy, he went yesterday. Yet it’s God’s will, God knows best. Perhaps it’s as well he went like that for the doctor tells me he would never have moved out of that bed again, and that alone would have killed him shortly. There’s only one thing I’m sorry for, he…he went thinking that he had done you an injury, in fact sent you to your death. But we’ll talk no more, boy, until you get those wet things off. Sammy!’ She turned to the small boy. ‘Go to the blanket box and bring me two out.’
‘Aye, missis.’
When the boy had gone from the room Mrs Cornwallis, suddenly taking Rory’s hands in hers, gripped them as she said, ‘Oh boy! Oh boy, I’m so glad to see you.’
‘And me you, missis.’
They stared at each other in silence for a moment before she said, ‘You’ll be hungry. I’ll get you something hot, and…and then we must talk. There’s a lot to be said, isn’t there?’
Rory made no answer to this, he just moved his head once.
Chapter Eight
It was well after midnight when Rory, moving gently away from Sammy’s side, slid to the floor and groped for the candlestick. When he had lit the candle he pulled a blanket round him; then, stretching out his hand, he took from under the straw mattress the round flat circle of tobacco. Crouching on the floor, he sat gazing at it and the question sprang at him, as it had done a number of times since he had come back to the house, why had he not told the missis about it?
Last night, after he had eaten and Sammy had been sent upstairs, the missis had taken him into the bedroom where his master was laid out, not looking dead at all but just peacefully asleep, and once again he had let the tears run down his face.
Later, in the sitting room, he had sat side by side with the missis before the fire and, breaking a long silence, she had said, ‘He was a good man, boy. No matter what you have learned, he was a good man.’ And to this he had replied, ‘Yes, missis, I know.’
‘He trapped himself for life in one drinking bout, but from that day strong liquor never passed his lips. He was a good man.’ Then abruptly and in a changed tone she had asked, ‘Did you meet her?’ and he nodded. ‘Aye, missis. And I didn’t like her. She’s…she’s a bad woman.’
‘I’m with you there,’ she had said; then went on, ‘It wasn’t until you were gone that Mr Cornwallis realised that she might try to trap you as she had done so many others.’
‘She did, missis,’ he said.
‘Well, I doubt if she’ll trap any more. Did you know they were caught?’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I gathered as much when I was on that ledge and I heard them talking—somebody called Peter Crawford gave them away.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Peter Crawford. He was an old man and had worked for her for years. Mr Cornwallis often spoke of him.’
To his question, ‘How did you come to know she was caught?’ she had replied, ‘Him, the man you saw leaving tonight, he came yesterday morning bringing the papers; it was all in there. All about the militia and the Excise men waiting for the boat coming in.’
‘What’ll happen to her?’ he had asked.
‘Only God and the law know that. But she’ll get her deserts. An’ I’m tellin’ you, there’ll be many a mind set at ease this night knowing that they’re free from her clutches. The London paper that man had was full of it, but one item alone brought him here. When they picked up the body of Ben Bachelor they found half a necklace on him made of very precious stones. It was wedged inside the baccy and it were worth a lot of money. He came to find out if Mr Cornwallis had got back with the other half. When he found him in bed he raged on until John told him that you had been sent in his place. Then this evening when he came to see if there was any news of you, he showed no sorrow that my man had died. There were some good men involved in this business, but there were also some bad ones, and he is one of them, I’d say.’ And she had ended, ‘Well, boy, he’ll be back, and all you’ve got to say to him is you know nothing about it. You were taken to the island and you were brought back and you managed to get away. And thank God for that much anyway. You just speak the truth.’
Speak the truth. Why hadn’t he there and then said, ‘I’ve got the other half of that necklace, it’s upstairs under the mattress’? Why hadn’t he? Because as he had looked at her he knew that by telling her he’d be heaping more worry on her.
With the death of her husband, she imagined the worry and anxiety of being concerned in the blue baccy intrigue was finished, but he knew he had only to produce that little brown cartwheel and it would all start up again. And her worry would be for him now, for, once he handed it to that man, he would be as much in the thick of it as if May Bluett had trapped him for life. He had been carrying stolen goods. He had gone over to Jersey by night and had returned by night. The man would take the place of May Bluett and would force him into the blue baccy game.
Slowly now he pulled the end of the roll of baccy away from a cleft in the twist, and gently began to straighten it out. But no sooner had he exposed the inner coil than he stopped and, with finger and thumb gently poised, plucked from the bed of the tobacco a bright stone. After gazing at it for a moment he laid it down gently on the bare wooden floor, then picked up another, and another. As he unwound towards the middle of the coil the stones, he saw, became gradually larger, and when he reached the heart of it, there, taking up more than half the width of the baccy, and blinking as if just waking from sleep, was a different stone.
This stone gave off a soft reddy-pink glow and was twice the size of the biggest of them. Prising it from its nest, he placed it in the hollow of his hand and gazed at it. It was bonny, beautiful. Lily would love something like this. His fist closed on it just in time to stop it rolling on the floor. Enough of that. By lad! Aye, enough of that.
But what was he going to do with this lot? His throat was dry. The very sight of them lying there in a little heap began to fill him with fear…Anyway, one thing he was certain of; that bloke wasn’t getting them. Another thing was, he couldn’t tell, or he wasn’t ever going to tell, the missis about them. He would hide them, and later on, perhaps years ahead, he could take the stones one by one over a period of time into Newcastle and sell them. They would make sure that he and his folks would never know want again—aye, and they might make sure he’d find himself in trouble. A jewellery man would have a way of asking questions as to how an ordinary fellow such as himself came by diamonds. Because this is what they were, diamonds. All except the middle one. He didn’t know what this one was.
Well, what was he going to do with them?
Bury them.
No, if he buried them he would be tempted some time to go and dig them up. He stared into the darkness beyond the rim of light afforded by the candle, and the answer came to him, and he replied to it firmly in his head, ‘Aye, aye, that’s what I’ll do.’ He gathered up the stones but he did not return them to their nest in the tobacco,
instead he bundled them into a piece of coarse linen, which he pushed under the mattress. Then he straightened out the roll of baccy and pushed that under the mattress. Cut into bits, old Peter Tollett and Benny Croft would be glad of that; he could tell them he bought it in London…’twould be a lie but a lie that hurt nobody.
He got into bed, and his last thought before he went to sleep was, I wonder what the morrow’ll hold?
The first thing the morrow held was Mr Morley Cornwallis and Bernie. He was sitting at the table having his breakfast when they came in unannounced, startling even Mrs Cornwallis. She turned from the fire, saying, ‘Why Morley! Why, you’re early.’
‘Not early enough to get some folks out of bed!’ Morley Cornwallis threw a hard glance at Rory. Then looking again at Mrs Cornwallis, he said, ‘I’ll be goin’ into Shields, Rosie, and wonder if you’ve changed your mind about them funeral arrangements.’
‘No, I have not, Morley,’ replied Mrs Cornwallis harshly. ‘And I’m not likely to at this stage. It was all settled yesterday. Robson’s are laying him to his rest, plumed hearse, three coaches an’ all.’
Rory saw the muscles on Morley Cornwallis’s face tighten. He watched him shake his head slowly as he said, ‘’Twouldn’t have been John’s wish to throw good money away. Bailey’s would have done it for half the price, nine pounds coffin an’ all.’
‘Well he wanted no coffin, as you know yourself; he’s had his coffin made these fifteen years, and of the best oak. The tree picked by himself, no valley bottom stuff. And he’s seen it polished every year since, as he has mine. And he’s not havin’ any cheap cabs to match good oak, he’s goin’ to be put away proper.’
‘Well, well.’ Morley Cornwallis’s voice had a conciliatory note now. ‘It’s your business, Rosie. After all, it’s your business. I’m only thinkin’ of your future and money that you’re likely to be in sore need of, for you won’t be able to keep the shop. You know that much.’
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