‘I can, Maggie.’ He rose from the side of the bed now. ‘He’s likely stopped her.’
‘Oh, I can’t see that. If she thought either of us were in need she would have defied him and come, I feel sure of that.’
‘He’s her husband, Maggie, and, to me, he’s what you would call an unknown quantity. I’ve never been sure of him; I’m still not. Anyway, how are you feeling really? How’s the pain?’
‘Not too bad at all, not too bad at all, so don’t worry. I’ve just got to pull a face and your mother pours more laudanum into me. I’ll be floating in it next. Aw, Freddie’—she held out her hand—‘I don’t care about anything now as long as you’re with me.’ She did not add: for as long as I’ve got left, which isn’t very long; instead, she said, ‘The sight of you has given me a new lease of life. Go on now; Jinny, I know, is making you a meal. I bet you haven’t had a decent bite in the past two days. I’m all right. Go on. And you could do with a wash, by the look of you, and a good shave.’
He said nothing, but his eyes lingered on her for a moment longer before he left the room.
He didn’t go down to the kitchen, but went into his own room; he didn’t grope for the matches on the side table and light the lamp; but he made his way to the bedside basket chair and, dropping into it, he laid his head against the padded cushion attached to the top of it and muttered aloud, ‘Don’t go. Don’t leave me. I’m lost, Maggie.’
Fourteen
It was three days later when Belle stood in the sitting room confronted by Freddie, and for the third time she ground out from between her teeth, ‘I’ve told you and told you! I didn’t get the letter Aunt Maggie sent on Sunday. I’ve never received any such letter. I wrote you both on Sunday. I’ve told you, haven’t I, I knew nothing about it until yesterday when your own letter came.’
‘Yes, I know you’ve told me, and told me you never got it, but what I’m saying is somebody got it. There are very few letters lost in the post these days. I say again, somebody got it.’
‘What are you insinuating?’
‘Well, you should have an idea by now what I’m insinuating.’
‘How dare you! If Marcel heard that he would…’
‘Yes, he would what?’
‘He’d be very angry, to say the least.’
‘I wonder.’
‘What’s got into you, Freddie?’ Her voice was now soft, pleading. ‘It isn’t like you. And do you think for a moment I wouldn’t have come straight home if I had got that letter? And don’t you think that Marcel would have had us return immediately if he had known anything about the letter?’
He remained silent, but he gazed at her. She was married yet she seemed not to have changed, and she didn’t look happy. Well, she wouldn’t, would she? with Maggie being in the state she was. But there was something about her. He couldn’t lay his finger on it. He said, ‘Where is he now?’
Her chin worked up and down before she said, ‘He’s had to go to Harrogate. His grandmama wanted some business done and she thought it best as I was coming across here and…and might stay for the night that he should take the opportunity.’
‘How long is he likely to be away?’
‘I don’t know. A day or two perhaps, perhaps as long as a week. His grandmama says there was some important business had come to light and it might take a little time.’
‘Why couldn’t you have gone with him?’
Now she almost barked at him: ‘What would you have said if I had, instead of coming across here?’ She could not say to him that no such invitation had been made and that her new husband had seemed at cross purposes with himself throughout the journey home, and more so this morning because he had scarcely given her a civil goodbye. She had thought that he must have been annoyed with his grandmama for making such a demand upon him at this time and also with herself for stating flatly that she must come across and stay the night, if not two.
His change of manner towards her had upset her and she felt deeply unhappy, and not only because of Maggie. But oh yes, she was unhappy about Maggie, and so she said now, ‘Please don’t let us quarrel, Freddie, it will upset Aunt Maggie. Tell me truthfully, how much longer do you think…she will be with us?’
He turned from her and went towards the fire and, putting his hands on the mantelshelf, he bowed his head towards it as he said, ‘I don’t know. It could be tonight, tomorrow, or next week, but it will be soon, and the sooner the better. God forgive me for saying it, but she’s in dire pain and the laudanum is not touching it now.’
She came swiftly towards him and put her arm around his shoulders as she said softly, ‘Oh, Freddie, I’ll be heartbroken at the loss of her, but you, oh, you more so, I know, because she meant so much to you and you to her. She might have loved me. Oh yes, she did love me, but the word for the feeling she had for you couldn’t be expressed in just love, it went so deep. When she used to speak of you it was as if she herself had created you.’
He did not shrug her arm from his shoulder, he just turned his head away from her. But when she said softer still, ‘Freddie, I miss you so,’ he almost sprang away from her. And now his shoulders hunched and his head pushed forward, he cried at her, ‘You miss me so, you say. What does that mean? You should have thought about that before you married him.’
‘Oh, Freddie!’—she backed from him—‘I…I didn’t mean…’
‘Well! What did you mean? You know what I could do at this moment, I could take this hand’—he thrust out his hand, his fingers spread and shaking—‘and swipe you from the face of the earth with it, as far away as possible. I’m going to lose Maggie, but I want to lose you an’ all. D’you hear?’
When he turned about and stalked from the room she dropped into a chair and, her two hands cupping her face, she whispered to herself, ‘Oh my God! What have I done? What have I done?’
Maggie died at three o’clock the following morning. She did not have any last words of farewell; she did not die in Freddie’s arms but she died while looking at him asleep in the chair to the side of her bed. She experienced one great flash of pain which seemed to cleanse her body of every vestige of discomfort and for a space she was aware of utter peace; so wide, so deep, so high was the peace she was lying in she had the desire to put her hand out and tell Freddie about it. She wanted to say to him: The disease has gone, I am cured; but he had dropped off to sleep only minutes ago, so she would let him sleep and lie watching him while she rested in this floating peace…
The face was that of a young woman, a smiling young woman. It was turned on the pillow and looking at him. There was a loud cry within him but it made no sound. He fell onto his knees by the side of the bed and laid his face on the pillow beside hers and, his voice calm sounding, he said to her, ‘Goodbye my dear, dear Maggie. We’ll meet up again and you will be as you look now, young and beautiful. And we’ll be of an age to come together. Yes, we will. Oh yes, we will.’
He now gently closed her eyelids, turned her head away, then went from the room to wake his mother and tell her that Maggie needed her for the last time.
Fifteen
The funeral took place five days later. It was said for a long time afterwards that most of the town attended Maggie Hewitt’s passing: fishermen, longshoremen, keelmen, sailors of various nationalities, townsmen, councillors and even some dignitaries from Newcastle. This in spite of her having been denounced as a confessed murderess only a short time earlier.
It had been a story in the newspapers that people said was quite unbelievable and it had all begun with little Freddie Musgrave who used to act as runner when there was a lot of smuggling going on but who was now a highly respected member of the community. He, too, was due to face a charge of having kept the knowledge to himself of Maggie Hewitt’s murdering Mr Gallagher. But the common sympathy was with him: he had been but a lad of twelve years old. And as it had said in the papers, Maggie Hewitt had emphasised that the man Gallagher had meant to kill the boy and the child, and herself into the
bargain. It hadn’t really been murder but self-defence because when she had struck out at him he had toppled into the water and the night was dark and she couldn’t get him out. At least that’s what the papers said, and she was supposed to have made a written confession to a parson and a doctor.
And then there was the business of this jewellery coming to light that the servant man had pinched all those years ago, and his daughter just getting to know about it and bringing it to the police.
Oh, you didn’t need pamphlets about the murders and the robberies that went on in London and other big cities, they were on your very doorstep. But who would have thought that Maggie Hewitt had carried that secret on her shoulders all these years?
Then there was that nice kettle of fish, wasn’t there? That lass could have married her half-brother, couldn’t she? But her mother had left a letter to say that his father wasn’t her father. Now that was a mix-up, and, as some said, if you ask them that was too convenient to be real. What had happened was the two had fallen for each other and got spliced, then found out their relationship and the rest had been made up. Still, it was done now; they had been on their honeymoon. Anyway, it was nothing new. After all, they would only be half-brother and sister and there were lots of brothers and sisters doing what they didn’t ought to do in this town, and lots of fathers and daughters an’ all if the truth was known. And it was known in some quarters, but people minded their own business, especially mothers who were afraid of ending up in the workhouse. But wasn’t it odd when you came to think about it that that young lass’s husband, whether he be her half-brother or not, hadn’t turned up at the funeral? But the lass was there walking alongside of Freddie Musgrave. And that was a bit of a disgrace too, wasn’t it now, for a female to openly attend a funeral? That kind of thing wasn’t done: women should know their place in matters like this.
And another thing, only a comparatively few people had been invited back to the house for a meal, not more than a dozen it was said. Of course, it was well known there were always a lot of scroungers after a free tuck-in at a time like this; they just attended the funerals for what they could get afterwards. But apparently Jinny Musgrave had given them short shrift, and there had only been ale for the pall-bearers, no hard stuff at all. And it was wondered all about who would come into Maggie Hewitt’s pile for it was well known she was a very warm woman. It wasn’t very likely she would have left it all to Freddie Musgrave. Although he stayed up at the house a lot he was after all only a clerk.
The lawyer finished reading the will and he raised his eyes to look at Freddie where he was sitting next to Belle on the couch in the sitting room. And he said, ‘It was a simple will with no conditions. If Mrs Birkstead had not been married she would have inherited half of the estate, but as she is, and undoubtedly well provided for’—the solicitor smiled in Belle’s direction—‘there is no need for commiseration. I would wish that all wills were as simple, and I must congratulate you, Mr Musgrave, on becoming a very rich young man. Well now, that matter completed, I will take my leave, and I must thank you for that enjoyable repast and for your taste in wine.’
Freddie made no reply to this, but he saw the man out. When he returned to the sitting room Jinny was sitting beside Belle holding her hand, saying, ‘There, there, lass. Don’t upset yourself so. We’ll all miss her. Oh yes, we’ll all miss her.’ She turned to her son now who had taken a seat to the side of the fireplace and she said quietly, ‘I asked you yesterday what you intended to do and you said you wouldn’t know until today. So do you know now?’
He looked at her for a moment or two before saying, ‘Well, what d’you expect me to do, Ma?’
‘I don’t know; that’s why I asked. You did say a few days ago that you didn’t think you could stay here, didn’t you?’
‘Well, there’s one thing sure, Ma, I won’t be able to leave the country as I’m due in court again, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, I’m well aware of that, but nothin’ will come of it, it can’t. And you’re a man of means now and that makes all the difference. Oh, don’t shake your head, because yes, it does, money calls the tune.’
‘Not when you’re facing a judge, Ma.’
‘Well, I have me own opinion of that. Anyway, Belle here will have to get across the water before it gets dark. Are you goin’ to take her over?’
‘There’s no need. I can go by myself.’
He got to his feet and, looking down at her now, he said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ Then he asked, ‘Have you had word that he’s back?’
‘No, no, nothing. I would have thought, though, that he would have come over, had he returned.’
‘Get yourself ready. We’ll get across while it’s light.’
She rose slowly from the couch, looked at him for a moment, then at Jinny, and went out without making further comment. And Jinny, looking at her son, said, ‘Now, I don’t know what you think, but they’ve been married barely a week and he goes off on business an’ not a scribe of a pen from him. I think it’s funny an’ that’s sayin’ the least. If I were you I’d do a bit of questionin’ when you get across there…’
‘I’ll do no such thing, Ma. It isn’t my business and I’m not going into that house. I’ll set her to the gates and that’s as far as I’ll go.’
‘Oh well, if that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel. I was only thinkin’ that you might find out how the land lay with this granny of his.’
‘How the land lies or how it doesn’t lie is no concern of mine now. She’s a married woman.’
She was on her feet now, her fingers stabbing at him: ‘You brought her up. Guardian, or brother, whatever name you like to put to yourself, you brought her up. You were the man in her home, in her life, now you’re washin’ your hands of her. Well, as I see it I don’t think that’s anythin’ to be proud of. She’s still a bit of a lass an’ that fancy school has left her still wet behind her ears. She hasn’t been out in the world an’ she knows nothin’ about it. She’s plunged herself into marriage, an’ that, I can tell you, for any woman is a strange sea. My God, it is; and you’ve got to be tough to swim it.’
‘I take your analogy, Ma.’
‘Look, don’t you come with any of your fancy words with me. Take me meanin’, all right? Well, I think you would be wise to think on it an’ don’t throw her as if to the wolves.’
‘I wouldn’t think that marrying into The Towers would be classed as being thrown to the wolves.’
‘Wouldn’t you? Well, in my reckonin’ it’s equal to it. There was a madwoman there some years ago and her grandson was mad enough to try and murder a child, an’ that child is married to that man’s son. You might be smart up top, lad, but apparently you don’t put two and two together.’
He looked at her in silence and he could have said, ‘Right from the beginning, Ma, I’ve put two and two together, and that’s what worries me, has worried me all along.’ But what he said was, ‘Can you stay here till I get back?’
Her tone softer now, she said, ‘Of course I can stay here until you get back. Your da thinks I’ve left him for months now, so one more night won’t matter. But’—she smiled—‘he seems to get on pretty well without me. Since he made himself that little pushchair he practically runs the house.’
‘That’s something I want to talk to you about, Ma, the house. We’ll go into it later, but I’d like you to move into a decent place.’
She stared at him hard before saying, ‘Freddie, that house is as decent as I ever hope to live in; I’m happy in it. I’ve got good neighbours there, they’re good to me and I’m good to them. I don’t want to move to any better place where…well, let’s put it frankly, I’d be looked down on. Oh, oh’—she raised her hand—‘don’t say it, nobody’s goin’ to look down on me, because I can say that, but it doesn’t stop people from doing it. No, lad; thanks all the same. I appreciate it. I tell you what you can do though, if you can manage it: I would like to see our John set up in something and, if it’s not too late, Nancy
to have proper trainin’, although she’s dead set on this fella. I never thought she’d pick up with a customs bloke; but there, he picked up with her, she didn’t have much choice, but she seems to care for him and he for her. But I don’t suppose he’d object to her havin’ her voice trained. And I know that those fellas, with all their posh uniform and classin’ themselves above the rest, their wages won’t bear their pockets down.’
‘Yes, I’ll see to them, Ma, and glad to; and Maggie wanted it that way.’
‘She did? Well, I know she wanted it for you, but you mean she wanted me to have a better place?’
‘Yes; she put it into plain words, as plain as what I’ve said.’
She turned away from him, and after a moment, her voice very small, she said, ‘That was nice of her, very nice, ’cos she knew, you know, that I was jealous of her; she couldn’t help but. But oh dear God, I wouldn’t have minded goin’ on bein’ jealous of her till she was a hundred an’ one ’cos I miss her, already I miss her. Still’—the last word was sharp—‘life’s got to go on, you’ve got to go on. Once this business of the court is over what you want to do is to look round and find yourself a nice lass, or let’s say a young lady, and…’
‘Ma!’ The word was like a command. ‘Stop it! I’ll marry when I want to, if ever I want to. Now have you got that?’
She stared at him, her lips working in and out; then she said in a voice that was harsh and firm, ‘Yes, Mr Musgrave, your ma’s got that,’ and she flounced from the room, leaving the door open when she saw Belle approaching from the stairway. And Belle, noticing her expression, entered the room, saying, ‘You’ve upset your mother now. It’s getting a habit with you, isn’t it, upsetting people?…I’m ready.’
He walked past her without a word, took up his knee-length coat from where he had left it earlier over the back of a chair, picked up his tall hat from the hall table and put them both on before opening the front door, saying, ‘Well, I’m ready too.’
The Harrogate Secret (aka The Secret) Page 32
