Between Friends (26 page)

Robert Hemingway’s old face was expressionless as he felt the guilt and anger enter his heart. The shame of what he had allowed … yes, allowed, to be done to this child was unbearable. He should have realised it, he saw that now. The strange unease the son of his old school friend had awakened in him should have been recognised. Even yet he did not know why he had put the man in charge of the house in Great George Square. Simply because he had been there when the news of Lloyd’s death had come in, he supposed. Benjamin Harris was not good with people. He did not know how to deal with them for he considered anyone not born to his own station in life to have been put where they were in order to serve him! But he had begged for the chance, as he had done earlier in his career and weakly now, he realised,
Robert
Hemingway had given in! If it had not been for a fluke – a chance error in the arrangements for an Automobile Trial in Caerphilly in Wales which Martin was to enter – they would not have been home at Silverdale at all and there was no doubt in his mind that the three people before him would have died in the fire because of it. He had seen the way Martin had rallied the other two youngsters, brought them from the terror-stricken trance they had been in. A mistake in the date, his own fault, and they had realised they would be too late for the trials so instead they had motored to Liverpool. A day or so with his Alice, he had thought fondly and a chance for Martin to go over the flyers’ engine and then on to the 1,000 miles trial at the Eleanor Cross, Northampton.

They had barely had time to stretch their cramped muscles for they had driven for six hours non-stop that day on roads that were, in many cases not much better than cart-tracks when Ferguson had run,
run
from the house, delighted it seemed to be the bearer of the bad news, just come over the recently installed telephone that there was a fire – ‘Bad, sir, very bad,’ the butler had said with the vicarious pleasure of the onlooker, at Great George Square.

It was a miracle, Mrs Whitley had insisted as Alice Hemingway had comforted her. A miracle which had brought their Martin to them at that precise moment since, like Robert Hemingway she was of the opinion that only he could have fused the crumbling defences of the other two. ‘Yes, yes, his friends from birth, almost,’ she rattled, still herself in a bad state of shock, Mrs Glynn’s potion not yet having taken effect. It was he who had instilled into them the stalwart resolution which had saved them, she babbled. Without him they would have perished, she insisted, coughing up her old lungs to danger point. Tom had been courageous as a lion, she said, clinging to Alice Hemingway’s soothing hands, but thank the Good Lord for sending them their Martin. Only He up in Heaven knew how close they had been … she could hardly bear to think of it. But the potion took hold then and she relaxed against the pillows kind Mrs Hemingway plumped up with her own lady’s hands!

‘… and he treated Tom like a dog …!’

‘Hush, Meggie, it doesn’t matter now.’ Tom tried to soothe Meg, tried to lead her away from the memories which would not rest but she was fixed on the dreadful route which had led, inexorably, she knew that now, to that last foul scene, the air
thick
with Benjamin Harris’ lust, and she could not be stopped. Her eyes had gone strangely out of focus and her voice had sunk to a whisper and they all leaned forward, straining to hear what she said.

‘… like a dog … a dog … and I was to be …’

Suddenly, as though in realisation of what she had been about to disclose she shuddered so violently it shook her from head to foot. She stepped back from Tom’s restraining hands and put up her own to her face, scrubbing at it, then pushed them through her hair distractedly.

‘He was bad …’ she muttered, ‘bad.’

Robert Hemingway put out his hand, his own horror gripping him fiercely for though he was unworldly, an old fashioned and courtly gentleman, he sensed there was something more to what this young girl wept over. Certainly her mind had suffered a tremendous shock and her body was in pain, burned about the hands. She grieved for her friend and was outraged by what Harris and through Harris, what she imagined he himself had done to her, to all the servants, but there was something she was holding back and he meant to get to the bottom of it.

He turned swiftly, agile as a man half his age and with the certainty of someone who is used to being obeyed, spoke crisply to the two young men.

‘Martin.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Take Fraser over to the stable block and get him settled in with you. Tell one of the footmen to help with a truckle bed … Fraser is unable at the moment. Then see that he is comfortable.’ He turned to Tom.

‘Fraser.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I think it best that we postpone this talk until tomorrow. I am going to put Megan in here with Mrs Whitley. They will be company for one another. You understand?’

‘Yes sir, thank you.’ Tom looked relieved. Meg and Cook would do better together in this big, unfamiliar place if they were allowed to share a room. He was afraid Meg might have nightmares but with Mrs Whitley to watch over her and with Meg having the task of looking after Cook, they would be a comfort for one another.

‘When you have all had a good night’s rest we will talk again.
Perhaps
in a day or two.’ Robert Hemingway smiled kindly and Tom felt himself drawn to him. He could scarcely credit that they had believed that this genial, gentle old gentleman could be the ogre Harris had made him out to be. They should have known really. The bad times had started
with
Benjamin Harris. Before that, though they had worked hard they had been fairly treated, decently fed and clothed and their wages had been no less than the average domestic servant was paid. It had been
him
who had done it, that … that devil, but Tom was no longer concerned for had not Mr Hemingway told them they were to be given work here. His family was to be provided for at last. He turned to direct a last reassuring smile at their Meggie but her head was bowed and her riotous hair hung over her face and she did not see him go.

The door had closed behind them when Robert Hemingway turned again to Meg. ‘Now then, my dear.’ He spoke softly, deceptively mild as though what she said made no difference one way or the other. ‘Would you like to tell me the rest. They are gone now and there is no-one to hear but myself and Mrs Whitley.’

There were two police constables standing before the blackened ruin of what had once been the Hemingway Shipping Line emigrant house in Great George Square and as the cab turned the corner from Upper Pitt Street Benjamin Harris’ face fell slackly into grey-white folds, and it was possible to imagine how he would look when he was dead. His mouth opened in consternation and though the cabbie had jumped down from his box and opened the door, his own face bewildered, Harris sat for several moments, frozen to the leather seat.

The two constables moved forward as he stepped on to the soot-stained pavement, but neither spoke. Their very silence had an air of menace about it and Harris felt a slight sense of unease at their presence.

He looked up at the sky where once the high roof had been and then to the houses on either side, damaged and empty for they were considered unsafe, but still standing and his face was quite dazed.

‘That’ll be a shilling, sir.’ The cab driver held out his hand, plucking at Harris’ sleeve for the gentleman looked quite mazed and could you wonder? ‘Great George Square,’ he had said in that disdainful way the gentry have at times, when he had climbed
into
the cab at Lime Street Railway station and now it appeared that his destination, this house, had been burned to the ground in his absence.

He climbed back on to his box wondering what the ‘scuffers’ were after, hesitating a moment or two for there was nothing an inhabitant of Liverpool liked better then a bit of scandal but the constable lifted his hand and indicated quite rudely that he was to move on.

When he had gone they both turned to Benjamin Harris, one on either side of him somehow, as he gazed in stupefaction at the space where the house had been.

‘Excuse me sir,’ the first constable said politely. ‘Could I have your name, if you please?’

‘What?’ Benjamin Harris looked at him, his shock turning now to outrage for the two constables appeared to be almost
jostling
him and Benjamin Harris had not been jostled since last he had been in a schoolboy tussle with his own brothers.

‘Your name, sir, if you don’t mind.’

‘My name! What the devil has that to do with you.’ He was clearly displeased, then he turned again to stare at the pile of rubble which was all that was left of the house, his displeasure swamped by his curiosity. ‘What on earth happened here,’ he said, his silver grey eyes wide and staring.

‘There has been a fire, sir.’

‘I can see that, you fool, but how did it happen?’

‘Now then, sir, there is no need to be rude. You asked me what happened and I told you. Now, if you will give me your name we can all go about our rightful business.’ Though he spoke in the adenoidal tone of those born in Liverpool, there was still a trace of County Limerick in his lilting voice. The constable, Constable O’Shea who had known them all at Great George Square and was perfectly well aware of who this splendid gentleman was, though of course
he
did not recognise the likes of a common policeman, kept a perfectly straight face despite the fact that he did not care to be called a fool.

‘Rightful business! Do you know who I am?’

‘That is what we are trying to find out, sir.’

‘I am Benjamin Harris and I am in charge … I was in charge of this house!’

‘Thank you, sir, then I’d be obliged if you’d come along with
me
and Constable Jackson here. They want a word with you at the station, sir, if you’d be so kind.’

‘At the station!’

‘Aye sir.’

‘What the devil for?’

‘Aah well, that I wouldn’t be knowing, sir. I’ve just been sent along to escort you, like. Me an’ Constable Jackson.’

‘The devil you have! Well, you can just escort one another back again. If anyone in the police force, no matter what rank wishes to see me he can call on me at my club. Here, I’ll give you a card. Now, if one of you can run to the end of the square and whistle me up a cab I’ll be on my way.’

‘Aah … no sir. I think not.’

Benjamin Harris’ face had become a dangerous shade of coppery yellow with high and ugly spots of vermilion on each cheekbone and his eyes narrowed to slits of pure, acid rage. He straightened ominously giving Constable O’Shea the full benefit of his savage, scarcely controlled fury but the policeman had come to grips with wills more obdurate than that of Benjamin Harris. Liverpool Saturday night where Scot clashed with Irish and both with those of Welsh ancestry, settling old racial scores, had taught him how to deal with the most recalcitrant and he was quite unmoved.

‘Goddammit to hell!’ Harris’ voice was no less than a full-throated snarl. ‘Do you seriously believe I had anything to do with this?’ He swept his arm in a furious circle in the direction of the burnt-out house. ‘I was away with … with a friend and can account for every moment of my time. Good God, constable, do I look like a man who sets fires?’ He was almost beside himself in his venom and Constable Jackson put out a restraining hand for it seemed to him that the gentleman was about to strike Constable O’Shea. Instantly Harris turned, knocking it away, his face so livid, his white-lipped anger so intense, the two constables leaped together to hold him, one on each of his arms, in an iron lock from which he could make no further threatening move. No-one impeded the law in the carrying out of its duties, not when Constable O’Shea and Constable Jackson were in charge. They were quite sorry when the apprehended man ceased to struggle for it would have given them both an inordinate amount of pleasure to put the handcuffs on him!

TOM WAS MADE
up with it, he said constantly. He had never worked in the open before unless you could count lugging buckets of coal from the back yard to the kitchen or the tramp he and Martin had taken with the emigrants to the dockside. He liked the simple and unhurried pace of the work in the gardens, geared as it was to the slow change of the seasons. Silverdale was set in a splendid twenty or so acres of parkland bordered by a stand of trees. It ran down to the River Mersey in a series of terraces, lawns and ornamental gardens laced with shaded gravel paths, and a stream divided it, clear and slow moving over smooth stones. A stout wooden bridge crossed the running water and further down were stepping stones, slippery with moss.

There was a small lake, a summer house, vegetable gardens at the rear and glasshouses in which grew summer fruits all the year round. All this had to be meticulously nurtured under the guidance of the head gardener, a silent and dour man named Atkinson but he and Tom formed a laconic yet equable relationship, sparing of words and based mainly on Tom’s willingness to do any job, mucky or not, that was put to him. He worked about the stable yard in the evenings – trying his hand at everything, he said – and even laboured on the home farm during the sowing. He discovered quite amazingly that he liked animals, never having had anything to do with them before, and could spend an hour leaning on the gate of the pig pen watching the patient sow with her young ones, or lending a hand in the grooming of the fine carriage horses, but most of all Tom liked the earth and all that grew in it!