Forgive and Forget (20 page)

Polly stood on the hearthrug facing her father, though her insides were quaking. He shook his fist at Violet, but then he rounded on Polly. ‘This is your fault. Letting her roam the streets at night. And yourn.’ He jabbed his finger towards Eddie now. ‘Bringing that little bugger into this house in the first place. By, I’ll have me say with him – and his father.’

William turned on his heel and slammed out of the house.

‘Go after him, Eddie.’

‘Not likely. I’m not going to get me nose bloodied by Mr Fowler. He’s a brute when he’s mad. Worse than Dad and that’s sayin’ summat.’

‘Then I’ll go myself,’ Polly muttered and rushed out into the warm spring evening after William.

He was striding down the street towards the house on the left-hand side at the end nearest the river, where the Fowlers lived, outrage in every step.

‘Dad – Dad,’ she cried as she ran after him. ‘Don’t – please don’t.’

‘You keep out of this, girl,’ he flung back over his shoulder. ‘You’ve done enough. Or rather you haven’t done enough to stop it.’

Hurt by his words, Polly slowed to a walking pace. She still followed him, but now she kept her distance as William hammered on the front door and bellowed. ‘Fowler, Fowler, come out here. I know you’re in there.’

Only minutes earlier the two men – Bert Fowler and William – had been drinking in the pub with their mates. Now William was baying for blood and he wasn’t bothered whose it was. Father or son, it made no difference to him, just so long as their name was ‘Fowler’.

The door was flung open and Bert’s burly figure stood there. ‘What’s to do, Will?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s to do, Bert,’ William spat, shaking his fist at the big man. ‘Your lad’s got my girl in the family way.’

Bert reached out and grasped William’s collar, almost hoisting him up off the ground. ‘You what?’

‘You’re choking me,’ William gasped.

‘I’ll choke ya, ya bleeder, saying things like that about my family. Now, get yarsen away.’ He released his grip and William staggered back. ‘And we’ll say no more about it.’

William was panting, but still he was not about to give in, even faced with the bear-like man in front of him.

‘He’s got to do right by her, Bert. I’ll not see her shamed and do nowt.’

‘She should have thought of that before she opened her legs for him.’

Polly gasped at Bert Fowler’s crudity and covered her mouth with her hand. Suddenly, Bert glanced towards her.

‘You? Is it
you
? Ah well, now, if it’s young Polly, that’s a different matter.’

‘What d’you mean “a different matter”?’

Bert laughed, a deep rumbling sound. ‘We all likes Poll and our Micky’d be over the moon to marry
’er
, but I thought she was walking out with the copper, Seth’s lad.’

‘She is.’

Bert frowned. ‘Then what’s she doing—?’

‘It’s not Polly,’ William’s tone was scathing as if it was preposterous that the other man could even think such a thing about Polly. ‘It’s Violet.’

‘Huh! It would have to be her, wouldn’t it? Well, I can tell you now, Will Longden, my lad’ll never marry that little trollop. Not in a million years.’ Bert laughed cruelly. ‘How would he know the little bastard was his anyway?’

William threw himself at the bigger man, his anger giving him strength. He grasped Bert’s waistcoat and hauled him out into the street. Now the two men were locked in battle, slugging it out, blow for blow.

‘Dad – no. Stop it! Mr Fowler, please—’

She ran forward and thrust herself between them, but caught a glancing blow from her father’s fist, aimed at Bert’s jaw.

She screamed and fell to the ground, but both men were so incensed they hardly noticed what had happened. Suddenly, Bert grasped the slighter man around the waist, picked him up and carried him towards the riverbank. He hoisted William up and threw him into the water.

‘No, no,’ Polly screamed. ‘He can’t swim. Oh, Dad –
Dad
!’ She scrambled up and ran to the riverbank. She could hardly see anything through the dusk, only the black water, but she could hear the splashing and a gurgling as William fought for his life.

Bert stood beside her, searching the murky water and breathing heavily. ‘Stupid bugger. He shouldn’t have said what he did about our Micky.’

‘Save him.’ Polly grabbed Bert’s arm and tried to push him towards the water. ‘He can’t swim.’ The splashing was less now, as if William had already given up the battle.

Footsteps pounded down the street behind her and then Leo was beside her, flinging off his jacket and plunging into the water. For a moment he floundered and then his head disappeared beneath the surface as he tried to find Will. It seemed an age to Polly, yet it was less than a minute before Leo’s head broke the surface. Gasping for air, he hauled William’s limp body up and towards the bank. Polly and Bert scrambled down and pulled them out.

‘Dad,
Dad
!’ Polly shrieked, but her father wasn’t moving.

Leo, still panting hard, rolled William over onto his front and then, astride him, began pumping the prone figure on his back. River water gushed from William’s mouth and, miraculously it seemed to the terrified girl, her father coughed and spluttered – and began to breathe. Leo ceased his pumping and fell to one side, lying on his back, breathing hard.

As the two men began to recover their breath, Leo sat up. ‘Now, what’s going on here? I may not be on duty but I’ll not have this sort of thing happening under my nose.’

Polly pulled her father to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s get you home. You’ll catch your death out here. You too, Leo.’

‘I want to know what’s going on,’ Leo said stubbornly, though he got to his feet and picked up his jacket.

As Polly dragged her father away from the scene, William, with surprising strength after his ordeal, shook his fist at Bert. ‘This ain’t finished yet, Bert Fowler.’

‘Oh yes, it is,’ Leo said firmly, stepping between them and taking William’s other arm. ‘Whatever it is, it’s done.’

And with that he marched William up the street.

Polly cast a last despairing glance at the grim-faced Bert and knew that, whatever Leo said, this wasn’t over by a long way.

‘I’ll see you later,’ Leo muttered as he left them outside their door and strode back down the street to his own home.

‘See what you’ve caused?’ Polly rounded on Violet still sitting huddled by the fire. ‘Shift out the way and let Dad get near the fire. In fact, go to bed. Get out of my sight. Dad nearly drowned ’cos of you. If it hadn’t been for Leo . . .’

Violet gave a sob, shot out of the chair and ran upstairs. They could hear her distraught weeping as she went.

Suddenly, the fight seemed to go out of William and he stood on the hearthrug, still dripping the dirty river water.

‘Get them wet things off, Dad. I’ll fetch the tin bath from the scullery. You’d better have a good wash. No knowing what’s in that mucky river.’

She shuddered as she hurried to get the bath, silently praying that her father hadn’t caught the dreaded disease from his dip in the River Witham.

She helped her father to bathe, washing his back and his hair for him just as her mother would have done. William was stunned, moving mechanically and hardly bothering to hide his nakedness from his daughter, though Polly kept her eyes averted as best she could.

When he was dry and sitting back in his chair dressed in clean vest and trousers and wrapped in a blanket, Polly made him some hot cocoa and added a generous measure of whisky from the bottle in the sideboard. There had always been a small bottle of the fiery spirit in the house – for medicinal purposes only, Sarah had decreed. Though Polly had always suspected that both her parents took a nip now and again.

‘Oh, Poll, what are we going to do?’

It was the same question that Polly had posed to Bertha Halliday and now she gave the woman’s answer. ‘Our Violet’s not the first, Dad, and she won’t be the last, so – we deal with it. As a family. Never mind that toe-rag, Micky Fowler. We’ll look after her – and her bairn.’ She took a deep breath and her voice trembled as she added, ‘It’s – it’s what Mam would have said, isn’t it?’

William raised sorrowful eyes and stared at her for a long moment before he said softly, ‘Aye, it is, lass. It’s what your mam would have wanted.’

As she slipped into bed beside Violet and lay staring into the darkness, Polly realized that in only twenty-four hours her life had gone from the height of happiness to the depths of despair. For she could see that there was no way that Leo would want to marry her now.

‘If she’s old enough to get herself pregnant, then she’s old enough to look after the house, her baby and the rest of the family.’ Leo was angry when he found out what the two men had been fighting about. ‘It’s time you had a life of your own, Polly. A life with me – ’ he waved his arm to encompass the whole house and everyone in it – ‘away from this lot.’

With her whole being, Polly yearned to do just that, but in a small voice she said, ‘But it’s my fault she’s – she’s in the family way.’

‘
Your
fault? How d’you make that out?’

‘I never told her about – about – well, you know what.’

‘That’s not your job,’ Leo began hotly. ‘That’s her—’

He stopped, appalled at what he’d been about to say, completely forgetting in the heat of the moment that there was no mother in this sorry household and that Polly, young though she was, was still expected to fill Sarah’s shoes. That she’d failed in certain aspects was not, to Leo’s mind, her fault. But he could see that she was carrying yet another heavy burden of guilt.

He sighed. ‘If only me mam had known, she’d have talked to her.’

Polly laughed wryly. ‘Talk to Violet? You might as well talk to that brick wall for all the notice she’d take. I did try, Leo, but obviously not hard enough.’

He took her hand in his, his anger dying as he saw how devastated Polly was. ‘Chin up, love. We’ll think of something. In the meantime, we need to go shopping for a ring. And, I suppose,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘I ought to ask your father’s permission.’

Polly tried to smile too but, at the moment, she couldn’t think of any way out and her dream of happiness as Leo’s wife, with a family of their own, was fading fast. Would he, with his rigid principles, really want to ally himself to a family who fought, who trod close to the edge of the law at times and who now had an illegitimate baby coming?

‘What’s going to happen about me dad and Mr Fowler? Are you – are you going to charge them?’

Leo’s mouth tightened. ‘Not this time, Poll, but I’ll have to give them both an official warning. Just ’cos I live in this street doesn’t mean I can let folk get away with anything. If me own dad did something, I’d have to run him in. I know that and so does he. It’s how it is when you join the police force, Poll. I can’t let friends and neighbours make a monkey out of me and they’ll just have to understand that.’

Polly shuddered, thinking not of her father but of Eddie. She was sure he stepped close to the edge of the law now and again and if Leo should find out . . .

She made up her mind to have a quiet word with her brother. She couldn’t stop him doing whatever he wanted, but she could warn him of the consequences should he be caught. In Eddie’s mind, she was sure, he thought that his connection with Leo would protect him. But it wouldn’t: Leo had made that very clear.

‘I don’t think Micky’ll marry you, Vi.’

Polly broke the news to her sister the following morning after William and Eddie had gone to work.

Violet raised tearful, red-rimmed eyes. ‘Then it’s the workhouse, is it?’

‘Don’t be silly. We’ll look after you.’

‘What about Dad?’

‘He’s angry and upset – ’course he is – but he’ll stand by you. We all will.’

‘Did he say so?’

‘Sort of.’ Polly bit her lip and then blurted out, ‘I reminded him it’s what Mam would have wanted.’

Violet smiled tremulously. ‘Mam would have half killed me, wouldn’t she?’

‘Probably,’ Polly agreed briskly. ‘But then she’d have hugged you and told you it’d be all right.’

‘But it won’t, will it, Poll? I’m a fallen woman now. Who’d ever want me with a little – little bastard in tow?’

‘Violet Longden, don’t you ever –
ever
– use that filthy word again in this house. Your baby will be loved and cared for by all of us and don’t you forget it.’

Violet sniffled and fresh tears welled in her eyes. ‘Why are you so good to me, Poll, when all I’ve ever done is be horrible and difficult?’

Polly put her arm around Violet’s shoulders and gave her the hug she knew their mother would have done. ‘Because we’re sisters – family – that’s why. And families stick together no matter what.’

They were brave words spoken by a heartbroken young girl who faced her own bleak future because of what had happened. And they were words which were to haunt her in the years to come.

‘We can still get married, Poll. Maybe in a year or so. By then Violet will be coping with her baby and she can look after the rest of the family too. Stevie’s getting a big lad now. He’s very sensible for his age, you know. What is he now? Eleven?’