Fortunes of the Heart (26 page)

This thought was still uppermost in her mind when, having
finished her bedtime drink, she was just sitting in reflective mood before the
dying embers of the fire. She shivered as the room started to grow cold and
would have liked to add a few new coals to the fire, but considered this an
unwarranted luxury, especially since she knew that Jenny would be in soon and
then she could get to bed and snuggle into Hannah’s warm body. She rose to her
feet and turned down the gas mantle to its lowest peep. Taking her plaid wool
shawl from its hook behind the door, she
cowled
it
around her head and waited in what comfort she could for her daughter’s return.

Always a positive thinker, Kate mentally planned what
knitting and crochet she would need to do in readiness for the baby’s coming.
She still had the Christening Robe and beautifully hand-made shawl which a kind
neighbour had gifted to her in an effort to assuage her grief and pain over the
difficult birth she’d had with Hannah and its dire consequences. So those two
items would be at least a start. In addition, she could have a good scout round
the Clothes Market, which Glasgow Corporation had opened round in
Greendyke
Street, and from which piles of fine old
hand-me-downs were periodically sent to Ireland. From the waiting bales of
cloaks, jackets, gowns, petticoats, shirts and shifts, she would be able to
extract something which with a little alteration could be adapted to fit the
needs of a new baby. Yes, the more Kate thought about it, the more enthusiastic
she became, and the more eager for Jenny to return from the soiree.

Already in her own mind, she had decided exactly what she
would do ... the very moment that Jenny arrived back, she would fling her arms
around the anxious young girl.

“It’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself any more. You see,
I know. And we’ll manage fine together and without the help of any of those
bastard men.”

In her mind’s eye she could see the look of amazement on
Jenny’s face, not only that at long last her guilty secret was out, but also at
the understanding and totally unexpected way in which her mother had so
obviously accepted the unlooked-for news. Her cosy mental picture expanded to the
sight of a softly-weeping Jenny, huddled against her mother’s breast. She even
had a little joke, or play upon words with which she would lighten the tense,
fraught situation.

She would hold her daughter close and murmur into her hair:
“That’s right, darling. Just you have a bit weep to yourself, you’ll feel the
better for it. Then we’ll get on with the business in hand, or maybe to be
strictly accurate, I should say, the business in your belly.”

She was sure that Jenny would have a real good laugh at that.

In her mind’s eye, she could see her daughter, with much of
the tension already removed from her face, throwing back her head and giving
her old, infectious, and almost school girlish giggle.

With the big decision taken and thus feeling happier in her
mind than she had done for many a long day, Kate soon drifted off to sleep; a
lovely cocoa-induced sleep. When she awoke with a start, it was to the
realisation the fire had long since gone out, she was feeling cramped and cold
and she was alone in a silence that could be felt. Her first thought was to
check the time. She got slowly to her feet, and in the dim gaslight peered at
the grandmother clock above the mantelpiece. With a gasp at what she saw, she
drew back. Then in disbelief, she again crouched closer for another look at the
dial with its pattern of painted sun, moon, and stars. The hands still pointed
to three o’clock. Seeing this, she frowned, then with a tut of annoyance
decided in her own mind that Jenny had already arrived home but, finding her mother
asleep before the fire, rather than disturb her, had instead crept off quietly
to her own sofa-bed out in the narrow hallway. Kate frowned even more deeply
and she slapped a bunched fist into the palm of her left hand as the
realisation hit her.

Damn. So much for my grand plan of a reconciliation scene. I
really did want to be awake to give the poor lass the big welcome home and
assure her that I would definitely be sticking by her. And now, dammit all,
I’ve missed the perfect opportunity. I’ll just have to wait till another time
now. Nothing else for it.

Deciding since that was obviously the case, she might just
as well get ready to pop into bed beside Hannah, she first tip-toed out to the
water closet to pay a last visit before settling down for the night. Reaching
the door of the cludgie, she looked over to her left, to see Jenny cosily
tucked under the patchwork quilt on the horse-hair sofa, a recent purchase from
one of the many street-traders. But to her amazement, the bolster and patchwork
quilt itself were still neatly folded at the end of the sofa, still awaiting
Jenny’s return.

Kate, with all thoughts gone of settling herself for the
night, stumbled back into the kitchen in a state of shock. In the dim gaslight
and now with her entire body trembling like a leaf in a gale, she again peered
at the clock. Yes. She had been right, it had not been a figment of her
imagination, not an isolated part of a dream, although nightmare it most
certainly was. The hands on the clock now showed a few minutes after three
o’clock and still there was no sign of Jenny.

Kate sat down heavily into the one and only armchair which
was normally reserved for Pearce, but right at that moment, she could not have
cared less had it been reserved for His Holiness the Pope himself.

Where on earth can Jenny be till this time? She has never
been this late in her life before. Not even when she was secretly seeing that
accursed Ross Cuthbert. Suppose she’s been in an accident? Knocked down and
killed by a runaway horse? Oh, God, where is the girl?

Then an even darker thought flashed through her head as she
pondered the fate worse than death.

Worse still, what in God’s name can she be doing till this
ungodly hour of the morning?

Kate did not have long to wait for an answer to her prayers.
Just a few minutes later, she heard the sound of the front door opening and
closing. This was followed by slow, rather hesitant footsteps in the hall. Then
the door burst open and her daughter was there with her in the dimly-lit
kitchen. The moment she saw her, Kate immediately leapt to her feet and went
towards the girl. Kate froze to the spot. For the Jenny who had reeled into the
room was a totally alien person, never before seen by her loving mother.

The girl was riotously drunk, and sodden with the
sweet-cloying stench of gin. Looking at the scene through an alcohol haze,
Jenny swayed on her feet and would have fallen but for the quick thinking of
her mother. Just in time, Kate stretched forward and grabbed hold of her
daughter before she fell headlong across the table. As Kate tried to get her
seated in the armchair, it was like trying to cope with a rag-doll. Finally,
with great difficulty, she got the girl seated and threw a crocheted shawl
around her shoulders.

With a wary eye on the sleeping Pearce, she knelt before
Jenny and tried to make some sense of her drunken ramblings.

“Lizzie. It was Lizzie. Yes, Mammy, she told ...”

When after several minutes of this, of which Kate could
understand nothing, she finally rose to her feet and bustled about making the
semi-conscious drunk a mug of hot sweet tea. Then, holding it up to her
daughter’s lips, at the same time almost throwing up with the stink of gin, she
said: “Jenny, listen to me. Drink this down you. Then, hopefully once you’ve
sobered up, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to get some sense out of
you. Yes, and this very night.”

Kathleen further insisted that Jenny also get some food
down. So, eventually after almost force-feeding her with one piece of
soda-bread after another, and two cups of tea, Jenny slowly began to sober up a
bit. Suddenly aware of her surroundings, she blinked a couple of times and
gazed around as if coming out of a very deep sleep. When she saw this latest
development, Kate immediately asked: “Now then, my fine lady, and what exactly
is all this about? What in God’s name has happened to you this night, Jenny?”

Eventually, after a long look at her mother and an even
longer silence, hesitantly at first, Jenny started speaking.

“Oh, Mammy. It was terrible, so it was. Just terrible. You
see, Lizzie made me drink that stuff. I gagged and retched something awful at
the very taste of it. But Lizzie made me drink it all up, said it would help my
problem. And would make an end to it.”

Kate took hold of her daughter’s hand and held it so tightly
with her nails digging into the flesh that the girl winced and would have
withdrawn her hand, had such a thing been possible. But Kate held on like grim
death, all the while urging her daughter on with her sad tale.

Apparently, the well-meaning, if misguided, Lizzie, who
seemed to be knowledgeable about such matters, had proffered yet another piece
of advice in addition to the efficacy of drinking a large quantity of gin.
Hearing this, Kate frowned and said: “Oh indeed, and what exactly did the
famous Lizzie tell you to do? Or, if I’m not much mistaken, Jenny, what did the
stupid little bitch tell you to take?”

That last barb really struck home. Even so, it took a bit
more prompting on Mammy’s side before the whole degrading story was finally out
in the open.

As if deep in thought or prayer, Jenny held her head in her
hands and it was left to Kate to prise them away so that she could better
understand what it was the girl was muttering.

“It was Lizzie, Mammy. She told me to take some pills that
she had managed to get for me. She said that between the pills and the booze
... well, that should do the trick. It was Lizzie. Honestly, Mammy, Lizzie told
me to take them.”

Kate’s eyes were wide with disbelief and, had it not been
for the sleeping forms of Pearce and Hannah, she would there and then have
given her daughter the loudest telling-off of her young life. So, controlling
with the greatest difficulty her urge to shout and yell obscenities at the
hapless girl before her, she stage-whispered: “Oh, indeed, madam. So Lizzie
told you to toss back a box of pills and a bottle of gin to wash it down.
That’s right, eh? Well, and I suppose if the bold Lizzie told you to go jump in
the River Clyde, then you’d do that too? Is that so? Anyway, don’t you tell me
that dear Lizzie, just out of the goodness of her heart, spent all her
hard-earned money on a tramp like you? If you think I’ll believe that, madam,
then you must think I’m really simple.”

Jenny made no answer beyond a heart-felt sigh. Kate went on:
“Oh no, my fine lass, the money must have come from somewhere, for such items
do not come cheap. Mind you, lately I’ve noticed the odd
threepenny
bit, yes and now I come to think of it, even a whole sixpence missing from my
purse. I said nothing at the time, but I’m ashamed to say I suspected poor
Hannah. Not that she would either know the value or have any use for money, but
I thought perhaps the twinkling silver had attracted her.”

The look on Jenny’s face was confession enough

“Aha, so that’s the lie of the land. And no doubt while you
were stealing the bread from our mouths, you were also raiding my savings from
my best tea-caddy?”

Kate rose to her feet and went towards the mantelpiece on
which rested the gleaming brass caddy. Jenny put out a restraining hand. Her
mother looked down in disgust, then slapped away her daughter’s hand, but still
made no move to lift down the cache of carefully-hoarded farthings,
halfpennies,
threepenny
bits and sixpences. There was
no need to investigate further, for already she knew what she would find.

Feeling that she had aged ten years in as many moments, Kate
sank into the chair opposite and studied her daughter, as if seeing her for the
first time. Then, as if dragging the words up from a long way, she said, still
in the hoarsest of whispers, so as not to disturb the sleeping forms in the two
beds: “So your dear friend Lizzie, who would appear to be something of an
expert in such matters, told you that the pills and the booze would do the
trick. Dear God in heaven. Do you know what it is exactly that you’re saying?
There’s a very ugly word for what you’ve done.”

Unable to restrain herself a moment longer, Kate got to her
feet and, stretching across the table which lay between them, she grabbed hold
of her daughter by the scruff of the neck. Then, with the girl’s face close to
her own, she whispered: “God Almighty, Jenny. Do you know exactly what you’ve
done? And oh, my God. The shame of it. To think a man has brought you to this.
That you would steal from your own mother. Steal the very bread from our
mouths. And then enlist the help of ... a trollop like that common Lizzie ...
and procure an ... an
abor
...”

The hated word stuck in her throat, so that Kate who, in
impotent fury felt that she must lash out at something, finally vented her
spleen on the cause of Jenny’s fall from grace.

Her face contorted with anger, Kate said: “Well, I don’t
think much of you, Jenny. I think even less of your pal, Lizzie. But that
bloody bastard Ross Cuthbert. That wee Glasgow
nyaff
that got you into this mess in the first place ... well, I say bugger him. May
he rot in Hell. Bugger him to everlasting damnation.”

Jenny stared in disbelief at her mother, for seldom had she
heard her mother swear in this fashion. And in a strange way, the very fact of
her having of necessity to keep her voice low, somehow it made it seem that
much worse. It would have been less disturbing if her mother had been able to
give free rein to her fury and had actually shouted the words at her.

But shouted or not, as far as Jenny was concerned, the
message was crystal-clear: her mother now knew exactly what had happened. As
she looked into the white, careworn face of her mother, Jenny was totally
unprepared for the next words which issued from the nerveless lips.