Ragamuffin Angel (43 page)
‘As if I could.’ And then they were kissing again until Connie pulled away saying, ‘I do have to tell you, Dan, I must. And it wasn’t all your fault, I should have told you about this place right at the start. Mary said I had a screw loose in not telling you, she said you were my weak point.’
‘Am I?’ He looked inordinately pleased. ‘Pray God I’ll always be your weak point, my darling, because you are certainly mine, in the nicest possible way. Oh, Connie. . .’
‘No, no you have to listen.’
And so she told him and he listened, and when she had finished he gathered her close in his arms and held her there. And it was some moments before he said, ‘You remember me mentioning Kitty, my mother’s housekeeper? Well, she met a friend of yours today, Father Hedley . . .’ And now it was Dan’s turn to talk, and he sat down with Connie on his knee and told her the series of events as he knew them. And when he had done, neither of them mentioned the letter again or vocally surmised who had sent it.
‘I love you with all my heart, Connie.’ They had been sitting entwined in heart and body for some ten minutes without speaking; their lips, which were drawn together time after time, saying all that needed to be said.
‘Your family won’t like it if we start seeing each other again,’ she warned him softly.
‘Damn my family.’ And then, as though he realised the mention of his family had struck a discordant note, Dan continued, ‘Beloved, I have to tell you something and I want you to be brave.’ He gripped her hands as he told her what he had done that morning, and for a moment, after he had become silent, she just stared at him with great saucer eyes full of anguish.
‘Tomorrow? You have to leave for training tomorrow? Oh, Dan, Dan.’ He was going away, and who knew when they would see each other again? If they would see each other again?
‘I will write, every day, I promise.’ His voice was urgent. ‘The training centre is in Scotland; will you come to the station tomorrow morning and see me off?’
‘Yes, yes.’ She fell against him again, her throat working.
He was going away.
He had joined up. He was a soldier.
He was going away.
He had joined up. He was a soldier.
‘It won’t be for ever, sweetheart. It won’t be for ever.’
Dan said the same thing the next morning. They met just inside the main entrance to Sunderland central station – the north end off High Street West – and Connie’s heart leapt at her first sight of him. He came striding up to her, his face alight as he saw her standing to one side of the machine, much beloved by children, that enabled one to punch one’s name on a tin strip, and as he took her hands his dark eyes said a hundred things which were unutterable in a busy railway station.
‘Come and have a coffee, I’ve another half an hour before I have to leave.’
‘Half an hour? Oh, Dan, is that all?’
‘It won’t be for ever, sweetheart.’ As he led her into the buffet room with a hand tucked under her arm, Connie had to resist the impulse to cling to him and beg him not to go. He had to go, she knew that, and she had to make this as easy for him as she could. He had already said the night before how bitterly he was regretting enlisting, now it meant he was being sent away from her.
And then the buffet room vanished, together with its occupants, when ensconced at a small table with two cups of coffee in front of them Dan leant forward and took her hands again, his dark eyes hungry as he said, ‘Oh, darling, darling, how am I going to leave you? You are so beautiful, so fine, and through my foolishness we’ve wasted so much time. Oh, Connie!’ He bent over the table, murmuring words that gave her a warm inward glow and made her heart race, before he cupped her face tenderly in his hands. ‘We have to get married, you know that don’t you? And soon, very soon. I can’t wait to hold you, to make you really mine.’
‘I am yours, I am.’
‘Will you marry me, Connie?’ He let go of her face as he spoke, fishing in one pocket before bringing out a small velvet box which he placed on the table in front of her. ‘Will you be my wife?’
She tore her eyes from his, lifting the lid of the box to see three exquisite diamonds on a half loop of gold, and at her, ‘Dan! Oh it’s beautiful, beautiful, and yes, of course I’ll marry you,’ he pulled her to meet him across the tiny table, his lips exultant as he kissed her, careless of any onlookers.
‘Here.’ He took the ring from its snug box, slipping it on to the third finger of her left hand. ‘You’re mine, you’re promised to me. You wave that at any other fellows who come calling! Oh, darling, I love you, I love you. I can’t believe so much has happened in twenty-four hours.’
Neither could she. And now she did cling on to him, her eyes bright with unshed tears as she said, ‘Be careful won’t you.’
‘It’s only training camp, sweetheart.’
For now. Yes, for now, but she had heard stories of men being shipped overseas swiftly from training with just a telegram or a letter to say they were going. The whole world had turned upside down in the few weeks since war had been declared, everything had changed and was still changing.
She sat back in her seat, forcing herself to take several sips of coffee. The ring felt heavy on her finger, alien, and as she glanced down at the sparkling stones, again the urge to weep and beg him not to go almost overcame her, and to combat the weakness she said quickly, ‘Your family? Are they not coming to say goodbye?’
‘You are the only one I wanted this morning.’ He touched her mouth with one finger, tracing the contours of her rosy-red lips before he added, ‘I said goodbye to Art and Gladys at the house.’
‘And. . . and your mother?’ And then, at the look on his face, ‘You did tell your mother, Dan?’
He stared at the sweet, young face in front of him. How could he tell her he hadn’t dared go to see his mother because he had known he wouldn’t be responsible for what he might do to her? He had known, the second he had heard about the letter, that his mother had written it. She would deny it of course, she had always been very good at making black white, but he knew. He knew. And recognising the depth of his fury he had realised he must not see the woman he now knew he had disliked all his life. But the dislike had changed into something deeper and darker, something he did not want to examine because when all was said and done, she was his mother.
He smiled at Connie now, and kept his tone light as he said, ‘I had no need to tell her, not when John knows all about it. All our lives my brothers and sister and I have known that it’s the equivalent of shouting in Mam’s ear if John gets a whisper of anything.’
‘They’re close then, your mam and John?’
‘No, they’re not close, Connie, not in the way you mean anyway. It’s more. . .’ He paused, unable to explain the twisted threads that wove his family together. ‘They think alike,’ he finished quietly, before shaking his head and adding, ‘But what are we wasting precious minutes for talking about my mother and John? I love you, I love you, my darling. Tell me you love me.’
‘I do, I do love you.’
‘And you won’t forget me or look at anyone else?’
‘As if I could.’
‘Oh, dearest.’
In the time that was left before the train came they sat close together, their hands tightly joined as they willed the minutes to pass slowly. And then it was time to show their tickets and pass through the barrier and Connie felt desperate. ‘Promise me, promise me you’ll be careful,’ she whispered frantically as the train pulled into the station. ‘Don’t take any chances, promise me.’
‘I promise, sweetheart, but this is just training, remember.’
He smiled at her, the chocolate brown of his eyes tender, but as he put his arms about her, his lips touching hers, Connie was seized by a dread which was all the more painful for being unutterable. Her mother, her grandmother and brother, Lucy, they were all gone. And now Dan was going too, and to war. To war. Never mind the training, the end result was war. And they were beginning to hear such awful, terrible things. . .
They were holding one another tightly now, but in spite of the bustle and scurry all about them on the crowded platform their kiss was hungry and urgent in a way which would have been unthinkable in such a public place just months ago. But times were changing, and fast. It was no good standing on ceremony now was it? more and more folks were saying, when you didn’t know if you and yours were destined to see the morrow. And you’re a long time dead, aye, you are that. Live for the day, the hour, the minute – it might be your last.
The train had slowed down and stopped, doors were opened and Connie walked with him to the carriage. There was no more intelligible conversation, just disconnected, inarticulate murmurings until Dan said, ‘I’ve wasted so much time the last months, my darling, but you’re promised to me now and there’ll never be anyone but you. Believe me on that, dearest. Look, I’ve got to go.’
He got into the carriage and a large, stout man who was sitting near the window closed the door somewhat abruptly, only for Dan to open it again and, reaching down, kiss her passionately one more time. ‘I love you. Remember that always. It won’t be long till I’m home.’
But then he was back in the carriage and the train was moving away and in the blink of an eye – or so it seemed – he was gone. Gone.
Connie stood for more than a minute staring after the train and her mind, her senses, her whole body was with Dan. And then she turned, slowly and deliberately, to leave. It was only training and he would be home for a weekend in a few weeks or so, she told herself feverishly. Hundreds, thousands of women were going through this every day and managing to hold together, and she was luckier than most. She had the business to occupy her mind and Hazel to keep her from brooding. There’s plenty would give their eye teeth to be in her position. And she wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t. She had just got engaged to the most wonderful man in the world, that was nothing to cry about, was it?
Nevertheless, she was blinking hard, her eyes bright and glittering as she left the platform, and consequently she paid little attention to anyone else, which was a mistake.
Edith was finding it difficult to accept what she had seen, and as her eyes followed the slim young figure of ‘that trollop’s chit’ – as she had labelled Connie in her mind – the fury and jealousy were like corroding acid.
Since John had called in to see her on his way home from work last night with the news about Dan, she had waited all evening in a state of high expectation for her youngest son to make an appearance at the house. She had known he would come. Sure he wouldn’t leave Sunderland without making his peace with her and putting things right. She had been horrified at his foolhardiness in voluntarily enlisting, but at the back of her mind – and barely acknowledged – there was an element of relief too. He would be far away from the defiling possibility that one day he might be tempted to seek out the Bell chit.
She’d known the affair had come to an abrupt end after she had challenged Dan with Mr Simmons’s findings – John had kept an eye on both of them for weeks past – but when men’s passions were stirred they didn’t always think with their heads, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if the strumpet had tried to get her hooks into him again. They knew plenty of tricks, women of that calibre, and when you considered where she came from. . . But as the weeks had gone by it had seemed the thing was over, and when John had reported the Bell woman had taken on the offspring of Harold Alridge after his poor wife had died, Edith had felt a lot happier. She had known she was right about him and Connie all along and this only proved it, didn’t it. You don’t take on a man’s bairn for nothing; he was obviously the one who had set her up in her own place and no doubt the huzzy was hoping that by taking the bairn she could get him to marry her and probably when his wife was barely cold. By, men were such fools!
Edith’s eyes narrowed as she watched Connie disappear from view and her face was stiff. To think that baggage was sitting pretty and no doubt revelling in the fact that she had her lover to pay the bills and Dan as her bit on the side. And Dan might not be the only one, oh no, but it was as clear as the nose on her face that she’d managed to talk him round to accepting anything. That a son of hers could fall so low.
Edith started to follow Connie, her small stocky body ramrod straight. She had swallowed her pride in coming here this morning, and for what? For what! The trollop’s chit had turned Dan against her and poisoned his mind, that much was plain. Had Kitty known that this had all started up again? Her large nostrils flared and her mouth tightened. She’d make her suffer for it if she found out that was the case. Soft as clarts, that woman, and always had been.
It was not in Edith’s nature to either consider or appreciate the loyalty and hard work Kitty had shown the family over the years. She knew Kitty had always been underpaid and that no other servant would have given of themselves so unstintingly, but this was explained away in Edith’s eyes by the fact that the ‘great lump of an Irishwoman’ – as she termed her housekeeper – had thought she wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere else, an idea Edith had always encouraged whenever she could. She didn’t value the other woman, and if someone had asked her whether she liked Kitty or not she would have looked at them in amazement. The woman was her housekeeper, a paid servant, liking or not didn’t come into it. But she was a convenient whipping boy, and over the years Edith had often used Kitty to verbally vent her frustrations on when something had gone wrong.
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