The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (19 page)

‘They trust me,’ she said.

‘I’m sure they do.’ He smiled at her.

‘They are living with us now. So many of them.’

Edgar frowned, but said nothing.

‘The house is tiny and although I have spoken to Mr Manson he has done nothing,’ Lucy said.

‘It’s not been long – you have to give him a chance to find some place for them.’

‘I don’t think he intends to.’

Edgar sat back in his chair. ‘The law is vague about such matters. I don’t think there’s much I can do. They will have to look for somewhere else – there must be a number of empty properties.’

He was right, Lucy thought. She went back and collected Tilda from the shop, but when they got home and she spoke to Mrs Formby about such a thing tears came into the woman’s eyes.

‘I know you mean well,’ she said, ‘but we’ve always lived here. We can’t afford any more and anywhere we went would be dearer.’

Lucy took time that week to go to several properties and to the owners of them, but Mrs Formby was right – they were all dearer than the houses in Rachel Lane. It was the worst part of town. With only Tilda working they had been barely able to afford the house there. Now the situation was becoming even more difficult. The two Misses Slaters, while good people, were not used to such noise in their house. Lucy could see that Mrs Formby was becoming nervous, apologizing all the time for her boisterous family. Frederick had taken to hiding in dark corners and Lucy could hear her own voice becoming sharp and impatient.

She didn’t know what to do. She started lying awake at night, worrying, thinking of how soon the baby would show and Tilda would be dismissed. Then what would happen? Things were already bad anyway – nobody should have to live like that. She didn’t think like Mr Bainbridge did. She was involved with the Formbys; she couldn’t leave Tilda to try and sort this out by herself.

She began to collect Tilda from the shop in the early evenings because she was so upset for the girl. She had to reassure her, because she did not want Tilda to go home with guilt written so large upon her face. Lucy herself also needed time to gain some kind of perspective.

Joe had a letter from Mr Barrington with regard to the sale of his property, wanting him to go immediately to London. He would see Toddy and Mr Barrington. He felt nearer to Angela as soon as he stepped off the train. He had told Toddy that he was coming though he had accepted an invitation to stay with the Barringtons. He didn’t think Toddy’s parents would want him anywhere near their house. He and Toddy met for lunch at Toddy’s club, which had once been Joe’s club too. It was also the club where Joe’s father had met Toddy’s father. Joe felt his father’s presence there.

The letter he had read on the train was one his father’s rants.

Joe felt strange going into the club after so long. He wasn’t hungry and he didn’t want to be there. Several people looked over but didn’t approach. Joe tried to ignore it.

Toddy had no news of Angela, but he said he was doing everything he could to find her. He had talked to his business acquaintances and anyone he knew who was at all influential. He did not doubt that in the end she would be found. They didn’t discuss whether she was still alive. Joe couldn’t eat very much, the anxiety making him feel sick.

‘There is something else as well,’ Toddy said awkwardly as the cheese was brought to the table. ‘I would like you to be godfather to my child.’

Joe was so taken aback that he didn’t know what to say.

‘What about Sarah?’

‘She will choose the godmother. We have talked about this and we are agreed. You were best man at our wedding and I think we should all try to redeem ourselves here.’

‘Thank you, Toddy, that means a great deal to me,’ Joe said, and he took more interest in the cheese than he had in the four courses which had preceded it.

*

Mr Barrington greeted Joe with an open face.

‘So the sales went well?’ Joe said, smiling.

‘My dear boy, though I say it myself, I don’t think anyone could have improved on my performance in this matter and though I know the whole thing is a grief to you at least it’s cleared up and out of the way.’

‘And now I own nothing but an old tower house in Durham. Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing.’

‘The good news is that there is a considerable amount of money left over. Three thousand pounds.’

Mr Barrington paused to let this sink in and then said, ‘I will invest it for you if you wish, but it’s a decent sum – you may wish to come back to London and buy a house and do all sorts of things. Or perhaps you have a venture which you would like to use it for—’

Encouraged, Joe told him all about the car which he and Mr Palmer were designing. Mr Barrington got very interested and said he thought it was an excellent idea and that he did know one or two men in the car industry. He would be glad to send letters as references or to help in any way.

It was only then that Joe realized he had no intention of coming back to London to live, at least not at the moment, and it had nothing to do with the sale of the tower house. If he had wanted at this point to be in London he could have, but he didn’t. Angela was not here; he would have known if she had been within a hundred miles, he thought – or perhaps that was just nonsense. In any case, Toddy would do all he could and keep Joe informed.

He felt so very far away from his father. The only way to ease this was to continue reading the letters which his father had sent. He read the same ones over and over while keeping some unread, so that he would have something to hang onto in the days when he could face nothing.

In his father’s letters there were descriptions of pheasants, neck-deep in grass in June in Northumberland. He told how the rhododendrons were out, great splodges of pink and
purple and orange. His father still went there and would ride every day, asking the local dignitaries and the vicar and the old ladies of the area to dinner. His father was kind to almost everyone. Joe remembered how his father would never change for dinner if he had an unexpected guest who had nothing to change into.

He was even kind to foxes and hated hunting. No wonder people didn’t like him when he wouldn’t let them hunt across his land. Joe thought it was more to do with them breaking gates and fences, but he had not forgotten the time the hunt poured into his father’s formal garden and ripped up the lawns, trying to kill a fox outside his drawing room window. He had gone out there with a shotgun and threatened, ‘I’ll mow you down, you bastards!’

He wouldn’t have formal pheasant shoots on his land. He regarded this as slaughter, but he would go up on the moors with his Labradors, bag one pheasant and come home, the dogs worn out from their day, their eyes torn about with brambles. When they had eaten their fill they would fall asleep by the huge log fire in the hall.

Joe longed for his father and Northumberland. He wanted to go fishing. His father’s favourite sport was trout fishing in the wide, deep rivers. Joe thought it was the peace it brought to his troubled soul, the river tumbling on its way. All you had to do was stand there, thigh deep in water, and wait with the fly you had made yourself to imitate whatever was hovering above the river that day. His father said to catch a fish you had to think like a fish.

Joe thought back to the fishing he preferred when he and Tam had taken Tam’s father’s coble out. Once when they
were a couple of miles out the fog had come down very suddenly and Joe had been afraid for one of the first times in his life. All he could see was the oily dark water immediately around them and then nothing. He had never been as thankful until he went to war to be with a man who knew what he was doing. Tam guided the coble safely back to the shore and it was only after they had dragged it beyond the waterline that he confessed to Joe that he too had been afraid. Sometimes the fog lasted for days and you could die out there.

It didn’t stop them, however. They loved being beyond anyone else’s reach and Joe also loved the feeling of the tug on the line and the sight of the codling beneath the boat as he drew it nearer and nearer.

Sometimes his father took him salmon fishing in Scotland or they’d go over to the west to the silver sands where they would fish at night for pollack. By moonlight the fish flashed white in the clear water beneath the boat.

The letter from his father which he opened then read:

It was four days before Tilda broke down in tears and did not want to go home. She would not let Lucy comfort her, and Lucy could see the terrible strain that she was under, having to pretend there was nothing the matter when in fact everything was wrong.

Lucy thought hard for several minutes and then decided what to do. She would take Tilda out to tea, at least she told her that, so that the girl gathered up her few belongings and followed almost gladly – she would not have to face her mother for the next hour or so.

There was a boy in the street whom Lucy recognized from their row. She asked him if he would mind taking a message to Tilda’s mam. She wrote a quick note to Mrs Formby and said that Tilda had been invited to tea at this friend of Lucy’s and she hoped Mrs Formby wouldn’t mind.

Lucy paid for one of Paddy’s Cabs to take them to Joe’s house. Tilda was so white and tired-looking and she worried – what if Joe wasn’t home, what if he had gone to Mr Palmer’s house for his tea as he sometimes did, what if he had had stayed late at the garage which she thought he often did. By the time she ran out of ‘what if’s’ they had arrived.

She banged on the door. Joe opened the door and was so friendly that Lucy wanted to burst into tears herself. He was tall and solid and shabby and rather grubby because he hadn’t been back from the garage for very long. He smiled at her.

‘I’ve brought Miss Formby with me. You don’t mind?’ she said.

‘Of course not,’ Joe said in his decidedly well-mannered way. Lucy was so grateful that Joe had been properly brought up. How lovely to know that he would always say and do what you needed him to do and say. It was a rare talent to understand so much about people and to care equally as much.

He led them into the sitting room and made tea. The black-and-white long-haired cat sat at Tilda’s feet, as though she could help, head on one side and eyes searching.

Tilda had looked so pale in the shop, but her colour was returning. After a while she smiled just a little and said, ‘What is the cat looking at?’

‘She likes you,’ Joe said. ‘And she’s very particular, you know. She doesn’t like everybody. She thinks you’re special.’

A tear made its way down the girl’s cheek and she sniffed.

‘You aren’t afraid of cats, then?’ Joe said, and Tilda shook her head. ‘That’s good because if you give her any encouragement she’ll be up on your lap, purring and sleeping there.’

Tilda seemed entranced. She reached down and the cat leapt at her right away and landed, with grace and without weight. Tilda sat there and laughed. Lucy hadn’t heard her laugh before.

Joe told her to sit on the sofa because the cat liked that best, and Tilda did so, gathering the cat into her arms. He covered her over with a rug and gave her a cushion for under her head. The black-and-white cat curled up into a ball beside her and purred. After a little while Tilda went to sleep.

Joe asked nothing. Lucy admired it so much that she smiled at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Joe looked blankly at her. ‘If you think she’ll sleep a while we could go and sit in the garden, unless you’re worried about leaving her.’

They went outside; it was not as cold as she had thought it might be and she didn’t care anyway. It was coming in dark by then and she had learned to be grateful for the darkness, for it hid so many things, faces and places. Even shadows that might haunt you faded into black. Joe gave her a big thick blanket and an old chair which fitted perfectly to her body. He was much too large for the chair he sat in – it looked as if it might break under his weight – but Joe didn’t notice things like that, she thought, he just sat in silence and watched the river and the cathedral beyond. It was as though he had all the time in the world, that he could stay there for days and days while the slight breeze came off the river and the night fell down around them.

‘What else have you done about Miss Lee?’ she said.

Joe told her about going to see Mr Firbank and she was pleased about that. He also told her what Mr Firbank had said about knowing Cissie when she was a very little girl, and how her father had struck it rich with silver and gone off to London.