The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (29 page)

Lucy sat down beside him on a chair near the bed and wished everything different. She could not keep from her mind the day that her father had dismissed her from his house because he believed a man rather than his daughter. She was also convinced that beneath the pain, Guy was somehow still laughing at her. He had bettered her, his eyes told her. She had not thought she could hate a dying man, but it seemed that she was capable of anything. Although the church might call her names for it she felt as though she needed that hate to get her through, so when his gaze held hers she looked straight back at him until he glanced away.

‘You should come and have something to eat,’ Gemma said. When she refused her sister said, ‘You must or Mother will be offended.’

Lucy wanted to laugh, as though it mattered, but it seemed it did, even to her. She went downstairs.

The dining room was empty but for their mother and father. Her father did not seem to be eating.

When she came in he said, ‘Who are you?’

Lucy stared at him. Her father’s eyes were sunk in his head; he was nothing like the man who had dismissed her from his house. He was not her father, he was a stranger, and she was a stranger to him because he didn’t know her. His limbs looked wasted, yet he had been so tall, so strong, the most important person in her life. She would have wept had there been anywhere to escape to and indulge her feelings.

The dinner was frugal, but Lucy couldn’t eat. Her worst nightmare had become real. She saw now that she had been working so hard at Edgar’s practice not just for herself. She had wanted to show her father what a good person she was, how she wanted to help people as he had wanted to, that he could not judge her by what another man had done to her. Now that was impossible.

Her mother did not acknowledge her. The meal had already been served so she did not have to look at Lucy or speak.

The small amount of food on Lucy’s plate was like a mountain. Her throat filled and she could not take a bite. She managed one and the meal was cold.

‘I’d like to go up to my room now,’ was all she could say.

‘That isn’t yours any more,’ Gemma said. ‘The children need a bedroom and mother can’t always sleep when father is there.’

Lucy couldn’t understand why but she brought the luggage she had with her and Gemma took her up two flights of stairs. She could not help comparing the tiny airless attic room, filled only with a single bed, chair and washstand, with the lovely room she had at Joe’s tower. She missed it and after that she missed him, and the Misses Slaters, and even the cats. She wanted to go home, for Durham was her home now, though she had not known until this second.

She longed for Joe’s common sense and for his presence; she wanted to run back to him. She wondered if he was walking Frederick by the river right now, as he did every night. He said it helped him to think about the problems on the car, because they were huge and he didn’t know how to solve them. She wondered if the Misses Slaters were managing with their cooking and whether they had reverted to sandwiches. She thought of Tilda in the shop and Mrs Formby managing her children and she wanted to be there so badly. She had made this life for herself. She felt as if it were all over.

She tried to think rationally about the situation, but all she could think was that Joe had said the right things and that Edgar had been unkind – but then what else could he say? He was trying to run a business and she did not know whether she would ever be able to go back to Durham. What future did she have either here or there? Somehow she must make money.

It was logical and right to be here, but she swore to herself that she would not become involved with people she had learned to despise. She had learned to hate them because it was the only way she could survive, considering the way they had treated her.

She remembered things which Edgar had said; they came back to her to her when she tried to sleep.

‘How are they to live when your brother-in-law is dead? What about your father’s business? He is a successful solicitor, after all.’

She didn’t answer.

‘Does Guy have any money – does he have anything to leave?’

‘I haven’t asked.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ Edgar had said.

*

The second evening when they were having a meal she said to Gemma, ‘Does Guy have anything to leave you?’

Gemma glared at her for indelicacy and then got up and ran from the table. Their mother went on eating and didn’t look up.

‘Does Father have anything?’

Her father had sat back in his chair at the beginning of the meal while her mother fed him. Now he was asleep, snoring softly rather as Frederick did, and Lucy could not think of this thing as the man she had admired and adored; it seemed so cruel.

Her mother looked at her for the first time. She laughed mirthlessly and it was horrible.

‘Do we look as if we do?’

‘Didn’t you prepare for old age?’

‘We hoped we would have sons to keep us. You cannot imagine how disappointed we were when we had just two children and both were girls. I don’t think your father ever
forgave me for it.’ Her mother stopped eating and got up, and although Lucy’s meal was untouched she swept it away.

‘What is wrong with him? He doesn’t seem to know me.’ Lucy spoke as though he were not in the room, and he didn’t answer her, he didn’t even look at her.

Her mother ignored her, but when Lucy was about to leave the room she said, ‘You can take your father to the office tomorrow.’

*

When Lucy came downstairs the following day her father was all done up in a good suit.

‘He’s ready to go,’ her mother said.

She ignored her father in the hall and went through into the kitchen.

‘Why are you pretending?’ Lucy said. ‘He’s no more use than a baby.’

Her mother drew in her breath and didn’t answer and then Gemma came in.

‘Take him to the office with you, please,’ her sister said.

Lucy walked him to the office. He didn’t object. He didn’t speak. She wasn’t sure whether he understood, whether he could be coherent at all. She pushed the wheelchair inside. The place was empty. She didn’t know what she had expected. How long had her father been unable to go to his place of work? It was as unlike Edgar’s premises as anything could be. It was dusty and neglected and there was an air about it of failure, of a business that used to be and had long since ceased to exist.

It was so different to the place Lucy had worshipped when she was younger. She went into the downstairs, down a stee
and dark staircase, and found cupboards with polish and dusters. She collected coal and wood from the big shed at the back and poured water into the boiler beside the fire. Then she went around dusting and polishing the surfaces of the old and solid furniture. All it needed was a little attention.

He was awake and, although she was still convinced that he did not know her, he watched her and seemed to approve.

She washed the floors and polished the brass doorknobs. She went out and bought tea and milk and biscuits and then she went to the big office which had been her father’s domain. He seemed happy to sit down there while she looked through the files and the paperwork. She took a typewriter from the desk beyond, where presumably his secretary had sat, and she began to type letters to all the clients whose addresses she had. There were many of them, but she could see herself making progress. Meanwhile he would sit there, saying nothing while she worked.

She stated that her father had been unwell but was much better. He would soon take up the business again and she was helping him. She said that the office was open and staffed during weekdays from nine until six and then she posted the letters and wondered what to do. It had taken her three days.

During that time she had to feed her father and take him to the toilet often. She was disgusted and embarrassed at first but then she realized it was just like teaching a child and he responded. She had never thought she might have to do such things, but if it gave him a little more dignity in his life she could forget having to help him.

She found a small café just across the road from the offices and she took him there. She deliberately pushed his wheel-chair as near to the window as it would get and watched recognition flicker in his eyes.

‘Would you like something to eat, Father?’

He looked at her. She had his attention now.

‘Scones,’ he said.

That made her smile. He had always liked the scones her mother baked.

‘I don’t think these will measure up, but you never know.’

They did.

‘They’re better than Mother’s. Lighter.’

He managed a smile. She cut up his scone into small pieces and fed it to him covered in butter and strawberry jam.

She could see the office front door from where she sat in the window so that if anyone did come she would be there immediately.

Since her father seemed to like the place they began to make a habit of going there every day. Sometimes he would manage a scone by himself though he made a lot of crumbs.

Lucy dressed in her smart black costumes and her neat shoes. She tamed her hair with grips so that it was back from her face and away from her neck. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she thought, yes, I could do business with this woman.

*

On the third afternoon a man turned up and she greeted him gladly. He said to her father that he was glad to see him so much better and from somewhere her father found the
normality to say, ‘How good to see you,’ and then he sat back and let Lucy conduct the business.

The man was not prosperous, but neither did he look poor. She waited and after a short time he told her what he needed. It was trivial. He wanted to alter his will because his children were not respectful of him. It made Lucy want to laugh, but she sat there gravely nodding and talking when he allowed.

As he was about to leave he looked at her with gratitude and said, ‘Thank you, Miss Charlton, you were grand.’ Then he went to her father and said, ‘You have a sound lass there.’

And her father said, clearly for once, ‘Yes, indeed.’

She saw the man out and then she went back inside.

‘You do know who I am then,’ she said to her father.

He smiled sunnily at her. ‘You’re my heir – you always have been.’

He did not remember what she had done, he thought he was still a man and she was still a child. She was pleasing him and he liked it as he had done so long ago.

‘I’m glad you came back to us.’

It meant the whole world to her.

Joe got a note from Edgar’s office to ask if he would come and see Edgar at half past five that Thursday. Joe was miserable. He missed Lucy so much. He didn’t tell anybody or act as if he was – with two old ladies, three cats and a spaniel to sort out and a job to go to he didn’t have much time for self-pity – but in the night he just wished Lucy were above, sleeping soundly within the safety of his tower house. He missed her more than he had missed anybody except Angela, and by now that was saying something.

Edgar didn’t keep him waiting. He murmured a greeting and then Joe sat down.

‘I’ve had a communication to tell me that Mr George Fir-bank has died and you are a beneficiary of his will,’ Edgar said.

‘I knew he had died,’ Joe said – he couldn’t help it – ‘but I don’t want anything.’

He was trying not to think about Mr Firbank too much but he missed the trips up to Gateshead. Lucy was right, the only thing that mattered was the time they had spent together, and he was aware of each minute. And strangely, there was some hope. If Mr Firbank’s will included him then
it meant that he and Priscilla Lee both mattered to the old man.

‘There’s nothing I can do about whether you want it. Mr Firbank’s will is his business and his only. Whatever he wants you to have you get it,’ Edgar said.

‘All right,’ Joe sighed, ‘I suppose as long as it isn’t a tower house I can cope.’

Edgar went on looking at him in a comical sort of way so that stupidly they both laughed together for the first time.

‘Oh hell,’ Joe said.

It was obvious that Edgar was trying to keep his face sober.

‘Where is it?’ Joe said.

‘I gather it’s somewhere up at the top end of Weardale, which apparently was Mr Firbank’s first home. Very cold and windy up there.’

‘Oh lovely,’ Joe said.

‘You can’t have it of course, not immediately, but I imagine you could go up there and see it if you were in the least bit curious. I can’t imagine it being worth anything at all.’

‘A liability then?’

‘I would think so,’ Edgar said. ‘His son is his executor. If you get in touch with him I’m sure he’ll be able to give you all the details.’

*

‘Will you come with me?’

Joe had come to Newcastle to talk to Lucy. She was thrilled to see him and had to stop herself from asking all sorts of things – about the Misses Slaters and Frederick and the cats.

‘You can’t do anything until probate is through,’ she said.

Joe had known she would say this, but he was losing patience. He had gone to the house in Sandhill where she had said her parents lived and her mother had been almost rude, but had redirected him. Now he was in this place where it was obvious she was doing very little business and by the smell of things her father was in a bad way.

‘I just want to go and see,’ Joe said.

‘I can’t just drop things like that, Joe, I have too much to do.’

‘All I want is two or three hours.’

‘Why don’t you understand?’

Joe lost patience and walked out.

He was yards down the pavement when she caught up with him, clasping his arm so hard that he stopped.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘No, I shouldn’t have come. I can easily go on my own.’

‘But I’d like to come with you.’ Her face had lit up and she was smiling. ‘I would dearly like to get away from here, even for half a day.’

Joe didn’t answer at first. He looked away from her as though there were something fascinating going on in the street.

‘I miss you,’ he said.

No man had ever said such a thing to her and Lucy didn’t know whether to be pleased or embarrassed.