The Promise (24 page)

A shadow crossed her face at this point in her story, and the happiness faded, almost as if the memory were too painful. Chrissie reached out to squeeze her mother’s hand. ‘So what happened next? Did you go to America?’

‘Oh, we stuck to our guns for a while, absolutely refused to change our plans. Ma was bitter and angry, claiming it was all some sort of plot, saying Aaran had manipulated the whole thing, planned it as revenge because she’d refused to bail out his mother from yet another financial crisis. She made the most outlandish claims. Utterly ridiculous; as if you can legislate to fall in love, and make someone love you.’ Vanessa shook her head in despair. ‘In the end we stopped arguing with her and just ran away. We married the moment I turned twenty-one and no longer needed her permission. You were born a month later, as you know. So no, we didn’t go to America, not then.’

‘How did that work out? Was she pleased that you were staying?’

‘Yes, I think she was in a way. Ma seemed to calm down a bit, made something of a fuss of us, and of you. I thought everything was going to be all right, after all. She even financed Aaran to set himself up in business at the art gallery
in Chelsea, although not with particularly good grace.’

Chrissie expressed surprise. ‘I knew she was comfortably off, but didn’t realise Grandmother was quite so wealthy.’

‘Oh yes, she’s very well placed indeed. The source of that wealth, however, is a bit of a mystery – questionable, you might say. Aaran certainly questioned it. Frequently. It was the main source of dispute between them, which was perhaps why she never really accepted him. She kept telling him he’d grown too much like his parents: his greedy mother and selfish father, who apparently had something of a reputation as a chancer, which didn’t please Aaran one bit. I never met the man myself but I don’t think Aaran and his father enjoyed a good relationship. Nevertheless, he remained steadfast in his loyalty towards him, as one does when you want a parent to love you and be proud of what you’ve achieved.’

‘That must have been hard for you, when you knew Dad was really a good man.’

‘He was indeed, although not good with money,’ she admitted, with a sad smile. ‘He’d always had plenty and never properly understood its value, then when Georgia funded the gallery he gave away far too much to that useless family of his. Later, when everything fell apart for us, he tried to win it all back through gambling, which naturally led to worse losses.’ She gave a half shrug. ‘Not that it matters. It’s only money. It’s people that count.’

Chrissie brought her gently back to the matter under discussion. ‘I remember you said you visited Aaron’s mother, and that in her dying days she told you the true extent of Georgia’s lies and deceit?’

‘Yes, and that’s what it was.’

‘Sorry? I don’t understand.’

‘What Peter told you was that lie, or rather the terrible secret. With her dying breath my mother-in-law carefully explained to me that Aaran, my husband, was my own mother’s son. For some reason not fully explained, Georgia gave him away when he was still a baby, and because of some unfulfilled promise he had come back into her life.’

Chrissie felt as if her head was about to explode, as if she were somehow separated from reality or this was all happening to someone else. She must still be in shock, she told herself, for try as she might she couldn’t get her usually quick mind to function properly. Nor her hearing either, for that matter. ‘You surely aren’t saying that it’s true?’

‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’

‘Heaven help us.’

‘Indeed.’

‘So that was the cause of the rows and arguments between you and Dad?’

Vanessa nodded. ‘And the reason Aaran left me, although I confess we were so in love that we continued to see each other from time to time, at least until the war.’

Chrissie was staring at her hands as they lay clenched tightly in her lap. Her mind was racing now, thinking how this knowledge had so cruelly ruined her parents’ lives. Then it came to her in a blinding moment of reality that it had likewise ruined her own life. Peter was right. Who would wish to be associated with the product of an
incestuous relationship? The image of Ben’s shocked face again floated into her mind. He’d seemed to dismiss Peter’s comments as pure malice, as had she, but how would he react once he knew the accusation was true? It didn’t bear thinking about. At this point Chrissie pushed back her chair and fled to the bathroom to vomit.

Chrissie spent a sleepless night tossing and turning and drinking endless cups of tea. By the early hours of the morning she was sitting on the end of the jetty, shivering despite the thick sweater and coveralls she was wearing. She kept going over everything in her mind, her sadness at losing Tom, castigating herself for grieving too deeply. It wasn’t as if she was the only one to have suffered during the war. Then she’d foolishly latched on to the first man who was kind to her, allowing a dependence upon Peter to grow to such a dangerous level he’d got entirely the wrong idea, reading far more into the friendship than she’d intended.

As if that weren’t bad enough, she’d made the greatest mistake of all by deciding to pry into her mother’s past and resolve the family feud. Not only had she failed in her efforts to reunite Georgia and Vanessa, but she had destroyed her own chance of building any sort of
relationship with her grandmother. Now she’d lost any hope of a future with Ben.

A lone fisherman found her in a weeping huddle of misery at five in the morning, and troubled by the sight of her forlorn figure at that hour, tied up his boat and came over. ‘You all right, love? Weren’t thinking of taking a dip, were you? Bit chilly this time of the morning.’

‘I’m fine.’ Chrissie struggled to smile up at him through her tears, liking the look of his concerned bearded face. But he insisted on escorting her safely back to her rented room, and the kindness from this complete stranger made her weep all the more.

The next few days were a jumble of confused emotions as Chrissie made some attempt to deal with the fallout. Vanessa had insisted that it was far too soon to approach Georgia for any further explanation. They’d just have to be patient. Even then she might decline to help, or Chrissie might be too afraid to ask, fearful of a yet worse relapse.

Having admitted that he’d deliberately befuddled her mother with sufficient gin sling to wheedle these secret horrors out of her, and perhaps realising that he’d got more than he bargained for, Peter meekly returned to London.

‘But I want you to know that you may come home to me at any time, Chrissie dear. I’m willing for us to try again, and won’t hold this moral slur against you.’

Moral slur!
Chrissie almost choked on the words. It was as if she were soiled in some way. Did she feel unclean? she asked herself. A question her befuddled brain
refused to answer. It preferred to keep hiding behind the invisible pane of frosted glass it had constructed for itself, protecting her from such matters as public censure.

But she still had to face Ben.

With some trepidation she arranged to meet him in their favourite spot by the lake, where they’d be private. Until this moment she hadn’t realised how very much he mattered to her. Now she bluntly told him she would have to break off their budding romance.

‘Why?’

‘You know why.’

Ben’s response was to put his arms about her and draw her to him, holding her even closer when she tried to push him away, thumbing the tears from her cheeks. ‘No, you and I have something good going between us; I’m not going to call it off because some ex-fiancé or boyfriend, whatever he was, starts spreading nasty gossip. How can you be certain the words of a greedy woman, even if she was dying, weren’t some perverted sort of revenge because Georgia refused to cough up any more money? It’s a good time to lie, on your death bed, particularly if you’re holding a grudge against someone. Your mother has probably got it all wrong.’

‘Oh, Ben!’ Tears stood proud in her eyes, and he kissed them away, one by one. She leant into his warmth, wanting to melt into him, body and soul, to become a part of him and banish these horrors from her mind. ‘This ruined my parents’ lives. I can’t let it do the same to you – to us.’

‘We won’t let it. You’ve no other evidence that your father was Georgia’s son.’

‘Nor any that says he isn’t.’

‘Then there’s only one thing to be done.’

‘What’s that?’ She had never loved him more than in this moment.

‘You must ask her.’

‘But she won’t see me.’

‘She will if the request comes from my mam.’

The bedroom was sunk in gloom, the swathe of maroon curtains blocking out all natural daylight, the big bed itself barely visible, let alone the fragile figure that lay unmoving within the ghostly sheets. Chrissie dared hardly breathe as she sat beside it, steeped in nervous tension, anxiously waiting for her grandmother to wake, and yet dreading the moment when she did. It was desperately sad to see this normally vibrant woman lying here so ill, her still-lovely features in pale repose as if a waxen image, frighteningly like a death mask.

As she sat, watching and waiting for each breath, Chrissie studied the features more closely, seeking a family likeness between mother and daughter, as both were such strong, obstinate, passionate women, and both beautiful in their day. Still were, despite their advancing years. They each had full lips and a classically oval face, yet there were also differences. Their colouring, for one thing, Georgia being much darker. But then, if Grandfather had been fair that might account for a softer mix. And where Vanessa possessed dramatic winged brows, Georgia’s grew stubbornly straight above her closed eyes.

Chrissie stifled a sigh. How tragic that their relationship had been fractured so long ago. And how would it ever be put right now that she had made things a thousand times worse?

‘I know you’re there.’

The eyes hadn’t opened but the soft voice from the bed startled Chrissie. ‘Goodness, I didn’t even realise you were awake.’

‘I have been for a while. I was wondering what you were thinking – if you’d devised yet more excuses for your treachery.’

Chrissie winced at her choice of language. ‘That’s a bit strong, although I do agree it was wrong of me not to come clean. I should have told you right from the start who I was.’ The question she so longed to ask burned in her head, but she found herself quite unable to speak, too fearful of causing her grandmother further distress.

‘Yes, you should.’

Choking with unshed tears and disappointment, Chrissie got slowly to her feet, realising it was too late now to make amends. Too much damage had been done to this old woman who was more frail than she might appear. How she longed to hug her grandmother, to feel some warmth emanate from her, some small sign of forgiveness. But the figure on the bed remained cold and unmoving, and she dare not risk hurting her further. At the door she paused to look back, a pleading in her voice that she made no attempt to disguise. ‘May I come and see you again tomorrow?’

‘You may do as you think fit. I doubt I’ll be going anywhere.’

The sharp response cut to the heart of her. Had she ruined any chance of befriending this grandmother she’d never known? She’d made a promise to her mother that was impossible to keep without losing her own integrity. Now perhaps she’d lost everything by agreeing to the deception. It was a disturbing thought. She was about to close the door and quietly leave the old lady in peace, when the stentorian voice came again.

‘Aren’t you going to ask if what this so-called boyfriend of yours said was true? Don’t you want to know if Aaran, your father, was my son?’

Chrissie stared at her, her first thought being that Peter must have spoken to her grandmother about this too. No wonder she was taking so long to recover from the shock. Almost too frightened to speak, she asked, ‘Is he?’

‘Sit down. I think it’s time you heard the rest of the story.’

The bed may have been lumpy and flea-ridden, the sheets threadbare and the blankets stinking of cheap beer, but I felt a wild exultation that I had at last escaped what had become very like a prison on Nob Hill. It was astonishing how easily I had achieved it. Just walked away as if for an afternoon stroll in the park, although I had insisted the cab take a circuitous route so that I could check we weren’t being followed. Now here I was, with my lover, the man with whom I intended to spend the rest of my life.

‘I’m sorry this place is such a dive,’ Ellis was saying. ‘The only consolation I can offer is that there are plenty worse.’

‘I can well believe it.’

‘You have to be very careful which hotel you choose. I was warned never to be lured by someone who promises
they know of a better place. More often than not it will be the complete opposite, and they’ll charge you for the privilege of having taken you there.’

I put my arms about his neck and pulled him close. ‘I don’t care where we are, so long as we’re together.’

Our reunion on this occasion was particularly ecstatic. Ellis was delighted and thrilled at the prospect of becoming a father, as I’d known he would be. Within minutes of his learning my news we were happily making plans, dreaming of a new beginning. But he became instantly alert when he learnt of my husband’s reaction to the discovery of my little secret.

‘He expected you to move back into his bedroom, even though he
knew
it wasn’t his child? Or does he think it’s his? Have you slept with him again?’

I rather loved this show of jealousy in him, even as I hastened to reassure him. ‘No, my darling, I have not slept with him again.’

‘How can I be sure of that?’

I smiled as I kissed him. ‘Because I love
you
. To be fair, he has not touched me in months, rarely even speaks to me. He’s far too busy in Maura’s bed, or else exhausted by the hours of debauchery he indulges in at the houses of ill repute. Now, can we stop talking about Kemp and tell me all about your latest trip?’

But he wasn’t in the mood for such talk today, only apologising for the delay of his return, due to necessary repairs which had held the ship in dock for a while in Singapore, then bad weather around the Cape. ‘I swear that was my last voyage. I am done with adventuring
now. All I want is to go home to England, and settle down to happy domestic bliss with you, my darling, and our child.’

‘Oh, yes, please,’ I cried, scattering kisses all over his beloved face – his mouth, his strong jaw, his eyes and ears, making him laugh out loud. Then he had to return my kisses, only with a much greater passion, the sheets tugged over our heads in an attempt to keep warm.

Yet my fears still niggled at the back of my mind, and later, when we at last paused for breath, I tried to explain that walking out of the house was one thing, but gaining my freedom completely quite another. ‘Kemp will have his spies out looking for me the minute he realises I’ve gone. He will not let me go easily.’

‘But why does he care when he clearly doesn’t love you?’

‘He sees me as a possession, an asset which proves his standing in society. He chose me for my skills in house management, for the way I can host his dinner parties for his political cronies. Because he considers me sensible, and careful with money. An ideal wife, apparently.’

‘Nevertheless he has treated you badly, and you’re entitled to apply for a divorce.’

‘Once we’re safely away, I most certainly will. But even if I had the money, that’s not something I would dare to attempt while I remain in a city in which he wields such power. Nor can I run home to Mama. She would drive me back herself, push me in a handcart if necessary, ably assisted by my adoring sister. To them Kemp is so charming he seems an entirely different person from the
greedy self-serving bully I know. When we are alone, he is so contemptible I could spit in his eye.’

‘I could do a great deal worse than that.’

I flung my arms around him, terrified he might march up to Nob Hill that minute. ‘No, you mustn’t go near him. Kemp is so underhand, so devious, he would never fight fair. You’d only put both our lives at risk if you took him on. We really should get away from Frisco, as soon as we can. Remember, he threatened
your
life too, and that of our child. I’ll be constantly looking over my shoulder if we stay here.’

Ellis gave a growl of frustrated fury even as he visibly struggled to control himself. Stroking my hair, that he’d tousled with his own eager hands a moment ago, he quietly conceded my point. ‘You’re right, but it’s damned hard. I want to take him apart for what he’s done to you. I’d feed him to the sharks if we were on board ship.’

‘Ellis, please,’ I begged, fearful of this great desire of his to protect me.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll start making discreet enquiries about booking us a passage to Liverpool first thing tomorrow.’

While Ellis worked at the waterfront loading and securing freight, keeping his ears open for a cheap berth to Liverpool, which weren’t easy to come by and at least thirty dollars each, I settled as best I could into life on the wharves.

‘Conditions will not be comfortable. No privacy, no bunk to sleep in or even a seat to sit on, and fetid and unsavoury sanitary arrangements,’ Ellis warned me. ‘You
have to book well in advance, and pay far more than we can afford, to get a decent berth.’

‘I don’t care what we have to endure,’ I told him. ‘So long as we get away safely.’

He cradled me in his arms, smoothing a hand over my swollen belly. ‘And what about the baby? Wouldn’t it be better to wait a few weeks more, till he or she is born? Giving birth on board ship is not something I’d recommend.’

I must have looked at him with such bleakness in my eyes that his heart swelled with love. He kissed me softly before holding me in a warm embrace. ‘Don’t worry, my love, I’ll fetch the doctor when your time comes.’

And so we agreed to wait a while longer.

I bought some lye soap and scrubbed our room from top to bottom. I took the sheets and blankets to the Chinese laundry, which made some improvement, at least banishing the stink and hopefully the fleas that caused us to scratch all night.

Temperatures vary little in San Francisco but this winter seemed particularly grey, cold and damp. Despite this, I had never felt more gloriously happy. It was so wonderful to be with Ellis that I didn’t care about the weather, about the fact we lived largely on soup for lunch and fish for dinner, squirrelling away as much of Ellis’s earnings as we possibly could. We hid it in a sock under the floorboards beneath the bed. All that mattered was that we were in love, and we kept our hopes and dreams pinned on our planned escape. We ate rabbit stew for our dinner one day and thought ourselves kings.

I became a regular customer at the corner grocery store where potatoes were heaped in wooden crates beside onions, soap, candles and other ordinary goods. An old hag kept watch behind a makeshift counter, watching my every move with her bead-black eyes. Behind her, in the dim shadows, a tatty curtain served as a door to an inner room where I occasionally caught a glimpse of a group of rascally-looking coves playing poker. The place reeked of tobacco smoke and mice, possibly dead rats, but I was always studiously polite to her, and washed everything I bought there twice over.

The old hag rewarded my good manners by being surprisingly helpful. She told me where to buy the freshest fish, which we largely lived on as it was the cheapest food available. And there were times in those first weeks when I wish I’d paid more attention to Cook’s attempts to teach Prue and I how to cook. I valiantly tried to emulate her crab cakes but failed miserably. Nonetheless, Ellis ate them without complaint.

The woman also taught me how to distinguish the loafers and thieves, gamblers, pimps and crimps – as well as how to take care of myself in this labyrinth of streets which even the local police refrained from visiting. Never turning your back or speaking to anyone you didn’t know seemed to feature loudly in her little homilies.

‘This is the place where you’ll find all the dirty, degraded, hopeless bummers and two-bit greenhorns who are drawn to this town by the promise of riches in the mines, and end up in a dive like this with the rest of us poor fools.’ Then she would laugh out loud, mouth open
wide, revealing only a few blackened teeth. ‘Handsome gal like you should watch out someone doesn’t offer you the sort of employment your mother wouldn’t approve of.’

Now I was the one to laugh. Poor dear Mama would faint clean away if she even
saw
me in this filthy little grocery store, let alone being involved in anything immoral. Such as sleeping with my lover, for instance. I shuddered, glancing instinctively over my shoulder.

Every day I begged Ellis to find us a berth, but he would shake his head, insisting my health and safety, and that of our baby, was paramount. ‘You’re quite safe here, I promise you. Kemp would never venture into these parts.’

I couldn’t argue with that. Also, money was seriously tight, and we needed to save every dime and cent we could for the journey. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told the old woman. ‘We have plans. This is just a temporary stop-off for us.’

This comment caused her to laugh so much she had to hold her aching sides, the rolls of fat at her waist falling over her plump fingers. ‘Wish I’d a dollar for every time I’ve heard that one.’

In the second week she asked about the baby, and I agreed it was my first, that we hadn’t been married very long. It seemed safest to keep up the lie. Then one day I felt I’d gained her friendship sufficiently to ask a favour. I was carefully counting out the carrots, turnips and potatoes I needed to make soup, which I’d boil up later on the old stove out in the yard, fuelled largely from driftwood, that was shared by all the tenants. ‘Were anyone to ask after
me, I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention that I was living round here.’

She regarded me out of slitted eyes. ‘Now, who’d be likely to ask, I wonder?’

‘I don’t know. Could be anyone.’

‘And how would I know if it was you, in particular, who they were looking for. Do you have a name, girl?’

‘Yes, it’s G—’ I almost told her, but stopped myself in time. ‘My name isn’t important. If anyone describes me to you, you haven’t seen me around, right?’

She pursed her lips, carefully considering my request. ‘And how would you make it worth my while not to see you around when you come into my store every day of the week? My, that’s a mighty pretty shawl you’re wearing. Keep me plenty warm in winter, that would.’

I handed over the shawl, together with my thanks, then bought the vegetables and left.

It took the best part of a month but by mid-February, after much wheedling, I won Ellis over, reminding him there would be a doctor on board, so we’d be as safe on the ship as in this den of iniquity, constantly looking over our shoulder. At last he told me the news I’d most longed to hear.

‘I’ve managed to get us two cheap tickets in steerage,’ he said, excitement deepening his voice to an even greater richness. ‘We have two choices. There’s a ship leaving on Friday next, but since we don’t quite have enough money yet we’ll have to settle for Thursday the nineteenth of April.’

‘I wish we could leave right now, this minute.’

He chuckled softly as he kissed me. ‘Me too, but hopefully you’ll have had the baby by then.’

‘I doubt it.’ It was madness contemplating sailing so near to my time, and it seemed such a long time to wait, but nothing would stop me now. I had no intention of allowing Drew Kemp to so much as touch this child. ‘How much does it cost? Will we have enough money? Oh, I feel so guilty not being able to contribute.’ The few dollars I’d managed to bring with me in my purse had long since been used up.

Ellis enfolded me in his arms, pressing his lips to my forehead. ‘It doesn’t matter. All I care about is that we only have to endure this place for a few more days, then we will be free. I love you, sweet Georgia.’

‘And I love you.’

We carefully counted out the money in the sock, almost enough for our tickets, confident we could save the rest in time, including a sweetener to the colleague who’d found the berths for us. Then we went to bed and held each other close in warm contentment.

It was still raining the following morning when I hurried to the corner grocery store to buy some bread to go with the latest batch of soup – cabbage this time. Head down against the blustering rain I ran full-tilt into a bulky figure. ‘Oh, sorry,’ I cried, but as I made to step back, arms closed about me and lifted me from my feet.

‘Gotcha, little lady, at last. Now hold still and mind your manners. Your husband will pay me a nice little bonus if I take you back without any bruises showing,
and I really wouldn’t like to spoil the merchandise.’

I didn’t need to look into his face to recognise that voice. It was Big Billy. Only this time there was no sign of my little friend, Eddie the Weasel.

I should have realised that my husband would have someone watching me all the time, following my every move. Had Maura betrayed me yet again? I was transported to the house in the back of a fish wagon, smuggled in through a back door, then carried up the back stairs wrapped in a sheet and tossed on to the bed. I felt filthy and stank of stale fish, but before Kemp allowed me to make use of the bathroom he curled one hand tight about my throat and laid down the new house rules.

‘You will never, I repeat,
never
do that again. Understand? There is nothing that makes me more angry than being made a fool of. You will remain here, in this room, until I say different.’

‘You can’t keep me as a prisoner,’ I squealed, furiously defiant.

‘Oh yes I can. Fortunately, the servants, your family, our various friends and business colleagues are unaware of your little adventure. They believe you were unwell, that you took to your bed because you feared you were losing the baby, that you asked for there to be no visitors, not even your maid, as you wished to be quiet and alone. That is the story I told them, and you will stick by it. Is that clear?’