A Glimpse at Happiness (19 page)
He turned the glass over in his hand. ‘Two hundred pounds reward now,’ he mused, and looked up at the Tugmans. ‘Lucky Jackson doesn’t know about your cellar under number forty-two Burr Street.’
Harry chewed the cigar sticking out of the side of his mouth and glared at him.
‘Pour the sergeant another drink,’ Ma ordered.
The girl did as she was bid. Plant’s gaze ran slowly over her. She was a little skinny for his taste but she had a pretty face and nice blonde hair.
As she moved away Charlie caught her and pulled her to him with her back against his chest. With his eyes on Plant he slid one hand down the front of her dress and fondled her. The girl froze with a look of sheer terror on her face.
‘Do you want a turn with her, Flower?’ he asked.
Plant didn’t answer, just watched the other man’s hand move under the faded fabric.
‘You can have her here, or somewhere more private if you’re shy,’ Charlie continued.
Plant gulped down the last of his brandy and set the glass on the table.
Charlie released the girl and she darted away. He grinned at Plant and lumbered after her. There was the sound of scurrying and thumping on the stairs, then a sharp scream. Neither Ma nor Harry raised their eyes when the floorboards above started to creak.
Animals, that’s what the Tugmans were - disgusting animals, thought Plant. ‘I’ll drop by if I get wind of anything you might be interested in,’ he said, turning to go.
Harry snatched the cigar out of his mouth and strode towards him. ‘Make sure you do,’ he told him, the spit from his lips spraying Plant’s jacket. The oysters rolled around again.
Plant put his hand on the back door. ‘As I said, when I hear.’
‘Sergeant Plant,’ Ma said, as he was just about to step out to the dark night. ‘Remember that fifty pounds won’t do no one any good if they’re face down in the river.’ The harsh light above her showed every wrinkle, but her eyes were sharp. A shiver ran up Plant’s spine and dried his mouth.
‘Of course,’ he said, hating the slight tremble in his voice.
He stumbled into the alley. Across the way in the half shadow one of the local sailors was having his sixpence worth against the wall.
Plant turned and walked back up towards The Highway. St George’s church bell struck the half hour. He sped up, thankful to leave the Tugmans’ dirty back room. The constables would be on their points soon waiting for him to check them. He must hurry if he didn’t want to find himself at the wrong end of Jackson’s temper.
Within a few moments he reached The Highway with its tightly packed houses and shops on either side. He saw the first of his constables standing on the corner of Ensign Street and waved him on.
Plant pulled out his pipe again and refilled it. He sucked in a lungful of tobacco smoke and watched a couple of hansom cabs trot past on their way to the City. He shifted his weight and felt the five sovereigns in his trouser pocket.
Ah, well! Scum they might be but at least you knew where you were with the Tugmans, he thought, as he turned east and started along to meet the next constable. Maybe it’s better the devil you know, and all that.
Chapter Ten
Daisy set the tea tray on the table, bobbed a curtsey and left the room. Through the open window at the back of the house the sound of the children playing drifted through from the garden as Nurse supervised them for the afternoon. Josie heartily wished she was out there with them and not trapped inside with dour-faced Mrs Munroe in her widow’s weeds.
She exchanged a glance with her mother and, judging by the irritable look on Ellen’s face, Josie guessed she felt much the same. But there was nothing for it. William Arnold had been invited to take afternoon tea and he must be welcomed. Ellen leant forward to pick up the teapot but Mrs Munroe forestalled her.
‘Now, Ellen dear, what would my son say if I allowed you to overtire yourself?’ she said, grasping the pot.
‘I hardly think pouring four cups of tea would send me staggering to my bed,’ Ellen replied.
A tremor of annoyance passed over Mrs Munroe’s face. ‘Even so. Robert’s instructions must be obeyed,’ she turned to the man beside her. ‘Tea, Mr Arnold?’
Josie stifled a yawn.
It wasn’t that Mr Arnold was boring; in fact, by any standards he was a very nice young man, pleasant and accommodating, unremarkable to look at but smart in his dress and manner. It was just that Josie often forgot about him, even when she was in his company.
But it wasn’t William Arnold who was interfering with her concentration this afternoon, it was Patrick Nolan. She’d put her sewing into the china cabinet yesterday and then poured hot milk in her fruit juice at breakfast this morning.
‘Until you hear the full story.’ That’s what Mattie had said. But what story, and why should she care to hear it anyhow . . .
But she did care. She cared very much because, although she tried to pretend otherwise, she had noticed the change in Patrick’s voice when he spoke to her and she hadn’t mistaken the warmth in his eyes.
But where did that leave her? Nowhere. He was married, and that was the end of it. Or it should have been, but images of Patrick kept drifting into her mind and, even though it was wrong to love another woman’s husband, she knew she did. She loved Rosa Nolan’s man.
Josie glanced across at Mr Arnold, who was sipping his tea and - while Mrs Munroe and Ellen talked across him - gazing at her with a besotted expression on his face. Would he be quite as adoring if he knew the unmaidenly thoughts running around in her head?
Her mind raced on. What would have happened if Mattie had not come back into the kitchen? She had had the distinct impression at that very moment that Patrick was about to kiss her, and the thought that he still cared for her had unleashed feelings that she hadn’t realised she still possessed.
‘Josie!’ Her mother’s voice cut into her reverie and Josie jumped. ‘Mr Arnold asked you if you enjoyed the church’s Sunday tea last week.’
Josie shoved Patrick from her mind and smiled at the young doctor. He smiled back at her, his light blue eyes warm and eager, his pale cheeks still pink from his morning shave.
She’d noticed that, unlike most of the other men in the dock who only shaved on Sundays, Patrick was always clean-shaven. Despite this, the dark shadow of his beard was always visible, and she wondered what it would feel like to run her fingertips over the rough part of his face and onto the smooth . . .
‘I’m sorry, Mr Arnold,’ Josie said. ‘I enjoyed it very much, especially when the Sunday School children sang.’
Mr Arnold’s prominent Adam’s apple rose up and then settled back just above his starched winged collar. ‘I can see you have a kind heart, Miss O’Casey,’ he said.
‘I like to see children happy and fed,’ she said. ‘Some of the children from the poorest families are so thin.’
Mrs Munroe drew herself up. ‘Then it would be better if their mothers bought food instead of strong spirits with their housekeeping. Don’t you agree, Mr Arnold?’
The doctor opened his mouth but Josie interrupted
‘You are mistaken,’ she said, noting that Mrs Munroe’s lace cap began to shake as it often did when she tried to contain her annoyance. ‘Most of the women I have met on my home visits go hungry themselves in order to feed their little ones.’ She thought of Meg and her children.
Josie had been as good as her word and, after speaking to her stepfather, had found Meg a job cleaning at the hospital. It was casual work but regular, and a neighbour had agreed to mind the children for a few pence each week.
Mr Arnold’s face brimmed with approval. ‘Miss O’Casey, your compassion is an example to all.’
Mrs Munroe shot him a hard, sideways glance before her munificent smile returned. ‘Are you still thinking of joining the army, Dr Arnold?’ she asked.
The memory of Patrick’s eyes came back to Josie. She remembered how excited they’d become as he explained to her the shape and form of the animals and birds he’d seen on his travels.
Mr Arnold shifted forward and gazed at Josie as he answered. ‘I was, but I have been offered the chance of a practice not too far from here,’ he said, with only the faintest trace of eagerness in his voice. ‘My father, Sir Henry, went to school with Sir Gerald Morpeth who has a medical practice in the village of West Ham, a rural farming area just on the other side of the river Lea. He is retiring soon and looking for someone to take over. I understand there is a fine house with an orchard at the back of the surgery.’
Ellen smiled at him and Josie felt as if the parlour walls were closing in.
‘Cake, Mr Arnold?’ Mrs Munroe asked, flourishing the silver slicer at him.
Mr Arnold took the cake offered and sank his teeth into it, leaving a faint line of white sugar at the edge of his top lip.
‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘One of yours, Miss O’Casey?’
Josie shook her head.
‘My daughter is a wonderful cook, though,’ Ellen said, ‘In fact, she is quite the little homemaker. I don’t know what I would have done without her these last weeks. She has practically taken over the running of the house.’
The smitten young doctor looked suitably impressed.
‘And I have been adding those little details that are so important in proper society,’ Mrs Munroe said, smiling serenely at her daughter-in-law, before adding, ‘of course my son looks on Miss O’Casey as his own daughter and he has a regard for her future.’
For goodness’ sake, why doesn’t the old trout just tell him what Pa has settled on me and be done with it
, Josie thought.
In fact, why not just tie a big label around my neck with my price on?
, Josie thought.
In fact, why not just tie a big label around my neck with my price on?
She wasn’t a commodity; she was a woman who wanted and needed to be loved.
She cast her gaze around the sumptuous furnishings of the parlour, its china fireplace ornaments, the lace at the windows, and the chenille curtains hanging from brass poles, and let out a sigh as she thought of the full larder downstairs and how every bedroom had coals in the grate. But this was the way it was done. For all her mother’s assurances of wanting her to marry someone who would care for her, she knew that Ellen would not be easily persuaded to give her consent to any man without a sizable income or future.
Love didn’t fill cupboards or buy coal. Josie understood that.
Life had been hard - very hard - before her mother met Robert Munroe, and there had been many nights when Josie had fallen asleep with hunger gnawing at her aching stomach. When there wasn’t money for coal, she, Mam and Gran would huddle together for warmth in the creaky bed. Ellen had even crossed over the harsh line of respectability and sung in a public house in order to send Josie to school.
The memories of their earlier poverty haunted Ellen, and Josie understood that. But Ellen hadn’t married Robert for security or because he could provide a four-storey house with servants; she had married Robert because she loved him, and Josie vowed that when she married it would be for the same reason. She hadn’t actually got around to telling her mother about Rosa. Naturally, she had to pick her moment. Goodness only knew what her mother would say when she found out her unmarried daughter had been on an excursion with a married man. No, that was a lie. Josie knew very well what her mother would say and in undiluted Irish too. She might even forbid her to visit Mattie, which is why Josie hadn’t raised the matter. She didn’t want to spoil Mattie’s wedding.
As Patrick crunched over the cobbles of Wapping High Street in his studded boots, he inhaled the tangy smell of the exotic spices stored in the warehouses around him. It reminded him of loading the aromatic sacks of cinnamon and cumin and ginger into the
Seahorse
’s hold in Calcutta. It also brought an image of Josie into his mind. When he’d waved her goodbye that last time seven years ago in New York, he had been standing on the quarterdeck of that very same ship.
Seahorse
’s hold in Calcutta. It also brought an image of Josie into his mind. When he’d waved her goodbye that last time seven years ago in New York, he had been standing on the quarterdeck of that very same ship.
In truth, he didn’t need anything to bring Josie to mind because she was with him every moment of his day and every beat of his heart. Why else was he so eager to get home when she was there sewing with Mattie? How was it that he could recall every little detail of what she said and remember how she looked? And how he relished the pleasure he got from hearing that she’d spoken about him to Mattie and Annie . . .
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