Goodnight Lady (12 page)

Isabel was humming. The annoyance he felt at the sound was so profound, it made his hands tremble and his heart beat a tattoo in his chest. She was laughing at him. In his own house, dammit!

Isabel, brushing her hair in front of her dressing-table mirror, turned in her seat to face him as he strode in without knocking. She was wearing one of the lacy chemises that had come with her trousseau. Her large breasts spilled out of the tiny garment, showing dark pink nipples. She smiled at her husband. She had been expecting him and had purposely waited up until he showed himself. She watched the flicker of disgust as he eyed her bosom, and her smile widened.

Raising one eyebrow, she spoke softly.

‘Why, Henry, this is the last place I expected to see you.’ The inference wasn’t lost on him.

‘I want to talk to you, Isabel, and this place is as good as any.’

She interrupted him easily.

‘No, Henry, you’ll hear me out. You picked this room because it’s farthest from the servants’ quarters, so what we have to say you do not want overheard. Well ...’ she spread her hands, ‘what I have to say had best be stated in private anyway.

‘From now on there will be some changes in our marriage. We will still function outwardly as man and wife, I expect your full support when socialising. In public we shall carry on as the devoted couple.’ She allowed herself another smile at that. ‘But inside this house I do not want to see you unless I absolutely have to. You disgust me, Henry. When I think of that child ... the position she’s in because of you. Well, I intend to look after the girl, and when the time comes I want the baby. I think the mother will be happy, and the child will have every advantage here with us. It’s your child after all, Henry Dumas, and your child should be brought up in this house, as you were.’

Henry’s face was white with shock and disbelief. He took a step towards her and she slipped from the chair and picked up a large cut-glass perfume bottle.

‘If you make one move to stop me, I shall go straight to my father and Mrs Prosser Evans, I swear that to you. If you touch one hair on my head, or indeed Briony’s, I will bring such trouble to your door your life will never be the same. I want a child, Henry. I want a child so desperately I am willing to take on a street urchin’s brat. So now you know what’s going to happen.’

Henry watched his wife, breasts heaving as she spoke. The vehemence in her voice was more frightening than anything he had ever experienced. He realised belatedly that she had an iron will, stronger even than his own.

 

Briony was looking forward to seeing Mrs Dumas; she liked her. She liked the softness of her hands and the nice smell that enveloped her. At breakfast today Briony had eaten two boiled eggs, with thick bread and butter soldiers, and washed it all down with a whole pot of tea. She had woken from her sleep ravenous, content in her child’s mind to let Mrs Dumas take over her life. Her belly was much better, and the reality of the child inside her had yet to hit home. Her mother was still to get her money, Henry was already a distant memory, and her sisters could all stay at Oxlow Lane. Her three main worries were over.

Mrs Dumas arrived promptly at ten-thirty. Briony stood up as Isabel entered the room, smiling widely.

Isabel looked into the deep green eyes and smiled back. The child was far too knowing already, but whose fault was that?

‘Hello, Briony dear.’

Briony waited for her to seat herself before sitting down too. ‘I’ve ordered some tea. I thought that today we could get to know one another better.’

Briony readily agreed. As Isabel listened to the child’s chatter about her earlier life, about her ambitions and dreams and hopes, she felt herself relax. She would enjoy looking after the girl, seeing that she rested properly and ate well. Her health was to be watched with the utmost care.

Isabel passionately wanted this child’s baby.

Briony was five months pregnant and she looked blooming. Her face and body had filled out becomingly and today she looked a picture of health and prosperity, her hair tied back into a neat chignon and her feet encased in kidskin boots with tiny pearl buttons. She wore a blue velvet dress with a lace cape around the shoulders.

She was sitting on a bench by the boating pool in Barking Park, lifting her face to the weak spring sun. She closed her eyes as her mind drifted off to another place. Mrs Dumas had generously allowed her this hour’s freedom every day. A cab waited at the entrance of the park for her so she had no fears about walking home alone. Briony liked Mrs Dumas, or Isabel as she now called her, but this hour every day was Briony’s favourite time. Oh, she loved living in the house with them all, she loved Mrs Horlock and Cissy, but she craved her own space more and more as the days passed. The child had become more real to her, and she guessed, rightly, that it was the reason behind Isabel’s kindness to her. Because of the child she could have anything she wanted, and, being Briony, she used this to the full.

Hence the afternoons in the park without Mrs Horlock, Cissy, or that awful boy Mrs Dumas had employed to run messages. Briony shuddered as she thought of him, with his forever running nose and his big bulbous eyes. She had made Cissy get him a pair of boots because the sight of his callused feet sickened her. She knew she was being unfair to the boy. He was no more than eight, and his mother was probably glad of the few pennies he made a week, but Briony hated him. He was a reminder of where she came from, what she could be again, and he disturbed her for that reason.

She sat back on the bench and let her whole body relax. The child within her quickened and unconsciously she put her hands to her stomach. A tiny smile still playing around her mouth, she jolted upright as a familiar voice broke into her thoughts.

‘Hello again. I thought it was you.’

Briony opened her eyes to see Tommy Lane. He grinned as he saw her obvious surprise at his changed appearance.

‘Well, sod me! Ain’t you going to talk to me?’

His voice was deeper than she remembered. He sat beside her and looked her over, his eyes staying just a second too long on her bulging stomach. He took out a small cheroot. Briony watched as he lit it. He certainly looked different. He was dressed in a checked suit and wore a rather natty bowler hat. He was clean, shiny clean, and his hair was cut close to the head, with just the right amount of hair tonic on it. She was impressed. He was a very handsome boy.

‘Look, are you going to sit there gawping or are you going to talk to me?’

Briony grinned back at him.

‘You gave me a shock, Tommy. Last time I saw you, you was trying to save your arse. Now you look like...’

He took a puff on his cheroot and then clamped it between his strong teeth.

‘What do I look like, eh? A man of substance and fashion? At least, that’s what these togs are supposed to make you look like. The geezer in the shop said so.’

Briony relaxed once more and laughed.

‘Well, let’s just say you look all right, shall we?’

Tommy surveyed her once more through a haze of cheap tobacco smoke.

‘Looks like you got caught then?’

He motioned with his head towards her swelling waist and Briony put her hands to it.

‘Yeah, that’s about the strength of it. I’m going to be all right though, I’m being looked after by a nice lady who wants the baby when it comes.’

Tommy pricked up his ears.

‘I hope you’ve made a good deal for yourself? Nippers is worth a fortune. Especially if the mother’s a looker and ain’t got the clap.’

Briony looked so shocked Tommy felt guilty and tried hastily to make amends.

‘I didn’t mean that how it came out. But you’re obviously on the bash...’

Briony sat up straight. ‘Listen here, Mr Tommy whatever your name is, don’t you come and sit here and speak trouble into my face, I won’t have it! My business is my business, and I think I’ve said a bit too much to you already. If I want your advice, I’ll bleeding well ask you for it. Until then, either go away, or keep your trap shut!’

Tommy looked away. His face had reddened and he smoked his cheroot in silence. She was a funny little thing. He should clout her across the lug for talking to him like that, but for some strange reason he liked her. He had liked her since she had saved him from a nicking, and for that reason he would swallow her words.

‘Who’s the father then?’

Briony looked at him and sighed. He really was the nosiest person she had ever met.

‘A man.’

Tommy threw away the cheroot and laughed.

‘No! I’d never have guessed that! I mean, who is he?’

‘Never you mind. What about yourself? You’re looking prosperous, what work are you doing now?’

Tommy flicked an imaginary speck of dirt from his trousers and sat back in his seat.

‘I’m working for Nellie Deakins now... I was working for some bloke - a right villain he was and all. But Nellie asked me to work for her exclusively, and so I do.’

Briony was intrigued. Nellie Deakins’ brothel was something she’d heard talked of since she could remember. It was a standard threat to most of the children roundabouts. ‘You do that again and I’ll cart you off to Nellie Deakins.’ But she had never spoken to anyone who actually worked there.

‘What’s it like?’

Tommy grinned.

‘It’s not so bad really, Briony. She gets a raw deal, old Nellie. The girls are looked after, she gets a quack to them if they’re feeling a bit rough. My job’s delivering them around London to private parties and that. I only deal with the women though, not the little girls.’

His voice was thick as he said the last sentence and looked back across the park at the people strolling around the boating pool feeding the ducks. Tommy had hated the job he had first taken with Davie Dobson. It had sickened him to be expected to drag kids, some no more than six or seven, around London. Boys as wells as girls. Then taking the poor little blighters back again, their faces filled with fear and their sobs reproaching him. He’d kissed that job goodbye without a backward glance. He had gone to Nellie’s on spec, and with one look at the big strapping lad, she had employed him there and then. He had given Dobson the bad news through his friend Willy and had not looked back since.

Briony bit her lower lip. She decided that although he got on her nerves, she liked Tommy.

‘My dad took me to the house I live at now. Me sister went first and then me. I like it there, I’ve always liked it there.’

Tommy nodded as if he understood. And the funny thing was, he did. He understood only too well what an empty belly and a dead fire could cause. People sold their only assets, whether it was a woman going on the game or a man selling off a child. It was some people’s only way out. It had been his mother’s and his sisters’. He smiled at Briony and she smiled back. They were both aware of the other’s way of life and it bonded them together. Standing up, Tommy held out his arm and Briony took it. Together they strolled around the park and chatted. More than one pair of eyes strayed to the well-dressed young couple. Briony, with her brazen hair tied back, looked older and more mature; Tommy, with his new clothes and confident gait, led her around with the pride of ownership.

He looked down on to the china white face and felt a lurch inside his chest. Her green eyes were so trusting as they looked into his, he felt a swelling of his heart.

He gleaned from her that she came to the park every day for an hour, and decided there and then that he’d make a point of being here when she arrived.

 

Isabel poured herself a cup of tea. She had arranged dinner with Mrs Horlock and had set Cissy the task of hemming the remainder of the baby garments that she herself had made. She sipped her tea delicately, breathing in the aroma. Briony joined her a few minutes later.

‘I really feel well, Mrs Dumas.’

Isabel smiled. The child did look well. The walks in the park were obviously doing her the world of good. Her white face had taken on a rosy glow and her body, nicely rounded now, looked more supple somehow, more relaxed.

Briony took a noisy sip of tea and ate a sandwich. ‘I’m hungry all the time lately.’

‘It’s the baby, Briony. You’re eating for two.’

She nodded and ate another sandwich. She had been meeting Tommy every day for a month now, and had gleaned a mine of information from him. Although she was shrewd in her own way, Tommy had first-hand knowledge of the world and relayed this knowledge to Briony in plain and simple language. She took a deep breath and spoke to Isabel Dumas.

‘You want this child, don’t you, Isabel?’

The fact she had called her ‘Isabel’ spoke volumes. The older woman looked into Briony’s face, searching for the reason for the question.

‘I do.’

Briony smiled widely.

‘You can have it. I can’t look after it properly, me mum’s got enough on her plate as it is, so I think the best thing for everyone would be for you to look after it.’

Isabel swallowed hard. This girl-woman sitting opposite had answered all her prayers and she felt an urge to kiss the white face and embrace Briony in her arms. Instead, she nodded.

‘Thank you. I do want your baby, I want it very much.’

Briony, in her youth and her naivety, just smiled. ‘That’s that, then. If you have it, I can see it sometimes, can’t I? Not every day like, but now and then?’

Isabel nodded again. ‘Of course you can, and my husband and I will see to it that you benefit by giving us your baby.’

Briony patted her stomach and said, ‘I wish I didn’t have to leave here. I love this house, and Mrs Horlock and Cissy ... And you.’

It was a simple statement of truth and Isabel took it as that, but still she said, ‘I’ll give you this house as a gift once you’re delivered of your child. I’ll also arrange a substantial sum of money for you to live on.’