The River Folk (18 page)

Randolph cast a disinterested glance upon it. ‘Yes, very nice. Well, I must be off. I’ll see you at dinner, Edwina.’ Then he turned and strode away down the room.

For a moment both young women stood watching him and then Edwina touched Mary Ann lightly on her arm and said, ‘Come, it’s time I taught you how to outline this silk work with gold thread.’

Together they sat on the window seat, their heads bent over the delicate embroidery, but before her eyes, all Mary Ann could see was the handsome face of Randolph Marsh.

Randolph filled The Hall with his presence.

‘Whenever he comes into the house,’ Mary Ann told the Ruddick family one Sunday afternoon when she had been working at The Hall for several weeks, ‘it’s like a whisper runs through the house. “Mr Randolph’s home, Mr Randolph’s home.” And everyone scuttles about like he’s some god.’

They were all sitting around the table for Sunday afternoon tea. It was a family ritual that they all enjoyed. They exchanged their news, reported what had happened to them in their working life the previous week. Told funny stories or found sympathy and, often, advice for their problems too.

‘His mother indulges him,’ Bessie remarked, as she poured the tea from the huge teapot and handed the cups around the table. ‘In her eyes he can do no wrong. And since he’s a chip off the old block, as they say,’ she smiled and explained, ‘just like his father was when he was that age, well, Mr Bertram isn’t going to find fault with him either, is he?’

‘That’s not always the case, though, is it, my angel,’ Bert remarked. ‘Sometimes when a son is exactly like his father and they’re both strong characters, then there can be a clash of personalities.’ His grin widened as he winked at Mary Ann. ‘Mind you, with my lot, I know my place.’

Mary Ann smiled back. Bert Ruddick was what she would call a lovely man. Kind, generous, sensible and down to earth, but when it came to strength of character, then there was really only one member of the Ruddick parents’ incredible partnership that could be called ‘strong’ and that was Bessie. But Mary Ann was beginning to realize that Bessie was a wise woman. Whilst she took the lead in almost everything, she always acted as if she deferred to her husband’s wishes and she never allowed anyone to voice the notion that it was she, and not he, who wore the trousers in their house.

‘You’re quite right, Bert,’ Bessie was saying now. ‘But your boys respect you, don’t they? I’m not sure that Mr Randolph respects anyone.’

‘He seems very fond of Miss Edwina,’ Mary Ann put in. ‘He’s always very kind to her.’ She wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. ‘In fact, he treats Miss Edwina better than anyone else. Even better than his mother. He’s a bit . . . a bit . . . sort of . . .’ The young girl sought for the right words to express what she felt. ‘Offhand with her. Do you know what I mean?’

Bessie nodded, her mouth tightening for a moment. ‘I do. It’s because Mrs Marsh is so soft with him – always has been – and he knows it. Miss Edwina, now, she stands up to him. She sees right through him and won’t stand for his nonsense. So,’ Bessie shrugged at the perverseness of human nature, ‘he respects her far more than he does his indulgent mother.’

‘Do you think Miss Edwina will ever get married?’ Mary Ann asked.

Before Bessie could answer, Duggie said, ‘Didn’t you know? She’s waiting for me. Tall, dark and handsome. I’m just what she’s looking for.’

Bessie’s laugh rang out. ‘Dark, I’ll grant you. But as for the rest, well . . .’

Duggie laughed the loudest of them all. He was the shortest member of the Ruddick family, but his shoulders were broad and strong from his work on the wharves along the river. He was not conventionally good looking; his nose was a little too large, his jaw slightly too square, but his dark eyes sparkled with mischief and good humour. His black curly hair, an unruly mop, coupled with his weather-beaten skin gave him a gypsyish appearance. ‘I never liked school when I had to go,’ he was saying now. ‘But if I could go to Miss Marsh’s, I’d go back tomorrow.’

‘Aye, and it’d do you some good an’ all,’ his mother teased. ‘Mebbe you’d have got that apprenticeship at the engineering works you’re always going on about, if you’d worked a bit harder at school, m’lad.’

There was a moment’s silence around the table and Mary Ann held her breath, but then Duggie adopted a hangdog expression and pressed the palm of his hand over his heart. ‘Aw, Mam, cut me to the quick, you have.’ Sitting next to Mary Ann, he pretended to dissolve into tears and hid his face against her shoulder.

‘The truth sometimes hurts, lad,’ Bessie said.

Duggie raised his head, gave an exaggerated sigh and then grinned amiably. ‘Yeah. You’re right, Mam. Of course, you are.’ He glanced at Mary Ann and winked. ‘It’s me own fault if I’m going to have to work on the river all me life.’

‘You could do a lot worse.’ At once, Bessie sprang to defend not only Bert, but Dan too. ‘If truth be told, lad, I’m proud that you
do
work on the river. Much better than being in a smelly old factory.’

‘Ernie works indoors. You’re proud of him and his posh office job, aren’t you? Even if it is still only a stone’s throw from the river.’

Bessie opened her mouth to reply but to everyone’s surprise Ernie spoke. ‘I sometimes wish I was out on the river instead of stuck indoors.’

The whole family and Mary Ann stared at him, waiting for him to go on, but a flush of embarrassment crept up the young man’s neck. He looked down at his plate, crumbling a piece of bread between his fingers. Then, as if to cover his discomfort, everyone seemed to speak at once.

‘You’re doing well there, Ernie,’ his father said. ‘You stick at it, lad. Maybe one day you’ll be office manager.’

‘I envy you in winter,’ Dan grinned. ‘Nice and warm indoors. I’ll swap you, if you like.’

‘Can you get me a job there?’ Duggie joked.

‘We were talking about Miss Edwina,’ Bessie said, glancing at Mary Ann. Her smile faded as she added, ‘And no, I doubt she will ever get married now, if I’m honest, because I don’t know whether she’ll ever meet anyone who will match up to Mr Christopher in her eyes. It was a match made in heaven. They were ideally suited and were so in love. You could see it in their eyes.’ She sighed heavily. ‘It’s a cruel world.’

Now there was silence around the table for a few moments, the only sound the clatter of knives and forks against plates.

At the end of the meal, Dan stood up. ‘I’ll be on me way then.’

Everyone looked up at him and then Mary Ann rose too and slipped her hand through his arm. ‘Are you going to walk me home, Dan?’ she said, her head coyly on one side. ‘But I don’t have to go yet. I don’t have to be back at The Hall until nine.’

For a moment Dan looked embarrassed. ‘Well, I . . . er . . . I’ve arranged to go out tonight, Mary Ann. Perhaps Duggie . . .?’ He looked hopefully across at his younger brother.

‘Yeah, I’ll walk you back, Mary Ann.’

Mary Ann pouted. ‘You always see me back on a Sunday night, Dan.’

‘Maybe he’s meeting someone. A girl,’ Duggie tormented. ‘Oho, I’m right. Look at his face.’

Under their scrutiny, Dan’s face reddened even more.

‘Who is she, Dan? Come on, you can tell us.’

Bessie stood up and began to gather the plates into a pile. ‘Leave the lad alone. He’s big enough and ugly enough to look after himself. He’ll tell us when he wants us to know.’

Dan shot his mother a grateful look, but even so he said, ‘You might as well know, I suppose. I’m seeing Susan.’

‘Susan!’ came a chorus of surprised voices and Bessie added, ‘Not behind her father’s back I hope, lad, else you’re stacking up trouble for yourself.’

‘No, no. He’s given his permission. She was waiting for me yesterday on the wharf. I thought it was all over – for good – but it seems she asked him if she could see me again and he agreed. So . . .’ He shrugged and then glanced down at Mary Ann, seeming about to speak to her. But she, after staring at him in shocked silence for a moment, snatched her hand away from his arm and sat down heavily on her chair. For the first time in ages, Mary Ann’s hand crept up towards her face and, almost of its own volition, her thumb crept into her mouth.

She was aware that Dan was still hovering close by, looking as if he didn’t know whether to go or to stay. Mary Ann felt his hesitant gaze upon her but, stubbornly, she refused to look at him.

‘Don’t stand there dithering, lad,’ Bessie was saying briskly. ‘Get off with you, if you’re going. And you, Mary Ann, can stop that sulking this minute and come and help me with the washing up.’

But Mary Ann continued to sit quite still, sucking her thumb and staring into the fire.

Mary Ann walked quickly through the dark streets with Duggie trying to keep up with her.

‘By heck, you walk quick for a girl. What’s the hurry? Got a train to catch, have you?’

‘It’s cold and I’m getting wet,’ she snapped.

Duggie laughed. ‘Little bit of rain won’t hurt you. You ought to work outdoors in all weathers like me.’

‘Well, I don’t and I don’t want to.’

‘Oho, getting used to the soft life, are we?’ he teased, but there was no malice in his tone. Duggie hadn’t a drop of spite in him, but Mary Ann was in no mood for his jocularity.

She stopped suddenly. ‘You needn’t come any further.’

‘Our Dan’d knock me head off if I hadn’t seen you to the door and summat happened.’

Through clenched teeth Mary Ann said, ‘If “your Dan” had been so bothered, he’d have come with me himself.’

There was a moment’s silence before Duggie said, ‘By heck, you’re jealous. You’re jealous of him going to meet Susan, aren’t you?’

Mary Ann glared at him. Through the darkness she could not see his face, but she knew he was laughing. She could hear it in his voice.

‘What would you know about it, Duggie Ruddick?’ With that parting shot, she whirled about and was gone, running along the wet pavement to get away from him as fast as she could.

She heard him calling behind her, ‘Mary Ann, Mary Ann. Wait. I didn’t mean . . .’

She rounded the corner, and before her loomed the dark shape of The Hall, lights twinkling from its leaded windows. He wouldn’t follow her any further now. He would know she was home. Near the door leading into the kitchens and thence to the servants’ quarters, Mary Ann leant against the wall to catch her breath. She rested her head against the rough brickwork, closed her eyes and gave a low groan.

Now the whole Ruddick family would know of her love for Dan. Duggie was the last of them to be able to keep a secret. She could imagine him telling them all, could see them sitting round the fire laughing together at her foolishness. Maybe Dan would laugh the loudest. The thought wounded her and she let out another low moan.

‘What’s the matter? Are you hurt?’

Mary Ann jumped as the voice came unexpectedly out of the darkness.

‘Oh! Mr Randolph. No – I mean . . .’

‘What are you doing out here in the dark?’ He moved closer, towering over her. ‘Waiting for a young man, perhaps?’

‘Oh no, sir.’

‘Really? You surprise me. A pretty little thing like you must have a string of admirers.’

‘No, sir,’ Mary Ann said again, trying valiantly to make her tone sound prim. ‘Mrs Goodrick would flay me alive if I had a follower.’

‘Indeed?’ He paused and then asked, ‘So, what are you doing out here, skulking about in the dark?’

‘I’m not skulking,’ Mary Ann flashed indignantly, quite forgetting for the moment to whom she was speaking. ‘I’ve just come back from my afternoon off and – and . . .’ Ingenuity came to her rescue. ‘I – I think I’ve twisted my ankle coming up the path. I was just resting against the wall for a moment. I . . .’ She began to embroider the tale. ‘I felt a bit dizzy with the sharp pain.’

‘Pray allow me to assist you.’ The words sounded concerned and yet his tone held a hint of derision, as if he didn’t quite believe her and yet was willing to play along.

‘I’ll be all right, sir, thank you. If I can just get inside.’

‘You didn’t ought to put any weight on it, if you have sprained it, my dear.’

Before Mary Ann realized what was happening, Randolph had bent down, put one arm beneath her knees and the other about her waist and lifted her up into his arms. She gave a cry of protest, but his only answer was a soft laugh.

Moments later, they were in the room that Randolph called his den and he was setting her down gently into a leather armchair at the side of a crackling fire.

The room, at the far end of the east wing of the sprawling old house, had been the boys’ playroom. As they had grown older they had called it their den, where they could be alone together or where they could invite their friends without disturbing the rest of the household. Sadly, only Randolph now enjoyed its privacy. Not a day went by when he did not miss his quieter, more sober, brother, although not for one instant would he ever have admitted what he believed to be a sign of weakness – that of pure, unadulterated affection for another human being.

‘Which foot did you hurt?’

‘The . . . the right one.’ Mary Ann was feeling apprehensive. What if he could tell that she had not hurt her ankle at all?

Randolph sat down on a footstool and took Mary Ann’s foot into his hands. He unlaced her boot and gently slipped it from her foot. Then his hands slid up her leg to find the top of her stocking. Mary Ann’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t . . .’ she began, but he only smiled in the firelight.

‘If I’m to be your doctor, then you must allow me to examine you properly.’ His voice was deep and somehow hypnotizing, silencing her protests almost before they had begun.

Gently, he eased her stocking down and drew it from her foot. With strong fingers he gently pressed around her anklebone. His head was bent over her foot and Mary Ann noticed that his hair was thick and springy and that, despite his efforts to smooth it, there was a tiny, wayward curl behind his ear. For some irrational reason, she had the urge to reach out to touch it.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anything broken, nor is it swollen.’ He looked up at her then, his eyes, shadowed and unfathomable depths in the flickering light from the fire, the only illumination in the room. In little more than a whisper, he asked, ‘Where does it hurt?’