The Solemn Bell (28 page)
Authors: Allyson Jeleyne
Mrs. Neill scoffed. “Listen to him, manipulating you, even now. Broderick needs money. Suddenly, you have it—he knew before you did, and didn’t even bother to tell you. Is that the sort of husband you want? A liar? A cheat? He won’t ever change.”
Captain Neill’s mother and father tried to frighten her off. They used money as a weapon, but did not understand that Angelica wasn’t afraid of poverty. Mrs. Neill could keep her false generosity. Mr. Neill could keep his paltry allowance. The only thing she feared was losing the man she loved.
“This is supposed to be one of the happiest moments of my life, but you have ruined it. You are all miserable people, and you want everyone else to be miserable with you. Not me. Not Brody.” She forced her clenched fist to open, revealing the ring that had bitten into the soft flesh of her palm. Her knuckles ached, but Angelica slipped the band onto her finger, holding it up so everyone could see it.
Mrs. Neill choked on her own rage. “Stupid girl, I’m trying to save you years of heartache! He will take advantage of you again and again. He will waste your inheritance on drink and whores. Disappear for nights on end, and you won’t know which opium den to dig him out of. Tell me, what will you do when he takes too much, and you find him face down on the bathroom floor, lying in a puddle of his own filth?”
Captain Neill made a pained sound, as if hearing his shame spoken aloud was too much for him to bear. Angelica reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. She might be a slut, and he might be a morphine addict, but they didn’t have to stand for this. So long as they were together, they were better off than here.
“Brody, I would be honored to be your wife.”
She smiled in his direction, and his lips met hers. Their kiss was deep, passionate. Angelica didn’t care that everyone was watching. She was simply happy to marry the man she loved.
He broke their kiss to address the room. “Well, Mother, Father, it looks like Angelica and I are going to be married.”
His father called out, “You have defied us for the last time, Broderick! You have been nothing but a disappointment since you returned home from France. We should have left you in hospital to rot.”
Captain Neill must have known this was coming all along. “Yes, you probably should have. But, while you gladly pay for the doctors, and the drugs, and the experimental treatments to make me better—better to manage, I say—you cut me off the moment I find someone who makes me
want
to change. You see, I’ve given up morphine. I plan to be a proper, sober husband. And all because Angelica did the one thing you couldn’t—she loved me, even at my very worst.”
His mother sobbed, “You think we don’t love you?”
“Get out!” Mr. Neill shouted at them. “I want you out of my house this instant!”
Angelica stepped back from the man’s wrath.
Captain Neill angled her toward the stairs. “We had better start packing…”
But his father stopped them. “No, leave the clothes. Leave the car. Leave anything I ever paid for. I don’t care where you go, or how you manage it, but you will never take another penny from me. Seven years too late, but I wash my hands of you.”
“You would send my pregnant fiancée out into the world without so much as a motorcar to carry her?”
Everyone gasped—including Angelica. “Brody, I’m not pregnant!”
“Oh, please. If you weren’t before, you certainly are now.” He actually had the nerve to laugh. “And I, for one, couldn’t be happier. We finally have the chance to start our lives, and what better way than with a tiny, new baby?”
Angelica let him walk her toward the door. There was no servant to open it for them. As they stepped into the warm sunshine, Captain Neill took her in his arms and kissed her. Then, without so much as a word of good-bye, they set off down the gravel drive, hand-in-hand. If he was frightened, he never showed it. He seemed only light-hearted, and strangely optimistic for a man walking away from everything he’d ever known.
“Once we reach the lane, it shouldn’t be difficult to catch a ride into the village,” he said, swinging their joined arms back and forth in rhythm with his steps. “We could make it as far as Shrewsbury. Someone there is bound to put us up for the night. Then, I suppose, we’re for your place in the morning.”
“I’m not sure I want to go back there, at least not yet.”
He must have glanced down at her. “No?”
“You said we could have a fresh start. Home, for me, is not a fresh start,” she explained. “But
this
is. You and me. Here. Now. We could go anywhere, become anyone. We’re free! For the first time in both our lives, we are finally free.”
“If we’re going to be free, I don’t think I want to be Captain Neill anymore. That shackle has started to chafe.”
She understood completely. “I don’t think I want to be Miss Grey anymore, either.”
He brought their intertwined fingers up to his lips, and kissed them. “We had better try something else on for size, then. What have you in mind?”
Angelica grinned like a fool. “How about ‘Mr. and Mrs. Neill?’ ”
Brody laughed. “I like the sound of that.”
EPILOGUE
Brody called to his brother, and then jogged across the busy street to meet him. It was good to see Marcus again. He hadn’t heard a word from him since the wedding—but, of course, that’s how Father would have it.
He watched as Marcus gave his grimy, oil-stained uniform a sharp glance. Since striking out on their own, Brody had done the best he could to provide for Angelica. He’d taken whatever work that came his way, until finally securing a position as an omnibus mechanic. It wasn’t much, but they were able to get by.
“And the garage beats a damned desk job any day,” Brody explained to Marcus as they walked home. “I like working with my hands, staying fit. Keeping busy. Life in an office would be—to me—stagnant and stifling.”
He and Marcus turned the corner, and proceeded down a narrow street lined with soot-blackened row houses. Children played barefoot on the pavements. A tethered dog barked at them from its place on the stoop.
His address was in a humble, working-class part of town. The people were good and honest, and, after the initial shock, had welcomed the new Mr. and Mrs. Neill into their tight-knit community. Since he was gone all day, and sometimes during the night, Brody was thankful to know Angelica was at least being looked after in his absence.
It certainly wasn’t anywhere he’d ever imagined himself living, but it felt like home. Despite their poverty, and the hardships they faced, Brody and Angelica were happy here.
“This is us,” he told his brother. They stopped at the door, and Brody heaved it open. “After you.”
He followed Marcus inside, and pointed him into the dim sitting-room. The walls were papered in a hideous false damask, long faded from years of abuse. There was a fireplace, and a few threadbare upholstered chairs clustered around it. The uneven floorboards beneath their feet had been swept clean, and covered by a thick, coarse carpet. Besides that, there were a few scarred tables on wobbling legs, and a lone lamp in the corner. The space was cramped, but tidy.
“Have a seat, and I’ll fetch Angelica,” Brody said, carefully weaving between the furniture. His wife hated when he shifted anything even a hair’s breadth to the left or right—she’d inevitably bump her shin on an out-of-place table leg—and he tried not to make life in their tiny quarters any more difficult for her than it had to be.
He passed through their kitchen, stopping to hastily place the kettle onto the cast-iron range, and stepped out the back door. The bricked courtyard steamed in the afternoon sun, criss-crossed with lines of laundry hung to dry. Angelica stood over a vat of murky, grey wash-water, scrubbing and churning their dirty clothes. The whole place reeked of Sunlight Soap.
Angelica pinned his underdrawers on the line to dry. Her drab, second-hand frock clung to her sweating skin, but she smiled and chatted to the ladies next door. His little wife worked tirelessly. Even now, as her rounded belly had begun to show, she never once complained of their lot.
He stepped out onto the courtyard. She turned at the sound of his boots on the pavers. “Hullo. Markie is here.”
“Oh, so soon? I was going to change…” She untied her apron, and dropped it onto the basket of fresh laundry.
“No need. You’re beautiful just as you are.” The other ladies giggled. They thought it was sweet, and just a bit soppy, how devoted he was to her. Brody didn’t mind. He’d vowed a long time ago to always let Angelica know how much he appreciated everything she did for him.
Taking her hand in his, they walked back to the house. The kettle began to whistle as they crossed the threshold. Angelica paused to pull it off the stove, but he stopped her. “Let me make the tea,” he said. “You deserve a rest.”
She smiled—impatiently. “You don’t have to fuss over me, Brody.”
“I know. But I like to.” He pulled three clean cups down from the cupboard. “Go on. Markie’s waiting.”
Reluctantly, Angelica made her way to the sitting-room. He heard Marcus stand to greet her, his brother’s voice smiling and bright. They chatted as he shuffled around in the kitchen. Angelica had bought biscuits the day before, and he shook a few out of the tin onto a chipped saucer. Their meagre tea was a far cry from the elaborate affair Marcus was accustomed to, and, for an instant, Brody felt the sting of shame.
Ah, well. Nothing for it. He arranged everything on the tray, and then carried it through the narrow doorway. He’d rather live like paupers with Angelica than pretend to be a prince beneath his father’s heel.
She poured the tea while he settled himself into a comfortable chair by the solitary window, which was lifted to let the breeze flow. The thin curtains flapped, and from where he sat, he could hear the barking dog and squealing laughter of the children at play.
His attention was only drawn back to the room when he heard his name in conversation.
“…Have you had any luck with your inheritance?” Marcus had asked.
Angelica shook her head. “Brody is optimistic, but I’ve given up all hope. There are mountains of paperwork that I cannot read, and so many questions that I cannot even begin to answer. We’ve made the trip back to my house to look for some of the information, but it’s hours on the bus, and then ten miles walk from the nearest village…really, who has the time?”
The interminable process of disentangling Angelica’s inheritance was beginning to feel a bit like ‘Jarndyce and Jarndyce’. Brody could barely afford to take time off from his job, and when he did have an afternoon to spare, he was too damned exhausted to work on her case. What they needed was a good lawyer, but without Father’s blessing, they’d be laughed out of the family solicitors’ office.
Marcus cleared his throat. “I wish there was something I could do…”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Markie,” he said, finally. “I know what a devil our father can be. No use throwing yourself into the flames for our sake. Angelica and I are quite content as we are.”
She rubbed her tiny belly, and smiled. “It’s true. I can’t imagine my inheritance will make us any happier, though I do hope we get it someday—for the baby’s sake.”
Marcus sat with them for an hour, sharing tea and stories. His presence was a welcome gift for Angelica, who laughed as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She talked excitedly about their forthcoming addition, and spoke proudly of their plans for the future.
That, alone, made all his sacrifices worthwhile. Truly, he was thankful for his busy work schedule, and the lack of any ready money. When he came home each night, sliding beneath the covers to hold his sleeping wife, Brody’s old life was the last thing on his mind. Oh, he’d been tempted—at the very least, to join some of the lads down at the pub—but he always remembered Angelica, and the promise he’d made to her.
As their visit drew to a close, Brody walked his brother back to where the chauffeured Daimler sat. Marcus leaned against the bonnet, giving his bad leg a rest. He studied his younger brother for a long moment.
“I’m happy for you, Brody. You have yourself a lovely wife, a steady job, and damned if you don’t look healthier than you have in years.”
Brody shrugged, and grinned. “It’s not how I pictured it, but at least my life is my own—well, mine and Angelica’s.”
“You are a lucky man.”
The two brothers shook hands, bid each other goodbye, and then, finally, Marcus climbed into the waiting automobile. When his driver pulled away from the kerb, he leaned out the window to wave one last time.
Brody put his hand up as his brother disappeared down the busy street. After a few minutes, he shoved his cracked, grease-tinged hands into his jacket pockets, and headed toward home.
Angelica would be waiting for him. Together, they’d curl up in the sitting-room and finish off the last of their splurged biscuits. He’d kiss her, and hold her until she fell asleep in his arms. Then, he would carry her upstairs and tuck her into bed beside him.
He would get to do that—day in and day out—for the next forty years of his life. Brody Neill was a lucky man, indeed.
Brody and Angelica will return
in THEIR HAUNTED NIGHTS.
Coming Soon in 2017!
Other books by Allyson Jeleyne:
Linley & Patrick Edwardian Adventures
The Neill Family Saga
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COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.