The Tide of Life Read online

  She didn’t come back at him and ask, ‘Talk about what, Mr McGillby?’ for she knew what the talk would be about, her and Mr McGillby alone in the house together at night. Although she was but sixteen and he old enough to be her father, people would likely make things out of it.

  An idea coming into her head, which wasn’t at all new but which she proffered as if she had just thought of it, she said, ‘I could bring our Lucy to sleep with me, Mr McGillby, that would put things right.’

  She watched him get abruptly to his feet, she watched his head shake definitely, she watched him pace the length of the hearthrug three times, before he stopped with his back to her and, looking into the fire, he muttered, ‘No, no; that wouldn’t do at all. There…there could be trouble with that woman, and your da; she was left in her care.’

  ‘Me da wouldn’t mind, Mr McGillby.’

  He turned to her now and said, ‘Well, all right, but I’d have to have your da’s word. When will he be back?’

  Her face was unsmiling, even sad as she answered dully, ‘It’s hard to tell, he’s only been gone a short while this trip, it could be a year or more, two.’

  ‘Oh, well then’—he turned from her again—‘we’ll likely have to do something afore then. But leave it for the present, eh? Leave it for the present. In the meantime, I’m goin’ to put your wage up to half a crown a week, and I’ll give you twelve shillings for the housekeeping. If you want any more you’ve just to let me know.’

  ‘Eeh! Oh thanks, Mr McGillby.’ She was on her feet standing by his side now looking into his face. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. An’ I’ll be careful, I won’t be extravagant; I’ll do the shoppin’ on a Saturday in the market.’

  ‘Aye, I know you will, lass. And I’ll see to the coal and the gas and oddments like that.’

  Her face had spread into a wide smile. There was on it now the glad look, her whole being seemed alight, and he turned abruptly away from her and went into the front room and closed the door behind him.

  She stood, her hands clasped tightly between her breasts, looking towards the closed door for the moment; then slowly she gazed about the room as in wonder. She looked from the horsehair couch to the delf rack; from there to the chest of drawers on which stood the old-fashioned pink china oil lamp that had at one time been used; then to the mantelshelf on which were three sets of brass candlesticks and a similar number of brass ladies’ boots ranging in size from a foot to six inches in height, and behind them the large wooden-framed mirror which was tilted slightly forward so that you could see most of yourself in it.

  She gazed at her reflection and saw that she looked happy, bubblingly happy. And why shouldn’t she be? Was she not the partaker of a miracle, and the luckiest lass on earth?

  Four

  There was talk, and not only talk but action, particularly on the part of those members of the chapel who, out of their charity, had prayed by Nancy McGillby’s bed.

  They came singly at first, the ladies generally in the daytime, and they questioned Emily as to her duties and what she did in her spare time. Some asked what time she went to bed, others if she had a bolt on her door.

  Although she told Sep of the visits she did not relate all that had been said. Usually he was very sparing in his comments, but one night, right in the middle of his meal, he laid his knife and fork down by the side of his plate and, dropping his chin onto his chest, he laughed as he said, ‘If it wasn’t in your mind they’d put it there. By God, they would!’ Then looking at her, he added, ‘I’m going to put a stop to this. There’s a chapel meeting on Thursday night and I’ll be there. Yes, I’ll be there.’

  And he was there. After he’d had his tea, and she had seen it was a nice tea of finny haddy baked in butter and milk in the oven, followed by a shive of bacon and egg pie and new tea cakes, he had got himself dressed in his Sunday suit, donned his hard hat, and gone out to the meeting.

  And all during the time he was away she was filled with a great unease. Chapel people had power, they could get people done out of their jobs, she had heard of it happening. Not that they could do Mr McGillby out of his job, but they could bring such pressure on him that he’d have to get rid of her. He had said he would put a stop to the talk, but could he? She conjured up the faces of Mr Goodyear, Mr Hailey, Mr Robson, and Mr Dunn; they all looked stern and strong but yet not half as strong as their wives.

  It was funny, she thought, but at bottom it was the women who had the say; at least they made the bullets for the men to fire, and the men, being men, had to be seen to be firing them. Half the men would never think of doing the spiteful things they did if it wasn’t for their womenfolk.

  She didn’t know quite how she came to her knowledge of people, only that, so she told herself, she could sense things. And she could sense that her master was in for a rough time the night.

  She hadn’t expected him to return until about nine o’clock, because that was the time he usually came back from the chapel meetings, but she was openly amazed when he marched into the house not half an hour after having left it. And when he took off his hard hat and hung it on the back of the door it made a loud sound as if he had clapped his hands.

  He came into the kitchen pulling the lapels of his coat together. It was an attitude that said plainly, Well, that’s seen to that. Then taking up his stand with his back to the fire, he said, ‘I did it. I put a stop to their gallop, I told them what’s what.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Aye, I did. You mind your business in the future I said, an’ I’ll mind mine, and I can do it without the assistance of prayers or nosy parkers. An’ what’s more, I said, I’m answerable to no man for me actions; the only thing I’m answerable to is me conscience, and that’s clear and clean.’

  She was staring at him, her eyes bright, when with a sweep of his arm, he pointed towards the sitting-room door, saying, ‘From the night I’m startin’ the way I mean to go on. I had to sneak a smoke when Nancy was alive, an’ I’ve kept sneaking a smoke since just in case one or t’other of them should pop in. Well, now there’ll be no more of that. So, lass, I’m going to smoke in the kitchen here. And—’ His voice dropped to a tone just above a whisper as, thrusting his head out towards her, he added, ‘And there’s something else I’m going to do. Do you know what it is?’

  ‘No, Mr McGillby.’

  ‘I’m going to have a drink of beer in the house when I feel like it.’

  Her mouth moved into an elongated O, then snapped closed, and she bit on her lip to stop herself from laughing, and he, copying her, bit on his lip too; then together their laughter exploded. They stood each side of the table leaning on it doubled up with their mirth. But like a tap being slowly turned off, it dribbled away and left them wet-eyed, looking at each other, and Emily muttered, ‘Eeh! I shouldn’t have laughed like that.’

  ‘Why? Why shouldn’t you? Look, sit yourself down there, lass, I want to talk to you. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for nights, tell you things, but I thought it was too early. But I’m no hypocrite. At least’—he moved his head slowly—‘what I mean is that from now on I’ll stop playin’ the hypocrite.’

  Emily sat down at the end of the table and, her gaze fixed on him, she waited, for he was sitting now looking straight ahead as if he were seeing himself walking back into the past; then quietly he said, ‘I’m only thirty-five, Emily, I’m still a youngish man. I’d only been married to Nancy two months when you first came here to work on Friday nights and Saturdays. She was nine years older than me an’ I let myself think that I married her because she converted me from drink.’

  He turned now and glanced towards Emily. ‘I was a pretty heavy drinker in me young days, and naturally I smoked like a chimney. Anyway, I met her one stormy night when her umbrella blew inside out an’ almost lifted her across the open space at the docks. I’d just come out of the Grapes, and she practically fell into me arms. I couldn’t do much with the umbrella but I took hold of her, an’ asked her where she was goin’. I can
see her now, hanging on to me arm and looking into me face and sniffing. I must have smelt like a hogshead, and, what was more, me men had been unloading an iron-ore boat that day and there’s a kind of musty smell comes from that, it sort of mingles with the sweat. Anyway, in spite of that she let me lead her home right to this very house; and then she asked me in. Looking back now I can see she had made up her mind the minute I grabbed her to stop her taking off.’

  He now wetted his lips, stroked his short moustache with his forefinger, then went on, ‘Well, she made me a cup of tea and she found out that I was a bachelor, and I found out that she had looked after her parents, and they had both died within the last three years an’ had left her this house, signed, sealed and paid for, together with an insurance kind of thing that brought her in so much a week, not a lot, but just enough for her to live on. She didn’t go out to work, she had a sort of weak heart, but nothing serious she told me. Anyway, that was the beginning. In less than two years she was Mrs Septimus McGillby, and in less than three months from the day we were married she took to her bed, not all the time at first, as you may well remember, but more than she needed to have done I’m thinkin’. She was a woman, Emily, who should have never married…You know what I mean?’

  When Emily made no answer he said, ‘Well, if you do or you don’t it makes no difference, you will some day. Anyway, she got me off the beer long afore we married but she didn’t get me hymn singing until the very last. You know what, Emily, you know what I’ve found out about life? Everything in it has to be paid for an’ through the teeth. I didn’t want Nancy, but I wanted the comfort of a house, the cleanness of it, and the thought of coming home to a fire and decent meals. You see, I was in digs in me sister’s in Dock Street, and you know what Dock Street’s like. Moreover, she owned this house, lock, stock an’ barrel, and all in it. Well, as I saw it then, if I married her it would in time be mine, so I married her. But God in heaven, I was made to pay for it! Oh aye, I paid for it, Emily. Mind you, I kept my part of the bargain, I was never other than decent to her. Now you can vouch for that, can’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr McGillby, oh yes.’

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Yes, Mr McGillby.’

  ‘Do you think you could drop the Mr McGillby now and call me Sep?’

  ‘Eeh!’ She shook her head. ‘It would be kind of funny. I don’t think I…’

  ‘Now, don’t say you don’t think you could…go on, have a try. It’s not hard to say, is it…Sep?’ He poked his face towards her, and she laughed and said, ‘No. Why, no.’

  ‘Well, go on, no what?’

  ‘No…Sep.’ Again they were laughing together but softly now, and, his head to one side, he asked her quietly, ‘Do you think me awful?’

  ‘Oh no! I think you’re very good. I mean you were to Mrs McGillby, you were always nice to her…kind.’

  ‘Aye, well, I tried to be; I felt I owed her something after all. Although mind, at times I must confess I was hard put to stick it, especially when I couldn’t have a smoke…I bet you often wondered where I kept me baccy.’

  ‘Aye, I did.’ Her mouth was wide now, her eyes wrinkled with amusement.

  ‘Come on then, I’ll show you.’ He put his hand out and grabbed hers and pulled her into the front room, saying, ‘Pull down the blind, I’ll light the gas.’

  When this was done he pointed to a small bureau standing in the alcove to the right of the fireplace. ‘That’s the only piece of furniture I ever bought. Do you remember the day I brought it in? Pushed it all the way on a borrowed barrow from Frederick Street, I did. It’s funny how I came by it. I was passing a second-hand shop, like Paddy’s Market it was, all full of jumble. I happened to stop and glance at the conglomeration in the window, an’ beyond it I saw the fellow in the middle of the shop open a drawer like this—’ he now went to the bureau and lifted the lid which fell back on the other half of itself to reveal a writing desk flanked by three drawers. He now said, ‘The fellow pulled this drawer open.’ He demonstrated. ‘Then I watched him put his hand inside, like this.’Again he demonstrated. ‘Then before me very eyes, like before yours now, the top of the desk moved slowly upwards.’

  ‘Eeh! Mr McGillby…I mean—’ She gave a little giggle, then said, ‘Sep’ as she pointed to the small cupboard, with drawers on either side, which had revealed itself. Then again she said, ‘Eeh! Who would believe it?’

  ‘I didn’t, lass, but like a flash I was in the shop and I said to him, the man like, I said, “That’s a neat piece of work”, and he said, “Aye, it is. I just came across it the day. An old girl sold it to me. Been in her family for years, she said. Hard up she was. And you know something? She knew nowt about this, the secret drawer, but I recognised the type right away, I’d seen one or two afore. Nice piece, isn’t it?”

  ‘I stood there nodding at him. Then I said, “How much do you want for it?” “Oh,” he said, humming and haaing, “it’s worth a bit.” I pointed out then that it was all knocked about round the feet and the top was badly scarred as if there had been hot dishes put on it.

  ‘That was easily rectified, he said, and he would take nothing less than six pounds.

  ‘“Huh!” I said. “Six pounds!” Well, to cut a long story short I got him down to five. Believe me, I wanted that desk so much, Emily, I would have given him ten. Aye, I would, I would have given him ten because me first thought was that I had a place to put me baccy.’ He grinned at her now, and she grinned back at him, saying, ‘I always thought there was a smoky smell in this corner, and the few times the missis was downstairs she remarked on it an’ all. She even asked if I had been having a fire in the grate on the quiet.’

  He nodded at her now as much to say, Aye, she would; then drawing one of the straight-backed plush chairs that formed part of the seven-piece suite up to the desk, he sat down and beckoned her closer to him; then as if he might be overheard he strained his face towards her, saying softly now, ‘I’m going to show you something else, Emily, something that nobody else knows about. You see, by doing it it’ll prove that I trust you. And I do, lass; I think there’s not another like you. Do you know that?’

  She blinked down at him as she felt the colour flooding her face, and she answered just as softly, ‘That’s good of you. It’s good to be trusted, and…and I’ll never give anything away that you tell me.’

  ‘I know you won’t, lass, I’m not the one to take long shots; I know you won’t. Well now, have a look at these.’ And with this he pulled open one of the drawers and tipped it up onto the writing pad.

  She was now looking down at a number of rings, two chains with pendants hanging from them, and two big gold lever watches.

  ‘What do you think of that lot, lass?’

  She said nothing, but shook her head.

  ‘There’s some money’s worth there, eh?’

  Again she made no reply, and so he said hastily, ‘I didn’t steal them.’

  ‘Oh! Oh no, I know you wouldn’t steal them, Mr…Sep.’ Her lips moved into a small smile, then became set again as she continued to stare down at the jewellery and watches.

  ‘I’ll tell you how I came by them. It was like this; it was after I bought the desk. You see the chaps come in from long trips, they spend up an’ they’re broke; and here and there one of them has picked up something abroad, cheap like. Well, to be honest I don’t know how they come by the things, I only know that they want to sell them. They generally find their way to the pawnshop. Mind, I’d been offered stuff like this afore, I mean afore I got the desk, an’ I refused it. Oh aye, I could have taken it to the pawnshop meself, but I used to think I might not get as much on the things as I paid the fellow for it. Do you follow me?’

  She nodded at him.

  ‘So once I had the desk and a place to put the stuff I thought well, why not? Mind, if Nancy had known, oh begod! I don’t know what would have happened then. Hell on earth it would have been. But anyway, she was upstairs tied to the bed, and I had me desk, and that�
�s how it started. Now take these rings.’ He lifted up one ring after the other. ‘I don’t know much about jewellery but there’s a stamp of eighteen carat on the gold, and I reckon they don’t put paste stones in eighteen-carat gold, what do you say?’

  She made a little movement with her head, and he stared at her for a moment. Then picking up one of the rings he said, ‘Try that on for size.’

  ‘What, me?’

  ‘Yes, you. Try it on.’

  She took the ring and stared at it. It had five white stones in it, and the light was making them dance. Slowly she put the ring onto her first finger and stared at it for a moment; then as if it were burning her she pulled it off quickly and handed it back to him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing, only…only it felt funny. I’ve never worn a ring.’

  He held the ring between his finger and thumb as he said, ‘Well, you will some day, lass.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so.’ She gave a little giggle.

  ‘Aye, well, there’s plenty of time, eh?’ He nodded at her; then having replaced the jewellery, he opened the drawer at the far side of the little cupboard and pointed down to a number of sovereigns spread over the bottom, saying, ‘That’s me private bank,’ and he stared at her for a moment before adding, ‘You see, I trust you, Emily.’

  Her face was red again as she answered, ‘Yes, I know.’