Born to Trouble (25 page)

In answer to the expression which had come over Pearl’s face, James said quickly, ‘It’s all right, honest, Pearl. We were looking in the window and she came to the door an’ asked us if we wanted anything and we said no ’cos we hadn’t any money. Then she come back with these. She said they were old and stale, and the manageress had told her to put them in the farthing bin but there were lots more and the manageress wouldn’t miss these.’

When Pearl looked at her brothers, she could see what had melted the cake lady’s heart. Their pudding-basin hair-cuts under their caps spoke only too plainly of a brush with the workhouse, and their thin faces made them look all eyes. No doubt they’d had their noses pressed against the windowpane. She glanced again into the bag and then smiled widely. Lunch was taken care of at any rate, and she wasn’t too proud to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially if it was bringing food.

‘How about if we go to Mowbray Park and have a picnic?’ she said gaily. ‘And after we could visit the museum and the Winter Garden.’ Admission was free, and they could spend the afternoon in the warm looking at everything in the museum and the antiquities and art galleries, and in the large conservatory adjoining the rear of the building called the Winter Garden there were tropical plants and cages of foreign birds, and a pond well stocked with goldfish.

It began to drizzle as they sat on a bench in the park munching their way through the stale cakes, tarts and rolls, but they didn’t mind. The boys were still heady with the excitement of being free of the workhouse, and everything was an adventure. Pearl, looking at the world through their eyes for a while, felt her spirits lift.

Once inside the museum the boys wandered around fascinated, and she was content to follow them, their happiness like balm on her sore heart. She held out no hope that she would ever see Christopher again – maybe his parents would make sure he didn’t return to England for many a long year – but that didn’t stop her looking for him wherever she went. She knew it was madness but she didn’t seem able to help it.

Patrick was entranced with the goldfish pond in the Winter Garden, especially when one of the attendants let him sprinkle some special powdery food on it and the fish almost jumped out of the water in their eagerness to eat. Pearl found a bench where she could sit down when the boys showed no signs of wanting to leave and she must have dozed a little; suddenly the museum was about to close and it was dark outside.

On their return journey, the earlier misty drizzle settled into persistent rain, and by the time they approached the Old Market in the East End it wasn’t so busy as usual in spite of the fact it was all under cover. The market didn’t close until midnight, but one or two of the traders were already beginning to pack up. Pearl and the boys hung around a while. There were bargains to be had at such times.

By the time they left they had a big bag of scrag ends and yellowing vegetables which would see them over two or three days when cooked slowly in the black pot Pearl had bought and which sat neatly on the steel shelf over the fire. The stallholder who had sold them the ageing vegetables had thrown in some pieces of spotted fruit too, and all her purchases hadn’t cost Pearl more than four pence.

She was thinking of their dinner that night as they trudged home towards the house in Long Bank through the back ways and alleys. She had some stale bread left from yesterday, and once she’d lit the fire and it was glowing nicely, they could have toast and dripping – that was filling. And the boys could have the fruit for afterwards. She still had a few spoonfuls left of the quarter pound of tea she’d bought before the boys came, but at two shillings a pound they’d have to eke that out until she got paid again next week. And they were getting low on coal. She squinted through the rain, her mind grappling with the problem of filling the boys’ bellies and keeping them warm.

They’d almost reached Long Bank and the smell from the kipper-curing house on the corner was strong as she became aware of the men behind her. Before she could react or even open her mouth, she was manhandled against the wall of the alley they were in, James and Patrick being grabbed from behind by two of the men, who had their hands over the boys’ mouths.

‘Don’t scream.’ The man who had pushed her against the wall wedged her there with his hand over her mouth, her bags having fallen to the ground. ‘It’s Seth, Pearl. All right? It’s me – Seth. I’m not going to hurt you.’

Half fainting with terror, she remained rigid against the slimy bricks. It was dark in the alley but she could see the man’s outline. He was tall with broad shoulders.

‘Listen to me – it’s your brother, Seth. Do you understand? And Fred and Walter. We’re not going to hurt you, but I have to talk to you and you mustn’t scream.’

Dimly she made out familiar features, features which she’d last seen a long time ago and which had changed, coarsened. But it
was
Seth. As the terror drained away she went limp against him, and he removed his hand from her mouth as he gathered her into his arms. ‘Come on, you’re all right,’ he muttered thickly. ‘Breathe deeply, that’s a good lass.’

James and Patrick were still wriggling and twisting like eels in their brothers’ arms but they were no match for the muscled men Fred and Walter had become. Nevertheless, as a kick from James’s hobnailed boots made his captor swear, Pearl revived enough to straighten and say, ‘Don’t be frightened, lads, they’re not going to hurt us. It’s your big brothers.’

Seth had let go of her and now, as Fred and Walter released James and Patrick, the boys flew to Pearl as she put out her arms to them. For a moment she stared at her three brothers over the heads of James and Patrick. She could hardly take in the fact that they were here, in front of her. After rescuing her younger brothers, finding Seth and the others had been next on her agenda. But they’d found
her
.

As Fred and Walter came either side of Seth, she said faintly, ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here, and why frighten us like this?’

Seth didn’t answer this directly. His voice gruff with emotion, he said, ‘It’s better you and the lads aren’t seen with the likes of us, lass, and if anyone asks – which they won’t, so don’t worry – you haven’t seen us.’

‘You – you haven’t escaped from prison?’

She saw the flash of white teeth in Seth’s face and his voice held amusement when he said, ‘No, lass. We did our time and were released nice and proper so don’t fret on that score.’

Pearl nodded. ‘Then why . . .’

‘The secrecy?’ Seth’s voice took on a rougher tone. ‘Pearl, when you’ve been inside for any length of time there’s not too many folk over-anxious to give you a job, not one that’s above board leastways. It’s dog eat dog and you either sink or swim. Me an’ the lads didn’t intend to sink.’

Now her eyes were becoming accustomed to the shadows she could see more clearly the faces of the men who were her brothers – and yet not her brothers. They looked – she couldn’t bring herself to say frightening – they looked hardbitten, but then of course they would be, with all they’d gone through. Now Fred and Walter smiled at her, their voices low when they said, ‘Hello, lass.’

She wasn’t aware that she was crying until Seth got a handkerchief out of his pocket, his voice gruff again as he said, ‘Here, wipe your eyes, lass, an’ don’t take on. There’s nowt to cry about. Against all the odds the six of us have survived an’ that’s something to be marvelled at, considering where we come from.’

‘You know Mam’s been dead these past five years or so?’

‘Oh aye, we know all about Mam,’ said Seth grimly.

Pearl peered at him in the darkness. The look on his face told her the three of them were under no illusion about Kitty’s activities after they had been sent to prison. Then he caused her to gasp and put her hand to her throat when he said softly, ‘We know about Fallow an’ all, lass.’

‘It’s all right, Pearl.’ One of the others, she wasn’t sure which was Walter and which was Fred, spoke now. ‘He’s been dealt with.’

‘Dealt with?’ she asked in bewilderment.

‘Aye.’ Seth made a sharp movement with his hand and his brother fell silent. ‘Look, we need to tell you what’s what, but it don’t make pretty hearing. Fred–’ he gestured to his brother – ‘take the bairns up the alley a bit.’

‘We’re not bairns.’ James’s voice was indignant and both he and Patrick had tightened their hold on Pearl.

Seth surveyed the two brothers who had been babies the last time he’d seen them. ‘No, mebbe you’re not at that, but can you keep your mouths shut?’ he said quietly. ‘Young ’uns have a habit of speaking out of turn.’

‘Not us.’

‘Aye, well, likely it’s as well you know, all things being equal. It’ll save any questions about this.’ He handed Pearl a brown paper packet which she accepted gingerly. ‘Look on that as a form of atonement, even if it is years too late.’

Her confusion and fear must have spoken aloud from her face, for Seth saw it. Moving closer but without touching her, he said urgently, ‘You got the bairns out of the workhouse by threatening Fallow, didn’t you, with what he’d done to you all those years ago? He told us.’

‘He
told
you?’

‘With some . . . persuasion.’

‘Seth—’

‘Just listen, will you? He went to someone, someone who arranges for things to happen. For a price. Only this man recognised the surname of the woman and bairns Fallow wanted out of the way, so he came to us first. Honour among thieves,’ he added with grim self-derision.

‘He – Fallow – paid for someone to
kill
us?’ She felt faint with horror.

‘It happens, lass, believe me. Only he caught his toe, see? He didn’t expect us to turn up and thank him personally for his blood money.’

‘Sang like a canary, he did,’ Fred said with chilling satisfaction. ‘Once we’d convinced him confession is good for the soul.’

Pearl stared at them aghast. She felt as though she was in the middle of a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. ‘You – you didn’t . . .’

‘He was rotten through and through,’ Seth said dispassionately. ‘He won’t be missed.’

‘You topped him?’ James and Patrick had been listening with avid interest and Patrick couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘How? Was there blood everywhere?’

‘Ssh.’ Pearl pulled Patrick round, bending down close to him. ‘This isn’t a game, Pat, this is serious.’

‘I know.’ The boy stared at her earnestly. ‘But that man wanted to hurt us, didn’t he? They just got him first. I think that’s fair. We didn’t start it.’

This was all beyond her. Helplessly Pearl straightened.

‘My sentiments exactly.’ Seth wasn’t smiling. ‘While Fallow lived, you’d never have been safe – take it from me. If it hadn’t been for Arthur putting two and two together, the three of you could simply have disappeared. Would you have preferred that?’

‘Of course not, but . . .’ She waved her hand weakly. ‘This is all . . .’

‘Forgotten. As of now. Right?’

Forgotten? How could she forget that a man had been murdered, by her own brothers and for her? And then she was thrown into further turmoil when Seth reached out and touched her face gently. ‘I’d have done the same thing ten times over if I could, once I found out what the dirty so-an’-so had done, lass. Me and the lads are not ones for preachin’, we know what we are only too well, but scum like Fallow . . .’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t have done anything else. Me guts used to turn inside out them first few months in gaol, thinking about how you and Mam and the bairns were getting by, but never in a month of Sundays did I think she’d sell her own daughter to a devil like him.’

‘Oh, Seth.’ What could she say? What should she do? He was her big brother and she loved him; at times there had been an ache in her to see him again because even as a bairn she had recognised the honesty of the feeling he had for her and the rest of his siblings. He was a good man. And then she caught at the thought in despair. How could she think he was a good man when he had just told her he was part of the criminal community and hadn’t thought twice about killing a man?

‘We’re going to disappear and you won’t see us again.’

‘No, please.’ She caught at his sleeve. ‘No, Seth. Please don’t leave us.’

‘It’s for the best, lass. There’s enough there for you to be set up till these two are out earning, and then some. And you’re canny, you were always canny. You’ll make sure these two don’t end up like their big brothers.’

‘Seth, no. Don’t go.’ She didn’t care about Fallow or what Seth had done, she only knew she couldn’t bear him to leave her again. Clinging hold of him she buried her face in his neck, shaking them both with her sobs.

He stood, stroking her hair and comforting her, much as he’d done when she’d been a child and he had been her only defence against a violent world. When he pressed her from him it was to hold her at arm’s length while he stared long and hard at her. ‘Lass, it’s a mucky road me and the lads are on, and the way I see it we’re set for life,’ he murmured thickly after some moments. ‘There’s no way back for us but you, you an’ them, you’re different. Forget – forget you ever had three older brothers.’

‘Never.’ She stared back through swimming eyes. ‘I love you – and you two,’ she added to Fred and Walter, who were standing silently by. ‘I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, the future’s different. We can all be together, we
can.’

Seth’s face was working and for a moment the tough mask lifted and she caught a glimpse of the boy he’d once been. His lower lip trembling, he said, ‘Let me do one thing in my life that’s decent, Pearl. One thing that helps me rest easy at night.’

‘Seth—’

‘
No
.’ The mask was back in place and as she tried to fling herself on his chest he shoved her roughly aside. ‘You don’t know what we’ve done, what we still do and it’s better you don’t. An’ I’m not bellyachin’, it’s how things are. You two –’ he turned to James and Patrick – ‘you keep your noses clean and look after her, you hear me?’