Lovers Meeting (4 page)

The cab waited outside the boarding house and the Entwistles got down, but the cabman went in and emerged within minutes carrying a portmanteau on his shoulder. He heaved this up on to the roof then climbed up on to the box and picked up the reins.

Mrs Entwistle wailed, ‘I hope everything turns out all right for you, dear.’ Herbert smirked and nodded agreement. He knew Peggy had paid her bill, had seen the money change hands. He would have most of that from his wife in a few minutes if he had to belt it out of her. He herded her into the house as the cab pulled away.

At the station a porter took the portmanteau and followed Peggy as she bought her tickets and went on to the platform. It was lined with passengers waiting for the train to London. The porter put down the portmanteau and touched his cap, but refused a tip from the young widow. ‘Naw! You’ve had some bad luck lately, ’aven’t yer?’ And when Peggy nodded he told her, ‘Put that back in your purse and save it for the little lass.’ He patted Josie’s cheek then hurried away.

Josie asked, ‘Will we live in a nice house in London, Mam?’

‘Oh, aye,’ Peggy replied, knowing she probably lied. But she knew Josie was unsettled by events, frightened and needing assurance. Peggy was going to London because she would not stay here where her heart had been broken. And in London she might find work. She believed she could hope for nothing from William Langley. She would take nothing and thought, To hell with him and his stiff neck!

Peggy had no one to turn to but she had to think of Josie, and as long as she had Josie she had something of David. She knew no one in London but she remembered, when she had been in service with the Langleys, hearing of a Monkwearmouth boy who had gone to London and found a job there working for a Mr Urquhart. He might be able to help her. If not, well, she would have to find something, and soon, because her purse was almost empty. She held Josie more tightly and the child clung to her mother as the platform reverberated with the approach of the train.

It came rumbling in at speed, the brakes grinding, looming monstrous, belching smoke and steam and giving off a smell of hot metal and coal smoke. Then the friendly porter came back and lifted the portmanteau, settled Peggy and Josie aboard the train. ‘There y’are, missus.’ Another pat for Josie then he was gone with a farewell wave of his hand. With a jerk and a clanking of couplings the train pulled away. So Peggy did not hear the boys selling newspapers outside the station as they called shrilly, ‘Dreadful disaster!
Blackhill
sinks with all aboard!’

That was not strictly true. While the
Blackhill
had been in collision in foul weather there had been a few survivors. But most of her crew and passengers had perished. And David Langley and his family had left her at the moment of sailing. Their departure had not been noted and their names were still on the passenger list.

3

February 1888

‘’Ere y’are, missus!’ The hoarse voice caused little Josie Langley to look up with solemn, wide grey eyes. Peggy started out of her worried abstraction as the conductor of the horse-drawn bus bellowed to her over the heads of the other passengers. As she rose hurriedly to her feet he went on, ‘Up that street there and then foller your nose like I told you afore.’ He helped Peggy and her daughter down from the bus. This was a street of big, stylish houses, but Peggy and Josie had to pick their way between the heaps of horse manure that littered its surface. The street smelt of it, sharply ammoniac.

Left to herself, Peggy would have walked and saved the fare, but the day was chill with a spit of rain and she was worried still about Josie’s health. The little girl seemed to have recovered fully from the fever, but Peggy was always conscious that David had left his daughter in her care. The bus had carried them from close to the lodgings Peggy had taken when they had arrived in London the night before. She had gone there warily on the advice of the cabman she had hired at the station, but had found the house comfortable, clean and reasonable in price. It needed to be.

Josie was dressed in her best, as was her mother. The little girl wore her blue woollen coat with its flounced skirt that ended just above her buttoned boots. These Peggy had polished until they shone. So did Josie’s morning face, framed by her bonnet trimmed with fur. Peggy had not bought black for her child, despite Mrs Entwistle’s obvious disapproval, because she had felt David would not have wanted it. But she wore the black coat and dress she had bought for the funeral because she grieved and because it was her best.

They followed the directions given them by the bus conductor and at the end Peggy asked the driver of a provision merchant’s delivery van, perched on his box of a seat behind his horse’s rump and smart in striped apron: ‘Excuse me, sir, but is this New Cavendish Street?’

He guessed at her illiteracy but touched his whip to his cap. ‘It is, missus. Which one did you want? Mr Urquhart?’ Now he was impressed. ‘Ah! Fine gentleman.’ And he pointed out the house then clicked his tongue at the horse and rolled away on iron-shod wheels.

The Urquhart house was tall and high-windowed with three storeys standing above the street. Peggy paused on the pavement opposite, hesitating nervously. Josie, holding her mother’s hand, pulled on it impatiently. ‘What’s the matter, Mam? What have you stopped for?’ But Peggy could not explain how much hung on the next hour or so, knew the child would not understand if her mother told her they would have to go to the workhouse if she could not find work. That institution would put a roof over their heads but its spartan cleanliness and pitiless regime were as bad as any prison. Peggy prayed silently, ‘Not for Josie, please, oh Lord.’ Then she took a deep breath and walked across the street.

A flight of wide steps flanked by handrails rose up to the big front door with its shining brass knocker, but Peggy turned instead to the narrow steps that led down to the cellar kitchen under the house. She tapped at the door there and it was opened by a girl of sixteen or so, a kitchen-maid with a mob-cap on her curls and a white apron tied around her waist. Peggy asked, ‘Can I speak to Mr Harvey, please?’

The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Ooh! I dunno. Arf a mo’ an’ I’ll arsk. Who shall I say it is?’

Peggy shook her head. ‘He won’t know me. Just say I’m from Monkwearmouth.’

The wide eyes blinked. ‘Where?’ The girl had never heard of it.

Peggy repeated, ‘Monkwearmouth.’

‘Ah!’ The girl mouthed the syllables silently, rehearsing, then said, ‘Awright, I’ll see if he’s in.’

Peggy knew what that meant. As the girl disappeared and she was left to wait at the door she wondered if Harvey would see her. And thought with weary pessimism: Why should he?

‘’Scuse me, Mr Harvey, but there’s a woman at the kitchen door arskin’ to see you.’ The girl, Elsie, stood respectfully at the door to the butler’s pantry, a small, neat room that was his office. Albert Harvey, at thirty-one, was a young man for his job but he had already held it for five years. He was tall and lean with dark hair and shrewd dark eyes. He sat at the little table that served as his desk, in shirt-sleeves and black waistcoat, but his tailcoat hung ready on a hook. He had risen a long way in the world but was determined to go a lot further.

He knew what it meant when a strange woman came to the kitchen door asking to see him. They often did and they always wanted work. He never took them on. Instead he looked for the staff he wanted and then set about getting them. At that time he knew there would soon be a vacancy in the household – today if he allowed the assistant cook to leave without working her notice; she wanted to join her husband in service in a house in the shires. But Harvey already had his eye on the potential replacement, working in a large house only a few hundred yards away. Still …

The girl’s mention of ‘Monk-wear-mouth she says she’s from.’ That was something different. And Elsie went on, ‘She’s got this girl with her I think must be hers; little thing, all eyes.’ That was different, too. The women seeking work never brought their children with them, to spoil their chances by whimpering or wailing.

Albert Harvey hesitated. He was a man of intelligence who reasoned things out, did not make hasty, emotional decisions. But now those two oddities of Monkwearmouth and the child made him curious. He said, ‘Very well. Show her up.’

Josie did not like the pantry, windowless and lamplit, but she liked Albert Harvey and smiled at him as her mother led her in. Albert found himself returning that smile and it was still in place when he faced Peggy Langley. Probably the matter was settled then. He asked, ‘What can I do for you, Mrs …?’

Peggy supplied: ‘Langley, sir. Peggy Langley.’ She started, ‘I’m looking for a place, sir.’ That meant she was wanting to work as a servant in a house. She went on to tell of her experience in the Langley house: ‘I think I’m a good, plain cook and before that I was housemaid …’ She told him of her marriage to the son of the Langley house but said nothing of William’s reaction. That did not matter because Harvey could read between the lines. Peggy explained how she and David were on their way to America when he was killed.

Harvey thought, That’s why the child is here. He guessed that, being alone and newly come to this city, the young woman would be reluctant to leave the little girl with strangers.

Peggy finished, ‘So now I’m looking for a place.’

Harvey did not mention Monkwearmouth; he had never made favourites for any reason and would not start. He had not been back there for over five years because his work kept him busy and he had no relatives living there now. But he remembered the Langley family, and old William in particular. He could guess why Peggy had not sought help from the old man, and while she had not pleaded he also guessed that she was in desperate need of the ‘place’ she was asking for. She was pale and her lips were pressed tight to stop them trembling; her hands in their black cotton gloves were clasped. And at her knee there was that small face smiling up at him.

He said, ‘As it happens …’ Peggy listened in a daze of relief, catching the phrases that meant so much: ‘A month’s trial … live in … wage of twenty-six pounds a year …’ He finished, ‘When will you be able to start?’

He was not surprised when she answered, ‘As soon as possible.’

He suggested, ‘Would the day after tomorrow be convenient?’

It would. Peggy had enough money to pay for her lodging for another two nights, but no more.

In Monkwearmouth, old William Langley was uneasy in his mind. He had settled down to work in his office in the Langley house but his thoughts kept turning to his elder son, his wife and his child. William was now uncertain. Had he acted justly? He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, saw it was mid-morning and decided it was time he walked down to the shipyard. He rose from his desk and strode out into the hall. At that moment the knocker banged on the front door. He knew that the maid had gone out on some errand so he opened the door himself.

The boy standing on the step held out an envelope. ‘Telegram for Mr William Langley, sir.’

‘I’m William Langley.’ He took the envelope from the boy and gave him a halfpenny.

‘Thank you, sir.’

William closed the door, frowning, and tore open the envelope. He wondered who the devil was sending telegrams to him at his private residence. They came to his office at the shipyard but never to the house. Some clerk had made a mistake …

He read the flimsy through the first time without taking it in – or maybe his mind rebelled against the news, refusing to accept it. He read it again and this time the reading was more difficult because his hands shook so that the paper shivered and the words danced. But the message was dreadfully clear: the shipping company regretted to inform him that David Langley, his wife and daughter had perished, lost with the SS
Blackhill
.

He said, ‘No.
No
!’ But he knew it was true. It all fitted. He had seen newspaper reports of the loss of the
Blackhill
, bound for America with emigrants, and David had said he was going to emigrate to America. He had said it in this house only a week ago.

William turned and walked through the hall and the long passage to the kitchen at the back of the house. The woman he employed as a cook, and the scullery maid who helped her, were working there but he told them, ‘Get out.’

The cook looked up from the dish she was preparing, startled. ‘I’m just getting the dinner ready—’

But William shouted, face twisted in pain, ‘
Get out
!’ And the women backed away from him, snatched up their coats from the hooks behind the door and ran. They left the back door open and William shut it with a kick then sank down in a chair at the big scrubbed table.

He remembered: it was in this house that David had been born and grown up; it had been his home. It was in this room that he, William, had denied that home to his son and sent him away. He had stood in the doorway to the passage, David just in front of him. His woman – his son’s wife – had stood by the table here with the little lass beside her and frightened out of her wits. William had seen that but hardened his heart.

He had been wrong.

And now he knew but it was too late, would always be too late.

He sat there for some time with his head in his hands, but finally he got up, walked back to his office and found paper and pen. He wrote a letter, without hesitation, just setting down what was in his heart. Then he put on his top hat and walked into the town to his solicitors in High Street East. There he asked Arkenstall for his will and attached the letter to it. The letter was to be opened after his death and was addressed to his son, James. It spelt out William’s remorse and asked, ‘Pray to God to forgive me.’

On his way home he went into the yard and sat in his office. There was work he could have done but he left it. Instead he sat looking out of the window. He could see nearly all the yard from that viewpoint and in particular he could see young James at work. He still had his younger son. He swore not to make the same mistake with James. Next time he would listen and give.