Ruby McBride (37 page)

‘Eeh, I don’t know about that,’ chipped in Sparky. ‘There were Annie Heap, down Bolton way. She were a right tartar! Her first mate once come back drunk and she. . .’

A warning glare from Ruby made him clamp his jaws shut on whatever it was Annie Heap had done to her first mate, and Sparky scurried away about his business.

She
was ashamed of how long it had taken her to see through Kit; before her suspicions as to the true nature of his relationship with Pearl had finally crystallised in her head. And if it rankled just a little that the man she’d once believed to be the love of her life hadn’t turned out to be quite as she’d expected, perhaps the situation was entirely her own fault.
 

She should never have indulged in those foolish dreams. She’d believed with the optimism of foolish youth that what she’d felt for Kit Jarvis was love, when it was nothing more than the desperate cry of a child in need. Had she not been so stupidly blind, she might never have lost Bart. He would never have fought with Kit on the boat and he’d still be alive today.

This was a mess of her own making, for not being satisfied with what she had. So what right did she have to complain?

Outwardly, she tolerated Kit’s demands, his grumbles and moans, Pearl’s constant prattling and dedicated selfishness, and continued to care for them both as if they were children, and not a pair of adults at all.
 

She wasn’t jealous of their close friendship, only curious and a touch resentful perhaps that they should use her so, without even a thank you or any sign of appreciation, let alone love. Everyone needs love and privately, in her heart, Ruby continued to grieve for Bart, the father of her child. She thought she could cope, and go on in this way indefinitely, but perhaps she underestimated the effect of all this inner anguish and heart-rending emotion. One day, while working on deck with Sparky, she fainted. One minute she was swabbing and scrubbing away grime and muck; the next she’d keeled over, and was, in Sparky’s words, ‘out like a light’.

‘I knew summat were wrong with you,’ he said, wafting some air in her face with his cap minutes later when she finally came round. ‘You’ve been looking a mite peaky for weeks now. Months! You work too hard, Ruby, and them two selfish gits do nowt.’

‘Don’t! Don’t say it, Sparky. I’m a fool, I know I am. But what can I do?’

‘You could tell ‘em to fetch and carry for themselves.’

`Oh, I couldn’t do that. Pearl is my little sister. She needs me. Mam is dead, you see, and Pearl depends upon me. I’m all the family she has.’

Sparky gave a sad little shake of the head. ‘Nay, lass. That’s no excuse and you know it. You wait on them two like a chap wi’ three hands. You can’t go on like this. Summat has to give. They don’t even appreciate what you do for them - off on the razzle every night.’ He helped her to her feet and they sat on a coil of rope together, sharing a tot of rum.

‘It’ll warm your belly on a raw night like this.’

Perhaps it was the alcohol that loosened her tongue but suddenly Ruby was asking questions, the words spilling out of her mouth as if of their own volition. ‘This pub in Rochdale where our Pearl works ... what’s it like? They never seem keen for me to go with them.’ She made an attempt at an exasperated laugh, as if this were some silly foible of theirs. But a sideways glance at the expression on Sparky’s face, like a trapped rabbit caught in a beam of light, told her that he knew more than he was saying.

‘What is it, Sparky? I’m a grown woman. You can tell me.’
 

Gloomy by nature he may be, but never had she seen him look more miserable. ‘Nay, it’s nowt to do wi’ me.’

‘But it
is
something to do with me, and I thought you were my friend. You’ve just shown your concern, for goodness’ sake. Whatever it is that you know, I’ve surely earned the right to be told properly, by someone I can trust.’

‘I promised the baron . . .’

Ruby was instantly alert. ‘What? What did you promise him? You must tell me, Sparky. You can’t leave it like this, hanging in the air. What is it that you promised the baron? For God’s sake, he isn’t here to know that you’ve broken your promise, is he?’

‘Happen not, no. Eeh, can I ask our Aggie? She’d know what to do for the best.’

‘No, tell me now, Sparky, if you know what’s good for you.’ It was cruel of her to bully him, but whatever it was, Ruby needed to know the truth.

He began his tale haltingly, going off at tangents, stopping in tantalising places to sip his rum or make excuses that the details had slipped his mind, but in the end his meaning was all too clear. Kit and Pearl had known each other for a long time, far longer than they’d let on. Sparky finally admitted that the baron had asked him to make some enquiries, and he’d discovered that they’d been living together, as a couple, for at least a year before ever Kit had brought Pearl to the ship that night. Ruby felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. ‘Are you saying that all the time I was asking him to find Pearl, he was already living with her?’

‘Aye, that’s right. He were one of her chaps.’ Sparky could have bitten off his own tongue. He’d nearly blabbed too much. He started to back away, even as he nodded his agreement, desperate to escape and get back to his work before she started asking any more awkward questions, the kind which would lead to even more uncomfortable facts coming to light than were good for her.

‘And he didn’t let on because he wanted that pendant, didn’t he?’ The pendant had been yet another bone of contention between the three of them. Kit had wanted her to sell it and use the money to buy more barges, another way for him to wheedle his way into the business. Ruby had refused. The pendant had been the only gift that Bart had ever given her, and nothing would make her part with it.

‘You’re so selfish!’ Pearl had said.

Kit had brutally echoed her sister’s words. ‘That’s right, Ruby McBride, you think of nobody but yourself.’

She was glad now that she’d held on to her resolve. She understood everything now, how she’d been duped. No wonder Bart had been furious. He’d been trying to protect her, and she hadn’t realised.

As often as possible the pendant still hung about her neck, though during the week when she was working on the barges, she stowed it away in a secret place beneath a floorboard in her bedroom in Quay Street. She’d hate to lose it overboard. The single ruby was a reminder of what now, looking back, seemed to have been happier days. It broke Ruby’s heart that she hadn’t realised it before, that they’d wasted so much of their time in passionate argument. But then that had characterised their entire relationship. Passion.
 

Only at the end had there been any true sign of tenderness, but she’d still been too obsessed with her dreams to notice. And even then she couldn’t be sure of the significance of that tenderness. Was it out of love for her, or pity for her childish infatuation for Kit?

She could accept Kit and Pearl’s casual disregard for her property, but coming to grips with the realisation that they’d been betraying her all along was hard to swallow. The mere fact of Kit pretending he had no idea of Pearl’s whereabouts, when all the time she was probably occupying his bed night after night, was more than she could reasonably take in at one go.

Ruby thanked Sparky for his honesty, assuring him she didn’t hold him in any way responsible for not telling her earlier about all of this. It had been up to her to ask, not for him to decide what she needed to know. He’d kept his word to Bart, and that was important.

All that day she thought about what he’d told her, and during the long night. Throughout the rest of the week she watched Kit and Pearl and saw how close they were, how she was excluded from this private world they shared. Even then, Ruby was reluctant to confront them, to face the truth about how long this situation might have existed.

She decided, in the end, to do nothing and, apart from having to deflect some puzzled looks from Sparky, life continued very much as before with Kit and Pearl going out every night like a pair of giggling children. As usual, Ruby stayed on board to look after the boat, deal with the washing and housework, mind little Tommy, and cook all the meals. She was utterly exhausted but had no wish to upset the apple cart of her dreams entirely. She’d waited years to have Pearl back with her. How could she deprive her sister of the first decent home she’d ever had? It would be too cruel. Didn’t she deserve a little mothering at last?

But then Ruby recalled what Sparky had told her, about the pair having known each other for a long time, and suddenly it seemed as if the whole plan must have been calculated from the start.

But how could it have been? Wouldn’t that mean they’d intended all along to dispose of Bart? Ruby’s mind balked at the thought. Now she really was allowing her imagination to run away with her. Kit might be foolish and selfish, he might be a weak male where Pearl’s charms were concerned, but that surely didn’t make him guilty of premeditated murder?

Kit was heartily fed up. He’d lost all patience with waiting for Ruby to come up with the goods. She seemed stubbornly determined to hang on to everything herself: control of the barges, the house they lived in, the baron’s possessions, even that flaming pendant which could bring in a bob or two. She also had the cheek to pay him a wage, as if he were no more than an employee and not an equal partner. Kit hated the feeling of being beholden to anyone, least of all a woman. That hadn’t been his plan at all. He’d expected her to go along with his schemes, as she had done when she was a girl. Selfish, Pearl called her, and he was beginning to think she might be right. At first he’d argued that Ruby was only suffering from a sense of guilt, that she was simply being overcautious, absolutely certain he could win her round in the end.

But she was turning into a veritable nag, constantly asking him questions. Where was he off to tonight? Which pub was it? When was it, exactly, that he’d first met Pearl? He was beginning to grow tired of being interrogated. Worse than the rozzers she was. Anyone would think she didn’t trust him. It came to him one day that perhaps he’d been too patient. She was having him for a fool. He had a right to his fair share of the baron’s business, which she wouldn’t have had at all were it not for him.

He knew where she kept the pendant. He’d secretly watched as she hid it away, just as if she were afraid someone might steal it. Kit prised up the board and lifted it out. He smiled to himself. Well, somebody just had. Never miss an opportunity, hadn’t that always been his motto?

With a swagger of self confidence at his own cleverness, he took the gem to Samuel, the pawnbroker on Liverpool Road. The old man refused to touch it.
 

‘How would you come by such a gem honestly? It must be hot.’
 

Kit took it to another shop further along the road, and another, and the one after that. The reaction was always the same. Either they wouldn’t handle the jewel at all, or they offered him a derisory sum, far below its true worth, to offset the risks involved. Kit was annoyed and excited all at the same time. Pleased that it was genuinely valuable, but irritated and frustrated when he couldn’t find anybody to touch it.

It was a mate of his who, quite inadvertently, offered a solution. Kit had idly asked him where he would go if he’d come by an item of some value which a normal pawnbroker wouldn’t take. And he’d given a harsh little laugh and said, ‘The only one with any brass round here is Pickering. Sell it to him, whatever it is. If he can’t afford it, nobody can.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dressed in his cleanest trousers and jacket, with his Sunday bowler clutched respectfully in his hand, since he didn’t want to be mistaken for anything less than an honest merchant or artisan fallen on hard times, Kit stood in Pickering’s office, acutely aware of the weight of the pendant in his pocket. The great man himself was seated behind his mahogany desk, a fat cigar clenched between his teeth and a sour expression on his bony face. ‘I hope you aren’t intending to waste my time, young man. I’ve better things to do than sit hear listening to the likes of you prattle on over some misconceived complaint or other.’

Oh, I reckon you might be interested in what I have to show you,’ Kit remarked, and laid the pendant on the blotter before him. Pickering’s reaction was astounding. The cigar fell from his mouth and had to be rescued before it set fire to his trousers, and his face turned every shade of purple, his lips going almost blue.

‘Where the blazes did you find that?’

‘I didn’t find it. It belongs to a friend of mine. She’s been left a widow and this is the only item of any real value left to her by her husband.’

‘Don’t lie to me, man. I’m no fool. If you’ve stolen it, I could have you arrested.’ Not that he would, Pickering thought. Hadn’t he long dreamed of holding this pendant in his hands once again?

Kit was blustering, showing outrage at the very idea he might have stolen it
. ‘I never did no such thing,’ he lied. ‘I told you, her husband give her this trinket, and now he’s a goner. Dead as a door nail. Hard cash would’ve been more useful since she has a kid to think of, and I’ve promised to deal with the matter for her.’