Читать книгу Hunter’s Moon - Alexandra Connor - Страница 24

It was well known that the stupidest family in Salford were the Booths. Rumour had it that Mr Terence Booth – who worked at the UCP tripe shop – volunteered for the German army when he was called up. As for his wife, Lettie Booth, she made dresses – cheap ones for the mill girls and the women in the surroundings streets who couldn’t afford 11/9d for a summer frock from the Co-op. So Lettie codged up some pretty nifty designs with end of rolls from Tommy Field’s market. But she sold them too cheaply, hardly making a profit and working like a dray horse constantly to make ends meet.

Lettie was a master on the sewing machine, but otherwise semiliterate. Small, with a short-sighted stare, only she could see something fanciable in her husband, a redhead with jug ears. It was inevitable that they married, and before five years were out, they had had three little Booths, all red-headed, all jug-eared and all impressively stupid.

The Booths lived in Trafalgar Street, just a few rows from the town centre. Two doors away from their poky terrace house lived the Hopes, fierce as Huguenot martyrs, and in between lived a solitary single woman, called Alice Rimmer. She had moved into the rented accommodation a week or so before and was apparently ill.

‘I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her,’ Lettie said to her husband, who was holding a sheet of newspaper up to the fire to set it going. The summer heat had gone, Northern chill in its place. ‘D’you suppose she’s all right?’

The fire took suddenly and lit the bottom of Terence’s newspaper. He jumped back, Lettie beating down the flames with her apron. He was left holding half of a sheet of smouldering paper, the fire roaring in the grate.

‘Good blaze.’

Lettie nodded. The fact that it had nearly taken the house with it didn’t seem to occur to her.

‘Well, what d’you think?’

‘I think it’s a good blaze –’

‘About the girl next door?’

Terence frowned. ‘Maybe she’s shy.’

‘Oh yes, maybe that’s it,’ Lettie replied thoughtfully. Trust Terence, he could always get to the nub of the problem. ‘Perhaps I should call round on her.’

‘Best leave it at the moment,’ the oracle replied, puffed up with his own wisdom. ‘What’s for tea?’

Anna Hope was looking at her husband, Mr Hope. She never called him by his first name – no one did. It was Mr Hope to everyone, even to her, and that was fine. He was brushing down his old-fashioned suit and about to return to work, his stern expression never lifting as he then turned and examined the papers in his cheap briefcase. Church work. Or was it work for the Oldham MP? Anna wasn’t bothered, as long as it got her husband out of the house

In silence she waited until he had finished reading, cleared his throat and checked his image in the mirror. A dark moustache, neatly trimmed, gave him a faintly rakish look, quite at odds with his serious demeanour. The moustache had been the thing which had first attracted Anna to him, and the thing that had made her mother suspicious.

‘Never trust a man with a moustache,’ she had said warningly. ‘They chase the girls.’

Well, Anna didn’t like to contradict her mother, but Mr Hope wasn’t the type to chase girls; didn’t like them as a race, thought them flighty, empty-headed. Which was why he liked his wife. Anna was stern, unbending, a lady down to her corsets.

‘I’ll be home after seven,’ he pronounced, extending his cheek to his wife to be dutifully pecked. ‘Thank you for dinner, my dear.’

His accent was Northern, but affected in the vowels by many years of sucking up to richer, more powerful people. At thirty, Mr Hope had thought he would be someone; at forty he had started to get nervous; and at fifty he was now certain that he was doomed to the life of a gofer. Mr No Hope, Anna called him. But never to his face.

‘I saw the girl who moved into next door,’ Anna said suddenly. ‘Looks flighty.’

Mr Hope was pleased to hear it. After all, what would a decent girl be doing living alone?

‘I think you should stay away from her,’ he said warningly. ‘No point mixing with the wrong sort.’

Anna nodded, turned her wheelchair to the front door and let her husband out. She stood watching him until his stiff little figure had busied itself off round the corner and then moved back indoors, resting her ear against the adjoining wall to see if she could hear any signs of life from her neighbour.

At that moment Alice was sitting staring at an empty fire grate. She had sat there on and off for days, only moving to do the necessary functions of living. Otherwise she remained immobile and didn’t care what happened to her. The house had been rented by Victor, who was still working out his apprenticeship at Mr Dedlington’s. He had asked for an advance on his wage and was granted it – along with a warning that it was the first and last time.

The night that Alice had left Netherlands, Victor had followed, catching up with her in Dudley Street.

‘Wait for me!’ he had called after her, running to her side. ‘Alice, where are you going?’

‘Does it matter?’

Her face had been devoid of expression and his heart had shifted. The appalling truth – coming so cruelly – had shaken him, but it had not affected the way he felt about Alice. They would marry, he decided. It was sooner rather than later, but they could manage somehow. They would have to.

‘Alice, don’t run away from me. This changes nothing –’

‘It changes everything,’ she’d replied dully. ‘You don’t want me, not now.’

‘I love you.’

She had hung her head, weary with shock. ‘David Lewes. My father …’ She’d turned to Victor. ‘I have to find out more –’

‘Why!’ he had snapped, unusually impatient. ‘It’ll do you no good.’

‘So what do I do? Forget it? Forget what he said –’

‘It could have been a lie.’

Alice had shaken her head. ‘Oh no, that was no lie. Didn’t you see Clare Lees’ face? She’s known all along.’ Her voice had dropped. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Marry me.’

‘What! No, I have to work things out. I can’t let you carry me. You have to think about it, Victor, think about what I am. What this means.’

He’d caught hold of her and pulled her to him. ‘It means nothing. Nothing.’

So she had allowed Victor to lead her to Mr Dedlington’s house, where he’d knocked his employer – and his wife – up. They had been surprised to see the two young people on their doorstep, but too kindly to turn them away. Instead, the Dedlingtons had listened to Victor’s story and Mrs Dedlington had tut-tutted, put a blanket around Alice’s shoulders, and made tea. Mr Dedlington, who had been touched by the tale, had given Victor the address of a friend of his and by midnight the small house on Trafalgar Street had been opened up for them.

‘No funny business, mind you,’ Mr Dedlington had warned Victor as he’d been handed the key. ‘I won’t have my kindness thrown in my face. Your young lady can stay here – but you can bunk up on our couch until you’re wed.’

Victor had shaken Mr Dedlington’s hand. ‘You won’t regret this. I’ll make up for it.’

‘Well, see that you do,’ the older man had replied, not unkindly. ‘I’ll have Miss Lees down my back in the morning and if I’m to help you, you have to help yourself. It’s a messy business, lad.’

He nodded, but his voice was steady. ‘I’m going to marry Alice. Everything will work out, honestly it will.’

Mr Dedlington had looked into the young face and sighed. ‘Do you know about the Lewes case?’

Victor had shaken his head.

‘Well, lad, just so you’re aware what you’re getting yourself into … It were a long time ago, up at Werneth Heights. The Arnold family were very rich – big landowners – and the father had his fingers in more than one pie. He had two daughters, Dorothy and Catherine. David Lewes married Catherine. She was highly strung, very handsome, and they had two children –’

‘Alice,’ Victor had whispered.

Mr Dedlington had nodded. ‘Aye, Alice and a boy. I never knew his name. They were only little when the tragedy happened.’

Victor had been watching his face carefully. ‘What happened?’

‘David Lewes killed his wife one night and ran off. The girl was sent away –’

‘Why?’

Mr Dedlington had shrugged. ‘Gossip said that she were too like her father to look at, and the old man wanted her out of the way. No reminders, like. Until now no one knew where she went.’

Victor had frowned, trying to take it all in. ‘What about Alice’s brother?’

‘He stayed with his grandparents. They brought him up at first, then his aunt – Dorothy – married and brought up the kid as her own.’

‘But how could they give away one child and not the other?’

Mr Dedlington had shaken his head. ‘Who knows? Maybe she were too like David Lewes. Anyway, the old man, Judge Arnold –’

‘He was a judge!’

‘Nah, it were just a name for him. He were on the bench, a magistrate, a right hard bugger. More clout than he should have had, but money bought him that. No one could touch the Arnolds, so after the tragedy the family closed ranks and moved away. Went abroad for a few years. Maybe old man Arnold thought that the girl was tarnished with the same brush as her father, so best palm her off. Get her out of the family once and for all.’

Staggered, Victor had looked at the older man. ‘But someone was bound to find out sooner or later?’

‘And do what? I’ve told you, the Arnolds had – still have – money and power. There’s no law that stops you giving away your granddaughter.’

‘But what about David Lewes?’

Mr Dedlington had shrugged his shoulders. ‘There were rumours flying round – he was mad, he was dead. Some said that the family had him sent out of the country. But no one knew for sure. No one ever knew. The case was scandalous, headline news – but only for a short while. Judge Arnold must have pulled some big strings, because it were hushed up fast. It was gossip all over town, all over the county one day. The next, silence. Whatever happened to David Lewes no one knows for sure. And if I know anything about old man Arnold no one ever will.’ Mr Dedlington’s wrinkled face had softened. ‘You know what you’ve got yourself into, lad, don’t you?’

Victor had nodded, his face set. ‘I think so.’

‘Well, my advice would be to let the past rest. Marry the lass and have your own children. Forget David Lewes and the Arnolds. Forget the past. There’s only misery there. Nothing else.’

When Victor told Alice what his employer had said he left two things out – that she had a brother and that no one really knew what had happened to her father. Better to let her presume that David Lewes was dead and that there had been no siblings. Otherwise he knew that she would never settle until she had found them.

But Alice was in no state to find anyone. And now she was staring ahead, remembering what Victor had told her and wondering when she would find the energy to live again. The terror and humiliation of her last night at Netherlands had shattered her, Clare Lees’ words stamping into her brain so deeply that Alice thought she would never stop hearing them – You should be in the dirt. That’s where you came from – and where you belong.

Victor was being so kind, Alice thought. He had put his head on the line and was certain that he had the future all mapped out. But she wasn’t so certain. Alice shifted in her seat, looking ahead. She had to get out and find a job, make money. It wasn’t fair that Victor was doing all the hard work. She was going to be his wife soon; it was her duty to help him.

Her duty … Alice rose to her feet and paced the tiny kitchen. The house was cramped, and damp from not having been used for months. What furniture there was had been second- or third-hand, culled from skips and house clearances. The surfaces, once polished, were dull, the only mirror fly-spotted and cracked over the blackened kitchen range.

The place chilled Alice to the soul. She would have to get out, go for a walk – do anything, but stop staring at the same bare floor and faded distempered walls. When Victor was there it was different; she could hold on to him and forget reality. But alone, the place swamped her.

Hurriedly Alice pulled on her coat and walked out into Trafalgar Street, scurrying past as she heard her neighbour open the door.

But she was too slow. Lettie Booth shouted out a greeting.

Reluctantly, Alice turned. ‘Hello.’

‘Oh, hello, luv,’ Lettie replied, the thick lenses of her glasses magnifying pale, weak eyes. ‘I were coming round to see you later. See you were all right.’

‘I’m fine,’ Alice said quietly.

‘Going for a walk?’

She nodded, tried to move off. But Lettie stopped her, too stupid to see that she didn’t want to talk.

‘I know what trouble’s like, been in plenty myself. Oh, not that I’m saying you’re in trouble. But if you were, there’s always a willing ear next door for you. You’re so young and so pretty …’ Lettie dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘You needn’t worry about clothes.’

Alice frowned. ‘What?’

‘Clothes,’ Lettie repeated dumbly. ‘I’ve still got my three’s baby things. In good condition – well, give or take a darn or two.’

Aghast, Alice was rooted to the spot. So that was what everyone thought. That she was pregnant.

Her voice hardened. ‘I’m not in trouble –’

‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ Lettie went on blithely, oblivious to the effect her words were having. ‘The baby can’t help its start, can it? I’m sure you’ll make a good mother.’

‘I’m not having a baby!’ Alice snapped, walking away. Then she turned back. Her voice was hostile. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you would tell everyone that. Tell everyone Alice Rimmer isn’t that kind of girl.’

Her anger was so intense that Alice didn’t realise what she was doing, or where she was going. Absent-mindedly, she boarded a bus and paid her fare, not even hearing what the conductor said to her. Instead her eyes fixed on the view outside. Then after a moment they moved to her reflection in the window looking back at her.

She was lost. Not on the bus, but everywhere. Her whole world had been shaken, like a pocket turned inside out. It was true that she loved Victor and wanted to be with him, but the cost had been so great. Humiliation burned inside her. How many people knew about her past? If Evan Thomas had found out, had he kept it a secret? Unlikely, Alice thought. He would have wanted to spread the dirt. ‘Gossip sticks like shit to a blanket,’ Alice had overheard Mr Dedlington say. And he was on their side. Others would be less charitable.

But then again, maybe there would be no need for Evan Thomas to tell anyone else. He had used the knowledge to damning effect and got what he wanted – Alice’s banishment and fall from grace. Why should he give her another thought? Carefully Alice studied her reflection in the bus window. Her face was a white oval, the dark eyes huge and sad.

The bus stopped suddenly, the conductor calling out, ‘End of the line, all off here.’

Surprised, Alice rose to her feet. ‘Where am I?’

‘Union Street.’

‘Where’s that?’

The man looked at her suspiciously. ‘Now don’t take the mickey, there’s a good girl.’

‘Honestly, I mean it. Where is Union Street?’

‘You’re in Oldham, miss. In the town centre.’

She had come all the way from Salford to Oldham in a daze.

Slowly Alice got off the bus and looked around. She felt nervous, unused to the world outside and the people hurrying past her. How could she get back to Salford? Trafalgar Street? What bus should she catch? What tram? And besides, did she have enough money for the return fare?

Nervously she looked round, then noticed the large building a little way off. It looked official, important, and so Alice walked towards it, thinking to get directions there. It was only when she reached it that she saw written over the door ‘OLDHAM MUNICIPAL LIBRARY’.

She was about to turn away when a thought struck her. The library would hold all the local records for the area. Her feet moved quickly up the steps, her throat dry as she walked to the reception desk.

Two women – one extremely tall – were deep in conversation and ignored her.

‘… Well, I said – “You’re neither use nor ornament.”’

‘Nah!’

‘I did! And when he –’

Alice coughed. ‘Excuse me.’

Both women turned and gave her blank looks. ‘Yes?’ the tall one intoned.

‘I was wondering where the records were kept.’

‘We don’t have music here, luv,’ she said, laughing at her own joke. ‘Try the High Street.’

Alice could feel herself flushing, but held her ground. ‘I meant newspapers. Old newspapers.’

The shorter woman shrugged. ‘What d’you want them for?’

‘I want to look at them. Please.’

The tall woman sucked in her cheeks, her companion smiling.

‘What you looking for?’

Alice thought quickly and remembered a game she had played with the small children back at Netherlands.

‘We’re doing a project about how life was around here fifteen to twenty years ago.’

‘My mother could tell you that,’ the tall woman sneered. ‘And tell you the scandals too.’

‘So can I see the records?’ Alice persisted.

The woman looked her up and down. The girl was shabby, and no more than twenty. But for all of that she was a stunner. She would have liked to refuse Alice, but couldn’t think of any reason to do so. Instead, she reluctantly moved out from behind the desk and showed her to a cluttered back room off the main library.

One bony hand swept along a line of heavy-bound volumes.

‘This here’s all the newspapers since 1900. Well, in this area, that is. You know, like the Oldham Chronicle, the Manchester Guardian and the Manchester Evening News.’ She studied Alice carefully. ‘You a teacher?’

Alice kept her head down. ‘Training to be.’

‘What school?’

What could she say? Alice wondered. She could hardly say Netherlands. She was no longer working there, and besides, everyone looked down on the home.

So she lied. ‘I’m learning to be a private tutor.’

‘Private tutor, hey?’ the woman repeated, suddenly at a loss for what to say. ‘Well, there you are. Have a good look, I’ll be back later. Oh, and don’t get fingermarks on the pages.’

Alice waited until the door had closed before she took down the first volume. It was heavy and dusty, beginning at 1900 and ending at 1910. Alice thought for a moment. She had been sent to the home when she was one year old, in 1911. So was 1911 the year that her mother had been killed?

Eagerly she pulled down the next book and flicked through the yellowing clippings. A woman with a dog was on the front page. The dog had saved her life … Alice flicked over. There was news of European countries, a long hot summer and heavy rainfalls in the East, but nothing other than trivia. She turned another page. An advertisement for Spencer corsetry and Pond’s Vanishing Cream leaped up from the page, but nothing more revealing.

Frowning, Alice took off her coat and pulled up a chair. Looking down she was suddenly aware of a hole in her thick stocking and hurriedly pulled it under her left foot. Then she went back to the book. She turned the page. She saw a face. Two faces. She stared.

The dimmest memory crept into her brain. A long dark stairwell, looking down on to a black and white floor, someone carrying her. And the smell of gardenia … Alice swallowed, staring at the man’s face and then looking to the caption underneath.

DAVID LEWES – murderer

The room heated up in an instant, as her eyes focused then blurred on the grainy newsprint image. Shaking, Alice held up the clipping and looked into her father’s face. There was no striking resemblance, but she could see some hints to her parentage in the dark eyes. He had been a handsome man, her father … Slowly Alice turned her eyes on the photograph next to his. Underneath it, read:

CATHERINE LEWES, daughter of ‘Judge’ Arnold, savagely murdered by her husband at the family home, The Dower House, Werneth Heights, 12 November.

Her hands trembling as she held the paper, Alice read on. Her mother had been butchered with a knife, her father was missing. She read the sentence twice. Then again. Her father had butchered her mother and run away … Alice could feel her pulse quicken and stood up, pushing the book from her. Her heart was banging in her chest. Faint, she leaned against the wall, then she walked over to the window and leaned out, gulping air. A man was walking with his small daughter, holding her hand and smiling.

Her hands went up to her forehead and massaged her temples fiercely. She had grandparents, so why had she been sent to the home? Why …? She wanted to know but at the same time was afraid of the truth.

After several minutes she turned and walked back to the newspaper cutting. She sat down, pulled the book towards her again, read on. Her grandparents had gone abroad after the tragedy, her grandmother suffering a stroke which left her a semi invalid. Her aunt, Dorothy, had been treated for shock, as she had been the one who had found her sister’s body. Alice scanned the next paragraph, looking for any mention of her. Finally there was a brief line – ‘David and Catherine Lewes had two children, who have been taken on by relatives.’

Taken on by relatives … Two children … Alice felt her heart pumping again. She was reading it wrong, she thought wildly. She must be. Everyone had told her that she had no relatives when she had been dumped in a home. And all along she had belonged to the Arnold clan. Finding it difficult to gather her thoughts, Alice remembered the titbits she had overheard over the years about the Arnolds. Ethel had talked about them occasionally, and Mr Grantley had often referred to them in obsequious tones. They were probably the richest family in Lancashire.

And all that money and power had succeeded in what? In wiping Alice off the family tree. She had been abandoned and forgotten. Given away. It was a bitter blow. Alice tried to swallow the anger she felt. Why would they cast her off? And not just her. She had a sibling. So where was he or she? All the time she had believed that she was alone, they could have been together. It was cruel enough to cut off the children, but to separate them too – that was unforgivable. Hurriedly Alice read through the remainder of the report and then moved over to an article in the Manchester Evening News.

This report went further into the background of the Arnolds. Their power and influence, the old man’s ruthlessness in business. Apparently Judge Arnold had had few friends, but many enemies … His photograph repelled Alice: Judge Arnold had squat features, almost coarse, with unruly grey hair and flat, unreadable eyes.

Coldly she stared at the photograph and then looked at the picture of the murder house. It was huge and impressive, but sombre. In the photograph it looked as welcoming as Netherlands, with only the gardens to soften its stern walls. God, she thought, they had real money. And they had given her away. Let her live meanly whilst they lived in luxury.

But why did they give her up? Alice wondered again, shattered by another rejection coming so soon upon the last. Why couldn’t they just keep her at a distance? Let her keep her name at least? But no, Alice thought, looking with hatred at old man Arnold – no, he had taken everything away from her, given her a commonplace name, and no history. He had blamed her for her mother’s death as surely as though she had committed the murder herself.

Alice jumped as the door opened behind her.

‘You finished?’ the tall woman said, trying to see what Alice had been reading.

Nodding, Alice closed the book and stood up. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

Alice glanced down, afraid that her face might give her away. ‘I found a lot of things I didn’t know before,’ she answered honestly.

The woman walked past her, then slammed the books back on the shelf, sighing noisily. ‘That’s the thing about history. Always full of surprises.’