saying, if the wine and gin shops can remain open on a Sunday why not a reading room? One gentleman had been applauded for replying that God’s house should be the reading room for a Sunday.
Then there was the matter of education. She would have made a ruling that no fee be charged for schooling and that a poor child should have admission to a high-class teaching establishment merely on his proven intelligence.
Some gentlemen of the town were amused by Miss Kean’s attitude and said, Well, at least credit should be given her for having the mentality of a man. However, the majority saw her as a potential danger both to their domestic and business power. To light a fire you needed tinder, and she was the equivalent to a modern matchstick. Look how she was flaunting all female decorum by parading that upstart of a rent collector around the county. Not only had she made him into her manager but she took him everywhere as her personal escort. She was making a name for herself and not one to be proud of. By, if her father had still been alive it would never have happened. He had made a mistake by allowing her to become involved with the business in the first place, because she had developed what was commonly termed a business head. She was remarkable in that way. But they didn’t like remarkable women, neither those who were against her nor those who were for her. No, they didn’t hold with remarkable women. This was a man’s town, a seafaring town; women had their place in it, and they would be honoured as long as they kept their place; but they wanted no remarkable women, at least not the kind who tended to match them in the world of commerce.
Her manager, too, had his reservations about his employer, and the things she got up to. Yet he granted, and not grudgingly, that she
A year had passed since the news of Janie’s death and the old saying of time being a great healer had proved itself true yet once again, for Rory, over the past months, had come up out of despair and settled on a plane of not ordinary but, what was for him, extraordinary living.
Though Janie still remained in his heart as a memory the ache for her was less. Even in the night when he felt the miss of her he no longer experienced the body-searing agony and the longing for her presence.
Two things had helped towards his easement. The first was the combination of Jimmy and the yard, and the second—or should he have placed her first?—was Charlotte Kean.
When, six months ago, he had taken up the position as her manager she had raised his wage—salary she called it now—to three pounds a week. It was incredible. Never in his life had he dreamed of ever being able to earn three pounds a week. To get that much and ten times more by gambling, oh yes, he had dreamed of that, but never as an earned wage. And did he earn it? Was the work he was doing worth three pounds a week, going to the town office in the morning, then around ten o’clock up to the house and the office there, he at one side of the table, she at the other?
‘What would you advise in a case like this, Mr Connor?’
The first time she had pushed a letter across the table towards him he had stared at her blankly before reading it. It was from her solicitor advising her that a certain new chemical company was about to float its shares, and suggesting that she would do well to consider buying.
Utterly out of his depths Rory had continued to stare at her, for he sensed in that moment that a great deal depended on how he answered her. And so, holding her gaze, he said, ‘I can’t advise you for I know nothin’ whatever about such matters;’ but had then added, ‘as yet.’
She hadn’t lowered her eyes when she replied, ‘Then you must learn . . . that is if you want to learn. Do you, Mr Connor?’
‘Yes . . . yes, I want to learn all right.’
‘Well, that’s settled,’ she had said. ‘We know now where we stand, don’t we?’ And then she had smiled at him, after which she had rung the bell, and when Jessie opened the door she had said, ‘We’ll have some refreshment now, Jessie.’
And that was the pattern he followed on the days he didn’t go to Hexham or Gateshead or over the water to Wallsend to cast an eye over her interests, until two months ago, when the pattern had changed and she began to accompany him.
Journeying by train, they would sit side by side in the first-class carriage. He helped her in and out of cabs, he opened doors for her, he obeyed her commands in all ways, except that he would refuse her invitation to stay for a meal after he had delivered the takings of an evening, or when they had returned from one of their supervising trips. The reason he gave was a truthful one, his brother expected him, he was alone.
When he first gave her this reason she looked at him with a sideward glance and asked, ‘How old is your brother?’
‘Coming up twenty.’
‘Twenty! And he needs your protection at nights?’
And he answered flatly and stiffly, ‘Yes, he does. Only last week a boat he had started to build was smashed up to bits, and it could be him next.’
‘Oh!’ She showed interest. Did you inform the police?’
‘No.’
‘Have you any idea who did it, and why?’
‘Yes, both; I know who did it, and why. There’s a family on the river who run the wherries, three brothers called Pittie . . .’
‘Ah! Ah! the Pitties.’ She had nodded her head.
‘You’ve heard of them?’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard the name before. And I also know of some of their activities.’
‘Well, you know what they’re like then.’
‘Yes, I’ve a pretty good idea. And—’ she had nodded and added, ‘I can see the reason why you must be with your brother at night. But you, too, must be careful. What they’ve done once they can do again.’
His head had jerked in her direction as he asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, they could break up another boat.’
‘Oh. Oh yes; yes they could.’
So he had stayed at home every night, including Saturdays, up till recently when, the urge rearing once more, he had joined a game, not on the waterfront, nor in the town, but away on the outskirts in Boldon.
It was odd how he had come to be reintroduced to the Boldon house for he had forgotten he had ever played there. He was in the train going to Gateshead when a ‘find the lady’ trickster took him for a mug. He had followed him into the compartment at Shields, then got on talking with a supposedly complete stranger who boarded the train at Tyne Dock, whom he very convincingly inveigled into ‘finding the lady,’ and, of course, let him win, all the while making a great fuss about his own bad luck, before turning to Rory and saying, ‘What about you, sir?’ It was then that Rory had turned a scornful glance on the man and replied, ‘Don’t come it with me. That dodge is as old as me whiskers.’
For a moment he had thought the pair of them were going to set about him. Then the one who had supposedly just won peered at him and said, ‘Why I know you, I’ve played in with you. Didn’t you use to go up to Telfords’ in Boldon?’
Yes, he had played in the Telfords’ wash-house, and in their kitchen, and once up in the roof lying on his belly.
From that meeting the urge had come on him again, not that it had ever really left him. But he had played no games, even for monkey nuts since Janie had gone.
So he had got in touch with the Telfords again and he went to Boldon on a Saturday night, where it could be simply Black Jack or pitch and toss. Sometimes the Telford men went farther afield to a barn for a cock fight, but he himself would always cry off this. He didn’t mind a bit of rabbit coursing but he didn’t like to see the fowls, especially the bantams, being torn to shreds with steel spurs. To his mind it wasn’t sporting.
His winnings rarely went beyond five pounds, but neither did his losses. It didn’t matter so much now about the stake as long as he could sit down to a game with men who were serious about it.
But now, at this present time, he was also vitally aware that he was playing in another kind of game, and this game worried him.
He looked back to the particular Saturday morning when, having told her he was married, her reaction had
