The Gambling Man

made him jump to conclusions which caused him to chastise himself for being a big-headed fool. But he chastised himself no longer.

He saw the situation he was in now as the biggest gamble of his life. There were two players only at this table and inevitably one would have to show his hand. Well, it wouldn’t, it couldn’t be him, it could never be him for more reasons than one. Him marry Charlotte Kean, a woman years older than himself and looking, as she did, as shapeless as a clothes prop, and with a face as plain as the dock wall! True, she had a nice voice . . . and a mind. Oh aye, she had a mind all right. And she was good company. Yes, of late he had certainly been discovering that. She could talk about all kinds of things, and he had realized that by listening to her he too could learn. She could make a very good friend; yet even so there could be no such thing between him and her for two reasons: on his part, you didn’t, in his class, make friends with a woman, oh no, unless you wanted one thing from her: on her part, it wasn’t a friend she wanted, it was a man, a husband.

Oh, he knew where things were leading. And he wouldn’t hoodwink himself, he was tempted all right. Oh aye, he was both tempted and flattered. At nights he would lie thinking of what it would mean to live in Birchingham House in the select end of Westoe and to be in control of all those properties and businesses, all that money. My God! just to think of it. And he would be in control, wouldn’t he? What was the wife’s was the husband’s surely. And there she was, willing, more than willing, to let him take control, him, Rory Connor, once rent collector from No. 2 The Cottages, Simonside. It was fantastic, unbelievable.

And them up in the kitchen, what would they say if he took this step? Lord! the place wouldn’t hold them. No, he was wrong there. It wouldn’t affect Ruth. As for her, his mother, after one look at Charlotte Kean she would be more than likely to say, ‘My God! everything must be paid for.’ She had a way with her tongue of stating plain facts. It would be his da who would brag. Every man in his shop would know, and it would be talked of in every pub in Jarrow from the church bank to the far end of Ellison Street.

But what would Bill Waggett say?

Ah, what the hell did it matter! It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. Anyway, he was all right as he was. Jimmy wasn’t doing so bad; he’d do better if it wasn’t for them blasted Pitties. By, he’d get his own back on them if it was the last thing he did in life. Hardly a day passed but that he didn’t think of them, when he would grab at this or that idea to get even with them. And he would, he would. He’d get a lead one day, and by God, when he did, let them look out! . . . He could have a lead now, right away. With money you had power, and it needed power to potch the Pitties. All he had to do was to say, ‘Thank you kindly, Miss Kean, I’ll be your man,’ and he was home, safe home from the stormy sea, with chests full to the top.

But what would he really say? He knew what he’d say. ‘I’m sorry, miss, but it wouldn’t work.’

And, strangely, he realized that when he should say the latter he would be sorry, for, banter as he would, and did, about her in his mind there was a part of him that was sorry for her, and it had been growing of late. He pitied her lonely state, and he understood it because of the loneliness within himself. But although her kind of loneliness had gone on for years and she was weary of it, she was not yet resigned to it. That was why she had set her sights on him.

But why him? People of her station usually classed the likes of him as muck beneath their feet. And what was more, just think how she’d be talked about if anything should come of it. Lord! any link up with him would set the town on fire.

He was already vaguely aware that sly looks were being cast in their direction. When they were last in Durham to look over some property along the river bank they had gone to an inn to eat. She had chosen it, she said, because she thought he would like it; it was a man’s place, oak-trestle tables, hefty beams, meat pudding and ale. And he would have liked it if it hadn’t been in Durham . . . the gaol was in Durham.

Well, he had done what he could in that direction. He had tried to make reparation; he had given Jimmy ten pounds and sent him up to visit John George and to ask him if he would come and see him when he came out. But Jimmy had returned with the ten pounds; John George was already out and they couldn’t tell him where he had gone. For days afterwards he had expected a visit from him, but John George hadn’t come. So he told himself that the business was closed; he had done his best. It was only in his recurring nightmare, when he would relive the awakening to Janie shouting at him, did he realize that his best hadn’t been good enough and that John George would be with him like an unhealed wound until the end of his days.

But on that day in the inn in Durham, two Shields’ men—gentlemen—had come to their table to speak to Charlotte Kean, and she had introduced him to them. They were a Mr Allington and a Mr Spencer. He knew of both of them. Allington was a solicitor, and Spencer owned a number of small grocery shops. He had started with one about fifteen years ago, and now they had spread into Jarrow and beyond.

After the first acknowledgment, they hadn’t addressed him again until they were bidding her good-bye, and then they had merely inclined their heads towards him. Oh, he knew where he stood with the gentlemen of the town. He was an upstart rent man.

Then came the day when Charlotte Kean showed her hand and brought an abrupt end to the game by laying her cards face up on the table.

They had returned from Newcastle where she had been to see, of all things, an iron foundry with a view to taking a part share in it. The journey had been taken against the advice of her solicitor. The Tyneside foundries, he had said, were unable to produce iron as cheaply as they once had done; the railways had killed the iron trade in this part of the country. But she had explained, and to Rory himself, that she could not follow her solicitor’s reasoning, for, as she saw it, people would always want iron stoves, kitchen grates, fenders, and railings of all kinds, from those that enclosed parks to small private gates; and then there were bedsteads and safes and such- like. She went on to say she wasn’t thinking of competing with Palmer’s and making ships but merely of supplying household requisites. What did he think?

He had answered her bluntly, as always, for he had learned that she preferred the truth, at least in most things. ‘I think that I agree with Mr Hardy; he knows what he’s talking about.’

‘And you think I don’t?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that you know very much about the iron trade.’

‘You are aware that I read a great deal?’

‘Yes, I’m aware of that, but as I understand it it takes more than reading to get an insight into such trades; the workings of them go deeper than books.’

‘The workings might, but I would leave the workings to managers and men, of course.’

He shrugged his shoulders slightly and smiled as he said, ‘Well, I won’t say you know best, but what I will say is, you’ll do what you want in the long run.’

That he could speak to her in this fashion was evidence of how far they had travelled in their association over the past year. He now rarely used the term miss, and although from time to time she would call him Mr Connor, it was usually done when in the presence of servants; at other times she addressed him without using his name at all.

Whatever her servants thought of the situation they treated their mistress’s new manager with respect, even deference, which at one time would have amused him. At one time, too, such subservient attitudes would have given him material for mimicry and a big joke in the kitchen; in fact, his association with Miss Charlotte Kean would have been one big joke. At one time, but not now. Anyway, Sundays were different now. He did not always visit the cottage on a Sunday, he went up only on Jimmy’s urging. He did not ask himself why he had turned against the Sunday gatherings, but he knew that the general opinion was he had become too big for his boots. And that could very well be near the truth, for he admitted to himself that the more he saw of the Westoe side of life the less he liked that in which he had been brought up.

He had, on this day, gone through a mental battle which left him thinking he didn’t know which end of him was up. It was the anniversary of Janie’s death, and there was no fierce ache left in him, and he felt there should be. He should, in some way, have held a sort of memorial service, at least within himself, but what had he done? Gone up to Newcastle, walked blithely by his employees side as she paraded around a foundry, sat with her at a meal, which she called lunch, at the Royal Exchange Hotel; then had waited like a docile husband while she went shopping in Bainbridge’s. He had sauntered with her through the Haymarket, where they had stopped and examined almost every article in the ironmongery store. Then she had said they would go to the Assembly Rooms and he wondered what her object was, until, standing outside, she looked at the building and said almost sadly, ‘My mother once danced in there. She often told me about it. It was the highlight of her life; she was taken there by a