never had one dance together …’
He opened the drinks cabinet, careful not to make a noise, and took out a bottle of brandy and a glass. Evelyne’s heart thudded, this was the moment she had dreamed of, alone with David, did he know she loved him, was he going to learn?
He poured a measure of brandy with care and sipped it, rolling it around his mouth, then looked at her over the rim of his glass, ‘You made a great impression on a friend of mine, Captain Ridgely.’ He didn’t even offer her a drink. ‘Yes, he was really taken with you. Comes from a good family, lots of loot … well, to cut a long story short, he wants to see you.’
Evelyne was puzzled. She asked who Ridgely was as she couldn’t recall meeting him.
‘I doubt if you will be going home tomorrow, so I said perhaps you could meet him at tea time, it’ll be up to you what you want to arrange with him.’
‘I don’t understand, what arrangements?’
David sighed. God, he thought, she really is stupid.
‘He likes you, I don’t want to get involved, it will be entirely up to you whether you go to meet him or not. I think you’d be throwing away a good opportunity, he’s very rich, could set you up in a little place of your own … and he’s not a bad chap, you should be flattered, girl like you won’t get many opportunities, especially if you have to stay in the valley all your life.’
Evelyne still stared, dumbfounded.
‘Good God, do I have to spell it out, you could earn money, he’d keep you if you pleased him enough …’
Evelyne’s hand swung out and slapped David hard across the face.
‘Christ, what did you do that for?’
Evelyne was hurt and shaking with anger. He was suggesting she sell herself, and to one of his friends.
‘Now, come along, I didn’t mean any harm, no need to get yourself all upset, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to, all I said was I would ask you.’
Still Evelyne was speechless, staring at him, shocked, wide-eyed.
‘You stupid little girl, this was an opportunity for you, I’m sorry I even bothered with you.’ He walked out, leaving her confused and bewildered by all he had said, by his manner towards her. She could not remember the last time she had cried for herself — little Davey, Ma, that was different. She caught her breath as the sobs rose inside her. She wept for herself, for her stupidity, for the dream that had just been shattered. Her foolishness in believing, even for a moment, that she could be part of David Collins’ life filled her with shame. She ran up the stairs to her room, remembering to creep the last few steps so she would not waken Doris.
David’s bedroom door was ajar, and he was watching her as she tiptoed along the landing. Evelyne turned, caught him staring, and he gave her a strange, apologetic smile, then closed his door. The smile made it all the worse, his handsome, perfect face so far from her reach. All she wanted was to go home, home to her own people, her own class.
She cried herself to sleep, her face buried in the pillow, afraid to waken Doris. No one must know, ever, of her humiliation. Suddenly she remembered that
dreadful painted woman at the window of the inn, just like Nellie Lanigan from the village, she knew the men paid money to go with her. Evelyne sobbed into the handkerchief David had once given her, and even through her tears she could smell him, his faint lavender perfume.
Chapter 6
THE TWO brothers died with their arms around each other, Mike and Will, but the cable Benjamin Rces brought didn’t mention that, simply the dreaded words, ‘killed in action’. Dicken wrote a letter from the front dated March 1917 — it took four months to reach the village, and that was when they learned how the two brothers had died.
The Old Lion seemed to bend under the weight of their loss. The drinking had stopped when little Davey had been buried, and Hugh had found work in a small colliery. When the news of the boys’ death came he went straight back to work a double shift. Every morning he rose at dawn and, wrapped in his greatcoat and carrying his tea caddie, sandwiches and tools, he donned his cloth cap and silently left the house. Money was very short and there were now three lodgers who worked in the mine with Hugh.
Lizzie-Ann had been very brave. Rosie was now almost eighteen months old, a pretty little girl with rosy cheeks and curly hair. Lizzie-Ann had made considerable progress as far as housekeeping and cleaning were concerned. She was skinny again, and spent hours chalking and polishing the front step. Often she had a faraway look in her eyes, daydreaming, but she never talked about London now. She was grown up, a widow with a daughter to look after, a widow and still only just eighteen.
Evelyne worked at the local brick factory, tough, hard labour from six-thirty in the morning until three o’clock. In the afternoon she went to the schoolhouse to help the new teachers. Doris Evans was still at the school, but she taught the senior girls and boys. The only house without a lodger was Doris’ — she was still able to keep her four neat rooms to herself.
Poverty was everywhere in the village. The children scavenged for coal chips on the slag heaps, the men no longer sat eating their packed lunches together, laughing at what the missus had landed them with this time. They all knew they had the same, bread and dripping and tea.
Evelyne trudged up the hill to the schoolhouse. The rain was bucketing down, and she’d got soaked earlier in the day on the way to the brick factory. Her hands were raw and blistered, and she was as thin as ever. She had grown even taller, reaching five feet nine and a half inches. She was Hugh Jones’ daughter all right.
The schoolhouse was cold, the small fire banked low, and the children huddled in their overcoats to keep out the freezing draughts. Evelyne helped in the junior class and also cleaned the school.
Mr Matthews, the new headmaster, was elderly, and had actually retired, but he had come to take the place of the original headmaster who had joined up. He called Evelyne in.
‘Mrs Evans has not been in for the past two days, Miss Jones, will you look in on her?’
Evelyne pushed open the polished front door and called out. When she got no reply she began to worry, and went along the passage into the kitchen. It was neat and clean as ever, but empty and very cold. She hurried into the tiny living room. There were books on the table as always, but no sign of Doris. Eventually Evelyne found her lying in her clean bed with the starched white sheets. She was extremely pale and as Evelyne pushed open the door she asked, with a strange look on her face, ‘Walter, is that you?’ Doris didn’t seem to recognize Evelyne at all as she bent over the frail, thin woman and rubbed her icy hands. She pulled more blankets from the wardrobe and laid them on top of Doris.
The coal bunker was piled high, and Evelyne took the full bucket back into the bedroom, laid the fire and lit it. Then she found vegetables in their neat trays beneath the kitchen sink and made some broth. She held the frail woman in her arms, the skinny frame wrapped in the blankets, and gently spooned the hot soup into her. Slowly, Doris seemed to come to herself, and gave Evelyne such a heart-rending look that Evelyne said: ‘I’ll not leave you tonight, Doris, I’ll stay with you.’
She sat by the fire and read Dante’s Inferno until Doris slept, then she banked the fire, pulled a rug over herself and went to sleep.
The following morning Doc Clock came and examined Doris, muttering that she was not taking care of herself — and with her money! He stuck a thermometer into Doris’ bird-like mouth, and fumbled for the watch that wasn’t there, as usual. Doc Clock, the village said, would stick a thermometer into a dead man’s mouth and pronounce him perfectly fit.
Doris went very fast and as quietly as she had lived. Doc Clock said she had a brain tumour, must have had it for years. Lizzie-Ann, who always got everything wrong, told everyone that Doris had died from a brain rumour, and that she’d had it for years. Evelyne wrote to Dr Collins, taking the penny postage money from Doris’ little leather purse. The money was needed, but there was no reply to her letter.
Evelyne had to arrange for the coffin and the funeral, since there was no one else to do it. All the while she
