Pauper's Child Page 4

  Turning left she walked quickly, a shiver riding her veins as she came to St James’s Street. It was there in that tall building with its pointed roofs, there in that school she had suffered so much misery.

  I saw… I saw him there and I knew, I knew what he was doing…

  The words seemed to scream from the shadowed street and with them Callista’s head jerked with the remembered slap which had always accompanied each one. Of all the girls in her class she had been the only one to be treated that way, the only one that teacher had slapped. But why had she been punished so regularly? Callista drew the shawl tight about her head as if protecting it from the stinging blows of vicious fingers. What was the reason for that almost daily punishment? What had she done, and why were those same words hissed at her? It had been a long year trapped in that classroom.

  Despite the tremble shaking her, Callista could not prevent herself from turning to look at the tall windows staring back at her from the rapidly darkening street. A year in which every day after lessons she would run to the church standing only yards from the school and pray God to take her from it. But He had not, nor had her torment ended with that year or the years following. Appointed monitor, she had been required to see the teacher of each class ensuring they had the equipment needed for next day’s work before she could go home, and every afternoon had brought those slaps. The woman had been careful; the punishment had never been administered within sight or hearing of anyone, either staff or pupil. And she, Callista, had never told of it… except to God.

  Passing from the tall windowed building, Callista’s stare rested on the long bodied church further along the street, last light of day slipping silently over grey stone, glinting weakly on the gilded clock face set in its square tower.

  The heart of a child had been poured out there in that quiet interior and the sorrows of a young girl broken-hearted at the loss of her father. The exquisite stained glass had played its colours over her, sharing its beauty, but that was all heaven had granted. So why had she not told her parents of that teacher’s behaviour, of the cruelty meted out to that same child?

  The question had often reared in her mind as she had hidden her childhood tears and even now on awakening from those nightmares: why? But she could not answer; she only knew now as her heart had told her so many years before, to speak of it would add to the distinct though quickly veiled unhappiness she sometimes caught reflected in her mother’s eyes.

  ‘Was you wantin’ summat, wench?’

  Lost in memories, Callista jumped at the sound.

  ‘Yes.’ She brought her glance to the man standing watching her from the opposite corner, a bloodstained apron reaching to the toes of worn boots.

  ‘I was hoping perhaps…’

  ‘For tuppence worth o’ bones?’ The man’s rapid glance took in the drawn face beneath the tightly wrapped shawl, the clothes even more worn than his own. ‘Well, if it’s bones you be wantin’ you be in luck, the abattoir took delivery of several pigs this mornin’ and the carcasses ’ave been cut and boned naught but ’alf an ’our ago so they be fresh… wait you there, wench, and I’ll fetch you out a couple o’ pennorth.’ Returning a few minutes later the man shoved a newspaper wrapped package into Callista’s hands, his head shaking at the offer of one of her precious coins. ‘Tek ’em,’ he grinned, ‘I reckons old ’Ollingworth won’t miss what he don’t ’ave the knowin’ of.’

  It was not honest. Conscience pricking, Callista hurried on along Holyhead Road. When she had the money to spare she would repay the owner of the abattoir but right now she needed every penny she had.

  Back at home she checked on her mother, a sigh of relief escaping her throat when she saw she was sleeping. Returning downstairs she glanced at the ashes of the dead fire; she could not cook on that but no jagger would deliver coal at this time of an evening. But there was a way she might get sufficient for a fire tonight. Not waiting to grab her shawl from behind the stairs door she ran from the house, the worn through soles of her side button boots rapping sharply on the blue brick setts as she raced across Portway Road and on into Chapel Street.

  Called to the door by his pregnant wife a man eyed Callista before answering, ‘Ar, I ’ave coal for the sellin’, be ninepence a bag or a shillin’ an’ fourpence should you be buyin’ the two.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Breathing hard from her running, cold air biting at her lungs, Callista felt in her skirt pocket for the coins she had got from the pawnbroker’s.

  ‘You be from them ’ouses along of Trowes Court, it be there I’ve seen you.’ The woman rested a hand on her swollen stomach, smiling as Callista nodded. ‘Your mother be named Ruth?’

  Again Callista nodded.

  ‘I would ’ave gambled as much,’ the woman answered, pleased with her detecting, ‘it were her as ’elped me two month back when this one decided it were time to turn.’ She patted the lump hardly disguised by a grubby apron. ‘In the street I was when it ’appened, fair ’ad me faintin’ away so it did; but your mother ’elped me into her own ’ouse and give me a cup o’ tea then med me rest ’til I was in me proper senses agen. You remember, Bert,’ she glanced at the man bringing a sack of coal from the brewhouse, ‘I told you, didn’t I… told you how that woman took me in when I ’ad that turn up along the street, well this be her daughter.’

  ‘I be beholden.’ Letting the sack rest on the ground the man touched a blackened finger to an equally blackened cap.

  ‘An’ that don’t be all you be, Bert Garbett!’ his wife piped sharply. ‘You be carryin’ that there coal to Trowes Court!’

  Thank goodness the man had coal to spare. Callista peeled vegetables she had fetched after paying for the two bags of coal. Her mother had related the story his pregnant wife had told proudly. Her husband had an understanding with the ‘cutmen’. In return for a jug or two of her home-brewed ale they ‘accidentally’ dropped several lumps of coal onto the towpath whenever their narrow boat passed this stretch of the canal and every Sunday afternoon Bert took his handcart and collected it. It be fair trade, the woman had added defensively, an’ it be good quality coal, my Bert wouldn’t stand for havin’ any rubbish pushed onto him, and he sells at less than the jaggers ask for a bag.

  Both of those claims were true. Callista felt the heat of the fire warm on her body as she added diced carrot and parsnip to the pork bones and barley simmering in the pot. But as for the ‘fair trade’! That she was not so sure of. Was it not the same as being given meat bones; the coal did not belong to those bargees any more than the pigs’ bones belonged to the man who had refused the tuppence in payment for them. The twinge of guilt she had experienced outside of that abattoir returned. Adding salt and pepper to the bubbling pot, Callista sighed. How many more debts would she be responsible for and how would she ever be able to repay them?

  A sharp knock on the street door echoed in the silence of the house as she stared into the coals gleaming red beneath the cooking pot. There was only one way, and the time to take it was now.

  4

  The knock sounded again, sharp and authoritative, demanding entry. Authoritative! Callista turned from her cooking. That could be a description of the person whose knock she had come to recognise… and to dread. There was nothing gentle about that rap to the door as there was none about Oswin Slade, nothing considerate, certainly nothing loving… and nothing about him to love… yet she had to marry him.

  Slowly, every part of her wishing she could call to him to go away, she opened the door.

  Inside the room Oswin Slade wore a slightly irritated look. This was not at all what he had expected.

  ‘Good evening, Callista. Your mother is well, I hope.’

  Even the voice had no trace of gentleness. Going to stand at the further side of the table, seeking to put space between herself and the man who was glancing at the sparse furniture while making no effort to disguise his distaste, Callista answered, ‘Mother is resting.’

  Resting! Oswin flicked open the book he carrie
d. Ruth Sanford ‘rested’ more and more often, which could only mean the illness she was so obviously suffering from was getting worse. All to the good – he thumbed several pages; he did not want the expense of keeping a mother-in-law for any length of time.

  ‘You will give her my regards.’

  It sounded more of an order than a request. Callista nodded, watching a thick finger run slowly down the chosen page. But then everything was an order when spoken by Oswin, his whole manner was – how could she be kind – commanding? No, that gave an entirely false impression, as did imperious; there was only one description she could say in truth fitted the man standing across from her: pompous. It had to be admitted, Oswin Slade was a pompous man.

  ‘Have you spoken with her concerning my offer?’

  His offer! Something inside of Callista shrivelled. Not a protest at the choice of word, just a quiet dying. It was a proposal of marriage he had made but in his eyes it was a project… no word of tenderness, of wanting to spend the rest of his life with her; to Oswin Slade marriage was a contract of business, not of love. She watched him now, one finger still moving slowly, methodically, over the page like some pale bloated caterpillar. Marriage to him would mean no more worry over how to earn money to pay the rent… but payment would still be called for. Her glance moving to the jowled face which already showed a tendency to fat, to the lips subjected now to the caress of a moist tongue, her own mouth dried. Those hands would touch her, those lips close wetly over her own; Oswin Slade would not take payment in coin, he would take her body!

  She had not allowed herself to think of that part of it, closing her mind each time any such thought began, but now it flooded into her brain. She would be forced to lie with him, to subject herself to the demands the past weeks had shown in his eyes, in the touch of his hand.

  The admitted reality bringing a sickness to her throat, Callista’s words tumbled out. ‘I… I have not spoken with my mother.’

  ‘But I told you to do so!’

  It was snapped out. An order given to an underling. A taste of her life in the future.

  ‘I am aware of what you told me, Oswin.’ At her back the quiet hiss of simmering broth could well have been a hiss of breath coming between lips curled back as anger flashed across that heavy face.

  ‘Then why did you not obey me?’

  Again the authority, the demand so apparent in his rap to a door, in his every mode of speech and action. Life would be no partnership with this man, no sharing; it would be give and take with Oswin Slade doing all of the taking.

  It would serve only to goad the irritation already so plain in the grip clutching the pencil but Callista could not resist voicing the words. Violet eyes held steady on ones which nature had attempted to colour blue but failed, leaving them instead a washed-out semblance, a pale wintry hint of a sky lost to winter.

  ‘Obey, Oswin?’

  ‘Of course obey!’ The quiet irony lost on him, Oswin Slade stabbed the point of the pencil viciously against the book, anger mounting red to his cheeks at the snap of lead.

  ‘I did not understand…’

  ‘Understand… understand!’ Thrusting the broken pencil into the top pocket of his jacket Oswin rolled a fresh one between podgy fingers. ‘It was simple enough for a child to understand! “You will speak to your mother,” was what I said; surely even you can grasp the meaning of that!’

  ‘It was not the meaning eluded me, simply the fact of your expecting to be obeyed.’

  ‘Of course I expect to be obeyed. Once we are married that is exactly what I will expect.’

  ‘But we will not be married.’

  It was the astounded silence which followed a thunderbolt. For a few seconds Oswin Slade’s colourless eyes stared blankly at Callista, then as if only just registering her words, a frown drawing brows together, he snapped, ‘What was that you said?’

  What had she said? Hands folded together across her front, Callista felt a stab of apprehension. Marriage to Oswin would mean warmth and food for her mother; there would be no more walking the streets begging employment for herself. It was not too late, she could retract her words, change them, add to them until it seemed she had spoken merely a part of what she had intended to say. Marriage would mean security… marriage to Oswin Slade would mean misery! From the room above the sound of coughing came harsh to her ears and Callista drew a long breath. There was only one choice she could make.

  *

  ‘She is lovely. The nose, the mouth, the lift of the head, the line of the body, everything about her speaks of a quiet, compelling beauty.’

  ‘Yes, she is beautiful.’ Phineas Westley nodded agreement but his answer did not allude to the figurine held in the other man’s hands but to the picture arisen in his mind. The figure of a young woman whose raven-black hair was drawn back from a pale heart shaped face out of which gleamed eyes of the most bewitching violet. Her features were shaped as perfectly as was this statue’s, the poise of her head and body every bit as regal. Her father had called her his water nymph and maybe as a child that description could have passed as accurate, but now in the first bloom of womanhood Callista Sanford was best described as a Helen, a woman whose beauty challenged the gods themselves.

  ‘Where did you find her?’

  ‘Find?’

  ‘Yes, find. Really, Phineas, I don’t think you have heard a word I’ve said!’

  ‘You said she was lovely and I agreed.’

  ‘True… but to a description I feel I did not make.’

  Taking a silk handkerchief from his pocket Phineas Westley wiped his gold rimmed spectacles, using the moment to avoid meeting eyes which had ever been shrewd enough to see more than was held in the hands.

  ‘So tell me what you were looking at in your mind.’ His companion smiled. ‘Was it perhaps an Aphrodite? Or maybe it was not a woman at all but a man. Have you found some wonderful Heracles or maybe even an excellent Apollo?’

  ‘Neither.’ Replacing the spectacles on his nose Phineas met the enquiring, slightly teasing look. ‘I was merely daydreaming… you must allow an old man his dreams, Michael.’

  ‘If they are dreams such as the one I am holding now then I would not make you forgo them, but at least tell me where you found her.’

  ‘It was not I who found the Artemis, praise for that must go to Joseph Glaze.’

  Standing the figurine carefully on the table the younger man nodded. ‘An expert indeed but is he not also a collector?’

  ‘What you mean, Michael, is why does a man so in love with antiques as is Joseph Glaze allow such an exquisite object as this to pass through his hands? The answer, my boy, is business. Were Glaze to keep for himself every piece he comes across he would soon have a healthy collection but a dead business. The man, fortunately for myself, has to make a living and so the Artemis comes to me.’

  ‘No doubt to Joseph’s chagrin.’

  ‘Very nearly to his advantage, Michael, in the way of profit I mean.’

  Michael Farron’s blue eyes gleamed sapphire in the light of a crystal-drop gasoliere, his smile echoing their interest. ‘Joseph Glaze’s advantage. Therein lies a story unless I am sadly mistaken.’

  Rising to his feet Phineas took the marble figurine, holding it for several seconds before replacing it in a glass fronted cabinet. ‘You are not mistaken.’ He smiled. ‘Let’s go into dinner and I’ll tell you all about my little encounter.’

  *

  ‘The girl sounds to have been well educated,’ Michael Farron said as Phineas’s recounting of his collision with Callista ended, ‘but why so poorly dressed?’

  ‘There are some things a gentleman does not ask and questions involving a lady’s attire is one of them. You should know that, Michael.’

  ‘Of course… I did not mean… I was not intending to imply…’

  ‘You always did travel a mile before taking a step.’ The older man laughed, a rich throaty laugh. ‘But I know what you mean and in fairness I have to confess I myself have wondered
how it is a young woman so obviously tutored and well mannered should be in the straits Callista Sanford appeared to be in.’

  ‘Did the girl give no clue?’

  ‘She said her father did not read, yet only a moment before, when I asked how she came by her knowledge of mythology, she answered it was her father. But now I think of it she did not say that in so many words, she broke off her sentence before…’

  ‘Now who is travelling a mile before taking a step?’

  ‘You are right, my boy.’ Phineas’s eyes twinkled. ‘It seems I’ve got the horse and the cart mixed up, Callista did not actually say her father was responsible for her own erudition, but nevertheless I find myself intrigued. I would very much like to meet and talk with the man.’

  Watching the man he had loved and respected from his earliest years, Michael Farron smiled. His mother’s brother had annoyed his own parents by preferring the ancient to the new, the past to the present. He should take interest in that which made money rather than in something which swallowed so much of it and gave nothing in return. Yet Phineas had proved his worth while still retaining his passion. Typhoid had wiped out his family leaving only his sister’s son and Phineas Westley had taken him in, rearing him with the full knowledge they were uncle and nephew but loving him as well as any parent could; and the family business? That too had prospered and grown under this man’s hand.

  Accepting the glass held out to him he glanced into the amber depths. ‘It could well be her father was responsible for her learning.’

  ‘Oh?’ Phineas took his drink to a wing backed chair, easing himself comfortably into its depths. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The name,’ Michael answered. ‘You did say the girl called herself Callista, did you not?’

  ‘Delightful, isn’t it?’

  Was that all his uncle found delightful about the young woman who had seemingly accidentally collided with him in the street or was there something more, something which had taken an old man’s fancy… something Phineas had not disclosed?