A Daughter's Secret (18 page)

‘Don’t speak in that disrespectful way to your mother,’ Thomas John admonished.

‘I’m sorry, Mammy,’ Joe said. ‘But, really, isn’t Finn’s survival the most important thing?’

‘Anyway,’ Tom put in, ‘it’s likely the way he copes. He’s probably a bit scared, or at least apprehensive.’

‘Doesn’t say so,’ Thomas John said, scrutinising the letter again. ‘According to this, he can’t wait.’

‘Wasn’t he always like that?’ Joe said. ‘Claiming he was scared of nothing, even as a wee boy?’

‘Aye,’ agreed Tom.

Nuala said suddenly, ‘Why are we bothering about the words he writes in a letter? I agree with Joe. All I care about is that Finn will come home hale and hearty when this is over.’

‘That’s all any of us cares about, cutie dear,’ Thomas John said gently. ‘We just have different ways of expressing things. Didn’t know myself how much I would miss the boy until he wasn’t here. He would irritate the life out of me at times and yet I would give my eyeteeth now for him to swing into the yard this minute, back where he belongs.’

Finn’s regiment was apparently sent to the Western Front, and he was now in France. His letters home were more spasmodic and he could tell them little. All the soldiers had been warned by their commanding officers against worrying the people back home.

The papers, though, were full of battles at places the family had never heard of – Gallipoli, the Dardanelles and Ypres – resulting in such terrible casualty figures. It was estimated that as many as 250,000 men had died by the summer of that year,
and the constant worry about Finn was like a nagging tooth.

About 125,000 Irish men and boys had volunteered for war, and by the late summer of 1915 some of those injured began to arrive back home. People were shocked to see the young, fit men who had marched off return with missing limbs, or wheezing like old men as their lungs were eaten away by mustard gas. Others were blind or shell-shocked. Many more were killed, their bodies left behind in foreign fields.

‘And for what?’ Thomas John asked. ‘We were promised Home Rule by the end of last year and now here we are, halfway through 1915, and it seems as far away as ever. Put on hold, they said, because of the war. Forgotten about, more like.’

‘That is only what you expected,’ Joe pointed out.

‘Aye, I know,’ Thomas John said, ‘but it gives me no pleasure to be right and think that my youngest son is risking his life for nothing.’

‘We are only going to control twenty-six counties anyway,’ Tom put in.

‘Well, what do we control now?’ Thomas John demanded. ‘Bugger all! That’s what! Small wonder that some of the lads are joining that Citizens’ Army,’ he added. ‘I hear they have guns and ammunition and all, down in Dublin.’

‘Aye, and it’s known as the Irish Volunteer Force now, Daddy,’ Joe said. ‘And haven’t the Ulster Volunteer Force their own stash of weapons and had them this long while?’

‘Aye, and under the eye of the British Government too,’ Thomas John said. ‘It will end in civil war yet, mark my words.’

It had been one of the hardest years of Aggie’s life and she loathed the thought of another man’s hand mauling her when she felt that now she belonged totally to Levingstone. He had taken her out and bought her a large diamond ring, which for the moment she was not allowed to wear. He promised that he would announce their engagement on Christmas Eve, and ever after that she could wear the ring.

He said she could tell Lily, knowing that she was longing to, and he took her over to her friend one day. Aggie found the world to be a strange place outside the club, which had cocooned her from the war and its effects. She saw women driving omnibuses, cars and even lorries, and she asked Lily about it.

‘That ain’t all, girl, either,’ Lily said. ‘There’s girls working in Dunlops in Rocky Lane – them that makes all the rubber – and they’re in all the munitions factories around as well.’

‘Munitions?’

‘You know, weapons, bullets and that.’

‘Oh…’

‘Well, someone’s got to do it with all the men called up,’ Lily pointed out. ‘Well paid, they say it is, as well. Plenty of jobs for women today. Need it and all, many of them, for a soldier’s pay and
the separation allowance a wife is paid is little more than a pittance. Mind, there ain’t much in the shops to buy and even less when the nobs buy it in loads to stockpile in their houses. They don’t go themselves, of course, and mix with us riffraff. They have their carriages parked down a side street and they sent their coachmen in. Course, that’s if the grocer is as bad as they are. Some of them are rationing stuff now, however much money you have, which is fairer, of course. I don’t expect this affects you at all.’

Aggie shook her head. ‘I don’t know how Bessie manages it, but she is a first-rate cook and produces some lovely meals. I suppose I should feel guilty that the war hasn’t changed my life at all.’

‘Why feel guilty?’ Lily said. ‘It ain’t your fault. Anyroad, haven’t you had any young officers down in the club for you to “entertain”?’

‘A few.’

‘Well, that’s doing your bit – flying the flag, as it were.’

‘Some of them are a lot nicer than your average punter,’ Aggie said. ‘And caught unawares their eyes often look so sad, almost bleak. I had an officer in just a couple of weeks ago, a young man – early twenties, no more – and he had to tell the soldiers in his command that if they are side by side with a brother as they go over the top and one is killed, then the other must step over him and go on. The officer did as he was told and he was haunted by it. He said good, decent men, often with loving
families back home, men he had had a laugh and joke with just minutes before, he had to order over the top and see them mown down or blown to pieces. Not in ones or twos, he said, though that would have been bad enough, but wave upon wave of them. And yet he had to swallow the bile that would rise in his throat and signal for another batch to be butchered, on and on till the trenches were empty and the ground was littered with bodies, or parts of bodies and the organs inside them. Body pieces, he called them.’

‘God…’ breathed Lily in horror.

‘He didn’t want sex,’ Aggie said, and added after a moment or two, ‘And you know it is one of the times I wouldn’t have minded, if it could have brought him some ease.’

‘What did he want?’ Lily asked.

‘To cry,’ Aggie replied. ‘Weep about the terrible things that he had been forced to do that he had no control over, and he wanted a woman’s arms around him, giving him comfort while he did it. He was so full of guilt and shame, and I held him tight and I think that sort of told him that it was all right for him to cry his heart out, that it didn’t make him a coward or a cissy or less of a man because his stiff upper lip had wobbled a bit.’

‘Bloody awful, ain’t it?’ Lily said. ‘I mean, I know it is a man’s world all right, and I seldom feel sorry for the buggers, but they can’t have a damned good old cry like we can.’

Aggie shook her head sadly. ‘No, they can’t.’

‘Finch still around?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘He’ll get called up if he ain’t careful.’

‘They haven’t got call-up yet, though, have they?’ Aggie said. ‘And when they do, his daddy will probably get him off it. He thinks anything can be bought for a price, but I wish to God he was in the army because it would solve all my problems. I mean, he doesn’t come every night or anything, but he only has to enter the club and I start trembling inside.’

‘And it’s still you he wants?’

‘Oh, yes, and he is as brutal as ever.’ Aggie shuddered. ‘But seldom where it shows. I keep the lights low in the bedroom, and if Alan does see anything I always pass it off as nothing, say I walked into something. I’m not at all sure how much he is aware of, though he is not stupid. Alan says, when we are officially engaged that side of things will come to an immediate stop.’ She looked at Lily, her eyes nearly standing out in her head. ‘Tell you something for nothing, the announcement of the engagement can’t come soon enough for me.’

When it was announced, however, at the club’s Christmas Eve Ball, to a great fanfare of trumpets and roll of drums, the look in Finch’s eyes frightened Aggie. There were cheers and roars of approval from the majority, though. Levingstone’s hand was pumped up and down, and Aggie was
hugged and kissed. But through it all, she couldn’t get the look in Finch’s eyes out of her mind, especially as the man had said not one word either congratulatory or otherwise. She told herself not to be silly, he could look all he liked, he would never get near her again. She was under Levingstone’s protection now.

Sometime during the evening, she lost sight of Levingstone. Finch also proved elusive and she presumed and hoped, that he had gone on somewhere else. She always liked to know where he was at the club because then she could keep well away for as long as possible.

She gave a sudden shiver and realised she hadn’t brought down the wrap she usually had with her so she popped back upstairs to collect it. She realised as she got to the top of the stairs that Alan and Finch were inside Alan’s apartment and arguing, their voices raised and angry.

‘And I have told you once already,’ she heard Alan say, ‘only you seem hard of hearing, so I will say it again. You are not bedding Aggie any more and I don’t care what you are offering to pay.’

‘We’ll see what Rogers has to say about that.’

‘I checked it out with Rogers,’ Levingstone said. ‘He knows all about it.’

‘He couldn’t,’ Finch said. ‘I was with him tonight and he never said a word.’

‘Oh,’ Levingstone said sarcastically, ‘I wasn’t aware that Rogers discussed all our business and personal arrangements with you.’

Finch shrugged. ‘He knows that I have an interest in the club in general, and Agnes in particular.’

‘Well, you must allow that interest in Agnes to wane,’ Levingstone said. ‘Agnes has agreed to be my wife and we are to be married in the spring. As for you, the club downstairs is awash with girls.’

‘And none of them suits.’

‘Then you are a hard man to please,’ Levingstone snapped, tight-lipped. Then, suddenly losing patience, he said irritably, ‘Look, I am not going to discuss this any more, Finch. I have told you how it is and if we talk from now until doomsday, the situation will not change. Either accept the rules, or take your custom elsewhere.’

‘You will be sorry for that, Levingstone.’

Levingstone gave a sigh. ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘But for now I would like you to leave.’

Aggie hid until she saw that Finch had gone. Then she went into the sitting room. Alan had sunk on to the sofa and he had his head in his hands. She was across the room in seconds and put her arms around his shaking shoulders.

‘Alan,’ she said in surprise, ‘you are trembling as much as me.’

Alan looked up at her and she saw his eyes were still afire and his cheeks were crimson. ‘Perhaps, my dear,’ he said, ‘but my shaking comes from trying to control my anger, not my fear.’

He pulled Aggie down beside him and, with his arm around her, he said, ‘But you need fear
him no longer, my dear. Cross him out of your life.’

Levingstone hadn’t seen the look Finch had cast Aggie’s way earlier that evening and a cold shiver ran down her as she realised why it had totally unnerved her. It was a sort of promise – unfinished business – and she knew she would never be really safe while Finch lived.

Levingstone had expressly forbidden Aggie to go to Lily’s on her own, saying the streets around there were far too dangerous, peopled as they were by footpads and pickpockets, not to mention the more violent element that would murder a person for the watch on their wrist.

Aggie thought he was being unduly cautious. Lily and her friends worked on the same streets night after night and they never said anything about it.

She knew, though, that Alan’s warning was just another measure of his concern for her, and it was a lovely feeling to be cosseted so. In just a few days that would be the pattern of her life. She would have Alan by her side and the bad times behind her, as if they had never happened.

She hadn’t truly loved Alan as a woman should love a man she has agreed to marry when she had accepted his proposal, but that had all changed now. His love for her was so all-consuming, and he
demonstrated how he felt about her so often, she couldn’t be other than affected by it. Now she could say, hand on heart, that she truly loved Alan Levingstone.

The age difference had never been an issue with her and wasn’t now. The only regret was that they probably wouldn’t have as many years together as they would if Levingstone were younger. When Aggie had said that, just the previous night, he had told her not to worry about the future, let it take care of itself. What they had to do was take joy in each day.

When Alan had left on business that morning, Aggie hadn’t a thought in her head of going to Lily’s, but after lunch she saw a long afternoon stretching out before her, because Alan had said he didn’t expect to be back until it was almost time to open the club.

She really wanted to see Lily and the other girls to discuss the wedding. They had been so pleased when they heard of her engagement. Levingstone had taken her over to tell them and show them the ring in January and they had been delighted for her. The sun was shining from a sky of cornflower blue. What harm could happen to her on such a day? So she set out after lunch without a word to anyone.

She reached Lily’s with no problem at all, and when she told her what Alan had said, Lily took her hand and said with tears in her eyes, ‘It’s all plain sailing for you now, bab. He will look after
you right and treat you well, and I know many would change places with you this minute for that fact alone.’

Aggie smiled happily. ‘I know. I know too how lucky I am. And it’s not that alone either. I truly love him. I tremble whenever he is near me and I long for his touch, or his lips on mine.’ She laughed at the expression on Lily’s face. ‘Yes, Lily, I am a totally hopeless case.’

‘No you ain’t,’ Lily said emphatically. ‘You are just bloody lucky, and thank God for it, because it is about time summat went right for you. What about that snake in the grass, Finch?’

‘Oh, that is even better,’ Aggie said, ‘because he’s gone. Well, at least he hasn’t been near since the argument that he had with Alan on Christmas Eve that I told you about.’

‘So, where is he now then?’

Aggie shrugged. ‘Taken his custom elsewhere, I suppose, like Alan advised him to do if he didn’t like the rules. I don’t care really. Each night after that, I was always looking over my shoulder, certain he would be in, causing trouble. But now, well, it’s weeks, isn’t it? He will be off to pastures new, inflicting his special brand of vicious lovemaking on some other poor cow. I pity her, whoever she is.’

The other girls came back then and they were delighted to see Aggie and hear her news. Their congratulations were warm and sincere, and the time slipped by as they chatted together. It was only
when the girls said they had to change to go to work that Aggie realised how much time had elapsed. The afternoon had been replaced by evening and she was concerned that Alan would be home before her and then she would be in trouble.

‘I must go,’ she said to Lily.

‘You best get on the tram,’ Lily said. ‘It goes right up the Pershore Road.’

‘I’m all right,’ Aggie said. ‘The walk will do me good.’ She was never given money of her own and though she knew she could have borrowed the tram fare from Lily, she had never ridden on one before and was scared stiff of them.

Although Aggie had left on a lovely afternoon, fog had descended as she had sat in Lily’s sitting room, and visibility was bad. But Aggie was not afraid of the dusky evening. In Ireland there had been no lights after sunset, only the moon and the stars. All she was concerned about was getting home as quickly as possible.

Finch had been visiting a lady friend, who was extremely free with her favours. She lived on the other side of Cannon Hill Park, which wasn’t far from the club, and as he walked across the park he toyed with the idea of going back to the club that evening. He had avoided it for months because of his fixation with Aggie. However, now he had this woman in Edgbaston who was a real little goer and didn’t even mind the rough stuff – seemed to like it, rather – he wanted to know if Aggie would have the same effect on him.

Suddenly, as if his thoughts had conjured Aggie up, he thought he saw her approaching, though he wasn’t totally sure with the swirling fog. If it was Aggie, he’d be surprised to see her out alone. People said Levingstone kept a firm hold on her, hardly letting her out of his sight.

As she drew nearer, he saw it was Aggie. To reach home, he knew she would have to pass close by a small terrace of shops. The shops were all shut for the night, but in the middle of them was a central alley and he crossed the road, slipped into this and waited.

When he felt himself harden at even the thought of her drawing closer, he knew he wanted her more than ever. He recalled telling Levingstone that he would be sorry for the way he had spoken to him. What sweet revenge it would be to take his woman almost on the eve of their wedding.

As she drew level, he stepped from the shelter of the entry and said, ‘Good evening, Agnes.’

Aggie stood stock-still, her mouth suddenly as dry as dust. Even in the half-light, she could see Finch’s eyes shining demonically, and the curl of his thin, cruel lips. Dread seemed to be gripping her innards and she began to tremble.

‘What do you want with me, Tony?’ she asked.

Finch heard the tremor in her voice and could almost taste her fear. He smiled. He was determined that she would have reason to fear him before he was finished with her and he snarled at her harshly, ‘Why ask the road you know?’

He grabbed hold of her shoulders, digging his nails into her skin as he dragged her into the dark of the entry. ‘I have been missing you all this time,’ he hissed in her ear.

She tried to pull away, but he just held her tighter and she said as firmly as she could, ‘Let me go. You have no right to touch me. I am engaged to Alan Levingstone now, as well you know.’

‘Oh, yes, I know that all right,’ Finch said breathlessly, desire to take this woman almost consuming him. But by admitting this, even to himself, he was exposing a weakness. All women were bitches, he reminded himself. ‘Wants you for himself, the dirty old sod,’ he snarled at Aggie.

‘It’s none of your business,’ Aggie yelled. ‘Just leave me alone.’ She was angry, despite her intense fear, that Finch should think he could get away with this. She gave a terrific lunge forward that Finch wasn’t prepared for and felt her skin tear beneath his fingers as she cried, ‘Leave me be. If you touch me I shall scream the place down. Someone passing will hear me. You shan’t get away with this.’

The punch took her unawares and she thought for a moment that she had been blinded. She felt the blood dripping from her nose and mouth, but the second punch knocked her against the entry wall. At the third, she fell to her knees and the fourth knocked her on her back on the ground, dazed and whimpering in pain and fear.

‘Scream, will you?’ Finch gloated, landing on
top of her. ‘By the time I am finished with you, you will be in no fit state to even cry for your mother.’

He took hold of her coat and ripped it open. Aggie vaguely heard the buttons popping off, but her senses were reeling and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Her dress and petticoats he ripped down to the waist so she lay bare, her breasts exposed, and these he pummelled mercilessly before yanking off her boots and ripping off her bloomers and her silk stockings so that she lay naked before him.

His hard, groping hands became more brutal than ever and Aggie was roused by the agony he was inflicting. She couldn’t prevent the groan when he entered her, however, because it hurt her so badly. It seemed to last for ever and each thrust caused her to moan aloud, because the pain was excruciating. In the end, Finch put his hand over her bruised and bleeding mouth lest she be heard by someone in the street.

But at last it was over, and for a minute he lay on top of her, spent. Then he hissed in her ear, ‘Tell Levingstone that this is the sort of thing that happens when a man annoys me. You hear me?’

Her eyes were closed and he smacked her on each cheek until she opened them and tried to focus. Finch grabbed her under the chin. ‘I said, do you hear me?’

‘Yes,’ Aggie mumbled, indistinctly because of her damaged mouth. Finch was satisfied, though,
and he got to his feet, fastened himself and melted away.

Tears seeped from Aggie’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks, causing the grazes to sting afresh. She knew she had to get out of this place, but she was in too much pain to move. She lay back and her eyes closed almost by themselves as a great lethargy stole over her.

Eventually the cold roused her and she opened her eyes in a panic. She had no idea how long she had lain there, but she knew she had to get home and as quickly as possible. She was shivering, and tried to pull her coat around her to cover her nakedness. There were no buttons left to fasten it, so she left it hanging open as she tried lurching to her feet, only to keel over almost immediately. She tried again and again with the same result. In the end, she crawled down the entry on her hands and knees, the rough ground scoring into her bare feet, legs and the palms of her hands.

When she reached the street she once more tried to get to her feet, holding on to a wall for grim death. Every bit of Aggie ached and throbbed as she gingerly moved her feet. One step, then another and another. She was gasping with pain as she tried to push herself forward. Sometimes she stopped, for the street refused to stay still and she had to stay hugging the wall until it righted itself and she could go on again, for she knew she was very close to the club now. It was just a little further.

She was just yards from home when her head began to swim alarmingly. Desperate to reach safety, she took another step forward and staggered. Sudden blackness surrounded her and there was a roaring in her ears as the ground rose up to meet her.

Levingstone wasn’t concerned at first, when he arrived home to find Aggie was not there, convinced that the maid, Jane, would know where she was. The two of them were great friends. When Mary had left to get married, Aggie had asked Levingstone to allow her to choose the next maid and so Jane Potter came into their lives. She was a trim girl with a mop of brown curls. She had a pleasant and open face with brown dancing eyes and a mouth shaped like a rosebud, which turned up slightly as if she were constantly amused about something. She and Aggie had hit it off straight away and Levingstone would often hear them laughing together over something. This would please him, for he knew Aggie sometimes felt a bit lonely.

But Jane couldn’t help him that day. ‘She was here until dinner time, that I do know, sir,’ she said. ‘But it was my afternoon off. I am not long in myself. Do you want me to check whether her coat and boots are missing?’

‘No, I’ll do that,’ Levingstone said. A few moments later he had to face the fact that Aggie had disregarded his words and gone out unprotected, and had not returned.

‘She must have gone to Lily’s place, for she know no one else,’ he told the maid. ‘I’ll go and fetch her home. Tell the coachman to get the carriage ready.’

The maid knew that for the master to go into that area at night, and in a carriage too, was madness. But her mother was always telling her not to try to understand the minds of those she worked for, just to do as she was told, so she said, ‘Yes, sir, I’ll go directly.’

The coachman wasn’t that keen either, but as he told Jane, ‘Orders is orders, but I’ll tell you summat for nowt: if anything has happened to that lass, then our lives won’t be worth living.’

Jane sighed. ‘Don’t I know it?’ she said. ‘Let’s hope you find her safe and sound.’

Lily’s house was in darkness. Levingstone wasn’t really surprised, for most of the prostitutes would be working at that time, but then where the hell was Aggie? He knew where many of the women’s pitches were, and so he set off to find Lily. He saw the girls standing in provocative poses in doorways and on street corners, and while some watched him pass silently, others called out, their wares on offer. He barely heard them, though his eyes scanned each face. He was dismayed that Lily was nowhere to be seen in the roads she usually worked.

He didn’t know what to do and he told the coachman to just drive around and he hoped he
would come upon her. He didn’t, but he did spy Susie a couple of streets away. He saw her eyes light up speculatively at the sight of a man in a carriage beckoning her over, until she realised who it was.

‘Is anything up, Mr Levingstone?’

‘Yes, I’m looking for Lily.’

‘Oh, she’s gone off with some geezer,’ Susie said. ‘I was just coming to work myself and saw her.’

‘Right,’ Levingstone said. ‘Well, I really want to know if she saw Agnes today.’

‘We all did. She came round.’

‘Thank God!’ Levingstone said. ‘So where is she now?’

‘No idea,’ Susie said. ‘After a bit I went up to get changed to come out, like, and when I come back down she was gone. Lily said she told her to take the tram home, but she said she’d walk – that it would do her good.’

‘About how long ago was this?’

Susie shrugged. ‘’Bout two hours ago.’

‘At the outside, it would take her forty minutes or so to walk home,’ Levingstone said, ‘and yet there is no sign of her.’