A Daughter's Secret (9 page)

Lily had been with Levingstone longer than most. They had grown up on the same street and so she had a little influence and she was sure she could convince him that Aggie could be an asset.

* * *

Tom often felt overwhelmed by what he had done. Whatever type of man McAllister was, he had killed him just as surely as if he had hit him with a lump of wood. It was all right Philomena saying that McAllister was no loss, she hadn’t done the deed, and she’d actually tried to stop him. What in God’s name had he been thinking about even to consider such a thing anyway? Hatred for McAllister had got in the way of reason and justice, and he really thought he should pay the price for that.

At home, if he had done anything wrong then he would be punished for it, sometimes severely. He had never protested because that was the way it was, but now he had done this very wrong thing, almost the worst thing one person can do to another, and nothing was going to happen to him.

Worse still, he was unable to confess it. The priest couldn’t speak of what was said in confession but he would know who Tom was and could seek him out later and maybe urge him to confess all to the police. Then everything would come out about Aggie and McAllister, and Philomena’s part in it. It would also be the end of his life, for if he wasn’t hanged he would probably be transported, and then how would his parents cope? They would be destroyed with shame by the actions of their children.

He shouldn’t attend Mass or take Communion while this mortal sin nestled in his soul, yet he
knew full well he would never be excused Mass. Then if he didn’t go to the rails for Communion, it would be noted, and back at home the inquisition would start. He would have to go on as he was for years and years, every Sunday compounding that sin till his soul would be as black as coal. He tossed and turned in bed at night, unable to sleep, though his body was often weary and his eyes smarted with tiredness, until Joe would growl at him to keep still.

Small wonder he had nightmares. They were so bad that he was almost afraid to go to sleep at night and was sluggish throughout the rest of the day. Thomas John would often lose patience with him, and Tom could only hope that he would feel better when the man was buried.

However, on the day of the funeral, the whole town turned out to pay tribute to this ‘fine man’. Tom had hoped that the sister McAllister had spoken about would be there, and maybe, if the opportunity presented itself and he didn’t lose courage, he could ask her about Aggie. Philomena, though, told him Gwen would not be coming.

‘For myself I can’t stand the woman,’ she told Tom. ‘But I asked her for Bernie’s sake. The letter was returned marked “Not known at this address”, and I have no other way of letting her know about the funeral.’

‘Yes, but what does that mean for Aggie?’ Tom said. ‘I mean, was she moved someplace else when Aggie got there?’

‘I don’t know,’ Philomena said. ‘But you can do nothing about it so try not to worry. Believe me, the funeral will be enough of a strain for the two of us to go through.’

And it was, particularly in the room at the back of Grant’s Bar where the funeral party went after the Requiem Mass and the prayers intoned at the graveside. Tom listened in amazement to the varied tales the men told about McAllister’s exploits and the women who shed tears over the grand figure of a man taken in his prime like that. Tom realised that once a person dies, he becomes a saint.

He found it all very hard to stomach. When they began to commiserate with Philomena on her tragic loss and go on about what a good husband and father he was, Tom reckoned that he had heard enough and he slipped outside.

Philomena saw him go and went out after him as soon as she was able to.

‘All right?’ she asked.

Instead of answering, Tom burst out, ‘How do you stand it, Philomena?’

‘Stand what?’

‘Look,’ Tom said, ‘you may as well know that there is seldom an hour goes by when I don’t feel guilty at the death of your husband. Yes, I meant to harm him, but not kill him, and I wish it hadn’t happened to him. But the way they go on in there is just sickening. He was not the great man they are describing and lamenting the loss of.’

‘You’re right, he wasn’t,’ Philomena agreed
placidly. ‘No great shakes at being a good husband and father either.’

‘So doesn’t it make you feel mad inside when they go on and on, talking about a man neither of us recognises?’

‘People are people the world over,’ Philomena said. ‘Many are nervous about speaking ill of the dead, thinking – oh, I don’t know – that they may come back and haunt them or something, I suppose. It’s easy for people like that to remember only the good times, and Bernie could be the life and soul of any gathering.’

‘I know that, but—’

‘Words are easy to speak, Tom,’ Philomena said. ‘I know the real Bernie McAllister, but that man’s body is lying in a coffin in a graveyard and cannot hurt me or bring disgrace on me or mine ever again, so I will keep my own counsel. In a while, I’ll sell the shop and move away from here, and start afresh where no one knows us. I’ll bring my children up on my own, which I have been doing since the day they were born anyway. And you, Tom, must forget that day Bernie died and forget you had a hand in it.’

‘I can’t!’ Tom cried. ‘I took a man’s life, whichever way you look at it.’

‘Aye, you did,’ Philomena said. ‘And thank God for it, for he wrecked so many young girls’ lives and would have gone on and on doing that if he had lived. I tell you, Tom, you did the world a favour. Now you think on that and then put all
this behind you, for you have your whole life to live yet. I must go back in now before I am missed.’

Tom watched Philomena go back to join the party and thought about the things she had said to him. He knew she had spoken wisely. He accepted that he had helped kill a man, and yet all the regret in the world would not alter that fact. So, he had to either do his damnedest to put it all behind him now, or let it eat away inside him till he was destroyed too. He mentally squared his shoulders and followed Philomena.

Ten days after Aggie first felt well enough to get up, Mr Levingstone agreed to take a look at her and was even more interested when Lily told him she could do Irish dancing. She had found out by accident as Aggie let it slip to her one night and she had gone on to tell the five girls that she shared the house with. They, of course, wanted to see this for themselves and as one of them had a gramophone, as soon as Lily deemed Aggie strong enough, they sallied forth to buy the records with the dance tunes that she knew.

Aggie herself wasn’t too keen on this. Every time she thought of that night in December, she felt sick and she knew that it was her love of the Irish dancing that had led in the end to the attack. If she had never been to classes to learn, then she would, in all likelihood, be still be at home now with her parents and her brothers and baby sister. She agreed to demonstrate her dancing only to
please Lily, yet when she heard the familiar strains of the jigs and reels fill the air, she felt her toes curling with anticipation.

And when she began to dance a skip jig in the bare feet that she was used to, all nervousness left her. It was as if she was an extension of the music. The girls sat spellbound watching her, and the applause at the end was spontaneous and heartfelt. Aggie was pleased though she flushed with embarrassment.

‘My God, girl, Levingstone will snap you up,’ Lily said when they went back into the room for Lily to change to take to the streets again. ‘He would be mad not to. He would be sitting on a bleeding gold mine.’

Aggie made a face and Lily rapped out, ‘Don’t look like that. Let me tell you, girl, it will be a sight more respectable than what I do.’

Aggie remembered asking McAllister, rather primly, if there had been no ordinary jobs that people could do. She had known nothing then, and it had been Lily that had put her right to the true situation when she had suggested looking for a job.

‘Where was you thinking of looking, ducks?’

‘I thought of work in service somewhere,’ Aggie had said. ‘It’s all I know really.’

‘Listen, bab,’ Lily replied, ‘you won’t be taken into service or any other place respectable without references.’

Aggie could see that now – see that and understand it as well – but still she asked, ‘What am I
to do?’ The silence spoke volumes. ‘I… c-couldn’t do what you do,’ she stammered.

‘That surely would depend on how hungry you get,’ Lily snapped.

‘Don’t be offended.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Lily said. ‘I bring you in and look after you, put food on the table and get coal for the fire to prevent us freezing to death, and you look down on me. The money you brought is almost gone, so what’re you going to live on then, fresh air?’

‘No,’ Aggie said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Time you grew up, girl,’ Lily said. ‘Think I chose this life? You think when I was a nipper at school I thought, when I grow up I’m going to be a prostitute? Tell you why I did it, girl. I lost my parents to typhoid and there was just me and my little brothers. I was thirteen, and it was either me go onto the streets, the only thing that would pay enough to keep us, or throw ourselves on the mercy of them at the workhouse. Course, I didn’t know the least thing about how to go about it then, and I was terribly frightened. The first man I propositioned was Levingstone.’

‘Did you do anything with him?’

‘Yeah, I did,’ Lily said almost defiantly. ‘He was kind, though, and gentle, and yet I felt dirty – filthy, in fact. When he had gone, I vomited into the gutter. But he paid well. He came again the next night and the next, and each time I vomited. Then he asked if I wanted to work for him, but he didn’t have
management of the clubs then. As a sort of extra payment, and because we had been neighbours, he looked after my brothers too, saw them through school and that, and later paid their passage to America. And I became one of his whores. There weren’t no choice really, and that was it. I stopped being sick in the end, though I never liked it and don’t now. That’s why I drink so much. We all do. And we take the opium ’cos it blurs the edges a bit.’

‘Was the letter that came yesterday from one of your brothers?’ Aggie asked.

‘Yeah,’ Lily said. ‘I have only the one now, because the youngest died on the trip out, but the eldest is doing well. Point is, Levingstone didn’t have to do the half of what he did. Course, he was one hell of a lot younger then, not so hard-boiled and cynical, and he said he felt sorry for me. When he took over the management of this house, I was the first one he moved in, and there ain’t any other line of work I could take up now.’

‘Did you never have a baby?’

‘Ain’t allowed no babies,’ Lily said. ‘Levingstone is adamant about that.’ Her voice suddenly sounded sad and Aggie saw the tears in her eyes as she went on, ‘I fell pregnant four times. The first time I was only fourteen. But they was all taken away – aborted, like. After the last time, the woman damaged summat and I never fell pregnant after that. Just as well, really.’

‘I’m sorry, Lily,’ Aggie said. ‘Who am I to judge anyone?’

‘I’m sorry too,’ Lily admitted. ‘I was just like everyone else, you know. I wanted a husband and kids, and a little house with roses round the door, but the dice didn’t roll that way for me. But don’t look down on me, Aggie, because it hasn’t for you either and we just have to make the best of it.’

Then, seeing that Aggie still looked scared to death, she continued, ‘Look, Levingstone is just about as decent as they come in this business and yes, the blokes he has there have the pick of the girls, you included, but he don’t allow no funny stuff. Some of the whorehouses have rooms like bleeding torture chambers, and you’d scarcely believe what they put some of them girls through.’

‘Ooh, don’t. That’s horrible.’

‘So better the devil you know, eh?’ Lily said. ‘When he comes to see you dance tomorrow morning, you put on your best performance. Be nice to him and do what he tells you and he will treat you right.’

Aggie was hardly reassured by that. All this was like a nightmare coming true.

Aggie wasn’t really that keen on Levingstone when she met him the following morning. He was a fairly tall man with very black hair and deep-set dark eyes, and he was clean shaven, which emphasised his large and rather bulbous nose and his wide mouth. But what was really off-putting was the way his eyes were narrowed in scrutiny and his mouth turned down as she began to dance.

They didn’t stay that way, though, for within minutes of watching Aggie, Levingstone saw she was a gifted dancer. There was soon a twinkle in his eyes, his mouth turned up in approval and his foot was tapping along to the music. She was a beautiful girl, almost a child still, and when he spoke to her afterwards, he found her lilting accent so endearing. Despite what had happened to her – for Lily had told him how she had found Aggie collapsed in the street, and later she had miscarried a child – there was an air of vulnerability about her. He knew his club members would pay
dearly to see this little girl dance and he was totally enchanted by her.

Had the child been born to affluent parents maybe she could have gone to a school of dance, for she was extremely talented, but what was the point of wishing things were different? He wanted her in his club as soon as possible. That would keep her off the streets for now, which was really all she could hope for in the circumstances.

‘Pack your things,’ he said. ‘I want you in my place from tonight. I will send a hansom cab for you this evening at eight o’clock and you will not be returning. Don’t look so scared; you will not go down in the club until I see fit. I want you for myself.’

Aggie gasped. The man’s words hadn’t made her feel any better. Risking his wrath, she said, ‘I’ve never done things with a man but the once, and then I was forced.’

‘I will not force you,’ Levingstone said. ‘I have never had to force any woman, but if you refuse to do this, what will you do instead?’

Aggie knew there wasn’t any ‘instead’. She had to agree to do what he wanted or be thrown out onto the street, and yet her insides quailed at the thought and she had flushed with embarrassment as she said, ‘I’m sorry. I might not be very good, but I will do my very best to please you.’

‘Good girl,’ Levingstone said, beaming his approval at her. ‘I promise that you won’t regret it. Till tonight then, sweetheart.’ He drew her towards him and
kissed her gently on the lips. Aggie willed herself not to pull back.

Lily, who had been shopping, came in just a few minutes after Levingstone had left. She was delighted for Aggie and said if she played her cards right she would be set up for years. The other girls in the house agreed, and were pleased that things were finally going right for Aggie.

‘Do you think so really?’ Aggie asked Lily on the quiet. ‘See, in my wildest dreams I never thought of this sort of life for myself.’

‘Lots of us was the same, ducks,’ Lily said. ‘Life dictates what we do, and that. If I was you, I would forget the life you come from and the family you come from.’

‘They would probably not want to know me after this anyway.’

‘Best way,’ Lily said. ‘They would barely recognise you and wouldn’t want to acknowledge you. You know I went on the streets to put food in my brothers’ mouths and give them a start in life, yet my brother doesn’t want me to be part of his life in America. He is married and has a couple of kids, but I wasn’t invited to the wedding and have never been asked over since either.’

‘Doesn’t that hurt you terribly?’

‘Bab, it’s life,’ Lily told her. ‘The gin and drugs helps when life gets up and kicks you in the teeth. But you, ducks, should be happy. The club is for the real nobs, you know. You have to be rich and have a certain status to go there. It’s still in

Edgbaston and yet it might be a million miles away. Levingstone has rooms above the club, so they say. Plush rooms, I mean, a proper apartment and with maids and all. If he wants you for himself, then, girl, you have it made. And it is one hell of a lot safer for you there, bab. Levingstone will look after you and it’s better you keep off the streets as long as you possibly can.’

‘Won’t I be able to stay at the club for always?’

‘Always is a long time,’ Lily told her. ‘Like most blokes, Levingstone likes to surround himself with young and pretty girls. Don’t do anything to annoy or offend him, and you might last longer than most.’

It didn’t sound very promising, but the girls thought it the best possible news and decided to throw an impromptu leaving party for Aggie that lunchtime.

Aggie liked all the girls because they had been kind to her, especially Susie. She was much younger than Lily, no bigger than Aggie, and full of fun. She confessed that she was twenty-five. She had an arresting appearance with her mop of black curls she was constantly trying to tame, skin light as alabaster and a rosebud mouth.

‘You’re a lucky little cow,’ she said good-naturedly to Aggie, after they had all toasted her health. ‘Tell you, I would have given anything to go in such a place, but my wonky eye put paid to that.’

Aggie felt sorry for Susie, for though her eyes were so dark they were almost black and very
alluring, there was a cast in one of them. ‘Is that all Levingstone rejected her for?’ Aggie asked Lily quietly when Susie had moved away and was joking with one of the other girls.

Lily nodded. ‘It’s sad, I know, but when you pay as much as the punters do that Levingstone pulls in, I suppose they demand perfection.’

‘That’s horrible!’

‘So it is, bab,’ Lily said, ‘but it ain’t your fault. Now hand me up a glass and I’ll fill it for you.’

Aggie, still apprehensive of the future and mindful of Lily’s advice on dealing with it, drank the gin in a few minutes and was ready for another. She liked the taste of it, for it was nothing remotely like poteen, and Lily was right: after her third glass it made her feel as if nothing mattered and all was right in her world. In the end, though, she drank so much she was unable to stand, and Lily had to help her to bed.

Four hours later Aggie opened her eyes and thought she had dropped into Hell. She felt sick, had a raging thirst, a thumping head and the room refused to stay still. Suddenly into her mind, which seemed filled with cotton wool, came the memory of her dancing for Levingstone that morning.

By screwing her eyes up she could focus on the clock across the room and saw that it was already six o’clock. Levingstone’s cab would be here in two hours and she felt like death warmed up. That was what she told Lily when she came in just a few minutes later.

‘You just got a hangover, bab, that’s all,’ Lily said to her. ‘Bet it is your first.’

Aggie thought back to how she had felt when she woke up the morning after the rape, but that was all mixed up with her sickening for the measles as well.

Lily laughed gently at her. ‘Won’t be your last, Aggie, not in this business. Where you are heading, drinking and encouraging the punters to drink is part of the culture – what Levingstone will expect you to do.’

‘I really don’t think I will be able to stand it,’ Aggie said.

‘You’ll get used to it in the end,’ Lily said. ‘And you will stand it all right, because you are not stupid and you know what the alternative is. Now I am going to get you a big drink of water, and when you have drunk it I want you on your feet, washed and changed, and ready to please and charm Levingstone.’

Aggie knew Lily was right: how she behaved in the next few hours could shape the next few years of her life. She couldn’t look further than that, and so she took the glass from Lily, downed it immediately and then gingerly got to her feet and tried to ignore her pounding head.

Despite the water and the wash, Aggie wasn’t quite sober when the cab arrived to take her to Levingstone’s club. It was a beautiful cab, she could see even in the dim light from the hall. The horse was dark, though his mane was coffee-coloured and she saw with surprise it was plaited.

The driver was dressed in a dark green uniform, and was extremely smart. He called her ‘miss’ very correctly and doffed his cap to her. Aggie wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. She was going to a club where she would be expected to sleep with a man who was almost a stranger to her and this cabman was treating her with the utmost respect.

Aggie would have enjoyed the drive more if she hadn’t been so scared about what awaited her at the journey’s end. She did note though that the area they were travelling through was nothing like the area she had come from. Lily was right, it might have been a million miles away, for they had left behind the mean streets and the houses squashed together. The street they were travelling down was wide and lined with trees, and they shared it with other vehicles, some pulled by horses, some powered by the noisy, smelly engines. Aggie saw too that there were the rails of the tram track at the edge of the road. And the houses were large and set in their own grounds. In fact, some couldn’t be seen at all from the road, and that increased Aggie’s apprehension still further.

After about twenty minutes they approached the club from the back. A young maid answered the coachman’s knock and Aggie was taken up the carpeted stairs and into a hall of sorts, where the maid helped her off with her coat and bonnet. She then led the way to a dining room where a table
was beautifully laid for dinner. Aggie’s feet sank into the dark red carpet and as she approached the table she felt her heart thudding in nervousness. She had never seen so many knives and forks in all of her life, nor so many glasses, which sparkled in the light of the two glass chandeliers set in the sculptured ceiling. The room itself had gold-varnished wood halfway up its walls, another thing Aggie had never seen before. Above the wood the walls were covered with pretty paper with a gold leaf design.

Then Levingstone came in, took Aggie’s trembling hand and led her to a seat at the table, while he sat opposite. The maid Levingstone addressed as Mary, dressed in a black dress and a white apron, served them delicious food, which Aggie was almost too overawed to eat. She was also worried about using the wrong knife and fork, and copied Levingstone meticulously, but was far too agitated even to make a stab at any sort of conversation. Levingstone seemed to know that, however, and chatted away to her instead.

He served her wine with the meal. He said it was white and fairly sweet because wine was an acquired taste, but Aggie found she liked it and had quite a few glasses of it. Soon she was feeling pleasantly woozy. Then Levingstone took her hand and led her to a chair beside the cosy fire blazing in the grate.

She didn’t like the brandy that he insisted she have with the coffee, which she found quite bitter.

‘It will help you relax,’ he said. ‘You’re still incredibly nervous, aren’t you?’

Aggie didn’t trust herself to speak because she was having trouble stopping her teeth from chattering. When Levingstone saw that the brandy, which she’d downed with a grimace, had made little difference, he rang the bell and told Mary to prepare a tincture for the young lady.

It was the sort of drink Lily would mix for her, but slightly stronger. Aggie drank it gratefully, knowing the numbing effect it would soon have on her.

So, when she had drained every last drop of the drink and Levingstone extended his hand, she took it without hesitation, though she staggered so much when she was on her feet that he put an arm about her instead and helped her into the bedroom, which he said he kept for guests.

Again the room was carpeted and softly lit with lamps. Aggie saw with surprise the sheets were silk and the colour of the midnight sky, and turned down ready. Lily had packed her prettiest nightdress for Aggie to wear, but she suddenly sensed that she would never have the occasion to put it on.

She knew she had to block out what McAllister had done to her, so that she could truly submit to Levingstone, for her very survival rested on her pleasing him. Anyway, a pleasant lethargy was seeping through her body so that now she worried about nothing. Though her head was spinning
slightly, it was not an unpleasant sensation, and she felt no shame as Levingstone undressed her.

He was a skilled lover and not an impatient one, and he was very attracted to the slight and beautiful little Irish girl. He really liked virgins, but Lily had told him that Aggie’s only experience had been forced upon her and therefore was hardly enjoyable. He intended to show her a different side of sex, because when he deemed she was ready and she was introduced to the clients, he imagined that she would be in great demand. He wanted to make sure that she knew what was expected of her and would give the men good value.

So that night, he gave himself up to pleasing Aggie. The drugs and drink had successfully dampened down any embarrassment she might have felt as the last of her garments fell to the floor and she lay totally naked before a man for the first time in her life.

When that man fondled her breasts, gently at first and then more vigorously rolling her nipples between his fingers, she couldn’t have held back the moan of desire that escaped from her any more than she could have prevented the sun from shining.

Many times that night Aggie groaned and moaned in an agony of lust that Levingstone induced in her until, when there was no area of her body that he hadn’t explored, and often followed with his lips, and when he eventually entered her, she cried out in thankfulness.

The joy and rapture of it went on and on, wave
after wave rising higher and higher, and Levingstone felt her responding to him and knew he had a gem in Aggie. She was a sensual woman and, with her inhibitions loosened, one who would enjoy sex and in time endeavour to please him as much as he pleased her. She would remain his and only his until he tired of her.

Aggie knew none of Levingstone’s thoughts, of course. She just knew that when he kissed her gently, tucking the sheets around her as he slipped from the bed, for he had a club to run, she turned over with a sigh of satisfaction and remembered nothing more.

When Mary came in the next morning to open the curtains, Aggie groaned, for even the light of the grey day stabbed at her eyes. Levingstone had given instructions that Aggie was to have anything she required and so when the maid asked her if she would like any breakfast and Aggie said that she could eat nothing but she would like a large tincture, the maid just bobbed her head in acquiescence. And if she thought a mixture of gin and opium was not a terribly good way to start the day, she kept those thoughts and feelings to herself.