The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton (13 page)

It was when Joe had been there for two weeks that things were suddenly different. He awoke and did not see the reason for it. He was not thirsty, and he was too young for nature’s call at that hour. He listened and waited.

He convinced himself that there was somebody downstairs. Yet he was not afraid of such things. There was nothing for anybody to take and if somebody needed shelter then where was the problem? He couldn’t hear anything and he half told himself that maybe there was a cats’ meeting in his hall. He still hadn’t worked out how they got there, but he was generous enough to let it go.

In the end he got wearily out of bed and pulled a blanket around him to ward off the cold. He went noisily down the stairs, knowing that any cat would be long gone by the time he trod his way to the ground floor, but when he got there it was different.

There were lights, but not the lights he knew from the house. It didn’t frighten him, but it was odd and strange, and somehow when you had been at war and knew there were no limits to anything, you worried. He went carefully from room to room and as he did so music played softly and faint images floated in front of him; he thought it was a mother and child

He heard a soft noise in the kitchen, ventured through there and it faded. By the door was a cat. It was the tortoise
shell. Small, not imposing, as though it expected nothing. It sat just inside the door like a visitor not sure of its welcome.

He went into the sitting room where it seemed the music was now coming from, but there was no person, no instrument, and by then he could barely hear it. Perhaps it was outside? He ventured there, the tortoiseshell cat following him, and as he stopped it sat down beside him as though it had discerned that he needed the company.

He could hear the music here too. He thought that it floated across the river, away from him. It could hardly be coming from the cathedral at that time of night. It wasn’t church music anyway, as far as he knew. It certainly wasn’t a hymn or a psalm; anybody with his schooling would have recognized if it had been.

He got down beside the cat and met its eyes.

‘So, what do you think it is then, Kitty?’ he said. He was quite surprised when all the cat did was purr and look comfortable, then as though it thought he needed reassurance, it rubbed around his legs before sitting down again.

He went inside and it followed him up the stairs, making itself comfortable on the bed as though it were taking shifts with the others. He could still hear the music when he fell asleep. It occurred to him that that was what lullabies were all about, but he didn’t recognize it. When he awoke the cat had gone.

He should not have been surprised. When he had been in France, and even sometimes as he had been growing up, he’d had similar experiences, but it was unreliable, this extra sense. He had never told anybody about it and he had been irritated over the years because sometimes he had been in
great need and it had not helped. He had come to the conclusion that it only happened when it was for someone else’s sake, such as when he was fighting and one of his men was hurt.

This time he did not understand why this was happening. Nothing had come to his aid when he had come back from France and found that his father had died; he’d had no help when he had discovered that Angela had run away. Even when he slept he dreamt of her running and needing him and he was not there, or she was tired of waiting for him and had gone off with someone else – or they had married and it had not worked out. His dreams varied and each one hurt him when he awoke. Angela was so very real to him still.

The first thing he did that day was to go to the solicitors’. He hoped to make an appointment to see Mr Bainbridge later. He needed to talk to Edgar Bainbridge about the house and what he could do with it.

He encountered the man who ran the desk, Mr Clarence.

‘Mr Bainbridge is in court all day,’ he said, ‘but Miss Charlton may be able to help. She’s up here, sir, looking for some paperwork.’

Joe followed him up one set of stairs and then up another. The third-storey stairs had no carpet – and no heating either by the temperature of it.

He pushed open the door of an attic room, dark and badly lit, but he could see the young woman he remembered, sitting behind a makeshift desk. It was nothing more than a table with books and papers upon it. She glanced at the door at the noise, and he thought she looked like an Impressionist painting, one where the woman has gorgeous waving red
hair and striking looks. She was slender and the cheekbones on her face were covered in freckles and cream skin, her lips pale but perfectly formed and her eyes intelligent and sludge-green and soft. Joe remembered that he ought to say something.

‘Miss Charlton. It’s good of you to see me.’

‘Mr Hardy. A pleasure.’

Joe sat down. He wasn’t convinced the flimsy-looking chair would hold him, but he sat carefully. Though it wobbled, it didn’t tip him to the floor.

‘You may remember,’ he said, ‘that I have recently acquired a property which was left to me by a woman called Priscilla Lee. I know nothing about her, whether she was a friend of my parents – though that seems unlikely – or whether she was some kind of relative. I don’t understand what’s going on, you see, or why she should leave me a house. I have no family here, I’ve never been here before in my life and I thought that if I could see the will it might help.’

She looked baffled but rather pleased. He couldn’t quite work out why until she saw his expression, smiled just a little and said, ‘It’s like a mystery, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose it is,’ Joe said. ‘It must have a simple explanation, but I can’t see it, and I would like some form of clue.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, ‘I’m sure that I can find out if you will give me a little time. Could I have a day or two?’

She smiled suddenly and it was as if a sunbeam had come to rest in the room. ‘I know your house. What a wonderful building it is.’

‘It is a wonderful building,’ he said, acknowledging it for the first time. ‘How do you know about it?’

She laughed and shook her head, and it seemed to him that the world was suddenly a decent place to be. There was something about her which might make men feel uneasy, he conceded. She was not beautiful; her nose was sharp and her eyes had a no-nonsense look which could have discouraged the most eager of suitors. Her height was against her also in that way, but he could see how it might be useful in this business. She was formidable, even at such a young age, but it was her enthusiasm which held him; it lit her face.

She kept his attention as Angela had when they had first met. He had been in a ballroom and she had been wearing a white dress, with pearls around her neck. Her skin had been so creamy and her hair so shiny; everything about her was so perfect, yet now he felt the same in a small way about this girl he saw across the desk, and it confused him. He had been resigned to feeling nothing ever again and it made him very uncomfortable. He was obviously not to be trusted. He could transfer a slight degree of affection to someone else. My God!

‘I live in Rachel Lane with two ladies, the Misses Slaters,’ she said. ‘Sometimes if the day has been hard I walk by the river and last night I saw your lights from there. The windows are all cream and it is such a lovely building – in a city of exquisite buildings, especially the competition you have from across the river, that is amazing.’

He couldn’t believe that he was the person who said, ‘I met the Misses Slaters. I didn’t know you lived so near. If you like you could bring the key and the will and we could have tea.’

‘That would be lovely,’ she said.

Joe called himself names all the way home. He cared for no one but Angela. Yet this young woman had breached the huge defences that he had put up. Why was that? He was not ready for such things, he felt that he never would be. He had invited her into his home – if it was his home, such a strange, odd place. He remembered what he had said, offering up his problem for her help. Joe shuddered at the memory. He was obviously so desperate for company that he had invited a young woman into his new house. But he liked the way that she so obviously wanted to help people; there was something special about that.

There was a banging on the door. Joe sat up. He had fallen asleep, mid-afternoon. He had been out, trying to find work; he had for several days now and found nothing. Toddy had been right, he was qualified for very little. He had no idea what to do, but he must make a living of some kind. He didn’t have much money left and although he knew that in time he might have some from the sale of the properties, he couldn’t rely on that, and anyway it wasn’t of any use right now. He felt as though he needed to go forward.

He still had things he could sell – his guns, his father’s half hunter watch and other things which were valuable – but he couldn’t imagine who here would want such things or be able to afford them. It was not a prosperous city. He felt as though he must get on somehow, in spite of or possibly because of all that had gone wrong.

The only thing he was qualified for was the army, and he had had enough of that – and anyway, they weren’t taking people on. There were so many men out of work. A lot of them had come back to the land that was supposed to be meant for heroes, but was nothing of the sort. There was no money and no job suitable that he could see.

He would make a good gamekeeper, he thought, but Durham City was hardly the place for such things. Other than that he had walked about the streets and couldn’t imagine what he would do when he ran out of money. He must stay here a year before he could sell the place and in these times buyers for such a place would be scarce. He could be stuck here for a very long time. The thought didn’t make him happy.

Yes, there it was again – not quite a banging, more a polite hammering. He debated whether to get up from his chair, and when the noise didn’t stop he could feel the ire rising within him. He leapt up, ran into the hall and undid the bolts so that they shot back hard and almost caught him on the knuckles. He was just about to enquire of the intruder what the blazes he thought he was doing, when he became aware of the tall skinny outline of the woman from the solicitors’. Seeing her fear, he hastily swallowed his annoyance and managed, ‘Miss Charlton. Hello.’

‘I’ve brought you news and extra keys and the will.’

He ushered her inside and through into the sitting room, seeing it as she would – no fire, just the chair with blankets and a pillow, as though he had transported his father’s chair straight from London. It brought him comfort, but his face went warm that anybody else should see it.

‘I’ve been out. I haven’t had time to see to the fire or anything,’ he said.

He moved the ginger-and-white tom from the armchair as though that would help. The cat yawned, too indolent to complain, and merely sat on the rug by the dead fire and began to wash its paws.

‘Please, sit down.’ Joe only hoped the cat didn’t decide that his ablutions must extend to his arse while the young woman was there. Cats didn’t care about such things, in fact, he thought, they did it on purpose. ‘On the other hand you had best not, unless you like cat hair on your clothes. We can go out and I will buy you tea.’

‘There’s no need. Such expense,’ she said. ‘I have brought cake.’

Joe was amazed. He hadn’t felt that way in so long that he couldn’t move for several moments. The cake was well wrapped and he tried not to ask her what kind it was, although he felt desperate to, it was a huge treat. It spoke to him of his nanny and the nursery fire and times past.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said abruptly, and went off to the kitchen.

When he came back the cats were competing for the best place in front of the warmth because she had built up the fire. She was fending them off like a half-hearted tennis player, giving in when they persisted in wrapping their furry selves around her.

‘They’re selfish creatures,’ he said in mitigation.

She looked at him and then she laughed. It made her face beautiful in the dim light. ‘They’re so bonny and I do like them.’

He had not heard genuine laughter in so long, but he listened to it now, like somebody playing Mozart on a good piano.

Miss Charlton had bought coffee cake from the Silver Street Café, she told him as she unwrapped his prize. She had been too busy to bake this weekend, she apologized. Joe
didn’t care where it came from, he was so pleased about it. She cut it up and put it onto plates. He poured tea and felt so comfortable with her. Sleet pounded the windows. It always did, he thought. Why on earth people lived here, he had thought – but that was why, because you needed bad weather so that you had an excuse to doze by the fire and listen to the comforting sound of the rain and wind from across the river, or lie in bed late and wait for it to clear, confident that it never would.

‘Does any member of your family come from here, Mr Hardy?’

He shook his head. ‘You can call me Joe. I don’t know this area at all. I don’t even know the woman who left me the house, just her name.’ He laughed at that.

‘It’s a very common name here. Does it matter very much?’