The Penny Heart (11 page)

‘The Blairs were distant kin of mine,’ Mrs Croxon interrupted, red-cheeked from spirits. ‘Well, a distant branch. But that branch of the family died out, as these ancient families tend to do. I’m afraid the house will need improving – but what is that, if one might live in such grandeur? And I have engaged a housekeeper for you, a Mrs Harper, who is preparing your quarters even now.’

‘So you expect me to move soon?’ I asked, surprised at the rapidity of these plans.

Michael leaned forward. ‘What do you say to marrying next month, Grace? There is no time to be lost in commencing the mill. The Hall is exceedingly well placed, sharing a boundary with your land at Whitelow. The river runs right by it, everything could not be more convenient.’

Next month? I grew flustered. ‘How can all the preparations be made so quickly?’

‘Leave it to me, Grace. I shall take it all in hand,’ Mrs Croxon assured me.

So, rather than lying fallow, my birthright had brought me this captivating husband, a grand estate, and the promise of a great deal of money to come. Even my father had performed a complete turnabout, insisting it was best if my land was developed by the Croxons. My head whirled giddily at my new prospects. Yet I did dismiss from my mind some aspects of the arrangements. I learned that Michael had inspected my land on seven occasions already. I calculated that to be two more times than he had met me, his prospective bride.

‘Grace dear, tell me in earnest. Are you sure Mr Croxon will make you happy?’

Anne and I were standing outside Warburton’s Emporium, on a mission to find a wedding gift, but vexed as I was by her interrogations, it was impossible to make my choice. Why could she not accept my good fortune and share my joy?

‘Yes, I am,’ I said to Anne. ‘I even dreamed it would happen,’

Anne could not disguise the roll of her spaniel eyes. ‘You sound like one of your Circulating Library romances,’ she said sharply. ‘As one of Jacob’s parishioners once said to me, “Women dream in courtship, but wedlock wakes them”. Now when I first met Jacob, I thought him an unimpressive sort of fellow. But I gave him time, and in my own case, true feelings did blossom. And now that he is looking to expand his mission—’

She rambled on, ever the generous wife to her decidedly ordinary husband.

‘Shall we move along?’ I said, interrupting the catalogue of Jacob’s virtues.

‘Does he show you many signs of affection?’ Anne asked, as she hurried to catch me up.

‘Yes, he does,’ I answered brightly.

This was not entirely true, for Michael had kissed me only once, in front of his parents, on the day of his proposal. Since then, although I often imagined his lips on mine, Michael had been most considerate in my company. At home, my daydreams merged with memories of summer afternoons with John Francis – alone on the hills, conversing with delicious frankness, enthralled by each other’s company. There had been the playful approach of his hand to mine, the potent awareness of his fingertips brushing my skin. I told myself that Michael’s courtship, beneath his parents’ gaze, must be entirely different. After all, I had caught Michael looking at me, when he thought I was distracted. He was biding his time, for he was a gentleman, not a farmer’s son.

Michael did not allow himself such liberties, but he was certainly more civil to me than he was to his parents; towards whom he was morose or even sullen. I blamed his mother, who clearly irked him with her fussing manner. As for his father, he domineered over his eldest son. There were hints made of past troubles, of disappointing delays in Michael getting his plans in progress. When I tried to ask about these, Mr Croxon said that none of that need concern me. I noticed that Michael’s shoulders alone bore a great pressure to succeed, while Peter gadded about the countryside, sojourning at York or Ripon, enjoying the full liberty of his parents’ indulgence.

‘Grace, dear,’ Anne started up again, as we parted at the top of Wood Street. ‘You have not told me anything of his friends, his pursuits, his reading matter. Are they to your taste?’

The truth was I did not know. Many people mistake my character, thinking that because I am softly spoken I am weak, or that not always having a ready answer means I have no spirit. They are wrong. Having lost John Francis, I was not going to lose Michael Croxon. My temper leached into my tone. ‘What does that matter? I love Michael.’ She reached out to me and squeezed my hand, but I snatched it away.

‘Oh, Grace,’ my friend said wistfully. ‘You know so little of the world.’

After parting from Anne I could not bear to go home to my father. I was crackling with an agitation that sent me striding through the town and up into the surrounding hills. It was good to climb my favourite path, my heart pounding in my ears, my legs stretching beneath muddy hems. At the top of the hill I stood panting, surveying the huddle of buildings far below: the grey spire of Greaves church and the straight line of the High Street, leading to the Market Cross and the roof of Palatine House. Turning to the north, my eye followed the road to Michael’s home, hidden behind a thick stand of trees. Further north, past high brown crested ridges and far blue hills, away in the distance, lay Whitelow, and my new home at Delafosse Hall. I was sorry I had too little time to paint the scene before I left, to make a remembrance of my old home in viridian and dark ochre. I had seen nothing of the world but Greaves – and now I was to launch myself into a new life, with a heady mix of hopes and fears.

It was a blustery August day, and a restless warm wind whipped my hair across my face. From far above, the sound of a skylark drifted down to earth, a dancing speck on fluttering wings. I stood transfixed by its lonely song, a liquid hymn to freedom. Poor lark, stay safe away from shot and snares, I thought. And please let my waiting be over. I ached to see into the future. Anne vexed me because she was right: I was not so blind as to think Michael would want me without my land. But I was hopeful nonetheless. And what other course did I have? To be a lackey to my father, forever? I needed only courage and all would be well. True, some nights when sleep evaded me, I touched my crucifix and asked my mother out loud what I should do. No answer came; I was alone with Anne’s cautionary words churning in my mind.

Walking over to the group of weathered boulders, called by long tradition the Ring Stones, I touched the surface of the mightiest. It was surprisingly warm, and I recalled tales of their mysterious movements in the moonlight, of midnight trysts and frolics. ‘Whatever awaits me – keep me safe,’ I whispered to the lichen-grey stone, feeling foolish enough. Then, looking for a token to offer to whichever ancient spirits inhabited that place, I found one of my mother’s silver buttons in my pocket and pushed it hard into the turf at the stone’s foot. I might have lingered all afternoon, but over to the west, where the land stretched to the sea and Ireland beyond, a cloud bank of sooty grey had appeared. The warm breeze dropped; the air was oppressive. I hurried home, racing the plashes of rain.

8

Manchester

Summer 1792

~ Penny Mutton Pies ~

To make five dozen pies take one and a half pounds of mutton and boil with a little brown colouring. Make your pastry from a quartern of flour and two pounds of suet. Season with a deal of black pepper and be heavy with the salt and you will sell much drink besides. The cost will be half a crown and the profit to your pocket, the same again.

Mother Eve’s Secrets

Here was the Pen and Angel again, still standing five years on, the sign creaking in the Manchester rain, the frontage betraying long years of dust and decrepitude. As for the Palace, that had used to be hid around the back, that was something else now; some sort of workers’ hall or meeting place. In the shop there was a new boy, who gave Mary directions to the Cupid, a smart public house near the law courts, with wooden booths for private conversation. The tapster there was a stranger too; a stoat-faced youth who would not meet her eye.

‘Mr Trebizond,’ he said, polishing the bar as if it were made of crystal. ‘On my mark, he don’t come here no more.’

At first she was furious, and then she recalled that ‘On my mark’ was the gang’s old signal. She laid her hand on the bar and splayed her fingers, so the fellow could see the five dots tattooed in the crease between her thumb and first finger.

‘On my mark, he’ll know me all right,’ she said in a low voice. The man nodded, and, without a word, let her pass behind the bar.

After following him down corridors and crossing a gloomy courtyard, they arrived at a painted back entrance with a brass knocker, where the tapster motioned her up a flight of brass-railed stairs. Her heart beat fast. She could almost smell Charlie in the grand style of the place. Then there he was before her, the same old Charlie, sitting alone at a desk with his pen in his hand.

‘Mary!’ As he jumped up, she read him closely – there was at least an appearance of delight on his ugly monkey face. He was still the genteel swell of her memory, all gold fobs and velvet trim. ‘Well, who would have believed it? Sweetheart!’ He held out his arms, and they embraced, just as they had done a thousand times before. He looked down at her, his hair thinner and his eyes as sharp as ever in a new web of creases. ‘Was it terribly bad?’ he asked. He still had that treacle voice, bookish and legal, even though he’d never had the proper schooling; only what he taught himself while fiddling his master’s accounts.

She could not answer – only shook her head.

‘But – wait. You’re back early? You?’ He frowned. ‘Great God, Mary. Have you bolted?’

She kept her face hidden against his chest. ‘I’ve had me fill, Charlie.’ They sat down in his smart chairs, and she told him, as if it was just a yarn, of how she had sailed home as Flora Pilling, all the while searching his face for signs.

‘Sharp as a pin, you are, Mary,’ he said, full of the old charm. ‘You know I did my best to prevent it? You do know that?’ He cocked his head sideways and looked at her with what seemed honest pleasure. Had he truly done his best? Five years ago he had visited her in Newgate and told her she would walk free. Then, after the gull had flown, Charlie had never shown his face again. So much for a family of thieves: one thing she had learned across the herring pond: you were born alone, and alone you were left to die.

‘Come here, then.’ Smoothly does it, she told herself. She went to him, and he pulled her tightly towards him; she closed her eyes and breathed in the soap from his shirt. They went to the bedroom, and his bed was just as she’d conjured it so many times before, while she tried to sleep on rocky earth or wooden planks – cloud-soft, with lavendered sheets, and pillows stuffed with feathers. And he was her old Charlie again, familiar to every inch of her; the same crooked teeth, same narrow body as lean as a boy’s, the same hard manhood, rising at the flick of a petticoat. Coupling with him was as easy as falling backwards into that younger Mary, when they followed The Life, and delights were all for the light-fingered taking.

Afterwards, when Charlie snored beside her, she couldn’t sleep, for it was only three in the afternoon. Getting up to use the pot she took a prowl about the room. It was then that she noticed the girl’s garters hanging on the back of the looking glass. So someone had taken her place as Charlie’s girl after all. Lovely blue silken things, they were, to be tied above white silk stockings. Soft-hearted tears welled in her eyes. It took her a moment to swallow hard and get her bearings. Even after all these years it cut deep to know that Charlie had a new girl.

Years back, Charlie had been another of Aunt Charlotte’s strays, a man of eighteen to Mary’s ripening fourteen years. Auntie had brought Charlie up to the fake-letter dodge; she would slap her wobbling knees to hear him read his screeves out loud, for it was clever stuff. His game was newspaper advertisements for unclaimed legacies, crooked loans, and lottery rackets. And when the money rolled in from the dupes, he’d always come down to the Palace to throw a heap of chink on the kitchen table, brighter than any coin earned the honest way. And then would come a flurry of new shoes and frocks, and porcelain and paints. All of it bright to the eye and so lovely, lovely, lovely.

At first Mary had only watched Charlie from a distance; the young prince holding court amongst the women. She made cupboard-love treats for him, the crunchy Little Devils that he loved, and it had worked too, that night she had chased after him down Jerusalem Passage. She didn’t speak, only offered him a paper twist of chocolate almonds. He laughed at her, shaking his head in a kindly, resigned manner. ‘Come here then, Mary,’ he said, and they had kissed, hard and greedy, against the wall.