Connie’s Courage Read online

  ‘But you said you would get them today. Why didn’t you? Where have you been?’

  ‘What I do wi’ me time is no bloody business of yours. You don’t have no rights over me!’ he told her in an ugly voice.

  Connie bit her lip, her face flushing at his deliberately hurtful reference to the fact that they weren’t married.

  At times like this, it was as though he had become a stranger. She could feel the mortified prick of tears at the back of her eyes, but she willed herself not to let them fall. No, she might not be Connie Connolly, but she was Connie Pride, and pride was what she had!

  With that pride she turned back to look at him, and saw something in his eyes that made her heart start to beat with anxious, apprehensive strokes. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she demanded immediately.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, exceptin’ that I’m sick and tired of your nagging,’ Kieron told her, pushing her away so roughly that she fell against the table.

  ‘I’m beginnin’ to think I should tek me Uncle Bill’s advice and have nowt more to do wi’ you,’ he added bitterly.

  Connie flinched at the sound of Kieron’s uncle’s name. There was something about him that was dark and frightening, and Connie was secretly glad that, in America, they would have the safety of the Atlantic Ocean between themselves and Bill Connolly.

  ‘Kieron, you don’t mean that!’ she protested. ‘You love me!’

  ‘Get out of me way, I’m going out,’ Kieron answered her angrily.

  ‘Kieron!’ Connie begged him, but he ignored both her protest and her shocked tears, pushing her out of his way as he headed for the door.

  Things would be different once they were on board the Titanic, Connie comforted herself after he had left. She was unhappy and hungry, but there was no money for her to run down to the pie shop and get herself something hot to eat. She blinked fiercely, determined not to let herself cry, and remembered her father’s butcher’s shop, and the happy home life she had known before the death of her mother.

  Kieron glared furiously across the smoke-filled, filthy room at the man sitting opposite him. On the table between them was the money they had both staked – and the winning hand the other man had just gloatingly revealed.

  Kieron could never resist a gamble. It lured and possessed him, like drink or women lured and possessed other men. It was a need and a lust that overwhelmed everything else in his life. His decision to run away with Connie had been made on the toss of a coin – heads, he took her; tails, he didn’t.

  ‘Bad loser as well as a bad player, are you, Connolly?’ his opponent sneered as he made to pick up his winnings, including the money Kieron had gambled and lost. The money he had been supposed to use to buy his and Connie’s tickets for the Titanic. The laughter of the men watching died abruptly, as Kieron swore and jumped up, reaching for one of the empty bottles standing on the table. Smashing it downwards to break it against the table, he lunged toward his opponent stabbing the jagged glass into his throat before anyone could intervene and stop him.

  The bright red blood spattering everything matched the dark red murderous mist rising up inside him.

  A barmaid coming in to collect the glasses screamed, and the man standing closest to Kieron grabbed hold of him, gesturing to two of his companions to help him.

  ‘Leave ‘im, mate. We’ve got us own skins to think about,’ one of them started to refuse.

  ‘He’s Bill Connolly’s nephew,’ the other man reminded him sharply.

  Bill Connolly was well-known in the area, and not someone it was wise to cross. There would be some very unpleasant repercussions for anyone known to be here this evening, especially if Kieron Connolly was taken by the police.

  As they dragged him toward a side door, Kieron made a savage grab for the money, crushing the bloodstained notes in his hand.

  When midnight came and went and Kieron had still not returned, Connie finally left the chair where she had been sitting waiting for him, and crawled into bed.

  It was almost lunchtime the next day when he returned, and Connie flung herself at him, sobbing in relief, and demanding, ‘Where have you been? I was so worried … I hate this place, Kieron. I can’t wait for us to leave. How could you leave me here on my own all night …’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Kieron stopped her.

  ‘What?’ Connie’s forehead creased in confusion.

  ‘If anyone should come round here asking any questions, Connie. I was here all night. Never left the house all evening, I didn’t,’ he told her. ‘And you better not be forgetting that if’n anyone should ask. Otherwise you’ll have me Uncle Bill to answer to,’ he said threateningly. ‘If’n anyone was to come round here asking after me and where I was last night, you’re to tell ‘em that I was home with you, and that we was tucked up all nice and so cosy in bed together for ten o’clock … Understand? ‘Cos you’d better had!’

  Connie’s mouth had gone dry, and her heart was hammering against her ribs.

  ‘Kieron. What … What’s happened? You aren’t in some kind of trouble, are you?’

  ‘You’re asking too many questions, Connie. And me Uncle Bill wouldn’t like that! It’s him as says you’re to say what I just told yer, if anyone comes asking,’ he warned her.

  Connie gave a small shiver. What was Kieron trying to say? What had he been doing? She was no fool and she knew he must be in some kind of trouble if he wanted her to provide an alibi for him.

  ‘Oh, and I’ve got the tickets for the Titanic,’ he added, almost as though it was an afterthought. ‘So you can stop pestering me about it. Went out special like I did, this mornin', whilst you was still in kip.’

  Connie hesitated. Kieron was concealing something from her, she knew that, but she was afraid to push him too hard, and at least he had got the tickets!

  Kieron shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He had used the money he had snatched back from the man he had murdered to buy their steerage tickets, more out of fear for his own safety than any desire to fulfil his promise to Connie. But of course he wasn’t going to tell her that.

  In fact, he was beginning to think that his father and his Uncle Bill had it right when they warned him that he would regret getting involved with Connie. She was a girl from a very different background to his own who did not understand their ways as one of their own would have done. Connie came from a respectable, hard-working family; Kieron’s family inhabited a much darker world of thievery and violence, even though Connie herself had not realised it as yet.

  Thrilled by Kieron’s announcement, Connie dismissed her anxiety and flung her arms around his neck. This time Kieron didn’t reject her.

  The minute she opened her eyes, Connie was wide awake. It was only just dawn but she was too excited to go back to sleep. Today was the day they left for Southampton and the Titanic! They would reach Southampton by evening, and planned to go straight from the station to the port, ready to board the Titanic ahead of her departure at noon the next day. Connie’s small case was already packed!

  Eagerly she pushed back the thin, greying bedcovers, and got out of bed, singing happily under her breath.

  ‘Mother Mary! Will you stop that caterwauling!’

  Kieron had been out the previous night drinking, saying his farewells to his friends and his Uncle Bill, Connie guessed. It had been gone midnight when he had banged on their door, demanding that she let him in.

  Now, in the pale morning light, he looked a very different man from the handsome young man she had fallen in love with. Drinking had bloated out his face, its flesh a pasty greyish colour, except for where his unshaven jaw bristled darkly.

  ‘Kieron, get up. We’ve got to hurry. We mustn’t miss the train,’ Connie chivvied him. ‘And I want …’

  ‘You want. Who the hell cares what you want!’ Kieron told her, staggering to his feet. ‘You’re a bloody rope around me neck, that’s what you are. A bloody Protestant who ‘ud open her legs for any un who’d have her! No decent Catholic girl would
do what you’ve done. Me mam ‘ud sooner see me sisters dead! Me Uncle Bill’s in the right o’ it. It’s time I was rid of yer. An rid of yer is exactly what I aim to be!’

  As always when he was angry, his accent broadened and Connie flinched at the venom she could hear in his voice.

  ‘But you love me!’ she protested. ‘You -’

  ‘There’s only one of us will be sailing on the Titanic, and it won’t be you.’

  The cup she was holding slipped from her fingers to smash on the bare floorboards.

  ‘No. No! Kieron, you don’t mean that. You can’t mean that, Connie protested frantically, as she ran toward him and took hold of his arm, clinging to it in desperation.

  ‘Who says I can’t? Not you! You brung me down, that’s all you done t’ me. Persuaded me to run off with you like that and against what me family wanted. Me Uncle Bill says as how I’m to mek a fresh start for mesel’ wi’ out you!’

  Connie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘We’re going to America to start a new life together,’ she persisted.

  ‘You’re goin’ nowhere!’ he told her. ‘I’m t’ one what’s going t’ave a new life.’

  Bill Connolly had instructed Kieron to leave Connie behind, and there was no way he would dare to cross his uncle. Not that he needed much persuading.

  ‘But you’ve got us both tickets. I gave you the money, and the jewellery that my mother left me. You can’t leave me here, I won’t let you!’

  As she flung herself against him in desperation, Kieron gave her a savage push that sent her careering into the bed. Connie cried out as her temple struck the sharp wood of the frame. Pain exploded inside her head, and she felt herself slide down into heavy, thick darkness, as she lost consciousness.

  When she came round Connie was on her own. Frantically she tried to stand up, and then had to sit down again as nausea overwhelmed her. She was cold and shivering, and it was a long way down the stairs to the filthy outside privy they shared with everyone else in the house. Somehow she managed to will herself to get to her feet.

  She had to get to the Titanic. Kieron could not have meant what he had said. She knew him. She knew his temper. He would be regretting what he had said to her now, she reassured herself pathetically, and besides he had their tickets. She had to get to Southampton and find Kieron. They would make up their quarrel like they always did, and everything would be all right.

  Feverishly, Connie gathered her things together.

  At the station, the guards shook their heads and averted their eyes from Connie’s obvious distress. It was too late. There was no train that could get her to Southampton before the liner sailed, and anyway she had no ticket, nor any money to buy one.

  She spent the rest of the day wandering round Liverpool in a daze, unable to accept what had happened – that Kieron had deserted her, cheated her not just of her money and her mother’s jewellery, but also of her future.

  It was dark when she finally let herself into the empty, cold room. Not bothering to undress, she crawled into the bed and wept until there were no tears left. It wasn’t fair. It had been her idea that they should go, and now she was left behind whilst Kieron went without her.

  On board the liner, Kieron joined in the excited celebrations. A pretty, blonde girl, overcome with excitement, threw herself into his arms and kissed him. He kissed her back enthusiastically, before releasing her to go and stand at the rail to watch Southampton and England disappearing. He had sold Connie’s ticket to someone on the dock who had been desperate for one, aye, and got double what he had paid for it!

  Around his waist he could feel the pleasing heaviness of the money belt secured there – filled with the money his Uncle Bill had given him in exchange for his promise that he would not take Connie to America with him.

  ‘America she wants t’go, does she?’ he had commented when Kieron told him of Connie’s plans, and showed him the tickets he had bought with the money he had taken from the gambler, in an attempt to forestall his uncle’s anger at the murder he had committed. Bill Connolly did not like anyone doing anything that might draw the attention of the law back to him.

  ‘Aye, well, it ‘ud be the best place for you right now, lad, there’s no denying that,’ he had acknowledged grimly. ‘Arthur Johnson’s dead. You were a bloody fool to go at him like that, and in public. Have you learned nothing, you bloody hot head! A quiet word to me and I could have had it sorted, no one the wiser and no danger of you being blamed for it either. Lucky for you that someone had their wits about them and got you away and cleaned up.

  ‘You’d better make sure that Protestant whore of yours keeps her gob shut as well. America is it,’ he had continued musingly. ‘Aye, well, there’s no denying that a fresh start is what you need now, lad. I’ve got a couple o’contacts there – men who ull be pleased to have someone who knows Bill Connolly working for them, but mind what I’m saying, lad, yer’ll be a lot harder to trace without that Connie with yer. You don’t want to be dragged back here and hanged for murder. So if yer’ve any sense, and yer tek my advice, yer’ll leave her behind. In fact, yer can tek it that that’s an order! And mind that yer obeys it, and does what I’m telling yer!’

  Kieron knew better than to risk crossing his uncle. If he did, even in New York, he knew he wouldn’t be safe from his vengeance. And besides, the truth was that he would be glad to be rid of Connie. She had been a novelty to him; a challenge, but now he was ready for fresh novelties and new challenges. ‘So give us yer word, lad!’

  Eagerly Kieron had done so. And had been rewarded by his uncle’s approving, ‘Yer da and mam will be right pleased t’ear you’ve come t’yer senses,’ as he counted out a sum of money that made Kieron’s eyes widen in greedy pleasure.

  He felt neither guilt nor compassion for Connie or the man he had killed.

  The blonde girl was giving him a poutingly inviting look. Whistling cheerfully, Kieron pushed his way through the crowd toward her.

  Reluctantly Connie opened her eyes. It was still dark, but she was too cold to go back to sleep. It had been four days since Kieron had left, but, as she had now discovered, he had not left her without something to remember him by.

  She moved underneath the thin, poor blanket that was all she had to wrap around her cold body, and immediately the small action made her stomach heave.

  As she retched into the basin she had placed on the floor the previous night, Connie wept dry tears. She had missed her monthlies twice now, and had thought nothing of it at first, beyond being relieved to be spared its inconvenience, but now with this sickness, she was shockingly aware that the unthinkable had happened, and that she was carrying Kieron’s child.

  Running away with the man she loved had seemed a thrillingly romantic adventure, but the knowledge that she would bear an illegitimate child was neither thrilling nor romantic; it was a horrifyingly shameful prospect. She would be ostracised by everyone, not just her own family, and no decent people would want anything to do with her. There was no greater shame or disgrace for a woman than to have a child outside marriage.

  Alone, and without anyone to turn to, she might as well be dead, Connie recognised bleakly. And, in fact, those closest to her would probably prefer her death to a disgrace that would contaminate them as well as her.

  She retched again, as sick terror filled her. The room was cold with a dampness that was worse somehow than any sharp frost. Connie made no move to get up. What was the point? She wanted to hide herself and her shame from everyone.

  She had no food, other than a stale half loaf, and no money to buy any, not even a couple of tatties from Ma Grimes’ shop in the next street, never mind a juicy hot pie from the pie shop; but even if she had had the money she knew she would not have wanted to go out, fearful lest someone might guess her condition.

  She had heard tales from her mother’s servants, when she had sat listening in the kitchen to their gossip, of women being driven from their lodgings by their neighbours – sometimes physically �
�� because of their sin in conceiving a child outside wedlock.

  No one had any sympathy for a woman in such a situation. Connie shuddered, terrified of the fate that lay ahead of her. Perhaps if she didn’t eat she would somehow starve what was growing inside her of life, she thought desperately. Or even better, perhaps if she just went to sleep, when she woke up everything would be all right: she would be back at home in Friargate with her parents and Ellie and John. Oh, how she longed for that! To be a little girl again safe with her family; with her mother still alive to look after her and love her.

  Shivering, she pulled the blanket round her body. Tears of despair and fear filled her eyes. The rent was only paid until the end of the week, after that … Even if he agreed to give her back her old job, the landlord at the pub wouldn’t keep her on once her belly started to swell … Miserably she huddled into her blanket, unable to imagine what the future held for her.

  TWO

  Ellie Walker stood tensely in the elegant drawing room of her Winckley Square house and looked anxiously at her husband, Gideon.

  The trauma she and all the other Pride children had suffered with the death of their mother might have ended for her with her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, but Ellie wanted it ended for all her siblings: Connie, who had so recklessly run away with Kieron Connolly; John, their brother, who had endured so much misery before he had become apprenticed to the Preston photographer for whom he now worked, and young Philip, who was in danger of growing up not knowing that he had a brother and two sisters. Ellie longed to have Philip safely here under Gideon’s roof, and in the nursery with their two young sons, Richard and Joshua. But right now, it was Connie who concerned her the most.

  Ellie knew that Connie had disgraced herself beyond redemption in the eyes of the world by what she had done, but she couldn’t help but love her.

  ‘Is there any news of Connie yet, Gideon?’ she demanded, clasping her hands together. Gideon Walker frowned as he looked at his distressed wife. ‘Come and sit down,’ he urged her.