Words! His would always be accepted over hers. Confidence returned, he opened the door.
‘It seems we have something of a misunderstanding.’ Thomas Thorpe smiled at the figure he had admitted into Chapel House. ‘Please search the house, look in every room, you will find no one there.’
‘You said—’
‘What I said,’ Thorpe interrupted, ‘was the person you are looking to find is not in this house, but don’t just take my word, look for yourself. The study,’ he threw open a door, ‘or maybe the living room,’ he threw open a second door, standing aside to give a clearer view of an interior lit only by moonlight; ‘then of course there is the scullery. But perhaps you would prefer to begin upstairs.’
Begin upstairs! Sick with nerves, Ann watched the spread of his cold sly smile, the unrelenting gleam of his pale eyes. Thomas Thorpe was not referring to any search for Alec.
She clenched trembling fingers together. ‘Where is Alec, tell me where he is.’
‘All in good time, first there is our agreement to fulfil.’
She had made no agreement, she had been given no option.
‘The choice is yours.’
Almost as though reading her mind Thorpe extended a hand to the door leading on to the quiet Queen’s Place. ‘You may leave now but I should remind you the lad is too well hidden ever to be found.’
He was saying she could go, she need not go through with his demand! The hope died quickly. How would she live with the knowledge she could have saved Alec yet had chosen to turn her back on him?
‘You promise . . . you promise you will tell me where . . .’
Gloating at the air of resignation in that unfinished request Thorpe let his hand fall away from the door. ‘Where you can find him? But of course I will tell you, a bargain is a bargain.’
As he followed her upstairs Thomas Thorpe resisted the urge to laugh out loud. Ann Spencer’s bargain would result in a conclusion very different to that he had just promised.
Perhaps he should have worn that outfit. Watching the slight figure slowly unfasten her coat Thorpe’s senses tripped. To have her release the many small buttons of that long gown, to watch the fear grow on her face as each was loosed would have repaid him for the loss of pleasure at not wearing those clothes for the first time in chapel before the entire congregation; but then opportunity was not lost; this evening need not be the one-off affair she expected. Tomorrow night, the night after that and for as many nights as he wanted Ann Spencer would do
exactly
as he wished.
She would remove her own clothing first. He would watch the blush of colour rise in her cheeks, see the tears of degradation sparkle on those long lashes, feel the tremor of her body as he brushed his fingers over tight breasts then slowly down the quivering stomach to that warm moist cleft.
Ann turned away; it was agony enough knowing what awaited her, she did not have to look at him, to see the evil of his mind manifest itself on his lust-filled face.
The laugh as much as the hard jerk swinging her about told Ann the mistake of her thinking.
Help me, help me please to get this over. Ann’s prayer stuck in her throat when Thorpe’s hands closed over hers, his voice husky as he pulled her close into him.
‘No need to be shy . . .’
The murmur slid like a serpent.
‘Or could it be that is a pretence, a little trick to liven the appetite.’
Wet lips drooled a trail from earlobe to a corner of her mouth, another lecherous crow in Thorpe’s throat showing the pleasure he derived from Ann’s shivered sob.
Hands which had held hers moved lightning fast, one to clamp hard on her breast the other threading into her hair and snatching her head back, as his throaty salacious tone hardened to a rasp.
‘How thoughtful,’ he snarled against her lips, ‘but my appetite needs no boost as you be going to find out.’
‘I ain’t had the seein’ of her since afore teatime.’ Leah Marshall looked at the man and boy she had berated for the past five minutes. ‘Her were upstairs a puttin’ away of clothes fresh ironed when I went across to the field to chat along of the girls.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Hmm!’ Leah pondered Edward Langley’s question. ‘Be ’ard to say . . . I remembers the church clock striking, yes . . . yes it struck four while I were with the girls.’
No use in asking how long she spent with the cows, it was Leah’s habit to talk with each one individually, to chat as she might with a woman neighbour. Suppressing worry mounting with every second Edward went on. ‘So when did you realise she was not in the house?’
‘That I remembers clear. I come in from the pasture and findin’ Ann not yet downstairs an’ hearing no sound from above thought as how her could be restin’. Lord knows her be a needin’ of it. So I reckoned to let her lie until evenin’ milking. It were after I settled the girls for the night; I were puzzled as to why her hadn’t come along to help in the milkin’ parlour nor yet to help with putting the milk into the settling pans, that don’t be like her at all: that were my thought so comin’ back to this room an’ findin’ her still not to be here I went upstairs only to find each room empty.’
The evening milking. Edward turned Leah’s words over in his mind. Punctual in that as she was in all things to do with her dairying she would have gone to the milking parlour at five. Milking a dozen cows, sponging their udders, seeing them into the barn for the night; then the task of emptying pails of milk into the vats, the scouring of utensils, all would have taken at least two hours, probably much longer.
‘There were no sign to tell her ’ad ever been in that bedroom,’ Leah was speaking again, ‘everythin’ were neat an’ proper on the wash stand and on the bed.’ She paused, swallowing hard. ‘On the bed laid careful as any bridal troosoh was clothes, Deborah’s clothes I’d asked Ann to keep for herself but her hadn’t teken not one thing.’
Half past seven at the earliest, that would have been the time Leah discovered Ann was gone. Edward heard Leah speaking but his brain still mulled over what was already said. If the girl had slipped away when Leah went to the cow field she had been gone – he glanced at the clock on Leah’s mantelshelf which showed eight fifteen – more than four hours! Anxiety prickled in every nerve. Ann Spencer had left this house over four hours ago; she could be miles away by now.
‘She has gone looking for me.’
‘No lad, her ain’t.’ Leah answered the boy rising from the chair she had insisted he take beside the fireplace. ‘Ann told me earlier on, her said her wouldn’t go a searchin’ of you no more for her be certain you’d gone to be with them relatives of your’n.’
‘But why would Ann say that? She had to know I would have gone to them long ago had I been able.’
‘Said it be her reckoning you had some idea of where to find your folks and that bein’ how it was then weren’t no use of her goin’ lookin’ for you no more.’
‘
. . . why would Ann say that? She had to know I would have gone to them long ago . . .
’
Alec’s misgivings echoed Edward’s own. Why indeed! And if she no longer intended to look for Alec why the abrupt departure? Why leave without a goodbye for Leah?
‘I think Ann told you I was gone to my relatives to save you from worry, but . . . I think also she will still be searching so . . .’ Alec smiled apologetically, ‘forgive me, Grandmother Leah, I must go look for her.’
‘What good will that do?’ Leah protested. ‘It just means the two of you will be out there on the streets. I says it be best you bide where you be least ’til mornin’; won’t stand no chance of findin’ her in the dark.’
‘What Leah says makes sense,’ Edward put in, seeing Alec about to argue. ‘You can p’raps find your way about the town in the daytime, Alec, but you don’t know it well enough to do so at night even supposing you knew her to still be in Wednesbury.’
‘You know Ann, Grandmother Leah, you and she cared for me together when I was so sick, you saw her tears, you knew the many times she refused to leave my side. Tell me, do you truly think the darkness of night will prevent my going to look for her?’
Grandmother! Leah’s heart tripped. That was something she would never be. Her children were dead and along with them the hopes of holding grandchildren in her arms: the simple pleasures that were the birthright of every woman had been denied her. This lad – she glanced at Alec shrugging into his coat – he was no kin to her, he called her grandmother out of politeness yet the word and the affection she knew to be at back of it pulled at her very soul.
From across the room Edward caught the emotion playing over Leah’s features. She had faced losing this lad once already; now the same unhappiness stared at her again.
‘Wait.’
Sharp, decisive, more an order than a request, it halted Alec as he stepped towards the scullery.
‘Nobody questions that you want to go looking for Ann but I think Leah would feel easier in her mind if I were to go along with you.’
Chapter 27
Leah had looked at him with more than gratitude in her eyes. Edward blessed the night gloom hiding the colour rising in his cheeks. She had divined that he as much as the lad walking by his side wanted to find Ann Spencer.
‘Even’, Edward lad, weren’t lookin’ to see you ’ere along o’ this time o’ night. Don’t be summat up wi’ Leah do there?’
‘No Ezekial, there is nothing wrong with Leah.’
‘I d’ain’t mean of no pryin’,’ Ezekial’s tone had become tinged with apology, ‘I were frettin’ of Leah bein’ poorly.’
The two had been children together, during their whole lives had known only friendship for one another, so it was natural Ezekial would worry for the health of such a friend. Edward replied with a smile in the darkness. ‘Enquiring after the well-being of a friend is never prying, Ezekial; I’ll tell Leah you were asking after her.’
‘Thank y’lad.’ Ezekial turned his glance to Alec. ‘An’ what of you, young ’un, be you over that illness o’ your’n?’
‘Quite over it I thank you, Little Father.’
‘Ehh.’ Ezekial’s long-drawn breath sighed in to the night. ‘I told Jinny Jinks an’ the rest o’ they women it were a long time since I’d heard them words, same as I just been talkin’ of ’em wi’ Samul Bradley. We was in the Crimea along of the same time an’ we enjoys a talk over old times. I said to ’im how the lad called me Little Father an’ that turned the conversation to him an’ the wench ’appenin’ to come to this town. Samul said he’d seen the wench not an hour since.’
‘Samuel Bradley says he has seen Ann . . . Miss Spencer!’
‘That be what I told you.’ Ezekial pointed his walking stick in the direction he had come along Meeting Street, ‘Back there in the Rising Sun, we enjoys a pint there; Henry Butler keeps a good barrel.’
‘Is Samuel still in the pub?’
Ezekial frowned at the brusque interruption. ‘Left when I did. Edward lad, be summat up, you seems right agitated.’
‘Little Father, did Mr Bradley speak with Ann, did he perhaps ask where she might be heading?’
The question had been polite enough. Ezekial glanced at Alec, his face showing pale in the enveloping greyness. But there had been that same note of anxiety he had heard in Edward Langley’s voice. Aware his answer would be disappointing he said gently, ‘No lad, Samul said naught of speakin’ wi’ the wench though he did say as he were puzzled by her turnin’ into Queen’s Place at such an hour, ’specially seein’ there be no service tekin’ place in the chapel.’
Samuel Bradley had seen Ann less than an hour ago! Edward had thanked the old man, had heard the tap, tap of his stick fading along the street, but his mind had rung with that one phrase: ‘
seen the wench not an hour since
’. She had been going to pray, why else go into Queen’s Place? But an hour was a long time. Would she still be there?
He must control the urge to run. The lad had spent the night in the barn where he might not have slept well; running to Queen’s Place could overtire him after such a recent illness. Edward walked as quickly as he dared, backtracking along Meeting Street then turning left into the narrow almost alley-like School Street, hemmed closely on one side by a ribbon of ebony shapes, each house made darker with the soot and smoke of factory and foundry. Across the passageway they faced the unedifying stern structure that was the National School. But Edward was gazing ahead to where Queen’s Place and its chapel stood still robed in darkness at the further end.
‘Edward, do you think Ann will still be in the chapel?’
Alec asked the question which had preoccupied Edward since speaking with Ezekial. Trying to keep doubt from his voice he said lightly, ‘Probably the peace and quiet of the place has lulled her to sleep, let’s go wake her up.’
They had not woken her. Edward closed the door of the chapel behind him. Ann Spencer was not there, no one was; silent, the black shroud of its interior not relieved by a single candle flame, the room had seemed to shrink from the light of the matches he had struck, to draw away, hugging its secrets to itself.
Breathing deeply to contain his disappointment, Edward touched the shoulder of the boy whose own long-drawn breath exhibited that same regret.
‘It was a long shot, Alec,’ he said, turning towards the street, ‘we’ll just go look somewhere else.’