and saying with feeling, ‘It’s the worst thing in the world to be bullied, don’t you feel? Not that someone of your physical stature would be troubled by that, of course.’
Marty bared his white teeth with a rueful chuckle. ‘You don’t know my superior.’
Dazzled by his smile, she matched it. Henrietta had never made any distinction between the ranks. Just because someone was forced to do menial work did not lower them in her estimation. ‘I suppose we all have someone above us. May one ask how old you are?’
Considering her own mature appearance, Marty added fifteen months to his age. ‘I’m twenty-one.’
She looked wistful. ‘So in all things that count you are your own man. You could walk out and find employment elsewhere, go wherever you choose. There are four more years before I come of age – not that it would matter, I should still be at that despot’s command.’
Shamed by her truthfulness, he admitted, ‘Well, as a matter of fact I’ve a few months to go yet – but it wouldn’t make a difference what age I was either, Mr Wilkinson would still dub me a shirker.’ He grinned impishly. ‘Maybe I am or I wouldn’t be up here dallying with you.’
‘Well, I’m very glad you are – here, I mean.’ Now perched on a dressing stool, her eyes having abandoned the landscape in favour of her attractive companion, Henrietta marvelled at how easily she could converse with him. ‘Tell me more about yourself.’
‘I’d hate to delay your escape.’
‘We’ve ages yet. Have you always been a boots?’
‘God forbid!’ He was delighted by the fact that she had said we, as if they were going together. ‘I’ve only been here a year or so. It was a drop in station from my last job, but I’d had that since leaving school at fourteen and was going nowhere, so I decided there was a better chance of promotion in a hotel. It’s hard to put your heart into cleaning boots but I intend to work my way up. I was joking about being a shirker by the way.’
‘Of course,’ affirmed Henrietta. ‘But you must have enjoyed your last job if you had it for five, six years?’
He was about to correct her then remembered he had already said he was nearly twenty-one and fobbed her off with a quick, ‘Thereabouts – but these are lovelier surroundings. York’s a grand place, isn’t it? I wasn’t born here ye know.’
‘I’d never have guessed.’ Her eyes teased.
‘That obvious, eh?’ Marty pretended to be crushed. ‘And here’s me thinking I’d got rid of the accent.’
‘Oh, don’t ever lose it!’ she begged him. ‘It’s so pleasant on the ear.’
‘Some folk would disagree. There’s many can’t stand the Irish.’ He paused to weigh his words before adding a confession. ‘Especially if they’re tinkers to boot. Ach, now I’ve told ye. We only came to live in a house after me grandparents died.’
‘How romantic!’
Comforted by her reaction, he chuckled. ‘Not what some would say. The insults I’ve suffered…’
Her face oozed sympathy, then she turned slightly sober. ‘Well, that’s something we share, although I doubt the insults come from your own father.’
Marty was about to make a joke but saw it was not the time. ‘I’d like to think you get on better with your mother.’
‘Hardly – well, that’s a lie, we are really quite at ease when we are permitted to be on our own. Unfortunately that’s a rare occurrence. He is always there to spoil it.’ She looked wistful. ‘The trouble is, Mother’s a very weak person. That might sound harsh, but it’s something I learned very early in life from studying the way she bent to his will, even to the detriment of her children – well, not so much John for he was Father’s favourite, but in my case…’ Henrietta moved her head slowly from side to side, then from her lips poured a torrent of information on her childhood, injustices she had suffered, her feelings on these and on her family, to which Marty listened mesmerised.
‘Far from issuing words in my defence,’ went on Henrietta, ‘Mother saw me as the defiant one, begged me to take what she saw as the easy path instead of fighting his regime. Not once have I seen her stand up to him, not even when he dismissed dear old Nanny, the person who really was more of a mother to me, who raised me from a babe…’ She scowled in memory of that awful crime. ‘It’s so long ago but his callousness infuriates me still. He said she wasn’t required any more; sent her packing without a care that some of us might love –’ Verging on tears, she broke off in mid-sentence to disguise her emotions with a giggle. ‘I can’t believe I’m confiding all this to a total stranger!’
‘You can’t?’ One lithe buttock resting on the dressing table, Marty leaned towards her and laughed even more heartily, relaxing into his normal mode of speech. ‘I can’t believe I’m eejit enough to ruin me chances with the most beautiful girl I ever met by telling her I’m from a family of tinkers.’
‘Oh, but surely they can’t be classified as such!’ Henrietta reached out quickly to press his arm, the gesture loaded with affection, before it was just as quickly withdrawn.
Wanting to grab her too, despite his enthralment Marty shrewdly divined that his comment on her beauty had gone undisputed, though there was no hint of arrogance in her manner and, as one with no belief in his own attractiveness, he envied her that.
‘You did say they live in a house these days,’ she reminded him.
‘Aye, for seven, eight years or so.’ Might he have laid the romantic gypsy thing on a bit too thick? He spoke more truthfully now. ‘I suppose we were never strictly part of that community anyway, we tended to travel alone, though I can’t deny it was the rover’s life. Back and forth twixt Ireland and Yorkshire. As a nipper ye kind o’ get sick of it, moving round different schools and the like. I was glad when Da settled for the buffer’s life.’ Rubbing the edge of the dressing table, he studied the hand that rested temptingly close to his, then exclaimed, ‘Eh, don’t let on to anyone here, will you? I’ve never told a soul – man nor woman nor beast.’
‘Then I shan’t either. But even if they still dwelt in a caravan it wouldn’t make any difference about the way I feel towards you.’ She herself saw beyond the gypsy, detected some indescribable quality of spirit.
‘Wouldn’t it?’ His green eyes shone and his question was superfluous; had he thought it would affect their miracu-lous rapport he would never have used the approach. Boldly, he grabbed her hand. ‘That’s such a relief. I just wanted you to know everything about me so’s you’re fully aware of what you’re getting into.’ It was a gross presumption but one that he was confident to make and that Henrietta would accept.
She shook her head in happy amazement, her little pearl earrings trembling. ‘It’s so strange but I feel as if I already know everything there is to know – as if we’ve been acquainted for years!’
‘I feel like that too,’ declared Marty, his eyes running over her dark tresses – the only coarse thing about her – that were swept up at the front and fastened in an elegant twist to frame pale symmetrical features. She reminded him of a ballerina in a painting he had once seen. ‘Or is it all my imagination? ’Cause I can’t for the life of me believe a girl as lovely as you could bring herself even to talk to me.’
