couldn’t stop herself from bursting out.
Ignoring her, Amelia continued grimly, ‘When I think of what she made your poor Aunt Jane suffer with her wilful ways. She and your Uncle Simpkins did their best for her, taking her in and giving her a good home, just as your Aunt Parkes did for you, and we all know how Connie repaid their generosity.’ Her thin lips folded in a forbidding line. She was a disgrace to our family. She could never have returned to live amongst decent respectable people!’ Amelia went on. ‘And, in my opinion, she is better off dead!’
‘Aunt, I won’t have you speak of her like that,’ Ellie protested immediately. ‘How can you say such things about her?’
‘I say them because they are true, Ellie! When a woman behaves as Connie has done and loses her reputation, she loses everything, and there can be no purpose to her continuing to live. Had Connie ever dared come to my door, I would not have let her in, and neither would any of my sisters. Indeed, I would not have spoken to her if I had seen her in the street. She was already as good as dead so far as I was concerned. I cannot understand why you waste your tears on her, Ellie, for she certainly did not deserve them.’
After they had gone, Ellie wept in Gideon’s arms.
‘Oh poor Connie, Gideon … How could my aunt speak so, and be so cruel!’
Gideon held her tightly.
‘I know that Connie did wrong, but …’
‘You would forgive her and take her in, I know that, Ellie, but there would be many people like your aunt who would not forgive or forget what she did, and who would shun her for it.’
Ellie knew that what he was saying was true. But she knew she would have forgiven her sister had she done a hundred times worse, if only she could have her back alive and safe!
There was a sudden commotion in the hallway, and her younger brother John came bursting in.
The moment she saw John, Henrietta – Ellie’s stepdaughter, the child of her late husband and his Japanese lover – ran eagerly toward him. After her first husband had committed suicide, Ellie had made herself responsible for the frail Japanese woman who had travelled all the way from Japan with her young daughter to find the man she loved. But Ellie’s compassion and care had not been enough to heal Minaco’s broken heart. After Minaco’s death, and Ellie’s own subsequent marriage to Gideon, Ellie had insisted that they adopt the orphaned little girl, knowing herself how hard it was to grow up without loving parents.
Henrietta was both pretty and sweet-natured, and Ellie and Gideon loved her as though she were their own child.
‘And how’s my beautiful girl, today?’ John asked Henrietta mock-severely as he set her on his shoulders. ‘Have you been good and learned your lessons?’
As Henrietta giggled at his teasing, Ellie said quietly, ‘John, there is bad news about Connie.’
Someone was banging on her door. Reluctantly Connie opened her eyes and stared at it in confusion. Had Kieron forgotten his key again?
Pushing back the bedclothes, she scratched absently at the marks the bedbugs had left on her skin, slid her feet to the floor, and stood up. To her shock, her legs refused to support her and she had to cling on to the bed. Her head muzzy with confusion, she went to unlock the door.
‘By Our Sainted Mary, so you are here after all then, are you!’
Connie staggered back as Kieron’s uncle, Bill Connolly, thrust open the door and strode in. Connie had never liked him, and she knew that he returned her feelings.
As he loomed over her, she could smell the drink on his breath and her stomach heaved.
‘Murdering bitch,’ Bill yelled at her. ‘Murdering whore. Sendin’ our Kieron to his death. It should have been youse who was drowned, not our Kieron.’
He had slammed the door closed and Connie started to shiver, as she tried to make some sense out of what he was saying to her.
‘Drowned,’ she repeated uncomprehendingly, whilst she tried to control her nausea.
‘Aye, drowned, when he went down in the Titanic!’
The room spun round and Connie struggled to grasp what he was saying.
‘Aye, and you were the one as sent ‘im to his death. It was you as nagged ‘im into leaving – he told me all about it, how you were goin’ at ‘im and how as he were right sick of youse, and were feared to come home in case you followed him there. He knew his ma would never tolerate having the likes of you ‘angin’ around. A God-fearing respectable Catholic woman she is.’ Bill’s face darkened as he mopped the tears filling his eyes.
‘I didn’t send Kieron to America,’ Connie defended herself weakly. ‘I was supposed to be going with him, but he left me behind because you told him to – just like you told him to tell me I had to lie, if anyone came round asking where he was the night he didn’t come home,’ she added bitterly, forgetting her fear of him in the heat of her emotion.
Instantly Bill Connolly stiffened. ‘What was that you just said?’ he demanded menacingly.
How much had Kieron told her? More than he damn well ought to have done, that was for sure. Kieron might be dead and therefore no longer accountable for the murder he had committed, but if the stupid bitch in front of him started tattling, there were plenty enough people who would leap at the excuse to start sticking their noses into Connolly affairs.
Kieron had broken one of the cardinal rules of the Connolly family, which was never to talk to a woman about business. Had he been here, nephew or not, drowned or not, Bill would cheerfully have broken his neck.
Connie refused to answer him. She could feel the fear and shock trickling through her veins like ice. Titanic had sunk, and Kieron was dead. How was that possible? She was shaking so much that she turned back to the bed to sit down on it. She had barely eaten for days, and she felt sick with weakness and shock.
‘I give our Kieron a hundred guineas afore he left, and that’s a debt you are going t’ave ter pay back,’ she heard Bill Connolly telling her menacingly.
Connie stared at him. ‘But how can I do that? I haven’t got any money! I haven’t got anything,’ she told him bitterly. ‘Kieron took everything.’ Her face twisted with misery, but Bill had no sympathy for her.
‘How? Same way as yer earned it from our Kieron,’ he told her in an ugly voice. ‘On yer back, just like any other whore. I’m tekin you back ter Preston wi’ me. I’ve got a place down by the river where you’ll feel right at ‘ome. Plenty o’ sailors callin’ so you won’t feel lonely,’ he told her leeringly.
Connie froze in horror, as the meaning of his threat sank slowly through the numbness of her misery. He was suggesting that she become a prostitute. That he. That she … He couldn’t mean it!
She looked into his eyes and a cold thrill of fear seized her. He did mean it!
‘No! I won’t!’ she told him defiantly, the same rebellious
