Catherine Cookson - The Gambling Man

When he arrived home Charlotte was in bed, but she wasn’t asleep, and when, bending over her, he kissed her she pushed him slightly away from her, but holding him by the shoulders, she said, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Oh, come, come, Rory, you . . . you looked strained. Something happened at Nickle’s?’

‘No.’ He pulled himself from her. ‘Only that I lost . . . twenty pounds.’

‘Oh!’ She lay back on her pillows. ‘Hurt pride. Twenty pounds, quite a sum. But still I suppose you must let them have their turn. If you won every time they would say you were cheating.’

‘Yes, yes.’ When he went into the adjoining room to undress she called to him anxiously, ‘There’s nothing else wrong, is there? I mean, he didn’t say anything, there wasn’t any unpleasantness?’

‘No, no; he wasn’t more unpleasant than usual. He was born unpleasant.’

‘Yes, yes, indeed.’

In bed he did not love her but he held her very tightly in his arms and muttered into her hair, ‘Oh, Charlotte. Charlotte.’

It was a long time before he went to sleep, but even then she was still awake, although she had pretended to be asleep for some time past. There was something wrong; she could sense it. By now she knew every shade of his mood and expression. Her love for him was so deep that she imagined herself buried inside him.

At four o’clock in the morning she was woken up by his screaming. He was having a nightmare, the first he had had since his marriage.

Three days passed before Charlotte tackled him openly and very forcibly. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Something is wrong. Now—’ she closed her eyes and lifted her hand upwards—‘it’s no use you telling me, Rory, that there’s nothing amiss. Please give me credit for being capable of using my eyes and my ears if not my other senses. There is something wrong, and I must know what it is. Rory, I must know what it is.’

When he didn’t answer but turned away and walked down the length of the drawing-room towards the window she said, ‘You’re going out again tonight; you have been out for the last two nights supposedly to see Jimmy. When I was passing that way today I called in . . .’

‘You what!’ He swung round and faced her.

She stared at him over the distance before rising to her feet and saying slowly, ‘I said I called in to see Jimmy. Why should that startle you? I have done that before, but what puzzled me today, and what’s puzzling me now, is that you are both reacting in the same way. I asked him if he was feeling unwell and he said, no. I asked him if there had been any more tampering with the boats, he said, no . . . Rory, come here.’

When he made no move towards her, she went swiftly up the room and, putting her arms about him, she demanded, ‘Look at me. Please, look at me,’ and when he lifted his head, she said, ‘Whatever it is, it cannot be so awful that you can’t tell me. And whatever it is, it’s leaving its mark on you, you look ill. Come.’ She drew him down the room and towards the fire, and when they were seated on the couch she said, softly now, ‘Tell me, Rory, please. Whatever it is, please tell me. You said once you would always speak the truth to me. Nothing must stand between us, Rory. Is it that man, John George? Is he black­mailing you? After all I did for him is he . . . ?’

‘Oh no! No! Oh God, I wish I could say he was, I wish that’s all it was, John George. John George wouldn’t blackmail anybody, not even to save his life. I know that, don’t I? . . . Charlotte—’ he now gathered her hands tightly between his own and held them against his breast—‘I’ve . . . I’ve wanted to say this to you for some time past, but . . . but I didn’t think I could convince you because, to tell you the truth, when . . . when all this first started between you and me, I never thought it would ever be possible, but Charlotte . . . Charlotte, my dear, I . . . I’ve grown to care for you, love you . . .’

‘Oh Ror-y, Ror-y.’ She made a slow movement with her head, then pressed her lips tightly together as he went on, ‘I want you to know this and believe it, for . . . for what I’m going to tell you now is going to come as a great shock. If it were possible to keep it from you I would, especially now when the last thing in the world I want you to have is worry, or shock, but . . . Aw God! how can I tell you?’ When he turned his head to the side she whispered. ‘Rory. Rory, please; whatever it is, listen to me, look at me, whatever it is, whatever you’ve done, it won’t alter my feelings for you, not by one little iota.’

He was looking at her again. ‘I haven’t done anything, Charlotte, not knowingly. It’s like this.’ He swallowed deeply on a long breath. ‘The other night, Saturday, when you sent me out so gaily to the game, Jimmy was waiting at the bottom of the drive. He . . . he had news for me . . .’

He stopped speaking. He couldn’t say it but gazed at her, and she didn’t say, ‘What news?’ but remained still, very still as if she knew what was coming.

. . . ‘He told me something amazing, staggering. I . . . I couldn’t believe it, but . . . but Janie, she had come back . . . Charlotte ! Charlotte !’

As she lay back against the couch he watched the colour drain from her face until she had the appear­ance of someone who had just died, and he took her by the shoulders and shook her, crying again, ‘Charlotte! Charlotte! it’s all right. Listen, listen, it’s all right, I won’t leave you, I promise I won’t leave you. I know she can claim through law that . . . that she’s still my wife, but . . . but after seeing her, hearing her . . . I don’t know, I don’t know.’ He lowered his head, ‘She’s no more like the woman I married than . . .’

Charlotte had made a small groaning sound, and now he gathered her limp body into his arms and, stroking her hair, he muttered, ‘Believe me. Believe me, Charlotte, ‘I’ll never leave you. No matter what happens ‘I’ll never leave you unless . . . unless you want me to . . .’

. . . ‘Unless I want you to?’ Her voice was scarcely audible. ‘How . . . how can you say such a thing? I’d want you near me even if I knew you were a murderer, or a madman. Nothing you could do, nothing, nothing would ever make me want to be separated from you.’

‘Oh my dear! My dear!’

They were holding each other tightly now and, her mouth pressed against his cheek, she was murmur­ing, ‘How . . . how are you going to go about it? Does . . . does she know?’

He released her and sat slowly back against the couch. ‘I’m . . . I’m going down to tell her tonight.’

‘Where is she?’ In the boathouse.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, she would be there. That is why Jimmy was so concerned. It is strange but . . . but already I seem to have lost a family. I liked Jimmy, I liked him very much indeed. I . . . I had great plans for him, a new yard. I had been looking about on my own. It . . . it was to be a surprise for you, and your . . . your people. I thought they were coming to accept me, particularly your aunt, for it was she who from the beginning appeared the most distant. But these past few weeks, in fact only last Thursday when I met her in the boathouse, she was cooking for Jimmy, and she made a joke with me, and for the first time she didn’t address me as ma’am . . . and now . . . Oh! Oh, Rory!’ She turned and buried her face in his shoulder, and when her body began to shake with her sobbing his heart experienced an agony the like of which hitherto he hadn’t imagined he was capable of feeling. It was only the second time he had heard her cry. She wasn’t the weeping type; she was so strong, so self-assured; she was in command of herself and of him and of everyone else.