Connie’s Courage

ANNIE GROVES
Connie’s Courage

I would like to dedicate this book to my mother who paid me the best compliment I have ever had in being so impatient to read Connie’s story. Here she is, Mum – I hope you like her!

Contents

Cover

Title Page

PART ONE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

PART TWO

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

PART THREE

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE

ONE
1912

Connie admired her reflection in the old spotted mirror she had propped up on the small chest by the window to get the best light. Not that very much light did come in through the small, filthy window of the room she and Kieron were renting in one of Liverpool’s poorest areas – a huddle of terraced houses in an airless court down a narrow back alley – but Connie preferred not to think about their surroundings.

She had begged the landlord of the pub where she worked as a barmaid to let her take the mirror when his wife decided to throw it out. It was her sister Ellie who had always been considered the pretty one, and not her. She rubbed anxiously at her lips with a cloth, to try to give them a bit of colour, before applying a thin smear of Vaseline to them. She and Kieron might not have any money, but that did not mean she had to let herself go completely.

They might be living in straitened circumstances now, but things would be different once they got to America, she assured herself, picking up her skirts and whirling round, the reality of her situation forgotten, as her natural optimism brought an excited glow to her face. America! Oh, but she just couldn’t wait to get there!

‘We’re going to America. We’re going to America!’ she sang at the top of her voice, dizzy with anticipation and happiness.

But her happiness turned to a sharp stab of discomfort, as the light from the window glinted on the cheap wedding ring she was wearing. A wedding ring she had no legal right to, because she and Kieron were not married.

In reality, she was not Mrs Kieron Connolly, but still Miss Constance Pride, daughter of Robert Pride of Preston. Not that her father cared anything for her now. No, he had a second wife to replace Connie’s dead mother, and a new family to displace both Connie and her siblings from his affections.

Connie still hated to think about the unhappiness she had experienced after her mother’s death. The four Pride children had been split up amongst their mother’s sisters, without being allowed any say in their own futures. The Barclay sisters had been renowned for their beauty and grace when they had been young, and Connie knew that her aunts had never approved of her mother Lydia’s marriage to a mere butcher.

When Lydia had died following the birth of her fourth child, Ellie, Connie’s elder sister, had been sent to live at Hoylake with their Aunt and Uncle Parkes.

Mr Parkes was an extremely wealthy man – a lawyer – with a very grand house in the prestigious area of Hoylake where all the rich shipowners lived. Mr and Mrs Parkes had given a ball whilst Ellie had been living with them, and Connie had been invited to attend.

She had tried not to show how overawed she felt by the unfamiliar elegance of her aunt and uncle’s home, or how upset and frightened she had been by the realisation that she and her sister Ellie were living such different lives. Her elder sister had seemed like a stranger to her, and she had felt so envious of her, and the wonderful life she was living.

It had seemed unfair that Ellie should be living a life of luxury with the Parkes, whilst Connie was stuck in a horrid, cold rectory with their parsimonious Aunt and Uncle Simpkins.

John, their brother, and the new baby, Philip, had been sent to live at Hutton with another aunt, and Connie hadn’t had any contact with her family since she ran away with Kieron.

When Ellie found out that Connie had run away from their Aunt and Uncle Simpkins to be with Kieron, she had tried to persuade her sister to return to them, claiming that Connie would be socially ruined if what she had done should become public knowledge. But Connie suspected that Ellie was thinking more about her own social position, rather than Connie’s!

Ellie had gone up in the world through her two marriages: her first into a ship-owning family, and then, when her first husband died, Ellie had married her childhood sweetheart, Gideon Walker. Gideon was a craftsman who had inherited a considerable amount of money, and a house in Winckley Square, the smartest part of Preston. This was much to the resentment of their Aunt Gibson, who also lived in the same square with her doctor husband.

Since their Aunt Gibson was used to considering herself of a much higher social status than Ellie and Connie’s late mother, she no doubt thoroughly disliked having Ellie as her well-to-do neighbour. Not that Connie had any sympathy for their Aunt Gibson. She was the one who had insisted on splitting them all up following their mother’s death, after all, even if she had claimed she was acting on their mother’s wishes. But Ellie had been the one who had let her!

Connie had hated her life with her Aunt Jane so much. The Simpkins’ household had been so different from the jolly comfort of the home she had known. She had missed its warmth, and her mother and father’s love. Her Aunt and Uncle Simpkins had certainly not loved her. They had forever been finding fault with her. When she had met Kieron, she had been so thrilled and relieved to meet someone who seemed to love her. Kieron had certainly told her that he loved her. In fact, his boldness had overwhelmed her a little, and, if she was honest, made it impossible for her to think straight.

Deep down inside, Connie knew that their mother would never have approved of someone like Kieron as a husband for her. For one thing, they were of different religions, but, even more important in her mother’s eyes, would have been the fact that Kieron had such a different background to her own. Connie’s father was a respectable, hard-working butcher with his own business. A man who could hold his head up in any company. Connie’s mother came from even more respectable stock. Kieron’s family …

Connie had been shocked the first time she had visited his home, initially at the poverty of the small house itself, but later by the way she had witnessed Kieron’s father treating his wife. Never would her own father have spoken to her mother in such a demeaning and unpleasant manner. Kieron’s father had totally ignored Connie, and later Kieron had admitted that his family, especially his father and uncle, did not want him to continue seeing her.

‘Seems like me uncle has a wife in mind for us – a good Catholic she is, with her family having a bit o’ business wi’ me uncle.’

Connie had been outraged by his disclosure and told him so, but to her shock Kieron had refused to condemn his family.

She bit her lip unhappily. Running away with Kieron had seemed such a romantic and exciting thing to do at first. And she had assumed that she and Kieron would be married virtually straightaway, but he kept putting it off, saying that he wanted to get them a decent place to live before he married her.

‘But we are already living together, Kieron,’ she had protested anxiously. ‘And you promised me that we should be married …’

‘Aye, and so we will,’ he had agreed, taking hold of her and kissing her.

She began to pluck anxiously at the fabric of her dress. Kieron did want to marry her, she knew that. And he was going to marry her. He had said so!

But Connie knew that in the eyes of her family, especially her mother’s family, she was now a fallen woman, someone they would refuse even to acknowledge if they should see her in the street. And it was not just so in the eyes of her family, but in the eyes of the world as well.

A sharp thrill of fear jolted through her. What had started out as an exciting adventure, had become something that, deep down inside her, Connie felt ashamed of, even though she stubbornly refused to admit it.

She twisted the cheap ring on her finger. Why should she care what anyone else thought? Especially her family! They had never cared about her, had they?

Anger and confusion darkened Connie’s green eyes. She hated the starkness of the painful emotions that filled her whenever she thought about the life she had sunk to, and her family … Which was why she chose not to think about them at all, unless she had to.

Connie loved laughter and fun and excitement; she was in her element in the heady, giddy atmosphere of a music hall, or indeed anywhere where people gathered to have a good time.

Would there be music halls in America, she wondered naively. She was sure that there would. It was such a big exciting place, especially New York where she and Kieron would soon be going.

For the whole of the last month she had been bubbling over inside with excitement. She and Kieron were going to leave Liverpool and this horrid, dirty room they were forced to live in, and make a new life for themselves in America. And it had all been her idea! One of the best ideas she had ever had, she congratulated herself.

It had come to her when she had happened to pick up a copy of the Liverpool Echo, while clearing the tables in the pub. It had been left open on a page describing the wonders of the new liner, the Titanic, due to make its maiden voyage to New York, and Connie felt her heart skip with excitement as she read that the liner was going to be carrying steerage passengers at a very modest rate; ordinary people who would be able to travel to America to make a wonderful new life there for themselves.

In that moment, Connie’s dream had been born. A dream of going to America with Kieron where they could live as man and wife, without the disapproval or interference of their families. At first, Kieron had rejected her suggestion, but Connie had gradually worn down his objections with her enthusiasm and her optimism.

Humming happily to herself, Connie deliberately refused to look at the grim poverty of her surroundings. She had always been an optimist, and never more so than now.

Where was Kieron? She wished he’d hurry up and return! He had gone out earlier to collect and pay for their tickets for the Titanic.

Connie had been avidly reading everything she could about the liner – the papers had been full of its magnificence and elegance. Of course, she and Kieron could only afford the cheapest of the steerage tickets, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t go and sneak a look at the glamorous first-class salons, she assured herself, before going to have another anxious look at her reflection in the mirror.

She wanted to look her best when Kieron came in. Not that it was easy to look pretty when the only clothes she had were little better than rags! She had seen the way the landlady at the pub had looked at them – and at her! Her face burned with angry resentment. She had had pretty clothes, but Kieron had taken them from her and sold them. She had begged him not to, but he had torn them out of her arms, despite her pleas. He had insisted that they needed the money to pay their rent.

For all that she loved him, sometimes Kieron could be very unkind to her. And, as she had discovered, he had a quick temper – and he liked a drink! And, when he had had a drink, sometimes he flew into a terrible rage when he hurled angry and hurtful insults at her. Once or twice he had even raised his fist as though he was going to hit her. Not that he ever actually had! Connie gave a small shiver. On those occasions, if she were honest, she had felt slightly afraid of him. But she wasn’t going to dwell on them. Everything would be all right once they were in New York.

The light coming in through the small window burnished her russet hair. Connie peered closer into the mirror. It was so unfair that Ellie should have been the prettier of them, she fretted, unaware of the attractiveness of her own looks; her pretty oval-shaped face; her green eyes with their thick, dark, curling eyelashes, her neat straight nose.

Not that she did not have her admirers! She giggled, remembering how, not so very long ago, a cheeky baker’s boy had stopped his bicycle to tell her that she had an extremely kissable mouth. Connie loved flattery and compliments, almost as much as she loved pretty clothes and fun and laughter.

Why was Kieron taking so long? He should have been back by now!

Impatiently she started to pace the floor. In New York they wouldn’t have to share a privy with all the other lodgers in the house, they would have one all to themselves, maybe even two! They would have a huge house, and she would have her own maid to help her change her clothes, just like Ellie had had when she had lived at Hoylake with Aunt and Uncle Parkes.

Kieron would become a very important man, and on her birthday he would present her with a beautiful diamond necklace. All the admiring new friends she would make in New York would be envious of her, especially when she told them the romantic tale of how Kieron had seen her and fallen in love with her, and how they had been married on the Titanic.

As she slid into the pleasure of her favourite daydream, Connie was able to forget her surroundings and her anxiety over Kieron’s absence.

‘Connie let me in!’

Connie woke with a start. She had dozed off and her body felt cramped. Quickly she got off the bed and hurried over to the door, unlocking it and throwing her arms round Kieron as soon as he stepped into the room. Her face was alight with excitement, questions tumbling from her lips.

‘Where have you been? I fell asleep waiting for you! Where are the tickets, Kieron? Show them to me! I want to see them. Oh, Kieron, I can’t wait for us to leave here and get to America.’

The smell of dirt, human excrement, vomit and alcohol that pervaded the whole of the boarding house where they were renting a room, was even stronger with the door open and Connie hurried to close it.

Of all the lodgings she and Kieron had occupied since they had run away together, this house in Back Court, one of Liverpool’s most run-down housing areas, was easily the worst. Connie hadn’t wanted to come to Liverpool, but Kieron had refused to listen.

His Uncle Bill had some work he wanted Kieron to do for him in Liverpool, he had told Connie. But when she had asked him what it was, and why, if he was working for his uncle, they did not have more money, Kieron had flown into one of his tempers and told her she asked too many questions.

If she wanted more money, he had told her, then she had better write to her sister and ask her for some! Connie had told him that she would do no such thing, and that she would rather starve than go begging to her sister.

They had quarrelled badly about it, and Kieron had become so angry that Connie trembled inwardly now, remembering how shocked and frightened she had felt.

But nothing would make her write to Ellie. She had begged her elder sister once for her help and been refused it, and now Connie was stubbornly determined not to do so ever again.

It was all right for Ellie, happily married to Gideon, with everything she could possibly want, even if her first husband had committed suicide, leaving Ellie pregnant and alone and with his lover and her child on her hands.

Connie gave a small sniff. Now there was a scandal! Ellie’s first husband, Henry, had taken a lover while working in Japan for his father’s shipping line. The Japanese woman had given birth to Henry’s child, and travelled to England, with her baby daughter, to find him.

But trust Ellie to come out of it all whiter than white, with everyone singing her praises, and a second husband in Gideon Walker who had loved her right from the start! As Kieron loved her, Connie tried to reassure herself. Even if he hadn’t been showing it very much lately.

Uncomfortably, Connie admitted, that she and Kieron seemed to spend all their time quarrelling these days. Since their arrival in Liverpool, he had taken to disappearing for hours at a time, returning the worse for drink and refusing to tell her where he had been, other than that it was on his Uncle Bill’s ‘business'.

He certainly always seemed to be able to find the money for drink, even when they had none for decent food or accommodation. Connie had seen the pitying looks the other women living in the court gave her, but she had refused to acknowledge them, hugging to herself instead, the knowledge that soon she and Kieron would be starting their new life together.

Titanic sailed in less than three days’ time, and Connie had parted with the single reminder she had left of her past life and her beloved mother – she had given Kieron the piece of jewellery her mother had left her, so that he could sell it to raise the money for their fares.

It had all been so different when she had been growing up in the comfortable, happy household her mother had run in Friargate above their father’s butcher’s shop. Theirs had been a home filled with love and laughter, and secretly she still missed those days dreadfully. She had certainly never envisaged that she might one day be in her present situation.

‘Kieron, the tickets!’ she begged again.

‘Shut that bloody noise, will you!’ he answered her aggressively.

Connie looked at him anxiously. ‘Kieron, you did get the tickets, didn’t you?’ A pleading note had crept into her voice, and she was beginning to panic. ‘We’ll be sailing in three days, and you said that you would get them today!’ she reminded him, unable to keep the anxiety and distress out of her voice.

‘Aw, will yer stop nagging me, Connie. There’ll be plenty of time to get the bloody tickets tomorrow.’

‘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.