The Gambling Man

‘Yes. Aye, I couldn’t believe it either. It made me sick. But the master, he heard it all in the office. The solicitors, you know. He . . . he said he was a stupid fellow. I . . . I put a word in for him I did. I said I’d always found him nice, a really nice fella, and he said, ‘He’s been crafty, Janie. He’s admitted to using this trick every time he was sure Mr Kean wasn’t goin’ to collect the Saturday takings.’ Apparently he would nip something out then put it back on the Monday mornin’ early, but this time he was too late. And then he said nobody but a stupid man would admit to doing this in the past, then try to deny that he had taken five pounds ten. He wanted to say it was only ten shillings, and he had that on him to put back . . . He had just been to the pawn. They found the ticket on him.’

‘Oh God Almighty! what’ll happen next? Rory and now John George, an’ all within three days. It isn’t possible. But this accounts for his face, the look on his face when he came up yesterday. Eeh! God above.’ Lizzie began rocking herself.

‘It’s this lass that he’s caught on to, Lizzie.’ Janie nodded slowly. ‘Rory said he was barmy about her. He bought her a locket an’ chain at Christmas and he takes her by the ferry or train to Newcastle every week, then round the buildings. He’s daft about buildings. I never knew that till he told me one night. Then last week he gave her tea in some place. Yes, he did, he took her out to tea. And not in no cheap cafe neither, a place off Grey Street. An’ Rory said Grey Street’s classy.’

‘Women can be the ruin of a man in more ways than one.’ Lizzie’s head was bobbing up and down now. ‘But no matter, I’m sorry for him, to the very heart of me I’m sorry for him ’cos I liked John George. He had somethin’ about him, a gentleness, not like a man usually has.’

Ruth asked quietly, ‘Do you know when he’ll be tried, Janie?’

‘No, but I mean to find out.’

‘Somebody should go down and see him, he’s got nobody I understand, only those two old ’un’s. And you know, it isn’t so much laziness with them—’ Ruth turned now and shook her head at Lizzie—’it isn’t, Lizzie, it’s the rheumatics. And this’ll put the finish to them, it’ll be the House for them. Dear, dear

‘Lord!’—Ruth never said God—’You’ve got to ask why these things happen.’

The three of them stood looking at each other for a moment. Then Janie said, ‘I’ve got to go now, but I’m gettin’ out the night an’ all. The mistress said I can have an hour in the afternoon and in the evenin’s. She’s good, isn’t she?’

They nodded at her, and Lizzie agreed. ‘Aye, she’s unusual in that way. Bye-bye then, lass.’

‘Bye-bye.’ She nodded from one to the other, then again said, ‘Bye-bye,’ before running across the road and almost into a horse that was pulling a fruit cart, and as Lizzie watched her she said, ‘It only needed her to get herself knocked down and that would have been three of them. Everythin’ happens in threes, so I wonder what’s next?’

8

Janie had never before been in a court. She sat on the bench nearest the wall. At the far end of the room, right opposite to her, was the magistrate; in front of him were a number of dark-clothed men. They kept moving from one to the other, they all had papers in their hands. At times they would bend over a table and point to the papers. The last prisoner had got a month for begging, and now they were calling out the name: ‘John George Armstrong! John George Armstrong!’

As if emerging out of a cellar John George appeared. The box in which he stood came only to his hips, but the upper part of him seemed to have shrunk, his shoulders were stooped, his head hung forward, his face was the colour of clay. One of the dark-suited men began to talk. Janie only half listened to him, for her eyes were riveted on John George, almost willing him to look at her, to let him know there was someone here who was concerned for him. Poor John George! Oh, poor John George!

. . . ‘He did on the twenty-fourth day of January steal from his employer, Septimus Kean, Esquire, of Birchingham House, Westoe, the sum of five pounds ten shillings . . .’

The next words were lost to Janie as she watched John George close his eyes and shake his head. It was as if he were saying, ‘No, no.’ Then the man on the floor was mentioning Miss Kean’s name . . . ‘She pointed out to the accused the discrepancy between his entries in the ledger and the amount of money in the safe.’

Rory had always said they hadn’t a safe, not a proper one. She looked towards Miss Kean. She could only see her profile but she gathered that she was thin and would likely be tall when she stood up. She wore a pill-box hat of green velvet perched on the top of her hair. She looked to have a lot of hair, dark, perhaps it was padded. Even the mistress padded her hair at the back, especially when she was going out to some function.