The Gambling Man

He nodded at her, then said, ‘Well, he won’t need any friends for the next twelve months, but he will after.’

‘Ta-rah,’ she said.

‘Ta-rah, lass,’ he said, and as she walked away he watched her. He was puzzled by her relationship to the prisoner. Just a friend, she had said.

She walked so slowly from the Court House that she hadn’t time to call in at the hospital and when she arrived in the kitchen she was crying so much that the cook called the mistress, and the mistress said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Janie,’ and she answered her through her tears, ‘No, ’tisn’t . . . ’tisn’t that, he’s . . . he’s still as he was. It’s . . . it’s John George. I know I shouldn’t have but I went to the court, ma’am, and he got a year.’

Her mistress’s manner altered, her face stiffened. ‘You’re a very silly girl, Janie,’ she said. ‘The master will be very annoyed with you. Court rooms are no places for women, young women, girls. I, too, am very annoyed with you. I gave you the time off to visit your fiancé. That man’s a scamp, a thieving scamp. I’m surprised your fiancé didn’t find it out before . . . . What sentence did he get?’

‘A year, ma’am.’

‘That was nothing really, nothing. If he had been an ordinary labouring man, one could have understood him stealing, but he was in a position of trust, and when such men betray their trust they deserve heavy sentences. Dry your eyes now. Go upstairs and see to the children. I’m very displeased with you, Janie.’

Janie went upstairs and she was immediately surrounded by the children.

Why was she crying? Had their mama been cross with her?

She nodded her head while they clung to her and the girls began to cry with her. Yes, their mama had been cross with her, but strangely it wasn’t affecting her. Another time she would have been thrown into despair by just a sharp word from her mistress. At this moment she did not even think of Rory, for Rory had turned the corner, they said, and was on the mend, but her thoughts were entirely with John George. His face haunted her. The fact that he had told her that he had got a girl into trouble had shocked her, but what had shocked her even more was his mental condition, for she felt he must be going wrong in the head to admit that he took the ten shillings but not the five pounds. Poor John George! Poor John George! And Rory would go mad when he knew.

9

A fortnight later they brought Rory home in a cab actually paid for by Miss Kean. Miss Kean had visited the hospital three times. The last time Rory had been propped up in bed and had stared at her and listened silently as she gave him a message from her father.

He was not to worry, his post was there for him when he was ready to return. And what was more, her father was promoting him to Mr Armstrong’s place. Her father had taken on a new man, but he was oldish and couldn’t cover half the district. Nevertheless, he was honest and honest men were hard to come by. Her father had always known that but now it had been proved to him.

Miss Kean had then asked, ‘Have you any idea who attacked you?’ and all Rory did was to make one small movement with his head. He had stared fixedly at Miss Kean and she had smiled at him and said, ‘I hope you enjoy the grapes, Mr Connor, and will soon be well.’ Again he had made a small movement with his head. It was then she said, ‘When you are ready to return home a cab will be provided.’

His mind was now clear and working normally and it kept telling him there was this thing he had to face up to and it was no use trying to ignore it, or hoping it would slip back into the muzziness that he had lain in during the first days of his recovery when they had kept saying to him, all of them, the nurses, the doctor, Ruth, his dad, her, Janie, all of them, ‘Don’t worry, take it slowly. Every day you’ll improve. It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle.’

Although after the third day he had stopped saying the word ‘Pity’ aloud it was still filling the back of his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the big feet coming towards him; that’s all he remembered, the big feet. He couldn’t remember where they had hit him first, whether it was on the head or in the groin or in his ribs; they had broken his ribs. For days he had found it difficult to breathe, now it was easier. His body, although black and blue from head to foot, and with abrasions almost too numerous to count, was no longer a torment to him, just a big sore pile of flesh. He did not know what he looked like, only that his face seemed spread as wide as his shoulders.