Free Titanic Affair by Amanda P Grange Page B

you are definitely a lady.’
    ‘I was born that way, and perhaps you are right, in all the ways that matter, I am one still, but I am not a hot house flower. I have seen my share of hardship and I would like to know what drove you.’
    ‘Very well,’ he said. His hand pressed more firmly into the small of her back and, holding her in his arms, he resumed the dance. ‘My family lived in a poor neighbourhood in Southampton , struggling to survive. My mother took in washing and went scrubbing floors for a few coppers to help feed us - there were eleven of us, all told. My father worked on the docks. When I was twelve he was crippled in an accident and couldn’t work. I did what I could, making myself useful, running errands, making coppers. And then one day I found a bicycle. It was bent and rusty, and had been abandoned in an alleyway.’
    He broke off as he whirled her expertly past two other couples.
    ‘I mended it,’ he continued, ‘and used it to help me ply my trade. I delivered parcels quickly and I could go further afield than the boys on foot. By attaching a cart to my bicycle I could carry more parcels. Bit by bit, I built up a business. As soon as I could afford it I bought an old motor van. It was broken down but I repaired it. I was just starting to make some headway when my father died. He had been ill for years, but it hit my mother hard. She was still taking in washing; still scrubbing floors. She took to her bed for a few days after my father died, knocked down by grief. The ladies she cleaned for gave her notice. They said she was unreliable.’ His hand gripped her own more tightly. ‘She’d been working for them for ten years.’
    She heard the hard edge in his voice, and knew how much it had affected him, that his mother should have been so badly treated.
    ‘It doesn’t seem to have made you bitter,’ she said. Although his voice had been hard, there had been no bitterness in it. ‘You could have started to hate those with wealth, resenting them for everything they had, but you didn’t.’
    ‘I can’t see the point in bitterness. It’s destructive. I channelled my disgust, using it to make me work harder than ever. I bought more vans. Eventually I had a whole fleet of them. Once the business was doing well I put it in the charge of my brother and travelled to America . I had heard great things about it; that it was a land of opportunity. I quickly saw it was somewhere I could achieve even greater things. I set up a similar business, and once it was established I moved my family over there with me. I sold the English business and used the profits to help my brothers and sisters. Of course, I made sure my mother never had to go back to scrubbing floors again. I hired someone to scrub her floor; then someone to do the heavy housework for her. Then the light housework. Then someone to fetch and carry. It’s a strange thing,’ he said. ‘First, my money saved her from drudgery, but then it stopped her having to do anything at all.’
    ‘And that is why she became ill?’ ventured Emilia.
    ‘I didn’t realize it at the time, but yes, I think it is.’
    ‘Not having enough to do is as bad as having too much to do,’ she said.
    He nodded.
    Tightening his grip on her hand a little, he guided her round the edge of the dance floor. The effect of his slight change in his grasp was to make her aware of him all over again. She had waltzed before, on rare occasions when her parents had entertained. She had only been eighteen at the time, but her parents had thought it would be good for her to gain some social experience and develop some poise. They had hosted a number of social evenings, and she had danced with the young men from round about. But they had never made her feel alive in their arms; expectant; as though she were waiting for something. Their grips had been firm, their dancing assured. But with them, a waltz had been a dance. With Carl it was something more. Much more.
    He was speaking