Connie’s Courage. Annie Groves

him there. He knew his ma would never tolerate having the likes of you ‘angin’ around. A God-fearing respectable Catholic woman she is.’ Bill’s face darkened as he mopped the tears filling his eyes.

      ‘I didn’t send Kieron to America,’ Connie defended herself weakly. ‘I was supposed to be going with him, but he left me behind because you told him to – just like you told him to tell me I had to lie, if anyone came round asking where he was the night he didn’t come home,’ she added bitterly, forgetting her fear of him in the heat of her emotion.

      Instantly Bill Connolly stiffened. ‘What was that you just said?’ he demanded menacingly.

      How much had Kieron told her? More than he damn well ought to have done, that was for sure. Kieron might be dead and therefore no longer accountable for the murder he had committed, but if the stupid bitch in front of him started tattling, there were plenty enough people who would leap at the excuse to start sticking their noses into Connolly affairs.

      Kieron had broken one of the cardinal rules of the Connolly family, which was never to talk to a woman about business. Had he been here, nephew or not, drowned or not, Bill would cheerfully have broken his neck.

      Connie refused to answer him. She could feel the fear and shock trickling through her veins like ice. Titanic had sunk, and Kieron was dead. How was that possible? She was shaking so much that she turned back to the bed to sit down on it. She had barely eaten for days, and she felt sick with weakness and shock.

      ‘I give our Kieron a hundred guineas afore he left, and that’s a debt you are going t’ave ter pay back,’ she heard Bill Connolly telling her menacingly.

      Connie stared at him. ‘But how can I do that? I haven’t got any money! I haven’t got anything,’ she told him bitterly. ‘Kieron took everything.’ Her face twisted with misery, but Bill had no sympathy for her.

      ‘How? Same way as yer earned it from our Kieron,’ he told her in an ugly voice. ‘On yer back, just like any other whore. I’m tekin you back ter Preston wi’ me. I’ve got a place down by the river where you’ll feel right at ‘ome. Plenty o’ sailors callin’ so you won’t feel lonely,’ he told her leeringly.

      Connie froze in horror, as the meaning of his threat sank slowly through the numbness of her misery. He was suggesting that she become a prostitute. That he. That she … He couldn’t mean it!

      She looked into his eyes and a cold thrill of fear seized her. He did mean it!

      ‘No! I won’t!’ she told him defiantly, the same rebellious streak that had got her into so much trouble before, spurting to life inside her. ‘And you can’t make me!’

      She knew immediately that she had said the wrong thing.

      ‘Whose goin’ ter stop me?’ he demanded tauntingly. ‘That posh sister o’yourn?’ He laughed out loud.

      ‘I won’t,’ Connie repeated desperately, her eyes widening in terror as Bill advanced toward her, his fist bunched.

      Connie screamed the first time he hit her, the blow knocking her clean off her feet. But, by the time his fists had laid into her body half a dozen times, she was beyond screaming; beyond crying; beyond anything only praying for the pain to end.

      Straightening up over Connie’s motionless body, Bill wiped the blood off his fist.

      ‘Aye, let that be a lesson to yer,’ he grunted, as he stared down at her. ‘I’ve got business to attend to right now,’ he told her, spitting onto the floor, ‘but when I come back you’d better be ready to see sense, otherwise yer’ll get another dozen o’ the same.’

      Aiming a contemptuous kick at her, he went to the door and removed the key, taking it with him and locking her in the room as he left.

      Waves of pain were surging through Connie like the tide on the beach, each one carrying her further and further into its agony. All she wanted to do was to be taken to a place where she could no longer feel it. But it wouldn’t let her go. It was savaging her with brutal teeth, gripping her, and biting into her belly.

      Connie whimpered and then cried out as each fresh surge brought her further agony. Through blurred eyes she looked at the locked door.

      Anger filled her, streaked with blood red fear. She hated Kieron for leaving her and she hated him even more for what was happening to her now. Bill Connolly meant what he had said. And if she stayed here …

      Somehow she managed to get to her feet. Bill had taken the key from the door, but Connie had another one, the one Kieron had left behind when he had abandoned her. Dragging herself to the small box beneath the bed, which held her few remaining personal treasures, she opened it, and removed the key.

      She could feel herself growing more sick and dizzy as she turned it in the lock, but the fear that she might faint and not be able to escape, made her grit her teeth and ignore it.

      She was conscious of someone from one of the other rooms staring at her as she staggered to the top of the stairs. Down at the bottom of them, the door was open, and a thin patch of bright April sunshine warmed the grimy stone of the court outside.

      Connie could feel the pain dragging at her as she started to walk down the stairs. By the time she was halfway down, she had dropped to all fours and was crawling. She tried not to scream out loud, when suddenly she started to fall …

      Harry turned into the alley on his way back to his mother’s lodgings. His chest was aching, as it did whenever he was anxious, a legacy from the weakness he had suffered in it as a child, and he had to pause to take a deep breath. As he did so, he saw Connie tumble through the doorway and into the yard. She was moaning in pain and immediately he hurried toward her, unable to prevent the shock registering in his eyes as he looked down at her.

      Her face was badly bruised and her lip was bleeding. He realised immediately that she had been beaten up, and Harry felt a surge of anger at the thought that a member of his own sex had hurt her so badly.

      Connie looked up at the young man bending over her, his expression concerned. She recognised him as the son of the widow who had recently moved into the court. Somewhere, a part of her registered a feeling of shame and anger that he should see her like this, but then that feeling was overwhelmed by her fear that, at any moment, Bill Connolly would reappear.

      A fresh wave of pain seized her and she tried to clench her teeth against it, but it was tearing at her again, even fiercer than before. She started to whimper, clutching at her stomach as she did so, struggling to get to her feet.

      A couple of women came hurrying out of one of the neighbouring houses and came over to see what was going on.

      ‘By the Blessed Mother Mary, what’s happened to youse, love?’ one of them demanded as she looked at Connie. ‘Yer man got a temper on him, did he, love? Aye, he’s given youse a right nasty thump.’

      Her voice wasn’t unsympathetic.

      Connie was desperate to escape from the court. Somehow she managed to get to her feet, and ignoring both Harry and the women, she started to walk toward the alley. She had only taken half a dozen steps when the pain gripped her again; stronger this time, stopping her in her tracks and making her scream aloud.

      Immediately the other woman’s expression changed. ‘’Ere Mary Ann,’ she called over her shoulder to the woman standing behind her. ‘Get your Jim to run round to Ma Deakin’s, will yer, looks like she’s miscarrin'. ‘Ere come on, love!’ she told Connie comfortingly, bustling up to her, ‘Let’s get yer back inside. Ma Deakin ‘ull soon ‘ave youse sorted out. How far gone was yer?’

      The girl was pregnant. Harry was filled with pity and shock.

      As the two women bustled round her, Connie lifted her head and looked at him. Their glances met. In Connie’s eyes he could see a mixture of fear and pride, and shame.

      Turning away, Harry hurried toward his mother’s lodgings. The two women had taken charge of Connie, and were trying to get her back inside the