He and Marcus turned the corner, and proceeded down a narrow street lined with soot-blackened row houses. Children played barefoot on the pavements. A tethered dog barked at them from its place on the stoop.
His address was in a humble, working-class part of town. The people were good and honest, and, after the initial shock, had welcomed the new Mr. and Mrs. Neill into their tight-knit community. Since he was gone all day, and sometimes during the night, Brody was thankful to know Angelica was at least being looked after in his absence.
It certainly wasn’t anywhere he’d ever imagined himself living, but it felt like home. Despite their poverty, and the hardships they faced, Brody and Angelica were happy here.
“This is us,” he told his brother. They stopped at the door, and Brody heaved it open. “After you.”
He followed Marcus inside, and pointed him into the dim sitting-room. The walls were papered in a hideous false damask, long faded from years of abuse. There was a fireplace, and a few threadbare upholstered chairs clustered around it. The uneven floorboards beneath their feet had been swept clean, and covered by a thick, coarse carpet. Besides that, there were a few scarred tables on wobbling legs, and a lone lamp in the corner. The space was cramped, but tidy.
“Have a seat, and I’ll fetch Angelica,” Brody said, carefully weaving between the furniture. His wife hated when he shifted anything even a hair’s breadth to the left or right—she’d inevitably bump her shin on an out-of-place table leg—and he tried not to make life in their tiny quarters any more difficult for her than it had to be.
He passed through their kitchen, stopping to hastily place the kettle onto the cast-iron range, and stepped out the back door. The bricked courtyard steamed in the afternoon sun, criss-crossed with lines of laundry hung to dry. Angelica stood over a vat of murky, grey wash-water, scrubbing and churning their dirty clothes. The whole place reeked of Sunlight Soap.
Angelica pinned his underdrawers on the line to dry. Her drab, second-hand frock clung to her sweating skin, but she smiled and chatted to the ladies next door. His little wife worked tirelessly. Even now, as her rounded belly had begun to show, she never once complained of their lot.
He stepped out onto the courtyard. She turned at the sound of his boots on the pavers. “Hullo. Markie is here.”
“Oh, so soon? I was going to change…” She untied her apron, and dropped it onto the basket of fresh laundry.
“No need. You’re beautiful just as you are.” The other ladies giggled. They thought it was sweet, and just a bit soppy, how devoted he was to her. Brody didn’t mind. He’d vowed a long time ago to always let Angelica know how much he appreciated everything she did for him.
Taking her hand in his, they walked back to the house. The kettle began to whistle as they crossed the threshold. Angelica paused to pull it off the stove, but he stopped her. “Let me make the tea,” he said. “You deserve a rest.”
She smiled—impatiently. “You don’t have to fuss over me, Brody.”
“I know. But I like to.” He pulled three clean cups down from the cupboard. “Go on. Markie’s waiting.”
Reluctantly, Angelica made her way to the sitting-room. He heard Marcus stand to greet her, his brother’s voice smiling and bright. They chatted as he shuffled around in the kitchen. Angelica had bought biscuits the day before, and he shook a few out of the tin onto a chipped saucer. Their meagre tea was a far cry from the elaborate affair Marcus was accustomed to, and, for an instant, Brody felt the sting of shame.
Ah, well. Nothing for it. He arranged everything on the tray, and then carried it through the narrow doorway. He’d rather live like paupers with Angelica than pretend to be a prince beneath his father’s heel.
She poured the tea while he settled himself into a comfortable chair by the solitary window, which was lifted to let the breeze flow. The thin curtains flapped, and from where he sat, he could hear the barking dog and squealing laughter of the children at play.
His attention was only drawn back to the room when he heard his name in conversation.
“…Have you had any luck with your inheritance?” Marcus had asked.
Angelica shook her head. “Brody is optimistic, but I’ve given up all hope. There are mountains of paperwork that I cannot read, and so many questions that I cannot even begin to answer. We’ve made the trip back to my house to look for some of the information, but it’s hours on the bus, and then ten miles walk from the nearest village…really, who has the time?”
The interminable process of disentangling Angelica’s inheritance was beginning to feel a bit like ‘Jarndyce and Jarndyce’. Brody could barely afford to take time off from his job, and when he did have an afternoon to spare, he was too damned exhausted to work on her case. What they needed was a good lawyer, but without Father’s blessing, they’d be laughed out of the family solicitors’ office.