She said no more, and he did not press the question, but continued with his tea in silence until she rose and went to the oven; and he asked, ‘What have you in there? It’s a lovely smell.’
She called back to him from the scullery, ‘It’s your Christmas cake, sir’; and he repeated laughingly, ‘It’s your Christmas cake, sir.’
When she returned to the kitchen he was standing by the table, and as she readjusted her apron and straightened her cap he nodded towards her head and said, ‘It still isn’t straight.’ There was a quirk to his lips.
She flushed and said, ‘It’s my hair, nothing will stay on it.’ And she again attempted to straighten the cap.
‘That’s another thing I detest—caps. Take it off and never wear it again.’
She paused, her hands raised to her head, and at his next words her feelings almost suffocated her.
‘You are very beautiful, Rosie.’
As her hands brought the cap from her head she forced her eyes from his in case she should betray herself, and the wisdom of this was given to her as he went on, his tone brusque again, ‘Don’t worry…I am merely paying you a compliment.’
He went out in his quick, bustling way, and she sat down by the table, the cap still held in her hands. ‘You are very beautiful, Rosie…I am merely paying you a compliment.’ Was that the artist speaking or was it the man? She sat quiet until the chimes of the clock from the hall told her that soon it would be time to go, and there were other things that she must think of; and she wondered why everything should have come into her life at once…her love for this man, and the coming of her father…
Rose Angela’s nervous system was like a highly tensed wire. The fears of her childhood and teens had played on it with such regularity that it responded with a feeling of acute sickness and anxiety when anything of a worrying nature affected her. Now, as she faced Bridget, she felt so sick that it was as much as she could do to stand. She had told Bridget that Mr Stanhope had people staying and that she was going to sleep in for a little while. She had managed to face her mother’s blank stare as she said this, but under Bridget’s silence her new-found courage was failing her. She knew that her mother did not believe a word she said, yet she forced herself to go on bluffing. ‘It’ll only be for a little while. I’ll still let you have something each week…perhaps it won’t be so much for the time being, as…as I’m living in.’ It would have been difficult enough to lie if Bridget had believed her tale, but under the circumstances she was finding it almost impossible.
‘Are you going to live with your master or the Arab?’ Bridget’s voice was without tone or colour. It seemed like the voice one would expect to hear from the dead, could the dead speak.
Rose Angela mouthed ‘The Arab?’ without any sound coming from her lips, and Bridget said, ‘Yes, the Arab…you are going to live in Holborn, aren’t you, where you’ve spent a good many of your evenings these past weeks?’
Rose Angela could only stare at her mother. It was Hassan she was meaning…someone had seen her with Hassan. But who? It had always been dark when she saw him, except that once by the ferry, and then there had been no-one about…Oh, this was worse than anything she had ever imagined. Her mother mustn’t go on thinking this. Oh no, she couldn’t let her think this. She must tell her about James, no matter what it entailed: Matt’s vengeance and Tony’s unhappiness; she must tell her. She could have allowed her to go on thinking she was Mr Stanhope’s mistress, but not this. To have married an Arab would have been bad enough, but to casually live with one…no, she would be foolish to allow anyone to think this, most of all her mother.
Relief flooded her with the knowledge that she was about to straighten things out, and she put out her hand to Bridget, saying, ‘It’s true I’m going into Holborn, but just to—well, lodge there.’
Bridget did not take the proffered hand, and as Rose Angela, knowing that she was about to give her mother a shock, said gently ‘Sit down a minute, Ma,’ there came to her the sound of stormy voices from the backyard, and one at least brought the sickness over her again.
Within a second Matt and Tony were in the kitchen, and Matt, not pausing from his battle of words, directed the onslaught of his bitterness against the thorn that was forever in his flesh. ‘That’s the cause of all the trouble—there!’ He thrust out his arm and pointed his finger at Rose Angela.
‘Don’t be so daft, man; she wasn’t here when your ma and da were rowing.’ Tony, too, was angry and his nose was twitching rapidly.
‘She didn’t need to be, but it was through her. She’s at the bottom of everything. If me ma goes off her head I swear to God I’ll kill her.’
‘It’ll take a lot to knock your ma off her head,’ said Tony, scathingly.
‘What is she, then, but nearly daft, running round the streets begging folks to give her books for me da?’
‘That’s remorse for the thing she did to him, and it’ll do her good to feel like that, but it’ll take more than that to knock her off her head…It’s your old man you should be worrying about, not her. She’s burned more than his books the day.’
Matt was not in the least concerned about his father, but his dauntless, laughing, loud-mouthed mother had always held his respect, and during the last few hours she had shocked him by going soft and begging the silent Cavan to forgive her, promising to get him all the books he could ever read. To Matt, her final humiliation was her actual begging for books, and it was all because Bridget wouldn’t put him up for a night. And why wouldn’t she? Because of that Arab whore.
‘If she has,’ he answered Tony, ‘who’s to blame but that dirty Arab supplier? Whites don’t suit her now, she must get herself an Arab.’
Before Tony could bring out a startled exclamation and the sound of Bridget’s groan escaped her lips, Rose Angela’s voice rang through the kitchen louder than it had ever been raised in that room before. ‘How dare you say such a thing! You’re a liar! Do you hear, a liar!’ There was no sign of fear in her as, for the first time in her life, she faced up to Matt. ‘You and your filthy mind! You’re like a sewer.’ She turned from him and confronted Tony. ‘Uncle Tony, do you believe I’m going to live with an Arab?’
‘No, lass. I’d never believe that, never.’
‘Then why,’ put in Bridget beseechingly, ‘are you going to live in Holborn, lass? Tell us that.’
The three stared at her, hanging on her reply.
Rose Angela looked from one to the other, and as her lips opened her eyes came to rest on Matt. She had only to say ‘because James is there’ and she would be clear; yet in doing so she would be handing him over to this maniac. She couldn’t do it. She knew from the look in her mother’s face that she believed the worst of her, and now even her Uncle Tony’s expression was showing bewilderment and doubt at the mention of her going to live in Holborn. She looked at her mother again; then dropped her lids to shut out Bridget’s tortured gaze and turned away, saying flatly, ‘No matter what I said, you wouldn’t believe me. Think what you like, I’m going to get my things.’
Matt hadn’t spoken since she had called him a liar. To say the least, her bold front had startled him, and it was strange that he, who in the first place had accused her of going with an Arab, was now the only one to believe her when she denied it, even in spite of having with his own eyes seen her talking to one. He was astute enough to know that it had taken a very powerful emotion to arouse that outburst against himself, for he knew that he could instil the fear of God, as he put it, into her. He stood, his eyes fixed on the staircase door, awaiting her return and asking himself the question: Why should she be going to live in Holborn, if not with somebody? And if it wasn’t the Arab, then who was it?
The gas began to flicker, and Bridget, moving heavily towards the mantelpiece to get some coppers from the toby jug for the meter, shoved him aside, and in putting out his hand to steady himself he touched the fretwork pipe-rack on the wall, the hated relic of the damned nigger! His whole instinct was to whi
p his hand away as if it had come in contact with molten steel, but his hand remained still as something clicked in his brain, and his widening eyes seemed to draw from the pipe-rack the answer to his probing. Slowly his fingers began to move into the holes, until they hung like talons from the rack. God Almighty! Could it be? Who else?
The gas went up with a plop and Bridget came back into the kitchen, and Matt turned from the pipe-rack and looked from her to Tony. Who else. Who else? They didn’t know, they suspected nothing. Nobody knew, only that half-black rat up there. Hadn’t she nearly given the game away to clear herself, just a minute ago? She had pulled up only just in time. No, nobody knew but her…and now him. God Almighty!
Slowly he began to rub the scar on his face. How long was it? Sixteen years…sixteen years! His fingers nipped the flesh about the scar at the corner of his mouth. Sixteen years he’d carried this, sixteen years of nights he’d lain tossing and turning. He looked back to the days when he had laughed with the lasses. He had wanted nothing from them but to laugh with them, not even to touch them. There was only one woman he had wanted to touch. Yet from when they laughed no more with him a desire to extract something from them had arisen, adding to the torment of his days and the agony of his nights; and now he who caused all this was back. He must be…that was the only answer to that lily-livered rat up there having the spunk to face him. Perhaps all these years she had been on the look-out for the nigger—she’d had it ground into her enough as a bairn by that blasted fool Tony that her da would come back. He’d heard him at it time and again before he got thick with Bridget. A pain like a knife twisting in his bowels went through him, and his fingers moved up the scar, nipping the silver flesh into momentary redness…Well, if his surmise was right, Master Tony would soon have the tin hat put on him; he knew his Bridget well enough to follow her reactions to the nigger’s return.
He turned his eyes to the staircase door. She would get brave, would she? By God, she’d need to be brave before he’d finished with her. Stand up to him, would she? He’d see about that. He’d plaster her name with the Arab’s so thick about the fifteen streets that she wouldn’t dare put her nose inside them, much less come home again to live. If her own mother and Tony could believe she was thick with an Arab, how much more gullible would be the neighbours. And what about the painter bloke? Aye, what about him!
And if she was willing to forgo what was left of her good name to cover up for the nigger, it would be the crowning thumbscrew on her if he nabbed him—and by God, nab him he would, or die in the attempt.
Chapter Twelve: The End of the Waiting
Rose Angela would have laughed to scorn anyone who would have told her a fortnight ago that there were many worse places to live in than the fifteen streets, and that there would come a time when she would miss them, miss the privacy of a house, of going upstairs to bed, of walking from one tiny room to the other, and miss the streets themselves, and the greetings and conversation thrown carelessly across their narrow widths; for in Holborn the tongues were many and varied, and she never could make out whether the neighbours in the rooms around were rowing or merely talking.
She saw very little of her neighbours, or of Holborn itself, for she went out in the dark of the morning and returned in the dark of the evening, yet the atmosphere pressed down on her and was as strange as that of a foreign country. But her days were too full to allow the change to penetrate farther than the fringe of her mind. What did penetrate and cast a shadow over her days was the rift between Bridget and herself. She wondered if anyone before had experienced so much happiness and unhappiness at the same time; there was James’ love and this other love, but they were unable to ease the separation from her mother. She did not much care now what the people of the fifteen streets or of the town thought about her, but she still cared very much what Bridget thought. But for this, she felt there could be no-one happier; her da was so much better—it seemed as though her presence had given him a temporary lease of life; and then this impending thing; for she did not hide the fact from herself that something was impending and that she was waiting for it, waiting with her heart racing so fast at times that she thought such emotion could not be borne and that something within her was bound to give way.
What would happen when at last her master spoke? She knew what would happen—she would become his mistress and so qualify for the name the fifteen streets had already given her. If this thought brought with it a sadness, she told herself she’d rather be his mistress than any other man’s wife. Two weeks ago she would not have allowed herself to dream of becoming his mistress, for to her mind he had given no indication that he thought of her other than as a very good servant; but from the night he told her she was beautiful there had been a decided change in his manner towards her. For the three days following he almost ignored her, never looking at her, and when he spoke his voice was harsh and more clipped than usual; nor did he stay in the kitchen either for his morning coffee or for his tea, but used it merely as a passage from the hall to the wharf. Although the weather was at its worst, he spent most of his time on the river, and after one severe day he developed a cold. It was the cold that broke down his defence. He remained indoors the following day, and Rose Angela, without being summoned, took up a hot drink to the studio. He was painting on a small canvas, and on her entry he took the canvas off the easel and laid it face upwards on the table in the corner of the room, saying, ‘I didn’t knock.’
‘I know, sir, but I thought you needed this.’
For the first time in days he looked at her. ‘What are you thinking, Rosie?’
‘That you should be in bed, sir.’
‘That all?’
‘You have a nasty cold.’
‘I know I have—and I’m annoyed. I’ve never had a cold for years, and you’re to blame.’
She didn’t ask the inane question ‘But why me?’; she just looked at him, her skin growing pink and the brown of her eyes deepening, and he turned from her, saying, ‘You are either so full of humility, Rosie, that you are not quite woman, or you are so full of the wisdom of the serpent that you are laughing at me.’
She did not at the moment try to unravel his references; only one thing was clear to her and that was she was not laughing at him—whatever feeling he had for her could not arouse her laughter. He said no more, and she went downstairs.
Although, since then, his manner towards her had been gentle, he did not resume his habit of sitting in the kitchen; and she knew he was fighting her, and at times this knowledge filled her with glory and she waited, doing nothing to precipitate the moment yet longing for it to come about.
He was out now, in Newcastle she thought, for he had said he might not be back before she left. Only twice before had she seen him ‘dressed’, as she put it, and today she thought he looked very grand; and she knew a qualm of fear—his heavy tweeds and large trilby seemed to remove him from her—he looked too grand. Could anyone like him think of her in the way she was imagining? Yet she thought of his words as he left the house. ‘Don’t wait for me, Rosie, I may not be back before six,’ and it seemed to her that he wanted them to convey the opposite meaning—it was as if he were saying ‘Wait for me’. It would have been nice to have waited, on the pretext of giving him a hot meal, but she knew how much her da longed for her return, and she never kept him waiting a minute longer than she could help.
It was now half-past five and she went around the house doing the final touches of the day, building up the drawing-room fire, taking the counterpane off the bed and turning back the bedclothes; and as she left his room she glanced towards the flight of stairs leading to the studio. How empty the house was without him up there…even if she never heard him for hours his presence would seep down to her. The feeling to be nearer to the things that were part of him now enveloped her and she went slowly up the stairs and into the first studio. She did not switch on the light but passed through into the other, the room where he spent most of his life. She pressed one of the
switches on a board near the door and the light appeared high up in the far corner of the ceiling. This was part of the system of lighting by which he worked at night. A reflector directed the light on to an easel, on which stood the small canvas he had been working on for days. She had not seen this picture, for his breadth always obscured it, and once she remembered him taking it down when she was in the room. Now she moved towards it and saw it was hidden behind a covered frame clipped to the top of the easel and leaving only a narrow strip of the canvas visible. Gently she lifted up the frame and stood staring at the picture…
Had she known this was what she would see? Was that why she was drawn up here? Did she really look like that, her mouth half smiling and her eyes sad? But were her eyes as sad as that? And her hair…did the coiled plaits appear like a silver and black halo where the light touched them? Surely she didn’t look like this. No, this wasn’t meant to be the picture of the self that she saw in the mirror, it was rather the picture of what she knew herself to be inside. The little things she laughed at were there in her lips, but the fears of her life were in her eyes. She unhooked the frame from the easel and the light fell full on the picture. And now she was confronted with another aspect…she looked superior, or, to use the fifteen streets term, ‘stuck up’. But she wasn’t stuck up—no-one could be less stuck up—for what had she to be stuck up about? Nevertheless, there it was on the canvas. Was this how he saw her? She moved back and sat down and stared at the portrait, her hands gripped tightly in her lap. No matter how he saw her, he had painted her, and hadn’t he said, ‘I never paint women’?
‘Well, what do you think of it?’
She swung round on the stool, her hands clutching the front of her dress. He was standing in the doorway, still in his outdoor clothes, and the sight of him made her dumb. She was afraid of having been found here, for this was his sanctum sanctorum, and it was an unwritten law that it would always be held as such.
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