She made a movement to withdraw her hands, and he gripped them closer. ‘Listen. All your life you will be colour-conscious. I know, for I have watched you. You feel inferior. Inside you feel inferior…you, who could be a queen. And could he take that inferior feeling away? No. And however he might have overlooked it, his fine friends would not, and he has plenty of fine friends. But with me you will never feel inferior. Instead of knowing you are looked down on, you will be looked up to—adored, worshipped; and you will want for nothing…Oh, Rose Angela, look at me. Tell me, Rose Angela.’
She did not raise her head, for his words were finding resting places in her mind. He was right. Always inside she felt inferior, but never so much as she did at this moment; and as he said, with him it would go. She could believe this, for he did not feel racially superior to her. With him she could stop fighting; once joined to him she could allow the stamp of her colour to rise to the surface and she could accept what she was, and with acceptance would come release.
For a moment the face of Stanhope came before her eyes, as it had been last night, saying, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ He hadn’t thought her good enough to marry, then; only this morning in the midst of rejecting her he could say he had been going to marry her. It was easy, then, when there was no possibility of its taking place. Into the pain and despair that seemed to be finding passage through each vein of her body was mingled a feeling of bitterness against him, and against her mother. Bridget was also in her mind at this moment, for was she not another, the only other one that mattered, who had so readily believed the worst of her? And if she were to marry Hassan she would not have to suffer the shock of breaking it to her, for that had already been endured. And yet another worry that Hassan could relieve her of was money, for she had only a few pounds she had saved up to provide extras at Christmas. All her wages had been spent on James and the room. If she was to support him she must find work; for the short time left she must find work—or else. She raised her eyes to Hassan. He had said, ‘You will want for nothing.’ Well, she had never wanted very much from life, and the little she had got, which amounted to food and a few clothes, was acquired only through long hours of labour at the beck and call of others. And these had always been punctuated by the fight against men. So what had she to lose if she married Hassan?
Hassan sensed the change in her, and he pressed his point. ‘Tell me, Rose Angela.’ And although he was urging her answer, when it came he was rendered dumb with surprise.
‘Give me time, and I’ll try.’ And as she said it there swept over her a wave of sound, full of her father’s voice, crying, ‘You not do this.’
It was done, but as Hassan leaned forward to place his lips on hers she recoiled, saying, ‘No, no, not yet.’
‘All right, I can wait.’
There was pain in his eyes, and she turned from him and picked up the basket and the oil can, and went heavily up the stairs.
Chapter Fifteen: Payment
After Stanhope had rushed down the stairs to carry out his threat to Murphy and Pete, and found he was not called upon to do so, he again locked the back door; then he stood and glared around the kitchen. He looked at the delf rack. The dishes she had washed yesterday were all arrayed neatly and gleaming, and his anger was such that he had to place the utmost restraint on himself not to raise his arm and sweep the lot on to the floor.
He flung out of the kitchen and into the drawing room. The cold deadliness of his feeling was passing and he was wanting to storm. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and was brought to a halt. He looked as he felt, wild with temper.
He sat on the couch and, resting his elbows on his knees, he gripped his hair with both hands as if he would pull it out by the roots. God, why had he let himself in for this? The first time was bad enough, but nothing compared with this. She had got into his blood and maddened him, and in spite of her lies, this raving ache would go on and on…The lies, the barefaced lies! He might have questioned the truth of that man’s letter if she hadn’t actually admitted she was living in Holborn. To think he had put her on the tram and she had doubled back into Holborn!
Anyway, it served him right, at his age, falling for a bit of a girl!…But she wasn’t a bit of a girl; she was mature, with the knowledge of life in her eyes; and by God, she must have it, too, living in Holborn! And he had been such a fool as to fall for her simplicity. Living with her father in Holborn!
He lifted his head and let out a staccato laugh. That black he had painted! Why on earth had she to pick on him? Had there been the slightest resemblance between them he would have noticed it…wouldn’t he? It was a pity the painting had gone…His thinking brought him upright, and before the thought ended he was up the stairs and into the studio. He pushed aside a number of files that stood against the wall, until he came to one with the word ‘Hulk’ written across it. This he lifted on to the table and flicked over the loose sheets it contained, most of them being rough sketches of a boat rotting in the mud. And when he came to the sketches of the Negro he became still, devouring each line of the drawings. This one was a quick sketch, done when he first saw the man. It was made up of only a few lightning strokes, because, finding he was being sketched, the Negro moved off. Then this one, a side view, showing that enormous ear. And this, just his mouth. Was there any resemblance between that mouth and hers?…None! But he had done one full-faced. He flung over more drawings, depicting hands and feet. Then he came upon it: the ear, the pockmarks, and the emaciation, all there. But out of this, James’ eyes, almost alive, stared up at him, and for a moment the man became submerged in the artist, and he thought, with a sense of awe, of his own achievement: I got those eyes. Then, still looking down into the charcoal eyes of the Negro, he began to place odd pieces of paper over the face. In all positions he placed them, until only the eyes were left, and as he stared an uneasiness grew in him; and he protested, speaking aloud, ‘It isn’t so. I would have known; I would have detected it.’
He looked around the room, at the various paintings hanging there, as if they would confirm him in his belief…‘I would have known.’ Yet the eyes looking up at him were the eyes of Rose Angela.
My God! Supposing she was speaking the truth! But the Arab…he was waiting for her all right. And her face. Who had really done that to her?
He was still staring down into the eyes when a faint tap, tap came to him. There was someone at the back door again, blast them! Murphy come back, perhaps. No…Then Her? He gave himself no answer, for it would not be her; she would not come here again—his reception having blasted her as far as another continent from him.
Well, who the hell was it, then? He marched to the window, and, flinging it up, looked down on to the wharf and into the upturned face of a woman.
‘Mr Stanhope?’
He found himself answering quietly, ‘Yes.’
‘I’m Mrs Paterson. I’ve come to see my daughter.’ For a long moment he stared at her. Then he said, still quietly, ‘Wait a moment, I’ll be down.’
He would not allow himself any pondering as he went hastily down the stairs. But when he unlocked the back door he was made to wonder what this woman’s visit could portend.
Bridget and he appraised each other for some seconds, and it was she who spoke first. ‘Can I see my daughter, please?’
His reply was to step aside and say, ‘Will you come in?’
Silently Bridget passed him and walked into the kitchen, into the blue kitchen that Rose Angela had described so vividly. She stood stiffly waiting, and he pulled a chair from the table and said, ‘Please sit down.’
She sat down, and looked towards the door that led to the hall, as if expecting Rose Angela to make an appearance.
Stanhope looked at this woman, the mother of Rose Angela, the woman who had married a coloured man. She was a fine-looking woman with a stately bearing, but there was a stiffness about her that wasn’t a veneer of the moment. It seemed to emanate from within her.
She looked
up at him and asked, ‘Is Rosie in?’
‘No.’ He turned from her and looked out of the window towards the river. ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Paterson, she is not here.’
‘Not here? You mean she’s gone?’
He nodded.
‘When?’
‘This morning.’
‘This morning,’ she repeated. ‘Mr Stanhope’—she was on her feet now, looking at his back—‘do you know where she’s gone?’
‘No.’
He heard her swallow in the silence that followed his answer. Then she burst out: ‘Mr Stanhope, you know something, you know where she’s gone. Has she gone into…Holborn? Is she living there altogether?’
He did not answer her, and she went on, ‘Has she been working here all along?’ And he said, ‘Yes, up to yesterday.’
‘And is she not coming back?’
‘No.’
Slowly Bridget sat down again. ‘If I’d only come yesterday.’ She was talking softly as if to herself. ‘I knew something was wrong. Mr Stanhope’—she entreated the forbidding solidness of his back—‘you know more than I do, for God’s sake tell me!’
He remained for a moment longer staring at the river. Then turning slowly, he pulled a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Read that.’
Wondering, she took the letter from him, and he watched her closely as she began to read it. He saw the colour of her face change; and before she had read very far she turned to the back of the letter in search of the signature. Then she said in an awed whisper, ‘My brother wrote this.’
She read a little farther, then again she stopped, and the glisten of tears was in her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s lies, all lies. She was the best lass in the world, she never caused me a moment’s trouble. Not until…these last few weeks. But this about having to leave her places, it’s a pack of lies. She left because she wouldn’t…well, the men wouldn’t leave her alone, and her mistresses…It wasn’t her fault. Matt, my brother, has always hated her.’
She read on to the end of the letter, then folded it slowly and handed it back to him. ‘There’s not a line of truth in it, except…’ She bit her lip and pulled at the fingers of her thin black gloves. ‘He…Matt, my brother…he said he saw her with an Arab. And then she said she was going to lodge in Holborn. But somehow, knowing her, the more I thought of it the less I could believe it, in spite of what I did.’ For an instant her eyes flicked away from his. Then she murmured in perplexity, ‘But if she’s left here and is…in Holborn…’
Stanhope pushed his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what to think. An hour ago I would have said she was with the Arab all right. Now I’m not sure. And if I’m wrong…’ The enormity of his thought brought his movements to a stop, and he stood, his hand in his hair, staring at the table, as if lying there for him to see was some disastrous result of his doubting.
‘Mrs Paterson’—he dropped into a chair opposite to her—‘I think I’d better tell you…You see, I loved Rosie. I was no better than any of her other bosses, but not up till last night did I tell her…’
‘Not till last night? Then she wasn’t…?’ Bridget caught herself up.
He shook his head at her. ‘No, she wasn’t living with me.’
‘I’m sorry I…’
‘Don’t be. Last night I was quite willing that that’s how things should be; but then, on reflection, I knew I must marry her. I went with her to the tram and saw her get on it—as I thought, to go home. Prior to this I had chased an Arab away from outside. Then this morning I received this letter. And not only this one, but another from Mrs Grant. Then Rosie came. You can imagine how I was feeling.’ He looked away from Bridget towards the window again. ‘But I can see now that the distress she was in was genuine. And her face, her beautiful face, was scarcely recognisable.’
Slowly Bridget rose up from the chair. ‘What about her face?’
‘It was disfigured.’
‘Disfigured? With a knife?’
‘No, no, not with a knife; the blow had been done with a fist, right between her eyes. She said her uncle did it, but I didn’t believe her; I thought the Arab had done it.’
‘Oh, my God! What’s it all about?’ Bridget clutched at the front of her coat. ‘Matt always said he’d spoil her face. I went in fear for years that he’d do it. And yesterday morning he went out, and hasn’t been seen since. My other brother’s been looking for him half the night; and this morning we had to tell the pollis. Oh, Mr Stanhope, I’m afraid of our Matt and what he’ll do to her. Was she alone last night when he caught her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you any idea at all where I’ll likely find her?’
‘Apart from knowing she’s in Holborn, I can’t say. She said she was…’ He stopped and stared at Bridget. ‘Mrs Paterson, is your husband alive?’
Bridget stared back at him, and murmured, ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s some years since you saw him?’
‘I saw him last when Rosie was four years old. He had a fight with my brother and he thought he’d killed him, and he ran away. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘Sit down, I won’t be a minute.’ Stanhope left the kitchen, and in a matter of seconds was back with a single sheet of paper in his hand. He put this face downwards on the table and, leaning towards Bridget, said gently, ‘Mrs Paterson, this may come as a shock to you…or it may mean nothing. Do you recognise this man?’ He turned over the drawing for her to see. He watched her eyes widen and her lips slowly drop apart; then he saw her body fold up as if it had been released from a spring, and she slumped face forward over the table before he could reach her.
Lifting her limp head he urged, ‘Come on, Mrs Paterson,’ but she made no response. He hurried into the drawing room, and when he returned with some brandy she was raising herself up. And her face was blanched.
‘Drink this.’
He put the brandy to her lips, and she sipped it and shuddered, then said, ‘I’m all right.’
‘Take another drink.’
She shook her head. The drawing was still on the table, and she looked down on it again, but did not speak. Nor did Stanhope, for he was seeing Rose Angela’s face as she said, ‘I’m living with my father…the Negro…the one you painted.’
Every word she spoke had been true, then, and he had kicked her out. He closed his eyes.
Bridget’s voice, low and trembling, was saying, ‘This is my husband. He’s changed…but it’s him. Where is he?’
‘If that is your husband, then, Mrs Paterson, he’s in Holborn. And he’s been living there for some time. And Rosie is living with him. That is the explanation of it all. The only thing I can’t see now is why she had to keep it secret.’
Bridget took her handkerchief and wiped the moisture from her face. Her conscience was suggesting one reason why James had remained hidden. She stared at the drawing again. The eyes were as she remembered them, but that ear and the pox about his chin and the hollowness of his cheeks all spoke of hardship. Remorse and pity rose in her. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy! And Rosie knew. All the time she knew and stayed with you, and put up with everything rather than let on in case Matt found out. Yes, that would be one of the reasons why she had kept quiet…in case Matt found out. Oh, Rosie, lass!
Stanhope touched the outline of the drawing with his finger. ‘He was a very sick man when I drew that…You should know he was dying with consumption.’
‘Consumption?’
‘I’m afraid so. And after I’d finished painting him he seemed to disappear. Murphy and Pete, two friends of his, never mentioned him again, and I took it for granted he was dead.’
Bridget gripped the edge of the table and brought herself to her feet. ‘Now I know!’ She turned startled eyes on Stanhope. ‘Matt knew about him’—she nodded to the drawing—‘about Jimmy being here. He’s been queer for the last week or so; he’s been queer for some time. But lately he’s been saying strange things; I thought he was going mad. Only yesterda
y morning he said’—she paused as if to recall each word—‘he said, soon he’d be able to tell me something and I’d be really free; he said there wouldn’t only be one funeral. You see, me father’s ill. He had an accident and burnt his hands; then he got soaked sitting on the…being out one night, and he took pneumonia and we thought he was going to die. But my mother’s pulling him through.’
She paused again, and Stanhope could see her mind probing, and for the moment, he knew, she was no longer with him but back in a number of yesterdays, piecing together what well might be a tragedy.
Since coming downstairs this morning his life had been changed completely. Yesterday he was lord of all he surveyed—the house, the wharf—and last night, Rose Angela. In spite of the torment of his growing passion for her his days had been full and smooth; he had his work and material, for it swarmed about him. But now, after a few hours, he was being drawn rapidly into the maelstrom of lives, each converging to a climax that had its beginning when this woman married a Negro. That she foresaw tragedy he could see by her expression—the terror in her face conveyed itself to him—and he thought, I likely could have prevented anything further happening if I hadn’t been such a blasted fool and had listened to Rosie.
‘If they meet, Matt’ll kill him,’ Bridget spoke again. ‘He always said he would. I must find Rosie. When I find her I’ll find him.’
‘Likely they have met already. When your brother hit her he must have cornered her somewhere, for it’s not likely he’d try it on in the street.’
‘But he hasn’t come home! You don’t know Matt; he’ll keep at a thing until it’s done.’
‘But where are you going to start to look for her? You know the people in that quarter—they can be like oysters if they choose…Wait! What am I thinking of? Murphy, the man who lives in the railway carriage, he’ll take us. I’ll get my coat.’
When he returned, Bridget said, ‘But it’s putting you to a lot of trouble.’ And he answered soberly, ‘Trouble, Mrs Paterson? If I can’t gain Rosie’s forgiveness, then I’m only at the beginning of my trouble.’
Colour Blind Page 24
