He lay back in the chair now and sat looking at her, until all of a sudden he rose to his feet and came towards her. Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips; then drawing her gently upwards, he said, ‘Thank you, Riah. Thank you. You and your family will always be my concern, especially David. You understand that? I do so want David to be as a son. I want to see him become someone.’ He smiled gently as he added, ‘I’m talking like a father who has failed in life and longs to see his son achieve his ambitions…Now go to your bed, Riah. Go to your bed.’
The last was a whisper and, like someone in a dream, she picked up the lamp, then turned from him and walked with a slow step out of the room, across the hall, and, skirting the kitchen, she took the side door into the east wing and to her room.
Once inside, the lamp almost fell to the floor as she put it on the corner of the dressing table. Quickly righting it, she sat down on the stool. She had thought it would take place in his bedroom, but he had said, ‘Go to your bed.’ And he knew where her bedroom was, for he had one day made a tour of this end of the house and had seen where the children slept and she too.
The unfastening of the dress took longer than the fastening. Her fingers, she told herself, were all thumbs. But when at last it dropped to the floor, she picked it gently up and hung it in the wardrobe, and just before she closed the door she stroked its soft texture with the back of her hand.
She usually slept in her chemise with her nightdress over it for warmth, but tonight she took off the chemise; and she did not put on her calico nightdress, but a long bodice petticoat that she had made out of the lining from one of the dresses he had given her for the children. One last thing she did before getting into her bed was to leave the door slightly ajar. And now she was lying waiting, the lamp turned low on the bedside table, her hair in two plaits lying on top of the counterpane, her hands joined tightly under her breasts; and her body, she knew, was ready…
The travelling clock which she had taken from another bedroom told her that it was half an hour since she had got into bed. Well, she told herself, perhaps he was shy. Hadn’t he said he had never loved any woman but his mother. Yes, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had one. Good Lord! Young men of his standing went in for that kind of thing in a big way. Perhaps he was having a bath. Of course, he wasn’t! He wouldn’t bath in cold water and Davey and Johnny always carried the hot water up for his bath…
When the clock said she had been lying for a full hour and ten minutes, she slowly swung her legs out of the bed and sat on the edge of it. What did it mean? Was he getting drunk before he came? That was another silly thought, That wine, he had said, was the last in the cellar, but he meant in the bottle and tomorrow, if he bought that pony for Davey, he wouldn’t be able to afford any wine at all. What was keeping him?
When the clock said ten past eleven she lay down again. There was now threading the urges in her body a feeling of humiliation. What, she asked herself, was he playing at? Two hours now she had been lying here. What did he mean? Getting her all worked up like this, and then not coming. Go to your bed, he had said. That was plain enough, wasn’t it? And the look on his face. There had been love there, or some kind of feeling anyway. But what was that he had said about wanting children but without having to go to a woman…Oh that was just his complicated way of talking.
She didn’t know what time it was when she turned her face into the pillow to smother her sobbing, but when she woke up she was amazed to find the lamp on the last flicker; it had burned down to the wick.
She stumbled out of bed, her eyes squinting at the clock on the little mantelpiece; she saw to her amazement it stood at a quarter to five.
Why? Why?
‘You got a headache, Ma?’
‘What?’ Riah turned from the stove with the porridge pan in her hand, and looking at Biddy, she said again, ‘What?’
‘I said, you got a headache, Ma?’
‘Yes, a bit of one.’
‘You didn’t sleep?’
‘No. No, I didn’t sleep very well.’
‘I wish I didn’t sleep so much; it’s a waste of time.’
‘Eat your porridge.’
‘I could sleep all day.’ No-one commented on Johnny’s remark, but Riah looked at the two younger children who were sleepy-eyed and she said sharply, ‘Get on with your breakfast, it’s nearly seven o’clock.’ Then she looked at Davey. His plate was clean and he asked brightly, ‘Can I have another, Ma?’
Once more she brought the porridge pan to the table, thinking as she did so that she knew what had sharpened her son’s appetite: the prospect of the pony was oozing out all over him like happy vapour, because today the master was going into Newcastle to collect his allowance and bring back the promised pony. But if the master’s promises to her son were anything like the promises to herself, she would have a surly and disappointed boy on her hands tonight. But no, he would bring back the pony all right because he wouldn’t want to lose favour in the children’s eyes, especially Davey’s, for he was obviously very taken with the boy.
But how was she going to face him this morning? Had he been laughing at her? Having her on? Getting her all dressed up just for his amusement? She couldn’t think so, for he wasn’t an unkind man. But what kind of a man was he to leave her lying there like that for hours waiting?…Oh, she didn’t know. She only knew that she was shaking inside at the thought of coming face to face with him.
But she needn’t have worried. An hour later when she took his breakfast into the morning room he was dressed and ready for his trip into Newcastle, and he greeted her brightly, so brightly that, after placing the tea tray on the table to his side, she remained leaning forward as she looked at his face because she was amazed to see that he looked happy.
‘It’s a lovely morning, Riah, don’t you think?’
She didn’t answer him, and he stopped in the act of unfolding his napkin and his eyes narrowed as he asked, ‘You’re not well?’
‘I’m…I’m all right, sir. I’ve just got a bit of a headache.’
‘Oh, then you must get outside and walk. You’re too much in the house, you know, Riah. Anyway, here I am all ready to gallop into town to buy a horse.’ He actually laughed out loud, then added, ‘Well, a small horse, a pony. I’m as excited as David is at the prospect of that animal joining the household. Do you know that, Riah?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He now picked up his knife and fork but did not use them on the plate of bacon in front of him, but standing the cutlery on its end, he stared down at the table and more to himself than to her said, ‘It signifies so much this day: a new lease of life, and…and you have given it to me, Riah. You have in a way given me a son.’ He turned his face towards her now, and for a moment she thought, He’s not right in the head. Given him a son, indeed! Davey was no more his son today than he was yesterday. And look at him, all smiles, after last night working me up like that, then leaving me high and dry.
‘Tell David I want to see him before I go off. Will you?’
‘Yes. Aye, yes.’
In the hall she stood for a moment thinking, he’s gone a bit funny. It sounded different last night when he talked of them all as his family, but not now when he was singling out Davey as his son. She wasn’t going to like this; she knew she wasn’t. Davey was hers; she was father and mother to him, and that’s how she wanted things to remain. And anyway, he was deluding himself if he thought he was going to make a scholar out of Davey…Now if it had been Biddy.
She knew that Davey had started to scythe the bottom field and she could have sent Biddy for him but she went to the garden herself, down by the long hedge to where he had just started at the top corner and she called to him, ‘Davey! Davey!’ And he laid down the scythe and ran towards her. ‘Yes, Ma?’
‘The…the master wants to see you before he goes into town.’
She watched his face light up, but without a word he ran from her and up the garden towards the house.
She had bee
n in the kitchen a few minutes when he came into it, his face still beaming.
‘’Twas about the pony, Ma. He…he asked me what colour I preferred. Fancy. Eeh!’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it. And I will try. I’ve told him. I’ll do everything he says.’ And he made a face now as he added, ‘I’ll even take note of bright Biddy. I asked him how he was gona get it back, and he said he’d get Robbie Howel, the carrier, to trot it alongside his horse, and I’d have to be at the crossroads around three and pick it up, I mean lead him back, because he himself won’t be back till nearly four on the coach. Oh, Ma, I’m excited. An’ Ma…’
‘Yes, Davey?’ Her face was straight and her voice flat.
‘He’s kind, isn’t he, the master, kind. If only’—he grimaced now—‘he didn’t want to stick so much into me head.’
As she watched him run from the kitchen she felt slightly sick, but she couldn’t tell why. She should be happy for her son because she had never before seen him so bright, and because of the pony he would try to work hard at his lessons, she knew that. But why wasn’t she happy? Was it because there was still the great want in her body and that she couldn’t understand the business of last night? She didn’t know.
At half past one Davey was sluicing himself under the pump and when, later, he came into the kitchen, his hair plastered down, Biddy, entering the room from the far door, called to him, ‘What you getting ready so soon for?’
‘Well, it will take nearly half an hour to get to the crossroads.’
‘Well’—she looked at the clock—‘you’ll still have nearly an hour to wait.’
She had a duster in one hand; holding one end of it, she kept pulling it through the half closed fist of her other hand as she said, ‘I wonder what it will be like, the colour and that? You told him brown, didn’t you?’
‘Well, I said it really didn’t matter, but I liked brown.’
‘What are you going to call it?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to see if it’s a he or a she,’ at which they both burst out laughing. Then coming quickly round the table, he looked appealingly into her face as he said, ‘You’ll help me, Biddy, won’t you? I mean with the learnin’. It’s those myth things I can’t remember, the names like. I’m not good at remembering names, well, not made-up names like that, that don’t sound like any we’ve heard afore. You know what I mean?’
She nodded at him, her eyes shining as she leant towards him and whispered, ‘After we go upstairs afore me ma comes up, she’s nearly an hour down here or more, and I never can get straight to sleep so I’ll come into your room and learn you…teach you.’ She had stretched the last two words, and now their foreheads touched for a second and again they were laughing.
She watched him run to the corner of the mantelpiece and take down the comb and pull it through his hair. He had lovely hair. He looked lovely altogether, did Davey. She always liked looking at him, even if at times she didn’t like his ways. He had a face like some of the figures in the books in the little room off the library. There were special books in there that held paintings. She often glimpsed through them when dusting. She always took a long time to dust that room. She brought her elbows tight into her sides at the thought that she wished she could be like the master and sit reading all day.
‘Where’s Ma?’ He was still combing his hair.
‘She’s up in the attic, sorting things out. The master says she can have some of the underwear from the trunks. Oh, it’s lovely stuff, Davey. I could have stayed up there all day going through the boxes, but she wouldn’t let me.’ She paused now and, her face becoming thoughtful, she added, ‘Ma’s not herself the day. Is she worried about something, do you know, Davey?’
He shook his head, saying, ‘No, not that I would know of anyway. She seemed the same to me, except she said she had a headache.’
Biddy turned from him, muttering, ‘’Tisn’t only a headache, she’s had headaches afore. It’s funny like…Where you going?’
‘To say goodbye; tell her I’m goin’.’
When Davey reached the attic, he saw his mother kneeling on the floor in front of a trunk with a number of garments scattered around her. He walked cautiously down the middle of the room—he didn’t know why but he didn’t like this part of the house—and when she turned and looked up at him he said, ‘I’m just off, Ma.’
‘Is it that time?’ She rose to her feet.
‘Well, I’m a bit early.’ He smiled at her, and she put her hands on his head, saying, ‘Your hair’s wet.’
‘Aye.’ He grinned sheepishly at her now as he made one of his rare jokes: ‘I felt I wanted to be spruced so when me pony saw me he would know…I was a good little lad.’
She smiled at him now but she didn’t laugh. A good little lad, he said. He didn’t consider himself a lad; he was coming up twelve and could be taken for fourteen any day. He was tall and straight and so good to look upon. Often, when looking at him, she wondered how she had come to give birth to such a precious thing as this son. She loved all her children, oh yes, she would defend openly to her last breath that she loved them equally, all the while knowing in her heart that this one she held very special. She put her arms out now and pulled him to her and held him tightly for a moment. The unexpected embrace left them both embarrassed, and when he stepped back from her, his eyelids were blinking rapidly.
They weren’t a demonstrative family; it was unusual for them to hug each other. And so, remembering the conversation he’d had a few minutes earlier with Biddy, he asked tentatively, ‘You…you all right, Ma?’
‘Oh, yes, yes.’
‘You’re not bad or anything?’
‘Bad?’ She now gave a short laugh as she said, ‘Have you ever known me to be bad? Bad tempered, yes.’ She pulled a face at him, and at this he shook his head and said, ‘No, Ma, you’re never bad tempered. Cross a little at times’—he smiled—‘but never bad tempered.’
‘Go on, get yourself off,’ she said, only to halt him as he turned and cause him to laugh outright now as she said, ‘See if you can pick up a sword and some armour on the way, and you can come riding back into the yard like one of them knights you’ve been readin’ about of late.’
‘Oh aye, Ma, that’d be the thing. An’ it would please the master. By, that would.’
Listening to him clattering down the stairs, she thought, That pony’s going to alter his life.
It was turned half past four when Davey came back. They were all in the kitchen: Johnny, Maggie, Biddy, and Riah. The children were excited, and she’d just cut them shives of bread to be eaten before going along the road to meet their brother. But unexpectedly the kitchen door opened and there he stood, his shoulders stooped, his face blank, his lips pressed tight.
No-one spoke as he came up to the table, and it was at his mother he looked as he said, ‘It wasn’t there. Mr Howel laughed.’
‘Laughed?’ The word was just a whisper from Riah, and Davey nodded as he said. ‘Aye, he laughed and said, “Shanks’s pony is all you’ll get out of Mr Percival Miller.”’ He paused; then his lips trembled as he added, ‘He said if he knew anything the day, the master wouldn’t even be able to use Shanks’s pony, it would be Tol Briston’s cart as usual.’
Slowly Riah walked round the table, but when she went to put her hand on her son’s shoulder he shrugged himself away and, his voice almost falsetto, he cried, ‘I’ll get changed an’ about me work. An’ that’s all I’m gona do. Do you hear, Ma? That’s all I’m gona do, me work. He knows what he can do with his learnin’. And I’ll tell him that. Aye, I will. That’s all he thinks about, learnin’. Well, to hell with his learnin’, an’ him. An’ him.’
And he dashed from the room, leaving them all looking at each other for some seconds, until Biddy muttered, ‘There must be a reason, Ma.’ Then the girl almost jumped back in surprise as her mother turned, bawling at her, ‘Yes! There must be a reason and we all know the reason, an’ it’ll come rollin’ in that door in a very short time.
Get back to your work, the lot of you. I’ll deal with this. Yes, by God! I’ll deal with this. Go on!’ She scattered them with a wave of her arm. And when she had the kitchen to herself, she stood beating her fist rhythmically on the chopping board, oblivious of the cut vegetables jumping like puppets on to the table and then on to the floor, and all the while her head jerked rapidly as if with a tic as she repeated Biddy’s words, ‘There must be a reason. There must be a reason.’ And she stared towards the door as if awaiting the entry of a drunken husband.
It was almost an hour later when Percival Miller entered the house. He stood in the hall, his head lowered for some moments before looking first one way and then the other, and finally up the stairs; then he turned and went into the drawing room and there he pulled the bell rope hanging down by the side of the fireplace.
He must have waited a full three minutes before Riah put in an appearance. She opened the door slowly and she entered the room slowly, her step flat and firm, only to be brought to a halt as she looked to where he was standing solid and sober, his face wearing an expression she hadn’t seen on it before.
Slowly he approached her, stopping an arm’s length from her and saying, ‘Where is he?’ Her reply was soft as she said, ‘Scything in the field, sir.’
The Black Velvet Gown Page 13
