The ruler slapped the table. The man with the lined face and white hair hanging over his ears leant towards the tall young girl sitting to his right hand side and slowly he said, ‘At last! That’s better. But your French accent remains atrocious, Biddy.’ And he deviated again. “You have learned that often “a” is pronounced “ah” when you’re speaking in your own tongue, even if your brother hasn’t.’ He looked now to where twelve-year-old Johnny was staring at him wide-eyed. ‘Both he and Maggie’—his eyes now turned on to the eleven-year-old girl whose green eyes were laughing at him—‘who will still say bass…kit to the end of her days. Well, there might be an excuse for them, but there is none for you.’ He had again turned his attention to Biddy, and she, looking at him calmly, said, ‘I can speak it as good as many of the young ladies about, I bet.’
‘Say it again.’
‘What?’
Now his voice rose and he cried at her, ‘Say that again.’
‘I can speak it as good as many of the young ladies about, I bet. Oh’—she lifted her head—‘I can speak it as well as any of the young ladies…’ She was stopped from continuing by his finger pointing at her as he cried, ‘You can omit the last two words. Sometimes I think I am wasting my time with you and that I have been wasting it over the past years.’
‘Yes, sometimes I think you have, and, as you say, still are.’
‘Miss, have I to remind you again about forgetting yourself?’
‘Well, you will keep on.’
She smiled a small secret smile as she watched him close his eyes and bow his head, and she knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t vexed with her but was really amused at the exchange. Words from the colloquial part of her mind would daily fight with the world of words her master would insist on instilling into her, and he enjoyed a see-saw with her. And she enjoyed it too. The two hours had grown into three, and she looked forward to them; as she also did to her homework at night, although she knew that this annoyed her mother who would have her sewing and patching or mat-making.
She particularly liked the present phase in her learning. She felt pride in herself that she had reached a good way into the second volume of Lord Chesterfield’s Letters To His Son, because what that man said was sensible, although it had taken quite some time to get used to the print because all the ‘s’s looked like ‘f’s; and she knew she had learned more through reading these letters than she had done through Voltaire, although she liked Voltaire. But he seemed a bit airy-fairy. This man Chesterfield was more down to earth. Still, she knew she didn’t hold with lots of things he said for he thought women never grew up, not really, they were always children at heart, just made to prattle, they couldn’t reason or be sensible. Well, she didn’t agree with that, but she had to admit he was right in lots of other things. And he was funny at times, especially the bit he wrote to his son about picking his nose. She had laughed about that.
She used to read bits out to her ma at night, but not so much of late, for, for no reason whatever, her ma would stop her in the middle of a letter and say, ‘That’s enough.’ And only last week her ma had said to her, ‘I think you’re getting beyond yourself with this learning.’
She had looked puzzled and said, ‘Why! Ma, I thought you liked me learning.’ But her ma had come back at her, saying, ‘What’ll be the end of it? It’ll just divide you from the other two, and me an’ all.’
‘Oh, Ma, don’t be silly,’ she had said; ‘as if anything could do that. It’s only a kind of game, Ma, me learning. I find it easy, and…and I like it, I mean reading and such.’
‘You speak differently already.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t, Ma,’ she had protested loudly.
‘Yes, you do,’ her mother said. ‘You mightn’t notice it but I do.’
She didn’t mean to speak differently, but he—her eyes flicked towards him—was always on about her sounding her ‘g’s at the end of words and turning her ‘a’s into ‘ah’s when speaking and opening her mouth instead of speaking all words through the front of her mouth.
‘Pay attention, you’re dreaming again. Continue.’
She took up the book and went on.
Whereas now, without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered, that nature was the same three thousand years ago, as it is at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver or wiser, fifteen hundred or two thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better then, than they are now. I dare to assert too, in defiance of the favourers of the ancients, that Homer’s hero, Achilles, was both a brute and a scoundrel, and consequently an improper character for the hero of an epic poem; he had so little regard for his country, that he would not act in defence of it, because he had quarrelled with Agamemnon …
She stopped here and half rose from her chair and, looking towards her master, she said, ‘What is it? Have you got that pain again, sir?’
Percival was sitting back in the chair now, his eyes closed, one forearm held tightly under his ribs, and without speaking he turned his head and nodded towards the shelf of the large break-front bookcase that stood against one wall and on which was a small opaque-coloured glass bottle. As she grabbed it up, she called to Maggie, ‘Run into the drawing room and bring the carafe.’ Then looking at Johnny who was standing by the table now, she added quietly, ‘Go and tell Ma.’
A minute or so later when Riah entered the room, she saw that Biddy was holding the glass of water to his mouth, and she went quickly up to her and said, ‘How many did you give him?’
‘Just one, Ma.’
‘Give me the bottle here.’
Biddy handed her the bottle and Riah shook out another pill and put it to his blue lips, and after he had swallowed it she spoke without looking at Biddy again, saying, ‘Go and turn the bed down and bring a hot shelf from the oven, and take them with you.’
After a moment when the pain eased, Percival opened his eyes and looked up at her and, a half-smile on his lips, he muttered, ‘That was short and anything but sweet. Could I lie down, do you think?’
‘Yes, come along.’ She helped him up from his chair and from the room and into the drawing room where he had been sleeping for the past four years because Doctor Pritchard had done such a good job on his leg that he had little movement from the hip; nor could he straighten out his left arm, and the flexibility of his fingers in that hand had become restricted.
Like a wife who might be attending to her husband, she helped him off with his outer things, but when it came to his small clothes, she slipped his nightshirt over his head and, like a modest and virtuous woman might have done, she drew his short clothes down from his legs under the cover of the gown. Then sitting on the edge of the bed, he eased himself into it. When he lay back on the pillows he closed his eyes for a moment before saying, ‘It would happen today when I have callers coming.’
It was the day when the clerk to his solicitors brought his allowance, which had fortunately resumed its previous standard two years ago and so enabled him to have his little luxury of wine and tobacco and she to have more provisions for the table.
The clerk was a talkative man and from him she had learned that the master’s allowance would die with him and go into a religious trust. This was a stipulation his mother had made in her will, but she had been unable to do anything about the house because that had been the property of his father and was without mortgage for neither Mr Miller nor his father had been allowed to raise a mortgage on it, a stipulation made by Mr Percival’s grandfather. And the clerk had informed her further that even if it had been open to mortgage Mr Percival would have been no better off, worse in fact; for his father would undoubtedly have mortgaged the place up to the hilt, and the interest would have had to be found.
For relatives, she understood, he had two cousins: one lived in Somerset, and the other was in America. The one abro
ad was a man in his seventies and the one in England was a spinster lady of uncertain age. That was how the clerk had put it.
When Riah tried to think back over the past four years her memory became blurred. Everything was clear up till then: she could have practically told herself every thought that had been in her head, even to the night when Tol had gone from the kitchen and out of her life and she had burnt the black velvet gown. But from then, for months ahead, the vision of her days was blurred.
She couldn’t recall when her attitude towards her master had softened and they had begun to talk, she in monosyllables at first, just listening to him; then glimpsing faintly an understanding of this odd man. Nor could she tell the exact time when pity took over. They said that pity was akin to love, but her pity hadn’t reached that stage and never would, but it had picked up a deep kindliness towards him and concern for him. And so life, on the surface, went forward on an even keel, except that there was another current flowing rapidly in the depths below, and over the years it had aimed to wash Tol out of her mind, but without complete success.
It was only six months after their parting that she heard he was to be married to a girl from the village, and she twelve years younger than him. She was one of the two that he had suggested should take up a position in this house. Yet the marriage didn’t come off. What happened, she didn’t know. It wasn’t because of Annie. She hadn’t returned, having surprised everybody, even her sister Mary, by getting herself married, and to a man with his own business, that of a pork butcher. She had certainly gone up in the world. Tol had gone to the wedding. All this she had gathered from Fanny whom she saw at rare intervals. But she had never as much as clapped eyes on Tol for over two years now, for he had stopped leaving the milk, having one morning told Johnny that in future he must go and collect it from the farm. The farm lay almost two miles away and so she arranged that the boy go only every other day. But in the real bad weather she went herself and was glad of the walk and also to exchange a word with Mrs Pratt, the farmer’s wife.
There had been times of late when she hungered for company. She had the children…and him, but there was a great gulf between the talk that she exchanged with the children and that which she exchanged with him; it was something in the middle that she was missing, and she knew what it was, the conversation that would flow between her and an ordinary man or woman.
She felt vexed at times that she couldn’t talk with Biddy as with somebody ordinary. Biddy was her daughter and fast growing into a young woman. She was fourteen, coming up fifteen, but was developing quickly and was tall for her age. She was thin but she was strong with it. But Biddy’s conversation always tended towards things that she was learning and the repeating of things he had said. She had been thinking more and more of late that this standard of education wasn’t a good thing for her daughter; in fact, she had become worried over it. Here was the girl spending the main part of her days now outside digging, weeding, and planting, because since Davey had left the work had been too much for Johnny, and she had trained Maggie into the housework, and so Biddy had taken over the garden. But that wasn’t as spruce as it should be. Well, it couldn’t be, could it, with him taking up three hours of her time in the morning, and also that of the younger ones. And it was in the morning that you got the best work out of people, because as the day waned so did their strength and inclination. She knew it from how she felt herself.
When he had lengthened the two hours of tutoring to three, she had pointed this out to him, and he had laughed at her, saying, ‘You’re quite right. But what applies to the body applies to the mind also.’ And on that day he had said to her, ‘I have often wondered why I was born at all; yet lately I seem to have had the answer. I was sent to bring enlightment to the daughter of one Riah Millican. Yet at the same time I ask, why had she to be born a daughter? For what will she be able to do with a brain like hers? Yet she might suddenly up and blossom into some great personage.’
And to this she had replied, ‘Oh, don’t talk nonsense.’ Such was the feeling between them that she could say that to him without him taking offence as he would have done before the change had come about.
She did not think it strange that he never mentioned Davey’s name to her. His going from the house was like a death that neither of them wanted to recall. But she did recall that if she had cried at all during those first months after the accident, it was for loss of her son.
Davey had a half-day’s leave once a fortnight. It began on a Sunday at two o’clock and ended at seven in the summer and lasted from twelve to five in the winter. And on his first two leaves she had gone to Tol’s to see him; but under the changed circumstances she couldn’t go there again. Then when she could bear his loss no more, she sent Biddy down to tell him to come up through the back way and she would meet him on the west side of the house.
At the first meeting she had put her arms around her son and held him close, and he had laid his head on her breast and clung to her. But it hadn’t happened after that; in fact, they barely touched hands. If the weather was fine they walked the fields. If it was raining or storming they went into the small barn at the end of the courtyard; and there Biddy would bring them a pot of tea and some scones.
At first it was only when she mentioned his work did his face ever show any sign of liveliness. There were eight hunters and four hacks in the stables and five dogs running around. He spoke with awe of Mr Mottram who was the coachman and Mr Lowther who was the groom, and the four stable boys under them, two apparently young men.
But as time went on his tongue loosened and he talked of the household. There were so many in it he couldn’t begin to count them. When asked what the mistress was like he replied he had never seen her; and that was after he had been there ten months. He had seen the master and the young sirs and sometimes the daughters of the house when they went out riding, but their horses were seen to by the two older stable boys; the younger ones seemed to do nothing but muck out. Yet this was all her son appeared to want to do. In the changed appearance of her family since the accident the change in her son was the most noticeable. He was nearing sixteen now and he was no longer slight but had thickened out; he had seemed to grow broader instead of taller; his hair was still silver fair, but his features had altered; his skin, from having a fine delicate softness about it, had reddened. But the most striking difference, in her eyes, was his features. He no longer appeared beautiful. Sometimes as she sat in the barn staring at him she thought she only imagined this yet she knew that it was not imagination, and at such times she was made to wonder what the master would think of the boy now for there was no resemblance between the one who had attacked him with a scythe and this thickset youth who was no longer beautiful. But she could find no name in her mind with which to describe how her son looked, except perhaps, blunt. His cheeks seemed to have fattened out; his face had taken on a squareness. Perhaps this was how his grandfather, the Swede, had looked. Perhaps all Swedes were beautiful when they were young. But he was still young, merely a boy. Yet no, his voice had broken and was that of a man. His talk, too, was that of the stable. Oh, if only…Again her mind was exchanging him with Biddy, because if he’d had her brain he would have been able to put it to some use, whereas, as far as she could make out, it was going to cripple her daughter.
‘Sit down, Riah.’
It wasn’t an unusual request. She pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat down, and he lay looking at her for a few moments before he said, ‘I’ll slip away one of these days. You know that, don’t you? Like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Here one minute, gone the next.’
‘Don’t talk silly.’
‘And don’t you talk silly.’ His voice had an edge to it now. ‘You know as well as I do what’s going to happen, and I want to talk to you about it. What are you going to do when I’m gone?’
‘What I did afore, take to the road and find another job.’
‘How much money have you got saved?’
‘Oh! Oh!
’
He smiled weakly at her. ‘You never spend anything. You haven’t bought a new stitch for the children or yourself, except boots, in years now. In the main you’ve had your four shillings a week, apart from the time when it was reduced to two, so you must have a little pile.’
Yes, she had a little pile. She had saved forty pounds of her wages; then added to that there had been the shilling a week for the first two years from Davey. He had brought the sums intact to her each half-year; but in the meantime she had given him tuppence on each of his Sunday visits. But in the third year his wage had gone up by another shilling a week and so his pocket money had risen to fourpence. The fourth year it had remained the same, but next year he would get a sixpence rise. Altogether she had had thirteen pounds from him. In all she had over seventy pounds including the money that Seth had hidden in the fireplace. So she was well set. But he, lying there, didn’t know anything about that first nest egg, and so she said to him, ‘I’ve around fifty pounds.’
‘Fifty pounds. My! My!’ That’s good. Well, Riah, I’m afraid that you’re going to need it, because when I die your life is going to change somewhat.’
‘I know that; and you needn’t worry, I’m prepared.’
‘You are?’
‘Yes. So don’t lie there frettin’ about that.’
‘I do fret about that. I fret about you. Do you believe me?’
She didn’t answer and he said, ‘There is a subject that has long been taboo between us, Riah, but I must bring it to the fore again, because I know my time is running out.’
‘Please. Please, don’t. There’re two questions to be answered there, and I say no to both of them. You can live a long time yet if you take care and take your pills when you should, regular like. As for the other, it’s buried.’
The Black Velvet Gown Page 17
