Well, if that was so, that was so. She must keep her head on her shoulders and think for the future. She wasn’t going to stay here forever: another year’s training and she would apply for the post of lady’s maid somewhere else, and start a new life.
And she was to start a new life in a new post, which, when she looked back on it, came about with a strangeness that was comparable with the mythology the master had made her learn.
It happened in the second week in July. She had taken her half-yearly pay home to her mother and Riah had given her back three shillings; she had also surprised her with a dress and matching coat that she had made out of the still plentiful material from the boxes in the attic. And she had insisted that she put them on and carry her Sunday dress and jacket with her.
She had been delighted with her appearance. Her mother was very good with the needle: her stitches were small and her ruching so fine as to appear to have been done by an expert at such work. She had kissed Riah tenderly and forgotten for the moment the animosity she bore for her withholding what she felt now were her rights in the future.
She had no hopes that Mr Laurence would come riding by and have a word with her for he had been at home over a month now and she’d had two leave days during that period, and on both she had sat by the fall, and no-one had disturbed her.
And now here she was sitting on the bank again. She had opened her bundle and spread her Sunday dress on the grass so that her new one would not be marked in any way. She had taken off her hat, and the wind, which was fresh, was lifting her hair from her brow and ears. Perhaps it was the wind that smothered the sound of the horse’s hooves until they were just behind her on the bridle path. And now she swung round, a half-smile of welcome on her face which stayed for only a second before fading at the sight of the horseman. It was Mr Paul.
As she watched him dismount, she got hurriedly to her feet and, picking up her dress, she stuffed it into the bundle.
She had told herself repeatedly during the time she had been at The Heights that she wasn’t afraid of any of them; but there was one exception, and she admitted it to herself, she was afraid of young Mr Paul, because since the day he had manhandled her in the laundry he had never once spoken to her or acknowledged her presence when he was visiting his grandmother, even though she was all the while conscious that he was watching her. And strangely, she imagined that each time he returned from boarding school he had aged in years, not in months. Now, as he approached her she seemed to see him as a man, fully grown, not someone around eighteen. She didn’t know whether he was coming up to eighteen or past it, she only knew that he didn’t at this moment look like a youth.
His voice was civil as he said, ‘Hello there.’
It was a second or so before she answered in stiff politeness, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Paul.’
He was standing an arm’s length from her now, and she noticed that his hair seemed to be the same colour as his polished riding boots. Her eyes had been drawn down to his boots, because, as on that memorable Sunday, he was tapping the upper part of his leg with his riding crop.
‘I’ve disturbed you?’ he said.
‘No, I was just about to go.’
‘Sit down,’ he said.
‘I’ve told you, Mr Paul, I’m just about to go. I’ve got to get back.’
‘Sit down,’ he said. And now his hand came out and pushed her gently, and she stumbled a step backwards to where the gnarled stump of a tree grew out of the bank, and she turned and looked at it, then sidestepped it.
Grabbing her arm, but his voice still quiet, he said, ‘Sit down.’
‘Leave go of my arm,’ Her words were slow and as yet there was no tremble in her voice.
‘When I’m ready.’
With a quick wrench she was free; but only for a moment, for now he grabbed her by the shoulders and swung her around and, bringing his boot viciously against the back of her knees, he lifted her feet from the ground, and the next thing she knew she was on her back and clawing at his face until he had spreadeagled her arms and was lying over her. His nose almost pressing hers, he growled at her now, ‘I’ve thought about this for a long, long time, you laundry slut, and I’m going to make you pay for that bloody school I’m now at. I hate it, do you hear? I hate every minute of it, but not as much as I hate you for having me kept there. I’m going to leave some marks on you, miss, that you won’t forget in a hurry.’ And at this, he brought his face to the side of her and buried his teeth in the lobe of her ear. And when she screamed, he said, ‘Shout as much as you like, there’s no-one comes round this way very often. I’ve seen to that. I’ve followed you twice.’
Now he raised himself from her a little and swung her arms upwards until he was gripping both her wrists in one hand; with the other he ripped the buttons from the front of her dress and, thrusting his hand down her bodice, he gripped her breast. Fruitlessly she kicked at his shins, and when she screamed he put his mouth on hers. Now gathering all the strength of which she was capable she managed to bring up her knees, and when she saw his body lift and roll to the side she imagined her effort had accomplished this, but as she lay gasping she saw another figure, and it was bending over him and beating him with a riding crop. It was some seconds before she herself rolled on to her side, and to her amazement she saw that her rescuer was no other than Miss Lucy and that she was laying about her brother as she had once laid about herself.
Managing to stumble to his feet, he cried at her, ‘Give over! What the hell do you think you’re at?’
‘I’ll tell you what I’m at, and more, when we get back to the house.’
‘Have you gone mad? Do you see who that is?’ He was pointing down towards Biddy now. ‘Remember what you did to her? She was the means of sending you off and getting my allowance cut.’
‘I know what she did, and I know what we did. It was our fault.’
‘God Almighty! What’s come over you? Is that school a bloody convent you’ve fallen into? You haven’t been the same since you’ve been there. Mine is hell, but be damned if I would let it change me.’
‘No, you won’t let it change you; you’ll do as father did, and grandfather did, and Stephen is doing.’
Biddy had struggled to her feet and was trying to arrange her clothes, and she watched the brother and sister glaring at each other. He was now dabbing at the blood running down the side of his cheek where her nails had torn the skin away. She watched him turn abruptly and walk to his horse, and the girl follow him, and to her amazement, she listened to her say, ‘What…what if she’d had a child?’ And as he put his foot into the stirrup he said, ‘Well, what if she had? It’s the lambing season around Easter for her and her type. And anyway, in two months’ time, I’ll be in the army, and she could name one of the stable lads she rolls with.’
As he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks she felt a great weakness coming over her—it was the same feeling as the last time he’d had his hands on her—but she didn’t want to faint, so she sat down abruptly again and bowed her head forward until the mist cleared from her eyes. And when she looked up, there was Miss Lucy standing looking down at her.
‘Are you all right?’
‘A bit dizzy, miss.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She was amazed to hear this, and she didn’t answer but kept her eyes on the girl. As her brother had altered, so had she. And she recalled now that during the past two weeks she had been visiting her grandmother almost every day, which was unusual, and most times she had looked at her as if wanting to speak; at least, so she had fancied. But she had told herself to remember what this young lady was really like.
Here she was, though, looking down on her, and in a quite kindly fashion. Then she was further surprised when she saw her young mistress lower herself on to the grass, pick up a tiny pebble and throw it gently into the water. And she couldn’t quite believe her ears when the young girl said, ‘Do you mind if I talk to you?’
‘No, miss, not if you wish to.’
Lucy Gullmington now turned fully round and looked at Biddy as she said slowly, ‘You are very intelligent. I disliked you for it; in fact, hated you at one time for it. You know much more than I do; apart from Grandmama and Laurence, I think you know much more than anyone else in the house, high or low.’
‘No, miss,’ Biddy shook her head; ‘I don’t really. I’m very ignorant. I read a lot, or when I can, and this tells me how ignorant I am. When I first came to the house, I…I thought I knew everything, because of what the master…Mr Miller had taught me, but I know it was just surface stuff. And he knew it, he told me so.’
‘Biddy. May I call you Biddy?’
Biddy shook her head. She couldn’t understand the attitude of this young lady. What was more, her head was splitting, her breast was paining, and her ear was bleeding.
‘You…you can call me what you like, miss.’
‘Oh’—the girl now gave an impatient shake of her head—‘don’t be humble, it isn’t in your nature. You’re not like that with Grandmama, and if you can stand up to her you can stand up to anybody.’
At another time Biddy would have smiled at this, but what she did was to hold her head to one side and put her handkerchief to her ear; and when she took it away and looked at the bloodstain, Lucy said, ‘He did that, he bit you?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s a cruel swine. All men are cruel.’
Biddy’s eyes stretched slightly. There was something here she couldn’t understand. And she was further puzzled; in fact, she was absolutely amazed when Miss Lucy’s hand came on hers and in a low voice she said, ‘I…I wonder if you would be my friend. I…I have no-one I can turn to.’
A thought passing through Biddy’s mind like a streak of lightning cleared it for a moment, but she repudiated the words it printed, saying, No, impossible. Nevertheless, she looked at the girl and said, ‘Are you in trouble, miss?’
Lucy’s head was drooped now. There was no resemblance between this girl and the proud, haughty, bossy, even cruel young miss seen by all the staff as well as herself.
She listened now to a muttered voice saying, ‘When I saw Paul attacking you like that, it brought back…it reminded me—’ She lifted her head now and ended, ‘You see, I knew how you felt, because I…I have experience of a similar situation.’
‘No, miss!’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean, miss?’
‘Yes, yes I think so.’
‘Oh, my God, miss.’
‘That’s what I said when I knew. Oh, my God, I said. And I have kept begging Him not to make it so, but He hasn’t listened.’
‘You…you were attacked, miss?’
Lucy now turned her head away, saying, ‘No, I wasn’t attacked. Well, not really. I…I was teasing. I…I didn’t realise what the outcome would be. I was in love, at least that’s what I thought. Then from teasing and playing…well, something happened. I didn’t want it to happen, I think I was as frightened as you were, but it happened, and then happened again.’
‘Can…can you not be married, miss?’
The head moved slowly. ‘He is married and has children. He…he was the father of my friend.’ She turned quickly now, her hand over her mouth, and saying, ‘But, you’ll never repeat that. Promise me you’ll never repeat that.’
‘I don’t need to promise, miss, you needn’t worry. But…but what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I only know I had to tell someone. You see, back there’—her head nodded in the direction of the house—‘the men can do what they like. They can have their mistresses, they can go whoring as often as they like, and not a word said against them, but the womenfolk, they must be like the hymn, as pure as the driven snow. No word of scandal must touch a Gullmington woman. I know now what May has been going through, because she wanted Laurence and Laurence didn’t want her in any way. And so, she’s going to marry this stupid man because she can’t wait any longer. We are made in a dreadful way, don’t you think, Biddy?’
Biddy thought for a moment and then she nodded her head slowly in agreement. ‘Yes, I think we are made in a dreadful way,’ she said. ‘It’s worse because we mustn’t speak of it, mustn’t show our feelings.’
And then there were the feelings of the moment with which she had to contend, and these were making her feel sick, and her ear was paining, so were her arms.
‘What am I to do, Biddy?’
‘You must tell madam.’
‘I’ve thought of that, but I haven’t the courage.’
‘Well, she’s the only one in your family that I think could stand it, I mean, the shock.’
‘I’ve…I’ve thought of running away, but I could only run to friends, and all they would do would be to bring me back home. They would be very kind and thoughtful but they’d be shocked too.’
‘Are you going back to school?’
‘No. No, never.’
‘Well then, you’ve only got just over a fortnight, haven’t you? You’ll have to do something, miss.’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll have to do something. But I don’t seem to be able to think.’
‘How far have you gone, miss?’
‘It is past the second month. I…I didn’t know what was happening at first. I was very ignorant about such things. Mother is not the kind of person you can talk to, at least about private matters, except to say…’ She now looked upwards to the sky and her voice was bitter as she ended, ‘Purity…keep oneself pure. I should have asked her how one went about it, shouldn’t I?’
Biddy got to her feet now, saying, ‘I have to get back. My time’s almost up. Will I walk with you, miss?’ while at the same time hoping the young mistress would say no, for she wanted to run back to the house and get cleaned up and see to her ear, and perhaps lie in the bed and cry about her lovely dress being spoiled and the fright she had got and…oh, everything.
Lucy was on her feet too now and she said, ‘My horse is just round the bushes there. Yes, please walk with me.’
Along the road they remained silent for quite some way and only the clop-clop of the horse’s hooves and the wind swaying the trees that bordered the road disturbed Biddy’s thoughts. It was Lucy who broke the silence between them when she said, ‘Grandmama has taken to you.’
And Biddy was bold enough to answer, ‘So I’ve been told before, but she has a very funny way of showing it.’
‘You know what she told me about you?’
‘No, miss.’
‘She said she had told you to stop reading but that she knew you still kept it up.’
‘She told you that?’ Biddy smiled a little, and Lucy answered, ‘Yes; and that was only last week. Now if it had been last year she had told me that I would have wanted to scratch your eyes out. Isn’t it strange how one can change?’ She turned and looked fully at Biddy again and now she said, ‘Could you, do you think…could you break it to her in some way? Pave the way for me? I’m so afraid that if I tell her, she’ll have one of her screaming fits. And not only Hobson would hear her, but any of the maids who happened to be passing. But…but if you could do it last thing at night when…when Hobson is in bed and everything is quiet…Would you?’
For a moment there flashed into Biddy’s mind a picture of the reception the breaking of this news would receive; but then perhaps not last thing at night when the old lady would be lying down and vulnerable without her wig, her teeth, and her face devoid of all plaster, for from experience she knew that, in this state, the old lady was always more amenable; still demanding, but her demands couched in quieter terms, more as requests. Yet she was surprised when she heard herself say,
‘Yes, all right, I’ll try.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you. You see, she’s…well, she’s had experience with this kind of thing before, when my father misbehaved and there were results, if not on the doorstep, pretty near it. And then she had a dreadful time with my grandfather, so I’ve gathered from the servants’ chatter and such.’
T
he way she had said servants’ chatter made Biddy, for a moment, imagine she herself had been excluded from that category; but then she was brought back to reality when they neared the gates and Lucy, pulling the horse to a stop, said, ‘We cannot go any further together, but I will come up in the morning, early. Perhaps you will meet me, say around nine o’clock in the gallery, and…and let me know what has transpired. Will you do that?’
‘Yes, miss. Yes, I’ll do that.’
‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
‘Goodbye, miss.’
‘Goodbye, Biddy.’
As if she was emerging from a dream, she walked slowly up the long narrow path that skirted the grounds. Had all this happened to her since she had left home not an hour and a half gone, attacked by that devil? And what would he have done if Miss Lucy hadn’t come on the scene?…Miss Lucy. Eeh, dear God, what a predicament to be in! And it could have happened to her. Yes, it could, because she couldn’t have fought him off much longer.
She made her way quietly through the side door, keeping the edges of her loose coat pulled together over the now buttonless bodice of her new frock and she had also tugged her hat to one side in order to cover her ear. But she met no-one until, at the foot of the stairs that gave on to the gallery, she came face to face with Mrs Fulton. The housekeeper, deliberately blocking her way, looked her up and down before she said scornfully, ‘My, my! We are dressed to kill, aren’t we? You certainly didn’t go out wearing those clothes, did you, Miss Millican?’
‘No, I didn’t, Mrs Fulton. I acquired them when I reached home.’
‘Oh, you did, did you? And you have taken to wearing your hat on the side, I see. Straighten it!’
‘I like it on the side, Mrs Fulton.’
‘I said, straighten it, girl!’ The small face showed fury as her hand came out to push the hat straight on Biddy’s head. And Biddy, lifting her hand to prevent her, let go of her coat and it fell open to disclose the ripped bodice, which in turn showed the top of her petticoat.
The Black Velvet Gown Page 33
