And although the greater part of his nature would have gloried in announcing his possession of me to our narrow world—‘This is my woman and be damned to the lot of you’—I knew beyond the slightest shadow of doubt that, if he lost his share of the Barforth mills to Blaize, a day would surely dawn when he would most bitterly regret it.
The summer drained me that year, shredded my nerves and evaporated my spirit, for, my own anxieties apart, I seemed the constant prey of all those who had cause to complain of my mother, so that I felt besieged day in day out, by Aunt Hannah, who required to know when we could expect my mother’s jewellery to go up for auction and then her petticoats; by Prudence, who in her own intense frustration had no thought for mine; by the Irish cousins; by Daniel Adair, whose plans for me were every bit as specific as for my sister; and not least of all by Celia, whose fast developing pregnancy, she felt, was not attracting its share of notice.
‘Faith—you will never believe what Jonas has done to me. He has invited the Battershaws to dine. Yes, I know they are among his best clients and we have dined twice with them since Christmas, but how am I to manage? Oh yes—I can order the meal and see that everything is spotless and perfectly tidy, but Jonas should understand that I cannot be looked at in my condition.’
‘Celia, there is nothing yet to show.’
‘No, but I get so fatigued, Faith, by dinner-time, and then the maids are quite likely to bring out smeared glasses and chipped plates unless I make sure of it, and cook is so unreliable about timing, I don’t see how I can be expected to sit there with a smile on my face and chat. You must come and do it for me.’
I did, Jonas taking advantage of my presence, I thought, to include our Member of Parliament, Mr. Fielding, and his political agent in the party, gentlemen whose good offices would be needed should he decide to embark on a parliamentary career of his own. And so it happened that when Celia, who had quite genuinely worn, herself out by a day-long flurry of cleaning and polishing, retired to bed soon after the meal, I remained in Albert Place very late, chatting pleasantly to two gentlemen I had no wish to impress—and so impressed rather easily—and to Jonas himself, who relaxed almost to humanity without the presence of his wife and his mother.
He escorted me home afterwards, a quite natural courtesy, stepped into my hall a moment to thank me, since I had put myself out for his sake, and although the house was perfectly silent, Mrs. Marworth’s smile quite bland—and although Nicholas had been warned well in advance of my plans—no one could have failed to identify the odour of tobacco betraying a male presence behind my drawing-room door.
‘Mrs. Marworth—’ I gasped, desperately seeking help from anyone, but, having no help to give me, she had already disappeared down the corridor, leaving me with my horrified guilt, and my brother-in-law.
‘Jonas—’ I said, just his name, bowing my head, I think, as if for execution, since he would be well within his rights to demand the identity of my caller. When I raised it again, I couldn’t read the expression—my sentence—in his clever, lawyer’s face, had no idea at all what his faint smile might mean.
‘Yes, Faith. Thank you for your help this evening. I will leave you, now that I have seen you safely bestowed. Good-night.’
‘Oh Jonas—my goodness!’
And, incredibly, he shrugged his narrow shoulders and touched me, very lightly, with a cool fingertip.
‘Good-night. There is nothing for you to be concerned about—except that I believe one of your chimneys may be smoking, and you should attend to it. Celia will be very glad to see you, I expect, should you care to call tomorrow.’
Yet, although he did not betray me, gave no indication when I saw him again that he had observed anything amiss, exerted no pressure on my movements or my activities, the mere fact of his knowledge weighed upon me, burdened me.
An endless summer, hot days, a yellow sky hanging low over Millergate, heavy days spiced with a whisper of faraway excitements, since, in exotic lands I could scarcely imagine, the Tsar of Russia had invaded the territory of his brother monarch, the Sultan of an ailing Turkey, an event in which—for reasons I was slow to understand—we seemed likely to become involved. We could not, of course—or so a dozen people told me—tolerate the presence of Russian aggressors so near to India; but the truth was that we, the greatest military nation in the world, the conquerors of Napoleon, had been at peace for almost forty years now, and even in Cullingford a great many men were eager to hear the beat of martial drums, to show the Russian giant, the Austrian giant, any giant at all, that we had lost none of our vigour. And I found it easier, at tea-time, at dinner-time, at the concert hall and the Assembly Rooms, to ponder the fate of such unlikely places as Constantinople, Sebastopol, the Crimea, than my own.
‘There’s nothing else for it. We’ve got to fight them,’ Sir Matthew Chard declared, with no more idea than I as to where the Crimea might be found.
‘Aye,’ Sir Joel Barforth answered him. ‘Fight them, and I’ll sell you the uniform cloth to do it in.’
‘Will it make any difference, Nicholas?’ I asked, and he told me, ‘No. I almost wish it would.’
I went to Scarborough, most dangerously in June and August, not daring to step out of the garden for fear of the summer crowds; twice in September, a hunted animal at my arrival and my departure, a few feverish days in between, immense fatigue at my homecoming, a dry-mouthed panic until my first encounter with Daniel Adair, with Aunt Hannah, with Jonas, reassured me that I had not been caught. I became dangerously, uncharacteristically emotional, prone to unexplained tears and sudden bursts of laughter. Loud noises startled me, flickering evening shadows loomed out at me, distorted into fearsome shapes that caused my stomach to lurch, my heart to beat in the wild palpitations to which my robust body was not accustomed. When my sister Celia, who had spent at least half of her pregnancy in bed, gave birth to a daughter that July—Miss Grace Cecilia Agbrigg, a silken little creature with a curl or two of dark hair and enormous liquid eyes—I wept unrestrainedly at my first sight of her, wept when I was asked to be her godmother, stood throughout her christening with tears seeping from my eye-corners, ruining the lace ribbons of my bonnet. There were long nights when sleep would not come at all, other nights of fitful dozing threaded by terrible dreams of myself hurrying through mean streets, a glimpse of Giles Ashburn in a doorway, nothing but an empty room when I ran frantically inside, his figure in the distance, the beloved quietness of him shredding away to mist the instant before I reached his side. A sick tortuous wandering in the dark, a sudden jolting to wakefulness and the certain knowledge that, although my love for Nicholas was deeper and more intense than ever, a change of some kind would have to be made.
A change. Yet, having told myself that I must make it, that it must be done, having rehearsed the reasons until they became welded to my brain and gave me no rest, I was unprepared both for the nature and the manner of it when it came.
He arrived very late, the second night of October, restless, ill-tempered, I thought at first, disinclined for conversation, barely listening to the few remarks I made. And then, blunt as he always was in moments of emotion, he snapped out, ‘I had better tell you, before you hear it from someone else. Georgiana is pregnant again.’
‘I see.’
‘No,’ he said, taking me by the elbows, squeezing hard. ‘You don’t see.’
But I would have none of that, pulling away from him, hurting myself, putting as much distance between us as my tiny drawing-room allowed.
‘There is no reason to make excuses to me, Nicholas, because you have—because you have made love to your wife.’
‘You knew it,’ he said. ‘If you were married, you’d have had to do the same. You knew that I was obliged—’
‘No. I know no such thing. Be honest with me, Nicholas—that’s about all there is left now. When it happened—whenever, how often—you wanted it. Don’t insult me, and—just don’t insult any of us by pretending otherwise. And don’t tell me yo
ur reasons—don’t—they have nothing to do with me. I’m not angry, Nicholas. I have no right to be angry. Just allow me—a moment or two.’
I stood with my back towards him, willing him to keep his distance, knowing—whatever I really felt, whether I had it in me to endure this, to weather it, or not—that I must not endure it, that I must use it as a wedge, to force us apart. And even in that first moment of shock I remembered Prudence telling me, ‘She may conceive another child and die of it’; and I knew that that alone was sufficient reason for our separation. I did not want her to die. I must continue not to want it, for, if it should happen, and I had the slightest cause to suspect myself, I knew I could not live with it, could certainly never live with Nicholas.
‘Nicholas—’ I said, and crossing the room he took me by the shoulders, carefully, as if he feared to damage the remnant that was left to us; and even that, I knew, was slipping fast a way.
‘Don’t say it, Faith. You don’t want to cause her pain, and neither do I—God dammit, I don’t hate her. The child is mine and I’ll look after it, as I’ll look after the other one—and her. For the rest of my life I’ll support her, in style, so she can go on supporting her brother. I’ll patch up her Abbey and pay out whatever it costs to keep her land in good order and her brother out of jail. But I won’t lose you, Faith. I’ll be patient with her now, I’ll keep my temper and indulge her whims and fancies until this is safely over. But I won’t lose you. I won’t throw you away for the sake of the Clevedons. Believe me.’
But it was over. I mourned him all night, dry-eyed, my whole body aching, despairing. I mourned him the next day, my real self locked away weeping, and desperate, while the cool shell of my Aycliffe self-control served tea to Aunt Hannah and Prudence, listened and smiled as, my mother told me of yet another Irish cousin, and that she was very happy. I mourned him the night that followed and the one after, came downstairs before dawn to wander in sheer desolation from, room to room, a burden to myself, which I could not lay down.
It was over, and, when he came the fifth night and rapped a stubborn hand on my window, it was still over. I opened the door to him because it did not occur to me to do otherwise; and, when he came into my parlour, I made some anxious comment about the state of him, since he had walked up from the Swan in the rain. But it was still over.
‘You can ask me to leave,’ he said. ‘I didn’t go the first time and I won’t go now.’
‘Yes, you will.’
‘Do you really mean to turn me out in the rain?’
‘Yes, I do.’ And I believed it.
‘Then do it, for I’ve got nothing to offer you but trouble—I know it. I know all the answers. I’d tell any other man in my position to pull himself together and get over it. I can’t.’
He stayed in my bed until morning, a risk we had never taken before. As I let him out through the kitchen before Mrs. Marworth was awake, he held both my hands and kissed them, kissed my ears and my chin and the nape of my neck, unfastened my nightgown and kissed my bare shoulders, reckless and heedless, pressing my body hard against the cold, tiled wall.
‘I love you, Faith. Do you believe me?’
I believed him.
‘We’re all right again now, Faith.’
But I could not believe that.
Chapter Twenty-One
I would never go to Scarborough again, at least not until Georgiana’s condition was resolved one way or the other, for she had miscarried before, might miscarry again, and, false and treacherous as I was, I wanted him to be with her if she did so.
But by November he had quarrelled with Blaize and with his father, had narrowly averted a strike at Lawcroft for which his own intolerance, his own autocratic temper—Blaize insisted—had been to blame. He was tense and miserable, dreading, as I was, the approaching Christmas season when family festivities would draw us all too close together. We had much to discuss, having parted already a second time, being well aware that we were teetering on the brink of a third separation, and, although our reconciliations seemed powerful enough to propel us from one crisis to the next, we must surely one day reach our limits.
And so I risked myself once again on that solitary journey, Mrs. Marworth accompanying me to Leeds, well content with the steady supply of Barforth guineas in her pocket, my happy excitement of earlier times transformed now into a kind of sad determination, since this visit could well be—should be—my last.
It was a grey afternoon, a high wind churning the sea, the steep little town quite empty as I was driven through it, the house empty too, only the housekeeper standing discreetly in the doorway, telling me, as always, that there was a fire in the parlour, a fire in Mr. Barforth’s bedroom, muffins for tea. But of Mr. Barforth himself she couldn’t say, for she was paid merely to make his mistress comfortable, not keep her informed of his comings and goings.
‘Muffins?’ she said, clearly having reached her own limits, and so I took off my gloves and my fur-lined, hooded cloak, and ate muffins and indifferent gingerbread, poured tea for the sake of giving myself an occupation, and left it on the tray to go cold.
‘Dinner,’ she told me, ‘in an hour, madam, if it’s convenient.’ And, since it was convenient for her, I went up to the bedroom that contained the most poignant of my memories, allowed the fisherman’s daughter they were training as a maid to get out the new gown I always brought with me, a light aquamarine this time, cut low to display the strands of gold filigree Nicholas had given me and which I could only wear here without need for explanations. I brushed and dressed my hair, put his pearl and diamond drops in my ears, his heavily coiling gold snake with its topaz eye around my arm, perfumed my shoulders, threw a lace-edged Cashmere shawl around them, and went down to dine, realizing that, while I had been dressing, the moment had come and gone when he could possibly reach me tonight.
‘Crab, madam—fresh-caught this morning,’ the placid, disinterested woman told me, meaning perhaps, ‘He has jilted you, madam—well, isn’t it always the way?’; for she had been with the Barforths a long time and had seen their women come and go.
But there could be a dozen explanations. Simple things, like the destruction of Lawcroft Mills by fire, things I could live with, like strikes and floods and damaged machinery, which had nothing to do with Georgiana. And whatever had happened there would be no way to send me word.
I slept alone, bitter cold all night, listening to the wind—listening for Nicholas—breakfasted alone before a roaring fire, eating heartily of the smoked haddock and creamed eggs because the woman was mildly curious now as to whether or not I might be broken-hearted. And afterwards I went out into the raw November wind, walking as far as I dared—taking the chance we always took that there would be no one here at this season—until I felt as grey and chilled as the weather, could have whined as dolefully as the grey air irritating the surface of the sea.
It was an omen. Nothing had ever kept him away before. I had drifted, as always, allowed my emotions, not my reason, to make my decisions, had in fact made no decisions at all, and now—having known for a long time exactly what I had to do—I had left it too long. Events, other people’s decisions, had overtaken me. And even now, although I knew very definitely that he would not come and that I should return home at once to discover the reason, I doubted if I would do it. I would most likely stay here, waiting for him, as I had waited these past eighteen months, as I had waited all my life, straining my ears for the sound of his arrival, telling myself ‘Just a little longer. Surely a little longer can do no harm?’
But as I walked back to the house something quickened my step, some impression of activity as I opened the door that caused my stomach to lurch hopefully, eagerly, the unmistakable fragrance of cigar-smoke reaching me as I entered the hall, offering me yet another reprieve.
‘Is Mr. Barforth here?’ I called out.
‘Yes, madam, in the drawing-room,’ the woman replied, and my joyful, giddy feet took me through the door and half-way across the room befo
re I stopped, comic, I suppose, with shock, and realized it was Blaize.
‘I am Mr. Barforth, after all,’ he said. ‘My word, Faith, if you mean to faint, then do it gracefully—here, on the sofa, for I have had an abominable journey and hardly feel up to lifting you if you should fall on the floor.’
‘Blaize, what on earth—?’
‘We’ll come to that presently. Yes—yes, I knew you were here. I have come on my brother’s business, not my own, and he is neither dead nor dying, merely in the very foulest of tempers because events have conspired against him. Really, Faith, you had better sit down.’
I obeyed, arranging myself very carefully, composing my body and my mind, allowing a moment to pass until I could ask, just as carefully, ‘Did he—send you?’
The smokey eyes twinkled, his face, which had been quite expressionless, coming alive with the brilliance and mischief of his smile.
‘Hardly that. Even Nicholas does not imagine himself to be in a position to send me anywhere. But he was in such a blind fury when he realized he couldn’t get away that I—well, it wasn’t difficult to understand that he had a most pressing engagement. I concluded it could only be you.’
‘Have you known for long?’
‘About you and Nicholas? Well, yes, as it happens, I have. But you needn’t worry about that. I’m fairly certain no one else can have access to my source of information. I use this house too, sometimes, and Nicholas was obliged to check his dates with me. I do apologize, Faith. These practical details may sound sordid to you, but there was no other way it could be done. I knew simply that he was meeting someone here, not necessarily the same person every time, but I like to know what goes on around me and I intercepted a glance or two—of agony, I might add, on at least one occasion—between you.
Flint and Roses Page 40
