Flint and Roses

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘No. What happened to your wife, Uncle Agbrigg?’

  ‘She died. I once told you how, and what it did to me. But men don’t grieve for long, they can’t afford it. Well—this was the way of it. Hannah was turned thirty by then. She’d lost the man she’d wanted and she’d been let down by another. She was sick of living in other women’s houses and the choice was between a fancy parson she reckoned would never make a bishop, and me. The parson had his hundred a year and his gentility, I had Jonas, and she picked me. Her brother didn’t like it, but when Hannah wants something there’s no stopping her. What she says she’ll do, she’ll do, and so we got married—Hannah and me and Jonas. And that was always the way of it. She could run the town through me, she reckoned, but she could run the world through Jonas. Well, I let her have her way and I saw him grow into a man I didn’t like—which has nothing to do with loving. He’s my lad, Ann’s lad, and I don’t have to like Ann’s lad to love him. She wouldn’t much like him herself, I reckon, although she’d fret herself into her grave all over again in case the woman should make him unhappy.’

  ‘And it doesn’t worry you?’

  ‘No,’ he said, quite decidedly. ‘That it doesn’t. He knows what he’s going into. He’s made a mathematical calculation of it and he finds that the embarrassment is out weighed by the gain. In fact she’s worth it to him, and there’s no more to be said. It’s Hannah who worries me now.’

  ‘What will you do, Uncle Agbrigg?’

  ‘With Hannah? Well, first of all, lass, I’d best get myself upstairs and convince her I’ll not be mayor again, because that’s what she’ll be wanting now. No—I’m getting on in years, Faith, and so is she. She’ll take the loss of Jonas hard—I can understand that—but he’s gone, and maybe that could suit us now. Hannah and me. Maybe it’s time—well, my Ann’s dead, there’s no denying it, and the man Hannah fancied has been long gone too. And if there hasn’t been love between us, we’ve grown accustomed to each other—we respect each other, I reckon. Maybe we even like each other.’

  ‘I like you, Uncle Agbrigg.’

  ‘Well, that’s a feather in my cap and no mistake. So you’ll come and see us in Scarborough, will you, when I’ve convinced her that Scarborough’s where she wants to go—a little house on the cliff, away from the smoke, on account of my bad chest, which I’d never noticed until she pointed out to me how bad my breathing was—’

  ‘Oh yes, Uncle Agbrigg, I’ll come.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, getting up and rather awkwardly patting my cheek. ‘Good. I was nobody when she met me, Faith. Just a man who wanted to better himself and didn’t much care how. But now—well, I built those reservoirs, I reckon—I got the water in. She’s got no reason to be ashamed of me now. And, do you know, Faith, I think we could even be happy.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I drove for a while quite aimlessly about the streets, knowing that I should go home, yet absolutely unable to turn myself in the direction of Elderleigh. Already it was late afternoon, Blanche would have returned from school by now, and I had left no clear instructions about dinner. Yet, despite the urgings of common sense and duty, ‘home’, whatever it might mean to me, whatever it consisted of, was the one place in the world I could not—at that moment—tolerate.

  I drifted an hour longer, half thinking, dream-thinking, letting the familiar streets go by with nothing in any one of them to detain me, nothing to distress me or to please me—just space and time with myself caught up in the crowded void of it, making the best I could of every quiet water, every ebb-tide, every stony wasteland in which it stranded me. Space, and time, and a slow-dropping, soft-penetrating sadness.

  And then I went to Albert Place and asked for Jonas.

  He was dressed to go out, to Mrs. Delaney I was forced to imagine, but when I began to apologize for my intrusion, insisting I had looked in only for a moment, since I didn’t really know why I had come at all, he told me, ‘Do sit down. I am, in no hurry, Faith—and not greatly surprised to see you. Have you come straight from Lawcroft Fold?’

  ‘Yes—in fact, no, since I have been driving around a little—going nowhere—’

  ‘Composing yourself to face up to my villainy?’

  ‘Is that what it is? I don’t think I care about that.’

  ‘But you must be—shocked?’

  ‘Yes. Indeed I am. And sad—so terribly sad that I don’t know how to explain it. Jonas—is this right for you?’

  He sat down in the chair facing mine, his face, in shadow, looking tired, not creased and dusty like his father’s, but somehow quite hollow.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘thank you at least for that, Faith.’

  ‘For what? Because it worries me that you could be miserable? I suppose it worries Aunt Hannah too, although she wouldn’t say it. She will miss you cruelly, Jonas. And she will never be reconciled.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, giving me once again the impression of hollowness, as if the living impulses that had filled him had all been carefully reduced and put away. ‘Had she calmed herself by the time you left?’

  ‘Oh no. I don’t think she knows how to calm herself, but I believe your father might do it for her. He wants to retire and take her to Scarborough, or allow her to take him there.’

  He smiled, his long eyes still hooded by their heavy, shielding lids.

  ‘Well, there would have been no chance of that had I married suitably and taken office as Mayor. So I may have done him a service with my perfidy.’

  ‘I can’t think you perfidious.’

  ‘Why ever not? Miss Mandelbaum will surely not agree with you. Celia would not agree with you either.’

  ‘I don’t know that I want to talk about Celia.’

  ‘I don’t see how it can be avoided. You tried to comfort me when she died. I realize you would like to defend me now, and in that case you should know the truth. Faith—whatever you may have glimpsed in me these past months—a little more humanity than you had supposed, perhaps—then don’t deceive yourself. Yes, the capacity exists. I have even toyed with the idea of developing it. I would like to be happy. I would like to care for a woman who cares for me. It has never happened. It never will happen.’

  ‘Jonas—it could happen. You haven’t looked—you haven’t tried—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said flatly, a lawyer once again, demolishing my immature logic, my foolishness. ‘We are talking of marriage—an exceedingly tight contract which requires obedience from one party and supportiveness from the other, happiness, so far as I am aware, from neither.’

  ‘Jonas, that is legal jargon and you are hiding behind it.’

  ‘Faith, it is the truth. I married your sister for a down-payment of twenty thousand pounds because I was desperate to buy out old Corey-Manning. On the very day I buried her I knew the way to Fieldhead Mills was open to me if I chose to take it. Walking back from the cemetery I knew I would take it. I have no excuses, Faith. I am no longer a poor man. I could live comfortably on my present income, here, in my pleasant house with my very charming daughter. We have a great deal in common, Grace and I. We could read together, travel abroad together. We could talk together. I could become very scholarly and possibly very content. The thought of it, even now, gives me a whisper of pleasure. And, failing that, I could many Rebecca Mandelbaum, who would suit me well enough, and buy myself a seat in the House of Commons with her dowry. Political power interests me. For many years I wanted it rather badly. I believe I could have it now. So—there you see my choices. Contentment, power, or cash. It took me moments, Faith—no more—to decide. Do you still want to defend me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Knowing how miserable your sister was with me?’

  ‘Yes. Celia carried her misery inside her. You were not to blame.’

  ‘Once again, she would not agree with you. I’m not sure I agree with you myself.’

  ‘Then you should. My father crushed her, Jonas. You should know that. He took everything that was real and spec
ial out of her and filled her up again with the trivial little bits and pieces he thought proper in a woman. And so she was never a woman at all. I don’t know why Prudence and I escaped without too much damage. Perhaps it was because we never really believed in him. And in that case—if that is true—then Celia must have loved him. Poor Celia—that was her misery—not anything that happened to her afterwards—not you. You wanted more than she knew how to give, that’s all. Any man would have wanted more.’

  He turned his head sharply, a moment of emotion to be concealed instinctively, as he had always concealed such things, an act of self-preservation in a world which did not encourage the finer feelings in a lad from Simon Street.

  ‘Yes, Faith, I wanted more. Six months before I married her, a house in Albert Place, an income, a decent working capital—all that—seemed beyond my wildest dreams. Six months later and it was—well—inadequate.’

  ‘And now, Jonas?’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Will Fieldhead suffice you any better?’

  ‘Probably not. But I could never live at peace with myself if I let it pass me by. It will make me almost as rich as Nicholas Barforth—certainly as rich as Sir Blaize. Now ask yourself, Faith, how a man of my origins could turn his back on that?’

  ‘And Mrs. Delaney?’

  ‘Yes—Mrs. Delaney?’

  ‘Is she—agreeable to you?’

  He smiled at me again, wryly.

  ‘You mean do I desire her? Not particularly.’

  ‘Then how can you commit yourself—Jonas? You can’t force yourself—surely—not all the time—not forever—?’

  ‘I could,’ he said. ‘If I had to. Fortunately it is not quite so bad as that. Mrs. Delaney is experienced enough in that direction to know how to please any man—she does please me, in fact, since we have already consummated our intentions, at her suggestion, not mine. I believe her motive was kindness. She could see I had been somewhat deprived—frustrated would have been my description, famished was hers, and no doubt she was right. She satisfies my appetites most thoroughly—and pleasantly—and I am grateful. It is not the same as desire.’

  ‘You mean it is not the same as love.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that is exactly what I mean. I hesitate even to use the word.’

  ‘Is Mrs. Delaney in love with you?’

  ‘My dear—hardly that. She has a weakness for intellectual men and a hankering, not for respectability, since she recognizes it to be beyond her, but for stability perhaps. She has led a wandering life and, like Rebecca Mandelbaum, she feels the need to be settled. Oh yes, I have been obliged to serve my apprenticeship to her cause. She has allowed me to manage Fieldhead since Mr. Oldroyd died and has kept an eagle eye on my methods. She required very definite proof of my commercial acumen, I do assure you, before expressing herself willing to place her fortune in my hands. She is a sensible woman, who accepts my limitations, and her own. Naturally she realizes I can no longer make her a mayoress, since the city fathers will have none of me now. She understands that my mother, and your mother, and a great many other ladies, will never receive her. But in her own eyes and in the eyes of her past acquaintances she will be a married woman. She trusts me in so far as it is in her to trust any man. And my presence beside her spares her the attentions of other fortune-hunters. Small matters to you, perhaps, but then you have never been much exposed to the coarser side of the great world.’

  ‘And Grace?’

  He sighed.

  ‘Yes. Grace. She may, I imagine, entertain some doubts as to my rightful place in her estimation, but at the same time she will be one of the greatest heiresses in the Law Valley. She will have Celia’s money, Matthew Oldroyd’s money, Tessa Delaney’s money, my money, all in due course—and I shall make a great deal of money now, Faith, in addition to all the rest. Fieldhead will be her official home, of course, but I think I may leave her with Prudence for a while—Monday to Friday. Remember, Faith, I am a lawyer. My new will is already drawn up and waiting to be signed after my marriage. In the event of my death, the guardianship of my daughter will pass to you and Blaize, if you will accept it. You may be sure that where Grace is concerned I have left nothing to chance.’

  The maid came in to light the lamps and check the fire, glanced enquiringly at us and went out again, her interruption conveying to me the lateness of the hour but inducing no inclination whatsoever to take my leave.

  ‘You may lose her, Jonas.’

  ‘I know. But I would lose her in any case. She will marry, sooner or later, and at least now I can give her the freedom of choice I lacked myself. With Fieldhead behind her she can afford to marry where she pleases. She can even afford not to marry at all.’

  ‘It is all decided, then?’

  ‘Yes, quite decided.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Jonas?’

  And for just a moment, caught unawares by my offer of help when he had anticipated condemnation, there was pain in his face.

  ‘Should Grace turn away from me, you could offer—such consolation as occurred to you and which she might be ready to accept. You could express the opinion, at Gullingford’s tea-tables, that my daughter’s reputation cannot suffer from exposure to such a step-mother.’

  ‘Jonas, I would do that in any case.’

  ‘Of course you would. I have simply allowed myself the pleasure of asking, since there is no one else I would wish to ask.’

  ‘Prudence—?’

  ‘Of course. There is Prudence, who may never forgive me, but who will help me just the same. Nevertheless it is you I wish to ask. That is the place you hold in my life. You must know why. It seems pointless to deny it, just as it would seem equally pointless, at this late stage, to put it into words.’

  He got up and moved away from me, quite deliberately putting distance between us—allowing me a moment to realize that he had almost said he loved me, that, in other circumstances, I could almost have welcomed it—and then he resumed his seat, composed, neutral as always, his face serious but gentler, I thought, than before.

  ‘You should not worry about me, Faith. You should think of your own affairs, which may need thought.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Jonas?’

  ‘Because I am a devious man, an expert in the deciphering of motives and meanings, and the drawing of conclusions. And it is no secret that the Barforth pot is about to boil over. I see you in the midst of it and it troubles me. Faith, I have no right to ask and you are not obliged to answer, but there is something amiss with your life, is there not? It gave me pleasure just now to ask for your help. It would mean a great deal to me if you would allow me to help you.’

  And, having accepted for so long his own personal judgment, that he was indeed devious and calculating and self-seeking, it amazed me that I could now turn to him with the perfect trust I had previously extended only to Giles. All my life I had seen him through other people’s eyes, through Prudence’s hostility for the brother-in-law who could cheat her of her inheritance, through Aunt Hannah’s driving ambitions, her almost pathetic desire to fulfil herself in him, through Celia’s fretful complainings, through Caroline’s frank contempt for ‘the Agbrigg boy’. I had believed him to be cold and crafty, and so on occasion he was. Only recently had I come to realize that in gentler circumstances, like those which had moulded Giles Ashburn’s character, he would have grown differently. Only now did I realize it fully and my heart ached for the waste of him.

  ‘I don’t know what is wrong with me, Jonas—only that something is.’

  ‘Blaize?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about Blaize. I thought him my dearest friend, but I seem to have rather lost him, now. We are beginning to lead our own lives, except that I am not physically unfaithful—’

  ‘There are other kinds of infidelity.’

  ‘Yes. I believe he may think so. But I don’t know how to defend myself. I don’t really know what I am guilty of. Our marriage was bound to be difficult. Blaize himself is difficult. Bu
t it isn’t that. Something, at some point, came between us, something large and definite and quite invisible. There’s nothing to grapple with. And if Blaize knows what it is, then he won’t tell me. He won’t tell me anything at all.’

  ‘And have you asked him?’

  ‘No. I can’t ask him.’

  ‘In fact you have allowed the silence to fall and now you can’t find your way through it.’

  I shuddered. ‘Well, I shall just have to go on as best I can.’

  The maid appeared again, hovered, her agitation reminding him that he had ordered his carriage an hour ago, reminding me of the woman whose claims on him were far more valid than mine.

  ‘Heavens! It must be getting late.’

  ‘Yes, I fear so.’

  I got up shakily, against my will. ‘I don’t want to go home, Jonas.’

  ‘My dear, where else is there for you to go?’

  ‘I know—I know.’

  ‘Faith—listen to me. I understand the art of being alone. I have always lived separately, and inward—and I shall simply continue so to do. You are not made that way. When the conflict in your family comes to a head, and if you are forced into a position of choice, you will have to choose Blaize. You must know that. My hope for you is that you will want to choose him.’

  I could find no member of my family willing to accompany me to the wedding of Jonas and Tessa Delaney. My mother and Aunt Verity, at Aunt Hannah’s urgent request, declined, feeling that their loyalty was to her rather than to her adopted son. Prudence, fearing the effect of the marriage on Grace and bitterly disappointed in Jonas himself, declared that wild horses would not drag her to see the foul deed done. Blaize was out of town. ‘I’ll come with you,’ Georgiana offered. ‘I don’t care a scrap for Mr. Agbrigg or Mrs. Delaney, but if you want my company you shall have it.’ But her grandfather, who had been ailing for several months, took a sudden turn for the worse, so that instead of a wedding she was called to a death-bed; and I went to the parish church alone.