But presently, he caught at her hand and, leaning towards her, he said, ‘We may not get the chance again to have a tête-à-tête so I will say to you now, that I’ve enjoyed this evening solely because of your company.’
His face was quite near and she smiled into it as she said in a low voice, ‘I can return the compliment and tell you that I had hated the thought of this evening, but that you have made it a most enjoyable one for me too.’
His smile widened as he whispered, ‘You even enjoyed my dancing?’
The smile going from her face now, she shook her head, saying quite primly, ‘No, sir; do you expect me to lie? Your dancing is atrocious. If it wasn’t that my eyesight tells me that you have only two feet I would be led to believe you have an odd one that trips you up at times.’
When he actually pushed her on the arm and she pretended to fall sideways on the form, they were once again shaking with their mirth. Controlling himself, he pointed through the palm leaves, beyond which was coming raucous laughter and spluttering, caused no doubt by some joke. And he made a wild gesture with his hand indicating that they shouldn’t go out until the revellers moved on. And so they sat on the form side by side for almost ten minutes, and not a whispered word did they exchange. To Bridget, it was as if they were sitting in utter silence, a silence in which she was experiencing enjoyment. Since losing the companionship of her father she had felt unable to talk to anyone as she had done tonight to this kind man whom she knew to be two years older than herself, yet who looked so much younger, but talked and acted as her father might have done.
The announcement of another dance broke up the raucous group beyond the palm and there followed the rustle of gowns indicating that the ladies from the far end of the conservatory were also returning to the hall. Turning to Bridget now, Douglas said, ‘Would you like to go, I mean, really try again?’
‘Not particularly. I’d rather sit here, because there is something I’d like to ask you. And you have made it very easy for me. It is just this. Do you think your brother really loves Victoria?’
There was the slightest pause before Douglas answered, but with emphasis, ‘Oh, yes. Yes. Apart from everything else, I’m sure he does. But who could resist loving her? She is a very beautiful girl.’
Bridget now took her question a step further by asking, ‘Do you think it’s only beautiful girls who can be loved?’
‘Oh, no, no. But what I meant was, in his case…well, she is someone who would be very easy to love. Of course, I am well aware that beauty has only a limited time, unlike character that weathers the years and doesn’t fade…blossoms, rather.’
‘I am very fond of Victoria, you know. We have been like sisters. In fact, much more. Both being without mothers, in a way we acted as substitutes, one for the other.’
‘Hello, there.’ The voice brought their heads round to look into the palm leaves, for it was as if someone were addressing them from the other side. But then the voice went on thick and fuddled, ‘Standing this one out, are you?’
When there was no answer to this, the voice continued, ‘You shouldn’t have let her dance with Father. He’s rocking on his feet.’
‘He shouldn’t have drunk so much.’
At the sound of this voice Douglas cast a quick glance at Bridget; but she was staring into the palm leaves.
‘He drinks very little, does the old man; ’tis rheumatism, his knees buckle.’
‘He shouldn’t dance then.’
‘Felt he had to do his duty. You’re lucky, you know, beautiful girl, beautiful.’
‘I’m…I’m glad you think so.’
‘Oh, I do, I do. An’ what’s more, I think you’ve turned up trumps. You’re a good sort. Changed my opinion. Yes, yes, I have. Don’t mind me saying so, changed my opinion.’
‘Very kind of you, very kind of you, I’m sure.’
‘Well, as I said to the old man, ’tis common knowledge that you’re not rolling in it, and here you’re gona marry a girl who hasn’t a penny.’
Only the music could be heard now and the shuffling of feet and the dimmed laughter and in it Douglas’s head was once again turned towards Bridget. Now she was looking back at him. Then Douglas heard his brother’s voice come as a low hiss through the leaves, saying, ‘What did you say?’
‘What d’you mean, what did I say? Well, just that…well, ’tis good of you to pick her up. Love match. Yes, love match. Now if it had been Miss Brid…well, you would have been warm enough all right there.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Nothing, man. Nothing. Well, Dad doing their business. And ’tis well known Miss Bridget took them in…I mean her dad did. Penniless. They were penniless…Hi! Hi! Take your hands off me! You should have known. Well, everybody…knew, every…body…’
When the palm swayed towards them Douglas pushed Bridget further along the form out of the way of the falling plant. Then he darted around to where Lionel was thrusting the drunken informant over the tub and onto the swaying plant, and with a surprising show of strength from his thin right arm he brought it up under his brother’s wrists and so sent Lionel staggering back. Then pulling the gasping figure upwards from the palm, he said, ‘Are you all right, Mr Kemp?’
The man spluttered. ‘All right? No, I’m not all right. He’s…he’s a bloody maniac…All I said was that she wasn’t the one with the cash. Nice party this, attacked…Where’s my father? I’m off out of here.’ The man staggered towards the ballroom door, and Douglas turned to look at his brother, who had now gained some control of himself, and he said to him, almost commanded him, ‘Pull yourself together!’
‘Pull myself together?’ The voice was like a hiss. ‘Do you know what…?’
‘Yes. Yes, I know what. I was sitting behind the palm. And do you know what, too?’ Douglas’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘Miss Bridget was sitting there with me.’
Lionel looked towards the end of the conservatory, then muttered, ‘God!’
‘Look, it’s nearly over, the dance is finishing. Go in there and make the next one the last; then they’ll all go, and we can talk.’
‘Talk?’ Lionel leaned his face, looking unusually pale, closer to his brother’s, saying, ‘Talk? What is there to talk about? Did you hear him? She…she hasn’t a penny. My God!’ He put his hand to the side of his head now and pressed it as if thrusting his thoughts away.
‘This has got to be worked out. It’s too late now to renege. Go on; do as I say.’
It was, for the moment, as if Douglas were the elder and directing the affairs of the house, for he actually put his hand on his brother’s back and pressed him towards the open doors again. But here, Lionel drew in a long breath, squared his shoulders, shrugged off his brother’s hand, and walked into the ballroom, leaving Douglas standing now and looking towards the palm lying at such an angle as if it, too, had imbibed overmuch on this evening of celebration.
He walked slowly back to where Bridget was standing at the end of the bench, her back against the wall. She appeared to him to be very tall at this moment; and her face looked tight and drawn, the large eyes that had only a short while ago been wet with laughter were now gleaming black and hard through the dimness. He put his hand out to guide her around the palm leaves that were sprawled across the bench, but she refused the gesture, and pressed past him, saying, ‘Is this true? He thought she was wealthy?’
He could not look at her; he actually turned from her and, unseeing, gazed down the length of the conservatory before he said, ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But she told him. She told me that she had made it plain to him.’
‘If that is so, I can’t understand it,’ he said. ‘I recall once her laughingly saying that she was just a poor girl, but rich in so many ways, which, to me, suggested…Lionel’s love for her.’
‘What will he do?’
‘I can’t say, because I don’t know. I can only say, and truthfully, he hasn’t got a penny of his own. He depends upon my father; as I did until
I started earning a little at my own trade, which I’ve told you about. But I don’t think I have any need to point out to you that my father and the estate are in a very bad way.’
‘And Victoria was going to be the saving of it. Is that it?’
He looked away again. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s it. But’—his head jerked round—‘I’m sure, as I was when I answered your questions, that besides the matter of the money, Lionel is very fond of Victoria. Very.’
She thrust past him to go and stand looking through the open door at the dancing still in progress. And what she said now was, ‘I suspected something right from the beginning. The whole thing was too unreal, too like a fairy tale, too rushed. But I know one thing for sure, this will kill her.’
‘Oh—’ And Douglas’s intervention on behalf of his brother had something of a note of disbelief in it as he went on, ‘People don’t die these days from unrequited love; the swooning lady’s day is over,’ but then actually stepped back from the quiet but determined onslaught of her voice as she turned on him, saying, ‘What do you know about it? People do die from unrequited love. Not straight away, no; they just shrivel until there’s nothing left of them. And that’s what will happen to her. She not only loves that man, she’s besotted with him, she adores him and, strangely, she holds him high in honour because she imagined that he was taking in marriage a penniless girl just because he loved her.’
There was silence between them and in it the laughter from those seated around the ballroom shrieked in their ears. Some of it was raucous, the result of some ribaldry or other; some was mere tittering, expressing refined shock. But neither of them moved until the music stopped, when, as if emerging from a deep conclave with herself, she turned to him, saying, still quietly but nevertheless forthrightly, ‘Don’t do anything. I mean, find him and tell him not to do anything until tomorrow. I’ll come over in the morning. I shall be here at half past nine prompt, and I shall want to see him and his father.’
She went to move away, but his voice saying, ‘Bridget!’ halted her, and when she looked at him over her shoulder, he said, ‘I’m sorry, very sorry.’
She said nothing further, but went on into the ballroom and made her way to where a radiant Victoria was standing fanning herself as she listened to the solicitor’s profuse apologies about his dancing.
Addressing the man by his Christian name, as her father had always done, Bridget said, ‘Andrew, I want to call on you tomorrow afternoon. Three o’clock?’
‘Oh, Miss Bridget, you really are the most…you really are. Here I am in the middle of apologising for my feet’s atrocious efforts and you are making an appointment…’
‘Andrew. I am very tired, and Victoria is, too. We are going home now.’ She paused and, turning to Victoria, she said, pointedly, ‘Say goodbye to…Lionel.’ She had to make an effort to voice the name.
‘But it is just on the last…’
‘Please, Victoria! As I said, I am very tired. It is near two o’clock in the morning and I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow…Please.’
‘Yes. Well. Yes, Bridget.’
As Bridget threaded her way through the dispersing dancers, both Victoria and Mr Andrew Kemp looked after her and Victoria said, ‘I’ve never heard her say she’s tired before and she’s hardly danced at all. And she looked…Oh dear.’
Mr Kemp said nothing but he thought, No, neither have I heard her admit to being tired. And she wants to see me tomorrow at three o’clock. Now what’s in the wind? She never does anything without a purpose, does Miss Bridget. She should, to my mind, have been a man. Well, her father nearly made her into one, business-wise anyway.
‘Come, my dear.’ He held out his arm. ‘Let me take you and leave you in the protection of your future husband. I cannot see him here, but we must find him, eh?’ Then he added, ‘Happy?’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Kemp, so very happy. So very, very happy. It’s been a wonderful ball.’
And it could have gone on; but Bridget had to bring it to an end…Why? And she looked so…Dear, dear! She could be very awkward at times.
Five
The morning was bright, and from the ridges of a sloping field away to the right of her the sun was drawing up fresh green sprigs. To the left, towering above the high stone wall, the trees were all weighed down with newborn leaves still dripping moisture from the early morning shower.
Hamlet, too, was evidently feeling the pull of Spring because he had the urge to canter, not to walk or trot as he had been bidden to do.
Bridget, deep in thought, was now walking him, for she was nearing the gate of Grove House through which she had only a few hours earlier been driven with a puzzled Victoria by her side, whose thoughts had alternated between the wonders of the evening past and concern for her cousin’s changed manner: What was the matter? Had someone said something to her? Having spent most of the evening with Douglas, had he annoyed her? Lionel had said Douglas was a very odd fellow, not caring for company, and when he wasn’t chipping away at bits of wood or stone he was tramping the hills.
Bridget had forced herself to answer: No, there was nothing wrong, but she was feeling a little unwell, and she was tired.
And now this morning she had reason to be tired for she had hardly slept. It would have been quite three o’clock before they had gone to bed, and from then her mind had been working and planning the best course to take to assure Victoria’s future happiness; she knew, and without a doubt, that as things stood Lionel Filmore would never marry her, and there crept into her mind the thought that perhaps Victoria had withheld the knowledge of her true situation from him. She had twice already questioned her about this and each time had been given the same answer: ‘I’ve told him I’m a poor girl.’
But how had she said that? That was the question. Had she put it over as a joke? Rich people did make a joke of being poor; some even acted as if they were. What about herself? She certainly didn’t dress or act the part of a wealthy young woman. And so, thinking along those lines, she felt she was as much to blame as Victoria for the situation that had come about. Going back to the way she dressed: being judged by that, she must have appeared as the working partner.
She wished fervently now that she had done what she was tempted to do when her father died, sold Milton Place and lived permanently in Meadow House, their original home in South Shields: this was the house she had always thought of as home. But, as her father had maintained, Milton Place wasn’t a kick in the backside from all that was going on in the business world, particularly in their form of small businesses tucked away under the skirts of the big fellas, the steelworks, the shipyards, the mines, all the grinding businesses that brought men to early death. Theirs, he had laughingly stated, was like a group of little hobbies. But very paying little hobbies, as his father and grandfather before him had made evident in their wills.
She recalled his pet story with regard to the accumulation of pennies. It concerned a man who had done a great service for the king and the king apparently wanted to bestow gold and jewels on him by way of his thanks. But the seemingly humble man had said, ‘No, sire. All I would ask of you is to give me a penny and thenceforward each day double the accumulated worth.’ A penny! And the king had laughed. This humble man was only asking for a penny and to double its worth each day. But the king laughed no more when within a comparatively short time the man who had asked for a penny to begin with bought his kingdom, leaving him bereft of all he owned.
It was a tall tale, but in 1825 John and Arthur Mordaunt had made their first little batch of blacking, mainly out of soot and fat, and it wasn’t a very good or lasting product; but they learnt as they went along. And for them, this start was the equivalent of their penny. It was odd, too, that each of the brothers had two sons, and so this line had followed down to her father and his brother Sep. However, Septimus apparently was the only one of the Mordaunt men who wanted nothing to do with blacking, polishes, or candles; such business was lowly. So he had taken his share, married a beautiful
but mindless young girl, whisked her abroad, and there he had gambled in different ways. However, it hadn’t been the tables that ruined him but the lure of the gold mines. And, like the prodigal son, he had returned broken in body and also in mind to the house where he had been born, and he and his child had been welcomed with open arms.
It was strange, Bridget thought, if this business of the engagement had taken place in their old home there would have been no mistaking the identity between them, because the story of the two brothers was common knowledge in Shields. It was fresh, not only in the minds of the old, but in those of middle age, and they would have put any stranger straight as to who was the head of the Mordaunt business. And they would have added in their forthright ways, ‘She’s only got eight fingers but she’s got them stuck in all kinds of pies, and she keeps her thumbs bare for testing new ones.’
There was no-one about to take her horse, so she tied it to a post, then walked to the front of the house. She had no need to ring the bell because the double doors were open, and she stood looking in to where there was a scurry of activity. Two men were emerging from the long panelled corridor carrying what looked like a china cabinet. The carpets were down on the floor and a maid was arranging chairs, while another’s business seemed to be the placing of ornaments here and there. No-one seemed to take any notice of her until a man went to pass her. He was carrying a large potted plant which he pressed away from his face as he glimpsed her, then said, ‘Oh! Mornin’, miss.’ Then turning, he called into the hall, ‘Mr Bright! There’s a young lady here.’
The butler appeared from the region of the drawing room. He was different from the man who last night had announced her and Victoria. Then he had been attired in bright blue livery, as had the other manservants, lending colour to the brilliantly lit rooms. Now the dull grey of his noticeably shabby uniform seemed reflected in his face, and he looked tired. She noticed this, but did not comment on it. What she said to him, was, ‘I am expected.’
The Black Candle Page 8
