by Anne Douglas
‘Come on, Mother,’ Jack said impatiently. ‘If you want time for a decent lunch before your appointment, we’d better get along to the hotel now. Mrs MacNeil, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yes, Mr Durno, Rosa said as he and his mother turned left and she turned right, feeling glad that her employer had had the sense not to call her ‘Rosa’ while his mother was with him.
But what a tiring morning it had been! No need to tell Daniel too much about it, just perhaps that she had met Mr Durno’s mother. He’d probably be pleased, feeling that such a presence would add to the artist’s respectability, though the good thing was that Daniel no longer seemed to worry about that. And why should he? There was no need for him to worry about anything at all where Rosa and her employer were concerned.
Thirty-Seven
Summer beckoned, a time for those who could afford it to go on holiday, one of them being Jack Durno, who was going to the south of France on a painting holiday.
‘I’d just as soon stay here,’ he told Rosa, ‘but I’ve got a couple of friends who want me to go with them so I’m making the effort. Would you and Mrs Goudy take the same time off so I can close the house?’
Certainly they could, Rosa told him, relieved that she could take the break Daniel wanted. Her husband only had a week and it was a long way to go for such a short time, but they were planning to go back home to the Highlands.
‘I was worrying that it would not be convenient for you to have me away,’ Rosa told Jack, ‘but it will be all right if you’re to be away yourself, won’t it?’
‘Of course it will,’ Jack told her. ‘Things have worked out well. And don’t forget, you’ll still be paid even if you’re on holiday. I’m a firm believer in workers’ rights – everyone should have holidays with pay.’
‘Why, Mr Durno, you’re the only person who says that,’ Rosa told him, smiling. ‘Most people don’t get holidays anyhow. You might believe in workers’ rights, but as things stand not many have them. I think I must be lucky to work for you.’
‘The luck,’ Jack said with sudden seriousness, ‘is entirely mine.’ But at her look of embarrassment, he changed the subject, telling her she must do some drawing on her holiday. Bring him back a picture of her old home or maybe the Moray Firth – he’d be interested.
Still embarrassed, Rosa only said she must get on and with some relief left him before he could come up with any more ideas for how she might spend her holiday.
The strange thing was that, in spite of all the time she had to spend with her Da and Daniel’s mother, she was still able to find herself buying a cheap, unlined exercise book at the post office and sitting down one fine afternoon to sketch her favourite view of the Moray Firth. And enjoy for a little while being alone.
Greg had said he wished he could be with her, but he had a plastering job to do for the schoolmaster, and Daniel had taken his mother to Nairn to get something or other she had to have, while Mrs MacRitchie from next door was very busy, having invited everyone to have their tea with her that day. Just typical of her, being so generous, Da had said, at which Rosa had bravely asked what was the situation between him and her? Were they still not engaged, or anything?
‘Cannot understand what you mean by “anything”, Greg had answered. ‘Just leave us be, eh?’
If they ever did get engaged or married, Rosa would be the first to know.
‘And Lorne?’ Rosa had asked quietly. ‘You’ll have to tell her, if you can.’
‘I have had no news, Rosa, not for a long while.’ Greg had heaved a long sigh. ‘One o’ these days we might hear something, maybe good news at that, but I’m not counting on it. ’Tis a relief to me that you and Daniel are happy and settled. Which you are, eh?’
And Rosa had agreed that they were.
So, here she was with her pencil and her makeshift sketchbook, lost in admiration as usual of her favourite view of the Moray Firth. Only problem was how to draw something that she’d dare to show Mr Durno. (Jack, as she sometimes thought of him, but never ever spoke aloud).
‘Come on,’ she told herself, ‘get on with it.’ And by the time Daniel came to find her, she had at last completed a sketch that might do. If she had the nerve ever to show it to Mr Durno.
To her astonishment, he liked it. Or said he did when, with some trepidation, she showed it to him on her return to work. In fact, he was so enthusiastic, Rosa wondered if he was putting on an act, but he seemed quite genuine, even suggesting something she hadn’t thought of, which was to make copies of her sketch and put them on sale.
‘On sale?’ Rosa stared at Jack’s cheerful face. ‘I couldn’t put them on sale. I’m not an artist. No one would want them.’
‘Of course they would! You’d be surprised. People love that part of the world you’ve drawn. And I could market them for you. I have an agent, I have contacts. Just leave everything to me.’
But Rosa wasn’t happy. She had the feeling she was on some sort of rollercoaster that was taking her somewhere beyond her control, and what Daniel would say to her selling her drawings would not be hard to guess. When she said as much to Jack, he shrugged a little before asking, to her surprise, ‘Do you have to tell him?’
Her dark eyes widening, it took her a moment to reply. ‘He’s my husband, Mr Durno,’ she said at last. ‘I should tell him.’
His colour rose as he turned away, saying quietly, ‘Of course, Rosa, of course.’
Surprisingly, Daniel didn’t seem too much against the idea of Rosa selling copies of her drawings, taking the view that if she must get involved with this art business, she might as well be paid for it. Not that he expected much to come of it, for who would want to buy work by an unknown young female artist? He couldn’t see it working out himself, but was eventually pleasantly surprised when Rosa did in fact make a little money.
‘As long as you don’t get too involved,’ he told her seriously. ‘Remember what counts in our lives.’
‘Of course I’ll remember!’ she cried. ‘I know what matters to us, Daniel, and it’s not me making a bit of pin money, as they call it.’
‘Exactly,’ he said firmly. ‘I know that you needed something in your life after we knew we couldn’t have a family, and I suppose this is it. Just don’t let it go too far, eh?’
‘Don’t worry,’ she told him confidently. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
But what she had forgotten was that she wasn’t the only person involved in what might be described now as her new life, and even Daniel seemed to have forgotten that too.
Thirty-Eight
Between them, Rosa and Jack Durno had contrived to achieve a very pleasant routine, with Jack continuing to balance the profitable portrait side of his work with his impressionist artwork, and Rosa taking pleasure in adding her drawing ability to her usual cleaning duties.
Sometimes Jack told her she was wasted spending time cleaning, and that they should find someone else to do all that sort of thing, at which she could only widen her fine eyes and tell him that would be foolish and not what she wanted at all. The truth behind everything was that she didn’t want to have to tell Daniel if things changed, for who could say how he would react? Much better just to keep to the present routine she shared with Jack and not speak of it to Daniel.
If only they had kept to that routine! But it was only with hindsight that she could see what they should have done, and by then she’d learned that the easy routine they’d had could never have lasted. Perhaps Jack had never wanted it to, and it was only blind Rosa who couldn’t see that.
The change came when, one day out of the blue, he asked Rosa if he might paint her portrait. Her portrait? She had stared at him. Make her into one of the sitters she tidied the studio for? Those she opened the door to and escorted up the stairs? The idea was absurd and, though Rosa knew that there was never any need for Daniel to be suspicious, she also knew he would have been if he ever heard about Jack’s request, even though Rosa had immediately refused it. There was no way she could ever
risk letting him paint her portrait and then Daniel finding out.
‘I don’t see why you don’t want it,’ Jack told her, looking mystified. ‘It could be a present for your husband. Surely he would want it? He must know you are—’
‘Are what?’ she asked when Jack didn’t finish.
‘Well, worth painting, of course.’
‘I just don’t want my portrait painted,’ she declared after a moment. ‘It’s kind of you but I … don’t think it would be right … for me.’
‘It’s something I’d like to do. As I say, it could be a present for Daniel. May I call him that?’
‘It would be better for him not to be involved. I try to keep my work here and my home separate.’
‘If that’s what you want,’ Jack said, shrugging, ‘I’ll say no more.’
‘I do appreciate your offer,’ she added hastily. ‘It’s very kind of you.’
‘Kind? Not really. I’d be doing it for my own pleasure.’
As he rested his eyes on her, there was something in his gaze that made her heart beat faster with a knowledge she’d never recognized before, though perhaps she should have done. A knowledge she did not want which she was already worrying over, asking herself if, now she’d seen it, she shouldn’t at once leave Jack Durno’s employment. For what she had seen in his eyes was a feeling for her that should not have been his, for which he had no right, and which to his credit he had never put into words. No, thank God, nothing had been said, probably never would be said, so maybe she could just stay on? Keep things as they were? After all, she loved her work at number eight – the improvements she’d made in the house and the new talent she had found in herself that had made such a difference to her life.
How could she give all that up? Go back to being at home all day? A housewife again and nothing else? Stifling a pang of guilt, she decided she need not leave Jack Durno’s employment, at least not just yet and, answering his unspoken, anxious question, she said she must get on with her work, for soon it would be lunchtime.
‘You’re not … planning to leave?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘I mean, the job?’
‘I don’t see why I should,’ she said, after a silence during which they exchanged uneasy looks.
‘I’ll see you out,’ Jack said breathing fast.
‘It’s not time yet.’
‘I mean, when you’re ready to go.’
At long last, they looked away from each other, and while Rosa moved downstairs to continue her duties, Jack turned back to his easel and took up his brush with a trembling hand.
Thirty-Nine
Guilt. Never before had Rosa felt it as she did now when Daniel was with her, even though she tried hard to convince herself she didn’t really need to feel it at all. After all, what had she done? It wasn’t her fault that her employer had developed feelings for her he should not have, so she liked to reason. But the truth was that she knew very well that once she knew about those feelings, she should have given in her notice and never seen Jack or his studio again.
There came the guilt, then, for she hadn’t done that. She had been happy with what she had at number eight, hadn’t wanted to give it up, and as long as Daniel wasn’t hurt – and he wasn’t – there seemed no need for anything to change.
But the time would come and soon, when he was hurt and there was every need for change – even though Rosa herself had had no hand in bringing it about. For her, it came as a bolt from the blue when he came home from work one day and stood before her with the face of a stranger, so frightening to her that she dropped the teapot she had been rinsing and called to him, ‘Daniel, what is it? What’s happened? What’s wrong?’
‘What’s happened?’ he repeated, stumbling to get the words out. ‘What’s happened? Only that you’ve been deceiving me – me, your husband! Going out to that fellow’s house every day without a backward glance, when all the time … all the time—’
‘All the time what? Daniel, I don’t understand what you are talking about! Tell me what’s wrong!’
‘When all the time he was painting your portrait, wasn’t he? You were sitting for him, letting him stare and stare at you as though he was in love with you – which he is, isn’t he? How can I bear the thought of that?’
Daniel, dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands while Rosa stood where she was, unable to move, swept into a nightmare that was not of her making yet so real, so terrifying, she could scarcely speak to defend herself.
Somehow, though, she found the words and the strength to move nearer to Daniel, even to put her hand on his shoulder, at the same time, crying, ‘Daniel, I never knew he had painted my portrait – I swear that is true. He asked me and I refused, so if he still painted it, I knew nothing about it. How do you know, anyhow? Where have you seen it? I don’t understand—’
‘You’re saying you didn’t know?’ he asked, looking up at her with terrible eyes. ‘How can I believe that? It’s in one of the galleries in Dundas Street. You must have seen it, Rosa. You must have known about it!’
‘I swear I knew nothing. I told you, I refused to let him paint me, so if he did, it was behind my back. Oh, please, Daniel, believe me! I love only you. Whatever Mr Durno feels, I don’t return it. I don’t, I don’t! Please believe me, Daniel, please!’
‘You’re still telling me you didn’t know how he felt about you?’ Daniel, standing tall over her, was suddenly contemptuous. ‘Rosa, that’s nonsense! All women know when a man cares. It’s something born in them, to know, and you’d have known. So, even if Jack Durno never said, never declared how he felt—’
‘He didn’t, Daniel, he didn’t. He never said a word!’
‘I’m saying you’d have known anyway and what I want to know is why you didn’t leave him as soon as you did? Give in your notice then? God damn it, why didn’t you leave him and tell me why?’
A dreadful cloud, as dark as in a thunderstorm, seemed to have settled over Rosa’s bowed head as she asked herself that same question. Why had she not done it? And she knew it was because she had wanted to keep her artwork going, to be successful in something so different from anything she had ever done before. It hadn’t seemed to matter that if she’d only thought about it, she’d have known she was not only being selfish but was causing damage to the most important thing of all – her marriage.
From the look on Daniel’s face – still so cold, so hard – she knew it was too late now to do anything to mend what she had damaged. All she could do was what she should have done before and leave Jack Durno’s employment as soon as possible. Tomorrow, in fact.
‘I’ll leave tomorrow,’ she told Daniel, her voice low, thick with tears. ‘I’ll give my notice in tomorrow.’
‘By letter,’ he said harshly. ‘Which I will put through his letterbox myself. You need not see him again.’
‘I’ve things I need to collect, Daniel. I can’t just leave like that.’
‘All right, so in your letter, you must request that anything of yours in his house he must parcel up and send here by post. That’s all you need to say.’
‘All?’ Rosa brushed the tears from her face. ‘You want me to say nothing of why? Why I’m going?’
‘You want to say something?’ he snapped, and at the continued harshness of his voice and severity of his face, Rosa moved away, unable any longer to face him.
‘I’m going to put the kettle on,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to make some tea.’
‘Tea?’ Daniel laughed, a harsh, brittle laugh that was worse than any tears. ‘That’s the answer to everything, you think? A pot of tea?’
‘It might help.’
‘Not me, Rosa. Don’t make any for me. I’m going out.’
‘Where?’ she asked wildly. ‘Daniel, where are you going?’
‘I don’t know. Just out. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll probably be late.’
And as the door banged behind him and the kettle sang unheeded on the stove, Rosa, though she let her tears flow freely, found no rel
ief, nor any kind of hope that relief would come.
Forty
Of course, she waited up for him, sitting in her nightgown and shawl watching the door, and when he finally opened it after midnight, had to hold herself back from running to him, throwing her arms around him and holding him tight. He, her abstemious husband, had been drinking – she could smell it on him, on his face, his hair – but at least the alcohol had done some good, for the earlier severity of his expression had changed to a blankness that gave her hope that his anger towards herself might have softened. Once they were together again in their bed, surely all would be well? Surely, then, they could learn to come through this awful patch they were suffering to find again their familiar love?
But it seemed they were not to be together in their bed, for Daniel, walking not altogether straight, was passing Rosa without even looking at her, saying he was away to his bed, and was already tearing off his jacket and tie as she ran to him and caught his arm.
‘Daniel, our own bed’s all ready – come to it, please, come to me. I’ve been waiting for you—’
He turned, then, and looked at her briefly before moving away, only saying over his shoulder that he would be sleeping in the spare room that night.
‘The spare room?’ Rosa’s words were a cry of anguish. ‘What do you mean, you’re sleeping in the spare room? We’ve never slept apart since we were married!’
‘There’s always a first time,’ he said carelessly.
‘There are no sheets on that bed—’
‘To hell with sheets, I don’t need any. So, goodnight. Tomorrow, remember we have your letter to write to Jack Durno. I want him to know as soon as possible that you are not seeing him again.’
She could hardly believe what was happening to them, how it had all come about, except that she must face the fact that it was all her own fault. If she had done the right thing and left when she’d realized Jack cared for her, she and Daniel would not be as they were now. Strangers to each other, sleeping in different beds, married and yet apart. And there was nothing she could do.
