Last night was like a bad dream, a mixed-up nightmare. Had she really seen men battling with each other? And had she ever lifted her foot and kicked an old woman in the stomach? And her eyes ever witnessed what they had when she opened those doors?
But it was no nightmare, as the figure sitting to the side of the fireplace reminded her. Her daughter wasn’t sitting like an unruly child hugging her knees, but rather like a woman, her left hand under her right oxter and her right hand gripping her left arm; and like this she was rocking herself backwards and forwards.
‘Set the breakfast.’
When Annie didn’t turn her gaze from the fire Emma barked at her, ‘Did you hear me?’
The girl now getting to her feet said, ‘Aye, I heard you, but I’m not gona do any work. I’m not used to it anyway. And I hate this place. It…it…’
‘Yes, I know how it smells,’ Emma interrupted her; ‘it smells of the earth, and that’s a clean smell, and you’re goin’ to help keep it clean, because now you’re goin’ to set that table and then you’re goin’ to get a bucket in your hand and scrub out the hall and then this kitchen.’
‘I’ll not.’
‘Oh well, we’ll see if you won’t. Take your choice, it’s either that or locked in your room with bread and scrape. And you’ll have plenty of time to do nothing up there, for I’ll take the mattress away and your clothes. But you won’t mind that, will you? And anything else that might give you comfort. Now I’m going in to your father and when I return I’ll know if you’ve made your mind up or not.’
With this, she turned abruptly and went out of the kitchen and into the hall, and from there she heard Barney shouting, ‘Emma! Emma!’ As she opened the door he had his mouth open ready to yell again, and now he demanded, ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Outside; there’s things to see to.’
‘Aye. Aye.’ His head stopped moving restlessly on the pillow as he said quietly now, ‘It’s come to a pretty pass, by God it has. I’ve had the worst night since this happened.’ He now lowered his lids and looked down the length of his inert body. ‘I couldn’t sleep, and of all things I kept thinking about love.’ He glanced at her. ‘It became strange, for in the darkness I imagined I could see it. It was a funny experience. It looked wider than the world; it had so many strings to it and all tangled up with other strings, like hate. Love’s near hate, you know, Emma.’ He slanted his eyes again towards her. ‘I loved me ma at times, but at others I hated her. And me da an’ all. Aye, I loved him once. And then there was our Luke. That was a different kind of love, but strong, it was like loving meself. Natural, I suppose, with the same blood running in our veins. Yet here I am, hating him with a feeling stronger than any love I ever had for him. The parson says it’s no use hanging on to retaliation, it only wears you out. Well, our Luke left me nothing to wear out but me mind and as long as that works I’ll hate him. Then there was you, Emma.’ Again his eyes were turned towards her, and he now kept them fixed on her as he said, ‘I think I loved you from the minute I first saw you, but there came a time when I hated you. Aye, I did when wantin’ you and couldn’t have you and you burnt me up so much that you came between me and me wits. Pictures of you blotted out everything I was handling, whether it was milking, mucking out, herding the sheep, or ploughing. As the earth used to spurn the blade as I went up the furrow and showed itself naked, so I would see you, an’ because I couldn’t ease meself on anybody else, with you in me mind, I began for a time to hate you. You never knew that, did you?’
She did not even shake her head, but stood staring at him, thinking, He’s talking just like the parson, taking things to bits and looking inside them.
When he looked away from her and up at the ceiling he said quietly, ‘And there’s the love you feel when your child is born and you hear its first cry. That’s somethin’ different altogether, as is the hate you have for her knowin’ she’s gone wrong. Why?’ His head jerked upwards, his eyes glaring at her. ‘Knowing she comes from us two ordinary living folk, I say again to you, why?’
As she saw the tears spurting from his eyes she could bear no more, she swung around and rushed from the room.
Seven
Henry wrote in his book:
It has been a beautiful day; the sun has been very hot, too hot. What a pity we have no power to moderate the weather. Last week it rained incessantly for days; added to which the wind blew and a lot of the crops looked devastated. This week the sun has shone, but again the weather has shown no happy medium. It’s like a capricious child, all sunshine or tears. Which brings my mind to Emma and Annie. I say brings, but is my mind ever free from the former? She is looking so care-worn, she has no flesh on her. And that child…no, she is a child no longer, not even a girl. Yet she is not a woman. God help her, for she is the essence of all mythology: she is Venus and she is a Gorgon, for the child is ugly inside. When I spoke to her, she answered me like a woman of the streets. What’s to be done? What is Emma to do with her?
Emma is quiet now; she has very little to say to me. She has told no-one what she witnessed upstairs in that house, except, as Pete said, to say that the girl was with a man.
There is so much unhappiness around me, and in me too. The bishop detected it yesterday. ‘Are you well?’ he said. ‘Yes, my lord,’ I answered. Then he said, ‘You seem troubled. Is there anything you wish to tell me about your parish?’
‘No, my lord,’ I answered. ‘Very little happens in the village’—and that was a lie—‘things go on as they always have done.’ And to this he replied, ‘Then it’s a happy situation.’ Oh, if only I could have given the answer, ‘It is not a happy situation, my lord, neither physically, mentally, nor spiritually, and since my spiritual welfare concerns yourself, I must tell you that I no longer feel a man of God…’
Yet that would not have been right: it isn’t that I no longer feel a man of God, but that I no longer feel able to accept all the doctrine that man has put into the mouth of God, or, coming nearer to earth, into the mouth of Jesus. His enemies crucified Him, but his friends split Him up into so many denominations that religion has become like a parliament, one party fighting for power against another.
He dipped his pen in the inkwell again and was placing it on the paper when his hand flew halfway across the page, ending in a scratch and a blot, and he swung round in his chair to see Miss Wilkinson standing in the middle of the room. Still turned towards her, he put out his right hand and closed the book as he said, ‘I thought you had gone some time ago?’
‘Well, I was doing the church for the morrow with the flowers’n things. Mrs Wilson’s hurt her hand and you can never rely on Lily Mason, and I was short of a vase. I…I came in to see if I could get you a drink?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve already had my evening meal, you know.’
‘Yes, I know; but that’s a long time ago and I just thought you might be thankful for a drink.’
‘No, thank you, Miss Wilkinson. It’s very kind of you, but I’ll have nothing more tonight.’
She didn’t move, but said now, ‘I’ve mended that rent in your coat. I don’t know how you managed to do that.’
‘I told you, I caught it on a thorn bush.’
‘Yes, yes, you told me.’
Still she didn’t move. And so, turning to the desk again, he took up the book, placed it in the drawer and locked it, then as usual put the key in the inside pocket of his coat, and as he turned back to her she said, ‘You know what they’re saying in the village, an’ round about, about the latest?’
‘What is the latest, Miss Wilkinson?’
‘Well, you know as well as I do, about Annie Yorkless being back, don’t you?’
‘Oh, that.’ He jerked his chin upwards and closed his eyes for a moment, saying, ‘Yes, yes, everybody knows that Annie’s back.’
‘’Tis a funny business that, don’t you think?’
‘That she’s back? She likely got homesick.’
‘That’s all in me eye an’ Gr
anny Martin.’
For a moment he felt inclined to laugh. Anyone else could have repeated that saying, but coming from the prim Miss Wilkinson, it wasn’t in keeping. However he managed to keep his face straight as she went on, ‘Homesick? Well, I wonder if it was her that gave her Uncle Peter his black eye and split lip, or knocked farmer Yorkless half daft, as Mary Petty says, for he’s gone around holding his head for days. And it all happened on the night she was supposed to return home. People are not stupid, you know, Parson, nor blind, and things link up. The latest comes from young Simon Tate. He was out rabbiting the very next morning and what does he see? The lady of the manor, Mrs Fordyke herself, and Emma Yorkless in deep conversation. And not at the farm, but along the lane, hidden like, and this just turned six in the morning. I bet you didn’t know that.’
She now nodded at him, and when he remained silent she went on, ‘’Tis the opinion of many in the village that young Annie Yorkless has been in service of some kind through the influence of Mrs Fordyke, that Emma, wanting to push her daughter on, took advantage of the times that she was invited up there by the old man to do her circus tricks and got the girl set on with some of her ladyship’s friends.’
‘Don’t be silly, woman. Have you forgotten that Annie went missing.’
‘She was supposed to.’ Miss Wilkinson’s voice was stiff and her hands joined at the band of her black serge skirt showed the knuckles to be white where the bones were pressing against her skin. ‘It was all a tale.’
‘Why? In the name of God, why? Have they worked that out?’
‘No, but they will.’ Her head was nodding at him now. ‘They’re not the fools that some people take them to be.’
‘I’m surprised at that then, Miss Wilkinson, because only a fool would suspect there was any connection between Annie’s disappearance, or her return, and the Hall.’
‘You needn’t get youself in frazzle, Parson, I was just telling you what’s been said, thinkin’ you should know ’cos…’cos it’s my opinion’—and now she made one deep obeisance with her head—‘that you close your eyes and your ears to lots of things that should be stretching them.’
‘That is enough, Miss Wilkinson.’
Her mouth went into a tight line; then as if it were being drawn by a thread, it puckered, causing the lines of her skin to appear like channels running from her nose. Swinging round, she made for the door and from there her voice came back to him. ‘I don’t know why I stay here,’ she said.
And he answered her, ‘I don’t know either.’ His words halted her for a second, and then the door banged on her.
Sitting down at the desk again, he leant his elbows on it and covered his face with his hands. He said he didn’t know why she stayed, he knew all right, and she had given herself the place she desired, acting like a nagging wife in all quarters of the house except his bedroom.
After rising to his feet he walked to the window. It was open, and, looking out into the darkening night, he drew deeply on the soft warm air. The window was at the front of the house and faced the drive, and now he bent sharply forward as he saw a figure coming down the drive. He knew that step; he knew the height of her; if she had been walking in a battalion of women he would have recognised her. Within seconds he was at the front door holding it open, looking down at her as she mounted the three steps.
‘Emma.’
‘I’ve been to see Mary, she’s…she’s in a bad way. I couldn’t get down until now, with things to do and that…and I thought that if you weren’t busy, I might…I might—’
Her words were low and hesitant and he held out his hand towards her, saying, ‘Come in. Come in.’
When he had closed the door he pointed towards the sitting room, saying, ‘It’s many years since you were in this house, Emma.’
‘Yes it is. The last time I came to Sunday school, I think.’
They were in the sitting room now and she looked about her. She considered the farm to be rather comfortless, though the cushions and covers and mats that she had made over the years during the long winter evenings had added a little warmth here and there; but this room was stark, not that the furniture wasn’t good, she could see that the chairs and tables were made of either mahogany or oak, but everything in the room appeared heavy, brown and drab. The floor was covered with brown linoleum and even the mat at the fireplace was brown.
‘Sit down.’ He had drawn a chair forward towards the window, and he added, ‘The light’s fading, but I never light the lamp until I must, I like the twilight.’
After he was seated opposite to her they became silent while they looked at each other, and then she turned her head from him and gazed out of the window as she said, ‘I…I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered you, but when I was in the village, well, it suddenly struck me—’ She was looking at him again as she finished rapidly, ‘I had to speak to someone, talk to someone about it. I promised I wouldn’t but I can talk to you and it will never go further. There was no chance up there; anyway, I couldn’t talk about it up there.’
When she stopped for a moment he said softly, ‘Something else has happened?’
‘No’—she shook her head—‘it’s already happened, it’s filling my head both night and day. I thought if perhaps I told you, it would…well…Oh I don’t know.’ She put her hand to her throat.
‘Does it concern what you saw upstairs in that house?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded at him; ‘but not only that, it’s…it’s who I saw, the man I saw Annie with and the condition they were in.’
‘Luke?’ His voice was merely a whisper, but she shook her head quickly, saying, ‘No, no. I could have understood it more if it had been him. No, it wasn’t Luke. But he was in on it. Oh yes, I know that, he was in on it. No, it was—’ For a moment it appeared that there was a stoppage in her throat and that only by gulping quickly could she get rid of it, and after a moment she released the name from her lips, ‘Mr Fordyke.’
Slowly his body bent towards her, his mouth opened, his eyes narrowed, his mouth closed again before he said softly, ‘Emma, do you know what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, I know what I’m saying.’
‘Mr Fordyke?’
‘Yes, Mr Fordyke.’
‘You couldn’t have been mis…’
‘No, no, I couldn’t have been mistaken. He hadn’t a stitch on him, but I not only recognised him, he recognised me, and for the moment was frightened out of his life, so much so that he crawled to his wife and she came to me early that following mornin’ and begged for my silence. And although I promised her for her sake and that of her sons, who I understand are about to be married, I still want to stand in the village square and scream his name out aloud. Can you understand that?’
He made no answer but he got to his feet and walked away from her to the end of the room, where he stood for a moment before turning towards her again; and as he looked down on her bent head he thought: A few minutes ago I scorned the villagers through Miss Wilkinson, thinking them a lot of ignorant tactless fools, but, as many of them were apt to say, they knew how many beans made five, and in connecting Annie with the Hall, they had been on the right road but had gone off on the wrong track.
Emma raised her head, saying softly, ‘I had to tell someone.’
‘And who better than me? But it’s lucky Pete didn’t know of this, or else the business might have been more serious than it is.’
‘Yes.’ She looked towards the window again, saying now, ‘I miss Pete; he was such a help in all ways. I wish he’d come back to the farm, but I doubt now that’ll ever be for he’s met a young lady. She’s the sister of one of his shipmates; they live in London. He talked quite a bit about her. I think he might be serious, and should he marry he’ll dock there and we’ll see less of him than now.’
‘Yes, that’s possible.’ Henry nodded at her; then said, ‘I talked with him yesterday for a few minutes while he was waiting for the carrier cart. He says it will be a short trip this time, just a few
months perhaps, a year at the most. His face is still badly bruised and I asked him if there would be any comment on board. He laughed and said, “They only comment on you after shore leave if you return with a clean face and your hair still on.” He has a sense of humour, has Pete.’
He now took the seat opposite to her again and asked, ‘How is she?’
‘Still defiant, and lazy; she works only because if she doesn’t I lock her up. What am I going to do?’
When she held out her hand as if in plea towards him he instinctively grasped it. It was the first time since she had married that he had touched her hand, and the feeling that went through him was as if he had plunged his arm into fire yet without experiencing the agony of burning. Her hand was rough, the palm hard, but from it he was now drawing a feeling that coursed like fire through his body.
He whispered her name softly now, saying, ‘Emma. Oh Emma.’ And she remained still, not answering, simply staring through the dimming twilight into his face. Then as if she had been stung she jerked her hand from his and, springing to her feet, she turned her back on him, saying, ‘I’ve got to go, it’s getting on late.’
When he made no response she turned again and saw him standing with his head deeply bent, and she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’ He was looking at her now and he repeated, ‘So am I, and for so many things. Yet, no, I take that back, I’m not sorry that you came into my life, nor that you’re still in it.’
‘You should have moved on to another parish,’ she said quietly.
‘Yes, it would have been wise, I suppose, but the price of wisdom in this case would have been too great.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll walk a little way with you; we’ll go out through the back.’
As she followed him out of the back door and through the large overgrown garden she was quite aware why he had chosen this way: they could reach the coach road without passing through the village; there was only one cottage on the way, that of old Janet Crosby and she was bedridden most of the time. They could of course meet someone on the road, but it was hardly likely at this time of night; the model citizens in the village went to bed with the dark to save oil; the others, at least the male section of them, would be in The Tuns.
The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 37
