Song of Songs

by Beverley Hughesdon

  ‘No – no, I’m right pleased to see you – she’s been a bit peaky lately – she’ll have been glad of company. Helena, lass – have you invited your cousin to tea?’ Tea! Conan only drank tea at teatime – he ate dinner. But I did not want him to go. ‘Yes, do stay – we’ll be eating soon, we eat early in Ainsclough.’

  ‘Thanks, I will.’

  Ben said, ‘I’ll go and have me bath then.’ I began to haul myself to my feet. ‘No, lass, you stay here and enjoy your chat – I’ll see to veg. ’Sides, your ankles are a bit swollen – you’d best look after yourself.’ He picked up the round leather pouffe and set it before me, then he knelt and raised my feet, one after the other, and placed them both on it. ‘These shoes are too tight for you now, lass – I keep telling you. I fetched some flat ones for you – why don’t you wear them?’ I did not answer and after a moment he got heavily to his feet and clumped out into the kitchen.

  Conan said pleasantly, ‘Did you ever think of keeping a dog, Hellie?’

  I stared at him. ‘A dog – why ever should I?’

  He shrugged. ‘No, I suppose a dog wouldn’t be so much use – besides, it might even expect a pat from time to time.’ I looked at him angrily, but said nothing, and he began to talk lightly of mutual acquaintances.

  Ben had prepared extra vegetables, and served himself with less meat. I toyed with mine, until he said quietly, ‘Eat it up, Helena.’

  ‘It’s too tough.’

  He pulled my plate over in front of him and meticulously cut up the meat into tiny pieces, then he pushed it back to me and waited. Slowly, grudgingly, I began to force it down, while Conan and my husband reminisced about the war.

  When I had finished Conan lit a cigarette and told me, ‘I’m going up to Argyllshire, Hellie – quite near the twins’ estate. You’ll know the area, of course.’ I nodded; yes, I remembered that last carefree autumn of peace. ‘Uncle Victor said Kintonish is in very good heart; during the war Eddie and Robbie used some of the money from their London properties to bring it up to tip-top condition.’ He sighed. ‘God, it’s so unfair – how they would have been enjoying themselves now, if they’d only been lucky.’ He gave a long pull on his cigarette and I glanced away from his drawn face, so like my brothers’, and yet so unlike – and saw that Ben’s eyes were fixed on me speculatively.

  Conan swung round. ‘Ben, old man – I’d like to see a bit more of you before I move on. Perhaps we could have a drink together this evening?’

  Ben’s gaze swivelled from me. ‘Aye, I’d like that. I’ll get changed into me best.’

  Conan jumped to his feet. ‘Where’s the nearest telephone? I’d better warn my hosts I’ll be late – I’ll stay over in Carlisle tonight.’

  Ben took him to the front door and gave him directions; I winced as I heard his accent deepen. But he did not go straight upstairs; instead he came back and sat down in the kitchen opposite me. ‘So your brothers had property, did they? And who did they leave it to, lass?’

  At last I said, ‘Eddie left everything to Robbie, of course.’

  ‘And who did Robbie leave “everything” to?’ I sat there, my cheeks reddening, until he said heavily, ‘You don’t need to tell me – I know. I don’t want your money, lass, I made that clear from start – but, well, you might have trusted me.’ He got to his feet and stumped slowly up the stairs.

  Conan was already back by the time Ben came down. As they left Ben began to lean towards me; I kept my eyes fixed on the empty hearth. He straightened his back again, saying, ‘Don’t bother with washing up, lass – I’ll see to it. You need a rest. Put your feet up on buffet, I’ve put it ready for you.’ He lumbered out.

  I was lying back in the armchair when they finally returned; I felt heavy and languid. Ben was staring at me intently as he came out of the lobby, but my eyes looked beyond him – to Conan, so tall and slim. My cousin came forward. ‘Well, Hellie – it’s time I was on my way.’ He leant down, put his arm round my shoulder and bent to kiss my cheek – but I turned my face so that my lips met his and pressed my body against him; my womb was swollen and ready, and I wanted him. I sensed him trying to draw back, but I clung to him, longing for him – until a heavy hand on my shoulder jerked me roughly aside, while Conan’s fingers caught at my wrists and held them stiffly away from him. My cousin stood for a moment, staring at me his hands gripping my wrists like a vice until I twisted sharply and he suddenly let them go and backed away. Ben still held me fast, and his face was a dusky red as he looked down at me – then his fingers slowly unclamped themselves from my shoulder and the two men moved towards the door. I could hear Conan’s low voice, ‘I’m so sorry, old man – I wouldn’t have touched her if I’d thought…’ He was apologizing – how dared he apologize? He was my cousin – surely I had the right to kiss my cousin?

  When Ben came back his face was set. ‘I’m going up plot – but before I go I’d best give you what you want – else happen you’ll be out on streets looking for it.’ He began to unbutton his trousers. ‘Get your drawers down, lass, and we’ll use hearthrug. It won’t take me long and I’ll not bother to get undressed – it won’t make any difference to you.’

  I looked at him, and saw he was swollen and ready for me, so I slid down on to the hearthrug and opened my legs. ‘Take your drawers off, I told you.’ I pulled them off and threw them aside; I hated him – but my body was already opening for him as he knelt and lifted my hips. Even as he thrust into me I was writhing and moaning, but he held me fast until he had finished. Then he got up, rebuttoned his trousers and said, ‘That should satisfy you for an hour or two,’ and slamming the door hard behind him, he left.

  Chapter Nine

  I lay there on the hearthrug with my skirts crumpled up around my hips; dark shapes passed in the street behind the thick lace curtains, and clogs clattered on the cobbles as children played. At last I heaved myself heavily to my feet and went upstairs to bed; at least I would not need him again today.

  But it was no use. When he came in and I heard him moving about my womb began to swell, and I knew I could not lie beside him all night without demanding his body once more. Turning, I pushed my belly against him, and he grunted, ‘Aye, I reckoned you’d be ready again, soon as you heard bed springs creaking. All right, lass – I can give you what you want.’

  Afterwards I felt him touch my hair and I went very still. Then his face was above me in the gloom – he was going to kiss me! I flung myself round, burying my mouth in the pillow. He said roughly, ‘I wonder if you’d have been using your precious “my lord” like this – after less ’an four months o’ marriage.’

  Anger surged up inside me and I raised my head. ‘Don’t you dare speak of him to me – don’t you dare!’

  ‘I reckon I’ll say what I want in me own house, to me own wife. He may have had a handle to his name – but he weren’t all he were cracked up to be, your precious Lord Staveley – not by a long chalk he weren’t.’

  I was screaming at him now. ‘Don’t speak of him – don’t soil his name with your tongue – you, you’re not fit to black his boots!’

  He breathed heavily as he said, ‘But I’m fit to shag his girl – which is more ’an he ever did.’

  I reached out and brought my hand across his face as hard as I could. ‘Because he was a gentleman!’

  ‘Because he were a gentleman as preferred schoolboys and handsome young soldiers, more like.’

  My body went rigid and my flesh turned to ice. But he was still speaking. ‘No, he would have been no use to a lass like you – what needs it regular.’

  I hissed, ‘Get out – get out of this bed, and take your filthy lying tongue with you.’

  ‘I’m not lying, lass – you ask your cousin – you ask Conan. He knows the truth.’

  ‘You fool! Conan never even met Gerald.’

  ‘No, but he had it all from your brother-in-law – he knew him all right.’

  I put my hands over my ears and buried my face in the pillow – how dared
he, how dared he! But my hands were wrenched away and he flung me round on to my back and held me trapped there. I struggled, but it was useless. ‘I’ve had enough of you treating me like dirt, and never listening to a word I say because you can’t tear your eyes away from that bloody photo – for once I’m going to make you listen. Lie still.’ He loomed over me, his heavy leg pinning me across the thighs, his iron hands gripping my wrists so that I could not block my ears. Then he began, ‘I wanted to get it right, lass, so I asked him careful – exactly what he knew. And he wanted to tell me – he said he were going to set you right hisself once, but he couldn’t face it – but now he reckoned you ought to know, for your own good. It were like this, see. Your brother-in-law’s brother – Charles he said he were called, Charles Knowles – he were at Sandhurst with him, with your “my lord”, and there were a scandal there – it were hushed up, but they all knew about it. Then, just afore he went to South Africa, it happened again – but when war broke out it got forgotten like. When he came back he were more careful, but they all knew what he were up to, only they kept quiet about it – no washing dirty linen in public. Conan told me your Hugh said his brother wouldn’t likely have told him, if it weren’t that this Gerald came to stay with them – and he took a fancy to your brother-in-law, who were only a youngster at time – so his elder brother told him, to put him on his guard, like.’

  No, no! As he hung above me in the darkness my numbed brain began to reason. ‘It can’t be true – he asked me to marry him. No man like the one you talk of would have done that.’

  He answered flatly, ‘He would have done if there were land and titles at stake. And well – I reckon he could have forced himself once or twice, to put a child inside you – it wouldn’t have taken much with a woman like you, look how quick you fell to me.’

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘I’m telling truth, lass. Your brother-in-law were right worried when he heard you were engaged to him – Hugh seems to have been a decent bloke from what Conan said – he didn’t know what to do – he seems to have known, even then, that – that you were a girl as needed more.’ He broke off, then said, ‘I didn’t ask Conan how he knew that – I could see your cousin weren’t going to tell. But I reckon officers’ messes aren’t only ones who know how to hush things up – to keep them in family.’ He added quickly, ‘But I’m not complaining, lass – I know you came to me unbroken, and I’m grateful for that.’

  I felt as if I were slowly drowning; but still he held me prisoner, and his harsh voice would not stop. ‘So Hugh, Hugh spoke to my lord and put it to him straight, and he swore he’d play fair by you, once you was married. But then war came, and I suppose he couldn’t help hisself – he’d had a steady bloke, Conan said, they were like David and Jonathan, always together, so when war came, well, that was that. So it’s time you stopped mooning over him my girl, because he weren’t worth it, and he were ready to play you a dirty trick.’ He shifted his leg and released my wrists; I did not move. ‘Best try and sleep now, lass, you’ve got babby to think of.’

  I lay quite still – it was a great effort but I knew I had to wait until my jailor slept. When at last he did I eased myself out of the bed and crept very quietly down the stairs. And then the full horror of what he had told me flooded over me – I tried to tell myself it was not true, but, God help me, I knew in my bones that it was.

  Standing in the dark parlour I stared at his photograph – I did not need a lamp to see it, the handsome features depicted there were engraved on my soul – and now I used my trained singer’s memory to recall every word Gerald had said, every gesture he had made – those gestures which I had treasured and kept safe in my heart for so long. Now the images were replayed as I stood there, and I saw, as if in a cinema, one flickering episode following another as reel after reel unwound in the darkness. I saw myself on the steps at Hatton, waving goodbye to him as he left me so soon after our betrothal. I saw his small neat handwriting telling me that his return would be delayed – because he was spending the weekend in Leicestershire – with a friend. I saw Hugh’s anxious face, while Alice was exclaiming in delight over my news, and I saw Hugh and Gerald coming late from the dining room that evening – Hugh’s nod in my direction, and the determination on Gerald’s face as he strode towards me – because he was going to force himself to kiss me, for the first time. I shut my inner eyes; I would not look any longer, but now the words began to take shape and assault my ears in the darkness – the words which would have told me, if only I had listened. His grief after Stavey’s death: ‘And so he became my son – the son I had never had, and never looked to have.’ ‘I, who was always known to be a confirmed bachelor.’ And finally, his words when I had offered him the son he longed for, offered him myself, to take as he chose: ‘No, Helena – no.’ And the flat: ‘Nature is not always so obliging.’

  And the pictures began to force themselves under my lids again: Gerald, usually so cool and calm – talking animatedly – because he was talking to Edward Summerhays; Edward, who had so automatically accompanied him to hear me sing in the Messiah – but poor Stavey had still been alive, then – so there had been no land and titles to consider. And I saw Edward as I had last seen him in the war, leaning on Gerald’s arm, the fair head bent over him so protectively. I saw them getting into the cab together and driving off; and I saw myself, waiting all day for Gerald – who did not come; because Gerald was with Edward, his lover. My heart had been wiser than my brain, and had racked me with jealousy. But I, brought up with my brothers, with Conan – seeing Papa with Lady Maud, Mother with Sir Ernest and his rivals – I had thought only of a woman – silly, foolish Helena. And yet, he had told me himself, he had spoken truly; I fought against the memory, I pressed my fingers into my ears – but it was no use, I heard them, the words I had treasured, had worshipped: ‘There is not, and never has been, any woman but you. And there never will be.’ And in my inner ear he spoke those words again and again, until finally they were revealed in all their jeering cruelty; for he had deceived me with the truth. My own true lover – how he must have laughed up his sleeve at my silly, childish credulity. And I began to laugh too – there in the small parlour I laughed aloud – silly, stupid Helena! Then I heard the floorboards creak in the room above me so I stifled my laughter, for my husband must not hear it; and when there was quiet again I collapsed into the armchair, giggling softly until I fell asleep.

  When I woke I was stiff from sitting in the chair – but not cold because a blanket had been wrapped around me. I did not know at first what I was doing in this small strange room, but then I saw Gerald’s photograph – he was looking straight at me, smiling a little – so I knew it was all right; he would come for me soon. I remembered now – I had been made a prisoner in this house in a strange dirty town – but I only had to be patient and wait – for he would come and save me.

  I uncurled my cramped limbs and shook off the blanket; it had been folded so carefully round me – perhaps Gerald had come in the night and tended me? Was it like the fairy tale of the princess who was imprisoned, and her prince could only come to her after darkness fell? Yes, that must be it, for it was light now – and he had gone away – I was sure he was not in the house; but he would come back, and care for me – I knew that now. I held the coarse grey blanket to my cheek for a moment, because it had been wrapped around me in love; then I folded it neatly to put away, for it was daytime now, so I must be patient.

  His eyes smiled at me from the top of the piano; I moved towards it, humming a little tune – it must be time to do my singing practice – but no, something hard and sharp caught at my memory… But I muffled the shining blade and turned it aside before it could touch me: I would be happy while I waited for him.

  I seemed to know my way around the small house: I went straight out to the backyard – so I must have been held here in my prison for some time. In the small closet I noticed spots of blood on my drawers – and for a moment I was disturbed. Perhaps Gerald would not like me
if I bled; but of course, I was not bleeding now, because I was with child – his child – it must be his child since I loved no other man. I smiled and pulled up my drawers and went back inside again.

  I climbed up the stairs to dress – there was a bed, a rumpled bed, – and my eyes seemed to shy away from it – I could not bear to look at that bed, so I bundled up my clothes and took them downstairs and got dressed before the warm range. My hands knew what to do: I cleaned and tidied and swept – until I found a jacket hanging behind the door – a badly-made jacket, misshapen with wear. I touched it, puzzled for a moment – then remembered my jailor. A dark shape formed in my mind – it must be his. And of course, I must shop and cook for him – I must not let him suspect, or he would seize me and take me away again, and then Gerald would never find me. So I put on my hat and coat and picked up the basket I found and went out into the small town – the people spoke very oddly, but I seemed to understand them and know what to do.

  By the time I came back up the hill I felt very tired; my body was too heavy for my legs, which dragged awkwardly. But I made myself keep moving, and cook what I had bought – everything must be ready, then perhaps Gerald would come for me today – after dark. When I had finished I went through to the small parlour to fetch his picture; I sat holding it on my lap, gazing at it, trustingly – he would come for me, when darkness had fallen.

  But the sun had not even set when I heard a hand at the door – I stood up, confused – then I thought it must be him, and I ran through to the front. But the dark shape outlined in the doorway was shorter, and broader and heavier – and I gasped in fear and shrank away; it was my jailor. Turning, I stumbled back into the kitchen on shaking legs and hid my picture away.

  ‘How are you, lass?’ A hand touched my shoulder; flinching away, I turned my back and my jailor sighed. I hurried through to the scullery, thinking of my picture of Gerald – trying to remember that he was coming tonight. But it was more difficult now – the jailor had disturbed my dreams. But after he had bathed he went out, and left me in peace with my memories.