‘It waint open, lass.’ William, his face devilish, dangled a key between thumb and forefinger.
Hannah was beginning to grow suspicious. ‘If this is one of your insidious jokes …’
‘A chastity belt!’ provided Patrick instantaneously.
‘Nay, nay!’ guffawed William, his eyes red with suppressed tears. ‘Tha’s got wrong end. First answer was warmer.’
‘What a birdcage?’ said Sonny.
‘Nay, a bloody helmet, whoops! Sorry children present.’ William cupped his hands over Rosanna’s ears.
‘Oh, come on,’ protested Thomasin. ‘Let us out of our misery. What is it?’
William held his breath, surveyed each expectant face, then blurted out the answer in a rush of wind. ‘It’s a scold’s bridle! Hah, ooh!’ He could say nothing more for laughing.
‘A what?’ Patrick laughed with him, as did the others.
‘A scold’s bridle!’ The tears, unleashed, streamed down the wrinkles on William’s screwed-up face. ‘I … ooh, God! I saw this contraption hangin’ outside a blacksmith’s last time we went to pay our Erin a visit. I were stumped, same as thee, couldn’t mek head nor tail on it. I just had to go an’ ask smithy what it were – eh, I’m glad I did! Well, when he told me I nearly split me sides. Said he’d seen a picture o’ one in a book an’ thought it were a good idea to mek a copy to shut his wife up. ’Course, he never used it tha knows, just hung it there as a threat, an’ it worked!’ He grabbed the metal contraption from Erin and inserted the key, opening the back.
‘See, this ’ere bar goes over her head, an’ this little square bit goes in her mouth to press her tongue down. An’ when it’s all locked up she can’t get no words out, see? Well, when I saw it I sez I’ll have to have one o’ them – it’ll mek a perfect present for our Hannah!’
‘Oh, William!’ cried his wife. ‘This is the most despicable thing you have ever done to me. Indefensible. I shall never speak to you again.’
‘Aye, that were t’general idea!’ roared William as she rushed from the room.
‘Oh, Dad you are awful,’ giggled Thomasin, and the others joined her laughter. The present was so wickedly apt.
Even Erin was incited to join in as her grandfather heaved and coughed and brayed, his eyes screwed shut in gleeful agony. ‘Ooh, I’m a wicked owd bugger an’ no mistake! I won’t half suffer for this. It’ll be bread an’ watter for months.’ He rocked back and forth, gripping his knees, not knowing which part of himself to clutch first as the laughter stabbed him from all angles. His mouth open, he bent double, cradling his aching ribcage. ‘Ooh, hah! God, that’s the best one I’ve played on her for a long while. Oh, somebody get me a drink to calm me down!’ His old shoulders pulsated with mirth and he jerked upright to catch his breath, then flopped back into the chair, mouth agape in the jolly face, ready to emit another belly laugh.
It took some seconds for the laughing onlookers to realise that William was dead.
* * *
‘Mother! Mother, come quickly!’ The urgency in her daughter’s voice impelled Hannah to throw off the cloak of self-pity and come uncertainly to the top of the stairs.
‘What is it^7^’ She clutched a damp handkerchief as she looked down on Thomasin’s white face.
‘It’s Dad … you’d better come down … oh, Mam.’ Thomasin’s stalwart expression crumpled, then vanished as its owner moved swiftly back to attend her dead father.
There was the clatter of hurried footfalls on the stair and a breathless Hannah, straight as a stick with no hint of her rheumatism, stood clutching the handkerchief, gazing with horror at the scene before her. Then the handkerchief flew up to her mouth. ‘William! William!’ She rushed up to his chair and began to shake him by the shoulders. The children, frightened but dry-eyed, watched her, fascinated.
Patrick broke off from comforting his wife to take his mother-in-law in hand. ‘Hannah, I’m sorry … there’s nothing you can do … he’s dead.’ It was so hard to believe. The swiftness of it …
Hannah, face set in a waxen mask, let herself be eased gently away from the chair. She fell back to join the conclave of mourners, but perversely when the situation demanded true grief Hannah’s eyes were dry. It was one of her idiosyncrasies that any upset, however mild, could divine a river of tears; the lack of histrionics made the scene all the more poignant. Her eyes were drawn back to the birthday present on which William still retained a loose grip. ‘I told him I’d never speak to him again,’ she said feebly.
‘He knew you didn’t mean it, Hannah,’ placated Patrick, one arm around her shrunken shoulders, the other round his wife’s. ‘He was having a really good laugh about it… you know Billy …’
‘Yes. Yes, I know William,’ whispered Hannah, her glassy eyes fixed to his chair. ‘Hadn’t someone better go for the doctor?’
Patrick released her. ‘I’ll go, if ye can tell me where I’ll find him.’
Sonny stepped into the breach. ‘I’ll go, you stay with Grandma; you’re more use than I am.’ He checked to see if Peggy and the children were all right. He needn’t have worried. Peggy was unmoved by the event, and Erin was comforting the children infected by the sounds of grief from their grandmother and aunt. Armed with his grandmother’s instructions he departed to look for the doctor’s house.
Patrick examined Hannah’s face concernedly. She was taking it awfully well – too well, in fact. There was Tommy and Erin hollering their eyes out, the children too, while Hannah sheltered under an umbrella of dignified calm. But the dam would break sooner or later he knew.
Hannah’s hands, the skin loosely draped over the bony phalanges and marbled with liver-spots, played absently with the tongue of lace that fell from the neck of the dress she had made herself for her birthday. He touched her arm. ‘It was very quick, Hannah. The way he would’ve wanted to go. If ye’ve got to go I can’t think of a better way than to die laughing.’
‘But I wasn’t with him,’ she replied vaguely. Then all at once the eyes, till now dry, brimmed over as she looked at him. Her mouth discharged one long, heart-rending moan and she broke down in a paroxysm of grief.
‘Tommy!’ commanded Patrick, shaking his wife. ‘Ye’ve had your turn, come an’ look to your mother while I go see if I can get any brandy. Erin, you too!’
His daughter raised her head from the children’s and followed Patrick’s flying exit with distraught eyes. Oh, Sam, Sam, how I wish you were here. Eyes and nose streaming, she went blindly to where she knew the smelling salts were kept, for Hannah had now collapsed in a dead swoon. Erin prayed earnestly for the same kindly oblivion to overtake her and blot out all this unbearable misery. But no one heard her plea.
* * *
As was usual in such emergencies, any animosity that might pass between Hannah and Patrick was put aside; they acquired a state of unity during times of stress. So, when Hannah tearfully declared that nothing could persuade her to spend the night here alone with her beloved William, Patrick made the kind offer that he knew, even as he said it, he was later going to regret.
‘Of course we wouldn’t expect ye to stay here on your own, Hannah.’ He helped his mother-in-law on with her coat while Thomasin packed a small case with her mother’s belongings. ‘Ye must go home with Tommy an’ the others. I’ll take care of things here.’
‘But all the funeral arrangements,’ said Hannah weakly.
‘Don’t you fret yourself, I’ll take care of it all.’
‘He must have the best,’ ordered Hannah.
‘I wouldn’t dream of arranging anything other than the best for Billy, you know that.’ Patrick would miss his father-in-law. He recalled, as one does at the death of a friend, their first meeting. How Billy had welcomed the marriage between his daughter and the Irishman; had made him feel part of a family with his down-to-earth humour and lack of pretensions. He instructed his son to see the womenfolk safely home while he tended to matters here.
‘Hadn’t someone better let Dickie know?’
Sonny found that he could say his brother’s name without the usual taste of rancour. He assumed it to be because Peggy was no longer of any importance to him.
But his mother could not dispose herself so kindly. ‘No one will inform Dickie,’ she told him, her face dead of expression. ‘Doubtless he’ll get to hear of it. If he does then he’s welcome to come to the funeral, but I’m damned if I’m going out of my way to tell him. His actions have robbed him of any right to membership of this family.’
Sonny turned his attentions to his sister who comforted Nick on her lap. ‘If you like I can ride out and tell Sam, to save you going home then having to come straight back.’ He had no idea of the turmoil his offer caused her, nor of the reason behind his sister’s visit.
Erin formed her lips into a ‘no’, but Thomasin jumped in first. ‘That’s good of you, Sonny. Tell him to come as soon as he’s able.’ The sooner the better, she thought emptily. She had had her fill of her children’s troubles; Erin, for one, must be made to face her own.
Chapter Forty-Six
He could not look at her, nor she at him. When he had turned up at Monkgate, bedraggled and weary from his eight-mile journey on an open cart in the pouring rain, it had not been his wife who had administered tender concern but Peggy. It was she who had shown him up to his room, providing him with a towel, commandeering the maids to fetch up a bath of hot water and issuing him a set of warm, dry clothes belonging to Sonny. Even when he had returned to the gathering there had been nothing from Erin.
All the way there he had practised what he was going to say. He had been going to be oh, so strong; tell her she must come home right this minute else she could stay with her parents for good – that was before he had met with his brother-in-law in a similar state of saturation coming to tell him of William’s untimely demise. He couldn’t say all those things now, could he? When he and Sonny had arrived Sam had tried to offer his condolences, but she had merely nodded and moved away, leaving Thomasin to welcome him. He had lamely apologised for his drenched clothes and for not having brought any more suitable attire. ‘I was halfway here, you see when I met Sonny and he told me … I really don’t know what to say. I was awful fond of Grandad.’ He had pulled at his dripping things. ‘I’m going to look a bit out of place at the funeral, aren’t I?’
That was when Peggy, surprising everyone with her concern, had assumed command of the situation, taking Sam and her husband away to dry them off.
Now, he stood amongst the funeral mourners, his head held low so that he did not have to look at Erin, the trousers, much too long, bagging round his ankles. ‘You’ll be able to change back into your own clothes when you get back,’ Peggy told him. ‘I’ve seen to it they’ve been aired and pressed. I’m sorry all the men in this house appear to be giants.’ She looked down at the baggy trousers.
‘You’ve been very kind, Peggy,’ he answered, and looked pointedly at Erin, who turned her head away swiftly. ‘It’s a sad business. I’m sure we’ll all miss Grandad very much.’
The room was filled with William’s relations. It had been decided to hold the funeral from Monkgate as Hannah’s little house would not take all the mourners; the old man had been very popular. All Thomasin’s sisters were here with their spouses, shedding tears of remorse that they had not been more regular visitors to their father’s home. But Thomasin knew that their tears were more for themselves and would dry much more rapidly than either hers or her mother’s. Apart from his immediate family, probably the most genuine grief came from William’s young apprentice, a lad of sixteen – the two had been great pals.
Hannah looked out of the window, waiting for the hearse to arrive. She looked old and frail standing there, bowed with the pain of her rheumatism, the black dress, due to a damp storage place, freckled with mildew. This was how she would look all the time now, thought her daughter sadly. The dragon’s fire had been doused; in its place was a weary old crow with moth-eaten feathers, just waiting for her turn to come.
All eyes turned to Hannah as she spoke. ‘I think I’ll just go and say goodbye before the carriage arrives.’ She limped into the other room where her husband was laid out. The men rose as she left.
Soon after this the funeral cortège with its plumed horses rolled up and the men departed with their sad load, leaving the women behind closed curtains. When they returned in sombre mood everyone sat down to a salad lunch, Sam next to Erin where his mother-in-law firmly steered him. Even juxtaposed their incommunicativeness remained unbroken – though no one but Thomasin and Patrick appeared to notice, their own conversation sparing, and by the time the meal was over only about five minutes had been dedicated to speech.
Thomasin herded everyone from the dining room, keeping Erin and Sam under her strict control and making certain they ended up with similar seating arrangements in the drawing room; they were going to have to speak to each other some time. After she had drunk her coffee, Erin, unable to bear this silence any longer, excused herself and went to sit in the cool of the lavatory, where she could put her words into perspective before she delivered them. She realised that one of them was going to have to back down, and it should be her. When she emerged everything was clearer in her mind; she would take Sam out into the garden where she might explain her feelings in private. Sadly, when she returned to the drawing room he had forsaken his seat and was now, in more relaxed pose, joking and laughing with Peggy by the window.
‘This is supposed to be a funeral!’ she hissed under her breath as she passed them. ‘Think what your insensitivity does to Grandma.’ She went to reclaim her seat. Sam looked after her guiltily, then turned back to Peggy, his voice suitably lowered.
‘It’ll do no good giving him murderous looks.’ Thomasin spoke behind her cup. ‘That lad’s in a right old state with himself.’
‘He looks fine to me,’ muttered Erin angrily. ‘Look at him flirting with Peggy, and never a word for his wife.’
‘You didn’t exactly make him feel welcome,’ said her mother. ‘And if it wasn’t Peggy it’d be someone else. I’ve been watching him closely; his eyes have been on every female in this room – excluding your grandmother of course.’ Her attempt at humour belied her heartache. Her father’s death had affected her more than any of them knew.
But Erin could see nothing humorous. She turned surprised eyes on her mother. ‘What, even you?’
Thomasin cocked an eyebrow. ‘Aye, even me! I’m not past it yet, you know.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’ Erin sighed. ‘Well, he seems to have singled Peggy out for his attention.’
‘That’s only because she’s shoving herself at him,’ said Thomasin. ‘I should take care if I were you – that lad’s so hungry for it that anyone who treated him half like a man would do. He doesn’t know where he is. A piece of paper tells him he’s married but he’s not getting from that status what he should be – and if you think that’s being coarse that’s your look-out. It’s the truth.’
Erin looked startled. ‘D’ye think he’ll … d’ye think anything’ll happen between him and Peggy?’ She knew that Sonny’s marriage was all but over.
‘Not under my roof it won’t,’ said Thomasin emphatically. ‘But it’s not really my place to see that it doesn’t – it’s yours. You must try, Erin, you really must, because whichever way he turns, it can only be in the wrong direction.’
* * *
Sam wriggled his way out of Sonny’s clothes and folded them neatly over a chairback. The mourners were long since gone. Only the little apprentice had lingered and in the end had had to be politely turned out.
He pulled a nightgown over his head and climbed into bed. Clasping his hands behind his head he stared at the ceiling through the darkness. He had not meant it to be like this. He wanted her back, truly he did; for all she tortured him he still loved her. Even though he had said nothing at the funeral he was only waiting for some of the pain to heal before having matters out with her. He thought of the warmth of Peggy�
�s reception and compared it to his wife’s frigidity. She had not even spared a look in his direction, apart from administering that waspish remark after the meal. It was only talking to Peggy that had made the afternoon bearable. He closed his eyes in annoyance as he began to feel a stirring under the sheet. Blazes! it was pathetic when just the thought of a woman could bring on an erection. He moved a hand down over his body and pressed against the hardness, fighting it. Then flung himself over onto his side and brought his knees up to his chest.
A slit of light on the wall was the first indication that someone had entered the room. The person slipped inside and hastily closed the door. Wide awake, he lifted his head from the pillow. He had known somehow she would come. The way she had looked at him before, her eyes unashamedly dropping to the lower half of his body. He had nearly disgraced himself there and then. There was a flurry of movement as the figure padded across the room.
‘Erin!’ The surprise in his voice conveyed the fact that he had expected someone else. He pulled himself into a sitting position as the waif-like figure in the white nightgown came to rest by his bed.
‘Well, who did you expect?’ There was defiance there, but her voice caught with apprehension and she fell on the bed. ‘Oh, Sam forgive me! It was all my fault. I’ve been so stupid, so childish, an’ I’ve missed ye so; I can’t bear to tell ye how much. Please speak to me; I can’t stand this silence. I can’t bear the way ye looked at Peggy all afternoon – ye were expecting her, weren’t ye? I’d die if ye turned to her. I love ye, Sam. Oh, I love ye – an’ I’m here to be a proper wife, if ye still want me.’
In his joy he flung aside the covers and pulled her eagerly into bed, pressing her slight body to his inflamed hardness. She felt him against her belly and immediately began to tremble. Oh, Blessed Virgin it was going to be like all the other times …
For My Brother’s Sins Page 61
