The Clouded Hills

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘Oh, my little Samson,’ cooed Mrs Stevens an hour later, bending over the cradle. ‘My darling little Samson – his great-grandfather’s pride and joy. I suppose he is to be Samson – surely?’

  ‘There’ll be no Edwin and no Samson,’ Joel told me, ominously quiet, not looking too closely into the cradle but claiming what was in it as his own, just the same. ‘You may name him as you please, since you had the trouble of tearing him – except that he’ll not be an Edwin, nor a Samson either.’

  And he strode away, leaving all explanations and recriminations to me.

  ‘My goodness,’ my mother murmured, ‘such a fuss. I would suggest William, for your father, except that with so many high tempers and high expectations to contend with, perhaps it wouldn’t be wise. Maybe one should look outside the family. What do you say to Augustus, or Alexander, since he is certainly destined for greatness? Or why not name him for St Blaize, the patron saint of wool combers. That may satisfy them all.’

  And so he became Blaize Barforth, a tiny, angry scrap in the family cradle, his tight little face bright red, his hair a true Barforth black; an amazing creature – a baby – and, as I had foreseen, I did not know what to do with him and was appalled at his crying, horrified by his helplessness. Puppies I understood, and older children who could tell me what ailed them, but this newborn human, who could not hold up his head, defeated me, filled my whole mind with the worst anxiety I had ever known, so that I lay awake that first night – and for many nights after – my ears straining through the dark, listening, agonizing, in case he should cease to breathe.

  ‘My dear,’ my mother told me, ‘he is perfectly well. He cries from hunger, which indicates a healthy appetite.’

  But my mother had lost six of her eight babies and, quite feverishly, I did not trust her. Nor did I trust the nurse she had found for me in Patterswick; a strong, solid, clean-looking girl, I was forced to admit, but her eyes were small and crafty, pig’s eyes, and how could I be, sure she would not drug my baby with laudanum to make him sleep or let the kitchen cat get into his cradle and smother him?

  I could not have said, at that stage, that I loved him, for he was still a stranger, oddly unconnected with the heaving burden I had carried inside me for so long. I was, quite simply, afraid for him and, had I been permitted, would have taken him into my bed, into my arms, like a mother cat in her basket, and put my claws into anyone who tried to touch him.

  But I was not, of course, permitted to do that, for touching him appeared to be the prerogative of all comers: my grandfather, snatching him from the cradle at every visit, whether he was sleeping or not, and holding him up to the light; Mrs Stevens, appearing whenever she had an hour to spare to wake him and then rock him back to sleep; Mrs Hobhouse and Mrs Oldroyd, when they came to call, claiming the right to pick him up an examine him a moment or two, comparing him with their own children, and scraping my nerves to shreds.

  But eventually a morning came when I was no longer altogether astonished to find him still alive; when the nursemaid suddenly had a kind smile to compensate for her pig’s eyes and a firm but gentle hand as she put my noisy, healthy son into my arms; a morning when I was concerned, once again, with my own face in the mirror and delighted with the new lightness of my body; when I rediscovered my appetite for hot chocolate and new bread and remembered that, in a day or two, I would be seventeen.

  My grandfather went to Lincolnshire soon after to visit old friends of his wool-buying days, and, taking advantage of the fine weather, I made myself free of the Top House garden, installing myself there, under the flowering cherry trees and the budding lilac, my son on one side of me, my dogs on the other, while Mrs Stevens, who had never had – a child – nor a real husband either, for that matter – advised me on the care and upbringing of mine.

  ‘Bear with her,’ my mother advised me one sparkling afternoon when, after a veritable lecture on infant feeding, she had gone inside to prepare our tea. ‘She is only safeguarding her position, after all, for your grandfather suffered a severe chill through the winter and has not entirely recovered his strength. Do you know, it struck me only the other day that, really, he is quite a small man, when I used to think him so large. And since, of course, I know perfectly well he stands over six feet high, it can only mean that he has lost a great deal of flesh. And no one can blame poor Emmeline Stevens for wondering what she will do when he is gone.’

  ‘Will he not provide for her?’ I said lazily, not really caring, watching my son’s miniature fists flailing in the sunlight, his miniature rage at his failure to reach the pink and white blossoms dancing overhead, barely listening until something in her manner warned me she was using Mrs Stevens as a bridge for something else.

  ‘Oh, I hardly think so, not adequately at any rate. I often wonder, you know, about women like Emmeline Stevens. They think themselves so clever and fine, but really their position is most precarious. They can inherit neither a man’s money nor his prestige when he dies, and during his lifetime have little more of him than the side of his nature his wife is perhaps glad enough to be without. Not a pleasant existence, and bear in mind that, with no marriage contract to protect them, they can be cast off the very moment they fail to please, without a shred, of reputation left – which is very much the same as dismissing a maid without a testimonial. And, of course, they invariably are cast off, for men may desire them but they are never respected, and desire is so fleeting, you know – only respect endures. But Mrs Stevens, I imagine, will survive, for she is no novice and knows the pitfalls of her profession She was in service once, at a great house somewhere in Derbyshire – a very pretty little parlourmaid she must have been – and I often think she would have done far better had she listened to the young gardener who could have married her instead of setting her cap for her master, who, of course, felt obliged to dismiss her once his passion had cooled. And that has been the way of it ever since. She is quite accustomed to being discarded, our Mrs Stevens – except that, each time it happens, she has grown a little older. And what can it cost you, dear, to be patient?’

  ‘Was I sharp with her? I didn’t mean to be.’

  ‘Not very sharp – I merely wondered if her way of life was so distasteful to you that you could not bear her. There have been others before her, of course, for your grandfather has always been an exceptionally lusty man. I believe all the Barforths are so. Certainly your Uncle Thomas – Joel’s father – and I must honestly confess to you that your own father made very many visits to Leeds about which I chose not to enquire. I took the view that they did not really concern me – that such things are in a man’s nature – a view I know your grandmother shared. For even your grandfather was most discreet during her lifetime. He has many faults, but he took great care never to embarrass his wife. She knew, you see, that he valued her, as his wife, above everything else, and she felt herself in no way threatened – in no way insecure. Men do not discard their wives as they do their mistresses – and I have every reason to believe your grandmother was an exceedingly happy woman.’

  Silence for a moment, then the sounds of the dogs panting in the sun, the child stirring in the warm, safely padded world of his cradle birdsong somewhere among the cherry trees. A holding in of breath, a reluctance to move myself towards understanding, a reluctance to feel.

  And then I said carefully, ‘Mother, is there something you want to tell me about Joel?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Absolutely nothing, for I know nothing about him. I merely took the opportunity to express an opinion, for we had so little time for conversation before your marriage. I sent you into the world all unprepared, my dear, and here you are, a mother already, so there is nothing I can tell you on that score. And as for the other – your husband may become a model of fidelity, but if he should not – if he should conform to the family pattern – Oh dear, how hard this is to express without appearing insensitive – but these fiercely energetic men, these competitive men with their hunting instincts so finely de
veloped, these greedy men, if you like, who cannot bear to have anything pass them by – And when they are so often away from home … My dear, if it happens it will probably mean very little to him and should not unduly distress you. It is necessary to treat these matters with sense rather than feeling – believe me – and after all you did not marry, through a sudden fit of emotion. If now, dear, you can become friends, use friendship as a foundation on which to build; then I think you will be well served. I set great store by friendship, Verity; I believe I once told you so. If I could choose I would always prefer a friend to a lover.’

  ‘And can you choose?’

  ‘At my age I think I can. Squire Dalby and I are friends.’

  ‘Do you mean to marry him?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, hardly that,’ she said, the trill of her laughter easing the load between us, ‘even if he would have me, which seems unlikely. His wife has been twenty years in her grave, and he has a son and a grandson waiting to inherit – I can’t think he would embarrass them with a worsted manufacturer’s widow, at this late stage. No, no – friendship, that is my aim. Warm but peaceful friendship – no demands, no jealousies – free, open friendship. You would not believe how delightful it can be.

  Mrs Stevens served tea in the garden, and afterwards when my mother had returned to her friend the squire, I continued to sit awhile under the blossom trees, wondering if Joel would be unfaithful and concluding that he would; concluding, since my mother would not have mentioned it otherwise, that he already had. And what did I really feel about it? Would it, indeed, be pointless to have any feelings at all, since I had no power to prevent it? Certainly I could throw hysterical fits as his mother had often done; I could whine and complain to my friends, as she had; I could even go to my grandfather, who, although he might privately consider male adultery to be a far more trifling offence than being late at the mill, would defend me. He would even use it as an additional rod with, which to scourge Joel.

  ‘So there’s more of your father coming out in you, lad is there? And there’s a short answer to it. If you can afford a harlot’s bills, then I’m paying you too well, and since it’s my money and my time you’re spending, I’ll have to cut you down to size.’

  And that would result in something far removed from friendship between me and Joel.

  The truth was that events had moved far too quickly for me. Only a year ago, this very month, I had sat in this same garden with my cousin Elinor, two little girls beneath anyone’s notice, while Hannah had dreamed of her wedding, Edwin of his power looms, and Joel had brooded over how he was to settle his father’s creditors. And now, a year later, Edwin and my father were gone, I was Joel’s wife and the mother of his son – and I had only just stopped being sixteen.

  Joel had given me a bracelet for my birthday, a thin twist of gold; he had even fastened it around my wrist and kissed my hand with a casual gallantry I found decidedly pleasant, until he had spoiled it all by pinching my chin and ruffling my hair in his old cousinly fashion. He had kept his promise and remained beside me through my long hours of labour, leaving only a moment or two before our son was born when the midwife, shocked and somewhat unnerved by his presence, had shooed him away. And afterwards, when I had been weak and tearful with, relief, he had filled my room with flowers and kept his temper – certainly for my sake – when my grandfather, declaring them unhealthy, had demanded that they should all be taken away.

  ‘Flowers,’ my grandfather had snorted. ‘Damn things belong in a garden – or a whorehouse. They’ll take up the air and choke the bairn. Flowers – I reckon that’s another of the damn fool notions you’ve picked up from your father.’

  But Joel, quietly and with, for him, immense patience, had replied, ‘My wife was glad to receive them, sir. She’s tired, you see, which is hardly to be wondered at, and I’ve no mind to upset her. In fact, I don’t see my way to denying her anything right now that could give her pleasure.’

  And although my grandfather had grunted and grumbled and stamped his feet all the way downstairs, I had kept my flowers.

  Nor had he been impatient to reclaim his conjugal rights. A month, the midwife had told me, was as much as most men allowed their wives before they came pestering again, but Joel had shown no such unmannerly haste.

  ‘Don’t fret,’ he had told me, that firm hand gentle once more beneath my chin. ‘A brute I may be on occasion; but not the kind to risk putting you through this agony again in a hurry. Take your time, get your strength back, and when you’re ready just let me know.’

  When, touched by his consideration, I had shown myself ready sooner than I might otherwise have done, he had treated my newly healed body almost with respect and, for a while thereafter, had taken such care as he could not to impregnate me again. And remembering the midwife’s harrowing tales of women forced to go on producing one child nine months after the other, I had been intensely grateful.

  In exchange for that and for his support and protection, his casual, tolerant affection, could I acknowledge his physical appetites to be greater than mine; his physical curiosity, as a man, in need of more variety than mine, as a woman, and accept it as natural for him to supplement the deficiency elsewhere? Presumably both my mother and my grandmother had done exactly that and retained their dignity, while Joel’s mother, who had not accepted it, had become a shrew, a hysteric, and a nuisance. Did I, in fact, see such acceptance as a basis for the friendship my mother had talked of? I thought I did not. Was there no way for us to approach each other – for I was willing to admit I had much to learn, if he would be prepared to teach, and to admit that I, too, had skills and knowledge that he lacked – and surely the fact that we shared a roof, an inheritance, a child, must mean more to him than any chance encounter? And if, sometimes, I still saw his face looking down at Edwin, his ambition leaping towards the mill, the looms, the heiress, before the breath was out of my brother’s body, I would try to forget. And if I could lock that memory away, surely he could bring himself to look at me and realize that my hair was no longer in pigtails, my eyes no longer so quiet as they used to be. But my thoughts were sketchy and could not have been put into words, and how could I, barely seventeen, make Joel sit down and listen while I outlined my scheme for a better future?

  How did I visualize that future? What did I really feel for the man I was still sometimes surprised to call my husband? He was, without doubt, hard and calculating, but these were traits of which my Law Valley heart could not wholly disapprove, and I had admired him, often enough, for his sharp, sardonic wit, the fierce energy that took him, after a day of gruelling labour, to Low Cross, where, in flagrant disobedience of my grandfather’s wishes, he would work long into the night, repairing, adjusting, operating with his own hands the looms that wove his experimental fancy worsteds. I had seen him ride home at dawn, dirty and drained, with no more than an hour to spare before Lawcroft demanded his presence again, and had seen the narrow, glittering anger in his eyes, instantly suppressed, when my grandfather, noting his fatigue, had made some scathing hint of an evening spent in wine and cards.

  ‘Watch him, lass,’ he would tell me at such times. ‘I can see his father in him, plain as day.’

  But it was not my uncle Thomas Barforth but Samson Barforth himself I could see in Joel, and my grandfather’s iron qualities in this younger, handsome man were not displeasing. And he was handsome. There was nothing now in his long, hard body that I found offensive, nothing to shock me when he strode naked across my bedroom floor with a branch of candles in his hand, the flame turning his skin to amber and darkening his eyes and his vigorously curling hair, adding brilliance to the sudden flash of his teeth as he gave me his bold pirate’s grin.

  Yet the fact remained that we had not chosen each other. We had been brought together to fulfil my grandfather’s desires rather than our own and, being very much aware that Joel had desired other women and had sacrificed a woman he may even have loved whereas I had desired no one, sacrificed nothing, I was afraid
to expect too much. Had he spoken to me of love on our wedding night I would have been offended, and yet now the possibility of love between us stirred, tantalized the fringes of my mind, and then I paused and grew cautious as I remembered his casual fingers pinching my chin, his teasing voice calling me ‘little cousin,’ ‘sweet cousin’ sometimes, but ‘cousin’ just the same. And on the occasions when a more intense feeling had arisen or had started to arise – when I had become ‘sweetheart,’ ‘little love,’ occasionally ‘darling’ – I could not forget how he always turned it away with a laugh and called me ‘cousin’ all the more.

  I was woman enough now to know what troubled him. He had seen me growing up alongside his sister Elinor, a little girl at a time when he, twelve years my senior, had already started to think of women. It was surely not to his discredit that the mental barrier which prevents men from desiring their sisters had made it difficult for him, in the early days, to desire me.

  But could that barrier now be crossed? Certainly I had never regarded him in any way as a brother. Throughout my entire childhood I had seen him as a man full-grown, a potent, predatory male, and had listened with rapt attention whenever his mother, my Aunt Hattie, had come whispering his misdeeds to my own mother.

  There had been a married lady in Harrogate, of good family, older than Joel, who had ruined her reputation for his sake; an irate husband who could not be expected, Aunt Hattie feared, to take the matter lightly. There had been an actress in Leeds, a singer of bawdy music-hall songs, with no reputation to lose but every intention, according to his mother, of ruining Joel’s health. There had been another actress, who had cost him money he could not afford, a mysterious woman whose source of income was never named, who had made him scandalous gifts of clothing and encouraged his taste for fine wines. There had been a frenzied episode in Manchester with a young widow, whose letters, when my Aunt Hattie had finally managed to read them, had made her blush. And there had been Rosamund Boulton.