Yet Bradley it was who took Elinor to her champagne supper at midnight, sitting on the floor at her feet while his wife and Elinor’s husband remained quite forgotten, Emma-Jane in the hands of the retiring-room woman, Mr Aycliffe in consultation with a group of his electors.
Rosamund Boulton was not present, although her handiwork was much on display, but Estella Chase, lately returned from almost a year in London, arrived a little before midnight, in some indeterminate costume of dull green crepe which, although I could not have put a name to it, suited her very well. She looked careless, haughty, a stalking thoroughbred too sure of herself to worry that her back hair was coming down, extending a limp, not particularly well-manicured hand to the many who rushed to present themselves to this second cousin of our manorial lord, although it was clear she remembered no one by name and saw no reason to try.
But my mother, who had been dining that evening with the Coreys and could be a Dalby any time she had a mind, was unimpressed, and slipping her arm through mine, she said, ‘Dearest, do you remember Mrs Chase? Yes, yes, dear, I am sure you do if you try. Colonel Corey’s daughter? Colonel Corey, I believe you know my daughter, Mr Barforth?’
‘Indeed I do,’ he said. ‘My word, indeed I do.’ And because of the money he had lent to Crispin – because he might even know that Crispin and I were lovers, since his son, Mark Corey, knew it – my mind was too busy to assess the glance Estella Chase exchanged with Joel until it was over.
He danced with her once, no more, keeping his polite distance, saying little, taking her back to her father and making his bow. Yet after that he danced with no one else, taking his stand by the refreshment-room door and helping himself from time to time at the punch bowl, a spectator with eyes half closed, watching her dance with other men, and watching me too in a way to which I was not accustomed, which made me uncomfortable, half afraid, with his mouth hard, his expression morose and unfriendly.
‘Has your husband’s dinner disagreed with him?’ my mother murmured, but before I could properly reply – before I could tell her that the shimmering, cobweb of a dress had not succeeded – there was a hand on my arm and a whispering voice advising me that Mrs Hobhouse was really quite unwell and had asked for me.
She was, in fact, on her feet when I reached the retiring room, colossal with rage, purple at the injustice of a world where she who had never done anything wrong, who had been a devoted wife and mother, could be forgotten – simply forgotten – while a silly, mincing chit like Elinor Barforth, who had married that disgusting old man for money when she had failed to get her hands on Bradley, should be floating on air, the centre of attention, with Bradley – so at least a dozen people had told her – sitting at her feet.
‘Didn’t you tell him I’m not well?’ she shrieked at me. ‘I’ve been here for hours – hours – and what is he doing?
‘Has anybody brought me my supper? I could starve and would anybody care?’
And as the retiring-room woman and I attempted to calm her, Elinor, who had certainly followed me and overheard the whole, came tripping into the room, fanning herself with a dainty, quiet cruel hand.
‘My word,’ she said, ‘you do look seedy, Emma-Jane. Quite green.’
‘Spiteful little cat,’ Emma-Jane hissed, lunging forward to strike a wild blow which did little harm. ‘You’ve always been jealous of me – always wanted whatever I had. Well, if I lose this baby you’ll be to blame.’
‘Oh, as to that,’ Elinor said, the trill of her light laughter somehow filling the room, reminding me, if no one else, of those far-off days when she’d had to beg a ride in Emma-Jane’s carriage and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ for an ‘unwanted length of cotton, wouldn’t dwell on that, Emma-Jane. I expect you could spare a baby or two. You’d hardly miss it.’
‘Wicked,’ Emma-Jane said, a sob in her voice. ‘Wicked girl—’ And, coming between them – Emma-Jane weeping bitterly now and Elinor shaking with glee – I took my cousin by her lovely, tipsy shoulders and bundled her from the room.
‘That, Elinor, is enough. The poor woman is quite hysterical, and you don’t really want her husband, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t want fat Bradley. Fat Emma-Jane can keep him. But it’s nice, isn’t it, Verity, to know I could take him if I wanted him? So nice. Take him and ruin him, because he knows I’d be no good for him, that he can’t afford me, and yet he still couldn’t resist… Verity, don’t be cross with me. You’ve had the men at your feet tonight too, so you must understand. They own us, after all, don’t they, and this is the only way we can strike back – make them desire us until it hurts them, and then run away. That’s the game, dearest, isn’t it? I’m no fool. I’ll keep on running, keep on smiling and promising and then saying no. What else have I got to do – how else can I tell the difference between being awake and being asleep?’
‘Oh, Elinor,’ I said, despairing suddenly for both of us. ‘Elinor, what a world this is.’ And there, in the narrow landing by the retiring-room door, we flung our arms around each other, careless of wigs and laces and fine muslins, careless of prying eyes, and hugged each other tight.
‘My word, how very moving,’ a hard, sarcastic voice told us, startling us both since we had heard no one approach, startling me even more when I saw the taut, ill-tempered lines of Joel’s face, with something written between them which I could not in any way decipher.
‘You were a long time gone,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘And it crossed my mind to wonder what the devil… However, now that I’ve found you, I have to say that this whole affair is quite tedious, and we can be on our way.’
‘Oh, but it’s only half over.’
‘No, no, Mrs Barforth. I’ve ordered your carriage and so I’d say it’s quite over.’
‘Well, I’m sure I don’t care either way. Good night then, Elinor. I’ll call tomorrow.’
‘Good night,’ she said, looking nervous, tearful, her hand sketching an almost childish gesture of farewell as I went off to retrieve my belongings and then hurried to meet Joel, awaiting me in the hall.
Jealousy, could it be that? But jealousy of my affection, suspicion, or a more primitive reaction, the basic instinct of a predatory male who, while making free with other men’s wives, does not wish anyone to gaze too closely at his own? Jealousy. And if jealousy meant fear of loss, as I understood it, then would losing me mean more to him than an assault on his pride? And if he cared more, or differently, than I had believed, if my light-headed flaunting of myself in my mother’s old gown had indeed aroused something in him, stripped me finally, in his eyes, of my aura of girlhood, of our too close kinship, if it had done that, then surely I must go as far as I could to meet him.
I am base enough to know I would not sacrifice it, Crispin’s voice said to me from far away, an echo of our first lovemaking, but it was clear to me now that the sacrifice would soon have to be made, and would have to be made by me, not only for my children’s sake but for Crispin’s too. He could not exist forever waiting, wasting his talents and himself, at the Red Gin.
And, if my husband held out his hand to me I would have no right to refuse. Nor would it be wise to question his motives. Perhaps he had seen me tonight as a desirable woman who could at last challenge and excite him. Perhaps it was simply that, having had enough of philandering, mellowing now that his middle years were within view, his mind was turning to a deeper relationship, finding less satisfaction in chance encounters. But, whatever it was, I must accept it, must work with him to nurture it, must no longer be afraid of the potent male in him which I had always felt unable to satisfy. I must admit to myself, finally and forever, that I too had held back from him, unwilling to risk my emotions with a man who had aroused such storms in other women, who had so casually broken hearts and reputations. I must now take that risk, must give in order to receive.
‘Joel,’ I called out, holding my cloak snugly around me, covering my offensive nudity, ‘I’m here.’
But as we walked out in
to the crisp night, there were two carriages at the door, our own and Colonel Corey’s, with Estella Chase waiting peevishly to be handed inside.
‘I will bid you good night, Mrs Barforth, Mr Barforth,’ she said, each word a sharp-edged stone flung in Joel’s face, her own face pinched with cold fury.
‘Good night,’ he answered brusquely, almost pushing me into the carriage, his intention to ignore her so plain, so rude, that even the coachmen must have known that there had been harsh words between them, even the coachmen must have pitied the poor little wife who seemed so unaware of the tension crackling and snarling from one to the other.
Jealousy? Of what? I had wondered. Jealousy of whom? Had it really been my lovely, gleaming gown, my painted feet, my posturings in the lamplight, or – as so often before in Joel’s life – had it not concerned me at all? Had he wished to leave early on my account, thereby annoying this haughty woman who had counted on having him to herself? Or was he taking me home merely because he had had a tiff with Mrs Chase, who was leaving too? And although I had no answer I was no longer so ready to make a sacrifice.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I do not think it had been part of Daniel Adair’s original plan to make love to Elinor. At their first acquaintance she had been a frail, capricious woman with no will of her own and very little spirit, and although it may well have occurred to him that her frequent bouts of ill health were rooted in emotional and sexual dissatisfaction, I believe he had no intention – while her husband lived – of attempting a cure. Daniel Adair, crafty and ambitious, lighthearted and warmhearted, a man for laughter rather than tears, would have been content to bide his time, for Morgan Aycliffe, by the look of him, could not last forever, and Elinor, as a wealthy widow with no sons to demand their share of the Aycliffe fortune, would be a glittering prize. Naturally, Mr Adair would have made some attempt to I possess himself of her affections well in advance of her husband’s demise, since there would be other bees in plenty circling the honeypot, but a woman may give her affections without risk, provided she does not give her body along with them, and Mr Adair, who could afford to buy his pleasures, was in no hurry.
But Elinor’s fresh awakening to herself as a woman, her remembrance of the power her beauty gave her over the men who desired it, her delighted, determined skill in making them desire it the more, put a different face on things. Elinor the ailing little mouse, Elinor the feather-headed spendthrift, could be easily dealt with by a resourceful man, easily frightened or flattered into good behaviour, but Elinor the enchantress of other women’s husbands – Elinor who, if left to herself, would certainly get into trouble and might, like Crispin before her, lose the Aycliffe inheritance altogether – such an Elinor was a threat to Mr Adair’s schemes and, I have never doubted, a temptation to his own vigorous sensuality.
Perhaps Elinor had not intended him to make love to her, either. Her body, accustomed to serving an old man’s hurried, awkward demands, was completely ignorant of physical fulfilment. To her the sexual act had first seemed a joke, then a nuisance, then an ordeal to be got through as quickly as possible whenever it could not be avoided altogether; and it was a man’s admiration she required – a man at her feet, not in her bed.
But when Morgan Aycliffe returned to London for the start of the parliamentary session in February, she allowed Daniel Adair to kiss her one afternoon – feeling herself perfectly safe simply because it was afternoon and fornication, she believed, could only take place at night – and, finding the experience decidedly unusual, quite unable to understand why a man’s mouth on her mouth could have such a strange effect on the pit of her stomach, she was unable to stop thinking about it, unable to rest until he had kissed her again. And even then it was a game. They dined together that night, making Elinor’s account books their excuse, the Aycliffe housekeeper hovering between them, and afterwards, in the library, supposedly going through those conveniently muddled accounts, she bolted the door and offered him her mouth again, then her bare arms and shoulders, and found, to her amazement, that even by pressing herself into his arms she could not get close enough, that her thin silk gown was a barrier, as solid as a brick wall, which she could not tolerate. And so she tore the barrier down, fell on him, starved and parched by her ten dry years, and then, when her limbs had flooded with a pleasure she had not believed in, she lay purring blissfully against his shoulder, submissive and bemused, convinced beyond all question that no one but Daniel Adair could make this marvellous thing happen to her And, in those early days, all that mattered was that he should make it happen again and again, with no thought of what could come after.
It was a wonderful spring that year, fragile, pale blue-mornings, lemon-yellow afternoons, cool, hyacinth-scented evenings, opening the moorland pathways, freeing me from winter restraints, so that once again I could walk out to Old Sarah’s Rock and the hut beyond it. I knew we had, survived the winter mainly because Crispin had gone away at the start of it, to the Midlands and then to London putting real distance between us, which had been far easier to bear than the few impossible miles from Lawcroft to the Red Gin.
It had offered us the opportunity to drift apart, aft opportunity we should have taken and had, perhaps, meant to take, but as I pushed open the creaking door on that first blustery March morning and saw him there, still-in his old blue coat, the winter months evaporated and we had never been separate.
‘What I dream of,’ he said, ‘is waking one morning and finding you there, knowing you’ve spent a whole night beside me. Now, is that too much to ask – one poor little dream?’
Yet he had other dreams in his head just then, having, spent the winter with men of his own kind in an immense exchange of ideas and ideals, culminating in his meeting with the radical politician Francis Place, who, although he was not to publish it for some time to come, had already worked out the themes of his People’s Charter.
‘Being with him was a revelation,’ Crispin told me, his face thinner than ever from his December diet of good conversation. ‘I can’t tell you how exciting it was, listening to him expressing the views I’ve always shared and never quite put into words. I kept thinking: Yes, of course, I know that. I’ve always thought that, except that I’d kept it in the background of my mind until he released it, with just a few simple words. It was almost like falling in love – recognizing yourself in another person, as I did with you – or suddenly realizing one has a religious vocation. He drew all the loose threads together for me – after all, he’s been a professional politician for a long time and he can speak convincingly and persuasively as they all do – but the feeling of actually finding a man one can believe in was quite overwhelming. And quite astonishing too, since I thought I was the cat who walks alone and had no great capacity for belief in anything except my own personal bits and pieces. It makes one feel far less lonely.’
‘Good. I’m very glad for you.’
‘Darling – are you jealous of an old Westminster warhorse like Francis Place? Then I shall believe in him all the more.’
‘Yes, yes – but what does he believe in? What shocking, things are you going to be advocating in next week’s Star? You had better tell me, so I may keep it away from Hannah, for she upsets herself very much and goes on and on at breakfast time. Is it very revolutionary?’
‘My word,’ he said. ‘I am more powerful than I supposed, if I can disturb Miss Hannah Barforth’s tea and toast. Yes, I fear it is quite extreme and will appeal to no one in Cullingford but the residents of Simon Street. He believes, as I do, that government should be concerned with the individual, not with property, and so he advocates one man one vote, as I have always done, whether or not that man possesses a penny to call his own.’
‘Definitely a measure for Simon Street.’
‘Quite so. And to avoid the spectre of the millmaster standing over the new voter with a whip in one hand and an eviction notice in the other – my word, what a picture, I must get someone to sketch it for me, and include it with my artic
le – well, the way to avoid that, of course, is in have a secret ballot. My father – and your husband – would merely say we were giving the common man the freedom to sell his vote three or four times over, and naturally, some would do that. But the majority would vote as they saw fit. Wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, yes, I suppose so – they would vote for Mark Corey instead of your father.’
‘They could even vote for me.’
‘For you? How can you stand for Parliament yourself? You have no money.’
Exactly. I could not support myself in office, and, in Francis Place’s opinion, I shouldn’t need to. He wishes to abolish the property qualification for Members of Parliament and to pay them salaries like any other professional men.
‘Oh well – I see now why you believe in him.’
‘Because it is to my own advantage? Yes, and why not if I feel I have some contribution to make? But aren’t you shocked at the idea of men like me filling the House of Commons – men without property put there by the mass of the people who have no property, either? Doesn’t excite you?’
Irritated perhaps by his enthusiasm, I gave him typically Barforth answer. ‘Why should it? What advantage could there possibly be to me?’
‘None,’ he said dryly. ‘None at all.’ And then, understanding that this fine flaring of his opportunities, opening up of new vistas, could hardly be pleasing to shackled as I was to Cullingford, he put his arms around me so gently that for a moment my heart stopped and I feared he was about to bid me goodbye.
I went home determined to be glad for him, for if Francis Place should ever find the means of throwing open the parliamentary career to men like Crispin, then his future could be bright indeed. And what did it matter, that I would remain here, with no real future of my own, a part of Joel’s destiny, since that was my fate in any case? But that afternoon, taking my usual drive with Elinor, I found myself struggling against a murky, altogether uncomfortable envy, for her love was still a newborn miracle and mine, perhaps, was coming to an end.
The Clouded Hills Page 45
