‘Oh yes. He is here, but he will go away again.’
‘And you can endure it?’
‘I must. After all, I have endured him for ten years, and I think I may endure a little longer. If he comes to my room tonight – and it is not at all certain that he will – I shall not think of him at all. I shall think of Daniel, and by closing my mind to everything else I shall survive.’
‘I do believe my little sister is growing up at last,’ Joel remarked as we drove home. ‘Tonight she really looked like Mrs Morgan Aycliffe, and damn-me if Aycliffe didn’t think so too. He’ll be taking her back to London with him, shouldn’t wonder, which may not please all of us – eh, Hannah? – but you can’t deny it’s where she ought to be.’
And if Hannah understood his hint that her influence with our first Member of Parliament might be coming to an end, she ignored it.
But perhaps it plagued her just the same, thinning out her sleep as other anxieties thinned mine, so that we both slipped abruptly into wakefulness when the hammering started, the terrible night-wailing of some desperate creature, gone mad or pursued by violence, or by justice, to our door.
‘Stay here,’ Joel commanded, reaching hastily for a dressing gown. ‘There’s no telling who it may be.’ But I think I knew, and I was there, in the hall, with the servants and the hastily lit candles, the excited, delighted yelping of my puppies, as he opened the door and Elinor, with only a thin cloak over her nightgown, ran inside, a hunted I creature brought to bay, cowering from everything that moved until she saw me and fell, panting and wet through into my arms.
‘God Almighty,’ Joel said blankly, and Hannah, her lips chalk-white – for only tragedy of the first magnitude could cause a woman, even Elinor, to run half naked through the night – demanded, ‘The children? Mr Aycliffe? Are they dead?’
And standing there with her collapsed body slumped, against me, not even listening to the words she was pouring into my ear, I said, ‘No. Send the servants away, Hannah – Joel – immediately.’
And when they had done it and come to stand one on either side of me, hard-eyed now and suspicious, I told them, ‘She can’t talk to you now. I shall take her upstairs and put her to bed.’
‘What lunacy is this?’ Joel said.
‘What disgrace?’ Hannah echoed, and drawing Elinor closer to me, I said, ‘She has left her husband, or he – has turned her out – and, either way, I shall take her upstairs for she is not even half conscious and you will get nothing from her. Wait for me in the study. I will be down presently.’
And I suppose it was because they were so unaccustomed to receiving commands from me that they obeyed.
Mrs Stevens had lingered on the first landing, knowing her own usefulness in times of crisis, and together we dried Elinor’s feet and the tangle of her hair, found her a fresh nightgown, a clean, lavender-scented bed, hugged her and kissed her and told her the pain would go away, the fear would go away, although we all knew otherwise. And gradually we pieced together the tale I, at least, already knew, that she had held firm, sure of herself and her ability to safeguard her future, until the moment he had put his hands upon her. And then, sickened, by the conjugal rights her new maturity had encouraged him to reclaim, she had at first refused and finally, when he persisted, had lost her head and told him all.
‘I couldn’t,’ she said simply. I thought I could. Until he instant he got into my bed I was sure of it, for I’d been doing it all these years, but after Daniel, it wasn’t the same. For a moment or two I was mad with terror, quite mad, as if Daniel was my husband and Morgan Aycliffe was an intruder, a criminal. And so I said things, and he knew. He’s an old man – he smells old, feels old. I couldn’t.
And, throwing pitying arms around her, Mrs Stevens murmured, ‘Yes, darling, I know, I know.’
They were waiting for me in the study, Joel leaning against the fireplace smoking. Hannah sitting straight-backed, rigid with shock and shame and some honest anger that this would damage her own relations with Mr Aycliffe. And both of them, brother and sister more alike now than ever before, turned hard, accusing eyes on me as came into the room, having clearly weighed me in their personal balance and, as Hannah had always expected, found me wanting.
‘So,’ Joel said grimly, ‘are you in a position now to make explanations?’
‘If you like.’
‘Like? No, I don’t like this at all – none of it, for I never heard of a woman who left her husband, and Aycliffe would not turn her out without good reason. There is another man, then?’
‘Of course there is,’ Hannah cut in, her fists clenching and unclenching with suppressed fury. ‘What else, what else. Yes, indeed, and I think, Joel, that you would do well to require your wife to be frank with us, to inform us of the man’s identity, since we cannot doubt she knows.’
And, meeting her eyes, nodding slightly, he said, ‘Verity?’ – the quiet menace of his tone making me well aware of the thin ice on which I stood.
‘It is Daniel Adair,’ I told him, wondering why I was so calm, why I remained unafraid even when, abruptly turning his back, he gave the short, unpleasant laugh that warned of danger, while Hannah, white then red then white again, became so tight with anger that I felt the strain of it in my own bones.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘a bricklayer. How apt, how typical. One would expect better judgement from a kitchen maid. And while we are speaking of judgement, Verity.’
‘Indeed – are we speaking of that?’
‘I fear so. And I find it an unpleasant task to be obliged to question your own. May one ask when you first became aware of this – this criminal association? For everything in your manner tells me that you knew of it long before tonight.’
‘Yes, I knew. I knew from the beginning.’
‘Of course you did. And failed, for reasons I am sure my, brother will find hard to understand, to take any responsible action. Failed to inform either him or myself, as you should have done.’
But Joel, swinging round to face us, instead of taking me to task as I had expected, dreaded, said harshly, ‘Leave that. For now, at any rate. We have Elinor to deal with first, and Aycliffe. And I’m damned if I know what’s to be done.’
Hannah, the sister who had never yet failed him, met his eyes again, her answer ready.
‘There is only one thing to be done, Joel, and, with your permission, there is no need for Verity to be involved in. We must take her back, now if possible or early tomorrow’s morning, before it becomes the common gossip of the town. If anyone saw her running through the streets in that lunatic fashion, they will hardly have believed the evidence of their eyes. I think we can shut our own servants’ mouths and feel reasonably confident that Mr Aycliffe will know how to do the same. But the longer the delay, the greater the risk. Come, Joel.’
‘And if he won’t have her?’
‘It is very much in his best interests to do so. There may well be a general election before the year is out, and he cannot be allowed to ruin his career. He cannot afford a scandal, for although he is the victim in this case the Cullingford Star would not take that view. He will be well aware of that, once it is pointed out to him, once Elinor has been prevailed upon to plead for pardon.’
‘He will not pardon her,’ I said very softly.
Again she spun round to me, her eyes ablaze. ‘No, and I do not expect it of him. No one could expect it. It is merely necessary for him to behave as if he had.’
‘And she will not plead with him, either. Not tonight, at any rate.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that she will not be going home tonight. She will be staying here, as my guest.’
‘You have no authority,’ Hannah said, spitting out each word like an angry cat. ‘No authority to offer her shelter under my brother’s roof.’
‘Rather more authority than you, Hannah, I think.’
And as she snapped her mouth tight shut to hold back her outraged words, Joel said coldly, dangerously
, ‘You will apologize for that, Verity, to my sister.’
And still I was not afraid.
‘Presently, Joel. But Elinor is your sister too, is she not? And I wonder why you are so ready to send her back to that spiteful old man who does not really want her, who has not wanted her for a long time, without even hearing what she has to say.’
‘She will have no choice,’ he said. ‘If I deny her shelter, and the decision is certainly mine, where else can she go?’
But having found my courage, like my old yellow bitch who had not hesitated to charge a horse and carriage for my sake, I knew I could go on.
‘I think there must always be a refuge, Joel, if one looks hard enough. She could go to my mother, at Patterswick, I believe.’
‘And if I forbid you to take her there?’
‘Then she may go alone, if she is determined and sure of her welcome, for my mother is entirely free to offer hospitality as she pleases. And no one but Elinor’s husband may legally compel her to return, should he so desire.’
Amazingly, instead of giving vent to his temper, he stared at me for a moment and then turned his back again, the fingers of one nervous hand drumming against the mantelpiece, one irritable foot tapping against the fender.
‘Joel,’ Hannah said, ‘we are not obliged, surely, to listen to this foolishness?’
And then, realizing that Joel was listening only to his own thoughts, refusing to communicate with either one of us, she turned again to me.
‘Does it surprise you that my brother is at a loss for words? Setting aside all moral issues, you may be certain, that if Elinor persists in this madness her husband will know how to defend himself. He will admit no financial, claims, and she will never see her children again.’
‘Ah, no. But then, how much does she see of them anyway, with the nurses and governesses you have found for them, and the house so full of precious china they are hardly made welcome in it. Do you really believe she would miss them?’
‘It is her duty to miss them,’ she thundered. ‘And finally, one way or another, she must learn to do her duty. Joel, we are wasting time here. We should go to Blenheim Lane at once.’
But, inexplicably, Joel’s back was still turned, his eyes apparently held by the fan of pleated paper that filled the summer hearth. Finding it easier to address his lounging, shoulders than his scowling, brooding face, and hoping, I think, in some recess of my mind that he would finally turn to me in sympathy and understanding to take my part; instead of Hannah’s, I began to speak quickly, knowing that her claims on him were very strong and that she would not allow me much time.
‘She is your sister, Joel, and entitled to your support. She may be foolish and capricious, and difficult, I admit it, but she was seventeen and young for her years when that man married her – She thought marriage was a new silk dress and sleeping late in the mornings, and now, when she knows what it could have been, she’s in despair. All I ask is that you talk to her when she’s calmer, treat her like a woman for the first time in your life and give her the opportunity to defend herself. She has been badly treated too you know. Yes, Joel, you know she has.’
When he still would not answer me, when even the slight movement of his hand and his foot ceased, shrouding him in a choking silence, Hannah shot him a puzzled, reproachful look and then spoke the words she had expected him to say.
‘Yes, indeed. Very badly. A beautiful home full of well-trained servants. Three healthy children. A decent, intelligent husband with a successful commercial career behind him and what may well be a brilliant career in politics at his feet. Nothing in the world to do but issue her commands and spend that man’s money. And she betrayed him!’
‘It does not surprise me, Hannah.’
‘I daresay.’
‘And if he is honest with himself it should not surprise Mr Aycliffe, either. He will not be so heartbroken, you know, for he has never loved her.’
‘I dispute that. I know him better than you do, and had he not, entertained the deepest feelings for her he would not have married her.’
‘What nonsense, and you know it. He married her on a sensual impulse, probably quite foreign to his nature, which he has regretted ever since, for once it was satisfied he had very little use for her. And that was his own fault, Hannah, not Elinor’s, for he was old enough to have known better. And so was Joel, for that matter, when he consented to it. But she was not. Well, I suppose he is not the first man to lose his head in middle life over a girl young enough to be his daughter, and one can sympathize with that. But there was no need for him to turn peevish, to neglect her when he no longer found her exciting in his bed. Hannah, he has virtually ignored her these past two or three years, and however well-intentioned your motives, you have encouraged it.’
‘How dare you say that to me.’
‘It seems I dare. What did he expect when he went off to London and left her alone? He deserted her – yes, yes, that is the right word, deserted her – because she bores him and ages him, reminds him of what a fool he once was, and because he feels uncomfortable with the children, and is afraid of having more. Yet no one blames him for that. He is coldhearted and selfish. Whether you are prepared to admit it or not, if you are strictly honest, you must know that her loss would not grieve him. And I also think, Hannah, that you should question your own motives. Why are you so determined to send her back? Is it Elinor’s relationship with Mr Aycliffe that you are so anxious to save, or your own?’
She raised her hand then, fist clenched, to strike me, I think, but the habit of dignity was too strong, and lowering it, twisting her hands together, she hissed, Be careful, my girl, very careful, unless you would have us question your own morals, as I have always questioned your mother’s.
And her scathing ‘my girl’ was, finally, too much.
‘If you are making comparisons, Hannah,’ I said, very clearly, making sure she heard and understood, ‘then you have not far to look, for your father was an alley cat where women were concerned, and your brother is the same, with no more consideration for me than your father had for your mother. And Edwin was like them. He would have led you a merry dance, my girl, and you would have had no time then for passing moral judgements on matters you – barely understand. You seem to think Elinor lewd, but she has in fact bolted from her husband because she simply cannot bear him to touch her. One can hardly call her sexually depraved for that.’
‘Joel,’ she said, just the one word, an appeal not only for help but an expression of how deeply she had been wounded, a cry which brought him instantly round to face her, the sister who had so valiantly shared his hard times, whose own life was still far from easy. And I could not tell from the tense, tautly etched mask of his face what it had meant to him to be called an alley cat, whether he had heard or cared, whether he would punish or laugh, whether he would astonish me by asking if he had hurt me, and by being ashamed. Yet I did know, with a sudden flow of feeling that softened me, weakened me, that I had been hurt and that, should he ask for pardon, I would not refuse it.
‘I will go to Blenheim Lane now, he said, his eyes holding Hannah’s bending her to his will as perhaps only he could do, ignoring me entirely. I may do better man to man, alone. And until we know his intentions Elinor keeps to her bed, here, under my roof, with no one but yourselves and Mrs Stevens near her. And as for what is between the two of you, you must settle it as best you can.’
He let the door slam shut behind him, and we stood there for a moment, Hannah and I, facing each other, imprisoned in her anger and my newborn freedom from restraint, which had made me cruel.
‘I do not like you, Verity,’ she said.
‘That is your privilege.’
‘Yes, and do not think that my brother will ever take your part against me, for he will not. Not in the long term. I stood by him when our father died, and he knows, had Edwin lived, that the Barforth inheritance would have been mine. My loss has been Joel’s gain, and he remembers that.’
‘
Indeed. But the Barforth inheritance belonged to neither of you, Hannah. Samson Barforth was my grandfather, not yours. The inheritance was mine.’
‘Which is why my brother married you.’
‘So it was. And you, Hannah, would do well to forget my marriage, and Elinor’s, and give some thought to your own.’
‘Do not presume to advise me, Verity. I am older than you and have a great deal more sense –’
‘But you are a spinster, Hannah, which ignores sense and seniority – and it does not suit you.’
And as her hand shot out at last to hurt me, I caught her wrist and, amazing myself that I could hold it so tight, could so obviously give her pain, I told her, ‘I do not dislike you, Hannah; in fact, sometimes I like you very well, and what you think of me makes no difference. But, for your own good – and stop pulling away from me, for shall hold on until I have done – for your own good, concentrate on your own life and let other people get on as they think fit. Marry Mr Ashley, if you must, although think Mr Brand would suit you better. But marry someone for you are no more able to exist alone than Elinor.’
There was, after that, a great deal more, a vast rooting out of grievances, of all the times I had slighted her or mocked her, my odd, unreliable nature that made me so difficult to live with, my inability to appreciate the awkwardness of her situation, such a torrent of resentment that, in the end, Mrs Stevens flowed smoothly through the door, coaxed Hannah away with the little murmurs and gestures of sympathy she had used with my grandfather and then came back to tell me Elinor was at last asleep.
‘Poor child, she imagines Mr Adair will come tomorrow to take her away.’
‘And you do not think he will?’
‘Oh, dearest – hardly. What do you think?’
‘I think he will not come, either.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘dear, dear – and he will not prove us wrong, you know.’
And patting my cheek, she went sadly away.
The Clouded Hills Page 47
