by Rona Randall
Minutes later, her mother-in-law was with her and saying serenely, “Do not distress yourself, my dear. Youthful high spirits account for many things.” She was covering her with a cloak and saying that if she wished to slip away she would order a carriage at once, and accompany her. “I will then return and say the heat and excitement of the day have overcome you, and everyone will understand.”
Then they were driving to Tremain Hall and later still, leading her upstairs to the wing which was now to be her home, Charlotte Freeman was saying, “There is a bedroom adjoining your own — we will see that Max is put in there to sleep it off. And tomorrow he will be penitent and you will forgive him and remember only the happy side of your wedding day and what a beautiful bride you made. You will find it a helpful policy to remember only the pleasant things in married life.”
Sometime later she heard movements and voices, followed by footsteps along the corridor and the dragging of feet. They went into the adjoining room, and she guessed that her husband was being put to bed, though the quickly departing feet suggested he had merely been dropped upon it. She did not trouble to find out. She had no desire to look on his drunken form again and never would she heed her mother-in-law’s advice to forgive him. He would have to go down on his knees to her first and swear that he would never behave in such a disgusting fashion again, and she would keep him dangling for a long time before condescending even that far.
Anger made her self-confident and unafraid. When they met tomorrow her manner would be cold indeed. Meanwhile, she was glad to be alone for she was tired and wanted nothing so much as to sleep.
She undressed, donned her lovely bridal nightgown, and climbed into the four-poster bed, drawing the curtains around it. Thus hidden, she felt totally private, and it pleased her to think that when he wakened in the morning and came in search of her he would be unable to see her in this small, safely enclosed world. Guilt would discourage him from pulling the draperies apart, though he might tap hesitantly on the bed post, hoping for admission — which, of course, she would not grant. She would remain hidden, enjoying his discomfiture, pretending to be asleep or dismissing him peremptorily. Whatever course she adopted, she would be mistress of the situation.
Release of tension brought immediate sleep. What wakened her she had no idea, but suddenly she was alert to movements beyond the bed curtains, heavy footsteps stumbling on the solid oak floor, curses as they jarred against furniture. Heart pounding, she sat up with a jerk and the creaking bed betrayed her. In a second the draperies were ripped back and Max was silhouetted against the dusky evening sky.
He had slept no time at all. Night had not yet fallen. She pulled the coverlet up to her chin and he stumbled against the side of the bed, groping for her. I won’t forgive him, I won’t she vowed wildly — for of course that was why he was here, to plead her pardon.
His appearance shocked her. His cloth of gold was badly crumpled and his hair dishevelled, but he was considerably more sober.
“I did not hear you knock,” she said coolly.
“Knock? Why the devil should I knock? And why the devil was I put in the next room?”
“You were in no fit state — ”
“And in what sort of state does a man have to be, to share his wife’s bed?”
“Not drunk,” she said primly. “When you are completely sober we will talk. Now leave me. I am tired and wish to sleep.”
At that he slapped her across the face. The sting was frightening, but his next action even more so. In one swift movement he pulled her from the bed and ripped her nightgown from her.
“And we’ll be rid of that thing also,” he shouted, flinging her pretty night cap after it. Then he was shedding his own clothes while she cowered on the floor, trying to cover her nakedness with a coverlet from the bed and averting her eyes because she had never seen a man undress. That seemed to increase his rage and he pulled her to her feet so savagely that she lost her grip on the coverlet.
Pressing his bare body against hers he panted, “Feel it, my shy, blushing, stupid little bride? Do you feel it? Well, you are going to feel it hard inside you and for as long and as often as I decide. There’ll be no more damnable coyness. I’ve had enough of your simpering and your stupid innocence.”
He pushed her onto the bed and his body came down on top of her, heavy and demanding, thrusting her legs apart. His mouth closed on one breast, nibbling it, teasing it with his bold tongue…and then the other…and then her mouth as before…and all the time his hands explored her; impatient, brutal, punishing.
Her struggles to be free and the wild threshing of her limbs seemed to inflame and delight him. The more she struggled, the more he exulted. When his hardness raped her body, violent and conquering, he clamped a hand across her mouth, silencing her screams, and the pain caused by his thrusting flesh increased as his onslaught increased, until at last she lay stupefied and inert.
In some stunned recess of her mind flickered the thought that the man doing these things to her could not possibly be her adored Max. This was not the lover who would place her on a pedestal, kneel before her, and worship her as an untouchable goddess. This was an animal inflicting on her something far worse than any animal’s quick mating. He was a savage, panting and grunting as he continued with his endless attack until at last he uttered a great gasp and fell away, exhausted.
Numbed, she remained where she was. In a little while she would be able to drag herself off the bed and escape from him, and never again would she submit to so vile an experience. She would run back to Medlar Croft and dear Mamma tomorrow. She would go to Joseph and weep on his shoulder. But never could she reveal to either of them the shameful experiences of her marriage bed.
She lay very still, waiting not only for the right moment to slip away, but for her body to recover. She could visualise the bruises which would appear, marring the loveliness she had viewed so complacently in her mirror, making a mockery of her romantic dreams. But when she moved tentatively, her husband pulled her back and the whole thing began again, except that this time he was intent on prolonging it. His first passion spent, he gathered more as he explored her with leisurely interest, mocking her as he did so.
“Are you shocked, pretty Phoebe? Then feel this — and this — and this! And there is more to come, more things I can do to you, things your silly little head seems to have no knowledge of. And to think I was enchanted by it! I thought you were a sweet little temptress, luring me with your wiles, when all the time you were a simpering little idiot with a mind full artificial nonsense. Did your mother tell you nothing? Are you really so ignorant of what a man expects of a woman? I will cure that ignorance quickly enough. This is merely a foretaste, though I grant you a more satisfying foretaste than I could have snatched during the carriage drive, little prude that you were. Did you really have no inkling of what I wanted to do, or were you just being tiresome? I began to think I would have fared better with Jessica, after all. She might well have pleasured me more, having done it and obviously enjoyed it, else she would not have continued with her canal digger and found it necessary to wed him. That is the sort of woman to gratify a man — unlike you, my little plaster saint.”
“Jessica!” she gasped, but he was invading her body again. This time the onslaught was mercifully less painful, but it went on and on until his appetites were satiated and his senses lulled.
At length he was so quiet that she concluded he was asleep. Dragging herself off the bed, she searched for her bridal nightgown and found it as tattered as her dreams. She let it fall, pulled on a matching white robe and stepped outside onto a balcony. Night had come at last and she breathed its air with relief. Wrapping her arms about her, she shed tears of self-pity and hatred and shame. Her husband was a savage, an uncouth monster.
She remained where she was, feeling desperately sorry for herself and contemptuous of all women who submitted to such vile lusts. She would leave Tremain Hall as soon as daylight came. She would slip away before anyone
was astir. Her clothes had been sent here in advance; she would dress in the first that came to hand and run away.
The place was silent. No doubt the revelries were still underway at Carrion House, with Agatha mooning over Joseph and he being the attentive husband-to-be. She could not imagine her splendid brother ever behaving like an animal, for his sensitivity was as fastidious as her own. So their wedding night would not be like hers, if only because Agatha’s body was not so desirable as hers. The thought was satisfying, but she wanted no repetition of tonight’s experiences. She wept now for her trusting innocence and her sweet, pure dreams, and hated Max for destroying both.
The sound of wheels and the clatter of hooves cut into the silence. Looking down, she saw the Drayton gig driving past the courtyard and round to the west door. Amelia’s golden hair showed up plainly; her head was resting against a dark shoulder, and the shoulder was Martin’s. Phoebe couldn’t recall seeing him at the wedding feast, but he must have been there and no doubt he was bringing Amelia home from it now. That meant the festivities were over and her parents-in-law, with their bevy of guests, would soon be returning. She was glad they had not been here to listen to her cries as their son took his fill of her, though the heir’s wing was mercifully isolated and thick stone walls cut off sound.
She waited and when Martin reappeared she lifted a hand to stop him, but he drove by, unseeing, and she was too afraid to shout his name in case Max stirred in the room behind her, and called her back. So she stood there, watching her brother go, and the self-pitying tears began to flow again, bursting in full force when she heard her husband’s voice behind her.
“Why in hell’s name are you not in bed, Phoebe, and what in hell are you snivelling for? Because you have lost your tiresome virginity? You should thank me for that, virginity being the least attractive virtue in a woman. And if you didn’t enjoy it, there must be something wrong with you.” He seized her wrist and pulled her back into the bedroom. “You want to be like other women, don’t you, lusty women who enjoy a man in bed? And I promised to show you my capacity for it, didn’t I? Well, there’s no time like the present and I can assure you my capacity is well nigh inexhaustible, as you shall now learn.”
He pulled off her robe and carried her naked body back to bed. She felt like a human sacrifice, and pitied herself even more. If this was love, she wanted none of it.
Chapter Sixteen
Equipping Simon’s outhouse for Martin was speedily accomplished. It was only a question of erecting additional shelving and flanking three walls with one continuous worktable; the fourth wall, marking the entrance with a window alongside, was therefore the lightest in the place and where the throwing wheel was to stand. Close at hand would be bins for clay, slip, and glazes, also a butt into which water could be siphoned from a water-butt outside, providing rainwater which, being soft, blended oxides well.
The problem of acquiring a throwing wheel threatened to be difficult until Simon produced his own plan for a kick-wheel with, to Martin’s delight, the treadle convenient for his sound leg. This thought touched him so much that his thanks were inarticulate, but Simon brushed them aside. “We will build it together,” he said, not adding that this would give him the opportunity to work on it in Martin’s absence. The boy had an independent streak which Simon shared and therefore respected.
Within the first two or three visits all necessary shelving and work tables were erected, assembled from rejected items picked up from far and wide. After that, Martin called a halt, announcing that the firing oven was to be his work and his alone.
“Don’t think me ungrateful, Si — it is simply that if I am to succeed through my own endeavours I must start putting them into practice now. I have drawn a new design, smaller than an industrial oven because my needs will be smaller for the time being. After that I can plan something bigger, but still not entirely a bottle shape. I have felt for a long time that such a shape could be improved though still providing sufficient up-draught to fire well and even to fire more quickly. I told Jefferson about it, and showed him a rough sketch. He seemed to think it good, which pleased me. But if it fails to function in the way I believe it can, I will have to knock it down and start all over again, and had I enlisted someone’s help in building it my embarrassment would be acute. So be it on my own head if the up draught doesn’t work, or I make an error in my calculations.”
There was no error, and by the middle of October Martin’s first batch of work was ready for bisque firing. Jessica was delighted when he invited her to help stack the small oven. It was a mark of the confidence he had in her, and her careful handling of the fragile models justified it. There was a whole Noah’s ark of animals, lively in line and action. She carried them outside for Martin to stack, each space being carefully calculated to make the most of all the available area. There were also bowls and conventional ware to ensure quick sales.
She marvelled at the capacity of so small an oven, and marvelled even more at her brother’s skill. She wished Simon were home to share this proud moment. It would have doubled her happiness to have him there, sharing the project as they had done from the start, and it seemed only right that a moment of personal happiness should be shared with him. She resolved that he must be present for the final triumph, when Martin’s first wares emerged from his first glaze firing. She therefore extracted a promise from her brother to delay that most exciting moment of all until Simon could be home for it. She also resolved to draw attention to Martin’s products by showing them to the most influential person she knew, but that was a secret she did not divulge.
Neville Armstrong was by now more than a friendly acquaintance or a benevolent employer; he was a regular visitor in the Kendall home, ostensibly calling to see how Simon’s plans were progressing for the new trunk scheme to link the River Trent northwest with the Mersey and southwest with the Severn. He would prolong his visits on the slightest pretext. Jessica suspected that he was lonely in his vast house and enjoyed the simple hospitality of the wheelwright’s cottage; at the same time, he was anxious to miss nothing concerning the navigation scheme which would excel even the Armstrong Canal.
“I suspect he would like a finger in the new pie,” Jessica said to Simon one day, and he smiled because he had formed the same opinion. And nothing would please him better, he told her. “Such a project cannot be done without the greatest possible support. Sir Neville’s goodwill could be vital in influencing others.”
And so it came about, for when Simon’s plans had reached a stage where they were ready to be circulated, it was Sir Neville who searched out various rich and influential men. Wily, determined, and persuasive, it was not long before he had won their interest. Copies of the plans were distributed to be mulled over. “If they are in favour, and if all goes according to plan, you will be appointed as Supervising Engineer,” he told Simon, who promptly announced that he would accept nothing less than Surveyor General.
“Since I have already carried out extensive surveys and planned prospective routes, the Surveyor General’s appointment should rightfully be mine. And when the Act goes through Parliament and receives the Royal Assent, I shall expect the responsibility of allocating labour and to have a final say in selecting it. And there must be no cheese-paring, no cutting financial corners. We will need to build not only endless miles of canal, but bridges to span them. These I shall design and supervise, also.”
“Is that all?” Sir Neville asked mildly.
“For the present.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I am a damned hard worker.”
“Aye, sir,” said the old man appreciatively, “that you are. None better, Si Kendall. But before anything can be achieved, owners of land from Merseyside to the West Country will have to be bargained with. Once a whisper of the project gets abroad, land prices in the areas we want to cut through will soar.”
“So will the value of the trunk scheme, sir. People will clamour to buy shares in the Trent-Mersey canal.”
“Which initial investors must keep to themselves for as long as possible.”
Simon shrugged. “As to that, sir, I shall have no interest, my only investment being my time and brains. My concern is to get the scheme underway. Financial wranglings I will happily leave to those who are rich enough to get involved in them. And before any of that happens I have the Armstrong Canal to finish.”
“Which is only a matter of weeks now. You have almost reached its terminus. We must have a grand opening ceremony when the day comes, with an ox roasting and many a butt of ale broached for all.”
“Particularly for my men, sir. They’re a wild bunch of navvies and I know they have been unpopular with inhabitants along the route, but by God, they have worked — making the most of this blessed summer weather until they dropped in their tracks. The season couldn’t have been finer, and nor could they. And now, I think my wife has something to show you.” Simon glanced across at Jessica, who sat listening with her hands clasped loosely in her lap. He smiled at her knowingly, and at her startled glance he said, “She has something up her sleeve, sir, and it is something very precious to her. Shall we go outside, Jessica, and hide your brother’s light under a bushel no more?”
How had he guessed? Could he read her very mind? Had he come to know her better than she realised? If so, in this moment she had cause to be grateful, for that was how the first outside person came to learn Martin’s secret, and the boy’s fine modelling could not have met a more appreciative eye. Here was a rare talent indeed, and one worth encouraging Neville Armstrong declared, and the next time Martin arrived in Cooperfield he was met by an excited sister and the news that Sir Neville had commissioned a model of his favourite mare, Red Empress.
“And you are to name your own price. Having no knowledge of the clay you would use or what type of glaze, nor how many hours would be spent in the making let alone in the firing, it was impossible for me to quote a figure, but obviously an individual work of art can demand much.”
