He had never seen her with her hair down before. He went forward and sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Cordelia … You’re lovely.’
The colour flushed up to her cheeks.
‘Am I, Brook?’
He put his hand over hers.
‘You’re cold,’ she said. ‘And pale. Are you all right?’
He stiffened.
‘Of course I’m all right.’ He got up sharply and went to the decorated mirror over the fireplace. Yes, he looked sallow, ill. She had seen it, she with her abounding health. Perhaps already she despised him. So perhaps it was all to be just the same.
‘We’ll leave here tomorrow,’ he said.
‘… Leave?’
‘And go to Bailey’s. It’s a better hotel – more modern.’
There was silence.
‘Just as you say, Brook. I shall be happy anywhere.’
‘Will you?’ He turned. ‘Will you, Delia; that’s what I want to know.’
Her eyes widened in astonishment. ‘ Of course I shall. This is all new to me, Brook. And it’s our— I don’t mind where we stay. Brook, I was thinking while you were out just now – are there gypsies at the South Shore? A girl I knew came here last year and she said she bought a pretty basket and had her fortune told. I’d like to go there. It would be fun, wouldn’t it? Can we go tomorrow?’ As he did not respond she said: ‘What’s the matter? Have I said something to offend you?’
‘No. Nonsense. Nothing at all.’ He leaned against the mantelshelf, looking at her, conscious he still felt far from well. ‘We’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning,’ he said defiantly. ‘Father should never have booked here; he only did that because he and Mother used to come here in the old days.’
‘Where’s Bailey’s?’
‘That big place we passed near the centre of the town. There’ll be more life there.’ He said with a sudden rush: ‘We’ll go out to the Star Inn tomorrow for lunch, if you like. They have wonderful oysters. Then we can go and see your gypsies. I’ll buy you baskets and you can have your fortune told as often as you like. Afterwards, tomorrow evening, we’ll go the other way …’
He stopped, thinking suddenly that to talk so was to show his nervousness, not hide it.
‘It’s like a new life beginning,’ she said.
‘Have some more champagne?’
She shook her head. ‘No …’
‘Mind if I have some?’
‘No …’
He went out and drank a glass and felt the warmth creeping into him again. He drank another glass and went back.
He sat on the bed and took her by the shoulders and kissed her.
‘Brook,’ she said. ‘I …’
‘Well?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
He tried to look into her eyes, but their clear depths looked past him, seeming to seek escape and detachment beyond the confines of the room. He could smell something on her hair and the faint perfume of her body. Then panic took him and he suddenly accepted her instinctive solution. Keep self-consciousness and personality out of it. Forget self, forget sickness, forget Brook Ferguson.
He kissed her on the neck, the cheeks, and the hair, and she half turned away, then checked the movement, checked revulsion and fear and turned towards him, accepting this baptism of experience that he was about to bestow.
Chapter Six
The leaves were falling. It took Farrow and Bollard nearly all day brushing them clear of the drive as they drifted down from the sycamores and the beeches. It was a nice house, big and square and grown with ivy, mightily furnished, nothing spared, and six indoor servants to do your bidding. Cordelia settled into it with the determined happiness of her nature but a little overwhelmed. They’d never had even one servant at home; the girls had graduated from one job to another as a younger sister came on.
She had spoken truly when she said to Brook that this was a new life beginning. Everything was different. As she grew to know her father-in-law she found that.
At home authority was democratic. You said what you liked and did what you liked within unwritten limits, and if you overstepped them the family quietly sat on you. Mother had a sharp hand with the young ones, but Father was more like an elder brother who had graduated out. Many a stern patent had shaken his head over the follies of the Blake household.
In Grove Hall one sun blazed and the others were satellites who drew their light from the parent beam and moved round it.
Not that Mr Ferguson was master in a pompous way. It was only in time that you felt his authority with an admonitory finger. Even during the day, when he was out, no one was quite free from it. The household moved and lived under the influence of one question: What would Mr Ferguson like?
He was too intelligent, too broad-minded, too considerate to be a bully. Yet it was almost impossible to relax in his presence. You sat down ready to get up; you read with an ear expecting some interrupting comment; if he read you were self-conscious about keeping quiet. Sometimes she thought it was his breathing which made you unable to forget him. Its audibleness was like the beat of a dynamo – but, unlike a dynamo, it was not regular, and a quickening, even if he said nothing after, was enough to draw attention to his being there. He wore elastic-sided boots and was very light on his feet, so that often his breathing was the first thing you heard when he moved about the house. Then, too, you came to hesitate about giving your own opinions because his when they came were so much better phrased and better reasoned. You were in the presence, you felt, of an original personality whose views you could never predict beforehand.
You moved to a steady routine. Life began at six-thirty when Mr Ferguson took a cold bath in the cellar. After this he went for his morning walk across the fields to Birch and was back in time to read prayers to the household at seven-thirty prompt. Breakfast was at seven-forty-five and was cleared at eight-fifteen. For half an hour he sat in his study dealing with the affairs of the house, and Cordelia and the servants were expected to hold themselves in readiness to go and see him, as and when he summoned them. At eight forty-five his carriage was at the door and he and Brook left for Town.
This was normally the last that was seen of them until six in the evening, but about two days a week, quite unexpectedly, Mr Ferguson and Brook – or sometimes only Mr Ferguson – would arrive back with panting horses at twelve-thirty for dinner; and the constant expectation of this always kept the household at a stretch until twelve thirty-one was past. At six-thirty in the evening there were short prayers, followed at once by supper. The evening would generally be spent according to Mr Ferguson’s plans, and if they were at home there would be evening prayers at half-past nine, followed by another meal, though a less substantial one this time. Unless something special was on, the downstairs lights of the house were expected to be out by half-past ten.
The routine did not break when Mr Ferguson or Brook were away for a day or two. Mr Ferguson had interests in Oldham, and it was necessary to visit them; but you could never be certain that he might not come back unexpectedly. His talent extended in many directions.
The first time Cordelia felt any of the weight applied to herself was over her father’s wedding present to them. This was a Swiss grandfather clock, the pride of his collection, which he had bought when broken and persuaded into working order by endless toil and patience: a superb thing with a great brass face decorated to look like a smiling old man. Its supreme virtuosity lay in the striking of the hour, when a long brown tongue slowly protruded from the old man’s face. Mr Ferguson thought it vulgar.
It had been put in the hall while the happy couple were away, but soon after they came back, Mr Ferguson suggested they might like it in their bedroom.
Anxious as she was to be agreeable in all things, Cordelia found herself opposing this.
‘My dear child,’ said Mr Ferguson. ‘A charming present, I’ve no doubt. And I know you must attach a certain sentimental value to any wedding gift – as I would. But I put
it to you. When I bought this house, I furnished it adequately and completely after a particular style. To insert among items of furniture which harmonize together one piece which is out of period … Why, I should say the same if it were a Sheraton armchair!’
Cordelia glanced at Brook, who was idly crumbling his bread. He was uncomfortable but was not prepared to weigh in on her side.
She said: ‘Could it be put in here, do you think?’
‘Eh, yes,’ said Aunt Tish, looking up from her soup. ‘ Why not have it in here, Frederick? I think it’s proper quaint.’
For once Frederick chose to answer his sister; she was a convenient target for shots aimed elsewhere.
‘If I put a clock of that type in here I should be laying myself open to the contempt of those who understand. Things should exist in harmony or not at all. I dislike the disharmonious. And in my own house it would be unforgivable. Quaintness, Letitia, does not make up for lack of taste.’
The clock went upstairs. There it had to have its strike stopped so that they could sleep in peace through the night.
Aunt Tish, people whispered, had been frightened by a gypsy when she was three. It must have been a bad fright because it had so far lasted fifty-three years. She was untidy and rather dirty, and sometimes had lice in her hair, which she called ‘bidies’. She never changed her style of dress; a full flounced skirt and a laced corsage with a soiled white over-jacket of embroidered muslin. It was about a quarter of a century out of date. When the weather was cold a dewdrop formed on the end of her nose. She was simple-minded, generous, on her dignity with the servants, boring in conversation, and in awe of her brother Frederick.
Uncle Pridey was none of these things. He was in the late sixties and very tall, with a rather untidy imperial and grey eyebrows that reminded Cordelia of caterpillars because they were continually on the move. He had an alert, mischievous mind which kept too closely to the limits of his two hobbies, music and mice.
Except for being an indifferent cellist, he depended for his music on the performances given in Town; but the mice, the shrews, and the white rats he kept in his bedroom upstairs, where he bred and cross-bred them at his own discretion; and sometimes on Saturday nights he would put on his oldest clothes and take a selection of them down to sell at Shudehill market.
It was flattering to be suddenly wealthy, to be a married woman, no longer an untried girl, to have the attentions of a well-mannered man, to find herself accepted in this strange new world. These were the pleasures. And to those duties which entailed taking up the reins of this house she brought a peculiar interest which surprised even herself. Even the fact that she and not the housekeeper was expected to keep a record of every penny spent and to render her accounts to Mr Ferguson at eight-fifteen every Saturday morning did not after the first few weeks upset her.
As for the rest, she wondered sometimes if she loved Brook, but more often she blamed her own youth, feeling that she had perhaps married too early and a new happiness would come later on.
While they were away, Mr Ferguson had redecorated and refurnished their room, and she was grateful for this as it seemed to draw a line after the dead Margaret’s occupation and to allow her to start afresh.
Nevertheless the room was not without its souvenirs.
One day she lifted the lid of a narrow-necked jar on the mantelshelf and found it full of wispy black hair. She told Brook about it when he came home.
He flushed. ‘I thought it had been taken away. I thought everything had gone.’
‘I didn’t move it,’ she said. She felt that if she were Margaret she wouldn’t want another woman to touch it.
Brook said: ‘She was saving it, you know. Her hair had been coming out during her illness, and she thought it could have been made up into a tail or whatever it’s called.’
He picked up the jar and shook the hair out upon a paper. He screwed this up and looked at the firegrate, then he glanced at her, coloured again, and left the room.
Only that day, as it happened, she had been looking at the miniature which was the only reproduction of Margaret there seemed to be in the house; she had stared at the dark young woman with the pale cheeks, the pronounced eyebrows, the looped dark hair, and the young woman had stared back at her – it seemed with a hint of hostility, as if to say: ‘Know me if you can!’
A patrician, a fastidious face.
‘Was she much older than you, Brook?’ she said when he came back.
‘Oh, Margaret? Well, nearly seven years.’
‘What was the matter with her? I never liked to ask.’
He hesitated. ‘Pernicious anaemia. She – had an illness and then didn’t seem to pick up her strength. She wasted away.’ He looked at his wife. ‘ You haven’t found anything else of hers, have you?’
‘No,’ said Cordelia – and felt she didn’t want to.
But she did.
At Christmas Mr Ferguson arranged several evening parties. The first was given to nine of his business associates, who came, frock-coated and bearded and sober and a little self-conscious, and sat round the groaning supper-table and talked in slow, cautious, level-headed tones of the price of cotton and of the laying of the Atlantic Cable. They were nearly all Liberals and nearly all dissenters, yet they were less progressive in outlook than Mr Ferguson the churchman.
Cordelia, introduced and then courteously disregarded, listened intently to their views. Some of them shook their heads over the coming enlargement of the franchise; most of them did not believe in education for their sons – it might teach them to be gentlemen but not how to work: their children would go into the counting-house at fourteen; and all of them looked on organized labour as a dangerous challenge to the peace of England. The cotton famine was only just clearing up and Mr Ferguson thought the time ripe for employers to make some gesture which would disarm the men by meeting their just claims in advance. He thought it policy as well as generosity.
Their view was that the Monster’s appetite would grow with what it fed on. For them the trumpets of the French Revolution were still echoing on the banks of the Irwell.
After a while, summing up with a sort of Olympian calm, Mr Ferguson said: ‘The trouble, gentlemen, is that you see these workers as a single many-headed beast – the sort of mob they band themselves into in time of trouble. But really they’re separate individuals. Like ourselves. It’s the only Christian basis – a working basis. We need not fear them or shun them or try to organize ourselves against them. They’re quite reasonable creatures if given their rights. Indeed some of them are nearer to God’s truth and see more clearly than we do.’
There was a disapproving silence. A man called Jakin Robinson said:
‘Did they see more clearly when they tried to blow up Ashton’s house last week? And why did they do it? Because Ashton was a bad employer? Nowt o’t sort! They did it because he makes bricks by machinery and they want to go on making ’em by hand. D’you call that seeing clearly?’
‘Most unclearly. But perhaps they had not been invited to see at all. Perhaps they think machine-made bricks means starvation. Hallows, the port.’
‘You think we’re behind the times, Ferguson. But you don’t defeat laws o’ commerce by saying they shouldn’t exist. Let’s forget bricks an’ turn to our own trade. If you reduce hours o’ work you cut production; if you increase wages you increase costs. Either way turns profit into loss. Then the mill closes down and where are your grand schemes? It’s better a man should live than starve. There’s been enough poverty in these last few years.’
‘And more than a little of it their own fault,’ said a husky old man. ‘If they’d not supported Lincoln and his blockade … They should have followed Gladstone.’
Mr Ferguson said: ‘It takes grit and courage to risk starvation for a principle. And that sort of courage doesn’t arise among a mob of thoughtless folk. They think for themselves. They deserve fair treatment.’
Two or three gave low grunts of grudging acknowledgment. They
prided themselves on their enlightenment and had suffered in good causes themselves. But Jakin Robinson said:
‘Fair treatment! Well, who’s not giving ’em fair treatment? Wages an’ conditions in my mill are as fair as any in country. And if there were none of this damnation banding together–’ He stopped. ‘Begging your pardon, Mrs Brook.’
‘Cordelia,’ said her father-in-law. ‘You may join us later.’
‘Please let me stay, Mr Ferguson,’ she said. ‘It’s all new to me. I’m very interested.’
But they were all waiting for her to go. What they were talking of wasn’t women’s business. It was an oversight, she realized, an error of taste on her part not to have left when Aunt Letitia left.
As Brook held open the door for her and she went out she heard Mr Ferguson say: ‘ You may smoke now, gentlemen.’
It was a cold night and a big fire burned in the hall. She warmed her hands before it, wondering what to do. She felt restless, dissatisfied.
She heard a rustle behind her and saw Uncle Pridey stalking across the hall in his carpet slippers. When he saw her he veered towards her like a ship caught by an unexpected breeze.
‘Ah, there, young woman. Going to freeze tonight. You’d best give instructions that these fires are kept in or the house will be as cold as a morgue in the morning.’
‘All right, Uncle Pridey; I’ll see you’re kept warm.’ She found she could call this old man uncle much more easily than she could call Mr Ferguson father.
‘Afraid of their backs,’ said Pridey, energetically cracking his finger-joints in front of the blaze. ‘All servants these days are just the same. That lazy scoundrel Hallows. Are they still in there?’ He nodded his head.
‘Yes. Won’t you go in?’
‘While the birds are sitting? I should flush them. Let ’em sit on their schemes and see what’ll hatch! Have a sweet.’
Cordelia Page 5
