“Who is it then?”
“It’s Miss Rosa Beaumont of Mill House.”
“What, Tom Beaumont’s daughter?”
“Aye. You’d best send a message to the Town Hall for him,” said Charlie hardly. “He’s offering a reward for the recovery of her body, I hear.”
“Your Joe was trying to save her, no doubt,” said the landlord in an apologetic tone.
“Maybe.”
“We’d best separate them,” said the landlord, looking aside. Charlie was silent. “What dost think, eh?”
Charlie did not speak. “Come, lad,” said the landlord, laying his hand on Charlie’s sleeve: “It’s no use carrying it beyond the grave.”
“Well,” began Charlie, and paused. “Well, come on then,” he said roughly, seizing one of the livid marble arms. “We’d best get started.”
11
So perhaps after all Rosa was not an example of Trevisa’s malice of the soul. Perhaps what she had felt for Joe was simply love. Yes; perhaps, when she first saw him, that Sunday afternoon on the embankment, it was the strange sweet thrill of sexual love which coursed swiftly through her veins. Love—with all its natural accompaniments: jealousy; fury when scorned; manoeuvres, of the delicate feminine kind, to attract the loved one’s attention. Perhaps, too, she had felt entitled to love Joe because deep in her heart she knew he loved her. Did he? Did she? Perhaps. Who knows? Not Trevisa, certainly.
An Old Maid’s Story
1880
The line between foolishness and nobility is sometimes hard to draw. I have never been quite able to decide on which side of this line my great-aunt Eliza stood.
It was my mother who told me the story. She was scolding me about the selfishness and lack of perception of my generation.
“You’ve no idea of older people’s troubles, you think nobody ever suffered but yourselves,” she said.
Needing an example to illustrate her point, she told me great-aunt Eliza’s history.
“You thought of her as old and grey and ugly,” she began.
“And dull,” I said, remembering hours of tedium endured as a child when calling with my mother in her dingy little house behind the railway station, listening to stiff talk about Annotsfield genealogies, while the horsehair sofa pricked my legs.
“Yes! That’s just it! You thought her dull!” cried my mother angrily. “But as a girl she was—well, she was never exactly a pretty girl, her features were too strong for that. But she had lively brown eyes and a bright complexion, and a great deal of thick brown hair—oh, a perfect mane of hair. She was a fine upright warm-hearted girl, kind and honest and as good as gold. She taught the Senior Young Ladies’ Class in the Resmond Street Chapel Sunday School, and they thought the world of her. James Butterfield taught there too—people did teach in Sunday Schools in those days, you know. He was a very nice young man, earnest but not silly about it, fond of long walks over the moors and music and that sort of thing. Fair and good-looking and not at all conceited; spirited of course but then Eliza was spirited. They had a quarrel about some music for the Sunday School or the way it was played, or something; James Butterfield played the harmonium, you know. Some people said it was this quarrel brought them together. As to that I don’t know, but of course a good rousing quarrel can draw young people together sometimes,” said my mother, her eyes sparkling as she remembered, no doubt, her own lively bouts with my father during their courtship, all those years ago.
The sparkle died as she went on seriously: “But other people thought otherwise. They were almost engaged, at any rate, that I do know. Everyone thought it was just a matter of time before the engagement was announced. He was a stranger in the town, but he had a good position with Egmont’s,” said my mother, naming with awe in her tone the great Annotsfield textile firm. “Eliza’s parents were dead and she had a little useful income of her own and she lived with her married brother. So there was nothing really for them to wait for. But probably he was waiting for a rise in salary, we thought. In those days people didn’t rush off and get married and expect other people to keep them,” concluded my mother with severity. “That’s how it was between Eliza and James when it began to happen.”
It began to happen by one of those coincidences which so often set the pattern of human destiny. It just so happened—how many life stories begin with these words—that Eliza, on her way back from visiting at the Superintendent’s request a child from the Sunday School who had recently lost her parents and gone to live on the other side of the town, passed through a certain street at a certain hour and saw a certain person. The visit had gone well and Eliza was feeling happy, for the grandparents had promised to let the child continue her Resmond Street attendance. Smiling to herself therefore, and thinking how kind and good people really were when you really got to know them, she must tell James about it tonight at the Penny Reading, he would be pleased—her warm heart, in a word, open to every generous impulse, Eliza walked briskly along this street dreaming happy dreams, and was woken to reality by the sound of weeping.
One of the row of neat respectable houses had a doctor’s lamp at its gate, and by this gate stood a girl, holding to the railings and sobbing hysterically. Eliza in a rush of pity hurried to her side, put her arm round the girl’s shoulder and drew her to her breast.
“You are in trouble?” she said in a warm loving tone. “Can I help you?”
“My father,” sobbed the girl. “So angry.”
Eliza, naturally enough assuming that the house where they stood was the girl’s home, gave an indignant glance towards the windows and said:
“Walk with me a little way till you feel less agitated.”
The girl acquiesced; they walked on together, presently found themselves at one entrance of Egmont Park, entered—it was a sunny September afternoon—and sat down on a terrace bench together. Esther—that, it appeared, was her name—had now regained some control of her emotions, but still seemed greatly depressed, sitting humped and with head down, occasionally shaken by a sob.
“Would you care to tell me what distresses you?” said Eliza.
Esther turned to her and for the first time Eliza had a full view of that exquisitely pretty face. The rosy cupid’s bow mouth, the starry grey eyes, the small uptilted nose, the lovely milk and rose complexion, the dark curls framing all, struck Eliza to the heart by their sweet innocent beauty and aroused in her a protective maternal feeling as if towards a child.
“I would rather not if you don’t mind,” said Esther.
“Of course not, my dear,” said Eliza hurriedly. She was far too honourable and delicate to press for confidences. “But if you need a friend—”
“A friend! I have no friends,” wept Esther.
“My darling child,” said Esther fondly. “I am your friend.”
The meeting ended in an invitation to Esther to attend the Penny Reading in the Resmond Street Sunday School that evening.
“What were Penny Readings exactly?” I asked.
“They were entertainments, of course,” said my mother in an insulted tone. “Singing, and piano pieces, and recitations, and sometimes duets and duologues. And the ladies provided a cup of tea.”
“Did Eliza sing?”
“No. She arranged the programme and helped with the tea. James Butterfield played the piano. And sometimes he gave a reading—Shakespeare or something of that kind, you know.”
“I should think Esther found it tedious,” said I, with a vivid image of that pretty pink mouth, opening in a wide yawn like a cat’s.
My mother glanced at me shrewdly.
“She didn’t say so,” was her dry comment.
“Indeed.”
“Well! I expect you have guessed what happened next,” continued my mother.
“I think so. She admired James’s playing.”
“Yes.”
“And began to attend the Resmond Street Chapel, morning and evening, and joined the Senior Young Ladies’ Sunday School Class in the after
noon.”
“Yes.”
“And in a few months’ time—”
“Ah! But it wasn’t a few months,” said my mother sadly. “It was only a few weeks.”
“Weeks?”
Only a week or two later, it appeared, when Eliza was just sitting down to dinner with her brother’s family—“in those days Yorkshire people, ordinary people I mean, had their dinner in the middle of the day,” said my mother severely—there was a ring at the front door bell, and their maid came to tell Miss Eliza that a gentleman had called to see her. Eliza was surprised.
“It’s Mr. Butterfield and I’ve put him in the drawing-room,” said the maid, who like most maids of the epoch knew all the family affairs. “He seems all excited like, Miss Eliza.”
Colour flooded Eliza’s cheeks and she hastened to the front room. To call in the middle of the day like this was odd; evening was surely the time for—well, for a proposal. But then, perhaps James had received the rise in salary he hoped for, that very morning, and had come impulsively rushing to her the moment the dinner hour set him free. It was a thought very sweet to her. Smiling, blushing, her heart beating fast with joy, she entered with her usual brisk step, and with her usual honest frankness went straight up to him and offered him her hand. He certainly looked agitated. Quite pale.
“This is perhaps an awkward time for me to call,” he stammered. (Indeed the scent of the midday hotpot filled the house—Eliza was never to forget it.)
“Not at all. You are welcome at any time. Sit down, James. Be at ease,” said Eliza warmly.
“I wanted you to be the first to know.” (Eliza smiled encouragingly. It was her last moment of happiness.) “We have been such friends.”
This struck a slightly ambiguous note. “Have been?” But perhaps he referred to a new relation which should transcend friendship. Eliza waited, her joy slightly dimmed. James seemed unable to speak; he panted, almost writhed.
“Something at the mill, James?” said Eliza at length.
“No, no! Oh, no!” gasped James in astonishment. “It is—in fact, it is Esther.”
Eliza, struck to the heart, was silent, but rallied.
“Be more explicit, James, please. Am I to take it that you and Esther are—”
“Engaged? Yes, yes. Indeed it’s more than that,” cried James in a flurry of rapture. “We’re going to be married as soon as the banns can be read. As Esther is so unhappy at home, you know, her father being so unreasonable—though I’m bound to say he has received me very kindly whenever I’ve been out to Scape Scar.”
“Scape Scar?”
“Yes, yes. They have a farm out there, you know.”
“On the hill above the Ire Valley?”
“Yes—”
“About five miles out of Annotsfield?”
“Yes. The family have had the farm for several generations. But as I say, Esther being unhappy at home, and her father consenting, and I naturally wishing—well, we have nothing to wait for. It was settled only last night. I wanted you to be the first to know, Eliza.”
So Eliza was faced, at a moment’s notice, with the crisis of her life. For she saw at once everything she had been blind to before: why Esther had sobbed outside an Annotsfield doctor’s gate, why she had feared her father’s anger, why she had declined to tell her trouble, why, finally, she was marrying in such unconventional haste. Was Eliza to tell James that she believed Esther to be bearing another man’s child? Destroy Esther, to whom she had promised friendship? Break James’s happiness? If her own happiness had not been concerned, she might have spoken, but the thought of buying happiness at such a price sickened her. And then, what words to use? The blunt ones would be indecent on the lips of a Victorian young lady; words furtive and oblique would, Eliza felt, be degrading and alien to her nature. There was a brief pause.
In a moment it was over. Her choice was made.
Rather pale and grave, but quite composed, Eliza said quietly:
“Every good wish for your future happiness, James.”
“I wanted you to be the first to know, Eliza,” repeated James anxiously.
He babbled on for a few minutes about Esther’s beauty and Esther’s sweetness, then left, soothed and cheered.
Eliza could not allow herself a moment’s respite. Already in the next room the family would be growing curious. She rose and swept back, dignity in her step, to the dinner-table.
“Don’t get up, Tom. It was just James Butterfield, Clara, come to tell us he is engaged to Esther.”
“You’ve let yourself be jilted for that little hussy?” shouted her brother, crimsoning.
“I shall be obliged if you will not make reflections of that kind, Tom,” said Eliza calmly, “Either publicly or in private. They will do nobody any good.”
“Well, upon my word!’”
“Now, Tom,” pleaded his wife.
Tom snorted but was silent.
“Well, they married,” said my mother with a sigh. “They were married at Resmond Street Chapel. I don’t remember what excuse she made for this departure from the convention of marrying in the bride’s church. The reception was held in the Sunday School. Eliza was the only bridesmaid.”
I exclaimed.
“Yes—it was hard on her, I expect,” said my mother thoughtfully. “We all noticed how much older and plainer she suddenly looked. But she was so calm and serene, you know, and so kind to Esther, allowing her to dress in her room and so on, we concluded she hadn’t cared for James after all. And you know he did seem at that time rather less worthy of Eliza than we had previously imagined. He was flustered and agitated and hot in the face. Infatuated with that girl, perhaps.”
“Or perhaps not. She may have pushed him into it. Perhaps he had hoped Eliza would rescue him.”
“Well, we shall never know. He certainly trembled like a leaf as Esther came up the aisle.”
“You were present at the wedding, then?”
“Of course. Esther’s father and mother were good plain farming people, I thought; very fond and proud of Esther, but rather frightened of her, and perplexed. Nobody stood up at the wedding to plead a just cause or impediment, so they were duly married. Yes.”
“And that is why great-aunt Eliza was an old maid,” I said in a concluding tone.
“Oh, my dear! You haven’t heard the half of it yet,” said my mother distressfully.
So James and Esther married, and soon it was obvious that she was with child.
James rented a small house near the Egmont mill. It was a nice little house in a respectable street, said my mother, or rather, it would have been nice if Esther had kept it so, but of course she didn’t. Her pregnancy was uncomfortable, and she made this an excuse for doing nothing, but in fact she was “bone idle,” said my mother warmly. Even at that early stage of their life together, Esther made her husband’s life miserable by her whimsies and tantrums. Her temper was terrible—she even broke china in her rage—and she was extravagant in both the ways which may afflict a woman, for she spent sudden large sums and also frittered small sums daily. James began to look harassed and it was rumoured that, in spite of the salary rise and bonus Egmont’s gave him as a wedding present, he was “feeling the pinch.” The ladies of the Resmond Street congregation, good housewives all, were beginning to be shocked and alienated by Esther’s slovenliness when her confinement won back their sympathies.
For this was a disaster. Occurring prematurely (as the congregation thought) it was terribly protracted. (“Things went wrong,” said my mother mysteriously. For my part I guessed that whatever went wrong was due to earlier attempts at abortion.) The child, though fortunately born without deformity, was extremely delicate at first; as for poor Esther, her health was ruined. She lay in bed, petulant, capricious, demanding, for the next seven years. (Oh, those bed-ridden Victorian invalids, I thought angrily; nowadays they’d have had her up in a fortnight.) Her beauty lasted for a year or two and then went haggard, and at this naturally her temper deteriorated
further. The Resmond Street ladies behaved with splendid charity; “poor Mrs. Butterfield” became a regular recipient of calls, prayers, flowers and a portion of anything good that they put in the oven. For a time, that is; presently they grew a little tired. Poor Mrs. Butterfield could be so very disagreeable; it was mortifying.
Bringing up the child—a boy, Philip—offered a difficult problem; James hired a series of women who coped with his ill-health with varying success—their notions and nostrums had indeed little chance of success, for Esther quarrelled with them all without too much delay. Naturally under such a discontinuous and varying régime the child’s digestion suffered; he slept ill, ate little and became as peevish and ill-tempered as his mother. In fact, as my mother said emphatically, James Butterfield hadn’t a moment’s peace for the next seven years.
As for Eliza, at first she visited Esther often, did errands for her and tried to soothe her. But then one afternoon as she stood at Esther’s bedside, trying to make her farewells but delayed by the invalid’s peevish complaints, James came in from the mill. Baby Philip was crawling on the hearthrug. James went to the child, picked him up and talked to him with great tenderness and affection. Whether Esther saw something in Eliza’s quiet look at this point, or whether (more probably) it was just her guilty conscience which drove her, I do not know; but she suddenly broke out into a violent attack on Eliza.
“You wanted my husband and I wish you’d got him! Get out of my house! Get out of here!”
She followed this with a storm of epithets such as Eliza had never in her innocent life heard before. She drew on her gloves and went downstairs without a word. James, the child on his arm, followed.
“She’s not herself, Eliza,” he said pleadingly as they stood at the house door.
“I know, James,” replied Eliza. “I fully understand. All the same—”
All the same she never entered the house again. She also withdrew from the Resmond Street Chapel, and gave her allegiance to another congregation. Thus she never saw James Butterfield.
At first it was expected that Eliza would marry, but she turned down two nice chances. A third would come, no doubt, but while her friends waited for this, time moved inexorably on. Suddenly Eliza was beyond the customary marrying age. She was a kind sister-in-law, a devoted aunt, full of good works, altogether a fine woman; but by the conventions of the period she was unmarriageable; she had become an old maid.
Tales of the West Riding Page 8
