Touch the Silence

by Touch the Silence (retail) (epub)

  ‘You’re the heartless one, Emilia Rowse. From now on, damn well keep out away from me.’

  * * *

  It was getting dark when she realized she had stayed too long in Wayside Cot. Her quarrel with Ben and all the terrible things they had said seemed to have happened in a faraway dream. She was chilled to the marrow, the fire was almost out and she set to work to rebuild the blaze, not wanting the Trewins to come home on their first night to a cold house. When at last the feeble flames had been coaxed to life she pulled on her coat.

  Out in the lane, as if finally emerging from some soporific state, she became fully aware the daylight had gone. She was overwhelmed with stark, cold fear. ‘Dear God, what have I done?’

  She ran over the muddy ground and up the hill at a furious rate. She had to see Ben alone. It was imperative to make him understand how sorry she was for the way she had treated him. She had foolishly and unfeelingly allowed their love to become degraded and dishonoured. She had accepted his brother’s comfort and rejected his. She had ignored his hurt and suffering, and allowed him to leave her in anger and distress. But Ben would never lose his kind and loving ways. Surely he would forgive her?

  Chapter Fifteen

  From out in the lane Emilia could hear Lottie shrieking. She hurtled into the sitting room to find Lottie up on her feet, struggling against Tilda.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re back, Miss Em,’ Tilda gasped. Her face was scratched and her cap had been knocked off. Emilia was appalled to see Lottie was clutching strands of her ginger hair. A bowl of water and a flannel had been tipped over on to the floor. A china soap dish lay broken in half. ‘Mrs Harvey’s wet herself, but when I tried to give her a wash and change her clothes she went berserk.’

  ‘Lottie! Lottie, dear, it’s Em. Calm down. It’s going to be all right. I’m sorry about this, Tilda. You can let her go, I’ll see to her now.’

  It was Lottie who had Tilda in her clawing grasp and it took a further struggle for the housekeeper to free herself. ‘What an afternoon! First a telegram arrives and I was feared to the bottom of my soul what news was in it. I’d just asked Albie to run to the fields with it when Mr Ben comes home in a terrible rage and shouts at the pair of us like we’re something unholy. I’ve been rushed off my feet. I don’t mind that, but I didn’t expect to act as a nursemaid when I came here.’

  ‘I really am sorry, Tilda.’ Emilia had got Lottie motionless but she was still in a fractious mood. From her dash up the lane and now with Lottie pulling her about, her hair fell in long coppery tangles. ‘I promise I’ll never leave Mrs Harvey for such a long time again. Do you know what was in the telegram?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilda righted her dress and replaced her cap, thrusting in strands of tortured hair. ‘It was from Mr Tristan, putting off Mr Alec’s and Master Jonathan’s visit to him. He’s being moved to another hospital and having an operation on his ankle, by some special surgeon. And he’s been made up to captain.’

  There was the sound of running feet. ‘I’ve fetched Uncle Ben!’ Jonathan shouted out in the passage.

  With her hopes dashed of seeing Ben alone, Emilia put on a smiling face to greet him.

  At the same instant he and Jonathan raced into the room, Lottie picked up a photograph from the piano and threw it at the window.

  ‘Grandma, no!’ Ben was too late. The glass broke with a loud smash, chinkling on to the flower beds outside while splinters flew on to the carpet and shot out in all directions. The company was dazed, all except for Lottie, who, after folding her arms and emitting a loud, ‘Humph,’ flopped down in her chair.

  Emilia glanced from face to face. Lottie had settled herself. Jonathan was staring at his great-grandmother, his mouth opened wide, clearly amused. Redder than before in the face, Tilda was holding a quivering hand to her panting bosom. Ben’s good looks were corrupted by a fury that Emilia knew he wasn’t going to contain and he was glaring at her in a way that made her heart dive.

  ‘Tilda, take Jonathan out of the room and make sure he doesn’t return in here until she—’ he stabbed a finger towards Emilia – ‘has cleared up the glass and the rest of this damned mess.’

  ‘Please don’t shout at me, Ben. You’ll upset your gran,’ Emilia cautioned, after the housekeeper and the boy had gone. She edged closer to Lottie.

  ‘How dare you use my grandmother to deflect your sloth and selfishness. You’re responsible for all of this.’

  Emilia was unprepared for his swiftness. Suddenly he was dragging her halfway across the room. She tried to resist but he kept her in a vice-like hold. His breath hit her face in icy blasts. ‘This is the second time you’ve neglected to look after my grandmother properly. Remember you’re only a worker here, a servant. Why aren’t you in the milking shed with those of us who are prepared to work? You think you can shirk your duties because you’re my brother’s favourite. And you think your grief over Billy runs deeper than anyone else’s. There’s nothing special about you. The country’s full of grieving sisters, and widows and fatherless children and mothers without sons, but they’re all getting on with their lives, not moping about in a self-pitying drama. Either you see to your own work from now on or you can bloody well find yourself another job.’

  She tried to place loving hands on him, but his terrible grip meant she couldn’t reach out, couldn’t move. ‘Ben, listen, let me explain.’

  ‘You can’t explain away your contempt towards your duties as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand?’

  Her resolve to apologize, to show him her love again began to evaporate. ‘Yes, Ben, I think I do. Your bitterness comes from the first time I neglected your grandmother.’ She tried to push him away from her. ‘But it wasn’t my fault your eye was blinded. Won’t you ever believe me?’

  The eyes which had once radiated care and gentleness were like sharded ice. ‘To think I’d trusted you, relied on you, needed you. To think I loved you and wanted you for my lifelong mate. One way or another you took my sight from me and everything I’d ever valued. I’ll never ever forgive you for that. And I’ll never give you the chance to treat me like dirt again as you did this afternoon.’

  He pushed her then, making her stagger away several steps, her back hitting a bureau, its hard edge stopping her from toppling to the floor. He came at her again, seeming to enjoy her discomfort, her shock, her pain. It would have been unbelievable before, but Emilia knew he wanted her to be afraid. She loathed him then. She drew herself up to her fullest height. ‘One disappointment, Ben Harvey, that’s all you’ve had, but how quickly you’ve abandoned all the upright codes you’d sworn to always live by.’

  He laughed, a horrible, grim, mocking sound. ‘Don’t you like it, Emilia, that I don’t need you any more? That I’m going my own way from now on? It will please Alec, leave the way clear for him to get to you. A word of warning. He’s got a lot of good in him, but you don’t know him like I do.’ Ben gave a look of prurient derision up and down her body. ‘And he doesn’t know you as well as I do. You’re a fine one to talk about honour.’

  Emilia was thanking God she hadn’t become pregnant during that one encounter with him. ‘You’re detestable and pathetic. I can’t imagine why I never saw you as you really are, why I ever felt anything for you. I’m grateful I stayed away too long from your grandmother this time, because if all this hadn’t happened I was going to tell you how sorry I was for the last two weeks, to beg your forgiveness. I would have come grovelling to you for nothing. That might have been the biggest mistake of my life.’

  ‘Believe me, girl, you haven’t made it yet.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘You’ve never been frightened of anything, have you, Emilia? Perhaps it’s time you were.’

  * * *

  ‘If you won’t agree to anything I suggest, then I want what’s rightfully mine on my birthday tomorrow.’ Ben’s voice had been raised against Alec for some time. They were in the stables, grooming the workhorses at the end of the day’s work.
‘I want the money Father left me.’

  ‘It isn’t yours by right until you come of age,’ Alec replied, looking over the hooves of the handsome great beast he was checking for signs of needing the farrier’s attention.

  Ben left the other horse to come close to his brother, his fists curled in frustration. When Alec wouldn’t join in a quarrel he was at his most intransigent. ‘Under the conditions of his will, as my guardian, you can sign it over to me at your discretion.’

  ‘You’re seriously asking me to hand you over five thousand pounds just like that? Not on your life.’

  ‘I don’t want to have to go on asking you for every penny for the next three years. I hate the fact that you own me body and soul. I’m a man, I want to be treated like one. I deserve more than an allowance for all the bloody hard work I do on your property, every waking hour. I don’t see that I’m asking too much.’

  Moments ticked by. Alec completed the ministrations on the plough horse. Ben knew by Alec’s stubborn silence that he wasn’t going to win . ‘Please, Alec. You’re usually willing to at least compromise when we disagree.’

  ‘Yes, I am. You choose to forget that I’m normally lenient with you.’ Leaning now against the outside of the stable doors, Alec lit a cigarette and took two slow puffs. He spoke tight, grim words. ‘I’d be willing to release five hundred, but if you squander it, don’t waste my time asking for more. You wouldn’t even get the swill for the pigs out of me.’

  ‘Suits me. You can wager your soul you’ll never be able to accuse me of squandering a penny. I may have been denied my first dreams but I mean to make something of myself. You just see where I am in ten years’ time.’ Ben stomped away, swivelled round and mouthed over his shoulder. ‘I’m off to Julian’s, don’t expect me back until morning.’

  ‘Wait there, Ben Harvey.’ Alec tossed the cigarette in front of Ben’s next step. ‘You may have finished with me, but there’s plenty I want to say to you. About Emilia.’

  * * *

  All the while she was giving Lottie a bath and putting her to bed, Emilia heard Ben’s quarrelsome voice. When she went downstairs all had gone quiet. Tilda, still looking roughed-up and on edge, glanced up from patching a work jumper of Ben’s. ‘Mr Harvey wants to see you in the den,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘What sort of mood is he in?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’ Tilda kept her head bent over her sewing. ‘Emilia, I’m sorry about you and Mr Ben falling out, but sometimes it doesn’t do to overstep the mark, if you understand what I mean. Perhaps it’s for the best.’

  ‘Oh yes, Tilda, it most certainly is.’

  Just before knocking on the door of the den, Emilia realized she had forgotten to tidy her hair. She didn’t care. Offended by Tilda’s inference that she wasn’t good enough for Ben, angered by Ben’s unjust remarks and his menace, she didn’t wait for permission to enter. If there was any truth in Ben’s assertions about Alec having designs on her, he had just better keep himself in line.

  She was surprised to find Alec so deep in thought he was unaware of her presence. The fragrance of Scotch lay pleasantly on the air, a low measure of the dark-amber liquid in the glass near his motionless hand. ‘You wanted to see me, Alec?’

  ‘Oh, Emilia.’ Coming out of his trance, he came round the desk to her. ‘Yes, sit down. How are things now? You’ve had a tough time lately. Can I get you a drop of brandy or something?’

  ‘I thought you’d be angry with me.’ Her gaze followed him to the drinks table.

  ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t leave Grandma for quite so long, but I don’t agree with the manner in which Ben took you to task over it. Jonny told me all about it, with a childlike glee, I might add. It’s the first sort of excitement he’s seen in a while. I’ve put Ben straight about it, I won’t tolerate him upsetting you. Well, there was no harm done in the end, except to you and Ben and your future together. I’m sorry about that, I hope you both sort things out.’

  His kindness, which she had taken for granted until earlier today, made her wary of him. ‘Are you forgetting that Tilda was badly shaken up and a window was broken? You must take the cost out of my wages. Was the photograph damaged?’

  ‘Tilda will be fine by tomorrow and don’t worry about the window. The shutters will do for the night and there’s plenty of spare glass in the garden shed. Cyril will fit the new pane in tomorrow. The photograph landed on an evergreen and was undamaged.’ He brought the glass of brandy to her for she had not moved. ‘Go on, take a sip.’

  She sipped because she wanted to. She relished the burn on her lips, the strong taste on her tongue, the soothing heat in her throat and the calming warmth that flooded her stomach. Since news of Billy’s death, she’d felt only icy emptiness there. ‘Can I ask what you and Ben were quarrelling about?’ She was sure Ben had objected to Alec’s reprimand, but why had the clash lasted so long?

  Alec put a gentle hand under her elbow and led her to his chair at the hearth, then he made himself comfortable in the one opposite. ‘His friend, Julian Andrews. He’s suggested to Ben that he’d like to help out here with the paperwork. Ben wanted him to come two or three times a week. I didn’t agree. He’s brought enough strangers here.’ Alec took no pains to hide his impatience.

  ‘You think Ben’s told him about your problem?’

  ‘No. It was Andrews’s suggestion from the start – well, he can do his charity work elsewhere. But Ben did throw my weakness at me. He said he was fed up doing the correspondence and accounts. Suddenly, Emilia—’ Alec floated one large, rough hand in a gesture of hurt astonishment – ‘I’ve always been lazy and I didn’t pay enough attention to my lessons. Do you know something, I’ve met men broken by their experiences in the war, but this business with Ben, I just can’t get to grips with it. I’ve never seen anyone so bitter. He’s even against the arrangements I’m making to take on a boy and a girl from the workhouse.’

  ‘Why should he object to that?’

  ‘No idea, unless it’s just to nettle me.’ Alec gazed searchingly into her eyes. ‘Why don’t I suggest to Ben he takes you, Grandma and Jonny to our cousin, Winifred’s? It could help you to become reconciled. Now Tristan’s put off mine and Jonny’s visit to him, you could all go in a day or two. What do you think, my dear?’

  Emilia used her brandy glass to look through and covertly study Alec’s relaxed body. It was the only time she had seen him this restful, smiling without a break. His long legs were stretched out across the rug, his feet nearly touching hers. He kept studying her ruffled mane, in between looking straight into her eyes, and occasionally dropping his eyes to her lips. Was he up to anything? How much of Ben’s claims about him were true? To have a mistress wasn’t unusual, especially in an unhappy marriage. She understood Mrs Bawden, the letter writer’s, brief message to Alec now. Then there was the matter of the dismissed maid. She remembered Maudie giggling and loitering about Alec, and Lucy stalking outside one summer evening to ‘get that trollop away from my husband!’ Had Alec taken advantage of the maid’s friendliness? She, herself, had never suspected him of doing so. It seemed more likely Ben’s spite had been born out of jealousy over Alec’s caring attitude. Alec cared enough to want to see her and Ben reunited. Hardly the course of a man who’d prefer to see them apart for his own ends.

  ‘After the terrible things Ben said to me on two separate occasions today,’ Emilia said with conviction, ‘I don’t think he’d want to go as far as the ford in my company. Nor I his.’ It would take a long time for her to forgive his despicable accusations and brutality. Perhaps she never would after what he’d implied she was for making love with him in Ford House.

  She watched Alec for his response. He appeared to be saddened. ‘It’s a great shame how things have turned out for you both. I’ll arrange the visit to Newquay as we’d previously planned, it will be an overnight stay. It will make up for Jonny’s disappointment at not seeing his father until a later date.’

  There had not been a de
finite agreement over her going to Newquay with him, but she let him continue, happy about the arrangement. A break away from Ben would be welcome.

  ‘The poor little chap is convinced Tris will be able to get Ursula to come back. I’m hoping Tris will want to stay here with us when he’s discharged from the hospital – he can share Jonny’s room. He’ll have lots of sympathetic company, then when or if he returns to his battalion he’ll be the stronger for it, and Jonny will have happy memories of his father being here with him. Another drink, Emilia?’

  Emilia knew she should leave. Tilda was probably counting the minutes she was spending here alone with Alec, but there was something she wanted to ask him. ‘No, thank you. Alec, can I mention something to you?’

  ‘Anything you like, my dear.’ His smiles grew even softer. ‘Well.’ She leaned forward, growing pink because she knew she was speaking out of turn. ‘It’s looking increasingly likely that Florence Burrows will have to sell her house. You know how difficult things are for her and Honor, don’t you? I was wondering if you might think about…’

  ‘Buying the house?’

  ‘Yes. I’m so worried about Honor. If Mrs Burrows can’t get her married off as the answer to their financial ruin, I’d hate to think what it will mean for Honor.’ Emilia blushed until her face and neck burned, ‘You’re aware of what the woman’s up to when she comes here, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, my dear, I can’t say I’ve given her much thought, except to be grateful for her help. I’m afraid her situation is more desperate than she’s been leading Honor to believe. She doesn’t own the house. She’s renting it off what remains of the Tremore Estate.’

  ‘What? That lying old so-and-so! When she can no longer scrape up the rent she and Honor will be homeless. My mother wouldn’t hesitate to take Honor in, but she wouldn’t fancy having Florence Burrows too. There’s only the farm left now, a few fields and the woodland, isn’t there? I know Dick Buzza’s been managing it for someone all these years, and he’s never done a proper job of it. My mother’s said he’s looking to retire, to live with his daughter at Idless. Do you know who Florence Burrows’s landlord is?’