by Valerie Wood
Tom’s face became tense. ‘We’ll manage,’ he muttered.
‘Aye, he’s a big strong fellow,’ George interrupted, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. ‘He wouldn’t have any bother lifting ’sacks.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ Tom turned away. ‘Come on, let’s get a move on or we shall be here all night.’
That evening Uncle Thomas seemed quite rational and asked Tom quite clearly where Mark was. ‘I need to speak to all of my lads, Tom, to make things clear. This illness is taking its toll on me. My head hurts and my legs ache summat terrible. I can’t seem to move ’em, and it seems to me that a miller is no good wi’out his legs, no good at all.’
‘Your legs are broken, Da.’ Tom, conscience-stricken, endeavoured to be honest with his father. ‘You won’t be milling again. You can take it easy now; George and I will take over.’
His father pondered this for a long while; Tom wondered if he had done the right thing in speaking out, when his father spoke again in a whisper, ‘Tha’d better try and find Mark then, for tha’ll not manage wi’ just two of thee. See if he wants to come back, equal partners with thee, though it’s not as I planned; and George, well, George isn’t cut out to manage, though he’s as good a worker as any, but I know tha’ll see that he’s treated fair.’
‘Aye, Da. I’ll look after George. He’s just a babby in arms where money and business is concerned. But I don’t know where Mark is. He’s not written home yet.’
His father gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Then tha’ll have to get some help. We can afford it. And Tom—’ he reached out a limp hand towards his eldest son, ‘—everything’s taken care of if owt should happen to me, if sands o’ time should run out and I snuff it, sudden like.’
Tom felt a lump come into his throat and he tried hard to swallow. ‘You’ll be all right, Da. You’ll soon be up and able to take care of ’accounts and farmers’ bills and such like.’
His father ignored his stammering and turned to gaze out of the square window to the sky beyond. On the window-sill were pots of bright red geraniums and sweet-smelling musk and a bowl of roses which Sammi had brought in, in an attempt to brighten up the sick-room.
‘All accounts are up to date,’ he went on. ‘We don’t owe anybody; tha’ll find everything tha needs in my strong box when time is right. And Tom,’ he turned his gaze back to him, the effort to speak was becoming harder, ‘tha’ll need to get wed. It’s doubly hard running a mill wi’out a good woman by tha side.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘I know. I know how hard it is, and ’bed is cold and lonely at night.’
‘I’ll leave it to George to get wed, Da,’ Tom said in a bid to amuse. ‘He’s the one that ’lasses chase, not me.’
‘Nay, it has to be thee, Tom. Firstborn needs a wife at ’mill, aye and some sons to carry on after. Find thyself a helpmate, somebody who’ll share thy troubles and joys. And find George a good strong lass to look after him. Ask Sammi, she’ll help thee find somebody to suit thee both.’
‘And what about Betsy, Da?’ Tom joked, though he had no laughter in him. ‘Do you want me to find a husband for her, too?’
His father wearily shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘Betsy is a law unto herself. She’ll go her own way. She’s not like ’Fosters at all. I don’t know who she’s like. Somebody from a long way back, I reckon. No, Betsy’ll make her own bed and happen she’ll lie on it too.’
Tom waited until his father dropped off into an exhausted sleep, and strode off down the lane and into the village. He crossed over a dirt road and turned down a narrow lane which led to a cluster of cottages and the thatched house and smallholding where the Reedbarrows lived.
Mrs Reedbarrow answered his knock. She was a tired-looking woman who had borne six children after Luke; one child had died, two of the girls had gone to work in Hull, and the three younger ones were still at home. She wore a handmade tucked and pleated bonnet on her fading fair hair and a sacking apron wrapped around a loose black skirt, which did nothing to hide her pregnancy. She pointed with a wooden spoon towards the long garden where she said Luke was working.
He had his booted foot on a fork, digging up a bucketful of early potatoes and throwing the haulms onto a heap where there was other rotting vegetation. The garden was neat and orderly. Rows of onions, their straight stalks green and lush, stood next to a row of young cabbages, and beyond them were the feathery tops of carrots.
‘Everything growing well, Luke?’ Tom bent to pick up a potato and rubbed off the skin with his thumb. ‘You’ve got a good crop of spuds.’
‘Aye.’ Luke straightened up. He towered over Tom by about three inches. ‘I’ve got green fingers like thou hast miller’s thumb. But growing ’taties and carrots doesn’t bring in as much brass as milling corn.’
‘No,’ Tom agreed. ‘I don’t suppose it does.’ He threw the potato back into the bucket. ‘I wondered if you could spare some time to help out at ’mill? You’ll have heard about my father’s accident? We’d be pleased to have some extra help. Usual labouring rate.’
Luke scraped the heavy soil off his boot with the fork. He nodded his big head and pushed back his fair hair out of his eyes and looked Tom straight in the face. ‘I wondered when tha’d get round to asking. Are there any conditions?’
Tom hesitated, then before turning on his heel replied, ‘No. None but the usual when working in a dangerous place.’
‘Right then.’ Luke stabbed the prongs of the fork into the earth. ‘I’ll be round first thing in ’morning.’
23
James read Gilbert’s letter and noted that although Gilbert had said how ill his father had been, the emergency was now passed. If anything should happen to my father then I won’t go home again, he pondered. Mother doesn’t care about what I do, nor does Anne, and Gilbert will soon be married to Harriet and will be busy in his new life. I should always keep in touch of course, with Gilbert – and with Sammi, and guiltily he bethought himself, I must write to Sammi. I cannot explain of course, that I’m now sure I haven’t experienced sexual union, but I’ll tell her that I am almost certain that the child isn’t mine and therefore do not feel compelled to support him. She will be upset, I expect, as she will have grown fond of him. But it cannot be helped, he debated, it will be hard enough making a living for myself without providing for someone else’s offspring.
However, as the days passed, he began to grow anxious about his father and decided that he would, after all, pay a short visit. He put on a velvet jacket which Madame Sinclair had bought him as a gift, and, looking in a mirror, he adjusted his cravat. She often gave him presents: a pair of silver cufflinks, a Venetian glass bottle for holding hair-dressing, a pair of kidskin gloves which she insisted he wore to protect his artistic hands and blithely describing them as mere trinkets when he demurred over accepting them.
He would call upon her this morning and tell her that he must travel to Yorkshire to visit his sick father.
‘Oh, my poor James. How very sad for you, of course you must go.’ She greeted him once more in the conservatory when the maid took him through. ‘But it is a great pity that you must go at this time, for I was about to send a message asking you to call on me tomorrow.’
How lovely she is. He gazed longingly at her in her simple gown of white muslin which draped and folded its softness around her.
She invited him to sit beside her on the chaise longue and gave him her hand to kiss.
‘Tomorrow, Madame? Is there something special about tomorrow?’
‘Ah. Every day is special since meeting you, James,’ she said softly. ‘But I wanted you to meet someone, a friend from Italy.’
‘A friend?’ He was struck by a pang of jealousy. He knew nothing of her life before she came to London, and she had always deflected his questioning when he had asked her of it.
‘Is he a lover?’ he blurted out. He couldn’t bear it if the answer was yes. He felt so gauche, so young and inexperienced in comparison with her, for she teased him and flattered him, a
nd he felt that she was inviting him to proposition her, yet he didn’t dare.
‘A lover, James? Would you care so much if he was?’ She playfully teased him.
‘Yes,’ he replied vehemently. ‘I would mind very much. I would probably kill myself.’
‘How?’ She gazed at him and stroked his thigh with her fingers. ‘How would you kill yourself?’
He drew in a sharp breath. She knew so well how to disturb him. ‘I would drown myself in the Thames or throw myself beneath a train,’ he said huskily. ‘I have told you that I love you. I cannot bear it if you love someone else.’
‘But if I have loved someone else in the past, that is all right, si?’
‘I cannot help what has gone before.’ He touched her cheek with his fingers, her skin was soft and fragrant. ‘But I want you to love only me now.’
‘I haven’t said that I love you, James.’ Her eyes were dark and deep, and the scent of orange blossom in the conservatory was overpowering; he was suffocating with the perfume and the desire to hold her in his arms. ‘But I think that perhaps I could,’ she whispered.
He couldn’t believe what he heard. Did she mean what she said? Or was she teasing him yet again? But her face was gentle, not playful or tantalizing but tender, with a seductive softness in her eyes.
‘Madame – Mariabella,’ he breathed, ‘I ache for you. Please, don’t torment me! Either send me away or let me stay and show you that I love you.’ He clasped both her hands and pressed them to his lips, then raised his eyes to hers. ‘I adore you. I have never loved anyone else.’ His ardour threatened to engulf him as she drew him towards her and he bent his head to kiss her on the mouth.
He trembled and closed his eyes. Her lips were warm and soft. He kissed her again, taking courage when she hadn’t spurned him, and held her in his arms, feeling the shape of her body between his arms.
She pulled away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he began. ‘Forgive me.’
‘No. No. There is nothing to forgive, amore mío,’ she whispered, touching her fingertips to his lips. ‘But not here. Viene. Come with me.’
He followed her in a vacant, dreaming reverie, barely noticing where they were going as she led him out of the conservatory, through the cool hall, so cool after the heat of the conservatory that he shivered, up the curving staircase to a landing lit by a tall window, and with two closed doors.
She put her hand on the door-knob of one of the doors and ushered him inside. ‘Un momento, James, and I will come to you.’
James sank down and put his head in his hands. At last, she would be his to love, but— He was filled with self-doubt. What if he made a fool of himself? She would surely know that he was unskilled in the art of love; perhaps she would expect more from him than he could give? She was foreign after all, and a married woman! Beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead. Suppose her husband came to visit unexpectedly? Suppose the maid came in whilst they were in flagrante delicto? It didn’t bear thinking about. Perhaps, after all, he should make his excuses and leave and come bak another day?
He began to pace the oriental carpet. This was her sitting-room. He hadn’t been in here before. It was so obviously her own private sanctum. A satinwood veneered and inlaid writing desk stood by an open window, which was draped with billowing curtains and revealed the river frontage below. Murano glass in vibrant colours stood on the veined marble fireplace and reflected in the mirrored overmantel above it. A day bed with a dark velvet shawl thrown over it stood invitingly in a draped alcove at the side of the room, and a circular, lace-covered table beside it held a vase filled with the slender green stalks and white wax-like flowers of heavy-scented lilies. He began to shake. Would this be where …?
An inner door opened into the room and Mariabella stood in the doorway. She had changed from her muslin gown and was wearing a black satin robe. Her hair was loosened and hung down her back to her waist. Around her bare throat she wore a thin thread of gold with a small gold cross attached to it. She held out her hand to him, ‘Viene! Come, amore mio.’
In the room behind her he saw a four-poster bed, its drapes partially drawn around the downy pillows and the covers pulled back to expose white linen. The light in the room was veiled, for the blinds were drawn at the window and the sunlight filtered through in slanted strips of pale gold.
‘Viene,’ she repeated. ‘I am ready for you, James.’
* * *
He awoke from a doze with her dark hair streaming across his face. He gazed down at her. ‘Bella. Bella,’ he whispered and leant to kiss her bare shoulder.
She stirred and opened her eyes. ‘You speak Italian, James?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Only grazie, molte grazie, amore mío.’
Her eyes softened and she smiled teasingly. ‘Di niente. Prego! It was nothing. You are welcome.’
‘I was not a very good lover, was I?’ he asked diffidently. ‘Too impatient, too hasty. I did not satisfy you.’
‘Too eager, James. You had waited too long. This time was good. Next time will be more good, si?’
‘Si.’ He sighed and turned her towards him. ‘It was beautiful. You are so beautiful.’
‘Phww,’ she pouted, and drew a line with her finger down from his chin and throat, through the dark hairs on his chest, down to his navel which she circled with her finger-nail, making him gasp. ‘I am not so beautiful – and the first time with a woman, it is always wonderful for a man, I think?’
‘The first time?’ he protested. ‘Why do you think it was my first time?’ Her fingers sank lower and he groaned softly and closed his eyes. ‘I have to confess to you, Mariabella, that I have possibly fathered a child.’
She gave a little chuckle and took his hand and placed it between her thighs. ‘Possibly? You mean that you cannot remember? James, amore mío. You are telling me that you can forget something like this?’
‘No. I won’t ever forget,’ he whispered as, aroused again, he sought her tenderness between his fingers. ‘Never.’
‘I am your first, yes?’ she murmured in his ear.
He didn’t answer, unable to utter one single word as tenderly and this time, so slowly, they came together again.
* * *
‘So who is this man that you are so anxious for me to meet?’ James refastened his cravat and put on his jacket.
‘He was a great friend of my father, and was – what do you say – my protector, until I married.’ Mariabella lay on the bed and idly toyed with her hair.
‘Your guardian? Ah, I see.’ James felt relieved. There was no rival then. He looked into the mirror and straightened his hair. He felt ten feet tall. I look older, he mused and started to hum beneath his breath.
Mariabella smiled. ‘You are happy, yes? You are a man now? No longer a boy!’
He leant over her and kissed her. ‘So happy, Mariabella. I can’t believe how wonderful it was.’
‘And you will come tomorrow, or will you go home?’
He nodded. ‘I think another day won’t harm, and anyway my father would understand if I was detained on business.’
But it isn’t just business that delays me, he thought as he gazed down at her. I must see her again tomorrow, make love to her again. She has awakened such an appetite in me, that I don’t know how I shall appease my hunger until then.
She held out her hand for him to kiss. ‘Go now, James, and close the door quietly behind you. And James, when you meet my friend Romanelli, you will remember to address me as Madame Sinclair?’ She rose from the bed and stretched, and her robe parted, showing a glimpse of pale flesh. ‘You will be discreet, yes?’ She ran her fingers around his face and pressed her mouth against his. ‘It is our secret,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘We must not share it with anyone else, amore mío, or it is finished for ever.’
When he returned to the studio, Batsford had gone out and Miss Gregory was drinking a glass of ale and eating a meat pie. ‘It’s too hot to go out,’ she said, ‘and Batsford wants me again later when he ge
ts back, so I thought I would have a bit of a nap after I’ve eaten.’
‘Can I sketch you while you’re sleeping?’ James asked eagerly. He felt so buoyant, so full of energy and verve, that he was convinced he could create a perfect drawing of Miss Gregory’s form, even though he would have in mind the image of someone else.
‘I thought you were going away?’ She wiped her mouth of frothy ale with the back of her hand.
‘I was, but I’ve been detained. Will you? Please?’
‘All right, but it’ll cost you extra – and I won’t sit nude,’ she added. ‘You’ve got a look in your eye that I’m not sure about.’
‘Oh, I’m in love, Miss Gregory,’ he said impulsively. ‘You have nothing to fear. There is only one woman in the world for me; I can look at no other, except in the aesthetic or symbolic sense.’
Miss Gregory rolled her large eyes to the ceiling and uttered a sigh. ‘Come on then.’ She got to her feet. ‘If the muse is upon you, then we’d better get on with it.’
He worked feverishly and heard Batsford come in and then go out again, but was so consumed by inventive imagination that he didn’t stop or call out to him. As he sketched the sleeping form of Miss Gregory, draped by her lace shawl, which he surreptitiously moved without waking her so that her shoulder and one breast were bare, he remembered all that had happened that morning with his beautiful Mariabella, and wanted to tell the world.
He arrived early the next morning, hoping to see Mariabella before the Italian, Romanelli, arrived. He had consulted a Bradshaw and saw that the following day he could catch the six-fifteen fast train, on the Great Northern Railway line from St Pancras, to arrive in Leeds Wellington at half-past one. If he hurried then across the northern city he would be just in time to catch another train to Hull, and from there hire a hansom cab to take him to Anlaby.
‘Madame is not yet ready to receive you, sir,’ her maid announced. ‘But if you would be good enough to wait, she will be with you shortly.’
He was a little embarrassed to be so early, but he wished to be the first there. He wanted to assess Mariabella’s and Romanelli’s greeting of each other, to ascertain if, in fact, they had ever been more than friends, more than just guardian and dependant. He waited in her drawing-room, a cool, elegant room decorated, not in the overdressed style so in vogue at present, but of an earlier period, with pale pastel colours and elaborate friezes, and pedestal cupboards topped by Grecian urns.
