Emily said it standing behind the kitchen table. ‘She didn’t!’ she said. ‘Mrs Brett? No. One hundred pounds and costs? Oh, no, lad!’
‘She did. But that’s not all, Mam. You should have heard her. I mean, if she had gone for Cornell in the same way I could have understood it, everybody could have understood it, couldn’t they, Van?’ He turned towards Vanessa, but all Vanessa did was nod her head. ‘She flayed me in front of everybody, talked to me as if I was a tough, running scatty, knocking people on the head in the main street, telling me what she would do if I came afore her again. You know what I feel like doing?…Going along there and asking her why, I do, honest to God, Mam.’
Vanessa went into the room, took off her coat and stood waiting. In a short while he would get over this shock to some extent, and then he would say, ‘Ah now, time’s up. You’re going to tell me who you phoned yesterday.’ So she wouldn’t wait for that, she’d come straight to the point.
When he entered the room she turned stiffly towards him and, looking him straight in the face, said, ‘I can tell you, Angus, why she did it.’
‘You?’ He moved near to her. ‘You mean you know why she got at me?’
‘Yes…You—you wanted to know who I phoned yesterday. Well—well, it was her.’
‘Mrs Brett?’ His eyes were screwed up tightly at the corners.
‘Yes; I—I phoned her because I knew that when you came up before her this morning she would get at me through you; I was afraid she would give you a prison sentence. I threatened that if she did I would shout it out in the court.’
‘Shout what out? What are you talking about, girl? You all right?’
‘YES! YES!’ She had almost yelled. Then clamping her hand over her mouth, she bowed her head and said, ‘She hates me because…because she knows who was the father of the baby.’ Her head bent lower and her voice was hardly audible as she ended, ‘It was Brett, her husband.’
From underneath her lowered lids she could see his body up to the waist, and it was perfectly still. Then his silence forced her to raise her head and the expression on his face turned her cold. It had in it the essence of incredulity, but something more, a surprising quality for him to show towards her, disgust. His lips moved well back from his upper teeth before he said, ‘Mr Brett and you!’
Her head was moving down again and her voice was a whimper. ‘It just happened. He—he was very sad, lonely, unhappy…’
‘Christ!’ The exclamation was like a crack of a whip. ‘Aren’t all old married men unhappy, lonely, sad? But that doesn’t mean you’ve got to lie with them…You and Brett! He was as old as your father…Brett!’
As he continued to stare at her he remembered that he had always liked Mr Brett, that Mr Brett had been kind to him, but he also remembered, and with a sense of deep shock, that when he wondered who had given her a bairn he had imagined it to be a lad of her own age. He had imagined him carried away on the first real wave of emotion and being borne under with the pressure of it. He had imagined them both fumbling at the act without enjoying it; then the boy skulking away and keeping his tongue quiet while she carried the can. He had even admired her for not revealing who the young fellow was…But she had been under the hands of no young fellow, she had been with a man old enough to be her grandfather; aye, he could have been her grandfather.
He had the urge now to take her by the neck and choke her. He had been made a fool of. She had let everybody blame him while she could have put a stop to it, a real stop to it, by naming the fellow next door…But there hadn’t been any fellow next door had there when the balloon went up? No, he had skedaddled, gone touring, supposedly getting orders for the firm; and when he came back and found what happened to her, what did he do? He hanged himself. It was a pity he hadn’t done it earlier. How often had he had her?
There was a strange feeling in him now. He didn’t want to go near her, or touch her. When she said, ‘Angus, I’m sorry. Don’t look like that. It—it was a sort of accident; it only happened…’ he put in quickly, ‘I don’t want to hear.’ He curled his lip at her. ‘But you know something. I’ll tell you something. I thought you had been let down by a young lad, and I could understand that and I could put up with it, but not when it was a bloke like Brett, with a son as old as me, and two others.’
He walked towards the door, then turned to her and said in a tone that was frightening because for him it was quiet, ‘You’re no better than the rest. You know something? I wouldn’t marry May because I found she’d been with other blokes. Bit illogical you might say, when I’ve had my whack, but I’m made that way. I stomached what happened to you because, as I said, I thought it was a slip between two young ’uns, not a calculated get-together, as it must have been atween you and him, because a man of Brett’s age wouldn’t jump in feet first, he’d know he’d have to tread warily until he was sure of his ground. And he was sure, wasn’t he?’
She was so stunned by his attitude that she could make no reply. All her mother and father had said, the treatment she had received from her friends, nothing she had gone through affected her like Angus’s reaction.
When he went out of the room he didn’t bang the door behind him. Presently she heard the murmur of his voice coming from the scullery. He would be telling Emily.
He had no need to tell Emily, she already knew. She had picked enough up from standing at the kitchen door to put two and two together, and now she was looking at her son and saying bitterly, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing.’ He looked out of the scullery window. ‘Damn all. What’s the good of raking up muck, you only get more smells, and at the present moment me nose is full of them. I couldn’t stand any more.’
‘I thought it must have been a young lad.’
‘Aye.’ He turned and looked at her. ‘Aye, that’s what I thought an’ all; and I took the rap because of that. But do you think for a moment if I’d guessed it had been Brett I would have? As sorry as I was for her, I would have seen her in hell first.’
‘Mr Brett. MR BRETT. He was a quiet, refined, gentlemanly…’
‘Oh, Mam, for God’s sake come off it. Gentlemanly. They do it an’ all; even royalty has to be born. What’s maddening me is that I’ve been made the scapegoat, and that bitch on the bench finished it the day. She’s right about one thing though…’ He jerked his head back towards the room. ‘It’s ten to one if she hadn’t got on that phone yesterday and threatened what she might do I might quite easily be along the line at this minute.’
Emily shuddered. She knew that what he said was true; he could easily have been along the line. That lot! That lot! Look what they had done to her lad. Turned him into a lorry driver when he should have been in the drawing office. Then fining him a hundred pounds and blamin’ him for the bairn, when all the time it was Mr Brett.
She was working herself up into a fury when Angus said, ‘I’m going.’
‘Where? Where you off to?’
‘To get the lorries ready.’
‘What time will you be back?’
‘I don’t know.’ His voice was flat.
She followed him to the yard door and, her voice a low murmur in case someone was sitting in the lavatory beyond the wall, their ears cocked, she said, ‘Don’t go and get sozzled; that won’t solve matters.’
He turned and looked at her once, then moved away down the back lane; and she returned to the scullery, and as she stood gripping her forearms with each hand her anger mounted into a white blaze, strangely not against Vanessa, but against her parents, and the Bretts, the whole family of Bretts, those two grown-up sons who must have been stone blind not to guess what their father was up to.
She was thinking along similar lines to Angus. This thing couldn’t have happened like the snap of your fingers. There must have been some outward sign somewhere, to show that Brett—she did not now think of him as Mr Brett—had his sights on the young lass next door. And next door? Had they been stone blind an’ all? God-Almighty Ratcliffe and h
is missis? And the things they said. Aye. She was recalling practically every word they had said to her regarding Angus, and the manner in which they had said it.
Her anger seemed to lend wings to her feet now and she was upstairs donning her hat and coat and downstairs again within a few minutes. Opening a cupboard, she grabbed up her handbag, looked in it to see if she had enough for the fare, then went out of the house, taking the well-known road towards Brampton Hill again.
Twelve
Irene Brett was pouring tea in the drawing room. It was seldom she had tea in this room; except when there were visitors, and they were few and far between. But today she was serving tea in the drawing room because Paul was home. It was the first day of the Easter vac and tomorrow he would be off on another of his walking tours. She had little time to impress him, and her future lay very much in his hands; in fact, how long she could remain in this house depended on him.
If everything had gone to Colin, as it should have done, he being the eldest son, she would have known a sense of security, whereas now she felt she was dealing with a younger edition of her husband. She had urged Colin to contest the will, but for some reason or other he wouldn’t. This was another thing that irked her; although the brothers were as different in character as chalk from cheese there was an affinity between them that she had no part of.
Her object now was to persuade Paul to sell some of the mouldering antiques in order that she might have the ground floor, at least, redecorated. When she had broached the subject at Christmas he had said neither yes nor no to the matter. He was like his father there, a ditherer…His father! When she thought of his father she knew she wouldn’t live long enough to erase the hate of him that burned in her. She had always known she was capable of strong emotions, but she had never imagined that a man like Arthur, a weak, vacillating creature such as he could have aroused in her this unrelenting feeling of hate and resentment. And then there was that girl…Her thoughts sank into the depths and dragged up adjectives, and it was as much as she could do not to voice them. She had a picture of Vanessa sitting in court staring at her, daring her to do what she most desired, send Angus Cotton down. She wished now she had defied her threat and done it. Oh, if only she had.
‘Been a busy day for you?’
She brought her face round to her son, whom she couldn’t look at without seeing his father, and she made herself say lightly, ‘So-so, rather upsetting; some cases tend to be upsetting.’
‘You take it all too seriously.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘You should have a holiday.’
‘You know I can’t have a holiday, Paul.’
He was silent, and the feeling of guilt that he always had now when he was with her mounted. He knew that within a few minutes she would bring up the subject again about selling the furniture. He supposed he would have to give in; although he would like to keep things intact as his father had done. But times were changing. Sooner or later the whole place would have to go, house, land, the lot. It was too big anyway for any one family these days. It had been too big for years. He wished he could feel more sympathy towards her but somehow he couldn’t. He had never been able to understand the driving force that animated her thin body. There was too much of his father in him, he supposed. Poor Dad. When his thoughts were touched with pity he always addressed his father in his mind as Dad. He had wanted so little, and that’s what he got, so little. He wished that tomorrow was here and he could get away. The house wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same. Perhaps he had grown up suddenly, or perhaps it was the events that had happened in the last year. Whatever it was, life didn’t appear bright and starry anymore.
When the ring came on the bell he rose and said, ‘I’ll get it,’ and when he opened the front door there stood Emily Cotton. After a moment’s pause he said, ‘Emily! Oh, hello, Emily.’
‘Your mother in?’ No ‘Master Paul’ now.
‘Mother? Yes, yes. You want to see her?’
‘Yes, I want to see her.’
There was something wrong here; Emily was in fighting mood. He said, ‘Come in a minute,’ and when she’d walked past him and stood in the hall he closed the door and went quickly towards the drawing-room door, which he pushed behind him but not closed before he went to his mother and said softly, ‘It’s Emily, Emily Cotton, you know.’
He watched the cold blue of her eyes turn to a steely grey and her narrow jaws tighten.
‘Will I bring her in?’
‘No, I’ll see her in the hall…Stay here.’
When she entered the hall she closed the drawing-room door behind her, then looked at the cheaply dressed, unshapely woman, and, aiming to take command of the situation, she said, ‘Yes, Emily. What can I do for you?’
‘Don’t you come that tone with me, Mrs Brett; you know what you can do for me. By, you’ve got a nerve! You know what you are?’ Emily advanced two steps. ‘You’re a vindictive bitch, that’s what you are.’
‘How dare you! And stop shouting, woman. You forget yourself.’
‘I’m tellin’ you not to come that line with me. I’m not forgettin’ meself; you’re the one, Mrs Magistrate, who forgot yourself when you were up on that bench this mornin’. You forgot why you were put there. You were put there for justice, not to dish out personal spite. An’ that’s what you did, didn’t you? If it hadn’t been for Vanessa phoning you and threatenin’ you yesterday that she would broadcast who was the father of her bairn if you sent my Angus along the line, you would have done just that, wouldn’t you? You would have sent him up for six months, just to get back at her.’
‘Be quiet, woman! And get out.’ Irene was hissing at her now.
But Emily had no intention of being quiet or of leaving until she had had her say, and she said it even louder now.
‘Be quiet, you say. When I’m ready an’ not afore. I tell you again you’re a bloody, vindictive bitch, and that’s swearing to it. Your man took a young lass down, a schoolgirl, and then he took his life because he couldn’t face it. An’ you knew about it; you knew this all the time my lad was being blamed for givin’ her this bairn, but you let it go on. Councillor Mrs Irene Brett, Magistrate, Chairman of this an’ God knows what else, couldn’t stand the racket of being shown up…’
‘Get out! Do you hear me. GET OUT.’
‘Aye, I’ll get out, but I’m not goin’ very far, just to your neighbours…’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘I wouldn’t what?’ Emily was bawling now. ‘You tell me what I wouldn’t dare?’
‘I forbid you, woman.’ They were standing close to each other now, Irene’s words spitting between her teeth. ‘Do you hear. I forbid you. This is between her and me…Vanessa.’
‘Aw, but that’s where you’ve made a mistake. It’s not atween you and Vanessa, it’s atween you and my lad. His name’s been blackened all over this town, and beyond. He had dared to step over the white line and have an affair with one of his betters, that’s what was said. A few years ago they would have had him flogged. Old Ratcliffe would have taken a horsewhip to him. Something similar was done to one of the grooms from Brampton Manor, an’ that was in the thirties, not so very long ago. But times have changed, except on the bench, where there’s upstarts like you…An’ don’t you call me woman…’ She thrust her lower jaw outwards. ‘I’m clearin’ me lad’s name. If it’s the last thing I do I’ll do that, an’ people won’t have to guess why he got it hot and hard from you this mornin’.’
‘It will be you who’ll be in court next if you’re not careful.’ Irene’s voice was trembling now, as was her whole body.
‘All right, summons me, but you’ll have to give me a summons for telling the truth. That’s how you’ll have to word it. Emily Cotton accused of telling the truth, the suppressed truth.’
Emily’s eyes were brought for a moment from Irene Brett’s bleached face to the open drawing-room door, where stood Paul, so changed that she thought for a moment she was looking at his father
.
She turned now and walked towards the front door, and after she had opened it she jerked her head round to give one parting shot, but checked it as she saw Irene Brett and her son staring at each other. She had said enough, she was satisfied, in this quarter anyway. Mrs Magistrate had her son to deal with, and from the looks of him she was going to have her work cut out.
Her body still quivering with indignation, she marched down the drive along the road, through the open gates and to the house in which, as she herself had said, she had spent a greater length of time over the past eighteen years than she had in her own home. She did not take the tradesman’s path to the back door but made for the front door, and as she looked at the car standing on the drive she thought, ‘Good. Madam Susan’s here.’ Then she pressed the bell with her thumb, holding it tight for some seconds.
The door was opened by a young woman who was wearing a small frilled apron over an ordinary housedress, which in itself told Emily that there was company. ‘Yes?’ said the woman, looking her up and down.
‘Your missis in?’
‘What do you want?’
‘You tell Mrs Ratcliffe that Emily’s here and wants to see her. Just say that.’ Then she put her hand out quickly, adding, ‘You needn’t close the door; I’m not goin’ to pinch anything; I worked here when you were still in nappies. Go and tell her.’
The young woman’s eyes were wide, but she made no further protest; she had heard of Emily Cotton. Emily followed her slowly and stood in the hall, and as she waited her eyes roamed around, and she noted, with some chagrin, that everything looked as usual. When the lounge door opened the maid came out alone and said to her, ‘The mistress will see you in a minute.’ Then she went on into the kitchen, and Emily waited.
The Round Tower Page 29
