A Song Twice Over (15 page)

Perhaps he
had
forgotten her? Certainly, when he entered the bar a moment later, his attention seemed wholly on the basket, carried in by the cellarman and placed by the small parlour fire, in which the black and white dog lay shivering and bleeding.

‘You lost then,' she said, quickly turning her head away, the palms of her hands feeling damp again, her skin cold. She had forced herself to face this animal's menace. But she could not – absolutely would not – look at the poor ugly brute in its misery.

Captain Goldsborough smiled.

‘The dog lost, Miss Adeane. Not I. He has had his day. As all dogs tend to do. Whereas I have gained substantially. From a bet, placed somewhat late in the proceedings, I admit, but just in time to be legal, nevertheless. On his opponent.' She did not feel in any way moved to congratulate him.

‘You asked me to wait, Captain Goldsborough.'

‘Did I?'

She nodded, feeling cold again and strained.

‘The money …?'

‘Oh yes – a little matter of fifty pounds owing by your father.'

‘Hardly
fifty
.' And it was desperation which gave her the courage to interrupt him, ‘Since you have had twenty back from my mother …'

But slowly, still smiling, he shook his head.

‘I fear not – since your father borrowed a further twenty, presumably to leave with your mother when he went off to his promised land. Fifty.'

Damn him. Her father? Yes. Undoubtedly. May he know no peace, no joy. May the bakery of his sister Teresa turn to dust and ashes in his hands. And damn this thick-set bully in whose power he had left her.
And
that foul dog whimpering its pain on the hearth-rug, its bandy legs a mangled ruin, one of its cropped ears torn off.

‘So – Miss Adeane?'

He had taken off his jacket, she noticed, his shirt unbuttoned almost to the waist and showing far more of his bulky, hairy chest than she thought decent – far more than Daniel Carey or Luke Thackray would ever show – his skin so swarthy against the fine, white cambric that only the gold earrings were missing, she thought, to make him a gipsy. Or a pirate; although she had never seen one. No gentleman, at any rate, despite the perfect French, the drawling, well-bred English, and the beautifully-made, carelessly-worn shirt which had cost him a pretty penny, as she had good reason to know.

‘So – Miss Adeane. A little straight talking, perhaps. Are you up to it?'

‘I am.' And if only that dog would stop twitching and whining, so that her eyes kept straying to it as it cowered there in its blood, trying to lick its wounds and making them worse, without even the sense to lie still – clogging up her mind with nonsense about bandages and hot water and
pity
when she needed all her wits about her. Damned dog.

‘Tell me, then – how much knowledge do you have of the law, as it concerns yourself?'

‘Not much.'

‘I thought not. Then consider this. Does it seem likely to you that any English court of justice would hold you – a female under the age of twenty-one – responsible for a debt contracted by your father?'

She considered, feeling herself once again to be a specimen – just that – pinned down for observation by those pitch-black eyes. And then, with no hope of getting away with anything at all, swallowed hard.

‘No. It doesn't seem likely.'

‘And what conclusion do you draw from that?'

‘None that comforts me.'

He smiled, a flash of white teeth – a great many of them, it seemed to her, and very bright – against his dark skin.

‘Good girl. So much for the law of England. Now shall we turn our attention to the law as it is understood in the quarter of this city known as St Jude's? – roughly from Market Square to St Jude's Street and all the little nooks and crannies in between. What do you think about that?'

‘I think,' and she was in no doubt whatsoever, ‘that it is as
you
decide it will be.'

He smiled again.

‘Then, do you owe me fifty pounds, Miss Adeane? Or do you not?'

Once again, and very strongly, came the sensation of being pinned down for scrutiny, dissected, manoeuvred. Played with.

‘That is for you to say,' she told him, giving him the humble answer, the
right
answer, yet biting each word off at its conclusion like embroidery thread.

‘Yes. So let us say you owe me nothing.'

She did not believe him. And in her amazement, in the quick stirring of hope – could he mean it? Dear God, let him mean it – and the small voice of reason whispering to her that of course he didn't, it was a trick, she was suddenly helpless, floundering. Exactly, she supposed, as he had intended.

‘Why?' Another woman had used that same, startled word to him, earlier on.

‘Because it pleases me.'

She shook her head. Yes, possibly it did please him. But hardly for reasons she would be likely to appreciate. What could they be? And how much more, in the long term, would they cost her?

‘Well then – because I have won a great deal of money tonight and am feeling generous. Does that sound better?'

He was laughing at her. Well, if
that
was what he wanted then he was welcome to it. She could stand his mockery without flinching. Or could she? And once again the whimpering of the dog cut her ears, making her wince.

‘Don't you trust me, Cara Adeane?'

He sounded as if he expected an answer and, shaking her head, she made a wide gesture of confusion, apology, appeal, anything he chose to call it.
Trust
him? She would rather put her bare hand into a snake pit.

‘Then I must make a gesture of goodwill, I think, to put your mind at rest. Shall I do that?'

And she sensed, very clearly and with a seething resentment, that she was giving him pleasure, entertainment; proving rather more of a diversion than he had perhaps expected. More amusing, even, than Marie Moon.

‘Of course. I have it. It is your birthday today. I heard someone mention it. My dear – the very thing. Let me make you a gift.'

And, the mirth in his dark, heavy-textured face proving almost too much for her, inviting her to look about her for something hard and sharp to hit him with – as he had invited Mrs Moon – he bent down to the basket, picked up the injured dog and, before she could step away or hide her hands behind her back, had put it in her arms.

‘Happy Birthday, Miss Adeane.'

And for a horrified moment she stood and faced him, clutching the suffering body, loathing it yet already trying to give it ease, her skin crawling with disgust, and pity, as she cradled the ugly, wounded, by no means abundantly grateful head against her chest where it continued to whine and shiver and to bleed – copiously, abominably – down the bodice of her last good dress.

Daniel Carey had intended his present business in Yorkshire to last three weeks, a month at most. A visit to the newspaper editor, Feargus O'Connor, imprisoned at York, a few days in the Leeds office of the
Northern Star
, discussing with any of O'Connor's men who remained what might be salvaged of the movement they had christened Chartism.

Very little, perhaps, since the leaders seemed either to be in prison like O'Connor, or embroiled in the bitter conflict which already threatened to split the newborn creed asunder; the ‘moral force' men of Birmingham who believed they could obtain their People's Charter by means of petitions, mass meetings, rational discussion, and the ‘physical force'men of the North who thought it might best be obtained by a little judicious brandishing of pike and gun.

And there had been a great many pikes manufactured in Yorkshire and Lancashire this last year or two, on the anvils of radical blacksmiths who could knock a lethal weapon together as fast as they could shoe a horse, particularly when the middle-class intellectuals and artisans of the ‘moral force'brigade had failed to persuade anybody at all with their speeches and petitions leaving it to the men of the north, led by Peter Bussey of Bradford and Feargus O'Connor of Leeds, to take stronger steps.

Not that they had been noticeably more effective either, it seemed to Daniel. At the National Chartist Conference called by the ‘physical force'men in Heckmondwike last November he had heard a great deal of talk about pikes and guns, had seen a great deal of drilling, afterwards, on the moors on winter nights with makeshift weapons for those who had them and walking sticks, pick-axes, broom handles, for those who had not; had even listened to the call, by some, for the overthrow of the government and the setting up of a Republic, as working men with home-made pikes like these had done in France.

But Heckmondwike, for all the oratory and fervour, had led to nothing but some disorganized rioting here and there, for which the leaders had been sentenced to death and then, to avoid the dangerous creation of martyrs, locked up or transported to Australia instead: Peter Bussey having hidden himself behind his own flour sacks when he heard the call to arms, to avoid leading his Bradford Chartists to war.

Yet the cause had been just and, despite the muddle and the police informers and the betrayal, it remained so, Daniel himself having spent that winter moving quietly about the counties and cities of England and Ireland, conveying messages from one Chartist leader to another.

For nothing, it seemed. Yet the great Charter still existed. And what did it ask for that could not lay claim to be called democracy? A vote for every man in England, whether he owned property or not. The abolition of the property qualification for MPs so that any man could stand for election. A salary to be paid to him should he be elected so that he need not be beholden – and thus have his arm twisted – by a paymaster. Above all the end of the system by which every man who had a vote was forced to declare publicly how he had used it.
That
was the People's Charter. And if it would take revolution to achieve it – the noble lords of Her Majesty's Government being understandably unwilling to share their privileges – then Daniel was ready.

He had no overriding interest – like Luke Thackray – in what seemed to him the narrow issues of factory reform, of ten hour days or the exact ages at which children might be sent to labour. Such abuses would be cured automatically by the reform of the system as a whole. And his concern was with democracy on a grander scale, international, universal, the Rights of Man – from which followed, naturally, the Rights of Woman and Child – to freedom, justice and opportunity. He had therefore made the journey to Leeds to meet the hot-headed, emotional proprietor of the
Northern Star
and had met Cara Adeane instead.

And, contrary to his normal practice with the women he encountered on his travels and with whom he shared what it had seemed right and pleasant to call love, he had been unable to forget her.

July, August and September had kept him chained, furiously sometimes and resentfully, in the neighbourhood of Frizingley, looking for her, quarrelling with her more often than not when he found her, giving her advice at which she laughed and tossed her head, hating the life she led and growing illogical, unreasonable, with the hatred. And the jealousy. Wanting to guard her and keep her as a husband his wife when he
knew
he would never have a secure home to offer. Wanting her to need him, to lean on him, when he
knew
he could offer her no guarantees, no certainty even as to his whereabout beyond tomorrow. Wanting her to be sweet and yielding and gentle in his arms when he
knew
that without her toughness she could not survive.

Quite simply wanting her.

And now Autumn was crisping the air, finding him still jealous and irresolute, unable either to leave her or to stay with her. Seeing quite well that she too could neither leave nor live with him.

He understood her fears. He also understood himself. The only decent thing to do then – surely – would be to leave her in peace? Of course. But what had decency to do with this hungering and burning, this terrible conviction that without her he would never be wholly alive, wholly enthusiastic, never be
whole
again? He walked out alone one October morning to try and come to terms with it, needing air and solitude, striding sure-footed over the rough ground without really seeing it, the town well below him beneath its dense cloud, a thin blue sky above him which gave him no ease. Could he change? Could he take employment as a schoolmaster again, instead of the random journalism by which he now eked out a living, and settle down? Could he give up the broad view, the grand vision, for a blinkered security which, even as a supposition, appalled him.

If he loved her then he could. He could not. But he
did
love her. He wanted his own way of life. And Cara. She wanted him just as he was. But differently. There was no solution. Sitting down on a rock he attempted to face it, to compose himself sufficiently to go to her calmly and say goodbye. Calm above all. For there must be no quarrel at the end. His last memory of her must be a good one, something he would bury deep, perhaps, but which would always be there, he supposed, rising to the surface to plague him whenever he tried to fall in love in his old free and easy fashion, with somebody else.

Because of course there would be other women. He might never feel like this again. Indeed, no man in his right mind could possibly wish to do so. But he was too much of a realist to imagine that he would hunger for her, in this intense and painful fashion, for ever more. No. He wouldn't do that. Nor would she. He'd learn, eventually, to make do with second-rate emotions and be content with them. And that, perhaps, was the saddest part of all.

Sad. But, from his vantage point on the moorland outcropping of rock, he began the hurtful process of making up his mind to it. For the world, after all, was full of women who were not Cara and he'd learn to enjoy them again. He'd have to. There was even one now coming along the stony little track below him, near enough for him to examine her in detail, too far away for her to be incommoded by his stare. Younger than he'd first thought, although not handsome in any way he understood, sturdy enough to cut peat and dig potatoes in Tipperary, although all dressed up like a lady in a dark purple mantle with shoulder-capes, a grey fur muff, a bonnet with a grey feather, accompanied by a stout old gentleman who – since the girl was really not the stuff a rich man's mistress would be made of – must be her father.