A Song Twice Over (60 page)

‘He is my son, mother.'

‘Indeed he is. And you love him. I have never doubted it. Sadly – and it pains me to say it –
he
has doubted it.'

For a moment she could not speak. And then, in a strained whisper, she said, ‘You'd better stop this, you know. Really you had, mother. I'm not sure I can stand it.'

But Odette – so yielding, so biddable, so easy to manage – merely shook her head.

‘I think you must.'

‘Mother – don't push me too far.'

‘You must face the truth. Indeed – you know the truth. You have worked yourself half to death for him. You have gone hungry yourself so that he could eat. You have walked cold and lonely miles up and down this city begging for work to keep a roof over his head. You gave yourself to a man you did not love to pay your son's doctor's bills and his schoolmaster. To give him a future. I know that. He – as yet – does not. What he knows is me. Day by day. Imperfect as I am, but present. The centre of his universe. Without you he would have starved to death. One day he will understand that. But
now
– as he is
now
– without me he will pine.'

Her quiet voice ended and then, receiving no reply, began again.

‘I feel the injustice of it for you, Cara. But I cannot explain you to him in any way that he will understand. Circumstances have forced you to be a father to him, and me a mother. And what he needs most, at his age and with his odd, closed little heart, is a mother. I am sorry, my love.'

Was there no reward, then, for courage and endurance? Only punishment. Only this calm, steady voice she hardly recognized telling him that her strengths and her achievements were no longer required. Only her sacrifices. First her lover, and now her son.

‘What would you do with him, Cara? You have no time to be with him yourself. You would have to pay some other woman – a stranger – to take care of him. Or send him away to school. And he could not stand it. He has an uneasy nature. You know that. Do you wish to do him further harm?'

She looked up quickly, staring at her mother with keen, incredulous eyes. ‘How hard you are, Odette Adeane.' And there was wonder in her voice, for she had never sensed hardness in her mother before, nor even suspected it.

Odette smiled. ‘All women are fierce, I think, when it comes to defending their young. And you don't need me, Cara. As Liam does. And your father.
They
are my children. I think you know that.'

Yes. And it was the blackest injustice of a black and treacherous world. How could they? How dare they? A family. As we were. The four of us. But, if not, then a family without her. The three of them. Shutting her out.

‘He's my son, mother. You can't take him.'

‘I am not sure he will stay with you, Cara.'

‘Oh yes he will. He'll do as he's told. And now, if you wouldn't mind, I have my work to finish.'

Luke came to say his goodbyes that evening and for half an hour was reasonable, rational, telling her how easily things might turn out for the best. And when she said abruptly, rather harshly, ‘Am I to blame for this?' he laughed at her.

‘Lord no. If I'd stayed at home and fed my mother's chickens instead of walking the hills after Richard Oastler then I'd have been right as rain. The charges against me are true. I'm guilty, lass, and fairly proud of it. And as for the house – well, it's not the first one to go that way lately. St Jude's is changing. For the worse, I reckon. Happen I'm ready for a change myself.'

‘Do you have to go so far?'

‘I have to go where the work is.'

She saw, with a terrible relief, an even more terrible regret, that he would not ask her to go with him. What would be the use? If only ‘things'had been different. But what things? In an ideal world – perhaps the one he was striving for – there would have been no barriers between them. In that world of sanity and opportunity there would have been no need for her to defend him against men like Christie Goldsborough with the surrender of her body.

Her soul too, she wondered?

Well, she did not believe in that ideal world. She believed in what she saw all about her, the dog-fight of everyday in which Goldsboroughs and Braithwaites – and Cara Adeane – would always pick themselves up again and snatch enough to settle their appetities. A black, brutal world where one struck first, if one could, and very hard, not for riches or triumphs but simply to avoid being ground into the dust.

A world where she, who understood the rules, might survive and where Luke, who understood them but would not play, might not.

He was the best man she had ever known or would ever be likely to know and now, at this moment of parting, her heart – because of Odette – felt like a stone.

‘And I suppose the first thing you'll do when you get to Nottingham is join their Short Time Committee and anything else they have down there that can get you into trouble.'

‘I reckon so.'

‘And you'll never have a penny in your pocket that isn't spoken for by Justice and Freedom and Equality – instead of a pair of new boots and a decent overcoat. What good do you think it will do?'

He shrugged, the heavy movement of his wide, sparsely covered shoulders inherited from his mother, and smiled at her. Reasonable and steady and infuriating as ever.

‘Maybe not much. Happen a shade more, though, than doing nothing at all.'

She made an irritable exclamation and he smiled again.

‘It makes sense, Cara. You wouldn't scoff at Sir Felix Lark for planting an acorn on his land, would you? He knows he'll not live long enough to see it grow into a tree. But his children might. And their children. The gentry have always understood that. Why shouldn't we? We may not get the vote soon enough to do ourselves much good. But the world doesn't end with us, does it now?'

She had always believed that it ended with herself. More than ever now, because of Odette and Liam. And, not caring to brood just then on the coming generations, she burst out, ‘I have to help you, Luke. If you care anything for me at all then you must let me do something.'

‘Yes,' he said. And to what had he agreed? That she could lend him money, see to the disposal of his luggage, have him driven to Leeds station? Or that he cared for her?

She cared for him. She trusted him. What a foul slag-heap of a world, festering in its malice, hugging its filthy self in glee because it had prevented them from finding a place in which they could live in peace together.

‘Cara …'

‘Yes?'

He paused.

‘Luke?'

Her voice, as she saw him waiting, trailed away into the air.

‘I'm taking Anna Rattrie with me,' he said.

She closed her eyes. Could she bear this? And then it came to her that she was not even surprised. Disappointed though, sadly and deeply. For
him
.

‘
Taking
her?'

He sighed. ‘Yes. I made her my responsibility, didn't I – a long time ago. I'll marry her, of course. If that's what she wants.'

‘Of course she does.' She had not intended to sound so brusque. ‘And I call that carrying your responsibilities a shade too far.'

He looked at her steadily. ‘Yes. It would be. If that's all it was. There's more to it, Cara. There would have to be.'

Yes. Anna loved him, had never loved anyone else, could not even see any other man clearly. Could Luke be happy with Anna's happiness, contented by her devotion? She supposed a great many men made do with less. And Anna with the feeding and grooming and polishing Cara had given her, had acquired a certain fragile grace, a soft-eyed, soft-voiced charm which suddenly reminded Cara of Odette.

Would Anna – like Odette – lay down and die for the man she loved? Undoubtedly. And what remained now was to bring herself to wish them well.

‘She's a lucky girl. She'll …
Luke
. Will it be enough for you? Pity? Oh God – I didn't mean to say that.'

Her head was on his shoulder, she never knew how, her hands against his chest, the coarse material of his shirt scratching her cheek.

‘I'm thirty years old,' he said into her hair. ‘Time I was wed. My mother is in her sixties. High time she had a willing young lass to help her in the house. These are valid reasons, Cara. St Jude's reasons. I've never pretended to myself that I could have you. So I reckon it's best, all things considered, to settle for your opposite. A girl who could never be you, rather than one who might be, but never quite. And I'm fond of Anna. Always have been. I don't want to deny it.'

Very carefully he stood her away from him, handling her as gently as a child he might have lifted down to safety from some high and dangerous wall.

‘I'll be on my way now. I don't need anything, lass. It's all arranged. I have some savings, believe it or not. So has my mother. And my uncle in Nottingham is a good sort. He'll put us up until we can find something to rent. You can help me best by looking after yourself.'

Yes. And a little more than that. If he would take nothing from her then she would just have to grit her teeth tomorrow and give Anna a wedding-present beyond her wildest dreams. How much did she have tonight under her dog-basket? More than Anna had ever held in her hands before, that much was certain. And neither Luke nor Sairellen would have the heart to take it away from her.

‘I'll be off,' he said again. She was almost ready to welcome it. And then, just as urgently, she could not bear him to move a step.

‘Don't go.' At first she meant nothing more than that. Only the words she had spoken. And it was in the intensity of his glance and the response it kindled that their meaning began, slowly and in a deep hush, to change from an innocent cry for companionship to an offer of love.

She had not planned it. Nor prepared herself for it. Yet now the feeling which had arisen between them lay heavy and glowing as sunlight on dusty, midsummer air. A temptation. An enticing whisper in Cara's astonished head, telling her that she could, at least, have this much – why not? why not? – and then, if it should never happen again, at least …
This
much. This once.

And she had never given herself to a man before. The boy who had fathered Liam had taken her by slow, eager inches,
his
desire, not hers, pushing her, coaxing her, pleading with her to go always a little farther than she had really wanted. Christie had taken her more directly. Now, bursting suddenly upon her, the thought of giving herself, of making love rather than manufacturing pleasure enraptured her.

Once. One reckless and generous experience of the physical joys she had so far refused to let her body feel. What better gift to give him? What better way to cheat Christie? A perfect mixture of ecstasy and revenge.

She swallowed hard. ‘Stay with me a while longer, Luke.'

He swallowed rather painfully too, his craggy face flushing as she had never seen it do before, a rush of visible emotion which left him very pale. Leaving
her
tremulous and unsteady, consumed half with desire and half with a most desperate and unlooked-for awkwardness. She had never offered herself before and, because he mattered to her so deeply, so fiercely, she wanted it to be smooth and beautiful and graceful, to be whisked by some loving magic from this tense moment of facing one another contemplating the enormity of her suggestion, to the moment of its ultimate completion. The moment when she could be in his arms sighing to him that no other man had ever really possessed her – surely? – since she had allowed no other man to give her pleasure. That, should she choose to bear another child – as women should be empowered to choose – she could wish to do so only with him.

Almost – very nearly – she wanted his child. And even when she had pulled herself very sharply away from
that
abyss she could not shake off her new understanding of what carrying the child, not of accident but of proud choice, might mean.

‘Stay with me, Luke.'

‘Aye.' And then, roughly shaking his head. ‘Do you think so poorly of me, Cara – that I'd take you tonight and then leave you tomorrow with the consequences?'

She swallowed again, her throat very dry, her stomach already queasy.

‘There'll be no consequences.'

‘You can't be certain.'

‘Oh, for God's sake …' and now she realized she was losing her head completely. ‘Stop being so noble. There'll be no consequences. Nothing has gone amiss up to now, at any rate. And I … All right – all right. Whore's tricks, your mother would call them. I know. And if you don't want to soil your hands on Goldsborough's whore, then yes – all right – I understand …'

Incredibly, in the moment before she burst into tears, his craggy face lit up with his wide grin and, reaching out for her, he lifted her to safety once again in a bear-hug which took her breath away.

‘Don't try to fool me, Miss Adeane. You should know better than that.' And she could feel the laughter in his chest, beneath her cheek. ‘You've never once thought of yourself as a whore – not really – never in your life. You don't give a damn for anything my mother, or anybody else's mother, might have to say. And as for soiling my hands, what you really think is that I ought to be thanking my lucky stars for the chance to touch you. Well – so do I. That's what I love in you, Cara.'

He had spoken the magic words. And, by so doing, had pieced her to the heart.

‘You said you love me.'

He was still smiling. ‘Don't pretend you don't know it.'

‘What I know is that you're the best man in the world …'

‘Aye. I dare say. But that's not the same as love, is it, lass?'

She did not know how to answer him. Was she even capable of the kind of love that threw everything to the winds, that gave all, risked all – like Anna, and Marie Moon, and her mother? Christie had said not.