Flint and Roses (22 page)

And perhaps Caroline, who had never expected so foolish and painful an accident as this to befall her, was surprised at herself.

Caroline, in fact, in truth, and quite simply, was in love; concerned no longer with lands and titles but with such idiotic considerations as the light auburn tint of Matthew Chard's hair, the quite unremarkable, but in her, eyes miraculous, hazel of his eyes, a certain quality—real or imagined was of no importance—which set him, apart from all the other young men she had ever seen. He was taller, a shade wilder than Francis Winterton, considerably less wild and not nearly so handsome as Julian Flood. He entirely lacked the easy charm of her own brother Blaize, the intellectual finesse of Jacob Mandelbaum, even the cold dignity of Jonas Agbrigg. He was, in fact, a perfectly ordinary young squire, a fresh-air man of healthy appetites who asked from life nothing more complex than the pleasure of shooting flying game and running game in season, of riding to hounds four or five days while the weather and the foxes lasted. He was a little arrogant, perhaps, since no one had ever questioned his right to privilege, a little self-centred, since the situation to which he had been born suited his nature exactly, causing him to believe that, if he wanted something, then everyone around him must surely want him to have it too. But Caroline loved him, and being in love myself I was well able to sympathize.

‘She has no access to him,' my mother explained. ‘She met him through the Floods and they will be unlikely to take her over to Listonby now.'

But Caroline, too inwardly desperate for pride, too truly a Barforth even to acknowledge the possibility of defeat, would have driven unannounced to Listonby herself and taken it by storm, had not Aunt Verity smoothly intervened, inviting the young baronet so regularly to Tarn Edge that his continued presence there became such a commitment in itself that it was understood that, if he had not proposed by Christmastime, then Uncle Joel would feel entitled to demand the reason why.

‘It will not be necessary,' my mother said. ‘Verity will see to it. If it is upsetting Caroline, then it must certainly be upsetting Joel and Verity will not allow that. We shall have the wedding, you may be sure of it, if Verity has made up her mind.'

But although I wished Caroline well, and felt sure of her success, I believed that this year in which we stood, and the one to follow, would not be her special time, but mine.

Nicholas called at Blenheim Lane a few days after our return, to deliver some message from his mother to mine, and, despite our bad beginning, lingered all hour in the drawing-room, questioning me about my travels—the first of all our acquaintance to do so—a circumstance made more delightful because I knew full well that he had no real interest in exotic places beyond their profitability as markets for Barforth cloth, which was information I could not supply.

He sat behind me at the Assembly Rooms a week later, listening with unconcealed irritation as our two best-established and most expensive physicians, Dr. Blackstone and Dr. Overdale, explained that we should regard our town as an object of pride, while Prudence's friend, Dr. Ashburn, congratulated us most courteously on the fact that even in London and Glasgow he had seen few slums to compare with ours.

And afterwards, having escorted us home, he remained in the drawing-room so late that, when Prudence had retired to bed and my mother was herself feeling drowsy she felt obliged to tell him: ‘Nicholas, my dear boy; although your company is quite delightful, I would not have your mother accuse me of making a night-rake out of you.'

‘Oh lord!' he said, getting easily to his feet. ‘Is it really so, late?

You're such a charmer, Aunt Elinor, you see. You'd make any man forget the hour.'

‘You can be quite charming yourself, Nicholas, when you want to be,' she told him, looking very tiny, very fair, beside him as she gave him her hand, knowing perfectly well that he was smiling at me over her head, saying to her and asking me. ‘You'll be at the Assembly Rooms dance on Wednesday, I reckon, won't you?'

‘Faith, dear,' she told me when he had gone. ‘I would not wish you to be encouraged. He is by no means so enraptured by you as Dr. Ashburn—who was quite nervous about his lecture tonight because you were there—but yes, assuredly, the fact that Nicholas attended the lecture at all and stayed here so long afterwards—yes, there is something there. But he is a hard-headed young man, Nicholas Barforth, and by the time he reaches home—or the Old Swan, which is somewhat more likely—he will have remembered that in fact he is still reluctant to settle down. It will take a great deal to shake him from that resolve, my dear, and if he should now begin to avoid you then you may feel flattered, for it can only indicate that he is tempted. Flattered, Faith, but not too hopeful, dear. You may be sure I am right.'

And so she was, for the Assembly Rooms dance that following Wednesday proved no more than a miserable ordeal of waiting for Nicholas, who, arriving very late and very clearly from the direction of the Old Swan, lounged in the refreshment room for half an hour, spoke two words to me, and went away again. But the next afternoon when we called at Lowcroft to see Aunt Hannah, he came up, from the mill, the coolness we may both have intended to show thawing instantly because, quite simply, we were pleased to see each other.

I had not dazzled him. Beneath my Paris gowns and my high-piled, elaborate hairdressing, which had impressed some others, my body was still too familiar to him to arouse the kind of physical desire which would demand a swift conclusion. It must, I knew, be a much more gradual process than that. But he was pleased—always—to see me, looked for me in any room that he entered and was satisfied when he found me, began to add, at the end of any discussion, ‘Oh, Faith will know what I mean.' And so I did.

He called often to see us—as did Blaize and Dr. Ashburn and some others—tearing up and down Blenheim Lane in the kind of sporting phaeton his father, who had driven an equipage every bit as lethal in his day, considered no more than a young man's fancy, but which caused great alarm to the more sedate of our neighbours.

‘Old Miss Corey-Manning thought I meant to run her down.'

‘Yes. I saw from the window. You've done her a kindness. She'll have something to talk about now, for the next six months or more.'

‘Aye—Blaize is off to America by the look of it, in the summer.'

‘Do you mind?'

‘If you mean, do I want to go with him, or instead of him—no, not a bit of it. I'm all right where I am. If he'd take father, I wouldn't complain. I get on well enough with old Agbrigg, but father—well—he should make up his mind. Either he wants me to run the mills or he wants to go on running them himself. He's got to decide. He tells me to use my judgment, tells me he's done his share and it's time he was taking things easy, and then, when I do just that, there he is, like a bolt from the blue, making out I'm going behind his back. You'd think he'd be glad, wouldn't you, to have somebody willing to take over?'

‘He is glad, Nicholas. It's just that he's been in control so long, and it's hard for him to let go. And perhaps he doesn't like to admit how much he relies on you. I think you'd be the same.'

He grinned suddenly, a flash of rueful self-knowledge, of pleasure, perhaps, in being able to share it with me.

‘Maybe I would. He's not a bad sort—in fact he can be downright splendid at times. If he'd just listen to reason about the combing machines. They're making a fortune in Bradford, Faith, out of the combing machines. It's the last section of the industry to get mechanized, and I don't know what he's waiting for. It's been on the cards for years that somebody was going to come up with a combing machine that would work—it stands to reason. The wool has to be combed before they can spin it, and they have to spin it before we can weave it and nobody could expect the hand-combers to keep pace with us. My father went in for power-looms when everybody said he was a madman, and made his millions, and now when I put it to him about the combing machines, he gives me the same answers they were giving him twenty years ago. Wait and see. Let them get rid of the teething troubles. I know it means throwing the hand-combers out of work, but that never bothered him before. By God if I had the capital I'd set myself up as a wool-comber right now—there's plenty of factory property-going begging, and I'd still be able to manage Lawcroft and Tarn Edge as well, if he'd let me. He could come in with me—it wouldn't hurt him. I'd be glad of his advice and his money to begin with, but I wouldn't want him to do any work. I'd pay him back and make him a profit, and it would be
mine,
Faith. You understand that, don't you?'

‘Yes of course I do. And so does he. I suppose he's cautious now because he's older, and he's done what he wanted to do. But he's bound to appreciate how you feel. If you persist—show him you really mean it—then I'm sure you'll convince him.'

‘Yes,' he said, leaning towards me almost taking my hand. ‘It's not enough, Faith, just to take over another man's achievement and keep it going. I'll do that—of course I will—and double it if I can. But I want something that I started, something with my mark on it. I want my father to know—and I want the Piece Hall to know—that I can make it on my own.'

‘And so you can.'

‘Faith, why do I always feel better when I've talked to you?'

He had not said he loved me had in no way committed himself. But there was something between us. And if it was left alone to grow—if I remained patient and careful, so very careful, never forgetting its fragility—then it would grow, surely, into the one thing in the world I desired? For if Nicholas wanted me no one could really prevent it. My circumstances had not changed. I was not the great match he could make, but I was good enough—as Jonas had been good enough for Celia—and even if his father objected to the point of casting him out, which seemed most unlikely, my money and his own commercial acumen would suffice. Yet I spun no dreams of elopements and love in a cottage, for Nicholas would have no part in such things. I looked now to reality, to a shrewd, ambitious man who would claim his share of the Barforth mills and have his combing company besides, who would live comfortably, self-indulgently even as he grew older, and who might—who must—live with me. I knew, without any shame whatsoever, that my body desired his. I knew that our minds matched, that our senses were in harmony. I knew I could make him happy. And I would wait, motionless, in the place where he could always find me until he acknowledged it too.

Dr. Ashburn was also with us a great deal in Blenheim Lane, so quiet, so unobtrusive, that it took a while to recognize his charm, and although I knew I had impressed him to begin with, he was so very much the gentleman, so courteous to everyone, that—my vision clouded perhaps by Nicholas—I managed to convince myself, if not my mother, that his partiality for me did not go deep. Yet Aunt Hannah, retaining a proprietorial interest in our dowries, clearly saw Dr. Ashburn as a threat to Jonas's position as head of our family, and since in addition he greatly encouraged her husband's preoccupation with stand-pipes and drainage channels, he could do no right in her eyes.

His visits to Simon Street she saw not as an act of charity—although she was a genuinely charitable woman herself—but a deliberate encouragement of the lower classes to idleness. They would make no effort to pay for medicine or anything else, she declared, once they saw it could be obtained free of charge, while Dr. Ashburn's attendance as a physician at certain very private establishments in the same area she considered to be no fit subject for her own ears, let alone ours. Nor could she approve of his work at the Infirmary, although she had herself raised a great deal of money for the old hospital building in Sheepgate to be repaired. But raising money was one thing, personal involvement quite, another, and we all knew that hospitals were not for decent people, who would be properly cared for at home, but for vagrants drunkards, disreputables, who should be moved on as soon as they were sufficiently recovered, to be a burden on somebody else's rates. We all knew that hospital nurses were foul-mouthed, gin-soaked, the dregs of the human barrel, quite ready to supplement their incomes by offering services which were not of a medical nature; that hospital doctors were very young men at the start of their careers, or very old ones whose careers should have long been ended. And since Dr. Ashburn was highly qualified and highly acclaimed, having other patients who could afford to pay and were not slow to praise. Aunt Hannah declared him to be sanctimonious.

‘Was that Saint Ashburn I saw just now,' she would enquire, ‘driving his shabby gig up the lane as if he hadn't a feather to fly with?'

‘But it would be foolish to leave a smart new curricle in Simon Street.' Prudence would reply, demure but no less dangerous for all that.

‘Indeed, for they would pick it clean and have the horse to market before he had set foot across the first threshold—which is all the thanks he is ever likely to get. Well, every time he sits down at my table—since Mr. Agbrigg persists in inviting him—I shudder at the thought of what may be lurking on his coat or underneath his shoes. I wonder, Elinor, that you do not feel the same. Yes, it may all seem very grand to you girls—these idealistic notions. But your mother and I, having lived longer in the world, have seen it all before and know where it leads to. And, whatever my husband may say there is something not quite right about that man.'

Yet he was undoubtedly a person of impeccable background, the son of a fashionable London parson and a lady of landed connections in Cheshire, where, following his parents'early death, he had been brought up. His breeding in fact was better than ours, his education infinitely superior, his experience of life wider, since he had worked in many of our major cities and travelled extensively abroad. A gentle, not unattractive man, his quietness spiced with intellectual curiosity, with radical ideals that must appeal strongly to Prudence. And I watched him carefully when, spending time he perhaps could not spare, he would turn to my sister, not eagerly but with a warm attention, as she offered him some article of a medical or social nature, some list of facts and figures she had copied out herself.