Flint and Roses (71 page)

‘I would not.'

‘I'm glad to hear it, because I couldn't oblige you. And is there even a mystery? You saw the chance of a good marriage. You took it.'

‘No.'

‘You mean it's not a good marriage?'

‘No. I don't mean that. But it didn't happen—as you suggested—from self-interest. You must know that. You
do
know it.'

‘I know nothing about it. Faith. I was away at the time, if you remember, and when I eventually got to know about it your motives seemed plain enough. If I'm wrong, then tell me so. But I shouldn't ask that of you, should I? Let's forget, as I did, because I expect you've promised to keep quiet and it doesn't pay to break your word every time We'll say no more about it.'

Yet I knew, very clearly, that he intended me to say a great deal, that every word he spoke was pushing me harder against that stone wall, driving me into a corner the better to search out the source of my caring, the source of my guilt. And, if he needed to know the truth, there was no doubt at all that I needed to tell him.

‘We'll say no more,' he repeated softly, firmly, and weak with relief I took a step away from the ancient stone imagining myself free, until I understood from the glimpse of satisfaction in his face that he had done no more than loosen my reins and had found a sure way to bind me again.

‘That brooch on your shoulder,' he said with false indifference. ‘You wear it a great deal, I notice.'

‘Yes—yes I do.'

‘And so you should, for it's a pretty compliment—a cameo swan. A present from Blaize, I reckon.'

I nodded, dry-mouthed, afraid, again, wondering what he could find in a brooch to use against me, knowing, in his present mood, that there must be something, and he smiled.

‘Of course it is. It's got his stamp all over it. And he'd put himself to a lot of trouble to get it.'

‘I believe he may have done.'

‘There's no doubt about it. He'd go a few hundred miles out of his way to find a jeweller who could design it and cut it, time and money no object. That's Blaize.'

‘Yes.'

‘Whereas I'd never think of such a thing. I'm not ungenerous. My wife has a diamond or two and some good emeralds, but there's no particular finesse about that. Any man with a decent bank account could manage it.'

‘Does it matter?' I asked, meaning, ‘Where are you leading me?'; and it was to the unspoken question he replied.

‘It doesn't matter to me because I'm not a man for personal relationships. Oh yes, one tries a little of this and a little of the other as a young man, but in the end a man with any sense at all finds out what he's good at and where he can best make his profit. And the truth is that close relationships don't suit me. My mother sometimes gets upset about it, but if I am hard, as she says, then I find it quite natural.'

‘I don't.'

‘I daresay. But then, you knew me best in my younger days, when I was still trying out a few sentimental notions.'

‘Such as marriage—and love?'

‘Well, marriage at any rate. And adultery, I suppose, from which I must exonerate you, since you were not married at the time and betrayed no one—well, not a husband—'

Self-pity perhaps, and bruised conceit, the Barforth inability to accept that he could not have everything his way. And, forcing myself to remember the weight of his jealousy, his temper, his injustice, I tried to take refuge in anger. He's selfish, a part of my mind insisted. He's hurt, another replied, both were true. It was the hurt that mattered.

‘Nicholas—you may find this hard to believe—you may not even want to believe it—but I never deceived you. Blaize didn't deceive you either. He came to Scarborough that week-end for no other reason than to tell me you couldn't be there. He didn't touch me. He didn't try to touch me. I don't think he particularly wanted to. Certainly I didn't want it.'

And even these few words scorched me, took my breath away, hurt my throat and my tongue in the speaking, caused my will to flicker into its last feeble resistance, pleading with his will. ‘Please Nicholas, let that be enough. Don't make me say any more.'

But having waited so long he was not disposed to be merciful. ‘Faith—dearest Faith—I have four mills to run. How much time do you imagine I spend wondering just when, and how, you got into bed with my brother?'

But he had wondered, had tormented himself with it, and, pressing my back to the wall, turning my face away from him, the cold stone easing my burning cheeks, I knew I was about to give him the answer. I had been wrong about everything else, very likely I was wrong again, but I had contributed more than my share to his load of bitterness and this much, at least, was owing. It was the only promise Blaize had ever asked of me. I didn't want to break it. It was against my nature to break it. I understood why it should not be broken. It made no difference.

‘Listen,' I said, closing my eyes, pressing my face harder against the stone, each word leaving me with great effort, great labour. ‘We were seen together in Scarborough, Blaize and I, by someone who informed Aunt Hannah. She assumed that we were lovers. She was going to tell your father. You were in London. Georgiana was expecting Venetia and you were as worried and confused as I was about how you'd feel if she should die. I was terrified. I'm terrified now.'

And it had been waiting for me a long time, this cloister where nuns had walked barefoot in penitence, a right and proper place for the scourging my spirit required. I felt his hand clench on the wall above my head, a feeling of unbearable strain communicating itself from his body to mine, tightening the air around us until I could scarcely breathe, and then suddenly he threw back his head and gave, no groan of pain, no string of curses or reproaches but a short, quite savage peal of laughter, showing me at last the true meaning of punishment, since nothing could have wounded me so much as this.

‘Christ!' he said. ‘So that's how he did it. The clever bastard. He convinced you that you were saving me, did he? Yes—I could have worked it out, I reckon. It's like him.

It's like you.' And he laughed again, the sharp, ugly sound of it stripping me bare and flaying me.

‘Stop it, Nicholas. You've hurt me—it's enough.'

‘When I'm ready,' he said. ‘When I'm good and ready.'

And then, the mirth vanishing, whipping out of him and leaving his face granite hard again, he took me by the shoulders, his face very close to mine.

‘But it didn't work, darling, did it? He played God once too often, didn't he? And don't you ever ask yourself why? Oh yes, he gave you his reasons, plenty of them, and they'd seem good to you at the time, because he can talk the birds from the trees, we all know that. But what was he really after? It wasn't done for my sake, Faith, and it wasn't done for yours, you can rely on that. It's the Cullingford train all over again. I wouldn't play then, and I won't play now. He should have known that.'

I got away from him, ran down the cloister into the house, and he drove off a half-hour later with his son, leaving me to face Georgiana, who appeared as if she had been awaiting the signal, just as his carriage went out of sight.

‘He's gone then?'

‘As you see.'

And she stood for a moment staring in the direction he had taken, too deep in her own thoughts to notice that I had been crying, that I was very near to tears again.

‘He thinks I'm having an affair with Julian,' she said. ‘It's not true—of course, it's not true. Heavens, if he really thought about it—wanted to think about it—he'd know it couldn't be true.' And then, her voice very low this time. ‘Ah well—he has a mistress in Leeds and another in London—did you know that? No, of course you didn't, and I shouldn't know either, except that one always knows. Yes—one knows and one should be able to accept it with resignation, and dignity. One should make no more of it than a simple “My dear, men are like that”, which I've heard so many women say. I can't say it.'

She turned away as if she meant to go inside and then turned slowly round again, drawn against her will to the empty road he had just travelled.

‘If it hurts me, then you'd think I'd be able to tell him so—wouldn't you? Just go to him and tell him? I can't. He wouldn't answer, you see. And when he won't talk to me it hurts me so much that I can't risk making it happen. So I just go on pretending there's nothing I want to say to him.'

She turned away again, her narrow hand making a gesture of finality.

‘Well, so much for that,' she said. ‘There's always the Abbey—always my blessed cloister. At least nobody can take that away from me.'

The calling-in of the Hobhouse debt was still the subject of every tea-time, every dinner-table, when I returned, my sister Prudence walking up from Elderleigh schoolhouse the moment she became aware of my carriage on the drive, for now she must either marry Freddy or break off with him, and the decision was harder than she had anticipated.

Freddy had waited more than ten years for her, not, as she continued to insist, very patiently and certainly not without diversions. He had gone regularly to Bradford every Tuesday and Friday for years to treat himself to the supposedly medium-priced charms of a lady who kept a tobacconist's shop in Darley Street, had paid brief court to Rebecca Mandelbaum before her Austrian musician won her heart. But, at this crisis in his family's fortunes, circumstances had placed him in Prudence's hands, and, in the prevailing mood of sympathy, Cullingford would expect Prudence to do her duty by the Hobhouses or would condemn her as a heartless jilt.

‘Not that I care for that,' she said. ‘Why should I care what anyone thinks of me?'

But she was fonder of Freddy than she had intended, attracted in spite of herself by his weighty, lazy charm, his constant good-humour in adversity, the sheer hard labour he had given to Nethercoats, his lack of rancour when all his efforts had been defeated, one by one, by his father. And she could no longer deny that she had used him.

‘Of course I did. And why not? No one thinks ill of a man for using a woman. It is what men are supposed to do, and women are supposed to put up with it. If I had lost
my
money, it would have been taken for granted that he would break off with me, and they would have called him a sentimental fool if he hadn't. But it is not the same for me. I am a woman and so I am expected to sacrifice myself and everything I have for the sake of his incompetent father. And, if I don't, I run the risk of losing my reputation and my school—for no Law Valley man will allow his daughter to be educated by the heartless woman who jilted Freddy Hobhouse, in case my pupils should follow my example, in case I should take it into my head to teach them that a woman has as much right to be considered as a man. I've laboured hard for my independence, you know that. Dear God! how I've laboured—and it didn't please me that I had to lie and scheme for it, and hide behind Sir Joel Barforth in order to maintain it. But I'm succeeding, Faith. I'm gaining the reputation I set out to gain. I'm being taken seriously, not as the daughter of Morgan Aycliffe with twenty thousand pounds and expectations, but as myself—for what I've made of myself. And I can't lose it. I might share it, but I won't lose it, I won't sink my money and my identity in Nethercoats. If Freddy wants me, he'll have to break off with his family first. He'll have to choose my business instead of his own.'

But such an idea would have been considered preposterous, downright criminal, in Cullingford, and Freddy, who was no revolutionary, who was kind-hearted and easy-going and extremely attached to his even easier-natured father, would not listen to it in any case. He would marry Prudence if he could. He would plough every penny she brought with her and every penny he could raise elsewhere into his ailing Nethercoats. And, if he failed, then he would take any man's wages and work himself to death to provide for her. He would give her the shirt from his back, the last-crust from his table, and go cold and hungry himself; but nothing would induce him to see what in her opinion was reason, in his opinion treachery, nothing—absolutely nothing—would persuade him to allow her to provide him.

A woman's dowry and her inheritance belonged by right and custom to her husband, since wealth of this kind had been earned and accumulated by a fellow male—-her father—but there was an ugly name for a man who lived in the fruits of a woman's labour, and Freddy Hobhouse would not be called by that name.

‘Good heavens!' my mother said. ‘What a diverting notion! He would have to do exactly as she told him—can you imagine it? No more “Darling, may I have a new bonnet?”, but “Unless you mend your manners I shall not buy you a new coat”. Really—one can see the advantages to it. Daniel has explained to me that by law even a woman's earnings belong to her husband, but I can see that it is not at all the same. A man knows in advance the size of the dowry he is getting and once he sets his hands upon it no one can have it back again. But earnings—well—all she needs to do is threaten to stop earning, and if he depends upon her income he will be obliged to let her have her way. Yes, so he will, just as we are obliged to let our husbands have their way, for the same reason. My dear, it is revolution, and although I am perfectly happy with my Daniel—indeed I am—I think the idea of such power could quite turn my head, were I a younger woman. Earnings. Good heavens!—your father would turn in his grave. Quite suddenly I am able to understand why he was so careful to teach you nothing. What a dangerous, tantalizing notion—to earn a living of one's own.'

But others were less tantalized, and perhaps it suited me to rush to my sister's aid, doing my very best to defend her actions and her name, since I could no longer defend my own.