Flint and Roses (73 page)

‘Yes, you have carved me up, all of you, carved me up nicely, and I hope you are satisfied. But I still have my tongue, Lady Barforth—Faith Aycliffe that you were—and I shall let it be known what you have all done to me.'

‘Mrs. Hobhouse, you must not say these things. You will only hurt yourself.'

‘No,' she said, her mighty chest heaving, her breath as laboured as my uncle's had been in the hour before he died. ‘I shall hurt
you
. And don't imagine you can get your tame lawyer Agbrigg to buy my silence, for I will not be silent. I know what I know, Faith Aycliffe, about your aunts and your sisters and your cousins, and your precious mother, who is no better than she should be and never has been. I know what I know, and I shall say it.'

And so she did, at every tea-table to which she was invited—and who could fail to invite her now?—and at her own tea-table at which every lady who kept her own carriage, whose husband was well placed enough to have an interest in such matters, eagerly attended, offering the stricken Mrs. Hobhouse the utmost in sympathy and understanding, patting her hand quite tearfully as they made their escape to my mother's equally busy drawing-room in Blenheim Lane, or to the court Aunt Hannah had long established at Lawcroft Fold.

‘I will silence her,' Aunt Hannah said grimly. ‘I will sue her.'

But Jonas, maintaining his habitual cool distance, would consider no legal action. The woman was hysterical. Women, in his experience, often were. Certainly he was well acquainted with Mrs. Delaney, since for several years he had taken care of her investments, and had negotiated the purchase of her house in Albion Terrace. Certainly he had known of the marriage, since he had attended it, and of the will, since he had drawn it up, but no sane person could have expected him to divulge such information to anyone. To do so would have been a serious breach of professional conduct, of which he had never—neither in this case nor in any other—been guilty. In view of her obvious afflictions one should extend to Mrs. Hobhouse the leniency due to all those of an unbalanced mind.

But, as my mother had foreseen, the effect on my sister Celia's already ailing nerves was of a very different order. Mrs. Hobhouse, even at the height of her dementia, had not quite dared tackle Georgiana, but Mrs. Jonas Agbrigg—little Celia Aycliffe—had seemed a natural and easy target. She had spent twenty raging minutes in Albert Place, reducing Celia to such a state of palpitating, choking hysteria that even Mrs. Hobhouse had been terrified by it and had rushed away, leaving her shawl and gloves behind. They had put Celia to bed, heavily dosed with laudanum, and Jonas, at last compelled to action, had written a cold letter to Mr. Hobhouse warning him of the consequences should he permit his wife to molest Celia again. Aunt Hannah, without Jonas's knowledge, had gone to Nethercoats herself to return the shawl and gloves, but had been denied an interview with Mrs. Hobhouse, who had also taken to her bed.

‘You may tell her I shall call again,' she informed the interested parlourmaid who, uncertain as to her next month's wages, could be relied on to let Mrs. Hobhouse know how angry and how very determined Mrs. Ira Agbrigg had seemed.

But Celia, who had been unwilling to venture out a great deal before, would no longer go out at all, maintaining herself behind drawn curtains in a state of siege that reminded me strongly of my own behaviour after Giles died. I too had sat like this in the half dark, doing nothing, staring at empty shadows on a black wall; but whereas I had been angry, Celia was deeply, most distressingly afraid, displaying as much alarm at the sound of her own doorbell as if she believed an avenging army had made its camp outside her door.

And indeed, in a way, she did, for was not the whole of Cullingford talking about her, would they not whisper about her behind her back the moment she showed her face? Well then, she would not show it. She would stay in her own home, lock her door, keep her curtains tight closed, and unless they chose to stand and scream abuse at her through the window, or climb on her rooftop and hurl it down her chimney, she was safe.

But was she? What of the servants? What of that parlour-maid with the shifty eyes, and Cook, who had never liked her? What were they saying about her in the kitchen? Oh yes, she knew, muttering that her husband had taken money from Nicholas Barforth to persuade Mr. Oldroyd to change his will, that he had taken money from Mr. Oldroyd himself, suggesting that there was even something between Jonas and Mrs. Delaney—oh yes, she knew—making up these vile stories because Jonas had attended Mrs. Delaney at her home once or twice with documents to sign. And because Cook knew, and the maids knew, that she and Jonas were obliged now, because of Celia's health, to sleep apart—yes, they had assumed the worst, believed the worst, and were spreading it, whispering it at the garden-gate to the maids next door.

And what of Grace, who was at school now with the two younger Hobhouse girls? What was she being made to suffer? What were they saying to her about her mother? Grace had better stay at home and be safe too.

‘No,' Jonas said, ‘No—darling.' And, although it was the first time I had ever heard him use such an endearment to Celia, it produced nothing but a storm of tears. Had he no consideration for his own child? Did he want them to poison her mind against her own parents? After all, he had exposed them both to this, and Grace was delicate too. Yet, oddly enough, in spite of Grace's still dainty appearance, the wistfulness of her pointed face and her huge dark eyes, she had a surprising resilience, a tendency to spread her wings in fresh air and sunshine that I recognized from my own too-sheltered childhood, and I was glad of Jonas's insistence that she continue her lessons with Prudence.

‘Then she will have to come to you, Faith, after her class, and wait until Jonas can fetch her,' Celia told me. ‘For, if it is seen that I can afford to send the carriage for her every day, they will think Jonas keeps his own and will wonder where the money is coming from. Except that they will not wonder—they will say it is from Nicholas Barforth or Mrs. Delaney.'

Mrs. Hobhouse's venom, it seemed, had no power to make itself felt at Tarn Edge, where Georgiana and Aunt Verity, and Nicholas, continued to live their separate lives, Nicholas calmly continuing his negotiations for the purchase of Nethercoats, his offer considerably reduced, it was believed, now that the Hobhouse resources were at an end; and shortly before Christmas it became his property, to be used for the weaving of silks and velvets, the existing orders for worsteds to be transferred to Lawcroft.

The Hobhouses departed with a sufficient income, one hoped, to support their younger children in a small house in Bridlington, leaving the older boys to fend for themselves, and since there is always a tendency in a commercial town to forgive a rich and powerful man, it was considered generous of Nicholas to employ Freddy and James at Lawcroft, even finding a niche of sorts for Adolphus at Low Cross. But I was frankly astonished to be told by Liam Adair, who still called regularly to show me his black eyes and to boast of his prowess with a shot-gun, that my mother's beloved Daniel had also taken service with Nicholas.

‘Oh no—no surprise at all,' Blaize murmured, looking amused, no matter what his exact feelings may have been. ‘He needs someone to sell his silks and velvets, after all, and, since he can hardly do it himself and I'm not likely to do it for him, Daniel Adair is just the man. Not exactly my calibre, need it be said, but he'll do well enough, and Nicky is only following my father's advice. He's preparing for the day when he can buy me out, or throw me out—if it ever comes—and from Dan Adair's point of view it's no more than common sense. Your mother won't live forever, and if she goes before him the Aycliffe money comes to you and Prudence and Celia, not to him. He needs something to fall back on. Well, good old Nick, he's got the Wool-combers, and the dyeworks, and Nethercoats to call his own. If he goes on working his eighteen hours a day, he'll be able to pay my price before too long.'

‘Will you sell?'

‘I wonder?' he said. ‘Let's keep him wondering too.'

And I knew his light, cynical eyes were saying to me, ‘Yes, darling, just wonder, for what you don't know you can't tell.'

Freddy Hobhouse had been too occupied by his family's tragedy—in consoling his mother, moving her to Bridlington, finding places for his brothers, settling his own ten thousand pounds on his four sisters so that they could get themselves decently married, by the collapse of his father into total, often drunken helplessness—to have time to consider his personal affairs. But once the sale of Nethercoats was completed, his parents safely installed in their new home—waiting, as Mrs. Hobhouse put it, to die—he came to see my sister and released her from their engagement. He had nothing now to offer her. He was a shed manager in the employment of her cousin, and no one in Cullingford would expect a Miss Aycliffe to descend to so lowly a station. Cullingford, in fact, was now entirely on her side and would think her a fool if she did. But, knowing her contrary nature, her sneaking fondness for Freddy himself, I was less certain.

She walked the half mile from her house to mine immediately after the interview, her eyes red, she told me at once, because of the cold east wind.

‘Well,' she said, sitting down very straight-backed, sniffing slightly as if the wind had effected her nostrils too. ‘I have been properly punished for my independence of mind. I have asked a man to marry me and have been refused. I am probably the only female of our acquaintance to whom such a thing has happened, and it is not at all pleasant, I can assure you.'

‘You asked Freddy to marry you?'

‘I did. I could see nothing against it. That octopus of a Nethercoats is gone now. We are in no danger of being strangled by it. I am doing extremely well, especially now that my financial arrangement is with Aunt Verity, rather than Uncle Joel, and although she accepts my repayments she usually manages to find a way of giving me the money back again. With what I earn, and with what Freddy can earn, we would be well above the level of starvation. I have a good house—a very good house—and marriage would release my dowry and all my lovely porcelain, which would enable me to pay off my debt to Aunt Verity and to extend my premises.'

‘And Freddy—?'

‘He wouldn't have me. He is being manly, you see, and gentlemanly too. He would really have liked to put his head on my shoulder and have a good cry, I could tell. And I wouldn't have minded a bit. But no—it's not manly to cry, so he just rode off to those terrible lodgings in Gower Street he thinks I don't know about. And I expect he'll send just about every penny he earns to his mother. His shirt was not quite clean either, and I can't tell you how much that distressed me. He's never had to think about getting his laundry done before.'

‘You had better stop feeling sorry for him, Prue. You may begin to enjoy it, and then we shall see you doing his laundry yourself.'

‘And why not?' she declared, her back straightening even further. ‘If I decide to ask my laundry maid to put his linen in my tub, which stands in my scullery, in my house, I know of no one who could prevent me.'

But we both knew that Freddy himself would prevent her, and I, at least, assumed there was no more to be said.

With the departure of Mrs. Hobhouse, interest in Nethercoats began to wane, the most pressing problem that winter being whether or not one could acknowledge and eventually receive the second Mrs. Oldroyd, now established very cosily, one supposed, at Fieldhead. And on the whole, since it was assumed that the Oldroyd mill would now be offered for sale and the lady would soon remove, herself and her ill-gotten, or hard-earned, gains elsewhere, it seemed hardly worth the trouble.

I saw her, very occasionally, driving out in her silk-upholstered landau, once in the parish churchyard when I made my weekly pilgrimage to Giles's grave, and she, presumably was performing the same office for Mr. Oldroyd, a tall woman with the kind of timeless profile I had seen among Italian peasants, walking like barefoot queens to the grape-harvest, erect and commanding, yet, like all women who have lived in life's shadows, instinctively discreet, taking an opposite pathway so I would not be obliged to greet her.

But she had done me no harm and, waiting until our paths crossed, as was inevitable in that small space, I said, ‘How do you do, Mrs. Oldroyd?'

‘How do you do, Lady Barforth?' she replied, her voice a rich contralto, her self-possession absolute, no surprise in her, no gratitude, no satisfaction, at my willingness to acknowledge her, a faint suggestion that she had chosen, not rushed, to acknowledge me.

Yet, during those early months of her widowhood—presumably her first, since no one believed there had ever, been a
Mr.
Delaney—she made no attempt to thrust herself, upon our sensibilities, making no changes at Fieldhead and restricting her hospitality to the few who had been accustomed to her famous teas in Albion Terrace.

‘A clever woman,' Blaize said, ‘If Freddy Hobhouse had the sense to make himself pleasant in her direction, he might end as master of Fieldhead after all. She can't be much on the wrong side of forty, and it strikes me she's in no hurry to pack her bags and leave. She has the money; Freddy could give her the respectability which is about the only thing it can't buy. And I understand that when someone, who may have been Nicholas Barforth, inquired the asking price for Fieldhead, not even Jonas Agbrigg could explain the lady's intentions. Unless, of course, he knew and wasn't telling, which one could bring oneself to believe of Jonas. Why don't you ask your sister?'

But Celia, at the very mention of the new Mrs. Oldroyd, was apt to stiffen like an animal at bay, to lower her voice and glance swiftly around her, so terrified of being overheard that it was an effort to catch her muttered opinions at all. Mr. Oldroyd, quite naturally, had seen the necessity of appointing someone to look after his widow's concerns, to see to his investment, to keep the business going until it could be sold and then to wind the estate up profitably, in exactly the same way as my father had appointed Uncle Joel. In the Oldroyd case, since the lady had no relations, or none she cared to speak of, the obvious person had been Jonas, a choice which would have caused no comment at all had he not been named, by Mrs. Hobhouse, as an arch-conspirator. And I was totally unable to convince my sister that the gossip had abated, that every visit Jonas made to Fieldhead—since no one expected a lady to attend her lawyer in his chambers—was not noted down and conveyed to Mrs. Hobhouse by some evil-wisher, that Celia's household expenditure was not checked by servants and shopkeepers and tradesmen for the tell-tale increase that would proclaim Mrs. Hobhouse to have been right.