Snow Angels (16 page)

Abby knew that he did much more than many people in his position – some of them treated their servants and their workmen very badly – but it seemed wrong to her: she thought that not to use power for the general good was another way of misusing it and Robert spent so much on big parties and keeping up his houses and things which she considered unnecessary. She tried to talk to him, but he called her his little do-gooder and tolerated her. Abby knew that she ought to have been grateful for such a generous husband. Gil had no independence. He had nothing, Abby reasoned, yet there was something about him which she found difficult to dislike, the occasional reluctant smile, the way that he was quiet and did not put himself forward like Robert would have. He did not attempt to dominate the conversation. Robert was often loud, shouting across the room
to people or manoeuvring the talk for his own ends, towards his own interests, regardless of other people. But then, Gil did not know that conversation was a tool, she thought. He used it sparingly.

Henderson talked to Matthew, took the child up to his shoulder and then into his arms as he had no doubt done with her when she was that small. Abby could tell that he was charmed and wished she could have told him that she was having a child. It seemed to be the one thing she could have done. Robert had people to do everything else. This was all she could do for him. Several of their acquaintances and friends had children, some who had not been married much longer than them. This was her place. Instinct told her that the more concerned she became, the more difficult it would be, so she went on partying and talking to people, buying new clothes which she did not want and putting up with those friends he cared for whom she did not like, as part of her wifely duties.

To his credit, Robert did not mention children. She didn’t think he cared particularly, but the women of his family were prone to asking after her health very often and Abby knew it was for one reason. It was not that she and Robert did not go to bed together often, though not every night. Three or four nights a week he did not come to her bed and she was quite happy alone, though a little hurt to think that he would not come just to sleep with her, that there must always be a reason. At first she did not mind, but it soon occurred to her that after she had gone to bed, the house was very still. One night, she ventured into his bedroom to find it empty. The next time he didn’t come to her, it was empty again. He was nowhere that she could discover in the house and even in a house that size what could he do at night but sleep, read, smoke or drink by the fire? Abby went back to bed and, if she had been the kind of woman who wept much, she would have done so at the suspicions which thereafter crossed her mind.

Over dinner the following evening she said to him, ‘Tell me, Robert, do you go to whores?’

Her husband choked over a mouthful of beef. He took a long drink of wine, coughed until his eyes ran and, when he had wiped his face on his napkin, he said, ‘Dear God, woman, what a thing to say!’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course I damned well don’t!’

‘Then you have somebody else.’

Robert took another swig of wine.

‘Whatever happened to tact?’ he said.

‘Do you?’

‘Abby, my life is mine.’

‘You have a mistress, then.’

He looked severely across the table at her.

‘Well-bred women do not discuss such subjects,’ he said.

‘I’m not well bred, so it doesn’t count.’

‘Do you want me in your bed every night?’

‘I certainly don’t want you in anybody else’s.’

He looked down at his plate for a second.

‘How can I say this without sounding nasty? Women like bed. Ladies don’t. I respect you and I also expect, as your husband, to come to your bed when I choose. The subject is closed.’

‘How can you go to bed with another woman? I’m your wife! Aren’t I a good wife to you? Is it because I haven’t conceived a child? Is it?’

‘It has nothing to do with any of that.’

‘What has it to do with then?’

Robert sighed.

‘Men have needs. I don’t wish to discuss this any more,’ he said and got up and walked out.

*

Anybody would have thought, looking at Rhoda, that she and Gil had the perfect marriage. She seemed happy. This was what she had wanted: freedom. She shopped with Helen, spent time
with the baby, chatted with Gil’s father and mother, ate chocolate and read by the fire when the weather was bad and spent many hours walking on her beloved moors. Each night she turned the key in the lock of the door between their bedrooms. Gil asked for nothing. Most of the time he stayed at work.

The contract had been signed and work was going ahead. It was going to be a massive task. It would take ten thousand pounds to widen the river and covered berths were to be built, he had insisted on that. His father had argued that they would be draughty and would exclude light, but Gil had promised John Marlowe a launch date eighteen months ahead and he was not about to go back on this. He had also built a self-propelled model of forty-six feet and was doing all kinds of testing in a specially built dock. The results were exciting. If he changed the shape so that it was slightly finer, he would need less power for better speed. The broader beam meant the river must be dredged and widened but many shipbuilders, including his father and Henderson, had been gradually doing this for years and were only pleased at the proposal. They were not quite so pleased at having to contribute financially.

Gil would have stayed overnight often in the office but since Edward came home so rarely, and only then to see Matthew, Gil didn’t. He went home to his polite wife and his cold bed. His temper had suffered too. At work sometimes now he could hear William in his voice. Things which seemed obvious to him had to be repeated. People did not work efficiently enough or fast enough to suit him or John or the Admiralty and from time to time they sent their dreaded committee to interfere. It took all Gil’s self-control not to shout at them too.

One night that autumn, when Gil had gone to bed late, he awoke with a start in the darkness, knowing even as he opened his eyes that someone was in the room. It was Rhoda. She had a candlestick in her hand and her face was full of distress. The room was chilly because the nights were becoming cold and the fire had gone out long since. She
looked ridiculously young, her hair in plaits and her nightdress long and white.

‘I had a bad dream,’ she said.

It must have been very bad, Gil thought, to get her into his room.

‘Sit down,’ Gil said. He pulled off the top cover, gave it to her and she wrapped it around her. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘It was awful. I was up on the moors and I got lost. I don’t get lost because I know them but it was dark and cold, so very cold … and I was alone. The wind was doing that sort of low moaning sound it makes when there’s heather or bracken. I couldn’t see and there was nowhere to go and I stumbled and fell and hurt myself and then—’

‘And then?’

‘That was all. When I woke up—’

‘It’s all right. You can stay here.’

‘No, I—’

‘It’s all right,’ he said again slowly, trying to reassure her. Rhoda hesitated, but when he drew back the bedclothes for her she got in and after a short while she went to sleep. He awoke briefly some time later to find her cuddled in against his back, sound asleep. She was still there when the maid came in with the early morning tea. Rhoda would have run like a startled hare when she had gone but he said, ‘No, stay there and drink the tea. I never have time. I have to get to work.’

‘But it’s early yet.’

‘I always go at this hour.’

He bathed and dressed. When he came back into the room, she had drunk the tea and gone back to sleep.

That evening when he returned home, she didn’t say much. She ate nothing at dinner, and as the evening progressed became very pale. Usually she went to bed early, long before he did, but tonight she lingered. Gil knew the courage it took to face the following night after you had had a bad dream.

‘Shall I see you upstairs?’ he offered in the end.

Rhoda looked like a child caught out in mischief.

‘There’s no need.’

‘I’m going to bed anyway.’

He lit a candle for her and took one for himself, but when they reached her room Rhoda hesitated.

‘I can leave the middle door open if you want.’

Still she didn’t move.

‘Do you want to come and sleep with me?’

She did. After that she slept in his bed every night. By day she rode her horse out on to the moors, took the dogs with her, or took them for long walks. She went shopping in town with Gil’s mother and bought pretty clothes and ornaments for her hair. She went visiting with his mother and Helen. She seemed happy. Each night when Gil came home, if it was before bedtime she would run to him and kiss him. After a while, that winter, she grew bolder and would hug him. If they were alone she sat on his knee and snuggled her face in against his neck. She talked to him about her day and she would tease and kiss him and stroke his hair. In fact, apart from the way that she slept in his bed, she treated him very much as she had undoubtedly treated her father when she was a little girl, he thought. She would play games in the woods with him, hiding behind trees and having him call her and popping out unexpectedly. She wrote him silly notes and sat by the fire for hours in the bad weather reading novels. Gil realised by the end of the winter that Rhoda adored him. For her, he was her father come back to life.

He tried to get her to kiss him, but she backed away in horror at anything more than what she had allowed. He tried to get her to talk about Jos Allsop but it seemed that she did not understand; she had wiped from her mind whatever her stepfather had done to her. To onlookers Gil could see that his marriage looked perfect. Men turned envious eyes on him. Rhoda was beautiful now, safe with him, loved by his family, cared for in that great house, looked after. She could not be touched. When they went out, elegant and beautiful she clung to his arm. Other men were
of no interest to her. She didn’t leave his side and Gil could see their envious glances as they imagined her smooth young body. She put on weight and became rounded. Her skin glowed; her eyes shone; her teeth sparkled. She was completely happy with him, Gil knew.

When they had got back from America and Gil had seen Jos for the first time, the other man looked so much as usual, so ordinary, that Gil was not convinced he had done anything. He was not sure that his wife was stable, so he kept both himself and her away from the man and was civil when he had to be.

She loved presents. Gil quite often took her to the jeweller they frequented in Newcastle and there he would let her choose earrings for her pretty ears, bangles for her slim wrists, chains to put around her neck where he was not allowed to kiss her. He bought emeralds to match her engagement ring and watched the pleasure come into her face. She was like a child at Christmas and she would thank him profusely, cover his face with kisses, rush from the carriage to show everyone what he had bought her. She told him how much she loved him.

Gil bought furs for her exquisite body and she leaped on him in bed and kissed him. She hated the smell of whisky and, before Gil had been aware of this and had drunk some one night before bed, she recoiled in front of him, her eyes wild with fear. He never drank it again. There was more than one triumph in this. Sometimes her mother and stepfather came to the house and Rhoda unwittingly played the devoted wife. She liked to touch Gil, mostly, he knew, to reassure herself that he was still here; but to other people it looked as though she wanted him. Gil could see the puzzled look in Allsop’s face and saw himself as other men did. Young and married to her and she hanging onto his arm, wearing beautiful clothes. And she was lovely. Allsop was always at least half drunk when he saw them, so it was difficult to be certain what had happened. He ignored his wife in company and she was pregnant again. Rhoda didn’t seem to mind his presence as long as Gil was there, but sometimes he detected a
glitter in her eyes and when they had gone she would often disappear up onto the fells alone.

*

Right from the beginning, Helen believed that Gil and Rhoda’s marriage was a success, he could see. She kept out of the way unless there was some outing planned. It was, he thought, the best that she had loved him, leaving him to make his marriage work. He wished that he could have said something instead of having to play out this painful charade for Rhoda’s sake. There was no way to better things. Night after night, Helen went to bed early and Gil was sure that she drank herself to sleep. She didn’t talk much any more, or pay much attention to her child. Nothing seemed to reach her. She always proclaimed herself willing to go out with them, but sometimes she could be silent all day. He became afraid that life would always be like that, Edward coming back only to see his child, Helen alone and he pretending for Rhoda’s sake that life was good. Only the work was any comfort and, as the weeks went by, he saw the ship begin to take shape and there was a kind of happiness in that. He solved each problem as it happened. He had, with Mr McGregor’s help, seen the engineering problems, most of them from the beginning, and with the experts from the drawing office and the design team done tests, but even so he was worried. If they had got this wrong it would be the biggest mistake in the history of shipping. On a bad day he was convinced the new ship would be a failure; on a good day he could visualise it on the water. He reported progress to Henderson every week when he saw him to play dominoes and he only wished that they could have been together on this project. He dreamed of joining forces, of amalgamating the two shipyards, of being able to work with Henderson every day. He was an easier man than William.

Henderson’s health, however, was another matter. Sometimes he was too unwell to go to work and one evening that summer he collapsed when Gil was there, so that Gil had him put to bed and
sent for the doctor. He also sent a message to Abby. The doctor had been and gone before she got there, white-faced. Gil knew that she was remembering her mother’s illness and death.