The House of Hardie (12 page)

‘You should take off that heavy skirt,' he said. ‘Hang it over the fireguard to dry. You'll never get warm while your clothes are soaking. I'm pretty wet myself.' He took off his coat as he spoke. ‘Why don't I change my clothes in my bedroom while you see what you can do in here to make yourself more comfortable?'

‘You're very thoughtful, Mr Yates.' Midge spoke sincerely. The heat of the fire was bringing her numbed legs back to life and her shivering had stopped. In a moment or two she would be warm again. Her skirts, which had begun to steam, would no doubt be uncomfortable for walking but she had gone into the water only up to her knees. ‘I ought to rejoin my friends as soon as possible, though. They'll be expecting to walk home with me, and they're bound to be anxious if I don't appear.' In such heavy snow, all skating would have come to an end by now.

‘You can't walk on that ankle.'

‘It's only turned, not broken. If I rub it …'

‘I can do that.' Archie went down on his knees beside
her chair. ‘This sort of thing happens all the time on the rugger field.' But on their way towards her ankle his hands gripped the hem of her skirt and squeezed the water out of a small section of it. ‘Hang it all,' he said. ‘You can't sit in this. Take it off and let me wring it out. Ten minutes' drying it over the fireguard will make all the difference.'

Midge swallowed the lump which was choking her throat and, without speaking, undid the fastenings of her skirt. She justified this to herself with the reminder that she was wearing a flannel petticoat which was just as thick and decent as her overskirt. And yet she knew that by her action she was allowing a situation which was already a breach of rules to change into something far more dangerous. She knew – but seemed unable to stop herself.

‘That's better.' Archie dealt briskly with the skirt before returning his attention to her ankle. She felt his thumbs pressing in, searching for the strained muscle and massaging it. His hands moved upward underneath the wet petticoat, rubbing her chilled calf back to life as well. He might even have explored further still had Midge not checked him with a breathless assurance.

‘I can stand now, I'm sure. Let me try.'

She needed his support as she rose to her feet and tested the strength of her ankle. Archie kept his hands under her elbows and leaned forward and down towards her. In a moment he would be kissing her. Midge wanted him to do so, but at the same time knew that she must stop him, if only because she felt herself to be a prisoner.

‘Mr Yates! You're taking advantage …'

‘I'm sorry.' Archie straightened himself at once. ‘But dash it all, you've let me kiss you before,' he said soulfully.

‘I oughtn't to have done. That sort of behaviour is only
permissible if – if there is some kind of understanding.'

‘You mean, that we shall marry one day? Well, may we not share such an understanding? I'm not my own master yet, worse luck. But when I'm twenty-one, when I've finished at Oxford, when my grandfather has set me up – oh, I'm so much in love with you. You must know how I feel. And I hoped you might care for me just a bit.'

‘I do, but –'

‘Well then.' He took her into his arms, kissing her with such force that Midge felt her lips bruising against her teeth. So much taller was he than herself that he almost lifted her off the ground. When, after a few moments, he relaxed his grip and her feet touched the carpet again, her injured ankle buckled under her weight. She staggered and fell sideways on to the silky rug which Archie had brought with him from Castlemere. Before she had time to pick herself up, Archie was lying on the floor beside her.

‘No!' she said, but Archie's kiss closed her lips. She felt his hands moving over her body, tugging at her clothes. She tried to struggle against the weight of his body, but her own movements excited her and became a part of his. Now he was kissing her neck, murmuring over and over again that he loved her. Midge knew that she must stop him, and knew that she could not.

When at last he was still again she opened her eyes and saw Archie's face still close to hers. His skin was flushed and, in the second before his eyes evaded her glance, she recognized that he was feeling now the same kind of anxiety that she had experienced a few moments earlier.

Her own feelings were no longer complicated. She was ashamed. Shame kept her silent as Archie collected her clothes and helped her into his tiny bedroom to dress. Shame held back her tears. Had she been attacked by a
stranger she could have cried with anger or regret. But although it was true that Archie was too strong for her to resist, she knew that she could have stopped him if she had been resolute enough before it was too late.

How could she face him again? She was frightened of what might be the consequences of his own shame. Would he turn his back on her, without reason, just because she had done what he wanted her to do? Half an hour earlier he had talked tenderly – hadn't he? – of marriage. She was too proud to ask for his reassurance now, but frightened lest he should fail to offer it. The pale face and collected demeanour with which she opened the bedroom door when she was ready concealed a terror which made her unable to move.

Archie, smiling again in his usual good-natured and light-hearted way, ascribed her stillness only to the injured ankle. He had nothing on his mind, it seemed, except the best course of action to pursue.

‘Why don't I carry you to The House of Hardie?' he suggested. ‘It's only a short distance, and your father can make sure that you have transport home. Then I'll go back to find your friends. I'll tell them that you've had a slight accident and have asked me to carry a message. They won't know when you had the accident – nor how long you've been with your father. They won't even need to know that I'm a friend of yours. In an emergency, any stranger would have helped you in the same way.'

Midge nodded her head. Archie picked up her skates and gave them to her to carry. Once again he lifted her up in his arms.

‘I'd better be only an accidental passer-by when I deliver you to your father as well,' he said. ‘So now, before we go … I've never known anyone like you, you know. I can hardly believe that you love me.' He kissed
her once more before arranging her cloak in such a way that it covered her completely. They both pretended that this was only to protect her from the snow, but it served its purpose in smuggling her unchallenged out of the college.

The chief clerk jumped to his feet in alarm as Midge was carried into The House of Hardie and made comfortable on a chair. A messenger was sent off at once to find Mr Hardie, who was doing business in one of the colleges: Midge guessed that Archie would leave the premises before his return. She listened in silence as her rescuer gave the impression that he had found her by chance after her fall through the ice and had brought her straight there. He did not in so many words tell a lie, but his story was far from being the truth. Had Gordon been in the shop, he would have seen through it at once – but Gordon was in Portugal, negotiating with the suppliers of the firm's port. Midge herself thanked Archie and told him where her friends would be waiting for her, but said nothing else.

That night, unable to sleep, she passed the events of the afternoon over and over again through her memory. Ashamed and afraid, she searched for excuses for her own behaviour and for Archie's, and could find none. She had committed the worst sin imaginable for a young woman. That fact was inescapable; all she could hope to escape were the consequences.

Archie had said that he loved her, and it had been the truth; she was sure of that. He had said, too, that they should have an understanding to marry one day. Could she feel the same certainty there? Even at the time he had hedged the promise around with doubts. Had she believed him? Had he seduced her with an offer of marriage, or
had it been solely the strength of her own desires which kept her in his arms?

Midge, who never cried, began to cry now. She had been a fool – in the way that hundreds of girls every day, no doubt, were fools. Of course Archie would not marry her. Whatever the practical objections to an immediate engagement, there was no law which said that a young man must have reached his majority and graduated before asking his future wife to wait for him. Archie had chosen his words as carefully to her as he had later in the parlour of The House of Hardie. He was not by nature a deceitful young man. But no doubt he had managed to persuade himself that lies were to be found only in words spoken and not those left unsaid.

But no, she told herself, she must not make Archie out to be a villain. He was good-natured and affectionate, and he loved her. There was no obstacle to their marriage. When he thought about it, he would realize what he must do – and because he did love her, it would be no hardship.

It did not occur to Midge at this moment of crisis in her life to ask herself seriously whether she wanted to be Archie's wife. Gordon had once tried to persuade her that Archie was the wrong man for her, and when she was thinking sensibly she had recognized that this might be true. It was the touch of Archie's fingers, the passion of Archie's kisses, which had thrown common sense out of the window, banishing her doubts and convincing her that she could expect no greater joy than to spend the rest of her life in his company. It was too late now to call common sense back. She had allowed herself to be ruined by Archie, and Archie must see that there was, in honour, only one course open to him. He must marry her. He must.

Using the injury to her ankle as an excuse, Midge sent a note to Dr Mackenzie to say that she would be unable to attend the last Monday coaching of the term, enclosing the essay which she would have read aloud to him. In return she received his comments on it and a reading list for the Easter vacation, when in preparation for her Finals she must begin to revise all the work of the past three years. The icy weather had brought colds or broken bones to so many people that there was nothing in the least remarkable about this exchange of correspondence. Only Midge knew its real meaning.

She was frightened of meeting Archie again. Or rather, she did not want to encounter him in the presence of Mrs Lindsay, as he came away from his tutorial. Part of the pleasure of their weekly exchange of bows had been the pretence – for the chaperone's sake – that they hardly knew each other. But if he were to treat her now as a mere acquaintance, it would be hard to bear the uncertainty of wondering whether this still was, as it had been previously, a joke between two people whose friendship went far deeper.

The prospect of a casual encounter might frighten her, yet she became alarmed as the days passed without any word from Archie. It would be perfectly proper for her rescuer to call at the house and enquire after her health – indeed, it was the expected thing to do, so that Mrs Hardie might have the opportunity of thanking him. Was he feeling guilty? Did he despise her? When, oh when
would she see him again? Anxious and heartsick, she lost her appetite. Black shadows ringed her eyes with tiredness but, when her mother warned her not to sit at her books so late into the night, Midge did not dare to confess that her sleeplessness had another cause. As though to fuel the fire of her shame, her body ached with love for Archie. She longed for him to hold her in his arms again.

For five days Midge allowed herself to be ruled by unhappiness. Then, with the determination which was more characteristic of her, she pulled herself together. If one thing was certain, it was that a man who married only out of a sense of obligation was unlikely to make his wife happy. Archie's silence might be hurtful, but a forced marriage would be worse. Because Midge was sure that he loved her, she found it possible to accept this thought without pain, as suggesting only the most unlikely contingency. She must put him out of her mind until he chose to make contact with her again.

This was not as easily done as decided, since suddenly reminders of him seemed to assail her at every turn. Gordon was still in Portugal, and the maids, airing his bedroom one morning, left the door open. Midge glanced through it as she passed by, and found her eye caught by a picture of Castlemere.

She went into the room to study the painting more closely. It was an original water-colour, with the name of the house in neat lettering at the top and the artist's signature at the foot. L. Yates. Midge smiled to herself. She had noticed the expression almost of hero-worship with which Archie's sister conversed with Gordon during their Eights Week meeting; the child must have sent this as a gift to keep herself in Gordon's mind.

Midge did no more than glance at the picture, because she was already late for breakfast. But when she arrived
at the table, it was to find that she could not escape from Castlemere, because the name was on her father's lips.

‘Young Mr Yates is a grandson of the Marquess of Ross,' he explained to Midge, repeating what he had just been telling Mrs Hardie without realizing that the statement would hardly come as news to his daughter. ‘Due to have his coming-of-age ball in the vacation. His lordship isn't inclined to waste his best wines on such an occasion, and Mr Yates himself favours only champagne, so we're to take a big extra order down. Gordon usually deals with that kind of thing, but he won't be back in time. I'd better set it in hand myself.'

He continued to talk to his wife while Midge toyed with her food. Would her father travel with the wagon himself, she wondered. Could she ask to accompany him – just as a vacation treat, a trip to the country? But no; if she should come face to face with Archie in his own home, it would be humiliating to feel that she only had the right to cross the threshold as the daughter of one of his tradesmen. She excused herself from the table and went back to Gordon's room.

The painting of Castlemere was an accomplished one for such a young girl. Lucy Yates had delineated her home with a mastery of perspective and a precision of detail worthy of an architect's drawing; then she had softened the picture with mist and cloud and pale washes of colour. But it was not in admiration of the painting that Midge considered it so carefully.