‘You carry one and I the other. Come.’ He walked away and she followed, a step behind him.
Presently he turned to her and asked, ‘What have you been buying?’
‘Clothes…I got some articles second-hand to remake for the children; their…their things are getting rather threadbare.’
He stopped and stared at her for a moment before he said, ‘Paddy’s market stuff?’
She was surprised that he knew about Paddy’s market, but she was quick to deny the association, saying, ‘No, no, not like that, sir; they are from a proper clothes stall in the market.’
‘But worn stuff, second-hand…dirty.’
Her head moved from side to side before she answered, ‘I mean to wash them before I alter them.’
They were walking on again and had travelled some distance before he spoke again, ‘You don’t know who’s been wearing these things,’ he said; ‘they could belong to anybody…scum.’
In defence she now answered, ‘They are gentlemen’s clothing and ladies’, padded and lined and of good material.’ Again they walked on in silence, and it wasn’t until the gates of the house came in view that he said, ‘So I understand you’ve been teaching Tol to read and write?’
‘Yes, sir; but only in the evenings when my work is done.’ She didn’t want him to think she was using any of his time.
‘Of course. Of course.’ He was nodding at her now. ‘Why couldn’t he have asked me to teach him?’
‘I don’t think it would have entered his head, sir. Anyway, it was me that proffered.’
‘Did you know I used to be a teacher?’
‘No, sir?’ There was a note of surprise in her voice, and he glanced at her slowly with a smile on his face now, as he said, ‘Oh yes; I was a teacher, for many years, but I had a fancy name, I was a tutor, and my pupils were young men in the university.’
She remained silent.
They had almost reached the front of the house where he would enter by the front door leaving her to go round to the kitchen door, when he stopped once again and, looking at her squarely, he spoke, and his words actually made her drop her bag to the ground: ‘I shall take it upon myself to instruct your children,’ he said; ‘it is not enough that they should be able to read and write. If at their age they have got this far, then it is only fair that their knowledge be extended. I shall take them for two hours each morning. See they come to the library at nine.’ And on this he turned from her, his departure being as abrupt as his voice, and went in the front entrance.
It was a good half minute before she lifted the two bags and then almost scurried towards the kitchen, bursting to tell her news to Biddy. Why only to Biddy? she asked herself. And the answer she got was, Biddy would likely be the only one of the four to welcome this, as she saw it, utterly fantastic change of front in the master.
It was dark when a knock came on the kitchen door, and when Maggie opened it she cried, ‘It’s Tol! It’s Tol, Ma.’ Tol had made himself a favourite with the children, and they now crowded round him, all talking at once, until Davey, dashing to the settle, took up the large swallowtail coat and, putting it on, strutted round the table, causing roars of laughter.
‘Was that what you went in for?’ Tol looked from the bundle of old clothes lying to the side of the fireplace to Riah, and she answered softly, ‘Yes. It’s the only way I can keep them decent. But after I’ve unpicked them I’ll wash them before making them up again.’ He nodded at her; then turned to Biddy, saying now, ‘What’s that you say?’
‘I said, what do you think, the master’s going to make us go to school.’
‘School? Where? There’s none hereabouts.’
‘Oh, it’s a long way; we’ll have to take the coach.’
Tol glanced down at Johnny who now doubled up at his own joke. But then Davey, taking off the coat, said flatly, ‘He’s going to do us here, two hours every morning. How will I get the garden done? There’s so much to do outside.’
‘That a fact?’ Tol was asking the question of Riah now, and she nodded as she said, ‘Yes; a surprising fact, the last thing in the world I expected to hear. But it’s marvellous, don’t you think? I mean’—she looked around her brood and her face softened—‘to get the chance of being educated by a man like him, because he’s very learned.’
‘Aye’—Tol nodded at her—‘there’s no doubt about that. I should imagine that’s half of his trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Well, I mean, just shutting himself up in the room there. You can get too much of a good thing, anything.’ He now turned half from her, saying under his breath, ‘Can you step outside a minute?’ And she, looking from him first to Davey and then to Biddy, said to them, ‘Get on with the unpicking. And mind, do it carefully, don’t tear the stuff.’ Then taking a shawl from the back of the door, she put it around her shoulders and followed Tol into the yard.
She had closed the kitchen door behind her and now stood blinking in the light from his lantern which he had left at the door, and before he could speak, she said, ‘I know what you’re going to say.’
‘Aye, well then, it doesn’t need any lead up to. I’m…I’m sorry, but…but that’s our Annie, she causes more trouble than enough. Always has done, I think, since the day she was born. But…but what I want to say to you, Riah, is, not to take any notice of her. She’s always been like that, always wanting to rule the roost. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to do about her. Our Mary would take her off me hands for a time but there’s her man Robbie, and he can’t stand the sight of her.’
‘You have another sister?’ There was a note of surprise in her voice and he said, ‘Oh, yes, she’s Annie’s twin, Mary, and she’s as different as chalk from cheese. There was eight years between them and me and I suppose’—he gave a short laugh—‘because I came late in me mother’s life, she left me upbringing to the pair of them. Mary was always kind and gentle, but Annie, she had to boss the show or know the reason why. I used to give her most of her own way just to keep the peace; not any more though. But what I wanted to say to you was, I’m sorry if she upset you.’
‘Well’—she laughed softly now—‘if she upset me, I certainly upset her.’
‘Aye, by all accounts you did that.’ He too chuckled, then said, ‘I suppose she told you I was neglecting me duties and the house?’
‘Something to that effect.’
‘It isn’t the first time I’ve heard that and for different reasons. Anyway—’ He stepped closer to her and looked down on her and, his voice coming deeper from his throat, he said, ‘I wouldn’t like anything to spoil what’s atween us, Riah.’
The gulp she gave in her throat was audible and the desire just to fall against him and feel the closeness of him was almost overpowering. And when, his voice still low, he said, ‘The way I’m placed I cannot say what I want to do, but I think you know what’s in me mind,’ her body trembled with the thought, Let him kiss me, just once, just this once.
But then what would happen? What would come of it? With his sister lording it in the cottage, there would be no hope for them setting up a home there. And don’t let her forget she had four bairns to bring up and, what was more, she was living like a lady in this house, practically her own boss, more content and happy than she’d ever been in her life before. So no, no kissing. Don’t light up your pipe near a haystack in the height of summer.
She was surprised at the matter of fact tone she was able to assume as she said, ‘It’s all right, Tol. I understand. Just let things go on as they are. But I’ll…I’ll tell you this, I’m…I’m grateful for your friendship.’
When he took her hand in both of his, in spite of herself, she nearly allowed the haystack to ignite, but at that moment the door behind was pulled open and Davey said hastily, ‘The drawing room bell’s ringing, Ma.’
‘All right. All right.’ And she pushed him back into the room before saying to Tol, ‘I’ll have to go. But don’t worry. It’s all right; everything will
pan out.’
‘Aye, aye. Goodnight, Riah.’
‘Good night, Tol.’
In the kitchen, she said, ‘How many times?’
‘Just the once, Ma.’
She now hurried up the room, through the passage and into the hall, meaning to make her way straight to the drawing room. But there he was, standing at the foot of the stairs holding a lamp in his hand, and without any preamble he said to her, ‘Bring the other lamp,’ and pointed to the pink globe lamp standing on a table to the side of the front door. Mystified, she picked up the lamp and followed him up the stairs.
For a moment she imagined he was making for his bedroom, but he passed all the doors on the landing and went to the very end of it, then round the corner into a narrow passage and began to mount the attic stairs.
She hadn’t been in the attics more than three times in the months she had been here because, adding to what Fanny had told her, her master had said formally at the beginning of her service, ‘I don’t wish you to disturb anything in the attics.’ So when she had come up here all she had glimpsed were a number of cedar trunks at one end and, standing down the middle where the roof was highest, two long wardrobes, each with four sections, and their ornamental tops were stacked against the attic walls. She knew that both held an assortment of clothes: the first one was a gentleman’s wardrobe, the second one a lady’s. And her glimpses into both of them had shown that all the garments were arranged neatly on hangers and that each hanger also carried a bag of scented herbs. And she had said to herself, so much for Fanny saying everything was moth-eaten.
When he put his lamp down on one of the trunks she did the same, then stood waiting while he slowly walked to the wardrobe that was at the far end of the attic. Opening the door to the first compartment, he pulled out the top tray, revealing a number of silk shirts. Lifting one up by the collar, he shook it out, then handed it to her, saying, ‘Would you be able to make shirts out of these for the boys?’
Holding the beautiful soft material in both her hands now, her words spluttered over it as she muttered, ‘But ’tis silk, sir. Much too good. It’s not…practical like.’
‘They have a change of clothes on a Sunday, haven’t they?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then, make them Sunday shirts. You’ll find something for weekdays in that trunk there.’ He pointed to one of the trunks. And now he opened another compartment. Taking down a suit, the trousers of which were clipped to the bottom rail of the hanger, he said, ‘That’s a rough tweed; that should make them workaday clothes. And this one’—the next one he picked was a fine blue gaberdine—‘could match the silk shirt for Sunday.’
‘But, sir.’
He stopped on the point of opening another door and repeated, ‘But sir, what?’ His voice had an edge to it as if what he was doing was against the grain.
In pulling open the next wardrobe door to disclose a row of dresses, his voice softening, he said, ‘These belonged to my mother. She wasn’t a woman for frills and furbelows. Her day dresses were inclined to be plain and her evening dresses the same, with one exception.’ He now put his hand to the end of the rail and took from it a long black velvet gown. The neck was square, the sleeves were short. The bodice was gusseted into the waist, from which the skirt fell in three tiers. The only ornament on it was a faded pink silk rose hanging by its stem from a vent at the waistline. As he held it up there emanated from it a perfume as faded as the rose yet, at the same time, pungent.
‘It was my mother’s favourite,’ he said. ‘Although she had many other evening gowns she always returned to this; but she only wore it on special occasions. She had beautiful skin; it enhanced it.’
‘It’s lovely,’ Riah said softly.
‘Yes, I think so too.’ He turned to her now, the dress still held in his hand. ‘I often come up here and look at it. It recalls many memories.’
He hung the dress back in the corner of the wardrobe; then, pushing the other garments here and there, he brought down two at once, saying, ‘These were her morning dresses. They’re print, aren’t they?’ He held one out for her to feel, and she said, ‘Yes, sir; and lovely print if I may say so.’
‘You may say so.’
She stiffened slightly as she thought, That’s the second time he’s mimed me. And it isn’t that I’m talkin’ cheap; many people say words like, if I may say so.
‘Well then, take these’—he pushed the dresses into her arms—‘and the suits and the shirts and get to work on them. But before you do that, throw that dirty rubbish out that you bought today. God knows who had them on last.’
Throw them out? She certainly wouldn’t do any such thing. She’d wash them and unpick them and when she’d had time to sew them, he wouldn’t recognise them on the children. Anyway, she needed clothes herself. She would get a skirt, a couple of petticoats and a blouse out of them. Throw them out indeed!
‘Did you hear what I said?’ He had picked up both lamps now, and she turned her head over the bundle of clothes that lay across her arms and, looking at him, she said slowly, ‘Yes, sir. I heard what you said.’
‘Good.’
She was going to move down the room but stopped as she searched for words with which to thank him and which he wouldn’t mime or mimic, and what she said was, ‘I’m grateful for your kindness, sir.’
‘You’re welcome. Being able to help in this way, I shall not now feel under such an obligation to you.’
‘Oh.’ Her precise manner fled and she turned squarely to him, where he was standing, his face illuminated from the lamps, and in the second that she stared at him she was made aware once more of the great loneliness that lay, not only in his eyes, but in the drooping of his mouth and the slackness of his shoulders. There was no spring in him. The only thing in him that had any urgency was his voice. And she said rapidly, ‘Oh, sir, you needn’t be beholden to me; the boot’s on the other foot. What would have happened to us if you hadn’t taken us in that night, God alone knows. And my children have never been so happy, nor so healthy, nor, may I add, so well housed in their lives. Oh, sir, the boot’s on the other foot.’
Well, she felt he had plenty with which to come back at her from that little speech. However, he didn’t come back at her, not in the way she expected, but with words that surprised her, for he said, ‘You’re a good woman, Riah. I almost said a good girl, because sometimes you don’t look or act much older than your daughter.’
‘Oh. Oh…oh, sir.’
‘Oh, sir.’
There he was, mimicking her again. This was a new line he was taking. She would have to laugh at it. And this is what she did. Then she turned from him and walked the length of the attic and down the narrow stairs; and he followed her, holding the lamps high.
When they reached the hall she turned to him and smiled but said nothing more; then hurried towards the kitchen to display her new-found treasures to the children, recalling, as she did so, his face as she had seen it in the light of the two lamps, and she thought, If only he didn’t look so sad. I wish I could do something for him to lighten his days.
But perhaps when he got to teaching the children it would make a difference. Yes, yes, perhaps it would.
Seven
It was past high summer; the ground was hard, the grass was yellowing. Riah had now been in Mr Miller’s service for fifteen months, and it was difficult now to remember that she had ever lived anywhere else. This shining house seemed to be her own. And it was shining, for Biddy and Maggie took as much pride in it as she did. But once it had been bottomed there was less work to do in it, and for some weeks now Biddy had been out helping the boys pick fruit, clearing brushland ready for more planting in the autumn. No-one would recognise the garden from what it had been when they first came here. The drive was grass free, the hedges bordering parts of the garden were clipped, that is all except the great yew hedge that had, at one time, divided the kitchen garden from that which was laid out in beds and walks and whose top had been cut into t
he shape of birds. There was little the boys could do about this hedge other than clip it as far as a short ladder would reach.
Except for a piece of land that had once been a games lawn and which was now more like a hayfield, the whole garden was in order, and the credit for its rejuvenation could not be given alone to Davey and Johnny, for Tol had, at the beginning, done a lot of the rough work, and she herself and the girls, too, had gone out of an evening and helped. This was after Davey had complained that he would never get through his work if he had to knock off for two hours of book learning in the morning.
Davey wasn’t at all taken with book learning, not like the other three, and Riah was sorry about this for the master seemed to have taken a special interest in Davey and seemed bent on his learning. She had wished more than once of late that Davey and Biddy could have changed places, at least in their minds, because Biddy’s wits were needle sharp and her mind like a sponge for soaking up things, whereas Davey seemed to have great difficulty in remembering his lessons. And sometimes she didn’t wonder at it, especially those about gods and goddesses; they would bemuse anybody. But the master insisted that these were part of the lessons, besides history and geography.
And of all the things on God’s earth to make them learn was this Latin. For what good was a Latin language going to be to her bairns? And what was more, not only did the master insist on the two hours in the morning but they had to do an hour in the evening after their day’s work was done. He had even come into the kitchen once or twice with the idea, she imagined, of catching them out.
The Black Velvet Gown Page 10