The Black Velvet Gown

by Catherine Cookson

  Riah had risen to her feet, and now she turned her head away from her daughter’s penetrating stare, closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then hurried up the room, across the hall and into the drawing room, but once inside the door she paused a moment and looked to where Percival was thrusting out his good arm in an effort to reach the end of the couch, but when his hand slid down its silk-padded side she saw his head bow almost to his knees.

  It was when Biddy’s voice, almost in a whimper, came from behind her, saying, ‘Aren’t you going to help him, Ma?’ that she spun round and, gripping her by the shoulders, thrust her out of the room, then banged the door behind her without saying a word.

  Slowly now she went forward and stood by his side, and as if she was chastising an errant child, she said, ‘What’s all this, then? Making a big effort?’ He looked up at her and said, ‘Just that. But on this occasion I don’t want your help, I can manage.’

  She made no reply to this but, bending down, she cupped her hand under his good arm and in no gentle fashion she hauled him upwards, and when he toppled and fell against her, she was forced to put her arm around him and guide him, hopping, on to the couch, where he sat for a moment, his body sagged, a picture of utter dejection. But when he straightened himself up and laid his head back, his voice did not represent the picture given off by his body because his tone was curt now as he said, ‘Sit down, Riah.’

  ‘I have no time for sittin’, sir.’

  ‘Well, stand if you will, but the situation must be made plain. Whether you like it or not, and apparently you don’t, you are to continue looking after me and this house, and when later on I gain my full strength and I’m able to hobble, I shall take up the tuition of the children…Don’t say it, woman.’ He thrust out his hand, the fingers spread wide. ‘Again whether you like it or not, your children will be given an education not only for their own good, but to give me some kind of an aim, to help me go on living for the time that I might have left to me. And you will consider this in part payment for your services for, from now on, if my finances remain as they are, there will have to be, what is called, a tightening of belts all round. There may be times when you may not get your wage, this will be the quarter day when I decide to indulge my other weakness which, by the way, I am missing sorely at the present moment. Well, having made this statement, I want to say this.’ He paused here and, his tone changing, he went on, ‘If we have to share this roof, Riah, don’t show me your enmity as you have done these past days. You’re such a kindly person at heart. I have longed for a sympathetic word from you. Do you know that? Well, you might never find it in your heart to give me one, but at least let us be civil to each other.’

  Riah now sat down on the end of the large wing chair that was set at right angles to the couch, and she brought her fingers tightly across her mouth to stop the flow of tears that threatened to engulf her, and after a moment she said, ‘How can you act like this one minute, sir, while just a while ago you threatened to send my boy before the justices, knowing full well the consequences of that?’

  ‘I cannot expect you to understand the complexities of human nature…my human nature, Riah, but I would only go to those lengths if you deserted me, because then I would have nothing, nothing at all. You came into my life, as I’ve said, under protest; your children were thrust upon me; but now they are here and you’re here, I cannot bear to think of the days, and perhaps the years ahead, without your presence, and theirs. In fact, I know that I couldn’t face the future as I lived it before you came. I might as well tell you, more than once I have questioned my feelings for you. It isn’t only the comfort you have brought me, the change you have made in the house; it isn’t only that you have revived my interest in teaching; it is something that, even I who have always prided myself on being able to explain anything away through my reasoning, cannot do so in your case.’

  When the silence fell between them and she found she could not break it, not even by rising from the chair, she was grateful when his voice came at her as a mutter now, ‘Would you like to make me a cup of tea, Riah? Please. Very strong.’

  She rose and as she went to pass him he put out his hand and caught hers. The contact made her want to jerk her flesh from his, but she left it within his weak grasp, and she was forced to look down on his face as he said, again in that kindly helpless way she had come to know so well, ‘I was going to bring you a present of some coffee back that day. I thought I’d give you a treat. Now I have to ask you if we have enough tea to even last the month out.’

  While drawing her hand from his now she said, ‘It’ll do.’

  As she walked down the room she found that her legs were shaking, and so, after closing the drawing room door behind her, she did not walk across the hall but she stood to the side and leant her back against the panelling, and muttered, ‘Dear, dear God. What’s going to be the end of it?’

  She didn’t see Tol for three days. He hadn’t called in when he left the milk in the yard in the morning, and so she guessed that his sister had returned. Of course, he hadn’t expected her to stay away as long as she had done, but he’d had word from his elder sister through the stage coachman and she had wanted to know if he would mind if Annie stayed with her for a while. He had smiled broadly as he said, ‘I penned a note back, printed like you showed me. It took me some time but I did it and said, no, she could stay as long as she liked.’ That was a week ago. It was Tol, too, who had told her about the girls in the village who were looking for a place in service, and she did not ask herself why he was concerning himself with her affairs, for she knew he was trying to pave the way for her leaving when the time was ripe.

  Well, the time was ripe, but there’d be no harvest of it; yet she still asked herself why he hadn’t put in an appearance…

  Then there he was, striding across the yard, Johnny hanging on one hand and Maggie on the other. As he came through the kitchen door he pushed them off, saying, ‘Shoo!’ And they ran back into the yard, imitating the cackle of chickens.

  ‘Hello, there,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Tol…You all right?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better.’

  She looked into his face and saw that he was very pleased with himself and she smiled slowly and said, ‘Something good happened?’

  ‘I’ll say. Look. From our Mary. She must have got someone to pen it.’

  He now pulled from his pocket the crumpled envelope and, taking out a single sheet of paper, he handed it to her, and she read the few scrawling words,

  Dear Tol,

  I hope you don’t mind but Annie wants to stay with me for a time. She is company and has taken to the town life and is very cheerful for me. I hope you don’t mind.

  Your loving sister,

  Mary.

  She raised her eyes to his and he said, ‘Our Annie cheerful for anybody. Can you believe it? And she’s taken to the town life. I’d like to bet she’s got some fellow in her eye. She was disappointed in love, you know; that’s what made her bitter. Well, well.’ His smile widened and, catching hold of her hands, he said, ‘The road’s clear, Riah. You see, the road’s clear.’

  ‘Sit down, Tol.’ He still held her hand as she said, ‘What’s the matter? Something more happened?’

  She tugged her hands from his and said again, ‘Sit down, Tol.’ And when he sat down she went round the table and sat opposite to him; then looking straight into his face, she said, ‘I…I know what you want to say, Tol. But it can’t be.’

  ‘What do you mean, it can’t be? You know how I feel about you, and…and I think I know how you feel about me. Am I right?’

  She bowed her head, then said, ‘Aye, yes, you’re right. But still’—her head jerked up again—‘it can’t be.’

  ‘Why? What’s to stop us?’ He turned his face now towards the end of the room and said, ‘It’ll be all right, Riah. Either of those lasses from the village will be glad to come for a couple of bob a week. He could have them both for what he’s paying you. And you co
uld slip back and see they didn’t shirk.’

  ‘Tol—’ Her voice was little above a whisper now as she went on, ‘I can’t leave here. I can’t leave him. For as long as he’s here, I’ll have to stay.’

  When his chair had scraped back on the stone floor she looked up at him. He was standing now, bending across the table towards her, asking, ‘What is it? What’s happened? He can’t hold you. He’s got nothin’ on you.’

  ‘Oh, yes he has, Tol. He’s got Davey on me. He threatened, and he means every word of it, that if I leave him he’ll take the matter to the justices. He’s got proof of attack, hasn’t he?’

  ‘No. No.’ Tol’s voice was high now. ‘He told me he had been swinging the scythe himself.’

  ‘Was the doctor there when he told you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s only his word against yours, like it is against Davey’s. And what chance has either of you against, as he himself said, a gentleman who is known to be a schol…astic re…cluse.’ She stumbled over the words, then repeated them, ‘Scholastic recluse, and whose family was highly thought of in these parts.’

  ‘Highly thought of, be damned! His mother had religion on the brain, and his father…From what Fanny’s old man said, they hardly spoke to each other in years, him at one side of the house, her at t’other. His side was where you and the bairns are now. They were odd, the lot of them. There’s other things that people remember an’ all about them, when they lived up in The Heights.’

  Her face stretched now as she said, ‘They lived up in The Heights? His family?’

  ‘Yes, yes. This was just a sort of cottage at one time, a kind of dower-house. Of course it’s some years back, near a hundred I should say, but nevertheless that’s where they came from. And all the land around here was theirs, at least until they sold out to the Gullmingtons round sixty years ago.’

  ‘That seems to make it worse.’

  ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘Well, he is gentry. No matter how queer his family have been, he’s gentry. And what chance would my word, or my lad’s, or even yours, have against him?’

  Tol gripped the edge of the table with his fists and ground his teeth together for a moment before he said, ‘Aye, you’re right in a way, but there’s one thing, they’ll want to know why he’s kept quiet so long.’

  ‘Oh’—she jerked her chin—‘he’ll get over that, he could say that he was suffering from shock or some such, his memory had gone. Oh, he could say anything and he’d be believed.’

  He narrowed his eyes at her now and, his voice thick, he said, ‘And you’re willin’ to let it go at that and stay on here?…Riah—’ He leant across to grip her hand, but she moved away shaking her head, and now he barked, ‘Woman! I want to marry you. I’ve waited long enough. I don’t know how I’ve managed. You’re ready for it as much as meself. Don’t let’s beat about the bush, we’re both grown-up beings and we want each other. Riah.’ His voice sank now. ‘God, woman, you know how I feel. And it isn’t only that, it’s…I like the bairns, and we could be happy in the cottage. I’d build you on a kitchen. And the roof space would take a bed for the lasses. Riah, I’ve got it all worked out.’

  ‘Tol!’ The tone in which she said his name carried such finality that he straightened up and stood with his eyes closed for a minute while his head bowed towards his chest; and after a pause, she went on, ‘He knows about us, and he’s not for it.’

  ‘Not for it be damned!’ He was rearing upwards now, his face red, his whole attitude showing such anger as she had never imagined him capable of. His name she had imagined at first had stood for tolerance; but she learnt it wasn’t short for anything, he had been christened after his father and he had been a Tol, as his father before him, and both men had tended to toll gates, and their Christian name had become lost in their craft.

  ‘I’ll go in to him.’

  She sprang round the table, her arms spread wide blocking his way up the room, and she cried at him. ‘No! No! It would be useless, and I can’t stand much more.’

  The raw anger was still in his face as he ground out now, ‘Neither can I, Riah. And if this is your last word and you’re givin’ in to him, then hear mine. I’m not gona wait for you until he pegs out or softens. I’m a man and I have me needs, an’ I need you, but if I can’t get you, then I’ll have to find somebody to take your place. Do you understand me?’

  She swallowed deeply in her throat before she said, ‘Yes, Tol, I understand you, and I wish you luck in your choice. Perhaps it’s for the best after all, because although, as you said, my need might be as great as yours, I’d want to be picked for something else besides. Goodnight to you, Tol.’

  She watched his Adam’s apple jerk up and down, and then his mouth open and close a number of times as if ramming back the words that were bent on spewing out, before he turned from her and marched out of the room.

  After a moment she herself moved. She went slowly through the passage, into the east wing, across the small hall and up the stairs and along the corridor into her own room. Still with the same slow step she crossed to the wardrobe and, opening the door, she took down the black velvet gown and, gripping the front by the shoulders, she wrenched her arms apart, so ripping the garment down to the waist. Then gripping the pleated band, she again flung her arms wide. But her efforts now did not succeed in splitting the skirt, and so, flinging the gown to the floor, she stood on one side of it and, bending down, she wrenched at the material until of a sudden the buckram waistband gave way and with a soft swishing sound the front of the skirt split down to its hem. Not satisfied with this, she followed the same procedure with the back of the gown: first the bodice, then the skirt. When she was finished the sweat was running freely down her face, but there was no water coming from her eyes. This done, she kicked the torn remnants into a bundle and, stooping, she gathered them up, and retraced her steps, but quickly now, back to the kitchen.

  Biddy was in the room and she gaped at her mother making towards the fire, saying, ‘What you doing, Ma? What you doing?’

  Riah didn’t answer her for a moment but she took the poker and pushed the red cinders to one side, then she flung the first piece of the gown on to the blazing embers. That done, she turned and looked at her daughter, saying now, ‘You ask what I’m doing, Biddy? I’m burnin’ me folly. Remember that. Keep this picture in your mind until you’re grown up and remember that your mother one night burned pieces of a velvet gown in the kitchen fire.’

  ‘Oh, Ma. Ma.’ The tears sprang from the child’s eyes and she muttered, ‘That was the gown the master gave you, and…and you said you’d put it on sometime and let me see you. Ma, what’s the matter with you?’

  Not until the last piece of velvet was on the fire and the room was filling with smoke and the smell of the burning material was making them sneeze did Riah answer her daughter’s question; and then, as if it had just been asked of her, she replied, ‘I’m coming to me senses, lass. I’m coming to me senses…‘

  Later that night when she took the tray of soup in to her master, he said, ‘I smelt burning, Riah.’ And she answered briefly, ‘You would.’

  He looked at her slightly perplexed and asked quietly, ‘What were you burning?’ And she said, ‘Just your mother’s gown.’

  She looked at him long enough to see his expression change from surprise to pain, and she was going out of the door when she heard him murmur, ‘Oh, Riah. Riah.’ And the sadness with which he uttered her name sounded like the cry of a night bird that she often heard coming from the wood. It held a lost sound. The bird’s cry had always affected her, sometimes causing her to get out of bed and close the window, for there were some sounds that carried messages that the understanding couldn’t grasp.

  PART TWO

  THE TIME BETWEEN

  One

  London, February 7th, O.S. 1749

  Dear Boy,

  You are now come to an age capable of reflection, and I hope you will do, what however f
ew people at your age do, exert it, for your own sake, in the search of truth and sound knowledge. I will confess (for I am not unwilling to discover my secrets to you) that it is not many years since I have presumed to reflect for myself. Till sixteen or seventeen I had no reflection; and for many years after that, I made no use of what I had. I adopted the notions of the books I read, or the company I kept, without examining whether they were just or not; and I rather chose to run the risk of easy error, than to take time and trouble of investigating truth. Thus, partly from laziness, partly from dissipation, and partly from the mauvaise honte of rejecting fashionable notions, I was (as I since found) hurried away by prejudices, instead of being guided by reason; and quietly cherished error, instead of seeking for truth. But since I have taken the trouble of reasoning for myself, and have had the courage to own that I do so, you cannot imagine how much my notions of things are altered, and in how different a light I now see them, from that in which I formerly viewed them through the deceitful medium of prejudice or authority. Nay, I may possibly still retain many errors, which, from long habit, have perhaps grown into real opinions; for it is very difficult to distinguish habits, early acquired and long entertained, from the result of our reason and reflection.

  My first prejudice (for I do not mention the prejudices of boys and women, such as hobgoblins, ghosts, dreams, spilling salt, et cetera) was my classical enthusiasm, which I received from the books I read, and the masters who explained them to me. I was convinced there had been no common sense nor common honesty in the world for these last fifteen hundred years; but that they were totally extinguished with the ancient Greek and Roman governments. Homer and Virgil could have no faults, because they were ancient; Milton and Tasso could have no merit, because they were modern. And I could almost have said, with regard to the ancients, what Cicero, very absurdly and unbecomingly for a philosopher, says with regard to Plato, Cum quo errare malim quam cum aliis recte sentire.