He walked straight across the nursery to Agnes who was holding Rebecca’s shuddering body to her. The tears were running down the child’s face and she was gabbling. Gently, David put his hands on her shoulders and pulled the dazed child onto her feet, then dropping onto his hunkers before her, he said, ‘What’s this?’
She went to lean against him, her sobs shaking her body, but almost roughly now, he gripped her shoulders and held her up straight, saying, ‘Now, no more of that! Do you hear? No more of that! Because if there’s another whimper out of you, I’m off. Do you hear? And for good this time mind, and I mean it.’
The child blinked her eyes. Her head was bobbing, her body shaking, and she muttered, ‘Davey. Davey. I want my mama. I want William.’
‘Now we’ve been through all this, haven’t we?’ His voice was quiet and steady, and he was about to go on when Agnes, her own voice trembling now with weariness and agitation, said, ‘I’ve told her till I’m tired, Master William’s gone to heaven; she won’t see him again. I’ve told her till I’m blue in the face.’
‘Shut up!’
‘How dare…! Who are you to…?’
Mary had moved forward now saying harshly, ‘That’s enough of that kind of talk.’ And the boy twisted round and looked up at her, saying, ‘Then tell her to talk sense.’
‘David, you’ve gone too far this time. You’ve…’
‘I haven’t gone far enough.’
He turned now from the two astonished faces and, looking at the small girl again and his voice changing, he said, ‘You remember Snuff…you know, the puppy?’
When she nodded tearfully, he said, ‘Well, you know what happened to Snuff? Prince didn’t mean to kick him, Snuff ran under his feet. And what happened to Snuff?’
The small lips trembled, the eyelids blinked, the voice whimpered, ‘He died.’
‘Yes, he died. And what did we do? Where did we put him?’
‘In…in a box, on…on a blanket.’
‘Yes, in a box on a blanket, to keep him nice and warm. And we buried him, didn’t we, in a nice grassy part in the wood, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, yes, in a nice grassy part, yes.’
‘Well now, when William died and they put him in a box…’
‘Get up out of that!’ Mary’s hand was on his shoulder, and he swung round and glared at her, saying, ‘Leave me alone, I’m telling you. Leave me alone.’ And the look in his eye caused her to step back from him.
He turned his attention to the child again, saying, ‘As I said, William died and they put him in a box and he’s nice and warm, and when you stop crying and having tantrums we’ll go and see him, like we used to do with Snuff, you remember?’
‘Yes, yes, Davey, but…but when will he go to heaven?’
He stopped for a moment and glanced, first to the right of him, then to the left where the two faces were glaring down on him. Then looking at Rebecca again, he said, ‘Well now, that depends upon you. When you stop crying and stop having tantrums, because he’ll never get to heaven if you keep crying; your crying upsets everybody, you know, your mama’—he didn’t add papa—‘your great-grandmama, and…oh…oh, everybody.’ He shook his head slowly, then went on. ‘Now, if you promise me you’ll stop crying and be a good girl, I’ll come back next weekend and I’ll take you to see William’s lying nice and warm, all covered with flowers. Now, is that a promise?’
She sniffed and sniffed and at each sniff Agnes bent over her and wiped her nose; then the child muttered, ‘Promise.’
‘And you’ll be a good girl?’
‘Yes, Davey. You…you won’t go away though, will you? You won’t go?’
‘I’ll not go very far. Look, put up your hand.’ She put up her hand. ‘And the other one.’ She put up the other one. ‘Now, count me seven on your fingers.’ She counted seven on her fingers. He took the first finger of her left hand and wagged it, saying, ‘I’ll be back on that day. Now, you count all those days until I come back. All right? No more screaming.’
She shuddered and paused, then said, ‘No more screaming.’
‘And you’ll be a good girl?’
‘I’ll be a good girl.’
‘Well, on that promise you deserve a shuggy. Come on in and get on Neddy.’ He straightened himself, then pulled her upwards and walked with her into the day nursery. And there, lifting her onto the rocking horse, he rocked her backwards and forwards.
After a time he sat her on a low chair before an equally low table, put some paper and coloured pencils in her hand, and said, ‘I’m going now, but mind, I want to see all the numbers up to twenty and all the letters of the alphabet down there when I come back.’
‘But…but I can only write up to F, Davey.’
‘Yes, I know you can. But I want to see that you’ve written all the other ones down, and that means that you’ve got to work hard.’
He bent down now, his face on a level with hers and looked into her eyes. They were deep dark brown. Her hair was a shining brown with red lights in it. Her skin was like flowing milk. He touched her cheek with his finger as he said softly, ‘Be a good girl for me.’ Then of a sudden, her arms came up and went round his neck, and she was clinging to him. But she did not cry or make any sound, and he held her pressed to him for a moment, before pushing her gently back into the chair.
Mary and Agnes were standing at the door. When he passed between them they turned and also walked back to the middle of the room, and there, swinging round, he addressed himself to Agnes, saying, ‘Drop all this stuff about William being in heaven.’ But before Agnes could retort Mary put in, ‘Now you look here, young man, I think you’ve gone far enough in this quarter of the house. Who do you think you are, anyway?’
It was a silly question to ask and she knew it immediately. And when he came back, saying those same words, ‘That’s a silly question to ask, isn’t it?’ she spluttered, ‘You’re…you’re getting above yourself.’
‘No, not above myself, Mary, not yet anyway. But I’ll still say to Agnes,’ and now he nodded to the younger woman, ‘stop pumping the heaven stuff into her. Just think. It’s so stupid anyway. Ask yourself a simple question. How can everybody get up there? Do you know what air consists of?’ He shook his head. ‘No, you don’t. It’s a fairy tale, this heaven business. Anyway, I’ve got some news for you…I’m rich.’
‘What?’
‘You heard what I said, Mary, I’m rich.’
The two sisters exchanged glances, then Mary fixed her gaze on the face before her, which was already a handsome face and topped by the mass of fair hair. It could have been representative of the haloed angel in the stained glass window of the village church. The eyes, though, certainly weren’t those of any angel, except perhaps when he was talking to the child. But generally they gave off a cold hard stare that had been nurtured on a bed of bitterness, animosity and shame, the shame that lay deep in all born such as he. She said quietly, ‘What d’you mean by rich?’
‘Rich…rich. You’ve no doubt heard, haven’t you, of the uncle who created a place for my mother in this household, by blackmail as far as I can understand? Well, we’d been hearing a lot from him of late, and his idea was for me to go out to Australia, where he was doing well, he and another man. But now he’s dead, and the other man, an honest man apparently, has sent us his fortune, together with the deeds of three pieces of land.’
The sisters turned and looked at each other in amazement, and it was Agnes who said, ‘You’re not just making this up?’
He almost barked at her, saying ‘I never make things up. I’m what you would call a realist, if you know what that means, a realist; I see things as they are. I’ve been made to, haven’t I? Right from along there.’ He thrust his hand out towards the door indicating the attics and the space under the roof, and he repeated, ‘Yes, right from along there. I don’t imagine things. I never had the chance. My only mirror was the polish that I put on boots. Boots, boots, boots, leggings, shoes, gaiters and boots…boots�
�his boots.’
They both looked at him almost with fear in their eyes. This was no boy, this was a man, and there was something familiar about him. He stood before them, tall, exceedingly fair, yet dark. His words made him appear dark, and menacing.
Mary, aiming to bring things down to a normal natural level, wagged her head as she said, ‘So you are rich, but what d’you mean by rich? Fifty pounds? A hundred?’
‘Thousands.’ His voice was quiet. ‘Five thousand four hundred pounds. There was much more but the solicitor here and a solicitor over there took their share. But that is what is in the bank, five thousand four hundred pounds.’
Mary was disbelieving. ‘Out of a grocery shop? A share in a grocery shop, five thousand four hundred, or more?’ She curled her lip.
‘No, not completely out of a grocery shop. Your calculation is good, Mary. Apparently the thing to do out there is to buy or lease land. He had done that, five pieces of it, and just before he died he sold two, and the others could turn out to be valuable. Mr Barrow, his partner, has told me that if I wish I can sell the land to him, or keep it, or come out there and take up where my uncle left off.’
There was silence in the room. They stared at each other: a triangle, triumph at one vertex, amazement and disbelief at the other two. Yet no sooner had he turned away and walked out than the disbelief vanished as they looked at each other. And it was Agnes who said, ‘God Almighty! What’ll happen now? What’ll he do?’
‘God knows, him being who he is.’
‘D’you know something, Mary?’
‘What, Agnes?’
Agnes swallowed deeply, moistened her lips, then said, ‘Who d’you think he…well, he appeared like, standing there talkin’, even him being the colour he is? Who d’you think?’
‘Well, yes, you’re right. I thought that an’ all. He might have the colour of his father, but his father’s brother’s in him right up to the look in his eyes. It was as if it was the master himself talking.’ They nodded at each other.
‘Eeh! What’s going to happen next in this house? Eeh, this house!’ Agnes shook her head, and Mary answered, ‘God alone knows.’
Two
The close friends and sympathisers had all left. For Nancy Ann it had been a day like an eternity. She was in the evening of it, but she knew it would never end, because there could be no finality to the emotions that were tearing her into shreds. She saw them spreading down the years all radiating from their centre, a deep burning place just below her ribs: the sand wall that had prevented her crying had spread and formed a desert. She was aware in a half-ashamed fashion that the overriding emotion in that centre did not emanate from sorrow for her dead son. It was there. Oh yes, it was there. And it was the foundation for the other emotions, for it had bred them. Yet emanating from the core was the most frightening emotion, an emotion that was new to her and terrifying in its intensity, for, apart from everything else, her Christian religion had forbidden hate. She had disliked, and strongly, but hated never. Although she’d had no previous acquaintance with it, she certainly recognised it when it flashed into her being an hour ago as her husband stood before her, dressed for his journey, saying, ‘I shall write to you.’ She hadn’t heard herself asking how long he intended to be away, for there was a great whirling in her head; yet, she heard his answer: ‘A few weeks. I…I may stay for the shoot.’
Nor did she hear herself say, ‘What will people say, leaving me like this?’ because she imagined the question had been only in her mind and she hadn’t voiced it. But he had answered it. ‘Our friends understand,’ he had said. ‘Pat and George and the others will visit you regularly. I have spoken to them. Try to understand my feelings, dear.’ And he had bent towards her but she had shrunk from him as he placed his lips on her cheek. And a dreadful thought sprang into her mind, but she throttled it before it escaped her lips, for it would have said, ‘Have you made arrangements to meet up with your past mistress?’ For she had the picture of the woman making her way towards him in the churchyard, where he stood apart with two gentlemen and George. She saw her take his hand and he nod his head as she spoke. Then they were joined by Larry Freeman. They shook hands, and she had noticed that Dennison put his other hand out and clasped that of his one-time friend. Then the Myers woman had patted the lapel of Dennison’s coat before she turned from him to be accompanied by the man Freeman to her carriage.
It was as Dennison walked away from her that the hate consumed her. And if, in that terrifying moment, it had become tangible it would have felled him to the ground. And when the door closed on him she had felt the desire to scream as her daughter had screamed.
Then, as if a hand had been laid gently on her shoulder and turned her about, she found herself walking to the couch on which she sat slowly down, and her mind became filled with the presence of her father, and, as if he were sitting by her side, she said, ‘You were right. Oh, you were right. You could always read inside a man. You used to say that gambling was bred of greed, and licentiousness of selfishness, and that selfish people dug their own graves, and when they lay in them no-one mourned their loss and no sincere tear softened the clay.’
Yet, she asked herself, how she could have loved someone these past six years without coming to know his selfishness. It was true she could recollect countless incidents that should have pointed to his self-centredness, but, loving him as she did, she had accepted them as part of his strong character. Anyway, weren’t we all selfish in different ways?
But this, this desertion, this thrusting her aside at the moment when she needed him most…Never again in her life would she know such suffering; her whole being and spirit were devastated. She was in such trauma it was almost too much to bear; it was as if she had lost not only her son but her husband, too, in one fell blow.
She did not witness his departure, but when her grandmama came and, putting her arms around her, said, ‘He won’t stay away long, my dear. He is in torture at the moment, try to understand. Yet I know how you feel,’ then she knew he had gone.
Dry-eyed and white faced she looked at Jessica and asked, ‘Would my father have left my mother? Would your husband have left you at such a time?’
And after a moment’s silence, Jessica’s answer was, ‘All men are different; it’s how they are brought up, the environment: some expect little from life and are glad to pay for that little; it all depends on where the Lord placed you when you were born.’
Beatrice, in a way, was more understanding, for she had flounced into the room and, nodding first at Jessica and then at Nancy Ann, she had cried in a high-pitched voice, ‘I wouldn’t have believed it of him. Callousness, that’s what it is, callousness. All men are callous. I’m…I’m sorry for you, Nancy Ann. I am. I am. Now I’m going to bed before I say any more, I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Jessica. Goodnight, Nancy Ann.’ …
The house was quiet. Rebecca was asleep in the nursery, her grandmama and Lady Beatrice were in their rooms. The household, too, was quiet; except for Robertson and Mary, the staff had retired.
Mary had just left the room. She had tried to persuade her to eat, but eating was something, she felt, that she would never want to do again. She couldn’t force the food down her gullet, liquid yes, but no solid food. Mary had sat by her and held her hand and, supposedly to divert her thoughts, she had told her the strange news about David and Jennie and the money coming from Australia. But Nancy Ann had made no comment on it, merely nodded her head to signify that she had heard. But as Mary was about to leave, carrying the tray, she had said to her, ‘Go to bed, Mary.’ And Mary had turned and said, ‘Not until I see you there, ma’am,’ then she had gone out.
As she sat, her gaze fixed mostly on her hands lying in her lap, she kept telling herself, I must go upstairs; I cannot keep her waiting. Yet she didn’t move. She didn’t want to go upstairs. She didn’t want to lie in that bed alone, yet she didn’t long for his presence, she felt she would never long for his presence again, either in bed or out of it.
/> She lay back and stared into the flames and in them she saw her son. He was waiting at the top of the nursery stairs, hanging over the gate that had been placed there for his safety since the day he had tumbled halfway down them. His arms were about her neck and he was crying, ‘Mama. Mama. Good morning, Mama. Good morning, Mama.’ She could see Rebecca, too, in the background, but just as a shadow. Her son was to the fore, his face close to hers demanding, ‘Going for ride. Papa taking us for ride.’ Then, ‘Come play with Neddy. Watch me gallop.’
She watched him gallop high up on the rocking horse, high up among the flames of the fire. Suddenly she closed her eyes to shut out the sight because the picture in the flames had changed from the nursery to the cemetery.
She opened her eyes when there was a tap on the door and Robertson entered, saying, ‘Mr Mercer, ma’am. He asks if it is too late for you to see him?’
‘No, no. Show him in.’
Graham came slowly up the room towards her. She had not stood up to meet him; Graham was Graham and there was no need for ceremony. She had seen little of him this past week. In fact, not since…that day. Dennison and he had nothing in common and so he had never been a regular visitor.
He sat down on the couch at an arm’s length from her, and he looked at her, and she at him, and neither of them spoke for a full minute. Then he said, ‘Forgive me for intruding at this late hour, and…and I didn’t really expect to see you, I thought you might have retired.’ He did not add that it was only ten minutes ago that he heard from one of his men that his counterpart had driven her husband to the station to begin his journey to Scotland, and that he couldn’t believe it. But he said, ‘I…I won’t stay; I just wanted you…well, to know how deeply I feel for you at this moment.’
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