‘Oh, you know what Henry is like with a pen, nearly as good as meself…Hope this finds you as it leaves me at present. That’s about as far as both of us can go. Now you have a good hand.’
‘Not to write a letter, telling him…well, what you want me to tell him.’
‘You can put it atween the lines.’
‘Our Mary is the one that could do it, but she won’t. ’Twould be no use me askin’ her, ’cos she wouldn’t know how the mistress would take it.’
‘Well, perhaps not. But I bet she wouldn’t put a foot out to stop you if she knew you were doin’ it.’
‘No, perhaps not. But I wouldn’t know how to start.’
‘I’ll show you.’
He got up swiftly and went to the chiffonier that was standing in the corner of the room, pulled open one of the doors, lifted out a box. Then, placing it on the table, he lifted the lid, took out a bottle of ink, a steel-nibbed pen and some loose sheets of paper and a packet of envelopes, and looking towards her, he said, ‘There, imagine you’re writin’ to your mother, and givin’ her all the news. Only head it differently.’
Slowly, she pulled herself up while shaking her head and smiling at him. Then, seated at the table, she dipped the pen in the ink, bit on her lip, stared down on the paper, and began in a round childish hand:
Dear David,
You will never guess who this is. I am writing from one of the rooms above the stables. I’m Agnes, and me and Shane got married sometime back. And I thought I would like you to know that we are very happy and I am expecting a baby in six weeks time. I wish it was later cos I would like it to have been born at Christmas. But there, these things happen don’t they?
She paused and looked across at Shane, and when he said, ‘Read what you’ve done,’ she answered firmly, ‘No, you’ll just wait. If you want me to do it, you’ll just wait. ’Cos I’ve got to think.’
We have been expecting to see you back this long while, cos many things have happened. You won’t know that Miss Rebecca ran off and got married when she had just passed her sixteenth birthday. And of course it upset madam, because she was very worried at the time as Mr Mercer was very ill and died shortly afterwards. Miss Rebecca, or Mrs Flannagan, as she now is, cos she married Shane’s nephew who he says he’s not proud of and has stopped liking because of the awful thing he did, running off with Miss Rebecca. And Miss Rebecca never came to Mr Mercer’s funeral, and she’s only been here once since to see her mother. And from what our Mary says she wasn’t a bit nice, quite cocky like. But then she was always a bit cocky. You will likely remember when she was a child. Things are much the same here from day to day, except our Mary is worried about the mistress, cos she’s got so thin and never goes out. Lady Pat calls sometimes, but even she can’t get her out. Mary’s gona try and get her to Harrogate for the winter.
Everything in the farmhouse is all right. It is kept lovely and clean. But they all say they would like to see you. We read in the papers lately that you have got a ship now. That must be very nice for you. We all remember you fondly and hope you are very well. We are all well here, even Mrs Hazel. She never seems to ail anything and her a good age.
I am, yours respectfully,
Agnes.
When she read the letter over to Shane, he kept nodding his head, until he came to the part where she had said he owned a ship. And he stopped her here and said, ‘He’s only part of a company. He doesn’t own a ship.’
‘Well,’ she answered, ‘he can put it down to my ignorance. I could have written a better letter if I’d given meself time to think. But then I wouldn’t likely have got it all in. Anyway, there it is.’ She pushed it across to him. ‘It goes, or it doesn’t. It’s up to you.’
‘Well, if it’s up to me, it goes.’
And the letter went.
October was a windy blustery month. November was wet. It was the first week in December when Nancy Ann said to Mary, ‘All right, all right, have it your way. I’ll go to Harrogate…we’ll go to Harrogate. Although what I’ll do sitting in an hotel all day, I don’t know.’
‘You won’t sit in an hotel all day. You’ll get out and about, like you can’t here. You’ve got to walk or drive miles to get to the town here. There you’re on the main thoroughfare.’
‘Yes, and don’t I know it at night; it takes me ages to get used to the noise.’
‘Oh, you’ll soon get used to the noise. And we’ll go to the concerts and the theatre and there’ll be Christmas festivities in the hotel…’
‘Mary. Mary. It is only a matter of months since I was made a widow.’
‘It is close on a year, ma’am. And you’ve lived like a hermit all that time. It can’t go on. We…we are all worried about you. The flesh has dropped off you; just look at yourself. You haven’t got a dress that fits you. Anyway, there’ll be nobody in Harrogate to criticise if they see you attending a concert, and you’ll be in company.’
Nancy Ann turned her head away, shaking it the while as she said, ‘Oh, Mary, Mary. I thought you knew me better than that. I don’t want company. That’s the last thing I want at this moment, is company.’
‘Excuse me for contradicting you, ma’am.’ Mary’s voice was prim now, that of a servant. ‘It is company you want at this time. You keep up this attitude, ma’am, and you’ll go into decline, like lots of ladies afore you. And I’m not the only one concerned about you. Lady Pat is very concerned, and so is Sir George, and others an’ all, Mr Peter and his wife. And then there’s all the staff. Oh, yes, all your staff, ma’am, so I think it is only fair that you consider them. An’ don’t forget Lady Beatrice, she’s forever writing, she’s so concerned and only wishes she could be with you but has to look after that cousin of hers with her broken back. There’s only one good thing about that, it’s she who can do the bossing now.’
Nancy Ann looked at Mary and smiled wanly. What would she have done without this woman? Gone mad likely. Yes, gone mad. For there was a time after Graham’s death when she felt so desolate that she thought she was losing her mind. During that time she couldn’t bear company at all. Peter had come over two or three times a week bringing Eva with him. And Eva had held her hand and spoken words, as she thought, of comfort, but which had almost made her want to scream, when her thoughts would return to Rebecca and her screaming fits, causing her to realise how easy it would be to let go.
But now she realised, as Mary said, she must make an effort, and perhaps in making the effort this feeling of guilt that was with her constantly would fade. Because at times her feeling of desolation wasn’t so much that she had lost Graham, though his loss was genuine, but that she hadn’t loved him enough when he was alive. Oh, she had been loving, but that wasn’t love. Of one thing she was certain, the emptiness within her would prevail until the day she died.
She’d had visits from the vicar who had talked to her of the love of God and told her that she must not worry because her husband, who was a very good man, was now in heaven. On each visit his theme was always the same, and the very last time he was there she had been prompted to say, ‘But what of my other husband? Where is he? The man who was buried in unconsecrated ground? Would you say that he was in hell?’ His answer had been so garbled that at the end of the visit she was none the wiser for asking.
She had never been to church since the day they buried Graham. At times she accused herself of being childish in this matter, paying God out as it were for not answering her prayer …
It had been snowing on and off for two days now and the roads in parts were impassable. And she smiled as she said to Mary, ‘Well, there’s one thing, you won’t be able to get me to Harrogate within the next day or so, I should think.’ And to this Mary answered lightly, ‘Oh, we’ll get to the station somehow.’
‘Go and get your supper,’ she said, dismissing Mary with a light wave of her hand. As seemed fitting, when they were at home, Mary ate with the rest of the staff in the servants’ quarters which, as in Rossburn, had its own hierarchy,
but when in Harrogate they ate together.
She had finished her meal some time ago. She very rarely ate in the dining room but had her main meals served in the small drawing room where she was now sitting. It was a very comfortable room, beamed and half-panelled, with a large open stone fireplace, holding a basket of logs which gave off a fierce heat. She sat in the corner of the deep brown velvet couch, staring towards it.
The room was situated at the far end of the house and no sounds from the hall or kitchen quarters penetrated to it. Outside, too, was the deadening silence snow brings. The world…her world, was quiet. There was no crackle, even from the logs, for they were all settled into a scarlet mush. She, too, was quiet inside; she was thinking over what Mary had said, and she was agreeing with her in her mind. The sojourn in Harrogate would be a move for the better, for she knew no matter how great the depth of loneliness was inside her she couldn’t go on in this forced isolation much longer.
She wondered at times, if she’d had Rebecca for company would she have felt different. Perhaps her daughter’s presence would have forced her before now to have made some effort. But she hadn’t Rebecca; all she had of Rebecca was a feeling of sadness, tinged with bitterness. And sometimes these emotions were eclipsed by bewilderment that a daughter of hers could have acted in such a callous way. Yet, at such times she would remind herself that Rebecca wasn’t her daughter only, she was Dennison’s too.
Then there was James. She rarely heard from him now, but she gauged he was living with a woman, and reading between the lines of his last letter, she’d had children to him. And he couldn’t have married her, for that would have made him a bigamist.
She felt no sense of shock knowing that her brother, son of a parson, was sinning grievously. What was sin, anyway? Mostly the outcome of circumstances, at least in cases like James. But Dennison’s sins, were they the outcome of circumstances? Her mind became still, waiting, but there was no answer forthcoming to that question.
So sitting, her mind probing, she did not hear the commotion on the drive; she did not hear the talk and bustle in the hall; she heard nothing till Mary thrust open the door and hurried up the room, saying, ‘You…you have a visitor.’
Nancy Ann pulled herself up into a sitting position on the couch, saying, ‘Lady Pat in this weather?’
‘No, no.’ Mary’s face was bright. ‘No, not Lady Pat. Someone…someone else.’
Nancy Ann stared up at her quite bemused. Then she thought, It’s Rebecca. I must…I must be loving towards her. Something has happened; perhaps she has come home. I must make her welcome.
The thought became choked in her mind as she pulled herself up from the couch and looked down the room to where a tall bronze-skinned man was standing. He had a handkerchief to his face and was wiping the snow from his eyebrows. She saw the snow was still clinging to the laceholes of his high-topped boots. He was wearing a thick tweed jacket and she saw him unbutton the top two buttons and look at Mary as she hurried back down the room and passed him, nodding at him all the while. And then the door closed and he was moving towards her. When he stopped, she stared at him. This was David, yet not David. It was four years since they had met. Then he had been a handsome young man. He was still handsome, but…but in a different way. His skin was brown, his hair looked bleached and it was long, reaching almost to his shoulders, and the sides were trimmed down to his cheekbones. He looked bigger, broader, not fatter, but older, so much older. What was he, twenty-six? He could be thirty-six…forty.
‘Hello.’
She couldn’t answer him. She swallowed deeply. Then as if she were greeting a guest, she pointed to the couch and with an effort, said, ‘Won’t…won’t you sit down?’
‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to sit down. I’ve been sitting for hours, for days. It’s a long way from Australia.’
‘Have you come straight from Australia?’
‘Yes, as straight as one can travel when coming from that country.’
He was being facetious. Why had he come?
He was saying now, ‘But you sit down. I disturbed you. Are you not well?’
She sat down slowly, and looked up at him as she answered, ‘I am well enough.’
‘You have got very thin.’
She made herself answer lightly, ‘That is fashionable these days.’ Then she asked politely, ‘Is…is your wife with you?’
‘Which one?’
Dear God! She drooped her head and closed her eyes. He was in one of these moods, was he? She remembered them only too well. He was fencing, but why? Why was he here? To torment her?
‘That was silly of me. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Just like him to be facetious, you’re saying. I can read your thoughts still you know.’ He was smiling down on her now. And then quite suddenly he dropped onto the couch within a bent arm’s length from her. And his nearness brought sweat oozing out of every pore in her body. She felt faint and his voice seemed to come to her from a distance as he said, ‘Everyone asks me if I have my wife with me, and that is my stock answer, because up till now, unfortunately, I haven’t had a wife.’
His voice was clearer now.
‘What!’ she said. ‘You didn’t marry?’
‘No. I didn’t marry.’
‘But everyone thought…’
‘Yes, everyone thought and I let them think. I nearly did marry. Oh yes.’ His eyebrows moved upwards and his wide lips went into a pout. ‘But the young lady in question was horrified when she knew that I meant to spend part of my life, and expected her to spend it with me, in Kalgoorlie. Now her mother wouldn’t have minded, she was a sensible woman and knew that money could buy most things, and she had trained her daughter to think the same, but her daughter couldn’t see any of the things she wanted to buy in Kalgoorlie. Then there was another thing: the society was a little rough for her delicate mind. Her mother offered to take her place, but I declined as gracefully as possible. It cost me, but it was worth it in the end.’
She had turned her head away from him and was staring stiffly towards the fireplace when, his voice changing, he said, ‘I’m being objectionable. It’s the only way I can cover my feelings at the moment. Look at me, Nancy Ann.’
She did not obey him, she couldn’t, and when his hand came on hers, she shivered. And now he was speaking quietly, saying, ‘I didn’t know you had lost your husband until quite recently. A kind friend sent me a letter. I wasn’t in Kalgoorlie when it arrived. But as soon as I got back and read it I left immediately. I can’t say I am sorry he died. I am no hypocrite, whatever else. I can only say that at this moment I’m so churned up inside I really don’t know quite where I am. I cannot believe yet that I’m sitting here holding your hand, and that there is nothing in the wide world separating us any more. Look at me, Nancy Ann. Please look at me.’
She looked at him. Although her whole body was sweating her mouth was dry and her eyes were burning. She too couldn’t believe that he was sitting there and there was nothing separating them any more. No, no, she couldn’t believe it. She was dreaming and she would wake up and turn her head into the pillow and cry for a life that could never be.
‘If you love me, do as I ask.’ His voice came soft to her. ‘You once said that to me, remember? Now I say that to you, if you love me, Nancy Ann, look at me and at least say, David, I am glad to see you.’
The dryness was going out of her eyes, the moisture was filling them. She turned her head slowly towards him, her lids blinking and, her voice a mere croak, she said, ‘David, I am glad to see you.’
‘Just glad?’
She gulped now before she could utter the words, ‘More than glad.’
When the tears welled from her eyes, his arms went about her and they both fell into the corner of the couch. And his mouth on hers now, he kissed her as he had done once before until the breath seemed to leave her body. But it didn’t matter, nothing mattered, nothing would ever matter again; she was in his arms, at last, at last, at last. No
w he was kissing her face, her hair, her neck, gasping out words, ‘We’ll never be separated again, never, never, never. Do you hear, never, never.’ He laughed now and, his voice low, he said, ‘Can I sleep here tonight?’ And her voice low and matching his mood, she replied, ‘No, sir, you may not sleep here tonight. You have a house of your own.’
‘Oh, my, yes.’ Still within the circle of his arms, he pulled her upwards and they leant against the back of the couch, their faces so close that they breathed each other’s breath. And he said softly, ‘This time next week we shall be married.’
As she went to pull away sharply from him, he held her tight, saying, ‘Now then, now then. What is it?’
‘Oh, no, David, not so soon. I…well, it’s only…’
‘It’s only almost a year since he died, and I wouldn’t care if it was two months. We are to be married next week by special licence. My secretary is making arrangements.’
‘Your what?’ She screwed up her face.
‘My secretary. Don’t look so surprised. Wherever I go, business follows me, and I have to have a secretary. You’ll like him. I call him Willie. He’s an Australian and talks like a London Cockney. But he’s very efficient, marvellous at making arrangements.’
She made small movements with her head and he laughed now, saying, ‘Don’t look so surprised; there’s lots of things you’ll have to get used to when we’re travelling.’
‘Travel…?’
‘Yes, I said travelling. We’ll spend our honeymoon in France. Yes.’ He now rubbed his nose against hers, so close was he that she couldn’t make out his features, only the depth and dark light in his eyes. ‘I said honeymoon, Nancy Ann.’ Gently now, his lips touched hers before his head moved away from her again and back into focus. ‘And we’ll spend some time in Italy, any place where it’s warm. Then it will be Australia, here we come. You must see Kalgoorlie. All the fervour, all the dirt, all the heroism, all the good, the bad and the indifferent. The place has grown in the last few years since the rush, but I’ll always remember it as I first saw it. You know, Nancy Ann, my love, I did not gain my education here, although you gave me the chance. No, it started when I got to Kalgoorlie, and for the first time I understood the word greed, and another word, stupidity. This was attached to supposedly normal men working like slaves; then when they made a find, little or much, losing it again through drink or gambling. If they had gambled when they were stone sober there might have been hope for them, but the sharks were too clever and too many. And men who, the previous night, would have had enough to set them up modestly for life, found themselves the next morning sober, but standing up with only the clothes on their back and one dollar in their pocket.’ His voice had turned serious now, the smile had left his face, as he ended, ‘Joe Barrow was, and still is, a good, what you would call, God-fearing churchman. He’s as honest as the day’s long. But I hadn’t been over there a week when he took me the rounds through the dives and showed me what would happen if I let myself be led to drink, gambling…or women.’
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