She had only the vaguest idea of the male anatomy and most of that was learned from the bullocks on the farm and by changing Edward's nappy, but when Arthur's hand crept up under her skirt and he somehow relieved himself of his trousers too, suddenly she understood this must be what married people did.
'Is that nice?' he whispered as his fingers explored her.
'Oh, yes,' she whispered back, knowing she should stop him but liking it so much she couldn't. 'You do really love me, don't you?'
'This is the way a man shows he loves a woman,' he said, parting her thighs wider and kneeling between them. 'I want you, Mabel, for ever.'
It hurt when he thrust himself into her, but his deep kisses and the way he wound her hair round his fingers reassured her. She moved with him, running her fingers over his silky back and buttocks, trying hard to block out the farmyard images that kept creeping into her head.
All at once Arthur was still, lying panting on top of her.
'Oh, Mabel,' he said softly. 'What a brute I am. You should have stopped me. I just wanted you so much I forgot everything.'
'It doesn't matter.' She wound her arms round him, not understanding what he meant. 'I love you.'
Bittersweet memories of that night both plagued and soothed her back at the farm. She was a woman now, a once mysterious part of adult life had been revealed to her and she loved and was loved. But there was fear, too, that perhaps Arthur's feelings weren't as deep as hers, and a sense of shame because she'd let hers get the upper hand. Yet each time she closed her eyes she could feel his body; smell him, taste him. How could something so powerful be wrong?
She wrote to him every day, tucking the letter into her drawers till she could get out to post it. Waiting for his infrequent replies was agony. She had to slip out to waylay the postman before he reached the farm, running the risk of being seen by her father. On the days when there was a letter for her, delight was tarnished by fear. She would hide it in her clothes, burning all day until an opportunity came to read it away from prying eyes. Sometimes it would be late at night before she got the chance, and she'd spend a whole day fearing that he was tired of waiting for her, that this latest letter would be the last.
'Whatever is the matter with you?' her mother asked on several occasions. 'Ever since you came back from London you've been a changed girl!'
She wanted to confide in her mother but how could she admit what had happened?
Arthur spoke loosely of coming down to Somerset, without any sense of urgency. When would this be? How was she supposed to pave the way for him? Did he have any idea what he was doing to her?
The farm had never seemed more tedious and mucky; she resented the days spent washing, ironing and mending when every hour away from Arthur hurt. Even the haymaking in September and the harvest home supper and dance which followed it brought home to her how little she had in common with the neighbours and even her family.
Until the trip to London she'd accepted her mother's peace-making docility and her father's sullen bad temper. Now she viewed her parents with scorn. Her father was a miserly bully; there was plenty of money yet he wouldn't spend a penny to make his family's life more pleasant. Never once did he praise any of his family, he only spoke to belittle them.
As for her mother, how could anyone be so weak? Each year she seemed to get smaller and thinner, lines deepening in a face which had once been beautiful. Why didn't she stand up to him? Why not take some of that money she made for him in the dairy and spend it on a new dress?
Mabel's unhappiness grew a couple of weeks after her return when Emily began walking out with Giles Hen-son, the only son on the neighbouring farm. Emily was only sixteen, yet she was being given freedom for courtship just because James Brady considered it a match made in heaven.
'Don't look at me like that, girl!' her father roared at her when once again Emily had skipped off and left the supper things for Mabel to wash up, as well as a mountain of mending. 'I've been too soft with you, it's time you buckled down and did some real work around here.'
She got up at five every morning and helped with the milking, then fed the chickens and pigs – all before breakfast. Mornings were spent either washing, weeding the vegetable garden or making bread. If she was lucky sometimes she could read or paint for a couple of hours in the afternoon before milking time came round again, then she had an hour or two in the dairy making butter and cheese until it was too dark to see. If that wasn't real work, what was?
'Let me go to Bristol or London to work?' Mabel asked her mother one evening when her father had gone down to the Pelican.
'Don't be silly, dear.' Her mother smiled faintly. 'What would you do there?'
'I want to be an artist.' Mabel stuck her lip out belligerently. 'When I was in London I saw advertisements for illustrators. I want to earn money for myself, be independent.'
'You are only equipped to be a wife and mother.'
Mabel wanted to scream at her mother; ask why, when her own husband treated her with less respect than he showed his pigs, she was anxious for her daughter to marry someone just like him?
She lost her appetite, even her interest in painting. And when her period didn't come, fear was added to frustrated love.
Mabel knew little about how babies were made but she had overheard a neighbour once telling her mother she was 'late' and remembered that a short time later the same woman's belly had begun to show. Having a baby in wedlock was a cause for celebration, but out of wedlock it was shameful. She remembered a girl had been drummed out of the village with her hair cut off for that crime. What would she do if that happened to her?
It was Lucy who unwittingly betrayed her. In a letter to her parents in the post office she mentioned the highlights of Mabel's visit and the gentleman who took her out to dinner. Before the day was out nosy Mrs Meredith had buttonholed Charles Plowright to ask about 'his friend' and before sunset the whole village knew Mabel Brady had not only spent time alone with an impostor but was in regular, secret correspondence with him.
Mabel was lighting the oil lamp in the kitchen when she heard Duke whinny as Papa reined him in too roughly. She heard the bang of the stable door and the metal tips of his boots sparking on the cobbles, and she knew by the speed he'd left his horse that he was in a bad mood.
Mother was still in the dairy, Emily upstairs changing her working dress for a better one to meet Giles. The kitchen table was laid for supper, a beef and vegetable soup simmering on the stove. She hastily replaced the chimney over the lamp and was about to go to the pantry to draw her father some cider when he appeared in the doorway.
One glance was enough to know this wasn't his usual grumpiness. He filled the doorway, puffed up by rage. His face glowed red to match his hair and beard, his pale blue eyes rolled like a madman's.
'Who is this man, you little slut?' he thundered.
Mabel had no idea then how or what he'd discovered, but his high colour and the wrath in his eyes warned her to tread carefully. All at once she understood why her mother never stood up to him.
'His name is Arthur and I love him,' she said, hoping by admitting everything she could defuse his anger. 'I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, Papa, but I was scared.'
She had no idea such a big man could move so fast. He brushed the chair aside, scooped her up under one arm and swept upstairs.
Mabel screamed at the top of her lungs. Her mother came running in from the yard, Emily met them halfway down the stairs but turned, lifted her skirts and ran back up. As Papa reached the top of the stairs, he turned and glared down at Polly.
'No daughter of mine will shame me in this way,' he bellowed. 'Fetch the strap!'
From her position under his arm, Mabel saw the colour drain from her mother's face, heard Emily cry out, but her father just turned around and marched into her bedroom, flinging her down on the bed.
'No, James,' her mother's voice came from the door. She had the big leather strap in her hand, because she hadn't dared refuse him, but s
he held it tightly to her breast. 'No, James, you can't beat her for this.'
Mabel curled up tightly, too scared even to think, willing Papa to change his mind.
'Get out of here,' he shouted, grabbing the strap from Polly's hand and pushing her out of the door. 'If you hadn't been so weak this wouldn't have happened.'
He wound the leather round his big fist and lifted his arm.
'Turn over, girl!' he ordered.
Her dress was thin cotton with just one petticoat beneath, and as the strap cracked in the air she knew clothes would offer no protection.
It licked across her back with such force the pain took her breath away. Again the crack and this time she screamed out in agony. On and on he went, lash after lash, on her back, buttocks and thighs until finally she hadn't the strength to shout or even flinch.
It was then she realised he enjoyed inflicting pain. This wasn't really about what she'd done, but a sadistic act that gave him pleasure.
'You'll stay in here until I see repentance.' His voice trembled in the way another man's might after making love. She remembered then the farm boy he'd beaten nearly senseless several years earlier for some trivial misdemeanour. Mother had found him unconscious in the barn and dressed his wounds. The silence she had maintained about the whole incident, the way she got the boy home to his family, now took on a whole new meaning.
'If that man comes sniffing around here he'll get the same,' her father added. 'You are my property. Don't ever forget that!'
The door slammed, the key turned in the lock.
The pain she'd felt during the beating was nothing to the aftermath. It was as if a fiendish torturer prodded her slowly with a red-hot poker, paused to re-heat it, then drew it malevolently across her flesh. Hating was all she had left – imagining her father falling on to his plough, trampled by his bull or burning slowly in a fire.
'It's all your fault, woman,' she heard him snarl at her mother in the kitchen below. 'You encouraged her high and mighty ideas. If I'd had my way she would have been married off a year ago. No man will want her now.'
She heard Emily shutting up the stable and her mother shooing the chickens into the hen house, but neither of them came to her. A rattling of plates, scraping chairs on the flagstone floor and a meal eaten in silence.
It was much later when she heard his feet on the stairs. His stumbling footsteps indicated he had been drinking and she braced herself for more abuse, but moments later the creak of bedsprings and his boots dropping to the floor told her that for tonight at least he had put her out of his mind. Snoring from across the landing soon confirmed it.
'Mabel!' Emily whispered through the keyhole. 'Are you all right?'
Mabel raised her head an inch. It was daring for her sister to take such a chance, for they both knew if Papa caught her at the door she would be punished too.
Emily was like her mother, timid, gentle and kind-hearted, with blonde shiny hair and soft brown eyes.
'I'm fine,' she forced herself to call back. 'Go to bed, Emily.'
There was no sound of movement and she guessed her sister was crouching there in the dark, aching with helplessness.
'I'm on your side,' Emily whispered back and Mabel could imagine her round, sweet face damp with tears. 'I hate Papa!'
Later still the key turned quietly in the lock. She heard a faint shuffle of slippers on the bare boards and the golden glow of a candle crept into the room.
Mabel was too weak and stiff even to turn her head. She was still in the same position her father had left her, lying sideways across the bed. She was so cold she felt she could die, her teeth chattered, yet her back was on fire and she had sweat on her brow.
'My darling. What am I to do?'
Mabel lifted her head enough to see her mother. She was in her long white nightgown, a cap over her hair. Her eyes were puffy with prolonged crying and she looked old and haggard in the candlelight.
'Was I really so bad I deserved this?'
'Nothing is bad enough to make you beat a child like that,' Polly whispered. 'Let me see to it!'
Her dress was split open with the force of the blows, the fabric congealed with blood from the wounds. Gently her mother softened the blood by bathing it, gradually peeling away the material to expose Mabel's entire back. Polly's sharp intake of breath proved the sight was shocking.
'Lift up just a bit,' she whispered. 'Let me get your petticoat, and drawers off. I've got some ointment to soothe it here.'
Mabel could see them both reflected now in the mirror. Her slim back and taut small buttocks were dark red, glistening where the skin was broken. Her mother bent over her, gently smearing on the ointment, hardly daring to touch. A soft nightdress was slid over her head. She was moved round so her head lay on the pillows, and covered with a warm quilt.
'I'm just going down to make you a drink,' Polly whispered.
Mabel recognised from her childhood the evil-tasting liquid as a herb tea to bring down fever and reduce pain. She drank it eagerly, wanting nothing more than oblivion.
'I'll come back tomorrow when he's out in the fields.' Polly bent over her to kiss her cheek. 'I'm so sorry.'
'It's done now.' Mabel's voice was just a weak croak. 'I'll be gone as soon as I can walk again.'
'Don't go.' The words came out with a sob.
'I have to, Mother. I think I'm having a baby.'
She waited for a gasp, and then the recriminations, but to her surprise there was nothing but a cool hand on her cheek, a caress of profound tenderness.
'Don't tell Papa, will you? He'd kill me.'
Polly didn't answer immediately and for a moment Mabel wondered if she'd been wrong to confide in her.
'Is this man kind?'
'Kinder than Papa,' was all she could manage, and she buried her face in the pillow.
It was three days before Mabel could get up without assistance and every pain-filled hour was filled with hate.
She would never forgive him. She would go to London. Even if Arthur didn't want her bruised and pregnant then she would find a job and a room somewhere. While James Brady was alive she would never enter the farm again.
By the end of a week she could dress herself and the door was left unlocked, which meant her father expected her to come out and beg his forgiveness. Her back still hurt, many of the lacerations were still weeping, but she knew she didn't dare stay any longer. Slowly she gathered together a few things in a carpet bag.
'You're going?' Her mother's eyes fell to the bag packed in readiness by the bed when she brought in some dinner.
'Tonight. I'll walk to Bristol.'
'You can't walk fifteen miles.' Polly's hand flew to her mouth in horror. 'Wait till tomorrow, I'll ask John Ames to take you on his cart.'
'No, Mother.' Mabel was resolute. 'John Ames would talk. All I ask is that you lend me some money for the train to London. I'll send it back as soon as I can.'
Polly could see cold determination on her daughter's beautiful face.
'How will I know you're safe?' She reached out for her hand, tears rolling down her cheeks.
'I'll send word to Reverend Grey,' Mabel whispered. 'I wish you could come with me, but I'll be back one day to dance on his grave, just you wait.'
'Don't tell Emily.' Polly stifled a sob. 'She's been breaking her heart over all this, but if she knows you're going she just might let it slip to her father.'
Mabel knew what her mother meant. Papa would be likely to punish Emily for aiding and abetting, and though she ached to say goodbye to her sister it was impossible.
Mabel heard the church clock strike one as she closed the bedroom door behind her. She had waited till Papa was snoring, her mother lying beside him awake and tense. She sneaked one last look at Emily asleep in bed, a plump arm curled round her sweet, innocent face.
Holding her breath she crept down the stairs and out into the night. The five pounds hoarded by her mother over the years, intended for her daughters' weddings, was tucked into her bodice. H
er carpet bag held a change of clothing and Arthur's few letters; not a photograph, a book or any other reminder of her family. The stripes on her back were all she needed to remind her of her father. Mother and Emily would stay in her heart.
Her back stung intolerably. The weals opened up again as she walked and she could feel her chemise stuck with drying blood. It wasicy cold, pitch dark and every mile past bare fields seemed like ten. Dawn's first light was penetrating the inky sky as she reached the outskirts of Bristol and down the hill she could see Temple Meads station in the distance.
It was ten at night before she sank on to a bed in a cheap hotel in Paddington, too exhausted even to undress.
A rap on the door woke Mabel and she was surprised to find it was dark again outside. That morning she had posted a letter to Arthur with her address, then gone back to bed again.
Every bone in her body ached as she got up, lit the gas light and made her way to the door. Her feet were blistered and swollen and her stomach was churning.
She expected the housekeeper, as she had only paid in advance for one night. But it was Arthur. He leaned nonchalantly against the wall, a bunch of wilted roses in his hand, hat tucked under his arm.
'Arthur!' Her head spun and she had to hold on to the door for support. 'You came!'
His smile vanished. He took a step nearer then stopped short.
'What is it, Mabel?' He seemed poised to move away. 'No letter for over a week from you, then that sharp little note. And you look so ill.'
'I couldn't write,' she blurted out, tears pricking her eyelids. She knew she looked frightful. Her face was white, hair lank and unwashed since the beating, and her old flannel nightdress was fit only for dusters.
All that week in her room she had kept herself sane by remembering him. Picturing him in the park in his grey suit and top-hat; in the restaurant in his dinner jacket; but mostly imagining the way he'd looked when he held her in his arms, loving and tender. Now he seemed taller somehow, shoulders broader and his face brown from the sun. His slightly upturned nose and wide, soft mouth made her heart leap, yet his blue eyes seemed cold now, and suspicious.
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