We talked an hour longer of this and that, her horse, her child, her inability after almost two years as a manufacturer’s wife to find the wherewithal to fill her days and then, as my clock gave warning that the hour of four was upon us, she got to her feet, pulling on her gloves and her perky chip hat with its audacious green feather.
‘Heavens—I must be on my way.’
But hesitating, frowning, she held out her hand and then, pausing in the doorway, came back into the room again.
‘Faith—tell me—you understand these things better than I, and may be able to advise me.’
And, still frowning, she sat down again.
‘Well, this is the way of it. Perry approached me a few days ago, in a great fix as usual. Not a great sum—a hundred pounds merely—not owing to a tradesman, unfortunately, since tradesmen can be asked to wait, but to Julian Flood who has debts of his own and cannot. Oh dear, I did not wish to approach Nicky, since he had scolded me just the day before about not throwing good money after bad, and so—because Julian can be very pressing and has right on his side after all, since it is a gambling debt, and gambling debts must be paid—well, I went to Blaize, who was kind enough to oblige me, saying I may repay him when I can, Faith, if Nicky knew of it, would he be—very much put out?’
‘Georgiana,’ I said, the whole of my middle-class, commercial mind aghast at her rashness, ‘he would be furious—and horrified. Georgiana, you must never, absolutely never go into debt.’
She laughed, just a shade nervously. ‘Goodness, you are as shocked as if I had confessed to adultery.’
‘Georgiana, in Cullingford adultery and debt amount to very much the same thing. In fact debt is probably worse.’
‘Yes, I suspected as much. But only a hundred pounds, Faith—from my brother-in-law who seemed ready enough to spare it. And Nicky will never know. I can trust you not to tell him, and Perry will not.’
‘No. But Blaize may do so.’
‘Faith!’ she said, as shocked as I had been a moment before. ‘Whatever do you mean? Blaize would not betray a confidence of that nature. No gentleman would do so!’
‘Blaize would,’ I told her, suddenly very sure of it. ‘I am not saying he will, or that he intended it when he advanced you the money. But if it should suit his purposes tomorrow, or whenever—since you will be a long time in paying him back, if you ever do—then he would.’
‘But why? He does not dislike me, does he?’
‘No. In fact I think he likes you very much. But Blaize is not a gentleman in the way you understand it, Georgiana. He may appear so, and he is certainly very charming and can be kind-hearted—but his code is not the same as your grandfather’s. He’s a Barforth and, if he can get a return on his investment, then he will.’
‘Then he dislikes Nicky—his own brother?’
‘No, he doesn’t. He may not have taken this affair of the combing company quite so calmly as he likes people to think, because it looks as if Nicholas is going to make a lot of money for himself, and Blaize can’t really enjoy that. But it’s not dislike. Listen, Georgiana, we were brought up together, and always, if Blaize had something, then Nicholas had to have it too, no matter what it cost him; and if Nicholas had something, then Blaize either had to have it, or spoil it, or get something better to make whatever Nicholas had look small. Their father wanted them to be aggressive and competitive, and so they are. The difference is that Nicholas shows it and Blaize doesn’t. But he’s exactly the same. If he needs a weapon one day, he’ll take whatever comes to hand. And, for heaven’s sake, you may owe him a hundred pounds now, but what happens the next time you need money quickly and can’t ask Nicholas? You’ll go to Blaize again, you know you will, and in the end it could be thousands. What would you do if Nicholas found out then?’
‘Shoot myself,’ she said, half ruefully, half carelessly.
‘I doubt it. Have you actually given the money to your brother?’
‘No. I have it here in my reticule. I’m to meet him in half an hour oh the outskirts of town.’
‘Then give it back to Blaize. I don’t believe he’d really allow you to borrow and borrow, again until you were in a desperate plight, but no matter. A hundred pounds would be enough to infuriate Nicholas. I can’t tell you how angry he’d be. And, apart from that, if it became known that his wife had been obliged to borrow, then the whole of his commercial credibility would be damaged in Cullingford. Blaize wouldn’t expect you to think of that, but he’s certainly thought of it himself.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said, looking down at the green velvet reticule in her hands, weighing it, considering, and then with that birdlike movement of her head looking up at me with her sudden smile. ‘I do see. Well, never mind, Faith, at least I’ve provided you with something to think about besides the cholera, which means I have done you good. Good-bye then, I must dash; since my brother doesn’t care to be kept waiting—even for money. I’ll come and cheer you up again, and if I don’t then you’ll know it’s because we’ve gone to a debtors’prison. Perry and I together.’
And so it continued, time running slow, an airless July, the burnt-yellow skies of August, my fearful days made bearable only by the demands of Prudence, the occasional hour when Giles would allow me to approach him, a lightning visit every now and then from Georgiana, her raindrop chatter diverting me sometimes to sympathy, often to amusement and gratitude.
‘I believe it will soon be over,’ Prudence said. ‘You will see—by September they will be haggling about the cost of a decent water supply again. There have been fewer cases this last week, and many of them seem likely to recover. It is abating—’
So it continued. Heat, fear, the lethargy of strained nerves that could strain no more and began to atrophy, an enforced idleness that, an instant before it maddened me, engulfed me in a strange, torpid doze, the constant fatigue of doing too little, which was fast rendering me incapable of doing anything at all.
So it continued, until the evening, late, when Prudence came home, not alone, but without Giles.
Chapter Sixteen
She came into the room and stood by the empty hearth, Mayor Agbrigg beside her, their faces only half visible, since I had not troubled to light a lamp. And, although I could not have said for certain—the next morning, the morning after—whether or not I had guessed their task, it seems to be now that I did.
We looked at each other for a while, and then Prudence said in the crisp tone of every day, which is perhaps the only manner in which one can bring oneself to say such things, ‘Faith—Giles was taken ill today while he was out visiting. He drove himself to the Infirmary and wishes to remain there.’
I don’t remember what I answered, or if I answered anything at all. I simply remember moving to the door, assuming they would follow me, knowing the Agbrigg carriage must be in the street and that someone would drive me to Sheepgate.
‘You cannot go to him,’ Prudence said, and I remember quite clearly how my incredulity, my inclination to scornful, nervous laughter gave way to anger as her hand descended on my arm, her arrow-straight body blocked my way.
‘You cannot go, Faith. He asked us to keep you away. The Infirmary is dangerous still, and he will not have you there!’
Once again I don’t know what I answered, merely that I went on walking towards the door, fighting her when she tried to stop me, dragging her with me, for I was taller and heavier and crazed, in any case, with my urgency. And I would have struck her, I think, and knocked her down had not Mayor Agbrigg taken me by the shoulders, his hard workman’s hands biting through the numbness of me, shaking me—since I was shouting something now—to silence. But even then, shocked by this first experience of male violence, I kicked out at him and hurt him, I think, although he did not let me go.
‘I’m going to him, I warn you. I’ll walk—’
‘Lass,’ he said, holding me in his thin, crook-shouldered embrace, the wiry strength of him greater than I had supposed. ‘Lass—see the sense to it.�
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‘There’s no sense. He’s my husband. You can’t keep me away from him.’
‘He doesn’t want you,’ Prudence shouted, bursting painfully into tears, and when I lashed out at her Mayor Agbrigg shook me again.
‘Lass—have your wits about you, You know what the cholera is. It stinks, lass. He doesn’t want you to see him like that. There’s nothing you can do for him. Let him fight it. And then be here, to welcome him home.’
‘I can’t. You must understand. I know you mean well, but I can’t. He needs me—he must need me—what good am I if he doesn’t need me now?’
‘He wants you to be here, when he’s well again. You’ll weaken him, love, if you worry him now, when he needs all his strength.’
‘Write him something,’ Prudence said, and they brought me pen and paper and sat me down before it. I began to write, docile, foolish words, and then, as they swam into meaningless hieroglyphics beneath my eyes, I clenched my hands into fists and brought them crashing down on to the table.
‘No. You may go to hell, Prudence Aycliffe, and you too, Mr. Agbrigg. You will not treat me like a child any longer—none of you, not even Giles. I will go to him and stay with him, and when he is fit to be moved I will bring him home and nurse him here, where he should be, not in that pest-hole. You can’t stop me.’
‘I can,’ Mayor Agbrigg said, his big-knuckled hands biting into my shoulders again. ‘Now listen to me. I love that lad as if he was my own—I’ve wished he was my own. He pleaded with me, not long since, to keep you way—begged me. I promised him. And if I have to knock you out or tie you down, then I’ll do it. No matter what you may be suffering, lass, if I’d to choose, I’d sooner be in your place than his. Think on that.’
And when I had written my pathetic scrawl, ‘Giles. I love you. I love you’, they took it from me and went away.
He died early the next morning with Prudence and Mayor Agbrigg beside him, and when they came to tell me I sat down and saw no reason to get up again. They told me they had given him my letter, that he had read it and understood it, but I didn’t believe them. I had said to him so many times, ‘Giles, please love me.’ I had said, ‘I want you. I need you.’ But I had never told him that the gratitude, the desire to be warm and safe, the second-rate emotions he had settled for, had started slowly to transform themselves into the total commitment I had longed to give him. And I believed he had died without being aware of it.
He had loved me, and I had not only lost him, I had failed him. I had held back from him. I had been too honest, refusing to say, ‘I am wildly in love with you,’ until it became the truth, not wishing to insult his integrity with even the whisper of a lie. Now I knew that I should have lied to him, since it would not have remained a lie for long, had already, for months, been very nearly true. And what I felt mainly was a hard anger, a bitter self-disgust. I was worthless. He had been important. There was no justice, nothing to believe in, just the blind, idiot-drooling of Chance, with which I did not care to associate.
A day passed—or so it seemed—and once again Mayor Agbrigg put his hard hands on me.
‘I had a wife,’ he said, ‘a long time ago. We married young and we were poor and ignorant and content with each other. I never looked beyond her, and couldn’t imagine a day when I’d be without her. We had eleven children, being young and ignorant, as I said—and lost ten of them, three in two days, something that happens often enough in Simon Street. But it was too much for my Ann. She turned inside herself, and died—of heartbreak, I reckon—leaving me with Jonas and a girl, Maria, who had a look of Ann, and died, you may remember, a year or two after I married your Aunt Hannah.’
‘I don’t care about that, Mayor Agbrigg. I know I should care, but I don’t. I know that you’re trying to help me. It doesn’t help.’
‘No. Maybe it just helps me to talk about it. I’ve had more experience of losing than you have. But it still hurts me, lass, for all that. I was angry when my Ann died, like you are now, I reckon. By God, I was angry. I lived for her, you see, and she’d never harmed anybody. I hated the whole world the day I buried her. It passes, Faith, little by little.’
‘I don’t care.’
I didn’t attend his funeral. I hadn’t seen him die and I refused to watch them put that wooden box into the dry summer ground, refused absolutely to contemplate what it contained. And, when they came back from the churchyard to tell me who had been there and who had not, I wouldn’t listen.
I sat in the dark, doing nothing. I put on the black dress Mrs. Guthrie got out for me and would have gone on wearing it until it hung in ribbons had she not taken it away from me and handed me another. I left the sheets on his bed and then, unable to sleep with his ghost—the nightmares that asked me was he really dead, since I had not seen him die?—I moved to the cold, narrow bedroom at the head of the stairs, a nun’s cell, a place to do penance; and spoke sharply to Mrs. Guthrie when she tried to light the fire, to add a vase of flowers, an extra counterpane.
The cholera abated. For a day, a week, six weeks, there were no new cases. Three months passed and no one else died. And I didn’t care about that either.
My mother went to France, Blaize to Germany to sell cloth, Georgiana miscarried a child whose conception she had not divulged, and was confined to her bed. Caroline began to issue invitations again. Mayor Agbrigg completed his purchase, on the town’s behalf, of the waterworks company and brought me his schemes and plans for the new reservoirs.
‘Twenty-five miles of waterworks, lass,’ he told me, his craggy face warming as Jonas’s never did. ‘Eleven reservoirs, when it’s all done. A water area of over three hundred acres with a cubic capacity of two thousand million gallons. Think of it, lass. They say I’m crazy, some of those colleagues of mine—plain crazy—but, if I get what I want, and I shall, then there’ll be no water shortage in Cullingford, no matter what. A tap in every house in Simon Street. I’ve said that often enough. The trouble is, they’re all gentlemen on the council, lass, and they don’t understand. I’m the only one who’s seen it from the inside, the only one who’s lived in the muck, instead of just turning my nose up at it as I drove by. And my colleagues don’t all see the point in spending all this money to provide something they’re not short of themselves. But I’ll get my way. I’ll get my water. I spent the first forty years of my life dragging myself out of the gutter, and the next ten earning my place in the Piece Hall. Now I’ll do something worth doing, lass—something I want, I reckon.’
I didn’t care.
Jonas called, when Celia had satisfied herself that my house was safe again, coming as a brother-in-law to offer his condolences and as Giles’s lawyer to assure me that I was well provided for. It was of no interest to me.
My half-brother, Crispin Aycliffe, wrote to me from London, expressing deep regret, suggesting he could come north to see me, or I go south to him, if he could be of use. I didn’t answer.
Aunt Verity, remaining in Bournemouth at the insistence of Uncle Joel, who had no intention of taking the slightest risk where she was concerned, wrote a long, warm letter, inviting me to stay with her. I didn’t answer that either.
Mainly I sat in the dark, and would have remained there, perhaps, too long, passing the moment when it was still possible to open the door, to walk outside again, had not Prudence entered the room one afternoon, pulled back the curtains with a brisk hand, and said, ‘This is quite enough, Faith. He’s dead. It was important to him to keep you alive, although if he could see you now he might wonder why. Look at you. Have you brushed your hair this week?’
‘Leave me alone, Prudence.’
‘I have no intention of leaving you alone, make up your mind to it. You are coming upstairs now. You are going to make yourself respectable, and then we are going to Aunt Hannah’s.’
‘Why Aunt Hannah’s?’
‘Because she has invited us, and it is necessary to make a start somewhere.’ I got up because, knowing her stubborn nature, it was easier to obey
than argue.
‘You will have a mare’s nest in your hair ere long,’ she said, taking a brush to it with a vengeance, hurting me deliberately, perhaps, in order to rouse me, although I was not aroused.
The late October sun was very bright as I went outside, very cruel with no tree-foliage to shade it, dazzling me so that I was not obliged to look at anything as we drove up Millergate and Blenheim Lane, past my mother’s house, and turned the steep corner which brought us to Lawcroft Fold.
The mill yard looked as it had always done, my aunt’s house still there on the terraced slope above it, the sun glinting on the window where I had stood with Giles, at our first meeting, and watched the Chartists bringing their petition for the factory hands to sign. The Chartists were gone now, defeated, and I was defeated too. It didn’t matter.
Aunt Hannah came into the hall to meet us, regal as always in her rustling purple, a handsome Barforth woman who had married a mill-hand and made a mayor out of him, who had laboured at Prudence’s side through the days, of the cholera, and who must think me a poor, spineless creature, a nuisance. I believed her to be quite right.
‘Sit down, dear,’ she said, and I sat.
‘Will you take tea, dear?’ And I took it, accepting milk and sugar, although I did not in fact care for sweet tea, because she had the sugar-tongs in her hand and I saw no point in asking her to put them down.
‘Are you well, Faith?’
‘Yes, quite well, thank you.’
‘Good. You are certainly very pale, but a little fresh air will put that right.’
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