‘I wish you hadn’t said that to me, Nicholas.’
‘Yes, so do I.’
And then, standing behind me, his arms around me, his mouth against my ear: ‘I’m sorry. You’re quite right to be put out. I am unjust. I am ill-tempered. Anything you like. I love you, you see. I want all of you, and it sours me, sometimes—You‘ll have to put up with it. But if it happened, Faith—and it’s only sense to admit that it could—yes, I know, by rights, we’d have to call it a disaster. But don’t be afraid of it. You can trust me, I reckon, to look after you. Can’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’d take you away from here,’ he said decidedly. ‘Your mother would have to know, but I could fix her. She could go abroad with you until it was over—not that I’d care who knew about it, but I know you couldn’t take the scandal and I wouldn’t expose you to it. I’d get you a house somewhere and set you up in style. I know you’ve got money of your own, but I wouldn’t want you to use it. To tell you the truth, I sometimes think it would suit me better if you had no money at all. Don’t worry, love, I’d look after you.’
But what he really meant was: ‘You’d belong to me then. You’d have to belong to me, for nobody else would want you’; and, although it was what the purely female part of me craved for, I had a cooler, more rational side to my nature which was unwilling to be so close confined. He would get me a house, a splendid one I had no doubt, but where? Far enough, certainly, from a suspicious, hostile Cullingford; too far for his lightning afternoon visits, too far to leave his horse at the Swan and walk to me those three or four nights a week that now formed the basis of my existence. A secret house where I would bring up a secret child in luxurious solitude, nourishing myself on his visits, with nothing else to do but wait for him, dreading, as I grew older, that eventually he would not come. And, although I loved him enough for that, and did nothing but wait for him in any case. I was still to some extent in control of my life. I might never avail myself of it, but I still had the possibility of choice, and change.
‘Am I completely selfish, Faith?’
‘Oh yes—but so am I. I expect I would make a prisoner of you too, if I could.’
‘Is that what you feel—that I want to imprison you?’
‘Yes—I feel that.’
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, but I believe you’re right. All I can promise is that I’ll try not to torment you with it—I’ll try.’
But the promise, as I suppose we both knew, was in vain, his jealousy proving so acute, so all-consuming, that it often passed beyond reassurance, beyond reason, to a point where nothing less than my actual imprisonment could have given him ease.
‘Nicholas—it can only mean you don’t trust me?’
‘God knows what it means. All I know is I can’t help it and I can’t stand it. A moment comes in the day—or in the night—when I feel—Christ!—I feel bereft. And when that happens I have to see you, and more often than not I have to make you suffer for it. I know, believe me, how much I hurt you. And what eats into me then is wondering how long you’ll put up with it. Please—Faith?’
And, knowing what he wanted me to say, I said it quickly, lovingly, and went on saying it until his need—for that day at least—was over.
‘I love you, Nicholas, I understand. It doesn’t matter.’
We returned to Scarborough in November, four days this time, shortened from the week he had intended by the exigencies of his combing machines.
‘I’m making money,’ he told me as we sat by the happily crackling fire, my head on his shoulder. ‘My own money, Faith. And I can’t tell you what that means to me. I could live easy, for the rest of my life, on what comes out of Lawcroft and Tarn Edge and Low Cross. My father has fixed them up so well that I wouldn’t have to change a thing. I could just saunter down there two or three times a week—when he’s gone—to interview my managers, which is as much as I reckon Blaize means to do, and the boost they’ve had from my father would see me through. Well, Blaize may be content to live like that, with nothing to show for himself but another man’s money in his pocket. But not me. I said I could do it and I’m doing it. The Wool-combers is mine and it’s growing, and I’ve got plans for Lawcroft and Tarn Edge as well, if my father could just bring himself to trust me or take himself off to Bournemouth and leave me alone.’
‘But he’s in Bournemouth now, surely most of the time?’
‘Oh yes. But he keeps coming back again. One morning my door opens, or I walk into a shed or into the counting-house, and there he is, going through the ledgers, checking up on me. And I’ve got to admit that the questions he asks are the very ones I’d rather not answer. Eyes in the back of his head, my father—unless, of course, he’s had a word or two with Blaize the night before.’
‘Does Blaize really know what goes on?’
‘Aye,’ Nicholas said, chuckling into my hair. ‘Blaize knows. It’s his money, love, same as mine—the Tarn Edge part of it at any rate—and he don’t mind getting his hands dirty when it comes to counting it.’
Perfect days, once again, soon over—too precious to waste by talking of an impossible future—and on my return I was embroiled at once in the fierce opposition to my mother’s marriage, which would take place, she declared, at Christmas time.
Celia invited Prudence and myself to dine, a council of war which would have been uncomfortable enough without the tensions of Celia’s table. And, after a perfectly served but none too ample meal. Celia’s anxieties as a hostess being for the spotlessness of her silver, the perfect arrangement of her plates and dishes rather than the food, we returned to her drawing-room to discuss what might be done.
My sister, need it be said, allowed no tobacco anywhere in her house, obliging Jonas to step outside if he wished to smoke an after-dinner cigar, complaining fretfully on his return that the noxious fumes still clinging to his coat were more than her carpet, her damask wall-covering and her stomach could be expected to tolerate.
‘Well,’ she said, quickly inspecting the coffee-tray from which I knew we would be foolish to expect more than one cup. ‘So here you are Jonas.’
‘Yes, Celia.’
‘Good—since we are all awaiting your wisdom, and the coffee has gone quite cold while we were about it.’
But Jonas, aware that her habit of measuring out exactly so many coffee beans and no more from her store-cupboards disallowed the ordering of a fresh pot, merely accepted his lukewarm cup and drank it quite slowly, disinclined, it seemed, for wisdom.
‘And what have you to tell us, Jonas?’
‘Not a great deal.’
‘Then I have something to tell all of you. It strikes me you are taking this matter very calmly—so calmly, in fact, that I wonder if my mother is even aware of the repugnancy everyone, absolutely everyone, must feel. She has always been inclined to make herself conspicuous, ever since my father died. And this marriage—Well, she can only have one reason for it—you must know what I mean. Yes, of course you do, and although I don’t like to speak of such matters, especially in the hearing of a single woman—Goodness, it is disgusting at her age—at any age.’
‘You mean she is in love with him?’
‘If that is what you like to call it. No doubt she calls it by that name. I believe there is another.’
‘Passion,’ Prudence said tartly, irritated as always by Celia’s assumption that at twenty-five she must by virtue of her single status be as blindly and totally innocent as Celia herself had been at sixteen.
‘Really, Prudence.’
‘Really, Celia. I may be without direct experience, but my eyesight is keen enough. I washed and changed dozens of cholera victims during the epidemic and it did not escape my notice that not a few of the girls brought in from the streets—all of them unmarried, some of them too young to be married—were in various stages of pregnancy. I am also aware that in certain areas of our town one may obtain the sexual services of an eight-year-old child, should one
be so inclined. Such a child was brought to Faith’s door one night, while her husband was alive, somewhat in need of repair. If you don’t wish to believe me, Faith will confirm the truth of it.’
‘No, she will not.’ Celia said, her face frozen, as my father’s had often been, into a mask of complete composure, her whole manner suppressing not only the brutality but the sheer untidiness of back-street lust, of any kind of lust. ‘If such things exist, then I have no reason to know about them, and neither have you. There is nothing like that in Albert Place, nor in Blenheim Lane. And we have met tonight because we have a real problem to discuss. Jonas—what are we to do about my mother?’
He smiled very slightly, amusement in him being always faint, a little obscure, since one could never be quite certain of just what, or who, had amused him.
‘I have already told you, Celia,’ he said, his long, pale eyes occupied with the immaculate, empty cup in his hand, ‘not a great deal. Your mother is a mature woman in indisputable possession of her fortune. And since there is nothing in our legal system to prevent a widow from remarrying, nor to restrict her choice of husband within the correct degree of kinship, there is nothing to be done on that score. You may not approve of passion, Celia, but it is not yet a criminal offence in our society, nor does it provide just cause for the detention of its victims in an asylum. Admittedly, in certain cases, one may regret that it does not—but it does not. You cannot forbid your mother. It did occur to me, however, that it might be possible to frighten her, by providing evidence that Mr. Adair is not a proper person.’
‘Which assuredly he is not.’
‘Not in your view, Celia, nor in mine. But my investigations revealed nothing which would be likely to alarm your mother. His background, of course, is very humble, which once again is hardly a criminal matter—even though he is brazen enough to let it show—and in fact his very vulgarity has saved him from certain situations, certain legal ties, which would otherwise have delivered him into our hands. He was married for the first time in Ireland as a young man, but the union was in common-law only—which means, in effect, that they announced their intention of living together and did so—and the woman is dead now in any case, the children adult and dispersed. He has a few debts, but his creditors, very sensibly, have agreed to wait until he is married for settlement, and no one is dunning him. He has no criminal convictions for fraud or theft or anything else—by which I mean he has never been caught. There is a woman in the West Indies, certainly—we have young Liam Adair to show for that—but she is too far away to make a fuss or attempt to claim her rights. Their marriage will not have been legal in any case; and at least he has relieved her of the expense of bringing up the child—a rather gallant action, one could almost say, for a common man. There was an entanglement, some years ago, with a married woman—almost on our doorstep it seems—but it was quickly hushed up. And I believe your mother may already know about that.’
I knew about it too and remembering my mother’s vivid face as she made her confession—‘those few months I spent as his mistress were the most luminous of my life’—I found myself unable to meet Jonas’s cool gaze, wondering, most uncomfortably, how he knew, what else he knew, convincing myself, with a surge of panic, that nothing would be likely to escape him for long.
‘You have been very busy, Jonas,’ Prudence said, and, smiling again with that faintly malicious amusement, he told her, ‘Yes, indeed. Where money is concerned I think you may trust me to do everything one can.’
‘So I have always believed.’
‘Quite so. And in this case it has also been done in your best interests, as well as the interests of my wife. I am as sorry as anyone else that I could find neither a useful scandal nor the prospect of exposure as a criminal to use against him. The only other method left open to us would be to offer to buy him off, which, in view of the healthy state of your mother’s finances, could hardly succeed. And there is always the risk in such negotiations that he would take our money and marry her just the same.’
‘Then what is to be done?’
‘I have already given my opinion. What do you think, Faith?’
And, with Nicholas’s face filling my mind, I said incautiously, ‘I think—since she cares for him and we cannot prevent it—that we should leave her in peace.’
‘Oh yes,’ Celia burst out, ‘Of course you would take that view, Faith, for I have never known you when your head was not in the clouds. And it is all very well for you to talk so, when you have a house and an income of your own, and no children to consider. Well, I have no children either, not yet, but Dr. Blackstone assures me that there is every likelihood—In fact, since Prudence is so well informed on these matters, I may as well tell you I am expecting again, or so it seems, which gives me every good reason for disliking the idea of that man setting himself up in Blenheim Lane. Oh yes, you may depend upon it, he will take advantage of my mother’s foolish generosity. He will spend every penny she has on himself and that ill-mannered child, and any other children he may have hidden, away somewhere. And if that does not alarm you—since you are so comfortable already—then you should give some thought to Prudence, who will be obliged to live with him.’
‘Not for one moment longer than she must,’ Prudence said tersely, and Jonas, looking at her from beneath his heavy, crafty eyelids, gave her a deliberate and very sarcastic smile.
‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Then I take it we are soon to congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage?’
‘I see no reason for that.’
‘I see every reason.’
‘Well, I hope you do not,’ Celia cut in, growing petulant, having tired herself out with her emotions and the fatigue of preparing even this small family dinner-party. ‘For, if you are thinking of marrying Freddy Hobhouse merely for the sake of convenience, then I must tell you it would not be convenient at all. Aunt Hannah was here yesterday, and the day before, warning me that you might do that very thing—as if she imagined I could do anything to prevent you—-and I am bound to admit she is quite right. Nethercoats would eat up your money in a trice. If Freddy has encouraged you to believe he stands to inherit from his uncle, Mr. Oldroyd, then Aunt Hannah says you must bear in mind that he has nine brothers and four sisters. Freddy’s portion would not be so splendid, and the inheritance is by no means certain. My word, when I think that my mother could have had it all.’
‘You are quite mistaken, Celia,’ Prudence informed her coolly. ‘I have no intention of marrying Freddy Hobhouse, either for his convenience or mine. I would not insult him nor any other man in that way.’
‘Then you will never escape from Blenheim Lane,’ Jonas said, a certain bleakness. I thought, in his eyes, an indication that he too, had not forgotten the loss of Fieldhead Mills and would be unlikely to forgive my mother for it.
‘I cannot agree, Jonas.’
‘Eventually you will be forced to agree. You are a financial prisoner, my dear, which is the most complete captivity there is. I am in agreement with my wife when she says Mr. Adair’s cash requirements are likely to be heavy. I think you may safely assume that your mother will not allow you a penny—nothing, at least, beyond the strict necessities of ribbons and toilet-waters and the clothing suitable for a “daughter-at-home”. And without money, dear Prudence, believe me—yes, believe me—there is no freedom and no dignity either.’
‘Jonas—’ I said, glancing at Celia, fearing that he would expose himself too far for her comfort, that his bitterness might wound her. But she was gazing down at her hands, barely listening to him, and, getting up, he walked irritably across the room and stood, one narrow hand on the mantelpiece, looking down at the meagre fire.
‘You may talk splendidly of independence. Prudence,’ he said. ‘But ask yourself—how are you to afford it? Do you have in your possession at this moment even the train-fare to Leeds? And if you had, what could you do there? There is no employment you could possibly take. Employment, for ladies of your station, does not exist.
And, if it did, you have no training, nor are there any establishments for females in which training could be obtained. Dear Prudence—you have told me all this yourself many a time. If you have a choice in life at all, then it is simply this—you must either marry a young man like Freddy Hobhouse, who would be easy enough for a clever woman like you to handle, or you must marry an old one like his uncle, Mr. Oldroyd, in which case you would be a widow—and a comfortable one—that much the sooner.’
‘Must I?’ she said through her teeth. ‘Must I really?’ And it was Celia, oblivious to the undertones of Jonas’s voice, hearing nothing but the surface, who broke through what might have been an all-too-revealing altercation.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I am not so clever, but I can think of another solution. You could come and live here with us, Prudence, for, if I am to start a family at last, both my mother and Mr. Adair would be bound to see that I could make use of you. And, since you are always talking about education and how none of us have any idea of bringing up children, you would enjoy busying yourself with mine.’
I returned home, the matter by no means resolved, bringing Prudence with me since Nicholas had left that afternoon for Liverpool. And as she settled herself in front of my cosily flaming fire—since I had not acquired Celia’s habits of economy—she said, her eyes as bleak as Jonas’s, ‘I cannot tell you how much Celia’s house, and Celia’s life, oppresses me.’
‘Yes—but I don’t think she is unhappy. Jonas is not satisfied—which may be very clear to you, and to me—but Celia seems unaware of it. She appears to have what she wants from her marriage, at any rate.’
‘So she does—which may be because she has no more conception of what marriage should really be than he has—except that she is a hopeless case, and perhaps if Aunt Hannah had let him alone he could have been different.’
‘And what should marriage really be like, in your opinion, Prudence?’
She smiled. ‘Yes, of course, you are about to tell me that I know nothing about it and you are quite right. I merely base my judgment on the marriages I see around me, and none of them fill me with envy. Perhaps I have been single too long. If father had lived, I would have had little to say in the matter. He would have chosen some worthy man for me before I had left my teens, and I would now be making the best of it like everybody else. But I have been free for some years now, Faith, and nothing tempts me to change.’
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