‘I know—I know—you don’t have to punish me all over again with it.’
‘I think I do. I think it essential that you should see things very clear. Nicky and I have no legal claim on the mills, Faith. They belong to my father, and can be disposed of as he sees fit. The deeds of partnership are already drawn up, I know. They’ve been lying in Jonas Agbrigg’s desk-drawer for some time now, waiting until my father feels the urge to sign them. It’s the golden carrot he’s been using to good purpose, but as matters stand we’re just employees, and he could disinherit either one of us, or both. So you see, if you allow Nicky to quarrel with him you will be doing me a great service. What you must ask yourself is whether Nicky, in a year or two, would begin to wonder about the disservice you had done him. He has the Wool-combers, of course, but he’s short of capital, and when it was known he had broken with my father the bank might not continue to support him.’
‘Blaize—I know—’
‘And there is Georgiana, and young Gervase, and the new baby. I imagine you must have intended being very discreet until after her confinement. You’ll know more than I do about the dangers of shock and distress in pregnancy and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to put her at risk—more than she is already. I’m not sure what would happen to Georgiana if all this came out into the open, and you and Nicky went away together. Obviously he’d continue to support her and the children, and, even if he lost the Wool-combers for lack of financial assistance—because all businesses need that kind of help in their early days, you know—then my father would support them anyway. So there’d be no physical hardship. She could go back to Galton, I suppose, although I’m not sure she could, or would, divorce him. An Act of Parliament is required for the dissolving of marriages, you know, Faith—which costs a lot of money and takes a great deal of time—and, since divorced persons don’t remarry in any case, it would make no real difference to your situation. No one would ever speak to you again—no one you’d want to speak to, that is—and if you had children I can’t imagine that anyone in Cullingford would speak to them either. The discrimination against bastards is really immense, and strikes me as very unjust—but there it is. And there is always the possibility that Nicholas eventually would redeem himself by going back to his wife. The world is very unfairly balanced for a woman. Georgiana would only have to forgive him and everyone else would be glad to do the same. He could come back to Tarn Edge, take his place in the mills—they would even kill the fatted calf for him. But no one would ever forgive you. I suppose he would make you a very adequate allowance—and I might call to see you now and then.’
I got up and began to pace around the room, backwards and forwards, up and down, a great release of energy that took me nowhere, losing myself, at every step more thoroughly, in the maze of my female situation, a dark dream-walking where every door that beckoned cheated me and was no door at all. And in the end—like Prudence, like every other woman—there was no choice but to submit, in this masculine world, to the requirements, the decisions, the mercy of the nearest, most sympathetic male.
‘Are you trying to drive me mad?’
‘I would prefer not to. Do you want me to take you to London, to find Nicholas?’
‘What else can I do?’
‘Can you really live with the scandal, Faith—for the rest of your life?’
‘What else can I do?’
‘Can you cope with the constant strain of pleasing him, which is not the same as loving him, since he will be all you have in the world. And he’s not easily pleased. He’ll growl and complain sometimes, and, even if he doesn’t mean it, you’ll die every time it happens because you’ll think you’re losing him.’
‘What else? Dear God—what else is there now?’
‘And supposing you did lose him? You could, Faith—so easily. He’s had money all his life—lots of money—and so have you. Can you cope with poverty? The Wool-combers could eat up your money sooner than you’d imagine, because Nicky has grand ideas. If he lost it he’d be tempted to come home for more. And what then? Every man you met would know about you—men always know these things—and I wonder if you have any idea just how coarse men can be once a woman has lost her reputation?’
‘Blaize, for pity’s sake! You can extricate yourself. I can’t. He can’t.’
‘Yes,’ he said, very casually, ‘you can. You can marry me.’
I fell down on to a chair, my head in my knees and began to sob, an ugly, gulping sound that hurt my chest and my ears and such self-esteem as remained to me, and he waited, offering me no comfort, until my body staggered painfully towards composure and I raised my head again, wiping my face with my sleeves, feeling drained and sick and furious because my hysteria had weakened me further and had solved nothing.
‘I’m sorry. It’s over now.’
But he made no immediate answer, obliging me by his very silence to admit my need of him, to realize fully and finally how alone I would be now, how totally abandoned, without him.
‘Good,’ he said at last and very quietly. ‘Well then, since it’s over, may we pass on to more constructive matters than tears? Dear Faith, my proposal startles you. I imagine, because you can see no reason for it. How can I make you understand? A man marries for a variety of reasons, you know that as well as I do. And you must also know that, in our little world, it is very rarely for passion. Faith, I am turning thirty and I have had my share of amorous escapades. Indeed, I now find that I am tending to repeat myself—it is all very pleasant, of course, and the wandering life I lead presents me with ample opportunities. But no man wanders forever—your mother’s husband would offer you confirmation of that—and when I do come home, quite frankly, I am no longer comfortable at Tarn Edge. The house is big enough, and the service is excellent, but my nephew is extremely noisy and a new baby is unlikely to add anything to the atmosphere that I shall care for. Moreover, if possible, Georgiana and Nicholas should be left alone. My mother is of the same opinion, and when she is not there I feel somewhat de trap. I could take a house of my own, of course, but that would involve me in a mountain of domestic trivia, and apart from that I am a little tired of being so very eligible. It strikes me that every woman in the Law Valley with a daughter to marry has come running after me at one time or another, and I’m sorry to say that my taste doesn’t run to young, innocent girls. I show my face in Cullingford, and there they are, put out on display, all tremulous and eager and ready for anything that might suceed in making them “Lady Barforth” one day. They besiege me with invitations to dine with them, to dance with them, anything I like with them. I have to listen to their music, look at their water-colours and their embroidery and anything else they can show me—within reason—that might tempt me. And it doesn’t tempt me at all. There are men who very much like virginity, but frankly I have had no experience of it and, even if all these fifteen-year-old dimples and curls succeeded in moving me, how could I ask a mere child to manage my affairs when I am abroad, or to manage me when I am at home? I would be at the mercy of my wife’s mother, and that wouldn’t suit me at all. The alternative would be to look outside our charmed circle, as Nicky did, but we both know all about his problems, and I may not do any better. I know several attractive women, in London and elsewhere, who might be ready to marry me, but Cullingford is not kind to strangers. I would rather marry you, Faith. We are at ease with one another. You are intelligent and kind-hearted. You have excellent taste. You would be a good hostess and a good friend. You have a lovely body and a more sophisticated mind than is usual in a Law Valley woman. Yet you are a Law Valley woman. You understand the way in which I conduct my business and the men with whom it is conducted. And several times I’ve done more than glance in your direction—I’ve looked hard and I haven’t been indifferent. These seem very adequate reasons for marriage to me. And as for that rare and special creature I’ve talked so much about—the one who is always in the next room—well, I think I am quite content, you know, to let her remain there. If I ever
opened the door, the chances are that I’d be sadly disappointed. She’d most likely turn out to be quite commonplace.’
I walked another step or two and then stood quite still, my head bowed in a brooding silence, wondering what time if was, what day it was, why everything he said to me sounded so logical, so easy, until the moment his voice stopped speaking.
‘And you would accept me, knowing that my only motive could be the need to escape from Nicholas?’
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you married my very good friend Giles Ashburn for exactly that reason, and he had no cause to complain of you. If you decided to devote yourself to me in the same fashion, I wouldn’t complain either.’
I sat down beside him, not intentionally, but because my I legs had simply released my weight, and he slid his hand into mine, a light, undemanding touch, telling me I could take him, or not, and we would still be friends, warning me, perhaps, that he was no rock to lean on, as Giles had been, that he would never seek to possess me nor allow me to possess him—but that we would be friends.
‘It’s not possible,’ I said. ‘Blaize, how can you even think of it? You know that I’m in love with Nicholas and he’s your brother—you even look like him.’
‘No,’ he told me, not the slightest tremor in him anywhere. ‘You’re quite wrong. I don’t look like him at all. He looks like me. And the resemblance isn’t really very great. He’s blacker and bolder and heavier by at least a stone. And you know quite well I was born believing that, sooner or later, everybody is bound to like me best. What else have you to tell me?’
‘That even if I—and I couldn’t—that Nicholas wouldn’t let it happen.’
‘My dear, I’m not planning to ask him. Faith, you spoke of going to London. My bags are already packed. I have to go and see as many of my Continental customers as I can in case this damnable war with Russia, which seems almost certain now, should make travel difficult. I intended to leave at the end of the month, but there’s no reason why we can’t set off together—tonight. We’d be creating a small scandal, darling, to cover a greater one. Elope with me, in fact. A few weeks in France and Germany, consternation in Cullingford, and we can be married somewhere en route. You can trust me, I think, to work out the details. They’d hardly be beyond my organizing capacity. You’d meet with some coolness, of course, when you came home, but my mother will help us with that. If Lady Barforth of Tarn Edge is willing to receive you—and Mrs. Agbrigg of Lawcroft Fold—then everybody else will do the same. So—I have brought you to the point of realizing it is not impossible after all. What is troubling you now?’
‘Nicholas is troubling me now.’
‘Yes, I rather thought he might. But Nicholas makes the elopement necessary, surely you can see that? If he comes back from London to learn we are to be married, he’d be bound to ask the reason why. And I can’t see myself explaining it. He wouldn’t give you up to me, darling, just to avoid a scandal he thinks he can cope with, and to keep a wife he thinks he doesn’t want. And, even if by some miracle he could be persuaded to see reason, could you stand the strain of a family wedding? Could he? He’d be far more likely to shoot me at the altar than act as my best man.’
‘And if we go away together he’ll think we became lovers in Scarborough, won’t he, Blaize? He’ll think I fell out of love with him for your sake.’
‘Exactly. What else could he think? Aunt Hannah will tell no tales once we’re gone. She’d have nothing to gain by it, and my father might accuse her of having pushed us too far, and she wouldn’t risk that. As you say, Nicky will certainly think you have jilted him, in a particularly heartless manner at that. And he’ll be hurt, there’s no doubt about it—badly hurt even, for a while. He’ll be foul-tempered and foul-mouthed and he’ll kick his machines, and his operatives, all around Lawcroft mill yard until he’s worked it out of his system. I speak flippantly because that seems to be my fashion when something troubles me. But really, Faith,—really—the more it hurts him the better, because when he’s feeling thoroughly wretched who else is he likely to turn to but Georgiana? He would be miserable. She would be miserable. It would be very natural—wouldn’t it?—if they should be drawn together. And that, surely, is one of the things we are aiming for. Very well, I have demolished that objection—give me the next.’
I leaned forward, struggling against the current of his logic that brought me constantly back to him, the warm tones of his voice filling my mind, hushing my panic, easing me, convincing me that this outrageous thing was not only possible but obvious, desirable; that it was right, and could be pleasant, because he said so.
‘Blaize, take care. Don’t confuse me and persuade me. You are not selling me a thousand yards of Barforth worsted, you know.’
‘No, darling—it would have taken me all of ten minutes to do that.’
‘I can’t believe this is happening to me. You make it sound so simple—and so right—and perhaps it could be. But Blaize—’
‘Yes, what is it now? I suppose it must be Nicholas again.’
‘Of course it is. He’s your brother and he’ll probably be your business partner. I could avoid him, but you couldn’t. You’d have to see him every day—work with him.’
But my mood was quieter now, my objections more hesitant, his hand on mine much firmer.
‘There’s that to it, of course. But that’s my problem, surely, darling, and there is little love lost between me and Nicky in any case. We don’t work together, Faith. We’re involved in the same business and we put up with each other. The whole of Cullingford knows it and no one would be surprised to see our relationship take a turn for the worse. People would only think we were bickering over the money, and most of the time they’d be right. And it may not always be so. People mellow. If he finds enough to content him in Georgiana, he may find it easier to tolerate me. And if he doesn’t—well—we shall be equal partners in the Barforth mills when my father dies, but partnerships can be dissolved. He could take Lawcroft and Low Cross, and I could take Tarn Edge, and we could go our separate ways. If my relationship with Nicky is the only thing to be sacrificed, then I believe we might come out of this well enough.’
I sat for a long time after that, leaning my head on the back of the sofa, conscious of a gradual draining away of energy, trying for a while to halt the dissolving of my will into his, the slow drifting of my whole self towards the refuge he offered, the submission he had presented to me as inevitable. And then, very slowly, as one flow of quiet water enters another, resistance ebbed away.
‘You are going to marry me then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then there is one promise you must make me.’
‘Only one? I think you are entitled to ask for more than that.’
‘Ah well—most of the things I could ask for, you will give me in any case. This one promise will suffice. Nicholas must never know the true circumstances of our marriage. And, since neither Aunt Hannah nor I will tell him, you must not do so either. He must go on believing that you willingly abandoned him, either because you liked me better—which has happened before in his life—or from motives of self-interest, because you knew I had more to offer. You saw the chance of an advantageous marriage and you took it. If he’s to think well of Georgiana, he must begin by thinking ill of you. And I’m bound to admit I wouldn’t be altogether comfortable otherwise. Will you promise me that?’
‘Blaize—that is one promise I would have performed in any case.’
‘Of course. So, let’s think of you, now, and me. I told you my bags are packed, but I may not have mentioned they are already at the station. We have only your affairs to put in order, darling, and I’m here, at your disposal, until train-time. There’s a note to be written to your mother, and a line to Aunt Hannah too, I think, which we’ll have delivered in the morning—simply that you have gone away with me and expect to be married when they see you again. You may go upstairs presently to arrange your boxes, and while you’re about it I’ll have a word with you
r housekeeper and make it worth her while to be on our side. But I think we might have a moment together now. Come here, darling, for if I am to be blamed for seducing you, I may as well take advantage of it.’
But, with his mouth once more on mine, his hands beginning a gentle, stroking exploration of my shoulders, the curve of my breasts, the outline of waist and thigh, the cool, fresh scent of him invading my nostrils, I felt a new panic.
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