The Town House

by Norah Lofts

  ‘How can you be such a hoyden? Look at your hands, your dress. Anyone would think you were a tinker’s child.’

  Apart from putting in some mild defensive word on the child’s behalf Martin never said anything, but he wore that oddly disconcerting look.

  Richard had a warm partiality for his daughter, and one night, in bed, at the end of a day in which Maude had incurred her mother’s displeasure, said,

  ‘She’s exactly like I used to be, at her age.’

  ‘You!’ Anne sounded startled. ‘You were never like that, I am sure.’

  ‘But I was. I was the naughtiest boy in Suffolk, until Peter Priest took me in hand. Always into mischief. UncleTom’s bear … did I never tell you?’

  As usual he had come to bed first and then, a little later Anne had brought up the cup of milk, into which the pinch of grey powder was sprinkled, and his voice was blurred by drowsiness as he recounted the tale of his misdoings.

  Anne remembered the old man, the stuffy room, the malodorous bearskin on the bed. Pert Tom had died during that time when she was too much engrossed by her prolonged virginity to give the event much heed.

  Lulled by the drowsiness of Richard’s voice, she too fell asleep as soon as the story was done.

  She dreamed that she was in the Ladies’ Dorter at Beauclaire, helping to dress Maude, aged about sixteen, for the St. Barnabas Tourney. The girl’s dress, a crimson and green silk was beautiful and her head-dress was a cloud of gauze. Anne looked at her with satisfaction and pride, thinking that with her looks and her clothes and her dower she was the equal of any young lady there. Then, under her eyes Maude changed and became Denys. The wide archer’s shoulders strained against the silk, the tough-looking red hair lifted the headdress. She said in an appalled whisper, ‘You can’t go into the Ladies’ Gallery.’ The dreadful creature said, ‘I must. You must take me. You can always say that I am your dressmaker!’

  She screamed out her protest.

  As on a score of similar occasions, Richard stirred and spoke.

  ‘Sweetheart. It’s all right. I’m here.’ His voice was thick and when he had spoken he coughed.

  She said, ‘I’m sorry I woke you. Just another horrible dream.’

  He did not, as usual, ask should he make a light; nor did he turn in the bed and put his arm about her comfortingly. He made a coughing sound which ended in a choke, and then there was a gentle bubbling.

  Jerked from dream horror to real fear she said, ‘Richard.’

  He did not answer; and it was she who made the light and saw on the pillow the spreading pool of crimson.

  III

  For a while the shared sorrow brought Martin and Anne closer than they had ever been before; her grief was so intense, so shattering that his half-doubt – it had never been more than that – vanished in a wave of shame. They could say, over and over again, how blind they must have been, and then, inconsistently, mention things that they had noticed. They could say that they should have been more careful, and follow that statement immediately by giving instances of how careful they had been.

  Under this apparent unity of spirit there gaped, however, a great gulf. Martin, who, thirty-five years earlier had cried over Kate, ‘She never had anything!’ could now, in an attempt to comfort Anne say,

  ‘He had a short life, but he enjoyed it all. He never lacked anything; he had you, Anne, and the children. You must think of that. And think too, how much better this way, than after a lingering illness, knowing that death waits.’ That was, in truth, his own private dread.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That last night, he was laughing, telling me how naughty he had been when he was a … ’ The words ‘little boy’ would not be spoken. It was unbearable to think of a little boy growing into a man, stricken with lung rot and now dead.

  The dreadful remorse, the guilt which had assailed her after her mother’s death was now returned, doubled. She remembered how once, during her madness she had dared to think that his love for her was a dream, like his dream of being a wandering lute-player. She had lived to prove how wrong that thought was. Only a true, firm love could have helped her through the time after her mother’s death.

  Over and over again she remembered that the last words he ever spoke to her were words of comfort – because she had waked from a dream which only her guilt had made possible. She tore herself to pieces on the spiked thought that if she had not wakened him he might have stayed asleep, flat, and the life blood would have remained in him. So she was doubly guilty, twice over the murderer of those whom she had loved, those who had loved her.

  One evening, when Richard had been three weeks in his grave Anne and Martin were in the solar. He had forced himself to overcome his dislike of the room in order to keep her company. They had said all the old things and she had broken down again and wept bitterly. She ate almost nothing, he knew, and slept hardly at all. Often, waking from his light old man’s slumbers he had heard her walking about, up and down, up and down in her room.

  This evening, at last, she sat down and snatched up a piece of sewing, but she did not work as a woman should. The needle stabbed in and out, like a weapon. Then she would pause, stare wild-eyed at the wall, and stab again.

  He watched her. Her looks were all gone. She was worn down to the bone and her skin was the colour of parchment, He recalled suddenly the pretty, soft-fleshed woman who in this very room had laughed and patted Richard’s face with one hand and held a cup of brandewijn in the other.

  He got up and limped to the livery cupboard, fumbled about and turned back to her, a cup in either hand.

  ‘Richard,’ he said, and stopped because the mention of his son’s name, like that, was still a pain. ‘Richard told me that when your mother died, Anne … this helped you to sleep. You see, you have the children. You must think of the children.’

  She had not, since Richard’s death, been able to bear the sight or sound of them.

  And from some deep, obscure desire for self-punishment she had, for three long weeks, avoided the palliative which, she knew, stood there waiting in the livery cupboard. She had proved its worth and knew that once accepted it could convince her that she was not to blame; that she had done what was best in the circumstances. One drink and she would be thinking of the joy Richard had taken in this proof of his virility; two and she would be making intimate little reckonings, remembering that on the night before he left for Bywater and on the night when he came back, Richard and she had lain together. Only the one night between. And he never knew. I never by word or gesture gave a sign or swerved from my outward allegiance …

  She took the cup and presently the feeble voice of her own reason raised a bold loud echo in the cavern of intoxication, calling that she was not to blame for everything, that circumstances had played a hand in what had happened, that she also was to be pitied a little.

  Nothing however, no amount of brandewijn, no amount of reasoning could make her look on Maude with anything but a carefully controlled loathing. She knew that as long as she lived the sight of her daughter would call to mind that dream, and with it all that came after. It became her fixed and relentless purpose to get the child out of the house.

  Several times during the next months she mentioned, casually, the question of Walter’s education. Martin was inclined to shuffle the matter off, there was plenty of time, he said; such matters needed much consideration. Once Anne said,

  ‘I seem to remember Richard saying that he started his learning when he was six.’

  ‘I had Peter Priest ready to hand at that time, ’ Martin said. ‘Also, Richard, to tell the truth, was more unruly than Walter. Walter can wait a year or so.’

  When Anne next mentioned the matter he said,

  ‘I bear it in mind. I keep my eyes and ears open for a suitable tutor for the boy.’

  She said, with a tinge of sharpness, ‘If you wait for another unfrocked priest you may wait until Walter grows a beard.’

  ‘I’m not waiting for that. I’m loo
king for some clerk who could help me as well. I’m missing Richard sore on that side of the business.’

  The ache in his voice prevented her from speaking on the subject again for a long time.

  The twins had their seventh birthday, and in the winter following it, on account of a piece of flagrant disobedience, a narrow escape from death which did give Anne ample reason to say,

  ‘That settles it. Walter must go to school.’

  ‘To school?’

  ‘Yes. He needs the company of boys of his own age – and kind. Also he has some talent for music. The Choir School at the Abbey is just the place for him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Martin said a little doubtfully. ‘If we could spare him.’

  ‘We should see him often; and they have holidays.’ She then spoke the words to which the months-old discussion about Walter’s future had been a mere preliminary. ‘As for Maude, I think I shall send her to Beauclaire.’

  More startled than when she spoke of school for Walter, Martin said,

  ‘Where you were so unhappy yourself?’

  ‘I was so poor, so ill-equipped. Still, even so, I learned everything that a gentlewoman should know.’

  ‘And that has been of use to you?’

  ‘I learned how to conduct myself. I feel it my duty to see that my daughter has like advantages.’

  He said, ‘Maude could be dressed and fitted out. She will have a dower … but she might … suffer in other ways.’

  ‘Some pert jackanapes or spiteful girl saying “Do I smell fleeces?” Is that what you mean?’

  He nodded, a little angered by her instant perception.

  ‘I’ll tell you straight, Anne; I’ve no mind to see my good money go where it will be despised because I made it.’

  ‘No one in their senses would despise it. I said a pert jackanapes or a spiteful girl, didn’t I?’

  ‘I’m against it.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said, more meekly than he had expected. ‘Would you be against her going to the nuns at Clevely for a year or two?’

  ‘Not against; but I see no good reason.’

  ‘Don’t you? What about Walter? They’ve always done everything together, in fact in all their pranks Maude is the leader. Don’t you think he would be hurt, and justly, if he were sent to school and Maude stayed here to be spoiled?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way. Yes, it might be so. I expect you know best.’

  ‘I’m their mother. So will you see about Walter entering the Choir School?’

  ‘I will. There’s no great haste, is there? I could bring the matter up when I go to pay my rent.’

  That ended the conversation abruptly. The rent of one red rose to be paid in June had always been a matter of joking with Richard who had made, and set to a lively ballad tune, a comical song on the subject, all about a year when poor Master Reed could find only a white rose and was obliged to take it to the dyer’s.

  The twins had their eighth birthday in March and in June Martin made application for a place in the Choir School for Walter. Dreading the time when he and Anne would find themselves alone in the house he was delighted to be told that there would be no vacancy until Easter in the following year.

  Making her own inquiries Anne was much displeased to learn that except in the case of girls who had lost both parents and were homeless, Clevely Priory did not open its doors to those under twelve years of age. Riding back from Clevely she made up her mind that when Walter went into the Choir School Maude should go to Beauclaire despite anything Master Reed should say.

  PART FOUR

  Maude Reed’s Tale

  I

  So long as my father was alive I never noticed that my mother disliked me. We paired off naturally, when Walter sat in Mother’s lap I sat on Father’s knee; when Mother hugged Walter, Father hugged me, and though, even then, Mother was stricter to me than to Walter that was easily explained, I was much worse behaved.

  Father died when Walter and I were six years old, too young to understand or to know what we had lost. Children are very self-centred; the sorrow in the house brushed against us but was soon forgotten. For a little while Mother seemed to want neither of us; then she changed and doted on Walter more fondly than ever. It was then that I noticed that she disliked me. She’d sit on the window-seat or the settle and draw Walter to her, put her arm around him, smooth his hair with her fingers and look at him with love. I would run over to join them, never – I was careful about that – never trying to push between them, trying only to take my place by her other side, hoping that she would put her free arm about me. She never did. She would jump up and busy herself, or push me away, telling me to go and wash my hands or comb my hair, or send me to fetch something.

  I could make her notice me, but only in a way which did me no good. If I behaved badly enough she would give her full attention to scolding me; sometimes she beat me. Once, when Walter and I were seven, a very strange thing happened. It was in the winter and the horsepond had frozen solid and Walter and I had played on it for several days, old games which seemed new because we were playing them in the middle of the pond. Then one morning our grandfather came in and said there was a thaw and that we were on no account to set foot on the ice that day. However, Walter had left his hobby horse on the ice, and he said to me, When the ice melts my hobby will fall into the water.’ He looked at me the way he always did when he wanted me to do something for him. So I went to fetch the hobby horse and had it in my hand when the ice bent under me. I shot the hobby across the surface towards where Walter stood, and managed, with my two hands to grip the edge of the hole and keep my head free. I yelled, and Walter, yelling, came towards me, and great cracks ran out under his feet; he went down too, screaming like a pig having its throat cut. Men came running from the wool and weaving sheds and we were pulled out.

  Walter was blue in the face and very sick in his stomach; I was merely wet; so Mother beat me. She said I was bigger, girls should have more sense, and I went on to the ice first. I’d never had a beating like that, and I cried, saying I only went on to fetch Walter’s hobby horse, but that didn’t excuse me.

  That night I woke to hear somebody crying and to feel a weight on me. I was frightened until I opened my eyes and saw a candle on the chest and Mother kneeling by my bedside with her arms spread out over me. She looked different, though where the change was I couldn’t have said; and she smelt different. Ordinarily she smelt sweet from the little bags of lavender and rosemary that hung and lay amongst her clothes. Tonight she smelt of something sharp and sour. She was crying and saying jerky words, calling me poor Maude and saying she was unfair to me, with many other things which made no sense. I thought she meant that she had been unfair to beat me and not Walter. So I struggled up in the bed and put my arms round her neck and said,

  ‘You didn’t hurt me.’ I would have had a beating every day if it meant that she would put her arms over me and let me hug her. She went on mumbling about being unjust and I said,

  ‘I forgive you.’ She gave a kind of squeal and pushed me off and jumped up, crying,

  ‘Holy Mother of God. That is all I lacked!’ Then she went out of the room, walking in a funny way, bumping against the foot of the bed, and against the side of the doorway. She left the candle and until it went out and I was in the dark I lay and wondered what was wrong in saying, ‘I forgive you.’ Perhaps it was a wrong thing for a child to say to her mother.

  That must have been it; for next day she disliked me again.

  We had another grandfather who lived in the country at Minsham and was too old, or too ill, to ride, so we had never seen him. He had a servant called Jacob who used to come to the Old Vine every Friday and pick up some provisions and say, ‘Much as usual’ when asked about his master’s health. Mother sometimes rode out to visit her father, but as time went on she made more and more excuses not to do so.

  One day however, on a fine summer morning, she said:

  ‘You’re eight years old now and able to
make a longer ride. We’ll go to Minsham today and you can meet your Grandfather Blanchefleur and your Uncle Godfrey who is staying there.’

  Walter and I had ponies which were much more like twins than we were, both brown with paler manes and tails. I called mine Browny; Walter who was much more fanciful than I was had named his Robin Hood, out of a story Father had told us.

  Minsham Old Hall, we found when we reached it, was shaped like a barn, but built of stone, with very narrow window openings, unglazed. It stood in a yard, with no garden near it, just a tumbledown stable and a piece of pasture.

  Inside it was even more desolate, and very cold, despite the sunshine outside and a fire on the wide hearth. In a chair sat an old man with grey hair and a beard, so overgrown that there was nothing else to his face except a loose wet mouth and eyes which had no life in them. I saw Mother brace herself, like she did once when a servant came screaming that there was a mouse in the meal-bag and Mother had to deal with it. She leaned down and kissed the old man, and then said to us,

  ‘This is your Grandfather Blanchefleur.’

  Walter made his bow and I my curtsey, as we had been taught. Our grandfather seemed to take no notice of us at all, but he mumbled and I caught the word ‘Maude’ quite clearly. I thought he meant me and intending to be as brave as Mother I moved forward, prepared to kiss him. But Mother said,

  ‘It is not you he means. Go play in the yard.’

  As we went out she moved to the foot of the stairs and called up,

  ‘Godfrey!’

  There was nothing to do, or see in the yard; but Walter happened to say, ‘Grandfather is like Daft Jimmy.’ That was a poor witless creature who lived in the row of huts behind the stables at the Old Vine; his grandfather had been deaf and dumb we were told, and Walter and I had invented a game in which we pretended to be thus afflicted and bound to make ourselves understood by signs. We played it now, until we were called in to dinner.

  We were then introduced to our Uncle Godfrey, who was very handsome and finely dressed.