A Bridge in Time

by A Bridge in Time (retail) (epub)

  ‘You’re mad!’ he shouted back. ‘You’re raving mad. You were all over me half an hour ago – leading me on, promising me things. Now you’re a different woman.’

  She clenched her fists as if she wanted to hit him. ‘I hate you. I hate all men. Go on, go away and never come back.’ The silver moonlight lit up her face and turned it into a primeval mask. He was awed by her exotic, fearsome beauty, for in rage she did look beautiful.

  ‘Aw, don’t be like that now. If this is some sort of a game, I’ll play it. Just let me hold you again,’ he pleaded but she gave a strangled scream.

  ‘Go away – go away. There’s nothing for you here, go away!’ Then she turned and ran back over the grass. He watched until she disappeared into the house with a flash of skirts.

  A little later Tim, wandering back along the moonlit lanes with his hands thrust deep into his pockets and thinking about the red-haired girl, was surprised to hear running feet coming up behind him. He turned, alert and defensive, but his shoulders relaxed when he saw Jimmy bearing down on him. The young navvy was running as if he was being pursued by the devil and there was a look of fury on his face.

  ‘That cock-teasing bitch,’ he gasped when he drew up beside his friend. ‘You wouldn’t believe how bold she was, Black Ace, but when we got back to the house, she went all funny on me – acted as if she’d never seen me before, shouted and told me to go away, said if I didn’t she’d get the men of the house to throw me out.’

  Tim was interested. ‘That odd-looking one, was it? She’s a funny piece.’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘Sydney said she’s French. She kept calling me “cherry” or something. Maybe all the French are like that – loving one moment and hating the next.’ He was totally confused by what had happened to him.

  ‘Forget about her,’ advised Tim.

  But Jimmy shook his head. ‘I can’t. She made a funny sort of impression on me. In a way I was sorry for her – I want to know why she’s behaving like that.’

  Tim paused and put a hand on his arm. ‘Believe me, it’s best to put her out of your mind. You’ll just get into trouble if you follow it up,’ he said earnestly, but the moonlight and the strangeness of Francine had enchanted Jimmy.

  ‘She was like a witch – I think she’s put a spell on me. I want to see her again.’ he said.

  Chapter Eight

  The month of August was brilliant. The sun shone almost every day, turning the harvest to deep gold in the fields and drying out the grass in the hedgerows so that it stood up stiff and straight and tinged with brown. Rowan berries darkened to a deep shade of scarlet, rose hips glowed like rubies in the hedges and the elder trees started to bear heavy flourishes of purple berries that the women of Camptounfoot went out to gather for the making of jellies and cordials which would be used as medicines in the coming winter.

  On the cliff overlooking the river, Tim Maquire looked down on his army of labourers in the meadow below. The river ran along the valley foot like a sheet of watered silk, sparkling and glittering in the sun, its edges decorated with long trailing flourishes of white spangled water weed. On the hottest days, when the temperature rose to over ninety degrees, some of the men stripped off their clothes and splashed naked in the shallows. This was a sight much relished by Colonel Anstruther’s daughter-in-law if she arrived at the right time to see them. She came daily, mounted on her smart mare and clad in a riding habit of cream-coloured linen with a tip-tilted hat and veil, to view the work in progress with her ever-admiring Bap.

  After the night Francine brought Jimmy home, the matter was never mentioned again between mistress and maid. Bethya, as generous as ever, continued to give Francine presents and gossiped about what went on in the house and kitchen, but refrained from talking of her burning sexual frustration or telling the maid how the sight of the frolicking navvies exacerbated it. Sometimes she wondered, as she looked at the half-naked men labouring on the embankment that was rapidly taking shape on the northern bank, which one it was that her maid had procured for her, but she never asked.

  Then, in the middle of the month, Francine burst into the bedroom one evening and said, ‘The post has just arrived with a letter from Sir Geoffrey for the Colonel! The butler was there when he opened it and the Colonel said Lady Miller has died so Sir Geoffrey won’t be coming to tour the workings as he had intended to do this week.’

  Bethya clasped her hands together, her eyes shining. ‘If he’s going to make a move for me, he can do it now. He’s been very attentive recently. He spoke very meaningfully to me the other day and said he couldn’t imagine why I stay with Gus.’

  Francine nodded. ‘The servants are saying that the last time he was here his valet was telling them that he doesn’t care at all about his wife so he’ll not be grief-stricken, far from it. Lady Miller has been ill for a long time and he was hardly ever at home. He’ll have to observe mourning, though, but apparently he intends to come down to Bella Vista as soon as possible. He might speak then.’

  ‘Oh yes, so perhaps I’ll soon be Lady Miller! Gus won’t make any trouble about divorcing me – though I don’t think he’d let me divorce him. He’s so worried about his reputation – after all, that’s the only reason he married me in the first place. If he divorced me though, he’d be the innocent party and he’d like that,’ said Bethya, her face glowing. ‘Now, let’s look out my prettiest gowns, but none that are too brilliantly coloured. I’ll have to be very discreet.’

  Bethya did not expect Sir Geoffrey to come down to Bella Vista immediately, and knew she would have to wait for him to preserve a pretence of proper mourning, but when several weeks had passed and there was still no news of him, she began to feel impatient. Every day she prowled her bedroom, snapping at Francine and fretting. ‘Has there been any word from him? Has the Colonel had a letter? How long is it now since his wife died?’

  ‘It’s three weeks. It’s a month… he’s bound to come soon,’ consoled the maid who, when she was not looking after Bethya, hung around in the kitchen listening to the gossip. She even made herself endure the taunts of Madge and Jessie: ‘Going dancing again, Francine? What happened to your bonny young navvy, then? What did you do to him? He’s never come back looking for you and you seemed that keen on him!’ Then they’d go off into peals of laughter, leaning against each other and hiccuping with mirth.

  One evening, about a month after the dance, Madge came running into the kitchen with her eyes popping out. ‘I’ve just seen him! I’ve just seen Francine’s navvy in the shrubbery,’ she gasped. ‘He was hiding behind a tree and watching the hoose.’

  Francine, who was sitting at the end of the staff dining table, seemed to freeze like a statue but Jessie went off into wild laughter. ‘Och Madge, you’re a caution.’

  Madge turned on her. ‘I’m no’ joking! I did see him, keeking out from behind a tree and watching the kitchen door. He’s looking for her, I tell you.’

  Francine stood up and backed towards the door. Her face was white and her eyes staring. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Mr Allardyce saw how affected she was and said soothingly, ‘Don’t worry, Mademoiselle. I’ll send some of the men out. If he is there, they’ll run him off the place.’

  No one was found in the shrubbery, however, and when this was reported to the butler he summoned Madge to his pantry and gave her a stiff talking-to. ‘It’s very cruel to tease that poor French lassie the way you do. It’s got to stop,’ he ordered.

  Madge protested, ‘But he was there – I swear he was.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Allardyce. ‘I don’t want to hear any more about it.’

  The fuss about the spying navvy was forgotten next morning when a letter arrived to tell the Colonel that Sir Geoffrey Miller intended to make a visit of inspection to the railway workings in three days’ time, and hoped he might take advantage of the Colonel’s hospitality to stay for a few days at Bella Vista.

  Francine went running up the stairs to her mistress’ room and with difficulty restrain
ed herself from charging headlong through the door. ‘He’s coming, Madame, he’s coming,’ she whispered urgently when she drew back the curtains that draped Bethya’s bed.

  Bethya sat up, pushed the hair out of her eyes and asked, ‘When?’

  ‘On Thursday. The Colonel received a letter. It went in with his breakfast tray and he’s told Allardyce to prepare for Sir Geoffrey’s visit. I’ll press all your dresses again. Which will you wear for him?’ The pair of them descended on the wardrobe and spent a happy hour deciding which of the gorgeous gowns would be most likely to entrance Sir Geoffrey.

  For the next two days they changed their minds at least a dozen times and when they were not debating about clothes, they discussed between themselves how it would be possible for Bethya to extricate herself from her marriage to Gus. ‘I suppose I could threaten to talk about what happened in India. I could tell his father why he had to leave the Army and come home. That’s grounds for divorce if nothing is,’ she said.

  ‘But you weren’t married to him then,’ protested Francine. ‘It would be better if you threatened to make a scandal about the way he’s carrying on with the boys up at the stable now. The servants talk about it all the time. They think I don’t understand them but I do. They are very coarse.’

  Bethya’s eyes were fixed on the maid’s face. ‘What do they say?’

  ‘They say he is a pederast.’

  ‘How long have you known about that?’ asked Bethya.

  ‘Several months. It started soon after you came here. Some of the boys complained to the butler but there were others who didn’t, and they’re still there. The complainers left. The Colonel paid them to keep quiet so there’s no point in threatening to tell him about your husband. He knows.’

  Bethya’s face was solemn. ‘I thought Gus learned his lesson in India, but apparently not. Why didn’t anyone tell me?’

  ‘I suppose they thought it might hurt you. I thought it would upset you, that’s why I said nothing.’

  Bethya snorted. ‘Upset me? I don’t give a damn about Gus. I’m only glad to have some weapon against him. I could get a divorce from him for his unnatural habits. He’s never slept with me, you know, not once, but to divorce him for non-consummation would be very shaming. It would make me look stupid. People would think I stayed married to a man like that because I didn’t know any better! I’d look a fool and a failure – I couldn’t bear it. This way is much better. When Sir Geoffrey speaks to me, I’ll tell Gus that we must be divorced quietly or I’ll bring a case against him and make his peccadilloes public knowledge. Thank you for telling me, Francine. Thank you very much.’

  When Sir Geoffrey and his fellow directors from the Edinbrugh and South of Scotland Railway dismounted from the train at Maddiston, they found grooms waiting with a party of riding horses that Colonel Anstruther and Falconwood had arranged to be sent to the station. It took three hours to cover a few miles of workings and emergent excavations between Maddiston and Rosewell because they were continually stopping, conferring, examining and asking questions. At Rosewell they met up with Anstruther’s party and set out to inspect the work on the bridge which was pronounced to be proceeding well though Miller took care not to sound over-enthusiastic before Wylie. It would not do to let the contractor think he was too satisfied. Instead he said warningly, ‘You’ll have to go on working very hard to keep up your schedule. The rest of the line’s advancing faster than we expected. It’ll be here from the north by next winter, that’s certain, and the line from the south won’t take much longer. You don’t want to be the one who holds everything up, do you, Wylie?’

  Christopher Wylie’s face showed strain but he nodded confidently. ‘We won’t hold you up, Sir Geoffrey. We’ll finish on time.’

  ‘It would be good if you could finish early, considering the progress made by the other contractors. Perhaps if Jopp and his men moved in to help you, things might go along faster?’

  The sly-faced Jopp was sitting on his horse behind Sir Geoffrey and a spark of something – malice or ambition – flared in his eyes. Wylie shook his white head vigorously. ‘This is my contract: I’ve undertaken to finish it on a specific date and I will. There’s no need to bring in another contractor. That would only confuse the operation.’

  Miller’s voice was as smooth as whipped cream as he looked down into the valley floor once more. ‘That’s splendid, just what I like to hear. Anyway, if you’re late you lose money… so you won’t be late, will you?’

  Two deep lines were etched down the sides of Wylie’s mouth as he nodded in reply. ‘That’s true,’ he admitted. ‘That’s why I won’t be late.’

  At Bella Vista, Bethya had been in a frenzy since morning. She’d wanted to ride out with the Colonel when he went to meet his colleagues, but that idea was pooh-poohed as inappropriate. ‘We’ll be talking business, Begum, it’s an all-male occasion. You stay here and make yourself pretty for when we come back,’ said her father-in-law in a kindly tone.

  She seemed to accept this but in her chamber, she raged to Francine, ‘He’s taken Gus with him, and Gus has no more idea of what’s going on in the railway workings than a two-year-old child. He’s not interested, he never rides out with Bap in the morning. I do, I’ve seen the work from the beginning but he won’t take me. Isn’t it unfair?’

  Francine shrugged. ‘He’s a man – they are all the same. Now come, what will you wear? The party is returning at tea-time so I’ve put out your plaid taffeta gown, the one you had sent up from London and haven’t worn yet.’

  It was spread on the bed, a flurry of stiff material above a hoop of frilled underskirts. The glossy taffeta was patterned in squares of purple, pink, rose-red and palest mauve, and when she put it on, Bethya glowed. At four o’clock, her maid arranged her hair and tucked into one of the luxuriant coils a tiny nosegay of roses. ‘You look lovely. He will not be able to resist you,’ she said with satisfaction as she stepped back to contemplate her handiwork.

  Now Bethya rose and listened at the door. ‘I think I hear them coming. When they’re all in the drawing room, I’ll start going down the stairs.’

  The effect her entrance created was everything she desired. The men standing around with tea cups in their hands seemed to freeze as she paused in the doorway. All eyes were fixed on her. She smiled her sweetest smile and walked into the company, heading for her father-in-law. ‘Dear Bap, I hope you’re not tired out. It has been a long day for you,’ she sighed.

  Behind her she heard her mother-in-law crash a teaspoon down into a fragile saucer but the Colonel beamed. ‘Not at all, my dear. It’s been most interesting. The work’s going well and Sir Geoffrey’s very pleased, aren’t you, Miller?’ He turned to his chief guest who stepped forward from the fireplace and took Bethya’s hand in both of his as he stared meaningfully into her eyes which glowed back at him full of adoration.

  ‘My dear lady, how delightful to see you again. One of the things I’ve missed most during my absence from Bella Vista has been the chance to talk with you,’ he said archly. Her hand lay confidingly in his and her eyes promised him paradise. Then, from behind, came the voice of Gus’s mother…

  ‘Sir Geoffrey was just telling us his good news,’ she said in a tone of great satisfaction.

  Bethya glanced over her shoulder at the speaker and then back at the man who was holding her hand. ‘Good news?’ she queried sweetly.

  He dropped her hand as if it had suddenly burned him and stepped back while Gus’ mother continued, ‘Yes, he’s just announced his intention of marrying again.’

  It was an effort for Bethya to maintain her brilliant smile but she had a long training in hiding her true feelings. ‘You’re marrying again?’ she asked lightly, but with an undertone of surprise that implied this was a precipitate thing to do since it was such a short time since his wife had died.

  ‘Ah well, dear lady, sometimes grief can only be assuaged by alleviating loneliness. My wife-to-be has also been widowed recently and she feels as I do…’ h
e told her.

  There was a strange hammering noise in Bethya’s ears as she nodded apparently sympathetically and then turned, still smiling, to walk to her chair. She knew that Maria Anstruther was watching her every move with glee. The old harridan then said, ‘Tell us the name of your future wife again, Sir Geoffrey. I’m so forgetful.’

  He was obviously highly pleased with himself as he intoned the name. ‘Lady Mary Brightwell. Her husband Sir Arthur died three months ago. He had large estates in Lincolnshire…’

  Mrs Anstruther nodded. Her favourite reading was the Court News in The Times and ladies’ magazines that provided information about the aristocracy. ‘Yes, it’s an old family. She has no children, I believe?’ she prompted.

  Miller looked sharply at her. ‘That’s right – she’s childless. It’s been a great grief to her.’

  ‘Perhaps that can be rectified now,’ said Mrs Anstruther coyly, but Sir Geoffrey shook his head.

  ‘Oh no, dear lady, my future wife and I are both beyond that stage of life. We’re marrying for companionship in our later years. We were both devastated by the loss of our partners and it was coincidental that they should die at almost the same time.’ He heaved a sigh but the light of satisfaction in his eyes belied his false melancholy. Sir Geoffrey had landed a major coup and all of the people in the room knew it.

  Later, Bethya wondered how she managed to get through that tea party without breaking down or starting to scream. Sir Geoffrey sat beside her and flirted outrageously, taking her hand and smoothing the back of it with his long fingers. It was obvious that he imagined their teasing relationship might well continue although he was marrying again. Once he bent his head to whisper in her ear, ‘I see your husband has not improved his ways.’

  She fixed him with a sharp eye and said, ‘Poor Gus, I love him so. I keep hoping that things will improve one day. Miracles do happen, don’t they? After all, look at what’s happened for you, Sir Geoffrey!’