‘You don’t believe that it is to be let?’
‘No, I don’t, dear. You were going to put Lily down there with her child.’
‘Yes, I know, and the house is finished. But would she go? No. She said it was too far away. She prefers the lodge, and it’s as she says, she has got it very nice. I have spent quite a bit of money on that place, I can tell you, and, being a businesswoman, I always want results. So, I am letting it, together with a four-acre field as a smallholding. It would be ideal for that. It is now in my agent’s hands and I understand he has already one applicant. So you see, I am not playing my lady bountiful. I only made the suggestion because I thought it would be ideal for your requirements, there being a large barn and three other buildings, besides a little house.’ She pulled a face now as she said, ‘But…but I think it’s the house that’s going to be the drawback. It’s rather small for a family, at least for anyone with sufficient money to start that kind of business.’
She knew that his mind was busily working, in fact it had already done a somersault. So she turned away from his awful arrangement for living and walked towards the door, which she had almost reached when, at her side now, he asked quietly, ‘What are you asking, by the way, as rent?’
She stopped and glanced upwards as if thinking deeply, then said, ‘You know, I can’t really remember. It was a bit complicated. There might be the prospective tenant who wanted only the house and buildings, others might only want the field to work. In the last resort it was decided they could be let separately. I even thought if no-one wants the field then I could extend the gardens. But in parts it’s a bit boggy and it would need drainage. Anyway, I must be off. Oh, Douglas, it’s been lovely seeing you; but look’—she leant towards him—‘there’s no reason why you can’t visit me. What about coming for Sunday dinner?’
‘Yes, I would like that. I would like that.’
‘All right, we will leave it at that.’ She did not immediately make for the door now, but turned and looked at the pieces of stone dotted here and there about the room, and she said, ‘How’s business going really?’
‘Oh, pretty well; enough for me to still keep on Sam. The main trouble seems to be the transport. It’s difficult to get a cart down here. It’s a good job that both Sam and I are as strong as horses, not the dray kind, you know, just the ordinary ones.’
They were smiling broadly now at each other, and she said, ‘You always surprise me, Douglas,’ at which he threw his head back and said, ‘Oh, lady; not as much as you surprise me, not as much as you have always surprised me.’
Following this their hands joined and shook; they exchanged a long glance, and then she was walking through the sodden field again.
When she reached the cab she quickly gave the cabby directions, and forty minutes later she was standing in her office in Newcastle, talking rapidly to her agent, saying, ‘Well, there it is. He may come or he may not, but just say to him what I’ve said to you. You could add that you were going to take a client out there. Would he, too, like to go and see the place? to which he will likely reply that he knows it. Then let him sign the agreement: eight shillings a week for the house and stables; eleven shillings if he wants the land as well. You can add that he can have access to the main yard, et cetera. You understand?’
‘Yes,’ Arthur Fathers said; ‘yes, I understand, Miss Mordaunt. And I know Mr Douglas…well, I’ve met him on occasions. Very nice gentleman. And I’m sorry to hear he’s working under such awful conditions. Leave it to me, Miss Mordaunt. He’ll be settled in there before you can say Jack Robinson.’
‘Thank you. He may come in today, there’s still time, or tomorrow morning. And I will be pleased if you deal with him yourself, and not one of the clerks.’
‘Oh, yes, yes, I’ll be here all day. And I’ll make it my business to be here in the morning, too, just in case.’
‘Thank you very much, Mr Fathers. And now we’ll get down to the business of the week.’
And as they did so Mr Fathers wondered if she had forgotten it was dinner time. But then she was the boss. Yes, indeed, she was the boss.
It was in the middle of the Sunday dinner that Douglas, looking across the white linen-capped table, checked Bridget’s bringing up a spoonful of iced pudding to her mouth with the words, ‘Being your new tenant, will I be invited to this every Sunday?’ He spread his hand over the table, and Bridget, her mouth still slightly agape, returned the pudding to the plate and forced herself to say, ‘What do you mean, Douglas?’
‘Well, you gave me all the details and made it clear it was a business deal, so, on consideration, I thought I’d be a fool not to take it up. I hesitated a bit and nearly too long, because it seems your agent was about to show another fellow round.’
‘Oh, Douglas, I’m so glad! It’ll…it’ll be wonderful having you down there.’
His voice was low now as he said, ‘It’ll be wonderful, too, for me, Bridget. You don’t know how wonderful.’
‘Oh yes, I do.’ She was nodding at him. ‘After that dreadful place…But what about your man, Sam? Is he coming with you?’
‘Yes. He lives Hebburn way and he said it’ll be the same distance either way. He’s a good man, Sam. I’m very lucky to have him. Not only is he good with his hands, but he’s good company. He’s an intelligent fellow when you get to know him. He hardly opened his mouth to me for the first month I had him, but afterwards I soon learned that he had ideas and opinions.’
He now laid his spoon down by his plate and, his hands placed on each side of it, he stared intently at her as he said, ‘It’s going to be a new life for me, Bridget, quite a new life for me.’
She controlled the reaction to say, ‘For me, too,’ for she might have said it fervently: not only did she need company to fill the great hole of loneliness in her but, in a strange way, she knew she needed him, him in particular, and had done for some time, while knowing the thought was ridiculous and as far-fetched, in a way, as had been her feelings for Joe.
Eight
As if she were setting up a new home, she saw to the furnishings of the farmhouse, for it had not been occupied since her father acquired it. Besides the necessary articles she put in a number of small pieces taken from Milton Place.
On first seeing her handiwork Douglas had stood silent for a moment, and then had said, ‘This is ridiculous, Bridget. How do you expect me to come and throw myself down onto a couch like that in my stone-powdered clothes?’ And she had answered, ‘Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to throw yourself down onto a couch like that in your stone-powdered clothes; I’d expect you to wash and change beforehand, and cook yourself a meal in your kitchen, as you’ve refused my offer of eating in the house in the evenings.’ And at this he turned on her, suppressed laughter in his face now as he said, ‘Well, would you want us to get talked about?’
She would have liked to answer, ‘I wouldn’t mind in the least,’ which would have surprised him just as the thought of it had surprised herself. It was like those other thoughts that had been creeping through the floorboards of her mind and which she had no way of stopping: she had tried pooh-poohing them, even using ridicule, but without effect; and so had answered with, ‘Well, if people have nothing better to do but talk about us, then we’ll have to be charitable in the thought that while we are suffering others are having a rest.’
‘Oh, Bridget. Your capping always amuses me. You are a sharp-tongued young woman, you know.’
‘Yes, I’m well aware of that.’ And the admission hurt her in a way for she didn’t want him to see her as a sharp-tongued young woman; but then, she couldn’t see herself changing, she was herself, and that was that…
So, Douglas took up his abode, even eagerly, in the stone farmhouse, and a new way of life began, punctuated with protests: she mustn’t let the girls come down and clean the place, he could do that himself; she must have a word with her cook and stop her sending pies and cans of soup down for both him and Sam.
He would make one c
oncession. Yes, he would take Sunday dinner with her. And so, here they were, eating together again, and he was remarking on her staff: ‘They are all so very excited about Christmas,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she nodded at him across the table. ‘You see, they have a party on Christmas Day, and they invite their friends, and it’s high jinks. I have to look in for a time, and you also will have to this year.’
‘It’s a happy house this, isn’t it?’
She did not answer immediately, but when she did her voice was low: ‘I’ve always thought so,’ she said, ‘simply because I was born here; and our young days were indeed happy, with Victoria flitting about like a butterfly. But,’ and the word immediately conveyed a sadness, ‘she is no longer a butterfly. I would never in my life have imagined anyone changing so. And she has cut herself off from me entirely. That pains me and worries me because, going back over it all, I feel I am to blame: I should not have bought him and…forced him into the marriage in the first place.’
‘You did it for the best; there’s no vestige of blame to be attached to you. All that has happened stems from my brother. He is utterly selfish. It is as well she has changed, for she would never have been able to exist in that house if she had remained the girl she was. She would have been trampled into the dust by him: by his openly flaunting his women; and probably just as effectively by the way in which he would either ignore her or humiliate her. That started shortly after they returned from the honeymoon, but she didn’t recognise it, she always thought he was joking. Come, don’t look so sad, my dear. What would you like to do this afternoon?’
‘Oh, it’s what you would like to do. The sun is shining, and so although it’s very frosty, would you like to go for a drive in the carriage?’
He interrupted her here with a flapping of his hand and saying, ‘No, I would not like to go for a drive in the carriage, ma’am. What I would like to do is to go into the drawing room, stretch out and snooze before that big fire. There are two other possibilities, one is to argue with you about something or other, the second is play you crib.’
‘We’ll take the latter, sir. But I must warn you, after playing with my father for years I became an expert. And we didn’t play for chucks, mind; there was always money on the table, and it was a rare occasion when I didn’t gather it up when we finished.’
‘I bet that was what the business was built on, the rake-off from your gambling.’
‘You’re quite right, sir, you’re quite right.’
They left the dining room laughing.
Sunday, she was finding, was a day to look forward to. She was happy, or nearly so. Now and again it seemed she still had to have some confirmation, but less and less was she worrying about Victoria; she had become a person who could manage her own affairs. Yet, having agreed on this within herself, there remained the knowledge that Victoria was a very unhappy woman.
Christmas turned out to be a very merry affair. Douglas said he could never remember enjoying himself so much. The highlight was the servants’ Christmas party, to which Sam and his wife had also been invited. This pleased Douglas; and he, too, surprised her, for during the limited time she allowed for their visit he had the whole company amused by his whistling of bird songs and then by a very good imitation of a farmyard of animals. Later, both of them muffled up to the eyes against the heavy frost, he escorted her down to what was now his home in order that the party could go on uninhibited. She wanted to know how he came to learn to whistle in such a way, and he told her that it was because he had once, as a boy, been taken to the Empire and had there seen a similar turn, and from then he had practised; on the quiet though, because such a lowly talent wasn’t appreciated in the house.
Halfway down the field his grip tightened on her arm and he ran her over the frozen ground, the lantern swinging drunkenly from his other hand, and she laughed as she couldn’t remember laughing for a long time. And when they reached the farmhouse door they both turned and lay against the wall for a moment, gasping, and she said, ‘You know, there’s a mad streak in you, Douglas. It’s a good job there are no houses near, else they would think we were wild children on the rampage.’
Inside the house he blew up the damped-down fire into a blaze; then, pointing to the corner of the room to a small decorated Christmas tree, he said, ‘Look at that; the girls put it there. Ridiculous, but wasn’t that nice of them?’
‘It was, indeed,’ she said. She recalled Florrie’s voice questioning: ‘A Christmas tree for Mr Douglas, miss? No! Don’t you think he’ll laugh at it?’
And to this she had said, ‘I don’t think so. It will make him feel at home. And we can hang his presents on it, or lay them around the foot of it.’
Her small staff had included him in their presentation of Christmas presents, a single handkerchief or some such, except Jessie who, quick with her needle, as she said, had looped him off a pair of woollen gloves. She herself had bought him a tie and a fancy waistcoat, neither elaborate nor expensive items. And what had he bought her? An anthology of poetry.
He was saying now, ‘Don’t take your coat off till the room gets a little warmer.’ She had pulled off her fur hood and unloosened the top buttons of her coat, and for a moment his hands went out towards her as if he were about to button up her coat again. Then they dropped to his sides and, now standing before her, he said, ‘This kind of life seems too good to be true, Bridget. I’m afraid something will happen, and it will vanish, and I shall find myself back at Farmer Pearson’s, having woken up on the bunk and found it all a dream.’
‘It is no dream, Douglas, just a new way of life. And I am so happy you are here. It is…well, it is lovely for me to have your company.’
They were standing looking at each other through the soft light of the oil lamp, then quietly he said, ‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Anything within my power.’
‘Oh, it is within your power: it is just to ask if you will see the New Year in with me in this, my little cosy house?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course, Douglas. I’d love to see the New Year in with you,’ and only just stopped herself from adding. ‘I would like to see the New Year in anywhere with you.’
Nine
They were in the kitchen; Peg Nixon, Mary Benny, Florrie McLean and of course Jessie and Danny, Jimmy Tierney and Frank Matthews. Johnny Moran was seeing in the New Year with his family.
It was Florrie who said, ‘It’ll be funny not drinking the New Year in with the miss. We’ve always done it and made a wish.’
Jessie looked around the company seated at the long wooden table and she said, ‘Well now, the miss has chosen to bring it in with Mr Douglas’—her words were slow and emphatic and full of meaning—‘and when we’re bringing in the New Year in the hall I’m going to make a strong wish.’ And now she allowed her gaze to pass from one to the other, nodding at each in turn before she ended, ‘She’s good to us, and if you want to be good to her…well, you know what to wish for.’
It was Frank Matthews who asked quietly, ‘D’you think she’s that way inclined?’
‘Aye, Frank, I think she’s that way inclined, and had been for a long while but didn’t know it. He was a frequent visitor up at the other place. I’ve heard them arguing the toss, and yet he would come back, and that points in the right direction, doesn’t it? And as you know, she keeps busy, nobody busier. Lately she’s kept busier than ever.’
Jimmy Tierney was nodding towards Jessie, saying, ‘I like him an’ all. He’s a surprisin’ fella: not two pennorth of flesh on him from his scalp to his toes, thin as a rake he is, but you want to see him lift some of them stones of his. And as Sam said to me, he goes on for hours non-stop. Tires him out at times. Surprisin’ fella I think, and pleasant. Oh aye, an’ pleasant. Not like t’others in his family,’ an opinion which started a concerted nodding expressing mutual agreement.
And now Jessie rose to her feet, saying, ‘Now one of you fellas go down and bring Lily and the bairn up. Cover him well u
p. And the table’s all set next door, the fire’s blazin’, but we could do with more wood and coal in there, so I’ll leave that to you chaps and we lasses will carry the bottles in. Eh?’ which caused high laughter and chaffing and requests from the men to change jobs.
And so they now happily scrambled to add to the last of the preparations for ushering in the New Year of eighteen hundred and eighty-five.
‘The house is beautifully warm, you must have had that fire roaring up the chimney all day.’
‘Yes, I have, and at what a cost. I sawed wood for nearly two hours.’
‘Poor soul.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic, miss. There’s a difference in the work of sawing and that of chipping stone, or carving wood, for that matter.’
‘Yes, I’m sure there is.’ They smiled at each other now.
As Bridget sat down on the sofa she said, ‘Talking of wood, I think you’d better have a porch put on the front of the door. It leads straight into the kitchen, and there’s an awful draught there.’
‘I don’t want any porch put on the door and as a rule I don’t sit in the kitchen. Anyway, how often am I in there during the day? And why must you always be wanting to add things, or rearrange them?’
‘Oh, I suppose it’s because I’ve got nothing else to do.’
He sat down beside her, saying, ‘Yes, I suppose that’s it. You want something to fill your time, for you live a sort of self-centred life.’
‘Yes, you’re right; you’re always right.’
Again they were smiling at each other; then, pointing over the end of the couch to where a small table was set for a cold meal, a raised pie with other eatables around it, and, squeezed between them, a bottle of wine, he said, ‘You haven’t noticed my banqueting table.’
The Black Candle Page 25