* * *
Towards the end of the day he strolled down to the river. Work had already begun on clearing the ground in order to dig a trench to divert the supply of water. He stood and gazed over the slow-flowing river at the fields. Aurelia had been the means to get the land and he owed it to her to be a kind husband. He thought back to the ease with which they had conversed when they had accidentally met and a feeling of melancholy washed over him they were not on such easy terms now. He resolved to try to rectify the situation when he returned home that evening.
* * *
It turned out not to be so simple. If Jonathan returned home feeling tired and irritable, Aurelia’s mood seemed equally dark. His attempt at reconciliation was met with a brick wall higher than that surrounding the mill grounds.
‘You have no need to apologise, Mr Harcourt,’ she said stiffly, not meeting his eyes, but looking slightly past him so that Jonathan had a sense she was inspecting his left ear. ‘I forgot myself and presumed to intrude into your affairs. It won’t happen again. I shall confine myself to the running of your home.’
Something in that last comment set a warning bell chiming for Jonathan.
‘Are you finding that a trial?’
Her whole body stiffened. The expressive eyes flickered, then settled back on his ear.
‘Mrs Harcourt, will you look at me!’ Jonathan ordered.
She blinked and her eyes whipped to his face, growing wide at his unaccustomed tone. He cringed inside at the thought he had been impolite or, worse, aggressive.
‘Are you finding your life unpleasant?’ Jonathan asked softly. ‘Tell me what I can do to help you.’
She glanced away again, tilting her head to look down. Her eyes closed briefly in what looked like distress and Jonathan shivered. He wanted to put his hand on her shoulder and console her, but she crossed over to the fireplace and brushed some imaginary dust off the mantelpiece. She looked into the mirror that hung over it and met the eyes of Jonathan’s reflection. It was disconcerting to be looked at and yet not, at the same time. More so because Jonathan could swear there were tears beginning to brim in Aurelia’s eyes that made them gleam so alluringly.
‘There is nothing unpleasant that I can complain about. I am merely adjusting to the role of a wife and mistress of my own establishment. It is nothing that I won’t become familiar with in time.’
Jonathan nodded. Even though she was capable of organising matters for her mother, running a house herself must be daunting. She turned back to face Jonathan, giving him a view of both the front and back curve of her shapely neck.
‘Shall we go eat?’
They ate dinner in silence and Jonathan decided to curtail the evening by feigning a headache and informing Aurelia that he would not be visiting her room that night. He tried to ignore the flash of relief that briefly crossed her face.
‘You may, of course, remain down here as long as you wish,’ he said before leaving the room. He opened the front door and stood in the street, leaning against the railing at the bottom of the path and staring into the dark square as he smoked his nightly cigarette. The weather was dismal and a thick fog hung in the air, soon soaking through Jonathan’s clothes until he felt a chill coming upon him. He pinched off the end of his cigarette and went into the parlour, intending to have a drink. He took off his damp waistcoat and looked at the garment in wonder. Before his marriage he would never have worn it at home and it seemed preposterous he was dressing formally in his own house. He loosened his collar and sat in his favourite high-backed chair in front of the fire, but found it hard to settle.
The room was beneath Aurelia’s dressing room and he could hear her footsteps overhead as he sat with his untouched brandy in his hand. She seemed to be pacing back and forth and he tracked the footsteps from window to door to dressing table until finally she crossed to the door to her bedroom. He expected the footsteps to stop, but she returned and continued pacing around restlessly.
He thought back to what she had said and how difficult it must be to transform from a daughter to a wife. Their marriage had not been unpleasant for him, but she had left her home and family and the attempt she had made to share her husband’s life had been firmly rebuffed. She must be lonely. He’d been a blind, unthinking, insensitive fool. Exactly the sort of husband he dreaded becoming.
Knowing she was up there, brooding and pacing and awake, was excruciating. When Jonathan could bear it no longer he left his brandy and made his way upstairs, determined to put an end to the awkwardness.
He didn’t change into his nightclothes, but went straight to Aurelia’s room. He knocked quietly on the door to her dressing room and waited. His heart began to stampede in his chest. He’d always been admitted by the bedroom door. She opened it halfway and peered out at him suspiciously.
‘May I come in?’ he asked.
‘I’m not...ready,’ she said. Her eyes moved over him and he wished he had remained fully dressed or changed completely. This half-state of shirt alone felt wrong. At the same time he felt a ripple of excitement at the thought of Aurelia removing his clothes herself. He really did want her. Perhaps this was the way to heal the breach between them.
‘It doesn’t matter if you aren’t completely ready for bed,’ he said. ‘We’re husband and wife. We should be able to see each other no matter what the circumstances.
She wrinkled her brow and bit her lip. ‘Mr Harcourt... I...’ Again she tailed off. ‘Of course you are my husband and this is your house. I can’t refuse to admit you, but...’
Her cheeks were growing red. He’d upset her a lot more than he had suspected.
‘Mrs Harcourt, I can understand why you’re still angry at me,’ Jonathan said. He put his hand on her arm, hoping to emphasise that he was no longer angry himself. She jumped and drew herself up straight. Jonathan’s heart twisted and he whipped his hand away.
‘I’ll leave you,’ he said stiffly before turning his back and walking to the end of the landing.
‘Stop. Jonathan! Come back!’
Jonathan looked round. Aurelia had opened the doorway fully. Her face was expressionless.
He gave her a wry smile. ‘That’s only the second time you’ve called me by my name and neither time has it been in affection.’
‘Which is exactly how you wanted our marriage to be.’
He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘As you say. What I wanted and what we both agreed upon. However, I had not expected my name to be reserved for moments of anger.’
She blinked and frowned in confusion.
‘I’m not angry with you. As I told you before, I intruded where I shouldn’t have. The fault was mine. That isn’t why you can’t come in, Mr Harcourt. I am not wilfully denying you your rights from spite—in fact, I would welcome a thawing of the atmosphere between us. However, I cannot permit you to visit my room tonight.’
Jonathan stared at her, nonplussed. She stood in the doorway barefoot, he noticed now, and looking no different to every other night, saving that now her hair was free from its night-time plait. Her hair was loose and tumbled about her shoulders in loose waves where chestnut and gold vied with tawny and coffee for supremacy as candlelight glowed behind her. She drew the neck of her nightdress tight, clutching it with one hand as if she feared Jonathan might rip it from her body. Her cheeks were growing pinker with every passing moment.
‘Mrs Harcourt, you are talking in riddles,’ he said. She dropped her head and made a small circle with her bare foot. It peeked from beneath the hem of her nightgown, narrow and shapely. Jonathan’s imagination couldn’t help but follow the limb that would be equally naked. He swallowed, wishing he’d drunk the brandy as his throat and mouth became sand. Whenever they had made love they had remained clothed and now he was struck by an overwhelming desire to see what his wife looked like beneath her clothes.
Jonathan walked back to her and took her face in his
hands, the heat scorching his palms. She made a small noise in her throat and the pulse in her neck throbbed beneath his fingertips. He wanted to cover the spot with his lips and feel the rhythm grow quicker beneath his kiss. Whatever her reasons for refusing his company, not knowing was torture to him.
‘Please be as frank with me now about your reasons as you have been on every other occasion we have spoken.’
She put her hands over his. Usually they were cool, but now they were hot to touch. Jonathan’s heart leapt in alarm at the thought she might be sickening.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘are you ill?’
‘No, I’m not sick.’ Her eyes flickered away and then back to his. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Harcourt,’ she said quietly. ‘There is no baby yet.’
Jonathan had not expected there to be so soon, but her certainty confused him.
‘Why are you so sure?’
Aurelia’s cheeks flamed again, growing hot beneath Jonathan’s palm. She sighed.
‘If you are really determined to make me explain, then I will. I know there is no baby because my monthly courses have arrived. That is why you may not lie with me tonight.’
Her eyes bored into him with an air of open defiance. Berated him. See what you made me admit, they seemed to say.
Jonathan lowered his hands and stepped away from Aurelia. She wrapped her arms around herself, bunching the lacy folds of her nightgown over her breasts defensively. Jonathan cringed at having made her so plainly explain the situation. It should have occurred to him. His mother and their servant had used to bemoan their monthly visitor as they referred to it. Jonathan had not understood what they referred to for years, but he vaguely remembered coppers full of cloths soaking in hot water in the scullery. The maid had seemed to find her courses a reason for taking an afternoon off each month to lie in bed and groan.
‘If there is anything I can do to help you,’ Jonathan said, ‘please tell me. A hot brick? Whisky and water? I am at your disposal.’
Aurelia smiled at him, but looked surprised. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind of you, but now I have everything I need. It is merely a question of waiting for the time to pass.’
‘Then I shall leave you to wait,’ Jonathan said. He held out a hand as if to shake it, then decided that was the wrong gesture and leaned in to brush his lips over his wife’s cheek. He felt her shiver, or perhaps it was his own body that trembled at being close to her. He put his hand to the back of her head and had to stop himself from tangling his fingers deep into her thick tresses and letting them slide, glinting, through his fingers.
‘Goodnight, Mrs Harcourt,’ he murmured. He drew away and walked back to his own room.
Marriage is more of a trial than I anticipated.
Those were the words he wrote in his journal.
He had not achieved the release he craved, but he felt he had gone some way to mending the rip in their marriage before it grew too large. The knowledge, however, did nothing to alleviate the clinging sense of loneliness that he could not shake as he lay in his bed, missing the arms of his wife.
Chapter Ten
Perhaps she should get a dog. Aurelia tugged on the leash to bring Caesar to heel. The weather had turned cold and damp but she could not bear to stay inside Siddon Hall. After a half-hour in the company of her mother, fielding indelicate questions regarding her marriage, she had volunteered to walk the dog.
As she walked briskly down towards the river she reminded herself that, however odd and lonely her marriage might be, it was better than living under her mother’s roof.
‘At least now I am respectable,’ she told the spaniel. She let him off his leash and he bounded away, barking loudly at his freedom. A dog would be nice, although a human companion would be better. She was pleased Annie had joined her, but the maid’s conversation was limited.
As Aurelia neared the river she heard voices raised in anger and the unmistakable joyful bark of Caesar. She lifted the hem of her skirts and broke into a run. By the time she arrived at the river the dog was in the process of causing havoc. A group of men were digging what looked like a ditch. The dog had crossed the river and was attempting to wrestle a spade from one of them.
‘Caesar, heel!’ Aurelia shouted.
The men turned to look at her and one of them laughed. A couple of the others nudged each other in the ribs. Aurelia adjusted her skirt and walked over to them. These were Jonathan’s workers, of course, and would be engaged with diverting the river to widen it. One of the men nudged his nearest colleague, then muttered something and grinned. She doubted what he had said was complimentary or suitable for her ears. Suddenly Jonathan’s refusal to let her visit his factory seemed fairer and more understandable.
Aurelia flushed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the man. ‘He just wants to play.’
‘Don’t we all, miss,’ said the man who had grinned.
Aurelia gave him a cold look at such impertinence. ‘Please could you catch him and bring him back.’
The man strolled over to Caesar, clicked his fingers and waved them in a circle. The spaniel began to chase his own tail in delight. He was utterly shameful.
‘From the circus, is he?’ the man asked. ‘Why don’t you come over here and join the fun?’
Aurelia folded her arms indignantly. A couple of the other men were starting to look uncomfortable at their workmate’s behaviour. She hoped one of them would intervene because she had no intention of getting any closer to the river, but it seemed unlikely that they would do anything beyond mumbling it was time to get back to work.
‘Will you please send him back?’ she asked.
‘What’s going on? Why is there a delay?’
Jonathan’s deep voice cut through the men’s’ laughter.
Aurelia glanced in the direction it had come from to see her husband striding towards them. She had never been more relieved to see him. It was as well she knew his voice because she would not necessarily have recognised him otherwise.
He had left home wearing his usual dark suit with stiff collar and tie, woollen overcoat and hat. Now he was standing in shirt sleeves and braces, wearing a pair of dark brown trousers and heavy boots like the rest of the labourers. His top button was undone and his skin was flushed. His face glowed with exertion and his hair was disarranged and flopped across his forehead.
Aurelia shivered with excitement. How could seeing him dressed so informally make her quiver with excitement?
He stopped in his tracks and stared at her over the river.
‘Mrs Harcourt,’ he said, raising his brows in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’
She gestured towards the dog who had obviously recognised his previous playmate because he had abandoned his game with the ditch-digger and was now capering around Jonathan’s sturdy boots. He bent and seized Caesar by the scruff of the neck and held him tightly.
‘I was visiting my sisters and took a stroll in the gardens, but Caesar ran off.’
The men who had previously been unhelpful began to return to their work. The one who had taunted Aurelia picked up the shovel and turned away, but Jonathan stuck an arm out and barred his way.
He narrowed his eyes and squared his shoulders. Aurelia had never seen her husband angry before, but it was clear from the way he held himself and the slight flush beginning to appear behind his ears that he was furious with what he had discovered.
‘If you would be so kind as to return the dog to my wife,’ he said, leaving the rest of the sentence unfinished. His voice was cool, but each word was fired with the precision of a bullet from a shotgun. The man looked at the gulf of water that separated him from Aurelia. The men had been working quickly and the river was wider than when Jonathan had leapt across to join Aurelia what felt like ages ago. He would have to wade through. He looked back at his employer and clearly decided that a soaking was the lesser of two evils.
He turned to the bank and whistled to the dog.
‘Not like that,’ Jonathan said. ‘He’s unruly and might run again.’ He bent and picked up Caesar, holding him out to the man. Reluctantly the man took the soggy dog in his arms and waded across to Aurelia. He held Caesar by the scruff of the neck while Aurelia attached the leash.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Harcourt,’ he mumbled, keeping his eyes averted from her face. ‘I did not realise who you were or I would not have been so free with my jests.’
He gingerly crossed back and climbed on to the bank. The water was thigh deep and his heavy moleskin trousers were now sodden and clung to his legs uncomfortably. Jonathan had watched the entire process stone-faced. Now he folded his arms.
‘You can pick up the morning’s pay at the office, then leave,’ he said shortly. ‘I don’t employ people who speak to a woman as you did.’
The man looked as if he was about to protest, then slunk away. His ex-workmates all studiously concentrated on digging the trench. Jonathan looked at Aurelia. She held his gaze, unable to tell whether he was angry or not.
‘Mrs Harcourt, if you care to walk a little further along the bank to the bridge, I shall accompany you back to Siddon Hall.’
He did not look in the mood to be argued with so Aurelia obeyed. Jonathan donned a jacket over his shirt and spoke briefly to the remaining men. They walked parallel along their respective banks of the river until they reached the small bridge where Jonathan crossed over. He bent to greet Caesar, fondling him behind the ears with firm strokes, then stood and faced Aurelia.
‘I thought I had made it clear I wanted you to stay away from the mill,’ he said, fixing Aurelia with a stern look.
‘And I have done as you told me. I have not crossed on to your land, but have remained on my father’s side.’ She lifted her chin and gave him what she hoped was an equally unyielding look in return, but then she remembered the flooding sense of relief when he had appeared and put an end to the encounter. ‘I would not have ventured down to the riverside if I had known that your men were there.’
The Silk Merchant's Convenient Wife Page 10