A Green Bay Tree

by Margaret James

  ‘I'll consider it.’ Rebecca stood up. ‘I'll think about it, and let you know in a day or two.’

  ‘Good.’ Opening a ledger, Lyddy made an entry. ‘Shall you stay to dinner?’ she enquired.

  ‘I don't think so.’ Rebecca pulled on her gloves. ‘I must get back to Easton. A builder is coming this afternoon, to look at some damage to the roof. I promised Ellis I'd be there. To speak to him.’

  She glanced round the office. ‘It's not as if I'm needed here,’ she said.

  * * * *

  So, Ellis had his way. Lyddy Searle took over the management of the factory. She did very well. So much so that Rebecca gave up all talk of temporary measures and stop–gaps. Lyddy was up to the job. Ellis had been right.

  But husband and wife did not always see eye to eye. Where his personal health and safety were concerned, Ellis was so careless that Rebecca wondered how he'd managed to live so long.

  One rainy morning, in the very depths of the coldest, most sodden February imaginable, he went out riding. He came home soaked through. His coat was a saturated dishrag and his boots were waterlogged entirely. He refused to go and change. He wanted his dinner now.

  ‘Ellis, you're drenched.’ Meeting him at the table, Rebecca stared. He was literally steaming. ‘Go and get changed,’ she said. ‘I'll tell Simmons to put the meal back, until three or four.’

  ‘You'll do no such thing.’ Ellis sat down. Pushing wet hair out of his eyes, he broke bread. ‘Simmons!’ he cried. ‘Where the devil is the fellow?’

  ‘But Ellis, you'll take cold.’ Unable to believe her husband could deliberately court chills, fevers or worse, Rebecca frowned. ‘My dear, you must get out of those wet things.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ellis met her eyes. ‘I am not your child,’ he said, coldly. ‘Nor am I one of your factory hands. I am your husband — your master, if you like. Do not presume to tell me what to do.’

  ‘You will take a fever!’ Rebecca wanted to hit him. ‘Dear Ellis! Please be sensible.’

  ‘Ah, Simmons. At last.’ Ellis scowled at his butler. ‘Well, come along. Don't be all day.’

  Ellis ate his dinner. Then he fell asleep before the fire. By evening, he was sneezing violently. The resulting chill kept him indoors for the rest of the week.

  ‘I can't think how I picked this up,’ he grumbled, sniffing miserably and rubbing his aching head. ‘I hope I'm not taking the small–pox.’

  ‘You have a slight fever. That's all.’ Rebecca could not help but smile. ‘You'll probably survive.’

  * * * *

  The factory made Ellis richer. Involvement in trade and industry opened his eyes to commercial possibilities he'd never previously considered. Rebecca's business acumen sharpened her husband's wits.

  A year or so after their wedding, Ellis had what he thought was a very good idea. Discussing it with Rebecca, he received her permission to go ahead. Then, acting in what he thought were Alex's and Lalage's best interests, he opened negotiations for the purchase of the Lowells’ former home.

  In a matter of weeks, it was his. Alex's old home was expensive to maintain — and the speculator who'd bought it, finding his present tenant had an intention to purchase property in the north of England, decided to cut his losses and sell up.

  The mortgage, which Ellis raised now, was so large that he was obliged to find another tenant. It would be at least ten years before he could afford to let Alex and Lalage repossess the place. But he felt it was far better to have the house in the family than let it be sold again, to another stranger.

  He'd signed the purchase order quite happily, and took on the commitment with a light heart. Alex and Lalage had suffered greatly when their house was sold. ‘But one day,’ Ellis told Rebecca, ‘God willing, I shall give it back to them.’

  ‘Have you told them so?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’ Ellis shrugged. ‘I hope my income will remain sufficient to pay off the mortgage. But I'd be a fool to bank on it. I told Alex I regarded it as an investment. He accepted that.’

  Indeed, Alex heard of Ellis's latest venture with absolute indifference. ‘If he wants to saddle himself with that old barn, it's his affair,’ he said.

  But Lalage was furious. Suspecting deep plots and subtle manoeuvrings, especially on Rebecca's part, she ground her teeth and stamped her feet in rage. ‘She wants it for herself!’ she howled. ‘She already has my brother. Now, she means to infest my home!’

  ‘Don't be silly. She's perfectly happy at Easton.’ Alex shrugged. ‘As Ellis says, it's an investment. Merely that. Letting the old place will provide him with some extra income. But if in due course he wants to live there, why shouldn't he?’

  ‘Because it's not his house!’ Recalling the splendour amidst which she had once dwelt, Lalage began to cry. ‘Alex, your father built that place for the Lowells. Not the Darrows. You belong there!’

  ‘It's only bricks and mortar. Not a holy shrine.’ Yawning, Alex picked up a newspaper. ‘Lally, don't upset yourself. Not over a house.’

  ‘Your house. Not that interloping bastard's.’

  Alex sighed. ‘It's not mine now,’ he said. ‘Nor ever will be again.’

  * * * *

  Alex's house might be lost to her forever, but Lalage was determined to realise one ambition. She would certainly have a child.

  But it appeared the Lowells were destined never to become parents. No child was even conceived, let alone brought to term. Obsessed by her desire to have a baby, Lalage often woke Alex in the middle of the night, or roused him in the small hours of the morning, to do his duty by her.

  But nothing happened. Hope was born and flourished — but then it died. Each twenty eight day cycle ended in the same bloody epilogue. Lalage looked for someone to blame.

  ‘I don't hold back on you. I haven't done so for months now. It's not my fault you don't conceive.’ As sullen as the dismal winter's morning, Alex scowled. ‘You blame me for everything these days.’

  ‘Not absolutely everything.’ Having just got out of bed, Lalage was wandering naked around the bedroom. ‘But there's no one else to blame for this.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Alex sniffed. ‘Put on your dressing gown,’ he said. ‘You'll take cold, walking about like that.’

  Lalage sat down on a hard chair. She picked at her finger nails. ‘Give me a child,’ she muttered.

  ‘What?’ Mirthlessly, Alex laughed. ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, if you like!’ Lalage slid from her chair. Lying on the cold wooden floorboards, she drew up her knees. She opened her legs for him, spreading them wide. ‘Well, Alex? Surely you don't need a map?’

  Alex looked at her. He grimaced in disgust. ‘Get up at once,’ he said.

  ‘Can't you do it any more?’ Lalage licked one finger. Suggestively, she stroked herself. ‘You know you want me,’ she whispered. ‘Darling, look! I'm doing most of the work. You play just a little part. Towards the end.’

  Alex yawned and turned away. ‘It's nearly time for breakfast,’ he said.

  He rang the bell.

  They went downstairs together. While Alex mended the fire, Lalage made tea. Then they sat down, as companionably as any husband and wife in the universe.

  Opening an envelope by his plate, Alex took out a letter. It was accompanied by a banker's draft. ‘Money,’ he observed. He handed it to his wife. ‘Use it wisely, Lalage,’ he advised. ‘Use it well.’

  ‘Her money.’ Lalage looked at the bank draft in her hand. ‘How long before he tells her, I wonder? Alex, how long?’

  * * * *

  But, very gradually, the terror that Ellis might tell his wife all about Henry Lowell's bequest receded. Now, the far more dreadful fear that Rebecca would produce children and shut the Lowells out of Alex's family home forever, condemning Alex and Lalage to poverty for the rest of their lives, began to gnaw at Lalage's very vitals.

  She'd disliked Rebecca on sight. Being perfectly well–bred, however, she hid her loathing absolutely, being always civil and on occasions posit
ively charming towards Ellis's wife. She instructed Rebecca in the polite arts both of making tea and presiding over a genteel afternoon party. In her more generous moments, she was relieved to observe the bastard was not entirely beyond hope of refinement. In time, she might even be knocked into some semblance of a lady.

  ‘Rebecca,’ said Lalage, as they took tea together one afternoon, ‘now you are married, I feel you should cease to visit that factory. You have a manager. You have a husband to advise the fellow. It's hardly necessary for you to be concerned with affairs of trade.’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘On the contrary, dear sister. I intend to concern myself with them for many years yet. My aunt and foreman do indeed oversee the daily running of the place. But you must understand that any business of that size needs a firm, guiding hand.’

  ‘But now you are a wife, that hand should be your husband's.’ Graciously, Lalage smiled. ‘Dear Rebecca! You are a lady now. Ladies do not soil their hands with commerce.’

  Rebecca laughed out loud. Lalage winced. A lady never laughed, not in company. She merely nodded. Or, if her teeth were good, she smiled. But worse was to come. ‘Would you like to see over the factory?’ asked Rebecca now. ‘I could take you there myself. You could see the workshops. Meet the men. You might find the processes very interesting. Such an outing would be an education for you.’

  Lalage's face froze. ‘I don't think so,’ she managed to croak, at last. ‘I have no desire to observe the ways of the manufacturing classes.’ Rising to her feet, she left the room.

  * * * *

  The day Ellis remarked, quite casually and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that Rebecca was to have a baby, Lalage fainted. Her face grew ashen, she gripped the arms of her chair, and her breathing almost stopped. For a few seconds, she lost consciousness completely.

  When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the mother–to–be. Leaning over her, loosening her gown, the creature was actually touching her. She nearly fainted a second time.

  ‘Simmons? Fetch a cordial.’ Rebecca rubbed Lalage's cold hands. ‘Stand back, Ellis. She needs air.’

  Pleading indisposition, Lalage went home. She left Alex at Easton Hall. ‘I don't want you to come,’ she hissed, as he handed her into Ellis's coach. ‘Betty will look after me far better than you can.’

  Taking her mistress upstairs, Lalage's maid undressed her, put her to bed and waited for the storm to break. She then sat impassive by the bedside while Lalage screamed and cursed, while she bit her lips, tore her hair and ripped her tear–stained handkerchief to shreds.

  ‘I'll kill her!’ wept Lalage. ‘I'll kill her. I will! I'll cut her throat. I'll drink her blood!’

  ‘Hush, madam. Don't say things like that.’ In Lalage's service for at least the past three years, Betty was used to her rages and well aware that she often said things she could not possibly mean. She stroked her mistress's hair. ‘You'll have a child of your own one day,’ she soothed. ‘God willing, you'll have several.’

  ‘I'll never have any. Ever!’ Covering her face, Lalage burst into tears again. But gradually the sobs abated. She groped for her maid's hand. ‘Betty?’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Look at me.’ Pushing damp, bedraggled hair from her shoulders, Lalage glared with fevered eyes. ‘Look closely, look well. Am I hideous, do you think?’

  ‘No, madam. Of course you're not.’

  ‘Answer me honestly, girl.’ Lalage tugged at the tapes of her nightgown. Pulling the garment over her head, she threw it off. ‘Look again,’ she snapped. ‘Look here, and here. Am I foul? Repulsive? So ugly that I am not fit to breed?’

  ‘No, madam. You're not foul.’ Betty sighed. ‘But you're far too thin.’

  ‘What of that?’

  ‘Well, if you were to eat more — if you made a good meal now and then instead of always picking at your food — you would grow robust. Then, you would be even comelier than you are now.’

  ‘You think I should grow fat. Like the bastard.’

  ‘I think that while you are so frail, it would be hard indeed to conceive.’

  ‘Ah.’ Stretching out her arms, Lalage saw for herself how slender they were. Looking down the length of her body, she realised her ribs could be counted. Her hip– bones jutted sharply. Her belly was concave. Indeed, she was much too thin. ‘Mr Lowell likes me,’ she whispered. ‘Alex thinks I'm beautiful.’

  ‘Madam, you are.’ Betty stood up. ‘I'll fetch you some chocolate,’ she said. Picking up the discarded nightgown, she held it out. ‘Let me put this on back on,’ she urged. ‘It's cold in here. You're bound to take a chill.’

  ‘Give me my glass.’ Lalage held out her hand. ‘My looking glass, I want it. Give it to me!’

  Betty handed it to her.

  ‘Now go away.’ Lalage began to study herself. ‘I'll ring when I want you again.’

  * * * *

  By the time Alex came home, Lalage had been asleep for hours. Well versed in the lore of sedative draughts, Betty had doctored her mistress's chocolate. When she was sure Lalage was sleeping soundly, she covered her with a great heap of bedclothes, drew the curtains against the winter chill, and had Caspar make a great fire in the grate.

  ‘You had a pleasant evening?’ Roused by her husband, Lalage rubbed her eyes. She glared at him. ‘You spent a convivial few hours with your sister and your friend?’

  ‘I came away early. I was concerned about you.’ Alex took his wife's hand. ‘Betty told me you were feverish,’ he added. ‘But you seem cool now.’

  ‘She put something in my chocolate.’ Lalage sniffed. ‘She's a witch, Alex. Did you realise that? She knows all about me. Do you know what she said?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘She thinks I'm too thin to conceive. That's the problem. If I ate better — ’

  ‘Perhaps she's right.’ Alex nodded agreement. ‘Yes, maybe some pies and pasties would do you good.’

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Alex sighed. ‘Why do you doubt it?’

  ‘If I were fat and hearty–looking, would you love me more?’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Wretchedly, Alex shook his head. ‘I don't want you to be fat!’ he cried. ‘You're lovely as you are. But it wouldn't hurt you to be just a little heavier.’

  ‘You never kiss me now.’ Picking at a loose thread in her cuff, Lalage let a tear roll down her nose and splash on to the crumpled linen sheet. ‘You'll come to bed tonight, read for ten minutes, then fall asleep over your book. You don't care if I lie awake, lonely and unhappy.’

  ‘Sweetheart, I didn't know you lay awake, unhappy.’ Taking her face between his hands, Alex kissed her. ‘Lally, shall I come to bed now?’

  ‘If you wish. Don't do so just to oblige me.’

  ‘I'd like to come.’

  Alex undressed. Taking Lalage in his arms, he kissed and lulled her into contentment. Tonight, he did not hold back at all. ‘There, darling,’ he said afterwards. ‘Do you doubt I love you now?’

  Lalage began to cry again. ‘No,’ she wept. ‘But — oh, Alex! Everything's so horrible these days! Why can't we be happy again?’

  ‘I don't see why we should be sad.’ Alex kissed her soft, red lips. ‘We've had a rather difficult time, I agree. But I'm sure everything will be better now. No, don't put your nightgown on. I'll keep you warm.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alex hugged her. ‘It's nice, to feel you next to me.’

  So, curled round one another, Alex and Lalage closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  * * * *

  Lalage made the best of things. She smiled charmingly, asked after Rebecca's health, and cautioned her against over– exertion. Watching anxiously for changes in Rebecca's figure, she saw that her sister–in–law's well–rounded bosom was becoming even larger. Her generous hips grew broader still.

  As Rebecca's girth increased, La
lage's hatred of her blossomed. The poisonous flowers of jealousy opened, and scented all the air.

  Chapter 15

  ‘Mrs Darrow, would you kindly look over last year's accounts some time soon?’ Bobbing a curtsey, the housekeeper offered the leather–bound ledgers for Rebecca's inspection. ‘His honour told me to bring all the household books to you,’ she explained. ‘He was sure you'd wish to see them.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Thank you.’ Seated at Ellis's desk, Rebecca was busy with some paperwork concerning the Birmingham factory. Now, she looked up. ‘Leave the books here,’ she said. ‘I'll glance at them when I have time. But I'm sure everything is in order?’

  ‘I hope so, madam.’ The most meticulous of managers, Mrs Redman folded her mittened hands. ‘Your ladyship won't find anything amiss. I'll stake my life on that.’

  ‘Good.’ Rebecca picked up her pen. ‘I'll let you have the books back by supper time,’ she promised.

  As the door closed behind the housekeeper, Rebecca shook her head. When she had first been addressed as your ladyship, or your honour, she had suspected sarcasm. But, very soon, she realised Ellis was his honour, too. The indoor servants, the tenants, the peasantry, even the farmers who rented his land, all referred to him thus.

  * * * *

  Rebecca finished her letter to a toy merchant. Then, since the cramping backache from which she now suffered all the time tended to become even worse if she sat down for an hour or more, she stood up. She walked towards the window.

  This window looked out over the gardens to the front of the house. Now, Rebecca saw Lalage. Loitering by some ornamental planters, she was smirking at Alex Lowell, who sauntered across the gravel sweep. Observing the whip in his right hand, Rebecca deduced he'd been out riding.

  As he glanced towards his wife, he noticed Rebecca at the window. Solemnly, he raised a hand in greeting.

  Politely, Rebecca nodded. Then, frowning, she looked away. For Alex Lowell upset her.