Jenny Harrison sat down in the chair opposite her son knowing that something fine and . . . yes, the word was ‘sweet’ was to be taken from him in the next few minutes. And she herself was to lose the last, the very last slender belief that there was goodness somewhere in the harsh world around her. She had tried to spare him, her son, her beloved son, but even that was to be taken from her in the bewilderment, the disbelief, the amusement, she supposed, that he would feel at first before she convinced him. Then would come the horror, the total horror and loathing as she stripped him of all he loved in his life; of his life itself really, for how would he bear the destruction of the man he thought himself to be?
She tried one last time.
‘Believe me, Mr Atherton, when I say I am sure Tessa will contact you when she returns from . . .’
‘Mrs Harrison.’
There was silence for a moment as the mother looked for the last time into the still dauntless eyes of her son.
‘I will tell you the truth now, Mr Atherton,’ she said hopelessly.
Her mother was in the stable doorway as she clattered into the yard, a darker shadow in the darkness of the night which was illuminated by the myriad of stars in the navy-blue sky. They did not greet one another. Her mother moved to one side as Tessa led her mare through the doorway, watching silently as she rubbed the animal down. When all was done Tessa turned and began to move towards the stable door, brushing past her mother as though she was not there.
Jenny put her hand on her daughter’s arm, feeling it flinch away and her own heart recoiled from the rebuff.
‘Tessa, you must speak to me, lass.’
Tessa shook off the restraining hand and continued to stride towards the side door of the house. Jenny thought she would crumple up and die with the pain of it, and indeed wished she could as it hit her again and again. Then anger stirred.
‘He’s my son, damn you,’ she called after the retreating back of her daughter, following her across the yard. ‘Do you think you are the only one to hurt? You have not borne a child, Tessa Harrison, and so you cannot know the strength and the agony of a mother’s love when she loses that child.’
But Tessa walked on as though she had not spoken. When she reached the door her hand did not seem able to turn the door-knob, but fumbled with it blindly, Jenny opened it for her and they moved into the dimly lit quiet of the passage which led to the main hallway and staircase.
‘Tessa . . .’ She took her daughter’s arm, firmly this time, driving down the anguish which came to her. ‘We must speak to one another. We cannot go on as though this had not happened. I . . . have never said this to you before . . . but I love you, girl, and . . .’
Tessa whirled about violently, flinging her mother against the panelled wall and Jenny was frightened by the expression on her face as the lamplight fell on it.
‘Do you think I care about that? Do you? Do you imagine that your . . . your love . . . can make me feel better again? Pick me up, brush me down . . . kiss where it hurts . . .’
‘No, no, lass. I didn’t mean that . . .’
‘At this moment I feel I will never be well again, Mother. I will never recover. That is what I feel and how you feel means nothing to me. My head tells me that you’re not to blame, but my heart’ – she struck her chest violently with her clenched fist and her mother winced – ‘says it will never forgive you for what you have done to me and Robby.’
‘Darling . . .’ Her mother’s voice was an anguished whisper. ‘I’m sorry, dear God, I’m sorry . . .’
‘Leave Him out of it, and leave me alone. Let me go . . . now.’ She made a huge effort to control herself. ‘Perhaps later . . . but for now. Leave me alone.’
They sat in different rooms, the two women, but in exactly the same attitude as they mourned the same man: a rocking chair by a window moving slowly backwards and forwards, heads back against a cushion, hands folded, eyes staring out towards the east as a pink dawn crept along the tops and the sun rose on another day.
The sun rose earlier in the Crimea than it did in England that day. The dawn of the twentieth of September was soft, balmy and sunny, glowing from behind the snows of the Caucasus at about five o’clock, outlining the fleet of war steamers, eight French and one British which sailed towards the mouth of the River Alma. Their guns opened fire with the ferocity of ravenous beasts about to fall upon their prey and the two young men who stood beside their horses recoiled sharply, trying to hold the bridles of the animals which reared in fright. It took them several minutes to calm the terrified beasts, then with the fluid grace of born riders they mounted them, turning this way and that indecisively.
‘It’s started, Pearce. By God it’s started. We missed the scrap at Giurgevo but we’re to be in on this. Where the hell should we go, d’you think?’
‘Where the hell will they let us go? Surely to God you don’t intend to climb to some vantage point and watch as so many seem to be doing? That chap we spoke to yesterday had brought his mistress to see the spectacle, I was told. Anyway, in this smoke we should see nothing.’
‘They are to go up to the plateau which stands above the valley, so I believe, but I should like to be closer, wouldn’t you?’
They were yelling at the tops of their voices as they galloped away, manoeuvring skilfully to avoid soldiers who darted everywhere, tents, carts, guns and the chaos which had sprung up as bugles sounded from every quarter.
‘D’you think we’ll get any breakfast?’ Pearce shouted jubilantly, not caring whether he did or not.
‘Well, the troops certainly won’t so really we shouldn’t either, old man. It’s only fair.’
‘You’re right. Now where should we go first? No one seems to mind our presence and perhaps we may be able to help in some way. We are both good shots.’
‘Indeed, and excellent horsemen so I suggest we follow the cavalry.’
‘Dear God, this is better than the mill, wouldn’t you say, Drew?’
‘You never spoke a truer word, brother, and won’t we have something to tell them when we get home?’
The smoke had cleared somewhat when the great Lord Raglan arrived and as he rode off with his staff along a pathway leading round the western side of the heights, Drew and Pearce Greenwood removed their hats respectfully, as they had done for no man before. He was calm and steadfast, it was said of him, his resolution higher when danger pressed. He and his soldiers were children of a proud and obstinate race and would advance through the jaws of death if needs be.
‘He’s bloody marvellous, isn’t he?’ Pearce whispered reverently.
‘They say he’s waiting for three more battalions to arrive but due to the rain in the night it will take some time to get them here. They may be glad of us yet, brother.’ Drew’s face was tense and boyish in his excitement.
His words were drowned by the sudden thunder of the guns from the artillery of both sides. Two eighteen-pounders had been brought up and as they beat on the senses, the eardrums, the blood and flesh of every man within a radius of ten miles, order and sense was blown away. If either of the sons of Kit and Joss Greenwood had been asked to describe that day they could not have done so with any coherence. They had begun it as two excited schoolboys out for a spree, a lark, something to describe to those back home, an adventure which they had both craved. They ended it as men, frightened, sickened, devastated, but men at last.
The allied armies spent two days on the battlefield of the Alma. When it was done the dead and wounded lay within a space only a mile and a half square while about Telegraph Hill the bodies were piled so high it was impossible to see over them. No one alive on that bloody field had ever seen such a spectacle, except perhaps Lord Raglan himself who had fought and lost an arm at Waterloo. Men, seasoned soldiers, fell ill when they looked about them and the effect on Drew and Pearce Greenwood was to shape them for the rest of their lives. They had become separated from each other as the first sweep of men and horses pushed them apart. Pearce’s horse was shot
from under him as he turned it about, his face ludicrously bewildered, wondering where he should go in this mad world which had suddenly erupted about him.
When he got to his feet, already quite deep in shock for despite his declaration to the opposite he had not really meant to fight, he found himself defending his own life with no more than the shot gun he had brought with him, the one he used against the grouse on Longworth Moor. An instinct for self-preservation luckily took over what was left of his senses. Finding, first a musket, then a sabre, each clutched in the hand of a bloody and quite-dead soldier, for an hour he parried and shot wildly, carried along blindly until the man beside him began to shout that ‘they were on the run now’.
It was then, as he staggered along behind the retreating Russian army, so stunned he merely did what others did about him, he realised what he had done, where he had been, how he had spent the past few hours of his life. He had seen men, real men scream and crumple in front of him. He had felt the steel he held slide sickeningly into other men’s flesh. He had seen blood, torn flesh, shattered bone, and worse, erupt from bodies broken and mutilated. The images penetrated his clouded mind – he sank slowly to the ground and began to vomit.
They stepped over him, still chasing the Russians, cheering now for they had won a victory, but Pearce Greenwood wept for he had lost his brother and how was he to live without him?
‘Pearce . . .’
The voice brought him back, a hand lifted his face from his own vomit and the blood-soaked earth on which he lay. He turned slowly but there was no one there he knew, only a soldier in a blood-stained tunic, his eyes staring and haunted in a blackened face.
‘Dear God, Pearce . . .’ The soldier held out his arms and they both began to weep.
17
She sat by the tightly closed window of the pretty bedroom, a soft white shawl about her thin shoulders, another thrown over her legs. A fire burned brightly in the grate, its flames heaped with an abundance of coal, and on the white ceiling and rose-silk walls shadows danced and wavered. Outside a flurry of hard-pelleted snow flung itself against the window but when Tessa turned to look there was nothing to see but a wall of whiteness, shifting and leaping, slowing as the wind died down, then hurtling as fast as one of the railway trains which ran through the valley bottom, across her vision as the wind sprang up again.
She was impassive now, dry-eyed and silent in her self-induced calm; rigid of mind and body, free for the moment of the punishing memories which came so often to devastate her as she gathered her small reserve of strength together. If she concentrated hard on the top of Emma’s small, frilled cap as it bent over some mending in her lap she could empty her mind of everything but the will, the resolution, the absolute effort that was needed to drive Robby Atherton’s face from every corner of her mind.
But she must have Emma’s cap on which to set her mind. It was a trick, of course, because anything would do really: the Meissen figurine on the mantelshelf, the silver candle-holder by the bed, the gilt-framed miniature of her cousins as children. But somehow Emma’s cap, simple, pretty, fluted, quite foolish, really, but always the same, seemed to have the knack of emptying her mind of the pain.
She had flung herself about at first in the dangerous rage which had come to consume her, just as she had once done as a child. She had frightened poor Emma as she had fought, time and time again, to live without his memory inflicting its vicious pain upon her.
‘I cannot bear it another moment. I must go . . . I must and no one will stop me,’ she had screeched in her anger at what had been done to her and her mother had sat beside her, for the first time in living memory leaving her mills to manage as best they could without her. She would not lose this child, not this child as well, her terrified mind had implored some god, her own face pale as the death which threatened her daughter. Tessa had taken a fever several weeks after Robby Atherton had gone. The heat of it had burned her flesh away like the tallow of a candle and Jenny had despaired for the child no longer cared to live, it seemed. But she was strong and she had recovered to make the lives of those around her more miserable than they cared to contemplate.
‘Let me get up, Mother. I cannot stay here with nothing to do but think.’
‘Be patient, Tessa.’
‘Let me at least walk out to the stables and see my mare.’ This, when she could barely sit up.
‘Be patient, child.’ Her mother’s reply was laughable really, if it had not been so sad.
But she wouldn’t be told. She fought them all violently, hurting herself, breaking everything she could lay her hands on as she threw exquisitely fine figurines at those who tried to stop her. Emma had the feeling in the back of her mind that it was not all to do with the fever which for weeks had brought her so low; this was a weakness not just of the body, but of the heart, or Emma missed her guess. They’d all seen, or been told of, the handsome young gentleman who had come a’calling and Miss Tessa’s happiness had shone through the house, affecting them all for, really, it was true what they said about ‘laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone’. They’d heard her laughing and singing for days on end before he’d called on Mrs Harrison. Then all of a sudden he’d gone tearing down the drive on Mr Greenwood’s horse, sent off with a flea in his ear, though God only knew why, a fine, well set-up gentleman like him, and she’d gone off her head because of it, if you wanted Emma’s opinion. It was a mystery, it really was, and Emma almost broke her heart over the state of her since.
But her temper, unpredictable and dangerous, was back with a vengeance now as they all knew to their cost for they suffered it at close quarters.
‘She threw the teapot at me, Mrs Shepherd,’ Emma sobbed. She had thought Miss Tessa to be a hellion before her illness but it was as though those days had been all sweetness and light compared to now. ‘If the tea had run on me I would have been scalded. As it was a bit of broken china hit me on the hand, see, just there.’ She pointed to where a trickle of blood ran. ‘If it goes on much longer I’m giving in my notice . . .’ This was a drastic thing to contemplate in the climate of unemployment which prevailed in the valley.
‘Now, Emma, don’t be daft, lass,’ Mrs Shepherd said sharply.
That was how their young mistress was now. Tormented, that was the word which came to Emma’s mind, one minute and then the next staring vacantly at nowt, not even answering when she was spoken to. Aye, had they not all suffered in one way or another at the hands of the three wild youngsters who had dominated this household in the past? Though they were sorry for the plight of the poor lass since she’d been so badly, the girl could be a danger, now that her mother had returned to the mill, a danger not only to herself but to the servants who had been left to look after her.
‘I don’t care what you say, Mrs Shepherd, if she don’t get out soon God knows what she’ll do. She’s as wild as an animal in a cage at times.’
Emma had been to the Zoological Gardens at Liverpool once when her family had stopped there for a while on their way from Ireland and the famine which continually seemed to rage there, before moving on to Crossfold. The restless padding and infuriated snarls of some beasts, the listless apathy of others had made a great impression on her and had lingered in her young mind. Miss Tessa reminded her of them. Not the padding, of course, since she could do no more than stand weakly by her chair as yet, but the snarling, the wildness, the sudden, depthless silence were enough to make your blood run cold.
And Miss Laurel did her best, poor thing, and her with another little one to see to.
‘I do wish you would stay in bed, Tessa. Don’t you think it would be wiser to rest instead of . . .’
‘Taking up everyone’s time and energy with my constant demands? It would be so much simpler if I were to remain here, mim as a mouse, hidden away and a nuisance to no one, wouldn’t it? It must be so peaceful at table now without Drew and Pearce and myself to . . .’
‘That is not what I meant. In my opinion, this determinat
ion of yours to leap out of bed so soon after what has been a very serious illness . . .’
‘Leap? If only I could! Why am I so weak?’
‘It cannot be good for you, all this anxiety to be on your feet. Why don’t you stay in bed and I will fetch you a book from the library?’
‘A book! Dammit, Laurel, I don’t want a book. I want some excitement, some noise, something going on. Why don’t you send the children down to see me?’
‘They would jump all over you, darling.’
‘I don’t care. I want them to.’
‘Now, Tessa, you know what the doctor said. Besides, Robert and Jane are at their lessons and Nanny would not like it if I woke Henry and Anne from their nap. And baby is too young . . .’
‘Laurel . . . please . . .’
‘Just rest, Tessa.’
‘I don’t want to rest!’
It was March before she was completely recovered, nine long months before she was able at last to walk with her usual proud carriage and not just the lurching stagger from one piece of furniture to the next, with Emma and Dorcas hovering at each elbow. At last she could pass out of the bedroom which had been her prison for so long; away from the cosy, fire-warmed comfort, the feather quilts and lace-edged pillows, the soft carpets and soft voices, away from safety and into the wide hallway towards the stairs.
‘Let me do it alone,’ she begged Charlie who would have held her arm.
Down the shallow steps of the stairs, one by one, she went, her hand refusing the banister, her legs like jelly but her face hard and determined in her triumph. She wore a pretty gown of scarlet delaine, the colour giving her a bold and gypsy look which belied her fragility. It had been made to fit her new slenderness and the bodice clung to her small breasts. The skirt was full and plain with fifteen feet of fabric round the hem. And beneath it were half a dozen fine cambric petticoats, each flounce edged in white French lace. Fastening back her flowing hair was a scarlet ribbon.
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