Song of Songs

by Beverley Hughesdon

  He repeated his question, ‘Are you all right – Helena?’ And the slight hesitation before he used my name, shorn of its customary title, broke through the last barrier. I shook my head and let my face crumple before him. He came forward and took my arm, and his voice was gentle in my ear. ‘Does it hurt, lass?’ I nodded dumbly, not knowing or caring whether he referred to the soreness of my body or that of my spirit, and began to shiver. He guided me up into the small park behind the green dome and found an empty bench, and I sank down on to it, and he sat beside me, holding my hand in his until my shaking stopped. When I was still he said, ‘You need a nice hot cup of tea. Come on, now.’

  I stood up, but as he drew my hand inside his arm and steered me down the street I sensed again his confidence, the taking possession – and, helplessly, I yielded to him.

  Chapter Eleven

  I sat sipping strong hot tea in Bert’s, and watched Ben eat three toasted teacakes, one after the other. He had ordered one for me, but I could not face it, so he munched through that as well. When he had finished he sat back and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, then said to me, ‘Look lass, I’ve got a steady job with good prospects, I’m a passed fireman already – shouldn’t be long afore I’m driving reg’lar. And I’ve got a fair bit put by, so I can keep a wife and family. I know you’ve got nowt of your own, but that’s all right by me – any wife of mine – I wouldn’t expect her to bring owt.’ I knew this was the time I should tell him about Robbie’s will, but it seemed to be too much of an effort even to speak, so I simply listened. ‘Now we’d best be getting to see parson. I’m chapel meself but I know you’ll not be, so we’ll get banns read proper.’

  In a daze I accompanied him to the vicarage. Even the vicar’s obvious surprise as he took my details barely registered in my numbed mind. Then somehow we were back at the station I did not know how we had arrived there. At the booking office I realized that he was offering to come back with me to Hatton there and then – ‘to face music’. I shuddered and refused him vehemently.

  ‘If you’re sure, lass.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m quite sure.’

  He began to steer me up the ramp. ‘Train’s due shortly, we’d best get you up there ready.’ Up on the platform he led me down to the end of it, so that we stood a little apart from the other passengers. ‘Now you see about banns as soon as you get back – tonight it’ll have to be, as they’re being called here tomorrow for first time. Go this evening, then we can fix wedding for two weeks on Monday.’ Two weeks! Panic took hold of me and I protested, ‘But, Ben – I shall have to tell my parents first – I’m not sure if I’ll be able to arrange for tomorrow…’

  He pursed his lips, then agreed. ‘Aye, I suppose it does look a bit of a rush like – an’ I’ll have to find house, too. We’ll say three weeks on Monday, then – but no later. I’ll have to ask shedmaster for day off but I reckon he’ll let me have it – after all, you only get married once.’ He laughed, then raised his voice as the train came rumbling into the station. ‘I’ll write, lass – let you know when I can come and see your father like –’

  I broke in desperately, ‘Not too soon, Ben – let them get used to the idea.’

  He frowned. ‘I don’t want them thinking there’s any doubt of me doing me duty by you.’

  ‘No, Ben, I’m sure they won’t – but please, not too soon.’

  ‘I’ll give it a week or two then – see how me shifts fall.’ He pushed me towards the waiting train – I turned automatically from the third-class compartment he was heading for. ‘Aye, of course.’ He flushed. ‘Here, wait a minute.’ He pulled me back from the step, took a firm grip of my arms and kissed me, full on the mouth. As soon as he released me I swung round and jumped up into the compartment: he slammed the door shut behind me and I heard the guard’s whistle blow. ‘Look after yourself, lass.’ His hand was raised in farewell as the train began to pull out.

  We stopped once, and then we ran into the tunnel. The tunnel! It was all I could do to prevent myself bursting into hysterical laughter as we rattled under the hill. Then I began to tremble as I remembered my foolish, pitiful little charade of the morning – I had shed my skin, left it casually on the other side of this tunnel, to be picked up as I came back again, once the afternoon was over. But this afternoon would never be over now – I was trapped in it. I had pretended too well: since I had behaved like a mill girl going to her lover, and, like a mill girl, I had let him take me in a squalid, casual coupling on the floor of an abandoned quarry – and now I must play that role for ever.

  I felt a surge of bitter hatred towards the man who had done this to me – unthinking, arrogant man, he could not be entered and filled – it was I, the woman, who was weak and vulnerable before his manhood. And then I was ashamed, I knew the blame was mine: I had teased him and led him on, and at the last my very underwear had flaunted an invitation. It was I who had offered myself to him – I had not realized what I was doing, but I had done it. He had used me, but he had used me in the belief that I had wanted him – and I had wanted him, then, and so my reckless body had trapped me. But then I thought in despair, what does it matter, now? What has anything mattered since Robbie’s death? Hatton had become a prison to me – Ainsclough would be a prison too, but a different prison, at least. I huddled into the corner, my mind numbed and uncaring.

  The train filled up as we ran down the valley. A young woman sat down opposite me at Bolton. She wore a pretty hat, but as she eased herself back into the seat I saw the swollen belly below the high waist of her frock. I tried not to stare at her but my eyes kept returning to that swelling curve under her full breasts. In a few months I too would be misshapen like her – rubbing my back and surreptitiously easing my swollen feet out of shoes that had become too tight. Ben Holden had said only – ‘There’ll likely be fruit’ – but I felt a dull certainty that there would be – he had covered me as vigorously and effectively as a stallion covers a mare, and now I carried his seed in my womb.

  As the train slowed for Hareford I began to shake. Barnes was waiting for me with the motor – incredibly I had caught the very train I had planned to catch, long ago this morning. But I shrank from returning to Hatton – and facing my mother – and suddenly I knew what I would do. As the car drew out of the station I picked up the speaking tube. ‘Barnes, I want a word with Mr Staines, at Lostherne – and would you drive round by the road, please, not through the park.’

  ‘Certainly, my lady.’ His voice was incurious. I huddled back into the seat. Old Mr Wilkins would have questioned me – wanted to know more, voiced his concern - but the new man only fluttered his hands before reaching for his pen. When he had written down what was necessary he asked, ‘What day are you planning the wedding, my lady?’ I told him and he admitted he was free. ‘Does Lord Pickering…?’

  I said tightly, ‘I am over age, Mr Staines.’ And he subsided, pink-cheeked.

  As the motor stopped outside the front entrance I glanced quickly at my watch and saw that it would soon be time for the dressing bell. I knew I must tell Mother now, or I would never be able to bring myself to do it.

  She was in her sitting room alone, writing letters. ‘Yes, Helena, what is it?’

  I said flatly, ‘I’m going to be married, to Ben Holden – Sergeant Holden.’

  She put her pen down very slowly. ‘Have you gone mad?’

  ‘The banns are being read tomorrow.’

  Her dark eyes glittered dangerously as they swept over me, in a long comprehensive examination, then she hissed, ‘You little slut!’ I tried to keep my head up as she repeated, ‘You – little – slut!’ Then she took a deep breath, snapped her address book shut and said briskly, ‘How many months have you missed?’

  I stared at her blankly, and then at last I stammered, ‘None – I – it was only this afternoon.’ I hung my head.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Helena – and you’ve agreed to marry him!’ Her voice almost screeched. ‘You little fool – you might be luck
y. Though God knows, men of that class are like bulls – they quicken every cow they mount.’ I was shaking now but her voice went ruthlessly on, ‘But still, even if the worst has happened, there are ways. Maud told me of somebody – he dealt with the Derlinger girl after… I’ll take you down to London tomorrow – I’ll have to put off my guests…’

  ‘No, Mother, even if – I couldn’t bear to do that – besides, Ben Holden has offered to marry me.’

  She said crisply. ‘No doubt – a meal ticket for life must be very attractive – and if you told him of Robbie’s will too…’

  ‘No, no – he isn’t expecting anything, he said –’ I stumbled before I went on, ‘He told me he could support me…’

  She was pacing up and down the room now; she turned an angry face in my direction. ‘Support you! In a filthy back street with a pack of squalling brats at your feet and him filling your belly with another every year – my daughter! He should be put in jail for doing this – I’ll see he’s punished!’

  I forced myself to confess. ‘It wasn’t his fault, Mother – I – the blame was mine.’

  She stopped in her steady pacing and turned to look speculatively at me. Then she spoke very coldly. ‘Yes, no doubt it was – I should have read the signs. And I haven’t forgotten that evening in the maze, when you were still in the schoolroom. So, Helena, you went to this man like a bitch on heat – and he served you.’ There was a gasp from the door – neither of us had heard Letty slip in. Now she came forward. ‘Hellie – whatever have you been doing?’

  My mother spat the answer: ‘Your sister – your sister – has opened her legs to Sergeant Holden – and with typical lower-class morality he’s offered to make an honest woman of her.’

  Letty said, ‘Oh.’ She looked at me with interest and asked, ‘Are you expecting a child, Hellie?’

  Mother broke in, ‘She hasn’t even bothered to wait and find out.’ She turned back to me: ‘Helena, why on earth did you say you’d marry him when it was only the one time?’ As my eyes fell I saw she had read the message of my burning cheeks. She drew a deep breath. ‘Oh, what a slut you are, what a slut.’ She flung herself through the door.

  Letty sat down in her chair. ‘Well, Helena, you do surprise me sometimes.’ She leant forward, her face eager. ‘But Hellie, you must tell me – Dora swore she would when she got back from her honeymoon, but the little rat went all coy – what was it like, Helena?’

  I looked at her in bewilderment. ‘What was what like?’

  ‘Doing it – what Ben Holden did to you – what was it like? I thought it was supposed to hurt the first time, but if you went and did it again, the same afternoon…’ I ran to the door and slammed it hard behind me. But I knew I had to face them again at dinner, and I saw by Papa’s appalled expression that Mother had told him. I tried to swallow a spoonful of soup but it nearly choked me, and after that I gave up any pretence of eating as the meal dragged on. When at last the servants left us Mother glared at Papa until he cleared his throat and began, ‘Helena, your mother tells me –’

  He stopped, and in the silence I whispered, ‘I’m going to marry Sergeant Holden.’

  Papa spoke again: ‘Look, if there’s any question of blackmail –’

  I only shook my head and it was left to Letty to spring angrily to Ben’s defence. ‘Papa! How could you even suggest that? You’re talking about a man who risked his own life to bring Eddie in – surely as a family we owe him better than this?’

  There was a silence, then Papa looked across at Mother. ‘Letty’s right – we do owe a debt of gratitude to this man. If Helena is determined to marry him we must put the best possible face on it and go ahead.’ Mother asked sharply, ‘Is the chapel in the house licensed for weddings? We could hold the ceremony there and nobody need know beyond the immediate family.’

  Papa said, ‘No, Ria, no.’ My mother looked at him, startled. He went on, ‘You’re talking of our daughter’s wedding, and besides, Holden is a brave man, and we have no reason to suppose he’s not an honourable one – indeed, from what you told me before dinner, he is.’ His face reddened. ‘So we will not have a hole-in-corner affair – there’s no use crying over spilt milk, we’ll put a decent face on it – it’ll be the church at Lostherne and that’s final.’

  Mother looked back, her eyes blazing. ‘Very well, Victor, if you insist. Then I shall send out invitations to all our friends and acquaintances – and the whole county besides. No doubt they’ll be delighted at the opportunity to come and gawp but “we’ll put a decent face on it”,’ she mimicked him derisively. They looked at each other until my father’s eyes dropped. ‘If that’s how you want it to be, Ria.’

  ‘Yes – that is how I want it to be – after all, “there’s no use crying over spilt milk”, as you so wittily put it. And let’s look on the bright side – after what’s happened today it’ll be as well to get Helena married off quickly – we don’t want all the grooms and gardeners trampling mud into the carpet on their way up to her bedroom!’

  There was an appalled silence which stretched on and on. Even Letty was speechless. I looked at my mother with hatred in my eyes until at last, slowly, I spoke. ‘But of course, Sir Ernest was a gentleman – he always wiped his boots.’

  Mother stood up and leant right across the table, and I felt the stinging pain on my cheekbone as she slapped me, hard. Then her other hand threw her napkin down on the table and she stalked to the door. After a moment my father scraped back his chair and followed her out.

  Letty’s eyes were bright with excitement as she leant towards me. ‘So it is true, Hellie – worms do turn at the last.’ She threw back her head and laughed. I jumped up and ran from the room and along the passageway and just managed to get into the closet before I was violently sick.

  I had to haul myself upstairs by the bannister, and as I half-fell through the door into my bedroom the curtains billowed and by a trick of the light Gerald’s eyes in the photograph on my dressing table seemed to come alive – and to stare accusingly at me. How could I have betrayed him so? Gerald – so noble, so fastidious – I had thought I had lost him before, but now I knew he had really gone from me. I picked up his photograph and turned it face down, opened a drawer and pushed it inside. Then I thrust the drawer to, ran to my bed and threw myself on it in a storm of weeping.

  I fell asleep at last, and dreamt I saw Gerald, striding tall and strong along Jermyn Street, swinging his silver-headed cane in his hand. I ran to him, calling his name, and he turned and looked at me – but in his eyes was an expression of such disdain that I stopped and fell back, and as I did so I glanced down and saw that I was wearing the tawdry finery of a woman of the streets, and felt my cheeks taut with the paint that was caked on them. I backed away from him in shame, and he swung round and strode on until he turned the corner – and was gone. I woke with the tears streaming down my face and did not sleep again.

  I stayed in my room the next morning until it was time to go to church, then I put on my hat and coat and went straight down. Letty came running out to the motor. ‘I’ll come with you, Helena – Mother’s still sulking and Papa’s gone into hiding in the library.’ My face was hot and ashamed, but my sister did not seem to notice.

  The second lesson was read and then, there in the grey stone church of my childhood, the rector intoned: ‘I publish the Banns of Marriage between Helena Alexandra Feodorovna Girvan, of this parish, and Benjamin Holden of the parish of St Matthew, Ainsclough –’ I heard the little gasp from the servants’ pew at the back, and my face flamed again under my veil. As we came out Letty said casually, ‘Well, that’ll have given them something to talk about in Hall tonight!’ I could not reply.

  My parents barely spoke at luncheon, and I was silent. Afterwards I went to the library and hid in a corner with a book, but I did not read it. My head began to ache and I went upstairs and lay on my bed. I did not go down to dinner.

  Next morning only Letty and Papa were in the breakfast room. There was a letter b
y my plate and I recognized Ben’s even writing on the envelope – and shrank from picking it up. I looked across the table and saw that my father was reading a letter in the same hand; I watched him until he put it down. Then his glance flickered in my direction and he said, ‘Holden has written a very fair letter, very fair under the circumstances. I must confess I’m surprised – he writes like a man of education.’

  Letty exclaimed, ‘What a triumph for the council schools! Don’t be so patronizing, Papa.’

  Papa floundered, ‘I didn’t mean – that is, for a man of his class…’ His voice trailed off miserably and I felt a twinge of sympathy for my bewildered father.

  I said tiredly, ‘I believe he reads widely.’

  Papa’s face lightened a fraction. ‘Then it should be possible to find him a better type of job – the Ship Canal Company always have openings for clerks, and with his war record…’ I listened to his plans dully; this morning I did not care what Ben did for a living – he was simply the man with whose body I had so carelessly betrayed Gerald. And soon my own body would change and swell, and I would carry an ever-present reminder of my treachery in my belly. I crumpled up my napkin and hurried out of the room.

  Letty overtook me in the hall. ‘You left your letter in the breakfast room, Helena.’ Her sharp tone rebuked me, and I supposed I deserved it.

  I went through into the deserted library and forced myself to tear open the envelope. He wrote about his visit: he had two weeks of daytime shifts, and had promised to work this Sunday, but he would definitely be free to come to Hatton the Sunday after. In the meantime he was looking for a house, and he would also be visiting his sisters – so would I send him a photograph to show them? I got up and went to the albums on the bottom shelf. I began to turn over the leaves but the pictures of my laughing brothers caught at my throat, and as the tears threatened I seized one at random and pulled it out. It had been taken before the war and my face looked very young and hopeful under a ridiculous flowered hat – there was a feather boa round my neck – but when I looked closer I saw the faint droop of my lips, as if I had had some presentiment of what was to come. I looked up at the mirror over the side table and now my hollowed cheeks looked too thin for my full, singer’s mouth – but then I was not a singer any longer.