The Clouded Hills

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘It seems to me quite pointless,’ she said with true Barforth logic, to allow these fine points of religion to run an entire career. ‘I am convinced our Lord never intended it for if one fails to help oneself when the opportunity arises I do not think one should expect anyone else to make up the deficiency. I have explained to Mr Agbrigg – who has very simple views on religion and is far more humble with the clergy than he has any need to be nowadays considering what he is earning – that he has no need to attend the Anglican church himself, simply to allow Jonas to do so. I have offered to take him with me to Patterswick, provided I may continue to use your carriage, which should cause you no inconvenience since you have the use of Joel’s on Sundays, and Mr Ashley will, of course, be only too pleased to receive him as soon as I have convinced the father.’

  And so, until Jonas’s confirmation had taken place, or until another enthusiasm came along, Mr Ashley had little to fear.

  ‘Oh, I fancy she will be moving up here with us,’ I told my mother, and she gave me her vague, pointed smile.

  Yes, I fancy you are right – in fact, I imagine we will all stay very much as we are. Only look at Elinor – skipping along beside Mr Adair and allowing him to believe she is laughing at his witticisms although, in fact, she is merely thinking that she is looking her, best today and is not listening to him at all. Poor child, her husband will not die so very soon, you know, for these melancholy men who find life such a burden can be relied on to live forever. Only think what an attractive widow she would make – I am certain Mr Adair has thought of it – with her own enchanting face and figure and all Mr Aycliffe’s money, since one supposes he has disinherited his son, and Elinor’s children are all girls. A temptation for any man, and Mr Adair appears very ready to be tempted. Well – I am sure he can be very rough when he is not being very charming, and once he got his hands on Elinor and the business he ‘would probably cheat her daughters of their dowries and would take no notice at all of Elinor’s headaches. But, at least, he would not be melancholy, so perhaps there would be no headaches – perhaps we should see her blossom again as Mrs Adair. How sad – for she will be Mrs Aycliffe, I think, not perhaps until her dying day but until it is too late for blossoming. Poor lamb, perhaps she would do better to concentrate on being Mrs Aycliffe, since it is so clearly her destiny – and stop trying to share it with her sister – since I can see nothing else for her.’

  As we got back into our carriages and Mr Adair waved us a hearty goodbye, I wondered, all the way to Patterswick, I how much my mother knew – or guessed – for the advice she had thought appropriate for Elinor could just as well have applied to me.

  There was very little to distinguish Squire Dalby’s village of Patterswick from a dozen like it, a cluster of grey stone cottages housing his dependants, the paler grey of the church, a few farms squatting among the folds of the land, my mother’s house with its ivy-covered wall, its garden mossy and overgrown, its low, oak-panelled rooms dim and cool at all seasons, haunted by a scent of hyacinths that had lingered from generation to generation, the squire’s own ancient dwelling just a leafy, shady walk away.

  And there, in my mother’s flowery, chintzy parlour, an apple-cheeked country girl served us tea, with a silver kettle and basin, on rose-patterned china, and chocolated cake and angel cakes and sticky gingerbread, to which Blaize and Nicholas and Caroline helped themselves raucously, the plates emptying before Jonas Agbrigg’s lashless eyes until Hannah delivered her sharp protest and my mother sent the girl for more.

  But Jonas, it seemed, had no appetite; he was also embarrassed by the confectionery Hannah heaped on plate and was sitting so awkwardly that Blaize, quick to spot his opportunities, needed only to jog his elbow slightly to send that plate flying, the chocolate cake landing squarely, creamy side down, on my mother’s pale, decidedly costly rug.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘What a pity. Do have another slice.’

  But Hannah, who had seen Blaize’s wicked elbow, well as I had, put her own plate down smartly and enquired in a voice not to be ignored, ‘Verity, do you intend to let that pass?’

  ‘What, dear?’

  ‘I think you know very well.’

  And when, unwilling to make more of the incident than I had to, I continued to look vague and to sip my tea, she turned furiously, very directly, to the culprit himself.

  ‘That was an extremely wicked thing to do, young man. You have damaged your grandmother’s carpet and upset a fellow guest.’

  ‘Not me,’ Blaize answered innocently, rudely. ‘I didn’t drop my cake. It was him.’

  ‘Because you pushed him.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Blaize told her.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Nicholas told her too, his eyes less innocent, the set of his jaw declaring his readiness to do some pushing on his own account.

  ‘He didn’t, either,’ Caroline said, quite certain that her opinion must settle things once and for all.

  And, finding the whole thing ridiculous and futile, taking note of Hannah’s mounting fury and Elinor’s barely stifled yawn, I got up and shooed my sons outdoors.

  ‘You did push him, didn’t you?’ I told Blaize, blinking at the impact of the strong sunlight. And, blinking too, he smiled, his eyes very nearly on a level with my own.

  ‘Oh yes, of course I did. I know you saw me, and I knew you wouldn’t give me away to Aunt Hannah.’

  ‘Indeed – well, it wasn’t kind of you, Blaize. He may not lie a likeable boy, but he’s had a sad life, and apart from that as your Aunt Hannah told you, he is a guest.’

  ‘I didn’t invite him.’

  ‘That makes no difference. Neither did I.’

  ‘And you don’t much like him either, Mamma. I know you don’t. And even if you did, you’d still be on my side.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure.’

  Yet it was true and, as his easy self-assurance inclined me, as always, to laughter, I felt a chill whisper of warning inside me, repeating Crispin’s words, ‘I am honest enough to care that our love could harm them.’ And sickeningly aware that it was true, I peered keenly at Blaize, his smoky eyes inviting me to share his mischief, and at Nicholas, standing on my other side, darker, deeper, his feeling for me more intense, perhaps, than his brother’s, and I knew that no part of my love for them, or for Caroline, had changed. I would love them every day of my life. And I wished them to be free and whole and individual. But would they, even when they no longer needed or desired, my day-to-day caring, extend the same understanding to me? Could they ever accept that my love for a man who was not their father removed nothing from my feeling for them?

  Blaize perhaps, who would be worldly, I thought, when he was grown, might come the closest. But Nicholas, insecure enough to be jealous, would suffer, would clench his fists and bite back his tears, and I could not be sure what Caroline would make of me.

  ‘I am base enough to know I would not sacrifice it,’ Crispin had said, and I could not sacrifice it either.

  ‘Where have you gone, Mamma?’ Blaize said, cutting through my reverie.

  And smiling, flinging an arm around each of them, I answered, ‘Oh, not far.’

  We were to visit the squire after tea, and because an invitation to Dalby Hall was such a rarity, even Elinor found the energy for a brisk walk to the lodge gates, with my children, having been reprimanded once again by Hannah, racing around her, while Hannah herself, taking the sullen young Agbrigg with her, went off in search of her fiance.

  ‘Come, dear,’ my mother said, clearly not wishing to be alone with me. ‘We should go up to the Hall, too. The squire has company already – his grandson and his daughter-in-law, who always upsets him – and since he has nothing to do in the summer, when there is no hunting and shooting, he spends a great deal of his time drinking and he may not even recognize Elinor so late in the afternoon. I think I may be needed to make things smooth.’

  But I had come expressly to talk to her, as she seemed to know very well, and I shook my head.<
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  ‘Elinor will manage the squire well enough, Mother, and there is something I wish to tell you.’

  ‘Are you quite sure, dear,’ she said, looking round for her embroidery in her old, vague manner. ‘Quite sure? Things tend to become so real, I find, when one talks about them. Perhaps if you just think about it a little longer – whatever it is – it may become less urgent—’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Then after tea, dear – when the squire is settled and Elinor can occupy herself flirting with his guests, and the children can play with the puppies, if young Master Agbrigg ever condescends to play – or if he is even a child – Did I tell you about the puppies, ten of them – five black and five yellow? I wondered, in fact, if you would care to choose one to replace your poor old bitch – Edwin’s old yellow bitch—?’

  ‘Mother …’

  ‘Be very sure, Verity.’

  ‘Yes. I am in love with Crispin Aycliffe, Mother, and he with me.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, executing several quick, apparently accurate stitches in the cushion cover she was making. ‘Oh dear.’

  And then, laying down her work, folding her hands, she gave me her tranquil faraway smile and moved her shoulders in the faintest sketch of a shrug.

  ‘That strikes me as most unfortunate. Yes, I caught a spark of something between you a long time ago, I confess it, and when I heard that he had rescued you last night so romantically, I wondered… But, Verity, why have you told me this? Surely, I ought not to have been told?’

  ‘Because I need you, Mother. It did not end last night, and I may need an alibi, a meeting place, and, in the final instance, a refuge. I think you owe me that, Mother.’

  ‘Owe you?’

  ‘Yes, since you persuaded me, when I was very weak, into a marriage which suited your convenience more than mine. If you had allowed me time to recover from my father’s death and Edwin’s, I might have remembered the kind of man Joel is, and shown more defiance.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, taking up her work again. ‘No, no, Verity. Let us remember things as they actually were. If I had allowed you the time you speak of you might had defied me – which I doubt – but you would not have defied your grandfather for long. You know that perfectly well, child.’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘And have you been so very unhappy with Joel?’

  ‘No. Neither happy nor unhappy – just sensible.’

  ‘Quite so – whereas Crispin Aycliffe has not been sensible at all. Apart from the fact that he threw away his inheritance in a most reckless manner – you may or may not know that he is considerably in debt to Colonel Corey and to others, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, I know that.’

  ‘Then what future does he offer you?’

  ‘None. He has chosen his own way of life, and I know I cannot share it.’

  ‘But do you at least hope for a change – do you feel able to persuade him into more profitable attitudes?’

  ‘No – at least, I hope he will change but I am sure he will not.’

  ‘Then why, darling? Why take this dreadful risk at all?’

  ‘Because I want something, Mother – something in life before I’m old – something of my own choosing something I want, not something somebody else thinks I should have. And he’s all I’ve ever wanted. Wanting; nothing was pleasant in its way, very safe and warm and rather superior at times, but I can’t go back to it now. I’ve lived on half feelings and lived very well, but it was a kind of emotional virginity, and like the other kind, once it’s gone then that’s the end of it.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, very gravely for her, and, sighing deeply, looked down at her hands.

  ‘Verity, my dear, I suppose you realize that Joel would never – absolutely never – be prepared to allow you the freedom he permits himself.’

  ‘Yes, I realize that.’

  ‘Nor would his own moral shortcomings even incline him to tolerance. Dearest, I believe he would treat you most savagely and vindictively should the occasion arise. And the sad thing is that no one would blame him. The law would allow him to do just what he pleased with you, and all your friends, even the women – especially the women – would declare it no more than you deserved. It is not precisely a stoning to death these days for an adulteress, but something very like it. And his own adulteries, which appear to have been many and various, would win you no sympathy. You would simply be told that it is different for men. Dearest, I believe he is fond of you, in his way, and that would only make him worse.’

  ‘Well – and I believe I am fond of him too.’

  ‘And just as determined, I see, as the rest of them – the Barforths.’

  ‘I fear so. I have grown up, Mother. You cannot manage me any longer by drifting away into your embroidery, for I will follow you and involve you – for, as I have said, you owe me this.’

  She got up, still light in her movements but very slow; crossing to her window, sheltered by its tiny, diamond-shaped panes and its widely frilled chintz curtains, she looked out a moment at the sunshine, not to warm herself, I think, but to check her security.

  ‘They are right,’ she murmured, the ones who say it is different for men, for they designed the world by themselves, for themselves, and although you and I can we imagine what it is like to be a man – an individual who claims the right to work and speak for himself and what does not bear children – I doubt if there is one among them who knows how it feels to be a woman. They make me smile, these radicals like Mark Corey and your Mr Crispin Aycliffe, when they talk of freedom, for what do they know about it when they cannot even imagine servitude from which there is no escape. A man who is thrown into prison knows his cell has a door, and a man imprisoned by poverty can strive and hope for better days. But we are born slaves to our own fertility, and how does one escape from that, especially since nature has bound us further by equipping us with emotions, so that we generally love the children we bear? I have had eight children, Verity, a task which has eaten away seventeen years of my life, years of great weariness and some pain, when I simply functioned at the level of any other breeding, nursing animal and had no time to ponder on my humanity or my intellect, no time at all for what men call the finer things of life. Wasted years, I might add, since you are the only one left alive. That is the full tale of my life, Verity. I have had eight children, some half dozen miscarriages, and I can do fancy needlework. You may engrave that on my tombstone when the time comes, for there is no more.

  ‘Clever women are not happy women in our society, my dear, you must know that, for although men may greatly desire us, they do not, in general, like us. And if some totally effective means of avoiding pregnancy should ever be found, many men would rise up against it in horror and call it sin, simply from the fear of setting us free. Keep her pregnant and you’ll keep her out of mischief they say, and what they really mean by mischief is not infidelity but independence, their own unwillingness to lose us as domestic servants and to compete with us in other fields of endeavour. You were always far more intelligent than your brother Edwin. I believe your cousin Hannah could manage Lawcroft Mills every bit as efficiently as Joel. But if you were given the opportunity of real work, real responsibility, would you be willing to devote so much time to the niceties of your husband’s dinner or his shirt frill? Would Hannah be so tireless in her arrangement of the altar flowers, or so happy to compose Morgan Aycliffe’s speeches and allow him to pass them off as his own? Naturally not. It takes a very clever man, Verity, to accept intelligence in a woman – a very clever man, indeed, to value it. Mediocre men will always feel threatened by it, will need to console themselves by clinging to their man-made myth that woman is no more than a kind of high-grade cow. And, since the majority of men – and women – seem to be quite mediocre, they will keep you down. And, if you deviate from their rules – my dear, they will slaughter you.’

  ‘Yes, Mother. But I have no skill for fine needlework, you see. And I am not totally lost to r
eason. I will obey the rules. I will be deceitful and cunning, and I will tell lies to my husband very cheerfully, as he tells lies to me. And he will believe me because it suits him to believe me. There is no question of elopement or open scandal, Mother. I am not a romantic girl. I could, perhaps, persuade Crispin to give up his social ideals and come away with me – for Joel would not actually murder me, and although he would be unpleasant, it would in no way break his heart. And if I refused to come back to him and went on refusing long enough I think he would let me go, for his vanity would not allow him to live with an unwilling woman. I would be poor, of course, but reasonably secure, for Crispin would never desert me, even if he wanted to. And when he began to blame me for forcing him into a mould he did not like, we would still be polite to each other – bored, perhaps, and sad, but polite. And I will not do that to him. I know how fragile love is, Mother. It is not likely to last long in this harsh climate. And when it is done I shall not ask you to help me again.’

  The afternoon, outside her window, had deepened from, dancing noontime gold to a rich, quiet amber, draping itself warmly around her apple trees, wrapping the sleepy, nodding heads of her lupins, the musky, full-blown faces of her roses, in a gentle haze, encircling the whole house and garden with fragrance and serenity. And I knew she would not refuse me.

  ‘Well then, since I cannot dissuade you, and you seem to know your peril, what must be done?’

  ‘I wish simply to know that I may rely on you at need – although you once told me that you were not reliable.’

  ‘Ah yes. But I was weaker then. Your grandfather was still alive, and although I never vanquished him, no one else has seemed so very terrible to me since he has gone, I tremble for you, Verity. You see yourself clearly now, and, Crispin, but afterwards he will go on his way – merrily or sadly – but he will go free, and you – You say love is fragile and I hope you may be right, for how could you ever bear it if it should last?’