‘Well, that must have been a great nuisance for you, but you can’t wear that coat much longer because it will soon fall apart. Crispin – you wouldn’t…?’
‘No,’ he said, very decisively for him. ‘Darling, the amount of pin money you receive, may be magnificent – in fact, I’m sure it is – so magnificent that you simply don’t know what to do with it, and I’d be doing you a service if I took some of it off your hands. But no, you must not give me things – really, you must not.’
‘What nonsense. If you were rich, you would give me presents, wouldn’t you?’
‘Certainly. I pass sleepless nights wrapping you in sables and diamonds and cloth of gold – which does nothing to help my insomnia, quite the reverse.’
‘And yet you will not allow me to buy you a simple coat?’
‘I will not.’
‘Is that logical?’
‘No. But is it logical for you to refuse to come to my lodgings? Verity, I shall wheedle and cajole, I warn you, and grow angry and shed a few tears, so you had better come now and save us both the trouble.’
And I could not tell him, for perhaps I did not know, that my hesitation was in part due to his bold, black-eyed, exceedingly common landlady, Mrs Dinah McCluskey who had told me, at our brief meeting, how much she valued his good opinion.
But in all other ways my life flowed on, that summer and autumn, with astonishing serenity. I supervised the affairs of my household; I engaged a governess, a music teacher, and a drawing master for Caroline and found Mrs Paget a place with Emma-Jane, who, with nine sons already and the likelihood of nine more, would need a nurse for many years yet. I spoke, sensibly I thought, to the headmaster, Mr Blamires, about the progress of Blaize – who did not appear to be progressing in any useful direction – and of stubborn, surly Nicholas. I spent lazy, gossiping afternoons with Mrs Stevens, lulled by the beckoning tones of her voice. I discussed pregnancy with Emma-Jane and the lack of it with Lucy Oldroyd, took tea with the Reverend Mr Brand and conveyed his messages to Hannah, leaving her in no doubt that she was sorely missed in Ramsden Street. I took my carriage exercise up and down the town and smiled warmly at Colonel Corey whenever he raised his hat to me. I gave dinners for Joel’s colleagues, friends, enemies, anyone he wished to use or make envious or impress. And when Squire Dalby came to tell me that he wished to marry my mother I gave my consent and was instructed by Joel – who could see the advantages of having the squire as a father-in-law – that I should do my utmost to persuade her.
Morgan Aycliffe came home in the autumn, thinner and greyer but wearing his new authority well, a sombre, deep-purple aura about him that, after six months at Westminster, spoke already of state secrets, the crushing burden of high office.
‘He should have been a Roman Catholic,’ my mother said, ‘for he would have made an excellent cardinal. One can imagine him, so sleek and sinister, flitting among secret passages with vital documents concealed in his sleeves and a great ruby ring with poison in it too, I shouldn’t wonder. Oh dear, perhaps it is just as well that cardinals are not allowed to have wives.’
And indeed, I could detect no signs of improvement in his relations with Elinor. He had acquired, certainly, something of the professional politician’s automatic charm of manner, enough at any rate to supply me and Emma-Jane and Lucy, the wives of his principal supporters, with such details of the London scene he thought would please us. We learned of the animosity between the King and the Duchess of Kent, mother of Princess Victoria, the royal heir, and her determination to act as Regent should he die before Victoria became eighteen. We learned of the savage disposition of the King’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland and how it would suit him if Victoria never reached eighteen, so that the young princess lived in constant fear of kidnap or murder or worse.
We learned, too, that the present government, which had given us the franchise, could see stormy waters ahead – very stormy – yet the exact details of tempest, flood, or act of God were not considered fit for ladies, could only upset us, and were reserved strictly for our husbands – who would be unlikely to tell us – and for Hannah, whose nervous system, while remaining ladylike, was evidently; considered by Morgan Aycliffe to be superior.
‘He can never marry her, you know,’ Elinor said one evening as we sat alone in the drawing room. And as her dainty, pointed face crinkled with smiles, these last few bleak years seemed to have been wiped away from her, and she was her old, irrepressible self again.
‘What a thing to say, Elinor, when he is married to you.’
‘But that is exactly why he can never marry her. A man cannot marry his wife’s sister, even after her death, which seems rather unfair since what difference can it make when one is under ground. But, at least, they have nothing gain by murdering me, have they?’
And although the trill of her laughter filled the room – adorned again, I noticed, by some of its more valuable objets d’art – I remembered my mother’s airy description of secret passages and poisoned rings, and I shivered. Not that I believed Morgan Aycliffe capable of putting down a stray dog with his own hands, much less murdering his wife, but that could make it no easier for Elinor – the pretty one, who had expected so much from life – to know that this old, grey man, having once lost his head on her account, considered her now simply a nuisance and a bore.
Yet, that night, it did not seem to trouble her greatly and, noting that she had the late Mrs Aycliffe’s pearls around her neck again and a new sapphire on her hand, a new sky-blue satin gown from Miss Boulton, an air of pert self-assurance, a certain awareness of her own worth that the Barforth side of me recognized and approved, I wondered if she had at last come to terms with her situation and herself and elected to make of it the best she could.
As to my relations with my own husband, I cannot think that he, at least, was aware of any change. He was extremely occupied that year, with his new mill, his new lightweight cloth, the branch line to Cullingford, which was soon, it seemed, to materialize and make him – the possessor of abundant railway shares – an even wealthier man. He was busy with engineers and architects, designers and craftsmen of all kinds, who swarmed thick as August flies at Tarn Edge. And when he was at home, he discussed footage, acreage, mileage, profit, and – since profit was happiness and he was determined to be happy – the necessity of making more.
I saw Rosamund Boulton too, often enough, at her shop, and judging by her forced smile and her strained, tight-lipped courtesies, I suspected that profit was all Joel cared to discuss with her these days too. And profit there certainly was, for Miss Boulton’s business was thriving, spilling over into the shop next door, where she had opened special departments for the sale of shoes and shawls and garments of a more discreet nature, direct – or so she said – from France. But affluence did not appear to suit her, for she was often ailing, prone to unexplained backaches and headaches and attacks of ill temper, relying more and more on her fresh-faced young assistants to spare her the necessity of making herself pleasant. And, although Estella Chase had gone to London in the spring and remained there long after her husband came North for the grouse,
Joel was himself in London two or three times that year, in Liverpool and Manchester more than he need have been, I thought, if railway business had been the only attraction, and, glimpsing Miss Boulton’s face in an unguarded moment, I concluded she knew rather more about that than I.
‘So your husband has gone away again,’ Elinor said to me one morning towards the end of the hot weather. ‘Well, mine will be off again before long, and I shall not grieve over it, for I find Mr Adair much easier to manage.’
And, patting her skirts and her ringlets, preening herself as she had done as a girl but with an allure now that belongs only to a woman, she put her head close to mine and murmured through a half sigh, half laugh, ‘While we are on the subject of Mr Adair – and naturally I would say this to no one else, Verity – I do believe the foolish man has taken it into his head to fall in love with me,
which is quite impertinent when one remembers that five or ten years ago he was nothing but a common bricklayer. Yes, only think – my husband left me in Mr Adair’s charge because I could not be trusted with the spending of my husband’s money, and now all I have to do is flutter my eyelids and sigh when the bills come in – which never succeeded at all with my husband – and Mr Adair has not a word to say. Not to me, at any rate, although certainly, explanations must have been made to my husband – and good ones too, since he has not reprimanded me either. And that, you know, is certain proof that Mr Adair is clever and cunning as well as most obliging. I must thank him – if I happen to remember it – when I see him again.’
‘Not too warmly, I hope.’
‘Good heavens, no, Verity, dear – a bricklayer? Hardly. But enough to put him firmly on my side, for there is something else … Oh well, I really shouldn’t tell you this, but since I am going to anyway I had better tell you now at once, and all that can happen to me is that I will have longer to feel guilty about it.’
‘Oh dear, Elinor—’
‘No, not yet. I have done nothing yet, but Mr Adair is not the only one who has been paying attention to me lately. It is Bradley – Bradley Hobhouse – and there is no need to stare, because you know very well he would far rather have married me in the first place, if his mamma had not made such a fuss about money. Well, he has been looking at me again – exactly as he used to – which is hardly surprising when one looks at Emma-Jane, who reminds me of nothing so much as a cottage loaf.’
‘Yes, so she does, but then Bradley is no feather either.’
‘I should say not,’ she said; chuckling quite greedily. ‘But he carries it well, Verity. He eats and drinks and sleeps, he’s fat and good-humoured and easy, he’s pleasant … Oh, don’t be alarmed, I’m not thinking of running away with him again. He can barely afford the family he has, much less take on a second, and poverty would suit neither one of us. It’s just that, on the days when he has been looking at me, I feel better than on the days when he hasn’t – unless Mr Adair has been looking, which, just now and again, rather makes me tingle inside and makes me wonder – oh, quite wicked things; It does me good, and that’s enough really – quite enough. For now, at any rate.’
Take care, I thought, yet I was not the one to speak to her of the sanctity of the marriage bed, to remind her of loyalty and true dealing, when I had seen precious little of either, when I was myself, in fact, entirely true to no one.
Life, it seemed, was movement, transition, and a time would unavoidably come when I would be forced to take a step backwards or forwards, to open a door, to say goodbye to Crispin or not say goodbye to him. And since I could not, at that moment, visualize, much less solve, the problems of out remaining together, I chose not to think of them at all. I would allow myself this season of good weather, this time of youth which, having eluded me at sixteen, had come to me now, ten years too late. And when the days cooled and clouded over, when the moor was wind-racked and rain-scoured with November – when winter deprived us of our hiding place –
then would be time enough for contemplation.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ann Agbrigg died that winter, an early casualty of the cold weather and her own careless wanderings, having too little interest in life, perhaps, to cling to it. She died in complete silence, a death merely of the body, the spirit having long since withered. And, standing at her graveside I understood her husband to be far beyond consolation.
‘Naturally, I went to them at once,’ Hannah told me and although Mr Agbrigg eventually arranged everything as I suggested, he was quite strange. She had been dead for some hours when I arrived and he was still sitting, her bedside, in the dark, and was, quite sharp with when I covered her face and sent him away. One cannot afford to brood, especially when there are children to be considered, and I must admit I was shocked to hear Mr Agbrigg say he would gladly give his children twice over to have his wife back again. Oh, I know people are apt to say wild things at such times, but Mr Agbrigg was quite calm, quite matter-of-fact about it, and, with everything considered, I cannot excuse his behaviour to Jonas. I have always known Mr Agbrigg to be a hard man, but to accuse Jonas of being glad of his mother’s death – relieved he said, because now she could embarrass him no longer in front of Mr Blamires, nor hold him back from his grand ambitions – well, I find that hard to forgive.’
‘But it’s true, Hannah – surely?’ I said, remember young Jonas Agbrigg’s careful, crafty eyes, and she shrugged, making an impatient movement with her hands.
‘Well, of course it’s true. She would have been an embarrassment and a hindrance to him. I know that and you know it, but Jonas, who has an excellent disposition, could have no such feelings about his own mother, and it was wrong of his father to suggest them to him. She was a hindrance to her husband, too, whether he likes to think so or not, for she had no notion as to the management of her household affairs, and if Joel means to make him manager at Lawcroft, as I believe he does, the poor woman would never have settled here. She would have gone wandering back to Simon Street at every opportunity, and I suppose what is making him so bitter is that he knows quite well he should not have taken her away from there in the first place. He must have been aware of his own capabilities, even as a young man when he first went courting, and he should have chosen a girl who had it in her to grow with him.’
And so Ann Agbrigg was laid to rest by a husband too bitter for tears, and, a month later, Ira Agbrigg, the parish apprentice, who knew neither his real name nor his exact age, was appointed manager at Lawcroft and invited to occupy the millhouse where, long ago, he had come to tell my mother of his workmates’ intention to riot.
‘We should do the house up for them, don’t you think?’ I suggested to Hannah, expecting her to take care of it herself, but her own affairs were coming to a head just then and, glancing up at me from her breakfast-time correspondence – a great deal of it to do with Mr Aycliffe – she said absently, ‘Yes, for Mr Agbrigg will not dare to change anything – or will not think of it. If you can prevail upon them to get some good chintz covers for their parlour chairs you will do them a service, Verity. And Jonas should hive Edwin’s old room, I think, for the fireplace there is the only one that does not smoke, and he will need a good fire to study by. And speaking of Jonas – and since I Imagine you will be having a good sort-out before you move to Tarn Edge – there is a bookcase in the back spare bedroom doing nothing at all. If you should care to make Jonas a present of it be would be much obliged. In fact, if you are agreeable, I will arrange for it to be delivered at once, since Tarn Edge is nowhere near completion and Jonas must have somewhere to put his books.’
But, in fact, our move to Tarn Edge could not really be so far distant as Hannah envisaged, for, under Mr Daniel Adair’s expert eye, the walls were growing into the recognizable shape of a house, each brick, each pail of mortar advancing the moment when Hannah must name her wedding day. Certainly Mr Ashley expected it, and Mr Brand lived in dread of it; even Joel, whose scathing eye had seen from the start that Mr Ashley would never become a bishop, was reconciled, had already made some grudging financial promises. And when Mr Ashley was offered the living of Redesdale, some fifteen miles away, Patterswick Church being required now for a relative of Squire Dalby’s, we knew there could be no more delay. She would have to marry him now and content herself with the affairs of one parish, or she would have to break with him and expose herself once again to the onslaught of Mr Brand and the sheer inconvenience of the single life
‘I thought in the spring,’ she told me at Christmastime, having already made an excursion to Redesdale, with my mother as chaperone, to inspect the church and parsonage and to ascertain the disposition of the local squire’s lady a feeble creature, it seemed, too occupied with her dozen or so children to give Hannah much trouble. ‘Yes, Easter,’ she said, quite decidedly.
And so Mr Ashley ate his Christmas-dinner at my table, in peaceful, placid silence, w
illing – to fetch and carry and smile when one asked him to, willing to be married or not to be married, offering no opinion of his own even on the vexing question of Irish church reform, which, Mr Aycliffe declared, could well bring the government down in the new year.
Elinor was there too that Christmas day, and her three little girls, three dolls identically dressed in blue satin frocks and lace pantalettes, three pairs of round blue eyes and three heads of elaborately wired ringlets, shading from light brown – Crispin’s colour – to Elinor’s pale, silvery gold. Three little mouths too, which never spoke a word since Morgan Aycliffe believed that if children must be seen then they should not be heard, and he was much inconvenienced all day by the noise my own children made, by Caroline’s constant bids for attention and the sorry spectacle of Blaize and Nicholas coming to blows for no better reason than an in-born desire for combat.
‘He started it,’ Nicholas shrieked, probably quite correctly.
‘Well, come and finish it then,’ Blaize taunted, grinning wickedly, bracing himself to receive the full weight of his brother’s irate body which knocked the pair of them to the ground in a pummelling, biting-and-scratching back-alley tumble which was every bit as lethal as it looked. And when Joel, who had not been unacquainted with back alleys in his younger days, took them both by the scruff of their necks and booted them through the door with instructions to go and kill each other somewhere else, Morgan Aycliffe’s horror at the prospect of damage – not to young bones, which would heal, but to the hall furniture, which would not – was so great that Hannah took him away to the library for a soothing discussion on church tithes and whether or not we should send troops to Portugal.
‘They’re just boys,’ Caroline explained with infinite condescension to her Aycliffe cousins, who had no experience of the species. And since there were times when I too found boys somewhat trying, I settled the four little girls around me and for half an hour told them the fairy tales of my own childhood, my old Marth-Ellen’s legacy to me.
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