The Clouded Hills

by Brenda Jagger

  I sat for a while, very quietly, looking down at my hands, my breathing shallow, sections of my mind closing themselves down – sections I would not need again, sections of emotion and energy that could only be a burden to me in this shrinking world – and then, nodding slightly, I asked him, ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Nothing. Look after your housekeeping. I will convey to him your regrets that the affair is over, and what more is there to be said? You will do nothing to displease me in the way of writing or receiving letters – I feel I can rely on that, unless, of course, you wish to see the poor devil in jail, in which case you have only to say the word. No? Well then, we may continue with our rich and happy lives – or, at least, I shall. You will want to sleep now, I suppose, for you look quite done in.’

  As I stood up and walked to the door he stubbed out his cigar with a vicious grinding movement and said, ‘Thank you, Verity – no hysterics, no excuses – most sensible of you. Really – most reasonable. And if you are thinking, Elinor, of waiting for me to die, I shall take my time about it, I warn you – my own good time.’

  ‘Yes, Joel,’ I said, and went away.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Morgan Aycliffe was re-elected a week or so later with a comfortable majority and returned, quietly triumphant, to Westminster, leaving Elinor again installed in Blenheim Lane. But this time, instead of Daniel Adair to keep an eye on her, there was a long-nosed, sharp-featured Mrs Hardisty, an Aycliffe cousin, officially Elinor’s companion but, in reality, her keeper.

  ‘Dear Maud,’ Elinor called her, and she was soon accepted as Elinor’s shadow, a voice counting the hours of – Elinor’s day, a keen eye and ear checking the content of her conversations and to whom they were addressed. Not a bad woman, certainly, but too decided in her opinions for comfort, and determined to have her way not from any love of power but because she could not believe any other way to be right. And Elinor, with her new, hard-earned wisdom, chose neither to rebel nor to submit but channelled the unsuspecting lady’s energies to her own good purposes.

  ‘Dear Maud will see to it,’ Elinor would say, good and quiet as a little nun, hiding the malice in her eyes as ‘dear Maud’ hurried upstairs to reprimand a child or a disobedient parlourmaid, went through accounts and menus, or submitted her weekly report to her cousin.

  ‘Dear Maud’, do lower the blind – the sun is in my eyes and Maud, barely distinguishing Elinor from Faith or Prudence or Cecilia – finding privately, in fact, that Prudence had more sense, Faith a more open disposition – would click her tongue, put down her work, and tug irritably at the offending blind.

  ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘Oh – yes, Maud dear – enough for now, except that the sun will move in a quarter of an hour, I suppose. And what shall I do then?’

  But at Maud Hardisty’s direction, she wrote a stilted, dull little letter every Friday morning to her husband and had begun to embroider for him a pair of braces, which, if nothing else, created the right impression when Emma-Jane and Lucy came to call.

  But our immediate preoccupation that winter was Hannah, who, having won Joel’s consent to her marriage, if not his approval, was determined to do the thing in style.

  ‘Surely, it will be a private family affair?’ Emma-Jane asked me, oozing with sympathy. ‘Bradley and I were talking of it just the other night, and we imagined she would just slip into church quietly with you and Joel and Elinor, and no one else the wiser. Naturally I’ll call on her afterwards with a bride gift, but as to witnessing the thing take place – no, no. I can’t think she really wants any of us to do that.’

  But such a hole-in-the-corner affair had not so much as entered Hannah’s mind. She meant – had meant from the start – to make her vows in the parish church, high above the town, surrounded by flowers and bridesmaids and all the pomp and circumstance that my brother Edwin would have brought her. And, when George and Rebecca Mandelbaum accepted Hannah’s invitation with pleasure, when it was realized that Squire Dalby would go wherever my mother led, and that even Lady Winterton, who, insofar as manners and appearance were concerned, could see little difference between one common man and another, was willing to attend, Emma-Jane’s resolve began to weaken.

  And so, once again, I sat in Rosamund Boulton’s fitting room with Elinor and dear, inevitable Maud, while five little girls – Maria Agbrigg this time with Caroline and the Aycliffes – were pinned into their wedding finery.

  The dresses were to be of white spotted net over white satin, and from the first there was trouble, not only with Caroline but with Hannah herself, who, for all her thirty-four years, was a virgin bride and felt entitled to make a greater show than my mother, a widow with three grand-children to her credit. Her own outfit was a masterpiece of restraint, lace the colour of pale, milky coffee on a foundation of cream brocade, high-necked, tight-sleeved, the skirt enormously wide, regal rather than virginal; and the prettiness she could not feel appropriate to herself she wished to see in her bridesmaids, but Rosamund Boulton, looking harassed and nervous, not at all well, somehow could not get it right.

  ‘No, no, Miss Boulton, those frills are far too narrow – not at all what I have in mind. We are dressing bridesmaids, after all, not charity children for a Sunday outing. I want these net skirts to have the appearance of clouds – fluffy clouds on a March day, not scraggy little things all limp with rain – and I don’t care how many yards it takes. And on the satin underskirts, if you could stitch a few white flowers, quite large ones so they can be seen through the gauze. And I want the bonnets absolutely covered with flowers, very small ones, white and yellow, to give the effect of crocuses. I don’t, want to see any fabric at all, just flowers, and lace inside the brims. You can do that, I suppose, Miss Boulton?’

  ‘Oh, by all means, Miss Barforth,’ Rosamund Boulton said sourly, no longer on her knees with pins in her mouth as she used to be but standing straight-backed and eagle-eyed while her minions, pinned and tucked in her place. And, in consideration for her all top obviously aching head, I felt obliged to take my outraged daughter home when, having herself pointed out that five little girls cannot walk in pairs; she discovered that Maria Agbrigg – not Caroline Barforth – was to head the procession, carrying Hannah’s prayer book on a pillow of silk and lace.

  Maria, of course, her colourless, lash less eyes quite, terrified, would have given way; her father, had he been consulted, might not have wished her to put herself forward either and might well, in fact, have been better pleased with the quiet ceremony Emma-Jane had suggested, but Hannah, with the unwavering support of her protege, Jonas, was unprepared to give an inch. And although Caroline, already a Barforth to her fingertips, pointed out that since her father was paying for the wedding she ought to play a main part in it, not only were the lace pillow and prayer book allotted to Maria but also a deeper-brimmed bonnet and a few extra flounces at the bottom of her skirt, to mark her status as attendant-in-chief.

  ‘I thought you might like to get claret colour for Blaize and Nicholas,’ she told me. ‘I know the velvet suits they had for your mother are as good as new, but people do remember, and my brother would not thank us if we seemed to be penny-pinching. A really deep, rich claret – I have seen exactly the right shade – would suit them very well since they are so dark – with white lace collars.’

  But Blaize, entering his eleventh year, wanted, a proper broadcloth coat and trousers like his father, and Nicholas wanted whatever Blaize wanted, only bigger, more of it, and the claret velvet gave rise to a great deal of muttering, me lace collars to downright mutiny.

  ‘No,’ Nicholas said, squaring up to Hannah, his black eyes narrowing as Joel’s did with rage. ‘I won’t wear that. I’ll tear it up.’

  But Blaize, a little older, broke free suddenly from the first level of childhood and, assessing his aunt’s mood, gave her a charming, calculating smile which also held something of Joel.

  ‘I’ll wear mine, Aunt Hannah, don’t you worry. I won’t spoil your day.�
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  But, on her wedding morning, Blaize’s collar had somehow disappeared, could neither be found nor replaced, and only Nicholas – whose collar had been removed for safe keeping – appeared in lace.

  The evening before the ceremony Hannah spent an hour with me in the small sitting room, rendering an account of herself like a housekeeper quitting her situation rather than a woman about to become a wife.

  ‘I have turned out all my drawers and boxes,’ she said, ‘and arranged with Mrs Stevens what is to be given to the maids. You will find everything in order.’

  And as the February wind gathered strength behind the windows, drawing us together in the comforting circle of firelight and candlelight, I told her, ‘Hannah, I wish you well with all my heart. If this is right for you, then I can only be glad.’

  ‘Right enough,’ she said, holding out her capable, square-tipped hands to the fire, and prone these days to sudden surges of emotion I found hard to control, I lightly touched her arm, knowing my question would not be well received.

  ‘Hannah, if you could have your life over again – arrange it as you pleased – marry anyone you pleased – tell me, which man would you choose?’

  ‘You are thinking of your brother,’ she said coolly, taking up the poker and stirring the logs to a fiercer blaze. ‘And that is only natural. I have thought of him myself often these last few weeks, and shall continue to think of, him, especially as I shall be occupying the house where he was born. Unfortunately I am experiencing some difficulty in remembering his face.’ And, replacing the poker carefully in its stand, she clasped her hands together, her face soft and rueful yet without any weakness.

  ‘We should be friends again, Hannah.’

  ‘Yes, of course we should. And I will answer your, question. If I could have the ordering of my life, I doubt if I would marry any man. I would be a man, like my brother Joel. I’d manage his mills and drive his phaeton and take myself off to London whenever it suited me. I’d get some real work to do, take on some real responsibilities, instead of running petty parish errands and feeling myself grow as small-minded as they are themselves. I’d grapple with real issues. I’d be a Lord Mayor, if I could. I’d take Morgan Aycliffe’s constituency away from him and go to Westminster myself. And, obviously, since no woman can do any of these things, I’ll content myself with the next-best thing and marry someone who can.’

  ‘And – affection, Hannah? What of that?’

  ‘Love, you mean? Well, I had that with Edwin and he would have made me into an Emma-Jane. Oh yes, and that was what I wanted at the time – ten children and all my linen cupboards in good order – but I shall do better now. Don’t worry about me, Verity, for I am not so shortsighted as you seem to think. I am well aware how deeply Mr Agbrigg regrets his wife, and that marriage with me is more of an honour, in his view, than a pleasure. But I have nothing to fear from him. According to the law, a wife passes under her husband’s authority and discipline, but in our case my husband would do nothing to offend my brother Joel, and I rather think the authority will be mine. And make no mistake about it, he may regret his dear Ann and tell himself he is marrying again so soon for the good of his children, but he wants, to progress – he wants to be a mayor and an alderman and anything else I can devise. He is not doing it all for them.’

  And rubbing her hands once again over the fire, she said, ‘Ah well – we have a busy day tomorrow,’ and went for the last time to her solitary bed.

  We got up the next morning to grey skies, a high wind playing havoc among the remnants of last year’s leaves, but by breakfast time there was little more than a thin curtain of rain misting the treetops and, as the decorated bridal carriage drew up to the door, a patch of white appeared among the clouds, not sunshine but an indication that the sun, at least, was there, somewhere on high.

  ‘But who on earth is going to sit on the bridegroom’s side of the aisle?’ Emma-Jane had wanted to know. ‘He has no relatives – or so one supposes – and it will all be most unbalanced – most odd.’

  But there were managers now, of the various sections of Lawcroft and Low Cross and Tarn Edge, a new class sandwiched between ourselves and the workers, who were prosperous enough to make a decent show and shrewd enough to keep on the right side of Ira Agbrigg and his Barforth wife. And so the bridegroom’s pews were adequately filled, young Jonas – to the disgust of certain other youthful gentlemen – looking immaculate, if not handsome, in a plain grey coat and dark trousers, and his sister, Maria, playing her part to perfection.

  The wedding breakfast was at Tarn Edge, the usual cold collation of hams and tongues and turkeys, which, apart from the champagne, was also standard Law Valley procedure for funerals, and apart from one regrettable, predictable occurrence, there seemed nothing to mar the day.

  ‘Who’s this, then?’ Blaize asked, his eyes on his brother’s lace collar. ‘One of the bridesmaids gone astray?’ And underestimating Nicholas’s fury, he found himself on the ground, rolling and pummelling and spitting curses neither of them should have known, until Joel’s well-shod foot kicked them apart.

  But Hannah remained serene, between her newly acquired son and daughter, accepting congratulations with the air of one who has allied herself with an earl, confident that Joel, with his commercial instincts, would make the best of things and decide to settle matters her way. Distinctions, of course, were still being made. Jonas and Maria would call Hannah ‘Mamma’ but there was no question, yet, of an Uncle Joel. Ira Agbrigg, although my permission had been granted, could not persuade – his tongue around my Christian name and would continue, perhaps indefinitely, to address his employer as Mr Barforth or sir when the occasion required. Yet Morgan Aycliffe, who had made a special journey from London to bring Hannah his good wishes and a Wedgwood dinner service that had considerably upset Emma-Jane, seemed able to recognize a future Lord Mayor when he saw one. And it was no secret that Joel, no matter how distant his manner, would continue Hannah’s allowance and had not yet given the Top House away.

  She would, as she had said, do well enough within the limits she had set herself, and when it was over and she had gone down to the millhouse – the demands of Barforth enterprise permitting no time for a wedding journey – I was surprised how acutely I missed her. She had been a buffer between me and Joel, another person always at the table, so that conversation of some kind was possible, and her absence, giving rise to silences I could not endure, compelled me to fill the house with guests, bright people, dull people, kind, cruel, or downright half-witted people, anyone, at all so that Joel and I need never be alone.

  Springtime brought me the undulating carpet of daffodils the gardeners had promised, lilac and birdsong, clean-washed blue skies, my young dogs yelping their high spirits among the new grass. There were picnics that June by the lily pond, tables set out under the willow tree, starched maids bringing baskets of party food from the house while Elinor’s ‘dear Maud’ shredded her nerves and ours with her dread of bee stings, grass stains, wet shoes, horrific tales of children drowning in ornamental garden water. There were carriage drives to ruined abbeys, one agonizing Saturday-to-Monday at Floxley Hall when Lady Winterton, with more guests than she could easily accommodate, had offered us a double bed and we had slept back to back, or Joel had slept and I had lain uneasily awake.

  But there had been no harsh word spoken, simply a strange brand of politeness that at best was cool, at worst had the touch and texture of black ice. We existed under the same roof, spoke to each other carefully, whenever necessary, a business arrangement, a form of life imprisonment that aroused no pity since no one but ourselves – and a few others – were even aware of it.

  ‘I will convey to him your regrets that the affair is over,’ he had told me, but I did not know when or how the information had been conveyed, or received, how Crispin had replied, and when a boy thrust a letter into my hand one day in the town, I took it home, as I had promised, and gave it unread to Joel, not in meekness but because I did not t
rust him and, with Crispin’s life in my hands, could not risk another trap.

  There were other letters after that, reaching me in various ways, all of them delivered promptly to Joel, who, without any discussion, slid them into a desk drawer instead of burning them, so that I was not surprised when, one morning, I saw them bound up together and was required to write a covering note, explaining their return and asking Mr Aycliffe to trouble me no more. And after that – on the very day that Mark Corey was arrested for debt – the letters ceased.

  I was, perhaps, eight miles from the Red Gin but I could have been in China, and, hedged around now by servants, children, friends, no longer a girl who could walk her dogs alone to Old Sarah’s Rock or anywhere else, I attempted to come to terms with my private isolation, tried hard to convince myself that, having always known the penalty, I must not shirk now that I had been required to pay it. And I managed, generally, to be calm, until the thought of the barren years ahead sickened me and turned me cold.

  And what would Crispin do with those years? Sometimes I could endow him with a rich, full life, with political or literary status and a wife and children to share it with him. But at other times, the hurt child in him tugged at my mind, rekindling my need to protect him, a far more primitive, more over whelming emotion than I had felt for my own sons. Blaize, I knew, would always have his way. Nicholas would take life by the throat and squeeze what he wanted out of it. Like Joel, they were strong, deep-rooted evergreens, their growth undiminished by summer heat or winter gale. They would prosper and multiply for their own satisfaction, whereas Crispin, without their tough fibres, was less attached to life, might not take the trouble to succeed alone. He needed, as he had often told me, an exclusive relationship; he needed, in fact, to be loved, as Joel apparently did not – as Blaize and Nicholas might not – and the thought of the harm I had done him was not easy to bear.