Yet he was here now, on the eve of what must surely be his daughter’s death, and despite his hesitant expression, the air of a man somewhat overawed by his surroundings, when he asked for Joel my instinct was to deny, quite amazingly to protect.
I said, much too quickly, ‘Oh, he’s away, Mr Boulton. He’s in Manchester and won’t be back until Monday morning. Mr Boulton, please, what can I do for you?’
‘Nothing, lass,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘But, Mr Boulton, surely not until Monday …?’
And as I stood there, transparent perhaps with pity for this man I did not really know, and with my new, astonishing need to defend the man I knew too well – who, surely, had no need of aid from me – Joel appeared at the head of the stairs. He wore no jacket, his shirt open at the neck, his sleeves unfastened, and, pausing a moment, drawing a resolute breath, he made a slow descent, walking, I thought, as a man goes to the gallows.
‘I’m here, sir,’ he said. ‘Just arrived. Will you come this way?’
And they went into the smoking room and closed the door.
I could not let them go alone but I dared not follow. Nor could I have explained my fears, but Joel would do him no harm, and he was an old man, tough and wiry, but no threat to Joel, in full, vigorous prime. And although Joel had done Miss Boulton much wrong, her father must know, since I knew and others knew it, that their affair had long been over. Yet how much resentment had her father nourished, how much shame had he felt seeing her name above that shop doorway, hearing the rumours? How many suitors, perhaps, had she turned away because of her passion for Joel, so that ultimately her father could see no one but Joel to blame for her disgrace, the tragedy of her ending? Joel may not have been the father of her child, but what could that matter now to Mr Boulton?
Why was he here? And why was I so afraid? Was it simply the air of death around him that had unnerved me or was it Joel’s own guilt-ridden distress that drew me down the corridor, my hand reaching out for the smoking-room door, knowing I must not enter yet finding that my fingers had somehow turned the handle, that a strength I had neither summoned nor suspected propelled me inside and closed the door behind me, my body leaning against the carved wood so that no one else could follow.
And what my eyes told me was, quite simply, not to be believed. Joel was standing by his desk, his head bowed slightly, reminding me more than ever of a man mounting the scaffold. Mr Boulton stood close beside him. Then I saw the knuckles clench, the old man’s body hunch forward as he drew the driving whip from his boot and raised it, hissing through the heavy air.
‘Oh, Mr Boulton,’ I heard my voice cry out. ‘Mr Boulton. No, Joel, don’t hurt him.’
But Joel, who could so easily have wrenched the whip away, after an instinctive movement of self-defence stepped backwards, his whole face losing its colour again.
‘Mr Boulton …’ he said, no more than that, and then, as the lash caught him again, knocking him back against his desk, I saw his jaw muscles clench, his eyes close, and knew that he meant to submit, to allow this desperate, crazed old man to take his revenge.
A stripe of red appeared, suddenly, across Joel’s chest, the fine cambric of his shirt shrivelling away at the shoulder, showing more red beneath. And then, through the hissing and whining of the whip, the dreadful beast-panting of his pathetic assailant, a whole cobweb of crimson patterning the front of him, smudging as the blood began to flow, his chest seemed to open, as my father’s had once done, and the astonishment on his face was my brother Edwin’s astonishment when an adversary as weak as this one had plunged a carving knife into his gut.
Joel’s hands clenched white-knuckled on the chair back as he submitted to the traditional horsewhipping of adulterers and despoilers of women, his dark face shocked and set with determination neither to cry out nor to fall down until it was over. And I was proud of him. I felt his agony with him, groaned for him, and was proud of him, until a moment came when the deadly singing of the whip jolted me into calling out foolishly, ‘That’s enough. Stop it at once.’
Yet it was sufficient, for, miraculously, the hissing stopped, the air ceased to vibrate, and that old, grey shape dwindled suddenly, folded into a chair, an old, big-knuckled hand hanging loosely from either knee, two eyes staring, blank and blind, from a face that had no life, no colour but that of cold ash. And as I peered closely at him Joel’s voice came to me, his breath rasping with a sound I thought splintered bone might make, his words not entirely the ones I had expected. ‘Look after him,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him go, He’s not responsible. He could harm himself.’
And lowering himself into the tall leather armchair where he so often sat to administer the affairs of Lawcroft and Tarn Edge, he slumped forward, tattered and bleeding, across his desk top.
‘Look after him, Verity.’
But Mr Boulton, sinking into some terrible, grey twilight, was as limp now as seaweed, sodden and spent, incapable of movement, let alone of flight and I could think of nothing to do for him but leave him in peace.
‘He’s well enough. Let him rest awhile. But you, Joel, oh, Joel, stay there a moment, while I send for the doctor.’
‘No,’ he muttered, trying to get up but then falling back into the chair with a thud that squeezed fresh blood through his shirtfront, sending a thick slug-trail of it leaking down the back of his hand. ‘No doctor.’
‘What—?’
‘No doctor, Verity.’
‘But you must have a doctor – you’re bleeding.’
‘No, no! For God’s sake, Verity, if you fetch a doctor somebody is going to know about it, and work out why, and they’ve had enough to bear, the Boultons, without this. He’s got to live in this town the poor devil, afterwards, and his wife … It’s got to be kept quiet somehow. God knows how, for I can’t think straight, not yet. Help me, Verity.’
And there it was. ‘Help me,’ he said, and realizing that at last he was speaking to me as a woman capable of decision and enterprise, a woman whose strength he recognized, whose comfort he undoubtedly needed, knowing myself to be fascinated by that need, uncertain of it yet confident beyond question of my own ability to fulfil it, I nodded my head very slightly.
‘Yes, we’ll manage it. And, Joel, I think you must resign yourself, for a little while at least, to doing as you are told.’
And through all the weariness and pain I saw his grin flash out, drawing from me an answering smile.
Concealment, of course, was essential even here, for I knew none of the servants well enough to trust, and although Mrs Richmond was perhaps too grand for gossip, her disapproval could only hinder me. But Mrs Stevens, I knew, would not fail me, and finding her waiting in the corridor, whispering to her as much as she required to know, I left her to administer brandy and any other assistance she could think of to Mr Boulton, bidding her lock the door, while I, bringing Joel’s jacket, helped him into it, supported him up the stairs to his bedroom, and there, where hot and cold water and clean towels were already waiting at this hour, began slowly, delicately, to cut away his shirt.
‘Mind the carpet,’ he said weakly as the blood began again to flow. ‘It’s worth a fortune.’ But the separation of torn cambric and torn skin, the prising loose of the finely matted hairs on his chest caused him such agony that only when it was done and he lay back in his chair, stripped and nauseous and still bleeding, did he glance down at the upholstery and mutter, ‘Christ, look at the mess. They’ll never get these stains out of the leather.’
He was badly but cleanly cut across the chest and shoulders, raw weals raised thick along his back, one hand split from wrist to palm, a long, slashing wound on the shoulder, not deep but persistently oozing with red, seeping through the towels to my hands and sleeves, soaking the front of my dress.
‘You need stitching,’ I told him, ‘and I can’t do it.’
‘Then bandage me tight.’
And so I did, padding him well under the linen strips, binding him round and round to
the point of suffocation almost, so that he was glad, I think, to lie down on his bed while I rolled up the stained towels and hid them away, threw the rose-tinted water out of the window, disguised, if not altogether obliterated, the damage to chair and carpet, and then, crossing the forbidden barrier of the dressing room to my own bedroom, disposed of my own soiled garments, washed, dressed in something appropriate to the hour should anyone call, should the servants or the children see me, and hurried downstairs again, damp and inwardly shaking, greatly unwilling to leave him even for a moment, to check on Mr Boulton, to assess the damage to the smoking room and Mrs Stevens’s ability to repair it, and to retrieve the whip.
I carried it upstairs with me, wrapped in a towel I had fetched downstairs for the purpose, meeting Mrs Richmond on the way.
‘Ah, madam,’ she said, her eyes fastening on the towel draped artlessly over my arm, ‘may I take that for you?’
‘No, thank you.’
And although she could require me to make no explanations, she had no intention of letting the matter rest there. Not that she was particularly curious, nor even cared very much what I was up to. But as my housekeeper, she felt it essential to her dignity to be we’ll informed, to have an answer for any impudent little parlourmaid who may have seen Joel staggering upstairs in his greatcoat, leaning heavily against my shoulder.
‘Is everything all right, madam?’
‘Why, yes, Mrs Richmond, perfectly – except … Well, to tell the truth – and I see no reason for not telling the truth, since I am exceedingly vexed about it – my husband has been drinking, Mrs Richmond, which, for a man in his position, is quite shocking, and I do not at all wish the whole world to know it. Please tell the staff he is not to be disturbed on any account. Naturally he will not be dining. I will take something on a tray later, and if he is recovered enough to join me I will let you know. I am simply thankful that we have no guests tonight.’
‘And the gentleman downstairs with Mrs Stevens?’
‘Oh, I do not think he will be dining. He is an old and rather dear friend of Mrs Stevens’s, and it appears they have something to discuss of a private nature. Really, I should leave them alone.’
And I did not care whether or not she believed me, only that she should behave as if she did.
Joel was still lying down when I got back to him desperately uncomfortable beneath those tight bandages but breathing more regularly, sufficiently recovered to ask for brandy and raise himself to drink. Yet, even so, his first urgent whisper took me by surprise.
‘Verity, can you get me dressed, do you think?’
‘I suppose so – not that I would—’
‘But you must. Get me an evening shirt and a waistcoat. In fact, get me two waistcoats so I can put one on top of the other and then if the bleeding starts again it can hardly show.’
‘Joel, are you raving?’
‘Very likely, but I’m expected at the Swan.’
‘What of it? I have only to send a message.’
‘Aye, and have them saying I daren’t show my face because of what’s happened at the Boultons’ – and worse than that if it gets about the old man was here. I told you, he has to live in this town afterwards – and his wife is in poor health already. So get me my clothes, and another brandy while you’re at it.’
‘I’ll do no such thing.’
He closed his eyes, keeping his temper, learning very slowly to cope with weakness when he had built his life on undiluted strength; and, opening them again, it seemed he had discovered frailty’s chief weapon, a smile.
‘Verity, I can do it without you, one way or another,’ he said quite sweetly, defying me gently and with humour as Blaize did. ‘No matter how you try to stop me I’ll get up and dressed, order the carriage – I’ll do it and you know I’ll do it. I’m asking you to make it easy for me. And if I kill myself you’ll be a rich widow that much sooner.’
But I was a Barforth too, capable of calling his bluff, and it was not until he heaved himself to his feet, took a few dizzy steps towards his closet, endeavoured quite drunkenly to put on a shirt, that my awareness of his pain unnerved me and brought me to his side scolding but ready to help his desperate, guilt-ridden enterprise.
‘I think you are quite mad. You will do Mr Boulton no good if you collapse on the Swan floor.’
‘I’ll not do that,’ he muttered, struggling one-handed with his cravat, looking likely to collapse there and then. ‘It’s a calculated risk, like all the other risks I take. These slashing cuts look worse than they are, and a little blood goes a damn long way. If he’d stabbed me just two inches deep I might not have bled much at all but he could well have murdered me. But all he’s really done is break the skin. I’ll show my face, buy my round, and then come home again. But I’ll go – choose what, choose how – I’ll go—’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
And, seeing the surprise in him, the beginnings of gratitude, I clicked my tongue with false impatience, not ready yet for either.
‘Yes, Joel, I have been thinking it over, and if you persist in this pigheadedness, then I shall be pigheaded too. What is to happen to Mr Boulton? You have not considered that, have you? Well, we cannot leave him downstairs forever, nor can we turn him loose to find his own way home, so someone must go with him. And since you cannot, and I would not lay such a burden on Mrs Stevens’s shoulders, then clearly I must do it myself. I will have them get the carriage ready – unless, of course, you have any thoughts of driving your phaeton – and we will leave all three together. I will put you down at the Swan, take Mr Boulton home, see him safe, and come back for you. And you may stop frowning, Joel, for there is no other way it can be done.’
‘I cannot ask you to go to the Boultons,’ he said, still frowning. ‘Good God, Verity, I cannot ask you to do that.’
And I replied, quite tartly, ‘You have not asked me.’
I feared, at the last moment, that Mr Boulton might make some difficulty, but he was still faraway, still docile, willing to go wherever Mrs Stevens required, and it was Joel who hesitated at the carriage step, wincing, and needed my arm to make bearable the ascent. And as the coachman, far too conscious of Joel’s reputation as a whip, set off at a cracking pace, he winced again, and I with him, my body feeling each jolt twice over.
‘I will come back for you in an hour,’ I told him as the Swan at last drew near. ‘Perhaps sooner, but I will wait an hour before sending in for you. Are you in pain?’
‘Soreness mainly. I believe I am on the mend.’
‘I doubt it. Don’t drink too much. You have lost blood and eaten nothing. Bravery is one thing, bravado another,’
‘I am not playing the hero, Verity.’
‘I know.’
‘And do you know how sorry I am to have exposed you to this? I think I have never been sorrier in my life, nor more conscious of what I owe you.’
He got down from the carriage somehow, using his bandaged right hand to account for his clumsiness, his awkwardness of gait.
‘Damn glass broke in my hand,’ I heard him say to Bradley Hobhouse as I drove off, hurriedly, before my passenger’s empty eyes and vacant face were recognized, before my own impulse to get down too became too strong to master.
‘Mr Boulton,’ I said gently, ‘where may I take you? To your own house, or to the shop?’
But one place was as good as another to him just then, and, basing my judgement on Mrs Stevens’s information, I drove straight to Millergate to find a lamp burning in the window above the shop, the doctor’s gig outside, a harassed woman in the doorway who, seeing us, came running out considerably dishevelled and sharp-tongued with relief.
‘Father, how could you? We have been looking everywhere. How could you, with Rosamund as near death as anyone can be. No, she has not gone yet, but it can only be moments— How could you? Go in now, for mercy’s sake, and ease her mind, if she can still hear you. Go quickly now – unless you are too ashamed.’
And as his you
nger daughter’s scolding pierced the fog in his brain, he blinked, shook himself like a wet dog, and went inside.
I had no intention of staying after that, no thought of anything but escape from this familiar place, rendered alien and terrible by death, from this woman in whose destruction I had surely taken part – the woman I had taunted, years ago, by wearing a dress she had not made for me and who had suffered such biting agony that same night when Joel had first looked at Estella Chase. But her sister, Mrs Bramley now, I thought, came swiftly back into the street, stationing herself between me and the carriage.
‘I am obliged to you, Mrs Barforth, for bringing my father home. He disappeared, earlier on, when we were much distracted – when we thought my sister had actually passed away – and my mother has been frantic since then. Mrs Barforth, has he? Mrs Barforth, I hope he has caused you no trouble.’
‘None at all. He was merely wandering – just wandering. I think he is much shocked and requires care.’
‘Yes,’ she said, a tall, thin woman, neat and nervous, not unlike her sister. ‘My whole family needs care, just now, every one of them, and since it all devolves on me – since I am the only one near enough in my right mind to make decisions … Come in, Mrs Barforth – come in a moment – please – for I have just this instant reached a decision, and there is something I must say to you.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I was back at the Swan within the hour, as I had promised; reaching down from the carriage, both hands outstretched – playing the happy lover – to help him in, conscious of the hot, grateful pressure of his fingers, the cold sweat beading his brow, the cavernous sigh coming from the very depths of him as we rolled back up the hill towards Tarn Edge.
‘Did it go well, Joel?’
‘Aye, well enough. You’ll allow that I’ve always been an adequate liar. And you, Verity?’
‘The same – well enough. She’s still alive, and they think now that there is reason to hope – not certainty, but hope.’
The Clouded Hills Page 58