The Glass Virgin
Page 39
When she reached the lodge gates she stopped in surprise and stared through them at the grass-grown drive, at the straggly variegated privet hedge that surrounded the lodge garden and which at one time had been as level on the top as any table.
The gates were closed but not locked and she entered and went past the dark empty windows of the lodge and up the drive and round the curve, and there was the House as she had never seen it before, for it looked lonely, lost. Always the House had had people in it, and about it; she couldn’t remember it without movement of some sort. Servants at one time had been as thick as flies buzzing around it, now there was no sign of life. She felt sad, deeply sad.
She passed by the steps and went towards the stables. The stone flags in the yard were bordered with grass; all the doors in the yard were closed with the exception of one. She went slowly towards it and looked in. The harness room was empty, not only of people, but of saddles and bridles and brasses and bits. She thought, as she looked round the room, that this sight would indeed break Manuel’s heart. But then his heart must already be broken, as his spirit was, and his body soon would be if she didn’t get him out of that place.
She left the yard quickly and went down through the pagoda walk; at one point she had to push aside the tangle of last year’s roses until she reached the gardens, and she had to ask herself, could a place become so derelict in ten months. The peacock hedges were sprouting branch feathers in all directions, which gave them a drunken appearance. Then she went across the park, and there was the cottage.
Now her step slowed and her heart began to race. How was she to address her? ‘Mama? Mrs Lagrange?’
She was at the door. She was knocking.
Harris opened it. It was as if he had been standing behind it, waiting, and like the servants at Wearbank he was overcome by the sight of her, and he muttered under his breath, ‘Oh, Miss Annabella! Miss Annabella.’
‘Good day, Harris.’
‘Good day, Miss Annabella. May I say I’m happy to see you again?’
‘And me you, Harris.’ Her low voice was cut off by the sight of Alice coming down the staircase. Three steps from the bottom Alice paused for a moment, then, in haste to reach the hall, she stepped on to her long gown and almost fell into Annabella’s arms. ‘Oh, child! Child.’
‘Hello, Alice. How are you?’
‘Oh, my dear! Oh, child, it’s good to see you again. I’m all right. I’m all right. How are you? Oh, you’ve been through a time.’ Her short staccato sentences were bouncing one off the other. ‘She’s waiting, been waiting for hours, just sitting waiting. This is the happiest day of her life; I’d swear this is the happiest day of her life.’ Alice had so forgotten herself as to use the term, I swear, and this was not lost on Annabella. She smiled kindly at the old woman, who for years, she knew, had considered her the product of the devil. Even when she herself hadn’t been aware of her parentage Alice had instilled into her the feeling that she had been born in sin. ‘Go on. Go on, don’t waste a minute.’ She was pushing her towards the drawing-room door.
Now she had her hand on the knob and she turned and looked at Alice, and Alice, a thin smile stretching her parchment-like face, thrust it forward as if the very act would push Annabella through the door.
Her heart had raced before, but now it was bounding unevenly as if it was being ricocheted from one side of her rib casing to the other.
Now the door was opening and she was entering the room, and there was Rosina standing as she had seen her countless times, dignified, patient, plain, and the pity that she’d had for the House was multiplied a thousandfold and she had the desire to rush forward and enfold the sad-faced woman in her arms, in her new strong, protective arms. But she seemed unable to move from the door.
It was Rosina’s voice saying brokenly, ‘Oh, my dearest, dearest child,’ that gave power to her limbs; and then they were clasping each other, tightly, lovingly.
‘Let me look at your face.’ Rosina pressed her gently away and led her to a stiff upholstered couch, and together they sat down and gazed at one another. And Rosina said, ‘Child, oh child, you’ve changed,’ and Annabella, her voice picking up the routine of question and answer that had been automatic to her at one time, said, ‘Yes, Ma . . . ’ Then, her head drooping slightly, she said, ‘Yes, I have changed. It’s . . . it’s been a long time.’
‘Yes, my dear, it’s been a long time.’ Rosina paused, then said, ‘Why did you hesitate on my name?’
Annabella now raised her eyes and, looking into this pale face that didn’t seem to have changed at all, said, ‘I’m . . . I’m at a loss as to what to call you.’
‘What can you call me but Mama?’ Rosina said softly. ‘I was your mama for seventeen years, my dear. It isn’t birth that makes a human being, it’s environment. I gave you environment; you are my daughter still, I am your mama. Believe me, dear, I am your mama. And that’s all I want from life, just to be your mama. You are my child, Annabella, in every possible way except one, and that is of no matter. You do understand this, don’t you? I am your mama.’
‘Yes . . . ’
Rosina now bent forward and, drawing Annabella’s hands to her breast, she whispered, ‘Say it. Please let me hear you say it.’
‘ . . . Mama.’
Rosina smiled slowly and put out her hand and touched Annabella’s cheek. ‘You are so thin, child.’
Looking back at Rosina, Annabella could have said the same thing. ‘You are so thin.’ And, now that she was looking at her closely, she saw that she looked so much older than when she had last seen her.
‘This is indeed the happiest day of my life. You believe that, my dear?’
‘Yes, Mama.’
Rosina now in her turn studied the girl before her. Her words were the same, docile, biddable words, ‘Yes, Mama,’ but the tone in which she said them was different. Uncle James had warned her of the difference, but that had not troubled her. Only let her be with her child for a short while and everything would be as it had been before; those ten awful months tramping the country roads would be obliterated. Of course, there was Manuel to be considered, but that, thank God, was a matter that could be easily dealt with for the simple reason that the marriage hadn’t been consummated. Oh, they were lucky in this, very, very lucky, and once Annabella had a taste of her old life she, too, would realise it had all happened for the best. She said now, ‘You look tired, my dear; we’ll have some tea and then we will talk. Alice and Bridget have your room all ready for . . . ’
‘I’m sorry, Mama.’ Annabella didn’t actually rise to her feet, but she moved a little along the sofa and again she said, ‘I’m sorry but I’m returning to Uncle James; I’m . . . I’m catching the coach from the crossroads at five o’clock.’
‘But, my child, you’ve only just come and . . . ’
‘I can come again. But until I know what is going to happen to Manuel – I . . . I know that Uncle has told you all about Manuel and myself – well, until I know what they intend to do with him I want to be as near as possible to him.’
Rosina felt herself freezing as she hadn’t done for almost a year now, not since He had gone. Her mind racing, she thought, Dear God, don’t put any more obstacles in my way for I won’t be able to bear them. You have given her back to me, let us live in peace. But she made herself say calmly, ‘Yes, Uncle James told me. But, my dear, you won’t be able to visit Manuel every day. And it will surely be harrowing for you, and you’ve gone through enough.’
‘I have been through little . . . Mama, it is Manuel who has suffered, and is still suffering.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Rosina’s lids drooped. ‘He has, on the whole, been very good, very thoughtful; if only he could have seen me that day when he called instead of my mama, then you would not have been subjected to all the misery, and this last great mistake.’
‘Well, strange as it may seem, my dear, I can understand that too because you must have found your position travelling with him almost untenable and you likely saw this as the only proper and decent way out.’
‘No, Mama. No, Mama.’ Annabella was shaking her head. ‘It wasn’t like that at all. I . . . I wanted to marry Manuel because I loved him.’
‘Oh, child!’ Rosina’s tone spelt patience and she shook her head slowly. ‘What do you know about love except from a girlish point of view? You’re only eighteen and . . . ’
‘I was old enough at seventeen to marry Stephen, if he had been available.’
Rosina rose to her feet and walked towards the fireplace and looked down into the fire for a moment before turning and smiling at Annabella, and saying, ‘My dear, I want you to know that I hold Manuel in high esteem and I don’t look at the situation in the same light as Uncle James does. I know that Manuel did the right thing from the very beginning. He not only searched for you, he found you and then he came to tell me. It wasn’t his fault that I never got his message, or he was misled into thinking that if I had received it I would not have understood it. Then he took care of you. Everything he has done, even to marrying you, was, I am sure, for your protection, but now that the whole scene has changed and you are back home, he will, or I’m very much mistaken in him, be quite willing that there should be an annulment of the marriage.’
‘He won’t!’ Annabella, too, was on her feet. ‘He won’t. You don’t know Manuel. He loves me, he loves me passionately, I know he does. I’m the only thing that matters to him and . . . and he to me.’
Rosina only just stopped herself from expressing her thoughts on this statement which would have been both cutting and revealing. What she said was, ‘You don’t realise you’re hurting me, dear.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Annabella’s voice softened. ‘I’m really sorry because I’m, I’m so happy to see you, I’ve longed to see you, but Manuel is in my life, Mama, and he’s never going out of it, not if I can help it.’
They weren’t looking at each other; Rosina was looking towards the floor and Annabella towards the window; then slowly their glances veered one to the other and it was Rosina, woman of patience that she was, who spoke and set the pattern for the future, saying, ‘All right, my dear, we will let things take their course; we will do all we can for Manuel. I promise you that. In the meantime you’re home, whether in Durham or here, you’re home, and I’m looking forward to pampering you and making up for all the long—’ she drooped her head and half smiled as she said, ‘I must not say trials that you’ve had, since you tell me you’ve almost enjoyed them. But come along. Your clothes are just as you left them; Alice and I have attended to them each week even though I thought you would never use them again. So come along and change . . . That is your old garden cloak isn’t it?’ She pointed to the chair where the cloak was lying.
‘Mama.’ Now Annabella came forward and, taking the two long thin hands in her own, she said, ‘Please, don’t misunderstand me, please don’t think that I am not grateful or that I am not glad to be home, I am. I can’t tell you the times that I’ve longed and longed to be near you, to be back in the old environment, so please try to understand me when I say I can’t put on my old clothes . . . I mean’ – she half smiled – ‘my elegant clothes again. I could not go and visit Manuel richly dressed. When I know what is going to happen to him, then, then perhaps I will take one of the plainest dresses and be grateful for it.’
‘Oh, my dear.’ Rosina drew in a long, deep breath; then, exhaling slowly, she said, ‘Very well. As you wish, dear.’ She made her features move into a smile before she ended, ‘Now we’ll have tea, shall we?’
‘Thank you, Mama.’ Annabella paused, then said hesitantly, ‘I feel awful saying this, but I would like to take my leave about four o’clock as I want to pay a visit to Amy . . . Mrs Stretford, before I go.’ She could not say I promised Manuel I would, but added, ‘It was Amy who looked after me. She lives along the river bank. It was she who nursed me back to health. Without her care I doubt if I would have survived the nights I spent on the open fells. So if you don’t mind I will leave at four o’clock.’
If she didn’t mind! Rosina stared now at her child, who was no longer a child, who was no longer a young girl, but who was a woman, a woman with authority and poise, a woman whom, she realised, she would no longer be able to mould, or even guide, but strangely she wanted the woman even more than she had wanted the child, or the young girl. But if she was to have her, and the thought of not having her now was so unbearable that she could see herself going to any lengths to achieve her desire, she must tread warily, and when she was returned to her once more it must not be, it could not be as Mrs Manuel Mendoza. Oh no! Even the thought was intolerable. One blessing of God was she was still a virgin. Aunt Emma, in her gentle but probing way, had ascertained that much. And if she had anything to do with it she would remain a virgin, for all men were vile. She would have staked her life on Stephen, and look how he had acted. No; there would be no man come into Annabella’s life from now on if she could help it. She would indeed become a glass virgin. That’s what he had called her when he had thrown her as a bundle on the bed, a glass virgin.
Annabella, this new Annabella, would, for her own good, have to be fought, but subtly, for if she were to lose her again her second state would be worse than her first. It mustn’t, it mustn’t happen. She would go to Durham herself, and not only talk with Uncle James again but see Mr Fraser and place before him the whole situation. Mr Fraser was a clever man; he had got them out of a great deal of difficulty when Edmund died. Mr Fraser would handle the situation, Mr Fraser would handle Manuel. It needed a man to handle a man, as it needed a woman to handle another woman.
Five
The courthouse was crowded, and not only the courthouse but the town itself. Those with time to spare in the town and even on the wide outskirts had taken the trouble to come into Durham on this particular day, if not to hear the case, then to try to get a glimpse of Lagrange’s girl who had suddenly appeared from the dead; and that was not all, she had brought back with her a husband, the one-time groom of the Lagrange stable. That was a scandal if you like.
A bill of indictment had brought the case up within nine days of the prisoner being jailed, because the captain wished to rejoin his ship. Those who couldn’t read and didn’t know very much about the case asked what the prisoner had done besides marrying the Lagrange girl, and they had been told that he had hammered a sea captain and left him for dead.
Why had he hammered the sea captain? Oh, because the man had got a little too fresh with his bride.
On their wedding day?
On their wedding day.
Well then, you could understand a man losing his temper and hammering another.
Yes, they supposed so; but he was an odd customer, this Manuel Mendoza, a foreigner like his name implied. And it was being said that he had never found favour with the other servants at Redford Hall; there’d always been something funny about him. And wasn’t it funny now that he should go off with the daughter of the House? Ah yes, they knew all about her early parentage, but that wasn’t any reason why he should take her on the road. Did they know that he had taken her into service on a farm out in the wilds of Muggleswick Common, and God knows where else? He was working her outside Darlington in a glass works when this happened. Had her working in a glass works, a woman mind, or a girl, for that was all she was when all was said and done.
Was it true that her mother was a prostitute from Crane Street in Shields?
Aye,
that’s what they said. But that wasn’t her fault was it?
The conversation among the other classes in the town might have varied but the substance remained the same. There was no sympathy with ‘the foreigner’, and this feeling had seeped into Mr Justice Lear and had set up a feeling against the prisoner long before he saw him.
He had, this morning, dealt with two cases of housebreaking, and with one of wife-beating. A most strange case this, where the husband had resorted to the ancient habit of using a brank on his wife to muzzle her scolding. This case, instead of eliciting sympathy from the court for the woman, had evoked laughter, in which he himself had found it hard not to join.
But now to this more serious case of one, Manuel Mendoza, a Spaniard hailing from Ireland. That was a mixture. Yet not all it would appear, for there was a broad seam of Spanish blood running through many of the Irish.
The report of the prison Governor was that the man was a surly customer, but as yet had given no trouble. On the other hand, he had been informed by the clerk that two of the prisoner’s employers had come from a distance to speak on his behalf. Well, be that as it may, whatever they said wouldn’t diminish that this was a nasty case, and he wasn’t thinking only of the prisoner beating this sea captain. That was understandable under the circumstances, it being his wedding day, and the captain wanting to sport with the bride. Ah, there was the point, the nasty taste in the mouth, the bride, the wife, a young girl of gentle upbringing if not breeding. He himself didn’t lay much stock on breeding. He had seen many a silk purse cut from a sow’s ear. And this girl had had seventeen years of refinement in the Lagrange household and, he understood, was loved dearly by the mistress whose life, if the stories were to be believed, had been little short of hell until Lagrange decided to fall from his horse, but not until after he had exposed the girl’s identity to herself. It was this, he understood, that had almost turned the brain of Mrs Lagrange, and when the girl should have been at her side to bring her comfort she apparently drowns herself. Then after months of mourning the girl returns and brings with her a greater sorrow, a disgrace.