by Jean Plaidy
George Haredon stood, watching them, his great hands hanging helplessly at his sides. She was aware of those hands; she could not forget the way in which one of them had seized the serving maid, and she knew that he longed to seize her in just that way. He was repulsive; he was hateful; he was arrogant too; he tried to force his way between her and Darrell.
“Why!” he said, coming so close that again she smelt the spirits on his breath.
“Bess made a fine lady of her girl. Trust Bessie for that, And I’ll tell you something I like it. I like it very much.”
Here he was, the arrogant male, strutting in his plumage.
“I like it very much! Are you not flattered? For here I am cock of the walk!” But Kitty would show him she was not one of his country wenches to be cursed one moment and kissed the next. Her eyes kindled; they rested on his flowered waistcoat, spotted where he had spilled his gravy. She wanted him to know that she hated the smell of stables that clung to him, hated his big, hairy, not very clean hands, hated even more his crude manners.
“It does not greatly concern me whether you like it or not,” she told him. I He laughed, but he was nevertheless disconcerted. He was fascinated by the proud set of the head on her shoulders, by that fearlessness, to be expected from Bess’s daughter. The likeness to Bess moved him deeply. She thought him coarse, did she!
Bess, who had never minced her words, had found him so in the old days. Bess’s contempt had pierced the armour of his arrogance, filled him with the desire to beat the pride out of her. That was why Bess had attracted him so strongly. Now it was happening again, with Bess’s daughter in the place of Bess, and this enforced stay at the Dorchester inn was changed from a tiresome incident to an exhilarating adventure.
“So you made the journey all alone, eh?” he said.
“Why, if Harriet had told me, Dammed, I would have travelled up to get you myself, that I would. You should not have been allowed to travel alone.”
She lifted her eyes to Darrell and smiled at him very sweetly.
“Mr. Grey looked after me very well, thank you!”
The devil he did! Trust a lawyer for getting the best out of a situation.”
The door was opened suddenly, and the matron came in with her two daughters.
She said in a loud voice: The lamb was mutton, but edible. Sit down, children … just for a little while. Then we will go to our rooms. I do declare that travelling in this way can be a tiresome business. But there, doubtless we miss our carriage.”
George Haredon was studying the two daughters quizzically; they simpered, casting coy glances in his direction. Their mother was alert, while she made a pretence of great languor.
The squire went to them. Travelling in one’s own carriage can be a tiresome business, Ma’am,” he said.
“Here am I, stranded for the night because one of my horses has gone lame. A devilish business! May I introduce myself? Squire Haredon. at your service. Ma’am.”
He was smiling at the two girls. Their mother presented them.
“My dear daughter, Emily my dear daughter, Grace.”
The squire was out to impress. He sat between the two girls.
“I could have taken another horse, but I’m fond of my horses. It’s nothing much a little lameness. I’ll leave her here tomorrow if she’s not better, but I’ve a fancy that a night’s rest is all she wants.”
The merchant and his wife came in, and the merchant began to talk of wars in general.
“It is so hot in here,” said Kitty after a while. Darrell I shall go to my room now. I am tired; it has been a tiring day.”
She said goodnight to the company and went up to her room. She undressed quickly and got into bed. Her face was burning. She could not shut out of her mind the thought of those bold brown eyes and the strong hands with the down of black hair on them. From below came the murmur of voices. She pictured them all in the parlour George Haredon ogling Emily and Grace. She was grateful to Emily and Grace. How relieved she had been when those bold eyes had ceased to contemplate her.
There were footsteps on the stairs. They would be taking their candles from the table in the hall; they would be coming up the stairs. Sudden panic seized her: she leaped out of bed and turned the key in her door. She leaned against the door, laughing at herself; absurd to be so frightened of him. He had turned his attentions to Grace or Emily. She got back into bed. Moonlight streamed into her room. She felt happier now that the door was locked. She dozed, and suddenly she was awakened again. She sat up, startled. Some noise had awakened her. She listened. There it was again. A light rattling, like the sound ghostly fingers might make on the windowpane.
She covered her face with the sheets; it came again. She uncovered herself and looked round the room; then she got out of bed and went to the window. She knelt on the seat and looked out.
Standing below her window was George Haredon. He had just picked up another handful of gravel to throw at her window.
For a second or two they stared at each other; then she stepped backwards. Hastily throwing a cloak about her shoulders, she went to the window and secured the bolt.
She did not look at him again, but she heard him laugh softly. She got into bed with her cloak still round her; she was trembling, not with cold but with rage.
Harriet Ramsdale was in bee still-room when she heard the carriage stop outside her gate. She hastily locked a cupboard door, untied the apron about her waist and smoothed the folds of her muslin dress. She was a large woman with fine dark hair which she wore simply; her eyes were grey under bushy eyebrows; her mouth was thin and straight. At the sound of the carriage on the road her mouth softened a little, for she guessed it was the squire’s carriage, and peering out of the window she confirmed this. She saw him alight: she saw him push open her gate in that forthright way which she admired so much; she saw him coming up the path to the front door.
She was as excited as Harriet Ramsdale could be excited, but with a return of her primness of manner she went back to the jars of blackberry jelly on the table, and began writing on their lids in a very precise, neat handwriting, “June, 1783’.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Harriet Ramsdale,” she said under her breath, for when she was quite a small girl and Jeffry and Bess had not included her in their games she had formed the habit of talking to herself and had never lost it.
“You’re turned forty, and don’t forget it!”
She was essentially practical: she was dogmatic; she was just. She set a strict pattern for herself to follow Harriet, the daughter of a dearly beloved father, the only one in the entire family who had not disappointed him. Her house with its tasteful furniture, its polished floors where never a speck of dust was allowed to remain for long at a time, was a credit to her. For what would Peg and Dolly be doing, without Their mistress at their heels? A pair of sluts, if ever there was a pair of sluts! Workhouse girls, wasteful, indolent and Harriet suspected, immoral. But then, having lived in a family which contained her mother, her brother Jeffry and her sister Bess, she was apt to suspect everyone of immorality. She had borne the great shock of her father’s death some ten years back with fortitude, for she was strong of mind and body, and her one great weakness was her unswerving affection for George Haredon; it was a romantic affection, and quite lacking in that common sense which she, no less than others, expected of herself. It had begun when she had just passed sixteen and Bess was nearly fourteen; George must have been about eighteen at the time, and so handsome, so dashing, such a man of the world, that Harriet had admired him fervently, even though he did occasionally join in with Jeffry and Bess to tease her cruelly. Bess, even at fourteen, had been a lovely creature, and George’s interest had been all for her, for in spite of Harriet’s boundless good sense, in spite of the fact that she had been endowed with all the qualities which go to the making of a sensible wife, George, in common with the rest of his sex, was foolish enough not to recognize these virtues. When men grow older they learn wisdom; that fact was
in Harriet’s mind hourly.
Poor George had been heartbroken when Bess ran away with her actor, and Harriet was sure that it was purely out of pique that he married his foolish little wife. She proved to be a very ; unsuitable mistress of Haredon, and had borne him four children, two of whom had survived. She had died soon after the birth of the last child, for she had caught a chill when she went to be churched.
George, so wayward, so in need of a guiding hand! If only he would ask her now! It was two years since his wife had died -quite long enough for his period of celibacy. She blushed a little. One heard such stories of the squire, but did not one always hear stories of persons in exalted positions? One heard rumours concerning the wild life of the young Prince of Wales, simply because he was the Prince of Wales. Servants chatter; you can whip them, you can threaten them with dismissal, but they chatter. It was whispered that even before that silly woman had gone to be churched and caught her death … but no matter she, Harriet, was not one to believe the worst of an old friend. There was the sound of running footsteps, a timid knock.
“Come in!” said Harriet, and Peg entered; her hair was tousled, her face flushed.
“Ma’am, the squire is here.”
“Peg! Your hair! Your gown! Is that a fresh rent?” Peg’s fingers pulled at the new rent in her gown.
“Whatever will the squire think to see such a slut in my house! You disgrace me. Go now. I shall be with the squire in a moment.” She was disturbed. Even the sight of Peg disturbed her, with;
her old dress, one of Harriet’s throw-outs, pulled tightly over a bosom that seemed to long to show itself, so that one had a feeling that at any moment it would tear the stuff and peep out, inviting admiration. Harriet smoothed her dress over her own flattish chest and went to the drawing-room. George was standing with his back to the door, facing the window. He swung round when he heard her.
“Harriet.” he said, and came swiftly towards her. He took both her hands, and his large brown eyes twinkled; they always twinkled when they rested on Harriet. Her heart began to beat quickly, but her face remained unchanged; rarely did a vestige of colour appear beneath her thick white skin.
“George! How charming of you to call. A glass of wine? Shall it be my sloe wine which you used to like particularly? There’s any cowslip too.”
He said: “Make it the sloe, Harry!”
She nodded her head, a little primly, but the corners of her mouth turned up. His tow, rather hoarse voice excited her. Bess had said, years ago when they had lain in bed together: “George is coarse; sometimes it’s exciting, but at others it’s horrible. I don’t know whether I’ll like being married to George or not.” Harriet had been indignant then, and she could still feel indignant. Who was Bess, she would like to know, to talk of coarseness? Bess who had run away with an actor and heaven knew whether he had married her or not! Bess who, from all accounts, had not stayed with her actor, but had had many men friends and a carriage to ride in, and silks and satins and laces and ribbons to deck her wanton person. For Bess had written to Harriet regularly maliciously of course and those letters had been peppered with the names of men. Harriet had never replied; she remained aloof, the virtuous daughter of a good man, whose enthusiasms went into jars of preserves and whose great moments were when last year’s sloe wine excelled that of the previous year. Who was Bess to talk of George’s coarseness. And yet… well, when she was with him it was impossible to deny that coarseness; she began to believe, when she was with him, the stories she heard about him. There were two Georges in her mind, the one she thought of in his absence and the one he was when he stood before her. The good squire and the man. The good squire needed her help, for he was impetuous and his bouts of rage were a byword, and every intelligent, practical woman knows that bouts of rage are a drag on the energy and get one nowhere; there was the man who set wild thoughts running through her mind, thoughts which she was afraid of, yet, incomprehensible as it might seem, thoughts which she was not sure whether she liked having or not.
With dignity she crossed to the door and opened it. Peg had obviously been listening at the keyhole. The manners of these girls. It was not often that she used the whip on them, not because they did not deserve it, but because they were such lusty creatures and a whipping had scarcely any effect upon them at all. She could have whipped Peg gladly then because, she assured herself, it was atrociously bad manners to listen at keyholes -and if she had told them once, she had told them fifty times.
“Peg!” she said, her eyes straying to the bodice with the rent in it.
“Bring the sloe wine and two glasses. Bring the new seedcake too … And Peg’ she bent her head to whisper “see that the tray is clean.” Peg departed; Harriet returned to George, who smiled at her in a secret kind of way.
She said apologetically: “One has to watch those girls all the time. I never saw such a pair.”
“You’re a wonderful woman, Harriet,” he said, and he rocked backwards and forwards on his heels.
She was in a sudden panic. She thought he was going to ask her to marry him, and she could not shut out the thought of him and some of the stories she had heard about him. That nurse-housekeeper person who, it was said, shared his bed besides looking after his children … a small virago of a woman, with flashing black eyes and thin mouth which never seemed to close properly, a bad creature if Harriet knew anything about badness and, of course, being a parson’s daughter, she knew a great deal.
“Your house is a credit to you, Harriet, upon my word it is. Ah! Here comes the sloe wine. Your sloe wine beats any other sloe wine in the country. I always say.”
To Harriet’s practical mind such remarks were a direct approach to a proposal of marriage.
“It is good of you to say so, George.”
“Good? No I Only truthful, and you know it, Harriet.” Peg stood before him with the tray; he did not look at her, but he knew she was smiling slyly, the consciously impudent smile of the underling who knows herself to be desired. Desire levels all social barriers… momentarily. Momentarily, he would have her know; still, she would never understand however he tried to explain. There would be no need to explain. You could thrash her one moment, abuse her, treat her as the workhouse brat she was, and the next minute she would be smiling at you like that. Impudent slut! He preferred the other one, though still he preferred this one any hour of the day or night to poor, old Harriet.
He took the glass, ignored Peg, and lifted it.
“To you, Harriet! Long life and happiness; you deserve it.”
“Thank you, George. I wish the same good things to you.” He cleared his throat. He was enjoying this. Even Harriet, flat-chested, prim old Harriet, wanted him. This was how he liked it to be. He needed something like it. by God! That haughty girl in the inn had unnerved him. Not coquetry, either; not urging him on. Just flouting him as, years ago, her mother had flouted him.
He was not given to self-analysis, but he did know that Bess had done something to him years ago when she had teased him and tormented him and promised to marry him; and then gone off with a third-rate actor. He had never forgotten Bess. Always he was trying for that satisfaction which he was sure Bess alone could have given him, and it never came … not with any of them. That was why there were so many; that was why he was brutal with them sometimes, and sometimes incredibly soft. Always searching, and all because of Bess. He had often thought that if he had Bess alone with him at certain times he would have put his hand round that white neck of hers and strangled the life out of her. She deserved it. Mustn’t think of Bess; it made the blood rush into his face, made the veins stand out; too much of that and he’d have to be bled again. But there was something in him. a little sentimental something that held an ideal. Squire! It was a grand title. He was proud of it, proud of his lands and his horses, proud of the position he held there. He liked to see : them curtsy on the road as he passed, their eyes full of reverence for him; but there were saucy sluts like these two from the workhouse who woul
d smile a different smile and toss their heads; then he would be angry with himself for the dignity he I had lost; for. though he could thrash them and take them when he wished, he could not drive out of their eyes that look which showed so clearly that they understood that he was a man who could not do without women. Whatever their station, they knew it; they held it over him … like Peg smirking there when her mistress wasn’t looking. And it was all due to Bess. Bess alone could have satisfied him. He could see her now, never could forget her in fact, laughing as he chased her round the tombstones: long blue eyes with golden lashes, luring, tormenting him with the knowledge of him and of all men which she must have been born with and which was a gift from the blacksmith’s! daughter. Married to Bess he would have sustained his dignity; there would have been no sly scuffling, no stolen moments with the kitchenmaids. no humiliations. What a family they would have been. They would have had children, plenty of them, for Bess was made to bear children and he was made to beget children. He would have had to keep a curbing hand on Bess, but he would have liked that, just as he liked his horses to have spirit; and by now she would be close on forty; he would be seeing some of the wildness go out of her, and he would be glad of it. They would be popular. The best squire and squire’s lady ever known in these parts! He was a good squire now … at times.; Often he was ready to take an interest in his people; a helping! hand here; a word of advice there. But if Bess had been with him; all these years it would have been different. He knew they said! of him: “Squire ain’t a bad squire, for all he can’t keep his lecher’s eyes off our daughters!” They would not have said that if Bess had been with him. But now regrets were tempered with! amusement. He drew himself up to his full height, which was: close on six feet. His clothes were those of a country squire,! sober in colour, useful rather than elegant, but today he was!