by Anna Jacobs
Daniel glanced sideways and saw how upset she still was. He couldn’t for the life of him leave her then, so distressed and with only a boy to comfort her. He put an arm round Helen's rigid shoulder and said gently to her son, ‘This time it wasn’t me who made her cry, Harry. She was telling me about your stepfather, how he died.’
‘Oh.’
‘You've behaved very badly, Harry,’ said Helen severely.
‘But he was only acting in defence of his mother,’ Daniel pleaded. ‘And I have been uncivil to you lately, but I promise you both I'll try not to act like that in the future.’
She felt his look like a warm touch, felt something shift inside her and relax. As happiness trickled through her, she looked at him and smiled.
His answering smile was a caress. As was hers.
Harry gulped, sniffed and wiped his smeary face on the back of his sleeve as he watched the two of them, clearly not understanding the currents flowing between them, but sensing that something was happening.
Still with his hand on the back of Helen’s chair, Daniel turned towards him and for a moment, the man and boy stood looking at one other, Harry searching the face of his guardian and Daniel half-smiling in encouragement, then the boy stuck his hand out. ‘I'm sorry, sir.’
Daniel shook the hand gravely. ‘Apology accepted. As I hope you will accept mine for my recent incivility to your mother.’ But his eyes were on Helen as he spoke, and it was the memory of her warm smile as she watched the two of them that he carried away with him that day.
Her face began to fill his dreams again. He could never quite remember what happened in those dreams, but they left him feeling - content. Hopeful. If only - no, he could do nothing until she’d had the baby. And anyway, he might have nothing to offer her.
After that, cordial relations were re-established between the two households, though there was sometimes a faint sense of constraint between Daniel and Helen that had not been there before, an awareness of each other that tingled through them whenever they were in the same room. At other times there was a closeness that was unspoken but impossible to ignore, even when they were only strolling round her garden together on the milder afternoons.
This was not, Helen knew, how Charles had affected her. This feeling was altogether more exciting. In the darkness of one stormy night, she at last admitted to herself what it was. She was deeply in love with Daniel Carnforth!
The child stirred within her and her smile faded, but she put her hands protectively round the mound of her belly. I love you, too, little one, she thought, but that’s a different type of love again. A wry expression flitted across her face. What a time to fall in love! Could she never do anything sensibly? And of course, she and Daniel could do nothing about their feelings until the baby was born.
From being content to wait for nature to take her time, Helen suddenly became impatient to have the child, to know whether it was a boy or a girl, to know whether she would have to struggle to make Daniel admit his love for her or whether he would turn ridiculously noble and try to leave her.
She didn’t think she could bear that. Not now. For she was quite sure, he was the love of her life. Robert had been an infatuation and she had been a foolish ignorant child then. Charles had been a dear friend, only a dear friend. But Daniel, ah, he was a fire in her blood now.
If it weren’t for her condition, she thought she might even have spoken to him about her feelings first, since he was so diffident. But the baby was there between them, so tangible a proof of another man’s love. No, on all accounts, they would have to wait to sort things out.
But that didn’t prevent her from looking at him with open affection and she knew, she knew instinctively, that he realised how she felt and was feeling the same.
From then on, try as he might, Daniel couldn’t be completely at ease with the woman he loved, the only woman he had ever loved. Like Helen, he no longer tried to deny his own feelings. And yet he did wonder sometimes why he loved her so much. He asked himself that question many times. It was, he decided, her tranquillity that appealed most to him, the atmosphere of peace and warmth that she created around her, given half a chance. But he found her beautiful too, especially when she wasn’t wearing black. So beautiful that he wanted to touch her, hold her, and if he couldn’t do that, at least be with her.
He also admired her character, for she genuinely cared for those around her and the poor of the village were benefiting from that. Now that she was feeling better, she was making her presence known, helping those in need in many small but practical ways.
And he loved to see her with her son. Daniel couldn't remember his own mother ever spending much time with him when he was young, or walking along with her hand on his shoulder, giving all her attention to what he had to say, as Helen did to Harry.
His mother had no sense of humour, either, never saw the point of a joke, even when it was explained to her. Helen was always ready to laugh at something. She had a lively wit, too. It was yet another thing he liked about her. And she had such a soft chuckle, more a gurgle, really, when she was amused about something. He found himself listening for that sound.
As Christmas approached, Daniel made many excuses for spending more time in Helen's company, since they were in some sense joint patrons of the local festivities. Mr Morpeth mentioned how, in the old days, the Carnforths had been responsible for decorating the church (there should be a crib somewhere at the big house still) and how they had distributed presents to the poor of the parish. The two of them decided to undertake those tasks again.
As it was a bad winter generally, they also decided to work together to alleviate the distress, for he was out and about in the district and could hear if anyone were ill or in need. Several sheep were slaughtered just before Christmas to provide presents, for food was far and away the most welcome gift to those who were really poor, for whom meat was a real luxury.
Helen also suggested that men short of work during the winter should be employed to clear the woods of some of the dead branches and thus provide both fuel and employment for themselves.
A disagreement was narrowly averted when she offered to pay their wages, but she withdrew her offer when she saw how alarmingly formal Mr Carnforth had become at her suggestion. It was agreed instead that she should provide lengths of warm flannel for the womenfolk and toys for the children and that he would pay the for the work on the woods.
‘It reminds me of the days when I was a seamstress in a theatre,’ she said reminiscently, once that little problem had been sorted out. ‘Bolts of cloth. Interminable seams.’ She realised Daniel knew very little of her past and raised her chin defiantly. She had long wanted to set him straight about her antecedents. ‘You perhaps ought to know, Mr Carnforth, that I made an extremely foolish first marriage.’
He had guessed that, but he nodded, for he wanted to know all about her.
She took a deep breath and added, so that he should know the worst from her own lips. ‘I had to get married because I was expecting Harry and - and I realised later that Lord Northby and my father had to force Robert to marry me, for he wouldn’t have done so by choice. My parents disowned me immediately after the wedding and I never saw them again, though my brother is still alive.’
She sighed as she remembered some of those times. ‘After a while, since my husband was not
- er - able to support us, I found ways to earn a living for myself and my son, mostly with my needle.’ She saw the expression on his face and misinterpreted it. ‘I am not ashamed of having worked honestly, Mr Carnforth.’ She lifted her chin defiantly.
‘My dear Helen, I was not blaming you.’' He was merely shocked that any man should not wish to provide for a woman like her. And in fact, he'd heard something of the first husband from Harry, whose naive confidences sometimes revealed more than his mother would have wished.
Daniel saw that she was still looking at him uncertainly and added, ‘No one need ever be ashamed of honest work, Helen.’ He had a s
udden savage wish that Harry's father were still alive, so that he could knock the scoundrel’s teeth down his throat.
‘You should know, too,’ Helen went on, determined that Daniel should be under no false illusions about her or her son, ‘that Harry's father was an actor. And not a very good one, either!
He - he later became quite addicted to gambling, which caused a lot of problems for us.’
Daniel discovered that his hands were clenched into two fists. ‘My father might have been a gentleman, but he was also a drunkard,’ he offered in exchange, ‘and I hated him with a passion.’ He had never confessed that to anyone before. ‘He treated my mother abominably and he mostly ignored me. He didn’t beat us, but the tongue can be a vicious weapon, too, and he didn’t hesitate to use that against us. Which is perhaps why I have been rather - some would say
- tolerant of my mother’s foolish ways.’
A flurry of rain against the window distracted Helen's attention for a moment and he eyed her hungrily. Today she was in a deep rose colour, with a shawl draped discretely over her stomach.
Why did ladies think it was unseemly to show their pregnant figures? If it were his child she was carrying, he'd be proud of it!
Bitterness twisted his guts. Ah, to have the right to look after her! He ached sometimes to cradle her in his arms and kiss those soft cheeks! He concentrated on his breathing, for it suddenly felt as if there wasn’t enough air in the room. Fool, he told himself! You cannot make passionate advances to a woman big with another man's child! And you don't even know whether she would welcome your attentions!
He smiled at the thought. No, he wasn’t being conceited, but he felt quite sure she would welcome his love. There was a warmth in her eyes when she looked at him that he couldn’t mistake. And she kept calling him Daniel when she wasn’t thinking. How wonderful his first name sounded on her lips!
Then his smile faded. But if that child were a son, he would be in no position to propose marriage, for then he’d not even have a home to offer her. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Was there ever such a tangle? But he couldn’t resist continuing the conversation, wanting to find out more about the woman he loved. ‘Might I ask you about your family, Helen? You’re obviously of gentle birth.’
‘Am I? It never feels like it. But thank you for that compliment, at least.’ Her voice had grown a little strained. ‘My father was born a gentleman, I suppose. He was a clergyman and also,’ she took a deep, shaky breath, for she rarely spoke of him, ‘a harsh, bigoted man, which is, I suppose, why he didn’t get on in the church. It was a very poor living, so all we had was our gentility. That's where I learned about being poor and what poor people really need. Even before my first husband began to gamble.’
He forgot his resolve to keep his distance and stretched out one hand towards her. ‘My dear, I'm so sorry.’
She took the hand, then blushed as she realised what she’d done and dropped it again. ‘My father’s dead now, Daniel, my mother too, and they say we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But I still bear the scars of his belt buckle from the beating he gave me when he found I was carrying a child.’ She hadn't meant to tell him that and looked down at her hands, now clasped tightly in her lap. ‘I didn’t even understand how children were made, you know, let alone wish to commit a sin. What an ignorant young fool I was!’
‘Ah, Helen - ’
‘Don't pity me, Daniel! It all happened a long time ago. I would just – I’d rather you knew the truth about me than listen to the things gossip says about - the wicked woman who entrapped Charles.’
‘You know of that silly gossip, then?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Becky had told her, said it was better to be prepared. And she’d overheard things in church as well. Whispers could carry more easily than people realised in a high-vaulted building.
He picked up her hand and clasped it in his. And the gesture was so warmly comforting that this time she let her hand lie there.
But neither said anything openly of their love for one another or discussed the future. Neither dared put it into words. Not yet. Not until after Charles Carnforth’s baby was born.
Chapter 19
It didn’t go unnoticed in the village that Mr Daniel Carnforth and Mrs Charles Carnforth were becoming very friendly. More than friendly, some said, because they seemed remarkably at ease with each other, for two people who weren’t actually blood relatives.
Well, she had had plenty of practice at getting on with men, hadn't she? the spiteful said. Two husbands dead and buried already and she was what? About twenty-seven or so?
On the whole, most people thought a match between the two would be quite a good thing, since it would tie up the estate and the money nicely. But everyone, without exception, disapproved of the haste of the courtship, especially with her in that condition!
Helen would have laughed at them. She had never been as happy in her life, even during the time she’d spent with Charles. He had been a very good friend, and she still missed him, but Daniel was her beloved, and she was madly, passionately in love with him. If she didn’t see him, the day seemed less bright.
She was enjoying the leisurely courtship, glad that he and Harry were getting to know and like one another. Dear Harry. If he understood what was going on, he was keeping quiet about it. But probably he didn't understand. He was not of an age to care about things like love and marriage.
His passions at the moment were focused mainly on his dog and his pony. And on his mother, of whom he was still very protective.
The Misses Hadderby observed developments with great interest. ‘Did you see the way they smiled at each other in church this morning, my dear?’ Miss Annabel would say.
‘I most certainly did. So vulgar to show one’s feeling like that, don't you think?’
‘I hear, sister, that they have been out walking in the woods again today. With the boy, of course,’ the elder Miss Hadderby would offer.
‘Well, at least she does take the boy along, I will give her that much. She is not totally lost to decorum.’
‘That makes three times this week Carnforth has called on her now, does it not? My goodness, where will all this lead?’
In the meantime, the two old ladies dined out at least once a week on the fact that they lived close enough to see and report on nearly everything that was happening, since any carriage going to the Dower House had to pass their gates. And what they couldn’t see, for he sometimes walked or rode over from the big house, their maid found out about from her friend, Susan.
The gossip spread and spread, continually being renewed and added to, the ripples widening until the rumours had reached as far afield as Bath.
The idea that her son might be contemplating marriage with that woman shocked Celia so much that she even forgot to have hysterics when she found out. Instead, she mystified her staff by taking to her bed, where she lay thinking things over.
‘It cannot be,’ she whispered again and again. ‘It just cannot be. She shall not ruin my son.’
Tearlessly, selflessly, she resolved to save Daniel, even from himself, and most definitely from the temptress. And she set about doing it, at whatever cost to herself.
A mother’s love, she told herself, enjoying the drama of the phrase, even when there was no one else present to hear it, would brook no resistance.
Since she had very wide connections, she had now gathered considerable information about Helen, putting the pieces of gossip together like one of those dissected maps that children sometimes played with to teach them about geography. It was time to strike, to put an end to this intolerable situation.
The gossip about Mrs Carnforth also penetrated the stronghold of Northby Castle in the next county. Lord Northby found it highly distasteful to have a relative so much talked about and became very huffy if the matter was mentioned in his presence. Two husbands dead and being courted by a third even before the second one's child was born!
‘It’s too much,’ he told his wife.
‘Something must be done about it! Whether the young woman is foolish or scheming, she must be brought to behave more decorously.’
‘Yes, dear.’ Personally, her ladyship cared nothing about her husband's relatives. Her own love was saved and spent lavishly on her two sons. But if Basil was in one of his fusses, there was nothing she could do but acquiesce in his plans and leave him to deal with it.
‘That's what comes of living abroad! Those foreigners have damned loose morals!’ His Lordship had never left his native soil, and hoped he would never be called upon to do so, but he knew how superior England was to all those rackety foreign places.
‘Yes, dear.’
He walked up and down the drawing room, slurping his port and spilling some on the pale carpet, which made his wife frown in annoyance. ‘Well,’ he stopped to replenish his glass, leaving a sticky trail of wine across the side table, ‘my duty is plain. There is no one else who can act, so I must do something.’
‘Is that really necessary, dear?’ She watched in alarm as he jerked round and the port slopped to and fro in his glass. ‘She is, after all, only a connection, not a close relative.’
‘Necessary? Of course it's necessary? Haven't you been listening to me? Do you want our name bandied around the county, dammit?’
‘She's called Carnforth now. Surely no one will know she's related to us? Not if we don’t tell them.’
‘I don't care what she's called. She's a sort of cousin and her parents are both dead. I see my duty clear as head of the family.’
She persuaded him to wait, see if the gossip would die down. But it didn’t.
A week or two later he declared loudly over breakfast, ‘I’ve waited long enough. Now that Christmas is over, I intend to drive over to see her, remonstrate with her.’
Her ladyship sighed. When Basil got that stubborn look on his face, you could do nothing with him. ‘Whatever you think best, dear.’
‘I’d like you to come with me. A woman's touch, don't you know.’
‘Yes, dear. But not today.’ And she would find some excuse not to go every time he raised the matter. She had no desire to meet this young woman, no desire at all. The father had been a dreadful man, the brother was a mealy-mouthed fool.