‘Oh! Oh!’ The second exclamation was a little louder. It said that Henry believed his daughter, and now he looked at Rosamund, adding: ‘You could have been mistaken, Rosie. Perhaps it was the old woman you saw.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.’ Rosamund turned from them abruptly and went up the stairs to her room.
She was too angry to go to bed. She did not relish being tossed and turned by the turmoil of her thinking. So she sat by the window, looking out across the dark land.
She had not been sitting long before she heard her father and Jennifer coming upstairs, and when their doors had closed on them she gave a deep sigh and some of the tension left her body.
She had been sitting at the window for over half an hour when the clock on the landing struck eleven. She shivered, and, reaching out, she pulled a rug from the foot of the bed, and wrapped it round her.
The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and as the far side of the river bank became visible to her, so did the figure standing on the landing stage. The sight of him brought her to her feet, but she remained still. The house was in shadow, and he would not be able to see her. Would he come across and knock them up? She had a sudden almost passionate longing for him to do just that. But the minutes passed and he made no move from the landing.
She turned her head and looked towards her bedroom door. If she tried to go out quietly they were bound to hear. But if she went downstairs ordinarily, as if she was going to the kitchen, they would take no notice. It wouldn’t be the first time she had gone downstairs to make herself a drink when she couldn’t sleep.
Keeping the rug around her, she went, not too quietly, out of the room and down the stairs. She went through the kitchen, unlocked the back door and moved cautiously round the side of the house, across the garden, and to the boat landing.
He was still standing on the far landing and he raised his hand to her. She gave him no return wave, but dropped quietly into the ferry. Slowly, evenly, hand over hand, she drew the boat across the water, making scarcely a ripple, and no sound at all from the heavy chain.
His hands were ready waiting for her when she reached the far bank, and when he pulled her up on to the landing she found she was trembling so much that she couldn’t even whisper a greeting.
‘I willed you to come out,’ he said very quietly.
‘I can’t stay long,’ Rosamund stammered. ‘I just wanted to know how you had got on.’
‘You’re coming back to the house, I’ve got so much to tell you; but, more important still, I’ve brought some food back, real food: chicken, ham, wine. I didn’t think you’d be gone. I got back as soon as I could.’
‘But it’s so late.’
‘Late? It’s just after eleven. And what does it matter, anyway?’
Yes, what did it matter? She turned and he took her arm as he had done earlier in the day, almost lifting her along the path. The excitement that was filling him found its way to her and she asked eagerly, ‘Was it very good news?’
‘Ah, Rosie!’ Her arm was pulled tightly against his side. ‘Very good news, indeed. I can’t get used to it yet, but I soon will; oh yes, I soon will. I am a factory owner, Rosie. What do you think of that? And not just one factory. I have a tannery, a bag factory, a shoe factory, shares in chemicals and heaven knows what else, and at this moment reposing in a bank in Cambridge is an advance of twenty thousand pounds. Think of it, Rosie—twenty thousand pounds.’ She was pulled to a stop.
They had come to the edge of the wood now. His face was in shadow as he bent above her, and she could not see the expression in his eyes, but the tone of his voice caused her heart to race as he asked, ‘Who do you think I wanted with me in London today?’
She did not answer.
‘When I came out of that solicitor’s office and stood in the street like someone dazed, the first thought that came to my mind was: I can get away. The house could be furnished, the roof repaired, the land tilled, and it could all be done while I, Michael Bradshaw, was taking a long, long holiday abroad. I’ve always wanted money to enable me to travel. That is, until I came back to this God-forsaken, bloodsucking, heart-holding land. And then I thought…I wish Rosie was here…Don’t be afraid.’
‘I’m…I’m not afraid.’
‘Well, don’t move away from me.’
‘I…I…’
‘Look! Come on, let’s eat and celebrate. Here, give me your hand!’ He grabbed her hand and the next minute she was flying over the moonlit fields towards the broken gate and the drive. And, bubbling inside her there was laughter and excitement—and such happiness that she had never experienced before, did not know it was in her to experience. She was being almost choked by a feeling that was new, and even a little terrifying. She had said a moment earlier that she wasn’t afraid. But she was afraid, she was afraid of him. Of his strength, his compellingness, his assertiveness that swept everything before it. But she was gasping and laughing out loud when he drew her to a halt at the front door. It was wide open, and the bare hall was streaked with moonlight. Still at a trot he led her across the hall and into the kitchen. The lamp was lit, and the table was set for a meal. He looked about him, saying, ‘Maggie must have gone up to bed already. She was tired, but she’s tucked in, I see.’ He pointed to the roast chicken and the ham. Then, turning to Rosamund he pulled her towards a chair, and, whipping the rug from her shoulders, said, ‘Sit yourself down there. We’ll eat first and talk afterwards, eh?’
She watched him go to the sink and wash his hands before coming to the table. She watched him slice the ham and carve up the chicken. There were two bottles of wine on the table, and as he picked up one and held it to the light he cast his eyes on her and said, ‘Champagne is overrated, you can’t better a good Auslese.’ His face was alight now with laughter, odd, satirical laughter, as he looked towards the delf rack and said, ‘Wine in teacups, thick ones at that—I never thought about the glasses. I imagined I had thought about everything, at least in the food line.’ As he poured the wine into the cups he went on, ‘You know, Rosie, I could have bought anything today—clothes for the child, a rigout for Maggie, and furs’—he flicked his eyes down to her—‘real ones, and diamonds to go with them, but what did I think of? Food. Good food. A square meal. It’s a long, long time since I ate a proper meal. But now we can have chickens and steaks until we’re sick of the sight of them.’
She watched him place the cups on the table, then, sweeping one arm towards her with a grandiose movement, he said, ‘Supper is ready. Allow me, madam.’
One moment she was looking up at him with laughter quivering on her lips, the next she was struggling vainly to quell the choking feeling in her throat, for the lump that had suddenly lodged itself there threatened to stop her breathing. The torrent of tears washed over her with the force of a breaker, and her head was bowed under it almost to her knees as she tried to stifle her sobs with her hands across her mouth.
‘Rosie! Rosie! God, don’t cry like that! What is it? What have I done, what have I said? Rosie…’ He was kneeling by her side. ‘What is it? Look at me. Tell me what it is.’
Her face was now cupped in his hands, but she could see him only faintly through the blur of her tears. She could not tell him what had made her cry, she did not really know herself. The pathos in his attitude towards food perhaps. The elemental man in him who had put first things first. The boyishness so strong in the man. His strange tenderness. The derisiveness that touched everything he said. So many things had made her cry.
‘Rosie…’ He was drying her eyes and his voice was low. ‘Look at me, straight in the eyes.’
Her body was still shaking with her emotions as she did as he asked.
‘Will you marry me, Rosie?’
His eyes were deep and dark and held hers fast; there was no way of turning from them even if she had wanted to. She almost felt herself being drawn into their depths.
When she remained mute he said impatiently, ‘I’m not asking
you to love me. We won’t talk about love; that is something to be slopped over by the very young, and to be remembered by the old. We are in between the two and I’m past romance. But I have money now, enough to support a wife, as a wife should be supported.’ The derisiveness was back in his tone again, and as she gulped and shook her head he put in, ‘Oh, I know money doesn’t mean all that to you, Rosie, but it’s a great compensation…There is the child.’
‘Don’t…Don’t put it like that. I would have looked after the…the child if you hadn’t a p-penny.’
‘Yes. Yes, I know that.’ His voice was deep and quiet as he spoke now, and without the slightest trace of mockery, ‘Yes, I know, because from the moment I saw you with her at the front door, your face full of compassion, I thought, Here is someone with a heart. And from that moment you had an effect upon me, you disturbed me greatly, filled me with restlessness whenever I couldn’t see you, or know that you were near. I became as bad as the child for you. I wished at times I was like the child and you would take my hand and lead me…Perhaps it is a mother I want.’
‘Michael, don’t.’ She was in his arms, her head buried in his neck, repeating his name again and again, ‘Michael, Michael.’
‘You will marry me, then?’
‘Oh yes; yes.’
‘You don’t love me but you will marry me.’ Was there that cold laughter in his voice again?
‘But I do…I do love you.’
And she knew that she did. She knew that this was love. That this pain, this deep ache, this unsatisfied want, was love. She knew that this was what she had been waiting for, for days, perhaps weeks. When there was no other prospect but of living in this bare, empty-sounding house, she knew now that she had wanted to do just that so as to be near him…What about Clifford? She could almost laugh aloud now at the thought of Clifford and her feeling for him. She would have to confess somewhat shamefacedly that security had been the main attraction where Clifford was concerned. Keeping the mill as a home for them all had been the star on that particular horizon. That, too, had been the cause of her recurring dream. But this, this feeling, this strange disturbing want—this was love.
He was holding her face once more in his hands. It was below his own now, and when quietly his lips touched hers she put her arms about his neck and with all her strength she held him to her.
When at last he released her she was overcome with a sudden shyness, and she would have turned from him to the table had he not pulled her round to face him again.
‘We’ll make it soon, Rosie. Special licence.’
She nodded, unable to speak.
‘It could be all fixed up in a week.’
‘A week?’ Now her eyebrows went up just the slightest. ‘But they…I mean my father and Jennifer…they’ll have to get used to the idea. I’m not quite sure whether they will like it at all; they’ve somehow got used to being looked after.’
‘Rosie.’ He pulled her down to the chair again, and, squatting on his heels before her and gripping her hands in his, he said urgently, ‘Don’t tell them. Don’t tell anyone. Let’s do it on the quiet.’
‘But…but what’ll they think?’
‘Does it matter what they think, what anybody thinks? Rosie…’ He released one hand and, putting it up to her face, stroked her cheek. ‘Do this for me, will you? You see, I’ve got a fear on me. Yes…’ He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded his head. ‘As Maggie would say, I’ve a fear on me. It might appear that I’m afraid of nothing or no-one, but I am. All my life I have found that anything I’ve wanted, and valued, has been taken from me, or spoiled in some way…’
‘But I won’t…I won’t, Michael. I’ll…’
‘I know, Rosie, I know.’ He patted her cheek as if she were the child. ‘I know I can trust you, but I can’t trust fate. You see, this feeling goes a long way back with me, right to my childhood in this very house.’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Some things stand out in my mind. The first was the boat. I always wanted a boat of my own. My father had enough money to buy me ten boats in those days. But no, he wouldn’t hear of me having a boat, so, with the help of my mother, I saved up and bought one. I kept it at the end of the Cut. I kept it for one day at the end of the Cut. The second morning when I went to see it, it was a burnt-out shell. This kind of thing happened again and again. I wanted to go in for medicine, but all my father could think of was the land and the cheapest way to work it. I was just old enough to get in at the tail end of the war, and when I was demobbed and came back here I knew I couldn’t stick it. Then my mother died and left me the little that she had, and I made the break and started my studies in London. There was nothing I wanted more in life than to become a doctor, and not just a doctor, a surgeon…In my second year up there I met Susie’s mother.’ He turned his eyes away from Rosamund at this point, and his voice went deeper into his throat as he said, ‘I look back now and say to myself, “You of all people should have been able to resist fascination. You of all people should have been able to discern what lay behind beautiful shells.” But apparently I couldn’t, for I went down like corn under the blade.’ He looked at Rosamund again. ‘I’m making no excuses for myself. Everything was forgotten, I went mad. She had a little money, and with what I had left it was enough to keep us on the move abroad for a time, but long before the child was born the money was finished, and so was I. I had woken up as if from a drugged dream. Yet life was bearable in some ways, until Susie came…From the minute that child drew breath her mother hated her. It became so intense that it turned her brain before she died…’ He paused and drew in a long breath before adding, ‘She was drowned…’
After a silence that seemed to Rosamund impossible to penetrate, he went on, ‘It was strange, but the more she hated the child the more I loved her—the child I mean, not the mother. In the end I hated Camilla with a hatred that equalled her own for the child. It was odd, but I’d always craved children, and I remember thinking that I would put up with Camilla if she gave me a family…particularly daughters.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I had a fancy for daughters. The psychological answer there is that I loved my mother and hated my father. Well, I got a daughter, as you know, Rosie.’ He was looking at her again. ‘Do you see what I mean about fate? I wish…I get my wish, but fate gives it a twist.’ He was gripping her hands once more. ‘It mustn’t happen again, Rosie, you understand?…It mustn’t happen again. Your father will put up all kinds of objections, he will point out Susie to you…’
‘No, no, he won’t; he understands…’
He was shaking his head vigorously now. ‘Then there’s your sister, she has no love for me. My manner with her was very cursory at our first meeting—you will know all about that, I suppose. She’ll put her spoke in…’
She too was shaking her head as she checked his rapid flow, saying, ‘Listen, listen, Michael. Nobody will stop me doing what I want. I want…I want to marry you, Michael, but…All right, all right.’ The last words were wrenched from her by the look in the depths of his eyes, and it was she now who put out her hand and touched his cheek. ‘It will be as you say—I’ll tell no-one.’
He brought her hand around to his mouth and pressed his lips to the palm. A second later, pulling her to her feet again, he cried jovially, ‘Let’s drink to us.’ But when with the cup in his hand he clinked hers, he said softly and with deep feeling, ‘No, not to us; to Rosie…Mrs Michael Bradshaw.’
She was in her room once more, undressing as if she was still in a dream, the dream of the past two hours, when her bedroom door was thrust open and Jennifer, a candle in her hand, her face tight and almost vicious in its expression, came into the room. Rosamund looked at her sister for some time, waiting for her to speak, and when she did her words were like drops of acid.
‘No wonder you were afraid of being spied upon; your guilty conscience had every right to make you furious.’
‘All right! All right! You know where I’ve been, so what about it?’ Although Rosamund’s head was up an
d her chin high, her voice was quiet, but not so Jennifer’s as she went on:
‘Sneaking out of the house, and creeping across the river without a sound and him waiting for you. You needn’t deny it.’
‘Who’s denying it?’
‘You’re mad. He can’t afford to furnish the house let alone employ anyone. Three pounds a week…Huh! What is he expecting for his three pounds, I wonder?’
The cry that escaped Rosamund checked Jennifer’s vitriolic words, and she turned her head away from the onslaught of Rosamund’s tongue. Rosamund’s anger and indignation was so great that she hardly knew what she was saying herself, but as her father appeared behind Jennifer in the doorway she was crying, ‘What you’re afraid of is being left here to see to Father, and that’s what’ll happen to you, just that.’
‘What is it? What on earth is it? What is the matter with you, anyway?’ Henry Morley pushed past Jennifer and stood between them.
‘I’ve been out, Father; I’ve just come back. I’ve been having supper with Mr Bradshaw, Michael Bradshaw. Jennifer saw me go out and she likely saw me come back.’
‘Yes…yes, I did…Kissing on the bank, and you haven’t known him five minutes…and supposed to hate his guts.’
‘I never said I hated his guts, not once, never…And yes, we were kissing on the bank. Is there anything wrong in that?’ She was looking at her father now, and, apparently, if not finding it wrong, Henry Morley was finding it rather mystifying, for his voice was puzzled as he asked, ‘You and him…Bradshaw? Oh, Rosie! And…and there’s the child.’
‘I know there’s the child. I’ve always known there’s the child, Father.’
‘All right! All right, Rosie, don’t shout at me. I’m not saying anything against the child. I pity it. But him…Bradshaw…What about Clifford?’
The Fen Tiger (The House on the Fens) Page 13