A Song Twice Over

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘Oliver Rattrie,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. An observant lad, Oliver. A sensitive lad, even. It shocked him deeply, it seems, seeing you in Mrs Thackray’s passage, pressing yourself against that ordinary man – her son –’

  ‘Christie.’

  ‘Letting him have his way with you, says Oliver.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  It seemed there had been a flash in her head, evaporating her fear, freeing her tongue. For this had been one of the tenderest moments of her life, one of the most precious of her memories, and she would not have him soil it. Him, and Oliver Rattrie.

  ‘Stop it, Christie.’

  He smiled at her. And then reproachfully clicked his tongue. ‘Opening your cloak for him, I hear, and more besides, so he could get his workaday hands on your skin …’

  ‘I told you to stop it.’

  ‘And really, my dear, crushing yourself against him so lewdly, Oliver thought – gorging your little self by the sound of it, up against that wall –’

  She began to shriek ‘Stop it’she didn’t know how many times, the thudding in her chest creating its echo inside her head, muffling her own voice like something heard through a sea-shell, her own violence frightening her badly.

  ‘And with your skirts up around your middle …’

  ‘No they were not – never –’

  Never, never, would Luke have offered her such an insult. He had been comforting her, loving her, not treating her as a toy for his own perverse pleasure. A slattern. As this man often did.

  She struck out at him wildly, not expecting to hit him, not even seeing him very clearly, locating him mainly and inaccurately by his hot odour of musk and tobacco, her hysteria soon melting, in that thick air, to a fresh nausea so that she was not even sorry when he caught her wrists and held her steady.

  ‘So he does mean something to you – this working man?’

  ‘Yes. He does.’ And, her mouth very close to his face, she threw each word against it, feeling as if she were spitting venom, wishing that she could. ‘He’s the best man I’ve ever known. The very best. A good man. Worth a thousand of you. I’d trust him with my life.’

  To her astonishment he laughed and let her go.

  ‘So that’s it.’ Evidently he had discovered whatever it was that he wished to know. ‘Trust. And goodness.’ He sounded highly diverted, although not greatly impressed. ‘Really, Cara, it is just as well that I have sent him away. You could never have lived up to all that excellence, you know.’

  Perhaps she did know.

  Standing away from him she pressed her hands against her temples, trying to shut off the beating sea-sounds that were making her so dizzy, her vitality ebbing fast, a great weary wave of futility and defeat – not quite of resignation – washing over her in its place.

  But at least on the surface, it restored her calm.

  ‘Christie, if you wanted to know what I felt for Luke Thackray why didn’t you just ask me?’

  ‘My dear,’ he sounded almost shocked. ‘What a tame little notion. And would you have told me? Did you even know yourself? Or perhaps you didn’t really want to know. In which case – well – now you do. The poor fellow. You esteem him. You trust him. Perhaps he would have preferred a little honest passion.’

  She clasped her hands very tight together, amazed, in this inferno, to feel them so cold.

  ‘Perhaps he would.’

  ‘But you had none to give him, had you, Cara? Not really. Not the kind that launches ships and moves mountains. Not the kind one couldn’t live without?’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘Then say a little more. Be honest with yourself, my darling. Could you really be his wife and bear his children in poverty – with no hope, ever, of any silk dresses to wear …?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t.’

  ‘I think you are even a little sorry about that.’

  ‘Yes. I am. It means I know he is too good for me.’

  He threw back his head and laughed, most heartily.

  ‘Oh dear – oh dear – poor Cara. You will learn to accept your own nature one of these days.’

  ‘And play games with other people’s lives – like you?’

  ‘Have I hurt you, Cara?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He had done more than that. Chastened her, it seemed, torn out of her so much that had been precious and fragile and exposed it to this scorching, acrid air, ridiculed it, soiled it, and then invited her to watch it wither. While he – for his diversion – had watched her suffer.

  ‘Have you finished with me now? Can I go?’

  ‘Of course. And don’t feel too badly. There is a new move afoot for a Ten Hours’ Bill. Oastler has been making trouble. Ben Braithwaite is not the only millmaster to start weeding the Oastlerites out. What has happened to the Thackrays would probably have happened in any case.’

  ‘But you could have stopped it?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Why? Really why?’

  ‘Because I am, by nature, possessive. I was an only child, you see. I never learned to share. What was mine was mine and mine only – whether I really wanted it or not. And even when I had lost interest entirely, what had been mine tended to stay mine, if only so that no one else could have it. An unpleasant trait, I admit. I have never outgrown it.’

  ‘You were never so possessive with Marie Moon or Audrey Covington-Pym.’

  ‘Of course not.’ He seemed surprised. ‘They are married women, the property of their husbands. I was the poacher of other men’s preserves, which is an entirely different matter from having someone – however upright and worthy – poach on me.’

  A moment passed, prolonged and uncomfortable, in which nothing seemed able to match the astonishment and unease she was feeling. And when she could speak it was only to produce a trite little remark which rang in her own ears as totally inadequate. A foolish, childish thing to say.

  ‘So I am to have no friends.’

  He smiled a cordial agreement. ‘Not if they happen to be personable young men who lead you to misbehave in public. You should not have done that, you know, Cara. Fortunately you managed to restrain yourself rather better with your Chartist candidate. Although it makes no difference now, of course, in his present circumstances …’

  ‘What circumstances?’ And, the hairs rising on the back of her neck, her spine tingling a warning, she felt the trap snap shut around her even as she spoke the words. What had he done to Daniel? What was he leading her to now? Another place of chastisement? Another whipping post? Another opportunity for him to watch her bleed?

  What had he done to Daniel?

  ‘What circumstances?’

  ‘Well – I hardly like to mention them …’

  ‘Oh yes you do.’

  ‘Particularly when it concerns a lady …’

  ‘What have you done to him?’

  She was playing into his hands and knew it. But what did she care for that? Because if he had hurt Daniel she would … She didn’t know.

  One day he would go too far. She had told him that. One day he would hurt somebody too much, strip somebody too bare. Had the day come now?

  ‘I have done nothing to him, Cara – nothing at all. In fact, what could any man do but wish him well. She is a charming woman.’

  She had no voice to ask the name. She looked at him. Stared her question. And he answered crisply.

  ‘Gemma Gage. They have been enjoying a most passionate, most voluptuous idyll together since August of last year. Why else did you think she braved social ostracism by employing him in her school if she was not in love with him?’

  She didn’t know what she felt. She held her breath and let it take her, wondering, as the first shock receded, what else he meant to take away from her. And then, surprised by her own strange calm, she said, ‘How do you know that, Christie?’ For had there been the faintest whisper of speculation about Gemma Gage – dear God, how plain she was; how serious – then it would have reached the shop. An
d Cara had heard nothing, noticed nothing except, just occasionally, that dreaming smile which had been put down to anything but a lover. Gemma Gage was simply not that kind of woman.

  ‘How do I know?’ he said airily. ‘Oh – in the dirtiest and most underhand way possible. I do assure you. And quite easily. Women like Gemma Gage – who are basically honourable and decent – are never much good at the mechanies of adultery. Passion they understand but deceit is always a little beyond them. They never seem to carry it far enough. So – while dear Gemma has obviously remembered to deceive her husband and the rest of her family and purchased her housekeeper’s silence, I suppose, with suitable presents, she appears to have forgotten the lesser members of her staff. Ladies tend to do that, I find. A little kitchen skivvy, in fact. Mrs Gage may not even have known the girl was there. But my boy Oliver knew. He is really a most useful little beast.’

  ‘Useful?’ Once again the hairs had risen on her neck. ‘What use could this be to you?’

  ‘Who knows? One tends to store these things in the memory. To be used – or not – as seems appropriate. It is always of great interest, you know, to see what happens when one opens a cupboard door and all the skeletons come tumbling out.’

  ‘You mean you’d tell her husband?’

  She heard the harsh note of disgust in her own voice. So did he. It made him smile.

  ‘I doubt it. Such a dull fellow. Entirely predictable. He would take it like a gentleman. But he has a sister …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘An exquisite woman of very precise ambitions and no scruples to speak of. In fact no scruples at all, I rather believe. A cousin of the Bartram-Hyndes who really should not be living on Amabel Dallam’s good will like a paid companion. This little snippet of information about her brother’s wife could be of assistance to her. Interesting – at any rate – to see just what she might do with it.’

  Cara was appalled. So horrified, indeed, that for the first time since the distant convent schools of her childhood she felt a compelling urge to cross herself.

  ‘Christie, you mustn’t do that.’

  ‘Why? Do tell me.’

  ‘Because you mustn’t, that’s all – or anything like it. Can’t you see that it’s … It’s evil. The devil’s work.’ He laughed at her. ‘Cara, my lamb, I do believe you are afraid for my soul.’

  For her own, perhaps.

  ‘Christie.’ And she had never pronounced his name so fervently. ‘Why hurt a woman like Gemma Gage? She’s done nothing to you, has she? Unless – is it because she lives in your manor?’

  ‘Good God.’ This time his laughter was neither mocking nor maddening but quite genuine. Almost hearty. ‘Most certainly not. What use have I for the place now they have surrounded it with their factories? I have nothing against Mrs Gage whatsoever. Does that make me better or worse?’

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘Yes. I imagined you would think so. You will simply have to put it down to my meddlesome nature. There are theories which it pleases me, from time to time, to test. And certain demonstrations I like to make. As I demonstrated to you, a moment ago, just how fragile is your affection for the excellent Mr Thackray when set beside the so much greater love you bear to Miss Cara Adeane and her thriving little establishment in Market Square. Time well spent, I feel, although it went much as I had expected. I knew all along that you and he could have no real future together. Didn’t you?’

  She knew now.

  One day he would go too far. Strip somebody too bare. She had to get away quickly, this minute, before it happened. Before she was the one.

  Turning from him the fire struck her a scorching blow, a log erupting into hot, fierce sparks as she felt herself to be erupting, only barely holding herself in check as she hurried from the room and then no longer in check at all as she came upon Oliver Rattrie crouching half-way up the stairs, perhaps only stooping to pick something up or to fasten a boot-lace, although – at that volcanic moment – she had no doubt that he could only be listening, spying.

  ‘Little toad – get out of my way.’

  Perhaps she only meant to push him aside.

  She pushed him. Hard.

  ‘Little rat.’

  He retreated before her, backwards down the narrow stairs his pale eyes bulging and watering, she thought, not defending himself, a rodent indeed – as she had always known him – hypnotized by her towering rage, her wild beauty – as he had always been hypnotized – so that when she pushed him again he fell, head over heels down the few remaining stairs, landing in a limp sprawl, his head striking the banister with a crack which, while muddling his senses, should have restored her to her own.

  It did not.

  He got up, rubbing his eyes like a child about to cry and she went on pushing him, spitting abuse at him all the way through the back door and into the stable yard, still sane enough to wonder if she had gone mad, although the suspicion did not trouble her – she didn’t care – her heart thudding again, too large for her chest, a drum-beat in her head, her pulses throbbing and racing, all pity and common sense burned out of her by the violence that had to be released, one way or another, before it split her apart.

  ‘Rat. Toad. Little weasel.’ She went on slapping him, pushing him, cuffing him, everything she had been feeling throughout the terrible morning, everything she had lost or seen besmirched, everything she had been made to fear and suffer crystallizing into hatred for Oliver Rattrie, who was not worth it, who was not even to blame for it, but who was here, squirming in her hands as she had been made to squirm, cringing as she had had to do. And now she was a dozen feet tall in her anger. Impossibly strong. Her body hard as iron and invincible, enraged far beyond the capacity to feel pain.

  ‘I’ll kill you, Oliver.’

  She had snarled the words at him several times before she realized she meant them. She was going to kill him. Stamp on him. Squash him flat like the vermin he was. She could taste his murder in her mind and on her tongue, feel it in her savage hands which had grown so powerful that he could not escape her, could do nothing but gibber like the idiot he had always been and let her drag him about, shaking him, kicking him, butting him with her knees until the horse trough blocked her way.

  Good. She would drown him. Why not? It was what one did with rats, after all. Although, of course, now, when he could surely sense her madness, he would begin to fight back?

  Surely?

  He did not. Or not enough to stop her from getting his head into the shallow water and holding it there.

  Two voices spoke to her, in her head. ‘Kill him,’ said the loudest, the strongest. And then a second voice, pleading, ‘Stop me. Please stop me. Somebody – please.’

  He struggled free choking and retching and she ducked him again.

  Kill him. Get on with it. Do it and good riddance. As he’s killed you a dozen times over. But who was she thinking of?

  Stop me. Stop me.

  For God’s sake.

  ‘Let him go, Cara.’

  The voice alone, speaking behind her, was enough, although the man who stood there did not touch her, the odour of musk, the sudden heat, identifying him plainly.

  ‘That’s enough. Let him go.’

  Thank God. Truly – from the depths of her heart – thank God.

  Her hands dropped to her sides and she turned to face him, as limp and helpless now as a marionette, water all over her dress, her hair coming down. The whole of her body throbbing like an aching tooth.

  Somewhere, just behind her, she sensed that Oliver had shaken himself like a dog and scurried away.

  ‘Have I hurt him?’ Nothing in the world could have forced her to look.

  ‘Not much. He’ll recover.’

  ‘Why didn’t he fight me back – the little idiot.’

  ‘Oh – because he’s been trying to attract your attention all his life, I suppose. And now, at least – he has had it.’

  She shook her head, very much as Oliver had done, but failed to clear it.


  ‘Why did I do that? Oh God – how could I …?’ She could feel her mouth trembling, tears gushing from her eyes. ‘How could I?’ And then, with horror, her eyes tight shut again, she whispered ‘I wanted to kill him.’

  ‘No – no. No, you didn’t.’

  But she shook her head, her whole body and soul aflame now with the single urge to confess, to lay herself down as a penitent, heap ashes upon her guilty brow and seek atonement.

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘No. You were trying to kill me, through him. That’s all.’

  ‘All?’ She collapsed against him surprised that he even took the trouble to hold her up.

  ‘All? Don’t you mind?’

  ‘No – since you didn’t succeed. Don’t worry, Adeane. I know something of these killing rages. Has it never happened to you before?’

  Hiding her face against his chest, shuddering and shaking her head, recognizing not kindness in his voice but something she had never heard there before, a deep seriousness, a note almost of solemnity with which she was too dazed to grapple.

  ‘Well then – take my word for it – it passes. The restriction in the chest, the pounding in the head. The choking fear that one’s breathing will stop. Is that what you felt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So I imagined. And now there will be exhaustion. Perhaps a little sickness. And then, in your case I suppose, anxiety about who saw it and who has heard about it and what they might be saying. Brandy helps. Shall I give you some?’

  Raising her head she looked up at him, her chin still trembling, seeing at least no laughter in him, no mockery, his face intent and still. Watching her.

  ‘You drove me to this,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘Are you sorry?’

  He smiled, very slightly. ‘Go home now. In my carriage, if you like. I’ll have somebody drive you.’

  Home? To Odette. But she could tell her mother none of this. To Luke? She had no mind to increase his burdens. To Daniel, who seemed to be in love with another woman. To Sairellen?

  ‘Your carriage! Oh – thank you very much, sir. How kind.’ She was reviving.

  For who had there ever been to look after her but herself? Cara Adeane from the back streets of Dublin and Edinburgh and Manchester and Paris. Miss Adeane of Market Square. Not everything she had hoped to be, but good enough.