A Song Twice Over

by Brenda Jagger

  She stood away from him drying her cheeks with the palms of her hands, raking through her dishevelled hair with hard, clever fingers, plaiting the length of it rapidly into a skilfully improvised chignon and then covering it Spanish-fashion, gipsy-fashion, with a fold of her expensive cashmere shawl. And if anyone noticed the stains and splashes or the traces of manure on the skirt of her dress then there were enough puddles and gutters and fractious horses in Frizingley to account for that.

  ‘Oh – I wouldn’t want to trouble you, Christie. I’ll walk,’ she said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  She did not expect any further blows to fall. This, surely, was enough. She had been almost happy. Had almost dared to think that she could have, not everything, of course, but more than she had dreamed of possessing. Her work. Her measure of comfort and success. Money in the bank and – in case the bank should fail – money in the tin box she kept hidden under the floorboards where her dog slept. All that and loving friends. Both. Not one or the other.

  But now, once again – now, when there was not a pawnticket in the house and she could pay her grocer and her butcher and her coal merchant no longer with a pang of pride but as a matter of course. Now, when her mind, freed from the basic anxieties of survival, had space and leisure to think of other things – now, at this vulnerable moment, she had been forced to make a brutal choice. And had chosen not to rely on the love of another frail human being, but only on herself.

  She could trust no one else. She dare not take the appalling risk of giving herself. Christie had shown her that. She accepted it. Two men had loved her and she had turned away from both of them, knowing it to be for the best. Yet, just the same, she envied Gemma Gage with a heavy, gnawing agony which would not leave her. Plain, awkward, passionate Gemma and another woman, unknown to her as yet, any woman who might walk through the world, if only for a step or two, with Luke.

  She was, therefore, taken unawares, that same evening of her attack on Oliver Rattrie, when her mother, waiting until the shop was empty, came into her office and said gently, ‘Cara, we have something to talk of, I think –’

  ‘Well, of course, mother. It’s understood, isn’t it, that you’re to be calling and seeing Sairellen on your way home. I thought you’d have gone by now. Find out what she needs, since she won’t tell me. Train tickets. A baggage cart. See if there’s anything she wants to leave behind that I can store for her. Any messages I can forward or deliver. There must be something.’

  There would have to be. Hopefully something difficult that would cost her time and energy and money, if she were ever to have her peace of mind again.

  But Odette did not appear to be listening.

  ‘No, Cara – not the Thackrays.’

  What else could it be then? For Heaven’s sake, what else mattered? Unless Odette had heard something of Gemma Gage and Daniel? Some rumours that she would do her level best to quash. Was he in danger now from the Dallams? Did he need a warning? Cara’s eyes, and her voice, instantly sharpened.

  ‘What is it, mother?’ But her mind was racing ahead, plotting a refuge for Daniel if harm threatened. A place to hide. A covered cart to escape in. With herself at the reins, if need be. And money for his journey. How much did she have, tonight, in her cash-box underneath the dog’s basket? Enough she supposed. And if not, there was always the gold bracelet Christie had tossed at her last Christmas and her stock of coral and jet.

  ‘Mother –?’ It would be as well to know the worst so that she could act accordingly, for it might not be easy, at this late hour, to hire a cart.

  Odette gave a quick, nervous sigh.

  ‘I find this so very difficult. And, yes – that grieves me. Really grieves me. For what I have to tell you should not be difficult, Cara. It should be joyful. Joyful.’

  She saw that her mother’s softly rounded chin was trembling and that she had tears in her eyes. Yet Odette cried so easily, overflowed so often with tenderness for the sorrows of near-strangers that Cara sighed too. Impatiently.

  ‘What do you want, mother?’ And the tone of her voice so plainly said ‘Tell me, for God’s sake, and have done,’ that Odette shuddered.

  ‘Good Heavens, mother – what is it?’

  Could she be over-tired, or even unwell? She was at an age, after all, when women suffered the exclusive female maladies about which Cara had heard whispers, but without much interest. Did Odette need a doctor? Once again her mind flew to the cash-box in its cavity beneath the sleeping dog. She should have the very best.

  ‘Don’t worry, mother,’ she wanted to say. ‘I’ll look after you. No dirty hospitals where you go in with measles and come out with cholera or the pox. A decent nurse to look after you at home, like a lady, and then I’ll send you to the seaside for as long as you like, with Liam. I’ll see to everything, mother. There’ll be no problem about the doctor’s bills. Don’t fret.’

  ‘Cara – it’s your father. He’s here,’ said Odette.

  She turned ice-cold and horribly still.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘In Leeds.’

  ‘I see.’

  She saw nothing, in fact, but resentment, bitterness, the sickening memory of his betrayal which always inclined her to cruelty. He was to blame for all of this. And she had loved him far too much to forgive.

  Her mind went to her cash-box again.

  ‘And how much is that going to cost me, mother? To get rid of him, I mean.’

  ‘Cara – oh my dear –’

  ‘Don’t be shy of naming his price, mother. I’ll consider it money well spent.’

  ‘Yes.’ And there was a world of sorrow in Odette’s voice. ‘He told me you would probably say that.’

  How dare he? Her hands clenching into fists she rose to her feet and glared at her mother. How dare he pass his clever, cocksure opinions as to what she might be feeling? She would let him know that all right, soon enough, if she ever set eyes on him. And in the meantime, how dare he? How dare he make assignations with Odette behind her back? How dare he come within a hundred miles of either of them, even if his life depended on it? As it probably did. Well, she would pay off his creditors – once – and send him on his way. Once. No more. For Odette.

  ‘But he doesn’t need money, Cara.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, mother.’

  ‘Cara.’ Odette had clasped her hands in anguish, her face blanched by her need to be understood. ‘He is not poor …’

  ‘Mother.’

  Taking a deep breath, her eyes half shut like a child repeating a lesson, Odette began to speak rapidly, disjointedly, refusing, by the simple process of talking on and on, to be silenced.

  ‘He is not poor – not rich – not yet – but comfortable. It is the bakery, you see. He finds it congenial and his sister has come to depend on him – as he expected. She is not young and, after all, they are of one blood – who else should she trust, who else should she want beside her when her health is failing, but her brother? Quite natural – surely …?’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘He says that his relationship with her is a joy to both of them. Not all at once, of course, for she was understandably suspicious …’

  ‘Understandably.’

  ‘… of his intentions. And what did he know of the bakery trade? Would he settle? Of course not, she first thought …’

  ‘Rightly.’

  ‘Wrongly. He settled. He worked. He learned – and quickly. As one always knew he could learn anything, if he chose to apply himself. Now he has chosen. None of this is new to me. He has told me of it, over and over, in his letters which you would not read, Cara – would not even touch …’

  ‘There was no money in them, mother.’

  ‘There was hope.’ Odette’s teeth were chattering, her twisted fingers painfully showing their knuckles. ‘There was a new life. There was a challenge, which he did not shirk. There was a sense of responsibility – yes, yes, the hardest lesson of all for him, I know – but he has learned that too.’<
br />
  ‘A clever schoolmistress then, my New York aunt.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she shook her head. ‘Clever, certainly. A woman much like yourself, Cara, in some ways. But I believe it was his time to learn.’

  ‘You believe …’

  ‘I do. These things come in their season. As it says in the Bible. A time to be born. A time to die. A time to learn, also. A time to settle. A time for the spirit to mature. I believe it.’

  Cara made a dismissive gesture with an angry, empty hand. ‘Of course you believe him, mother. If he told you black was white you would believe him – because it pleases you. So tell me why he is in Leeds? For his health? Yes, very likely, since my New York aunt and half the city bailiffs will be after his blood by now – which is as much as they’ll be likely to get in any case …’

  ‘No, Cara …’

  ‘Why then? To wheedle his way back into my good graces because you have told him I can afford it? To come back here and lord it over me at my expense – free board and lodging – dressed like a dandy – my workwomen at his beck and call stitching him fancy shirts and waistcoats – letting me earn the money for him to spend …?’

  ‘No. He has come to take me back with him, Cara.’

  Silence fell.

  Staring through it Cara did not know how it could be broken, did not even realize she had started to laugh until she heard the ugly sound.

  ‘Shall we talk about the Easter bonnets, mother?’

  ‘Cara – I have agreed to go.’

  ‘Yes. I dare say. But it’s not likely to happen, is it mother? Because even if he had the passage-money when he landed – which I doubt – he certainly won’t have it now. It will have gone in a card game, or on a horse, or just on making himself king – for a day – in Leeds. Well – won’t it, mother?’

  ‘No, Cara.’ And it was the sudden absence of her mother’s tears, the relaxation of those tortured hands, a new and very quiet determination in her voice which opened Cara’s mind to dread.

  ‘I have tried to tell you, Cara – to prepare you. So many, many times have I tried. He has come to fetch me because he knows I wish to go with him. It was decided between us in our letters. My darling, from the very first we have always known that if we both survived we would eventually be together again.’

  ‘No, mother.’

  ‘Yes, darling …’

  ‘No. And how can you talk about survival when he left you here to die? Well – didn’t he?’

  Very slowly Odette nodded her head.

  ‘Yes – in the sense that I would have died had you not come to me. Yes, he did. But he did not mean to hurt me, Cara. He acted rashly, unwisely. I know. But what I also know is that he acted in the only way he could. Yes, Cara. Please hear me out. You would not have left me here alone had you been in his place. You would have stood your ground beside me. I know that. I am grateful for it. I love you for it. I love him for entirely different reasons. You are strong and steadfast and determined. He is none of those things. He is weak and often very much afraid. He has spent his whole life walking on sand with the tide coming in. And he knows he cannot swim. Occasionally the knowledge overwhelms him and he runs away. Knowing this has never seemed to be a reason for loving him less. And I do love him. My life is with him. When I saw him again in Leeds, the other day, I was my true self again. As I have not been – not at all – since he went away. And whether you choose to believe it or not he has only ever wanted one thing. You have often heard him say it. “I’ll make you a queen, Odette my darling” – in Edinburgh – or London – or Frizingley – or whatever great city had caught his fancy. Every time he believed – if only for an hour or two – that he could do it. The fact that I knew he could not has never blinded me to his sincerity. He saw me as a queen and that has always been enough. So, when he left me here to die, as you say, it was not without making provisions for me which he believed to be adequate. That they did not seem very adequate to me, and certainly not to you, takes nothing away from his good intentions. He left me money which I allowed to be taken away from me. I had employment which he did not foresee that I would lose. And, above all, he trusted you. He knew you would not fail me. I knew it too.’

  ‘I dare say. But what if the ship had gone down on the way from Ireland, and me with it? What then, mother?’

  Incredibly Odette smiled.

  ‘You must know him well enough, my dear, to realize that he would never think of that.’

  ‘Yes, I know him.’

  ‘Then you must also know – as I have so often tried to tell you – that he never intended our separation to be final. He simply went ahead, as he has done often enough before, to pave the way for us … Oh yes, Cara, for us, not for me alone. The Adeanes. As we were before. The four of us. Only this time he went further, the risk was greater, the time longer. The money is certain, Cara. I have letters from his sister confirming it. I have letters from his banker and his lawyer. They are intended for you, I think, rather than for me since he knows I need no assurances.’

  ‘You trust him, then, do you?’

  ‘I love him, Cara.’

  ‘Oh splendid, mother – that answers everything –’

  ‘Yes. For me, it does.’

  She did not want to believe her ears. She did not want to believe that her mother could do this, feel this, say this. She did not want to believe that Odette could feel so little bound to the dutiful daughter, so totally by the feckless husband. The lover.

  ‘You are being ridiculous,’ she said. ‘At your age. You are behaving like a fifteen-year-old houseparlourmaid slipping out at night to meet a chimney sweep.’

  ‘What is so wrong with that, Cara?’

  ‘You are behaving like Marie Moon.’

  ‘Ah no – poor Marie.’

  ‘You are throwing back in my face everything I have done for you …’

  Gravely, very sweetly, Odette looked her full in the eyes and smiled.

  ‘But you did it for love, my darling, did you not?’

  ‘Yes. So what are you saying? That love is its own reward?’

  ‘My dearest, of course I am saying that. It is the only reward I have ever looked for …’

  There seemed to be a slight explosion in Cara’s head, a flash of light which, although clearly illuminating her mother’s sincerity, gave her a stab of pain.

  ‘Oh good,’ she said. ‘So now you’ll just take yourself off without a backward glance, will you, to the man you love? Very pleasant for you, mother. Have a wonderful new life together. And whatever else you do, please don’t give a thought to the man I loved – once. The man I met on the boat from Ireland when my father tricked me into coming here. When he lied to me and cheated me and cared not a damn about the trap he was leading me into. No, mother, don’t think about that. Don’t upset yourself about the man I sent away, because of you – because I couldn’t abandon you like your precious husband had abandoned you – because to take what I wanted would have meant killing you … Or so I thought. So I didn’t kill you. I killed myself instead. Yes, I did. That’s how it feels to me now.’

  Once again her heart and her head were pounding, her breathing laboured, hurting her chest as she began to pace up and down the room, down and up, while Odette stood motionless, her face pale and pitying yet very quietly, very gravely resolute.

  ‘And I wanted Daniel Carey, mother. Make no mistake about it. No mistake. I wanted him.’

  She wanted him now. And her father was to blame for it. She would never forgive him – never – for anything. She went on at great length, enumerating the occasions on which he had deceived her, listing his faults, his failures, his crimes, continuing to pace the floor, exhausting herself, making herself cough until at last – to her own relief as much as her mother’s – it ended in a storm of weeping, a grand explosion which, after some initial resistance, sent her into Odette’s arms to be comforted.

  And then it was Odette’s turn to speak quiet words, many of them meaningless except for their soothin
g quality, their whisper that everything would seem better tomorrow.

  It did not, except that the morning brought a certain calm, no pleasant thing in itself, far too cold for comfort, but containing its measure of resignation. She had accepted, during the uneasy night, that her mother would certainly leave her. But she was by no means inclined to forgive her for it.

  ‘So – will you be going at once or can I rely on you to finish the beading on Magda Braithwaite’s Spanish bodice?’

  ‘I would like you to come to Leeds with me and see your father.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘He wants to take you with us, Cara. A princess in New York. He believes he can do it. I believe that, at last, he can give us a comfortable life. As a family. As we were.’

  ‘Then he’ll just have to come and buy me back from Christie Goldsborough, won’t he – since he’s so rich. And since he it was – my dear father – who sold me to Christie to begin with.’

  The morning wore on and became an afternoon in which Cara spoke so sharply to Madge Percy that the woman walked out in a huff, to her lover at the Rose and Crown, threatening never to return.

  Let her go. Let everybody go. She didn’t care. But Odette, very quietly, put on her hat and stepping over to the Rose and Crown made a sufficiency of soothing murmurs to bring Miss Percy back again.

  ‘You will need her, Cara. She is an excellent embroideress.’

  ‘If I can manage without you – as I can – then I can manage without her.’

  Evening fell. The shop emptied of customers. The dog lay, growling from time to time as if he needed the practice, in his basket. Upstairs in the workroom Madge Percy, who had been promised a bonus, was at work on the Easter bonnets, assisted by a sad-eyed but, nevertheless blossoming Anna Rattrie. In the back-room, across the tidy, busy desk, Cara faced her mother again.

  ‘I shall be here, of course, mother, when you need me.’

  ‘Yes. And I know you would welcome me back with a good heart – barefoot and in rags as you are expecting me to be.’