‘Well, that’s your own fault, my dear.’
They stared at each other now in silence until Eileen said with deep indignation, ‘Mama!’
‘Oh my dear, don’t look like that. And don’t take on that haughty air; you and I know why you took to the couch. There are other ways you could have gained your liberty from his bed: gone visiting, or gone abroad for a time, or come to me. Yes’ – her voice sank now – ‘yes, you could have come to me. How often have I asked you to? But no, you choose to be incarcerated, and that is the word, my dear, incarcerated in this padded tomb, and you have refused to be disturbed. You know you have. Yes, you know you have.’ She nodded her head vigorously. ‘But, my dear,’ she went on whilst walking towards her daughter with outstretched arms, ‘all I ever wanted in life, all I want now, is your happiness, your welfare. Come home with me. Gradually you will regain the strength you have lost while lying on that thing’ – she thrust her hand disdainfully back towards the chaise longue – ‘because, you know, a few more years and you wouldn’t be able to use your legs at all. It happened to Sylvia Harrington. Oh yes, it did.’ Her head made a deep obeisance at this. ‘And Sarah de Court became unbalanced.’
‘Oh! Mama, Mama, be quiet!’ Eileen stumbled past her mother and, grabbing at the side of the chaise longue, she sat down on it with a slight plop, and when her mother, standing in front of her, demanded, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ she looked up at her and said pleadingly, ‘Oh, Mama, don’t you realise this has come as a shock to me? Just . . . just give me a little time.’
‘All the time in the world, my dear.’ Mrs Meadows bent over her, her voice and manner expressing her deep solicitude. ‘All the time in the world. All the time in the world.’ Then she added, ‘What time do you expect him back?’
‘It . . . it could be this evening.’
‘I wouldn’t wait till then.’
Again they were staring at each other. ‘Is he at the mine?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Then I would send for him, my dear.’
‘Oh! Mama.’
‘Well, just ask yourself the question: Do you want to go on living in this house knowing that he is having his daily satisfaction with another woman, and also knowing, my dear, and this is what you’ve got to face, that you are tied here for the rest of your life, tied to this chaise longue, which you will be as I warned you if you stay on it much longer? Now do you want that? Or do you want to come home, have your health restored, and live again? Scarborough is a wonderful place in the winter season. You know that, you used to enjoy it.’
‘I never did, Mama.’
‘Yes, you did in your early days. You only stopped enjoying it when you thought that you’d never be married; then you jumped at the first man that asked you.’
‘That isn’t fair, Mama.’ Eileen’s head was up. ‘He wasn’t the first man who asked me, there were others but you didn’t approve.’
‘And rightly so; they weren’t fit to be your husband.’
‘But you thought Mark was.’
‘No, we didn’t, we had our misgivings, but you were so bent on it. Anyway, my dear, I must go now and refresh myself in the closet. Then I will have something to eat and we’ll talk again. But if you take my advice you will send for him, and now.’
Eileen watched her mother leave the room; then once again she was on her feet and walking towards the window. Here she stood gripping the curtains and looking down on to the gardens.
There was a deep bitterness inside her, but it was a bitterness born of hurt vanity rather than of lost love. She knew that she had never really loved Mark Sopwith. In the first place she had wanted him, or rather she had wanted to be a wife. But being a wife had turned out a disappointment to her. Marriage had been full of perplexities, painful perplexities that seemed to be of no concern to her husband. Never having been married before, nor been intimate with any other man, she had no-one with whom to compare him, and so she couldn’t say if he was a better or worse husband than the usual run of such. She only knew that, like her mother, she was possessive of what she owned, love didn’t come into it. You didn’t love a house or a horse, they were merely possessions, accessories to living. She reached out her hand and, lifting a silver bell from a table, she rang it, and within seconds Price had entered the room.
‘Yes, madam?’ Her manner was subservient but her eyes and her whole expression were eager; she had heard bits and pieces of what had been said and she knew what was afoot, although as yet she didn’t know what the outcome was going to be. The only thing she hoped was that her mistress wouldn’t take any notice of her mother and go off. Although she would likely take her along with her, life in the Forefoot-Meadows’ household wouldn’t be like it was here. She had been there only once before and the hierarchy in the servants’ hall was stiffer than what it had been above stairs. In this household she could throw her weight about, she had power, but what would her standing be in Waterford Place? Something between the upper housemaid and the footman. Oh Lord! she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
‘Tell Mr Pike to get a message to the master at the mine and ask him to return, he is needed here.’
‘Yes, yes, madam.’
A few minutes later, having passed on the message to him, Pike looked at her and said, ‘What’s afoot? What brought the old girl?’ and her answer was, ‘You’ll know soon enough.’
It was a full two hours later when Mark entered the house. The message had been delivered to him when he was well below ground and examining a road that was almost three foot under water, and the conditions underground were such that he couldn’t leave without trying to find a way out of a desperate situation, for if the pumps couldn’t keep the water below this level then it would rise, and if it should branch into the main roadway, well, that would be that.
The first intimation he had that his mother-in-law was in the house was when he said to the butler, who was at the door awaiting him, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing that I know, sir, except that Mrs Forefoot-Meadows has arrived.’
Mark screwed up his face as he peered at the old man. They sent for him because his mother-in-law had arrived? Had his father-in-law died? Was that what had brought her? Of course not, she wouldn’t be here if that were the case. She had only been gone a short while from the house, and her departure had filled him with pleasure. And so what had brought her today? Something of import surely.
He ran up the stairs, across the gallery, along the corridor, and as he tapped on his wife’s door so he thrust it open and was surprised to see her sitting in a chair by the window. It must be two years or more since she had sat up like that; at least, since he had seen her in such a position.
The only other person in the room was Price and he turned his head and looked at her. Following his wordless command she left the room. He walked towards Eileen and stood looking down at her. Her face looked tight, her eyes hard. She had never had a nice-shaped mouth and now it looked a mere slit. He was the first to speak. ‘I understand your mama has arrived, is something wrong?’
He saw her swallow deeply before saying, ‘Well, it all depends on how one views the word wrong. She came to bring me some news, but some people wouldn’t consider her news bad, they would likely look upon it with some amusement, whereas others would be shocked by it. Myself, I’m not only shocked and astounded, I am hurt and humiliated.’
Before she could say another word he realised what was coming, and his own features fell into a stiff mould and unblinking, he looked at her and waited.
When she spoke, her words were precise and to the point, and her voice was not that of the invalid he had come to know holding a thread of soft whining, but was hard and brittle. ‘I understand that I am the last person in the county to know that you have a mistress,’ she said. ‘I’m not unaware that a number of men take mistresses but generally they do it discreetly, at least the gentlemen among them do. But not only is your affair with that Myton woman the t
alk of the county, your slut’ – she almost spat the words out – ‘has made it a cause for amusement in Scarborough. What is more, she has even coupled you with workmen who also supply her needs.’
His head was buzzing. He tried to speak but found he couldn’t put into words the fact that he had been trying hard for months now to break the association, and that in any case it had been a hole in a corner affair at best. The description was accurate, too, because their lovemaking had mostly taken place in a hollow in a corner of the wood above Billings Flat. And so how could news of it have got around other than through that ravenous bitch spouting it out to her friends.
The words he now used surprised even himself as in a quiet, weary tone he said, ‘I’m not of such importance that Scarborough would bother to find much entertainment in my doings, be they right or wrong, and I’m assuming that my fame has reached Scarborough.’
‘You admit it then?’ She had pulled herself to her feet and was holding on to the back of a chair now, and he turned to her, saying, ‘What do you expect me to do? Your mother has given you her version, and you haven’t asked me for any explanation.’
‘ . . . As if there could be one.’
‘Oh yes. Oh yes, Eileen, there could be one.’ His voice had risen suddenly and there was an angry light in his eye as he poked his head towards her now and said, ‘How long is it since I’ve lain with you? How long is it since you’ve even let me touch you? Years. I am a man, I have bodily needs, it’s got nothing to do with affection or love or care of family, they are just needs, like the need to eat or drink. If you don’t eat you starve, if you don’t drink you die of thirst. If a man doesn’t have a woman then he also dies in his mind; one can go crazy with such a need. If I had taken one of the sluts from the kitchen would you have felt any better about it, because that is the usual pattern? I could have taken Price, your dear, dear Price. Oh yes, yes’ – he tossed his head from shoulder to shoulder now – ‘her invitation has been in her eyes since you took to that couch. What would you have thought of that, eh?’
‘How dare you say such a thing! Price!’
‘Oh! Eileen, for God’s sake don’t be so naive! But you’re not naive; no, not really, you are blind, you have made yourself blind like you made yourself an invalid. Oh you haven’t hoodwinked me all the way, that couch has been an escape. I knew it, your mother knew it, so don’t blame me entirely for what I did and for what—’ He only just stopped himself from adding, ‘I intend to go on doing.’ And he would go on doing so, but not with Agnes Myton.
He turned abruptly from her now and walked the length of the room and back. She was still standing staring at him when he asked, ‘Well, what do you intend to do?’
It was a full minute before she answered him. ‘I’m going home with my mother,’ she said.
Well, he hadn’t been surprised at that either. He knew that that was what the old girl would have advised her daughter to do. However, after a month or so at Waterford Place, she would, if he knew anything about her, be glad to come back, no matter what the conditions. But then she surprised him, in fact shocked him, by saying, ‘And I have no intention of returning here, ever. I shall take the children with me of course.’
‘You’ll what!’
‘You heard what I said, Mark. I shall take the children with me.’
‘You will not.’
‘Oh yes, I shall. Mark. If you don’t let me have them without fuss then I shall take them legally. I shall take the matter to court.’
He screwed up his eyes into narrow slits. He didn’t know this woman. He stared at her, the while she returned his look with her grey eyes that had taken on a slaty deepness, and as he stared the probing of his mind revealed to him, like a door being thrust open, that she was using his indiscretion as a form of escape and that once away from this house and him she would no longer remain an invalid. He saw that the determination that had kept her riveted to her couch would now be turned into energy to bring her back to an ordinary way of living. For a moment he saw himself through her eyes like some primitive gaoler, guarding a captive chained to a wall yet ignorant of why he was holding a prisoner at all. He also knew in this moment that he could let her go without the slightest compunction; but it was a different kettle of fish altogether as regards the children. Yet what could he do if the children were here alone. Of course they wouldn’t be alone, there was Trotter upstairs. But there would be no mistress to guide Trotter, or any of the others.
She astounded him still further with her coolness when, her voice breaking into his thoughts, she said, ‘If you don’t put any obstacle in my way I shall make it possible for the children to visit you at times. Should you cause an obstruction now, then my papa will place the matter in the hands of our family solicitor, Mr Weldon, and it will have to be settled legally.’
My God! He put his hand to his head and turned from her, and again he walked the length of the room. He couldn’t believe it. This was his delicate sickly wife talking. What a pity, he thought now with a wry humour, that he hadn’t openly shown his infidelity immediately after she had refused him her bed. Oh, he gibed at himself, let him be fair, she herself had never refused him her bed, she had got dear old Doctor Kemp to pave that part for her. Still, if she had known from the beginning she’d a rival it might, who knew, have assisted in a cure.
But what did it matter, he was tired. He was tired of so many things, the mine, his home that was only half run, his stables that were now almost empty of thoroughbreds, of Lady Agnes, oh yes, of Lady Agnes, and of Eileen. Yes, he turned and looked at her, he had been tired of Eileen for a long time. Let her go. But the children . . . Well – he bowed his head now – what could he do? Life was a burden, you either shouldered it or you threw off your pack, took up your gun, went into the woods and, placing the muzzle against the throb in your temple, you just moved your first finger, then peace; nothing, nothing, just peace. He turned slowly and walked out of the room.
Six
Tilly wanted to cry, not only because of the uncertainty of the future but because she was going to lose Jessie Ann and John, for since Matthew and Luke had been at school life in the nursery had become a kind of holiday. And then there was Mr Burgess. What was to become of him? He had assured her not to worry, there were always children who needed coaching and he had an abode. His three-roomed, long attic cottage was a palace, he had told her.
She had seen his palace, and she didn’t think much of it, at least the contents. There was hardly any furniture in it, a chair, a small table, a dresser, and in the bedroom a single rough bed, but what it lacked in furniture it made up with books, for there were books of all kinds, shapes, and sizes on rough home-made shelves around the walls. The only comfort she could see in the place was the open fireplace; there wasn’t an ornament or a picture in the cottage, nor yet a bit of decent china. Yes, he had his abode, but he couldn’t have saved any money because after he was paid once a month he always trudged into Newcastle and bought more books. She considered him worse off in a way than any of the staff or even the miners. Oh, much worse off.
The whole house was in an upheaval. She had been packing the children’s clothes all day. All the servants were in a state, not knowing what was going to happen. The only good thing, from their point of view, about this whole situation was that they were getting rid of Price, because she was going with the mistress.
Tilly hadn’t really had time to consider her own fate, she only knew that once the children had left the house she wouldn’t be needed and that Mrs Lucas would then make short work of her. Mrs Lucas didn’t like her no more than did the cook. In a way, they were like the villagers; every time they looked at her there was suspicion in their eyes.
Jessie Ann, who was standing by her side, now said, ‘Don’t put my fuzzy-wuzzy in the trunk, Trotter, I like my fuzzy-wuzzy.’ She lifted out the negro doll with the corkscrew hair and held it tightly in her arms; then looking up at Tilly, she said, ‘Why won’t you come with me, Trotter?’
; ‘Well, Miss Jessie Ann, because . . . because it’s a long way and . . . and anyway, you’ll have another nursemaid waiting at that end.’
‘Don’t wan’ n’other.’ It was John speaking, and Tilly looked tenderly down on him. In spite of Mr Burgess’ efforts he still spoke, she thought, like a village child. Mr Burgess said it was an impediment which time would erase.
As she bent down to pick him up, she straightened his dress, saying almost tearfully, ‘You’ll go into knickerbockers now.’
‘Don’ w-wan’ bockers.’
Jessie Ann laughed and Tilly smiled and she held the boy pressed close to her for a moment, and as she did so Phyllis Coates slid quietly round the nursery door, hissing, ‘Tilly!’
‘Aye, what is it?’
‘There’s . . . there’s a lad at the back door, he says he wants to see you. He’s a pit lad by the look of him. Cook sent him packing, or she tried to, but he stood his ground and said he wanted to see you private for a minute. It might have got round about the business, you know’ – she jerked her chin – ‘he might think you’re goin’ away with the bairns.’
‘What’s his name? What’s he look like? Is . . . is he a man? You said a lad, but did you mean a man?’
‘No, no, he’s not a man, a lad about fifteen or so.’
Tilly let out a long drawn breath. For a moment she had thought that Hal McGrath had dared to come to the house. She wouldn’t put anything past him. Last night she had lain in bed wondering where she would go from here. In any case it would be in a direction away from the village, for once he got wind that she was no longer protected by the house she hadn’t a doubt but that he would come after her again. But from the description that Phyllis was giving her the visitor could be no other than Steve. Why should he come here though?
Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 23