The last weeks had been ones of mixed emotions. Every time she entered the newly decorated nursery wing a part of her was saddened that her child would not grow up in such comfortable and luxurious surroundings, because she was still determined to leave Oswald when she could. She would wait until she was sure the baby was thriving and healthy and the first few months were over, and then she would take her child and Myrtle and would escape.
This morning Angeline awoke early in the room in which she now slept alone, Oswald having moved to his own quarters since they returned from Scotland. He claimed he didn’t want to disturb her when he returned late to the house after she had gone to bed, and she had hardly been able to believe her good fortune when he had first declared his intentions. She suspected it was more that he found every aspect of pregnancy repellent, because as her shape had begun to change he couldn’t hide his distaste, but that mattered not a jot. The fact of the matter was that she didn’t have to endure the trial of his close proximity to her any more, and it was wonderful. He was due back from an overnight stay with some friend or other – she didn’t know who and she didn’t care – that afternoon, so as she sat at her window watching the winter dawn break in a pearly-grey sky streaked with dusky pink, she was surprised to see him galloping up the drive on his hunter.
Feeling apprehensive, but without knowing why, she continued to sit at the window until she heard his footsteps on the landing outside. He opened the door without knocking and stared at her as she stood with her hand resting on the easy chair, still in her nightdress and rose-pink dressing gown. Closing the door behind him, he walked to within a few inches of her, so close that she could smell the stale alcohol and cigar smoke emanating from his person. His words, when they came, were all the more sinister for being spoken softly. ‘I could kill you for the trouble you’ve caused me.’
Angeline swallowed deeply and gripped the top of the chair tighter. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘No, I dare say you don’t, Little Miss Holier Than Thou. So pure, so righteous, so touch-me-not. Spouting about matters you know nothing about and disgracing me into the bargain, but that’s not all. Because of you and your babbling, Marmaduke Jefferson has been turned against me – and he’s got influence. Two thousand I lost last night. Two thousand.’
Unable to follow the reasoning, Angeline stared at him. ‘You were gambling?’
‘Of course I was gambling, but I was played for a fool. They cheated me, and not for the first time. I’ve lost too much over the last weeks, and I see it all now.’ He swayed slightly. ‘Damn cheats, the lot of ’em.’
Unable to keep the distaste out of her voice, Angeline said, ‘You are still drunk. How much did you drink?’
‘What’s that to you?’
‘You probably lost the money because you were too inebriated to think straight.’
‘Don’t tell me why I lost. I know full well, dammit. Jefferson and his hangers-on are out to fleece me, and all because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.’
‘You’re mad.’ She genuinely couldn’t follow him. ‘I’ve never even held a conversation with Marmaduke Jefferson.’
‘You didn’t have to. All you had to do was spout that drivel your father harped on about.’
Suddenly she understood. The morning in September when she’d disagreed with Gwendoline Gray and made her own views plain. That was what all this was about. But it was weeks ago. Why was he bringing it up now, and what did Mirabelle’s husband have to do with it? Suddenly she felt furiously angry. ‘You’re seriously saying I’m to blame for you losing at cards? If Marmaduke really is annoyed with you, as you claim, it’s surely over your affair with his wife? Everyone knows he worships the ground she walks on.’
‘He does that all right.’ His voice had risen and he seemed beside himself. ‘But he’s never objected to Mirabelle’s dalliances as long as she’s happy. But you put an end to that, didn’t you! You made me lose my temper and—’ He stopped, breathing hard, his face suffused with rage. ‘She’ll never forgive me, I see that now. Do you know what you’ve done? Do you? Marmaduke is a good friend, but a bad enemy, and who knows what she’s told him.’
He was making no sense. Her face tight, she said, ‘Well, either don’t sit down at cards with Marmaduke again, or grovel to Mirabelle and put right what you’ve done.’
When Oswald’s fist caught her straight between the eyes Angeline actually heard her nose crack. She went spinning backwards, to fall heavily across the chair she had been sitting on by the window. The wooden arm thudded into her back with such force that the pain rendered her unconscious, the echo of her piercing scream fading. She wasn’t aware of the bedroom door being flung open and Myrtle running in, or of Oswald stumbling out of the way of the girl as he muttered, ‘She fell. Dizzy spell. She fell.’
When Angeline came to again she was in bed, but the pain in her face was nothing compared to the agony in her belly, which was trying to tear her apart. Myrtle was kneeling beside the bed. The housekeeper and one of the housemaids were in the room, and it was Mrs Gibson who said, ‘The doctor’s on his way, ma’am.’
Angeline groaned, and as the pain in her stomach intensified and worked up to a crescendo before abating somewhat, she became aware that she was holding onto Myrtle’s hand and that Myrtle had tears streaming down her face. ‘Myrtle.’ Through the pain, she forced the words out. ‘He said . . . he said Marmaduke Jefferson has turned against him because he lost his temper with Mirabelle. Ch-cheated him. Gambling. Mirabelle Jefferson, his wife . . . ’
‘I know, ma’am, I know.’ Myrtle knew full well who Mirabelle Jefferson was, and you’d need to be blind or barmy not to know what she was to Mr Oswald, an’ all. Or had been, by the sound of it.
‘He said it’s my fault, Myrtle. Where . . . where is he?’
‘Sleeping it off, ma’am. Don’t worry, he’ll not come in here again.’ And as Myrtle caught the housekeeper and housemaid exchange a glance, she said fiercely, ‘You hear me? He’s not to come in here. He’s done enough, the evil swine.’
‘Myrtle, the baby. I think the baby’s coming.’
‘Don’t worry, ma’am, it’ll be all right. The doctor will be here soon.’ Myrtle rubbed at her wet face with her free hand. ‘You just try and lie still, ma’am.’
‘Too . . . too early.’
‘Oh, ma’am, don’t cry. Try and sleep, and the pains’ll stop.’
But another contraction was coming, and sleep was the last thing she could do. By the time the spasm had ended, each one of them knew the baby was coming and nothing this side of heaven could stop it.
The doctor arrived and he was grim-faced as he examined his patient. Angeline heard him say, ‘And her face?’
‘The master.’ Myrtle’s voice was equally grim.
‘You’re sure? Mr Golding has told me he was with his wife when she had a dizzy spell and fell, cracking her face against the chair and floor.’
‘Mr Golding can say what he wants, sir, but I know what I know. Look at her, for crying out loud. Look at her poor face!’
‘You were in the room when it happened?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, in that case . . . ’
And then the pain took over again and Angeline didn’t know much about the hours that followed, except that the doctor didn’t leave her side and neither did Myrtle. At one point she thought she heard Oswald’s voice, and Myrtle – sounding quite unlike herself – screaming, ‘Get him out of here! Get him out!’ but she told herself that couldn’t be, because for Myrtle to speak like that would mean instant dismissal, and Myrtle had her family to think of. Her wage meant the difference between surviving, and the workhouse for her parents and siblings.
The pain was raging out of control and the only thing in the world besides the agony was Myrtle’s hand holding hers. She knew she was going to die. No one could survive such torment and live. And she didn’t care about herself. But her baby . . .
By midnight she was so
tired she couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. The brutal pain, the ache in her head and eyes from her broken nose, and the bruises from the fall that were already making dark stains on her body combined to produce a state of collapse. The excruciating pains were practically continuous, and still the baby showed no signs of emerging from its place of safety into a world where its underdeveloped lungs meant that each breath would be a fight for survival.
As dawn broke, the doctor decided he would have to operate if he didn’t want to lose the mother as well as the child. But no sooner had the decision been made than Angeline began to push. Twenty minutes later a tiny but perfect baby girl came into the world. Myrtle saw the doctor cut the cord, she saw the baby’s head move as though searching for her mother, but there was no cry, no taking of breath. The doctor simply held her in his arms as he glanced at Myrtle and, long in the tooth as he was, he had tears in his eyes when a few moments later he shook his head.
And then Angeline began to haemorrhage. She hadn’t really been conscious at the birth, not fully, but as Myrtle watched, the figure on the bed became as white as the bleached linen sheets, the crimson flow coming from beneath her the only colour in an ever-widening sea of red.
The doctor thrust the tiny body into Myrtle’s arms, saying, ‘Wrap her up’, before he sprang to attend to the mother. Unable to comprehend the extent of the tragedy, Myrtle gazed down at the child in her arms. The minute face was so sweet, so pure, so delicate, devoid of eyelashes or eyebrows, for all the world like a porcelain doll. Numbly she walked into the bathroom and reached for a towel, wrapping the baby in it, before holding her close to her chest. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered. ‘Really, it’s all right. I’ve got you.’
Chapter Twelve
After the birth of her daughter, Angeline lay for almost a month hovering between life and death. Unaware of her surroundings or the daily visits of the doctor, she lay as still as a corpse being cared for by the nurse Oswald had hired on the advice of the doctor. Myrtle had been sent packing by a furious Oswald immediately after the miscarriage. He had threatened the maid with dire consequences if she repeated her assertion that he had struck his wife and caused the death of the child.
Heartsore and desperately worried about her mistress, Myrtle had left the estate on a bitterly cold, frosty morning, and made her way to Hector’s house to see Albert. It was his sister who opened the back door at her knock, and when Myrtle dissolved into tears on the doorstep, she saw a different side to Olive Upton. Within five minutes she was sitting at the table with a cup of strong sweet tea and a plate of hot buttered girdle scones, with Albert on one side of her and his sister on the other.
Olive made her drink the tea and eat two of the scones before Myrtle told the full story, and as Myrtle was near to a state of collapse herself, she didn’t argue. She was crying again as she finished relating the sorry tale, and Albert had his arm around her as he said to his sister, ‘We must tell the master. He’s her uncle, after all.’
Olive, shocked to the core, nodded. ‘That poor lass, and the bairn, too. A little girl, you say she was?’ she added to Myrtle. ‘And you think he hit Miss Angeline?’
‘I’m sure of it, but I could tell the doctor isn’t about to say so. He knows which side his bread is buttered.’
‘What about the housekeeper?’
‘She’ll say nothing. She’s frightened of Mr Oswald – they all are – and with the mistress at death’s door, she can’t say what happened. And the baby . . . ’ Myrtle turned and buried her face in Albert’s chest, her shoulders shaking. ‘I can’t bear it.’
It was decided that Mrs Upton would go and have a word with Angeline’s uncle and put him in the picture, and then call Myrtle if he wished to speak to her.
Hector was sitting in his study staring at the mountain of bills on his desk, most of them pressing. Several of the tradesmen had made it clear they would supply nothing more until their accounts were settled in full; the bank was threatening to foreclose; and he had no money to pay Mrs Upton’s and Albert’s wages, which were already overdue by some weeks. He was ruined. He sat, his head thudding. His gambling had got more and more reckless as his debts had mounted; he knew it, but he hadn’t been able to stop. It would all have been so different if Golding had come through on his promise to help him after the marriage.
Hector stood up abruptly, walking over to stand at the window, but without seeing the garden, clothed in sparkling white. The humiliation of that meeting, shortly after the newly-weds had returned from their week in London, would be with him till his dying day. He had waylaid Oswald at the club rather than go to the house where Angeline would be present, and right away he had sensed that Oswald was going to make things hard for him. What he hadn’t expected was that Oswald would deny any knowledge of their arrangement. What he should have done was cut his losses at that point and walk away with a shred of dignity intact, but he had argued his case until he had been reduced to begging Angeline’s husband, practically on bended knees.
Hector ground his teeth together, his hands clenched at his side. And Oswald had laughed at him. Taken great delight in it, too. Oh yes, great delight.
He had known then he would never be able to face Angeline again. Hector turned, looking at the mound of papers on his desk. His humiliation was too deep, too raw. He had betrayed his brother’s trust in him and had sold his soul to the devil, because if ever the devil took human form he was there looking out of Oswald Golding’s eyes that night.
The knock on the study door brought him back to the present, and when his housekeeper opened it after he had called ‘Come in’, she found him sitting at his desk once more.
‘Sir, Myrtle – Miss Angeline’s maid – is in the kitchen, and she’s in a sorry state.’
Hector raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but it appears Miss Angeline has lost the baby she was expecting and, well, I don’t know how to say this, sir, but Myrtle thinks Mr Golding struck her and that’s what caused the miscarriage.’
‘What?’ Hector half-rose from his chair and then sank back down again, staring at his housekeeper. ‘Send her in to me.’
Myrtle was puffy-faced and red-eyed when she was ushered into Hector’s study by Albert’s sister moments later. After signalling for Mrs Upton to leave them, Hector surveyed the girl, whom he knew to be loyal to his niece. ‘Pull up a chair’ – he gestured towards two straight-backed chairs standing against the far wall – ‘and tell me what you know. What you know, Myrtle. And think carefully before you speak. Mr Golding is a powerful and influential man, and the allegation you made to Mrs Upton is an extremely serious one.’
‘I know that, sir.’ Myrtle sat down after she had placed the chair opposite the desk, but she did not relax, keeping her body stiff and her chin raised. ‘And if you’re asking me if I saw him hit the mistress, no, I didn’t. But he punched her in the face, as sure as eggs are eggs. I was born near the docks in Monkwearmouth, and I know what a woman looks like when she’s been bashed like that. No fall against a chair could do what he did to her.’
Hector made no comment on this, but said quietly, ‘Are you saying Mr and Mrs Golding were not on good terms before this incident?’
‘The mistress came back from the week in London after the wedding a changed woman, sir. And no, they were not on good terms, but it wasn’t Miss Angeline’s – Mrs Golding’s – fault. No one could have been happier on their wedding day than the mistress. But Mr Golding,’ Myrtle’s lips came back from her teeth for an instant as though she was smelling something foul, ‘he’s not what he seems, sir.’
Myrtle paused for a moment, taking a deep breath and trying to control her voice as she said, ‘The result of him bashing her was that she lost the baby, and when I left this morning the doctor didn’t know if she was going to be all right. Mr Golding wouldn’t let me stay, not after I’d said to the doctor that he’d hit her and . . . and shouted at him.’
‘You shouted at your
employer?’
Myrtle’s chin rose higher at the disapproval in Hector’s voice. ‘Aye, I did, and I’m not sorry. Miss Angeline didn’t want him near her, after what he’d done.’
‘What you think he did.’
She was going to get no help for Miss Angeline here. Throwing caution to the wind, Myrtle stood up. ‘Everyone at the house is frightened of Mr Golding, so you won’t get the truth from any of them, but he’s a fiend when he wants to be and he’s no gentleman, I tell you that. If Miss Angeline dies, he’s killed her. She didn’t deserve to be treated like he’s treated her from the day they got married, not Miss Angeline.’
‘All right, all right, calm yourself. Tears will help no one.’
‘And he killed the babbie. A little lass, she was, and perfect, but she came too early, thanks to him. The old master and mistress must be turning in their graves at the thought of Miss Angeline being married to him.’
‘That’s enough!’ Hector was at a loss to know how to deal with a hysterical female.
‘It’s wicked . . . wicked.’
Glancing with distaste at Myrtle, who was now beside herself, her nose running and mingling with the tears streaming down her cheeks, Hector rang the bell for Mrs Upton. In truth he was both astounded and horrified at what he had heard, but he still found it difficult to comprehend that a man of Oswald Golding’s breeding would hit a woman, let alone his pregnant young wife. The man was a bounder and a liar – something he knew to his cost after all – but this was something entirely worse, and the maid must be mistaken. But something had happened, and it was clear Angeline was in a bad way.
When Mrs Upton put her head round the door, he said briskly, ‘Take Myrtle to the kitchen and give her a hot drink. And tell Albert to bring the carriage round.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Olive looked at Myrtle, who now had her hands covering her face and was crying so loudly it was enough to waken the dead. Raising her voice above the din, she felt impelled to ask – although she would never normally dream of doing so – ‘Where shall I say you want to go, sir?’
Beyond the Veil of Tears Page 12