Hidden Currents

by Rowena Summers

  ‘You may accompany me home now, and if your young man wishes, he may come too, and you may then take the rest of the afternoon off. My head is buzzing with all this noise, and I shall spend an hour or so in the quiet of my room.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Helen,’ Carrie murmured, keeping her feelings well under control at that moment.

  But she was just as thankful to be away from the raucous clamouring going on all around. She was surprised Helen had stayed so long, among what she would undoubtedly refer to as the riff-raff. The three of them made their way across the normally springy turf of the Downs, well crushed underfoot now by carriage wheels and horses’ hooves, and by the boots of the visitors.

  Carrie was conscious of the odd trio they made as they walked across the Downs towards the Barclay mansion. They attracted more than a few glances, especially from those who recognised John from his recent show of prowess. They could find little to say to one another once they were away from the fair, and each was secretly glad when they could part company.

  ‘Come upstairs with me a moment, Carrie,’ Helen ordered. ‘Your young man can wait for you in the kitchen.’

  She did as she was asked, knowing she would be expected to unhook buttons and stays, and pull the curtains across the windows so that Helen could rest in a darkened room. The gentry had far less stamina than those who worked for a living, Carrie thought ironically, when she finally ran down the stairs to rejoin John in the kitchen.

  She heard his deep laughter before she got there, and when she went inside, it was to see him flexing his arms to make the hard muscles stand out. On either side of him, two of the young kitchen maids were pressing their fingers to the taut flesh in admiration.

  ‘I see it didn’t take you very long to establish your credentials,’ she snapped before she could stop herself.

  There was a giggle from Nellie, the youngest skivvy.

  ‘We was only testing his strength, Carrie. ’Tain’t every day you meet a prize-fighting gent who’s beaten one of the best. We ain’t doing no harm, so there’s no cause to be jealous.’

  At these words, John grinned openly at them, seeing Carrie’s flashing eyes and her reddened cheeks.

  ‘Carrie knows I only have eyes for her, anyway,’ he said casually, ‘but if it upsets her, perhaps in future it’s best if you just look but don’t touch, girls.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m certainly not jealous of anyone,’ Carrie snapped again. ‘And please don’t talk about me as if I’m not here.’

  He rolled down his shirt sleeves, still with that teasing look in his eyes, but with a firmer line around his mouth now.

  ‘Then please don’t treat me as a piece of property. I talk to whom I please, and it makes no difference to me whether it’s one of these kitchen girls, or your fancy mistress.’

  ‘I daresay it doesn’t. They all make up to you anyway, especially after today,’ she said.

  She was behaving badly, and she knew it, but as the black waves of jealousy washed over her, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. There was a momentary awkward silence, and then the skivvies were banished from the kitchen by the cook and sent off to buy provisions. The kettle began to sing on the hob, and John was asked directly if he’d like a piece of fruit pie and custard.

  ‘That would be very welcome,’ he said crisply. ‘Then Carrie and me had better decide what we’re going to do with the rest of the day.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ she asked, thankful that at least he still wanted to spend time with her.

  ‘Do you want to visit your mother?’

  It was what she should do, of course. Ma wasn’t too good these days, and it was her duty to visit her whenever possible and take a bit of the load off her shoulders. But she did it so often. She seemed to be always tearing between the one place and the other, and hardly knew where her prime duty lay any more, here or at home … and she seemed to have hardly any time for herself.

  ‘I’d love to get right away from everybody,’ she said longingly, not really expecting him to take her seriously. ‘I’d like to walk to the end of the earth and back again and never see another living soul, just for the experience.’

  ‘Well, I can’t promise you any such thing,’ John said, starting to smile at her eloquence. ‘But we’ll go to the far edge of the Downs, if you like, well away from the fairground noise, and just keep walking as far as the road takes us. It’s a bit cold for sitting and dreaming in the open air, and I don’t suppose you’re going to invite me to your room.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she is, young feller-me-lad,’ Cook put in smartly. ‘What do you suppose Mr Barclay would say if he heard of such a goings-on under his roof?’

  Carrie’s first thought had been along the same lines and she knew John hadn’t expected to be taken seriously. But such opposition to a perfectly above-board and innocent suggestion managed to rile her.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a goings-on, Cook! John is a respectable young man, and after all, we are walking out, and almost as good as engaged!’ She avoided looking at him at that moment, hoping she wasn’t going too far. She was more interested in the principle of the thing than in actually taking up his suggestion if the truth were told.

  ‘And it’s not as if I would invite just any male person to my room,’ she went on, as breezily as if this conversation went on every day. ‘We could leave the door open at all times, and you could put your head in whenever you liked, and I assure you that everything would be quite in order. And I’m blowed if I know how people are expected to go courting if they can’t even have a minute or two alone together!’

  As she finished, aghast at her own daring, Cook slapped the plate of fruit pie and custard down in front of John, and poured them both a cup of strong tea.

  ‘I suppose there’s summat in what you say, young Carrie, and I daresay you’ve a sensible enough head on your shoulders. So if that’s what you’ve a mind to do, it’s not my place to stop you. Take your refreshments with you when my back’s turned, so I don’t see the going of you, then ’tis nothing to do with me.’

  She stumped off to the pantry to fetch the vegetables that were to be prepared for the family evening meal, while Carrie looked at John. She really hadn’t intended putting any such idea in his mind, or in Cook’s, but it had been said now, and it soon became clear that John wasn’t averse to it.

  ‘Well? Are you going to show me this room of yours, so that I can picture you in it when I’m away from here? I’ve never seen the inside of a young lady’s room before, especially in a house like this one.’

  ‘It’s nothing special. And if you’re expecting to see something like my lady’s fancy room, then you’ll be sorely disappointed in mine,’ she said, putting their cups of tea and his plate of pie onto a tray with suddenly nervous hands.

  Why on earth had she ever started this daft conversation? But he’d think her really feebleminded if she backed out of showing him around now.

  And they needn’t stay very long … they mustn’t stay very long … such close proximity would try the patience of the saintliest of gents, and John was too red-blooded a man to be called anything like that.

  ‘Why would I be interested in seeing Miss Barclay’s room, when the only girl I’m interested in is you?’ he said. He went to take the tray from her hands, but she held on to it, preferring to carry it up to her room herself. She needed it as a prop, although from the way her hands were shaking, it was a wonder the tea remained in the cups until they reached the attic room she shared.

  She deliberately left the door open wide, and ignored John’s small grin at her obvious attention to such detail. She put the tray down on the small dressing table, and crossed her arms defiantly as she turned and looked at him. It was such a mean little room, cramped and plain, and with an aura of stale clothes from the girls who weren’t always as fussy as herself over cleanliness. It was only when seen through someone else’s eyes that the shabbiness of it really struck home. And apart from the uncertainty of the wisdom of b
eing alone in such circumstances with a young man, she felt sudden shame at bringing him here. It seemed to underline her status in life only too well. What was she, after all? Nothing but a servant in a rich man’s house.

  ‘Which is your bed?’ John said softly.

  Her nerves jumped. Without saying anything, her head automatically turned to the neatly made bed at one side of the room. On it was the patchwork quilt she’d brought from home to make it seem more personally hers. John sat down on the bed and ran his hand over the cotton-covered pillow.

  For such an innocent movement it was oddly sensual, and Carrie felt a shiver run through her. For a second she imagined her head being on that pillow, her hair loosened and spread out all around her, and that John’s sensitive fingers were stroking her cheeks and her mouth.

  ‘Don’t you want your pie and tea? It will get cold,’ she said in a dry little voice.

  ‘Let it,’ he said. ‘Come here, woman.’

  ‘John, I’m not sure that this is such a good idea.’

  He stopped her in mid-sentence, catching hold of her around the waist and pulling her towards him. They tumbled onto the bed together in a flurry of arms and legs and Carrie’s laughing protestations.

  This was definitely not such a good idea, she thought in a panic, but before her thoughts could manifest themselves into words, she felt the touch of his mouth on hers, and then she was pinned beneath him in a passionate kiss.

  The bedsprings creaked in noisy protest, but neither heeded them. It seemed so long since they had been properly alone … and never like this, in the warm, cloying atmosphere of a tiny attic room with no-one to hear them or disturb them, at least until Cook came labouring up the stairs, and they would surely hear her heavy footsteps.

  ‘God, I’ve missed you, Carrie,’ John murmured against her mouth. She could feel his warm breath on her face, and the way her breasts were flattened beneath his weight. She could see the texture of his skin, and the reddened places where the fists of BIG LOUIE had struck him. She felt an urge to kiss those places, to make them better, the way she used to kiss young Billy’s hurts away before he got too big to accept such attentions.

  But the feelings growing inside her as she felt the heaviness of John Travis’s body over hers, were not remotely like the feelings she had felt for a small brother. These were far more vibrant, adult feelings, winging through every part of her now. And they scared her.

  ‘John, please,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Please what? Please, kind sir, don’t take advantage of me?’ he said in a teasing, theatrical voice. ‘Or please, John, make love to me?’

  She pushed against him, trying to twist from beneath him, and causing the bedsprings to jangle even more. Dear God, she thought in panic, anyone hearing the noises coming from this room would think the worst even when nothing was actually happening!

  ‘You know it’s not right. You know I can’t.’ She didn’t really know what she wanted to say, because deep inside she so desperately wanted to know what it was that Elsie knew.

  She wanted to know about this mysterious thing called love, and having a man’s body become part of hers, so that no-one could have said where one ended and the other began … the very eroticism of the thought made her bite her lips and close her eyes, for fear that John might read such thoughts in her face. It was unseemly for a woman to have the same lustful thoughts as a man, except the lowest kind of woman.

  ‘When shall we be wed, sweetheart?’ she heard John groan in her ear. ‘For I swear I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself in check from wanting you, and I know you well enough to know you’ll insist on a legal paper to say there’s no more barriers between us.’

  That showed how little he really knew her, Carrie thought, because she felt an overpowering need for him too. It was no different for a woman than for a man, only it was just never supposed to be so. The biggest caution in a woman’s mind at such a time was that if anything came of a coupling out of wedlock, it was always the woman who paid, and bore the shame … it was no wonder that men thought so many women frigid, when that coldness was more the fear of the shame than the inability to show passion.

  ‘What is it, Carrie?’ John whispered now, as his hand strayed to the sweetness of her breast, and he heard her indrawn breath. ‘Do I hurt you? Or is it that you’re afraid of hurting me where this afternoon’s opponent struck me? I assure you my ribs can stand any strain from my darling.’

  It was all the off-putting Carrie needed. Until he had mentioned BIG LOUIE, she had been so tempted to abandon all her principles and let him go just a little way further … certain that she could stop him when need be … but now he’d brought the image of the fighter into her mind, and her own passion vanished. She twisted out from beneath him, and the bedsprings protested in a series of squeaks.

  ‘I can’t do this, John,’ she said in a cracked voice. ‘It’s not right. Cook could appear at any minute, or one of the other girls, and I’d be compromised at once.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, leaning back on his elbows as she straightened her clothes, and he saw her fiery cheeks. ‘A hole and corner affair may be good enough for the likes of your cheap friend, but not for my girl.’

  It wasn’t what Carrie had meant to imply at all, but she bit back her reply and sat down hastily on one of the other beds as she heard Cook’s clumping footsteps on the stairs, quickly handing John his plate of pie.

  ‘Is everything all right, Carrie?’ Cook called out, clearly not wanting to climb the entire flight of steep stairs to the maids’ quarters.

  ‘Quite all right, Cook. I shall be down directly to pay a call on my mother,’ she called back.

  ‘Then I’ll have a bit of fruit pie ready for you to take to her, duck. Not too long, now. The day’s going cold.’

  They heard her go back downstairs again, and Carrie realised John hadn’t touched his food. He put it back on the tray with the cups of congealing tea, and took Carrie’s hands in his.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question yet.’

  ‘What question was that?’ she said, her knees beginning to shake.

  ‘When are we going to be wed? I see no reason for us to wait, Carrie. You can move in with my uncle and me.’

  ‘You mean you want me to skivvy for the two of you instead of for Miss Helen, is that it?’

  The flippant words tripped out, not intended to be taken seriously. She was almost tongue-tied at the glorious thought, of being wed to this handsome man — even though she knew full well her Pa would never allow it until she reached eighteen years old, and that time was still six months away yet. But to her horror, John took her very seriously. He dropped her hands at once, and his voice had gone several degrees colder.

  ‘Good God, is that really what you think of me? That I want you to marry me so you can take over the care of a semi-invalid old man and dispense with the nurse’s fees?’

  ‘John, no, I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘It’s what you said.’

  She was angry with him now. ‘Why must you always take everything so literally? It was said on the spur of the moment, that’s all, because I was shy of answering directly. Of course I want to marry you. You know I do. But you get me so flummoxed at times that I hardly know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Say that you love me,’ he instructed, still with that hard edge to his voice.

  ‘I do.’

  He was relentless now. ‘That’s not good enough. You have to say it. Say the words, Carrie. They won’t bite you.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said in a muffled voice. Even as the embarrassment swept over her, she wondered why it was so difficult to say those particular words. Ma always said that feelings were more important than words, but apparently it wasn’t always so. Words were important too.

  Folk who were more educated knew that. It was one of the things that separated the toffs from the rest of them. John leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.

  ‘And I love you. Why else would
I want to marry you? If I just wanted a nurse and a housekeeper I’d find some old biddy to do those chores, not the most delicious and infuriating young woman it’s ever been my misfortune to meet.’

  And, oh yes, John Travis could be eloquent too, Carrie thought, seconds before she rose to the bait as usual.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ she said indignantly.

  He laughed, and the tension between them eased.

  ‘Just that I want to marry you for the best and only reason I would marry anybody, that’s all, and you won’t give me a straight answer. So do it now. Give me a date to dream about, Carrie Stuckey, or I swear I’ll go out of here and propose to the first old biddy that I see.’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’ she said, the laughing lights dancing in her blue eyes now.

  ‘I would,’ he said, and got to his feet. She stood up, both of them breathing heavily, tea and pie forgotten in the exhilaration of flirting.

  ‘Pa always said he’d never let me wed until I was eighteen, but that after that, he couldn’t stop me,’ she said in a rush.

  ‘So when will you be eighteen?’

  ‘On the twenty-eighth of June.’

  He gave a low groan. ‘So far away. But all right. I formally ask you, Miss Caroline Stuckey, to marry me on the twenty-eighth of June next. Please?’

  The teasing ended, and she swayed into his arms. There was only one answer she could give, and knowing John, it had to be given in words.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  * * *

  They didn’t announce the news to Ma at once. These days it seemed necessary to test the atmosphere inside the house before anything new was broached. Ma and Billy were the only ones at home, and once Ma had assured them that she was getting on tolerably well, they had to hear Billy’s excited chatter about the last letter they’d got from Frank, and to examine the map of Spain that Frank had sent especially for him.

  They waited until Billy had got all this news out of the way, spreading out his map on the big family table as he tried to pronounce some of the Spanish names, and showing his delight when John was able to help him with them. They asked after all the family, and were glad to know that Wilf didn’t seem to be faring too badly at his railway job, and was taking on more and more extra work.