by Jess Foley
Where could she be going? She had nowhere to go. She had no plans. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just going back to my lodgings.’
‘Are they far away?’
‘Not too far. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I take the omnibus.’
‘If you’re walking I’d like to walk with you, if that’s all right.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’ He would be pursuing the answer to his proposal, she thought. There was, of course, only one answer that she could give.
He looked up at the sky. ‘It looks a little grey, but I don’t think there’s any rain coming.’
They set off along the pavement together.
‘We can walk through the Gardens,’ Lydia said. ‘That’s the route I usually take.’
‘Fine. You lead on.’
At the end of Queen Street they turned left on to Patton Crescent and from there made their way through the entrance into the park. Mr Canbrook looked about him as they entered and gave a nod of pleasure. ‘Ah, this is very nice.’
‘Yes – it is.’ Lydia could suddenly see herself and Guy walking in these same gardens. She thrust the image away.
There were numerous other people on the paths, either taking late afternoon strolls or using the ways as short cuts from one part of the city to another. As Lydia walked at Mr Canbrook’s side she waited for him to raise again the matter of his marriage proposal. He said nothing of it, however, but spoke of other things, the weather, the harvest, his draper’s shop. Lydia knew, though, that it was only a matter of time and she would have to give him her answer.
The wide oval pond was ahead of them, and at its rim three or four small boys crouched, managing little boats, their parents or nursemaids standing nearby or sitting on the benches. Mr Canbrook gestured towards a couple of vacant seats further on around the rim of the pond and said, ‘What do you think? Can we sit down for a minute?’
‘Yes, if you wish.’
They walked round to a part where there were no people, and sat down on a bench facing out over the water.
Silence between them. Lydia, not knowing what to say, waited for him to speak. After a while she raised the flowers to her nose. ‘They’re lovely,’ she said; ‘they’re so pretty,’ and then laid them down beside her. At last Mr Canbrook spoke.
‘I lied to you, I’m afraid.’
‘You – you lied? I – I don’t understand.’
‘I told you back there that I had business here in the town.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘I haven’t got business here. I came just to see you. That was my only purpose.’
‘I see.’
He gave a sad little smile, and added a sigh. ‘I have a feeling that it’s a bit too early, is it? Too early to ask you for an answer, I mean.’
‘Oh, Mr Canbrook –’ Lydia turned to face him. ‘I don’t need to have time to think about it. I could have told you when you asked me on Sunday. My answer then would be the same as it is now. I’m very sorry. Really I am.’
‘Ah . . .’ he said, ‘so you’re turning me down, are you?’
‘I don’t have any choice, sir. I respect you enormously, and I do thank you so much for your offer. I don’t dismiss it lightly. It’s just that – oh, it wouldn’t work – for all kinds of reasons.’
He did not speak for a moment, then he said, ‘What are they, those reasons?’
‘Oh – really – is it wise to go into them?’ She wished now that she had given him her answer at their meeting on Sunday. It would have saved this embarrassment now, and any discomfiture. ‘Can’t you just – just – accept it?’
‘I did tell you I was persistent,’ he said.
‘Yes, you did.’
‘So, please. I would like to know,’ he said. ‘Tell me, please.’
‘It sounds so cruel,’ she said, ‘to just say it bluntly like this – but – but I don’t love you. Surely you realise that.’
‘Oh, I do. I knew that. I never expected that you’d say you do. I can live with that.’
‘Can you?’
‘Of course. What are your other reasons?’
‘Don’t you think it’s important – that it’s vital – to have love in a marriage?’
‘There would be love in it,’ he said. ‘I can love enough for both of us.’
‘Oh, Mr Canbrook . . .’
She turned away from him, avoiding his steady gaze. She should not be sitting discussing this matter with him. It did no good to either of them. It was no help to her to spin it out like this, and also it did no good to him, to protract the matter. Better she should just say no, and end it for good and all.
Suddenly a wave of nausea came over her and she leaned forward, her gloved hands up to her face.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
She pressed her hands to her stomach and drew in the air in gulps, at the same time closing her eyes. After a few moments the sick feeling began to fade. Another minute and it had almost passed and she straightened again.
‘You don’t look well,’ he said. ‘You look so pale around your mouth. What’s the matter?’
‘I – I’m all right.’ She continued to breathe deeply.
‘You don’t look all right to me. Tell me what’s the matter.’
‘It – it’s not important. I’m all right, really I am.’
‘Well . . .’ he said doubtfully, ‘if you say so.’ A little moment of silence between them, then he added, his words accompanied by a rather rueful smile, ‘I have to say – the look on your face when you saw me waiting outside the shop back there. It wasn’t the most encouraging.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She felt as if she were in a fog. Her mind was spinning. Here was this man, this perfectly nice and pleasant man, totally engaged by his own preoccupations, and she could not become involved in them at all. She could not get past the miseries in her own heart and mind. Her brain was full of questions and doubts and desperation, a desperation that threatened at any moment to flood to the surface and bring her down.
After a second she took a deep breath and said, ‘Mr Canbrook, I’ve got to go.’
‘Oh, please . . .’ As she moved to rise from the bench he reached out towards her. ‘Please, don’t go. Not yet.’
‘Oh, but . . .’ For a second or two she hovered, half risen from the seat, then allowed herself to be urged back down. Sitting on the bench, she leaned forward, eyes tight shut, her mouth opening in anguish.
‘Oh, Miss Halley!’ he breathed. ‘What is it?’
She did not answer. She could not answer. Suddenly great gasping sobs burst from her throat and she pressed her clenched fists to her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle them.
‘Don’t,’ he cried. ‘Oh, my dear girl, don’t! I beg you, don’t. I can’t bear to see you cry.’
She sobbed again, the sound repeated over and over, her whole body shaking as she bent low. ‘Mr Canbrook,’ she cried through her tears, ‘please go. Please leave me.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not like this. I’m not leaving you like this. Tell me what’s the matter.’
She turned to him now, her face full of pain and anguish, the tears streaming. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said with a little moan. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Why, what is it? Tell me, please.’
Through her tears she gave a sudden, bitter little laugh, the sound utterly sad in the late afternoon air. ‘I’m like Hansel,’ she said.
‘Hansel?’
‘Yes. Hansel in the forest. The birds have eaten all my crumbs and I don’t know which way to turn.’
Then, the sobs racking her body, she got up, and flinging herself from her seat on the bench, turned and headed away.
Hurrying with no idea of direction, she moved from the pond into a little grove of trees that grew nearby, and here she came to a halt and stood there panting, the tears coursing down her cheeks. Canbrook was at her side in seconds.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
She shook her head and turned from him, looking off through her tears into the shadows of the little grove.
‘I can’t bear to see you like this,’ he said. He paused. ‘Is it me?’
‘You?’ She turned to him now. ‘No, it isn’t you. It’s only me. It has nothing to do with you.’
‘Come. Come and sit down. Come and tell me about it.’ He reached out to take her hand, but the moment he touched her she drew away. He let his hand fall back to his side. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘tell me – you’re in some sort of trouble, some awful trouble. What is it?’
She did not answer.
‘Tell me what it is,’ he said.
She turned her face away from him again. ‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can. Of course you can. I don’t understand what can be so dreadful that it can affect you like this.’
‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘you can’t understand. You wouldn’t believe it either.’
‘I’ll believe anything you tell me. I told you, I love you.’
‘You can’t love me,’ she said. ‘You don’t know me.’
‘I know you. I’ve known you for years.’
‘No.’ She hesitated briefly, then added, ‘I’m not the girl you think I am.’
He thought about this for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can tell me that would put me off. My feelings for you are – so strong.’
‘Your feelings, you say.’ There was bitterness in her voice. ‘They won’t withstand everything.’
He frowned. ‘What is this dreadful thing you’re hinting at?’
‘Oh, if I told you it would finish your feeling for me for ever.’
‘I think I should be the judge of that.’
Still she faced away from him, and still he waited. Then after a little silence she said, almost whispering, ‘I’m to have a baby.’ When she heard no response from him she lifted her head and turned to face him, looking for the horror in his gaze. There was no trace of it. ‘Well?’ she said. The tears were drying on her cheeks. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Or are you too shocked?’
He did not speak for some seconds, then he said, ‘Such things happen all the time. It doesn’t change you in any way.’
‘You think not?’
‘Of course.’
‘Unfortunately not everyone will see it like that.’
‘More fool they.’ He gave a little shake of his head. ‘Did you think I would be so horrified that I would turn from you?’
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ She thought of Mrs Obdermann. ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’
‘Those people – they can’t know you.’
‘But you don’t know me either.’
‘I know enough.’ He waited a moment then said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’
She replied with doubt in her voice, ‘Yes.’
‘The child’s father . . . how does he feel about this?’
She hesitated. ‘He doesn’t know.’ And to forestall a further question: ‘I have no intention of telling him.’
Mr Canbrook opened his mouth to speak again, then halted before he had begun. After considering his words, he said, ‘Well, it’s not for me to ask the whys and wherefores of that. You’ve got your reasons.’
She nodded. ‘Anyway, now you know.’ She moved to step past him. ‘I must go. I’ll get my flowers and I must go.’
He followed her to the bench where her posy lay forlornly on the seat. As she picked it up he stepped forward and said: ‘Don’t go yet. I still need to talk to you.’
She remained standing.
‘Sit down – please.’
She sat, and he sat down beside her. He regarded her for a second or two.
‘You said just now that you didn’t know what to do.’
‘I don’t,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t see any way out.’
‘What about your father? He’d help you, surely.’
‘I wouldn’t know how to tell him. I dread telling him.’ The tears threatened again, and she swallowed and was silent while she gathered her strength. ‘Yesterday I was given notice to get out of my lodgings. The landlady guessed at my – my condition – and made her feelings clear.’ She looked away from him, over the water. ‘So in a week or so I shan’t even have a place to live. I’ll have no choice but to go back to Capinfell, and I shall have to – have to put up with the shame. As will my father.’ She turned to him now, smiling at him although the corners of her mouth were pulling down. ‘Go on back to Merinville, Mr Canbrook,’ she said. ‘Go on back and forget all about me.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I could ever do that. You’re that set in my mind.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘As you see, I’m not the woman for you.’
‘You are.’
She frowned. ‘Not now.’
‘You are,’ he said. ‘My feelings for you haven’t changed.’
On the rim of the pond before them two young boys came, one of them pulling along a little wooden boat, drawn by a string. They chattered excitedly as they moved, concentrating on their task, seemingly without a care in the world. Dully, Lydia watched them go past, then said softly:
‘I – I almost did something dreadful yesterday . . .’
‘Oh?’ Mr Canbrook gazed at her, watching her profile against the green of the sward.
‘I – I was so desperate . . . not knowing what to do.’ She shook her head distractedly, still facing out across the pond. ‘I can hardly say it – but I went to see a woman – a particular woman – in Merinville.’
Canbrook was at a loss. ‘Who? What for?’
‘It doesn’t matter who she is. It’s what – it’s what she does.’
‘I don’t understand . . .’
‘She – she’s a midwife, but she doesn’t only deal with – with births.’ She hung her head. ‘I’m ashamed to tell you this.’
After some moments he gave a slow nod, followed by a little groan. ‘Oh, God – I think – I think I understand what you’re saying.’
‘I didn’t go through with it,’ she said, whispering so faintly that he could barely hear her. ‘At the last moment I found I couldn’t.’
‘Thank God for that,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard of such women. And I’ve heard of what other women go through – the ones who seek their help.’ He reached out and briefly laid his hand on her wrist. ‘Dear God – going to see a woman like that – you could have died.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’ She looked round at him now, and the shine of tears came into her eyes again. ‘I gave her my mother’s watch,’ she said, her voice breaking, and now the tears welled and overflowed and ran down her cheeks again. ‘I treasured it. I treasured it so, and I gave it away.’
Suddenly she turned and leaned towards him, and his arms came up awkwardly and held her. His touch was tentative at first, but then as she lay more closely against him he held her tightly. She cried brokenly against his shoulder, ‘I’ve made such a mess! I’ve made such a mess of my life.’
He continued to hold her, and gradually her sobbing eased and stilled, apart from a little catching of her breath. She leaned with her head against his left shoulder and his right hand lay gently on her back. After a while, when she had grown calmer, he said softly:
‘I would have loved it if we could have had a baby – my wife and I. It’s what we wanted, what we prayed for. We’d have given anything. It was the only thing in the way of our complete happiness. But it never happened. Though we tried everything we could think of.’
The two little boys came back, dragging their small boat through the water at the margin of the pond. Mr Canbrook waited until they had gone past, then said, almost whispering the words, a little urgency in his tone:
‘Marry me, Lydia. I want you – you and your baby. Marry me.’
She was silent, unmoving as the words sank in, then she lifted her head from the shoulder of his tweed jacket.
‘Are you serious?’ She could hardly take in his words. ‘Do you me
an it?’
‘Oh, I mean it. I’ve never been more serious in my life.’
‘But – but the baby, my baby –’
‘It will be ours. Our baby. I told you – I always wanted a child.’
‘You would do that? Marry me and take the child as yours? Give it your name?’
‘Oh, I would,’ he said with a note of passion in his voice. ‘I would love you both, and care for you both. To have you – and a child to call my own – it would make my life complete.’
Chapter Sixteen
The Canbrooks’ house in Merinville was named Ranleigh. It stood back a little from the road behind a green lawn with a crescent-shaped carriage drive. The house was of three storeys and though not huge, was relatively spacious, comprising some ten rooms. It had a white façade, the rest of the walls being in yellow brick. On this autumn afternoon it was in the drawing room on the ground floor where Lydia sat, writing at the little table that had, since the start of her residency, become her own. Near her feet lay Tinny, her almost constant companion when he was not accompanying Alfred on his short journeys to the shop. Lydia’s south-facing view as she sat, looked through a tall window on to green lawns and herbaceous plots. Out of her sight, beyond the formal design, the kitchen gardens stretched away to an orchard which ended on the banks of the river Merin. The only flowers visible on this early October day were a few late blooming roses. She had been married now for just over five weeks.
She sighed and put down her pen and looked around her. Sometimes it hardly seemed possible that she was here. Could it be? Was it really so? Oftentimes such questions rattled through her mind and she was almost required to take stock of her surroundings and her situation and tell herself yes, indeed, it was true. Following Alfred’s proposal they had been married a week to the day later, the ceremony performed at the register office in Redbury. Once the matter had been decided, there had been no point in delaying matters; indeed, it was essential that they move quickly, and so they had. During the week leading up to the wedding, Lydia had worked her final day at Seager’s and had moved her few things from Mrs Obdermann’s and gone into a small hotel in Merinville. Ironically, her morning sickness had eased during that week and eventually had faded altogether. After the wedding she and her new husband had gone to London for three days, three days during which they ate in restaurants and went to the theatre and the opera and the Aquarium, and visited the British Museum. Although Alfred had visited London twice in his life before, it was to Lydia a completely new experience and she had been in awe and wonder at the sights and sounds around her, though she could not help but also be very much aware of the grime and soot. It was not a place to live in, that much she was sure of. This place, on the other hand, was ideal, this spot on the northern edge of Merinville, with the quiet river drifting by, and the meadows beyond where the sheep and cattle grazed. If she could be happy anywhere, she thought, then surely she could be happy here.