The Sleeping Sword

by Brenda Jagger

  But—as I had known, as I had feared—the house could not absorb Gideon’s presence so lightly, for his nature, like his mother’s nature, was definite and precise in its requirements, his temperament exacting. When he entered a room one became instantly aware of him, the tone and temper of one’s conversation altered to accommodate him, one realized—at once—that he was not a person who could be taken for granted, the more so since the past eighteen months spent in his uncle’s employment had not been easy for him.

  He had come late to the textile trade from a world where trade itself was held in contempt, so that he had encountered prejudice from all directions, from his old schoolfriends and hunting friends who were puzzled and a little embarrassed by him; from the Barforth managers who thought he was getting too much too soon and too easily; from the weavers who laughed at his accent and made jokes about his masculinity, since no man ought to talk like that. And although his brother the baronet and his mother the duchess both loved him and would have defended him to the death, they had made it plain that when he was a visitor at Listonby or South Erin or Mayfair they would prefer him not to be too explicit about what he did for a living.

  It was a difficult time for him. I knew it and although I thought him mercenary and predatory and kept a sharp look out at all times for the dagger I believed him capable of stabbing into my husband’s back, I could sympathize too, knowing that in his place, had I been ambitious and poor and a man, I might have fought just as hungrily and with as little scruple. He had told me that he had no particular knowledge of textiles, merely some appreciation of how things were bought and sold. Mr. Barforth had insisted from the start that he should learn—as Gervase had never been made to learn—every process of cloth manufacture, scouring, combing, spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing, not merely by observation but by his own toil, his own sweat, so that he would know the skills, the snags, the tricks involved, without relying on the explanations of mill-managers who might know a trick or two of their own.

  ‘If they tell you it can’t be done and you want it done, then you’ve got to know how,’ Mr. Barforth decreed. ‘I know how. My brother Blaize only thinks he knows. That’s why he’s got one mill and I’ve got half a dozen. He can sell cloth. I can spin it and weave it, mend my own looms if I have to, and then I can sell it too. Nobody can cheat you, lad, if you know their job better than they do.’

  Alien notions these, perhaps, to a Chard of Listonby Park, who would not dream of enquiring into his tenants’affairs so long as the rent was paid, nor his gamekeeper’s so long as the grouse and the pheasant were plentiful. But Gideon, nevertheless, applied himself with stern calculation and unflagging energy to this task for which, after all, he had been hired, enduring his employer’s often unreasonable demands and tempers, enduring the sheer discomfort a man brought up in the open air was bound to feel for those close-confined weaving-sheds, the screech of machinery, the heat, the dust, the stench of raw wool and engine grease—enduring the painful hesitations of a wife who, despite all her efforts, could not love him—enduring the whole of it not patiently, not meekly, but with a deliberate purpose, since he had long recognized Mr. Barforth as a grand master of his chosen craft: that of becoming and remaining a wealthy man.

  Long working hours, frequent absences from home in those early months, relieved or delayed the tension I had feared between him and Gervase, yet Gideon, who might never be the owner of Tarn Edge, knew exactly how he and everyone else ought to be served within it, and I was soon to feel the strain of his demands.

  He had survived the harsh discipline of his public school, had been obliged to wash every morning of the winter term in cold water at a stand-pipe in the school-yard, had been flogged and bullied and humiliated, the better to force his character into the sparse, unyielding mould of an empire-builder. He had followed the hunt since he was five years old, and when he took a tumble had learned to bother no one with such trivialities as cuts and bruises and a cracked ankle. He had learned to control both his lusts and his emotions, to appreciate the importance of good taste and good manners, the underplaying of anything from a spear-thrust in his side to a broken heart. But his mother’s drawing-room and the drawing-rooms of her friends were all luxurious, their tables superb. At Listonby he was accustomed not only to the highest quality but to the utmost variety, no dish appearing twice among the hundreds Aunt Caroline presented every month, no wine ever leaving her cellars that was not merely old but venerable, unusual; her cuisine a delight both to the palate and to the eyes. These were his standards. He had not expected to lower them, and although he made no complaints, being far too well-mannered for that, he had a way of toying with the food when it displeased or bored him, prodding it gingerly with a fork in a disdainful manner that once or twice caused Gervase to look up sharply and say, ‘What is it, Gideon? The food not to your liking?’

  ‘The food?’ Gideon replied, the faint question in his voice so clearly implying ‘Food? Good God! is that what it is?’ that I winced, while Gervase’s eyes—as always in moments of suppressed emotion—lost their colour. And determined that there should be no conflict if I could help it, my interviews with my cook, Mrs. Kincaid, became every morning more difficult.

  ‘No, no, Mrs. Kincaid, not haddock and certainly not cod—nothing so commonplace as that.’

  ‘Turbot then, madam?’

  ‘Oh yes—turbot is very well, I suppose. But since we had it twice last week it will have to be done in some other fashion than a lobster sauce.’

  ‘Salmon then, Mrs. Barforth.’

  ‘Yes—but how might it be served?’

  ‘Oh—with mushrooms and truffles in béchamel sauce.’

  ‘Why yes, Mrs. Kincaid—how clever!’

  ‘And as to the haddock, madam, I could make it into a mousseline and wrap it in slices of smoked salmon.’

  ‘Excellent, Mrs. Kincaid. Please do that.’

  ‘Yes, madam, but hardly for luncheon since—as you will know—a mousseline takes time.’

  ‘Oh, not for luncheon, Mrs. Kincaid. Mr. Chard will not be here for luncheon. You may please yourself as to luncheon.’

  ‘Thank you, madam.’

  ‘So we have settled on the salmon with mushrooms and truffles, and the sauté of lamb in sauce chasseur, and a really good rich créme Chantilly for dessert, do you think? And a strawberry syllabub? No, perhaps not, since they are too much alike in consistency—both creamy.’

  ‘Pears marinated in brandy, madam. Or a mille-feuilles with strawberries and whatever else is available and of good quality?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Kincaid—the crème Chantilly, and the pears—and yes, the mille-feuilles too—all three to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Very good. And the soup, Mrs. Barforth? Will you leave that to me?’

  ‘Oh yes, but something different. Or at least something that cannot be easily identified.’

  The wines, of course, were beyond my province, Mr. Barforth stocking his cellars to suit his own preference for the heavier clarets, a taste which Gideon shared but not exclusively, Gervase quickly seizing the opportunity to express his wonder at the extreme sensitivity of the Chard palate and the amount of titillation it required. There was trouble too about Gideon’s linen, the pressing of his trousers, the polishing of his boots, trouble not violently but fastidiously expressed, his attitude reminding me rather of the Englishman abroad who, with the best will in the world, cannot always quite understand the natives.

  ‘Is it possible to have something done about this?’ he enquired, indicating with that faint, infuriating curl of distaste what looked like a perfectly respectable shirt.

  ‘Lord! I don’t know,’ answered Venetia. ‘Ask Grace.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of troubling her.’

  Yet he did trouble me, his insistence on being well served, well valeted, well nourished, on observing what he considered to be not the luxuries of life but its common decencies, offering me both a challenge and a practical method of keeping the peace.


  ‘Are you protecting him against me, Grace, or is it the other way round?’ Gervase wanted to know.

  ‘I am trying to be a peacemaker so that I might inherit the earth.’

  ‘Ah—if we are talking of inheritance and if you are doing all this to watch over mine, then I suppose I cannot complain.’

  Yet his own behaviour, quite soon, became less watchful and perhaps—although who can say?—had I spent less time fretting over lobster sauces and cambric shirt-frills I might have noticed it, might even have understood it in time.

  Every morning Mr. Barforth and Gideon left early for the mill, Gervase sometimes accompanying them, sometimes not. They returned late and separately each evening, dined and retired to Mr. Barforth’s library, where Gideon would invariably stay the course and Gervase would more often than not slip away to drink his brandy in the bar parlour of the Station Hotel or the Old Swan. And because he would have the appealing air of a naughty schoolboy on his return—and perhaps because his very absence had made the evening glide by much smoother—I made no greater fuss than could be turned to other purposes when he had persuaded me to forgive him.

  ‘I know it’s past midnight, Grace—an hour or two past, I daresay. But look at it like this—if I never did anything wrong then you couldn’t scold me and I couldn’t coax you into granting me a pardon. And you do enjoy that, you know. Don’t you?’

  Yes, I enjoyed it, particularly at the end of a tense evening when the beef had been too rare, Venetia too flippant, when I had just—and only just—managed to keep Gideon and Gervase apart. I enjoyed his comic but slightly anxious apologies, my own grudging forgiveness quickly turning to laughter, his head nuzzling into my shoulder, those teasing, tender, enraptured conversations, his body still held with mine. I enjoyed it, even the taste and smell of the bar-room about him not displeasing me, bringing me a glimpse of a wicked, masculine world which—like many an indulgent, affectionate woman before me—I could not feel to be as wicked as all that.

  He came back to me, we made love, and when he took himself off to Galton without warning and his father complained of it, I defended him, insisting I knew his whereabouts—for my own pride’s sake, perhaps—when I did not.

  ‘Well, then, Grace, since he keeps you so perfectly informed perhaps you can inform me when I’m likely to see him again?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, at the mill.’

  ‘Can you guarantee it?’

  ‘Oh—’

  ‘Good girl, Grace Barforth. Goes against your commercial instincts, doesn’t it, my lass, to give guarantees when there aren’t any. I’m glad to see you understand that.’

  Yet his absences, even in that first year, grew longer, and an evening soon came when he strode into the house white with anger, his father a menacing step behind him, their quarrel locked in the library for half an hour before I heard the door slam, Gervase’s step in the hall, and ten minutes later the sounds of a carriage going fast and precariously down the drive.

  ‘It would appear that your husband will not be dining,’ Mr. Barforth told me, looking like a thunder cloud at the drawing-room door, his massive body still so full of rage that an outlet was clearly required.

  ‘Oh? Why is that?’

  ‘Because your husband, by his incompetence, has lost me a certain sum of money. Not a great deal—not by his standards at any rate—but that is not the point, is it?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘No, because money lost is money lost, and worse than that, for it involves an order, a contract—God dammit it involves a reputation. Because your husband was not where he should have been when he should have been, a certain gentleman who has done business with me for years has placed his order—his trifling little order—elsewhere. And if he gets good service and good quality he may do likewise with the next one—which may not be so trifling. Do you follow me?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Apparently your husband—my son—did not.’

  ‘Where has he gone?’

  ‘Gone? To his mother, I suppose. To his bolt-hole in that damned abbey cloister. He can stay there—believe me—for as long as he pleases.’

  ‘Then perhaps I had better join him.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘If he is to be at Galton for any length of time, I should go there too. I will set off in the morning.’

  He crossed the room, lit a cigar and stood for a while with his back to the fire, frowning, the anger that had been spilling out of him in almost visible sparks subsiding now, the eyes he eventually turned on me losing their ferocity.

  ‘He has a treasure in you, Grace. I hope he appreciates it.’

  ‘Oh—as to that—’ And then, approaching him carefully, for even in this softer mood he was still a very awesome gentleman, I said quite hesitantly: ‘Father-in-law, he has no natural aptitude for business as you have, as Gideon has. It is not easy for him—perhaps sometimes he needs to get away. And he has tried. Until recently I think he tried very hard.’

  He listened as my voice, lacking the resolution at the last moment to complain of Gideon, trailed away. And then, drawing deeply on his cigar, he smiled at me with his rare, astonishing charm.

  ‘Until recently? You mean until Gideon came? Yes, I know he doesn’t like Gideon being here. He was never intended to like it. He has to learn to compete, Grace, if he hopes to succeed. You know that. And if he can’t learn—if he can’t cope—then at least he has to make up his mind. Had he convinced me he was ready to take on the management of his mother’s estate, I might have released certain sums of money which have been set aside for him. He has not convinced me. Has he convinced you?’

  I shook my head and, his own head wreathed in smoke, he leaned towards me and gave what in any other man I would have called a grin.

  ‘There is a lot of money, you see, Grace. And if he parted company with me now, who knows where I might leave it? In his place I’d be inclined to wait for me to die. But if that’s his purpose, you’d oblige me by telling him this—he can’t have it all ways. Sooner or later he has to make up his mind, and if I were you, Grace—since I know you don’t want to live at Galton—I’d set about making it up for him. I reckon you’ll know the way.’

  Perhaps I still believed that I could and so—short-sighted if not entirely blinded by self-confidence, by faith in my own future—it was Venetia, under my eyes all day and every day, who worried me more than Gervase.

  Her docility had survived her honeymoon and had changed, very gradually, to a passivity I could not like. She had been eager and vivid. Now she seemed always half asleep and very far away. In her swirling apple-green silks she had been quite lovely. In her tall shiny hat and the mannish cut of her riding-habit she had been an enchanting madcap, worthy of any man’s admiring eye. But her charm had stemmed from her fierce joy in living, her tumultuous eagerness for the future, and now, with that joy removed, her future irrevocably decided, she seemed unlit and empty.

  She had no interest in the wedding-gifts which, her father’s commercial reputation being world wide, continued to arrive by every train.

  ‘Heavens! what use are they? The cupboards here are full of such things.’

  Nor could she be persuaded to apply herself to the writing of letters of thanks.

  ‘Venetia, I can’t do it for you.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ll make a start tomorrow.’

  ‘Why not now? Here is your pen, Venetia, and paper.’

  But although she sat down with a good will, I found her an hour later fast asleep at the table, the one letter she had started crumpled in her hand.

  ‘Oh dear! I just couldn’t concentrate, I don’t know why. And then this wave of absolute weariness came over me.’

  It was a wave which swamped her very frequently, washing her away to some hidden, comfortable shore each evening after dinner, so that even when our menfolk joined us in the drawing-room she would remain curled up in her chair, dozing and yawning and rubbing her eyes.

&n
bsp; ‘I’m so sleepy.’

  ‘Then go to bed,’ her father told her.

  ‘Oh—’ and her eyes would dart nervously to Gideon like a little girl who was asking ‘May I?’

  She was still so pathetically anxious to please him that her very eagerness became a source of irritation, and ere long there were tenser moments, for Gideon’s notions of how a wife should conduct herself were as exact as his notions of haute cuisine, whereas Venetia on both these issues had no precise notions at all, believing the sole purpose of food to be the keeping of body and soul together, the sole purpose of marriage to be love.

  ‘Venetia, I happened to see Mr. Rawnsley today and he happened to mention that his wife had been expecting you to tea and was—shall we say puzzled?—at your non-appearance.’

  ‘Lord!—oh lord!—next week, surely?’

  ‘No, Venetia. This week. Yesterday, in fact.’

  ‘Gideon, I am so sorry. And one day is so much like another.’

  ‘I daresay. Mrs. Rawnsley, however, had gone to some trouble, I believe. She had other guests—not local people—who were expected to meet you and who must have taken offence. Naturally you will be able to put matters right, won’t you?’

  ‘I shouldn’t bother,’ said Gervase from the depth of an armchair, barely lifting his eyes from their perusal of the sporting press.

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ enquired Gideon, his jaw tightening.

  ‘I reckon not. Mrs. Rawnsley don’t rate so high in my book, nor in my sister’s either, for that matter. And as for those other guests who were not local people, don’t trouble about them. Venetia. Businessmen’s wives from Manchester, stout old bodies whose husbands might be of interest to Gideon, I grant you, since he’s rather new, after all, to this sort of thing. But we’ve met them all before, Venetia, you and I, and we’ve never cared for them.’