The Ash Grove

by Margaret James

  ‘Isabel, be quiet.’

  ‘She read them aloud, you know. To everyone. We all heard about the pig–stickings, the tiger hunts, the weddings and funerals, and so on. How fascinating, I used to think, as I yawned behind my fan. How astonishing, how wonderful that dear Owen should actually find the time to do all that. Let alone write such nonsense down!

  ‘I used to wish she would read out the more personal passages. But these were censored, of course. Or at least, I hope they were! For surely your letters did not consist entirely of anecdote and badinage? You did at least conclude with how much you longed for her? How even your deepest sleeps were made restless, by the remembrance of her last sweet embrace? How you yearned to hold her in your arms, to part her soft red lips, and — ’

  ‘Isabel! I will hear no more of this!’

  ‘No?’ Isabel shrugged. ‘Very well. But tell me this. Before you went away, did you have her?’

  ‘My God! How can you even think of asking such a thing?’

  ‘You must tell me!’ Isabel's emerald eyes glittered brightly. Greedily, she licked her lips. ‘Did you put your mark on her? Make her your own?’

  ‘Jane is a respectable, modest woman! I would never have compromised her like that. She — ’

  ‘So you left her a virgin, and a virgin she remains.’ Isabel tossed her head. ‘How many years did she wait for you?’ she mused, apparently talking to herself. ‘She has been courted, you know. Many came after you, sniffing round the squire's ankles, anxious to bed that twenty thousand pounds. All were turned away.

  ‘But what of Jane herself? She had no reason to expect you would be true — or even return at all. Disease, injury, the rigours of a hostile climate, the likelihood that a fine–looking fellow like you would find another woman to replace her — all these possibilities must have crossed her mind. The chances of even seeing you again were not great. But she was faithful. Why?’

  ‘Because she loves me?’

  ‘No.’ Isabel's eyes sparkled in the twilight. ‘Because she is afraid! My dear Owen, she has known you from early childhood. You are her baby cousin, her infant favourite, her own little pet. You foolish creature, she doesn't want a husband at all. She wants a child!’

  ‘Don't.’ Owen shut his eyes. ‘She wants a husband,’ he whispered.

  ‘Nonsense. You want a mother, and she wants a son.’ Now, lasciviously, Isabel rubbed her bosom against his arm. ‘Have you seen her breasts?’

  ‘Isabel!’

  ‘You have not. I doubt if you ever will.’ Spitefully, Isabel laughed. ‘When you are married, she will muffle herself in white flannel before she even approaches the nuptial bed. Once there, she will bear your brutish passion with the kind of Christian fortitude she has been bred to understand is expected of her. If she should happen to conceive, she'll be — ’

  ‘Isabel, I don't wish to hear this.’

  ‘Then why don't you leave me?’ Sitting on one of the stained marble benches at the entrance of the little temple, Isabel smiled at him. ‘Go on. Run away. Scuttle back to your nun.’

  Owen looked at her. But he did not move.

  ‘Struggle if you must,’ said Isabel. ‘But remember, this is not all my doing. You don't want that frozen virgin! You want me.’

  ‘Let us suppose you are right. What should I do about it?’

  ‘Tell Jane the truth.’

  ‘Do you think I am so forgetful of the obligations of friendship, of affection, that I would hurt her so cruelly? That I would humiliate her, expose her to — ’

  ‘Marry her, then. Marry your nun, your modest, respectable woman, who loves you so well.’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘I see you must.’ Isabel sighed. ‘Very well. Let today see the first and the last of what you choose to call madness. But to which I would give a much kinder name!

  ‘Before you go, however — before I return to my suet pudding of a husband, and you prepare to wed your immaculate bride — let me take something I can treasure. Something to console me, through the long and dreary days ahead. Give me one last kiss!’

  Owen looked at her. Her eyes sparkling, her lips already parted, she smiled at him.

  He knew he was lost.

  * * * *

  ‘There,’ she said, half an hour later. Lying supine beneath him, contentedly she sighed. ‘You may go now, if you choose. But before you commit yourself irrevocably — before you marry your middle–aged virgin — remember the pleasure I gave you tonight.’

  Owen gazed down at her. White as the marble on which she lay, here and there her flesh was grazed and scraped and red. He had, he reflected, certainly put his mark on Isabel.

  ‘We could go away together,’ she was saying now. ‘To the Indies, to any of the Colonies. Even to the New World!’

  But then, suddenly, she began to cry. ‘Oh, my darling,’ she wept, ‘pity me! For you, I am prepared to lose my family, my friends, my reputation — everything! I ask so little in return.’

  ‘On the contrary, you ask far too much.’

  ‘No!’ Isabel's sobs grew harder. ‘All I desire is that you release a woman who does not want you anyway!’

  ‘How do you know she doesn't want me?’

  ‘Has she ever kissed you?’

  ‘Of course she has.’

  ‘I mean, do her lips tell you of her longing for you? Do they give you her heart and soul? Does she devour you, and can she be satisfied? Or are her kisses the sort she might with perfect propriety offer a sister, a brother, a friend?’

  Owen was silent.

  ‘I thought as much.’ Through her tears, Isabel smiled. ‘Of passion she knows nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Owen buried his face in his hands. ‘I can't,’ he whispered.

  ‘You can,’ she said. She pulled him close to her. She kissed his ear. ‘You want me still. Come inside me again.’

  Hours had passed. The long summer twilight had faded and the sky was full of stars.

  ‘I shall not marry her.’ Lying spent and exhausted on the cold marble floor, Owen was hardly conscious of the naked woman at his side. ‘There. Are you satisfied now?’

  ‘You will leave this place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I go with you?’

  ‘No, you may not!’ Sitting up, Owen groped for his clothes. ‘But rest assured, I'll tell her tonight.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Isabel stood up. She began to dress.

  When they reached the gardens which surrounded the Hall, Isabel took Owen's hand. He tried to shake her off, but she held him tightly, her long, thin fingers digging into his flesh.

  Evidently, they had been missed. As they approached the gravel sweep, they saw Rayner and Charles Harding coming from the direction of the stables, both looking anxious and tired.

  Rayner saw them first. His cry of relief brought all the others running. But then, as he took in his wife's bedraggled appearance, his features clouded over. ‘Have you had an accident?’ he asked. All concern, he reached for Isabel's hand.

  But she pushed him away. Imperiously, she glared at Owen. ‘Tell them,’ she said.

  ‘Isabel, I can't! Not yet. I — ’

  ‘Tell them!’

  Owen looked round the assembled throng. These people were his family! His friends. He felt sick and ill, faint and nauseated by the almost obscene cruelty of what he was about to do.

  ‘I cannot marry Jane,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ Ellis Darrow gaped at him. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I cannot and will not marry my cousin Jane.’ Owen hung his head. ‘I have behaved shamefully,’ he went on. ‘I have forfeited any right to address a modest, respectable woman, and I therefore ask my cousin to release me from any obligation to her.’

  ‘Good God!’ Ellis looked murderous now. ‘Will you come inside, sir?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, sir. I cannot.’

  ‘So, in addition to dishonouring my daughter, you will defy me?’ Ellis was ashen. ‘I say again, will you step inside?’


  ‘No.’ Owen bit his lip. ‘I shall never enter your house again.’

  Rebecca looked ready faint. ‘But, Owen!’ she cried. She would have gone to him, embraced him even, had not Ellis held her back. ‘My dear Owen, will you not explain?’

  ‘Perhaps my wife should do that.’ Rayner took Isabel by the wrist. He could smell her now. See her lips were bruised and swollen, hear the soft rasping of her breathing, feel the pulsing of her thumping heart. Her gown was stained and torn, and so haphazardly fastened that it was plain she had dressed herself. She had the look of a cat with the cream. Contented, fed, she was a woman sated, who could ask for no more.

  ‘Take that creature home.’ The look Ellis gave his daughter–in–law would have frozen boiling oil. ‘Go now!’

  Rayner dragged Isabel away. But Owen merely stood there. His misery and distress were so evident that, while she could hardly support herself, still Jane pitied him. ‘Oh, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Owen, my dearest — why?’

  But he would not look at her. Instead, he met Ellis Darrow's gaze. ‘I shall write to Jane,’ he muttered. ‘If she wishes, she may keep the contents of the letter to herself. Or she may make the matter public.

  ‘But whatever she decides, I would like her to know that she cannot think any worse of me, than I do of myself.’

  Then Owen turned to leave. His footsteps crunching on the gravel, he walked away from Easton Hall.

  * * * *

  Maria was the first to notice Rebecca's pallor. To see her stumble, then fall. ‘Mama!’ She caught her mother by the elbow, trying to support her. ‘Mama? Lean on me!’

  But Rebecca did not seem to hear her. As if her bones had turned to jelly, she collapsed, slumping unconscious against her husband's chest.

  ‘We must get her to bed, directly!’ Her face blanched by fear, Maria rang for Rebecca's maid. Then, taking her mother's hand, she chafed it. ‘Oh, God!’ she wailed.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Ellis.

  ‘Help me to take her up.’ Maria looked ready to faint herself. ‘Sir? You must help me!’

  Rayner and Isabel had gone home. So now, Charles Harding was asked to ride over to Warwick, and bring Dr Henchard back with him post haste. While he was gone, Jane and Maria put their mother to bed.

  Ellis sat at his wife's bedside. His face a gaunt, grey mask, he held her hand in his. Neither speaking nor moving, he waited for the physician to arrive.

  Concerned and anxious to help, the servants crowded round the doorway. But when they observed the look on the squire's face, they did not dare make a sound, let alone enter the room. While Maria gave ineffectual orders and rang down for tea, smelling salts, hot poultices — for anything and everything, in fact — Jane sat beside her father.

  Watching her mother's face, she was alarmed to see how pale it had become. Even in the soft glow of candelight, it was waxen. In fact, it was almost green. ‘Sir?’ she hazarded, fearfully.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Will you please to pass me that looking glass?’

  ‘What? Oh. Here.’ Releasing Rebecca's hand, Ellis reached for the glass. But then he realised why his daughter had asked for it. ‘She can't be,’ he muttered.

  But, held to Rebecca's lips, the glass remained clear. ‘Oh, sir!’ Jane choked back a sob. ‘My dear father, I'm so sorry! Her heart — ’

  ‘Leave me.’ As Jane tried to take his hand, Ellis pushed her away. ‘Go!’

  * * * *

  Jane had little time to grieve for her mother, much less to think of herself and her own personal sorrow. Now, she feared that having just lost one parent, she must shortly lose the other, too.

  For a while, she was so afraid for his sanity that she hardly left her father's side. Defying established convention, and thereby scandalizing the whole neighbourhood, she even attended the funeral. For she was sure that if she let him out of her sight, Ellis Darrow would do something terrible, either to himself or to someone else.

  ‘Sir?’ she began, the morning after they had buried Rebecca in the family vault at Easton St Nicholas, ‘sir, may I speak?’

  ‘What is it?’ Ellis had not eaten for three days. His face was a dirty yellow–grey. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips a livid blue. ‘Well, child?’

  ‘My dear father, will you not take just a little nourishment? Some soup, maybe? Some gruel, or broth?’

  ‘I want nothing.’ Ellis looked at her. ‘You loved the creature,’ he muttered. ‘You, my favourite child, you even wanted to marry him!’

  ‘Sir, I — ’

  ‘She's won.’ Ellis ground his teeth in rage. ‘The hounds killed the vixen, it's true. But the cub lived, to complete what she had begun.’

  ‘Oh, sir!’ Sitting down beside him, Jane laid her soft hand upon her father's arm. ‘Owen knows he has done wrong,’ she whispered. ‘I think he must surely feel it.’

  ‘Do you, indeed.’ Ellis shrugged. ‘Did he write to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jane replied. ‘He sent a short note.’

  ‘What did the creature say?’

  ‘He blames himself for everything. He exonerates Isabel absolutely. He wishes me well and happy.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘On that day, he says, his eyes were opened to defects in his own character, of which he was completely ignorant before. He says also that I am far better off without him.’

  ‘The last observation is just.’ Ellis scowled. ‘Oh God!’ he cried, ‘I wish you had never met him!’

  ‘Sir, he has behaved very badly. I shall not deny that. But I am sure — nay, I am certain — that he suffers now.’

  ‘Suffers!’ Ellis glared at her in scorn. ‘He's probably forgotten he ever did anything amiss! He's just like his mother. Feelings of compunction, remorse or repentance are all strangers to him.’

  Jane did not agree. But she thought it better not to say so, or at any rate just now. ‘Sir,’ she began, ‘I never did learn why you disliked his mother.’

  ‘Did you not? Then, I shall tell you.’ Reaching for Jane's hand, Ellis held it. ‘As children,’ he began, ‘Lalage and I were very close. Perhaps rather too close. Although, of course, nothing actually improper ever passed between us.

  ‘When I married, Lalage took it upon herself to be extremely jealous of your mother. In fact, she hated her. She envied her beauty, her goodness, and she especially hated the fact that Rebecca had conceived you easily, when Lalage was childless herself.

  ‘You have heard, of course, that just before you were born, there was a terrible fire here at Easton Hall. The story goes that a pair of ruffians whom, as the local justice, I had sent to prison for poaching, returned one night to take a dreadful revenge.

  ‘But that was not the case. My sister had paid the men to burn my home. She knew I was away from Easton, and was not expected back for a week or more. Her intention was, that you and your mother should perish in the flames.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Horrified, Jane looked at him. ‘Sir, is this mere hearsay? Or proven fact?’

  ‘It is fact. My sister admitted as much to me.’

  ‘So then?’

  ‘I told Lalage I never wanted to see her again. So, she and her husband left Warwickshire and went to live in South Wales. Alex Lowell died there, and Lalage remarried.

  ‘Her second husband was a Welsh criminal. A murderer, a thief — in short, a ruffian of the very basest kind — he was eventually arrested on suspicion of dealing in contraband. He died in military custody. My sister subsequently took her own life.’

  Ellis closed his eyes. ‘That creature,’ he whispered, ‘was the result of their union.’

  * * * *

  Rebecca's will was proved, and her executors set about their appointed tasks. In addition to her personal effects, it was discovered Rebecca had had a small annuity, inherited from her grandfather. This, unusually, was at her sole disposal, and was not to revert to her husband on her death.

  The obvious beneficiaries would have been her three children. But he
r son and daughters would be well provided for out of their father's estate. So, aware that Ellis was under no obligation to provide for him, and was in fact most unlikely ever to do so, Rebecca had bequeathed almost all she possessed to her dear nephew, John Rhys Owen Morgan.

  The attorney hardly dared meet the squire's gaze. ‘We shall of course contest this,’ he observed carefully, as he collected his papers together. ‘Although his aunt's bequest was unconditional, Mr Morgan's recent conduct does not seem to warrant — ’

  ‘No.’ Ellis stood up. ‘Find the creature, pay him what he is owed, and make an end of it. Do not mention the matter to me again.’

  Chapter 10

  David Morgan was most surprised to see his nephew, especially since he had just finished making the final preparations for his own journey into Warwickshire. ‘Well, child?’ he demanded, as the travel–stained, miserable creature sat down at his uncle's table, buried his face in his hands, and began to sob like a baby, ‘whatever's all this?’

  But all Owen could mutter was, that the wedding would not take place. Then, he burst into tears again.

  His uncle shook his head. Rising to his feet, he shuffled off to concoct a soothing cordial. This, he would oblige his nephew to drink.

  In his time, David Morgan had treated many a fit of bilious melancholy. He well understood that, in most cases, fresh air, exercise and a change of scene were the best remedies. Assuming that poor Owen had been jilted by an unfeeling hussy, even though she might be a lady born and bred, he exhorted his nephew to bear up, be a man — and to remember that, if he still had a mind to marry, there were kinder maids than Jane Darrow anxious to be wed.

  But Owen was not to be comforted. So, after watching his nephew mope and pine for a fortnight or more, David decided to call reinforcements to his aid.

  Thomas Taliesin, seven years married to a pretty, bright–eyed schoolmaster's daughter, and the father of four strapping sons, had realised his ambitions to succeed in the world of commerce. He had found a wealthy fool or two, persuaded these persons to cough up some cash, and become an ironmaster. He had worked hard, laboured long, and nowadays his forges produced the best bar iron, and his two foundries turned out some of the finest castings, to be had in all of South Wales. Wishing to expand his range of operations, he needed more investors in his company.