An Unwilling Alliance

by Lynn Bryant

  “Christ, lad, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was too hasty with this. She’s not what I intended at the outset, she’s too young. I should have had the sense to stick to my original plan and look about me for an older woman with a bit more sense. But it’s all right, I’m not in that much of a hurry to be wed. I’ll get back to my ship and think on it again when this war is over and…”

  “Oh don’t give me that rubbish, fella! You might have turned up here with a list of requirements for the woman you’d honour with your name and your ring, but four months later you’ve a smile on your face and a pair of brown eyes on your mind. You care about her.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you bloody do. You think I don’t know that tight-mouthed expression; it’s the way you looked when your father died and Cretney offered you work on the estate and a home.”

  “A stable to sleep in.”

  “A place in the world and the promise of more when you were older. You wanted to say yes so much it hurt you but you clamped your jaw, stuck your chin in the air and said no, because you were too bloody proud to work for the man you blamed for your Da’s death! And you’re about to do the same bloody thing again with Roseen Crellin. Talk to the girl, it can’t hurt.”

  “I’ve no intention of speaking to her, Ise. I’ll write to her father; he’s been good to me and besides, he’s a business partner, I can’t be at outs with him. She’ll marry her soldier boy and by the time I get back again she’ll either have left the island with him or they’ll be married and settled here and we can be civil. Just at the moment I can’t. She’s made a bloody fool out of me…”

  “Hugh, for God’s sake, will you listen to yourself? What did she say to you this evening?”

  “Not much but she had no chance.”

  “Well she deserves one. I don’t care how much she’s upset you, she’s a good girl and I think she might well be in love with you. You need to…”

  “She has a bloody funny way of showing it, then. I’m not interested, Isaac. It was a moment of madness - a summer flirtation. Time I came down to earth and remembered what I’m good at. I’ll get Brian to pack for me and I’ll go up and write to Crellin now; see that it’s delivered, will you?”

  “Hugh, for God’s sake, calm down and wait! This is not the last packet off the island, there’ll be another next week…”

  “I need to go!” Hugh said savagely, and he realised in some horror that he was close to tears. “I need to get away,” he said, forcing his voice to sound more moderate. “You’re probably right, Ise, I did get attached. Didn’t intend to, but…it’ll be all right, I’ll get over it. But I’m not standing in the drawing room listening to that girl stumbling over her apologies for not telling me she was in love with somebody else. I can’t stand it. So I’m sailing tomorrow and she can sort out her own bloody mess!”

  Isaac studied him in silence for a long time. Finally he sighed. “All right, boy, it’s your decision, although I think it’s the wrong one. I’ll get Voirry to sort out your packing and we’ll send a message down to the captain that you’ll be joining him. Write to me, will you? There’ll be estate business to sort out, and I’d like to hear that you’re still alive from time to time.”

  Hugh drained the brandy glass and got up for more. “I will,” he promised. “Ise, I’m sorry. Especially about your wedding. I just don’t think I could stand it just now. It’ll pass quickly enough if I’m busy getting the Iris ready. It’s not like me; I’m too old to be pining after a girl ten years younger than me. I’ll…”

  “Hugh, I’ve said I’ll help and I will, but not if you’re going to sit there talking complete fustian!” Isaac said bluntly. “You’re making a mistake here. But it’s your mistake, not mine. Finish that and get your letter written.”

  Hugh nodded. “It’s not going to take long,” he said. “I don’t have a lot to say about Miss Crellin, to tell you the truth. Or at least, not that I could share with her father.”

  “Arsehole,” Isaac said, in matter-of-fact tones, and went to find Voirry.

  ***

  Roseen slept little that night. She lay awake into the small hours, listening to the regular chimes of the grandfather clock in the hall below. She had cried on and off for hours but the tears were gone now and in their place was an emptiness which she could not imagine ever finding a way to fill.

  Her father had received the letter from Hugh Kelly late that evening and had shouted up the stairs to her, the fury in his voice warning her that the misery of her night was not over yet.

  “Down here, Roseen. Into my study.”

  Roseen preceded him, her head held high, her heart hammering. She stood before the desk and her father sat down.

  “Well I hope you’re proud of yourself, lass, because you just threw away as good a match as I could have hoped for! Don’t flatter yourself that he’ll be back. He’s a man of his word and what you’ve done has given him a disgust of you that isn’t likely to change.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it,” Roseen said, trying to keep her voice from quivering. “Is he leaving?”

  “Aye, on the morning packet. Back to his ship.” Her father looked her over. “Wrote me a very civil letter, assures me that this won’t affect our business dealings. He wishes you happiness in your future marriage.”

  Roseen did not reply. After a long moment, her father said:

  “Is that your intent, Roseen? To ask if you can marry your Englishman?”

  Roseen shook her head. “No. He doesn’t want to marry me, father. And I wouldn’t have him even if he asked.”

  “Well that makes it all the worse that you’ve thrown away your chance with Captain Kelly. You’ve been a complete fool. He’s a fine looking man, he’s got money and manners and the next time he’s back here they’ll be falling over themselves, the lassies of Castletown and Douglas, in the hope he’ll look their way. All that could have been yours if it hadn’t been for that penniless wastrel in a red coat that you looked fit to shame me with!”

  Roseen stiffened her spine. “If you mean Lieutenant Barton, father, why not give him his name? He’s done nothing wrong other than change his mind. Yes, I thought I loved him. And if you’d said yes a year ago, I might have married him. Who knows, we might even have been happy! But…”

  “He never bloody asked me, lass, so how could I?”

  Roseen caught her breath. “Don’t lie to me! He told me! He said he had spoken to you and that you had refused him because he had no money and no prospects…”

  “Well and so I would have,” her father said. “But I never got the chance because he never came near me. He lied to you. He’d no intention of marrying you, he was waiting for his commission in the regulars and a wife would have been very much in the way. Which doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have enjoyed some of the other privileges of matrimony with you. I suppose that’s a question I should ask you before we find you another husband, isn’t it? Did he have your maidenhead, lass, while he was whispering sweet words in the heather and lying to you about his intentions?”

  “No!” Roseen said, and it came out a sob. “No, he didn’t! How can you think that of your own daughter?”

  “Well it hardly matters now since the captain won’t have you anyway, and half the island knows it’s because he caught you with that young bastard. I believe you. Happen it wasn’t worth Barton’s while to risk his career with a hasty marriage to a girl he didn’t want just for an hour or two in the hay with her. Sensible man. He’ll find himself a good English girl with a bit of money, I daresay, just in time to buy him a captain’s commission and…”

  “Stop it!” Roseen shouted. She could feel the tears streaming down her face. “I hate you! I’m going to my room!”

  “Not just yet you’re not. Well it looks as though you’ve ruined your chances of a good match, so we’ll have to make do with a respectable one. Kelly isn’t the only man to have made me an offer although he’d have been my first choice.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t want to be married!” Roseen said.

  “And isn’t that just as well given that you’ve just branded yourself a jilt who’s been leading a decent man a merry dance. I doubt they’ll be queuing up for you, lass, but that doesn’t matter. I had an offer from Orry Gelling from up Ramsey way. You’ll remember him, you danced with him a few times last Christmas. He’s very keen, been looking to marry again since his wife died. Got those daughters but he’s after a son and he wants a girl young enough to give him one.”

  Roseen’s body turned to ice. “Orry Gelling? You’re not serious?”

  “Look at my face, Roseen, and tell me what you think?”

  “Orry Gelling? He’s forty and eats like a pig and he’s been married twice. Both of them have died.”

  “Aye, he’s been unlucky, but that’s hardly his fault. First one died of childbed fever after the younger girl and the second one died in childbirth and her boy with her. But…”

  “He’s horrible,” Roseen breathed. “He doesn’t wash enough and there’s always dirt under his fingernails and he’s a slaver, Father. A slaver.”

  “Not any more he’s not, it’s illegal, haven’t you heard?” her father said sardonically. “And what do you care, Roseen, he’s wealthy - more so than Captain Kelly. You’ll be mistress of two fine houses with money in the bank and…”

  “Which he will never allow me to spend because he is a miser as well as a drunk!” Roseen spat. “I know you said this before, but I don’t believe you’d do that to me! You’re just saying this because you’re angry with me. And it’s horrible of you, Da!”

  “I’m not. You need to marry. And it’s time for the truth, Roseen. I’m not groaning under offers for you, lass.”

  Roseen stared at him, unable to speak. Suddenly he looked less angry, almost sad. “It’s not a point I ever wanted to make,” he said. “Because I blame myself as much as you. I should have married again, found a woman to be a mother to you. Couldn’t face it. And I was busy - too busy - with making my way and building a fortune. I let you run wild. Climbing trees and trapping rabbits and out at all hours well out of your girlhood with lads below you in station and occasionally wearing your brother’s old clothes. And I’ve tried to pretend to both of us that it didn’t matter. Only the last year or so I’ve realised…the girls of your age and station have all married or getting close to, and I’ve had precious few men approaching me about a match…”

  Roseen did not speak. She could think of nothing to say. Her father shook his head. He looked suddenly tired, and rather older, and it upset her far more than his rage.

  “Well that’s all right. I thought we’d plenty of time. And then Quilliam approached me about his cousin and he sounded good on paper. And when I met him - I thought we’d fallen on our feet and no mistake. Money to buy land and a house, money to invest…and not a bad looking lad either. He knew nothing of your wild ways, no reason to see you as anything as a well-behaved girl. And he fancied you as well, which is a good thing. And you turned him down because of some little arsehole who never even wanted you in the first place.”

  Roseen was crying, the tears streaming down her face. She fumbled for her handkerchief and mopped her eyes. “I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t turn him down. He hadn’t asked me, Da.”

  “He was going to.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” Roseen said, and her voice broke on the words. “He asked me to wear that gown.”

  “What?”

  “The blue gown. It was his favourite on me. He asked me to wear it.”

  She was sobbing now and abruptly her father got up and moved around the desk. “Come and sit down,” he said. “I’ll get you some wine, you’re in that much of a state…oh lass, you’ve been such a fool. It was clear he’d a fancy for you, but I’d no idea you felt this way about it!”

  “I didn’t realise myself until now,” Roseen said. She had begun to shake and found that she could not stop. Her father brought a glass of wine and then went to the hall, shouting for Karran. He returned with Roseen’s good woollen shawl which he draped about her.

  “Drink up,” he said, sounding kinder. “Lass, I’m sorry. I wish there was a way round this, for I can see you cared for him. But he’s a proud man, Captain Kelly, and you made a fool out of him in front of half the garrison. Wouldn’t matter what I said to him now, he’s not going to change his mind.”

  Roseen nodded and sat sipping the wine. They were silent for a while. Eventually, Roseen said:

  “I can’t marry Gelling, Father. I just can’t.”

  Her father shook his head. “I’m sorry, Roseen. I know you don’t like this. But you need to be married, lass. It’s not like you’re a girl to be sitting around knitting stockings for me into my old age. There’s been talk about you and we can’t ignore it any more. You need to be married. Gelling will have you, and I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure you get what’s due to you.”

  “And I have to share his bed.”

  “Yes. Like every other lass has to do with the man she weds. Which is why you’d have done better to choose a younger man who liked the look of you. But that ship’s sailed - or will do soon. I’ll make sure he’s good enough to you, Roseen. But you’ll marry him. I won’t have a girl of mine disgrace me.”

  The defiance had left her along with the anger and Roseen just felt drained. The news of her precarious position in local society was a not really a shock to her. She had known that she was not like other girls, but this last year she had finally begun to settle down and try to fit in. It had not occurred to her that her behaviour with first Lieutenant Barton and then Captain Kelly might have exposed her to censure but she realised that her father was right. Her own feelings were so obvious to her that she had not stopped to think about any potential damage to her good name, but in a social circle as small as Mann it was going to be all over the island within a week that Josiah Crellin’s tomboy daughter had been misbehaving with the military while leading the navy a sorry dance.

  “I’m sorry,” she said abruptly. “I didn’t think…I didn’t realise…”

  “No. And I’m at fault for that too, I should have disciplined you sooner instead of hoping you’d grow out of it. Well, it’s done now. Kelly’s made his position clear; you’ve hurt his pride and he don’t want you. There’ll be gossip and this is a small place. The longer we leave it, the worse it’s likely to get. I’ll ride up and speak to Gelling at the end of the week, get things moving.”

  Roseen shook her head. She was crying again, more quietly now. “Father, please. I can’t marry him, he’s horrible.”

  “He’s not horrible. He’s a decent man, he won’t beat you and he won’t hurt you. He’s a bit older than I’d like, which is why I didn’t say yes when he first approached me, but he’s respectable and he’s got money and he’s the best you’re going to get, Roseen.” Crellin’s face softened slightly. “Look, lass, you’ve a pretty face and you can be sweet when you set your mind to it, but you’ve set them against you with your wild ways. You’ve tossed those curls at the local lads too often and then you were all over that bloody Englishman in a red coat without a thought to your reputation. And now Kelly…what’s done is done. Gelling’s healthy enough, but he’s not young, happen you’ll have an early widowhood with a respectable portion. And you’ll have children - his girls, and please God some of your own. That’ll settle you down.”

  Roseen went to her room and sank, exhausted onto the cushioned window seat. Her maid hovered and she waved the girl away. Outside it was very dark, only one or two lights from nearby Castletown twinkling in the inky black of the night. She wondered if they were from the castle where the reception was probably just ending and then shied away from the thought, continuing to stare out into the darkness. There was no moon and clouds obscured any stars.

  Settle her down. Roseen had heard the words so often that they had ceased to have meaning for her. All her life she had listened to her father and her brother lecturing her a
bout her wildness but it had never, in her naivety, occurred to her that there might be long lasting consequences for being different.

  She had never found it particularly easy to fit in with the other girls of her age and station but it had never really bothered her. In childhood, tagging along behind her elder brother, she had done what he did, joined his friends on every expedition and it had been his idea, on occasion, to lend her some of his outgrown clothing to make the sailing and fishing and tree climbing easier.

  At fourteen she had been angry and bitterly hurt when he chose suddenly to leave her behind. His interests had changed, he began to spend time with young men of his own station rather than the fisher folk and farmers’ lads of his childhood, he ogled the pretty girls and spoke reprovingly to his hoyden of a sister, telling her it was time to grow up.

  Roseen had resented the change and had continued as she chose, joining the lads on the fishing boats until her father had been reproved by several ladies about the damage being done to his daughter’s reputation and marriage prospects and he had put a stop to her expeditions, insisting instead that she pay heed to her lessons and her aunt and her needlework in preparation for her marriage.

  At seventeen, marriage had seemed a long way off. Roseen had complied reluctantly with some of her father’s dictates, but still sneaked off when she could, to climb the hills, spending time when she should have been practising her music, lying in the heather watching the gulls wheeling overhead and returning sometimes far too close to dark, her skirts stained with sand or mud, or soaked with the sudden rain which could sweep in from the sea with no notice.

  An odd girl, they had said in Castletown and Douglas and even as far up as Ramsey. Odd and not easy to know. Pretty enough, with the classic Manx dark hair and eyes, although more olive skinned than most of the girls, a tan which the ladies put down to the time she spent out in all weathers without a hat or a parasol. Roseen had felt their disapproval, but had cared nothing for it until the lissom young officer had arrived from England, full of zeal for the war and stories of where he had been and where he would go. Roseen had danced with him twice at the castle ball and had fallen simply and helplessly in love.