Angel Meadow (40 page)

“Mr Hayes, really.” She could feel fresh rage welling up in her, ready to explode. Couldn’t he see she was wet through, as he was, and needed to get out of her soaked clothing? What in hell’s name did he want now? At his back she could see the same question in the faces of Annie, Mary and Jennet who crowded in the doorway.

“We must talk,” he said abruptly. “I cannot leave until we have settled what is to be done.”

“What is to be done?” She was astonished, her mouth hanging foolishly open, she knew. “About what?”

“You and me.”

“
You and me
?”

“Really, Miss Brody, must you repeat everything I say? It is hard enough without you parroting—”

“Mr Hayes, you are the rudest man . . .”

“I’ve no doubt, but that is no excuse to avoid what has to be said.”

“About what?” She had begun to shiver and at once he turned to the three women in the doorway.

“She needs to get out of these wet clothes or she will catch her death. Is there somewhere I can wait while she gets changed?”

Like three puppets whose strings are pulled by the same puppeteer the three women gestured as one towards the parlour, their faces a picture of slack-jawed consternation.

“Thank you. I’d be obliged if you would call me when she is decent.”

“Now look here, Josh Hayes, I won’t have my family ordered about as though they were your servants. When I am—”

“I’m sorry, ladies,” bowing to the three spellbound women, “but the quicker she is changed the quicker I can get my business here done and be on my way. Now then, in here you say?”

They nodded. Then, when he had moved across the hall and into the parlour, which was unlit, they all three turned to stare in wonder at Nancy.

“Well, don’t look at me like that,” she snapped at them irritably. “I didn’t bring him here, nor ask him in and what in God’s name he wants I can’t imagine.”

“Can’t yer, lass,” Annie said enigmatically, before moving towards her and beginning to relieve her of her wet oilskin which was dripping all over her clean floor. “See, Mary, fetch some dry clothes. What? I don’t know . . . that warm flannelette nightgown and her dressing-gown, the woollen one, and a pair of slippers. You, Jennet, run an’ fetch two dry towels. Give one ter Mr Hayes an’ then brew the tea, will yer, and set out two cups.”

“Now see here, Annie Wilson, I will not be told what to do as though I were a child and if you think I’m going to sit down and calmly drink tea with that . . . that bully then you’re sadly mistaken. He has just lost me my job.”

“No doubt ’e ’as summat else in mind,” Annie answered her mildly, stripping her of her wet skirt and bodice, rubbing her shoulders and bared breasts with the towel Jennet thrust into her hand. “Now off wi’ them petticoats an’ drawers.”

“Annie!” Nancy was scandalised. “What if he should come in?”

“’E’ll wait ’til ’e’s called or ’e’ll feel the flat of me ’and.”

“And what did you mean, he’s no doubt got something else in mind? He forces his way in here and orders everyone about as though he paid our wages and I won’t have it, d’you hear?” Nancy was incensed and the funny thing was, she didn’t really know why. It was nothing to do with losing her job, which was reason enough, but something else entirely; and when she was left alone to think about it she would organise it neatly in her mind as she did all her thoughts, but in the meanwhile she wished they would all leave her alone when, without losing another moment, she would see Joshua Hayes off the premises.

She was sitting in the armchair sipping her tea, her warm wrapper tied about her, her bare feet on the fender before the kitchen range fire when he was called back from the parlour by the glitter-eyed Mary who was beside herself with excitement. Annie had towelled her wet hair and it stood about her head in a cloud of damp curls, a halo of fire-bronzed loveliness. He stopped for a moment or two in the doorway, frozen to stillness by the ripe gloss of her, the radiance of her skin which Annie had rubbed with little regard for its fineness, by the gleaming amber of her eyes which slanted over her mug at him, by the slender grace of her ankles and feet, by the petal whiteness of her throat and the glimpse of the hollow below it.

“There’s a cuppa tea for yer, sir,” Annie told him, preparing to usher herself and the others out of the room, leaving him and Nancy to settle whatever it was he wished to settle, but he would have none of it, tearing his eyes away from Nancy to speak to her.

“No, please, Mrs . . .”

“Wilson.”

“Mrs Wilson, I want you to stay, all three of you. Pour yourselves a cup of tea by all means” – just as though he were in his own drawing-room, Annie was thinking – “and then listen to what I have to say to Miss Brody. I need witnesses, you see, people who will help Miss Brody to see reason.”

“Reason!” Nancy sat up indignantly then subsided hastily as her wrapper parted to reveal more of her leg than was decent. “Well, I like that. How am I to be reasonable when I have just lost my job?
You
have just lost me my job and I am staring starvation in the face. I have my family, my child . . .”

“I know that, Miss Brody.” He was doing his best to be patient, a state he was not used to. “And if you will be quiet for a moment . . .”

“This is my house and I—”

“God’s teeth, woman, can you not let up for a moment. Allow me to speak and then, when I have finished, it will be your turn. We will both say exactly what is in . . . what needs to be said and then, if we cannot agree I will leave and you need have nothing more to do with me.”

Nothing more to do with him! She couldn’t bear the thought, really she couldn’t, but she was not about to let him see it. Though she had not admitted it to herself the high point of her dull and work-ridden life was the day she went to his warehouse with the secret, never-dying hope that she might see him. That somehow she might catch a glimpse of his tall, lean figure, his stern face, the way he turned his head to listen as she had seen him do in the past. The lift of his shoulders in a shrug, the movement of his hands as he made a point. God in heaven but she loved him and if he was about to say . . . what was he about to say? What was all this song and dance about? Why was he doing this – whatever it was he was doing – and why did he want the others here to see him do it?

She turned her head slowly to look into his slanted, silver grey eyes and the expression there made her heart trip and move even faster than it already was. His long, compassionate mouth curled in a small smile. He was sitting in the opposite chair, his elbows on his spread knees, his mug of tea cupped in his hands. The others were scattered about the kitchen in the shadows, on stools and the wooden bench, dark shapes that sat quietly and waited, as she did, for Josh Hayes to speak.

“Miss Brody . . . Dammit, Nancy. I may call you Nancy, mayn’t I? After all this time . . .”

“Mr Hayes, I would be—”

“Call me Josh, Nancy. Say my name.”

“What on earth . . .”

“Say my name.”

The warmth, the feeling of exaltation, the
knowing
began to spread through her but she could not accept it, for it went against all she had promised herself and her dead mam many years ago. But she had not bargained for Josh Hayes and the love she bore him. She was dazzled with what she could see in his face, in those grey eyes which had softened from silver to velvet.

“Josh.” It was the first time she had ever spoken his christian name out loud. She chanced a small smile.

“Thank you. Now, where to begin. I suppose I had better tell you what I mean to propose. Having lost you your job I feel I must offer you some alternative.”

“Alternative?”

“Yes, I have three from which you must choose and let me say that whichever one it is I will abide by your choice.”

The three women who listened hardly dared stir and when the dog, who had fallen asleep at Nancy’s feet, growled in a dream, they all three looked accusingly at her as though any sound might disturb the unfolding drama.

“Are you listening, Nancy?” His voice was like water flowing smoothly over a pebbled river bed, hypnotising, musical almost, soothing, getting inside her head, slipping through her veins like wine, a sweetness she wanted to sip at and yet was afraid to in case it all ran away into the cold ground.

“Yes.” Her voice was so low the others barely heard it.

“Very well, here are your options. I can give you a job in my warehouse. You have a good business head and though the other clerks in the office – men, of course – might not like it you would not find it hard to manage them. You have done so all your working life from what I can see. I have watched you, from that very first time we saw each other in the mill yard when you told me in no uncertain terms exactly what you thought of me and mine. At the Arts Treasures Exhibition you were . . . I don’t know . . . you stood out among the other women like a bright lamp in a roomful of cheap candles. Other times, at the ruined castle at the back of my house when I sensed your sadness over something but even then you were not about to ask for, or take if it was offered, sympathy from anyone. In fact everywhere I have looked I seem to have found you there, full of your own importance, proud of what you have achieved, meeting adversity head on and telling the rest of the world to sod off in no uncertain terms. You are a remarkable woman and I would have no qualms in putting you in charge of any business of mine. So, as I cannot do that and if you care to take it, I am offering you a clerk’s job at the warehouse.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was coolly polite.

“You are not impressed?”

“It is better, certainly, than scrubbing floors.”

“Then let me tell you of my next proposition which might be harder to accomplish but might suit your perceptions of yourself.”

“Yes?”

“I will try and guarantee you a certain amount of cotton cloth every week. Enough to keep a couple of machinists busy and ensure you a small income until the crisis is over. It is not much, I’m afraid, for it will depend on my being able to obtain the raw cotton. I would also make you a loan which would get you going again and which can be paid back, with interest, of course, when things get back to normal.”

She could feel her heart moving in slow but gigantic beats, conscious of the pulse of it at her wrists and neck. Her mouth was dry with some inner emotion. She sipped what was left of her tea and stared into the fire, not daring to look up at him for fear of what she might see, or not see, in his face. She loved him. She loved him and . . .

“Nancy,” he said in a low voice, “I have felt you pull at me ever since that first day in the yard and on every other occasion we have met since. I know nothing about you except that you come from poor beginnings and have, by your own efforts, arrived at a decent way of life. But I have watched you, and admired you, though I would not admit it, not really, until last year when . . . when my mare ran into you in Market Street. You have never been out of my mind. I want to help you, make your way easier, more comfortable. Please let me. I cannot bear to think of you on your knees scrubbing floors, but if that is your choice then you have only to say so.”

The silence in the room was unearthly. The three women in the shadows knew they were witnessing something tremendous in their Nancy’s life, but not just tremendous, something moving, inspiring, touching. This man was offering her, and therefore all of them, make no mistake about that, peace and safety, warmth and a life free of worries. But more than that, though he had not said so, he was offering freely, truthfully, without reserve, even though he might be fearful of being refused, the love all women dream of from a man.

“I am willing to let you choose, Nancy. You may struggle on until good times come again. You may keep your independence which I know is dear to you and I will let you go. I promise you.”

Again she was still and silent, looking into the glowing embers of the fire which Annie was about to let die out. They had to be so careful with coal. The fires of recent years when times had been good and getting better were a thing of the past. Her brain seemed to have atrophied so that she could not think, could not get past Josh Hayes’s face which was imprinted, burned like a brand into her mind’s eye, but he was asking a question of her and she must answer.

“And the third proposal?” Still she would not look at him.

“Is of marriage.”

There was a sort of sighing, almost like a moan which eddied about the room so that even the dozing dog heard it and raised her head enquiringly, looking at the three women who had made it.

Nancy had not seen his answer coming and she gasped with the shock of it. She knew he wanted her and she wanted him. Their encounter behind the inn had shown them that, but she had thought . . . believed . . . expected . . . assumed that he was asking her, if she did not want to work for him, or take up his offer of a loan, to become his mistress. That’s what gentlemen like him expected of women like her. A little house somewhere with herself installed in it, set up in style, naturally, a secret house where she would sit and wait for his visits which he would fit in whenever his business commitments allowed. A place where her natural inclination towards making things better, more worth while, which she had nourished all her life, would be stifled.

“Marriage!” Her voice was no more than a whisper and the three women leaned forward, straining to hear what was being said.

“Of course. What did you think I meant?”

“I thought . . . I . . .”

He smiled, leaning forward to lift her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes.

“You thought I meant to take you as my mistress, didn’t you? Dear God, Nancy Brody, don’t you think I know you better than that? You’d go out scrubbing the flags of Piccadilly rather than be any man’s mistress. You’re the most stubborn, argumentative woman I have ever met and I’m sure I shall have a great deal of trouble with you, but it seems . . . it seems, Nancy, that I love you and I know you love me.”