Born to Trouble (18 page)

‘Will you come again tomorrow?’

‘If – if I can.’

‘You must.’ As they stood up, he said again, ‘You must. Promise me you will.’

‘I promise.’

She watched him untie his horse and when they began to walk and he took her hand again, she didn’t demur. Nor did his touch raise any fear in her, nothing but a warm, pleasant sensation. They stopped at the bend in the lane. ‘Till tomorrow then.’ His voice was soft and deep. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’

Pearl nodded. Shyness was overwhelming her and she almost snatched her hand away now in her haste to be gone. Suddenly, the enormity of what she’d confided, of what he must be thinking was making her hot. He had been born to comfort and ease, used to servants attending to his every need from when he could toddle. How could he envisage what it was like to live in Sunderland’s East End? Whatever he said to the contrary, privately he must be thinking she came from a bad lot.

She turned, running along the lane without looking back, and she didn’t stop until she was sure he wouldn’t be able to see her any more. Then she leaned against the trunk of an old oak tree, her chest heaving. She was stupid, so stupid. She shouldn’t have told him anything, there’d been no reason to, not really. Now she had spoiled everything. Even if he came again tomorrow, he would look at her differently. He had seen her as a girl, a pure young gypsy girl, and in the space of an hour she’d confided that she came from the slums, that her father had been an evil bully who had sold his sons into a life of crime which had resulted in their imprisonment, that her mother was . . . she closed her eyes and then made herself say the word –
a prostitute –
and that she, herself, was not the innocent maiden he had supposed.

She slid to the ground, her hands over her eyes, and as the sobs came they were silent but nonetheless bitter because of it.

When Pearl nerved herself to approach their trysting place the next evening, she felt sick with fear. Fear that Christopher wouldn’t be there, that if he was there he’d be different. All day as she had worked in the fields under a blazing sun she’d told herself it would be for the best if he didn’t come. Then this thing between them, this thing she didn’t dare put a name to, would have to die.

And really, she’d asked herself, what had he said to make her feel he thought of her in a special way? A few kind words, words he’d probably said to other girls, girls of his class who were free to meet him on an equal footing. He was a kind man, she didn’t doubt that, and likely when she’d confided her past to him he’d felt sorry for her. Sorry and embarrassed. The thought made her squirm but it kept hammering at her mind, along with the little voice of conscience, which stated that she shouldn’t meet him. That way, he wouldn’t be put in a difficult position if he was regretting their assignations and she could walk away knowing she had done the right thing – for Christopher, for herself, and for Byron.

She made up her mind during the course of the long day that she wouldn’t go for a walk that evening, but as the twilight deepened and the songbirds sang their accolade to their Maker, she slipped out of the campsite once more.

He was waiting for her
. But then he would be, she reasoned as her heart thudded so hard it threatened to jump out of her chest. He was that sort of man. It didn’t mean he was glad she’d come. Merely that he’d felt obliged.

As Christopher saw her come towards him he read the doubt and uncertainty in her bowed head and measured walk. It made him throw away all caution and decorum. As she reached him he took her hands in his, his voice husky when he murmured, ‘I was terrified you might change your mind. Oh Pearl, Pearl. Can you believe what’s happened to us?’

She raised her head, her eyes seeking his. What she saw there took her breath away. And then she was in his arms, his lips smothering her face with his kisses as he whispered her name.

Part of her was standing back and exclaiming that she was in a man’s arms, that he was kissing her, holding her, and all she felt was an overwhelming urge for it never to finish. It was only then that she realised how frightened she’d been that she would never feel this way about anyone, that the attack which had taken her innocence had in some way crippled her, stolen from her the pleasures of love between a man and a woman.

‘I love you.’ His voice was broken. ‘Please believe me when I say I love you. I know it’s madness, that we’ve only known each other for three days, but I’ve never felt this way before about anyone.’

‘I love you too.’ She didn’t care that this was folly. This was Christopher, and she felt she’d known him for ever, that in some shining place beyond the confines of class and wealth and time, they’d been waiting for this moment.

‘I was here two hours ago. I’d almost given up hope you’d come and I was thinking up a hundred excuses to go and find you.’

‘You mustn’t, you mustn’t.’

‘I know’ – he shook his head – ‘but I was desperate.’

‘Promise me you’d never come to the camp.’

‘I can’t do that.’ He took her face gently between his big hands and as gently kissed her. ‘But I can promise you I wouldn’t do it lightly.’

‘They wouldn’t understand, none of them.’

‘I know,’ he said again.

Of course he knew; his own family and friends would feel the same about her. Pearl stared at him. This couldn’t work. He knew it and she knew it, so what were they doing?

‘Come and sit down a while.’ He drew her towards the grassy bank, spreading out his coat like the evening before. The moonlight lay in patches about them and Jet was munching contentedly on the thick sweet grass at the edge of the lane. When they were seated, he took her hands in his. ‘In a perfect world we’d have all the time we need to get to know each other, but this isn’t a perfect world, is it?’

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘And soon the harvesting will be over and you’ll move on. I – I don’t want that to happen, Pearl.’

‘Don’t talk about that now.’

‘I have to, I’ve thought of nothing else all day.’

‘Mr Tollett’s arranged for us to help with the harvesting at the farm whose fields are next to yours, so we’ll be here for another few days at least.’

‘A few days.’ He brought her hands to his breast now, pressing them tightly there. ‘I can’t let you go, Pearl.’

She stared at him for a moment and then bit on her lip. His hair was shining almost white in the moonlight, his even, classical features in shadow. He kissed her again, and following this they were silent for some little time, their fingers interlocked. She looked down at her hands. She had scrubbed them and scraped her fingernails clean before she’d left, but her flesh was rough and reddened by her work in the fields. Christopher’s hands were tanned and smooth. Quietly, she said, ‘Tell me the whole of that poem you spoke about yesterday, “Summer Dawn”.’

He smiled. ‘It begins, “Pray but one prayer for me ’twixt thy closed lips; think but one thought of me up in the stars” . . .’

She barely breathed until he’d said it all. Then she murmured softly, ‘It’s sad. I didn’t expect it to be sad.’

‘I find most poetry on the sombre side. There’s one that’s apt for tonight though.’

Warned by the quirk to his mouth, Pearl said warily, ‘Oh yes?’

“‘Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove that hills and valleys, dales and fields, or woods or steepy mountain yields” . . .’

There were seven verses in all and Pearl was smiling when he came to a halt, although her cheeks were pink.
Come live with me and be my love.
If only that were possible, she thought behind the smile. But in spite of what he’d said about not letting her go, Christopher knew as well as she did that all they could hope for was a few stolen hours together. But she wouldn’t think of that now – she couldn’t bear to think of it now. Not when he was with her and they had the promise of another few nights like this.

As though he had read her thoughts, he now said, ‘I meant what I said, Pearl. I can’t let you vanish out of my life.’

She stared at him. ‘You said yourself we’ve only known each other three days.’

‘And once upon a time, if anyone had told me they felt like this about a girl after so short a time, I’d have advised them to have their heads examined, but not now. Not since I’ve met you. I’ve been attracted to women before and I have to confess I’ve known several intimately – I was even infatuated once or twice – but what I feel for you is as different to that as chalk to cheese. Pearl,’ he took her in his arms, his face close to hers, ‘this is no passing fancy.’

She did not answer but leaned upon him, her face uplifted for his kiss.

When their lips parted, he said huskily, ‘We’ll face them together, your people and mine.’

‘No!’ It was involuntary, and in that moment she was thinking of Byron and what this would do to him rather than herself.

‘Yes.
Look, I’ve got it all worked out. I have an allowance – it’s not much, just a few hundred a year that a Great-Aunt left in trust for me – but now I’m twenty-one my parents couldn’t stop that. We can live on it until I decide what I can work at.’

A few hundred a year? That was a small fortune. Pearl’s heart began to race. She hadn’t expected this, not in her wildest dreams. Never for one moment had she allowed herself to imagine he saw a future for them.

‘We could be married within the month, Pearl. Would you? Would you marry me?’

The proposal was so unexpected that for a second she remained silent, although her face had lit up. ‘But – but your family would never allow it.’

Christopher made no attempt to gloss over his parents’ reaction. ‘They couldn’t stop us and that’s what counts.’

‘But what about Oxford and your studies?’

Again he didn’t try to pretend his father would continue to pay for his education. ‘That doesn’t matter. It’s only you and I that’s important here. If you leave in a few days I might never see you again, and I couldn’t bear that. Could you? Could you bear to say goodbye?’

She shook her head, but still she had to say, ‘Your family and friends, everyone – they wouldn’t understand you wanting to marry someone like me, and we don’t know each other. Not really. You might regret–’ she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘marrying me’ but changed it to – ‘meeting me in time.’

‘Never.’ He pulled her fiercely into him. ‘Never even think that, Pearl. I love you, I adore you.’ He kissed her again. ‘It might be madness, but I feel I’ve known you since the beginning of time, that you’re the other part of me.’

His words melted the barriers of class and wealth, and now Pearl kissed him with a touchingly inexpert hunger. They clung to each other, swaying a little, lost in a world of touch and sensation. It was several minutes before she found the strength to pull away. Part of her wanted to agree to what he was saying without any more protest, but another part – a part born of her beginnings and her experience of life thus far – couldn’t let him take such a step blindly. In a strange way she felt years, decades older than him.

‘Your circle would never accept me as your wife,’ she said gently. ‘You would find yourself stuck between two worlds without belonging to either. Mine would label me an upstart and you a fool, and yours . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t even talk properly, Christopher. I know nothing about society or how to behave.’

He caught her hands. ‘That’s the first time you’ve said my name,’ he murmured softly. ‘And I don’t care about my world, or yours either. We’ll make our own world.’

‘I’d never be able to live up to what would be expected. You – you’d be ashamed of me one day.’ Why was she saying this? she asked herself wretchedly. She loved him, and in a way she knew she couldn’t love any other man. Far from being frightened of his touch, his lips, she wanted more. So why was she pointing out the pitfalls? ‘You’ve always been used to fine houses and refined company, going to dinner parties and balls, and what about your place at Oxford? You wouldn’t be able to give all that up, and if you did you would long for it one day.’

Christopher didn’t speak immediately. A full ten seconds crawled by before he said, ‘Tell me you don’t really think so little of me as to believe that.’

When he saw the tears in her eyes, he softly cupped one side of her face as his other hand took hers. ‘Listen to me, Pearl. This wonderful world that you seem to think I inhabit is like a flower that’s been dried and preserved – beautiful on the outside, but when you touch it, it crumbles away. I don’t want a marriage like my parents have, I don’t want a wife like my father has or others in his circle have. Women who give their children to nursemaids and nannies and see them for an hour in the drawing room before they’re taken away to the nursery suite. And these dinner parties and balls you speak of. I listen to the conversation at such events and it sickens me, the bigotry, the shallowness. I’ve never fitted into my world.’ He smiled. ‘Nathaniel has always said I’m a changeling and perhaps he’s right, I don’t know. What I do know is that the only time I was happy when I was growing up is when I was with the Tolletts on the farm or escaping into a storybook. But I don’t want to live the rest of my life trying to escape. Can you understand that?’

The urgency in his voice had stilled her and as she looked into the grey eyes she saw the aloneness behind the facade he presented to the world. It swept away any further opposition. Her answer to him was the covering of his mouth by hers . . .

Well, well, well.
Halimena was part of the dark hedgerow, invisible in the blackness of the night. So still and silent was she that a harvest mouse which had poked its head out of its neat spherical nest of woven grass and wheat-blades, slung between thick grass stalks and positioned a few inches above the ground, brought its babies out of the nest for their first excursion into the big wide world, passing within a foot from where she crouched.

Hadn’t she known something was afoot behind that one’s big blue eyes when she’d seen the girl slip into the caravan last night when she’d purportedly been abed an hour before? But this was better than she could ever have hoped for, Halimena told herself gleefully. Wait till Byron heard that the girl had got herself a fancy man – and what a fancy man! Gentry for sure. But then she’d get a good price for her favours from such as him.