Flint and Roses (13 page)

But my mother's chatter irritated me, since I cared at that moment neither for Celia's triumphs nor Prudence's captivity; and, excusing myself, murmuring something about a hairpin, a handkerchief, I hurried away to Caroline's bedroom, the old, comfortable nanny sitting by the fire surrounded by her stock-in-trade of needle and thread, hairpins and smelling-bottles, ready to mend a torn frill, or a broken heart without too much interest in either.

‘You look pale, dear,' she said. ‘Drink this'; and I drank something bland and neutral that had an echo of my childhood about it, turning cold and hot and then very cold again, as, ravaged by the strength of my raw, seventeen-year-old emotion, I faced the unpalatable truth, the depth of the pit into which I had so willingly fallen.

I was in love with a man who was not in love with me, which was in itself quite bad enough, but my feeling for him was so unconnected with marriage, depended so little of marriage, that for a moment I was almost as shocked by as my father would have been. But perhaps my father had not always been so wise—so dry; perhaps he, too, when he had made his unlikely second marriage to my mother, had been driven by needs he chose later to deny.

I did not completely understand the sexual act. For a married woman—according to Miss Mayfield's hints and evasions—it was a duty; for an unmarried woman so unthinkable that it could only be the result of brutal rape, which even then, should she be indelicate enough to survive, would effectively ostracize her from decent company. I had witnessed but one remotely sexual contact between my parents, a faint, uneasy thing, my father's hand hovering, not quite touching, my mother's shoulder, his pinched lips saying, ‘Elinor, it is time for bed,' my mother's head turning briefly away, nostrils wrinkling, eyelids lowering to hide the protest she had been unable to suppress; and then, turning back to him, offering her meek, empty smile, nothing warmer than her submission. ‘Why yes, dear.' And my feelings for Nicholas had nothing to do with any of that.

But, still gazing into the fire. I began to remember other things, young couples strolling tight-clasped together on quiet evenings, common people, we had been told, who should have been at home preparing themselves for tomorrow's labours instead of ‘asking for trouble'in this unseemly fashion. ‘Look away, girls.' But I understood that, in this case, we had been instructed to avert our eyes not from depravity but from pleasure, the simple joy—forbidden to us—that two young bodies, two loving, sympathetic minds, could find in each other, a joy that had nothing at all to do with dowries and marriage contracts, the propagation of a man's name and his money.

‘Look away, girls.' But no one had forbidden me to notice the softening of my Uncle Joel's face whenever he looked at his wife, the way her hand, very often, would seek his, a certain glow of memory and anticipation between them which, I realized, had sometimes embarrassed my father and Aunt Hannah, and had caused my mother and Mr. Agbrigg, Aunt Hannah's plain-spoken husband, to lower their eyes, as if they not only understood very well what that glow meant, but had something in their own lives to remember.

Clasping my hands tight together, giving my whole mind to the task, I understood that everything I desired in life was contained in that warm glance between my aunt and uncle. I was not concerned with social success, like Caroline, not with social ideals, like Prudence. I had small interest in domesticity, like Celia. I simply wanted Nicholas to smile at me through the lamplight one evening, as his father—who was gentle with no one else—smiled at Aunt Verity; to reach out his hand in a gesture of perfect confidence and understanding, knowing that mine would be there to meet it. And although I was not even acquainted with the word ‘sensuality', much less its meaning, I think my body understood it, dimly perhaps, but joyfully, and loved him too.

‘And what do you think of my Caroline tonight,' the old servant inquired, not interested in my opinion, but feeling I had been silent long enough. ‘A real beauty she's turned out to be—aye, and they're all after her. But she'll take the one she fancies when she's ready, mark my words. Not that she's ready—not by a long chalk—for she's had a taste of London now, and she's pestering to go to Paris, which means she'll surely be going, for I've never known her father refuse her anything. Aye, she'll have what she wants, Miss Caroline. She always was that way, just like her father. And when she gets it, whatever it is, it won't turn out to be good enough. She'll have to alter it, and better it, just like him. Now then Miss Faith, you'll be going downstairs now, I reckon, so nanny can get on with her knitting. Just a dab of cologne—that's better, eh?'

‘Yes, nanny. Thank you.'

But the old woman's evident desire to return to her knitting-needles was frustrated yet again by the abrupt arrival of my eldest sister, who, ignoring nanny's comfortable ‘And what can I do for you, Miss Prudence?' said quickly. ‘Faith, I am absolutely mortified—indeed I have never been more so in my life—'

‘With Jonas?'

‘Oh—naturally with Jonas—but mainly with myself, I have amazed myself, I did not know I could be so—oh, I don't know what to call it, weak, I suppose.'

‘Good heavens, Prue! You have not accepted him, have you, because you couldn't bring yourself to say no?'

‘Indeed I have not—but what
I have
done is almost as feeble. I was to dance the waltz with him that is just starting, and seeing him coming towards me I felt quite certain that instead of dancing he was going to suggest something quite stupid, like a walk in the moonlight, and propose. And instead of facing up to it—for, good lord, it is only Jonas and I am not in the least afraid of him—I suddenly found myself bolting up the stairs like a scared rabbit, exactly the kind of silly, schoolgirl antic I would expect from Celia. Faith, how could I do such a thing?'

‘I don't know,' I told her, meaning it, since I had admired her courage all my life, relied heavily on her cool, disciplined powers of reason on the many occasions when my own had failed me. ‘Perhaps you thought the place ill-chosen, or that Aunt Hannah would make a scene when you refused him.'

‘Did I? And of course she would. But I am not sure it was that. No—he has been so strange all evening—well, he is always strange, but tonight—oh dear, I don't know. And the whole thing suddenly seemed to be so distasteful—so sordid. But that is no excuse. I should have been able to stand my ground. And what on earth am I to do now? He will be waiting in the hall and will expect some explanation. Goodness—how sickening!'

‘Then I will go and explain for you.'

‘Faith, I can't ask you—'

‘You have not asked me. And I am not so fastidious as you are, Prudence. I will simply tell him you are indisposed at the moment, and whether he believes it or not he can hardly say so. And when you come downstairs again you should behave as if you had not been indisposed at all—which is no more than the truth—and that will put him off from bothering you again tonight. That is the way these things are done, you know. I'll see to it.' And, delighted at this opportunity to protect her, when all our lives she had looked after me, I went downstairs.

He was, indeed, waiting in the hall, positioned at the foot of the stairs where no one could escape him, his eyes no colder than I was accustomed to see them, his thin mouth no more disdainful—the Agbrigg boy of my childhood wearing his dress suit and ruffled shirt a shade too correctly, too much the gentleman, as if he found it hard to forget that his birth did not entitle him to be a gentleman at all. Just Jonas, who, well aware that we had always despised him, might be hurt and angry but hardly surprised to find himself rejected again.

‘I am come with Prudence's apologies,' I told him lightly, expecting no difficulty. ‘She finds herself somewhat indisposed and asks me to say she cannot dance.'

‘Really?' he said, not believing me, but not, it seemed, much caring. ‘Nothing of a serious nature, I hope and trust?'

‘Oh no. She will be down presently, I imagine.'

And that should have been the end of it; he should have bowed, smiled, offered to escort me back to my mother; I should have accepted his arm, made some slight remark about the splendours of the evening, the excellence of the music and the champagne, and we should have gone our separate ways. But instead, without in any way altering his expression of cool indifference, he murmured, so low that I had to step closer to hear him. ‘And do you also imagine that her recovery would be more rapid if I were to make my excuses to Mrs. Barforth and take my leave?'

‘Good heavens!' I said, laughing, hoping it was indeed a joke, although I knew quite well it wasn't. ‘I don't know why you should think that, Jonas.'

‘Do you know anything very much at all, Faith?' he replied so tonelessly, so calmly, that it took me a second to understand his rudeness. But when I did, I knew it authorized me to stop playing the young lady and to answer him back just as rudely as I pleased.

‘I shall not ask you to apologize for that, Jonas, since you are probably not sorry. But, as it happens, I am not stupid, and if Prudence is avoiding you then she must have her reasons—and that is not my fault.'

‘Did I say so?' he inquired, a lawyer lecturing me examining me from a lofty, intellectual height, although his pale, slanting eyes were on an exact level with mine, his shoulders not much broader. ‘And she has no reason to avoid me that I know of. Why should you think otherwise?'

‘Well—I did, that's all.'

‘Because you thought I meant to propose?'

‘Yes,' I said, considerably startled, yet determined to defend my sister whatever the cost. ‘So I did, and it would be most ungentlemanly of you to try to deny it.'

‘Really? Why is that?'

‘You know quite well why—and will you please stop talking to me like a lawyer.'

‘But I am a lawyer, Faith—a very good one, as a matter of fact.'

‘I am glad to hear it. And in that case you must know that, having paid attentions to a lady—well, a lady may put an end to such things, a gentleman, once he is committed, may not. Of course you meant to propose.'

‘Indeed,' he said, his thin lips sketching a smile that was entirely without humour. ‘Naturally you must be right—since a lady can never be wrong—and it is no secret that my mother would like to see me married, preferably to Prudence. But what my mother would like, and what Prudence would like—what I would like myself—cannot always be the same. I think we should let the matter rest there. You may tell your sister so.'

‘Yes, I will, and I am glad, at any rate, to see you are not broken-hearted.'

‘Are you?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I said, are you glad to see that I am
not
broken-hearted?'

And, for an instant, his hooded eyes shot wide open, colourless almost, unaccustomed to the light, but leaving me in no doubt that he was deeply offended and had perhaps been so all his life, his habitually neutral expression chilling me now with the kind of anger I had seen often enough in my father, the twisted emotion of a man who, feeling he cannot afford emotion, denies it, conceals it, comes eventually to despise it, and is seriously displeased with himself and anyone else who happens to be nearby on the rare occasions when it breaks free.

Yet Jonas, I felt quite certain, was not in love with Prudence, had in fact presented himself to her in a business-like fashion which even she had found too cool, too obviously motivated by Aunt Hannah's advice and his own good sense. And I was so intrigued by this show of feeling in a man I had believed entirely passionless that, when he took my arm and obliged me to walk a step or two with him down the passageway behind the stairs, I did not resist.

There were few people in that part of the house, just a servant or two, hurrying soft-footed about their duties with no great interest in a young couple who, by the look of it, wished to be alone. And wondering why on earth he had brought me here—since no matter how pressing his financial needs it was a little too soon, surely, to propose to me in my sister's place—I said primly, ‘I would like to go back to my mother.'

‘Of course.'

But he was still taut and painful with his anger, its intensity both amazing me and giving me cause for concern, since later, when he returned to his habitual composure, he would not remember me kindly for having witnessed it.

‘Tell me something,' he said, his voice clipped and sarcastic, a lawyer again, demolishing the evidence of a witness who was in any case somewhat beneath his notice. ‘Obviously my attentions—such as they were—have not found favour with your sister. And since I perfectly agree with my mother that I should marry, and that it should be sooner rather than later, perhaps you will let me know how I have most displeased her. I realize for one thing that I have committed the crime of poverty—'

‘That has nothing to do with it.'

‘Has it not? Do you know, Faith, in your case I am ready to believe you. There is no need for you to think about money, is there, since you have never been without it. Unfortunately, some of us are less happily situated. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about money. I am obliged to do so, since ambition is expensive and I am very ambitious, I admit it freely. It may seem strange to you that a man of ability and energy cannot progress in this world even half so far as a mutton-head who has a few thousand a year behind him—it has often seemed strange to me—but so it is. I have learned to accept it and accommodate it, since I intend to make more of my life than I suppose a man of my origins has any right to expect.'

‘I know nothing of your origins, Jonas.'

‘Nonsense!' he snapped. ‘You know quite well that my father was a weaver once in your uncle's sheds, and that he first married a weaver, if indeed he troubled to marry her at all. It costs money, you see, to get married. A man can't go to church in clogs and a cloth cap. The parsons don't like it, and there's a little matter of putting something in the collection plate afterwards. So mostly, among the labouring classes, they save their money and don't bother. They just wait until their first child is on the way and then move into the same back-to-back hovel and set about having more. Marriage, after all, is about property, and if a man has no property what difference can it make to him if his sons are legitimate, or even if they're his sons at all? Nobody in Simon Street—which is where my father came from, where I was born—gives a thought for such things. But naturally it must make a difference to a Miss Aycliffe.'