Miss Appleby's Academy (9 page)

‘I am only trying to make a living,’ he said, and she heard the accent and looked harder at him.

‘Are you English?’

‘Irish.’

‘So am I.’

He looked her up and down and she said, ‘My mother’s family were from Derry, but they went to England to try and better themselves.’

‘So many do,’ he said, ‘but we both made it to the New World.’

*

She managed to ask directions and discovered where the Cunard offices were, and it was only when they reached them that she was intimidated. They looked luxurious, all mahogany and brass, and inside everything was hushed. When she went further in people were being attended to by smartly dressed men behind huge desks; when her turn came and the man smiled politely at her she wanted to get up and run. She asked the prices, she asked when the next ship was sailing, and then she excused herself. She hurried George outside.

‘We can’t do this. It will take almost everything we
have. There’ll be nothing for us to start again.’

George looked down. ‘We can’t go back to Mid Haven and I’m not going back to that school. I’ll run away. I’ll get myself to England if I have to,’ he said, and she began to regret that she had brought him up to behave this way, to argue like a lawyer, to think like an adult. It was not what she had intended.

She wanted to cry. Her eyes smarted and the pavement was cold and the streets were dark and narrow. It began to rain, cold and hard, icy on her face; it was relentless. Whatever had she been thinking of to bring them here? All she had thought of was getting away. Practicalities had not come into it.

The evening was getting darker and colder. She turned around and went back inside the Cunard offices. She saw then that her decision was made, that she had done the first thing in her life that she knew to be wrong. It was already too late.

The ships were pictured, hung up all around the room, and had wonderful names. Theirs was called
The Saxonia
and was sailing to Liverpool in three days’ time.

They would go third class; she would keep as much of her money as she could. She agreed. They went back outside. The night had cleared, the stars would soon be out. She turned away. She felt like an entirely different person from the one who had left Mid Haven. She would never be the same again.

The ship was enormous, she had not expected it to be frightening and it should not have been, she reasoned.
People were walking towards it and suitcases were on trolleys and those helping were milling about. She breathed freely for the first time in months and then, just as she was about to go aboard, she heard her name spoken behind her and her heart did horrible icy cartwheels. She dragged George back so that he complained, and when he was completely shielded only then did she turn to face her brother.

‘I knew I would find you here,’ he said. ‘I should have known, I should never have told you about the papers I found. How predictable you are, Emma, running for home from the nearest port on the first ship.’

He had never seemed quite this big before and he made her feel like a criminal, and then she remembered that she was, and she didn’t know what to say.

All she managed with trembling breath was, ‘I can’t go through with this marriage, Laurence.’

He said nothing and then she collected herself rather better and knew that there was little to lose in honesty now.

‘First of all you took our family home, then you sent George away to school, and finally you would have liked me to be gone from your sight in that awful damp little cottage. Couldn’t you bear the sight of me?’ Again he said nothing; he watched her as though she was talking in a different language.

‘And then the Judge. Dear God, Laurence, did you really think I would let you do that to me?’

She waited longer this time and her eyes were searching his face.

‘I did the best I could.’

‘You didn’t want me in your house. Did it not occur to you that my happiness might be important?’

‘Duty must come first.’

‘Really? Then where was your duty to me?’

‘I thought I’d done it, I thought your independence was enough if you couldn’t marry and then when you had such a good offer of marriage, I assumed that was what every woman wanted.’

‘To a man of her own age whom she loves.’

He shook his head and didn’t look at her any more. Then he smiled. ‘Does anyone truly love in marriage? It’s all there is for women.’

‘No!’ Emma hadn’t realized she had spoken so loudly until people around them broke off conversations and stopped moving to listen. ‘I won’t have that. It’s not good enough.’

‘I see.’ He was so quiet that Emma was even more afraid and she could feel George close in against her back as though he were afraid he would be dragged back to school if he moved even an inch.

‘You didn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t lied,’ Laurence said. ‘You can’t go to England: there is nothing there any more. All you have is here. I haven’t told anybody that you’ve left, I told Verity that George hadn’t been well and you had insisted on going to see him. I told her that I had taken her pearls to be cleaned. She was more worried about the damage that would be done to them than anything else. Do you still have them?’

‘Of course not. How do you think I got this far?’

Laurence stood like a waxwork, he was so pale. Emma did not remember ever having seen him so upset.

‘I can’t believe you stole from us, your family.’

‘There was nothing else to do.’

‘I haven’t told anyone that you ran away and if you come back now no one need ever know. I’ll make up some kind of story about the pearls and you can marry the Judge as planned and George can go back to school—’

There was a muffled sound of despair from behind Emma and George pressed himself into her back and put his arms around to her front so that she doubted she could move even if she chose to.

‘Please come back.’

She could not believe that her brother was begging her and then she saw that he did not want his name tarnished, that he did not want the town to know that she had run from him and from Verity and from a whole way of life, and that he would have to go back and tell them.

‘I can’t do that,’ she said.

‘I can’t believe you would be so irresponsible as to do this,’ he said. ‘There’s nobody left in England. You have no money. How on earth will you survive?’

Laurence looked around him as though help would appear from nowhere or as though somebody was waiting to grab her and the boy. Emma stepped back. George automatically did so too.

At that moment she sensed a presence behind her.

George let go. She turned around. The man was wearing naval uniform.

‘We are leaving soon, Madam. You must come aboard.’

‘I’ll be moments,’ she said, and suddenly she felt righteous, gleeful.

Laurence was pressing his lips together as though he would have liked to have said a lot more but was resisting. ‘You can’t do this to us, Emma, and you can’t take George into that damned wilderness. You can’t condemn him to poverty. Here he would have education and opportunity. Have you not given any thought to that? Come along now. I’ve bought tickets for you both. We could be home before dark.’

What a lovely thing to say, it was the kind of thing her father had said, but he had not used it like this, he had not tried to persuade her to go back to a life she could not stand. She had to remind herself then that she had been right to leave because under Laurence’s gaze and his lawyer’s constructive argument her mind was wavering.

Laurence gazed at the officer and he hesitated, but as Emma tried to turn and follow him Laurence said, ‘She’s not going anywhere,’ and he tried to get hold of her arm.

In that moment all Emma knew was that she needed to be free. She tried to drag her arm from his hold and when he didn’t let go she protested and the officer came back.

‘Is this your husband, madam?’

‘No, of course he isn’t. I’m Miss Emma Appleby. If you look down at your passenger list you will see it and I have the papers to prove it if you care to look.’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, ‘Laurence said. ‘This woman is running away. I am her brother and have come to take her home. I’m sure you wouldn’t stand in my way.’

The man considered for a second and then he said, ‘The tickets are paid for, sir. Her papers were checked and everything was made right at the Cunard office and the lady has the freedom to come on board if she so chooses.’

‘I do,’ Emma said, having finally wrestled her arm free.

George was standing well away towards the ship and she knew there was no chance that he would agree to go back.

‘I’m going,’ she said.

‘Very well then,’ Laurence said. ‘Go to England, and when you get there remember what I said because you will want to come back to your family, you will long for your home so much, and you will realize how stupid and foolish you have been and you will regret everything that you have done.’

The tears which had been so long in coming filled Emma’s eyes and began to spill over. ‘If we had not been from the same family we could never have been friends. Why don’t you go home to your wife and children and your wonderful life and leave me to what I am trying for? I know that you never loved me even though I wanted you to so much. Goodbye, Laurence.’

Then she turned from him and marched George before her on to the ship. She didn’t look back.

Mick got used to going home to no dinner, the cold rooms and the way that Isabel had stopped doing anything in the house. He employed various maids, but they would only stay for a few weeks at the most. Isabel had taken to living in the sitting room and drinking all day.

He decided to find out definitely where she was getting the spirits from. He remembered what Ed had told him about leaving things as they were, but he felt as if he had to do something; he needed to know what was going on.

He watched her carefully: it wasn’t difficult any more, she so rarely went anywhere, but he had to keep a close eye on things now and he knew when she left the house in the late morning. She wore a hat with a veil and he suspected something which hid the wearer’s face.

She was fairly sober at that time as she had not yet begun the afternoon drinking session, and he watched her from a distance. She went around the town, not through it; she followed the road which led almost to the fell and then, with a quick glance, to make sure no one was watching, she went swiftly in at the side door of the Red Lion. It was a farmers’ pub: a lot of the local men who owned small businesses went there as it served good
food. It was owned by a man named Henry Atkinson.

There was nobody about. Mick slid in after her, hovering there by the door in the cold, draughty passage, listening to the loud voices. It was market day, the day of the week when the farmers came in to go to the local mart where sheep and cattle were sold, and where they paid their accounts and met up and talked about the prices and the government, and where they would sit down to eat pies and peas and drink beer.

She could not have gone in there, into any of the doors which led to the various rooms, and so he reasoned she must have gone upstairs. He watched the narrow steps disappear into the soft gloom and then very slowly he followed because there was nothing to dull the sound of his tread. When he reached the landing the doors were closed. There was a thick carpet all the way along the hall which muffled his footsteps. He stood quite still.

There was soft conversation and chuckles of laughter, and he froze. He could hear his wife’s voice, noises from her such as he hadn’t heard before, keening, a kind of moaning and a man’s voice urging her, or himself, on.

Mick wanted to burst into the room in rage; later he didn’t know how he had stopped himself, and he only just held back as though there were a brick wall between himself and the room and not just a stout door. He couldn’t help remembering the words that Ed had told him, that it would not help for him to know. Ed had been right.

Only a stupid man would force the door, only a man who had lost complete control would part them amidst
his wife’s whimpering and grab the person whom he could blame for what was happening and choke the very life from him. And then what? Would he kill her? Would he beat her senseless? Would he be able to explain to his daughter what he had done? Would he be able to explain to the law? What would be left? It was too late for anything like that, and he had known it for a long time.

He pictured his daughter. If he went in there now it would be because of his pride and not for any useful purpose, and it would make things worse. Telling himself that almost made him laugh – the idea that things could be any worse. The truth was that they had so obviously been this bad for a very long time and it was only that he had not discerned it. He was ashamed.

His wife had gone to another man for what he could not give her, and there was nothing he could do. This was not something which was happening for the first time; it sounded familiar, regular, everyday almost, gleeful, confident, and that was the worst thing about it. This was not a special event, it happened all the time.

Her voice was lifting now, she was beginning to beg and after it to make soft and then louder noises of slow gratification. She was enjoying herself, she was being satisfied in a lingering way as though it were what she lived for.

Had Isabel’s guilt sent her to drink? Could she not live with the person that she was, with the person who would do this, who could not help it? Did the drink soften the idea of her betrayal? Could she excuse herself somewhere
in the middle of the brandy haze? He understood now at least in part. His wife was living lies and two lives which she could not reconcile.

He slid down the wall. Suddenly there was nothing but the floor; he needed something to hold him, something to gather him to it, and the soft flowered carpet eased him.

She had never done this in their bed, even in the first days when he had loved her so much and physicality was everything. She had not taken on that tuneful yearning noise, that tone of ecstasy and lust: she had been young, eager, funny, and it was lighter than this. He had thought she was happy with him. He had thought what happened between them was wonderful, but it was not this. It was love. He didn’t think this could be said to be love. It was something quite different.