Mulligan's Yard (21 page)

She thought about the spring and summer, her silly obsession with James Mulligan, her passion for Rupert Smythe. Six months ago, Margot Burton-Massey had been alive, vibrant, mobile. She had
wanted to work with horses, not with fabric and thread. There had been dirt under her fingernails, a sparkle in her eyes. Mulligan’s stables were now filled to bursting with fine, purebred
horseflesh. Eliza still visited the Grange to play that rather fine piano while he listened and lusted, no doubt. Margot had not been near the big house for weeks – even the wild, unbroken
horses could not drag her in that direction.

It didn’t matter, any of it. Sometimes, Margot wondered whether she would experience any pain at all, even if run through by a sword. ‘I’m dead, I suppose,’ she told a
nearby tree, ‘and still talking. Talking to a tree.’ She was a fool. Like a witless schoolgirl, she had twice imagined herself in love, each time with an unsuitable person. Mulligan,
taciturn and, on occasion, as cold as tonight’s frost, then Smythe, that self-centred mother’s boy with no thought for anything save his own comfort. ‘A fool,’ she declared
aloud, the two syllables emerging on a small cloud of breath.

Something moved. She turned her head, half expecting to see a cow bent on escape, but it was a man, a stranger. He was quite the ugliest creature she had ever seen. Shivering, Margot rose from
her uncomfortable seat and backed away. The chill in her bones came from the inside. She was feeling something; she was experiencing fear. ‘What . . . what do you want?’ she asked, the
words stumbling on their way out.

He smiled. She was a snow queen, alabaster-skinned, finely etched, a living expression of all that seemed magical in the world. Weight seemed to have melted away from her face, rendering her
more fragile than she had seemed earlier in the year. Oh, what a prize. The Guardians in Texas were content for the time being, happy to receive young women capable of toil. But the Light needed to
attract the educated, too, people like the Burton-Masseys, those who had attended excellent schools, folk with good manners. In spite of the cold, Peter Wilkinson’s palms were slick with
sweat. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I saw you sitting there so still. That can be dangerous in low temperatures. Frost can kill. You should be inside or, if you insist on being
out of doors, keep moving.’

Margot’s teeth chattered.

‘I love the woods in wintertime,’ he continued, ‘so pretty, like a Christmas card.’

Terror gripped her heart. It wasn’t just his appearance – there was something in his eyes. He looked like . . . like a dead salmon before a slice of cucumber covered its dead eye.
When had the Burton-Masseys last enjoyed a full salmon? She shook herself. There was no expression in the man’s countenance. Yet evil lived in his face, almost unnoticeable but definitely
there.

‘So I’m trespassing,’ he continued. He delivered what he imagined to be a reassuring grin.

Margot cleared her throat. ‘Sniggery Wood belongs to Mr Mulligan,’ she said. The teeth were horrible, she noticed, stumpy, uneven and stained.

‘The woods were yours until the gambler took them,’ he snapped. ‘Double standards, double dealings, double Dutch.’ He bared the incisors once more. ‘Latin. I ask
you, who wants to hear Latin in church? They use it to fool the congregations, you see. Plain English is good enough, wouldn’t you say?’

It was clear that he expected an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she managed finally. ‘We’re C of E.’

‘Quite.’

Spurred on by a panic for which she could find no real reason, Margot rushed off in the direction of home. Why was she running? It was his ugliness, she decided, and ugliness, like beauty, was
merely skin deep. The eyes, though. Oh, those hideous orbs belonged in the face of some cloven-hoofed creature . . .

He was not following her. Relieved beyond measure, she leaned against Caldwell Farm’s boundary wall. It was the relief that finally touched her core. For a few seconds, Margot looked at
her home from the outside, was happy to see lamps and firelight. She wanted to live, wanted to see tomorrow with all its glaring faults and disappointments. After Christmas, she must confide in
Amy.

Eliza smiled tentatively at her companion. They were in a little coffee house next to Bolton’s Moor Lane bus station, a hut erected by some entrepreneur with an eye to
profit and poor taste in coffees. ‘Amy’s shopping,’ she said, in an attempt to break the ice.

‘And Mulligan?’ Eliza’s companion raised an eyebrow perfect enough to belong to a woman.

‘In his office,’ she answered. ‘Dealing with racehorse pedigree papers. I am to meet them both there in twenty minutes.’

Rupert Smythe placed his cup in its saucer. ‘So,’ he drawled, ‘are you game, Eliza?’

She pondered, dusted a cheap napkin across her lips. It was true that Margot seemed to care no longer for this young man, yet the situation remained awkward. ‘I can’t,’ she
replied, after a short pause. Yes, she could. Surely, she must? Why couldn’t life be simpler? she asked herself.

‘Why not?’ He raised creamed and manicured hands. ‘It’s London, Eliza. London. I shall be doing something or other in the City, living in a flat provided by darling Mama
. . .’ He drew breath slowly, elegantly. ‘Two bedrooms. There will be no hanky-panky, darling – please be reassured on that front. What is there here for you? And why should I be
lonely in a city of strangers? We can help one another out.’

She stared into the middle distance, allowing his narrow, handsome face to blur at the edges. If Amy decided to open A Cut Above, who would help to run it? Margot’s sewing was acceptable,
no more. And what about design, cutting, fitting? But London, with its theatres, bright lights, concerts, markets and cinemas, was a powerful magnet. This might well turn out to be Eliza’s
sole chance in life. She focused on him again. Rupert Smythe’s reputation was far from unsullied. ‘How can I be sure?’ she asked.

‘Sure of what?’

She hesitated momentarily. ‘Of your intentions.’

Eliza was lovely, so much more beautiful than her younger sister. Eliza would take some persuading, he felt sure of that. Margot had been easy, too easy, no challenge at all. But this one would
not step readily into his arms. Ah, well, anything worth having was worth fighting for. ‘You have my word as a gentleman,’ he told her.

Eliza sipped at her muddy coffee. It seemed that she had two choices, neither of which promised to be perfect. She could remain at Caldwell Farm, safe, secure and bored, the only chance on the
horizon a possible job in a possible fashion store. Had Mother lived, Eliza would have felt obliged to settle for that. But here sat the physical embodiment of a second opportunity, a totally
unsafe option. By its very nature, London could never be safe. Rupert Smythe would always be dangerous.

‘Well?’ he asked.

‘I’ll probably come,’ she said. ‘On condition that you understand that I shall return home if I am unhappy.’

‘Certainly.’ He managed, just about, to keep the excitement from his tone.

‘And I can’t disappear from Lancashire when you do. You must go first so that no-one will guess that you have aided and abetted. Should anybody suspect that you are involved in my
running away, your mother will know where to find me. There must be no scenes, Rupert. I will not tolerate scenes.’

He inclined his head in agreement.

‘Rupert?’

‘Yes?’ His heart leaped at the thought of bedding this one. She looked frail, too delicately formed for a physical relationship. Yet there was a hint of cold blue steel behind the
eyes, a promise of hidden depths, stored passions. Oh, yes, here sat a soul that waited to be stirred from sleep.

‘If you touch me, I shall kill you. That is a definite promise.’ These words, spoken in a whisper, managed to be harsh.

Rupert shivered, blinked twice. God, she meant it, too! The determination to deflower Eliza Burton-Massey grew stronger.

‘I have saved my pennies for years,’ she told him now. ‘I haven’t a great deal of money, but as soon as I get work I shall find a place of my own.’

‘London is expensive,’ he advised.

She fingered a teaspoon, allowed it to shiver in the saucer. ‘So am I,’ she murmured. ‘I’m certainly worth more than your wallet, more than your mother’s cheque
books.’ She paused for a second. ‘Do you still want to house me, Rupert?’

‘Yes.’

Eliza leaned across the table, watched as his pupils dilated. ‘I daren’t tell Amy – not yet, at least. She would try to force me to stay. When I arrive in London, I shall write
and put her mind at rest.’

‘Good.’ He wondered briefly about Mama’s visits, decided not to worry until the problem pressed. ‘You’d better go now,’ he suggested reluctantly. ‘We
don’t want to become a talking point, do we?’

Eliza rose, donned hat, scarf and gloves. This disreputable young man had fallen in love with her. She noticed how his mouth, slackened by desire, gaped slightly as she turned to leave. The
eyes, full of plans, were widened by expectations. But Eliza was no chorus girl. Miss Elizabeth Burton-Massey, excellent pianist, accomplished singer, had plans of her own. With a certainty whose
source she would never choose to fathom, she realized that she could cope with men, especially those as obvious as Rupert Smythe. Should he attempt something distasteful, she was more than a match
for such a transparent, puerile creature.

She walked towards Mulligan’s Yard, her step light and unhurried, her mind scarcely touched by guilt. For Mother, Eliza might have hesitated. But now it was every woman for herself,
because the world was cruel, especially for a parentless woman with no dowry. She was going on the stage; she was going to be a star. As for the feckless youth in the coffee shed, he was a vehicle,
no more, no less.

Gradually, Amy Burton-Massey regained her equilibrium. Really, it was a case of having to, because everyone else seemed to be what Elspeth Moorhead called ‘out of
flunter’. Margot had taken to walking about in all weathers, while Eliza became more thoughtful and secretive by the day. Amy adjusted her own ‘flunter’ and tried to get through
each day without dwelling too closely on her mother’s tragic death.

Sometimes, though, when dealing with a certain person, Amy felt like a donkey in pursuit of a carrot, a dumb beast forced to go round in an everlasting circle. All she wanted was the truth; all
she needed was to know a little more about the man whose father had ruined her family, the fellow who strove endlessly to turn around the fortunes of the Burton-Massey girls. He was, she supposed,
just another donkey, another part of the mechanism called life. But surely they could converse, find common ground, a sense of comradeship, even? After all, they both seemed to be treading the same
piece of ground. Were donkeys capable of communication?

Bending over paperwork, James felt her eyes boring into him. The question-and-answer session had reached half-time. He compared himself to a member of a football team, a captain waiting for the
referee to blow the kick-off whistle. ‘I’m the goalkeeper,’ he muttered.

‘Did you say something?’

He raised his head. ‘Do we add on injury time at the end?’ he asked, deliberately obtuse. This woman was an accurate shot. Bolton Wanderers might find her useful in attack.

She gazed at him. Making sense of James Mulligan was rather like attempting logarithms without a set of tables. He would open up, allowing her a glimpse of a decent, thoughtful human being, only
to slam back into the closed and bolted position. The man was his own jailer, or so it seemed. Did the cellar at Pendleton Grange house his dungeon, his personal torture chamber? ‘I was just
thinking that we were a pair of mules condemned to create power by perpetual motion. Perhaps we are tethered in the goalmouth at Burnden Park.’

He processed this piece of misinformation, filed it away in the miscellaneous section of his brain. ‘Look,’ he began, patience edged deeply into the syllable, ‘you know
perfectly well what I’m doing, Amy. With the inn sold, some of the mortgage on Pendleton Grange has been paid off. The rest of that debt can be cleared in a relatively short time as long as
the estate works for itself. Now, if we open a hydro, the income will allow you and your sisters to live in reasonable comfort, while rents from the yard should provide extras, small luxuries
like—’

‘You’re still not telling me why,’ she said. ‘You’ve explained things over and over, yet the real why, the reason for insisting on returning everything to us, is
still unbelievable. You owe us absolutely nothing. You seem to be suffering from an overdose of altruism, too generous for your own good.’

‘I don’t need the yard, the house, the business rents, the farms or the cottages,’ he replied. ‘And I certainly don’t want to stay for ever in England.’

‘Then sell everything.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’

He raised hands and eyebrows, ‘Another why?’

‘It’s the same why,’ she answered, through gritted teeth. ‘You could return to Ireland a rich man.’

He smiled tightly. ‘With my father’s misdemeanours suspended from my neck like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross? Catholics are born with a heightened sense of guilt. By the time
we’re confirmed, we know we’re the sinners, the perpetrators of each and every ill that visits the world.’

‘Like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, outbreaks of typhus?’

He nodded gravely.

Annoyed without and beyond reason, Amy stood up and walked to the window. Steam poured through the wash-house doorway and from the nostrils of two jet-black geldings who waited between the
shafts of a hearse. The stonemason chipped away at a slab of marble; Miss Tilly Walsh emerged from her chores to inhale drier air and a pinch of snuff.

On James Mulligan’s table sat the facts, the figures, costs, an account of the inn’s sale, income from rents, expenditure for repairs. Those papers contained the future according to
the gospel of Mr Mulligan. Amy had said little, had absorbed some.

‘Just resign yourself,’ suggested James Mulligan.

‘I don’t understand you at all,’ she answered, without looking at him. ‘You’re a teacher from Ireland. I don’t know anything at all about Irish teachers,
though I never met a wealthy English one. Why don’t you take your money and run? Scruples? Think of all the poor you could help.’