Snow Angels (9 page)

‘No, he went up ages since.’ Gil stood up and he saw that she did not even have a dressing-gown or slippers.

A tear fell and then another and several more followed quickly. Gil stared.

‘Helen?’

She backed as he moved towards her.

‘Very silly,’ she said, ‘excuse me.’ And she ran away.

*

Robert saw Abby’s father, but it was a brief interview. Her father came out of the study looking like a short fat sunbeam and Abby was pleased to see that he looked happier than she had seen him look in years.

‘I only wish your mother was here,’ he said.

Her mother could not have fully approved of Robert, Abby knew, but she smiled and enjoyed her father’s pride and pleasure. Her mother liked people to work.

‘I don’t mind admitting to you,’ her father said later, ‘that I thought you had a hankering for young Collingwood and in all conscience I couldn’t have given you to him.’

Abby had seen Gil that day in town with Helen and they had looked so happy. They looked right together, it was strange. They were laughing and she had hold of his arm. They had stopped to look in the jeweller’s on the corner of Pilgrim Street and Abby dodged back into New Bridge Street to keep out of their way. Gil would never care for anybody but Helen and she had been right to agree to marry Robert. They would be happy.

Robert wanted to be married straightaway and she could see no reason why they should not be. There were arrangements to be made but he, having no parents, cared nothing for a big wedding and she, knowing Henderson’s hatred of weddings, cared nothing for it either, so they set the date for around Easter and made plans. He would have bought her the whole of Newcastle had she let him, stripped his house and had her refurbish it, turned all the flowers in the gardens to roses since she loved them and toured around the world so that she could see every wonder on God’s earth. Abby did not want to go away for too long. It would be hard enough for her father, she knew, to lose her from his house so that he came home to no one but the servants. To leave the country for any length of time would be too much. He disabused her of this idea.

‘Abby, I had my youth, I had my marriage and I was lucky, for your mother loved such a fool of a man as I was. This is your turn. Go away for as long as you like. I’m happy for you. I
couldn’t be more pleased. Have this time and enjoy it. It may not last long if there are to be children.’

‘Would you be pleased?’

‘Everything about you pleases your old father.’

Robert would take her to Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice and anywhere else that she wanted to go.

‘We could spend the whole spring and summer away. We’ll start in London and go on from there and you’ll see the house and I’ll introduce you to all kinds of people and you’ll like the shops and the theatres and everything.’

Abby had not thought much about being away from home, but now the idea appealed to her. She couldn’t wait to get away.

Rhoda had stayed with her until after Christmas and Abby wrote to ask if she would be a bridesmaid and to tell her about the wedding, to ask if she would help to choose the dresses and the flowers and when could she come and stay again because there was much to plan and do. Rhoda replied immediately that she would be glad to come and stay, for there was now a new baby in the house, a girl. The baby rarely slept; her mother and Jos quarrelled continually; there was no peace. Abby wrote back to say that she could come and stay for as long as she liked; she would be glad of the company. Robert, she told him, ought to find someone of their acquaintance so that they could make up a foursome when they went out.

He looked at her.

‘Rhoda Carlisle? I didn’t realise that you were so close.’

‘She stayed with me at Christmas, Robert.’

‘I thought that you were sorry for her.’

‘She’s a very nice girl.’

‘Forgive me, she’s a country bumpkin.’

‘She is not!’

‘She knows nothing and she’s strange. She goes walking up on the fells alone. She has a thick dales accent and she’s very odd. She even had to borrow a dress from you, as I recall you saying, for Helen and Edward’s wedding. No, I don’t think so, Abby.’

‘Her father left her a great deal of money.’

‘Don’t be vulgar.’

‘I’m not sure I’m the one who’s vulgar here.’

It was their first quarrel, Abby realised, watching his face go white while he restrained his temper. Here in her father’s house in the sitting-room, where Kate and Mrs Wilkins would hear them, they were fighting, but she was upset to think that not only did he not like Rhoda but he was ungentlemanly enough to say so.

‘I have asked her to be my bridesmaid.’

‘Then let us hope you have so many that no one will notice her.’

‘I wasn’t planning to have more than one.’

‘Perhaps after we are married you will choose your friends more carefully. Between Rhoda Carlisle and Gillan Collingwood, you have nothing to offer.’

Abby was suddenly furious.

‘There’s nothing wrong with Gil.’

‘Everything is wrong with him,’ Robert said roundly. ‘Not least that every time he’s in a room with you, he doesn’t take his eyes off you.’

Abby wanted to faint for the first time in her life. She put one hand on the chair arm.

‘He does not!’ she said.

‘He watches you dance.’ Robert laughed. ‘It’s pathetic,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have the wit or the manners to ask you to dance, he just stands there. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the poor boy was lovesick for you. Haven’t you ever noticed him hovering? Can he speak, or is he really as stupid as he appears? You really weren’t aware of him?’

Abby’s hands shook when she and Robert had tea a few minutes later. She couldn’t trust herself to pick up a cup and saucer. The cake which Mrs Wilkins had made so carefully and so lightly stuck in her throat.

*

February was a long cold month and March was worse somehow, perhaps, Gil thought, because you looked for it to be better and it was not. He was only happy at work and even then it was difficult. His father and Edward quarrelled frequently and though it was not in front of him, the atmosphere suffered both at home and at work. It was a curious thing to find his father at odds with Edward and in harmony with him and, although Gil didn’t like it, somehow it favoured him. He took to his old habit of hiding in Mr Philips’ office and his father at long last realised what was going on and called Gil in.

The room was full of light that day. It was late March and the evenings were beginning to lengthen noticeably. His father had big windows in his office, so what light there was always benefited the room. Plans and designs were spread the length and breadth of the huge desk. As Gil walked into the room, his father looked up and then he smiled. Gil could not remember that having happened before and knew that for once he had succeeded in pleasing William.

‘I wondered whose hand this was that I could see here. I knew it wasn’t mine and I know my men too well to mistake them. They’re bright lads, some of them, but not at this level.’ He looked hard at Gil. ‘Old men make good judges, but young men make good designers. I’m a good businessman, but I was never a good designer. I remember looking through some papers of my father’s once and realising that if he had had ambition, he could have held the whole world. How ambitious are you, Gil?’

At last William had called him by his name. Gil hardly dared speak.

‘I want to build the best ships the world has ever seen.’

William clenched his fist.

‘The best?’

‘The biggest, the fastest, the most beautiful.’

William’s eyes danced with pleasure.

‘All right then,’ he said, ‘you will and we will find the business, sell the ideas, get the contracts. We will build this
company into something the world will never forget.’ He came forward and clapped Gil on the back.

It was the happiest day of Gil’s life. He worked late and then he went home with his father. The next day his father gave him an office which was so big it was scary. It had in it a huge turkey rug and was all brass and mahogany. He installed Mr Philips and several other people whom Gil had requested in the offices next to it, so that it was as if Gil had his own section of the works, and he had Gil’s name put on the door in bold black letters.

‘Well, well,’ Edward said. ‘What’s this?’

Gil wanted him to be pleased, but he could tell that Edward wasn’t. Edward walked around Gil’s new office and said nothing.

Gil was almost sorry that his father had recognised his ability. He had enjoyed the brief time of having Edward’s affection. He had liked being part of the magic circle of Edward’s friends, the billiard hall, the bars. He had liked the way that he was accepted as Edward’s brother. Now Edward was going to put him back out into the cold and Gil felt as though his new-found status at work was a very high price to pay.

‘Father admires you,’ he said thinly.

‘I don’t think he does.’

‘He told me so. He thinks you have – what is that word – flair. You. When did you ever show any true ability for anything? Now, however, you have blossomed. That’s what we must call you from now on – Blossom. Toby will approve. He loves flowers. What kind of a flower do you think you are?’

‘Shut up!’ Gil said.

‘I wish you well. You can have the whole bloody thing as far as I’m concerned. I hate every last stone of it!’ Edward strode out of the office. He did not come back to dinner, nor did he return later. Helen had been out buying new clothes again and Gil was called upon to admire her dress. His father said that he thought Helen had enough dresses to wear a different one every day of the month by now.

Helen had started to drink wine with her dinner. Although
William didn’t approve of women drinking he said nothing to one glass, but of late she had had two. Tonight she had three and stumbled when she left the table. Gil was standing beside her and hoped that he had obscured his father’s view but, left alone with his father and the port, he knew that William, pouring from the decanter, had seen what happened.

‘I don’t approve of men going out every night like this,’ he said now. ‘Damn it, the lass is still a bride. Where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You go with him, don’t you? Women, is it?’

‘Billiards.’

His father laughed.

‘Is that all? Have a drink.’

Gil drank some port, but slowly.

‘Women shouldn’t drink,’ his father said. ‘It’s bad enough that men do it.’

Gil thought it was ironic that, having lost Edward’s company and confidences, he should move on to his father. They dined in the small dining-room unless they had company and he liked it. It had two big fires and was warm and it was close to the kitchen so the food was always as hot as it should be. His mother loved candles and it was all silver and white and, since neither of his parents cared anything for economy, it was lit with a hundred dancing flames which softened the features on older people and enhanced those on younger. He could hear Helen playing the wistful tunes of Mozart on the piano in the room next door and outside was the peace of the Northumberland countryside. He had never before relaxed in his father’s presence, but he did so now.

‘The lass plays well, even after too much wine. I did see.’

‘I know.’

‘No, you didn’t, you thought to hide her. It’s a fine thing is chivalry, even if she doesn’t deserve it.’

‘I thought she did.’

‘Aye, mebbe. Hasn’t turned out to be much of a husband, has
he? Still, neither do most men. Do you think you will? I thought you might have had Reed’s little lass, but I see she’s to wed young Surtees. I wish her joy of it. His father was useless and his mother was worse. What about Rhoda? I like the lass. She’s got eyes like fell water – bonny. Her father was a strange one but good company and clever and he left her a deal of money. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gil said, taken aback.

‘Well, don’t leave it too long. She looks ripe to me.’ And his father finished his port and went off to the study, doubtless to move on to the brandy, Gil thought.

*

Helen cried when she went to bed. Gil couldn’t hear or see her, but somehow he knew. And why should she not, he thought honestly. After that first night, Edward had had no regard for her, treated her as though she was unimportant to him and all the dresses and all the wine in the world would not make up for that. He no longer went out riding with her; he took her out as little as possible; he took no pleasure in her company that Gil could see and often, as tonight, he did not come home. Gil knew, because he waited up for him.

When he went to bed at one he could not pass her door without opening it. He wanted to make sure that she was well, he told himself. She was asleep and it was not surprising. The room smelled strongly of brandy and there was a decanter a third empty and a glass, well-fingered. She slept heavily; he could hear her breathing. He was tormented with the idea that, being unused to spirit, she would lie on her back and vomit and choke. He told himself that he was stupid, but he couldn’t leave her. So as the fire died and the room darkened, he kept alight a candle and stayed there, watching at the window from time to time in case his brother should think fit to come home. He tried to will him there. He tried to go back to where they had been during the short time when he had basked in the sun of his brother’s love.
He wanted that again so much. He conjured up the billiard hall, red and gold, and the laughter of the young men and their carelessness. Edward wanted the sunlight for himself alone. He wanted Gil in the shadows behind him and now, in the dark depths of the unforgiving night, Gil wanted that too. I would have stayed there, he thought, to have you like me.

Helen stirred in her sleep. Gil went over and tucked in the blankets around her. The night was cold, but if he fastened the shutters he could see neither the room nor the driveway outside. Her hair was braided but her features were slack with drunkenness and her breathing was all brandy. Gil took the glass her lips had touched, poured a brandy for himself, sat down halfway between the window and the bed and saw the night through. He dozed a little and when he awoke, red was streaking the sky. When he got up, he could see the snowdrops in the front garden which had blossomed within the last few days. Spring was coming to the Tyne valley. It was always late, but he loved it the more for that. The waiting was worthwhile.