The Stony Path (34 page)

He hadn’t met Polly’s eyes since the incident in the barn earlier, and he still didn’t look fully at her until the tone of her voice saying, ‘I think he is entitled to,’ brought the black orbs up to meet violet-blue.

‘Oh, aye?’ He kept the smile on his face with some effort as he surveyed her coolly uplifted chin and haughty gaze. By, she had it coming, this one. ‘Let’s hope a touch of brewer’s droop don’t make you regret saying that.’

‘That’s enough of that talk.’ Luke’s voice was thin and cold.

‘It’s a wedding, man!’

‘I know what it is.’

‘For crying out loud.’ Arnold almost lost sight of the part he was playing, and then he forced his voice back into jocular mode as he made a helpless gesture with his shoulders and said to Polly, ‘If you can’t have a bit of funnin’ at a wedding then when can you?’ continuing before she could make any retort, ‘Good night, then, lass, and pass on me best wishes to your husband when he’s able to receive them. He looks like he’ll need ’em before the night’s finished.’

‘Possibly, but then when Frederick is sober he’ll revert to being the nice, kind man he always is, whereas you will still be you,’ Polly said so quietly and sweetly that for a moment Arnold didn’t take in what she meant.

‘Think you’re clever, don’t you?’ His face had darkened and he would have said more but for Luke’s hand giving him a push that nearly sent him on to his back.

‘Get out of it, man.’ Luke’s voice was a growl now. ‘Like you said a minute ago, this is a wedding and she’s the bride; show a little respect.’

‘Respect? Huh.’ Arnold stared at them both for a moment, and the black light she had seen emanating from his eyes earlier was stronger than ever, but this time Polly didn’t allow herself to show the shock and fear she was feeling, but glared back, her eyes narrowed and her mouth tight.

‘I’m sorry, Polly.’ As Arnold swung round and hobbled out of the barn Luke’s voice was low. ‘Sometimes I think he’s not all there the way he behaves, and he gets worse as he gets older.’

‘I can’t believe he’s the same lad we used to play with when we were little,’ Polly said with a slight tremble in her voice. ‘He’s changed so much.’

Changed? Luke looked down into the delicate face swathed with clouds of white chiffon, the beauty of which had been a torment all day. Arnold hadn’t changed. He was still the same cruel so-an’-so who had enjoyed pulling the wings off dragonflies when they were small lads, and had set mouse traps in the cellar that he’d engineered to make sure the rodents weren’t killed cleanly but died in agony. There was something missing in their Arnold – call it conscience, a soul, whatever – and the only difference between when they were lads and now was that his brother was more dangerous. He should have left him in that mine. That was what he should have done. It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to him, and it made his voice abrupt as he said, ‘We’re none of us little any more, Polly. Those days have gone and we can’t get them back.’

‘No . . .’ There was a note in his voice that brought an ache to her heart, and she wanted to press her hand against her chest to combat the pain. Their eyes caught and held, and as the moment lengthened Polly found it difficult to breathe. More to break the quivering silence than anything else she found herself saying, ‘Have you heard anything from Michael? Has he been in touch?’

Michael. Always Michael. How could she have married Frederick feeling as she did? By, he didn’t understand women, he didn’t straight. They were a breed apart. There was Katy wanting to devour him alive every night, and Polly as cool as a cucumber asking after another man on her wedding night. Luke shook his head, not trusting himself to speak as pain and resentment and anger and a hundred and one other emotions flooded his chest. It didn’t help to recognise that part of the feeling that was twisting his guts – a big part – was jealousy, jealousy that she was marrying Frederick instead of him, which took him down to Arnold’s level when you thought about it.

‘Good night, Polly.’ He leaned forward, brushing her cheek with his lips, and left in the same manner as on his previous visit to the farm – when he had asked her if she was doing the right thing in marrying Frederick – without looking back.

It was much later in the night, and Polly was lying stiff and still in her marital bed, Frederick’s snores shaking the thick flock mattress and causing the floorboards to creak in gentle protest. She was hurting; all over it seemed, but especially in the juncture between her legs where an hour previously Frederick had forced his way into her body.

Her eyes strained wide in the darkness but they were sandpaper dry, the shock of Frederick’s brutal consummation numbing her normal responses for the moment. This thing that she knew happened between married couples, that her granny had told her about vaguely just once, the night she had started her monthly cycles, hadn’t been at all like she had expected. Or perhaps it had been Frederick who hadn’t been as she had expected him to be.

When they had come upstairs after the very last guest had departed – which had seemed like an age after Luke had gone – Frederick had been stumbling and falling over, and she had thought his muttered curses and incoherent ramblings had been a result of too much drink. Perhaps they had been, she didn’t know, but if every night of their marriage saw a repeat of what had happened tonight she wouldn’t be able to bear it. She wouldn’t.

He had fallen on the bed and seemed to go to sleep, and she, unsure and nervous of what to do, had left him there while she had struggled with the intricate fastenings of the wedding dress before completing her toilet and slipping into her new satin nightdress with lace cuffs and collar. She had plaited her hair into one coil down her back, and when she had crept under the covers Frederick had still been snoring loudly, much as he was doing now. But then he had begun to stir, and she’d been aware of him rubbing himself over and over.

She shut her eyes now, her legs instinctively coming tightly together and her body shuddering. There had been no talking, no kissing or cuddling or anything to lead up to what had followed. He had simply fumbled with his clothes and rolled on top of her, cursing again when her nightie hadn’t allowed him immediate access. She had felt all the breath squashed out of her body with the weight of him, and when his knee had prised her thighs apart she hadn’t been able to resist, the fumes from his whisky breath causing her to shut her eyes tightly. And then he had torn into her, that was what it had felt like, as the huge rod between his legs had driven seemingly into the core of her, pinning her to the bed and causing her to scream and struggle. But he’d just kept pounding into her until something warm and sticky had spilled out and Frederick had given a long, hoarse groan of satisfaction.

And then she’d felt the merciful release of that thing from her bruised flesh, and he had rolled away from her, muttering disjointed words, among which her name featured. Then he had immediately gone to sleep. Fully clothed, and still undone and gross in the flickering light from the oil lamp, he had lain there on top of the rumpled covers and slept like a baby.

When the spasms in her legs and belly had died down a little, she’d slipped off the bed and gone through to the dressing room, cleaning herself up as best she could in the near darkness with the bowl of water, soap and towel that was kept in there. Then she had come back into the bedroom and blown out the lamp before sliding under the covers as far away from Frederick as she could.

Why couldn’t she cry? Polly blinked her eyes in the darkness. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t cry, but it was as if a giant hand was squeezing the place where the tears were and preventing them from bursting through.

This, then, was marriage. Frederick gave a particularly loud snore, then coughed and spluttered before the steady monologue continued again, and it was only then Polly realised she had tensed so much her fingernails were biting into the palms of her hands.

What had she done?
Oh, what had she done?

Part 3 – The Marriage 1911

Chapter Fifteen

‘You spoil them cats an’ the crafty things know it an’ all.’

‘Aye, maybe.’ Polly had just taken a bright red cinder out of the fire in the kitchen range, and now she dropped it into the thick earthenware bowl full of milk at her feet, where it sizzled briefly. ‘But they like their milk warm.’ As though on cue, the three purring felines grouped round the bowl bent their heads as though they were connected by a wire, and three small pink tongues licked daintily at the creamy liquid in front of them.

‘Well, they’re good mousers, I’ll say that for ’em.’ Betsy’s voice was indulgent and her face smiling as she met the eyes of the tall, beautiful woman in front of her. She was just as guilty as her mistress of treating the farm cats as pets rather than the working animals Frederick insisted they were, and both women knew it. The two large tabbies and the white-footed black cat weren’t supposed to set foot – or paw – in the farmhouse, but it was one of the many areas in her relationship with her husband where Polly followed her own star.

Their marriage – if the state of semi-hostility they existed in much of the time could be termed such – had never really recovered from the disastrous wedding night, or Frederick’s self-justification the following morning when he had blamed his brutality on the whisky whilst mentioning some rumours he had heard as to her morality.

Polly had been deeply hurt and then furiously angry, the more so when Frederick had repeated what had been said. ‘But that’s just innuendo,’ she’d said sharply. ‘Surely you had the sense to see that? You should have asked me about it. And Arnold of all people isn’t to be trusted. How
could
you believe him, Frederick?’

It hadn’t helped the situation in the weeks ahead when Polly had discovered her husband had to prime himself with alcohol each time he pursued his quest for a son and heir. This action had created deep humiliation in Polly at first. Although she did not desire any physical contact with Frederick, the fact that he had to fortify himself before the act of copulation could take place made her ask herself if she was at fault in some way. He was a good, kind man, wasn’t he? A man who had always helped her family, who was gentle and considerate. True, he might have rigid views on some subjects, but then everyone had their own way of looking at things. She must have failed in some way.

It was towards the end of their first thirteen months of marriage that Frederick’s way of looking at one particular thing opened Polly’s eyes to the fact that she had never really known the true nature of the man she had married so innocently, and a rift opened between them that was never to be healed.

Since their arrival at Stone Farm the summer before, her grandmother had taken to spending most of her time in the spacious room in which her husband was bedridden, and Polly’s mother had continued to keep to her bed most days. However, in the evening, all of the family, apart from Walter, tended to gather in the sitting room, where Frederick would often read aloud to them from his newspaper or one of the books from the library, or they would listen to the gramophone he had bought two years before the wedding.

Polly hated the evenings. Apart from the strain of having to pretend all was well between herself and Frederick – as much for her grandmother’s sake as anything else, as she didn’t want either her or her grandda upset – she was forced to listen to Frederick pontificating about this, that and the other at length, with Ruth and her mother hanging on his every word. Furthermore, she knew the arrival of five more people into the farmhouse had created a great deal more work for Betsy and Emily, and she had made it clear very early on that she would do more than merely supervising menus and such, and that she expected Ruth to do the same. This had not gone down well with Ruth, who had had visions of seeing herself play the gracious lady, and when she had gone crying to Hilda, and Hilda had intervened on her younger daughter’s behalf with Frederick, Polly had been furious. Frederick had been diplomatic – less to save either side’s feelings than because he realised he would have to pay for more house staff if his wife and her sister weren’t prepared to lend a hand – and the end result had been an agreement that whilst Polly and Ruth would work during the day, their evenings would be free for social intercourse and ‘bettering themselves’. This meant Betsy and Emily were often on their feet until gone ten o’clock when four pairs of hands could have finished the chores before eight.

It was during one of these evenings in the November of 1907 that Polly, who had been listening – along with the others – to Frederick’s views on the strikes that were sparking off all over the country, found herself arguing with her husband. ‘I don’t see why all the strikes are wrong,’ she’d said quietly in response to a sweeping statement from Frederick. ‘And just the amount of them, from the cotton mill workers to tram drivers, must mean there’s a certain amount of justification in their claims.’

‘Nonsense.’ Frederick had adopted the patronising tone he used at such times as he stared into the lovely face of his wife. Her beauty held no pleasure for him these days; he had realised within weeks of his marriage that Polly wasn’t going to be as malleable as he had hoped, and to add insult to injury – in Frederick’s eyes – she frequently used her knowledge of current affairs and literature to argue against him. Considering it had been he, Frederick told himself, who had awakened her intelligence and taken it upon himself to educate her out of her beginnings, she should be more grateful and keep quiet. Polly was so different from Hilda; his stepsister held him in great esteem and moreover understood him. ‘The working class is rife with agitators and you know it.’