Flint and Roses (52 page)

I stood with my back towards him, willing him to keep his distance, knowing—whatever I really felt, whether I had it in me to endure this, to weather it, or not—that I must not endure it, that I must use it as a wedge, to force us apart. And even in that first moment of shock I remembered Prudence telling me, ‘She may conceive another child and die of it'; and I knew that that alone was sufficient reason for our separation. I did not want her to die. I must continue not to want it, for, if it should happen, and I had the slightest cause to suspect myself, I knew I could not live with it, could certainly never live with Nicholas.

‘Nicholas—' I said, and crossing the room he took me by the shoulders, carefully, as if he feared to damage the remnant that was left to us; and even that, I knew, was slipping fast a way.

‘Don't say it, Faith. You don't want to cause her pain, and neither do I—God dammit, I don't hate her. The child is mine and I'll look after it, as I'll look after the other one—and her. For the rest of my life I'll support her, in style, so she can go on supporting her brother. I'll patch up her Abbey and pay out whatever it costs to keep her land in good order and her brother out of jail. But I won't lose you, Faith. I'll be patient with her now, I'll keep my temper and indulge her whims and fancies until this is safely over. But I won't lose you. I won't throw you away for the sake of the Clevedons. Believe me.'

But it was over. I mourned him all night, dry-eyed, my whole body aching, despairing. I mourned him the next day, my real self locked away weeping, and desperate, while the cool shell of my Aycliffe self-control served tea to Aunt Hannah and Prudence, listened and smiled as, my mother told me of yet another Irish cousin, and that she was very happy. I mourned him the night that followed and the one after, came downstairs before dawn to wander in sheer desolation from, room to room, a burden to myself, which I could not lay down.

It was over, and, when he came the fifth night and rapped a stubborn hand on my window, it was still over. I opened the door to him because it did not occur to me to do otherwise; and, when he came into my parlour, I made some anxious comment about the state of him, since he had walked up from the Swan in the rain. But it was still over.

‘You can ask me to leave,' he said. ‘I didn't go the first time and I won't go now.'

‘Yes, you will.'

‘Do you really mean to turn me out in the rain?'

‘Yes, I do.' And I believed it.

‘Then do it, for I've got nothing to offer you but trouble—I know it. I know all the answers. I'd tell any other man in my position to pull himself together and get over it. I can't.'

He stayed in my bed until morning, a risk we had never taken before. As I let him out through the kitchen before Mrs. Marworth was awake, he held both my hands and kissed them, kissed my ears and my chin and the nape of my neck, unfastened my nightgown and kissed my bare shoulders, reckless and heedless, pressing my body hard against the cold, tiled wall.

‘I love you, Faith. Do you believe me?'

I believed him.

‘We're all right again now, Faith.'

But I could not believe that.

I would never go to Scarborough again, at least not until Georgiana's condition was resolved one way or the other, for she had miscarried before, might miscarry again, and, false and treacherous as I was, I wanted him to be with her if she did so.

But by November he had quarrelled with Blaize and with his father, had narrowly averted a strike at Lawcroft for which his own intolerance, his own autocratic temper—Blaize insisted—had been to blame. He was tense and miserable, dreading, as I was, the approaching Christmas season when family festivities would draw us all too close together. We had much to discuss, having parted already a second time, being well aware that we were teetering on the brink of a third separation, and, although our reconciliations seemed powerful enough to propel us from one crisis to the next, we must surely one day reach our limits.

And so I risked myself once again on that solitary journey, Mrs. Marworth accompanying me to Leeds, well content with the steady supply of Barforth guineas in her pocket, my happy excitement of earlier times transformed now into a kind of sad determination, since this visit could well be—
should
be—my last.

It was a grey afternoon, a high wind churning the sea, the steep little town quite empty as I was driven through it, the house empty too, only the housekeeper standing discreetly in the doorway, telling me, as always, that there was a fire in the parlour, a fire in Mr. Barforth's bedroom, muffins for tea. But of Mr. Barforth himself she couldn't say, for she was paid merely to make his mistress comfortable, not keep her informed of his comings and goings.

‘Muffins?' she said, clearly having reached her own limits, and so I took off my gloves and my fur-lined, hooded cloak, and ate muffins and indifferent gingerbread, poured tea for the sake of giving myself an occupation, and left it on the tray to go cold.

‘Dinner,' she told me, ‘in an hour, madam, if it's convenient.' And, since it was convenient for her, I went up to the bedroom that contained the most poignant of my memories, allowed the fisherman's daughter they were training as a maid to get out the new gown I always brought with me, a light aquamarine this time, cut low to display the strands of gold filigree Nicholas had given me and which I could only wear here without need for explanations. I brushed and dressed my hair, put his pearl and diamond drops in my ears, his heavily coiling gold snake with its topaz eye around my arm, perfumed my shoulders, threw a lace-edged Cashmere shawl around them, and went down to dine, realizing that, while I had been dressing, the moment had come and gone when he could possibly reach me tonight.

‘Crab, madam—fresh-caught this morning,' the placid, disinterested woman told me, meaning perhaps, ‘He has jilted you, madam—well, isn't it always the way?'; for she had been with the Barforths a long time and had seen their women come and go.

But there could be a dozen explanations. Simple things, like the destruction of Lawcroft Mills by fire, things I could live with, like strikes and floods and damaged machinery, which had nothing to do with Georgiana. And whatever had happened there would be no way to send me word.

I slept alone, bitter cold all night, listening to the wind—listening for Nicholas—breakfasted alone before a roaring fire, eating heartily of the smoked haddock and creamed eggs because the woman was mildly curious now as to whether or not I might be broken-hearted. And afterwards I went out into the raw November wind, walking as far as I dared—taking the chance we always took that there would be no one here at this season—until I felt as grey and chilled as the weather, could have whined as dolefully as the grey air irritating the surface of the sea.

It was an omen. Nothing had ever kept him away before. I had drifted, as always, allowed my emotions, not my reason, to make my decisions, had in fact made no decisions at all, and now—having known for a long time exactly what I had to do—I had left it too long. Events, other people's decisions, had overtaken me. And even now, although I knew very definitely that he would not come and that I should return home at once to discover the reason, I doubted if I would do it. I would most likely stay here, waiting for him, as I had waited these past eighteen months, as I had waited all my life, straining my ears for the sound of his arrival, telling myself ‘Just a little longer. Surely a little longer can do no harm?'

But as I walked back to the house something quickened my step, some impression of activity as I opened the door that caused my stomach to lurch hopefully, eagerly, the unmistakable fragrance of cigar-smoke reaching me as I entered the hall, offering me yet another reprieve.

‘Is Mr. Barforth here?' I called out.

‘Yes, madam, in the drawing-room,' the woman replied, and my joyful, giddy feet took me through the door and half-way across the room before I stopped, comic, I suppose, with shock, and realized it was Blaize.

‘I
am
Mr. Barforth, after all,' he said. ‘My word, Faith, if you mean to faint, then do it gracefully—here, on the sofa, for I have had an abominable journey and hardly feel up to lifting you if you should fall on the floor.'

‘Blaize, what on earth—?'

‘We'll come to that presently. Yes—yes, I knew you were here. I have come on my brother's business, not my own, and he is neither dead nor dying, merely in the very foulest of tempers because events have conspired against him. Really, Faith, you had better sit down.'

I obeyed, arranging myself very carefully, composing my body and my mind, allowing a moment to pass until I could ask, just as carefully, ‘Did he—send you?'

The smokey eyes twinkled, his face, which had been quite expressionless, coming alive with the brilliance and mischief of his smile.

‘Hardly that. Even Nicholas does not imagine himself to be in a position to
send
me anywhere. But he was in such a blind fury when he realized he couldn't get away that I—well, it wasn't difficult to understand that he had a most pressing engagement. I concluded it could only be you.'

‘Have you known for long?'

‘About you and Nicholas? Well, yes, as it happens, I have. But you needn't worry about that. I'm fairly certain no one else can have access to my source of information. I use this house too, sometimes, and Nicholas was obliged to check his dates with me. I do apologize, Faith. These practical details may sound sordid to you, but there was no other way it could be done. I knew simply that he was meeting someone here, not necessarily the same person every time, but I like to know what goes on around me and I intercepted a glance or two—of agony, I might add, on at least one occasion—between you.

‘That's guessing. It's not the same as knowing.'

‘No. And so I inquired. Mrs. Collins, our housekeeper here, is a good soul and I asked her to describe you. Naturally she shouldn't have done it, since Nicky pays for her discretion just the same as I do, and his money is as good as mine—it can only be that I have a winning way with housekeepers.'

‘I daresay. Does Nicholas know you are here?'

‘Ah well—I didn't exactly make the offer, nor admit to knowing of any reason why I should. And, since it was not made, he neither accepted nor refused. But I think you may safely assume that he knows.'

‘And there is no chance that he may get away after all?'

‘I am sure there is not. There was some crisis at the Wool-combers, and in the middle of it my father descended on him in that quiet way of his—like a bolt from the blue—having made the journey from Bournemouth especially to see him, with a list of complaints and suggestions as long as both his arms. He is staying three days, and Nicky would need a cast-iron alibi to get away from him. Fortunately for me, I was in Bournemouth a week ago, to endure my own inquisition, and my presence was not required. Indeed I rather imagine I might have been in the way.'

I looked at the fire for a while, then at the window, the garden, cowering at the approach of winter, noticed, without knowing why I cared, that a light, persistent rain was starting, washed ashore by the changing tide.

‘It was very good of you, Blaize, to come so far.'

‘Yes, I think so too. You may take it that when I saw him hurl a spanner at one of his own machines, with my father looking on, I grew alarmed. And it would have worried me, I believe, to think of you sitting here listening for carriage, wheels until Monday.

‘Luncheon, sir, in half an hour,' the industrious Mrs. Collins announced, her dour face crinkling with smiles as he said. ‘Excellent. Crab, Mrs. Collins? It's what I came for.'

And so once again I ate crab, drank a dry, well-chilled wine, smiled, with the perfect attention of Morgan Aycliffe's daughter, as Blaize talked of this and that and nothing at all, merely filling the spaces between us until it should please him to tell me at least a portion of the truth. For I did not believe he had made this tedious, inconvenient journey merely to deliver a message from Nicholas—he knew I did not believe it—and, understanding something of the subtle by-ways of his nature. I knew too that, whatever it was, it would not be simple and that I would have to take care.

We took coffee and brandy in the drawing-room companionably enough, and when we had exhausted the gossip of our mutual acquaintances—the clock telling me already that I could not leave today even if I chose—he said, ‘Forgive me, Faith, I don't mean to pry, but since we are here and the subject is bound to be on our minds—it has been something over a year now, with you and Nicholas, hasn't it?'

‘A year and a half, or very nearly.'

And, rather than an embarrassment, it was almost a relief to me that he knew, for although I did not always trust him he was clever and worldly wise, a man whose vision was unclouded by convention and whose opinions in matters, perhaps not of the heart, but of the senses, might be shrewder, certainly better-informed, than my sister's.

‘I find that rather long,' he said, warming the brandy glass in his hand. ‘Three months might have been delightful. Eighteen months—well, that strikes me as rather extreme. After that kind of eternity it has either become a habit, or one is very much in love. And remembering Nicky's temper yesterday morning, and knowing you as I do—well, I suppose it has to be love.'

‘Of course I love him. Good heavens, Blaize! What are you thinking of? Would I put myself in this position if I didn't love him? I may be behaving like a light woman, but I can assure you that I am not.'

He smiled, raised his glass to me.

‘I know, my dear. That is one of the reasons I came.'

‘And the others?'

‘Presently. Give me your reasons first, Faith—for instance, just what are you hoping for?'