For The Sake of Her Family (22 page)

She knocked gently on the half-closed bedroom door and then entered. Nancy was sitting in front of the mirror, examining her face.

‘Look at me! How could anyone want to marry me? Your brother’s only marrying me out of pity; he doesn’t love me. I’d be better off dead!’ she wailed. Then, wrapping
her arms around herself and rocking back and forth, she repeated over and over, ‘I’m nothing to no one. I’m nothing to no one . . .’

‘For God’s sake, Nancy, I’ve had enough of this self-pity! You’re getting married in another month. You should be looking forward to having a new home and a man to love
you. I’ve no man and no real home. Do you hear me complain? Stop this relentless moaning. I can’t take it any more. I’m going to my room until your mood’s improved!’
Then Alice marched out, slamming the door behind her.

Back in her own room, she agonized over whether she should tell her brother how much worse Nancy’s moods were becoming, and how she’d inherited them. How near to the edge of insanity
had her mother been? Alice wondered. Even though Will said he was marrying Nancy for her wealth and her tantrums were a small price to pay for what he would get in return, would he feel differently
once they started married life and he had to live with her? The Stone House works were now safely in his hands, the deeds having been signed over last week, so it was probably already too late for
him to back out.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell: Dr Bailey had arrived. A few minutes later she listened as Gerald talked to him on the landing before opening Nancy’s bedroom
door. Then she heard Gerald’s tread on the stairs as he left the doctor to examine Nancy. Quietly Alice closed her bedroom door and crept downstairs. Knowing that Dr Bailey would stop by
Gerald’s study on his way out, she slipped into the adjoining room, hoping to eavesdrop on the doctor’s prognosis in case there was anything that her brother should know. Sure enough,
she heard him knock on the study door and go in, but when she tried to listen through the wall, it was too thick. She couldn’t hear a word.

After a while, the two men left the study together. Gerald was escorting the doctor to the front door. Alice opened the morning-room door a crack and peeked out.

‘I’m sorry you have had to come out in such bad weather,’ said Gerald, passing the doctor his hat and cloak.

‘Not at all, Gerald. Let me know when you come to a decision. As I said, we can do something about it, but it might be as dangerous as seeing things through to their natural term. And you
never know, she might calm down in another month or two. I’ve given her a draught to calm her, so she will probably sleep the rest of the day. You know where I am if you need me. Good luck,
old man.’ Dr Bailey patted Gerald on the back before dashing out to his carriage in the pouring rain.

‘Damn, damn, damn the man. I’ll bloody kill him!’ Gerald Frankland picked up his riding whip from the hall stand and thrashed the side of his leg with it. ‘I’ll
bloody kill him. Alice, Alice, where the hell are you?’ He shouted loud enough for all the manor to hear him.

Alice came out of the morning room and stood in front of him, defiant but frightened by his show of temper.

‘Get your cloak on. You’re coming with me, else I won’t be responsible for my actions when I catch up with your brother.’ He thrashed the whip against his side again.
‘I’ll wait for you outside – and no gossiping with them downstairs.’ Then he was gone, pulling the huge door behind him with a bang.

Alice ran and grabbed her cloak, putting her hood up to stop her hair from getting wet. Following the sound of Gerald’s raised voice, she caught up with him at the stable.

‘Damn it, man, are you going to take all day doing this?’ Gerald Frankland was bellowing at Jack, who was harnessing the team to the carriage as fast as he could, his fingers
fumbling with the buckles.

At last everything was ready. Elbowing Jack aside, Gerald ordered Alice to get into the carriage, while he sat on the board. He lashed the team with the whip and they set off. The rain was
torrential and the horses slipped on the treacherous surface, but Gerald, drenched to the skin and looking like a mad man, drove them faster and faster until they reached Stone House. Pulling the
carriage up abruptly at the cottage door, he shouted for Alice to get. Then he stormed up to the cottage door and swung it open, whip in hand, his cloak dripping with rainwater and his eyes
flashing with rage. Will was sitting at his kitchen table with his back to them. He turned round in shock at the intrusion into his home.

‘Get up! Get up and fight me!’ Gerald swung his cloak off and grabbed Will by the neck. ‘I’m going to bloody well kill you, you stupid fucking man! The doctor reckons
she’s pregnant – my bloody sister, pregnant! – and it can only be yours, you bastard.’ He held Will by the neck, pinning him against the kitchen wall. ‘Couldn’t
you keep it to yourself till you got married? I’d have told you then that she can’t have children. It’ll drive her mad; her mind can’t take it. Already she’s had to be
sedated. Now we’ll probably lose her, you fool!’

Alice stood watching her brother gasp for breath as Gerald Frankland squeezed tighter.

‘You marry her in April, by God. You stand by her and your bastard child, no matter what state she gets into, else I’ll kill you.’ Gerald’s hand shook while he kept his
hold tight upon Will’s neck. ‘And another thing – you can keep the works and the cottage, but you’re not going to get a penny of her allowance, nor any more orders through
me. Thought me a fool, did you? Thought you’d make sure I couldn’t renege on my promise by getting her pregnant? Well, your little plan’s backfired. Now you can watch her getting
worse and worse with her rages, just like my mother did. You will earn every penny that this place is worth. Not that it’s worth a lot – I’ve been propping it up for years.
Italian marble is all the markets want now, not this common black limestone marble.’ He sneered at Will, gasping for breath. ‘You’ll find you’re not much better off than you
were when you started, but now you’ll have a wife and child – and you’d better treat them right.’ He released Will, then punched him hard in the stomach.

Will knelt, bent double and gasping for breath, on the flagstone floor. Alice rushed to his side. Even though he had confessed to her that it was only the money he was after, she had hoped that
secretly he did think something of Nancy. Now there was a child to consider as well. If only she had known of Nancy’s problem, she could have told Will not to bed her and not to use her to
get his own back on his employer. He should have been more respectful. He’d seen the agony and torment his sister had gone through at Christmas, after she had destroyed her baby. Will had
only to spend an hour with Nancy to realize that her mind was on the brink of a dark precipice. And he was the cause of it.

Gerald kicked Will’s crumpled body. ‘Get up, you bloody coward! Get up and talk to me. I’ve done what I wanted to do, without actually breaking your neck. Now we sort it out.
Alice, get him a drink of water. I won’t give him the satisfaction of choking to death, because I need him alive so he can stand by my sister.’

Alice passed Will a cup of water. He drank it down and spluttered, thanking her with a hoarse voice. Both men then sat down at the table while Alice stared out of the kitchen window at the
incessant rain on the mountainside. She wished herself far away, away from this rain-sodden dale with all its problems, away from Nancy and away from the two men arguing at the table, their voices
bitter with the fine line of love and hate running through them, both fighting for what they needed and what they thought was best for them.

‘The first Saturday in April, one o’clock – you’d better be there, else I’ll come and shoot you myself.’ Gerald Frankland rose from his chair, picked up his
whip and smashed it down on the table. ‘If you lay a hand on her or deny her the attention she deserves, so help me God, I’ll break you.’ He turned to Alice. ‘Are you
coming, or is blood thicker than water? You do know Nancy will need you?’

Alice looked to Will. Hands clutching his sore neck, he nodded for her to go. She didn’t want to leave her brother; she’d have liked to stay with him – as much to give him a
piece of her mind as to make sure he wasn’t badly hurt – but she knew her own security depended on the Franklands. Besides, Nancy needed her, and she was carrying Will’s baby.
That little nephew or niece would be a Bentham, part of her family. Though she didn’t know what would happen to her after the wedding, for now Alice would stay by Nancy’s side.

She pulled her cloak around her and climbed into the carriage. The horses, drenched and sweating from their chase up the dale, were eager to make the return journey so that they could be
unharnessed and get back to their stables. Gerald and Alice rode in silence, their mood matching the weather. Rain pounded the roof of the carriage, competing with the deafening roar of the river
as the waters surged, frothing and swirling round the smooth grey limestone formations.

When they finally arrived, Gerald handed the reins to Jack and stormed off across the yard without a backward glance. Alice climbed down from the carriage and followed as Jack led the team into
the shelter of the stables. She was in no hurry to return to the manor.

Jack lifted the tack off both animals and began to brush the withers of the first horse. He kept his eyes on the horse, not even glancing in Alice’s direction as he spoke.
‘He’s pushed these horses hard. They’ve a fair sweat on them, even in this weather. Must have been something urgent that you were both about.’

Alice leaned against the stable door, not knowing what to say. Gerald had warned her against gossip, but Jack could be trusted. ‘He’d every right. I don’t think I’ve ever
seen him in such a mood.’

‘Oh, aye, he’s got a temper, has our master. Only once in a blue moon, but when he blows, he blows and there’s no holding him back. He once whipped a dog that bit him to within
an inch of its life. He’d every right then; according to him it needed to learn a lesson. What’s he in a temper for today, then?’ Jack carried on grooming, chewing on a straw as
he spoke, still averting his eyes from Alice.

‘Our Will. I suppose everyone will find out soon enough,’ Alice sighed. ‘Nancy’s having Will’s baby and she’s going to be real ill while having it – her
state of mind can’t handle it.’

‘Same old story for his lordship then: a dog’s bit him again. And you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.’ Jack led the first horse into its stall and combed out his
curry brush. ‘Your Will’s been a fool. Miss Nancy loved him without him getting her pregnant. He should have taken more care.’ Finally he looked at Alice. ‘It must be
something in the water up at Stone House.’

‘What do you mean by that, Jack Alderson?’ Alice glared at him in defiance, now certain that he must have heard her talking to the horse.

‘Nay, nothing. I’m not saying anything. Next time I see him, I’ll tell your brother to keep it in his pocket. Happen he’s not the only one who should. By the way, I found
this outside Dale End’s kitchen window.’ He fished out the fur-trimmed glove that Alice had lost the day she went walking up the fell. ‘I take it that’s yours? I saw you
wearing a pair like it on the day you came back with Miss Nancy from Kendal.’

‘Thanks. I’ve been searching for that everywhere. I hear you’re buying Dale End – are you going to be living there? It seemed so deserted.’

‘Well, you can’t live at home for ever and I thought it was time to be settling down and making my own home.’ Jack started grooming the second horse. He still couldn’t
look at Alice; he loved her so much, but when he’d found out the things she’d kept from him – that she’d been untrue and slept with another man, then got rid of a baby
– it had caused a hurt in him that was going to take a long time to heal.

‘I see. I’m sure it will make you very happy.’ Alice could feel a lump forming in her throat. ‘Thanks for the glove.’ She waved it at him as she turned to cross the
yard towards the manor.

If she didn’t love him, then why did her heart feel so heavy? And then she thought of the dark and brooding Gerald. Why worry about Jack? He was nothing but a boy she had grown up with,
more like a brother than the lover Gerald could be. She swallowed hard, raised her head high and walked into the manor without giving him a backward glance.

Low clouds hung around the small church, wrapping it up in grey cotton wool and making it feel oppressive and dark. It may as well have been the middle of the night, not one
o’clock on a Saturday in early April. The church bell, muffled by the low cloud, rang out across the top of the dale. Outside the main door, daffodils nodded in the light breeze as if in
conversation with one another about the coming wedding, anticipating the arrival of the bride.

Will, dressed in his new suit, fumbled in his pocket, playing with the family wedding ring. He felt sick with apprehension. If he’d been able to run away, he would have done. But he knew
that Gerald Frankland would hunt him down no matter where he went. Jack stood beside him talking to the vicar, who was expressing concern at the size of the congregation. Obviously no one had told
him that this was to be a shotgun wedding.

Suddenly the organ sounded the opening bars of Handel’s ‘Wedding March’ and Will, heart heavy with the knowledge that this was his last minute of freedom, turned to see his
bride walking down the aisle with her brother at her side. Alice walked behind them with a delicate bunch of primroses in her hand, flashing a reassuring smile at her big brother. Jack nudged Will
out into the aisle and encouraged him to take Nancy’s hand, while Gerald Frankland stepped to the side of the couple, giving Will a threatening glance as he placed her hand in the hand of her
soon-to-be husband. Nancy gave her bouquet to Alice and smiled at Will, her nerves held at bay by the medication the doctor had given her that morning.

With her face covered by a veil and her dark hair standing out in stark contrast against the cream of her wedding dress and flowers, Nancy looked beautiful. If it hadn’t been for her
scars, she would have been many a man’s fantasy: rich, young and with child by her husband-to-be. To Will, she was a millstone. For the rest of his days he would be in service to her, her
brother and his unborn child. He’d thought everything he’d ever wanted was being handed to him on a plate, only to discover he was taking a lunatic for a wife, and thanks to her brother
he didn’t have a penny in the bank to support them. He went through the vows as if in a trance, wanting to run but at the same time rooted to the spot. Never had a wedding service taken so
long.