A Song Twice Over (68 page)

‘It's half past four,' he told her irritably. ‘What time do your women arrive, for God's sake?'

She sighed her relief. ‘Not until six.' But her respite was short-lived.

‘Your horses, Christie.'

‘What of them?'

‘They're outside my door, aren't they, with that flashy high-perch carriage for everybody to see – and recognize …'

Lying on his back, his wide shoulders taking up considerably more than half the bed and all the pillows, he laughed at her.

‘And we have your reputation in Market Square to think of. I know. I thought of it. My groom took them back to the Fleece as soon as you let me in. Not that I would leave them standing in harness anyway. Passion is all very well but a man must know his priorities.'

‘Yes. And my first priority is to see to …'

‘Cara –
your
first priority is to see to my waking desire. Come here.'

‘Christie.'
She was horrified. ‘There's no time.'

She had to dress, empty the ash-trays he had filled with his tell-tale cigars, get rid of the wine bottles and the glasses, get rid of every sign of him. Didn't he realize that there were no greater gossips on earth than dressmakers? And if it was seen that she had relaxed her standards and had started entertaining lovers in her business premises, then how could she expect them to keep up theirs?

She resisted him. And then did not. Her bones melted and she lay beneath him almost swooning with the intensity of her pleasure for which wine, this time, could in no way be held responsible. And then she lay there just a little while longer for the simple reason that she was warm and comfortable and did not wish to move.

She even raised a hand to his cheek and smiled as she felt the bristle.

‘So – if your horses have been taken away – are you going to walk back to the Fleece in evening dress, unshaven, at this hour? With the streets full of mill-hands by now, and brewers'drays and Lord knows what else?'

‘Do you suppose anybody will question me?'

She gave what she could only acknowledge to be a giggle. ‘No. I just hope nobody sees you coming out of my back door. You couldn't jump the back wall and leave by the grocer's could you?'

There was a moment of possibly incredulous silence during which she did not quite like to look at him. And then, to match her giggle, he contributed a short, deep-chested laugh.

‘Naturally, I
could
. Ten years ago I might have done. And speaking of grocers … Before it slips my mind.'

‘Yes?' She was instantly bolt upright and alert.

‘He's going.'

‘When?'

‘The end of the month.'

‘And the lease?'

‘I have it in my coat pocket somewhere – unless it fell out, of course, on my way here last night.'

She leaped out of bed.

‘Can I get it?' She was already searching his coat. ‘It's
here
.'

‘Yes. I fully expected it would be. It won't come cheap. And, of course, I have other takers …'

‘You promised me.'

He got up and, quickly and precisely, began to dress.

‘Promises have nothing to do with it. There are my terms. Study them. Go next door and make a thorough inspection. Then let me know what improvements you want to make and how you intend to go about making them. Cost it out as accurately as you can. Then let me have your figures. If they match mine within reason then we'll talk about it. Tonight, perhaps?'

She nodded, busy reading and planning and adding and subtracting already.

‘Very well, Cara. So hadn't you better get dressed now, unless you can see some advantage to greeting your customers stark naked. In which case these may not be the kind of premises in which one ought to invest.'

She put the document down and suddenly – could it still be the wine after all? – danced up to him and kissed him heartily and happily on the mouth. A kiss of approval, camaraderie, fun, perfect ease and equality which she could have given to Luke. Or Daniel.

Not to him.

She saw his face darken, the quick scowl as his eyebrows drew together, felt a sudden movement in him that she felt to be recoil. ‘Don't approach me,' that movement was saying. ‘It is not and never can be your place to do so.
I
will approach you.'

‘Get dressed,' he said coldly.

She did so, aware that he was watching her, no longer with speculation or desire or amusement as he had done last night but as a piece of merchandise. An enchanter no longer. A cattle-dealer, she thought, furiously fastening her tapes and buttons. And then she decided that it was just as well. She knew him much better this way.

‘If you continue to do well, Adeane, I may find it possible, from time to time, to be seen with you in public.'

He meant, of course, that he would find it convenient. No doubt, when it suited him, he would tell her why.

‘How kind,' she said.

He nodded in gracious acknowledgement.

‘Nothing excessive, of course. Dinner in a Leeds hotel, or at the Moons perhaps – whoever
Mrs
Moon might happen to be. An occasional theatre. Which would mean being seen together on the train.'

‘Oh – you wouldn't want me to travel second class and you first?'

Like a maid, she thought, gritting her teeth and viciously dragging a comb through her hair.

‘No. And please don't grit your teeth, Cara. You'll do them harm. I would expect there to be a certain amount of socializing here too, eventually, at the new station hotel.'

‘Oh yes – while you're negotiating the best price you can get for St Jude's, I expect.'

He showed her his own perfect teeth in the smile that never had much mirth in it. ‘I expect so. Obviously, I can rely on you – at need – to wear your beautiful clothes and make pleasant conversation with my dinner guests. As a successful local businesswoman you would make a perfectly acceptable hostess. Should you prove successful, that is.'

Her future had been mapped out for her.

He took hold of her upper arm, by no means gently.

‘You have not given me an answer.'

She tried to shake off his hand and could not.

‘Yes,' she snapped. ‘Yes, of course. What else could I ever say to you but yes?'

‘Whatever you please.' His hand tightened and, when she began to struggle, tightened still further so that she became very still. ‘You may say and do just as you like, Cara. I have always told you so. And what exactly restrains you now? There is no Odette, no Liam, to hold you back or push you forward. You can't tell yourself any longer, “I had to do it – or not do it – or give it up – for
them.”
Because it won't be true.'

‘I know.' She was hating him again, trying very hard not to tremble.

‘And do you also know that you could have gone with them yesterday? They would have been glad to take you. Your father has landed on his feet at last and is well able to give you a new life in America where no one knows your past. Oh yes, my dear, I have made enquiries of my own and you may believe that he is very comfortable. He could even get you a decent husband, perhaps, if he passed you off as a widow, to explain Liam and one or two other little irregularities. So – what keeps you here?'

‘My business keeps me here.'

‘Does it? Perhaps. But let us be very clear on this, Adeane. You could have gone with any one of them – with Luke Thackray to Nottingham, with your father to America, with your fine Chartist friend very probably to hell. You could have sold your business and started up elsewhere. Ladies wear hats in Nottingham, one assumes? And I could not have stopped you. Yet you stayed here with me. What does that tell you?'

Truly she did not know.

He released her arm and smiled at her. ‘Well, we know it doesn't mean you love me, which is all to the good. I had love from Marie Moon – poor soul – and found it – well – surprising. And I don't seem to care for being surprised by women.'

‘No. You want to be served.'

‘Cara – how perceptive. But by somebody who is not servile. Somebody who doesn't serve others. And as time passes I am growing less and less inclined to make changes. And if, for whatever reason, I give up other women I would really take it very much amiss if you … But you
do
understand me?'

‘Yes. I understand.'

‘We suit each other, Cara. That is why you stayed.'

She did not believe it, but if he said so, if that was what he wanted, and she had the next door lease in her hands …? What could she do? Return the lease, of course, cut her losses and take the next train for Liverpool.

‘I suppose it is,' she said.

He picked up his hat and gloves and gave her a light tap on the cheek.

‘Cheer up, Adeane.' He set the silk top hat at its correct angle. ‘I may not be the man you wanted, my dear. But could it be – do you think – that what I may be is the man you deserve? Is that it?'

‘I expect so,' she said.

John-William Dallam remained imprisoned in his body throughout a gold and copper autumn, a grey winter to follow, his reliance upon his daughter Gemma becoming absolute. He had regained limited and laboured powers of speech but Gemma was the only person he could bear to talk to. He could, with assistance and effort, shuffle a few paces from his bed to a chair by the window but, whenever such adventurings were undertaken, he required the presence of his daughter to interpret his needs; to make sure that the damn fool nurses did not let him fall and then go running for the manservants to come and pick him up like a baby; to protect him, in general, from officious or sentimental women who wished to do things to him – again like a baby – which he did not want done.

And without Gemma he could not stop them.

His helplessness enraged him, so wildly sometimes as to sever entirely the fragile connection between his brain and his tongue, so that he could do nothing but produce sounds resembling the bellow of a sick and floundering bull.

He could not bear the sight of Linnet Gage. Nor, sadly, did the presence of his wife appear to soothe him. Her heart was good. His care of her had always been a source of pride to him. But now they could only upset one another. There were a great many vital things he wished to say to her. But, at the first sight of his changed and twisted appearance, the first sound of the grunts and gutteral, undeniably animal noises which had become his voice, she was too overcome with grief and terror to understand a word.

He would try again. She would hover timidly by his bed trying to smile, telling him ‘Everything will be all right, my darling – I know it will.' No, it would
not
. And their inability to communicate incensed and exhausted him so much that, for both their sakes, she was advised by the doctor to restrict her visits to the hour following evening medication when her husband would be already half asleep.

She could do nothing for him. She crept downstairs and wept quietly in a corner. In no one's way, she hoped. Not wishing to be a trouble. Waiting to be told what was to become of her now.

It was Gemma who told her.

‘You can best be a help to father, you know, by being cheerful, mother, and not falling ill yourself.'

‘Cheerful? Oh, dearest, I don't think I could be that.'

‘Well, mother, someone will have to be. There will be a great many people calling to enquire. And if I have to be upstairs with father then I can't be downstairs in the drawing-room giving news of him.'

‘Oh no. Of course not.'

‘And you are so much better at that sort of thing, mother, than I. They will all have to be given tea, I suppose, since some of them will have taken the trouble to drive quite a distance and we can hardly leave it to Linnet. She would be only too pleased to help, of course, I know, but it hardly seems fair to ask so much of her. Particularly when it is bound to bring back the sad time she had nursing her own mother. I think we should spare Linnet as much of this as we can, don't you, mother? She may not listen to me but I think it would be a great kindness on your part to encourage her to spend as much time as she likes with her friends. We wouldn't want to spoil her chances, would we?'

‘Oh no, dear – absolutely not.'

‘Then send her off to Lady Lark's dance next week, mother. Be firm about it. I know how devoted she is but she has her own life to lead, and I think the people who come to ask about father will really be hoping to see you.'

Two birds, thought Gemma somewhat irreverently, with one stone. And indeed, during the first few weeks of her husband's illness, Amabel was kept fully occupied by the callers who drove out in a really most gratifying profusion, it seemed to her, not only from Frizingley but from all the worsted and woollen towns in its vicinity, manufacturers from Bradford, Halifax, Keighley, Huddersfield, the Spen Valley, coming to pay homage to one of their number. Men and women with whom Amabel was far more at ease than she had ever been with the gentry, though she was bound to admit that they all sent their sympathies too, accompanied by seasonal gifts of grouse and pheasant. And when the duty calls were done and her husband's condition seemed no worse – although quite bad enough, Heaven knew – she found it possible, with Gemma's encouragement, to enjoy the company of certain neighbours who, by no means smart enough for Linnet, had been previously neglected.

The vicar, for instance, a quaint and easy-mannered man to whom Amabel could confess her sense of uselessness and be infinitely reassured by his declaration that she was talking nonsense. Dr Thomas who, rejected by Linnet, had recently married a sensible, serviceable young woman, only in her thirties, whose attitude to Amabel was almost maternal. A pair of Miss Sedleys, two pleasant spinster ladies who lived a quietly gracious life together in a creeper-clad Georgian house by the vicarage, and their friend, Mr Dudley Stevens, an elderly gentleman who seemed almost as spinsterish as themselves although he was a widower and a retired wool merchant with a comfortable fortune.