Tara (15 page)

'Mabel, you are much too beautiful to waste yourself in the country,' Arthur said, lifting her hand and kissing the tips of her fingers. 'People like you and me, with imagination and daring, should live in places like America or Africa. England's too small for us.'

No man she'd ever met talked like Arthur. He painted scenes so bright and vivid she could see them as clearly as if she were there. There were no awkward silences; he moved on effortlessly from India to his spell in the trenches in France, making light of the conditions and the carnage. He made her laugh about the characters he'd met. Her long-held dream of the big country house, vast lawns and servants faded. Instead he was building her a new one. Now she was in an elegant townhouse, throwing smart dinner parties and soirees. She would become a famous artist, travel extensively and together they would be the couple on everyone's lips.

What was there for her back in Somerset? Washing clothes, scouring milk churns, feeding the hens. Marriage there wouldn't release her from drudgery; a suitable husband in Papa's eyes would be a man as hard and penny-pinching as himself.

Later, they danced. With Arthur's arms around her she forgot Papa. Somehow she had to stay in London long enough for Arthur to fall in love with her. A man who had fought natives in India and been in the trenches of France wouldn't crumble when faced with James Brady.

She let him kiss her on the ride home without so much as a faint protest. If he had suggested taking her on somewhere else she would have agreed without a second thought. But he made no such suggestion, just delivered her home and promised to be in touch soon.

Late-night plans and schemes were one thing, but by daylight Mabel saw the problems she faced. Lucy was so much better that Ralph spoke of taking her and Edward to Brighton at the weekend. There was no alternative but to go home; but how could she when her heart was still in the keeping of a man whose address she didn't even know?

On Friday night, her bag already packed for home, Arthur finally called. This time Mabel didn't wait for him to win Ralph round and charm Lucy, instead she threw on a light shawl and went out with him for a walk.

Everything was against them. It began to rain soon after they left the house and Mabel knew Lucy was hurt that she didn't want to spend her last night with them. She felt shamed when Arthur suggested sheltering from the rain in a public house. Drinking in a restaurant or at a party was one thing; sitting in a smoky dive with rough men and dubious women was quite another.

'We can't stand out in this,' Arthur said, as they sheltered under a shop canopy. 'We've got to talk, Mabel, if you're going home. Come home to my lodgings.'

He took her there in a cab, rain belting down so hard they could barely hear the wheels or the clopping hooves of the horse.

She noticed little of the house, or where it was, other than an image of a tall, narrow building between two shops on a busy road. A woman popped her head round the door as Arthur led her up the stairs. She had a pinched, spiteful face with a tooth missing.

'No women in this house, Mr Randall,' she screeched. 'I told you that when you came here.'

'This is my cousin, Miss Brady,' Arthur said quickly. 'She's just on her way to the West Country and we wanted to talk out of the rain.'

'As long as she's out of here by ten,' the woman snapped. 'I've got my reputation to think of.'

'I'm sorry.' Arthur took Mabel's shawl from her shoulders and laid it over a chair back to dry. 'I should have planned something the other night, instead of leaving everything so late.'

'It doesn't matter,' she whispered, surprised by the shabbiness of his room, yet aware that this was her last chance to make a lasting impression on him.

'Oh, Mabel, it does.' He sighed deeply, leaning on the mantelpiece and looking at her long and hard. 'To be honest I didn't intend to get in touch again, but I couldn't let you go without telling the truth.'

Her heart sank – he was going to admit he was married. She could see her reflection in the smeared mirror behind him. Wisps of hair had come loose; the little green hat she had thought so smart showed her to be the little country girl she really was. Now she was going to make herself look even more pathetic by crying.

His grey suit was the same one he had worn the day they met. The stiff wing collar was wilting now with the damp, and his blue eyes looked sad.

'I've fallen in love, Mabel.'

She gasped, turning pink with embarrassment. Telling her he was married would have been bad enough, but to admit he'd met someone he liked better was an insult.

'I hope you'll be happy with her.' She bit back tears and stuck her chin out defiantly. 'Now you've made your confession I'd better go home. Kindly get me a cab.'

His face broke into a wide smile. 'Not with another girl, silly goose,' he laughed. 'It's you I've fallen for. I didn't think it could happen to me. I tried to fight it off and forget you.'

She couldn't speak, a lump was growing in her throat and all at once the damp clothes, Lucy and her parents' disapproval didn't matter. She flung herself at him, raining kisses on his mouth, his cheeks and chin.

'I love you, too, Arthur. I couldn't bear it when you didn't come round. I want to stay in London with you.'

She heard no warning bells in her head. She was alone in a man's bedroom, but all she could feel were the crazy beating of her heart, the warmth of his body and a delicious melting sensation.

One moment he was kissing her, standing in the middle of the drab little room, the next they were on the bed, straining to get closer.

She knew she shouldn't let him unbutton her bodice and touch her breasts, but somehow she couldn't prevent him. The wonderful sensations washing over her as his lips nuzzled and sucked at her dispelled her fears and swept her into a world where nothing mattered but the moment.

She had only the vaguest idea of the male anatomy and most of that was learned from the bullocks on the farm and by changing Edward's nappy, but when Arthur's hand crept up under her skirt and he somehow relieved himself of his trousers too, suddenly she understood this must be what married people did.

'Is that nice?' he whispered as his fingers explored her.

'Oh, yes,' she whispered back, knowing she should stop him but liking it so much she couldn't. 'You do really love me, don't you?'

'This is the way a man shows he loves a woman,' he said, parting her thighs wider and kneeling between them. 'I want you, Mabel, for ever.'

It hurt when he thrust himself into her, but his deep kisses and the way he wound her hair round his fingers reassured her. She moved with him, running her fingers over his silky back and buttocks, trying hard to block out the farmyard images that kept creeping into her head.

All at once Arthur was still, lying panting on top of her.

'Oh, Mabel,' he said softly. 'What a brute I am. You should have stopped me. I just wanted you so much I forgot everything.'

'It doesn't matter.' She wound her arms round him, not understanding what he meant. 'I love you.'

Bittersweet memories of that night both plagued and soothed her back at the farm. She was a woman now, a once mysterious part of adult life had been revealed to her and she loved and was loved. But there was fear, too, that perhaps Arthur's feelings weren't as deep as hers, and a sense of shame because she'd let hers get the upper hand. Yet each time she closed her eyes she could feel his body; smell him, taste him. How could something so powerful be wrong?

She wrote to him every day, tucking the letter into her drawers till she could get out to post it. Waiting for his infrequent replies was agony. She had to slip out to waylay the postman before he reached the farm, running the risk of being seen by her father. On the days when there was a letter for her, delight was tarnished by fear. She would hide it in her clothes, burning all day until an opportunity came to read it away from prying eyes. Sometimes it would be late at night before she got the chance, and she'd spend a whole day fearing that he was tired of waiting for her, that this latest letter would be the last.

'Whatever is the matter with you?' her mother asked on several occasions. 'Ever since you came back from London you've been a changed girl!'

She wanted to confide in her mother but how could she admit what had happened?

Arthur spoke loosely of coming down to Somerset, without any sense of urgency. When would this be? How was she supposed to pave the way for him? Did he have any idea what he was doing to her?

The farm had never seemed more tedious and mucky; she resented the days spent washing, ironing and mending when every hour away from Arthur hurt. Even the haymaking in September and the harvest home supper and dance which followed it brought home to her how little she had in common with the neighbours and even her family.

Until the trip to London she'd accepted her mother's peace-making docility and her father's sullen bad temper. Now she viewed her parents with scorn. Her father was a miserly bully; there was plenty of money yet he wouldn't spend a penny to make his family's life more pleasant. Never once did he praise any of his family, he only spoke to belittle them.

As for her mother, how could anyone be so weak? Each year she seemed to get smaller and thinner, lines deepening in a face which had once been beautiful. Why didn't she stand up to him? Why not take some of that money she made for him in the dairy and spend it on a new dress?

Mabel's unhappiness grew a couple of weeks after her return when Emily began walking out with Giles Hen-son, the only son on the neighbouring farm. Emily was only sixteen, yet she was being given freedom for courtship just because James Brady considered it a match made in heaven.

'Don't look at me like that, girl!' her father roared at her when once again Emily had skipped off and left the supper things for Mabel to wash up, as well as a mountain of mending. 'I've been too soft with you, it's time you buckled down and did some real work around here.'

She got up at five every morning and helped with the milking, then fed the chickens and pigs – all before breakfast. Mornings were spent either washing, weeding the vegetable garden or making bread. If she was lucky sometimes she could read or paint for a couple of hours in the afternoon before milking time came round again, then she had an hour or two in the dairy making butter and cheese until it was too dark to see. If that wasn't real work, what was?

'Let me go to Bristol or London to work?' Mabel asked her mother one evening when her father had gone down to the Pelican.

'Don't be silly, dear.' Her mother smiled faintly. 'What would you do there?'

'I want to be an artist.' Mabel stuck her lip out belligerently. 'When I was in London I saw advertisements for illustrators. I want to earn money for myself, be independent.'

'You are only equipped to be a wife and mother.'

Mabel wanted to scream at her mother; ask why, when her own husband treated her with less respect than he showed his pigs, she was anxious for her daughter to marry someone just like him?

She lost her appetite, even her interest in painting. And when her period didn't come, fear was added to frustrated love.

Mabel knew little about how babies were made but she had overheard a neighbour once telling her mother she was 'late' and remembered that a short time later the same woman's belly had begun to show. Having a baby in wedlock was a cause for celebration, but out of wedlock it was shameful. She remembered a girl had been drummed out of the village with her hair cut off for that crime. What would she do if that happened to her?

It was Lucy who unwittingly betrayed her. In a letter to her parents in the post office she mentioned the highlights of Mabel's visit and the gentleman who took her out to dinner. Before the day was out nosy Mrs Meredith had buttonholed Charles Plowright to ask about 'his friend' and before sunset the whole village knew Mabel Brady had not only spent time alone with an impostor but was in regular, secret correspondence with him.

Mabel was lighting the oil lamp in the kitchen when she heard Duke whinny as Papa reined him in too roughly. She heard the bang of the stable door and the metal tips of his boots sparking on the cobbles, and she knew by the speed he'd left his horse that he was in a bad mood.

Mother was still in the dairy, Emily upstairs changing her working dress for a better one to meet Giles. The kitchen table was laid for supper, a beef and vegetable soup simmering on the stove. She hastily replaced the chimney over the lamp and was about to go to the pantry to draw her father some cider when he appeared in the doorway.

One glance was enough to know this wasn't his usual grumpiness. He filled the doorway, puffed up by rage. His
face
glowed red to match his hair and beard, his pale blue eyes rolled like a madman's.

'Who is this man, you little slut?' he thundered.

Mabel had no idea then how or what he'd discovered, but his high colour and the wrath in his eyes warned her to tread carefully. All at once she understood why her mother never stood up to him.

'His name is Arthur and I love him,' she said, hoping by admitting everything she could defuse his anger. 'I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, Papa, but I was scared.'

She had no idea such a big man could move so fast. He brushed the chair aside, scooped her up under one arm and swept upstairs.

Mabel screamed at the top of her lungs. Her mother came running in from the yard, Emily met them halfway down the stairs but turned, lifted her skirts and ran back up. As Papa reached the top of the stairs, he turned and glared down at Polly.

'No daughter of mine will shame me in this way,' he bellowed. 'Fetch the strap!'

From her position under his arm, Mabel saw the colour drain from her mother's face, heard Emily cry out, but her father just turned around and marched into her bedroom, flinging her down on the bed.

'No, James,' her mother's voice came from the door. She had the big leather strap in her hand, because she hadn't dared refuse him, but she held it tightly to her breast.
'No,
James, you can't beat her for this.'