The Moth, page 14
She told herself that she would rather talk to the girls and find out if James was in or when he was expected, so she took the narrow path that led from the drive towards the tennis court, and at the end of it she stopped abruptly, for there in white flannel trousers and a cream silk shirt stood James poised to serve to his sister. The two girls were on the far side of the court, and James’ partner, she saw, was a tall fair girl whose face was bright with laughter.
It was Marie Crockford who caught sight of her first and she cried to her brother, ‘James! James! Look! Look behind you. Here’s Agnes.’
James stopped in the act of picking up a ball, then turned abruptly towards her, and she sensed immediately that he wasn’t pleased to see her. His step was slow as he came across the grass. She had not moved from the end of the path and when he stood in front of her he said, ‘Well, this is a surprise.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ She could not keep the tartness from her tongue, and she went on, ‘I didn’t really expect you to be at home as I knew you had been so busy of late.’
She watched his jaw move from side to side before he said, ‘Yes, I’ve been busy of late, Agnes. But I took a little break this afternoon as we have a friend staying, Grace’s friend Eileen, Eileen Chambers. I . . . I don’t think you have met.’
‘No, we haven’t met.’
‘Well, come and be introduced.’
‘I . . . I would rather not, if you don’t mind James, but I would like to speak to you privately.’
‘Well . . . well I was just in the game. Is it important?’
‘It’s very important.’
‘Oh.’ He turned now to where his sisters and Miss Chambers were standing and he called to them, ‘I’ll see you in the house later.’ And at this Marie called, ‘Wouldn’t you like a game, Agnes?’ And Agnes replied, ‘No thank you, not now.’
‘We’ll see you then,’ said Marie. And to this Agnes inclined her head before turning away and walking back up the path on to the drive.
They had walked a few steps side by side before James Crockford said, ‘Would you like to see Mother?’
‘No, no. I’d rather not. I . . . I just want to talk to you.’ She turned and looked at him, her face now soft, the appeal in her eyes deep, and he sighed and said, ‘Trouble?’
‘Yes, you can say that, trouble.’
Inside the house the impression was the same as outside, everything was spruce. The furniture somewhat modern but good, the carpet covering the entire floors was of a deep red and seemed to spread its glow everywhere. The first time she stepped inside this house, she had thought, how wonderful. I’ll likely be mistress of it some day. Now she wasn’t so sure, she wasn’t sure at all.
He had led her into his study and although he didn’t actually take his seat behind the desk he did, after he had seen her seated, sit against the edge of it. Then, his head poked forward, he said, ‘Well, what is it? What has happened?’ And without any preamble she answered, ‘Father is going to marry again. The woman is . . . is she who has been his mistress for years. And he is determined to put Millie away. I can’t stand it, James. I just can’t stand it. I couldn’t stand living in the same house with that woman, much less could I stand Millie being put away. Oh’ – she put her hand up – ‘I know what you think should happen to Millie and I know you will say, as you have said so often, it would be the best thing for her, but it would be like caging a lark. Can’t you see?’
She watched him get to his feet and pass her and go towards the empty fireplace, and there, turning sideways to it, he leant his elbow on the mantelshelf before he said, ‘Yes, I can see, and I can see it’s the best and only thing for Millie. It’ll come in the long run. You’ve got to face that, Agnes. If anything should happen to you tomorrow, she would be put away. As it is, you are prepared to make a number of people embarrassed, even miserable, because you won’t face up to the fact that Millie isn’t normal. And I’m telling you, something will happen some day to her and the matter will be taken out of your hands.’
‘Well, until that something happens, James, I can’t let her be put away. Doctor Miller says she is not mad or insane, not in the accepted sense.’
‘Doctor Miller is an old fool. He’s drunk half his time and will say anything to please anyone as long as it means he will not have to bother himself. And I am going to say this straight to you, Agnes. I understand your father’s attitude in this. I may not condone his marriage to this particular woman, but that is his own business. And think, Agnes, you couldn’t possibly expect him to bring his wife into that house with a crea . . . with a person like Millie there.’
‘You were going to say creature, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘I can’t understand you. I . . . I can’t, James. And now you will never understand me or the reason for my visit, but I’m appealing to your compassion, I . . . I want to ask you if you will let us, if you’ll allow me to bring Millie here. I mean to the hunting lodge. I could bring Dave and Peggy with me. You would not see her, I can promise you. You would not be troubled with her.’
He had stepped from the fireplace and he was standing stiffly now, his arms held out some little distance from his sides, his whole attitude one of utter incredulity. His face was so screwed up that his eyes had become slits and through them he peered at her, saying, ‘You too must be out of your mind. You propose to bring your sister here knowing what I think about the whole situation? Huh!’ His arms now sprang outwards and they remained so as he swung round, and now, with his index finger, he pointed towards the door, saying, ‘Across that hall in the drawing room sits my mother. You know my mother, don’t you, Agnes?’
She made no reply, she just continued to stare at him.
‘Well, apart from your preposterous suggestion, which not even I would dare put to her, she’s not in favour of our marrying. I might as well tell you the truth. And what is more, Agnes, I at this point can’t see any use in furthering our friendship, because there is no way you are going to alter your mind about your sister. Now is there?’
She continued to stare at him and as she did so a strange thing happened: she saw his clothes drop from him. He stood before her mind’s eye stark naked. Then his skin seemed to melt and she saw his skeleton. Then that too disappeared, at least up to his neck, and the only thing that was left was his head and his heart, and she saw that the heart was encased in a box. But behind his skull his brain was working. Like thousands of worms crawling over each other, she saw it working. Then the whole of him disappeared, and in his place stood the tall fair girl with the blonde hair, and immediately she recognised her. He had said they had never met and he was right, they had never met. But she had heard her mother speak of the Chamberses. They were wealthy, millionaires in fact, with steel works and rolling mills.
She put her hand up to her head and as she did so she pushed her hat to one side, then made an effort to straighten it. She was still staring at him but asking herself now, was she going mad? Had the thing that had touched Millie also touched her?
Well, it was over. What had possessed her to come? Why had she thought that anything she could say to him would have any effect? Because he didn’t love her. Had he ever loved her? Why had he asked her to marry him in the first place? Had he seen her as someone he could dominate? No, no, that wasn’t the reason, because she had never been pliable. Then why? Why? Then she had the answer. He had asked her to marry him because he loved to wallow in adoration and she had openly adored everything about him from the first moment they had met. But as her adoration had worn thin so his need for her had evaporated.
Well, it was over and God knew what she was going to do. But there was one thing she could do, and with dignity.
Slowly she drew off her engagement ring and handed it towards him. Her eyes were steady on his face, which was now suffused with colour. And when he said, ‘No, no, Agnes, you can keep it. And . . . and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t still be friends,’ his use of the word friend for the second time to explain their association that was meant to culminate in marriage was like a knife cutting the thread of her self-control. Away went all thoughts of dignity: her voice now almost a yell, she cried at him, ‘You previously alluded to our years of engagement as our friendship. Friendship indeed! It was a promise of marriage, remember? You asked me to marry you, and you have the gall to term the years that I’ve wasted my love on you as a time of friendship. Well, the friendship is ended finally. Take it!’ She flung the ring into his face, and when the row of five diamonds hit his lower lip the end stone pierced the skin causing a trickle of blood to run down his chin.
His handkerchief held to his mouth, he stared at her in amazement, and what he said now was, ‘It is just as well it is ending now because you are showing evidence that it is not only your sister who is tainted.’
She looked quickly to the right and then to left of her; she had the desire to pick up something and break it over his head. Only the fact that she would be acting like any common slut prevented her from seizing the heavy glass inkwell from the table and hurling it at him. However, fearing that if she stayed one minute longer she might be driven to do just this, she flung round and rushed from the room.
As she entered the hall his mother was crossing it obviously to come to the study, likely to see what all the narration was about, and before she could speak Agnes cried at her, ‘Go and attend to your little boy, his lip’s cut.’ And then she even horrified herself when she added, ‘You didn’t breed a man, only something that dresses like one. He’s gutless.’ And she had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs Crockford lean back against the panelling of the passage with her hand across her mouth. Then she made for the front door. Once outside and down the steps, she ran. She ran the length of the drive, through the gates and into the road. There was no sign of the cart. But then there wouldn’t be, she hadn’t been in there more than half an hour.
She now put her hand up to her brow and held the weight of her head for a moment as she said to herself, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ Something had happened to her. Perhaps she was like Millie. Perhaps what had just happened was a kind of turn like Millie had. But Millie never cried and she now wanted to cry. Oh dear God, how she wanted to cry. She walked a few yards down the road; then crossed the shallow ditch and stepped in among the trees. It was cool here. She leant her back against an oak and looked up into the branches, and she asked aloud, ‘What came over me?’
She was given no immediate answer, she only knew that somewhere a door had opened inside her and that it would be impossible to close it from now on.
But what was going to happen to them? What was going to happen to Millie? What was going to happen to herself? Because if they did manage to put Millie away, she herself couldn’t live in that house with her father and that woman. She felt she was standing on the brink of a new existence: Millie gone, or Millie with her, things would never be the same again. And she would never be married. No, she would never be married. The thought brought a pain between her ribs as if a knife had pierced them, and she turned now and pressed her chest to the trunk of the oak and spread her arms around it and her lips against the rough ridges of the bark in an effort to quell the great wave of emotion that was about to overwhelm her.
When the storm burst within her she gasped and felt for a moment that she was choking with the constriction in her throat. Then the tears, forcing their way out, sped from her eyes, her nose and her mouth, and unheeding that she was out in the open air and could be seen by a passer-by on the road, she moaned her anguish until, exhausted, she slid down the tree and sat in a huddled heap among its roots.
Never had she cried like this in her life before. Never had she given way. People of her class, she understood, didn’t give vent to their feelings in public. Nor when rejected did they throw things. What had come over her? What had she sunk to? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. There seemed to be no life left in her: there was a wish in her to sit huddled like this forever; never to think again, to worry, to feel the ache of the heart and the torments of the body; but once she rose from this ground she knew that the latter two would be with her for a long time to come.
When the hand came on her shoulder she swung round while at the same time crouching nearer to the bole of the tree and, speechless now, she stared up into Robert’s face and, recognising the mixture of bewilderment, concern and compassion in his eyes, she almost broke down again.
As her head fell forward on to her chest, he said softly, ‘Come, miss, come.’ And now, his hands going under her oxters, he lifted her gently to her feet, where she remained standing with her head bowed.
When she swayed slightly he put his hand on her elbow, and when again he said, ‘Come,’ she shook her head before wiping her face with the wet ball of her handkerchief.
He groped in his coat pocket for a handkerchief he knew he had there. It wasn’t still folded but he hadn’t used it. He offered it to her, and she took it from him and passed it over her face; then she brought her hat from the back of her head where it had been saved from falling off by a solitary hat pin. Having straightened it, she looked down at her coat; there were some dry leaves adhering to the skirt, and slowly her hand flicked them off. Then, looking at Robert, she spoke for the first time: her voice a croaking whisper, she said, ‘I’m sorry, Bradley.’
‘No need to be sorry, miss. There’s nothing like a good cry for getting trouble out of your system.’ He was now quoting his mother, who had once said to him, if men cried more, they would be less aggressive. But he couldn’t think of men crying; in a way it embarrassed him, besides showing a form of weakness. But never in his lifetime would he have expected anyone of Miss Agnes’ class to cry like she must have done, and out in the open an’ all. Something pretty bad had happened back there in the house.
He went before her now towards the road, but on reaching it, he turned to her and said, ‘There’s a brook further along. Would you like to stop and perhaps’ – he paused – ‘well, I mean wash your face?’
She looked at him as if considering for a moment; then, shaking her head slowly, she said, ‘No, thank you, Bradley. The water in the brook can’t make much difference to how I feel. I . . . I may as well tell you: as things stand now, Millie’ – she swallowed so deeply that her chin jerked to the side before she went on – ‘Millie may have to be put away. My . . . my father is adamant. I had hoped . . . my last hope was that I might be able to take her away and live in’ – she turned and looked back towards the gates – ‘the hunting lodge, but now that too is impossible.’
‘I’m sorry, miss, very sorry. I’ve got some idea how you must be feeling for I too feel dreadful that Miss Millie should be put away. There are those that I know of ten times worse than her who are married and bearing children.’ He stopped.
It was a little while before she said, ‘I’m glad you think that way too, Bradley. I have never considered Millie insane, nor of being in such a state of mind that warranted her being locked up.’ She now put her hand to her throat and, the tears once more coming into her eyes, she whispered, ‘I mustn’t. I mustn’t.’
‘Is there nothing can be done, miss? No-one you can turn to?’
‘No.’ She pressed her eyes tightly closed for a moment, then opened them and blinked a number of times before she said, ‘My brothers are of the same opinion, and Mr Crockford.’ She now looked past Robert and across to where the horse and cart were standing before she said, ‘Mr Crockford is of like mind with my father.’ Then her head jerking, she looked at him again before saying in a tone which although not loud was high, ‘I . . . I was to be married you know, Bradley. But . . . but no longer. It . . . it is finished, broken off. I . . . I can tell you this now because once you get back to the house you will soon hear it.’
He said nothing but just looked at her and she at him as, her voice dropping once again, she said more in the form of a statement, ‘I was engaged for four years. It is a long time.’ And on this she turned from him and walked to the cart.
He followed her, and after helping her up he took his seat beside her, saying, ‘Gee up!’ to the horse. And so they began their journey back to the house.
As they went his thoughts ranged from deep pity for the young lady sitting by his side whom he thought of now as ‘Poor lass’, on to Millie who was to be put in an asylum, for that’s what they meant by being put away. And now he swore to himself: ’Tis a blasted shame, a crying out shame. As to Mr James Crockford, his mind told him she was, in a way, damned lucky to be rid of him; for he had come across replicas of the same type in his own class, men who lorded it over the household, egotistical, small-minded buggers who treated their women like servants or slaves but never as partners. From what he had gathered from the talk in his shop alone in Palmer’s ninety per cent of the wives never saw their husband’s pay packet: they were doled out their small allowance and with that they had to be satisfied. Even when bairns were added yearly to the family, the allowance in many cases still remained the same, because a man must have his beer and his tabs, not forgetting a few bob on the horses. So, in a way, he saw Mr James Crockford as being of the same calibre.
The Taggarts knew quite a bit about the Crockford family and how they started their shops. The grandfather had had a little huckster shop in Jarrow, now there was hardly a town on the Tyne that hadn’t one or two of their shops in it. As for the mother, although presumably she was of better stock, she let everyone know it, which was why she couldn’t keep her servants.
He heard himself ask now, ‘Haven’t you any relatives, miss, that would take you and Miss Millie in?’
