The Dwelling Place, page 32
Then came another carriage. There were two people in this, but they were facing forward. And then another carriage; and then another; an endless row of carriages all with black bows and streamers floating from them.
Following on foot now came the long line of menservants, headed by the bailiff, and the butler, and behind them the farmers, and the tenants. All men. And whereas no face had turned towards her out of the carriages, now every eye that passed her was slanted in her direction, all judging her, all condemning her. Had she not taken the young master away from the Hall and broken the young mistress’ heart and brought his Lordship into old age? Even to the lowest of them their eyes condemned.
The haughtiness, the slights, the manner of the dead one that had not only kept them in their place but labelled them for what they were—menials—were forgotten for the moment, for the dead could do no wrong. But someone must be condemned. There were still the living; and there she was standing against the wall, brazen. If she got her just deserts she should be hounded. But she was being given a mansion, so it was said, and a small fortune was being made over to her. Who said the wicked shall not prosper?
She was still pinned against the wall when the last figure in the long black procession faded into the distance; and then she gave in to the overpowering feeling and slid down into a blackness all her own.
Minutes later she came out of the faint, and when she raised her head the world swung about her and she vomited.
When she dragged herself to her feet she remembered to collect the cans, but now she didn’t go over the wall; instead, she staggered like someone drunk across the road and made her way back to the habitation. She felt ill, so very ill.
Eleven
The following morning she rose in the dark and attended to the fire. She still felt ill, and would have liked to stay in bed with a hot brick at her feet for she was cold and shivering. Deep inside of her was a feeling that she’d never be warm again. To try to soothe this feeling she made and ate some hot gruel, but it didn’t help.
Before she called the children she took from the middle drawer of the chest her son’s clothes and slowly she laid them one by one on top of the others in the trunk, leaving out only those things he would need to put on. Then she locked the trunk and brought from the cave itself the two valises and stood them by the side of the door. Then she washed herself, combed her hair, put on her only other clean skirt, also a matching clean shirtwaist. This done, she woke Sarah and Charlotte and whispered to them to bring their clothes into the room and get dressed.
Sleepy-eyed, they obeyed her; but when Charlotte caught sight of the cases standing near the door the sleep fled from her and she whispered excitedly, ‘Are we going, Cissie? Are we going to that house?’ and Cissie, walking to the shelf and taking down the wooden bowls, placed them in a row on the table before she said, ‘No. No, Charlotte; we’re not going to the house.’ In the silence she peered at the two girls through the candlelight. Both their faces looked small and pinched, and she thought. There’s still time; I could make a stand.
Turning from them she went into the cave and woke the other two, putting her fingers to her lips to ensure their silence, so that they wouldn’t wake the child. When they had risen she lit the candle that was standing on a box near her bed. She’d had to keep the candles going for hours the first three nights because he was terrified of the darkness of the cave, for his darkness had been but a twilight of night lights. And now, going down on her hunkers, she held the candle half over the bed, for he was lying on the far side close against the wall. At first he had resisted her lying with him, and when she would wait until he had fallen asleep and he would wake up and find her there, he would toss himself as far from her as he possibly could—and he still did.
She gazed down at him. His face was pink and warm looking; his brown curls were hanging over his brow and spread like a halo on the pillow round his head. His mouth was not forming a baby button, but looked tight and firm as if in his sleep he were still resisting her.
The pain was grinding deep into her bowels. She thought she could die of it and she wished at this minute she could die, just suddenly go out like she had done the day before, but finally. She was past thinking of the others. All her life she’d had to think of their wants, their needs. Now there was her own need. She needed this child as she would never need anything again in her life. But he didn’t need her. He could not remember that she had carried him in her womb, nor that he had suckled at her breast. He had no memory of the anguish of his conception in this very place; he only remembered the environment that had surrounded him during his awakening to life and the people that made that environment possible.
With one finger she softly stroked the clenched fist that was lying on top of the quilt, and even that light movement made him withdraw his hand and tuck it into his neck. On this she closed her eyes, then slowly straightened up, left the candle burning, and went into the other room. There she saw them waiting for her, all looking at her, not accusingly, just mystified, unable to understand why their Cissie wouldn’t move from here when she had the chance of a nice house.
At half past ten, when Bowmer knocked on the door, she and the child were ready. The coachman’s face was unsmiling. If you wanted his opinion he would have said that this whole business was wrong, crazy. But there; there was no accounting for the ways of gentry. Gaol you, put you to the lash, stick you in the pillory, deport you, even hang you for a trifle, then turn a complete somersault and give their own away and set up a fell squatter in a fine establishment. It didn’t make sense.
When she said, ‘Are you on your own?’ he answered curtly, ‘No, I’ve a lad with me. We’ll get the things down. What is there to go?’
‘Just a trunk and the two cases.’
He brought his head quickly around to her. ‘What about the other things, your own things?’
‘That’s all that’s going this mornin’.’
He now glanced at the four girls standing on the far side of the table. They weren’t dressed for outdoors, and he brought his gaze back to her and said, ‘You’re not leaving them here alone, surely?’
‘For the time being,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘It’s a long journey,’ he said now, his voice gruff. ‘Over two hours each way. That’s if it doesn’t snow.’
His tone seemed to drag her shoulders up as she said evenly, ‘It won’t take that long where I’m goin’. I want you to drive us back to the Hall.’ She watched his lower jaw slacken and drop; she watched his head nod two or three times; then he said, his tone soft now, ‘Yes, Ma’am…Miss. Yes, as you say, it won’t take as long going there.’
The child now came towards her, almost at a run. He had been standing solemnly before the fire. He knew he was dressed for a walk, but he didn’t like the walks on the bare land where the wind cut at his face. But now the word Hall seemed to bring him out of his solemn stupor, and he associated the coachman with it and he knew that the Hall was home, and he cried eagerly, ‘Are we going home? Are we going home?’
Cissie looked down at him. For the first time since his father had left him he was looking at her with a look that did not hold hostility. And now catching hold of her hand he asked, ‘Are we going to see Grandpapa?’
After a moment she said, ‘Yes,’ then added, ‘Say goodbye to the children.’
He turned, but still held on to her hand as he said, dutifully, ‘Goodbye.’ And they answered dully in the same way, except Nellie, and she muttered, ‘Ta-rah, Richard.’
When the child saw the coach at the bottom of the slope he made a high, gleeful sound, and, tugging his hand from hers, ran over the wet ground towards it, and was only saved from falling by Micky. And when he steadied him the child laughed into his face and said, ‘I nearly fell,’ to which Micky replied, ‘You nearly did’; then he lifted him into the carriage.
But it was Bowmer who assisted Cissie up; and when he tucked a rug round her knees her throat filled near to bursting, and she said ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he replied. He would never have dared say that to a member of the household, but at this moment he meant what he said.
During the journey the child chatted and talked, he touched her hand and leaned against her knee, and his every action drove the pain deeper into her.
At the present time she couldn’t separate the pain in her heart from the pain in her body. All her bones ached, her throat was sore, and her chest felt rough. When she breathed in deeply she got a pain below her ribs as if the air were stabbing at her. She had a great desire to lie back and close her eyes, but she kept them wide and fixed them on the child, taking her fill of him that would have to last her a lifetime.
When the carriage drew up below the steps of the House the big oak door opened and showed Hatton standing there and unable to hide his astonishment.
When the person came up the steps with the young master by the hand his gaze flitted from one to the other; then he pushed the door wide and stood aside and allowed her to pass.
‘Oh, Hatton, where is my Grandpapa?’
‘He…he is in his room, Master Richard. But he should be down…’ He turned and looked towards the wide staircase and to the head of it where stood His Lordship. Then the child, running across the deep-shadowed hall, for the blinds in the whole house still remained half drawn, cried to the stationary figure. ‘Grandpapa! Oh, Grandpapa!’ Then he was scrambling up the stairs.
They met halfway; and as the child flung his arms wide and gripped his thighs, his Lordship bent down and cupped his head in his hands and made a deep sound in his throat impossible to translate. Slowly now he took his grandson by the hand and turned him round and went down the stairs to where Cissie was standing, and they looked at each other for a long moment before he said, ‘Will you come with me?’
She followed him across the hall and into a huge room, and towards a great open fire; and the child danced round them and talked and chatted, telling his grandfather now, in an almost joyous form, about the little girls and the funny bed, and that he didn’t like porridge. And where was Nanny? And he was going to see Aunty Isabelle.
When he made to run away from them His Lordship caught hold of his arm and said softly, ‘Presently, presently. Be still now.’ Then, with his other hand, he indicated that Cissie should sit on the couch opposite the fire.
It was a low couch, and when she sank into its deep upholstery her feet stuck out, and they looked ugly in her thick black boots and she brought them under her so that her skirt would hide them; then she laid one hand on top of the other on her lap and waited.
His Lordship was seated now and looking at her. He still held the boy close to him, and he asked simply of her, ‘Why?’
She answered simply, ‘Because he was missin’ you.’
And at this his head dropped forward. Then abruptly getting to his feet, he rang a bell, and in a moment Hatton answered it and his Lordship said, ‘Tell Nanny she is required.’
Almost immediately, as if she had been waiting in the hall, the girl appeared in the doorway—the house telegraph was very efficient—and as soon as the child saw her he pulled away from his grandfather and, running with open arms, he cried, ‘Oh, Nanny! Nanny! Where have you been, Nanny?’ And she forgot herself so far as to drop on to her knees and take the child into her embrace and cry while she gabbled, ‘Oh Master Richard. Oh Master Richard.’
Cissie didn’t think she’d be able to bear much more. If only once he had greeted her as he had done the nurse she would have something to remember; but all he had given her, until an hour before when he placed his hand willingly in hers, had been slaps and pushes and words like ‘don’t’, ‘no’, and ‘I don’t want to’, and four other words which she couldn’t bear to think of.
‘Take the young master to the nursery.’
‘Yes, m’Lord. Yes, m’Lord.’ The girl pulled herself swiftly from her knees and almost ran out of the room with the child.
Now the door was closed and they sat in silence; she sank into the deep couch which was like no bed she had ever dreamed of, and he sat upright in a great winged chair to the side of the fireplace.
It was over, and her child hadn’t even said goodbye to her. How much could one stand of such pain? If you had the choice what would you take? The cutting off of a limb, or the breaking of a heart? She moved her head slightly. Her mind was asking her very funny questions. She was in for a fever, she knew she was. It had been coming on for days. She would say what she had to say and then she would go. She put her hand under her shawl and into the pocket of her skirt and withdrew a large envelope and, bending slightly forward, she handed it to him, saying, ‘I won’t be needing these now. Perhaps you’ll keep them, an’…an’ give them to your son.’
He took the envelope from her and without making any comment extracted the two parchments from within it—she had kept the letter; that was hers—and he looked at them. One was a temporary deed to a house called Fieldburn Place in the County of Northumberland. It was situated in four acres of freehold ground, and its cost, together with furnishings, was eleven hundred pounds; the other was a letter to the effect that his son was leaving one thousand pounds a year to Cecilia Brodie, to be made payable in monthly instalments. He looked up at her. ‘Have you read these?’
She shook her head, ‘No; I…I can’t read much. But…but I know what they are; he…he told me.’
‘And you are returning them?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He stared at her for a moment. This girl had nothing, nothing in the wide world, and her future, as far as he could gather, held nothing; and yet she was willing to give up what a great many would consider a fortune. She could have closed her eyes to the child’s need of him and gone on the assumption that children soon forget, and very likely in better surroundings, such as the one this deed indicated, the child would have forgotten him and this house. But because the child was unhappy she brought him back and, therefore, renounced a life which must appear like heaven compared with that which she was enduring. He folded the deeds up and, returning them to the envelope, he handed them to her, saying, ‘You must give these to my son himself. It will be for him to say whether he will take them or not.’
Her eyes widened slightly and she murmured. ‘I…I thought he would be gone. He…he said he was sailin’ the day.’
‘Not until this evening. He is to leave at noon.’
He rose to his feet, and when she also made to rise he put his hand out towards her, saying, ‘Please stay seated.’
Going to a row of small knobs that were attached to the wall behind the red-corded bell rope, he pulled on the third one; then walking towards her again he stood looking down at her, and he moved his tongue over his lips a number of times before he said, ‘May I say that I am deeply grateful for your action, and that I understand what it must have taken for you to come to this decision. If there is anything, any time, that I can do for you or yours you have only to call on me. You understand?’
She moved her head once and said, ‘Yes, sir. And thank you.’
He still continued to stare at her; then he said, ‘If my son cannot induce you to accept’—he pointed to the envelope lying on her lap—‘then I will see that provision is made for you as before.’
Again she said, ‘Thank you, sir.’
She was now attacked by a fit of coughing that racked her chest and he said with some concern, ‘You must have something warm to drink.’ And when the door opened at this moment and Cunningham appeared he turned to him, saying, ‘Tell Master Clive to attend me here immediately. Also tell Hatton to bring a hot beverage for my…my guest.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Cunningham did not once let his eyes rest on the figure on the couch but turned swiftly and went into the hall; and after giving Hatton the order he hurried up the stairs and to Master Clive’s bedroom. After knocking on the door and being bidden to enter he said, ‘The master wishes you to attend him in the drawing room, sir.’
‘Very well, Cunnings.’
‘He…I…I think I’d better warn you, sir, there…there is a lady with him.’
‘Yes, Cunnings?’
‘She…she’s brought Master Richard back, sir. He is up in the nursery now.’
Clive stared at the man, and Cunningham said below his breath, ‘I…I thought it only fair to warn you, sir.’
‘Thank you, Cunnings. Thank you.’ When the door had closed on the valet Clive stood still in the middle of the room. She had brought the child back. Why? Why? She should at this moment have been on her way to the house. Now he’d have to look on her again, and it could only add to his other torment. But why had she brought the child back? She wanted him. Crawling through that hole for years to see him, the hunger in her heart deeper than the hunger in her belly—why had she done it? He looked round the room as if searching for an answer. Then going to the valise, the same he had left the house with when he went on his first voyage, he closed it; then straightening his cravat and pulling down the skirt of his coat, he went out of the room and down the stairs and into the drawing room.
His father looked at him over the distance, and then he turned to the girl on the couch and bowed slightly to her before walking down the room. He did not pause as he passed his son but he looked hard at him; then, his back straight as always, his head held erect, he went out, and his son would have been surprised to know that the deep private thoughts in his father’s mind at this moment were as near his own as was possible.
When he reached the couch he slowly sat down on it, but some distance from her, and, like his father, he asked her, ‘Why have you brought him back?’
