A Song Twice Over (27 page)

So much worse, so much more perilous, because of the winter.

She still had no doubt that she could succeed in Frizingley. That she could really become that elegant, well-nourished creature Miss Cara Adeane, Dressmaker and Milliner. The brave legend she had painted on her hat-box. But not through January and February. Not until Easter. Perhaps only barely by then, until she managed to get something behind her, the reserve, the ‘something put by for a rainy day'which neither she nor anyone else in her hand-to-mouth world could ever quite hold together.

And the trouble was that she was tired. Aching sometimes with weariness, bruised with it, yet unable to sleep. Spending far too many nights staring wide-eyed into the dark, growing hungry for rest, and irritable, so that this morning she had even spoken sharply to Odette.

Not that she was sorry, even now, for what she had said. She had meant every word of it. But she did regret making her mother cry. Would it not have been kinder had she pretended to be glad – since it was Christmas time, after all – when Odette had come rushing to show her that letter from her father? A few cheerful lines from a man who appeared to have nothing on his conscience, to a family he assumed to be still affectionately his. He was in good health. Cara had not been in the least surprised to hear it. He had taken over the management of his sister's bakery. That too came as no surprise. He sent his fondest love. Would she not send him hers, her mother wanted to know? No. She would not. He might go to hell and rot there for all she cared. Her mother had her full permission to tell him so, for reasons she had bitterly and eloquently specified. She had slammed the door as she set out for the Dallam wedding, leaving Odette in tears. And because Odette had been crying, Liam had been crying too.

And now, having walked all the way across Frizingley in her thin pale blue dress and her dark blue tablecloth cloak she would have to walk back again – and fast – before she froze to death where she stood. For if that sudden drift of snow in the air a few minutes ago had seemed romantic to the young bride – or the bride's mother – it had not in any way pleased Cara. Hot spiced wine and log fires for Mrs Dallam and Mrs Tristan Gage, perhaps. But for Cara and Liam and Odette, it meant sleeping downstairs all together by the fire with the dog and even then not really keeping warm; chipping ice from the water barrels every morning with blistered fingers; doing something about the worn soles of her boots. Liam's cough.

Ah well. Roll on Easter-bonnet time. And it was then that she saw Christie Goldsborough coming towards her along the path, his spectacular, fur-lined driving-cape swinging loose around his shoulders,
his
feet encased in the finest quality leather, his carriage – a shiny, high-perch sporting phaeton – waiting for him just there, in the road beyond the church wall, whenever he had a mind to take the reins in his gloved hands and go dashing off to drink champagne and eat bride-cake at Frizingley Hall.

And what would Gemma Dallam – Gemma Gage – think to that, she wondered, if she knew the price he had made another woman pay to recover her brown satin?

He had had little to say to her since then, having turned his attention to the red-headed horsewoman she had today identified, from the servants' gossip at the back of the church, as Mrs Covington-Pym. She wondered what he could have to say to her now, not expecting it to be pleasant. Not much caring. Since what
had
been pleasant lately? What
had
turned out even half-way right?

‘Miss Adeane, you are looking unwell.'

Was she? She realized that she was feeling it too, frozen to the marrow in this bitter East wind which kept whipping her cloak off her shoulders as contemptuously as if it had been made of pocket-handkerchieves instead of tablecloths, her stomach hollow and aching, her head feeling light and aching a little too. But that was only because she had eaten nothing since last night and had been so furious this morning about her father's gall in writing that damnably cheerful letter. Nothing worse than that. Just lack of food and bad temper coming together, which never did her any good.

‘I'm quite all right, thank you. Just cold.'

‘You are not expecting a child by any chance, are you?'

She opened her eyes wide and amazed, and then lowered them as she made a rapid calculation. Since he had troubled to enquire, then he might be willing to help. Should she tell him yes, he had made her pregnant, and see if he would give her a guinea or two to put it right? That way she could buy a little warmth and cheer for Christmas and how would he ever know that she had lied?

‘No. I'm cold, that's all.'

She felt him watching her and, ill at ease beneath his scrutiny, said quickly. ‘Everybody seems to be going off to the wedding-breakfast. Shouldn't you?'

He gave her the gleaming smile she detested.

‘Are you dismissing me, Miss Adeane?'

‘They won't be liking it if you're late.'

She'd be there in good time herself, given half a chance, to eat their game pies and their plum cakes and drink their wine, to stand by their log fires to warm herself. Oh God – it was going to be a terrible winter. She could feel it coming. Ice and snow and killing damp, sore chests and feet and hands, the stand-pipe frozen over, coal and candles coming to an end, no water, no heat, no money, from now until March at the soonest.

And Liam's cough.

‘I won't be late,' he said and it took her a moment to remember that they were speaking of Miss Dallam's wedding-breakfast. ‘I drive rather faster than these upright commercial gentlemen. Because they tend to worry, you see, about spoiling their Sunday suits and their dignity. They can't risk a roll in the gutter, can they now, with all their factory-hands looking on? So they go sure and steady. I don't. And perhaps I know a short-cut or two to Frizingley Hall, which ought not to surprise you …'

‘Oh?' She was barely listening to him. She was just cold.
Cold
. She just wanted to go home and had started to worry about the hour it would take her to get there, the sorry state of her boots, the snow coming on.

‘I was born there, Miss Adeane. They are all very much aware of
that
.'

‘Oh,' she said again, not much caring. And then, remembering it would be unwise to cross him, added quickly, ‘I don't know where I was born.'

She had never given much thought to it either. She very much doubted that when she got home, if she ever did, she would think it worth asking her mother.

‘In your case,' he said, setting a well-shod foot casually upon a gravestone, his warm and wonderful fur cloak eddying snugly around it, ‘it can hardly matter.'

‘No. I suppose not. Any old scrap-heap would do.'

He laughed. ‘My dear young lady, why so bitter? Did the fairies take your cradle to the wrong address? Ought it to have been a palace?'

She shrugged. If palaces were well-heated, yes.
I'll make you a queen in England, Odette my love
. She heard her father's voice somewhere in her aching head speaking those words, making his wild promises. Breaking every one. Had he even married her mother, she wondered, other than by common law, by simply announcing their intention of being together? Like the Rattries, she supposed, who would never have had the money for a marriage licence or to put in the vicar's collecting plate. Nor have seen the sense to it if they had.

Marriages then, like palaces and warm fires and good soles on one's shoes, were just refinements for the rich. Captain Goldsborough, wrapped in his thick, black fur, and with a little time to while away until the road should be clear of wedding-carriages, appeared to be telling her so.

‘Marriage is only a device, after all,' he said, ‘by which property can be inherited. A man only starts to worry about the virginity of his bride or the virtue of his wife when he wants to breed an heir. And if he has nothing to leave behind – no counting houses full of money like these pompous millmasters, or no land, no
name
like those of us who are rather less common – then why take the trouble?'

She didn't really know about that. But one thing had caught her attention.

‘Common? Do you think the millmasters
common
?'

He looked very much amused. ‘I have met no species commoner. Nor so clumsy. The only thing that distinguishes the Dallams from the vulgar, upstart herd of Braithwaites and Colcloughs and the rest is that John-William Dallam had the imagination to buy the manor and leave it relatively unscathed. Although his wife's chintz chaircovers bring on a certain nausea whenever I am obliged to call.'

‘She hates it there.' Cara realized she had enjoyed telling him that. ‘She wants to move to the country. To Far Flatley, wherever that is …'

He threw back his head and laughed, very heartily. The landlord of an unsavoury city tavern. The owner of every thieves'kitchen in St Jude's. Goldsborough of Frizingley Hall. Contemptuous, in all his guises, of the pretensions of these new-made millionaires.

‘It is Lark country. Covington-Pym country. Your little Mrs Dallam will never survive it. The exquisite Miss Linnet Gage may do better. Her father was a cousin of the Cheshire Bartram-Hyndes, she tells me.'

‘Do you know
her
?' Instinctively Cara bristled, knowing her enemies, ready to defend herself.

‘Only slightly. The lady is looking for a husband and she has been about the world sufficiently to know that I am not one of those. And, in any case, the Bartram-Hynde side of her nature, which might have made her interesting, has been somewhat watered down, one finds, by her mother – a cotton-spinner's daughter with social ambitions, I believe, from some dreary middle-class suburb somewhere or other. Miss Gage wishes to be respectable.'

‘Is that wrong?'

‘Dull. And timid. Like all these posturing middle-class women are timid. So terrified of doing the wrong thing that they do nothing at all – except bleat like sheep about their petty rules and regulations and their morality. A sorry crew, Miss Adeane. Setting up their own gods in their own mealy-mouthed image. Thrift and Economy. How very thrilling. One wonders how many symphonies were ever composed or how many masterpieces created with that. And those castrated accents of theirs, making sure one knows exactly what everything has cost. Working five-year-old children to death in their mines and mills and breeding their own daughters to swoon at the sight of an injured sparrow. Believing, as fervently as they
say
they believe in their Almighty, that money can make up for anything, even bad taste and bad manners.'

‘It can.' If she believed in anything at all then it was that.

‘To you, perhaps, Cara.'

‘Then why do you attend their weddings?'

‘For my amusement. To see the efforts they make to be ladies and gentlemen and the constant strain it puts them under. To see how far I can go with them, sometimes. To watch them pretending not to know all the things about me which I take not the least trouble to conceal. Things they won't admit so that they can keep on asking me to dinner – because my name is Goldsborough. And they would like to buy a name to go with the millions. Felix Lark has put his up for sale, after all. The first young lady ready to pay off the mortgages on his land can be Lady Lark tomorrow.'

‘You haven't got any land left, though – have you?' But her spite – for such it was – did not dismay him.

‘Oh yes – my dear – I have. There are a great many acres in St Jude's and thereabouts. Growing a very adequate crop, in their fashion, I do assure you.'

‘Rents, you mean? So you don't despise money, really – do you?'

And she had no way of knowing how hungrily her eyes had fastened upon his fur.

‘By no means. When used with style and not exclusively to breed one fortune from another in a bank vault, as these people do. Money is for decorating life, Cara – one way or another. For acquiring pleasures. And powers. And not being ashamed of them. For opening doors and not giving a damn about what anybody else has to say to it. But these people use theirs to make strait-jackets to strangle each other. Marie Moon did well to stay away.'

‘Was she invited?'

‘I am sure she was not. Could our good Christian Mrs Dallam possibly expose her daughter, and her friends'daughters, to a woman like Marie, who has shown herself on a public stage for money, and lived with one man while married to another? One quite sees that she could not. Although Adolphus Moon, of course, is another matter. He is a drunkard and a profligate and has certain amorous peculiarities which even Marie – and sometimes the law – finds hard to tolerate. But all our tender young ladies can be exposed to him quite happily because he has never been
caught
. At least, not precisely in the act of anything Mrs Dallam would not care to know about. Or anything he has not been able to hush up. So Adolphus Moon can be received. So can Audrey Covington-Pym who is the most accomplished whore of my acquaintance. Because
she
has not been caught either, or not so blatantly that one has had to stop pretending to look the other way. And Audrey has never been on the stage, or left her husband, or made a false move in public in any direction.'

‘I am sure Mrs Dallam doesn't know all that.'

‘I am sure
Mr
Dallam does. And Miss Linnet Gage, who would marry Adolphus Moon herself, like a shot, if she got the chance.
And
put up with him, as well – like poor Marie.'

‘
Poor
Marie?'

‘Money again, Miss Adeane? I don't doubt he pays her well. Which brings me to what I really have to say to you … You
are
cold, aren't you?'

She believed she was ready to expire with it. The churchyard had emptied, the wedding-carriages had rolled away, taking their fragile gaiety with them to another world so far as Cara was concerned. Here, in
her
world, an icy wind was gathering force and malice, preparing to freeze the path beneath her feet, aim fierce arrows of hail and sleet at her cringing back, bury her – unless she could drag herself up St Jude's Hill fast enough – in snow.