A Song Twice Over (87 page)

She paused again, gulped once again, most painfully, for breath.

‘Does he love you?' Gemma said.

‘I have no idea. He made up his mind to have me. He has me. And he is generous. His demands are less burdensome, I suppose, and the material rewards greater than one might expect as a paid companion somewhere in the Punjab. So I calculated. And it saves me, if only in my own eyes and Magda's, from the brand of spinsterhood. I may be a whore, of course, but I am no longer an old maid. That matters to me.'

‘Will it last?'

Linnet shrugged, the fire out of her now, only its cold and bitter ashes remaining. ‘I shall make it my business to see that it does. I shall have to, shall I not? Since who else would have me now?'

‘It may surprise you …'

‘No, Gemma. Don't talk to me of country doctors and parsons. Don't talk to me of enterprising women like Cara Adeane either. I was not bred to be a drudge in a vicarage or to open a shop, I was educated and trained to be the wife of a gentleman. Nothing else. And so …'

‘Yes?'

Tossing her silver head, setting her tulle frills swaying again, she smiled. ‘So I will take my share of the husband I am offered – my dear Benjammin – so ardent at the moment and so very disappointed in Magda who seems quite unable to give him any peace or satisfaction or even children …'

‘Can you?'

‘My dear –
of course
. I am the most magical mixture of peace and satisfaction any man could wish for. And as for children – Oh dear. He does so desire at least one child of his body. And although I have already turned thirty, so absolutely everybody keeps on so kindly reminding me – Who knows? Ardour cools. And I do believe Ben would always cherish the mother of his child. He might even marry her, in due course, should he find himself a widower, for the child's sake if not for the woman's. It would mean establishing me well away from Frizingley, of course. But I should not mind that. And Magda has never been very robust, you know. Do I shock you, Gemma?'

Gemma shook her head.

‘Then perhaps you think me foolish – or pitiful? I assure you I am not. I shall survive, Gemma, in my fashion …'

‘I hope so, Linnet.'

‘My dear – I am in no doubt of it. Will you wish me luck?'

‘Indeed.'

‘And I will do the same – poor little Gemma – for I know of no one who will need it as much as you.'

She left the room and Gemma sat down again, calm and smiling, her tranquil, competent hands immediately busy with pen and paper, her mind retaining Linnet's presence at no deeper level than the faint drift of lavender she had left on the air.

Linnet no longer worried her. Nor even her mother, who would be perfectly happy as the wife of Mr Dudley Stevens, her new husband. Only Gemma, who carried so much of him within her, truly remembering John-William. But he, too, would not grudge her this. She was busy now, and very sure of her own ability to perform each and every task – any task – she set herself. To make haste slowly, perhaps, but with the certainty not only of success but of great joy.

One step at a time. Tomorrow she would go and tell Miss Adeane what had happened to Daniel. And then there was the matter of his defence, his accommodation and treatment during his sentence, a level expanse – she rather thought – of happy, useful years to come, a whole new world of experience and experiment, of deep fulfilment, for her newfound, firm and steady feet to tread.

She had been thoroughly trained in the art of waiting. It would not be much longer now.

Frizingley had been shaken for a moment, no one denied that, but the Chartist dust soon settled, as the Luddite dust had settled years before, as it is the nature of all dust to settle, allowing life to continue very much as the Braithwaites and the Larks believed it should. A few arrests were made. Of the Chartist contingent which had set out for London one or two did not return but as these men had been known, in the first place, as discontented husbands rather than political activists, it was considered to be a private matter and left alone.

The dust was allowed to settle there too, the whole annoying episode of Chartism easily forgotten had it not been for the extraordinary insistence of Gemma Gage in paying for her own pet Chartist's defence. Shocking, of course. But, with neither father nor husband left to restrain her, she might go to the devil, or to the bankruptcy court more likely, in her own sweet way. A matter of regret to some, of high glee to others, and occasioning universal sympathy with her mother, Mrs Amabel Dallam Stevens, who did not have sense enough, it appeared, to realize how miserable she ought to be, and with Miss Linnet Gage who had felt obliged to quit the Dallam residence, taking refuge in a small house on the outskirts of town with a maid-of-all-work and a cat.

Poor Linnet Gage: although, indeed, she bravely kept up her spirits by spending far more on dress and adornment – it was noted – than she had ever done, appearing fresh every morning, it seemed, in some new creation from Miss Adeane's clever hands. Gossamer-fine confections of tulle and silver gauze and sprigged organdie totally unlike the flamboyant, almost Oriental tastes of Frizingley's other Queen of Fashion, the feverish and somehow hungry Magda Braithwaite, thin as a stick and restless as a hot wind, parading herself all day and every day in stridently coloured satins, her gold bracelets jangling like fetters, the orange and emerald feathers in her hat as tall and unable to keep still as the lady herself.

Both Miss Gage and Mrs Braithwaite ceding first place for elegance, of course, to Mrs Marie Moon, the pale and lovely enchantress who had caught and held so many exceedingly willing victims in her spell. And, quite soon,
these
were the vital questions which Frizingley's upper echelon asked itself. If Marie Moon did not wish to marry again, as it seemed she did not, then to whom – when the time came – would she leave her money? To her pretty little Persian kitten Gussie Lark, or to Uriah Colclough, her spiritual adviser? Or had she, perhaps, some inconvenient relative, a sister or a child – a grandchild, even – hidden away in France? Would Miss Linnet Gage succeed, after all, in enticing Captain Goldsborough, or
someone
to the altar? Or could the hints concerning her virtue possibly be true? Could it really be that the chaotic Magda showered Linnet with invitations and drove her up and down in her carriage only because her husband forced her so to do, keeping her quiet with presents of jewellery and new pianos and – even worse – his occasional favours, like some kind of male harlot, in her bed? In which case might it not be advisable to keep a sharp lookout for any suspicious increase in Linnet's figure, although – to the chagrin of many – she seemed to be getting even more slender, Magda positively thin, while that other subject of scandal, Gemma Gage, had a bloom on her like a peach and a waistline that had not budged an inch.

Or had it? Miss Adeane would know.

‘Mrs Gage is looking very well, Miss Adeane?'

Cara nodded and smiled.

‘Miss Adeane – would you not agree that Miss Linnet Gage has a frail look about her these days?'

Cara murmured that she would.

‘Whereas Mrs Magda Braithwaite seems to be burning away quite to the bone – like a stick of firewood?'

Cara agreed with that too.

She had lost weight herself, although no one appeared to notice. Why should they? She could not sleep either, nor eat very much, which seemed ironic, now that she had, all to herself, a feather bed big enough for two and could afford any delicacy she wanted. As she could afford ‘time'and that strange substance called ‘leisure', once so desirable, now so perplexing, so heavy on her hands, such a void to be somehow and very inexpertly filled.

Work and struggle were both familiar to her. She understood the fight but was uncomfortable, it seemed, with the victory, if it could be called that. And now that her business was running smoothly, her customers loyal, her competition insignificant, her workrooms and her salesrooms competently staffed, her bank balance healthy and her cash-box beneath the floorboards always full, there were many times when, quite simply, she had no idea what to do.

She had achieved not merely her goal but her wildest dreams. What next? To have more of the same in a richer measure? She could do that now with half her mind, leaving the other half far too much liberty to pester her with inconvenient questions. Why? What now? What is it worth? To whom?
For
whom? She could not even pretend that she had done all this for herself. No. Why try? It had been done to save Odette and Liam from destitution. Had she been free to choose – had her father not so casually abandoned them – she would have thrown in her lot with Daniel Carey, and lived poor no doubt but, just possibly, happy. She was free now. Free and richer than she had ever expected. And the time for loving Daniel had passed. She accepted that without pain. Just as she accepted that there had never been a time for loving Luke. Yet she was empty and lonely. Empty in the presence of everything she had always wanted to fill her, lonely in a constant, ever-clamouring crowd.

Occasionally she had tea with Gemma Gage who, no longer caring what anyone had to say of her, was placidly making arrangements to rent a house in York should Daniel be detained in the Castle prison. Occasionally she dined with O'Halloran who kept the livery stable, or a certain railway engineer whenever he happened to be staying in Frizingley. Occasionally she took Madge Percy to the theatre and supper afterwards at a Leeds hotel. Once she spent three tedious days and nights at the sea. She wrote letters to her mother and her Aunt Teresa concerning the welfare of her son and wept a little, sometimes, at her aunt's refusal to allow her the satisfaction of declining to visit them by the simple process of not inviting her. She wrote letters to her son and gritted her teeth over his stilted replies. She walked on the moor with her dog, designed her dresses, cared for her face and her figure and the glossy sheen of her hair, sparkled – so long as anyone was looking – like the polished, faceted and hollow diamond Christie had made her.

She heard nothing from Luke although she had written to him several times since the Chartist troubles. She had seen Christie only in the distance, limping badly, and heard nothing from him, no message, no curt command, no word. He had let her go. Or cast her off. Her prayers, then – in his direction – had been answered. She was free of him too. Her own woman. Just as she had always wanted. Yet the sight of Oliver Rattrie in the foyer of the station hotel, raising his tall silk hat to her, his eyes no longer sore but horribly knowing, always caused her an uncomfortable pang. What could he tell her, she wondered? Had Christie replaced her? And how soon? And what did it matter? Now that she was free, why was it that she had suddenly lost all her enthusiasms and her mad urges to do this or that or the other? Now that she could do anything she pleased it seemed such a pity – such a waste – that nothing managed to please her any more. Or not enough to make a fuss about.

She was like a bird with the cage-door open and afraid to fly. How very stupid. Yet such birds did fly away eventually. Or almost always. Perhaps all she required was time to accustom herself to the astonishment of affluence and the perfect liberty of being needed by no one.

Her own woman.

‘I am so very easy and comfortable now,' she wrote to Odette, ‘I have trouble in thinking of something to want.'

A great trouble. She who had wanted everything the world had to offer at least twice over. What a death it was now, what a sorry decay of the spirit, to live in this dreary realm of plenty and peace. This flat pasturage, this safe harbour, where nothing challenged her. This tame and – oh, so stuffy, paradise.

And then towards the summer's end her housekeeper came to her most apologetically at breakfast time with the information that there was a ‘person'at her door who would not go away. An old woman tall enough to be a Grenadier guard, with a face like dusty granite, carrying something wrapped in a blanket shawl. A formidable old woman who could not be persuaded that Miss Adeane did not receive callers at this hour of the day and who had planted herself in the doorway like a gnarled old tree which might have been growing there, immovable and distinctly malevolent, for generations.

‘A Mrs Thackray,' the housekeeper said.

Throwing down her napkin and picking up her trailing taffeta skirts Cara ran downstairs as if to a lover, her pulses racing with the excitement of moorland water released from its winter confinement by the merest stirring of spring. Just one warm breeze. What more was needed? Just one breath from the past, and she was her bustling, busy self again. The nurturer, the provider, the bearer of fire and water that she had always been.

Was there news? Help to be given? Did someone need her again? Sairellen? So it was. Incredibly dusty and travel-stained as if she had come from Timbuctoo instead of Nottingham, and so old – so very old – so weary. Her craggy face hardly a woman's face any longer, stripped by grim endurance of its final femininity, Luke's face as it would be when he became an old and sorely tested man.

Luke's face. Where was he? How was it that he had allowed his mother to come here alone in that rusty old skirt and boots it would be kinder not to notice?

At least she could alter that.

She began to say many things and finish none of them. Her words, her cries of welcome, her questions over-flowing now like the same moorland streams which had been her pulse-beat a moment ago. To which Sairellen listened, impassive, unimpressed, apparently uncaring. The old Sairellen – except that she was so very much older – her arms folded, her eyes sardonic and grim, her mouth unyielding, humorous, and hard. And when Cara had finished. ‘He told me you'd take the child,' she said.

‘What child? Luke's child?'

‘Well of course, lass. Have a bit of sense. Who else's child do you think I'd have carried here from Nottingham?'