All the dear faces (71 page)

“
I presume Mr Macauley has an account with you, Mr Burton?"

“
Really, that is Mr Macauley's business, but . . ."

“
Surely it would be a simple matter to transfer the money from Miss Abbott's holdings to Mr Macauley's? You can put money in, I presume?""Well . . . yes . . ."

“
Then what is there to stop you? Miss Abbott will then, in effect, have bought the farm. At least she will have paid Mr Macauley three hundred pounds which ... "

“
Oh, Charlie, that is a splendid idea but I believe the price was two hundred guineas. I want Upfell Farm, of course I do, but I don't want it given to me by . . . Well, I want to feel that I have . . . Charlie, really you will know what I mean . . ."

“
I know exactly what you mean, Annie," and in his cool grey eyes there was a faint memory of the passionate love she had evoked in him once. He could no longer be stirred by that kind of emotion, he knew it now. It had been scourged out of him in the eight weeks he had hated her, been obsessed by her, suffered for her and had returned a different man; one remoulded and emptied of the masculine hungers he had once known. But in that moment as she turned to him in passionate relief he remembered how it had felt and he was very aware that Annie Abbott still suffered it
.

As they drove jubilantly back to Browhead — at least Annie was jubilant, for Phoebe kept repeating she couldn't make head nor tail of it and therefore, as yet, could see no reason for jubilation — Reed Macauley stood beside his wife, his arm supporting her weeping, fainting figure as the coffin which contained the body of her father was lowered into the ground
.

He had been about to board ship for America since he had heard there were many business opportunities to be found there and now seemed as good a time as any to go and see what they were. His affairs were all in order with men of integrity to keep them that way and his farm, efficiently run as he had designed it to be, would continue to flourish under the supervision of the factor he had employed
.

The news of his father-in-law's death could not be ignored. His wife's inheritance which, by the laws of the land, now belonged entirely to him, must be put in order, the estate settled, his father-in-law's mills organised, along
with his home, his servants, his wife and his daughter. His married daughter who had spent the last two years living the life of a 'daughter at home' or that of a widow, but was, in law, the wife of Reed Macauley
.

Those who stood about the grave exchanged furtive glances as Esmé Macauley clung to her husband in much the same way she had clung to Edmund Hamilton-Brown, whose widow was quite overlooked. Mrs Hamilton-Brown was composed, tearless, standing somewhat apart, as though the man who had been her husband had really been nothing to do with her, the right to grieve his death belonging solely to his daughter
.

The last mourner had left, the carriages following one another in an orderly line down the long gravelled driveway of Edmund's splendid house in Bradford. Reed stood, as was correct in a bereaved son-in-law, between his wife and his mother-in-law, shaking each hand which was held out to him, speaking the right words, knowing exactly what was in the curious minds of those who had come to pay their last respects to the hard-headed and ruthless businessman who had been Edmund Hamilton-Brown. There was a lot of money and how was his empty-headed daughter and his self-effacing wife to manage it without him? So was this husband of Esmé's to do it in his place? Run his mills and his home, his womenfolk, and if so were Mr and Mrs Macauley to live together again as man and wife, as, shockingly, they had not done for the past two years
?

It was in Esmé's eyes as she sat down in the chair opposite the man she had married four years ago, the look of pleading, the desperate look of an animal at bay, one that knows its fate, its very life hangs in the balance and will be decided in the next few moments.

“
I think I will go and rest, my dear," Esmé's mother murmured, smiling in a vague way at Reed as he opened the door for her, but in her eyes was an awareness of the importance of the next hour, not only to Esmé and her husband, but to herself since her own future lay in the hands of Reed Macauley.

“
May I ring for tea, Reed, or would you prefer .. . perhaps a brandy?"

“
I think brandy, Esmé, but don't trouble the servants. I will help myself.
”

A silence fell and still Esmé's eyes held that imploring expression. He smiled, gently, for she was so young.

“
Don't worry, my dear," he said in the softest way he knew how. "I am not about to drag you back to Long Beck, nor make you do anything you don't wish to do. You are my wife and I know the law gives into my hands everything you have inherited from your father but I don't intend to use it to enforce my will on yours. Your father protected you and now I will continue to . . ."

“
No, Reed, you don't understand." Her head rose proudly and her eyes were steady. What he had thought to be the entreaty of a frightened child to be told that all was well, was in fact that of a woman who is afraid that she is about to be made to do what the man who owned her, demanded that she do. "I am your wife," she went on, "and as such I must obey you, but you made it very clear two years ago that you . . . did not care for me. My father was incensed and was determined to punish you. I was . . . hurt . . . offended. I was a discarded wife and my pride was wounded. My father had made a pet of me and I had grown up believing, as he taught me to believe, that I had only to ask for something and it would be mine. Papa was a . . . ruthless man, I know that now, one who did not like to be crossed, something like yourself, and when you . . . directed your affections elsewhere he took it personally and wanted to hurt you. I I. . . dissuaded him. I loved him very much and shall miss him. His death was hard for me and I shall grieve." Her eyes brimmed with tears and she dashed her hand across them in the way small children do and for the first time Reed Macauley felt a warmth towards her which he had never known before.

“
I'm sorry, Esmé."

“
Let me finish, Reed."

“
Of course."

“
I . . . do not want to be your wife, Reed, and I am
afraid that if I ... " She took a deep breath which lifted her magnificent bosom, ". . . my mother and I are used to a certain standard of living . . ." She smiled a little, ". . . luxury I suppose you might call it, and now if you are . . . if you . . ."

“
It is up to me how you, indeed IF you are to continue to live in it? Is that what you are saying?"

“
Yes. It is not unknown for a man to force his wife to live in penury whilst he spends her fortune on his mistress." Her expression was defiant and Reed was made very aware that his child-bride was no longer a child but a woman of strength and maturity and he wondered on how it had come about.

“
I have no mistress, Esmé." He said it mildly. "But . . . the woman . . . ?"

“
From Browhead?"

“
Yes, I thought . . . that is . . ."

“
No, it is all over. She loves . . . elsewhere. There is a man . . ." The look of pain in his eyes was fleeting but Esmé saw it.

“
I'm sorry, Reed. I know how you must feel."

“
You, Esmé?" He shook his head wonderingly for what did Esmé Hamilton-Brown know of love?

“
You still love her?"

“
Oh, yes."

“
Then we are a sorry pair, Reed." She rose from her chair and crossed the rich comfort of the deep-piled carpet Edmund Hamilton-Brown had thought appropriate for himself and his family to walk on. Reed was staring sightlessly at the manicured expanse of Edmund's spring garden, his spring garden now, he supposed indifferently, but he turned at her words. She was almost twenty-two, a beautiful young woman, composed, elegant in her fashionable and beautifully made black mourning gown. Her skin was smooth, flawless, her mouth full and rosy and in her cornflower blue eyes was a serenity, a look of . . . of something he did not at first recognise but when he did his expression of amazement made her smile.

“
Yes, you are right." Her voice was soft, marvelling.

“
You . . . ?"

“
I am in love, Reed, and more importantly, I am loved." She put a hand on his arm, hesitant, not awfully sure what his reaction would be since a man does not often hear his wife confess to loving another man. Though she knew he did not love her, might he not take it amiss to know that she did not love him either and might he not show his displeasure with the violence he was certainly entitled to feel?

“
Esmé, I am speechless," but nevertheless he had begun to smile and she relaxed, ready to lean against him in the way she had leaned on her father. But he was not her father, he was her husband and what was to become of them? That was what she wanted him to tell her
.

She said so.

“
What do you want, Esmé?"

“
I would like to marry him but of course, that is impossible. As you well know."

“
I do indeed." His smile was weary and Esmé Macauley was saddened by the change which had taken place in this compellingly vigorous husband of hers. He was still handsome, tall, lean, hard, but the whimsical humour which he had allowed the world to see now and again was gone entirely. The brilliant blue of his eyes seemed dimmed as they gazed beyond her, beyond the room to something a great way off, remote, aloof, far removed from anything which had once concerned him. His dark hair had a dusting of grey above his ears and there were deep lines scored from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His eyebrows dipped in a scowl, fierce and challenging, but it seemed to her the challenge had gone leaving only the habit it had formed over the years.

“
What do you want, Esmé?" he asked again.

“
I want to be . . . with him but I cannot do it without your consent."

“
My consent!" He turned to smile in amazement.

“
You . . . hold the purse strings, Reed. As your wife I know I would be kept in comfort for the rest of my life even if we did not live together, but if I was to go away
with . . . my lover . . . Oh, yes, he is my lover in the true sense of the word, though how I kept it from Papa I shall never know. We were discreet and I suppose lovers always find a way, and we did. He has no money, you see . . ." Her face was radiant, eager, hopeful, a quality of stillness and awe about her as though she had discovered something not revealed to other women, those who were not loved by the man who loved her. "He is the third son, you see," she went on. "There is nothing for him. He is a soldier but he intends to leave the army and then, if you agree and will . . . it is my father's money, Reed, and my inheritance, after all, but . . ." She pulled herself together, aware that her future lay in this man's hands.

“
He would be content to . . . I can think of no other way to put it, Esmé, he will live on your money? What I allow you to have?"

“
You will not refuse it, Reed, despite it being my father's, and now mine. Is there a difference? And if I was free he would marry me for it."

“
And you don't mind that?"

“
He loves me, but he has been brought up knowing that second and third sons of . . . his class, must marry where there is money."

“
And you?"

“
I love him. He loves me. We want to . . . we intend to. . ."

“
What, Esmé? If I allow it, what will you do?"

“
Live abroad. In Italy. We can be man and wife there where no one knows us."

“
And your mother?"

“
She will remain here quite happily. She and I were never close. She will scarcely know I am gone."

“
I am quite overwhelmed," he said slowly, sadly, so that Esmé Macauley was left in no doubt that this quiet man who was her husband was very hurt indeed, but not by her. Damaged, weary, burdened with something he could barely lift, let alone carry. He was not at all put out that his wife not only wished to run off to Italy with her lover but that he was being asked to finance it
.

Reed should have been outraged but all he felt was a small tremor of amusement. Once he would have been overjoyed for now he had the means to sue Esmé for divorce. Desertion and adultery, which were the two causes needed for a man to take his case to the courts but now, now it was too late. The woman he loved was a liar and a cheat. A woman of easy virtue who had betrayed his love. A breaker of hearts who had shared her favours between himself and the man who had moved back into her bed six months ago
.

It was all too late
.

Chapter
39

Charlie Lucas moved in to Upfell Farm in August, and Phoebe, Phoebe Lucas as she was by then, went with him
.

Charlie had come to Annie at the end of June, quiet and steady as he had been ever since he was brought back from Penrith. There was still a certain endearing sweetness about him, a twinkling sense of humour that shone occasionally in his pale, cat-like, grey eyes, but the lively wit, the jaunty, devil-may-care impudence which had drawn her to him at Rosley had been purged out of him and she was sorry for it. She must take the blame for it, she knew that and if there was anything she could do to atone for it, she would, and when he asked her for Phoebe, though she could not have been more astonished, she could do nothing else but agree.

“
You did not know, Annie?" he asked her quietly.

“
That you and Phoebe were . . . ? No, I'm ashamed to say I didn't. I have been somewhat involved in the running of two farms, Charlie, which is really no excuse since you are both my dearest friends and I should have seen it," but even as she said it she wondered why she should apologise, for nothing in Phoebe's manner, or in the way she spoke to Charlie, still calling him 'Mr Lucas', had indicated that there was anything between them other than the affectionate regard they had always known.

“
She loves me, Annie."

“
And you?"

“
I seem to have lost my talent for grand passion, my dear, but I am left with a great capacity for friendship. Affection, if you like which is very soothing with none of the wounding effects of what is known as 'being in love'
.

I think Phoebe understands this. I know she does. She is . . . pregnant, Annie. I did not mean it to happen but you have been busy elsewhere, and Phoebe and I have been thrown into one another's company a great deal. She is a lovely young woman, oh, not in the sense most men mean when they use those words though I find her most pleasing to look at. She is fresh and wholesome, strong but at the same time gentle and wise. She . . . steadies me, Annie, and when I made love to her . . ."

“
Please, Charlie, that is something between you and Phoebe."

“
No, I want you to realise that . . . she is not second best. You know how I felt about you but that only happens once in a lifetime, to a man, or a woman I suppose. She was reluctant at first, believing in some way that I belonged to you, but when I showed her that I didn't and that I was not merely giving in to a male fancy, that I meant her no offence, and wanted to marry her, she . . . she allowed me . . . no, she shared with me the greatest sweetness a man and a woman can share. We both felt . . . much joy. She is very honourable, Annie, and will go no further unless she has your permission, despite the child, and really, I don't know what I have done to deserve such bounty, such a rich content as she gives me. So, we want to be married as soon as possible.. The child is due in October ..

“
October!
”

He grinned, something of the old Charlie in him, impish, even a little wicked, as though he knew quite well that what he had done would not be considered gentlemanly. Almost as though the man of the house had made free with the housemaid whilst the mistress looked the other way, but that had not been it at all, and Annie should know it. He was a man, of course, and Phoebe, though he did not, naturally, say so to Annie, was soft and pliant and rounded beneath her prim apron and cap, and it had been no hardship to make love to her
.

Annie, who had been sitting at the table beneath the window making up the wages for the men she had
employed to help with the clipping of her sheep, and who, now that it was finished, were moving on to a farm further north, stood up and moved to the open door. Phoebe was in the dairy and Annie could hear the regular 'thump, thump' of the butter churn. Phoebe was singing, some song the four of them had sung before Cat died and which Charlie had taught them. She was happy. It was in her voice, Annie could hear it. She was loved and wanted, needed, and inside her was a child. The child of the man she loved. For four months she and Charlie had been .. . Dear God, what word could she use . . . courting?, right here under Browhead's roof, it appeared, and not one whisper of it had reached her own ears. Had they slept together on the other side of the wall, making love . . .
?

For an appalling moment she could hardly believe her own . . . what was it? envy . . . outrage . . . jealousy? Was that it, a bitterness that Phoebe had what Annie Abbott would never know again? A part of her had closed down when Reed left. She had shut it away, set it in ice whilst she busied herself with her ambitious, endless plans, overburdening herself since it was the only way she could put out of her mind the totally consuming obsession of her love for Reed Macauley. She had directed an absolute concentration of will and energy into the exhausting organisation of running two farms, two efficient farms, at the same time doing her best to make a decent profit from both. She had Charlie, of course, and had he not been there, going at her command wherever he was needed, she could not have done it, and yet, behind her back .. . no, no! How could she say it like that, as though they had been underhand and deceitful, as though they should have asked her permission. Had she asked what they thought when she had gone up to the tarn on the fell to make love to Reed? Had she cared? Had she given them a thought as she had indulged in the rapture which, it seemed, was now theirs?

“
Annie?" Charlie's voice broke into her reverie and she swung back to him. "We'll do very well together, you know, Phoebe and I, really we will. We . . . both need. . . someone and . . . I hope you will agree to it but we felt . . . Lord, this is difficult, but we felt that perhaps we might take over the farmhouse at Upfell. Phoebe wouldn't hear of it at first. She couldn't leave you, she said, not on your own but . . . well . . . I cannot help but think that it would be . . . inappropriate for the three of us, four soon, to remain under one roof, can you? Not after . . .
”

Annie smiled ruefully, then held out her hands to him. He jumped up and took them, smiling too, then pulled her into his arms, hugging her as a friend would, and she was made very aware that Charlie Lucas's affections and loyalty lay elsewhere now
.

There was a step behind them and when Annie turned there was Phoebe, flushed, a little dishevelled, a shining tendril of dark hair wisping over each ear. She was stiff, even shy, inclined to drop her eyes since it was very evident that Annie knew. She placed the crock of butter she carried on the table and one hand fell to rest protectively on her rounded stomach as she waited.

“
Phoebe, oh, Phoebe, do you know how happy I am for you? For you both?" Annie held out her arms and her tears fell, for her own sad state and for Phoebe's happy one. Phoebe moved into them and the two friends clung together lovingly
.

The parish rocked with it! The banns were read in the Church of St Bridget by the lake, the woman from Brow-head and her two companions there to hear them and the gasp which sighed round the church and up into its high rafters drowned the parson's voice for a full five seconds. The congregation had wondered, mouths agape, eyes wide, why the three of them should have chosen to come to church on this particular Sunday, since they had never done so before. The man was in a decent suit of good grey broadcloth, his shirt-front and stock a snowy white, his hair neatly brushed, his boots with a high polish on them. The woman who held his arm, the other one, was dressed in blue, a lovely lavender blue with a tiny white lace cap on her dark and gleaming hair. It was noticed that the man was most solicitous of her, placing her gently in
a pew as though she was made of spun glass. Had she been ill then? they asked one another, though she didn't look ill. Far from it. She was rosy and rounded but even then they did not guess for all eyes went to her, the one who had fascinated them ever since she had come home. The woman from Browhead
.

It had been – again – the talk of the parish when it was learned that she, the hussy, actually owned Upfell. That somehow or other she had got together the money to purchase the farm from Reed Macauley, or had she paid for it in a coinage of a different kind? But if so, where was Mr Macauley? Why was he not here collecting what was owed him? Dear Lord, the questions were endless, and the answers very hard to come by, and now the congregation watched her with avid speculation, as though some of them might be written on her composed face
.

She wore the tawny gown which had been new on the day the deeds to Upfell Farm had been put in her hands. Her hair was tied back with a length of tawny ribbon and allowed to hang down her back in that defiant tumble to which they were well accustomed. No bonnet for her but a spray of creamy roses pushed carelessly behind her ear. No shawl, nor gloves, nor hymn book but a posy of the same roses picked from a hedgerow somewhere and which, later, she was seen to place on her child's grave
.

The reverend gentleman's voice tried to rise above the sibilant hiss which moved about the congregation. It took them several minutes to convince themselves that the names he announced, Charles Edward Lucas and Phoebe Abbott, were correct! Surely he meant Annie Abbott? He was known to be somewhat absent-minded, but even he would not make such a dreadful error! Then it was seen that Charlie Lucas held the hand of the maidservant, smiling at her with every evidence of affection and the congregation fell silent, stunned by the realisation that Annie Abbott's lover was to marry her maidservant – and what were they to make of that? they asked one another the moment they got out of the church
.

The wedding in August was attended by very few, but
those who came were Annie Abbott's good friends. She had not many in the parish but the tiny congregation which gathered for the ceremony smiled and nodded as Phoebe and Charlie exchanged their vows, the child they were to have kicking quite visibly beneath the stretched lavender blue of its mother's gown
.

Sally Garnett was there, a changed woman now that she had charge of her life and the ordering of her simpleminded, harmless husband. She was clean, decent, her rosy face wearing that scrubbed and shiny look her own mother had once scoured into it, her plain brown dress tidy, her bonnet joyful with a bobbing spray of roses from about the door of her own spruce cottage. Her six children, the last born two years ago, were being `minded' by her sister Mim who, it turned out, was a living replica of her mother, Aggie. Sally had `pulled herself together' now, she said cheerfully to Annie, without Bert's nightly embrace and the steady stream of children which had resulted from it. She had a few sheep on her brother-in-law's intakes and a bit of land on which to grow her oats and bigg and vegetables, and with Bert, who did as he was told without a murmur, and a chap who worked for Mim's husband, to help, they did very well. What with the cash they had got for Upfell which Mr Macauley had .. . now what was the word? . . . oh yes, invested for them, and which brought in a decent little sum each month, they were doing right nicely. He'd been that good to them, Mr Macauley, sorting out all that there legal stuff and making sure that she and the children wanted for nothing and were well and comfortable in their cottage at Binsey. She seemed to bear him no ill-will for the 'heft' he had given. to Bert . . . oh, aye, she and the rest of the community were well aware who it was who had beaten Bert, the community blaming Annie for the whole thing, naturally, Bert's part in it not proved, it seemed to them, but Sally knew, oh, yes, indeed! Hadn't she lived with Bert for eight or so years and who knew better than she his nasty disposition? She could well believe he had set upon Annie and he had got what was his due, the bugger. No, it had
all turned out for the best, and, following Annie's example, Sally was making a fair go of it in her little cottage up Binsey way. She'd always admired Annie's gumption in running her farm and she could see no reason why she herself could not do the same
.

Maggie and Jake Singleton were there, walking over from Long Beck in their best 'setting-off' clothes. They had another boy whom they had called Thomas, Tom for short, and he and Jonty crowed and laughed throughout the service to no one's annoyance, not even the parson's, for he was well aware that this was not your ordinary sort of wedding. Will Twentyman and his Eliza, in their own finery, came down from Gillthrop, defying the disapproval of their 'regulars', or at least their regulars' wives, for Annie was beginning to find favour with the men of the community for her sheer bloody-minded determination to succed in the face of all she had endured, which they were inclined to admire
.

A few curious women servants from Long Beck crept into the back of the church, among them Lily Gill and Nell Tyson, the two who had wrapped Annie about in their compassion when Cat was killed. There was Willy North, and Dobby Hawkins with his fiddle and not one refused to walk over to the farmhouse at Upfell after the simple service and sample the thin, currant 'bridecake' Phoebe herself had made the day before. There was no attempt to 'throw the stocking' for it was very evident that the new Mrs Lucas was no virgin going to her marriage bed, indeed, though there was plenty of ale and a sip of port for the ladies and everyone was flushed and mellow when they bid the newly married couple a long life and a happy one before they took their leave, they could sense the strange melancholy which was in the air despite the bride's obvious happiness
.