Greygallows (12 page)

We had a suite of rooms, but I did not wonder what they consisted of, beyond my own handsomely furnished chamber with its fireplace and huge four-poster bed. Clare vanished discreetly when the young woman came to help me prepare for bed. I tried to preserve an air of aloof dignity, but it was impossible; my heart was pounding with such violence that it shook my entire body and was visible in my throat and wrists. The landlord's wife must have been about my own age, but she would have made two of me. As she bustled about the room, poking the fire to a blaze and tidying away my clothes, she kept glancing at me with a mixture of compassion and merri
ment. A practical country girl, she
was,
nevertheless, accustomed to meeting the gentry, and she knew her place; but just before she left, her kind heart overcame her sense of propriety. Tentatively she put one plump brown hand on my shoulder and, smiling, whispered.

'He's a fine, handsome man, his Lordship. Don't be afraid, my lady; you'll like it fine ...'

Blushing at her own temerity, she ran out of the room.

Stiffly I climbed the steps into the big bed and sat there, bolt upright, waiting. I had some handsome frilled nightcaps, but my little friend had not wanted me to wear them. Knots and knotted things were bad luck for a bride. Vaguely I wondered why. Then the glimmer of an answer came to me, and I felt myself blushing, clear up from under the collar of my lace-trimmed nightgown. I felt a little warmer when it receded—or perhaps it was the memory of the girl's blunt, kind words that warmed me. I was still nervous, so much so that the lace frills on the bosom of my gown fluttered with the beating of my heart, as if in a high wind. But a new worry had partly replaced the old. Would he find me pleasing?

When the door finally opened, an absurd little yelp burst out of my throat. I must have presented a laughable sight as I perched there, with the coverlet drawn up to my chin and my pale face and enormous eyes peeping out over the top of it. Clare looked so very large standing in the doorway. He was fully dressed.

With slow, measured steps he approached the bed. My head turned to follow his approach. He had no need of the steps to reach me, he was so
tall.

'You have all you wish?' he asked. 'They have made you comfortable?'

I nodded mutely.

His eyes dropped to my throat, where the telltale pulse beat madly; and then, at last, a ghost of expression softened the set pallor of his face.

'You must be very tired, after the fatigue of the day,' he said gently. 'Rest well.'

Leaning over, he kissed me on the forehead. His lips were cold as ice. He left the room without looking at me again. The door closed softly.

I cried myself to sleep, alone in the big bed, with the eerie shadows of the firelight darting around the room; but I would have found it difficult to say what it was I wept for.

He was courteous enough to consult my feelings as to whether we should proceed, or seek temporary accommodations for that night, but I knew what his choice would be. Up to this time our rooms had been arranged for in advance; they were select inns, where his Lordship was known and where he could expect the best. A humdrum hostelry, overcrowded by reason of bad weather,
would be offensive. So I said I did not mind being late in arriving, and saw his face lighten. 'You will find comfort at the end of the ride,' he promised. 'We were expected today, and when I give an order, it is obeyed. No one will retire until we arrive, or until I send a message that we will not be coming.'

The skies began to clear around sundown, and we were treated to the spectacle of an angry crimson sun, setting in a sea of livid clouds. Wrapped in fur rugs, I started to drop off to sleep. A sudden jolt wakened me; then I heard Clare's voice raised in angry remonstrance.

'I canna help it, your Lordship,' the coachman's voice floated back. 'A bridge is out ahead, because of the rains. We mun go through the town, or go back.'

With a muttered word Clare closed the window. He thought me still asleep and in his present mood I chose not to disabuse him. From my corner I could see out of the nearest window, but the view held nothing to attract me.

The smells should have told me we were passing through a considerable town; they were as strong as anything I had encountered in London. The houses lining the narrow street were as crowded as the dreadful dwellings of Seven Dials, but they were not as old. Small, square boxes, their drab colour and dilapidated condition were visible even in the thickening dusk. Then I saw movement near the farther end of the street, movement and the flicker of a light. Forms took shape; and I watched them approach with dilating eyes.

They were shapes that might have been spawned by darkness and vile, stinking streets. Twisted,
dwarfish, deformed, not a single one of that silent, stumbling procession walked upright. The weaker ones leaned on, and were supported by, the stronger. The rags that clothed them did not conceal their wasted limbs. Dark legend walked the face of the earth, and it was fitting that it should walk by night; the troglodyte demons who dwelled underground must have looked like this.

Then one of the walkers strayed near the coach, and the lamps shone on its face. I let out a sound that brought Clare spinning around.

'They are children,' I gasped. 'Human children...'

His hands on my shoulders, Clare pulled me forcibly from the window.

'I avoid the town when I can. Unfortunate, that we should be passing through at the hour when the day shift at the mill is ending.'

'Children,' I repeated in horror. 'The one I saw could not have been more than—'

'It must have been at least nine years old,' Clare interrupted. 'The law prohibits the employment of persons under that age.'

By its size the child had looked to be about five years old. Either the law was being evaded, or the conditions of employment were such as to produce this deformity. I could not decide which was worse.

'But there was a law,' I chattered. 'A law about young children working. Just this past year—'

Clare interrupted me a second time, which should have warned me; normally he was punctilious about such things.

'You refer, I presume, to the Mines Act, which did indeed prohibit the use of women and children
underground. Though how you know of such unfeminine matters ... Your radical admirer, I presume.'

I did not reply to this comment, and after a moment Clare released my shoulders and settled back into his seat. I could tell he was annoyed.

It
had
been the mines to which Jonathan referred; I remembered only too vividly the words in which he described the terrible state of the children. His description had distressed me, but I was beginning to see that mere words could not possibly convey the true horror of the situation. And those pitiful infants were not even miners, they were millworkers. Mills produced cloth— cotton, wool, silk. What could they be like, to produce as well such frightful human wrecks? For the first time, but not the last, I wished I had listened to Jonathan instead of trying to close my ears. He had been right. I could not escape from misery and suffering by fleeing London.

Once again a journey marking a transition in my life had been shadowed by a grim portent. In London I had forgotten the beggars and the stinking streets when they were succeeded by the glitter of Regent Street. This time the ugly reality was not to be dismissed so easily.

Midnight.

The word has sepulchral connotations; it is the hour when graves traditionally yawn and the powers of evil are let loose. For me, on my first night at Greygallows, the sound of the clock striking the hour brought thoughts both dark and depressing.

I had reached that point of nervous and physical exhaustion in which the body cannot take the sleep it craves. After the encounter in the mill town we had a drive of almost an hour over bad roads, soggy with rain and dark as a windowless room. My first view of the house was not reassuring; despite the welcome glow of lighted windows it looked forbidding, its outlines muffled by the tall dark trees that hemmed it in.

Then there was the business of meeting all the servants. Clare had not exaggerated when he said his orders were obeyed; despite the hour, and our delay, the household staff was drawn up to greet us. The housekeeper, a stout little woman with a head of exquisite snowy hair, was named Mrs. Andrews. She was a distant connection of the family. Her manner toward Clare verged on the obsequious; it was unpleasant, in a woman of her age and obvious refinement. Several times, as she supervised the details of our arrival, I caught her studying me with a sidelong, rather cunning look. It was natural enough; I was an unknown factor, whose attitude toward a dependent had yet to be learned.

After the damp cold of the journey the warm rooms, with their extravagant roaring fires, made me rather sleepy. Still I was curious, and desirous of seeing more of the house; it was a disappointment to hear Clare say, in his incisive fashion,

'Mrs. Andrews, her Ladyship will take a bowl of soup in her room and retire straightaway. Her state of health is not what one could wish; we must take precautions.'

'Yes, my lord.' Mrs. Andrews curtsied. 'Just as
you say. And you—'

'Will dine at once. Send Barton in to me first. I have some orders regarding the estate.' He bent formally over my hand. 'Good night, Lady Clare. Sleep well.'

With Mrs. Andrews puffing beside me, I went disconsolately up the stairs. Her efforts to assist me made me impatient as well as embarrassed; she needed my support, stout as she was, far more than I needed hers.

The first sight of my room brought an exclamation of admiration from me. Mrs. Andrews, who stood back to see my reaction, relaxed visibly, and the extent of her relief told me more about my husband, as master, than a long lecture might have done.

'I hope your Ladyship is pleased. I obeyed his Lordship's orders as closely as possible, but...'

'It is lovely,' I said.

The room was vast in size, with a great stone fireplace taking up half of one wall. Over this ancient foundation Clare had designed a surprisingly dainty chamber. The colours were all light, cream and pale primrose and delicate blue and rose. The carpets were Chinese and the draperies hand embroidered. The furniture was also Chinese, carved into fantastical patterns.

After handing me over to my maid, Mrs. Andrews retired to wait upon his Lordship. I looked at Anna rather shyly; she was a big, strapping girl, and she was as near being ugly as any servant of Clare's could be. He did not tolerate clumsiness or infirmity. Anna's broad, weather-roughened face was plain rather than positively homely, and I deduced that she must be a skilled
lady's maid, an assumption which was to prove correct. She also spoke proper English when called upon to do so; most of the local people communicated in a barbarous dialect that was as unintelligible to me as Greek.

That was all I learned about Anna the first night; with silent, efficient speed she performed her services and bade me good-night, retiring with the tray on which my supper had been served. Lying in the warm bed, with the softness of silk and swansdown over me and the warm glow of firelight reddening the room, I should have fallen off to sleep at once. Instead I lay wide awake as the minutes passed. I heard the clock strike twice before it finally tolled the midnight hour.

It is not hard to imagine the thoughts that kept me wakeful. After I had seen Clare's patrimony, my peculiar position came home to me with even greater force. The heir of a proud ancient family must be anxious to see his line continue. Yet each night of our journey he had kissed my hand and retired to his own chamber. My initial doubts about
that
side of marriage had not been relieved by the delay. Quite the contrary; if a man like Clare, kindly and well-bred, hesitated to approach his bride, it must be because the procedure was even more unpleasant than I had supposed!

I thought perhaps that Clare might be waiting to consummate our marriage until we reached his ancestral home. It was a sentimental notion, and Clare was not a sentimental man, but still ... However, he had not come to me. Before midnight I heard his footsteps pass my door and then had heard another door, not far distant, open and close. There was a door in the wall beside the
fireplace, which no doubt served my chamber and the one adjoining. The next room must be Clare's.