i 57926919a60851a7 (40 page)

When she hit the wall on the opposite side the cans clattered to the ground and the sound echoed above the horses' hooves and the grinding of the wheels on the rough road. Slowly she turned her body round and pressed her back tight against the wall, willing herself to keep still, willing herself not to cry out in fear. She was dead, dead; she was going to her burial; she could do her no more harm, yet here she was coming towards her.

She would yell. She would scream. She couldn't stop herself.

The horses were bobbing their heads, making their plumes dance, but the men on their backs were stiff, straight, and they, too, looked dead.

There were six of them. Two passed her, then another two, then another two; and then there was the hearse. It was all glass, and in it the coffin lay, and she could see inside the coffin, she could see the girl. Her head was turned towards her and there was a great hole in her neck.

She opened her mouth wide but the icy air rushed into it and down into her lungs and she gasped. And now there was the first coach passing her. It had great black bows of ribbons tied to the corners, and there were two people inside. Their faces stood out from their black clothes whiter than the snow, one was the lord and the other was. Even in this moment she couldn't let herself whisper his name, she could only think he was riding with his back to her. He shouldn't be riding with his back to her.

Then came another carriage. There were two people in this, but they were fadng 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's 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 labeled them for what they were--menials--was 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.

II

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, tor 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 good-bye to the children."

He turned, but still held on to her hand as he said, dutifully,

"Good-bye." And they answered dully in the same way, except Nellie, and she muttered, "Tar- 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, "Grandpapal 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 Lord ship 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 dose 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, Nannyl Nannyl 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 pushed 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.