Miss Appleby's Academy (27 page)

Mick concentrated on his breathing. It did seem as if it would stop at any moment, it was so irregular.

‘The whole thing has proved too much for her,’ Henry said. ‘I didn’t realize that she had become so dependent on spirits. I’m sure you think this affair has been frequent and easy for us, but it hasn’t. We have tried to stop seeing one another; I did attempt to give your marriage a chance. After you were married I hardly saw her for months and months together, but always we came back to one another. With an addictive nature such as she has she cannot give things up, even me. I adore her. I have asked her to go away with me and she has always refused. She was so convinced that she could make the marriage work.’

Mick stood and looked at the man. Henry Atkinson was not his wife’s lover, he was so much more than that. He was the father of Isabel’s child. Mick wondered what his other children were like and marvelled that a man who
had six children already would need another, but then it had not been need, it had been indulgence.

How could one man have seven children and two women and so many other men have no children at all and nobody exclusively their own? Nobody who ever really loved them? You cannot shout unfair, he thought, it was unseemly to do so, pity was the worst thing ever and yet it seemed that men like Henry Atkinson could take the world and other men could only look on and wonder and commit sins like envy and jealousy because their lives seemed like nothing in comparison.

Had she thought when she met him how stupid he was and how much she needed to marry, and because he was in the same kind of business as Henry she could manage it? Was that really how it was?

Had she never loved him? Perhaps she had liked him once. He remembered every single word which Henry Atkinson had said. He did stop to consider that maybe it was not so, but nothing came to his aid, everything came down complete and stinging.

She had loved nobody but Henry. She had wanted nobody but Henry. And she had to marry because Henry was right: a woman would conceive when she should not. There were so many women who were childless, who looked at other women’s children and gazed into cradles with envy. They were not the future, as he was not. He had not thought that he would end the line and he could not accept that Connie was Henry Atkinson’s child, and yet she clearly was since she resembled him so much.

Did Mick love her in spite of that? No, he loved her because he had brought her up as his child and she adored him.

When he saw her the very next time she ran and threw her small self into his arms and he could never accept that she was another man’s child, she was his, she was completely his daughter.

He buried his head against her golden hair. She smelled of the fells and the dogs and the sweet sweeping wind, the way that it got down among the low-lying gorse where the grouse flew and the pheasants plodded across the fields in slight confusion as though they had never got used to this cold and unforgiving place, and yet they lived and their cries rent the silence so very often in the early mornings and the long slow afternoons and he was always glad of it. They had made a place and however many of them were shot they survived, and sometimes their brash colours lifted above the tall summer grass in the fields. Like the people, they were always there.

‘I’m going to close the academy.’

Mick frowned. Emma didn’t look at him when she said the words, she did not want him to flatter himself that it was because of him that she was leaving. It was nothing of the kind. He had only come that day to tell her that his wife was ill again and to ask humbly if she would take care of his child over the coming days, and she had agreed for now and then she had told him that it would be temporary.

‘There’s obviously no need for it. Nobody else has come and Mr English is perfectly capable of teaching the children what they need to know. He’s a very good man. Connie is bright, she can go away to school and enjoy that. Thank you for your help.’

She thought he might have said something, that he might have protested. He just stood there like somebody totally defeated. Of course it was daylight and the children were around and she had deliberately told him when he could not respond any way other than politely, but he didn’t seem to be able to manage that. She glanced at him to find that he was watching Connie as she ran about the schoolyard.

Emma was scandalous by village standards, she had lived in a pub, lived alone with a dog and a child, she was convinced that every woman in the village knew she had been present at a fight in the pub and God knew how many of them suspected she and Mick had slept together. Who would send their child to that kind of care, that level of morals?

The trouble was that she had no idea what she would do, where she would go. She had no money and every time she thought of leaving she felt sick. She had found and lost love here with a man who cared only for his wife. She did not want to stay here and watch him struggle any longer.

He didn’t even argue with her – he didn’t say anything.

Emma couldn’t think what to do next and the following day, while the two children were doing their general knowledge questions – there were always three up on the board first thing – she heard a knocking on the door. When she opened it she saw Nell standing there, two badly dressed and not very clean children beside her. Emma was too astonished to speak and as she went on staring Nell faltered and looked down and Emma could see that it had taken all of her courage to come here. She must have needed something very badly indeed.

‘Will you take Eddie and Rose, Miss Appleby?’ Nell produced a fistful of silver coins and then put them back deep into her skirt pocket in case anybody should see.

Emma didn’t know what to do except to shake her head.

‘Don’t they go to Mr English’s school?’

‘I can’t send them there.’ Nell turned her face away in defiance, Emma could see the hard set of her jaw.

‘I don’t think he would turn any child away, he’s a good man and a fine teacher.’

‘It isn’t him, it’s other people. They won’t have their bairns mix with mine. I’ve had bricks through my windows and cow muck pushed through my letterbox and rubbish left outside my door. The women, they shout at me on the streets. I could have done other things, taken in washing and such, they say, I didn’t have to resort to what I do, but it pays a lot better and it means I can be with my bairns during the days and when our Laurence is there at night – it works, you see.’ She looked at Emma and then her eyes blanked and she half turned from her and said, ‘I have their husbands because they don’t want them and I do things for them that they won’t do and there’s nowt wrong in it, it’s just the Church teachin’ that folk mustn’t enjoy things, like heaven was going to be so wonderful …’

Emma didn’t know what to say to this. She should say that she was leaving, that the school was closing, but having remembered how Nell had shut the door in her face and how Nell looked at this minute, Emma found it impossible to do so. And there was also a kind of triumph that Nell had come to her, she had not thought it would happen and she couldn’t help being pleased that it had.

‘Come in,’ she said.

‘No, I mustn’t.’

‘If the children are to have lessons here they must see
what it’s like and whether they care for it and be introduced to George and Connie. And so must you.’

‘Miss Appleby—’

‘I think you had better call me “Emma” since we are so obviously related.’

‘It won’t do you no good to be associated with me. I need the bairns to read and write, I want other things for them than what I had, but I can’t come in.’

Nell was ready to turn away having relinquished her children’s hands, but they stood very close to her.

Emma touched her very lightly on one dirty hand and she smiled into Nell’s worn face and said, ‘You and Laurence are all the family I have here and I really want to get to know you.’

Nell looked disbelievingly at her, stood for a few moments longer, tried to disengage herself from the children, and when they wouldn’t move forward she gave in and entered the room cautiously. It was mid morning and the first thing Emma got all the children to do was wash their hands before they had their milk and cookies. Washing for the two girls was not something they did often, Emma could not help reflecting, watching as the water clouded and their fingers emerged, nails still grubby but hands white.

Emma busied herself, having urged Nell to help them, and they watched at a distance as George poured milk into mugs and Connie proudly carried the still-warm cookies on a big plate and put them in the middle of the table.

‘What are cookies?’ the bigger girl asked.

‘Biscuits. Do you like biscuits?’

She glanced at her mother.

‘It’s from the French,’ Emma explained. ‘It means twice baked. Isn’t that nice?’

They sat down. The biscuits were nothing more than sugar, flour, butter, egg and vanilla essence, but they were golden and fresh. She made tea and leaving the children at the kitchen table to get to know one another, she took Nell through into the sitting room.

‘How much will it cost?’ Nell asked. ‘And I don’t want no special rates. I know that people don’t send their bairns here and that you must need the money.’

Emma hesitated. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but if you don’t have to live where you do live and how you live, why do you do it? I’m sorry but—’

‘No, I understand what you mean. We’re mucky and the house is falling down. I just can’t seem to manage all that I have to do and our Laurence too. I get tired. Besides, I’ve saved every ha’penny I could for a long time so that I could manage summat like this. I can tell you now that this is like a prayer answered for me. Will you take the bairns and show them better things? I need you to.’

Emma considered and then she nodded, and since Nell had been frank she was as well. ‘I have to have a reason to stay here,’ she said.

Nell frowned at her. ‘You weren’t going off some place?’

It was at that point Emma saw that Nell had her father’s eyes.

‘Is summat the matter?’ Nell asked.

‘We look alike.’

‘I don’t look nothing like you, Miss Appleby.’

‘You look very like me, only better, thank goodness. I hope that isn’t insulting, for I’m plain and you are very comely, the same thing but different. Will you stay for lunch?’

‘Lunch?’

‘Dinner. Stay, please. It will give the children a chance to get to know one another and afterwards if you have time we could take them for a walk.’

‘Mine seem never to go nowhere. I’m frightened to let them out because of how folk talk at me, shouting and that.’

‘We’ll take a nature study walk,’ Emma said, and she thought how many times saying this had got her out of a difficult situation. In such a place there was always something fresh to see.

It was strange, Emma thought, as they took the children down the long valley into the dale, but Verity had never meant even a tiny portion of what Nell meant already and yet they had nothing in common. Nell did not talk much and had no education, Emma wasn’t even sure she could read or write, but just having her there on the walk and seeing how Nell’s children became more bold, running ahead, throwing sticks for Hector, laughing and shouting with George and Connie, Emma thought, this is exactly what I intended, this is right.

She could learn to love Nell, in fact, she thought, I
already do. Nell moved in some way like their father; there were so many things about her which were like him and yet it grieved Emma because she could not say this, she could not easily be glad of it, and yet it was what they had in common so she could not help but be pleased.

If Nell had had any advantages at all, she thought, she could have achieved so many things. Nell knew about the birds, she spied a kestrel soaring above and she was the one who spotted a sparrow-hawk on the way home. She had special names for the trees and the flowers and told Emma of them, and Emma found herself laughing and glad. They had the same sense of humour, they even paused at the same time and would begin to speak together. They were so alike that Emma was charmed.

When they were quite by themselves she said, ‘Will you pick up the children at teatime?’ Nell hesitated and then she said, looking straight at Emma, ‘I will pay for them to stay with you, I think they need to get out of the place where we live.’

Remembering it, Emma agreed, though she said nothing except, ‘If they wish to stay that’s fine, but if they miss you so much that it’s unbearable we’ll have to talk about it.’

‘I’ve already talked to them and explained that they can come home if they want, but they should stay here for a week and try it. If they are homesick I will come for them. I’ll bring their clothes, I didn’t like to – to presume. Here.’ She gave Emma the purse which she had put away earlier, dodged around the corner of the house and came
back with two big bundles, and it was not until she had gone that Emma opened the purse and saw that it contained a great deal of money and she understood that Nell had needed to forgo so many things to make sure that her children had an education. Emma was half inclined to call her back, but she didn’t, she just watched Nell’s thin figure as she walked away.

No insult to Nell, she thought, but she washed all the clothes, she bathed and scrubbed the two little girls thoroughly and disinfected their hair and combed it carefully for nits. She put them into voluminous nightgowns and told Connie that they were her responsibility. ‘They will be in your bedroom.’

Connie’s lips went into a thin line. ‘I liked having it to myself.’

‘Yes, well, now you won’t. You must look after them, Connie, they haven’t left their mother before. If you have any problems you just come across the landing and tell me. I’m relying on you.’

‘Do you know what their mother is?’

‘I know that men have made life so difficult for women that when they are widowed they have very little choice. They do what they must do to feed their children, and that’s what Nell does. It’s not what she would have chosen, but many women lead lives they would never have wanted. Do you understand?’