Road to Berry Edge, The (12 page)

‘Nottingham's full of them,' Rob pointed out. ‘What did he do?'

‘Why should he have done something?'

‘He did though, didn't he?'

‘He tried to make love to me.' Sarah looked down at the bonnet in her fingers. ‘I didn't realise that I was going to be disgusted. I just couldn't. He called me names, things even I hadn't heard before … and some that I had, very insulting with the indication that I was middle-class and extremely small minded and innocent in a - in a very stupid way and then I discovered that he had not … that he didn't love me, that he would never love me as my father loves my mother. I was to be useful and made use of to produce heirs, and I knew then what kind of a man my father is, that I wanted someone like that. My father is a good man, mostly, and especially towards my mother. That's what I want. Now I'm going to go and sit on the swing. I want you to push me.'

‘I'd be glad to,' Rob said. ‘After all, it doesn't matter if you fall off and break your neck now, does it?'

Sarah pulled a face at him.

She sat down again on the swing but Rob didn't push her and she didn't move.

‘I think you ought to go and tell your mother.'

‘I can't tell her about that.'

‘You don't have to say that, just tell her you changed your mind, you don't think he's the right person.'

‘She's spent a lot of time on this wedding.'

‘Sarah …' Rob got down beside her. ‘If you married him and then found out you didn't want him it would break your mother's heart.'

Sarah was not listening and proved it moments later by putting one arm around his neck and kissing him.

‘Don't just sit there you dolt,' she said, ‘kiss me.'

‘Your father would kill me if I touched you. You're just upset.'

‘You still don't understand, do you? You're the reason I'm not going to marry Lawrence. The minute I saw you I wished I'd never set eyes on him. I tried to convince myself that marrying him was right for me. It seemed so stupid. I told myself that it would pass, that it was just because I was engaged. I'm going to expire if you don't kiss me.'

‘Sarah, I've got nothing, nothing to offer anybody.'

‘My father says you have the finest mind of any man he ever met.'

‘That's not true, he's just an enthusiast for his own discovery.'

‘Oh, do shut up and kiss me,' Sarah said, so he did.

Rob thought a great deal about Susannah Seaton during the six days before he saw her for the second time. It occurred to him uncomfortably again and again that because Susannah was physically similar to Sarah he could be confusing the two, but he decided that it was not so. His wife had been educated, impeccably brought up, cultured, well loved, confident. As far as he could judge Susannah was none of those things.

Each day he wanted her more badly than he had done the day before. The week was like six even though every waking minute was filled with work and important decisions. By the end of the week he could hardly sleep.

He made himself not go early but it was difficult. Up the hill a little way from the bridge and there they were, the steps of Susannah's neat house. Claire answered the door and this time she was smiling and welcoming.

He walked up the stairs just as before and into the sitting room, and he got a shock. This time she looked what she was. She wore make-up, he could smell perfume, her hair was elaborately dressed and she wore a thin robe on top of what Rob knew was underclothing which would reveal her beautiful body. She came to him and put her arms around his neck and kissed him and then looked at him.

‘It doesn't please you? I can change.'

‘No, it's fine. It's just that you didn't look like this last week.'

‘Last week I wasn't expecting you.'

She led him into her bedroom, and when she took off the robe she was wearing black. Rob had never seen such underclothing on a woman. He wasn't sure he liked the way it made him feel. He had expected this to be something slowly enjoyed, conversation, wine, to wait just a little more because the week had been forever and now he was here with her. He had thought to look at her and admire her and tell her how he had longed for her but the feeling of wanting her was overcoming the other ideas.

She started to undress him and then he began to kiss her and touch her. He thought that it was no wonder she made so much money. She acted as though she was trying to stop herself but couldn't, as though he was the only person in the world she had ever needed or would ever need.

In the world he came from he had been to parties where there were beautiful women, and he had wanted them, but he knew quite well that unless they were unhappily married the women in his social sphere did not let men have them without a wedding ring. There were plenty of married women, there were affairs, but somehow that didn't seem right for him either.

He couldn't believe that this woman was going to let him have her. Even dressed like this, looking and smelling of perfume like the whore she was, she was so beautiful. Her body was soft and flawless and rounded in all the right places. She didn't stop him doing what he wanted to her, she even helped with his clothes and with hers, but he couldn't tell whether any of it pleased her, whether she was just pretending. He had the awful feeling that she was still halfway through her Dickens novel and would have been much happier sitting by the fire reading about Estelle and Pip and not having her body used quite so completely and thoroughly for somebody else's pleasure.

Last week he had been almost too hungry to think about that. This time he tried to be kind, but all he could think was that she was not Sarah, she was not his wife, that she was not with him for any other reason than because he was paying her a great deal of money for her to give herself to him like this, to pretend to him, and he couldn't help wanting her.

Rob hated himself for being so weak and stupid. He was a little sorry for himself too because Sarah had been rather like this, brought up by modern parents, allowed a free mind and a good education which made her feel that she was a man's equal. Sarah had not held back in bed as he knew many women did. This woman didn't hold back either and it made him miss Sarah more. Sarah had loved him, had wanted him, but only the money he was paying her held Susannah Seaton here in his arms. He knew that it was disgusting to her, and that was why she had dressed like a whore, so that he would lose control of his senses and want her very badly, unable to refuse. Now he hated himself. If they had been true lovers then it wouldn't have mattered, he could have lost himself in her because there would have been nobody to lose and nobody to win, it would have been equal, fair and wonderful, but it wasn't. He could no longer remember how to be kind to her, he couldn't remember anything, he couldn't think, he wasn't even sure that eventually he didn't hold her down. The whole thing was completely savage and mindless, that was the only way he wanted her and that was the way she had planned it, so that she could hate him for his stupidity and he could hate himself. That was the way she won.

*

Susannah had thought about Rob quite a lot that week, and she was frightened. He was the only person who had ever breached her defences in that way. She had considered sending him a note telling him that he could not come back, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She decided that she would break the liking she had had for
him. All she had to do was make him lose control. Then he would be like the others, she would care nothing for him, she would act for him, pretend, think of other things when she was with him, and it had worked. He had had her mindlessly, thoughtlessly, without restraint, but she felt no triumph. She had not counted on her own reaction. Her body remembered him, she felt safe with him, glad, smug even. This had never happened before. No other man could have held her down like that, no one would have dared and she would never have let herself get into such a situation. Her body had thought it was a lovers' game. She had not felt threatened, just deliciously surrendering the responsibility as never before.

Susannah trembled for her own stupidity and turned what she hoped were angry eyes on her guest, ready to tell him to go and not come back, but she didn't. He had buried himself almost completely in the bedclothes and pillows. All she could see was the darkness of his hair. Susannah felt what she thought she would not feel for a man again, what she would have sworn she would not feel for a rich, powerful, good looking young man. She was sorry.

He didn't move for a long time and Susannah didn't dare touch him. Finally all she said was, ‘Rob … ?'

He threw back the bedclothes and got out of bed and began dressing. Susannah gathered the sheet up against herself and watched him. She wanted to say something more but she couldn't because it was taking all she had not to cry. He threw money down on to the bed and made for the door and Susannah ran after him, the tears falling suddenly and fast. She got hold of his arm and then put herself against the front of his shirt.

‘I'm sorry.'

Rob reacted, to her surprise, as though she had done something unacceptable at a polite party.

‘No, really,' he said, ‘it's not your fault,' and tried to move round her. Susannah got hold of his shirt. Watching him
retreat behind cold eyes and a distant manner she could well see now why he was so successful. He understood completely what she had done to him and why.

‘Don't go,' she said.

‘I shouldn't have come here, it was miserable of me. Please accept my apology.'

He would have gone but Susannah didn't let loose.

‘Susannah, you're ruining my shirt.'

Susannah released him but it was only to put both hands up to his neck and kiss him on the mouth. It had been so many years since she had done such a thing that she couldn't quite believe she was doing it, but she was, and it tasted wonderful. He didn't do anything at first. He didn't try to leave, he didn't stop her, he didn't kiss her and then he put one arm around her shoulders and the other under her knees, picked her up, sheet and all, and carried her back to the bed.

Christmas came. Michael bought fruit and sweets and a small toy each for the children. Nancy made dinner for Alice and Michael. She only wished she had had to go to work so that she didn't have to invite them. Mrs Berkeley said that they were going to spend the day with their friends across the road, Mr and Mrs Norman and Faith, and after that the two young men were going back to Nottingham for New Year.

They hadn't wanted to go back to Nottingham, Nancy knew. She had heard Harry Shaw complaining bitterly to Rob about it. Mr Shaw's father had demanded they should go when they had a great deal of work to do here. They talked in front of her, almost Nancy thought, as though she was not there, not in a nasty way but as though they were used to talking in front of servants, and more than that somehow, as though they trusted her. Nancy couldn't think what sort of a house they came from. Around here you didn't discuss private matters when the help was there, and you certainly didn't talk like Mr Shaw did. His language was fit to turn the air blue. He talked about his father, his father mind you, Nancy thought, like nobody she had ever heard before. He called him by his name and ‘that awkward old bastard', but however much they complained they minded him all right and they were going. The works wouldn't be shut except for Christmas Day, it was too dear to shut it, Rob said.

Nancy liked Rob. She hadn't thought that she would
considering his reputation in Berry Edge. He wasn't as foul-mouthed as Harry for a start off. She felt sorry for him too. Whatever he had done it was a long time since, and he was family, but his mam and dad didn't treat him like family. They hadn't a good word to say about him to anybody or to his face, and now that his dad was getting better and could come down to meals he went on and on at Rob about the blessed works, and he was nasty about it. Not that it seemed to upset Rob. Nothing upset him. He was not like Mr Shaw, getting cross all the time. He just got on with his work, he was there nearly all the time from what Nancy could judge, and so was Mr Shaw.

Nancy suspected that Harry didn't like Berry Edge and that in particular he didn't like the Berkeley house, that he was used to much better things. He didn't eat a lot, he very often, as far as she knew, went out and stayed out all night, and there were empty brandy bottles in his bedroom. He was untidy and caused Nancy a lot of work, and there was so much washing that they had to get somebody extra in to do it in spite of the new maid, Theresa. She didn't think Mr Shaw noticed all the work. She had never known people go through as many clothes as those two men did. They didn't seem to think that somebody had all the washing and ironing to do. If Nancy had been Mrs Berkeley she would have talked to them about it, but Mrs Berkeley was too busy looking after Mr Berkeley and didn't often talk about anything.

Nancy was dreading Christmas Day, but it was better than she had imagined. Michael was good with the children. They never got fruit or sweets, and a new toy was something very special, so they were happy. The dinner was perfect to Nancy's surprise, even Mr Shaw would have eaten it, and the day was mild.

After dinner the children sat happily by the fire, Alice was content to stay in, and when Michael asked her if she wanted
to go and get some air Nancy was pleased to. It wasn't often that she got a walk.

They went up on to the fell and it was a perfect day up there, with a blue sky and, as the afternoon began to draw in, the clouds were all grey and blue in big shapes and the sun made a silver-gold outline on the fell top as though it was trying hard because it was a special day.

Michael wasn't anything like Sean to be with and he was the only man Nancy had ever gone walking with, in their courting days. Sometimes in her mind she imagined herself going for a walk with Rob (never Harry because he was the sort who would probably grab you when he got you there), but Michael was nice to be with. It was lovely up there on the fell top.