Road to Berry Edge, The (34 page)

They had been asked to the wedding. Susannah said that she couldn't possibly go.

‘I think if Faith was polite enough to ask then you ought to go,' Michael said one evening when they were alone in the kitchen. Claire was putting the children to bed and Nancy was upstairs seeing to the baby.

‘I can't face Rob. What am I supposed to do?'

‘What's wrong with this?'

‘You can't go on keeping us all and the place is heaving with talk. What are they calling you at work? No, don't tell me, I don't think even my ears could stand it.'

Michael went over to the back door from where a vigorous knocking was coming. He pulled open the door and there stood Rob.

‘Hello, Michael.'

‘Hello.'

Michael regarded him carefully. Rob unsmiling and calling him by his full name was not a man in a good mood.

‘I understand you have Susannah Seaton staying with you.'

‘Some men have all the luck,' Michael said.

‘I'd like to see her.'

Behind him Michael sensed rather than saw Susannah glance at the inside door as though she would have bolted into the sitting room, but she didn't.

Michael opened the door wider to let Rob in, and wished he hadn't had to. His employer looked anything but pleased at the beautiful woman who was standing in front of the cooker, probably a good deal more plainly dressed than he had ever seen her before. Her hands were red because she'd done the washing that day, her hair was neatly back from her face. She wore a dark dress and a long apron, as unlike a prostitute as any woman Michael had ever seen. He hesitated.

‘Alone,' Rob said.

‘I'll be upstairs if you need me,' he said, and went.

Susannah felt awful. It was the first time in her life she had ever felt plain.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' he said.

‘Helping - helping out with the baby and everything.'

‘That's not quite what I meant.'

‘I had no money,' Susannah said.

‘What did you do with it?'

‘Invested it badly, lost it.'

‘Michael doesn't have any money. Why didn't you come to me?'

‘I was going to.'

‘When? When you'd completely destroyed his name in Berry Edge?'

‘I've only been here a short time.'

‘Even a few days of you can ruin a man's reputation,' Rob said. ‘Get your things and leave. How much money do you want?'

‘I wouldn't take it,' she said.

‘Yes, you will. You'd do anything for money,' Rob said. ‘You look rather fetching in a pinny. You could cultivate the look.'

‘Shut up,' Susannah said.

‘A hundred pounds?' he said, throwing a small bag on to the table. ‘That should get you re-established.'

‘I don't want to be re-established.'

‘You could always take in washing,' Rob said.

‘I don't want your money,' Susannah said, unrepentant.

‘If it bothers your conscience you can always call round later and drop your drawers for me,' Rob said, and slammed the door after him as he left.

When Michael came back in Susannah was weeping bitterly.

‘At least you've got some money now,' he said. ‘I don't want the money. I want him.'

‘You heard the man.'

‘Not like that.'

Michael drew back and looked at her.

‘Susannah, have I got this right? The reason you won't marry him is because of what you are.'

‘He wouldn't have me now anyway,' Susannah said, digging into her skirt pocket for a handkerchief and blowing her nose so hard that Michael winced.

‘I was talking to Harry outside the pit today, about the wedding and things, and he says that Rob's going to America.'

‘America?' She lifted a tear-shiny face.

‘Yes. Something about motor cars. America would be far enough, don't you think? You could marry him there and nobody would know anything.'

‘America?' Susannah said again. ‘He wants to get as far away from me as he can.'

‘I don't think so. If he didn't care, he wouldn't come in here like that on the bottom rung of his temper. I've known him a long time. You hurt him a lot.'

‘He hurt me.'

‘Why don't you go over? Go on, give it a chance. You can always come back, and whatever happens you're a hundred pounds better off than you were at teatime.'

The house was empty. Harry had gone to Faith's for a meal.

‘It's always the same,' he had grumbled, ‘almost inedible and nothing but water to drink.'

‘You like it,' Rob told him.

Harry looked aghast.

‘Good Lord, I do, don't I?' he said.

Coming into the empty house after seeing Susannah was awful. She had looked so lovely, so wistfully out of place in her apron. She must have been in a bad way to come to Berry Edge, she must have been penniless. He wished that she had come straight to him. It was not fair to Michael. At the Diamond pit that week Rob had been within hearing of some coarse remarks about Michael McFadden's manhood. They were all complimentary to him, but Rob knew that it would do Michael no good to take women of low repute into his house, however innocent it was. Michael had suffered enough in Berry Edge; Rob was determined it would not happen again. Michael could not leave here, and Rob wanted to make sure that he didn't have to.

He understood why Susannah was reluctant to come to him for money, even though they had a child. She was fiercely independent and he might demand to see the little girl, he might demand all kinds of things for his money. She thought so little of him.

He reached for the whisky bottle, poured some into a glass and stretched out his legs by the fire. The wind was howling around Berry Edge, straight across the valley from the fell. He thought about leaving. It would be a relief to be away from here and from the influence of the Shaws, which had helped him so much these past ten years. He didn't need that any more, he could leave. His father and John were dead, his mother was gone and he could accept how things were and go to a new place and make a fresh start. Vincent would look after things until he came back.

He had been to John's grave that Sunday. Faith was not there. He had known that she was not, she was sitting by the fire with Harry in the house on the hill. Rob noted her absence with satisfaction.

He had won the fight with John for Faith, he had finally won it. There were no flowers, no evidence that anyone was looking after it. The past had relinquished its hold on her but in some ways, Rob thought, John had won the bigger fight. He had gained and held his parents' affection most especially in death, he had even in a way taken the works, because Rob had had to leave both his parents and the foundry. At least Rob had gained the foundry. Gained it and then lost it again to Harry because the love was gone. Harry loved this place and Faith Norman and the works as the Berkeleys were meant to love it and no longer did. Harry had restored the balance to Berry Edge and would keep it. Rob was pleased about that. He had a notion that some day Harry would have a son and all that son would want was to get away. Harry could always send him to America.

He thought about Nancy and Michael. They had a baby boy. Michael had never looked as happy before now, and from there Rob began to think about his own child and to long for her. He swallowed the last of the whisky in his glass just before somebody banged on the door.

When he opened it, there stood Susannah, looking as near to an ordinary Berry Edge woman as she could, with a shawl
over her dark dress. All that was different about her was that she had discarded her apron. Rob went back into the sitting room and she followed.

‘Do you want some whisky?' he offered.

‘No, thank you.'

Rob looked at her. ‘No men, no whisky, a dress like that. You could always go into a convent.'

‘Michael says you're going away to America. Why?'

‘To join the motor industry.'

‘Couldn't you do that here?'

‘I could but I don't want to.'

‘You won't come back.'

Rob went over to the sideboard and poured more whisky into his glass. ‘I have to come back, I have too many concerns here to leave them for very long. I have the feeling Vincent won't look after things as well as he should, just to make sure that I
keep
coming back. And I can't leave Harry with the works for good. He'll get bored eventually, just like he does with everything once he's bettered it. I won't let it slide like that again. I'll sell my share of the abbey to Vincent if he'll have it, and there are all kinds of other things that need seeing to from time to time.' He looked at her. ‘I'd like to see my child before I go.'

‘She'll be at the wedding.'

‘That'll give the gossips something to talk about.'

Susannah said nothing to that.

‘I still don't understand,' Rob said. ‘You must have been pregnant when we went on holiday. Why didn't you tell me?'

‘You walked out.'

‘That was after three days. Three days of trying to persuade you to marry me.'

‘It would only have made things worse.'

‘How could it have done that? You didn't care enough about me to tell me.'

‘I did care!'

‘If you had cared we would have been married and I would have seen my daughter every day. You only come to me now because you're penniless. Look at you, you look like a washerwoman—' Rob could feel himself starting to lose his temper. He swallowed the whisky to steady it.

‘I am a washerwoman!'

‘All you ever wanted from me was money—'

‘No!'

‘Yes, it was. You've never recovered from what men did to you when you were very young. You go on and on making them pay as though the whole damned sex was to blame. You made me pay dearly for what those men did to you—'

‘I did not!'

‘Yes, you did! As if it was my fault. You had no real reasons for not marrying me—'

‘I did!'

‘Do you think that I care about my so-called reputation? Do you think I am so stupid that I couldn't do what I do anywhere? We could have left, we could have gone away, but that wasn't what you wanted—'

‘I was thinking about you.'

‘No, you weren't! Plenty of other women have bad things happen to them, but they didn't become prostitutes. You could have gone somewhere else where people didn't know you and started again, but you didn't. You chose to stay here and take revenge.'

‘I was hurt! And I had done nothing. I shouldn't have had to leave here. I wasn't to blame.' Susannah was crying, knocking the tears away with her knuckles.

‘Yes, it was awful, and it wasn't right, but you could have done it, you could have behaved differently. You didn't have to take revenge on every man you met.'

‘I didn't have to become a prostitute, is that what you're
saying?' Susannah said coldly, and when Rob looked at her she had stopped crying and her eyes were full of anger. ‘Then I would never have met you, gentleman that you are, taking your pleasure where you chose.'

Rob couldn't defend that. He stood with an empty glass in his hand.

‘You can't imagine what it's like doing such a thing for money. And it's all very well saying that I should have left. I didn't have any money to go anywhere, I didn't have any family. My friends had deserted me because they had discovered the kind of woman that I was. I couldn't even marry anyone, not anyone really respectable, not after what had happened, because he would have known that I was unchaste. The only kind of work open to women like me is cleaning other people's houses, like Nancy was obliged to. It wasn't much of a prospect and there was no money to be made. But I do have one asset that most other women don't have. I can look at myself in the mirror and like what I see, and men like it too, don't they?'

Rob still said nothing.

‘And then you came along and dear me, I had never seen anything quite like you. I couldn't believe my luck. No more fat, middle-aged men, just you, so rich and so young. You gave me my freedom. Never to have to do it again, except with you.' Susannah took the money he had given her and put it on the table. ‘I don't want to be bought by you any more. You had no right to walk into Michael's house like that and tell me how I should behave. You have no claim on me or my child, and just because you're rich doesn't give you rights. You aren't in any position to do that. You paid me to go to bed with you, so don't tell me how I should have behaved. You bedded me and gave me money and expected me to pretend that I liked it. You're a bastard. You're no different from anybody else.'

She left. Rob had forgotten how to move. He did eventually remember the whisky bottle. Luckily, it was almost full. He got to his chair by the fire with the bottle and his glass, and congratulated himself for getting that far.

Susannah stood outside in the street and wept.

*

All of Berry Edge turned out for Faith and Harry's wedding. Unbeknown to them, Rob had given everyone a holiday and had arranged for celebration feasts at the various church halls and pubs. The church was packed.

‘I thought this was supposed to be a quiet wedding,' Harry accused Faith at the altar.

‘It was nothing to do with me,' she said.

Faith was wearing cream. It was a compromise. She suited cream better than white anyway, her mother had said. Susannah had come with her little girl in her arms and Claire beside her, and Nancy had brought the baby and her two children. Ida and Vincent were there, though they had arrived too late for conversation before the wedding began. Faith was pleased for Harry's sake, though she could see by their faces that their disapproval had not lessened. Now that his parents were here, she would have to be polite and sociable, and she didn't know whether she could manage that. She was only glad that she and Harry were going away for a few days.