Snow Angels (42 page)

‘Because originally two of them belonged to Abby’s father, Henderson and he was called Reed, as you know.’

‘But the third yard was ours.’

‘I didn’t want to upset Abby by renaming them.’

‘You could call it Reed and Collingwood – or Collingwood and Reed. I don’t think she’d mind.’

‘I would rather leave it. I don’t think it matters what we’re called as long as we do the best work and people know it.’

Back at dinner that evening, Matthew said to Abby, ‘Don’t you think the number three yard should have the Collingwood name on it?’

‘Matthew—’ Gil said.

‘It was my grandfather’s, after all. Nothing has our name on it.’

‘I don’t think people are likely to forget him because of that,’ Gil said dryly.

‘I agree with Matthew,’ Charlotte said.

‘You can agree all you like,’ Gil said, ‘it won’t make any difference.’

*

Edward’s death had affected Charlotte greatly, Abby thought, and she blamed Gil, though not in front of him. Abby had expected that. Helen and Gil were to blame for every wrong which hit the family, according to Charlotte, though she had to admit that there could be some truth in it. What man would not have looked for some other kind of solace when his younger brother had stolen and seduced his wife? Abby tried to talk to Gil on several occasions but, not surprisingly, she thought, he had nothing to say. His mother confined her remarks to her friends and to Abby, but he knew what she was saying behind his back, Abby felt certain.

It snowed heavily the first week that Matthew was at home. Abby watched it from the little room she had adopted as hers for writing letters and seeing the cook and making up menus and sorting out the day-to-day matters of the house. She stopped writing her letter on the Saturday afternoon and watched
Georgina outside. She was making snow angels for Gil. Abby thought that her child was the one person he ever really relaxed in front of and only then when he was alone with her. Unobserved now, so he thought, he was making snow angels too and they were laughing. They went on to build a snowman. Abby felt left out. She went and put on her outdoor things and followed them outside. Georgina showed her the snowman and then declared that she was cold and was going inside, her gloves were soggy and her fingers were numb. Gil and Abby walked across the lawns and into the quarry garden. In there it was like a fairytale, the trees laden with snow, the stones brushed with it, the paths white and untrodden until they got there.

He wandered away in front. Abby picked up a handful of snow, squashed it into a snowball and threw it at him. It hit him square in the middle of his back. He turned around and threw one at her just as accurately and then another and then another.

‘All right, all right!’ Abby said, squealing, and he came to her and brushed the snow from her coat. ‘Why do men always do that?’

‘What?’

‘Compete, mow you down, whatever. You try to get the better of me.’

He moved away again. Abby tried to think what to say. It was the closest they had been since the afternoon when they had received the news of Edward’s death and he had fallen asleep with his head in her lap. She threw another snowball at him and he laughed as it missed and went past. Then he came back to her. He looked at her for a moment and then he put one hand firmly into the middle of her back and pulled her to him and kissed her.

Abby had been hoping for conversation, had been trying for weeks to talk to him. She knew that Edward’s death had upset him badly and she had wanted to help. His grieving for his brother was something totally private; he couldn’t or wouldn’t share it and had told her nothing of what had happened in France. That afternoon when they had drunk too much and he
had fallen asleep with his head in her lap had been as close as they had got and he had not even acknowledged it, just woken up, got up and left the room. Until now, that had been all. Now he had hold of her in a very definite way and it was not, Abby knew, a precursor to a meaningful conversation. Within seconds she would have had to struggle to get away and he was pressing on her mouth the kind of kisses which she had forgotten and well remembered, sweet and deep and rather less decent than anything that should have taken place outside. She made a tentative attempt to stop him. This was not a good idea. Somebody might see. It was daylight. It was freezing. There were several inches of snow and even Robert had not been this unsubtle. Gil had been around whores too long, Abby thought.

Being in a bedroom with the windows open to crisp frost was the nearest Abby had come to this. He was not content with kisses and got his hands inside her clothes with the kind of swift expertise which Abby had long ceased to admire in men. Women’s clothing was about as intricate as it could be, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. You could tell how old or experienced a man was in ways like that and Gil’s experience betrayed him.

Abby would have talked to him if she had imagined he was going to listen but he was past that. He had been beyond conversation since Matthew had gone to school, so there was no chance of that here. She could not help remembering also the lover that he had been, gentle, kind and warm. That was not the man who drew her down into several inches of snow. The ground was icy, wet and unyielding and it had begun to sleet, not big white flakes of snow, but hard like bullets and the sky was a peculiar dark grey, like steel. She said his name a couple of times in protest, but he didn’t hear her. The trees where the snow had not covered them were bare and wet and black and the stones in the quarry garden threw huge jagged shadows across the twisting paths.

Most unhappy now, Abby had to make a decision. Was she
going to stop him? Was she going to tell him that she wanted to talk to him, when this was the first time he had come near her in so very long? It was not even that she trusted him to be kind to her any longer. He was too hurt for that. When your worst fears have all come true, what is there left? She knew that Gil had loved his brother with the kind of desperation that would not be dispelled. He had loved Edward without any love in return and that was the hardest thing in the world. She had not forgotten his face or his silence on the day that Edward had left. Gil didn’t know how to shed tears, so there had been no release, not even a word. He had not seen his brother again and now he never would, neither had he gone to anyone for any kind of comfort.

Abby was beginning to get extremely angry with herself. Somehow she should have read this situation and stopped it before it started. He would have understood, listened. He was not Robert, not insensitive and uncaring so that it would have cost her nothing to deny him. He had always tasted and felt wonderful to her. Now he was blind and deaf, only his instincts were working. He had done this dozens of times to women he paid. Abby called herself names. She felt stupid. And her body perversely wanted him, even here. She wished she could kill him.

Soaked, frozen, furious, Abby knew with a sinking heart that he was going to do what they called locally ‘giving her a bloody good seeing to’; she could tell from the concentrated way he went about it. Gil was meticulous about everything he did. It wouldn’t change anything, things like this didn’t. She felt stupid.

His deft hands had discarded her underwear and reached her body. It shouldn’t have mattered. Robert had taken her dozens of times when he was drunk, when she didn’t want him to. Gil was not drunk and she did want him to, only not like this, not from bitterness and whatever place he had come to in his mind with his father’s death on his conscience and his brother’s hatred. She let him have her and was immediately sorry. He couldn’t even be like Robert, careless and clumsy; he had to be himself, accurate and sure. Was this what William had been like? Had he
resented and hated his background and his parents and himself so much in the end that he would use Charlotte this hard? Would Gil have noticed if she had made further feeble attempts to stop him? Perhaps he wouldn’t have, she thought. Even now, she wanted him. She wouldn’t have wanted Robert like this, would have denied him her consent and he had been a gentler man than Gil in lots of ways. Gil was young, not thirty yet, but all the beds he had been in showed on him here. This was not force; it was experience and he made her want him. There was nothing selfish about it in the end. He brought Abby’s body to a sweet height and in her mind she cursed him for that final betrayal. It was unfair.

There was nowhere to go when it was over, no blankets to curl into, no pillows to hide against and even then he didn’t talk to her. She imagined that even the girls at Mrs Fitzpatrick’s got some form of conversation, but he put his clothes back to rights as though nothing had happened and left her there. Abby sat in the snow and cried and called him every name she could think of. Eventually she was so cold that there was nothing to do except fasten her clothes and go indoors and order a hot bath.

*

John Marlowe called in at the office that week and they sat by the fire and drank whisky.

‘Allsop’s been seen around Newcastle these last few days so just be a mite careful. We don’t want your pretty little Missus Surtees back on the streets again, do we?’

‘I’m not even certain it was him, John.’

‘Who else?’

‘It could have been anybody. I just had this idea that it was. I didn’t see him clearly.’

‘And he likes you so much?’ John said.

‘I assumed he was dead.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I hadn’t heard anything, nobody had.’

Later, when the whisky had been drunk, Gil made his way back to the country. He thought about Jos Allsop and when he got home he called the appropriate male servants and told them that they were to admit no one without evidence of identity and to stop anybody who came into the grounds, no matter how far from the house. He had already arranged security in his shipyards, with men on the gates and night watchmen on the premises. You lost too much if you didn’t look after things.

He called Abby into the study after dinner and told her.

‘All I’m saying is be careful and for the next few days keep the children close until I can find out what’s happening.’

Matthew burst in at that moment.

‘Jonathan sent me a letter today and he wants me to go and stay with him!’

‘Matthew, have you ever heard of knocking?’ Gil said.

Letter in his hand, Matthew was silenced.

‘Go and wait outside.’

Matthew went.

‘Try and be kind to him,’ Abby said.

‘What?’

‘He’s a small boy. You treat him like an adult.’

‘He’s very precocious.’

‘I wonder where he got that from,’ Abby said as she walked out.

When she had gone, Gil cursed himself. He didn’t know what to say to her, hadn’t known since that day in the garden in the snow. He just wished he hadn’t done it. It had made things worse, if they could get any worse. He called Matthew inside and read the short letter inviting Matthew to stay.

‘You can’t go to Jonathan’s, not for a few days.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I say so.’

‘I’m bored here, there’s nothing to do. I hate living in the country with nobody but stupid Georgina. I hate this place and I hate you!’ Matthew said and banged the door after him. Gil went
after him, got hold of him by the back of his collar and marched him back into the room.

‘You’re going to hate me a lot more if you aren’t careful,’ he said. ‘You’d better brighten your ideas up, because if you bang the door again like that or say rude things to me I’m going to put you over that desk and beat you. Do you understand me?’

Matthew nodded and then ran. He left the door open that time. Gil didn’t think any more about it. He had discovered that work meant you could ease things out of your mind and he had a lot to do before he went to bed, so he worked until it was almost midnight. He heard the gentle click of the door and looked up. White-faced, Abby hovered in the doorway.

‘Matthew’s missing,’ she said.

‘He’s what?’

‘He isn’t in his room and he isn’t in the house—’

Gil was on his feet, the familiar sick feeling gathering momentum all the time inside him. Within seconds he was dizzy.

‘He can’t be far,’ Abby said reassuringly, ‘it’s a horrible night.’

‘He could have been gone hours, ever since … No. Oh God.’

Gil sent the men searching and he rode over to the Charlton household, which was the nearest neighbour. Jonathan was the son of Ralph, whom Edward had been friendly with. All the way there he told himself that this was his fault, but he was sure that Matthew would be there. He was not. The house was in darkness, in silence and though he banged on the doors and got them out of bed, he was without hope by then.

Ralph and all the men he could find offered to help and Gil was grateful. They went to all the houses nearby. He could hear voices calling Matthew’s name over the hills, the fellside and the banksides and all the time his mind gave him Jos Allsop and Rhoda. Reason deserted him. It was a cold, wet night. Gil could not believe he had to go through this again and he thought somehow that Allsop would appear and hurt Matthew, that he would have been stalking the house, that he could have persuaded Matthew away, that he might have lured him into
Newcastle and kidnapped and killed him. All night he searched and the other men of the district did the same. They found nothing and, just as daylight began, it snowed huge flakes which turned into a storm. He remembered finding Rhoda dead in the snow like some neglected animal and how he had carried her back to the house and how Allsop had reacted. It was all happening again. He didn’t want to go back to the house in case someone else had found Matthew dead, or that he had not been found at all and would be discovered cold and still or in some back alley in the city, Allsop having taken out his feelings on Gil’s son.

When full day arrived he made his way back to the house, Abby heard him and came into the hall. Her colour was normal and behind her hovered a small figure.

‘We found him,’ she said, ‘just a little while since. I’ve called off the search. He had hidden to frighten us and fallen asleep.’