A Dream of her Own (8 page)
Rosemary paused at the bedroom door, ‘I’ll give her your clothes, if you don’t mind. Some of them appear to be torn. She’ll sort through and see what can be done.’
She closed the door behind her. Rosemary was enjoying this ‘adventure’, Constance thought, and immediately she felt ashamed; the girl was good-hearted and generous. Constance could not imagine Annabel Sowerby putting herself out for someone she would consider to be one of the lower orders.
Constance stared into the flames. The nightdress she was wearing smelled of lavender and the flannel robe was soft and comforting. She had had one like this when she was a child, and there had been times when she had sat looking for pictures in the nursery fire and brushing her hair dry just as she was doing now.
‘Please, don’t look so sad.’ Rosemary had come back to kneel beside her. Constance was embarrassed to find the girl’s face within inches of her own and she looked down.
Rosemary took hold of her arm. ‘Whatever happened earlier, you are safe now and, just think, tomorrow you are going to be married. A whole new life, a better life, will begin for you. Look at me, Constance, you know that what I say is true, don’t you?’
Constance looked up. Rosemary’s eyes were shining. She is taken up with the romance of the idea, Constance thought, the idea of a friend of her brother’s marrying a servant girl. She is kind and impetuous and apparently free from prejudice. Or perhaps, in spite of her sensible manner, she is just too young to have realized how unlikely this match is.
There was a tap at the door and Rosemary hurried to open it. After a murmured conversation, she returned with a tray. ‘Here is your milk and honey. Beattie wanted to come in but I have told her how tired you are. You must sleep and be fresh for tomorrow.
‘Look, while you were bathing, Beattie made up this bed—in the alcove here. When I was a child, if I was poorly, she would sleep here in order to look after me. But tonight I shall be looking after you.’
Constance allowed Rosemary to lead her over to the bed, help her off with her robe and settle the bedclothes around her. The cup of milk was placed on a small table.
‘Now I shall put out the light. The glow from the fire should be sufficient for you to drink your milk by. Don’t worry about anything. Matthew has everything organized for tomorrow. Good night, Constance.’
‘Good night, Miss Elliot.’
‘Rosemary. You must call me Rosemary, for I hope that we are going to be friends.’
‘Good night, Rosemary. And - Rosemary...’
‘Yes?’
‘I - I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve been so very kind - you and your brother...’
For a moment the younger girl looked disconcerted. It was as if she sensed but did not want to acknowledge the strength of Constance’s feelings. She looked embarrassed.
Then, ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, ‘there’s no need, no need. I’m sure Matthew doesn’t want thanking and neither do I.’
‘Nevertheless, I’m very grateful. I hope you’ll tell him.’
‘Yes, of course, but now you must drink up your milk before it gets cold.’
Constance watched as the girl placed a cinder-guard in front of the fire. She heard her put out the light, and then the soft rustle of bed linen as she settled in her own bed. After she had finished her milk, Constance lay for some time and watched the patterns that the flames made on the ceiling. The coals shifted and settled in the grate and, for a moment, the light flared, then died again. The room grew darker.
Constance felt enfolded by warmth and comfort. She had not slept in such a soft bed with such sweet-smelling linen since she was a small child, but she could not relax entirely. The scented water in the bath had eased the aching of her body; even the burning sensation between her legs had been replaced by a nagging tenderness.
She had taken the soap and washed that part of herself until she thought she had removed every sour trace of Gerald Sowerby - and yet she could not rid herself of the fancy that she would never be clean again.
Constance moved restlessly. Would John be able to tell what had happened? She had learned enough from gossip amongst the other girls in the workhouse to know what took place between men and women but she had only a hazy idea of virginity. However, she imagined that John would never have asked her to marry him if she had not been chaste.
Am I tainted now? she wondered. Has Gerald’s action, even though it was against my will, made me impure?
When she had arrived here, earlier, Matthew had asked her if she had come to call off the wedding. For an appalling moment she had imagined that he had guessed what had happened, that her appearance had been changed by her ordeal, that her face somehow would reveal to the world what kind of woman she now was.
But, of course, that was impossible. Matthew could not know that she had been raped unless she told him. And she had told him simply that she had fallen down in the fog. He had believed her. She did not need, ever, to tell anyone any more than she had told Matthew. John would never know -
must
never know - what Gerald had done to her.
must
never know - what Gerald had done to her.
But if Matthew had not known what had happened, why had he asked her that question? And why did it seem so important to him?
Eventually, sheer fatigue overcame her need to find answers to these problems and she drifted off to sleep.
Some hours later, while Constance still slept deeply, apparently too tired even to dream, Nella was already stirring in the house on Rye Hill. Every morning of her life she faced the same agony as she swung her legs over the bed and her stiffened joints seemed to lock in protest. This morning there was no Constance to help her rise and ease her gently into her clothes, and by the time she was ready to go downstairs and begin her day’s toil, there were traces of tears on her cheeks.
‘What you need is a long soak in a hot bath,’ Constance had told her once.
‘Aye, and that’s likely, isn’t it?’ she’d scoffed. ‘By the time I gets the second bucket of water up the stairs the first lot’s stone cold!’
‘I’ll help you next time.’
‘Will you?’
But her friend had not been allowed to help her. A strict bath-time rota had to be followed and Mrs Mortimer had made sure that Constance was fully occupied when it was Nella’s turn. But at least her friend had helped her in any other way she could, Nella remembered, and she was going to miss her more than she could say.
Constance had urged her to make friends with the new girl who would be arriving to take her place. ‘Remember, the poor child will be straight from the workhouse, just as we were. We had each other but she will have no one. She’ll be grateful to find a friend.’
‘Even a friend who looks like me?’
‘Nella, don’t, please don’t talk like that. She’ll soon find out how good you are.’
Nella didn’t hold out much hope. Constance and her mother had been so sunk in their own grief when they had first arrived at the workhouse that they had never really noticed how isolated Nella had been from the other children. She had attached herself to them as soon as she could and had been astonished at how they accepted her without prejudice. The confidence this gave her helped her in her dealings with the others. Now she was on her own again.
She felt her way cautiously down the stairs. It was pitch-black but Mrs Mortimer did not allow the servants to use candles on the stairs in the morning, and woe betide the lot of them if any dribbles of candle wax were found. Neither did she allow the gaslamps to be lit until she appeared, but luckily for Nella there was just enough life left in the coals in the kitchen range to light a taper and then a candle.
In spite of the lingering warmth, the kitchen smelled dank in the mornings, and Nella was glad the dim light didn’t extend to the dark corners of the room where she could hear suspicious rustling sounds.
Cockroaches? Mice? Rats? Constance had always kept a broom handy first thing in the morning but Nella didn’t think she would have the courage to wield it if she were faced with the reality of her nightmares.
She started work on the range. Today she would have to clean and light the black monster by herself and have it ready for Mrs Mortimer to start the breakfasts. The fires in the rest of the house would have to be lit before breakfast, too, and Nella was already dreading the idea of lugging the buckets of coal up the stairs. She wondered if the new girl had any idea what it was going to be like. Poor bairn. Nella found herself feeling sorry for her.
The bolts in the back door were almost too much for her, but Nella finally managed to tug them free and she opened the door that led out into the area yard. The coalhouse was directly opposite, stretching under the pavement. The streetlamps were still lit and Nella was thankful for the light that relieved the blackness. Otherwise the enclosed yard would have been almost like a dungeon.
Before she opened the coalhouse door she noticed something glinting on the ground and she stooped to pick it up. It was a fine chain made of yellow metal, like the chain of a necklace, but it was broken. Nella examined it closely. Was it the chain she had given to Constance? Had it snapped and had Constance lost her wedding gift almost as soon as it had been given to her?
But where was the little heart? Nella looked all around the yard, even getting down on her hands and knees and feeling into every corner, but she found nothing. She went up the steps on all fours, looking carefully all the way, and even walked halfway up the street but there was no sign of the heart with their initials entwined.
Eventually she knew she must return to her duties and she made her way back. She hoped against hope that it wasn’t Constance’s necklace. She tried to convince herself that it was another chain that had fallen through the area railings by chance but in her heart she knew that that was unlikely.
Perhaps the heart is caught in her clothing, she thought. I hope so. But Nella could not deny the possibility that it might be lost, and the idea that her friend would be married without wearing her gift around her neck saddened her. Nella was about to slip the chain into her pocket when she stopped and looked at it more closely under the streetlamp. She tested it; it seemed quite strong. But then it had been cheap and perhaps there had been a fault ...
Yes, that must be it ... a weak link - otherwise why should it snap so soon without cause? She wondered how soon Constance had realized that she had lost it. She could guess how upset she must have been ...
Chapter Five
‘Have I hurt you?’
‘No, you’re very gentle.’
‘But, Constance, you’re crying.’
‘No, I’m not, really—’
‘Well, if those are not tears, I must have made your eyes water with the powder. Here, take this handkerchief.’
‘Thank you.’ Constance looked into the dressing-table mirror and dabbed her eyes, trying not to smudge the layer of pale peach-coloured powder that Rosemary had dusted so carefully over the mark on her cheek.
‘If I had noticed that bruise last night I would have bathed it with some of Beattie’s witch hazel,’ Rosemary said. ‘It must have happened when you fell over in the fog.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Poor love! What a thing to happen on the eve of your wedding.’
‘Yes.’ Constance turned her head abruptly so as not to meet Rosemary’s eyes in the mirror, and got a mouthful of powder.
‘Ooops - sorry! Here, spit it out, use the handkerchief. Good ... Look in the mirror. I don’t think anyone will notice the bruise now.’
‘Rosemary, if you’re quite finished put that box of powder back in your mother’s dressing room and mind you leave everything as you found it.’ Hannah Beattie, small, round and flustered, was standing behind them with a hairbrush, a comb and a box of hairpins.
Rosemary smiled at her. ‘Right oh, Beattie, dear, and you must take charge now. I have no idea how to dress hair, that must be quite obvious from the state of this bird’s nest on my own head!’
‘I’ll tidy it for you when I’ve finished with our bride.’
Rosemary’s companion turned to Constance and smiled as she put the box of pins down on the dressing table. ‘I’ve a way with hair and fashion, you know, Constance.’ She spoke in the soft accent of the Scottish Borders. ‘I should have been a lady’s maid, not a nanny.’
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