Flint and Roses (77 page)

‘Faith,' Blaize said as we drank our coffee, sipped our brandy in the muted light and warmth of our drawing-room. ‘Are you not being a shade unreasonable?'

‘I daresay.'

‘But you don't mean to forgive me?'

‘Lord—what is there to forgive? The train was late. It happens often enough. It's not as if I'd been relying on you—'

‘No—you'd hardly have been doing that.'

‘Shall I give you some more coffee?'

‘Please. Was my mother much distressed? If you can't believe I meant to come for your sake, then at least you must see I was concerned for her. The last funeral she attended was my father's and it must have reminded her.'

‘I don't suppose she wants to forget. She looked very sad, but she wasn't alone. Nicholas was there for part of the time—and even if he hadn't come she wouldn't have been alone. I don't think she ever is.'

He blinked, not shutting away tears, of course, since Blaize did not cry, but perhaps a possibility, a memory, of tears.

‘Quite so. And what did you make of Agbrigg? He was wearing his usual dead-pan lawyer's face when I called.'

‘Yes. But what does that signify? Jonas never shows his feelings in any case, and he certainly wouldn't show them to you, Blaize. Not after the beatings you've given him.'

He blinked again, this time with frank surprise.

‘Faith, I do assure you, I've never laid a hand on him.'

‘Oh yes you have—all of you. He was the only boy at the grammar school—surely—who'd come out of a weaving shed, the only one whose mother wore clogs and a shawl, and whose father had a cloth cap he had to doff to your father. And you all let him know it. If he'd been tough and strong I suppose he could have thrashed you all. But since he was puny, as well as being poor, the only thing he could do was pretend he didn't care. I think he's been pretending ever since. I think he's been pretending so long that most of the time he convinces himself.'

He leaned forward, took a cigar from the intricately embossed silver box I had given him several Christmases ago, raised his eyebrows in automatic enquiry as to whether, or not he might smoke—yet another request he did not expect to be denied—although when I nodded he kept the cigar unlit in his hand.

‘How is it you know so much about him, Faith?'

‘Oh—heavens!—because I think he was fond of me once. For about half a minute he let me see it and then it disappeared, so quickly that I could never be sure. What I
am
sure of is that he's suffering now. I felt it today and if I can help him—'

‘Can you help him?'

‘Probably not. I can look after Grace sometimes, since she gets on well with Blanche, and I can show him sympathy, at least—can't I?'

‘Darling—are you asking my permission?' he said, his voice light, one eyebrow raising in faint sarcasm, definite amusement. ‘I wouldn't dream of interfering with your sympathy. At the very most I might advise you not to be too liberal with it. If he was fond of you before, there's always the danger that he could grow fond of you again, especially now that he's lonely and nobody else seems to care much about him.'

‘And would you object?'

‘My dear,' he said, leaning back against the sofa cushions, his subtle face mischievous and relaxed, his intention, I thought, to fend off my mood of introspection with laughter, ‘why should I mind? I have the most perfect confidence in you, and if you chose to bask in his adoration for a while—well, that's natural enough and I'd see no cause for alarm.'

I should have laughed. The mere idea of Jonas openly adoring me—or anyone—and of myself basking in its glow should have provided ample cause for mirth, as Blaize had expected. But instead of the unwilling smile, the pathway to easy reconciliation—because I couldn't bring myself to tell him, ‘I needed you, Blaize. I'm afraid and uncertain. I need you now'—I looked at him for a moment, quite coldly, and astonished myself considerably by asking, ‘And you, Blaize? You do your share of that particular kind of basking, I know. Do you do more than that?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

And, though I heard an inner voice very clearly urge me, ‘Stop this. Change this dangerous, foolish topic now, while you still can. You have nothing to gain by it,' I could not obey.

‘I said do you do more than just bask?'

‘I wonder.'

But even then, aware of the cool cynicism that would make him a formidable opponent for any woman, I was compelled to continue.

‘You wonder? Well—that is a very clever answer, Blaize, and I am sure you can think of a dozen just as clever.

‘Obviously I am not so subtle, because I don't know what you mean.'

‘Perhaps I don't know what you are asking.'

‘This—are you unfaithful to me?'

‘Oh dear—I—really—I do wish you hadn't said that, Faith.'

‘Yes—so I imagine.'

He got up and stood for a moment half turned away from me, one long, beautifully preserved hand—not the hand of a Law Valley man at all—resting on the mantelpiece, his face extremely careful.

‘Shall we say—no, I am not.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘Faith—perhaps you should.'

‘I don't.'

He sighed, his fingers flexing themselves against the polished marble before he turned to face me. ‘Then shall we say—occasionally, briefly, and never in Cullingford—in fact a long way from here. Faith—this is all nonsense, you know. It can't be a shock to you.'

‘Did I say it was? I didn't say I cared, either.'

‘No—you didn't. I hardly expected you to. But I didn't begin this conversation, Faith, and I'm not eager to go on with it. You've had a very difficult day—'

‘So I have. Shall I go to bed with a headache, like Celia used to do, so as not to be a nuisance?'

‘
Faith!
' he rapped out, the first threat I had ever received from him. ‘I think that is more than enough. Is there a point to any of this? I have never pretended to be other than I am. I accepted you as you were. I don't believe it would help you—and it would considerably annoy me—to go over that old and painful ground again. I
am
sorry, Faith. If you are having an emotional crisis, then I may be able to understand it, but I'm not ready to share it. In fact it will be far better for us both if I go down to the Swan until it's over.'

He looked down at the cigar still unlit in his hand, replaced it carefully in its silver box, straightened the sleeve of his jacket.

‘I don't want to hurt you, Faith. I refuse to be hurt by you. We have had a pleasant life together so far. Do you deny that?'

I shook my head, still obstinate and miserable, a danger to myself and to the very fabric of that pleasant but artificial life—that sham—more willing, in that moment, to have endured a beating at his hands than the cool logic of his mind, the sharp wit of his tongue.

‘Good. I'll leave you then.'

But he paused an instant in the doorway and, looking at me as I sat, hands clenched in my lap, said quietly, ‘I give you everything I can, you know—as much as it is in my nature to give. Which is rather more—in fact a great deal more, Faith Aycliffe—than you give to me.'

We made our trip to Paris as soon as circumstances allowed, a delightful round of gaieties during which our relationship appeared, on its surface, to be unaltered, except that he was much more considerate than usual, a shade less affectionate, and that he went out alone two evenings and one afternoon without the flimsiest of explanations. I bought dresses from Monsieur Albertini, went to theatres and to amusing little suppers afterwards, drank a great deal of champagne, conducted light-hearted, very temporary flirtations, because, in this sparkling Paris of the new Napoleon and his Empress Eugenie who had brought the first crinoline to England as I had introduced it to Cullingford, flirtation was an acceptable means of passing the time. I drove out in the Bois de Boulogne as I used to do with my mother, acknowledging masculine admiration with a sidelong glance, a half smile, as she had. I allowed a gentleman—on the afternoon Blaize so mysteriously disappeared—to kiss the palms of my hands and the nape of my neck, a pastime of which I soon tired. I was pleasant, talkative, brittle, uneasy. I was a woman turned thirty who, beneath her carefully acquired poise, was no longer certain of her direction. While Blaize, beneath his witticisms, his teasing, his social chatter, would not talk to me.

The American war, as Blaize had foreseen, was now raging, a circumstance which provided ample justification for his expensive exploration of new markets, and would send him off to Russia again before long. But on our return to Cullingford he was subjected at once to pressure from Nicholas, who considered he had been kept in ignorance of his brother's intentions quite long enough.

During our absence there had been trouble at Low Cross, the smallest and oldest of the Barforth mills, Mayor Agbrigg—who was famous for his caution—having noticed a series of fine cracks in the soot-blackened, weather-beaten walls. Nicholas—at once—had emptied the mill, absorbing as much of the work-force as possible elsewhere, even paying compensation to others, while the old wooden beams, never intended to take the weight of power-driven machinery, could be replaced with cast iron, winning himself a certain amount of grudging respect, since everybody knew of masters who had ignored such warnings until shattered floorboards, falling machinery and crushed bodies had proved their architects right. But ‘shoring up and making do' not being in Nicholas's nature, he would have much preferred to knock the old building down and start again on a far grander scale, an operation which—since it required Blaize's agreement—brought the question of their partnership to the forefront again.

A long brown envelope made its appearance on my hall table, delivered this time by the coachman from Tarn Edge, followed, a few days later, by another.

‘I'm glad to see Brother Nick keeping himself so busy,' Blaize murmured, and I learned, not from my husband but from an irate Caroline that, although he would not agree to sell, he was prepared—if properly persuaded—to split.

‘Either way would considerably upset me,' Caroline announced, having driven over very early from Listonby, her intention to recruit me to her service being very plain. ‘They have the best business in the Valley, they are both clever men—or so they would have us believe—yet they are worse than Dominic and Noel used to be at five years old, ready to murder each other for the biggest slice of apple tart. Well—they have been squabbling all their lives, those brothers of mine, and it is high time now that they grew up and learned to get on together. You should tell Blaize so, Faith, and keep on telling him until he believes you. Georgiana is hopeless, of course, and doesn't care what happens, but I am relying on you. I should certainly never allow Matthew to be so foolish. My father devoted his life to those mills, and I refuse to see his efforts wasted. Goodness—if he had left the mills to me there would have been none of this futile wrangling. Remember, Faith—talk sense to him and let him see you won't take “no” for an answer.'

Yet, in reply to my cautious enquiry, ‘Caroline says you want to split the business?', Blaize merely lifted a non-chalant shoulder. ‘Ah well, if Caroline says so—But of course there is always the chance I may change my mind tomorrow.'

And it was hard to face the truth that my husband did not trust me.

‘Blaize, is it decided yet? Which way is it to be done?'

‘Darling, why do you keep on asking? Is Caroline pressing you for an answer?'

Even Georgiana was better informed than I.

‘Are you not sick to death of it?' she demanded, walking into my breakfast parlour and helping herself to toast and coffee. ‘I declare, it is the most vexing thing I ever heard—especially since I hear nothing else. Blaize will not sell and Nicky will not split. Caroline, I believe, has lost her wits, since she seems to think there is something I can do about it. Even my mother-in-law spoke sharply to me the other day. Well—they may do as they please. And while they are making up their minds I shall do as I please, and go over to Galton to stay with my grandfather.'

The Duke of South Erin was finally enticed to Listonby that winter, happy to escape a London made gloomy by the death of the prematurely aged Prince Albert.

‘You'll adore him,' Caroline told us, a command rather than an opinion, and indeed he proved amiable enough, an older, slightly more sophisticated version of Matthew himself, requiring no more complex pleasures than a spot of good hunting and shooting, and a handsome woman to laugh at his jokes at dinner-time.

I attended the ball Caroline gave in his honour wearing a vast confection of black chiffon that entirely filled the carriage, a diamond on my hand which Blaize had tossed into my lap that morning because he thought Caroline would expect us to look our best. Georgiana had a new diamond too; Caroline wore the whole of her not inconsiderable collection; and Aunt Verity was not very far behind.

‘Very civil of you to take so much trouble,' the Duke told her at the end of the sumptuous celebration.

‘It is something of a family tradition,' Caroline replied, blinking hard, her firm chin for just a moment quivering, so that I knew she had actually said, ‘I haven't done this for you at all, I've done it for my father.'

The Lady Barforth Academy for Young Ladies was also honoured by a ducal visit, the noble gentleman wishing to check the progress of his natural daughter, although his paternal impulse was soon replaced by another impulse, of amusement this time, of curiosity and a definite if grudging admiration for Prudence.

‘Never met a governess like her,' he said. ‘Clever women always did make me uncomfortable and that one terrifies me.'