Flint and Roses (82 page)

She looked very much as I had anticipated. I was prepared for it. And I had seen grief before. I had seen women from Simon Street who had lost eight out of ten children. I had myself lost a husband. I had seen the agonized collapse of Mr. Hobhouse as he had handed over the keys of Nethercoats, and of his children's future. I had never seen a woman facing the loss of everything she possessed, everything in which she believed, her creed, her immortality; and the sheer savagery of it, the sheer nakedness, was overwhelming.

‘Blaize?' she said as I ran to meet her, his name jerking itself out of her with the uncoordinated movement of a marionette, and, understanding that she needed to conserve every drop of her self-command, I nodded and made a gesture of assent. But Blaize too had heard the approach of that aged curricle which had once belonged to Perry Clevedon, had recognized the wild, rake-hellish driving, and came quickly into the hall, sensing alarm with the fine, far-sighted sensitivity of a cat.

‘Georgiana?'

And, as she began to speak, her face once again was the face of a tormented doll, the terrible effort of wooden features forcing themselves to emit human sounds when the only sound perhaps in her mind was a scream of raw hate and vengeance.

‘I met a man on the road to Galton—a tenant of ours—how ridiculous!'

‘Yes, Georgiana?'

‘A man—as I said—who asked me if there was nothing I could do to stop the new master from—'

‘What is it, Georgiana?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Yes—what is it you can't say?'

‘To stop the new master from selling the estate.'

‘Dear God!' Blaize said.

‘And so I told him what nonsense, and he said everyone in the village was talking of it—which couldn't signify because people do talk so in country places—so I went to the village—yes, I went to the village—'

‘Georgiana, will you sit down?'

‘Not yet. Blaize, if it should be true, you do know that I couldn't bear it?'

‘I know. Have you seen Nicholas?'

‘No. I knew that's what I had to do. So I got the curricle and came back here as fast as I could. I drove right into the mill yard at Lawcroft and right out again. Blaize—I
couldn't.
My hands burned on to the reins and I couldn't let go—couldn't get down. Blaize—I have to know.'

‘Yes. I'll go and see him right away.'

‘Thank God for you, Blaize!'; and, swaying forward, as if, like a soldier dying of wounds, she had endured only until her message had been delivered, she collapsed against him, allowing me to see this man who had warned me he would never be a rock for me to lean on, standing firm as a rock now for Georgiana, his body supporting hers to my drawing-room sofa and then holding her, rocking her like a child, the caressing note of his voice whispering comfort against the dishevelled head she pressed against his shoulder, so that abruptly painfully, my mind was flooded by sharp-etched memories of all the other times he had helped and protected her: Blaize stepping in adroitly to shield her from malice and backbiting in the early days of her marriage; Blaize going to fetch her from the sands at Bournemouth, worrying for her safety when Nicholas had remained on the path with me; Blaize waiting up the whole of one summer night at Listonby, watching from the window until she had ridden home; Blaize making the journey to Scarborough that fateful Saturday to persuade me, harass me, frighten me into giving Nicholas up, not for my sake, but for hers, seeing me, perhaps, as no more than a threat to Georgiana's peace of mind; Blaize—so many years ago—leaning forward in his mother's carriage, saying to Caroline, ‘She is exactly the kind of girl a man might come to love quite foolishly, without at all wanting to'; Blaize
then,
his voice continuing, cool, unforgotten, ‘She could get inside a man's head and his skin and he could find himself quite unable to get rid of her, no matter how much he tried'; Blaize
now
, offering her the strong shoulder for her tears, the warm, protecting arms for her reassurance as he had never offered them to me. And through the layers of my pity, my remorse, my toleration, something stirred, heaved, made its long-subdued protest so that the only clear thought in my head was, ‘Take your hands off that woman.'

I left the room quickly, gave instructions that my husband was not to be disturbed, mentioned the word ‘discretion'to my butler, who interpreted it correctly as keeping as many people as possible out of the way. I walked back to the drawing-room door, stretched out a hand towards it and could not move any further, caught painfully and perhaps ridiculously in a nightmare panic. I had stood in dreams, many times, exactly like this, in a familiar house, nothing to threaten me but the knowledge that somewhere, on an upper floor, was a room I must not enter. And so I would not enter it. There were other rooms in my dream, pleasant rooms, no reason at all for my feet to mount the stairs—although they mounted them—no reason at all to find myself standing at that one forbidden door, hypnotized by the nameless terror behind it.

I stood at that door now, waiting, as the fear took shape. I went inside and there it was, my own blindness, my own inadequacies, the futile knowledge that I had entered far too late. And, as I crossed the threshold, Blaize did not even raise his head to look at me.

Georgiana was sitting alone, a brandy glass in her hand, Blaize leaning on the arm of the sofa, not touching her, but alert, intuitive,
there,
to anticipate her need.

‘Promise me,' he was saying, ‘that you will stay here while I'm away—no running off in that crazy curricle, Georgiana, no wild schemes. I don't know how long I'll be, since Nick could have gone to any one of the mills, or the Piece Hall, anywhere. And when I do find him it could be over in ten minutes or it could last all day. I must know that you'll be here when I return.'

She drank off her brandy, set down the glass, and sat for a moment staring down at her own narrow hands, the tension in her slight body so piercing that it got into my own nerves and sinews, drawing them out in subtle anguish.

‘I'll stay,' she said, her voice no more than a hoarse whisper, her eyes still fixed on her hands which now had coiled themselves into fists. ‘And Blaize—he must want something—surely? Something more than it seems?'

‘Oh yes—I do believe so.'

‘Then tell him, please, that I'll do anything. Yes—it's not businesslike, I know, to make offers before one knows the asking price. I've learned that much from being so long a manufacturer's wife. But, you see, when something is beyond price, nothing one offered could be too much. You have
carte blanche
—'

‘I know,' he said quietly, and, pressing his hand lightly against her shoulder, he got up and went out into the hall, asking me with a glance to follow him.

We stood in the open doorway waiting for his carriage to be brought round, my arms folded as if against the cold although the sun was shining, the air still and heavy with the fragrances of summer's end.

‘You don't seem much surprised about this, Faith.'

‘No. I'm not surprised,' and I was smiling, in the way sacrificial victims are supposed to smile on their way to the altar, as my voice continued, ‘I already knew.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I already knew. Nicholas told me on Jonas's wedding day.'

‘You will have a reason, of course—and I do hope it is a good one—for not telling me?'

‘No. No reason at all.'

‘And is that all you can say?'

He walked down the shallow steps to the carriage-drive, leaving me in the doorway, my arms still folded, taking with him the first flare of his annoyance, so that when he returned his voice was curt, his eyes not angry, I thought, but disappointed, disdainful.

‘Faith—there's no time now to have this out. But let me explain this—if you'd told me the estate was to be sold—as you should have done, as any woman without a personal axe to grind would have done—then all this unpleasantness could have been avoided. I don't know what Nicky's up to. Possibly he does want to get rid of his wife. Possibly he does see the Abbey as a bad influence on his son. Those may, or may not, be his reasons. I don't imagine for one moment he'd sell the estate to me, but if I'd known in advance I could have used an agent and no one the wiser. However, since there's no chance of that now, I shall just have to find another way.'

The carriage was driven smartly round from the back of the house and I went with him to the step, hugging myself tighter, the cold which seemed to be attacking me from within making me shiver.

‘Faith,' he said, wanting, I think, to give me a second chance. ‘Her roots are so deep in that soil that if they were taken up she might just wither—not necessarily die, although one can't be certain—but just wither. If I can prevent it—however I can prevent it—then I will. You must understand that.'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘And you'll help? You'll look after her now?'

‘Of course.'

‘Thank you,' he said, and, because his eyes were still careful, asking me. ‘Can I trust you?', I gave him such reassurance as I could, not being myself quite certain of it.

He stepped up into the carriage, drove off, and I went back inside to help him as I had promised, smoothing out the tangle of detail he had neglected. I sent a note to Prudence asking her to keep Blanche and Venetia until they were sent for, another, infinitely more cautious message to Aunt Verity explaining that Georgiana was with me and that all was well. I conferred somewhat apologetically with my cook about the luncheon we had not eaten, making no firm promises about dinner. And when it was done I went back into the drawing-room and sat down in a thick silence, waiting for the blast which must alter the course of both our lives, which had already shaken mine.

For a long time we had nothing to say to each other, Georgiana being not really present in the room at all, but far away in the meadows and moorlands of her childhood, the long summertime of her adolescence, reliving those eager days with Perry drop by drop—Perry who could never be lost because Galton could never be lost—and, although I struggled hard to pity her as I should, to love her as I believed I did, I couldn't rid my memory of her trusting head on Blaize's shoulder, nor my own anguished cry, ‘Take your hands off that woman,' although I knew he had never really touched her.

Yet what did touching matter? He had touched other women, beautiful women, I supposed, made anonymous by distance and by his own nonchalance. I had accepted it as an essential part of his nature. But tenderness, concern, the ingredients, surely, of love for Georgiana, all that was, quite simply, beyond acceptance. I could neither tolerate it not even contemplate it with anything approaching reason. Yet I had seen it. I forced myself to look at it again and, as I did so, jealousy assaulted me, left me gasping and sick, left me foolish and astonished and bitterly cold.

‘Blaize must have found him by now,' she whispered at last.

‘Yes. I imagine so.' And there was coldness in my voice because coldness was all I had.

She got up, paced a moment, sat down again, her hands on her knees.

‘I didn't know he hated me so much.'

‘Didn't you?' And I had spoken harshly, to punish myself for all the things I hadn't known.

‘Faith?' she said, her start of surprise clearing my head enough for me to realize my own strangeness, and that she was not to blame.

‘Georgiana—do forgive me. I can't think why I said that, since it can't be true.'

‘Don't you think so?' she said, and as she leaned towards me her pointed face was almost eager.

‘I wouldn't mind hatred, Faith. I understand it. If Nicky had been with me this morning when I heard about the Abbey, I could have turned on him so easily with my driving-whip and killed him, I believe—really—if I'd managed to hit him hard enough in the ten minutes before my head cooled. It's not a pleasant feeling, perhaps, but at least it's alive. At least it's not silent. And if he wants to punish me like this, then he must hate me—surely? What else could it be? There's no profit to be made from selling my land, and the money I'd need to keep it going would be nothing to him. It has to be for my chastisement.'

‘You sound as if you want him to hate you.'

‘Oh dear,' she said, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes. ‘I believe I do. How terrible—except that if he can still feel so strongly—I don't know. Perhaps we could just
talk
again. A little thing like that would be a great deal.'

‘And the Abbey? Could you forgive him if he sold it?'

‘No,' she said, suddenly on her feet in one knife-edged movement, her body so rigid with terror, reminding me so strongly of myself face to face with that nightmare door, that I threw my arms around her and held her fast, not with the comforting assurance of Blaize but as one drowning woman might cling to another, both of us separately floundering.

‘Faith—what is it?'

‘Nothing. Pay no attention to me. Don't worry. Blaize will be back soon. He means to buy the Abbey and give it back to you, somehow or other, and he'll find a way—truly he will—'

‘And you wouldn't mind that?'

‘Of course not. Why should I? Why
should
I?'

‘I wouldn't claim it for myself,' she whispered, her lips very pale, ‘If he could keep it for Gervase, that would be enough—and it might satisfy Nicky. I'd agree never to set foot on Galton land again if I could be sure it was still there, for Gervase. I hope Blaize has thought to tell him that.'

But Blaize returned by mid-afternoon having achieved nothing, having made the mistake, in fact, of going first to Lawcroft, so that by the time Nicholas's whereabouts had been ascertained he had already boarded the Leeds train.

‘I left a message with the stationmaster asking him to come here,' Blaize told me, still watchful. ‘We can do nothing now but wait, which gives him an advantage I don't like. Faith—when he arrives take Georgiana upstairs and stay there.'