Tales of the West Riding (20 page)

“Well, I'm sure I wish you
every
happiness,” she said with emphasis. “I was just a bit surprised, that's all. I can't imagine you and Ed—together—somehow.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I am very grateful to Edward,” she said softly.

Carol crimsoned with fury. Grateful! To a man! Hell! She turned away, rushed across the room and began to brush Johnny's hair with such vigour that he howled and kicked her.

“Edward Oates,” she said angrily to her brother when they were alone for a moment later that evening: “I don't see why you want to marry Liz.”

“The usual reasons.”

“I don't believe you. She's plain and she's one of the high-flown kind.”

“It seems I prefer that kind.”

“No, you don't. What I mean to say, Ed: she's Lucius's sister and he's fond of her.”

“I'm glad to hear it. I commend his taste,” said Edward smoothly.

“Look, Ed. Lucius isn't clever like you, but he's a grand fellow all the same. What I mean to say: if ever you do anything to hurt Lucius, Ed, look out! I'll get you! I mean it! So look out. Mind yourself.”

“I will,” said Edward, laughing. “Thanks for the warning.”

“There are times when I hate you, Ed.”

“Get along with you. You adore me. So does Elizabeth,” said Edward with a sly grin.

“That's what I'm afraid of,” said Carol gloomily.

“I don't much like this engagement, Lucius,” she said bluntly to her husband when the newly affianced pair, whom they had been entertaining for the evening, had left Hill Royd.

“Why on earth not? You were always wanting Elizabeth to get married. Edward's your own brother. Very nice arrangement. Keeps everything in the family. Edward's a clever fellow.”

It was not possible for Carol to be disloyal to her brother. Besides, what had she to say, after all?

“I just hope it will be all right,” she murmured uneasily.

* * *

With great skill, and a carefully maintained gentleness and courtesy, Edward initiated his wife into the secrets of married bliss. For some time their intimacy went well. Edward was first astounded and struck into pity by Elizabeth's innocence, which seemed to him extraordinary, and then enjoyed the triumph of his mastery over that innocence; Elizabeth was first astounded by the physical facts and the pleasure they gave her, and then immensely grateful to her husband for having thus made her into a real woman. For the first time in her life she felt equal to other women. She held her head high, smiled more readily, and extended the range of the colours and styles in her wardrobe; her face softened, she took more trouble with her fine silky hair and no longer appeared so plain. At first she tried to maintain her cardiograph work but this proved inconvenient for Edward's mealtimes. Her first duty was to him, of course, she knew, so she gave it up and put in a few hours' voluntary work weekly instead.

The young Oates pair decided to occupy a charming house, a couple of old weavers' cottages thrown into each other, on the slopes of the far side of the Ramsgill valley, called Ram's Hey. This house was Elizabeth's choice, and (very fortunately, thought Edward) the wedding gift of old Mr. Hardaker, but even so, the outlay on carpets, curtains, furniture, decorations, seemed to him enormous.

This time Edward obtained a loan from a Hudley bank with
ease—everyone knew he was marrying a Ramsgill Hardaker, and his grandfather-in-law-to-be had a useful word with the bank manager. But between this loan, and the still far from paid-up hire-purchase on the car, and the engagement ring, and clothes for the wedding and honeymoon and presents for the bridesmaids and air tickets to Italy and of course old Sam's loan affair, Edward was at his wits' end for money. Of course it would all come right presently, for surely soon he would be made a director of the firm and his salary be raised commensurately, but meanwhile he was really in the dickens of a mess. In fact he actually found himself on the eve of the wedding without enough cash in hand to pay the honeymoon hotel bills. Besides, he absolutely dared not leave the country without clearing off that S. E. Oates loan. Anything might happen while he was away, not available to tell the necessary lies. He imagined himself receiving, in Venice, say, a cable from his grandfather-in-law saying
return at once bank fraud discovered.
How Elizabeth's adoring look would change!

Should he go to the bank? No; he had stretched his credit to the limit there. To Mr. Hardaker? The old man would grant the loan, of course; but the thought of his sardonic comments, now and to come, made Edward hot all over. To Lucius? At this stage Lucius would cheerfully agree but then discover to his astonishment that he was unable to find any money; Lucius with two children, a generous wife, a careless self and no method of accounting was up to his neck in debt in Edward's opinion, even though Lucius himself did not yet know it.

At this point Edward with an angry exclamation snatched up the evening paper, picked a moneylender's address from the advertisement columns and walked there rapidly.

He came out with five hundred pounds and a neat little booklet in which his large monthly payments were to be entered. He was immensely relieved; the sun shone again. But he was under no illusions as to what he had done. He had placed an enormous stake on himself and must win. “That a man as shrewd as I should do something so idiotic!” he scolded himself. But then he threw back his head and laughed; he enjoyed playing for high stakes and had always won so far. He paid off the Annotsfield bank with a sigh of thankfulness.

The honeymoon was a success, the house really charming.
Both Edward and Elizabeth had taste and Elizabeth had knowledge. Entering his home after a good day at the mill and seeing it exquisitely kept, flowers elegantly arranged in large beautiful bowls, old furniture with tapestry chair-seats admirably stitched by his mother-in-law, agreeable ornaments, an odd modern picture or two bought by Elizabeth before her marriage which in their disintegration of form and colour satisfied his deep personal idiosyncrasy, Edward felt successful and happy. He kissed his wife, always neatly and tastefully dressed even when she wore an apron to prepare their evening meal—her Ramsgill dividends provided her with an ample personal allowance—and felt that he had done well to reach this pleasant temporary resting-place. Temporary, because as soon as he had cleared away the mess caused by the first operation, tidied away his debts, he meant of course to move on and up again. A merger, a takeover would give him the larger scope he was now ready for. Elizabeth summoned him to the table. The evening meals at Ram's Hey were rather poor at times, Edward thought, but they were elegantly served, and quite soon, when some merger came off and he became a member of the joint board, he would hire a couple, a man and wife, to undertake the cooking. So far, the gamble had been decidedly worth while.

Presently, however, Edward began to experience a certain nagging dissatisfaction. He was jealous of Lucius' and Carol's two sons: hearty healthy rowdy boys with black hair and rosy cheeks and strong little legs, always running and tumbling and rolling and shouting. They laughed a great deal, their large brown eyes sparkling with glee. Their grandmother adored them, Edward observed with a jaundiced eye; old Mr. Hardaker seemed to enjoy the noise they made and liked nothing better than to stroll round the gardens of Ramsgill House clutching their hot dirty little hands. The children liked these present-bearing elders, and, thought Edward crossly, knew how to play up to them. Now Elizabeth showed no signs of conceiving. Edward resented this; he grew tired of answering cheerfully “Not yet” to the question of visitors to Ramsgill when Lucius said proudly: “Two boys.” Lucius positively carried photographs of the kids about with him and was always telling anecdotes about them to old Hardaker; it was really nauseating. John Luke
and Thomas Oates were their names. Edward worked up a grievance that Carol should have used their father's name for her second child without even consulting her brother, but this was a mere useful pretence; his real vexation was lest Elizabeth's barrenness should seem to proceed from a lack of sexual potency on his part.

His enquiries became so frequent that at length Elizabeth grew troubled, and began to feel that once again she was failing as a woman. She nerved herself for a visit to her doctor.

She returned aglow; it seemed there had been a genuine physical hindrance, which a slight operation would put right. She told this to her husband with eager fervour. Edward pretended to share her enthusiasm, but in fact he felt for her at that moment the disgust of a robust and selfish organism for something ailing and imperfect.

However, she conceived. Her pregnancy was exceedingly uncomfortable, and Edward was often hard put to it to control his impatience with her ailments, which Elizabeth strove vainly to keep from his contemptuous eyes. Her labour was protracted and difficult, but Edward forgave all this when she produced a son. There was a moment, when he first saw the rather quiet little blanketed bundle, the little monkey face which was yet so like his own, when Edward felt a gush of happiness and a decision to put all his affairs straight and keep them so. For just a moment it seemed worth while to live an honest straightforward life, work for Ramsgill in an ordinary way and leave it as an honourable heritage for his son. He was surprised and annoyed later when the doctor told him that the birth had used his wife hardly and that it would be wise therefore if she had no more children, at least for the time. But after all, it did not greatly matter, since he had a son.

* * *

Unfortunately Henry Edmund, as the son of Edward and Elizabeth Oates was christened, proved to be a delicate child. Pale and fair in complexion, long and thin in body, weak in muscle, diffident and afraid in mind, he was not a boy Edward could feel proud of. The first year or so of his life was spent wrestling with stomach troubles which made him fretful; his
petulant wailing cry, and the sight of the doctor's car standing yet again at the door, too often greeted Edward on his return home. Elizabeth devoted herself to her baby whole-heartedly, and by her unfailing care, intelligently applied, coaxed the child along into life and something like health.

Mrs. Hardaker was in some ways helpful to Elizabeth with baby Edmund, but she wounded her daughter by her continual references to Lucius's more robust children, whose early prowess was her unfailing theme.

“Fancy, Tom had three teeth at this age,” she would exclaim. “And here's Edmund without one.”

“Mother, please don't make comparisons,” pleaded Elizabeth at length. “It's so depressing. Poor little Edmund does his best.”

“You can't expect him to do as well as Tom, dear,” said Mrs. Hardaker in what was meant to be a comforting tone. “Look how small he was at birth.”

In spite of these depreciating comments she loved Edmund and nursed him tenderly enough.

Edward however did not love him. He was ashamed to have produced such a wreckling, and jealous of the time and love which Elizabeth poured out on an infant instead of on himself. He began to dislike Elizabeth; to find her high-mindedness naïve, her devotion to duty a bore. She was really very plain, he told himself irritably.

The sight of his own cheap car standing beside Elizabeth's handsome and solid model in the old barn which they used as a garage, now began to annoy him. Very little pressure was needed to effect an exchange. He had only to say: “I shall be late tonight—I have to go to a meeting in Manchester this afternoon.”

“It's only an hour's drive, Edward,” said Elizabeth, surprised.

“Longer in my small vehicle,” said Edward with a grimace.

“But take mine, Edward,” replied Elizabeth, delighted to do him this service. He protested that he did not wish to deprive her. “It's not deprivation,” said Elizabeth earnestly. “Yours is easier to park. I don't drive long distances. Edward, you must take mine.”

He took it, and rewarded her by arriving home in good time and apparently high spirits. Soon the exchange of cars became so habitual that at Ram's Hey it was taken for granted. Elizabeth once or twice suggested that he should exchange his own car for a new one, but he snapped at this so impatiently that she desisted.

The truth was, of course, that the instalments on the first car were not yet completely paid off. To pay them off would involve him more deeply than ever with banks and money lenders; and he was already in so deep that more involvement simply could not be risked. For now on top of his pre-marital debts he had to cope with all the continual outgoings to which the middle class is subject: heavy income tax, including schedule A demands for the house; rates; gas and electricity and telephone charges; motor licences; occasionally a jobbing gardener; repairs to the Ram's Hey fabric; life insurance (on which Mr. Hardaker insisted), contributions to one of the private health insurance schemes (Mr. Hardaker again), specialists' fees for Edmund; charitable subscriptions. No, he could not possibly afford a new car; luckily there was Elizabeth's.

But after a time, as he might have expected, thought Edward bitterly, Mr. Hardaker noticed the exchange.

“Driving Elizabeth's car again, I see, Edward,” he remarked drily. “Yours out of order?”

Edward in a fury returned to his own car. What had he got for all his efforts, he raged? A dull wife, a peevish ailing child, an inadequate income, a load of debt, an out-of-date car. His resentment against Elizabeth grew.

* * *

At last one evening when Edward came home from the mill particularly tired and vexed—Mr. Hardaker had made a fuss about the month's petrol consumption—and found Elizabeth nursing the sickly child amid a collection of pill-boxes and medicine bottles (indicative of some new and expensive treatment prescribed by the specialist), with the fire low, dinner unprepared, her dress untidy, her pale hair drooping unbecomingly about her face, Edward felt he simply could not bear the married state any longer. The child's howling had made their previous night hideous.