The Judge's Daughter (21 page)

She was wise. Zachary Spencer did not figure in his wife’s emotions – he was just a piece of scaffolding designed to support her. If the marriage failed, there would be a decent
settlement. As delicately as possible, Helen had asked about the intimate side of the marriage, had received the reply, ‘I close my eyes and think of Gregory Peck.’ Louisa was brave.
She probably recognized Helen’s vulnerability because it echoed her own past. ‘But she is more Charlotte Lucas than I am,’ Helen whispered. Austen’s Charlotte had married a
fool; Louisa had fastened herself to a bank balance; the fictional character and the living woman had both married for safety.

Was James Taylor to be Helen’s safety? She thought not. As Louisa had said, if Helen didn’t want him, he should be advised to bugger off. A smile tilted the corners of Helen’s
mouth. She would have loved to own the guts to scream those two words into a crowded room, but she would never get that far. Denis. A part of her still wanted and needed him. He continued to occupy
her dreams, but she could never have him. Soon, Denis would be a father; Helen Spencer would probably be the eternal virgin.

The dreams about Denis came less frequently these days, but the other nightmare remained. She always woke in a sweat, always tried to piece together what she had seen while asleep, always
failed. It was a noisy scenario, terrifying and intense. And she could remember no details. Louisa made up for the dreams, because Louisa had both feet planted squarely on terra firma. But Helen
wished the night terrors would abate.

She stood and looked in the mirror. Underneath a deceptively simple dove grey dress, she wore the silk underwear she had bought during her silly phase. Her hair had been styled by Louisa, who
had also applied cosmetics in muted tones. Helen knew that she had never looked as pretty as she did this evening, yet she feared company. An outer shell of acceptability would never completely
shore up an injured soul. She did not possess Louisa’s strength of character and she probably never would.

Cars began to arrive. Her father and stepmother would greet the guests, but Louisa had asked Helen to be present. ‘This is your home, too. Let people know who you are.’ Her home?
According to her father, she deserved nothing, simply because she had failed to be male.

She touched up her lipstick, checked her hose for ladders, picked up a glittering evening bag. But she drank no brandy.

Dressed in their best, Eva and Fred were taking the opportunity to have a second look at Bamber Cottage. Detached, it stood in a large garden that would easily house a shed big
enough for Fred’s business. The house itself was not oversized; between them, they would be able to keep it in decent order. ‘It’s that quiet, I’ll not know what to do with
meself,’ said Eva. ‘No buses, one little shop, the same people every day.’

‘If you don’t want it, we won’t have it,’ Fred told her. ‘It’s your shop that’ll be paying for it, so the decision’s yours, too.’

‘We’d live longer up here,’ she said. ‘And Agnes is near.’

‘She is. She’s near and she’s bossy.’

Eva laughed. ‘She can see straight past you, if that’s what you mean. And I’m not going through what she went through – sawdust and paint. You get that shed built before
we come. There’s no room for your tranklements in the house – I don’t want to see even one screwdriver. Do you hear?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And I’ll want a proper washing line.’ In her head, she carried a wonderful picture of snow-white sheets blowing freely against a background of greenery. ‘I’ve
never had country-aired clothes. We can plant flowers, too. Is there room for a greenhouse as well? I could grow me own tomatoes.’

Fred smiled. She had made up her mind and they both knew it.

The owner asked whether their mortgage was arranged. Eva, in a moment of pure pleasure, held her head high and her stomach as far in as she could manage without girders. ‘We won’t be
having one of those,’ she replied. ‘We are already owners of property.’

The owners of property made their offer on the spot and it was accepted. They wandered off in the direction of Skirlaugh Rise, saw the house at the top and paused for thought. ‘I’ll
never get there,’ Eva moaned. ‘It’s too steep. By the time I get to that house, everybody else will be on their way home.’

‘Take it slowly,’ Fred advised. ‘You’ll get used to walking more once we live here. And we won’t be going to Lambert House every day, will we?’ Cars were
passing them. ‘Shall I thumb a lift?’

Eva shook her head. She was a big woman and there probably wasn’t enough room in a normal-sized vehicle. ‘No, we’ll walk it. If it takes me till Christmas, I’ll get
there.’ At snails’ pace, the couple began the ascent to the top of the Rise. Fred wanted to kick himself – if he’d had an ounce of sense, he would have catered for this
situation. When they were halfway up, they paused for a rest, though Eva, who was still forced to bear her own weight, got no benefit from stopping.

By the time they reached the front door of Lambert House, she was in a state of total disarray, face damped by sweat, skin reddened from exertion, ankles swollen like a pair of balloons.

Agnes flew to her side and ushered her into a downstairs bathroom. ‘Sit,’ she ordered, pointing to a wicker chair. She bathed the poor woman’s face in cold water, pressed a
damp towel against her neck, did her best to straighten Eva’s powder blue wedding suit. It took over half an hour to achieve a condition in which Eva was sufficiently composed to join the
party.

By that time, war had broken out.

At first, it was easy to keep away from the dreaded man. Helen, as deputy hostess, circulated and made the best she could of her conversational abilities. All the time, she
could feel his eyes boring into her flesh, but she kept travelling about the room, since a moving target was reputed to be more difficult to hit. While she had improved in appearance, he had not.
He was ungainly, ugly, disgusting. She could not embrace Louisa’s theory of thinking about a film star – if this man touched her, she would scream.

The scream was meant to be silent, but it was far from that. When he stopped her for the third time, she eyed him sternly. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said quietly.

He blinked and swallowed, the protruding Adam’s apple moving like a buried mole beneath a stretch of sun-deadened lawn. Her flesh crawled with a million invisible ants and she stepped away
from him. Unfortunately, she reversed into a waitress bearing platters. Food was spattered everywhere and she felt the colour rising in her cheeks. He had done this; why would he not leave her
be?

The silliness happened then. She felt very much as she had during the Denis episode – detached from herself, yet deeply disturbed. Anger rose within her. It was a fury too hot to be
contained and too strong for the current small crisis. The room disappeared and became silent. She was alone with the balding eagle. He had a great future, terrible skin and a horrible nose. He
wanted her to be his biddable wife – grateful, obedient, unquestioning. He wanted to be her father all over again – another great dictator.

As her hand came up to slap his face into eternity, the waitress stopped scrabbling about on the floor, retreating to a safer area. The room became truly silent. Helen’s slap, fuelled by
emotions for which she would never account, reverberated around the large area. She was alone with him. Echoes from the bad dream bounced around in the caverns of her brain. Helen wasn’t
anywhere. She simply existed. As did James Taylor.

The man with the great future staggered back, a hand to his reddened cheek.

‘Leave me alone,’ she shouted. ‘I don’t want you near me, don’t even like you.’

Louisa dashed to Helen’s side, but although she tugged on her arm, she remained unnoticed.

‘Father chose you for me. He thought I would be grateful. Now, bugger off out of my house and out of my life. My father never got one thing right in his life, but you are the ugliest of
the man’s mistakes.’

The mist began to clear. As if waking from sleep, Helen looked around at all the people in the room. Something had just happened. A burst of applause drifted through from the hallway where
several lawyers had gathered to snort and chortle like honking geese. Why were they clapping? What had she missed?

Zachary arrived at her other side. ‘Go to your room,’ he snapped.

Helen began to laugh. She wasn’t five years old, wasn’t a child to be punished. ‘No,’ she answered clearly. By this time, she knew where she was. Something had happened,
and she was at the core of it. What would people think? Did she care?

The gloves were off. Zachary Spencer, feet covered in caviar and face aglow with dismay, did not know what to do. Another ripple of offstage applause disturbed him even further. Who were those
invisible chaps? Did they not realize that they were in the house of a judge?

James Taylor turned on his heel and left.

Louisa came to the rescue. ‘Helen, there is food on your dress. Come with me and let’s see what can be done.’

All the way upstairs, Helen whispered, ‘Something happened. What happened? What did I do?’ Yet she could only rejoice at the memory of her father’s expression of confusion.

In the bedroom she shared with Helen’s father, Louisa led her stepdaughter through recent events. ‘You told him to bugger off, but you did it very loudly. Some sort of small riot
exploded in the hall – your father’s enemies were pleased. You blamed your father.’

Helen swallowed. ‘I did what?’

‘You said he had encouraged Taylor to court you. And you were very loud about the whole business.’

Helen’s hands flew up to cover her face. What was happening to her? First, she had pursued the odd-job man; second, she had disgraced herself and her father in front of company. ‘My
secret world is breaking through,’ she muttered. Part of her continued triumphant, yet the idea of being out of control made her panic. It was an attack of panic that had triggered the
episode . . .

‘What?’

‘When I was a child, I lived in my head. That was the secret world. I used to act in front of the mirror and speak my lines out loud. I’m doing it now as an adult and without the
mirror. Am I crazy?’

Louisa stared at her friend. She probably was slightly insane after a lifetime spent in the company of a cold father, no mother to soften the impact. ‘You’re tired,’ she
replied eventually. ‘This event is probably too big for you and I apologize.’

‘The room disappeared. The whole party melted away. There was just me and that horrible man. Father will force me to leave now.’

‘Don’t worry about that, petal. I can manage him, especially now – I’m pregnant.’

Helen blinked several times. This was the moment in which she should begin to hate Louisa and her child. Helen might live in the house for the rest of her life, but a son would inherit
everything. ‘It has to be a boy,’ Helen said.

‘I know.’

‘Girls get locked in their room. Girls don’t count.’

Louisa knew about that, too.

Whatever the situation, Helen could not manage to hate this woman. For the first time, there was meaning to life, there was fun, there was conversation. ‘We’ll look after each other,
Louisa.’

The pact was made there and then. No matter what happened in the future, Helen and Louisa were a team. There were two of them; there was only one of him. That special cleverness known only to
women would need to be employed. Without any word on the subject, each knew that the other disliked Zachary Spencer. United by near-contempt, they intended to thrive in his shadow.

Louisa approached her husband. ‘She is raving,’ she said. ‘If her temperature gets any worse, we must send for the doctor. She scarcely knows what happened,
bless her. The fever made her act out of character, my love.’

Bless her? He could have killed her quite cheerfully. ‘Did you hear what she said about me? Did you?’

Louisa nodded.

‘I cannot allow her to stay under my roof when she slanders me in that fashion.’

His wife walked away and asked the string quartet to stop playing. Then she raised her voice and spoke to the gathering. ‘Miss Spencer is not well,’ she said. ‘She has a fever,
so I shall look in on her from time to time. She begs you all to forgive her bad behaviour, but she was not herself this evening. Carry on,’ she told the musicians.

Albert and Fred, in a corner as predicted, complained to each other. How much longer would they be forced to listen to the wailing of cats? ‘And this bloody collar’s strangling me,
as well,’ moaned Albert.

Fred sympathized. ‘They call that music? I’d sooner listen to the BBC’s hurry-up-and-get-to-work programme. When can we go home?’

‘Not till Kate says so,’ answered Albert. ‘My Kate is a force to be reckoned with. I’d sooner argue with Winston Churchill, bless him.’

Fred studied the room. ‘To make a doll’s house of this, I’d need a bloody plane hangar, let alone a shed.’

Albert grasped the cue. ‘When you move to Bamber Cottage, will you give me a try as assistant? I love farming, but I’m getting on in years. I’m good with my hands.’ He
held up fingers thicker than Cumberland sausage. ‘I might have big hands, but I’m good at carpentry.’

‘All right, you’re on.’ Fred spat on his right hand, waited for Albert to do the same, and sealed their gentlemen’s agreement.

Lucy and Agnes were waiting for Mags. They had prepared themselves for change, but were completely taken aback by the confident and beautiful woman who joined them just after nine o’clock.
‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my—’

‘Shut up, Lucy,’ said Mags. ‘And close your mouth – there’s a bus coming.’

Agnes simply stared. The nose was right. Make-up was perfect, because its wearer had been taught in London; the dress – black and sequined – fitted perfectly. Apart from her nose,
Mags’s biggest transformation was her hair. Feathered into her face, it remained shoulder-length, and was now various shades of blonde and brown. ‘My God,’ she whispered.

‘Not you as well.’ Mags laughed. ‘Give God a rest and get me some food – I am starving.’

While Agnes went to fill a plate, Lucy looked Mags over. ‘Definitely a desirable residence,’ she declared after her second tour. ‘But still detached? Aren’t you going to
become a semi or a link-terraced?’