The Rising of Bella Casey (8 page)

‘Can you help me with this?’ she asked going to the portal of the bedroom with her back turned. She loosed her hair, baring her nape. The blue chenille had a finicky row of buttons down the back. The Corporal came up behind her and made his way down, undoing each cloth-covered bulb until he reached the seat of her spine. When he was finished she freed her arms and peeled the bodice of the dress away so that it swaddled her waist. She could feel his breath on her neck as she stepped out of the skirts. Once she didn’t have to face him, she could do this, she told herself.

‘And now the corset,’ she said, sounding to herself like a teacher, going through the alphabet of her apparel.

He deftly undid the lacing – men must have more practice with these, she thought – and she lifted it away, letting it slide to the floor. The whalebone made it stand, not fall. It was like her last piece of armour. Swiftly she stepped out of her petticoat which sighed at her ankles. Now there was only her pantaloons
and chemise. He needed no further commands to help. The chemise got tangled around her face and for a moment she was swathed in white, breathing in muslin. If she could have stayed in this cocoon she would have, but he whipped it off and threw it to the floor, impatient now, she could sense. Still she could not face him. He fingered the drawstring on her pantaloons.

‘Turn around,’ he said.

And on his knees, he drew them down.

Before Leeper, Bella had thought her innocence of the brutish intimacies of congress as a kind of refinement. A superior state. Mother had never spoken of the act or gone into the sordid Facts of Life. The mystery of the passions of men and women remained that – a mystery. The only glimpses Bella had had was down on the canal bank in the dark or among the low talk of drinkers let out on the street at closing time.

‘Bel, Bel,’ he kept on saying as though cajoling her, when
persuasion
wasn’t necessary. Surely he must have noticed how
readily
she submitted. There was no struggle this time. When he fell upon her his weight seemed a nestling and her own abdication was like the unfurling of a sail, an airy thing, not a despairing surrender as before. She’d only known violent storm; now she learned that there could be gentle passages too, glassy lagoons where stillness gave way to piercing spears of red-lined pleasure, her own
unexpectedly
so, and so soon after … no, she would not think of that. She tried to block out the memory of Leeper’s bestial howls,
as Nick went about his careful excavation. Yet, when the time came, he was so silent she was not sure that it was done. It was a moment of fierce solemnity, like a bridal vow, she thought. As if he sensed, somehow, the gravity of their union. (Years
afterwards
, he used to wax lewd about that first time – the convict and the soldier learn to do it quiet, he would say.) His ardour for consummation matched her own, it seemed, the only difference being that hers was full of avid calculation.

‘I thought you would look down on the likes of me,’ he said afterwards as they lay together in the becalmed sheets.

‘But you have travelled further and seen the world.’

‘Well, England,’ he conceded, ‘Gibraltar and the Isle of Man.’

‘Further than I’ve ever been.’

‘And where would you go, Bella Casey, if you had a magic wand?’

‘I’d go to Paris!’

‘Ooh-la-la!’ he mocked.

She did not proceed with that line of talk. She didn’t want to come over as high-faluting. Though it was hard to see how she could be accused of that in this state, her hair in riotous tumult and her breasts wantonly exposed and Nick fondling them.

‘How are my two girls?’ he whispered to her nipples. He peered at her between the hills of her flesh. It became a joke between them, her breasts his offspring, until he had daughters, that is.

‘I had you down for prim and proper, Bella Casey, but look at you now, stretched out like a strumpet …’

The word made Bella flinch. A Jezebel, according to Leeper and now a strumpet. But from Nick’s lips, it was said with
mischief
not venom. In any case, with all her wily machinations, she could hardly deny it. She could barely recognise herself – where was the girl who’d been too high-and-mighty to trouble herself with young men, who’d considered herself above all that? The girl who’d told Lily Clesham she would only consent to marriage to a schoolmaster or a clergyman? The girl who swore she’d never strike a child in her charge?

‘A penny for them,’ Nick said when she made no reply.

She roused herself. She could not afford to lapse into self-
recrimination
. She must finish this performance and persuade with it.

‘Don’t my thoughts merit silver?’ she asked brightly.

Nick guffawed loudly and rolled her in his arms.

‘You do too much thinking, Bella Casey. In future,’ he warned all mock-stern, ‘you’ll leave your thinking cap behind when you lay down with me.’

And then it was Bella’s turn to smile. His joking words had betrayed him. She had, it seemed, manoeuvred Nick Beaver into seeing a future with her.

A
lthough she knew it not to be true, Bella liked to think it was on one of those balmy full-leafed summer nights that Susan was conceived. Was it a crime to refashion the fabric of the facts, a nip here, a tuck there, in order to arrive at another truth? The truth of one’s best intentions. She had courted
disaster
purposefully with Nick several times by then. What did she care for her good name since it had already been taken from her? And she had to be sure. When she
was
sure, she sent a letter to the barracks, asking Nick to come, for even after the conjugal intimacies they’d enjoyed, his appearances were mercurial. She hoped she would not have too long a wait. The task at hand was predicated on time and she was nearly three months along now. She kept her distance from Mother lest her eagle eye might light on Bella’s roundening. She invented a story that her bicycle was
punctured and hoped that this might pass as explanation for not visiting. It troubled her, all this dissembling, how one lie begot another, however innocuous.

The worst part of the business altogether was that there was still no word from Nick. She tried to be the pattern of all patience as the leaves began to fall and the mellow month of September gave way to October. The infants brought polished conkers and
chestnut
cones to school and they made a Harvest Table. She looked at the children more closely now, appraising each one as if he were standing in comparison to her own. Would he be dark like little Jack’s friend, Georgie Ecret, or angelic like Thomas Bryson, or frankly loud like Hubert Weir? Such dreamy meditations were a way to stem her rising panic as the weeks went by and there was only silence from Nick. Even Miss Quill was beginning to suspect something, she feared. Had she heard her early morning retching, for often she would have to run to the lavatory before class? If she knew what ailed Bella, she might report her, for Miss Quill was most upright in matters pertaining to the efficient
running
of the school. She sent another note, this one more
peremptory
than the first, so that if Nick did not know the nature of her indisposition, he must surely recognise the urgency of her appeal.

After another month had gone by without so much as a word, she decided she must take action. One Saturday, wearing her charcoal grey cambric dress the low buttons of which were already straining, and her most sober hat, she made her way
to Beggars’ Bush Barracks.

‘Yes, my love.’

The soldier who threw the door open had lately finished his lunch. The crumbs were still on his tunic, which he didn’t trouble himself to brush off. He had a cockney accent, cheeky, disrespectful.

‘And now, my darling, what can we do for you?’

He swung out from the lintel; from the brown inside Bella could hear the sniggering of others unseen. She did not know how many more were in there but they made enough noise for an entire company.

‘Looking for a soldier, is you?’

‘I’m here to see Lance Corporal Beaver of the King’s
Liverpools
, First Battalion,’ Bella said drawing herself up to her full height.

‘My, my, hark at this, a lady for a lance corporal!’

There were guffaws within.

‘And does her ladyship have an appointment?’

He was standing in the doorway his arm across the jamb as if she might try to storm the place. He was a bunty man, able to exercise his authority over her only because the guardroom door was atop a few stone steps.

‘I mean, does ’e know you’re coming?’

Boots thumped on the floorboards within as if they were
viewing
a chorus girl at the Tivoli. Was this the type of company her Nick favoured? Was this the sort of smutty talk that passed for conversation among his ilk?

‘First Liverpools, is it?’

He dipped behind the door and drew out a large ledger. He ran his fingers down the columns then he looked up at Bella regretfully.

‘No, Miss, you won’t be seeing no lance corporal today, so if it’s ring papers you is after, you’re out of …’

Is that how she appeared? Some desperate doxy chasing a
uniform
? How dare he!

‘Excuse me, I’ll thank you not to be so pass-remarkable.’

‘No need to get uppity with me, Miss. We get a lot of your sort round here looking for their due. Or they’d settle for a
fuzzy-wuzzy
some of them, the state they’re in.’ He then beat his
buttoned
tunic with his fists like some primitive baboon and let out a halloo. On such yahoos the honour and dignity of the Empire relied.

‘If it were up to me, my darling, you could ’ave the entire
regiment
, but Liverpools ain’t here at present.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked suddenly fearing that Nick had been posted to some far-flung parts.

‘Manouevres, my sweet. Bet your Corpoal Beaver knows a thing or two ’bout that. Manoeuvres is right.’

There was a music hall roar from inside.

‘Run along my darling, for there’ll be no fun for you today. The Liverpools are in the Curragh on musketry and won’t be back this way till December. Hope you’re sure of him, so, for he’ll have been gallivanting with those wrens down there. They lives in
ditches and offer up their services to all and sundry. You’ll have to find another, my pet. May I introduce myself? Private Terence Stackpoole at your service, Ma’am!’

He clicked his heels together and bowed extravagantly.

‘December?’

‘Are you hard o’ hearing or something?’ He leaned his coarse face towards her. ‘Now, sap, sap, before I set the dawgs on you.’

His companions duly set up a raucous barrage of barking and with that uncouth racket ringing in her ears, she was dismissed.

Violet Quill was perplexed. She’d noticed a change in Miss Casey she couldn’t account for. She and the Infant Teacher enjoyed only the most formal association, but it had always been cordial. Unless one of them was indisposed, the folding doors between their two rooms remained closed and they maintained separate kingdoms. She knew nothing of her young colleague’s life beyond the classroom and being burdened with the care of her elderly mother in Harold’s Cross, she did not linger in school after hours but had to rush home to the sick room. Their conversations for the most part ran to comments on the weather or discussions about ordering fuel and stationery. Miss Casey was twenty years her junior and Miss Quill felt acutely the restrictions of her own closeted life. What did she know of dances or entertainments? Not that there was any complaint about Miss Casey’s conduct in that regard. No, no, no, quite the contrary. She was a serious, conscientious girl. But lately Miss Quill noticed the tremor of
argument in her demeanour. Just yesterday, she had come across her bent double over the schoolroom stove.

‘Is everything all right, Miss Casey,’ she’d enquired.

‘Yes, yes,’ Miss Casey replied, though she staggered to a chair and sat heavily.

‘Are you sure, my dear?’ She allowed herself the endearment. Her elderly mother, a cranky invalid, couldn’t abide sweet talk, so Miss Quill had to practise using such intimacies. She felt Miss Casey’s brow, for her life as a tender made her vigilant about fevers.

‘Oh look at you,’ she said, ‘you’re quite done in.’

‘Really, Miss Quill, just a little stitch in my side.’

‘Once that’s all it is,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ Miss Casey said, rather sharply.

Miss Quill felt rebuffed, as if there was something unseemly about her concern.

‘You must be careful, Miss Casey, even strong healthy young women like you can fall prey to the consumption.’

‘Oh I’m sure it’s not that,’ Miss Casey said.

The invincibility of the young, Miss Quill thought as she turned away, but she would not offer the hand of friendship again.

As Bella’s waist thickened, her hearing seemed to multiply. She strained after each scuffle at the hall door, desperate that she might miss Nick if he paid a visit. She would often race down
the three flights of stairs, convinced it was him, only to throw the door open on an empty street. When he finally arrived, so great was her relief she fell upon him on the doorstep, her arms
clinging
to his broad shoulders and her tears dampening his saucy tunic. Their breaths mingled in the frost-bitten air.

‘My, my, Bel, that’s quite a welcome for a chap.’

She disengaged immediately, relief giving way to dread for now indeed was the moment of truth.

‘Well,’ he demanded cheerfully, ‘aren’t you going to let me in? Or are we to conduct our business out on the street?’

She stood back and let him pass. He moved ahead of her, all clank and swagger. She followed with considerably more
deliberation
. When they reached her quarters, he sat magisterially at the table and surveyed her.

‘Got your letters,’ he said, ‘so what’s all the mystery?’

She stood before him, wringing her hands, not wanting to begin her dolorous confession for it was clear from his
demeanour
that he had no inkling. She did not know where to start or how to prepare him. She didn’t want to blurt it out all at once when he was hardly in the door.

‘I’d have come before but we were posted to the Curragh on training.’

He rattled on about the bleak accommodations in the
Curragh
, confined to barracks mostly except for long tramps on the plains, forced marches and a great deal of square-bashing.

‘Miserable spot if you ask me, in the back of God-speed, with
too much nature for my liking and nothing in the way of
entertainment
for a chap bar a few dingy taverns and the natives are less than friendly, crowd of ragamuffins, surly and full of backchat. Why this one yokel threw down a challenge to me and Vizard. You remember Vizard, your friend Clarrie was quite smitten with him, not for his looks I’ll be bound, but he’s a steady type and an all-round good …’

She felt she had to stem the flow of talk.

‘Nicholas,’ she said with something of the schoolroom for he stopped immediately.

For a minute they were both stalled in an attitude of hideous silence.

‘Nicholas,’ she began again.

‘What is it, Bel? Spit it out, girl.’

‘I have something to tell you …’ Now that it had come to it, she couldn’t bring herself to utter it. She tried a different tack.

‘Do you notice anything different about me?’

‘What’s this Bel, fishing for compliments? You look just dandy to a man who’s been on short rations.’ He rose and moved to embrace her. ‘Why don’t we get reacquainted?’

He swung her round which made her feel quite dizzy and she had to raise her hand to get him to stop.

‘Please …’

This was no way to behave, to be so free and easy with his
gestures
as if all he needed to do was to appear and bob’s your uncle, as he would say. When all this time she had …

‘Is it your time?’ he asked. She was aghast at his familiarity with a woman’s biologicals and to talk about it openly!

‘For God’s sake, Bella, what the hell is it?’

He was riled up now – how else to explain his taking the Lord’s name in vain? She drew a deep breath.

‘I’m with child,’ she said.

‘Oh holy God,’ he said, ‘Sweet suffering Jesus!’

‘Nick!’

He fetched out his flask and took a deep draught.

‘How long?’

‘Nearly four months.’

‘There’s a woman I’ve heard of …’

She raised her hand to stop him.

‘Down there by Reginald Square, some of the boys have used her, very discreet and reliable … I’m sure I could scrape together a few bob ….’

How quickly he had reached for such a dastardly solution! As if she would even consider …

‘It’s too late,’ she said, ‘for that.’

He held his head in his hands.

‘What are we going to do?’ he asked, addressing the floor.

Here was the moment of truth. There was only one thing to be done. If she’d had dreams of a suitor dropping on one knee, then she would have been sorely disappointed with this betrothal scene. Luckily, she had not.

‘You’re going to have to marry me,’ she said.