The Victory (77 page)

‘Have you eaten today?' he asked accusingly.

‘
I don't remember,' she said, and then returned his look
defiantly. 'Have you?’

He grinned. She wondered where he found the strength. 'A
fair question,' he said. 'Come, then, we will go and find food,
and then we must go to the meeting.'

‘
What, is it so late?' she exclaimed, and then looking about
her vaguely, 'But we cannot go. There is too much to do.'

‘
Listen to me, Mrs Morland! You will be of much more use
to me at the meeting than you are here. There are others who
can do what you are doing here, but no others can impress the
town folks as you do. So as your general, my gallant, gentle
soldier, I order you to come with me and eat. You must
recruit your strength before we go to the Exchange to rouse
the consciences of the people.’

She nodded, too tired to smile or resist. 'Very well,' she
said, glad to have someone tell her what to do, and take the responsibility from her.

‘Where's your maid?' he asked as he led her outside.

‘
I don't know. We got separated some time ago. There was
too much to do for her to dance attendance on me.'

‘
Never mind, we'll leave word for her to meet you at the
Exchange later. Come, now, come, we'll have to walk, but it isn't far.' He encouraged her along kindly, and she followed him obediently, not caring enough where they were going to
ask. They left the teeming courts, crossed Long Millergate,
and through one narrow lane after another made their way into
a poor but respectable neighbourhood, where printers and
'prentices lived. Finally they halted in front of what had once
been a shop, but now sported in black capitals on the impene
trably dirty window the words, ‘St Anthony's Mission'.

Mary Ann looked up at the priest in dumb enquiry. He
reached into a pocket for a key, and opened the small door
next to the shop door, saying, 'I have living quarters upstairs,
over the mission. Small, but comfortable, and at least I can
give you something to eat and drink.' He turned back to look
at her as she hesitated. 'You aren't afraid to come in with
me?’

She shook her head, and he smiled and went in, holding
the door for her and saying, 'Be careful on the stairs. They
are rather uneven. Wait, stand still until I have lit the lamp.
There, now, come up, come up.’

At the top of the stairs was a doorway with a curtain over
it, which he held aside for her, and she entered a small room,
spare and neat like a monk's cell. There was a narrow bed covered with a grey blanket, a bare wooden table and two
wooden chairs, a small cupboard in the corner, and a chest
pushed up against the wall. The only touch of luxury was a
battered armchair covered in soiled red velvet standing beside
the fire, and a rag rug before the hearth, and the only
ornament a wooden-and-ivory crucifix on the wall over the
bed.

Father Rathbone placed the lamp on the table, and knelt
before the fire to rake up the embers and put on more fuel.

‘
Now then, you come and sit down here, by the fire,' he
said, 'and we'll soon make you comfortable.' The fire blazed
up, and he pushed the kettle on its crane over the flames. ‘I'll
make you some hot tea when it boils,' he said, 'but first ...’

She watched him in silence and he went over to the
cupboard and brought things out and laid them on the table.
A loaf of bread on a board, two cups, two plates, a piece of
bacon wrapped in gauze, a tea-caddy and teapot, and finally,
with the air of coming to the best last, a tall black bottle. He
grinned at her, and pulled out the cork with his teeth like a
pirate in a story, and poured some of the contents into the
two cups.

‘
There,' he said, handing her one. 'Now, don't be looking
at me like that! Do you think I'd give you anything harmful?
It's the best port wine money can buy, and will put heart into
you. A rich gentleman gave it me, and its eleven brothers, for the saving of his soul after a particularly sinful debauch. That
is to say, he had been doing the sinning, not I.’

She laughed, and drank, and felt the warm, powerful
redness stealing through her veins and glowing in the pit of
her stomach.

‘
That's better,' he said approvingly, busying himself at the
table. 'I like to see you smile.'

‘Do you?'

‘
I do indeed. I love all God's works of beauty, but a beauti
ful woman is the finest of all his creations. There, now, and is
the colour that's come stealing to your cheeks because of the wine, I wonder, or my fine words? You are not much used to
recei
^vi
ng compliments, I think.'

‘
Not so. Papa is always telling me I am beautiful,' she
countered.

‘
Papa is a wise man. But has no other man told you so?
God save us, was every man you ever met but myself stone
blind, then?’

She turned her face away from his teasing and said
nothing. He brought two plates, bearing slices of bacon and a
thick piece of bread, gave her one, and sat disarmingly on the
floor at her feet with the other.

‘
There, my lovely girl, poor stuff it is, I know, but it'll give you strength. Eat now, eat. Pay no heed to me, or to manners.
You must be as hungry as the north wind.’

She had thought, before the port wine, that she could not face food, but now she found that she was savagely hungry.
For a few moments she tried to eat politely, then she saw how
the priest was devouring his portion ravenously, and gave in
to her own appetite. She cleared the plate, accepted a second helping, fmished her port, and asked for a drink of water, for
she was very thirsty. Then he cleared the plates away, and
made tea, and when it was poured out, he sat again at her
feet, and they sipped in companionable silence for a while.

‘
It is strange to be here,' she said after a while, looking
round the room. 'That is, this room is strange.'

‘How, strange?’

She hesitated. 'I'm not sure. I've never tried to imagine
how you lived, but if I had, it would not have been like this, I
think.'

‘
What, then?' he asked, looking up at her in amusement,
the jumping flames reflecting in his dark eyes.

‘It's so ordinary,' she said. 'Like the kitchen of one of the
estate-workers back in Yorkshire. I should have expected ...'
She hesitated, frowning, not sure what she would have
expected.

‘
Something more exotic?' he suggested. 'Strange trophies
from my travels, rich hangings, jewelled caskets?’

She laughed. 'Yes, I suppose so. But now I am getting used
to it, I see that this is much more like you.'

‘
Getting used to it, are you?' he murmured. 'And what does
it tell you?’

She licked her dry lips. 'I should know,' she said hesitantly,
‘that no woman lived here.'

‘
Since I have lived here,' he said, 'no woman has ever
crossed the threshold until now.' He put his cup aside and looked up at her intently. 'But I wanted to bring you here.
I've often thought about it, imagined you sitting in that very
chair by that very fire. So many times I've lain awake in my bed
over there, imagining what you would look like, sitting here.'

‘
But — why?' she asked. Her heart seemed to be beating
too fast, and she thought vaguely that she was too close to the
fire, and ought to move back from it. The heat was too much
for her. She began to feel a little faint.

He took her cup from her nerveless fingers. 'Why?' he
repeated, as though it were an outrageous question. 'Why?' he
knelt up, and faced her, put his hands on her knees, and
looked into her eyes, which were now on a level with his. 'My
sweet, lovely girl,' he said, 'I don't know what kind of a man
it is you have married, but I tell you he isn't near good
enough for you, or he would long ago have kissed that half-
awake look out of your eyes! Priest that I am, I would do
better than that by you, if you were mine. Has he never taken
you in arms, like this — or kissed you, like this —?’

Her eyes closed and her mouth tilted, her lips parted for his as though it were what she had been born for. One part of her
mind stood aside and protested at what she was doing, but it
was a small, distant voice, beside the thundering torrent of
feeling that filled all the rest of her, sweeping away her resist
ance like a flood scouring a dry gully. No, James had never
done that, had never roused in her any response that came
near to this. She felt as though her blood were on fire. She felt
as though her heart would burst with the violence of its
beating.

He was the one who pulled away, sat back from her,
panting, regarding her with those burning coals of eyes. 'Ah,
God,' he said softly, 'how the touch of you stirs me to
madness, my lovely girl! It would take only the smallest push
to send me over the edge.' He lifted one of her hands and
turned it over and kissed the palm, and then folded down her
fingers one by one. 'Don't look at me like that,' he said
tenderly, 'or I shall forget myself entirely. You are a danger
ous woman, Mrs Morland, did you know that?’

His last words brought her back to reality, and her cheeks
suddenly burned with shame at what she had done. A priest
of the Holy Church! And she a married woman! And yet her
mind was still cleanly halved, like an apple, and the dark,
abandoned half of it was crying, I don't care, I don't care! I
want it to go on! I want much, much more!

‘
Father —' she whispered. 'I — I d-don't know what to
say —'

‘
Then don't say anything,' he said, in a comfortable voice, taking command of the situation. He replaced her hand in his
lap, and got to his feet. 'Nothing has happened that needs a
comment. Sure, a general has the right to salute his soldier,
hasn't he? And talking of which, we have to remember that
the campaign's but just beginning. We have a meeting to go
to, Mrs Morland, if it has slipped your mind. Are you ready,
now?’

He was making it easy for her. She stood up, smoothing her
skirt and hair with automatic gestures, looking round for her
gloves. He held the curtain aside for her, and she was careful not to look up into his face as she passed him in the confined
space; and when they were out in the lane and walking
towards the main street, she made sure she kept far enough
from him for no part of her to brush against him as they
walked.