Chapter Nine #4
‘I’ll take care to avoid him in future,’ Richard said.
The fine cut down his cheek, left by the lash, was healing quickly.
Dr Arbogast opined that his collar-bone was cracked, but there was nothing to be done about that.
It would mend on its own in a few weeks, as long as he avoided strenuous movement.
Giles had offered to confront Shacklock, or to get Lord Bexley, the local magistrate, to do so, but Richard could not help feeling he had cut a less than heroic figure, and told Giles he would sooner forget all about it.
To change the subject, he reverted to that of the milk scheme. ‘I’ve been thinking that the time has come to open an office. The administration is taking up more time—’
‘Which is why you wanted Woodrow to take over the day-to-day running,’ Giles said.
‘Yes – and it’s no longer quite convenient to have the paperwork spread about the library here.’
‘It’s not quite convenient to me, certainly,’ Giles said. ‘I have enough trouble with my own without getting it mixed up with yours. An office where?’
‘In the village. There’s that empty house, Mortons, in the high street, just past the Crown.’
‘Yes, I know it.’
‘It’s about the right size, it’s sound, and it has thirty years left on the lease. Nice and central so everyone knows where to find us, handy for the railway station and the yard where we keep the lorries. Some suitable furniture, and the telephone laid in – it shouldn’t take much to prepare it.’
‘Like a real business,’ Giles said.
‘It is a real business,’ Richard said, with an arch look. ‘Did you doubt it?’
Giles smiled. ‘I’ve become used to thinking of it as something you do to keep yourself amused.’
‘Not any longer. I shall need to take on office staff – a secretary and a book-keeper to begin with. Probably more later. I’ll have to ask around and see if there’s anyone suitable in the village.
I’d sooner that than go to an agency. It would be a good start for some bright young chaps just out of school.
Catch them before they’ve developed bad habits, mould ’em to my ways. ’
‘Is this really my brother speaking?’
‘And I’ll have some stationery printed with our letterhead.’
‘I didn’t know we had one.’
‘I haven’t designed it yet. The Ash Valley Milk Company, directors G. Tallant and R. Tallant.’
‘Can we afford all this?’
‘We’re expanding,’ Richard told his brother. ‘Very soon we won’t be able not to afford it.’
Richard was deep in thought about the office as he filed out of church, and only realised that Lady Shacklock was behind him when she spoke in a low, velvet voice. ‘I hope he didn’t hurt you too much.’
Richard was pitchforked back into the present.
A chill of alarm was followed by momentary relief as he saw the tall shape of Lord Shacklock above the crowd some way ahead, just resuming his top hat as he stepped out of the South Door.
She must have hung back deliberately to talk to him. ‘This is madness,’ he muttered to her.
‘Oh, don’t worry, he’ll be talking to the rector for ages,’ she said blithely.
The shuffle towards the door had halted as a knot of people jammed the exit. He felt her very close behind him, almost pressing against him. He caught a whiff of her perfume.
‘Why did you lie to him about me?’ he asked, low but forcefully.
Her tone was light, insouciant. ‘I was angry with you for being scared and running away.’
‘I wasn’t scared,’ he began.
But she spoke over him. ‘I know you want it as much as I do. We must arrange a tryst. I’ll be in Town again soon. My maid is completely to be trusted. She can be our go-between.’
‘I don’t want to m—’ he began, perhaps unwisely. There was no knowing what she might do or say if he offended her by rejecting her advances. He changed it to, ‘It’s too dangerous. He will be watching me.’
There was a gurgle of pleasure in her voice as she said, ‘But that’s the beauty of it! He won’t suspect you now, because he thinks if you approach me again I’ll tell him. That’s why I did it, silly boy. Wasn’t it a good scheme? We can meet in safety now.’
The crowd was moving again. He had no idea what to say to her, but fortunately – or unfortunately – she required no further answer.
She pushed past him and went on ahead, nodding and crying Good morning to other parishioners as they let her through.
She had squeezed his hand briefly as she passed, and he was sunk in gloom as he dawdled to let others pass him and increase the throng between them.
What the Dickens was he to do about her?
He thought longingly of Molly, her honesty and straightforwardness.
Not like this painted adventuress who was making a fool of him, and might even be a threat to his life – in the most ridiculous way!
To be shot by a jealous husband for something he hadn’t done and didn’t even want to do was ludicrous, and a pitiful way to go.
Oh, Molly, why wouldn’t you let me love you? Look at the mess I’ve got into without you.
The sky was a deep, almost cornflower blue, with big creamy clouds, as innocent as fresh laundry; and the countryside through which the train trundled was so lovely Kitty almost wished the journey were longer.
Giles was reading the newspaper, indifferent to the view, wrapped in one of his remote moods.
She had no idea what he was thinking. His profile against the window was like that of an alabaster statue.
She thought again how beautiful he was. It gave her immense pleasure just to look at him.
He hadn’t again raised the question of what Miss Eddowes had wanted, and while she had hesitated many times on the brink of telling him, she had so far held off.
He was moody, as he had always been, but in his good moods he had been, lately, so pleasant and affectionate towards her that she didn’t want to do anything to spoil it.
She had the strong feeling that he would not approve of helping fallen girls any more than his mother had.
At least, even if he had no objection to their being helped by someone, he would not want that someone to be Kitty.
When she imagined telling him, it always ended with him scowling, growing angry and, if she persisted, forbidding it. ‘For Heaven’s sake, Kitty!’ he would say, in the tone that made her feel like an idiot. Someone who ought to have known better. An outsider.
‘I’m sure there are more worthy people you could help,’ he would say stiffly.
She imagined herself trying to justify the idea.
‘Who is to judge who is worthy? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’ No, she couldn’t imagine saying that – and introducing the word ‘sin’ would probably not be a good idea.
In real life, she would be tongue-tied; in her mind she argued with fluency.
Why should the women be condemned when the men get off scot-free?
She thought of poor Nellie who had loved a soldier.
These girls have been betrayed and abandoned by men they trusted.
She watched him as he read the paper, oblivious, loving every angle and plane of his face, the shape of his lips, the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheekbone.
I love you, she thought, but I was an heiress with parents who guarded me.
What if I’d been poor and without family and I’d loved you just the same?
If you’d asked, I might have said yes, and then what?
Would that make me wicked? Would you stand by and see me cast out?
Would you love our boys less if they’d been born out of wedlock?
He looked up, taking her by surprise so that she felt herself blush, as if her thoughts might have been visible on her face.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes, quite,’ she said, trying to sound cool. ‘Why?’
‘You were looking as though you had the stomach-ache.’
‘I haven’t,’ she said, slightly annoyed. She had been thinking important thoughts, and he had brought it down to kitchen level.
He was studying her face. ‘Is there something you want to say to me?’ he asked at last. ‘You have that sort of look, as if you want to ask me for something and you think I’ll say no.’
‘A moment ago you said I had the stomach-ache.’
‘I take it back. You look perfectly well and, now I look more closely, extremely pretty. And we’ll be at the station in a few minutes and I’d like to finish this column, if I may?’
‘Please do,’ she said, trying to sound indifferent and gracious, at least two emotions too much for her acting skills.
He went back to his paper, and she thought, No, I can’t bring it up, not yet.
She had not contacted Miss Eddowes about visiting High Beeches and just as well.
She didn’t want to do anything to fracture his good mood while it lasted.
In any case, they would be too busy with visits to Town and weekend guests during the Season, and then in summer they’d have people coming to stay, and…
well, Miss Eddowes had managed without her all these years, she could carry on without her a little longer.
But she would like to know why her mother-in-law hated Miss Eddowes so violently. Was it just the home for fallen girls? Or was there something else?
It was something to think about on train journeys.