The Dwelling Place, page 20
His head was down and his cheekbones were showing white through his weatherbeaten skin. He had never seen the child and he’d had no wish to, and in the deep socket of his heart he knew he was glad she had lost it. Yet her loss created an agony inside himself; he wanted to comfort her, just hold her, stroke her hair, say her name, gently over and over again as he did in the night, ‘Cissie! Cissie! Cissie!’ He bent close towards her again, saying, ‘I’ll call in from time to time. It may be late on when I manage it, but…but I’ll manage it somehow.’
Her reaction to his proposal startled him, for she jumped to her feet and reaching out to the mantelpiece she turned a little wooden box upside down onto her palm, then thrust out her hand holding the five sovereigns saying, ‘We’ll not be stayin’ here all that long, we’ll be gettin’ a house out of it. Look; I have that every month. As long as he has the child I’ve got that. It’s a fortune…isn’t it? A fortune.’ There was bitterness in her voice; there was accusation in her eyes.
They stared at each other for a time. Then he rose, turned slowly from her and went out.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon when William came panting into the wheel shop and, holding his side, gasped at Matthew, ‘She says…Missis says you’ve got to come, the master’s bad,’ and immediately Matthew mounted the cart and, having pulled William up beside him, rode pell-mell back to the mill.
The light was fading as he entered the yard and Straker was standing under the platform of the threshing floor, but he didn’t move towards them to take the horse, nor did he speak; and Matthew ran across the yards and entered the kitchen.
The lamp was lit and in its light he saw Jess Watson lying full length on the wooden saddle set at right angles to the fireplace, and by his side in the leather chair sat Rose. When she turned her face towards him, it looked twisted as if she were crying, but her eyes were dry and as he slowly approached her she said, ‘He’s dead, he…he came in, he said he had a pain, he…he couldn’t bear it, it was in his chest, and then…and then he lay down and…and he just died.’
In this moment Matthew was as shocked as she was. He stood looking down on the miller, his hair and face still covered with flour, his mouth open, his eyes staring upwards. He thought, he cannot be gone, he was all right this morning. Then thinking back he remembered him complaining about his stomach. But he could not believe the evidence of the staring eyes and the gaping mouth and he laid his ear against the floured chest, but there was no movement. Then he stood up and looked at Rose, and she at him, and, putting out his hand and raising her to her feet, he said gently, ‘Come away. I’ll get the doctor.’
At this, she said low in her throat, ‘It’s too late for that,’ and he replied, ‘In cases like this, you’ve got to have him. Come into the parlour an’ sit down, I’ll see to things.’
Five days later they buried the miller. It was a well attended funeral, for he was widely known and respected; and after the mourners had eaten and drunk their fill in the parlour, they lingered on, curious to know what the miller had left to his daughter. But the lawyer did not read the will until they had all left, and there was only the miller’s daughter and her husband present, for the miller had been an only child as the miller’s daughter was an only child.
The will had been drawn up six years previously and the miller left everything he possessed to his daughter. The mill and two acres of land, which was freehold, seven terraced houses in Shields, a row of cottages in Jarrow and, what even came as a surprise to Rose, three houses in Newcastle, which were situated in Mosley Street where the Theatre Royal and the post office were. The houses were each of four storeys; one was leased to a bank. These three houses, the lawyer pointed out, were of substantial value and were in fact equal to all the rest of the property put together, including the mill. He congratulated Mrs Turnbull on being placed in very favourable circumstances.
The lawyer gone, the house quiet, Matthew took a lantern and walked round the mill. He went up on to the threshing floor and held the lantern high. He walked round the grain store, the weighing room, the stables, then he crossed the yard and walked along the icy road to the full extent of the land. Still on the road, he skirted the house and, again swinging the lantern high, he looked up and down its face which held eight good windows; then he went in through a side door and along a passage and into the little room that Jess Watson had used to hold his bills and receipts, together with the strong iron-bound box that he took into Newcastle once a quarter and emptied the contents into a bank. He held the lantern up to show the small sloping-lidded desk, the leather chair, the empty fireplace, and above it on the wall the long pipe-rack holding up to fifteen clay pipes. Finally, his eyes rested on the blank wall facing him. It was made for bookshelves. He’d bring his books in here; this would be his office.
He was now the miller, he was now master of this house, and not only this house but the property stemming from it. He, Matthew Turnbull, was a rich man. Jess Watson may have left his fortune to his daughter, but his daughter was married to him and a wife’s property was her husband’s property…He was a rich man. Moreover, he’d have the vote now.
He put the lantern on the floor and sat down in the chair, and slowly his elation seeped from him and he saw again a palm held out with five golden sovereigns in it.
Jess Watson had not died soon enough.
BOOK FOUR
1836: THE RETURN
One
‘Grandpapa.’
‘Yes, Richard?’
‘You said I have a papa and he’s in a big ship.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘When will the big ship be coming back?’
‘I’m not quite sure, Richard; but soon, soon. Do you like your new rocking horse?’
‘Oh yes, Grandpapa. Watch me. Look, I can gallop. When will I be able to have a real horse, Grandpapa?’
‘Oh; let me see. When you are five years old you shall have a pony.’
‘How long will that be, Grandpapa?’
‘Oh, not so very long, two years.’
‘Two years? How long is one year, Grandpapa?’
‘A year is three hundred and sixty-five days long. You go to bed and get up three hundred and sixty-five times and then you have completed a year.’
‘When shall we visit Elizabeth’s house. Grandfather?’
‘Oh, some time next week.’
‘Elizabeth has a mama and a papa…Where is my mama, Grandpapa?’
Lord Fischel drew in a deep breath. He had been waiting for this question for a long time now. Perhaps it had been a mistake to have Bellingham’s daughter come visiting with her child; but what could he have done? It was a matter of courtesy. She was on a visit to her father, and the fact that her child was the same age as Richard had prompted her to suggest that she should bring her over; but during the two days that had elapsed since the visit, Richard’s childish conversation had been continually punctured with remarks, not about Elizabeth, but of both her parents, especially her mother. And now he was holding his arms out and while asking to be lifted down from the rocking horse he was saying, ‘Nanny is not my mama, is she, Grandpapa?’
Lord Fischel did not immediately answer, nor did he put the child on the floor, but, holding him in his arms, he looked into the face that had brought him new life, new interest, and a love that he had never experienced before, which love, he knew, was what a man should feel for his own son; yet his children had, at no stage of their lives, brought forth anything akin to the feeling he possessed for this child.
The child looked every inch a Fischel. Yet, in the depth of him, his lordship admitted that its nature was other than that of a Fischel, for it was of a happy nature, warm and loving. He never allowed his thought to travel to the source of these qualities, although he was aware through Cunningham that his mother still lived in the ramshackle dwelling on the common land. Her continued presence there had at first annoyed him, even worried him, for he had imagined, with the generous allowance he paid her, she would have found a better habitation for her family. Still, she had not gone back on her bargain, which was in her favour, although it would have availed her nothing if she had attempted to. The child was his and would always remain his; and this was confirmed through not only his love for the boy but the boy’s love for him.
‘Grandpapa!’ The child now traced his finger along the top of the white moustache and, concentrating his eyes on it, he asked, ‘How big is my mama?’
How did one answer such a question as this? Lord Fischel put the child down on the floor; then, taking him by the hand, he said, ‘Come with me, Richard.’
‘Are we going into the park, Grandpapa?’
‘Presently; but first I want to show you a picture.’
‘In a book, Grandpapa?’
‘No, hanging on the wall.’
Suiting his steps to the child’s he descended from the nursery floor into the passage that led to the gallery, and then, having walked its length, he stopped before a door leading into the railed balcony which overlooked the ground-floor hall. Pointing upwards to an enormous painting which filled the space between the top of the door and the high ceiling and which covered a third of the wall, he said, ‘Do you see those figures up there, Richard?’ and the child answered, ‘The ladies with wings, Grandpapa?’
‘The ladies with wings are called angels, and they are in heaven. You know where heaven is?’ He turned about and pointed towards a long window set deeply within the stone wall. ‘Heaven is up in the sky where God is; you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Grandpapa.’
‘You remember when your little dog died and was put in a box?’
‘Yes, Grandpapa.’
‘Well, your mama died like that once, and now she is in heaven with those angels.’ He pointed upwards again, and the child, his head back on his shoulders, his dark brown eyes wide, gazed at the picture of Christ’s ascension into heaven, then he drew in a deep breath before letting it out on a sigh and asked quietly, ‘Won’t I ever be able to see her. Grandpapa?’
‘No, Richard, because she’s in the sky in the House of God and you can’t go there until you die, and you won’t die for a long, long time. Now’—he jerked gently on the child’s hand and brought his attention to him—‘it is eleven o’clock; you will have your milk and then we will go for a drive.’
His Lordship turned his head slightly to the side and made a small motion with it, and the young nurse who had been standing at the far end of the gallery, having followed her master and the child, which was her duty, came hurrying forward and His Lordship, without looking at her, said, ‘Have Master Richard dressed for a drive by half past eleven.’
‘Oh, Grandpapa, are we going to see the ships?’ the child cried, and His Lordship answered, ‘Yes, if you would like that. Run along now.’
As he went to go through the doorway Hatton met him. He had a long envelope in his hand, and as he held it out he said, ‘This came by special messenger from Newcastle, m’Lord.’
It was nothing to have a letter by special messenger from Newcastle; he had various interests which were centred there. It could be concerning stocks and shares, shipping or mines; yet from the moment of taking the envelope in his hand he knew a feeling of apprehension. He passed the butler, went down the main staircase, crossed the hall into his study and, sitting down at his desk, slit open the envelope.
He had not recognised the writing on the envelope but when the letter began ‘Dear Brother-in-Law,’ his face stretched slightly; then, as he read on, it began to contract and by the time he had read the end of the short epistle his face muscles were taut.
The letter told him that his sister was dead but expressed the hope that he would be in time for the funeral, and ended with, ‘You will no doubt wish to discuss Isabelle’s future.’
Staring at the letter, he did not think, Anne is dead—poor Anne, who had spent most of her life on one or another of those bleak islands, and with a bleak man—but he thought, Isabelle’s future. What if she now insisted on returning home? He had warded off the idea for years, for the thought of her in the house again was intolerable; she had been unbearable as a girl, but now she was a woman what would she be like? He could but hope that the years with Anne would have improved her, but whether or no, he did not want her under this roof, especially now, when he had the boy.
Life over the past three years had been as akin to heaven as ever he hoped to get. The child had not only altered himself but the whole household; right down to the meanest servant everybody seemed happier, lighter. Sometimes he thought this was because the house had been redecorated and most of the fabrics renewed; yet the basic reason, he knew, lay with the child. And what effect would Isabelle have on the child, and…the child on her?
He admitted to himself in this moment that he had hoped that she would make an alliance with someone in her present environment; he hadn’t been concerned with whom, relying on his sister’s austere good sense to guide her. The situation was so unexpected and portended much annoyance.
What he had been expecting for some time now was news of the Virago. The last he had heard of the ship was that it was on its way to India, but that was months ago. He knew that some day Clive would return, must return; and part of him was eager that he should return, for he wished to have his signature on certain papers that would seal and ensure for all times this particular grandson’s claim to his heritage and, consequently, the title.
But now, before him lay the long bleak journey to the far side of Scotland and the thought that he might be forced to entertain his daughter’s company on his return.
It was two weeks later, on a warm, still day at the beginning of August. The young nurse and her charge had played ball, they had played blind man’s buff, and now they were playing races and the nurse saw to it that her master always won.
The playing of races, the nurse had found, took the tedium out of the daily walk around the park. The walk started at the sunken lawn, continued through the trees, then along by the wall where it had been cleared of bramble right through to the part that laced the edge of the wood. Here the bramble and brushwood had been left, she understood, as a deterrent to anyone climbing the wall, because here their entry would be obscured by the wood itself. The broad path between the wood and the bramble-faced wall was kept cropped, but she had orders not to take the child along this path, which led to the North Lodge, so she always brought their racing to a stop when she came to the place where the bramble began; then she walked along by the edge of the wood, through the ornamental gardens until she came within sight of the other wall, glass-edged, this one, for it had only been built within the last fifty years.
She was very careful to follow her instructions exactly, for who knew but that someone might be watching her from the house through a spyglass; even the master himself, for he had a number of spyglasses up in the observatory on top of the east wing.
The three sides of the square completed, she would take her charge indoors, wash his face and hands, change his dress should there be a spot on it and, afterwards, would attend to his dinner, which was brought up and served by the second butler. Following these tasks she would endeavour to see that her charge rested for at least an hour before once again being dressed and taken down to the drawing room at half past five, there to have tea with his grandfather.
Today, the routine went as usual, for although His Lordship and Cunningham were away she did not dare diverge one inch from the daily plan, not with Mrs Hatton about. But at the end of the walk there was a diversion. It was caused by the coach coming to a stop on the drive opposite the front door just as she brought her charge up the steps from the sunken lawn.
The child, seeing his grandfather’s face through the coach window, released his hand from that of the nurse and, running round the back of the coach, was just in time to see his grandfather descending the steps. Throwing himself forward, he cried, ‘Oh, Grandpapa! Grandpapa! Where have you been? You’ve been a long time.’
His grandfather did not speak but took his hand and drew him aside; and then the child saw the coachman helping a lady down the steps and the lady looked up at the house for a moment, then she looked down at him. The lady was tall and her eyes were big and dark and her face was white. She was not smiling, but he smiled at her; then, glancing at his grandfather, he did what he had been trained to do when visitors came to the house: he walked forward, looked up at the lady, while bowing slightly from the waist, and said primly, ‘How-do-you-do, Ma’am?’ From experience, he knew this form of address always pleased the ladies, and they smiled at him and patted his head and told his grandfather that he had a clever boy; but this lady didn’t smile or pat his head, nor did she speak; instead she turned from him and went up the steps, and the swishing of her skirts sounded like the whips they used to make the horses go.
The dinner was served, the servants had gone, and they were alone together, as they had been in the coach hour after hour, jolting, juggled, falling against each other, but never speaking. And now her father, his hands placed on the table at each side of his plate, leaned his still body slightly forward and said, ‘This sulking silence will not benefit you, Isabelle.’
Slowly she turned on him a deep, fiery glare, but asked calmly, ‘What would you like that we talk about?’
When he bowed his head slightly, then gnawed on his lip, she went on, undeterred by his signs of anger, ‘You’ll understand that I’m out of touch with your type of conversation; I can discourse at length on any part of the Bible from Genesis to the Chronicles and the Songs of Solomon. Oh no!’ She made a slight movement with her head. ‘Not the Songs of Solomon. Aunt Anne never read the Songs of Solomon; she could never bring herself to say aloud, ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is…’
