Читать книгу Yes, Mama - Helen Forrester - Страница 17

When Humphrey bowled swiftly into the dining-room for dinner, his white-faced wife was already seated, and Maisie, the parlourmaid, was hovering over the laden sideboard.

Humphrey ignored both of them. He indicated that he was ready to be served by simply shaking out his table napkin and spreading it across his stomach. In complete silence, Maisie served them both.

Never a man to waste anything, Humphrey ate his way stolidly through soup, roast beef and steamed pudding. He knew, as his wife had already sensed, that this was the evening to make clear his attitude towards Alicia, who, like his wife, he had hoped would either miscarry or be born dead.

Impotent rage surged through him. Hemmed in by the constrictions of social propriety, he was certain there was not a great deal he could do about the situation without coming to grief himself, and this knowledge added to his boiling anger. He helped himself to hot mustard and cursed under his breath when the condiment stuck to its spoon. He banged the tiny spoon on the side of his plate and in the tensely quiet room it sounded like a pistol going off.

Elizabeth kept her eyes down and picked uneasily at her food. Her mind leaped wildly between fear of Humphrey and heartbreak that she had not heard from Andrew.

She jumped when Humphrey asked for a second helping of pudding and more wine. Really, the man ate like a hog. The only thing he seemed to notice in the house was when Mrs Tibbs’ cooking was not up to its usual standard.

Humphrey had, indeed, not noticed for months that his wife was pregnant. When he did, he had hastily checked his office diary. It told him with certainty that the child could not be his. Plump, comfortable Mrs Jakes kept him so exhausted that he had rarely slept with his wife. Elizabeth had not seemed to care about his neglect.

Elizabeth had been more than thankful to be relieved of her wifely duties. Her lifelong friend, Andrew Crossing, had been only too willing to meet her needs, since his wife was a useless invalid. As Maisie took away her untouched roast beef, she thought agonizedly of how she had rebelled against marrying Humphrey, how passionately she had loved her childhood playmate, Andrew. At nineteen, Andrew had had no money and had failed his first year at University; her father had been adamant that he was not suitable for her. In contrast, at twenty-five, Humphrey was already well-established with his father, in a brokerage business and, as the elder son, he was to inherit the entire enterprise. What her father had not realized, Elizabeth fulminated, was that Humphrey was not only physically repellent to her, but also had the hoarding instincts of a jackdaw; his ambition was to accumulate capital to invest in shipping or railways. He lectured her regularly, from the days of their unhappy honeymoon onwards, on the fact that capital accumulated by personal savings was the only sure way to expand a business. Money made in a business should be ploughed back in. He had rationed her and, later, poor Flo, to two pairs of black woollen stockings and one pair of white silk every winter of her married life; any extra ones had had to be bought out of the money left her by her father. And he still went over Mrs Tibbs’ account books with her each month and railed at her for waste.

It had taken twelve months of unmitigated pressure by her parents to make her marry him, twelve months during which no other young man had been allowed to get more than a single dance with her and she was never left alone.

It was Andrew himself who finally had broken her resolve.

At a banquet and ball given by the Mayor, Mr Gardner, to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, he had pushed his way through the throng, to find her sitting demurely beside her mother and her aunt, while her bearded father and his brother had gone to join their friends for a drink. He had formally asked for a waltz.

Her mother had answered frigidly for her. ‘Elizabeth’s programme is full, I am sorry.’

Elizabeth, faced with the handsome, blond, young man, had said desperately, as she handed him her tiny programme, ‘I have one more dance to fill, Mama.’ Two chaperones sitting near were watching the little exchange with interest, so, rather than cause a public fuss, her mother had said no more.

They had hardly taken a dozen steps, after Andrew came to claim her, when he blurted out, ‘It’s no good, Liz. I’ve tried to get the old man to persuade your father to allow an engagement, with no luck at all. He’s furious with me for muffing my exams, and he’s insisted that I begin all over again in law. Law’s what I always wanted to do, anyway, but he was dead-set on my entering the church, so I had to do Divinity.’

‘I can wait for you.’ Elizabeth remembered her utter despair when she had realized that Andrew himself was backing out.

As they whirled amid the colourful throng of dancers, she had looked up at him and seen the tremulous uncertainty in his face; he had always been weak, she thought bitterly, as she contemplated her steamed pudding, and in her heart she knew without doubt that he had again deserted her. She wished that Mrs Macdonald had not been quite so skilful, and that she had died having Alicia.

Her reverie was broken by Humphrey’s saying to Maisie, The Mistress will take her tea in the drawing-room.’

Elizabeth swallowed. Humphrey was choosing the field of combat, the upstairs room from which loud voices were least likely to be heard by the servants.

‘Yes, Sir. I’ll ask Fanny to make sure the fire is made up.’

While Humphrey ate his gorgonzola cheese and biscuits there was a flurry in the kitchen as a swearing Fanny fled upstairs with a shovel full of burning coals from the kitchen fire, to start a fire in the drawing-room. She had been so sure that the room would not be used that evening, there being no visitors, that she had not bothered to light the fire.

Elizabeth thought resignedly, ‘So be it. What does it matter?’ and went up to sit by the struggling blaze. Though it was May, the room was cold and clammy. Outside the tall, velvet-draped windows, a fine rain was falling. Elizabeth picked up a shawl and flung it around her shivering shoulders.

If Andrew had been anything but a family lawyer, she would have taken a chance and run to him now, told some suitable story to his fragile, rheumaticky Eleanor, and simply stayed with him, daring him to say a word. But in his profession, he dealt with the Estates of a number of widows, with Trusteeships like her own dowry. The slightest hint of scandal and he would lose a lot of business.

When she had told him of the coming child, he had immediately and fearfully repudiated any idea that he was the father. It had hurt her immeasurably.

‘Humphrey will know it is not his,’ she had replied dully.

‘You’re married to him, so the child will be born in wedlock.’

‘Not if he denies it.’

They had been sitting, arms around each other on the big sofa facing her now, and he had drawn away from her. He had walked stiffly up and down the room, while she stared at him aghast. He had finally turned towards her and said through lips that quivered slightly, ‘Come on, Liz. It can’t be mine.’

‘It can be and it is.’

‘I simply don’t believe it. I’ve never fathered a child before.’ He came to sit down beside her, and added in a wheedling tone, ‘Anyway, you can manage Humphrey, I’m sure.’

Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘You don’t know him. He’s got a a murderous temper.’

She had wept and had implored him to take her away – to Italy, to anywhere they could live together. But the irresolute boy had grown into a vacillating man, and gradually she had realized that, if she pressed him, he would abandon her entirely.

She had bravely dried her tears and said that, somehow, she would brazen it out with Humphrey. In an almost motherly fashion she had decided that he probably needed protection against a scandal more than she did.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ she whispered, as he thankfully said his farewells. ‘Just find a place where we can meet more safely than this. I love you, remember.’

He had replied, somewhat woodenly, that he loved her, too, and that he would find a trysting place.

His visits had grown rarer, however; he did not attempt to make love to her and she began to despair. Through the last months of her pregnancy, she had reassured herself again and again that he was merely being careful for the sake of the child, but, in more realistic moments, black hopelessness had almost overwhelmed her.

‘Well, you slut. What have you to say?’ Her husband had come into the room so quickly and so quietly that she had not heard him. Without warning, he clouted her across the back of her head.

Determined to feign innocence, she cried out indignantly, ‘Humphrey, what did you do that for?’

‘I suppose you think you’re going to fob off Crossing’s brat on me? Thought you’d get away with it?’

The blow had made her reel in her chair. Now she tried to rally herself. ‘Humphrey, how could you say such a thing?’ She angrily pushed some hairpins back into her bun. ‘And to strike me, when I’ve only just got up from childbed. You must be drunk.’

He stood facing her, head thrust forward, his lips drawn back from tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Don’t try that on me. I know what’s been going on – and now we’ve got a bastard in the house.’ His hand shot forward and slapped her a stinging blow across the mouth, followed by another one with his left hand. ‘And you, milady, are going to pay for it. This brat isn’t mine and you know it.’

Shocked and terrified, she stared back at him, in too much pain to speak.

He pushed his face close to hers. ‘You know, don’t you?’

She edged to the side of her armless chair and slid out of it with what dignity she could muster. ‘You must be mad!’ she muttered, from between her swelling lips. ‘You’re my husband – it’s normal to have babies.’

‘I’ve not been with you for over a year – and you must know it. And I know about your happy afternoon hours with Crossing.’

Her eyes shot wider open, but she answered as steadily as she could, ‘Andrew’s my lawyer. He has to manage father’s Trust for Clara and me, so, of course, he comes to consult me. Anyway, we’ve known him for years.’ She held her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes with pain. Then she said, half-crying, ‘If my brother were in England, you wouldn’t dare to say such dreadful things – or hit me! And for no reason!’

‘That jigger rabbit is three thousand miles away, in Ceylon. He’d be ashamed of you, anyway.’ He advanced towards her and she hastily put the width of the chair between them and began to back towards the door. As she fumbled with the handle, he caught her by the shoulder and spun her back into the room, her full skirts splaying out round her. She stumbled and fell, face down.

He whipped his razor strop out of his pocket. Raising his arm, he brought it down across her shoulders with all the force he could muster. She screamed and covered her head with her arms as the wicked leather strap whistled down on her again. Four months of suppressed outrage were vented on her, as she sought to crawl away from him and reach the door.

‘I’ve been waiting for this,’ he yelled at her. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’ The strop came down again across the back of her head.

Her screams stopped. She lay immobile.

He paused, scarlet-faced, panting over her, the desire to rape her urgent in him. He heaved up her heavily gathered skirt, but she was tightly entangled in her three petticoats. He tore at his trousers and emptied himself over her.

‘You damned Jezebel,’ he snarled and kicked her in the stomach. She did not move.

‘Go to hell,’ he shrieked. ‘Look at another man, and I’ll make sure you do.’

He flung open the door, and ran down into the hall, buttoning up his trousers as he went. He seized his hat and stick from the rack and went out of the front door muttering like a madman. Five minutes later, he was sitting primly on the horse-bus on his way to visit Mrs Jakes.