Tales of the West Riding (21 page)

“I've been thinking, Elizabeth,” he said in his light crisp tones, dropping into a chair beside her: “Now that all is over between us, as it were, would it perhaps not be sensible of us to part rooms?”

Elizabeth's face blanched slowly, so that her heavy skin took on the appearance of white scales; her pale eyes widened enormously,
her mouth gaped as she looked up at him. (She has good teeth, thought Edward irrelevantly.)

“All over?” said Elizabeth in a low thick tone, as if she could hardly articulate.

“In a physical sense, I mean,” explained Edward hastily. “After what the doctor said about you, you know. No more children.”

The words, “It need not be quite all over,” rose to Elizabeth's lips, but she was infinitely too proud to utter them.

“Of course, if you prefer it otherwise, Elizabeth,” began Edward, who was rather alarmed by the intensity of her reaction—had he presumed on her docility too far?

“No, Edward,” said Elizabeth slowly, gazingathim. “No. It shall be as you wish. I'll arrange the spare room for you after dinner.”

“Tomorrow will do,” said Edward, colouring slightly.

“I prefer to do it tonight,” said Elizabeth as before.

* * *

Edward found the new arrangement a great relief.

Elizabeth on the other hand found that it was in the afternoons when one was overwhelmed by one's grief. In the mornings one rose with courage restored by sleep, there were many services to perform for the child and about the house, one's daily help was present and one kept up a cheerful façade. In the evenings the effort of maintaining an air of cheerfulness for Edward and any guests provided a sufficient occupation. But in the dead time of the afternoon, when the woman had gone and the child slept and Edward was at the mill, one sat alone and idle by the fire. Then was the time when the sense of being unwanted, rejected, despised, of one's whole life being a failure, of having experienced the most cruel deception possible to a woman, filled one's heart with desolation. Her husband did not care for her and never had cared for her. All those agreeable speeches, those tender acts of courtship, were lies. It's been the same tune all the time, thought Elizabeth bitterly; I am undesirable, no man has desired or could desire me; I was a fool ever to think otherwise.

Yes, in the dead of the afternoon, when the heavy sobs tore one's throat, one had to get some help in order to stay alive. One took it where one could find it, gratefully.

* * *

Mr. Hardaker awoke. It was dark—about four in the morning, he guessed. He found himself in the grip of an extraordinary sensation. The whole of his torso seemed swollen, curving above him like a barrel. Stiff. Rigid. Almost solid. He could scarcely breathe. The air had only the tiniest passageway to his lungs. He tried to gasp, but could not. He could not breathe at all. He could not move. This is the end, he thought. Well, what of it? Why not? I'm not at home in this modern world. Just as glad to leave it. Yes, this is the end. Take it quietly. No fuss. Lie still. Something will break soon and it will be the end. I played too hard with that young scamp John, this afternoon. Overdid myself. The laughing saucy face of his great-grandson, the fresh rosy cheeks and sparkling brown eyes, rose up before his mind's eye, and he smiled. Suddenly he experienced a piercing anguish. It was not safe. No! The boy's future was not safe. There was something wrong. He did not trust—something. What, was obscure—there was something. He must not die. He must not leave Ramsgill. Not yet. The bell. Ring the bell. The bell!

He made a tremendous effort to heave himself up. Something broke. Something in that stiff barrelled body of his broke and turned. A sharp flashing pain, stabbing, severe, but a release. If this is what they mean when they say “he died in his sleep,” reflected Hardaker sardonically, it's not as cosy as it sounds.

Time passed. This sheet is very rough, he thought, feeling it in surprise.

More time passed. It was not a sheet, he discovered. It was the carpet. He was lying on the floor of his room, face downwards, soaked in sweat, stinking of excrement, scrabbling at the rug with feeble fingers.

This won't do, he decided. Must get up. Must reach that bell. Can't leave young John. Can't leave Ramsgill, though I don't know why.

He seized the bedclothes and hauled. Pain somewhere. Mustn't try himself too hard. Go gently. That's the way. Don't give up, though. Now the chair. Now on his knees. He crouched, gasping. Be all right in a moment.

At long last his breathing eased, the great thumping heartbeats diminished in violence. Calm and grim, he got to his feet, rang
the bell and arranged himself neatly in his bed, tucking in his bedclothes.

* * *

“Hullo! Telly gone wrong?” said Lucius, coming in at midday from the mill. He kissed his wife, who sat knitting sweaters for the boys, with her head down.

“No.”

“Where is it, then?”

“Where do you suppose?”

“How should I know, Carol?” said Lucius rather less affably than usual, throwing himself down in his chair.

“Where do you suppose it is?” shouted Carol, springing to her feet. “It's gone back where it belongs!”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“You haven't paid for it! It's not ours. I got the man to come from the shop—he's charged us for three months' rental—I paid it out of my housekeeping. He was quite nice about it.”

“Have you gone mad, Carol?” cried Lucius, horrified. “What on earth are you talking about?” Seeing then that her face was crimson, her mouth set in a tight line, her eyes filling with tears, he remembered her condition—she was pregnant with their third child—and changed his tone: “What's the matter, dear?” he said in a loving tone. “Aren't you feeling well? Has something gone wrong? Have you had the doctor? Don't be frightened. I'll call him.”

He advanced and took her in his arms, intending to give her a soothing kiss on his way to the telephone. Carol slapped his face hard. He staggered back and sat down on the settee.

“Now calm down, Carol,” he said in the cold tone he only used when he was really angry. “Sit down and tell me what this is all about.”

“How dare you ask me that question!” raged Carol. “You've deceived me! You've done wrong by the children!”

“Don't be silly. You know perfectly well I've done nothing of the kind.”

“What are all these, then!” shouted Carol, snatching a handful of papers from the table beside her and tossing them up into the air.

“Unpaid bills! Rates! Electricity! Gas! Telephone! Television!”

“There's only the last quarter,” said Lucius crossly. “And the new telly. So calm down, Carol. You'll do yourself harm. And upset the children,” he added. “Where are they?”

“I took them over to Elizabeth's for the day to be out of the way,” said Carol in a quieter tone.

“What on earth did you do that for? Now Edward will know all about this silly row,” said Lucius. “What were you doing going into my bureau, anyway?”

“I was turning it out ready for spring cleaning.”

“That doesn't excuse you looking at my private papers.”

“I'm your wife.”

“Even so.”

“Oh, I suppose it wasn't the action of a lady!” shouted Carol mounting again into rage. “Let me tell you, Lucius Hardaker, I was brought up by my grandfather to be honest about money, and such a thing as a bill was never seen in our house. Anything we had, we paid for when we bought it.”

“What about hire-purchase?”

“That's different.”

“No, it isn't; it's just the same.”

“When the rates and that came, we paid it that very day. And you call yourself a rich man!”

“No, I never did that, Carol. If you married me for a rich man, you made a mistake.”

“The rates are very large, Lucius,” said Carol in a slightly softened tone.

“You're telling me. Everything's large, and constantly getting larger.”

“But look at these, Lucius. Shoes! Why did you let me buy those shoes with the diamanté heels, if you couldn't pay for them?”

“I like to see you look nice,” said Lucius in a choked tone.

“There's two pairs for you, too. Not to mention the children. Of course they're always growing out of their things. Their feet grow. I can't help them growing, Lucius,” wailed Carol. She sank down on the settee beside him; he put his arm round her and she wept on his shoulder. Suddenly she withdrew. “And from those wine-merchants,” she said accusingly. “Where's that one, now.”

She bent down and began to scrabble amongst the bills which
covered the floor. Remembering her condition, Lucius could not allow her to do this, and had to go down on his knees and seek out this particular bill, about which he felt a little guilty.

“Look at it!” wailed Carol. “Whisky and sherry and beer and all sorts of things, Lucius!”

“It's no more than everybody has,” said Lucius staunchly.

“That's what
you
think. You are a fool, Lucius, you really are. I can't think why I put up with you.”

“Look, dear,” said Lucius earnestly. “You're making an awful fuss about nothing. I get a bit behind with things, I know, but I straighten up by the end of the quarter.”

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do.”

“How much do you think you owe, then?”

“Oh, fifty or sixty pounds,” said Lucius, conscious of a rather too optimistic estimate.

“Do you, indeed. Well, I'm not your mother, Lucius;
I
can add. I've added all these up and they come to close on five hundred pounds.”

“Surely not!”

“Add them yourself and see.”

Lucius scooped up a handful of the wretched documents and even on a rough calculation very soon perceived that his wife's notion of the total was more nearly correct than his own.

“I'd no idea it was so much,” said Lucius uneasily. “Well, we must make a special effort and pay them off by the end of the quarter.”

“You'll pay them off tomorrow.”

“I can't, Carol.”

“You must go straight to your grandfather tomorrow morning and tell him what a donkey you've been, and ask him for the money.”

“I can't do that,” said Lucius, not without a certain sombre satisfaction. “Because he's ill.”

“What's the matter with him?” demanded Carol sceptically.

“He had a severe heart attack in the night. Mother telephoned.”

“Oh, poor old thing. I'm ever so sorry. Have you been to see him, then?”

“No. He's to be kept quiet today, no visitors. I'm going
tomorrow. Look, Carol. About the television set. You didn't really send it back to the shop, did you?”

“I certainly did. I telephoned to them to send a man, and he came and took it.”

“You silly child, don't you see you've destroyed my credit? We shan't be able to buy a thing in Hudley except for ready money. They'll all know; they'll all send their accounts in. You've destroyed my credit. Why, it might even affect the mill.”

“What's credit?” jeered Carol sulkily. (She was rather frightened, however.)

“I must put that right. I must go and pay for the telly this afternoon. For heaven's sake give me some lunch,” said Lucius irritably. “I must get on to this. I shall have to go down to Hudley. Now you stay in this afternoon and wait for them to bring back the television set.”

“How about the children?”

“Fetch them later. You must stay in till the man's brought the set back.”

“How will you get the money, Lucius?” murmured Carol, subdued by his angry tone.

“Leave that to me.”

“I'm sorry if I did wrong, Lucius,” said Carol, weeping.

“Whitehead,” said Lucius in a peremptory tone to the cashier when he got back to Ramsgill that afternoon, “I shall have to have some money from the petty cash.”

“Yes, Mr. Lucius. Is it for expenses?”

“No, it's a personal loan. Put it down to me. I'll settle it with my grandfather when he comes back.”

“Yes, Mr. Lucius,” agreed the old man without hesitation. “How much did you want?”

“How much have you got?”

“We never keep more than £50 in the petty, sir; Mr. Hardaker is very particular about that. We might have a couple of pounds or so more, but that would be all. I'll just look and see, shall I?”

“I'll take fifty,” commanded Lucius.

Mr. Whitehead's eyes widened, but he made no comment.

“Certainly, Mr. Lucius,” he said in a deferential tone.

It was near the end of the month and Lucius' personal bank account was low, but with the aid of the Ramsgill loan he paid the
television account and had the set sent back at once to Hill Royd.

“I'm sorry we've caused you all this trouble,” he said in his pleasant voice and with his pleasant smile to the owner of the firm as he wrote out the cheque. “But my wife is just a little off colour at the moment—a trying time, you know; though we have two already—and these whims sometimes take her. I'm sure you understand.”

“Oh certainly, certainly, Mr. Hardaker,” said the man with an air of relief. “We thought it must be something of that kind, if you'll excuse me saying so. I hope Mrs. Hardaker will be—” he could not think of a sufficiently delicate phrase to cover the situation, and ended rather lamely—“all right.”

“Thanks,” said Lucius, smiling and nodding as he left the shop.

Beneath his affable exterior he was in a fury; to have to play up his wife's pregnancy to a shopkeeper in order to re-establish his credit seemed to him a degradation to which his grandfather ought not to have subjected him.

* * *

Pale and cross, Mr. Hardaker propped up on pillows surveyed his grandson.

“They tell me I shall have to stay here a few weeks.”