Seasons of Love (33 page)

The idea that her son might be contemplating marriage with
that woman
shocked Celia so much that she even forgot to have hysterics when she found out. Instead, she mystified her staff by taking to her bed, where she lay thinking things over.

‘It cannot be,’ she whispered again and again. ‘It just cannot be. She shall not ruin my son.’

Tearlessly, selflessly, she resolved to save Daniel, even from himself, and most definitely from the temptress. And she set about doing it, at whatever cost to herself.

A mother’s love
, she told herself, enjoying the drama of the phrase, even when there was no one else present to hear it,
would brook no resistance.

Since she had very wide connections, she had now gathered considerable information about Helen, putting the pieces of gossip together like one of those dissected maps that children sometimes played with to teach them about geography. It was time to strike, to put an end to this intolerable situation.

The gossip about Mrs Carnforth also penetrated the stronghold of Northby Castle in the next county. Lord Northby found it highly distasteful to have a relative so much talked about and became very huffy if the matter was mentioned in his presence. Two husbands dead and being courted by a third even before the second one's child was born!

‘It’s too much,’ he told his wife. ‘Something must be done about it! Whether the young woman is foolish or scheming, she must be brought to behave more decorously.’

‘Yes, dear.’ Personally, her ladyship cared nothing about her husband's relatives. Her own love was saved and spent lavishly on her two sons. But if Basil was in one of his fusses, there was nothing she could do but acquiesce in his plans and leave him to deal with it.

‘That's what comes of living abroad! Those foreigners have damned loose morals!’ His Lordship had never left his native soil, and hoped he would never be called upon to do so, but he knew how superior England was to all those rackety foreign places.

‘Yes, dear.’

He walked up and down the drawing room, slurping his port and spilling some on the pale carpet, which made his wife frown in annoyance. ‘Well,’ he stopped to replenish his glass, leaving a sticky trail of wine across the side table, ‘my duty is plain. There is no one else who can act, so I must do something.’

‘Is that really necessary, dear?’ She watched in alarm as he jerked round and the port slopped to and fro in his glass. ‘She is, after all, only a connection, not a close relative.’

‘Necessary? Of course it's necessary? Haven't you been listening to me? Do you want our name bandied around the county, dammit?’

‘She's called Carnforth now. Surely no one will know she's related to us? Not if we don’t tell them.’

‘I don't care what she's called. She's a sort of cousin and her parents are both dead. I see my duty clear as head of the family.’

She persuaded him to wait, see if the gossip would die down. But it didn’t.

A week or two later he declared loudly over breakfast, ‘I’ve waited long enough. Now that Christmas is over, I intend to drive over to see her, remonstrate with her.’

Her ladyship sighed. When Basil got that stubborn look on his face, you could do nothing with him. ‘Whatever you think best, dear.’

‘I’d like you to come with me. A woman's touch, don't you know.’

‘Yes, dear. But not today.’ And she would find some excuse not to go every time he raised the matter. She had no desire to meet this young woman, no desire at all. The father had been a dreadful man, the brother was a mealy-mouthed fool.

The daughter had clearly rebelled against her strict upbringing, not that you could blame her completely, given the circumstances, but she was bound to be even worse than gossip had painted her.

Once she had taken her decision to save her son from that woman, and even from himself, if necessary, Celia made some specific plans. Now was the time to face
that woman
with her unsavoury past, while she was heavy with child and therefore at her most unattractive.

Her son must be forced to see the error of his ways before he did anything irrevocable. The mere thought of her poor dear Daniel being entrapped into an unsuitable marriage with Charles Carnforth’s widow was giving his mother the most dreadful nightmares, not to mention headaches and megrims.

It took her a while, however, to persuade Edward Merling, who seemed to be the sole surviving member of that woman’s immediate family, that it was his duty to speak out, but Celia did it. Oh, yes, she made the brother see the necessity to take action in the end!

And now that she was quite ready to make her move, she arranged to hire a carriage, not wishing to borrow one of her son's and thus inform him in advance that she was going to see him, risking him carrying out his threat of absenting himself if she tried to go to Ashdown. Surprise was essential.

In his shock at hearing the truth - for she intended to reveal all, sparing nothing - Daniel would understand at last that a Carnforth born and bred could not ally himself with the widow of a common actor, a woman who had, moreover, been cast off - and rightly so! - by her own family for gross immorality.

Happy in her cosy world, busy helping others and impatient now for the birth of her second child, Helen had no idea that the gossip was so widespread, or that it was still painting her in such very dark colours, until Harry came home one day with a black eye, a split lip and his clothes all torn.

She caught him sneaking up the stairs
. ‘Harry!
What's happened?’

‘Oh, nothing, Mother. Just a - a disagreement.’

‘Come down at once.’ She led the way into the parlour. ‘This has gone on long enough. I insist on knowing why you’ve been fighting.’

He stared down at his feet, avoiding her eyes.

Fear settled in her belly like a heavy stone. ‘It's not - about me again, is it?’ Surely that nonsense had all died down by now?

‘It was just a chap I know. We disagreed about - about something we read in Horace.'

But he couldn’t meet her eye. He was definitely lying. Helen stared at her son. ‘I shall not let you go till you tell me what you were fighting about. I mean that.’

‘Mother, it's nothing. Really.’

‘I shall sit here all night, if necessary, until you tell me.’ She folded her arms.

Harry's resolution, at first firm, began to falter. He wasn’t used to defying his mother, but he couldn’t tell her what they were saying, he just couldn’t.

The minutes dragged past. Half an hour of cold silence from her was as much as he could bear.

He gave a sob and flung himself down with his head in her lap, begging her not to make him tell.

She stroked his hair. ‘Harry, I must know. How can I help you, if I don't know what's wrong?

This isn’t the first time it's happened, after all!’

‘Please, Mother! It's better not to talk about it.’

‘I think it must have something to do with me, then. Is that what it is, Harry?’

Silence. But a sob betrayed him.

She sighed and stroked his head. Why would people not leave them alone? ‘Darling - what are they saying about me now? Let's face up to it, as dear Charles would have told us to do.’

He looked at her miserably. ‘They're making jokes about you - and - and rhymes.’

She stiffened. ‘Go on. What exactly are they saying?’

‘They - they're talking about who your third husband will be. They say you've had him picked out for a while and that,’ he gulped, ‘you'll have the knot tied as soon as the baby is born. And -

they say things about the baby, too - who its father was. Some people are even betting on
when
you'll re-marry. But I smacked Frank on the nose, so
he
won't say anything about you again. He bled all over his shirt.’

‘Thank you for hitting him, darling. It serves him right! Who - who do they say I'm going to marry?’

He wriggled uncomfortably and her hand tightened on his shoulder. ‘Who, Harry?’

‘Mr Carnforth.’

Until that moment, Helen hadn’t faced up to all the social implications of her feelings for Daniel. She realised she’d been drifting along, oblivious to the world around her, secure in her own little cocoon of warm happiness. Oh, she knew that the baby had caused some talk, but she thought if she lived quietly and decently, it would soon pass - was actually passing already.

Now she realised abruptly that this hadn’t happened, that her reputation, however unfairly earned, was likely to damage several lives. Her son's. And Daniel's, too. She couldn’t bear the thought of people ostracising Daniel because of her. But it was even harder to face a separation from him. He had become so much a part of her life in the past month or two. There was nothing she'd like more than to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him, and although he hadn't actually asked her, she knew he would do after the child was born. And she’d intended to say yes.

She didn't love him in a gentle, fond way, as she had Charles; she loved him deeply and desperately.

Too much to ruin him!

How dared people make that love the subject of bets! She stared unseeingly into the fire. It was no use. She had to face facts. Nothing would more surely damage Daniel in the eyes of the world than to marry the widow of a common actor, a woman with a bad reputation.

With Charles, it had been different. His life had been nearly over and he didn’t live in England.

But Daniel was younger. His life lay before him. And if he wouldn’t think of himself, then she must. She swallowed hard, to prevent herself from bursting into tears.

‘Mother, are you all right?’ Harry's voice was gentle beside her. He was looking at her with such concern in his poor battered face. Another one who was suffering because of her.

‘Are you all right?’ he repeated. ‘You don't look all right. You look unhappy again. I didn't mean to make you unhappy. Why did you make me tell you?’

‘What? Oh, yes dear. I'm sorry. I was just - just thinking what to do. I
-
we have to - to face things.’ However unpalatable. ‘So leave me to think, and go and get some supper now. We'll talk about this again tomorrow.’

He left, but reluctantly. And ate so little supper that Becky gave him a sound scolding, then wormed out of him what was wrong.

When he’d left, Helen pulled her shawl around her and sat on by the fire. It didn't take much thought to make her tentative decision a firm one. She must act in such a way as to persuade Daniel she didn’t love him and never could. Or perhaps she could convince him that she didn’t want to re-marry?

And - however much it hurt - she must make him see that the best service he could do for her and her son was to find himself a nice young wife, one of unimpeachable respectability. Only then would these dreadful rumours about her die down. Only then, could she and her two children live in peace. She put one hand protectively on her belly. Two children to think of now. Oh, please, little one, be a daughter!

It took her the rest of the evening to compose a letter to Daniel, and then she had to write it out again, because of the tear smudges on the first copy.

She must, she decided bleakly, get everything settled as quickly as possible, for Harry's sake.

And for her own. A clean break was kinder. And if a letter wasn’t enough, if he insisted on seeing her, then she mustn’t weaken. She loved him far too much to let him ruin himself.

Mrs Carnforth presents her compliments to Mr Carnforth and begs that he will
abstain in future from calling upon her. In view of the rumours currently circulating
around the neighbourhood, and bearing in mind her son's future and that of her unborn child, she believes it best to give the gossips no further fuel for their
speculations about her plans for the future.

Those plans are, and must remain, to devote herself solely to her children. They do
not include any possibility of remarriage.

Only then did she go to bed. But she found it very hard to sleep for long and spent most of the night tossing and turning. She would have got up again if she didn’t fear that Becky, also a light sleeper, might hear her and come to scold her. Goodness, the baby was as active as her mind tonight, and all she could do was doze uneasily until she realised suddenly that the house was full of the sound of servants starting the day and that her bedroom was filled with the cold grey light of a dreary winter morning. She was relieved to see the sky lighten. Things never seemed as bad in the clearer light of day.

When Becky popped her head in to see if she was awake, Helen forced a smile and agreed to a breakfast tray in bed.

‘You'm near your time now,’ Becky said abruptly, coming over to pat her hand, not deceived by this assumed cheerfulness. ‘So stop that worriting! You need to think of yourself now, yourself and the baby. Never mind the rest of ’em.’

‘Yes.’ But try as she might, Helen could only think of Daniel. ‘I wonder if you could ask Briggs to deliver this letter for me? As soon as he can, please.’

Becky took the missive, put it in her pocket, frowned at her mistress, then left to get the breakfast tray. Something had upset Helen Carnforth. It was more than Harry's fight of the previous day. It was something very serious indeed.

‘She don't deserve it,’ Becky grumbled. ‘Times like this, a woman deserves cosseting. Poor lamb. I better keep my eye on her.’

When she gave the letter to Briggs, he frowned. ‘What does she need to write to him for? He was over here only yesterday morning.’

‘That’s what I thought. So you ask to see him when you take this over, Alfred Briggs, and tell him from me he's not to do anything to upset her. She's near her time now, I'd stake my life on it.

So tell him straight out. Whatever it is, he's to stop it upsetting her until after the baby’s born.’

Then she went back into the house, grumbling about the effects of cold weather on old bones, and the way folk wouldn't let other folk live in peace. ‘She don't deserve any more trouble. She surely don’t,’ she told Susan, then snapped her great-niece’s head off for responding to that remark and daring to make a comment on her betters.