She made for the door. ‘Look, love, I got to be going now, I told the driver to come fetch me before it got dark. Jem likes me to be there when he comes home.’ She rested her hand on Lily’s shoulder.
‘Look, love, you’ve fallen in lucky with Matt, don’t throw all that away by being too coy with him.’
‘He likes me as I am,’ Lily said stubbornly. And that was his strength, she realized that now. Matthew did not ask her to be different, to change. He liked Lily just as she was.
When she had waved Polly off and watched the gleaming carriage drive away down the street, Lily returned to the attic. She placed a mirror against the window, conscious of the fading light and attempted a self-portrait. The result was far from pleasing. It was just as Polly said; the drawing emphasized all the worst features of her face. Her nose was too sharp, her lips thin. The only comfort was the light in the eyes, the light of enthusiasm.
Lily put away her drawing materials and then washed her hands. She was more fulfilled than she had been in a long time and it was a wonderful feeling.
‘Rosie, fetch me another cushion, there’s a good girl,’ Alice said. ‘And then bring the footstool, my legs are giving me such grief.’
The girl did as she was told; she was docile, never putting up any argument. Not even by a twitch of her eyes did she show any resentment for the way she was treated. That was the way a servant should behave.
‘Who came calling last night?’ she asked. She was not really interested in her servant’s affairs but Alice was bored.
‘It was just a friend,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m sorry, madam, did it disturb you?’
‘No, it’s all right, if you’ve got a gentleman caller then good luck to you. Every woman should have a man running after her, it’s the natural order of things.’
She was not usually so magnanimous but the girl was useful, more so now that Cook had walked out in a huff. Rosie’s cooking was improving and she worked willingly. A man in her life might be just what she needed to cheer her up, give her a bit more sparkle. This man, probably some poor labourer, might prove useful as an extra, unpaid servant.
She heard the sound of the front door and gestured to Rosie. ‘Go and let the master in, there’s a good girl.’ Rosie curtsied and left the room. Shortly after, Edward trailed into the room and flopped into a chair.
‘I’ve managed to put everything in order at the bank,’ he said coldly. ‘Though I am not happy at the means by which you got the money. I still can’t understand why Eynon Morton-Edwards would make us a loan.’
Alice had been careful, she had thought her story out well. She claimed that Eynon knew her father, he was an old friend of the family. He also approved of her efforts to raise money for charity, thought she was deserving of help.
Alice smiled to herself; the charity idea had never served much of a purpose mainly because Alice being married to a bank manager was considered socially inferior to the gentry of the town. Still, she had traded on it with Edward who had waited impatiently for funds to come rolling in. Foolish man!
Edward had become sceptical, over the months he had begun to realize that not everything his wife told him was the truth. There was no money coming in and as far as he was concerned she had made no attempt to see her father.
Ironically, she had visited Father but when she arrived at her old home it was to find he was away on a trip. It had given her a jolt to be reminded of how grand the family seat was and how luxuriously she had lived before she was married.
‘Perhaps you had better start telling me the truth, Alice,’ Edward said haughtily. ‘I am not happy, not happy at all, about the arrangements you have made.’
‘I told you!’ she said waspishly. ‘Eynon thinks the money is for charity. You thought it was a good idea at the time and in any case would you rather face a prison sentence?’
Edward was not easily convinced. ‘Look here, you’ve been sleeping with the man, haven’t you? Why else would he give you money?’
‘Don’t be absurd! And don’t go over all that again, Edward, not now,’ she said, rubbing at her stomach. ‘I am not feeling too well, can’t you see that or are you so selfish that you can only think of yourself?’
‘Well, I don’t like it, a man giving my wife a substantial amount of money for nothing, it doesn’t make sense.’ He looked at her suspiciously. ‘You have been honest with me, haven’t you, Alice?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Edward.’
‘This man, Morton-Edwards, are you sure he wasn’t one of your lovers?’ He peered at her, as though trying to see inside her skull. Alice was inclined to tell him the truth; she was fast losing patience with him. Who did he think he was? Some potentate who kept his wife behind locked doors? She was about to make a sarcastic remark when his next words made her stop short, her mouth still open.
‘Come to think of it, the idea to have a baby came from you.’ His lips pressed together in a thin line as he considered the matter. ‘It was all rather sudden, wasn’t it? If the children don’t look like me there will be trouble, Alice, believe me.’
Like most weak men Edward could be quite vicious at times. Alice stared at him, despising him more as each day passed. Why had she helped him out of the mess he was in? Would it not have been better to have taken the money herself and gone back to her father? He would not have been in the least surprised to hear the marriage had failed.
‘Shut up, Edward!’ she said loudly. ‘Don’t you dare to talk to me in that way. You know that Eynon is romantically involved with Llinos Mainwaring, so why keep on? I can’t help it if my husband is a failure, can I? Apart from which you are the most unattractive man it has ever been my misfortune to meet. If you keep on bullying me, I shall leave you, Edward, and then how will you cope?’
He stared at her for a long time, his eyes burning like coals in their sockets. He clenched his hands into fists and she thought, for a moment, he might hit her, then he subsided and put his hands over his face.
‘Alice, what would I do without you?’ he wailed. Now he was a little boy crying for his mamma. Alice rose to her feet and swept across the room.
‘I will not speak to you again until you apologize for your crass behaviour,’ she said in her most haughty voice. ‘I find you the help and support you could not get for yourself and what is my thanks? I get accused of the most vile of crimes.’
She made her way slowly upstairs to her bedroom. She felt so weary, she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her body was ungainly, heavy and she hated it. Just wait until the birth was over and done with, there would be no holding her. Edward could go to hell and back for all she cared.
‘Are you all right, madam?’ Rosie had followed her upstairs and her sweet voice touched a chord, the girl was really concerned about her. Suddenly, Alice felt like weeping.
‘No, I’m not feeling well, bring me some tea, Rosie, please.’ She paused. ‘Rosie, you are a good girl and I’m grateful to you.’
Alice sank onto the bed and lay back feeling the soft pillows behind her head with a sense of relief. She realized quite suddenly that she was lonely; that the love she had always craved had never been hers. No wonder she had grown a protective shell around her. With no-one to love and care for her she had always been forced to fend for herself.
Tears of self-pity flooded into her eyes and when Rosie entered the room with a tray on her arm Alice looked up at her. ‘Rosie, would you say I’m a bad person?’ she asked, struggling to sit up.
Rosie put down the tray and helped her to get comfortable, patting the pillows into shape at Alice’s back.
‘’Course not, madam,’ she said. ‘No-one in the world is all bad.’ She smiled her gentle smile. ‘We all have a spiteful side to us, I know I have.’
‘That’s hard to believe, Rosie.’ Alice for once was being totally sincere. ‘You are a sweet trusting girl, you look out for yourself, watch you don’t get hurt.’
‘I’ve been hurt already, madam,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m not a widow as I led you to believe. I married a man who didn’t love me. I couldn’t stand that so I left him even though it tore my heart to shreds to do it.’
She handed Alice the cup. ‘It was my husband who came calling the other night. He’s been over here quite a few times asking me to go back but I never will.’
‘Oh?’ So the girl was married; it was a bit of a surprise but then Alice was not going to lose any sleep over it. So long as Rosie did her job she suited Alice.
‘Sit down by the bedside for a minute, Rosie,’ she said. ‘Tell me all about yourself.’ Talking to Rosie was better than lying in her room alone thinking about the pathetic man she had married.
‘Your husband, is he working at a decent job?’
‘Oh yes, he’s a manager over at the pottery, you know the one Llinos Mainwaring owns?’
That was interesting, this Llinos was one of the victims of Edward’s little tricks. He seemed to dislike the woman intensely. No doubt she had not knuckled under to his high-handed manner. Where Edward got his pomposity from Alice would never know. The man was such a mixture, one minute bullying and the next cringing in fear. With hindsight, Alice marvelled that she had ever agreed to marry him.
At first, though, he had seemed presentable enough. A little on the thin side and not cut from the best of cloth. Edward was not one of the élite who formed society but he was a better prospect than the one her father had offered her. If she did not marry soon, she would be cast off without a penny.
She had known right away that Edward was not the material good lovers were made from. He had fumbled at her in bed, eager at first to taste the fruits of the voluptuous woman he had made his wife. But he was inept and their coupling had been swiftly over and had left Alice feeling high and dry. Had Edward proved proficient between the sheets she might have forgiven him everything.
‘Did you enjoy his lovemaking, Rosie? That can be enough to make a marriage happy, you know.’
Rosie blushed. ‘I might have if I thought he loved me. He was in love before and I don’t think he ever got over her.’
‘Poor girl,’ Alice said. ‘Well perhaps you are better off out of it then. Now tell me, how is Mrs Mainwaring?’ Alice realized that Rosie was sitting on the edge of her seat, uncertain if she should stay or go. ‘Did I hear that her husband has walked out on her?’
‘I don’t know, madam. Even when Watt and me were together, he never talked about Llinos – Mrs Mainwaring’s – private life.’
‘How boring, no wonder you left him. He wouldn’t be in love with this Llinos, would he?’ She could see by the clouding of Rosie’s eyes that she had struck a chord. ‘I mean they grew up together and, from what I gather, together saved the pottery from disaster.’
Rosie sighed. ‘No, it wasn’t Llinos he was in love with. Watt was living with a married woman whose husband had run off.’ Rosie’s eyes were downcast. ‘But Maura died of the whooping cough.’
Alice reached out to catch Rosie’s hand. ‘And he married you on the rebound, is that it, Rosie?’
‘I suppose so, madam.’ She looked up, her expression one of sadness. Alice felt an unwelcome pang of guilt.
‘I shouldn’t be prying into your personal life, Rosie,’ she said with a genuine feeling of pity for the girl. ‘But you and I have much in common, my husband doesn’t love me either.’ She sighed heavily. ‘He married me for my father’s money.’
‘Oh, madam, I’m sorry!’ Rosie said at once. ‘And do you love him?’
She was very naive but so sweet that Alice smiled at her. ‘I don’t think I do, not now,’ she said truthfully. ‘If I were to be honest, I never loved him but you never realize what a man is truly like until you live with him, do you, Rosie?’
‘No, madam.’ She rubbed her wrists. ‘At first I was dazzled, I thought Watt loved me but now I see he only married me because he was lonely and because he felt obliged to help the family out.’ She hesitated. ‘He’s a good man and I don’t blame him for not loving me but it does hurt.’
‘Well look, Rosie dear, ask him to visit you properly, talk things over with him, you could be wrong about him, have you thought of that?’
Rosie shook her head. Alice watched her for a moment, summing up the situation. This man, her husband, he sounded interesting. And he might be able to tell her a great deal about Llinos Mainwaring and her business. He might be close-lipped with Rosie but then she was inexperienced with men. Alice on the other hand used her guile to get the information she wanted.
‘I don’t think I’m wrong,’ Rosie said softly. ‘I know Watt likes me and he made me his wife and all that, but I just feel here,’ she pressed her hand against her heart, ‘that he is still in love with Maura even though she’s dead.’
‘Ah but you are very much alive,’ Alice said. She was not quite clear why she was trying to make the girl feel better, it was out of character and Alice knew it. Still she persisted. ‘Love can grow, Rosie, and if Watt is coming to see you, don’t you think he must feel something for you?’
‘Maybe he does. Can I really ask him to visit, madam?’
‘Of course you can,’ Alice said and then added, hastily, ‘but don’t give in to him right away. I mean if he wants you to go back to him hold out for a time. Men don’t value what comes to them easily, I’ve learned that much.’
She did not want to lose Rosie; she was a good maid and was turning out to be a very good cook. However, she was beginning to feel genuine warmth towards the girl and that was a new experience.
‘Go on, then, take some time off, go and see your husband, ask him to call on you just as if you were walking out.’
‘I don’t think I could do that,’ Rosie said doubtfully. ‘Though I could see Mam, ask her to talk to him.’
‘Right then, that’s settled.’ Alice was suddenly tired of the matter. ‘I shall have a sleep now, you may go, Rosie, but draw the curtains first, there’s a good girl.’
It was good to lie in the quiet darkness in the softness of the bed, where she could pretend that everything in her life was fine. Where she could pretend that she had a husband like Eynon Morton-Edwards, a man who was skilled at lovemaking, a man who was rich and a powerful force in the town. Slowly, weariness overtook her and Alice fell into a dreamless sleep.