Hope. Part 28

He'd been almost pretty with his blond curls and smooth, hairless chin. He was always more comfortable with women than with men. On their wedding night he'd admired her beautiful nightgown, yet shown no real enthusiasm for what lay beneath it. In truth they had been more like two girl-friends than husband and wife, lying in bed together giggling or chasing each other up and down the stairs. If she hadn't met Angus and found out what real men did with their women, and William hadn't found someone like himself in America, they might have stayed in that untroubled, pa.s.sionless friends.h.i.+p for ever.

'Poor William,' she said, hugging him to her breast. She could afford to be magnanimous now for she had discovered the beauty and ecstasy of normal pa.s.sion.

Encouraged by her sympathy, William bared his soul, telling her how he'd found there were many men like him, forced to search one another out in secret, always in fear that they would be discovered and denounced.

'You accused me once of going to a brothel,' he said brokenly. 'I wish that's where I had been for there is terrible danger in consorting with other men like me. Most are as sad and bewildered as I am; we wish more than anything we had not been cursed with such desires. But there are some who delight in their depravity and prey on the weak, bending us to their will. We cannot escape their clutches for they hold us fast by blackmail and intimidation.'

Anne sensed this was what had happened to him, for she'd often felt that when he verbally abused her when he'd been drinking, the words coming out of his mouth were not his.

That was what made her strong enough to tell him about Angus. It wasn't fair to let him pour out all his hurt and shame believing that he alone had destroyed the happiness they once had together. And, as always, she remained self-centred enough to think that once William knew, Albert would have nothing to hold over her.

She poured out her adultery in a torrent, telling him how she was attracted to Angus right from their first meeting, but that she held her feelings in check right up until William left for America.

'It wouldn't have happened if you'd been here,' she said brokenly. 'But you went away without me and I couldn't stop myself.'

She went on to tell him that she'd had Angus's baby, and how she'd been told by Bridie that the infant was stillborn.

William had remained surprisingly calm throughout her revelation. He looked stunned, bewildered, but not angry. He didn't interrupt her once with recriminations or even questions.

'But the baby didn't die. Nell took her home to her parents. The baby was Hope!' she sobbed out. 'I never knew. She came here and played with Rufus, but I never guessed she was mine. Nell didn't tell me until that awful day she said Albert had killed her.'

William's calm vanished then. He sat up straight on the bed and looked at her with steely eyes. 'Hope was your child?' he asked, his voice suddenly louder and harsh. 'You must have known the baby was alive. How could you let it go to someone so close? Was that so you could still see her?'

'No,' Anne insisted, a little bewildered that he was more upset by the child of her union with Angus than the love affair. 'I believed Bridie when she said she was dead. I was exhausted after the birth, and I didn't know anything about babies then. Bridie showed her to me and she wasn't moving or crying. Besides, you were due home from America any day and I was so scared. It just seemed to me to be G.o.d's way of dealing with my problem.'

William put his head in his hands and made a kind of wailing sound.

'I'm so sorry, William,' she sobbed. 'I have no idea what I would have done if I'd known she was alive. I suppose I would have asked Bridie to find a home for her, I couldn't have done anything else, could I? Imagine the disgrace!'

William remained with his head in his hands.

'How could I tell you about it?' she pleaded. 'It was such a terrible time, all alone here with Bridie, for all the other servants had gone to the London house by then. All I could think about was getting strong enough for the drive to London to join you. I did my best to forget it ever happened, and you made it easier because you were so kind and considerate.'

He looked up then, his face pale and haggard. 'Only because I was burdened with guilt too,' he said in a small voice. 'You seemed distant, preoccupied, but I thought you were angry because I hadn't taken you with me to America. Oh, Anne! If only you'd told me all this before.'

'How could I?' she asked. 'And what point would there have been in telling you when I thought the baby was dead?'

William nodded as if seeing her point. 'But did you tell Angus about it?'

Anne shook her head. 'His regiment left before I even knew I was with child,' she said. 'I didn't see him again until some time after Rufus was born. You were here when he called. Don't you remember he came upstairs to the nursery with us to see Rufus? He brought him a little wooden horse. You made us all laugh by galloping it along the edge of the crib.'

William half-smiled ruefully. 'Yes, I remember. I told Rufus he'd have a real one to ride on as soon as he could sit in a saddle.'

'We were so happy at that time,' Anne said wistfully. 'I could have put Angus out of my mind if you'd only stayed the way you were then. But you changed, getting drunk all the time, saying nasty things to me. Why did you change like that? Was it because you loved someone else?'

'Not then,' he said, shaking his head. 'But I could feel the need in you for something I couldn't give you. Every day I awoke knowing I was a fraud,' he said, reaching over and taking her hand. 'At first going riding each day took my mind off it, but soon I had to go looking for what I really wanted. I despised myself so much that I had to get drunk whenever I was at home.'

Anne remembered odd little scenes around that time, her in her nightgown urging him to come to bed with her, and William turning his back on her, protesting he was tired.

'If only you'd told me what was wrong,' she said, wiping a tear away from her cheek. 'I think I would have let you do whatever you wanted just as long as at home you were the William I married.'

'The real problems began at home, when I took Albert on,' he said.

Anne's eyes shot wide open. 'Albert! Did he find out? Was he blackmailing you?'

William pursed his lips, as though he'd just sucked a lemon. 'No, not that. He's like me.'

'You mean...?'

William nodded.

'G.o.d in heaven!' Anne exclaimed. She didn't think she could take any more shocks.

'Yes, he's a sodomist, or whatever people like to call us,' William spat out. 'And I, poor fool that I am, fell for him. If not for me he wouldn't have married Nell; that was my suggestion.'

'Oh no, William!' Anne gasped. 'Why did you do that?'

William shrugged. 'Without a wife people might have guessed about him. Nell struck me as a plain, no-nonsense girl who would make a calm, steady wife. I didn't know how cruel Albert could be then, or that he hated women. I thought he'd be able to give her a child, take care of her, and you'd keep the maid you relied on. I'd still have Albert in a place where we could be together.'

'The gatehouse,' Anne whispered. 'You used to go there?'

William nodded glumly. 'It was bad, I can see that now, but he bewitched me, Anne. I couldn't think of anything else, nothing mattered to me but him. Can you understand?'

She couldn't understand, not with a man as loathsome as Albert. The thought of them doing something so depraved and b.e.s.t.i.a.l right under her nose, so close to their son, made her want to shout at him, pummel him with her fists, say he was disgusting.

Yet at the same time she could remember only too well how be witched by Angus she had been, how she had let him take her in a field or woods, without any thought of her husband or child.

She took a deep breath. 'Do you still feel that way about him?' she asked.

'No, I fear him,' he admitted ruefully. 'It has been over between us for a long time, but he refuses to leave here, and threatens to tell you, Rufus and everyone else what I am if I force him out. I thought it was love he felt for me, but now I know he is incapable of such an emotion.'

'Oh, William,' she sighed, reaching out to hold him, for now they had a common enemy. 'He knows about me and Angus too. He has a letter to me from Angus. Nell asked Hope to hold on to any that came while I was away at my father's funeral, and he must have found her with it. Did he kill her?'

'No, at least not as far as I know,' William said quickly, then fell silent, chewing on his lip.

Anne waited. She knew her husband only ever did this when he was uncertain and very afraid. But she was certain he would eventually tell her what he knew; lying didn't come easily to him.

'She came into the gatehouse and caught us,' he finally blurted out, his face contorted with shame. 'Albert told me to get out through the front door and he'd deal with her. I went down there later in the evening and she was gone. Albert showed me the note he'd got her to write; he said he'd told her never to come back or he'd hurt Nell.'

Anne exploded with rage then, calling him all the terrible names she could think of. 'You coward!' she raged. 'You stood by, letting Nell think she was dead, and all the time you knew what had happened! How could you do that? It was inhuman!'

'What else could I do?' William whined. 'I was terrified that Albert and I would be discovered. Albert even convinced me Hope had wanted to leave Briargate. I didn't know how cruel he was then, and even now I can't see what else I could have done but go along with it.'

Anne felt sick then. She sank back on her pillows, stunned at Albert's capacity for evil. Rufus had told her the man used to hit both Hope and Nell, he said he made their lives a misery. In fact, Anne could remember that Nell often winced with pain, pa.s.sing it off as a fall on the drive or some such thing. The brute had clearly been terrorizing them both for a very long time, but she'd been too wrapped up in herself to notice.

Maybe Hope did leave as instructed to keep Nell safe, but some how Anne knew she also went to prevent her and Rufus from being shamed too. Hope was only fifteen then, and she'd seen something not even a grown woman could deal with, banished from her home, family and livelihood and told never to return.

Did Albert beat her before she left? Did she have any money? Where would she go?

William stayed in her bed that night, holding her tightly and telling her that he still loved her, even if he wasn't worthy of love in return. Anne was grateful for the comfort of his arms, but the images of her daughter cast out, terrified and with no one to turn to, prevented her from sleeping. She understood then why Nell had gone mad with grief.

Chapter Seventeen.

1854.

A sudden hissing from the fire made Lady Harvey jump involuntarily.

'The coal's wet,' William explained, breaking the silence they'd been locked in for some little while. 'I daresay Albert p.i.s.sed on it again.'

Anne heard the bleakness in her husband's voice and when she turned to look at him she saw his eyes were glistening with tears.

'What are we going to do?' she asked fearfully. 'He'll only get worse, won't he?'

They were in William's study. They no longer used the drawing room in winter because it was too costly to heat. The study was also the only room at Briargate which didn't yet show signs of the neglect so apparent elsewhere. But then the sheer masculinity of the book-lined walls and the leather armchairs suggested the room was designed to look ageless and worn.

Outside it was a raw, grey February afternoon, a keen wind bending the bare branches of the trees along the drive. The light was fading fast, but Anne was reluctant to move away from the fire to light the oil lamp, for her joints were stiff with rheumatism.

The dim light concealed the ravages time and trouble had brought to the once handsome couple. Anne's hair was thin and white now, her face lined and her body thicker. At forty-eight she perhaps still looked younger than many women of a similar age in the village, but this was more to do with a retained elegance in her dress and posture rather than glowing health or nature's kindness.

William was less lined than his wife, despite being three years older, but he was portly and balding. The years of heavy drinking had given his face a bloated look and there was an elderly stiffness in his movements.

Yet aside from the ever-present irritation of Albert's presence at Briargate, they had found new happiness following their revelations a year earlier. William said he'd become too old and disillusioned for desire; Anne was content with his friends.h.i.+p and company. In fact they could count the last year as being the time they'd been closest since they were newly-weds.

They often discussed how they should have dismissed Albert years ago. But setting aside their separate reasons for avoiding confrontation with him, they had also been concerned about the grounds of Briargate. Whatever else Albert was, no one could deny that he was an astounding gardener. He had the energy of three other men, he took a pride in his work, and he would be impossible to replace.

Briargate might be crumbling on the inside, but while the grounds remained immaculate and beautiful, they could convince themselves and others that everything was fine. Not that anyone much came to Briargate any longer. The Warrens from Wick Farm occasionally visited for tea in the garden in summer, likewise the Metcalfes from Bath, but there hadn't been a dinner party here for years. Yet a year ago the Harveys had believed, or rather hoped, that once they were united, they could control Albert and anything else life might throwat them. They'd even convinced themselves they could begin entertaining again.

But they were wrong. First Martha the cook left, giving no explanation other than that she wanted a change. Soon afterwards Rose went too, saying she had found a position in a more lively household. Both Sir William and Lady Harvey had no doubt that Albert had a hand in persuading Cook to leave, and he doubtless knew that Rose would soon follow because she would be lonely without another female servant for company.

Loyal, dependable Baines had stayed; nothing Albert could have said, or offered him, would have induced him to leave. But it would have been difficult for him to obtain another position as he was in his seventies and becoming very frail.

Lady Harvey had taken on Mrs Crabbe, a widow from the village, and Polly, her fifteen-year-old daughter, but both were slovenly and insolent. Sadly, Lady Harvey had to accept that gentry who had fallen on hard times couldn't expect to find good servants, and as there was no one else available, she had to live with lowered standards.

But Albert remained like a malevolent spirit, spoiling all that was good. While he still took great care of the grounds, he did it in a way that implied owners.h.i.+p. And he had many ways of showing the Harveys he considered himself to be the new master of Briargate.

p.i.s.sing on the coal for the study was just one of his many nasty tricks to intimidate them. In the past they'd been subjected to a gra.s.s snake and a dead rat in the coal bucket too.

He would disappear for days on end, especially in the winter, and each time they hoped he was gone for good. But he always came back, tearing into cutting down a tree or making a new flowerbed without ever consulting them first. And he had demanded higher wages too, testing them to the limit.

'I thought I could ask him to come shooting with me,' William said, breaking into Anne's dejected reverie. 'I could shoot him and say it was an accident.'

Anne doubted very much that he could really shoot Albert, however much he'd grown to hate and fear him. But it was touching that he was looking for a way to end this horrible situation.

'He's too clever to be caught like that, he'd sense what you were intending,' she said more sharply than she meant to. 'The only real way out is to stand together and call his bluff.'

'I don't think I'm strong enough for that,' William said, hanging his head. 'He's evil, Anne, you know that.'

'But he can't say anything about you without incriminating himself,' Anne retorted. 'We could just deny my affair with Angus. No one likes Albert, they wouldn't believe a word he said. Nell would never stand with Albert against me, and neither would Angus.'

'Nell may have told him the truth about Hope by now,' William reminded her. 'That might well change his view.'

'If he did know Hope was his daughter he'd be even more likely to support us against Albert,' Anne said wistfully. 'I just wish that I'd told him myself that day I met him in Bath. He would have come round here and dealt with that fiend straight away.'

'How strange it is how things turn out,' William said thoughtfully. 'I met Angus when he was just a small boy staying with his relatives in Chelwood. He used to look up to me, and mostly I was unkind to him because he was a few years younger than I was. He was always pestering me to let him come out riding with me. Maybe if I hadn't given in and lent him a mount, he would never have bothered to come back and look me up after he got his commission in the army. Then he would never have met you.'

'If you asked for his help in getting rid of Albert, I'm sure he still retains enough affection for you to give it willingly,' Anne said.

'I couldn't bear him of all men to find out what I am,' William said in a small voice. 'And you know Albert would delight in telling him.'

Anne realized he was probably right about that. 'What I can't understand is why why Albert wants to stay here,' she said, feeling it would only hurt William further if she kept on about Angus. 'He knows you don't care for him any longer. He has no friends, no family, what is it that binds him here?' Albert wants to stay here,' she said, feeling it would only hurt William further if she kept on about Angus. 'He knows you don't care for him any longer. He has no friends, no family, what is it that binds him here?'

'Because he's well paid, likes living in the gatehouse, and because he wouldn't have the freedom he gets here anywhere else,' William said plaintively. 'He has a completely free hand with the grounds, and you have to admit he's far more than a gardener, he's an artist! Do you remember how glorious the flowerbeds were last summer, such wonderful colour combinations, the clever way he has of always having something new coming up to hide the fading plants? I've never seen his like before.'

Anne did remember; in fact, the only time she'd ever seen the man looking really happy was when he was admiring his plants. But at the same time he made sure she and William couldn't enjoy them.

If they sat out in the garden for tea, Albert would start scything the gra.s.s near them. If they just walked around, he followed them pus.h.i.+ng a wheelbarrow; he glowered at them if they picked some flowers, and made them feel they were intruders.

It was as if he wished to imprison them in the house, and even on a winter's day he made sure they were aware of his presence in little ways like the wet coal. Raking the gravel on the drive outside the study window was a favourite too, and in summer he would often disturb a wasps' nest so that the insects flew in through the windows.

Sometimes when he saw Anne looking out of the window he would urinate in front of her. Late at night he would walk around the house, his feet scrunching on the gravel, just a reminder that he was still there, watching and biding his time.

Again and again William had tried to take him to task, but it always ended the same way. Albert would threaten to expose them.

'd.a.m.n it,' William exclaimed, jumping up as a definite smell of urine wafted out from either the fire or the coal box. 'Enough is enough!'

'What, dearest?' Anne asked.

'Albert! He's got to go. Tomorrow, first thing, I'll insist he leaves. I'll give him till the end of the week and if he isn't gone by then I'll get a couple of men to empty his belongings from the gatehouse and change the locks on the doors.'

'But what if he attacks you?' Anne said nervously.

William went over to the window and looked out. 'I almost hope he does,' he said. 'Then I can get the police and have him arrested.'

Anne had heard William talk like this before but each time he'd backed down later, often having to give Albert more money to appease him. But she was pleased to hear that this time William really did sound determined and she guessed it was because of Rufus.

He was in his second year at Oxford University now, but he'd declined to come home at Christmas. Albert had sneeringly claimed it was because he'd grown too grand for the shabby house, and the lack of parties and dances, but both Anne and William knew that wasn't the case. Rufus had grown into a tall, strong and handsome young man, but he had no airs and graces. He still liked to go to Matt's farm when he was home; last summer he was there every day helping with the harvest.

They both knew he hadn't come home this Christmas because of Albert. The convictions he'd had as a young lad about the man had remained, and he'd become increasingly outraged as he saw Albert strutting around as if he were the master, and his parents kowtowing to him. Staying away was his way of showing his disapproval, and the message was simple: Albert should be dismissed or Rufus would not be home for any future holidays with his parents.

It had been the most cheerless Christmas they had ever known, and Anne knew that it had made William feel even more aggrieved with Albert.