Beyond the Blue Mountains Read online

  “I am going,” said Carolan, and the anger of the squire could not quell the happiness in her.

  She went to her room. So this was the end of her first ball! She looked at herself in the mirror. Changed, she was grown up. She loved, and was loved; that had put colour into her eyes, a radiance on her face. Everard … wonderful, beautiful, clever, kind, good Everard loved her and they would be married. I will be so good, she thought, so good. She had almost forgotten her undignified retreat from the ballroom; she had almost forgotten the anger of the squire, until she heard his step outside her door. He burst in angrily, so that the door crashed against the side of the wall.

  “Ah.” he said.

  “Preening in front of the glass, eh?” And never, never in all her life at Haredon, had she seen him so angry. He shut the door behind him, and leaned against it, breathing heavily.

  “Well?” he said.

  “You absented yourself from the ballroom with that mollycoddle for nigh on two hours. What were you doing all that time?”

  He came towards her threateningly.

  “You had better tell me the truth!” he added. And his eyes rested on her bare shoulders, as though, she thought, he were seeing weals leaping up there as he applied the whip.

  But happiness gave her courage, and even now she could not think of him so much as the sudden roughness in Everard’s voice, and the sudden quiver in his lips as they touched hers. This was nothing. Soon she would be Everard’s wife and out of reach of this brute whom she had tried to love and whom, she knew now. she had always hated and feared.

  “I will tell you the truth!” she cried out. There is no need to hide it. Soon I shall be gone from here. Soon you will have no right to order me about as you did just now. I hate you for that… in front of them all. Everard and I are going to be married …”

  “What!” His laughter was horrible.

  “A chit of a girl, and without my consent! Ah! That is what he told you, eh?” He put his face close to hers, in that crude way he had.

  “That is an old trick, my girl…” Horrible words came to his lips; he was saying foul things about her and Everard, and parsons and foolish girls. He was ugly, hateful, satanic. She flew at him suddenly, and struck him across his face. He roared with laughter, but not healthy laughter. He reached for her, but she was quick and agile; she had the bed between them.

  “Oh,” she cried, panting, ‘what a wicked man you are! I always knew you were. None but the wicked could think such thoughts of Everard. You lie! I wonder your lies do not choke you. How I wish they would! How I should laugh! I hate you … I always have hated you. I hate you when you kiss me. There is something horrible about you …”

  He interrupted her: “Girl! You forget yourself. Do you realize that you owe everything to me ?”

  “To you I” “Yes,” he retorted, and his face was so full of blood that she thought it would burst, ‘to me! But for me you would have been born in the workhouse. You do not know your father. You were born ungrateful… you were born a harlot! I have brought you up as a lady, in comfort; I have given you all you could desire …” His voice broke with self-pity, but Carolan had no pity for him; she was as violent in hate as she was in love. And how she hated him for saying what he had just said about Everard!

  “All I could desire!” she said.

  “You! Do you think I forget how you treated me the night my mother went away!”

  “You forget all I have given you. Was not that very dress you are wearing a present from me? You kissed me for it; it was cheap, was it not? Such a dress, and all for a kiss.”

  “I wish I had never had it.”

  He was trembling now. She was no longer a child he saw that, and he could have wept for it. He was losing her as surely as he had lost Bess and Kitty. Why did he always lose? He had tried so hard … first with one, then with the others.

  “What happened in the summerhouse? Tell me that!” His voice was calmer now. He hoped he sounded like a father, anxious for his daughter.

  “Everard asked me to marry him. and I said I would.”

  “You… marry him! My dear child, he is going to marry Margaret.”

  “How can that be, and he know nothing of it!”

  “It has been arranged between our families for a long time.”

  “He will not. He loves me.”

  “Listen, Carrie, God knows I am fond of you … Carrie, you have no doubt of that, have you?”

  She was silent.

  “Carrie …” He began to move slowly towards her, but as she edged away he stopped.

  “If you were, could you have behaved as you did tonight?” she demanded.

  “Yes,” he said, ‘for that very reason. I thought he had taken you out there … You know what I thought and you no more than a child! I was angry with him and angry with you. I have been a father to you, Carrie. Do you not appreciate that?”

  She wished he would not talk as though he were weeping. She wanted to be angry with him, and she could not.

  “A father to you, Carrie,” he went on.

  “Anxious for you, wanting the best for you. I do not think he would offer marriage; indeed I do not see how he can. It is known, my dear, that you are not my daughter; none knows who your father is. Your mother deceived me. It would not be well for a parson to marry you, Carrie. And he is all but affianced to Margaret.”

  “Nothing will stand in our way,” said Carolan.

  The squire murmured: “We must be calm, Carrie. We must talk of this. I must see Parson Orland. Dammed, I do not know; I do not know, I am sure.”

  She was smiling now. This was nothing, this scene. The squire had been drinking too much, that was all. It was just a display of his violent temper.

  He was rocking backwards and forwards on his heels.

  “You can be sure, Carrie, of one thing. I shall do what I can for your happiness.”

  He was looking at her pleadingly, but she was in no mood to forgive him. His horrible words still rang in her ears, spoiling the heavenly moonlight of the summerhouse. Her hands still tingled from the blows she had given him.

  “Look here, Carrie, I lost my temper. Dammed, it is not the first time you have seen me lose my temper.”

  She was laughing. She was not really the sort to nurse an injury. She would always be essentially generous, too generous perhaps.

  “No,” she said with a charming gravity, “it is not the first time.”

  “And will not be the last, I’ll warrant!” He slapped his thigh; one should not take his words seriously he was just a coarse old man.

  “I suppose not.”

  Then I am forgiven?” he asked, and thought, God damn it, is this Squire Haredon, asking a woman to forgive him?

  “Then we are friends again?”

  He looked so old, standing there, that she had not the heart to tell him she had never looked on him as a friend.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, ‘friends. But never say such wicked things about Everard again.”

  “Then come and kiss me just to show we are friends.”

  She hesitated. How she hated these embraces! The roughness of his gestures, the feel of him, the smell of him repulsive.

  “Come on, Carrie! I tell you I am going to help you. And, mind you, this is not going to be an easy matter with the Orlands.”

  She went to him slowly, and lifted her face to brush his cheek with her lips, but he caught her suddenly in a grip that was like a vice about her slender body, and he kissed her full on the mouth; and even then he would not release her. She could feel his hot face against her own, smell spirits on his breath, hear his heavy breathing.

  She tried to wriggle free, but he held her fast, laughing. She struck out then, for a panic had seized her.

  “Put me down!” she said in a voice of ice.

  “Put me down at once!”

  He put her down; he was laughing thickly, and his voice seemed drugged and slurring.

  “God damn it, Carrie, you have a temper. I could
almost believe you are my daughter after all!”

  He went out, and she ran to the door, leaning against it, listening to his footsteps as he went downstairs. He was thinking: Why not? She is no daughter of mine there is no relationship. Carrie, Carrie, little Carrie … lovelier than any of them.

  And he knew then that he had never wanted her as a daughter, but as a woman.

  Carolan was going away. Not openly but secretly. No one knew; not Margaret, nor the squire most definitely not the squire -not Mrs. West nor Mrs. Orland, nor even Everard … yet. But Everard would know, for of course she would tell Everard.

  Who would have believed that such glorious happiness as she had known momentarily in the summerhouse should so quickly become tinged with grey! Everard’s love for her, she told herself, was like the sun shining on a grey day. It was there; obscured temporarily. For Everard had gone away; for three months he had gone away. ‘ How could he! How could he! she demanded of herself when he had told her. Would I have gone away?

  Everard had said: “Always remember, Carolan, I love you. I shall come back for you. Whatever they say, I shall marry you, but just at present I must do what my parents wish. After all Carolan, what is three months?”

  Three months, Carolan could have told him, is an eternity when you love. But when he said “What is three months?” just as though to him it could be no more than a matter of so many days and nights, he had wounded her deeply. And he had given in to his parents.

  She would have been all for a midnight flitting, elopement, a speedy marriage anyhow, anywhere.

  “My sweet Carolan!” he had said.

  “You are hasty, but you are a child. What do you know of the world? I would have us begin our new Me together in a seemly fashion.”

  And she stamped her foot and laughed and cried.

  “Seemly! Is love to be a seemly matter then?”

  To us, Carolan, yes; for love is marriage, and that is indeed a sacred thing.”

  There she stood before him, her lips parted, her eyes ablaze. And he turned from her because there was something pagan in her that touched something pagan in him. and a man who has given his life to the church cannot be a pagan.

  But the first great blazing glory had departed even before that. It was when the squire had come to her room no, it was not, for what did she care for the squire! It was when Margaret came and stood at the foot of her bed, her face ashen, her fingers plucking at the blue silk of her gown.

  “So!” said Margaret slowly.

  “You have taken Everard!” And then Carolan had known that she was indeed a child, for she had not understood that Margaret’s seeming indifference meant that her love for Everard was greater than it had ever been before.

  Margaret had burst out passionately: “How could you! How could you, Carolan! It was my ball; it was to have been the night of my betrothal. And you took him, and you went out and everyone noticed you had gone, and when you came in… people said “Poor Margaret!”

  Poor Margaret indeed, for what could Carolan do now to help her? What could she ever have done, loving Everard? For was it not for Everard to decide?

  Now here was misery. They were all against her Margaret, Mrs. Orland, Mr. Orland not the squire. He watched her with a queer brooding smile on his lips, and she began to be frightened of the squire.

  What wretchedness! To have hurt Margaret like this Margaret, who had almost always been kind to her. What unhappiness to see Margaret growing thin and wan each day because of her.

  Mrs. Orland said: “My dear Carolan, I must talk very seriously to you. It would be tragedy for you to marry Everard. You are old enough now to know that the squire is not your father. How could an Orland and one who has given his life to the church -marry a woman who was born as you were born? It would be as though he condoned immorality. It would kill the career he has planned for himself; one day he would reproach you if you married him.”

  Could that be so? She did not know. She asked Everard.

  “I would never reproach you,” said Everard. He was young and very earnest, very earnestly in love, very earnest about his career too. Marry Carolan he must, for his need of her was sinful; he would never forget her as long as he lived, and only by marriage and the getting of children could he be Christian. He could not talk of this to his mother, nor to anyone. But thus it was. And yet… why had she to be born in that sadly immoral way? Why had she to have a wanton for a mother? Would she have been Carolan if she had not? Would she have had that wild quality, that queer fascination, from which he could not escape? His mother said: “But, Everard, think, my darling, think!” He said: “Mother, I love Carolan … I must marry Carolan. I could never love anyone else.”

  His father said: “You have a duty, my son, to God and the church. Such a marriage would be pollution. Is the girl suited to be the wife of a parson?”

  “She is suitable to be my wife!” said Everard.

  “The obstinacy of youth!” wailed Mrs. Orland.

  “After all we have done for you …”

  But Everard knew that, had he not been bewitched, he would not have chosen Carolan. They were right when they said Margaret was the wife for him. Docile, religious-minded, gentle, loving was Margaret. Sweetly pretty, without that wild beauty of Carolan’s which was hardly beauty at all. He knew, and he was wise and serious in all things except in love. But how could a man be wise, loving Carolan.

  “I must marry Carolan, Mother, I must!” Mrs. Orland loved her son dearly; he was all her life, for her husband she had never loved. So she set about saving Everard from the disaster of marriage with Carolan, and she set about it wisely.

  “I would not wish to spoil your chance of happiness, dear boy. I would want only to make sure of it. You are very young yet; Carolan is even younger. Why, only yesterday she was a baby in the nursery. I am very fond of Carolan; she is a wild, sweet child. But, darling, haste in all things is inadvisable; in marriage it may well prove disastrous. Will you do one little thing for me, darling?”

  Everard kissed his mother’s hand. He loved her deeply, and the strong sense of chivalry in his nature made him long to protect her from any unhappiness he might cause her by this consuming passion for Carolan.

  “I will do anything except give up Carolan and that I cannot do!”

  “I would not ask that. I begin to see how you love the child. It is only your happiness that I think of.”

  “You are an angel, Mother.” His face was alight with happiness, so that he looked just a boy again.

  “Listen, darling,” she said.

  “You have your new living; go to it. There will be plenty of work for you to do. Go to it for three months. Do not see Carolan during that time.”

  “Not see her…”

  “You could write, my darling… Believe me, it is wise…”

  And eventually he had agreed to do that.

  “Three months? What is three months, Carolan?”

  An eternity! said Carolan to herself.

  She let him go. And he had gone fifty miles away to the new living, and he wrote to her often and told her of the events of his day.

  With Everard gone, and Margaret pining, and the strange secret silence of the squire, life was grey indeed.

  Charles came home. A big man of twenty-two, very like his father, causing a flutter among the females of the countryside. He too watched Carolan with something of the secret silence of the squire. From under his heavy lidded eyes he watched her, and there were traces of that childhood cruelty about his mouth.

  Once he found her in the stables grooming her horse, and he stood leaning against the door watching her.

  “Damn it, Carolan,” he said, for he used oaths like the squire, ‘you have grown quickly!”

  “Naturally,” she said, “I am older.”

  “And good to look at too!”

  She was silent, wishing him gone.

  “Everard evidently thought so,” he added.

  She was still silent.

  “You
are a sullen devil, Carolan! Have you no welcome for your … for your … what am I, Carolan? I am not your brother, am I? I do not mind that though, do you?”

  “I do not mind in the least,” said Carolan coolly.

  “Why should you? Do you still bear grudges for past offences?”

  “I dislike you intensely, just as I always did, if that is what you mean.”

  “Hoity-toity!” he said.

  “What a little Miss she is. I could make you like me, Carolan.”

  “You would set yourself an impossible task.”

  “Would I? Would I?” He pushed through the half-door.

  “Not impossible at all, Miss Carolan. By God, you have a damned pretty face! And cheeky too. But I always liked a bit of cheek.”

  “Stand back!” ordered Carolan.

  “I am not a child of five now to be teased by you.”

  “Oh, no, not five. Almost a wife, eh, Miss Carolan? Almost the parson’s wife! Still, is that going to stop you having a little fun?”

  “Fun? Do you think dallying with you would ever be fun for me? I assure you it would be far from that in fact quite the most unpleasant thing that had ever happened to me.”

  “Good God, Carolan! Do you think I will stand for that?”

  “Stand for what you will. I want nothing of you!”

  He caught her suddenly.

  “Little prude! Are you such a prude with Everard, I wonder?”

  She kicked his legs angrily, and he released her.

  “What a spitfire!” He grimaced, for she had hurt him. and all the desire to kiss her had vanished momentarily; he would have liked to hit her. He almost did, but the thought of the squire’s anger if he heard of this reminded him that he needed money from the squire, and he had to sing small for a while.

  He said: “Do you imagine that you are so very attractive that you can kick and still be kissed?”

  “You are ridiculous! Conceited fool, that is you, and always was!”

  “By God, there are those who are only too pleased to kiss me.”

  There are those doubtless, but you probably have to pay them well.”

  She walked past him arrogantly, her chin up, her eyes flashing her contempt. But her heart quailed a little at the expression in his eyes; it reminded her of the squire’s eyes.