In response I held her eye and spoke in tones of great severity. ‘If he is guilty, Madame, and I have no doubt that such he be, then shall he dance a Tyburn jig, or else he has a friend to swing upon his legs and speed him to a hastier demise.’
Here, Eleanor grew pale and clutched her mother’s skirts. Cast on the ceiling by a low-set lantern, both their shadows merged to one; a dark thing with too many limbs. Noticing that her daughter had become afraid, the widow turned towards the girl and scolded her perhaps too harshly, no doubt hoping she should make a good impression on a judge were she to play the martinet.
‘Now don’t you make a fuss, my girl! You know what I have told you. We should thank the stars that we are being spoken to at all by such a noble gentleman as . . .’ Here her words trailed off and, glancing from her child, she offered me a querying look, at which I understood that she was still in ignorance as to my name.
I introduced myself, to spare her further puzzlement. ‘I am His Worship Judge Augustus Nicholls, come from Faxton in Northamptonshire, upon the circuit. Now you have me at a disadvantage, Madame. Who, I wonder, might you be?’
Seeming a little flustered, she announced herself as Mrs Mary Deene, late of Dundee, if it should please me, whereupon I let my gaze drop for an instant from her face to the more softly angled contours there below and told her that it pleased me very much. At this we both laughed, she a little nervously, while Eleanor looked first to one of us then to the other, half-aware that meanings darted underneath the surface of our talk like pretty minnows, yet unable quite to grasp them ere they vanished in a twist of silver.
We exchanged some few words more, stood at the threshold of her stoop-backed attic room, yet more than words were passed between us: certain measurements of breath were evident. Some phrases had a tilt to them, some silences an eloquence, or so it seemed to me. We both avowed we should be glad to have the other’s company upon the morrow’s ride to Kendal, and expressed the hope we might have cause to meet while we were in that place. At this, content that my preliminary work with Widow Deene would be sufficient to its task, I took my leave amidst much curtsying and scraping.
In my larger chamber on the floor below I punched my feather bolster till it had a shape more suitable for entertaining sleep. Settling back, I closed my eyelids, where the darkness rose behind like a theatre’s drapes as Widow Deene and Eleanor, both of them nude and with their autumn hair untied, danced with each other in a feverish arietta to high French fiddles, pale and twirling on that secret stage.
Out through the carriage window the November fields are made to dazzling mirror-flats by flood, where up above the clouds hang grey and heavy as cathedrals. Two drowned heifers floating swollen in a ditch; their staring eyes catch mine in passing, black glass bulbs now fogged, steamed white by death.
Besides a trade of pleasantries when first we climbed aboard the coach this morning, and of several lingering glances since, little of note has passed between the widow and myself today. Since I imagine we shall shortly reach the skirts of Kendal where the Deenes are to be lodged, then it were better I should soon promote the notion of an assignation, lest I miss my chance. If child and mother disembark a half-mile down the road from here and are not seen again for these three days I am in Kendal, why, what then? Then I must sleep alone, else pay some drab to warm my bed unless I would return to wife and Faxton without dalliance to keep me warm in mind and memory throughout the winter months.
Our carriage rolls along its track by open land with, in the distance, mountains steeped in cloud, or clouds that look alike to mountains. Some way off, across the fallow, ploughed-in fields, I spy a great black farm dog bounding at a furious pace across the ruts and frost-baked furrows, seeming easily to match its stride with our fast-moving carriag
e as it lopes along in parallel to us. I make attempt to estimate its distance from the coach, which is, perhaps, much further than I first assumed. Why, then, the hound must be of monstrous size to seem so large at such a great remove.
No. No, I see it now, the truth of it, and am embarrassed at my foolishness: the beast is not a dog at all, but rather is a horse. A clump of trees obscures its racing shadow-form from sight before I can confirm this logical surmise, while at the same time Widow Deene speaks from behind me so that my attention is diverted from the creature utterly to other, less ambiguous concerns.
‘We shall be getting off soon, shan’t we Nelly?’ This, though spoken to the child, seems largely for my benefit. Unless I miss my guess, with this announcement of her imminent departure Widow Deene hopes to provoke me to a suitable response. Not wishing that so radiant a being should be made to suffer disappointment, I turn from the window of the carriage now to speak with her, and lift my straggling eyebrows up towards their centre in a great display of something like bereavement.
‘My good woman, can it be that you and your dear child alike are to be taken from me in such haste? It really is too bad! In all my lonely weeks upon these roads at last I meet with true companionship only to have it plucked from me while it is new. I’d hoped that while in Kendal we might meet, the three of us, and thus continue our acquaintanceship, but now . . .’ I let my words trail off and spread my hands here, miserably, as if I hold a world of woe between them like some dismal Atlas.
Little Eleanor, awoken now, at least is moved to sympathy by my performance. Turning on her seat to face her mother, she takes up the older woman’s hands within her smaller ones and wears a look upon her pointed fox-cub face that is the very soul of earnestness.
‘Mama, shall we not see the gentleman again? He was so kind, I should not like him to be gone.’
Her mother looks now from the girl to me, and once more, though it is the child to whom she speaks, her words are meant for older and more knowing ears. ‘You hush now, girl. Why, think how all the Kendal folk should look upon the judge if he were seen there with the likes of us! With me not long a widow they’ve enough to whet their tongues upon, without us bringing shame upon His Honour in the bargain.’
Here I shake my head in pained denial, as though such considerations could not be more distant from my thoughts, although in truth there is much sense in what she says. It is not meet nor seemly that I should be seen abroad with persons of their type, and in my years I’ve learned that England is a smaller land than many would suppose. Sometimes it seems I cannot put a hand inside the underthings of a Yorkshire lass without it happen that she’s daughter to the second cousin of my wife’s best-trusted friend.
Though Kendal be remote from Faxton, I am having second thoughts concerning the advisability of a liaison with the Widow Deene, though now her child pipes up again, with fresh suggestion: ‘Could he not then come to visit with us, in the nice old lady’s house where we’re to stay? You said it was outside the town, so folks should have no cause to pay it mind where he was gone if he come calling. Do say that he might.’
The mother lifts her eyes once more to mine, and seems to hesitate. It strikes me that the girl’s proposal is ideally suited to my purposes, and I am taken by the furtive, secret bond that it already weaves between us; the suggestion of a mutual confidence that might be taken further. Widow Deene is watching me intently, waiting for some sign of my response to Eleanor’s idea before she dares to venture an opinion of her own. The moment has arrived to stamp my seal upon our tryst, and leaning forward in the rocking coach I set one hand upon the infant’s knee as might an uncle, chuckling the while. Beneath her skirt’s thin dark the sinew of her leg is spare and taut, much like a bird’s.
‘Why, what a clever mite you are, to think of such a thing! Though for my own part I care not a whit if I am seen in company with two such lovely ladies, it would never do if in this manner I should compromise your mother’s reputation in the town where she’s to work. Yet thanks to you, dear girl, we have the answer! I would be delighted to come calling at your residence and break the bread with both of you at your convenience, if it should be your mother gives assent.’
It seems I’ve learned the trick of speaking through the child, just as her mother does. The way to do it is to talk to one while gazing at the other. When the object of one’s gaze has such bewitching sea-spray eyes and lips plucked from a rose bay willow herb, this is not an unpleasant task. The widow, who returns my look, now seems to colour in her cheeks. Glancing away towards the worn boards of the carriage floor and with a tiny, private smile, she stammers her acceptance. The suppressed delight upon her countenance invokes a similar elation in myself, though in a different quarter of my person.
‘Oh, Sir, I . . . why, of course I gives assent. You’ve no need to ask my permission. Not for anything.’
Her eyes dart up now from the floor’s bare planks that have unravelling slivers of the Kendal road between their lengths. She reads my face to see if I have understood her last remark, its gauze-veiled invitation. Satisfied her imprecations have not fallen upon stony ground, she looks away once more before continuing. The tremor in her voice, so faint as to be scarcely evident, is thrilling yet to me. ‘You’ll see the house where we’re to be set down. It is not far from here, and no more than a mile’s walk out of Kendal. Better you should come by dark, though, people being ready to think ill of others as they are.’
I readily agree to this, and promise I shall call upon her this tomorrow night, before I am to sit at my assizes on the morn. A fuck will no doubt much improve my disposition and, in modest measure, may alleviate the dreary circumstances that attend to the condemning of a man. It comes to me that since she is a widow without funds and of uncertain character, it may be that a shilling would procure the services of little Nelly in with us as well. I think about the bathers in my snuff-box, how they plait each other’s lank and wringing hair; a foam of women risen from their spa’s warm depths.
The child is speaking to her mother now, pleased by the news that I’m to visit, clutching at the widow’s sleeve excitedly. ‘Oh, Mother, it will be so nice to have a gentleman attend to us. I’ve missed it so while Father is away from us in . . .’
Mrs Deene here shoots the child a sharp, forbidding look, so that the words die on her daughter’s lips. Clearly, the pangs of widowhood are yet sharp in this woman’s breast so that she will not suffer Eleanor to speak of her late sire. Nevertheless, there’s something in the rueful face the child makes at this silent reprimand that stirs my pity, so that I am moved now to complete her speech in hope that I may smooth across her error and return her to her mother’s favour.
‘While your father is away from you in Heaven with Our Lord. Of course: it is but natural that you should miss his presence, and more natural still that you should long to know man’s company. In that, you are alike with all your sex.’
Here, Nell looks puzzled, but a smile of such relief and gratitude lights up her mother’s face that I am given courage to continue. ‘Fear not, for tomorrow night I shall come visiting, and though I may not hope to cut as good a leg as would your dear departed father, I am confident of my ability to substitute in what were, surely, his least onerous responsibilities. To whit, attending to his child, and to his wife.’
Before this last I leave the merest pause, in which I raise my stare from off the child and let it fall upon the dame instead. A look of such intensity and understanding is transferred between us that we cannot either of us bear it long and after moments must avert our eyes. A pleasant, gravid silence next descends. I fancy we’re each speculating heatedly as to the nature of the other’s heated speculations.