The Lonely Wife Read online

  Val Wood

  * * *

  THE LONELY WIFE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Since winning the Catherine Cookson Prize for Fiction for her first novel, The Hungry Tide, Val Wood has become one of the most popular authors in the UK.

  Born in the mining town of Castleford, Val came to East Yorkshire as a child and has lived in Hull and rural Holderness where many of her novels are set. She now lives in the market town of Beverley.

  When she is not writing, Val is busy promoting libraries and supporting many charities. She is currently writing her twenty-seventh novel and has no intention of stopping!

  Find out more about Val Wood’s novels by visiting her website: www.valwood.co.uk

  Also by Val Wood

  THE HUNGRY TIDE

  ANNIE

  CHILDREN OF THE TIDE

  THE GYPSY GIRL

  EMILY

  GOING HOME

  ROSA’S ISLAND

  THE DOORSTEP GIRLS

  FAR FROM HOME

  THE KITCHEN MAID

  THE SONGBIRD

  NOBODY’S CHILD

  FALLEN ANGELS

  THE LONG WALK HOME

  RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL

  HOMECOMING GIRLS

  THE HARBOUR GIRL

  THE INNKEEPER’S DAUGHTER

  HIS BROTHER’S WIFE

  EVERY MOTHER’S SON

  LITTLE GIRL LOST

  NO PLACE FOR A WOMAN

  A MOTHER’S CHOICE

  A PLACE TO CALL HOME

  FOUR SISTERS

  For more information on Val Wood and her books, see her website at www.valwood.co.uk

  For my family with love and Peter as always

  CHAPTER ONE

  London 1850

  Beatrix eased off her slippers and slid her feet beneath her petticoats on the small sofa in her bedroom, tucked a cushion behind her back, and with an idle contented sigh picked up her book. There was something rather satisfying about a book held in one’s hand and a whole afternoon of reading to look forward to. She glanced towards the window and saw that rain was still streaming down the glass, obliterating the London street scene and the gated garden in the square below.

  Wednesday: she would have been meeting her friend and confidante, Sophia Hartley, for their fortnightly afternoon tea engagement today, but they had both cried off; Beatrix because of the vile weather and Sophia because she had said in the note that she’d sent with the boy that she had a dreadful summer cold and couldn’t face coming out in the rain.

  Beatrix reached for a box of bonbons on the small table beside her, one she was saving for such a day as this, and was about to pop a sweet in her mouth when Dora’s soft knock came on the door and the young maid opened it. ‘Miss Beatrix,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Yes, Dora?’ Beatrix glanced across at the carriage clock on her mantelpiece.

  ‘Your mother … Mrs Fawcett has requested your presence …’ Dora, who had only been in this first place of employment for three months, hadn’t yet achieved the confidence to know how the mistress of the house, or her daughter either for that matter, should be referred to.

  ‘She’s what?’ Beatrix gave a mischievous grin. ‘Requested my presence! We’re rather formal today, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, miss, we are. I told her that you were staying at home this afternoon because of the weather.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that, Dora. You’ll have missed the visit to your mother. We’ll see if we can rearrange a day for another time.’

  ‘Thank you kindly, Miss Beatrix,’ Dora said gratefully. ‘Ma wouldn’t expect me in this downpour in any case.’

  Beatrix nodded and picked up her book again. She had asked Dora to accompany her on the last two occasions when she had been out, and given her an hour off to visit her own mother whilst she and her friends took tea. If she didn’t ask a maid to go with her, then her mother would insist on escorting her.

  ‘But, miss!’

  ‘What?’ Beatrix looked up. ‘Does my mother want something? I’m trying to read!’

  ‘Your mother – that is, Mrs Fawcett – specially said—’

  ‘I know my mother’s name, Dora.’ Beatrix sighed and tried to be patient. ‘What is it that she wants?’

  ‘Your presence, miss, or at least it’s your father who wants it and he asked your mother to send up for you.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Beatrix muttered, putting her feet down and back into her slippers before she stood up, the skirts of her morning gown swaying. ‘Why didn’t he come up himself? It’s not as if we’re living in a mansion!’

  Dora’s expression told her otherwise and she supposed that it would seem so to the young girl, considering the tiny terraced house she had come from, within thirty minutes’ walk from this house in Russell Square.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know what he wants?’ she asked, looking in the gilt-framed mirror and patting her tousled curls.

  ‘No, miss.’ Dora’s own reflection, her straight hair and lopsided cap, made Beatrix reach up her hand to pull the cap straight. ‘He went in to see Mrs Fawcett in the sitting room just after receiving the afternoon post, and they had a fresh pot o’ tea.’

  ‘Really?’ Beatrix glanced at the clock again. Not yet three o’clock and they were having tea? Her parents were normally predictable and had tea at four; and why didn’t they ask her if she’d like to join them?

  Dora hadn’t said there was any hurry, so she hunted for a bookmark to keep the place in the novel she was reading. Not that it was terribly interesting, she mused, a Gothic novel written in several parts as many were nowadays but not keeping her full attention; she might hunt out something else later. Perhaps Dickens; he never failed to hold her interest and it was alleged that he took the plots from his own life. She closed the door behind her and walked slowly down the stairs.

  Her mother must have heard her for
she came out of the study, much to Beatrix’s astonishment as she rarely entered the sanctity of her husband’s room, and stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  She began to whisper. ‘Now you must … carefully … giving an answer.’ Her voice dropped even lower as she leaned towards Beatrix’s ear. ‘Don’t give your immediate—’

  ‘I can’t hear you, Mama! What did you say? Have you got a sore throat?’

  Her mother shook her head and went on murmuring. ‘Just listen, and don’t … might be better than—’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, Mama. Is Father in his study? Yes? I’ll go in.’

  She knocked sharply on her father’s door but didn’t open it until she heard his tobacco-thickened voice instructing her to enter.

  ‘Father,’ she said. ‘Is Mother all right? She seems rather agitated.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ he sighed, leaning back in his chair. ‘That’s your mother all over. Any little change and Mrs Fawcett thinks the world will fall apart.’

  Beatrix frowned. ‘And has something changed?’

  ‘Sit down, Beatrix.’ He indicated a chair with the stem of his pipe. ‘We have a proposition to think on.’

  ‘Have we?’ She lowered herself into the battered leather chair. ‘And does Mother not like it?’

  Whether her mother liked it or not wasn’t relevant in any case, she thought. Whatever the proposition was, if her father thought it suitable, applicable or valid then that is what it would be, no matter her opinion on the matter.

  She interlocked her fingers and waited; waited whilst her father found his tinderbox and matches, filled his pipe and tamped down the tobacco before lighting it, then waited again for the hemp and tobacco to begin to smoulder. He drew on it carefully until a satisfactory curl of smoke rose from the bowl.

  He could have done this whilst he was waiting for me to come downstairs, she contemplated, unless of course he thinks that I like to watch the theatre of it. Which I don’t; nasty choking performance.

  Her father gave a grunt which she supposed was the answer to the question she had asked, and then turned to her.

  ‘Not every father of daughters would ask their opinion on an important matter,’ he began. ‘But it behoves me to do so as I have only one daughter. Had my son, your brother Thomas, been here I might have discussed it with him first, but as he is away in Ireland …’ He rumbled on.

  Why is it that my parents feel the need to explain relationships, Beatrix considered touchily? I know that Thomas is my brother and is presently abroad, just as I know that he’s my father’s son, and that my mother is also Thomas’s mother. I also know that I am an only daughter. I really don’t feel the need for further clarification of our happy family.

  ‘And what subject is giving you concern, Father,’ she asked passively, ‘given the fact that you don’t really need another opinion on it?’

  ‘Well, it was this letter, which came today.’ He reached across his desk to pick up an envelope. The bright red wax seal on the back was broken, but Beatrix could still make out the imprint of a crest. Her father turned the envelope over several times before adding, ‘This is the second letter following two face-to-face meetings and will shortly require an answer.’

  ‘And is this important matter something I can help you with, Father, as your son is away in Ireland and I, your only daughter, happen to be at home today?’ She couldn’t resist the little cynical dig even though knowing that he wouldn’t notice.

  But he lifted his head and looked at her rather sharply and she wondered if perhaps she had gone a step too far; then, after observing her momentarily, he asked, ‘Why, where would you normally be at this time of day?’

  ‘Only out for tea with friends, Father, but today we cancelled because of the rain and Sophia Hartley’s being rather unwell.’

  ‘I see,’ he murmured. ‘Does your mother escort you?’

  ‘N-no. I generally take Dora; our housemaid, Dora,’ she clarified, in case he had forgotten, or hadn’t noticed, they had a new maid.

  ‘She’s rather young to be your escort,’ he mumbled. ‘Not much more than a child. Even younger than you are.’

  ‘I believe she’s fourteen, Father, and I had my eighteenth birthday in July if you recall.’ She fingered her slender gold necklace. ‘You and Mama gave me this.’

  He grunted again. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my memory,’ he answered. ‘But there are many ruffians in the London streets and a young maid such as Doris wouldn’t be a match against them. So you must keep a scarf at your neck to cover the necklace when going out.’

  To strangle me by, she thought, but she was relieved that he didn’t insist that her mother should accompany her instead, for she would be much less of a match for a band of ruffians than Dora if by chance they should ever come across any.

  ‘Dora and I always take great care, Father, and do not enter any disreputable areas.’ She was aware that Dora did when visiting her family, but the girl insisted that many people living in the back streets of London were good hardworking people, and though others were unable to earn an honest living it didn’t make them thieves. Beatrix believed her, though perhaps her father wouldn’t.

  ‘You were saying, Father.’ She pointed to the letter in his hands. ‘Something important?’

  He gazed down at it, and she thought that for a few seconds he had a certain unease in his expression.

  ‘Ah, yes. Yes, indeed.’ He looked up at her and then down again and mumbled, ‘Well, it does concern you, which is why I asked your mother to ask you to come down.’

  ‘Concerns me?’

  He nodded. ‘Your mother isn’t keen, but I think it excellent and I’m sure that you will too once you’ve given it some thought.’

  She waited. This was the usual style of her father. Sometimes he took so long pondering over an issue that by the time he had made up his mind about it, the matter had passed him by and was no longer applicable or of his concern.

  ‘And …’ she prompted.

  He looked at her again, as if he had only just remembered that she was included in this discussion. ‘Erm, yes,’ he said firmly, handing her the envelope.

  ‘A proposal of marriage,’ he announced. ‘An excellent prospect. Exceptional credentials. Good family. You won’t do better than that. Take it from me, you really won’t.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  With parted lips she gazed at her father, who kept his eyes firmly lowered and puffed on his smouldering pipe. She swallowed and looked down at the envelope held lightly between her fingers. She might have thought it a joke except that her father never made any jest: never in her life had she heard him utter anything in the least humorous, a tease or a flippant quip. It was not in his nature so to do, so she knew he was deadly serious now.

  She slid the letter from the envelope, glancing up at her father again as she did so. It was written on thick parchment, the kind one might receive from a bank or a lawyer’s office; certainly not the sort of fine paper a young woman might expect to contain a proposal of marriage or terms of endearment; but here indeed, as she cast her eyes over the contents, is what it was: a proposal, but without blandishment. This was from someone who, she was inclined to think, had never even met her, but had received assurances of her suitability as a wife.

  ‘Father,’ she croaked, and then cleared her throat. ‘Father,’ she began again. ‘I have never heard of this man. This … Charles Neville Dawley. Who – who is he and why does he … why would he offer me marriage?’

  ‘There is no reason why you would have heard of him; you don’t move in circles where you might meet young men.’ Her father drew heavily on his pipe. ‘But I can tell you his pedigree and how he came to hear of you … of us, your family.’

  This is going to be very long-winded, Beatrix thought; there will be a long summary of Father’s acquaintances. Not friends, for I don’t believe my father has any, only people he knew when he worked at the bank. My mother has a few, from when she was young, and cou
sins too, though I’m not aware that they correspond very often; she has one or two connections through various ladies’ circles, but to my knowledge there is no one close. Father wouldn’t like that. They live very private lives. I sometimes feel that I was born into the wrong family.

  She was on the whole a very positive, cheerful person; she and the friends she had met at boarding school in Surrey who lived in London often talked and laughed at the silliest things – things that would be beyond the understanding of their parents if they should ever happen to hear them.

  ‘When I was at the bank …’ her father began.

  There, what did I tell you? Beatrix often had conversations with herself, asking questions and giving answers. I knew that would be where it began.

  ‘More to the point,’ he continued, ‘it was when I was about to retire from the bank. I retired early, if you recall, after your grandfather died.’

  Beatrix nodded. When her paternal grandfather died at the great age of ninety-one, he left his only son enough money and property to ensure that he could give up his position as manager at a London bank and live in comfort for the rest of his days, although not in luxury.

  She had watched her mother deteriorate in manner and spirit once her husband began to spend his time at home, and she guessed that much of her pleasure in having the house to herself and being able to go out whenever she wished, without having to explain herself to anyone, had soon completely dissolved.

  ‘I joined several gentlemen’s clubs and philosophical societies.’ Her father leaned back on his chair as if in contemplation. ‘I didn’t want my brain to disintegrate because of lack of use, you understand; I needed stimulation and motivation and I therefore chose from such establishments the ones I considered could offer those requirements.’

  Beatrix swallowed a yawn; it was warm in the study. Her father rarely opened a window; he hated draughts, and with the warmth of the fire in the grate and the fug of tobacco smoke, which was making her eyes water, she felt she could quite easily nod off to sleep.