Bleeding Hooks Page 25

  “...and if there hadn’t been a war on, I should have suggested France or Italy,” he was saying. “But as I’ve no desire to meet Hitler or Mussolini, I think Scotland would be best.”

  “I think it’s a splendid idea,” said Charity. “You work far too hard. It must be a strain to return to the school again after you’d retired for three years. You deserve a rest.”

  “We do, you mean. You don’t suppose I intend to go alone, surely?”

  Charity looked bewildered.

  “You don’t mean...?” she faltered. Then, seeing from his expression that she had indeed interpreted his unspoken meaning correctly, she blushed. “Have you gone mad?” she asked.

  “Mad? Oh my God! That’s rich!”

  Mr. Hardstaffe rose to his feet, and strode across the room. Then, as if conscious that his height—he was barely five feet tall—might serve to render his behaviour ridiculous rather than impressive, he returned again to his chair.

  “Mad? You know I am. Mad about you! I’m like a starving dog to whom you occasionally throw a crust. I want more, more! Why not face up to it, Charity? What’s to be gained by being a hypocrite? What have we to lose, either of us? We love each other—surely that’s what really counts. Oh God!” He beat his forehead with a clenched fist. “Am I never to know the joys of being loved for myself alone? Am I to remain bound to one woman in a living death until I die? Are you going to condemn me to that, Charity? Are you? Are you?”

  He stretched out his hand, and stroked her knee. His voice grew soft and persuasive.

  “My dear, I have never concealed from you the secrets of my heart. You know what my life is like. You know that at home I live in hell, tied to an old woman who is too utterly selfish to consider the welfare of anyone but herself: a hypochondriac, who is never happy unless she is ill. She always keeps a copy of “Medical Hints” under the Bible beside her bed, so that she can read up new symptoms at night, and awake in the morning to simulate a new complaint.

  “You know me, a man of generous and passionate impulses, which are never allowed to blossom in my own home. You know the loneliness I shall face tonight and every other night, unless you give me the hope of something better. My dearest, you know that I love you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Charity, apparently unconscious of the inadequacy of her words. “I know it’s simply awful for you, and whenever I see her long, white face, I could slap it with a wet rag. I only wish I could do something to help you: you know I’m very fond of you: but I can’t. You know I can’t.”

  “But you can.” Mr. Hardstaffe leaned forward, and gazed more earnestly than before into her troubled eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Come to Scotland with me!”

  “The village...” began Miss Fuller.

  “Tcha! The village! What would they know? We need not travel together. We’ve been away at the same time before: everyone knows that our holidays coincide. How would they know that this was different? Besides, I’ve taught them all, man, woman, and child, all that they know. They respect me. No one would dream of tattling about me.”

  “Oh, but they would—they do!” exclaimed Charity. “They’re talking all over the village already—about us, I mean, you and me. About the way I’m always staying behind after school, like this. And about you seeing me home in the black-out. Why, even the children...”

  “The little bastards!” shouted the headmaster, an ugly vein pulsing in his scrawny neck. “I won’t have it! I shall put a stop to it! They can’t do that kind of thing to me!”

  “That’s what I thought,” agreed Charity. “That’s why I’ve sent in my application to be transferred to another district.”

  “You’ve—what?”

  Charity looked at him with fear in her eyes. Then she looked down at her restless hands.

  “Oh, I know you think I’m a coward,” she said. “Don’t think this has meant nothing to me. It’s been marvellous to work here with you. I’ve admired you ever since I came to this school, and lately I—I’ve learned to love you. But I simply can’t stand the idea of any scandal. I couldn’t face it. It’s better for me to go away where we can’t meet. You’ll forget me. There’ll be other women in your life.”

  She pulled her skirt over her knees, and giving it a decisive pat, stood up.

  Mr. Hardstaffe rose also, and put his arms round her.

  “I’ll never let you go, do you hear! Never! I forbid you to leave. I wont accept your resignation. I shall say that you’re indispensable, and it’s your duty to stay.”

  She did not resist him. She was head and shoulders taller than he, and knew from experience that his embrace, to be successful, needed co-operation from her.

  “That won’t stop me,” she said coolly. “I’m not coming alone to your study again, either. I can’t stand people’s looks in this place. That caretaker, for instance. She’s always waiting at the door when we go out. She looks at me as though I were—dirty. I can’t stand it any longer.”

  “I’ll dismiss her to-morrow!” he blustered.

  “No, it would only make matters worse. Everyone is sorry for her.”

  He knew that this time she did not refer to the caretaker. He took her hands in his, and pleaded with her.

  “Charity, have pity on me. Don’t send me back without hope to my prison. If you do, I shall do something desperate. I know that all the little things you speak of seem important to you, but, darling, that’s only because you’re so young. I’m so much older than you, and when love comes to a man late in life, he has to snatch at the chance of happiness it offers to him, quickly and greedily. He knows that it is far more important than trying to build up a respectable life in the eyes of other people.”

  Charity shook her head sadly.

  “We could be so happy, Charity, you and I. What does it matter what other people think? I’d do anything in the world for you. You don’t realise how much you mean to me. Come away with me!”

  “No.”

  Knowing that her lips were out of reach, he bent down, and covered her hands with kisses.

  “My darling, come with me!”

  But however much Mr. Hardstaffe might invite comparison with Faust, Charity had no intention of becoming another Marguerita.

  “I can’t,” she said firmly. “Not as long as she is alive.”

  Hardstaffe dropped her hands, and moved away from her.

  “I was afraid you would say that,” he said. “Well, now I know what to do.”

  Published by Dean Street Press 2015

  Copyright © 1940 Harriet Rutland

  All Rights Reserved

  This ebook is published by licence, issued under the UK Orphan Works Licensing Scheme.

  First published in 1940 by Skeffington & Son

  Cover by DSP

  ISBN 978 1 910570 83 8

  www.deanstreetpress.co.uk