Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore (essential reading txt) 📕

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,