Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [433]
“That woman,” Thomas Forest remarked to Shockley, “was made to be loved by many men.”
She liked her sensuousness: she was excited by it herself.
But she had a greater gift still. All her lovers felt they had received – as well as the rich warmth of her magnificent body, the triumph of holding her through her titanic orgasms – a share of her genuine affection, and a sense of an inner softness, a vulnerability in her nature that was touching.
Nellie often considered it, and she was satisfied that she liked most of her lovers. True, she sometimes had to sell herself to men she did not care for; but most of the time she had made her living by being the mistress of a few chosen men in the city. They paid her, of course, she had to eat; but it was their presents, which she did not ask for, that were important to her. She would take them out when she was alone, sit up in bed with them and survey them, murmuring: “He loves me a little, I think,” or even: “He loves me more than his wife.” And when, satisfied, she put her presents away again, she would sometimes cry a little; but this was something nobody ever saw.
It was over seventy years since old Eustace Godfrey had become a hermit, sixty-five since he had died. Three generations had passed since then, and none of them had done well. By her grandfather’s day, the last of the Godfrey money had all gone. Her father had been a drunkard and she and her only brother Piers had been orphaned when she was thirteen. Piers was a carpenter: a worthy, quiet fellow who often did small jobs for Shockley, who had befriended him. He had supported Nellie when she was a girl and he still loved her; but he was ashamed of her now. She could not help that.
“Our family was noble once,” he reminded her; it was two centuries, seven generations since any Godefroi had lived at Avonsford though and her brother’s foolish idea meant little to Nellie.
“Won’t buy me anything, will it?” she would retort fiercely.
Indeed, the fact that they bore the same name as the brother and sister was now an embarrassment to the worthy merchant Godfrey family of Salisbury whom Eustace had once despised. They had reached the apex of the town society, had even supplied a mayor of the city.
“Nellie Godfrey’s no kin of ours,” they were quick to say if her name was mentioned.
At the age of twenty-two, Nellie made a modest living. She owned several small pieces of jewellery, though they were worth less than she thought; she had a few fine dresses a rich merchant had given her. But though she was not unhappy with this achievement, the future was beginning to look uncertain. And when her brother pleaded with her: “What will you do next, Nellie?” she could only cry impatiently: “Something,” and refuse angrily to discuss the matter any further.
She had never wanted to sit at a spinning wheel or marry a poor artisan like her brother: the boredom of the prospect appalled her lively mind; but what were the alternatives?
“You won’t even get any husband,” Piers warned. “Your reputation’s gone.”
She knew it was true. She would not admit it but she was frightened. Yet some force inside drove her onward.
“I’ll think of something,” she would repeat defiantly, as her bright blue eyes looked out at what she could see of the world in Sarum, and watched for an opportunity.
She reached her lodgings in Culver Street. The Fleming had been ambling contentedly beside her, swaying a little and humming to himself; now he looked at the modest tenement and cried:
“Today I see a fine house like a chequerboard. Now I see a house I like even better – because it has a woman in it!” And his laugh echoed down the street.
“You must keep quiet,” she whispered, and hustled him through the doorway of the little courtyard and up the stairs.