A Marriage of Convenience (24 page)

After one order, not a man moved and Clinton nodded appreciatively.

‘That’s good drill.’

‘Oh?’

‘The order was deliberately wrong.’

In the Riding School the recruits were being put over a brushwood jump, their stirrups crossed in front of their saddles and their arms folded so they could not reach for the reins. As one man was pitched over his horse’s head, Theresa looked away. Clinton kicked at the soft tan on the ground with the toe of his boot.

‘He’ll be fine.’

The riding master, a spare wiry little man, helped the trooper to his feet.

‘Sit further back, lad, and you’ll get a longer ride.’

As the next man cantered up to the jump, the master yelled:

‘Grip with those thighs. You’re not in a circus.’

By clutching the horse’s mane, the rider somehow contrived to stay in the saddle. As the next man was flung to the ground, Theresa turned on Clinton angrily:

‘Why can’t they be taught more first?’

‘I’ll show you,’ he said, before going across to the riding master and having a few words with him. A broad grin creased the master’s leathery face.

‘It’s your lucky day, lads. You attend to his lordship.’

Not knowing quite what to expect, Theresa watched Clinton mount the master’s broad-backed cob, and, employing both reins and stirrups, ride at the jump. Just as the horse rose, Clinton leant out ludicrously to one side across the animal’s neck, so that it seemed certain he would be thrown as the horse landed, but by dexterous use of the reins he saved himself amidst loud laughter.
Theresa felt her cheeks burn with anger and humiliation. The riding master shook his head sadly at the recruits.

‘Lord Ardmore has just controlled his horse to keep his seat. His lordship will now use his seat to control his horse.’ He cleared his throat and went on with the weary pedantry of a schoolmaster with a class of half-wits: ‘As the horse rises, you will see the adjutant lean forward from the hips, taking his weight off the quarters and keeping his own position vertical. When the horse lands, you’ll observe his lordship lean back, taking his weight off the forelegs and keeping his own balance.’ He paused and sucked in his cheeks. ‘And just for the lads who laughed, I’ll lay some coins between the adjutant’s knees and the saddle … and lads, I’ll give you each a guinea if one of those coins comes adrift.’

The master crossed the stirrups in front of Clinton and inserted the coins. Flexing his thighs and with a touch from his hand before folding his arms, Clinton set the horse at the jump. The perfect ease and unity of horse and rider over the hurdle brought a strange tingling to Theresa’s cheeks. In dead silence the riding master walked up to the horse and removed the coins. As Theresa and Clinton were leaving the school they heard him pouring abuse on his pupils; if he ever heard any man laugh at an officer of the 15th, by God, he’d … By then Clinton and Theresa were out in the square, and Clinton patted his thigh with his whip.

‘The jump makes them use these. A good seat comes first; without it they’d never survive two minutes in a mêlée. Imagine relying on reins for balance while making pirouettes and fighting with a sword. If they’re rising in the stirrups they won’t carry the horse’s weight into their cuts.’

Behind the school was a six acre walled field covered with sparse grass. Here troopers with pointing swords were galloping down a course lined on each side with a mixed lot of dummies, some upright, others supine representing crouching or lying men. The rapid thud of hooves, the snorting of the horses, and sharp cries of command sent a shudder down Theresa’s spine. The glint of flashing steel and the power of the stretched muscles under glistening coats, held her fascinated. Within a couple of minutes three men had lost their swords and one had sprained his wrist before completing the course.

Clinton nodded in the direction of the man nursing his wrist.

‘He timed a point badly; they’ve got to be delivered at a precise moment in closing.’ He grinned at her. ‘Yours isn’t the only profession where timing matters.’

Seeing the alertness and animation in Clinton’s face as he watched the riders, Theresa came close to tears. The sights and sounds
around them, flying tails, wildly distended nostrils, the display of power and control, and the tense concentration and pride in effort, overwhelmed her. At the approach of riders, non-commissioned officers standing by the various dummies, yelled out:

‘Engage … point … withdraw.’

The words forming a continuous chant against the background of the thundering hooves.

‘In time it becomes instinctive,’ remarked Clinton, pointing down the course with his whip. ‘The next lot starting are better. They’ll just get warnings of infantry right or left and judge their own distances.’

Some of the dummies were so close together that the speed of reflex needed not to miss one out was exceptional. After a long silence, Theresa asked:

‘When do you need to do this?’

‘In pursuit of broken infantry. Stops them re-forming. The sensible ones lie down and try to shoot us in the back when we’ve gone past.’

A sudden vision of these straw-stuffed dummies as men, and the steel biting into living flesh and bone made her wince.

‘Safer to kill them first,’ she murmured.

‘Much,’ he replied lightly, and Theresa recalled Louise’s question those months ago about the number of Chinamen Clinton had killed. She glanced up the course.

‘Would
you
miss any of these?’

He laughed good-humouredly and guided her arm for a moment.

‘Come over here.’

A hundred yards to the left, the regiment’s subalterns were
tent-pegging
: charging down in threes, leaning low in their saddles, trying to carry away the small pegs on the points of their swords. Only one threesome, out of the six they watched, managed to lift all three pegs from the ground.

‘That isn’t so easy.’

‘It looks impossible at that speed.’

‘It is to start with.’

Before leaving, they saw a half-troop charging. The closeness of the riders to each other puzzled Theresa; it not only looked dangerous, but the men scarcely had space to swing their swords.

‘Their knees are almost touching.’

‘That’s how cavalry charges. Imagine closing with an enemy squadron as disciplined as your own.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘It’s so terrifying that if there are any gaps in your line, men are going to try to turn or pull round. They mustn’t ever be given enough room to succeed.’

‘How can they use their swords?’

‘They won’t need to till the mêlée. The weapon that takes them through is the horse’s weight and speed; and the compactness of the line. Like a solid nine foot wall moving at ten yards a second.’ He jabbed at the ground with his whip. ‘Each horse and rider weighs about a thousand pounds.’

The deliberate prosaicness of his description surprised her. Passing the back of the officers’ mess on the way to the coachhouse, he apologised for not being able to take her inside.

‘Do women ever go in?’ she asked.

‘Only officers’ wives on Christmas night.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Unless the regiment holds a ball.’

He seemed suddenly dispirited and weary. From behind closed windows in the main trooproom block, they heard the band practising minor scales: a sound as mournfully evocative as muted organ music in an empty church.

As the landau rattled through the streets of north Dublin, Clinton’s grim mood persisted. She took his hand.

‘You’ll miss the life dreadfully.’

‘Perhaps sometimes. It’s often duller than death. Training, and more training, and at the end of it all … Ireland.’ He stared absently out of the window at the decaying and spectral mansions in Mountjoy Square. ‘I’ll only really miss the possibility of proper fighting.’

‘Do you enjoy war?’ she asked neutrally, but he could see her incomprehension and it saddened him.

‘I love it,’ he murmured in a low almost passionate voice. ‘Only large infantry battles are vile … long hours of killing until one side’s had enough. A cavalry charge takes minutes, mêlées and pursuits a few more. Surprise and skill with steel weapons is a thing apart … Can’t you understand?’ After a brief silence she nodded slowly. ‘Armies are great lumbering things, blind and deaf without us—the light cavalry. We’re an army’s eyes and ears. Patrolling in darkness up to the enemy’s lines, taking a prisoner or two if we can. And in battle … you’ve seen hawks and kestrels hovering … We do too; wait and watch. We’ll charge to relieve breaking infantry, to guard a flank or break a square. We’ll protect a retreat and see that a beaten enemy never saves his guns.’

She smiled.

‘An army’s natural aristocrats. And none of you ever hurt or killed.’

‘Not many if the moment’s right. And if it is …’ He broke off bitterly, eyes dark with frustration. ‘I can’t describe it.’ He paused
and then leant towards her intently. ‘Everything’s so fast, and choices so simple and real. I don’t know what it is … a kind of joy takes you by the throat, every second singing in the blood; hearts hammering with the hooves, and the world rolls under one.’

‘And it’s terrifying.’

‘Has to be … but it’s not real death one faces when every sense is burning. Not like the horror of a slow disease when the end is certain and the mind fixed on it. Who’s ever more alive than when in danger? Life’s loved far less in peace; time limps and young men babble about suicide and skulls. In China we loved the sky and the stars, the mist in the morning and the coolness before the sun rose high. We ate hungrily and slept deep by bivouac fires; and never thought beyond the next day.’

‘And then they took you prisoner.’

‘I was talking about fighting.’

‘Not what follows?’

‘I’m here to tell the tale.’

‘You never have, Clinton.’

‘I will. But not today.’

They were passing down stately Sackville Street, past Gresham’s Hotel, and speeding on towards the Nelson Pillar and Ormond Bridge. Elegant carriages drove by in front of smart drapers’ shops and the lofty classical façades of public buildings, An orderly clattered past on a sleek-groomed horse, probably on his way from the Castle to the General Post Office.

‘I’ll tell you about the day we came back to the depot. There were large crowds and women running out across the street grabbing at stirrups, weeping. I remember the cottage gardens; a child in a pinafore leaning over a gate; pink geraniums in a window; and everywhere people tumbling out to look at us and cheer. There was delirium that evening. No discipline at all; dancing in the barrack square … and such drinking. I’ve seen
some too. And later, men and women writhing together in the corn bins in the stables, and others watching. Some splashing naked in the horse troughs …’

‘Why did you choose to tell me that now?’ She sounded curious rather than disapproving.

‘It came to mind.’

‘A reproach?’

‘I don’t know.’ He paused and struck a clenched fist against the carriage seat. ‘You can be so damned dispassionate. You make my past seem …’ He stopped, unable to find the right word. ‘You wrote about wanting to be a vivandière, a simple woman … you wrote as an actress.’

‘I’d have run out and grabbed your stirrups.’

‘Like an actress.’

‘Like a woman who loves you.’

‘Who takes off her modesty with her skirt. Only when we’re in bed …’ He broke off and covered his face with his hands. ‘Why did you write what you did?’

‘Because I’m scared. Do you know that word’s meaning? I’m like the cowards who’d pull round if they could … and all the time you’re trying to force me on. I
want
to give everything; but I’m not like you. Sometimes, yes … I can be impulsive, but I can’t afford the luxury of your simple choices. If you had a child, you’d understand fear better. If you’d struggled; seen somebody you loved slowly crushed. Seen that other death, when the cut’s not clean but the cords fray away one by one … sight, touch, speech; and the heart strives vainly to reach across a gulf that only widens.’ She looked at him imploringly. ‘You want so much, Clinton.’

As she finished speaking, the landau came to a stop outside a narrow bow-fronted house with a small painted sign above the door:
Dressmaker
&
Costumier.
Clinton bowed his head and then shouted to the coachman to drive on to the hotel.

‘Why did we stop there?’ she asked.

‘It’s of no account.’

‘Please.’

‘I wanted to take you to a Castle ball. I thought it might amuse you. I made a mistake.’ He had spoken harshly but turned to her with sudden tenderness. ‘I wanted to dance with you, be seen with you, do everything we can before you go. I fixed your invitation with the State Steward.’

‘Please take me.’

He nodded absently, as if he could no longer understand why the subject had been mentioned.

‘Help me to understand you,’ he whispered.

‘Perhaps we only love what can’t be understood; what’s always changing.’ She kissed him. ‘Take me back to the dressmaker’s. I want you to help me choose.’

He shook his head, distressed to be reminded.

‘I looked at some pictures. The woman knows the one I liked. White … it made me think of York.’

‘I do love you, Clinton.’

‘Then marry me.’

Afterwards she felt that he had dropped the words into a space between seconds, as softly as falling feathers, so that they did not reach her till later. Panic tightened about her heart, leaving her dazed and trembling.

‘I can’t answer you,’ she stammered. ‘Don’t press me, Clinton. I beg you not to press me.’

‘I’m sorry I distressed you,’ he murmured, looking out at the passing buildings; his face remote and closed. She stared at him as if he had hit her. Her words came in a breathless rush.

‘You showed me your regiment … the life you live for … the life you lose unless you make your peace with Esmond …’

‘I can’t make my peace with him,’ he replied quietly, ‘so don’t continue using that against me.’ He leant closer, his eyes burning into her; she stared stupidly at the gold lace around his cap, as her heart beat like a fist in her chest. ‘Very well,’ he went on in a resonant whisper, ‘you won’t answer me. A refusal might end a pleasant liaison while you’re still in love. I sympathise.’ He let out his breath and gazed ahead of him. ‘I only ask you to understand this … if I ever ask again, I must have your answer.’ He had spoken so gently that his words had only just been audible above the noise of the wheels.