A Marriage of Convenience (32 page)

Normally when he walked through crowded streets, he felt a sense of detachment from those around him. Today all that had changed. He remembered Theresa asking him whether he was ever scared of disillusioning her, and his complacent reply came back to him with cruel irony.
He
could
only
be
himself
—a true patrician’s answer. And what would that collection of attributes amount to when the possessor was stripped of everything he had taken for granted? What price an aristocrat’s
air
without the means to sustain it?

Never could he remember being more aware of eyes upon him, people’s clothes, shops, money changing hands as a hansom driver set down his fare, as a woman dropped a coin into a beggar’s hand. Clinton tossed the man a florin. His coat was black with grease and dirt, face bleary, beard matted. In the eyes of most passers-by, Clinton knew that he himself would seem rich. His clothes alone would represent a fortune to a crossing-sweeper; his gold-topped cane would support a coster’s family for a quarter, his watch sell for as much as a cabman earned in six months. An Irish property came to him on his mother’s death; he was heir to a wealthy man’s estate. But on neither could he raise a farthing; a will could be changed, a life-tenant leave behind unsuspected debts and
encumbrances
. Clinton glimpsed his reflection in a tailor’s window.
Everything
in expectancy, nothing to hand. As he watched the paving stones slide by under his polished shoes, waves of shock reached him, making his legs feel weak. As clearly as if reading them, his debts passed in review—a long cavalcade cantering down an
ice-strewn
slope towards insolvency: debts to Drummonds and to Norton, with interest and compound interest, sums owed to Lancaster tradesmen, payments outstanding to his mortgagees, unpaid servants’ wages, a few hundreds owed here and there—to the coachmaker who had supplied his phaeton, the jeweller from whom he’d bought Theresa’s diamond watch, his London wine merchant, his gunsmith.

In a daze he walked on towards his bank, oblivious to
propositioning
prostitutes, street musicians thrusting their hats at him for a coin, hawkers crying their wares; in every street the same struggle; from Bow to Pimlico, voice against voice, man against man, these goods against those, and in the daily conflict, many victims and few conquerors. Around him on every side were scenes he had witnessed
scores of times before without the least involvement, like an idle civilian picking his way across someone else’s battlefield.

A gentleman with a silk top hat and elegantly trimmed whiskers favoured him with a nod, which Clinton returned. Later he could not help smiling. The man had taken him for a fellow bystander and not for one of the combatants.

Clinton had reached Lancaster too late the previous night to journey further, but set out early next morning on a livery stable’s hack. In the open country the hazy air was sweet with the smell of dew on freshly mown hay. Most of the meadows were pale stubble now: the grass lying in long grey swathes awaiting the pitchforks and the carts. Tall grasses and cow-parsley brushed the legs of his horse with a gentle whispering like ripples along a vessel’s side. For moments at a time, the stillness and sunlight seemed to enter his blood, blotting out all memories and feelings unconnected with what lay around him; until, with a sensation like treading empty air, he remembered.

In the past, time had seemed to possess a comforting solidity. Even a bad year had offered the prospect of peaceful days or weeks for renewal, like snug anchorages spaced along a hostile shore. Gales might rage beyond the headland, yet inside all would be well. But coasts could be smooth as marble, and nothing stand to stem the following wind that blew time on.

Absorbed in the future, the present came to him with the fitful inconsequence of lantern-slides—a boy eating apples on a gate, a cart like a moving haystack in a field, blue flash of a kingfisher over water.

*

Dismounting in the stables, Clinton took the short cut to the house through the kitchen yard. A maid was singing as she pounded the hen’s feed of meal and potatoes, but she dropped the bucket as she saw Clinton approach and ran into the kitchen. Disquieted, Clinton quickly followed her. As he entered, she was whispering something to a kitchen maid topping and tailing gooseberries at the table. The cook was slowly stirring the steaming contents of a copper pan. The servants eyed him in embarrassed silence.

‘Why did you run in like that?’ he said sharply to the girl who had been in the yard. No noise except the bubbling of the pan on the range and the mournful sighing of the knife cleaning machine in the
scullery. The cook went on stirring. ‘What’s the matter with you all?’

‘Mistress is ill, sir,’ murmured the cook, putting down her spoon.

He waited for her to continue but she merely stood in silence, looking past him at the row of large serving plates on the dresser.

‘Tell me,’ he shouted. Theresa was popular with the servants, and he sensed, in their covert looks, a veiled hostility, as if he were somehow to blame for whatever had happened.

‘Best ask the doctor or her maid,’ the cook replied gruffly, returning to stirring her pan.

He stood motionless for a moment, legs refusing to move; fear biting at the pit of his stomach. Then, with a sudden movement, as if freeing himself from invisible bonds, he lunged to the door, breaking into a run outside the still-room.

Louise came out of the yellow morning room as he reached the hall, staring in astonishment as he slithered to a stop at the foot of the stairs.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Nobody tells me anything,’ the girl answered almost peevishly. ‘She’s my mother, but the doctor …

Without waiting to hear more, Clinton ran up the stairs, not noticing Louise’s angry face.

‘That’s how much I matter,’ she cried after him. ‘Don’t even say “good morning” or “hello” to me.’

Theresa was not in their bedroom; he hurried across it to her dressing room door and went in. She was lying in the narrow bed against the wall. From the corner of his eye he saw her maid knitting in a chair by the window. In the stillness of the room, the blood hammered in his veins from shock and fear.

‘Darling,’ he whispered, going down on his knees beside the bed, kissing her pale worn face. Slowly her lids opened upon vacant eyes. Trembling, he turned to the maid.

‘What happened?’

‘The doctor gave her laudanum. She’s still sleepy.’

Theresa’s eyes were less distant as she touched his hand lying next to hers on the cover. When her fingers closed on his, he was shaken by a suppressed sob of thankfulness. Heavy tears stood in his eyes. With an abrupt gesture he dismissed the maid.

‘They gave me something that made me tired … I have to rest.’

‘Why did I ever go?’ he groaned, laying his hand against her cheek. Framed by her auburn hair, her face looked as white as the pillow under her head. ‘Are you in pain?’

She turned her head with a slight but definite gesture of negation.

‘At first it was no worse than a normal menses … except there
was more blood. It happened once before, after two or three months. I was upset … terribly … but not frightened. Later I got up and went down. I felt all right. In the evening, going upstairs I had a sudden pain … a sort of wrenching. I’d put something on but I could feel the blood on my legs and my skirt. So much … I never knew I had such a lot in me. I fainted. The bleeding went on for ages. I got very weak.’

‘How long ago?’ he asked, unable to stop his voice shaking.

‘Three days … maybe four.’

‘Is the doctor coming today?’

‘He seems to be here all the time.’ Her lips formed a faint smile. ‘I thought I was dying.’

He covered his face with his hands.

‘I wasn’t with you.’

‘I mightn’t have known you.’ She saw his wet cheeks and said gently, as if if reassuring a child: ‘It’s all over now. I’m so much better.’ She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘If I wasn’t so tired … they give me something …’

*

The sun only reached the dressing room window late in the afternoon. Hours now since she had spoken to Clinton, but he was still with her. Outside she could hear sparrows twittering in the ivy. Golden motes of dust hung in a shaft of sunlight. As she moved, he came up to the bed, looking strained and hollow-eyed as though days had passed since his homecoming.

‘Did you talk to the doctor?’ she asked.

‘I’m still waiting for him.’

‘There’s no danger now.’

Sudden despair swept through her. Terrified of conceiving again, her lost pregnancy haunted her with bitter finality. She had held such high hopes of the child, not simply as the living fulfilment of their love, but for the many changes its birth would have made in Clinton. Until a man became a father he never knew the meaning of fearing for another. Death could take his son or daughter and no conviction of never failing strength could survive his helplessness in face of that fact. Never again would he have asked her, even in jest, why she allowed Louise to presume so much on her devotion, when she had done so little to deserve it. In her exhaustion, thoughts of sustaining their life together, without the bond of a child, seemed beyond her. Out of pride and respect for her feelings, he would go on pretending to be contented; go on telling her he regretted nothing he had given up for her sake. She raised herself on an elbow, sitting up with difficulty.

He hurried forward to place pillows behind her back. Somehow her feet had become entangled in the bedclothes and the effort to free them made her feel sick and giddy. Her face was burning. She wanted to tell him everything she had felt, but weakness weighed on her like a physical presence, making her head swim.

‘More air,’ she moaned in a voice she hardly recognised.

When he had opened the window, he offered her water to drink, but her throat felt too thick to swallow anything and a lot splashed down on her peignoir. Her mind was lucid but she could not articulate her ideas.

‘Never pretend,’ she sobbed, suddenly appalled by the thought of what she must look like.

‘Pretend what?’ he asked softly.

‘Never … never …’ she repeated on a plaintive fixed note. She turned away, oblivious of his grief. Time passed. ‘I want a mirror … I want to see myself.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You mustn’t …’

‘Oh God,’ she cried. ‘Can’t I have what I want?’

He held up a small silver-backed hand-glass for her. She looked at her reflection without speaking. How can he love me? she thought. Her eyes seemed enormous and as expressionless as empty holes. Her cheeks were livid patches on dead white. Tears seeped from her eyes but she made no sound. He bent down and kissed her but she drew away, staring at him with burning reproach.

‘You promised …’

He was overwhelmed by the rebuff but did not dare risk aggravating her by admitting that he did not understand. He guessed that she supposed she had said something which she had only thought. He sat down helplessly beside her, cursing the doctor for not coming. He went out onto the landing and called to the maid to confirm the time that he was expected, though he had asked the same question several times before. Little bubbles of panic rose and burst inside him. How could the man know how ill she was and yet go off to spend time with villagers? A wretched country quack. He was amazed at himself for not having sent Harris to Lancaster hours ago to bring back the best physician in town.

He saw the doctor’s one-horse gig standing in the carriage sweep, and the man himself walking across the hall. Clinton barred his way up the stairs.

‘Lord Ardmore?’

The doctor had a thick red beard and wore an old Petersham driving coat.

‘I wonder that you didn’t call in another man,’ Clinton began
brusquely. ‘In London in a case of serious illness where there’s any doubt about …’

‘There isn’t. She’ll put on strength if she eats and rests.’

‘Rests? She can hardly move.’

‘She lost a lot of blood. If I might see my patient, perhaps afterwards we could discuss second opinions?’

Clinton moved out of the way, regretting that he had
immediately
shown doubts about the man before even listening to him.

He waited impatiently for almost half-an-hour until the doctor came down and walked out with him into the late afternoon sunlight.

‘Is she better or worse?’

‘The bleeding’s very slight now.’ He was a man some twenty years older than Clinton and looked at him with guarded admonition. ‘Calmness is important. She must not be distressed. Worry will only delay her recovery. She must rest for two weeks. That’s the only cure. If she sleeps badly she can have laudanum. If you want powders and potions go to another physician. Dr Moncrieffe has the most fashionable practice in Lancaster.’

Clinton looked down at the gravel.

‘Do you suppose that in any future pregnancy …?’

‘I wouldn’t care to predict. Your wife seems healthy in other ways. Many pregnancies end in their first month or two without the woman knowing it. A late menstruum they may think. I’ve only known a handful of cases of accompanying haemorrhage.’

The doctor climbed into the driving seat of the gig. Clinton frowned.

‘I daresay,’ he said awkwardly, ‘that you intended to be tactful by referring to the lady as my wife.’

The man looked confused.

‘I’d heard rumours, but your daughter denied them most positively to my children.’ He paused. ‘I hope you won’t consider it an impertinence to have brought them. There are very few large houses near Browsholme.’

‘Not at all,’ murmured Clinton absently.

‘They played in the garden on the day they came.’

‘I don’t care if they swept the chimneys,’ Clinton retorted with sudden exasperation. Anger, and guilt for his immediate suspicion that Theresa might have confided in the girl, made him long to get rid of the doctor. ‘I trust you’ll tell your children, or anybody else who may make enquiries, that I am unmarried and mean to remain so.’ The man sat motionless, the reins limp in his hands. ‘Shall I settle with you now?’

The doctor looked down at him coldly and lifted the reins.

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘Damn your propriety,’ muttered Clinton, turning on his heel, angry to have managed matters so badly, but obsessed now with discovering the truth from Louise.

He found her alone in the library, gluing dried flowers into a scrapbook.

‘I want an explanation,’ he said quietly. She glanced from her work with a startled face, her glue brush dripping onto the page of carefully positioned flowers. ‘Why did you tell lies to Dr Bradshaw’s children?’ Her lips moved but no sound came. A deep flush had risen to her cheeks. ‘Well?’

Though tears glistened in her eyes, she looked defiant.

‘They said things.’

‘Tell me.’

‘That mother was a bad woman … that everyone round here knew it and said so.’

‘Which you knew wasn’t true.’

For a moment the child looked more amused than fearful.

‘Of course I do. She’s going to confession and Mass. She wouldn’t if …’

‘If what?’ asked Clinton sharply, knowing very well what she had meant but wanting her to say the words so he could deny them.

The child bowed her head.

‘Ask her yourself.’

Her trembling lower lip told Clinton that unless he were more gentle she would start to cry and then he would learn nothing from her. Remembering her inexplicable blushings and exits in the middle of their conversations for no apparent reason, and her fury if she thought he was ignoring her, he was well aware of the store she set by everything he said. He sat down next to her at the table.

‘Does anything your mother said to you explain what you told those children?’ She shook her head emphatically. He said very softly: ‘Why did you tell them I was your father?’

‘They insulted me … called me names. I told them I was Lady Louise Danvers. They’re too ignorant to know viscounts’ daughters aren’t ladies in their own right. I knew I’d be found out but I couldn’t help it. I had to get the better of them.’

‘By lying?’

‘Yes,’ she shouted, ‘by lying.’ She stopped, fighting back sobs. ‘I was ashamed. They said they’d seen you and mother …’ She got up and turned her back. ‘It’s disgusting … horrible … They were going fishing for perch. They said you were there … without a stitch on by some slimy pond’ She was sobbing now; words wrung from her against her will. ‘They said people had to do
that
… to
make babies. That a man can kiss a woman and make her do anything.’ Her voice sunk very low. ‘They said mummy was ill because of a baby.’ She spun round and faced him. ‘Is it true?’ she whispered gazing at him in horror.

‘Of course not.’

‘You swear?’

‘They lied to you.’

She looked at him with such thankfulness that he could have wept. Then when he was still stunned by her outburst, she ran up and kissed him on the cheek with clumsy violence. The next moment she ran from the room as if terrified by what she had done.