Marry in Haste (12 page)

“Oh!” Chloe’s
moue
was for the second half of the sentence. She had clearly been intending to skirt round the house and go in by the other door, but now came reluctantly up the terrace steps, where candlelight from indoors caught golden lights in her tousled curls and showed up the brilliance of her complexion and the rich red of the roses she carried. Pausing in the doorway, she greeted Dom Fernando with what Camilla could only think deplorable casualness and then looked about her. “But where is Lee?”

“Here.” He appeared in the doorway, dead pale but erect and with a courteous speech of welcome for Dom Fernando and a quick smile for Chloe, who, Camilla saw, was about to rush towards him for one of the quick fierce embraces he tolerated from her. But not tonight. Camilla caught the hand that was not full of roses. “Your brother is tired, Chloe. He has been riding all day. And you, my love, are in no state to see company. I beg you will tidy your hair and your dress before you rejoin us.” Thus positively commanded, Chloe made a little rebellious face for Camilla alone, smiled brilliantly at Lavenham, and withdrew, with the merest sketch of
a
curtsy for Dom Fernando.

He was already pressing Lavenham with courteous questions about his long absence. His friends had missed him ... Had he found the roads passable? ... Had his business not taken him longer than he had expected? ... One must hope that at least it had proved prosperous ... And so on, with each half question circling closer to the crux of the matter—the purpose of Lavenham’s journey.

To Camilla’s relief, a servant interrupted one of Lavenham’s courteous, vague replies by appearing with the wine and cakes she had ordered, and she made a little business of being sure that the men were served with what they liked best, then took advantage of the interruption to change the subject, bursting into an exclamatory description of Dom Fernando’s kindness during Lavenham’s absence and then proceeding to a detailed and falsely enthusiastic description of the bullfight. Dom Fernando listened with his usual grave politeness, then returned to the attack. If they had only known milord was to return today, they might have extended their journey to ride out and meet him. Or was he wrong in assuming that milord had come from south of the river?

Lavenham laughed and parried the question by replying that he had been in no mood to be met by a party of pleasure. “Your roads and your inns do not leave one in festive spirit.”

The men’s glasses were empty. Camilla rose to her feet to replenish them, hoping that this would give Dom Fernando his cue to leave, but he let her fill his glass and sipped at it absentmindedly as he returned to his questioning. Lavenham, too, was drinking quickly, and a little flush of colour had mounted in his cheeks. Camilla, who knew him to be moderate to the point of abstemiousness, watched anxiously and was relieved when Chloe danced back into the room, her crumpled muslin changed for a fresh one, her golden curls agleam with brushing. But the distraction she provided was only half successful, for she, too, wanted to know where her brother had been and what had kept him so long away. Since her questions were put in English, Dom Fernando could not, presumably, understand them, though Camilla, watching his absorbed expression, found herself wondering whether his ignorance of English was as complete as he had led her to suppose.

Lavenham was taking no chances, but rebuked his sister roundly in French for talking a language their guest could not understand, and then, breaking into English with an apologetic glance at Dom Fernando, continued, “And if you do not understand that, I will tell you in plain English that I am tired out and have no wish to discuss my travels tonight.” Chloe, always unpredictable, amazed Camilla by bursting into a golden peal of laughter. “Why, Lee, you are disguised! I have not seen you so since your coming of age. Did you know you had a toper for a husband, Camilla?”

Camilla had been watching Dom Fernando throughout this interchange and was now convinced from his expression that he understood every word they were saying. She noticed something else, too. A dark patch was forming on the sleeve of Lavenham’s evening jacket. His wound was bleeding again and had already soaked through the bandage. It was only a matter of time until either Dom Fernando or Chloe noticed; and Dom Fernando had just poured himself another glass of wine and seemed to have settled down for the night. She rose to her feet, exclaiming: “My head aches so,” and moved towards the window, then, as she passed the chair where Dom Fernando was sitting, swayed on her feet and fell towards him. To her intense relief, he caught her, and laid her on a nearby sofa with exclamations of solicitude and alarm, in which the others joined. For a few minutes, she let herself lie there with closed eyes, listening to the little tumult her collapse had caused. Then, as Chloe held a vinaigrette under her nose, she let her eyes flutter open, looked vaguely around and tried to sit up, with a murmured apology: “The heat ... the blood ... Dom Fernando, what will you think of me?”

Lavenham had taken his cue. “I was afraid the bullfight might prove strong meat for English stomachs,” he said. “Chloe, ring for your sister’s maid. She will be best in bed.” Camilla allowed herself a sigh of pure exhaustion. “Oh yes,” she said, “I fear the excitement of the day has given me the vapours. All that blood ... Lavenham, you’ll not leave me?”

He took her hand in his, which burned ice cold. “Of course not. You must forgive us, Dom Fernando. Perhaps we may continue this most interesting conversation tomorrow?”

Thus directly applied to, Dom Fernando took his leave at last, and Camilla, who had been thinking rapidly, allowed herself to be supported to her room by Lavenham and her maid. Better that Chloe should think her a weakling and a neglectful wife than that she should guess at her brother’s condition. Chloe showed signs of lingering with further offers of smelling salts and spirits of lemon, but Lavenham disposed of her with a husband’s firmness before turning to Camilla, whose maid was busy on the other side of the room.

“Admirably acted.” He pressed her hand. “At least,” anxiously, “I trust it was acted? Yon are not really unwell?”

“Not the least in the world. I will come to you as soon as I can rid myself of Frances. Your wound needs dressing again. Best get to your apartments before it is noticed.”

He looked quickly down at the dark patch that was spreading over the cloth of his sleeve, pressed her hand once more, and then, as Frances approached with her negligee, made her a speech of husbandly solicitude and took his leave. By the time Frances left her the house was quiet. Camilla jumped out of bed and put on the swansdown-trimmed blue satin negligee Lady Leominster had chosen for her. What a mockery, she remembered, it had seemed at the time. Now, impatiently sliding her feet into the matching slippers, she was glad of it with its look almost of a morning gown. In the main hall, a night light burned dimly; no light showed under Chloe’s door; the house seemed asleep. She tapped gently on the door of Lavenham’s apartments at the end of the hall and opened it quietly. The light of his guttering candle showed that he had managed to struggle out of his bloodstained jacket before collapsing, exhausted, on the bed. Now he slept heavily, his flushed face and loud breathing bearing witness to the unusual quantity of wine he had drunk under the strain of Dom Fernando’s visit. For a moment, beside his bed, Camilla hesitated. It seemed wicked to rouse him. But the blood was still seeping through the bandage on his arm, and besides, it would be dangerous to let him he all night like this.

Very gently, she shook his good shoulder: “Lavenham, it is I, Camilla.”

He stirred in his sleep, then woke all at once, gazing at her with wild and startled eyes, then, obviously remembering: “Oh, it is you—I was dreaming.”

“Yes, I am come to change your bandages. I will not disturb you for long.” And she began deftly unwinding the bloody bandage.

Involuntarily, he winced at her touch. “This is no work for a young lady,” he said. “You will be wishing that you had seen me at Jericho before you married me.” And then, wincing again as she reached the wound itself, “Pour me a glass of wine, will you? And one for yourself. It will make the work go better.”

Reluctantly, for she was convinced that he had already had more than was good for him, she poured two glasses from the decanter that stood on a side table, and brought him one, leaving hers where it stood. But he insisted, with the obstinacy of fatigue and near-intoxication, that she drink with him before she finished bathing and binding up his wound, and toasted her solemnly: “My invaluable wife.”

Colouring with pleasure, she raised her glass to his and drank, recognising, as she felt the strong wine bloom within her, that she needed it. It seemed to have revived him too, for as she began once more to work on his wound, he began to talk, quick and freely, as she had heard him do in Portuguese but never, before, in English.

“Do you know,” he was saying. “Out there, when they attacked the carriage, I was afraid? Afraid of death. I have never feared it before. Do you think I can be beginning to wish to live?”

“I hope so. There.” She had finished and laid his arm gently on the pillow. “Now I wish you will let me help you to bed. You will catch cold, lying thus.”

He caught her hand with his good one. “No, do not dismiss me so. I will be your obedient patient presently, but tell me first one thing; when you so admirably pretended to swoon, you called for me. ‘Lavenham do not leave me,’ you said. Of course, that was feigning too?”

She sat there for a moment by his bedside, looking at his flushed face, wondering what to say. Pride, which had stood by her so well, told her to lie, to tell him it had all been pretence, but something else in her, was it the wine, or something stronger, would not be denied. “No,” she said, “that was not feigning, Lavenham.”

“Then drink up your wine.” He drained his glass as she obeyed him. “Perhaps there is no need to be afraid any more.” And with a sudden, fierce movement of his good arm he pulled her down on the bed beside him while his lips closed hungrily over hers. For a moment, some sober instinct made her resist, then, as his kisses became fiercer and more demanding, she felt her need of him rise up to meet his. On the table beside the bed the two glasses stood empty, the candle guttered out, and cool moonlight shone into the room as there, among his bloodstained sheets, she found herself, at last, his wife indeed.

CHAPTER
7

Waking, much later, to quick happiness and the first morning sound of birds, Camilla was alarmed at once by Lavenham’s restless tossing and muttering at her side. He was all too evidently in a high fever, his broken murmurings part dream, part delirium. She slipped quickly out of bed, pulled the bedclothes closer around him, and shut the large casement through which cool morning air was pouring into the room. Returning to the bed, she found Lavenham’s pulse rapid and disordered. His hot forehead and flushed cheeks added to her anxiety. But what should she do? Her first instinct was to summon a doctor, but it would be impossible for him to tend the invalid without discovering his wound. For a moment she thought of explaining this away as a domestic accident of some kind, but who would believe her? And besides, there was Dom Fernando to be considered. It would be well nigh impossible to invent an accident that could convincingly have happened after he had left. No, she would have to pray to God and nurse Lavenham herself. She was slightly encouraged in this determination by memory of his strictures on Portuguese medicine. Perhaps after all she would be saving his life by keeping the doctor from him.

Only the deep, unspoken happiness of her new relation with Lavenham carried her through the anxieties of the next few days. He continued half conscious or, worse still, delirious, while his fever resisted all the medicaments she had brought with her from England. The only point of consolation was that, miraculously, his wound continued to heal, and she thought the fever must be due mainly to exhaustion and, perhaps, to the blow he had received on his head. As he continued deliriously calling out for his mother and, it seemed, acting over again the duel of long ago when his father was killed, she became increasingly anxious lest his brain should have been affected. If only she could get expert advice. But Lord Strangford was still away and there was no one else to whom she felt she could turn.

Chloe’s anxiety and Dom Fernando’s daily visits of polite inquisition exacerbated her misery. For them, as for the servants, she had to pretend that Lavenham’s illness was merely trifling, a matter of overfatigue and inevitable recovery. But as the anxious days passed, it became increasingly difficult to keep up the pretence, and on the third day, as she sat by his bed bathing his hot forehead with spirits of lavender, she had almost made up her mind to give way to Dom Fernando’s pressure and let him summon a doctor. Lavenham’s mind was wandering again. Surely she was a murderess to keep expert attention from him. And yet, she was sure, a Portuguese physician would bleed him at once, and he had lost enough blood already. She was sitting there, a prey to the most agonising kind of uncertainty, when he suddenly reached out and grasped her hand, “Mother,” he said, “Mother, you will not leave me?”

“No, never.” How truly she meant it “Lie still, my love, lie still and rest.”

“You never called me that before.” To her delighted surprise, he seemed to have taken in what she said, though attributing it, no doubt, to the mother he had lost so long ago. “Stay with me,” he went on, “stay with me always.”

“Of course.” Very gently, still .holding his hand in hers, she used the other to stroke the disordered curls away from his brow. Was she imagining it, or did this feel cooler to her touch? Scarcely daring to hope, she sat there and watched as he fell at last, still holding her hand, into a deep and refreshing sleep. Time passed. The shadows lengthened in the room and Chloe came scratching at the door to whisper that Dom Fernando was below, asking for her. Camilla did not stir from where she sat, merely turning to whisper over her shoulder that Lavenham was better, but she could not leave him.

Towards night, he woke at last, a characteristic apology on his lips. “I have been ill, and a monstrous trouble to you, I fear.”

“No trouble, my love.” The endearment slipped out without thought, and she saw a look of faint puzzlement cloud his face. Was she going too fast for him? Hastily recovering herself, she went on, “Do not trouble yourself about anything; I have not had the doctor to you; nobody knows what has been the matter with you.”