Marry in Haste (15 page)

And first thing next morning Lavenham rode off to visit Dom Fernando, explaining to Camilla that, since he had no reliable English manservant to leave as their protector, he intended to entrust their safety to Dom Fernando. “He will be, I am sure, a reliable protector, for really, Camilla, I believe him to be more than a little in love with you,” he finished teasingly. And Camilla, laughing and blushing, longed to seize the chance to tell him of Dom Fernando’s amazing declaration. But Chloe was there, and Lavenham’s horse awaiting him: once more she let the opportunity slip.

Lavenham returned to assure them that Dom Fernando promised to watch over them like a brother, and that he himself would come at once if any new crisis arose, and then took his leave urging Chloe to look after Camilla, and Camilla to take care of herself. “I hope to see your health quite re-established when I next visit you.”

Camilla, who was now thoroughly convinced that it would be nine months before her health was re-established, found cold comfort in this speech, with its suggestion that her husband was only on visiting terms with her. Left alone once more, she resumed the old round of “if onlys.” If only she had told Lavenham in the first place ... If only she had seized that chance in the Valley of Alcantara ... If only ... If only ...

A visit from Dom Fernando was almost a relief, because a distraction, and she was grateful for his assurances that she and Chloe should come to no harm that it lay in his power to prevent. To her relief, too, he made no reference to the scene he had made her two days before, behaving once more merely like her husband’s friend. As such, she found him easy and entertaining company and was surprised when he rose to take his leave and commented on Chloe’s prolonged absence. Apologising for her, and bidding Dom Fernando a grateful farewell, Camilla found herself a prey to renewed apprehension. Surely it was impossible that M. Boutet was still in the country? Or, if he was, secretly, he would never risk visiting Chloe here? And yet—Chloe had been out in the garden for over an hour. She wandered out on to the terrace and stood there irresolutely unable to decide whether to go and look for Chloe. After all, she told herself, Chloe had never made any secret of the boredom Dom Fernando’s visits caused her. She might well have seen him arrive and contrived to avoid him. So hesitating, Camilla accused herself of cowardice. Her real reason, she knew well enough, was that she could not face the possibility of another scene with her brother, for whom, on the strength of one brief meeting, she felt an aversion so strong as to amount almost to terror. Even thinking of him brought on one of her faint spells; she was compelled to hurry indoors and lie down on an uncomfortable chaise longue in the salon. And it was thus that Chloe found her when she came running up the steps from the garden, her cheeks flushed, her arms full of late gleanings from the rose-bushes.

She was all contrition at sight of Camilla. She had left her too long alone; she would fetch smelling salts and the cordial Camilla found reviving. Dropping her roses on a small table, she hurried upstairs, to return almost at once with the medicaments and a light mohair shawl which she folded lovingly round Camilla. “There,” she said, “now you will be better, will you not, Camilla? But I wish you would let me fetch a doctor to you: I am sure Lavenham would wish it if he knew how often you were having these giddy spells.”

“What?” Camilla’s spirits were reviving. “And be dosed, as like as not, with crushed snails and viper’s broth? No, thank you, Chloe, I will wait to call a doctor till we are safe home, which I hope will be soon now.”

The light went out of Chloe’s face. “Very soon?”

“I hope so. But are you not glad? Chloe,” the question came out almost despite her, “have you been seeing him again?”

“Him?” All too obviously Chloe. was playing for time.

“The Frenchman ... M. Boutet ...” and with a final effort, “my brother. Is he not gone with the others? Chloe, tell true! I must know.” And she sat up on her couch with a look of such feverish anxiety that Chloe, alarmed in her turn, hurried to take her hand and offer the smelling salts once more. But Camilla waved them away. “No, no; I am well enough; if only you will tell me the truth. I must know, Chloe,” she said again, “or else I will send a messenger to Lavenham telling him the whole.”

Thus threatened, Chloe dissolved into one of her fits of easy tears. “Why are you so hard to me, Camilla? One would think you had never been in love in your life.” And then, drawing herself up proudly, “Yes, I am this minute come from Charles. He has stayed in Lisbon, at great risk to himself, merely in the hope of seeing me again. Camilla, I beg you will try to understand. We have so little time. Who knows when we shall meet again? I know Lee would not understand, but that you—Charles’s own sister—that you should be so hard, so unsympathetic: it is beyond bearing! Sometimes I think I shall go mad. And I thought you would be so pleased: I shall never understand you: to treat your own brother as if he was an enemy.”

“But he is one, Chloe. I fear I have done wrong in not telling Lavenham of this affair long since. But I tell you now that unless I have your solemn word that you will not see M. Boutet again, I shall send to Lavenham tonight.” And yet, she told herself, this too was cowardice. What was the use of extorting promises from Chloe, who would break them as lightly as the leaves she was stripping, as they talked, from one of her roses?

“Oh.” She had pricked herself and put her finger into her mouth to suck away the blood, then smiled reassuringly at Camilla. “No need to promise,” she said. “Charles leaves tonight: I do not know when I shall see him again.”

“For good?” Camilla could not conceal her relief.

“Oh no, but for more than a week.” Chloe made it sound an age. “You do not think we shall be gone before then, Camilla? If I did not see him once more, to say goodbye, I think my heart would break.” And Camilla, wryly amused, found herself, of all things, consoling her incorrigible sister- in-law for the absence of her untrustworthy love. And so the scene between them ended with nothing settled, though Camilla, thinking it over afterwards, told herself that next time Lavenham came he must be told, at whatever cost either to herself or to Chloe.

But when Lavenham did ride up to the house a few days later, he looked so distracted that Chloe and Camilla, after a quick exchange of glances, devoted themselves entirely to his comfort, without daring even to ask the questions that trembled on their lips. At last, setting down the glass of wine he had hardly tasted, he spoke. “You do not ask my news?”

“I fear it is bad,” Camilla said.

“Yes, the worst. It is but a matter of days before Dom John signs the decree confiscating British property. And the squadron we were promised, under Sir Sidney Smith, has not arrived. But there is worse than that.”

“Worse?”

“Yes. At least for me ... for us, I should say. Chloe, I beg you will leave us.”

Chloe protested, but her brother was firm. “No, this is no concern of yours, thank God. I must speak to my wife alone.”

With an anxious glance at Camilla, Chloe rose and left them. Closing the door behind her, Lavenham took another distracted turn about the room before he came back to stand over Camilla. “Do you remember my asking you, some time since, at Sintra, about a man I thought I saw you talking with in the garden here?”

“Yes?” Camilla’s voice shook on the word.

“And you denied having done so?”

“Yes,” she said again.

“God, I should have known.” He stood beside a tall vase of myrtle, systematically stripping the white blossoms from their stalks. “ ‘Trust the devil before you trust a woman,’ my father told me as he died. Why did I not listen? Now I am disgraced—a laughing-stock. I hope my grandmother will be pleased with what she has done to me. ‘No, no,’ you said, you had talked with no one. My poor mind, you hinted, must have been deceiving me again ... And so it was—when I took your word. I must have been mad. The Court has its spies, you must know, on all of us foreigners. I collect you did not think of that. And most particularly have there been agents about you, being the Frenchwoman, God forgive me, that you are. This morning, when I was urging Araujo to persuade Dom John to throw in his lot with ours and sail at once for the Brazils, he turned on me. ‘Is that the advice your wife wishes me to give?’ I did not understand what he meant. ‘My wife?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that French wife of yours. Or did you not know she has been constantly in touch with a notorious French spy? I have no doubt it would suit the French admirably to have us run away, bag and baggage, leaving our country for who will to snap up, but we’ll not do it, I tell you, and so you can tell that wife of yours you have kept so close—and no wonder, a spy and the accomplice of spies.’ ” Lavenham broke off and took another furious turn about the room, while she watched him, speechless. At last he returned to loom over her more threateningly than ever.

“And I—poor fool,” he went on, “I spoke up for you, refusing to believe what Araujo said—only to be faced with proofs, the reports of his men who have watched you.”

“Araujo’s men?” she asked, grasping at a straw. “But did you not say he was for the French?”

“What’s that to the purpose? No, no, do not shilly-shally with me like that. You have ruined me, and there’s an end of it. I trust you are satisfied with your work.”

Camilla had been thinking the rapid thoughts of despair. If they had indeed been spied on, surely the informer must know perfectly well that it was Chloe, not she, who had been receiving the Frenchman’s visits. His reports must have been deliberately falsified in order to give Araujo the strongest possible hold over Lavenham. Or could it be that Charles Boutet himself was the source of the information and had deliberately misinformed Araujo for some sinister purpose of his own? Groping among these possibilities, each one more desperate than the last, she sat tongue-tied under Lavenham’s furious stare. What could she say, what do? Useless to tell him that Boutet’s visits had been to Chloe: they remained just as damaging, and anyway she felt herself responsible in that she had let them continue. But there was one question she must ask. “And Strangford,” she said, “does he know?” Before the words were out of her mouth, she realised how he would take them.

“Ah,” it was something between a sigh and a groan. “So you admit it. As calmly as that. Is it nothing to you that you have destroyed everything I had hoped for in life? Do you know—it will make you laugh, I have no doubt—do you know that I had begun to think we might find happiness together, you and I. I had begun to believe a woman could be trusted—might even be safely loved. Yes, have your laugh, for you have earned it. I had begun to love you, poor fool that I was. And all the time, you were laughing at me with that French accomplice of yours. Tell me, accomplished wife, is he your lover, too? But I’ve not answered your question. No, Strangford does not know, nor will he, Araujo tells me, if I will but contradict everything I have ever said; change my advice to the Regent. Urge him to stay in Portugal, and my secret is safe. If I betray my country I may continue respected there; if not, I must be ruined. And this you have done to me. You, the girl I picked up in the gutter and gave my name—and almost my heart, too. But I have learned my lesson. Only tell me, mistress spy, what shall we do now? Do you propose to continue gracing my board—never my bed—or do you intend to join your Frenchman when he welcomes Bonaparte’s armies into Portugal—all too soon? I had best know, had I not, that I may guide my conduct accordingly.” His eyes glittered dangerously as he bent still more closely over her, but she was too angry now for fright.

“I thank you, my lord,” she said, “for your confidence in me. So I am to be tried, judged, and condemned, am I, on the word of Araujo, whom you have always proclaimed a French agent! You do not come to ask me if there is any truth in his accusations. Oh no, merely to tell me that I am false, and pour out your accumulated spleen against womankind on my innocent head. Yes, I said ‘innocent’ and it is true, though I can see you will never believe it. I have been foolish, I admit, and would ask your pardon, if you were in any state to listen to me. As for Araujo, go to him, tell him he has been misled by his agents, if that is the story they have told him, and see how he takes that. As for me: I have no French accomplice and never have had. Your board I have shared and your bed too, though you have paid me the compliment of forgetting the occasion—and carry the consequences with me now. It is a little late in the day to talk of banishing me from your bed when I am carrying your child. Oh, I grant, you were drunk—not yourself at the time—you would doubtless never have touched anything so loathsome as a woman else. Well, I too have learned my lesson. I have had my delusions too; my hopes of a happy marriage, but, believe me, my lord, they are at an end. Let us but get back to England and I promise you my child and I will never trouble you more.”

“Your child? What madness is this?”

“Yes, my child—and yours, though I can see you will never believe it. Well, so much the better for it, poor baby. Better no father than one as incapable of human feeling as you ... a man who will believe anyone rather than his own wife.”

He was silent for a moment, white-faced and shaking, then, as she succumbed to a passion of tears, he broke out again: “A likely story, madam, and told in a most happy hour. So I am to acknowledge some French spy’s bastard as my heir ... You say I believe Araujo before you: well, why should I not, when I have, to confirm his story, the evidence of my own eyes. Did I not—though, in my folly, I let you persuade me I was mistaken—did I not, myself, see you with your French paramour in the garden?”

He was interrupted by a voice from the doorway, where Chloe stood, white-faced and trembling. “Oh, Lavenham,” she said, “it was I.”

He looked at her, for a moment, in appalled silence, then, at a cry from her, turned back to catch Camilla as she fell.