The Shadowcutter (39 page)

“If he does not think a great gentleman like Major Vernon is good enough for his daughter, then how can I ever be good enough for you?”

“I’m his bastard! That’s all.” Felix said. “I am a speck of dirt compared to you, Sukey. You are my superior in everything – character, birth, everything.” He tried again to embrace her. “Don’t be afraid, please, it will all be all right. We decided this morning it would be.”

She yielded at last but she was stiff and awkward in his arms. Her pulse was thudding with fear.

“Perhaps this morning was a silly dream,” she said. “And we ought to –”

“It was not,” he said.

“Yes, yes, I know, but –”

She broke away quickly from him, alerted by a creak on the floor boards. But it was too late, they had been observed, by none other by Holt, coming along from the servants’ hall with a tray.

Sukey half walked, half ran away in the other direction, leaving Holt to give Felix a most contemptuous look. He might as well have spat on the floor in front of him with disgust.

“I’m just taking this up to the Major, sir,” Holt said. “He seems a little wan. You might want to take a look at him.”

“Yes, of course,” said Felix, and followed Holt upstairs, feeling like a man mounting the scaffold.

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Mr Holt, is there something wrong?” Giles asked.

Holt stood fingering Giles’ cravat as it lay over his arm with a clean shirt.

“Are you sure you are well enough to dine downstairs, sir?” he said.

“Yes, I’ve rested all afternoon. It will not be too great a trial. Is that all?”

He watched Holt lay the shirt and cravat on a chair, rather slowly and deliberately. It was not his usual way. He was usually swift and precise.

With his back to Giles, Holt said, “There was another matter, sir, which I don’t like to raise with you, but I feel I should. About Mr Carswell.”

“Yes?” Giles said.

Now Holt turned and faced him.

“Mr Carswell and Mrs Connolly. I saw him –” He hesitated. “At her.”

“By which you mean?”

“You know sir, what I mean! At her. Pawing her. His hands all over her. Lover-like. I thought you should know,” he added. “I didn’t think you would care for such liberties being taken. And she didn’t look very happy about it, I must say.”

“When was this?” Giles said.

“This afternoon. Just before he came up with me.”

“I see. You were a little short with him then, I did notice that.”

“He was lucky he didn’t get a bloody nose,” said Holt. “But I reckon I should leave that to you, given you are the master.”

Giles found himself frowning as he got up from the couch. Suddenly the thought of going down to dinner felt a great deal less attractive.

“I thought of mentioning it to his Lordship when he was here,” Holt went on, taking up the clothes brush and attacking Giles’ evening coat over-vigorously with it. “But I thought, like father, like son –”

“That’s quite enough Holt,” said Giles. “Don’t worry, I will speak to Mr Carswell about it. And please, would you treat my coat with a little more kindness. It is too old to bear your ill-humour!”

Holt stopped brushing and scowled.

“Don’t spare him your tongue, sir,” he said. “Mrs Connolly deserves better than that sort of mucky behaviour. She’s too fine by half for the likes of him!”

Holt left, banging the door rather peevishly behind him. Giles finished dressing and went into the library. There he discovered Carswell pacing the room in his shirt sleeves, not yet dressed for dinner and in a state of some agitation. There was a cheroot stuck in his mouth while there was a dish of stubs and a half-drunk decanter of claret on the table.

He threw the cheroot into the empty fireplace at the sight of Giles.

“This is your house,” Giles said, though the smell of smoke was not pleasant.

Carswell went to the window and pushed it open.

“I ought to give them up. You are right – they are an abomination,” he said. “And this is not my house. I am master of nothing here, not even myself!” He pushed his hands through his hair and threw himself into a chair. “And I suppose Holt has said something to you. I can’t believe that he would keep that from you for long.”

“Yes, he has.”

“What did he say?”

“That he saw you – and I am using his word here, pawing Mrs Connolly. Lover-like, was the other expression he used.”

Carswell groaned and dragged the wine tray towards him.

“Will you?” he said as he filled his glass.

“Yes, just a little,” Giles said, sitting down opposite Carswell at the table. Carswell passed him a glass of wine. “So, will you explain it?” Giles went on. Carswell sipped his wine and glanced away. “She is my employee, and under my protection. I must ask what is going on.” Still Carswell did not answer. “What disturbs me most about this report is that Holt suggested that the attentions were unwelcome to her.”

Now Carswell drained his glass and set it down carefully on the table, as he considered what to say.

“I wish I knew. I know she loves me, as I love her, but she is so afraid! It is all suddenly so unwelcome to her. Perhaps it is all poisoned and impossible. She is right about everything, always, and no doubt she is right about this. But I cannot give it up! I cannot give her up.”

“How serious are things between you?” Giles said. “You intend to marry?

“Yes!” Carswell exclaimed. “And this morning we finally agreed on it. I thought I had her – at last! But then Lord Rothborough arrived, and –”

“Does he know of this?”

“No! But she saw Lady Charlotte and all that business, and it made her take fright again. That was what Holt saw. I was attempting to reassure her, but –” He reached for the decanter again. “How can I give her up? How? She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have told her a hundred times that I will smooth the way and she will not suffer for it. I will make sure of it. I will take all the blows. I will not have her suffer.”

“But she will,” Giles said, “if you marry, no matter what you do. Her family, for a start –”

“Yes, yes, I know! Do you think I do not? I have known all along that it is utterly impossible!”

“Then you ought never to have declared yourself.” Giles said, without, he hoped, too much reproach in his manner. Yet still Carswell looked across at him contemptuously. “If you truly cared for her.”

“And now, of course, you will accuse me of self-indulgence!” exclaimed Carswell, jumping up from the table.

“Have you not just done that yourself?” Giles said.

“To grab at happiness, at peace, at love?” said Carswell. “Is that self-indulgence? Sukey and I – it is a miracle! The finest thing I have ever known is to be in her company. I am a better man for her – you have seen that yourself – she has improved me in every way. One might walk a thousand miles and then another and not find another woman so perfectly formed to be my wife!”

“Except that none of your family or friends will agree with you.”

“Not even you?” said Carswell, leaning across the table towards him.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot approve it. It would offend too many people I care for. Mr and Mrs O’Brien, whom I regard as my friends, did not put her in my care to find her such an unsuitable match.”

“And they did such a fine job with her first husband! Who was by all accounts approved by them all – he was a wastrel, drunkard who left her starving. She will want for nothing with me. This house – can you think of a better mistress for the place? It is everything she deserves.” Giles was about to reply, but Carswell, went on, “You have seen her with my parents? I think my mother loves her already. Sukey is exactly the daughter that she has always wanted. It is only a matter of overturning these ridiculous prejudices. She is not my equal, she is my superior!”

Giles sighed.

“I have also heard your father lamenting that the Irish will not turn away from the Papacy. Have you given any thought to religion? She may not wish to give that up. Have you spoken to her about that?”

“That is of no consequence to me,” said Carswell, airily. “I will turn Papist if that is what it takes. I will do anything necessary.”

“That would be a drastic step,” Giles said. “Given all this, and from whom it came.”

“He cannot take this away from me now,” said Carswell. “It is mine.”

“True enough. You can take your prize and live your life in blissful solitude. You will have made your point. But to make your wife’s position untenable with her neighbours is quite another thing. If Holbroke slams its door in your face – and it will, undoubtedly, if you turn to Rome – then all the other houses, great and small, will follow. Then Ardenthwaite is nothing but a miserable prison for her. No wonder she is afraid of what you suggest. She is no fool. And what of your children? Are you really prepared to have doors closed in their faces as they grow up? Given what you have suffered yourself –?”

“I am not intending to father a race of bastards!” Carswell said. “How can you make such a comparison?”

“Because unfortunately many people will see it like that. An unequal marriage is not easily forgiven, nor would you leaving your religion. You will be judged harshly.”

“Only by narrow-minded bigots whom I have no time for!” Carswell said slamming his palm on the table and making the glasses dance. “I don’t care about such people, and neither does Sukey. We will make our own society. We do not need such neighbours!”

“I think –” Giles began again, but the argument was making him tired, and it was clear that Carswell was unlikely in this mood to listen to reason. He reached for his wine and drank a mouthful, wishing he could give the approval Carswell so desperately craved. His pain and frustration in love, like that of his half-sister earlier that day, played on Giles’ nerves, stirring up his own wretchedness. How impossible human relations were and how cruel life was!

The image of Laura’s lifeless form, lying in the state bed, rose up in his mind and he reached for his glass again, hoping desperately it might leave him, along with the choking fumes of anger that now clouded his thoughts.

At last he managed to say, “Marriage is hard enough a path without such difficulties. Yes, you are in love, and the object of your love is a worthy one, but she is right to resist your plans. It is better that you part before you damage each other too much. Spare yourselves the pain of that, please!”

-0-

Dinner was awkward beyond measure, and it was a relief that his parents and Major Vernon retired almost as soon as they rose from the table. Glad to be left to his own devices, Felix went out into the garden, where a balmy golden-blue dusk of heartbreaking perfection was enveloping the long walks and rose bushes. He lit a cheroot, his earlier resolutions quite thrust aside, and he made a long circuit, remembering those pleasant evenings after dinner, where by accident at first, and then by design, he had met with Sukey.

He had no hope of seeing her that night though, and when he turned a corner and saw her sitting on a bench, just where she had been the night before, he thought he was imagining it. She met his gaze with a brief crooked smile, that made his heart ache.

“So –” she began.

“Yes?” he said.

“I am guessing from the way Holt was looking at me that he has said something to Major Vernon.”

“Yes, he did.”

“And was he angry? Major Vernon, I mean?”

“Yes, but quietly so.”

“Which is worse,” Sukey said. “Oh dear.”

“He is quite on your side,” said Felix, rather bitterly. “I shouldn’t worry.” He sat down on the far end of the bench and sucked on his cheroot. “He thinks I would be making a wretched prisoner of you if I married you. That I would be punishing our children even before they were born. Quite a fine argument I must say!” He got up again, and threw the cheroot down onto the path, grinding it out with his foot. “He is no saint,” he went on. “He has no right to lecture me!”

“And now you are at loggerheads!” Sukey said. “And saying things about him that you do not mean. This is what I have been telling you along – that it spoils everything good in our lives if we go on with this! Everything!”

“And is it not worth it?”he said.

“I am not sure it is,” she said. “Perhaps it is just a silly dream, this thing between us, a silly summer dream!”

“But, but, but –” Felix said, throwing himself down beside her. “We love one another. We want one another. There is a sort of magnificence about us. You can’t deny that. You feel it as I feel it.”

“Yes,” she said, but she was shaking her head. “But –”

“So?”

“It isn’t enough just to want and to love. In our position, it isn’t. It isn’t enough to spoil everything for. And as for wanting – well, women love and want like men do. Perhaps you don’t understand that. We women don’t say it because we are not supposed to. But I said it to you because I am a fool and you took down my guard.” She got up and walked a pace or two away from him. “And I know what it is like to love and want a man. And I know as well that all can change. You can love and then you can hate. Summer can turn to winter, just like that!” She snatched a wilting rose head from the bush and tossed the petals in the air. “At least this way I won’t grow to hate you too.”

Felix got up.

“I am not James Connolly. I will never treat you as he treated you.”

“And how do you know that? He was as sweet-tongued and as handsome as you, and as determined. He brought out the devil in me, just as you do. And I brought out the devil in him, sure enough I did, and then we led each other to straight to hell!”

“I am not like him,” Felix said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “But I am the same person. I haven’t changed. I keep telling you that you don’t know me, not really. If we go through with this, I swear that in a year you will be cursing what you have brought on yourself! When all your friends desert you and you are left with a wife you cannot love because she’s not what you thought she was. It isn’t worth the candle, Felix, I’m not worth it! Let me go, for the Lord’s sake. Let it go!”

With which she ran back towards the house, leaving the Master of Ardenthwaite kicking at the fallen rose petals.