Toward Love's Horizon

by Michele du Barry

  In the aftermath Angela was all soft and warm, curled against him like a contented kitten.

  “Angel, love, you drive me insane until madness is sanity and the only reality is you!” Scott brushed gentle kisses against her cheek and her fingers curled into the thick hair at the back of his neck. Her eyes closed heavily and he breathed against her ear, “You send me on a trip to the stars—so high, so fast—I never want to come back to earth!”

  Angela stretched and turned over burrowing luxuriously into the bed. She felt warm and glowing and a smile twitched at the corners of her lips. Her hand reached out and found emptiness and her eyes flew open to a new day.

  The sun was high spilling through the slightly parted curtains with a curious intensity. The pillow beside her still held the indentation of Scott’s head. How considerate he was letting her sleep late, knowing she had been in a state close to exhaustion last night. He was probably with the children.

  “Children!” Angela sat bolt upright fully awake and petrified with fear. “Clare!”

  She hadn’t even told him about Clare! She had meant to after the children had fully recovered, was going to tell him when she met him at Thornhill before they returned together to Sydney. But he had come unexpectedly in answer to her unuttered plea and the sight of him had driven every thought of other matters from her mind. She still tingled from last night’s interchange of passion.

  Scrambling from the bed she shoved her arms into the sleeves of a robe and belted it around her waist. Quaking with dreaded anticipation of his reaction she searched for her other slipper and could find it nowhere so she ran barefooted down the hall and paused to catch her breath outside the children’s door. Maybe he hadn’t seen them yet, maybe he had gone for a ride, was eating breakfast, or walking in the garden.

  She opened the door quietly and saw him sitting beside Lorna’s bed holding her hand with Robert on his knee. There was loving adoration written all over his face as he spoke softly to them, a smile of rediscovery. Then he turned his head and saw her and the look was gone. Hard angry eyes reproached her, drove the breath from her body and the secret mask of studied indifference closed over his face.

  Angela opened the door wider, saw Maggie sitting in the rocking chair on the other side of the room with Clare on her lap. The baby smiled and reached out her arms for her and uttered, “Mama, Mama.” Her gaze wandered back to Scott and saw the way his lips clamped into a tight white line.

  He said with a voice of winter ice, “Who is she?”

  And Angela couldn’t speak. She was numb with terror, her hold on the doorknob the only thing keeping her erect. She saw their lives cracking apart again and all because of her own foolishness. Why hadn’t she told him sooner? To spring a surprise like this upon him was cruel on her part. If only he hadn’t come—not yet—not before she had told him!

  “But I told you, Papa,” Lorna reminded in a thin voice. “She’s Clare, my sister.”

  And from across the room Clare looked straight at Scott and repeated over and over, “Papa, Papa, Papa—”

  Scott looked at Angela standing like a marble statue, only her huge frightened eyes alive in her face. The white silk of the robe over her bosom didn’t even move with a breath and the only color about her was her black hair hanging to her hips and aqua eyes, too brilliant in the dimness of the room. Even at the height of this lying treachery she was desirable and in amazement he tried to sort out his careening emotions.

  “She has the look of a Montgomery,” he observed putting Robert down and rising to a frightening height over her.

  “Not here,” Angela managed to get out in a voice hoarse with pain. “Not in front of the children.”

  His hand closed around her wrist propelling her from the room, dragging her to their room and she stumbled docilely after him. She was as terrified as the time he had caught her leaving Seafield Castle with Clyde, as mesmerized as a doe cornered by a panther.

  The crash of the door brought her to her senses and Scott was leaning against it barring any escape, with his face looking as dangerous as an attacking pirate and his arms crossed firmly across his chest.

  “Why, Angela? Why?” Scott controlled himself with difficulty. “Why didn’t you tell me about her? Why did you keep me in the dark? Why do you lie and conceal the most important parts of your life from me? Why didn’t you trust me? Am I an ogre to be placated with half truths for fear I’ll kill you? I forgave you everything else, why not this? If only you had told me! Why did you hide this from me, Angela?”

  She swallowed hard, moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Her knees shook and he stared silently at her, waiting with golden flames of anger leaping from his eyes. “I—I didn’t want to spoil our time together. I meant to tell you before you came to Sydney, but you showed up unexpectedly. Last night was ours and this morning you were gone before I woke.”

  “Whose is she?”

  “Mine! Clare is my daughter.”

  “And who fathered her, Angela?” He grasped her shoulders and shook her. “Was it Keith? Was it him?” A snarl like that of a ferocious animal twisted his dark face.

  “No, No!”

  “You little liar! You said you had no other lover but him—your fake husband! Who else was there? Hell how many others have enjoyed your lovely little body?” His hand closed around her throat and he shook her again. Answer me, Duchess, before I do something I will regret!”

  She was helpless in his grasp, her face as pale as alabaster, streaming with tears. Pressing her trembling lips together she shook her head until her hair flew, half covering her face. She could never tell him. It would be better to be dead at his hands than to tell him the truth—her black past of sordid degradation that she tried never to think about for fear she would go mad.

  “Who are you protecting? Is she Clyde’s? Ezra’s? The prince’s? Stop looking at me as if you were a martyr being tortured!”

  No! I will never tell you—never! I had no lovers, no lovers!”

  ‘Then how did you get her—by Immaculate Conception?”

  Scott threw her on the bed. “Our marriage is a sham! The only time we don’t fight is in bed but we can’t live our whole lives there, Angela! There are so many cracks and missing pieces our marriage can’t stand the full light of day without falling completely apart. I just can’t take it anymore—the constant battles and bickering, the lies and deceptions! One minute I think you are an angel straight from heaven, the next I know you are a whore! I regret the day I first laid eyes on you. I regret everything that has taken place since then. It’s just not worth the effort. You can consider the marriage over, Angela.”

  “Where—where are you going?”

  “Straight to hell by the most direct route! I don’t know. Back to Thornhill, to Celeste. Does it really matter?”

  As he slammed the door she screamed something after him in a high, hysterical tone that was drowned out by the banging of wood on wood.

  The closest proximity to hell in Sydney was the ragged area below Fort Phillip called The Rocks. Near the slaughter house it reeked from refuse and was the haunt of ravenous birds and escaped convicts. It was a lawless, unpatrolled area, and because of its unsavory reputation even watchmen and constables refused to enter it.

  But Scott entered it unafraid. He could hold his own with anyone—anyone but Angela. He felt as if he had been punched repeatedly in the stomach with ironclad fists. Why did she have the power to defeat him utterly? Why did he let her? Once she had told him that he confused her with a thousand whys—but she presented him with the same quandary. Except with Angela it was ten thousand whys, a million whys, and all of them unanswerable.

  Garbage, entrails, and dead fish sucked at his boots in the undrained streets. Even in the bright sunlight rats stared boldly from shadowy corners and there was an incessant scream of gulls fighting over scraps of food. Scott threaded his way down zigzag streets, past huts built at crazy angles, reached by flights of ramshackle steps. A chamber pot was
emptied from a window without warning, spattering a drunk unconscious in the slimy quagmire. He sidestepped him without really seeing, swishing away a cloud of black flies that were everywhere.

  A child of about two sat in the mud crying with flies crusting his face while two dogs mated a few feet away. Scott turned up a lane with huts leaning together above the path so that the sun was almost blocked out and the air was still and stagnant with decay. He mounted steps that bucked and swayed beneath his weight, threatening to collapse, and pushed open a door.

  The atmosphere inside was fetid and dirty but he took a chair and tilted it back against a wall. A big man wearing a filthy apron, overhung by a huge belly approached and Scott flipped him a coin. He caught it deftly, squinting at it in the darkness, testing it between his teeth.

  “Rum!” Scott ordered. “Two bottles—and a clean glass.”

  A sailor off one of the ships in the cove eyed the promising newcomer, wondering if he could cadge a drink. But one vicious look from Scott squelched that idea permanently.

  The day grew hotter and hotter until the tavern was an oven. But Scott didn’t notice. He gulped down drink after drink and cursed women in general and Angela in particular. She was a lying, cheating slut fit only to be a whore in a place like The Rocks. He could just see her here mauled by criminals and sailors, crawling with flies, that should be her fate—not the comfort of the house on the hill or Brightling Castle or the London house on St. James’s Square.

  He was filthy, roaring drunk as he had never been before. Even after he had found Keith and Angela together he hadn’t been this bad off. There was murder in his heart as he staggered from the tavern under cover of darkness and when a group of tattered criminals jumped him he fought like an enraged bull.

  A long knife disappeared into the muck at his kick and the man ran howling into the night with a broken arm. Several fists made contact with his face but he felt it less than the flies. He grabbed two men and cracked their heads together, turned and kneed another in the groin. Moans and screams sounded in the Stygian darkness and the others fled before his counterattack.

  With his head reeling from blows and spirits he could hear Angela shrieking at him again as he left her room. The words echoed in his rum-fogged brain becoming clearer and clearer.

  “He raped me,” he heard her yell in the recesses of his benumbed mind. “That devil raped me, and Clare is his daughter!”

  What devil? If some man had hurt her he would kill him with pleasure. Scott’s bruised fists clenched, ready once again to attack. Who had raped her? Who was Clare’s father?

  It was close to midnight and the air hung still and heavy, full of the cloying perfume of English flowers transplanted to foreign soil. A pale sliver of a moon hung suspended in an unmoving heaven and not one sound broke the silence of the night. Angela leaned against a pillar on the back veranda and even the wood was warm against her cheek.

  She felt empty and feverish as if she had been sick for a long, long time and had just awakened in a strange place surrounded by strangers. Her body felt heavy as if it belonged to someone else but still there was an odd little ache in her bosom. It jabbed her every time she breathed as if to remind her of its presence. Her eyes were dry and scratchy and her throat was raw with crying. There wasn’t a tear left in her, they all resided in a sodden pillow that just lately had cushioned Scott’s head.

  Angela felt almost as she had when under Laporte’s spell, without a will of her own, vacant, controlled by outside forces. And the fact that she couldn’t remember the part of the day after Scott had left filled her with panic. Laporte and Jules were with her on the veranda, along with Scott’s angry eyes, and they laughed tauntingly—witnesses to their final revenge.

  A soft, clear song filled the silent night. Hauntingly wistful, the words were in a strange melodious tongue Angela had never heard. Jules, Laporte, and Scott vanished and she stood very quietly drinking in the beauty of that voice. It was so lovely that accompanying music could not have added anything to the song.

  She followed the sweet notes that lingered on the air, her bare feet a soft whisper against the smooth wood. Outside the children’s room Angela crouched down resting her elbows on the low windowsill and her chin on her hands. By the flickering illumination of the night light she saw Maggie rocking Clare in the rocking chair and the baby’s rapt attention was focused on her.

  It was a lullaby coming from Maggie’s lips! The silent girl who never spoke but made her presence felt in so many other ways. Angela stared unbelievingly, yet fascinated, as Maggie’s face glowed from within with love for the child cradled against her breast. The unknown words were as smooth and comforting to Angela as they seemed to be to Clare.

  A loud crash out front put an abrupt end to the enchanting moment. Angela stood up with her hand over her pounding heart, which only made the pain worse. What if it was an escaped convict trying to gain entry? They could all be murdered in their beds before anyone came to investigate.

  Hurrying into the house she shot the bolt on the back door and stood with her back to it straining her ears for another telltale sound. A bang on the door and a scratching sound, slurred shouted words jarred her eardrums. She almost couldn’t recognize his voice or her name which he called over and over again.

  She flew to the front door and unlocked it, throwing wide but there was no one.

  "Angela!” He was lying on the floor and as she bent over him she caught the sour smell of alcohol and sweat.

  "You’re drunk!” As she straightened up he grabbed for her and instead caught her nightgown, ripping open the whole front.

  "Gonna kill tha’ devil!” Scott told her but the slurred words were so garbled that she thought he meant to kill her.

  Backing away from him she started to scream, piercing the air even to where Ezra slept in the loft above the stable. “Ezra! Ezra! Help me!” He had his hand around her ankle but she struggled to get free. “Ezra! Kate!”

  But Maggie was there first with the night light in one hand and a long kitchen knife clutched in the other. Angela kicked free of Scott’s hand and when Ezra got there they were huddled in the doorway clinging to each other with Scott unconscious at their feet.

  “What the hell is going on, Angela?”

  She almost laughed. That was the first time Ezra had called her anything but my lady.

  “He’s drunk.”

  “And well he should be after the way he treated you today! What do you want me to do with him?”

  “Bring him in the house.”

  “He belongs in a gutter! Are you all right?” Ezra saw the way she clutched her torn nightgown together with both hands.

  “Fine,” she reassured him taking Maggie into the house and instructing Kate to get the children back to sleep.

  “Maggie,” Angela said taking the knife from her hand and laying it on the kitchen table, “you were wonderful and so brave! Thank you.” Then she kissed her thin cheek and smiled, noticing the way her face lit up at the small offering of affection. “You have been working so hard lately, go to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

  The girl left, as quiet as ever and Angela didn’t mention her night song.

  Ezra heaved Scott into the house. “Where do you want him?” Angela stood looking at Scott dangling over his shoulder, undecided. “Damn, he’s heavy! Hurry up!”

  “I don’t know.”

  He dumped him on the kitchen floor and Angela gasped at the blood on his face, leaning closer with a candle to inspect the damage.

  “Looks like he’s been in a fight. Shouldn’t you put something on?”

  Angela flushed pulling the material back over her breasts, trying to close the gap at her hips. He had seen her naked before, but only in times of absolute distress. She hurried to her room and changed and by the time she got back Ezra had Scott stripped of his filthy clothes and was washing off the dirt and blood.

  One of Scott’s eyes was swollen, turning different shades of blue, green, and black; he
had a bloody nose and a cut high on one cheek. The only other injuries were the bruised knuckles.

  “He’s dead drunk,” Ezra observed. “He will have some hangover tomorrow. It serves him right for the way he has treated you.”

  “No, Ezra, it was all my fault. I never told him about Clare. How would you feel if you found out your wife had an illegitimate child?”

  “I don’t have a wife, and I hope I never do!”

  “Yes, I haven’t set a very good example. But this is my doing and I’m a fool not to have told him. To have it sprung on him as a surprise—”

  “Does he know everything now?”

  “No.” Angela’s voice quavered as she sat back on her heels. “I couldn’t! I just couldn’t bring myself to tell that nightmare! I feel sick and shaky just thinking about it. I can’t even speak that monster’s name!”

  “It’s all right, don’t get upset. Do you want me to tell him?”

  No, I don’t know! Oh, Ezra! I don’t know anything anymore. I’m so confused.” Just wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

  "I'm afraid of that. I never know what Scott will do. If I had told him about the pardon on the first day he would have taken it and the Cygnet and left me immediately. I was going to give it to him this morning and then this! I’m afraid that if he is free we will have another fight and he will be off and I’ll never see him again.”

  Don’t tell him. Wait until your lives settle down and you are both sure of yourselves and your marriage. If he thinks he is still bound here, he can’t leave. . .

  "But he is bound to Celeste Carew!”

  “From what I’ve heard, she is easier to fight than your own husband’s stubbornness!”

  “Yes. Maybe you are right.”

  “At least he will still be in New South Wales. You will know where to find him. If he leaves,” Ezra shrugged his wide shoulders expressively, “who knows if you would ever find him again.”

  Red-hot pincers were prying the top of his head off and inside a blacksmith was pounding with his hammer. A cannon ball was perched on his stomach and his eyes were blazing balls of fire. Scott groaned and put both hands to his head, trying to hold it together. Birds shrilled loudly outside the window and he licked his dry lips with a tongue swollen and foul tasting.