The meal that night was lengthy and intricate with a great many toasts, not as yet to the wide-eyed bride-to-be and her groom for the official announcement was not to be made until the following night, but to anything these recklessly drinking, carelessly laughing ruling classes could think of and which gave Sir Anthony an excuse to order another bottle from his well-stocked cellar.
Tessa was placed on Sir Anthony’s right hand where he commandeered her attention for the whole of the meal. He was said to have been something of a ladies’ man in his day and though well past the age for such things, she would have thought, considered himself still to be one! He admired her dark hair which Emma had brushed until it gleamed, placing a white silk tea-rose in the heavy coil at the nape of her neck. He admired her shimmering white gown consisting of nothing but lace and seed pearls, newly designed and made for her by the young assistant to Miss Maymon, just come from Paris and, it was rumoured, so clever she was desirous of setting up in business for herself in the growing and increasingly cosmopolitan town of Crossfold. The dress clung to her, emphasising the loveliness of her high breasts, her small waist and the suppleness of her long-limbed body. The whiteness of her skin was enchanting, he told her, and the velvet-grey of her eyes unbelievable, and all the while his eyes probed the low neckline of her gown.
Once she would have thought this amusing, quite harmless, of course, and therefore not to be discouraged. She would have flirted and laughed, making every gentleman at the table long to be seated with the delicious and witty Mrs Drew Greenwood. She and Drew would have exchanged secret smiles and been highly diverted, falling into one another’s arms at the end of the evening in heedless and giddy merriment which would have turned to love-making. They might drink too much of Sir Anthony’s fine French champagne, dance every dance, with one another or with any of the dozens of like-minded guests, diverted by anything which kept them from the sin of boredom.
‘You are a very pretty woman, Mrs Greenwood,’ Johnny Taylor’s elderly father told her. His eyes, still on her breasts, informed her that given the chance he had every intention of furthering their friendship and that she, as an industrialist’s daughter, should consider herself honoured to receive his attentions.
‘Thank you, you are most kind,’ she murmured, removing her hand from where his fondled it.
‘That husband of yours is a lucky young cub and I shall tell him so.’
What was there to say? ‘Thank you again.’ She smiled politely, realising that Drew was watching her from some way down the table, the expression on his face quite unreadable. My God, was he angry with her for rebuffing what he considered Sir Anthony’s innocent advances, or because he thought she was inviting them? She was never sure these days. His eyes were cool, disinterested almost with that disdainful narrowing which he had learned from the gentlemen with whom he socialised. Then the lady beside him spoke and instantly, courteously, he turned to her and she heard his laugh ring out.
She danced with them all, doing her best to be the Tessa Greenwood they expected. She laughed and flirted, throwing back her head until her lovely hair rippled down her back and they told her it was like old times and, really, they would be very cross if she didn’t accompany them on the first grouse shoot the very next week; to Squire Longworth’s hunting box in Leicestershire when the season started; to Sir Anthony’s castle in Scotland, his villa in Monte Carlo and indeed to every important event in their pleasure-seeking calendar.
It was the same the next day as they boated on Sir Anthony’s splendid lake, picnicked under the trees of his lovely woodland, dined in his superbly panelled dining-room and danced the night away in his magnificently appointed ballroom. The announcement was made of the forthcoming marriage of his son to Miss Alicia Henderson and the champagne flowed until not one gentleman was completely sober, nor all the ladies either. Miss Henderson, being only sixteen and just out of the schoolroom was returned, Johnny’s duty done, to her mama and the horseplay which the young gentlemen thought appropriate on such an occasion began in earnest.
‘Come on, darling. We’re going into the billiard room. Nicky has wagered that he and I can drink more champagne in sixty seconds than Johnny and Freddy and we want you to be referee.’
He took her hand, his face flushed, his eyes a quite startling blue. His dark curls tumbled over his forehead and he was excited, feverishly so, enchanted with her beauty and with the envious admiration of the men who had clustered about her all evening. She wore poppy-red in sharp contrast to the pure white of the previous evening, a long, fluted sheath which was stark and simple but extremely daring. Her breasts were almost exposed and suddenly, just as he pulled her to him to let the other fellows see that it all belonged to him, she hated herself, and she hated him.
‘No, I don’t think so, Drew. I’m going to bed.’
His expression was foolish and behind him his friends became quiet, sensing at that moment something different about Tessa Greenwood which promised to be entertaining.
‘Don’t be silly, Tessa. Come on, we need your expert champagne-drinking advice. Now then, chaps, I have just had a simply splendid idea.’ He turned wildly to the ‘chaps’ who crowded closer. ‘Why don’t we drink out of Tessa’s slipper?’ He bent down, falling on to one knee and lifted the hem of his wife’s dress revealing her poppy-red satin slippers, her neatly turned ankles in their sheer white stockings and upwards to her knees and thighs. They all stared, absolutely silent now, for even they knew that this time Drew Greenwood had gone too far.
‘I don’t think so, Drew. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I shall retire.’ Tessa’s voice was low, cool and contemptuous.
Leaving her husband lurching drunkenly on the floor at the feet of his friends she moved gracefully towards the stairs and went up them.
He did not come to bed that night though she lay awake listening for his stumbling footsteps. She heard laughter below her window and later the sound of wildly pounding horses’ hooves on Sir Anthony’s smooth lawn. There were cries from the lake around dawn and women’s laughter and a male voice begged someone to ‘be a good fellow and help him out of the water’.
She lay in the darkness with her eyes burning in her aching head and her body tossing restlessly, longing for Will and the sane and comforting shelter of his love which would never be wholly hers.
The Drew Greenwoods left at noon the next day. He was haggard and hollow-eyed, she serene and gracious, apologising for their early departure which was unprecedented since Mr and Mrs Drew Greenwood were well known for their staying power and strong constitutions. She spoke vaguely of a family matter and her husband said nothing at all beyond the necessary courtesies. Drew’s hunter was inexplicably missing and so was one of Sir Anthony Taylor’s fine bays which his own niece, a Miss Victoria Bleasdale of the Northumberland Bleasdales, had ridden only the day before. Miss Bleasdale was still in her room when the Drew Greenwoods made their polite farewell.
‘Now, don’t you worry about that hunter of yours, Drew, my boy,’ their host told him genially, taking his arm across the gravel to his carriage since his guest seemed somewhat frail. ‘It will turn up in some farmer’s yard and my groom will return it to your . . . where is it you live? . . . oh, yes . . . er . . . Crossfold, as soon as it does.’ He smiled at Tessa, his manner implying that he fully understood the extravagance of youth, indeed had he not himself once been as rashly imprudent? No mention was made of his own missing bay, nor of his missing niece. He leaned onto the carriage for a last look at Tessa’s charming bosom, then stepped back to wave a gracious hand, remarking in an aside to his son that he need not invite that drunken upstart again which was a pity, really, for his wife was most delectable.
Drew waited until they were in their bedroom before he spoke, ordering the maid from the room when she began to open her mistress’s boxes.
Tessa sank down on the windowseat and stared blindly into the sun-filled garden. Her mind was cold and empty. She wished someone would tell her what to do, how
to deal with the coming crisis, how to calm him, soothe him, convince him that it was all right and that she was not angry with him, that she really did not care that he had probably been unfaithful to her. She would have to care, at least about him, soon. If only he would leave her alone for a while, allow her to steady herself, to gather the resources necessary to paint a tolerant smile on her face, return the fondness, the compassionate fondness in which she held him, to her eyes, the accustomed tone which was needed in her voice. She loved him, and she always would. Still inside him was that core of sweetness he and his brother had shared. Pearce had died with his still intact but in Drew the sweetness was beginning to sour and she no longer knew how to stop it. Well, she did really, of course she did. Had she not been aware for the past twelve months of what was turning her merry, good-natured young husband, her dear cousin, into an unreasonable . . . no, that was not the word . . . spiteful and bitter man? He was afraid, of course, and he really did not know why. He only knew he felt better when she was with him, not just her physical presence but her involvement in all the giddy escapades, the foolish pranks, the recklessly defiant madness he and his well-bred friends got up to.
And last night she had refused so he had insulted her before them all. He had earned himself their frightening disapproval for though he had shown himself to be no gentleman, they were.
‘Now then, madam, I would like an explanation of your atrocious behaviour this weekend . . .’
‘Drew, not now, darling.’
‘. . . when we were guests, weekend guests that is, for the first time in the home of one of my dearest friends. You chose to be bloody awkward right from the start, giving Sir Anthony that glacial stare of yours from the moment he took your arm. Oh, yes, I noticed, and so did the others . . .’
‘Really, Drew, you know that is not true.’
He had begun to stride about the room, unable to contain whatever it was that drove him, his movements rapid and awkward, his arms lifting convulsively with every turn. His intention was clear. He wanted to wound her; to hurt her as he had been hurt for he had made up his mind that the failure of the weekend was her fault, that, and the damned mill!
‘Is it not, Tessa? It was not I who insulted Johnny’s father when all he wished to do was make himself pleasant. He is an old gentleman who admires a pretty woman. There is nothing wrong in that surely? All it needed to make him happy was . . .’
‘For me to fawn about him and make a fool of myself.’
‘Fawn about him?’ He stopped his striding to stare at her incredulously. ‘Is that how you see it? Is that what you call good manners and breeding of which, I must admit, you were sadly lacking this weekend?’
‘Oh, stop it, Drew. You really are making a mountain out of a molehill. Sir Anthony certainly is an old gentleman and should be past such foolishness.’ Though she could feel the anger, the indignant outrage growing within her, she attempted lightness, even a smile, since she did not care for the glittering brightness of his eyes nor the hectic flush of his face and neck. ‘Come and sit beside me and we will order some lunch. We could go for a ride later, up to Badger’s Edge and then, perhaps, an early night.’ Her smile was inviting but she was prepared to do anything to calm the conflict which was in him.
‘Don’t try those whore’s tricks with me, you slut,’ he hissed.
‘Drew, really . . .’ Her eyes had narrowed and her chin rose menacingly. ‘First I am frigid and unfeeling in my treatment of that old lecher at Hadden and now I am a slut who practises . . .’
‘You do yourself no good when you insult my friends, Tessa. They have been splendid in their support of me since Pearce . . . since . . .’
‘And I have not, is that what you are saying?’
‘. . . and I think it was not asking too much of you at least to be polite to them, particularly Sir Anthony who is no longer young. They are . . . or were, though I doubt it now, extremely fond of you but after your refusal to join in the harmless fun they had planned . . .’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Drew. Perhaps it is harmless but do you not find it to be somewhat childish for grown men? All those “pranks” you get up to . . . ?’
‘Which once, madam, you found enjoyable yourself.’
‘Indeed , I suppose I must have done, but by God, I am twenty-three and you are twenty-four years old, Drew, and surely there is more to life than . . .’
‘Oh, of course, one could spend one’s day in the company of those . . . those oafs at the mill, I suppose, which you seem to find infinitely more entertaining than that of gentlemen.’
‘It is gentlemanly, is it, to lift the skirts of one’s wife and reveal her legs for a crowd of drunken, gaping simpletons to leer . . .’
‘You go too far, Tessa.’ He took a frenzied step towards her but her own wild and heedless temper, for so long held back, had risen to the surface.
‘No, you do, Drew. I have done nothing of which I am ashamed. Can you say the same?’
‘I hope I am a gentleman since I move in their . . .’
‘Don’t be so bloody pompous, and besides, I was not talking of your behaviour before I went to bed, but after.’
‘We did no more than we have done a hundred times when you were with us. We gambled on . . .’
‘. . . who would bed the delectable Miss Bleasdale, no doubt, and guess who it was who won? Did you drink out of her slipper, you and your playful friends, or perhaps she still wore them, if nothing else, when you all took a dawn dip in Sir Anthony’s lake?’
‘You bitch . . .’
‘I see, I am a bitch now, but what does that make you, my fine honourable gentleman? What is the male equivalent of a bitch? Well, whatever it is you are welcome to become one because I’m tired of being your toy, your plaything, your playmate. I have dragged about this damned country with you in pursuit of . . . of fun . . . is that what you called it? Harmless fun. Well, I’m . . .’
‘Be very careful, Tessa, please . . .’
She was too incensed to hear the sudden pleading in his voice as though he was, for perhaps only a moment, aware of how close he was to the madness which was taking him over.
‘No, Drew, you be careful just for once. Take a good look at yourself and those overbred friends of yours, if you can call them ‘friends’. Believe me, should the fancy take them, they would drop you and me like live coals and treat us as the upstarts we are. Vulgar social climbers, that is how they really see us. Common people whose money is new and very ill-bred. We have amused them, Drew, you and I and Pearce . . .’
‘Don’t . . . not Pearce . . . don’t you dare to . . .’
‘Dare what? To tell you the truth? I’m only sorry I didn’t realise it earlier myself. All these years of playing the fool, wasting our lives on idiots like Nicky Longworth . . .’
‘He is my friend.’
‘No, he is not . . .’
Then who . . .’
‘I am, Drew, and Pearce was but . . .’
His face altered subtly before her eyes, changing shape and colour. It seemed to slip and the blood drained rapidly away from it, leaving only the brilliant and raging blue of his eyes.
‘Leave Pearce out of this . . . bitch . . . bitch . . .’
He raised his arm and she threw back her head challenging, daring him to strike her, not believing he would. Her snarling anger, so long leashed, curled her lip dangerously. When he hit her the blow stunned her, snapping her head to one side, lifting and swirling her loosened hair and knocking her to her knees. She was dazed, blinded as blood flowed from a cut where his ring had caught her flesh. She did not see him raise his arm again and the second blow struck her to the floor.
When she came to he had gone.
30
Drew Greenwood did not attend the next day’s meeting of the board of directors though his wife was there in her capacity as chairman. Strangely, she wore a close-fitting bonnet with a face veil, unlikely apparel for her elegance was now a byword in the Penfold Valley and the dark bonnet
was not as fashionable as it might have been.
The meeting was held in the quite splendid board room of the new Chapman mill. A great deal of worthwhile discussion occurred amongst the directors on the excellent start the new mill had made in its first year of trading. The interest and the dozens of enquiries they had received from men in the cotton industry had been extremely gratifying. They had a full work complement with every position filled, from managers right down to piecers and scavengers. The bales of raw cotton which had been stored in rented warehouses in readiness for the new mill had been opened, blended, carded, drawn out and spun and many thousands of yards of fine cloth had been woven. Providing there was no reduction in the supply of raw cotton which came, as they all knew, from the southern states of America, they would be able to promise a fine profit by the end of the financial year. If Mrs Greenwood would care to look over the figures for July she would be able to see at a glance that what Mr Bradley had forecast at the first board meeting a year ago was already taking place.
Tessa stared through her veil at the neat rows of figures put before her. Mr Bradley’s words about the supply of raw cotton and its connection with America rang in her head and more to divert these astute businessmen from her own odd appearance than from any particular desire to know, she asked:
‘Should we be worried then about the flow of cotton from America, in view of the possible war there?’
Will Broadbent leaned back in his chair and watched her admiringly. She had got over that first hurdle. Her own shrewdness had connected Mr Bradley’s remark with some small doubt on the matter of cotton supply, and these men about the table were pleasantly surprised by Mrs Greenwood’s grasp of the situation.
‘Well, it’s early days yet, Mrs Greenwood, but as you will have read in the newspapers there is some . . . shall we call it . . . disagreement between the northern and southern states of America. Now there appear to be many reasons why they are at odds with one another, difficult for those not involved to understand, but it seems to be more and more obvious that the cotton-growing states are certainly going to be affected. To what extent is yet to be seen. Already there has been some slowing down of supplies and we have men, agents, looking in the East and West Indies, in Egypt and India for alternative supplies, just in case, you understand.’
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