Starrbelow

by Christianna Brand

  And saw there—the sudden withdrawal, the return of chill doubt, suspicion, distrust, disdain. With the parting of their lips, the old, cold sword of their common mistrust thrust its way between them, severing in one bleak moment two hearts and two bodies that in as brief a moment had come to their destiny, had come together as one. The blue eyes clouded, stared with blank horror into grey eyes grown hard and contemptuous with the flooding-back of remembered griefs, with the recollection of what he believed to be her perfidy; and, ignorant of that secret reason for his mistrust, saw there only a mocking triumph in so easy a conquest. One small gloved hand gathered up, automatically, the reins on her horse’s neck, she raised the other as though to strike the smile from his face—and saw that in truth no smile was there. Her hand dropped to the gathered reins, she bowed her head to conceal the starting tears. Why should I strike him? He offered me an insult and I in return have exposed my surrender like the slut he believes I am. Love him?—oh God yes! But what should he know or care for my love, who pursues me only because I am cheap and easy and unprotected, because the pursuit may serve to tantalize Christine whom he really loves?…

  He made no move to stop her as, white and weeping, she turned her horse and fled from him down the long avenue of the winter-sleeping trees.

  Back at Starrbelow, she went straight to her room and sent a maid to ask Lady Corby to come to her there.

  Aunt Corby said sharply, ‘Why did you not stay with the others?’

  ‘I did not wish to. They went on to the Castle: two gentlemen rode back with me.…’

  ‘If you’d gone to Frome Castle …’

  ‘Well, I did not go to Frome Castle, Aunt. I had something better to do.’ She had gone to the closet and was tossing her clothes out on to the bed. ‘I had to pack. I am leaving here: if you come with me, send for your woman and begin packing too.’

  ‘Leave here?… Pack?… You must be insane, Sophia.’

  ‘Very well, I’m insane. At any rate, I’m leaving this house.’

  ‘But Christine …’

  ‘Christine must do without me. She has managed her first entrée into society after last night’s débâcle—the rest will be not so difficult; I know, I know it all. And by now she will have met Lord Frome at the Castle; she has no more real need of me.…’

  ‘Sophia, I am telling you—if you had gone to the Castle—’

  ‘Aunt Marcia, before the party returns from Frome I shall have left this house. If you are not ready by then I shall go without you—as far as the inn, perhaps. I can go nowhere else—but here I won’t stay. Are you coming or are you not?’

  ‘No,’ said Lady Corby. ‘And neither are you going. You are staying with Christine.’ And she held up a hand that silenced Sophia until she had finished her sentence. ‘If you had gone to Frome Castle you would have known already that Lord Frome has left England. The moment the rest of his guests had gone, he started for the Continent—leaving no address.’

  ‘Well, all I can say of your lover,’ said Sophia again, ‘is that he must be a prig.’

  Christine leaned her white forehead against the cool pane and stared out over the park with sorrowful blue eyes. ‘You must understand Edward, Sophia. He hates—unreserve.’

  ‘But to fling off abroad because a young woman loses her head a little and strikes in the face a man who affronts her—’

  ‘You have just been affronted, you say; and by the same man. But you did not strike him.’

  ‘I intended to do the next best thing—to quit Starrbelow. Now, once more, through your troubles, Christine, I am tied here.’ She bit on her lip with the shame of it, the humiliation. ‘What can he think? Once again I alter my mind.…’

  ‘What do you care for what my cousin thinks? You do not like him, he annoys you by his flirtations, that is all.’ She begged: ‘Sophia, don’t leave me. Stay my friend.’

  ‘Oh, I am your friend—more your friend, Christine, than you will ever know.’ But she melted from her mood of resentful agony. ‘Don’t mind me, dearest, your cousin challenges me with his attentions and it irks me not to end them once and for all: it is no more. For the rest …’ For the rest, she said, surely Christine should take heart of grace. ‘Lord Frome would hardly journey to the Continent for every young woman whose conduct failed to rise to his standards. Does this not show he loves you?’

  ‘Then the worse for me, Sophia, if I have failed him.’

  ‘He will come back, my pet; be patient. And I,’ she said, wearily, ‘I, I promise you, will be patient too.…’

  Lord Greenewode rode across the park with Sir Francis Erick. ‘Alas for your sentimentalisms, my dear Frank! Your dove is attacked by the eagle, we all saw it happen, and though Weyburn smiles grimly and returns no answer when he’s quizzed with it, I’ll swear by the set of her back, the arch of her throat, nay, by the look on her face as she rode home through the park with Red, that she gave back the kiss. And a most accomplished performance, moreover, or I know nothing of women! Whether or not, however, she flies off to Starrbelow with feathers ruffled to a fine show of indignation—and flies no further! That’s ten guineas Reddington owes me: he wagered she wouldn’t endure it.’ He added: ‘If you ask me, Frank, Squire Reddington fancies the dove for his own cote.’

  ‘She’d better beware of that net,’ said Sir Francis, uneasily.

  Lord Greenewode laughed. ‘What—you too? You are all bewitched by this little Italian schemer.’

  ‘I think it is the aunt who pipes the tune; the poor little girl just dances.’

  ‘I have small faith,’ said Lord Greenewode, looking with his sad, dark eyes at the merry blue eyes of his friend, ‘in your poor little girls who dance to such tunes as that.…’

  And there was dancing indeed at Starrbelow in those days, a sort of fever of revelry that gathered momentum as the week went by and all the world watched the progress of the eagle in pursuit of the dove. From London came news of mounting excitement, of side-bets far exceeding the value of the original, of gossip and scandal eagerly devouring the latest tidings of what went forward at Starrbelow; of green-eyed envy of those who were here to judge for themselves, moment by moment, the swing of events. The scandal-sheets flourished with lies and distortions and ugly, ill-composed sets of verse, every booth in the pleasure gardens had its version, sentimental or obscene, of Lord Weyburn’s wooing; Lady Corby’s maid grew insolent-rich on bribes. At the storm centre, conscious of mounting, inexplicable excitement, conscious of being—but well used by now to being—the focal point of gossip, Sapphire walked and rode and danced; speaking little, wearing the secret smile, lowering her white lids ever over the anguish of the proud blue eyes. Only give me strength to endure it with patience, and one day Christine must release me from the debts of my gratitude: one day she will be happy again and I dismissed. And God grant, she prayed, that Christine might never know, what no one must ever know—the true cost to her, the true pain behind the superficial pain of enduring the insult of addresses which she believed to be paid to her only by way of revenge upon her friend. Meanwhile she had long ago written to her father imploring him to pay off at all costs, to mortgage her whole future if he must, and pay off such debts as they had incurred with Aunt Corby. One day this will be over for ever, one day I shall return to Venice.…

  She held the answering letter in her hand on the day that Lord Weyburn proposed.

  She held the letter in her hand, tucked into her velvet muff; but she knew its contents by heart already—a letter from her mother, not her father, written in Italian, in the sloping Italian hand she wrote herself: beloved daughter, figlia mea—imagine my distress—your father unwell—opened the letter—have not dared to show it to him yet.… And money, money, money.… No money even for the journey home, let alone to repay all that had been poured out on her by the Corbys during her sojourn in England. All, all had long ago gone in training her for this part which it had ever been her father’s incomprehensible longing that she should one day play: in the dancin
g lessons and the singing lessons, in the lessons in deportment and the arts a young lady of the English ton must practise: in suitable housing, in suitable furnishing, in suitable dress so that when the time came, as he had known it must, she should be at home in the world which had once been his own. No money left: no money to repay all that had been spent since. And yet—And yet if you are unhappy, my dearest, my darling, cara, carissima, then of course you must come home. He must be made to understand and accept, your aunt can be paid off at last, she is rich, she will not mind the waiting: we can work, you and I will work and save and over the years, somehow we will repay. Think seriously of it, for it will break his heart; but if you are unhappy, of course you must come home.…

  It had been handed to her late in the evening, she had read it by the light of one of the great, glowing braziers that ringed the moonlit silver of the frozen lake where small boys roasted chestnuts and handed them round to the quality, gaping at the fine ladies in their velvet cloaks and furs. If you are unhappy, then of course you must come home.…

  Lord Weyburn walked across the ice to her as she wandered solitary by the margin of the lake, her thoughts a thousand miles away. ‘You are alone, Miss Devigne?’

  ‘By preference, my lord.’

  He put up his hand to steady himself against an overhanging bough. They were at the far end of the lake, away from the clustered groups closer to the house. He looked into her face and saw that it was softened, not the face he knew, habitually smiling that little scornful smile. If she would but look at me like this, he thought.… And he remembered the response of her kiss by the gilded gate and thought that if she were but true, no woman in the world could be more fit for a man to call his wife. For under the scorn, he thought, she is warm and kind, and tender and passionate and, God knows! beautiful; and clever and wise and witty and gay—if she were but true. But could she be true? A trick had been played and all she had done since had shown her—surely?—to be cognizant of that trick; she had played a game that had never seemed other than false—withdrawing, withholding, repudiating, threatening: always in the end to give way. And yet this look of softness, of gentle sorrow … His hand touched the little velvet muff. ‘It’s the turn of the year. You are thinking perhaps of home?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of Venice.’

  ‘Venice must be beautiful in the winter.’

  ‘Venice is always beautiful,’ she said, sick with nostalgia.

  ‘I have seen Canaletto’s pictures; and Signor Guardi’s.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Francesco’s—the Guardis are friends of ours at home. And their pictures are lovely. And yet—who can paint Venice?—when she is all grey and silver in the wintertime, with the sunshine thin on the islands beyond the still water, as I have seen it so often; and the fishing-boats making black patterns across it with their high, curving prows.…’ And she opened her dark blue eyes full upon him and looked for the first time steadily and directly into his face: and looked through and beyond him, out of her sorrow into forgetfulness and so back to joy again; and did not see him at all.

  He stood looking down at her, very close to her; and knew again the longing to take her into his arms, to hold her close, to catch her to him with violence and hold her close and, in a passion of violence, make her his own. I am sick, he thought; I am sick of a fever—and he swore to himself that this was not love but only a sickness, a fever, of physical desire that tormented his waking hours and all his dreams. But in the moonlight he saw how the tears glittered on the thick lashes fringing her heavy white eyelids, and all in a moment his mood changed to one of tenderness and a sort of peace. ‘You are crying,’ he said, and bent his head and kissed her gently, brushing her eyelids with his lips, tasting the salty sweetness of her tears; and put his arm about her and held her lightly, as though she had been a much-loved child. And she, half unaware, lost in her dreams, relaxed against his shoulder, luxuriated in the old forgotten joy of simple kindliness and tenderness, the old, safe, uncomplicated happiness of home. I am going home, she thought. No need any more to scratch and fight, no need any more to defend with the new-forged weapons of her bitterness and scorn, the citadel of wounded pride: no need any more for the heartache and the pain. When hope is dead, love will die, too, and I shall forget. Once away from this place, seeing him no more, suffering no more this mockery of courtship for Christine’s benefit—I shall forget. I am going home.

  He stood for a long time leaning back against the great tree with the overhanging bough, holding her lightly, almost impersonally, in the circle of his arm; and after a while slipped down his hand and took her hand from its little muff and held it in his own; and after a while again raised it to his lips and kissed her fingers and laid his cheek against it and at last, she unresisting, let his mouth wander over it, softly and sensuously, tasting the scented sweetness of it for a moment with the tip of his tongue; all the time holding her gently, relaxed against his breast. ‘You are delicious,’ he said to her. ‘You are like the salted apricots we preserve here in the summer months at Starrbelow—your tears are salt and your hand is honey-sweet when I touch it with my tongue.’ And he brushed back a stray curl that had fallen, heavily gold, against her cheek and said: ‘You belong to Starrbelow. You must never go back to Venice.’

  If you are truly unhappy, of course you must come home.… ‘I am going back there,’ she said dreamily, only half hearing him. ‘I am going home to Venice.’

  As though some delicate piece of glass had been dropped and broken, the mood changed, shivered into a thousand fragments, the look of sweetness and tenderness that had come to his face was gone. He said abruptly: ‘Why do you persist in this wearisome game of evasion, why these everlasting fabrications about your going home? We both know very well that you are remaining here.’

  ‘I?’ she said, startled. ‘Remaining here? In England?’

  ‘At Starrbelow.’ He said roughly: ‘Let there be no pretence at least between you and me. You are remaining at Starrbelow—as my wife.’

  Now indeed he got the full blaze of her eyes. She stared at him in utter astonishment. ‘I? As your wife? I don’t understand you, my lord.’

  What an actress, he thought; or—could it be possible?… Well, he could soon discover: he had but to put her to the test; he had but to ask and if she refused, if she persisted in refusal, then he would know that she at least had been no party to the conspiracy. A fine position for a prospective lover, he thought to himself, ruefully: if I am accepted, I shall know her for a cheat and adventuress: only if she is true and—and therefore infinitely lovely and desirable, shall I have lost her! Meanwhile, she gazed rapt in astonishment up into his face. ‘I do not understand you.’

  ‘Then you are more—innocent—madame, than I took you for.’ And I a fool, he thought, to lose my head and bruise my heart again, to be taken in by this play-acting little coquette. He smiled down at her mockingly. ‘Do you not know as well as I—’ He broke off; he began again. ‘I must be one of the very few men existing, must I not, madame, who can literally say that at the first instant he saw her, he knew that a woman was destined to be his wife?’

  And I? she thought. What did I not know in that first moment, walking forward into the silence, meeting your eyes?… But she could not believe, she could not trust. She stammered out faintly again: ‘I do not understand you, my lord. Is this some new insult?’

  He moved impatiently. ‘It appears to be my fate that any woman I offer my hand to regards it as an insult. You at least, however, have not slapped my face.’

  ‘It is but a week, sir, since—that other offer.’

  ‘That book is closed,’ he said. ‘A new one is opened.’

  She looked at him doubtfully. ‘In the course of one week?’

  ‘In the course of one hour: in the course of one moment. I left my cousin, I walked through to the ballroom, a door opened and you came in; in that moment the book of Christine was closed, was sealed up for ever—and a new book opened.’ And he thr
ust his hand into a pocket and brought out something that glittered in his palm—a rainbow of ice and fire. ‘Come, madame—here is the Weyburn betrothal ring. I have carried it since the night of my cousin’s ball: since the night she refused it.’ He did not say ‘since the night I made a wager which I now must win’, but he looked a challenge and she, all-ignorant of the test inherent in the challenge, was too stunned to do more than gaze back at him, trembling and bewildered. ‘Then give me your hand.’ And he took it roughly, almost violently, forcing it apart from its fellow, and thrust the great ring on her finger and let go of her to execute a bow and a flourish, ugly with the mockery of her duplicity and of his own sharp pain at finding her false after all. ‘Forgive me if I leave you now and go back to the house and prepare them for the news. I will summon an escort; the future Lady Weyburn must not wander the garden alone like some unknown—adventuress.’ Without a further word he was gone, walking away swiftly towards a group of servants beside one of the braziers. He returned with a couple of men. ‘Attend Miss Devigne at her leisure back to the house.’ To Sophia he said: ‘You will need a moment, doubtless, to prepare yourself for your—reception’, and he bowed once more and caught and kissed the nerveless hand weighted down with the great diamond ring; and was gone again.

  Very pale, dazed, trembling, speechless, she stumbled after the lackeys and back to the house.

  SIX

  In January, letters came from Venice. Her father, ambition satisfied, now realized too late that his treasure was cut off from him for ever and, ageing and delicate, was fretting himself into a fever of remorse and anxiety. It was impossible, of course, the mother wrote, that he should come to England, nor could she herself leave him. It was a great deal to ask, but could not Sophia return to Venice for even a little while before her marriage?…

  Lord Weyburn had left Starrbelow almost directly after the betrothal and gone abroad, declaring his intention of seeking Lord Frome who appeared to have cut himself off altogether from England. Sophia took the letter to her aunt. ‘I must go to Italy.’