by Jean Plaidy
Tom Blake was talking to Carolan in his stilted way; in every tone of his voice, in every glance.he expressed his admiration.He had got the land; he had got a grant from the government. There was more money to be made in this new country than in the old. One day and that day not far distant he might be a rich man. Marcus talked to Esther, their heads close together. He was tired of a criminal’s life; he had seen a chance to escape it, escape it for ever. Could he not expiate his sins of the past by leading an exemplary life? Eventually he would get his ticket of leave; a ticket of leave man was all but free. And if he worked hard, became a respectable, honest citizen … why, what did this country need to exploit its riches as much as respectable, honest citizens? He had practised deceit, God knew, to get to this; but could he not work out his salvation?
Oh, he could! He could! Miss Mealy Mouth clasped her hands, and her eyes adored him. Margery laughed into her glass. She thought she loved him for his strivings towards the right; but she loved him for his merry blue eyes, and the movements of his hands, and the softness of his voice and the things he said, and the way he could caress a woman with a smile or a word. Did she not see that he was playing her off against Carolan, just as Carolan was playing off this other fellow against him? And all the time they wanted one another, were made for one another.
James put his head round the door; he jerked his head towards Carolan.
“She’s wanted upstairs… sharp!” Carolan stood up, a hostess no longer, a servant, a convict servant.
“Goodbye,” she said, all gracious again.
“I shall see you again soon, I hope.”
Tom Blake rose to his feet and took the hand she offered. He looked as if he would have bowed had he not felt that he would appear ridiculous so doing. Marcus looked on superciliously.
“Goodbye,” said Carolan, and her eyes flicked him hastily.
Marcus stood up. He bowed ironically.
“Such a pity you have to go when we were enjoying ourselves so much!”
She moved towards the door, gracious as a queen. A pity she hadn’t a train to sweep instead of that faded old yellow!
When she had gone there seemed no longer any point in continuing the party. The men left. Esther went back to her sink. Margery started to scold her; she felt rather ashamed of herself and had to take it out of someone.
Carolan went slowly upstairs. She felt strung up, full of sadness and cynicism, thinking: First I loved a coward; then I loved a rogue. My own fault for loving the wrong people. Poor Everard, he had had a mission in life; he had had a family; they were too strong for him. And Marcus? Marcus had had bad luck and the cruelty of life was too strong for him, so he became a schemer and a rogue and a philanderer and a prostitute. I loved the wrong people.
She tapped at Mrs. Masterman’s door. There was no answer, so she went in. The room was empty.
A voice called: “In here please!”
It was Mr. Masterman in the toilet-room.
Her colour heightened, a certain fear rising within her, she went through.
He was standing with his back to the door, and he was holding something in his hands. He did not turn. It seemed that he did not want to look at her.
“This coat of mine,” he said.
“I have spilt some wine on it. My wife tells me that you remove stains from her garments most satisfactorily …”
She approached. She took the coat from him.
“I will do my best,” she said, and she could not prevent a cold dignity from creeping into her voice.
Thank you,” he said.
She took the coat, and as she took it she lifted her face and looked at him; he was looking at her. There was a trace of interest in his eyes. She felt the blush deepen in her cheeks. He had noticed her then! Even he! He was interested in her … mildly of course. It was funny. It made her want to laugh, and she had need of laughter. She smiled at him shyly.
He said: “Do you think you will be able to remove the stain? It is a good coat.”
She said again: “I will do my best.”
“That… that is good of you.”
“I will sponge it first and see what happens. Velvet is not easy to treat.”
“I should imagine it was more difficult than… than…”
He was bashful, bashful as a schoolboy. What was this power she had inherited from her mother and her grandmother and her great-grandmother, the power that could make cold Mr. Masterman bashful as a schoolboy? But it could not win Marcus’s fidelity, nor give Everard courage; those were what she had wanted from those two. What did she care for this man! But she needed to laugh, and she could laugh at him.
She laid the coat out on a table, and touched the stain with a finger. She had a sudden suspicion that he might have spilt the wine purposely, because he wished for this interview with her. That would be like him, calculating. He was attracted by her; did she not know the signs? She thought of that sickly woman, his wife, locking the door, having the key pushed under it. There was a certain balm in teasing him, this cold, unemotional man who was suddenly not quite so cold, not quite so emotionless.
He said: “You are happier than you expected you would be?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You must have suffered a good deal.”
She lifted her face to his, and the tears were in her eyes. They were real tears; they were born of anger and self-pity; but they were very effective, more so than tears of sorrow would have been, and in any case he was a novice in his knowledge of women and would not know the difference.
He quickly looked away from her, and said slowly: “If… if it is any satisfaction to you, I should like you to know that I believe in your innocence.”
“Thank you,” she said, and smiled through her tears.
Lucille Masterman said: “I am tired now, Carolan. It is not a very exciting book, is it! I am sure your voice is tired too. Draw the blinds; the sun hurts my eyes. Do you find this sun overbearing too? Thank heaven March will soon be out. How I look forward to the winter! Not that I shall be able to entertain much; I simply have not the strength.”
Carolan closed the book. In the last weeks her status in this house had risen considerably. In the kitchen they regarded her with awe: she was not there often now. She still slept in the basement with the others, but she was not required to do any of those menial tasks which she loathed. Sometimes she polished the glasses. Mrs. Masterman said: “See that they come shining to the table, Carolan. You know what these people are … they have simply no idea …” Carolan this, Carolan that; and once, Carolan, my dear. And all due to that cunning she had learnt from Marcus. She had been sympathetic to Lucille, had listened to her talk with obvious interest; she had invented a disease which had killed her grandmother; it was something like the one from which Lucille imagined herself to be suffering. And now, she put away the clothes, she sewed them not that she liked sewing; but she preferred it to peeling potatoes and washing floors. She read aloud to Mrs. Masterman; she kept her engagement book; she waited at table. Visitors said: “What a good-looking girl, and so refined! My dear, you were lucky.” And Mrs. Masterman would sigh and say: “Oh, it was Gunnar… you know he’s so clever, and of course he always gets what he wants.” She had grown from a lower to an upper servant. Mrs. Masterman depended on her.
“Carolan, where did I put those pills? Carolan, pour out my medicine; you know just how much water. Carolan, spray a little perfume on my handkerchief, and lay it across my forehead. You can have no idea how my head aches. Pull the curtains and read to me. I find it so soothing.” She was not unkind by any means. She was rarely out of temper, and she could always be lulled into sweetness by a discussion on her health or on England. She had a nostalgia for England that was in itself a sickness. She said: “It hurts me here to think of it.” And she would touch her heart and wipe away a few tears.
“The river, all silver and shining in sunlight, and the barges floating down it. My grandmother had a house in Kensington, Carolan. Mamma
was wrong to marry a soldier. Mamma had a wonderful time in her young days; she used to tell me of it. Walking in the park with her nurse! Going to Ranelagh! Going to the play! It was all fun and parties and balls. Such beautiful clothes she used to wear. She fell in love with my papa at one of the balls. They danced a minuet and were head over heels in love. So she married him, little thinking of all that a soldier’s life entailed. Poor Mamma! She suffered as I do. There were no more children; she said I nearly killed her. I used to massage her forehead when she had a bad headache. I must show you how to do it. It is most soothing. I used to give her her medicine. She spent most of her days on a couch. And then she died, and papa came out here, and it was here that I met Mr. Masterman.”
It was easy to piece together her story, to see her as the over-serious little girl with the sickly mamma. Her childhood would have been spent among tonics and pills. That had had its effect upon her and she was like a little girl with her treasures when she talked of her medicines.
Carolan was cunning, feigning sympathy where she felt nothing but contempt.
“Really,” Lucille Masterman would say to whoever cared to listen, “I do not know what I would do without Carolan!” And Carolan, feeling that life was cruel and that she had been selected for special persecution, suppressed all her natural softness and decided to play Marcus’s game.
Before the finding of the laudanum, Lucille Masterman had been the mistress casting favours on a convict servant who pleased her; but the discovery of the bottle changed that.
Carolan went in one day and found Lucille sleeping deeply, and on her bedside table was the bottle and a glass. Carolan smelt the glass; then she picked up the bottle, took out the cork and sniffed its contents. For the moment she thought that Lucille had killed herself.
She sat on the bed looking at her. A year ago, Carolan would have been horrified by death; now to contemplate it left her almost unmoved. She was young to have arrived at such indifference, but it was due to her very youth that she had hardened so quickly. She had little pity for Lucille because Lucille was a fool who did not know what it meant to suffer hardship. Hunger, thirst, the lash they were merely words to her, words which described the trials that fell upon people who deserved them. The way in which Lucille spoke of these people fully expressed her indifference to them. She chose to believe that Carolan was innocent because Carolan had not begun life by being poor, and because she could talk about ailments and England for as long as Lucille wished. It was convenient to believe in Carolan; it was pleasant to have her acting as lady’s maid and parlour maid, because in a land like this the servants who usually came one’s way were murderers, thieves, or prostitutes, petty criminals or hardened ones. It was the insecurity of Carolan’s position that helped in the hardening process. She knew that at any time she could be passed on to another household; a word from a master or a mistress could mean the triangle. She had missed it so far, but there were nearly seven long years of captivity before her. She was playing cunningly, and softness did not blend very well with cunning. So she watched the woman and wondered about her life with her husband, and as she thought of the man, her eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth quivered with cynical amusement. For this silent man was being slowly dragged from his virtuous ways by the eyes of Carolan, by his growing awareness of her youthful body beneath the yellow garment of slavery. She rejoiced in the feeling of power which that gave her. So demure she was in his presence, never looking at him if she could help it lest he should see the laughter in her eyes. She was angry with the world, and on whom could she better vent her anger than on these Mastermans who. so strangely, both wanted something from her! She was a young animal licking her wounds and growling all the time, ready to snap, ready to hurt others as she had been hurt. She held herself cruelly aloof from Marcus; she smiled ravishingly on Tom Blake, trying to make him believe she was the woman he had longed for all his life; she was short with Esther she hated herself for that. for what had Esther done to her but be an exasperating saint,and was sweet and patient with Lucille because she wanted her interest; she was alluring yet demure before that silent man who was Lucille’s husband, because she felt that to nourish that flicker of attraction he felt for her into a mighty flame was going to be to her advantage. He, the master, would be the slave; that would amuse her; that would make life bearable. I am loathsome, she thought, as she sat on the bed and watched Lucille. And she tried to think of other Carolans; the little girl who had cried when a doll was broken, because she thought the doll was in pain; the girl who had ridden her first pony and flung her arms round the neck of the blacksmith because she loved everybody on that day; the girl who had gone to her first ball and been so in love with life because Everard loved her. They were lost, those Carolans. Mother Newgate had caught up with them, and like a mischievous child with a pencil had added a touch here, a touch there, and so altered them completely.
Lucille opened her eyes; her pupils looked strange, so that she was unlike herself.
She said drowsily: “Gunnar … Oh, Carolan …”
Carolan answered: “You were sleeping deeply.”
The eyelids flickered.
“Carolan, if… anyone … should call, tell them I am not very well today. I shall sleep a bit.”
Carolan took up the bottle and put it away in the medicine chest. She took the glass and tiptoed to the door.
“Carolan, where are you going?”
To leave you to sleep.”
“Do not go. I was very tired. I did not sleep a wink all night. Sit down … and pull the curtains together, Carolan; the sun hurts my eyes.”
Carolan obeyed.
“I am an unhappy woman, Carolan.” Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes. Carolan took a lace-edged handkerchief from under her pillow and wiped them.
“Life is cruel, Carolan.”
Carolan wanted to laugh. Cruel? What do you know of cruelty? Have you lain in the stench of Newgate? Have you tried to sleep in the fetid atmosphere of the women’s quarters on a prison-ship? Have you felt the lice crawling in your hair? Have you seen rats so bold that they sit on their hind quarters insolently eating the food they have stolen from you, because they know you’re not strong enough to stop them?
She veiled her eyes.
“Yes. M’am!” she said softly.
“My husband … he does not really care for me.”
“M’am, shall I lay a perfumed cloth across your head? I sweat you have a headache.”
“Thank you, Carolan. My head is whirling. Your hands are so gentle. It is good to have someone to look after me. I have come to rely on you. He does not care; it is obvious, is it not, even to you?”
“Come,” said Carolan, “I would not say that. You have a comfortable house, M’am, servants to wait on you. You have beautiful clothes to wear.”
“What are these things, Carolan!”
What were they indeed! Were you put in a shapeless yellow garment to brand you as a slave, you would know what it meant to feel silk against your skin! Had you lived in Newgate you would love your feather bed! Had you scrubbed floors and peeled potatoes and done a hundred menial tasks, you would know what it meant to have servants to wait on you!
“They are something, M’am,” she said mildly.
“He is very angry that there are no children, Carolan. He is a very ambitious man. He was nothing … nothing in the beginning: he has risen up from nothing. He was not the man for me; not quite … a gentleman, you know. Papa did not want me to marry him at first, but when he saw what he was doing -climbing steadily, Carolan he was not averse to the match. In fact he encouraged it.”
How dilated her eyes! Although she spoke Carolan’s name, and although her eyes never left her face, she was like a woman talking to herself.
“When I married him I was twenty-four, and yet I knew nothing of what marriage would mean.”
At Haredon one seemed to have been born with such knowledge. Conversations with servants, sly hints from Jennifer, the coa
rseness of the squire, the coquetry of Mamma, the intrigues fostered by Therese, even the primness of Aunt Harriet, had all seemed to teach one.
“He is not an easy man to live with.”
Inwardly she laughed. You do not know how to treat him, Madam! Were I in your shoes … She could scarcely suppress her laughter at the thought of herself in Madam’s shoes.
“Carolan, can you keep a secret?”
“You can trust me with anything, M’am.”
“Five years ago I was very ill. No one knew how ill. No one knew what I suffered.” Was that all! Another illness!
“I am so sorry. Your life seems to have been made up of illnesses.” Sarcasm was lost on the poor drugged creature.
This was different, Carolan. There is no one listening, is there? I was going to have a child. I was terrified. In my state of health, you see… Imagine it!”
“You could not face it,” said Carolan.
“How well you understand. No, I could not face it. There was a man here… a servant to one of my friends… a superior sort of convict who had been a doctor. He… he did this for me. It cost a good deal of money___even a convict wants money for that sort of thing. And… he helped me out of my trouble. You see, I could not face it… the thought of having a child … out here in this primitive country. I was never meant to live here. At home in London I should have been terrified too, but here I could not face it; it was certain death. And the pain I suffered even then was frightful, Carolan. And I had to suffer it in silence, for I was terrified that he should know.”
Poor little coward, thought Carolan contemptuously, but she was glad he had been cheated of his child.
“I… I could not go through that again.” She sat up, her eyes staring wide.
“Carolan, the bottle, where is it?”
“I have put it away,” said Carolan.
“Oh …” She sank down on her pillows, “it is so soothing … and I could not sleep. I do not want him to find it.”
