Reckless Griselda

by Harriet Smart

  The horses were made ready, and before mounting, Thorpe helped Griselda into the saddle.

  “How does that feel?” he asked.

  “Quite magnificent,” exclaimed Griselda, once she had settled in the saddle and the stable lad had released the leading rein. Bellefleur was eager to be off, as was Griselda, and they broke into a trot as soon as they left the cobbled yard.

  She could hear Thorpe coming up behind her and glanced back at him. He was turning Juno onto the broad swathe of grass that formed the open prospect from the windows of the house.

  “A race?” he asked, pointing with his whip. “That will put her through her paces. To the obelisk?”

  “Put me through my paces, don’t you mean?” said Griselda, feeling the excitement of the moment bubbling up in her. “Where’s the starting line?”

  Thorpe drew up his horse, and Griselda came alongside him. He gave her a rather wicked grin and Griselda, without wanting to, remembered how he had smiled when he had first seen her standing in her shift. If she had any sense of what was right, she would turn her horse around and go straight back to the stableyard, before returning to the house and shutting herself up in a closet with a book of sermons. Instead it seemed she was about to indulge herself again.

  “We can’t have a race without a wager,” she said. “What do you suggest?”

  “The winner claims a kiss,” said Thorpe.

  “And the loser?”

  “The loser submits.”

  “Very well,” said Griselda.

  They set off. Griselda was astonished at the sheer pleasure of riding such a powerful and well-schooled horse. Bellefleur wanted to gallop. There was no stubborness, just speed. The green turf seemed to vanish under her hooves and Griselda, delighted, urged her on.

  She expected to see Thorpe matching her, but he was not there. She drew up the reins and bringing Bellefleur to a halt, looked around. There, some twenty yards behind, Thorpe and Juno were taking a leisurely canter.

  He was letting her win.

  She turned Bellefleur and rode towards him

  “That’s hardly sporting,” she said.

  “But irresistable,” he said.

  They circled each other. Griselda was suddenly nervous with that sick feeling of guilt that came in the wake of her losing control again.

  “You agreed to the wager,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but…”

  “But?” he said, catching the bridle of her horse, and bringing Bellefleur towards him, to that they were facing each other, stirrup to stirrup.

  “I…”

  “You can’t go back on a wager,” he said. “Especially when you proposed it.”

  “And you shouldn’t cheat to get what you want.”

  “How do you know it isn’t what you want?” he said, and released the bridle. He was facing the obelisk and suddenly he was galloping off towards it. Griselda, who was facing back towards the house, had to turn her horse and make up as best she could.

  He won.

  ***

  A wager was a wager, of course, but Griselda was not a drinking companion. She was his wife and a lady.

  Did she want him to kiss her? He was certain that she did, or else why would she have agreed to it in the first place? And that sudden little interlude of doubt – that was her knotting up her conscience again in a web of nicety which he had to admit he found admirable. Misguided, but admirable.

  He relaxed in the saddle watching her make up the last few paces between them. She had slowed to a walk, as if she were suddenly afraid of him. And then his own certainty disappeared. He should not dismiss her conscience so quickly. That was not a honourable thing to do.

  She rode straight up to him and looked him straight in the face.

  “You win, sir,” she said.

  He took her gloved hand and bent over it, kissing it as lightly as he could.

  “Griselda,” he murmured, “I cannot bear…” He stayed there, bent over her hand, the smell of the leather filling his nostrils. She did not move her hand. He straightened up, still holding her hand and looked at her. “Do not be afraid.”

  Now she moved her hand away.

  “It is starting to rain,” she said, and Tom wondered if she had not just cast a spell on the clouds to get her out of an awkward situation. “We should get back to the house.”

  ***

  The rain came on heavily and sitting alone that afternoon in her little sitting room, Griselda felt she deserved the storm. She had forgotten herself and now she must sit in silence and deal with it.

  Worse still, the mail had come with a letter from Hugh:

  “Dear Griselda,

  Your cousin, I regret to say, is not well. She and my aunt remain at Cromer for the present – she is too indisposed to travel. I would like to be of some service to her, but I feel my very name is an object of pain to her.

  Heaven knows, I am not one to fall easily to judgement, but I cannot help but think this was very ill done. The cost of your folly has been high – though not to you, for you have all the honour of a very respectable position and I dare say Thorpe will not be suffering unduly. I trust you think of your cousin – in fact, I am sure you do, but I feel I must say I find this unforgivable.

  Why could you not be honest with me from the first? Why dissemble? You had every right to throw yourself on my protection after he had seduced you. And when you spoke of Thorpe so harshly…”

  Griselda threw down Hugh’s letter, having read it twice. She did not know why she had read it over again, except perhaps to extract some shred of comfort from it which she had missed.

  She remembered how she had waited for his letters at Glenmorval – then, they had been sustaining, but here there was only reproach. And to have Hugh reproach her was the worst thing in the world.

  She got up and went to the bureau where the household books had been arranged for her inspection. She was glad of the occupation. The management of a large house like Priorscote was no small thing, and Griselda was glad she had had the experience of Glenmorval to guide her. At least the housekeeper, Mrs Pierce, who had been in that position since Thorpe was a boy, seemed pleased that her new mistress knew what she was about.

  She picked up the books and went out of the room, having arranged to see Mrs Pierce in the still room about the preserves. She made her way through the enfilade of rooms from her sitting room: through the green state bedchamber and the ante-library until she reached the library itself.

  She could not stop herself lingering in the empty library, torturing herself with the sight of his things which were scattered carelessly about. He was not a methodical person at all – he needed the large expanse of several mahogany tables for his purposes – and books and papers littered the floor. A volume of Byron’s verses lay face down on a map of a farm, while a still unbound volume on the latest agricultural theories sat waiting with uncut edges on another table, in the company of one of his sketchbooks. She turned the pages of the sketchbook and found it was the one he had been using in the abbey. There was the rose window she had first seen him drawing and then on the following page she saw herself, stretched out on the ground and dozing, her hat covering her eyes. The paper was still puckered from where the rain had caught it, and the image itself was smudged, but the energy of it was undeniable. It caught the excitement of the moment in a way which made Griselda turn the page quickly.

  But it was not that easy to forget. She walked across the room, hugging herself for a moment, feeling under her fingertips the softness of the cashmere shawl, thinking of the pleasure of the ride they had taken that morning.

  Yes, she still wanted him. Standing there in the middle of his room, in the heart of his household and amongst all his possessions, her throat was dry with longing. In spite of everything. But she was not going to let those feelings rule her. She was determined she would not.

  ***

  Tom did not accompany her back to the house. Why would he, when he was likely to find the door sla
mmed in his face?

  As the day wore on, Tom found his confusion and frustration turned into anger, much as the weather worsened. He rode about for a while seeing to various matters on the estate, but only half-attending to the business in hand. She was always uppermost in his mind, like a wound that would not heal. She was making him feel like a whipped dog.

  And now his patience was exhausted. He was cold and wet and in need of yielding feminine company.

  On coming in, still dripping, he went straight up to her sitting room but he was annoyed to find she was not there. What he found instead was a letter from Hugh Farquarson lying on the floor. He glanced through it and then stormed out of the room.

  “Where is Lady Thorpe?” he asked the footman who was laying the fire in the library.

  “I believe she’s in the stillroom, sir.”

  There he found her being a paragon of wifely virtue in her apron, plucking the petals from dried roses to make pot pourri. Fortunately she was alone.

  He put the letter down on the table. She looked to see what it was and then at him.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  “I found it.”

  “You took a letter lying on my desk and read it?”

  “I came to see you, ma’am, and it was lying on the floor – for anyone to read.”

  She snatched it up and put it in her apron pocket.

  “How dare you!” she exclaimed. “Did you read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It must distress you to hear she is not well,” she said after a moment, tearing off a handful of rose petals.

  “Distress me? What do you imagine I am? To hear that she is ill. That we, by our thoughtless conduct have brought this about – ”

  “Yes,” she burst in. “And yet, last night you behaved as if this is something to celebrate. I am quite surprised to hear that it troubles you at all today.”

  “And you have a clear conscience on that? ”

  “No, of course I have not!” she exclaimed. “I have never felt more wretched. This is wrong, all wrong and we cannot pretend it can be right. Nothing can make it right.” She threw down the rose she had been destroying and walked to the window, her arms folded, her back to him.

  “I see,” he said, feeling the coldness in her voice.

  “If anything happens to her, it will be on my conscience for the rest of my life,” she said. “That is the long and the short of it. We have already ruined her happiness. We must pay for that.”

  Tom reached into the great earthernware crock and picked up a handful of dried rose petals. He opened his fingers and watched them slip through. She was still standing at the window, a tempting silhouette.

  He came up behind her, desperate to persuade her back to warmth. He could not bear this bleakness in her.

  “I want you,” he whispered, putting his hands on her shoulders.

  She turned, pushing him away,

  “How can you? How can you even think of that?” she said. There was real repulsion in her voice and it startled him.

  “You disgust me,” she said, and she ran past him and out of the room.

  He followed, angry at the insult and yet unconvinced, still needy of her. He pursued her along the service passageway and out into the main part of the house. They were at the foot of the oak stairs when Manton appeared from the entrance hall.

  “Sir Thomas, Sir Thomas, forgive me.”

  “What is it, Manton?”

  “There’s a man here. He says he has to see you. He has a writ which he can only deliver to your hand. I’ve done my best to send him away but he will not go.”

  “A writ?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I think we can guess what that is about,” Tom said to Griselda. “Either Amberleigh or Wansford has decided to sue me for breach of promise,” he said. “Manton, will you tell Gough to start packing for me? I will be leaving for town tomorrow.”

  “Yes, of course, sir.”

  “And tell the man with the writ I will see him in the business room directly. Give him something to eat and drink. He’s only a poor messenger.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  When Manton had gone, Griselda said,

  “To town?”

  “I must see my lawyers. I have no idea what a breach of promise case may entail.”

  “Am I to come with you?” she asked after a moment. She sounded as if she loathed the idea.

  “Oh, do whatever you wish,” he said exhausted with her suddenly. “It makes no odds to me.”

  Chapter 18

  “Will you look at these pier glasses, Georgie. Did you ever see the like? All those little Chinamen and fans and what not. And the gilding!” Lady Farquarson was beside herself with pleasure as she did a turn of the first floor drawing room of Thorpe’s house in Upper Brook Street. “I do not think I have ever seen a more elegant apartment in my life,” she went, “and one that so suits its lady. These green hangings could not be a better colour for your complexion.”

  “Sir Thomas tells me I am to redecorate as I please,” said Griselda.

  “You must not change a thing,” said Lady Farquarson. “Must she?”

  Sir George was clearly not in the mood for civil conversation. He drew up a chair to the fire and sat there scowling, while Lady Farquarson made her inspection of the drawing room.

  “Well, you look very fine, Griselda, I can say that for you,” said Sir George, after his first glass of Madeira. “The married state, however strangely arrived at, clearly suits you.”

  “Now Georgie, let’s have no more of that. What is done is done,” said Lady Farquarson.

  “And I’ll not forget how eager you were to make the match, ma’am,” he said sourly.

  “How is Caroline?” Griselda asked.

  “Your unfortunate cousin is at her brother’s house in town,” said Sir George.

  “I am glad to hear she was well enough to travel. Hugh said that she was – ”

  “Oh, she has a good constitution thank God – after all, she is a Farquarson. But this sort of thing blights a female for life, you know.”

  “Do you think I have not thought of that, Papa?”

  “I don’t believe you have. You were too interested in feathering your own nest. And a mighty pretty nest it is too. But all the gilded Chinamen and silk damask won’t take the stain out of your conduct.”

  “Now, George, I scarcely see the point of chiding the poor girl like this! She was not to know Sir Thomas had got himself so entangled afore she…”

  “Afore she let him tumble her? Well, she’d no business behaving in such a scandalous fashion to begin with. I should never have thought a child of mine could so forget herself and permit such liberties…” he broke off and gave Griselda a hard stare before finishing off his second glass of Madeira. He promptly poured himself another.

  “You cannot sit there drinking a man’s wine and talk like that, Georgie,” said Lady Farquarson, mildly. “Oh, what a prospect – the whole of the ton passing under your windows!”

  “No doubt whispering about the scandal.”

  “Well, I hope you are ready to be civil, for there’s a carriage drawing up this minute. Footmen with a sky blue and silver livery – is that not…”

  “The Duchess of Renfrew? Surely not?” said Sir George, jumping up from his seat and going to the window. “Good God, those are the arms, by heavens.”

  “The Duchess of Renfrew?” said Griselda. “What does she want?”

  “They say she’s a terrible taste for scandal,” said Lady Farquarson.

  “She probably wants to blacken our family name by putting about foul stories,” said Sir George, drinking some more Madeira. “You had better be civil to her, Grizzy, or you’ll never be received anywhere.”

  “I wonder if I ought to receive her at all,” Griselda said. “I am not at all sure I want to make her acquaintance.”

  “Not make her acquaintance?” said Sir George. “Merciful heavens, is there no end to your foll
y, child? You will charm her. It’s your only chance of putting this business behind you. If she takes to you, then…”

  Sir George got no further. Manton came into the room to ask if Lady Thorpe was at home, and a few minutes later, he announced:

  “Her Grace, the Duchess of Renfrew, and Lady Eliza Poole.”