by Mary Mackie
She slapped her riding crop hard across her mount’s rump. It reared, its eyes wild, forelegs flailing, then thudded to earth and set off at a gallop, its rider urging it to greater effort.
Around me the birds sang, building nests. The hedge was thick with bursting buds, the breeze spoke of milder days to come. I loved the spring, but at that moment I was cold as winter.
* * *
The following Tuesday I drove to my rendezvous with Geoffrey with his wife’s words echoing in my mind. ‘The others… just passing fancies. Men will take their pleasure…’ I wanted to trust Geoffrey. I did believe in him. And yet… and yet I was tormented by the insecurity that is the lot of all mistresses. How could I be sure of him? If I were just one of many… I couldn’t bear the thought.
‘Be his mistress if it makes him happy…’ By giving me her permission, she had made it impossible for me to go on.
Leaving my trap outside a hotel on the square, I made my way through the town to Greyfriars Gate like one sleep-walking. Yet I was seeing clearly for the first time in weeks. I hated all this deceit and subterfuge. Once, when I was an innocent of eighteen, deception had been an excitement, a giddy game with love as the prize. Now my adult-self saw the tawdriness of it: my adult-self was tormented by self-disgust. This would be the last time. That I promised myself.
On that day the room seemed all the more threadbare, its furnishings mean and worn, its adornments cheap gloss on dross. Someone had been cooking cabbage nearby; the smell had permeated the room, adding to the musty, stale-sweat odour. I had time to savour it, for Geoffrey was late. Waiting, I sat in the sagging armchair, whose bright cushion covers could not disguise the worn places where horsehair poked through, coarse and black.
Hearing the passage door close, and eager footsteps on the bare stairs, I got to my feet and stood tensely facing the door as Geoffrey came in. He tossed his hat aside and started towards me, saying, ‘Forgive me, love, I was detained by some fool of a—’ and then he saw my face and stopped. ‘What’s wrong?’
I had intended to be cool and dignified, but my plans went awry as I threw out my hands in a gesture of anger and futility. ‘What could be wrong? Except that I had a visit from your wife.’
His arms, held out to hold me, fell to his sides, and it was as though a light went out behind his eyes. ‘Ah,’ was all he said, but the syllable held a world of meaning. It seemed to declare his guilt.
‘Is that all you have to say?’ I cried. ‘You let me believe I was the only one. You let me come here to this awful place, and all the time…’ A shudder ran through me. ‘I feel dirty. Soiled. Used! How many other women have you brought here?’
Unable to bear the pain I saw in his face I turned away, going to the window, where down in the yard a thin dog was tied, and next to it a crawling baby, also tethered as it played in the dirt under a line of listless, discoloured washing. I felt sick with self-loathing.
‘None,’ he said in a strange, soft voice that made me look sharply round.
‘Don’t lie to me!’
‘I’ve never lied to you! How many times must I say…?’ His anger died as swiftly as it had come. ‘I suppose I haven’t been completely honest, either. But I promise you, I’ve brought no other woman here. N-not here.’
Not here. The implications resounded between us like the echo of hammer on anvil.
‘Then where?’ I choked. ‘Have you found more salubrious quarters for your other doxies?’
His face twisted in a grimace that may have been meant as wry humour but looked more like pain. ‘Just what did Lucy say, Rose, that made you hate me so? D-did she tell you that I’m a lecher? A wretched seducer?’
‘She told me there had been other women. Many other women.’
For a moment he stood there, watching me, eyes bright, with both irony and despair.
‘Do you deny it?’ I cried.
‘No.’ He threw himself down in the lumpy armchair, sighing heavily, saying wretchedly, ‘No, Rose, I don’t deny it. Yes, there have been other women. But not here. Not since you and I have…’
Turning away, I stared unseeingly at the smeared window, fiercely denying the tears that came crowding in my head.
‘For most of them it was their t-trade,’ Geoffrey said.
I spun round, crying, ‘What?’
‘Well, what did you think?’ he asked, eyes sparking in a face pale with anger. ‘Of course there have been other women – enough to keep me sane. I took my comfort where I could, from women who were willing to give, if only in return for money. I’m a man, not a celibate monk!’
‘You have a wife!’
He leapt up, throwing out his arms. ‘A wife who is no wife!’
I stared at him, uncomprehending.
‘I see she forgot to tell you that!’
Feeling myself tremble, I managed, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘No? Nor I!’ He swept a hand through his hair, staring at me with hard bright eyes. ‘But the fact is she can’t bear to be touched. N-not in that way. Not as a wife should. What was I supposed to do, Rose? Comfort myself with c-c-c-cold baths?’
In a passion of despair he pushed past me and stood staring down at the fire, his hands raking again and again in his hair, combing it back and back and back. ‘It was not my choice. Not my choice. I would have been faithful to her, if only…’
Chills of horror ran through me. Hurting for him, I went to him, reaching to his shoulder. ‘Geoffrey…’
He snapped his arm down so suddenly that his elbow caught me in the face. I reeled away, yelping with pain, a hand to my eye, as with an exclamation of dismay Geoffrey turned and grabbed me, saving me from falling, saying anxiously, ‘I’m sorry. Oh, love, I’m sorry. I had no idea you were so close. Have I hurt you? Let me see…’
The heat of the bruise was high on my cheekbone, just under my left eye, but it was nothing compared to the fire that sprang into life between us as we looked into each other’s eyes and I saw his anguished tears.
‘I have never loved any woman but you,’ he vowed hoarsely. ‘Do you believe me?’
Feeling the immediate response in my womb, I could only obey the dictates of my heart. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to hold on to the one dream that had endured for me. Even his wife had said that he cared for me in a special way.
How does one explain the mindless madness of desire? It comes without warning, without bidding. As one, we reached for each other like starving beasts, made more eager by our brief misunderstanding. For a while we had feared that we were losing each other. Now we pressed together, unable to be close enough, hating the thickness of winter clothes between us. Our hands tore and fumbled with buttons and fastenings and flowing skirts. Still dressed, too impatient to wait, we fell together on to the sagging bed, our bodies seeking, finding, joining… This time the ecstasy swept both of us up and carried us on together, to a peak where a cry escaped me as I felt his climax catch him unawares and my own delight overflowed in a rush of fulfilment.
Afterwards we lay together, holding tightly to each other until our breathing quieted and the beat of our blood calmed to a normal rate.
‘I’m sorry,’ he kept muttering. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t intend…’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I whispered recklessly. ‘It doesn’t matter. What will be, will be. Let fate decide.’
‘I love you.’ Then he lifted himself to look at me, and what he saw made his eyes fill with rueful laughter. ‘Oh, love… You’re still wearing your hat!’
He was still reluctant to speak of his marriage; he felt it was disloyal, that the problem was his and Lucy’s, not mine.
‘You’ve said too much to stop now,’ I reasoned. ‘I want to know, Geoffrey. When she agreed to be your wife she surely knew what marriage meant. Are you saying she refuses to—’
‘It’s not like that.’ Wearily he rolled on to his back and lay staring at the damp patch on the ceiling. ‘She doesn’t refuse. She doesn’t have to. Seeing her go pale, stari
ng at me, shrinking from me, near fainting with fear, shaking so violently she might have fever… God knows I’m no saint, but neither am I a ravisher of terrified virgins.’
‘You mean… you’ve never made love to her at all?’
‘No, never.’
The idea was inconceivable. ‘But… is she ill?’
‘Perhaps. In her mind, anyway. Don’t ask me to explain it, for I can’t. She’s a confused child.’
‘Then why did you marry her?’
Sighing, he shook his head, rubbing his face as if he were tired. ‘It seemed to be my duty.’
The match had been planned for years. Their mothers, Lady Devlin and Lady Elston, were second cousins; Sir Arthur Devlin and Lord Elston had long engaged in joint business ventures. Both families having only one child, they had decided to merge their fortunes in the marriage of their offspring.
‘I knew that there was an agreement of sorts,’ Geoffrey told me. ‘But Lucy is eight years younger than I. She was little more than a thin, shy, nervous babe when I first knew her. The idea of our marriage was far off in a future that might never arrive. The reality of it didn’t impinge on my life. I was fond of her, as I might have been fond of a younger sister. And I was sorry for her. I pitied her.’
‘Because of the scar on her lip?’
‘That happened when she was twelve – she fell down some marble stairs. It made her even more timid and afraid, and it made me most reluctant to hurt her further. As she grew up, she talked about our being married as if it were a means of escape from her life in Italy. She clung to my hand and spoke of her longing to be transported away from “this dreadful place”.’
‘But she loves Italy.’
‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘I know. It makes no sense. Now that she’s away from it, she pines for her home. But then… then she could hardly wait for her eighteenth birthday, when our formal engagement would begin.
‘I was not so sure, especially after I met you. I was hoping to find a way to escape the agreement. But when I returned from Italy and found you were gone away I told myself it was meant to be. I wrote that letter, believing it was the honourable thing. I tried to forget you. Then you came home again and I knew my feelings had never really changed. But you appeared to want nothing more to do with me. And anyway, by then I had committed myself irrevocably to Lucy.’
The delay over their wedding had suited them both. Lucy had been nervous and Geoffrey had hoped that time together might deepen his feelings for a girl who was still emotionally immature.
‘I suggested that, if she wished to change her mind, she should not feel bound by the promises our parents had made, but she wept and begged me not to desert her…’ The memories made his eyes bleak. ‘I had no choice but to honour the obligation. Perhaps I should have been stronger, but I simply could not bring myself to abandon her.’
On their wedding night, sensitive to what he understood to be the normal fears of a young virgin, he had respected her wish that he should wait, but as the weeks passed he grew impatient, until finally he had tried to make love to her only to have her turn into a frightened animal, huddled in a corner, shuddering and shaking. Despite all his patience she had remained terrified of the physical act of love. She was a damaged child.
She was also, when roused, possessed of a violent temper, usually directed against herself.
Recounting this part of it, Geoffrey’s face was troubled. ‘She blames herself for her inability to be a proper wife. She threatens to injure or kill herself. She rides like a madwoman, and if I try to stop her she turns on me. I must tread warily.’ He lifted heavy eyes to meet mine. ‘I’m afraid she may end up in Bedlam.’
‘You mean…’ I could hardly say the words, ‘she’s mad?’
He watched me for long moments in which I heard my own heart beat louder and louder with apprehension, until at last he said quietly, ‘It was Lucy who stabbed me.’
Seven
I stared at him, a sick trembling starting inside me as I looked at the jagged scar that marred his chest. ‘Dear God…’
‘She has fits of jealousy. She accuses me of unfaithfulness.’ He grimaced and threw out a hand. ‘Sometimes she has cause.’
‘She told me she didn’t care.’
‘Nor does she, most of the time. Only when she fears I may leave her. That night, after the unionist meeting… You were much on my mind. I kept thinking of being with you at the cottage the next day. Perhaps she smelled the desire on me – she has such instincts, like a wild animal. She had the knife. She threatened to kill herself if I left her. When I tried to stop her, she turned the knife on me. It was so quick. So quick I didn’t feel the wound. I could hardly believe it when the blood started to pour from me. And then she screamed, and kept on screaming…’
Knowing how dreadful it must have been for him, I laid my head on his chest, huddling close to him. ‘There was no shadow in the garden? No intruder?’
‘I invented that story to shield Lucy. What else could I say – that my wife had tried to kill me? Was I to stand by and watch her imprisoned? Or be the cause of sending her to a lunatic asylum? She is my wife. She relies on me to protect her. That’s all she asks of me – to stay with her and keep her safe from all the monsters in her mind. I can’t leave her. You must understand that.’
‘I do,’ I said sadly. ‘Yes, I do.’
Geoffrey lifted my head and regarded me with sadly tender eyes, scanning my face as if he would memorise every pore. ‘I love you.’
For answer, because no words could express my feelings, I leaned and kissed him softly. His response was warm and immediate, rousing unbearable longings in both of us.
* * *
At Orchards, I encountered Narnie in the front hall. ‘What have you done to your face?’ she demanded.
‘Face?’ The mirror told me I had a red weal under my eye, where Geoffrey’s elbow had caught me. ‘I bumped it on the edge of a stall in the market – I was too busy watching the bullocks. How is Mama?’
‘She’s as well as usual. Got herself all excited on account of Billy Boy’s birthday. You know how she is. I’ll be glad when I get her safely to Thetford.’
I had forgotten they were off to Grace’s again, for the baby’s first birthday.
Narnie said, ‘Why don’t you come with us?’
‘I can’t. There’s all the spring work to think of, and Basil may be home any day. He’ll expect me to be here.’
‘Him!’ she snorted. ‘Fine sort of husband he is. Never at home.’
‘He comes when he can,’ I said. ‘He’s a busy man.’
She paused a moment, studying me with narrowed eyes. If I had been Grace, or Mama, she might have enquired into the reasons for my pale face and hollowed eyes, but I had long ago forfeited any place in her affections. She just grunted, ‘Then you’d better stay and wait for him,’ and went on her way.
Going into the drawing-room, I stood gazing at my mother’s portrait, wondering if she would have understood the passions that drove me. What if a child were to come of this day’s indiscretion?
I should welcome it, I thought recklessly. Geoffrey’s child.
Yet the thought was as bitter as it was sweet. He already had a child. He had a daughter, and I had allowed her to be taken from me.
* * *
Geoffrey and I did not meet for a week or two – he had other pressing commitments which kept him from being in Lynn on market days; but messages exchanged via Jack Huggins told of his continued affection and his longing to be with me again. I missed him, too. Without him I was lonely. Without him my misgivings loomed ever larger.
I was a married woman and he a married man. We were both doing wrong. My conscience whispered with my doubts and my doubts worked on my guilt. I counted the days to my menstruation.
Meanwhile petty annoyances continued to plague the farm. Someone cleared all the tarred brambles out of the hare runs, leaving them open for the animals to get at our young corn; replacing them took several days’ wor
k. Then an old and valued hedge burst into flame and scorched the blossom from several trees in the orchard. Basil happened to be at home at the time and he helped put out the fire.
‘This was no accident,’ he said, coming in with black smears on his face. ‘You should have kept your mouth shut about Chilvers and Timms. And that man Pyke’s still about – he’s now working in the quarry at Snet’sham, so I hear.’
One evening we attended a dinner party at the Grange, but Basil was in a bad mood and didn’t try to conceal his unreasoning dislike of Robert Wyatt. When the gentlemen emerged from their conversation over brandy and cigars, my husband made excuses and hustled me away. He complained that Robert was, ‘Too inquisitive for his own good. Nothing but questions, questions…’
‘Only because he’s interested.’
‘He’s too interested – in you!’
‘Oh, don’t be absurd,’ I sighed. ‘He’s a friend. I’ve known him all my life. And I like him.’
‘Well, I don’t.’
I didn’t argue. I felt irritable myself, and I had stomach cramps and other sensations which told me my fears of pregnancy were unfounded. Illogically, the knowledge made me want to weep with disappointment: this time I wasn’t going to have Geoffrey’s child – I wasn’t going to have any child. Perhaps God was punishing me.
Or was it a blessing? Was it a final chance for me to put things right? In my heart I knew I couldn’t go on as I was.
Feeling in need of a change, I gladly accepted Aunt Beatrice’s invitation to spend a few days at Weal House and attend with her a reading from the late Mr Dickens’s works. She invited Basil, too, but he claimed other things to do – he was never happy at Weal House.
On a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon, Beatrice and I took a stroll through town to the Walks, where we remarked on the activities of the birds and the tender young greenery in the trees and bushes. ‘Spring is really here,’ my aunt smiled, her arm through mine as she walked with the aid of her stick.
