Reckless Griselda (27 page)

“You should not go from such heat into the night air without a wrap,” he said, putting his coat round her shoulders.

“Andrew?” she called out, when she saw the carriage.

“My lady?”

“I will walk home,” she said. “I’ll have my wrap from the carriage, though,” she added to George, the footboy, who jumped down from the box to open the door. Then she handed Tom back his coat.

“We will both walk,” said Tom. “Follow us, Andrew.”

“Sir.”

George scrabbled into the carriage and retrieved her wrap. It was the cashmere shawl but she threw it around herself like a peasant girl with her plaid, covering all her finery. And then she began to walk again, briskly.

“You don’t know the way,” Tom said going after her.

“I don’t care.”

“What has happened? You must tell me.”

“I would really rather not talk just now. I want to walk and be silent, if you can understand that.”

“Yes, better than you know,” he said, and put his hands into his pockets. The night felt as raw as his nerves.

Behind them the carriage rumbled over the cobbles at a funereal pace.

Griselda said not a word, but he could see her breath in the dank air, when they passed a well-lit door way, which made him remember the kisses she had given him only that afternoon. He was tempted to stop her and pull her into his arms, but did not quite dare to.

Instead they walked in silence until they reached the house.

“Griselda, please,” he said, as they went into the inner hall. “There’s something I must say to you.”

“I have a headache,” she said, going upstairs. The hem of her skirts was thick with mud. “I must go to bed.”

“Have you some cologne?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Send Hannah to me for some,” he said, following her, taking two steps at a time.

“Thank you.”

He brought the cologne himself, although Hannah tapped at his dressing room door to fetch it. Gough had just pulled his boots off and was complaining at the mud on them.

“My lady sent me for the eau de Cologne, sir, like you said. Poor lady, she has a terrible headache. Perhaps, Mr Gough, you might make her one of your powders?”

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Tom. “And I’ll take the cologne to her myself.” He looked around. “Where is the damned stuff?”

“Here, Sir Thomas,” said Gough, supplying a cloth with the flask. “Are you sure about the powder? A little arrowroot mixed with – ”

“Leave one out for me here,” said Tom, “where I can find it if I need it. But I don’t want her ladyship disturbed any more. Hannah, you may go to bed.”

And he set off down the passageway to her room.

She was sitting in her stays and her shift, on a low chair by the fire. Her stockings lay on the floor with her silver grey dancing slippers, quite ruined by the dirty street.

“Where’s Hannah?” she said, seeing him.

“I’ve sent her to bed.”

“I wish you had not...” she said in alarm.

“Please, let me help you. Shall I undo your stay?”

“I suppose I have no choice.”

He put down the eau de Cologne and started to unpick the knot.

“Is it so dreadful to allow your husband to help you?” he said, as he pulled the knot open and started to loosen the stay back. She had bent her head down as if to hide her face to him and he could not resist the sight of the fine hairs on the back of her neck. He kissed her lightly on the neck.

“Sir Thomas, please!” she exclaimed, and jumped up from the chair. “I cannot...”

She broke off and finished pulling her stays off instead. She threw them onto the floor and stood there in her shift, her arms folded tight across her. She clutched at her elbows so tightly that he could see the whites of her knuckles.

“I cannot bear this!” she exclaimed.

“You cannot?” he said. “When you are making us both miserable, for no good reason? What is amiss, for heaven’s sake? Why are you always pushing me away as if I were the devil himself?”

She stared at him now.

“You don’t see, do you?” she said after a moment. “You have no idea at all of the mischief you cause. It would almost be pardonable if it was not so…”

And she reached down and threw her stays at him.

Tom caught them, and his temper slipping away, hurled them back down on the floor, though he would not have minded at all throwing them in her face.

“I saw you talking to Caroline,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, heavily.

“Yes Caroline! Caroline who loves you. Caroline who will have no other but you. Caroline whose life has been ruined because of you! How can I let you be kind to me, and play at marriage when I know what she is feeling, how she is hurting…”

“I was asking her forgiveness.”

“With your usual polished charm? Oh I doubt she is one iota less in love with you after that performance. I saw your kissing her hands. Just how you kissed my hands this afternoon. Those big blue eyes gazing up at her. How is a woman supposed to resist? Do any of them? No, they all fall, just like timber in your woods, strictly to your order! But I will not let you do it to me, Tom Thorpe, even if I am your wife!”

“So what was that this afternoon?” he said. “You were happy enough with my conduct then, I think.”

“You were using me, just as you use all women! And I was stupid enough to permit it. Just as I was stupid before in that inn. But it will not happen again. I will not be used by you, let alone pitied by you!”

She went to the door and held it open for him.

“Please, in future, I would like my maid to attend to me.”

“Then I will leave you,” he said, after a long silence in which, with all the strength he had, he swallowed all the bitter words he wanted to throw at her. “I hope you sleep well. You can be sure that I will not.”

***

He did not even slam the door.

She sat crying by the fire for some time, wrapped in her comforting old plaid.

He was everything she had said he was, and yet he was not. Everything he had done was inexcusable and yet she could excuse it all because of the intoxicating effect he had on her. She felt enslaved by him and her heart revolted at the thought of that, especially when she felt she was being bribed into silent submission to his selfish wants by pretty white horses, Kashmir shawls and kisses.

Enslaved enough, to find herself standing on the door to his room, candle in her hand and apologies on her lips.

She stopped herself before the first knock. She knew she could not, in all honesty, retract what she had said no matter how strong the impulse was to break down her reserve. Wanting him like a child wants a glittering toy was not enough.

So she turned away and stood on the landing, holding her candle, looking down the sweep of the staircase.

Her future with him stretched out before her just like that staircase: luxurious but lonely, elegant but loveless. And she could not think how to begin to change it. Because she would not love him on his terms, only on her own.

“Lady Mary, can you tell the court, in your own words, the nature of you relationship with Sir Thomas Thorpe?” asked Mr James Reinfield KC, counsel for the plaintiff.

“We are engaged to be married,” she said in a barely audible whisper.

“Perhaps, Lady Mary, you could speak up a little, if you would be so kind,” said Mr Reinfield.

“We are engaged to be married,” she said, more firmly this time.

There was a snigger from the public gallery and a few heads swivelled to have a good look at Griselda. She was sitting as inconspicuously as possible.

“Except I think he is married to someone else now,” Lady Mary went on artlessly and the sniggers turned to outright hilarity.

Will Randall had insisted Griselda come to court. “You must show yourself to be a loyal and loving wife,” he had said. She could understand the theory, but in practice it was not pleasant to sit there under the gaze of all, even though Lady Farquarson sat with her.

“Your observation is correct, my lady,” said Mr Reinfield. “Now, perhaps you would like to tell me when it was decided that you and Sir Thomas would make a match.”

“Oh, I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, you see, it has always been understood. I remember my father telling me when I was quite a little girl that we were engaged.”

“And you did not object?”

“No, sir. He is my father.”

Griselda glanced across at Lord Wansford who was smirking at that. She felt a little sick.

“Of course, of course,” Mr Reinfield went on. “And you knew Sir Thomas at this time, when you were a child?”

“Yes. He was often staying at Felsham with us. He was very kind to me. He taught me to ride – and I was so scared of horses. But he taught me not to be afraid.”

“And you were how old?”

“Seven or eight.”

“And Sir Thomas?”

“He was still at Eton. It was during the holidays.”

Griselda studied her gloves. It was all too easy to imagine. A graceful, golden-haired school boy, grown past the awkward age but not yet quite a man, teaching a fearful little girl how to ride. Perhaps Lady Mary did love him. It would have been difficult not to at that age. And perhaps the effect of that early, guileless kindness had cemented into a deep, if unreciprocated, love for him. If a woman like Caroline, who had the defences of her intelligence, could not resist him, then what chance had a green girl like Lady Mary? And what chance have I of preserving my heart? she thought suddenly, looking up from her hands and at Tom Thorpe’s broad shoulders in their beautifully tailored coat.

That was the truth of it: her heart was in danger. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Especially after what she had said to him last night.

“And later,” Mr Reinfield continued. “Did you receive any tokens of affection from you fiancé?”

“Oh yes, sir. He sent me letters.”

“He sent you letters,” Reinfield repeated ponderously so that no-one should miss the implication, although to any well-bred person in the court it was clear enough. “What manner of letters?” She did not answer. She was blushing slightly though. “Were they perhaps love letters, Lady Mary?”

“Objection, my lord,” said George Woburn, in a lazy drawl, dragging his corpulent frame upright as he did so. “My learned friend is leading the witness.”

“It is a reasonable assumption, my lord,” said Reinfield, “that letters to a young lady to whom one is engaged will concern the subject of love.”

“Only when it is material to the plaintiff’s case,” put in Woburn.

“Objection overruled,” said the judge. He turned to Lady Mary.

“You will answer the gentleman please, my lady,” said the Judge, “as to the nature of these letters.”

Lady Mary glanced around her, as if looking for someone to speak for her.

“My lady?” prompted Reinfield.

“They were affectionate letters,” she said. “Very affectionate.”

“Thank you my lady,” said Reinfield. “No further questions.”

“Do you wish to examine the witness, Mr Woburn?” the judge asked. Thorpe’s senior counsel was rising from his seat to begin, and then Griselda saw Thorpe lean forward and speak to Randall. Randall in his turn, restrained the old lawyer and muttered something which made him frown.

“A moment’s indulgence, my lord, I beg you. My client…” he said turning back to the judge. The judge waved his hand and Randall, Woburn and Thorpe bent their heads together in conference. Griselda perched on the edge of her seat so that she could hear what was going on.

“You must not cross-examine her,” Griselda heard Thorpe say. “It is too unkind.”

“We must cross-examine, Sir Thomas,” said Woburn. “She is our best chance. Let me examine her and she and the case against you will crumble in a matter of moments.”

“She has suffered enough already. Dismiss her, please.”

Woburn looked extremely annoyed with Thorpe but Randall put in, “Sir, it does no harm for the jury to see we can behave like gentlemen.”

Woburn considered for a long moment and then exhaled noisily.

“Very well, Sir Thomas, I will not examine her, although I think you are being foolhardy. This is scarcely the moment for honourable flourishes.”

“I can think of no better time,” said Thorpe and sat back in his seat.

“Oh, that was well done,” Griselda said to Lady Farquarson. “Very well done.” Thorpe must have heard her for he turned and looked her, with a puzzled expression. She looked away, feeling her cheeks flood in a blush to match Lady Mary's.