Seven for a Secret (29 page)

But for that she would never have known. I would have gone on believing her dead. None of this would have happened. When I received the letter I did not know what to do. “

“Why did you not tell me? I want to know everything.”

“I couldn’t tell you. I had to make sure that everything could go ahead as we planned. It was a mistake on my part to see her in Devizes. It was too near here. 1 ought to have thought of that. I arranged to meet her in that hotel. It was terrible. I hated her. I hated myself for ever being involved with her. I was so thankful when she left me, and when I heard she was killed I naturally thought I would never see her again. It was the end of the most idiotic mistake a man ever made.”

“But she was not dead.”

“No. She explained all that.”

“But you had identified her after the accident.”

“There was a ring and a fur stole which I had given her.

The girl I saw was badly injured facially. I could not have said she was really Kate, but the ring and the stole seemed to clinch the matter. They were considered adequate identification. “

“Crispin, was it because you wanted to be sure?”

“I felt certain. The ring and the stole … they were enough. She told me she had sold the ring and the stole to a fellow actress. A girl who had left home a year or so before to try her luck in the theatre. It seemed that either she had no family or they lost touch.

Her death was unnoticed. Kate had seen the account of the death of my wife in the newspaper and had decided to do nothing about it. No doubt she thought she might make profitable use of it at some time. That was the way her mind worked. So when she saw the announcement of our engagement in the paper she decided to use the situation to her advantage. “

“And you, Crispin?”

“One thing I was certain of. I was not going to let her spoil my life again. I arranged to meet her at the hotel in Devizes. She was there.

God, how I hated her! She laughed at my dismay. She had a way of laughing which made me want to kill her. She thought she had caught me. She said she would never agree to a divorce and that if I tried that line, she would fight with all her might against me. I saw that there was only one way to deal with her. I would give her money to go away and never come near me again. “

“You believed she would do that!”

“I told her that if she ever came back I would call the police and she would be charged with blackmail.”

“And you really thought that would stop her?”

“I think it might.”

“But if you are ready to submit to blackmail once, why should you not be again?”

“I know how to deal with her.”

“Crispin, don’t you see, this is wrong?”

“What else is there to do?”

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“To accept the truth, I suppose.”

“You know what that would mean?”

“Yes, I do. But it is here. It is no use pretending it isn’t. She is not dead. You have actually seen her.”

“She has gone away. She assures me she is going to Australia She says I shall never hear from her again.”

“You believe that!”

“I want to.”

“But you can’t believe it because you want to. She’s a blackmailer and you have given way to blackmail. Don’t you see, if you went through a form of marriage with me it could be no true marriage. She would know it. She would be back … with an even greater reason for black mail.”

“I’ll deal with her if she does. I have found you. For the first time in my life I have been happy. I know what I want for the rest of my life. I love you, Frederica, and I will do anything just anything to keep you.”

I was shaken by the violence of his emotion. I was bemused by what I had heard. I rejoiced in the power of his love for me but I felt more strongly than ever that I did not know him. He was revealing a side of his character which I had not known. I felt now, as I had before, that much was hidden from me.

I said: “You were going through with our marriage in spite of this?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you were not going to tell me?”

“I could not risk telling you. I could not be sure what you would do.

I love you. I want you and I did not think beyond that. You will be my wife in every way . no matter what ceremony. That is words. My feelings for you go deeper than any words. “

1 could only say: “You would have kept it from me.”

“Only because 1 was afraid you might not agree.”

“I think,” I said slowly, ‘that is what shocks me more than any of this. 1 feel there are secrets which 1 do not know. “

“Secrets?” he said with alarm in his voice, which made my heart leap in fear.

“Crispin,” I said, ‘why don’t you tell me everything? Just as you have told me this? “

He said: There is nothing more to tell. “

I did not speak, but I thought: You have told me this because you could do nothing else. Aunt Sophie saw you and if she had not I should not have known. I should have gone through a form of marriage with you. And you would have let me do that. You would have deceived me as far as that.

“Frederica,” he was saying, ‘my darling, I love you. You know how much. It sounds so inadequate. I want you with me night and day . for ever. There is nothing nothing on earth which can hurt me if I am with you. “

“I feel stunned,” I murmured, ‘bewildered. “

“It is the shock, but you will not have to worry. I shall look after everything. We’ll tell no one about this. It’s no one’s affair but ours. It concerns only us. She will go away and if she ever comes back I shall know how to deal with her.”

I could only think: His mind is full of secrets. He would have kept this from me. If we are to be close, how could this be?

I did not know what to say. I must get away, I must think. Nothing was as I had believed it to be.

One thought kept hammering in my brain: he would have married me and said nothing . knowing this. It would have been another secret in our lives.

Another secret? What was the other?

1 thought of Gaston Marchmont walking into the shrubbery, lying dead there, killed by a gun from the St. Aubyn gunroom.

He would talk to me of his love. It was love which had

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made him act as he did. I wanted that love. 1 rejoiced in the depth of it. I wanted to believe that it would be there for ever. I dared not.

1 must get away. 1 must think ration ally. There were many questions I must ask myself.

“Crispin,” I said, trying to speak calmly, “I have to think about this. It has been a great shock. I must go home.”

“Of course, my darling,” he said.

“You must not worry. You are going to leave everything to me.” He held me fast and kissed me tenderly.

“I’ll take you home.”

“No, no … I’ll go back alone.”

“It’s late. I shall come with you. The rain is teeming down. I’ll get the carriage. I’ll drive you back.”

1 let him go. From the porch I watched him and as soon as he disappeared, I ran out.

He was right. The rain was falling heavily. There was thunder overhead: lightning streaked across the sky. And I ran. My hair was falling about my face a damp cloud;

my clothes were soaked. I had not stopped to put much on under my coat. I was unaware of my condition. I could only think that a chance happening in Devizes had revealed something of which I should have been kept in ignorance though it concerned me deeply.

He would not have told me, I kept saying to myself.

I reached The Rowans where Aunt Sophie was waiting for me. She looked very frightened.

“You’re soaked to the skin,” she cried.

“Come along in quickly. You shouldn’t have gone.”

She was hustling me to my room, getting off my wet clothes, running off and coming back with towels and blankets.

She roused Lily.

“A fire,” she commanded.

“God help us!” said Lily.

“What is all this in aid of?”

“She’s been out in the rain.”

“God give me strength!” prayed Lily.

I was shivering. 1 was not sure whether it was due to the cold. I suppose I had never in my life faced such a shock.

They brought me hot-water bottles. A fire was soon blazing in the grate. Blankets were piled on my bed and Lily was trying to force hot milk down my throat.

I pushed it away. I could only lie there shivering.

They were up with me all night, hovering about me and in the morning they sent for the doctor.

1 was quite ill, he said. I had caught a bad chill. We must be careful that it did not turn into congestion of the lungs.

My illness was, in a way, not without its advantages. My mind was in a turmoil. I was often delirious. I thought I was married to Crispin but I could not be happy. I had seen the shadow of a woman whom I had never met but who was clear to me; she hovered continually in the background. I might be married to Crispin but I was not his wife. She was his wife an ever-menacing figure. I longed to be with him. I wanted to say, as he did, let’s forget she came back. If Aunt Sophie had not been in Devizes on that day it would have happened differently. I should not have known anything about it.

Sometimes I wanted to lie in my bed, feeling limp and tired, too weak to think of anything. There was a certain comfort in that. I was lying in limbo. I could take no action. I was too ill to do anything.

Aunt Sophie was constantly there. So was Lily. There were flowers in the room. I believe I knew who had sent them. I did not see him.

Though I know he came for once or twice I heard his voice.

There was a time when 1 thought I heard Aunt Sophie say: “It’s better not. It might upset her.” Then I heard his voice pleading.

1 wondered if he would come in spite of Aunt Sophie, but he did not.

He would be remembering that scene which had taken place before I had run off through the storm.

I was getting better. They were trying to make me eat.

1 had grown very thin, said Lily. That was no way to be, but if anyone knew how to tempt an appetite, she did.

She would bring some tasty dish to my bedside.

“Now eat this up or you’ll worry your poor Aunt Sophie into her grave.” So I would eat it.

As I grew better I went on asking myself what 1 must do. I was very uncertain. I could not imagine life without Crispin. Sometimes I felt weakly acquiescent. I wanted to let him take care of everything. Then I thought of what he was prepared to do and keep secret from me, and I said to myself: I feel as if I shall never truly know him. There are things he is holding back. It is like a screen which comes down between us. It was not only this. There was something else.

Aunt Sophie was sitting by my bed.

She said: “You’re getting better. My word, you have given us a fright.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My dear, I wish I could have borne it for you.”

I knew she meant more than my illness.

“What am I going to do, Aunt Sophie?” I said.

“Only you can decide. You can go the way he wants, or…”

“I shouldn’t be truly married to him.”

That’s so. “

“If there were children … We should never be sure when she was coming back.”

“That is a point.”

“And yet, I can never be happy without him.”

“Life changes, my dear. If you have doubts, you should hesitate.

That’s why I think you should get away from here. When you are close you can’t see things clearly. This is something you can’t hurry into.

You need time. It’s wonderful what time can do. “

“I feel so tired,” I said.

“Aunt Sophie, 1 want to listen to him. No one will know. We could go through with this.”

“It is not lawful. If you had been in ignorance of the fact that he had a wife living, you could not be blamed. But you would go to the altar knowing that he has a wife living.”

“I must not do it.”

“What you must do is get away and think. You would not be well enough yet. We’ll have to talk about it … again and again. I know you can’t face losing him. I understand well how you feel, my dear. Perhaps we shall find some way.”

It was a few days later when the letter came.

Aunt Sophie sat by my bed.

She said: “It’s from your father.”

I started up, staring at her. I saw the hope in her eyes.

“I wrote to him right at the start of all this. I guessed how it would go.. It takes a long time for letters to get here. He must have sat down and written right away. He wants you to go to him.”

To go to him? Where? “

“I’ll tell you what he says.

“This place is right on its own. The rest of the world seems far away. There’ll be sunshine and everything will be different. A new way of life, something you have never dreamed of before. Here she can think and perhaps see which way she has to go.

It’s time I met my daughter. It must be nearly twenty years since I last saw her. I am sure it is right for her. Persuade her, Sophie .

”

I was aghast. I had wanted so much to see my father, and now he was suggesting that I go to this remote island.

She dropped the letter and looked at me steadily.

“You must go,” she said.

“How?”

“You take a ship at Tilbury or Southampton, somewhere like that, and you just sail away.”

“Where is this island?”

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“Casker’s Island? Almost on the other side of the world.”

“This sounds preposterous.”

“It’s not impossible, Freddie. You have to think about it. I see it as an answer. You should know your father.”

“If he had wanted to see me he could have done so before this.”

“He wouldn’t while your mother was alive, and after that … well, he has been far away. But now you need help and he is there to give it.”

“But suddenly to be presented with a proposition like this …”

“It’s what you need. You want something to come between you and all this uncertainty. You have to come to a decision and you’ll do it better away from it all.”

“So far!”

“The farther the better.”

“Aunt Sophie … suppose I do go … you’d come with me?”