The Regency (63 page)

*

It was almost ten o'clock when Nez Carré went off his legs.
He had tried more and more often to lie down; now at last he
gave a long groan, and went slowly down, like a great cathedral
collapsing, while James tugged helplessly at his headstall,
tears of anguish and frustration running down his cheeks.

‘No, oh no! Oh don't! Up, Nez Carré! Up, boy!’

But the horse was beyond obeying him, even though he
wanted to. James dropped to his knees beside him, stroking
the damp head, holding the great, troubled eyes with his own,
his tears dropping onto Nez Carré's forehead. 'Oh please, Nez
Carré,' he whimpered, stroking and stroking, 'please don't,
please don't, oh please don't.’

Nez Carré tried to get up again, lifting his head and neck
and straining, but the effort was too much for him, and he lay
down again with a groan. James took the great, heavy head
onto his lap. He cupped one long ear in his hand and put his mouth to it, licking his dry lips and tasting his tears salt on
them. 'Don't die,' he whispered. 'Please don't die.’

He sat in the straw, stroking the face and neck and ears
over and over, trying to pour his strength into the old horse,
willing him to live. Time crawled on. At half-past ten, an ostler
brought a lantern, driving the darkness which had crept in back to the corners of the box. Outside the sky was a lumi
nous turquoise and the evening star shone low and pure; and
inside, in the yellow lamplight, Nez Carré quivered, and died.

*

It was a long time before Durban could coax him away. James
sat, numbed with disbelief, still stroking Nez Carré's head
and damp neck, long after he had heard the sigh of the last
breath leaving him. It couldn't be true. He would get up
again. If only he stayed here and didn't move, he would get up again, and it would be all right.

He struggled when Durban touched him, but when the
head ostler came and took an arm too, he could not resist
them both. He let them help him to his feet and lead him
towards the door.

‘
Don't you touch him,' he cried to the ostler. No-one's to
touch him.'

‘
Nay, maister, I'll see to it,' the ostler said soothingly. 'No-
one s'l coom near 'im, I promise. He were a good old 'oss, and
he s'l be respected.’

Even so, as he closed the door and bolted it with his own
hand, James looked back before closing the top half, still
expecting the big bay horse to struggle to his feet in that
ungainly way horses had, and come to him, ears cocked and greedy muzzle outstretched to see what he had. But the dark
shape was motionless in the straw. He closed the door tenderly,
as though not to waken him, and stood staring at it, his hands
hanging helplessly by his sides.

‘Come, sir,' said Durban gently. 'Come on home.’

They had taken a message to Héloïse, and she was waiting
to receive him. He stumbled into her arms like a child, and she nodded to Durban over his shoulder that she should be
left alone with him. She didn't speak, knowing there were no
words that would help, only coaxed him upstairs, undressed
him with her own hands, and put him to bed.

‘
Come here,' he said desperately as she pulled the covers
over him. 'I must have you here.’

He began to shiver. She dragged off her clothes quickly,
and when she was naked, he caught her arm and tugged at
her. Seeing his desperate need, she did not wait to put on her
night-gown, but turned back the sheet and climbed into the
bed beside him as she was. He pulled her against him fiercely,
pressing her small body close, folding his arms across her,
even locking one leg over her hip, as if he expected someone
to try to snatch her away. He was shaking all over, and after a
while, he began to whimper. Then at last he spoke.

‘I can't bear it,' he said. 'I can't bear it.'

‘
James, my James,' she said, stroking his neck and shoulder,
all she could reach.

‘
Oh God, it isn't fair!' he said, and then with a terrible,
broken cry which seemed to be dragged up from somewhere
deep inside him, he thrust her over onto her back and buried
his face in her neck, kissing and nuzzling. His hands were
locked about her wrists, holding her still, as his mouth
tracked down her throat, across her fragile collar-bone, found
her breast, nipping and tugging at her nipple until she gasped
and wriggled. He lifted his head. Héloïse,' he said clearly,
and then with one swift movement, he was inside her.

He made love to her so hard and powerfully, as though he were in the grip of some force outside him. Crushed beneath
his weight, she could only go with him, meeting his thrusts at
first of her will, and then, as her own feelings changed, help
lessly, gripped with a purely physical desire that she had
never experienced before. It was fierce, thrilling, dangerous.
She gasped, pulling at him, greedy for him, aware of his body
and hers as never before, feeling, as if they had only one sense
between them, that their bodies were utterly in tune. They
reached the same point at the same instant, cried out in the
same voice, and were done.

She lay in the tenuous summer dark, dragging her breath
in against his crushing weight, hearing her blood thudding in
her ears, her physical self tingling and singing with fulfilled
pleasure. Her mind lay separate and calm, cradled in the cool
night, seeing and knowing. They had been given this. It was
not sinful. Only those who had loved each other long and
unselfishly could have such a moment, such a complete loving
of the flesh, when the mind was wounded beyond help. She
knew why he had said her name; it was the moment when his
mind stepped aside, but he had called her, to make her know
that it was to her, and to no other, that he could have gone at
that moment.

He was hers, completely hers. Her pulse slowed to normal,
and she felt her blood flow sweetly through her body, felt her
life lie warm and easy in her, singing with the pleasure of its
own existence, in tune with everything that had life from
earth up to heaven. She felt him inside her, small and gentle
now, possessed by her as she had been possessed. She felt the
wetness, his ultimate gift to her, and smiled secretly into the
silvery darkness.

God knew! It was by His will that the stars moved in their
eternal dance, and everything that lived touched and grew
and intermeshed in a pattern of His devising. He had taken
the old horse back to Him, to be young again in the Elysian fields; everything that lived must die; but in taking, He had
given. James would not know it yet, but he would come to
understand.

She stroked his head and kissed him, and he sighed and
withdrew from her, but moved away only enough to slide
down so that his head was on her shoulder, drawing his legs
up like a child and curling into her. She wrapped her arms
round him and he sighed again, but with comfort this time,
and slept. She lay still, unsleeping, through the short summer
night, listening to the infinitesimal: sounds of life all around
her, inside and out, feeling it unfolding like a flower in the
warm darkness.

*

The weather being hot enough to make London unpleasant,
Lucy had gone down to Wolvercote for a couple of weeks,
and had persuaded Roberta and Firth to come with her,
together with Bobbie and Marcus. At the end of the week
Danby Wiske was to join them for a few days with a group of
friends — Brummell, Alvanley, Mildmay, and the Manners
brothers, Robert and Charles — for what Brummell described as a 'farewell party' before Wiske went overseas with his regiment. Though he had not referred to his proposal again, Lucy
could not help feeling that he ought to have her answer before
he left, whether he actually expected it or not.

It perplexed her to know why she found it so difficult to decide what her answer should be. At no time in their long
friendship had she even considered the possibility of marrying
him, so why now did she not simply, kindly, refuse him? It
had never been in her nature or her experience to seek a
confidante, but seeing Roberta so glowingly happy with her Mr
Firth, she decided at last to ask her help, and invited her to
come out with her alone for a ride.

Roberta, who was no great horsewoman, detached her
mind from her love, observed Lucy's furrowed brow, and
accepted the invitation meekly. Parslow, to whom nothing
seemed to be a secret, provided her with a quiet horse, fielded Thomas with a significant look which kept the boy at his side,
helped both ladies mount, and let them ride off alone without
him. Lucy seemed oblivious of all this. She rode beside
Roberta in deep thought, controlling Hotspur's light-hearted
attempts to buck automatically, and it was not until they
were some way into the park that she roused herself to speak.

‘
I wanted to ask your advice about something,' she said
with characteristic abruptness.

‘
So I imagined,' Roberta smiled, leaning forward to pat the neck of the kindly plodder Parslow had found for her. ‘I'm not the person you would usually choose for a riding
companion.'

‘
Oh, that's all right. I can have a good gallop later,' Lucy
said vaguely, and lapsed into thought again. After a while
Roberta prompted her.

‘
Well, Lucy. What was it you wanted to ask? You seem
worried.’

Lucy looked up, and her furrowed brow cleared. She
laughed a little self-consciously. 'Oh, it's nothing bad. In fact,
I ought to feel happy about it, I suppose. The thing is, Rob, I
need to confide. I don't know what to do, and I don't know
why I don't know.'

‘
Lucy dear, start at the beginning. It makes it much easier
to follow,' Roberta said patiently.

Lucy smiled a little. 'Very well, I'll try. It's Danby Wiske,
you see — he's asked me to marry him, and since he's going
abroad with the regiment very soon, I feel I ought to give him
his answer.' Whatever surprise Roberta felt at the news, she
displayed none. She merely nodded encouragingly. 'The
difficulty is, I don't know what to say to him.' She looked
hopefully at Roberta.