The Sleeping Sword (22 page)

Once, in a previous generation, she would have been sent out to win political connections for Galton, to settle—with her hand in marriage—a disputed boundary; her purpose, as the daughter of one noble house, being not to inherit but rather to breed heirs for another. But in her day it had been hard cash—the substance her grandfather had thought demeaning to carry on his person—which had been lacking and with that inbred, female impulse of self-sacrifice she had attempted to provide it. She had accepted the inferior status of womankind and had sold herself, not for her own profit, but for the benefit of her grandfather, of her brother, and of Gervase. And how terrible now if he—her son,
my
husband—should declare her sacrifice to have been in vain. How terrible for
her
. But I, with my own future to consider, did not feel so greatly inclined for sacrifice. Nor, having escaped one captivity, was I anxious to enter another, and although her cry for freedom had moved me I did not feel called upon to give up my own. After all, she had not sacrificed herself for me but for pale, auburn Peregrine, and I was not yet certain that Gervase wished, or felt able to accept, her complex and weighty bequest. But one thing I knew beyond the slightest question. If he decided to come here, then I would be obliged to accompany him, as all women are obliged to follow their husbands, but I would come not as a mild-mannered daughter-in-law but as mistress. If my money was to be spent here, then one way or another I would have my say in the spending.

He came back to the table and dropped irritably into his chair, pouring out the last drop of wine and then pushing the jug away from him so that it slid perilously along the polished surface, to be retrieved just in time by my careful, commercial hand.

‘It's empty,' he said unnecessarily.

‘Yes.'

‘And I've not had enough. What do you suggest I do?'

‘I suggest that you've had enough.'

He began to rise rather unsteadily, gave me an exaggerated bow and fell back into his chair again.

‘Then of course you must be right, since that's what you're good at, Grace—being right.'

‘If I have done something to offend you, Gervase, then you had better say so.'

‘Good heavens, no—the very idea! How could one be offended by perfection?'

‘It appears
one
has managed it. Obviously you intend to quarrel with me. May I know why?'

‘I don't know why. Perhaps I'm just bad-tempered. Perhaps I didn't enjoy seeing my sister walking down the aisle today wearing those diamonds as if they were shackles.'

‘Gervase—'

‘Perhaps I wondered why it needed quite so many diamonds as that to dazzle Gideon Chard.'

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘I hope not, Grace—I hope there is no meaning. I hope, as I said, that I'm just bad-tempered.'

‘Then I won't be the whipping-post for it. Either I have done something to displease you or I haven't. If I have, then say so. But I won't bear the brunt of your temper unless I have caused it.'

‘Bravo,' he said, his face sharp and spiteful. ‘Perfect—and absolute rubbish, my dear. You have done nothing to displease me. I wouldn't dare be displeased.'

‘What nonsense—'

‘No, Grace, the living truth. You have your feet so precisely on the ground. Wherever we happen to be going, you know how to get there. I don't.'

‘So—is it my fault if you are a spoiled—'

‘What? A spoiled child? So you make me feel.'

‘How can you say that?'

‘Easily. Shall I say it again?'

‘I don't care what you say. If you behave like a spoiled child, you must expect to be treated like one.'

He got up and stood by the fireplace again, his face no longer spiteful but sombre and brooding, his body, even with the table between us, so taut that I could feel the strain of it.

‘No one has ever really spoiled me, Grace, you know—except you.'

‘Obviously I have done wrong.'

‘No—no. Perhaps you are just too good for me.'

‘That is a dreadful thing to say.'

‘Yes. I suppose it is.'

But as I got up, to run for cover, I think, before the tears started, he spun round and threw words, like stones, across the room to me. ‘That's not the same as saying I don't want you.'

I stopped, my breath laboured as if I had been running, tears clasped so tight, held so fiercely in check that I feared they would choke me.

‘Grace—for God's sake!' And he reached me with a rapid stride, to throw hard, urgent arms around me.

‘I have been drinking all day, Grace, you know—all day and last night—and it turns me sour sometimes. This business of Venetia—and
Gideon
. Christ, I have to see him as it is every day at the mill. I don't want to live with him.'

‘Surely there is no need for that?
Surely
they must want a home of their own?'

‘Not a bit of it. Venetia has no care for such things. And Gideon will not move from Tarn Edge, mark my words, until he can afford to build himself something better. He will take care never to come down in the world, Cousin Gideon, you may be very sure.'

‘Then we can move away.'

‘Where? Here?'

‘There are other houses, Gervase.'

‘Are there?'

And when I had made a movement of impatience, having already started to lay the foundations of some elegant new villa in my mind, his arms tightened their grip, his cheek pressing hard against mine, his body whispering to me, coaxing me, talking to me as his voice alone could never do.

‘I have to get this house settled first, Grace. And if I do and if it seems right to live here—will you live here with me?'

‘If it seems right—yes.' But even then I believe I qualified that promise, in my mind, to ‘Yes—if it seems right to
me
.'

‘I really am quite drunk, you know,' he said into my ear, his familiar scent of citrus and lavender reaching me through the wine.

‘Yes, I do know.'

‘And I have been a brute?'

‘Yes.'

‘And a bore?'

‘Very boring.'

But the pain and the man who had inflicted it were both gone, the man in my arms continuing to make a direct apology with his body to mine, his forgiveness being quickly granted.

‘Did I hurt you, Grace?'

‘Yes—you did.'

‘One strikes out, I suppose, at one's nearest and dearest. I'll be very good to you from now on.'

‘Every day?'

‘Well—that's a tall order, but I'll do my damndest. I need you, Grace.'

‘You most certainly do, if you are to get up those stairs without breaking your neck.'

‘I'm forgiven then?'

‘It would appear so.'

‘Thank God for that!' he said fervently, and as we began to negotiate the stone stairs, his arms around me, laughing and easy and expecting to make love—my husband now far more than her son—I glanced down into the hall, at the portrait above the hearth, and thought, ‘To hell with you, Perry Clevedon. Go to hell!'

The honeymoon was not a success, for although Venetia was still docile and grateful, humble in a way which broke my heart, she was quite simply unable at certain precise and crucial moments to believe that she was married at all.

For months past she had felt herself to be Charles Heron's wife in every aspect, which to her had seemed essential. With Gideon she had submitted to the rites of religion and sensuality and the law, but she could not during those tense honeymoon nights convince herself that all this had really made him her husband. Try as she might, and she tried very hard, he remained her supercilious Chard cousin whose naked presence in her bed horribly embarrassed her.

They spent their first few days in an expensive London hotel, indulging Gideon's appetite for complex food and fine champagne, his manner towards her indulgent, teasing, not unaffectionate. But when he began to make love to her, all she could really see was the stranger with Charles Heron's face who in that squalid bed had hurt and humiliated her, her body becoming so rigid that her husband's lovemaking deteriorated into a mere act of possession, after which, to his unconcealed disgust, she had been unable to stifle her tears.

The next morning he was curt and businesslike, inclining to sarcasm as the day progressed, but he took her to the theatre that evening and to a rather famous restaurant afterwards, and later, her body full of guilt and champagne, she threw herself into his arms and
endured
as best she could, pushing the ghost of Charles Heron away until it was done. He made love to her every night after that, being a man whose temperament required it and having been brought up to believe, like the rest of us, that honeymoons were intended solely for that purpose; but his satisfaction could only be quick and solitary, and although Venetia, far from refusing him, was almost too anxious to please, she knew that it would not suffice. By the time they returned to Cullingford she had read his nature accurately enough to know he would probably make up the deficiency elsewhere and felt she had no right to blame him if he did.

Gervase displayed all the delicate watchfulness of a cat on the day of their return, smiling at the bridegroom's insistence, before his bags had been carried upstairs, on going off to the mill.

‘It's all right, Gideon,' he said soothingly, maliciously. ‘It's all right—we managed to put the fire out.'

He was very quiet at dinner-time, not even appearing to listen as his father and Gideon discussed market trends, the growth of foreign competition, the demand, nowadays, for ‘soft' goods of silk, velvet, plush, the constant need to develop new products and designs now that the demise of the crinoline had put an end to the manufacture of heavy lustre cloths, causing severe embarrassment to such Cullingford manufacturers who had not moved with the times. Neither Gideon nor Mr. Barforth so much as glanced aside as Venetia and I withdrew, and when they eventually joined us for coffee Gervase was not with them. Nor, it seemed, had they noticed him leave. He came back long after everyone else had gone to bed, reverting to his old nocturnal habits of slipping in by the side door, having drunk himself to a pleasant state of unreason in which my reproaches, like lustre cloths and percentages and Peregrine Clevedon's wild horses, could only amuse him. But I made no reproaches. ‘I'm cold,' he said and I threw back the covers, put my arms around him, warmed him and indulged him, made up my mind that now, in these altered circumstances, I must be watchful too.

Gideon left for America three weeks later with Liam Adair—a trip I thought Gervase should have taken—and although the journey was a commercial success Liam came back with the same cautious air about him I had seen in Gervase and almost immediately presented Mr. Barforth with his resignation.

‘So much for Liam Adair,' Gervase said, far too quietly.

‘But he resigned, Gervase—surely—no one asked him to go.'

‘I absolutely agree. No one asked him to go. But “someone” may have made it clear to him—on that long transatlantic crossing, perhaps—that he had no reason to stay.'

Liam called to see me on the day he cleared out his desk at Nethercoats, his step as jaunty, his manner as carefree as ever as he told me that he had just bought a small printing firm which had cost—I assumed—just about every penny he had.

‘What do you know about printing, Liam?' and he smiled broadly, not in the least dismayed.

‘Nothing. That's the beauty of it. I couldn't shear sheep or drive a goods wagon or sell textiles until I tried.'

‘You could lose everything, you know.'

‘So I could. But then “everything” in my case doesn't amount to all that much, Grace. And I could just as well end up a millionaire.' But when it also became known that he had heavily involved himself and his printing presses in the production of the ailing
Cullingford Star
, I doubted it.

For as long as I could remember, the only newspaper of any significance in Cullingford had been Mr. Roundwood's
Courier & Review
, Mr. Roundwood himself being a frequent dinner guest at Fieldhead, where throughout my girlhood I had heard him express the same Liberal and Methodistical views as his editorials. The
Courier
, in fact, was designed to please the commercial gentlemen who purchased it, approving what they approved, demanding or condemning whatever the Barforths, Agbriggs, Mandelbaums and Rawnsleys demanded or condemned. To the Liberal leader, Mr. Gladstone, it gave unlimited praise and maximum coverage, extending only a cautious hand to his opposite number, the flamboyant Mr. Disraeli, whose heart, the
Courier
would have us believe, was in the keeping of our natural enemy the squirearchy. The
Courier
reported no royal scandals, informing us instead of the success of our own charity balls, the weddings and christenings and glowing obituaries of our neighbours and friends, considering a concert of sacred music at the Morgan Aycliffe Hall of far greater social significance then the glittering receptions of the Prince of Wales at Marlborough House, the war between France and Prussia interesting only for its effect on the worsted trade, rumours of coming conflict between ourselves, and Russia for control of the East noteworthy for the amount of uniform cloth likely to be required.

Such violence as we had in Cullingford was not to be found in its pages, Mr. Roundwood having no interest and assuming us to have none in the rough and tumble of our back alleys on Friday nights.
The Courier
, in fact, was a publication which a gentleman might safely leave on his hall table, the picture of solid well-being and conventional values it presented being more likely to bore his wife and children, should it fall into their hands, than corrupt them. The
Courier
acknowledged virtue, ignored vice, in the hope perhaps that it would go away. It spoke to prosperous people about prosperity—assuring us that we were rich because we were industrious, that the poor had only themselves to blame for their poverty—while the
Star
, on the other hand, spoke to very few people at all, operating from a ramshackle first floor and basement in unkempt Gower Street, its circulation, which had never been robust, limping now to a halt.