The Victory (17 page)

Edward looked at him, troubled. 'I wish Mother were still
alive,' he said. 'She kept things right.' But his hands came up
to cover Chetwyn's, and he smiled.

*

Chetwyn made his formal call on Roberta, and having
received him, she soon made an excuse to leave him alone
with Lucy.

‘You are well?' he asked.

‘
Yes, thank you. I feel perfectly fit. You look tired,' Lucy
added cautiously, trying to gauge the present degree of his
hostility.

‘
Too many late nights at Brighton; and the heat of the
Pavilion doesn't suit me,' he said. There was a short silence.
‘How long are you intending to stay here?'

‘
Until the end of August. I'm sure it will be all right. No-
one will know, if I wear extra petticoats —'

‘
It's all right, Lucy, I'm not criticising you,' Chetwyn said
quickly. 'I just wanted to know if you had made your plans.'

‘
Yes — that is, I haven't arranged anything yet, but I
thought, if you were agreeable, that I would ask Héloïse if I
could stay with her until the baby is born. The village where
she lives is small and remote. If I went under an assumed
name ...'

‘
It sounds an excellent idea,' Chetwyn said politely.
‘Perhaps you might be able to find some sensible family in the
district to take the child, too.’

Lucy looked surprised. 'But I thought you would want to
arrange that part of it, so that I wouldn't know where the
child was.’

He raised his eyebrows, and then smiled painfully. 'Whatever
made you think that? Am I such an ogre? No, Lucy, you
mistake me. I don't mean to punish you. All I want from you
is discretion. The child's identity must be kept secret, that's
all.'

‘
Oh,' said Lucy, and raised her eyes for the first time to
meet her husband's. They regarded each other for a moment
with a faint regeneration of warmth. He thought ruefully that
she had changed very little from the tousle-haired, hoydenish
child he had married.

‘
You do understand why it has to be this way, don't you,
Lucy?' he asked her.

‘
Yes, I understand. I really never meant to hurt you, you
know,' she added with an effort.

‘
I know,' he said. 'Nor I you. You were always my little
sister. I wish to God that need never have changed.' She said
nothing. 'You're such a strange little thing,' he went on
thoughtfully. 'James and Héloïse — they did wrong, they
knew it was wrong, and they regretted it. Weston knows what
he does is wrong, and wishes it were otherwise. But you —
you're like a wild animal that does what has to be done, with
out any sense of sin. It isn't that you defy the moral code,
only that you don't recognise it as applying to you. You don't
understand what I'm talking about, do you?' he added with a
wry smile.

‘No,' she said frankly.

‘
The wonder of it is, that you could have grown up like
that, your mother's daughter.'

‘
Mother didn't have much to do with my growing up,'
Lucy said. 'She was always too busy. Morgan Proom taught
me everything I know — well, nearly everything. I read a lot
of books, too.’

Now he laughed aloud. 'Oh Lucy!' She smiled politely, not knowing what the joke was. 'Now there's something I want to
ask of you,' he said, controlling himself. The Earl of Carlisle
is having a dinner and ball at Castle Howard in a fortnight's time, and he has sent me an invitation. Will you accompany me, and behave as my loving wife? Everyone of importance
will be there, and if we are seen together in a friendly way, it
will do a great deal to repair the damage of this last year.'

‘Yes, of course I will. I don't know what Roberta will have arranged for that date, but I'm sure she'll understand.'

‘
I'd be very surprised if she were not invited too,' Chetwyn
said. 'Does she know, by the way, about your condition?'

‘
Yes. I'll need her help in asking Héloïse if she will have me
to stay. But she's perfectly safe, you know. She wouldn't tell
anyone.'

‘
Yes, I know. Well, I'm glad we've had this talk, Lucy. It
makes things more comfortable between us.’

But for how long, Lucy wondered, though she didn't say so
aloud. As long as Weston was at sea, perhaps. When he came
back, all the old hostilities would revive. Here in Yorkshire,
with Edward, Chetwyn could regard her as his little sister,
but in London he would feel different about everything,
although the situation would be the same. She might say she
understood, but it was with her intellect only. At a deeper level, he was as unintelligible to her as most other people
were.

 
Invitations to the ball at Castle Howard arrived the following
day for the whole party at Shawes, and made a welcome
subject for discussion when they gathered after breakfast in
the drawing-room. It was a handsome room, painted in pale
grey with a great deal of gilding on the carved, acanthus
frieze, and the long French windows commanded a view over
the south terrace and down towards the lake, which for the
moment was hidden behind drifts of fine, drenching rain. It
was too wet even for the gentlemen to go out, and as Lord
Greyshott, lounging morosely by the windows, had already
several times remarked, Shawes had no billiard-room.

‘
Can't think what they were about, not to put in a billiard-room,' he complained. ‘Vanbrugh built it, didn't he? Always thought Vanbrugh was a good architect! You really ought to
have one put in, Lady C,' he turned towards Roberta, who was sitting nearby to get the light on her work. 'You can't
think what a comfort it is.’

Roberta murmured a polite reply. Lord Ballincrea, stretch
ing out his legs and admiring the effect of his crossed ankles,
said, 'Never mind, Ceddie. They're sure to have a billiard-
room at Castle Howard.'

‘
Tell me about the present earl,' Roberta said, taking
another stitch. 'I don't think I ever met him when Charles
was alive.'

‘
Oh, he's a very pleasant fellow,' Ballincrea said. 'He and Papa were great friends in their green days. The earl spent a
lot of time at Castle Howard.'

‘
Gamester, and a friend of Fox's,' Greyshott explained.
'Backed Fox's bills and got himself so far up the River Tick he
had to live in the country to economise.'

‘So to amuse himself he was always having house-parties,'
Ballincrea resumed. 'He used to write plays and get his guests
to act them. Do you remember Papa describing them, Helena?’

His sister Lady Greyshott paused in her restless walking
about the room. ‘Oh yes! Papa used to act as badly as he
could to try to get out of them, but Carlisle didn't notice, and
gave him the second lead every time!'

‘
He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, wasn't he?' said
Colonel Taske.

‘
Yes, he had quite a career in politics. Went on a diplomatic
mission during the American war,' Ballincrea said.

‘
That was when he got friendly with my father,' Lucy said.
'He
was a special envoy, too.'

‘
I know him slightly,' Colonel Taske said. 'Met him once or
twice at York House. Intelligent sort of fellow. His son's in the military way — Morpeth, I mean, the eldest.'

‘
Carlisle and I are related, of course,' came the faint,
languid tones of Lady Serena, who was reclining on a sopha
in a cloud of muslin scarves and lavender-water.

From the first, Lucy had been fascinated by her, having
never before met anyone who spent so much time horizontal.
Born Lady Serena Sale, daughter of the Marquis of Penrith,
she had been cosseted and protected all her childhood by
adoring parents and an army of servants. She had never been allowed to do anything the least energetic, for fear of damag
ing her tender beauty, and had grown up believing herself to
be as fragile as she was precious.

Shortly after succeeding to the title, her brother — who had married Nicoletta, sister of the previous Viscount Ballincrea —
arranged a marriage between Lady Serena and Sir Henry
Knaresborough, a kindly man twenty years her senior. She
bore him one child, Robert, and found the experience so
disagreeable that she was obliged to tell her husband her
constitution would not allow her to repeat it. On his death
some years later, she retired to the sopha for good, to enjoy all
the attention her unspecified ailments secured for her, and to
ward off anything in the least disagreeable with the threat of
their exacerbation.

Lucy was brought up to think of illness as a nuisance, and
regarded Lady Serena with astonishment. Her interest in
medical matters led her on one memorable occasion to
inquire of Lady Serena what her illness was. Lady Serena, her
cheeks pink with the delicate bloom of health, described her
symptoms with relish.

‘
But what does the doctor say is wrong with you? What's
the name of your disease?' Lucy asked when she paused for
breath.

‘
My dear, he has never come across a case like mine,' Lady
Serena said with pride. 'He says it is a wonder I am alive.
"My dear Lady Serena," he says —'

‘But you look perfectly healthy to me,' Lucy said in frank
bewilderment, which caused Lady Serena to fall back on her
pillows with a shriek.

‘
Perfectly healthy? Oh, monstrous! No-one knows what I
suffer!' she cried in a faint voice. 'I have puzzled every
eminent doctor in the land.'

‘
Well, I only said ...' Lucy began, and was interrupted by
another shriek. 'I think you would feel better for some fresh
air and exercise,' she went on, at which point Lady Serena
went off into strong hysterics. These soon brought her lady
companion, her maid, her son, and Roberta hurrying to her side, and enabled her to be carried up to her room with the
most gratifying ceremony.

Roberta, when she was able to quit the scented bower of
pain, sought out Lucy and begged her not to upset Lady
Serena again.

‘
But it's all humbug,' Lucy said indignantly. 'There's noth
ing wrong with her.'

‘
Perhaps not, dearest, but she gives everyone such a lot of trouble if she's crossed. Maids running about with hot-water
bottles and extra pillows, and the kitchen turned upside-down
to cook her special meals, and physicians sent for, and drug-
get laid down outside her room. Please try not to annoy her in
future — for my sake.’