The Victory (9 page)

‘
I'm sorry to interrupt you at such a moment,' Weston said
with a formal politeness designed to keep him from trembling,
'but I believe it is important. Might I have an interview with
you in private?’

The earl looked at him coldly. 'I see no reason for it. You
and I can have nothing to say to each other.’

Weston looked exasperated. 'Sir, I understand how you
must feel about me, and I assure you that I like the idea of
this interview as little as you do, but you cannot in all reason
expect me simply to go away. There are things that must be
said: arrangements to be made.’

The earl looked at him for a moment, tight-lipped, and
then said, 'Very well. We had better go to a private room. I
don't suppose your seeking me out in this public way can give
rise to more gossip than is already current.’

Weston thought the earl looked really ill, and was ashamed to have made his life more difficult in this manner. 'I'm sorry,
sir. I suppose I should have sent a note first, requesting an
interview, but the matter is one of such urgency that —'

‘
You mistake, Captain. There is no urgency in the case.
But I concede that you might well think so. If you please,' —
he silenced Weston with a gesture — 'no more talk until we
are alone.’

Having asked a club servant to ensure they were not
disturbed, he led the way into a private parlour, closed the
door and, taking a seat himself, signed the younger man to sit
down. Weston obeyed, but almost instantly got to his feet
again, hardly aware that he had done so, his agitation too
great to let him be still. The two men had been many times in
company together since the beginning of Weston's association
with Lucy, but they had never been alone together, and noth
ing in the nature of a confrontation had ever taken place.
Aylesbury had been at pains that it should not, and was angry
that Weston should have precipitated one now.

‘
Well, Captain Weston,' he said at last, when the other had
paced up and down the room a few times, 'if you have some
thing to say to me, you had better say it, and let us be done
with this.’

Weston turned to face him. 'If this interview is painful to
you, sir, I assure you it is even more so to me.'

‘No, sir. That is not possible,' Aylesbury said, quite gently. ‘Proceed.’

Weston flushed. 'Sir, Lucy tells me that you came to see her this morning, at her request; that she had something to
tell you.'

‘
She told me that she is with child,' the earl answered
brutally, 'and since the whole world knows that the child
cannot be mine, it is to be supposed that you are responsible
for its existence.’

Weston bit his lip. 'Yes, it's true. It would be absurd of me
to apologise to you —'

‘
More than absurd. It would be an intolerable imperti
nence,' the earl said in a hard voice.

‘
Sir, I am sorry that you, or anyone else, should be hurt in
any way by my actions,' Weston persevered. 'I wish with all
my heart that things could have been different, but I do beg
you to believe that I have not acted lightly, and that I should
never have wronged you if it weren't for my great love for her.'

‘
These protestations are tedious and distasteful to me.
Please understand that I have no interest whatever in your
state of mind, and come to the point, if indeed you have one.'

‘
The point is that your wife is with child by me,' Weston
said, stung by the contempt in the earl's voice, 'and that I
have no wish of concealment in the matter. I have come to
ask you to divorce her, so that I may take responsibility for
her and the child.'

‘
Divorce is out of the question. I have already told my wife so. She might have saved you the trouble of this application.’

 
‘
She did tell me that, but I must beg you to —'

‘
Captain Weston,' Aylesbury lifted an imperative hand, 'let
us understand each other and have done with all this. I have
said that divorce is out of the question, and I shall not change
my mind. I have no intention of going through all the
unpleasantness, scandal and disgrace merely for your con
venience. Lucy is my wife, and she will remain my wife, and I shall do my best to retrieve what little reputation is left to her.
You, I believe, will soon be going to sea, which will be the best
thing for all of us. When you are ashore, you may continue to
see her as you do now. I could prevent that, but I have no
wish to exert myself; or, as it happens, to make her so
unhappy. And that is all I have to say to you.'

‘
I'm sorry, sir, but I can't leave it there,' said Weston.
‘Lucy says that you have told her the child must be placed with foster parents. If you don't mean to acknowledge it, if
you feel such aversion to it, why prevent me from accepting
my responsibility? I want to look after her — and the child. I know I can't marry her legally, but if you would only divorce
her, I would be a husband to her in every other way. I can change my commission for a shore appointment. When the
war is over, if you like we could go abroad. You need never
see or hear of us —’

Aylesbury sighed. 'I can see I shall have to be plainer still. I
married Lucy in the first place in order to get an heir for my
title and estate. This was a duty I owed to my family. It
happened also to suit the Morland family very well, but that's
beside the point. I have always let her do pretty much as she
pleased, provided the primary purpose of our marriage was
fulfilled. The scandal she has caused by her liaison with you is
a fleeting and unimportant thing, but this child — which everyone would know is not mine — and a divorce could
cause great damage to my family, and I do not propose to
allow it. As to your taking care of her, forgive me if I continue
to believe that I can do that better than you.'

‘
And her wishes in the matter are not important?' Weston
asked hotly. 'You would separate her from her own child?’

 
‘
Lucy has everything she wants. She has wealth, position,
the protection of my name, and she is free to consort with you
as and when she pleases. As to the children, I have never
noticed that she is particularly fond of the three she has
already — not even the last one you fathered on her, Captain
Weston.’

Weston was dumbfounded. 'What do you mean?' he asked
at last in a faint voice.

Aylesbury's smile was one of pure malice. 'She didn't tell
you, then? We were both quite grateful to you, you know. Our
first two endeavours had only produced girls, and I think
Lucy found the business as distasteful as I did. The arrival of your boy provided me with the heir I needed, so that we need
never go through it again.'

‘
You mean the baby — Roland — is my son?' He stared,
trying to make sense of it.

‘No, Captain, not any more. He is
my
son, my heir: Roland
Chetwyn, Viscount Calder, who will be seventh Earl of Ayles
bury after my death.’

Weston looked stunned, like a man who had been struck a
very hard blow. 'I never knew ... I never even suspected ...’

 
‘
We were at pains you should not,' Aylesbury said evenly.
‘But then — why tell me now?'

‘
So that you may understand the situation fully. I have my
heir, and I'm grateful enough to you and Lucy to allow you the pleasure of each other's company, even though it incon
veniences me a little from time to time. But I will not cast any shadow on his inheritance by divorce, or by allowing this new
child to come publicly into the world.’

Weston's hands clenched in fury. 'This is intolerable! I tell
you I won't stand aside and do nothing, while you —’

Aylesbury's expression hardened. 'Oh yes, you will,
Captain. I have been lenient with you so far, for Lucy's sake,
but you had better not try my patience. Good God, sir, you talk as if you had some rights in this matter! I will tell you
now exactly what will happen. Lucy will go to the country to
have the baby privately; the baby will be sent away to foster
parents; and you will accept your new commission, which I
was at such pains to get for you.'

‘You?' Weston said in astonishment.

‘Oh yes. I am not without influence, you know. There was
some question of a staff appointment at the Admiralty, but
that would not have suited my purposes. It is necessary that
you should be out of the country for the next few months. If
you return, you may see Lucy again, and I hope you will both
try to be a little more careful in future.'

‘And if I refuse to co-operate with your plans?'

‘
You would be wise not to resist them. I can break you,
Captain. You see by the way I have already influenced your
career that this is no idle threat. You may also like to consider
that, for all your protests about love, you are no more than a
common adulterer. I could bring a suit against you for
Criminal Conversation, which there is no doubt in the world I
would win. Considering my rank, the damages which would
be awarded against you would be of such an order that you
would be faced with the choice of debtor's prison or flight
abroad. You should ask yourself, perhaps, how Lucy would
like that.’

The earl stood up, and Weston saw the heaviness of his
movements and the terrible weariness in his face. 'Now I'm
afraid I must ask you to leave,' he said politely. 'It is past my
usual hour of dining. You will forgive me, Captain, if I hope
that we never meet again.’

*

Lucy wept, and Weston, who had never seen her tears before,
did everything he could think of to console her, but in vain.

‘
I wish I hadn't told you,' she sobbed. 'It was better as it
was. I can't bear to think of you both unhappy! Oh, poor
Chetwyn!'

‘Lucy, my darling —'

‘
He has always been good to me. What other husband
would let us alone like this?'

‘
Yes, I know, I know,' Weston said grimly. 'But now he means to make up for it. Oh, Lucy, why didn't you tell me
about Roland? I just don't understand.'

‘
Don't you?' she said, lifting her tear-smudged face from
her hands for a moment. 'But — that was why we married, to
get an heir. It would have meant it was all for nothing, and he
was my husband after all. I owed him that much. But now
with this child, we've been apart too long.'

‘
You mean,' Weston asked slowly, 'that you wouldn't have
told me if you and he —?’