A Marriage of Convenience (28 page)

Because it was Sunday, and Father Maguire had been insistent that they arrive early, Clinton had aimed to reach Rathnagar with time in hand to be married and leave the village before the people began setting out for Mass; but a wrong turning outside Ballygowan, followed a little later by some disastrously bad directions from a farm labourer, delayed them by almost an hour, so that there were already small groups of villagers huddled in the street outside the church when they drew up.

The doors were locked, and when they had knocked and been admitted by the priest, he looked at Clinton reproachfully.

‘If it’s secrecy you’re wanting, sir, you’d have done best to come at the time I asked. I had the witnesses come all the way from Lisnama so there’d be no talk in the village. I had to send them away when the people started gathering.’

‘You sent them away?’ echoed Clinton, in fear that the man would now refuse to marry them.

‘Would you have wanted them to walk out in front of the people when the doors had been closed and none but themselves and the two of you in here? A couple of strangers like themselves? They’d have been asked questions right enough. And wouldn’t they just have seen your two names in the book when they signed their own?’

‘But people will see the lady leaving with me.’

Maguire looked at him wearily.

‘I suppose they’ll question gentlefolk like yourselves? Of course they won’t.’ He gave a little cough and looked at them more sympathetically. ‘You needn’t be worrying yourselves. It’s not the witnesses that make a marriage but your own consents given before myself in God’s house.’

When Theresa asked Maguire to hear her confession before marrying them, the priest at once moved towards the confessional, though Clinton could tell how reluctant he was to lose more time. While he waited for them to come out of the box, Clinton reproached himself for having allowed his preoccupation with secrecy to blind him to any accurate imaginings of how things would
be. The shabby little church and the hole-and-corner furtiveness of everything dismayed him far more than any doubts about the validity of the proceedings. Before proposing to Theresa, Clinton had carefully reviewed his earlier conversation with Maguire, and had found no reason for feeling qualms of conscience. The priest had made his position plain. He would celebrate a marriage in the proper form, and would never claim that he had done anything but marry them, unless challenged at a later date with having married a Protestant. In that single unlikely eventuality, he would excuse himself on the grounds that he had understood that a civil marriage had already taken place, and would say that he had gone through the church service merely as a blessing on that existing union—his desire being to satisfy the lady’s Catholic conscience. Since Clinton believed that he himself would rather die than ever attempt to escape the effect of his vows, he saw no possibility of the marriage being called in question. Even so, he had made up his mind to tell Theresa about the Irish Marriage Act and to undergo a civil ceremony placing the matter beyond doubt. But he could see no way of doing this for several months; since to tell her within days, or even weeks, might be to cause her unnecessary pain while the ceremony itself remained a powerful emotional memory. Anything seeming to detract from it, should not be spoken of in haste.

A few minutes later, Maguire led them to the altar where they knelt and spoke their vows at his prompting. The priest’s hurried utterance upset Clinton, but in Theresa’s face he saw only happiness and serenity, and wished that he too could distance himself from their surroundings and give himself as entirely to the meaning of the words. But the creak of the priest’s boots and the broken veins in his cheeks, and other details kept intruding, and he was badly distressed that the ring he had purchased the day before in Dublin was too small to slide over her knuckle. Later, when the correct moment had passed, he took off his own signet ring and placed it on her hand with the seal facing inwards. After Maguire had
pronounced
the final blessing, he led them to the vestry where he asked them to sign what he described as his private register. As soon as Clinton had handed over his fee, the priest apologised to them and hurried away to admit the villagers for Mass. They were left alone to leave by the vestry door.

Walking out after Theresa, Clinton dreaded seeing evidence of disappointment in her face. But when he looked at her, he saw the same soft calm light in her eyes that he had observed in the church, A gust of wind lifted her veil and she smiled as she caught it. Rough grey-bellied clouds swept across the sky. He saw Theresa point to a clump of snowdrops in the rough grass between the tombstones; he
bent down and picked some for her. As the chapel bell began to toll with a harsh clanging noise, he took her hand.

‘Even the bell’s an insult,’ he groaned.

‘Remember those lies you once told me about the wedding you were going to have at Hanover Square? The frills and ribbons … Wasn’t this better?’ He did not answer her as the bell clanged on. ‘But you said it yourself,’ she cried, ‘only the vows matter. I wouldn’t feel more truly married if a cardinal in all his glory had held the service.’

‘That dismal black cassock of his,’ sighed Clinton.

She smiled.

‘You wouldn’t have thought much of his precautions if he’d welcomed his flock in wedding vestments.’

‘You didn’t mind about the furtiveness … the witnesses sent away like thieves, the private register …?’

‘Why should I have? I knew you wanted secrecy.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘
I’m
married
to
you
;
what else could matter to me?’

He gazed at her in silent gratitude before walking on. When they turned the corner into the chapel yard, bare legged women in blue cloaks and their men decked out in suits of baggy tweed and frieze were going in at the west door. Theresa stopped Clinton and looked up at him.

‘I’d like to go to Mass on my wedding day. Come with me this once. They can’t know who we are.’

Though wanting to go away at once, Clinton agreed. The thought of the priest’s creaking shoes, the empty faces of the plaster angels, and the words he would not understand, weighed upon him. But when he had got used to the coughing and the sour smell of unwashed bodies, and he saw the unaffected piety of the people, his depression lifted. Their concentration on the prayers and their fervent responses moved him in a way the placid Protestant rituals of his boyhood had never done. Soon he could not understand how so many trivial things had worried him during their wedding. He remembered Theresa’s clear soft voice: ‘To love and to cherish, if holy church will permit, according to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto I pledge thee my troth,’ and his heart was filled with tenderness. It had been years since he had been to any church, except with his men, and even longer since he had prayed. Now, watching Theresa’s closed eyes and slightly moving lips, he felt that she was praying for them both. Memories of his father’s disdainful bearing in church still made Clinton feel awkward when he knelt, but he did so with the rest, listening to the words of the Kyrie and later to the Sanctus bell.

‘Hoc est enim corpus …’ The bell again, and the priest holding
up the wafer. ‘Hic est enim calix sanguinis …’ Another bell, and then the repeated: ‘Domine non sum dignus,’ as the congregation moved to the communion rail, Theresa with them—a viscountess with these peasants, about to drink from the same cup. He felt an instinctive shudder; a feeling more powerful than difference of caste, for contained in it was a barbed jealousy that these men and women could share with her an experience from which he was excluded.

When she returned to his side, her presence soothed him; she completed him, as if till then he had been a man with no centre, rootless. Never to be without her, he thought with a light shock: to live with her, be happy, quarrel, be amused, bored, enchanted. Everything; and time, so much time together, so that no disappointment or reverse need ever last or part them. Always days ahead of them for reconciliation; always—until the last of them had come and gone. As the responses began again, he felt an enveloping humility which sprang from no process of the mind, but from spontaneous joy in all that was most elusive and incommunicable in his love for her.

The state of Clinton’s and Theresa’s relations remained a mystery to Esmond for the first three months of the New Year. He knew that Clinton had stayed on with his regiment in Ireland till the end of March; and since Theresa had been appearing nightly in
Much
Ado
About
Nothing
from late January till the beginning of April, it had struck him as unlikely that they were seeing much of each other at this time. Although he had resisted the temptation of trying to see her, Esmond had been unable to suppress a growing optimism and a return to the scarcely admitted hope that one day she might come back to him.

Then in April he had been shocked to learn that Clinton had sold his commission and taken a lease on a house in Lancashire. With the help of an inquiry agent, Esmond discovered that Theresa had joined Clinton there. Her success as Beatrice had been so striking that Esmond thought it unlikely that she would suddenly have agreed to live in the country unless Clinton had given her good reason. And what could that be but marriage?

With his conviction that Clinton had succeeded with her, came renewal of all Esmond’s old hatred. The thought of their happiness was agony to him, made worse by a grudging recognition that Clinton was behaving sensibly. Living in London with Theresa, Clinton would have been plagued by being within sight and sound of the social life he could not share with her until able to make public acknowledgement of his marriage. Even in less formal company, he would have had to pretend she was his mistress, in case his uncle learned that he had married—a most humiliating
predicament
for a man wanting to shield his wife from slights. But in a part of the country where neighbours would be both few and scattered, such embarrassment would be reduced to a minimum. Removed from the temptations of the capital, Clinton might even be able to live within his means.

But Clinton’s finances—as Esmond knew very well—were still vulnerable in one vital respect. He would depend entirely on his trust investment income until completion of the Markenfield
settlement at the end of the lease. A period of two years, during which all his capital would remain pledged as security for existing debts. Even a brief interruption of current income would place Clinton in a disastrous position.

In February Esmond had at last prevailed upon the family trustees to purchase £30,000 of Greek & Oriental shares on Clinton’s behalf. Just three months later, Esmond had not been very much surprised to learn that the shipping line’s trading position had become grave enough to dictate the immediate
suspension
of dividends or liquidation. In either event, Esmond foresaw appalling repercussions for his brother—whose entire trust holding was invested in Greek & Oriental stock.

At an emergency meeting called by the company in June, the shareholders voted in favour of deferring payment of dividends, rather than force the shipping line to liquidate. This vote—which gave Esmond a final chance to save the company—brought Clinton very close to ruin; ironically at a time when he thought himself perfectly safe. A few days after the meeting, Esmond wrote to Clinton warning him of his position; he also admitted the gravity of the situation to the trustees. A month passed, and though he wrote again, Esmond still heard nothing from his brother. By now Drummonds would have sent letters asking Clinton to explain why they had not received the usual quarterly remittance from the trustees. As his own commercial problems mounted, Esmond still found time occasionally to wonder how long Clinton’s love would survive the day his bank began dishonouring his cheques and notes of hand.

On a hot Sunday in late July, Clinton sat on the terrace at Hathenshaw Hall waiting for Theresa and Louise to return from Mass. With his back to the old redstone house, he gazed across sloping lawns and fields to the wooded river banks and the fells beyond. Listening to the baaing of sheep drifting up from the hazy valley, he wished that his thoughts mirrored the peace around him. But Theresa was pregnant; and since learning this two weeks earlier, Clinton had been deeply preoccupied. Before she had told him, he had been about to confide to her the possible shortcomings of their Irish marriage and to persuade her to go through a civil ceremony. His intention had been to break this to her before the end of the month; but to do so now, so soon after hearing her news, might make it seem that he was being honest with her only because forced to by doubts about the baby’s legitimacy. Deciding to postpone his revelation, Clinton had broached other problems at once.

Although knowing that Louise might be indiscreet with the servants, Clinton had suggested that she ought to be told about the marriage without delay. The hatred the girl might otherwise feel towards him as the baby started to grow, had overcome his reservations—particularly since her behaviour to him was already unpredictable enough to change from abject admiration to hostility in the space of a single conversation. But Theresa had flatly refused to tell her, in case she in turn told her grandfather. Although the old man would understand the need for secrecy, Theresa warned Clinton that he might well consider the birth of a child an event overriding all else. Rather than allow anyone to think the baby illegitimate, the major could quite easily take it into his head to blow the marriage open. When Clinton had said he was still prepared to take the risk, Theresa had implored him not to make her responsible through her family for jeopardizing his prospects with his uncle. Though persuaded to give up the idea of telling Louise, thoughts of what she and her grandfather would think of him in the months to come, troubled Clinton long after this conversation.

By contrast, Clinton had felt an unfamiliar sense of financial
well-being
since coming to Hathenshaw. No longer burdened by military expenses, he was living within his income for the first time in years. He had spent more than he had intended on the house, but a
three-year
lease had been paid for entirely from the proceeds of his commission. Though his capital was just as tightly hedged as before, this could have no ill effects while his outgoings remained at their present level. Secure in this faith, Clinton had not troubled to open several letters addressed to him in Esmond’s hand. His brother would only have written to ask unwelcome questions about his marriage or to raise needless alarms about his future. Esmond’s letters had joined a heap of others, including several from his bank, at the bottom of a drawer in the gun-room. It still gave Clinton satisfaction to feel able safely to ignore communications which only months ago would have given him no peace until read. Without any deliberate intent to forget the outside world entirely, Clinton found it pleasant to remember its existence only when he felt inclined.

With each day still revealing new aspects of Theresa’s personality to admire and love, Clinton very rarely regretted the independent life he had abandoned for her. She too had given up a career. At times, certainly, the tranquillity of his present life seemed strange to Clinton, and occasionally he wondered without much urgency whether a year would still find them at Hathenshaw. A legacy of years as active as the past half-dozen gave him no cause to begrudge himself a period of retirement. Later, in weeks or months, he would make plans—a time perhaps in the colonies or in South America, where governments were eager to acquire the services of English officers. And if Theresa disliked the change they could move on. But thoughts of Louise and the unborn child, as well as Theresa’s wishes, clouded even the most tentative predictions. More than ever, he lived for each passing day.

Clinton left the gardens and walked between hedgerows heavy with the scent of elderflower and wild honeysuckle. Above the hum of insects, the notes of a cuckoo lingered drowsily on the warm air. Later they would picnic in the water meadows, and afterwards, he hoped to spend the rest of the day alone with Theresa at the deserted mill pond they had recently discovered.

*

The lichened masonry of the old mill buildings seemed to be slowly merging into the surrounding woods. Brambles grew in the
doorways
and sycamore saplings thrust skyward between the rafters. Through rotting sluices, the stream trickled into the pond scarcely moving the light surface film in the centre. In the silence, the
sudden rise of a fish or the cooing of wood pigeons seemed curiously loud.

As soon as they arrived, Clinton had at once taken off his shirt, but when Theresa had made no move to undress, he paused.

‘Not coming in?’

‘Perhaps later.’

He stood looking meditatively at the clear reflection of her dress and parasol in the glassy water until she moved and sat down in the grass among the willowherb. Dragonflies caught the sun, skimming over the water lilies. She smiled at him.

‘Would you mind if anyone saw us swimming?’

‘Not unless they took our clothes.’ He chuckled to himself as he pulled off his shoes and loosened his trousers. ‘It’d give them something new to cackle about. You’d think men never swam naked in the sea.’

‘Women don’t.’

‘Nobody’s going to come here.’ He kicked off his trousers and kissed her forehead. ‘A world of our own … like Adam and Eve.’

‘Remember what happened to them,’ she murmured, touching his thigh. He laughed aloud.

‘Pity Adam wasn’t in the cavalry. He could have given the flaming sword brigade a lesson in swordsmanship.’

She watched him walk through the long grass to the water’s edge where it was deepest, eyes lingering on the clean line of his hips and the tautness of his back as he stood poised to dive. Never at any moment had he expressed regret for their isolated existence, nor spoken of the least misgivings about the ending of his career. Whenever she had tried to get him to talk about the past, so that she could judge whether his happiness was as real in truth as in appearance, he had said little—claiming he hated thinking about the years when they had been nothing to each other. His passionate determination to live for each day captivated but also scared her; as if he were seizing on happiness too eagerly, like a hunter clutching and choking his prey in case it escaped him.

The splash of his dive sent rippling waves chasing each other across the pond and set the lilies bobbing wildly. She followed the white shadow of his body under the green surface until he came up under a patch of duckweed. Blowing a little, he flicked the weed from his shining head and swam a few vigorous strokes before turning over on his back and floating. When his cheek brushed against a yellow water lily, he trod water and sniffed the yellow cup-like flower.

‘Ugh! Smells of stale brandy.’ He tried another. ‘They all do!’ He
rolled over on his back again. ‘I saw a newt under the water … Do come in, Theresa. The sky looks marvellous from here; the reeds are tall as trees. I want to kiss you under water.’

‘Try the newt,’ she called back. He began to swim towards her.

‘I’ll come and get you.’

She got up slowly and started to undress, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her skin. Wading into the pond, she shivered as the water reached her waist and then lapped against her breasts; she could feel the mud squeezing up between her toes. The water smelled slightly brackish but not at all unpleasant. She launched herself forward, gasping a little with the cold but soon breathing easily. His hair was much darker wet, and sleeked close to his head like a seal’s coat. As she came closer to him, he dived and swam under her, brushing her stomach with his back, coming up inches from her face, kissing her lips almost as he surfaced. They embraced treading water, knees bumping gently. Feeling herself sinking, she swam away.

‘I look dreadful with wet hair.’

‘You sound like Louise.’

She sniffed one of the lilies and laughed.

‘You were right.’

‘Lie on your back and we can touch toes. I want to look at the sky, touching your toes.’

‘How silly you are.’

Before she could say anything else, he had pulled her under. She rose spluttering, and he tossed her up by the waist, sinking as he did so. Then reaching up with a disembodied hand, he touched her face and emerged, breathing fast.

‘Morte d’Arthur … An arm rose up from out the bosom of the lake … mystic, wonderful …’

She smiled in spite of her hair. The sun flashed on the broken water around them, and nearer to the bank, in smoother water, reflections of trees and clouds dissolved and formed again.

Lying on his back in the grass, Clinton let the hot sun dry him, while he watched Theresa towelling herself vigorously, raising a warm flush on her pale skin. The baby had not started to show.

‘Please don’t,’ he said, seeing her pick up a petticoat, but she shook her head and began to dress. Often they had made love beside the pond after swimming. Reluctantly he pulled on his trousers. He thought he caught a look of fleeting sadness on her face as she began absently to lace her bodice. A week ago he had suggested going to London together for a few days. Dick Lambert and two other officers from the 15th would be there. Rather than seem over-eager to see his friends, he had told her that he ought also to see his trustees. But, whether because she had felt that she would be
competing for his company with Lambert and the others, or because she mistakenly supposed that he would rather go alone, she had refused to consider accompanying him. He had offered not to go at all, but she had been so insistent that he stick to his original plan, that he had not opposed her. Remembering York, and her reluctance to pretend to be his wife, he had asked whether she now hated the idea of staying anywhere away from Hathenshaw and having to pretend to be his mistress. But she had laughed at the suggestion.

When she had dressed, she sat next to him, dabbing with a finger at the drops of water still lying between the curling hairs in the hollow of his chest. Then she lay back with her head in the crook of his arm, her damp hair cold against his skin. In three days he would be leaving. Around them the country dozed as if drunk with sunshine, the afternoon air thick with the smell of meadow plants and baking marsh mud. Theresa’s hair was already growing paler as it began to dry.

‘Come with me to London,’ he murmured.

‘I’d feel obliged to see my father if I did.’

‘He’s probably forgiven you.’

‘For refusing Esmond … possibly. But not for coming here.’ She watched him stripping some grass seeds idly with his hand. ‘He adores Louise … thinks I’m sacrificing her and my acting for an idiot’s infatuation.’ He lay back with a sigh. A light squall feathered the surface of the water and murmured in the trees. ‘Anyway,’ she went on softly, ‘a wife’s a fool who goes everywhere with her husband. You ought to see your friends on your own.’

‘But next time you’ll come?’

‘I expect so.’ She yawned and lay closer to him. ‘I love long lashes … the way they define your eyes. Your eyebrows are darker than your hair.’

‘If they weren’t?’ he laughed.

‘You wouldn’t be so handsome.’

‘Would you love me less?’ he asked lazily, brushing away a fly.

‘Perhaps you look like you do because I love you.’ She touched the little white scar above his left eye and smiled. ‘I don’t remember loving scars before.’

An hour later, walking back to Hathenshaw through the cool woods, Clinton asked Theresa if she would mind Dick Lambert coming back with him from London and staying a couple of days en route for Ireland. She laughed and asked him what possible objection she could have. Their path back to the house took them beside the river for a time, where it meandered through a green tunnel of overhanging boughs. After a long bend in its course, the trees thinned and the water meadows shimmered in open sunlight.
In the evening air, the ribbon of bright water twisted as far as the eye could see in perfect clarity. The distant fells formed cliffs of tawny light. They stood in silence as a swallow scooped smooth curves against the cloudless blue.