A Marriage of Convenience (30 page)

‘Buy a few things.’

‘Oh?’

‘Nothing very exciting. Cigars and cartridges.’

He had spoken naturally and without the least hesitation; but, just as earlier she had jumped to the conclusion that Clinton had handed Harris the letters, now she suspected he had really gone to Lancaster to send a telegram to Esmond or perhaps to the trustees. Though she tried to be logical, she could no longer escape the tendrils of mistrust that had fastened upon her during Clinton’s absence, and had been tightening ever since. Why had Clinton sent him off so suddenly without bothering to give him other matters to attend to while he was there? The man only went there once or twice a month. She felt angry with herself for questioning Clinton about Harris’s mission when she ought to have been direct and asked to see the letters. But, having treated him with open suspicion the night before, and now having started the day with further questions, she felt that this would have to wait. Because she had made it so clear that mutual trust was equivalent in her eyes to a proof of love, she realised with chill misgiving that in future every question, that might otherwise have appeared innocent to him, would now run the risk of seeming weighted.

Walking in the garden together, later in the morning, his drowsy contentment with the warmth and tranquillity of the day, mocked her for her own inability to share it. The dappled green-gold light, falling through the leaves on long yellow streamers of laburnum and into blue pools of gentians, only distracted her a little from her fears. Near the entrance to the kitchen garden, a sudden pain low down in her stomach made her stop and lean against him. He looked at her in alarm, but the spasm passed quickly and was not repeated; so that when he asked her whether anything was wrong, she merely shook her head and smiled. They walked on.

‘Do you ever worry about disappointing me, Clinton?’

His gaze passed her and fixed upon the raspberry canes under their muslin netting.

‘Wouldn’t do me much good. I can only be myself.’

‘How lucky you are,’ she said, ‘to be so sure.’

Far from being put out, he seemed amused.

‘For somebody as individual as you are, Theresa, you say the most unlikely things.’ He smiled. ‘I suppose that’s why you do.’

Later that morning while Clinton was out walking with Dick,
Theresa made up her mind not to press him about the letters while his friend was at Hathenshaw. Before then Clinton might show them to her voluntarily; he had promised not to conceal things from her. Remembering this conversation she felt ashamed of her doubts and told herself they were ridiculous. Shortly before luncheon, Theresa found herself having to sort out one of the violent quarrels which seemed to be becoming commonplace between Louise and her governess. Two days before, the girl had refused to continue reading Chapman’s
Iliad,
describing Homer as ‘a blind old person who wrote a silly rigmarole of battles so badly that nobody knows if it’s one poem or lots of odds and ends.’ Louise had also taken to asking deliberately embarrassing questions about love whenever they read Shakespeare. Since Miss Banks was a spinster who had twice been jilted on the point of marriage, the subject was a difficult one for her. Today the argument had arisen when the woman had apologised for coughing, asking Louise to forgive her ‘barking’. Louise had replied that she could go on all day since she liked dogs.

Though Theresa often found these encounters amusing, it had not been easy to find a suitable governess prepared to work in such a remote place and she was extremely anxious to prevent the woman giving notice. Several of those interviewed for the post had turned it down at once when Theresa had been obliged to tell the inevitable lie about not being married to Clinton. Soon Theresa knew that she would have to make arrangements for Louise to go away to school; at any rate before her pregnancy became obvious. The thought of the opposition she would face made Theresa dread breaking the news to her. Since she was also sure that Clinton thought she indulged the child, Theresa was dismayed by thoughts of his probable reaction to the arguments in store for all of them. There was every chance too that Louise would appeal to her grandfather to prevent her being sent away; and since the old man already blamed Clinton for destroying his daughter’s prospects of an excellent marriage, and after that an unparalleled opportunity in the theatre, his arrival at Hathenshaw as Louise’s champion was not an event which Theresa could contemplate with detachment.

In the meantime Clinton’s apparent indifference to the future at times shocked her. Simple misunderstandings, which a few words appeared to set straight for him, left lingering echoes with her. On perhaps some dozen occasions since coming to Hathenshaw she had given way to sudden outbursts of anger, for which she had soon apologised. But the fact that he was always so easily reassured, distressed her almost as much as the tensions in herself. At times she blamed their isolation, at times her pregnancy and the strains of secrecy, but when depressed, no conscious listing of reasons helped
her. She was not often unreasonable with him, but, when she was, Theresa wished that Clinton would argue the matter out with her. Treating her with chivalrous patience seemed more important to him than understanding her.

During the next few days, though she managed to behave more naturally with Lambert, and even enjoyed winning him over, she could not help sometimes resenting his closeness to Clinton. On Dick’s second day she had been walking past the paddock with Louise when they heard the two men laughing together in the stables. Clinton had rigged up an improvised shower-bath there—an old copper with a perforated bottom, slung between two rafters of the hay loft. To make it work, Harris had to clamber up the loft ladder with buckets of water to tip in. Entertained at first by their shouts of amusement, she had soon felt sad, and, though she did not admit it, a little jealous. They shared so much more than this capacity for easy laughter over trifles. The bond of the army, common backgrounds of school and home, set her apart from them in a way born ladies would have accepted as entirely natural, but which to her, with her memories of a theatrical life identical for both sexes, seemed hurtful and strange.

*

On the day before Lambert was due to leave, Clinton had suggested that the three of them should watch the sheep shearing at Sagar’s Farm outside Browsholme. Knowing that they would prefer to ride there, rather than take the carriage, Theresa had decided not to go; but Clinton’s disappointment was so obvious, that even before they had left, she regretted her decision. Yet because she had been so positive, she had felt unable to retract in front of Lambert without looking foolish. Later she was amazed that she had not simply made light of the whole matter and gone regardless of anything she had said. No principle had been involved and her sensitivity over something so unimportant now struck her as far more absurd than any change of heart would have been. She wanted to ask Harris to drive her to the farm in the phaeton, but could not help thinking that the servant would suppose she had been left out and was only going after the men to get her revenge. Annoyed with herself for being affected by anything Clinton’s valet might think, she still could not bring herself to ring for him. She passed a dull day.

Before leaving, Clinton had been definite about the time they would return and so Theresa asked the cook to have dinner ready by that hour. But when the time came they did not appear and Theresa was left sitting alone in the dining room. Harris, who since coming
to Hathenshaw had doubled as butler and valet, stood waiting to serve her. And still they did not come. The silence in the room and the servant’s tactfully averted gaze started to play on her nerves. In less than five minutes she had endured all she could and jumped up and left the room.

On the ride back to Hathenshaw, Lambert’s mare had gone lame and the two men had dismounted and led their horses home. They were tired and their faces caked with dust that had dried on sweat; their clothes were covered with strands of wool. Having both tried their hand at shearing, they had given the locals more to laugh about than any travelling circus, especially since they deliberately picked some of the largest rams for their beginners’ efforts. Later they had got their own back by getting the shearers to race each other for money.

Knowing they were late, Clinton at once went to Theresa’s favourite sitting room and finding it empty hurried to the dining room. When Harris told him that Mrs Barr had gone upstairs, he asked the valet to tell her that he had returned and sent his apologies. Then Clinton went to wash and change. Returning to the sitting room some minutes later, Theresa had still not come down, but Lambert was there talking to Louise. She was showing him her musical box which now occupied a place of honour in the room. The child had already eaten with her governess and usually spent some time with Clinton and Theresa at this hour before they dined. Wanting to ask her whether she had just seen her mother, Clinton remained silent when she started the musical box. To the strains of a Mozart minuet, the small and beautifully carved figures of a man and woman, set into the lid, bowed to each other jerkily and then danced to the tinkling notes. While the music played, Louise crossed the room at her ease like an accustomed hostess and casually sniffed some roses in a vase near Clinton’s chair.

‘Did you go to a lot of shops for my present?’ she asked, looking at him attentively with her green eyes that he had always thought too large for her face.

‘Several.’

‘More than for mama’s watch?’

He composed his face, seeing Lambert smile.

‘Good musical boxes are always hard to find.’

She looked at him with an expression of secret triumph.

‘I thought so.’

‘But so are watches,’ said Lambert.

‘That isn’t what Lord Ardmore said,’ the girl answered tartly.

‘Come on then, Clinton,’ laughed Dick, ‘which took longer to find?’

‘There are some things a man keeps to himself.’

Louise considered this with her head on one side. The figures on the box bowed to one another and the music tinkled to a close.

‘What other things does a man keep to himself?’ she asked.

Clinton smiled.

‘I couldn’t keep them to myself if I told you.’

‘Drinking too much? I think it’s very vulgar to get drunk.’

‘What else do you think is vulgar?’ asked Dick gravely.

‘I think moustaches are rather …’ She paused, uncertain what word to use.

‘Hairy?’ asked Lambert.

‘Yes,’ she cried, laughing loudly as though he had made an extraordinarily funny joke. She turned to Clinton. ‘Do you know what I think your face looks when you’ve just shaved?’ He got up impatiently, beginning to feel woried by Theresa’s continuing absence.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Like polished pumicestone,’ she announced loudly, clearly pleased by the comparison.

‘Isn’t it usually grey and full of little holes?’ asked Dick.

As Louise began to explain what she had meant, Clinton went out and made for the stairs.

Theresa was reading a book when he entered their bedroom. She looked up at him with ironic surprise.

‘Why did you send your man up instead of coming yourself?’

‘Good God, Theresa, I’d been shearing sheep. I was a dreadful sight.’

‘You’d have been a welcome one to me an hour earlier.’

‘Dick’s horse went lame.’ He went to embrace her but she drew back. ‘Dammit Theresa, what’s the matter?’

‘How do you think I felt with that Harris creature watching over me … as if he knew you’d be late? The faithful retainer who knew his darling master better than any mistress …’ She paused, breathing deeply, her eyes still reproachful. Her last word made him stiffen.

‘Do you have any complaint against him?’

‘I’ve never cared for him.’

‘He’s an excellent valet and a first-rate groom.’

‘There must be others.’

‘Do you want him dismissed?’ he asked quietly.

‘Look at me, Clinton,’ she whispered. ‘You’re almost in tears. I didn’t mean it. I felt humiliated … can’t you understand why?’

‘I should have come up at once. I’m sorry.’

‘It isn’t just that,’ she moaned. ‘You like the man because of your
past … It’s the same with your friend. I haven’t seen you happier for weeks than in these last few days. I don’t begrudge it you, so you needn’t say it isn’t true.’

‘But I do say that,’ he replied insistently.

She smiled at him sadly.

‘My love, it isn’t noble to deny what’s perfectly obvious.’ She closed her book and met his eyes. ‘I miss the theatre, so why should you be too proud to admit you miss the army?’

‘Because I don’t.’

Having thought her, a few moody days apart, so perfectly contented with her life, her admission about the theatre stunned him. He stared at a painted satinwood chair next to hers and remembered Esmond saying that she would never adapt herself to a life of social isolation. His brain felt leaden and confused. She was looking at him closely.

‘Would you mind if I went back to the theatre?’

‘What do you think?’

She seemed not to hear the tremor in his voice.

‘Because Lady Ardmore … even if nobody knows who she is, would insult her husband by acting?’

‘No,’ he cried. ‘I’d think I’d failed you. You know that very well.’ She looked straight at him and he was dazed to see the sudden light of happiness in her eyes like a flame; not exultant but assured, glowing. She came to him and laid her head against his shoulder. After a silence, she looked up at him with a strange little smile, part rueful and part scared.

‘Perhaps love wouldn’t be worth having if we knew it would go on being the same forever. But that doesn’t help at all. It’s still the worst fear on earth … there isn’t anything to touch the terror of it growing less.’ She moved away from him and looked back with swiftly assumed jauntiness. ‘I daresay I’ll learn to live with it.’

‘Me too,’ he sighed.

‘If we talk to each other …’ She let the words die; was still a moment, and then held out a hand. ‘We must go down.’