The Adultress (14 page)

I had changed.

“I have become an adulteress,” I murmured.

I had exhausted all the excuses. In fact there were none. For the next afternoon I was lying on the bed behind the brocade curtains with my love. I was crafty. I said to myself: I have already sinned against Jean-Louis, against my honor, my principles … nothing can change that. And to go again, to be with him … to experience that emotional turmoil … what does it matter? I am already an adulteress. I shall still be one however many times I give way to temptation.

So I went and the experience seemed even more alluring than before. Perhaps I had managed to quieten my conscience. I had stepped over the border of what seemed to me—in my role of the old Zipporah—as depravity. I was there, so what difference could one more step make?

I was in love with Gerard, which was different from loving Jean-Louis. Jean-Louis was kind, considerate, tender, all that I had wanted in a husband until I met Gerard. It might be that Gerard could not compare with Jean-Louis in tenderness and consideration … I did not know. That fact appalled me. I did not really know this man and yet the physical attraction between us was so overwhelming as to be irresistible.

So I went back to my white and gold brocade bed and I learned that I had never really known myself before. I was a deeply sensuous woman; having overcome my first terrors, subdued my intruding conscience, I could now give myself to passion and I gave myself completely and utterly.

And there we lay and once more the sounds of the fair were our background and the house seemed to be applauding because it knew that I had betrayed my husband in a manner which I would never have thought possible.

I could think of nothing else but being alone with Gerard, of exciting and erotic lovemaking. I was a different person. I did not know this woman I had become and yet she was myself … and if I were honest I would admit that I would not have her otherwise.

I was vital, I was alive as I had not been before. Everything seemed to have changed. I had stepped out of a way of life where I had gone on at a slow steady trot for so many years. Now I was flying into realms hitherto unknown. Oh, I was fanciful. But this was such a wonderful thing that had happened to me.

During the days that followed we were meeting regularly. We could not go to the house now but there was a cottage belonging to Enderby and this was uninhabited because the gardener who had occupied it had died suddenly and it was being renovated before it was given to one of the other servants. There were ladders and wood shavings about the place. But there was some furniture and it was a place where we could meet. We could no longer go to the house, of course, for we should have been detected at once. Gerard had plans for taking me in, and for visiting me. He liked to discuss them but we both knew that they could not be satisfactorily carried out. So we met at the gardener’s cottage after supper each evening. I was sometimes late coming back to Eversleigh.

It was dangerous, I knew; there must have been a change in me. Sometimes I could sense both Uncle Carl and Jessie watching me. They would both be experts on eroticism I was sure. Perhaps living as I had through such ecstatic moments, first at Enderby and then in the cottage, had had its effect on me and connoisseurs such as those two recognized this.

Uncle Carl called me Carlotta now and then, as though he saw some change in the Zipporah who had first come to the house. As for Jessie, she seemed to be secretly amused.

I wondered then if she discussed me with Uncle Carl or with Amos Carew.

The thought made me squirm but it did nothing to prevent my joyful appearance at those meetings with my lover.

I knew it couldn’t last. I should have to go back. The time was short. I knew it. We both knew it; and the knowledge added to the intensity of our passion.

There were times when he drove me out in the carriage. We went for miles and sometimes we lay in faraway woods where we felt safe from those who knew us. We made love under trees and in the bracken … each time seemed more exciting than the last. I had long told myself that it was no use resisting temptation now. I was a sinful, erring wife and if I never sinned and erred again nothing could alter that. It was brief … it was passing … the thought gave a terrible poignancy to our relationship; I think it made us determined to extract the very last bit of joy from it. We were abandoned; our senses took control. Nothing else mattered to us in our wildly demanding love.

He urged me to go away with him. I knew then that as he belonged to the diplomatic circles at the French court he was in England on business for his country. I knew too that in view of the existing state of affairs between our countries he must be some sort of spy; I knew that he was at Enderby because it was remote and that he made secret journeys to the coast.

It seemed to me that I was not only an adulteress but was spending my time with an enemy of my country. I knew nothing of him, yet I had never so intimately known anyone before. All I knew was that there was some irresistible attraction between us; that if I could have my greatest wish granted it would be that I could wipe out everything that had happened before in my life and start afresh now with him.

And so I went on slipping deeper and deeper into this life of the senses.

We did discuss the matter of Uncle Carl’s will. He said to me once: “Your uncle may be in acute danger. If that woman has a paper which she thinks will give her the estate, it is almost certain that she will find some means of getting her hands on it.”

“I know. What shall I do?”

“She should know that there is a will—signed and sealed—with the solicitor.”

“My uncle will never tell her.”

“You must. I think he is safe for the time being because you are there. You are his safeguard, but if you should go away I wouldn’t give much for his chances. She must know.”

“She would badger him to sign another paper.”

“She must be told that it would not be valid. That it would have to be signed by responsible people, that Rosen would have to draw it up.”

“That’s not exactly true, is it?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know the laws of England. But it is what she should be told. I don’t think your uncle should be left to her tender mercies.”

That was all we said about it, but it stayed in my mind. I felt very uneasy. I had forgotten the half-comic half-sinister situation in this house, so absorbed had I been by my own affairs.

It was a week after the first day of the fair when messengers arrived from Clavering. They brought a letter from my mother.

Dear Zipporah—[she wrote]

I am glad that you have been able to help your uncle. He must have been very pleased to see you but now I have rather bad news for you. I think you should come home at once. We all miss you very much. Poor Jean-Louis is quite lost without you and the doctor is a little worried about him. Apparently it was not only his leg which was broken. They think he has done something to his spine. He can’t walk as he did and is getting about with a stick. You know how active he has always been and this has depressed him rather and I really think you should be with him just now.

I let the letter drop from my hand. Some spinal injury. It was tragic. He was a man of action, used to an outdoor life. He walks with a stick. How bad was he? I knew that it would be like my mother to break the news gently.

I must go back to him at once. I must devote my life to him. I must expiate this terrible wrong I had done him.

I picked up the letter.

You know what he thinks of you. You are everything to him. He misses you so dreadfully—we all do. But Jean-Louis needs you … particularly just now that this has happened. …

I would go back at once. A terrible depression enveloped me. Had I really been thinking that I could have slipped away from all my responsibilities and blithely gone to France with Gerard? I believe for a few moments I had entertained the thought. I was doubly ashamed of myself. My mother’s letter had brought it all back so vividly … the kindness, the unending patience and love I had had from Jean-Louis, my lawful husband.

I was depraved. I was wanton. I was wicked.

Well, I was an adulteress.

I went over to Enderby where Gerard was waiting for me.

“I must make my plans to go home now … at once,” I told him. “I’ve had a letter. Jean-Louis’s accident was more than a broken leg. He has injured his spine. I wonder if he is going to be an invalid.”

Gerard looked at me incredulously.

“Yes,” I went on, “I have had a letter from my mother. I shall have to go soon. I can’t delay. This is terrible.”

He held me against him and I felt the desire rising within me potent as ever. I felt I could not bear to leave him. I leaned my head against him. I was looking blankly into a future which did not hold him. I saw the dreary years stretching ahead of me.

He said: “I too must go. …”

“It’s the end then.”

“It need not be,” he said. “It is for you to decide.”

“Jean-Louis has been hurt.”

“What of me? What of us?”

“He is my husband,” I said. “I have vowed to love him … in sickness … in health. If only I had never come here.”

“Don’t regret it. You have loved … you have lived.”

“And I shall live on to regret … all my life.”

He said abruptly: “When do you propose to go?”

“Before the week is out.”

He bowed his head. Then he took my hand and kissed it. “Zipporah,” he said, “if ever you should change your mind …”

“Do you mean, you will be waiting for me?”

He nodded. “But you have not yet gone. There is still a little time left to me … to us … time for me to persuade you.

I shook my head. “I know I have been weak … I have been wicked … but there are some things which even I could not do.”

I don’t think he believed me. After all. I had been so eager, so willing, that he thought that when the time came I would abandon everything for him.

I knew I never would. I knew that no matter what happened I had to go back to Jean-Louis.

I had made up my mind that I was going to warn Uncle Carl. I did not mention my imminent departure to Jessie as I intended to speak to him first and I chose the afternoon when I knew we should be safe from intrusion.

He looked pleased to see me and into his eyes there crept that mischievous look which I did not understand. Sometimes I wondered how far his mind wandered into the past because lately it had become increasingly clear that he confused me with my ancestress Carlotta, who had clearly made a great impression on him in his youth.

I realized that almost immediately after my arrival I had met Gerard and even from that first meeting I had been so obsessed with him that the full implication of what might be happening in this house had not struck me so forcibly as it did now that I was on the point of departure.

A cry for help, Sabrina had said. Well, it was, in a way. Not that he was asking for help—although I was sure he was aware of the dangers of his situation. He did not seem to care about danger. He was like an onlooker watching with amusement the strange antics of human beings—even though he himself was one of the main actors in the drama.

Sometimes I thought he was too old to care what happened and as long as Jessie was there to administer to his comforts he was quite prepared for anything she might do—in fact took a lively interest in waiting to see which turn her actions would take.

It was all very strange—as everything had been since my arrival.

Therefore I had made up my mind that I must speak plainly to him and point out the danger in which he could be.

I began by telling him about my mother’s letter.

“My husband is not as well as we thought. At first it seemed that he suffered only from a broken leg and we thought that as soon as that mended he would be all right. There seems to be some complication, so I must go home.”

He nodded. “So you will be leaving us. I shall be sorry.”

“I will come again … perhaps with Jean-Louis or my mother or Sabrina.”

“That would be good. I trust you have enjoyed your stay here.”

“Oh yes… yes.”

He was smiling, was it secretly? “It seems to agree with you, Carlotta.”

I looked at him steadily and said: “I am Zipporah.”

“Of course. My mind wanders. I’m back in the past years and years ago. It’s not the first time, is it? I suppose it’s because you have a look of her. I notice it more every day.”

I said: “Uncle Carl, I want to say something to you which you might not like. You must understand I am only thinking of you.”

I saw the faintly imperceptible twitch of his lips which I had come to know indicated amusement.

“My dear child,” he said, “you are so good to me … so kind … so solicitous of my welfare. You have already gone to great trouble to do what I asked. I thought your French gentleman charming … quite charming. …” His bright eyes were on my face. “And so do you, eh?”

I knew the color was rising to my cheeks, and I thought: He knows. How can he know? Has Jessie spied on me? Has she talked about me with him?

“It was good of him to get me quickly into the town and to help us with the will.” I went on quickly: “It is that that I wanted to speak to you about, Uncle Carl.”

“It’s all sealed and settled now. I’ve done my duty. Eversleigh will be for you and your heirs. I feel the family ghosts are all nodding their heads in approval. Carl was an old reprobate, they are saying, but he has done his duty at last. Let’s all turn over in our tombs and go to sleep. We’ll give him a talking to when he comes to join us.”

He was smiling at me in that mischievous way and I plunged on. “Uncle Carl, there’s something I must say to you. You must not be persuaded to sign anything else … like that paper you did before.”

He nodded.

I stumbled on: “You see, if people think they are going to inherit a great deal they could go to any lengths to get their hands on it.”

He laughed. It was high pitched, almost falsetto. He looked shrewd and I wondered of how much he was aware and if his forgetfulness and the air of senility he sometimes assumed was all part of the role he was playing.