The Regency (120 page)

‘
The baby's moving,' she whispered. And suddenly she was
crying too, pressing her hands to her belly, her mouth bowed
like a child's, while a pandemonium of delight raged all
around her.

*

Two horses, one bay, one chestnut, came cantering along the
track from Long Marston, up the side of Cromwell's Plump, and were pulled up on the top, and stood tossing their heads and champing their bits as the cold wind lifted their manes.
The February sky was grey, white-grey behind, with gull-
coloured clouds, ragged at the edges, rolling fast beneath; but
the moor was still green after the mild winter, gashed with the
brown of the tracks and roads, and fringed with the pinkish
fuzz of distant woods.

Mathilde gazed out over it, feeling the stillness and the
breadth.

‘
It's so peaceful,' she said at last. 'It's lovely to hear nothing
but the wind, and the silence underneath. And it's a good
silence — not full of undertones and hostility.'

‘
Are things bad at Morland Place, then?' John Skelwith
asked.

‘
It's just Fanny and Cousin Edward,' Mathilde said unhap
pily. 'They hate each other so — I'm sure it can't be good for
Fanny's baby. And when they don't quarrel, it's worse than
when they do.' She couldn't tell John the rest — how guilty
she felt, seeing Edward's isolation, his loneliness, his friend
lessness. He worked so hard, and Fanny was so unjust. 'It can't go on like that,' she sighed. 'Month after month — it
will drive everyone to distraction. Madame's taken to sitting
in the nursery to get away from it.’

He looked at her thoughtfully. 'There's no need for you to
endure it any longer,' he said. 'You know my feelings for you. Let me take you away, and give you a home of your own.' She
looked at him uncertainly. ‘Mathilde, what is it? I'm asking
you to marry me.'

‘
Oh John, it's just — well, I still wonder about your
mother. She doesn't like me, you know.'

‘Nonsense!'

‘
It's true! I know she doesn't say anything, but I've seen the way she looks at me. And if ever I mention Morland Place, or
the family, she glares at me as if she'd like to kill me.'

‘
It's your imagination. Mother never smiles at anything or
anyone — not even me,' he teased gently.

‘
I can't help it, John. I would like to marry you, but I can't
exchange one hostile home for another.’

Trooper sighed and spread his weight comfortably, but
Vanity moved restlessly, and Mathilde let her turn round and
face the other way, and pushed her up closer to Trooper, so
that she and John were facing each other.

‘
Is that the only reason you hesitate?' he asked at last. 'Do
you really want to marry me?’

She thought of being away from Morland Place, of having
a husband of her own, an establishment, security, freedom.
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, I do.'

‘
Well then, I'll tell you how we'll arrange matters: you and
I won't live with my mother. She can stay in the house in
Stonegate, and I'll find her a lady-companion to live with her,
and you and I will have a new house all our own.'

‘Do you mean it?' she asked wonderingly.

‘
Of course I do. And what's more, we'll design it and build
it ourselves — a completely new, modern house, with every
thing just as we want it. No more nasty, cramped old
mediaeval rooms, and crooked stairs, and sloping ceilings.
Everything straight, square, bright, full of light and air. And
a proper garden, so that you can have a shrubbery to walk in, and a flower-garden, and everything just as it should be. It's a
nonsense for the leading master-builder in the North to live in
that old ruin in Stonegate. Our house shall be our advertise
ment to the world! What do you think?'

‘
It sounds wonderful,' Mathilde said. 'But you won't want
to leave your mother. I don't want to force you to choose
between us.’

He reached for her hand. 'There's no question of choice.
Dearest, I want to marry you. I don't want to lose you a second
time. Mother will be all right, I'll see to that. You mustn't feel
that you're forcing me to anything.'

‘Well, if you're sure —'

‘
Quite sure. And you?' She nodded, smiling, and he
squeezed her hand. 'Next month, then — what do you say? As
soon as I'm out of mourning. I don't want to wait any longer.
Name a date.’

She laughed. 'March the twelfth,' she said at random.

He lifted her hand and kissed it. 'That's a promise, mind!
You've said it, and you can't go back on it now.’

Mathilde announced her engagement late that evening, just
before bedtime, with a blush, a conscious look, and a faint
hesitation which Héloïse found so touching that she
suppressed her instant reaction of dismay and hurried forward
to embrace and congratulate her.
               

‘
It is wonderful news,
chérie,'
she said warmly. 'He is an excellent young man, and I am sure you will be very happy
together.'

‘
Thank you, Madame,' Mathilde said, the more gratefully
because the only other two occupants of the room, Edward
and James, were evincing no pleasure in the news at all. James
was staring at nothing, his expression devoid of any emotion,
and Edward had turned his face away and was looking into
the fire. Mathilde saw out of the corner of her eye the hunch
of Edward's shoulders, and wondered uneasily what he was
feeling. His appearance was the epitome of unease, but was it
regret, envy, relief, or simply embarrassment which made
him unable to meet her eye?
Héloïse was now turning to her husband, urging him, with
a hint of reproach, to add his congratulations to hers.

‘
It will be a fine establishment for her, won't it, James?' she
said.

‘Oh — certainly. First rate,' James said with an effort.

‘
And it is not such a surprise to us really,' Héloïse went on, catching his eye pointedly, 'for Mr Skelwith has been visiting
so regularly, we should have guessed it was in the air.’

James met her look. Yes, they should have guessed it; but
torn between wanting the best for Mathilde and wanting no
more complications in their lives, they had preferred to ignore
the situation and hope it would go away. But something more
must be said, something warmer. James made the effort.

‘
I'm very happy for you, my dear,' he said, and managed a
smile. 'Does he — does he really care for you?'

‘
Yes — I believe so,' Mathilde said, looking a little wonderingly from him to Madame and back. 'He is everything that is
kind — and I care for him, too,' she added in a little burst.

James rose and went forward to embrace her in his turn,
and said with real warmth, 'However good a young man he is
— and I hear nothing but good of him — he will have a better
wife in you than he deserves! And I shall make sure to tell him
so when next I meet him. I wish you every happiness,
Mathilde. God bless you, my dear.' And he kissed her heartily, winning an approving nod from his wife.

‘
Thank you,' Mathilde said, a little bright-eyed from so
much emotion. 'Thank you both for everything — so many
kindnesses —' And with an incoherent and hasty goodnight,
she left the room.

A moment later Edward got up and went out too, and
James and Héloïse were left alone together. They exchanged a
long and eloquent look, at the end of which James said
merely, 'Damn!’

Héloïse returned to her seat by the fire and studied her
hands, her brow puckered. We shall never be rid of him, she
thought. We shall see him every day, and have to hide our
knowledge and our feelings. We shall be haunted by him for the rest of our lives — and what when he and Mathilde have
children? They will be James's grandchildren. How will we
bear it?
She wondered if James had thought about that aspect of it,
and looked up to find him regarding her with a mixture of pain and resignation which told her he had realised every
thing there was to realise about the situation.

‘
The sins of the father seem about to be visited on the
father,' he said at last. ‘If I could have known what the out
come would be —'

‘
You would still have done the same,' Molise said. 'You
were young and foolhardy. It is not possible to be as wise at
eighteen as —'

‘
There's no excuse, Marmoset! Don't try to find one for
me. I have embroiled myself damnably, but what is worse, I
have embroiled others, too. If they should ever find out —!
And then there's you, love — you shouldn't be put into such a
position, you who are all goodness, who never in your life —'

‘
Oh, no James, don't say it!' She was on her feet interrupting with a bright, angry look. 'Am I not a sinner? Yes, you know I am — and more, more than you know!' She pressed her hands together and made the painful confession. 'I have
been so jealous, so jealous! You cannot imagine. I have
thought such things —!’

He was astonished. 'Jealous? Of whom? Not of Mary?'

‘
Yes!' she cried fiercely. 'Of both your Marys! Of anyone
who had you before me! Of anyone who had any part of you
that I have not had!'

‘Darling —!'

‘
Yes, you see me now in my true colours! I am not your
saint, your angel! I am weak and foolish and sinful, and I love
you so, my James, that I burn with rage for every instant of
your life that I have missed! And for the children of you that I
should have borne!' He stared at her in almost comic dismay,
and she took a deep, quivering breath and lowered her hands,
and resumed in a nearly normal voice. ‘So it is right that I
should be punished too.’

He shook his head, though whether it was a denial or
merely a gesture of suffering she did not know; and then he
held out a hand to her, and she came to him to be folded in
and comforted. Cradled against his broad chest, she grew calm again. His cheek was resting on the top of her head;
after a while she felt the movement as he suddenly smiled,
and she made an interrogative noise.

‘
I was just thinking,' he explained, and she heard the
amusement in his voice, 'that poor Mathilde couldn't have
known what a bomb she was dropping on us! The poor creature
probably thought she'd be giving us pleasure — expected us
to be delighted with her news.’

Héloïse tilted her head back to look up into his face, and
was glad to see the mischief alight again in his eyes.
‘Do you think we tried hard enough to be pleased?' she
asked.