A Marriage of Convenience (21 page)

She replaced the letter feeling suddenly faint. Esmond had always told her that Clinton would never sell Markenfield and yet here was evidence that he was doing just that. Worse still, this information had not been enough to satisfy his bankers about his future credit. Perhaps the letter Esmond had written to her had been a calculated lie. The thought that Clinton’s love for her could ruin him had been nebulous before: now it had become real.

He came in smiling, holding a long cylindrical package in his hand. He gave it to her.

‘Don’t you want to see what it is? A telescope? A gun?’ Seeing tears in her eyes, he embraced her. ‘What is it, my love?’

‘Nothing.’

She stripped away the paper and took out a shot silk parasol with a beautifully carved ivory handle.

‘For the summer,’ he said, ‘I want to see you use it in the summer.’ He held her in his arms and murmured softly: ‘You’ll
come to Dublin in January; you and your daughter. I told you I’d take a house … I can rent it by the month. There’d be no obligation. If you wanted to go I wouldn’t try to stop you; I’d only want you while you wanted to be with me.’

‘I read the letter from your bank,’ she said in a dead voice.

She saw the anger in his eyes and the tightness around his lips.

‘I’m going to talk to them; they’ve misunderstood my position over Markenfield.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘Of course we can give up now because the world’s too hard and cruel for us … because we can’t face consequences. And what would that prove? That we’d done ourselves more harm than the world outside … that we’d prefer a kind of suicide to risking any suffering later on. Is that what you want?’

She walked over to the window and looked out at the darkening street; then she snapped open the parasol and twirled it over her head.

‘What do you think, my lord?’

‘That you’ll come.’

‘It was never in doubt since the moment you came here.’

She dropped the parasol and threw her arms round his neck, kissing him fiercely.

‘How could you doubt me?’ she moaned. ‘How?’

Her words brought a sharp pang to his heart and he could think of no way to answer her except with his body, to wipe out the sense of their separateness, to forget that he was going. Taking her hand he led her to the bedroom, time dying as he moved; no time at all, he was racing to undress and yet everything so slow, as if he were moving through water. Only when he felt the smoothness of her skin against his, when she was in his arms and he entering her, did the straining in his heart cease. Her half-closed eyes and ecstatic face filled him with thankfulness.

Clinton walked through the large hall of business where the routine bills of regular clients were discounted, and entered the clerks’ room. Here Esmond’s minions worked at a dozen sloping ledger desks separated from each other by mahogany partitions. On the far wall were numerous pigeon holes for delivering and receiving bills, stock receipts and cheques. Every now and then one of the
frock-coated
figures would rise and remove something from one niche, only to return to place the same papers or some others in a similar compartment. Other documents, clipped together and hung on a row of pegs near the door, were from time to time collected and taken to some other part of the building. Clinton watched this activity for a minute or two with the surprised attention of a naturalist confronted by the bizarre rituals of a species he rarely encountered. That men of some education, who had once had the choice of other occupations, should accept such a life was beyond him. Attracting the attention of a clerk, he explained who he was, and without delay was shown to Esmond’s office.

As Clinton entered, his brother’s back was to him, and the clerk was reluctant to interrupt his employer in the middle of dictating a memorandum.

‘Since it is common knowledge,’ Esmond was saying, ‘that ships make more freight at a lower draft of water by filling with jute, hides and other light goods than with grain, seeds, etc (which occupy the same space and weigh more), why are our agents taking on present quantities of grain from Galatz? I wish to know the minimum that must be carried as dead-weight …’ His tone had been belligerent, but, as he turned and saw Clinton standing in the doorway, his expression froze.

When they were alone together, Esmond stared at his brother with a look that was hostile and yet somehow beseeching. Clinton guessed from Esmond’s agitation that he had heard nothing from Theresa. Clinton lowered his eyes.

‘I’ve behaved as badly to you as your worst enemy could wish, and I acknowledge it.’

Esmond had turned away and was facing a bookcase filled with registers and directories. Clinton could see from the movement of his shoulders that he was breathing deeply as if bracing
himself.

‘So you’re seeing her?’ he said in a thick scarcely audible voice.

‘Yes.’

Esmond spun round, blanched and trembling.

‘And being a man of honour you thought it right to say so to my face … to square your conscience. A pity you didn’t think of what was honourable before you seduced her.’

‘She’d have left you anyway.’

‘You offer that as an excuse?’ yelled Esmond.

‘As a statement of fact.’

Esmond sat down on the edge of the table, calming himself with a great effort of will. His lips curled into a sneering smile.

‘I’ll give you another statement of fact. I wanted to spend my life with a woman who you’ll use for a month or two.’

‘I came here to correct that impression.’

‘You mean she may last a year? I’m overwhelmed. You love her as honourably as man ever loved woman. You thought I’d take that sort of cant from you … from you Clinton, of all people?’

Somebody knocked at the door, but Esmond shouted at him to go away.

‘You have every right to say that,’ murmured Clinton, moving towards his brother. ‘But it isn’t cant.’ He paused momentarily. ‘I’m going to ask her to marry me.’

The quietness of his words did not diminish their ghastly impact. A tree might have fallen between them or a man run in and shot himself to produce the same effect on Esmond. Clinton took his arm and said gently:

‘If I’d never set eyes on her, she’d still not have stayed with you. I know it sounds cruel, but it’s true. What’s happened makes no difference to what would have …’

‘That
you
should have the only woman I ever wanted … no difference?’

Revulsion and hatred, Clinton had expected and almost hoped for, but not this dreadful pain. Since childhood Clinton had never seen him weep, and was horrified when Esmond pressed his knuckles to his eyes and began to sob in short rasping spasms. Because Clinton could not himself conceive of a love made sharper by humiliation and betrayal, he found his brother’s collapse the more shocking. With a sharp pang of remorse, Clinton realised that grief, rather than vengeance, had lain behind Esmond’s taunting confession of what he had done to Theresa at Kilkreen.

‘I never meant …’ Clinton began hesitantly, at once losing the thread of what he had intended to say.

‘Go,’ shouted Esmond, picking up a heavy glass paperweight. ‘Get out …’

As Clinton reached the door, a clerk entered awkwardly.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Danvers. Sir Robert’s been waiting since three in the partners’ room.’

With a roar Esmond hurled the rounded glass into the grate. As the clerk swiftly closed the door, Esmond threw himself into a leather armchair, sending it crashing back against the iron safe by his desk. Clinton watched him helplessly.

‘You’re worried. Think I might …’ Esmond jerked his head in the direction of the window. ‘Wouldn’t like that on your conscience. Not nice to think of when you’re in her bed.’ He seemed suddenly calmer, as he said in the scathing tone Clinton knew so well: ‘Perhaps I’d better save that for your wedding day.’ He looked down at the Turkey carpet and shook his head. ‘You’re a strange man, Clinton. Because you did me the worst turn one man can do another, you’ll save your honour by marrying her and ruining your life.’

‘Mock me by all means,’ murmured Clinton, ‘but just consider how easily I could have kept it all from you in order to get that loan. You think that would have been better than telling you the truth? At any rate, that’s what I came to do.’ Esmond glanced at him with a ghost of a smile.

‘The worst murderers often die best, but I don’t like them better for it. You stabbed me in the back. Am I supposed to applaud you for stabbing yourself too? Honour, ha ha.’

‘I love her.’

‘You’ll be screaming that when you hate the sight of her.’ Esmond leaned forward across the table. ‘Have you asked her yet?’

‘No, and I don’t intend to either, until enough time’s passed to convince her I’m not acting on the kind of impulse you suggested.’

When Clinton had gone, Esmond remained bent over the table for several minutes. But then he drew himself up and walked purposefully to the door. In the passage his chief clerk came after him, protesting about something, but Esmond brushed him aside, and walked out grim-faced into the street.

Hailing a hansom, Esmond gave Deacon’s Place as his destination, and sat back on the worn leather seat. A single thought obsessed him: to see Theresa as soon as it were humanly possible. Unless Clinton had lied about delaying his proposal, he could still be stopped. Who else but Clinton, would ever have the arrogance to suppose that simply because he had made up his mind to marry,
weeks or months could pass, and he would be accepted just the same, regardless of anything that might happen in the meantime? But, in spite of Clinton’s claim to be in no hurry, Esmond knew how easily such resolutions could crumble. For this reason he thought it vital to see Theresa even before Clinton’s next meeting with her.

When Esmond had last visited Theresa’s father to try to find out her whereabouts, the old man had been resolute in his refusal to disclose anything, but, since he had agreed to send on any letters, Esmond had not tried to trace her by other means. It was an omission he now regretted. Since inquiry agents invariably worked slowly, Major Simmonds represented Esmond’s only chance of finding Theresa in anything under a week. The thought of a second failure with the old man made Esmond’s stomach turn. Everything in him rebelled against the possibility that Clinton should casually gain the one objective that he himself had striven so hard for and had wanted above all else.

The light was already fading by the time Esmond raised his cane and rapped on the major’s peeling door. As he waited, little eddies of dust and dead leaves swirled about his feet. Just as he had expected, he was welcomed with the major’s usual blend of irony and effusiveness. With his expansive shirtfront and elaborate
necktie
, against the background of a room filled with framed playbills, collapsing furniture, and dusty Indian trinkets, the major seemed a figure more suggestive of high comedy than real life. Given the importance Esmond placed upon his visit, this was not a comforting observation. Simmonds had an uncanny gift for making perfectly mundane occasions farcical. The old man glanced apologetically around him.

‘They say an old dog gets the kennel he deserves. No sentiment these days. None at all.’ He sniffed, and advanced to take Esmond’s coat; a favour which Esmond did not hesitate to refuse. The fire was meagre and drawing badly and the room felt damp. ‘A glass of port wine?’ Esmond shook his head. ‘That whole business.’ He paused. ‘My dear fellow, I can’t express how badly I feel about it all. Believe me, it wasn’t for the want of a few paternal remarks on your behalf.’

‘You could still help me. I don’t mean getting back the past. I want to see her once more … to set my mind straight on certain …’

‘Can’t be done.’

‘I think it can.’

‘Revive painful memories. No point in it.’

‘Have I ever asked you any other favour?’

The major pursed his lips and frowned.

‘She asked me not to tell you where she is. That’s the fact. Made me give my word. No more to be said.’

The old man’s combination of facetious servility with rock-like stubbornness, confounded Esmond. Across the room on the open flap of a warped bureau he could see a mess of papers and old cigar boxes. Somewhere there would be letters from her. Simmonds smothered a cough.

‘Pity Louise isn’t back from school. She’ll be vexed to miss you.’

Esmond nodded, trying to think of another approach.

‘Can’t you see, I’d never tell her you’d told me anything?’

‘Course you wouldn’t. Word of a gentleman.’

‘So you feel able to rely on me?’

‘Absolutely rely on you.’

‘So it’s settled?’

The major looked at him sorrowfully.

‘It’s the principle, my dear fellow.’

‘You didn’t mind her being my mistress. What was so principled about that?’

‘Nothing at all. Didn’t enter into it.’

‘What didn’t?’ asked Esmond, close to losing his temper.

‘Principles. Neither of you promised anything, so no promises were broken. If you’d offered her marriage first and then cut and run, that would have been a very different sort of fish. Keep faith. That’s the thing.’

Esmond looked at him coldly, fighting his anger.

‘You’re going to force me to say some unpleasant things.’

‘What I didn’t hear in the army, I heard in the theatre.’

‘Very well then. Return all the jewellery I gave her and the money you had from me.’

Without speaking Simmonds walked to the desk and began shuffling through a heap of papers. At last he handed Esmond a cheque already written out.

‘Should have sent it.’ He thrust it out and sighed. ‘I nearly did.’ When Esmond tore it in two and dropped the pieces, the major looked no happier. ‘She asked me to return the things you gave her. I didn’t. Gifts, you understand. Ah well, she was right, and I was wrong. I’ll get them.’

As soon as he had left the room, Esmond began feverishly to hunt through the bills, letters and other papers in the bureau, knowing that he would recognise her writing as soon as he saw it. He did not stop searching even when he heard the old man’s tread on the stairs. What did it matter what he thought of him if he could only find the address he was looking for? But Esmond could not put his hand on
what he so badly wanted. From the corner of his eye he could see the major watching him sadly, a leather box in his hands.

‘Keep the stuff,’ he groaned. ‘If she won’t let you, give it to Louise. I’m sorry. I’m afraid there aren’t too many principles where love’s concerned.’

Dreading that Simmonds would either be sympathetic or try to force him to take the box, Esmond hurried out, astonished that he had failed so lamentably with a man he had always derided.

He had asked the hansom driver to wait in the neighbouring mews and he was walking there blindly when he heard his name. He looked up.

‘Louise,’ he stammered, seeing her staring at him curiously.

‘You weren’t looking where you were going.’

Beside the child stood the major’s elderly maid-of-all-work.

‘Sometimes I don’t,’ he replied with a smile; the sight of the girl reminded him painfully of her mother, but he had to show some pleasure. Louise might even miss him for all he knew. Or hate him; he had no idea what Theresa might have said to her to explain their sudden departure from Kilkreen. ‘How is your mother?’ he asked lamely, unable to think of anything else to say; thankful that the girl seemed to consider the question perfectly natural.

‘Hating the theatre and just about everything. Her letters to me are quite jolly. The ones to grandpa aren’t such fun.’

‘Manchester isn’t much fun,’ he said casually, his chest tightening as he waited for her to contradict his guess.

‘It’s ever so much worse. You should have heard what grandpa said about York. A theatre that’s simply dreadful and …’

Esmond heard nothing as he fumbled in his pockets for a sovereign. Finding a few florins, he pressed them into Louise’s hand, kissed her and to her astonishment ran towards the hansom.

‘King’s Cross Station,’ he shouted to the driver, and then, sinking back against the leather, he felt for the first time in many weeks a glow of emotion which he might once have described as happiness.

*

She came next morning, in answer to his summons, to the Railway Hotel, her face half-hidden by a veil, and stood opposite him in the private sitting room he had engaged. She said nothing, and the veil and the silence made her seem ghostly to him in the grey light. Ghostly and insubstantial, as if he had never held or touched her, never felt the softness of her lips or the warmth of her breath. For all his determination to behave with icy impassivity, resentment stirred in him like acid, tightening his chest, making him grip the
brim of his hat till his fingers ached. The martyred dignity of her silence—something about the way she stood, head slightly bowed—insulted him: as if the wrong had all been his, and she were now reproaching him for the cruelty of forcing on her a futile and distasteful meeting. His tight lips formed an artificial smile.