A Marriage of Convenience (38 page)

There is no gaiety as gay as the gaiety of grief, and the majority of those who met Clinton during the weeks after his engagement found him excellent company. As the future husband of an heiress, his social value was far greater than it had ever been when he had merely been an impoverished nobleman. His uncle had paid his debts and now he had money to spend. In the Cavalry Club he was envied and became the recipient of numerous invitations to dinners and house parties. On various excuses he refused all of them, but he still paid visits to the club.

In private he was a different man. Unable to come to terms with what had happened, his moods shifted with dizzying speed from sullen anger to icy detachment. The pain he suffered was unlike anything he had ever known—as if a vital part of him had been sliced away. By any normal laws of anatomy he ought not to have survived the amputation; yet somehow a little of him lived on. Even when
behaving
quite naturally, he often felt that a stranger was speaking and acting for him. His life was alien to him and seemed to continue its most real existence in other people’s minds. For the benefit of the Lucases he gave a spirited imitation of himself, fleshing out the part with little details rather as an artist might add tints and shadows to a face. Such pretences formed the most effective distractions he could discover. Alone, when he was sober, his yearning for Theresa was savage, humiliating and not beginning to be tamed.

He had told Esmond that he had been to see Theresa act, not because he really had, but because it had helped him make the point he had been determined to force home. But the temptation had been constantly with him, ever since he had seen notices of the play in the papers. One evening he gave in. He hardly thought it possible that his unhappiness could be increased. On his way to the theatre he tried to persuade himself that the sight of her might bring some alleviation: a theory he knew to be as false as an habitual drunkard’s plea that one more glass will end his craving.

She was on stage when the curtain rose, standing still for what seemed an age to him, but might only have been seconds. He felt
stifled and faint; unable at first to follow her words. Her voice was as natural as he had ever heard it; the words seeming to flow as if they had never been spoken before. As the play progressed, the tightness in his throat eased, and he found mixed with his pain, a bewildering pleasure in simply watching her. Through an opera glass, her face seemed close enough to touch; isolated from the rest of her body and the other actors, it floated before him, lips forming words he did not hear, eyes wide and expressive. Suddenly he fancied himself at Hathenshaw alone with her. He found he could no longer hold the glass steady. Longing to rush backstage, he knew that every other man in the theatre had a better right than he. Twenty yards away, she remained for him as remote as the furthest planets. With violent abruptness he rose from his seat and hurried from the theatre. A row of hansoms saved him from indecision; like a man wading through water, he tore his eyes from the lighted sign above the stage door and crossed the street.

Later he lay on his hotel bed like a wounded animal and wondered how he would endure the night ahead and the day after it. Though he did not
feel
it, reason told him that if he stayed away from her, his memories would slowly fade. Just as unconsciousness saved men from unendurable physical pain, grief too had its limits—either the sufferer bore it or went mad: survived or broke.

During the next few weeks, Clinton began to feel less apathetic and detached. His attitude to Sophie and her parents gave him his first inkling of this. Their trust in the person they took him for bound him to sustain the role of honourable man. Though he had told Sophie everything about Theresa, she still firmly believed that he had been ensnared by an older and cleverer woman. Her
determination
to see only good in him, ran much deeper than flattery, and often Clinton could not help being touched. Sometimes he was so bitterly aggravated by her happiness that he deliberately said hurtful things. Though she never wept, her misery was so obvious that he invariably felt ashamed afterwards.

She tried her best to please him; was modest and reticent. She was rarely guilty of pretending to a maturity she did not possess, and her reliance on his opinion over quite trivial things: the choice of a dress or present, produced feelings not far short of affection. The way her face changed when he entered a room, restored him. To be valued so highly when feeling himself worthless, was both strange and
affecting
. She was proud to be seen with him, and in spite of everything he had done to discourage her, adored him without reservation. Though nervous with him, she could still be amusing and spirited. The growing solicitude and responsibility Clinton felt for her, might have been more appropriate to a father than a husband to-be, but
they were sincere emotions. When he had first proposed to her and been accepted, his debts and the fear of a breach of promise action had been the ropes binding him to a future marriage. Now, respect for her feelings was his only concern. In loyalty to this young girl, he saw a measure of redemption.

He did not return to the theatre, but sent a cheque for the precise sum raised on the Hathenshaw lease, with a letter begging Theresa to accept it for his sake rather than hers. It was never presented at his bank. When the play was taken off, Clinton made no attempts to discover where she had gone.

During the two months after his brother’s betrothal, Esmond weathered the worst financial crisis of his life, and did it by pure audacity: splitting his shipping company and creating the Southern Steamship Line thus enabling himself to pay the Greek & Oriental’s shareholders their long overdue dividends out of the new company’s subscriptions. He also formed two other ‘paper’ companies to raise the short-term capital needed to consolidate first successes in the transatlantic grain trade. Esmond overcame his fearsome liquidity problems by blandly transferring nominal assets from company to company as the need arose—one company ‘selling’ to another and advancing the money at a high rate of interest. The interest was then entered in the books as increased value, and, when a premium had been paid, this was described as earned profit. Though cheques passed round the companies, never a penny of actual money changed hands. So long as the public continued to subscribe, he knew his depredations could continue undetected, giving him the time he needed to recoup his previous losses.

The constant risks he had needed to take almost daily to survive, had not been without effect on Esmond. Far more confident than before, Clinton’s threats did not prevent him considering when the time would be ripe to renew relations with Theresa. If he had lost her by seeming weak, he would not make the same mistake again. This time nothing would deter him. When Clinton was safely married, Esmond intended to begin his campaign in earnest.

*

In the third week of February, just over six weeks before the day fixed for Clinton’s wedding, Esmond’s hopes were shattered in so unexpected a manner that for some time afterwards he could hardly believe that the blow had been fatal. On the day in question, Major Simmonds came to his house and told him that he intended to bring an action against Clinton in the courts, unless he received
conclusive
assurances. Since Esmond had already given considerable
thought to the major’s possible recourse to law, and had confidently concluded that he was completely powerless without Theresa’s active co-operation, Esmond was not unduly alarmed. In fact to begin with he adopted a manner of polite scepticism, in keeping with a growing belief that the threat was a thinly disguised attempt to extort money.

‘This action,’ Esmond asked agreeably, ‘would it be for
restoration
of conjugal rights?’

‘How could it be?’ demanded the major brusquely.

‘Very easily, I’d imagine … if Theresa brings it.’

‘Well, she won’t.’

Esmond smiled sympathetically.

‘I can’t quite see what you can do without her testimony.’

‘That’s what the first two lawyers I saw told me. Luckily the third had more sense.’

The man’s obvious confidence had started to worry Esmond, but he said lightly:

‘I suppose lawyers can afford to be philosophical about starting proceedings, Win or lose, their fees are paid.’

A curious expression crossed the major’s face; it became smooth and arrogant.

‘The man’s prepared to act for me for nothing.’

Esmond glanced at him with suavely raised eyebrows.

‘Nothing? What about the public notice that scandals usually attract?’ His heart was beating fast, but he managed to maintain a front of contemptuous amusement. ‘I think the best person to talk to is my brother. Perhaps you’d like his address?’

The major pulled at the loose skin above his tight stand-up collar as if seriously considering the suggestion, then shook his head.

‘I think you’d be better at persuading him. He’d only lose his temper with me. I want to give him a proper chance.’ Looking at the old man’s stubborn forehead and pale curiously opaque eyes, Esmond no longer supposed that money was his objective. He said harshly:

‘You’d best tell me what I’m supposed to say.’

‘Nothing easier, dear fellow.’ A flicker of irony moved across the wrinkled face, like a shadow over ruffled water. Like a card player with a good hand, he seemed in no hurry to finish the game. ‘You see I lent Theresa some money a couple of months back … nothing very much; in fact a trifling sum. I’m told I’m perfectly entitled to get it back from your brother … husbands being liable for their wives’ debts.’ His tongue flickered over his upper lip as he watched Esmond attentively. ‘The action will only be for the recovery of a
few pounds, but the real issue being tried will be your brother’s marriage. If he’s her husband I get the money, if he isn’t, I don’t.’

‘I did make the connection,’ Esmond replied drily. He moved away to the window and turned sharply. ‘Suppose I settle the debt for my brother?’

‘I won’t let you.’

‘Has Theresa tried to pay you?’

‘Indeed she has. Of course I wouldn’t take anything.’ He smiled at Esmond. ‘By law a wife can’t contract debts of her own.’

‘In practice wives frequently incur personal debts and honour them.’

The major nodded affably.

‘But when a wife defaults, her creditors can’t enforce payment against her personally. They can only sue her husband for
recovery
.’

‘How can that be relevant if she’s perfectly ready to settle?’

Simmonds frowned as if perplexed by his obtuseness. He said reasonably:

‘Ask yourself why her debt isn’t enforceable against her. I’ll tell you—it’s because she’s pledged her husband’s credit. She can’t make a valid contract on her own. The real contract’s between her husband and the creditor. That’s why her husband is the one who has to be sued if she defaults.’

The major’s assurance made Esmond shudder. Longing to argue, he could think of no way to refute his argument.

‘What I’m saying,’ Simmonds went on pleasantly, ‘is that when I lent Theresa money, the real contract was between your brother and myself; so I’m entitled to get my payment from him. No creditor has to accept settlement of a debt from anyone except the person legally answerable for it. If Theresa gives him the money and he passes it to me, that’s a different matter. I’d settle at once.’

‘Has it crossed your mind,’ Esmond burst out, ‘that if Theresa denies everything under oath, the case will be thrown out in minutes? If you can’t prove a marriage, Clinton’s going to sue you for defamation.’

‘Theresa won’t perjure herself.’

‘You mean you’ll subpoena her to give evidence against her will?’

‘If I have to. In any case she won’t be the only witness. My solicitor’s in Ireland taking proofs of evidence.’

The old man had spoken with a lightness that was almost jovial. Esmond felt sick. His own relationship with Theresa would come out in court. Public prejudice against the theatre being what it was, she would be represented as little better than a courtesan; Clinton would be socially ostracized for life, and Sophie made virtually
unmarriageable. And yet the man was smiling with the
self-righteous
air of a moral fanatic.

‘Will Theresa thank you for doing this?’

The major sighed, his breath coming thinly, like a thread of air blowing through a crack. The sudden change of mood astounded Esmond.

‘She’s said she’ll never speak to me again.’

‘Then why?’ cried Esmond in amazement.

Standing by a lamp, one side of the old man’s face was in shadow, the other eye-socket sunk in deep relief. He raised his thin hands in a gesture of simple regret.

‘She’s no longer capable of rational thought.’

‘You mean she won’t ruin three lives?’

The major turned on him with flashing indignation.

‘You’d rather it came out later? These things do … Louise knows already. How do you know who she’s told? Who saw them at the church? The priest may be a drunkard for all I know. And what if the truth was ever printed? A libel action, imputations of bigamy … and the girl he’s going to marry … would you have her disgraced, her children made bastards?’

After a long silence, Esmond managed to rally.

‘The marriage can’t be proved,’ he murmured dully.

‘I think it can.’

Esmond shrugged his sholders.

‘Just tell me your terms for dropping the action.’

‘Lord Ardmore must break off his engagement.’

‘And acknowledge Theresa?’

The major puckered his lips and was silent for a moment.

‘I won’t insist on that. He can sign a confession.’

‘To stop him marrying anyone else?’

Major Simmonds nodded and picked up his hat. As he moved to the door, Esmond walked after him. He felt as if he was suffocating. Clinton would believe this was his final act of vengeance; nothing on earth would persuade him otherwise. How could anybody who did not know this old man, with his moth-eaten old fur coat and battered stovepipe hat, ever credit that, on his own, ignoring his daughter’s pleas, he would embark on such a course? Every external frailty denied the strength of his inner will.

‘See him yourself,’ groaned Esmond. ‘Get your solicitor to write … I can’t do it.’ He rang the bell violently and leant against the wall. When the footman came, he said faintly: ‘This gentleman is leaving. Never admit him again.’

Alone, Esmond gazed around the room as though he had never seen it before. With hallucinating clearness he saw Clinton holding
out a scrap of lace from a child’s cuff—the precise expression of nonchalant inquiry—and suddenly Esmond was weeping, not just for his brother, but for himself, Theresa, and for everything that had happened since the day when Clinton had come back on his first leave from Ireland.