A Song Twice Over (70 page)

A marriage of manners. How … What? Tragic? Comic? No. Nothing so definite as that. And she knew it could have been much worse. She had chosen Tristan for the vague, negative qualities he still possessed and now she must make the best of him. He passed the window, his arm around Linnet's shoulder, their heads together. What were they plotting now? The final act in the sorry drama of Marie Moon perhaps, who, suddenly losing her nerve if not her wits, had tried twice now to run away from her husband, once as far as Leeds station with a bag full of jewels and then to the dressmaker, Miss Adeane, of all people, who had allowed her to stay the night in her apartment above the rather splendid new shop she had just opened. There was also a rumour that Miss Adeane had spoken sharply to Mr Adolphus Moon the next morning when he had come to fetch his wife home, although he subsequently denied it and spent a great deal of money in her shop, presumably to make amends, the day after.

On the whole Gemma felt sorry for Marie Moon and rather hoped Miss Adeane
had
said a hard word or two to her husband. But if Linnet did succeed in marrying Adolphus Moon then at least Gemma need no longer feel responsible for her. She would be extremely rich and extremely fashionable and would never lose face by admitting her husband to be other than the jolly little man he seemed. Indeed – very possibly – she might be able to handle him. In which case, if Amabel continued to settle down so pleasantly with her country friends it might even be possible to leave her here and move back to Frizingley.

To what purpose?

The question struck her so forcefully that each word seemed to leap out at her, starkly visible on the air. What had she to do in Frizingley now? Could she ever bear to live in the manor again, with Tristan, remembering Daniel? During her father's illness she had thought of him constantly but at a submerged level which had even seemed to give her strength. Mourning her father's slow and furious dying had obscured her own loss of love. Nothing obscured it now. She would never see him again. He had disappeared from the face of the earth, or her part of it at any rate, and she knew she would miss him acutely and constantly, until her own dying day.

Her own fault, of course, and she would have to cope with it. But suddenly, as she heard Linnet and Tristan in the hall, she knew she could not stay and listen to their chatter with this weight on her heart. And although it was not in her nature to run away from fear or trouble it struck her now, most forcefully, that she could do no other.

‘Excuse me,' she said, running past them in the hall, her less than sedate posture taking them both aback, ‘I am very tired. Please
do
excuse me. I must go to bed.'

They let her go. Why not? They were more to each other, after all, she thought, than she could ever be to either. She could allow herself, then, the luxury of weeping, a task which she undertook with her usual thoroughness, sitting alone on the windowseat in her nightgown, crying until her face was blotchy and her head aching, her astonishment almost comic when her husband came into the room.

He was the last person she had expected, particularly in his brocade dressing gown, very obviously ready for bed. Hers? Had Linnet put him up to this, warning him to make sure of his wife's affection now that her father was no longer holding the purse strings? It seemed horribly likely.

‘You've been crying,' he said as if he could hardly believe it. ‘Poor old girl – you've had a rotten time, haven't you? I know. I know. Poor Gemma.' And suddenly, hardly aware of how it had happened, he had picked her up and she was on the bed with him, being rocked and stroked and ‘kissed better'like a child.

‘Poor old thing, it's been dreadful – terrible – I know. And you've been so brave and strong and wonderful. I've watched you, all the time. Don't cry, my darling, and don't be shy. Just let me – there now – Sweet Gemma. Good girl.'

He was a physical man who understood only physical remedies. ‘I've missed you,' he said. She did not believe him but made no resistance as he began easily and pleasantly to make love to her. She knew it had to be done. But at the moment of penetration she stiffened suddenly and took fright, and, entirely against her will and all her resolution, cried out with real anguish, ‘Oh no. No – please.' It had not seemed to matter, those few times before, when she had known she would soon be with Daniel, his caresses erasing the fleeting impression that had always been Tristan. But now it was Daniel who would be erased, and she could never have him back again.

She knew a moment of sheer panic when she feared she might scream and push him away. Betraying herself. And then it subsided. ‘Sweet Gemma …' he went on crooning to her, the joining of their bodies taking place even as she protested. It had happened. Easily. No pain. The beginnings even of an excitement she knew to be purely physical, mechanical, her body claiming its own right to pleasure which she saw no reason to deny.

It had happened. She was a wife again. And if her husband exchanged a knowing glance with his sister the next morning she preferred to take no notice. She heard him whistling very cheerfully as he went into the garden with his dog and could not fail to be amused, after dinner, when he began to yawn excessively and declare that what he most needed was an early night. It was not love or anything like it. It was good will.
It had to be done
. It might even have succeeded had not Mr Adolphus Moon gone to Frizingley on a particular March Wednesday to meet a legal gentleman from the London train, a specialist in the dissolution of unsatisfactory marriages who might have saved himself the trouble, Mr Moon's problem being solved not at all in the way he had intended when a newspaper, blown by a sudden gust of wind, caused his horse to shy and Miss Linnet's prospective bridegroom to break his neck.

At the funeral she wore mourning veils down to her ankles, leaning on Uriah Colclough's arm, his angel again and his only, since who was left now but him to marry her? Although Gemma noticed that she did pause a while at the church porch with Captain Goldsborough who whispered something to her which Gemma half-heard and then entirely discounted, since it had sounded like ‘Bad luck, Linnet. But cheer up – the next gust of wind might always take off our darling Magda.' Could he really have said that? Of course not. Although Ben Braithwaite had certainly
looked
at Linnet a great deal, and his wife
had
been very unfair to her at the ducal banquet. And if it had been Magda Braithwaite who had fallen off her horse that windy morning would Linnet be clinging now so hard to Uriah Colclough's bony arm? Probably not. How
false
all these people were. And it was then that she heard, for the first time, ‘Poor Mrs Moon. How pale she looks.'

Pale indeed. And very lovely. Yesterday's adulteress, madwoman, whore, to be shunned and abandoned and stripped as bare of property and possessions as the law would allow – which was very bare indeed – transformed, by a chance gust of wind, into the wealthiest widow for many hundreds of miles around. For it was known, at once, by the way in which the legal gentleman from London – who had come all this way to get her locked up – now threw himself at her feet, that there was a valid will in her favour. Why Mr Moon had been so very remiss no one knew or cared. And as for contesting it, one could tell by the way that lawyer fellow was dancing attendance on her, that there was no chance of that. Mr Moon's children were provided for in any case, it seemed, by the estate of their mother, so no one need feel the slightest pang of guilt – least of all Marie – about her absolute possession of those fortunes in spices and sugar.

Lady Lark went home at once and wrote to her amorous young nephew Gussie, who had been packed off in disgrace, out of the toils of ‘that woman', ordering him to return to them at once.

Uriah Colclough began to talk of the forgiveness of sins, to dream, perhaps, of his own hand placed in benediction on a bent, still very lovely, and exceedingly wealthy head. And since riches were a heavy responsibility surely poor, frail Mrs Moon would need advice and assistance? Uriah Colclough was not the only one in Frizingley to think so.

One morning, while partaking of Madeira and lemon biscuits in the spacious, blue and gold showroom of Miss Adeane's new shop, Linnet found herself suddenly deserted by Mrs Colclough who sprang to her feet at Mrs Marie Moon's arrival and hurried, all solicitude, to her side.

‘My dear lady, you look quite worn out. Do come and sit a while and take a sip of wine.' And the chairs had been so placed that Linnet was obliged to move aside, a ‘back seat'in every sense, from which she could hear the conversation of the other two, but could not participate.

It was too much for Linnet to bear. Therefore she would not bear it. She would not stay here to see Marie Moon lionized as she knew she would be, invited everywhere, praised and petted and then splendidly married for the fortune that had so nearly been her own. She did not hate Marie. She had never even thought of her as an individual.

To Linnet she had been an obstacle to be removed, a barrier between herself and the life for which she was increasingly desperate. And now, having shown Marie no mercy, she expected none.

From now on her life in a Frizingley ruled by Marie Moon and Magda Braithwaite could only be one humiliation after another. A living death. A nightmare of resentment and frustration from which she must, at all costs, get away. She went for a long, lazy stroll, therefore, with her brother, her cool hand on his arm and told him how wonderful it would be if they all packed up their trunks and boxes and went off to live happily ever after in London. Why not? Impossible, of course, when that gruff old cross-patch of a John-William had had the reins in his hands. But now … Well, Aunt Amabel would go where she was taken and, as it was certainly, and morally and
legally
and every other way besides, a woman's place to follow her husband, there could be no trouble about Gemma.

‘And you and she seem so very cosy together now, darling. Just make her love you a little more and she'll come running after you all the way to Timbuctoo.'

Tristan did not think so. For his part he did not care where they lived. But there was the mill. Did they need it, wondered Linnet? It could be of no possible interest to him and since it did not seem likely now that Gemma would have any children, why not sell it? It must be worth a great deal. Only think of the civilized life its sale could give them.

‘I'm not sure it
can
be sold,' said Tristan. ‘The old boy left a damn complicated will.
I
don't understand it.'

Linnet urged him to consult the Dallam solicitor, and
try
.

Gemma was furious when she heard of it, an emotion rare in her and therefore very deep-rooted and long-lasting when it came. Did Tristan really have the power to sell her possessions? She knew the simple, legal answer to be ‘yes', of course he did, a married woman having no identity of her own in law, being considered one and the same person as her husband who, as her legal guardian, could do exactly as he liked with her. She had always known that. But what of the arrangements her father had made to safeguard her against it? Did they not hold good? Certainly, her solicitor accompanied by Mr Ephraim Cook, assured her. She had her marriage contract, settling upon her substantial sums of money which could not be touched by anyone.
Very
substantial sums. But if her husband decided to sell the mill it seemed to both gentlemen that he could probably do so. Her father had taken every precaution to ensure the profitable management of his business, but had not apparently envisaged that it might be sold without his daughter's consent. An understandable oversight since these matters were usually done with the full agreement of the wife who, more often than not, had no decided financial opinions of her own. But in this case, both gentlemen having met Miss Linnet Gage, they believed there could be cause for concern.

Alarm even.

Returning to Almsmead, cold with anger, Gemma saw her husband throwing sticks for his dog at the end of the carriage drive and passed him by without a word. She believed her contempt for him to be total. What could he ever be but a pawn in
somebody's
game? And she knew her business was with Linnet.

She found her alone in the parlour working on a fine and perfectly useless piece of embroidery, the purpose of which was to show off the skill and delicacy of her hands.

‘Linnet,' she moved at once to the attack. ‘I believe you have been interfering in my affairs.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Yes. I think you should.'

Linnet laid down her embroidery, looking both faintly perplexed and faintly amused.

‘Dearest – whatever can it be? Heavens – you look so fierce. I believe you are positively scaring me half to death …' Her light voice trailed off on an airy note, as it often did, signifying that nothing, surely, could be bad enough to risk frown lines across one's brow and that far-from-becoming squaring of the jaw.

But John-William Dallam's sturdy, straight-souled daughter had no inclination for the dainty thrust and parry of verbal sword-play.

‘I understand you wish to go to London and live on my money …'

‘
Gemma
.'

‘To which end you want Tristan to sell my mill and have already sent him to my lawyer to discover how best to do it behind my back.'

There was a short silence, broken only by the sound of breathing, Gemma's heavy and angry, Linnet's shallow as a trill of wry laughter. And then Linnet, picking up her embroidery, said sweetly, ‘My dear, a woman must submit herself to her husband in Christian marriage. Surely – that is what one vows to do beneath those sweet little veils and those wreaths of orange blossoms?'

‘It is. To her husband, Linnet. Not to his sister.'

‘Oh dear. And if the brother and sister are of one mind?'

‘
Your
mind, Linnet. Yes, I know that quite well. Tristan does not think of these things for himself. He is perfectly happy with his dogs and his guns and his good dinners. He has to be told what to do. By
somebody
. And in this case I am about to tell him that I will fight tooth and nail against any suggestion of selling my father's mill. He did not build it up over thirty hard years to be frittered away by you, Linnet. Or to buy you a husband either. You should have set your sights lower, as
he
told you, instead of making a fool of yourself chasing rich men …'