Distant Choices (29 page)

A time of total concentration, one upon the other, when her demand for his emotion had been satisfied by passion, unleashing in her a frenzy which had overwhelmed him by night and kept him in a constant heat of excitement by day, the call of her thin, frantic body tightening his nerves, heightening his senses to a summit of pain from which the only relief had been to possess her over and over again in every mood and every manner his acute sexual imagination could devise, to have her scorch him and scour him, to make him do penance for the raw pleasure her body gave him, to make him marvel at, and occasionally almost to fear, the pitch of her sensuality, the fierce needs enflaming her, the wild clamour, a dozen times a day, of her body seeking his, nailing herself against him as if all that could ever content her would be to get inside his skin.

There had been no reticence. He had received a virgin bride from the England of a prudish queen where even tables were shrouded in heavy plush cloths to conceal their legs, a girl who had been taught nothing of sex other than that it was dangerous and dirty, yet who had stepped out of her wedding-dress like a naked, revelling Bacchante with flowers far stranger and wilder than English orange-blossom in her hair. Scarlet flowers, vibrant and tropical and musky, such had been the colour and texture of their early days together, all burned now, by their own heat, to cool ashes, leaving only the drab shades of duties not to be shirked, promises not to be broken, property for him to maintain, a child already two months in the womb for her to bear.

She did not want the child. Nor did he. Only the land and manor of Dessborough desired and claimed it, and it was therefore to Dessborough that they returned, a place where neither of them wished to be, alien territory to him, a familiar cage to her, although she did not, at first, understand the extent of her new captivity. Not, that is, until she found Letty and Constantia waiting one morning in Dessborough's low-ceilinged, deep-shadowed drawing-room, both of them pretending not to notice that she had only just got out of bed, each one bringing a child to show her, Constantia compensating for the one she had lost just before Oriel's wedding with a replacement due ‘quite soon', Letty with her newborn, hopefully last born, son. ‘Very pretty,' Kate said.

‘Yes, indeed – adorable – adorable,' they echoed, going on to advise her, in whispers, about the care she must now take of her body since it had become the receptacle – no more and no less – of a human life, apparently of far greater importance, of far greater humanity in fact, than her own. No riding – it went without saying, of course, although they both said it – from now on. No strenuous walking. No sitting in draughts or sitting up late. No venturing outdoors any more than strictly necessary and running the risk of seeing something unpleasant which would expose the unborn infant to the terrible effects of shock. And, naturally – well – no
contact
– Heavens, how could one phrase it? – no
closeness
, at such times, with one's husband. Goodness – absolutely not. No – no, it could not be considered a failure of one's conjugal duties. On the contrary – in Constantia's informed opinion – one ought to welcome it as a rest.

‘I see,' Kate said.

And then there was Maud, talking of the advice only her cousin Quentin was uniquely qualified to give on Dessborough's management and of how Kate must do her duty – no more and no less – by persuading her husband to entrust all such matters only, and implicitly, to him. And then Evangeline, with talk of responsibility to one's own position as first lady of a perfectly adequate manor and all it represented, and – rather more to the point – of the advisability of beginning, as one ought to go on, by ‘warming up'one's relationship with the Mertons, for the sake of one's husband, of course, so that they might invite him to do the things ambitious men appeared so fond of, like sitting on committees, becoming members of all the ‘right'clubs, meeting the ‘right'people, so that, in due course, dear, clever,
ambitious
Francis might become a member of Parliament, the governor of a colony, a baronet.

‘Francis is not ambitious,' said Kate.

‘My dear,' Evangeline looked faintly amused, ‘are you quite certain?'

‘Yes. I am.'

‘You astonish me. One would have thought a man of his energies could hardly wish to be confined … However, you know best, of course you do. But, just the same, it might be as well to give a few dinners, a little dance, a garden-party even, should the weather hold, here in these lovely grounds. I dare say Oriel will be glad to help you. She is in London, at present, with her husband. But when she returns – next week, I think – we will all put our heads together.'

‘Is Oriel – well?'

‘My dear.' Evangeline made an airy gesture expressing bliss. ‘
Well
is not the word to describe it. In her seventh heaven, I should call it. Such a generous husband, who thinks nothing quite good enough for her and so tends to give her absolutely everything she asks for in double measure. One rarely sees such adoration.'

‘And his children?'

Evangeline looked, for a moment, as if the word was unfamiliar to her, and then gave a brilliant smile. ‘Yes, indeed. The little girls are charming. There is a boy, too. You will be bound to meet them.'

‘Oriel herself is not expecting, is she?'

‘Good Heavens, certainly not. She is in no hurry.'

‘As I have been.'

‘Never mind, dear. A good nanny, a good governess, a good school, will all help to take the pain away. And the world is full of them. Now then, Kate, how was Monte Carlo? So kind of the Mertons to lend you their villa. When can we expect to see them back at the Abbey?'

‘I have no idea.'

In Kate's place Evangeline would have known the Mertons' movements
exactly
. ‘Ah well – not long, one supposes, since there is Adela's wedding to prepare for. In September isn't it? A truly momentous occasion.'

And one, moreover, to which the Ashingtons, who were related to both bride and groom, would take precedence over the Stangways, and to which the Keiths might not be invited at all. An oversight which Evangeline did not intend to allow.

‘Someone should give a party for Adela Merton, Kate,' she now said. ‘Just a friendly little gathering to introduce her to the ladies of the neighbourhood. I believe her mother has kept her too remote from us, with the very best of intentions, one feels certain. But, just the same, the times are changing – broadening – and one hardly feels Adela, and her sister Dora, or Lady Merton herself, could come to any harm through the closer acquaintance of – well – of Oriel, for instance. Kate, dear, I believe you are the one to arrange it. Shall we say that Oriel is rather depending on you?'

Kate's next visitor was the vicar of Dessborough, a reverend gentleman with an arid, quite military manner who had called, not to explain her parish duties since, it was assumed, as a squire's daughter herself she must be well aware of them, but to draw her attention, rather, to the list of responsibilities she must, undoubtedly, wish to make her own.

‘Undoubtedly,' said Kate.

The village school, for instance, where the vicar himself spent an hour every morning explaining to his infant parishioners their good fortune in a God who, by arranging for them all to be born into the exact station in life which best suited them and in which He therefore wished them to remain, had eliminated the sin of Envy. The last Mrs Ashington had often accompanied him to inspect the needlework of the little girls and speak a few words of encouragement to the schoolmistress. The new Mrs Ashington must wish to do likewise. Tuesdays and Thursdays, perhaps? The last Mrs Ashington had also been in the habit of presenting a layette stitched by herself to every mother-to-be in the village whose circumstances were thought to require it. Nothing extravagant, of course, nothing to turn the head. Assuredly not that. Just the necessary linen, a shawl, a little cap, in hardwearing, humble materials which owed their value in village eyes, to the fact that they had been made by the squire's lady herself. A kindly gesture which Kate would wish to continue, he knew full well. He would provide the names and dates, as became appropriate, along with the list of the elderly who had thrived, every winter, on the late Mrs Ashington's rose-hip jelly and her hyssop cordial. He assumed the recipe could be located?

‘Do feel free to assume,' agreed Kate.

The good gentleman promised that he would. And then there were the manorial tea-parties. The schoolchildren, of course, twice annually and in the kitchen quarter of the house; the village ladies perhaps four times, in the garden or drawing-room as weather permitted; the village
women
on May Day and at Harvest Festival, usually in the Hall. The late Mrs Ashington had also made a point of attending all parish weddings and legitimate christenings, and of visiting the cottages in strict rotation so that every housewife in the village could be certain of the benefit of Ashington advice and supervision at least once a month. And, it being now eighteen months since the late Mrs Ashington had been called to rest, the reverend gentleman supposed that Kate must desire to take up the parish reins and grasp all parish nettles the good lady had left behind her, at once. Would she also, perhaps, be so kind as to convey his respects to her aunt, Miss Maud Stangway, a lady whose energy and excellent judgement he had long admired and could wish for nothing better than to see it reflected in her niece. Dare he hope that Miss Maud Stangway would now become a regular visitor to Dessborough?

‘I expect so,' Kate said.

Sitting that evening alone with Francis in the house that so resembled her father's, she asked him, ‘Do you want me to start giving dinners and dances?'

He was reading, in Arabic, a life of Mohammed the Lawgiver, wondering whether to pass a drop of the ocean of time now confronting him, in translating it. But, as soon as she spoke to him, he put the book down and leaned towards her, believing she had a right to his attention.

‘Yes. If you would like to, that is?'

‘And would you like me to knit shawls for all the village babies born in wedlock, and brew hyssop cordial for the old men …?'

Sitting beside the only lamp, the rest of the room in evening shadow, he could not see her face, only the outline of her thin, eager body, dressed up in one of the Paris gowns he had bought her; sitting, it suddenly struck him, like a child with empty hands, waiting to be told what to do. Had she been watching him, this hour or more, while he had been wandering, only through the pages of a book, perhaps, but very far away, nevertheless? He supposed she had. Watching and waiting for him to tell her which road to take, what to do next, when her road had been decided for her now, irrevocably it seemed, and each and every road
he
cared to take had been closed to him, probably forever.

Yet, because he had known how it would be from the start and she had not, because he had been aware, even in the white heat of their passion, of this fireside, this armchair, this dim room, biding its time to claim and diminish them, and she had not, he could not blame her. The time of diminishing was now. It had happened. Here was the room, the house, the tedious domestic hearth neither of them had wanted. And since his was the fault, the weakness, the folly which had condemned them to share it, then he must put down his book now – his one remaining salvation – and talk to her of knitting shawls and brewing hyssop tea.

‘Would you care to do that?' he asked her uncertainly, knowing it would be far, far better for her if she
could
conceive a sudden passion for such things, but rather doubting that she ever would.

And it was her laugh, sharp and scornful and broken off almost painfully at its ending, which gave him his answer. ‘Francis, I have not the least idea in which part of the garden hyssop might be found. Nor even what it looks like. Although when the gardener asked me today if I wanted it for the house I said yes – lots of it – as much as he likes. And
he
seemed happy. I'll ask Oriel what to do with it. She'll know.'

Yes. He supposed she would. But that was a direction in which he did not allow his thoughts ever to stray. A pointless, painful direction with no good in it anywhere, for anybody. He had married Kate, who had thought her love for him would thrill and burn and exalt her forever, so that to be alone with him in a wasteland would turn desolation into paradise. Except that this was not the wasteland she had bargained for. Was she beginning to understand that now, as he had understood it all along? Was she looking at him now and seeing nothing but a well-meaning, restless, ordinary man? A man out of step with himself who, although driven into the wrong corner, had made up his mind that, rather than fester there, he would set himself to fill the roles that corner offered, to teach himself – whatever it did to him – the patient, tedious job of being a village squire, the good landlord, the fair-minded Justice of the Peace, local upholder of law and order, careful farmer, father of his parish and watchful husband to his wife. He did not think any part of the job would suit him but he was determined to perform the whole of it, nevertheless. Faithfully. As he would be faithful, if only in his body, to her.

‘Don't worry about the hyssop,' he said. ‘The villagers can live without it.'

‘Ah – so you don't want me to be the Lady Bountiful, then?'

‘Kate – I want you to do what pleases you …'

‘Then find me a camel to ride on, Francis – or an elephant.'

He got up and, kneeling by her chair, laid a hand gently against her stomach, his mouth close to her ear, playing the lover as the only sure means he knew of pleasing her.

‘Would a camel-ride be wise just now?'

Had it ever been wise? Or even possible? Had she ever done more than confuse true freedom with the wild needs of her body and the clamorous triumph with which she had expressed them? Kate who, by stripping her body bare and sinking it into his, believed she had won eternal liberty, total emancipation, supreme power over her own destiny, only to find herself struggling now in the trap to which her overpowering sensuality had really led her; the trap of childbirth. Trapping him too, although he did not think she knew that.