Flint and Roses (53 page)

‘Nothing—as you well know.'

‘Well, then—I have no right to say this, of course, but isn't it time you broke off with him?'

‘Of course it is.'

‘And do you mean to do it?'

‘Yes—yes, of course I do. I know I have to do it. I've already done it twice. I intended to do it again last night—tonight—although I might not have managed it. I might have opened my mouth, determined to tell him, and other words would have come out. It's happened often enough before.'

‘Even when you know it would be for his own good?'

‘Do I know that? He doesn't think so.'

‘Of course he doesn't. He wants you. That's more than enough for him. I believe it would have been enough for my father too, in his day. And you must know that a gentleman's code doesn't allow him to break off with a lady, even in these circumstances. I freely admit that such a consideration would carry very little weight with me, but Nicky is rather more honourable than he seems. The break will have to come from you, Faith.'

‘I know—I know—I know all the reasons. I know. It's just that, when it comes to it, none of them seem quite strong enough.'

‘I see. Then we shall have to find you another reason, shall we not?—something you'd feel quite unable to justify.'

He got up, poured out more coffee, another brandy for himself, stirred the fire, as attentive to his own comforts as a cat, a light, luxurious man who played life's games so exquisitely that I wondered if he could really be of any help to me after all, since to him it might well be the game itself that counted, and the quality of the playing.

‘Can you give me such a reason, Blaize?'

‘I can try. I can tell you what I see, from my vantage point on the outside, which is often a very good place to be. I know my brother rather well, Faith, and he is not really the man for adultery, you know. It may not trouble his conscience unduly—at least, not more than he can cope with—but he finds it exceedingly irksome just the same. And adultery, if it is to be successful—if it is to be worth the trouble—must be enjoyed. There are men who can be more excited by the challenge and the danger of clandestine meetings than by the woman herself. There are certain undomesticated men—one of them not a million miles away from you—who find the very lightness of it well suited to their natures. For it should be light, and it should be brief. Nicholas is not that kind of man. I might enjoy slipping in through your back door, Faith, but Nicholas doesn't care for it, and unless you put an end to this the day will dawn when he'll surely come striding in through the front and be damned. If he did that, I believe several people would have cause to regret it.'

I had no answer to give him. What answer could there be? And, allowing me a moment's reflection, he said quietly, ‘He should have married you in the first place, I think we must all be agreed on that. But he did not. He married that strange little creature whose caprices no longer enchant him—or very rarely, since he is certainly the father of her child. She is difficult, I grant you. But she has an enormous need for affection—something you should be able to understand—and does very badly without it. I realize how badly he wants you. Faith, but I've yet to be convinced that he couldn't do well enough with Georgiana—if there was nothing to prevent it. Yes—yes, I know. You are going to tell me he doesn't love her, and that she doesn't love him, and you could be right. But if he took it into his head to
behave
as if he loved her, she would certainly respond to it. She is as miserable and down-drooping sometimes as a stray dog, and for the same reasons. If he held out his hand she'd gladly come to heel now, I believe. She'd soon begin to effervesce and sparkle again, which would be an encouragement to him, since happiness makes her very enticing. And he may well find it in himself to forgive her her trespasses.'

I swallowed, quite painfully, and leaned forward to the fire, a chill striking me abruptly across the shoulders.

‘You really are Georgiana's friend after all, aren't you. Blaize?'

‘I believe so. I realize you doubted it. She told me, a long time ago, that you had warned her against borrowing my money. There was really no need, you know. I can't think of any circumstances in which I'd be prepared to call the debt in. And, for once in my life, my intentions were of the very best. I thought it might help her to live, not in peace exactly with Nick, since peace is not really in her nature, and it's a dull little thing in any case, but in the kind of harmony that would suit them both. I'm truly sorry to say this to you, Faith, but there have been times, even this past year, when they
could
have approached one another. You saw her yourself on Christmas Day, offering him far more than a reconciliation. And can you be certain, that he would not have taken it—and made the best of it—had you not been standing there?
I
can't be certain. Now then—there's the reason I'm offering. Is it strong enough?'

I got up, walked across the room and back again, making my skirts swirl around me, full of bitterness suddenly, and a desire to hurt him—because he was absolutely right—but with no idea at all how I might punish someone so elusive, so self-sufficient, as Blaize.

‘It could be strong enough. But then again, you may have made a terrible mistake. A woman will usually sacrifice herself for the man she loves. She might be less willing to sacrifice herself for another woman—even his wife. You have convinced me that she needs him. Can you convince me that he needs her?'

‘Oh—as to that,' he said, getting up too and leaning a lazy arm along the mantelpiece. ‘Nicky can find other satisfactions. The keynote of his character is ambition, you must know that very well. He will build himself another Barforth empire and be well content with it. Certainly he wants you, but he wants other things as well. His options are many and various. Georgiana has no option at all but to be his wife.'

‘Can you see no wrong in her, Blaize?'

‘My dear—of course I can. The whole of Cullingford knows her as a most unsatisfactory woman. She can do nothing right for Cullingford. And, if I happen to find some of her faults extremely charming, I'm ready to admit that she can be perverse and wrong-headed, that her judgment of character, particularly the Clevedon character, is unsound and will continually lead her into trouble. But she was looking very frail yesterday morning, cowering away from his anger, although he was not angry with her and didn't pretend to be. Very frail—'

And he had given me the most powerful reason of all.

We walked in the garden for a while then; and afterwards took tea and muffins and a certain apricot preserve for which Blaize declared Mrs. Collins was famous, although it had not been offered to me before. I dressed calmly for dinner, the turquoise dress again, the gold chains, the perfume, smiled with frank amusement at the flower-decked table, the scented candlelight, the richness of the sauces—although I was not delighted to see crab again.

‘You are quite right, Blaize. You must have a way with housekeepers. Mrs. Collins can hardly be making these attempts at
haute cuisine
on my account.'

‘No—she is rather fond of me. But I have to admit that I might have done better not to have praised her crab so highly. We may see it tomorrow morning at breakfast-time, I warn you, and I haven't the heart to complain. But the champagne is very nicely chilled, and not too sweet.' And I could have been enchanted—was, on the surface of my mind, enchanted—by the easy flow of his conversation, his accurate assessment that even a woman with a broken heart retains her vanity and can find pleasure in talking about herself.

In the drawing-room there was a branch of candles on a low table, the leaping firelight answering the candle-flame, the lamps remaining unlit in deep pools of shadow, and, as I agreed against all the rules of Cullingford society to take brandy with him, he warmed my glass in his hands, gave it to me very carefully and said, ‘You are an incredibly beautiful woman, Faith, you know.'

‘I know no such thing. I take a little trouble with my appearance, that's all.'

‘Yes, I believe that is what I mean. I think at some time of your life you must have made a deliberate study of yourself, and I admire that enormously. It was Georgiana who called you a swan, wasn't it?—and she was so right. That long neck with an elegant head at the end of it, turning so slowly and staring, sometimes quite arrogantly, just like swans do. Yes, I happen to know it is because you are short-sighted, and that when you look through people in that rather distant way of yours it is because you actually don't see them—but the effect can be quite devastating. And when the light is too strong for you, instead of blinking and squinting like an owl, as most short-sighted people do, you very languorously close your eyes—I have often noticed it. If, once upon a time, you had to sit and practise it in front of your mirror until you got it right, then I salute you for it. And your perfume is very exotic—really—very nice.'

‘In fact I am an enchanting creature altogether.'

‘So you are. You are your own creation. You were quite plain once, but no one would notice it now.'

‘Thank you, Blaize. You have just told me that I am still plain, and that you have found me out.'

‘Which is the greatest compliment I can pay, since I am not nearly so handsome myself as I pretend to be.' We laughed, easy with wine and firelight, well satisfied with our own artistry, colleagues almost, so that when he left his chair and came to perch on the sofa beside me—my wide satin skirts requiring him to keep a certain distance—I was not at all worried by him. He had kissed me before; he might well kiss me again; and, like the last time, it would be no more than an exchange of expertise.

‘Yes,' he said, those shrewd grey eyes examining me from the high-piled crown of my head to my décolletage and lingering there, at the separation of my breasts, quite openly, the corners of his mouth tilting into a wry smile. ‘You understand your own body perfectly in one sense. You know how to adorn it and how to display it to glorious advantage. You are not even coy with it. You know I am looking and you allow me to look, quite calmly. You knew in advance that I would be bound to look and would not have uncovered your shoulders had you not felt, even secretly, that you deserve it. I like that attitude too. I am only sorry you haven't yet understood another facet of your nature which seems very clear to me. What would you do if I touched you, Faith?'

‘Well, I wouldn't scream for Mrs. Collins, who certainly wouldn't help me in any case. But what is this facet of my nature I haven't understood?'

His eyes brushed over me once again, very much amused this time. ‘Not yet. Tell me something first. How do you see yourself, Faith—no, not the swansdown and the velvet ribbons of you—yourself?'

‘I don't,' I told him, stretching myself a little on the sofa, my posture far too relaxed for good manners, seeing all this as no more than one of his sophisticated, complex games. ‘I don't see myself at all. I don't do anything so positive as that. I drift, Blaize. I just float on a lake—like a swan, I suppose, if there is a muddle-headed variety. When the sun shines I fluff out my feathers, and when it doesn't I try to weather the storms. I don't know where I'm going any more than a swan does—except that a swan, I believe, takes a mate for life, and I seem unlikely to do that, the way things are turning out.'

He smiled. ‘It will surprise you, then, to be told that in my view you could be a very sensual woman—which must make you unique in Cullingford.'

‘Blaize—good heavens!—I don't even know what that means. You are calling me wanton, I suppose.'

‘Certainly not. I have encountered wantons in plenty, and it is not at all the same. Wantons will give themselves for a variety of reasons, but rarely for the pleasure of the giving, and the taking. I'm suggesting to you, Faith dear, that you have—or might have—a capacity for that particular kind of giving and taking for its own sake. And that is rare in women—or at any rate I have met it very seldom. But—and I am forced to heave a sigh over it—you are a lady. And because sensuality, as we all know, is not ladylike, you have confused it with romance. You must be madly, wildly in love—or think that you are—in order to give yourself, and you are gaining nothing by it, Faith, nothing at all. In fact you are refusing to acknowledge what could be the most satisfying part of your nature.'

‘Blaize, really—'

‘Faith—definitely. You love Nicholas and so you may give yourself to him. You lose Nicholas and so your life as a woman is at an end. You believe that no one else could ever rouse you to passion or to pleasure, because you could love no one else. I wonder if the swan believes the same when it loses its mate and sits all forlorn on the riverbank for the rest of its life? It would sadden me if you were to do that, Faith.'

I sat up, straight-backed, angry, uneasy with him for the first time in my life.

‘I don't wish to continue this conversation, Blaize.'

‘Of course you don't. It's not a proper conversation at all. But the fact that we are here alone together is not proper either. You may relax again, Faith, you know, for I didn't come here intending to seduce you. Not that I wouldn't enjoy it—my word, I'd take you south, I think, to some secret little Italian garden, so you could uncover those splendid shoulders for me all day long in the sunshine. And afterwards we'd still be friends.'

‘Blaize—'

‘Yes—so we would. But then, you couldn't be stirred by me, or any other man, could you, because we are not Nicholas. And if you
could
be stirred a little, you'd have to fight it, wouldn't you—just as hard as ever you could—because then you'd have to wonder whether you'd loved him quite so desperately after all.'

‘Blaize, I shall be angry with you in a minute.'