Grahame, Lucia (33 page)

"If you have anything left to say to me," I told him,
turning back and only half masking a contrived yawn with my hand, "I hope
you will make it brief and worth listening to, for once. All this ranting so
quickly becomes tiresome."

"Very well then." His voice, which a moment earlier had
been full of half-suppressed laughter, now became matter-of-fact. "There
is one thing you ought to bear in mind— tiresome though it may be. If you
should ever consider seeking a divorce, or even a separation, before my hand is
played out, remember that I still have the paintings: And I won't hesitate to
use them if that's what it takes to hold you to our bargain. I'm sure our
friend Marcel can auction them as easily tomorrow as he might have in March.
And I wouldn't mind recouping what they've cost me. So I advise you not to
entertain the notion of leaving me before I am through with you. It won't be
long—
that
I can promise you."

Although I could not imagine what worse threats he might make, I
thought it would be reckless to incite him further. I left him, then, without
another word.

Except for his luxuriously appointed bedroom, with its trappings
of velvet, silk, and marble, and that ultramarine carpet so thick that one
could drown in it, my husband's London home was furnished with a beauty that
was almost stark in its simplicity.

Charingworth was the repository of priceless ancestral treasures,
but in Grosvenor Square my husband had indulged his personal taste. He had
restored the house to its original spare and classic lines, having stripped
away the ostentatious embellishments favored by previous generations of
Camwells. The clear, sunny colors he had selected for the interior offset what
might have otherwise been an austere effect.

He was not at home when I arrived. I dined alone and went directly
to my bedroom afterward. It was very late when I heard him return. He did not
come to my room and left the house before breakfast the following morning.

Shortly after my solitary luncheon, I had an unexpected caller. I
was in my sitting room, where I felt safe from any possibility of an accidental
encounter with my husband should he return from whatever business or diversions
had called him away, when a housemaid announced that Lord Marsden was
downstairs.

I received him in one of the smaller drawing rooms, reminding
myself that I must now call him Neville, which I found difficult. To me, he
would always be Lord Marsden, Frederick's dazzling patron. Despite his air of
genial, relaxed urbanity, today I thought he seemed faintly discomfited.

"I ran into Tony at my tailor's this morning," he told
me. "He seems vastly improved, I am happy to say. When I last saw him, he
looked so wretched that if he had been a dog, I'd have been tempted to put him
out of his misery."

"When was that?" I asked uneasily. My husband was never
ill.

"Oh, it was a chance encounter in Victoria Station. In March,
I believe. Shortly after you returned from your visit to the charming Madame
Sorrel. By the by, I hope that
she
has recovered completely."

"She is quite well now."

"I am glad of that. I was surprised when Tony mentioned to me
that she had been ill, for I had attended a performance of hers the very night
before you left for France, and she appeared to be in excellent health." I
did not reply.

"Well, that's a great actress for you," said Lord
Marsden, extricating us from the awkwardness of silence. "But, as I was
saying, Tony's spirits seem to have improved dramatically. He was alarmingly
cheerful this morning. I haven't seen him glitter quite so dangerously since he
embarked upon his campaign to throw his mother out of her own home."

"He
threw
her out?" I echoed faintly.

"Well, perhaps not in so many words. But it amounted to the
same thing, really. It was when she still lived at Charingworth, you see, and
he didn't want her there any longer. He began to assume such domineering airs
that she couldn't continue to live under his roof. He made her life thoroughly
disagreeable. It surprised her, I think, to discover that he can outdo her at
her own pitiless games—when he chooses."

"I have no doubt of it," I murmured.

"Yes," continued Lord Marsden, leaning back in his
chair. "It wasn't long after he'd come down from Cambridge. She'd lamed
her hunter, so she took his favorite horse— without even asking him, I regret
to say—and shattered its leg. He had to shoot it—he insisted on doing it
himself, though any one of the grooms would have spared him that agony, and he
did it cleanly, I must say, although it nearly killed him. I still remember the
tears running down his face. Up until then, he'd always tolerated her high-handedness
with astonishing good humor. I shouldn't have put up with it for a week. Still,
you know Tony—he's slow to anger. But when he's pushed to it, he's completely
unforgiving."

I couldn't help noticing how keenly Lord Marsden eyed me as he
related this unhappy tale, although his tone was casual. I was reminded of the
look on Watkins's face when he had told me, long ago, not to be deceived by the
fact that my husband used a light rein. Too late had I learned the significance
of
that
veiled warning. As I handed Lord Marsden his tea, the spoon
tinkled on the saucer.

There was a long silence while he sipped his tea. I did not fill
my own cup. I could see, looking down, that my hands were still unsteady. I had
become, I knew, the heir apparent to all the scorn my husband and his cousin
shared for the infamous Lady Whitstone.

"I notice that you are not looking at all well yourself, my
dear," Lord Marsden observed.

"I am perfectly well," I said tightly.

"I'm glad to hear that. I was concerned that perhaps whatever
ailment seems to have afflicted your near and dear had communicated itself to
you."

I was silent.

"Well, perhaps I'm imagining things. I tend to worry about
you. That lovely painting of Hermione always reminds me of how you once looked.
The contrast distresses me."

"Really, Neville," I said in a weak attempt at archness.
"That is
not
very flattering. Everyone must grow older, and I am
afraid that some of us age less attractively than others."

"In your case, that is nonsense," he retorted.
"You
are no more than a girl."

Oh, but I felt old. How long it had been since I had tasted the
easy delights of youth! I shuddered inwardly as I remembered that recent night
when I
had
momentarily forgotten my cares and my guilt and resentments,
when I had drunk and laughed and kissed—and damned myself anew.

Lord Marsden set down his cup and leaned forward in his chair.

"Forgive me for speaking plainly," he said. "I have
told myself repeatedly that I must not interfere, but to see two people for
whom I care so much looking so miserable, each in their own fashion, compels me
to greater candor than is my habit. I am sorry if this is difficult for you.
I'm rather uncomfortable myself."

I was supremely uncomfortable and wished that I had had the
foresight to have sent the housemaid back downstairs with the message that I
was "not at home."

"I strongly advised Tony against marrying you," he said.
"I thought it was a grave mistake."

I was glad, then, that I had not been holding a teacup, for it
would surely have fallen to the floor at the astonishing revelation that he had
campaigned against my marriage. I would have thought him my staunchest
advocate.

"I did not believe you were in love with him," stated
Lord Marsden bluntly. "I had known you as Brooks's wife. The difference in
your manner toward Tony was painfully obvious to me. Of course, since he had
not been acquainted with you then, and was so infatuated anyway, he could not
see that—or much else."

"And you told him that!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, good heavens, no. As I have indicated, I find it
difficult to speak as frankly as perhaps I sometimes ought. No, I merely
remarked that it was much too soon after Brooks's unfortunate death for you to
be able to give your heart to anyone. And that such a terrible loss can leave
one so desolate and lonely that one is eager to clutch at any straw. I
know."

His eyes, astoundingly, were full of sympathy. I remembered that
my husband had once told me something about his cousin's devotion to his wife,
who had died nearly a decade earlier.

"And in your case," he continued, "the emotional
loss must have been aggravated by your other difficulties. I imagine you were
feeling extremely vulnerable."

I flushed guiltily.

"That was my mistake," said Lord Marsden. "Up until
then, Tony had discussed his intentions with me, but never with you. You see,
he did respect your loss. But when I reminded him of your rather desperate
circumstances and of how they might cloud your judgment, he seemed to fix upon
that as a justification for advancing his untimely proposal rather than
delaying it. He is rarely so incautious.

"Everyone knew that Brooks had been hounded by his creditors
to the very hour of his death and that he had left you without a farthing. And
when Tony fell so desperately in love with you, the temptation to play the hero
and to rescue you from hardship proved irresistible. It made him wild to think
of your having to pinch pennies while he lived in ease and comfort. Besides, he
has always had such absolute faith in his abilities to master—through the sheer
force of his will—any problem he sets himself to solve that he never doubted he
could win your love. He admired you tremendously. I did, too."

I had always valued Lord Marsden's good opinion of me. The
realization that I had forfeited this distressed me far more than had his
earlier intimation of my husband's suffering—against
him
my heart was
hardened. But I knew how well Lord Marsden loved his young cousin and where his
strongest loyalties must lie, despite the compassion he had shown for me.

"Of course, when I realized that you were as determined as he
to go ahead with the marriage after all, I made up my mind to voice no further
reservations. It wasn't my affair. And it still is not. But I ought to have
spoken out, even so. I see that only too clearly now. To fail to offer you
whatever help I can at this juncture would only be to compound my error."

"You want to help me?" I whispered.

"But of course. It is easy to see who is most at fault in
this unhappy contretemps and who has suffered the most. Tony has a knack, no
matter how deeply he has been wounded, for shaking the dust off his heels and
distancing himself completely from painful memories. I do not think that you
have that happy faculty, my dear. Not only do you feel every cut—and I imagine
that you have tasted a good many of those lately—but you assume that you
deserve them, that all the guilt and all the responsibility are yours."

I could not speak. I could not believe my ears. I knew I was
scarcely entitled to such kindness, but even so—to think that there existed
another human being who comprehended my weaknesses and temptations and could
yet have such faith in me made me feel faint.

"The fault was not Anthony's. It was entirely mine," I said
at last in a low voice, although I still could not imagine any honorable means
by which I might have extricated myself from Poncet's pincers.

"Nonsense. I don't condemn you for marrying Tony no matter
what your reasons were. He can be very... persuasive. And the pressures upon
you must have been overwhelming. Besides, he worshipped you, he wanted to lay
the world at your feet, and seemed to demand so little in return. I expect you
felt you would be doing him a favor and imagined that he could be satisfied
with something less than love."

I could only blink my astonishment.

"But he, on the other hand, has everything to answer for. He
had choices which you had not—that is the meaning of great wealth, it gives one
infinite choices. And power over others. He understood the dangers—he was born
to the knowledge that the best of women may be compelled to marry for the most
sordid reasons having nothing to do with love. He had trained himself to some
degree to use his wealth in a slightly more responsible way than merely to
indulge his whims and his appetites. And then all that self-discipline
collapsed. He wanted you, he had the power to buy you—ergo, he did."

This was more than I could absorb.

"You are correct," I said at last, "in surmising
that your cousin has discovered there was far more truth in your warnings to
him than in the vows I made when I married him."

"Well, it is as I suspected," Lord Marsden said with a
sigh. "I was certain that nothing else could have reduced Tony to the
state he was in when I ran into him in Victoria Station. However, he seems to
have recovered his amour propre rather quickly. I must warn you, Fleur,"
he continued, "blameless as
I
may hold you,
he
will never
forgive you. It is not in his nature. But one day he will come to his senses
enough to acknowledge the not-so-shining part that he played. And that will be
a very bleak day for Sir Anthony Camwell, for if he cannot forgive you, how can
he forgive himself?"