Greygallows (24 page)

He touched his cap to me with a sly insolence that wrung a low growl from Jonathan—and
reminded me of the need for caution.

'Very well,' I said, addressing Williams. 'But tell the fellow to stay at a distance. I don't like his looks.'

We were out of the stableyard and on the moor path before I allowed myself to speak.

'What can he mean by setting such a villain on me? Who is the rascal?'

'A fair description,' said Jonathan, with a smile. 'I have some slight acquaintance with the good old English art of wrestling, and I fancy I have seen this fellow in the ring.'

'Well,' I said, controlling my anger, 'he is a slight annoyance. We cannot be silent any longer, Mr. Scott. The situation has gone far beyond reticence or apology, and through no action of ours. I am sorry you should be forced to witness it.'

'You said no apology.' Jonathan forced a smile. 'Lady Clare—'

'Pray do not call me that; I wish it had never been my name!'

'There was a time when I might have called you Lucy; a time when I could, and did, say things I can no longer say to you.'

'What has changed,' I cried rebelliously, 'except a formal name and an empty legal fiction?'

'That fiction rules our lives,' Jonathan said quietly. 'But if I cannot obey the dictates of—of emotion in speaking to you, my duty allows, nay, demands, that I give you the benefit of my knowledge of that legal fiction. Do you know what recourse the laws of this enlightened nation allow you against such acts as I have reluctantly witnessed?'

I shook my head. The repressed feeling under his formal words shook me, and his self-control filled me with admiration. At least I could try to control my own emotions and not make his task any more difficult than it was.

'It allows you no recourse,' Jonathan said. His voice took on another note, and I sensed he was quoting. ' "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband ..." That is Blackstone, the foundation of English common law. You have no legal existence. Your husband has custody of your property and your person. Should you have children, he may determine the course of their lives, and you may not interfere. If under extreme pain and provocation you leave him, he may force you to return. Should you refuse, he may imprison you. If he does not want you back, he may divorce you, although you have no such right, whatever your provocation. If he divorces you, he retains the custody of your children and may prevent you from seeing them again. He retains your property; even the clothing you wear is not legally your own.'

He fell silent; and I was silent too, from a kind of shock that had nothing to do with surprise. None of the facts he had stated surprised me; if I had not known them consciously, they had been part of my thinking for so long that I took them for granted. No; the shock lay in my reaction to hearing the facts stated so coldly and flatly. As a log may smolder sullenly upon a hearth for hours and then suddenly burst into flame...

'It is not fair,' I said. 'It is not right.'

'No. And it will be changed; but not, perhaps, in your lifetime. Certainly not in time to help you in your present circumstances.'

Jonathan glanced back over his shoulder at the ungainly form of the stranger.

'I did not tell you these things to anger you, or to recruit you for the secret army of females, as my mother calls it,' he said, with a wry smile. 'I spoke only because of my responsibility. Mr. Beam is the only male protector you have; and I am his deputy. As he would advise you, were he here, so I may advise you.'

'I think he would not advise me as you do,' I said, answering his smile.

'No; but he would remonstrate with Lord Clare, and that, for a number of reasons, I cannot do. In practice the situation is not so grim as I have pictured it; but its mitigation comes from public opinion and private character, not from the law.'

'Clare cares nothing for public opinion.'

'That I can believe. You must depend, then, on his character—his notions of right and of honor. I have no high opinion, perhaps, of his honor; and yet I confess I find his behavior astonishing. I could picture him as cruel and brutal toward inferiors, cold and satirical toward his peers. But this drunken jealousy—this petty malice toward his wife, who bears his name—'

'I know,' I said. 'It is incomprehensible to me too. He was not always like this, and it is not like him.'

'He has no—' Jonathan stopped, flushing.

'No,' I said. 'He has no cause for jealousy. Did you doubt that?'

'Lucy...' He turned toward me, holding out his hand. The impetuous movement and the color that flooded his face recalled the outspoken boy I had first met in Mr. Beam's office. It was a gesture full of meaning, conveying apology and a tacit reaffirmation of his belief in me—and another emotion I dared not name. Even as he made the gesture, he remembered; he did not need to glance back to remind me of the figure that followed us like a visible manifestation of Clare's suspicion. Jonathan's hand fell and we rode on in silence until, in an effort to find a less dangerous subject, I said,

'It must have been here that I lost my way the last time I rode Sultana.'

'Oh, yes,' Jonathan mumbled, still lost in his own thoughts. 'I recall your husband mentioning it. What happened?'

I told him the story. I made light of it, but as he listened Jonathan's face lengthened, and when I mentioned the sound that had driven Sultana into flight, he looked most peculiar.

'A whistle, you say?'

'So it sounded. I suppose it was a bird.'

'A bird,' Jonathan muttered. 'Yes ... It must have been.'

When we returned to the house we found Mrs. Andrews in hysterics. A domestic catastrophe had occurred. She was in such a state of red-faced chagrin that I was quite alarmed; but when she was finally induced to tell me what the trouble was, I burst into laughter.

There was an Aroma. That word was as close as Mrs. Andrews could bring herself to saying 'smell.' It had infested all the guest rooms, including the
one assigned to Jonathan.

When I could stop laughing I started upstairs. Mrs. Andrews tried to hold me back, assuring me there was no need for my delicate nostrils to be affronted; they had cleaned and searched and inspected, yet the smell persisted, and nothing but time would cure it. I went on, all the same; and in the upper hall I met Jonathan, who had gone to investigate.

'No, don't go up there,' he said, grinning broadly. 'It is a phenomenon of a smell, I assure you; rather like all the drains gone wrong at once, or a profusion of dead bodies. Mrs. Andrews,' he said, turning to her as she followed me, on the verge of tears, 'I beg, don't let this distress you, it happens in the best of families. I remember visiting his Grace the Duke of Eastham, when a rat got behind the wainscoting ...'

As he admitted later, the story was quite apocryphal. But it served its purpose, which was to comfort Mrs. Andrews.

'Well, then,' she said, sniffing a little, 'it is kind of you, Mr. Scott, indeed it is. Of course your things have already been moved. His Lordship saw to that.'

'His Lordship?' I asked. 'I thought he had left for Edinburgh.'

'Oh, he has, my lady. But he came back ... Oh, dear, I am so fuddled I don't know what I'm saying...'

'His Lordship left before we set off on our ride,' Jonathan said. He was no longer laughing. 'He returned after we left ... He had, perhaps, forgotten something?'

'Yes, sir, that is just it. He had forgotten a paper,
a business paper he said it was. He went up to see whether you had gone; that is how we discovered the—the—'

'Aroma,' said Jonathan, straight-faced. 'Yes, I am sorry I was unable to oblige his Lordship; he did not think it worth sending after me?'

'No, he said it was not important, whatever it was. But the—the—'

'Aroma,' I said.

'Yes, my lady. Thank you. He was most vexed. He ordered Mr. Scott's things moved, and wished me to convey his apologies ...'

'Of course, of course,' said Jonathan. 'And where am I to go now?'

'The Green Room. If you will follow me, sir.'

'Oh,' I said. 'You are next to me. You should be honored, Mr. Scott. That is the room usually reserved for visiting royalty!'

As always, with Clare gone the house relaxed, like a dignified lady who has removed her tight stays. I had never spent such a pleasant day. After dining, we went to the library. It was—how can I express it?—it was like exploring a new country with the help of a guide who knows every foot of ground. I had tried exploring alone; I had found nuggets of pleasure and improvements here and there, but had to wade through miles of incomprehensible swamp to find them. Jonathan led me straight to the gold. He found books he loved and read me excerpts that made me eager to read more; he looked at the volumes that had baffled me and suggested other, simpler texts that would unlock the mysteries of the more advanced. We did not speak of person
al matters. We were in Clare's house, with Clare's servants
about.

Naturally the door of the library remained open while we were together in the room.

I asked Jonathan about one phrase that had intrigued me—his 'secret army of women.' He laughed heartily. He laughed or smiled whenever he spoke of his mother; it was not derision, but pure affection and delight. He did not agree with all she said, but he quoted her often—as he quoted Blackstone and Tacitus. That was a revelation to me, to hear a woman quoted as an authority on anything.

It was an astounding day altogether. Jonathan explained his mother's little joke, which even she found quite amusing, of a secret revolutionary army of women, ready to strike for their rights as the Greek women had done. Only instead of demanding the end of wars, they would demand a voice in making the world better in all ways.

I had never heard of Lysistrata, and Jonathan had to explain who she was and what she had done. (As I discovered later, he did a considerable amount of editing.) Then I told him how I had failed to find that quotation by Socrates to which his mother had referred. He found the book at once; it was in the original Greek, of course, so it was no wonder I had not been able to find it.

' "There is no occupation concerned with the management of social affairs which belongs either to woman or to man,"' he read. '"Every occupation is open to both, so far as their natures are concerned. We should not have one education for men and another for women, because the nature to be taken in hand is the same."'

'How does it sound in Greek?' I asked.

Jonathan read. The great rolling sounds were
like drums in the mind.

'I wanted to learn Greek,' I said.

'According to Socrates, you should have been taught.'

Mrs. Andrews had to call us twice when the tea tray was ready.

That night my mind felt the way my body did after I had taken much exercise. It ached, but it felt alive. I lay awake for a long time. As I was dropping off to sleep I remembered Clare's uncouth watchdog, and I smiled as I thought what an innocent evening we had spent, Jonathan and I. The most evil-minded spy could have found no harm in it.

I was wrong. There was no evil in our acts or words, but the damage had been done. Our minds had met; and for a woman, that is a temptation greater than any lure of the flesh.

I could not have slept for long when a sound woke me. I sat up in bed staring about the room. The fire had died down; a sullen red glow from the coals turned the shadows ominous colors. Then the sound came again, a weird, hollow howling. It came from outside—from the terrace.

I got out of bed and went to the window. Not once did I think of Jonathan; I had forgotten he was only the thickness of the wall away from me.

It was there, on the terrace. It moaned, and moved; it darted back and forth, with horrid sudden little movements. I found myself thinking what it would be like to have it dart at me, with groping arms; and I turned cold. But it could not get at me, it could not enter ... Even as the thought crossed my mind, the thing lifted its veiled head. It seemed to stare straight at my window.

With an odd contorted twist of body and arms it darted to the side and passed from my sight. One last howl of menace or grief floated up to me.

Then I remembered the stair that led from the terrace to Clare's room.

If I had stopped to think I would have wondered why a supernatural creature needed steps in order to ascend. I was not thinking. I was too frightened. I ran to the hall door and threw it open, intending to summon help.

The door next to mine opened. Jonathan stepped out into the hall.

'I heard a noise,' he said. 'What in heaven's name—'

He was wearing a dark dressing gown. I had been too frightened to remember mine. My nightgown reached from chin to floor and was far more modest than my evening dress. But I was suddenly conscious of it, and of my flowing hair.

I don't know what it was that warned me—not, I fear, any sense of propriety or shame. I wanted him to hold me, protect me ... Suddenly I seemed to hear an inner voice, a wordless cry of alarm. I brushed past Jonathan and ran down the dimly lit hall to the top of the stairs. An ancient oriental ornament hung there; it was a heavy bronze disk or gong, adorned with carved figures of mythical beasts. Seizing the hammer that hung by it, I swung with all my strength; and the silence exploded. Before the echoes had died, Mrs. Andrews came running down the east corridor, her nightcap all askew; the house servants tumbled down the upper stairs, crying out in alarm. And then, from the shadows of the lower hall, cam
e another figure, stick in hand, still
wearing his
traveling coat. It was Clare.