Joan Wolf (8 page)

“Spain does not want to lose its empire,” he said.

“It will, though.” There was a little frown of concentration between her brows. “In fact, this sending of a fleet may prove to be a very good thing.”

“How so?”

“The war so far has been a war carried on by the Criollos, the upper class,” she said seriously. “The rest of Venezuela, the pardos, the Indians, the
llaneros,
they either did not care or they fought, not
for
Spain but
against
us. They had no concept of national liberty.”

Her lovely face was very somber. “Let them taste the tender mercies of Spanish rule, and independence will seem sweet. Bolivar will come back and the final war will commence, a war of Venezuelans against Spaniards, a war of independence.”

He was listening to her intently, his greenish eyes narrowed in concentration. “There is one thing in all this I do not understand. You tell me it was the aristocrats who made the revolution. You told me of all your father’s possessions; he was obviously a very wealthy man, a very influential man. Why would such a man, such a class of men, wish to change the established order?”

Those grave, level eyes of hers were steady on his face. “You find it strange to contemplate the spectacle of a revolution planned and carried out by those who had everything to lose by it.”

“Precisely.”

“George Washington was one of the richest men in all North America,” she pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose he was.” He grimaced a little. “You must think me most damnably materialistic.”

“No. I think you have never known what it is to feel that foreigners are running your country when you are perfectly capable of running it yourself. How would you like it, my lord, if the only people who could sit in the English Parliament were Spaniards—Spaniards, born in Spain, I mean. No one born in England would be eligible.”

There was the sound of a log falling on the fire. “I see what you mean,” he said.

“I thought perhaps you might.”

* * * *

The sickness did not get better, and Margarita was forced to go to bed and stay there. At first she could not lift her head from the pillow without being sick; it took all her concentration and energy to keep down a few spoonfuls of broth. Gradually the sickness got better, and she was able to sit up a little and even to read a bit.

Nicholas was worried about her and, during the two months she was in bed, would come faithfully every night after dinner to sit with her, to talk with her, to read to her. He had searched his library without success for a novel that would appeal to her and would have no mention of war. Upon his mentioning his dilemma to Catherine Alnwick, she had given him a copy of
Pride and Prejudice,
which he read with an enjoyment he had not expected. He and Margarita laughed over Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, sympathized with Jane and Elizabeth and went from despising to admiring Mr. Darcy. After they finished
Pride and Prejudice,
he borrowed
Mansfield Park,
and they enjoyed that as well.

Margarita’s attitude toward Nicholas had altered after the night she woke up screaming in terror and he had comforted her. It changed even more during the months she lay in bed. Far from dreading his presence, she found herself looking forward to his visits. Health and strength and steadiness walked into the room when Nicholas came; he made her fed she
would
get well, would be able to once again do the things she wanted. As she lay listening to his strong, even, dear voice reading Jane Austen to her, she felt more at peace than she had in over a year.

CHAPTER TEN

... and in my breast Spring wakens too, and my regret Becomes an April violet.

Tennyson

It was a lovely spring morning in April when Nicholas took Margarita out into the garden for the first time. She drew in her breath in wonder and delight at the sight of the daffodils, whose golden heads greeted her first excursion out-of-doors since February. The world had awakened. The sun was warm on their heads, the scent of the damp earth was in their nostrils.

“I always think the advantage of living in a climate like this is that you have spring,” said Nicholas. “In a country like Venezuela, where one is constantly surrounded by flowers, how can one feel the sense of wonder, of
deliverance,
that the first daffodils of spring have here? The deadness of winter is over. The earth is alive again. It is like a resurrection.”

She listened to him and then bent to cup her hands around one of the brilliant yellow flowers. It felt so cool and delicate under her fingers. She stared at its sunny beauty and knew that Nicholas was right. She felt herself coming back as well, from the shadows into the light.

 
But I can’t bear it
, she thought. She released the flower and stood up. “They are very beautiful,” she said in a low voice.

Her face had the dark, lost look he had seen on it only a few times before. “Don’t you want this child, Margarita?” he asked gently. “I thought, from what you said to Mrs. Frost, that you would be happy.”

“It is hard to be happy when you are sick.”

“I know. But I thought you were better.”

“I am. It is—oh, it is so difficult to explain what I feel.”

“Try.” He guided her to a stone bench and they sat down.

“It is that I feel I have no right to be happy, no right to be sitting here in this lovely sunshine. There is too much suffering, there has been too much suffering, for me to be happy.”

“I see.” He spoke slowly, carefully, seeking to find the right words. “It is not wrong of you to be happy if you can be. It would be wrong of you to deny in yourself all those feelings and hopes and dreams your people fought for. You owe it to them to live the fullest life you possibly can, to use all the talents your parents so carefully nurtured in you. Do you think your father would be proud of you for being unhappy?”

Her profile was pure and delicate and unresponsive. “No,” she said. He looked from her to the daffodils, and when he looked back her head was bent. He saw a tear fall onto her wrist, and he reached out to put an arm around her. He could feel her holding herself hard, trying not to let the tears come. He put his cheek against her hair.

“I am so sorry, little one,” he said softly. “I have been so unkind to you.”

At that she turned into his arms. Everything inside her was broken and bleeding, and she wept as she had never wept before. She was exhausted when it was all over, and he carried her back into the house and upstairs to her bed.

****

It was a beautiful spring. Margarita walked in the garden and rode around the estate, sometimes with Nicholas and sometimes alone. The apple orchards were magnificent, with enormous blooms that kindled the unaccustomed joy within her. The scent of lilacs hung in the air and the soft breeze ruffled her hair when she took off her hat. She was conscious, too, of the child within her. The sense of life, of creation, was very strong in her now. She was profoundly aware of this new life she was carrying, she was creating. She had wanted so desperately to do something to counter the destruction she had seen all around her in Venezuela. And now she felt she was. She was creating a life. She was putting something back into the emptied world.

The scars of the revolution were still there. They showed in the recurring nightmares that troubled her sleep. They showed, too, in her hypersensitivity to pain or death. The sight of a wounded animal upset her dreadfully. She could not even bear to kill the spider who had made a web in the corner of her sitting room.

But once again she belonged to life. It was Nicholas who had done this for her, and she looked to him with gratitude and thankfulness. He was her rock, her fortress, her bulwark. She thanked God on her knees every night that he had given her Nicholas.

* * * *

Nicholas was both moved and frightened by the change in Margarita. The depths of her feelings, the intensity of her response to even the ordinary things of life, awed him a little. She was too vulnerable. It was not safe to be that vulnerable. He felt responsible for her, and sometimes, when he looked at her, he felt the responsibility was too great

She asked nothing of him. Of all people, Margarita was one of the last who would ever intrude where she felt she was not wanted. She never once tried to broach the solitariness that was at the core of him. She was content with his presence when he chose to bestow it upon her, and she became increasingly interested in the work he was doing on the estate. Because she never pressed him, he shared more with her than he had with any other person since his mother. He felt a closeness to her that was human rather than sexual.

He had not approached her for
sex since he had come back from London. At first she had been too sick, and then, as she began to get better, he too was conscious of the child. He was afraid, as well, afraid to shatter the happiness he could see growing in her along with the baby. She never once made a gesture that would indicate that she would welcome the resumption of any kind of physical relationship with him. She seemed, he thought somewhat ruefully, to regard him as a surrogate big brother.

If was a situation he did not find totally satisfactory, but he accepted it. And went regularly, several afternoons a week, to visit Catherine Alnwick at Sothington.

Catherine Alnwick was thirty-six years of age and a widow. She had two boys, both of whom were at Eton. She went to London for a few months each spring, but most of the time she lived in Worcestershire. Her relationship with Nicholas had been going on since he came home to Winslow five years ago. The death of her husband four years ago had only made things easier and less risky for them.

Catherine was a very beautiful, very independent woman. She had only been thirty-two when her husband died, but she showed no interest in marrying again.  When she went to London she moved in the best of circles; she had friends and relatives who owned country homes all over England and she was invited to visit regularly; she had plenty of money. But she remained a widow. Her sisters did not understand it, but then her sisters knew nothing of Nicholas.

Catherine was very satisfied with their relationship. She had no great desire to marry again; the freedom of widowhood suited her very well. She did what it pleased her to do and had to account to no one. Nicholas was the perfect solution for her. He aroused her more than any man she had ever known. Even after five years, the sight of him riding up her driveway was enough to start her pulses pounding. He satisfied her body and made no claims on her freedom. She went to London when she liked, visited whom she liked, slept with whom she liked. And he did the same. Obviously he had found their relationship as satisfactory as she; he had held to her for over five long years, and his marriage did not seem to be posing any obstacles at all.

Catherine had never met Margarita. She had not been in Worcestershire last winter when the local gentry were paying calls on the new bride at Winslow, and she was intensely curious, to meet her. “Really, my dear,” she said to him humorously, as he was leaving one afternoon, “you are turning into a recluse. Jane Hopkins was asking me only yesterday if I thought you would be offended by an invitation to dine at Twinings.”

“Offended?” His strongly marked brows drew together. “Why on earth should I be offended?”

“No one in the neighborhood has seen you since last winter. People are not quite sure how to regard you. You have been rather brutally refusing invitations, you know.”

“My wife has been sick.”

“I realize that. But she is better now, you say. I think it is time you made your reentry into the neighborhood, Nicholas.”

He looked down at her, a faintly sardonic smile on his lips. “Do you, Cat? All right. Tell Lady Hopkins to send her invitation.”

She felt, uncomfortably, that he was reading her too accurately, but she replied calmly enough, “I will.”

Two days later the invitation arrived at Winslow and was duly answered in the affirmative.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Smoake can never burne, they say,

 But the flames that follow may.

Thomas Campion

Margarita was a little nervous about making her first appearance in English society, but she comforted herself with the thought that Nicholas would be beside her. She had met three of the people who would be at Twinings before, but she had no clear recollection of them. She had been so frozen with unhappiness last winter that nothing and no one had registered very clearly on her consciousness.

She had a new dress to wear. Nicholas had insisted that she give up her eternal black, and so this last month a dressmaker from the village had made her some new clothes. “After the baby, I will take you to London for a completely new wardrobe,” he told her. “I suppose it wouldn’t make much sense to do it now.”

Her dimples appeared. “What I need at the moment, my lord, are dresses that can be let out easily. Most decidedly, a new wardrobe should wait until after the baby is born.”

Margarita was actually looking very well. The high-waisted styles were an advantage, and although if you looked at her closely her pregnancy showed, the dress concealed it to a large degree. She wore a gown of delicate rose-pink silk, scooped low in the front. It had small puffed sleeves and the skirt that fell from its high waistband was a little fuller than style dictated. Her hair was knotted smoothly on top of her head, and in her ears and around her throat hung the famous Winslow diamonds.

Nicholas smiled with pleasure when he saw her. “You look lovely,” he told her approvingly.

In return, Margarita regarded her husband. She reached up to smooth back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Were you writing in the library?” she asked severely.

He grinned. “Guilty.”

“I can always tell by the way you tug at your poor hair.” She stepped back. “There, it looks tidy enough now.” She picked up her cloak. “I am ready if you are.”