Reckless Griselda (20 page)

She glanced at him.

“A mistake,” he said, from the dressing room doorway. “I will eat downstairs.”

He followed her into the room and put down the copy of Waverley on the bed. She picked it up and studied it, absorbed in it for a moment or two. The plaid slipped as she did so, taking a little of her shift with her, revealing a white shoulder which Tom wanted desperately to kiss.

“Thank you,” she said, “it is nicely bound.”

“I have a man in Stamford who binds all my books for me,” he said. “You may order what you want in the way of books now,” he added. “And he will bind them for you just as you like.”

“It will be a great consolation. Indeed, I should not be ungrateful. My lot will be a very enviable one. And I will do my duty, sir, just as you would like.” The taunt stung him like a lash. He felt she was deliberately testing him and waiting to have it proved again that he was as bad as she believed him to be.

“I have already made it clear that you may be easy on that score,” he said, knowing it was not going to be so easy for him. He wished then that he had the sort of common stupidity that would allow him with a clear conscience to insist upon his rights as her husband. A brief, rough coupling would have done a great deal to relieve his feelings, but he knew that the relief would only be temporary. There would be no pleasure in it. What he wanted was more. He wanted the Griselda who had given himself to him in the inn, for her own pleasure, not for his own. He would wait – he would damn well have to wait – until she came to him, not out of duty, but out of love.

Yes, he would have to make her love him first.

He watched her walk across the room to the supper laid before the fire. She stood with her back to him, her plaid shawl now slipped around her waist revealing the pale flesh of her back and shoulders glowing through the ice-white covering of thin lawn. It took every ounce of will-power he had to prevent himself stepping forward and drawing down the neckline of her shift so that he could reach around and cup her breasts in his hands. He could smell her skin and hair even from where he stood.

She looked round at him. He could not read her expression. She was holding a small russet apple, which she had pressed to her cheek in her abstraction. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide. It was unbearable to look at her any longer.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” he said, quickly making for the door. “I will leave you in peace.

Griselda breakfasted alone in a small, sunny breakfast parlour in which she would, in other circumstances, have been content to linger. Manton informed her that Sir Thomas had gone out early to attend to estate business. He would not be back until dinner. Manton had a look about him that suggested he knew this was not the sort of message he should be delivering to a bride, but Griselda had no intention of betraying any disapproval or disappointment.

“I would like the carriage sent round, please,” she said, when the steward had refilled her coffee cup. “I shall be driving into Stamford this morning.”

“Very good, my lady. Oh, and Sir Thomas asked me to give you this.” Next to her place, he laid a package wrapped in a sheet of what appeared to be drawing paper, and tied up with a length of blue cotton tape.

“Thank you, Manton,” she said, her curiosity unavoidably piqued.

When Manton had gone, she lost no time untying the tape and opening the parcel. It contained a shawl – a genuine Kashmir shawl, very large, extremely soft, oblong in shape and richly patterned in black and red on a cream ground. A deep fringe trimmed the ends, and when Griselda wrapped herself in it, as she could not resist doing, she found it smelt warmly of spices and of India. It was an article that was the last word in style and elegance and Griselda knew that such shawls were neither cheap nor easily obtained. Where he had got such an item at short notice she could not imagine, and then the dreadful thought occurred to her: he had bought it for Caroline. It was the perfect gift from a husband to his new wife.

She threw it to the floor like a rag, horrified, and certain that was the case. Furiously she examined the package. Not even a note to explain himself. Well, what would have been the point of a note? It was such a foolish thing to have done! Could he not see that it would hurt her, and then she wondered if it were meant deliberately to wound. If he could not give it to Caroline, the woman he had chosen it for, he would throw it in her face to remind her of the honour that he had done her in making her his wife. It was an insult, nothing less.

She snatched it up and carried it, with its packing, to the morning room where she had noticed a writing table comfortably placed between the window and fire. She took up a pen and wrote the following note:

“Lady Thorpe thanks Sir Thomas for his handsome gift but feels it is inappropriate for her to accept such a valuable token of esteem. She therefore returns it to him, with her respectful compliments.”

She then repacked it, sticking the note to the parcel with a lump of sealing wax – using his signet ring to seal it – and told a servant to leave it for Sir Thomas in his dressing room. Then gathering her faithful plaid about her, and tying her bonnet strings, she went down into the entrance hall to the carriage which was now at her constant command.

“To the rectory first, please, Andrew,” she said.

Mrs Austin looked a trifle surprised to see her, but like her husband she seemed to have the happy knack of being easy with whatever circumstance came along. Griselda hoped she might acquire that soon, for she felt sure she would have to learn to bend like a reed in this new life.

But she struggled to find a delicate explanation for her circumstances.

“Our marriage was a trifle hasty,” she said. “We could not bear to wait to make all the preparations. Besides, my father had no money to spare for bride clothes. It was decided that Sir Thomas should provide them instead. I am therefore in rather urgent need of some new clothes. I wonder would you be so good as to accompany me to Stamford this morning and show me the best people to go to?”

“Gladly,” said Mrs Austin. “I have an excellent woman to whom I go for all my clothes. She is the sort of treasure one does not find in every neighbourhood and she does not charge immoderately. Not of course that expense is any great object for you.”

“I do not wish to appear at all extravagant,” Griselda said. She had decided to spend as little of Thorpe’s money as possible, only to buy what was necessary and no more.

“No, of course not,” said Mrs Austin. “That is a sentiment that does you credit, but a certain elegance will be expected of you. Your new position demands it.”

“No, I suppose I must not disgrace my husband,” Griselda said, conscious of a great impulse to do just that.

“I do not believe you could ever do that,” said Mrs Austin kindly, and Griselda was seized with the same urge to confess that had overtaken her in Caroline’s company. But once again she did not quite dare do it.

Mrs Austin proved to be a good choice for a companion on a shopping expedition. She had natural taste and much more knowledge than Griselda. She knew exactly what would be to the purpose and where to go for each item. She had an expert eye for a good piece of cloth, and would not let the silk mercer distract the new Lady Thorpe with showy novelties fresh from London and Paris.

“A better weight of satin than this, if you please, Mr Harrison,” she said. “This will tear to shreds in an evening. Ah, that is more like it, do you not think, my lady?” Griselda nodded. The satin was sumptuous, voluptuous even, and irresistible. “How much a yard, Mr Harrison?”

“Well, that is our very best quality, ma’am,” said Harrison. “It does not come cheap. Half a guinea a yard. But it comes in the most diverting shades. As well as this ivory, we have a bronze which would be very fetching on her ladyship, perhaps with one of our exclusive black zephyr gauzes? And just fresh in we have this apple green – not a tint which every lady could wear with confidence, but if your ladyship will permit me to say…”

“I will take a length of all three,” Griselda said quickly, anxious to be done with the business. Yet watching Harrison measuring and folding the ivory satin, the light playing on its soft gleam, the pleasures of her position stole over her. What were a few guineas to Thorpe, after all? She could indulge herself and he would not even notice.

“Mind you cut a full ten yards, Mr Harrison,” said Mrs Austin. “Sleeves are very full this year. Now, washing muslin. Best Indian muslin.”

“First show me your gauzes,” Griselda said. “Did I not see that gauze over-sleeves are to be worn this winter?”

“Why certainly, my lady,” said Mr Harrison.

After that, her resolution to be frugal crumbled. She justified it guiltily as a sort of revenge on Thorpe. The parcels increased – there was green silk twill and soft grey velvet for pelisses, soft cashmere and printed poplin for morning dresses, coffee-brown Melton cloth for a new riding habit and some flippant pieces of pure nonsense that were so exorbitantly priced that Mr Harrison was even more pleased with her than she was with herself.

Mrs Austin, discreetly amused, now took her to Mrs Shane the milliner. She was the wonder of Stamford – Mrs Austin thought her the equal of anything in London. Certainly this was nothing like the milliners in Perth where Griselda had made the occasional and very economical purchase. Mrs Shane was very showy in her respectful deference to the new Lady Thorpe – other customers were left to wait – and the prices matched the service.

As she tried on hats, caps and bonnets, Griselda began to think that the two gaudily-dressed girls who were also in the shop were whispering about her. She hoped she was not making an exhibition of herself and began to feel very uncomfortable. Mrs Austin leant forward and said quietly,

“Do not mind them, my dear. They are too ill-bred to know any better than to stare at you.”

“But they have every reason to stare,” said Griselda, who had coloured. “The report of our marriage must be everywhere by now – it must seem very hasty to everyone.”

“It will be forgotten soon enough,” said Mrs Austin, handing her a velvet cap. “This would be very fetching, I think.”

“You are very kind not to judge us,” Griselda said.

“Why should I do that?” said Mrs Austin. “No, this has scarcely surprised me. I had always thought that Sir Thomas would do something romantic. It is in his character to act according to his heart rather than his head. Perhaps people have too much regard for the proper forms. Where there is sincerity of purpose, what can that matter?”

Griselda managed to nod and turned her attention to the handsome velvet cap.

Mrs Austin’s treasure of a dressmaker proved to be exactly that. Not only did she promise to make up all Griselda’s dresses as soon as possible but she was able to send her away with a dashing black velvet evening gown with gold trimmings which another customer, who had got into an interesting condition, had not required after all. A few stitches and it was a perfect fit, and that evening, Griselda went down to the drawing room feeling a little more like the mistress of Priorscote and all its splendour.

That morning Griselda had looked in through the door of the white drawing room and seen a room shrouded in brown holland. Now the room had been opened up for her to sit in, the striped covers taken from the white and gold lyre back chairs, the drugget taken up to reveal a dazzling Aubusson carpet, and the vases had been filled with flowers. It was a very elegant room, but coolly formal, despite the brightness of the fire. Griselda felt glad of the protective lustre of her new gown and of the gilded spangles that trimmed the long cuffs and decorated the low neckline. The women in the portraits on the walls, those other Lady Thorpes, seemed to look less disdainfully at her because of it. She wished for a moment that she were as insubstantial and as flat as they were. Painted ancestors did not have to feel.

She sat down at the rosewood table with the copy of “Waverley” Thorpe had given her the night before and tried to distract herself with it, with very little success. The clock, supported by gilded cherubs, said it was half past four – the usual dinner hour at Priorscote was five and soon the Austins would be there to distract the silence with their polite but lively conversation. Sometimes at Glenmorval she had run away from visiting neighbours, but she felt she would never do that here. In this new life they would be an absolute necessity.

She had finally lost herself in the story when the double doors banged open and she looked up to see Sir Thomas come in. He had dressed for dinner and was carrying the shawl which he immediately slapped down on the table in front of Griselda.

“What do you mean by this?” he demanded.

“Exactly what I say in my note,” she said. “I thank you for it, but I must return it. I do not care to wear love tokens meant for another woman.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“You bought it for Caroline,” she said. “You expected me to accept a gift originally intended for Caroline. How unfeeling do you imagine I am?”

“I did not buy it for Caroline!” he exclaimed. “Do you think I would be so cruel as that?”

She could not answer him.