The Emperor (62 page)

I have no son, James thought. That boy is now no more
mine than any of the village lads devouring pasties at the cook pit or tormenting the dancers by throwing hot chest
nuts under their feet. We are strangers to each other. It was
a pain that would never end; but he had grown up enough
now to see the justice of it. I'm learning, Mother, he
thought; if not trust and hope, at least patience and submis
sion. Once, before Héloïse, he would have gone forward
and spoken to them, stirred up God knew what troubles.
Now he only pulled his scarf a little further up over his face,
dug his hands into his pockets, and went away.

*

 
One morning in February 1799 Lucy took a hackney car
riage to Brook Street, and was admitted with a faint air of affront by Weston's manservant. Weston was in the break
fast parlour, still in his dressing-gown. He was sitting in the
window-seat lingering over his coffee and reading the
newspaper, his lap occupied to their common benefit by his
ginger cat Jeffrey.

‘
Her ladyship, sir,' his man said unnecessarily as Lucy
rushed past him.

‘
Thank you, Bates. I'll ring when I need you. My love,'
he said to Lucy when they were alone, 'don't you think this
is a little rash? To come unveiled in broad daylight! I know
Town is still thin of company, but you are not incon
spicuous, you know.'

‘
I had to see you,' she said impetuously. He grinned at
her.

‘
So early in the morning? And we only parted a few
hours ago. I'm flattered.'

‘
Oh don't play the fool, Weston,' she pleaded. 'I've been
out in the Park, and I met Admiral Scorton. He told me –
he said – '

‘
What the devil was he doing up at this hour?' Weston
commented, putting his newspaper aside. 'He told you
about my promotion, I suppose?'

‘
He told me you had been made post, and would be
leaving within a few days to join your ship. Oh, say it isn't true!' she cried, and flung herself down beside him. Jeffrey
sprang indignantly out of the way and sat down at a safe
distance pointedly to lick a paw. Weston put aside his coffee
cup and stroked Lucy's ruffled hair tenderly.

‘
It's true,' he said. 'In many ways I wish it weren't; but it's
what every officer dreams of, to be made post. Well, you've
two brothers in the navy – you must know. My shore com
mission was almost done in any case. You knew I must go
back to sea sooner or later.'

‘
I knew it, but I didn't want to think about it,' she said,
pressing her tragic eyes with her fingers. Then she made an effort to smile. 'Well, you have your ship at last. What have
they given you?'

‘A sloop of war, the
Semele,
twenty-eight guns. I don't
know much about her – I seem to have served all my sea-
time aboard big ships.'

‘Do you know yet where you will be sailing?'

‘
Oh yes, it's no secret. You heard that Naples has fallen to the French? Troubridge has gone out with a squadron to
blockade Naples Bay, and I'm to report to him, and act as
messenger between all the Mediterranean squadrons.' He
saw how hard she was trying to be interested and happy for
him, and his heart lurched. 'Oh my darling, don't look like
that!'

‘
I can't help it. I don't want you to go away,' Lucy said.
‘Oh dear, what a shocking thing to say!’

He laughed. 'You absurd creature. Why shouldn't you
say it?'

‘
Because it's weak and foolish.' She picked up his hand
and rubbed her face against it like a cat. 'When do you go?
How long have we got? Why didn't you tell me sooner?'

‘
I only knew last night. The letter was waiting for me
here, after I had left you. I have to join the
Semele
on the
twelfth. That means I must take the mail the day after
tomorrow.’

Lucy tore herself away from him and walked about the
room, her hands clenched together, her brow drawn in
thought. His going back to sea was another of the things she
had not allowed herself to think about. He would be gone
two years, perhaps three, and who knew when she would
see him again?
But she must not make a fuss. Everything that happened
to them, good and bad, had been implicit from the begin
ning, that day in Richmond Park. It had not been accidental,
she saw that now. She had seen the clouds in the west before
she ever left the house, as he must have done: though on her
part it had been deeply subconscious, they had used the
situation, and they could have no complaint to make about
anything that happened afterwards, however much it hurt.

She unclenched her hands and turned to him. He was
watching her, his eyes bright and full of conflict. It did not
occur to her for an instant that she was a rich woman, and
could beg him not to go. The navy was his career, and even
if she could have changed him, she would not have wanted
to. She loved him, and her body and soul craved him as a
thirsty man craves water, but her smile was calm as she said,
‘Well, then, we must not waste a minute of our two days. I
will spend every moment with you, until you step onto the
coach.’

He stood up and put his arms round her, and felt her
body press against him in an instinctive response. 'Beginning
now?' he said.

‘This instant,' she said.

Jeffrey watched them, his pale green eyes bright in his
golden face. When he judged that they were too preoc
cupied to notice him, he took the opportunity to jump
lightly onto the breakfast table and finish off the butter in
the butter-dish.

*

He had gone. She had driven with him in a hired chaise to
the coaching-inn to catch the mail, dry-eyed to the last,
smiling as she gave him her farewell gift, a long silk muffler.
‘Silk is very warm, you know, and won't absorb the damp as much as wool.' Bates was waiting for them at the inn, having
gone on ahead with the luggage, and Jeffrey, cursing comprehensively in a covered basket.

‘I hope he takes to the sea-faring life,' Lucy said.

‘
Oh, he'll love it. Cats have a wonderful time on board
ships.' He climbed out of the chaise and closed the door,
and Lucy let down the window and leaned through it to
clasp both his hands.

‘
I won't wait until the mail leaves,' she said practically.
‘You had better start putting your mind into naval frame.’

He lifted her hands and kissed them. It was he who was
close to tears. 'You'll write to me?' She nodded. 'And I'll
write to you — under cover to Docwra. I expect she has
brothers all over the world. The Irish always have.' His voice
failed him on the last sentence. He kissed her, brief and
hard, and went quickly away, and Lucy closed the window
and lay back in the corner, closing her eyes as the chaise
lurched away over the cobbles.

She did not see her husband until dinner. They were
dining at home for once, and without guests, which was
fortunate. Docwra dressed her as though she were a rag
doll, pushing her this way and that, and finally setting her in
motion down the stairs when the bell rang. She entered the
dining room to find Chetwyn already at the table. He stood
and bowed to her; Hicks pulled out her chair and she sat;
dinner began.

Chetwyn tried one or two neutral remarks, to which Lucy
responded with little more than a grunt. She picked listlessly
at her food, and watching her he was suddenly moved with
pity. He had been about to make some remark about
Weston's departure, but desisted at the last moment. Her
face was all planes and angles in the candlelight, as though
drawn by a new artist with a firmer hand. Her eyes were
bright, a faint flush along her cheekbones, her lips slightly
parted above her pointed chin. He thought suddenly that
she looked beautiful, not as a woman is beautiful, but like a
wild animal, when it turns for an instant to look at you
before it disappears into the undergrowth.

When they had sat long enough before the untasted
dishes. Lucy rose, and with a glance at Hicks, Chetwyn
followed her into the drawing-room. She sat down on the
edge of the sopha, and he took up his usual position leaning
against the chimney-wall. Hicks furnished him with a glass
of brandy, trimmed the candles, and retired. As soon as they
were alone Lucy rose almost as if she were unaware of her movements and walked up and down the room.

‘
My dear,' Chetwyn said at last, unable to bear it any longer, 'you will wear holes in that extremely expensive carpet.' She stopped abruptly, and her hands found each
other and clasped before her.

‘I must speak to you, Chetwyn,' she said.

‘
Here I am,' he said with a languid gesture of the brandy
glass. She walked a few more turns and then stopped in
front of him, standing very straight, her eyes fixed on a point
somewhere over his right shoulder, like a soldier about to
make a report. Beneath his lazy smile, something in him
became watchful.

Lucy licked her lips. ‘Chetwyn — I am with child,' she
said.

Whatever he had expected, it had not been that. He
stared at her in shock and growing anger as she faced him
rigidly, uncontrite, unafraid, waiting for him to do what he
would do. He thought that if he had taken out a pistol just
then, she would have stood still and let him shoot her. She
was not like a woman at all — no, nor like an animal: she was
like a soldier under discipline.

‘
I don't understand you!' His voice was a low cry. 'You
stand there and tell me — dear God alive, Lucy, it's unnatural!
Any other woman would have slept with me a few times,
and pretended it was mine, at least given it the semblance of
propriety. But not you — oh no! That would be too easy,
wouldn't it? You have to come blurting out with the truth!’

Her focus changed from the wall behind him to his face.
She looked completely bewildered 'What? What are you
saying? Do you mean you would have
preferred
me to lie to
you?'

‘
I would have preferred the opportunity to salvage a little
pride, yes. Does that surprise you?'

‘But what pride could there be in a lie?’

His mouth turned down bitterly 'You're such a child!
You live in a world of make-believe: everything must be
either black or white for you. Do you think the real world
deals solely in the truth? Did you never think I might prefer
a little comfortable obscurity?’

She shook her head slightly, puzzled. 'It would have been dishonourable,' she said at last.

‘
Dishonourable? Sweet Jesu,
dishonourable!'
She
flinched as his voice rose to a shout, and looked at the wall
again.

‘I don't understand you,' she said.

‘
No, that's painfully obvious,' he said angrily. After a
long silence, he saw her sigh deeply, and draw herself
together a little more to ask the important question.

‘
What will you do, Chetwyn? Will you cast me off? I
suppose you will want to divorce me. I imagine it will be
quite easy, in the circumstances — '

‘
Don't be a fool,' he said shortly. 'Divorce, in our
position?' She said nothing. Her face was white and
pinched, with relief or pain, he didn't know which.

‘Don't you know what marriage is?' he said at last,
bitterly. 'It's an institution under law for the protection of
inheritance, that's all. Since we are married, all the children
of your body are deemed to be mine.' Her eyes flickered.
‘Oh yes, mine. Let that be your punishment.' He set the brandy glass down on the chimney-piece carefully, and
walked away. At the door, without turning, he said, 'I'll
acknowledge your child, Lucy. What else can I do?'