The Sleeping Sword (10 page)

There was a long silence, Mrs. Agbrigg and I having nothing to say to each other, Venetia and I nothing that could be said in Mrs. Agbrigg's hearing, and, noting her sharp eyes seeking out the flaw in the Aubusson rug, her satisfied smile when she found it, I was reminded of her objections to Venetia as a friend, to Gervase as a husband, and felt my colour rise.

He was not, of course, attracted to me, I felt absolutely certain of that. But should sufficient pressure be brought to bear I thought he might well find it easier, safer, to succumb; might shrug those lean, mischievous shoulders and say ‘Why not?', thus making me mistress of this grand, neglected house and sister to Venetia. And because Venetia, already, was closer to me than any sister, I allowed that imaginary future to ease itself into my mind, my fancy restoring Tarn Edge to its former splendour, my voice speaking sharply to that supercilious butler, that disastrous cook; taking my breakfast with Venetia in the back parlour, declaring myself ‘not at home' when Mrs. Agbrigg came to call; and then I found myself smiling, because in this pleasant, schoolroom fantasy of marriage I had entirely forgotten the husband—Gervase.

One could not, of course, forget Gideon Chard. He would take and maintain his place anywhere, in fact or in fantasy, by his simple refusal ever to be overlooked. But I had no reason to believe he had ever thought of me with anything warmer than self-interest. Mr. Nicholas Barforth was the wealthiest man in the Law Valley and Venetia's share of his fortune would be considerable, but her inheritance was encumbered by the existence of a brother who
might
—how could one ever be sure?—discover within himself a sudden interest in commerce. Whereas I, although I did not know the exact terms of my father's will, could expect my share of his worldly goods eventually to consist of the whole. And I had no brother to stand between my husband and complete possession of Fieldhead.

Yet Fieldhead itself suddenly oppressed me—Mrs. Agbrigg's house, never mine—and I knew with a fierce and persistent certainty that I must marry a man with the means to take me away from there. No husband of mine must ever depend entirely on Agbrigg favour, reducing me from the sorry position of ‘daughter-at-home'to the even more unbearable level of ‘married-daughter-at-home', the young mistress forever subservient to the old. I must have an establishment of my own, must have some measure of authority and freedom; and no fortune-hunter, however noble or shrewd or desirable, could give me that.

‘You seem very comfortable,' Mr. Barforth told us from the doorway, crossing the room to stand on the hearthrug again, his son and his nephew and my father following behind.

‘Sit down by your wife, Jonas,' he said, and my father, with his sad, wry smile, obediently sat. ‘Venetia, you can give us our coffee. Gideon, sit there. Gervase—there.' It was done.

He had arranged us to his own satisfaction and for as long as it suited him, for life perhaps, Venetia, still in her blissful dream of Charles Heron, inattentive and uncaring, but sitting nevertheless by Gideon Chard; Gervase, his mother's son, sitting just the same by me; Mr. Barforth himself still planted on the hearthrug, dominating the room, his wide back absorbing the warmth of the fire, his keen eyes well satisfied. He had arranged us, and knowing his disposition to be both autocratic and vindictive, I wondered how he would bear his disappointment, so certain was I that it could never be.

It was an autumn of petty and intense frustrations, of officious supervision and an unremitting, heavy-handed control. Aunt Faith's sister, Mrs. Frederick Hobhouse—my Aunt Prudence—the owner of a flourishing school for girls in Ambleside, invited me to stay with her and was told, with scant courtesy, that I was too young to travel in such wild country alone. Miss Tighe sent a correct little letter from Manchester wondering if Mrs. Agbrigg could ‘spare' me for a week or two and was refused in terms which humiliated me, although Miss Tighe, when I met her again, seemed amused by them.

‘Poor lamb,' she said, her shrewd, hard eyes atwinkle. ‘You are bound hand and foot, I know it. And although the bonds, if you examine them well, are made of nothing but convention, we have been so thoroughly trained, have we not, to obey mamma and papa, that it seems impossible to break free. Yes, dear, a strong-minded mamma can be a great burden. You may find a husband somewhat easier to manage.'

And I was in no doubt that, day by day, Mrs. Agbrigg was forcing me towards that same conclusion.

My cousin Blanche returned home at the start of the winter, looking as lovely and—one could not avoid noticing it—as virginal as ever, and immediately Aunt Caroline, who had been living quietly since the wedding, awoke to her accustomed activity, organizing an ambitious programme of winter events which one could only assume to be her swan-song. The house once more was full of guests, foxhunting gentlemen from London availing themselves of the well-stocked Listonby stables, ladies with double-barrelled names and flat, high-bred voices who sat about all day—like Blanche—in the Great Hall, where tea and muffins, hot chocolate and gingerbread, chilled white or hot, spiced wine were in constant supply, served by footmen in Listonby's blue and gold livery who seemed possessed of the ability to materialize from thin air.

‘Wonderful, is it not,' Blanche asked me, stifling a contented yawn, ‘how it all happens, as if by magic?'

But the magician—as Blanche well knew—had been up since dawn setting these luxurious wheels in motion and would not retire that night until the last of her guests had been escorted ceremoniously to bed.

‘Aunt Caroline must work extremely hard,' I suggested, but Blanche only smiled.

‘She loves it, Grace—simply thrives on it. She wouldn't be without it for the world. And as for me—well, I haven't the least notion of depriving her. It would be too unkind.'

Yet, although Blanche seemed content to remain a pampered guest in her own home for ever, there would be times, surely, when Sir Dominic's wife must take precedence over his widowed mother? And I wondered, with some amusement and a certain sympathy, how Aunt Caroline would come to terms with that.

There was a change of guests that first fine November Saturday, one house-party being carefully conveyed to the station to catch the morning train, the next one not due until Monday, making dinner that night a family occasion in the small, early Georgian saloon, an apartment the colour of musk roses where Aunt Caroline—who had ‘improved' so much else at Listonby—had retained the original century old Baroque mouldings, the elegant, satin-covered Regency chairs, the impression of great age and the gradual, heart-searching decay of great beauty.

‘How nice to be
en famille
,' she said, smiling very brightly as Blanche sat down at the head of the table opposite her bridegroom, not troubling in the least as to where anyone else should sit; claiming, in fact, the privileges of the lady of the manor while not even appearing to notice the responsibilities. But the Duke of South Erin, very much
en famille
at Listonby, automatically took the place of honour to the right of Blanche, Aunt Caroline to the right of Dominic, Gideon Chard and Venetia finding themselves side by side, an indication, one supposed, that Aunt Caroline had abandoned her hopes of an earl's daughter and decided to ‘see reason'; while Noel Chard, not receiving any instructions, hesitated, his eyes on the empty chair beside Blanche, wondering perhaps if he should be paying attention to me until his mother deposited me to the left of Dominic and released him.

Unlike Tarn Edge, the food was superb, the service miraculous, the conversation dull, I thought, but without strain, Sir Dominic and the weather-beaten little duke confining themselves to hunting and shooting stories of a technicality which rendered them incomprehensible to me, although Gideon and even Venetia from time to time joined in, having all of them in their day jumped a wider ditch in pursuit of a craftier fox, confirming my belief, as the brandied oranges and champagne syllabubs were brought in, that a sportsman will discuss his sport with the same fervour as an invalid listing his symptoms, and to the same stultifying effect.

Noel Chard, who had served as master of the Lawdale Hunt during Sir Dominic's absence, made small contribution to these equine enthusiasms, his attention absorbed by Blanche, his solicitude arousing in her an even greater helplessness than usual, a total inability to manage her napkin or reach her glass which clearly convinced Noel—if few others—of her frailty and her need, at all times, to be handled with care. Aunt Caroline too was silent, not really listening to the strident voices of her sons, not even calling them to order when one of them let slip an audible ‘damn', a sure indication that her thoughts were very much occupied.

‘When does Aunt Faith return from France?' she asked me, although Blanche had mentioned the date not an hour before, and when I said that it would be the week after Christmas, she sighed and muttered: ‘How inconvenient, since they could join us—', without specifying who or where.

The dessert over, there was a pause, my eyes and Venetia's going automatically to Aunt Caroline for our signal to withdraw, Dominic too glancing sharply at his mother, who had never before kept the ladies in the dining-room so long, depriving the squire of his port and cigars and the freedom to say ‘damn'and worse than that if he had a mind.

‘Mamma?' he said, puzzled and rather put out, revealing himself already as a gentleman who not only expected to get his own way but to get it at once, the very moment—as any fool could see—that he desired it.

‘Yes, Dominic?' she replied.

‘Shouldn't you—?'

‘No,' she said. ‘Not I, dear—not now.'

And even then there was a moment before Blanche, catching her husband's irritable eye, exclaimed, ‘Oh goodness! Are you waiting for
me
?', and started to her feet, her movement clearly requiring the assistance of Noel Chard if it was to be successfully completed.

But Aunt Caroline, having scored her point and proved her daughter-in-law to be incompetent, shook her head, turning imperious again.

‘In a moment, dear. First there is a word to be said, and a toast to be drunk, I think.'

‘Oh yes,' Blanche agreed, sliding back into her chair, assuming the toast was to be ‘long life and happiness to the bride', so that she was unprepared and completely vulnerable when Aunt Caroline announced: ‘Dominic, as the head of the family, already knows what I have to say. I have his approval and am in no doubt of yours. The Duke of South Erin has asked me to be his wife—and I have agreed to it, which should surprise no one.'

And through the sudden scraping back of chairs, the exclamations and the laughter as the little duke was shaken by the hand and the tall duchess kissed in turn by each of her tall sons—all three of them keenly alive to the advantages of a ducal step-papa—I heard Venetia's clear voice say ‘Lord, what a lark! You've always been a duchess, Aunt Caroline', while Blanche, feeling the weight of Listonby already on her shoulders, howled out her dismay. ‘You didn't
tell
me, Dominic.'

The match, of course, was altogether splendid, for while South Erin was not a great political duke, his family no older than the Clevedons and the Chards themselves, he was of the nobility, not the simple landed gentry as they were, and even Sir Dominic, whose view of his own worth must have been a great comfort to him, was impressed.

There would be a tall, somewhat dilapidated house in Belgravia for Aunt Caroline to renovate, an estate in Devonshire for her to ‘improve'in her unique fashion, a presentation at Court, for although our Queen did not approve of second marriages, considering that the heart of any decent widow should belong, like her own, in her husband's grave, she could hardly refuse audience to the new Duchess of South Erin.

Aunt Caroline, in fact, had done far better than anyone had expected for the second time in her life, and there was no doubt that her sons—Dominic already contemplating a flirtation with politics, Noel eager for military promotion, Gideon ready to pick up power and influence wherever he found it—were very pleased with her. They remained a long time in the dining-room with the pleasant, nut-brown little duke, to tell him so; and finding Blanche's indignation hard to bear—having no answer to her ‘How am I to manage this great barracks of a place when everyone knows I have no head for figures and cannot remember names—when I just want to be peaceful and
comfortable
'—I soon made my escape.

From the painted, panelled staircase rising out of the Great Hall one reached the ballroom, the darkness of a winter evening not really hiding its gilt and crystal splendour, and beyond it came the Long Gallery, lined on both sides with massively framed Chards, their stern faces registering no surprise, in this cheapjack modern world, that a tradesman's daughter had first married one of their descendants and had now snared herself a duke.

But I had seen these portraits too many times before to play the old game of deciding which ones reminded me most of Dominic, or Noel, or Gideon, and walking briskly from end to end, it seemed to me that in Blanche's shoes I would have welcomed this marriage. In Blanche's shoes I would have resented so powerful a mother-in-law as Aunt Caroline, would already have acquainted myself with every linen cupboard and china cupboard at Listonby, with the guest book and the menu book, with the staff and the tenants, with the formidable expertise of my predecessor, so that hopefully and in time I might do even better. But Blanche's shoes—alas—included the sporting, self-centred Sir Dominic, and smiling as I realized how little I desired to acquaint myself with him—how little, indeed, there was in him with which to be acquainted—I turned to retrace my steps and encountered Gideon, amazing myself by the lurch my stomach gave at the suspicion—I would not call it the hope—that he had come here not by chance but to look for me.