The Sleeping Sword (18 page)

But the Queen, alas, could not trust a young man who reminded her far more of her uncles, the dissolute sons of King George III, than of her saintly Albert, who—it was widely believed—having gone virgin to his own bridal bed, had been heart-broken when it became clear to him that his son could not do the same. The Prince was now a man of thirty-two who wanted to work, all his efforts to obtain work having been frustrated by his mother's conviction that he was not fit for it. What, then, did the Queen expect? But Blanche, repeating to us Aunt Caroline's question, was not really interested in the answer—not much interested, I thought, in the new-born Matthew Chard—her fancy having been taken by the recent engagement of the Queen's second son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to the Tsar of Russia's daughter, and the fuss it had created.

‘Imagine,' she said, very obviously quoting the Duchess of South Erin, ‘the Tsar has refused to send the girl over to Balmoral for the Queen to have a look at before the wedding, as was done even with Princess Alexandra. And then, to top it all, they are asking that their Grand Duchess Marie, who will only be the Duchess of Edinburgh after all, should take precedence over the Princess of Wales and all our Queen's daughters, even the one who is Crown Princess of Prussia.'

‘How very interesting,' said Venetia, stifling a deliberate yawn.

‘I think so,' replied Blanche, settling down among her lace pillows, the baby luxuriously but quite definitely neglected at her side, no clouds now on her horizon since it had already occurred to her that by dividing her time between Aunt Caroline's house in Belgravia and country house visits in the southern shires, returning to Listonby only when Sir Dominic's sporting activities demanded it, she could enjoy the pleasures of high society with almost no effort at all.

‘So much for Blanche,' Venetia said as we drove home. ‘She will be off to London before that poor little mite is weaned, and she will leave him behind, just mark my words, with nursery maid and nanny, until he is old enough to be sent away to school. If a mill woman treated her baby like that they would say she had abandoned him. But when Lady Blanche does it—well—that is the way things are
done
in good society. I see no point in having children if one means to leave them to strangers. In her place I'd want to curl up with him and snuffle him like a cat in a basket of kittens.'

‘Venetia, I didn't know you were so fond of babies.'

‘Neither did I, because I'd never been close to one before. But when I held that little scrap just now I felt so—so—lord, I don't know what I felt except that I was bursting with it. And if I can feel so strongly about him—because, after all, he's half Blanche and half Dominic and I'm not wildly enthusiastic about either—then how would I feel about a child of my own, half me and half—well—some special, lovely man? Grace, can you even
imagine
the bliss? Don't you just long for it?'

I was not quite sure about that. It would happen. I supposed, in its own good time, since I knew of no way either to hasten or to prevent it. But for the moment Gervase occupied my ingenuity, demanded my attention and my time as fully as any child, and indeed I could not really imagine him a father.

We had been married for almost half a year now and I believed we were happy, were succeeding, little by little, in consolidating our uncertain foundations. I was the stronger, the steadier, the more determined—we both knew it. Perhaps that alone had first attracted him to me and there were still times when it was all he wanted. He had knelt in a field at Galton that winter's day, an injured horse beside him, unable either to administer the swift
coup de grâce
a gentleman's training and tradition demanded or to contain the remorse and pity which even his mother and sister would have seen as weakness. He had felt at that moment a dreadful alienation from his chosen surroundings, his chosen role in life, from his uncle, Peregrine Clevedon, whose physical likeness he bore and whose nature he had desired to stamp upon his own. But I—a city-bred girl from the other half of himself—had spoken out, offered help which he had taken grudgingly, then gladly. That had been our beginning, and it seemed as sure as any other. He had seen in me something he wanted and I had not deceived him. He had seen my true likeness and now, being sure of it, could draw strength and comfort from it as he chose, or could sometimes—not too often—strike out a fretful, a teasing, always a glancing blow, to test me or to assert himself.

‘I can't tell you what a comfort it is, Grace, to know you are always right. So very pleasant, don't you see, no longer to be burdened by decisions.'

‘My dear wife, if you say I must then I must. Unless, of course, you would care to force me? In fact—yes—
do
force me—'

But it was said with his arms around me, his mouth nibbling at my shoulders and the nape of my neck, his body—in the act of love—stronger and more knowledgeable than mine. It was light, pleasant, erotic, part of our love-play which, if resentment was there even in some small measure—and I must have known it was there—love would be sure to cancel out.

He went to the mill every day—or very nearly—but when I enquired as to what he did there and the degree of his success he would merely reply: ‘Oh, I am not much use, you know, for I have no head for machines and mathematics. The only percentage I can arrive at with any certainty is ten, and I will readily admit that many things which appear quite obvious to my father and to Gideon are not at all obvious to me. But do persevere, Grace. You may make a business man out of me yet, one day.'

‘Do you get on with Gideon?' I carefully enquired.

‘Is it necessary,' he said coolly, ‘to “get on” with one's employees?' And I was to reproach myself bitterly—most bitterly—for not heeding the warning contained in his reply.

Yet he continued to get up—most mornings—and make his appearance at the mill, which so pleased his father, who was anxious at this stage merely that he should
try
, that he willingly allowed him a week's shooting at Galton that autumn and a further week with the Lawdale, a concession which was either not extended to Gideon Chard or of which he did not take advantage, since he continued, through the fine, sporting weather, to attend to his labours. And gradually our lives fell into shape, or so it seemed, a pattern of my own designing which was therefore bound—if nothing else—to satisfy me.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Winch, and I were soon on terms of understanding, and to my surprise and pleasure the butler, Chillingworth, chose to accept the sensible view that, if I was a shade too exacting for my years, I was neither mean nor capricious and might be worth serving after all. Unfortunately Mrs. Loman continued to send in dubious sauces and soggy vegetables, talked down to me at our morning interviews—knowing that I had never with my own hands so much as boiled an egg—so that finally, when apple tart had appeared at dinner five nights in succession, I went to Manchester and found myself a Mrs. Kincaid who brought her own kitchen-maids with her, thus putting an end to Mrs. Loman.

‘Poor soul,' said Venetia, reminded of Mrs. Loman by the excellence of Mrs. Kincaid's soufflé. ‘I daresay she has ten starving children somewhere and a husband who takes all her wages for drink.'

‘Nonsense. No husband at all and one child, fat as a pig, who lives with her sister in Huddersfield.'

‘Venetia,' said Gervase in mock reproach. ‘You should have realized that Grace would
know
.'

The house became warm again and reliable. There were fires laid every morning in rooms where fires should be, hot water in constant supply, warm towels, maids who, because they were told what was expected of them, did it at the appointed hour and for the most part did it well. No one waited now at the front door of Tarn Edge while Chillingworth read the sporting papers he should have been ironing for Gervase. Callers were admitted promptly and then most carefully looked after. Meals were served punctually and beautifully, beds were well aired, linen immaculately pressed. I had set the wheels in motion as I had seen Aunt Faith and Mrs. Agbrigg do, and if Venetia scarcely noticed and Gervase did not seem particularly to care, I knew my father-in-law was pleased with me.

I had been apprehensive at the thought of sharing a home with him, knowing his nature to be both exacting and domineering, but it was soon clear to me that Mr. Barforth's main interest in life—perhaps the only true one—was work. He worked, certainly for money and for the authority it gave him, but he worked also for the sheer pleasure of the work itself, which like tobacco had become essential to him. He rose early, returned just in time for dinner and would then disappear to his library to be visited by one or other of his managers, his lawyer, his architect, by Liam Adair or Gideon Chard, sometimes by my father, when business would be discussed and a great deal of brandy consumed. On three or four nights a week he went out, going, one supposed, to drink brandy in some other man's library, and from time to time he would spend a night or two away, making a point of letting me know when he expected to return and notifying me, usually through Liam Adair, of any change of plan. He was uncommunicative but considerate, at least where I was concerned, so that when I realized how much his children and his wife were afraid of him I could not really see the reason why.

‘Wait,' Venetia said. ‘So far he has been kind to you, amazingly kind for him. But just wait until you want something and he doesn't want you to have it, and then you'll know. Because nothing can move him, believe me—nothing. Most people give in eventually. They get tired, or frightened, or it stops being important. Not father. He never gives way. And when you realize that, when you feel it, it wears you down. I think that's why Gervase used to run off so much. He knew if he stayed near father he'd give in to him, no matter what it cost him, because a moment comes—
believe
me—when you'll do anything just to end it. So Gervase used to run. Not that it did any good because father would only bring him back again.'

‘And you?'

‘I can't stand up to him either, Grace,' she said very seriously and sadly. ‘No one can.'

And before I could ask her about Charles Heron she shook her head and raised a finger to her lips, hushing me.

‘Grace, what you don't know can't grieve you—can it, darling? I won't burden you now with my secrets—it simply wouldn't be fair.'

Mr. Barforth had issued no precise commands with regard to Charles Heron other than that his presence at Tarn Edge would be unwelcome, his aspirations with regard to Venetia unthinkable. If there was to be a chosen suitor, then, unless Venetia could provide someone of like calibre, Mr. Barforth decreed that it should be Gideon Chard. And perhaps it was her docile acceptance of that decree which stopped him from forbidding her to see Charles Heron elsewhere. Venetia, we all knew, had had her fancies before. Charles Heron could well be as fleeting as the rest, and I think Mr. Barforth would have been more alarmed by a man like Liam Adair, whose attractions—being more similar to his own—he could more easily understand, than this gentle young revolutionary, so different from himself in every way.

But, whatever his reasons, he did not issue the general prohibition which would have barred Charles Heron from any house where Venetia was likely to be a guest, so that when he scraped acquaintance with Aunt Faith she had no reason to send him away should Venetia happen to call nor any reason to warn Mr. Barforth—even if she had been on good terms with him—that they had spent half an hour in her shrubbery, within sight of her drawing-room windows, but technically alone.

Yet when Gideon Chard was mentioned, when the man himself strode into the house to smoke cigars and drink brandy with her father, Venetia greeted him cheerfully, even pertly, as she had always done.

‘My word, Gideon, I never thought to see you so industrious.'

‘When something is worth working for, one does one's best.'

‘But such a pillar of virtue you have become.'

‘Hardly that, Venetia.'

‘Oh, absolutely, for you have been out with the Lawdale no more than twice this season and I am constantly besieged by young ladies asking your whereabouts.'

‘And what do you tell them?'

‘Oh—that you have taken up residence in my father's counting-house and will not emerge until you have made yourself a millionaire.'

But when at my father-in-law's suggestion I tried out the paces of my new cook by giving my first dinner party, she placidly accepted Gideon as her partner for the evening, offering him the sudden ripple of her laughter in exchange for whatever it was he whispered to her at table, while Dominic, no longer interested in flirtation, pronounced the
suprêmes de volaille
rather better than he had expected, the chestnut purée interesting, the Chateau Yquem altogether to his liking, paying no attention to Blanche as she regaled us with the preparations for the Duke of Edinburgh's Russian wedding at which, if one had not known better, one would have assumed she was to be a guest.

‘Well done,' Mr. Barforth told me, and I was inclined to agree with him. I was, on the whole very happy. My marriage would not be perfect, but who has ever heard of a perfect marriage? Who could even imagine or sustain such perfection? Yet, quite soon, when simple freedom of movement, the right to come and go as I pleased, no longer seemed so miraculous and when Tarn Edge no longer required my constant presence to keep it from falling down, I felt the need of other things to fill my days. There was a by-election to be fought that year, due to the collapse of Mr. Fielding from a congestion of the lungs, in which Miss Mandelbaum and her suffragist group took a strong interest, the new Liberal candidate having declared himself sympathetic to the female cause. Yet when I accepted Miss Mandelbaum's invitation to meet him—although I had already dined in his company both at Tarn Edge and at Fieldhead where he had gone to assure himself of the Agbrigg and Barforth vote—I found that my own position as a suffragist had greatly altered.