The Sleeping Sword (35 page)

‘Gideon—how exquisite!'

‘I felt sure you would like it.'

Perhaps his father had always made his mother a gift on these occasions. In my fantasy it would have been so.

We walked together up the broad, richly carpeted stairs and then went our separate ways with a brief good-night. It was almost morning, and my bedroom seemed very muted and very cool, the winter sky behind the curtains letting in a pale grey light, Gervase lying on his back, his eyes closed, although I knew he was not asleep. I got in carefully beside him, leaving a chilly space between us, and lay there for a while watching the daybreak, listening to his shallow breathing, sensing his misery. What could I say to him? Nothing. How could I approach him? I could not. How could I bear it? I
would
bear it. I felt myself stiffen, a tremor starting somewhere inside me, a movement of distress, and then, breathing deeply, slowly, the rigidity of my body eased again. I had things to do. Work—that was how I would bear it. I had guests all day tomorrow, a luncheon, a dinner, a tour of the mills, a dozen farewells at the station. I would survive.

Gideon went abroad the following spring on a tour of Barforth interests in Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium and France, in search of the personal contacts which the state of trade and his own instincts required, winning golden opinions, we heard, as a shrewd man of business and a gentleman, a combination very pleasing to Europe's commercial élite.

Venetia had not wished to accompany him: I do not think he had wished to take her. But—perhaps at her father's insistence—she set off in low spirits and returned with a great many new clothes and an air of dejection which did not augur well. They had been to Paris, to Rome, Vienna, Brussels, a dozen other famous cities. She had seen nothing, she said, but over-furnished drawing-rooms, grand hotels, expensive, identical women who were married to pompous men. She had seen nothing
real
, nothing particularly foreign, just Cullingford with a different accent, and worse than Cullingford, since she had not once been allowed out alone.

She had been bored to death, she told me, tolerated only as Gideon's wife and even then not always gladly.

‘Oh, they all adore Gideon,' she said. ‘He could have his pick of those foreign women and probably does. In fact I know he does. Well, good luck to him, for what difference can it make to me?'

She meant what she said. She had been grateful to him once but it had not escaped her notice that he had done very well for himself out of her folly, that he was successful and fulfilled, that he enjoyed his life, while she remained a frustrated, often desolate woman who had paid dearly for those two nights in Charles Heron's arms. The price was becoming too high and she had reached a point where she felt she owed Gideon no more gratitude and very little loyalty.

She spent the first days after her return at home doing her hair and changing her clothes, and when she did go out it was not to the
Star
but tamely to Fieldhead to take tea with Mrs. Agbrigg, to Elderleigh to visit Aunt Faith, to Miss Mandelbaum's where, after listening in moody silence as Miss Tighe explained the progress of the women's cause, she suddenly and very crisply announced, ‘You will not get your vote, Miss Tighe.'

‘I beg your pardon, Mrs. Chard.'

‘You will not get it, and I will tell you why. What notice do you imagine they take at Westminster of these genteel petitions of yours? None, you may be sure, expect to smile and shake their wise heads and say “These dear ladies are at their tricks again”. You have no power, Miss Tighe, to make them pay heed to you. They know you hold your meetings here, around your tea-table, all nice and polite and proper, and what have they to fear from that? Some enterprising young politician may make a speech in your favour now and again to get himself noticed or to make his name as a “progressive”, but once they
have
taken notice of him—once Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli takes him up—he will turn his mind to more profitable issues than yours. He will just put your petitions away and forget about them, and why not, since you have all the time in the world to write him another? No one who has privileges wishes to share them—I am not clever but that much I
am
certain about. The Duke of Wellington didn't want my grandfather to have a vote back in 1832. My grandfather didn't want his foreman or his shed manager to have it when their turn came in 1867. The shed managers don't want the agricultural labourers or the men who live in lodging-houses to have it now. And there are no more than a handful of men anywhere in the world who really want to give the vote to a woman. And if you did get it, Miss Tighe, then you certainly wouldn't want to share it with me. I should have to go around with a banner crying out “Votes for
Married
Women. Give us the same rights as widows and spinsters”. And unless I can
demand
those rights—unless I have a weapon—then I won't get them.'

‘Oh dear!' said Miss Mandelbaum, and I have wondered if either she or Miss Tighe were ever aware that Venetia's sentiments were a direct quotation from Robin Ashby's latest contribution to the
Star
.

I don't know when she first saw him again nor how often they met thereafter, only that they did meet, for whenever she encountered him at the
Star
offices or elsewhere it often seemed to me that they were continuing, not starting, their conversation. Yet I said nothing, felt no particular alarm, did not in any case feel competent—having failed so abysmally myself—to advise her.

I believe I respected Robin Ashby in the sense that he was sincere in his aims and realistic about their chances of success. He was a clever, very separate man, compassionate towards the suffering masses but impatient of individuals and hard on himself, who would surely regard the intense personal commitment Venetia craved for as a burden, to be shunned like the property and possessions which in his youth had weighed him down. He might fall in love with causes, I thought, but hardly with a woman.

‘I make no claims on anyone,' he said, and surely that was the same as saying ‘I allow no one to make claims on me.'

She was not enraptured by him as she had been by Charles Heron. Whatever existed between them caused her no outward joy, tending rather to sharpen her tongue and blacken her humour, making her touchy and unusually unkind.

‘Grace, you amaze me—you used not to value yourself so low.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Oh, you know very well what I mean. Will you be content forever, just being polite?'

‘I manage very well, Venetia.'

‘Lord! so you do. And you have your dignity, of course. I suppose you can warm yourself on that.'

The Chards came early to Listonby that year, arriving for the August grouse, Dominic and Gideon spending long hours together charting their political and financial future, while Noel escorted Blanche on her country house calls, his face, which was a paler, better-tempered version of Dominic's, lit by her presence, indulgent of her whims and fancies, and a little amused by them but careful of her,
enjoying
her, his attitude not so much one of desire but of cherishing. He loved her, there was no doubt about it, everyone knew it and accepted it and found it quite delightful, taking their lead from her husband, who saw it as downright useful, particularly now that his Parliamentary duties were proving so greedy of his time.

The Listonby estate had always been large, the generosity of Aunt Caroline's father, Sir Joel Barforth, had increased it, and a property of this size required a capable and conscientious man at its head. Tenants were apt to encroach on manorial privileges when the squire was so often away; gamekeepers tended to rear birds for sale to city shopkeepers instead of preserving them for the guns of the squire's guests. There had been a shortage of grouse on Listonby Moor for the last two seasons; farmers had been shooting foxes, to the great annoyance of the Lawdale Hunt; while stewards, as everyone knew, were expert at falsifying accounts. Dominic, whose tastes and ambitions never left a penny to spare, believed he was being cheated, Gideon was too busy and a shade too grand these days to make a good second-in-command, and there was a move afoot that year to persuade Noel, whose military career had not greatly prospered, to resign his commission and take charge of affairs at home, a scheme enthusiastically endorsed by Blanche.

‘Noel is so devoted to the land,' she told us—and him—repeatedly. ‘The tenants adore him, and is it any wonder, for he has patience with them, as Dominic does not.'

And one afternoon when she had refused, with a lovely drooping air of sadness, to listen when Noel mentioned that his regiment seemed likely to be posted abroad, and had then sent him off on some errand of her own, Venetia leaned towards her and said, very loud and clear, ‘Do you know something, Blanche? I wish with all my heart that Noel would rape you.'

‘My dear,' Blanche replied in her best Marlborough House manner, ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, but he never will.'

‘Of course he will not, the poor devil. So why don't you do the
decent
thing, Blanche—the honest thing—and give yourself?'

‘Because—Venetia dear,' she said, smiling very serenely, ‘it is simply not necessary.'

Venetia left us soon afterwards, having arranged—or so she said—to see her mother at Galton, and calmly pouring out more tea Blanche asked me thoughtfully, ‘Grace—is she having an affair?'

‘I don't know. Are you having an affair?'

‘With Noel? My dear, as I said just now, it is really not necessary.'

‘And if it became necessary?'

‘Then I suppose one would have to think again. But about Venetia—if she should be having an affair, I do hope she will manage to conduct it—well—
suitably
. There is really no need for her to set the world on fire. Fortunately both you and I understand that.'

So we did, for the Chards were very often apart, Blanche in London, Dominic on some policital country-house visit. He went to Newmarket and she to Cowes, he holidayed
en garçon
each winter in Scotland, every summer in Baden, separations which encouraged his casual infidelities, her long basking in Noel's devotion. Their marriage retained a sound financial, legal and social base. She had given him two sons and they had done their duty by each other. Indeed, they considered themselves to be very definitely married, even though in real terms they did not live together.

And since Blanche neither expected nor wanted her husband to be faithful, she was not surprised by the conduct of mine, which could be no secret to her. Clearly, like herself, I had chosen the path of discretion, of compromise, the turning of a blind eye, which she considered a small price to pay for domestic harmony. She had her compensations in plenty; so, presumably, had I. And she seemed very glad—for my sake—to welcome me to this charmed circle of the worldly-wise.

I had my dignity, as Venetia had pointed out to me, and I had Tarn Edge. I had also a great fear of the future, which I managed more often than not to suppress to a bearable proportion. But the constant need for self-discipline often made me appear distant and cold, so that the younger maids were nervous in my presence, the menservants sullen. I became sharp-spoken and sharp-eyed, and having picked a quarrel with Miss Tighe and found it enjoyable, I went on, spasmodically, to quarrel with everyone except Gervase.

We said nothing to each other now beyond the bare civilities, knowing, I suppose, that if we began to talk it would have to be of Diana Flood. And since she had a conventional husband, he a virtuous wife, what could usefully be said? Major Compton Flood might tolerate a discreet flirtation, but he would not take kindly to an affair so intense, so passionate as to transform his wife's face with wonder whenever my husband entered the room. He would not sit idly by discussing the state of the nation and of the weather while my husband's eyes fastened themselves upon her, transparent in their desire and their longing. Care would be needed, for Major Compton Flood would know the way, and certainly had the right, to grievously punish an erring wife. And care was taken. Gervase went out with the Lawdale throughout the winter, but he came home often enough to put an end to any rumours that he and I were living apart, lying beside me sleepless and taut with misery; sick, I suppose, at the thought of his mistress in her husband's arms and the knowledge that his initial lack of judgement in preferring me to her had placed her there.

He was suffering, and although I was not saintly enough to pity him, I was well able to understand. He could have married her and had not done so. She could have been his, but his volatile emotions had played an atrocious trick on him, had convinced him that he needed an entirely different kind of woman, and he had let her go. Now, after straying through that wilderness of haphazard sensuality, he had fallen in love with her as desperately as he had once loved me, seeing in her the salvation I too had represented. And she belonged to Compton Flood. He was wretched, could neither eat nor sleep nor sit still for five minutes together, so that, having watched him prowl the confines of Tarn Edge like a caged animal, it was a relief to me when he rode away again.

He went to the mill too, more often than I had expected, partly to avoid trouble with his father, partly to be seen there so that Major Flood might be aware of no tell-tale changes in his way of life. But he did little more than hang about the mill-yard, seizing upon any excuse to break free, and I believe it was his father's acceptance of this turn of events which caused me finally to lose heart.

Mr. Nicholas Barforth, once again, had given up on his son. For a time he had hoped that marriage might bring about a change for the better, and would anchor him to the industrial side of his inheritance. But that hope had failed. And recognizing that he had set me an impossible task, my father-in-law did not blame me for that failure, choosing instead to make my life as comfortable as he could. After all, I could have made the house hideous with jealous scenes, could have lost my health and my nerves and publicly washed a whole laundry-room of soiled Barforth linen. Instead, I was mindful of my dignity and my duty—for what else is left to a failed wife but that?—and in gratitude Mr. Nicholas Barforth restrained his temper when Gervase was present and refrained from questioning me as to his whereabouts when he was not. I was a good girl. There was no scandal. And, as for the rest, we would just have to wait and see.