The Spanish Marriage (19 page)

“You call that unctuous blackguard a friend?”
Matlin spluttered.

“I certainly would not call him any of the names you
have been giving him. Do you know him so well? I have never called him anything
warmer, but I doubt you’ll believe that. Since you have made it perfectly
plain that you do not consider me a wife but an obligation, I should think you
would be deliriously happy to let other people amuse me and be kind to me, just
so I should leave you alone!”

Determined not to show the tears she knew were imminent,
Thea turned away from him toward the door. He stopped her, his fingers steely
and unforgiving on her arm.

“Dorothea.” She did not turn. “Thea, turn
around and look at me. For God’s sake, child, you don’t even know
what you’re talking about! You cannot pretend you would have welcomed my
attentions.... Dammit, you’re only a child, a baby. What I did to you, I
don’t wonder you cannot forgive me....”

“Forgive you?” She spun around now and met his
eyes, aware of how tall he was this close beside her. “Forgive you? What
could I possibly have to forgive you for? You married me, you brought me home
to England through great danger, established me with your family and made sure
I was introduced to the
ton
in the best style! Forgive you? I am so
indebted to you I can hardly lift my head under the obligation, particularly
when you make it so plain it
is
an obligation! For
that
I cannot
forgive you. If you don’t wish to be a husband to me that is your choice,
but don’t try to make that out to be my fault! I rather wonder if you
will ever forgive me, for saving your life, for having been foisted upon you by
Silvy and Mother Beatriz, for....” Her voice broke again. Before she
could begin to cry Thea resolutely shut her mouth and stared up at him,
stony-eyed.

Matlin backed away from her. “My God, how you must
hate me.”

Thea wanted to weep, to scream at him: no, I don’t
hate you, I’ve never hated you, I’ve loved you since the day I
found you in that ditch, sick...with Adele Frain’s name on your lips.

She said nothing, afraid that she would cry.

“All right,” Matlin said weightily. “I won’t
trouble you again, Thea, but mark this: I will not tolerate that court-card hanging
about you, or any other man of his stamp. If not for my sake, try for a little
discretion for your own sake and the child’s. It’s a small world,
London society, and things can be said that are unkind. A puppy like Tony Chase
is nothing, Dorothea, but stay away from Joaquín.”

He turned on his heel and left the room.

Thea stood still with her hand at her mouth, unable to move,
unable to make sense, of her own tumultuous thoughts. “What have we been
saying to each other,” she whispered at last. “Oh my God. He didn’t
understand a word I said, and all I could do was taunt him about Lady Towles.
Oh lord.” Inexpressibly tired, Thea left the library at last and climbed
wearily to her room, where Ellen was waiting to put her to bed. Suffering the
woman’s ministrations numbly, Thea watched in the mirror as her dress was
taken off and tidily hung away, her negligee put on, her hair unpinned and
combed out. Not until she was alone again with only the distant glow of the
dying fire for company did she begin to think.

She had let them down, Joaquín and, in a way, Silvy and Mother
Beatriz and the others, all of Spain. Such a simple task, to ask for an
audience for a friend with her husband, and what a disaster she had made of it,
what a complete mull....

o0o

Some time after she heard Matlin stomp upstairs, followed by
Thea’s lighter tread, Lady Ocott rose from her bed, pulled on the ornate
satin robe which Lewis had laid out for her and went through the dressing room
which connected her own room to that of her husband. To her satisfaction he was
still wide awake, reading some official looking papers, his nightcap perched at
a rakish angle over his thinning hair.

“My love, what an honor,” he teased dryly.

“Don’t be difficult, Nigel. Move over. I need to
speak with you.” Lady Ocott sat on the edge of her husband’s bed and
waited for him to make space for her. When they were settled in and Lord Ocott
had taken her hand in an old-accustomed gesture, Lady Ocott said, “Nigel,
I am out-of-countenance worried.”

“You are never out of countenance, Sue. What is it? In
River Tick over a new bonnet?”

She drew herself up with some dignity. “I have never
outspent my allowance in all the years of our marriage, Nigel Ocott; I will
thank you to remember that. Have you not seen the way those children are with
each other? Half the time I think they are just on the verge of being
deliciously happy, and then they have a row and hey-presto, it’s all to
pieces again. That poor girl is pining for love of Douglas, and he seems to have
no idea of it at all.”

Lord Ocott stirred uncomfortably. “Sukey, do you
really think this is our business?”

“Yes,” Lady Ocott said definitely. “Douglas
is your heir, and I know you love him, dearest one; so it should be your
concern to see him happy. As for Thea, she is just a dear little
child....”

“Not so much of a child, Sue, and she don’t care
to be called so; have you noticed? I think that if Douglas would remember that,
they would be in happier case; he still thinks of her as a little girl from the
convent. I thought that a little time....”

“Time? My God, they had another fight tonight, Nigel,
when all looked so promising! So tomorrow Thea will be stony quiet, and Douglas
will bury himself at Whitehall, and matters will only become worse. I cannot stand
it; I cannot sit by and watch those imbecilic children make themselves so
unhappy.”

Lord Ocott waited while his wife settled herself a little
lower onto his shoulder before he asked, gently, “What do you wish me to
do about it, my love?”

She looked up at him hopefully. “Will you speak with
Douglas, Nigel? Find out what has possessed him since he came back from Spain.
That girl truly loves him, and you must admit,” she added, with a touch
of pride, “she is more than just pretty. Any man in London could be proud
to own her as his wife, except Douglas, it seems.”

“You’ve done wonders with her, Sukey.” He
sighed gustily. “I’ll speak to him, if you really wish it, and
probably be cursed for a meddlesome old fool.”

“Not by me,” Lady Ocott assured him affectionately.
“Now, shall I leave you to your reading, love?”

Comfortably aware of his wife’s plump, soft weight
beside him, Lord Ocott considered. “I must finish this report, my dear,
but if the candle will bother you....”

“Heavens, Nigel, when did candlelight ever bother
me?” Lady Ocott protested drowsily. She nestled a little deeper into the
crook of her husband’s arm and was very shortly asleep.

In the light of day Lord Ocott uncomfortably recalled the
promise he had given his wife the night before. He arose by eight and was
dressed and breakfasting in a small back dining room by nine o’clock,
when his nephew joined him. Douglas’s step was heavy; the dark hair
tumbled over his forehead and fiercely knit eyebrows, very dark against the
pallor of his face.

“Good God, boy, looks as if you were making a batch of
it last night. Where did you go after Almacks’?”

Matlin summoned a faint smile for his uncle, sat, and rang
for coffee. “I went no farther than my room, sir. You keep excellent
brandy in your cellars.”

Lord Ocott frowned. “If you keep this up, Douglas, I shall
give orders to Platt that none of the staff are to bring the decanter to your
room.” He leaned forward with an expression of exasperation on his face. “God’s
blood, boy, it’s one thing to get foxed amongst friends at your club or
at a men’s dinner.... I don’t disapprove of young chubs who go off
drinking Blue Ruin at Tattersall’s or Cribb’s Parlor, however much
it may surprise me that they can stomach the stuff, but to drink yourself into
a stupor in your own room—no matter how good the brandy—is not just
ruinous to your health. It is stupidity itself where your career is concerned.”

“I will bear that in mind,” Matlin said stiffly.

“Come, don’t cut up stiff with me. You might at
least tell me what has got into you since you returned from Spain. You never
used to drink this way, hellion though you were amongst your friends.
Now
look
what you have: a good income and property, which I managed to keep out of the hands
of your cousin Jack, not a little feat, if I say so myself; your health, which,
considering your adventures abroad, is no inconsiderable gift; what may be a
promising future in the government, or are you unaware that practically the
only thing Castlereagh and Canning can agree upon is that you’re a young
man of promise? And a little beauty of a wife who has made a success in the
ton
and will, I do not doubt, make an excellent helper to you in your career.
Now you tell me, what of all that admits of the sort of misery you’ve
wrapped about yourself?”

“You’re right, sir. Nothing in the world,
obviously.” Matlin’s voice was light and ironical; his smile was
pained.

Lord Ocott gripped his nephew’s wrist strongly. “Don’t
play games with your ancient uncle, Douglas. You’re all the heir I have
in the world, and to tell the truth, it near killed me to think you’d
died out there in Spain on business of mine. Look, boy: I mean to know what is
troubling you. Sukey says it’s to do with the girl, Dorothea, and that
she’s no happier than you are. If this is some kind of lover’s quarrel....”

“Uncle, I cannot conceive that you are truly
interested in my domestic arrangements. I am sorry if I have been letting my
work at Whitehall slip because of this, and I will endeavor....”

“Whitehall be damned. Douglas, tell me straight out,
and please believe I am no more comfortable asking than you are in answering.
What has gone wrong between you and your wife? The girl plainly adores you, and
she’s a pretty, amusing little thing; she should be all that a man would
need. She is your wife, not some highborn flirt you can neglect at will, like
Adele Towles. So what the devil is to do?”

“I’m afraid you read my wife a little
differently than I do, sir.” Again Matlin strove for that ironical tone. “So
far from adoring me, as you say, Dorothea dislikes me quite strongly. As, I
regret to say, she has reasons to do. It seems she is much happier to be left
to her own devices these days with no interference from me. It is not,”
he added as his uncle opened his mouth to speak, “it is not the way I
would wish it, but I will not importune her. Not again,” he added in an
undertone.

“What a Cheltenham tragedy,” Lord Ocott drawled.
“Mysterious reasons for disliking you, veiled suggestions.... What in God’s
name could you have done to a healthy, happy child like that? Were you too
rough with her on your wedding night? I’d hardly have thought
she....”

“For God’s sake, sir!” Stung by the
accuracy of his uncle’s wild guess, Matlin knocked his coffee cup over
and stood up. “She is only a child, a
‘baby,’
she
knows nothing of these things....”

“Sit down, Douglas.” Nigel Ocott commanded. “And
you listen to me. That child, that ‘baby,’ as you call her, is a
young woman with, and I mistake it not, all the normal feelings and—uh—urges
felt by young women. If you don’t take her down from that pedestal you’ve
set her on, you’re going to lose her, my boy, and probably ruin yourself
and your career into the bargain. Think on that, if you please. I am going out
for a ride to clear this fustian from my head.” He laid down his napkin
with a crisp gesture and took his leave; he was shaking his head irritably.

Matlin nursed a strong, bitter feeling that no one understood,
that he had tried, except on that disastrous night in the hut near Peñausende;
he had tried to work for Thea’s good, and now all he heard were
recriminations. He drank what was left of his coffee, stared unseeingly at the
blotch on the tablecloth, and wished that his head did not ache so fiercely. He
was still wishing this when Lady Ocott, unaccountably awake and dressed at this
unfashionable hour, appeared in the doorway. Even her smile seemed loud to
Matlin’s delicate head; she settled herself without comment in the chair
opposite him and picked daintily over the toast rack.

“My dear, this coffee is stone cold.” She rang
the bell and ordered more. “There, we shall be much more comfortable now.”

Matlin looked at her from under lowering brows. “Aunt
Sue, what are you about? Don’t put that innocent face on, I’ve seen
it before. If you have come to read me a scold about Thea....” His voice
trailed off emptily.

Lady Ocott regarded him with some sympathy. “She wept
herself to sleep last night, Douglas. The child worships you, cannot you see
that?”

He drew himself up from the table, wincing slightly at the throbbing
in his head. “No, Aunt, I cannot,” he said tonelessly. “But
don’t think it’s any fault of Uncle Nigel’s.
He
had
his say half an hour ago, and I doubt you could better it. I have heard all I
can bear of my wife’s manifest wrongs. If you will excuse me....” It
was not a question.

Lady Ocott watched him go, then applied herself to coffee
and rolls with a sense that she would need all the fortification she could get.

However, when she had at last braced herself to waken her
niece, she was surprised to find Thea awake, dressing, apparently no worse for
the scene the night before. She was fluttering aimlessly about her room,
waiting for the hip bath to be filled, shuffling through the cards and notes
which her maid had brought to her, as if she had not a care in the world. Only
a persistent red rim to her eyes bore mute testimony to tears in the night.

“Thea, dearest,” Lady Ocott began, feeling
rather foolish.

“Good morning, ma’am.” Thea’s manner
was determinedly cheery. That her smile was fixed and her voice hard beneath
the superficial cheer was nothing a stranger would have noticed. Lady Ocott
frowned uneasily. “What a Friday face! It must come of being up at such
an uncivilized hour; have you an engagement this morning?”