Voices in a Haunted Room (17 page)

“We are going to talk. We have to come to an understanding, Claudine, I love you. I’ve loved you ever since you came to England. I made up my mind then that you were for me, and I have never changed it.”

“Look, Jonathan, I don’t want to listen to this.”

“You are not very truthful, you know. You should see yourself now. Your eyes flash. There is a flush in your cheeks. There is that in your voice which tells me you know as well as I do that you and I are meant for each other. It is fate, my dear Claudine. There is no going against it. You shouldn’t have rushed into this absurd marriage… then it would have been so much easier. Now what are we faced with? Subterfuge… intrigue… secret meetings… stolen ecstasy.”

“What on earth are you talking about? I’m going now.”

He stood by the door watching me. I felt a terrible fear and an almost suffocating excitement. If I attempted to walk past him he would catch me and hold me captive. I dared not do that and yet… what else?

I hesitated and he went on: “You know very well what I’m talking about. Why do you pretend, Claudine? You betray yourself in a hundred ways. Do you think I don’t know you want me as much as I want you?”

“You are quite… depraved.”

He laughed. “No,” he said. “I am just in love, and I am not the man to stand meekly by while others take what is rightly mine.”

“Rightly yours! Have you forgotten that I happen to be married to your brother?”

“That makes no difference. You and I belong together. David is a good fellow… a very good fellow. He should have a pleasant quiet little wife. Not my fiery Claudine. She is not the wife for him. You are young and know nothing of love and passion and all the delights which I am waiting to show you. You would never learn them from David. He’s worthy… oh yes… rather a noble fellow. He would never step aside from the path of respectability. But I am not like that. I defy conventions, Claudine, and so will you. They are made for people like David, not for us.”

“I wish you would stop talking about David. He is my husband and I love him dearly. I am very contented with my life.”

“When you talk so emphatically I know you are seeking to convince yourself. You are not satisfied. You thought you were. Look at you now. Your heart is fluttering and your eyes are alight with anticipation. Why are we wasting time in futile words?”

He approached me and when I attempted to elude him he caught me and held me firmly. He lifted me from the floor and held me in his arms as though I were a baby.

“You see, I am a great deal stronger than you are, Claudine.”

“What do you think you are doing?”

“Showing you what has to be done.”

“Jonathan, put me down. I want to talk to you seriously.”

He lowered me and putting his arm about me led me to the bed. He sat down with me beside him; he had his arm tightly round me and he put his hand on my heart. “How it beats!” he said. “It beats for me.”

“I want to go home at once,” I said.

“I thought you wanted to talk seriously.”

“I do. I want to say you must stop this, Jonathan. Don’t you see how impossible life will be? You… living in the same house. Either we shall have to go away or you will. It would be easier for you. You could go to London. You are there a great deal with your banking and secret activities. Go and stay there. It will be better for us all.”

He laughed. “I should not see you then. Would you condemn me to a life of frustration?”

“Please don’t talk like this.”

“What then should I talk of? The weather? Sophie’s acquisition of this house? Is it going to snow before Christmas? Can you believe she has taken Enderby! No, my little Claudine. I have weightier matters on my mind. You, my lovely one. I am obsessed by you, Claudine. Claudine… my Claudine… who is different from all other women… who is a child and yet a woman… who has so much to learn, which I shall have to teach her. But she will be willing to learn. I detect that willingness. In fact, my dearest love, it is one of the qualities which I find so attractive.”

“I wish you would talk sensibly. I must go back. I think it was very wrong of you—very inconsiderate to send that message to Molly Blackett. I remember that other occasion when she was making my dress…”

“Oh yes, and the silly creature came back too soon. History repeating itself, coming events casting their shadows before them. But this time she won’t come, will she?”

“I must go.”

I stood up and he was immediately beside me.

“I can’t let you go, Claudine.”

“I am going.”

“How can you if I won’t let you?”

“You mean you will hold me here… against my will?”

“I’d rather you stayed willingly.”

“Willingly… What for? I am going now.”

He had his arms round me. “Claudine, listen to me.”

“There is nothing to listen to. There is no explanation. This is monstrous. I shall tell David… I shall tell my mother and your father.”

“What a little teller of tales! You won’t, you know.”

“You seem to have made up your mind what I shall and shall not do.”

“Claudine, I love you. You and I belong together. A few words said in a church can’t alter that. What is between us is there for ever. It’s like my father and your mother. You’ve seen them together. That is how it is with us. Preordained… Fate… Call it what you like. It is not often two people meet and know they are the only ones. That is us, Claudine, and it is no use trying to pretend.”

“I daresay this is your set piece with all the married women you seek to seduce.”

“I have never made that speech before. There is only one to whom it would apply. Claudine, don’t go against what has to be. Face it. Accept it. And try to work out a solution from there.”

“You seem to be of the opinion that I am as depraved as you are.”

He bent back my head and kissed my throat. I wished that I did not feel so emotionally aroused. I ought to turn and run away. I knew I must, but he would not let me go; and if I were really truthful I had to admit that I did not want to.

“Jonathan,” I said quietly. “Please, please let me go.”

“No,” he said firmly. “You belong to me. You have been foolish. You must have known all the time that you should never have married David.”

“Stop!” I cried. “I love David. He is good and kind. He is everything I need.”

“You say that because you do not know what you need.”

“And you know, of course.”

“Of course.”

He slipped the bodice from my shoulders just as he had in the sewing room.

“No,” I cried. “No.”

But he had forced me back on the bed.

“You don’t want to go, Claudine,” he said. He took the pins from my hair and let it fall about my shoulders. I protested, weakly, I must admit, whispering—perhaps without conviction: “Let me go.”

I heard him laugh and I felt his hands on me. It was as though I were sinking into mists of pleasure; and I knew that I had never experienced anything like this before, and that I could not go now… not even if he stood aside and allowed me to.

I forgot where I was… in this haunted room, this room of strange voices. I forgot everything but that I wanted to be with Jonathan, and that I had never known such ecstasy and that I wanted it to go on for ever. Perhaps somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew I must come out of this madness and face the wicked thing I was doing; but I could not at that moment. I was swallowed up in my desire and my overwhelming emotions.

I don’t know how long I lived in that world of sensation when nothing outside it seemed of any importance. But the reckoning came… and soon.

I wrenched myself free. I tried to arrange my disordered dress, my loose hair. I stared about me. This room… this evil room! Were those voices a warning? Had I been told by some supernatural force that this room could be the scene of my shame?

I put my hands over my face and began to weep quietly.

Jonathan put an arm about me. “Don’t, Claudine,” he said. “Be happy. It was wonderful, wasn’t it? Didn’t you know it would be? You and I. It was perfect. Some people are meant for each other. We are like that.”

“What have I done?”

He took my hands and kissed them. “Made me happy,” he said. “Made yourself happy.”

“David… What of David?”

“He will not know.”

I stared at him in horror. “I must tell him. I must confess what I have done. I must do so… right away.”

“My dear, dear one, you are not being reasonable.”

“I have been so wicked.”

“No, no. You have behaved naturally. You must not feel this guilt.”

“Not feel guilty when I am guilty? Oh, how could you!”

“I did not force you, did I? You wanted to make love with me as much as I did with you.”

“If you had not come here. If you—”

“If you were not you and I were not myself, yes, things would have been so different. Listen to me, Claudine. You are married to David. He is a good man. He would be bitterly hurt if he knew that you and I were in love with each other.”

“I tell you, I love him.”

“Yes… but differently, eh? You love us both. Well, we are twins, are we not? There must be a closeness between us. We started life together right from the beginning. We were together before we were born. There must be a bond between us. You love us both and because we are twins it is almost as though you love the same man.”

“This doesn’t help at all.” I put my hands to my burning cheeks and started to pile up my hair. I was trembling, I could not bear to look into the future.

“Oh, why did you do this?” I cried. “Why did you send that message to Molly Blackett?”

“It had to be. I was seeking an opportunity. This seemed a good one.”

“I don’t think you have
any
scruples.”

“Oh yes I have. But I accept the inevitable. This had to be.”

“It must never happen again.”

He stood beside me and kissed me gently. “It is our secret,” he said. “No one need ever know.”

“I must tell David.”

“If you do you will ruin his happiness.”

“What a pity you did not think of that before!”

“Before, I could think of only one thing. Listen to me, Claudine. This has happened. It had to happen at some time. Perhaps it will happen again.”

“Never,” I cried vehemently. “It must never.”

“Nobody knows we are here together. It can be our secret. Look at it like this: I had to do what I did. It obsessed me. It was such a desperate need that I had no feelings for anything else, and when you were there, close to me, Claudine, it was the same with you. It is a powerful attraction between us. You can do no good by confessions. Your secret guilt hurts only you.”

“Perhaps you are right,” I said slowly. “I want to get away from this house. I know it is an evil house. It does something to people. It makes them different from what they really are.”

“Perhaps it shows them what they really are.”

I wanted to get away. I wanted to think about this. I could not bear to stay there a moment longer.

I felt for the key of the house in the pocket of my dress. I was thankful it was still there for I feared it might have dropped out. There were certain cracks in the floorboards and it could have fallen down one of those. But there it was, safe, and the very feel of it brought me back to reality.

I ran down the stairs. Jonathan was right behind me.

Into the hall, across the stone floor, our footsteps echoing through the house, I turned to look at the minstrels’ gallery and it seemed to me that there was a smug satisfaction about the house.

We came out and I locked the door.

I was dazed by my experience; and I felt as though I were still living in that world of wonderment to which he had introduced me. We walked across the fields to Eversleigh.

The house was quiet and I was glad I did not meet anyone on my way to my room. There I looked at myself in the mirror and it seemed that a stranger looked back at me.

This was not the same woman who had left that afternoon for the appointment with Molly Blackett. Of course it wasn’t! I should never be the same again. I had broken one of the commandments: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. And I had done this so easily… yet unintentionally—so carried away by the impulse of the moment. I had feared it, of course, but I had never truly thought it would happen. I had not realized that potent sexuality, that overwhelming power which silenced all qualms, which knew no conscience while one was in its thrall. I would never have believed this could happen to me.

I knew the story of my grandmother Zipporah, who had met a man in that very house and had behaved as I had today. She had been a quiet, virtuous woman, different from me, really, because I had always known that Jonathan could arouse desires in me which I must not give way to. What was that brooding evil at Enderby which had such an effect on the women of my family?

I was trying to shift the blame. I was trying to accuse the house of being responsible for my own misconduct.

How had it happened, so quickly, so easily? He had not forced me, he had said rather triumphantly. It was true. I had abandoned myself, willingly. I wished I could stop thinking of him. But I loved him, if loving was feeling more alive with some one person more than with anyone else, wanting to be with that person, to be close, to share intimacy, to be together every hour of the day and night.

Had I not felt that with David? David was interesting. He was kind and tender. It was a quiet relationship which had contented me until this afternoon. Love-making with David was quite pleasurable—as was everything else. But never had I experienced that wild excitement, that complete abandonment which I had known this afternoon.

Guilt weighed me down. If only I could go back to early afternoon. I should have waited outside the house. I should never have allowed it to wrap its tentacles around me. There I was, blaming the house again. There was no one to blame but myself… and Jonathan. And he had not forced me. I kept stressing that.

He was right. What good could confession do? If I were wise I should dismiss the incident from my mind. I should try to behave as though it had never happened. Perhaps in time I could forget it ever had. Forget it? That most shattering experience? Already I was thinking of being there, and seeing him there with me.