Dorothy Eden (10 page)

“I’m very strong,” Hetty murmured.

“You’ve already proved that. So shall we agree on this? If you give Hugo a son I may forgive you about the money.”

“Forgive me!”

“It is an unfair weapon, isn’t it?”

And one that her favourite, Julia, hadn’t got?

“I can’t help that, Lady Flora. And I’d never expected to inherit poor Mummy’s estate so soon. But I’d rather not talk about that yet. Uncle Jonas will write to me and explain things.”

“Your Uncle Jonas is your nearest relation?”

“My only one—except for some distant cousins we never saw.”

“Then we must cable him about the wedding. Hugo and I decided perhaps next Wednesday. Depending on what your uncle says.”

Hetty’s eyes flew open wide.

“You’ve discussed this without me!”

“Last evening. My dear child, you were fast asleep and we wouldn’t disturb you. It had to be planned, hadn’t it? Hugo is due for a discharge from his medical board, and then he’ll go back to France, poor boy. Lionel, unfortunately, won’t be here. We will just have to make the best of things, won’t we, we women?”

She seemed amused at Hetty’s indignation.

“In a war such as this one is turning out to be, one makes compromises. I never thought it was right to have a big society wedding at this time, anyway. There would be too many gaps among the guests, apart from anything else. Hugo has lost several of his closest friends already. One could hardly have a church full of widows. I know you had set your heart on a grand affair—”

Hetty shook her head vehemently. “Not any more.”

“Then perhaps we understand each other. On this point, anyway.”

Lady Flora sighed and leaned back, at last relaxing her upright spine. She looked white and tired.

“So we’ll wait for a reply from your Uncle Jonas, and then Hugo will see the vicar. I believe Kitty has undertaken to take you shopping. You’ll find some quite decent clothes in Cirencester. Now, if you would be good enough to ring that bell, Annie will bring us some hot chocolate. And tap at the next door down the hall and ask Julia to join us. Did they tell you her mother was my best friend? Poor Julia has had some miserable bad fortune. You must promise to be friends.”

“Can we be friends?” Hetty asked daringly.

Lady Flora sighed. “Yes, you are clever. But just remember, even with that terrible tragedy the other night, you’ve been able to realise your dream. Julia hasn’t. But she stays here because I love her and need her.”

And me? Hetty wanted to ask. Will you love me?

No, you never will. I will always be the usurper. And I don’t want your love, you cold proud old woman.

Uncle Jonas’s answer came expeditiously.

“By all means arrange marriage soonest possible. Stop. Should be no problems with transfer of funds in bank. Stop. Wish you both happiness. Stop. Uncle Jonas.”

What with that prompt, almost relieved answer, and the test she seemed to have passed successfully with Lady Flora, Hetty was able to relax and feel more sanguine.

She had to remember to sign the church register “Clemency Millicent Hazzard”. Supposing she had a lapse of memory? She had also to get a clear picture in her mind of Clemency’s thick up and down strokes, since no doubt Hugo had had frequent letters from her.

Ah, there was the solution. If Hugo had kept Clemency’s letters she could study the handwriting at leisure. But this could not be done until she and Hugo shared the same bedroom, and she had access to his writing desk and his personal papers.

He would certainly not keep love letters in the library, a room everyone used. If he was sentimental enough to keep love letters at all.

When would it be safe to stop being Clemency, and become entirely herself? Not until she had a wedding ring on her finger, and even then with caution.

But things were going better. Hugo, in his curiously abrupt way, was paying her more attention. He was delighted with the result of her and Kitty’s shopping expedition to Cirencester, a stone grey town with medieval buildings and ancient parkland. Now there, he said with satisfaction when Hetty came down to dinner in a new dinner gown, was the girl he remembered. Chic and sophisticated and saucy. Not the drowned kitten he had rescued on Paddington railway station. She realised he must have felt some dismay at that apparition and credited him with what had been a display of excellent manners.

He became noisy and high-spirited that evening, and after drinking a good deal of wine and brandy he tore up all his dunning letters, making them into a funeral pyre.

Hetty was shocked at how many of these unpleasant missives there were.

“Hugo, what are all these debts?”

“Mostly estate expenses. I’ve never been able to get clear since my father died. Death duties and all that. And I confess I’ve been going rather too often to gaming clubs. I mean to reform when I am married, and, I promise you, I will. Anyway, there won’t be much opportunity to play while I’m spending most of my time in stinking trenches, so perhaps you could call the war a blessing in disguise.”

“Is all of that million dollars going to be used in this way?”

“Most of it, I’m afraid.”

“Then didn’t you make your price too low?”

“My price?”

“For marrying me.”

He roared with laughter, not in the least abashed.

“It was a decent settlement. Considering that I was getting such a charming bride. It wasn’t only the money, you know. Surely I never gave you that impression? You haven’t got a suspicious mind, have you?”

She found she liked his arrogance, his absolute certainty of rightness. It had a sexual quality. An excitement stirred deep in her stomach. She suddenly wanted to see him without his clothes on. She had never seen a naked man, although she was not ignorant about the mechanics of sex. One couldn’t work in a servants’ hall without learning rather too explicit details.

She had thought herself fairly impervious to desire, not vulnerable as her mother had been. Even that poor young Canadian airman, Donald Newman, had stirred only a pleasant curiosity in her.

This leaping excitement was tremendous, if only because it blotted out nervousness and guilt. Perhaps they could have a happy marriage, after all, she and Hugo. It would justify everything.

She made a thick black generously rounded C, and carefully finished the names “Clemency Millicent”. The nib of the pen scratched and made a tiny spray of blots. She wrote the name Hazzard with less intensity, breathing deeply.

There it was on paper, her new identity.

Hugo’s signature followed in a fairly unintelligible scrawl. He grinned at her, and she saw that he, too, was relieved. He must have found it hard to believe that he was actually going to be rid of that mountain of debt.

The vestry of the small church was chilly and smelled of mould. The vicar was old and just short of senility, from the way he had fumbled the service. This, too, had given Hetty a feeling of relief. He wasn’t likely to be around if the time ever came for awkward questions to be asked.

“Clemency Millicent, do you take Hugo Edward John Clarence to be your lawful wedded husband?”

Even if he were not dead, the vicar would have forgotten her clear aggressive “I do”, which could have suggested a suspicious eagerness, and must have differed a great deal from the average response of modestly whispering brides.

The church had been sparsely occupied. Lady Flora, elegant in stiff grey silk, with violets tucked in her waistband, Kitty, scarcely more tidy than when she was working in the garden, and the little boy Freddie with his meagre delicate body. The vicar’s wife, nearly as infirm as her husband, a young Captain in khaki, an army friend of Hugo’s, and some of the staff from the great house, modestly at the back of the church.

No one belonging to Hetty. But now she had a family. Standing at Hugo’s side, she was expecting the ache of loneliness to leave her for ever.

The singing and responses had been pitifully thin. It didn’t matter. She was married. She was reborn. A female Lazarus.

It was not something that happened to many people.

Julia Pemberton had not been in the church. Lady Flora had spared her for a few days to visit some distant cousins. She would be back shortly. There was no rebirth for Julia. But one was now in the position to be kind to her and dispense favours. And make very sure that Hugo lost interest in her.

As they came out of the church a sprinkling of villagers stared. There was none of the gaiety and laughter of the usual wedding crowd. They were disappointed, of course, that Lord Hazzard of the great house, their lord of the manor, was having such a modest ceremony. They tut-tutted at Hugo’s limp, and stared at Hetty. One or two of the women smiled in a friendly way. Then a child darted forward and thrust a nosegay at the new bride, and at the same moment an aeroplane roared overhead, flying low, almost touching the treetops. An abrupt memory of Donald Newman, the young Canadian aviator, flashed through Hetty’s mind. She winced, and as the rattle of the engine died away Hugo leaned down to say, “There’s a flying field near here. But that pilot’s a bit off course. I don’t know how those contraptions stay in the air. Tied together with wire.”

That ghost from the past upset Hetty and the chill of the vestry seemed to have followed her, for as she entered the house a drenching cold enveloped her. Like drowning.

She dropped her spray of yellow rosebuds and maidenhair fern and the tight posy the child had given her, on the dark oak table, shivering uncontrollably.

“What’s the matter, my lady?” asked Mrs Evans. “Are you ill?”

“N-no!” My lady. It made her want to laugh. And to cry. “It’s only—the church was so c-cold.”

“Bates, the champagne,” Hugo ordered. “That’s what we need.” He put his arm round Hetty, holding her close. “Shuts out the nightmares,” he said. “I have them, too.”

Her gratitude for his unexpected understanding diminished her trembling. Warmth slowly returned to her body. What miraculous stuff champagne was. No wonder it was the favoured drink of the rich.

That night there was another bottle in an ice-filled bucket on the bedside table, but Hugo, when he came out of his dressing room, found that it wasn’t necessary. His bride seemed to be pliant and ready.

At least this was what Hetty guessed he judged, for he discarded his dressing gown and got into bed quickly. She didn’t have an opportunity to study his naked body, but only felt it, solid and warm beside her, and then heavy on top of her. He breathed heavily, too, and in his excitement disjointed words came out.

“You and me, darling. Got to make the best of it now.” He was parting her legs. “By God, you have a nice body.”

And then he was too impatient to wait at all.

It hurt. She was sure it would have hurt less if Hugo had taken more time. But she liked his ardent haste. She suspected that the next time she would be impatient, too. And that would be wonderful. But just now she could only hold her breath at the stinging pain and wait for him to finish. When he did he cried out, and then collapsed with his head on her breast.

His cry had given her that strange shaft of acutely exciting pain in her stomach. It was sexual, she realised.

“Hugo,” she said tenderly, after a little while.

“Yes, darling. Are you all right?”

“I will be. Next time.”

“Afraid I was clumsy.”

“Just being a man, I guess.”

He raised his head to look at her closely.

“You keep surprising me, Clem—Hetty.”

“How do I do that?”

“In New York you were bubbly, like champagne. Sometimes girls like that go a bit flat—I mean, when one gets down to basic things.”

“I won’t, Hugo. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you will.”

She couldn’t resist a sly question.

“Are you getting a higher return on your investment than you expected?”

He gave his roar of laughter.

“You little devil! Now don’t bring money into bed with us. But how is it with you, Lady Hazzard? How’s your side of the arrangement?”

“Feels fine, from here.”

“You won’t be too dull when I go away? I thought you’d be wanting parties.”

“They can wait. I’ll be happy getting to know Loburn, and everybody. And having them get to know me. And doing some war work, too.”

“Yes, that will be expected of you.”

The lady of the manor. Hetty turned the strange thought over in her mind.

“Hugo. What about Julia?”

“How do you mean?” His voice had become guarded.

“She’s jealous of me.”

“Well, yes. I suppose she would be.”

“Would you have married her if you hadn’t had all those debts. Or if she’d had money?”

“Perhaps.”

“In preference to me?”

“I didn’t know you then. Shut up, will you, darling. You’re asking too many questions.”

“But is she to stay here?”

“Afraid so. Mother needs her. I need her, too, in the stables now my best grooms are joining up. She’s damned good with horses. She’s going to give you some riding lessons as soon as I’ve gone.”

Can I trust her? Hetty wondered silently. Hugo seemed a bit naïve about the possible malevolence of a jealous woman.

Hugo was regarding her closely.

“Why are you looking like that?” he asked. “I admit I was fond of Julia. Yes, I would have married her if she’d been an heiress. But she wasn’t, and I married you. And I believe you’re a little temptress. I’d like to—no, better wait a bit. Let’s crack that bottle of champagne, and then see what the weather’s like.”

He wasn’t very subtle with the language of love, but he was thoughtful in his way, and she found the strength of his body immensely exciting.

Oh yes, that fateful decision after the
Lusitania
disaster had been the right one, no doubt about it. Mother would have approved. Father too, she was sure.

Lady Hazzard of Loburn.

Be good, she whispered to herself superstitiously. Be good.

H
ER INTUITION THAT BEING
Hugo’s wife, becoming at ease with him in the day, and going to bed with him at night, would get better proved accurate. They established a friendly, almost comfortable, relationship.