Flint and Roses (56 page)

I walked another step or two and then stood quite still, my head bowed in a brooding silence, wondering what time if was, what day it was, why everything he said to me sounded so logical, so easy, until the moment his voice stopped speaking.

‘And you would accept me, knowing that my only motive could be the need to escape from Nicholas?'

‘My dear,' he said, ‘you married my very good friend Giles Ashburn for exactly that reason, and he had no cause to complain of you. If you decided to devote yourself to me in the same fashion, I wouldn't complain either.'

I sat down beside him, not intentionally, but because my I legs had simply released my weight, and he slid his hand into mine, a light, undemanding touch, telling me I could take him, or not, and we would still be friends, warning me, perhaps, that he was no rock to lean on, as Giles had been, that he would never seek to possess me nor allow me to possess him—but that we would be friends.

‘It's not possible,' I said. ‘Blaize, how can you even think of it? You know that I'm in love with Nicholas and he's your brother—you even look like him.'

‘No,' he told me, not the slightest tremor in him anywhere. ‘You're quite wrong. I don't look like him at all. He looks like me. And the resemblance isn't really very great. He's blacker and bolder and heavier by at least a stone. And you know quite well I was born believing that, sooner or later, everybody is bound to like me best. What else have you to tell me?'

‘That even if I—and I couldn't—that Nicholas wouldn't let it happen.'

‘My dear, I'm not planning to ask him. Faith, you spoke of going to London. My bags are already packed. I have to go and see as many of my Continental customers as I can in case this damnable war with Russia, which seems almost certain now, should make travel difficult. I intended to leave at the end of the month, but there's no reason why we can't set off together—tonight. We'd be creating a small scandal, darling, to cover a greater one. Elope with me, in fact. A few weeks in France and Germany, consternation in Cullingford, and we can be married somewhere
en route.
You can trust me, I think, to work out the details. They'd hardly be beyond my organizing capacity. You'd meet with some coolness, of course, when you came home, but my mother will help us with that. If Lady Barforth of Tarn Edge is willing to receive you—and Mrs. Agbrigg of Lawcroft Fold—then everybody else will do the same. So—I have brought you to the point of realizing it is not impossible after all. What is troubling you now?'

‘Nicholas is troubling me now.'

‘Yes, I rather thought he might. But Nicholas makes the elopement necessary, surely you can see that? If he comes back from London to learn we are to be married, he'd be bound to ask the reason why. And I can't see myself explaining it. He wouldn't give you up to me, darling, just to avoid a scandal he thinks he can cope with, and to keep a wife he thinks he doesn't want. And, even if by some miracle he could be persuaded to see reason, could you stand the strain of a family wedding? Could he? He'd be far more likely to shoot me at the altar than act as my best man.'

‘And if we go away together he'll think we became lovers in Scarborough, won't he, Blaize? He'll think I fell out of love with him for your sake.'

‘Exactly. What else could he think? Aunt Hannah will tell no tales once we're gone. She'd have nothing to gain by it, and my father might accuse her of having pushed us too far, and she wouldn't risk that. As you say, Nicky will certainly think you have jilted him, in a particularly heartless manner at that. And he'll be hurt, there's no doubt about it—badly hurt even, for a while. He'll be foul-tempered and foul-mouthed and he'll kick his machines, and his operatives, all around Lawcroft mill yard until he's worked it out of his system. I speak flippantly because that seems to be my fashion when something troubles me. But really, Faith,—really—the more it hurts him the better, because when he's feeling thoroughly wretched who else is he likely to turn to but Georgiana? He would be miserable. She would be miserable. It would be very natural—wouldn't it?—if they should be drawn together. And that, surely, is one of the things we are aiming for. Very well, I have demolished that objection—give me the next.'

I leaned forward, struggling against the current of his logic that brought me constantly back to him, the warm tones of his voice filling my mind, hushing my panic, easing me, convincing me that this outrageous thing was not only possible but obvious, desirable; that it was right, and could be pleasant, because he said so.

‘Blaize, take care. Don't confuse me and persuade me. You are not selling me a thousand yards of Barforth worsted, you know.'

‘No, darling—it would have taken me all of ten minutes to do that.'

‘I can't believe this is happening to me. You make it sound so simple—and so right—and perhaps it could be. But Blaize—'

‘Yes, what is it now? I suppose it must be Nicholas again.'

‘Of course it is. He's your brother and he'll probably be your business partner. I could avoid him, but you couldn't. You'd have to see him every day—work with him.'

But my mood was quieter now, my objections more hesitant, his hand on mine much firmer.

‘There's that to it, of course. But that's my problem, surely, darling, and there is little love lost between me and Nicky in any case. We don't work together, Faith. We're involved in the same business and we put up with each other. The whole of Cullingford knows it and no one would be surprised to see our relationship take a turn for the worse. People would only think we were bickering over the money, and most of the time they'd be right. And it may not always be so. People mellow. If he finds enough to content him in Georgiana, he may find it easier to tolerate me. And if he doesn't—well—we shall be equal partners in the Barforth mills when my father dies, but partnerships can be dissolved. He could take Lawcroft and Low Cross, and I could take Tarn Edge, and we could go our separate ways. If my relationship with Nicky is the only thing to be sacrificed, then I believe we might come out of this well enough.'

I sat for a long time after that, leaning my head on the back of the sofa, conscious of a gradual draining away of energy, trying for a while to halt the dissolving of my will into his, the slow drifting of my whole self towards the refuge he offered, the submission he had presented to me as inevitable. And then, very slowly, as one flow of quiet water enters another, resistance ebbed away.

‘You are going to marry me then?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Then there is one promise you must make me.'

‘Only one? I think you are entitled to ask for more than that.'

‘Ah well—most of the things I could ask for, you will give me in any case. This one promise will suffice. Nicholas must never know the true circumstances of our marriage. And, since neither Aunt Hannah nor I will tell him, you must not do so either. He must go on believing that you willingly abandoned him, either because you liked me better—which has happened before in his life—or from motives of self-interest, because you knew I had more to offer. You saw the chance of an advantageous marriage and you took it. If he's to think well of Georgiana, he must begin by thinking ill of you. And I'm bound to admit I wouldn't be altogether comfortable otherwise. Will you promise me that?'

‘Blaize—that is one promise I would have performed in any case.'

‘Of course. So, let's think of you, now, and me. I told you my bags are packed, but I may not have mentioned they are already at the station. We have only your affairs to put in order, darling, and I'm here, at your disposal, until train-time. There's a note to be written to your mother, and a line to Aunt Hannah too, I think, which we'll have delivered in the morning—simply that you have gone away with me and expect to be married when they see you again. You may go upstairs presently to arrange your boxes, and while you're about it I'll have a word with your housekeeper and make it worth her while to be on our side. But I think we might have a moment together now. Come here, darling, for if I am to be blamed for seducing you, I may as well take advantage of it.'

But, with his mouth once more on mine, his hands beginning a gentle, stroking exploration of my shoulders, the curve of my breasts, the outline of waist and thigh, the cool, fresh scent of him invading my nostrils, I felt a new panic.

‘Blaize—I can't go from one bed to another—just like that—so quickly.'

‘Oh but you can,' he said, his mouth against my neck, his hands delicately parting the folds of my collar. ‘Not here, of course—not now—but tonight darling, wherever we find ourselves, I shall manage to provide you with champagne and a good dinner, and a good bed, and I am not at all the kind of gallant gentleman who would allow you to sleep in it alone. You will have to make your full commitment, darling, make no mistake about it. I may not look the part, Faith, but I am a Law Valley man. I expect a return on my investments, just as much, and just as soon, as I can.'

And being a Law Valley woman I could not quarrel with that.

It was, of course, a preposterous relationship which should soon have foundered. It did not. Our first night together should have ended in tears on my part, bitter reproaches on his, a mutual embarrassment neither of us could overcome. Incredibly, it ended in laughter, inspired partly, I must confess, by the endlessly flowing champagne Blaize considered an essential part of seduction, but largely by the split in my own nature, the practical Law Valley part of me which understood the reason for this immediate commitment—for once it was done it was done and there could be no returning—the part which said, ‘You have made your bed, so now it is only common sense to lie on it as comfortably as you can'; and the other part, the submerged part, released by Blaize's persuasive hands, the woman in me who could enjoy, if only briefly, the languorous, sensual life of a pampered courtesan.

I should have been abominably burdened throughout those early months by the memory of Nicholas and of what he must believe I had done to him. I did not forget it. But I was a woman who had made, if not precisely a decision, a promise my self-respect would force me to keep, had entered into an arrangement the terms of which I perfectly understood and which I was determined to fulfil. I knew exactly what Blaize required in a wife and I saw no point at all—even before we were married—in holding anything back from him.

A good hostess, he had said, and a good friend, but Blaize Barforth's ‘good friend'would need to be resourceful, independent, good-humoured, sensual, unfailingly patient; and from the start I became all those things, partly because this was my final opportunity to make something of my life and I couldn't fail it, but also because Blaize himself, who demanded constant attention, expected at all times to be pleased, was well worth the pleasing, a challenge to any woman's ingenuity.

I should not have found pleasure in his arms—not so quickly—and when I did I should have felt soiled by it, betrayed by my own sighing, demanding body. Perhaps if he had been sympathetic and allowed me to be sentimental I would have done exactly that, but the sexual act to Blaize was not so much a matter of need as of skill, a slow appreciation that could occupy the whole of a balmy Mediterranean afternoon—if he had one available—an experience which took on the shades and character of its constantly changing situation, a cosily bolstered French bed, a moonlit terrace overlooking the sea, my back supported by silk-embroidered cushions, a couch in a southern garden, as he had once promised, the spray of a nearby fountain feather-light against my bare skin, a dappled moonlight coming down to us through the chestnut trees. And from the start his expertise defeated me.

‘No—no,' he told me that first night, when I turned to him too quickly, knowing it had to be done and wanting it over. ‘There's no rush. I have to find out what pleases you, darling. And you have to discover what pleases me. I won't tell you—and I won't ask—because it's in the finding out that we'll have the fun.'

And in full lamplight he explored my body from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, returning unerringly to the tender places, his hands and his mouth inviting me, persuading me, to pleasure, coaxing it from me and nurturing it into the most acute physical joy of my life, leaving me exhausted but clear-headed, since emotion had scarcely been used at all.

From those first, difficult days when only the iron discipline of my father's teaching enabled me to conceal how desperately I was grieving for Nicholas. Blaize intrigued and satiated my senses, filled my nights with pleasure, not infrequently with amazement, my days with a constant flurry of occupations, little errands to run on his behalf, people to meet, dinners to be eaten in gay company or romantically alone, race-meetings and theatres, elegant concert halls and wicked, fascinating pavement cafés, shopping, spending, railway stations, sinister foreign taverns, luxurious hotels. He kept me busy, laughed at me, pampered me sometimes, abandoned me at others for days on end in unfamiliar places while he made lightning trips alone. He indulged me, amused me, entertained me, kept me waiting in strange restaurants without ever making explanations, expected me at a moment's notice to be ready to take a train or a coach, to be as fresh at the end of a journey as I had been at its beginning, expected me at all times—since I had declared myself to be a woman and not a child—to cope alone, to stand firmly on the two adult feet of which I was possessed. And if it was exhausting, sometimes exasperating, it was exciting, leaving me no time to brood on anything else, and I did not dislike it.

We were married eventually in Bournemouth, but it was clear to anyone with the slightest knowledge of mathematics—and there were few in Cullingford who could not do their sums—that we had travelled together on the wicked Continent for several months before he took me to his mother at Rosemount Lodge, and Cullingford, quite rightly, knew just what that meant.