Hester Waring's Marriage (18 page)

‘Oh, Hester, you do look splendid! Did Tom choose that for you? I will say that for such a masculine man he has the most remarkable taste when it comes to women's clothes. More's the pity he no longer serves in the shop.'

‘Yes,' said Hester briefly. She did not want to talk about Tom, but she did want to find out what the gossip was all about. She had learned patience in a hard school, though, and it was only after she had admired the baby, drunk some tea and Lucy was fetching out her needlework that she raised the topic which lay behind her visit.

She looked shyly at Lucy and asked, ‘Has Frank said anything to you about some trouble involving Tom and the military?'

Lucy put down her sewing with a gasp. ‘Oh, Hester, don't you know? Hasn't Tom said anything?'

Hester's reply was a model of the deviousness which she was learning from her husband. ‘You know Tom.'

‘Of course, well, perhaps it would be best for you to know. I can't tell you all the details because Frank thought that they weren't fit for my ears, me being a virtuous female and all that. He didn't want to tell me that it happened at Madame Phoebe's—I'm not supposed to know that such a place exists. I ask you! How could I not know?

‘But he told me enough to make out that Tom went to Madame Phoebe's last night when all the garrison's officers were there, and had some sort of argument with Jack Cameron and Jack got the worst of it, Frank was there, you see, and saw it all. Apparently Tom half-wrecked the place, too, and the joke of it is, Frank says, is that somehow Tom made the officers pay for the damage while he got away scot-free! Typical Tom, if I may say so.'

She laughed, and was plainly not going to enlarge on what had caused the argument.

Hester was not having this. ‘What were they quarrelling about, Lucy?'

Lucy hesitated, and then decided to tell Hester as much as she knew, which was very little. Frank had decided not to tell her exactly what Jack had said, or Tom had done— Lucy's supposed virtue again.

‘It was something to do with you and Tom. Captain Cameron was drunk and insulting. Frank thinks he had been telling lies about you and Tom.'

Hester closed her eyes. Then opened them again. ‘You mean Tom attacked him because of me?'

‘Yes. Frank says he made an awful mess of Jack's face. He wouldn't tell me how. I must say, Hester, I should be happy to think that Frank would be as fierce as Tom if I were insulted in a gaming hell or anywhere else, for that matter.'

‘Why did Tom wreck the place?'

‘Well, he didn't exactly wreck all of it. Just the gaming table and what was on it when he went for Jack.'

Both girls contemplated the scene Lucy's words conjured up. They knew so little of the places where men and ‘those women' went that it was hard for them to work out exactly what might have happened.

So many vital facts were missing, and only Hester knew that Tom had undoubtedly been punishing Jack for what he had said at the ball, for bribing Mrs Hackett, and for any further insults offered at Madame Phoebe's.

‘Frank says Jack wants to call Tom out—fight a duel—but there's even an argument about that. Frank says that no one can decide who is the challenging party, Tom or Jack, since Tom broke all the normal rules governing disputes between gentlemen.'

‘But why does it matter who challenges whom?' asked Hester, baffled by the silly intricacies, or so they seemed to her, of the gentlemen's code of honour. ‘In any case, I don't think that Tom sees himself as a gentleman.'

‘Oh, it does matter.' Lucy was earnest. ‘You see, the challenged man gets the right to decide which weapons to use—and no one knew who challenged whom. Was it Tom when he hit Jack? Or was it Jack challenging Tom because Tom hit him?'

She suddenly laughed. ‘Yes, it is silly, isn't it?'

‘Tom would say it was silly,' agreed Hester.

She suddenly felt flattered that Tom had attacked Jack on her behalf. He deserved it for the dreadful things he had made her think of Tom, and the awful way he had mocked her for her lack of looks. She suddenly knew who had been telling Jack Cameron tales, and that the bet Tom was supposed to have made about getting her into bed had never existed.

With the thought came the memory of Tom's face when he had pleaded with her on the night of the ball. She turned slowly away from Lucy and began to collect her belongings. He didn't deserve her stupid anger, he didn't. Not a man who had wrecked Madame Phoebe's for her.

‘Must you go so soon?' asked Lucy. ‘I haven't told you about the guinea.'

Hester looked at Lucy. Mrs Hackett's guinea. ‘It started the fight,' she said slowly.

‘Yes. How did you know that, Hester?'

‘I didn't. I guessed.'

She must go home immediately and get to the bottom of this.

‘I'm sorry, I have to leave you now, Lucy.' She smiled a dazzling smile, and looked better than she had done since the ball.

Lucy watched her walk determinedly to her carriage. Now, what on earth did I say to her to make her leave in such a hurry? Frank said that Jack claimed that she and Tom were at outs. But I don't believe it. Not the way she looked at me every time I said his name.

 

That afternoon Jack Cameron took his two black eyes, his broken nose, his swollen mouth and loosened teeth into Colonel O'Connell's room at the Barracks. Previously, he had not left his quarters, except to consult Dr Kerr, who had told him that apart from his broken nose, for which he could do nothing, everything else, including his teeth, would mend, given time.

His opening words were peremptory. ‘I want that bastard Dilhorne arrested, put in chains, and charged with aggravated assault.'

O'Connell looked at him with weary distaste, but spoke to him as a man, not as a superior officer to an inferior.

‘You know I can't do that, Jack. Much as I would like to see Dilhorne in gaol, I can't do anything to him over this.'

Jack pointed to his damaged face. ‘The brute nearly killed me last night. Isn't that sufficient?'

‘You know it isn't. You provoked him. If you'd merely insulted
him
, well and good. I'd have had him in irons by now. But you insulted his wife, and whatever he is, she's a lady, and what's more, there's never been a breath of scandal attached to her. Other, of course, than that she married Dilhorne. But that ass Fred Waring left her so dirt poor that marriage to him was a better alternative than starvation or Madame Phoebe's.'

Jack began to bluster. ‘Well, all I can say is that you've been misinformed. Who told you that?'

‘Parker gave me a full account last night.'

‘Parker!' Jack's sneer was as vicious as he could make it. ‘That green boy. It's what I might have expected of him.'

‘Even you, Jack, can't call Pat Ramsey green,' said O'Connell wearily, ‘and his account matches Parker's.'

‘So Dilhorne gets off scot-free, and he won't even give me satisfaction.'

‘Oh, do shut up, Jack. You should learn to hold your liquor.'

Jack's expression was murderous. ‘It's the thought of that swine walking around Sydney as though he owns it that I can't bear.'

‘Oh, come on, Jack. He does own Sydney, or very near,' growled O'Connell. ‘No, Jack, cut your losses, and make sure that you pick an easier target next time. If you don't know by now that Dilhorne's dangerous, you never will.'

Jack turned away in disgust, but was brought back by O'Connell's next comment. ‘Plain, I hear you called her. You haven't been looking at her lately, Jack. Loath though I am to say it, since she married Dilhorne that girl has been transformed. She's turning into a regular little beauty.'

O'Connell's last words rankled. A regular little beauty, is she? thought Jack furiously. I can't say I've noticed it, but if O'Connell says so, there must be something there. He's a ladies' man, is O'Connell. I wonder how the devil I can pay that vile brute back—through his wife or his business might be the easiest, but best of all would be to destroy him, see him dead!

 

Tom sat down to dinner that evening still bathed in the remnants of the exhilaration which he had felt ever since he had assaulted Jack Cameron. He had seen Alan Kerr that morning, and Alan had twitted him on what he had
done to Cameron. ‘I'd forgotten what a bruiser you are, Tom. You've come such a long way since we first landed in New South Wales.'

Tom looked at his old friend. ‘He insulted Hester,' he said simply.

‘I know. I don't need to tell you that the story's all round Sydney today. Did you really have to wreck Madame Phoebe's as well, though?'

Tom burst out laughing. ‘Is that what they're saying? No such thing. I merely rearranged the table when I improved Cameron's looks. I owe his fellow officers a debt of gratitude. They stopped me from killing him—which would have been the end of me.'

He paused. ‘You know, I thought that it was all gone. That I was a civilised man. When he said that about Hester, added to his other misdeeds, I was eighteen again, ready to kill if I were crossed. Not that I ever did, mind. But the thought was always there.'

He shrugged. ‘There's a lesson for me to control my temper. Funny, though, if he'd stuck to insulting me, I'd have laughed in his face. It was Hester I could have killed him for.'

Now, sitting opposite to her, Tom wondered what had caused Hester's slightly flushed face, and why she had chosen to wear the garnets he had given her, and the matching gown whose deep crimson matched her cheeks. She seldom wore so elaborate a toilette when they were alone together.

The forlorn look which had returned on the night of the ball was gone, and she ate her soup avidly. He was about to ask her why she was thus honouring their table when she looked up, and said to him in the bantering tone of their conversations before the quarrel, ‘What were you doing in Madame Phoebe's last night, Mr Dilhorne?'

‘What do men usually do in Madame Phoebe's, Mrs Dilhorne?' he countered.

She primmed her mouth comically. ‘I don't like to say, Mr Dilhorne.'

‘Well…I wasn't doing that.'

‘Then what were you doing?'

‘I thought I was paying a business call, Mrs Dilhorne, but then I found out that I was in a mill with one of O'Connell's officers. I think I may have improved Jack Cameron's manners, but I can't say the same for his face.'

‘Oh, Mr Dilhorne, it's the talk of Sydney! Tell me, I long to know, why did you wreck Madame Phoebe's?'

His face was as comical as hers had been a few minutes earlier. ‘How many times do I have to say that I didn't wreck Madame Phoebe's? Shall I get old Smithson to print me a bill saying so?'

‘Well, if you didn't, Mr Dilhorne, and of course, I accept your word, what were the officers paying for?'

‘A damaged table, Mrs Dilhorne, and some spilled wine—all done in a good cause.'

‘For me, Tom?' Her voice was soft. ‘Because of what Jack said at the ball—and at Madame Phoebe's?'

He nodded. ‘For you, Hester. Always and only for you.'

They stared at one another across the table.

Hester put her spoon down as he rose from his chair and walked towards her. He knelt down by her side, took her hand and kissed it. ‘I am forgiven, then?'

‘There was never anything to forgive. It is you who should forgive me. You were right. Mrs Hackett told tales, and Jack Cameron was lying. I don't know why I didn't believe you.'

‘Because you were hurt by what you overheard.'

‘I was as unkind as I was at the Christmas Party. It was very wrong of me.'

‘It doesn't matter now,' he said gently, kissing her hand again.

‘Oh, but it does. I was cruel.' She paused. ‘I think that it was partly because I couldn't believe that I was intended to be happy, and partly because of all that my mother and father said about you. When Lucy told me this afternoon what you did for me, I felt guilty all over again.'

‘Lucy told you.' He was amused.

‘Well, not everything. Only the gossip and a little of what Frank said. I'm wearing the garnets, Mr Dilhorne.'

‘So I see. I think you'd better take them off. I want to do dreadful things to you, Mrs Dilhorne… On second thoughts, keep them on.'

She leaned against him and put her lips to his cheek. ‘Anything you like, anything you like.'

‘This is what I like.' He picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder as though she were a sack of coal. She hung there, laughing. ‘Oh, Mr Dilhorne, whatever will you do next?'

‘This,' he repeated, and strode through the door. At the bottom of the stairs he met Mrs Hackett carrying the roast, the little maidservant behind her.

‘Ah, Mrs Hackett,' he said, swinging around so that Hester's face, scarlet with amusement was hidden from her. ‘We shall not be wanting dinner tonight. You and the maid may eat it yourselves.'

He laughed into her dumbfounded face. ‘And you have my full permission, nay, it is an order, to tell the whole of Sydney that Tom Dilhorne is taking his wife to bed tonight!'

Leaving Mrs Hackett gasping behind him, he took the stairs at a run, and passing through the bronze doors, he
deposited his burden on his bed, there to make love to her in a passionate frenzy which did not even wait for such niceties as the removal of clothes, until at last they lay, laughing, fulfilled and exhausted, together again, and this time for good.

T
hose first months after they had re-consummated their marriage were for Hester a time when everything was new and exciting, when she and Tom were as wild and irresponsible in their loving as the tigers she sometimes imagined they were.

The morning after their reunion, she was lying in bed, dozing, when her Mentor, who had been quiet since Tom first made love to her, suddenly spoke again.

‘Goodbye, Hester,' it said. Always before the voice had been low, but now it was so loud that she could almost imagine that Tom, who was shaving before her long mirror, could hear it.

Why was it saying goodbye? Even as she thought this, the voice said, sadly, ‘You don't need me any more, Hester. You're no longer a defeated mouse. You're Tom's mate, his tigress. You'll go hunting together, see if you don't.'

‘I shall miss you.'

‘No, I'm not wanted now. But if ever you do need me, I'll be back. Goodbye, Hester.'

Silence. It had gone.

For a moment she was desolate before she thought, I'm
no longer frightened Hester Waring. I can say aloud what I think.

To add to her confidence Tom continued her education in life, and now it involved many a seminar in the arts of love. His inventiveness in terms of enjoyment stretched far beyond the physical act itself. He seemed capable of finding something new for them to do on every possible occasion—either at work or at play.

He showered her with presents: fans, clothes, exotic food and wine. He bought her a horse so that they could ride together, had breeches made for her so that she could ride astride. He taught her to swim and made love to her in the water. He made love to her everywhere as the fancy took him.

Happiness enveloped her and the change in her looks became so marked that Tom was astonished to discover that she was unaware of it.

‘My Venus,' he said to her once when they were making love in the bush, surrounded by flowers and scents. ‘My exquisite miniature love.' She had become what he had always believed she might be, when everyone else in Sydney had merely seen poor, plain Hester Waring.

It was obvious, however, that she thought that it was his love speaking and not the truth. She could never forget that Tom's intervention had saved her from falling into the pit which awaited those who had been swept from life's table.

Tom often took her with him when he was engaged on business, and the way in which he deferred to her and frequently asked her opinion was often noted with sneering amusement. This amusement would have faded if they had known how often she actually advised him and how sure her judgement was.

Sometimes his associates spoke carelessly in front of
her—and she was able to pass useful information to him. They complemented one another: if Tom was sometimes too hard, Hester was there to soften him. If she were sometimes too tender, he was there to stiffen her. Even so, she still remained unaware of what Hester Dilhorne had become: a beautiful woman secure in her husband's love.

It took a ball at Government House to reveal to her that she had changed indeed.

 

That evening Jack Cameron entered the ballroom at Government House determined to have a good look at Hester Dilhorne. In the weeks which had passed since his downfall at that bastard Dilhorne's hands he had looked for her in Sydney, and somehow had never seemed to find her.

‘She's turned into a regular little beauty,' Ramsey told him one day, echoing O'Connell.

‘Pigs might fly,' he had guffawed.

Hester Waring a beauty! If ever he had looked at her, which wasn't often, thank God, he had seen a plain gauche child who had blushed an ugly red every time he did. That ass, Frank Wright, had also said that she was much improved—but what the devil did he ever know about anything!

O'Connell had advised him to cut down on the drink, so he was sober when he looked around the room for entertainment. His face still bore the mark of that felon's handiwork. His nose would never be the same.

Where, then, was Hester Dilhorne? He wanted to have a good look at her, but she was nowhere to be seen. No matter, as much as a good laugh at her he needed a little light relief with a pretty woman, before going on duty. A fellow as ill-done to as he had been deserved no less.

He soon found his light relief.

Across the room, sitting quite alone, was a delectable creature whom he could not remember having seen before. She wore an elegant gown of the palest lemon silk, a rope of pearls of the finest quality was twisted through her lustrous black hair. Around her creamy shoulders was an exquisite Chinese scarf embroidered with mauve irises. On her lap was a half-opened fan, also from China, remarkable for the pure beauty of its porcelain decorations. On her tiny feet she wore cream-coloured kid slippers such as Chinese ladies wore, sewn with pearls.

Dazzled, Jack wondered how in the world such a delicate beauty could have escaped his notice—she must have arrived on the ship which had docked the previous week. He decided to take advantage of the freedom of the ballroom and introduce himself to her. He strode purposefully across the room, all else forgotten.

He was quite unaware that when his destination became obvious a hundred pairs of eyes followed him in hopeful anticipation of yet another delicious piece of scandal. Near to her he saw her beautiful dark eyes widen and a flush colour her ivory cheeks.

Unwisely Jack took this as a tribute to his own advance and his bow was a deep one.

‘I never like to see beauty neglected, madam. May I introduce myself to you? Captain Jack Cameron at your service.'

His beauty gave a little gasp. Her flush deepened and she opened her fan to blot out the face which he was gallantly bending towards her.

Enlightenment suddenly dawned.

‘Why, I do believe…' Jack stammered. ‘It cannot be! Can I possibly be addressing Miss Hester Waring?'

Hester shook her head proudly, half-amused by his evident confusion. ‘My name is Hester Dilhorne, sir, as you
well know. I do not think that you should be speaking to me. It is scarcely wise.'

She had lowered her fan to regard him steadily. Her coolness, her poise, were doubly surprising to Jack when he remembered her former manner. O'Connell and the rest had been right. She was transformed. She had changed into an elegant and confident beauty.

Rage filled him. What had that brute Dilhorne done to deserve a pearl of such price? Reason should have told him to ask what that brute Dilhorne had done to turn her into this exquisite and composed lady of fashion!

‘Mrs Dilhorne, then.' He bowed again. ‘I am delighted to have found you. I wish to apologise for any hurt which I may have caused you in the past, and to inform you of my admiration for you tonight. You are beauty's self, madam.'

He was not lying. Before him was the woman whom he had always felt was his due, but had never managed to find—but Hester let him go no further.

‘No need, sir. I have no wish to converse with you, nor receive apologies. Pray retire, sir. You must be aware that you address me at your own risk.'

Useless to speak to him so. Jack was fascinated. Reckless of danger he persisted. His eyes could not leave her glorious face. There was no one else in the room to compare with her. Beauty and pride of manner alike singled her out from all others.

Hester looked around for Tom, who stood a little way away talking to Will French. She could not answer for the consequences if Tom saw him pestering her—she could not believe that Jack's admiring stare was genuine.

Too late! Jack made no effort to move and Tom, bored by Will's long-windedness, looked back at Hester—to dis
cover that she was being badgered by that swine Cameron. It was plain from her manner that she wished him gone.

‘My wife needs me,' he told Will abruptly, and strode across the ballroom floor, every fascinated eye now on him, to where Jack was still pressing his unwanted attentions on Hester.

Tom seized him by the shoulder and swung him round, grimly pleased to see that Jack's face paled at his presence.

‘I'll thank you not to trouble my wife, Cameron.'

‘I was only trying to apologise, Dilhorne.'

‘Insult by apology is not wanted from a swine like you.'

‘I was only trying to do the decent thing, Dilhorne.'

‘You wouldn't begin to know how, Cameron.'

Jack decided that to back down before the whole room which was avidly watching this exchange would be the last disgrace. He began to bluster.

‘Now, see here, Dilhorne…'

The killing rage that had swept over Tom when he had seen Jack talking to Hester deepened. He had difficulty in controlling it. His hand tightened cruelly on Jack's shoulder.

He said, in a voice of ice, ‘Do I have to teach you manners all over again? I warn you of the consequences, Cameron, if you try my patience. Stay away from my wife.'

The whole room was staring at them. Hester looked at Tom and saw that his expression was murderous. He was scarcely recognisable as the man she knew. Something had to be done to prevent him from leaving Jack Cameron dead on the ballroom floor.

She rose gracefully, put her left hand on Tom's free arm and at the same time, closed her fan with the defiant swoosh which Tom had told her was the Japanese ladies' way.

‘Mr Dilhorne, my love, I feel a little faint. I wish that we might take a turn outside. I am sure that Captain Cameron would not seek to detain us.'

Tom looked down at her. There was not the slightest sign that she was faint or in any way discomposed. She had spoken to him in the voice which she used in their teasing exchanges. Her nod to Jack was dismissive. His rage at the man was swept away, and was replaced by admiration for her cool head. Not for the first time in their dealings with the outside world she was using her supposedly weak femininity to defuse a difficult situation.

Reluctantly he released Jack's arm. He took his wife's instead and, without a backward glance, his head bent solicitously towards hers, he walked her to the open glass doors. The room behind them stopped holding its collective breath. Jack Cameron was left alone and foolish on the edge of the ballroom floor.

Half of the watchers were disappointed that the famous scene in Madame Phoebe's was not to be repeated, this time with more serious consequences. The other half, who liked Tom and were coming to admire Hester, were relieved.

Lucy Wright, who had been sitting next to her, said to Frank, ‘You were right when you said that Tom would have killed Jack that night at Madame Phoebe's if you had let him. For a moment I thought that he was going to murder him here, publicly, before us all.'

‘Jack's a fool,' Frank proclaimed, ‘and someone should tell him so. Did he really not recognise her?'

Lucy nodded. ‘I'm sure he didn't.'

Pat Ramsey, who had enjoyed watching Guinea Jack's discomfiture at the hands of both Dilhornes, turned to his fellow officers of the 73rd and drawled, ‘Now what I should dearly like to find out is how that devious devil
knew that if you fed and thoroughly bedded that plain piece, Hester Waring, she would turn into a raving beauty and fit to help him run his empire into the bargain! That sort of know-how ain't for sale, my boys, else we should all be so lucky!'

 

Outside Tom led Hester to a white-painted rustic bench standing among some acacia bushes in the Governer's garden.

Neither spoke for some moments until Hester said quite deliberately, ‘My dear, you shouldn't be so troubled by Captain Cameron speaking to me. I know that you don't like it, but it does seem a little excessive for you to want to kill him for doing so.'

Tom's grim expression lightened at this, and still more so when she continued, ‘It was really the oddest thing. Are you sure that you didn't addle his brains at Madame Phoebe's? He came prancing over to me as though I were the Queen of Sheba, paid me a series of extravagant compliments with the most absurd expression on his face and then tried to pretend that he didn't know me!'

Tom said carefully, ‘I think that perhaps he didn't recognise you, Mrs Dilhorne.'

Hester was brisk with him. ‘Fiddlesticks! I expect it's these clothes I'm wearing. But that's you, Tom, not me.'

It was useless for him to try to tell her how much she had changed. Tom smiled and said simply, ‘Nevertheless…' before slipping an arm around her shoulders. ‘You're not really feeling faint, are you, Mrs Dilhorne?'

‘Not really, no. But I had to get you away from Jack Cameron somehow. I wasn't wrong, was I?'

‘Not at all. You were right. It would be a pity to swing for such an ass. He's his own punishment. But I would
have liked to see his face when he did recognise you, though.'

Hester stood up. ‘I think that we ought to go back now. We have given them enough time to talk about us, and they should have started on another topic by now.'

He grinned back at her. ‘Oh, I doubt that, I really do, but yes, we'll return. I need to placate Will French—I left him rather abruptly, to say the least. Wouldn't do to lose business over Jack Cameron.'

Their return to the ballroom was eagerly watched. Tom led her over to rejoin Lucy Wright and her friends.

He bowed to them. ‘Your servant, ladies and gentlemen. I wonder, Mrs Wright, if you would look after Mrs Dilhorne for me while I apologise to Mr French for my late ill manners. She is not feeling quite the thing.'

Every regimental head turned to look at Hester. If she were not feeling quite the thing, then that was the condition to which all women ought to aspire. She had never looked more charming and composed.

The officers who had passed her by when she had been poor Hester Waring were almost officious in their gallantry to her to the degree that she became a little embarrassed.

She said shyly to Lucy, ‘I think everyone has run mad tonight. First Jack Cameron and his nonsense, and then Captain Parker has been favouring me with some extravagant rubbish about beauteous nymphs, and even Frank has joined in the game.'