The Other Cathy (11 page)

‘Oh yes – yes, he was. Drink has taken its toll, I am afraid, and he is fast going downhill. If it weren’t for young Dr Motram the practice would have collapsed by now. Poor Paget! Had Jane been a little more forgiving he might have pulled himself together, but she’s been no help to him at all, gorging herself with food and becoming quite disgustingly gross.’

‘Overeating was her way of coping with bereavement, perhaps, as drinking was his. Another child might have been a
better answer to their problem.’

Blanche gave a tiny giggle, ‘My dear, the whisper is that
they have never come close enough for that these past years.
And it’s too late now.’

The French clock on the mantelshelf chimed the half-hour,
a silvery tinkle of sound. When it had died away, Matthew
said with an ironic Lift of his eyebrows, ‘Shall we continue
with what we started? What about Miss Chloe Hardaker?
Have you a good word to say for her?’

‘There’s precious little one can say about Chloe. She runs
the household for brother Randolph and meekly accepts his
word as law. You see, Chloe knows which side her bread is
buttered. Since Henrietta passed away four years ago she’s
been the mistress of Bracklegarth Hall, and the local people
show her all due respect. There’s small chance of Randolph ever marrying again – he seems to prefer variety in women!
So Chloe turns a blind eye to his philanderings, though they
must shock her prudish soul to its very depths.’

Matthew laughed, ‘My dear Blanche, you’ve found quite a
lot to say about Chloe after all, and have even included a sharp prod at Mr Hardaker himself for good measure. You must
find my company stimulating.’

‘You know I do, Matt. I always did.’
Gazing up at him, she moistened her lips enticingly with little darts of her pink tongue. Matthew took a step towards her and her heartbeat quickened, then he seemed to change
his mind and moved behind the sofa on which she sat. In the
Venetian mirror on the opposite wall she could see him stand
ing with hands in his pockets, studying a coloured Baxter
print of Rubens’s ‘Garden of Love’.

‘Hugh Hardaker’s daughter has turned out to be a very
spirited girl,’ he commented at length. ‘The other evening at
Bracklegarth Hall she made it clear to me in no uncertain
terms that the less she sees of me, the better she’ll be pleased.’

Blanche tutted. ‘Emma was always willful and headstrong.
She comes very close sometimes to defying even Randolph. It amazes me that he lets her get away with it, for he’s a man
who likes to have his own way, as you know. Chloe, I suspect,
is secretly scared to death of him, but not Emma.’

‘She would be what, nineteen?’

‘Her twentieth birthday is on 21 November. I remember
particularly because she was born on the very same day as
the Princess Royal, who has just given birth to her
second
child. Emma should have been married off long ago – I shall certainly see my daughter is, when the time comes, though of
course Priscilla is far too young for me to be thinking of that
for a very long time yet. But, concerning Emma, I suppose the
truth is that Randolph doesn’t want to lose such a useful companion for Cathy. The poor child is consumptive, you
know, and she’s never really got on well with her Aunt Chloe.
So Randolph doesn’t exert himself to throw suitable young
men across Emma’s path. Mind you, if Jane has her way
she’ll be paired off with Bernard Mottram before long. Ber
nard himself seems keen enough, and it would be a neat way
for Jane to guard against him quitting the partnership and
leaving Paget in the lurch.’

Matthew, she noted covertly in the mirror, had turned
away from Rubens’s amorous revels and was looking at the
back of her head. Blanche was glad she had taken time to re
arrange her hair.

‘Surely such a match isn’t seriously considered?’ he said.
‘Dr Mottram seems pleasant enough, but rather colourless, I
thought. If Emma is the sort of girl you say, with a strong
mind of her own, then she would look for some challenge in a
man.’

Blanche twisted so that she could look up at him.

‘My dear Matt, it’s not as if Emma is in any position to pick and choose. She has a little money from her father, but a
woman needs something more than a small dowry to attract
a desirable husband. Everything is against the girl, not only
her difficult temperament, but also her appearance.’

‘What do you consider is wrong with her appearance?’

Blanche gave a rippling laugh, ‘Why, she’s like all the
Hardaker women. Not the least bit feminine. She’s altogether too tall and big – and that determined stride of hers! Good-ness, you should rather ask me what is right with the girl’s ap
pearance.’

‘And yet, you know,’ Matthew said reflectively, ‘in Emma these things seem to add up to something that makes for a pleasing unity. She carries her height with dignity, and her
determined stride seems at one with her strong character.’

There was a lengthy silence. Then Blanche exclaimed
lightly, ‘Heavens above, why are we discussing Emma when
we have so much else to talk about? Do come and sit down, Matt, and tell me about your plans.’

He now took the hint, and sat beside her upon the velvet
sofa. ‘I cannot tell you about my plans, Blanche, because they are not yet formed. My future depends on how successful I am
in establishing my innocence. I am determined upon it.’

It was time, Blanche knew, to talk of the events that had so
cataclysmically changed Matthew’s life fifteen years ago. Till
now they had skirted round this delicate, dangerous subject,
but it could no longer be avoided. His manner had been un
believably friendly in the circumstances, but if she hoped for a real closeness between them again – and looking at him, so
masculine and forceful in his well cut tweed coat and narrow American trousers, the idea caused her pulse to quicken –
then she must be prepared to talk openly; to somehow con
vince him that she had not betrayed him as, undoubtedly, he
must believe.

She took a steadying breath and turned to him, her glance
downcast. ‘You cannot conceive how distraught I was that you
should have been so cruelly and unjustly punished, my dear
est. I have suffered dreadfully all this long time, thinking of
you constantly and imagining what you must be enduring.’
She sighed, a hand to her breast. ‘How thankful I am that
everything has turned out so well for you in the end – that
the years of hardship and suffering were followed by such
good fortune, so that you were able to return home a wealthy
man.’

“The price I paid for my good fortune was far too high,
Blanche.’ He paused, his face dark with memories. ‘Did it
never occur to you to intervene on my behalf? It lay in your power to prevent me being falsely condemned for a crime I
did not commit.’

She hung her head, and her lovely golden eyes brimmed
with tears.

‘You wouldn’t be so severe with me if only you would try
to understand. At first, I could not believe there was any
real danger of your being convicted. It was too monstrous that you of all people, dear kind gentle Matt, should be found
guilty of such a ghastly crime. Then later, when things began
to look so black for you, my heart was torn in two and I
became desperate. If I could have convinced myself that my
intervention might have saved you, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
But I knew it would not help. My only achievement would
have been to destroy myself, also.’

‘You were at my trial. I saw you there,’ he said accusingly.
‘You sat unprotesting while the prosecution bludgeoned me
with questions, flinging at my head what seemed to be the
most damning pieces of evidence; my threats to be even with
Hugh Hardaker, the discovery of my muffler at the scene of
the crime. And finally, they demanded that I account for my
movements on that fateful evening, treating it as conclusive
proof of my guilt when I kept silent and refused to reply. Yet
you, Blanche – you alone in that crowded courtroom – knew where I was that night. You knew, with utter certainty, that
I could not have killed Hugh Hardaker.’

She stretched out a hand to him in a quick, beseeching
gesture; then wavered, her fingertips resting upon the velvet
pile of the sofa.

‘You cannot know how deeply I esteemed you for your
silence, my dearest one. For your nobility in preserving my
honour. I longed to stand up and shout defiantly for all the world to hear that you were innocent, because at the time
when the crime was committed you were with me, in the
gazebo, lying in my arms. But I ask you, I beg you, to con
sider the inevitable outcome of such a confession. Can you
imagine with what savage joy the lawyers would have
pounced? I, the respected wife of William Hardaker, infatu
ated with a mere youth several years my junior? How glee
fully they would have described our illicit amour, our love-nest
in a garden bower, making it all sound sordid and ugly. And to what avail, my darling Matt, to what avail? Just consider!
If the court accepted the fact that we were lovers, they would
also know that I would willingly perjure myself to save you -
of course
a woman will lie to save the man she adores. My
testimony would have been dismissed out of hand, and I
would have been sucked down into the maelstrom with you.’

When Matthew made no comment, she hurried on, ‘I
implore you to try and see it from my point of view. If
I could have saved you, if I had been certain of saving you, I
would not have hesitated, whatever the cost to myself. Even
though it would have ruined my reputation and put my
marriage in jeopardy. But as it was ... Have you no conception
what the condemnation of society means to a woman? The
great crime for us, Matt, is not an illicit liaison in itself, but
in being found out and publicly exposed. Even those whose
own lives are far from unblemished would have been quick
to shun me, to point the finger of scorn at me.’

For several long moments they looked searchingly into one
another’s eyes. At last Matthew said, ‘Yes, I can understand
how it must have appeared to you, Blanche.’

Her smile came quickly, a flooding of relief. ‘My dearest
Matt, I knew I could rely on you to be understanding. You
were always so splendid, so noble. Oh, how I wept for you,
and wept for myself, night after lonely night.’

‘Yet it cannot have been long after my trial that you con
ceived the first of your two children,’ he reminded her cruelly.

She drew back as if he had struck her.

‘Oh Matt, are you suggesting that I should have denied my
husband the marriage bed?’ she reproached him. ‘It would have been foolish to risk arousing his suspicions, but you must surely know that his embraces meant nothing to me.
You were the only man I ever truly loved, Matt,’

‘I was just a boy then,’ he pointed out. ‘A callow, impetuous
youth who had the temerity to love you. To you, I must have
seemed very gauche and immature.’

‘No, never that, my darling! Despite your youth, I could recognise your many fine qualities. And have I not been
proved right? Now, no longer a boy but in the prime of man
hood, you have come back to Bythorpe the equal of those who would have belittled you before. Yes, and more than their equal! Oh Matt, do you remember how it used to be, the bliss of those hours we spent together in each other’s
arms? I have never forgotten you, my darling, not for a single instant. I feared I would never see you again; but now you are
here, and I can scarcely believe it.’

She leaned towards him impulsively, her eyes bright with tears. Matthew was held by the intensity of her gaze, sensing the yearning within her. Then, slowly, he reached out and
took her slender white hand in his, raising it to his lips.

‘Blanche, I —’

The door burst open and he drew back quickly as Blanche’s
daughter came skipping into the room. She was a pale pretty child wearing a light blue frock that was frilled and flounced,
her fair hair gathered back with a wide blue ribbon.

‘I have finished my picture, mama,’ she cried. ‘Do come
and see it,’

Blanche, flustered, reproved her daughter gently. ‘Priscilla darling, did Bertha not tell you that I had a visitor? Well, never mind. Now that you are here I will introduce you. This
gentleman is Mr Sutcliffe, who has just come all the way from
Australia. Isn’t that exciting?’ She turned to Matt with a
smile that held a certain anxiety, ‘Is she not sweet? I should be
quite lost without my darling little Priscilla.’

Matthew had risen to his feet and he bowed gravely to the
child. She barely troubled to acknowledge the courtesy, but
went at once to the plate of little cakes and selected a piece of
iced shortbread.