The Other Cathy (22 page)

‘And that is all?’

‘Yes, Emma, that is all.’

‘You’re not being honest with me,’ she accused. ‘There is much more between you and Blanche than that – I can
feel
it. I have known it from the moment I witnessed your meet
ing in the drawing room at Bracklegarth Hall. I have never be
fore been so vividly aware of a relationship between a man
and a woman.’

For a few moments his eyes lingered on her, then he turned
away and gazed out across the wild empty moorland. Above
them, the sky had changed from the colour of brass to a
threatening coppery red, and the air was hot and breathlessly
still.

Matthew’s voice was harsh against the silence. ‘You shall
hear it all, then. I will hold nothing back. I knew Blanche well
at one time, in the days before I was arrested and charged.
Exceedingly well!’ He swallowed, then swung back to her,
his dark eyes gleaming in that strange, oppressive light. ‘I
won’t mince matters – we were lovers.
Lovers!
My God, the
word means nothing when it can be used to describe such
differing emotions! Keep this in mind, Emma, I was a mere
youth, not quite eighteen when it all began. Blanche was
beautiful – she is still a beautiful woman. I was overwhelmed
that she should notice me, and was soon utterly bewitched by
her. To me she represented all that was wonderful in a woman,
all that was perfect. I called it love, of course, and I was equally convinced that Blanche loved me – she protested she did, time and again. I know better now, can see that she was
bored with her marriage, and the risks involved in an illicit
affaire
brought an exciting spice of danger to her life.’

Matthew seemed to have come to the end of what he was
prepared to tell her, and Emma prompted him. ‘You had
better go on.’

‘No doubt I sound bitter. I
am
bitter! But in those days
Blanche brought an enchantment into my life that I’d never thought possible. Can you imagine my bewilderment, then,
the feeling that the world was crumbling beneath my feet,
when she made no attempt to save me from being convicted
of manslaughter?’

‘How could she have saved you?’ Emma asked in a tense
whisper.

‘Don’t you understand, even now! I was with Blanche that night, the night your father died. As always, we spent our
time together in the gazebo in the corner of her garden. After
I left her, Blanche returned there for some piece of jewellery
she’d forgotten. That was when she nearly ran into her husband – you remember? But at the hour your father must have
been killed the two of us were together. Blanche knew – she
knew with utter certainty that I could not be guilty. Yet she
stayed silent when I was charged with the crime; she sat un
protesting throughout my trial while the evidence piled up
against me. Even when I was sentenced to fourteen years
transportation she still said nothing. Her excuse now is that
her intervention would have served no purpose; that she would have been thought to be perjuring herself to protect
her lover. It would not have saved me, she claims, yet would
have ruined her. Blanche supposes I accept the reasonableness
of her argument and do not blame her for making no effort
to save me. But is love – true love – ever so coldly calculating? Does any woman in love counterweigh the pros and cons like
that? No, I’m convinced that it never once entered Blanche’s
head to protect me – not at such cost to herself.’

‘I – I cannot blame you for feeling harshly towards her,’
Emma murmured in a small voice.

‘And can you blame me, either, for making use of Blanche now to achieve my objective? When we first met again, at
Bracklegarth Hall, I could read in her eyes that she was a
frightened woman. I perceived at once that she could be valu
able to me. Within minutes, when she realised I wasn’t going
to denounce her there and then, she became bolder. By the
time she went home that evening, I believe she was half convinced that we would soon be back on our former terms, if
not closer. Being widowed now, there was no reason for
secrecy – marriage figured on the horizon. Oh yes, I could see
it all in her scheming mind.’

Emma was trapped in a whirlpool of conflicting emotions.
There was a feeling of joy, an easing from the torment of
jealousy. And yet it frightened her to hear him talk of Blanche
with such scathing contempt; a fear more for Matthew than
for her aunt. What had those terrible years of hardship and suffering done to him? Would the scars never fade from his mind? Had rancour taken hold of his spirit like some malignant growth, and would he never again be free of it?

‘Matthew, I believe you’re wronging yourself by what you are doing,’ she said. ‘I hold no brief for Aunt Blanche. What she did was despicable, unforgivable. But wouldn’t it be bet
ter, rather than playing this hateful game of deceit with her, to let her know the measure of your contempt? And break off all
association with her?’

He raised his hand to protest, then let it fall back limply.

‘It was hatred which sustained me during those long cruel years in Van Diemen’s Land. It kept me alive. And now you
want to rob me of it!’

‘But it was different then,’ she objected. ‘Now you’re a free
man, and you can look to the future. Naturally you want to
clear your name, but not by these means, Matthew, I beg you.’

His mouth tightened and he said sarcastically, ‘Your life
has been too easy, Emma, too cosseted and comfortable. You
know nothing of the harsh world outside, or you wouldn’t talk in such a way. Why, I almost believe you’ll be asking me next
to
forgive
Blanche.’

‘Don’t mock me!’ she flashed. ‘What I am saying is what I
truly believe to be for the best, for your own sake. And I would
remind you that my safe sheltered life is not of my own choosing. I long to venture forth in the world and do something useful.’

‘I am sorry, Emma. I was carried away.’ He gave her a
twisted smile. ‘I’m well aware that you have your own bur
den to bear.’

‘Cathy is not a burden,’ she said. ‘I love her dearly, and she
could never be that. But sometimes I feel – stifled.’

Unnoticed by either of them it had been growing darker
by the minute. Emma felt a large raindrop splash on her
cheek and glanced up in dismay at the now leaden sky.

‘I must get home, Matthew. It’s going to come down hard
soon.’

But already it was too late. A fierce gust of wind sprang
from nowhere, billowing her flimsy skirts and whipping off
her straw bonnet so that it was held only by the ribbons loosely tied under her chin. Within seconds they were drenched by
a torrential downpour.

‘We must find shelter,’ cried Matthew. ‘The old woman’s cottage!’

‘It’s at least half a mile from here.’

‘But it’s the nearest place. Come on!’

He caught her hand and together, lanced by the rain and
buffeted by the wind, they stumbled and squelched through
the heather. Emma’s feet were soon sodden and the wet
pierced her through to the skin. The entire sky seemed to be
cascading water. Gasping for breath, they reached the shal
low clough in which Ursly’s cottage lay. They plunged down
the slippery rocky path as fast as they dared, crossed the
swift-rising beck by the stepping-stones and flung themselves
against the cottage door, which flew open to their weight.

Inside there was an abrupt diminution in the sound of wind
and rain. The startled cat streaked across the room, to gaze at them in green-eyed fury from the safety of a shelf; and the
jackdaw screamed raucously.

‘Ursly! Where are you?’ When there was no reply, Emma
opened the latched door at the foot of the narrow staircase
and raised her voice. ‘Ursly! Ursly, are you up there?’

‘She must be out,’ Matthew said. ‘And she’s not likely to
get home in this.’

‘I wonder if she’s safe.’

‘Oh surely! Unlike us, she probably knew a storm was imminent and took shelter in time.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

They stood looking at one another uncertainly, Emma was
painfully conscious of her lank hair and the sopping garments
that clung to her figure and dripped on to the stone-flagged
floor.

Matthew said, ‘You’d better get out of those wet things.
There’s a bedroom, isn’t there? Go up and put on what you can find – a blanket if nothing else. Meanwhile I’ll build up the
fire.’

Emma hesitated only a moment. She knew Ursly wouldn’t
mind them making free with her home, not in the circum
stances, so she went upstairs to the small bedroom and peeled off her wet clothes. There was a hooded cloak hanging behind
the door, luckily voluminous, except that it came only just
below her knees. It would suffice. She pulled the pins from her
hair and shook it out, combing her fingers through the long,
wet strands. It would have to dry, like her clothes, before the fire. Gathering her things together, she made her way downstairs in bare feet.

Matthew, shirtless, was crouched on his haunches coaxing the peat fire to burn more brightly, piling on kindling twigs to get it blazing. As he reached for another handful, the firelight shone on his naked back. What was revealed to Emma tore a gasp of horror from her throat.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you coming.’ Matthew rose to his
feet and groped for his still-wet shirt. Emma, dropping her
bundle of sodden clothes, ran forward and caught him by the
arm, turning his back so that she could see it better. The
smooth skin was horribly mutilated by a criss-cross pattern
of ugly weals, livid mementoes of the lash.

‘God in heaven!’ she whispered. ‘Oh Matthew, it – it’s dreadful! You tried to tell me, but I had no conception! What
wild beasts those men must have been to inflict such terrible
wounds.’

Matthew said slowly, sombrely, ‘Now, at a distance, I’m
beginning to see things in perspective. Men are made brutish
by circumstances, Emma. The troopers, the gaolers – they were
almost as much prisoners as the convicts. Thank God the
transportation system is almost at an end.’

Emma traced the long raised line of a scar with her fingertip, very gently, hardly daring to touch, as though it were still
raw and bleeding. She was weeping openly, her vision blurred
by her tears. She had thought Matthew an embittered man,
his mind permanently scarred. She had not guessed that his
fine virile body also carried the living scars of his long ordeal.
Could she blame him for his hatred? Did she not herself feel
hatred on his behalf?

‘Oh Matthew!’ she said again, with a little sob.

The shirt fell to the floor unheeded as he gathered Emma
into his arms and held her close against his chest. Slowly he
lifted her face to his, and their lips met in a long kiss.

‘My dearest one! I love you, you know that.’

‘I love you too, Matthew,’ she said breathlessly.

Outside the wind flung itself at the old cottage in one last
tremendous gust. Time seemed to stand still.

At length, when the tumult had gone from the storm, Matthew said, ‘You rob me of my resolution, Emma. In
Australia I was left with nothing but the will for revenge, a
driving compulsion to square the account. It was the single
goal to which all my thoughts and dreams were directed. Yet
revenge has suddenly become irrelevant, without point or
meaning. Now, I only want to put the past behind me. Not
forget it, Emma, as long as I live I shall not forget it. But I
must think instead of the future – the future that you and I
are going to share.’ His voice rang with superb confidence and the lines of his face were suddenly youthful. Emma, a sense of
happiness and peace flooding through her, thought she had
never seen so handsome a man.

‘However,’ continued Matthew more soberly, ‘before we can openly come together, my love, I must clear my name, for a
purely practical reason. How can I ask you to marry me as
things are? I am still believed guilty of that hideous crime for which I was convicted, even if my present wealth has won me a certain status and social acceptance.’ He saw the pro
test in her eyes, and added, ‘It is the only way, you know
that to be true.’

She looked away. ‘Uncle Randolph and Aunt Chloe have
both warned me not to associate with you. And Jane doesn’t
approve of you, either. She thinks it was a mistake to invite
you to dinner, and even Bernard is full of dark hints.’

‘Mottram? What has he got to say about me?’

‘Nothing that matters,’ she replied evasively.

He tilted her chin and regarded her seriously. ‘Emma, we
must be frank with each other, and hold back no secrets. What
does Dr Mottram say in my disfavour?’