The Sleeping Sword (11 page)

Amazed. And then, because it was absolutely necessary to be cool, I said coolly, lightly, ‘What exciting news!', deliberately setting a tone of insipid and safe formality.

‘Yes indeed—although Blanche does not seem to think so.'

‘Oh well, there is no need to worry about Blanche. She will find someone else to look after her.'

‘I daresay—except that my brother Noel will be obliged to rejoin his regiment in the New Year.'

And not wishing to answer this, finding it too personal, too apt to lead to other things, although I could not have named them, I turned back to the portraits, chancing on the one gentleman in that gallery who was not a Chard, a saturnine and undoubtedly handsome face reminding me strongly of Mr. Nicholas Barforth, although it was Sir Joel Barforth, his and Aunt Caroline's father.

‘My manufacturing grandfather,' Gideon said, half-smiling. ‘Do you know, I believe Dominic will take that picture down when mamma has gone to South Erin. We were made to suffer, somewhat, at school because father had married into “trade”.'

‘But Dominic has done the same.'

‘Yes. But Blanche is a generation away from the more sordid side of it. And she
is
very beautiful.'

‘Yes.'

‘And very spoiled.'

‘Yes. And I am very fond of her.'

‘So are we all, for there is nothing of the heavy woollen district about her. One could take her just about anywhere. And, of course, she has such a lot of money.'

I should have been very angry with him then. He had spoken, I think, with that intention. But there was something behind his words which caught and distracted my temper, something directed against himself which, instead of the sharp retort I could have made, caused me most astonishingly to enquire, ‘Is Dominic—displeased—that you have gone into trade yourself? Does he feel—?'

‘What? That I am a traitor to my class? Very likely.'

‘Well—I am sorry for that.'

‘How kind. But there is no need. He may well call me a money-grubbing tradesman the next time we quarrel, but if anyone else dared to do so you can be sure my brother Dominic would knock him down.'

‘And you would do the same for Dominic, naturally.'

‘Naturally.'

‘Gideon—', and I did not at all wish to ask him this question, did not wish to offer him what he would see as sympathy—which
was
sympathy. ‘Gideon—have you found it very difficult—I mean, in the Piece Hall and the Wool Exchange?'

‘Oh yes,' he said, very nonchalant, negligent almost. ‘To tell the truth, I find Cullingford difficult altogether. But then, difficulties exist to be overcome, don't you know?'

‘Yes, I do know.'

‘I rather thought you might.'

And having no answer ready—because he should not have been thinking of me at all and I should not have been so very pleased, so cat-in-the-cream-pot smug to know he had—I looked up into his face and for what seemed a long time could not look away again, held by something I was unable to name but which my body recognized as desire. And not his desire alone, not merely the narrowing of his eyes in sudden concentration, the faint air of surprise about him, his attitude of listening to his own body, the quickening of his own pulse-beat, the stirrings of heat and hunger. Not that alone but my own response to it, the feeling of new blood being somehow released inside me and flowing vigorously, rhythmically, towards an awareness not only of my own body but of the dark, hard, beautiful body of Gideon Chard, rushing me headlong towards the recognition, the
expectation
of physical pleasure.

I had grown accustomed to thinking of myself as a young woman of sense and moderation, but what had awakened in me now—and how could I doubt it had always been there?—was a most immoderate sensuality. And although I had known of the existence of this phenomenon—natural, I had been led to believe, in men but wanton in women—I was unprepared for the sheer force of it, the enormity, this tempestuous arousal not of the feminine side of my nature but of the
female
; the deep-rooted, primitive urge to submit. How glorious! How appalling! How total the self-betrayal! How complete the self-fulfilment! How perilous! Yet that spice of fear was in itself desirable, and nothing in my glowing, expanding limbs nor in my dizzy head held me away from it. He had only to touch me—only that. I could not resist him, no matter what it cost me—
could
not—until the moment I did so and said in a quick, cool little voice: ‘It is very dark in here and rather chilly.'

‘Yes,' he said, ‘so it is,' his voice telling me nothing, a man not without experience of women, who knew when his moment had passed.

It was over. I had come to no harm. But as I walked back down the painted staircase I was as careful on my feet as an invalid, aware that I had escaped not by my own resolution alone, for if he
had
touched me, if— And my thought could extend no further, cut out, veered aside, refusing, like a fractious horse at a ditch, to hazard itself.

We were to drive to Galton Abbey the next morning, Blanche's satisfaction in being a married woman who could now act as chaperone to Venetia and myself altogether swamped by her gloom at Aunt Caroline's desertion. And as we negotiated the bare November lanes she had much to say on the subject of her mother-in-law's ambition and duplicity.

‘She does not care a fig about the poor little man himself, you can be very sure of that. All she sees is a ducal coronet and being a society hostess in Belgravia. Not that she will even stay in London once she gets there. Oh no, she will be forever coming back to Listonby to satisfy herself that things were better in her day. And it is not my fault, for if she intended running off like this—as I am sure she did—then she should have
said
so. Dominic thinks it a small matter. Just carry on, he tells me, as mother does. Well—Dominic Chard has not the faintest idea of how those stupendous meals arrive on his table four times every day, and neither have I.'

Nor much intention, I thought, of finding out, since by the end of the first mile she was considering how a secretary, a companion, and her cousin Grace Agbrigg, might be pressed into her service.

‘You could come over every Friday to Monday and stay on until Tuesday, or not go home at all. You would be glad to get away from Mrs. Agbrigg, and I would be glad of you.'

But Venetia, dismissing this suggestion out of hand, made her own designs on my future very clear by declaring, ‘Nonsense, Blanche, you must manage your own life as best you can, for Grace—if she would like it—could soon have a life of her own.'

The house at Galton was quite small and very old, older indeed than the date of its construction, the first Clevedon having come here as a conqueror, a supporter of King Henry's breach with papal authority which had allowed him, an English Protestant, to pull the Roman Catholic abbey down and use its ancient stones to build himself a manor. I had been here only once before in childhood, when the house had seemed dark and eerie, an emptiness about it of which I could not be sure, which did not seem, somehow, to be empty at all, so that I had spent a night of terror in a low-ceilinged chamber, a heavily curtained bed, plagued by the creaking of old wood and the unaccustomed noises of the open countryside, convinced that the room was dangerous, yet not daring to venture into the passage outside, that airless, pitch-black tunnel which might have taken me anywhere.

But today, although the house was certainly low, its colour a shade darker than the November sky, its situation, on what in another season would be a leafy bend of the river, was very beautiful; the parlour where Mrs. Barforth awaited us furnished with over-stuffed chintz, a good fire burning, an ageing dog and cat lying on the rug in pleasing harmony.

It was not a tidy room, the pewter jugs on the mantelshelf brimming over with odds and ends of letters and bills, a button-hook, a scrap of leather, a pair of riding gloves thrown down on the sofa, the sofa itself showing traces of animal hair. Nor was Mrs. Barforth a tidy woman, having come indoors, I thought, when our carriage wheels had reminded her she was expecting guests, leaving herself no time and probably no inclination to change her riding-habit for a morning gown.

‘Darling,' she said, giving Venetia's cheek a companionable kiss, ‘and Lady Chard—good heavens, Blanche, how very grand that sounds! Is it not altogether too heavy for you? And Miss Agbrigg—'

And although her smile and her swift, light green gaze were as frank as Venetia's her handclasp firm and honest, my suspicion that her husband must have told her to consider me as a possible bride for Gervase stiffened my manner and my tongue, making me formal and cold.

‘What an interesting house, Mrs. Barforth.'

‘Oh, do you think so? Then allow me to show it to you.' And while Blanche dozed by the fire, displaying the same purring delight in her creature comforts as the cat, I was taken on a tour of the house which meant far more to Mrs. Georgiana Barforth than any riches the Barforth mills could provide, for which she had been prepared to sacrifice her liberty and her peace of mind—one supposed—so that she might pass on this noble heritage of the Clevedons to her Clevedon-Barforth son.

There was a Great Hall here too, minute when compared to Listonby, being only twenty feet square, a bare, stone floor, a few battered oak chests, a long oak table set out with bowls and tankards of dented pewter. There was a high stone fireplace, weaponry and family portraits on the walls, stone steps leading to the upper floor where that creaking rabbit-warren of passages awaited, those low, stone-flagged bedchambers with their tiny mullioned windows, their impression of peopled emptiness which comes from great age.

‘That,' Venetia said, indicating a picture of a narrow-gowned Georgian lady, ‘was my Great-grandmamma Venetia, who was an earl's daughter no less, although I have heard that the noble earl was not pleased to be connected with us, mamma.'

‘He was not,' Mrs. Barforth cheerfully agreed. ‘So little pleased that he disinherited her, or would have done so had there been anything to inherit. She was very poor, alas, like the rest of us—'

‘Are we poor, mamma? I had not noticed it.'

‘Ah,' Mrs. Barforth said, smiling, meeting Venetia's clear, slightly accusing eyes without flinching, ‘I believe I was speaking of the past, when we were truly poor, my brother and I and Sir Julian and everyone else we knew, and one forgets— Miss Agbrigg, do tell me what you think of this picture over here.'

It was a large canvas, prominently displayed above the hearth, showing a young man the same age as Gervase, the same sporting jacket and flamboyant neck-tie Gervase often wore, the same nervous, whipcord energy that could just as easily ebb or flow, the pale pointed face and auburn hair that for some reason she wished me to mistake for Gervase, although I knew it could not be he.

‘It is my Uncle Peregrine,' Venetia said flatly, denying her mother this small satisfaction. ‘You were supposed to take him for Gervase. Everyone else does. But it is the famous Perry Clevedon who could bring down eighty grouse with eighty shots any day of the week—'

‘My brother,' Mrs. Barforth said, smiling at her daughter sadly, although she was offering the explanation to me, ‘died some years ago, unmarried. We were very closely united, for we had been brought up here together without any other company and needing none. We were, I believe, perfectly happy. A dangerous gift, I admit, for any child, such happiness, since one tended to think the whole of life would be like that, and learned only slowly otherwise. His death was not only a great and lasting grief to me but it left Galton, for the first time in three hundred years, without a direct male heir. I wonder, Miss Agbrigg, if you realize how much that matters to people like us?'

‘Very likely I do not, Mrs. Barforth. I know the name of my great-grandparents but beyond that I am uncertain as to just who, or what, my family may have been.'

‘Yes—forgive me, Miss Agbrigg, but I believe the word “inheritance” as used in the cities tends to imply money, or property which can be readily converted into money …? With us it is not quite like that. What this estate of Galton means is not profit, not material gain of any kind, but a tradition of service to the land that has supported us these three hundred years, service to the tenants who farm it, and to the village communities settled upon it. It is a very hard life, Miss Agbrigg, a very dedicated, specialized existence—not so much an inheritance, I think, as a
trust
with which the men of my family have always kept faith.'

And being in no doubt at all that, albeit gently and with considerable embarrassment, she was nevertheless warning me that my middle-class values could accord neither with Galton nor with her son, I made some non-committal answer and moved away from the fire to the narrow mullioned window, seeking a distraction and instantly finding it in the sight of horsemen approaching at speed down the hillside.

They came splashing across the stream and into the courtyard, Gervase Barforth and all three Chards, mud-spattered, wet through, and quite magnificent, shaking off the physical discomforts of November wind and weather with a lordly nonchalance proper to the squirearchy. And instantly Mrs. Barforth, whose house had seemed ill-equipped for the serving of tea to ladies, broke free from the restraints my presence had imposed upon her, her face glowing with the uncomplicated joy of being among her ‘own people'as she served them strong ale and mulled wine, standing companionably among them as they crowded to the fire and drank deep, their coats steaming. And while Noel Chard did briefly say to her ‘You may have heard that mamma is to be a duchess', to which she replied ‘Oh yes—I have a maid who talks to the maids at Listonby …', her attention was not diverted from these young men who in their insolent, unruly splendour were a thousand miles away from Cullingford.