Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (18 page)

   "This is Mother," said Diana, coming to stand beside Barbara.

   "Grandmama?" breathed Barbara, looking up at a slim young woman with dark, glowing eyes and hair and a masterful nose. Her face was not pretty in any usual context, but so lively, laughing, and intelligent that the viewer was intrigued. She stood in a garden near a marble fountain. She wore a dark green velvet gown, and puppies and three children played at her feet. "Dicken, Will and Giles, my brothers," said Diana. One hand in the painting rested on her hip, the other held a bouquet of roses, fat and full, their petals falling softly onto the ground among the animals and children.

   "She was lovely!" said Barbara, enchanted at this unexpected vision of her grandmother when she was young.

   "Her nose was always too big," Diana said. "Here, this portrait is Father."

   Barbara walked across the marble floor to the other side, where the portrait of her grandfather hung. It seemed fitting that he and Grandmother should stare into eternity at each other, captured forever in their youth. The man before her was handsome and smiling, his wide blue eyes gazing at the viewer serenely. He wore a great, full, old–fashioned periwig and a military uniform of red and white, and leaned against the side of a black stallion, fully saddled and bridled. Behind him were trees and blue, blue sky, but no bluer than his calm eyes.

   Bates was holding open the door to the great parlor. Diana and Barbara walked in. Abigail, sitting in a chair near the massive marble fireplace, rose and came forward. Tony, staring pensively out the windows into the wintry, bare gardens, pulled his hands out of his pockets and followed his mother. Mary, Tony's younger sister, sitting on a stool, remained where she was. Barbara had a confused impression of men charging toward each other, their mouths forever open in silent cries to victory and death on the walls around her dwarfing all else in the room, from the huge cabinets filled with red and blue and yellow china to many small tables and chairs. Above the fireplace was a portrait of Abigail and her children, gazing serenely toward the opposite panels of charging horses with their mouths pulled against bridles, and torn flags and men fighting.

   "There used to be a portrait of me," Diana said to Barbara. "I wonder where Abigail hid it—ah, Abigail—" She and Abigail coldly touched cheeks. Barbara kissed her aunt.

   "Stayed to greet you," Tony told her, pumping her hand up and down. Barbara smiled at him, and then reached upward and quickly kissed his cheek. His plump face turned red.

   "We are cousins, Tony. It is allowed," she teased.

   "Mary!" called Abigail. "You remember your cousin Barbara and your Aunt Diana." Mary stood up quickly and made a fluttering little curtsy. She smiled timidly at Barbara. Her eyes were pale blue, as pale as her brother's, and she looked as if the slightest word would send her scurrying for cover. Barbara smiled back, calculating that she must be ten or eleven, older than Charlotte, but if Barbara was any judge, as serious and shy. Oh, I am glad to be here, she thought, not only because the house was all she had imagined and more, but because of Mary, who was someone she could care for, just as she had always cared for her brothers and sisters. Someone to ease the ache she felt in missing them. Yes, she understood shy, serious little girls, and she would understand Mary. And love her.

   "Mary, take your cousin to her rooms," Abigail said. "Barbara, I have allotted you a suite of rooms on this side, which overlooks the gardens, so much more cheerful than the street in winter. I hope you find them comfortable." She smiled coldly at Barbara, not really seeing her.

   Barbara followed Mary's solid little body out of the room. Tony watched her until the door closed behind her. Even after the door closed, he stared at it, as if she might once more materialize before him.

   "What are you looking at?" his mother said irritably.

   He started and turned back to his mother and aunt.

   "Only stayed to welcome you, Aunt Diana. Pressing business elsewhere, you know. Treat this house as your own."

   "Since it once was, I certainly shall," Diana drawled. "Of course, I can make myself at home anywhere. Father used to say I would have made a perfect soldier's wife." She smiled at Abigail. "But then you were a soldier's wife, were you not, Abigail? Though hardly perfect—"

   Tony coughed, glanced at his mother, and left the room. Diana sat down in an armchair near the fire. She stretched her hands to the fire. Abigail, watching her, bit her lip. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for patience.

   "I have every intention of going and coming as I please, Abigail," Diana said. "Do not think you can rule my activities because I sleep under your roof. And I may not always choose to sleep under your roof. I have no intention of offering you any explanation when I do not do so."

   "None will be needed," Abigail snapped, forgetting for the moment her good intentions.

   Diana, pleased to have drawn blood, sat back in the chair and relaxed, for all the world like a sleek, overfed cat. She held her shoes to the fire, turning her ankles around and around to admire their trimness. "I love this house," she said "I was a girl here. I danced many a dance, kissed many beaus. One of the Cavendish boys proposed to me right in this very room. Where did you put my portrait?"

   Abigail was irritably noting how smooth Diana's skin still was, and so did not hear the question. Diana, only five years younger than she, was still a beautiful woman. Abigail had been pretty but she had known her limits, known that with her fortune and family name she could have been as ugly as a stone and still marry well. But Diana had been beautiful, beautiful in an amazing, rare way. Men had instantly fallen in love with her. One look was enough. It did not matter how she acted, who she was inside. Her beauty changed her in their eyes into something so desirable that they had to have her. What power she had had—the young Diana—a power not of her own creation, not because she was good or kind or intelligent, but because of an accident of nature. She could have married anyone in the kingdom; yet she had married Kit. Here she sat, at thirty–four, her fortune lost, her reputation something Abigail would have died rather than borne, at an age when most women had gone to fat, lost some of their teeth, been disfigured by smallpox, illness, continual pregnancies, and she was still beautiful. Not the perfect, innocent dewiness of her youth, but even more sensual with the lines of experience marking her eyes and mouth and figure. Would she always be beautiful? Would nature never demand its due?

   "I asked where you put my portrait."

   "What portrait?"

   Abigail knew exactly the one Diana meant. It had been the first thing she bad moved when she and her children had come into this house. Diana had looked like a goddess in that portrait. Of course she had moved it.

   "The one of me in my wine–colored gown, the one by Lely. I wore diamonds in my hair, around my neck and arms, sewn to the lace at the sleeves and throat of my gown! Lely said I reminded him of a blood-red rose, rich and beautiful and fragrant—he was in love with me—"

   "One only wonders how he knew how you smelled!"

Diana laughed.

   "I moved it into another room; it did not seem to fit this one." In spite of herself, Abigail sounded defensive.

   Diana looked upward at the portrait above the fireplace. In it, Abigail sat smiling, plump and fair in a blue gown and pearls, her children beside her. She in no way resembled a blood-red rose.

   "And yours fits better, I suppose. But, you live here now —where shall you go when Tony marries, I wonder? You will miss this house, its grandeur, all it stands for. The new Duchess will then take down your picture and put up her own and thus life goes on."

   Tony marry…Abigail had not even thought of it. No, that was not true. She thought of it often, weighing this girl against that one, wanting Tony to have only the best, a sweet girl bringing much property with her, but she had never really thought about the fact that she would have to leave Saylor House, that it would belong to Tony and his wife. Diana was smiling at her, that nasty, pointed, cat's smile. How like her to drag her completely away from the topic she wished to discuss—Tony marry! Well, of course he would. And she would be the one who chose his bride. And Abigail would be a welcome guest in their home, an honored guest.

   "I want some of my own things," said Diana.

   "I beg your pardon—"

   "Something from my house, some furniture and a portrait or two. My clothes. Do you think you can send a footman around to gather them without attracting attention? Just a few things, Abigail, to make me feel more at home—here in this house I was raised in."

   "And I thought you were at home anywhere!" Abigail snapped before she could help herself. Once again, as if she knew exactly what she was doing, Diana laughed. Abigail had the most terrible urge to cram her fist into that open mouth, break out all those sharp little white teeth. But above and beyond all of that, she wanted Bentwoodes for Tony. For that, she could be patient. Let Diana play with her like a cat does a half–dead mouse. She was neither half–dead nor a mouse, as Diana would well know.

   "My—Tony's house is at your disposal, Diana. If you require some things from your home, I am sure we can handle that, which brings me to something which I have been wanting to say to you. I know, of course, that you are already in the midst of your negotiations with Roger Montgeoffry. I have told you how I feel about the marriage, so I will not repeat myself. But I have had my bankers do some preliminary figures, purely speculative, of course, on what Roger stands to earn on the long term from Bentwoodes. And I thought you ought to know—"

   "Ought I?"

   "Of course you should. I realize your immediate need is for cash, but you need not sacrifice something that could pay handsomely in the future—with a little patience and time."

   "I have no time, Abigail. I have no holdings, no securities, no cash, nothing other than the Alderley estate, which is entitled to Harry and mortgaged to the limit. I cannot even enter the door of my own house in Westminster for the bill collectors wanting their money. Patience is a virtue I have no time for."

   "If someone were to lend you the money to tide you over, give you breathing space…"

   Diana allowed none of the triumph she must be feeling to show on her face.

   "Roger has already lent me money."

   The words took Abigail's breath away. Rapidly, she refigured the amount of cash she had been going to suggest to Diana. She felt sick.

   "Of course, it was not enough. Nothing is enough to fill the hole I am in. Damn Kit to hell and back—how I hope he is dying from the pox in Lorraine!" She glanced quickly at her sister–in–law. Abigail was thinking about money and did not see her look. Diana looked back at the fire. Her husky voice was pensive, soft.

   "Roger offers me nearly everything I need. He is willing to pay my current bills, pay off the mortgages on the estate, and settle stock on Harry and myself. But I have no allowance. Even selling the stock will help me for only a short time. I need that allowance, something to tide me over until I remarry—"

   "Remarry! But you are not even divorced!" It was all Abigail could do to bring herself to say the word, though it got easier each time she said Bentwoodes to herself along with it.

   "The next time I marry," Diana said, as if she had not heard Abigail, "it will be for something other than what he can do under the covers. That can be found anywhere. Security cannot."

   Abigail averted her face. Diana was so vulgar. Everyone knew she had had to marry Kit. There was no need to advertise the fact. One needed to set an example for one's children.

   "Why do you not simply marry Roger yourself?" The question popped out and Abigail cursed herself. She was a stupid fool, cutting off her nose to spite her face, but there was a certain look of surprise and respect in Diana's violet eyes as she stared at her sister–in–law.

   "Two reasons. My mother would never give me the land. And because, dear, dear Abigail, he has not asked me."

   If Abigail had not known Diana better, she would have thought her embarrassed. As it was, she hardly knew what to say or think. Except perhaps that life might be fair after all; to think that Diana Alderley could no longer snap her fingers and have a man run to her. Of course, marriage was a different thing. Abigail could have told her that. Diana's reputation was too soiled, too ugly. She would have had to have an enormous fortune to overcome it. Naturally, Roger preferred her daughter, young, innocent, untouched, and possessing Bentwoodes. Apparently Roger, for all his good looks, was no fool either. Too bad, it would be easier to get the land if he were a fool. And she was going to have that land for Tony, who deserved it as head of the family. Tony would not always have to stand in the shadow of his famous grandfather. No, he would take the land and fortune and double it, if Abigail had to show him every step of the way. Diana could be bought—at a higher price than she had bargained for, but the land was worth it. She glanced over at Diana's almost perfect profile, marred only by a slight fullness under her chin. Diana had been remarkably honest. A bad sign. But they understood each other.

   "Tomorrow, Diana, I will show you those figures."

   Diana turned her lovely eyes to Abigail; they were like limpid pools of violet–blue water.

   "Yes, you do that."

* * *

   Like an overgrown duckling, Mary padded silently in front of Barbara. She offered no chatter about herself or the house they were passing through. They were walking down a corridor off the landing on the second floor. Ahead, Barbara could see a huge window and window seat. On each side of her were closed doors. Midway, at some point only Mary recognized, for Barbara could see no difference in these doors from the others along this hall, Mary opened one of the sets of narrow double doors that intersected this corridor at regular intervals. Barbara walked into a bedchamber that was as lovely in its own way as the great hall downstairs.