All for Love (17 page)

‘No.’ Why was he, all of a sudden, so grimly serious? ‘I don’t understand you.’

‘You really don’t.’ There was something, now, in his steady gaze that kept her dumb. ‘What did you plan, tell me, for the end of this charade?’

‘Why —’ Tears filled her throat but she fought them down. ‘Josephine promised ... She would pay my fare back to France ... I was to disappear …’

‘You needed the money so badly? I always wondered how she contrived to persuade you.’

‘Badly! I was starving when she found me. But there was more to it than that.’ At all costs, she must make him understand. ‘I thought — forgive me — I thought Josephine desperately unhappy. She needed to do something, to achieve something …’

‘You were right enough.’ He was looking beyond her, sombrely, into the corner of the room. ‘She was miserable. She always had been. With me. Don’t you see, my — Juliet? When she disappeared and you came to play my good angel, I thought she had found someone, found some kind of happiness at last.’

‘Oh.’ It left her speechless.

‘Now,’ savagely, ‘now do you begin to see what a wretch I feel? Don’t you understand? I let you play out your little drama, thinking all the time that somewhere, somehow, Josephine had found a man she could love. And,’ he clenched his teeth on it, ‘was giving me grounds for divorce.’

‘Divorce!’ But one violent movement on his part had thrown table, cards, sapphire necklace and all broadcast across the room. His arms were round her, pulling her to her feet, his lips found hers. She did not even think of resisting. Why should she? There would be time enough for despair, tomorrow. Why not this moment of poisoned happiness tonight?

He let her go at last, suddenly. ‘I knew you felt it too, My love. Let me say it this once. Don’t look so frightened. I’ll not touch you again. I don’t dare. But, oh my God, what madness made me fall in love with Josephine — with your shadow?’

‘I’m not frightened,’ she said. ‘Let tomorrow take care of itself. Tonight, I don’t care what happens to me.’

‘But I do. My one and only love. Don’t let me have more on my conscience than I must. More of despair …’ He put her, with a kind of fierce gentleness, back in her chair and sat down facing but well away from her. ‘So you’re to disappear?’

‘Yes.’ She managed, almost, to match the desperate calmness of his tone. ‘I had thought of the
Savannah
.’

‘I remember. You were close to tears when we went over her. I wondered at the time. You were choosing your stateroom?’

‘Yes.’ How much he had noticed, and how little she had understood.

‘And Josephine will probably be back tomorrow.’ He looked at it squarely. ‘Well, of course she will. To entertain the President. But this man Tarot. What was there between them, do you think?’

‘God knows,’ She would not guess. ‘But you’re right: she will be back tomorrow. I’ve heard from her.’

‘It makes no difference anyway.’ He followed his own line of thought. ‘What there was between them, it was all before ... before I married her. Let’s face it, my love, honestly, like the fellow conspirators we are. She will be back tomorrow, you say, and suddenly, on a breath, at a street corner, very likely in full public view, we will have to say goodbye for ever. So let me tell you now, once and for all, that whatever happens, I shall never forget you. I almost wish I thought I could.’ He was nearer again, and had hold of both her hands. ‘You’ve taught me so much. But so has Josephine. It’s a crazy plan, hers, and of course I won’t let her go through with it and let loose that madman on Europe once again, but I can’t help respecting her for it. There’s more to her than I ever understood.’ He sighed, lifted her hands to kiss them, one after the other, then let them go. ‘Nothing for it but to try again, with all the loving you have taught me. Who knows? In a scrambling, second-best kind of way, we may make some kind of a miserable marriage of it yet. But you, my poor love, what’s to become of you?’

‘I shall go back to Europe on the
Savannah
. What else can I do?’

‘Nothing.’ He faced it with her. ‘Our
Comedy
of
Errors
has turned tragedy after all. I could almost think it a judgment on me for poor Fonseca. Oh, Juliet,’ suddenly, heart-rendingly, he broke down, ‘how shall I manage without you? How shall I bear it?’

‘How shall I?’

‘If you could only stay — if we could meet sometimes ...’

‘No! Hyde, you must see, that would be worst of all. Besides, if I did, the story would be bound to get out, sooner or later, Think of the scandal.’

‘What do I care for that? It’s you I’m thinking about. Going back, alone, to France. I’ll see to it, of course, that you never want, but what comfort is that? Shall I come with you, Juliet?’

For a moment, her heart sang. Then she remembered everything: Winchelsea, the servants, Aunt Abigail ... ‘You know you can’t.’

‘Do I?’ She watched him face it. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘Besides, you’d be wretched away from Savannah. And so shall I.’ She could not help adding it. ‘I had not realised how I had grown to love it.’ She smiled at him through a mist of tears. ‘You see, it’s not just you.’

‘As if that was any comfort. Oh, my poor darling, what will you
do
?’

‘God knows. But there will be time to think of something, on the
Savannah
. I know you won’t let me starve. Not that I care much. I shan’t go back to France,’ she added. ‘I couldn’t bear that. Not now. Not after this. England, perhaps?’

‘Stay here! My cousin has a house he never uses. In Charleston, down on one of the creeks. You can row right up to the door. You could live there, as quiet as you pleased. I could come to you ... sometimes.’

‘Hyde!’ She looked at him somewhere between tears and laughter, ‘I do believe you are offering me a
carte
blanche
.’

He took her hands. ‘I do believe I am.’

‘You know the answer as well as I do: No!’ He was pulling her towards him. ‘Hyde! I can’t stand any more. Let me go now. Think of tomorrow.’

‘Yes,’ he said grimly. ‘We had better.’

***

Morning brought no sign of Josephine, so it was Juliet who stood on the bluff with Hyde, watching President Monroe’s boat rowed briskly over from the Carolina shore, to the sound of salutes first from the revenue cutter
Dallas
, and then from the wharf and George Washington’s cannon on the bluff. She had, afterwards, only the vaguest memories of being introduced to the lanky, blue-eyed President of the United States and his Secretary of War John C. Calhoun from South Carolina. She watched, through tear-dimmed eyes, as the President reviewed the Savannah Volunteer Guards, drawn up along the bluff, resplendent in their new scarlet and blue uniforms, and then mounted on horseback to ride along West Broughton Street to Mr. Scarbrough’s house.

She supposed she must have said the proper things to all her friends, gathered together for this gay occasion. Strange and desolating to realise, suddenly, just how many friends she had, here in Savannah ... But Hyde was pressing her arm. In warning? How odd, how delicious, how wretched it was to have him, all of a sudden, her accomplice in the charade. ‘Time to be looking for the carriage,’ he said, ‘if we are to reach West Broad Street in time for the President’s address. You would not want to miss that?’

‘No indeed.’ They were in the thick of their friends: No time now for tears.

‘I told Charon to wait for us in Johnson Square,’ he said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind walking that far.’

Had she slept at all the night before? She was glad of his supporting arm across the grassy bluff and the loose, sinking sand of Bay Street and along Bull to Johnson Square, where Charon was waiting with carriage and horses comfortably tucked into the shade of a blossoming Pride of India Tree. How like Hyde to have thought of that.

‘Any news, Charon?’ was Hyde’s first question, as he helped her up into the carriage.

‘None, sir,’ Juliet had half-expected, had nerved herself to find Josephine waiting, angrily, in the carriage. Surely she would not be long behind her letter?

‘Then we had best get along to Mr. Scarbrough’s house,’ said Hyde. ‘Mr. Jay’s pavilion looks fine, does it not?’

‘Yes.’ She looked at the huge temporary building through blurred eyes. The ball for Monroe was to be held there five days hence, on the last day of his visit. She would undoubtedly be in hiding by then. At Winchelsea, they had decided last night, so at least she would see the beloved place again.

West Broad Street was much more crowded than the bluff had been. Rich and poor, black and white, carriage parties, horsemen and pedestrians thronged the wide street. Gay little black boys flowered in the trees and Charon had to pull his horses up short to avoid running over one who had suddenly decided to improve his position.

‘What do you think?’ asked Hyde. ‘Do you want to get out and try and fight your way through to the house?’

‘No. Let’s stay here, shall we?’ Why waste a precious moment alone with him, even if they were alone in the midst of a crowd.

‘Too late anyway,’ he said. ‘Look, there he comes.’ The President had appeared on the upstairs balcony of Mr. Jay’s handsome new house and the crowd had gone wild. ‘Time enough to see Mr. Scarbrough’s house tonight at the dinner,’ said Hyde. ‘I hope.’

‘Yes.’ She hardly knew, now, what she hoped. Would it not be best to have it all over, to be on her way to Winchelsea, and exile? Mr. Monroe was speaking, saying all the inevitable things, about friendship between north and south ... the great bond of union ... She let it wash over her head and hardly even noticed when it was over and the cheering broke out again, louder than ever. Mr. Scarbrough was on the balcony now, with the President. ‘He looks wretched,’ she turned to Hyde.

‘Almost the way I feel,’ he said. ‘Yes. Things are bad with him, I’m afraid.’ His laugh grated. ‘All the kinder of him to buy that wretched necklace.’

‘Wretched, yes.’ She turned to him impulsively. ‘But I’m so glad he did. Do you know, the worst thing of all, before, was knowing I would have to go without saying goodbye to you. Now, at least, we have had this.’

‘This!’ He turned to speak to Charon. ‘Let’s get out of here. As fast as you safely can.’ And then, his hand on hers. ‘You think this one day can make up for a lifetime of loneliness?’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘It will have to, won’t it?’

‘Yes.’ His teeth grated on it. ‘And, do you know, I have the strangest feeling that when we get home we will find Josephine there. Monroe’s was not the only boat that crossed from the Carolina side, did you notice? Charon! Take us round by the Jewish graveyard. It’s the only quiet place I can think of,’ he turned to explain.

‘Hyde, should we?’

‘Why not? Why should a devoted husband not take his wife for a refreshing turn after such a morning of crowds and confusion? And at least,’ he smiled down at her, ‘today we should not happen on any young bloods duelling there.’

‘Yes, but Hyde —’

‘Hush! A wife’s duty is to obey her husband, and I propose, this once, to stand upon my rights.’

And yet, when they got to the quiet walled plot on the edge of the town where its thriving Jewish community buried their dead, there seemed to be nothing to say. They took one silent turn among the oleanders and the neat marble and granite gravestones, his arm warm on hers. Then she looked up at him pleadingly. ‘It’s no use, Hyde. Let’s go back. Let’s get it over with.’

Charon was still slowing his horses outside the house in Oglethorpe Square when Pete came running out. ‘She’s here, sir.’

‘I knew it.’ Juliet gripped Hyde’s arm.

‘It could be worse.’ His hand was reassuring on hers for a moment. ‘At least, this day of all days, we should be safe from visitors. Where is she, Pete?’

‘In your —’ he spoke to Juliet, looked confused, and began again. ‘In her room. Locked in, and mad as hops,’ he confided, ‘’count of Anne and Alice have both took themselves off to see the doings. She came in the back way, through our quarters.’ It amused him. ‘She’s given orders, ma’am, that you’re to come up to her the minute you get back. Without the master knowing.’

‘Just so.’ Hyde had leapt down and now turned to help Juliet alight. ‘Let us go upstairs and surprise her, shall we?’

‘Hyde —’ She hung back. ‘Just like that?’

‘How else?’ His grip hurt her arm. ‘Come, my dear. Mrs. Richardson is probably watching us from her parlour window.’

In the house, Juliet was aware of the stir of excitement. Far more servants than usual were loitering in the hall and downstairs rooms. They all knew. They were all waiting for the inevitable scene. ‘What’s all this?’ Hyde’s voice, unwontedly angry, sent them scurrying. ‘Moses. You will stay here and see that nobody whatever is admitted. Not the President himself.’

‘No, sir.’ Moses drew himself up. ‘Over my dead body, sir.’

‘I hope it won’t come to that. After you, my dear.’

Juliet trembled convulsively as she led the way up the curving stairway. Even in her own wretchedness, she found herself horribly sorry for Josephine, the only person in the house who did not know what had happened. ‘Shan’t I go first?’ she turned to plead with Hyde. ‘And prepare her?’