Dorothy Eden (27 page)

The house was on Medina Terrace, with a view of the sea. Katharine took it furnished. There was a resident housekeeper, Mrs. Pethers, and a housemaid, Harriet Bull. She, Norah and Carmen, their governess, the baby and her nurse, and Grouse whom they couldn’t bear to leave behind, moved down there in November. Gerard was to join them when school holidays began, and Willie had grudgingly promised to be there for Christmas. But there were four weeks until Christmas.

The last time they had been together in Brighton Charles had sacrificed his beard. That, Katharine wrote, would not be necessary this time. He was to come down as soon as possible. The sea air would do him good, too. He knew how she always worried about his health, but perhaps some vigorous walks on the downs and the fresh air filling his lungs would set him up for the winter. No one would recognise them here. They could be out together all day. She would only suggest, as a precaution, that he take separate lodgings. There was just a chance that Willie would arrive unexpectedly. It would be like him to do so deliberately. Not that it seriously mattered, except that scenes were so disagreeable and Willie had been particularly short-tempered lately.

A week of perfect bliss followed. They walked on the downs all day, lunching at small inns, or carrying a picnic lunch that Katharine had prepared herself, since she didn’t find the housekeeper, Mrs. Pethers, particularly obliging. With colour in her cheeks, and her hair tumbling down in the wind, Charles said she had never been so beautiful.

“Is your eyesight failing? I’m nearly thirty-seven.”

“Thirty-seven, forty-seven, eighty-seven, you’ll always be beautiful. Will you remember that?”

“Must I?”

“Yes, in case I’m not always able to tell you so.”

She stopped.

“Don’t say that.”

“It was only a passing observation.” He took her hand “Come, don’t look so full of doom. If you anticipate it, you invite it.”

“It was you who made the remark inviting doom.”

He laughed. “Kate! My dearest one! You’re even more beautiful when your eyes are stormy like that. What are you worrying about? I’m very much afraid you’re going to have me to the end of my life.”

She flung herself into his arms. The wind billowed her skirts about his legs, her tumbling hair blew in his face. They were wrapped together like one person on the high cliffs with the grey sea spread beneath them.

“Come back to the house, Miss Coombe has the children out. It will be empty.”

“My darling, you’re trembling.”

“I felt a cold breath of mortality. You know what that feels like.”

His eyes grew sombre. “I do.”

“Come back to the house, darling.”

The wind blew the front door shut behind them. His hand in hers, Katharine led him up the stairs to her bedroom. Within it, she locked the door, and flung her cloak off. He took the remaining pins out of her hair and let it fall loose over her shoulders. Then he began to undo the high collar of her dress. Her throat was too lovely to hide beneath the whalebone and starch, he said. And her shoulders, too. What he especially loved were her breasts covered only by the falling curtain of her hair. His fingers were gentle, expert, making her flesh tingle unbearably. It was always like this, always new, exciting, perfect. Perhaps the difficulties and dangers added stimulation to their lovemaking. Perhaps it was like this because it had to be fairly infrequent. But she didn’t think so. If he were her husband and lay beside her every night, she was sure she would respond just as eagerly to his beloved body.

They could not linger behind a locked door for too long. The children would be home. The long-faced Mrs. Pethers with her pinched lips might have an inquisitive ear cocked in the kitchen. As it was, as they came out of the bedroom, Katharine saw a form disappearing into the children’s bedroom. It was Harriet Bull, the maid. Katharine recognised her red hair beneath her starched cap. She had moved too quickly, as if she might have been pressed against the wall listening.

Fortunately, Charles had not seen her. This small blot on the perfection of their lovemaking should not trouble him, at least. An inquisitive maid, an inquisitive housekeeper. Well, Willie would be here soon enough, and there would be nothing for them to whisper about.

Indeed, he arrived a week earlier than he had said he would come, and without warning. It was late afternoon. The children were having tea in the kitchen, the baby was asleep, and Katharine and Charles sat relaxed before a fire in the drawing room.

A few moments earlier Mrs. Pethers had tapped at the door saying she wanted to light the gas, but Katharine told her not to come in. The firelight in the dusk was so pleasant. She was sitting on the hearthrug with her head against Charles’ knees. He had disarranged her hair, and she had had to hastily pin it up when Mrs. Pethers knocked. But the woman, with an audible sniff, had gone away, and it was then the front doorbell rang.

Katharine sprang up, her heart pounding. She had been certain in that instant that it was Willie. She scarcely needed to hear his voice to confirm it.

“Good afternoon! I’m Captain O’Shea.” He was always hearty with servants. “Is my wife in?”

“Yes, sir. She’s in the drawing room.”

“Don’t disturb her. I’ll take my bags upstairs first. I suppose there’s a room for me.”

“Yes, sir, the one at the end of the passage was kept for you.”

Katharine didn’t wait to reflect on the scarcely hidden relish in Mrs. Pethers’ voice. She only knew that she couldn’t bear one of Willie’s scenes within five minutes of his arrival. Charles must not be found with her.

“Quick, darling. Go out of the window. You can drop down from the balcony, can’t you?”

“Easily. But I won’t leave you …”

“Yes, do, please. It will save unpleasantness. Call at the front door later. The children know you’re in Brighton, so Willie will have to be told. But not like this.”

Perhaps she was foolish and had panicked unnecessarily. There had been no time to think. She virtually pushed him through the window, and watched him drop safely to the ground. Then she quickly closed the window, drew the curtains, and rang the bell.

When Mrs. Pethers appeared, so quickly that she must have been lurking as Harriet Bull had lurked the other day, Katharine said calmly, “Was that my husband I heard arriving? Then you had better light the gas, Mrs. Pethers. And make some tea.”

It would have been all right if Charles had not come back so soon. But he had disliked leaving her, had grown anxious, and was at the front door in too short a time. Why should Mr. Parnell be asking to see Captain O’Shea so soon after his arrival? It was highly suspicious.

Willie could scarcely be civil.

“I didn’t know you were in Brighton, Mr. Parnell,” he said stiffly.

“Yes, I am for a few days. Katharine—” (he always called her Katharine in that endearingly solemn way to Charles), “—told me she was expecting you. We’ve been having discussions about our next moves with Gladstone. Your arrival is timely. We’ll be able to thresh out the matter.”

“Discussion on politics, fiddlesticks!”

“Willie! Keep your voice down,” Katharine begged.

“Who’ve you set talking now? Do you want more scandal than there is already?”

“And there’ll be even more if you shout the news to the whole house.”

“Don’t let’s pretend, O’Shea,” Charles said in a quiet reasonable voice. “You know the position between Katharine and me. You refuse to give her a divorce, so you condone our love. What more is there to be said?”

“Plenty! Plenty, if I care to.”

“Do as you please, my dear fellow. I’ll welcome any action.”

His complete composure and an almost lordly indifference to public opinion left Willie, as always, baffled and angry. He should have been the one to crack the whip, not his wife’s paramour. What was more, the fellow had the nerve to say,

“I only ask you not to distress Katharine too much.”

“Distress her! I can hardly endure the sight of her, the brazen hussy!”

“Then perhaps you will undertake to stay here with the children while I go back to Aunt Ben for Christmas,” Katharine said, her composure gained from Charles. “I don’t like leaving her alone so long. And all things considered, it would be better for the children if we were not together in this sort of mood.”

“Do what you like,” Willie flung out. “But I won’t go on being treated in this fashion. The both of you had better take notice of that.”

I
T WAS THE FIRST
white Christmas for several years. The Lodge was bitterly cold. Aunt Ben wrapped herself in rugs and shawls, and dozed by the fire. She wanted no festivities. The servants could have a Christmas party below stairs if they liked, but since Katharine’s children were not there there was no need to have all that nonsense of a tree lighted with candles and too much exhausting excitement.

She listened, however, to Katharine’s suggestion that Mr. Parnell should be invited to have dinner with them. He usually went to his home at Avondale for Christmas, but this year he had decided to remain in England.

“Because he enjoys an English Christmas?” The old lady’s eyes were too knowledgeable. “I’m afraid you can’t deceive me about that, Kate. He has told me he abhors all English customs.”

“That’s only an attitude he uses politically.”

“Well, I’m glad to be assured that we’re not among his abhorrences,” the old lady said dryly. “By all means, invite him. I shall enjoy his company. But even for him I will not sit up until midnight. You will have to entertain him after ten o’clock.”

If Aunt Ben were with company she enjoyed she would willingly sit up until two o’clock, and not look fatigued. Katharine could only realise that with her exquisite tact she was withdrawing from the scene to allow Katharine to be alone with the man she loved. Being perceptive about so many things, how could Aunt Ben not be perceptive about this most important of all situations? She had frequently admired the baby Clare’s beautiful dark eyes and smooth golden brown hair. She had pretended to be glad that for once Katharine had had a child that bore no resemblance whatever to her husband, a man who was unworthy of her in every way. Whatever suspicions she might have, she had not mentioned them. She might never do so. They might go with her to the grave.

They dined by candlelight, the three of them, and punctually at ten o’clock Aunt Ben asked to be excused. It was still snowing, and intensely cold, but no doubt this would not deter the carollers who would be along about midnight. Perhaps Katharine would see that they got their usual sovereign, and tell them not to sing too loudly as there were, strange as it might seem on Christmas Eve, some people who wanted to sleep.

Katharine suddenly had the crazy idea that she would like to walk in the snow. Charles quite willingly put on overshoes and a greatcoat, and accompanied her.

It had stopped snowing, and the moon was shining. The scene was eerie and frozen, the leafless trees casting spidery shadows, the stone urns along the balustrade piled with white pyramids. Their footsteps crunched. The frozen snow was slippery and, nearly falling, Katharine clutched at Charles. Her face was nipped with the cold. She felt intensely alive, her mind clear, her lungs full of the sharp clean air.

Voices and the crunch of footsteps indicated the arrival of the carollers. Katharine drew Charles back behind one of the massive elms. Standing close together, his greatcoat wrapped round them both for warmth, they watched the stumbling merry party. A square of yellow light fell on the snow where one of the maids had thrown open the front door. The voices, quavering at first then growing strong, began to sing.

“
Hark the herald angels sing …
”

At this distance, in the still white night, the sound was poignantly beautiful. From the village the Christmas bells had begun to chime.

“Do you believe in God?” Katharine whispered.

“I’m not sure. But I do believe in a personal destiny. I believe certain people are meant to meet and love, and that it’s quite useless to fight against that because it’s their destiny.”

“Us?”

He nodded. “What’s more, I believe that if we were born again in another age we’d meet and love again. Simply because sheer longing would bring us together.”

The cold was making Katharine shiver. It had been a night like this when Papa had died. She didn’t want to talk of death.

Nevertheless, something in his shadowed face made her say, “You’re not afraid of dying, are you?”

“Yes, I am. I confess I’ve always had a horror of it. Even in my childhood I was haunted by the thousands of cruel and unnecessary deaths in Ireland.” He gave a sudden dry laugh, “I gave John Redmond a fright not long ago. I wasn’t too well, I’d gone to bed early. I was staying in Morison’s Hotel in Dublin, and Redmond came in to go over points of our campaign. We had lit four candles, but one went out, and before I could stop myself I had blown the remaining three out. Redmond was startled, I can tell you. He said we couldn’t work in the dark, and that my face, when he struck a match, was like a corpse’s.”

“Oh, no!”

“Well, that was what the trouble was. There are always three candles lit round a corpse. To represent the Holy Trinity. And I’m a superstitious fellow. I didn’t care for that sign or omen or whatever it was.”

“It was nothing,” Katharine said fiercely. “I suppose the draught blew one candle out.”

“A breath from the Almighty?” Charles said. Then he exclaimed penitently, “I’ve alarmed you. You look as white as the snow.”

“I’m only cold. Let’s go in.”

But to tell the truth she was shivering from more than cold. His face in the moonlight had had an austere ethereal look, a fragile and decidedly uncomfortable look. This walk at midnight hadn’t been such a good idea after all. It had called up ghosts.

Willie, too, must have been reflecting on the unsatisfactoriness of affairs, for early in the new year he began talking about his ambitions. Wasn’t it time something was done for him? He ought to be made Chief Secretary for Ireland without more ado. It would be a good idea, since she had his ear and, apparently, his admiration, if Kate would suggest this to Mr. Gladstone. Her word would probably carry more weight than Parnell’s, since after all she was his wife and would naturally want his advancement.