Joan Wolf (17 page)

“I am fine. Just tired. Will you take me home, Douglas?”

   “Of course. Wait here and I’ll get your cloak.” She gave him a shadowy smile and gratefully sank down on a chair of gilt wood. She was so tired she was dizzy with it. It had come over her during the last half hour, an exhaustion so all-encompassing that it even doused the flames of her anger at Ian. But she would not ask him to take her home. It was with enormous gratitude that she saw Douglas returning with her cloak.

   “Dear Douglas,” she murmured. “Where would I ever be without your kindness?”

Douglas’s jaw clenched tightly as they went down the front stairs. He put her in the coach and then got in himself, giving the Mount Street direction to the driver. Her head was leaned back against the upholstery and her eyes were closed. “Frances,” he said urgently. “Are you sure you aren’t ill?”

“I’m quite sure.” She opened her eyes and smiled reassuringly at him.

He left her in the front hall of her house and got back into the coach he had borrowed to return to the Cowpers’. It wasn’t fair, he thought angrily, that she could still do this to him. She was in trouble. He knew it. And he still could not bear to see her unhappy. It had been like this for as long as he could remember.

Ian. His anger suddenly burned hot against his cousin. What the hell was the matter with Ian?

* * * *

Ian himself wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him. He only knew that suddenly he was desperately jealous of Frances. She had always attracted men as honey attracts flies and it had never bothered him before. Now it did.

He saw her go out with Douglas and abruptly abandoned his Condessa to get himself a drink, which he took back into the card room. He stood by the window gazing out at the London street, and his thoughts were not pleasant.

   Frances had spent a long time with that Campbell fellow, he thought. They had both looked very serious. What could they have been discussing?

He took a long swallow of champagne. The problem, he thought bitterly, was that he was no longer sure that Frances loved him. He had never been jealous before because he had always known that no one else mattered to Frances but him. It had been the rock-bottom certainty of his life—her love for him and his for her. But that certainty existed no longer.

She still loved Robert Sedburgh. He was almost sure of it. It was why she refused to let Nell break her ties to the Aysgarths. It was why she refused to allow him to give Nell his name. His sister’s words came back to him: “She never talks about her husband, but I’m afraid she thinks about him.” Ian was afraid of that also.

It gnawed at him. He knew he should take what she had to give him and be grateful for it but he couldn’t. He couldn’t be certain of her. She had married him because of Nell, and who knew when she would come to regret it? When she would once again turn from him to someone else, someone who, like Sedburgh, was all that he was not?

“Ian!” Douglas’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned, an expression of such brooding bitterness on his face that Douglas was startled. “I took Frances home,” he said after a moment. “She said she was tired, but I don’t think she looked well.”

“I see. Thank you, Douglas.” Douglas hesitated a moment before the rock-hard mask of his cousin’s face, then he shrugged, turned, and left Ian standing alone by the window.

Chapter Twenty-one

0 waly, waly, gin love be bonnie

A little time while it is new!

But when ‘tis auld it waxeth cauld,

And fades awa’ like morning dew.

—
ANONYMOUS

Ian and Margaret returned home a little after two that evening. Ian let his valet help him undress, then dismissed him. He hesitated for a moment, then quietly opened the connecting door between his room and Frances’s and went in. She was deeply asleep, turned a little on one side, her face on her arm like a child. He was stepping back to return to his own room when she stirred slightly and opened her eyes. “Ian?” she asked in a voice foggy with sleep.

“Yes. I’m sorry I woke you but Douglas said you weren’t feeling well.”

She rolled over and pushed her hair off her cheek. “I’m all right. I was just tired.”

   “Then go back to sleep. I’m sorry I disturbed you.” But he didn’t move away, just stood there looking at her, his head bent so that his dark hair swung forward and the light from the candle he carried slid over the line of his cheek, spiked now with the shadow of his lowered black lashes. She smiled at him sleepily and then yawned. He took a step back toward the bed and said, “What were you and Ardkinglas talking about for so long tonight?”

Dear God, thought Frances blinking at him in astonishment, how did he ever notice that conversation? She had thought he was too busy with the Condessa.

The Condessa. At that Frances sat up in bed, her back ramrod straight. “I might ask you what you were doing drooling all over that half-naked Spaniard.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Frances,” he said irritably.

“Ridiculous!” She felt tears sting her eyes and angrily she dashed her hand against her cheeks. “I’m not the one who looked ridiculous.”

Ian stared at her in surprise, irritation turning to concern. She was clearly upset. Frances never cries, he thought as he sat down on the bed beside her. Pregnancy, however, was affecting the stability of her emotions and her mouth trembled as the tears streamed down her face. He put an arm around her. “Sweetheart, don’t cry,” he begged. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Then, as she only cried harder, “Frances, please stop crying!”

But her head was buried in his shoulder and she was sobbing now in earnest. Once started, she couldn’t seem to stop. “You yelled at me about my dress!” she wept into his soaked dressing gown.

He was patting her soothingly on the back. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I didn’t mean it. It was a beautiful dress. You looked beautiful.”

She hiccupped. “You didn’t even dance with me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, feeling like a talking parrot who only knew one phrase. The sobs seemed to be slowing and he gently stroked her hair. “Sh, sh, now,
mo chridhe
. The Condessa is not worth all this grief, believe me.” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and, tipping her face up, carefully dried her eyes, then gave it to her. “Blow,” he said. She did and he leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Now go back to sleep, please. You’ll feel better in the morning.” He stood up.

“All right,” she replied in a watery voice, and lay back again, her hair spilled over the pillow. He pulled the cover over her shoulder, touched her lightly on the cheek, then went quietly back to his own room, shaken himself by the unexpected scene. It was not until he was blowing out the candle that an unnerving thought struck him. She had never answered his question about James Campbell of Ardkinglas.                            ^

   As the days went by it became increasingly clear to Frances that Margaret was meeting James Campbell outside the shelter of her chaperonage. It was all done so casually—a chance meeting at the library, at the shops, in the park. Only the encounters were planned, and the man and girl were not engaged in careless flirtation. This was the real thing, but it was happening between two people who were separated by a blood enmity that made the quarrel between the Montagues and the Capulets seem trivial. What was worse, Frances was afraid that Ian suspected. There was no mistaking his growing hostility to Campbell. It was all right to join with the Campbells in business, but a marriage between the families would obviously be unthinkable in his eyes. He was displeased with her as well, probably for failing to prevent his sister from enjoying the company of this hereditary enemy.

Frances was caught in the middle. She wanted to please Ian, but all her sympathy was with Margaret, whose proud young soul was torn by conflicting emotions. She came in one afternoon to hear Margaret picking out a tune on the piano in the drawing room. She recognized it instantly.          It was the Macdonald battle song. She listened as Margaret sang bleakly in Gaelic:

Fallen race of Campbell—disloyal, untrue.

No clan in the Highlands will sorrow for you. But the birds of Loch Lcven are wheeling on high,

And Lochaber’s wolves hear the Macdonald’s cry:

‘Come feast! Come feast! where the falsehearted lie!’

The music stopped, Margaret bowed her head, and Frances said gently, “Would you like to talk about him, Maggie? I’ll help you if I can.”

Margaret turned to look at her, a desolate look in her dark eyes. “No one can help me, Frances.”

“Darling, don’t look like that.” Frances crossed the room to put comforting arms around her young sister-in-law. “It can’t be as bad as that.”

“It is. If I marry the man I love I’ll become a pariah to my family. And I will never love anyone but Jamie. You may not believe me, but it is true.”

“I believe you,” Frances said quietly.

  Something in the quality of her voice pierced through Margaret’s self-enclosed misery and she raised her eyes. “Yes, you would,” she answered slowly. “It’s always been Ian for you, hasn’t it, Frances?”

Frances’ head was averted and there was something almost austere in the pure lines of her profile. “Yes,” she said.

Margaret’s eyes were steady on her. “But you married someone else.”

Frances turned to face Margaret’s dark, searching eyes. There was a look of stretched transparency about her face that Margaret noticed for the first time. She frowned in concern. “Never mind, Frances. I didn’t mean to question you.”

“It is all right,” Frances replied in a contained voice. “Like Othello, I was one who loved not wisely but too well. I sent Ian away, an action I came to regret bitterly. I should hate to see you make the same mistake.”

“But everything has worked out all right. I mean, you are together now.”

“Sometimes, Maggie, you can’t undo the past. The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season. If the right season for love is allowed to pass, it may prove difficult to recapture at a later time.”

“That’s not true for you!” Margaret cried.

“I don’t know.” Frances said tiredly.

There was silence in the room then Margaret asked, “Does Ian suspect about us?”

“I don’t know.”

“He has become impossible lately. He—he was extremely rude to Jamie yesterday. And Jamie has been so helpful to him about the loan!”

“I know. He used to like Mr. Campbell very much.”

Margaret’s face looked stark. “He must know something. Oh God, Frances, what am I going to do?”

“Give it a little more time, Maggie.”

“I’ll be eighteen next week,” the girl replied. Green eyes met brown in perfect comprehension.

“Yes,” said Frances. “It would be so much nicer, though, to have your brother’s consent.”

“I know. And Mama—how can I do that to her, Frances? She’s already lost two sons.”

“I’ll tell you something, Maggie,” Frances said with sudden bitterness. “Love isn’t all it is cracked up to be.”

“No,” replied-Margaret in the same tone, “it’s much more pleasant in novels.”

* * * *

Meanwhile the cause of all their problems was suffering from the same malady himself. He couldn’t be happy with Frances nor could he leave her alone. Nell had returned, but her presence did nothing to alleviate the strife that had arisen between him and Frances. He was domineering and autocratic and she resented it. But he could not help himself. The only time he felt she was truly his was when he made love to her. Then all his fears receded and she was once more his own sweet love. But this kind of dual life could not continue.

The evening of her conversation with Margaret, Frances was sitting in bed reading a book when she heard Ian come into the room next door. She frowned. He was supposed to have been dining at Brooks’ with Douglas. The door to her room opened and he came in, his face looking dark against the opened collar of his white shirt.

“What are you doing home so early?” she asked.

“I got bored. What about you?”

“I told you I was staying home tonight.” She had, and one of the reasons he had come back was to check up on her. He crossed the room and stood beside the bed, regarding her lazily from his height.

“Don’t tell me you’re bored too? You’ll need to acquire a few new admirers to brighten things up. I don’t know how you are going to survive when we go home to Lochaber.”

Her eyes were like emeralds in her translucent face. “Why are you like this?” she whispered, and clenched her hands together.

“Like what?” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “Don’t you want to go home to Lochaber, Frances?”

She closed her book and put it down. “What do you want, Ian?” she asked coldly. His eyes narrowed and he took a step closer to her when she said sharply, “No!”

 His eyes widened in surprise.

“You cannot alternately bully me and ignore me by day, and expect to come in here and sleep with me at night. You must see that you are making life impossible for me.”

“I thought you liked to sleep with me,” he said deliberately.

Color stained her cheeks and her voice shook as she replied, “If you get into bed with me, Ian, it will be against my will. I cannot scream and fight you, not with our daughter sleeping two doors, down from here. But I want you to leave me alone!”

There was a ruthless look about his mouth. “If I leave here I have somewhere else to go,” he said.

“Then go!” she cried passionately.

He turned on his heel and left the room.

Chapter Twenty-two

But had I wist, before I kist

That love had been so ill to win,

I had lock’d my heart in a case o’ gowd

And pinn’d it wi’ a siller pin

—
ANONYMOUS

A week after Margaret’s conversation with Frances she and James Campbell met at a ball given by Mrs. Drummond Burrell. He asked her to dance and they waltzed in silence for some minutes before he said in a stifled voice, “Margaret, I am going out of my mind. I must talk to you.”