Sword to the Heart (Bantam Series No. 13) (15 page)

It was of a very beautiful woman turning sideways, her hand outstretched, towards an urn on which was perched a small bird.

It had been painted exquisitely and Natalia gave a little cry of delight as soon as she saw it.

“It is lovely!” she exclaimed. “I am so glad that you bought it. The Lady has such grace!”

“I think that is why she reminded me of you,” Lord Colwall said.

“Of me?”

She was surprised and the colour rose to her cheeks.

“I am very flattered that you should think me graceful,” she said. “I have always thought that I was rather jiggety!”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“Rather like a little bird which hops from twig to twig! I have always longed to fly slowly with great flapping wings as the larger birds do. That is what I think of as grace.”

Lord Colwall put his arm on the mantel-shelf and looked down at her pointed face upturned to his.

“You are not like a bird,” he said slowly. “You remind me of a small fawn. You have that same look in your large eyes that a fawn has! And you know how they scamper swiftly away, moving with a rhythmic grace which is almost indescribable.”

“I am very pleased to be a fawn!”

She smiled at him, and then he said almost harshly:

“Of course, as an experienced hunter, I should not let the fawn get away.”

“That sounds very primitive.”

“Men are primitive!” Lord Colwall argued. “Have you not realised that by now? If I had behaved according to pattern, I should have dragged you away by force into my cave, just as my earliest ancestor would have done.”

“Your earliest ancestor would have chosen his woman from a crowd of eligible females,” Natalia replied. “He undoubtedly would have had to fight for her, and only when he had proved himself would he have been entitled to possess her.”

Lord Colwall seated himself near the fire in the high-backed chair which he usually occupied.

“The trouble with you, Natalia,” he said, “is you think too much! You use your brain, and brain in a woman is a nuisance and a hindrance to her femininity.”

“I am sure you would much rather I was a simpering Miss who would agree with everything you said!” Natalia retorted. “But would you not find it rather dull?”

“I like women to comply with my wishes and be prepared to obey my commands.”

Natalia gave him a little smile.

“I very much doubt it,” she said. “You have too many brains of your own! Can you imagine anything worse than having to live permanently with someone who mouthed platitudes, never read a book, had no knowledge of Art, and would anticipate everything you wanted before you had time to formulate your needs to yourself ?”

“That is exactly what I had hoped to find in my wife,” Lord Colwall affirmed.

“If I believed you, I suppose that I should be humiliated into thinking how far I had fallen short of your ideal,” Natalia replied. “But somehow I think that such an idea has no real substance.” She laughed.

“You wanted a doll, one of those wooden dolls I owned as a child, with a perpetual smile on its face! When you remembered to play with it, it would be there, and when you did not want it you would throw it in a corner and forget all about it!”

“Are you trying to tell me that it would be difficult to forget you?” Lord Colwall asked.

Natalia did not answer.

Herald had crept close to her as he always did, and she patted and caressed the great mastiff as he edged himself nearer and nearer in his delight at her touch.

“Did you take the child back?” Lord Colwall asked unexpectedly.

Natalia had a feeling he had been wanting all the evening to ask her this question and had been unable to bring himself to do so.

“Ellen had the wonderful idea,” Natalia answered, “that her Aunt who is married to the Blacksmith might like to adopt Timothy. I have left him there for tonight, and if the Turners decide not to keep him, we can send him back to the Orphanage either tomorrow or the next day.”

“You are determined he shall not go back,” Lord Colwall said.

“He is such a sensitive little boy,” Natalia explained, “not like the other children.”

“Why should you think that?” Lord Colwall enquired.

Natalia did not answer and after a moment he said again:

“Tell me, Natalia, why should you think Timothy different from the other children?”

“There is
...
something about him,” she faltered. “But perhaps they are all the
...
same, and it is
...
just that I have come to
...
know Timothy.”

“What else is he?” Lord Colwall asked.

Natalia looked up at him.

“I see you
...
know already
...
My Lord, that Timothy is a
...
love-child.”

“That is the answer,” Lord Colwall said sharply. “That is why I wanted him out of the house. He was merely pandering to this ridiculous obstinacy of yours.”

He paused and then continued:

“Now that you are no longer upset by what you overheard by mistake, surely you realise that your ideas are exaggerated. Let us live a normal married life, Natalia, and then I can prove to you that we can find a great deal of satisfaction in each other, and perhaps a great deal of pleasure.”

Natalia did not answer and he went on:

“It is not a bad foundation, as anyone would tell you, on which to base a successful marriage.”

There was a note in his voice which Natalia found hard to resist.

She wanted desperately to put out her hand towards him, to tell him that she would do what he wished.

She thought how easy it would be to let him kiss her, to pretend to herself that he loved her enough for them to find some sort of happiness, even if it was not the one she had envisaged for so long.

Perhaps if she succumbed to his pleadings, if she did as he wanted, he would in time love her as she wished to be loved.

He would grow to rely on her, and she was sure that if she gave him the son he wanted, then he would be, if nothing else, extremely grateful.

But was that enough?

Would their children be strong and handsome? Beautiful of face and mind? Or would they reflect that ugliness, even perhaps that horror, that she was unable to escape?

Whatever she might say with her lips, she knew she would be unable to forget Sarah’s baby.

Moreover, it was impossible not to remember the coldness in Lord Colwall’s voice when he had spoken with Sir James after the wedding.

How, she asked herself, could she speak to him in moments of intimacy, of love, when he had said so scathingly:

“There is no place for that nauseating, over-exaggerated emotion in my life.”

‘Why can I not make him love me?’ Natalia asked, in her heart.

She felt suddenly very alone, very helpless!

Without really realising what she was doing, she put her cheek down against Herald’s head and held him even closer against her.

Lord Colwall was watching the picture she made in her blue gown, the diamonds glittering at her throat and her bare arms around the huge animal.

There was something weak and defenceless in her attitude, and yet Lord Colwall knew her will was strong enough to keep her emotions under control, to resist the desires and needs of her own heart.

Natalia had not answered his question and he knew it was because she could not find words.

Then suddenly, as if something snapped within him, he said furiously:

“Leave that damned dog alone! Do you not think I am aware of what you are trying to do? You are trying to beguile me into falling in love with you. You are deliberately attempting to attack me, but I can assure you I am well aware of your wiles and the way your mind is working!”

Natalia raised her head at the anger in his voice and stared at him, her eyes wide.

“You are like all women,” he raged. “Because you cannot get your own way, you are tempting me. But I promise you that if you go on like this you will be sorry!”

Natalia was very still and now he rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with a fire from which she shrank visibly.

“You will drive me too far! I am endeavouring to behave like a gentleman and not to force myself upon you because you are young and because you are apparently sincere in this nonsensical, hysterical notion!”

He struck the mantel-piece with his clenched fist.

“But mark my words, Natalia, I will not be responsible for my actions if you continue to behave as you are behaving now.”

“What
...
have I
...
done?” Natalia murmured, finding it hard to speak because Lord Colwall’s anger had made her heart thump furiously in her breast.

“It is not only what you have done,” he said angrily, “it is how you look, what you say! It is everything about you! For God’s sake, give me a little peace, or else I swear to you I shall force you into behaving as my wife!”

He seemed almost to spit the last words at her.

Then as she still sat looking up at him in bewilderment, one arm still around Herald, her eyes large and frightened in her pale face, Lord Colwall went from the room.

He slammed the door loudly behind him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Natalia was not asleep when Ellen called her the following morning. In fact she had been awake practically the whole night.

After Lord Colwall had left her alone in the Library she had gone very slowly upstairs to her room, and when her Maids had left her alone she had lain in the great four-poster feeling as if the whole future was dark.

For the first time since she had come to the Castle, she experienced a sense of hopelessness and depression which hung over her like a black cloud.

Even when she had first learnt that Lord Colwall did not love her, it was not the same feeling that she had now, of a despair for which she could find no relief.

All night long she had been haunted by the roughness in his voice and the violence with which he had spoken.

All night long she could see his eyes looking at her with an expression which she felt must be one of hatred.

What am I to do?’ she asked the darkness and found no answer.

She wanted above anything else to run to her mother, to seek the comfort and the understanding that Lady Margaret had always been able to give her.

Then she told herself it would be too humiliating to crawl home and confess that her marriage was a failure when she had been so confident, so absolutely sure it would be a success.

‘What can I do? What can I do?’ she asked again and again.

She felt she was in truth incarcerated in one of the dungeons below the Castle without light and without any hope of escape.

“It’s a nice morning, M’Lady,” Ellen said as she drew back the curtains. “There was a hard frost in the night but the suns a-coming out.”

Natalia did not reply and after a moment Ellen asked as she busied herself around the room:

“Will you be riding with His Lordship this morning?”

“No,” Natalia replied, “I have a headache.”

“Then I’ll bring your breakfast to you, M’Lady.”

Another housemaid came in to light the fire, and when it was burning brightly two Maids carried in the large bath-tub in which Natalia bathed.

They set it down in front of the fire so that it was ready for her when she wished to rise.

Breakfast, elegantly served on silver crested dishes with plates of Sevres china, was as usual delicious, but Natalia felt that anything she ate would choke her!

She drank a little tea and nibbled one or two of the large purple grapes which came from the greenhouses.

When Ellen took away her tray she exclaimed reproachfully:

“You’ve eaten nothing, M’Lady. Do you think you’ve caught a chill?”

“No, I am all right,” Natalia answered.

She rose from her bed and slipping her arms through her heavy silk wrapper walked to the window to look out.

It seemed almost incongruous that the sun should be shining so brightly through the morning mists, turning the frost on the trees and shrubs into a sparkling enchantment.

How could everything be so beautiful when she herself was so low and depressed?

Then in the Park beyond the garden she saw a figure on horseback, and felt her heart quicken and come alive.

It was impossible not to admire the way Lord Colwall rode, the manner in which he sat a horse as if he was part of the animal.

In fact, only to see him was to love him.

Even at this distance, Natalia thought, she could see how handsome he was, could admire the manner in which he wore his high
-
crowned hat on the side of his head, and the slimness of his legs in his shining boots.

She felt as if her love welled up inside her, dispersing the darkness.

‘I love him,’ she murmured beneath her breath, and in that moment she knew what she must do.

‘I have been absurd!’ she told herself. ‘Perhaps it was the shock of hearing he did not love me that made me behave as I did. If we are together, if I become his wife as he wants me to do, then I am sure that in time my love will evoke an answering response within him
.
’

She had forgotten, she now thought, in her obsession over Sarah’s baby, that it had been born without any love, either from Sarah or from its father.

In her case it would be very different, because she loved Lord Colwall to distraction.

‘I love him so much that I would die for him,’ she thought. ‘So why do I not live to please him?’

Quite suddenly the way seemed clear. Her love would be enough for both of them as far as their child was concerned.

If it was a son he would be strong and handsome, fine and noble like his father; and if it was a girl, there was plenty of time for them to have a son later, perhaps half a dozen!

‘How stupid I have been! How foolish to have wasted so much time!’ Natalia berated herself.

She moved across the room to tug at the bell-pull.

She wanted to be with Lord Colwall now—at once—to tell him that for the future everything would be different, that there would be no more reason for him to be angry with her—no reason to be incensed by her childish attitude.

‘I have not been thinking straight,’ Natalia excused herself.

But she knew that her father would be ashamed at her failure to think out everything carefully before she acted.

‘If only I had not overheard that conversation,’ she murmured. ‘My wedding-day would have been different
.
’

It was too late now for regrets.

All she could do now would be to see that in the future Lord Colwall was happy as she wanted him to be.

‘We have so many things in common,’ she thought. ‘We have so much to talk about, to discuss. When I am close to him, he will understand how deeply I feel about injustice and cruelty
.
’

She felt herself quiver with excitement at the thought of being in his arms, and when Ellen came into the room she said with a hit in her voice:

“I want to get up, Ellen. Bring me my riding-habit.”

“You’re going riding, M’Lady?”

“Yes, order a horse. I will catch up with His Lordship. I know where he has gone.”

She knew that Lord Colwall was trying out a new stallion which he had bought recently and she had already learnt that the best place to school an animal was where, some distance from the Castle, there was almost the equivalent of a race-course.

The ground was flat with no dangerous rabbit-holes in it, and the hedges had each been cut to a perfect height for a jump.

Natalia had already raced Lord Colwall on what was known as “The Course” on several occasions.

‘That is where he will be now,’ she thought to herself as she dressed. ‘I will challenge him as I have done before
.
’

There was a sparkle in her eyes, and when she turned to look at her reflection in the mirror she saw that she was looking extremely pretty.

Ellen had produced a new riding-habit for her which she had not worn before. Of emerald-green velvet, it was warmer than the one she usually wore and was most becoming to her fair hair and white skin.

“Do you think you will be warm enough, M’Lady?” Ellen asked.

“I am sure I shall,” Natalia replied.

But Ellen insisted on bringing her a satin scarf shaped almost like a cravat. She put it round her neck and tucked it into the front of her riding-coat.

“It is always hot when one is riding,” Natalia smiled.

As she spoke she knew that she was glowing with the anticipation of seeing Lord Colwall and telling him that the gulf which had lain between them no longer existed.

She hurried down the stone stairs to find her horse was waiting for her at the door. It was the roan she had ridden before, and he responded immediately to her eagerness to be on her way.

“Is Your Ladyship sure you wouldn’t like me to accompany you?” the groom asked.

Natalia shook her head.

“I am joining His Lordship.”

Then she was trotting down the drive, eager to reach the Park where she could give her horse his head.

She galloped for some way and then as she turned from the Park onto a stubble field beyond, Natalia saw at the far end of it a crowd of men congregated around one of the big barns.

There were half-a-dozen of these built around a stockade where some of the cattle were kept in the winter.

Natalia was just going to hurry on when she saw a riderless horse and thought that it might be Lord Colwall’s.

Accordingly, she turned her horses head and as she drew nearer to the barn realised that the men whom she had seen had gone inside.

The horse, however, was left tethered to a post.
She looked at it as she approached and felt that it was not a fine enough animal to belong to His Lordship, and yet she was not quite sure.

She had not seen the new stallion of which he had spoken and she could not remember what colour he had said it was.

She rode up to the barn. The big doors were open and she could see a number of men moving about inside talking noisily.

Then she heard the sound of hammering and wondered what they could be about.

“Is His Lordship there?” she shouted but her voice seemed lost in the general confusion.

Because she felt that he must be there and at the same time, she was curious, she dismounted. Holding her horse by its bridle, she entered the barn.

For a moment, stepping from the sunlight into the darkness, it was difficult for her to see anything and then she realised there was a sudden silence.

All the men who had been talking so loudly had ceased speaking and had turned their faces towards her.

“Is His Lordship
...
” she began.

Then she saw that behind the men stood a huge piece of machinery.

Without asking she knew what it was! A threshing-machine! The monster of which she had read so much and which had aroused such violent feelings all over the country.

She stared at it and saw that a number of men were already standing on it and holding large hammers in their hands.

“What are you doing?” she asked and knew the answer even before she asked the question.

“May I enquire who this Lady is?” a cultured voice asked.

Natalia turned her head from the contemplation of the machine to see a man moving towards her among the crowd of labourers.

He was about medium height and fashionably dressed, but there was something pretentious and rather garish about him which told her he was in fact no aristocrat.

“This be Her Ladyship, Captain,” one of the labourers said in a low voice.

‘Indeed! Then you are Lady Colwall?”

“Yes, I am,” Natalia answered, “and may I enquire your name?”

“I have many names,” the man replied with an unpleasant twist to his thick lips.

He was in fact good-looking in a somewhat vulgar manner and he had an air about him of such self-assurance that it implied a vast self-conceit.

“Many names?” Natalia repeated in perplexity.

Then she realised that one of the men had called him “Captain.”

“You are
...
Captain Swing?” she said accusingly.

He bowed to her ironically.

“The evil genius who is behind the riots which are taking place in so many Counties!” Natalia went on.

“Your Ladyship flatters me!”

“I do not intend to do so,” she replied fiercely. “You have no right to come here and incite our men to violence.”

She saw the sneer on his lips and continued:

“You know as well as I do that if they break up this machine, they will be imprisoned and undoubtedly transported. How can you inflict such suffering upon them?”

“Us be only a-trying t’get our rights, M’Lady,” one of the men muttered.

Natalia looked at their honest, rather stupid faces.

She knew several of the men by sight, and she was quite sure that they would none of them ever have taken such action if they had not been skilfully led into rebellion by this notorious Captain Swing.

“Listen to me,” she insisted. “You know as well as I do that His Lordship will not tolerate the destruction of his property, or insurrection amongst his own people. Do not listen to what this man says—this outsider who has caused so much trouble in so many other Counties and achieved nothing.”

“He says that a lot o’landowners have put up th’ wages,” one of the men remarked.

“That is true, Lady Colwall,” Captain Swing interposed. “On a great number of farms we have been most successful.”

“Not for the men who have actually taken the initiative!” Natalia retorted. “They are languishing in prison awaiting trial and you know the kind of sentence they will receive.”

She turned again to the men.

“Have you thought if you are taken to prison how your wives and families will suffer? Perhaps His Lordship will not allow them to remain in his cottages.”

She paused and added pleadingly:

“Let me speak to him on your behalf. Do not do anything so foolish as to destroy this machine or fire the ricks until you have spoken to His Lordship man to man about your problems.”