The Adultress (13 page)

“I’d rather show you the house. You ought to see it and now that there is no one here there is an opportunity. Besides, it seems different when it’s empty. It has a great deal of atmosphere.”

He had taken my arm and was drawing me toward the house. I was reminded of my dream when I had fancied something had been warning me. I knew that when I had dreamed that I had imagined I was in that house, but I felt myself drawn on by an irresistible impulse and yet I was aware of another part of myself warning me not to enter that house of ill omen.

He had opened the door and we stood in the hall. It had a vaulted ceiling and fine paneling. I had seen many halls like it and yet there were shadows here. In the stillness I felt my heart start to beat so fast that I could almost hear it. He put an arm around me. I drew back and he said: “You looked … vulnerable … as though you need protection.”

I laughed but it sounded hollow. “I am really quite well able to look after myself.”

“I know it.” He was looking at me intently. “You would never do what you did not want to.”

My eyes had strayed to the minstrels’ gallery.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s one of the haunted spots. There are many of them. I’ve discovered that the servants won’t go into the gallery alone. Come, Zipporah, let us defy the ghosts.”

He took my hand and we mounted the stairs.

There was a carved door. It creaked as he opened it.

“Come,” he whispered and I stepped with him into the gallery.

“It’s colder up here.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said. “The ghosts come from the dead.”

He took my chin in his hands and looked into my face.

“You’re a tiny bit scared,” he said. “Oh yes, you are, my practical commonsensical Zipporah. Confess it, you are a little affected by Enderby.”

“Are you?” I asked.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I like it. It’s no ordinary house, but who wants an ordinary house? When I am here I say to myself: Is it true? Do the spirits of those long dead sometimes return to haunt the scenes of their sins … or their triumphs? Who can be sure? No one can. That’s the exciting thing about it. It’s mystery … wrapped in mystery, and one is never sure whether one is going to find the answer. Don’t you find that fascinating?”

“Yes, of course.”

We stood at the rail looking down at the hall. “It’s full of shadows,” he said. “Why?”

“Because of the trees and shrubs which grow too close and too high. Cut them down and have lawns all about the house and the light would be let in.”

“Perhaps the ghosts wouldn’t like it. Come on. Let me show you the rest of the house.”

“Where are the people who live here?”

“They are away. It is lent to me in their absence.”

“It was very convenient for you.”

“Oh very. I couldn’t have found a more pleasant spot.”

“But it is so far away from London.”

“Well, it has its little town wherein the good firm of Rosen, Stead and Rosen are housed.”

“But for a man of affairs …”

“This suits my affairs very well. I am near the sea … That is good, but best of all I am close to Eversleigh Court and because of that I met you, Zipporah.”

I sat quickly: “I think I should be returning home to Clavering soon. They will be missing me and I have done what I came to do.”

“Don’t talk of that now. Live in the present. It’s good to live in the present. The past is usually full of regrets. Never feel regrets, Zipporah. They change nothing. As for the future, that is the unknown. It is the present that has to be lived and living is the whole meaning of existence.”

“Too many generalizations are never quite true,” I said.

I was already beginning to feel the spell of the house … or perhaps it was his presence. I felt like another person. Trying to make excuses later I told myself that from the moment I had entered the house I had been taken into the possession of someone else.

We reached the top of the stairs, our footsteps echoing on the bare wooden boards. He opened a door and we were in a corridor.

I said: “How silent it seems! A strange soft of alliance … almost as though …”

“Perhaps the ghosts have come out today. I’ve got an idea they don’t much care for those giggling servants. They like a silent house.”

“
We
are here,” I said.

“On a tour of exploration. I am sure they want the house to live up to its eerie reputation.

“This is not an exceptionally large house,” he said. “There are five rooms on this landing. Above are the servants’ quarters. How quiet it seems.”

He opened a door. I was in a room in which was a large four-poster bed. The hangings were of brocade—white and gold. There was other furniture in the room but it was dominated by the large bed.

I had the uncanny feeling then that I had been there before. Or did I imagine that afterward. My emotions at this stage were so intense because I knew that I was being propelled toward some tremendous climax. I was trying to hold back yet urging myself forward.

“They prepared this room for me when I arrived,” I heard him say. “I believe it was a sort of honor. It’s the bridal suite.”

“But you brought no bride,” I said.

He had taken my hands and was looking steadily at me. I tried to withdraw them but I could not do so. I was not sure whether it was because he held them so firmly or because my own will would not allow me to relinquish the contact.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remembered something I had heard about this room. Hadn’t the bed curtains been blood red … rich, velvet at one time; and hadn’t they been changed to white and gold. There was a reason.

The past seemed to be closing round me and I was a part of it. I wanted to escape from it. I wanted to be in the present … I wanted to live as I never had before.

Then he put his arms round me and held me close to him. I could feel his heart beating against mine. I was in love with him and this was different from loving Jean-Louis or anyone I had loved before. This was something I had never experienced, had never understood, had been vaguely aware existed … in romances of the past. Tristan and Isolde, Abelard and Héloïse … the sort of overwhelming passion for the sake of which people sacrificed everything … even that which they held most dear.

“Zipporah.” He was saying my name as I had never heard it said before. I seemed to be floating along in his arms. We had left the world and all its little conventions a long way behind. We were together … we belonged together … and there was no holding back the tide of passion which was enveloping us.

I heard myself say: “No … no … I must go. …”

And I heard his gentle laughter as he loosened my dress. I was still protesting but without any real conviction, I knew, and he knew it too. I was desperately trying to remember so many things. I was Zipporah Ransome, wife of Jean-Louis; our marriage was a happy one … my family …

It was no use, I was not with them … I was here in this house with my lover.

Yes, he was my lover. I had been conscious of this tremendous attraction between us from the first. It had happened in that very moment he had risen from the ground and stood before me.

It was no use fighting, I must let this emotion sweep over me, submerge me … teach me what I had never known before—that I was a deeply sensuous woman who had never before been aware of this.

I made no attempt now to hold him off. I was his completely and he knew it. Perhaps being wise in the ways of women he had always known it.

Afterward we lay on the bed side by side. It was so still, and then away in the distance I could hear the shouting and laughter of the fair.

It occurred to me that I would remember that forever as the background to my ecstasy of passion and my shame.

I put my hand to my face. There were tears there. How had I shed them? What were they? Tears of happiness, the result of this tremendous excitement which had taken possession of me, tears of shame … for that was there too.

He put his arms about me and held me close to him. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you.” I answered.

“Dear Zipporah … be happy. …”

“I am … and then I’m not.”

“It had to be.”

“It should never have been.”

“It has been.”

“Oh God,” I said, and I was praying aloud. I wanted to go back. I didn’t want this to have happened. “Let me go back. … Let it be early this afternoon. Let me walk in the opposite direction … away from Enderby.”

He stroked my face.

“Dearest.” he said, “it had to be … right from the first it had to be. Whatever happens now we have had this. It is worth everything … all the anticipation that was, all the regretting to come. We met as we did. We went through our little adventure of the will, but that is not the point. There are people who are meant to love … to mate … they must. It is their destiny. Don’t blame yourself because you were suddenly awakened. You have been dormant too long, my darling. Zipporah.”

“What have I done?” I said. “My husband …”

He held me fast against him. “Come away with me,” he said. “You will never have to face him then.”

“Leave my home … my husband … my family …”

“For me.”

“I could never do that. That would be the ultimate betrayal.”

“You were meant to love as we have loved. We would have a wonderful life together.”

“No,” I said. “I must go from here. We must not meet again. This must be forgotten. It must be as though it never was. I must go home to my husband … to my family. We must forget … forget. …”

“Do you think I am ever going to forget? Are you?”

“I shall live with this all the rest of my life. I shall never be at peace again. I feel now that I shall wake up and find that it never really happened.”

“And the most exciting experience of your life was not real! You want that!”

“I don’t know. But I must go. What if anyone came back and found me here … like this … ?” I half rose but he had pulled me back. He held me firmly, and he was laughing, a hint of triumph in his voice.

Then he was making love to me again and my resolutions slipped away. I was drowned once more in that sea of passion. There was nothing else that mattered. I was powerless to resist.

As I lay exhausted by my emotion, listening to the sounds of the fair in the distance, I felt I was now irrevocably lost.

The curtains about the bed were half drawn and the sun glinting through the windows touched them with a shade of red. Through my half-closed eyes for a few moments they might have been red velvet. …

There is something strange here, I thought, something uncanny. I knew then that I had started to make my excuses.

I did not rise. I lay there beside him and I listened to his seductive voice telling me that we could go away together. We could leave for France by the end of the week. He would make me happy as I had not dreamed of happiness. He knew that he had opened a new world to me. He had shown me a side to my nature that I had never known existed. I had been happy with Jean-Louis; our life had been, as I thought, satisfactory in all ways. It could never be so again because I knew that with my husband I had never explored those realms of erotic excitement to which Gerard had introduced me. I would always crave for them … long for them. It was as though he had opened a door to a part of my nature which I had not known existed and the new experiences to which I had been introduced would make demands upon me. I should never be satisfied with my marriage after this.

How long did we lie there with the sounds of the fair going on and on in the background? I had no notion of time … it slipped away. There were moments when I forgot everything but our passion. I deliberately refused to think of anything else; not that I had to make a great effort. But I did know that time was passing and even he—reckless as I guessed him to be—was aware of that. The servants would be coming back. How could my presence in the house be explained?

So he agreed that we must go. I soberly dressed. I could not understand my mood, which was half defiant, half exultant. If I could go back, would I? No, I would not. I had lived this afternoon as I would never have believed was possible. I didn’t want to change anything … not yet. Let me live in my magic cocoon a little longer.

He turned to me and held me in his arms, tenderly kissing my brow, stroking my hair, telling me he loved me.

“We must meet soon,” he said. “I must talk to you. … We must make plans.”

“I shall go back to my home. I must.”

“I shall not allow it. When can we meet? Tonight? Come out by the shrubbery.”

At last I said I would.

We went down the staircase past the haunted gallery. The house seemed different now … at peace, in a way, contented, almost laughing at us. I was very fanciful. It was all part of building up excuses, trying to plead extenuating circumstances, fate perhaps, for what I had done.

The sounds from the fair were louder out of doors.

We walked together back to Eversleigh. In the shrubbery he kissed me passionately.

“We belong together,” he said. “Never forget it.”

Then I tore myself away and ran into the house.

I made for my room and on the way I passed Uncle Carl’s room. On impulse I looked in. He was sitting in his chair and he looked grotesque, I thought, out of bed with his long nose and pointed chin, his parchment skin and his very lively dark eyes.

“Oh.” he said, “have you been to the fair, Carlotta?”

“Carlotta?” I said. “Carlotta’s dead. It’s Zipporah.”

“Of course. Of course. You looked so like her … for the moment I’d forgotten.”

I felt shaken. I thought: It shows. What have I done? It has branded me in some way. He knew. … That is why he called me Carlotta.

“Is Jessie in?” he asked.

“She may be still at the fair.”

“She’ll be in now, I’ll swear. It’s nearly supper time.”

I left him. I could not bear those lively eyes looking at me. I was sure they saw something different about me.

I went to my room. I looked at myself in the mirror. “Carlotta,” he had said. Yes … I looked different. There was something about me … a sparkle … a shine almost. My eyes, which had been a darkish blue, looked darker … almost a violet shade.