The Four Swans (38 page)

Once they had all gone, the two sisters returned to the vicarage and Ossie grumpily went up to his room to change for cards. He had announced, when husband and, wife first spoke together of Rowella’s disgrace, that because she was Morwenna’s sister he intended to give the unhappy girl fifty pounds in order that she should not sink into ultimate squalor with her, vile seducer. Though she might not deserve it he would be generous. Nor, though temptation here sided with duty, would he follow the rightful course of denouncing the wretched young man to his employers. By doing that, richly though he deserved it, not only would he lose his employment but Rowella’s disgrace would become public. As it was, the fiction of respectability might just be preserved, and feeling for the vicarage would be limited to sympathy that Mrs Whitworth’s sister had made so unacceptable a marriage. It was a great pity, he observed, with his hands under his coattails, a very great pity, that the newly-weds should have to continue to live in Truro. He very much hoped that Morwenna would not visit her sister socially. Morwenna said: `It is very probable I shall not.’ Knowing the closeness of, the Chynoweth family, Ossie was pleasantly surprised by this reply. He realized that Morwenna had no more patience with immorality than he had.

When he had gone to his whist the, two sisters ate a quiet supper together and talked in a desultory way before going to bed. Garlanda was returning to Bodmin tomorrow, There was no question of another sister coming to live at the vicarage. Ossie said he had suffered substantial losses in the recent bank crisis, and they could afford no further help with the children or in the house. The two little girls would be sent off to school and Morwenna would be freed to spend more time with her own baby.

It had altogether been a trying visit for Garlanda and she was not going to be sorry when it was over. Pursued by her mother’s laments - muffled, since no one must know the truth in Bodmin she had arrived at a vicarage where the three principal occupants each seemed ranged against the other. Mr Whitworth, it was understandable, was completely offended and alienated by his sister-in-law’s utter disgrace. Morwenna, though hiding it better and treating the unhappy girl with some degree of consideration, yet clearly felt the slur on her family and the slur upon herself that it could have happened while her youngest sister was in her charge.

While Rowella, though occasionally tearful and downcast, - as if that were the demeanour family and society expected of her, was yet subtly unchanged; one even dared to suspect in the dark of the night not utterly repentant. Until the actual morning of the wedding she continued as before, reading, ever reading, teaching and talking to the little girls, sitting silent at meals, the centre, the quiet centre of the thundercloud that overhung the vicarage.

Garlanda had fitted in as best she was able, talking brightly of Bodmin affairs when the chance arose, otherwise limiting her observations to the trivia of everyday life. Clearly anything about the wedding beyond the merest arrangements was taboo, unless one of the other girls mentioned it first, and they did not. So had come the wedding, and the thin nervous bridegroom and the few ill-at-ease guests and the tea and cake and then the little gig to take the happy pair to their new lodgings. Rowella had kissed her sister with the casual ease of someone going out for the afternoon. Arthur took Garlanda’s hand and smiled into her eyes but made no attempt to kiss her, as if taking liberties with a young lady were the last thing likely ever to occur to him.

And then they were gone and now with Ossie out at whist the two remaining sisters sat before the parlour fire for the last time.

Garlanda noticed a big change in her elder sister. Her reticence before had come from shyness; her, dealings with anyone with whom she was intimate had always been completely frank and unguarded. Not so now. And while Morwenna occupied herself wholly with her duties as a vicar’s wife, she no longer managed the house so well. Nor was she as careful about her own appearance. In the family of girls she had always been the precise one, taking care of her neatness and cleanliness after even the noisiest romp. Often when her mother was not around she had taken over and seen that her younger sisters, though by so little younger, were up to the mark with their hair and their frocks. Now she was untidy in dress and, casual about order in the house.

Yet she had regained her figure and seemed in good health, and Garlanda found it difficult to reconcile her present looks with the picture of the emaciated and ailing creature her mother had drawn when describing a visit to Truro last July to see her grandchild. If appearances were all, there would be little cause for concern.

But Garlanda saw the changes in her sister’s manner as symptomatic of some deeper malaise. If she couldn’t care for her husband it was proper enough to treat him with a polite but shallow courtesy which neither he nor anyone else could take; exception to. But need this attitude apply to everyone; even her sisters? And in so far as one could relate such an attitude to a child, she appeared to carry it, into her dealings with her own son. She was much more like a nurse to the baby than its mother.

Knowing that in Bodmin there would be a desire to know all there was to know, Garlanda forced herself this last evening, to discuss not merely the trivialities of the wedding but to bring up twice the not so trivial matter of Rowella’s downfall. The second time Morwenna put down her work, smiled short-sightedly and said

“My dear, I simply cannot talk of it. Not yet. It is all too raw and too sore. Forgive me, my dear. You have been very patient.’

‘No, no. I understand how you must feel, Wenna.’

‘Tell Mama I will write. It will be better that way.’

`Elizabeth was not at the wedding. Nor Mr Warleggan. Did you invite them?’

`They are still in London - fortunately. I believe they will be back next week.’

‘Shall you tell Elizabeth the truth?’

`The truth?’ Morwenna looked up. `The truth - oh, no. What would be the purpose? The truth should be hushed up. It will be sufficient if I tell Elizabeth that Rowella has made an unfortunate marriage.’

Shortly after, the two girls went to bed. The coach would be passing at seven so they had to be astir early. When Garlanda had climbed the second flight. Morwenna went in to see if John Conan were asleep, found him so, tucked him in, and then retired to bed herself. She had a book which she hoped would take her mind off the tensions of the day; but even this, as it came from the library, was not without its tormenting links.

Presently she gave up, set the book down and leaned over to put out the candle. On this came Ossie, still in his elegant evening suit, frilled shirt, striped canary waistcoat, tight trousers showing his thick sturdy legs.

Morwenna drew her hand back from the candle. `Why are you back so soon?’

Ossie, grunted. `Pearce had an attack of his old cholicky gout, played only six hands. Said then he was in too much pain to continue. If it were not for those I meet there - I’d drop him completely. The fellow’s never well these days!’

`Well, he is old, isn’t he?’

`Then he should give us due warning ! By the time he gave up it was too late to find a fourth.’

Mr Whitworth went across to a mirror and patted at his cravat, stared at himself. His eye caught Morwenna’s looking at him through the mirror. He had not been in this room much recently, for during her illness they had slept separately and he had not rejoined her since, except occasionally to claim his rights. Of course the awful regularity of the early days had never been resumed; but Morwenna knew instantly that that was what he had come in for tonight. After all, his whist game had gone wrong.

For a moment or two as he stood there, still looking at himself, he attempted to make conversation about the wedding, but it remained a monologue. After replying, yes, once or twice, his wife said nothing more, but just let him go on. And so presently his voice stopped.

There was silence. The pendulum of the French ormolu clock on the mantelshelf wagged a small admonitory shadow on the wall.

He said: `Morwenna. No doubt you have rested this evening after the events of the day’

‘No, Ossie,’ she said.

He still; did not turn. ‘No? You have not rested? But all this evening you-‘

`I mean no to the question that you were about to ask. I hope - I hope now that you will not have to ask it.’ `I was going to say –‘

`Please do not say it, and then and then this conversation can end before it has begun.’

`My dear,’ he said. `I think you forget yourself.’

`I think - I think perhaps, Osborne, it is you who forget yourself by coming in here tonight !’

Her face was almost grey when he turned. She had never spoken out so freely against him before, and his body seemed to swell, as it often did when anger gripped it.

`Morwenna! What an outburst! I have come in here in all friendliness to see you before I retire. Certainly I had in mind, and still have in mind, the natural attention that a husband properly owes his wife, and I expect you as my wife to consider her duty under the terms of our holy marriage bond–-‘

‘That I have done. But will no longer-‘

He was not listening. ‘To - to attempt,’ even to attempt to rebuff me shows a wilful and contrary spirit which I had never thought to find in you. Nor shall I take any notice of it, for it deserves only to be ignored. But I would warn you that I - ‘

`No, Ossie,’ she said, sitting up in bed.

`What do you mean, no!’ he half shouted. `Merciful heaven, what fancy has got into your brain that you think yourself able to refuse the love and affection that it is a husband’s pleasure and duty to bestow? What–-‘

`I ask you,, Ossie, please to leave this room and do not come near me tonight - or any other night!’

‘Any other night? Have you taken leave of your senses, woman?’ He began to unpin his cravat. `Certainly I shall not go. And certainly I will have my way.’

She drew a deep breath. `Is it was it with such brutal words that you took Rowella?’

His hands stopped. They were not quite steady. He put down the cravat. `What lewd and indecent thoughts can be passing through your mind?’

`None except such as have been put there by your behaviour.’

He looked as if he might strike her. `Are you meaning to imply that I laid so much as, a hand on that brazen, wanton child who, has just left this house for ever?’

She put her hands to her face. `Oh, Osborne, do you think I have been blind?’

There was a pause. Then he said: `I believe your sister has some evil within her which only some special rites of the church could exorcise. But I did not think she would ever try to poison my name to you by uttering such slander-‘

`I said blind, Osborne. Blind! Do you know what that means? Do you think I have never seen you creeping up the stairs to her room? Do you think I did not once, just once, pluck up the courage to follow?’

The solitary candle flickered with some gesture she had made, and the shadows grimaced as if shrinking from the words she had spoken. Nothing now could ever be the same again.

Osborne took off his coat and hung it on a chair. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and then took off his waistcoat and folded it beside the coat. Whether it was the anger that was going out of him or just the divestment of clothes, he looked a smaller man.

He said: `What I have just told you about your sister is still true. She has some evil within her which - which drives one out of one’s mind. I had never thought - never dreamed that anything could ever happen between us. She is possessed. For a while I became possessed. There is nothing more to say.’

`Nothing.?’

`Well, little. Except that your illness deprived me of the natural outlet of my feelings. She - she preyed on that.’

`And now she is married off in shame to a man she hardly knows - to hide your shame?’

`I do not think you have the right to say that!’

`And do you have the right to - to return to me now that she has left us?’

`What happened was nothing, meant nothing; a temporary aberration on my part.’

`Which she has connived at helping you to cover up?’

‘At a price.’

‘Ah … so I suspected…’

His face flushed again.’ `I do not like your tone. Not at all, Morwenna, not at all.’

`I have not liked your behaviour.’

He went across to the window and parted the curtains, looked out. He had never known his gentle, submissive wife so fierce, so cutting, or known her answer him back in this way. Normally a raised voice, a stern word was enough. Of course he was at a disadvantage, a grave disadvantage, because he had erred in his own conduct, and she had found him out. He was shocked that she had known, and wondered how long she had known, and was angry and fretful that she should seek to censure him for what in essence had been caused by a failure on her part. And surely the very fact that she had known implied a degree of complicity. If she had known she should have instantly sent her sister off back to Bodmin - as any decent wife would. Perhaps the two sisters had conspired together against him! He felt he would never be free of their toils and heartily wished he had never married this useless creature who, it was true, had borne him a son but who otherwise had been a passive thorn in his flesh ever since he married her.

He turned and stared, at her, sitting up in the bed in her fine woollen nightdress, ashen-faced, dark-eyed, tragic. Her long, white hands were gripping the sheet, her black hair hanging lank upon her shoulders. For three weeks now he had been deprived of any woman.

It was grossly unfair. He licked his lips. `Morwenna … your sister is gone. She will never return. What

has happened between us - little enough as it was - is over, finished. Perhaps there were faults on both sides - on all sides. I have suffered much, I assure you. Only God can determine where blame may rest. Not us. Not mortals. Therefore I suggest that we close a page and begin again. We have been joined together as man and wife, and no man shall put us asunder. Indeed our union has been blessed by the gift of a son. I suggest that we say a little prayer, together and ask God’s blessing on our future union and the fruit that may spring from it.’