The Gilded Web (30 page)

She was not at all sure that Papa was right. She could almost picture the intense pleasure and sense of adventure and achievement Lord Amberley's children would derive from climbing the cliff with him. And such a shared activity would bring him closer to his children. There would be the bond of love between them, not of fear.

They would be her children too! The thought caused a nasty lurching of her stomach and made her realize that she was still looking at her betrothed. She turned away to gaze down at the beach and the breakers again.

“There is another way down,” he said. “A little farther along.” He pointed to their left. “There is a fault in the rock that forms a quite effective and reasonably safe path. It makes for exciting exercise, though it is quite unappealing to children, of course.”

“May we go down?” she asked, turning to look at him with bright eyes.

He looked surprised. “Now?” he said. “When I said the path is safe, I perhaps exaggerated somewhat. It is not wide and it is steep. It has to be descended with great care.”

“I will be careful,” she said. “May we go down?” She felt an almost urgent need to do so. She felt as she did on those occasions at home when she begged James to gallop across the moors with her. Almost as if she would burst if she could not somehow give vent to pent-up energy. James had never needed much persuasion.

Lord Amberley looked back searchingly into her eyes. “We would have to leave the horses up here,” he said. “It is a walk of three miles at least back to the house from the bottom of the cliff.”

“I will enjoy the walk,” she said.

He still seemed undecided. Then he smiled suddenly. “I will take you down there on one condition,” he said. “You must hold firmly to my hand every step of the way.”

“Yes,” she said, and she smiled openly at him in her eagerness.

“We had better see if Dominic and your brother will take our horses back for us,” he said, turning to look for the others. Lord Eden was standing a short distance away, farther back from the edge of the cliff, with Susan Courtney clinging with both hands to his arm. James Purnell and Madeline were strolling back toward them along the clifftop, side by side, not touching.

M
ADELINE HAD BEEN HAVING
a difficult morning. Inevitably she was paired with James Purnell. She was becoming almost resigned to the fact. She had been able to see, when Susan arrived and agreed to join them on the ride, that that young lady would have been just as pleased to ride with Mr. Purnell as with Dominic, but Madeline had not allowed her hopes to soar. It was unlikely that anyone would think it polite to leave her to her twin's company. Besides, it was clear that Dominic fancied Susan. He would probably be head over ears in love with her within a few days at the most.

And so she had ridden with Mr. Purnell and walked with him for a few minutes along the cliff top and exhausted every topic of conversation known to man. It was not that he was silent. He was not quite that ill-bred. But he never initiated a topic, and his comments and responses to those she introduced were terse and entirely to the point. He never left her any room to expand on a theme. He said only what needed to be said. Did he not know that in polite conversation one forced oneself to say a great deal more?

By the time they were strolling back toward her brothers, Madeline was fuming with suppressed rage. Her elder brother's idea of climbing down the cliff path, then, something she had not done for years, was entirely irresistible.

“Oh, I will come with you, Edmund,” she said, her face glowing into life. “I can think of nothing more exhilarating. Dom, do come with us. Mr. Purnell can take Susan back to the house.”

Lord Eden glanced down at his companion—clinging to his arm with both hands, Madeline noticed, and looking decidedly pale—then regretfully back at his sister. “No,” he said, “you go, Mad. I will stay with Susan. She is afraid of heights, you know.”

Perhaps it would not take him a few days to be in love, Madeline thought, noting the protective way his free hand came across to pat one of Susan's reassuringly. Dom looked as if he had fallen already. Perhaps it was not a bad thing, either, although Susan was just the helpless, clinging type of female that always attracted Dom and was quite wrong for him. At least she would keep him away from Alexandra. And the infatuation would not last long. Dom's infatuations never did. And neither did hers, for that matter, she thought philosophically.

“Is there a way down?” James Purnell was asking. “And are you really prepared to tackle it, Alex? I will come too, of course.”

Madeline turned away from her twin with an inward sigh as he assured everyone that he would take Susan back to the house and send stable-hands for the horses.

Madeline and Purnell led the way down. She declined the assistance of his hand. She knew from experience that the path was quite safe, though it would seem dangerous if one did not know it. If one walked close against the cliff face, even spreading one's hands on the rock, one could stay decently far from the edge. Time had made the surface underfoot grassy and quite firm. It was only the height and the sheerness of the drop at the edge of the path that gave the illusion of danger.

A little more than halfway down, the path opened out onto a much broader ledge. From there on the path was narrower and steeper, but the danger seemed to be past because the beach was so much closer. Madeline enjoyed every step of the descent. Although Mr. Purnell turned back frequently to see if she needed assistance, the obligation of making conversation had been taken away from her temporarily. She felt great regret when he finally jumped down the few feet from the end of the path to the beach and turned to lift her down. And it was only then that she realized that now she would be with him for all of the three-mile walk home.

She set her hands on his shoulders and jumped. Edmund and Alexandra, she could see when they both looked up, were still no farther down than the broad ledge.

“Will Alexandra be all right, do you think?” she asked. “I must confess I was surprised that she allowed herself to be persuaded to make the descent.”

“It was probably Alex who suggested it,” he said. “She has a great deal of energy and courage when she forgets herself and breaks free.”

He looked as if he were talking to himself, Madeline thought, his eyes narrowed and looking upward. That lock of dark hair was down over his forehead again. He was not wearing a hat.

“Edmund will see that she is safe anyway,” she said. “I have been told that Papa was the first to bring me down here, but I can remember doing it only with Edmund. I always felt as safe as I could possibly be. It seemed impossible then that he could ever slip. We have gone up too on occasion. That seems very much safer, though it takes considerably more exertion.”

“You seem to have been given a great deal of freedom as a child,” he said, turning to begin the walk along the beach.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I did not even realize that it was so until I began to meet other people and found that their upbringing was often a great deal more restricting. Do you disapprove?”

He walked with his hands clasped behind him, she noticed. She was glad that he did not offer her his arm. “No,” he said. “If I had children…”

Madeline looked inquiringly at him when he did not immediately continue. He was grimacing. His eyes were on the sand at his feet.

“If I had children,” he began again, “I would see to it that they had a happy childhood. If I planned to have any, that is.”

“You do not wish to have children?” she asked. “Or to marry?”

“No to both questions,” he said curtly. “Why bring children into this world knowing what is ahead of them? Better to leave them in unknowing oblivion.”

“But you cannot know what is ahead for them,” she said. “Life has a great deal of happiness and pleasure to offer. I have even known happy people among those who seem to have nothing at all to celebrate.”

“Death is ahead for every child that is born,” he said harshly.

“But one cannot dismiss the value of the whole of life just because death is its inevitable end,” she said. “Sometimes when I think that I must die, that there is no avoiding the moment, I am consumed with terror. But Edmund once told me how to cope with such moments. Look back on your life, he said, and ask yourself quite honestly if you would have missed it, given the choice. I think I would hate not to have lived at all.”

“You have lived a privileged life,” he said. “Some people have nothing pleasant at all to look back upon.”

“I cannot believe that,” she said. “Oh, yes, I know I am privileged. I find nothing more horrifying than the journey into London, when one has to drive past all the dreadful signs of poverty. But there are very poor people who are happy. I have met some. I don't believe that any life need be filled with unrelieved despair.”

“You are a romantic,” he said. “Your attitude is typical of those who have never been called upon to suffer.”

“That is unfair,” she said. “I have been fortunate, yes. More fortunate than anyone has a right to expect to be, perhaps. But I have suffered too. My father died when I was twelve years old. I was still at an age when life seemed safe and secure and incredibly happy. And then Papa died quite suddenly. And Mama was gone for a long time too. She was here with us the whole time, but she suffered what must have been a living death. Suddenly the world was a wide and dark and frightening place. And yet life is still worth living. The experience has taught me that happiness is to be enjoyed to the fullest right now. It is a gift that should not be wasted. And it can give us the strength to live through the troubled times.”

“And how does one get one's strength if one has never been allowed to be happy?” he asked. “And one's faith that life is worth living?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Are you referring to your sister? She is a strong person, I believe. And I don't think she shares your cynicism with life. Happiness is possible for her. Edmund can make her happy.”

He stopped walking and looked back along the beach. They had walked almost to the head of the valley. Madeline looked back too. Alexandra and her brother were on the beach, but they were standing still below the cliff path. They were a long way back.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I hope you are right. Perhaps there is that much justice in this world. I would see some glimmering of meaning if only Alex could be happy.”

Madeline shook her skirt as they stepped onto grass at last. But her hem had not picked up a great deal of sand. The beach was firm and damp.

“You are very self-pitying,” she said. “You and Alexandra had a hard upbringing, I think. You have not known a great deal of happiness. But you are alive now. You are still young. There is still a great deal of happiness you can make for yourself if you will. I think you are so much in the habit of feeling sorry for yourself that you have doomed yourself to a life of misery and martyrdom. You cannot have suffered that much in fewer than thirty years of living.”

It was a very unmannerly speech. She might have spoken to Dominic thus with no fear of offending beyond an angry moment. It was not at all the way to talk to a stranger. She would not have done so had she not still been feeling cross at having to spend a whole glorious morning with a difficult companion.

She looked across at him when he did not immediately reply. She was already framing an apology in her mind. But she swallowed the words when she saw the expression on his face. He was looking straight ahead, to her everlasting gratitude. His face was tense, his dark eyes burning with fury.

“What do you know of my life, of my past?” he said. She was positively frightened by the quiet control in his voice. “Only someone quite silly and totally lacking in imagination or sense will announce to another that he cannot possibly have suffered because he has not yet reached his thirtieth year and because he is still alive. You know nothing beyond your own life of frivolous pleasure. Nothing!”

Madeline had to increase her pace to keep up with his lengthened stride. The trouble was, she could not even feel anger at his outburst and his judgement of her character. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she had deserved both.

“You are right,” she said. “It was a silly thing to say. But I did not mean quite what I said. I merely meant that life is what you make of it. There is no point in brooding on the past, however bad it might have been. Life is to be lived. And there is still possibly a great deal left for you as well as for me. Is it not wrong to reject the gift of the future?”

“Gift?” he said, turning to look at her. His voice was full of contempt. “And who, pray, is the giver? God? If there were such a being, I would hurl his gift back in his face. You are a romantic.”

“And that is supposed to set me down and make me feel like a worm?” she said, anger finally coming to her rescue again. “I would prefer to be a romantic than a cynic, sir. Who is usually the happier of the two, may I ask? And you are an atheist, I perceive. Then I am truly sorry for you. And I can understand why you feel as you do about life. The man without God is a man without hope.”