The Mask of the Enchantress (17 page)

I believe that the only person who knew what was happening between me and Joel was Dorothy. She was imperturbable and I could not tell what she thought. It occurred to me that women might have come to the house before. I asked Joel about this and he admitted that it had happened once or twice. He assured me vehemently that that had all been very different. There had never been anything like this, and I believed him.

Elizabeth Larkham son Garth came to the castle for the summer holidays. He was a noisy boy who behaved as though the castle were his. He was several years older than Esmond and took the lead in their games. I wondered whether Esmond welcomed him. He did not say he did not. He was too polite for that. His mother said it was good for him to have someone near his own age to be with and perhaps it was. There was another boy who came for a short visit. He was a cousin of some sort, named Malcolm Mateland. His grandfather was Egmont brother.

When I look back now everything that happened seems inevitable. Jessamy baby was born in November and by that time I had discovered that I was going to have a child.

It was a devastating discovery, although I should have been prepared for it. For several days I kept the information to myself.

Jessamy baby was a girl. She was called Susannah. It is a custom in our family to give the girls two names by which they are called. Amy Jane for instance. My mother was Susan Ellen. When it came to Jessamy and myself, our names were two strung together. Jessica Amy and Ann Bella. So naturally Jessamy thought of Susan Anna for Susannah.

So wrapped up in her baby was she that Jessamy did not notice my preoccupation.

I discussed my predicament with Joel. He was delighted at the prospect of our having a child and waved aside all the difficulties. I was beginning to understand Joel very well. He was a forceful man, as all the Matelands were. When he was presented with a difficult situation, he always began by assuming that a solution could be found.

hy, sweetheart,he said, t happened millions of times before. Wel find a way.

shall have to go away,I said. l find some excuse to leave the castle.

o go away briefly yes. But youe coming back.

nd the child?

el arrange something.

It took us some time to work out a plan of action. We then arranged that I should tell them at the castle that a distant relative of my father who lived in Scotland was anxious to see me. I had heard my father talk of these people but apparently there had been some quarrel in the family, and now that they had heard my father was dead they wanted to see me.

I told Jessamy that I thought I ought to go.

Jessamy hated quarrels in families and she said why didn I go for a week or two?

I left it at that. I would go for a week or so ostensibly and then I would find some reason for lengthening my stay.

I was now three monthspregnant. Janet was in the secret. It was impossible to keep it from her. She had been horrified at first, but that snobbery in her arose in my favor. At least the father of my child was the bearer of a great name and his home was a castle. That made the sin more venial in her eyes. She would come with me.

We did not go to Scotland as we had said we would but to a little mountain village near the Pennines and there we lived while we awaited the arrival of the baby. During that time Joel came twice to see me and stayed a few days each time. They were halcyon days. We were together in the mountains and we played a game of make-believe that we were married and that I was not hiding away so that our child could be born in secret.

Well, in due course you came into the world, Suewellyn, and I want you to know now that no child was ever more loved than you were.

What could I do? I could have set up house somewhere. We thought of that. Joel could have visited us. But I didn want it to be that way. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for us all. Joel wanted me at the castle. So we decided that you should live with Amelia and William Planter. I could visit you often, keep an eye on you, and the Planters could be trusted to do their duty oreover they would be well paid for doing it.

They took you and brought you up, and as you know I used to come regularly to see you.

It is a common enough situation. People, of course, began to suspect. The people who lived near the Planters must have guessed. I was always telling Joel that we should take you away. I wanted to have you with me. The Planters would never ill-treat you, I knew, but they would never love you. I used to worry a lot about you.

Do you remember the day I brought you to Mateland? I showed you the castle and Joel came. You were so happy that day, weren you? You had three wishes. I almost broke down when you told me what they were.

It seems miraculous that they have come true. I wish they could have come true in some other way.

I have told you about David, haven I? David was a wicked man. I know that Joel and I are no saints. I know that we allowed our senses to overcome our duty. I know that we thoughtlessly brought you into the world when it would be impossible to bring you up as parents should bring up their children. We were concerned first with our selfish desires. But we loved, Suewellyn, we loved. That is my excuse. David could never love anything or anyone but himself. He was concerned with his pride, which had to be satisfied at all costs. There was envy in him too. I quickly sensed that he was envious of Joel. It was true he was the elder son and he had a son to follow him. But Joel possessed some inner gratification. His work among the sick gave him a satisfaction which David lacked. Moreover David was a very sensual man. I do not say that Joel was not. He was. There is a ruthlessness in your father just as there was in David. They had the Mateland traits, both of them. The love of power had been bred in both of them and there is a saying that power corrupts. But Joel was capable of love. I know that David was not. He was concerned only with the satisfaction of his desires. I had denied him and I fancied that because of that his desire for me increased; but he wanted not only me but revenge.

David was a man of another century. He belonged to an age when the lord of the castle was a feudal lord, when all obeyed him and their fate depended on his whim. I believed he was capable of great cruelty; moreover, that he took a delight in inflicting it.

So, Suewellyn, though you were brought up in Crabtree Cottage, I always promised myself that one day I was going to make up for those early times. They were not desertion. Never that. I ached for you, longed for you. Joel and I talked of you constantly.

I prayed that we could all be together. That was my wish as it was yours.

The years began to speed by. I knew they were fraught with danger. I knew that David was watching me. I guessed he was aware how it was between Joel and me.

I discovered that Elizabeth Larkham was his mistress. She was a strange woman, an unusual woman. I think she was fond of Emerald but as in the case of Joel and myself her emotions must have been too strong for her. They could exert tremendous power, these Mateland men.

In a way I was grateful to Elizabeth because she turned David attention away from me. To tell the truth, I was aware of a certain menace in the castle. It had been the scene of many tragedies in the past; many dark deeds had been performed within those walls. Sometimes I believed that violence, passion, death and disaster leave some shadow behind them which generations to come can sense.

There were times when the atmosphere was like a cauldron waiting to boil over. There was David, envious, sensual, seeking to satisfy his insatiable senses; there was Emerald in her chair, quiet and gray like a ghost from the past, and I often wondered what her life with David had been like before her accident. There was Elizabeth Larkham, placating Emerald, making herself necessary to Emerald and Emerald husband; and there were myself and Joel indulging in our illicit passion, grasping at something which could never be while Jessamy lived. There was also Jessamy, dear innocent Jessamy, who was aware of something wrong with her marriage, conscious of her husband indifference and her own inadequacy, living for her child. Then the children: Esmond, bright and intelligent, nearly ready to go away to school; Garth, who came for the holidays; and Malcolm, who paid less frequent visits masterful boy, already showing signs of the Mateland strain; and of course Susannah beautiful child, screaming to get her own way and chuckling adorably when she got itnother true Mateland.

Even so, there came a time when I was lulled into a sense of security. How foolish of me! David was never going to allow anyone to get the better of him.

Perhaps he was growing tired of Elizabeth, but I grew aware that he was turning more and more to his pursuit of me. When I rode out I would find him following me. I had great difficulty in getting to the house in the town without his seeing me.

I used to slip out at odd times and if I failed to elude him I did not go to the house and Joel would be waiting there in vain.

His hatred of David was intense, I discovered. Joel emotions were always intense. He never did things by halves. He threw himself wholeheartedly into whatever obsessed him. He was obsessed by his work; he was obsessed by our passion. I often thought how happy we could have beene, you and I, Suewellyn, in that house in the town away from the castle.

This brings me to the last time I visited you at Crabtree Cottageo, not the last time, for the last time I came was when I took you away. I mean the time before the last.

I did not realize that I was being followed. I should have done. But he was very skillful. David had become aware that I often left the castle for a day, ostensibly to visit relations of my father. This was supposed to be a branch of the family with whom I had stayed at the time of your birth and whom I had met at that time.

Well, on that occasion David followed me to Crabtree Cottage. He stayed at the local inn for a few days and asked a lot of questions. He saw you and frightened you, I believe. What he discovered was what he had expected to find. You were there our daughter, mine and Joel.

He came back full of delight and the very next day he followed me when I went riding and caught up with me in the woods.

ow, Anabel,he said, have to talk to you.

ell, what have you to say?I asked.

t is about the eternal triangle you, Joel and myself.

don think I want to hear anything you have to say on such a subject,I retorted.

h, but it is not a question of what you want to hear. It what I want to tell. I know all, sweet Anabel. I know how you and Joel behave. While he is supposed to be ministering to the sick you and he are sporting in his bachelor bedroom. I am surprised at you, Anabel, though not, of course, at my brother.

am going back to the castle.

ot yet. Wel go back later. I know everything, Anabel. I know of the love nest above the surgery. I know about the little girl too. She charming just what I would expect of your daughter and Joel, of course.

I felt sick with horror. I guessed that he might have suspected my relationship with Joel but that he should have discovered your existence horrified me.

I heard myself stammering: ou you went and spoke to her.

on look alarmed. Little girls don appeal to me. I like big, beautiful ones like you, Anabel.

hy are you telling me this? Why did you go spying ?

oue clever enough to know. I wonder what Jessamy will say when she hears that her dear friend is her husband mistress. And she has a little girl too! Do you know your child has a look of Susannah about her? There not much difference in their ages. There no doubt that they are Matelands.

I felt ill. I thought of Jessamy. I could picture her stricken face when she knew. That I should be the one her cousin and her dearest friend! The betrayal was a thousand times more shocking because I was the one who had been disloyal to her.

ou must not tell Jessamy,I said.

don want to, of course. And I won for a consideration.

I felt myself go cold with horror. hat consideration?

should have thought that to one of your discernment that would have been obvious.

I tried to push my horse past him, but he laid a hand on the reins.

ell,he said, sn it just a question of when?

I lifted my whip. I could have struck him across his smiling face. He caught my arm.

hy so outraged?he asked. oue no shrinking virgin, are you? I mean, it would not be the first time you have indulged in this kind of adventure.

ou are despicable.

nd you are desirable. So much so, sweet Anabel, that I am ready to go to great lengths for you.

don want to see you again.

here shall we go? In the castle? That would be amusing, wouldn it? When will you come?

ever,I said.

h, poor dear Jessamy, she will be upset!

aven you any decency?

one,he said.

hate you.

n a way that will make it more interesting. Listen, Anabel, I have been waiting for this for years. I know about you and Joel. Why be so kind to one brother and so cruel to the other?

oel and I love each other,I said vehemently.

ery touching. It makes me want to weep.

doubt you ever wept for anything but rage.

here are many things you have to learn about me, Anabel. But you will learn. You are going to have a long time to do it. You have to keep your wickedness from Jessamy, don you? And there is only one way to do it.

shall go to her and tell her myself.

ill you? Poor Jessamy! She is a very sentimental girl and she has not been well since Susannah was born. She suffers from her chest, you know, and her heart is not what it should be. I hope Joel has not got ideas in his head. Oh dear, the plot thickens. I wonder how she will take the news? This story of your wickedness, I mean. You and her husband husband and best friend. Alas, it is often like that.

I spurred up my horse and galloped away. I did not know where to go, what to do. Finally I went back to the castle. Jessamy was resting, I was told. I felt frantic with anxiety. I could not bear Jessamy to know.

And the alternative