The Rape of Venice (8 page)

‘'Tis the only place in which we can talk with certainty that we'll not be interrupted,' she said quickly.

‘And what,' he enquired with a lift of the eyebrow, ‘is there in a discussion about my little Susan that demands such privacy?'

‘Susan is concerned in this—deeply concerned. Her future well-being may depend on it. But that is not all. Tell me honestly, Roger. Are you in love with Georgina?'

‘No more and no less than I was when I first knew her, as a boy; no more and no less than I will be on the day I die.'

‘That, then, is a thing apart. It proved no barrier to your marrying Amanda; so should prove none to your marrying again.'

‘Not if I had the desire to do so. But I have not.'

Her mouth began to work, betraying her acute agitation. Suddenly she burst out, ‘I know it to be unmaidenly! I am utterly ashamed! But, since you will not speak of this, I must. Amanda gave your child into my care. Only by invoking the
law can you take her from me. It was Amanda's dying wish that we ... that I ... that you ... Oh, Roger, can we not make a home for Susan together?'

‘M'dear,' Roger said gently, ‘Deeply honoured as I am by your continued attachment to me, I had hoped that our six months' separation would have caused you to feel differently. We went into all this shortly after poor Amanda's death. I told you then that I'd prove a most disappointing husband to you. For one thing, I am too old, and for another ...'

Too old!' she interrupted scornfully. ‘What nonsense! You are but twenty-eight, and I'm near twenty.'

‘I do not mean in years, but mentally. The life I've led this dozen years past, the deceits I have been forced to practise, the sometimes terrible decisions I've had to take, the cynicism engendered by a roving existence in which many women have played a part, all make me unfitted to take a young bride and bring lasting happiness to her.'

‘Roger, I'd take you at your word, but for one thing. When I came to your room that night in Martinique, you at first spurned me; yet later, in the dawn, you declared me to be the loveliest thing you had ever looked upon, and vowed that when I'd been married for a while you'd seize on the first chance to seduce me.'

‘I admit it: although I added that I'd attempt to only did your marriage prove an unhappy one. Yet I was a fool even to say so much, and did so mainly from an urge to restore your self-respect. I'd have done better to maintain that your beauty left me cold. Then you might by now be married. You were the toast of the Island, and could have taken your pick of the young officers in the garrison or a score of wealthy planters. That you should have thrown these chances away, and continue to be obsessed with a passion for anyone so unworthy as myself, fills me with acute distress.'

‘'Tis no fault of yours, and I have no regrets. Yet I resent it that you think me good enough only to become the wife of some young captain whose dearest wish was to get back to England so that he might once more enjoy his fox-hunting; or that I would demean myself to become a rich man's darling. I care not how many women you've slept with; or how often your secret work has forced you to lie and cheat. To me you are still worth all the other men I've ever met put together. Amanda did me a great kindness in rescuing me from a poverty-stricken existence with my Aunt; but, unwittingly, she
also sealed my fate. Although I did my utmost to conceal it while she was alive, from the very day we met my heart became yours.'

‘Clarissa! I beg you to say no more,' Roger protested unhappily. ‘Did I intend to marry again, it would be you I'd ask; for you have much more than beauty. I'll never forget the high courage you displayed during those dark days when we were captives of the pirates, and later of the revolted negro slaves in San Domingo. But in due course I shall go abroad again, and in circumstances which would make it impossible for me to take a wife with me. I may be away from England, except for rare brief visits to report to Mr. Pitt, for years. What sort of a life could that be for you?

‘There is no question of your returning to your Aunt. Georgina has told me that she is more than willing for you to make your home here, and if you are set on being a mother to little Susan, I'll be greatly in your debt. But I insist that you should not regard the child as a tie upon you. As I promised, I have arranged with my bankers to make you a suitable allowance; so you are free at any time to live where you will and, should you marry, Georgina will do for Susan what you would otherwise have done. Here, at Stillwaters, you will meet many men; not Captains with little but their pay, or men of fortune with little but their money, to recommend them. They will be of the stamp of Beckford and Droopy Ned. Wealthy, cultured, ambitious, titled, and able to give you the position in the world that you deserve. I beg you to put me from your thoughts, and face life anew with an open mind.'

For a moment there was a tense silence, then Roger added, ‘This obstinacy can bring you nought but unhappiness. I have done my utmost to dissuade you from it, but since you are adamant and I am too, it seems there is no point in our discussing it further. That being so, I request your permission to leave your presence.'

With a sigh, she stood away from the door. ‘Go then, and I beg of you do not despise me too much for having laid my heart bare to you once again. I'd not have done so could I have found some more material way in which to show my love for you.'

Touched to the depths, he could think of no words with which to reply; so, stooping, he took between his fingers the frilled hem of her overskirt, bowed his head low, and kissed it. Then, silently, he left the room.

Dinner proved a much gayer meal than it had the previous evening. From the walls of the lofty, panelled room, the gilt-framed old masters looked down on the bare shoulders of the three lovely silk-clad women and the five more soberly dressed men. Although it was still daylight outside, the rich brocade curtains had been drawn; so the candle-light made the women look even more alluring, threw up the spotless linen at the men's throats and wrists, and glinted warmly on the fine silver, glass and china that furnished the mahogany table.

Relieved of the presence of the silent Princess and her uncongenial husband, the talk flowed freely with frequent laughter, but as long as the tall footmen stood behind their chairs, they made no mention of the séance that was to take place later. Yet all of them were eager to discuss it. No sooner had the dessert been placed before them and Georgina's black-clad major-domo, after a last look round, left the room, than Beckford said:

‘If there were any takers, I'd readily give three to one up to any sum that he'll not do it.'

For a moment there was silence, then it was broken by Clarissa's clear young voice. ‘Had I the means, I'd take you, Sir; but my circumstances do not permit me to bet.'

‘That's just as well, m'dear,' remarked Colonel Thursby. ‘For you are better qualified to wager on when little Susan cuts her first tooth.'

The others laughed, except for Droopy Ned, who, with his usual shrewdness, had formed a good impression of Clarissa's intelligence. Smiling at her he said:

‘Perhaps you have some special reason for your confidence. If so, pray tell us of it.'

‘I have,' she replied promptly. ‘You all heard Signor Malderini promise, when in the Orangery, that he would experiment upon me and he has already done so.'

‘When?' asked Roger with a sudden frown.

Colouring slightly, she looked across at him. ‘After ... after we had met in the nursery, and had our talk about Susan, I sent a note up by one of the footmen to the suite the Malderinis are occupying, asking if he would receive me there. The reply came back that he would.'

A hush had fallen on the company and they listened with close attention as she went on. ‘Up in their sitting-room, the Princess took me by the hand and led me to a chair, then he enquired in what way he could be of service to me. I asked him if he could enable me to see into the future. He said he had every reason to suppose he could, if I was willing to place myself under his mesmeric influence. I agreed and requested him to give me a glimpse of my situation in six months' time. He made passes at me similar to those you saw him use on the Princess. After a while I could see nothing but those curious eyes of his. They seemed to grow huge and fill the whole room. Then I became drowsy and fell asleep. When I awoke it was as though I had just come out of a most vivid dream.'

She paused, and Beckford asked eagerly, ‘May we know what you saw in it?'

‘I've no objection,' she smiled, ‘for it was an exceedingly pleasant one. I was lying on a pile of cushions under an awning, in the stern of a gaily painted barge. Although it was January, it was as hot as on the best day of an English summer. At first I thought I was back in Martinique, for the banks of the river on which the barge was drifting were fringed with palms. But the oarsmen of the craft, and others who were making music on strange stringed instruments, were not negroes; they were lighter in colour and had finer features, so I knew it must be some other distant land. Beside me was a man who I knew had given me his heart, and I could not have been happier had I been in heaven.'

‘But this proves nothing,' said Colonel Thursby.

‘I think it does,' she countered, ‘because the man was one whom I had come to know well in Martinique, and have some reason to believe loves me already.'

‘That makes the matter no wit more conclusive. Had you
never met Malderini, you might equally well have had such a dream at night, and in it fulfilled the evident wish you have to be married to this gallant.'

‘It is my belief that he enabled me to see my future,' she protested stubbornly.

Georgina had been looking at her with troubled eyes and said:

‘Be that as it may, I would that you had never indulged this whim to let him practise his powers upon you.'

‘And I,' Roger supported her. He had no doubt that the man Clarissa had seen in her dream was himself; but it seemed highly unlikely that either he or she would be going to the tropics, so he agreed with the Colonel that while unconscious she had only given free play to her own desire. Quickly he went on:

‘I had meant to warn you against this very thing. One fact that emerges from it is that, having sent you to sleep, has proved that Malderini has genuine hypnotic powers and such powers can be highly dangerous to anyone who has willingly made themselves subject to them.'

‘Why should you think that?' Clarissa asked.

‘Because, having once established a
rapport
, the hypnotist can at any future time place the subject under his control again, even if it be against her wish. I beg you, most earnestly, Clarissa, to have no further dealings with this man.'

She shrugged, ‘Since you wish it, I'll hold no further private converse with him tonight or tomorrow, and he'll be leaving here on Monday.'

‘Yes; and God be thanked for that,' said the Colonel bluntly. ‘Saving your presence, Sheridan, I've formed no liking for this friend of yours.'

‘Oh, he's well enough.' The ruddy-faced
bon-viveur
poured another great dollop of thick cream upon his strawberries, and went on: ‘A little brusque and dictatorial in his manner, I'll admit. But he has so able a brain that, although he is not a
diplomat de carrière
, I think the Venetians did well in their choice of him as a special envoy. You'd not have been aware of it, as until recently he has been in this country only as a private person; but their Senate sent him to report on the internal state of the nation, and before we left London yesterday morning he presented his papers at the Foreign Office. I have not found him an easy companion to take about, but his is an interesting personality.'

‘Perhaps,' commented Georgina, ‘but a far from engaging one, and he treats that poor wife of his abominably. I find him, too, a mass of disconcerting contradictions. He is a glutton for food, yet drinks nought but water. When conversing with him one forgets his ugliness, then those eyes of his suddenly send a shiver down one's spine. He is punctilious in all normal courtesies but, without warning, makes some remark the rudeness of which, were I not his hostess, I would not excuse. To look at, no one could take him for anything but an ugly middle-aged man, yet when with him there are times when I catch myself thinking of him as a self-willed querulous old woman. And now, although Sherry tells us that he is a hard-headed man of affairs, he springs upon us the claim to be a mystic, capable of exercising occult power.'

Beckford looked across at Sheridan. ‘I gather, Sir, that since his coming to England you have been much in his company. During that time has he given you many indications that he concerns himself with magic?'

‘Nay, not one. Our talk has all been of either politics or the stage.'

‘My love,' Esther Sheridan put in. ‘Would you not count his having one night, while staying with us at Polesden, gone out to gather herbs by moonlight?'

He blew her a kiss. ‘Light of my life, it seems that he did not confide to you, as he did to me, that they were for a concoction which relieves a colic from which he suffers periodically.'

‘'Tis possible he did not wish to tell you that he required them to work some spell,' Clarissa suggested.

Droopy laughed. ‘Then you may burn me for a witch. In my collection I've a sufficient number of strange drugs to kill, cure or temporarily make mad someone for every day of the year; but the drug does not exist that would counteract the force of gravity and enable a person to become suspended in mid-air. That the fellow can practise hypnotism we must now agree; but, with no offence to you, Sheridan, I believe him to be a rogue. I'd vow his attempt will be no honest one; he'll use some subtle trick by which he hopes to cheat us of our money.'