The Reckoning (102 page)

‘
I care about you,' he said, shocking her, for servants didn't
say such things,
Parslow
didn't say such things, impassive and
proper as he always was. The essential distance was always
kept, must always be kept, or the world would crack like a
china plate and the halves tumble away into the void.

But she looked into his eyes, and saw an ordinary middle-
aged man, rather lined and weather-beaten, a man who
would have made an admirable husband and father, whom in
other circumstances most women would have found attractive. John, she thought fearfully, his name is John, and he
cares about me because he loves my mother; and my mother
loves him probably more than anyone in the world apart from
Papa Danby. He once gave me a silver horseshoe for luck, and
he knows everything about me – everything.

‘
You said I shouldn't marry his lordship,' she said faintly,
‘and you were right, but for the wrong reasons.'

‘
I know,' he said gently, 'but now it's done, can't you make
the best of it? Your mother would never have done – this.' He
waved his hand vaguely to indicate the unspeakable.
‘I'm not my mother,' she said. She pulled herself together, reaching for firm ground. 'Come, Parslow, it's not such a big
thing,' she said with an uneasy smile. 'Lots of fashionable
ladies do the same. Times are changing.’

He didn't answer, looking at her levelly, as if asking her to
be her own interlocutor. There were moral questions here, as
uncomfortable to live with as these Trophy Room chairs, and
she didn't want them, not now.

‘
You are not to be my conscience,' she said, hardening
herself. She put her head up. 'I wish to go riding now. If you
will not come with me, I shall take one of the other grooms.'
He lowered his eyes then, and she thought she heard him
sigh. 'No need for that, my lady.'

‘
Well,' she pressed her advantage, 'are you with me or
against me?'

‘
I am yours to command, my lady,' he said, and turned
away to open the door for her. She walked out past him, but
felt no sense of triumph, only an uneasy relief.

*

Ironically, before they even reached Richmond Park, she
knew from her physical sensations that this ride, at least, was
no longer necessary. That relief, too, had its uneasy aspects.
She rode home, and took herself up to her room, aching all
over, weary with guilt.

A little later, Marcus came to her there. ‘Ros, I want to talk
to you,' he said.

You too? she thought grimly. His face was grave, marked
with trouble; but she saw also a determination there, as
though he had come to some difficult decision and was not to
be deflected from it.

‘Must it be now?' she asked. 'I'm very tired.'

‘I see you are. And a little unwell, too.’

She didn't want his concern, and shrugged it off. 'It's
nothing. Just the usual, woman's trouble.'

‘
Yes, I know,' he said. 'That's what I want to talk to you
about.’

Fear sharpened inside her. She looked up quickly, not real
ising how much she was revealing in her haggard face. 'I
don't know what you mean.'

‘
Yes you do,' he said gently, almost pityingly. 'We can't go
on like this. Only look at you. You're making yourself ill.'

‘
I'm perfectly all right. It's just the first day, that's all. It's
always bad the first day.'

‘
Oh Ros, how can you say that?' She met his eyes, struck by
the tone of his voice, and saw them full of tears. It seared her,
like a needle to the heart, and her lip quivered for a moment
before she caught and stilled it. ‘Do you think I'm a block, an
insensate thing? I know what you've been doing. All these
long gallops — I tried to tell you once before, but I spoke clum
sily, and set your back up. But darling, it can't, it mustn't go
on. You'll harm yourself, quite apart from —’

He stopped abruptly, biting his lip, and risking a glance at
him she saw that he was struggling with an excess of
emotions, hurt and anger and shock as well as concern for
her, pain for her pain.

‘
Why, Ros?' he went on suddenly. 'You're my wife, God
damn it!’

She flared. ‘Do you think that gives you the right —'

‘
I'm not talking about rights. You married me of your own
free will. I thought you cared for me. Why have you refused
to bear my child?’

The words, spoken aloud at last, were shocking. They went
through her like a bolt of electricity, snapping her head back,
and the words jumped from her lips before she could stop
them. 'It wasn't —’

Then
she stopped herself, too late. Oh too late, then, to
deny the whole thing, as she might have done, to laugh it off
as his imagination, or mere chance. Too late to hold things
together; too late to hold on to a little piece of solid ground on
which she might stand and be safe at last. In the pause that
followed she stared at him in white and desperate silence, and
wished that he would kill her and have done with it. But
people are never so merciful to each other, she thought.

At last he said, 'No, I suppose it wasn't. Stupid of me not to
have thought of that.'

‘
Oh Marcus, no,' she said. She lifted a hand, wanting to
touch him, but had just enough wit left to know that her
touch would have been no comfort just then, but an insult.

He stared at his hands. 'I suppose it's Farraline.' She felt
sick, her mouth was dry, she couldn't speak to say yes or no;
but her silence was admission enough. 'I should have guessed.
I thought when I saw you together — but then, it isn't some
thing one would easily suspect.' A pause. 'He visits you — in
London?’

Still she couldn't speak, only nodded, though his head was
down, he could not have seen her. He turned his hands over,
seeming to inspect them thoroughly. 'Why him, I wonder?' he
said, trying to sound indifferent. 'Why did you prefer him to me? No, stupid question.' He shook it away. 'All the same, if
you preferred him, why didn't you marry him? Or wasn't he
rich enough for you?’

A vast, unwelcome pity filled her, not only for him, but for
herself, for
them.
'It wasn't like that,' she said. 'I didn't care
about him when I married you. I never meant to – it wasn't
what I planned. You can't believe that. I never wanted to hurt
you. It just happened.’

He looked up at last, and they faced the naked hurt in each
other's eyes, and the tenderness; goodwill towards each other,
and helplessness in the face of the situation.

‘
Oh Marcus,' she said, 'I'm so sorry.’

He swallowed with difficulty. 'I don't want to talk about it
any more. I don't think I could bear it. But I love you, Ros.
You're my wife. Can we put all this behind us and start
again? I know things have been difficult for you, but now that
– now that – Mama's not with us, maybe it will be easier.’

Tears welled up in her, closing her throat, at his generosity.
He loved her so much that he was willing to offer up his
mother's death to her, willing to forgo his rightful sorrow,
along with his just anger. And yet, she thought helplessly, I
can't lie to him; I can't make him promises I'm not capable of
keeping.

‘
I don't think I can give him up,' she said.

‘
Ah,' he said. He looked at her for a long while, and she
couldn't tell what he was thinking. Then he got up without
another word, and walked away. She felt a coldness like the
onset of death in the space he left. She didn't believe he would
simply go away like that, and only when he reached the door
did she speak.

‘
What shall we do?' she said desperately.

He paused, but didn't turn round. After a moment he said,
‘Just go on, I suppose. What else is there to do?' His next
words were so quiet she barely caught them. 'I do understand,
you see: I can't give you up, either.’

And then he went, quietly, closing the door behind him as
softly as though she were sleeping and he didn't want to wake
her.

*

The Duchess of Clarence's baby was born on the 10th of
December, a girl, but healthy; and when it was plain that she
was going to live, she was Christened with the proper regal
name of Elizabeth. When her father and two senior uncles
were both dead, she would be Queen Elizabeth II – unless, of
course, the Clarences went on to have a son. The Duke of York had pronounced very firmly that he had no intention of
remarrying. The future of Princess Elizabeth of Clarence was assured, and the country was safe from the Duchess of Kent's
baby at last.

The bill against the Queen had been dropped, and in
January 1821 she finally accepted a pension from the King of
£50,000 a year, and a house in Hammersmith. She left
London for her rural retreat, and was at once forgotten by
the populace, to whom she was no longer a symbol of resist
ance to oppression, but a privileged pensioner.

Thus the problems of the succession seemed to have been
solved. Trade continued to improve rapidly, the manufacto
ries were once again working fulltime, and the armies of
unemployed were being soaked up. The reformist disturbances had died out, and the peace that should have taken
effect in 1815 seemed at last to have descended on England.

‘
I think the troubles really are over,' James said one day in
February as he sat on the bed watching Héloïse help Alice pack her trunk. Durban was in the dressing-room attending
to James's belongings, and would have looked very much
askance had James been so wanton as to suggest helping him.

‘
I hope so,' Héloïse said, 'or we would not be going away
from home together for the first time since – how many years
is it?'

‘
Not since before Benedict was born,' James said. 'Not
further than York, at any rate. Ah, but we've deserved this
holiday! We've worked long and hard to reach this plateau.'
He looked at his wife critically. 'And you're looking
exhausted. You need a rest and a change of scene.’