Winsor, Kathleen (144 page)

At
last she paused before the booth of a pretty little woman, Mrs. Sheldon, who
had been temporary mistress to several great men but was just now without a
keeper.

"Good-day
to you, Lady Carlton!" she cried pleasantly. "I didn't know you were
here with his Lordship this morning."

"Oh.
Is my husband here?"

She
turned, glancing around, and as if she had known exactly where to find him she
looked across into the opposite corridor and saw him standing with his back to
her, evidently talking to someone who was hidden by his size and bulk.
Impulsively she started forward, intending to go around and surprise him, but
just at that moment he stepped aside to let someone pass. She saw then that he
was talking to the Duchess of Ravenspur.

Horrified,
she stopped.

Could
he have met her there by accident? Of course! With all her heart she wanted to
believe that that was what had happened. But after all the doubts and hints and
suspicions of the past weeks the sight of them standing there together could
mean only one thing to her. Corinna turned back, trying to conceal her
agonizing confusion and shame. Little Mrs. Sheldon looked as miserable as though
she had unwittingly given away a state secret.

"He's
talking to a friend just now," murmured Corinna, scarcely aware of what
she was saying. "I'll make my purchases and meet him below in the
coach."

"Can't
I show you the embroidered ribbons I told you about last week, your Ladyship?
They came in on the packet-boat from France not two days since!" She
almost fluttered as she talked and in spite of herself her eyes shifted again
and again across to the opposite corridor. Red-faced over the terrible mistake
she had made she was frantically piling great heaps
of ribbons on
the counter. Oh, if only it had been anyone else but Lady Carlton—so lovely, so
gentle, so kind!

Corinna's
head was ringing and her eyes were blinded; she could see nothing but a blur of
colour before her. "Yes," she said softly. "I'll have three
yards of this—and ten of this, I think."

Lord
Carlton and the Duchess of Ravenspur were strolling toward them now, taking a
leisurely path along the crowded corridor, absorbed in their own conversation.
Quickly Corinna's woman stepped around behind her mistress to shield her from
them as they passed. And little Mrs. Sheldon was babbling distractedly in hope
of keeping her from hearing their voices.

But
Corinna's ears, almost abnormally alert, heard the Duchess's low pitched voice,
just as they went by, saying: "—and Bruce, only to think, we'll have
all—"

Corinna,
holding with her fingers to the counter, her eyes closed, swayed slightly and
felt herself growing sick and weak. Passionately she prayed that she would not
faint and draw a crowd about her. But within a few seconds she had regained
control of herself. "And I'll take twelve yards of this silver ribbon,
Mrs. Sheldon. I think that will be all." Even before her waiting-woman had
finished paying for them Corinna turned and started away in the opposite
direction, longing to get back into the safety and solitude of her coach.

That
night, to her own surprise, Corinna heard herself say to Bruce, in a voice
which sounded impersonal and but politely interested: "What did you do
this afternoon, darling? Play tennis with his Majesty?"

They
were in the bed-chamber and he was writing a letter to his overseer while she
sat brushing their three-year-old daughter's hair. "For a while," he
said, pausing with the pen in his hand to glance around. "Then I went to
the House of Lords for an hour or two."

He
returned to his writing and she continued, automatically, to brush Melinda's
hair. Even now that it had happened she could scarcely believe that he would
lie to her. Melinda, a black-haired blue-eyed miniature of her mother, looked
up into Corinna's face with her eyes large and serious and solemn, ducking her
head a little at each stroke of the brush. And at last as Corinna leaned over
to kiss her an unexpected tear splashed onto the little girl's head. Hastily
Corinna brushed it away with her hand, lest Melinda should notice and ask why
she was crying.

Corinna
felt that her life had ended.

It
was enough now for her merely to see the Duchess of Ravenspur look at Bruce to
know that he was her lover. How could she have been so simple as not to have
realized it long ago? For now she had no doubt that the affair had begun when
they had first reached England—or perhaps much earlier. He might have met her
when he had gone there in sixty-seven, for
she knew that the Duchess had been at
Court then and some of the women had taken pains to let her know about her
residence at that time in Almsbury House.

They
would have told her more—all the things she both wanted and dreaded to know—but
she refused to let them. And for some reason, perhaps the very fact that she
was so different from them, they were a little kinder; they did not force her
to hear it against her will.

But
this could not go on indefinitely. Something must happen—what would it be?

Would
he send her back to her father in Jamaica and remain here in London himself? Or
perhaps he would even take the Duchess with him to Summerhill—to her own lovely
Summer-hill which she had named and which they had built together out of their
dreams and their love and their limitless plans and hopes for the future. All
the things that were gone now. They must be gone, since he loved another woman.

For
several days Corinna, not knowing what she should do, did nothing. She thought
it could do no good to accuse him. For what did it matter whether he would deny
it or not—since the fact could not be denied? He was thirty-eight years old and
had always done as he liked; he would not change now and she did not in any
real sense want to change him for she loved him as he was. She felt lost and
utterly helpless here in this strange land, surrounded by strange manners and
strange customs. The ladies here, she realized, had all of them doubtless met
this same situation many times, tossed it off with a smile and a witty phrase
and turned to find their own amusement elsewhere. She had never realized so
acutely as now what Bruce had often told her—that she was not a part of this
world at all. Everything inside her recoiled from it with horror and disgust.

When
he took her into his arms, kissed her, lay with her in bed, she could not put
the thought of that other woman out of her mind. She would wonder, though she
despised herself for it, how recently he had kissed the Duchess, and spoken the
same words of passion he spoke to her. Why doesn't he tell me? she asked
herself desperately. Why should he cheat me and lie to me this way? It isn't
fair! But it was the Duchess she hated—not Bruce.

And
then one day Lady Castlemaine paid her a visit.

King
Charles had recently given the Duchess of Ravenspur a money grant of twenty
thousand pounds and Barbara was so furious that she was determined to make
trouble for her in some way. She was convinced that any woman—even a wife— of
Corinna's beauty must have considerable influence with a man and she hoped to
spoil her Grace's game with Lord Carlton. Very convenient to her purpose,
Rochester had just written another of his scurrilous rhymed lampoons—this one
on the intrigue between the Duchess and his Lordship.

It
was Rochester's habit to dress one of his footmen as a
sentry and post
him about the Palace at night, there to observe who went abroad at late hours.
With information thus secured he would retire to his country-estate and write
his nasty satires, several copies of which would be scribbled out and sent back
anonymously to be circulated through the Court. They always pleased everyone
but the subject, but the Earl was impartial—sooner or later every man and woman
of any consequence might expect to feel the poisonous stab of his pen.

For
the first few minutes of her visit Barbara made trifling but pleasant
conversation—the brand-new French gowns called sacques, yesterday's play at the
Duke's Theatre, the great ball which was to be held in the Banqueting House
next week. And then all at once she was launched upon the current crop of
love-affairs, who slept with whom, what lady feared herself to be with child by
a man not her husband, who had most recently caught a clap. Corinna, guessing
what all this was leading to, felt her heart begin to pound and her breath
choked short.

"Oh,
Lord," continued Barbara airily, "the way things go here—I vow and
swear an outsider would never guess. There's more than meets the eye, let me
tell you." She paused, watching Corinna closely now, and then she said,
"My dear, you're very young and innocent, aren't you?"

"Why,"
said Corinna, surprised, "I suppose I am."

"I'm
afraid that you don't altogether understand the way of the world—and as one who
knows it only too well I've come to you as a friend to—"

Corinna,
tired of the weeks of worry and uncertainty, the sense of sordidness and of
helpless disillusion, felt suddenly relieved. Now at last it would come out.
She need not, could not, pretend any longer.

"I
believe, madame," she said quietly, "that I understand some things
much better than you may think."

Barbara
gave her a look of surprise at that, but nevertheless she drew from her muff a
folded paper and extended it to Corinna. "That's circulating the Court—I
didn't want you to be the last to see it."

Slowly
Corinna's hand reached out and took it. The heavy sheet crackled as she
unfolded it. Reluctantly she dragged her eyes from Barbara's coolly speculative
face and forced them down to the paper where eight lines of verse were written
in a cramped angular hand. Somehow the weeks of misery and suspicion she had
endured had cushioned her mind against further shock, for though she read the
coarse brutal little poem it meant no more to her than so many separate words.

Then,
as graciously as if Barbara had brought her a little gift, perhaps a box of
sweetmeats or a pair of gloves, she said, "Thank you, madame. I appreciate
your concern for me."

Barbara
seemed surprised at this mild reaction, and disappointed too, but she got to
her feet and Corinna walked to the door with her. In the anteroom she stopped.
For a moment
the two women were silent, facing each other, and then Barbara said: "I
remember when I was your age—twenty, aren't you?—I thought that all the world
lay before me and that I could have whatever I wanted of it." She smiled,
a strangely reflective cynical smile. "Well—I have." Then, almost
abruptly, she added, "Take my advice and get your husband away from here
before it's too late," and turning swiftly she walked on, down the
corridor, and disappeared.

Corinna
watched her go, frowning a little. Poor lady, she thought. How unhappy she is.
Softly she closed the door.

Bruce
did not return home that night until after one o'clock. She had sent word to
him at Whitehall that she was not well enough to come to Court, but had asked
him not to change his own plans. She had hoped, passionately, that he would—but
he did not. She found it impossible to sleep and when she heard him come in she
was sitting up in bed, propped against pillows and pretending to read a recent
play of John Dryden's.

He
did not come into the bedroom but, as always, went into the nursery first to
see the children for a moment. Corinna sat listening to the sound of his steps
moving lightly over the floor, the soft closing of the door behind him—and knew
all at once that little Bruce was the Duchess's son. She wondered why she had
not realized it long ago. That was why he had told her almost nothing at all of
the woman who supposedly had been the first Lady Carlton. That was why the
little boy had been so eager to return and had coaxed his father to take him
back to England. That was why they seemed to know each other so well—why she
had sensed a closeness between them which could have sprung from no casual
brief love-affair.

She
was sitting there, almost numb with shock, when he came into the room. He
raised his brows as if in surprise at finding her awake, but smiled and crossed
over to kiss her. As he bent Corinna picked up Rochester's lampoon and handed
it to him. He paused, and his eyes narrowed quickly. Then he took it from her,
straightened without kissing her and glanced over it so swiftly it was obvious
he had already seen it, and tossed it onto the table beside the bed.