‘I’m ready for that,’ she whispered, reaching up and producing a villainous hatpin.

  Esmond looked at it gravely.

  ‘In that case, madam, I feel entirely safe.’

  She laughed and then took his chin between thumb and fingers, and standing on tiptoe kissed him twice on the forehead. As the band began a polka, she danced ahead of him on the way back to the carriage, pretending to push away the hands of an indecently amorous partner as she went.

  Speeding towards Brompton, she asked him what he remembered best. He mentioned the young man with his spilled drink.

  ‘My God, Esmond, I believe you’re sorry for him.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ he replied softly.

  For all his firm intentions of two hours ago, Esmond found himself no nearer to saying what he had meant to. His eyes strayed over her parcels lying on the carriage floor and rested on the hem of her dress. As the trim villas and building plots gave way to streets and crescents, he tried to think of a fresh approach but he was tired and the horses’ hoofs drummed insistently in his skull. Not far to go now.

  The sleepy porter opened the door for them, then shuffled away to put out the lights. Upstairs Theresa’s maid had fallen asleep in a chair, having waited up to undress her. Theresa sent the girl to bed at once and sank down on the low ottoman in front of the heavily curtained window. Everything in the room was bathed in the soft opal light of glass-shaded candles: exquisite carpets, tapestried walls, and the gauze draperies hanging from the bed’s gilded tester. The heavy scent of flowers made the atmosphere oppressive. After the open vistas of Cremorne the house closed in around them like a luxurious cocoon.

  ‘I wish they wouldn’t stay up like that,’ she said, taking off her hat and letting her pelisse slip to the ground.

  ‘It’s their job.’

  ‘It makes me feel even more like a pampered convalescent than having a footman carry my parcels from the shops …’ She broke off, remembering. ‘I left them in the carriage.’ About to ring the bell, she grimaced and left the room to bring up her afternoon’s purchases herself; but the porter had forestalled her and they were lined up outside the door.

  Esmond watched as she carelessly unwrapped a bizarre assortment: a fan of white ostrich feathers, a jade monkey, a Bristol vase, some scent bottles and an Indian shawl. She glanced about the room as if seeking a place for the vase; then she shrugged and turned her back on the ornaments.

  ‘Trifles to fill an idle afternoon,’ she exclaimed. As she caught Esmond’s eye, he did not smile. She moved closer and said with sudden urgency: ‘But what do they do, these ladies without half the world to call on, or guests to dinner every other night? I wish I knew, Esmond. It can’t always be needlework and salon pieces on the piano.’ She stripped off her gloves thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if those worthy brokers and bankers of yours will ever accept a mistress turned wife. I doubt if their wives ever will.’

  He faced her stiffly.

  ‘If anyone offends you, they won’t get a second chance under this roof.’

  ‘And if that leaves us on our own?’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I think I can.’ He hesitated and raised his eyes slowly, ‘… if you leave the theatre.’

  ‘To appease their envious little minds?’ Although she spoke mildly, she pulled fiercely at the fingers of her gloves. ‘I wonder what they think we do all day in the theatre. Drink and debauch each other?’

  ‘My love, it isn’t that at all.’

  ‘They haven’t an idea how we work. Gestures and interpretation just come without thought …’

  ‘I think they do know it’s not easy; I think they dislike the way they suppose actors live.’

  She slapped her gloves lightly against the palm of her free hand and let out her breath.

  ‘Yet mistresses are almost always treated better than wives, simply because they can leave if they choose.’

  ‘Of course there are bad marriages, full of restraints and fears, with none of its dignity … none of its warmth and protection.’ His voice was thick and slightly blurred. She looked at him with perfect candour.

  ‘And how does one get the better kind?’

  ‘By honest acknowledgement of faith and intention. By absolute loyalty.’

  ‘Perhaps you really mean obedience.’

  ‘I meant fidelity; the sort that can’t abide the smallest betrayal. When man and wife both know that to betray each other once is never to have been faithful at all.’ He spoke solemnly with great confidence.

  ‘But I’ve been married, Esmond,’ she replied softly. ‘At times any trivial thing can seem a betrayal.’

  ‘Broken faith can never be trivial. I only meant things that matter. Causing deliberate pain by selfishness. Expecting every kind of gain without being prepared to make an equal sacrifice.’

  ‘My profession?’

  He bent nearer her, his face strained and waxen.

  ‘How many times,’ he asked imploringly, ‘have you complained of overcrowded dressing rooms and rotting lodgings in provincial towns? Of maulings by leading men … separations from Louise?’

  ‘There was companionship too. Courage. Jokes instead of self-pity. The generosity of people with very little to give. Even when he was dying, John refused to pay off the company and end the tour.’ She picked up the ostrich feather fan and opened it without thinking what she was doing. ‘When his lungs were very bad, he worked out a way of getting things sent over from the shops without having to go up or down the stairs. A boot hung in the window was for more coal; a white shirt meant a pork chop. He made up a whole code … trousers, socks, hats. There were others like him. Esprit de corps perhaps.’

  She put down the fan in the long silence that followed. With a faint shrug Esmond said flatly:

  ‘He was still unfaithful to you.’

  ‘Some husbands always are.’

  ‘Wasn’t it just the theatre?’ he asked. ‘The same reason you didn’t remarry when he died but took lovers instead. Did you love many?’

  ‘Three isn’t many.’ She paused. ‘I suppose I did for a time.’

  ‘Before you betrayed them.’

  ‘Or they left me. I felt warmly or not at all.’

  ‘Don’t blame your nature,’ he said sharply. ‘The theatre’s to blame. You know just why it encourages passing fancies. Uncertainty about the future. No decent privacy, plays always turning on love, young men wanting experience. Could any woman stay virtuous for long … tempted like that every day?’

  ‘I did when I was married. I could again.’ She faced him. ‘Doesn’t your loyalty include trust? I can’t survive on my own in this house without activity, without friends … Can’t you share with me and not insist on everything for yourself?’

  Her hair was pinned up, and as she turned away, the nape of her neck was very white and exposed looking. He stood for a while like a man supporting a crushing weight, then with a low sigh he stepped forward and kissed her neck.

  ‘You must do what you have to. I accept it.’

  ‘Without resentment?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘You must think hard about it, my love.’

  ‘I don’t need to. It’s not much harder than deciding whether to go on breathing.’

  ‘You can be very generous, Esmond.’

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured, faintly smiling. ‘Perhaps if I can’t have rights, you’ll grant me privileges.’

  ‘Any number.’

  She opened her arms to him and held him. Later, stepping out of her skirt, she paused.

  ‘I think I’ve changed my mind about something. Can I come to Ireland with you?’

  He stroked his long chin thoughtfully.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’ The words were dry but his voice still trembled with emotion.

  8

  The country around Kilkreen was wilder and more remote than anything Theresa had envisaged. Set in small fields, the mud cabins of the peasants crouched in insignificance under the great brown shoulders of the neighbouring mountains. From the beech woods near the gates of the domain park, glimpses could be caught of a rocky bay, and within its grey curve, the jagged outline of two small islands. The local people wore the short frieze coats and misshapen caubeen hats, which Theresa had previously considered the sole property of stage Irishmen.

  Lady Ardmore too had her theatrical qualities: carrying on the tradition of the old landlords with sublime indifference to the fate of so many of that anachronistic breed, swept away by insolvency after the famine. According to Esmond, flitches of bacon and plump hams found their way from the house to the village almost daily. Sheep were also slaughtered at a rate out of all proportion to the household’s needs, and the butler regularly charged the estate office for wines that had never been bought, or if they had been, had gone the way of the sheep. There were gardeners in plenty at Kilkreen but the borders were overgrown with briars and the fish pond was choked with weed. The whole estate seemed plunged in a deep slumber, so peaceful that nothing merited reproof or change.

  Queen over this slow decay was her ladyship. More indolent even than her servants, she liked to take the air in a wicker wheelchair pulled by a footman, with a maid at hand to hold a parasol over her if the sun shone. It pleased Lady Ardmore to pretend that any exertion or excess of heat or cold might at any moment prove fatal. Her puffy fingers were heavy with rings, and bracelets puckered the skin at her wrists. Her sharp nose, rouged cheeks, and the fur trimmings of her velvet mantles reminded Theresa of some exotic bird. When she was not eating or playing cards, her face often took on a deathly immobility. But, as Esmond had predicted, she treated Theresa with courtesy, though never with warmth. She spoke as if she had come a long way from wherever she had been in her mind and could not spare much time before returning. In spite of all Esmond’s efforts to put Theresa at her ease, Lady Ardmore’s manner, and the all-pervading atmosphere of decaying grandeur, made Theresa’s first days at Kilkreen an unnerving experience. Nor could she escape the place even briefly, since Esmond considered it unsafe to drive anywhere outside the domain while there were Fenians in the county.

  But in truth, the eccentricities of her hostess and the strangeness of the house only marginally contributed to Theresa’s unease. Even before their departure for Ireland, she had keenly regretted her sudden impulse to come with Esmond. Within days of his acknowledgement that her career would continue, Theresa had ceased to view this concession with the same bright optimism. What had at first seemed to remove the single greatest obstacle to their future happiness had soon appeared to her in a truer light. Whatever he might say, Esmond would always resent her need for a life that he could not wholly control. And because he would be sure to suffer in honourable silence, Theresa knew that her guilt would grow until eventually she would feel obliged to offer him some new forfeit—just as she had offered to come to Ireland as an atoning act of gratitude. Whether he knew it or not, from a semblance of weakness Esmond had fashioned a weapon more subtly undermining than naked strength. Already at times she had started to wonder where her old self had gone, and how this sweet guilt-ridden girl had surreptitiously taken her place.

  A few days before leaving for Kilkreen, a conversation, which only weeks earlier would have had no adverse effect on her, had underlined her uncertainty with special emphasis. When Esmond had mentioned in passing that Clinton would probably be spending a few days at Kilkreen while they were there, she had lost her temper. Hadn’t she made it sufficiently clear to him that the man had insulted her during both their previous meetings? Taken aback, Esmond had gently reminded her that she had seemed amused rather than irritated, and had actually said she wanted to meet Clinton properly. In any case he was only going to stay a day or two at most. It would have been absurd to have asked him to come all the way to London to discuss the latest offers for Markenfield, when this could be done in Ireland without any inconvenience. Nothing would please him more than to be able to forget Clinton’s problems, but, since before a sale the mortgages on the place would have to be redeemed by pledges against the trust, he was involved whether he liked it or not.

  In a patient, almost apologetic voice, Esmond had gone on to his main concern. He had recently been worried by Clinton’s threats to put in a new agent at Kilkreen; and, since their mother had only a life interest in the estate, Clinton, as legal owner, had every right to try to end the wastage and force the tenants to pay their arrears. Because the Fenians were murdering landlords for less, Esmond had not needed to dwell on why he wanted to make sure that Clinton’s next stay at Kilkreen coincided with his own. Surely she saw he owed it to his mother?

  Yet explanation had not made Theresa feel any better. Plagued by increasing misgivings about marriage, the small additional burden of having to deal with a man so strikingly different from Esmond in almost every way, at this critical time, had been enough to agitate her out of all proportion to the likely problems his presence might cause.

  *

  In the event, she was not actually aware that Lord Ardmore had come, until the morning after his arrival, when walking with Louise she saw a man near the stables wearing cavalry overalls and a forage cap. Without waiting for permission, Louise went up to him and asked where his master was.

  ‘Gone here and there,’ was the laconic reply.

  Under foxy eyebrows, his blue inquisitive eyes moved from Louise to her mother. He had been sitting on the grass whittling a stick, but at Theresa’s approach, jumped up and clicked his heels together.

  ‘Corporal Harris, at your service, ma’am.’

  ‘You’re most kind,’ she murmured dryly. The soldier’s brash and confident manner grated slightly. She had always found it mildly depressing the way servants took their personal importance from the rank of their masters. She was turning when Louise, curious as ever, asked him if he had been Lord Ardmore’s servant for long.

  ‘Since I fished a bloke out of a river,’ he answered with a grin.

  ‘He chose you because you saved a man’s life?’ asked Theresa with some scepticism.

  ‘Tried to, ma’am. He was dead and done for.’

  ‘Drowned?’ Louise murmured faintly.

  ‘Hit in the head, miss,’ said Harris, pointing to his forehead. ‘One of them Fenians.’

  Louise shuddered.

  ‘A Fenian shot him?’

  ‘No, miss. One of our lads.’

  An hour later on the bumpy croquet lawn, Louise was still chattering indignantly about shooting men in rivers. Theresa suggested that the Irishman might have tried to shoot first, but Louise was not convinced. Who’d ever heard of anyone going swimming with a gun? It was therefore unfortunate that the child’s first glimpse of Clinton, shortly afterwards, should be of him carrying a gun and a game-bag bulging with snipe. Theresa had just hitched up her dress so she could take a proper swing to get her ball through the last hoop. As she succeeded, she heard a cry of ‘bravo’ from the terrace and looked up to see Lord Ardmore raising his wideawake in salute.

  Pleased by a good morning’s shooting, Clinton loped down the stone steps to the lawn, smiling to himself as he recalled Theresa’s primness during their last conversation in London. The woman really was a superb hypocrite—pretending to be so righteous and yet having the barefaced audacity to come to Kilkreen quite openly as Esmond’s mistress. In a fur boa and feathered Tyrolean hat, with red leather boots showing under her skirt, she looked a wildly improbable figure against the sombre ivy-covered walls and mullioned windows. Seeing the child moving away towards the house, Clinton called to her not to stop the game, but she did not turn back. A few yards from Theresa, he dropped his game-bag and picked up Louise’s mallet.

  ‘Favour me with a game, Miss Simmonds?’

  ‘I’ve just finished one, Lord Ardmore.’

  He stood in silence for a moment, watching a squirrel searching for food among the fallen leaves on the far side of the lawn. He sniffed the air with evident satisfaction.

  ‘Marvellous these autumn days. Mist and woodsmoke … golden light.’ She was looking at him doubtfully from beneath the brim of her hat. ‘Dammit,’ he muttered, as if suddenly remembering something. ‘I owe you an apology, Miss Simmonds. Wasn’t right to say I was getting married.’ He stared hard at his muddy boots. ‘Fact is … it’s not easy to admit to being turned down. Damned painful.’ He caught a movement of her lips. ‘Now you’re laughing at me.’

  ‘On the contrary, sir. I’m grieved for you.’

  ‘You would be if you knew the things she said to me.’

  Theresa laughed unexpectedly.

  ‘Your acting’s much better, Lord Ardmore; though I think I can guess what she said.’

  Clinton frowned.

  ‘Can’t think how you intend to do that, madam.’

  ‘A knowledge of melodrama quite as extensive as your lordship’s.’ He raised a hand to acknowledge the thrust. His expression was encouraging. ‘As you took her hand, she cried, “Unhand me, fiend!”.’

  Clinton gasped.

  ‘Her very words. Uncanny … that’s what I’d call it, Miss Simmonds. Tell me what I said after that, and I’m your slave for life.’

  ‘That’s easily done.’ She paused. ‘My voice isn’t the right pitch, you understand?’

  ‘I’ll try to overlook it.’

  ‘Rage on, my beauty, your scorn but adds to your perfection, maddens me … You shall be mine.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘After that I think you owe me her reply; in character of course.’

  ‘My cue,’ he replied solemnly.

  ‘You shall be mine.’

  He clasped his mallet handle and quavered in ladylike falsetto:

  ‘Rather would I die a thousand deaths than submit to such bondage. Trifle not with a woman’s jewel, her chastity.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘It’s a damned shame that kind of thing always gets burlesqued nowadays. I used to love it. “Come we must fly; all is discovered; your husband is in hot pursuit. I have a pork pie and a blunderbuss.” No wonder real life’s such a disappointment.’ He sighed as he picked up his game-bag. ‘I must prepare myself for battle.’