‘Why he loves me? I’m sure he could answer better.’ Though her voice was level her eyes were filling.

  ‘You ran away. Just what he likes … the ones who are hard to break. He loves risks and dangers … the fact you were my mistress … now that was spice to him—far better than seducing any other man’s wife. He’s used to easy success but you denied him that, making him press harder. But wait till he’s sure of you. When you’re married and the diet’s unchanging from day to day, see how long you hold him then.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you wanted for yourself,’ she blurted out, ‘the person you loved with you all the time?’

  ‘I’m touched that you remember. But there are small differences between us. Ask for a list of his women. Ask what he said to them … what he promised …’

  She covered her face with her hands and stifled a moan. A moment later when she moved hesitantly towards the door, he no longer had the heart to detain her. Instead he stepped aside. After she had gone, he longed to have the chance again; to talk to her gently, reasonably, with dignity. But that opportunity would not come a second time. He had been so confident to start with; so sure he could dissuade her, that when she had resisted he had lost his head. Now he had not the least idea whether he had succeeded.

  In the station, amid clash of couplings and hiss of steam, he scarcely noticed people pushing past him to the waiting train. But later, among the fringed antimacassars and shaded lamps of a first class carriage, he began to feel less despondent. Perhaps he had not after all entirely lost to Clinton; even if he married her, there could still be other ways to bring him down. As the train sped on under its long banner of smoke, this thought alone was comfort to him in his bitterness.

  17

  Clinton’s regiment was sent to quell outbreaks of rioting in Cork and Killarney during December, so he did not see Theresa in Dublin at the date they had previously arranged. By the first days of January he was at last stationed in the Irish capital, and less than a week remained before Theresa’s long-awaited arrival.

  Yet Clinton was neither jubilant nor carefree as he crossed the deserted parade ground three evenings before he was due to meet her at Kingstown harbour. Returning a sentry’s salute, he glimpsed through the dark entrance arch the forlorn ill-lit streets sloping down towards the Liffey. After the babble of voices at the mess table and the bright gleam of gold lace and silver, the surrounding city seemed silent and ghostly under its overhanging pall of smoke. In his quarters Clinton lit an oil-lamp and opened his brass-bound writing desk. Taking out an envelope he sat down by the fire and pulled out the letter he had received from Theresa two days earlier—a day which had ended all his certainties. Now once again he glanced through the humorous opening that gave so little indication of what was to come.

  My dearest Lord,

  If this sounds like the beginning of a revivalist hymn, forgive me. You see though I love its possessor, I have never liked the name Clinton. It sounds like a family name masquerading as a christian one. Like Scrope and de Vere, it makes me think of Burke’s Peerage, orders of precedence, dates of creation and all the other aristocratic accoutrements that seem to keep me at arms’ length …

  He skipped a page and came once more to the first piece of information that had badly shaken him.

  Darling—the most wonderful news, and so soon after the winter of my discontent in York. I have been offered Beatrice at the Prince of Wales. I know I need not tell you what this may do for my career. A classic role and one almost made for my talents. I can hardly believe my good fortune. My one regret, and it is not a small one, is that I will only be able to spend a week with you in Dublin. And for several months after that I will be quite unable to get away. But they will surely give you leave before the spring? You know the theatre, so all you will need do is whistle and I’ll come to you my lad. You know the rest of that verse I am sure. I often wish there were vivandières in our army like in the French regiments. Then my profession would keep me near you.

  Not for the first time since re-reading this, Clinton cursed himself for not proposing to her in York. But at the time it had seemed beyond argument to him that any proposal would gain force if it were delayed, since then it would seem properly considered. To have rushed in then would have been to risk appearing too hopelessly smitten to be able to think about consequences. And Clinton had heard too many tales, of women panicked into refusal by premature offers, to care to take that chance.

  Now his regret, not to have hazarded everything in York, was sharpened by the calm way she wrote about not seeing each other till the spring after her one brief Irish visit. Nor did he suppose, that if he waited patiently, while every evening brought in new suitors, his chances would improve as the months passed. And yet the letter also contained tender passages.

  Sometimes you seem almost a myth to me—a pet phantom of mine, as hard to believe in as the Emperor of All the Russias. Clinton, I do so need to pull you down from the pedestal in my imagination and know you better. I don’t mean know about your past loves or what you feel ashamed of. I want to find the secret springs of your character. Does your heart expand on summer mornings when you hear the wind in the trees? Do pebbles on a beach or woodland shades have hidden meanings for you? What moves you to tears? Is this uncommon language to use to a soldier? I hope you will not think it sentiment or gush, because we must share everything we feel. Darling, my finger ends tingle to touch you. Every inch of me from the top of my head downwards is burning for you. Every single hair of my head longs to be stroked. My eyes yearn to see you, my ears to hear your voice. I want you, want you, want you.

  But this passage came just before another, which to Clinton seemed worse even than the earlier intimation of the overriding priority she gave her career.

  A very strange thing happened before I left York. Our manager proposed marriage, without for a moment asking himself whether the life would suit me. Though earning his living from the stage, he would not have allowed me to do the same. He believes actresses degrade their husbands if they stay on the stage. Yet how he could expect a complete change in me is incomprehensible. Think of the absurdity of hoping to turn me into a prim and proper stay-at-home person. But on top of that he never gave a thought to Louise, who does not know him or like the little she does. Heigh ho, I daresay he won’t be the first to ask a woman to give up career and occupation in the hope that she will be able to embroider over the gaps. One of the dangers of people living together in idleness, is that they spend too much time together and exhaust in so many months what might otherwise have lasted years. ‘Perdrix, toujours perdrix,’ as that old sinner Louis XV remarked. I think it a great shame one cannot go on trial with marriage as with other things. It is a formidable affair for life. Enough of it. For us it will never raise a problem, being impossible. Since I am no lover of convention, I like getting off the beaten track and am proud rather than ashamed that we cannot do what others can or follow rules to the letter. What cannot be got straight has to be enjoyed crookedly.

  The bluntly expressed opinion that marriage between them was impossible, following hard on the heels of so many statements that could apply to him just as appropriately as to the wretched theatre manager, was clear enough warning what he could expect if he proposed. In fact Clinton strongly suspected she had invented the incident with the one intention of discouraging any mention of marriage. But it would make no difference to what he did. He knew that long ago he had passed the point where he could pull back; already his whole life seemed suspended in anticipation of something that would have to be gone through before he could continue with it. He would propose, regardless of his chances, because he had to; because until that obstacle was cleared, he would know no peace or happiness. Whatever the likely outcome, he would not throw in his hand until he had played it to the last card.

  *

  They came through the early evening darkness along the coast road from Kingstown to Dublin in a closed landau, seeing through the rain-flecked carriage windows the wide bay, and far out, under the dark outline of the hill of Howth, a few sails, caught for a moment in the wandering beam of a distant lighthouse. Passing a row of seaside villas, Clinton placed a steadying hand under her chin and kissed her lips, laughing when the swaying carriage made them bump noses. After a mile or so, he asked her what she was thinking. Theresa squeezed his hand and smiled.

  ‘Only how pleasant it is to be freed from the trouble of thinking.’

  ‘I’ve never heard a better way to stop a man’s mouth before he has time to open it.’

  ‘And this?’ she murmured, kissing him firmly, so that no movement of the creaking springs could part them until she drew away. ‘When you close your eyes, your eyelids make you look as if you’re smiling. Did anyone tell you that before?’

  ‘Do you usually kiss with your eyes open?’

  ‘I take little looks from time to time. I love looking at you.’ She sat back and leant her head against his shoulder. ‘I was thinking how wonderful when everything’s still quite new … when even my silences seem mysterious and you find it better than a play just to sit beside me. That was before you asked what I was thinking, and then I wondered if I ought to say this or that, but instead I said what I did. And now I’m thinking that I’m lucky to be coming to a strange town where I won’t have to find the theatre and lodgings, and argue about lumpy beds or whether I paid for a large jug of hot water in the morning or a small one, and why, when every room in the place except mine was empty, I had to be put next to a screaming baby and a woman who snored. Don’t you think silence is less commonplace?’

  ‘Not when you’re breaking it. I’d never given a thought to snoring babies and women in lumpy beds …’

  ‘Until I made such poetry with them … Oh la, for shame, sir, to take advantage of a poor country girl with your flattering phrases.’ She heard him sigh and wished that she could be calmer with him; but again and again she found herself overtaken by a bubbling gaiety, a kind of intoxication that she could not help. ‘You make me so happy,’ she murmured, ‘like some sudden legacy or a chimney pot on the head … Everything unexpected.’

  This time he laughed, but she still sensed that she had hurt him and should have been more serious so soon after their reunion. Yet in another way she was glad to have begun like this. If her letter had not already persuaded him that his pursuit had placed him under no obligation, she would have to show him by her manner that though she loved him, she did not want the proposal which Esmond’s arguments had made her dread.

  The carriage came to a lurching halt among a press of vehicles drawn-up outside the Shelbourne Hotel in St Stephen’s Green. At once two porters were volubly competing for the privilege of carrying Theresa’s battered valise and hat boxes. Clinton peremptorily awarded the task to one of them, and taking Theresa’s arm led her into the crowded hall. The scene to her was an extraordinary one: women and young girls in ball dresses with long trains and aigrettes of diamonds in their hair, and men outlandishly decked out in tight silk stockings and blue velvet coats with silver buttons; most seemed much taken up with the effort of not tripping over their swords.

  ‘Isn’t this court dress?’ murmured Theresa.

  ‘It’s the Lord-Lieutenant’s Drawing-room at the Castle tonight.’

  ‘Oughtn’t you to be going?’

  Clinton laughed as they pushed their way to the desk. Shouts went up around them that Lady Somebody’s carriage had arrived.

  ‘I’m not a débutante,’ he replied above the hubbub, causing titters of laughter from some young women standing nearby. When he returned with a maid to direct them to the rooms he had engaged, Theresa saw him accosted by a distinguished elderly man in court dress with the ribbon and cross of some order round his neck, Clinton at once introduced her as Mrs Barr. She caught the name Lord Roxborough and felt her cheeks flush as she was asked whether this was her first Castle season.

  ‘The Court of St James is more Mrs Barr’s territory,’ answered Clinton lightly. The old peer looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Not going tonight, Ardmore? It’s the young men they need for the dancing.’

  ‘Yesterday’s levée was quite enough.’

  At the foot of the stairs Clinton was stopped by another acquaintance; this time an officer in full dress uniform. After an introduction the officer asked Theresa if she was any relation of the Warwickshire Barrs.

  ‘No, only the prison Barrs,’ she replied curtly, mortified with Clinton for not having warned her that he had taken rooms in the town’s most exclusive hotel on what was evidently one of the busiest nights of the season. The soldier seemed uncertain whether to be amused or offended and was still pondering this when Clinton nodded to him and moved on up the stairs. On the first landing was a little winter garden with a fountain splashing in the midst of the ferns and stone frogs. A crowd of housemaids and waiters were looking down over the banisters at the animated scene below, and a group of cigar-smoking billiard players, with cues in their hands, were commenting on the looks of various of the debutantes.

  ‘If that one …’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Girl with a green sash. If she isn’t a vixen she ought to take an action against her face.’

  Their laughter merged with the shouts of the head-porter announcing the arrival of more carriages. When the maid had left Clinton and Theresa in their rooms, and the porter, who had brought up the luggage, had departed with his tip, Clinton looked at her admiringly.

  ‘Poor old Archie Daventry’s going to be wondering what he did wrong for days. He’ll think there’s been some awful scandal with the family he mentioned. One of them in prison.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  ‘I’m not.’ He shook his head with sudden vexation. ‘Damn. I should have told old Roxborough you were going to spend six weeks at the Prince of Wales’s. He’d have been frothing away to everybody about meeting a delightful creature … friend of the heir apparent, constant dinner guest at Marlborough House.’

  Theresa said quietly:

  ‘Isn’t it just possible he’s heard of the Prince of Wales Theatre?’

  ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Why are we here, Clinton?’

  ‘It’s the best hotel in Dublin. No lumpy beds or snoring brats.’

  She came up to him and took his hands, fixing his eyes with a look of tender exasperation.

  ‘You know very well what I meant. Remember your concern for my reputation in York? What about yours here? Why didn’t you ask me before making noble gestures on my behalf?’

  ‘We had to consider your audiences in York.’

  ‘Don’t you have to consider your brother officers? And the court occasions at the Castle?

  ‘I wouldn’t care a rap if I was scratched off the Chamberlain’s list tomorrow.’

  ‘But I’d care,’ she cried, ‘I’d care a lot if it was because of me.’

  ‘My love, it isn’t worth a thought. Of all Ireland’s shams, the Castle season takes the prize. Most of the Irish nobility live in England. Imagine a court without a resident aristocracy.’

  ‘Who were all those people then?’

  He took off his chesterfield overcoat and threw it over the back of a chair.

  ‘Can’t we talk about you?’ he implored. ‘I’m really not interested in them.’ Seeing that she was still insistent, he went on rapidly: ‘They’re the richer sort of tradespeople, doctors, lawyers, the odd squireen … all scrambling over each other to marry their daughters to the sprinkling of peers who turn up.’

  ‘Stop being so condescending.’

  He threw back his head as if appealing to heaven to justify him.

  ‘You try not to be, with people who insist on licking your boots without giving you time to stop them. Deference breeds condescension as often as the other way round.’ He frowned and gave the fire a few vicious stabs with the poker. ‘The worst of all the grinning and fawning is that really they’d love to see us in the mud.’

  A moment before, his arrogance had chilled her, but now the sight of his sad proud face filled her with remorse. Of course he would feel bound to mock and treat as insignificant the world he intended to give up for her.

  ‘Aren’t you giving them their chance by bringing me here? Feeding their hate?’ He gazed into her troubled eyes and ran his fingers down the line of her cheek. ‘Please answer me,’ she murmured.

  ‘What they feed on is their affair. I owe them no duty.’ He paused and moved away impatiently. ‘So they can have their balls and Drawing-rooms, I went to Killarney …’ With a sudden movement he drew back a curtain. ‘Come here.’ Standing beside him she looked down into the street and saw a silent crowd of ragged men and boys waiting in the rain, watching the departing carriages and the silks and knee-breeches. He let the curtain fall back into place. Without moving, he said softly: ‘Why aren’t they at home knitting socks or mending their roofs? I don’t know. Because their landlords are abroad, must they live with their pigs and leave a dunghill by the door? They could build a shed and dig a drain … they’re generous … there’s scarcely any pitch of misery they’ve not endured; they love their children as few people do; they murder without mercy or remorse, and often the very landlords who tried to improve their lives. I don’t like or understand them.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘You saw them down there. How dare they for the sake of a little poverty go out begging and interrupt gentlefolks in their pleasure?’ He sat down next to her on an ottoman and stared at the fire. ‘When I’m sent out to fight the likes of them…’ he gestured in the direction of the window, ‘to protect that flummery at the Castle, I tell you I’d rather …’ he checked himself with a deep breath and went on more calmly: ‘I’d rather face any ignominy than be dictated to by such people.’

  ‘You mustn’t ever be,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘never, my love.’