With his conviction that Clinton had succeeded with her, came renewal of all Esmond’s old hatred. The thought of their happiness was agony to him, made worse by a grudging recognition that Clinton was behaving sensibly. Living in London with Theresa, Clinton would have been plagued by being within sight and sound of the social life he could not share with her until able to make public acknowledgement of his marriage. Even in less formal company, he would have had to pretend she was his mistress, in case his uncle learned that he had married—a most humiliating predicament for a man wanting to shield his wife from slights. But in a part of the country where neighbours would be both few and scattered, such embarrassment would be reduced to a minimum. Removed from the temptations of the capital, Clinton might even be able to live within his means.

  But Clinton’s finances—as Esmond knew very well—were still vulnerable in one vital respect. He would depend entirely on his trust investment income until completion of the Markenfield settlement at the end of the lease. A period of two years, during which all his capital would remain pledged as security for existing debts. Even a brief interruption of current income would place Clinton in a disastrous position.

  In February Esmond had at last prevailed upon the family trustees to purchase £30,000 of Greek & Oriental shares on Clinton’s behalf. Just three months later, Esmond had not been very much surprised to learn that the shipping line’s trading position had become grave enough to dictate the immediate suspension of dividends or liquidation. In either event, Esmond foresaw appalling repercussions for his brother—whose entire trust holding was invested in Greek & Oriental stock.

  At an emergency meeting called by the company in June, the shareholders voted in favour of deferring payment of dividends, rather than force the shipping line to liquidate. This vote—which gave Esmond a final chance to save the company—brought Clinton very close to ruin; ironically at a time when he thought himself perfectly safe. A few days after the meeting, Esmond wrote to Clinton warning him of his position; he also admitted the gravity of the situation to the trustees. A month passed, and though he wrote again, Esmond still heard nothing from his brother. By now Drummonds would have sent letters asking Clinton to explain why they had not received the usual quarterly remittance from the trustees. As his own commercial problems mounted, Esmond still found time occasionally to wonder how long Clinton’s love would survive the day his bank began dishonouring his cheques and notes of hand.

  24

  On a hot Sunday in late July, Clinton sat on the terrace at Hathenshaw Hall waiting for Theresa and Louise to return from Mass. With his back to the old redstone house, he gazed across sloping lawns and fields to the wooded river banks and the fells beyond. Listening to the baaing of sheep drifting up from the hazy valley, he wished that his thoughts mirrored the peace around him. But Theresa was pregnant; and since learning this two weeks earlier, Clinton had been deeply preoccupied. Before she had told him, he had been about to confide to her the possible shortcomings of their Irish marriage and to persuade her to go through a civil ceremony. His intention had been to break this to her before the end of the month; but to do so now, so soon after hearing her news, might make it seem that he was being honest with her only because forced to by doubts about the baby’s legitimacy. Deciding to postpone his revelation, Clinton had broached other problems at once.

  Although knowing that Louise might be indiscreet with the servants, Clinton had suggested that she ought to be told about the marriage without delay. The hatred the girl might otherwise feel towards him as the baby started to grow, had overcome his reservations—particularly since her behaviour to him was already unpredictable enough to change from abject admiration to hostility in the space of a single conversation. But Theresa had flatly refused to tell her, in case she in turn told her grandfather. Although the old man would understand the need for secrecy, Theresa warned Clinton that he might well consider the birth of a child an event overriding all else. Rather than allow anyone to think the baby illegitimate, the major could quite easily take it into his head to blow the marriage open. When Clinton had said he was still prepared to take the risk, Theresa had implored him not to make her responsible through her family for jeopardizing his prospects with his uncle. Though persuaded to give up the idea of telling Louise, thoughts of what she and her grandfather would think of him in the months to come, troubled Clinton long after this conversation.

  By contrast, Clinton had felt an unfamiliar sense of financial well-being since coming to Hathenshaw. No longer burdened by military expenses, he was living within his income for the first time in years. He had spent more than he had intended on the house, but a three-year lease had been paid for entirely from the proceeds of his commission. Though his capital was just as tightly hedged as before, this could have no ill effects while his outgoings remained at their present level. Secure in this faith, Clinton had not troubled to open several letters addressed to him in Esmond’s hand. His brother would only have written to ask unwelcome questions about his marriage or to raise needless alarms about his future. Esmond’s letters had joined a heap of others, including several from his bank, at the bottom of a drawer in the gun-room. It still gave Clinton satisfaction to feel able safely to ignore communications which only months ago would have given him no peace until read. Without any deliberate intent to forget the outside world entirely, Clinton found it pleasant to remember its existence only when he felt inclined.

  With each day still revealing new aspects of Theresa’s personality to admire and love, Clinton very rarely regretted the independent life he had abandoned for her. She too had given up a career. At times, certainly, the tranquillity of his present life seemed strange to Clinton, and occasionally he wondered without much urgency whether a year would still find them at Hathenshaw. A legacy of years as active as the past half-dozen gave him no cause to begrudge himself a period of retirement. Later, in weeks or months, he would make plans—a time perhaps in the colonies or in South America, where governments were eager to acquire the services of English officers. And if Theresa disliked the change they could move on. But thoughts of Louise and the unborn child, as well as Theresa’s wishes, clouded even the most tentative predictions. More than ever, he lived for each passing day.

  Clinton left the gardens and walked between hedgerows heavy with the scent of elderflower and wild honeysuckle. Above the hum of insects, the notes of a cuckoo lingered drowsily on the warm air. Later they would picnic in the water meadows, and afterwards, he hoped to spend the rest of the day alone with Theresa at the deserted mill pond they had recently discovered.

  *

  The lichened masonry of the old mill buildings seemed to be slowly merging into the surrounding woods. Brambles grew in the doorways and sycamore saplings thrust skyward between the rafters. Through rotting sluices, the stream trickled into the pond scarcely moving the light surface film in the centre. In the silence, the sudden rise of a fish or the cooing of wood pigeons seemed curiously loud.

  As soon as they arrived, Clinton had at once taken off his shirt, but when Theresa had made no move to undress, he paused.

  ‘Not coming in?’

  ‘Perhaps later.’

  He stood looking meditatively at the clear reflection of her dress and parasol in the glassy water until she moved and sat down in the grass among the willowherb. Dragonflies caught the sun, skimming over the water lilies. She smiled at him.

  ‘Would you mind if anyone saw us swimming?’

  ‘Not unless they took our clothes.’ He chuckled to himself as he pulled off his shoes and loosened his trousers. ‘It’d give them something new to cackle about. You’d think men never swam naked in the sea.’

  ‘Women don’t.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to come here.’ He kicked off his trousers and kissed her forehead. ‘A world of our own … like Adam and Eve.’

  ‘Remember what happened to them,’ she murmured, touching his thigh. He laughed aloud.

  ‘Pity Adam wasn’t in the cavalry. He could have given the flaming sword brigade a lesson in swordsmanship.’

  She watched him walk through the long grass to the water’s edge where it was deepest, eyes lingering on the clean line of his hips and the tautness of his back as he stood poised to dive. Never at any moment had he expressed regret for their isolated existence, nor spoken of the least misgivings about the ending of his career. Whenever she had tried to get him to talk about the past, so that she could judge whether his happiness was as real in truth as in appearance, he had said little—claiming he hated thinking about the years when they had been nothing to each other. His passionate determination to live for each day captivated but also scared her; as if he were seizing on happiness too eagerly, like a hunter clutching and choking his prey in case it escaped him.

  The splash of his dive sent rippling waves chasing each other across the pond and set the lilies bobbing wildly. She followed the white shadow of his body under the green surface until he came up under a patch of duckweed. Blowing a little, he flicked the weed from his shining head and swam a few vigorous strokes before turning over on his back and floating. When his cheek brushed against a yellow water lily, he trod water and sniffed the yellow cup-like flower.

  ‘Ugh! Smells of stale brandy.’ He tried another. ‘They all do!’ He rolled over on his back again. ‘I saw a newt under the water … Do come in, Theresa. The sky looks marvellous from here; the reeds are tall as trees. I want to kiss you under water.’

  ‘Try the newt,’ she called back. He began to swim towards her.

  ‘I’ll come and get you.’

  She got up slowly and started to undress, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her skin. Wading into the pond, she shivered as the water reached her waist and then lapped against her breasts; she could feel the mud squeezing up between her toes. The water smelled slightly brackish but not at all unpleasant. She launched herself forward, gasping a little with the cold but soon breathing easily. His hair was much darker wet, and sleeked close to his head like a seal’s coat. As she came closer to him, he dived and swam under her, brushing her stomach with his back, coming up inches from her face, kissing her lips almost as he surfaced. They embraced treading water, knees bumping gently. Feeling herself sinking, she swam away.

  ‘I look dreadful with wet hair.’

  ‘You sound like Louise.’

  She sniffed one of the lilies and laughed.

  ‘You were right.’

  ‘Lie on your back and we can touch toes. I want to look at the sky, touching your toes.’

  ‘How silly you are.’

  Before she could say anything else, he had pulled her under. She rose spluttering, and he tossed her up by the waist, sinking as he did so. Then reaching up with a disembodied hand, he touched her face and emerged, breathing fast.

  ‘Morte d’Arthur … An arm rose up from out the bosom of the lake … mystic, wonderful …’

  She smiled in spite of her hair. The sun flashed on the broken water around them, and nearer to the bank, in smoother water, reflections of trees and clouds dissolved and formed again.

  Lying on his back in the grass, Clinton let the hot sun dry him, while he watched Theresa towelling herself vigorously, raising a warm flush on her pale skin. The baby had not started to show.

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said, seeing her pick up a petticoat, but she shook her head and began to dress. Often they had made love beside the pond after swimming. Reluctantly he pulled on his trousers. He thought he caught a look of fleeting sadness on her face as she began absently to lace her bodice. A week ago he had suggested going to London together for a few days. Dick Lambert and two other officers from the 15th would be there. Rather than seem over-eager to see his friends, he had told her that he ought also to see his trustees. But, whether because she had felt that she would be competing for his company with Lambert and the others, or because she mistakenly supposed that he would rather go alone, she had refused to consider accompanying him. He had offered not to go at all, but she had been so insistent that he stick to his original plan, that he had not opposed her. Remembering York, and her reluctance to pretend to be his wife, he had asked whether she now hated the idea of staying anywhere away from Hathenshaw and having to pretend to be his mistress. But she had laughed at the suggestion.

  When she had dressed, she sat next to him, dabbing with a finger at the drops of water still lying between the curling hairs in the hollow of his chest. Then she lay back with her head in the crook of his arm, her damp hair cold against his skin. In three days he would be leaving. Around them the country dozed as if drunk with sunshine, the afternoon air thick with the smell of meadow plants and baking marsh mud. Theresa’s hair was already growing paler as it began to dry.

  ‘Come with me to London,’ he murmured.

  ‘I’d feel obliged to see my father if I did.’

  ‘He’s probably forgiven you.’

  ‘For refusing Esmond … possibly. But not for coming here.’ She watched him stripping some grass seeds idly with his hand. ‘He adores Louise … thinks I’m sacrificing her and my acting for an idiot’s infatuation.’ He lay back with a sigh. A light squall feathered the surface of the water and murmured in the trees. ‘Anyway,’ she went on softly, ‘a wife’s a fool who goes everywhere with her husband. You ought to see your friends on your own.’

  ‘But next time you’ll come?’

  ‘I expect so.’ She yawned and lay closer to him. ‘I love long lashes … the way they define your eyes. Your eyebrows are darker than your hair.’

  ‘If they weren’t?’ he laughed.

  ‘You wouldn’t be so handsome.’

  ‘Would you love me less?’ he asked lazily, brushing away a fly.

  ‘Perhaps you look like you do because I love you.’ She touched the little white scar above his left eye and smiled. ‘I don’t remember loving scars before.’

  An hour later, walking back to Hathenshaw through the cool woods, Clinton asked Theresa if she would mind Dick Lambert coming back with him from London and staying a couple of days en route for Ireland. She laughed and asked him what possible objection she could have. Their path back to the house took them beside the river for a time, where it meandered through a green tunnel of overhanging boughs. After a long bend in its course, the trees thinned and the water meadows shimmered in open sunlight. In the evening air, the ribbon of bright water twisted as far as the eye could see in perfect clarity. The distant fells formed cliffs of tawny light. They stood in silence as a swallow scooped smooth curves against the cloudless blue.

  25

  The long spell of hot dry weather had ended. Now, after a few hours of broken sunshine, the atmosphere would gather oppressively under heavy clouds which hung low over the fells, seeming to promise immediate storms, but often after a few taunting drops, continuing their brooding presence overhead, sucking at the air and leaving the long afternoons breathless and uncannily still. Even when heavy downpours came they tended to be brief and brought no real freshness. When the sun shone again, the heat seemed to steam about the fields and meadows, blurring the sky until the evenings stole in with a strange yellow haze and rumbles of muffled thunder.

  On a particularly sultry afternoon the post-boy from Browsholme brought a telegram for Theresa. The message was that Clinton would not be returning as planned on Sunday, but two days later. No explanation was given, and Theresa’s immediate assumption was that he was enjoying himself and saw no reason to hurry back. Though she told herself she was being absurd, she felt horribly disappointed. At times during the past weeks she had felt the strain of living up to his vision of her and in truth had seen his week away as an opportunity for convalescence: a renewal of strength which she had once drawn from the theatre but no longer knew where to find. But as the days had passed, she had found herself longing for his return. She had been determined that, after marrying her, he should still have the freedom to see old friends without having to face the embarrassment of presenting her to them as his mistress—for all her protestations of not minding the lie, she knew that he would always feel humiliated by it until he could acknowledge her. Yet though she knew this was so, and that she ought to be glad he was happy in London, she now wished she had gone with him. In the months ahead, the growing baby might make her unattractive to him and then she would regret every day that she had lost.

  She went out into the garden, still holding the telegram. A recent spattering of rain had intensified the smell of earth and roses; drops shone and trembled on the leaves of the ivy which clothed the whole house as high as the strange Dutch gables and little bell tower. Without Clinton, Theresa felt a stranger in the place. What to him, after Markenfield, was a small country house, to her seemed cavernously large; its corridors as wide as rooms, and in the attics, enough accommodation to house a staff three times as numerous as the six who worked for them. Though Clinton joked about the faces in the portraits on the stairs, Theresa was disconcerted by them. The dark oak furniture and cabinets of oriental porcelain accumulated through the centuries by the landlord’s family, often made her want to be surrounded by possessions of their own. When the peafowl gathered under the cedars at dusk and the rooks returned cawing to their roosts, Theresa’s dislocation was at its strongest; a feeling that the house would rather have lain empty and undisturbed, alone with the fluttering of moths at windows and the wind’s rustling among branches.

  Theresa had left the formal gardens and was in the azalea walk that ran beside the park, when the rain started with a sudden flurry that could only herald a downpour. Without time to get back to the house, she sheltered under the only nearby tree, a light aspen, and watched the house and stables grow faint and misty behind a curtain of falling water. A little later, indistinct flashes of lightning lit the whole sky as if projected from behind it. The thin canopy above her soon let through a stream of drops, so that she saw no point in remaining, but walked back in the direction of the house. The drops were coming down so heavily that they splashed up in little fountains where they hit the ground. Already after very few minutes Theresa’s skirt and petticoats clung to her legs, and she knew that her chignon would soon collapse into numerous loose ends like dripping rats’ tails. Standing still, she raised her face to the sky, suddenly enjoying the feel of the rain on her face and on her closed eyelids. She even took pleasure in kicking through the puddles. Unaccountably she no longer felt downcast.