The governor is a martinet, but a snob too, thank God. So though there are but twenty rooms for most of the debtors in Lancashire (upwards of four hundred), I have one to myself, and no cupboard in size. The governor comes to see me daily and commiserates with me, saying how damnable my incarceration is and quite unlike any other case he knew. I tell him my ordeal would be intolerable but for his solicitude. That way I have been allowed to dine and lunch alone, though I breakfast with the first-class debtors in their day room, which I think was once the castle armoury. Cooking is done at one side at a huge open fireplace. The walls are hung with hats, caps, carpet-bags, foils and boxing gloves. Apart from these recreations, the room is large enough to provide a capital skittle alley. My fellow sufferers include two Church of England clergymen and four army officers. Speaking of clerics, the chaplain courts me assiduously to read the lesson in chapel perhaps as illustration of man’s equality in adversity. Since worshippers are actually locked in their pews, the turnkey officiating as the chaplain’s clerk with his keys on the desk by his prayer book, one experience of these Hogarthian proceedings was enough for me. The keys by the by are of a size and weight I would have thought impossible except in historical dramas. Visiting regulations beggar all description. Market people come to the gratings of the day rooms at eight in the morning, but no other visitors are allowed in at that hour unless they masquerade by bringing an egg or a potato with them, these commodities serving as tickets of admission at the outer gate. The half-hour set aside for friends to the prisoner is a mockery, visitors being locked into a small stone room with a turnkey listening to every word, and the object of their concern standing behind a set of bars which would do credit to the tiger cage in a menagerie. Since it is easier to bear up on paper than to endure a loved face seen through bars, I beg you to write rather than come here.

  Lawyers, I fear, are always ‘proceeding’ without ever coming to an end, and though it pains me to tell you that I shall not be out before the 20th, that much, my legal allies assure me, is certain. The preparation of affidavits, notices, and bail papers, seems to demand the clerical pains of a monk’s manuscript. As soon as I am free I will go south at once to see my uncle. That way we will have more to celebrate than our reunion. Write boldly all you think and feel. I am not repining.

  Addio, cara Theresa mia, Clinton.

  The positive tone of Theresa’s reply was a considerable relief to him, and slowly his spirits began to improve. His conditional discharge took place as his lawyers had predicted on August 20th—a date which in other years had been significant to him as the last day of the black game close season.

  30

  On a hot and windless afternoon, several days before Lord Ardmore was expected back in Lancashire, an elderly man stepped down from a dilapidated ‘fly’ just within the lodge gates of Hathenshaw. After the oven-like heat inside the hackney, Major Simmonds was thankful to breathe the cooler air in the shade of the elm avenue leading to the house. The glaring light had made his head throb, and his mouth felt parched with the dust thrown up from the cracked and crumbling roads. Stooping slightly as he walked, his thin tailcoated figure, crowned by a tall hat and encased in tight-fitting white trousers, seemed a ghostly reminder of an age before the Norfolk jacket and tweedside suit.

  He was considerably taken aback to be admitted to the house by a servant wearing cavalry overalls and smoking a cigar.

  ‘I want to see your mistress,’ he said stiffly, reddening when the man looked at him with what he took for an ill-concealed smirk.

  ‘What name, sir?’

  ‘I’m her father, so don’t go sticking your hand out for a card.’

  ‘Please come this way, sir.’

  Overcoming her surprise, Theresa embraced her father.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you write and tell me you were coming?’ He made no reply, but put down his hat and the gingham umbrella which served as a sunshade in summer. Theresa squeezed his hand affectionately. ‘You’re here, which is the main thing. I hope you’re going to stay?’

  ‘The inn at Browsholme suits me nicely.’ He stared awkwardly at the fender and did not see her smile.

  ‘My dear father, if you’re worried about meeting Clinton, he’s staying with his uncle.’

  ‘Worried?’ he muttered gruffly. ‘Can’t see why the deuce I should be worried.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten what you’ve said about him.’

  ‘I’m not pretending anything. I don’t want to stay under his

  He sat down and said sharply: ‘Does he let his servants smoke in front of you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘What about the one who showed me up here?’

  ‘He obviously wasn’t expecting anybody. Perhaps he thought you’d be a tradesman.’

  ‘At the hall door?’

  ‘Isn’t it really rather a little thing?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Damned if I think it is. An insult to you. That’s my view.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with him. What about tea? The maids don’t smoke.’

  ‘I’d like a glass of water.’

  Though used to her father’s habit of exaggerating his often genuine irritation over trifles, she had not been slow to recognise that his present testiness concealed a more serious grievance. Since they regularly wrote to each other, his unannounced visit could hardly be explained by a desire to exchange routine news.

  When the maid had answered the bell and returned with the water, Theresa sat next to her father.

  ‘Did you think if you’d written asking to see me, I’d have tried to fob you off?’

  He put down his glass and sighed.

  ‘Wouldn’t have surprised me. Louise wrote that you were ill enough to need the doctor a dozen times or more.’ He turned his monocle on her. ‘Not a word to me. If I did that to you, what’d you think?’

  ‘That you didn’t want to worry me.’

  He let his eye-glass drop down on its black ribbon.

  ‘Do you think I’m not worried now? What was wrong with you?’

  ‘What did Louise tell you?’

  ‘Nothing … said she wasn’t told.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, looking away. He made no reply, but when she finally turned, his bowed head and unhappy eyes cut through her previous resolution to say nothing.

  ‘I lost a child.’

  He got up and paced over to the window, his movements jerky with agitation.

  ‘The blackguard … dirty blackguard. Small wonder the servants show no respect. If I was younger …’

  ‘If he married me, his uncle would disinherit him. He’s virtually penniless.’

  ‘That so? And this is the poor house?’ He gestured around him, the sweep of his hands taking in the porcelain, portraits, and gilded chairs. ‘A man’s penniless who keeps his coppers separate from the silver in his purse. You tell his lordship that.’

  ‘Father, he needs no telling. Please believe me.’

  The major stood motionless, his chin sunk in the folds of his cravat.

  ‘Nothing can excuse degrading you.’

  ‘You never accused Esmond of that.’

  ‘He wanted to marry you … and no threat of a child to force his hand. A different story with his brother. What did he offer you instead of marriage, when he knew you were with child? Restitution for a blighted career? A covenant for the child’s upkeep if you parted? Or did he plead poverty?’

  ‘If I was some sweet young innocent, I’d understand …’

  ‘Better if you were,’ he cried. ‘A few years wasted then wouldn’t have harmed you. Past thirty it pays a woman to be thrifty with her time. Think on ten years … I’ve next to nothing to leave you. Very well, let him squeeze you like an orange, but make sure there’s some juice left when he throws away the rind.’

  ‘He’ll never throw me away.’

  ‘Will you never learn?’ he asked, in a voice choked with emotion. With the passing of his bitterness, her father seemed changed: an old man unable to pass on the lessons life had taught him, not understanding how she could fail to see what was so obvious to him. She was tempted as never before to tell him about her marriage. The stiff way her father sat, due to the vanity of stays, his tight high collar cutting into his wrinkled neck, the clear definition of the bones in his hands, all moved her intolerably. He drew back his head like a man about to make a speech in public and for a moment she expected a further onslaught, but when he spoke, his voice was faltering.

  ‘Not every girl’s a martyr who’s seduced. Only fools say that. Takes two to play that game and to share the fun. The rub comes later, and when it does, sharing’s a thing of the past.’ He leant forward with pathetic eagerness. ‘Leave him, dear … leave while you can still help yourself. I beg you to.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You must tell me why.’

  ‘The reasons aren’t material.’

  Fearing his collapse, Theresa was astounded by the quite different effect of her words. During a long silence, he looked at her with intent reproachful eyes.

  ‘I’d much rather you’d confided in me.’ He paused and stared ahead of him, before facing her with a sudden turn of the neck. ‘Louise heard a maid say you’d married Ardmore in Ireland.’

  ‘How would servants entertain themselves without silly suspicions?’

  ‘Louise claims the girl mentioned the name of a priest and a place.’

  ‘I wonder what I wore? Perhaps she mentioned that?’

  He twisted his monocle on its ribbon and shook his head.

  ‘Only a place, a priest and a date, when I happen to know you were away.’

  ‘Louise knew it too. You realise she doesn’t like him?’

  ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’

  ‘Well it explains a deliberate piece of mischief. We’d better talk to her. Or perhaps start with the maid? I wonder if Louise named her as well as the priest?’

  The major slowly shook his head, and said:

  ‘There’s a better way. I intend to make inquiries over there.’

  ‘Suppose there was a secret marriage, can you imagine the priest telling the first person to come asking about it? I daresay if you fail with him, a few pounds in a country place would secure whatever information …

  ‘I’m sending a lawyer to take sworn proofs. People don’t perjure themselves when they can be prosecuted for it.’

  A scream seemed to struggle up through her silence; her lungs ached withholding it, but she made no sound. The effort of control she had needed to reach even this far with conviction had drained her; only dull anger at his mistrust enabled her to go on. She got up, the same sceptical smile on her lips.

  ‘Suppose you buy these proofs, what will you do with them?’

  ‘That’ll depend on Ardmore.’

  ‘Don’t you see what harm you’ll do me?’

  ‘Worse than the harm he’s already done you? What frightens you if he’s honourable?’

  ‘People make promises,’ she blurted out, losing the sense of his words, immediately horrified by her admission.

  ‘What sort of a man forces a woman to keep a promise that dishonours her? God in heaven … you were with child.’

  She raised her hands to her temples, dragging back her hair savagely, wanting to punish herself, aware of the stage inanity of the gesture as she sank to her knees. He touched her shoulder lightly but she rocked back on her haunches.

  ‘You have no right,’ she moaned, in a voice not like her own, high pitched and hysterical. Then jumping to her feet, she shouted: ‘My life, mine, mine.’

  She expected the relief of tears; but though her eyes were congested and her lips quivered, no sound came. At last she rose slowly to her feet.

  ‘Get your proofs if you must,’ she murmured. ‘If you do anything without seeing me first …’ She stopped, suddenly remembering a play—the father of the heroine bemoaning his daughter’s sins, and later the pathetic girl destitute at his door. So much of her own life seemed parodied in the melodramas she had acted in. Before she knew it, she was laughing, more in panic than amusement. ‘How did we get through them? How, father? The Maid of Milan, Crazy Jane, Love’s Frailties … three in a month sometimes. No wonder we’re half mad. Simple morality suits a play … life blurs the lines. If villainy’s not punished in life as it should be, so much the worse for life … Isn’t that what you think?’ She gazed at his unsmiling face, knowing she was right.

  ‘Would you have the good go unrewarded?’

  ‘Fate isn’t in my gift or yours.’

  He took her hand emotionally.

  ‘Don’t mock what we did together. What’s wrong with letting people hope that life can be better? That’s what we did.’

  ‘Then give me hope. Wait and let him prove you wrong.’

  He paused, sucking in his cheeks, as though drawing on an invisible cigar.

  ‘Two months,’ he said abruptly, ‘And I’ll find out something in the meantime.’

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  He picked up his hat and was reaching for his umbrella when she snatched it from him.

  ‘You’ve no need to send a man asking questions.’

  ‘I have every need. What if someone else gets there first? You were right to say money begets lies.’

  She looked at him beseechingly.

  ‘The priest promised secrecy. He might write warning Clinton that questions were being asked. In his place, who would you suspect of breaking faith? Don’t destroy Clinton’s trust in me.’

  ‘Then tell me this,’ he said with the same stubbornness, ‘Why should I trust any man who makes his wife swear to deceive her father? If I’d been rich or titled, he’d not have dared insult me so. If you were an earl’s daughter, could you see him shutting you away miles from anywhere? A different story with my daughter … let her be laughed at by servants, let the country quack think her a whore. Too bad if she gives birth and half the county thinks her child a bastard.’ He paused, wiping sweat from his brow with a cambric handkerchief, dropping his hat in the process. ‘And if his wife has the humanity to tell her father the truth, he’ll never trust her again. But I’m to trust him … I can’t do it … can’t for the life of me. I’ll wait before seeing him, but I’ll have proofs of this marriage.’

  Theresa left the room and returned a few minutes later with the certificate, knowing that otherwise he would see the priest, and possibly return to confront Clinton in person. She waited till he had finished reading.

  ‘Do you want to have a copy witnessed by your solicitor?’ ‘I can’t see the need.’ He seemed dazed.

  ‘Perhaps you trust him now?’

  She had spoken bitterly, but if she had screamed, her father would not have been troubled by it. He raised her hand to his lips.

  ‘My dear Lady Ardmore,’ he murmured, ‘My dear dear Lady Ardmore.’

  31

  On opposite sides of a great shining mahogany table covered with grapes, pineapples and various kinds of cake, the Honourable Richard Danvers and his nephew sat reading—Clinton cursorily leafing through a leather-bound volume of Punch for the year 1860, while his uncle devoted his attention to a book of eighteenth century architectural drawing. No stranger to his uncle’s habit of reading during meals, Clinton was not insulted by it.

  Like many wealthy men, living alone, and completely insulated from any kind of criticism, Richard Danvers saw nothing untoward in subjecting his infrequent house guests to his normal routines—his sole concession being to make himself available for conversation three times a day: during his regular morning walk, while taking the short carriage ride which always followed his afternoon nap, and finally for half-an-hour in the smoking room after dinner. The bulk of his time was given to his model farm and to omnivorous reading. Few scholars could have claimed to occupy their time with greater exertion than this gentleman of leisure.

  By the end of his second day in his uncle’s house, Clinton had still not broached the crucial subject that had brought him there. There were still moments when he found it scarcely credible that his elderly host could wield such power over his future. And all because Richard Danvers had married a rich woman, who had not survived her first pregnancy.

  Clinton’s father had not got on with Richard, and Clinton himself still shared this difficulty. The man’s frequent smiles and aphoristic way of talking gave an impression of joviality that was frequently belied by the gravity of his eyes. Usually mild-mannered, he possessed a quick temper. Invariably their conversations had an edge of combat about them. Danvers, who made a point of never talking about himself, would select a subject and invite Clinton’s views which he would then dismiss. Before his marriage he had been a barrister. He seemed neither to want nor expect more from people than could be gained in a game of chess or cards. His rare contacts with other people resembled little sips of spa water, taken for his health, like medicine only when he chose. The idea of seeing his uncle swayed by his emotions, seemed as improbable to Clinton as watching him jumping fully dressed into a river. To date he had contented himself with assessing the scale of his task, but that evening, while they were drinking madeira in the smoking room, his uncle offered the kind of oblique lead which Clinton knew had to be followed.

  Clinton had mentioned his reasons for leaving the army on the first day of his stay, but the subject had met with an emphatic lack of response. So he was considerably surprised when suddenly asked what sum he would need to buy back and how he had ever got into a scrape in the first place. His uncle’s apparent sympathy aroused definite hopes. But, just when Clinton believed an offer was imminent, he was met with a sudden change of tack.

  ‘You know what I’ll never forgive your father?’ Clinton shook his head, masking his annoyance. ‘He wasted himself.’

  ‘By marrying my mother?’

  ‘He made other mistakes, but that was his worst.’