A Marriage of Convenience (26 page)

After the darkness and the long wait in the packed procession of carriages crawling up Cork Hill to the Castle gates, the brilliance of light and colour at the foot of the grand staircase was dazzling. Divested of wraps and cloaks, naked female shoulders shone white as ivory under the blazing gaslight of opulently twisted candelabra. High on the white panelled walls, the burnished blades of hundreds of swords, arranged in star patterns, flashed as brightly as the chandeliers. Like tall statues ranged facing each other all the way up the staircase were uniformed guardsmen, whose dripping faces under their bearskins matched the scarlet of their coats. Footmen in powdered wigs and purple livery tailcoats stood on every landing, watching the ascending wave of humanity with expressionless eyes, indifferent alike to aigrettes and epaulettes.

‘Don’t introduce me to anybody unless it would be rude not to,’ murmured Theresa as they reached the foot of the stairs. Clinton made no reply but looked around him with the eye of a man surprised suddenly to find himself mixing with the cast of a pantomime. ‘And no cynicism,’ she said, emphasising her point with a swift touch of her elbow. She had never been to a court ball, and her lover’s gold-braided uniform and campaign medals filled her with pride and an emotional tightness in the throat. Certain that such an evening would never be repeated, she wanted to be able to look back on it with simple wonder. Yet even before they reached St Patrick’s Hall, she read the sadness and envy on young girls’ faces and the silent determination stamped on the features of their mothers. Strangest of all was the sight of women, some older than herself, meekly submitting to the guiding nudges of chaperons, as if numbed into inanity by memories of past failures on the Castle’s waxed and polished floors. The fashion for sleeveless low-cut dresses was merciless to bony shoulders, and mandatory long white gloves tortured those with fat arms. The fight for eligible marriage partners was not a struggle that favoured the faint-hearted.

Since Clinton had first asked her to marry him, so unconcerned had he seemed about all serious matters that at times she could
scarcely believe that the subject had ever been raised. Yet she knew him well enough to recognise his hallmark. Too proud to show resentment; disdainful of bargaining or compromise, he would remain silent until presenting her with a final choice. When that time came he would not spare her. Knowing what answer she ought to give, it still terrified her that her will might break. It had been to achieve just this that he had let her know in advance that if she would not give everything, then he would accept nothing. And every day that he maintained his nonchalance, and she dared not broach the subject, a few more threads of resolution frayed and parted.

As they passed a panting dowager, squeezed by a miracle of
tight-lacing
into a dress that seemed made for a woman half her size, Clinton said quietly with the easy humour that had now become his mask:

‘The survival of the fattest by unnatural adaptation.’ Theresa looked at him reprovingly but he only laughed. ‘It really is like Darwin’s theory. Only the strong survive the struggle; the female’s never more vulnerable than when guarding her young.’

‘And never more dangerous,’ whispered Theresa, as they entered a long drawing room where the Louis XV furniture had been pushed back against the walls, providing seats for the weary but not impeding the passing throng. Clinton had been looking for
somebody
, and at last hailed an officer in a uniform identical to his own. Approaching at a leisurely pace, the soldier inclined his head slightly to Theresa. Clinton turned to her formally.

‘Mrs Barr, permit me to introduce Captain Lambert.’ They shook hands and Lambert looked at Theresa appraisingly. Clinton
continued
: ‘If duty calls, Dick could you …?’ He glanced at Theresa.

‘I should be delighted, milord.’

‘Do I need a chaperon?’ asked Theresa; a smile masking real irritation.

‘Captain Lambert has a fund of entertaining anecdotes.’ The two men smiled at one another and Clinton asked in a stage whisper: ‘Have you danced with our colonel’s lady?’

‘I have and her hooves have lost none of their power.’

‘Have you never trodden on toes?’ asked Theresa.

Lambert grinned affably.

‘Figuratively, Mrs Barr, but not physically.’

A débutante and her mother came up to them and greeted Lambert, who made the necessary introductions. The girl was fingering her dance card anxiously, eyes liquid with invitation.

‘Perhaps I might have the honour of your next waltz, Miss Tyne?’ asked Lambert with a hesitance owing more, Theresa guessed, to reluctance than to bashfulness.

‘Yes indeed.’ The young lady flushed as she looked at the few scribbled names on her card. ‘Oh dear, I’m afraid it’s already promised. Perhaps the …’ She caught her mother’s eye and looked down miserably.

Lambert gave a convincing show of disappointment.

‘The one after is a polka, I seem to recall from the programme. A shame my only dances are the waltz and the galop.’

‘Not the quadrille?’ asked the slighted mother with an arch smile.

‘Alas a prior engagement,’ sighed Lambert, slicing away the last frail threads of their net; but he walked on with the disconsolate pair, chatting to them as they made for St Patrick’s Hall. Clinton and Theresa followed them at a distance.

‘Why does he come if he won’t dance?’

Clinton shrugged.

‘To look around. The Castle aides de camp dance with the ones who are left out. That’s their job.’

‘The girls must love dancing with them.’

‘They dance very well I’m told.’

‘You know what I meant, Clinton.’

Threading their way through the crush on the edge of the dance floor, Clinton was cornered and obliged to promise later dances to two officers’ wives. On either side of the whirling sea of tulle and muslin were little gilded chairs and, at the far end of the immense hall, a red daïs supporting the empty thrones of the viceroy and his consort. In the gallery, behind a screen of palms and evergreen, a hidden orchestra played tirelessly, only ceasing for short periods between the dances. As a waltz began, Clinton turned to Theresa with eyes suddenly grown serious.

‘Will you do me the honour, Miss Simmonds?’

He offered her his arm and they set off towards the centre of the floor where the circling of the dancers was slower. He drew her close to him, and they moved off carefully at first, because of the press of couples, but soon they felt the rhythm and their bodies seemed to soften and mould together as they glided and turned, quickening as one when the tempo changed. She raised her eyes to his and felt the same tremor in her breast that was always there before they kissed. And it was like loving, this feeling that she was slipping away from herself, the room swimming vague about her, while at the centre they seemed quite still, held steady in each others arms as everything else revolved around them—chandeliers, irridescence of silk and satin, curling side-whiskers, dark dress-coats. The sad girls and predatory matrons had spun away and tilted far beneath the horizon of their circling world; and she was absorbed totally by the illusion that his movements had become hers and that his warmth and
strength flowed through her with the pulse of the melody, bearing her up, carrying her like seaweed in the curve of a wave.

Next came a polka and then a galop, sweeping the whole floor with dashing exuberance, bringing boisterous laughter and apologies as breathless couples collided, legs tangling with skirts. Clinton kissed Theresa’s triumphant happy face as they were swept together, his cheek brushing straying curls. Her movements were light and fast and her eyes flashed with confidence and vitality. Her lovely oval face and parted lips, her auburn hair, glowing warm above the dead white of her dress, drew admiration to her as she danced; eyes following them as they merged and separated from the living swell of shapes and figures.

Later, Clinton reluctantly left Theresa talking to Lambert, while he himself returned to the dance floor to fulfil his two promises. Between the first and second was an interval of three dances. He was leaving the floor, intending to return to Theresa during this respite, when he felt a light touch on his back. A pair of dark doe-like eyes were scrutinizing him from a pale serious face.

‘I’m not a ghost,’ the young woman said coldly, ‘though I had to make myself ill before mama would agree to come here.’ The music had started again and people were pushing past them onto the floor. Without speaking, Clinton led the way to the quieter dining room where refreshments were being served from a long horseshoe table.

‘An ice, Miss Lucas?’ he murmured as they sat down at one of the small candlelit side-tables.

‘You may call me Sophie, Clinton.’

‘Champagne or claret cup?’ he asked after a silence.

‘Neither.’ She forced a brittle smile. ‘If Mahomet won’t come to the mountain … Isn’t it lucky my uncle’s comptroller of the household? I was sent ever so many bouquets before the ball.’

‘And which lucky man’s flowers did you bring?’

‘I threw them all away.’ Her expression was precariously poised between irony and tears. ‘Why aren’t you attending any private dances or dinners?’

‘I don’t care for society here.’

‘No sauntering down Grafton Street or skating on the viceregal pond?’

He looked down at her mother of pearl fan.

‘If you came here to see me …’

‘I succeeded. I told you I wouldn’t give you up. Did you think I’d stop existing when you left Ammering? That’s how you’re looking at me now. What right has she got to be here, why didn’t she die or fade away when I turned my back? That’s what you’re thinking.’ She gazed at him with sudden intentness. ‘All those months and you
couldn’t decide. Or was it just mindless cruelty to let me hope for so long?’

‘Of course I wasn’t sure.’

She leant forward with a nervous eagerness that horrified him.

‘Then why should I assume you’re so certain now? If mama hadn’t tried to press you …’

‘It’s history, Sophie.’

‘I’ll tell you some more history. I wrote to your brother … asked his opinion before coming here.’

‘His opinion about what?’

‘Whether you intended to marry somebody else.’

‘You’d have done better to see a fortune-teller. What was his guess?’

‘That you had no immediate intentions.’

Her tenacity both impressed and repelled him as he met her eyes; looking away at the jewelled comb in her black hair, he thought of the fierce fight she would have had with her parents to make them consent to this last vain effort. Very few girls would have had the courage and the will.

‘He said there was an attachment … some actress.’ The scorn and bitterness in her voice wounded him. ‘Were you dancing with her? I watched you both. I thought I was going to be sick.’ She paused, her anger passing. ‘I didn’t know I’d dare say as much. It’s strange … suddenly finding oneself much stronger than one ever expected.’

‘I’ve nothing to add to what I said at your parents’ house.’

‘But I have, Clinton. I said then that if we were married, I wouldn’t mind what happened if you were faithful for a few years. I’ve learnt a lot since then. Do you remember Alice Clayton? Within a month of her marriage to Miles Claremont she found out he’d kept on his old mistresses.’

‘Poor girl.’

‘No,’ she cried, ‘the whole point is that she doesn’t care. At first she was horribly upset.’ Sophie blushed and lowered her eyes. ‘Men and women are very different … Apparently Claremont was too passionate … quite brutal in fact. I can’t tell you. But don’t you see? She’s not sorry at all that there are other women. None of the poor creatures seem to last long and they make him quite tolerable to live with. She likes his company; loves him in other ways, and she has ever so much to attend to. A large house, entertaining. She’s perfectly happy.’

‘Like a hundred other self-deceiving wives.’

‘You haven’t understood. Only a woman who loves a man for her own sake rather than his, can’t accept his weaknesses.’

‘Alice sounds clever,’ said Clinton with a faint smile.

Sophie was staring at him with fixed bright eyes.

‘It’s true, though.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘
I
could be as tolerant as that, Clinton. Dear God, I’ve tried to love other men … the humiliation of it. But now I’ve done with pretending. I don’t care about pride …’ Seeing tears brimming, he rose not knowing what to say; amazed that a girl so carefully brought-up could have made this proposition. He shook his head and stepped back. ‘Am I so repulsive?’ she whispered.

‘No, no. You deserve a man who loves you, not some squalid travesty of a marriage.’

He was returning to the Blue Drawing Room, still shaken by this encounter, when he saw a large florid faced woman detach herself from a group and come towards him; she was his colonel’s wife.

‘Just in time for the quadrille, Lord Ardmore. I thought I’d been forgotten.’

‘On the contrary, Mrs Hammond.’

Her shimmery blue dress was wreathed with silver gauze and studded here and there with large frosted water-lilies.

‘Who else is in our set?’ he asked, noticing that there were lily buds in her thickly coiled hair. The effect was grotesque.

‘Sir Charles and Lady Spencer.’

‘Splendid,’ replied Clinton, though he cordially detested his brigade commander and his wife.

While waiting for Clinton, Theresa decided that she did not like Richard Lambert with his bright confident smile and inquisitive eyes. He would choose a general subject to talk about and then pass effortlessly to himself, his views on life and this and that; and though he could laugh at his own expense, she felt that all the time he was judging the effect he was having on her. She found particularly distasteful a kind of knowingness of expression, as if to say: you’re an artful woman to have managed to snare such an exceptional and normally dispassionate man as Lord Ardmore. When he spoke about Clinton’s merits as a soldier, these remarks took on for her the colouring of a reproach, while Lambert’s occasional polite enquiries about her own profession seemed tinged with condescension.