Outside
she heard a splintered exchange. Lord Eden commanding in a shattered voice,
"Take us home!"
"Milord,
young Locke's inside with the ladies," the coachman protested.
"Damn
Locke! Take us home!" Eden exploded.
She
was aware of the weight of a foot stepping inside, but saw nothing and
responded to nothing. After the first lurch of the carriage, she closed her
eyes. Try as she did, she could not stop shaking as she recalled the events,
the helplessness of her near fallen state.
Once
she heard him whisper, "Marianne, please—"
Rigidly
she shook her head, indicating that she had nothing to say, was indeed
incapable of speech. In this atmosphere the journey was completed, the sights
outside her window growing familiar as the carriage turned into Oxford Road,
passed the Pantheon, that cursed structure, stopping at last before the high
Tudor house, once her prison, although it was difficult to discern that as she
alighted from the carriage even before it came to a firm halt, running across
the pavement toward the steps, through the entrance hall where a serving woman
stopped to gape. She was aware again of his close pursuit only a few steps
behind her, still calling out, "Marianne, wait, pray God, wait!" She
took the stairs two at a time, lifting the soiled hem of her gown, her eye
fixed on the door at the top of the third-floor landing as though it were a
safe harbor.
As
she pushed through the door she heard his step behind her. As she was in the
process of closing it, she felt the weight of his shoulder on the other side,
felt the solid oak give as though she were a creature of weightlessness. Against
his determined approach, she retreated backward into the room, wondering if the
horror were truly over or merely postponed.
He
stood in the open doorway, panting for breath, still clutching his garments to
him, the white robe and bare feet looking more absurd than ever. Behind him,
struggling up the stairs, she saw several servants, their faces pinched in
curiosity. But that was all she saw, for suddenly, reaching backward, he
slammed the door with such force that she felt vibrations beneath her feet.
She
walked away from him a step or two further, reaching behind her for something
solid against which she could buttress her fear. "Milord," she said,
"we have nothing to say and I wish to retire." Her bravado almost
amused her, trying to face him down.
But
apparently it worked, for suddenly he dropped the awkward bundle of clothes, as
though her simplicity were one of the most devastating forces he'd ever encountered.
As she retreated further back to the bed, clutching the post for support, she
saw him commence to pace, a battered, heavily breathing figure, one hand
grasping at his hair as though he intended to pull it out, his head shaking
back and forth.
He
kept up this curious pacing, glancing at her now and then as though to confirm
her presence at the heart of the mystery. Out of the slow, measured tread, she
heard the beginning of words.
As
long as he paced and muttered only, she was safe. She had no quarrel with
either pacing or muttering. But then abruptly he stopped and confronted her
directly, his face as anguished as she'd ever seen it.
He
shouted, "What do you want?" his voice, in spite of its pitch,
sounding remote, his eyes, pleading for sympathy. "I—don't
understand," he said, again pacing and shaking his head. "You—seemed
willing, earlier. You seemed—receptive, responsive. I treated you with grace
and dignity, I concerned myself only with your pleasure, I shared, I
gave—" He spoke this in a tone of amazement as though impressed by his own
behavior.
She
listened carefully, still clutching at the bedpost, hearing the bitter
disappointment in his voice, topped only by his massive confusion. "And
now, I don't understand!" he shouted, voice rising. "What do you
want? How am I to behave toward you? What do you expect of me, what price that
I have not paid? Tell me, lady. I want to know. I
demand
to know. Do you
intend to enter a convent? To take your virginity with you to the grave? Is it
all men, or just this man? Then tell me how I am lacking. My earlier offense to
your person has been more than paid by the agony of my prolonged ordeal. I have
suffered as you have suffered, have scars even to show for it."
"Do
you care to see?" he demanded. "In shape and size they are different
from yours, but believe me, lady, the pain was the same, my blood when spilled
the same color as yours."
It
was a desperate monologue, punctuated by the constant and pitiful refrain,
"Then tell me, lady, what do you want? Direct me, guide me, so that our
mutual torture may come to an end."
He
approached her now by a single step, his arms outstretched in one last
pleading, "What do you want?" he cried.
"What-do-you-want?"
In
the silence brought on by the cessation of his voice, she foundered. She could
not really say when the word first occurred to her, that small, incredible word
now forming at the back of her brain, not forming actually, for the ease with
which it surfaced suggested that perhaps it had been there always, since that
hot August morning she'd survived the whipping oak, not normally a word of
revenge, and in all honesty not now coming as revenge, fighting its way through
the back of her throat and into her mouth, one word only, reaching her tongue
and consciousness simultaneously, enabling her to feel more in command than at
anytime since Thomas Eden had entered her life, an amazing word—where had it
come from—still moving through her brain, a desperate and perhaps shameless
solution, but it had the merit of positivity.
When
at first she did not respond to his tortured plea of "What do you
want?" he cut the distance between them by a single step, shouting again,
angrily, "What do you want?"
The
word was there now, fully formed, like a long-awaited infant ready for birth.
In reply to his last anguished outburst of "What do you want?" she
delivered herself of the word, softly, with that same smile with which she'd
held the horrors of the charnel house at bay.
"Marriage,"
she said. In the event he'd missed it the first time, she repeated it,
"Marriage, milord."
But
he hadn't missed it. He stared, like something dormant, almost crouching before
her as though the word had the power to deliver a fateful blow. He moved back
to the door as if unprotected from the impact of the word. In a stupor, still
gazing at her, he opened the door and backed out.
She
watched him go down the steps, then slowly made her way across the room and
closed the door behind him. She stood for a long time watching the night sky
through the high casement windows, the clouds brushing the surface of the moon,
reminding her of evenings at home in spring with the lilac burgeoning in the
cottage garden.
Boots
and carriages clattered on the cobbles. Murmurs of voices reached her from the
street below. Her sense of detachment, that had never left her since she had
given voice to the simple word, settled in the room. The prospect of stretching
herself on that comfortable-looking bed was irresistible.
"Suppose
he agrees," she thought. "Suppose he doesn't agree—"
She
was too tired to care. She pushed off the tattered gown, pulled on a soft silk
nightdress, and slipped between cool soothing sheets.
By
the count of five, she was asleep.
Marriage
!
He
took the single word all the way down the stairs with him, a serious weight
accumulating with each step.
Marriage!
Had
she lost her senses? That a man in his position should live with his mistress
was not in the least remarkable, but marriage with a member of the lower orders
was unthinkable.
Marriage!
Did
she realize the impossibility of what she was asking? Apparently she didn't. As
he entered his chambers, and as the absurdity of the word washed over him, he
laughed aloud and spoke the word as though to test its absurdity.
"Marriage!"
Looking
down, his eyes skimmed over the silly white robe, his normal garments
abandoned—where? Then he remembered. Upstairs in her chambers. The absurdity of
the entire evening washed over him. My God, what a fool he'd been! How duped!
Two thousand guineas for the privilege of being transformed into an ass!
As
his mind began to grasp the extreme dimensions of his ridiculous behavior, he
ripped off the robe and hurled it into a far corner and glared after it as
though he longed to attack it further.
He
was damned certain of one thing. He would send for his solicitor in the morning
and bring charges against the charlatan Graham. He might not recover his purse,
but that was of little import. The man must be driven out of town, his
"elixir of life" dumped into the gutter where it belonged, his young
women put out on the lanes of St. James's Park where they could be recognized
for what they were. Whores!
His
anger increasing, he flung open the wardrobe door and withdrew a dressing gown.
With an anguish bordering on obsession he continued to glare at the white robe
in the comer, feeling heat on his face as he saw himself duped, taken in, as
easily as a provincial bumpkin.
No
matter. He would seek revenge. Before it was over, Dr. James Graham would be
quaking in fear beneath his Celestial Bed. The mere thought of the madness
caused fresh humiliation, and immediately following this came a new and painful
thought. If he turned his solicitor loose on Dr. Graham, the story of the
entire evening would spread and he would again be the laughingstock of London.
No,
he must tell no one. No one must know beyond himself, and, unhappily, her. At
the thought of her, his eyes moved upward to the ceiling. His embarrassment was
softened by the good memories of the day. Within the moment, he was so moved
that his eyes misted. Walking slowly, as though he were in some way injured, he
made his way to his chair beside the window, threw open the casements, and on
the street below heard the watchman call out the hour of midnight.
Her
. Every twilight
corner of his life warmed at the thought. A most remarkable her—a gleam of
white skin, dark blue eyes beneath flaxen hair, how sweetly she had looked at
him at moments, how fearfully atop the Monument. Even when she did not speak a
word, her grace and gentle dignity spoke volumes. It had gone so well for them
until the foolishness of the evening. Then-
Thinking
on it caused new distress. He leaned his head against the sill and saw her face
and swimming eyes. It astonished him to find how rich his life was even in the
memory of her.
Slowly
he raised his eyes. Well, then, was he in love? Since he had no appetite for life
without her, he assumed that he was. "Oh, God," he groaned, again
resting his head heavily upon the sill, the image of her coursing through him
with the whole dread pleasure and pain of love.
But
marriage? How would that be possible for a man of his position? He could see
the bans—"Lord Eden marries fisherman's daughter from Mortemouth."
And what of the line? The only valid claim of the aristocracy was the purity of
blood. No, it would not work. Perhaps through some genetic quirk she had
managed to acquire a mysterious breeding, but the fact remained. The senseless
dribbling old man who had spawned her had also spawned the idiot Russell and the
avaricious Jane. A man in Thomas' position had to be able to count on more than
genetic whimsy. History was involved, an impressive and noble line stretching
back across the English landscape to the tenth century. It would move forward
one day. He would see to it, but not through the suspect womb of a fisherman's
daughter, no matter how remarkable and beautiful she was.
He
sat musing thus, his body half-turned at the window, as though at any moment he
might climb the steps again to the third-floor apartments and present his case.
But something prevented him from doing this, some knowledge based on the
strongest experience that she had made her demand and would settle for nothing
less.
In
merely thinking on her, his body doubled up in its desire. With his eyes
half-closed, he fantasized, saw himself climbing the steps to her room and
overpowering her.