Winters shook his head. 'I thank you, no. I come, Sir, as you will have guessed, to speak of my father. I am informed that you were seen with him when the Minerva went down. Your arrival in Calcutta gave me the hope-although I admit a slender hope-that he too may have been saved and that you can give me news of him.'
'Alas, I cannot,' Roger replied gravely. 'We went under together holding to a float of chairs; but he lost his hold while I was engaged in helping another person. As you may be aware, your father could not swim and, when I turned to see what had become of him, he had disappeared. I fear there can be no doubt at all that he was drowned.'
'You tell only what I expected,' Winters nodded. 'In fact, for some weeks past I have resigned myself to the loss of my excellent parent.'
'From what you say, it seemed that other survivors from the Minerva arrived here some time ago, and informed you of her sinking.'
'Yes, six weeks back.'
Roger was surprised at that. He had assumed, with some reason, that anyone else saved from the wreck would also have been washed up on the east coast of Africa and that, not having heard of any such parties while in Zanzibar, either there were none or that later they had died in the jungle or fallen victims to the savages. Having expressed his pleasure at this news, he added, 'I wonder that no one in Madras informed me of this when I described to the Governor and others there the sad fate which had befallen the Minerva.'
With a shrug, Winters said, 'A month or more sometimes goes by without an exchange of news between the two Presidencies. If a favourable wind was carrying the convoy up the Carnatic coast, it would not have put in to Madras; so there is nothing strange about people there not having heard details of the tragedy.'
'It was then the other ships of the convoy that picked up the survivors?'
'Yes. Some of them heard the Minerva's distress signals and, as soon as the tempest abated, turned back to search for her. They picked up nearly a hundred people, mostly soldiers; but among those saved was the fourth mate, Mr. Bellamy. It was he who told me of my father's marriage in Cape Town to your Miss Marsham.'
Roger noted the inelegant way in which the young merchant referred to Clarissa as your Miss Marsham. That it had a vague flavour of accusation could for the moment be overlooked; but the thing that could not was that it spelled the death-knell of Clarissa's reputation. His sudden elation at finding it was only Sidney Winter’s son with whom he had to deal collapsed like a pricked bubble.
With so many people who knew the facts now in Calcutta he could not deny that she had married Winters or that here and now she was living as his mistress. And although social conventions in Calcutta might be lax, those people saved from the Minerva had known Clarissa as his niece. That meant that, instead of the pleasant time to which they had been looking forward, they would certainly be ostracised and, perhaps, hounded out of the city. They might well be asked to leave the hotel, yet have difficulty in finding a Captain who would provide them with accommodation in a ship to take them elsewhere.
As these intensely worrying thoughts rushed through Roger's mind, Winters was going on in a suavely offensive tone that showed he had sized up the situation: 'I gather, Sir, that you arrived in Calcutta yesterday with a strikingly beautiful young woman, who is occupying this apartment with you as your wife. Her description fits that given to me of the young lady who in Cape Town became Mrs. Winters; and at that time, I understand, you were unmarried. You will appreciate that I have a right to enquire what has become of my step-mother. Was she also drowned or-or can it be that the two are one and the same?'
'They are the same, Sir,' Roger replied and, having hesitated only for a second, he added, 'After your father's death the onetime Miss Marsham did me the honour to become my wife.'
Winters raised his sandy eyebrows in feigned surprise. 'Indeed. I am glad to hear it, Sir. It may make the object of my visit easier for us to agree upon. Since my father did not arrive here in company with you, I had small hope that he had been saved. I came mainly, therefore, to discuss with you the matter of a marriage settlement entered into by him in favour of your niece. Mr. Musgrove, the lawyer who drew it up, was also one of the survivors from the Minerva. He told me of its provisions and, I must confess, I was greatly shocked to learn that my poor father, owing to his infatuation, had shown in it such neglect of my interests.'
'Pray proceed, Sir,' said Roger quietly.
'Since the young lady is now married to yourself and so no doubt, handsomely provided for, I hope I may take it that she will not put forward any claim to this settlement made upon her as Mrs. Winters.'
'You go a little fast, Sir. I cannot speak for her, and we have not even discussed the matter since the settlement was entered into. But the fact that she has since become my wife has no bearing on the matter. She is still entitled…'
Roger got no further. Jumping to his feet, Winters pointed an accusing finger and cried, 'Oh yes it does! It sets the seal on what I suspected the moment Mr. Musgrove told me of this iniquitous settlement. I guessed then that it was my father' fortune that led your hussy to exercise her wiles upon him. Now, 'tis clear, you set her on. Otherwise you would not since have married her. Why should you have if not to make certain of getting your own hands on the money? You feared that if you didn't she might run off with some other rogue. But neither of you shall have a penny of it! I'll show you up in the courts for the pair of villainous adventurers that you are!'
With difficulty Roger kept his temper, but his blue eyes had gone dangerously hard. Pointing at his sword, which hung from a hook on the wall, he said, 'Mr. Winters, for what you have said I could call you out; and believe me, I am accounted no mean swordsman. But your father was a very decent man and, although you are labouring under a series of misapprehensions, I can appreciate how these matters must appear to you. Fortunately, there have been no witnesses to the unjust aspersions you have cast upon my self and the lady who now bears my name; so I can afford to ignore them. Be pleased, though, to heed this warning. Should you repeat them in public, I will make you pay dearly for it, both in your pocket and your person.'
'You may bluster as you will, Sir,' Winters retorted. 'Your threats shall not stop me exposing the cheat you put upon my father and defending the fortune which is now rightly mine. You thought, did you not, that you and your woman were the only survivors of the Minerva:, so that you could come here and rob with impunity! In that you were mistaken, and it will prove your undoing. Mr. Musgrove and the others all knew her as your niece. By marrying her before you had made certain they were dead, you have over-reached yourself. By having had the effrontery to continue your incestuous intercourse here in this hotel, you have played into my hands. Incest is a crime! A crime, Sir, and a most serious one! For having been parties to it, I mean to send you both to rot in prison.'
With those last words young Winters flung out of the room and, as the door slammed behind him, Roger gave a heavy sigh. To act the bully was most repugnant to him, yet he had been forced into doing so with both father and son; and with the latter it had not succeeded.
At that moment Clarissa came running in from the bedroom, exclaiming anxiously, 'Who was that, Roger? I heard raised voices; so I packed off my dressmaking woman. You were quarrelling with someone. Who was it?'
He gave her a rueful smile. 'It was young Winters. When he was first announced I had a most awful fright. I thought it was your late husband, saved from Davy Jones's locker to confound us. Thank God it was not; but near a hundred others who were with us in the Minerva have been saved.'
'That is wonderful news.'
'It is, except as it affects ourselves. This young man has learned from Mr. Musgrove, and others among them, about your ensnaring his papa and the marriage settlement. Finding us ensconced here like a pair of turtle doves, he not unnaturally jumped to the conclusion that from the beginning you had been my moll and that we deliberately plotted to rob his papa,'
'How dare he!' Clarissa's eyes flashed. 'And out o
f the kindness of my heart, I had meant to let him off with a payment of fifty thousand. Now he shall pay every penny of the hundred thousand.'
Roger stared at her. 'My pet, it amazes me to hear that you meant to claim any part of this money. I told him that we had not discussed it, and I was actually on the point of saying that, although you are legally entitled to it, I felt confident you would take no action in the matter, when the young fool cut me short and began to make his accusations against us.'
'What is the point of having a marriage settlement if one does not benefit from it?' she asked innocently.
He shrugged. 'In normal circumstances a woman has every right to do so. In this case, I exacted the maximum terms I could get for you from Winters for two reasons. First, so that you might use them as a powerful bargaining weapon at any time you wished to leave him. Second, so that should you decide to remain on and run his house until he died, you would be compensated for your lost years with a fine fortune. But neither of these cases now applies. You are already free of him and I consider it would be morally wrong to take from his son a big sum which you have done nothing to deserve.'
'But Roger, I want this money. The thought that by coming to Calcutta I could obtain it quickly has been my great consolation for leaving the paradise in which we lived while at Zanzibar.'
"My love; as you have always been a poor relation and dependent on others' generosity, I can well understand that this chance to achieve financial security weighs more with you than it would with most women. But I pray you to remember that you need no longer have any fears for your future, because you are now my responsibility. If you wish it, without waiting until we can marry I will willingly settle a good round sum upon you.'
Her mouth twitching in a smile, she asked, 'Pray what is the size of your fortune, Mr. Brook?'
'Between thirty and forty thousand pounds; and I'll settle ten thousand of it on you tomorrow if you wish.'
Jumping onto his lap, she threw her arms round his neck and cried in delight, 'Oh, my own darling one, how I do love you! Yet there are times when you are the most foolish of men, I do not want this money for myself. I know now that as long as you live you will provide for me and, should you die, then I'll die too, of a broken heart. But here is a chance for me to become a fine parti; and being a woman, I'll have no scruples in taking it. Can you not realise the intense joy it will be to me, instead of coming to you empty handed, to bring you a dowry of fifty, nay, a hundred, thousand pounds?'
;My sweet! My sweet!' Clasping her to him so that her cheek was against his, he shut his eyes and gently shook his head. 'You overwhelm me, and I am more than ever ashamed that for so long I rejected the wondrous gift of your love. What you decide about the settlement is your affair, and it is not for me to seek to deprive you of the pleasure of giving. Yet I pray you to remember that you did ensnare Winters not for money, it is true, but for your own ends; so it would be ungenerous to deprive his son of a portion of his fortune sufficiently large to prejudice his future.'
'So be it then,' she laughed. 'We will enquire into his affairs, and find out how much he can afford without crippling his business.'
Roger remained silent for a moment, then he said. 'I only hope we'll be given an opportunity to do so. He has declared war against us, and I'll not disguise from you, my pet, that our situation at the moment is uncommon black.'
'Why so, my love?'
'Our trouble springs from the false relationship I thrust upon you on our first morning at sea in the Minerva. At the time it went a long way to establishing the respectability of our association; but now, it has recoiled upon us in a most dangerous manner. Our travelling companions in the Minerva will all be prepared to swear that we are uncle and niece; yet here we are living as husband and wife. That our union has not yet actually been blessed makes no difference in such a case. It is the fact that we are cohabiting. All who know us in this city will regard us as guilty of incest. Tis a crime for which there are most grievous penalties, and Winters intends to charge us with it.'
Clarissa's face showed her alarm, and she slipped from Roger's knees. 'Surely,' she said after a moment, 'there is some way in which we can prove that we are only cousins by marriage.'
'I know of none,' he replied gloomily, 'save having sworn affidavits regarding ourselves sent out from England. To write home and receive a reply would take nine months at the least, and it is what is to befall us in the meantime that worries me. Were we in Europe we'd be to horse in the next half hour and be over a frontier before a charge could be preferred against us; but that's not possible here. I'm at my. wits' end what to do.'
'Could we not bribe Winters into taking no action by offering to forgo the settlement?'
'Unfortunately that could prove only a temporary expedient. Shutting his mouth would not shut those of others. As two additional survivors from the Minerva, the news of our arrival must by now be all over the city, and with it the news that you are now living with me as Mrs. Brook. 'Twill be matter for righteous condemnation of us in every salon, and either the Church or the Law will feel called on to see that such sinners are made an example of.'
'What can they do to us? Tell me the worst, Roger. I pray you hide nothing from me.'
'I hardly know, my love. I think it unlikely that a court would condemn us in the face of our oath that the charge is brought under a misapprehension; so it would have to postpone a verdict until evidence of our true relationship could be procured from home. But the court would certainly order that during the interim we must not live together. It might even prohibit us from meeting, under pain of being sent to prison should we be caught doing so.'
'What say you? Oh, Roger, no! For us not to be able even to see one another for the best part of a year would be utterly intolerable.'
Chapter 15
The Golden Age in Bengal
It was as Clarissa gave this anguished cry, and tears sprang to her blue eyes, that the Bengali servant again appeared at the door, salaamed and addressed Roger:
'More people to see you, Sahib. The Sir Curtis Beaumont, Sahib, and his Lady. They request receiving.'
At the unexpected news that these good friends too had been rescued, Roger and Clarissa's faces lit up with joy; but after a second, Clarissa's fell, and she exclaimed in consternation:
'Oh, Roger! How can we now receive them? They cannot yet know… but, oh, I'll sink through the floor from shame.'
To her amazement he was still smiling. Suddenly he leapt to his feet, seized her round the waist, threw her up in the air, caught her in a bear like hug as she came down and cried, Praise be to God! We're saved! Saved, saved, saved, my dearest dear!' Then, turning to the servant, 'Show them in. No one was ever more welcome.'
Before the Beaumont’s were half through the doorway, Roger had Sir Curtis by the hand and was wringing it like a pump handle. Lady Beaumont gave Clarissa a somewhat uncertain look; but Clarissa's face showed no trace of embarrassment, only transparent joy, as she ran towards the older woman, and next moment they were kissing one another most affectionately.
Drawing Sir Curtis into the room, Roger exclaimed: 'Sir. your arrival could not be more opportune. No one could be more delighted than Clarissa and myself to learn that you and your lady survived the Minerva disaster, but we'll talk of that anon. At the very moment of your being announced we were in the depths of despair about a matter that concerns us most closely. Should your memory not have deteriorated since we last met, you have it in your power to relieve us of all anxiety. Do you recall the conversation you and I had the morning after Clarissa became engaged to Sidney Winters?'
'Why, yes,' the judge smiled. 'You were greatly opposed to the match, and consulted me on the feasibility of applying to the Court when we reached Cape Town for an injunction restraining the marriage on the grounds that she was not yet twenty-one.'
'And your reply, Sir; your reply?'
'It was to the effect that you lacked the legal status necessary to make such an application, beca
use you were not her guardian; or, as you had led us to suppose, her uncle, but only a cousin of hers by marriage.'
'That's right!' Roger exclaimed joyfully. 'That's right! Thank God, Sir, that your memory is clear upon the point, for we are like to be charged with having committed incest.'
Lady Beaumont's face showed how shocked she was, and she said with swift disapproval,' Tis true, then, that you are living together? I could not believe it. Had I done so I would never have come here.'
'Oh, please, please!' Clarissa seized her hands. 'You don't understand. Roger had to pretend I was his wife to save me from an Arab who would have taken me for his harem, and…'
'And we were later married by a Protestant Missionary in Goa,' put in Roger swiftly.
'Yes… yes!' Clarissa endorsed the lie. Then, her face radiant, she cried, 'And it was the happiest day of my life; because I've been desperately in love with Roger for years.'
'Tut, tut!' murmured Sir Curtis. 'That's a strange statement, young lady, seeing that barely three months back, without the least pressure from anyone, you married Mr. Winters.'
Clarissa blushed scarlet as she recalled her real reason for marrying Winters, but covered her confusion with a bold white lie. 'I became engaged to him, Sir, with the intent of making Roger jealous. I hoped up to the last moment to bring him up to scratch. Then, in despair and finding myself so deeply committed, I felt that I must go through with it.'
'The fault was mine,' Roger declared, putting an arm round her waist. 'I knew she loved me, and I loved her; but most selfishly I had set my mind against marrying again. It is I who am to blame for all our troubles from the very beginning.'
Sir Curtis gave him a quizzical look. 'Are we to take it, then that Miss Marsham's presence in the Minerva was not due to any headstrong determination to see the gorgeous East, but that she smuggled herself aboard in pursuit of you?'
'Yes,' laughed Clarissa. ' 'Twas a monstrously unmaidenly act. But I confess it; you have hit upon the truth.'
The Rape Of Venice rb-6 Page 23