‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I am mistress here, and that I’ll not allow. Moreover, while you were quarrelling with him, both your backs were to the hall door, and it was half open. James, the footman, appeared there for a moment and was about to enter then, witnessing the rumpus, quickly withdrew. He cannot have heard much but if you leave tonight the servants will put it down to that and provoke an open scandal. ’Twill be all over the county within a few days. Then, like it or not, John will have to call you out or stand disgraced. I’ll tell him so, and that until after tomorrow night he must grin and bear your company.’
On that they parted and went up to their rooms to change for dinner. Fortunately, two couples had been invited; so their presence, together with that of the urbane Colonel Thursby, prevented any further rupture between Beefy and Roger. The former was sullen and morose throughout the evening whereas Roger, being so practised in concealing his feelings when a difficult situation arose, talked with his usual carefree gaiety. And, as none of the other guests had yet heard the peace terms, he deliberately refrained from bringing up the subject, in order to avoid giving Beefy a new cause to quarrel with him.
As soon as the guests had gone they went up to bed. Half an hour later, Georgina came to his room. Sitting up in bed, he smiled at her and said, ‘What a delightful surprise. You have never paid me this compliment since you married your Mr. Beefy.’
With a frown she shook her head, ‘I’ve not come to pleasure you tonight. But I have to talk to you, and we’ll have no chance tomorrow. It’s chilly here. Move over and make room for me.’
As she got into his bed he gave a laugh and put his arm round her. ‘We’ll talk later, be it your wish. But how can you think I’d miss such an opportunity? Take off that robe, my dearest love, and all that you may have on beneath it.’
‘No, Roger, no!’ she exclaimed impatiently and broke his embrace. ‘This is a serious matter. I have had a talk with John and must tell you of it.’
‘Oh, damn the fellow! Still, if you must. What has the pompous ass to say?’
‘He has issued me an ultimatum. Either you go from this house the morning after the party and do not return, or he will leave me.’
‘Let him then,’ Roger replied angrily. ‘Why you should ever have married such an oaf passes my comprehension.’
‘He is not an oaf,’ she retorted, her black eyes flashing, ‘but the dearest, sweetest-natured man that I have ever met in my whole life.’
‘Including myself?’
‘For me you are a man apart from all others, but had we married it would have been calamitous to our abiding love. I mean as a husband and a father to the children. He has given me a new and happy life with which I am utterly contented.’
‘Until you feel the itch to go to London and wanton in your bed with some more civilised and amusing gallant.’
‘Nay; there I refresh my mind with intelligent conversation and indulge my love of gaiety. But I’d have you know that since I married Mr. Beefy, excepting with yourself I have been faithful to him.’
‘Then the leopardess has certainly changed her spots and I am more honoured than I knew,’ Roger commented sarcastically. ‘But surely you cannot seriously mean that you will never have me at Stillwaters again?’
‘I do. I had hoped to argue him into adopting the complaisancy shown by many husbands; but I failed in that. Like most simple, straightforward persons he is impossible to move when once his mind is made up, and I’m determined not to lose him. To ask me to do so would be to behave like the veriest dog in the manger, Roger. Why should I sacrifice my happy existence while you live abroad, sometimes for years on end? When you do return again to England? We can still enjoy ourselves in Berkeley Square.’
‘True, true; but never to come to Stillwaters again.…’
‘Is that so hard?’
‘Can you think it otherwise? Many of the happiest hours of my life have been spent here with you. Then there are the children.’
‘They can stay with me at times in London and you can see them then.’
‘ ’Twould not be the same. No lake to take them on; no place for them to ride their ponies safely; no woods in which to ramble with them and find them birds’ nests.’
‘That I cannot help. My contentment means more to me than the pleasure of having you here for a short time once in a year or two. You are to me each time we meet anew like a draught of rich golden wine, but John is my bread and butter. I’ll never find another like him, and nothing will induce me to let him go. That is my final word; and so, good night.’
As she spoke, she slipped out of bed and walked quickly to the door. Sitting up he called after her, ‘Georgina! Come back! We cannot leave matters like this. That I must have sounded monstrous selfish, I admit. But returning to Stillwaters has meant so much to me. Each time I love it more. Surely we can find some way to reach a compromise?’
His last words fell on deaf ears, for Georgina had left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Thinking the matter over, he soon admitted to himself that there was everything to be said for Georgina’s point of view and nothing for his own. To expect her to part with a husband who suited her so well in order that a lover, whom she could see as often as she liked when he was in London, could pay occasional visits to her country home was utterly unreasonable. Nevertheless, Roger felt extremely sore about the matter. From the age of nineteen, when Georgina was married to her first husband, Sir Humphrey Etheredge, to whom the house had belonged, he had stayed there as a privileged guest, and on most of those occasions they had been free to do as they liked in it; so it was not altogether unnatural that he should look on John Beefy as an interloper.
After a while his agile brain found what he felt could be a way round the difficulty. In the past Beefy had paid fairly regular visits to his estates in the West Indies. Now that he had been married to Georgina for two years it seemed probable that his affairs would demand that he should tear himself from her to go out there again next winter. At times, too, he had to make trips lasting a week or more to Bristol, to inspect his ships and warehouses there. Therefore Roger decided, when he returned to England again next autumn, he should be able to take advantage of Beefy’s absence to pay one or more visits to Stillwaters, without upsetting Georgina’s marriage.
He meant to speak to her about it next day but no opportunity arose, because she was so busy preparing for the party. Roger was wise enough to refrain from appearing sulky or annoyed with her. On the contrary he made himself very useful, cheerfully helping the footmen arrange the buffet tables, carrying chairs about and fetching cans of water for the big vases in which she was arranging masses of spring flowers; but they were never alone together long enough for him to think it a suitable time to begin a serious conversation.
In due course the violinists arrived, were given a meal and began to tune up at one end of the ballroom. Then carriage after carriage drove up the long drive to set down its load of men in velvet coats, kneebreeches and white stockings, and bare-shouldered women in a gay variety of silks and satins. It was about half way through the reception of the guests that Roger received the second unpleasant shock of his visit. He suddenly caught sight of Colonel George Gunston coming up the stairs.
They had been enemies from their early teens. At Sherborne Gunston had bullied Roger unmercifully, but later Roger, being one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, had inflicted bitter humiliation on George, by making him appear no more than a clumsy lout, in a practice fencing bout witnessed by many of their acquaintances of both sexes. Wherever they had met they had been at loggerheads over policy and quarrelled over women. When in Martinique Roger had deprived Gunston of his command; in India George had been the cause of the death of a girl Roger loved through delaying an attack on the city of a rebellious Rajah.
Naturally, Georgina and her husband were receiving the guests, so Roger and George gave one another only a distant bow. But as soon as he could Roger took Georgina aside for a moment and as
ked her with a frown, ‘What is George Gunston doing here? I didn’t know that he lived in the neighbourhood.’
For a moment Georgina did not answer; then, following Roger’s glance, she said, ‘Do you mean that red-faced, fair-haired Colonel?’
Roger nodded, ‘That is he; look at his swagger. The conceited coxcomb.’
‘At least he is a fine figure of a man,’ Georgina remarked. ‘I’ve not met him before, but he is staying with Lord and Lady Milford at Crossways Hall and Molly Milford asked if she might bring him. She is the tall, gawky, fair-haired woman with the long nose and great doe-like eyes, to whom he is talking at the moment.’
From the cattiness of Georgina’s description it was evident that she disliked Lady Milford; so Roger tactfully refrained from saying that he thought her quite a beauty. Instead he said, ‘I have known Gunston since my school days. He is a most loathsome cad; but the women seem to like him, and he has quite a reputation as a lady killer.’
‘Has he now!’ Georgina smiled. ‘Then I’ll let him try his art on me tonight. Molly Milford must be old enough to be my mother; but when I was young and new at the game she took away from me a beau with whom I was quite smitten. I’ve a long memory for old scores. It should amuse you to watch me pay her out.’
‘Georgina,’ Roger said quickly. ‘Gunston and I are lifelong enemies On that count I seek to make no capital with you; yet I beg you to desist from your intent. He is a lecher and a blackguard of the first order. At your dances you have always provided well-screened sitting out places where couples can enjoy a quiet flirtation unobserved. But do you let Gunston lead you to one of them you’ll rue it. He is quite capable of pressing his suit so hotly that should you resist your dress will be reduced to such a state that you would be embarrassed to return to the ballroom.’
With a shrug of her fine shoulders, Georgina dismissed Roger’s warnings. ‘Since when have you found it necessary to talk to me as though I were a school miss? I’m capable of putting in his place any man who, against my will, attempts to maul me.’
At that moment a gentleman came up and asked her to partner him in a quadrille, so Roger stepped aside. Beefy had been in a very touchy mood all day and Roger, feeling that the sight of him dancing with Georgina might lead him to forget himself and make an unseemly scene, had refrained from asking her for a dance; so for the next three hours he had no further word with her.
He danced only twice with other women to whom he felt he owed that courtesy from having known them for several years. For the rest of the time he moved about exchanging small talk with men who were not dancing, and whenever he found himself on his own he went and had a drink at the buffet.
His naturally sunny temperament ensured his suffering from black moods only very occasionally, but that night one of the worst he had ever experienced was upon him. Everyone now had heard about peace having been signed and it was, almost universally, the subject of conversation.
Yet few people to whom he talked seemed to realise its implications. To meet the cost of the war Pitt had had to impose a tax of ten per cent upon all incomes above £200 per annum. No such demand on men of property had ever before been inflicted, and the landed gentry had intensely resented this innovation. Now they were all rejoicing that they would soon be free of it and, knowing little about foreign affairs, cared nothing for the means by which Britain had, to Roger’s mind, bought this disastrous peace. To his disgust, with raised glasses they toasted Lord Cornwallis, oblivious of the fact that Joseph Bonaparte and Talleyrand had made rings round the old man and must that night be laughing in Paris, having got everything from him except the clothes he stood up in.
Roger’s mood was further soured by the knowledge that next winter, unless Beefy went away, he would be debarred from coming to stay at Stillwaters. His love for Georgina was so fundamental a thing that, faced with a crisis, he would without a second’s hesitation have given his life in her defence. But, having had long experience of her forceful character, he intensely resented that she should have refrained from using it in his interests to dominate her mediocre husband and bring him to heel.
Still worse fuel was added to the fire by his seeing, nearly every time he entered the ballroom, that she was either dancing with or talking to Gunston. They were laughing together and showing every sign of getting on famously. Three times Roger turned away, seething with silent rage, to get himself another drink at the buffet.
Justerini’s took care of Georgina’s cellar, so the champagne was excellent; but, after a time he gave it up for cognac. He had always been capable of heavy drinking, but by midnight was half-seas over and so bloodyminded that if anyone had been in the least offensive to him he would have called him out.
It was about half an hour after midnight that the strange psychic link that existed between him and Georgina suddenly began to function As clearly as though she had been speaking in his ear, he heard her say, ‘Roger, come quickly. I need your aid, lest there be a most horrid scene.’
Pushing unceremoniously aside the people among whom he was standing, guided by an unerring instinct he strode down to the main hall. On either side the great staircase there were deep alcoves with settees in them that Georgina that morning had screened with banks of flowers.
The hall was empty and, as Roger advanced on the nearest alcove, he heard Georgina’s half-strangled cry, ‘No. no! Desist, I beg! Enough, I say! No, I won’t let you.’
Tearing aside the screen of daffodils and hyacinths, Roger stared down at the couple on the well-cushioned sofa. Georgina was lying full length upon it, her feet dangling on the ground. Gunston was on top of her, With one hand he was endeavouring to muffle her protests, the other he had thrust up under her skirts.
Without a thought that someone might come upon them, instead of simply demanding that Gunston should release Georgina and so put a swift end to this unpleasant scene, Roger lurched forward, seized him by the back of his stiff Uniform collar, dragged him off her and shouted, ‘You lecherous swine! I’ll make you pay for this!’
Gunston was much the bigger man. Regaining his balance he squared up to Roger and cried, ‘So ’tis you, Brook! My old schooldays’ companion, the snivelling little bookworm Brook. How typical of you to come on the scene just as I was about to get to work on our lovely hostess. I’ve often heard of her as a game filly, and she was making no more than the usual demurs that well-bred women consider necessary as evidence of their modesty.’
‘You lie,’ snarled Roger. ‘You were holding her down and about to force her.’
‘Nonsense! ’Tis only your jealousy that makes you see things in that way. All the town knows that she has been your mistress on and off for years. You should not take it ill that she is now tired of you and would welcome a change.’
At one side of the hall stood a long sword rack, in which it was customary for officers to leave their swords on entering a house. In it, besides those of the officers attending the dance, were several rapiers that had belonged to Sir Humphrey Etheredge. Striding two paces, Roger snatched up the nearest. It happened to be only a Court sword with a slender blade and of less than a duelling sword’s standard length. But, swishing it in the air, he advanced on Gunston and cried in a thick, husky voice:
‘Arm yourself, you slandering bastard. For having traduced my Lady St. Ermins I intend to kill you here and now.’
‘You’re drunk,’ retorted Gunston. ‘Drunk as an owl. Put up that weapon and go douse your head under a cold tap.’
‘Drunk I may be,’ shouted Roger. ‘But I’ll not be drunk at dawn tomorrow. You shall face me then and I’ll see to it that you never more lay your filthy hands on a decent woman.’
Gunston was sweating under his tight red uniform coat. His normally rubicund face had gone a deep puce and his blue eyes showed fear. Running a finger round his tight high collar to ease it, he shook his head and gasped, ‘No, no! I’ll not do that. Everyone knows that when sober few men could meet you. I’ll not let myself be cut to pieces to make for
you a Roman holiday.’
‘Poltroon!’ Roger sneered at him. ‘By refusing to meet me you disgrace the uniform you wear. So be it then. I’ll settle your business before you are five minutes older.’ Then he made a lunge at Gunston with the fragile rapier.
Georgina had pulled herself to her feet, hurriedly rearranged her disordered dress, and was staring at them wide eyed.
‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘For God’s sake, stop! Not here! Not here!’
Ignoring her, Roger made another threatening feint at Gunston, driving him back against the sword rack. His eyes as desperate as those of a trapped animal, Gunston fumbled behind him; his hand fell upon the hilt of a cavalry sabre. Wrenching it from its scabbard he threw himself into a posture of defence.
With a drunken laugh Roger engaged him. The steel clashed but the combat was an uneven one. Gunston’s heavy blade far outweighed Roger’s slender rapier. Within a minute he found that he needed all his skill to avoid his frail weapon being cut off near the hilt or struck from his hand.
Georgina wasted no more breath in pleading with these two life-long enemies to cease from their attempts to kill one another. Gathering up her skirts she ran from the hall into the dining room.
The two antagonists now circled round one another. Roger pinked Gunston’s shoulder, but he dared not parry the swipes from the heavy sabre and only by the agility that made him such a formidable swordsman did he succeed in jumping aside in time to save his head from being sliced in half.
Short as their combat was they were both breathing heavily when Georgina came running back with Beefy, whom she had found in the dining room talking to some other men. He shouted to Roger and Gunston to put up their weapons, but they ignored him. Finding his pleas useless, he ran to another rack that held a variety of walking sticks and canes. Grasping a heavy blackthorn, he ran forward brandishing it and attempted to beat down the clashing blades.
The Wanton Princess Page 18