‘No, you are wrong about that,’ Mary protested. ‘It’s obvious that you have had a prejudice against him from your schooldays, and happened to come up against him later in unpropitious circumstances; so you have seen only the worst side of him. But he’s not a cad. He is a gay, amusing fellow, good-natured and generous. Of course, he is a very full-blooded man, and something of a woman-chaser. I’d wager, though, that your wife’s niece led him on. And that’s not to be wondered at, for he’s a fine, handsome man. You can’t blame him if many women find him attractive.’
No more was said at the time; but, that afternoon in the summer house, Mary reopened the question by saying, ‘It pains me greatly that two people whom I like should be enemies, and I want you to make it up with George. He is much too easy-going a man to bear malice against anyone, so it must be you who are keeping this old feud alive. Please, for my sake, make it up with him and agree to let bygones be bygones.’
As water on the knee was unlikely to prevent Gunston from riding a horse for much more than ten days, he would then be leaving Lisbon again for the front. It being unlikely that Roger would be called on to see much of him, albeit with some reluctance, but to please Mary, he agreed to her request. The following morning they paid another visit to the hospital. There, with commendable impartiality, Mary read both men a lecture and made them, looking a little sheepish, shake hands.
Two mornings later, Mary, who made most of her own clothes, said to Roger, ‘I have a bolero that I want to finish and Deborah is helping me. But today we ought to send George some more fruit and wine. I’d like you to take it to him, if you will. It will show better than anything that you really are willing to be friends and, if you are alone together, that will give you a chance to explain how lack of understanding each other’s point of view led to your past differences.’
Roger could hardly refuse, so he took the things to the hospital and was shown into Gunston’s room. The florid Brigadier’s fair eyebrows went up and he said with a laugh, ‘Well, this is an honour! Damned good of you, Brook, to bring me more wine. I can do with it; and I’m greatly obliged to you.’
‘It’s a pleasure,’ Roger responded to this friendly greeting. ‘I trust your knee is better.’
‘Thanks, it’s getting on pretty well. I was mightily disappointed at having to leave my Dragoons just after we’d pushed old Masséna out of Portugal. But what’s the good of a cavalryman if he can’t ride a horse? And the field hospitals are so riddled with lice that I thought it better to be carted down here in an ambulance than stay up there behind the line. I should be able to get back, though, in a week or so. Take a chair, and join me in a glass of wine.’
Feeling that it would be churlish to refuse, Roger uncorked one of the bottles he had brought, and poured out two glasses, Then the two old enemies drank each other’s health. For a while they talked about the campaign and various mutual acquaintances, until they got on to Mary and her dead parents, and Gunston remarked:
‘You’re a damned lucky fellow, Brook. You have always had a way with the women, and it needed only half an eye to see that little Mary is quite besotted about you. What luck for you, too, that you should both be sleeping under the same roof. She’s a game little filly, and as hot as mustard. I’ll wager you have your work cut out to satisfy her. Don’t you dare get her with child, though, or you and I will quarrel again.’
Roger’s face had become dead white. His blue eyes blazing, he came to his feet and cried, ‘You filthy-minded brute! How dare you slander a virtuous girl like Mary! I’ll call you out for that, and this time I’ll kill you.’
Gunston’s fair eyebrows shot up again. ‘Hold hard!’ he exclaimed, raising himself on his pillows. ‘It’s no slander to speak the truth, and I know of what I’m talking. Mary’s no virgin. To call me out on her account would be behaving like a quixotic ass. She’s been had by half a dozen fellows; and if you haven’t had her, more fool you. That demure look of hers is naught but a fire-screen in front of a fire. Damn it, man! I’ve had her myself. It was one afternoon in a punt, up a backwater on the Thames. She made the usual maidenly protests, but once I got between her legs I only had to push a bit and, in no time, she was begging me to give it to her hard.’
To that Roger could find no adequate reply. Seething with rage, he turned about, stamped out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
By this time he could walk without a stick and had begun to exercise his game leg, so he had carried the bottles and fruit to the hospital in a basket. He made his way back to the Legation by instinct rather than by looking which way he was going, for his mind was in a turmoil.
Recalling Mary’s midnight visits to his room, he again visualised all that had taken place; the unconcealed passion with which she had kissed him and, lying outside the bedclothes, pressed her little body against his; the liberties she had let him take without protest; the way she had enjoyed having him kiss her breasts. Short of actually handling his manhood, she had left nothing undone to rouse him. No girl of her upbringing could have more blatantly offered herself. What an idiot he had been not to take her. But that could soon be rectified.
That evening he broke a rule that he had so far forced himself to observe and, when they were alone together for a moment, asked her to come to him later. With a conspiratorial lift of her slanting eyebrows, she smilingly consented.
During the hours that followed, he could hardly contain his impatience. While they were in the salon he had difficulty in keeping his eyes off her, With each glance he took in her feminine charms with new appreciation: the pretty face with its gay, humorous expression, the glossy ringlets that made such a perfect frame for it, the full, red-lipped mouth, just made for kisses, her pouting breasts that gently rose and fell beneath her lace fichu, the well-rounded little bottom, the outline of which could be seen as she stooped with her back to him when picking up a flower that had fallen from another lady’s corsage.
Up in his room he paced restlessly to and fro for an hour before undressing and getting into bed. There he tried to read, but found it impossible to concentrate. Every few minutes he glanced at his big turnip watch which lay on the bedside table. The hands seemed positively to crawl. At last it was midnight, but he knew that he could not expect her for another half-hour at least. Continuing to wait through those last thirty minutes proved almost unbearable. He was even tempted to go to her. But he knew that she shared a clothes closet with Deborah, who occupied a room next to hers; so that would have been madness. At last she came to him.
Her coming was such a relief that it restored calmness to his mind. He did not mean to rush his fences. By showing more emotion than he usually displayed when she made her midnight visits, he would surprise and might disturb her. Closing the door softly, she ran over to his bed, put her arms round his neck and kissed him. He returned her kiss, but restrained himself from putting more ardour than usual into it. Happily, she climbed up on the bed, as she had done on the last two occasions and, while he lay under the bedclothes, settled herself comfortably lying beside him on the eiderdown.
For a while they continued kissing, then talked of the events of the day. Presently he began to play with her breasts until her nipples hardened. She closed her eyes and her breathing quickened. Having roused her to a state suitable to his design, he whispered:
‘My adored one, why not come into bed with me? The bedclothes make such a horrid barrier between us. I long to have your dear body next to mine, so that I can embrace you more closely.’
After hesitating a moment, she replied, ‘I … I don’t think I ought to.’
He gave a little laugh. ‘Why not, since we now look on each other as engaged? All engaged couples do so if they get the chance.’
She drew a quick breath. ‘Very well, then, but I must keep my dressing gown on.’
‘Of course.’ he promptly agreed, and sat up.
As she dipped off the bed, he pushed back the bedclothes and she got in beside him. Within a minute they were lock
ed in a close embrace and kissing breathlessly. But still he refrained from rushing matters. It was not until ten minutes later that he untied the sash of her dressing gown, pushed it aside and, kissing her again, let his hand begin to wander.
She made no protest when he eased up her long nightdress, as she had let him feel her on two previous occasions. Again she closed her eyes and glued her mouth to his. He gave her another minute; then, still playing with her, used his elbow to push her legs apart. Abruptly, before she could protest, he threw one of his legs over hers and came on top of her.
For several heart-beats she did not resist him; then, as she felt his staff, she pulled her mouth from his and gasped:
‘Roger! Roger! What are you doing? Stop! Oh, stop!’
But by then his object was as good as accomplished; yet he had to thrust hard to penetrate her. It crossed his mind that, being so small a woman might account for her parts also being so small, although that was contrary to his experience. Next moment her resistance ceased. She gave a cry of pain, then let him have his way. Soon afterwards her fingernails were biting into his back and she began to move jerkily under him, until they suddenly clenched hard in a climax.
But as they ceased their passionate wrestle and lay panting, he felt no joy, only a sick distress. He knew now that Gunston had deliberately lied to him, with the malicious hope that this would happen. Mary had, after all, been a virgin.
For a few minutes she lay absolutely still. Then she pushed him roughly from her and almost fell out of bed. By the light of the solitary candle, he saw that tears were running down her cheeks and that her mouth was strangely distorted into an ugly shape.
Suddenly her eyes blazed and she cried, ‘Roger! Oh, Roger, how could you do this to me? You have robbed me of the only thing I had to give a husband. I hate you! I hate you! I never wish to set eyes on you again.’
Then, sobbing as though her heart would break, she fled from the room.
16
England, Home and Beauty
Roger was still sitting up in bed. Bowing his head, he covered his face with his hands. There were tears in his eyes. He felt shaken, sick and, for once, utterly at a loss. He had done a terrible thing—committed an act which in his own mind amounted to a crime—and, most shattering thought of all, there was no possible way in which he could give Mary back her virginity. Even the Saints would have proved incapable of performing that kind of miracle.
Had Gunston been in the room, his life would not have been worth a moment’s purchase. With malice aforethought he had told a tissue of lies. His assertion that Mary had had several lovers and about having had her himself in a punt was a fabrication from beginning to end. But was it? Perhaps not quite. Possibly there had been an episode in a punt, in which Gunston had tried to seduce Mary and she had repulsed him. She had said frankly that she liked and admired him, so she might have let him kiss, cuddle and fondle her, but then told him that she was determined to keep her virginity for a husband.
It was a normal assumption that a girl of Mary’s class and upbringing would be a virgin; but, if such an episode had taken place, that would have made Gunston certain of it. Knowing that both Mary and Roger had passionate natures, if Roger was told that she was easy game it was a foregone conclusion that he would attempt her and, as she was in love with him, there was a fair chance that she would give way. It must have been thus that, with diabolicul cunning, Gunston had hoped to bring pain and grief both to the man he hated and the girl who had refused him. And he had succeeded.
The more Roger thought about it, the more convinced he became that Gunston had made love to Mary and that, after leading him on, she had refused to go the whole way. That gave rise to another thought. How much was Mary herself to blame for what had happened? Because a girl looked demure and, when in company, behaved with becoming modesty, it did not in the least follow that she was not subject to strong sexual urges and, given the chance, could not resist indulging them in secret. Undoubtedly Mary was like that, and did not realise that such conduct was unfair to the man or that, if she played with fire too often, one day she would get burned. Such women could not change their natures. The only satisfactory solution to such cases was marriage. But that Mary had largely brought her seduction on herself was no consolation to Roger.
Thinking of marriage stirred another chord in his mind. Mary’s bitter resentment at his having taken advantage of her could be overcome. He could make reparation for his act by saying that he would marry her, and she would count her virginity well lost. But almost immediately he put the thought from him. Except when they were living together, he and Georgina had never been faithful to each other. In view of the fact that for nine-tenths of their adult lives he had been absent from England, to have denied themselves other loves would have been absurd; but those other loves had never loosened the bond between them. And her husband was an old man. He might die at any time, leaving her free to marry again. If so, Roger’s dearest wish that he and Georgina should spend their middle years and old age as husband and wife might yet be realised. On no account must that prospect be jeopardised. Guilty as he felt himself to be, fond as he was of Mary and desperately sorry for her, that was too high a price to pay to restore her happiness.
His bedside candle was burning low. He got out of bed to light another. As he did so he saw that there was blood on his night shirt and blood in the bed. Although he might have expected such a possibility, the sight of the crimson stains came as a shock, and presented a very worrying problem. How, in hell’s name, was he to explain them away?
An even more difficult question was the course he was going to take in the morning. Could he patch things up with Mary? He might have if he could have got her for an hour on his own, but that was impossible without her connivance and, even then, he greatly doubted if he could persuade her to forgive him. She had said that she wished never to set eyes on him again; and he felt certain she had meant that.
The probability was that she would pretend illness so as to remain up in her room the next day; then, when she came downstairs the following morning, expect him to be gone. If she found him still there, she would be desperately embarrassed when they came face to face, and that might lead to a very awkward scene. But upon what possible pretext could he leave the Legation at such short notice?
He had intended to stay on for another week or two, until his complete recovery would make it an abuse of hospitality to remain there longer. A few days before it seemed proper for him to leave, he would have enquired about ships leaving for England, secured a passage in one and told his host that he had done so. He could not say next morning that he had already booked a passage, as he would at once be asked the name of the ship, in order that his luggage could be sent on board. He thought for a moment of saying that he had received an urgent message requiring him to rejoin Lord Wellington with the minimum of delay. But how and when could he have received such a message, without anyone in the Legation knowing anything about it? Besides, they all knew that he would not yet dare to ride a horse, as that would cause his thigh wound to reopen.
His thigh wound. That was the answer. By making use of it he could kill two birds with one stone. He would open the wound himself, and say that it was due to his having had a fall. That would not only account for the blood on the sheets, but also enable him to ask to be taken back to hospital to have the wound stitched up again.
When he looked at his turnip watch, he was surprised to see that it was only a quarter past one. So much seemed to have happened in the past three-quarters of an hour that he would have expected it to be much later. To proceed with his plan at once would have meant rousing the house in the middle of the night, and putting a number of people to considerable inconvenience; so he decided to postpone it until the morning.
His long day of waiting in anticipation of a happy consummation of his affair with Mary, the awful catastrophe it had proved and his anxieties since had taken a lot out of him; so he slept much better than he had expected. He wo
ke at his usual hour, soon after six, then spent some minutes miserably recalling the night’s events and steeling himself to carry out his plan for getting away from the Legation that day.
From the marble washstand he collected his razor, then bared his thigh. The scar still showed red just below his hip, and he was most loath to inflict a fairly serious new wound on himself. Yet he knew that half-measures would only defeat his object. A doctor would be sent for and would patch him up there in the Legation.
Gritting his teeth, he slashed with the razor hard across his thigh. Blood gushed out and ran down his leg. Quickly he cleaned the razor by clipping it in the water jug, put it back in its usual place, grabbed a towel, got back into bed and pulled the silken bell-rope beside it.
A few minutes later the footman who valeted him came into the room. Holding the towel, now covered with blood, hard against the wound, Roger explained that on getting out of bed, he had tripped and his thigh had come into violent contact with the corner of a nearby table.
Having expressed his concern, the man ran off and soon afterwards Sir Charles and his wife arrived on the scene in their chamber robes. With exclamations of dismay, the good lady went for lint and a bandage and, on her return, succeeded in reducing the flow of blood, put a cold compress on the wound and bound it up.
The Minister then said he would send for his doctor; but Roger quickly protested, ‘Nay, Your Excellency, I have already trespassed too much on the kindness of yourself and Lady Stuart. I could not bring myself to do so further. Besides, the wound must again be sewn up by a qualified surgeon; so I pray you have me removed to the hospital as soon as may be.’
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware Page 22