The Sleeping Sword

by Brenda Jagger

  And whether or not it was done on Mr. Barforth’s instructions, Charles Heron tripped and fell down those inn stairs with Liam Adair’s boot behind him and was kicked out into the inn yard to be paid off and sent, slightly bleeding, about his business.

  ‘Come on, love,’ Mr. Barforth said to Venetia, ‘let’s go home’; and that was all he said to her, leaving Liam to distract her as best he could throughout the difficult journey, which passed for her in a confused haze.

  She had been wrong about everything. She had believed completely in Charles and, having lost faith in him, she had lost faith in herself. The world had moved, somehow, out of focus, distorting her vision so that objects she had thought solid became thin air between her fingers, objects she had thought soft and yielding seemed suddenly possessed of the power to scratch and burn her hands. Yet her loss of faith had not, to her unbearable distress, brought with it a loss of love, for the clumsy stranger of the last two days had not really been her Charles Heron. She had lost her Charles and certainly she would never find him again—since he had never really existed—but she had loved him with her whole heart and now, totally disassociating him from the commonplace fortune-hunter, the commonplace trap into which she had fallen, she grieved for him. She could see no hope for herself, and had her father proposed some convenient, undramatic way of self-destruction she would have been glad of it.

  She could not face me when they finally brought her back to Tarn Edge, hiding her face in her father’s shoulder when I came running out to the carriage-drive, clinging to him with such desperate, drowning hands that I kept my distance as he lifted her up like the child she had suddenly become and carried her upstairs.

  ‘Liam?’

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘She’ll mend.’ And we went together into the drawing-room, Liam answering my questions absently, listening for Mr. Barforth’s return so that the first steps on the landing took him out into the hall again.

  ‘Ah, Liam—’ said Mr. Barforth, descending the stairs slowly, a vigorous, healthy man who even in the fiftieth year of his age made nothing of a sleepless night or two in a train. And Liam Adair answered him, ‘Yes, sir?’, his whole body alert, excited yet cautious, knowing that his own future, which lay in the hand of this powerful man, had already been decided.

  ‘I believe I’m in debt to you, Liam.’

  ‘There’s no debt, sir.’

  ‘That’s what I thought you’d say. Good lad, Liam. But I’ve made myself free with your time. You’ll be wanting to get home now.’

  ‘Is there—nothing else I can do for you, Mr. Barforth?’

  ‘That’s very civil of you, Liam. If there should be anything I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I’ll be off then, sir.’

  ‘Yes—take the carriage.’

  And as Liam accepted his dismissal and turned to leave, Mr. Barforth said: ‘Chillingworth, have this note sent round to my nephew, Mr. Chard.’

  Once again my father-in-law had not only made up his mind, but had succeeded against all the odds in getting his way. Yet I wondered, as I went meekly back to the drawing-room, if he would find Gideon as biddable, as grateful, perhaps as greedy as he clearly expected. The seriousness of Venetia’s position required immediate marriage. Everyone would agree on that. Liam Adair would have taken her with nothing but promises for his future and the present security of her dowry. Three days ago, Gideon Chard might have done the same. But now, with these new cards in his hands, he would drive a harder bargain and Mr. Barforth would probably think him a fool if he did not. He was being asked, after all, not only to avert a scandal with the power of his noble name but, just possibly, to give that name to another man’s child. And, to that end, surely, important financial concessions would be required, specific guarantees which, as I contemplated their possible nature, gave me a sharp reminder of my duty to Gervase.

  I heard Gideon’s step in the hall, Mr. Barforth walking firmly to meet it. I let them talk an hour, the half of another, and then, realizing with some surprise that it was still only four o’clock in the afternoon, I went upstairs for my hat and gloves and ordered the carriage. Until now I had thought only of Venetia, but Gervase was even more entitled to my loyalty, entitled, most definitely, to know what plans were being made for his sister’s future, which must affect our own. And since he was not here to enquire and Mr. Barforth would be unlikely to explain himself to me, I would go to my father and ask him to take whatever steps seemed necessary on Gervase’s behalf.

  But Mr. Barforth, who could not have heard the carriage from his library, had evidently instructed someone to keep an eye on me, for I had barely set foot on the drive when he appeared, the inevitable cigar in his hand.

  ‘Grace, may I have a word with you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  And putting an arm around me he walked me a little way down the garden, leading me gently yet very decidedly away from the carriage.

  He had never touched me before, but now the very bulk of him, which had often seemed so menacing, comforted me, that wide chest wreathed in cigar smoke, the square, brown hands with their powerful, competent fingers, the habit of authority. And I had hardly slept for three nights. I was anxious and uncertain and very tired.

  ‘Where were you off to, Grace?’

  ‘I thought I should see my father.’

  ‘Quite right. But I’d be obliged if you’d put it off until morning. If it’s Gervase you’re thinking of, then think carefully, Grace. We’d do well to keep him out of this, you know. If he found out about it too soon, before we get it properly settled, then I reckon there’s a chance he might just go and take a shot at that young scoundrel. That’s what Venetia’s afraid of at any rate and it wouldn’t help matters. Duelling has been against the law for some while now, you know. They call it “murder” these days, not “honour”. And in any case it wouldn’t help. Talk to Venetia about it when you see her presently—I reckon she might be asking for you ere long.’

  We walked back to the house and I saw that the carriage had gone and my resolution with it, for how could I go to Fieldhead when Venetia needed me, how could I take the risk that my father might telegraph to Gervase and that he might then go looking for Charles Heron with a gun, as Peregrine Clevedon would have been sure to do? Mr. Barforth, no doubt, had manipulated me—I quite saw that—but it seemed to be not only to his own advantage but to mine and Venetia’s. It seemed right.

  ‘Will you be dining?’ I asked, taking off my gloves.

  ‘Possibly.’

  And it was then that I caught a glimpse of Gideon Chard as the library door opened and swiftly closed to admit a servant with a tray in his hand.

  ‘Yes, Gideon is still here,’ Mr. Barforth said. ‘And I reckon he’ll stay just where he is for some time yet, since he has a little problem to solve. Should he enquire for me, I shall be upstairs with my daughter. Have them fetch me down.’

  And I turned and hurried away, my skin suddenly cold, for there had been nothing at all in Gideon’s scowling, brooding countenance, nor in the fastidious, almost pained set of his jaw to indicate a happy bridegroom.

  The engagement was announced the next morning and caused no sensation, a great many people—knowing that Mr. Barforth wanted it—being mildly surprised, if anything, that it had not happened sooner. Venetia came herself to tell me of it, very early, sitting on the edge of my bed, her eyes dark-shadowed, her manner that of a quiet and docile stranger. She had no wish to speak of the past. It would be better, indeed, never to speak of it again. She simply wanted me to know that she was to marry Gideon. ‘And it is good of him,’ she said, ‘very good—you must never forget that. One would have expected him to find me distasteful—lord knows I am distasteful to myself. But he says not—silly merely. Silly. Good heavens, such a little word! I have been a silly little girl, but that is not how I feel. Poor Gideon, I don’t know how he can bring himself to do it—even for the money. He must hate being poor, in his degree, every bit as much as Charles. Grace
, will you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘What is it?’ And, naturally, it could not have been too much.

  ‘Just this. Don’t tell Gervase. Please. Grace, I am so ashamed. I don’t want him to be ashamed of me too. Just let him think that Gideon asked me and I said yes—just that. Father says I am to tell myself over and over that it did happen like that, until I believe it—that I must believe it, for Gideon’s sake, since I owe him so much. Grace, please let me keep my brother’s good opinion.’

  ‘You would not lose it. He is not so narrow as that.’

  ‘But I have been such an idiot, you see. I have been mistaken in everything. I thought Charles right and my father wrong, yet my father has been so kind. I thought he would murder me if he caught me and instead of that he was kind—kind—and right. I am not fit to decide anything any more. I don’t want to decide anything. The whole world seems upside-down to me and strange—and I am the strangest thing in it. But please, Grace, you know how little it takes for Gervase to quarrel with father, and I couldn’t stand it—not now. After all, marriage is for life, and since it is the only thing women are supposed to do, then somehow or other I must manage to do it properly—I must work hard and be good at it. That is what father says.’

  They were married very splendidly and very quickly, using a forthcoming business trip to America and the well-known impetuousness of youth to account for their haste, for although she had discovered by now that she was not expecting Charles Heron’s child, she was still most touchingly anxious to carry out her father’s wishes, having abdicated her will, it seemed, entirely to his. She was still docile, listless, easily tired, her attention apt to wander, so that one had to ask her the same question several times and even then she could not always answer. ‘Did I order the carriage? Heavens! I must have done. Do I want to drive to town? I don’t think so. Surely—isn’t there something I ought to be doing?’ She had become obedient, as she had never been in childhood, wanting to be guided, wanting to please, a little girl again who could escape from the world and all its ills by hiding her face in her father’s broad chest and murmuring ‘Yes, papa.’ She looked very small that morning in the parish church, overwhelmed by a sumptuous bridal gown of white satin stitched all over with clusters of seed pearls and crystal, the skirt extending to a train of imperial proportions, decorated not with the common orange blossom but with orchids, her father’s wedding gift of diamonds in her ears, a strand of them around her throat. She carried orchids in one lean, boyish hand, the other hand, bearing a diamond of great size and ostentatious value, resting on the arm of her large, handsome father as she entered the church, and of her large, handsome cousin as she left it.

  ‘What is that lace on her sleeves?’ whispered Blanche, ‘It looks like Valenciennes. Heavens! what does that cost per yard, Grace, and I declare there are yards of it—and those diamonds! Mamma said diamonds were too old for me on my wedding day, but only look at that solitaire. Lord—if this is her trousseau, one wonders what the dowry may be.’

  ‘She looks very pale,’ said Aunt Faith. ‘I suppose it is the excitement.’

  ‘She was always excitable,’ the Duchess of South Erin replied, no better pleased with Venetia as a daughter-in-law, no matter what the size of the dowry, than she had been with Blanche.

  The wedding-breakfast was not unduly prolonged, the bride and groom wishing to take an early London train, and when it was done I returned with Mrs. Barforth and Gervase to Galton where we were to spend the night, Mrs. Barforth changing for dinner that evening somewhat in reverse, discarding her emerald green satin—her Barforth clothes—as soon as she could for a dress of brown foulard that had no particular style about it, her hair brushed out of its elaborate Barforth ringlets and coiled none too securely on the nape of her neck. ‘There now,’ her manner seemed to say, her ringless hands happily greeting her dogs. ‘I am myself again.’

  The meal was served in the stone-flagged hall, candlelight and firelight leaving their crowded shadows in every corner, a sudden burst of flame showing me the ancient weaponry on the walls and that host of gold-framed Clevedons, sharp-etched and light-boned like Gervase and his mother, like Venetia, a fine vein of recklessness, a free adventurous spirit extending down the years from one to another, with a flaw in it somewhere—surely—which caused them in times of crisis to droop, sometimes to give way; their courage blazing out like that brightly crackling fire yet lacking the dogged persistence of the Barforths or the Agbriggs, the undramatic heroism of every day.

  ‘Well, mother,’ said Gervase, filling his glass from the claret jug at his elbow and holding it up to the light. ‘You have married your daughter to a Chard. Do I raise my glass to celebrate or to commiserate?’

  And with a gesture that appeared to salute the portrait of Peregrine Clevedon hanging directly above him, he tossed down the wine and reached out for the claret jug again.

  ‘Well, mother, what do you make of it? And what does Grace make of it, I wonder? I should dearly like to know.’

  And feeling his eyes upon me, I said hastily, unwisely, in answer to the question he had not asked and which I ought not to have understood, ‘There is no reason at all—none—why Gideon should not adore her.’

  ‘Which means, Grace dear, that you know perfectly well that he does not adore her, that he has taken her for her money and for as much of mine as he can lay his hands on.’

  ‘Then you must make sure he doesn’t lay his hands on it, or on anything else that is yours.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, once again taking up the claret jug, his lean face turning away from me to his mother. ‘You see how concise Grace is, mamma—how very certain. You can imagine her, can you not, standing her ground when the Chards begin to advance and commanding “Hands off”—or the ladylike equivalent?’

  ‘Gervase, is it necessary?’ she said, leaning towards him, their similarity of face and feature, texture and colour excluding me. ‘You have a most decent income already. Is the rest even important?’

  ‘There is a great deal of it, mamma.’

  ‘Oh yes, a mountain of it. A mountain of gold—I know.’

  ‘And why should I leave it all to Gideon Chard?’

  ‘It would not come to that. Your father has given certain guarantees which would enable you to—’

  ‘To what, mamma? To live here like a gentleman?’

  ‘Only if you want to, Gervase—although I have always believed you did want that.’

  He got up, the claret jug in his hand, and stood with one foot on the hearth directly below the portrait of his uncle, two sharp-etched profiles, two pairs of light green eyes that seemed permanently narrowed from days on horseback in strong sunlight, nights among the smoke and wine-fumes of the gaming tables, two lean, light bodies stretched to their limits of nerve and muscle and endurance. And I knew neither one of them.

  ‘Shall we set wanting aside for the moment, mamma,’ he said, his hooded gaze on the flames. ‘Yes, father has made certain guarantees, but do you imagine that Gideon will abide by them a moment longer than necessary? Will he really be content to work seven days a week as father does and then pay out half his profits to me? If he can find a way to force me out, or cheat me out—even to buy me out—do you think he will not take it? Yes—there is a mountain of gold, mamma. There are times when I grow very jealous of my share of it.’

  She stood up too, arrow straight, her hands palm down on the table, the firelight deepening the red of her hair, shading the years from her pointed face so that she could have been Venetia.

  ‘I wanted it for myself once,’ she said, ‘for Galton and for my brother—I saw it as nourishment for our soil, prosperity for our tenants, an extension of our land to what it used to be. I saw it as ease for my grandfather in his old age, and security for Peregrine and the children he should have had. I saw it as a bright future for all of us, and not even the whole mountain, not even the half. I was not greedy and w
ould have taken nothing that could not be spared. It did no good. Give it up, Gervase, for it belongs to them. Don’t burden yourself with it as I have done. Dear God, if I could only be free of it—’

  And now, in that treacherous firelight, she became Venetia, crying out to me down the years to come, her bright, eager hopes long vanished, their shadow absorbed into this single yearning—that had neither hope nor brightness—for liberty.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, pressing both her hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh dear! I am being very frail and foolish—quite unforgivable. Whatever will Grace think of me?’

  ‘She will forgive you, mamma.’

  ‘Yes, of course she will. I must just go and tidy my hair and then, perhaps, I will say good-night.’

  She hurried away, giving me a quick apologetic smile, and we sat for rather too long in silence, Gervase continuing to brood by the fireside—continuing to drink—while I, with some amusement, some small annoyance, tried to decide whether or not she had wished to offend me. For the income she had spoken of was my income, those guarantees had been made on my behalf, the future of her estate—very evidently—was to be secured at my expense, and she had not even consulted my wishes, had simply assumed that, as a woman, I existed to serve the best interests of my men. She had assumed, in fact, that my marriage would purchase Galton for Gervase as hers had not succeeded in purchasing it for Peregrine. How dare she? Yet my indignation lasted no more than the moment it took me to realize that she was not so much unfeeling as disappointed, not hard-hearted but simply a woman of her class and her time, obedient in all things to her training.

  Once, in a previous generation, she would have been sent out to win political connections for Galton, to settle—with her hand in marriage—a disputed boundary; her purpose, as the daughter of one noble house, being not to inherit but rather to breed heirs for another. But in her day it had been hard cash—the substance her grandfather had thought demeaning to carry on his person—which had been lacking and with that inbred, female impulse of self-sacrifice she had attempted to provide it. She had accepted the inferior status of womankind and had sold herself, not for her own profit, but for the benefit of her grandfather, of her brother, and of Gervase. And how terrible now if he—her son, my husband—should declare her sacrifice to have been in vain. How terrible for her. But I, with my own future to consider, did not feel so greatly inclined for sacrifice. Nor, having escaped one captivity, was I anxious to enter another, and although her cry for freedom had moved me I did not feel called upon to give up my own. After all, she had not sacrificed herself for me but for pale, auburn Peregrine, and I was not yet certain that Gervase wished, or felt able to accept, her complex and weighty bequest. But one thing I knew beyond the slightest question. If he decided to come here, then I would be obliged to accompany him, as all women are obliged to follow their husbands, but I would come not as a mild-mannered daughter-in-law but as mistress. If my money was to be spent here, then one way or another I would have my say in the spending.