The Sleeping Sword

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. I could have made more of an effort with my own wife in the first place, I reckon. If I’d handled my business like I’ve handled my marriage, I’d be a pauper now, Grace, and no mistake.’

  Once again we sat in a tense silence and then, leaning suddenly towards me, an undemonstrative man who resented the occasional necessity to demonstrate his feelings, he said angrily, ‘God dammit! Grace, you are valued here with us. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. See that you don’t forget it. We need you here. In fact I’ll go further and tell you straight that I don’t know how we’d manage without you. This house is yours, Grace, for all practical purposes—entirely yours—and I shall allow no one to interfere with that, whoever they may be.’

  I let a few more days go by, coped with the small upheaval invariably occasioned by Gideon’s return, and then chose a bright blue and white morning to drive over to Galton.

  Mrs. Barforth was walking by the Abbey stream, two young retrievers splashing excitedly in the water, a black and white sheepdog puppy hesitating on the bank, one cautious paw extended to test the ripples; and I was glad to see no sign of Gervase.

  ‘Grace, dear—I was hoping to see you. I suppose you have heard my news?’

  ‘About the estate? Yes. Do you feel differently, knowing it to be yours?’

  She smiled, shaded her eyes against the sun to check the progress of the young dogs who were chasing last autumn’s leaves now on the opposite bank.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘it is the oddest thing—I have lived years of my life for this moment, longed for it and taken every opportunity I could to bring it about. It seemed of the most desperate importance—truly the difference between life and death. Now I have it, and nothing seems really changed. I suppose I must have known deep down, all the time, that my husband would not really sell me up lock, stock and barrel as he used to threaten. Yes, that must be it. How very nice to know that, in a way, I have always trusted him.’

  She slipped her arm into mine and we walked across the ancient, unsteady little bridge, the gentle sheepdog at our heels, the two retrievers greeting us with boisterous rapture at the other side, leaping all muddy and eager against our skirts.

  ‘What will you do now, mother-in-law?’

  ‘Do? Must I do anything? Well—I might spread my wings and fly away. But I don’t think so. Twenty years ago my husband thought I might fly to Julian Flood, which is why he clipped my wings and put salt on my tail—not from jealousy, you understand, but because he believed Julian would not be good for me.’

  ‘Would you have gone to him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, smiling at the stony track ahead of her, seeing beyond it to a wealth of contented memory. ‘Yes. I would have gone to Julian had my husband allowed it. And I might even have been very happy. If I have a talent at all, it is for friendship. These storms of passion, you know, these truly gigantic desires—well, I fear they are a little outside my range. But I am very comfortable with friendship. And next to my brother Peregrine, Julian was the best friend I had. When Peregrine died, he often seemed my only friend. That was the ingredient I found lacking in my relationship with my husband. We were never friends.’

  She bent down to murmur a word of encouragement to the timid collie bitch and to restrain the gun dogs who had begun to root ferociously in the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ she said and then, as if suddenly making up her mind, took a deep breath and muttered rapidly, wanting it to be over and done. ‘You have asked me what I mean to do. What do you mean to do, Grace? For I must tell you that, for the time being, I do not think Gervase will return to Tarn Edge. Nor do I think he will stay here, either.’

  ‘Where will he go, then?’ And my voice was sharp, very cold, hurtful to my own ears.

  ‘Dearest—I don’t know—what can I say—?’

  But her concern, her affection, her hand coming to rest gently on my arm, were all intolerable to me and I shrugged her away.

  ‘You can tell me nothing I cannot see for myself, and indeed you should be obliged to tell me nothing at all, since Gervase ought to be here to say it for you. But I already know. He married me, as your husband married you, on an impulse that did not last. I believed he loved me, as you believed your husband loved you, and I relied on that. I feel cheated now, as you did. Can you blame me?’

  ‘No. I do not blame you. I do not blame him either.’

  ‘Naturally you would say so.’

  ‘Why? Because I am his mother? And because I have always defended him? Grace, I do not defend him blindly and I am ready to accept my own share of the blame. When he was born and they first put him into my arms, I looked at him and saw my own son, a fine, red-headed Clevedon, and I forgot that his name was Barforth. And when he gave every sign of being a Clevedon, with no inclination for business and a downright aversion to that foul machinery of theirs, I encouraged him. I shielded him from discipline, told lies for him when he ran away from school, because it was a school for manufacturers, you see, not a school for gentlemen such as my brother and the Chards attended. When his father and I separated, his loyalty was all for me, such a little boy as he was then, saying he would always look after me—And I was always here, to hide him from school, from his father, from the mill. My only excuse is that I sincerely believed that the whole of his heart was here, at Galton.’

  ‘And is it not?’

  ‘How can it be, Grace? He would not have married you had he been certain of his true inclinations. He had the mills within his grasp on your marriage, for my husband would have known how to tame Gideon had Gervase remained constant—had he continued to try. He did not remain constant. He let the mills go. He has Galton now, if he chooses to take it. I am not sure he will. Grace, if he felt the need of a breathing-space, a trip abroad, perhaps, alone, so that he could think, make a decision on his future—would you allow it?’

  ‘Could I prevent it?’

  She shook her head, her cheeks very flushed, her manner hesitant and embarrassed in a way which was unlike her.

  ‘Oh, not physically or legally I suppose. I am simply asking if you could bring yourself to understand his need—oh dear, how very hard this is!’

  ‘Yes, very hard and I imagine it will become harder still. I believe you are trying to tell me he has already decided to go abroad, and you are asking me not to make a fuss. Is that it?’

  ‘My dear, I suppose it is.’

  ‘And he is running away from me as he used to run away from school, is he not? Well—is he not?’

  ‘Oh dear, yes—yes, he is. Grace, it is so easy to view him as no more than a spoiled and worthless man but you saw far more than that in him once, and I cannot believe you to have been mistaken. We have asked too much of him, his father and I—pulled him in too many diverse directions, and now he must have time and solitude if his conflict is ever to be resolved. Failure—yes, of course he feels he has failed—at everything, not least as a husband. Enormous confusion—yes, of course. But Grace—my dear—I do not think he is running away from you, nor even from himself. He is trying to find himself. Please allow him to try.’

  And once again I saw her flush with embarrassment, sensed an uneasy movement of her mind, warning me that although her words were no less than the truth they were not the whole of it.

  ‘He wishes to leave me, then—for good?’

  ‘He has not said so. In his present state of mind he could not risk a decision of that magnitude.’

  ‘I see. And so I am to wait, am I—how long? Six months, a year or two? I am not to bother him—is that it?—until he feels able to make up his mind?’

  We walked on for a while in silence, my anger extending my stride, quickening my pace and then gradually evaporating in its own futility. He had left me years ago and what was being asked of me now was perfectly in keeping with the conventions. Blanche and Dominic did not live together in any tr
ue sense. Certainly my parents-in-law did not. My own mother had withdrawn from her marriage by the gradual but complete process of making herself an invalid. It had not escaped my attention that ladies from such different walks of life as Mrs. Rawnsley of Cullingford and Mrs. Goldsmith of Berlin were content to live almost separately although under the same roof as their husbands. They had made an ‘arrangement’as I was now being asked to do, had retained the status, the protection, the respectability of marriage without the man himself. They had not made a fuss. They had obeyed the rules and had done their duty. And my own duty was clear. I had a position to keep up, a home to run, Venetia’s child to raise. I had a life of my own. ‘One life,’ Venetia’s voice whispered in my memory, from the days when she had believed her own life would be glorious and she had still trusted me. ‘This is the only life I’ll ever have and my one chance to get it right.’ Was this my one chance too? Or had the choice been made for me long ago by my upbringing, my conditioning, bred into me by those generations of women behind me who had submitted to the limitations of their bodies and their easily aroused, easily exploited emotions; who had believed without question that their own claims on life must always be inferior to the claims of their children and of their men?

  I was a decent woman and decent women made sacrifices. It was the basic instinct of womankind to protect the young. I possessed that instinct, and who would raise Venetia’s child if I did not but a procession of governesses working not for love but for wages? And how could I explain myself to my father? ‘One life,’ Venetia whispered, ‘one only’, and then, with sudden mockery: ‘But at least you will have your dignity.’

  We walked back down the hill and across the bridge, the air sparkling and clean, the dogs still playing around our feet, even the little collie exhilarated now by the scent of the new grass and the rich burden of the earth, forgetting her timidity at this promise of a fragrant springtime.

  ‘You must see the kittens, Grace,’ and dutifully I went into her parlour to kneel by a cat-basket overflowing with minute tortoiseshell bodies, as dutifully drank my tea and ate the muffins she seemed anxious to serve me, aware, as I did so, that through her talk of cats and chickens and apple-preserves, she was acutely uneasy, badly troubled in her conscience.

  I took my hat and gloves, and prepared to go outside again, my carriage at the door.

  ‘Will Gervase agree to see me—here, if he cannot face Tarn Edge?’

  ‘My dear, I believe it is you he cannot face.’

  ‘Ah—I thought he might have to see me, to tell me himself whatever it is that you—quite clearly—are holding back.’

  She bit her lip, her face flushing again a most uncharacteristic crimson, tears starting in her eyes.

  ‘Oh dear, I could wish you less astute—’

  ‘There is something else, then?’

  ‘I am obliged to deny it.’

  ‘You mean you have been instructed to keep it from me. I shall find out, you know.’

  And for a long while she could not bring herself to speak but stood nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, her loyalty visibly and hurtfully torn, until finally she gave a deep sigh and raising her head gave me a look that held both determination and compassion.

  ‘I should not tell you, Grace. There is no need for you to know.’

  ‘I am not a child to be kept in the dark.’

  ‘It will hurt you, Grace.’

  ‘I am hurt already. And if it is of such great importance, perhaps I have a right to know. If there are decisions to be made, then I think I must know.’

  ‘Very well. Diana Flood is to have a child five months from now, and since she and her husband have been apart for something more than a year … My dear—’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, the high pitch of my voice taking me by surprise, my words rising straight up from a deep source of bitterness I had never before acknowledged. ‘Gervase, of course, is the father. Good. I am glad—yes, I am so glad—that he can do at least one thing that I cannot, that he can have children, whereas I must make do with other people’s, with waifs and strays and orphans that are not wanted. Oh—pay no attention to me—none—’

  I righted myself after a while, Mrs. Barforth standing quietly beside me, subduing her own feelings while I brought mine to heel and leashed them with a hard hand, seeing no profit to anyone in allowing them to escape again. And when I could, I asked her curtly. ‘What steps do they mean to take?’

  ‘My dear, the usual ones—the sad things which are always done on such occasions. Julian will send her away somewhere to give birth in secret, for it is not the first time such a thing has occurred in his family, nor in mine, nor in the Chards either. It has all been done before, and must be done, for her husband will be Lord Sternmore when his uncle dies, and when there is a title to inherit a man must be very sure of his eldest son.’

  ‘You do realize that this is—dreadful?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘And Gervase?’

  ‘He will accept financial responsibility, and then I imagine Diana will go off to India to brave the climate and her husband. The baby will be looked after and then, perhaps nine or ten years from now, I may offer a home to an orphan child, a distant relative, perhaps. Or Diana, even, may find it possible to offer that orphan a home, particularly if in the meantime she has supplied the colonel adequately with heirs. It appears—usually—to work well enough in the end.’

  ‘And Diana Flood accepts this?’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Why does she? You say Gervase will accept financial responsibility for the child. Has he not offered more than that? You tell me he wishes to go abroad. Has he not asked her to go with him?’

  ‘I believe the offer was made—yes—yes, he did ask her to go abroad with him and live there as his wife. Yes, he did.’

  ‘And she? Please tell me the truth.’

  ‘Shall I? Yes, I see that it is only right. She seemed, at first, inclined to accept. But in the end—and after consultation with her family—she declined to place herself in so precarious—so very perilous—a situation. She has, after all, a great deal to lose. The Sternmore title is a very old one and although there is no great fortune to go with it, the land being somewhat encumbered, the house upon it is very noble—even rather famous. Lady Sternmore of Sternmore must always be a person of consequence. The adulterous wife of Colonel Flood living openly with her lover and their bastard child must be considered as one socially dead. And lovers, you know, do not always remain faithful. No one could guarantee her that—certainly not Gervase. He is in love with her now but it was pointed out to her that, not too long ago, he was in love with you. Forgive me, dear, but you asked me for the truth.’

  ‘You are saying she is a conventional woman who will play the game. Gervase is not a conventional man.’

  ‘In this case he is obliged to be.’

  ‘And who else knows of “this case” besides ourselves?’

  ‘My husband. And your father. We felt it only right that he should be informed.’

  ‘How scandalous that no one felt it right to inform me.’

  ‘I have just informed you, Grace, and you have not thanked me for it.’

  What had actually changed? I had known of the affair and had taken no action against it. I had already grown accustomed to the sterile existence of a woman separated from her husband. What had changed except that our separation, which had been known only to ourselves, was now to be acknowledged by a few others, by my father-in-law who had already reassured me as to my position at Tarn Edge, and by my father who would pretend he knew nothing of it to protect my feelings, just as I had tried to protect his. What difference? None at all except the hardening, or perhaps the recognition of a resolve to win for myself an identity, to put an end to this eternal legal childhood which added me to the sum total of a man who did not care for me. Perhaps that—and the dangerous, disturbing memory of Venetia.

  She had looked at me sometimes, during her last few months, in
an odd manner, her eyes clear and cool and pitying, picking out each one of the deceits by which I lived and shaking her head over them sadly but with a hint of amusement that said: ‘Poor Grace. She is just like the rest of them—she will endure any insult, any hardship, any wrong, so long as it looks right.’ But would it comfort me on my dying day to know I had obeyed the rules, had shown myself at all times to be a dutiful and reasonable woman?

  ‘What has he done to her?’ Mrs. Barforth had asked me, speaking of Robin Ashby and Venetia, and I had replied that he had treated her as the kind of woman she had wished to be.

  ‘Are there such women, Grace?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Were there, indeed, women who did not simply allow things to happen to them—as we had been taught women should—but who took action on their own behalf, who made things happen in accordance with their own judgement and their own desires? Was I such a woman? Most fervently I hoped so.

  There had been in my mind, in my conscience, a mountain to climb, an enormous, outrageous decision looming on my horizon, an impossible decision and a frightening one since I knew of no one who had ever taken it before me. Yet, as I drove back alone to Tarn Edge, it struck me that I was very calm—too calm—and at some point on that familiar journey the decision which should have crushed me and torn me apart and from which in the end I should have retreated, to slide meekly—almost gratefully—back into my feminine mould; that decision was somehow made without conflict, even without much awareness, an imperceptible passing from a state of desperate uncertainty to a state of being quite sure. Venetia had known, when she sent Robin Ashby away from her, that there had been no other course to take. I now understood and was comforted by the same complete assurance. There was nothing else I could do.