“Some may have the greater good sense to fight you.”
“Which would be mere folly if the odds were against them.”
“You mean … as they are with me at this time?”
“I fear so, Kate. Will you be gentle tonight? I know how you can be.
Will you forget that you have to pretend you do not like me? “
“It is impossible to forget something which is so blatantly true.”
“You hate me as a person? Is that so? You despise everything I do. I have a certain power which allows me to get what I want now and then.
That you hate. I understand it. But forget it, Kate. Think of me only as your lover. “
“You talk nonsense.”
“No. I talk from a superior knowledge of the emotions.”
“Please do not attempt to tell me what I feel.”
“I have had great experience of women.”
“You speak the truth there for once.”
“I know how you feel towards me. You hate me … but hate and love can be very close, Kate, in certain moments. Passion is blind to the differences of the mind. This is a mating of bodies. You and I were made for each other and that fierce reluctance of yours . too fierce to be entirely natural . - . just adds to the perfection. Do you understand what I mean? “
“No.”
“Then I shall teach you.”
“I would rather be taught how to escape from the place, to leave you and never see you again.”
“Much as I would like to indulge you in all things, you ask too much.”
“How long do you intend to keep me here?”
“That depends. Would you like a little wine before we sup?”
“Drugged wine?”
“Oh no. That was only for convenience in the first instance. Just while we got over the er preliminaries. It won’t be necessary now.”
“Just ordinary common rape?”
“How outspoken you are! You astonish me. I should not have thought a well-brought-up lady would talk in such a way.”
“Who would believe that a well-brought-up lady would be in such a position.”
“Such things happen a great deal more frequently than you would think.
One doesn’t hear of them. I will tell them to bring in the wine. “
I watched him go to the door, the blue robe swinging round him.
He was in the dining-room. If I could get down the stairs, surprise the guards . He was beside me, smiling at me.
“You would never do it,” he said.
“And suppose you got out? Imagine being on the road dressed like that.
No money. People would think you were mad. “
“What have I ever done to you that you should treat me like this?”
“Bewitched me, for one thing. Come. They are bringing the wine.”
The woman came in and set it on the table. He went over to it and poured two glasses. One he handed to me.
“Drink it,” he said.
I took the glass, but did not drink. He went to the table and took his, sipping it, looking at me.
“I assure you … no drugs,” he said.
“Here. Give me your glass. You take mine.”
He took mine and thrust his into my hand. He drank quickly.
“There, you see.”
My throat felt dry and parched. I felt I needed some stimulation if I were to face what lay before me. I sipped a little of the wine.
“That’s better,” he said.
“When my father hears what has happened,” I began, and I hesitated, wondering what my father would do.
“Yes,” he prompted.
I was silent.
“Suppose I said, ” She came other own free will. She was so insistent that gallantry demanded that I comply. “
“Would even you be capable of such lies?”
“You know that I would. Can you think of anything evil of which I should not be capable? No, Kate. You can do nothing, and wise woman that you are, you know this. Therefore you will, metaphorically, shrug your shoulders and make the best of your fate.”
“I do not give in so easily.”
“I’m glad in a way. I wouldn’t want you to be other than the strong woman you are.”
He drained off the wine.
“Come,” he said, taking my arm.
“I will conduct you in to supper.”
I refused to take his arm and he seized me and put mine through his. It was a gesture which implied that even on the slightest matter he was going to have absolute obedience.
The servants had gone. The table looked beautiful with the eight lighted candles of the candelabrum. He took me to a chair at the table and pressed me down into it. Then he took his place opposite me. The table was not large, as it had obviously been made for two, so he was close to me.
“There is soup,” he said, lifting the lid of the tureen, ‘and I shall serve you. The old woman is an excellent cook and I am sure you will enjoy this. “
He handed me the plate but I turned away, so he sighed and brought it round to me.
“Please don’t be tiresome,” he said.
I stood up but he ignored me and started on the soup.
“Pheasant, I think,” he commented.
“Excellent. Where are you going? Are you so eager for bed?”
I sat down helplessly. The soup did smell delicious. He brought me a glass of wine.
“Undrugged, I promise you,” he said again.
I looked at him defiantly and started on the soup.
“That’s better,” he said, lifting his glass.
“To us. Suspicious still?
I’ll drink some of mine and pass it to you. A sort of loving cup. “
I am going to fight him, I thought. I am going to use all my strength to resist him. I’ll eat . sparingly . but I must eat.
He drank and offered his glass to me. I did not want to drink much wine, which would make me sleepy. Yet on the other hand, might it not be more bearable if I felt drowsy? Would I be more resigned to accepting what I knew had to come?
“Such deep thoughts,” he said.
“I can only guess at them. Now a little of this venison. I told them to serve something cold as I did not want them intruding on us while we ate. I
thought you would prefer it that way. You see, Kate, how I consider you. “
“I have noticed that,” I said with heavy sarcasm.
“Of course, as an artist you are observant. You shall do another miniature of me. I so much enjoyed our sittings. Your little deceit was so amusing.”
I was silent. He ate a great deal and I went on thinking of the possibilities of escape. Would that woman come in to remove the dishes? If she left the door open . It was just hopeless and I knew it. I felt furiously angry and yet I could not suppress a certain indefinable excitement.
“The venison is good, is it not?” he said.
“She has done well, our old woman. You must not blame her … or the coachman. They were merely obeying orders.”
“I know that.”
“So you see they could do no other than what they did.”
“All must do the will of the mighty Baron.”
“That is so. They are not to be blamed. You must blame me, but guileless virgins who cease to live in that debatably happy state cannot be entirely blameless either.”
“Save your crude jests for those who enjoy them.”
“I will,” he replied.
“But you are here, Kate, and how easily you walked into the trap. You should have enquired about the trains … not just walked into the web. You were very quick in Paris.”
I stared at him.
“Ah. I see I have caught your attention at last.”
“Are you talking about that cab?”
“It was rather clumsy, wasn’t it? Too involved, too tricky. We had to get you across Paris and you were too sharp for us. You were beginning to know the city too well and you realized you were going in the wrong directio
n. You jumped out. That was a very dangerous thing to do.
Knowing the Paris drivers, I wonder you were not run over. A foolish plan, really. Not worthy of me. It just came to me on the spur of the moment and it appealed to the sense of adventure in me. I realized almost at once that it was not very clever and it owed a lot to chance too. He’d been several days trying to pick you up. “
“Why did you do it?”
“I should have thought that was obvious.”
“So you were determined on … rape.”
“Well, I was hoping to achieve my ends to our mutual satisfaction.”
“You are a monster.”
“Worthy to deface the facade of Notre Dame.”
“I would not have believed that any man of today could behave as you have done.”
“Your knowledge of the world is not very great.”
“Perhaps I have lived my life among civilized people until-‘ ” Until now. I am sure that is true. But alas, my dear Kate, you have become the victim of the most depraved. “
“Can I appeal to your sense of honour … your sense of decency … to let me go?”
“There is no sense in appealing to something which does not exist. If I let you go now you cannot change yourself back into the woman you were before last night.”
“I want only to get away from you, to try to forget I ever saw you .. never to see you again.”
“But I want just the opposite. I want you to stay here and remember me forever. The best lover you ever had, for I shall be that, Kate.”
I felt bewildered. I was living again that nightmare ride in the cab.
The Princesse said it had been arranged by the Baron and she had been right about that, though not for the reason she had suggested. I was thinking of that moment when I had opened the door and stepped out almost under the horse’s nose. And all so that he might satisfy his lust.
I stood up suddenly.
“Let me go,” I cried.
He was beside me.
“Now, Kate,” he said, ‘you know very well that I am not going to let you go. That will come in good time. Be patient. Our little adventure is not yet over. “
He was about to seize me and I picked up a knife which was lying on the table. I turned the blade towards him.
He laughed.
“What!” he cried.
“Would you kill me then? Oh, Kate! I never would have thought that of you.”
“Do not goad me too far,” I cried.
“If I killed you it would be no great calamity for the world.”
He opened the robe he was wearing and bared his chest.
“Come along, Kate,” he said.
“Right through the heart. It’s about there, I think.”
“You would be surprised if I did.”
“I should be in a condition where it would not be possible to show my surprise. What are you waiting for?”
“I said don’t goad me too far.”
“That’s exactly what I meant to do.”
I lunged at him. He caught my wrist and the knife dropped to the floor.
“You see, Kate,” he said, ‘you couldn’t do it. “
“I could. You prevented me. If you were so sure, why did you make me drop the knife.”
“To save your feelings. I’ll tell you this: Well-brought-up English ladies do not stab their lovers. They try to shatter them with words . with tears perhaps … but not knives.”
“You have a great deal to learn about well-brought-up English ladies.”
“I have … and I am rejoicing in the education.”
He had taken me now and was holding me against him.
“Kate,” he said softly, ‘sweet Kate, it is no use fighting. Submit. I should like to see you submissive. I should like you to put your arms about me and tell me that you are so happy that I brought you here. ”
I drew myself away from him and because he held me at As arms’ length, I began beating that bare chest. He was laughing at me.
He knew as well as I did, that I should never have used that knife against him. He was right. People who had been brought up as I had did not do such things-no matter what was done to them.
He swept me up in his arms. I wriggled and tried to break away, but he revelled in making me aware of his strength.
“You make me impatient,” he said.
It was a long time afterwards before I could bring myself to think of that night. It had been different from the previous one. Then I had been in a drugged state and only half aware. I fought him . with all my strength I fought him . knowing from the first moment that I could not win. But I hoped I showed him my resentment, my loathing, my anger, my fury. At least that offered some balm to my humiliated senses.
But he did not care. He liked that. After all, his very nature was that of a fighter.
Perhaps I realized that I was playing into his hands. I was giving him what he wanted, because, for a man of his nature, the greater the resistance, the greater the triumph when victory was won.
And victory was inevitable. I might score occasionally in our verbal battles but physically I was no match for him.
But I fought. how I fought! I whipped up my hatred for him and somewhere at the back of my mind I realized that I was fighting not only him but something in myself. some erotic curiosity, some desire for this conflict. some craving for the ultimate satisfaction. I was vanquished but I felt a certain wild exhilaration in defeat and the stronger my hatred, the greater my excitement.
The bed was like a battlefield that night.
The next day passed as the previous one. I was beginning to feel I had spent a lifetime in my prison. I wondered whether his object was to keep me here until he had subdued my spirit to such an extent that I meekly submitted to him. If he ever did that, I felt, he would probably be tired of the adventure and let me go.
Sometimes still I thought I was dreaming. There was such an atmosphere of unreality about the whole matter, and yet, knowing him, I supposed it was natural enough.
He saw a woman; he thought he would like to seduce her and he set about his purpose. But he had known that there would never have been an easy submission with me. It had to be force, and so it had been.
The evening supper was served as before. I thought he was a little different. Was there a shade of regret. tenderness. Oh no. That was too strong a word. He could never be tender. However, there was a change in him and I wondered what it meant.
He said rather soberly as he poured the wine: “Kate, it has been a wonderful experience … our being together.”
I was silent.
“Would you believe me if I told you I had never enjoyed an association so much?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s true. Why should I lie to you? There is no reason, is there?”
“I have not found you reasonable, so why should I expect you to be so now?”
“You will learn that my actions have been well within the bounds of reason. I really acted with a very good reason for doing so.”
“Which was the satisfaction of your lust, your desire to exert your malevolent powers.”
“Absolutely right. Dear Kate, what an observant woman you are.”
“It does not need a great deal of observation to assess a man’s character when his actions are those of a barbarian.”
"Not all. “
“You are going to remind me that you launched me on my career. I wish I had never heard of you. I wish I had never come to your castle and learned that there are people in the world who are nothing more than savages.”
“Such tirades are not very interesting and the theme of this one is becoming somewhat repetitious.”
“It must be when everything I say to you has to tell you how much I loathe and despise you.”
“Do you know, I got a different impression last night.”
“You have degraded me. You have treated me as no honourable man would ever treat a woman. What you have done is a criminal offence. In thos
e old days of which you are so fond, you would have been hanged or sent to the galleys for what you have done.”
“Not a man in my position. I believe that one of my ancestors used to waylay travellers, bring them here and hold them to ransom. Yet he was never asked to account for his misdeeds.”
“A little game which might appeal to you.”
“It doesn’t appeal in the least. I have money in plenty.”
“How fortunate for the travellers!”
“If one has sufficient power and er expertise, shall I say, one can do a great deal which other people cannot. I am going to tell you a true story of one of my ancestors. Would you like to hear it?”
“I would prefer to walk out of this place and never see you again.”
“You would continue to see me in your mind’s eye and my voice would haunt your dreams.”
“I shall do everything in my power to wipe them from my memory.”
“Oh, Kate, has it been so hateful for you?”
“Words cannot describe how hateful. When I leave here I shall be able to see it in all its horror and I will never forget or forgive you for what you have done to me.”
“Those are harsh words.”
“Deservedly so.”
“Let me tell you this story of my ancestor. I think it will interest you.”
I did not answer and he went on: “It happened a long time ago, in the thirteenth century to be exact, in the reign of Philippe who was known as Le Bel because he was so handsome. This ancestor of mine was Florence, Earl of Holland. A strange name for a man, you think. But some names are used for men and women here. Florence was a man who had had many love-affairs.”
T can understand your affinity, though love-a. Sa. us seems an odd way to describe them. “
He ignored the interruption.
“Florence had a mistress to whom he was rather grateful. He had many mistresses, of course, but this one had become more important to him than any of the others had been. There came a time when he had finished with her and he wanted to see her settled into respectable marriage.”
“With someone else, I presume, since he no longer had any use for her?”
“Oh, you are listening then. I’m glad of that for I am sure you will find this very interesting. He asked one of his ministers to marry her. This minister indignantly refused, saying that he would never marry one of Florence’s castoff mistresses.”
The Demon Lover Page 16