The Velvet Glove

by Mary Williams

‘I’d no plan exactly. But I will now you’ve mentioned it.’

  ‘Good.’ His face lit up perceptively. ‘I shall see you again then? I’m calling for her in about an hour. Yes?’

  ‘That depends,’ Kate replied.

  ‘On what? Your – husband?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘No, no. Rick’s in London, on business.’

  ‘How neglectful of him – and rather stupid,’ Jon said pointedly.

  Kate flushed. ‘Not at all. The business includes something very important, and—’ ‘Mrs Wade?’

  Kate’s temper rose. ‘What a thing to say. Of course not. And you’ve no right to suggest – suggest that those old stories were true. As a matter of fact, I’ve already met her socially at Woodgate, our home. She’s extremely knowledgeable and her experience is invaluable to Rick over some matters.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ Jon agreed meaningfully.

  Kate glared at him, then said, ‘I don’t like your attitude, and if I’m going to see Cass I must go. It’s quite a way.’

  Jon lifted an arm. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you. But – you look so lovely when you’re in a temper, Kate. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know you shouldn’t be speaking like that, and that it’s a stupid interview,’ Kate retorted. ‘Please let me pass.’

  He shrugged and stepped aside. She swept by, but could sense his gaze still on her as she took the turn into the wood.

  Cassandra was standing at the opening to the studio when Kate arrived there. She was looking picturesque in a long black skirt embroidered at the hem, with a fringed paisley shawl draped round her shoulders. Her hair was loose, spilling like a pale gold fan over her arms. She had a look of contemplation on her face as though thinking out an idea for a fresh painting. Behind her the luminous green depths of one of the woodland pools – said to have been worked in ancient times as slate pits – glittered translucently through the morning light. Silver birches quivered amid the darker tracery of thorn, elder, and oak, which were shadowed by the spreading branches of a large beech on the other side. The whole scene had the atmosphere momentarily of some legend or fairytale.

  Then Cassandra spoke. ‘Oh, hullo Kate.’ She lifted a hand to one breast as though startled. ‘I didn’t expect you.’

  ‘Am I intruding? I came this way by chance, and met Jon. He told me you were here so I thought I’d look in. He said you were doing a lot of painting now.’

  ‘Oh, you saw him!’

  ‘Yes. He looked a bit tired, I thought.’

  Cassandra shrugged. ‘He’s very busy with the estate – always on the go. The Wentworths’ bailiff has retired now, he’s too old and they’ve given him the lodge to live in with his wife. So Jon’s taken over – temporarily, he says. But I don’t know. I think there’s a question of money involved. And of course since he left Oxford Jon’s had no particular post – he did history, you know, at university – but he doesn’t seem to want to teach. So—’ She shrugged lightly. ‘Well would you? If you were him, with all this?’

  ‘I have no idea what I’d want to do if I was Jon,’ Kate replied shortly. ‘But about your paintings – aren’t you going to show me, now I’ve trailed all the way here?’

  ‘Of course.’ Cassandra turned and went ahead to the newly installed door, pushing through undergrowth and brambles, leaving Kate to follow.

  Inside a number of sketches, drawings and watercolours were heaped against one wall. Cassandra’s cape lay over a chair, and an assortment of painting materials were on a table. There was an evocative odd smell of wood, mixed with that of turpentine, and a painting was propped on an easel near the far end of the room – a portrait of a girl with luminous large eyes staring from a pale heart-shaped face. She appeared to be wearing a nun’s habit. No hair was visible, but in a brilliant stream of light from the window the effect of the pale skin, and finely drawn features against the background of dark drapes and shadowed faintly defined trees was arresting, and showed a skill Kate had not thought Cassie possessed.

  ‘Did you do that?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s not quite finished yet.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Just someone I met in the wood,’ Cassandra answered. ‘Near the pool.’

  ‘She looks like a nun.’

  ‘Yes. I think she comes from a priory round here.’

  ‘Priory? A nunnery? But there isn’t one. There was once, of course. The forest had quite a few religious houses in the past. But I’m sure there’s only the Monastery now. I should have heard; I know. I’ve lived here most of my life—’ She broke off, almost startled by the slight half-smile of condescension on the other girl’s face. It was as though she meant to imply – you may know the lanes and footpaths, but I belong.

  However, all Cassandra said was, ‘She looked like that anyway. And I painted her; that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Kate remarked, trying to stifle the quite unreasoning sense of jealousy that rose up in her, the jealousy of ‘place’. ‘Perhaps she was on a visit or something. The people at Oakthorpe Farm are Catholics, and take guests sometimes. Anyway there’s no priory, except ruined ones, now.’

  She didn’t wait to see Jon again, but left shortly after that conversation, wondering irritably if it was being pregnant that made her so resentful of Cassandra’s apparent involvement with Burnwood country.

  *

  During Rick’s week in London Kate did her best to involve herself with the future of motherhood. She made two trips to Lynchester, shopping occasions for the inspection of clothes designed – as glamorously as possible – for the ‘young matron’. She didn’t care to consider herself in feminine terms as anyone looking in the least matronly; the picture brought to her mind was mildly disagreeable, but the modistes she consulted, the beaming couturiers and dressers were so flattering, so openly envious and admiring of her beauty and how entrancing she could appear as ‘the young mother’, given the right styles to enhance her charm, that eventually she became relaxed and found herself enjoying being the focal point of such interest.

  Rick, of course, was well known as one of the richest men in the county, probably the whole of Britain, which helped shopkeepers almost to fall over their heels to acquire her patronage. The fact also that he was so astonishingly handsome in an exciting male way, and after years of bachelorhood had eventually been lured to the altar by Walter Barrington’s young daughter, had created curiosity with an undercurrent of envy that occasionally after a flattering session ended with such secret comments among saleswomen as ‘Yes, she’s certainly good looking. But a trifle naive, don’t you think? And with his experience! You can’t help wondering what he saw in her.’

  The wonderment was false, of course. Beneath her vitality and luscious beauty lurked something else – outrageous though indefinable, holding a sexual challenging quality that only a man of Rick’s fibre could hope to control. Women could sense her peculiar magnetism as well as men, and though outwardly polite, resented it. Kate felt the undercurrent of reaction and was mildly surprised but couldn’t be bothered to understand it. She was the ‘young madam’, wife of Rick Ferris of Woodgate House and enjoyed what she could of her new status.

  So when Rick returned from London her previous reluctant mood had been mostly dispelled by a week’s preening herself like some exotic bird in glorification of her fine feathers and furbelows.

  Rick attempted to explain his business progress concerning the Pictorial Review for which he’d succeeded in acquiring the helpful backing from his American counterpart. Although dealing with news headlines from both sides of the Atlantic he told her – as he’d mentioned before – society and stage gossip would be a priority of the publication, highlighted by the quickly growing industry of moving-pictures on the screen.

  Kate managed to present a show of interest which Rick soon detected was half-hearted. He was mildly amused knowing she was burning to discuss something of her own.

  ‘Well,’ he said breaking off, ‘that’s
about it.’

  ‘It sounds interesting, Rick.’

  ‘And you haven’t even enquired about Linda. Did I see her? Just for a quick lunch at the Ritz, that’s all. Come along now, what have you been up to?’

  She stared at him, faintly disappointed. He hadn’t even commented on the new gown she was wearing. It was of jade shaded silk, with drapes cunningly contrived to hide even a faint thickening of the waist. Her russet hair was drawn to the back of her head, held by invisible pins, and a tiny flowered comb that left only a few rebellious curls to fall softly against her cheeks.

  She well knew she looked enchanting, why hadn’t Rick noticed?

  ‘I’ve been spending your – our money,’ she said pointedly. ‘On clothes. Well, what else was there to do? You don’t want me to ride any more, you wouldn’t take me to town with you, you didn’t want me wandering about the forest alone – although I did once go and see Cass. But what else was there for me to do?’

  Rick smiled; it was a curiously disarming smile, she thought, on so rugged though handsome a face.

  ‘My dear love,’ he said, ‘I do apologize.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Not mentioning how very beautiful you looked. It was worth going away just to come back and find such a smart conscientious young wife waiting for me. And I do like the dress. Very becoming. You hardly need this.’ He took a small box from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Still, the colour will match.’

  She stared at the gift and after unwrapping it lifted the lid. Inside lay a gold brooch studded with emeralds and diamonds in the shape of a bird.

  For a moment Kate was speechless. Then following a little gulp of surprise, she said, ‘Oh, darling, it’s lovely – lovely.’

  She held it against her breast with the wild rich colour flooding her face. He took it gently from her hand and placed it on the table.

  ‘I love you Kate,’ he said, pulling her to him.

  She almost replied, ‘And I love you’, but did not; she was too bewildered, almost bemused wishing for the first time that no such person as Jon Wentworth existed and that she had never met him.

  Rick gave a little sigh – not merely because of her omission but because he had other things on his mind. His visit to London had not merely been for the American amalgamation, but of a political nature. For months, even years, in the background of his mind had festered an ambition not just for his own business advancement or acquiring an immense fortune, but in some way for being a voice in the foundation of a new party at Westminster – one concerned with those less fortunate than himself. Being a man of the world and also intrinsically at heart an adventurer with a shrewd insight into human nature, he was aware of the injustices concealed by a veneer of ‘caring’ at Westminster. Liberalism and Conservatism both had axes to grind. Maybe all the men with an aptitude and ambition for governing others had. He was sufficiently honest with himself to accept the truth that after his father’s death in Rick’s twenty-first year, his ambition had been to double the rich fortune left to his only son. His drive and energy, shrewd business calculations had more than fulfilled the aim. But success once achieved had also left a gap. It was at this point that he’d turned his interests to other matters and the injustices of social life. Through personal investigations and tours of poor life in cities, including Tiger Bay in Cardiff, and London’s impoverished East End, he’d been shocked that human life could exist and breed in such degradation. He was not by nature a philanthropist. He enjoyed his own wealth and was no fanatic willing to squander any on hopeless causes. But a voice in the House? – ah! that was a different matter. He possessed a certain power at oratory that could well serve his inherent Welsh dramatic ability and prove useful in furthering fairer justice for the poor and the deprived.

  So at the point of his meeting Kate major developing aims in his mind had been the new newspaper plans and the wild possibility of getting to Westminster and eventually with luck and his usual fire, sowing the seeds there of a new party.

  Kate had momentarily allayed such zest to a minimum. Though his experience of women was considerable, he had never before been so completely swept off his feet, or wanted any of the feminine beauties languishing after him to be a wife.

  But that first moment at the dance he had known.

  She was the one.

  More than that.

  She was the only one he’d want as future mother of his children. So it had to be marriage, and he’d determined in some way he’d manage in time to wipe her wild schoolgirlish heart free of any faint sentimental yearnings for that golden boy the Hon. Jon.

  So far he realized he’d half succeeded but there was a lingering faint shadow still there.

  Hence the brooch that had cost him many thousands, and he knew when he saw the light in her eyes, the sudden joy of gratitude and passionate welcome, that he was on the right track.

  A challenge lay ahead of him, combining his own male existence with a satisfactory love life ending any doubts at all that his wife was his completely.

  No regrets or shadows from the past.

  No Jon.

  4

  The heady sweet-scented days of spring were followed by a warm summer during which Rick made considerable effort to keep Kate contented and as satisfied as possible in her limited existence due to approaching motherhood. It was not an easy period for either of them. With Rick’s enthusiasm for his new business projects still occupying much of his mind, the effort of dealing with his wife’s ever-changing moods frequently chafed and caused an inner irritation which drove him to spending more than usual time at the stud or actively busying himself on the farm. After periods of physical activity in the open air he managed to put things into proportion and returned home ready to tackle Kate’s complaints and unpredictable bursts of quick temper with apparent equanimity.

  He thought frequently that if she had to cope with more household matters she would feel better and life would be more harmonious. But the housekeeper, Mrs Rook, whom he’d employed for years with a competent staff, made any efforts on Kate’s part in the running of the home quite superfluous. In any case, Kate was not naturally interested in everyday chores. Except for arranging flowers and other such ‘lady-like’ occupations, she was completely satisfied by her nominal status as Mistress of Woodgate and content to leave domestic matters for those employed to see things ran smoothly.

  Cassandra, on the other hand, had done her best at the beginning of her marriage to please Jon, and prove herself efficient in household management. But, with her humble background and no knowledge whatever of Wentworth standards and manner of living, Jon very quickly realized her shortcomings and insisted on employing a well-trained housekeeper with two other servants and a man, although at that period, finances were strained, and he could ill-afford the upkeep.

  His one hope was that Cassandra in time would be able to adjust better to her new role as wife – not only domestically, but in bed.

  For months he managed outwardly to stifle his disappointments – the tormenting irritations and frustrations of which Cassandra appeared completely unaware. Romantically and sentimentally she could reciprocate. But, good God, he thought frequently, surely she couldn’t be so completely ignorant of what a normal man needed and expected from a wife?

  Grudgingly, he had to admit to himself that she was very like her paintings – naive and dream-like, with a childish yet effective capacity for evading down-to-earth issues. It was as though something in her was forever ready to slip away, and escape before he had a chance to confront her with any material problem.

  In a sense this was true, though Jon had not the slightest idea of the reason. But Cassie knew; from the earliest days of her far-away childhood she had known, but had managed somehow to erase it from complete recognition – the terror that loomed in the past as a shadow, formless but indestructible – the ‘thing’ she could share with no one – not even Jon – especially Jon.

  So the days passed, frequently tense with expectan
cy for Kate, dream-like for Cassandra whose visits to the Tree Studio became more frequent causing an inner irritation to Jon who only managed with difficulty to curb outbursts of quick temper.

  Very occasionally he met Kate by chance, who by late August was wearing long capes to disguise her full figure, but Jon was not deceived.

  ‘Are you aiming to become a nun, Mrs Ferris?’ he asked pointedly once with a slight one-sided smile.

  Kate’s brows met crossly above her eyes.

  ‘Are you intending to be insolent, Mr Wentworth?’

  He gave a burst of laughter, then sobered quickly. ‘Of course not. It’s just that I’m getting used to the breed nowadays.’

  ‘What breed? What do you mean?’

  She hadn’t intended to argue, even discuss anything with him. It was amazing to discover he still had the power to touch her emotionally in any way.

  ‘Nuns,’ he stated flatly, suddenly cold and hard-looking. ‘It’s Cassie, you know. She has quite a yen for them. Have you seen her little hidey-hole recently?’

  ‘Not for some time. I don’t go far these days.’

  ‘Hm! Well, you’d be surprised, I can tell you. No longer flowers and trees and fairies just that one woman in her cloak and cowl do they call it? – staring by the pool – that old slate pool. In every possible pose you could think of – staring at the sky, or sitting on a rock dabbling her hand by the stream – sometimes with her arms out but always with a simpering kind of holier-than-thou expression on her face. It’s not natural, that’s what I say. I tell you, Kate, she’s imagining things. There aren’t any nuns around here, not now It’s just an obsession she’s got, from reading so many legends, and thinking she’s some kind of Lorelei or something – Cassie herself.’ He stopped talking and looked suddenly downcast, grim.

  Kate was nonplussed. ‘Oh dear. I’m sorry,’ she said lamely, and this, in one way, was true. It seemed incomprehensible almost that Jon of all people, who had seemed to have everything except wealth – family, looks, and sufficient glamour to stir any feminine heart, could become so downcast by a shy, quiet little thing like Cass.