For the first time since her marriage Corinna was frightened.
Before long the other women began to drop hints. There were sly malicious little suggestions passed in the supper-table talk or when they came to call in the afternoons. A nudge and a glance would indicate the way her Grace leant over Lord Carlton as he sat at the gaming-table, her face almost touching his, one breast pressing his shoulder. Lady Southesk and Mrs. Middleton invited her to visit the Duchess with them one morning—and she met Bruce just coming out.
But Corinna refused to think what they so obviously wanted her to think. She told herself that surely she had enough sophistication to realize that idle people often liked to cause trouble among those they found happier and more content than themselves. And she wanted passionately to keep her belief in Bruce and in all that he meant to her. She was determined that her marriage should not be shaken because one woman was infatuated with her husband and others wished to destroy her faith in him. Corinna was not yet acquainted with Whitehall, for that took time, like accustoming oneself, after sunlight, to a darkened room.
But in spite of herself she found a mean resentful feeling of jealousy growing within her against the Duchess of Ravenspur. When she saw her look at Bruce or talk to him, sit across from him at the card-table, dance with him, or merely tap him on the shoulder with her fan as she went by, Corinna felt suddenly sick inside and cold with nervous apprehension.
At last she admitted it to herself; she hated that woman. And she was ashamed of herself for hating her.
And yet she did not know what she could do to stop the progress of what she feared was rapidly becoming an affair, in the London sense of the word. Bruce was no boy to be ordered around, forbidden to come home late or warned to stop ogling some pretty woman. Certainly there had been nothing so far in his behaviour which was real cause for suspicion. The morning she had met him leaving the Duchess’s apartments he had been perfectly cool and casual, not in the least embarrassed to be found there. He was as attentive and devoted to her as he had ever been, and she believed that she had a reasonably accurate idea as to where he spent his time when they were apart.
I must be wrong! she told herself. I’ve never lived in a palace or a great city before and I suppose I’m suspecting all sorts of things that aren’t true. But if only it were any other woman—I don’t think I’d feel the way I do.
To compensate in her heart for the suspicions she held against him, Corinna was more gay and charming than ever. She was so afraid that he would notice something different in her manner and guess at its cause. What would he think of her then—to know how mean she could be, how petty and jealous? And if she was wrong—as she persistently told herself she must be—it would be Bruce who would lose faith in her. Their marriage had seemed to her complete and perfect; she was terrified lest something happen through her own fault to spoil it.
Because of the Duchess she had come to dislike London—though it had been the dream of her life to revisit it someday—and she wished that they might leave immediately. She had begun to wonder if her Grace was the reason why he had suggested staying in London during her pregnancy—instead of going to Paris. That was why she did not dare suggest herself that they cross over to France to spend the time with his sister. Suppose he should guess her reason? For how could she explain such a wish when he had said it was for her own safety and both of them were so desperately anxious to have this child? (Their son had died the year before, not three months old, in the small-pox epidemic which was raging through Virginia.)
With some impatience and scorn she chided herself for her cowardice. I’m his wife—and he loves me. If this woman is anything to him at all she can be only an infatuation. It’s nothing that will last. I’ll still be living with him when he’s forgot he ever knew her.
One night, to her complete surprise, he inquired in a pleasant conversational tone: “Hasn’t his Majesty asked you for an assignation?” They had just come from the Palace and were alone now, undressing.
Corinna glanced at him, astonished. “Why—what made you say that?”
“What? It’s obvious he admires you, isn’t it?”
“He’s been very kind to me—but you’re his friend. Surely you wouldn’t expect a man to cuckold his friend?”
Bruce smiled. “My dear, a man is commonly cuckolded first by his friend. The reason’s simple enough—it’s the friend who has the best opportunity.”
Corinna stared at him. “Bruce,” she said softly. At the tone of her voice he turned, just as he was pulling his shirt off, and looked at her. “How strangely you talk sometimes. Do you know how that sounded—so cruel, and callous?”
He flung the shirt aside and went to her, taking her into his arms. Tenderly he smiled. “I’m sorry, my darling. But there are so many things about me you don’t know—so many years I lived before I knew you that I can never share with you. I was grown up and had watched my father die and seen my country ruined and fought in the army before you were ever born. When you were six months old I was sailing with Rupert’s privateers. Oh, I know—you think all that doesn’t make any difference to us now. But it does. You were brought up in a different world from mine. We’re not what we look like from the outside.”
“But you’re not like them, Bruce!” she protested. “You’re not like these men here at Court!”
“Oh, I haven’t got their superficial tricks. I don’t paint my eyebrows or comb my wig in public or play with ladies’ fans. But—Well, to tell the truth the age is a little sick, and all of us who live in it have caught the sickness too.”
“But surely I live in it?”
“No, you don’t!” He released her. “You’re no part of this shabby world. And thank God you’re not!”
“Thank God? But why? Don’t you like these people? I thought they were your friends. I’ve wished I could be more like them —the ladies, I mean.” Now she was thinking of the Duchess of Ravenspur.
His mouth gave a bitter twist at that. “Corinna, my darling, where can you have got such a foolish idea? Don’t ever dare think of it again. Oh, Corinna, you can’t know how glad I am that I saw you that day in Port Royal—”
Suddenly her fears and jealousies were gone. A great and wonderful sense of relief swept through her, washing out the hatred, the poison of mistrust that had been festering there.
“Are you glad, darling? Oh, I remember it so well!”
“So do I. You were on your way to church. And you were wearing a black-lace gown with a black veil over your hair and roses pinned in it. I thought you were Spanish.”
“And my father thought you were a buccaneer!” She threw back her head and laughed joyously, safe back there in those happy days when no slant-eyed minx with the title of “duchess” had existed to try to take him from her. “He was going to send you a challenge!”
“No wonder. I must have been a disreputable looking fellow. I hadn’t got ashore half-an-hour before. Remember—I followed you into church—”
“And stared at me all through the service! Oh, how furious father was! But I didn’t care—I was in love with you already!”
“Dirty clothes, five-day beard, and all?”
“Dirty clothes, five-day beard, and all! But when you came to call that night—oh, Bruce, you can’t imagine how you looked to me! Like all the princes out of every fairy-tale I’ve ever read!”