“No. I think I understand.”
“You. With your dead husband to whom you remain faithful forever! You couldn’t begin to understand. I am no prude. I will not pretend. I like men … as Carleton likes women. He taught me to cast aside all scruples so I did. He knew, of course. I think it pleased him. He rather encouraged me in my affairs, although he was a little shocked by the groom. He took me to London and introduced me to people of what was considered a more worthy station of life to share my bed. I have had scores of lovers since. Why am I telling you this?”
“Tell me by all means if you find some relief in doing so.”
“Yes, I do find relief. I want to talk to you … you of all people. For several reasons. One because at the moment you have set up a shrine to your dead husband and are going to spend the rest of your days worshipping that shrine like a vestal virgin. Not quite a vestal though … since you are the mother of young Edwin. And this is what makes the situation what it is.” She laughed suddenly. “It won’t last, you know. You’ll break out one day and then … and then …”
I said: “I have decided that I have no wish to marry again, if that is what you mean.”
“Don’t be too sure. I know there are eyes watching you.” She lowered her voice and involuntarily I looked over my shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, “You are chosen for a destiny. I know it. Someone has his eyes on you … but there are obstacles … living obstacles.”
“You are talking in riddles.”
“Easy ones to solve. Do you know what Eversleigh means to Carleton?”
“A great deal I am sure.”
“A great deal! That’s putting it mildly. It means everything to him. Poor Carleton, he has been cheated twice. Once as a ten-year-old when his uncle, the present Lord, most inconsiderately sired a son—your own beloved husband. In a confiding mood Carleton once told me what that had meant to him. ‘I was only ten,’ he said: ‘but I can remember my baffled fury now. I had been brought up at this house. My uncle taught me everything. He was always saying … or if he didn’t say it he implied it: “One day this will be yours.” I learned about the estate. When I rode out it was as though trumpets sounded and voices were singing, “It’s yours. It’s yours.”’”
“Did he really feel as strongly as that? He was only ten years old!”
“Carleton was never childish. He always knew what he wanted, and he had been led to believe Eversleigh was his. Well, he suppressed his anger and, loving Eversleigh, tried to make his cousin worthy of his inheritance. He told me how he made him sit his horse, hold his arrow, shoot his guns. Making a man of him, he called it. He said Edwin was too soft to manage Eversleigh. He would never have made a good job of it.”
“That was nonsense. Sheer jealousy.”
“As his loyal widow it would seem so to you. Carleton was determined to hold Eversleigh after the King was beheaded. As you know he stayed behind when so many were fleeing the country. He risked his life for Eversleigh. Then Edwin came and was killed and he was the heir again. I remember him then—the quiet confidence … the assurance.”
“It sounds as though he rejoiced in his cousin’s death.”
“He had never had a high opinion of him. I think it seemed to him that fate had decided to watch over Eversleigh by giving it a strong master.”
“This does not endear me to him.”
“I think he has plans for you.”
“Plans?”
“He is attracted to you in some way. He is easily attracted to women.”
“He had better begin to look elsewhere.”
“You would seem different to him.”
“The simple girl up from the country—” I said. She was talking to me as Harriet had done, patronizingly, faintly amused by my unworldliness. Well, if I was unworldly at least I had found more happiness than either she or Harriet. I had lost my husband, it was true, but I had my dear little son to comfort me.
“Oh, more than that,” she went on seriously. “You have a strong will. He would like that. You have turned against him. He would like that too. He never wanted easy conquests.”
“You had better tell him that this is one citadel which will remain unconquered.”
“That would only increase his ardour.”
“Ardour! An odd word to use.”
“He would like to offer you marriage. He sees that as the perfect solution. If you married him he would be your son’s guardian and the care and management of Eversleigh would remain in his hands, as it does now. At this time Lord Eversleigh leaves everything in his hands. He managed the estate during the difficult years, so it is only natural that he should go on doing so now. There is one impediment. He is already married to me.”
“I am thankful to say it is an unsurmountable one.”
“If I were to die …”
“You … die. You are young.”
“Look at me.”
“You are at the moment suffering from a minor indisposition. You will soon recover from that.”
She lay back and said nothing.
I went on: “This is a strange conversation. Tell me what you fancy to eat and I will have it sent to you.”
“Yes,” she said, “a strange conversation, but I am glad we have had it. I think you ought to know …”
There was a dreamy look in her eyes and I wondered whether she was in a fever. Fevers filled the mind with odd fancies.
I went to the bed and touched her hand. It was quite cold.
“Perhaps a little soup and a capon to follow. I will go and see about it.”
Her eyes followed me to the door. I heard her whisper: “Take care, Arabella. Take care of yourself … and your son.”
I went downstairs feeling very uneasy.
The next day Barbary was very much better, and seemed to revert to her old character, which was one of cynical sophistication. I wondered whether she regretted her confidence, for she seemed to avoid me and a few days after that she left for London.
Sally Nullens shook her head over her and was unaccustomedly confidential.
“I’ve always felt rather sorry for Mistress Barbary,” she said. “She was flung into this when she was nothing more than a child, and I don’t think Master Carleton did anything much to help her.”
I felt my lips tighten. I couldn’t forget what Barbary had suggested about his thinking of marrying me if he could find some way of removing her. The second marriage of convenience, I thought. Not for me, Master Carleton. I couldn’t help feeling a satisfaction that he was for the second time cheated of what he wanted “more than anything.”
At the same time I found the prospect a little sinister. “He is a man who won’t rest until he’s got what he wants.”
“She never took care of herself,” went on Sally. “Master Carleton always said so. A serious illness, he said, and she’d snuff out like a candle.”
“He said that?”
“Oh, yes, more than once.”
“But she is young and strong and I believe leads a very active life in London.”