Goldcrest

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

She had drawn away from him, in disgust; he was coarse, she thought, and lewd; the low company he affected had altered him from what he had once been. She would tell him again to go, and "Shall I solace it?" he whispered, drawing nearer. "Shall I rouse it to life again, my dear, your little tail?"

Still laughing, he pulled her to him; and on the gasp of out rage she had given at the words he used, he kissed her; her mouth was open, and he put his tongue in it, and held her thus for moments; she could feel his laughter.

She had struggled against him, striking out until he pinioned her hands, easily in one of his own; then he began to handle her with the other. Her senses reeled, and she grew dizzy; this couldn't be real, it was a dream; an evil dream, Si Kasparian couldn't be here with her, his fingers thrusting down inside her bodice, his mouth on her mouth. He knew, had always known, how to rouse her, where to touch; he did so now, at the same time talking, talking always, against her imprisoned mouth.

"Do you remember how I came below your window, then climbed up, and into your little bed . . . a virgin, a chaste little maiden nun, you were . . . but not by the time I'd done... do you remember how you would leap, and cling afterwards, and not want me to go? Do you remember, Madam Gentility, eh? Do you, do you?"

And he caressed and teased her; and presently her thighs, her knees, had become like melting wax, and he would have drawn her then into the privacy of the trees, and she could not prevent him, no, she could no more prevent him from any thing than the moon from rising ...

"Ah..."

And the shameful flood, the hot unbidden surge of desire, welled in her as it had used to do, and the thing was as it had used to be

Then she tore herself away and raised the arm which held so that the blood ran down Si Kasparian's face. She must have been screaming, although she had not heard herself make any sound. 

She was aware, at some time, of an answering shout in the distance, and at the same moment the tension in all her body eased and she turned and ran, one hand still clenched over the whip, and saw Godfrey in his chair, coming down the path to where they were, so that he must have heard and seen her strike and strike at a blind man, her small silver-handled riding-whip, and slashed and slashed who couldn't defend himself. What had come over her? What had she become?

She reached Godfrey. He had stopped the calèche, and was at the reins still, staring down to where Si Kasparian stood. Anna bel flung her arms about him; in the terror Si Kasparian had aroused in her, it seemed as if he could do them both harm, as if they were here unprotected together. But Si Kasparian was blind.

He came then. He began to walk towards where they were, without his staff which he had left lying by the tree. The whip had cut four weals across his face and the blood had welled up in these and now ran down, disfiguring his cheeks and chin and staining his clothing. The light, blind eyes were fixed on Godfrey; he must have heard the latter call out.

"Are you there, Devenham?" they heard him say as he came. "Are you there, eunuch, protector of other men's women? Do you know, my usurper, that she-" and he pointed at Tessa, again as though he could see her, for her breaths were loud and rasping now with the horrified sobbing that would soon overcome, and she clung to Godfrey as if in fear that Si Kasparian would strike. "Do you know that she was my bedfellow, Devenham, in the days when you were collect ing shells on the shore together? That was a pretty spectacle, I declare; but the nights were mine. I climbed up to her win dow, as you could not."

"Stop, stop," screamed Tessa, "can't you see-" Then the impossibility of what she had said, had tried to say, in such a situation overcame her, and she gave way to crazed laughter. Si Kasparian was blind, blind. She'd asked a blind man if he could see. She'd slashed a blind man till the blood ran down his face. She'd

Then she saw Godfrey; and her laughter died. He had half risen from his place, in a way he had not been able to do for years. The effort had caused his whole body to quiver, as though at any moment it would collapse, in igno miny, back again in the upholstered seat. His face was the colour of tallow, the brow glistening with sweat; below it, the eyes were glazed like a calf's which is dying. He surveyed the blind man. When they came, his words were mild.

"Will you go from here?" was all he said. Si Kasparian laughed, and his teeth showed white through the drying blood. "Go? Oh, ay," he said, "but I'll return. Maybe your lady wife " he gave the word vicious emphasis-"will remember more kindly, another time, how she gave me earlier welcome; it was warmer than your own has ever been. Do you suppose you moon-calf, that she would ever have married you save for Malvie? Malvie's ours, Doon heritage, for no interloper. Sybilla-"

"No!" Sybilla's mother screamed then. She heard her screams echoing down the forest paths, at the top of which, surely, a small girl on a pony must be riding soon, riding now. The child mustn't hear this, mustn't see. But above all God frey must be prevented from hearing, from knowing the truth, the brutal, undeniable truth about Sybilla. If her own scream could invade his hearing and prevent other entry, she would scream on deliberately till her throat was dry...