Inheritance Feud

Chapter 51

Chapter 51

Samson grinned, and assented readily; any orders of Mor ven's were for him to obey, without question; he did not even ask if there would be trouble. This, as Theon already knew, seemed unlikely; if Clairette had so far forgotten her self as to come by stealth and lie waiting in the hay, in the dark of a moonless night, it was unlikely that even a magis trate would take a serious view of the offender; it was more likely that a private word of advice in the average parents' cars would guarantee a sound whipping for the young lady in the case, except that Kitty Bowes was as big a fool as her daughter. Theon left the matter, weary of Clairette and her unquenchable fires; except that he said a further word to Samson, perhaps attempting, by a kind of outward bravado

to quiet his own conscience, which troubled him. "A guinea for the maidenhead, my friend, and five guineas if you get her in calf. Agreed? Then you had better take my cloak. We are much of a height; practise casting it about you, and walking the way I do. You have till tomorrow; see that nothing happens to it, it's the warmest I have."

He did not trouble, next night, to ensure that Samson left at the time arranged. He knew that the mulatto, obedient as any janissary, would obey his orders to the letter, as far as it could be done. Theon knew, in his usual way, that dark had now fallen; he felt the warmth of lit candles on his cheek. He stretched out a hand to the peg where his cloak by custom hung, and stroked the bare wall, and smiled. The cloak had gone. He sat down by the fire, and waited till Sam son should return.

As the hours passed a strange sensation reached Theon; he told himself he knew nothing of regret, of pity. In the darkness which now encompassed him, that unalterable night into which he had been plunged after the fracas with the customs-officer, years back, it was as though he had come to terms with the darkness, had become in himself what darkness was. That he had engendered evil, that evil was by now, at this moment, through his agency being done, should mean nothing to him, he told himself, any more than his early treat ment of Hermione should have meant anything, except as a step towards the achievement of his goal. That Clairette's shame, her destruction possibly, might in turn destroy her brother, his name, his estate, had already occurred to Mor ven; coldly, he had made it part of the plan. Yet now, as at times in the lonely darkness, without Livia by him, he felt deceived; as though an agency greater in evil than anything he himself might contemplate, or invent, directed him; screened him from human feeling, so that the very urge to own Baron itself had been transformed into something grotesque, un mentionable. Theon moved where he sat; felt for the fire irons, found the long poker, and viciously jabbed at the dying ashes in the hearth. He must keep a fire for Samson when at last he came home; came home, with his tale to tell. Why should he himself, Theon Doon, sit here, almost regretting Clairette's ruin?

When Samson returned it was near morning; upstairs, Livia was asleep long ago. Theon had not gone up to her. The ashes still glowed with his long care of them; he raised his head, and forced a smile. "Well? Did you have her?" The mulatto, he sensed, had acquired a slight swagger, an air perhaps of social as well as physical satisfaction. He made an elaborate business of removing the wig and cloak. "I had her, as instructed. She was a virgin." "You altered that, I don't doubt. Is my cloak

back on its peg?" "The mantle of Elijah has been returned," said Samson unexpectedly; he had, in common with most malingerers in the Bay, been flogged to church on occasion by search-officers. They laughed together. "Or," Theon ventured, "Jacob's kid skins. You may borrow the cloak again tomorrow night, my friend; do you go back?" His smile mocked the other. It would depend on the dark of the moon, no doubt; otherwise, Miss Clairette might be duped for long enough. But Samson queried it.

"I will go again, perhaps; but she may not come." Without more words on the subject, he went and cut himself a man chet of bread, and bit into it cautiously with his teeth, which us usual pained him.

But Clairette did not return next night; she had been badly frightened. It was one thing to hold Mary Wollstonecraft's advanced theories; another to be the prey, out of pervading darkness, of the malefic, tearing force which had invaded and half destroyed her: to feel a hand over her mouth, and a foetid warm breath, like a dog's, against her cheek; and to have no further answer. She had left later in fear and be wildered pain; next day, she found she could neither stand nor walk without difficulty, and, evading Kitty's sharp eye and questioning, she stayed in bed, with some tale to her mother of delayed courses. These remained suspended: and as the days passed Clairette came to realise that the queasy, changed young person who was herself had something physically far wrong. In due course, pale, red-eyed and subdued, she came again to Theon. He turned his head coldly. "What is it?" he asked her. "Why are you here again?"

She burst into tears. "You frightened me," she sobbed. "That night in the shed-you were so unkind, so-so brutal. I think I'm pregnant, oh, oh, oh," and she collapsed into wail ing.

"Not by me," said Theon, and stood up from where he had been seated by the wall. He could sense, rather than know, of Clairette's mouth dropped witlessly open, as she stared at him from where she stood. He made himself be hard with her, of full intent; to be rid of her for all time was a less un thinkable alternative to having her with him always.

"It was Samson who got you pregnant," he told her. "The child however may not be black." He smiled, and reached for his staff, ready to take himself off. "It may be a quadroon, a little coffee-and-milk coloured creature, quite charming in fact; but, even so, my dear, will Godfrey be pleased?"

He had grasped his staff, and was feeling his way along the wall with it. He knew the Mains less well than Baron, and must go carefully. His concentration, however, was not so close as to prevent him from hearing Clairette's departure. She had begun to emit shrill cries of fear, horror and disgust; he heard her run away down the path that led to Baron.

Clairette went home and tried to kill herself. There was, lying in the garden-shed, a new substance Godfrey had had sent from Kew, made mainly of arsenic to prevent rats eating plants. Kitty and Hermione had returned from their evening stroll and were about to change for supper before they found Clairette: she was lying on the floor of her bedchamber vomiting blood, the empty container of chemical nearby. They sent for the physician, who when he could be found came and worked knowledgeably on Clairette, with milk possets, enemas, finally a rival mild emetic. In the end, when he had saved her, he made a certain examination. The facts, as he could later tell them to Kitty Bowes, should have remained veiled; but the poor woman had hysterics, the truth leaked out, and the girl's brother at least, by devious ways, heard it. Clairette had been with a man; but there had been more, much more, was evident also in course of the poor child's delirium, when she raved a good deal. At last, between renewed vomiting and purges, this time for a different reason, the embryo Samson had lodged in her was voided, which was the best anyone could do for her. Clairette after all was alive, and, though it was probable she would be affected mentally, no longer preg mant. She was removed shortly, and Kitty accompanied her meantime, for a prolonged stay at Maddon, to help Cecily with the children.

Godfrey grieved for his young half-sister, whom almost lone among everyone, he had loved. Love to him was a well pring in himself, abundant, to be given freely. He never fully ecovered from the episode of Clairette's disgrace; weakened and discouraged to an extent which only those who believe that the mind has an influence on the body can understand, he withdrew into himself, growing steadily less accessible after Clairette had left Malvic. The pain in his chest recurred more often; but he still took no action against Theon Doon, or demanded that he should find other living-quarters, though Hermione constantly urged that this should be done.

Fear had come to Baron; it ate and slept with them. Anna bel herself felt it, aware that, no matter what must follow as a result, she herself could do nothing to avert the triumph of fear. By night she would feel fear choke her, like a miasma from the nearby sea; after an hour or two of sleepless tossing on her bed, she would get up and go to the casement, and open it and feel the night wind blow her hair, the stone of the sill strike her flesh, as she had once done long ago when Theon stood below her window, at Mains, ready to come up. She had no lover now; her flesh was hungry, thin and dry with desire; at times she would writhe uselessly against the stone. At other times she would go back to bed and try to sleep, and wake screaming that he pressed upon her. And always the sea sounded, sounded in her ears, as it had done when both she and Theon had been born; both she and Theon.

VI

GODFREY's health improved with the clear, cold weather they had that spring, and by the end of April he was again able to be lifted into his calèche and to drive it about the grounds a little, to see to his gardens.

It was his pride to have Sybilla with him, now that the child had learned to master her second pony; when she was a toddling thing she had used to sit by him in the carriage, pretending to guide the reins; now she rode alongside him. He was, however, compelled to go too slowly for a spirited young rider on her mount, and lately had encouraged Sybilla and Hermione to ride out together, gallop to stretch the ponies' legs along the bridle paths in the planted forest, and return later, when if it was fine enough they would all three break

fast al fresco on food out of a hamper Godfrey brought, packed by the kitchens. This year, he was anxious to see his larches.

The slopes where they now grew had always been roughly wooded, with thorns and other wild low-growing trees swept always by the off-shore wind, so that they grew with a list to landward. Godfrey had had windbreaks planted, quick-grow ing fir and poplar; then five years ago had set, on the cleared dug land, the new light-green conifers from Scandinavia, scarcely known anywhere in Scotland as yet. Their pale feathery appearance was, he understood, very beautiful, the red trunks contrasting with the springlike foliage. By now they should be at their best.