Inheritance Feud

Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Yes, Livia heard it all; and set herself still more tasks to avoid thinking about that other baby. It would be loved and cherished, that was certain, the small bundle of flesh that was both Theon's and Hermione's; good fathers had been found for both Theon's children. "Oh, my lad, my lad," she thought sometimes, "do you ever think of it at all, and do you know it's only a little lass you'll never see, after all your grand planning?" But where he was now it wouldn't make any difference, although she might have known, knowing Theon, he would surely mean to come home at the end of the seven years. But she'd hardly noticed their passing, and one day when a new-gilded carriage drew up in the yard, for the grooms to tighten one of the horses' girths that had worked loose, so that the inmates would not be alighting, she'd seen Mrs. Anna bel; her hair high-dressed and her pretty face rouged a trifle, under her small French hat; and by her a little fair-haired creature who was Theon Doon's daughter. They hadn't seen her where she stood looking at them from the door, and she'd gone away, and instead seen to the linen.

"Do you care to play cards this evening, Mama Bowes?" Kitty smiled, pleased at her daughter-in-law's attentions; she was never, she thought, made to feel in the way at Baron, the dear, beautiful little creature had an eye to her every con venience and comfort, her least wish. Should she play with them? She put her too-bright head on one side for instants, like some gaudy foreign bird, considering. She had herself taken pleasure, after the marriage, in teaching Godfrey's de lightful, adaptable bride the intricacies of whist and faro, the latest refinements of vingt-et-un, from which Hermione had, with her strictly cloistered upbringing, of course, been as far removed as a nun. It would be a pleasure now to watch her pretty fingers deal and select the cards, while the two heads, Godfrey's and her own, stayed close. How charming, how suitable, to see their devotion to one another! And if she herself had helped, in only the minutest fashion, at the begin ning, although it had made Hermione so angry... but there, Kitty told herself, it had made her, the grandmother, perhaps responsible for Sybilla's very existence. And the child bright ened all their lives now that poor Godfrey "I do not wish to play, Mama," said Clairette.

The toneless words recalled Kitty; she downed annoyance at the disturbing of her dream. Her youngest child was often a problem, ungracious, even ungrateful; after all, Godfrey gave her a good home. But unmarried young women were notoriously difficult, and it had proved, with Clairette's plain ness, poor dear, so far, impossible to attract an offer for her. Kitty smiled, revealing a flash of porcelain teeth, and gal lantly laid her hand on Clairette's arm.

"Why, then, we will take a little turn instead in the garden, as it's stayed fine," she said. "Will you perhaps accompany us, Hermione?"

"No, I shall play chess instead with Godfrey, if he'd like it." Godfrey brightened; Kitty smiled on, and bade Clairette go and fetch the small boxwood table, to avoid tiring her sister-in-law, and the chessmen, before they set out. Clairette obeyed unwillingly; why was Hermione so much like a doll, seated there on her sofa with her skirts outspread, that she couldn't get up and fetch her own game? There was nothing the matter with her. Everyone always deferred to her because she was pretty, and the mistress of the house, supposed to be delicate; but why? It was seven years, or very nearly, since Sybilla's birth. Hermione could ride and walk when she felt like it. Clairette set the chess-things out roughly, so that the bevelled legs of the small table dragged the Persian rug, leaving a fold.

After they had gone Hermione helped Godfrey set out the spiked ivory chessmen. They were so deeply and meticulously carved, and seemed so fragile, that it might have been thought that a careless touch might snap the haft of a pawn's spear, or the elaborate raised device on the turban of a king. But they had survived centuries, and would survive Godfrey and herself. Hermione moved a pawn languidly, smiling at the man she had married. She had become used to be surrounded with exquisite, priceless things. She herself had become one of them.

Her fingers moved the pieces in the game, at intervals of watching Godfrey's clumsy movements assemble the red against her white; he knew what he was doing with them, but no longer had the power of control over his finger-muscles, and sometimes knocked a piece over. She let him pick it up from where it had fallen sideways on the board, herself sil ently retrieving, from time to time, the pieces which rolled on to the floor. Godfrey, she knew, preferred to do as much as

possible for himself, and that she should not help him. Pres ently he raised his head and smiled at her. "Did you want to play tonight, Hermione? Mama arranged

it, I believe; or perhaps Clairette did so." "I always like to play with you," she told him. "I still learn moves from you; you are a better player than I."

She smiled steadily, and moved a pawn; it was a routine move, which would keep her, now the others had gone, from having to give too much thought to the moves, or to keep up appearances before Kitty and Clairette. Godfrey, she knew, felt as she did; always kindly and welcoming to his mother and younger sister, he was able, as she was, to relax when they were no longer present. It was possible, also, for Hermione, play ing this age-old, leisurely game, to be able to give way a little to the inner turmoil which had been with her, rigidly sup pressed by day, since the news had come of the imminent re turn of Theon, brought by Paul Melrose the other after noon. Of course one had always assumed that Theon would stay abroad, at the end of his sentence, as so many transported men did; what had he to come home for? It would have been better if he had stayed out there, and had left them at Baron to live their chosen lives, which had grown, she hoped, over the years, happy and contented.

"Your move, Hermione." She started; he had been waiting, she realised, for some

time. She must be more careful; she hadn't even seen him make the move, and so many things, like the possible return of Theon, if permitted, could interfere with the bright, inflexible way she'd adhered, over the years, to her own promise to her self, which was that at all times, in every least way she could, she must make Godfrey happy; must let nothing interfere with the promotion of his happiness.

Had she made him so? If Theon should come home She moved, and watched the puffy, transparent hand reach out with difficulty, and capture her white knight. Godfrey was the kind of subtle, far-sighted player who, moving in from understated beginnings, swept the board in the end time and again; she herself could not have ventured to suggest how he'd taken the knight so soon. She was stupid, she knew. "That was quick," she smiled at him. "You will win tonight as usual; I despair of myself."

"You could win at times if you would think what you were doing. Is it the news of Theon that still troubles you, my dear?"

"I-yes." He thought of Theon, she knew, as the blind man she'd made him go to, that time of the birth, with the news of it as he lay in prison. That they had been cousins and had spent their childhood together, so that she must be fond of Theon, would be enough explanation for Godfrey of that. Now she prepared to go on playing such a part; he mustn't see, must never suspect, how her heart thudded now beneath its high waisted bodice, and the colour crept up in her face beneath its rouge. "It hardly seems real," she heard herself say calmly. "Yet, knowing how fond he was of it here, he might have been expected, I daresay, to come back again; though I had hoped he would perhaps settle in Australia. If only he need cause no further trouble!" And her hand, her steady delicate white hand small as a child's, moved over the board and edged its remaining knight near Godfrey's queen, but the latter was hedged about with red soldiers.

Godfrey had stopped smiling, or even thinking of her or of the game. His face was pensive, and she knew that he was giving to the problem of Theon both the pity he accorded any offender-men didn't, as he repeatedly told her, become criminals in most cases unless through poverty, intolerable conditions, or despair-and with the experience he had ac quired when, in the early years of their marriage, it had still been possible for him to be carried to quarter-sessions, to act as justice of the peace. He had become much respected and loved for his handling of these matters, more often than not helping the men and their families, she knew, afterwards from his own pocket. But he had not been able to prevent sentences such as Theon's from being carried out, although it was probable that his influence had helped withdrawal of the death-sentence. The fact of his confirmed responsibility dis pleased Hermione, fiercely resolved to be guardian of her in valid husband's happiness. Theon, if he came home, should have no part or lot with them here, he must not be invited to Baron. No doubt, as he was blind, he would be content enough with some obscure existence, perhaps in Aaron's cot tage, although that was still too near.

She shuddered. It wasn't possible, she found, to picture Theon as blind. Would he feel the gratitude he undoubtedly owed to Godfrey and Sir Sander for preserving his life? She herself doubted it; he had never been grateful for anything, even from the days of her own father's affection for him, which had surpassed any Philip Doon might have felt for her self. The disinherited heir of Baron had taken all that should have been hers except that: childhood, love, honour, virginity,

peace of mind, health. Why should she think further of him? But she could not prevent herself, she knew; and also knew that at night she'd lie awake again, thinking of Theon.

Godfrey had won the game of chess. He asked if she want ed a return match, and she nodded; they set out the pieces, and halfway through Mrs. Bowes and her daughter came into view again, leisurely walking up the approach to the long windows, along a stone terrace flanked by urns in which Godfrey grew rare hanging plants. Kitty was talking vivaciously, with Clair ette's plain long-nosed face giving no sign of having listened, or enjoyed the chatter. Poor Kitty was another, Hermione was thinking, who maintained appearances; who hadn't lowered the flag even that one time, years ago now, when Hermione herself had been deeply angry with her. Kitty had never dared act so again; as it was, she'd done harm to Godfrey, and he had been ill afterwards and had not completely recovered.

Hermione's cheeks flamed. Even after all this time, it was degrading to think of; an embarrassment to herself, and as for Godfrey... but, at least, he hadn't fully understood what had happened. It had given, moreover, some credence to the fact, accepted everywhere now, that he could have fathered Sybilla; and with the birth coming late.