Inheritance Feud

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

She said what was in her mind, as was her custom. "Mor ven, as you don't want to tell her of it, shall I?" She spoke half timidly, expecting him to be angry with her; but, instead, he turned and smiled, with the swift loving curve of the thin lips and half-closed eyes, and sliding of the fingers over her arms and waist, approving her. The waist she knew had grown thick; she was clumsier than she'd been when he first saw her,but he still liked her. That was well seen, and Livia lived by it; if there ever came a time when he couldn't be with her, could never or would never come to her again.

"I knew you'd offer to do it," he told her triumphantly, about Hermione. "She hasn't a mother, poor child; she knows little of such things. It'd be a kindness in you, Livia. Will you tell her for me tomorrow?"

It was somewhat late that last morning when Livia appeared as usual with Hermione's chocolate; she herself was beginning to feel heavy and sluggish in the early hours and it was, accordingly, an increased effort to rise and do all she had to do; but the fires got lit. She had been wondering lately, from Mrs. Betts' silences, whether or not the cook suspected her state; there had never been great confidence between them, they minded one another's business and got on with the work, but it showed that, one way or the other, her ow time at Mains was coming to an end. Two days from now, she'd be across the channel with Theon; he'd spoken again yesterday of the cottage they were to have on Man, a little place with thick whitewashed walls, set high by itself in the jagged rocks above the sea. It'd be queer to look across and see the shore here, instead of the other way round; and get used to the foreign talk of the Frenchmen, and their lawless ways. They'd be like man and wife there, herself and Theon, he'd pro mised her; she should have a silk dress and lace on her shifts, and a pair of slippers with high heels, and the Lord knew what else. She doubted if it was all true, but some of it might be, if only they were once safely away.

Hermione's face showed wan today against the pillow and she turned away at the sight of the silver chocolate-pot. "I don't want any," she said, and averted her eyes; there were shadows beneath them and her colour was not what it had been. The sooner this is done with the better, Livia thought, quailing at the task she'd been set; and putting down the tray by the bedside she settled the curtains, to keep her hands steady, and said, not looking at the girl in the bed,

"You know what it means, Miss Hermione, don't you, this not taking the chocolate, and sickness in the mornings, and other things? You haven't had a monthly, have you, lately? You haven't, I know."

Hermione flushed scarlet; one didn't correctly speak of such

things. The figure of Livia was somehow like doom, tall, implacable, standing by the curtain in her spotless cap and gathered apron. It was true she herself had wondered-and not dared to ask. Theon and she were married. It was what happened to married people. When it did happen, Theon would arrange something, tell somebody. They hadn't dis cussed it, on the nights he came; one had to keep silence because of the nearness of aunt Galadriel, and the nights had passed and dawns had come in loving, loving.

"You should not ask," she said primly. The primness in furiated Livia and she stamped her foot. "Don't you know, you little fool? You're going to have a

baby, his baby. And so am I."

And she bunched aside her apron, and showed clearly for Hermione in this moment saw many things clear-the bulk of Theon's child, lying well forwards inside her. For instants they stayed as they were, the two young women, staring at one another, neither saying anything. Then Hermione said, pale

as death now, through dry lips, "Tell me." And then on the next breath, pitifully, "It isn't true."

She could not have listened; Livia did not expect her to do so. She herself tried to explain, drily and factually, the situa tion as regarded Theon; the words fell on dead ears. It might have been a little wax doll, sitting rigid in the bed, making pretence to listen. In the end Livia told Hermione all of it; that she wasn't Theon's proper wife, there had been no witnesses to a handfasting; that she must marry Godfrey quickly, if she wanted to save herself and the baby. "He won't marry you; he won't take you where we're going, me and him together, till my child's born. It isn't that he wants from you; it's Baron. That's a thing I could never give him; he had to have you, a Doon, to get it back. Get it for him, and for his son, now, the only way; marry the Englishman, let him think this child's his. You can do it, if you do it quickly."

She was leaning across the bed now, in her earnestness to be understood; if only the poor child heeded her! "Listen, Miss Hermione, it's the road for you, I doubt not, if your aunt finds out what's been going on at nights in this bed," she said. "How many young ladies-" she used the word with un familiar bitterness-"find good husbands once they've had a by-blow to some man? It's happened otherwise, my dear, and if you heed me, and I'm your friend, you'll do as we've said, and go and marry Mr. Godfrey, who'd give his eyes to be your slave." And she remembered, in that instant, Godfrey's eyes and wished she hadn't mentioned them; he wasn't, when all was said and done, a pretty bridegroom, though his heart was in the right place and they said he had a scholar's mind. He could, maybe, make Miss Hermione happy in the end; no one else could, not Theon, not now, even if things were different. For it was like turning a knife in a baby's heart to watch the poor little face contort. "Lord, what have I said?" thought Livia. "What has Theon done? Between us, we've betrayed her." It hadn't been so easy, given other things, to think sooner of the full effect on Hermione of their plans with one another.

But Hermione by now had grown withdrawn and cold, and cast her eyelids down as, in future, she would do all her life when matters grew too close to reality and beyond her con trol. She had reverted, without knowing it, to the state of mind drilled into her from childhood; one didn't discuss cer tain matters with servants; they should know their place. "Leave me now, please," she said icily, "and take away

the tray, Mary, and close the door." When Livia had gone she rose, staggered to her ewer and tried to be sick, but nothing came. Then she went and dressed herself.

Hermione could not afterwards remember going to put on her bonnet and cloak. She must have done so, because pre sently she found herself going, with small quiet steps, across the garden of Mains towards the gate that led out to the lane. She could recall seeing the late marigolds in the beds, and that their petals were beginning to fall and brightly litter the neat flagged path. Betts hadn't swept them yet. Nor was there any sign of aunt Galadriel. She hadn't been feeling well lately, and slept late. She'd been taking something, Hermione knew, to make her sleep. Perhaps that was why she hadn't ever wakened, when . . .

She herself mustn't think of Theon again. She didn't even look over at the yew-arbour where, a lifetime ago now, a young girl had sat with her embroidery and had listened to a whistle from the hill. She mustn't meet Livia Mary again either, moving about no doubt already on her morning's tasks as if nothing had happened, wearing her apron that covered everything ... she must never see Livia any more. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, the pair would be gone together; that took them out of her own life, and from now on this must be different. She was another person, finished with Mains, with the obedient, innocent fool she'd been. She would make it now so that, even if she desired to return to that former existence, it couldn't be done; she would alter completely. She knew what she had to do; and still and cold, only her limbs obeying her mind's direction, she emerged on to the high road and presently entered the gate of Baron.

Godfrey was sitting where she'd known he would be, in the garden. He had a physician lately who said he must eat out of doors whenever possible, and he was having breakfast. A table had been laid with a white cloth and silver and glass, and a coffee-pot steamed there; he smiled with delight at see ing her, and gestured to the servant to go away, and handed her into the place by the coffee-service and asked her to pour. "I hadn't started yet," he said shyly. He was wearing his straw hat, against the coming day's sun. Mrs. Bowes and Clairette must be over, as they often were now, at Maddon. She was glad to find Godfrey alone. It wouldn't have been easy for Hermione, as she had once been, to say what she had come to say. But the new, cold person within her now framed the words with ease.

"I came early because I have something to say, Godfrey," she told him, and poured the coffee steadily. The fragrant brown stream emerged into delicate fluted cups, fine as egg shells; how much luxury there would be here! "I have decided -"she handed him his coffee-"to accept your offer of mar riage, if-if you still want me for your wife."