Part 14 (1/2)
”I certainly did not think that ... but our guests ...”
”You must grow up. You must not be a silly little Linnet twittering in her cage and thinking that comprises the world. Some of us are made in a certain way and so must it be. I never fancied going lonely to bed.”
”So it was jealousy that made her ...”
”I don't know. She will doubtless have another lover now. What matters it? I grow tired of this.”
”I want to know about your wife, Colum.”
”Not now,” he said firmly.
But later I returned to the subject. The christening guests were gone and we were together in the nursery. We had dismissed the nurse so that we were alone with the child who lay in his cradle while Colum rocked it. The child watched his father all the time. It was an affecting scene to see this big man gently rocking the cradle and I was overcome with a deep emotion. I should have been completely happy, but for one thing. I knew he had had mistresses. That was to be expected, but I could not forget his first wife. I wanted to know something of that marriage, whether he had cared for her, how desolate had he been when she died. Why was he so reluctant to talk of her, or was he? Did he just feel an impatience to go back over something that was over.
”Colum,” I said, ”I think I ought to know something about your previous marriage.”
He stopped rocking the cradle to stare at me, and I went on quickly: ”It is disconcerting when people speak of it and I know nothing, and I suppose now we shall be entertaining more. To make a mystery of it ...”
”It is no mystery,” he said. ”I married, she died and that was the end of it. There was no mystery.”
”How ... long were you married.”
”It must have been some three years.”
”That is not very long.”
He made an impatient movement with his shoulders but the hand on the cradle remained gentle.
”What of it?” he said.
”And then she died. How did she die, Colum?”
”In childbed.”
”I see, and the child with her?”
He nodded.
I felt sorry for him then. I thought of all the anguish he would have suffered. He had so wanted a boy and she had died and the child with her.
I was silent and he said: ”Well, is the interrogation over?”
”I'm sorry, Colum, but I felt I should know. It seemed so strange to hear of such a thing about one's husband through others.”
”It is over and done. There is no need to think of it.”
”Can something like that ... a part of one's life ... be dismissed like that?”
His brows shot up and he looked angry. ”It's over, I tell you. That's an end to it.”
I should have stopped but I couldn't. I had to know.
”You must think of her, Colum, sometimes.”
”No,” he said firmly.
”But it was such a part of your life.”
He released his hold on the cradle and stood up. He came towards me. I thought he was going to strike me. Instead he took me by the shoulders and shook me, but not harshly.
”I am content with what I have now,” he said. ”I have a wife who pleases me, who can give and take pleasure. It was not so before. Moreover she has given me this boy. I could regret nothing that has brought me to this. Listen, wife, I am content, and if I were not I would tell you so. I would have nothing ... nothing otherwise. Let it be.”
I lay against him and felt the tears in my eyes. I knew he would hate to see them, so I broke away and went to the cradle and knelt down looking at my son.
Colum came and stood on the other side of the cradle looking at us both. There was exultation in my heart then. What did it matter that he had married before, that he had been Lady Alice's lover? He was not a man to suppress his desire and it would always be fierce. Again I thought of my father. These were the two men in my life whom I truly loved. Odd, that they should have been two of a kind. But they suited women like myself and my mother. We needed such men-and it was comforting to realize that they needed women like us.
I knew instinctively that his first wife had been too meek, that he had never cared for her as he had for me. He had told me that and I could not help feeling gratified.
But there was more to come.
It came from Jennet. She was the sort of woman who could be taken from one place and planted with the greatest ease in another, like some plant that yearns so much to grow that it will flourish in any soil. In the short time she had been at Castle Paling she had not only acquired a lover but had struck up friends.h.i.+ps with other servants and behaved as though she had lived at the castle all her life.
She was warm-hearted, generous in all things, not only her favours, and there was something endearing about her in spite of a certain incompetence. My mother was often impatient with her. I think in her heart she never forgave her for betraying her with my father. After all, it must have been a strain to have one's husband's b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the house and his mother too. It was the same with Romilly. My mother was an extraordinary woman. I wondered what I would feel like if Colum brought his mistresses into the house with their offspring. However to get back to Jennet, she it was who brought this shattering knowledge into my life.
She was now Connell's nurse. After all, I trusted her more than I did anyone else; I knew too of her love for children. She was inclined to spoil the boy of course but I suppose we all were.
There she was clucking over him one day and chattering away to him and she said: ”I reckon your father thinks the world of you, my little man. Oh, he does and all. And that's clear to see. And you know it. Yes, you do.”
I smiled at them and I thought of her as a young woman when Jacko had been born and how she must have loved him.
Then she said: ”Boys! They always want boys. The Captain was the same. Show him a boy and he was that pleased. Nothing too good for his boys. It's the same with this master. It must have been a terrible disappointment to him ...”
”What, Jennet?”
”Well, when he couldn't get one with that first wife of his. Well, 'twasn't for want of trying. Time after time he were disappointed.”
”You seem to know a great deal about the master's affairs,” I said.
”'Tis common talk in the kitchens, Mistress.”
”What do they say down there, Jennet?”
”Oh, that she was a poor sick creature and the master wasn't with her as he is with you.”
”They're impertinent,” I said, but I couldn't quite suppress the glow of triumph.
Jennet did not notice the reproof and I was glad. I thought: I may find out through Jennet and the servants more than I can from Colum. It was only natural that I should feel a great curiosity about my predecessor and I could see no harm in doing a little innocent ferreting.