Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 42

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“All I could desire!” she said.

“You! Do you think I forget how you treated me the night my mother went away!”

“You forget all I have given you. Was not that very dress you are wearing a present from me? You kissed me for it; it was cheap, was it not? Such a dress, and all for a kiss.”

“I wish I had never had it.”

He was trembling now. She was no longer a child he saw that, and he could have wept for it. He was losing her as surely as he had lost Bess and Kitty. Why did he always lose? He had tried so hard … first with one, then with the others.

“What happened in the summerhouse? Tell me that!” His voice was calmer now. He hoped he sounded like a father, anxious for his daughter.

“Everard asked me to marry him. and I said I would.”

“You… marry him! My dear child, he is going to marry Margaret.”

“How can that be, and he know nothing of it!”

“It has been arranged between our families for a long time.”

“He will not. He loves me.”

“Listen, Carrie, God knows I am fond of you … Carrie, you have no doubt of that, have you?”

She was silent.

“Carrie …” He began to move slowly towards her, but as she edged away he stopped.

“If you were, could you have behaved as you did tonight?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said, ‘for that very reason. I thought he had taken you out there … You know what I thought and you no more than a child! I was angry with him and angry with you. I have been a father to you, Carrie. Do you not appreciate that?”

She wished he would not talk as though he were weeping. She wanted to be angry with him, and she could not.

“A father to you, Carrie,” he went on.

“Anxious for you, wanting the best for you. I do not think he would offer marriage; indeed I do not see how he can. It is known, my dear, that you are not my daughter; none knows who your father is. Your mother deceived me. It would not be well for a parson to marry you, Carrie. And he is all but affianced to Margaret.”

“Nothing will stand in our way,” said Carolan.

The squire murmured: “We must be calm, Carrie. We must talk of this. I must see Parson Orland. Dammed, I do not know; I do not know, I am sure.”

She was smiling now. This was nothing, this scene. The squire had been drinking too much, that was all. It was just a display of his violent temper.

He was rocking backwards and forwards on his heels.

“You can be sure, Carrie, of one thing. I shall do what I can for your happiness.”

He was looking at her pleadingly, but she was in no mood to forgive him. His horrible words still rang in her ears, spoiling the heavenly moonlight of the summerhouse. Her hands still tingled from the blows she had given him.

“Look here, Carrie, I lost my temper. Dammed, it is not the first time you have seen me lose my temper.”

She was laughing. She was not really the sort to nurse an injury. She would always be essentially generous, too generous perhaps.

“No,” she said with a charming gravity, “it is not the first time.”

“And will not be the last, I’ll warrant!” He slapped his thigh; one should not take his words seriously he was just a coarse old man.

“I suppose not.”

Then I am forgiven?” he asked, and thought, God damn it, is this Squire Haredon, asking a woman to forgive him?

“Then we are friends again?”

He looked so old, standing there, that she had not the heart to tell him she had never looked on him as a friend.

“Oh, yes,” she said, ‘friends. But never say such wicked things about Everard again.”

“Then come and kiss me just to show we are friends.”

She hesitated. How she hated these embraces! The roughness of his gestures, the feel of him, the smell of him repulsive.

“Come on, Carrie! I tell you I am going to help you. And, mind you, this is not going to be an easy matter with the Orlands.”

She went to him slowly, and lifted her face to brush his cheek with her lips, but he caught her suddenly in a grip that was like a vice about her slender body, and he kissed her full on the mouth; and even then he would not release her. She could feel his hot face against her own, smell spirits on his breath, hear his heavy breathing.

She tried to wriggle free, but he held her fast, laughing. She struck out then, for a panic had seized her.

“Put me down!” she said in a voice of ice.

“Put me down at once!”

He put her down; he was laughing thickly, and his voice seemed drugged and slurring.

“God damn it, Carrie, you have a temper. I could almost believe you are my daughter after all!”

He went out, and she ran to the door, leaning against it, listening to his footsteps as he went downstairs. He was thinking: Why not? She is no daughter of mine there is no relationship. Carrie, Carrie, little Carrie … lovelier than any of them.

And he knew then that he had never wanted her as a daughter, but as a woman.

Carolan was going away. Not openly but secretly. No one knew; not Margaret, nor the squire most definitely not the squire -not Mrs. West nor Mrs. Orland, nor even Everard … yet. But Everard would know, for of course she would tell Everard.

Who would have believed that such glorious happiness as she had known momentarily in the summerhouse should so quickly become tinged with grey! Everard’s love for her, she told herself, was like the sun shining on a grey day. It was there; obscured temporarily. For Everard had gone away; for three months he had gone away. ‘ How could he! How could he! she demanded of herself when he had told her. Would I have gone away?

Everard had said: “Always remember, Carolan, I love you. I shall come back for you. Whatever they say, I shall marry you, but just at present I must do what my parents wish. After all Carolan, what is three months?”

Three months, Carolan could have told him, is an eternity when you love. But when he said “What is three months?” just as though to him it could be no more than a matter of so many days and nights, he had wounded her deeply. And he had given in to his parents.

She would have been all for a midnight flitting, elopement, a speedy marriage anyhow, anywhere.

“My sweet Carolan!” he had said.

“You are hasty, but you are a child. What do you know of the world? I would have us begin our new Me together in a seemly fashion.”

And she stamped her foot and laughed and cried.

“Seemly! Is love to be a seemly matter then?”

To us, Carolan, yes; for love is marriage, and that is indeed a sacred thing.”

There she stood before him, her lips parted, her eyes ablaze. And he turned from her because there was something pagan in her that touched something pagan in him. and a man who has given his life to the church cannot be a pagan.

But the first great blazing glory had departed even before that. It was when the squire had come to her room no, it was not, for what did she care for the squire! It was when Margaret came and stood at the foot of her bed, her face ashen, her fingers plucking at the blue silk of her gown.

“So!” said Margaret slowly.

“You have taken Everard!” And then Carolan had known that she was indeed a child, for she had not understood that Margaret’s seeming indifference meant that her love for Everard was greater than it had ever been before.

Margaret had burst out passionately: “How could you! How could you, Carolan! It was my ball; it was to have been the night of my betrothal. And you took him, and you went out and everyone noticed you had gone, and when you came in… people said “Poor Margaret!”

Poor Margaret indeed, for what could Carolan do now to help her? What could she ever have done, loving Everard? For was it not for Everard to decide?

Now here was misery. They were all against her Margaret, Mrs. Orland, Mr. Orland not the squire. He watched her with a queer brooding smile on his lips, and she began to be frightened of the squire.

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