Charles was appalled. He argued vehemently, and pleaded with her to change her mind, but in vain. At length, as she remained adamant, he said :
'Since you have now revealed to me that you crave physical love, why should we not get married this coming Spring?'
She shook her auburn curls. 'I would like to, but I am convinced that we should rue it later.' 'Why so?'
'Because, Charles, you are still too young. I will now admit that the thought of your embracing Harriet with some frequency and then that older woman, pained me sorely, but I had good reason to conceal my feelings. Among other things your mother told me was that a wedding night can prove an unpleasant experience for the bride if she be still a virgin and, should the husband be a virgin too, the night may prove a disaster for them both. On the other hand, the more experienced the man, the sooner he will bring his bride to reciprocate his pleasure. You can as yet be only an amateur at this game, and must learn much from going to bed with a variety of women. I am resigned to that, and prepared to wait.'
'You are wrong about me, Susan. Harriet had had half a dozen lovers before me, so taught me much. And with Maria Wessex I did it no fewer than five times in a night. She complimented me upon having become as able a gallant as any woman could desire. That is proof that I've had experience enough. Now will you many me?'
Again Susan shook her head. 'No, for there is another reason why I will not. I have always accounted fools girls who marry at sixteen or seventeen. By burdening themselves with the cares of a household and bearing children when so young, they deprive themselves of what should be some of the most pleasant years of their lives. Fve long decided that nineteen, or eighteen at the earliest, is the age at which a girl should many. I intend to enjoy at least one more London season free of all responsibility.'
Charles thoughtfully stroked his black side whiskers for a few moments. He had never allowed himself to take a liberty with Susan; but, now she had suddenly disclosed to him that her flesh and blood were just as warm as his own, he looked at her with new eyes. A trifle hesitantly he said:
'I'll agree there's sense in what you say about not saddling yourself for another year or two with the duties of a wife. But now that you have told me you feel an urge to take a lover, can we not come to a new arrangement? I would gladly give up the Hell Fire Club and vow absolute fidelity to you if you, for your part, would make me that most fortunate of men.'
She smiled at him. 'I've oft thought on that, and what bliss I would experience in your arms. But, alas, dear Charles, it cannot be. For one thing I could not bring myself to deceive your dear mother by having a hole-in-the-corner affair with you. For another it would spoil for us the joyous anticipation of becoming man and wife and of your possessing me for the first time as your bride. 'Tis better by far that you should get out of your system the craving I am convinced you have for some woman with whom you intend to sleep tonight, then amuse yourself with others for the next year or two. And that, while you are doing so, I should follow my own inclinations.'
He scowled. 'God dam'me! The thought of you being possessed by some other man would drive me crazy.'
'Charles, you are being foolish and making a mountain out of a molehill. Surely you must realise that love and passion are two entirely different things? The fact that you have become irresistibly attracted to some other woman does not mean that you love me, in the true meaning of the word, any the less. And, should I give myself to another man, that will not lessen in the least my enduring love for you. For both of us it will mean no more than the enjoyment of a delicious fruit, or the joy of outriding, a companion whom one believed to be better mounted than oneself—a most pleasurable experience at the time, but forgotten in a week.'
Reluctantly he nodded. ' 'Tis an argument difficult to refute. I'll admit that since Harriet left us to marry, I have hardly given her a thought.'
‘It will prove so, too, with your present infatuation and with other women whose bodies attract you for a while. Such physical contacts are of no real moment in one's life. What matters is the unity of minds, and that we have. The years we have spent together have forged between us an indestructible bond. 'Tis that, not casual fornication, that constitutes true love.'
He continued to frown. 'About the difference between love and passion you are unquestionably right. You are right, too, in maintaining that physically a girl of breeding must be subject to the same urges as a low-born wench. But, for the most part, the latter give themselves while still unmarried, either from lack of principles instilled when young, or to escape from poverty. You can plead neither excuse and, I repeat, the thought of you playing the wanton is positive torture to me.'
Susan shrugged. 'Do I decide to do so, you will have brought it on yourself. About you sowing your wild oats I make no complaint; but for you to have become a slave to some other woman—that I will not tolerate.'
'Dam'me! There is no other woman!'
Trove it then by not leaving the house tonight.'
For a long moment Charles considered, then he said, 'No. This meeting is of great importance to me. Should I not attend it, I'd forfeit my membership of the club.'
'Go to it then, or rather her. And in future I'll do as I list. Now leave me, for I am overlate in beginning to make my toilette.’
'As you wish. But should I hear your name coupled with that of a gallant, I'll call him out and kill him.' Pale with anger, Charles turned away.
4
The New Hell Fire Club
Susan's revelation about her maturity gave Charles good cause for feeling both miserable and apprehensive. The Duke of Kew was his mother's fifth husband, and he had learnt from Harriet that, apart from her life-long affair with Roger his mother had taken many other lovers during the long periods Roger had been out of England. So, with his passionate half-gipsy blood on one side and that from the Merry Monarch on the other, he had accepted it as natural that his thoughts turned frequently to satisfying his amorous inclinations.
That auburn-haired Susan shared his disquieting cravings had never occurred to him. But thinking it over, he recalled what pretty Harriet had told him about Roger and his mother. She had a gift for painting and owned a studio out on the hill above Kensington village; but she used it also as a petite maison in which to spend nights of love-making with Roger. Both of them trusted Harriet and never bothered to stop talking when she was within earshot. Several times she had heard snatches of conversation when Roger was gaily describing affairs he had had while on the Continent. Harriet had concluded from this that he was 'the very devil with the women'. Should that be so, it could well account for his daughter Susan also being hot-blooded.
It was now clear to Charles beyond all doubt that he and Susan shared the same outlook about uninhibited immorality; but, while he had never questioned his own inclinations, he found it hard to reconcile himself to her giving free rein to hers. Even so, since she refused to marry him for at least a year, or become his mistress, he saw that he had no option but to accept her declaration that 'what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander'. No other course being open to him, he decided that he could only pray that she would not, after all, allow one of her beaux to seduce her; and, hard as it might be, do his utmost to put such a possibility out of his mind by keeping it occupied with his own diversions.
He had not lied to her when he had declared that he had not become temporarily bewitched by some other woman, and that it was a meeting of the re-created Hell Fire Club to which he was going that night.
For several generations past the occult had provided one of the principal interests of a large part of high society, in all the capitals of Europe. Such men as the Comte de St. German—who asserted that he possessed the secret of the Elixir of Life—Cagliostro and Casanova, had all intrigued many royalties and wealthy members of the nobility by holding seances and performing mystical rites. Where trickery ended and the application of unrecognised scientific laws began, no-one could say but, shortly before the French Revolution, Dr. Anton Mesmer had undoubtedly effected many cures by means of his magic tub.