“That would be telling. The child was born and your good friend, Lady Stevens, pretended it was hers. What a drama! But that does not concern me. What does is that my prim little harlot was posing as an innocent young girl.”
This was becoming more and more like a nightmare. I heard myself saying: “I was going to be married. He died…”
“Yes,” he said, “they always do. So inconsiderate of them. They might wait until after the ceremony before they die. It saves so much trouble.”
“I can see it is no use talking to you.”
“The time for talking is past. Let me fill your glass. Let us drink to the night. I am not sorry. You and I will have much to give each other, I am sure.”
“I shall give you hatred and contempt.”
“Well, that can be very interesting. How angry you are! And surprised, too. It has put a colour into your cheeks, like the roses with which you are so delicately scented. They come from Bulgaria where they are the very best. If I had time I would show you my laboratories. The late King and I shared an interest in them … only he was more interested in pills. We had many interests in common—perhaps the chief was the delights of love. He was a connoisseur, God rest him. But no more so than I, you will discover. You shiver. Is that meant to be with repulsion? I promise you, you shall shiver with delight.”
“I could never delight in you. You have done nothing but insult me from the time I saw you.”
“And in return you deceived me … at first that is. A naughty little girl, pregnant, and posing as an innocent child. Who would have believed it! You owe me something for that and for this”—he pointed to the scar—“and for the other which I shall show you. But come, eat. This is the finest venison, captured in my woods. And drink.”
“Anything at your table nauseates me.”
“I think you are dreading what is to come.”
“I should not be here were it not for my father.”
“You will discover that you have never had a lover such as you will have tonight.”
“It is a discovery I would rather not make.”
“I am making everything so easy for you, am I not? You have been bathed in scented water, anointed with perfumes. Do you like the musk? It has very special properties. It is said to touch the senses and arouse desire. Did you know that?”
“I did not and it certainly has no effect on me.”
“I told you I have my laboratory. Do you know what musk is? It comes from the musk deer. It is a glandular secretion. This deer is found in the mountains of India. It is a scent he carries most strongly during the rutting season and it is irresistible to the female deer. You see that it has these special properties. Of course, we do not use it in the crude form. Ladies are not female deer, are they? But they have the same desires and they can be aroused just as those of the deer can. There is a little pod which is inside the animal’s body. A little hole is made in the skin … just enough for a man’s finger. Thus the pod can be extracted. Don’t look so disgusted. It does no harm to the deer. He goes on living but he probably wonders why he finds it so hard to get a mate. Never mind. His musk is making a beautiful scent to lure some lady from the path of virtue.”
“It is revolting and so are you. I loathe the smell more than ever.”
“That’s what you tell me, but you don’t always tell the truth, do you? What a spectacular piece of acting, to play virgin when you were so clearly different from that. I am pleased with you though, naughty Priscilla. I think I like you better as the scheming woman than as the virgin. You are sly, of course, very sly. But you please me. I am getting impatient now. Come, drink some of this wine.”
I shook my head.
“It has aphrodisiac qualities … like the musk. If you are really not looking forward to the night, it might help you.”
I still shook my head.
“Drink it,” he said, and his manner had changed. “I say drink it. You are here to obey me. Is that not part of the bargain?”
I suddenly felt that it was no use caring any more what happened to me. I was here for a purpose and that must be carried out. There would be no one to rescue me this time and I could not ask to be rescued. I had to save my father.
I drank the wine. I had had nothing to eat and I felt a little dizzy. He was right. The wine would help me endure what had to come.
I heard him laugh softly.
“Come,” he said, “I am ready now.”
I stood up. I felt his hands on my cloak. It slid to the ground. He took off his cloak and stood before me. He touched the angry mark across his chest. “Inflicted by your protector,” he said. “You have to pay a good deal for that.” There was a savage note in his voice. I had to suppress a desire to turn and run. But he had picked me up and thrown me onto the bed.
Even now I cannot bear to think of that night. He was determined to make me pay in full for the thrashing Leigh had given him and for the fact that he, who prided himself on his knowledge of women, had been deceived into thinking a pregnant girl was an innocent virgin. This was what I was paying for, although the bait he offered me was my father’s life.
The man was amoral. He had no feeling for right or wrong. Again and again during that night he reminded me of my need to submit to his will—and every time I dared not disobey.
I tried to disengage myself, to be as one looking on at my other self partaking in these activities. I knew that he was trying to subdue my spirit as well as my body, and it irked him—while it aroused a certain admiration in him—that he could not. He was a strange man. Oddly enough, I trusted him to keep his part of the bargain, although from everything I knew of him, it seemed foolish to expect it. But I did. He was, as he had said, in some ways a man of refined tastes. His scented linen, his well-washed body bore this out. At least I did not have to endure an unwashed lecher. I felt bruised bodily and mentally, and all the time I was telling myself that it must soon pass.
When I saw the first streak of dawn in the sky, I knew my ordeal was coming to an end.
He made no attempt to stop my leaving. I wrapped myself in the cloak and pulled the bell rope. The woman whom I had seen when I arrived came into the room. She looked different without her false pieces of hair and her patches. But she was clean. I was sure that everyone near him must be that.
She took me without a word to the room where I had bathed. There were my clothes. I dressed and she led me out. The carriage was waiting and I was taken back to the inn.
I went straight to my mother’s room and with great relief saw that she was still sleeping. I prayed to God that she had not missed me during the night.
I took off my outdoor clothes and sat down. I shut my eyes. Images from the previous night kept crowding into my mind.
My father will come today, I told myself, and then it will all have been worthwhile.
Yes, it would. What was a night’s humiliation compared with a life, and my father’s life at that!
I thought about him. He was another strange man, a man who had known many women before he married my mother. I believed he had been faithful to her. Christabel was his daughter. He had admitted that. Perhaps he had other children here and there.
Thinking of my father stopped those images. I saw him instead of the handsome, lascivious face of Beaumont Granville which I was sure would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I thought then: I love my father. I love him dearly … perhaps more than I do my mother. Always I had wanted to impress him, to have him take notice of me, to look for me when he came home after an absence. He never had. He never would. I was only the daughter and sons were important to a man such as he was.
Then suddenly I was elated because when he came through the door I could say to myself: I saved you. I brought you home. The daughter you have never thought of much account was the one who saved your life.