“Then you would come with me…no matter what hardship you had to endure?”
“Yes,” I said, “I would come with you.”
He embraced me then. His lips warm with passion were on my own.
“You would love me, obey me and bear me children?”
“Gladly,” I cried.
“Did you not always know that I was the one for you?”
“Always, but I did not think you cared for me.”
“You thought it was Kate,” he said. “Foolish Damask.”
“Yes, I thought it was Kate. She is so brilliant, so beautiful…and I….”
“You are my chosen one,” he said.
“I feel as though I have stepped into a dream.”
“A happy dream, Damask?”
“Happy,” I replied, “as I never thought to be again.”
“Then we will plight our troth here…in this chapel where years ago they found me. That is fitting. That is what I wish. Damask, consider. A life of hardship. Can you face it…for love?”
“Gladly,” I replied earnestly. “And I rejoice that you have nothing to offer me. I want to show you how much I love you.”
Again he touched my face gently. “You please me, Damask,” he said. “Oh, how you please me. Here on this altar we will make our vows. Damask, swear to love me, and I will swear to cherish you.”
“I swear,” I said.
We left the chapel and came out into the night air. We crossed the patch of grass where we were wont to sit when we were children.
“This is our wedding night,” he said.
“But there has been no marriage ceremony.”
“When you plighted your troth to me in the chapel we were as one.”
“Bruno,” I said, “you were always different from everyone else. That is why I have always loved you, but if we are to be married I shall have to tell my mother. There will be a ceremony….”
“That will be for later. You belong to me now. You trust me. You believe in me. It must be so or you would not be my chosen one or I yours. You have said you love me enough to give up everything—a life of easy comfort, yet you do not know what hardship is. Are you sure, Damask? It is not yet too late.”
“I am sure. I will cook for you, work for you….”
“And believe in me,” he added.
“I will be everything you wish,” I promised. “I shall be happier with you in a cottage than in a castle.”
“It must be so. You must trust me, believe in me, work with me and for me.”
“So shall I, with all my heart.”
“This is our wedding night,” he said again.
I understood his meaning and drew back. I was a virgin. I had been brought up to believe that this was a state which should not be surrendered until marriage—but this was marriage, he had said, and I must not expect life with Bruno to be as it would with other men.
“You are thinking that I plan to seduce you and leave you?” he said sadly. “So you doubt me after all.”
“No.”
“But you do. You hesitate. I thought you were brave. I believed you when you said you trusted me. Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps you should go back to the house…. Perhaps we should say good-bye.”
He kissed me then with a passion I had not dreamed of.
I said: “Bruno, you are different tonight. What has happened?”
“Tonight I am your lover,” he replied.
“And I am ignorant of love…this kind of love. I will do anything you ask of me, but….”
“Love has many facets. It is like the diamond in the Madonna’s crown. Do you remember it, Damask? It shone with a pale light and a fiery light—it was red, blue, yellow…all the colors of the spectrum…. But it was the same diamond.”
As he spoke his hands moved over my body and I was never more aware of the strange nature of the fascination he had for me. I was conscious of his power over me but I was not sure whether my feelings for him were love as others had experienced it. It was not what I felt for Rupert or my father. Nor was his love for me like Rupert’s. I sensed in Bruno a need to subdue me and in myself an urgent desire to be subdued.
I could believe in that moment that he was different from all other men. Perhaps every girl feels this of her lover. I did not mean merely that he possessed all the perfections. I felt in that moment that there was some godlike quality about him and that no matter what the consequences I must obey him.
My will dissolved I was willing and eager to cast aside everything that I had been taught, to throw aside my respect of that chastity which must be surrendered only to my husband. But Bruno was my husband.
I had convinced myself. Bruno knew it. I heard his low laugh of triumph.
“Oh, Damask,” I heard him say. “You are the one for me. You love me, do you not…utterly, completely…so that you are ready to give up all for me?”
I heard myself answer: “Yes, Bruno. I do.”
And that was my wedding night; there on our bed of bracken we were as one.
Nothing, I knew, could ever be the same again; and even in these moments of passion I could not rid myself of the thought that I was taking part in some sacrificial ceremony.
It was early morning when I crept into the house, bemused and disheveled. We had walked back to the house together, our arms about each other, and Bruno had stood waving until I disappeared inside.
I was in a state of exultation and wonderment after my experience and I could think of nothing else. Life had become a glorious adventure. I had reached a peak of happiness and for the time I did not want to look back or look forward; I wanted to remain poised as though on my mountaintop, to savor all that had happened, to remember our whispered words, our need of each other, to recall the moments of perfect union.
Bruno seemed to me like a god. That sense of power which had always been apparent was magnified.
There is no one like him in the whole world, I thought. And he loves me. I am his and he is mine forever.
I had come across the hall and as I was about to mount the stairs I was aware of a movement. A figure appeared. I was looking up at Simon Caseman. In the dim light his face looked chalky; the fox’s mask stood out clearly, his eyes were narrowed.
“So,” he said quietly but venomously, “you creep out at night like other sluts.” His hand darted forward and I thought he was going to strike me, but he had plucked a leaf from my sleeve. “You could have chosen a more comfortable bed,” he added.
I attempted to walk past him but he barred my way.
“I am your guardian, your stepfather. I want an explanation of this wanton behavior.”
“What if I don’t propose to give it?”
“Do you think I shall allow this? Do you think you can deceive me? You betray yourself. I know what has happened. Nothing was ever more clear to me.”
“It is my own affair.”
“And do you expect me to feed and clothe your bastards when they come along?”
I was suddenly so angry that I brought up a hand to strike him. He caught my arm before I could do so and he brought his face close to mine. “You slut!” he cried. “You….”
“Do you wish to wake the household?”
“It would be good to do so that they might know what sort you are. Whore! Doxy! Any man’s for the asking!”
“I proved I was not that to you.”
“By God,” he said, “I will teach you….”
I could see the lust in his eyes and it frightened me.
“If you do not release me,” I said, “I shall awaken the whole household. It would be well for my mother to know the kind of man she has married.”
“A man who is doing his duty by her daughter?” he asked, but I could see that I had alarmed him. He knew my sharp tongue and he feared it.