We fell on her—my mother and I; we stripped off her sodden clothes; she was limp and raving with fever. We got her to bed; the doctors came. She was very ill and for weeks we were not sure whether she would live. I wouldn’t leave the Dower House until I was sure that she was going to recover.
I had lots of time for thought when I used to sit by her bed while my mother rested, for my mother would not allow her to be left for one hour of the day or night. While I longed for her to get better I used to dread the moment when she would open her eyes, look at me and remember.
For the first time in my life I despised myself. Always before I had been able to make excuses for my conduct. I found that difficult now. I knew how she had felt about Matt Pilkington. Dear Little Damaris, she was so innocent and obvious. Damaris is in love, I thought. I could just imagine her romantic fantasies—so far removed from reality.
When I sat by her bed I used to imagine myself explaining to her, trying to make her see how events had led up to that scene in the bedroom.
I would never make her understand my nature, which was different from hers as two natures could be.
“Damaris,” I imagined myself saying to her, “I am a passionate woman. There are instincts in my nature which demand to be satisfied. An impulse comes to me at certain times in certain company and when it comes it is beyond my control. I am not alone in this. You are fortunate, Damaris, because you will always be able to control your emotions; in any case you would never have these intense desires—animal desires, perhaps you would call them. They are like that. It is like a fire that suddenly is there and it has to be quenched. No, you would not understand. I am learning more and more about myself, Damaris. There will always be lovers for me. Marriage doesn’t alter that. I have met men who are as I am … Beau was one; there was a Jacobite who kidnapped me, he was another. And Matt, yes, Matt too, but there was another reason with Matt.”
I should never explain to Damaris and if I tried she would never understand.
I thought back to the moment when I had arrived at the Dower House. I was coming down to the hall and there was Damaris with him. For the moment I thought he was Beau … It was the clothes, I suppose, really, and there was that faint musk scent he used. He told me later that he kept his linen in musk-scented trunks.
So for that moment I thought he was Beau.
We stared at each other. He said afterwards: “I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t think you were real. I had never seen anyone so beautiful.”
I had received many compliments, but I never tired of them.
I realised as I came closer to him that it was a fleeting resemblance, something about the style of the dress and scent of musk. There is nothing like scent to bring back memories. At any rate from the first moment we were interested in each other.
It became clear to me during the first evening that he was becoming infatuated. There was something innocent about him which made him different from the men I had known. Beau and Hessenfield were adventurers, buccaneers, the sort of men who roused me more than any others. Benjie was the good dependable type, the perfect husband for a good woman. Alas, I was not that. But Matt Pilkington was different. He was capable of passion, no doubt about that, but as yet he was innocent—inexperienced. I could never outwit Beau or Hessenfield; and the game of trying to was completely fascinating to me. That was why I missed them so bitterly. I could guide Matt Pilkington; I could command him; he was completely mine, I knew, whenever I wished it.
I enjoyed his admiration—adoration, more likely. I would never tire of homage to my beauty. So we went riding. Damaris came out when we were about to leave. Matt asked her to join us and I couldn’t help laughing at his relief when she declined. Poor Damaris, I thought, she imagines herself in love with him. She’s a child really. It is calf love. A good experience for her, though.
We rode out together; we stopped at an inn for a tankard of ale and some hot fresh baked rye bread and a piece of cold bacon.
All the time his feeling for me was growing. When he helped me mount he was loathe to let me go and I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the brow. That seemed to fire both of us. Memories of Beau came sweeping over me. I had thought I had forgotten them with Hessenfield. He had taught me so much about myself. But it seemed I had not forgotten Beau, for whenever I went to Enderby I remembered our meetings there.
I had firmly fixed in my mind the idea that there was a resemblance between Matt and Beau and I wanted to prove to myself that I had forgotten Beau even if I could not forget Hessenfield.
We rode on for a while and then I suggested we tether the horses and sit by the stream. We did.
I wanted him to hold me, but I was not sure how far I wanted this to go. I did love Benjie in a way but my feeling for him was different from that I had had for Beau and Hessenfield. Benjie was gentle, tender and a good husband. But he did not satisfy my craving for that wild adventurous passion which men like Beau and Hessenfield could give me.
I had not been unfaithful to Benjie … yet. I now realised that was because there had been no incentive to be. Suddenly, desperately, I wanted Matt Pilkington to be my lover. My reasons were mixed. I needed the wild illicit adventure which I had had from Beau and Hessenfield. I wanted to be dominated, I suppose. Beau had laughed at my innocence and been determined to deflower it; Hessenfield had made it clear that I had no choice. Situations, I suppose, which would have horrified a person like my good little sister, Damaris, but which titillated me.
We sat side by side on the grass. I put my hand over his and said to him: “It’s strange, but when I first saw you I thought I had met you before … just for a moment when you stood in the hall.”
“I could not believe you were real,” he said.
“I saw your mother once … some time ago. I can’t remember much about her now … except that she was beautiful and elegant and she had masses of red hair.”
“She’s very proud of her hair. I’ll tell her you thought her beautiful and elegant. That will please her.”
“I hope she wasn’t upset because I decided not to sell Enderby.”
“I think she understood. She has Grasslands now and is very satisfied with that. It’s a brighter house than Enderby.”
“Did you ever see Enderby?”
“I came to look at it when my mother thought she might buy it. She had the key and took me over.”
A flash of understanding came to me. Of course. I had smelt the musk perfume there. It was strong stuff and lingered on after whoever was wearing it had gone. And the button which I had thought was Beau’s … it was Matt’s of course. I had been certain that button was Beau’s. But of course buttons were obviously duplicated, even when they were as valuable as the one which I had found.
It was a mystery cleared up. I almost told him that it was because he had been to Enderby and I had thought he was someone else—a ghost from the past—that I had decided not to sell the house.
But there was time for that later.
I was exerting myself to draw him to me. Although he did not really look so much like Beau, and his character was very different, I kept having flashes of memory when I was with him, and Beau seemed nearer to me than he had for a long time.
And as I sat there beside him I knew that I could let myself believe that Beau had come back. I wanted to test myself, to ask myself whether I still wanted Beau. During those few wildly exciting days I had spent in Hessenfield’s company I had forgotten Beau. I wanted to forget him; I wanted to forget Hessenfield. It sounds hypocritical, really, to say I wanted to be a good wife to Benjie while I was at the same time contemplating breaking my marriage vows.