An indication of my feelings towards him was revealed to me in the early morning when I lay awake watching the dawn slowly filter through the silken curtains which shut us in.
He was awake also.
He said: “I arranged it, you know.”
“You arranged what?” I asked.
“I was determined to have you when I saw you in the inn. How well guarded you were! By God, your mother is a tigress of a woman. She would have fought to the death for you. I knew I had to plan and could do nothing that night.”
“Go on,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I knew where you were going. Trystan Priory. I know it well. The Landors’ place. You were staying for a week. Your maid told one of my servants that you were coming back that way.”
“You mean …”
“You begin to understand. They were my men who waylaid you on the road.”
“The robbers …”
“Just good servants. I was ready waiting to rescue you and bring you here … where the scene was set. It was not your purse we were after.”
“You are wicked,” I said.
“It is well that a wife should know her husband.”
“You deliberately arranged all that to take place … You caused us such anguish … myself … my mother …”
“Sometimes it is necessary to suffer to be happy. All came well in the end. See, you have a lusty husband and a fine home. He has already planted his seed within you. In six months’ time our son will be born. And there will be many more, I promise you. For I like what I have, wife. I liked you from the moment I saw you. I know when I want a woman.”
“There have doubtless been many.”
“Oh, many. But you were the one for my wife.”
“Why was that?”
“Well bred, worthy to be mother of my sons. A good family, a good dowry, for your father is a generous man and a rich one. You were suitable in every way. But I wouldn’t have had you if I hadn’t wanted you. I could find a rich wife without trouble, but I had to have one that pleased me too.”
“I should loathe you,” I said.
“And you don’t. I know that. You couldn’t pretend to me, although you tried. Why, even on that first night … I could feel your responses. You wanted me, my girl, although you were so helpless and ignorant. You knew it, did you not? Somewhere within your mind was the thought: He arranged it. He is that sort of man. He takes what he wants and there is no gainsaying him.”
I was silent. Had I suspected? I think perhaps I had. But the great discovery was not that he had arranged that this should happen, but that I should know it and be glad that he had.
The weeks which followed my arrival at Castle Paling were ones of discovery of myself and my nature. Strange as it seemed I was happy—not peacefully, quietly so, but because I was in a state of continual excitement. It could never have been thus with Fennimore Landor I knew full well.
My relationship with my husband was the dominating factor. I was completely fascinated by him. He was indeed the lord of the castle and everyone hastened to do his bidding. His anger could be terrible. I saw him strike servants with his riding whip if they displeased him; they trembled before him. When he was not in the castle an atmosphere of relief prevailed—it was a sort of respite, I supposed, from the need to be continually on the alert to please him. His loud voice could be heard echoing through those great chambers. He was indeed the master.
It was a wonderful experience to know that I was so important to him. I laughed to myself when I thought of his planning my seduction. He must have wanted me very fiercely to have gone to such lengths. He had made this obvious to me. He was delighted with me. I was an inexperienced girl but a passionate one and he found great pleasure in teaching me. There was no doubt that he was completely absorbed in our relationship and it did not occur to me to ask myself how long it would last, for I would not remain a pupil for ever and very soon I would begin to be less shapely.
He was delighted about the child and I could see that, like my father, he passionately wanted a son. My mother told me that her inability to give my father sons had been the cause of a great deal of trouble. She had once said that she believed that if she had given birth to a son my father would never have turned to Romilly and Penn would not have existed. Who knew?
Colum would talk about “our boy”, and I would beg him not to talk so constantly of a boy for it could well be a girl.
“Nay, nay,” he would say, feeling the faint protuberance of my body. “This little one is a boy. I know it.”
“And if it is a girl are you going to dislike her?”
“I’ll accept her. There’s time for boys. I know you will give me one.” He bit my ear rather sharply. “You wouldn’t dare do aught else.”
And he went on talking of our boy.
He would insist on my taking care. It was very important that I should produce a healthy boy. He wanted nothing to go wrong during my pregnancy. “A man can get lusty boys on serving wenches but by God, often the fates are against him when he wants a legitimate son. It must not be so with us,” he added, as though if it did it would be my fault.
That was how my father had been with my mother, I dare-swear, and she had longed to please her husband as I did mine.
The castle itself was a strange place to be in. There was so much to know about it. There were so many servants that I could not keep track of them.
The four towers with ramparts and battlements formed the main structure. In two of these towers, the Crows’ Tower which faced the land and Nonna’s Tower which faced the sea, we lived with our personal servants. I wondered about the other two. From the Seaward Tower—on a level with Nonna and which also looked out to sea, I had seen men and women coming and going. I supposed they were servants but I had rarely seen them working in that part of the castle where we lived. But the place was so vast that there would naturally be many servants and it would take a long time to get to know them all.
Sometimes I would go to the ramparts of Nonna’s Tower and look through the battlements to the sea. There the great black rocks known as the Devil’s Teeth could sometimes be seen, but only when the tide was out. They were a group of cruel, sharp-pointed rocks. Teeth was an apt description, particularly if they were seen at some angles. Then their formation could be likened to a grinning mouth. At high tide they were not visible, lurking as they did just below the surface of the water. They were about half a mile out to sea and almost in a straight line with Castle Paling. Some people called them the Paling Rocks.
The great wall of the castle on the sea side rose up starkly straight, and looking down at the surf below, I thought what a well chosen spot it was for a fortification. It would have been almost impossible to attack from the sea and there was only the landward side to be protected.
I found the desire to stand up there and lean on the battlements and gaze down irresistible and dangerous. It seemed to me symbolic of my life here.
Once when I was up there I was seized from behind and Colum lifted me off the ground and held me high. He laughed in that way of his which I could have called satanic.
“What are you doing up here?” he demanded. “You were leaning over too far. What if you had fallen? You would have killed yourself and our son. By God, I’d never have forgiven you.”
“As I should have been past your vengeance why should I care?”
He put me down and kissed me hard on the mouth.
“I couldn’t do without you now, wife,” he said.
I put my hand up and touched his hair. “Why do you always call me wife? It sounds unromantic … it is as an innkeeper might call his spouse.”
“What else are you?”
“Linnet.”
“Bah!” he said. “A silly little bird.”