I was full of pity for her.
“You are morbid,” he accused.
“I feel drawn towards this room.”
“On this night of all nights!”
“Yes, because it is this night.”
“You want me to stand in this room and ask forgiveness of her. For what? Because I asked that she should perform her duties as a wife? Because I wanted sons? In God’s name, for what other reason should I have married a silly simpering girl who brought me no pleasure?”
“You made a mistake in marrying her. We have to abide by mistakes.”
“Nay,” he said. “If we take a false step we right ourselves and go in another direction. Enough of this.” There was a satanic gleam in his eyes. He pulled me towards the bed.
I said: “No, Colum, please, not here …”
But he would not heed me. He said: “Yes. Yes. I say yes and by God and all his angels I will have my way.”
Later we supped in that room where we had on the first night I came to Castle Paling.
When I was in my chair he came round to me and in his hands was a solid chain set with diamonds on which hung a locket of rubies and diamonds. He put it about my neck.
“There,” he said, “it becomes you well. It is my gift to you, my love. It is my thanks for my son and for giving me that which I have looked for in my wife.”
I touched his hands and looked up at him. I had been shocked by what had happened in the Red Room. He had meant to lay the ghost, to superimpose on my fantastic imaginings a memory of our own. I think he was right in believing that I would not want to go there for some time. I would not want to think of us—which I must—on the bed on which Melanie had died.
How characteristic of him thus to defy the enemy which in this case was the memory of Melanie.
“You like this trinket?” he asked me.
“It is beautiful.”
He kissed me then with that tenderness which always moved me deeply.
“You are glad of that night? Glad a brigand saw you in an inn and decided that you should be his.”
“Yes, glad.”
I took his hand and kissed it.
“I will tell you something,” he said. “There was never a woman who pleased me as you do.”
“I hope I shall always do so.”
He laughed lightly. “You must make sure that you do.”
“I shall grow old,” I said, “but so will you.”
“Women grow old before men.”
“You are ten years older than I am.”
“Ten years is nothing … for a man. It is only women who must fight off age.”
“You are arrogant.”
“I admit it.”
“Vain.”
“True.”
“Selfish and sometimes cruel.”
“I confess my guilt.”
“And you expect me to love such a man?”
“Expect and demand,” he answered.
“How could I?”
“I will tell you how. You love me because you know you must. You know my nature. It is all you say it is. But know this too. I am a man who will have my way and if I say this woman is to love me, then she has no help for it. She must do so.”
“You imagine you are a god and all other men are nothing beside you.”
“I know it to be so,” he said.
“You believe that all you have to do is command a woman to love you and she must needs do so.”
“That is true too,” he said. “You began by hating me. Now you are as eager for me as I for you. Is that not proof?”
I smiled across the table at him.
“I think it must be,” I said.
I was happy that night. It was only in the morning that I thought again of Melanie and wondered whether in the beginning when they had first married she had supped with him in that room and whether he had spoken of love to her.
Had it been only when she failed to give him what he wanted that he grew to despise her?
Into my mind had crept an uneasy thought: What if you should cease to please him?
Christmas came. My little Connell was four months old, lusty as ever, doing, as Jennet said, all the things a boy ought to do. Showing temper, showing interest, growing plump and healthy. I wouldn’t allow him to be swaddled and Colum agreed with me. If he had not I should have prepared to fight against him on this point. I couldn’t bear to think of my baby bound up in swaddling clothes for weeks. “I want his legs to grow long so that he will be as tall as his father,” I said.
We loved to see him kick and his legs were straight as a pine tree.
Such celebrations we had that Christmas. My mother and father came to spend the time with us. With them came Damask, Penn and Romilly. Edwina would not travel because her son being only a few months older than mine was too young, she said. So she and Carlos stayed at Trewynd. Jacko was with the family of his betrothed at Plymouth but he did ride over with the party to see Jennet and stayed with us a night and then went back to Plymouth.
I enjoyed decorating the great hall with holly and ivy and giving orders in the kitchens. There were special pies made for my father’s pleasure; there were the coins to put in the cakes and puddings, all with their significance, and of course the silver penny for the cake to be discovered by the King for the Day.
The joy in seeing my parents was great. My father insisted immediately on being taken to see his grandson and had brought a carved ship for him which was a replica of one of his own Lions—The Triumphant Lion. I laughed at him and told him Connell was too young for such toys, and he retorted that real boys were never too young for ships.
It moved me deeply to see him at Connell’s cradle, putting out a great hand before the child’s face. Connell reached up and his hand curled about my father’s little finger. I had rarely seen my father so moved. I believe there were actually tears in his eyes.
He stood up abruptly and he said to me, “So my girl Linnet has a son of her own. Bless you, girl. You’ve made me a happy man.”
Later when we rode together as we used to when I was at home and the understanding had started between us, he said to me: “I spent years railing against fate that denied me a legitimate son. When you came I cursed God for giving me a girl. Now I see I was wrong. I learned in time that you were as good as any boy—and so you’ve proved. Now you’ve given me my grandson.”
I said I was happy too. Then I added: “I have to watch my son will not be spoiled. His father dotes on him even as you do. He must not grow up to think he has but to smile and the whole world will be at his feet.”
“Have no fear. That boy will take after his grandfather. I see it. He’ll be for the sea. He’s got that look in his eyes.”
I laughed at my father, but he was serious.
“I’m glad,” he said, “you’ve got a man who is a man. Never quite took to Fennimore Landor. Too much of the popinjay about him.”
“You are not fair to him. He is a brave good sailor.”
“Squeamish,” said my father. “Can you see him pacing a deck with blood dripping from his cutlass?”
“I should not admire him for that.”
“A handsome fellow, I grant you. But you’ve got a man and I’m proud of you.”
Yes, there was no doubt that my father liked my husband. They rode together and talked a great deal.
My mother too seemed happy, and Damask’s infatuation for Colum continued. He was amused by the child but he took little notice of her, which she did not seem to mind as long as she could sit near and watch him.
It was like the old Christmases I remembered at Lyon Court. I suppose I had made it so. All the servants and their families came into the great hall and were given wine and Christmas cake; they sang carols and the mummers came and performed.
I did talk to my mother when we were alone.