The House of Happiness Read online

  Gregor interrupted sharply. “Bridget, you talk too much.”

  “Yes, Gregor,” Bridget chuckled. “I do.”

  Eugenia wondered at this effect of Gregor on her maid. She twisted round on her stool to look at her beloved. He was sitting again at the table, holding an emerald brooch – one she had not noticed earlier – to his eye.

  “Green as the Volga,” he murmured.

  Eugenia felt suddenly lost and helpless. She longed for a kind word or an embrace from Gregor. If only he would look at her, smile at her. She had always understood him to be an artist, someone who cared nothing for material things. Yet now he seemed more interested in these – these stones – than in the woman who had given up everything to be with him.

  Gregor became aware of her longing gaze. “Do not worry about your jewels. They will buy us all a new life. Now, you must finish your breakfast.”

  “Bridget,” she asked, rising from the stool, “where is my dress?”

  Bridget looked shifty. “What do you want that for, miss?”

  “Why – I must get ready to leave.”

  There was a silence. Bridget glanced at Gregor. “Leave, miss?”

  Eugenia’s brow creased. “Surely – we are moving on today?”

  Gregor growled an answer from the table. “We are going nowhere. We have business to finish. We might as well finish it here as anywhere else.”

  Eugenia looked in puzzlement from Gregor to Bridget and back. “What kind of business?”

  With an exclamation Gregor leaped to his feet, in the process scattering some of the jewellery from the table.

  “Business that is none of your business! Do you think you are your ‘ladyship’ here that you torment me with questions?”

  Bridget, scrambling on her knees to retrieve the pieces of jewellery, looked up.

  “I’d go back to your room, miss, if I were you.”

  “Yes, Bridget. Yes, I will.”

  Eugenia stumbled to her room, closed the door behind her and sank onto the bed. She had known Gregor was mercurial but these shifts of mood were like nothing she had experienced. More than anything in the world, she longed for the return of the lover she had imagined Gregor to be.

  As if in answer to her prayers, the door opened and Gregor appeared.

  “You are crying, little flower?” Eugenia faced him squarely. “No.”

  “Good. Crying I do not like. And I do not like too many questions. That is not what your lips are for. Your lips are for – this.”

  His kiss was rough and prolonged and soon her head began to swim. She did not know if this was due to passion or lack of breath. Then Gregor pulled away and brushed back a lock of his hair.

  “Better you stay in your room now,” he ordered. “Then you do not make me angry.”

  “Yes, Gregor,” Eugenia heard herself whispering.

  She was ashamed of her timidity but the loneliness of her situation had suddenly struck her with great force. She had given her life over to this man. She had no one else in the world now, for not only had she foresworn her husband, she had by her flight estranged herself from her mother and great-aunt as well. Neither they nor Society could welcome her back after her behaviour. That the Marquis had a mistress would not be considered just cause for her to so abandon her duties.

  Towards noon, Bridget brought her food and a bowl to wash in. When Eugenia again demanded her clothes, Bridget shook her head.

  “He doesn’t want you to have them, miss.”

  Eugenia was perplexed. “But why?”

  Bridget shrugged. “Orders, miss.”

  Eugenia stared at her. She wondered what Bridget’s role could be in this whole affair.

  Hearing the sound of wheels, she jumped up and ran to the window, only to see Gregor in the gig disappearing through the trees.

  “Where is he going?” she demanded of Bridget.

  “Like he said, business,” replied Bridget mysteriously.

  Gregor returned at dusk. He did not come in to see Eugenia. She yearned to see him, despite his kaleidoscopic temper. Indeed, perhaps because of this same temper, her desire for his favour was increasing the more precarious that favour seemed.

  Yet it was not of Gregor that she dreamed that night, but of the Marquis. Her erstwhile husband was carrying her through a torrent of wild water, a flood that threatened both their lives.

  A whole day and evening passed followed by another day. Gregor came in and out to see her but he seemed on tenterhooks, crossing endlessly to the window as if watching for a visitor.

  Eugenia dared not question him, for that would risk his displeasure. She was grateful for every crumb of tenderness he threw her way, although she began to suspect that these exhibitions of affection were prompted rather than felt. He seemed to be doing what was necessary to maintain her interest in him without taxing the limits of his own interest in her. This from the man who two days previously had vehemently declaimed his love for her!

  At last she could restrain her feelings no longer. As he paced the floor of her room, she summoned up the courage necessary to confront him.

  “I want to know,” she ventured, “why you made me run away with you when you – when you now do not seem to care for me at all. Why are you keeping me a prisoner here? What do you hope to gain from me? I have abandoned everything and I have no money. Only the jewels, and those you have in your possession already – “

  Her breath ran out.

  When she had begun to speak, Gregor had halted in his tracks and now he stood in the shadows. She could hear his breathing and for a moment she felt as if an animal was waiting to pounce.

  “G-Gregor?” she prompted.

  He emerged from the shadows. She drew back on the bed, pulling her shift down over her knees and observing her, he gave a short laugh.

  “Oh, you think I want to steal your virtue? What a story you live in. The romantic heroine, who loves the wild artist, who throws everything away for him. Well I will tell you. Everything you threw away, I want. Not the Marquis naturally but – his wealth, his power, his house, his land. If I could have all that, I would never care to see a paint brush again.

  As for you – why should I take what the Marquis himself would not take? I have other designs, other plans, which you will know about soon.”

  Eugenia listened in mounting horror. She understood at last that this was not the passionate artist she had believed she loved. What she had taken to be the diffidence of one whose interests were of a higher order was nothing more than capricious cruelty.

  It had taken less than three days of his company for the veil to fall from her eyes.

  *

  Later that evening Bridget brought a bowl of soup. The maid seemed uneasy and unwilling to engage in conversation, although she kept Eugenia company while she ate. As Eugenia laid her spoon down, there came the sound of hooves from without.

  Bridget twisted her hands together. “He’s come, then,” she mumbled.

  “Who?” asked Eugenia but her voice was drowned by the sound of hammering at the door. She heard Gregor respond and the visitor stepped in. He spoke, and Eugenia’s heart nearly ceased to beat.

  It was her husband, the Marquis.

  Hearing him, such relief swept over her that she realised, almost with dismay, that she had been longing to hear his voice since the moment she had set foot in this cottage.

  Sure that he had come for her, she leapt to her feet and rushed to the door, only to have Bridget step resolutely in her way. She opened her mouth to cry out but Bridget raised a warning finger to her lips.

  “I know what you’re thinking, miss, but you’re wrong. He hasn’t come to fetch you home. He doesn’t even know you’re here. He’s come as Gregor bid him to do business. He wouldn’t have you back now for all the rubies in the world. Not after you’ve spent these nights here with Gregor. And you still in your shift!”

  Eugenia staggered as she understood.

  If she attempted to make her presence known to the Mar
quis, how would it look to see her barefoot and in her shift, with her hair tangled and loose upon her shoulders? It would only compound for him the impression that Bridget had hinted at – that Eugenia and Gregor had become lovers. An impression Gregor, for reasons of his own, had no doubt encouraged.

  “Can I not – at least see him?” she pleaded with Bridget.

  Bridget looked askance. “And three days ago you wanted nothing more to do with him!

  You don’t know your own mind, miss.”

  Eugenia knew this to be so bitterly true that there was no answer. She leaned her forehead against the door, listening, while Bridget sauntered to the bed and sat down, confident now that her charge would not reveal herself at any price.

  Eugenia could hear the two men conversing. Gregor was playing the host, offering tea and a seat by the fire. The Marquis declined both.

  “You have summoned me here for what you call business reasons,” Eugenia heard him say. “So let us not waste time on common courtesies.”

  Such a burning desire to look upon her husband’s face came over Eugenia that she threw what caution she had to the wind. Stealing a glance at Bridget, who now lay prone on the bed humming and staring at the rafters, she edged the door open and peered through the chink.

  Gregor sat sprawled in a chair before the fire. The Marquis stood, gloves in hand, on the other side of the hearth. The firelight flickered over his resolute features.

  “Well?” he demanded of Gregor. “Perhaps you would like to begin by giving me news of my wife.”

  “She is well, she eats heartily, she sleeps – like a contented lamb,” replied Gregor, crossing one leg over the other and staring up insolently at the Marquis.

  The Marquis clenched his jaw. “Where does she sleep, you rogue? Here, in this dog kennel of a place?”

  “Oh,” answered Gregor jauntily, “I will do better than this for her, if we come to an agreement.”

  The Marquis glowered.

  “What kind of agreement do you propose?”

  Gregor sat up, uncrossing his leg and leaning forward with an intent gaze. “First, I put some questions to you. Is it a concern of yours, what they call here ‘family honour’?”

  “As concerned as any Englishman,” responded the Marquis shortly.

  “And you are concerned also with your reputation?”

  The Marquis gave a laugh of derision. “Reputation? Surely a concept foreign to your nature, Brodosky.”

  “Nevertheless,” Gregor persisted coolly, “there are certain facts regarding – how do you call it? – your conjugal relations – that no sane man would wish to be made common knowledge.”

  Eugenia felt faint with horror. Gregor’s inference was clear to her and she knew that it was equally clear to the Marquis.

  “By Heaven, you tread on dangerous ground,” her husband said softly. “May I ask how you came to be privy to – the information at which you hint?”

  “Certainly,” replied Gregor with a monstrous smile. “I heard it from your wife’s own lips – along with her kisses.”

  Eugenia closed her eyes in dismay. How was the Marquis to know that Gregor was lying?

  The Marquis stood very still. His voice when he spoke was as ice. “What is it you want?”

  Gregor turned and spat into the fire. “Your wife has become used to luxury. She wants to keep, for example, her lady’s maid. I will need money to keep her – Ladyship – in the style she expects.”

  The Marquis looked stony. “Go on.”

  Gregor shrugged. “It is simple. Settle a sum of money on her for life. Or the details of your – unconsummated marriage – will somehow find their way into the public ear.”

  The Marquis clenched his fists at his side – one hand still holding his gloves – but if he was tempted to strike Gregor, he thought better of it.

  “Did my wife plan this pretty scheme with you?”

  Gregor stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “Your wife? She has not the taste for this kind of matter.”

  Eugenia was grateful that at least Gregor had not implicated her. Her gratitude was quickly dispelled, however, by Gregor’s next remark.

  “Why not pay up and be done with it? What will Society know of the affair? Only that your wife ran away with a painter. She will be the guilty party.”

  The Marquis turned and regarded Gregor narrowly.

  “My wife is unconcerned that her name be thus sullied?”

  “Correct.”

  “And she will not see me to tell me this herself?”

  “Correct.”

  The Marquis crossed to the window and looked out at the wood. His back now turned completely from the room, Eugenia felt emboldened to open the door a little wider and peer out at him. His tall, upright figure was outlined against the moonlit glass, his head thrown back as if contemplating the night sky.

  Eugenia followed his gaze. Stars glittered sharply, like thousands of minute diamonds. Like the diamonds the Marquis himself had given her, out of love, sheer love. The diamonds that Bridget had then taken to finance their flight.

  ‘Oh,’ thought Eugenia, ‘what a callous fool I have been!’ She leaned against the doorjamb, sick with guilt and shame.

  The Marquis gave a sigh.

  “What sum do you propose, Brodosky?” he asked in a dull voice.

  Gregor gave a sneer. “How much do you value your reputation?”

  The Marquis turned and regarded Gregor with distaste. “It is rather a question of how much I value my wife.”

  Eugenia did not draw back from the door as she should have, but stood as if mesmerised by this clear sight of her husband’s face. She was struck by the nobility she detected.

  Gregor was looking at the Marquis with curiosity. “What, you concern yourself with a woman who does not care for you?”

  “I would wish no woman connected to me in any way, sir, to sink into a life of poverty.”

  Gregor looked amused. “Such principles! Well, maybe they should cost you – about five thousand pounds, say?”

  Eugenia gulped silently at the amount but the Marquis did not flinch.

  “Five thousand it is,” he said.

  How easily he agreed, thought Eugenia with dismay, drawing back into the shadows. She felt deeply, irrationally wounded that her husband was so willing to let her go. He must indeed be heavily involved with Lady Walling.

  “I presume you will be expecting me to file for a divorce,” continued the Marquis. “So that you are free to marry – Eugenia.”

  “Oh, certainly, certainly,” returned Gregor quickly. “But – as regards the matter in hand. How do you intend to pay me?”

  The Marquis began to draw on his gloves. “You said you were taking – my wife – abroad?”

  “To Amsterdam. Or Paris,” replied Gregor cautiously.

  “Let it be Paris,” said the Marquis. “The money will be deposited in monthly instalments at the Bank de Cluny in the Rue Demareille.”

  Gregor looked disappointed. “Monthly instalments?”

  The Marquis was firm. “Yes.”

  Gregor had obviously hoped for a lump sum.

  “In my name, then,” he proposed at last.

  The Marquis’s response was quick and steely. “In my wife’s name, sir.”

  Sullenly, Gregor agreed. “You wish to tie me to her apron strings!”

  “Exactly!” said the Marquis.

  He turned to leave and Eugenia’s heart plummeted. She had not understood the last part of the exchange nor what it imported. Her mind had begun to swim with despair as she realised that this might be the last time she ever set eyes on the Marquis. Once she had sought to flee from him, now she could not bear to see him go. Out of her sight, out of her life, this man whose worth she was only now beginning to appreciate.

  All caution left her. With a cry she threw wide the bedroom door and rushed out.

  “My Lord!”

  He stiffened and slowly turned. His eyes ran up and down her body, registering the
shift, the exposed flesh where it had slipped from her shoulder, the bare legs and feet, the tousled mane. Then he lifted his gaze to her face. Her stricken expression appeared to move him not one jot, for he accorded her nothing more than a polite bow.

  “Madam,” he said, and was gone.

  Eugenia walked unsteadily to the table and, sinking into a chair, buried her head in her hands.

  Gregor prodded her shoulder jeeringly.

  “I knew you’d be the fool enough to show yourself eventually. Just what I wanted! The way you look, if he was not sure that you had given yourself to me, he is now.”

  Eugenia lifted her head dazedly, just as Bridget came dancing out of the bedroom.

  “Five thousand pounds!” Bridget crowed. “We’ll live like Kings!”

  Gregor threw back his head and laughed like a madman. He grasped Bridget about the waist and whirled her into the air.

  Eugenia watched in disbelief as the two of them pranced in triumph about the room.

  “Five thousand, five thousand, a merry five thousand,” they sang.

  It was clear at last to Eugenia that these two had been in league for some time. She dug her fingers into her hair, full of anguish. Gregor had no feeling for her and Bridget had betrayed her. They surely had no desire to have her remain in their company.

  Not for one moment did Eugenia entertain the belief that the Marquis’s decision to pay was purely the result of self-interest or that he feared his honour would be stained by the public revelation that he had not consummated his marriage. She felt, at last, that she knew him better than that.

  Gregor and Bridget, finally out of breath, threw themselves onto the wooden settle that stood against the far wall and stared at Eugenia. She felt that they, too, were assessing the future they now faced – comfortable but in some way constrained, since she was their companion forever. Or, she thought with a sudden shiver, until the money runs out!

  Five thousand pounds was a great deal, certainly, but it would not last a lifetime. Perhaps Gregor intended to repeat his threat of blackmail at some time in the future. He could always taunt the Marquis with visions of Eugenia becoming poor and down at heel. Or would the Marquis, once he was divorced, wash his hands of his former wife and consider her fate to be none of his business?