Sword to the Heart (Bantam Series No. 13) Read online

  Natalia’s voice died away. Then Lord Colwall said with a cynical smile:

  “That is hardly a part of orthodox Christian doctrine.”

  “But the Bible says that love is more important than anything else,” Natalia replied quickly.

  He attempted no further argument, and after a moment she went on:

  “Now I have another story to tell you.”

  “I am still listening,” he replied.

  “You will naturally understand that I often thought about little Jeremy. As he grew older, he had a sweet character which matched the beauty of his face. I do not think there was anyone in the village, however much they disapproved of his mother, who would have said a cruel or unkind word to Jeremy himself.”

  “I assure you, most bastards are treated very differently,” Lord Colwall said almost harshly.

  “I have heard that. Yet I have read much about them,” Natalia replied, “and there is no doubt that in history, when Kings and great noblemen have fathered illegitimate children, they have all been reported as being extremely handsome ... like the Duke of Monmouth, for example.”

  Lord Colwall had apparently no answer for this. Leaning back in his high-back chair, he looked amazingly elegant.

  He had not changed from the tight-fitting, long-tailed, cut-away coat he had worn for his wedding, and his frilled cravat was a master-piece of intricate design. A huge emerald tie-pin glittered in the firelight, and his clear-cut features were revealed with every movement of the leaping flames.

  “My other story,” Natalia went on, “is perhaps a little embarrassing for me to relate to you, but at the same time I want you to understand.”

  “Needless to say, I am trying to do so,” Lord Colwall told her.

  “There was another family in the village. The mother had been widowed when her husband was killed in an accident, and she had a daughter—a gypsy-like girl with dark eyes and dark hair.

  “Sarah must have been fifteen when her mother decided to marry again. She took for a husband a rough, uncouth man who worked in the gravel-pits and did not belong to the village. I think he was part-Irish, part-Tinker.”

  Natalia’s expression darkened.

  “No-one liked him! He drank and was too quick with his fists to make anything but enemies. Not surprisingly Sarah loathed her step-father!”

  Natalia glanced at Lord Colwall.

  “Everyone was sorry for the girl. Soon after he moved into the cottage her mother occupied, there were stormy scenes and tales that he was knocking her about when he had drunk more than usual! Then one morning the step-father was found dead in bed beside his wife.”

  “Dead?” Lord Colwall questioned.

  “They had both gone to bed the worse for drink,” Natalia answered, “and Sarah’s mother had heard nothing during the night! When she awoke she found her husband with a long, sharp kitchen knife through his stomach!”

  “Good Lord!” Lord Colwall exclaimed.

  “Sarah had disappeared,” Natalia continued. “There was of course a hue and cry to find her and a warrant out for her arrest. Then people spoke of hearing her scream in the woods the night before.”

  She made a little gesture with her hand.

  “No-one had gone to her rescue because they knew that it was the route her step-father returned home from the gravel-pits, and he was an unpleasant person to encounter at any time. But there was no doubt that Sarah had been screaming for help.”

  There was a little quiver in Natalia’s voice almost as if she was fighting against the horror such memories evoked before she went on:

  “All this happened late last summer, and then in the spring of this year, Mama, Papa and I rose early as was usual on Sunday morning to go to Communion.

  “We walked through the garden of the Vicarage, which, if you remember, is just beside the church.

  “As we entered through the lich-gate we saw something white lying on one of the graves. As I looked, I realised that it was the grave of Sarah’s step-father, and I could not imagine who could possibly wish to lay flowers there when he had been so disliked.”

  Natalia drew in her breath.

  “When we drew nearer, we saw there were no ... flowers on his grave but a ... naked baby. It was dead! Quite dead, and it was ... deformed! Terribly ... obscenely deformed!”

  “My God!” Lord Colwall said the words almost beneath his breath.

  “They found Sarah two days ... later in the ... lake,” Natalia continued. “She was very ... emaciated, I am told, as if she had been ... starved!”

  A tear overflowed onto her cheek and she wiped it away with the first finger of her right hand, then dropped her head low so that Lord Colwall could not see her face.

  “I can appreciate,” he said after a moment, “this tragedy must have been a great shock for you. But I cannot quite see how either of your stories need concern us.”

  Natalia’s head came up with a jerk.

  “I cannot make it clearer,” she said, “than to tell you that a baby born in love, in or out of wedlock, is likely to be strong and beautiful, while the one born without love ... may be ... deformed.” Lord Colwall rose to his feet.

  “Are you really suggesting,” he asked incredulously, “that everyone who conceives a child without love will breed a deformity?”

  “No, of course not!” Natalia answered. “But it may account for the number of ugly, brainless, under-sized people one finds even in wealthy families.”

  She saw the expression on Lord Colwall’s face.

  “Papa told me the Ancient Greeks arranged beautiful statues round the bed of a woman who was about to give birth, believing the new-born child would resemble them.”

  She considered her words before she continued slowly:

  “I am convinced that the thoughts and feelings of a mother affect her unborn child. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, because I saw Sarah’s contorted, abnormal baby, it would be impossible, if I was having one without love, not to be haunted by the memory of it.”

  She spoke quietly, but there was a note of conviction in her voice which Lord Colwall could not ignore.

  “It is absurd! Absolutely absurd, without medical foundation of any sort!” he ejaculated.

  “That may be your opinion,” Natalia replied, “but I have seen with my own eyes what can happen when a woman is forced against her will to ... have a child from a man who has no feeling for her other than ... lust!”

  Lord Colwall put his hand up to his forehead.

  “I cannot imagine how such things can happen in a small village,” he said angrily. “I thought that you were brought up in a quiet, decent place, where you would never encounter such horrors.”

  “In a village one knows all the people and hears everything about them,” Natalia replied. “After all, they are human beings. They are born, they live and they die. And they love or they hate—just as people do in grand Society.”

  She added almost angrily:

  “I think Papa is right when he says that too many of the noblemen of England think the labourers are just animals.”

  “I cannot imagine what your mother was about not to protect you from such unpleasantness,” Lord Colwall snapped. “Anyway, these abnormalities occur in not more than one case in a million.”

  “That is not true!” Natalia answered. “The Orphanages and Workhouses are filled with children who have no idea who their fathers or even who their mothers might be. I read the figures that were given in the debate in the House of Commons barely a month or so ago. The Member of Parliament who spoke on the subject said our rate of illegitimacy was a disgrace to the Nation.”

  For a moment Lord Colwall looked confounded by her argument, and then he said almost grimly:

  “We are not discussing illegitimacy, Natalia, but the question whether you will give me a legitimate son to carry on my name and inherit the Castle and my very large possessions.”

  “I will not pretend, My Lord, that I should not be extremely afraid of what we migh
t produce,” Natalia replied.

  She looked up at him as she spoke and saw the glint of anger in his eyes.

  “I am ... sorry,” she said, rising to her feet, “desperately sorry to ... disappoint you. I wanted to make you ... happy and I promised to ... obey you. But I know this would be wrong ... very wrong!”

  She gave a little dry sob.

  “I know it would not be the right way to have a child, and I could not ... would not ... take such a risk knowing, as I do now, that you have no ... feeling for ... me.”

  “Now listen, Natalia—” Lord Colwall began, but without waiting for him to reply Natalia had turned and walked across the Salon.

  She pulled open the door and left the room before he could even rise to his feet.

  “Good God,” he ejaculated. “What a coil! What an incredible, unbelievable tangle.”

  Upstairs Natalia allowed the Maids who were waiting for her to help her undress. As they did so, they chattered of the wedding, of how beautiful she had looked and the compliments that had been paid to her from every side.

  She heard them speaking, but the sense of what they said could not penetrate her mind. It was like the chatter of starlings outside the window. It was a sound, but it made no sense.

  There were smiles on their faces when finally she was ready for bed. She knew they were thinking that Lord Colwall would soon be coming to her room.

  When she was alone, Natalia did not get into bed but sat down in front of the fire.

  It did not seem possible that what had happened was a fact, that she was not waiting, as she had expected, for an ardent bridegroom, but would sleep alone on her wedding night.

  She knew that Lord Colwall would have too much pride at this particular moment to force himself upon her.

  But she wondered whether, if she had not overheard the conversation between him and Sir James, she would have realised when he touched her that he did not love her, that to him she was only a body that would give him a son.

  She felt certain she would have known. It would have been impossible for her to love him so deeply and not realise there was no genuine response on his side.

  She recalled so many things which might have given her a pointer as to the real truth about his feelings: the manner in which he had greeted her; his allowing her to place the engagement ring upon her own finger; the cold way he had spoken; the fact that he had never attempted to touch her.

  ‘How stupid! How inexperienced I am!’ Natalia said to herself. ‘Now we are married, how can I face the future knowing that he does not love me?’

  She laid her head down on her arms, her long, fair hair falling over her shoulders.

  There were no tears in her eyes. It was as if she was past tears and was conscious only of a terrible heaviness within her breast and a coldness which seemed to penetrate her whole body.

  All her dreams, all the imaginings of the past three years had crumbled into pieces around her. They were as unsubstantial as leaves falling from the trees outside as winter set in.

  ‘I love him! I still love him!’ she thought. ‘But how can I endure to live with him, knowing the reason for the coldness in his voice, the indifference in his eyes?’

  She wondered now how she could have ever been so stupid as to imagine it was just a reserve. It must be quite obvious to anyone else like Sir James, or indeed, the servants.

  Natalia felt not only depressed and dispirited, but also humiliated. She had been so sure of her happiness.

  She could understand now why her mother had not seemed as enthusiastic as she might have been about the marriage, and her father’s resentment at the speed at which it had taken place.

  ‘How right they were! How sensible!’ But she had not listened to them.

  She thought how hard it would be to admit that she was wrong. How could she tell her parents, who loved her so deeply, that her marriage was already a failure before it had even started?

  Yet to stay with Lord Colwall, knowing he wanted her for one reason and one reason only, would be an agony almost impossible to contemplate.

  ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ she asked herself, and then almost as if a voice answered her cry she seemed to hear the word “fight.”

  Once again she knew she was sensing the answer of her Knight to her problem, sensing it so vividly that as had happened before, it was almost as if he spoke to her.

  “Fight! Fight for what is right!”

  She could hear her father saying all those years ago as they walked by the lake at Ullswater:

  “Love is not only a sentimental and romantic emotion; it is an unsheathed sword that must thrust its way through to victory.”

  In the darkness and despair within herself, Natalia felt a little glimmer of hope.

  Could she fight? Was it possible to fight for Lord Colwall and to gain from him the love for which she longed?

  Natalia sat very still, feeling the warmth from the fire on her face. In that moment she grew up!

  She saw that her childish dreams were hollow, the delusions of an adolescent, the conceptions of a girl who knew nothing about the world or about men.

  But as a woman, she knew that Lord Colwall was suffering. He had admitted his first marriage had been disastrous, and she knew now that it must have hurt him to the point where he would allow himself to be hurt no further.

  That was the key to the problem—she was sure of it!

  “I will fight,” she said aloud. “I will fight for his love, and somehow, I will win it!”

  She glanced at the clock over the mantel-piece. It was still not very late and she knew if she went to bed she would be unable to sleep until she had learnt the cause for Lord Colwall’s rejection of love.

  There was one person who could tell her, and she was certain that Nanny, having arthritis, would not be asleep.

  Putting on a wrapper of heavy satin trimmed with lace, Natalia went to her door and opened it very quietly.

  As she had expected, most of the candles in the silver sconces which lit the Hall and the passages had been extinguished.

  But there was still enough light left for her to see her way towards the stairs up which the Housekeeper had taken her to the Nursery.

  She climbed them quickly, feeling like a pale ghost flitting through the shadows of the Castle, and she hoped that no-one would see her.

  She reached the next floor and, after considering a little, remembered exactly where the Nursery was situated.

  She knocked lightly at the door, but there was no answer. After a moment she turned the handle and went in.

  Nanny was sitting in an arm-chair in front of a brightly burning fire. There was some crochet on her lap, and she must have fallen asleep while she was working.

  Natalia closed the door and the slight sound awakened her.

  She sat up in surprise.

  “Your Ladyship!” she exclaimed.

  Natalia crossed to her side.

  “I have come to see you because I want your help.”

  Nanny looked at her face and in the tone of one who was used to dealing with the problems of children, she asked:

  “What has happened? Is anything wrong?”

  “Yes,” Natalia said frankly. “Something is very wrong and only you can help me.”

  There was a low stool in front of the fire-place and she sat down on it clasping her hands around her knees.

  Nanny made no suggestion of getting her a chair but gave Natalia all her attention as if she knew she was in fact a child in trouble.

  “I want you to tell me” Natalia said in a low voice, “the story of His Lordship’s first marriage.”

  “Has he not spoken of it?” Nanny asked.

  “His Lordship has said only that it was disastrous and there was no reason for me to know the details. But you will understand that I must know them! I cannot help him unless I know what happened.”

  “Help him?”

  Natalia nodded.

  “He needs help as you well know, but I did
not realise it until this evening.”

  “I hoped that you would bring him happiness,” Nanny said. “I hoped things would be different once you were married.”

  “Perhaps they will be in the future,” Natalia answered, “but not until I can understand why he is ... as he is.”

  “He should not have let you marry him without your knowing the truth,” Nanny said.

  Natalia shook her head.

  “It is too late now for regrets. All I want is your help. Was he very much in love with his first wife?”

  “He was crazy about her,” Nanny replied. “She bewitched him as she bewitched every other young man in the neighbourhood. And she was wicked, really wicked!”

  “I know nothing about her except her Christian name,” Natalia said. “Tell me who she was.”

  “She was Lady Claris Kempsey, daughter of the Earl of Powick, whose home is on the other side of the Malvern Hills.”

  “So His Lordship and Lady Claris had been brought up together?”

  Nanny shook her head.

  “Nothing like that. Her Ladyship was five years older than Master Ranulf.”

  “Five years older!” Natalia ejaculated in astonishment.

  This was something she had not expected.

  “Yes, indeed,” Nanny said, “with all the tricks and wiles of a sophisticated Society lady—and he as innocent as a new-born babe.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Natalia asked breathlessly.

  It was not difficult with a little imagination to paint in a picture of which Nanny gave the outline.

  Lady Claris Kempsey had been beautiful, wild and completely unprincipled where men were concerned.

  She had set the whole neighbourhood by the ears with her behaviour and went to London to gain a reputation which was looked at askance even in the licentious days of the Prince Regent.

  She had returned to the country and met Lord Colwall, as he had recently become, when he was home from Oxford before his last term.

  It was not surprising he had fallen madly in love with her. She tantalised him, teased him, humiliated him, and gave him half promises of surrender which merely increased his infatuation.