Вайолет Уинспир - Dragon Bay

‘There can be no shame if the heart is involved,’ Kara said. ‘Did you not love the man — Rue’s father?’

An expression of sheer pain tore at Clare’s features. Her hands gripped Kara’s until her nails stabbed. ‘I shall never love another man as I loved Rue’s father. He was handsome, utterly fascinating,’ she said in a tortured voice. ‘He was an expressionist painter whom I met in Paris when I went there to study art and sculpture. We would go to a café, argue and eat paprika chicken. I knew he was a man to beware of, and yet I could not stay away from him. One evening he said that he had a friend who had a hunting lodge in a forest just outside Paris. He asked me to spend a week there with him.’

Clare paused in her recital and drew a deep sigh. ‘I was eighteen and utterly at the mercy of his fascination. I was deeply in love and saw no wrong in giving in to that love. He was an artist, making his way as I was making mine, and I did not expect him to marry me.

‘We went to the hunting lodge, a hidden away place of secret luxury, where the deer and the chamois were our only companions. We explored the woods. We talked and loved away the hours — and then one day a woman came to the lodge on horseback. She was about forty, with a face that might have been lovely before cynicism and high living had got at it. I was alone for an hour at the lodge, for Leon had gone off to swim in a nearby stream. I never cared for the water, and so I was alone when this woman appeared.

‘ "I own this place," she said to me. "The chateau whose turrets you see above the treetops belongs to me. Everything in this forest belongs to me — including the man who has been your lover for the past week. Léon is my husband."

‘She swung the horse around and galloped away towards those distant turrets, and the day went grey for me. I stood there, Kara, shocked and horrified. I had never thought of Léon as a married man. I suppose in my foolish, romantic heart I hoped to make him love me so much that he would never let me go. When he returned from his swim I told him that I had met his wife. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders, took out a cigarette and lit it very casually. Yes, he was married. The lodge belonged to his wife, who was rich. He said he would never divorce her, and she would never divorce him. They understood each other. She wanted a young and handsome husband. He wanted a wealthy wife who permitted him the licence of his whims. To be an artist until the novelty wore off. To be the lover of young and pretty girls — until their attraction palled.

‘I was appalled, Kara. I ran sobbing wildly through the woods, my pride utterly humiliated, knowing that I had given myself to a man to whom adulation was meat and drink. A man who cared nothing about me as a person, to whom I had been but a whim, another conquest, a passing pleasure.

‘I returned to Paris, where I shared a flat with Caprice. She was an artist’s model who had become a fashion model, and whenever Lucan was in Paris on business he took Caprice out to dine and dance. I knew Nils even then, and I might have forgotten Léon in time — if that stolen week with him had not left me with a memento I could not run away from.

‘I pretended I was going to Haiti to study Haitian sculpture. Instead I went to Trinidad and I lived there very quietly until Rue was born. No one knew I was a Savidge, for I lodged with a young Creole woman who ran my errands and I went out only in the evenings. She was a nice creature, poor but clever with her needle, and I gave her enough money to open a dressmaking shop — in return she had to take passage on a banana boat to the Isle de Luc, and then travel by road to Dragon Bay. When she reached the Bay she was to leave the child on the doorstep of the Great House—’

A shudder ran through Kara. How, she wondered, could Clare have done such a thing?

‘It wasn’t a total abandonment,’ Clare said defensively. ‘I knew Pryde would take her in. I knew he would take one look at Rue and know her for a Savidge—’

‘And blame Lucan for her birth,’ Kara broke in.

‘Yes,’ Clara admitted. ‘No one could blame Pryde, and everyone could see that she had Lucan’s green eyes and dark red hair. Everyone also knew that I was in Haiti. I flew there as soon as Marthe boarded that banana boat with Rue in her arms. Marthe could be trusted, and she has never broken my trust in her. She did all I asked of her, even to leaving a little note with the name Rue on it. When I returned at last to Dragon Bay, Rue was five years old. I was afraid to see her in case I saw Léon in her, but in all respects she is a Savidge — with, perhaps, the deer and the chamois in her from that week of heaven that ended in such disillusion that for years I have not been able to bear a man to touch me. It is only lately—’

There she broke off and sat looking in a lost way at Kara. ‘How can I ever trust a man again?’

‘How long,’ Kara asked, ‘have you known Nils Ericsson?’

‘Why, since before Rue was born.’

‘Then if it is Nils you are talking about, Clare, I would hardly say that he wants you for one week only.’

‘I–I have put men out of my emotional life,’ Clare said rather desperately. ‘I devote myself to my work.’

‘To cold stone that can give you nothing but an ascetic satisfaction. Life for most people is unendurable without love, and you are not a born solitary, Clare. A person devoid of human needs.’

‘Love involves you so, makes you so dependent on another human being. You know I am right, Kara. A woman’s happiness is made or marred by the man she loves — if she is a real woman and not just a creature who can go from man to man and make a merry-go-round of life.’

‘An ancient Greek once said that the price of every joy is a certain quota of pain.’ Kara forced a smile to her lips. ‘It is never easy to be a woman, Clare, but unless we let ourselves be women, foolish sometimes and romantic, hurt by so many things that could never hurt a man, then we are not really living. We merely go through the motions of living.’

‘A woman alone is a deserted temple, full of the echoes of her dreams,’ Clare said quietly. ‘Nils is kind, but I feel none of the recklessness, the wild joy that I felt in Leon’s company.’

‘You were a young girl,’ Kara pointed out. ‘For a kind love, Clare, many women would give their souls.’

‘You, Kara?’ Clare stared at her. ‘Of course, I have been so wrapped up in my own misery that I have not spared a thought for you. My dear, Lucan’s love could never be gentle. You must have known that from the first moment you met him.’

‘Of course.’ Kara lowered her eyes. ‘I cannot expect Lucan to change — but, Clare, did it never occur to any of you that being thought a devil might have turned him into one?’

‘He is a Savidge,’ Clare said. ‘We are a wild and self-willed clan, but our misdeeds have never been calculated. Kara, you can’t expect him to be a saint. If you wanted that—’

‘No, not a saint, but a man I could trust,’ Kara said, and she seemed to hear again the thud of hooves through the cane, but now the face of the rider was known to her and she knew herself in deadly danger from that rider.

A tremor ran through her, and Clare said with sudden contrition. ‘You must be tired, and I have kept you talking. Kara, I am so grateful for the way you have looked after Rue. I must seem to you the most unnatural mother on earth, and you are probably thinking that I should tell Rue that I am her mother. But I can’t, Kara! And what we have talked about tonight must remain a secret. You do understand?’

Kara shook her head. ‘Not really.’

‘Rue thinks of Lucan as her father. She loves him as she could never love me — it would not be a kindness but a cruelty to take her away from him. You see,’ Clare rose to her feet and there was a sudden look of longing in her eyes, ‘I want to go away from Dragon Bay. I think I want to go with Nils — to Denmark, perhaps, where we could start a new life together.’