The tower of Castle West rose up above the main gateway. It was sixty feet wide and three hundred feet high; and though it had been built more than five centuries before, it was still the tallest building in the whole of Westmarch.
A symbol of might of which Meriel was proud, the great tower was disused now, though it was kept in good repair. The lower guard-rooms were full of relics of war, and rubbish of a kind to be found in the attic of any mansion, but the topmost ones contained only stony dust and spiders. On the tower’s platform roof, there was a little garden, consisting of four curved flower beds grouped round a belvedere, and trellises which covered the inside of the battlements. The garden had been made by Juxon when Meriel was young, and for a couple of years it had been popular with those who thought it would be good for them to walk up six hundred and fifty steps. The novelty of the tower-garden had worn off quickly enough, and now, though the beds were well tended and the young plants were good ones, it had a slightly ridiculous look.
Meriel pushed open the door of the belvedere, and Auriol followed her out. Both were a little out of breath, and rather ashamed to admit it.
“The view,” Meriel announced, “is very much admired.”
When they came out, they were facing west, and beyond the parapet, the sea stretched out as flat as the country. On its blue surface, cloud-shadows made dark stains, but no foam was visible from this height, and there were no ships in the water. Meriel, filled with unaccustomed awe at the plain and mirror-like expanse, said, “Exceedingly calm today.”
“I imagine that on a windy day it would be very unsafe up here.”
“Yes, indeed, in the old days the guards were tied to their posts when there were storms out at sea.” She rubbed her hands together, and stood still, because she was afraid of heights, and would not approach the battlements. Auriol meanwhile walked slowly around, looking over.
It was the variety of prospects, each one corresponding roughly to a point of the compass, that made the view from the tower extraordinary. The sea to the west curved round and met the rocks and many inlets of the north-running coast, while southwards from the tower it surrounded Castle-town.
The roofs of Castle-town were chiefly grey-blue, with patches of red tile, and pale green copper, divided by a multitude of threadlike streets. Auriol had never seen an entire city laid out before his eyes in this way, and he was fascinated, though he was made to feel a country bumpkin by Meriel’s being clearly unimpressed. The only other city he knew, Bury Winyard in Southmarch, happened to be infinitely grander, for it had been built according to an elaborate plan: the houses were all of pale grey stone, decorated according to the rank of their inhabitants, arranged in streets which radiated out from a vast square, in the middle of which was the Marquis’s grey and gold Island Palace. Auriol had not liked Bury Winyard, and could not think that an aerial view of it would be half so interesting as this of Meriel’s town, where a squalid quarter of once-whitewashed cottages pushed right up against a parade of new sea-front brick and stone villas. That, he thought, was life. Auriol turned away from the southern prospect, not wanting to question Meriel about it just yet.
The view of distant country to the east did not please him: though it was a very clear day, the open fields with their thin patches of leafless trees and barely visible villages seemed muddy and unreal to him. But he enjoyed gazing straight down over the parapet at Castle West itself, and seeing the gently puffing chimneys, shaded walls and roofs like mussel-shells, suits of clothes trotting in the courtyards, and the green gardens neat as tapestry. A brass weathercock on top of Meriel’s own apartments, which he had never noticed before, was glinting in the sun; and Auriol was sure that he recognised Juxon’s figure in the court below. Dressed in purple, the little man was descending the outside staircase with a footman in tow. What a wicked stupid fool he must be, he thought, then his mind returned to the Marquis and he raised his head.
She was still standing by the belvedere, peering up at the sky with a solemn frown on her face. Auriol thought she looked remarkably young.
“Don’t you care to look over? Are you so much accustomed? Or are you subject to fits of vertigo?” he said.
“Vertigo,” said Meriel. “Well, what do you think of this country, does it compare with your own? You must have a far better notion of it now than seen from the road.”
“You told me then you had no love for the fens,” he replied. “I agree with you: I prefer Longmaster Wood.”
Four yards separated them. They both longed to touch each other, but they were sober, and dared not, although they were safer from possible observers on top of the tower than they would ever be anywhere else. It was the memory of the absurd joy they had each known when they separated after returning from the Green Garter that was separating them now.
“But you come from the Peninsula, even Longmaster Wood must be strange to you, ugly.”
“Why do you suppose that your country must be less agreeable to me than mine? The heat don’t suit my constitution and I was never happy there, you know.”
“I’ve never travelled farther south than Bury Winyard,” said Meriel.
“Perhaps you shall one day,” said Auriol. There was a pause.
“Describe it to me, is it as picturesque as some romance-writers would have us think?”
“Well, it was they invented the notion of its picturesqueness. To my mind it is merely dirty, but then I know it well. I don’t intend to go back there.”
Just at that moment, Auriol did feel that his own dry southern country of colour-washed walls and gravelly vineyards, olive trees and wild boar and many geraniums, was merely hot and dirty. Yet he could picture it as it really was, every detail of Wychwood down to the morning light as sharp as lemon juice. It was only that he never, never wanted to leave Meriel’s territory, where he was valued. Next it occurred to him that perhaps he was not valued after all, that the Marquis had introduced this topic because she wanted to be rid of him. He felt he was being reduced to nothing, which was not a sensation he had had before, even though he had been underrated most of his life.
“Westmarch —”
“Is it important to you that I am Westmarch, Marquis of Westmarch?” said Meriel in a rush. “Was it before?”
Taken aback, Auriol swallowed, thinking that he must always call her ‘Meriel’ in future. “In all honesty — yes.” He squinted at her across the flowerbed and perceiving her expression, thumped one palm with his fist as she was in the habit of doing. “So I daresay you think it a mere case of toad-eating, but it is not! I am a rustic, a gapeseed, a bumpkin remember — good God, do you suppose that your rank could not fascinate me? Don’t let’s come to cuffs!”
“It’s a false rank to which I’ve no right, being vile,” said Meriel, her eyes, like his, screwed up against the sun. “Do you know that in all likelihood I’ll end my days as a prisoner in a Female College? Fine rank and consequence I’ll have then, sir. Not but what I’d cut my own throat first.”
“I would not let you do that,” he said boldly.
“Well, I think you would not be in a position to stop me, if I were discovered,” said Meriel then, and smiled, stretching out a nervous hand. “I am afraid you might well be ruined too. You must know that. Oh, come here, come to me, let’s sit down on this bench.”
He went, and they did so, and then Meriel crossed her legs and started to talk fretfully about the Fen Commission which managed these lands of hers round about in a way she could not approve of. Auriol, watching her face, felt unable to make useful comments.
“Oh, why the devil am I letting my tongue run on in this ridiculous way!” she said. “What was I talking about?”
He laughed, and took her hand, very much relieved to know that she was not really interested in the Fen Commissioners. “I wasn’t attending. You said that it would be foolish beyond permission to do something or other to the drains, but I can’t remember what.”
Smiling perfunctorily, she said, “I wonder what my father would say if he could see us now. It does not bear thinking of.”
Auriol glanced towards the battlements, then turned back to Meriel. “Perhaps he would have been amused, Meriel. Well, I remember my own father used to say yours had a sardonic, caustic way with him, set no more store by the proprieties than by fashionable town-ways. And I don’t doubt he would have thought you very brave to do as you have done, however wrong-headed.”
“Do you know, you are a comfort to me,” Meriel said, and edged towards him along the bench. She examined his face intently. “Do — do you indeed think so?” It had never occurred to her that anyone who knew the truth about what she was and how she had coped could think of her with any other emotion than rage and disgust. Possibly fear.
“I think he would have been prouder of, of his boy-girl than he would ever have been of a son, a true son,” Auriol replied, knowing that he was saying very much the right thing. “To have concealed your true sex from the world for so long is no mean achievement, it’s remarkable, indeed. It is, Meriel. Perhaps he would not have approved of what you have done — would not approve of me — but he must have been proud to think you had so much, so much determination and rumgumption and resource!” He hesitated. “Tell me, did you, did you never think of telling your mother, someone else — of living as a female from the time Juxon told you?”
Meriel stared at him. “Only with the most profound horror!”
“Yes, I see. Yes, it would have been damnably difficult.”
“You think my father would have loved me even if he had known I was a daughter,” she said, a moment after, “but it is not so, Wychwood, because only men are loved.”
“That’s not true!”
“Oh, but it is, Wychwood, I assure you.”
“It is not.”
“Yes, because one must have power in order not to be despised.”
“No. I love you,” said Auriol, and gripped her knee. “I would not love you half so much if you were indeed a man, and if you had no power as you call it, I’d love you as much as ever, very likely more, I promise you, because you are yourself. Despite what I said not ten minutes ago.”
“The devil you would,” muttered Meriel, putting an arm round his waist as firmly as she could. “I’m so damned tired, Wychwood, I still don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.”
“I too. Our situation is not easy.”
“What are we to do?”
Auriol took hold of her hand. “Meriel, tell me, do you — sincerely wish me to make love to you?”
Meriel had not expected this. She sat up and withdrew from him.
“Yes, of course, what do you suppose? I wish to make love to you, sir.”
“I wonder how you — picture it,” he said, not letting go of her hand. Oh, I do love you so much, you extraordinary little devil, he thought, God knows why.
“With pretty fair accuracy, I’ve a tolerably good notion of all I should like to do to you, you may be sure,” Meriel said.
“Oh?” said Auriol.
“Pray do not be thinking I do not know what men are, sir, women too, I’ve seen men sea-bathing often and often, and I have read Nights of the Gods and such stuff, who has not? I don’t like your tone!”
“But don’t you think I shall have to show you the way, all the same,” said Auriol, remembering the gentle night they had spent together. “You are a little afraid, I can tell, and who can wonder at it?”
“Damn it, I’m not! How dare you?” Her voice was not quite as rough as her words: she too remembered her crying all over him at the Green Garter.
“Meriel, there’s no shame in it. I’m afraid myself, but I have more experience than you, and I’m not in the same — confusion, confusion of sex.”
“At all events,” said Meriel, “I don’t intend to indulge in lovemaking just yet.”
“Perhaps that is wise, we must grow a little more accustomed.”
“Yes, and I want to, to feed my fancy with anticipatory imaginings,” Meriel told him.
A current of good genital desire ran between them then, and made their narrowed eyes shyly meet: it was the first they had shared and recognised and the most powerful they had known.
“Bless you,” said Auriol thickly. Her words had brought back to him the altered vision of his own sexuality which had given him such a disturbing and enjoyable shock in the privacy of his room.
“Ay, and you.”
They did not touch each other. They could not speak for a while, their faces were too full of blood.
Meriel got up, and to Auriol’s surprise she walked over to the parapet and looked down at Castle West, her fear of heights forgotten. He smiled to see it. When she raised her head she did not look either dazed or sick; perhaps he had cured her. Auriol went over to her, and put a large arm round her shoulders. Together, they stepped back.
“Do you suppose that we love each other — only because we are both at odds with the world in our different ways, that we need each other’s — support?” said Meriel. “Wychwood, I’ve had a thought — if we are not happy without each other, can we be happy together, as lovers? I daresay that sounds a deuced odd thing to say, people are expected to find love a cure for all ills, are they not? Fustian nonsense, to my mind.”
“No,” said Auriol. He took in what she had said in silence, but when he spoke did not refer to it directly. “I know only that I desire of all things to keep you from harm, make you happy — almost, well, as though you were an ordinary woman.” He added, “I mean that if I can do anything to prevent it, I shall never let that man, Juxon, oppress you again.” From the twitch of her shoulders under his arm, he could tell that he had startled her.
“He does oppress me,” said Meriel. “Says he loves me and wishes to protect me, which is a damned impertinent imposition — very differently those words sound coming from you, I confess!” she said, without smiling.
“I did not mean to imply that you are a helpless female, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Meriel took hold of the hand that was clasping her arm, and shook it slightly. “I’ll keep you from harm too, never fear, I won’t let you be ruined if it should come to that. Believe me, I’ll take care of you! It is my — dearest wish, sir.”
“I know you will.”
“Because I love you exclusively, little love. There is no going back now, Wychwood.” She pronounced ‘little love’ with great care, to convince herself that that was what he was.
“No, and I’m glad.”
“Good of you. It will certainly be an adventure.”
“To be sure it will. Damn the man, what right had he to dictate to you, establish the course of your life and keep you from friends with his horror-stories!”
Meriel poked him in the chest as he squeezed her. “I’ll say this for you, Wychwood, you have a pretty good notion of his methods. I’ve told you almost nothing as yet.”
“Oh, I trust I have commonsense.”
They kissed briefly before going down, and each felt one little dart of promising pleasure, but no more.
*
While Meriel and Auriol were on top of the tower, the Marchioness, passing by in her sedan chair, saw Juxon and Hugo Longmaster talking together under the budding apple-blossom in Orchard Court. Saccharissa, who knew that they loathed each other, nearly ordered the chairmen to set her down for a moment, but remembered how odd this would look. Leaning back in her chair, she put a sweetmeat in her mouth, and her light eyes gleamed as she decided to ask her son about this meeting and watch him pretend that he knew all about it. She rather suspected that neither Hugo nor Juxon would mention it to Meriel.
When the Marchioness’s chair had been carried through into the next court, Juxon took out a silk fan from his pocket, began to ply it, and looked up into Longmaster’s face, which was as elaborately painted as his own.
“You say, sir, that Mr Conybeare was in his cups when he invited you to plot with him in this singularly foolish manner?”
“What a very charming fan, sir. From Twentyman’s? Oh, yes, indeed, most certainly he was. But nonetheless, it is an excellent jest, is it not, Mr Juxon? Poor Tancred, how he does long to be restored to his grandfather’s, no, great-grandfather’s dignities, to be sure! He even signs himself ‘Northmarch’ when writing to his various bits of muslin, you know, though, of course, he is by far too discreet to do so when communicating with persons of consequence. Yes, sometimes I think he does indeed believe that if only his three noble cousins were to be found murdered, all would be well with him.”
“And with you, Mr Longmaster? Pray do not be thinking I wish to imply that you are not a man of honour!”
“My dear sir, my desire to succeed Westmarch — should he choose not to marry, to be sure! — stops somewhere short of murder,” said Hugo, smiling and taking snuff. He did not offer his box to Juxon.
“Why do you tell this to me?” said Juxon. “Why do you not tell the Marquis himself?”
“Because I would not dream of entertaining him with an account of Conybeare’s, er, jug-bitten maunderings.” Longmaster saw that Juxon believed his story to be nothing but an unpleasant tease, and he smiled. “Dear Tancred is such a fool.”
“Do you not feel it is perhaps a pity,” said Juxon, “that you have allowed such a man as Mr Conybeare to guess at your sentiments towards the Marquis? Your envy, indeed, is natural enough, Mr Longmaster, but to my mind, unwisely expressed.”
Until now, Longmaster had dominated the conversation, and had been able to anger Juxon. “A very palpable hit, Sir Steward!” he said. Juxon had never been known to speak to anyone with such direct impertinence. “But on occasion it is advantageous to betray a-certain-version of one’s feelings, to-certain-persons, for one’s own ends?”
“Is it so, Mr Longmaster?” Juxon rubbed his chin in a pleased, inelegant gesture, which he had tried many times to abandon. “I wonder at your saying that, to me.”
“You are devoted to my cousin, are you not, sir?” said Hugo, and he saw Juxon wince. He continued, copying Juxon’s mode of speech in a very natural way, “Quite devoted. Indeed, I have a notion that you almost love him.” Longmaster’s suspicion that Juxon was not wholly self-seeking increased his contempt for him, though he would have respected a well-born former Governor for sincere devotion to Meriel. “That, my dear sir, is why I thought it proper to — inform you of my cousin Conybeare’s wicked ambitions. For I am persuaded that they are true ambitions — wicked ambitions — however difficult of fulfilment.” He spoke very lightly, and his smile was charming. “Westmarch believes the best of everyone, but for a very few exceptions, does he not? So very unworldly, as he is! He would not pay the least attention to my suspicions, were I to divulge them to him.”
“Very likely he would not, Mr Longmaster,” said Juxon.
“We have had a comfortable cose, have we not, sir?” said Longmaster, taking another pinch of snuff and looking down at Juxon with the smile still on his lips. “No, pray don’t upset yourself! It was a poor witticism, was it not, on such a serious subject? Good day to you.” He nodded a dismissal, and strode off.
Longmaster had not approached Juxon in the courtyard: Juxon had approached him, in order to ask him delicate questions about his recent visit to Bury Winyard. Hugo smiled to think of the irritatingly satisfactory answers he had given. He had told Juxon a little bit of the truth about Tancred Conybeare, but he would never tell anyone the whole.
Conybeare had asked in all earnest for his help in raising a rebellion in Northmarch, and he, Longmaster, had refused it just as he ought. If he were to tell Westmarch that, Westmarch would never believe him. But as it was, his incorruptibility, and his polite refusal to boast about it, gave him a hold at least over Conybeare, which might one day be useful.
Juxon raised his eyes to the sunlit top of the great gate-tower, and indulged in a few thoughts of having Longmaster murdered. He would like to see him dead, but he shrank from violence, and he knew that if Meriel found out about it, she would disapprove. It made him feel dirty to think that Hugo Longmaster had guessed he loved Meriel: he, Juxon, who had never had a taste for his own sex, or touched a disgusting womanly woman. Meriel was untouchable. His love for her was infinitely pure, because cloaked in her seeming masculinity, her nobility and strength, she was the only pure woman in the world.
Juxon knew that Meriel was showing Knight Auriol the view from the top of the tower, and he intended to wait here, wandering poetically under the apple-trees, until they came down and crossed through the courtyard. Sadly, he thought that he had best not let them notice him. He only wanted one look at either of their faces.
It did not occur to Juxon that Meriel might want even in a moment of madness to tell Auriol Wychwood the truth. She was far too clean to fall in love, or even to be aware of the reality of difference of sex; and far too well trained and too aware of danger to tell him even if she were. Juxon’s only fear was that the coarsely male creature would eventually see through Meriel’s disguise, and desire her, and violate her. He gave very little of his attention to the prospect of blackmail, or even that of exposure, his thoughts were on the filthiness of lust.
Juxon turned red and shivered, as he gazed at the tower. The Marquis was too innocent, he thought, to understand that she was in constant need of protection even from such negligible persons as Tancred Conybeare. Something must be done; but Juxon loved Meriel, his creation, too much to act with dangerous haste in disposing of Wychwood. He could not quite trust her not to object.
The Marquis treated her guardian with cool rudeness nowadays, but if the worst were to happen, she would turn to him at last: and he, Florimond Juxon, would know what to do. A part of him rather liked to imagine a fallen Marquis weeping with her head in his lap.