The Wildest Rake

She could feel pity, sympathy, for the King, could even understand why he had plunged into a life of dissolute pleasures, but she could feel nothing but contempt for those who, like parasitic insects, lived off his desires, feeding them at a price, selling themselves and their consciences.

However much she pitied the King, she could not forget the corruption which surrounded him. He was like a flower growing on top of a dung heap. The darkness and heat within, the decay and corruption, only emphasised the richness of the flower whose roots went down deep into it.

She did not yet know the secrets of her husband’s mind and heart. She was sure that Rendel, however, could not long be happy in the hot-house atmosphere of the Court. It had not needed Lavinia to point out how hard he worked at his Commons business. She had not lived with him during these months without becoming aware of his capacity for such mundane matters as the studying of new Bills, clause by clause; the long hours of reading through old laws to find out loop-holes, the serious discussions with his colleagues into the small hours.

Her background had taught her that life without work was like meat without salt: savourless. A life of pleasure soon palled. One needed purpose, point to one’s existence.

Yet still she longed for his company, and hated herself for that sweet treachery

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Next morning, she was sitting in the long gallery, the scent of the garden drifting in through the open windows, the hot sweetness of the wallflowers combining with the fragrance of the lilac, when a servant hurried in with a letter on a silver salver.

It was from her father. She read it twice, frowning anxiously. Her mother, it seemed, had fallen down the stairs in the night, breaking her hip.

The Alderman assured Cornelia that she must not be disturbed. He would keep her aware of her mother’s condition. Andrew had already been to tend to her, had made her as comfortable as he could. There was need for Cornelia to come as yet. She must take care of herself at this anxious time.

As yet, thought Cornelia, staring at the hurried words. As yet.

There was an ominous ring in those two words.

Cornelia knew very well, from her sick visiting under Andrew’s guidance, how easy it was for old people to weaken once they had become immobilised. For an active woman like her mother, weeks spent in bed could be really dangerous, both for her physical and for her mental condition.

Within an hour, under violent protest from Nan and the housekeeper, she had packed a few necessaries and was on her way to the city in the coach.

Nan, seated beside her, watched with anxious ferocity as the coach jolted them to and fro. Cornelia was propped up with mounds of silk-covered cushions, her feet on a footstool, her shoulders swathed in a stifling velvet cloak.

She smiled and teased Nan, who would not lighten her tight-lipped indignation.

‘The Alderman had no right worrying you while you were ill. He was always the same. All men are weak, useless wretches. They lean on women from the day they’re born. First their mother, then their wife, then their daughter . . . we are props to their weakness all our lives. ‘

Cornelia shook her head. ‘I am going for my mother’s sake, Nan, not to support my father. If anything were to happen to my mother, and I not there, I would be miserable eternally. My place is beside her.’

Nan growled. ‘So she has broken a bone. Many women do so. She will be up and about in no time.’

‘I hope so,’ said Cornelia soberly.

‘This will not please your husband,’ Nan scolded.

‘He will understand,’ Cornelia replied, with more certainty than she felt, for Rendel would, she knew, be worried if he heard that she had travelled so far so soon.

She found her mother grey with pain, lying tense and still in the four-poster bed, her features rigid with the effort to surmount the waves of pain which kept sweeping down upon her.

When Cornelia approached the side of the bed Mistress Brent, turning her head very slowly, sighed reproachfully at her husband, ‘Oh, why did you send for the child? She is not strong enough yet. ‘

‘I am much better, Mother,’ Cornelia said, taking her mother’s chilled hand in both her own. ‘How are you?’

Mistress Brent gave a thin smile. ‘I shall do very well, I thank you.’

Cornelia sat down on a stool beside the bed and smiled at her. ‘We are a fine pair of invalids, are we not? First one, then the other. I have come so that we may keep each other company in our misery. We will read and gossip together, just as though I had never left home.’

Her mother looked at her with mock severity. ‘I do not remember that we ever gossiped together, child. I am not, I hope, much of a gossip. That is all very well for the common women around the street fountains, chattering as they fetch water, but I am not so foolish, I hope.’

‘Oh, Mother,’ cried Cornelia softly, seeing the effort it cost her to speak at all. ‘What has Andrew given you for your pain?’

‘I am sure I do not know. He has left me many instructions. I am to drink tansy tea every hour, rest, take several spoons of physic.’

Cornelia smiled, patting her hand. ‘Tansy tea, indeed. I am very sure it would do you more good to have a cup of sweet chocolate.’ She went to order some to be made, and they sat together, drinking and talking slowly, unless Mistress Brent drifted off to sleep.