A Marriage of Convenience by Tim Jeal Read Free Book Online

conversation as an opportunity to impose his personality and trumpet his achievements. She had come to like his long angular face and heavy-lidded eyes, which perfectly reflected his sardonic humour. His low quiet voice, which had at first seemed a little monotonous, now appealed to her; just as his formality and shyness had come to do. Often she was sure she loved him. So why subject him to suspense which his kindness made cruelly undeserved?
    At times she very nearly relented, but never reached the point of no return. Before she did, from out of her restless searching past came ghosts of faces—not more than three or four, and none of them extraordinary at first sight, though undeniably attractive in their ways—but each one, for a brief month or two, had once been magically transformed and made beautiful beyond expectation. And choice, resistance, reason had all been swept away like gossamer. When she thought of this, Theresa could not escape the difference between such devastating changes and her slowly altering perceptionof Esmond’s qualities. In truth, he had acquired rights of possession almost without her realising it, by patience and the kind of imperceptible encroachment, which, given time, can establish rights of way to the most unyielding hearts.
    Perhaps in three months she would know whether such things mattered; whether a love built so consciously could justify the sacrifice of an independence not easily won. Her other fears were harder to define. Sometimes she wondered whether his refusal to be demanding or possessive was quite as reassuring as she had once thought it. His ability to maintain such close control of himself, when deeply committed and involved, often struck her as uncanny. A man who trusted a woman, and praised her as a paragon of every virtue, was imprisoning as well as flattering her; for how could she ever disillusion a person who thought so well of her? There were times when she felt obliged to resemble his exalted picture; not making a scathing remark, not saying what she thought, but acting out involuntarily the gentle role his kindness had cast her in.
    Theresa and Esmond dined early that evening, as they always did before she left for the theatre. As dinner drew to a close, Theresa reminded him of the weeks before she had agreed to live in his house. With an exhausting provincial tour just finished, and another looming close, she had been tired and dispirited. Nor had she been happy about Louise, who had been sent away to board at a convent school, when a dearth of leading roles in London had forced Theresa to work with touring companies. Often too downcast to express much pleasure at seeing Esmond, Theresa had been amazed that he continued to visit her when he got so little in return.
    After the butler had set down a bowl of fruit and decanters of port and madeira, Theresa began to speak about a particular afternoon when she had been even less welcoming than usual, and had asked him point blank what he thought he achieved by coming.
    ‘I’ll never forget what you said,’ she continued, snipping off some grapes with a pair of silver fruit scissors. She looked at him, past a vase of roses between them on the shining table. ‘Do you remember?’
    He cupped his chin in his hands and thought for a moment: a man completely at ease.
    ‘I suppose I said something about finding it enough just being with you.’
    She shook her head and watched him, but he added nothing.
    ‘You said you came so that I’d think about you a little after you’d gone away.’
    Esmond smiled ruefully.
    ‘Did I specify what you were meant to think?’
    ‘No, you said that didn’t matter.’
    He adjusted a white cuff where it left the sleeve of his embroidered smoking jacket and raised his eyes.
    ‘Well, you have to admit that any thoughts are better than no thoughts.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t very manly of me.’
    ‘I did sometimes wonder why you put up with me.’
    ‘You mean