My mother had become Simon Caseman’s wife. Now that the wedding was over I was aware of a change creeping over the household. It was subtle at first but none the less there. The servants were made aware of a different rule in the house. Simon was not going to be the lenient master my father had been. He walked with a certain swagger; the servants must always call him Master. The men must never forget to touch their forelocks and the maids must make sure they curtsied almost to the ground. He watched the household accounts with care. He dismissed a few of the servants as being unnecessary. Beggars would no longer be sure of food and wine; he ordered that travelers should not be encouraged to regard us as a kind of hostelry. Not that we had had many such since my father’s death; knowing that he had been arraigned and condemned, people were afraid to come near us. But now that there was a new master they might come, so Simon Caseman gave the order that they were not to be encouraged.

My mother had become a little nervous, I noticed. She was very eager to please him. She agreed with everything he said; and what disgusted me was that she had a kind of adoration for him and this, when I considered her lack of appreciation of my father, angered me.

I was certainly beginning to feel things more strongly which was, I suppose, a sign that I was growing away from my grief.

One day I discovered lettering on the wrought-iron gates of the house. This was CASEMAN’S COURT. Before the house had had no name. It was simply known as Lawyer Farland’s House. The resentment when I saw those letters affected me like a physical pain.

He was the master. He wanted us all to know that. He wanted us all to know that we lived on his bounty. My mother must present her household accounts to him—something she had never done to my father. She was an excellent and thrifty housewife but I noticed that she was always nervous on Fridays, the day she must produce her accounts.

Rupert’s position had changed. He was no longer treated like a member of the family. He was a workman, though a superior one. He was not allowed to make his own decisions.

I alone was not subjected to this treatment. If I wished not to join them for meals I did not and I was not called to order for this. I was not expected to do anything in the house. I often found his eyes fixed on me in a strange kind of way. I was suspicious of him, disliking him. I was constantly looking for the fox’s mask on his face; it seemed to have become more apparent; his eyes were sharper, more tawny. I was very wary of him and I hated him and the changes he was making in our house, for these very changes reminded me more and more of the old days and my dear father.

Less than two months after the marriage my mother told me that she was going to have a child. I was horrified, although I suppose it was natural enough. She was thirty-six years of age, young enough to bear a child; but the fact that she should so soon be fruitful seemed to me an insult to my father and I was disgusted. How she had changed. She seemed to me simpering and foolish, pretending to be as a young wife might have been with her first child.

Simon Caseman was delighted. He seemed to regard it as a personal triumph. He knew that my father had longed for a family and he had only been able to get one girl who lived; whereas he, married but two months, had already given evidence of his virility.

I knew now that I wanted to go away and I decided I would write to Kate and ask if I might stay with her for a while.

Simon cornered me one day in the garden and he said: “Why, Damask, I see so little of you. I might think that you deliberately avoid me.”

“You might well think it,” I said.

“Have I offended you in some way?”

“In many ways,” I replied.

“I am sorry.”

“You appear to be far from that.”

“Damask, we must accept circumstances, you know, even when they go against us. You know that I have always been fond of you.”

“I know that you offered me marriage.”

“And you are a little hurt that I married another.”

“Not on my own account—only on that other’s.”

“She seems well content.”

“She is perhaps easily content.”

“I’ll venture to say that she was never more content than now.”

“You venture too far.”

“It does me good to speak to you.”

“I don’t reap a like benefit,” I retorted.

“I am sorry that I have taken that which should be yours.”

“You lie, sir. You are very happy to have what you always wanted.”

“I did not get all that I wanted.”

“Did you not? It is a fair house; the land is good. And you do not talk like a good husband?”

“I hear that you wish to go to your cousin.”

“Don’t tell me that you propose forbidding me to do so.”

“I would not presume to do that.”

“I am glad because it would have been useless.”

“Let us be good friends, Damask,” he said. “I want to tell you that you are welcome here as long as you care to stay.”

“It is a very gracious gesture to allow me to remain as a guest in my own house.”

“You know that it is mine.”

“I know you took it.”

“It was bestowed on me.”

“Why on you? Could you tell me that? It is a question on which I have long pondered.”

“You can guess, can you not? Because I was capable of managing it. It had been my home for some years. I was ready to marry the widow of the previous owner which would relieve the family hardship considerably. It seemed a good arrangement.”

“For you, yes.” I walked off and left him.

Rupert asked me to walk with him in the nuttery. It used to be a favorite place of mine but since the hut in which my father had hidden Amos Carmen was there, it had become too painful a reminder of all that had happened.

He slipped his arm through mine. “Damask,” he said, “I must talk to you very seriously.”

“Yes, Rupert.”

“I am going away. Lord Remus has offered me a farm. I shall manage it and in a short time it will be my own. Kate has prevailed on him.”

“Her marriage was a great blessing not only to her but to you.”

“Damask, you are growing bitter.”

“Circumstances change us all, doubtless.”

“There is still much that is good in life.”

“I see little at this time.”

“Well, it is a dark period through which we are passing. But it won’t always be so. The world we knew has gone. It is for us to build a new life.”

“You may well do that with your new farm. You will go away from here and forget us.”

“I shall never forget you. But my surroundings will be different. The problems of the present will, I know, impose themselves on the past.”

“It is easy for you.”

“I loved your father, Damask, and I love you.”

“I was his daughter. Do you think your love can be compared with mine?”

“Still it was love.”

I took his hand and pressed it. “I shall never forget what you risked to bring his head to me,” I said. The tears were on my cheeks and he drew me to him and kissed them gently.

Suddenly I knew that if I could not find the great ecstasy I had dreamed of with Rupert, at least I could find comfort. I could leave this house. It would mean a great deal to me not to see my mother and Simon Caseman together. To leave this house…I had never thought to do it. I had dreamed of myself growing old in it, my children playing in these gardens as I had done; my father delighting in his grandchildren. That dream could never become a reality. But Rupert was offering me consolation. He was telling me that although I should mourn my father forever, I could start to make a new life for myself.

He said: “The farm is not far from here. Between these lands and Remus’s estate—not far from Hampton. I shall be between you and Kate. We can meet often…if you decided not to come altogether. But I hope you will because I know, Damask, that I can look after you.”

“Rupert,” I answered emotionally, “you are a good man. How I wish that I could love you as a husband should be loved.”

“It would come, Damask. In time it would come.”

I shook my head. “And if it did not? You would be cheated, Rupert.”

“You could never cheat anyone.”

“Perhaps you do not know me, for I sometimes feel I do not know myself. To leave here….Oh, Rupert, I had never thought of it. I visit my father’s grave…frequently.”

“I know and I do not care for you to be wandering about the Abbey grounds alone.”

“You fear that there is some evil lurking there?”

“I fear desperate men might be lurking there.”

“Monks perhaps returning to their old home, or the spirits of murdered men?”

“I fear for you to go there. Damask, we could remove your father’s remains. We could take them with us. We could make a sanctuary in our new home and there you could have that precious box with you always. You could make a shrine to his memory.”

“Oh, Rupert,” I cried, “I think you understand me as no one ever did…since Father.”

“Then come with me, Damask. Come away from this house which is no longer your home, come away from a situation which has become distasteful to you.”

It seemed that I must. Yet I hesitated. It was not as I had always thought it should be. Was life always to be a compromise? I thought of Kate’s marrying Lord Remus for what he could give her. Should I be doing the same if I married Rupert? Lord Remus gave Kate jewels, riches, a place at Court, and I had despised her for her mercenary motives. But if I married Rupert because he could take me away from a situation which had become intolerable to me was I not in like case?

“I am so unsure,” I said. “I do not know what I should do. Be patient with me, Rupert.”

He pressed my hand gently. I could sense his elation. I knew he would always be patient.

“Think on it,” he said. “You know I would not wish you to do anything which was distasteful to you. Remember too that it was his wish.”

I did remember it and it weighed greatly with me.

And that night I lay in my room and thought that I would marry Rupert, and I was ashamed because at one time I had believed he would have married me for the fortune I could bring him.

Now I was without that fortune and he still wished to marry me. I had misjudged him.

This made me feel very tender toward him.

Yet I could still not make up my mind.

I was sitting in my mother’s walled rose garden thinking about the future when Simon Caseman came in.

He took the seat beside me.

“By my faith,” he said, “you are more beautiful with your hair half grown than you were when it reached past your waist.”

“As I was never very beautiful that need not be a great deal.”

“Your verbal darts ever amuse me.”

“I am pleased you can be so easily amused. It must be a blessing in this drab world.”

“Oh, come, stepdaughter, are you not unduly morbid?”

“Considering what has befallen me this last year, most certainly not.”

“I should like to see you happier.”

“The only thing that could make me happier would be to see my father walk into this garden alive and well, happy and secure from…traitors.”

“We are none of us secure from traitors, Damask. We have to remember that we live on the very edge of a volcano which can erupt and destroy us at any moment. If we are wise we take what we can get and do our best to enjoy it while we can.”

“I see you put your policy into action. You are enjoying what you have taken.”

“Most willingly would I have shared it with you.”

He moved closer to me and I drew away with some alarm.

“Foolish Damask,” he said. “I would have made you mistress of this place.”

“It was what my father intended—that I should in due course come into my own.”

“He would have wished to see you mistress of it, yes. You have been foolish. And one day you will see how foolish. I shall be a very rich man one day, Damask.”

“Do you see your way clear to acquiring more lands?”

He pretended not to see the significance of the question.

He went on as though talking to himself. “The Abbey is going to ruin. It cannot always be so. Imagine what could be done there. The lands are rich. They will not lie idle forever. It will be bestowed on someone who will cultivate it, possibly build a fine mansion. There are enough bricks there to build a castle.”