Daughter of Satan by Jean Plaidy

Author:Jean Plaidy [Jean Plaidy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

FIVE

IT WAS TAMAR’S wedding night.

She was twenty-three years old – old enough to be married – and she thought of the last three years as dull and uneventful.

She had been twenty years old when she had heard that Bartle was lost. The men from that ship which had limped back to Plymouth explained that they had been outnumbered three to one in the Bay of Biscay, and aboard the attacking forces were fierce pirates – Turks or Algerians. Bartle’s ship had been fired and all loot taken before it was sunk. It was a fate he had risked many times and now it had overtaken him.

She was numb and listless during those days which had followed. She could not analyse her feelings for Bartle. Her hatred had been fierce because he had so deeply humiliated her. Twice he had tricked her; twice he had cheated her; and he had mocked her mercilessly. He was every bit as cruel as the men who had killed him, and yet . . . how could she understand this feeling which was now hers? Why was it that she hated the bright and shining water which had taken him? Why was it that all the excitement had gone from her life? Was it because there was no one in it who seemed worthy of her hatred?

Whenever a ship came in, she was one of the first to take her stand on Barbican Causeway. She would shade her eyes and watch it as it came towards the land. Surely he must have escaped! He was too young to die. And it was impossible to imagine him dead. She would never be able to do that.

She was restless, yet subdued. There were times when she seemed not to hear, if people spoke to her. Richard was anxious about her, suspecting that she regretted not having married Bartle.

She would not let herself believe that she yearned for that tempestuous existence which marriage with him would have been. How ironical that by marrying him she could have saved him from taking that fatal journey. That first shameful occasion, so she had believed at the time, had saved Richard’s life; the second, Humility’s; and now, there could be no doubt that, had she given herself to Bartle for ever, she would have saved his.

Often she was at the Tylers’ cottage. Annis had another boy now, and at Humility’s suggestion they had christened him Restraint. In the old days Tamar would have laughed at that, for the healthy boy, pulling greedily at his mother’s breasts, seemed to her most incongruously named. But she had, she realized, little laughter left in her.

Annis in her cottage home, with John a devout Puritan and most faithful husband, was a contented woman. It was irritating to contemplate such contentment, and to envy Annis her home and children just as she envied Richard his calm outlook on life, Humility his faith. This was a strange state for a girl to be in, particularly when a little while ago her life had seemed to be all excitement and pleasure.

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