Cashelmara (13 page)

Marguerite wore a plain white dress and a plain white veil and carried a lush bunch of yellow roses. She looked small, neat and astonishingly self-possessed.

I remember very little about either the ceremony or the reception. Duneden made a good speech, not too long, and all the guests wished us well in the usual fashion over glasses of champagne. Amelia had arranged for the reception to be held at Mivart’s, and after we left the hotel we went not to the station but to my house in St. James’s Square. It was five o’clock by that time, and I had decided we would be more comfortable if we spent the night in London instead of rushing off to the Continent on the first available train.

Marguerite had changed into a green silk dress, the jacket opening in a V at the neck and the wide sweep of the skirt trailing behind her in the smallest of trains. On the back of her head she wore the merest wisp of a bonnet with floating azure ribbons to offset the brilliant green of the silk, and her small hands were encased in a pair of exquisitely tight-fitting kid gloves.

We dined at eight. It was a simple dinner. We ate some cold salmon and a quantity of buttered potatoes seasoned with parsley and the smallest, most flavorful peas to be found that morning in Covent Garden. Afterward there was syllabub, which Marguerite loved with a great passion, and presently without pausing to drink port I followed her to the drawing room.

By this time she was wearing a gown of yellow brocade that left her shoulders bare, and the yards of blond lace trimming were studded with lavish artificial flowers. I can remember the light from the chandelier shining on the diamonds I had given her and the train of her gown rustling stealthily as she walked upstairs to the drawing room.

We stayed in the drawing room for some time, but it was still light when we went to bed. The days are very long toward the end of June.

We almost missed the train to Dover the next morning. Since I always woke at seven I had seen no reason to tell my manservant to rouse me at eight, and Marguerite, of course, had instructed her maid to wait for a summons. In the circumstances nobody dared disturb us, and when I awoke at last I saw to my horror that it was nine o’clock. Fortunately my secretary hurried to the station to delay the train for us, but we rushed so feverishly to be ready that in the end we were no more than five minutes late. I remember that we collapsed laughing in our carriage as the train steamed out of the station, and afterward both of us declared we had never before spent such a frenzied morning.

Marguerite wore a light-brown mantle shaped to her waist in front and flowing loose behind and a large round hat in anticipation of the sea air, and beneath the hem of her skirt I glimpsed her small feet encased in the narrowest pair of Adelaide boots.

After a smooth voyage to Calais we spent a few days in Paris, but since Napoleon III’s militant attitudes had remained unchanged, the atmosphere in France was not conducive to a long visit. I was anxious to press on to Switzerland and Bavaria, where we could forget the echoes of last summer’s war. That part of Europe had long been a favorite of mine, and I longed to share the splendor of its scenery with Marguerite. I speak German with a tolerable fluency; indeed I feel more at home among the German-speaking peoples than among the French, and even by the time we had reached Basel all my domestic troubles seemed as remote as the interior of China.

Before we left Bern, where we had stayed several days, I could not resist saying to Marguerite, “Are you happy?”

“I don’t see how I could ever be any happier!” she said, laughing. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“I wanted to be certain.”

“You surely couldn’t have thought I was acting!”

I said that I knew that some women did feel obliged to act a part occasionally, out of kindness. “I wouldn’t think any the worse of you for it,” I said with care. “I know any pretense would be made because you loved me and wanted to be generous, but Marguerite, you must tell me if ever I ask too much of you, because I don’t want you to be unhappy. You mustn’t think I wouldn’t understand.”

“But how could you ask too much of me?” said Marguerite, genuinely puzzled, but when I tried to explain what I meant she looked more puzzled than ever.

“Edward,” she said firmly, interrupting me, “one of us is being very stupid, and I have a terrible feeling it must be me. Since I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about, do you think you could please be a little more explicit?”

So again I tried to explain, and again we both became confused until at last Marguerite exclaimed incredulously, “But it’s heaven! Don’t all women feel that way?” And then, appalled: “Oh, goodness, aren’t women supposed to feel that way?”

And it was not until that moment that I clearly saw how much I had always lacked during my cherished first marriage to Eleanor.

“I never understood why Eleanor changed,” I said. “It would have been easier if I had understood.”

We were at Interlaken, and beyond the heavy velvet curtains framing the windows of our baroque apartments the flower-strewn meadows shimmered hazily beneath the mountain slopes. But as I spoke I could no longer see the mountains. I was looking back into the past toward bleaker times, and when I spoke I could hardly believe that my most private thoughts were at last being voiced aloud.

“It was true there were difficulties on the honeymoon, but we were young and in love, and few difficulties last long in those circumstances. Even after the children began to come all was still well. Childbirth was never an ordeal for Eleanor, and she was anxious to make as great a success of motherhood as she had of marriage. Eleanor always had this strong desire to succeed. If she had been a man she too might have entered politics, but since a woman’s world is more limited than a man’s, she turned all her energies toward promoting my career and bringing up our family. We knew exactly how many children we wanted: two boys and two girls. I can remember how amused we were when we did succeed in producing first a daughter, then two boys and finally another girl. Eleanor said we should be proud of such efficiency, and we both laughed. We were very happy.”

I was no longer aware of Marguerite’s presence in the room. I was aware only of Eleanor, beautiful and elegant, dark-haired, dark-eyed and dazzling.

“But the baby died.” The memory of Eleanor blurred. “The little girl. She was called Beatrice. When Eleanor recovered from the shock all she wanted was another baby, but although we did have another daughter she lived only three months, and then our two boys, John and Henry, both showed signs of consumption. I can’t describe to you the grief we suffered. At first it drew us closer together, but after the boys were dead I realized that Eleanor was gripped with a morbid sense of failure—as if she had failed by providing me with only one child who had survived. I admit I did want another son, since it was important for a man in my position to have an heir, but I could have waited. I wasn’t filled with this feverish urgency to replace what had been lost. But Eleanor could think of nothing else. She lost interest in the world around her until finally, thank God, Annabel was born, and Louis, and at last we had three healthy children again. For me that was enough. I never wanted more children after that.”

The sun was streaming through the window, and suddenly I was back in the nursery at Woodhammer and Nell was slipping her small hand into mine as we looked into Louis’s cradle.

“Eleanor understood. It was she who suggested that we should go away together for a while. She said she felt guilty because she knew she had neglected me during our saddest times. ‘But I want to make amends to you,’ she said. ‘I want to be a good wife to you again, Edward, the best wife you could possibly wish for.’ She was always striving for perfection, you understand. She had such very high standards. My mother used to say to her, ‘What are you going to do, Eleanor, if one day you find you can’t live up to those high standards of yours?’ But I think she only said that because she was secretly a little jealous, just as mothers are so often jealous of successful daughters-in-law.

“Anyway, I accepted Eleanor’s suggestion that we should travel, and that was when we came to America. We had always wanted to visit the New World, and at last it seemed as if we had the ideal opportunity.”

I was in Boston now. I was looking out of the hotel window across the Common, and far away in the distance I could see the lights of Beacon Hill.

“But something happened to us,” I said. “Eleanor found our intimate life together repugnant. I don’t know why. She said she suspected it was because anticonception made her feel guilty; she felt she was violating the Church’s teaching. But I couldn’t believe that. She wasn’t deeply religious. We went to church regularly, of course, to set an example to the children, but in private we both veered toward skepticism. Eventually Eleanor said she was sure all would be well again if we made no effort to prevent other pregnancies, and in fact this proved to be true. All was well again, but …” I stopped. For a long moment I could not speak, but at last I managed to say, “No, all was never well again. I wanted to believe it was, but it wasn’t.”

For the first time I looked at Marguerite. She was so motionless she scarcely seemed to breathe. Her eyes were a calm clear blue.

“My friends believed all was well. They said to me occasionally, ‘You’re a lucky man to have such a devoted wife!’ Their wives had stopped sleeping with them years before; their wives no longer became pregnant. And when I saw my friends groveling in search of mistresses I began to think that perhaps they were right and I was indeed lucky. Eleanor was still mine, and she was such a wonderful companion, enjoying my interests, promoting my career, doing all she could to be a perfect wife. After a while I told myself to count my blessings and never allow myself to feel angry whenever she conceived another child I didn’t want.”

I was silent for a time. It was quiet in the room. Presently I was able to say, “We went on for some years like that—until Patrick was born. That was when everything ended. The doctor said afterward that she should never have another child, and she never spent another night with me again.”

I frowned, remembering the past, dwelling on it once more in a fruitless effort to understand. “The curious part was,” I said, “that when Eleanor was finally confronted with the fact that she was unable to behave toward me as a model wife should, she lost all interest not only in being a good wife but in being a good mother. She withdrew from me and she withdrew from the children. Of course she was very unwell for a long time, especially after Louis’s death when she had a nervous collapse, but even later she never regained her interest in the children. I could understand her being indifferent to Patrick, who had ruined her health, but it was strange how she became indifferent to the girls. It was as if she had lost all her fear of failure, as if she had given up some terrible struggle and wanted only to accept defeat. She changed so much.

“And I never really understood why. Why was she unable to share a room with me unless she thought that we might conceive a child? This was obviously the only way in which she felt able to live with me as my wife, but why? Was I at fault? What did I do? Was there anything I could have done? I loved her so much. Before our final estrangement I was always faithful to her, and that wasn’t easy. The doctor always advised her against marital relations when she was pregnant, and so there were often months on end when she slept in a separate room. But I accepted that because I loved her and because I knew that despite all our difficulties she loved me.”

I looked at Marguerite again. There was an element in her expression that hinted I was on the brink of some deep, painful understanding, but instinct told me it was safer not to understand. “Eleanor really did love me, you know,” I said, uncertain why I repeated the words but knowing it was vital we should both believe them. “Good wives always love their husbands, don’t they, and Eleanor was such a perfect wife.”

Marguerite had fallen in love with Switzerland. By the time we reached my favorite inn overlooking Lake Lucerne she had bought fifty prints of various views, three dozen slides for her magic lantern, untold yards of Swiss embroidery and three cuckoo clocks. The weather was warm, each day brilliant with long hours of sunshine, and from the balcony of our room we could look across the lake to the soaring heights of Mount Pilatus.

“So this is what it’s like to be in one’s dotage,” I said, amused, to Marguerite one afternoon. “I have no idea what’s happening in Parliament. The entire British Empire may be in a state of collapse and I neither know nor care. I have no desire to read a newspaper, no desire to read a book—although I might consider a frivolous novel—no desire to write a thesis and no desire to do anything except stay here with you. I had always thought contempt led people to condemn those in their dotage, but now I know it’s not contempt at all. It’s jealousy.”

Marguerite, who was busy filling her journal with elaborate descriptions of our surroundings, looked up. “If you’re in your dotage,” she said severely, “my new name isn’t Marguerite de Salis. Edward darling, I wish you wouldn’t think so much about your age. I don’t think about it, so why should you?”

“I don’t think of it much, but I can’t help wishing occasionally that I was a few years younger.”

“What difference would that make? Age is a state of mind, like lying on a bed of nails,” said Marguerite obscurely and added as if to dismiss the subject, “Anyway, you’re so fit and strong you’ll probably live until you’re a hundred.”

“But what a dreadful fate that would be for you!”

She laughed. “I shall love you forever and ever,” she said in that confident way people have when they are very young. “Don’t you believe that?”

“I … would very much like to believe it.”

My cynicism, that razor edge of my sadness, must have shown despite my flippant tone of voice. Abandoning her journal, she jumped up, ran across the room and kissed me. “Then you must believe it!” she said earnestly, “because it’s true. Dearest Edward, you’ve given me everything I could possibly want. Indeed, I feel as if I’m an entirely new person. Do you truly think I shall stop loving you just because you’ll reach old age before I shall? What a poor opinion of me you must have!”