Cashelmara (18 page)

“Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said my voice, and I could see Edward in him so clearly that I wanted to reach out and grasp the elusive likeness, but the next moment it was gone and he was saying with boyish naïveté, “May I kiss you under the mistletoe before you go up to bed?” And he looked so handsome, his hair that rich dull shade of gold and his eyes bluer than any eyes I had ever seen. I had never known any young man who looked quite as handsome to me as he looked then.

“Oh, I don’t believe in kisses under the mistletoe,” I said. “Such a heathen custom. Good night, Patrick. Thank you for a lovely Christmas.”

I left, my feet carrying me without faltering all the way to my room, but when I slipped into bed later I lay awake in the darkness for a long time. I felt I must be very gross and corrupt. Pregnant women were not supposed to yearn for passion during their months of waiting, but that night I longed for Edward as passionately as I had longed for him on our honeymoon, and deep within me was a core of anger that he should have left me alone for so long.

He came back two weeks later. He looked very tall—I always forgot how tall he was—and very handsome, and I loved him better than anyone in the world. All I wanted then was to take him to our room and tell him how much I had missed him, but of course this had to be postponed, for with Edward, swathed in black crepe, her pale, exquisite face hidden by the most hideous of veils, was his bereaved daughter Katherine.

“How do you do, Cousin Katherine,” I said, determined to behave well despite the fact that she had never answered the friendly letter I had written to her after my marriage. “I was truly sorry to hear of your bereavement. Pray accept my deepest sympathies.”

“Thank you, Cousin Marguerite.” She was very formal and as cold as a winter wind from Canada. After she had thanked me there was an awkward pause before Edward suggested she might like to retire to her room before tea, and when she consented I was obliged to escort her upstairs.

“I’m glad you were well enough to travel,” I said tentatively. “No doubt your health will greatly improve now that you’re home again.”

“Yes,” said Katherine.

“I hope your journey wasn’t too difficult.”

“No.”

“You must have been so relieved when your father arrived.”

“Yes.”

I was amazed not only by her monosyllabic woodenness but by her complete lack of gratitude. I wondered if it had ever occurred to her how much I had minded being deprived of Edward’s company and how gravely he himself had been inconvenienced. Deciding I could dislike her all too easily, I tried to make allowances for her by reminding myself of her bereavement.

In her room she took off her veil, and I saw that she was indeed lovely. She was dark. Her eyes were fringed with long black curling lashes, and her skin seemed translucent in contrast. She looked younger too without the veil, and I remembered she was only two years older than I was.

A maid arrived with hot water. Katherine’s own maid was already beginning to unpack.

“Is there anything else I can provide?” I inquired politely, and when she shook her head I hurried to rejoin Edward for our long-awaited private reunion.

We spent much time telling each other what a lonely, miserable Christmas it had been (I was very careful to understate how much I had enjoyed Patrick’s company), and later after he had asked about Thomas he talked of his long journey across Europe to the icy splendor of St. Petersburg. He had visited Russia years before with Eleanor, and one or two of his innumerable acquaintances were still attached to the embassy there. Patiently I listened to his comparison of the Russia of yesterday with the Russia of today; eagerly I drank in his conclusions that not only had nothing changed but that nothing ever would change there, and all the time I was thinking hungrily how handsome he looked and how peculiarly unsuited I was to a celibate life.

“But what about your doctor’s advice?” he said, troubled when the last candle had been extinguished and my skin felt as if it might scorch the sheets.

“Oh, I quite forgot to tell you,” I said, praying hard that God might forgive me for lying. “Dr. Ives said it would be quite safe after the fifth month. It’s the latest medical thought on pregnancy.”

“What a splendid thing scientific progress is!” said Edward with that wry humor I loved so much, and after that I no longer had to worry about the torments of chastity.

The next morning I was overcome with guilty terror in case I had hurt the baby, but Thomas seemed as active as ever, and I soon decided that it was a mistake to believe every word the doctors said. What did doctors know anyway? Besides, it was quite true that they were always changing their minds about the best way to treat their patients.

Fortunately I was soon diverted from my guilty conscience, for on the morning after Edward’s return Mr. Bull requested an audience with his employer, and I knew he intended to give Patrick a bad report.

“Edward,” I said as he finished his second cup of tea and prepared to rise from the breakfast table, “might I have a word with you alone before you go to the library to see Mr. Bull?”

“Of course.” He dismissed the footmen and smiled at me. “What is it?”

“It’s about Patrick. Edward, he was a little naughty after you left, but I persuaded him to behave better, and since then his conduct has been exemplary. I merely wanted you to know that before you interviewed Mr. Bull.”

“I see,” he said. A neutral expression had crept into his eyes, but I decided to ignore it.

“Oh, and, Edward, while we’re discussing Patrick, I’ve just remembered something else I wanted to ask you!” I said brightly. “Dearest, Patrick does so miss his friend Mr. Stranahan. I do realize that Mr. Stranahan’s education shouldn’t be interrupted, but might he not come home for a little vacation soon? Patrick would be so pleased, and I myself would be delighted to receive him.”

“So that,” said Edward, needle-sharp, “was the condition Patrick made for his reformed behavior.”

“Well …”

“The answer to your request is no. Derry misbehaved himself severely, and I have forbidden him my house for three years not only to punish him but to separate him from Patrick. I see absolutely no reason to revoke that decision, nor do I intend to do so.”

“I see,” I said. In the face of such a dogmatic assertion of authority there seemed little else to say. At least, I thought, I could tell Patrick that I tried.

“And, Marguerite, I would be obliged if in future you would refrain from taking sides in matters that are of no concern to you.”

“There was no question of taking sides,” I said unhappily.

“No?” He gave me a cool, hard look. “I’m glad to hear it. It would have put our relationship on an awkward footing, and I fail to see why either of us should be needlessly distressed. So please—no more misguided intercessions on Patrick’s behalf. Concern yourself solely with me and with your child.”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course. But I can’t completely cut myself off from my stepchildren.”

“Nor would I wish it. But to be a stepmother is difficult at the best of times, and to be a stepmother of grown children when one is only eighteen years old is a trial indeed. It would lessen your difficulties if you stayed in the background as much as possible whenever controversies arise.”

“Very well,” I said. “If you wish.” And as I did my best to accept his advice I could not help but think it would suit me very well to be detached toward Katherine even if I found it hard to be detached toward Patrick.

I did think Katherine was very tedious. While we remained at Woodhammer it took little skill to avoid her, but early in the new year we returned to London, and there my troubles began in earnest. It is easy to avoid someone in a mansion the size of Woodhammer Hall but a very different matter to avoid that someone in a compact townhouse. Katherine mooched around behind her widow’s weeds like a bad actress in a Drury Lane melodrama, and by the beginning of February I was already wondering how much longer I could bear her dreary presence in my house.

The straw that finally broke the camel’s back came when Edward decided it was necessary for him to make one of his lightning visits to Cashelmara. There was no question of my going, but since Edward was taking Patrick with him for a lesson in estate management, I did hope that Katherine would decide to accompany them.

But Katherine had other ideas.

“Crossing the Irish Sea in February would be detestable,” she said, and when I suggested she might like to see her sister Annabel, who lived in the Cashelmara dower house, she replied haughtily that she had had nothing to say to her sister since Annabel’s unfortunate second marriage.

“I see,” I said with a sinking heart. “So you’ll stay here.”

She gave me a cold look. “If that is so objectionable to you,” she said after a small, deadly pause, “I can make arrangements to stay in Kent with my husband’s parents.”

“Oh no, no, no!” I exclaimed guiltily, thinking what a splendid idea this was. “Of course you mustn’t leave us, Katherine!”

“Why not? It’s perfectly obvious that you wish to be rid of me.”

That gave me a nasty jolt. Was I really so bad at concealing my feelings? I made a rapid survey of my past conduct and thought not. “I absolutely deny …” I began with spirit but was interrupted.

“Besides,” said Katherine, “you evidently fail to realize that I find our joint presence under one roof just as unendurable as you do. Christian charity alone prompts me to pity, not to condemn, you for being debased enough to permit yourself any intimacy whatsoever with a man my father’s age, but nevertheless I find your condition quite repulsive. Indeed I can hardly look at you without feeling faint with nausea.”

Anyone who has ever suffered from violent jealousy can hardly fail to recognize the symptoms in others. I said in a surprised, meek little voice, “You’re jealous!”—not an intelligent remark, I do admit, but I was still reeling from her furious onslaught and was at first too stunned to shriek abuse at her in return.

“Jealous!” she exclaimed, drawing herself up to her full height and giving me her most hoity-toity look.

“Jealous!” I hurled back at her, beginning to recover. “You’re jealous of my place in your father’s affections!”

“What a disgusting slander!” She spoke with exquisite precision; her face might have been carved out of stone. “That’s quite untrue. I have no idea what place you hold in my father’s affections, but I know very well what place I hold there. I’m his favorite daughter. I always was. Oh, I know Nell was the one he treated as a companion, but that was only because she was so much older than us and he came to rely on her when Mama was ill. But even Nell married beneath her—even Nell disappointed him in the end! But I never did. I was the one who made the brilliant match. He told me on my wedding day how proud he was of me, and that made everything worthwhile, those horrible two years of marriage, those dreadful long winters in St. Petersburg. Oh, it would be impossible for someone as vulgar as you to understand how miserable I’ve been! But throughout it all my place in Papa’s affections has remained unchanged. Wasn’t that proved when he came all the way to St. Petersburg to bring me home? I knew he would come. I’m his favorite daughter, you see, and there’s nothing whatsoever you can do about it.”

This was more than I could endure. She was insufferable.

“And I’m his wife!” I shouted. “And there’s nothing you can do about that either, you cold, selfish, beastly creature! How dare you drag him all the way to St. Petersburg just to prove to yourself that he would come if you moaned loudly enough for help! How dare you deprive us of our first Christmas together! If you think he adores you so much you should have heard how cross he was at having to journey all the way across Europe in order to do what he at least merely regarded as a tedious duty!”

“You wicked, unprincipled little liar—”

“How dare you call me that!”

“And how dare you say Papa doesn’t love me!” screamed Katherine, her stony façade crumbling into a dozen heartbroken lines, and she ran sobbing hysterically from the room.

I was so surprised to learn that she was capable of shedding tears that for a moment I stood motionless, staring after her. But when my anger began to cool I tried to weigh the situation, much as I would have calculated a move at chess. Either I could wash my hands of her and hope she left the house as soon as possible, or I could make some attempt to convince her that I was not the debased monster she thought I was. My first instinct was to begin washing my hands, but then it occurred to me that perhaps I had been a little unkind in revealing Edward’s reluctance to go to her rescue. There was no doubt how miserable I would have felt if after Francis had rescued me from some unhappy situation I had learned that he had actually longed to remain behind in New York with Blanche.

I gave Katherine half an hour to recover her composure, and then I tapped on her bedroom door.

“Katherine,” I said when we were face to face again, “I think we’ve both been silly. You’ve been silly in seeing my marriage to your father as disgusting when in fact it’s really rather romantic, and I’ve been even sillier in avoiding you all these weeks when ever since my marriage I’ve been longing for a companion of my own age. We may have nothing in common and any attempt at friendship may fail dismally, but I would at least like to try to be friends. Could we not start again and treat each other with less prejudice and more—” I groped for inspirational words and cunningly plucked a favorite phrase from her own repertoire—“more Christian charity?”

Just as a donkey will step forward to reach a carrot, so Katherine was unable to resist the temptation to display virtue. “I’m sure no one is more willing than I to behave in a Christian fashion,” she said grandly after recovering from her astonishment; but remembering her jealousy, she added, “I’m not surprised to hear you have missed the companionship of people of your own age, but you should have thought of that before you married Papa.”

“Oh, I know,” I said earnestly, wondering how far my patience would extend despite all my good intentions. “I know. But how I envy you, Katherine! Even though you’ve been away for two years you must know so many girls of our age in London!”