Cashelmara (24 page)

Matters might have come to a head sooner if our physical ease with each other had dwindled, but at first, once the bedroom door was closed, our intimacy flourished more strongly than ever. I was becoming just as obsessed as Katherine with the desire to please him, and in bed at least I knew I could please him to exhaustion. Unfortunately I became so anxious to please him that I was seldom able to relax sufficiently to allow him to please me, and although for a long time I was able to accept this with equanimity, in the end I began to feel resentful and disturbed.

Once again I said nothing. I did not dare. It was all very well for Edward to tell me frankly how delighted he was that I enjoyed that side of marriage, but if I had attempted to tell him that I could be enjoying it more and that my lack of enjoyment was partly his fault, I knew he would have been horrified. I did not quarrel with this. I am not one of those crusading females like my countrywoman Miss Bloomer, who thinks women should say what they like to men and even wear trousers while they say it. I know that the differences between men and women necessarily merit different orders of behavior, but I must confess that as the months passed and my relationship with Edward drifted into darker waters I did wish that a woman had the right in certain circumstances to talk frankly to her husband.

How long we might have drifted along together in this unsatisfactory state if events had not intervened to exacerbate it I have no idea. But during the two years which followed Katherine’s marriage to Lord Duneden in the spring of 1863, Edward began for no apparent reason to suffer from impotence so that our relationship in the bedroom, always one of the strengths of our marriage, finally ground to a halt.

It began insidiously, as many of the worst troubles often do. He had one failure; then all was well for a time, but presently there was another and yet another and after that he withdrew from me to absorb himself utterly in his work. He spoke in the House, he sat on committees, he worked on a new thesis, he lectured at the Agricultural College in Dublin, he toured a model farm in East Anglia and he made one of his lightning visits to Cashelmara to ensure that no one was slacking in his absence. He was busy night and day, and so was I. I paid dozens of calls, organized a charity ball, ordered a new spring wardrobe for myself, tried to teach David to talk and kept myself remorselessly up to date with current events. I followed every detail of the Civil War as if it were taking place in my own back yard, until there was nothing I did not know about Robert E. Lee and his invasion of the North. I dragged myself through each dreadful detail of the defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, lived each splendid hour of the triumph at Gettysburg, and throughout the summer of 1864 I was with Sherman on every step of his march to the sea. Francis began to write jubilant letters, and English sympathy, dimly impressed by Lincoln at last, began to veer toward the North. But as usual the English were too absorbed in themselves to do more than veer. Everyone was talking of the evils of child chimney sweeps, and presently I was following the parliamentary debates on the bill to end their abuse. I read a great many newspapers in those days, and when Edward returned from Cashelmara he remarked how well informed I was.

Matters improved between us for a short time after that. But then to my dismay our troubles began afresh, and this time, contrary to his usual habits, he went nowhere but spent most of the day and night in the library. He said he was working on a new thesis. Outwardly he was very polite to me, but in the atmosphere of awkwardness that lay between us I felt him withdraw completely from me into isolation.

I did not know what to do. Worse still, I had no one to whom I could turn for advice. There are some matters that one simply does not discuss with one’s best friends or even, if one is lucky enough to possess one, with one’s mother. I was alone. I tried to tell myself that all would be well, that our difficulties would pass, but to my horror we seemed only to sink into a deeper morass of estrangement. Presently Edward abandoned the item he always used to prevent me from conceiving children. He did not ask my permission. He simply stopped using it, and when I summoned the courage to object he blamed the item for his troubles and said it was a constraint to him. I became desperate. I did not want another child, and my fear of conception made me reluctant. I tried to hide my reluctance, but of course he sensed it, and when eventually it made no difference to us whether he used the item or not he turned around and blamed me for our unhappiness.

It was at this moment, when my relationship with Edward was at its lowest ebb, that Patrick was sent down from Oxford.

It was the February of 1866. In America the war and Lincoln had died bloody deaths, but Francis was already writing that there was a lot of money being made in the North during those days of Reconstruction; he himself had fared very comfortably during the war after the initial panic had receded from Wall Street, and if I were to return home for a visit he could promise me the royalest of welcomes. But of course such a visit was impossible. Edward was far too busy to contemplate the long journey to America, and it would not have been at all proper for me to go without him. I did not even suggest it, because I knew he would have been justified in refusing his permission, but by 1866 I was even wondering if the limited separation might have done us good.

Separation seemed to have improved his relationship with Patrick. In the spring of 1864 Edward had sent his son on a Grand Tour of Europe with Mr. Bull, and in the autumn of that year Patrick had gone up to Oxford. During his first year all had gone well, and Edward had been greatly pleased. I doubt that Patrick learned much, but I suspected he enjoyed his freedom from supervision. However, halfway through the Trinity term of his second year he was sent down for what was described in the official letter as “persistent drunken, disorderly behavior, refusal to attend to any academic work, and frequent incidences of truancy.”

Edward was furious. To make matters worse, Patrick was in debt. Gambling had made a great hole in his allowance, and Edward had to go to Oxford himself to settle all the unpaid bills.

A day later he came home in the blackest of rages and told me he had given Patrick two hundred pounds and forbidden him to enter any of his houses for the next twelve months.

“He’s not getting one penny of an allowance from me either,” he said grimly. “He can manage on two hundred pounds for a year and see how he likes it. And, Marguerite, if he should come to St. James’s Square to beg money from you, you’re to have nothing to do with him, do you understand? Nothing whatsoever. He’s thoroughly disgraced me with his weak, despicable behavior. My God, what a son for a man in my position to have! If Cashelmara were not entailed I would cut him out of my will.” And striding off to his study, he slammed the door with a crash that made all the porcelain rattle in the saloon.

I said nothing. I said little to him those days on any subject that could conceivably make him lose his temper. I merely kept out of his way as much as possible, and presently when he departed for Cashelmara I was relieved to be on my own. I flung myself once more into a whirl of social activity, and every spare moment of my time I devoted to the boys. Thomas was nearly five years old and so active that I feared poor Nanny found him a terrible handful; even I, loving him dearly as I did, felt exhausted after a mere half hour in his company, but David was still delightfully placid, round and serene as a small buddha and quite indifferent to Thomas’s attempts to galvanize him into a more energetic playmate.

“That stupid baby,” said Thomas crossly. “He’ll never grow up properly, never. And he’s so
stout.”

“I like being stout,” said David. He was three now and spoke very precisely in a mellow contralto. “Nanny is stout too. I like Nanny.”

David had a thatch of hair so fair it was almost white, pink cheeks, blue eyes and a dimpled chin. It never ceased to amaze me that I, who was plain, could ever have produced a child like David.

Dearest baby, I thought as David smiled at me seraphically, but I managed to restrain myself from being too doting. I suffered from a temptation to spoil both children those days and supposed it was because I was so often frustrated in my desire to show affection toward others.

It was barely a month before Patrick turned up at St. James’s Square. Edward, who had returned from Cashelmara by this time, had set out in the brougham to keep some appointment, and I was already at my davenport in the drawing room where I attended to my daily correspondence. I had just written the last of a batch of dinner invitations when the butler announced that Patrick was in the hall.

My heart sank. I had known this was bound to happen, just as I knew now that Patrick would be full of faith, convinced that I could not possibly turn him away.

“Lomax,” I said to the butler, “my husband has, I believe, given you certain instructions about Mr. Patrick.”

“Yes, my lady. But Mr. Patrick was so insistent that you would see him that I felt it my duty—”

“Quite. Kindly tell him I’m not at home, if you please.”

“Yes, my lady.”

As soon as he had departed I laid down my pen, rushed across the room and flung up the window. I waited. A minute passed before Patrick emerged slowly from the house, his head bent and his shoulders drooping.

The instant Lomax closed the front door I leaned over the sill and whispered loudly, “Patrick!”

He spun around. I put a finger to my lips. “Wait in the gardens,” I told him in a low voice and rushed off to find my hat and cloak.

It was a mild springlike day. In the gardens in the center of the square the crocuses were blooming beneath the trees and the daffodils were nodding in the breeze. I left the house, and as I crossed the road Patrick ran toward me, his arms outstretched in greeting.

It is hard to describe what I felt then. I looked at Patrick, and for the first time he no longer seemed a mere boy. His face lit up when he saw me, and my heart turned over. He was not Edward and never would be, but I saw Edward in him, a younger, happier Edward, very gentle and affectionate; and as I looked upon his face, which was so painfully familiar to me, and upon his long, strong, perfect limbs, I felt a terrible desire I scarcely knew how to control. I stood there completely at the mercy of a dozen conflicting emotions, and ironically it was my helplessness that saved me. As I could neither move nor speak, all the initiative passed to Patrick, and I saw in three seconds that he, despite any illusion of mine to the contrary, was quite unchanged.

“Marguerite!” he exclaimed, hugging me as warmly as any brother would hug a favorite sister. “How wonderful to see you again—and how good of you to see me after all!” He released me and gestured to one of the benches overlooking the lawn. “Let’s sit down.”

I nodded. Sitting down on the bench, I clasped my hands tightly and watched the crocuses bob in the spring breeze.

“Oh, Marguerite,” said my stepson, “I’m in the most awful hole, I really am. I’ve only got one and sixpence, and I’m staying in the most beastly little tavern east of Soho and the bed has crawling things in it. My stockings are in holes, and I don’t know how to mend them and I’ve no idea what to do about my dirty shirts and I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday when I bought a muffin in Tottenham Court Road. Could you possibly tell Papa that I’m dreadfully sorry for everything and that I’ll turn over a new leaf and do whatever he likes? I’ll never go gambling again, I swear it, if only he’ll forgive me and let me have another chance. Please, Marguerite. Please ask him for me.”

I groped for words. I did not dare look at him. I was immensely aware of his thigh three inches from the edge of my cloak.

“I lost the two hundred pounds he gave me,” said Patrick, “I thought if I could turn it into a thousand I could live very comfortably for a year—and, do you know, I did win pretty considerably to begin with …”

A squirrel danced among the daffodils. A black cat emerged from the shrubbery and sat down to wash its paws.

“… so then I went to Ireland, and Annabel lent me some money, but she gave me such a wigging that I didn’t like to go back to her again. I called at Duneden Castle, but that wretched Katherine wouldn’t even see me because I’m in Papa’s bad books, although Duneden gave me a fiver to send me on my way. So then I went to Dublin and stayed with Derry for a while, but, God, I couldn’t sponge on him forever, could I? I mean, it simply wouldn’t have been right! Derry has only just enough money for himself anyway because Papa’s so beastly tight with his allowances, and although Derry wanted me to stay I knew I couldn’t. I got back to London yesterday, and, oh Lord, Marguerite, I don’t know what will happen if you don’t help me. What on earth am I going to do?”

“I’ll speak to Edward,” I said.

“Oh, Marguerite …” He gave me another hug. I felt his thigh and the left side of his chest and the strong muscles of his arm. “You’re so good to me,” he said. “You’ve always been so good to me, Marguerite.”

I stood up. I began to walk away. I felt as if I were being stifled by heat.

“Can’t you stay longer?” he pleaded from behind me. “I would so love to talk to someone for a while.”

“I shall talk to you later,” I said, “after I’ve spoken to Edward. Where did you say your hotel was?”

“It’s in Mercer Street, off Seven Dials, but don’t go there, Marguerite. It’s a horrid place, not at all fit for a lady.”

“I’ll send word to you there,” I said and quickened my pace before he could again beg me to stay. I said nothing else. I did not even return his disappointed goodbye. I merely hurried into the house as fast as I could, and when I was in my room I tried to imagine how I would summon the courage to speak to Edward about his son.

Edward returned to the house soon afterward. I was still in my room, and the first indication I received of his return came when I heard the door of the dressing room open, although even then, until I heard him clear his throat, I thought it was the valet, Pierce. Presently I heard a succession of small sounds, the clink of a glass followed by the gurgle of liquid trickling from a bottle. I was puzzled. What could he be doing? As far as I knew he was not one of those secret drinkers whom one hears about from one’s gossiping friends. I remained where I was, baffled but inert, until without warning he opened the communicating door and entered the room.