Improper Proposals (11 page)

Chapter Fourteen

It was nearly the end of January before I returned to London again. Not long after Christmas I had caught a cold, becoming so ill that I could scarcely get out of my bed for a day or two, and even after recovering I was quite unable to sit at my desk for more than an hour at a time.

The nature of my subject had also hampered my progress, for in it I discussed the ways in which the bonds of intimacy might be tested, and how one might seek to rekindle closeness, even love, after a period of détente.

When experiencing moments of strain in your family life
,
such as the arrival of a new baby
,
the illness of a child or the death of a beloved parent
,
it is only natural to focus your attention on the crisis at hand and
,
consequently
,
to neglect the extraneous.
It is at such times that your woman’s instinct to nurture
,
which normally serves you so well in regard to the care of loved ones
,
can also cause you to be blind to the one person who may need your care and attention most of all:
your husband.

You weather the storm
,
but when you emerge from your time of trouble you realize that something has changed.
Your husband is distant
,
too careful with you
,
too preoccupied with other matters.
He may be hurting.
He very likely is lonely.
How
,
then
,
do you mend what has been torn?
How do you reclaim the intimacy at the core of your marriage?

How indeed? John and I had never gone through such a period, had never grown apart. So what, then, had held us together? The answer, which took days to come to me, was simple: honesty. We had always been truthful with one another, not only in the particulars of our daily lives, but also—and most crucially—in the details of our feelings for one another. We had tried to maintain perfect candor with one another, and that had kept us from growing apart.

Of course no such agreement existed between myself and Tom, and for good reason. I was not such a fool as to think I shared the same sort of bond with him, now or ever. Such bonds, I had learned to my cost, were wonderful things while they lasted—but when they broke, as they inevitably did, the pain of loss eclipsed any remembered joy.

Tom had written just after Twelfth Night with the news that Alice had been safely delivered of a girl, a perfectly healthy infant, and that the infant had been christened Charlotte. Both mother and child were thriving, which I found unaccountably comforting. I scarcely knew Lady Alice, so why should I be so relieved that she and the baby were well?

With one thing and another, it was the third week of January before I finished my pages and sent them off, and another week after that before I was able to make the journey to London, for in the meantime we’d had a storm and the road to Didcot had been impassable for several days.

Although I had taken an early train to London, it was much delayed, so much so that we pulled into Paddington a full four hours later than expected, right at the end of the working day. Of course there were no hansom cabs to be had at that hour, so I was forced to take the Metropolitan Railway’s underground service across the city to Farringdon Station, an altogether disagreeable and unsettling experience. From there it was but a half-mile walk to Fleet Street.

By the time I arrived I was very much out of sorts. I was cold and tired and hungry, and I was covered with soot from the infernal underground train. I stomped up the stairs to Tom’s office, marched down the hall and flung open his door.

He stood at the window, looking down at the street below, Grendel at his heels. He whirled about, a look of unmistakable relief on his face.

“Caroline—thank God.”

“My train was delayed. Then I couldn’t find a cab from the station. So I had to take the underground to Farringdon and walk the rest—”

“I’ve been beside myself with worry. Why didn’t you telegraph me from Paddington? Or from one of the stations along the way?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“Come here. Just come here.”

I set down my valise and stepped forward, not sure I liked the look in his eyes. As if he were delighted and enraged and confused, all at once.

“May I have a cup of tea? And have the use of your washroom?”

“Of course. Washroom first, then tea.” He steered me into his sitting room, taking a moment to lock the door behind us, and waited by the settee as I visited the adjoining necessary and washed my face and hands. I still looked a fright, but it would have to do until I reached our rooms at the hotel.

“Are we the only ones here?” I asked as I returned from the washroom. “The clerks’ offices were empty as I passed.”

“I think one or two of them may still be loitering about. But they know better than to bother me now. Come here.”

I approached, wondering what he intended to do. Surely he wasn’t angry with me for the delay? “Are you very upset?”

“Yes. Not with you. Didn’t I ask you to come here?”

“What are you going to do?”

“You’ll see. I promise you’ll like it, though.”

Very well. I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around his waist. How I had missed this, missed him.

Without a word of warning he spun me around and pushed me close to the back of the settee, which was a little higher than my waist. “Lift your skirts and bend forward.”

“What is this?”

“It’s been six weeks. A month and a half of nothing but my hand, alone at night, as I dream of you. All week I’ve been waiting. Since the moment I got up this morning I’ve been waiting. And then to wait
four
more hours, with no notion of what had happened, whether you were coming, if you’d been hurt or waylaid.”

He bent me forward and pushed my skirts out of his way, letting them mound around my hips. “Do you want to know how much work I got done today? I’ll tell you—nothing. Not one word read or written. Not. One. Word.”

“I am sorry.”

“I know you are. And I’m not angry with you, not in the slightest. If you’d rather I fuck you some other way, I’ll do it. But I think you’ll like this.”

God help me, but I did. It was so very illicit, to begin with. Anyone might pass by, or come to knock at the door, and hear what we were about. Not that he had so much as touched me, not yet.

“Bend over the settee. Don’t worry if your feet aren’t touching the ground. I’ll hold you steady.”

Oh, God. He was going to fuck me, here, now, without so much as a kiss or a caress. I was still wearing my bonnet, for goodness’ sake.

“What of the prophylactic? You mustn’t forget.”

“I’m putting it on now. Arch your bottom higher. Good girl—that’s it.”

I wiggled forward, only the tips of my toes still touching the ground, my heart pounding out of my chest.

His hands were at my drawers, pulling them open, tearing the fine batiste when it proving unobliging. His cock pressed at my entrance, insistent, unyielding, and then it was inside me, so foreign yet so welcome.

“
This
is all I could think about. After waiting for six weeks, six goddamn weeks, this is what I’m reduced to. Fucking you like some Whitechapel trollop.”

“I don’t care. I love it.”

“Good. I don’t want to take long—I just want to be able to think straight. I’ll make love to you later. I’ll take my time, I swear. But for now—” He pulled his hips back, then thrust into me, hard. “I’ve never...oh, God, never...”

“This is enough. This is what I want, too.”

* * *

An orgasm later and he was himself again, sweet and solicitous and endearingly funny as he spoke of his new niece and how, at the age of three weeks, she was already able to bend her father to her tiny will. When I was done laughing at his stories of the renowned Elijah Philemon Keating brought low by a wailing infant, he told me, at length, how Clara had dressed Grendel as a princess when he and the dog had last visited Hampstead.

“If you could have seen the look he gave me. As resigned to his plight as Sydney Carton on his way to the guillotine.”

“Did he not fuss? Worry at the ribbons and bows?”

“No. Just stood there and looked mournful. Once he was undressed, though, and Clara had declared him a doggie again, I took him and Elijah’s dogs to the Heath and let them run for hours. By the time we returned to the house I was quite forgiven.”

“Is the baby very like her sister?”

“It’s hard to tell when they’re so young. She has quite a lot of dark hair. Not an especially noisy baby. Is either sleeping or latched on to my sister, eating like the greediest piglet you ever saw.”

“I think you are as smitten as Mr. Keating,” I teased.

“I suppose I am. Would you like to see them while you’re here? We could go tomorrow.”

“Oh, no—I shouldn’t like to bother Lady Alice, not just yet. And I’ve only just recovered from a cold. I dare not go near the baby.”

“Next time, then. Unless it pains you. To see a newborn, I mean.”

“It doesn’t, I promise.”

And it didn’t. I’d made my peace with it long ago, for the world was full of babies, and even if I couldn’t have my own, I still loved to hold and cuddle them, the newer the better. But not Alice’s, not if it meant she were deceived into thinking that Tom and I had a future together.

My guide was all but finished, with only the concluding Chapter left to write. Tom had said nothing to me of what would follow, if indeed anything would follow. Perhaps I would return to Aston Tirrold and that would be that. Perhaps he would suggest another project. Perhaps...

“I was so overset today, I’m afraid I forgot to order our supper. What would you like?” he asked as we reached our rooms at the hotel.

“Something simple. Soup of some kind, with roast chicken to follow? I don’t think I could bear to eat anything too rich.”

“I’ll ring down now. Why don’t you go into the bedroom and change? Do you want a bath? I can call for the water at the same time.” Although Brown’s was a luxury hotel it had, as yet, no plumbed-in bathtubs.

“Yes, please.” It would be heaven to wash away the dirt of my journey, to come to him scrubbed clean and smelling of expensive soap.

A parade of footmen delivered a copper tub and the water to fill it within minutes, setting it before the fire in our bedroom. I’d grown used to being naked in front of Tom, so felt no shame as I abandoned my clothes and immersed myself in the water, which was so hot my skin reddened straight away.

“Are you sure you don’t wish to join me?” I asked, feeling terribly daring.

“I would rather watch,” he said, dragging a chair across the room so he might sit close by. “I’ll watch as you wash yourself, every inch of your lovely skin, and I’ll be half dead with desire for you by the time you’re finished.”

“And then?”

“We will eat our dinner.”

“And then?”

“I’ll make love to you. We’ll take our time, all night if need be. I owe you that much after this afternoon.”

“You don’t owe me a thing, Tom. I loved it. As I believe I demonstrated quite clearly.”

“You did. But we’ve both waited a long time for tonight. I plan to make the most of it.”

“You never said what you thought of my chapter. We haven’t talked about it at all.”

“We will, over dinner. Though I find it difficult to wrap my head around the subject.”

“I’m certain it happens to many couples, the feeling that they are drifting apart. Any number of things can affect a marriage—children, family pressures, financial concerns. I think it’s very important that women be given some guidance on how to restore intimacy if ever it’s lost.”

“You’re quite right. It’s only that I cannot imagine how it could ever happen.”

“That a couple should be pulled apart?”

“No. That I should ever lose interest in you.”

It was a lovely thing for him to say, truly it was, yet I resented it. We both knew our affair would end before long, before we could hurt one another past forgiveness, so why freight the moments we had left with such sentiments? Our time together was ending, so why not embrace the sweetness, while it lasted, and save regret for another day?

* * *

He watched me in the tub, his erection made unmistakable by his tight-fitting trousers, and when I was done, he dried me carefully, fastened the sash of my wrapper and led me to the sitting room table, which held steaming bowls of leek and potato soup, a perfectly roasted chicken, and a casserole of what turned out to be braised celery.

When we had eaten our fill and drunk down the last drop of wine, he led me back to the bedroom, where he drew off my wrapper and made love to me, his hands and mouth worshiping me with every caress, his body filling me so tenderly that I all but wept.

Once or twice he began to speak, bent on sharing some secret with me, but I distracted him with kisses and beguiled him with my body, and he fell asleep without saying anything of consequence.

In the morning, if I were very lucky, he would have forgotten, and I would be able to put off the inevitable. One more month before I returned to Aston Tirrold for good. Another month, and I would be alone again.

Chapter Fifteen

It was the middle of February, a cold and rainy day, and I had just posted my final Chapter to Tom. With nothing else to occupy me, I turned to my laundry, which I had neglected these past weeks. Mrs. Jones took care of my heavier things, sheets and tablecloths and the like, but I preferred to wash my finer things by hand, for a good boil in the copper wore out fine linens far too quickly.

It had taken me an age to sort through my things, for I needed to set aside pieces that were stained or frayed or required any sort of special attention. Only once the wicker hamper was empty did I realize there were no soiled rags from my monthlies. Not in the hamper, not in my bedroom, not anywhere in the cottage. Not that there ought to have been, for my usual practice was to put them to soak as I was done with them, then wash them separately.

I sat at the kitchen table and thought hard, attempting to remember the last time I had bled. Not in January, not in December...it had been November. Three full months ago.

As the truth flattened me, I thought of all the other signs that had been there, ready for me to read. I had been tired, terribly tired, and for the first time in my life had resorted to having a short afternoon nap in order to carry me through the day. I had felt off my food, but had attributed it to boredom with my limited late-winter pantry. Yet my breasts had felt fuller than usual, and my waist, too, though I ought to have lost weight from my meager diet.

I was the stupidest woman alive, to have had the proof of my ruin there, right in front of my eyes, for more than a month, and yet I had managed to ignore every single sign. Soon I would begin to show—I had a slight frame, there would be no hiding it—and then what would I do?

I was cold, clammy with panic, chilled to my very marrow by fear of what would surely happen next. I would be found out. I would be cast out. My baby and I would become pariahs.

Think
, I told myself.
Simply think
,
and a solution will come.
Perhaps not ideal, certainly not anything to be found in a fairytale, but I would think of something.

First I would write to Tom and tell him I could not come to London this month.

Then I would conjure up a place where I might go, a quiet village far from here, where no one had ever heard of me, and where I might live, a respectable widow, with the baby whose father had tragically died before he or she was born. I had some money, a small annuity from my late parents, and I had saved almost all the money that Tom had paid me while we worked together on my guide.

It would have to be enough.

28 February 1871

My dear Caroline
,

It has been two weeks since you wrote of your indisposition and asked for some time to recover.
In all that time I haven’t heard from you once
,
and I am desperately worried for you.
Are you well?
Is there anything you need?
May I call upon you?

Please respond as soon as you are able.

With my fondest regards
,

Tom

Moreton Cottage

Aston Tirrold

Berkshire

4 March 1871

Dear Reverend Pascoe
,

I
write to you in the hopes that you might direct me to a suitable residence for let in your village.
I
visited St.
Agnes often in my youth and have very fond memories of it.
You likely do not remember my family but we frequently attended services at the parish church during our seaside vacations in Cornwall.

I
am recently widowed and am experiencing some difficulties with my health
,
which I hope may be remedied with the help of some fresh sea air.
To compound my woes
,
I
am also expecting a child
,
my first
,
and cannot bear to remain in the home where my husband and I were once so happy.

I
should be so grateful if you could make some inquiries among your congregation to discover if any of them might have a modest cottage that I might lease for a year or two.

Yours faithfully
,

Mrs.
John Boothroyd

The Rectory

St.
Agnes
,
Cornwall

March 18
,
1871

Dear Mrs.
Boothroyd
,

Allow me to extend my deepest sympathies
,
not only regarding the calamitous loss you have suffered
,
but also as concerns the news that you have been left to bear your child alone
,
with only the guidance of our Lord as your mainstay.

I
am delighted to report that there is a perfectly suitable cottage for let in our village.
It is located centrally
,
on Town Hill
,
but is only a short walk to the seaside.
The building itself has five rooms
,
is in good order with no sign of damp
,
and is furnished
(
though modestly
)
.
If you are interested I invite you to contact the owner
,
Mr.
R.M.
Helyer
,
at his residence:
Penrose House
,
Quay Road
,
St.
Agnes
,
Cornwall.

I
should add that while we do have a midwife in our village
,
a
perfectly competent woman
,
we have no resident physician.
For that reason you may wish to delay your arrival until after the birth of your child
,
but of course I leave such decisions to your better judgment.

May the Lord support you in your time of need and grant you the grace to bear the cross you have been given.

Yours faithfully
,

Rev.
David Pascoe

22 March 1871

Dearest Caroline
,

It occurs to me that I may have offended you when last you were in London
,
or hurt you in some way
,
and that is the reason for your continued silence.
I
pray for it to be so
,
for the alternative—that you are hurt or injured or lost to me—is too terrible to contemplate.
I
beg you
,
please write to me and set my mind at ease.

Tom

It was settled. I would remove to St. Agnes in a fortnight, giving me ample time to pack up my possessions and bid farewell to my friends. As I’d done with Reverend Pascoe, I told them only that my health warranted the move. I promised to write as soon as I was settled. I promised I would visit.

I lied.

Once I left Aston Tirrold I would never return, never look back. For the future of my child I had to leave everyone I knew behind.

I had debated long and hard on what I should tell Tom. How much I should share with him. He deserved to know about the child, but if I were to tell him, he would coming charging to the rescue, special license in hand, and he would be tied for life to a woman who did not love him.

I was terribly fond of him, of course, but I did not love him. Could not love him. And I would not ruin his life in this way.

26 March 1871

Tom
,

The reasons for my not having written are quite complicated
,
but in the end they may be reduced to one concern:
I
no longer wish to be your lover and I wish for our association to end.
I
am sorry to be so blunt but I think it best to be clear on this matter.

I
will always be grateful for your support and concern and I will never forget our friendship
,
nor the time I passed in your company.

I
expect to be gone from Aston Tirrold quite soon so please do not write to me again at this address.

Caroline