Janet Quin-Harkin (2 page)

“I’d rather wear corsets,” Libby said. “I was horribly sick last time.”

“But that was four years ago now, Libby,” Katherine said in horror. “I don’t know how you manage to avoid it for so long.”

“Hugh says he doesn’t want me old before my time with childbearing,” Libby said. “He says we are not animals.”

“Then Roger must be an animal,” Katherine said with a laugh. “He couldn’t wait to get his hands on me again after Oswald. But then I expect poets are different. Hugh always did have that distant quality about him—like something out of a book. I know he’ll be devastated to have missed me,” she added. “He was longing to see Oswald.”

“I’m sure he was,” Libby said, trying not to smile. She still felt a sense of triumph when she remembered how much Katherine had wanted Hugh. Katherine’s family had brought Hugh to a literary evening at Libby’s home, Libby’s father going through a phase for culture at the time.

“Here’s a brilliant young poet, newly arrived from England,” Katherine’s father had announced. Libby had been entranced. Hugh’s manners had been perfect as he bowed and kissed her hand. When he read some of his works his voice was so smooth and rich and elegant that she wanted to go on listening all night. She watched him, his mop of boyish dark curls falling across his forehead as he read from the paper, his eyes dark and haunted, and decided then and there that he was the man she was going to marry. The fact that Katherine was also in love with him helped her to make that decision. She was just seventeen and sure that she knew everything there was to know about life.

Now, eight years and two children later, she hated to admit to herself that she had been wrong. She suspected that Hugh would never be another Longfellow. He was more dreamer than poet, a charming little boy who would probably never grow up, unworldly and very endearing. It was hard to be angry with Hugh when he acted irresponsibly.

“But Libby,” he’d say, his large dark eyes looking at her like a spaniel puppy she’d once owned, “green is so absolutely your color. It makes that red hair of yours into a crowning glory. I just had to buy this shawl for you.”

It didn’t matter to him that they didn’t have the money for a cashmere shawl. He left Libby with two choices, to take the shawl back without his knowledge or to grovel to her parents for more money. This she hated doing. She had inherited not only her father’s strong will, but also his pride.

As they came back into the house she heard her mother talking to Mrs. Robertson. “The poor child. Of course we do all we can,” she heard her saying and was surprised to realize that she was talking about her. “But you know what she’s like. She’d never listen, would she? Her father tries to advise her.”

He never stops, Libby thought ruefully.

“Listen to your father,” was her mother’s favorite saying. This was not hard to do, because her father loved to lecture and instruct on almost any topic from the correct nutrition of little children to the correct way to wear a bonnet. Libby’s mother, who adored her husband and thought he was the wisest man in the world, was prepared to listen for hours. Libby was not born with her mother’s docile and submissive nature and often had to leave the room rather than explode with anger.

Mrs. Robertson summoned them all to table and Libby found herself seated between Katherine Robertson, now Kemp, and Colonel Hardwick, her mouth giving polite answers while her thoughts strayed. They were talking about handwriting when she remembered the letter. Why hadn’t Hugh wanted to share it with her? In all their eight years together, she could not remember his receiving any communication from his family. He had stormed out after an argument, so he told her, and broken off all ties with them. Libby kicked off her tight shoes under the table and wriggled her toes in impatience.

The luncheon party stretched on to late afternoon and when they arrived home, she found that Hugh had gone out for a walk. So it was not until they were in their own bedroom, preparing for the night, that she was able to tackle him about it.

“So what was in the letter?” she asked. “Bad news?”

“On the contrary. Good. My father has just died.”

“That’s bad, surely.”

“I loathed my father. He loathed me. His last words to me as I left for America were to come back a man or not come back at all. I wasn’t his sort of man, you see. I didn’t like killing small animals for sport or any of the other things English gentlemen are supposed to like.” He laughed, a light, brittle laugh.

There was a silence while Libby waited for him to say more. Through the closed door she could hear the grandfather clock in the hallway outside, its deep
tick lock
like the heartbeat of the house.

“But he forgave you on his deathbed?” Libby asked when she could stand the silence no longer.

“Not that I know of,” Hugh said. “I expect he died thinking I was a hopeless failure.”

“So what was the good news?” Libby demanded, her patience exhausted.

“My brother William has inherited,” Hugh said evenly. “He feels badly about the way I’ve been treated. He wants to make amends. He’s offering me a property. . . .”

“A property? What sort of property?”

“Quite an attractive property,” Hugh said. “Crock-ham Hall in Wiltshire. A nice, large, elegant house. The kind English gentlemen live in and Americans copy. You’d like it.”

“But that’s wonderful,” Libby burst out. “A big house of our own, away from my parents. Peace and quiet for you to write your poetry in the country. Hugh, isn’t that what you’ve wanted? Aren’t you happy? If it had been me, I’d have been bouncing up and down on the bedsprings like a little child with joy.”

“I dare say,” Hugh said dryly.

“But don’t you want to go home? I thought you’d dreamed of it.”

“But not like this,” Hugh said with a sigh. “How can I go home like this, Libby? A total failure, completely dependent on my father-in-law for my bread and butter and a roof over my head.”

“Father knows that poets don’t become famous overnight. He understands that,” Libby said. “All great literary figures had patrons, even Shakespeare.”

“Yes, but they did manage to publish a few pieces occasionally to prove that they weren’t taking their food under false pretenses,” Hugh said hopelessly. “What do I have to show for my entire time in America, except for a couple of minor verses in very minor magazines?”

“You have me and the children,” Libby said. “I should say we are accomplishments of the highest order.”

She had thought Hugh would laugh at this, or ruffle her hair and tell her that he prized her above gold, but he turned his face away from her, staring at the bedroom wall. “One goes to America to make one’s fortune, Libby,” he said. “If I return home with nothing, how can I ever hold up my head? They’ll whisper about me, saying there goes the man who would have let his wife and children starve if it hadn’t been for his father-in-law.”

“You’ve done your best, Hugh,” Libby said quietly. “You weren’t meant for an ordinary job, I understood that. And one day you’ll show them all. You’ll write the great poem you have inside you and they’ll all claim that they never doubted you for a moment.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Hugh said quietly. “Sometimes I wonder if I am deceiving myself. Maybe I’m not the great creative genius that I’ve always thought myself to be. But I do know one thing. I’m not going crawling back to my brother’s charity.”

“So you’re turning down his offer?” Libby demanded. “Our one chance for a home of our own and you’re turning it down?”

“Don’t raise your voice, Libby,” Hugh warned, putting his finger to his lips. “We don’t want them to hear this, do we?”

Libby sighed and sank back against the pillows.

“I’m not going home a pauper,” Hugh said. “If I could think of any way that I could face my brother as an equal, with my head held high, then I would take us on the first boat out of here. But I can’t, short of writing another
Paradise Lost
overnight.”

“But Hugh,” Libby began.

“I really don’t wish to discuss this any further,” Hugh said and rolled over, away from her.

Libby lay awake staring at the pattern of shadow branches on the ceiling, dancing in the night wind. How differently it had all turned out from the way she thought it would.

She turned over cautiously in bed and looked at Hugh, who was giving a good imitation of being asleep. His breath was slow and rhythmic and one long, white hand was draped over the coverlet.

Oh, Hugh, she thought, what am I going to do with you? and then, surprising even herself, how much longer can this go on?

She slid across to him and wrapped her arm over his body. The fact that he did not stir convinced her that he was either sound asleep or wanted her to think that he was. He was very good at pretending to be asleep. Libby remembered her conversation with Katherine that day. She had not told Katherine the truth. Hugh’s concern for her youthful figure veiled his lack of enthusiasm for the act of making love. After Eden, their first child, was born, he confessed that he was “more a creature of the spirit than of the flesh.” Libby, unfortunately, discovered that she was very much a creature of the flesh. Night after night she would lie awake yearning for fulfillment as he slept beside her.

Libby tightened her arm around him and moved her body closer but got no reaction. He probably was asleep, she thought. Hugh had a remarkable ability for shutting out anything unpleasant. They could have an argument, be faced with creditors or a sick child and two minutes later Hugh would be sleeping while Libby lay awake worrying for both of them. One of us has to be the realist, she knew, although for once it seemed that their roles were reversed. She was the one eager to take their chance at a new life and Hugh was the one suddenly squeamish about their financial failure. She had not realized before how much the break with his family had wounded him.

Our own country house, she thought wistfully. It would be square and gray with a fireplace big enough to roast an ox and there would be a long dining table where they would entertain, good company, laughter, drinking toasts in the firelight. Libby smiled to herself at such an impractical dream as she drifted off to sleep.

When she woke in the morning, Hugh had gone.

A
T FIRST
L
IBBY
was not too worried by Hugh’s disappearance. She suspected that he wanted to get away to think. He had done this before, wandering for hours along the Charles River when he was grappling with a poem that would not come to him or when her father had just given him another of his make-something-of-yourself lectures. She made an excuse for him at breakfast and lunch. When he had not appeared by the time the sun was setting, she began to feel concerned and instinctively checked his closet. Some of his clothes were gone—not enough to suggest that he had left for good, but enough for more than a night or two.

“Where’s Papa?” seven-year-old Eden asked as Libby went to kiss the girls good night.

“He’ll be back shortly,” Libby said, tucking in the covers tightly the way Eden liked them.

“I don’t want to go to sleep until Papa kisses me,” four-year-old Bliss declared. She was headstrong like Libby and used to getting her own way. “I shall stay awake all night until he comes.”

“Don’t be silly,” Libby said shortly. “Papa might not be back for a few days. His business might keep him away from home for a while. You don’t want to stay awake for a week, do you?”

“I don’t mind,” Bliss said. “I like staying awake.”

“Where’s he gone, Mama?” Eden demanded. “He didn’t say goodbye. He always says goodbye when he is going away. I hope nothing bad has happened to him.”

“Nothing bad has happened. Go to sleep,” Libby said, patting her hand firmly. If Bliss had inherited her mother’s spirit, then Eden had inherited her tendency to worry. Even at seven the child was developing two frown lines between the eyes. Overheard quarrels about money would make her physically sick and when her little sister had chickenpox, Eden ended up being by far the sicker of the two, having sat by her sister’s bedside for three nights.

Libby stood in the doorway, looking down tenderly at the children. She thought them both quite perfect and was amazed that her body could have produced two such miracles. Eden, dark and wide-eyed like her father and Bliss not, thank goodness, red-headed like her mother, but a picture-perfect blond like a china doll. “Don’t worry,” Libby said. “Everything will be just fine.”

She managed to conceal her own worry from her parents as they went in to dinner that night. Her parents entertained often and there was a lively party around the dinner table. The party should have been of twelve, but there was an empty place across from Libby, for which she apologized.

“Hugh might have business to attend to,” she mentioned to her father as they waited for the guests to arrive.

“Business? What sort of business?” her father asked skeptically. “He’s been here eight years without showing the least modicum of interest in business.”

“He’s just received news from England,” Libby said. “It appears he might have inherited a property.”

“A property, where?” her mother asked eagerly.

“We’ll know when he comes back,” Libby said, “which probably won’t be tonight.”

“How inconvenient not to have known this earlier,” her mother twittered. “Then I could have invited Mr. Bellows to make the numbers even.”

“Mr. Bellows is a bore, Mother. We’re better off without him,” Libby said smoothly.

The party went on late and Libby’s mouth felt as if it were fixed into a false smile. Every time she heard footsteps across the marble hallway she looked up, half expecting to see Hugh creeping in. A young lawyer friend of the family, Edward Percival Knotts, was telling her a long and involved story about a Harvard prank he had witnessed. “And then they hitched the dogs to the carriage,” he went on, laughing in anticipation, “and away it went. Can you imagine how he felt when he woke up, in full evening dress, in the middle of a cabbage patch?”

Libby smiled politely.

Edward rose to his feet. “Would you care to take a stroll in the garden, Mrs. Grenville? It is uncommonly mild for April and I can smell the jasmine from in here.”