Spare Brides (32 page)

‘Well, quite.’ Lawrence’s ears turned pink.

‘These women and children shouldn’t suffer so. You’ve seen them, Lawrence. You must have. Lining the streets and huddling under bridges and viaducts. Grubby hands stretched out. I don’t doubt that some of the men at your club are responsible for one or two of them.’

‘Not the gentlemen, not the
right
sort of gentlemen, but there are bounders who have no sense of responsibility,’ he admitted.

‘These women could starve.’

‘The children are innocent, we can all agree on that,’ commented the dowager in a placatory tone; she was far more used to managing tricky conversations than either her son or daughter-in-law might imagine.

‘Evidently they need help, but is it ladylike?’ This contribution came from one of Lawrence’s old school friends.

Lydia knew that Lawrence would have liked to have asked as much, but he limited himself to musing, ‘I just question whether this sort of work has to be done by single women. Is that necessary?’

‘Women your wife is intimate with, you mean?’ asked Lydia.

Lawrence did not answer her question; he simply added, ‘However, considering the demands on her time we must be grateful that she came to support you at the service and to pay her respects to my father.’

‘Quite,’ they all chorused. They were much more used to politely mollifying, rather than saying anything they really thought or meant.

After a moment or two of silence, only interrupted by the sound of uselessly fluttering fans, beating the air like bird wings, Lydia said, ‘Actually, I think I need to go back to London for a day or so.’

‘But the house is shut up.’ Lawrence had closed it, expecting to spend a longer than usual summer in the countryside. There was a lot to be done. Having said goodbye to his father, he now had his mother to comfort and an estate to run. Lydia had been too horrified by the suggestion of leaving London for three months to form a coherent argument against doing so.

‘I could stay with Ava.’

‘Why do you need to visit London?’

‘I need to go and buy some more clothes.’

‘Didn’t you shop just last month?’

‘For London clothes. Now we are going to be spending so long in the country, I need some suitable things for here.’

‘But don’t you do the same things in London as you do in the country: lunch, chatter, dinner, dance? Is there any real need for more gadding about? More extravagance?’ He sighed wearily.

Lydia doubted this was a financial issue. They had plenty of money. Too much, probably. She bit her lip. She had to remember he was a grieving man, a man about to inherit a great deal of responsibility; he was bound to be tetchy. He wanted her at his side. It wasn’t his fault that he irritated her, thwarted her; it was her own. But what was she supposed to do? A woman like her? What was there for her to do? Besides, since when had Lawrence baulked at the traditional set-up in their lives? Lydia had never heard him hint that he might find her life of indulgence and privilege a little lacking in true purpose, although it was a thought she’d had herself, with increasing frequency, since she’d met Edgar.

Edgar.

His name licked her soul and bit her conscience. She wasn’t planning on shopping at all. It was impossible to resent Lawrence’s implication that she was idle or giddy when he’d been given that very idea because she needed an excuse to visit London to have a secret meeting with her lover. Lydia hated herself and yet at the same time loved the woman who had attracted Edgar. That woman couldn’t be wrong; it was impossible. She chose to smile broadly, although her smile was as tight and tense and insincere as a circus clown’s.

‘You are right, but even so, the two styles are not interchangeable. You must know that by now, Lawrence.’

The dowager stepped in. ‘I won’t accept that you are such a fashion heathen, Lawrence, despite what you’d like to pretend. How can you imagine satins and silks are the same as brogues and tweeds? You’re being ridiculous, my dear.’

Lawrence wasn’t soothed by his mother’s intervention, as she’d hoped. Instead, feeling bullied, he became increasingly fractious and glowered. Lydia decided to put an end to the debate.

‘I need more black clothes. It’s as simple as that.’ She was being deceitful, but she now realised that wasn’t a new thing in their marriage. Before Edgar, she’d deceived Lawrence –
and
herself – on a perpetual basis. She’d pretended they were happy. Now, her deceit sickened her because she recognised it as a charade; before, she’d thought it was simply all there was.

Lawrence infuriated her, disappointed her, disgusted her, and yet her infuriation and disappointment with herself was equal.

She was not disgusted with herself, however. She could not bring herself to regret a moment with Edgar. He’d taught her so much. How to live and how to feel. She transformed under his touch, and as if to underline this fact, he’d taught her words for her body that she’d never thought she could use. Her breasts changed from day to day. When he was tender they were breasts; when he took her with more passion, she thought of them as tits. Her tits. A crude and hard word. A true and real word. The hair between her legs, which she had never been able to name, had never had need to name, he called her bush. He stroked her there; his fingers were swallowed up. He told her he loved her vagina. She didn’t know if she would die of embarrassment or hysteria. At times yearning for Edgar made her weak. She longed to touch him, even though she knew it was like putting her finger in a flame. She would not feel the pain instantly, but the moment she withdrew she’d be blistered and in agony. Her sex and her heart beat for him as though there had been no other man. No husband. She trembled. The familiar faces that filled the room merged into one dull, indistinct blot. She was left alone in a searing, painful lucidity. All she wanted was Edgar.

Lydia longed to be outside; to feel the sun, uncomfortably hot, scorch her skin. She welcomed it like a lover’s playful pinch. It was suffocating to stay in the stuffy, shaded room. ‘I need some air,’ she blurted suddenly.

She stood up and left the wake, heading for the gardens, pretending not to notice the murmurs and concerned glances.

‘She’s taken the earl’s death quite excessively badly.’

‘I hadn’t realised she was so fond of him.’

‘No. Nor had I.’

O
UTSIDE, THE AIR
was so still that sound carried endlessly. Lydia could hear the clink of a teaspoon against a saucer, the sound of the servants’ footsteps pit-pattering through the house. She thought she ought to whisper. Or scream. She ran to the east front, past the yew hedges and the borders of gladioli. Past the terracotta statues that depicted the seven virtues. She knew them well and automatically named them in her head as she sped by: temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, humility and chastity. She’d never before thought they were in any sort of chronological order, but now, she wondered. She sat, heavily, with the over-hot daisies, on a grassy slope. The sun had baked the ground and she was wearing black, so there was no danger that her dress would be ruined; still, she should probably have sat in a chair or at least on the steps of the lower terrace. If anyone spotted her here, they would think she was behaving oddly. She was. Did she want them to notice? Sheep baaed, from far off, where they were scattered in a field in the opposite valley. It sounded like a child crying. Lydia wanted to cry herself.

‘The view is magnificent.’

Lydia was startled by Sarah’s voice; she hadn’t realised she’d been followed. She didn’t turn; she feared her friend would see too much in her face. Instead she agreed with fake enthusiasm, ‘Isn’t it?’

The view of the Downs was picturesque to the point of unreality. People often commented that not only did they want to drink it in, they wanted to bottle it and take it home with them.

‘Can I sit with you?’

‘Of course.’

The two women listened to the birds and longed for a breeze to lift the brim of their hats or the edge of their skirts. The grass smelt dry, starved; Lydia felt the same.

‘So, all of this is yours now,’ commented Sarah.

‘Well, Lawrence’s.’

‘It’s the same thing.’

‘I suppose.’

‘You are lucky to have it. So many people are having to give up the big houses.’

‘Indeed, it’s a marvellous time to be an hotelier or someone looking for a big home to house the old or weak-minded.’

‘Inheritance tax is enough to send one quite mad,’ Sarah sighed.

‘Yes.’

‘But Lawrence has enough?’

‘I think it’s all fine.’ Truthfully, Lydia hadn’t given the question any thought at all. Over the last couple of years she had seen friends crippled by taxes and forced to abandon houses that had been in their families for generations. The ones who suffered the worst were those who’d lost a father and then a son in the war. Two deaths meant two sets of taxes. ‘He’s never mentioned any monetary issues,’ she murmured.

‘Lucky you.’

‘Lucky me,’ Lydia replied, trying hard not to cry.

‘Are you quite all right, dear?’

‘Lawrence and I … Things aren’t as they should be.’

‘He’s just lost his father.’

‘I know.’

‘Is it because of the baby issue?’

‘Not just that.’

‘You’ll have to give him up now.’

‘Who?’ Lydia could no more imagine Sarah, of all people, knowing her secret than she could imagine a man landing on the moon. For this reason – rather than any consideration as to whether she ought to dissemble or not – she didn’t admit to him.

‘Edgar Trent,’ Sarah clarified calmly.

‘Oh.’ Lydia felt an explosion in her gut. To hear his name said aloud, here in Clarendale, was at once a profound liberation and a shock. ‘How did you know?’

Sarah didn’t want to have to say that she’d seen them together in Sir Peter’s study. The image of the sergeant major’s peachy white buttocks moving backwards and forwards, his powerful thighs, dark, hirsute and broad, had not left her consciousness, but she was too shy to admit as much to Lydia. She felt as though she’d done something wrong by discovering them, and her feelings of shame annoyed her. It was the adulterous couple who were the wrongdoers; they were the ones who ought to feel smeared and stained by guilt. She sidestepped. ‘I’ve seen how you are together, ever since Ava’s house party. At Lady Cooper’s lunches and the Duchess of Feversham’s spring ball, for instance.’ She kept her eyes determinedly in front of her, fixed on the view. She knew this conversation would be easier that way.

‘But we rarely talk to one another when we are in public.’

‘You often share that look.’

‘Which look?’ Lydia seemed genuinely curious.

‘The one that mixes deep and eloquent consciousness with, well, frankly, lasciviousness. It’s a look that’s only possible between lovers who are at once muted and yet invigorated by the presence of others.’ It was true they had shared this look many, many times. Sarah had watched how they came together at dances and soirées. Together and yet apart. They did not flirt excessively, the way those contemplating embarking on an affair sometimes did. They did not acknowledge each other openly by pawing and grappling in dark corners, the way those in established liaisons did. They circled one another. Stayed close by. Sarah thought that the tension between them sparkled on the air, zinged when they spoke to one another, flashed if they didn’t. They did not touch in public. After that time in the study she had never seen them so much as shake hands. They did not dance together. She saw the effort it took for them to stay apart. It was as though they both knew they would not be able to control themselves; if they were to hold one another, they would have to have one another.

‘Oh.’ Lydia seemed stunned. ‘Do you think anyone else has noticed?’

‘Probably.’ Sarah had looked for all this and therefore had seen it. The incident in the study had directed her view; it directed everything. To her, they were obvious, somehow inevitable. Had other people seen as much? Would they? Sarah knew that gossip was grubby, yet essential to the circles they mixed in. She felt a shiver of panic and fear climb up her spine. It was a good thing that Lydia thought people might notice them; that for all their attempts at discretion they were obvious. The way she looked at him was revealing; the way she ignored him was telling. Thinking that she’d given herself away to Sarah might instil a note of caution. Lydia was behaving recklessly. Pointlessly. She wasn’t trying hard enough to hide her infidelity. To stop it. What if Lawrence noticed? ‘If not yet, then they will soon. You will be discovered, Lydia. These things always are. What will you do then?’

They sat for a long time. Lydia didn’t answer the question. She watched as the sheep were herded into a ribbon and then trotted down the valley, their baaing intensifying. She was startled by a huge crow flying closely overhead, wings flapping like washing snapping on a line. She listened to the sound of a carriage on the gravel, the thrum of engines, the neigh of horses. The mourners must be leaving; grief for an old man could be nothing other than efficient.

At last she said what she knew to be true. ‘I can’t give him up, Sarah.’

‘Of course you can. You mean you won’t.’

‘Can’t, won’t. It’s semantics. I mean it’s impossible.’

Sarah turned to her friend and for the first time in the conversation she tried to make eye contact; Lydia refused and continued to stare ahead. ‘You have to give him up. Lawrence is a good man. He doesn’t deserve this.’

‘Lawrence isn’t a bad man, I admit that. But Edgar. Edgar is a great man.’ It was only when she sang his praises that Lydia was prepared to face her friend. Sarah was shocked by the intensity and passion that oozed from every pore; she could see it in the thin, faint lines around Lydia’s lips, she could see it in the gleam of her huge eyes.

‘You mean his war effort?’ Lydia nodded tightly. Sarah’s exasperation overflowed into barely contained anger. ‘Arthur is dead. Samuel is disabled beyond anything a man should endure. Avoiding the Front was a blessing, not a blight. Lawrence didn’t do anything wrong.’