Spare Brides (40 page)

‘Sorry?’

‘It was Lord Harrington.’

‘Charlie?’

‘Yes.’

‘He hurt you?’

‘Beat me. Yes.’

‘Why?’ Lydia was aghast. ‘Charlie Harrington has always been so devoted. So besotted.’

‘Quite. He got the most ludicrous idea into his head. He wanted to marry me.’

‘He has a strange way of showing it.’

Ava shrugged. ‘I suppose, you know, he had a very terrible time over in France. He was injured out. Spent months in a san in Wales after being shot in some battle or other; there were so many, it’s hard to keep track. They saw such a lot of violence. I think it’s become difficult for them to tell right from wrong.’

‘And so you are saying this is acceptable? That a man can beat a woman whenever he wants to, because he was a soldier?’ Lydia’s astonishment manifested itself into fury.

Ava looked steadily at her friend. The bruising somehow seemed more glaring, more ugly to Lydia, now she knew where it had really come from. ‘No. I’m not saying that at all. It’s totally unacceptable. I’m just trying to warn you how complicated these men are. Having been through what they have. How dangerous.’

Lydia recognised the enormity of Ava’s confession. She wasn’t one to make a fuss and she hated looking vulnerable. Lydia wanted to run to her and hold her but Ava had closed her eyes. The pain and the shame were private.

‘Ava, you’re not the sort that one doles out advice to – you’re rather more the sort that does the doling – but I do think you should report Charlie.’

‘No good would come of it.’

‘It would stop him. He’d be punished. That’s good enough. You work with these poor women who are hungry and beaten, physically or morally, and you try to change things. You don’t want to accept it has to be that way for them, so why would you think it has to be that way for you? Tell your father. Tell Charlie’s father. Tell Charlie’s wife. Kick up a stink.’

Eventually Ava opened her eyes and stared at Lydia. ‘He’s unhinged you.’

‘Yes, you are right. I’m quite mad about him.’ The two women were ostensibly agreeing, yet they were in reality totally opposed. One celebrated the insanity; the other despaired of it.

‘You are joining an army of women who have had a dalliance with heartbreak and humiliation.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Because I can do no other.’

‘You have always had a hungry heart. I suspected as much. I wish you were more sensible.’

‘I do too. On some level. I see this will ruin me, but life without him is nothing at all. Better that I am ruined than dead.’

‘Don’t be dramatic. You wouldn’t die without him.’

‘Wouldn’t I?’

‘Goodness, what a shame for you.’

‘I don’t think it’s a shame.’ The words were small but determined. Lydia beamed, refusing to dim. Her beam was stronger, broader and braver than ever, as though she was letting it all out. ‘Ava, I’m having Edgar’s baby.’

S
ARAH HAD EXPECTED
Ava’s telephone call. She alone had been absolutely certain of Lydia’s whereabouts and realised that a catastrophe was imminent, but she had not anticipated the scale. She had not thought that Lydia would be so very awkward about returning to Clarendale, or that she would start to talk of a divorce. She had
never
envisaged a baby. The friends were all agreed that they could not let Lydia have her way in this. She had to be saved from herself. She had spent a week in her lover’s lodgings. From Ava’s description, Sarah could only assume he lived in a hovel; how could Lydia want to stay there? She’d been stupendously lucky not to have been spotted in all that time, but it was impossible to imagine her luck would continue. As the eldest of the women and the only other one with any experience of being married, Sarah was seen as the best person to try to talk some sense into Lydia.

Lydia was being intractable. She repeatedly stated that she wanted to leave Lawrence and that she wanted to do so immediately. This was nonsense and Sarah refused to contemplate such a thing. She had initially thought that they could ask Lawrence to open up the London house and Lydia could possibly be persuaded to live there if she were allowed to continue to see her lover. Sarah knew of a number of very respectable couples who lived out their entire married lives in this way, quite separately. If the means were available to do so, it was by far the most elegant and acceptable solution, but Sarah soon realised it would not do in this case. There was a baby on the way. Lawrence would have to be made to think it was his, and if this was absolutely impossible – as Lydia insisted – then at the very least the world would have to think it was his. Lydia must return to Clarendale. There was no alternative.

Ava had allowed Lydia to stay with her for another forty-eight hours. She had used that time to summon Dickenson from the country. Friend and loyal maid bundled Lydia into a car and had her driven back to Clarendale. If Ava’s account was to be trusted – and Sarah found that she did trust her; it was a rare moment, but they found themselves in agreement – Lydia sat stony and silent for the entire journey. She refused to utter one word until she got out of the car at Clarendale, then she turned to Ava and muttered, ‘This is not over, and don’t make the mistake of thinking it is.’

Lydia’s friends saw the importance of not inflaming the situation. No one wanted hysteria. Although it was paramount to physically remove Lydia from the sergeant major’s home, it would be explosive if she was forced to be cooped up with Lawrence with no other company or distraction. They had considered and rejected the idea of her hosting a party. There was the issue of mourning for the old earl; it would be unseemly and, besides, Lydia could not be counted on to behave as expected. She might try to invite Edgar Trent. He might accept. She might drink too much. There would be a scene. Everyone was relieved when Lydia offered to bring the children home to Seaton Manor. Sarah naturally invited her to stay for a few days and Lydia immediately accepted. Lawrence remained blissfully unaware of both his wife’s infidelity and her pregnancy.

The summer continued to sweat. Sarah instructed the servants to set out four deckchairs and a large parasol on the patio. Bea had already departed for Oxfordshire to start her work with Georgina Vestry, but Sarah had hopes that Cecily and Samuel might join her and Lydia in the garden. There was a picnic rug and cushions for the children. Sandwiches and Scotch eggs were offered up, along with the promise of jelly and ice cream. Sarah and Cecily and Samuel’s children gambolled about the garden trailing sunhats, butterfly nets, hoops, bats and balls, their faces turning pink with exertion, their limbs turning brown with the sun. Sarah wondered whether she ought to insist that the girls, at least, cover up – no one had approved of freckles when she was a child – but she found that she really wasn’t vain enough to interrupt their merriment. Despite the lure of home-made lemonade and sunshine, Cecily and Samuel remained indoors, Sarah considered whether she had the energy to go inside and fish them out. An enormous amount of cajoling would be required. She decided against it. If Lydia ever settled for more than a moment, Sarah would like to speak with her, and privacy was necessary for that.

She watched as Lydia flitted about with the children. They were playing catch and Lydia seemed to be eternally ‘it’. She chased the elder children with vigour but they still outran her; with the little ones she faked an ineptitude that elicited giggles and whoops of delight. Lydia had always been a beauty, but Sarah now identified something more. She was radiant, joyful and free. Her movements seemed fluid yet powerful. Assured. Her lips were plump and promising, frequently wide apart framing a heartfelt laugh. Her glossy hair sparkled in the sunlight like a halo, which was ironic when one considered her behaviour. It irritated Sarah; she didn’t want to be confronted with physical evidence that Lydia’s transgression was anything other than ruinous.

The children’s nanny finally appeared from the house; no doubt she’d been skulking in the cool kitchen with Cook and the maid, taking advantage of the fact that Lydia was prepared to entertain the children. Her conscience must have got the better of her, or perhaps Cook had asked for some help in preparing supper, which had effectively expelled the indolent nanny; either way, her appearance meant that the children were peeled away from Lydia’s care and Lydia had no alternative other than to join Sarah.

‘Come and have some lemonade,’ Sarah offered.

Lydia paused and looked about her. Sarah knew she’d been avoiding a one-to-one conversation from the moment she arrived; she’d played with the children, sat with Samuel and twice disappeared off to the village in the past twenty-four hours. Lydia looked helpless; she was without options. She flopped into the canvas deckchair and put on her sunhat, pulling it down over her eyes. It was unclear whether she was trying to avoid the sun’s glare or Sarah’s. Sarah continued to crochet. It wasn’t that the table doily was of paramount importance; it was just that she too had a need to try to keep busy, and the constant darting and stabbing of the crochet hook was absorbing. Lydia stared at the growing dangle of lace with something that looked a lot like resentment. Sarah stayed mute. She knew how to bide her time. To wait. It was something they’d all learned during the war. Some called it patience; others called it the art of killing time. Sarah thought it was a horror that they had to kill time, since, after all, that was the most precious thing, but she had become as proficient at doing so as anyone. She’d spent months waiting for Arthur’s leave, waiting for letters, waiting for news. Back then, she’d thought waiting was the worst thing, but it wasn’t. Enduring was worse. Enduring was waiting’s bigger, more ferocious brother. Once Arthur had been killed and Samuel was sent home mutilated, there was nothing for her to do but endure.

They sat silently for ten minutes, with only the click of the needles to distract. Sarah was impressed and frustrated by Lydia’s refusal to open the conversation, when the issue so clearly needed discussing. But she had known Lydia since she was born. She did not feel a preamble was necessary.

‘You mustn’t leave Lawrence.’

Lydia sighed. ‘I know what you think.’

Sarah’s heart was swollen with envy for everything Lydia had, and her head ached with anger that she might consider chucking it all away.

‘Do you honestly think you can divorce Lawrence and then marry this man?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are insane.’ She stated it plainly, as though it was an unequivocal truth. Lydia didn’t bother to argue. ‘You have everything a girl might dream of. Wealth, status, a husband, security.’

‘I know.’ Lydia bent her head so that her chin rested on her chest, and Sarah got a sense that she did at least understand what she was threatening to sacrifice.

‘A baby on the way,’ Sarah added tentatively.

‘It’s not Lawrence’s baby.’

‘You can’t be sure.’

‘I am sure.’

‘But Lawrence doesn’t have to know.’

Lydia shot Sarah a look that was a complicated mix of shock and pity. ‘I don’t want to deceive him.’

‘He’d have an heir. Your baby would be an earl.’

‘My baby might be a girl. Besides, either way, I want him, or her, to grow up with Edgar.’

‘And what does the sergeant major have to say on the subject of impending fatherhood?’

‘I haven’t told him yet,’ Lydia admitted.

‘You’re sure of him?’

‘Yes, and I’m sure of myself.’

‘But, Lydia, what can Edgar Trent offer?’

Lydia didn’t reply. She leaned towards the table and reached for the lemonade glass, beaded with condensation. She gulped down the drink in an unladylike manner. Sarah thought Lydia had become earthier, somehow, since this affair business. She didn’t like it.

‘What will you do, Lydia? Your father will disinherit you.’

‘I’ll get a job.’

‘What sort of job?’

‘I could teach.’

‘Don’t be silly. Married women are practically barred from most gainful employment. I can’t begin to imagine how a divorcée’s application might be received. Don’t you read the papers? Men, and at a push single women, have the first shout. A land for heroes, not loose women.’

‘I don’t imagine there are many ex-soldiers rushing to teach dancing or deportment.’

‘The baby. How will you work when you have a baby?’

Lydia put her hand on her stomach; it was still flat, no sign of the tiny miracle she was harbouring. A smile played on her lips. Her baby. She shrugged. ‘All right, I won’t work. I’ll stay at home, keep house. I’ll nurse the baby. Edgar has employment.’

‘I imagine his annual salary is less than you spend on shoes in a season. Do you know how close a bedfellow poverty is to doubt?’

‘We’re not talking about a reckless hand-to-mouth existence. We’ll buy a house in the suburbs.’

‘Oh, yes, I can just see you in suburbia. Its streets are beautifully monotonous; every front garden is a replica of its neighbours,’ snapped Sarah.

‘When did you develop such a condescending attitude?’

‘When did you develop such a laissez-faire
one?’ The women stared at one another; frustration and disappointment stained the air. ‘Romantic irresponsibility is intensely attractive, but the reality will be quite different.’

‘I love him, Sarah.’

‘But you loved Lawrence once.’

‘No, not really. Not enough. I don’t think so.’ Lydia looked regretful.

This wasn’t the way Sarah had envisaged the conversation flowing. She didn’t understand her own bile and mounting frustration. Why couldn’t Lydia see what she had? Why would she dream of throwing it all away? There had been enough destruction. Too much. When would this war stop claiming victims? When would enough be enough? ‘Soon he will irk you.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know precisely. Perhaps his poverty, or his experience. The very things you love about him now.’

‘I don’t love his poverty; I’m not some deluded heroine. I do wish he was wealthier, but it isn’t enough to turn me off.’

Sarah sighed and tried another tack. ‘Do you remember your wedding?’

‘Of course I do.’