An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) (18 page)

‘I can see what you are thinking, Miss
Owens
.’

Did this woman never stop?

‘I can see that you are wondering why I think it my business to remind you of your responsibilities – wondering on what ever basis Mrs Berkeley has the right to talk to
Miss Owens
about illicit love. You probably do not know – indeed, why should you? – that I myself was married when I met Mr Berkeley for the first time. I had married a gentleman whose dark eyes had followed me wherever I went in exactly the same way that Mr Wright’s eyes follow you. Like you, I was lonely and in need of love. Like you, I was flattered by his attentions, by the feelings that he
stirred
with
in
me
-
of being desirable, of being important
to someone
.
They made me think I was important for myself.
Like you, I made the mistake of confusing
admiration,
attraction – desire
– call it what you wish,
it is the same thing – with
real
affection
. I paid a bitter price for my mistake. I
went ahead and
married my admirer.
I
foolishly
married him and gave him everything that I had – my home, my income – I was an independent woman in those days, you know – my happiness.
He turned out to be a gamester. He gambled my property away. He turned out to be unpredictable – one day kind and loving, the next day vicious and violent.
He turned out to be a bully and a wife beater.
Many’s the time he hit me, Miss
Owens
. I lived in constant fear for my very existence
. He resented the fact that I had given my first husband a child – a little boy – and that this little boy was the apple of my eye. He was jealous of a little child, Miss
Owens
, this admirer with the dark, watchful eyes. So one day he took the little lad out fishing, and never brought him back. Whether he meant to drown him or whether it was an accident I never knew. But the result was the same. He took everything of value in this world away from me
. Although I had thought that I loved him when I married him, although I had expected to love him for ever, I found that what I had felt for that man was not true love at all. And when the light dawned
on me
and I realised that I had been deceived
-
when the beatings and the bullyings and the gambling had got too much
and
the hard reality broke in on me
–
that I had lost everything of any value in my life and would not get it back
-
I realised
then
what an awful punishment God had meted out to me for the
dreadful
mistake that I had made.’

Maggie was spellbound
.

‘And what of Mr Berkeley. Where did he come in?’

‘Mr Berkeley was my
temptation
and Mr Berkeley was my
reward.
For it appears that
God had chosen to test out my
integrity
, Miss Owens
– to test out the promises I had made when I married Giles
.
For just at the time when I was at my most vulnerable, when my husband had beaten me and left me on my own, Mr Berkeley was sent by God to tempt me
with his love
. We loved each other from the very
first
day we met
-
such love for another person as I could not possibly
even have
imagined. Oh yes, Mr Berkeley came
to me
and begged me to
take his love. He begged me to
leave my husband
and to live with him instead
.
I was very, very tempted to do so.
I was desperate to do so.
But
I did not break
any of
my
promises,
any of the
vow
s that
I
had
made when I married Giles
,
much as I
wanted
to do so
.
I stayed with my husband, I supported him, I was loyal to him as I had vowed
to be
, aye, right to the
end,
until
he shot me
with his pistol
and
went and
killed
himself
.
And in the end God was gracious. He spared me my life and
he
gave me
my reward. And oh!
-
w
hat a reward! For the fir
st time I understood what love wa
s.
I had been twice married and still had not known – had not the slightest idea of what love is
all
about.
It
is not about attraction, or desire
. It is not about longing for someone.
It is not about you yourself – your
own
needs and
want
s
–
it is not about that
at all
, though that is what I
had thought it – that is
how
I
’d experienced it
, until that
very
time
.
Love
is about feeling so much at one with another person – feeling that you are incomplete without them – feeling that you will support them for ever, whatever they do and whatever life throws at you – wanting to give them everything they could po
ssibly desire, and doing your utmo
st to
give them that
. That is what love is, Miss
Owens
. And that is why I know that what you and Mr Wright feel for
each other
is nothing like love at all.’

Maggie knew not what to say, so for a very long time she just sat there and said nothing. Indeed, Mrs Berkeley did not appear to expect her to say anything. So they sat there in the win
dow, drinking their coffee,
looking
out onto
the bay. They watched the
gentle wavelets, now shimmering in a bright afternoon sunshine, curl
ing
softly onto the sandy beach. They heard the screams and shrieks of the children as they raced each other in and out of the water, and the mewing gulls as they glided lazily overhead
in the newly blue sky
. Ma
ggie began to feel as if she were
dreaming – that she should awaken
at
any moment and find herself in her little bed overl
ooking the buildings at
the rear
of Grosvenor Place
. Indeed, the feeling was so strong that she ac
t
ually
felt the need to
pinch herself. Ouch! No, she was not dreaming. The situation was real. Yes, she was sitting here in Harvey’s
library
, drinking coffee with Mrs Berkeley. Yes, she had just heard a story that she already knew she would remember her whole life through.  And yes, though she wanted to believe it little enough, she could now clearly see that – whatever her feelings, whether she were truly in love with William or not – there was no way in which she should be trying to prize him from the woman he had married – that it was entirely wrong of her to do so, and that, in thinking ab
out it,
that
she would not wish to
s
ucceed in
gaining him
anyway.

When Mrs Berkeley had first start
ed to talk to her Maggie’s only
feeling
s
had been of
fear and
irritation
. She had felt quite annoyed
that the woman sitting before her had felt at all able to
talk to
her about what she was doing in her employer’s household
, and had dreaded what she might say
.
She had expected a lecture – a smug, prim lecture about the
questionableness
of her morality and the need to remember her place.
But now that the story was over, now that Mrs Berkeley had given her the honour of explaining her own situation so honestly and so unjudgementally to her
, now  that she realised just how much of
an effort it must have cost her to raise the subject with her
– well, what could she do but respect the woman for her generosity, and agree to take heed of her warnings after all?

‘Just one further word of advice, then, Miss
Owens
,’ said Kathryn, obviously fe
eling e
ncouraged enough
to capitalise
on the progress she ha
d already made. ‘Look to Mr
Staveley
instead. Mr
Staveley
is in grave danger of making a mistake of his own. Be there for him when he
realises that he’
s made that mistake – when he realises that he
needs someone
to help him through
it
.
For need s
omeone he most certainly shall, and when that happens y
ou could do a lot worse than to be there
for him
by
his
side
.’

Maggie was so impressed by what Mrs Berkeley had just tol
d
her that she resolved to put an
immediate
end to her unsatisfactory flirtation with William and to put him completely out of her mind. After all, she was not blind to his flaws, just as she was not blind to his attractions. She knew full well that he was
self satisfied
,
weak and easily led, that he was terrified of his wife and would do nothing to protect her – Maggie – in the face of that gen
t
le lady’s wrath
. Nor could
she quite forget
the
almost arrogant
complacency
in his assumption that she would
dress to please him, be happy to kiss him
and
– a thought that made her shiver equally with fear and anticipation
-
give
her
self
to him and make herself
his own
. So she decided to take Mrs Berkeley’s advice, to take herself in hand, and to ensure that she was never in a position where she would be at risk of being alone with
the wretched man
again
.

This was the resolution, at any rate, and to some extent it was translated into action. For instead of putting herself
in places where she knew that William
might
find
her
alone
she altered her habits to ensure, as far as she could, that she should
always
either
be in the company of others, or that she should evade his presence altogether. Rather than remain in her chamber of an evening she took to visiting
Mrs Robinson,
the housekeeper
,
in her little room
downstairs. Rather than seeking out his looks, smiling at him, manufacturing opportunities to gain his admiration and attention she kept her glances ent
i
rely to herself, or engaged Mr Staveley in conversation, or concentrated on her sewing or a book – anything to avoid giving him the slightest encouragement. And whenever he did manage to catch her eye, whenever he did manage to engage her attention
,
she tried to ignore his
pained expression and simply
looked elsewhere
instead.

To some extent, therefore, her noble resolution
was translated into action. But, sadly, Maggie was finding that intention, will,
determination
– call it what you like – was
quite
insufficient to school her mind into forgetting William
altogether
. She tried to
tutor
her
self
into
seeing him just as he was – her employer, a man who found his wife tiresome and dull and was seeking some more attractive proposition with as little effort on his part as might reasonably be expe
nd
ed.
She tried to tell herself these things, and at
one level she managed to
believe them.
After all, she was an intelligent young woman. She could see that this was true.
But n
o.
It would not do.
Even as she told herself this,
even as she
reminded herself of all the wise words that Mrs Berkeley had so kindly bestowed upon her – even then,
deep down
she was finding it singularly impossible to
tame
her
self
into seeing him in this way and letting her romantic dreams
entirely
slip away.