Beautiful Lies (7 page)

Edward had come to the house every other day for three weeks. Then he went away. Though she did not admit it Maribel missed him, the clean pallor of his skin, the way he talked to her afterwards, as though she were a real person.

A month later he returned and took her away. He had sat beside her as the train bore them towards Paris and, when she let her head rest sleepily upon his shoulder, he had kissed her forehead and told her that no man had ever been happier. In Paris he had invented the story of their accidental meeting, not for him, he was clear about that, but for the rest of them, who were foolish and would never understand. Maribel had thought the tale implausible, had asked how anyone would believe that Edward of all people, who had been riding since before he could walk, had lost control of his horse on a busy thoroughfare, but Edward had told her no one would ever think of such a thing.

He was right, of course. Nobody did. Edward said it was because it was a delightful story and the truth was that most people desired to be delighted. It was the rare cynic who disdained the enchantment of propitious happenstance, where the fate of a beautiful woman might be decided by a chance meeting. Their set was young and gifted and they did not give a spoon for the finer points of Maribel’s bloodline. Theirs was a new generation, who spurned the dusty hierarchies of their forefathers and disdained their titles. As for Edward, he was charming and clever and capricious, a gentleman whose pampas swagger was never quite obscured by his elegant tailoring. At Ascot he wore his gaucho knife under his dress suit. Maribel was exactly the variety of exotic bloom with whom a man like he would fall hopelessly in love.

Only Edward’s mother had showed little inclination to be charmed by the romance of her son’s courtship. Edward had taken Maribel to meet Vivien when they had been married three days. He had sat on the arm of his mother’s chair, Vivien’s hand on his sleeve, while Maribel stared at the floor and answered her new mother-in-law’s questions in monosyllables. In the cab going home the two of them had quarrelled for the first time. Edward had accused Maribel of sullenness, of discourtesy. He demanded to know how his mother was supposed to love her new daughter-in-law if she refused even to look her in the eye. For her part Maribel pronounced Edward cruel and disloyal. She said that it was wicked for a man to care more for his mother than his wife, wicked and unnatural. Both had declared the other impossible. Edward had gone to his club and returned home very late. In the dark refuge of their bed he had held her and her tears had fallen on his face and oiled his dark red whiskers.

Maribel never asked whether Vivien knew the truth. On the whole she thought it unlikely. Even if Edward had tried to tell her, it was not in Vivien Campbell Lowe’s nature to hear things that she preferred not to know. Edward knew that better than anyone. Though he had written to Vivien weekly during their time in America he had never once alluded directly to his new wife.

Whatever she knew, the older Mrs Campbell Lowe kept it to herself. She had no desire to attach scandal to the family. Perhaps if Maribel had proved a treasure hunter, she might have sought a way to disgrace her. Along with her unswerving conviction in her own judgement Vivien had friends in Paris. It would have been a matter of little difficulty to establish the non-existence of Maribel’s aunt. But there was no treasure to hunt, only debts, and Maribel, unlike Edward, showed some adroitness in the management of money. It was because of Maribel that the estate at Inverallich had at last been persuaded to yield a profit. She could be frugal too, when required, and her frugality never showed. Vivien Campbell Lowe might disapprove of her daughter-in-law, she might even dislike her, but she could not fault her conduct. Besides, she was ambitious for her son. If Maribel was exposed it would mean the end of his parliamentary career.

Maribel’s cigarette was burned to a nub. She took a final long inhalation and put it out. In the bed Edward turned over, flinging an arm across her empty pillow. In the Calle de León gentlemen had not been permitted to stay the night. On the train to Paris Maribel had leaned against Edward and it seemed to her a kind of miracle that they had found each other in such a place where the imitation of pleasure was sold by the hour. She wore a new dress she had purchased for herself with the money he had paid her, a pale grey silk that flattered her dark hair and pale skin, and on her finger his grandmother’s sapphire ring. When she removed her gloves she set her hand on his, admiring the flash of the stone, hardly daring to believe that, from this day and for the rest of their lives, neither of them would ever again have anything to do with those kind of establishments and, at the same time, unable to shake off the fear that the squalid circumstances of their meeting could not be so easily dismissed, that the disgrace of it would leak like a slow poison into the flesh of their marriage. That he would, in time, find himself ashamed of her.

On both counts, it seemed, she had been mistaken. In all the years of their marriage he had never once alluded to the Señora or to the Calle de León. He had never, in anger or in spite, used the shame of her past against her, never attached any judgement to her situation or to those of other women in similar predicaments. In Parliament, during the debates about the Crimes Bill, he had shown both compassion and practical concern for the safety of girls obliged to work in brothels. Nor was his interest limited to the legislation. She was aware that, since they had been married, he had continued, with more or less regularity, to avail himself of the services such women took it upon themselves to provide.

Edward was discreet but she always knew. The act lifted his mood, much as riding one of his horses did, sharpening his appetite and invigorating his spirits. In the beginning, she had tortured herself with imagining him there, summoning precise pictures in her head of the padded silk headboard, the shaded lamps, the silver-stoppered decanter of whisky on a tray on the dressing table. He would frequent the kind of establishment that prided itself upon its discretion, a place that, insofar as such things were possible, might almost be thought of as respectable.

Edward would be a favoured client, of course, as he had been at the house on the Calle de León, because he was both courte ous and appreciative. He would treat the girls as he treated his horses, with consideration and a connoisseur’s eye, delighting in the line of a limb, a particular freshness of spirit. Edward might excoriate the failings of his fellow Members in the House but he was not a hypocrite. From boyhood he had determined to make a joyful business of life, to embrace its pleasures as willingly as its responsibilities. He did not censure or condemn the private conduct of others, nor did he speak as other men spoke of the high standard set by his own conscience. He had no wish to play Moses.

Maribel had found that, as long as she was careful not to think about it, it did not matter so very much. Edward was a good husband. She had not had to endure, as William Morris had endured, while his wife conducted an impassioned affair with his dearest friend in the house the Morrises had rented as a summer retreat, or come home, like Jennie Churchill, to find naked girls in her bathtub. She knew she was fortunate. For all their disdain of the ordinary conventions of marriage their friends longed to be happy. They envied Edward and Maribel their ease and affection, the evident pleasure they took in one another’s company, the freedom of their lives unencumbered by children. Everyone knew that the Campbell Lowes were devoted to one another. If Maribel had a rival it was only the Houses of Parliament, who proved too frequently a demanding and ill-tempered mistress. As for the other – well, such places were not so very different from the Reform Club or the Athenaeum, private clubs where gentlemen might seek some relief from the heavy responsibilities of work and family. The wife that refused her husband the freedom of such establishments was either a duchess or a damned fool.

O
N THE DAY THAT
they were to attend the Wild West Edward woke in good humour, unable to conceal his enthusiasm. The show had opened its rehearsals to reporters and the newspapers had been full of breathless accounts of its wonders: of trick-riding and sharp-shooting, of buffalo-hunting and steer-roping, of the blood-curdling spectacle of a whooping stampede of war-bonneted Indians as they attacked the Deadwood Stage. They raved about the doll-sized Annie Oakley who could shoot the ash off a cigar while standing on her head and whose
coup de maître
was to stand with her back turned to a man holding up a playing card in his fingers which she then shot, a mirror in one hand and her inverted rifle in the other, straight through the centre of the card. As for the cowboys dared with mounting the wild, unbroken horses in the ring, it was plain that Edward would have given anything to have the chance to do just the same himself.

As usual Alice brought the post and fresh tea. Edward glanced at the envelopes, separating their piles. Maribel emptied her teacup and lifted the lid of the pot. It was not yet strong enough. Opposite her Edward frowned, tapping one of the envelopes against his fingertips. Then he set it on the top of her pile and handed it across the table. It had been addressed to Mrs Edward Campbell Lowe, care of the House of Commons. Someone had forwarded it to Cadogan Mansions. The words PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL were printed across the envelope in capital letters.

‘It is one thing to send love letters to a married woman,’ he said with a raised eyebrow. ‘It is quite another to expect his clerk to act as go-between.’

The letter was written on the same heavy stationery as the first, the familiar handwriting once more positioned precisely in the centre of the envelope. Maribel stared at it, her tea forgotten.

Edward went back to his newspaper. Without raising his eyes, he poured milk into his tea and stirred, setting the spoon back in his saucer. Then he lifted the cup and took a sip. Maribel rested her chin on her cupped hands. The sour smell of the marmalade was making her feel sick.

‘How marvellous,’ Edward said. ‘After the Wild West preview the
Times
reporter asked Chief Red Shirt what he had thought of the British Parliament. The Indian pondered for a while and then answered that he had not thought it very magnificent. “Laws,” he said, “could be made much more quickly in my country than in England.”’

Maribel tried to smile. Her face felt stiff. Her mother had written to her at the House of Commons. Whatever it was she had to say it was plain that she intended to say it.

Edward put down his newspaper and wiped his fingers on his napkin.

‘It is time I was going,’ he said, pushing back his chair. ‘I shall pick you up at four.’

‘Don’t go, Red. Not quite yet.’

‘Oh?’

‘There is something I have to talk to you about.’

‘Ah. So it is an admirer.’

‘What is?’

‘The letter. I notice you haven’t opened it yet.’

Maribel clasped her hands together, pressing her knuckles hard against her chin.

‘It’s not from an admirer. I wish it was.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s from my mother.’

Edward stared at her.

‘Your mother? Are you quite sure?’

‘She is coming to London. She wants me to call on her.’

‘And you know all this without opening the envelope? I’m impressed.’

‘Don’t. She wrote before. A week ago, perhaps two. I didn’t tell you. I – I didn’t know how. She knew about us. I wrote years ago, when we were first married. I should have told you then, I know I should, but I was ashamed. It was such a stupid, reckless thing to do. I thought – it was just that I wanted her to know that I was not dead. Or worse. I never thought she would ever write back. I am sorry.’

‘Bo, look at me.’

Maribel sighed. Then slowly she lifted her gaze from the tablecloth.

‘I shan’t see her,’ she said quietly. ‘You needn’t worry about that.’

‘What is it that she wants?’

‘She doesn’t say. Only that she would not ask if it were not important.’

Edward considered his plate, one finger tapping out a rhythm against its rim. Then he looked up. Reaching across the table, he put his hand on hers.

‘Then you should go,’ he said.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bo, your mother was willing to sacrifice her own daughter to avert a scandal. She would not ask if she did not think it essential.’

‘To her, perhaps. If the truth were to come out it would finish your career.’

‘I seem to be doing a pretty decent job of that without your mother’s assistance.’

Maribel smiled faintly.

‘There is no reason why anyone should find out,’ he said firmly. ‘Not if you are both careful. I don’t imagine you intend to make a habit of it.’

‘No. But why now? And why risk meeting? What is wrong with writing a letter?’

‘There are some things that cannot be said in a letter.’

She looked at him, the fear passing over her face like a shadow.

‘You don’t think – ?’

‘There is no purpose in guessing,’ he said gently. ‘Go and see her. Let her say whatever it is she has to say. It will not be happy news, I fear, but if she has asked to meet you I do not think you can refuse her. How should we live with ourselves if we were to prove ourselves more cowardly than her?’

Major Burke escorted Maribel and Edward to the rear of the tent, where Cody was welcoming his guests. Unlike the inverted cones of the Indian tepees, Buffalo Bill’s tent was large and luxuriously appointed, its canvas walls hung with trophies and the floor spread with animal skins upon which were arranged a number of comfortable armchairs fashioned from hide and buffalo horn. Waiters moved among the crowd with trays of drinks, plates of sandwiches and biscuits. The room was already very full.

‘I’ll leave you here if I may,’ Burke said with a bow. A portly man, he wore a wideawake hat tipped to one side, beneath which tightly curled hair spilled in dark profusion over his collar. He had a long scar on one plump cheek and a magnificent stomach which he advertised with a startlingly extravagant waistcoat of gold and purple brocade. His moustaches reached almost to his chin.