Cashelmara (16 page)

But worse was to come. Edward’s great interest was politics, and soon there were stately political dinner parties to attend and countless excruciating “evenings.” I could have escaped them by pleading to be exhausted by pregnancy, but I was in excellent health and disliked the thought of dissimulating to Edward. Besides, I hate to give in. Accordingly I set to work again in an effort to master British politics, but I could not help thinking it was tiresome of the British not to have a written Constitution, and I became bored with the so-called issues of the day. Soon I was even thinking how pleasant it would be to read about secession instead of the interminable wranglings about parliamentary reform and whether or not Mr. Gladstone should abolish the tax on paper.

However, I struggled on. I read John Stuart Mill’s
On Liberty
and even, digressing from political and social issues, Darwin’s
Origin of Species
before Edward realized what I was doing and put a stop to it.

“For God’s sake don’t talk about socialism and evolution at any house I take you to!” he exclaimed, horrified. “Read Samuel Smiles’s
Self Help
if you must interest yourself in the social welfare of the masses, and try some poetry if you wish to progress further than your usual light novels. Have you read
The Idylls of the King
?”

I had not. I loathed poetry, and anyway I thought Darwin’s theories were much more fascinating than Tennyson’s fantasies. I was just at an age to rebel against Amelia’s ruthlessly correct religious upbringing, and while still believing passionately in God (Whom as a small child I had identified with my elderly father), I was excited to think of all the self-righteous clergymen being flung into a frenzy by these new scientific hypotheses. But in Edward’s circles such talk was heresy, and nothing, I thought, separated the old from the young quite so completely as the mere mention of Darwin’s name.

“I suppose we must seem very conservative to you,” said Edward sympathetically once.

And antiquated, I thought as I remembered the baffling intricacies of the English class system, but I said nothing. Of course there is a class system and an enormous amount of snobbery in New York too. In fact I admit that in one of my more unattractive moments I myself have even looked down my nose at a girl whose father’s income did not exceed twenty thousand a year, but nevertheless the class system is so different in America, so much more casual and fluid, so much more—well, the only word for it is “democratic.”

“Ah yes,” said Edward with irony after I had said as much to him. “We are all watching the American experiment in democracy with great interest.”

I supposed the irony was because he was convinced the democracy would soon dissolve into civil war. But I did not believe there would be a war. Francis did not believe it because it would be so bad for trade, and he was prepared to vote against Lincoln in the coming presidential elections.

“How would you vote if you were entitled to do so?” said Edward after I had shown him Francis’ letter.

At first I thought he was teasing me. “Oh, Edward, what a question! You know women are quite incapable when it comes to political decisions!”

“Yes, but only because the majority of women are uneducated. They’re not incapable
per se.”

I never ceased to be surprised by the unexpectedness of some of Edward’s opinions. On subject after subject he would display an annoyingly conservative outlook and then suddenly, just when one had given up all hope of a more flexible attitude, he would casually drop a remark so radical that one wondered how he avoided outraging all his old-fashioned political colleagues. Nowadays, when the political field is dividing into two such distinct parts, one forgets the earlier age to which Edward belonged, the age of coalitions and blurred party lines and independent political thought.

“Eleanor possessed the most exceptional grasp of political matters,” he explained. “She had a natural aptitude for politics, it was true, but she had also been educated by a first-class governess. I don’t believe it’s desirable for women to be educated in exactly the same way as men, but I do think there should be more opportunities for women to receive an education such as the one Eleanor received. However, before we educate the women of this country we must first of all educate the men.” He had slipped into his energetic House of Lords voice. “Every man in this country is entitled to at least an elementary education, and it’s nonsense to say, as many do, that the working classes are incapable of profiting from it.”

It was then that he told me about his educational experiment. He had sent an Irish peasant’s son, Roderick Stranahan, first to school in Galway and afterward to university in Germany. “And now I’m considering a second experiment,” he added with enthusiasm. “I have an interesting young tenant called Drummond, and I suspect he might benefit from being sent to study at the Agricultural College. Oh, it would benefit me as well as him!” he explained quickly when I commended him on his altruism. “He would return a more enlightened farmer and spread his enlightenment among my other tenants, who are all hopelessly backward in agricultural matters.”

Agriculture was Edward’s chief interest after politics, but as it was not a subject that interested me it seldom provided us with a topic of conversation.

Meanwhile, I was growing no closer to penetrating the steel-plated politeness of Edward’s acquaintances, and eventually I became so dismayed that I even summoned the courage to complain to him. But that was a waste of breath. He merely denied my difficulties existed and assured me that everyone constantly told him how delightful I was.

“I’m so glad,” I said, trying to sound cheerful, but I was plunged into worse gloom than ever. I knew that after all my extensive research I could no longer attribute my failure to my ignorance of English life, so I was forced to assume that my great sin lay in being an eighteen-year-old foreigner. Nothing could alter my age, but I decided that perhaps I could be a little less foreign.

“I’ve made up my mind to be more English than the English,” I said one morning to Patrick. Edward had already gone to the library to dictate letters to his secretary, but Patrick and I were still lingering in the dining room. “I’m going to learn to speak with an English accent.”

“The English have no accent,” said Patrick, astonished. “They speak English. It’s foreigners who have the accent.”

“Oh, bunkum!” I said, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry, but when he giggled and said how amusing I was I realized tears would be out of place.

“Anyway,” he added, “why do you want to change? The English don’t like foreigners who try not to be foreign. It’s not playing the game at all.”

“But what am I to do?” I wailed, feeling utterly defeated by English insularity.

“Why do anything?” said Patrick. “I think you’re awfully nice just as you are.”

“No one else seems to think so,” I said morosely. “I’ve been here a whole month now, and everyone still seems to think I’m no better than a creature at the zoo.”

“A month is no time at all!” protested Patrick, but unable to reply, I fled from the room, rushed upstairs, drew the curtains around the fourposter bed and burrowed inside under the comforter. There I gave way to the most abject self-pity and wept until I was exhausted. Presently I felt better. Sitting upright in bed, I remembered how in New York people had either ignored me or else hissed behind my back that it was a pity I was so plain. At least now, thanks to Edward, I was never ignored, and I always took care to dress fetchingly. Drawing the curtains once more, I left the bed and inspected my shape in the looking glass. Nothing showed; it was too soon, but the thought of the baby was so cheering that I no longer minded the middle-aged English regarding me as a juvenile freak. In fact I was even able to concede that Patrick was right and I had been expecting too much too soon.

Later I felt proud that I had reasoned myself into such a philosophical frame of mind, but nevertheless when Edward mentioned that evening that it was time for us to go down to the country, I at once longed to exchange the stultified grandeur of London for the pastoral peace of Woodhammer Hall.

One of the most dispiriting aspects of my introduction to London society had been that I had found it an ordeal even though the majority of people were out of town following the parliamentary recess. If I had been intimidated by the minority, how would I survive next year’s Season, when I would be obliged to cope with society
en masse?
However, I put such gloomy speculations behind me when we left London and began to look forward to my first glimpse of Warwickshire.

Edward’s annual travels, like those of other members of his class, usually fell into a steady pattern. When Parliament was sitting he would remain in London, his stay broken only by occasional lightning visits to Woodhammer or Cashelmara, but when Parliament rose he would retire to Ireland for a couple of months. Returning to England in October, he would respond to invitations to visit his friends before he journeyed to Woodhammer Hall, where he in his turn would issue invitations, look over his estate and indulge his passion for hunting. At Christmas it was time for Ireland again, but he would be back in London by mid-January, when Parliament usually reconvened. However, I had thoroughly disrupted his habits that year, first by marrying him in June in the middle of the Season, then by taking him away for three months on our honeymoon and finally by becoming pregnant and making the long journey to Ireland impracticable. Since I felt so well I had been willing to go, but Edward had refused to entertain the idea.

“Cashelmara is much too remote for you at present,” he said at once, “and if you had any kind of mishap God knows how long it would take to summon the nearest doctor. No, you must remain in England for the next few months.”

He had even suggested I might prefer to stay in London until after the baby was born, but the thought of foregoing my escape to the country appalled me.

“The country air will be so bracing,” I said winningly, “and besides, we shall be back in London by January, shan’t we?”

So with my doctor’s grudging consent we departed in November for Woodhammer, and I prepared myself for two months of bliss.

But I was not accustomed to country living. After a life spent in New York I found my pastoral peace frighteningly quiet and the leisured pace of life positively sepulchral.

“There’s no need for you to pay or receive calls now that your condition is more advanced,” said Edward firmly after our arrival. “You must take every opportunity to lead a quiet secluded life.”

“Just like a nun!” I exclaimed, smiling to hide my despair. “Dearest, I would so like to meet more of your friends. Couldn’t we give just a tiny dinner party or two?”

So there I was again, thrust among the elderly English, who exuded their familiar glacial politeness, but this time I had no one to blame but myself. Edward was insistent in keeping our social activities to a minimum, and while he was out all day hunting and Patrick was closeted with his new tutor, I occupied myself by writing long letters to America and trying not to feel too homesick for New York.

It was not that I disliked Woodhammer, which was a mellow, beautiful house with tall chimneys and a formal Elizabethan garden. It was not even that I disliked England. The countryside around Woodhammer was filled with the quaintest little homes and villages. The village cottages had thatched roofs, and the churches, built of gray stone, were all hundreds of years old. Warwick too was a striking town, with whole streets of half-timbered houses and a castle so exactly like an illustration in a book of fairytales that at first I could hardly believe it was real. The English countryside was certainly good to look at and easy to admire, but it was, just as everyone says, very misty and damp, and the English for some reason are quite unable to heat their houses properly. I spent most of my leisure hours at Woodhammer hunched over a fire beneath three thick woolen shawls. All the servants thought I was eccentric, but fortunately pregnant women can be excused all manner of extraordinary behavior.

Another aspect of life at Woodhammer that annoyed me was the food. There was no variety of vegetables, only a nauseatingly high incidence of suets, pastries and potatoes. Once I even saw suet pudding, pastry and jammed potatoes all together on the same plate—touching one another. But when I tried to explain my repulsion to the servants they looked totally baffled.

This was not the first time I had been aware of the fundamental difficulty in communicating with the English. Communication should have been so easy since we were all supposed to speak the same language, yet frequently I could not understand a word they said, and even more frequently they would listen to me with that polite glazed expression which meant they understood me no better than I understood them. Now after many years I have adjusted my vocabulary so that I use few American words, but when I first arrived in England I must have been constantly using phrases which had either never been used in England or else had fallen into disuse at least a hundred years before.

However, despite these trials I eventually began to feel the English were becoming familiar to me. I knew by this time, for instance, that Edward’s friends would not talk about the same subjects as Francis’ friends would talk about in New York. New Yorkers are always talking about Europe. It is Europe this, that and the other. European fashions are awaited with bated breath, European news is discussed with great solemnity, European art and drama are imported to become the talk of cultural circles. Nobody mentions the word “Europe” in England; England is not considered part of Europe, and the other European countries are referred to (pityingly) as “the Continent,” a large and of course inferior land mass somewhere to the east of the White Cliffs of Dover. English people go to the Continent to travel, to observe and occasionally to fight the French. Lesser English people go there to trade, but that is all done very tastefully, and few people speak of it. The English on the whole do not talk of the Continent. They talk of empire, scientific progress and politics. Unlike America, where no one of any breeding meddles in the political arena, politics in England is regarded as an exquisitely civilized game for the upper classes, not quite as jolly as fox hunting but affording all the pleasures of a smart select club while also offering the opportunity to Do One’s Duty to the Masses. The English regard themselves as very, very civilized, possibly the most civilized race that God has ever been sensible enough to put in charge of the rest of the world, and the sooner a foreigner agrees to acknowledge the truth of this the sooner he will be accepted by English society.