Spare Brides (31 page)

True enough, the young people had been through so much; yet hadn’t everyone? She couldn’t understand why what they had witnessed and endured had led them to believe they had a right to happiness; for her it was quite the reverse. She believed one ought to nurture a hope for contentment, but that no one had any
rights
at all.

The dowager was satisfied with how the private funeral had passed off. The service had been swift and serious; the time at the graveside had been kept to a dignified minimum. There was just the wake to endure – tea and an afternoon sherry for the men – then her close friends and neighbours would leave her to get on. The sandwiches were beginning to curl, a sure sign that it was time for everyone to go home and resume their normal business. The private funeral was always the hardest part. As she’d dreaded, the servants had become upset; they had a tendency to do so. Some undoubtedly would miss the old earl. He had been a fair master, a good man; their grief was genuine. Others cried because a funeral brought back difficult memories of their own losses. Poor souls. It underlined the fact that they’d never had the benefit of a service or a coffin for their men. She understood. Her middle boy had never come home. At least with her eldest they’d been able to give him the proper send-off; he and his father now lay next to one another, next to grandfathers and great-grandfathers. It was as it should be. No body to bury was hard. There was so much loss for everyone to deal with. It was tiring. The dowager was exhausted. Everyone was. The old women were ashamed that they’d been a generation of mothers who couldn’t look after their sons, couldn’t save them, and now, as some sort of punishment, they had to watch the bloom in the young women’s cheeks fade and wither.

She had read recently that three million people in the United Kingdom were grieving for a close relative: a son, husband, father, brother. Besides her son, this household had lost two gardeners, three maids had lost beaus, the cook had lost her son and the chauffeur came home with only one arm. They kept him on, naturally; it was the patriotic thing to do, though he couldn’t actually drive them anywhere. He made himself useful fixing things around the estate and house. He managed very well. The dowager admired him. He fought his exhaustion, he was tireless; she saw him out on the estate at all hours, at the crack of dawn and as the sun set. She got the sense that he liked to be alone.

There would be a formal memorial service in London for the earl; it was absolutely necessary so that the great and the good could pay their respects. She wanted the memorial to be notable, dignified and written up in all the broadsheets. She gazed out of the window at the flower gardens; there were carnations, roses, sweet peas. The roses were overblown and drooping. All the flowers looked drowsy and fed up. During the war they’d grown potatoes, onions and carrots in those beds and on every other spare inch of land. Practical foods that kept them going. In fact there had been more than enough; she’d had the excess produce sent into the village, sold to those who could afford it, given to those who couldn’t. The lawns had been turned over to producing hay for the horses. It was lovely to see flowers in the beds again and to know that peaches and grapes were growing in the greenhouses. The dowager’s peaches were a weapon in her hospitality arsenal; she always did terrifically well at the county fair. She would have to be careful to manage it so that things continued as they were in the gardens. She doubted that Lydia had any ideas of her own. Lydia could be managed, tactfully. Embraced, guided, supervised. Technically she would be the mistress of the house, but the dowager thought it was only a technicality.

The vicar’s wife had been quite stupendously tactless this morning. By way of making conversation she’d commented, ‘So, what changes shall we see, I wonder? Do you think there will be a great many more parties? The young like to party, don’t they?’

‘I don’t anticipate anything too wild. Lydia is such a sensible girl,’ the dowager had replied in a tone she felt ought to have signalled the end of that line of conversation.

‘Children’s voices, it’s all the house needs,’ whispered the vicar’s wife. The dowager thought this a ludicrous and irritating comment; if there were to be babies, wouldn’t they be here already? Her daughter-in-law was barren. A terrible pity, but there you had it. Her husband’s nephew would inherit, ultimately. She cast a glance at him, hovering over the decanter, looking every inch the smug man a step closer to his goal. He’d always been a pasty, ghastly, sneaky child, and by the look of him he’d never grown out of it. And there was Lydia; she looked wan, peaky.

Lydia noticed her mother-in-law smiling at her and she smiled back. It was a hesitant smile, because she wasn’t sure of the appropriateness of smiling too broadly at her father-in-law’s funeral. People were watching her, she knew it. She was a countess now, she supposed. Somehow that made her more interesting to others. It was a nuisance; the last thing she needed, or wanted, was more scrutiny. She didn’t feel as though she was in the same room as the mourners; it was as though she was watching them, like one might view a picture hung in a gallery. She found it hard to engage, hard to concentrate at all. The intense heat was making her sloppy; Edgar was making her crazy. Often, nowadays, she found that she wasn’t in full control of herself, wasn’t quite conscious of herself. She spent her days remembering their last contact, anticipating their next. The sweltering sun, battering against the drawn curtains, seeped into every pore. The strange gloom of mourning lay like smog, and the scent of the fat white lilies was so sweet it was almost burdensome, but none of these things was to blame for her comatose state.

It was only possible to stay in the moment when she was with him. Then she was alert, vibrant and lucid. She saw, heard, felt and thought things deeper and sharper than she ever had before. Just
being
had an almost painful clarity, like attempting to look straight at the sun: impossibly bright. It was as though she had lived her life looking through a telescope and he had suddenly come along and adjusted the focus. Ahh! Now she could see the horizon, now she could see it all! The meaning of life; the chance of happiness. But when she was not with him, everything became blurred and confused again. The normality that she had previously found adequate, even entertaining and fun, for all the years before she met him, now seemed dreary and pointless. When she was not near him she felt as though she was struggling under the weight of a relentless hangover. Groggy and dizzy, she stumbled through her days and conversations.

They had not managed to see one another for eleven days. It was becoming harder and harder to function. She thought only of him. The weight of him on top of her. His smile breaking through. The scar on his rib where a bullet had grazed. His big, misshapen feet. There was no chance of sending and receiving telegrams because privacy, let alone secrecy, couldn’t be guaranteed when she was at Clarendale. She had telephoned him, twice; both times she had spoken to his intractable landlady, rather than Edgar himself. It was torture. Depressingly, the landlady had been surly and insolent; Lydia had not dared leave her name.

‘Who should I say telephoned, madam?’ Lydia had heard the disapproval and prudery in her voice. Why hadn’t she called her miss? How could she have known Lydia was married?

‘Oh, don’t bother. It’s not important.’ She’d quickly slammed down the handset.

Then her fog had darkened. She became paranoid, weepy and despairing. Would he know it was her that had telephoned? He must. This – all that she felt and thought – couldn’t be one-way. Could it? Madam, rather than miss. What did that mean? Did Edgar have a pattern? Had there been other married women? Were there other married women now? The thought made her breathless, careless. Lydia knew of such things, of course. A single girl had her reputation to lose and a man looking for sex wouldn’t bother there. Too complicated. Single girls were only noticed if a man wanted to marry. Married women
couldn’t
marry. Married women were the ones to pursue for uncomplicated sex. This argument found its way into Lydia’s head and ran round and round, many, many times a day, like a bird trapped inside a room, flinging itself against walls and windows in confusion. She hated what she knew of the world, and what she thought of the world, when she was not with him. She was ashamed of her doubts and fears. They seemed like a betrayal. When she was with him she was so sure. So positive. It was everything. They were invincible. They could not get enough of each other. He consumed her. She fed him.

They had been lovers for three months now. They met up two or three times a week. He accepted more and more invitations to the parties that she attended, because although they could not spend the entire evening together as they would like, without arousing suspicion, they could at least see one another. Feast their eyes. They did find ways to be alone. They met in the daytime. He’d spend the morning at the office in the army HQ and she’d spend the morning dressing, waiting; they’d meet just after lunch. She’d have the chauffeur drop her off at a gallery or museum. They sometimes made a show of looking at the exhibit, even taking tea; other times they would simply run to the underground and take a train to his flat. His landlady charred in the afternoon for families who lived in Islington; he could sneak Lydia in and out any time between two and five. They had these slivers of heaven, alone in his bed with its skinny mattress and a patchwork blanket that his sister had made for him.

She was changed. She talked quickly, as though she had more words to get out, which indeed she did. More ideas, more thoughts, more point. She roared with laughter when she was with him, something she’d never done previously; she’d always confined herself to polite laughter, giggles and guffaws. She explained loudly. Ate hungrily. Made love enthusiastically. She didn’t apologise if she missed her step and tripped on the stairs. She simply got up and rushed on. There was no time to waste with apologies, regrets or remorse.

But eleven days was such a long time. Eleven days was for ever. She’d had no choice but to come to the country. The earl had asked for her. She’d sat with him for three days; he’d been unconscious for much of it. She hoped he knew she was there, but she couldn’t be sure. She’d tried to think of a reason to go to town between the death and the funeral, but there wasn’t a viable one. She was stuck here in the depths of the West Sussex countryside. For how much longer? she wondered. It took an immense amount of will and attentiveness to hold on to her certainty and for that reason she appeared dazed and confused to others. They muttered among themselves how very badly she was taking the earl’s death.

The dowager leaned towards Lydia and commented, ‘Darling, I think it’s very wonderful of your friends to join us today. Lawrence said Mrs Gordon in particular has been an enormous help to him over these past few months.’

‘Sarah is so very practical and together.’

‘And generous with her time.’

‘Yes.’

‘Her sister, too.’

‘Bea likes to be useful.’

‘Quite right.’ The dowager paused; she eyed the long net curtains that fell into folds like a gown on the floor. Her gaze drifted around the room half-heartedly; Lydia’s followed. The panelled walls looked gloomy; the grandfather clock had been stopped. ‘So does your other friend, come to that. The modern one.’

‘Ava.’

‘Yes, that’s it, Ava Pondson-Callow. A double barrel with barely a title, how interesting.’

‘Her father is a knight.’

‘Inherited title?’

‘No.’

‘Hmmm. She is a busy young woman, I hear.’

‘Ava is on a number of committees,’ Lydia confirmed carefully. She wasn’t sure if the dowager was simply making conversation or whether she had a point she wanted to raise. Lydia felt uncomfortable talking about Ava; she’d used her as an alibi on countless occasions recently and lived in constant nervousness that she would be rumbled.

‘I saw her dash off just after the service.’

‘Yes.’ Lydia had been relieved that Ava couldn’t stay and chat with Lawrence.

‘Where is she going today?’

‘She had to go back to London. She has a trustee meeting for the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child, first thing tomorrow.’

‘Oh. How very progressive.’ The dowager tried not to look as though she had just eaten something that was slightly past its best.

‘Yes.’

‘Still, it’s good of her to make the time.’

Lydia smiled, understanding that her mother-in-law was being as conciliatory as possible. It was unlikely that the dowager actually wanted unmarried mothers to be mentioned in the drawing room. Lawrence coughed; no doubt he thought that the conversation should be moved on, but Lydia knew he wouldn’t risk saying anything specific. She would not tolerate any criticism of Ava, outright or implied, and he was aware of as much.

In the past, Lydia might have agreed with her husband and mother-in-law, acquiesced that illegitimacy shouldn’t be discussed in mixed public, but her relationship with Edgar had changed things. Running to and from his lodgings she had seen women, deserted and desperate, wearing rags, starving so that an unrecognised child could eat. She’d seen a lot of shocking poverty in the East End. It was hot now, but there had been snow in March, and as she’d walked holding Edgar’s hand, even love couldn’t block out the desolation of the dire and abounding poverty. She’d seen people sleeping outside, likely to freeze to death overnight. In the mornings, when dawn forced her from his flat, she’d passed a line of men snaked outside the gates to a factory; obviously they hoped to get a day’s casual work. Their backs, once broad enough to fight a war, seemed vulnerable, their necks looked too thin to hold their heads as they’d hunched over their hands, pathetically trying to blow warmth into them.

The light in the over-hot drawing room bounced from the strings of pearls hanging around the women’s necks and danced on the silver tea urn next to the plates weighted with untouched cakes. Lydia seemed to be living in two different worlds. Irritation fuelled her mischievous side, and although it was her father-in-law’s wake, she couldn’t stop herself from prolonging the conversation that was making her husband uncomfortable. ‘Ava’s work is so vitally important.’