Spare Brides (8 page)

Technically, Eaton Square did not belong to Lydia and Lawrence yet. The property belonged to Lydia’s in-laws, but the earl had generously offered the young people free rein, and Lydia had taken up the offer with enthusiasm. In the London home she tried to stamp a more informal approach on all proceedings. She had an open-house policy and warmly welcomed guests with a cocktail whenever they chose to drop by. She refused to adhere to enforced visiting hours, or rituals such as consuming copious amounts of strong tea and cucumber or pâté sandwiches just because it was four in the afternoon. She operated with a skeleton staff, completely happy not only to mix her own cocktails, but also to arrange the flowers for the drawing room; in London she did not expect the silver to be polished more than once a week. She had even tried to sit next to Lawrence at the dining table, rather than hold their positions at opposite ends, but Lawrence had said he found it disconcerting and preferred to look at her face on, rather than have to turn to his side.

Although usually a generous hostess, Lydia was relieved that Sarah had caught the train back to Seaton Manor and that no one had popped by, out of the blue, this evening. She had turned down three invitations to soirées, so nor were they expected anywhere. She had reasoned that if Dr Folstad had anything marvellous to convey, they might spend the night celebrating together, and if – as she had expected and dreaded the case would be – he had little or nothing new to say, she would not be able to muster a public face and instead would need to be cosseted by Lawrence and their home. Naturally, she still dressed for dinner. Lawrence expected such things, and the servants would be disturbed if she sat down to dinner in a day dress, but if she closed her eyes now she probably wouldn’t be able to say if she was wearing teal or midnight blue. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t sure what was on the menu, although the housekeeper had checked it with her this morning; no doubt it would be delicious, but that didn’t matter either. Less and less did.

The under butler served dinner and then melted into the wallpaper. His discretion was exemplary, and Lydia, considering herself to be quite alone with her husband, brought Lawrence up to date.

‘So, in short, this doctor had nothing new to offer,’ she finished with a heavy sigh.

‘Did you expect him to have?’ Lawrence heartily pushed the tines of his fork into his mouth and hungrily swallowed the bloody roast beef. Lydia, by contrast, had spent the duration of the meal unenthusiastically chasing her food around her plate.

‘I’d hoped.’

Lawrence shot her a look which was a complicated mix of sympathy and frustration. Obviously he hoped for an heir too, very much so – hoped and prayed – but they had been married for eight years now. Eight years. One had to be realistic. Practical. Lydia wasn’t getting any younger; he didn’t really imagine their chance of producing an heir was at all robust now. It was unfortunate. Very much so but it was as it was, and there was no point in wasting energy wishing it was otherwise. He dearly wanted her to spend less time worrying and move towards accepting it. Once she did so, they could sort things out differently. They could travel abroad more often, perhaps spend more time with their numerous godchildren; they could even consider taking in a ward. People did accept such things and considerably worse. It wasn’t very British to be maudlin or obtuse. It was so much better to be sanguine.

‘What will we do?’ she asked, dropping her knife and folk with a clatter and clasping her hands on her lap.

‘We’ll do without, I suppose,’ he replied calmly. He regretted that he sounded brusquer than he wanted to appear – than he was, in fact – but he found it uncomfortable to talk about emotions or sex, and here she was hoping for a conversation about both, at the dinner table. It was awkward. Yes, he was sympathetic, and he fully understood that it was much harder for a woman to bear these things. Quite naturally she must blame herself; regret that she was in some way lacking and couldn’t fulfil her role and duty, yet he wasn’t a tyrant: he’d never once censored or charged her. She couldn’t complain on that count.

‘But I can’t do without,’ she murmured.

There had been a time when every word that dropped from Lydia’s lips had enthralled Lawrence Chatfield. They had only met seven or eight times before they married, and so novelty had no doubt bound him as part of the attraction, but there was more than that. She was a beautiful creature: innocent as her sort of girl was expected to be, but not giddy or tiresome, rather quietly assured of her own ability to captivate; she was always just the right side of flirtatiously encouraging. He thought her self-possession came from being the youngest of four children. She had watched her three older sisters make solid marriages and therefore she was confident that with her beauty and charm she would do equally well. If not better.

He’d been besotted by her.

The jut of her chin gripped him; her small white hands, whether at play or rest, fascinated him, and he could have stared into her eyes for hours in a row. Every thought, observation or piece of small talk that she let drip from her plump red lips he drank up, like a man marooned on a desert island. Now, sometimes, he thought she sounded whiny. Occasionally, when he returned after a particularly tricky day at the Home Office, she would drone on about clothes, or company, or cocktail parties, and he would shut out the noise the way one shut out the buzz of an insect at a picnic. Needless to say, he loved her. Dearly. She was still a beautiful woman, and he was very proud of her. Considering they had nearly a decade as a couple chalked up, there was enormous genuine affection between them, but he couldn’t sincerely say he remained besotted; that would be ridiculous. Such notions were erased with marriage. Indeed, in a good marriage, where intimacy flourished, fanatical obsession must flounder. And since he was no longer besotted, he simply couldn’t find the energy to treat her with kid gloves all the time.

‘Darling, you might just have to. Can you pass the salt?’ He leaned forward, towards his wife, suddenly aware of the under butler. Some people thought the servants were deaf and blind, but Lawrence knew better; he was well aware that anything he said would be reported in the downstairs quarters within the hour. ‘I believe Cook has been a little light with the seasoning, don’t you?’ He stage-whispered his criticism; despite his efforts to shield the staff, there was six foot of table separating him from his wife. Lydia picked up her fork again but didn’t comment. He continued to rally; he thought it best to move the conversation on. ‘I’m sure there’s a party, isn’t there? At the weekend?’ There was always a party. ‘Something to look forward to?’

‘Not this weekend. I’ve already turned down everything we were invited to.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I was rather …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Sick of it all
sounded too harsh. Lawrence looked confused, concerned. ‘Tired,’ she offered. Lawrence saw her as a delicate thing, although she was not in the least. She was slim and short, but she thought of herself as strong. ‘Ava has invited us to her father’s place in Herefordshire the weekend after this,’ she admitted grudgingly.

‘Well, there you go. That’s something.’

‘Yes, it’s something.’ But not enough, and nowhere near anything. Lydia listened to her husband’s cutlery scraping against the fine bone china and tried to block out the sound of him chewing the beef and enthusiastically licking his lips. Generally he was a discreet eater, famous for his manners and decorum, but today every bite seemed amplified and dreadful. She scrambled around in her mind for something to talk about. She could tell Lawrence Sarah’s news, although there was nothing substantial, just chatter about the children and hats; he wouldn’t be interested. She could mention that Sarah had caught the five o’clock train back to the country and couldn’t be persuaded to either make use of their driver or stay the night, but he might be irritated and believe that Lydia hadn’t tried hard enough to persuade her; he was very protective of Sarah and all their widowed friends. ‘I met a handsome man today,’ she blurted.

Lawrence glanced at her. ‘Someone for Ava?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Beatrice?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. For who, then?’

‘Not for anyone.’ Lydia could not imagine the perfect man with anyone in reality. He was a vision. Separate. Difficult to categorise. Ava was physically his equivalent, but Ava was never really interested in finding anyone permanent. And if she was? Well. The thought of the perfect man and Ava together sent a spear of panic through Lydia’s body. It wouldn’t work. She was comforted by the thought that if Ava ever deigned to marry, she would marry up. A duke or an earl at the very least.

‘Then why mention him?’

Why indeed? Lydia was regretting that she had. But he was there. In her mind. She’d found an inexplicable need to take him out of her head and make him more substantial, more real, by mentioning him in the oak-panelled dining room. Anything, anything to block out the sound of mastication, she told herself.

‘He was striking.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘In Lyons.’

‘The coffee house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who introduced you?’

‘No one. He approached me.’ Lydia felt compelled to add, ‘Us. Sarah was with me.’

‘You can’t talk to total strangers in coffee houses, Lydia. It’s not proper.’ Lawrence laughed indulgently. He could not imagine a world where his wife might be genuinely attracted to another man. She was not that sort. Oh yes, as a girl she had been jolly, some might say flirtatious, but as a wife she’d always been entirely decent and correct. He was well aware that not every wife in their set was as faithful and single-minded, but they were both repelled by the untidiness of adultery. Besides, there was not a hint of the flirtatious about her now. Not since this whole baby business. She wasn’t the jolly type either.

‘Do you think we are being punished?’ Lydia rushed the idea on to the table with a scared breath.

‘Punished? What an extraordinary thing to say. Why would we be punished?’ Lawrence replied in a considerably more hearty voice than the one he’d used when commenting on Cook’s seasoning.

Lydia’s response stuck in her throat like a splinter from a chicken bone. She could not swallow the words but it was agony to cough them up. She’d played with this thought late at night as she lay awake, lonely in a huge house full of people; alone because they could all find sleep and yet it eluded her. She’d let the thought become a theory as she sat in countless austere doctors’ waiting rooms, suffocating under the gloom of bad news delivered between the panelled walls, and then she’d let the theory become the only possible explanation when each month she bled rather than bred. ‘I think that perhaps God is punishing us for not doing …’ She faltered. Could she say ‘your’? No, she could not. ‘For not doing our duty.’

‘What do you mean?’ It was clear to Lydia that Lawrence understood her perfectly, because in an instant his ruddy complexion vanished and he became ashen. He glanced at the under butler, who kept his gaze locked on his shoes, despite the fact that he was trained to keep his eyes ahead, his chin up at all times. ‘What can you mean?’ Lawrence repeated, dazed. Then he waved his hand to silence her, because he realised there was a very real danger that she might tell him exactly what she meant.

He’d done his duty! He’d served. Not on the front line, perhaps. His was a strategic position. It was important work.

‘There won’t be anyone to pass Dartford Hall on to, or Clarendale or the title, anyway,’ Lydia pointed out. The
anyway
was the giveaway. The insult. The abuse. Was she saying he might as well have died at the Front because his line was going to end with them? Was that all he meant to her?

She feared she might cry. She hoped not. Lawrence had never been the sort of man who melted at the sight of a woman’s tears; he always became discomforted and inept when there was any show of sentiment.

‘It will all go to my cousin William, as you well know, Lydia,’ he snapped.

‘Yes, and he was at the Front for several months and was decorated,’ added Lydia thoughtlessly.

‘Your point?’

She did not hesitate. ‘I suppose there’s some justice in that, at least.’

Lawrence glowered at his wife. He silently counted to five, then ten. ‘Lydia, you are not thinking clearly. You are in danger of being hysterical. I think today has been a strain. I suggest you have an early night.’ His staccato sentences betrayed the fact that he was finding it an effort to maintain his composure.

Lydia met her husband’s eyes and took a deep breath. ‘You are probably right, Lawrence. I shall go to bed at once.’ She pushed back her chair; he stood up too, through habit.

‘I’ll have Dickenson sent up to you.’

‘How thoughtful. Good night.’

‘Good night, Lydia.’

S
ARAH WAS AMBIVALENT
about Ava’s invitation to visit her father’s estate. Her initial response was to feel flattered to have been invited at all. Ava wasn’t reliably polite the way the rest of their set were; she had no scruples about snubbing those she considered tedious, whereas others would invite the right families through good form or habit. Sarah knew that Ava believed that she and Bea were dull, and so she was never absolutely sure they’d be invited to her luncheons and soirées, let alone included on a weekend party; even Lydia’s influence was not guaranteed over the headstrong Ava. However, swiftly following the feelings of relief at being included, Sarah was plunged into a dilemma as to whether or not she wanted to accept.

Sarah had little genuine personal interest in such parties nowadays; she’d actually prefer to stay at home with her children and her brother. She had no ambition to marry again, to indulge in social climbing or even to master a new hobby, which was the acknowledged
raison d’être
for these get-togethers. She accepted that a variation in company could be entertaining, but she was also adult enough to know that, equally, it could be disturbing; she’d been to numerous weekend parties where she was patronised, scandalised or simply irritated by complete strangers in whose company she was forced to dwell for forty-eight hours or more.