The Land of Summer (20 page)

‘I was saying a poem for you, Julius!’ Emmaline protested. ‘What can possibly be embarrassing about that?’

‘It is sometimes embarrassing for people to witness other people – in this case another person – making known their personal feelings in public. That is considered embarrassing in England.’

‘What in heaven’s name can you mean, Julius? What
are
you allowed to do in this country? You can’t mention someone’s belongings – you can’t show feelings – what
can
you do?’

‘This is England, Emma, in case you haven’t
noticed
,’ Julius told her in a tired tone. ‘This is not America.’

‘That is something of which, believe me, I am becoming rapidly aware, thank you. What is the matter with people in England? What is the matter with
you
, Julius?’

‘The matter with me?’ Julius looked shocked. ‘Why should anything be the matter with me?’

‘You are so different from the man I met in America, so, so different. There you seemed – you seemed so …’ She stopped, shaking her head at the memory of the enchanting man who had rescued her from that wretched gilt chair, danced with her, walked with her, waited for her.

‘I am not so very different, Emma, truly I am not. I
truly
am not. I know that married life can be very difficult—’

‘Difficult!’ The word burst from Emmaline. ‘It is not
difficult
to be married to you, Mr Aubrey, it is impossible.’

‘Can you lower your voice a little? The servants, you know.’

‘I could not care less what the servants hear or don’t hear!’ Emmaline retorted. ‘It might have escaped your attention, Julius – and if it has it is surely because you would wish it to do so – but we are married. We are husband and wife.’ She stopped, looking at him, wondering how best to put Julius’s failings as a husband to him. ‘You haven’t once shown me any affection, Julius, not once,’ she finally said. ‘The way we live, why, we could be brother and sister, really we could.’

‘You have full charge of the house, we talk, we dine together, I go to business. That is what marriage is about, surely?’ Julius pleaded.

‘Of course,’ Emmaline agreed, although finding herself momentarily confused by Julius’s strange expression and tone. ‘You know it to be so, and I know it to be so, but there should be other things that men and women do together.’

‘Please, don’t let us talk of those things. It is not suitable. You are a nicely brought up young woman, and it is not suitable to talk about what men and women do together.’

Emmaline coloured, and turned away quickly, because she had the feeling that he was mocking her ignorance. She sat down at her dressing table, her back to her mirror, unable to bear to see what she knew would be the quite evident distress in her face. She must not cry, she must not give way, she must not let her emotions show, she was in England.

She let a long pause go by as she composed herself, and then she started again.

‘When I was at that ball, in America, what now seems a century ago, a handsome Englishman came over and requested a dance. I was so pleased. Not just because I had been an all too obvious wallflower for the whole evening, up until that moment, but because the man who was asking me to dance with him was tall and elegant and good-looking. The next day when that same man called on me, and talked to me, and walked with me round the lake, I knew he was—’

‘Emma!’ Julius said, holding up his hands in an attempt to stop her, but Emmaline would not be stopped.

‘I will not be quietened, Julius! I simply will not remain silent any more. It is because I have been silent that I was almost forced to – no, I was
determined
to show you this evening! To show you! I wanted to show you.’

‘Tonight? This evening? What precisely was it you wished to show me? And why, Emma, should you want to show me anything? Do we not live together? Do we not share everything here together? I certainly do, and I am only sorry to hear that you do not feel the same way about our sharing, about our life together.’

Emmaline gazed up in astonishment at the man standing in front of her. ‘Very well. All I wanted, all I wanted tonight at your birthday evening, was to show you … my feelings,’ she finally stated. ‘That is all, Julius. That is all I wanted to show you.’

‘And you did, Emma, you did.’ Julius turned suddenly on his heel, and wrenching open the bedroom door he left, shutting it behind him with commendable quietness.

Emmaline did not stir from her dressing-table stool for some time, and then she drifted hopelessly towards the door that Julius had closed, and slowly turned the key in the lock. Too sad for tears, she lay back against her pillows and stared down the room until finally the candle beside her spluttered and went out, and the birds
outside
her window began to sing, and she could see the pink light of dawn between the gap in the curtains. Shortly, Agnes would arrive, and she would take tea, and they would talk, and her mind would be taken off her present misery.

Chapter Eight

IT SEEMED THE
subject of the recitation of the poem was not to be raised again by either Julius or Emmaline, but that did not prevent Julius from making sure that Emmaline was fully aware of her good fortune in being his wife.

Perhaps feeling that in light of their quarrel she had need of the point’s being driven home to her, he soon found an opportunity to closet himself with her in the drawing room, where he was at pains to reassure her.

‘You have a good home in a fine house. You have security and stability, and now that you have effected your introduction to all my father’s old friends and acquaintances you have a place in Bamford society, so if you take my advice you will cease to fret, or to give a poor imitation of a bird locked up in a gilded cage, and start to be happy, as a good wife should.’

Emmaline looked up at him in despair. How could he imagine that a person could be
ordered
to be happy, could be
ordered
to be grateful. It
was
absurd. You might as well order someone who was happy to be miserable!

‘What, Emma, you have to learn is to be accepting of the way things are here. This is the way of things, this is how they are, and we must accept that as a fact and not think that by questioning it we can change the status quo. You are in England, you are married to an Englishman, and whether or not you understand me, or indeed agree with what I have to say, is entirely your own business, since what you say or what you feel will have no bearing at all on how I view such matters, you understand?’

‘Yes, Julius,’ Emmaline said in a voice utterly drained of emotion.

‘I trust, Emma, that you will be happy from now on, that you will try to be happy,’ he pleaded.

‘Yes, I will try, Julius,’ Emmaline replied, clearing her throat, and at the same time determining to pull herself together. ‘Thanks to your frankness I now understand my position, and I shall take time to examine it before I conclude how best I may live here as your wife.’

‘Forgive me, Emma,’ Julius begged. This time it was he who cleared his throat. ‘So, where was I? Yes, it is perfectly clear, I think, to both of us, we have a clear understanding, do we not, as to how best you may live here as my wife, as you put it? As a matter of fact, if you think back, it was made abundantly clear in the wedding service how best you may live here as my wife.’ Julius smiled down
at
her, the look in his eyes suddenly tender. ‘You promised, if you remember, to love, honour and obey me.’

‘To love, honour and obey you?’ Emmaline’s heart sank as she remembered what now seemed to her to be such strangely medieval words. ‘Is this what you intend our marriage to be about, Julius? About loving, honouring and obeying each other?’

‘Naturally. Why else would we have been married in a church and repeated those sacred words? Now, shall we go in to dinner? You must know I am going away tomorrow, so I will need to retire early. Thank you, Emma, for being so good as to listen to me as you have. Perhaps you will be sweet enough to play to me after dinner. You have a fine touch, a very fine touch.’

Emmaline knew she had been unhappy before, but in the ensuing days, with Julius thankfully absent, she found out something quite different, she found out the true meaning of the word misery. It was not just the confusion that unhappiness brings, it was not just the loneliness, it was the despair that accompanies all those emotions that turns unhappiness into utter misery. All of a sudden she thought she knew what it was like for Pilgrim to fall into the Slough of Despond.

Day after day, as she forced herself to pretend to take a continuing interest in the domestic affairs of the house, she found herself wandering
the
corridors or the garden, turning everything over and over in her mind. Why had she come to England? Was it because she had wanted to marry a man she had been deeply attracted to, or was it to get away from her family? Or had she come for the sake of her younger sisters – had she made of herself some kind of willing sacrifice so that they would be freed? Or had she married just to, as the saying went, get a ring on her finger? The answer to all those questions was a most definite no. She had married Julius because he pleased her, because he was elegant and handsome, and from the moment he had danced with her she had quite lost her heart to the idea of his being her husband-to-be.

Day after day she had also to ask herself whether she loved Julius now as she had done, as she perhaps should. The answer to that was also a most definite no. She could not now love him, surely? It was not possible. But, knowing that to be true, she had to admit to herself that she had once loved him. Therefore, for whatever reason, perhaps he too had once loved her, before she came to England? Therefore, had she done something – not the poem, long before that – had she said or done something which in the mind of a reticent Englishman could have destroyed that love? Had she committed some unknown social sin that had made him unable to go on feeling as he might once have felt?

And yet.

And yet it was Julius who had said repeatedly
on
the night of their wedding,
How could I do this? What have I done?

Was it something to do with his business? Was it that to which he had been referring? Or had she remembered it all wrong? Perhaps he was referring to something terrible that he had done that night. Had he committed a crime? Done something so terrible that he could not even tell his wife?

Finally, unable to sleep or eat to any degree at all, Emmaline came to the only decision that she thought was possible. She would have to leave her husband and bury all the misery he had brought so unnecessarily into her life in a past which, however painful, would at least be short-lived.

She had every reason not to stay. Although they were married in name, Emmaline knew that this was no marriage because there had not been what her mother sometimes referred to in a vague voice as
the marriage act –
and although, most unfortunately, Emmaline did not understand as yet what the phrase embraced, she was well aware that it, whatever it was, had not happened. She had also gathered, if only from novels, that if a man took a wife and then treated her as Julius seemed to be treating her, as a sister, the union could be declared invalid, leaving the innocent party to retain her innocence, and finally regain her freedom.

She decided to write to her father and explain that she had made a terrible mistake, and that she would be coming home just as soon as she could
book
a passage, but then, facing the reality of the letter, day in and day out, she found herself strangely unable to pick up her pen. Finally when she did it was in words that made her ashamed of her inability to express herself in an original manner.

Dearest Father, I do hope this letter does not find you as it finds me – most terribly unhappy
…

Emmaline put down her pen, suddenly hearing imagined words in her head, seeing her father reading the letter, hearing in her head just how he would mock her in front of her mother and sisters.

Oh dear, Anthea, oh dear, girls, just as we all thought we’d got rid of her, back Emmaline comes, like a bad penny
.
Shall we suggest we change her name to Penny, Anthea? It would be appropriate, as well as amusing
.

Emmaline was well aware that everyone at home would laugh at her behind her back, while sympathising to her face. A few weeks would pass, but only a very few, before they would start reminding her that they had told her not to trust an Englishman, that they knew such a marriage wouldn’t last – that it had been doomed from the start. They would claim that they all knew she was doing the wrong thing, rushing headlong into marriage with a stranger, but they had not dared to tell her. After which they would set about privately pitying her, because they would know that her chances of marrying again were nil. She would be on the shelf, an old maid, a
spinster
, unfulfilled by either life or marriage. They would also say, behind her back, that they had known all along that Julius was just another English adventurer who was simply after Emmaline’s money, that there could have been no other reason why he had suddenly turned up on the family doorstep and set his cap at someone as plain as Emmaline.

And that was all before they began to feel bitter and uneasy, thinking, no matter what their current circumstances – Charity already engaged, Ambrosia about to be the same – that she had brought shame on the family, and that their own future establishment would be threatened.

Despite all these imaginings, once again Emmaline began her letter to her father.

Dear Father, As you may know I am safely married, safely, yes, but unhappily. Oh, Father, please may I come home? If only you knew how miserable I have been made by Mr Julius Aubrey
…

Emmaline stared at the words she had written, and saw at once that they were self-pitying, and that, as old Mary their Irish maid had always said,
if you feel sorry for yourself, dotie, there’s nothing for anyone else to do
.