Woman's Own

by Robyn Carr

  “Betray you? Oh, Andrew, is that what it is when a woman doesn’t follow your orders?” She shook her head again and the tears dropped freely from her eyes. “I thought you were different! I thought you understood me.”

  “I thought I did, too!”

  She pulled away from him and walked toward the table. She picked up her hat and looked at it, fingering the short veil that was meant to conceal her identity when she came to this little flat to have physical love. Free love. She tossed the hat back on the table. “I won’t be needing this anymore,” she said.

  “Lilly, what do you mean to do?”

  She looked at him for a long moment, wondering how she was going to live without him, how she would manage to give up the magic of an intimate life. “I’m going home, Andrew. Please, come and visit. Everyone loves seeing you.”

  “Lilly! Damn it!”

  “Good-bye, darling.”

  When Fletcher found her, she was in her favorite place in the gazebo in the middle of the Queen Victoria Garden. Her tears had long since dried.

  “Your mother suggested you might be here,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”

  “I’m not likely to be good company,” she warned him.

  “Your eyes are red. You’ve been crying,” he said. “I suppose that means you’ve spoken to him.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, adding a derisive grunt of disapproval. “And…?”

  “He has a perfect solution--for himself. I should put myself in his tender and protective custody now, in a house in the country where he can come and go as he pleases and the neighbors need not even know we are not married.”

  “Oh?” Fletcher said, laughing in spite of himself.

  “I’m glad you’re amused!”

  “I hoped I would guess wrong, but that seems to be a common solution to this type of problem. With effort he could find you a whole town of mistresses raising the offspring of married men!”

  “Lord, what a thought!”

  “In all fairness to the man, Lilly, even if he went straightaway to a solicitor and courts, getting a divorce is a damnable thing to get through. It takes a long time.”

  “Yes, I know that. But if he had me in his country house, having a lot of babies, do you suppose he would ever feel the need to get on with that? The amazing thing is that it was never my suggestion that he get free of his wife. She was there when this started. I knew she could be there still when it--” She had trouble with that word: ended.

  “And you haven’t come up with any good ideas, have you?”

  “Just the same one. I’ll try not to draw attention to myself. The accounting ledgers won’t be offended by my expanding girth, I’m quite sure. I doubt there would be more or less talk if I were to marry a divorced man. People stay so busy with talk! When haven’t they?”

  “There seems to be one thing you haven’t considered. I know you’re strong enough to withstand the worst gossip. I know you don’t care what people say. But what about the child, Lilly?”

  “Would the child be better off given away? Or raised by an unhappy mother in the country?”

  “No, certainly not. But here? With the gossip? Don’t you think he would suffer? Would his playmates call him bastard?”

  “I don’t know that we’ve established he is going to be fatherless forever. Would everyone cling to gossip so heartily for five years? Ten? Why would they? Why wouldn’t my child, loved and wanted, be happy with me? With us?”

  “Sometimes you act as though this child will always be a baby. What if you never marry, Lilly? What if there is no steamier gossip than about your determination to have and raise an illegitimate child? Do you mean to keep him locked inside your apartments, apart from the world, apart from life? Will he ask you, someday, why he can’t know his father’s name? Will you give him a false name, a name that he can’t uncover?”

  “No! Of course not! When he’s old enough--” She stopped suddenly. She hadn’t thought about her child. Neither had anyone else until Fletcher did. Andrew thought of himself; he would keep his secret family in the country where he could have his fill of them and bide his time. Amanda would save her reputation by sending Lilly away. Emily would cover it up with some tale. And Lilly had devised a method of grasping her child in an I-don’t-care-what-they-say world as if he would never grow up and ask questions!

  “Will he be angry someday at all you contrived to have at his expense? We might all learn to live with this plan of yours, but will he?”

  “Oh, Fletcher! What am I going to do?” she asked, suddenly feeling she must choose between Europe or a country estate as the mistress of a man who would only expect more of her sacrifices.

  “I have a thought. Not a great one,” he said. “I’ve given it some consideration. I suppose you could marry me.”

  “You?” she asked, shocked.

  “They would snicker just the same. The age difference and all. I’m fifty.”

  “Oh, Fletcher, how could you make such a noble offer?”

  He laughed and looked around. “The answer is not romantic, Lilly. I can make the offer because I’m not the least bit in love with you. Nor can I be. I’m very fond of you. I really don’t think it would be good for the hotel or the women if you went away. And I don’t know that your little plan bears the least resemblance to a solution. No one would accept you, you know, that way. You’re too unconventional, Lilly. I think you’re brilliant, and I think you’re right. But that simply won’t help you now.”

  “But, Fletcher! You have so many women!”

  “Yes,” he laughed. “I would have to be discreet, wouldn’t I? Lilly, I won’t lie to you, I don’t want you for a wife--I think of you as a daughter at most. I’m not even sure I can bear to have a small child around much of the time--I’m impatient and set in my ways. I’ve always lived a solitary bachelor’s life, and I’d like to continue that. When I was younger, I wished for a child--my own childhood was terrible and I thought I could do better. I’m afraid I’ve long since stopped wishing for that. But... I could give you a name. A paternity. That’s about all. It wouldn’t be the kind of life you would expect as a wife.”

  “And my child? Would you want a child to whom you are only a legal paternity to call you Father?”

  “That seems reasonable,” he said, shrugging. “My greatest concern for him is that he wouldn’t see much affection between us. Just ordinary, polite behavior, but that’s better than having only one parent. We’re good friends, Lilly, and that’s all we’ll ever be. Your child would probably be more drawn to the likes of…say…our friend Andrew Devon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Emily Armstrong was in the foyer when the hotel coach brought Noel Padgett back to her. She went to the portico to greet him.

  “Welcome home, Mr. Padgett,” she said. “Fortunately your favorite suite is vacant.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Armstrong,” he said, smiling at her and tipping his hat. “It’s good to be back.”

  “Frank,” she said to the doorman, “please have Mr. Padgett’s things taken to his suite. Mr. Padgett, I would love to show you Lilly’s new gardens if you’re interested. She’s so proud of what’s been done there.”

  “I’d be honored, ma’am,” he said, offering his arm. “I’m a might dusty from the road.”

  “Now, Mr. Padgett, you could hardly help that,” she said, walking away from the portico with him. “You’ll welcome a warm tub and good meal tonight, I suppose.”

  “I’d welcome a damn sight more than that,” he said, patting her hand and strolling with her toward the Queen Victoria Garden.

  “Since you’re always made welcome at Mother’s table, I thought I should explain that the household is in an absolute dither. Ah, now where did it begin? With which one of my daughters? Yes, Patricia was the first.”

  “She seems to hold that distinction in every problem.”

  “Oh, but Lilly won’t have her outdone. It was Patricia first-- she decided to run off with John Giddings.”
/>   “Now you’re spinning tales!”

  “No indeed! It was quite a night--Patricia packing and Mother fuming and Lilly crying. She didn’t take Katherine. I feel so terrible about that--not that I could live without Katherine. I suppose I’m devastated that she left her child, but I would have been more devastated had she taken her.”

  “I can’t believe John spirited her away,” he said.

  “With him she can be her best self. He adores her, Lilly tells me. I can’t fathom it. I don’t know how he persuaded her. But Patricia has always wanted some kind of unbelievable life, and John’s novel has invented her all over again. He gives her credit for it all, and I believe she must ride through Central Park imagining she is Chloe Tillets.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh,” Emily laughed, “the heroine, of course.”

  “You don’t seem all that devastated,” he pointed out as they neared the garden.

  “Sometimes when there is so much--too much, actually--the only thing to do is let it all happen and carry on. Mother was always the one to try to change things, control them. Lilly will be like Mother in some ways. She is certainly her equal in stubbornness. But you see, this place and all its opulence and luxury were never what I needed to be happy. I have that old boardinghouse, and I wouldn’t be miserable going back there. Sometimes I think I’ll do just that! The simple life isn’t a bad life. I was happy there.”

  “And Lilly?”

  “Lilly is pregnant. We’re keeping it in the family while we can, but you should know why Mother and Lilly spend a good share of time snipping at each other. You’re like family. I thought you might welcome the warning. She’s a large girl, so she will be able to conceal it for a while.”

  Noel whistled in astonishment. “Is she getting married?”

  “Oh no, there will be no wedding. The man she claims is responsible, some man whose name we are not invited to know, is already married. Mother wants to send her away to Europe to have her child in secret, and Lilly won’t go. Simple as that! She is very determined that her circumstances--choosing a man for love and refusing to be ashamed of it--are more respectable circumstances than some of ours--Mother’s, mine, Patricia’s.”

  “I see,” he said, brooding on this for a while. “And when this child is born?”

  “She says she will not lie, nor pretend it isn’t her very own child, and if anyone has the audacity to ask her directly if she is indeed an unmarried mother, that person will deserve the answer it will bring.”

  “This could reflect on you, on Amanda.”

  “Well, there you are--I don’t care. Mother is outraged, but she loves Lilly.”

  “What about the hotel? What if--”

  “This place keeps Mother young, but if the whole monster emptied out, if no self-respecting family on holiday would even consider such a shameful abode, Mother could get a buyer in a second. Wilson Montaine makes an offer almost monthly, though he’s old and slowing down and does less business every year. It’s a legacy the two of them have. A kind of struggle for power. They have to try to beat each other somehow. At least it’s become a more affectionate kind of competitiveness they play.”

  Noel gave a huff of laughter in sheer disbelief. “I can remember a time when I couldn’t ask for a spittoon without being evicted!”

  “Yes, well, that has certainly changed. Our family is tumbling about. I’m sure we’ll provide some very entertaining gossip for anyone interested enough to have a look. I admire Lilly in a way--I certainly never had that kind of courage.”

  “Is her courage going to be good for her child?” he asked.

  “That argument has been done, over and over. She asks simply would it be better for her child to grow up believing his father is dead? Better to be abandoned when she runs off with a man other than her husband to inspire fairy tales? Better to grow up knowing some man as his father and have that be a lie? Lilly intends to raise her child and tell that child, at the right age, the absolute truth. She says her child will find something to be angry about if he’s an angry child--and at least he can be angry at being told the truth. I don’t know what to think, Noel. It isn’t going to be an easy life for her, the one she’s chosen.”

  “Or for you,” he said sympathetically.

  “As the years go by and all these people I love choose their various rebellious methods of confronting life, I have less and less of a grasp of what is right and what is wrong. Have I ever told you how furious I was that my own mother went off to marry? She was so determined to marry well, she had to do it twice more before she perfected it! I couldn’t bear that my own mother would marry some rich man she was barely acquainted with--and I suddenly found myself begging Lilly to marry anyone at all just to save her reputation.”

  “Yours hasn’t been a strictly conventional life, though your secret was better kept.”

  “I received the telegram, Noel.”

  “What telegram?” he asked.

  “The one from Chicago. It said that you identified the body of Ned Armstrong.”

  “Oh,” he said, “that telegram.”

  “Do you want to try to explain?”

  “I don’t dare. Nope, I don’t think I want to.”

  “I won’t marry you until I have the truth.”

  “No, Emily,” he said, still walking, “you won’t marry me when you get it.”

  “Then I guess I won’t be marrying you at all.”

  He stopped walking and stood looking out over those lovely gardens, thinking. She waited patiently. He finally turned to her and looked in her eyes. “I went looking for him, Emily. I found him and helped him bury himself deeper in his messes, the same kind of lying, cheating messes he’s been making all his life.”

  “I doubt he required much help,” she said.

  “Emily, I meant to shoot him in a card game. Cheaters still get shot out West and in some rough parts of most cities. It was only because someone else beat me to it that I didn’t shoot him myself.”

  “Noel, you wouldn’t have killed him.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I would have. I meant to. Now, that’s the only truth there is. I want you. I wanted you to be able to marry me, and I aimed to help it along.”

  “Have you ever killed a man?” she asked him.

  “Yep.”

  “When?”

  “In the war. Once on a cattle drive when we were ambushed.”

  “No, no. Have you ever murdered a man?”

  “Nope, but only because--”

  “How long were you acquainted with Ned before he was killed?”

  “I knew where he was for a long time--I was acquainted with him for several months. When I left you that first time, I didn’t go to Wyoming. I went--”

  “There, you see. You wouldn’t have done that. You thought you would, you see. But if that had really been your intention, you wouldn’t have waited so long--you would have killed him in the first card game. If someone else hadn’t, you would have just come back.”

  “Emily, I--”

  “Hush, Noel. You didn’t. That’s what matters. Remember who you’re talking to--I pointed a gun at him myself! And if you hadn’t been there, I never would have known he was dead. I know you believe yourself a powerful man, but Ned created plenty of his own trouble. It would have happened eventually. I’m surprised it didn’t happen long ago.”

  “Will you marry me?” he asked her.

  “Of course,” she said. “Although my family seems to be getting out of the tradition.”

  “You really believe that? That I wouldn’t have--”

  “Do you really believe you would have?”

  He turned to walk with her again. “I sure as hell did, until this very moment.”

  “Well, forget such nonsense. You’re not that kind of man.”

  “Emily, I swear before God, until I met you I had a whole lot of ideas about what kind of man I was, and you plumb blew every one of them apart.”

  “Noel, you don’t swear before God!”

&n
bsp; “Yes, ma’am,” he laughed. “I mean, no ma’am.”

  “You’re not such a ruthless cowboy--at least not with me.”

  “With you, Emily, I am more than I thought I was.”

  It was July when Andrew went to Reading to see Father Demetrius. This time he wouldn’t see Brenda; he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to. In May she had had a brief relapse but the priest had tried to persuade her out of it. He had made excuses; it had not been a real relapse. She had only suffered for a few days and was convinced that if there were future incidents, they wouldn’t last long. Andrew wasn’t as convinced and he thought this miracle was more of a coincidence.

  “It’s an un-Christian thing you’re asking me to do,” the priest said.

  “I’ve already been to confession, Father. It’s been an un-Christian thing that’s gone on for ten years in a hopeless, loveless marriage, and my penance has been dutifully paid. Over and over.”

  “If you haven’t already considered what this could do to her, do so now. Her health is fragile and her mind is--”

  “Listen to me,” Andrew said impatiently, “she’s been fragile since the day I met her. You’ve heard the whole thing from her own lips. It isn’t her crime--it isn’t mine. The church will approve an annulment for a marriage that was based in trickery and deceit.”

  “Part of her ability to be well lies in your forgiveness.”

  “My forgiveness or my continual sacrifice? When do I benefit from this holy forgiveness?”

  “She’s your legal wife, and the marriage was consummated--”

  “She consummated things all over town in the early days! Oh hell, that’s not the point! I didn’t make her sick, and I can’t make her well. I can only do what I’ve been doing--provide for her, encourage her. I have forgiven her. That doesn’t mean I have to give up the rest of my life for--”

  “It’s a noble and honorable sacrifice. Marriage is a holy--”

  “It’s not just me. Other people have sacrificed too much, continue to sacrifice too much for this illusion a mad woman has of a marriage that has never existed. Father, she was not my wife for longer than four months! What do you think I’ve done the last ten years? I’ve started a life for myself. I’ve worked like a farm beast to earn what it takes to live three lives--the caretaker here, the businessman somewhere else, and--”