by Joan Smith
“A divorce would be horrid, Ollie,” she said, trying to work her way around to wiping the thing out entirely.
“No, it won’t be so bad. You’ll see.”
“Oh, it would. I think it would be horrid.”
“It will be all right, Belle. It will be fine.”
“Don’t you mind, then?” she asked.
“Of course I mind! I’d rather cut off my right arm,” he said fiercely. “But it’s not the disgrace of the divorce I mind. It’s losing you. It’s the only thing I can do to prove I love you, and I’ll do it gladly. I want you to be happy.”
“I want you to be happy too,” she told him in a timid voice. She had never seen him so distraught before. He was as unhappy and hurt as herself. And he always had been. His brittle exterior too hid a real human heart.
“I don’t deserve to be. I’ve been a damned fool. I had my chance and I wrecked it. You don’t have to go on paying for your mistake. You’re too young.”
“I’m not so young anymore,” she said, squaring her shoulders to accept her share of the blame. “I know I acted like a stupid child, Ollie, expecting you to take care of me and make me happy, and, and everything.”
“Oh, God, Belle, I wanted to.”
“I know you did. I know it now, but I didn’t help you. It takes two to make a marriage work.”
“No, it wasn’t your fault. You were young, innocent. I should have known better. I should have taken better care of you."
“At least you tried. I ran away. I didn’t even try.” Oliver began to perceive that their roles were reversed, that a rather staggering change in attitude had crept into the conversation, and looked at her questioningly. “Darling, it’s not too late,” he said, rather tentatively.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but her face was beaming. The flood had burst, and Oliver knew it was the flood to lead on to fortune. He felt he was in a dream, someone else’s dream, where the moves were unknown to him. Salvation was within his grasp, but how to grasp it? A wrong word or move might ruin his grasp.
“We don’t have to get divorced,” she suggested.
“No, we could get married instead,” he replied, in a polite voice that might have been discussing a party. “I mean, go back to being married. We must be either married or divorced, don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” she replied happily, this caldron of unreason suddenly the soul of rationality. She smiled shyly at him, as uncertain as he was himself, but suddenly approachable with her old sweet expression.
“I love you, Belle,” he said. It seemed the simple way; without artifice was what the dream demanded.
“I love you too, Ollie,” she answered, and went into his arms that were going out to her.
“Why didn’t you say so, you little beast?” he said softly into her ear, and kissed her, still in the dream, quietly and with the restrained passion the trance called for.
“I thought you’d laugh at me,” she said, laughing at herself for such an absurd fear.
“Laugh at you! Belle, my God, what kind of a monster did you take me for? Surely I wasn’t that incomprehensible to you.”
“You were, Ollie. You grew into a stranger.”
“How is it possible for two sane adults who love each other to have grown so far apart? It wasn’t like that before we got married. Then you wouldn’t have been afraid to tell me.”
“In those days you used to tell me too.”
“I was trying to tell you all the time, darling. All that stuff I gave you that you hated and laughed at, they were my magpie’s glittering offering to his mate. But unlike a pie, I have a voice of my own. I should have told you with words, shouldn’t I?”
“I shouldn’t have laughed at your things. Was that really a physician’s stick I gave you?”
“Certainly it was. My friends took to calling me Dr. Avondale, and inviting me to prepare them a posset. But you are guilty of only one inappropriate gift; I have dozens to my discredit.”
“It was only you I wanted.”
“You never said so. Next time we’ll talk to each other. Talk to me. Tell me everything.”
“Be there and I will. I’ll talk so much you’ll wish I’d be still.”
“No I won’t! Wish you would be still, I mean. I’ll be there, listening with both ears, and expecting to hear some very sweet words too, to make up for this long silent nightmare we have been through. Though you have been less silent since we got here, at Kay’s. I noticed right away you’d changed.”
“I didn’t change as much as you. You were so violent I was half afraid of you. And to see you being rude to Lady Dempster. What got into you, Ollie?”
“I became unhinged, between thinking you hated me, and loved Henderson, and your talk of divorce. About that you would talk, wretch! Never a word of kindness, but a whole harangue of abuse. Never mind, I didn’t mean to complain, and deserved every word of it too. We’ll discuss something else. Tell me how you feel now, this very minute.”
“Happy. Relieved. And you?” She placed her hands on his two cheeks and looked at him closely. He grabbed her fingers and kissed them.
“Safe! Like a fox that has just made it to his lair, with the hounds baying after him. A squeak-in. Belle—when did you put this back on?” he asked, fingering her wedding ring, whose absence he had been noticing throughout the days.
“As soon as you said you would divorce me.”
“You had no intention of going through with it, then?”
“Certainly not. You are always giving me things I don’t want. Diamonds, divorces . . .”
“It was a close shave, wasn’t it, honey?”
“Very close, and I would rather you not call me Honey. It has associations I would prefer to forget for the present.”
“Yes, darling, sweetheart, wife. And how dare you think I liked that overstuffed bird of paradise? If you must accuse me of a flirtation, why couldn’t you have picked on one of the dashers I tried to make you jealous with? Why must you think my taste so lacking, and my breeding too, as to be having an eye on my wretched cousin’s equally wretched wife?”
“Your taste has always been in question, Oliver, and lately your breeding too appears to be deteriorating.”
“You must resume your duties, to improve them. I’ll ship George off to India. Get him a job there and let him become a nabob. Honey—Mrs. Traveller— would love it.”
“You can call her Honey. And after they are safely in India you can call me Honey too. Will it be all right, about the money he—er—borrowed?”
“She should have made it to Doncaster in time to cover for him, and I should have told you the truth.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I just wanted you to think it was innocent, my going into her room, as it was, of course. You mentioned the damnable word ‘duel,’ and I lit on to it like a drowning man. Just when things had seemed to be going so well with us, too. Then to see you next day, boasting of your intimacy with Henderson. That was a dreadful stunt to play on me. You know, I was as jealous as a bear of him. How much reason had I to be, by the way?”
“None. He was a soothing companion. He never demanded a thing, nor gave a thing either. After the chaos of that London crew I found his dull talk and dull self calming. A calm is welcome after a storm.”
He seemed satisfied with her answer. “Very true. We’ll go to Belwood and be calm for a while, shall we?”
“I’m not afraid of London now."
“I have some unfinished business in London. Messrs. Jackson and Fischer, and cousin Hasborough.”
“Let us consider the business finished. No harm came of it in the long run.”
“But what a lot of harm in the short run! And it didn’t seem so short, either. About a million years. Do you not want to go to London, then?”
She wanted very much to go to Belwood, to see her mount and the course he had set up, and to be alone with him, but he had been on his way to the city. Probably wanted to go there. He always spent the season i
n London. “Yes, let’s go to London,” she said, not quite able to hide her reluctance.
“Belle—darling, are you talking to me? Let’s not sink back into our old mistakes. I do not want to go to London. I’ll go there, or to France, or to hell if that’s what you want, but don’t go only because you think I want it. Our poor marriage is only a tender shoot yet. Hardly an inch off the ground. Is it ready for the scorching blasts of a season? Shouldn’t we go to Belwood and let it get some roots down before giving it a season?”
“I would like to see Guinevere, and the course,” she said, relief showing so clearly on her face that he could not quite suppress a laugh.
“And you weren’t going to tell me till I made you! Haven’t we learned anything?”
“I thought you wanted to go.”
“I want to make you happy. That’s all. Just tell me the truth, always. All the truth. Now, what would you like to do, this minute?”
“I’d like to go down and surprise Lady Dempster, for I know she was at the keyhole, and thinks we’re getting divorced. And I’d like to tell Marnie and Beth too, and Kay of course! Oh, we must tell Kay, Ollie.”
“Certainly we must,” he agreed amiably, not quite liking her plan for their immediate activities, as his own were centered on remaining exactly where they were, but he wanted to show his reformed nature, and arose to straighten his tie and brush his hair at her mirror while she performed those feminine chores so delightful for a new husband, as he felt himself to be, to observe.
Within minutes they descended to the rout, arm in arm, smiling and showing all the manifestations of love in bloom. Lizzie Dempster, who had been busily spreading the tale of their imminent divorce, was unhappy with them.
“What is the meaning of this?” she inquired sharply, as though she had caught them out in some untoward behavior.
“Oh no, you are not to be the first to know,” Oliver told her, laughing, and went to look for his cousin. Lady Dempster trailed at their heels, a few yards behind, determined to be the second at least to know what was afoot.
Kay espied them across the room, and their smiles and easy manner toward each other told her the story before she reached them. “Well, it’s about time you two started showing some sense,” she said, her worry lending a sharp tone to her voice.
“Are we to get nothing but abuse?” Oliver asked his wife. “Really, I think the whole group is against marriage. It is the wrong group for us, is it not?”
“It certainly is, Ollie,” Belle assured him. “Kay, aren’t you going to congratulate us?”
“Congratulations,” Kay said, and kissed the bride. Really, Belle looked very like a bride, in her white gown and wreath of smiles.
Lizzie could contain her impatience no longer. “So it’s to be a match,” she said bluntly, nudging her way into the circle.
“You’re a year behind the times,” Ollie told her. “It was a match last season.’’
“A rematch, I mean.”
“Yes, like Belcher and Gentleman Jackson, we are to be rematched and have at each other again,” Ollie replied, naming a famous pair of boxers.”
“Ha ha, a very apt comparison,” Lizzie cackled. That would be worth repeating. “Do you go to London directly? May we look for you next week?”
“You may look for us all season, ma’am, without finding us,” he replied.
“You go to Belwood then?” the inquisitive gossip-monger persisted. They nodded. “We will miss you, Avondale.”
“You’ll find someone else to pester.” He smiled politely, then turned his shoulder on her. “How is the bread and jam holding out, Kay? Any chance of a bite?”
The ham and cheese were hurried forth, and the hungry guests gorged themselves on this humble fare. While awaiting its arrival, Belle stole away from Oliver long enough to whisper in Marnie Delford’s ear the tidings of her reconciliation.
“Darling, splendid! We’ll see you in London soon, then?”
“No, you will see us at Belwood soon. We aren’t going to London this year. You must come to us. Not too soon, however,” Belle added. “We owe ourselves a honeymoon.”
“I wondered you didn’t go there last year.”
“We did everything wrong last year, but this time we mean to do better.”
The news of the Avondales’ reconciliation circulated swiftly through the crowd. Even Signora Travalli, with some peculiar sixth sense, seemed to realize there was cause for rejoicing, and pranced forth to jabber her felicitations on them.
“Thank you. Grazie,” Oliver said. The fatal one attempt at Italian unleashed excited volumes, till it was borne in on the foreigner that it was the extent of his Italian vocabulary.
At last the evening was over; the neighbors left, and the guests who were to remain overnight began yawning and making their way to the staircase, the Avondales amongst them.
Oliver took Belle to her door, and in a fit of shyness left her there. He had to go to his own room to prepare for bed. His valet had a bottle of brandy and a glass waiting for him, and silently pointed them out after his lordship was into his dressing gown.
“Help yourself to a shot,” Oliver said, but before doing so, the valet began turning down the bed. “And you can save yourself that job too, old man.” Not by a flicker in his lip line did the valet display any emotion at this telling speech.
“No congratulations? Is everyone afraid of me?” Avondale asked, staring at his servant, who had been with him forever and had never expressed verbally the least interest in his goings-on, though he was privy to more secrets than anyone else.
“No, your grace,” the servant answered.
“Don’t act it, then,” Oliver said, which sent the servant scurrying off with his cravat and shirt in his hand.
With some slight misapprehension and a heart a little unsteady, Avondale tapped at the adjoining door, and was admitted. Belle had on her night dress and a pretty blue peignoir. There was some natural constraint between them. “I came to talk,” Oliver said, and felt suddenly as bashful as a schoolboy.
“Yes, we have to decide about leaving,” Belle answered breathlessly, pretending she was not as nervous as a kitten.
“What time shall we set out tomorrow?”
“We had better leave early. I must go home to Easthill first, and tell Papa. And have my trunks packed and so on.”
“I’ve never been to Easthill.”
“We can stay a few days if you like.”
“No! I mean, I’d like to get right on home, as soon as possible.”
“All right. If we get up early we can make it in one day.”
“Yes. We’d better get to bed, then. I mean, you and I. I mean—I didn’t mean—” He stopped before becoming totally stuck in this morass.
“Yes?” she asked, laughing at his embarrassment. Her arrogant duke, stammering like a greenhorn.
“I wasn’t expected to stay away tonight, was I?”
“I thought you might like to talk a little,” she answered unhelpfully.
“Time for some of that sweet talk I promised myself,” he said in a tone rapidly recovering normalcy.
“A sure way to make the tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth, Ollie, to demand talk.”
“You used to call me ‘Ollie’ before we got married. I became ‘Oliver’ on the day of our wedding. Did you realize that? Then I further sunk to ‘Avondale,’ and occasionally even ‘milord.’ I wanted to shake you,” he said, and gave her a slight, vestigial shake, tightening his hands on her shoulders.
“Lacking polish, my dear!” she chided mockingly.
“To hell with polish, my dear!” he declared, and enfolding her in his arms began a series of embraces that were quite primitive and utterly lacking in polish, but acceptable enough for all that.
Chapter Sixteen
Everyone slept in late after the rout, which people kept calling a ball. Pierre recovered from whatever had ailed him—not the flu, or he wouldn’t have been up and about so soon—and concocted a delecta
ble meal that might be called breakfast or lunch, according to one’s whim. Kay toyed with the idea of calling it lunch fast or brunch, and setting a new style. It consisted of a fresh fruit compote to get the juices flowing, followed by a mixed grill, and all the buns, toast and coffee anyone could consume. They consumed a good deal, and seemed to be in fine spirits.
She was in good spirits herself. She had accomplished a stunning coup in affecting a reconciliation between the Avondales. No one would ever believe she hadn’t asked them both to Ashbourne on purpose, and as such a success had come from it, she would not deny it so very strenuously.
Already Lady Dempster was chucking her elbow and calling her a sly minx, and writhing with impatience to be the first out the door to London to spread the rumor. But she hated to leave before they came down, and she could tell everyone how they looked that morning. She was working the whole weekend into a story and needed her closing episode. Then too she was a good deal curious to see whether the Italian screecher went back to town with Mr. Higgins in his carriage, and to relay this intelligence to the other lady concerned.
Before long she had her view of Avondale and his lady descending the stairs arm in arm, smiling and looking like newlyweds. Her woman was on guard upstairs to see whether they both issued from the same doorway, a fact of major importance and one she really ought to have hung around to see for herself. They sat together at the table, and she was kept busy to try to discover whether they weren’t holding hands beneath the cloth. A dropped napkin that she stooped to pick up discovered that they were—commoners! Belle Anderson would change that man into a country squire inside of a year. Already she had talked him into passing up a season, an unheard-of thing for the Duke of Avondale.
She would have to remember to twit Honey Traveller next time she met her, and ask her if everything had worked out at Doncaster, about the money George had “borrowed” and all. That morsel heard through the keyhole had been nearly forgotten with all the other interesting things she had heard. Fischer and Jackson—she’d twist their noses. She was especially sorry she had missed the reconciliation scene between the Avondales. It must have been well worth seeing from the way they were carrying on this morning. She would not have expected to see him competing with the likes of the Delfords and Sloanes in rolling his eyes at his own wife, but he was doing it. What would become of society if every man took to running after his wife?