The Buccaneers

by Edith Wharton

  Nan knew that she wasn’t qualified to be a governess. Denmark Hill had given her a new appreciation of the Marias, Elizas, Christinas, Francescas, Lauras (but there was only one Laura!) who acquired learning (even Greek, some of them) from their fathers and brothers, and then taught the daughters of the aristocracy, in order to support the idealistic Republican men of the tribe.

  Nan gave way to helpless, solitary mirth at the vision of her mother—or Lizzy’s, or Conchita’s—sending “the girls” out to support the Colonel or Mr. Elmsworth or Mr. Closson. Or Teddy de Santos-Dios!

  The hilarity did not last. She thought about the precariousness of Miss Testvalley’s penurious and uncomplaining life, with the result that she posted a note asking Virginia to meet her the next day between eleven and twelve at ... She had thought of a park or a museum, but fixed on St. Paul’s, which she and Jinny had visited as tourists, as being far from Mayfair in every sense; and at eleven the next morning she walked slowly about the vast domed cathedral, where the music of an organist practising sounded grandly, stopped, and soared again in sublime new chords.

  Tired, and too strained to yield herself to the music, Nan sat down, put her head in her hands, and wished she could turn to Jinny, not necessarily for sympathy, but for intimate talk. They had grown away from each other; yet somehow life didn’t dissolve bonds between sisters, only made the bonds more tortuous even than they had been when they seemed simple. She and Jinny had played together and slept together; had fought with each other, but had also shared some of their thoughts. Once, when she was about nine, Jinny had confided in her a strange memory from when she was little, maybe two or three, of being in a kitchen and watching Mother at a stove, stirring something in a pot. Did Nan think it could be true? They had considered the question solemnly and decided that Jinny had had a funny kind of dream. Neither girl had ever mentioned it to the other since.

  Rising, Nan saw Jinny coming toward her, veiled, but recognizable by her graceful shape and elegant gliding walk.

  As they sat down, Virginia raised the veil and demanded in a tone between a low voice and a loud whisper: “Nan, how could you do this to me?”

  This was not what Nan had hoped for; the old fierce anger welled up. “I didn’t ‘do’ anything to you!” she said hotly. But as Virginia frowned, Nan controlled herself and said quietly: “I can’t stay with Ushant. I’m going away; it will be best for you, won’t it, if I just vanish quietly?”

  “It can’t be ‘quiet,’ and he doesn’t like scandals.” As Nan frowned, puzzled, Jinny, without explaining, asked defiantly: “And what about Guy Thwarte?”

  “There’s nothing about Mr. Thwarte!”

  “Do you realize people are saying that Ushant is going to divorce you?”

  “He ought to. Not because of Mr. Thwarte; but because I’ve deserted him.”

  “Nan, you’re crazy,” Jinny said beneath her breath. “I came here—at the risk of being seen with you—because I thought you might say you want to go back to him.”

  “No. I asked you to come because I want you to do something for Miss Testvalley.”

  “What? Who?” Jinny’s eyes, blue even in the dimness of the nave, widened. “Why?”

  “She’ll need to find a new post. She had nothing to do with my leaving Ushant; I think she disapproves. But everyone will think she’s behind me. I don’t think she’ll be at Champions much longer. And who will give her letters of recommendation now? My mother-in-law? Yours? Lady Glenloe?”

  Nan bit her tongue. She was afraid that Jinny would ask why Lady Glenloe should be angry, and didn’t want to reveal Lady Glenloe’s hopes for her daughters (or, rather, for one of them). But Jinny didn’t ask, and Nan went on quickly: “You can help her. She lived in our family for three years. It’s thanks to her that we came to England—that you’ll soon be the new Lady Brightlingsea, the premiere Marchioness. Do write a letter she can show at the agency she goes to. You know she’s a perfectly splendid teacher!”

  “I wouldn’t know how to.” Jinny had never been much of a one with a pen.

  “Say ‘pleased to recommend ... long acquaintance ...’ Well, I’ve written it out.” Nan handed Jinny a sheet of paper. “Write something like that, and be sure to show that you are Virginia Marable, Countess Seadown. Do you promise?”

  “I’ll ... try,” Virginia said sulkily. “I’ll see. Only, if you’re right about people blaming her, they’d be furious if they found out. Nan, I have to go, I’m supposed to be ...” She stood up.

  Nan, rising with her, forgot her grievance in a rush of sadness and affection. “Jinny, we may not see each other again for years and years.” With a sore heart, she put her arms around her sister, who kissed her cheek. “Goodbye, Nan; I really must go.” Virginia carefully lowered her veil and walked to the door. Then, suddenly, she turned.

  “Jinny?” Nan went to her eagerly.

  “If you go to New York,” Jinny said simply, “Mother will kill you.”

  From the porch, Nan watched her descend the great flight of stairs and gracefully mount the step of a waiting hansom. Only on her way back to Denmark Hill did she realize that her sister had given her no promise.

  “She never lets me forget that I’m younger and more ignorant,” Nan fumed as she jounced about in a stuffy, crowded eastbound omnibus. “I always think I’m the youngest person in the room ... in the bus. Ushant thought I was a malleable child, but I invited it. I let myself fall in love with Guy by making believe that he was an ‘older’ man, and I encouraged him to think that I was a little girl. But I am twenty-three years old; I am a married woman who has had a miscarriage; I am going to be divorced; and I am in love with a man I can’t marry ... who won’t want to marry me.”

  “In fact, I am a detrimental now. And I’m tired,” Nan muttered that evening, eyeing with disgust the baby-face in the mirror as she brushed crossly at her hopelessly tangled curls, “of being an ingenue.”

  She would write to Ushant and to her father, and she would try to arrange her future—once she had seen Guy. She must tell him that she was going to America, and say goodbye in a civilized, modern, nineteenth-century way.

  XXXIX.

  Guy Thwarte asked the old woman who came to the door garbed in Mediterranean black if the Duchess of Tintagel could receive him.

  “Duchessa?” A stare and a headshake.

  Was Robinson wrong? Guy wondered. “Is there not a young lady, a friend of Miss Testvalley’s, una giovane donna—?”

  “Ah.” The wrinkled face lightened. “Annabella, la ragazza. Sì, sì, vieni, vieni....” Serafina crooked a finger and led him in.

  Nan, at the sitting-room window, had recognized Guy’s tall figure and firm stride as he came down the street; had seen him go to the house opposite, where someone opened the door and, after a moment, pointed at the Testavaglia house. She was glad of this brief warning, which allowed her to recover some presence of mind. She had at last prepared a speech, and when Guy entered she was able to begin it. “I’m so glad you’ve come, so that I can say goodbye properly; we’ve been such friends....” She kept her head high.

  Guy stood and looked at a ragazza, her tawny curls coiled carelessly at the nape of her neck, whose huge dark eyes met his gaze steadily even though a fierce blush mounted to her cheeks. “No one would believe,” he said, “that we have never even kissed,” and took her in his arms. In their eager, long first kiss, Nan trembled with pleasure; and as Guy’s lips moved from her mouth to her closed eyes she gasped, clinging to him, “Oh, I do love you....” She was dazed, yet aware of her every pulse-beat, and of every breath of the body so close to hers. She ran her hands over the strong shoulders beneath the smooth broadcloth as Guy muttered against her cheek:

  “I could not ask you ... I knew you didn’t care about Longlands and all that ... but how could I ask you to give it up? Ushant was never the man for you, but I couldn’t let you lose... I love you more than anything in the world, and now—Is it true that you have left him?”

&nb
sp; “I have left him, yes. I ought never to have married him.”

  “You were too young to know. Now you must marry me.”

  Nan, still in Guy’s arms, and with her arms about him, half lost in a fiery sweetness, could still say: “No!—I’m not too young now to know what you would lose if we married. I know what you have lost.” She pressed his head closer to hers, stroking his thick fair hair. “You can’t give up Parliament.”

  “That’s done,” Guy said firmly. “And so is this—I am leaving England.”

  Nan pulled back and looked into his face, astounded. “What?”

  “I’m going abroad, to work. To Greece. I leave within a fortnight. The only question is, will you come with me?”

  “I don’t understand.” Nan stared.

  “I couldn’t go on seeing you and him together.... When I saw you in the park at Champions and knew I’d have swept you from your saddle if the groom hadn’t interrupted, I decided I couldn’t go on in London—or anywhere else in England.”

  “Even then? Was that why? I thought you had quit the election because you’d heard those rumours—those lies! But have you heard them?”

  “Only yesterday. Lady Richard told me. I was trying to find you. She told me that you’d left the Duke, but she didn’t know where you were. Finally, Hector Robinson told me.”

  “Well,” Nan said, “you must not go away. I am going back to America. Do you think I would let you sacrifice Honourslove? I know what it is to you!”

  Guy took her by the shoulders and looked down into her flushed determined face. “I would give it up for you—I was going to—but now I hope I shan’t need to. Do you remember when we talked about that Cavalier poem, on the terrace, years ago? ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more’? In the last few weeks—you can’t think how insane I’ve been—it’s turned itself round in my head: ‘I could not love Honourslove so much, Loved I not Annabel more.’ It’s monstrous poetically; but everything I care about in Honourslove is in you too. If you were with me, I’d have it with me. Whereas if I were there without you, knowing you were with him, and unhappy—”

  “Oh ...” Nan sighed from the sheer joy, however short-lived it must be, of knowing that her deepest feelings were shared. “And all that I care about is in you. I’ve been so lonely—a stranger even to myself for so long.... It’s like coming out of cold and darkness into the sunlight... like coming to life....”

  “Like a flower unfolding.” Guy touched her soft cheek. “You are a flower, Annabel ... a rose coming to bloom.”

  “Not a rose, with the colour of my petals.” Nan dimpled. “A tiger-lily, more like....” But a sense of the brevity of their time together came over her. “Dear Guy,” she said sadly, “it’s sweet loving each other, the sweetest thing I’ve ever known, but we can’t go on, we—”

  Glancing about the small, poorly furnished room, Guy led her to a horsehair sofa and sat down beside her. “Does Ushant understand that you’re definitely leaving him?”

  Annabel hesitated. It was important to tell Guy exactly what had happened. “Yes. He said he would make me go back to Longlands with him by force if he had to. He said he would force me to ... act as his wife. He said I had no choice but to obey him.”

  Accustomed to Ushant’s phlegmatism, Annabel hadn’t expected the fury Guy displayed; he jumped up, swearing under his breath; then came back and gripped her hands in his. “But, my God, Annabel—”

  Annabel swallowed. “I haven’t—been his wife since I lost my baby. I said no, and when he tried to stop me I ran away by a door to the mews.... It was a very definite departure, not to say vulgar. Now he will divorce me for deserting him.”

  “When he hears about that Churt woman’s lies he will try to divorce you for more than desertion. For ... infidelity.”

  “I told him I was in love with someone else; I didn’t say who. I told him there’d been no wrong-doing, that the man didn’t even know; that nothing would come of it.... I’m sure he knew I was telling the truth.”

  “His lawyers will advise him to act as if you hadn’t been truthful.”

  “I have thought of that—oh, I’ve thought! ... And you would be named; you’d be involved.”

  “Darling Annabel,” Guy said, “we’re both involved, and, except for the insult to you, I welcome anything that will set you free.”

  There was a new tenseness in him. Nan looked at him, gravely questioning.

  “If you had simply left Ushant,” he said slowly, “—not that ‘simply’ is the word—I’d have begged you to marry me, and have kept on begging. If you had said yes, we’d have stayed apart, waiting till you were free. But things have changed, thanks to Lady Churt. Ushant will probably sue for divorce, citing me. And I’m afraid... How can I leave you alone, to face the horrors alone, either here or in America? If you will come with me, I ... I will hold you in respect.”

  Nan shook her head vehemently. “You can extricate yourself and live as you ought to, but not with me as a drag. Does your father know about this? He will be very angry—”

  “I’ve written to say that I’m going abroad to work on a railway project. Now that I’ve found you—at last!—I’ll go down and face him, and if you’ll allow me, I’ll tell him about us as well—” Over Nan’s attempted expostulation, Guy persisted: “We can’t let him, any more than Ushant, decide the whole rest of our lives.... You will come with me, Annabel?”

  Nan tried to muster her failing resolution. “I want so much to be with you that I can’t see things clearly; I need to think, I’ve never thought of anyone but myself, now I’m thinking of you too, and I have to be sure.... I must wait till Miss Testvalley comes.”

  “Miss Testvalley?” Guy was obviously taken aback. Perhaps, Nan thought anxiously, he was hurt, or displeased, that another person’s opinion was so important; she hastened to explain. “You see, I told her that I had not left Ushant because of you, and I wrote to her saying that I’m going to America and asking advice about earning money.... She won’t try to influence me; she’s wise but she’s ... well, detached, even when she’s fond of people....”

  Nan fell silent. Guy was unquestionably frowning, yet not angry—or not angry with her.

  “Annabel,” he said, taking her hands in his, “I would never deny you independent thoughts—other advisers.”

  It hovered between them, the image of the Duke, whose attitudes Guy evoked by their opposite. It was so palpable that words weren’t necessary to tell him that she understood. It was enough to exchange a long, deep look in a silence broken only when Guy said, drolly: “That is, of course, so long as the advisers advise you to marry me.... Annabel”—he was serious again—“you know, it hardly makes sense for you to go to America and me to go to Greece when what we want is to be together. Heroics won’t do!”

  Nan started to smile. “The truth is,” she confessed, “I’ve been bracing myself so hard to cope with an unhappy ending that I can hardly imagine anything else.... I’m still afraid to hope.”

  “I’ll go to Honourslove tomorrow. I’ll tell my father that I love you and won’t rest till you say you’ll marry me.—No!” Guy jumped up, pulling Nan with him. “No, I’ll go today!—I want to see my solicitor—I shall just manage the train.” He stroked Nan’s face. “Darling, your cheeks are hollow ... and you’re thin; you’ve gone through a frightful time. But that’s going to change.” He held Nan as if he’d never let her go, then broke away, with an “If I leave now I’ll see you again all the sooner.” He seized the hat he had dropped on a table and went out. From the window, Nan watched him turn at the gate and wave, then hurry up the street.

  “Application of the law,” Grant-Johnston stated, “is inconsistent, absurd—and unequal, which may be to your advantage.”

  As Guy looked a question, his friend’s candid freckled face creased in a smile that was in large part cynical. “It’s easier for a man to get a divorce than for a woman, for a nobleman to get a divorce than for a commoner ... and I dares
ay for a duke than for a marquess, an earl, a viscount, or a mere baron. A husband can hire detectives to spy on his wife and the co-respondent, and bribe servants to bear witness. On the other hand ... the Lords heard a case—you were abroad, or you’d have seen it in the papers—in which the husband had petitioned for divorce; the wife had sent him a letter saying she had left him for another man and then gone to Australia.”

  “And?”

  “The Lords deferred issuing the decree until they were sure that the lady had been served notice of the lawsuit.... So a letter of confession sometimes serves; and if a duke wants a divorce but doesn’t care about revenge—”

  “But, of course, the spouses can’t say they both want the divorce?”

  Tony, who had been leaning back, teetering on his chair, sat up so abruptly that the front legs hit the floor with a thud. “Don’t breathe the idea! There’s covert agreement all the time—everybody knows it—but the worst thing that can happen is for a judge to suspect ‘collusion, condonation, or connivance.’ Though, there again, I wonder.... With a duke the court might turn a blind eye.”

  “It’s barbaric.”

  “At best. But”—Tony wagged a cautionary ringer—“assume the worst. If you do persuade her to ... to ... to ... to accept your protection until you can marry, assume that you’ll both be followed. That is, the Duchess will be if they find out where she is. She may think the Duke wouldn’t ‘do’ that, but his lawyers would. We’re a cutthroat crew.—What are your plans, if she agrees?”

  “I would have her cross the Channel; to Boulogne, I think. I’d follow as soon as these papers are taken care of, and we would go to Greece from France.”

  “Have your man travel to Folkestone with your luggage and get it aboard the Channel steamer.”

  “He doesn’t want to stay with me, understandably; but he’s a good sort. I can trust him to do that.”