Spare Brides

by Parks, Adele

  The cider arrived in thick stoneware pots with off-white strap handles. Both the lip and the handle were chipped. It was very different from the crystal flutes, tulips and coupes that Lydia was used to drinking out of. Edgar watched her, gauging her reaction to the basic provisions.

  ‘Good health,’ she offered.

  ‘Cheers,’ he replied. They banged the pots together. The yeasty smell made Lydia feel drunk even before she tried the cider. She was thirsty from the walk, so she glugged rather than sipped.

  ‘I should have asked for tea,’ she commented. The dryness hit the back of her throat, bubbles bounced on her tongue. The poor man’s champagne. The soup came: salty leek and potato, served with coarse brown peasant bread. There were no place mats or napkins. The landlord breathed on the spoons and wiped them on his shirt before he handed them to Lydia and Edgar: a dare, a challenge, a protest that Lydia hadn’t obediently sat in the spot designated for women. She took the spoon, trying not to give any indication that she felt a bit queasy; Edgar seemed not to notice the landlord’s gesture or, if he did, he did not dignify the gripe with an acknowledgement. The soup was hot; it burned Lydia’s throat. She stopped drinking it but instead bent over it so she could get the benefit of its warmth. Edgar broke his bread and threw it into his soup as though he was feeding ducks. He dragged the spoon towards him and then put the entire bowl of the spoon in his mouth. Instead of despising his uncultured manners, Lydia was excited by the thought of his appetites; she’d always been taught to tip the bowl away from her and take slow, unsatisfactory sips. Her habit was inadequate in relation to her hunger.

  Lydia simultaneously wilted and yet flourished in the proximity of his glorious confidence. He was just as valid and marvellous as she’d imagined when they first met in the café; more so. The way he held his head, the shape of his jaw, the bulk of his thighs fascinated her. She wanted to touch him. To reach out, and stroke and pet him. More. She wanted more.

  Suddenly, a heinous possibility flung itself into Lydia’s head and she wondered how she could have failed to think of it until now. ‘Are you married?’ she blurted. It was an indiscreet question. The tone she used made it impossible to pretend it was a polite enquiry; it was desperate. She was begging. She was not sure what she was begging for, exactly. If he was married, maybe she would find it in her to step away. Maybe. She could stop this adventure before it became a scandal, or a disaster. But if he was married, she might die. Stop breathing. It was a ridiculous thought. Indulgent and exaggerated, and yet she felt it was so. She did not want this man to have one woman he placed above all others. Even if it was a woman he might betray or possibly despise. She did not want that woman to already exist, because she wanted to be that woman. A woman above all others.

  Even a woman he might betray or despise.

  She would take whatever was on offer. She was helpless. Hopeless.

  He shook his head, and she breathed again.

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Why, Lid? What does it matter to you?’ He cocked his head to one side.

  ‘You know why,’ she muttered. Exposed.

  ‘So what’s your husband like? Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a lord; when his father dies, he’ll be an earl. The Earl of Clarendale.’

  ‘I see.’

  Lydia was appalled at herself for offering this up as an explanation as to who Lawrence was. There must be more to him than that, but what more need there be? She thought Edgar would think she had been an avaricious, ambitious deb, and so to disabuse him she added, ‘He wasn’t the heir apparent when I married him. That wasn’t why I picked him.’ Edgar didn’t ask why she had picked him, but she offered lamely, ‘He has lovely manners.’

  ‘That must be helpful.’

  ‘It is.’ She felt awkward. It was a stupid comment. Lawrence was sensible, dignified and confident too, but somehow none of that seemed enough. Edgar was magnificent, brave, beautiful. The reality of Lawrence temporarily evaded Lydia. She was doing him a disservice. Besides the fact that she was falling in love with another man, she was doing him a disservice because she couldn’t recall the essence of him. The point of him. ‘Of course, if I can’t produce a baby, the title that’s been in the family for hundreds of years will be futile.’

  ‘I’m sure everyone would be devastated.’ Edgar drained his pint and looked irritated. He signalled for a refill. Lydia had only drunk half of hers, which was just as well, because he didn’t offer her a second. It was strong stuff; her eyelids already felt heavy and her thoughts were woozy. Fuzzy. She was embarrassed that she hadn’t explained the situation clearly. It was not just concern over a baby or a title. It was not about a marriage and whether it thrived or even survived. Her fertility seemed to have much greater meaning. Frustrated, she stared out of the window. A lattice of lead framed the small, thick panes of glass, making a mosaic of light that distorted and obscured the reality of the outside world. Despite the awkwardness of trying to explain her soul and core, she felt cocooned; they were in their own world.

  ‘They kept him out.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His family. They’d already lost two sons. One in the war, another to a riding accident. His father knows people.’

  ‘How fortunate for him.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose.’

  Edgar took another huge swig of his cider and then swiftly turned his head towards the fire, away from her, his black hair swishing over his left eye. His gestures were already becoming familiar to her. He was different, a thing of beauty; she almost gasped. She needed him to turn back to her. Desperately she blurted, ‘I think we’re being punished. Lawrence and I. Do you think that’s possible?’

  ‘I don’t believe in God.’

  This didn’t answer the question as to whether he believed they ought to be punished. ‘He must seem like an awful coward to you,’ she sighed. Lost.

  ‘Ah, fuck it, at least he survived.’ Lydia had never heard anyone say that word before; at least, she’d occasionally heard it on the street, but no one had ever directed it at her. Edgar saying it was strangely ugly and deeply arousing. Suddenly a look came over him that she didn’t know or understand. He seemed charged up, furious. He dragged his chair closer under the table, towards her; the wood squeaked a protest as it heaved along the floor. ‘At least he didn’t fall foul of the propaganda machine. He had the sense, or the connections, or the sheer arrogant self-interest to resist that crap. Perhaps there’s more to him than you are telling me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You think war is glamorous, don’t you? The medals, the words they bandy about, like “bravery” and “duty”. You think war is sensational.’

  ‘No, not at all. I’ve seen what it does. Some of my best friends—’

  He didn’t let her finish, but barked out a derisive laugh. ‘What, some of your best friends are black, or queer, or dead?’

  She didn’t know why he was mocking her. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong. The conversation had escaped. It was now an unwieldy spillage staining their short but vitally important history. She wanted to howl. She’d been trying to tell him something important. She thought he’d understand.

  ‘Shall I tell you the filthy secret about war? The dirtiest tool they use?’ He was leaning very close to her now. She could see every muscle in his face; they jumped, as though someone was pulling strings connected to the tissue. The movements were random, jerky. ‘It’s not the guns, the tanks, the gas. They are not the dirtiest weapons. It’s sex.’

  ‘Sex?’

  ‘Not surprisingly, they didn’t say that.’

  ‘The decency brigade would have been outraged.’ She tried to lighten the atmosphere with a joke; he played along and offered up a brief, polite smile, but then leaned back in his chair, away from her. His eyes glazed. He was losing interest. She was losing him.

  ‘Quite.’

  Lydia felt miserably wrong for attempting the joke. She should have accepted the heavy sense of oppressi
ve truth and pain that stained the atmosphere. He’d been trying to talk to her. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘They called it love. But it’s sex. Do you love your wife, your girl, your country? Will you kill for her? That’s what the politicians offered. Threatened. If we didn’t fight, we didn’t love our women. We were unmanned. We didn’t know the meaning of the word then, although we soon learned. Your husband … Well, it seems to me he had the balls to ignore them. He had the last laugh.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that. I don’t see it that way.’ Lydia stumbled on her words because he was going too fast for her. She wanted to think his reasoning was faulty, but she could see the sense, and besides, it was the first time anyone had offered her something robust as a defence for Lawrence’s actions. He’d had the guts to see through it all? Could that be the case? But how could Edgar admire Lawrence for that? He was a decorated soldier. A brave man.

  ‘So I feel entitled,’ added Edgar.

  ‘Entitled?’

  ‘I should and will take it all. Everything they promised me.’ Lydia was not sure what ‘all’ he was referring to, until he added, ‘I’ll have every girl that will spread her legs, because they promised me that.’

  ‘You’re vile.’ She recoiled, shocked, but also, she couldn’t deny it, deeply, deeply aroused.

  ‘I’m honest. I’m entitled to Lady Feversham, Lady Cooper and Lady Jennings.’

  ‘No, no you are not,’ she insisted.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of me.’ She banged her hand on the table and the spoons rattled in the soup bowls. The landlord stopped drying pots and stared at them. Edgar didn’t notice; his eyes were trained on her. She felt the heat of a blush flare up from her heart; it crept over her neck and jaw. It was not embarrassment; it was anger and fear.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I can’t bear it. The thought of it,’ she admitted.

  ‘But what have you to do with me, Lady Chatfield? You are another man’s wife.’

  Lydia stretched across the table and kissed him passionately. She felt his lips resist for a fraction of a second; then they accepted her. The kiss was the sort that made her shiver. She felt it through her entire body. It was firm and dark, strong and intoxicating. Then it was over. He broke apart and firmly pushed her away. His blunt bristles scratched her lip. She sank back in a puddle of shame. He’d pushed her away. He didn’t want her. He’d said that he would take at will and he’d implied indiscrimination, but he didn’t want her. She had thought he did. She could not understand it. She could not bear it.

  Edgar drank his soup in silence and, even though she had not finished, he left the table and went to stand at the bar, where he started up a conversation with the landlord. Lydia noticed that the skinny young girl who was polishing the glassware was lingering over her work longer than was feasibly necessary. She kept turning Edgar’s way and flashing broad smiles. Even though Edgar had his back to Lydia, she could sense that he returned the smiles. She felt sick and faint.

  She hoped that when they walked back to Ava’s, they would have an opportunity to retrieve some of the earlier intimacy. She felt the need to apologise or at least explain, although she wasn’t sure how that apology might begin or what it was for exactly. Would she need to apologise for meeting him after she’d married? For marrying a rich and titled man? For marrying a man who didn’t fight? For kissing him?

  She didn’t get the chance. The villagers thought the very suggestion of them walking home was dangerously eccentric. Horses were brought for their use, and two young boys led them through the snow, robbing them of privacy and the prospect of any more discussion. Lydia tried to object, to insist they could manage, but Edgar swiftly tightened the horse’s saddle and simply said, ‘Hush. This is better.’

  She didn’t know if he meant it was better simply because they’d be home quicker and drier; if so, she was ripped by the hurt that he had opted for such a practical physical response to their situation. Or might he have meant that if they were chaperoned, it was better for appearances? For her reputation? Possibly. If this was the case, her heart hardened a fraction as she resented his acquiescing to tiresome convention. Another thought struck her, and it was the worst of all. He might think riding was the better option for the very reason that she loathed the suggestion: because it obliterated any chance of them talking. Or her trying to kiss him again. The humiliation throbbed through her body. The pain filled her lungs as though she was a drowning woman too far from the coast. She’d lost him. Already. Before he was ever even hers. The thought was horrifying.

  Edgar rode in front of Lydia, his horse cutting a path for hers. She ached with uncertainty as she followed him. What was he thinking? What did he mean ‘better’? The only thing she was certain of now was that she was neither courageous nor determined enough to do anything other than follow him. Follow wherever he led. He would set the pace. He would call the shots. She was putty in his hands.

  The afternoon light seeped away and by the time they reached the Pondson-Callows’, a thick dark indigo sky dominated. The snow had begun to fall again. This time it was direct and dense. Never-ending. They would not be able to leave in the morning. Lydia was grateful: it might offer another opportunity. She was mortified too: if he refused to speak or acknowledge her tomorrow, she didn’t know how she would get through the day. The thought of any day without him seemed like no sort of day at all.

  Without a gasp of wind, the diffused flakes settled into something that suggested solidity. But it was a lie. The snow wouldn’t stay for ever. The deep layers simply offered a trick; a belief that they had all the time in the world. Lydia would be a fool to believe that. No one could believe such a thing any more. Everyone had to live for the moment, didn’t they?

  20

  SARAH HAD ASKED Dickenson to let her know the moment Lydia returned. She sensed a crisis and knew that Lydia needed her particular care and attention. Somehow Lydia was the sort of woman that other people felt they ought to protect, although Sarah could never work out why this might be the case. Many might argue that Lydia was the most fortunate of the four women; she was the one who had everything, or at least everything other than babies. Thinking about her own children’s warmth, the soothing weight of them as they climbed on her knee or slipped a sticky hand into hers, Sarah accepted that it was indeed a lack, but so many women of their generation would not feel the comfort of a heavy baby in their womb or arms. Beatrice didn’t have babies, or even a man with whom she could possibly hope to make them. At least Lydia could be consoled by a wealthy husband, a secure and constant income, living parents and (although it pained Sarah to be shallow, she knew that the world was, so she added it to her mental tally) a beautiful face. It was a mystery as to why Lydia extracted a sense from others that they ought to provide a shield, yet she did. Perhaps it was the beautiful face. She had a small head, but large lips and eyes, and despite her penchant for heavy eye make-up, she often looked like a child. On this occasion it was clear that the person she needed protecting from was herself. Both maid and friend bustled into her room with an air of panic and concern.

  ‘Look at you, you are in a state,’ Sarah declared the moment she saw her shivering, bedraggled friend.

  ‘Am I?’ Lydia shrugged, her expression evasive, secretive; whatever was on her mind, it was clear that she was unconcerned about her wet hair and clothes.

  Dickenson swooped and gently started to ease her mistress out of the damp garments. ‘Why, you are wearing jodhpurs!’ she gasped, unwilling to find a tone that would hide her disapproval.

  ‘They were the first thing to hand, and anyway, it turned out useful. I came home on horseback.’ Lydia stepped out of her clothes. The soggy garments fell to the floor like hunted deer.

  ‘I’ll draw a hot bath,’ muttered Dickenson.

  Lydia seemed hardly to notice her near nakedness. She wandered to the window and stared out into the blackness. Only in the grounds closest to the house could anything be
seen at all. There was a couple standing in the courtyard: Lady Feversham and Matthew Northbrook. Mr Northbrook was smoking; Lady Feversham picked up a handful of snow and shoved it down the neck of his jacket. He chased her around the snowman Beatrice and Arnie Oaksley had helped to build earlier.

  ‘I say, look at that enormous snowman. Marvellous.’ Lydia’s tone sounded forced; Sarah didn’t believe for a moment she cared about the snowman. ‘Did you help build it, Sarah?’

  ‘No, but Beatrice did.’

  ‘Such fun.’

  ‘Yes, you’ve missed quite a day.’

  ‘I can imagine. Snowball fights, hot chocolate … Was there sledging?’ Lydia giggled breathlessly, but Sarah thought there was a false ring to the animation and charm. Lydia seemed keen to keep up this pointless chatter indefinitely; as she and Sarah had been friends since the moment Lydia was born, Sarah recognised her tactic as diversion.

  ‘Where were you all day?’

  ‘Out.’ Lydia beamed. It was a tense but determined smile and she stared unblinkingly at her friend. Sarah nodded and bit back any more questions; she was probably better off not being burdened by too many details.

  ‘Lawrence is here.’

  ‘Lawrence?’ For a moment it seemed to Sarah that Lydia couldn’t place her husband. The second she did, she looked stricken.

  ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘Well, he is. Apparently he had a change of heart yesterday, and decided to come along after all, but then there was a problem with the car’s engine – the cold, I suppose. Once it started snowing, he and the chauffeur had no choice other than to bunk down at a pub. They stayed in that little village we passed through on the way here.’

  ‘West Claxinton?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Lydia sat down heavily on the chair in front of the dressing table.

  ‘The car’s still done for. So he walked here this morning. Through the snow. He’s been asking for you.’