by Mary Malloy
It was a good view. Martin was wearing a red tee shirt and she could see the muscles of his back moving beneath it. He had a rumpled look that made her feel comfortable with him, but he also had a dark exotic handsomeness and Lizzie still felt a strong physical passion for him after almost fifteen years together. If anything, he was more handsome now at forty-five. His face was certainly more interesting and the grey that was beginning to appear in his black hair was wonderfully attractive.
As a painter, especially one who did much of his work outside, Martin was very physically fit. His arms, chest, and thighs were very muscular. He had softened somewhat around the middle over the last several years, but not as much as Lizzie had. She always meant to get more exercise but, unlike her husband, she had a completely sedentary job. She spent too many hours in a chair in front of a computer while he was going up and down ladders.
Her eyes swept from her husband to the wall of framed posters that announced the installation of various of his murals in locations all around the globe. He had come a long way from his Los Angeles upbringing and Mexican roots.
Martin finally began to back slowly down to the floor, looking at what he had just added to the painting as he did so. Lizzie could see his head turn from side to side as he scanned back and forth across the canvas. When he turned to her he was smiling.
“It looks great!” Lizzie said with real enthusiasm. The mural was a commission for a New York bank and incorporated different views of Manhattan and the boroughs. “I especially like what you’ve done with the bridges.”
Martin stepped behind her chair and massaged her shoulders as he concentrated on his work for another several minutes. She was glad she had changed her clothes; his hands were covered with chalk and charcoal and he was inadvertently, though vigorously, transferring it to her shirt.
When he leaned down to kiss her, Lizzie knew she would now have his full attention, but only until the next moment of inspiration came. He sat down on a high stool and put his foot on the arm of her chair. She reminded him of the letter she had received the day before and Martin was immediately back into the conversation of the night before. He was not by nature suspicious, but he didn’t know what to think of George Hatton or his motives.
“Why you?” he asked for at least the tenth time. “And what do you know about him?”
Lizzie had the letter in her hand. “He says that Tom Clark at the British Museum recommended me and that he has read my book.”
“And how well do you know this Tom Clark?” Martin asked, pushing himself back on two legs of the stool.
Though he had never fallen, this move always made Lizzie nervous. She reached out to touch his leg, as if she might catch him by it if he fell, and explained again that she had corresponded with Tom Clark for more than a decade and had met him several times at conferences. Why he would have passed an opportunity like this on to her was mysterious, but she was self-confident enough to believe that she was qualified and deserving of the offer from George Hatton, and she told Martin so.
Martin put his feet and those of the stool firmly on the floor and leaned forward to put his arms around Lizzie. “Of course you deserve it,” he said, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “It just seems like a strange thing to come out of the blue.”
“This journal is absolutely genuine, though,” she said, looking once again at the two pages that George Hatton had copied and sent her. They were now covered with color where Lizzie had marked several passages with highlighting pens.
“You know,” she added, thoughtfully, “I’ve been wondering if I might have met George Hatton at some point. The name sounds so familiar.”
“Hatton?” Martin asked.
She nodded.
“Isn’t it your dad’s middle name?”
Lizzie nodded again. “And my grandfather’s, but that’s not what I was thinking about.”
“No relation?” Martin joked.
“Hardly!”
“Just for my peace of mind, will you call Tom Clark?” Martin asked. His eyes had been going from Lizzie to the canvas and back, and she knew that she was about to lose his attention again.
“If I do this, it would keep me from going to New York with you,” she said. She liked to go with him when he installed a mural, and had planned to spend a few weeks in New York City while he finished those parts of the painting that couldn’t be done in his home studio.
“Well I won’t have time to do much that’s fun anyway,” he answered, “given where I am on the work right now and the timeframe for finishing.”
He stood up and pulled a rag from his back pocket. Lizzie sighed when she saw it; it used to be part of her favorite blouse and he was using it to clean a spot off a palette before he daubed it with paint.
Martin would be spending at least three weeks in New York in January to finish the mural on site, and she had the whole month off. St. Pat’s liked to keep its doors shut during January, nominally to send students off on community service projects but really to save on heating expenses.
“At least the timing is convenient,” she said, standing.
Martin was already back at his ladder. He positioned it so that he could get at a spot he had been studying and then climbed to make several small strokes on the canvas. When he seemed satisfied with the changes he turned again to Lizzie.
“Maybe when I get this piece finished I can come join you for a few days in England.” He perched himself on the top of the ladder as he continued. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet, but I got an inquiry about a commission from a group in Newcastle.”
Lizzie asked for the details and found that he was very interested in pursuing it. Though banks and corporate offices were his principle business—and kept the couple in very comfortable circumstances—Martin liked especially to work with community organizations, and tried to volunteer his services on at least one project every year.
He came down long enough to clean and fill his palette with paint, and then returned to the ladder. “Don’t forget to call Tom Clark,” he said, giving her another quick kiss before he went back to work.
Lizzie made the call the next morning. Tom Clark did not remember exactly how her name had come up in his conversation with George Hatton, nor had he seen the journal or any of the artifacts, but he knew the man and could vouch for his reputation. Lizzie called George Hatton next and agreed to come to England during her term break. He seemed genuinely pleased to hear from her, sounded perfectly civil, very English, and not at all suspicious. Lizzie considered putting Martin on the phone with him, just to reassure her husband, but decided that she would trust her instincts, and he would have to as well.
• • • • •
Every Thursday Lizzie had lunch with her friends Jackie and Kate. It was a small ritual of gossip and female bonding that was a highlight of the week for each of them. In addition to being friends, the three women all worked at St. Patrick’s College, and so their conversation generally included campus politics and the venting of professional frustrations as well as personal confidences and general news. Kate Wentworth was the captain of St. Pat’s research vessel, Brendan’s Curragh, and on this day Lizzie planned to pick her brain about some nautical details in the Hatton journal.
Their lunch venue was always the same: an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End, across the bridge from their Charlestown campus. They were well known at Geminiani’s, and Rose Geminiani frequently joined them at their table. As a result, the restaurant owner knew as much about what happened at St. Pat’s as did most people on campus, and was generally current on the important issues in the lives of Lizzie and her friends.
Rose was pouring them each a glass of wine when Jackie asked Lizzie if she had made the arrangements to visit her “English Lord.” Kate and Rose were both interested so Lizzie explained about Francis Hatton’s journal and the invitation to go to England and live in the Hatt
on household while she researched the mariner and his collection.
“It sounds great!” Kate said enthusiastically. “A ripping good sea yarn and a chance to live the good life in a stately home.”
“Well the first part sounds great,” Jackie countered, “but that last bit is awful! I don’t see how English people can stand to live with these persistent medieval social distinctions.”
Lizzie smiled. “You can’t really blame George Hatton for having been born into his own family.”
“I can blame him for continuing the exploitation which probably still underpins his position in society.”
“Yikes!” Lizzie exclaimed. “I’m going to have to wait until I meet him before I accuse him of that particular crime.”
“I still think it sounds great,” Kate said, determinedly. “Lizzie can exploit the rich and powerful for a change.”
They all laughed.
“And I don’t really see what’s wrong with it anyway,” Rose added, pulling up her own chair. “What’s wrong with being rich and powerful? Isn’t it what we all want?”
Jackie turned to her. “Even if it is, which I’m not ready to acknowledge, isn’t it better to earn it than inherit it?”
Rose gestured around her restaurant. “I’m working awfully hard here, and I’m not rich yet.” They were laughing again when a head poked around the door of the kitchen and Rose was called away.
Jackie was now on a roll. “I don’t understand why Americans continue to be so captivated by the British aristocracy more than two centuries after throwing all that out with the Revolution.”
Rose returned with their lunches. “I loved Princess Diana,” she said, setting the plates in front of each of the women and then sitting down again herself. “She was one of them, but look how much good she did.”
“Jayzus!” Jackie said in a thick brogue. “There you have it! The power of the princess myth.”
“She wasn’t a myth,” Rose said, grating cheese and milling pepper onto the pasta of her friends. “Diana was an actual person who did many good things, and was a victim of the aristocratic system as much as she was a symbol of it.”
“A victim of what?” Jackie said incredulously.
“Of the press,” Kate said, answering for Rose.
“And of palace intrigue,” Rose added. “The rest of them were jealous of the attention she got.”
“We know nothing about her,” Jackie argued. “She was a clean slate when she came to public attention, and all the rest was carefully constructed.”
“Constructed by whom?” Rose demanded.
“By the public. People projected their fantasies onto her and she then tried to live up to them. And then, of course, the press just amplified it all.”
“Oh, I have to disagree,” Rose said, her hands moving in wonderfully animated Italian gestures. “She was a humanitarian; just look at all her work with AIDS and land mines.”
“But lots of people do many fine things and are not canonized for them,” Jackie answered. “Besides, how do we know that it wasn’t all a public relations campaign?”
“You are so cynical,” Kate said. “Lizzie, tell her how cynical she is.”
Lizzie took a bite of pasta and a sip of wine before answering. She had been pondering the “aristocracy question” for four days and wasn’t ready yet to share all her thinking with her friends. About this particular aristocrat, however, she was pretty much of Jackie’s way of thinking. “Well,” she said, chewing and swallowing, “I don’t think we actually ever heard her say much. How much were we influenced by the fact that she was extremely photogenic?”
“Oh yes, she was beautiful,” Rose nodded.
“But that doesn’t make her good,” Jackie argued. “I mean, she seemed like a perfectly nice sort of person, willing, even inspired, to hug lepers and shake hands with people with AIDS. But each and every good action was documented by a hundred photos.”
“I loved her clothes,” Rose said. “I loved every article about her. I miss her since she’s gone.”
“People magazine still hasn’t recovered,” Jackie said with an exasperated sigh.
“On the Diana front, I’m afraid I must agree with Jackie,” Lizzie said, entering the fray again. “The worship she inspired is a mystery to me. All those people when she died, crying about how they had lost a friend, how she was one of them. How was she one of them? They were all ages, races and social classes, and I don’t think she represented them at all.”
“So you are saying that the only people who could really have a valid connection with her were rich aristocrats?” Rose asked. “I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit for having a common touch.”
“I just don’t understand,” Jackie continued, “why you, Rose, the owner of your own business, and you, Kate, a sea captain, for God’s sake—both excelling in nontraditional occupations—still find yourself attracted to this whole romantic princess nonsense.”
The wine was fast disappearing and the commentary came rapidly. Jackie and Rose had the opposing camps staked out, with Lizzie providing the support for Jackie, and Kate leaning toward a greater sympathy with Rose. When Jackie began to develop a list that included private helicopters and personal psychics, Lizzie felt it was time to bring the conversation back to the question that had begun the discussion.
“Okay, but what about me?” she asked with mock seriousness. “What about going to England and living among the swells for a month. Will it ruin me?”
“There is some danger,” Jackie answered. “You like Jane Austen novels far too much for my comfort, and I know you are a sucker for history and its innate romantic possibilities.”
Lizzie balked a bit, but smiled. She had been trying hard not to admit to herself that there was something very appealing about the prospect of delving into the history of an ancient English family that had not only a coat of arms, but an address that required only the name of their house and the county in which it sat. While she felt at her core that there was something fundamentally wrong about the whole idea of an aristocracy, she could not entirely cast off all the romantic notions that came from years of exposure to fairy tales, novels, movies, and the popular press.
For once, the perceptive Jackie didn’t notice her hesitation. “You must behave like a spy for the little people,” she continued. “Show no deference and constantly challenge the power structure!”
“Absolutely not.” Kate gasped. “How rude. You must behave like the polite and civilized woman you are, and appreciate the fact that there might even be a book in this for you.”
“And enjoy being pampered!” Rose added, refilling the wine glasses and gesturing for one of the waiters to take the plates. She turned back to Lizzie. “Will that gorgeous husband of yours be going with you?”
Martin often invaded their lunches when he wanted to take a break from working and all of the women knew him well.
“Maybe at the very end,” Lizzie answered. “Martin is working on a commission for a bank in New York and has to spend most of his time there while I’m away.”
“The best of both worlds,” Kate said, raising her glass one last time. “An exotic adventure and a husband waiting at the end.”
“But don’t be changed by the experience!” Jackie said. She winked at Lizzie as she raised her glass. “‘Semper Memoriam,’ as the Hattons say! Always remember who you are.”
Lizzie looked around at her friends. The four women were all in their late thirties or early forties, all born and raised in American middle-class families. Though from different parts of the country, they had grown up watching the same shows on television, listening to the same music, and using most of the same products. As friends they were a well-matched quartet for confidences. Differences of opinion were regularly, even loudly, expressed, without hurt feelings or fear of censure. They were all intelligent and self-confident, but they
were not alike, and it was those differences that Lizzie celebrated as she raised her glass.
“Ladies, I believe this is the last time we will meet before the Christmas break and my removal into the luxurious den of the lion.”
The four women clinked glasses. “Should I come back altered in any way, you have my permission to whip me with al dente pasta.”
“I’ll have it ready,” Rose laughed. “Have a wonderful time.”
“Take advantage of all the opportunities that present themselves,” Kate added.
“And be careful,” Jackie cautioned. “Don’t fall for the superficial romance of the aristocratic life!”
When Lizzie turned to laugh off the warning she saw that Jackie was completely serious.
Chapter 3
When she had finally settled into her business-class seat and had a glass of champagne in her hands, Lizzie was able to think again through the hectic few weeks that had brought her finally to the flight to London. There had been little time to think about any of the Hattons, past or present, since she’d first received George’s letter. She had finished up two classes, graded papers, made Christmas dinner for ten, celebrated the coming of another New Year, and stocked the kitchen for Martin—who sometimes forgot to eat when she wasn’t there, especially when he was immersed in a project.
Martin had given her a book to read on the plane, The Great Houses of England, an Illustrated Guide, which, he said, included a description of George Hatton’s home, Hengemont. She pulled it from her bag and flipped through it until she found the chapter on Somerset County, where Hengemont was the most prominent entry.