“It won’t make any difference to us,” I said, “will it?”
“Good heavens, in what way?”
“Well, with Thomas … it was difficult sometimes … before … and especially afterward … wasn’t it?”
There was a pause. Then he said, “It was nothing.” And when I tried to deny this he added sharply, “You must think me very selfish if you think I’m reluctant for you to have children.”
“But …”
“Every woman has a right to have children.”
“And every husband has a duty to provide her with them? Oh, Edward, don’t let’s talk about rights and duties! If you don’t want the baby—”
“My dearest Marguerite,” he said, gentle but very firm, “you can rest assured that if I hadn’t wanted this child I would have told you so long before he was conceived. Now please, no more of this nonsense or I shall become very cross with you indeed.”
I did feel much better when he said that, and I at once began to kiss him with a great passion. I was always very passionate when I was pregnant, but that was a great deal more pleasant than suffering from morning sickness or fainting spells.
After Christmas I did not go to Cashelmara with Edward but returned to London, where my doctor confirmed my condition and gave his usual tedious advice to lead a quiet life. Presently Edward returned to London, the Queen summoned Parliament, and in no time at all winter had brightened into spring. Since the beginning of my pregnancy I had felt in excellent health, but in early June when I had less than a month of waiting before me an event occurred that was to prove very disturbing: Edward’s daughter Madeleine abandoned her cloister and wrote to ask him if she could come to stay.
Chapter Three
I
I HAD IMAGINED MADELEINE to be as virtuous as a heroine in a Radcliffe novel and as fanatical in her religious devotion as the earliest of the Christian martyrs. I had never met a nun before. Edward refused to discuss her since she had given him great offense first by becoming a Roman Catholic and second by entering the cloister, and even when she announced her intention to return to the world his only comment was “Thank God she’s come to her senses before she’s too old to find a husband.”
“Do you intend to let her stay here?” I said, uncertain how far he meant to forgive her.
“Of course,” he said. “It’s my duty to give an unmarried daughter a roof over her head, but if she thinks I’m going to treat her as the father treated the prodigal son, I’m afraid she’ll be greatly disappointed.”
Not liking to ask him any more questions, I turned to Katherine for information, but Katherine at once assumed her remotest expression and said there was little she could tell me.
“But she’s only a year older than you!” I protested.
“We had nothing in common,” said Katherine and added with a flash of her old jealousy, “She was Grandmama’s favorite. That was why she became so fanatically religious.”
“Grandmama,” I learned, was Edward’s mother, a fussy old lady who had supported the most Popish branch of the Anglican faith and displayed a talent for narrow-mindedness and longevity.
“She even outlived Mama,” reflected Katherine, “and when Papa went abroad after Mama’s death Grandmama came to Woodhammer and made us all pray daily for consolation in our bereavement.”
“Wasn’t that awful!” exclaimed Patrick fervently. “So boring!”
“Madeleine liked it,” said Katherine. “That was when she turned to religion. Papa said afterward it was all Grandmama’s fault.”
“I can’t imagine Edward having a mother,” I said. “Did they get along?”
“Get on,” murmured Katherine conscientiously. I had recently asked her to help me pinpoint my most frequently used Americanisms. “Yes, they did. She was devoted to him.”
“She was a nice old thing really,” said Patrick.
“And Madeleine resembles her?” I said hopefully, but they both looked doubtful.
“Fanaticism is such poor taste,” said Katherine, and Patrick added, “It’s not really very jolly to be told one’s doomed to hell-fire and damnation, you know.”
At this point I had serious misgivings about this monster of a stepdaughter, and by the time Madeleine arrived from her Irish convent I was so nervous that I hardly had the courage to remain in the drawing room to receive her.
Fortunately Edward was with me. When she was shown into the room he said a cool “Welcome home, Madeleine,” but despite his harsh words earlier he did give her a kiss. “May I present …”
I looked at her disbelievingly. No one had told me how fetching she was. I use the word “fetching” deliberately, because she was neither handsome like Annabel nor beautiful like Katherine, but she had that special soft, curving winningness that many men find irresistible. She was small, as small as I was, and a little plump. She had steady blue eyes, softly waving fair hair and an ineffable expression. No girl could have looked sweeter or more biddable.
“How do you do, Cousin Marguerite,” she said, casting an interested but not hostile glance at my ballooning waistline, and closed her small rosebud mouth with such an air of finality that I wondered if she ever intended to say another word to me again. She turned to her father. “It’s so good of you to receive me, Papa,” she said politely, “but if all goes well, I hope I shall not be a burden to you for long. I have applied for a position nursing the sick at the East End Charity Hospital run by my order, and I intend to begin work there as soon as possible.”
“But I thought you’d left the order!” said Edward, outraged.
“Yes, I have. I decided I wasn’t suited to be a nun either in the cloister or out of it. I found such strict conformity too difficult. However, the order still wishes to help me, and when I decided to be a nurse—”
“But of course you can’t be a nurse! I’ve never heard such a ridiculous idea in all my life!”
“I hardly think Miss Nightingale would agree with you, Papa.”
“Never mind Miss Nightingale!” shouted Edward, in a great rage by this time. “I absolutely forbid it!”
“Yes, Papa, I dare say you do, but as always my duty to obey God must prove stronger than my duty to obey you.”
I would never, never have dared say such a thing to Edward. I closed my eyes in anticipation of his wrath, and far away I heard a thin voice say tremulously, “Cousin Madeleine, you must be so tired after your long journey and I’m sure you must be anxious to rest. Do let me show you upstairs to your room.” It was a surprise when I realized the thin voice belonged to me, but Madeleine remained undisturbed, and Edward at least made no attempt to interrupt. Maneuvering her from the room before his temper could explode, I rushed her upstairs while I talked continuously about the new wallpaper in her room and the train journey from Holyhead and would she like a little refreshment, as it would be so easy to order tea.
“How very kind,” she said, regarding me with compassion, “but I can wait till dinner for refreshment.” And as I sank down exhausted upon the bed she said soothingly, “You mustn’t mind Papa and me, you know. He’s quite used to me being the exact opposite of Katherine.”
“Opposite?” I said weakly. “Katherine?”
“Of course! Katherine believes the world would end if she were not a dutiful daughter, and I believe the world would end if I were. By the way, since I’m certain Papa is already speculating about a possible husband for me, could you be kind enough to inform him that I have absolutely no intention of marrying either now or at any other time? Thank you so much.”
“But—”
“Will you take me up to the nursery presently to see little Thomas? I adore babies! In fact one day if I have the means I should like to establish a foundling hospital.”
“How very commendable, but … well, in that case, wouldn’t you like to have babies of your own?”
“Without being married?” said Madeleine with every appearance of seriousness, and then burst into such peals of laughter that I could n
ot help but laugh with her. “Pray don’t misunderstand me,” she said at last. “Marriage is a sacred and blessed institution uniquely fitted to the human race, but God never intended it to be for everyone, did He? Such a very simple truth but tragically so often overlooked by women taught from the cradle to put the dictates of society above the will of God. Yes, it is pretty wallpaper. How interesting to see some modern notions in decoration! One of the nicest things about being American must be that one isn’t weighed down by centuries of obsolete ideas.”
And after that encouraging remark all trace of awkwardness between us vanished until soon I was even wondering how long I could persuade her to stay with us at St. James’s Square.
II
But my delight at having Madeleine to stay was dampened daily by Edward’s inability to keep his temper with her. Madeleine was hardly at fault; she always adopted a pleasant, polite manner that, unfortunately, Edward found all too difficult to emulate.
“If you had a husband and half a dozen children you wouldn’t feel any need to work in a hospital tending lice-infested bodies, Madeleine,” he said to her after she had gently reproved him for talking of suitors, and to me in private he added angrily, “If only I could make her stop all this hospital nonsense! If she gave her mind to it she would soon meet some suitable fellow and settle down.”
He simply did not understand. The situation should have been eased by the fact that Madeleine did not expect him to understand, but Madeleine’s placid acceptance of his disapproval was infuriating to Edward. I saw clearly then that Madeleine was the daughter who baffled him most. Annabel he could understand; they were alike, and though Annabel had angered him in the past, he continued to speak of her with affection. Katherine he could tolerate; she was always so anxious to please him that he found it easy to be kind to her. But Madeleine he could neither understand nor tolerate, and had it not been for the fact that I was in my ninth month and that they were both loath to upset me, I believe they would have quarreled hopelessly within a week of her arrival.
But I liked Madeleine. I liked someone who was interested when I wanted to discuss David’s imminent arrival, and I liked someone who shared my absorption in Thomas’s progress. I am not, I hope, one of those boring women who can normally talk of nothing but their children, but when one is nine months pregnant one’s mind is necessarily filled with little else but thoughts of cribs, diapers and rattles, and Madeleine seemed to understand this more readily than anyone else. I found her a comfort, and I wanted her to stay.
Katherine became huffy, but I told her not to be so silly; she was not in the least interested in babies, and I knew I was boring company for her at that time.
“But I cannot think why you should be such friends with Madeleine,” said Katherine, jealous as ever, and added despairingly as if she were a small child, “I’ve never had a true friend before and Madeleine has always had so many!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Katherine!” I said crossly. “Why on earth can’t I be friends with both of you?”
There was no answer she could possibly make to this, of course, and presently she did become more sensible, but I thought it was sad she and Madeleine should be indifferent to each other when there was only a year between them in age. I thought nostalgically of Blanche. That spring she had married a rich young man whose family had an estate near Philadelphia, but although she wrote ecstatic letters describing him, I thought he sounded dull, and when she sent me a picture I saw that he was barely half as handsome as Edward. However, since she seemed happy enough I found it easy to be happy for her—and when Francis wrote to say it was not quite the brilliant match he had wanted for Blanche I could not help but feel happier still. I loved Blanche dearly and was certainly no longer jealous of her, but I am, after all, only human.
“I do hope they’ll be happy,” I said to Edward on Blanche’s wedding day. “I hope they’ll be as happy as we are.”
“I hope they’ll be half as happy as we are,” said Edward, whose hostility toward Blanche had mellowed with the years, “and even that is wishing them exceedingly well.”
Edward was especially kind to me at the end of my pregnancies because he knew how much I hated the last days of stoutness, weariness and general immobility.
“If only David would come!” I said, sighing, but David was late, and when at last he did arrive I wished he had been later still.
Thomas’s birth had been so easy and I had been so excited by his entry into the world that I could say with truth afterward that I had enjoyed the experience. I had even thought at the time what a fuss some women made about nothing. I did realize I had been fortunate, but in all the months before David’s birth it had never occurred to me that I would not be equally fortunate a second time. In my ignorance I had had no idea that one woman can have two totally different experiences of bringing a baby into the world.
David was a breech birth. Had it not been for the fact that I was attended by the best doctor and midwife in London, he would probably have been born dead. Maybe I would have died too. I certainly thought I was dying. Madeleine stayed with me throughout—no one wanted her to be there, but she was willing and I was insistent—and at the end I believe I even asked her for the last rites of the Roman Church. Instead she gave me her rosary beads to bite on—a far more sensible gesture—and I knew then that she would make a perfect nurse.
I fainted soon after that, and although I regained consciousness before the birth, the doctor administered the controversial drug chloroform, which brought me the most miraculous relief from pain. In fact later I was angry that he had not used it sooner, but doctors are wary of interfering with the natural process of childbirth, and he told me to be glad he had resorted to the drug at all.
David was much larger than Thomas and looked quite different from his brother. Directly after he was born I felt no desire to see someone who had caused me so much trouble, and even when I did see him I might have felt indifferent if he had been a mere red-faced bundle of bones in a swaddling cloth. But David, fortunately for us both, was a beautiful infant, pink, white and serene, and within a day or two I could no longer find it in my heart to blame him for his agonizing entry into the world.
Naturally it took me some time to recover. For several weeks I spent my days either in bed or else reclining on a chaise longue, but I was in good spirits. I read copiously, wrote to my family in enormous detail, began a new volume of my journal and tried to catch up with current events. I never had the slightest interest in current events during pregnancy, but now I busied myself in studying the progress of the dreadful war again and working myself into a rage about England’s dismal attempts to remain neutral. How can a country be neutral when it builds warships for the side it secretly favors? I thought it was very poor behavior on England’s part, and I said so to Edward during one of our numerous discussions on the subject.
But the war was not the only subject we discussed. When I was well again we became concerned with a more personal matter, and before we went to Woodhammer for the autumn Edward said to me, “I’m sure you’ll want more children later despite this unfortunate experience with David, but might it not be best for the sake of your health to postpone your next pregnancy for a while?”
“Postpone it forever if you wish,” I said with a shudder, trying not to remember the smell of chloroform and the crunching of Madeleine’s rosary beads between my teeth. “I’m perfectly satisfied with my two boys.”
He was careful not to comment, but I sensed his relief.
“What do I have to do?” I said in curiosity, my mind roaming among solutions that ranged from chastity belts to black magic.
“Good God, nothing at all,” he said as if I had made some shocking suggestion. “I shall do what has to be done.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s not necessary for us to discuss it further,” he said. “It’s not a subject on which a woman needs to be well informed.”
No promise of black magic could have ala
rmed me more, and in fact when I was finally enlightened I did not care for the innovation and had to remind myself severely that the alternative lay with chloroform and rosary beads. However, presently I became accustomed to the change, and after a while I thought nothing of it—which just goes to prove one can reconcile oneself to an inconvenience if one has a strong enough incentive.
Madeleine would not go with us to Woodhammer. I begged her to come, but she said she had postponed the pursuit of her vocation for long enough, and now that I was well again she had no further excuse to stay with me.
“But I can’t bear to think of you working yourself to the bone in a horrible hospital in the worst part of London!” I cried in despair and added like a true New Yorker, “And you won’t even receive any money for it, only your board and lodging! It’s so unfair!”
“It’s not unfair at all,” said Madeleine, serene as ever. “I shall be learning while I work.”
“But if you could only study at the Nightingale Training School, how much more suitable it would be! I know you have no money, but I could lend—”
“Marguerite, you know Papa would never permit it, and I won’t have you quarreling with him. I only hope I can leave here without quarreling with him myself.”
She could not. She announced her intention of leaving, and when Edward tried to stop her they began to argue. Madeleine was sweet, demure and utterly implacable, while Edward became in rapid succession irritable, angry and absolutely livid.
“Thank God your mother isn’t alive to see this!” he shouted at last.
“Please, Papa,” said Madeleine, “don’t you think it would be wiser not to bring up the subject of my mother? I might become too angry.”
“Is this the prelude to some fanciful accusation?”
“Certainly not. I’ve no intention of pointing out to you what you already know—that you treated my mother abominably and ruined her health with your disgusting and selfish demands.”
Cashelmara Page 17