His One Woman

by Paula Marshall

  ‘Oh, Mr Alan Dilhorne,’ Marietta told him softly, ‘do not deceive me. Beneath all the charm you, too, are serious—and Jack as well, I do believe.’

  ‘Pray don’t tell him so,’ murmured Alan. ‘You’ll make him conceited.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Marietta,’ Jack said, laughter in his voice. ‘He’s the world’s biggest tease. I remember how he ran me round when I was a little fellow. I always knew where I was with Fred, but never with Alan. He’s the original chameleon.’

  ‘And very useful that is in politics,’ said the Senator, who had been listening to all this, amusement written on his face. ‘You, sir, managed to bamboozle everyone in Washington, and as a consequence go home full of information, I’ll be bound, having given nothing away.’

  ‘Now, that,’ said Jack, before Alan could reply, ‘is surely the first, last and best task of the diplomat—and the businessman—is it not?’

  His hearers laughed together. Aunt Percival, watching Marietta blossom in the presence of so many handsome and clever men, thought that she had never looked to greater advantage than she did on Alan Dilhorne’s last night in Washington. God send that Mr Jack is beginning to care for her, for by her manner she is attracted to him. Like the Senator, I would see her married—and to a good man. It’s a blessing that Sophie has disappeared for the time being and can’t spoil things by throwing her selfish tantrums.

  Later, she watched Jack and Marietta settle themselves side by side on the sofa in the parlour. Alan was watching, too. More diplomatic work by the Senator, was his conclusion. And I do not blame him. Little brother is a good man, Miss Marietta is a prize worth winning—and the Senator means to have her won.

  ‘So your brother is off to New York before you, Jack,’ said Marietta.

  ‘Yes. I once thought that I might go with him, but I have undertaken certain commitments for Ezra Butler and I must fulfil them before I leave. Had I known earlier that Alan would be in the States I might not have agreed to them.’

  ‘Washington might not be the safest place in the USA if war is declared,’ Marietta told him. ‘Father thinks that the rebels will advance immediately on the capital in the hope that we are not prepared for them. They may think that a rapid attack would win the war for them in short order if, in the doing, they could capture the capital. He says that they must know that if the war becomes a long one they must surely lose.’

  ‘I expect that that is what the Senator and my brother are looking so serious about. But what of you, Marietta? Will you stay here?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said simply. ‘It is my duty to be with my father and he would not think of leaving while the North is in danger.’

  They fell silent for a moment. Moved by a sudden impulse, Jack took Marietta by the hand which lay loosely in her lap with the idea of comforting and supporting her. It was the first time that they had ever touched—apart from lightly in the dance—and the effect on them both was remarkable.

  Marietta had never experienced anything like it before. Her whole body began to vibrate, her eyes opened wide and she stared at Jack as though she had just seen him for the first time. She knew at once what her strange interior trembling meant. She both loved and desired him—a man she had only known for a few weeks but who, in some mysterious way, she had known for ever.

  Jack was equally transported. He had known many women and made love to some of them, but never before had he felt so overwhelmed by the merest contact with one. The feeling was so strong and sudden that it was like a thunderclap in a clear blue sky. The words his father had used once ran through his mind. ‘You will know the one woman when you meet her, Jack, and once you do you will be lost. Claim her, for you will never forgive yourself if you lose her.’

  ‘Marietta,’ he said hoarsely, gazing into her dazzled eyes and wishing that they were alone, so that he might…might what? He hardly knew what to say or do.

  ‘Marietta,’ he said again, ‘I would like, of all things, to drive you to the Potomac one afternoon—as soon as it can be arranged. I am told that the views there are splendid. If it is not proper for us to go alone, then we must take Aunt Percival with us—although, if I am honest, I would prefer your sole company.’

  Such a stilted thing for him to come out with when what he really wished to do was to tell her how much he loved and desired her.

  Marietta was silent for a moment, scarcely capable of answering him sensibly: no man had ever looked at her as Jack was doing. At last she said, ‘Of course I will go with you, but we must follow the forms, Jack, and take Aunt Percival with us.’

  ‘Then that is settled,’ he said softly. ‘Though we might have to revise our plans if war is declared.’

  Marietta shook her head. ‘I think not. Father says that once it begins life will become more hectic, not less. There will not be less balls and gaiety, but more. In the face of death and destruction, he says, we always celebrate life by enjoying it come what may. A strange thought, is it not?’

  ‘What I find strange,’ Jack said, ‘is that, so far as I can tell, one of the main causes of the war is the South’s wish to retain slavery. It seems barbaric that they should insist on it so strongly.’

  The Senator had overheard him, and said, sighing, ‘There is more between North and South than that, but it is the question of slavery which divides us completely. Our family possessed slaves once, but they were all freed long ago. I fear that when the North wins the war—as I am sure it will—the hatred generated by it will create divisions in our country which may not disappear for generations. Man is a sinful creature; I will not say more than that.’

  Aunt Percival spoke, her kind face troubled. ‘Perhaps we can all pray that war will not come. God could not be so unkind as to allow such a dreadful thing to happen.’

  In the silence which followed this heartfelt speech, noise could be heard in the distance. Shouts, pistol shots and cheering were followed by the sound of a tolling bell. The Senator, who was nearest to the window, drew back the curtains and looked out.

  There was the noise of running feet as men fled by, howling indistinctly. The Senator threw open the window, all dignity gone, and called out, ‘What is it? What is it?’

  A large black man, his face alight, stopped in order to answer him.

  ‘It’s the day of Jubilo, sah,’ he cried. ‘Sumter has fallen, they say, and the war for freedom has begun.’

  The Senator lowered the window, pulled back the curtain and turned into the room. His face was grave, his manner heavy.

  ‘It is as I thought,’ he said sombrely. ‘Like Caesar of old, the South has crossed the Rubicon: the worst of all wars is upon us and brother will fight brother. Not even President Lincoln can hold it off much longer, however much he wishes to avoid the final conflict.’

  The noise outside grew ever louder, and the sound of cheering grew and grew.

  ‘They are cheering now,’ said Alan. He was nearly as heavy as the Senator, and was showing his years and the gravitas which lay behind his normal, easy manner. ‘I fear that they will weep before it ends. I wonder how many men will lie dead on the battleground between now and peace.’

  There was silence in the room where a moment ago there had been pleasure: the earlier, happier mood of the evening had disappeared. Alan rose. ‘I do not like to leave so early,’ he said, ‘but I must visit the Envoy immediately. Late though it is, I must be instructed by him on these developments before I leave Washington. You will excuse me, sir, I am sure.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the Senator. ‘You have your duty, sir, as I have mine. Do you also leave for England, Mr Stanton?’

  ‘Not with my master, Alan,’ said Charles. ‘My way lies South. You understand, sir, that Britain will remain neutral and it is important that one of us goes there. Because of my interest and because Mr Dilhorne must report back home as soon as possible I shall remain behind. I will, with your permission, pay my respects to you again before I leave Washington.’

  ‘You are always welcome here,�
�� replied the Senator. He held out his hand to Alan. ‘It has been a pleasure to meet you and Mr Stanton, sir. I shall think differently about English gentlemen now that I have met the pair of you.’

  Before they left Jack found a moment to say a private goodbye to Marietta and to renew his invitation to her for a drive to the Potomac with him. War or no war, life would go on, and he intended to live it to the full.

  War had been officially declared before Jack found time to drive Marietta and Aunt Percival to the Great American Falls on the Potomac. It was not quite the peaceful trip into a rural paradise which Marietta had imagined it would be. Driving along, they found that tents were already being pitched and preparations were being made all along the route in order to provide an improvised garrison for the troops who would shortly be arriving in Washington.

  ‘The President has already asked for nearly half a million men to be recruited into the Army,’ the Senator had told Ezra Butler and Jack when he arrived at Butler’s office to invite him and Jack to meet yet another government committee in order to give it the benefit of their advice.

  He sighed heavily. ‘He does not think that it will be difficult to find them. The Army already has recruiting officers meeting the immigrant ships when they berth in Baltimore and the other East Coast ports. They are barely off the boat before they are persuaded into the Army. New Americans will fight old ones to the death, I fear.’

  ‘True,’ Jack said, ‘the North will not be short of private soldiers, but Ezra has just been telling me that the majority of West Point officers who trained in the pre-war army have gone to join the South, which must be a great advantage for them.’

  The Senator nodded. ‘True, but however great their generals—and Robert E. Lee is a great general—or their officers, they cannot match our numbers or our industrial might. They have few railroads, and as fast as they build them we shall destroy them. No, Jack, they cannot win—particularly if the war is a long one.’

  ‘Time will tell,’ Ezra said soberly. ‘It is worth remembering, though, that victory does not always go to the most powerful.’

  ‘The thing I most fear,’ said the Senator, ‘is that, whoever wins, war will inevitably change and harden us.’

  Jack could not but agree with him. There was a ruthless determination beginning to show itself in the North and now that the war had begun it was becoming almost frightening in its intensity. The men pouring into Washington to make their fortunes in the war were hard-headed and single-minded in a way which his brother Alan understood but few others in Britain or Europe could or would.

  Alan had spoken to him of it shortly before he had left for New York. They’d been in Willard’s bar which had been more crowded and even rowdier than on the night in which Alan had shown his true colours.

  ‘They are not aware back home of what lies ahead of us,’ he had said. ‘They don’t understand that the USA is Rome and that we are turning into Athens. The future is here. If I had come to the States twenty years ago, instead of England, this is where I should have been most at home. They are not civilised yet, and neither am I.’

  Jack had laughed at this, looking at his elegant brother, the very picture of an English aristocrat—but the picture lied.

  ‘And I?’ he’d asked, for he intended to settle in the States. ‘Am I civilised?’

  ‘More than I am,’ Alan had said judiciously, ‘but I have no doubt that you can make a good life here. Always provided, of course, that you choose the right wife. Avoid the little Sophie, Jack. She is for bedding, not wedding, and I would not even trust her in bed—unless she were tied down. Now the supposedly plain cousin—she is a different thing altogether. Sophie’s looks won’t last and once gone…’ He’d shrugged. ‘You are old enough to use your common sense.’

  ‘You married a beauty, though,’ Jack had said, remembering the radiant Eleanor who had visited Sydney with Alan twenty years ago.

  ‘But clever—’ Alan had smiled ‘—the best of her family. I hope that it was not only for her looks that I married her.’

  He’d embraced his brother fiercely. ‘Little brother, you are a good man, better than I am, and deserve well of life, but I warn you, beware of Sophie. I don’t like the way in which she looks at you and Marietta when you are together.’

  Jack had watched him go. He loved Alan and his brother Thomas. He thought how sad it was that their passion for living had spread them across the globe so that they rarely met.

  Well, he would be wary of Sophie, but he was sure that Alan was being a little too suspicious of her.

  Much later he was to remember what his brother had said, and to acknowledge that that master of deviousness had recognised another’s possession of it, and that he would have done well to take more heed of his warning.

  While he walked with Marietta beside the Potomac River, Sophie and Alan’s harsh judgement of her were far from his mind. They stopped to admire the Falls and the beautiful scenery surrounding them.

  ‘Truly are they called the Great American,’ he said. ‘For once the name is not a polite fiction.’

  ‘Oh, everything is larger than life with us,’ Marietta said, smiling. She was wearing a pale green cotton dress and a large straw hat and her hair was soft about her face because she knew that Jack liked it that way. ‘European visitors often complain that we are great boasters—but once they see what we are supposedly boasting of and how truly magnificent it is…’ and she left the sentence unfinished.

  Jack did not argue with her: for one thing he was busy admiring the charm of her animated face.

  ‘Everything is magnificent in America,’ he said. ‘The view I have at the moment is particularly fine.’ And, knowing that they were out of sight of Aunt Percival, he leaned forward and, looking deep into Marietta’s beautiful eyes, he kissed her on the lips, oh, so gently.

  ‘You will forgive me, I am sure,’ he murmured, ‘but the temptation was too great for me.’

  He was not lying, and kissing her had only made the temptation worse, particularly since she was looking at him with such great astonished eyes. Could it really be that no man had ever done such a thing before? Was it possible that she had never been kissed? And, if so, how could all the men she had met have been so blind to her beautiful body and fundamental charm? True, her beauty was not so obvious as Sophie’s was, but it was there all the same.

  Still silent, Marietta put her hand to her lips as though to seal his kiss there. So entranced was she, so wonder-struck, that Jack was tempted all over again—and fell. This time he took her in his arms and the kiss he gave her was deeper, more passionate and, more to the point, she returned it, opening her lips a little and putting her arms around his neck. She was already learning the wordless grammar of love.

  Jack said hoarsely, taking his mouth from hers and stroking her soft cheek instead—something which, strangely, excited Marietta nearly as much as his kisses on the lips had done— ‘I shouldn’t be doing this.’

  Marietta, to her infinite shock, heard herself saying, ‘There’s no one about to inform on us.’

  To which he replied, before kissing her again, ‘I know, and Aunt Percival can’t see us, either.’

  ‘Yes,’ she returned, kissing him back with increased ardour, ‘but that doesn’t make it right.’

  ‘True, but I have the oddest feeling that, right or not, you might be enjoying yourself—I know I am.’

  Marietta gave a little gasping laugh. She was, as Jack had correctly guessed, unkissed, a maiden lady of mature years to whom no one had ever offered anything but polite and distant admiration, and that was only of her mind, never of her body. She could not imagine doing…this…with anyone but Jack, and to her growing astonishment she didn’t want him to stop. On the contrary, she wanted him to go on—for if she felt so overwhelmed by the outworks of love, what would arriving at its inner citadel be like? The mere idea made her feel faint.

  So much so that it frightened her and she pulled away from him.

  ‘Oh, Jack
, we really shouldn’t—and in the open, too.’

  He almost forgot himself by telling her Oh, love in the open is always the best, but retained just enough self-restraint to say instead, ‘We really should, you know, but this is neither the time nor the place for us to forget ourselves in…’ He couldn’t think of a polite word so came out with ‘dalliance.’ Where in the world had he ever heard that?

  Marietta thought it amusing, too, for she had put on a prim face to replace the eager soft one which gentle lovemaking had created for her, and murmured sweetly, ‘Dalliance? Jack? Is that what we were doing—and is that what they call it in New South Wales?’

  ‘It’s in some of the old novels,’ he said, with—although he did not know it—his father’s most knowing smile, the one with which he had won Jack’s mother. ‘I believe I came across it in one. We are a little earthier, I fear, in Sydney.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  They were apart now who had recently been so close. The afternoon, Marietta thought, had lost some of its brightness now that they were separate again.

  Did he do this often, and to all the women he met? It was obvious to her that he was as experienced as she was inexperienced. Was she being especially favoured by him, or was she merely one in a procession? When he went to New York, would he promptly forget her and go on to captivate another woman? More to the point, why had he chosen her and not Sophie? Surely she was a more obvious target than Marietta.

  He took her hand while they walked slowly back to Aunt Percival, who opened her eyes when she saw them and said, ‘Oh, you have returned sooner than I expected. I hope that Jack was suitably impressed.’

  ‘Oh, indeed, Miss Percival,’ he told her naughtily, giving her another of his father’s smiles. ‘I was most impressed by everything I saw, as I am sure that Marietta will confirm.’

  If Aunt Percival noticed the becoming blush which overwhelmed Marietta when she seconded Jack’s remark, she said nothing of that. She did, however, hope that Mr Dilhorne might have spent his time with her more usefully than in simply staring at the Falls, grand though they were.