* * *
My dearest son,
So you have found the love of your life and are to marry. Congratulations. I am exceedingly happy for you.
I do not doubt the girl who has captured your heart is someone special indeed. You would not settle for less, nor should you.
Shall I tell you about her? She is unique. Beautiful. Accomplished. Clever. These are words that come to mind when I think of her. She is your intellectual equal. She makes you smile for what you believe is for no reason at all. You laugh together. You feel slightly drunk in her presence, and more than a little bit in awe of her, of how you feel, of this new-found situation in which you find yourself, because for the longest time you just did not believe you would ever find someone like her. Above all else, you can be yourself with her, and there are few people in this world that we ever truly trust with our true selves. But you trust her, and thus are totally at your ease. There is no artifice, no pretense, no urge to impress or be impressed. The two of you could sit on a chaise longue all day and not say a word, and yet that is the point, is it not? Words are sometimes unnecessary to convey feelings. Just being with her, being in each other’s company, is enough. You wonder if you will wake up and it will all have been a dream, this feeling, this girl, the future you desperately want to share with her and no other. But it is not a dream, my son, and you will spend the rest of your life living this dream—with her.
How do I know this? Because this is precisely how I feel about your maman, and have felt about her almost since the day we first met. I shall tell you about that day, but first your papa has some words of wisdom about marriage he wishes to share with you. And again it begins with your dearest maman.
You have a mother who is learned and loving, and for whom feelings are everything. Your parents were devoted to one another their entire married lives. And you have a brother who, in spite of his marriage being arranged, is very much in love with his wife, and she with him. I am confident these examples of wedded contentment have surely provided you with all the proof you need that it is possible to fall in love, remain in love, and live a loving and fulfilling life with the right partner by your side.
For that is what a marriage is, my dearest boy, a partnership of love and mutual respect, and it is a commitment for life. I dare to hope that it also extends beyond this mortal body of mine to an eternal life, so that I will once again be with your mother when her time comes, and she will be able to join me.
But a marriage is only successful if both parties are wholeheartedly invested in the union, emotionally and spiritually, and on equal terms. It will not work any other way. To live it half-heartedly would make life intolerable. You would become a burden on each other, and both feel caged. It would be something from which you wished to escape. And why would you not? And husbands can. I have seen this time and again with my fellows. The wife is forsaken, they take a mistress, sometimes they live with one, and do whatever is necessary to remain outside the cage of their marriage. I do not judge them. I cannot. For the longest time, before I met your maman, I was part of such a precarious and hollow existence, and thought little beyond it. But with great age and many years of reflection, I can assure you that as much as I enjoyed those years unfettered, nothing equals a life shared with your soul mate. Nothing matches the life your mother and I shared together, and the life we shared with you and your brother, as a family.
But your papa does not mean to lecture you on marriage or love, merely to offer you some personal reflection. You have made your decision, or you would not have opened this letter…
Or I dare to hope that is the case, and that you are not reading this as an afterthought, an afterword to your own life spent as a sad, cynical old rake who never found love, or more tragically, let the love of your life slip from your grasp because of your pride and vanity, or some such notion you allowed yourself to believe to excuse your regret. My hope is that you found the love of your life many years before I did, so that you will have so many more years together than I was able to share with your dearest maman.
Let me tell you a secret, that is in truth no secret at all. I was at the precipice of spending my life precisely as I have just described, as a sad, cynical old rake, when into my life stepped (or should that be twirled?) your maman. At the time I was not sad, and I did not think myself old. I was, however, most decidedly cynical. Nor did I have any desire to change the way I lived. I was a great libertine who had bedded every willing female who took my fancy; there was good reason I was given the moniker ‘the noble satyr’. As you are now a man and not a boy, and quite possibly have had your fair share of bedroom escapades, I can confide that while I enjoyed these encounters—indeed some of my lovers have become my life-long friends—they provided me with physical gratification only. Any emotional connection was fleeting, or not of a depth to alter my feelings. It was not until I met your maman that I realized that not one of my lovers had truly engaged my heart.
Do you remember me telling you in a previous letter the story about the cupboard where I stored my heart in a jar when I was a boy, and how your maman found this jar? Indulge me while I recall how your maman released my heart from its captivity, only to capture it for herself. There is a point to this, I assure you.
I will always remember the first time I saw your maman. It is as clear to me today as it was almost thirty years ago. I was with a group of friends strolling the gardens of the palace of Versailles. I remember who I was with, my mistress of the moment and our friends, and a number of French nobles, but I do not recall the topic of conversation. I do know that the day was overcast, and there was a hint of rain, so there was talk of returning indoors. And then, as if the clouds had parted and the sun had come out, there she was, your maman, walking straight towards me. I stopped. I stared. I forgot the sentence that was on the tip of my tongue. Time slowed. In my distraction, the heavens could have opened and rain poured down upon me for all I cared, or knew, of my surroundings. Your maman was the most beautiful creature I had ever set eyes on, and, believe me, that is no small boast for I was always surrounded by beautiful women. But with her, there was something, something I could not quite fathom at that moment, but it went beyond mere physical beauty. She was and still is the most beautiful woman I have ever had the pleasure to admire, but there was so much more to her beauty. You see, she also radiated sunshine, and all that was good with the world. In truth, she radiated love, and always has.
Of course, I was so befuddled I did not understand what was happening to me. And for the longest time I was disbelieving, that I, the noble satyr, had been struck down in my thirty-seventh year by Cupid’s arrow. I refused to entertain the notion that I could possibly have fallen in love with a girl, for she was not much more than that. She was only twenty (though she fibbed about her age to me, for she was in truth barely eighteen), and I believed her too young for me. I resisted what my heart was telling me, and more importantly, what your maman knew to be self-evident. Our love was fated. We were meant to be together. That was all that mattered. The opinions of others were unimportant. Any and all objections were void, and this included my great reluctance because I considered myself too old to marry her.
I did my utmost to ignore my heart, using excuse after excuse as to why I should not follow my feelings, and marry your maman. Of course, in the end, she prevailed, and I thank God daily I succumbed!
The point is, my dearest son, no obstacle is insuperable, no excuse plausible, and you should never second-guess yourself when the heart is involved. Believe what that most determined organ is telling you. Rejoice in the feelings you are experiencing, and be confident that all that truly matters is that you are fallen in love, and that you marry the love of your life. It is meant to be.
I give you further proof of fate with the enclosed, a wedding band. It belonged to my mother, who married my father when she was sixteen and he twenty years her senior (the irony of history repeating itself cannot be lost on you either). They married against the wishes
of her family, and his. She a Catholic, he a Protestant. And she married him at great personal cost, for her family disowned her, as did her church. And yet, despite this, they married and remained in love until the day he was cruelly taken from his family after a fall from his horse broke his neck. I told you about this also in an earlier letter, you may recall, so I will not say more on that painful subject. My mother never remarried, and remained faithful to my father’s memory for the next fifteen years, until she was finally reunited with him after her own death from pneumonia.
So it gives me great joy to bequeath you the wedding band that once belonged to my mother, your grandmother, Madeleine-Julie Salvan Hesham, Marchioness of Alston. It is a symbol of my parents’ love and commitment against all the odds. I now pass it to you to present to your bride as your symbol of love and commitment to her, and to one another. I know that she will wear it with pride, and hold it as dear to her heart as did my mother.
I will offer up one final secret, something of which you possibly are now aware, so that it is no secret at all, for surely with this letter, how could it be? Your maman has always known it, as does your brother, who is also a great believer, though he thinks he inherited it from Maman. I believe he received a dose from both of us. I am just as sentimental and as emotional, and as great a believer in fate, as is your dearest maman. I hope, no, I am certain, you are too.
Marry her, Henri-Antoine. With the love of your life by your side you can achieve anything you put your mind to. You will live an extraordinary life, one that is full of happiness and wonder, and contentment. But most importantly of all, it will be a life full of love.
Bring her to meet me. I cannot wait to be introduced.
I love you with all my heart, my dearest son, and wish you a lifetime of joy.
Your most loving papa,
R
22. Sir John Cavendish to Miss Theodora Cavendish
[Written in a feminine hand on the obverse is the sentence: Delivered to me at the Gatehouse Lodge at first light the morning after the incident on the cricket field.]
July 1786
* * *
Dearest Theodora,
I wish to apologize for my appalling behavior of yesterday. What must you think of your soon-to-be-husband to be getting himself into a brawl with his best friend, and in front of everyone. I know what Uncle Roxton and Aunt Deb think. A sad, sorry fellow who deserves to be pulled by the ear, sat in the corner, and given a good tongue-lashing. And that’s exactly what happened. And I deserved every word of what Uncle Roxton threw at me, and while this left me miserable, which was as it should be, I had no defense against Aunt Deb’s disappointment in me. She tried not to tear up, but she did and I saw it, and was made even more wretched.
Aunt Deb is as close to being my mother as it is possible to be. I don’t remember my own mother at all, only Aunt Deb, who tucked me up in bed, read me stories, and soothed my fears that there were no monsters waiting to jump out of my clothes press as soon as the candle was snuffed. It was she who first encouraged my love of music and saw my potential, and was the first to show me how to hold my bow to the strings of my little violin. And do you know, Theodora, when I reflect upon it, I marvel at how she, at the tender age of just seventeen, took me under her wing and treated me as her own chick. I could have been shuffled off to other distant relatives, even sent away to boarding school, but no! She would have none of that and was determined that I should have a mother and a home. And then she married Uncle Roxton when I was nine, and I felt I had both a mother and a father for the first time in my life.
After you, Aunt Deb is the person I love most in this world, and I owe everything that I am to her. And while I spent most of my youth by Harry’s side, it was to Aunt Deb I turned to if I was feeling ordinary, and wanted a motherly hug or some reassurance all was right with the world.
And how do I repay her mothering kindness, and Roxton’s care and attention? By punching and knocking Harry to the ground and making myself a disgrace! That’s how. I’ve never felt a greater fool, or a more ungrateful ass. I have disappointed her, Uncle Roxton, my family, you, my darling dear, and Harry. Lord save me! How has it come to this that I punched my best friend so hard it sent him into a seizure? Most of all, I loathe myself for acting in this manner before you, and almost on the eve of our wedding. And here was I thinking everything was coming along swimmingly.
Thinking about it as I sit here practically roped to Uncle Roxton’s chair, at his desk, to write this handful of apology letters to everyone that matters, I made a startling discovery. Do you know, I think I have loved you since we first met when you were ten. Not in that way, silly. Not then. I first loved you as a cousin, and then as a friend. I remember thinking that you were the bravest girl, indeed the bravest person, I had ever met. Aside from Harry—who deals daily with his affliction, and that is brave in itself, isn’t it?—you shimmying up trees and galloping all over the countryside, fearless and as one with nature and animal, flitting about with your sunny smile and love of life was beyond anything I had seen before in a girl. You took instantly to Nero, and he to you, and you couldn’t stop giving him cuddles and praise, and that’s how you took to me, too, and my viola playing! You never said an unkind word about my wish to compose music, you were always interested and listened to me drone on, and play on and on, as if I were the most accomplished person in the entire kingdom.
You were so different from other girls that I didn’t even think of you as a girl to begin with. Don’t laugh! You know very well what I mean! And for the longest time I thought of you as a friend, though I did wonder even then if we might suit and marry and end our days as a happy couple. And then you kissed me that day under the oak. That was a bit of a wake-up for a fellow like me, who had never kissed a girl, and yet you kissed me. The most awful thing was, it woke me up to the fact you were a girl all right! And then when you told me you were going to marry me, instead of laughing that off (as Harry did when I told him) I was secretly happy you thought as I did. From that day I could think of no one else with whom I would ever wish to spend the rest of my life.
You do know that I love you to the moon and back, Theodora, don’t you? I love you. I love you. I love you. I LOVE YOU.
Had you not kissed me that day, I still think I would have woken up to you soon enough because you are the most beautiful, the most delightful, the most accomplished girl I will ever know, and I love you even more today than I did back then under the oak, and even more than when I asked you to marry me.
I know that our marriage is what everyone wants, and they tell us it is the perfect union of two branches of our family. Everyone approves of it, don’t they? But even if they didn’t approve, and even if we weren’t cousins, I would still want to marry you, and only you.
And I’m not just saying this to get back in your good book after yesterday! So don’t think it, Theodora. I’m telling you this from my heart. I had wanted to keep it for our first night together as husband and wife, but I’m telling you now, in ink, so when we do go up before the parson, you know I am doing so not to unite our families, but because you are the only girl for me, and with whom I want to have babies and spend the rest of my life.
I know I’m a distracted sort, head in the clouds and all that with my viola-playing and music-making and creating, but never forget that while that is a big part of my life, you and only you make my life worth something. I write my music for you. I will be a parliamentarian for you. I will be the best husband and the best father to our children, all because I love you. In truth I would do anything to make you happy.
Can you forgive me yesterday’s aberrant behavior? I will not sleep tonight worrying that you think less of the man you love than you did yesterday. I will hate myself if you think me nothing but a brute and a brawler and a care-for-nobody.
I can’t explain precisely what happened out there on the field, only that Harry said something ungentlemanly to your best friend and it made my blood boil over. Never mind he was angr
y, and he and Miss Crisp were having a heated argument, he should never have said what he said, and so I lashed out, wrongly, but I could not help myself. Again, I have no excuse, but it is done now, and all I can do is move forward and ask everyone’s forgiveness.
I am bursting to marry you, my Theodora, so please, please, please forgive your Sir John his stupidity, and say you will still love me as much as I love you, and that you will become my Lady Cavendish the day after tomorrow.
This letter is sealed with a kiss and a great heap of worries only you can smooth away.
Your ever loving,
Sir John
23. Antonia, Duchess of Kinross, Diary Entry
[An extract, not the entire entry, for that day.
Translated from the French]
July 6, 1786
* * *
Renard, today Henri-Antoine became engaged to be married. Did you, like me, ever think this day would arrive? You would approve of his choice. Lisa is a darling girl and naturally she is very beautiful. She would have to be, would she not, to pique Henri-Antoine’s interest. Ah! But to hold and keep it, and make him want only her, required that she be very special indeed. And she is. She is intelligent, unpretentious, honest, and forthright. Her French tongue it is very good. She reminds me of a swan, unconsciously gliding through life with an innate confidence and grace. She is also devoid of artifice. This and her modesty are the qualities that most impress Julian. Is that not to be expected? Deb is just like this, too. And for a nobleman in his position Henri-Antoine needs a wife who does not flatter him in the least. But best of all Lisa has an inner beauty, a beauty that shines out from within. That is a rare quality for a woman who is beautiful, yes? Something you always said of me. And like you, our son would not have fallen in love with her without it. She also has strength of character and purpose, is full of optimism, loving, and did I tell you she is oh so clever!? Yes, of course I did. You see how happy I am that I repeat myself!
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