I was pleased to hear you had gone shopping with Mrs. Marden. She has exquisite taste from all I've witnessed. She is probably also right that there are few illiterate adults around the village.
Is your father still planning to come for Christmas? Some will come home for the holiday but there is too much work for me to get away. I hope you will understand.
Yours, etc. Greywell
Much to Elspeth's surprise, her father did come for Christmas. He arrived the week before, laden with all the paraphernalia for hunting. The staff in the stables were delighted by his interest, and by the two fine hunters he brought with him. Emily Marden's husband, John, willingly provided an introduction for him to the local meet, and agreed to accompany him to Leicester once for a meeting with the Quorn under the famous Assheton-Smith. On the day they were gone, only two days before Christmas, Emily Marden came to Ashfield for a visit.
"I don't begrudge him his hunting,” she began, nervously folding her hands over the huge mound of her stomach, “but the baby is due any day now, and I should so dislike his being away when my pains begin."
It was Emily's first child, and Elspeth wondered if Caroline's death in childbirth was weighing on her mind. “You can send for me the moment you feel the slightest discomfort,” she assured her guest. “should it come at a time Mr. Marden is from home. Or even if you'd just like the company. I've sat with several women, you know. Are you frightened of the pain?"
"A little. My mother said it's all worth it in the end, and that you start to forget it after a while.” She gazed fondly down at where Andrew lay gurgling and kicking his legs on a blanket spread on the floor. “I suppose most of all I'm simply impatient. I want it over with and a baby of my own to show for it."
"It's a great pity there's so much pain associated with having a baby,” Elspeth mused. “And the men get off with so little of it."
Emily laughed. “So far as I can tell, they don't get any of it at all."
"Not at the birth, certainly. I meant at the conception."
Her companion regarded her curiously. “Why should they feel any pain at the conception? They don't even know it's happened, and it's not their bodies it happens to."
Confused, Elspeth tried to explain. “Well, I meant when men and women were ... intimate. That pain."
"Pain?” Emily's brow wrinkled in a frown, and then cleared. “Oh, you mean the first time for a woman. But that's such a brief thing, hardly even noticeable. And it doesn't cause the man any pain, surely. I rather think they like proving how masculine they are.” And she blushed with the temerity of speaking so frankly.
Elspeth wished she would speak a little more frankly. What was it Mrs. Marden was actually saying? That there was no pain in that ludicrous configuration human mating consisted of? Impossible! She herself had heard the groans and cries of pain. It had nagged at her, of course, that if there was really so much pain, why did people indulge in it so freely? Her father, for instance, had never shown any other evidence of wantonly causing himself pain. If anything, he was a consummate hedonist. On the other hand, he would thoroughly enjoy proving his masculinity, even at the cost of a little (or a lot?) of pain.
"Do you...” Elspeth began, and thought better of it. “My mother died when I was only fifteen,” she tried again.
"I'm so sorry,” Emily murmured, wondering at the abrupt change of subject.
"Yes, well, she didn't ... I wasn't ... Greywell agreed...” There was no way she could put it without sounding hopelessly naive. She, a married woman. What would Mrs. Marden think of her? Already she was regarding Elspeth with a slightly puzzled lift of her brows. Elspeth decided it was easier to give up on the subject. With a forced cheerfulness she said, “It's not every woman who can have a child to raise the day she's married, is it? Andrew is such a dear."
Emily wondered if Lady Greywell's mind had wandered a little during this conversation, since she hadn't been able to keep track of its direction, and she was usually very good at that. With her husband she needed to be. “Yes, you're very fortunate. And I do admire the way you've taken hold here. Andrew's health has so vastly improved, and you are so very fond of him. Poor Caroline! But she would be pleased to know her son has someone like you to care for him."
"I'm not at all like her, am I?"
"Like Caroline? Good gracious, no!” Afraid this might sound rude, Emily hastened to say, “She was a very small, ethereal-looking woman. She had the most beautiful long blond hair with wide green eyes and the merriest dimples. Everything was a lark for her. I don't think she took anything seriously, which was what made her so much fun to be with. I swear she could wrap any man around her little finger. Greywell was besotted.” Emily clapped a hand over her mouth and lowered her eyes. “I'm sorry! My tongue runs away with me sometimes."
"There's nothing to be sorry about,” Elspeth assured her, but feeling the tiniest bit disturbed. “We have an understanding, my husband and I. He needed someone to care for his son and manage things for him here, and I ... well, I wanted to get away from Lyndhurst. It was the best offer I was likely to receive."
"I cannot believe that!” Emily declared, loyal already to this strange woman. “Not that Greywell isn't a splendid match, but there must have been all sorts of men who took an interest in a woman of your merits."
"Men aren't particularly interested in merits."
Emily considered this for a moment, and sighed. “You may be right. Most of them are interested in the beauties that everyone else acknowledges. My cousin is going to London in the spring for her first season. Lord, she'd rank as a diamond of the first water, if my aunt could afford to outfit her properly. She's very like Caroline in looks, actually, but with a meager wardrobe. I'll bet she won't have half the attention Caroline got. Not that she hasn't any other merits! She's quite a charming girl."
"Would she be willing to accept Caroline's clothes?” Elspeth asked abruptly. “They're just sitting in the closets in her room, of no use to absolutely anyone. I don't think Greywell would mind, you know. I doubt if he's given any thought to disposing of them, but they really should be used before they're entirely out of fashion. Yes, that's exactly what should be done with them, they should be given to your cousin so she will have a proper introduction to London."
"Oh, I don't think you should—"
"Nonsense. Greywell has left me in charge of Ashfield. It would only be hurtful to him to come back and face all her clothes again. I shan't do anything with her little knickknacks, of course, except perhaps box them away for her son one day, or for Greywell himself if he's sentimental. Certainly there will be things of hers he'll wish to keep. That would be understandable, but not her clothes, my dear ma'am. Her clothes should find some good use."
Emily would not deny her cousin the opportunity to have the elaborate and extensive wardrobe of which she knew Caroline to have been possessed. With some misgivings, she agreed.
In her next letter to Greywell, Elspeth wrote, in part:
I have sent Caroline's clothes to Emily Marden's cousin, who makes her come-out in London in the spring, and whose family is not able to afford a proper wardrobe. I was sure you wouldn't mind, as this way they will have some benefits, which I'm sure Caroline would have wished. The rest of her belongings I have had boxed and put in the attics for you to go through when you are of a disposition to do so.
This letter Greywell tore into shreds after his first reading, thus denying himself the chance to reread the passages which concerned Andrew's continued growth and improvement. He did not deign to comment on the matter of his dead wife's clothing in a subsequent letter; in fact, he considered never writing to Elspeth again.
* * * *
Sir Edward did not depart from Ashfield when the Christmas season passed. The prolonging of his visit gave Elspeth some concern, since she didn't want to suddenly find herself with a batch of illegitimate children in her new neighborhood. That would have been absolutely too much to bear!
"Wonderful fox-hunting here,”
he told her daily. And he did indeed go out almost every day with the hunt. Elspeth was aware that no women rode with the local group, which was encouraging in its way. But there were the evenings.
After dinner he would announce, “Well, I'm for Coventry,” and, though Coventry was indeed close enough for him to easily reach for an evening's entertainment, Elspeth had noticed, from an upstairs window, that he did not ride his horse in the direction of the town, but toward the village in exactly the opposite direction.
There was the excitement of Emily Marden's confinement of a daughter to distract her. And the almost daily visits of the queer Abigail Waltham. For a while, after Greywell's departure, the old woman had stayed away from her, as though miffed she hadn't turned out to be the right woman. But recently she had begun coming for these strange visits, where she appeared in the house without arriving at the front door, and tracked Elspeth down wherever she might be in Ashfield, whether in the nursery or her own chamber or the Queen's Closet or one of the drawing rooms.
Abigail was perhaps the most bizarre person Elspeth had ever met. And it wasn't just the odd way she dressed; in fact, that seemed to have improved somewhat lately. What was so absurd was that the moment she entered a room she would be talking, just as though they were in the middle of a conversation. Yet all the while Elspeth sensed something sly about her, something withheld from these discussions that apparently went on in her head, with or without Elspeth's compliance.
"Yes, I know just what you mean,” she was saying one day as she entered. “There are entirely too many people who take foxes for granted. Whereas we all know sometimes a concerted effort must be made to keep enough of them alive for there to be sufficient sport each winter. I for one will put up with the destruction they cause, for the sake of a little sport, but there are those who would exterminate them like rats."
The old woman had found her in the nursery this time, hanging another of the little cloth animals she'd just finished making. Andrew was cooing and wriggling his little body about excitedly. Elspeth never knew exactly what to say to Mrs. Waltham at times like these, so she murmured something unintelligible, tagging on a “Good day, ma'am."
"It's going to snow again,” Abigail replied. “If there's not a hard freeze it won't keep them from the hunt, fortunately. My husband rode with them until two days before he died."
"Some gentlemen are certainly avid about their hunting."
"I wouldn't have it any other way. Wonderful sport, hunting. Much less violent than this pugilistic stuff, and a great deal more enterprising than the cockfights."
"Mrs. Waltham, would you like to hold the baby?” she asked, hoping to distract her visitor's attention from such gruesome subjects.
"Hold him?” Abigail peered nearsightedly at the chortling Andrew. “Why, yes, I'd like that very much. It's been years since I've held a baby.” She was very careful as she took him in her arms, and she smiled down at him, but a tear crept down her cheek. “We never had children, Burt and I. Not for want of trying. Sometimes I thought it was how much fun we had trying made it so we didn't have them. But that was a lot of puritanical nonsense. There's no harm in enjoying yourself. I don't believe we were put here to walk around in sackcloth and ashes. That makes no sense at all. There are problems enough without making them for yourself."
"You don't think there are certain ... sacrifices expected of us?"
"Bah! People who go around making sacrifices are martyrs, and not of the least use to anyone else. It's not what you give up but what you give that's important. And it's not the people who go around proclaiming their piety who are the ones we should admire, but the ones who quietly live their lives in accordance with their principles. Charity begins at home.” She eyed Elspeth fiercely. “There are some who'd try to push their charity on folks who don't want it or need it. That's the worst kind."
Elspeth could feel the flush rise to her cheeks. She was sure someone had told Mrs. Waltham about her plans to teach reading to the illiterate adults in the neighborhood. “Some projects are designed to help the needy help themselves."
"When the ‘needy’ want help, they'll ask for it. If you try to push things down their throats, they'll just resent you."
This was a thing Elspeth had never mastered, the ability to know when something was being asked for and when she was thrusting it on someone. She had certainly encountered the phenomenon of being resented for her efforts often enough. “It's just that one doesn't want there to be suffering,” she said lamely.
Abigail wiggled a finger at her sagely. “A body's dignity is just as important as his belly being full. Don't forget that."
"No, of course not,” Elspeth replied, though she really hadn't given it much thought.
The baby was quiet in Abigail's arms, staring at her wizened face. She studied him for a long while before proclaiming, “He's going to look like Greywell. That's all to the good, you know. If he looked like Caroline, he would only be a reminder of her loss. And this way he might even be taken for your own child, since your coloring isn't so different from Greywell's, and you have that sharp chin, too."
"I don't want him to be taken for my child,” Elspeth protested. “He should grow up knowing who his mother was. That's his birthright."
"Yes, yes. Of course he should know who his mother was.” Abigail impatiently handed Andrew back to Elspeth. “But you won't have to be always explaining to other people that he isn't your child because they'll assume he is."
There seemed no point in arguing with her. Elspeth settled the baby back in his crib before turning to her guest. “Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Greywell has a splendid brandy."
It was only one o'clock, but Elspeth refrained from mentioning the early hour. Mrs. Waltham was an eccentric, and one treated her as such. If she wanted brandy at one o'clock in the afternoon, Elspeth would not deny her. Visions of this neighbor sitting home all day drinking endless glasses of brandy rose in Elspeth's mind, but she sternly forced herself to make no well-intentioned remark on the dangers of imbibing. They seated themselves in the North Drawing Room, Elspeth with her fragile cup of tea, Abigail with her hefty dollop of brandy, and contemplated each other.
"Your father's quite the sporting fellow, isn't he?” Abigail asked, that strange sly look in her eyes again.
"He's especially fond of hunting."
"Aye, and more than the fox."
The tea slopped onto Elspeth's saucer. “What ... what do you mean by that?"
"A vigorous man he is, for his age. He told me you used to raise quite a fuss about his pursuit of the ladies ... back in Buckinghamshire."
"When did he tell you that?"
"The other day,” Abigail said, most unsatisfactorily. “You have to expect a man of his energy to still be interested in the ladies."
"Not when he leaves a string of children behind him."
"Well, he's a bit careless, I dare say, but some men are just like that. They lose their will to keep to the straight path when they lose their wives. He was never a rake when your mama was alive."
Elspeth set down her teacup; her hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady. “Did he tell you that, too?"
"Certainly. We have no secrets between us."
The conversation had taken so disorienting a turn that Elspeth felt too confused to question, and too alarmed to comment on it. When had Sir Edward and Mrs. Waltham become so intimate? Even the word “intimate” made her shiver.
Abigail took a large sip of the dwindling brandy. “There are women who have the same sort of vigor as Sir Edward,” she said, meditative now, her eyes closed. “Women who've known the pleasures of the body."
Oh, my God, Elspeth thought.
"Some women think of that sort of thing as their duty, and others think of it as their pleasure. It's a great pity when a woman can't appreciate her own body, or a man's. She misses the delights she was meant to have. It's as much a sin to deny yourself that pleasure as to commit any other sin of omission. I'm ver
y impatient with women who make a burden of what should be a joy."
"How can it be a joy when it's so painful?” Elspeth blurted.
"Painful? Nonsense!” She narrowed her eyes at her companion. “An itch is only painful if you don't have the relief of scratching it. Hmm, it is an exquisite sort of agony, like eating some spicy dish that burns your mouth but tastes so delicious you wouldn't forgo the delight of having it. Or the satisfaction afterward. And the closeness it brings with a man! There's nothing to compare with that. All your life you could go along trying to persuade yourself you can manage inside your own head, with the use of your own body, but why should you when you can have the comfort of sharing your joys and sorrows with someone else? It's more than just a physical act—if you want it to be more.
"But it's so ... undignified."
Abigail gave a croak of laughter. “No, my dear, it's beautiful. Two human beings as God created them, taking a little warmth and comfort from one another, leaving each other with a few minutes of joy to ease them over the rougher times, the lonely times. What's so frightening about a naked body? Even my old body isn't so ‘undignified’ as you may think. There are those who can still appreciate it,” she added a little huffily.
Elspeth wrote to Greywell: I have the most horrid suspicion my father is “spending time” with Mrs. Waltham. To which he wrote back: At least Abigail's too old to bear children.
Chapter Nine
Eventually Sir Edward left, but not until the middle of February. At parting he enjoined his daughter to have a care for Mrs. Waltham. “She's a dear woman,” he said as he climbed into his traveling carriage. “Odd, of course, but I for one like her that way. It's the eccentric ones who add a little spice to life. Nothing is as engrossing as unpredictability. You remember that, Elspeth. A predictable woman is deadly boring, unless you happen to be devoted to her, of course. Your mama had a streak of unpredictability about her, you know. Now I don't see that in you so much. Except the queen cake. Yes, that was definitely unpredictable."
Lord Greywell's Dilemma Page 13