Not Quite a Husband

by Sherry Thomas

  “Just you wait,” said Leo. “My wife never stops talking once she starts.”

  Jeremy choked on his whiskey and coughed. Leo slapped him between the shoulder blades. Bryony was glad she hadn’t started on her tea yet. Or she would have joined Jeremy in the choking.

  My wife.

  “So, Callista, I understand you managed to pull off a fairly substantial confidence trick despite Leo’s vigilance,” said Matthew. “How did you do that?”

  “No, Callista, don’t confess. You know what will happen afterward.” Will imitated firing a gun. “Have you ever seen Leo with a firearm?”

  “More to the point, have you ever seen my wife with a scalpel?” asked Leo. There was just enough menace in his voice to make Bryony feel like the veriest medical assassin.

  Callista had the grace to blush. “My father was in on it. I figured Leo would check any claims I made, so Father stayed home for a week or so and we let it be known that he was not feeling well.”

  “How did you know I’d left Leh?” asked Bryony. She’d forgotten about that part.

  “That was pure accident. Someone I knew turned out to be Mrs. Braeburn’s niece. When she received a letter Mrs. Braeburn wrote her saying that they were departing Leh for the Kalash Valleys with a Mrs. Marsden who was a physician, she came to me and asked if that wasn’t Bryony. I told her to say nothing to Mrs. Braeburn about it.”

  “So you knew she was in the Chitral region and you made me go all the way to Leh first?”

  “Well, if I told you I knew where she was you’d have just told me to cable her myself and leave you alone. And please don’t kill me. Are you glad you have your wife back?”

  “Jeremy, do you still keep a pistol in the library?”

  Leo was standing by Bryony’s chair. She placed her hand on his sleeve. “We are all safe now. And Callista is very sorry.”

  Leo looked at Bryony a long moment. His hand touched hers briefly and he smiled. “There is never a pistol in this house.”

  Bryony was uncomfortable with public displays of intimacy. But she let her hand remain under Leo’s for another two seconds before pulling it back to her lap.

  “Sorry, Leo,” Callista said, shamefaced.

  “Now what I want to know is what happened when you found Bryony, Leo,” said Will. “Did you just say your sister sent me, pack up everything and come with me this moment?”

  “More or less.”

  “And she came away with you?”

  “More or less.” Leo tossed Bryony a mischievous look. “Although there might have been laudanum, drugging, and a midnight abduction involved.”

  “Now that’s a much better story,” said Matthew. “I would pay to read that one.”

  “And for his knavery, Leo lost one of his—more important parts,” said Bryony.

  “No!” Matthew and Will shouted in unison.

  “Bryony!” Callista squeaked.

  “Kidney,” Leo cried. “It was just a kidney. A man can live a perfectly vigorous life with one kidney.”

  “You can call it a kidney if you want,” said Bryony.

  Will hooted. Callista covered her eyes. Leo covered his entire face, his shoulders shaking with mirth. Bryony couldn’t help it—she laughed, laughed so much that she had to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  This was what she’d once imagined marriage to him would be like, this festive normalcy, this sense of warmth and ease and belonging.

  “So what really happened?” asked Jeremy.

  Jeremy had the seriousness and authority of one who’d been groomed since birth for responsibilities. When he asked questions, people answered.

  “Ah, the dreaded what-really-happened question,” said Leo, still smiling. “Tell him, Bryony.”

  Now she knew what it had felt like for him when she asked him to tell the Braeburns why they had to leave right away. But she had not his talent for shaping words into a separate reality. She swallowed. “It was very simple, really. When Leo came, I wanted to go with him. I was—I was never so happy to see anyone in my life.”

  Leo leaned back in his chair, his head tilted. For a moment she thought he would mock her. He’d told such a beautiful—and ultimately true—version of their story to the Braeburns, and all she had to say to his brothers was these two plain lines. And then she noticed the shimmer of tears in his eyes.

  He did not cry. But she almost did. It was a while before she was sufficiently herself again to rejoin the conversation.

  And after that she could not stop smiling.

  She glowed. There was no other word for it, as if the walls around her heart had at last crumpled enough to reveal her hidden capacity for joy, for life. And what a radiant thing it was. Even her silence beamed softly, a mere absence of words rather than the dark void it had so often been.

  They were asked about their ride to Chakdarra and the consequent siege. There was talk of Charlie and Charlie’s motherless children. Callista flirted outrageously with Matthew. And throughout it all, Leo, drunk on hope, watched Bryony.

  With every one of her smiles their past receded a little further; their future became not only more possible, but more secure. Suddenly he could think of such prosaic things as the size of writing desks, the weight of service china, the color of wallpapers and curtains—his head was full of them, the lovely, minute details of a new life together.

  Bryony and Callista stayed for over an hour, until Callista rose and said that they must go home to check on Mrs. Asquith. Bryony came to her feet rather slowly, as if she was having too much fun to wish to leave yet.

  Matthew elbowed Leo. “Leo, why is your wife leaving with her sister?”

  “Because our marriage is a secret, that’s why,” said Leo. He turned to Bryony. “Before you go, may I have a word, Mrs. Marsden?”

  He only meant to give her Toddy’s old letter, but as soon as they were out in the hall she grabbed him by the lapel and kissed him. He crushed her fiercely against himself.

  “When will you ask for your post back?” he whispered in her ear. “I miss the smell of industrial-strength solvents.”

  She laughed softly. “Soon. And when will you have papers read at the mathematical society again? I rather like having my husband called a genius for reasons that are not clear to me.”

  My husband. The words rolled off her tongue, easy and beautiful. He kissed her fervently. “Soon. My brilliance quite overflowed on the way home. I have four notebooks to show for it.”

  “Good. We don’t want people to think I love you for your looks alone.”

  “In that case we should also put you in some rather revealing gowns once in a while, so that people don’t think I married you for your accomplishments alone.”

  She laughed again—she probably had no idea how beautiful she was when she laughed, like the dawn of a new day. Her laughter quieted after a few seconds. There came a long moment of silence. She gazed up into his eyes.

  “I know why you keep referring to me as your wife. But I’m not pregnant, Leo.”

  He hadn’t truly hoped, but still it was not easy to hear. It would be wonderful to have a child together, to commit not just to each other, but to a growing life, a continuation and natural extension of their love.

  “You don’t need to be,” he said. “Children are not essential to my life. Only you are. You have always been. And nothing has changed.”

  Her lashes lowered. “You will make me cry,” she murmured.

  “It’s all right to cry,” he whispered back, “when you get home, that is. Crying is not allowed in the Wyden house: It’s the Marsden rule.”

  Her lips quivered. After a while, she looked up, her eyes still bright with unshed tears. “Did you say you wanted a word with me, sir?”

  He’d forgotten entirely. He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and pressed it into her hands. “For you. Something I promised. And tomorrow morning I’ll call on you: We’ll go to Cambridge.”

  My Dear Lisbeth,

  I love this season i
n the Cotswold. We go for walks every day, Bryony and I. Sometimes Mr. Asquith comes, when I can persuade him to be away from his books and manuscripts during the day. Yesterday—without Mr. Asquith, of course—his daughter and I lay down in a field of buttercups and rolled in that carpet of flowers.

  The most exciting event in the next fortnight is going to be the picnic on dear Bryony’s sixth birthday. She is quite involved and helps me with the lists and the games. There is something so very endearing about that lovely little girl as she writes down in her neat, round hand all the tasks still to be done, in the notebook I gave her—it makes me think how fortunate I am. My cousin Marianne is married to a widower too and moans constantly about his brood of hooligans, tricksters, and ruffians. And here I am, gifted with the most wonderful child in the world.

  Sometimes Mr. Asquith complains about the amount of time I spend with her—he would emerge from his library looking for me and I would have gone off somewhere with her. I tease him that it is because she loves me more and in a way, it is true. Certainly she needs me more. I have scolded Mr. Asquith on not keeping her nearer to him in her motherless years. There is this fear in her, sometimes, and I know she still remembers the long months when she was alone in this house, looked after by only the servants.

  I tell Mr. Asquith that before we know it she will be a beautiful girl of eighteen and some eager fellow will snatch her away from us, whereas I will always be his wife, for the rest of our days. And when I have no more children on whom to dote, does he think he’ll be able to write in peace anymore? No, then it will be he whom I shall drag with me everywhere for company!

  I enclose the recipe for ginger mulled wine that you requested, along with a book of pressed flowers Bryony and I made for you. Do please write me soon and let me know what this spring has been like for you in Derbyshire.

  Love,

  Toddy

  Bryony wept. For sorrow. And pure, startling joy: Toddy had been happy.

  She’d always imagined her father as a distant, neglectful husband. She’d believed Toddy lonely, a vibrant young woman married to a much older man who had little appreciation for her liveliness and spirit. But the letter alluded to a husband who treasured his bride, a Toddy who was indulgently fond of him, and an affectionate, comfortable marriage.

  It was all she ever wanted for Toddy, that her days on earth had been filled with sunshine, and that she had known how much she’d been esteemed and loved.

  When she’d read the letter a dozen times, she decided that it was enough for the night. Slipping the letter back into the envelope, she discovered that there was another sheet of paper inside.

  Dear B.,

  I cabled Lady Griswold from Bombay and asked if she could send the letter she’d once referred to in conversation with me to the Wyden town house. She has kindly granted my request.

  I hope I will be able to give this to you after the funeral. I miss you terribly.

  Love,

  Leo

  She kissed the note. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow, my love.

  The brothers Marsden spent the evening talking. Will had gained a seat in the House of Commons in the last election, bucking the Marsdens’ tradition of support for the Tories by becoming a Liberal MP. He and the more conservative Jeremy argued good-naturedly about the policies of the government in South Africa and on the frontiers of India. Leo and Matthew, neither of whom had much interest in politics, spoke of the recent changes in Paris and London and occasionally heckled Will and Jeremy when the latter two’s debate became bogged down in minutiae.

  “Gentlemen, at least let us have some grandiloquence, if you are going to discuss the fate of nations,” said Matthew.

  “I’m saving my bombast for the House of Commons,” Will quipped. “The Wyden house isn’t big enough for all the hot air I can unleash at a moment’s notice.”

  Leo laughed. Of all the Marsden brothers, Will was the one who took himself the least seriously, who loved ribbing his brothers as much as he loved ribbing himself.

  After that they went to Jeremy’s club. It was while they dined at the club that Michael Robbins’s name came up. Leo had met the young journalist briefly in Nowshera. Robbins, a correspondent for the Pioneer and the Times, had asked Leo some questions on the siege of Chakdarra.

  Will immediately identified the young man as godson to Lady Vera Drake, the wife of his old employer Mr. Stuart Somerset. In the morning, Will telephoned Mr. Somerset to let him know that Leo had encountered Robbins, and Mr. Somerset said that his wife would be extremely pleased if Leo would call on her in person.

  Will, having eloped with Mr. Somerset’s onetime fiancée, could never say no to Mr. Somerset. And Leo could never say no to Will—or Matthew, for that matter. It didn’t matter that he’d been only fourteen when their father threw out Will and Matthew; Leo had been so invested in proving that he was the earl’s son that he’d forgotten, for some time, that he was also Will’s and Matthew’s brother.

  And so it was that the first person on whom Leo paid a call on the first morning of the rest of his life was not Bryony, but Lady Vera, whose residence on 26 Cambury Lane was only a few doors down from his and Bryony’s old house. As his carriage wheeled past the lifeless 41 Cambury Lane, even though he braced himself for it, he still shuddered somewhere inside.

  At 26 Cambury Lane, Lady Vera received him most cordially. She was a lovely woman in her late thirties, attired in a stylish lavender morning gown. She spoke in such marvelously molded syllables, moved with such a delicate grace, and seemed to belong so overwhelmingly in her elegant green-and-white drawing room that it was impossible for Leo to imagine that she’d spent much of her adult life as a lowly cook.

  They exchanged pleasantries. Lady Vera condoled with him on the passing of Mr. Asquith. Leo inquired into her recent stay in the country, where Will and Lizzy and their children had spent a week with the Somersets and their children.

  “Will tells me that the little Marsdens and the little Somersets fight spectacularly,” Leo said.

  Lady Vera chuckled. “I’m afraid that is true. But they make up beautifully too.”

  “And are your children well?”

  “Very well. When they are not fighting spectacularly with the little Marsdens, they fight spectacularly with each other. I’d always thought an elder sister and a younger brother would make a most tender pair. Alas, they are savages, the both of them.”

  She poured tea, and offered Leo possibly the best tea cake he’d ever tasted.

  “I understand you met my godson in Nowshera, Mr. Marsden.”

  “Yes, at the time we met he’d just returned from Tochi Valley. I believe he’d been assigned to cover the punitive expeditions that General Blood would lead to Upper Swat.”

  “That has already happened. I follow his columns in the Times avidly, as you can imagine. He will go with the troops on the punitive expedition against the Mohmands next, that is, if he hasn’t left already.”

  Leo wondered why Lady Vera needed to speak to him when she already had a good idea of her godson’s movements by reading his reportage.

  “But newspaper reporting is always whittled down to only dates and places and action,” said Lady Vera. “It is not much use when I’m primarily interested in the reporter’s frame of mind. Michael is a brilliant young man. I’d hoped that he would attend university. But he was eager to see the world and to leave his mark on it.”

  Will had told Leo that Michael Robbins was the adopted son of Mr. Somerset’s gamekeeper in Yorkshire, but had been educated at Rugby, one of the most prestigious public schools in the country. That knowledge, along with what Leo had observed of the young man, gave him a certain insight into Lady Vera’s unspoken concern.

  “You are afraid his ambition might get the better of him, ma’am?”

  Lady Vera smiled. “I see you are as astute as your brother, Mr. Marsden. Yes, I do worry about it. There are people in this world for whom nothing he ever does will ever overcome the irregularity of hi
s birth. I worry that he should try too hard and that opinions of these hidebound idiots should come to matter too much for him.”

  The way she phrased things, Leo wondered if the opinion of a young lady was somehow involved. He did not ask it. “He is yet young, ma’am, and the world is an exciting place for an ambitious young man. When we met, he was eager to be closer to the action, to report firsthand rather than take accounts from those who had been there. Perhaps when he reaches his middle years, he would look upon his place in the world and wonder whether he’d been given a fair shake, but as of this moment, I’d say he is enjoying spreading his wings and testing his mettle.”

  Lady Vera took small sips of her tea. “You are right. I suppose I can ask for nothing more right now than that he should glory in his youth and the opportunities he’s been given.”

  She had not been truly reassured.

  “Toward the end of our conversation,” said Leo, “Mr. Robbins let slip that he had not been sleeping well. He’d given up his room at the lodging house to a lady traveling by herself, who’d come into Nowshera too tired to stand, when Nowshera was overrun and beds impossible to find. When the lady left, the landlord had given the room to someone else, leaving Mr. Robbins to sleep in rather atrocious places.”

  “Dear me,” said Lady Vera.

  “He didn’t know it, but that lady was Mrs. Marsden. And I, for one, will always be grateful that he helped her when there was absolutely nothing in it for him.”

  Lady Vera set down her tea. She reached forward and took Leo’s hands. “Thank you, Mr. Marsden. Sometimes I forget that beneath Michael’s ambition, there is not a void, but much kindness. Thank you for reminding me.”

  Forty-one Cambury Lane made Bryony shiver. But it wasn’t the air, musty and damp from the lack of occupation, nor was it the empty rooms, echoing with her footsteps. It was the memories, all the unhappiness that seemed embedded in the very walls, the failure of her marriage writ large in the cobwebs that dangled from ceilings and banisters.