The Lonely Wife

by Val Wood

  At the beginning of December Beatrix gave birth to a girl who was as blonde as her brother and named her Alicia Emily, choosing the names herself as Charles suggested she should. She gathered he wasn’t as interested in his latest child as he might have been had the baby been another boy.

  But Beatrix was delighted with her dainty daughter, and when Dora brought Laurie to see her in her cot the toddler put out his arms to embrace her, smacking his lips in an attempt to kiss her.

  ‘They’ll be good friends, ma’am,’ Dora said, lifting Laurie on to Beatrix’s bed so that she could give him a cuddle.

  ‘I hope so, Dora,’ she said. ‘My brother and I were. It’s so important.’ She thought of Charles and his sister Anne and wondered if he ever saw her, for he had never invited her here for any function or a family visit, and although Anne wasn’t a woman she particularly cared for she felt that she was missing out on family life, just as Charles was.

  Charles’s parents didn’t come for the christening. She wondered if they too considered that a granddaughter wasn’t as important as a grandson who would carry on the family name, but she was upset and a little annoyed by what she considered a slight. Her own parents had come and her mother was delighted that her granddaughter had been given her own name as a middle one.

  A year on she suffered an early miscarriage and the doctor warned her to wait a little longer before becoming pregnant again. It was fortunate, she thought, that Charles spent so little time at home, having lost the limited interest he had had in the fortunes of the farm or the estate, except for looking at the balance sheets. He came mostly by train, leaving his smart carriage at home for use on the London streets rather than the rural roads of East Yorkshire. The clarence when it came was easily big enough for her and a maid and the children, surprisingly comfortable and well sprung in spite of being old, and could be pulled by one horse.

  A youngster just out of school was taken on as general lad and Aaron was given the role of full-time carriage driver. He wore a heavier cape and a top hat set at a jaunty angle as he drove the spry young horse; the pony was put out to grass until the children should be big enough to be put on his back and amble gently round the paddock.

  Wheat prices had risen steadily and the farm was in profit; throughout the country, oats and barley continued to be grown for the English market and there was always work for the agricultural labourer. Beatrix paid their regular local workers well above the average received by the itinerants who appeared for every haymaking or harvesting.

  The Crimean War had begun and she was pleased to think that her brother Thomas was well out of that situation. Her parents had received a letter from him to say that he and his wife Maeve had arrived in Canada; they had bought a plot of land where they were raising buffalo or bison as they called them, which out in the wild were rapidly disappearing.

  Beatrix felt fit and healthy and fulfilled. Her children were thriving, the estate was prospering and she had a good and easy friendship with Rosetta Stokes. Sophia and Eleanor came to visit regularly and both young women had become engaged to be married.

  She caught the train to London on a few occasions to visit her parents, leaving the two children in the care of the nursery maid, Dora and Mrs Gordon, and met Sophia and Eleanor for tea and shopping just as they had when they were young and carefree.

  She always told Charles when she was coming to the city and he called for her at her parents’ home and took her out to lunch or dinner. Never did he ask her to his London house, and her suspicions that he had a mistress increased, for he was a lustful man who would not have endured a monastic life for long, and it seemed to her that they were living entirely separate lives.

  As she travelled home in the ladies only carriage she mused that she had more lively conversations with Edward and even with Hallam than she ever did with Charles, who on his infrequent visits to Yorkshire would bed her and depart the next morning, leaving her feeling rather soiled, for there were no words of love or affection.

  On one of these occasions she became pregnant again; she wrote to tell him, but it seemed he felt no urgency to come and it was two weeks before he arrived. Laurie and Alicia hardly knew who he was and were shy of him; he looked over the estate and remarked that it seemed to be running satisfactorily, and left again for London on urgent business.

  It was a month after Laurie’s fourth birthday when Beatrix gave birth to another son. Will Charles be pleased that it’s a boy, she wondered, or won’t he care? Charles arrived to see them two days later, telling her he had been tied up with business deals. He inspected his second son, who was as blond as his brother Laurie and his sister Alicia, and when she suggested the names Ambrose Neville after her father and Charles’s great uncle, and as Neville was Charles’s middle name, he said, ‘Yes, if you wish. Have you enough children now?’ as if that were her main role in life.

  I would like to have another child, she thought, a girl as sweet as Alicia, but I would like the conception to be consummated in love and affection rather than carnal lust.

  Charles sat on the end of her bed and gazed into the cot where the babe lay sleeping. ‘How old is Laurence now?’ he asked. ‘Five, is it?’

  ‘Four,’ she murmured, her face set, wondering how he could forget the date of such an important event and his main reason for marriage. He had achieved his goal and ensured his inheritance, but hadn’t in the least longed for any other children. He never played with them or appeared to take any interest in their welfare; she had sometimes caught Laurie’s questioning expression when Charles arrived, as if he were wondering who he was and why he had come.

  ‘Mm,’ Charles murmured. ‘Another year then before I put his name down for my old school.’

  She pulled herself up on her pillow. ‘What? No! He’s far too young to think of school. I’ll arrange a tutor when he’s ready. He knows his numbers up to twenty already, and some of the alphabet …’ She was horrified.

  He seemed amused. ‘I don’t mean to send him to school! I meant only to put his name down. The places get filled up very quickly. Of course it will help that I was there—’

  ‘But you hated it,’ she said. ‘You have told me so several times.’

  ‘I did, but it didn’t do me any harm, did it? He’ll start when he’s seven.’

  ‘He will not!’ she exploded. ‘He can have a tutor first and then go to Pocklington or York as a weekly boarder. I will not have him going to London where I’ll never see him except in the holidays.’

  He leaned across to her and with his finger and thumb pinched her chin, none too gently. ‘Take care, Beatrix. You have just had a child; don’t get into a state.’

  But she was already in a state; she felt her heart racing and her head throbbing.

  ‘We’ll talk of it at some other time,’ he said soothingly as the door opened and the nurse looked in, alerted by her raised voice. Assuming that a family quarrel was taking place, she left quickly as Charles stood up to leave.

  ‘Take care, Beatrix,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t forget that the children of a marriage belong to the father, not the mother. It is the father who makes the rules.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘Which isn’t true, of course,’ she said to Rosetta when she called to see her. ‘At least, according to your mother,’ she added anxiously. ‘It’s only after the children turn seven.’

  ‘I don’t know much about it, to be candid,’ Rosie said. ‘Mother rants on about many issues, but I understand it’s called the Custody of Infants Act or something, which was brought in after Caroline Norton’s case. Permission to petition the courts for custody of the children by the mother. But why are you worrying? It surely isn’t likely to happen. Why would your husband do that? He couldn’t bring the children up himself, and he wouldn’t want to.’

  But he might do out of spite, Beatrix thought after Rosie had left. He doesn’t like resistance. If I don’t agree about schooling when Laurie reaches seven, then he might just take him, no matter what
I think. He won’t be bothered about Alicia, but maybe Ambrose when he reaches the same age.

  She looked down at the sleeping infant. Am I becoming obsessed? It’s a long time before then and I know I’m being unreasonable, but even the thought of it is making me anxious and I feel ill with the worry. What if he asks his mistress to take care of them? Men can have mistresses and nothing is thought of it, yet if a woman takes a lover her husband can divorce her, leaving her destitute.

  Dora spoke to Mrs Gordon and suggested that Mrs Dawley needed to see the doctor. ‘She’s not eating,’ she whispered, ‘and she’s spending too much time in bed, which is not like her; she’s generally full of energy. Do you think we should ask him to call?’

  ‘I do,’ the housekeeper agreed. ‘Although her parents are coming soon and she might perk up then; it’s always a happy time.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Dora said, ‘but we want her well before then. I’d like to ask him – he will at least be able to reassure us that she isn’t ill.’

  The doctor came as if on a routine visit, listened to Beatrix’s heartbeat and checked her pulse. ‘You’re a very fit young woman, Mrs Dawley, but you seem a little lethargic. Nothing bothering you, is there? You’re not worrying over the baby?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ she murmured. ‘But I have felt very tired since the birth.’

  ‘That is to be expected, so you must eat well and build up your strength,’ he said kindly, having been told by Dora that her mistress seemed to have lost her appetite. ‘Giving birth is a natural process but you must take care of your own health as well as the infant’s. Sometimes,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘mothers can feel rather weepy after childbirth, which is not unusual. It is an emotional time.’

  He gathered up his instruments and put them in his leather bag. ‘A tot of brandy in warm milk wouldn’t go amiss to help you sleep at night and won’t hurt the child in the least. It is most unusual for a woman of your background to feed the baby herself, and it can take the strength from you. So if the child is to thrive you must look after your own health, and if it proves too much for you then perhaps you might hire a wet nurse.’

  He stood up to leave. ‘Now, I suggest you get up and dressed, have a light lunch and take a short walk in your garden. It is a bright sunny day, but wrap up so you don’t take a chill; and perhaps take your other children with you. I’m sure they are missing their mother’s company.’ He gave a short bow. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Dawley. I will call to see you again in a week or two.’

  She felt that she had been given a kindly and well-intentioned reprimand, which made her rather cross, but she rang the bell for Dora to bring her a skirt and jacket, grumbling beneath her breath that she hardly ever indulged herself and after all she had just given birth and why shouldn’t she stay in bed sometimes.

  ‘Of course you must rest, ma’am,’ Dora agreed with her when she voiced her complaint. ‘But your parents are coming and Cook needs to know your plans and Mrs Gordon will want to know—’

  ‘I know, I know!’ Beatrix interrupted, pulling on her skirt, and Dora stepped forward to fasten the buttons. ‘And don’t think I don’t know who sent for Dr Brewer, because I do! He wouldn’t have come round just on the off chance that I needed him.’

  ‘He might have done, ma’am,’ Dora said, ‘but we had noticed that you were not as well as you were with Miss Alicia, so we were only taking precautions.’

  Beatrix put her head down and took a deep breath, and then patted Dora’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, Dora. You did perfectly right. I’m just feeling a little weepy, that’s all. It will pass.’ Or I hope it will, she pondered. I must keep strong for the sake of my children. Perhaps I am wrong about Charles. I must make a fuss of him next time he comes, interest him in family affairs and the events that are taking place on the estate. Perhaps we should invite neighbours here for supper. Yes, that’s what we’ll do, as soon as I’m feeling well again. I’ll ask Mr and Mrs Stokes and Rosetta, and those nice people from Hessle who invited me to their house.

  She had been meeting more and more people and invitations had come regularly until it had become known that she was expecting another child; no doubt they would begin again once autumn was over, for most of the people she knew were either farmers or estate owners and they were coming up to a busy time of year.

  But there again, she thought, the last time they were invited to supper with neighbours and Charles agreed to attend, it was mainly these same farmers and estate owners and their wives who were present. Some of the men, much older than her or Charles, had congratulated Charles on marrying a young woman who, they had heard, had a natural talent for understanding farming practices; incredible, said one who had quaffed a great deal of port, in a woman not born to it as their wives were.

  Charles had been annoyed; he was at a loss to talk to these countrymen until the conversation turned to American methods and the prices the farmers there were commanding for their grain. As commercial prices and financial markets, if not livestock ones, were within his understanding he had turned the discussion to figures, stocks and shares until they were listening to his every word.

  Mrs Gordon tapped on the door and Dora opened it.

  ‘Begging your pardon, Mrs Dawley,’ the housekeeper said, ‘but Mr Newby and Mr Hallam are here, enquiring when you might be available for a discussion.’

  ‘I’m coming down now, Mrs Gordon. Is it warm enough to have a cup of tea outside?’

  ‘It is, ma’am, but I’ll ask the maid to put a blanket on a chair for you. Shall I offer the men a sandwich or a warm scone? Cook has just taken some from the oven.’

  Beatrix smiled at the thought, a small rush of happiness spreading through her. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘That would be lovely.’

  Through her window she saw the two men going down the steps on to the terrace and pulling three chairs away from the tables, and then a maid coming out with a blanket which she laid over the back of one of them. I don’t know what’s the matter with me, she pondered. I am so very lucky.

  She walked slowly downstairs, holding on to the banister. I shall feel better for being up and about; I’ve stayed far too long in my room. What was it Thomas used to call it – cabin fever! She took another deep breath. She missed her brother. He had often been out of touch when he was in the army, but now he seemed to have disappeared from her life entirely.

  A young maid appeared from the kitchen stairs to open the front door for her; she was carrying a cushion. She dipped her knee. ‘Afternoon, ma’am. I’m Kitty. I onny started a week ago.’ She was dressed very neatly in a white apron and cap over a navy dress with dark stockings. Mrs Gordon was very particular about choosing the right staff and had permission to select and employ as she thought fit.

  ‘I hope you’ll enjoy working here, Kitty,’ Beatrix said. The girl thanked her and dipped her knee again as Beatrix passed her and went slowly down the steps, then darted past her as she reached the terrace and placed the cushion on the blanketed chair before turning and going back to the house. The two men both came forward and Edward took Beatrix’s hand to lead her to the chair, removing the blanket from the back of it and carefully covering her knees as she sat.

  ‘Mrs Dawley,’ he said. ‘We didn’t realize this was your first outing or we wouldn’t have disturbed you.’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Mr Newby,’ she said, and nodded towards Hallam. ‘There had to be a first time. I’m perfectly well, just a little unsteady on my feet because of being so lazy in bed when I should have been up and about.’

  ‘It’s good to see you again, ma’am,’ Hallam said, ‘and congratulations on the arrival of your new son.’

  ‘Charles will be very pleased,’ Edward said quietly. ‘To have two sons.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. He’s delighted, naturally.’

  Kitty brought out a tray bearing a teapot and a milk jug, a cup and saucer for Beatrix and two larger mugs for the men, and another maid followed with sandwiches, scones and a dish of butter.

 
‘We didn’t expect this, ma’am,’ Hallam said, as if embarrassed.

  Beatrix laughed. ‘I rather think that it might be to ensure that I stay outside in the fresh air for a short time. My housekeeper sometimes forgets that I am mistress here.’ She poured the tea. ‘Please help yourselves to food; I realize you must get back to work, and I don’t want to hold you up, but tell me what I can help you with.’

  It was nothing very much and she wondered why they had come at all when the matter in question, that of sharing the work of the upcoming harvest between the Newby land and hers, had always been done that way without the need for any discussion.

  Hallam ate a sandwich and drank his mug of tea, confirmed what they were to do during harvest, and then took his leave. It wouldn’t do, Beatrix understood, to linger in front of his employer when there was work to be done. But Edward sat on opposite her and they discussed various matters; would the good weather hold, would Charles be here for the harvest, and would they be having a summer party again, to which she said a firm no.

  ‘I doubt that anyone would come if Charles asked the same people as last time,’ she said. ‘It would have been quite funny if Charles hadn’t been so annoyed.’ She smiled. ‘Seeing everyone fleeing from a cloud of thrips! Do they bite?’

  ‘Mmm! Possibly. I don’t know. I’ve never been bitten. Been stung by wasps and bees and once by a hornet, which I wouldn’t want to repeat, neither the sting itself, nor the words I came out with. But never by thrips.’