A Woman's Estate (36 page)

“Do you have any idea—” Arthur began, then stopped because
he was not sure he wanted his mother prying gently at Bertram’s secrets.

But Violet was already shaking her head. “No, and I do not
think we should try to find out,” she said. “When Bertram has worked things
out—or come to a point where he knows he
cannot
work them out—he will
tell one of us. He is a very private sort of person, Arthur, but he does love
you—and me, a little, I think. If he needs help, he will come to you or me. If
he does not need it, he will be angry and embarrassed if we intrude.”

Arthur nodded agreement, a good deal soothed by his mother’s
confidence in Bertram. She was a keen judge of character and knew Bertram as
well and as long as he did. Again he told himself he was a fool to doubt a man
who had proved himself honest and loyal time and time again. Relieved, Arthur
yawned and stretched and rose from his chair saying that he would take himself
off to bed, as he had a full day to look forward to on the morrow.

This was true enough, as a session of Parliament was to open
in a few weeks, and there were drafts of bills to be read and commented upon
and several articles he had been asked to write for other bills in preparation.
But none of the business in hand was really urgent. Bertram had sent anything
that needed immediate attention to Scotland by express. So, after Arthur had
answered the few important letters that had arrived while he was on the road,
his mind began to wander.

First Bertram sighed in exasperation, then he laughed and
said, “Go. You are doing me no good here. Just be sure to tell Abigail that you
are allowing the government of England to fall to pieces while you are idling
away your time in her company.”

Arthur smiled dutifully and then said, “I should have told
you before. I have asked her to marry me, and she has agreed.”

“Oh, thank God!” Bertram exclaimed fervently. “The happy
event cannot take place too soon. Perhaps once you are married I will be able
to hold your attention for more than five minutes at a time.”

There was such obvious pleasure under Bertram’s teasing that
Arthur had to admit that his mother was right and he had been mistaken in
suspecting that Bertram was in love with Abigail. In one sense that was
delightful, for he would no longer have to bite his tongue each time he felt
like talking to Bertram about his loved one—either to damn her for her
intransigency or to become lyrical about her. But if a suppressed desire for
Abigail had not been Bertram’s secret… And then Arthur really felt like a fool.
The woman might not have been Abigail, but if there was a girl Bertram wanted
to marry and she was out of reach, Arthur’s courtship might still have
generated a strain in him.

Suppressing a strong desire to urge Bertram to tell him who
the girl was and promise to arrange everything—which might well be more than he
could perform—Arthur looked down his nose in his best nuisance-quenching manner
and said, “I have a very good memory. It seems to me that the last time I was
in this office you drove me out with complaints that I was intruding on your
territory.” Then abruptly changing his tone and expression to one of deep
injury, he added dramatically, “I am doing my best to please you, but nothing—”

“Go,” Bertram ordered, struggling not to laugh and flicking
his handkerchief at Arthur as if he were a fly, but as Arthur punched him
gently and affectionately on the shoulder and pushed back his chair, Bertram
said, “No, wait. I must find our copy of Lydden’s will, and I think instead of
annoying Abigail, who must be very busy getting the children ready to leave for
school, you had better ride over and show it to Roger. Our solicitor will have
to work out any complications with Deedes, but Roger is the one to pick out any
point on which suit could be brought to get rid of you as executor and
trustee.”

“You are quite right.” Arthur’s lips thinned. “It might not
occur to Deedes that particular care is needed to prevent Eustace from
instituting suit since there is no apparent profit to be made from the
appointment, but that is because Deedes is not sporting mad. Eustace could make
a very good thing out of the trusteeship. He wouldn’t have to pay for another
horse or gun until Victor was of age. No one could
prove
they weren’t
bought for Victor.”

Bertram twiddled his handkerchief and picked at his sleeve
and coat, removing infinitesimal—or imaginary—pieces of fluff. Arthur watched
him and put a curb on his impatience. He was aware of Bertram’s sensitivity
with regard to the “honor” of his family and realized that a battle was raging
in his friend between the need to tell Arthur something that might be important
and the need to conceal the unpleasant fact because it would blacken a Lydden.
As Arthur expected it would, Bertram’s sense of loyalty to him triumphed.

“He’s a reckless devil too,” Bertram said with obvious
reluctance.

“Reckless?” Arthur repeated, really surprised. “He’s a damn
good horseman and a crack shot, but I never thought of him as reckless. In
fact, I’ve always thought of him as rather tame.”

“I didn’t mean that Eustace was reckless about his precious
skin,” Bertram remarked. “But he’s reckless enough to pay his debts and other
bills out of the estate and take the chance that Victor wouldn’t prosecute his
own uncle when he came of age. Anyway, that appearance of gentleness Eustace
projects comes from years of handling Hilda.”

Arthur frowned. “But he hasn’t any choice about that. She
holds the purse strings, and she’s mean enough to cut him off if he doesn’t
dance to her piping. And that’s really Lydden’s fault. Why the devil did the
old man leave Hilda’s whole fortune to her instead of dividing it up in a
reasonable way or making some other arrangement for Eustace? I thought it must
have been a provision of their marriage contract, but it doesn’t say that in
the will—and usually that kind of thing is stated.”

“Didn’t you know why?” The note of bitterness was sharply
apparent in Bertram’s voice and prepared Arthur for a nasty disclosure, but he was
still surprised when Bertram added, “Eustace forged the old man’s name to pay
some gambling debts—”

“Gambling!” Arthur was appalled. All he could think was that
the trait did run in the family and that Victor would break Abigail’s heart.

Bertram seemed to guess what was in Arthur’s mind and shook
his head. “The losses were nothing. The kind one suffers on a bad night in a
fashionable club. Eustace simply decided paying them would leave him too short,
so he wrote a draft and signed his father’s name.”

“Good God!” Arthur exclaimed, but as the immediate shock
receded an oddity struck him, and he frowned. “How did you come to hear of it?”

A blaze of fury lit the single glance Bertram flashed at
Arthur. Then he lowered his eyes to his own fingernails. “I knew because my
uncle had first accused
me
of paying for my luxuries by signing his name
to bills. Fortunately, my taste is very different from Eustace’s. I was able to
prove that I had never been a client of any of the establishments where payment
was made by forged draft. When the last forgery showed up, and my uncle
discovered it was Eustace, he wrote to me and apologized.” Bertram paused and
then added bitterly, “Do you want to see the letter?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Arthur said irritably.

“Sorry.” Bertram smiled. “Except for the revered ancestor
who had a passion for Roman ruins, the Lyddens used to be the dullest and most
proper family in England. My father seems to have broken precedent, and
everyone rushed to emulate his bad example—Francis, then Eustace.”

Arthur raised his brows. “What you need is a good go at the
family records. That would cure you of revering your ancestors. Anyhow, it’s
nonsense. I can’t say you are dull, my dear Bertram, but you are quite
sickeningly virtuous—and Victor is a clear refutation of any hint of
enfeeblement in the line.”

Bertram laughed. “Yes, I think he is, but I am in awe of
your singleness of purpose, Arthur. No matter what we begin to talk about, you
come round about in the end to Abigail—or something to do with Abigail. Just
let me get the papers you will need, and you can go. I have no time today to
listen to raptures.”

But when Arthur returned from his visit to Roger, he was not
in the mood for raptures. Not only had Roger foreseen complications in
arranging matters so that Eustace could not bring suit for conflict of
interest, but Arthur had discovered that Abigail had not been exaggerating. In
1765 the great jurist Blackstone had summed up the status of married women. By
marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law—that is, the very being or
legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage… For this reason,
a man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into covenant with her, for
the grant would be to suppose her separate existence…and the courts of law will
still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty…

Although Roger was not a solicitor, he knew a great deal
about the laws concerning women because he had married a wife far richer than
himself, and her cousin Sabrina, their foster daughter, was also a considerable
heiress. Roger had expended thought and effort in finding a legal way of
protecting his own wife and Sabrina from their husbands by creating, through
the Court of Chancery, an equitable, separate estate that a married woman could
hold as
feme sole
, free of her husband’s control.

Right through the stunned recognition that a wife was even
less than a slave—because a slave was at least recognized as a separate
entity—Arthur found it surprising that Roger should secure Leonie’s property in
such a way that he could not touch or manage it except by her direct
permission.

“Didn’t Leonie trust you?” he asked.

Roger laughed. “It had nothing to do with Leonie. She was
rather annoyed with me when I explained it all to her, but I am nearly twenty
years older than she, and there is always a chance, no matter how slim, that
one will fall on his head in the hunting field and recover with a twisted
brain. Besides,” he looked keenly at Arthur, “I had no desire at all to have
anything Leonie was not willing to give me simply because she loved me, and to
constrain her by the common law regulating matrimony would mean that I did not
trust her, would it not?”

“That is just what Abigail said.” Arthur stared back at his
uncle. “Has she spoken to you?”

“Not since that dinner your mother gave,” Roger replied, his
eyes bright and interested. “I imagine that congratulations are in order?”

Arthur sighed and described the conditions under which
Abigail had consented to marriage.

“A very clever girl.” Roger nodded approval. “I believe you
will be very happy with her.”

The words held some comfort for Arthur and yet annoyed him,
too. As he rode home, he mused on the fact that everyone kept telling him that
he would be happy with Abigail. But when he considered the past months, it
almost seemed that he had not been happy since he met Abigail. He had been
happy before she turned his life upside down; he had been calm and contented.
If he had not known the peaks of joy Abigail had brought him, he had not known
the constant turmoil and the depth of misery she had brought him, either. And
it was not likely to get any better, Arthur reminded himself. She would be as
independent of him after their wedding as before it. Part of Arthur felt warm
and righteous, but there was an odd sense of doubt in him as well.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was significant of his emotional condition that Arthur’s
doubts always disappeared with his first sight of Abigail. He felt a fool, but
during the months of legal wrangling he could not mention his uncertainties to
her. Not that Abigail took any part in the quibbling or was even much aware of
it. As soon as she understood that Arthur was himself arranging to protect her
possessions, she abandoned any idea of interfering in any way. All she had wanted
was the independent ownership of her bookshop and its income. Since she had
never had any fears that Arthur would be unfair or unkind to her or her
children, that possession was enough. If the unimaginable took place and
marriage turned Arthur into a monster, she could flee to the United States with
Victor and Daphne, where distance and independence would protect her.

Naturally, it was Abigail’s indifference to every aspect of
the marriage settlement aside from the articles concerning her shop that spurred
Arthur into providing protections of her freedom that had never entered her
mind. Thus, it was the beginning of October before the betrothal could be
announced. Even then, the date for the wedding could not be set because the
arrangements devised to defeat any attempt to challenge Arthur’s position as
executor and trustee of the Lydden estate were far more complex than those for
establishing a separate estate.

Arthur’s problems were only intensified by the fact that
Eustace appeared totally indifferent to the possibility of raising a question
of conflict of interest. In view of Eustace’s attitude, the solicitors were
puzzled by Arthur’s hair-splitting, and even Bertram seemed to grow doubtful
about the wisdom of expending so much time and effort to defend a position that
was not under attack. Now and again Arthur wondered whether he was transferring
his uneasiness about the terms of his marriage to the terms of his trusteeship,
but he persisted.

Abigail had also begun to have doubts about giving up the
total independence she was enjoying. Before they had left Scotland, she had
felt as if she would be torn apart by her desire for Arthur because his
nearness would mount a constant assault on her senses. After returning to
Rutupiae Hall, she soon realized that her fears had largely been generated by
her imagination. Because she was busy, first with her children and, after they
left for school, with details concerning the estate that had piled up over her
two months’ absence, she felt little stress. And then Arthur was seldom at
Stonar Magna during September. Most of the time he was in London, very much
occupied between the conferences with solicitors about the legal arrangements
for their marriage and the political events.

There had been important developments in the war against
France during August and September. The truce had ended on 10 August and on the
eleventh Austria had confirmed her alliance with Prussia and Russia by
declaring war. Although Bonaparte repulsed the Austrians at Dresden on 26
August, his marshals were not so successful. Vandamme, who pursued the
retreating Austrian troops, was trapped by the Prussians and lost about twenty
thousand of his thirty thousand men. Oudinot was thrown back by von Bülow in
his attempt to take Berlin, and when Ney repeated the attempt on 6 September,
worse befell him. He lost twenty-four thousand men and eighty guns. In fact,
all through September a series of minor defeats were inflicted on the outlying
French forces, and the foreign troops that made up a considerable part of the
Grande
Armée
began to defect. By the end of September, the army Bonaparte had
built up since the beginning of the truce had been nearly destroyed.

Naturally, as soon as news of these events reached England,
debate began about how far it was necessary to pursue the war. Since England
supported the Prussians and Russians with huge subsidies, some members of
Parliament were in favor of an early peace to ease the burden of taxes, even if
it meant allowing Bonaparte to keep part of the territories France had overrun.
Despite the fact that most of those who wished for an early peace were members
of Arthur’s party, he was unalterably opposed to any treaty that would leave
Bonaparte as ruler of France. He felt that it would be more expensive in the
long run to make peace because Bonaparte would be at war again, treaty or no
treaty, as soon as he gathered sufficient strength.

Arguments on this subject against men he supported on other
causes sometimes became personal and bitter, but at least Arthur had the
comfort of total and enthusiastic agreement from Abigail when he drove out from
Town to see her and report on the progress of the legal affairs. Her fervent
support of his ideas was particularly satisfactory because he was certain, even
after their formal betrothal, that it was totally sincere and owed nothing to
ordinary female pacification of her male.

It was fortunate that Arthur was too absorbed in his
activities to analyze Abigail’s reactions. He was more than clever enough, had
he thought the matter through, to realize that her enthusiasm for his
opposition to an early peace owed more to her fear for America and her friends
there—for should peace be made, England would be able to apply her full
strength against America—than to any absolute conviction about the need to
depose Bonaparte. Even more fortunate was the fact that he did not notice how
tepid was her interest in their betrothal. Again his preoccupation with legal
details and political maneuvering allowed him to accredit to womanly delicacy
her failure to urge him to cut short the bickering over details. Even a few
moments of unclouded thought would have made him laugh at himself. Abigail had
many virtues, but patience and female delicacy were not notable among them.

If Abigail did not push to hurry the wedding, neither did
she try to delay it. She had given her word that she would marry if she could
be assured of independence, and Arthur had more than fulfilled his part of the
bargain. Besides, it soon became clear that with regard to being her lover,
Arthur had weakened only during the time they were in Scotland when he felt
that she and her children might be in danger. He would kiss her and caress her
until they were both half crazy, but he would not make love. And when she
complained—once even been driven to begging and weeping—he soothed her as best
he could but insisted that he wanted a wife, not a mistress, and would not
settle for less.

They were married very quietly on 20 December as soon as
Victor and Daphne came home from school, only a few days after all the legal
work was complete. When Arthur arrived on the fifteenth with a special license
and the obvious intention of dragging her off to church and to bed that very
day, Abigail had protested that she could not marry before her children
arrived. To this Arthur agreed at once, but when she suggested waiting until
after Christmas, he refused. Abigail then pointed out that he had told her it
was traditional for the St. Eyres to gather at Stonar Magna for a family
celebration, and it would be a good way to introduce her to the entire clan.
Arthur had recoiled in horror from the notion.

“First of all,” he exclaimed, “if you are implying that my
family might object, I must tell you that they have no right to do so. I am the
head of the family and am the arbiter of propriety within it.”

“Heaven help your family,” Abigail interjected.

“Quiet,” Arthur ordered. “I am propriety itself. Who, may I
ask, has been complaining bitterly about my ‘antique morality’ these three
months and more? In the second place, I am
not
a lunatic—whatever you
may think—and I have no intention of allowing you to meet the odds and sods
that make up the St. Eyres before we are married. Afterward it will be too late
for you to back out.”

Although Arthur was joking, he had touched a rather tender
spot in Abigail’s conscience. She smiled at him and shook her head, but she
raised no more objections when he settled on the twentieth. Indeed, she had to
admit that the choice was clever and considerate because it was the day after
Victor and Daphne would arrive. Arthur felt the wedding would just blend in
with their general excitement and thus stand out less and have less chance of
hurting them or bringing their father to mind. A second reason was that
marriage on the twentieth would permit him and Abigail a few days of peace
before the descent of what he called the ravening horde.

Arthur felt a pang of conscience when he rejected Abigail’s
suggestion that they delay their wedding until the St. Eyres arrived. He knew
he would be depriving the large and lively family, most of whom he truly loved,
of the intense pleasure of teasing him unmercifully about at last being trapped
into marriage and also celebrating his wedding with exuberant joy. However, for
some reason he could not agree to wait even the few days. He found all sorts of
reasons, including his aching physical need for Abigail, but he rejected the
real driving cause—an uneasy feeling that she might slip away from him.

Kindest of all, Arthur proposed that he and Abigail remain
in Rutupiae until the twenty-fourth, which would give Victor and Daphne a sense
of continuity and make moving to Stonar just when all the other guests were
arriving seem more like a visit than a great change in their lives. Until New
Year’s, there would be too much going on all the time for them to brood over
having a new father, and the oddity of it would wear away. Then they would have
a few days after the guests left to get used to the house, he said
thoughtfully, and by the time they returned at Easter, Stonar Magna would seem
like home. As Abigail thanked him, she wondered how she could be such a fool as
to consider for a moment whether total independence was preferable to marriage
to such a man.

A quiet, private wedding seemed to be the best solution.
Griselda attended Abigail, and Bertram served as groomsman. The only guests
were Alexander and Anne Louisa Baring, Roger and Leonie, and Violet. Perce and
Sabrina had left for Vienna in August to join the diplomatic mission that was
part of Tsar Alexander’s entourage. Hilda and Eustace did not attend. Hilda had
been so furious when the betrothal was announced that she had left Rutupiae on
a round of visits to her sisters and brothers after openly accusing Arthur of
trifling with her daughter’s affections and marrying Abigail only because she
gave him a better hold on the Lydden estate.

Eustace had accompanied his mother, and Abigail was not
sorry to be rid of him. He had been irritatingly attentive to her from the time
she returned from Scotland until her betrothal was announced. That seemed to
have shocked him, and he turned angry and sullen. The behavior was completely
incomprehensible to Abigail. She had made no particular effort within the
family to hide her love for Arthur, and she was totally unaware that Eustace
had expected her to turn to him when she was at last rejected by her rakish and
inconstant lover. Abigail was thoroughly infuriated when Griselda explained
that Eustace and her mother, who often talked to each other in her presence as
if she did not exist, assumed from the infrequency of Arthur’s visits that he
had tired of her. Eustace was preparing to step into the breach when Arthur
“broke her heart”. Then Eustace would offer to marry her “despite her past
immoral relationship”. The whole idea seemed so ridiculous and disgusting that
Abigail thanked God that Hilda and Eustace were gone, and dismissed the whole
subject from her mind.

Nothing could have been more unlike than Abigail’s first and
second weddings, both physically and emotionally. The first had been a major
social event for her parents’ friends and business acquaintances, and she had
been wildly eager to assume the bonds she did not really understand. This
second time, although she desired Arthur more than she had ever desired Francis
and had good reason to be eager—for she had learned through the mostly
good-natured envy of the neighboring families how magnificent a catch she had
landed—she was filled with doubts. However, the quiet ceremony calmed her, and
the behavior of the guests at the wedding breakfast reassured her even more. In
some ways it hardly seemed like the celebration of a marriage. Everyone was far
more interested in talking politics than congratulating the bride and groom.

This was not really surprising, since both Arthur and
Alexander Baring were members of Parliament and Roger was deeply involved in
government through his friend Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, even though
he held no office. Moreover, events were moving very fast. Bonaparte had lost
the disastrous battle of Leipzig shortly after Arthur and Abigail had been
betrothed, and the echoes of the defeat of the “invincible Emperor of France”
were still vibrating through Europe. The British army in Spain had had further
successes and was actually on French soil.

Ordinarily the talk would have concentrated on these events
and on the efforts of Bonaparte to rebuild still another
Grande Armée
,
but in this case at least two of the group had a deep interest in a different
war, minor and secondary as it seemed in England. There had been changes in the
situation in America, too. Commodore Perry had defeated the British fleet on
Lake Erie in September, and General Harrison had recaptured Detroit from the
British and invaded Canada in October. The British general Henry Proctor had
fled, abandoning his baggage. Furthermore, the chief of the Indian allies,
Tecumseh, had been killed, and the federation of Indian tribes he headed had
been broken.

Baring spoke soberly to Abigail about the American
situation, deploring these victories, even though they had been somewhat
deflated by the withdrawal of Harrison from Canada soon after the battle and
the failure of two other attempts to invade English territory.

“It will only make peace harder to achieve,” Baring said
irritably. “These little victories mean nothing when viewed in the perspective
of the whole war, and they infuriate our people.”