Spare Brides (21 page)

‘I’m quite plain.’

‘Right.’

‘I’ve had compliments on my smile.’ Lydia had complimented her on her smile; no one else. Not really.

‘Can I read you?’ He held his hands up. Self-conscious, but animated, she put her fingers over his and guided him to her face. He pressed firmly from her cheekbones down to her chin; careful but deliberate pats, rather like a doctor examining her to see if her glands were swollen. She wondered how well trained his fingertips were. It was possible that he would notice her too long nose that ended with an off-centre blob, suggesting that there had been extra flesh and the angels had simply screwed it up and slung it on. On a man the nose might indicate character; Beatrice considered it nothing short of a disability. Could he feel the slight slackening of her jowls? Would he notice that the gap between her nose and mouth was about half an inch longer than optimal? The firm patting gave way to more gentle strokes as his fingers spread across her cheeks and nudged up to her lobes. They swept down again, taking in the shape and length of her nose, then up and up around the arch of her eyebrows (which were a little heavy; Ava thought she ought to pluck). His fingers were icy against her flushed cheeks; they probed.

‘I think I have a picture of you now.’ Beatrice hoped not, but she was glad to have had his hands on her. She had never been touched in that way, or any like it.

‘Why aren’t you dancing, Beatrice?’

‘Oh, I don’t enjoy dancing very much,’ she lied. She couldn’t imagine how he’d dance; the floor was crowded, arms were flailing, he might get inadvertently punched.

‘What do you do with your time?’

‘I paint.’

‘Oh.’ The conversation faltered. Beatrice wished she’d said that she played tennis or golf, although would that have been any better? You had to see to do those too, surely.

‘I play the piano too, as you heard.’

‘Very expertly.’

‘It’s my biggest passion.’ This was a lie. Beatrice’s art was her first love, but she was certain she was not the first woman to lie to a man about her skills and hobbies in order to impress or please. ‘Do you play?’

‘Yes, I do. You know, from memory.’ How would he learn new songs? By ear?

‘I enjoy walking.’ This at least was true.

‘Yes, fresh air, the answer to everything.’ There was no conviction behind his words.

Beatrice didn’t know what was happening. Why the conversation about hobbies, which should have been a light and easy one, edging towards a greater familiarity and understanding of one another, seemed to be so difficult and tense. She sighed and grasped the thistle.

‘Can you see anything?’

‘No.’ He sighed at the finality.

‘What’s it like?’

‘It’s not the blackness of closing your eyes. It’s less safe than that. It’s a deep, deep, dark void, a grey that is almost black. I sometimes think I might fall into it, through it. I only know I’m looking at the sun because I feel it on my skin.’

‘Do you have family?’

‘My father. My mother’s dead and I’m glad about that. She died in nineteen twelve and I think that must be quite wonderful to never have known that we did this to each other.’

‘How do you manage?’

‘Slowly. Everything takes longer. I feel hopeless and vulnerable. It’s hell, actually.’

He laughed, but it was a bitter laugh; how could it be anything other? He also sounded relieved that she was asking, that he could tell her how it was. No one else wanted to know. It astounded her that he’d used the word ‘vulnerable’. She had never heard anyone – man or woman – admit as much. Bea thought she might squeal. Let out a totally inappropriate sound because she was so shocked and moved by his frankness. She bit back her reaction, took a deep breath and then tried to rally.

‘You can still hear, feel and taste the world around you.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s something.’

‘So I’m told. It wasn’t gas. I took a bullet in the right eye socket, shrapnel ruined the left. The pain, and the noise that came with the pain … unbelievable. It was excruciating. I mean literally unbearable. I didn’t understand those words until that moment. I vomited with the pain. I screamed and screamed and screamed. This howling and puke were coming out together. You know, I still hear and feel that pain.’

‘It must be a very hard thing to forget.’

‘I don’t remember the pain. I feel it. Over and over again.’

‘Oh.’ Bea was floored. She didn’t know what to say. How to comfort.

‘I wanted to die. I knew I was going to die.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘They tell me it was a miracle that I survived.’

‘There must be a reason.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘My brother lost his legs. His left just below the knee and the other just above it. I never can understand why they chose to cut him off that way. I suppose they wanted to keep as much of him as possible, but it doesn’t help his balance. Not that he walks. I’m afraid he’s in a chair.’

‘No crutches?’

‘He lost his left arm too.’ She wasn’t sure if she was trying to tell Arnie that she had experience with horrific injuries, or if she was trying to tell him that there were other, worse injuries. If they
were
worse. Who could judge? She could not imagine having to live without sight, but then nor could she imagine having to live without the ability to dress oneself, walk, bath unaided. It was a hideous choice. Not that these men had had a choice. None of the women who nursed them had either. She didn’t often talk of Sammy. People found it difficult to know what to say. They stumbled into basic platitudes, at best, or shocked silences, admitting that words couldn’t comfort. Perhaps nothing could. Perhaps that was why she had told Arnie about him, so that he’d be stunned into silence; or maybe she was hoping he’d understand and offer something fresh and meaningful.

‘Who looks after him?’

‘His wife and my sister.’

‘Not you?’

‘Not so much. The two of them have it sewn up.’ Beatrice knew it was wrong of her to resent the fact that she wasn’t even needed in the role of dutiful sister, but she did feel something a lot like resentment. She felt her first inadequate attempts at nursing him had been held against her; she hadn’t been given the chance to overcome her squeamishness, her fear. Cecily and Sarah seemed to have a tacit understanding that too much ought not to be asked of the little sister; she wasn’t quite up to the job. ‘I could do it.’ The champagne swirled around her head and her thoughts made ambitious leaps; ones that sober she would never have considered articulating.

‘What?’

‘I could look after you.’

‘Are you a nurse? Were you VAD?’

‘No, but I don’t imagine that sort of nursing is still required, is it? I mean …’ She dared not hesitate or think about what she was saying, because if she did, she would never finish the sentence. She rushed on like a wave. ‘I could look after you.’ There, it was done. She had thrown the thought out for him to inspect and now she had repeated it; there was no chance of miscommunication or denial. It was what she had been thinking from the moment he’d agreed to walk around the garden on Saturday afternoon; possibly before that. Before she’d met him.

‘Are you proposing to me, Miss Polwarth?’

‘Yes, I think I am.’

‘Am I what you want?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know this after less than forty-eight hours?’

‘After many years. I think we could be comfortable together.’ She thought of the slackening in her stomach. ‘I really do.’

Arnie Oaksley held his head very still, his equivalent to staring off into the distance, Bea suspected. He had fallen into his own thoughts. She also sat very still, her face aflame with excitement and shame. She had just proposed to a man. She had proposed. It was unbelievable, yet she stood by it. She thought it could work. They’d both benefit.

‘Are you ever lonely?’

‘All the time.’ He sighed.

‘I might help there.’

‘You don’t know me.’

‘Well, then, we’d have plenty to talk about.’

He nodded, and then fell silent for a minute. ‘Can I think about it?’

‘Yes, you should. Please do.’

‘I think I need to go to bed now.’

Their roles were the reverse of the standard. She had proposed and now he needed time to consider; he wanted to retire to his room, like a shy debutante. Beatrice felt empowered and yet terrified; she supposed this was how every young man – at least those without the benefit of title or extreme wealth – must feel. Hopeful. Terrified. She wanted to push him, ask him when
exactly
he might make up his mind, but she could not. She had used up all her courage and did not even dare reach out and touch his arm to steady him as he stood up. She watched him rise, wobble and step away from her; a servant swiftly moved to his aid. She was left in a quagmire of hope and regret and uncertainty.

The air shimmered with life and possibility.

L
AWRENCE AND EDGAR,
in the same room, was a cosmic cataclysm that left Lydia breathless. She was a jumble of inconsistent emotions. She was used to feeling proud of Lawrence, grateful for him, but when she thought of him here, now, a peculiar haze of embarrassment swept through her entire being. She harboured an uncharitable feeling that he didn’t seem to measure up, that he wasn’t quite all he could be, all that she wanted. She was ashamed to find that she was irritated by him, and frustrated with him. His laugh grated on her nerves; it sounded overly hearty and confident. She resented the way he walked into a room as though he owned it; what had he done – other than inherit vast wealth – to entitle him to behave with such confidence and composure? She hated herself for judging him, because she knew that after her behaviour today, society would think she was the one who needed to be censured, and that she’d be found lacking. Yet judge him and condemn him she did.

She wondered what Edgar must make of him. Perplexingly, she didn’t want Edgar to find Lawrence lacking; she hoped he’d be impressed by his impeccable conduct and his thorough, traditional education at least, but she despaired that that would be the case. How could he be? It wasn’t enough any more.

Whatever she thought about Lawrence paled into irrelevance the moment thoughts of Edgar seized her mind. She longed for him. She ached to talk to him. Or at least to stand close so she could listen to him. He was a light and she was irresistibly drawn; like a helpless moth she would bash and beat her wings up against him until she dropped with exhaustion or went up in flames. Her consciousness was tattooed with the thought of their kiss. Over and over again she imagined the feel of his bristled cheek scraping against her smooth one as she moved towards him, as he pulled away; the soft dryness of his lips as they lingered. Then left.

It was a relief that she was not placed near either of them at dinner; she would not have been able to fake wifely duty towards Lawrence or a suitably polite public indifference towards Edgar, yet she resented every moment that she was not with him. The only way she had reconciled herself to the dead time before dinner was by thinking that she was dressing for him. Which of her countless dresses would dazzle him most? As she slowly rubbed luxurious cream on to her elbows, neck and thighs, she knew it was for him. Picking out her scant silky underwear was for him. Putting on her scarlet lipstick was for him. It was all for him.

It took everything she had to remain in control, to remain sensible to the reality and not to scream out to Edgar, to launch herself across the dinner table. She imagined tossing the candlesticks and flowers to the side, throwing the plates to the floor and letting them crash and smash. She wanted to crawl towards him through the debris, careless of the spillages and broken crockery; she wanted to make a noise and declare herself his. It was Lawrence’s formal smiles that pinned her to her seat. It was nothing to do with a sense of duty or warmth; she was restrained by a nagging sensation of embarrassment. She did not feel embarrassed because she wanted Edgar; the embarrassment was that she was with Lawrence. Lydia knew that if she made a scene, Lawrence would be without option: he would have to extract her, own her, take her away. That was how these things worked. She didn’t want to be publicly owned by Lawrence. Never again. So she had to put her thoughts and feelings in incubation.

Besides, Edgar had pulled away from her kiss.

The thought whipped her, but rather than accepting it as a closure to a brief and ill-defined dalliance – an impossible, impossible thought – Lydia remembered the beat before he’d moved off. He’d kissed her back, she was almost sure. Desire made her almost sure.

After the meal was over, Lydia had to go with the ladies into the drawing room. The men stood up in unison as the women trailed out. She passed him, the tallest man by inches in the room, and she breathed in possibility. He stood with his back to her, hands clasped behind him. She swapped her clutch bag from her right to her left hand, so that she could brush her fingers against his without anyone noticing. Flesh against flesh, just for the briefest of moments; he flinched, her knees buckled.

‘Oh, darling, do watch your step,’ whispered Ava, who somehow was at her side. ‘You might fall.’

Lydia hoped Edgar might send in a note with the butler; a suggestion as to where they might discreetly rendezvous. He did not.

She sat anxiously. It was impossible to make conversation with any of the guests; they were all insufferable. Tedious. His were the only words of value. His thoughts were the only ones she considered sharp or purposeful. Did he even know that Lawrence was her husband? He must by now. Someone would have said. Had they been introduced? Might they be at this very moment talking to one another, wrapped in cigar smoke and the bonhomie that came with downing whisky? The thought was unbearable; that Lawrence had access to Edgar’s company when she did not was an aberration.

The men lingered over their spirits and cigars for longer than was acceptable. Her eyes bored into the clock, but she couldn’t get the hands to speed up. She curtly rebuffed every enquiry into her health and her occupation today, painfully aware that the women who asked really only wanted something they could gossip about. When he finally entered the room, along with all the other men, Lydia noticed that he had a new swagger to him that she hadn’t yet seen. He was drunk. Most of them were, but his inebriation somehow was wrapped in a shadow that hinted at menace or aggravation. She stood up because she couldn’t risk him failing to spot her and settling elsewhere, but then hastily sat down again. She did not want to lose her spot; she wanted him to join her on the sofa.