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She moved around the room, looking at the pictures, the little bronzes, the glass ornaments, the writing desk. She had a headache. She began to rearrange the flowers in a big vase by the window, and knocked over the vase. She rang for someone to clear up the mess, then left the room.
Her nerves were very bad. She contemplated taking some laudanum. These days it did not help her as much as it used to.
What will Charlotte do now? Will she keep the secret? Why don’t children talk to one?
She went along to the library with the vague idea of getting a book to take her mind off everything. When she walked in she gave a guilty start on seeing that Stephen was there, at his desk. He looked up at her as she entered, smiled in a welcoming way, and went on writing.
Lydia wandered along the bookshelves. She wondered whether to read the Bible. There had been a great deal of Bible-reading in her childhood, and family prayers and much churchgoing. She had had stern nurses who were keen on the horrors of Hell and the penalties of uncleanliness, and a Lutheran German governess who talked a great deal about sin. But since Lydia had committed fornication and brought retribution upon herself and her daughter, she had never been able to take any consolation from religion. I should have gone into that convent, she thought, and put myself right with God; my father’s instinct was correct.
She took a book at random and sat down with it open on her lap. Stephen said: “That’s an unusual choice for you.” He could not read the title from where he was sitting, but he knew where all the authors were placed on the shelves. He read so many books. Lydia did not know how he found the time. She looked at the spine of the book she was holding. It was Thomas Hardy’s Wessex Poems. She did not like Hardy: did not like those determined, passionate women nor the strong men whom they made helpless.
They had often sat like this, she and Stephen, especially when they first came to Walden Hall. She recalled nostalgically how she would sit and read while he worked. He had been less tranquil in those days, she remembered: he used to say that nobody could make money out of agriculture anymore, and that if this family were to continue to be rich and powerful it would have to get ready for the twentieth century. He had sold off some farms at that time, many thousands of acres at very low prices: then he had put the money into railroads and banks and London property. The plan must have worked, for he soon stopped looking worried.
It was after the birth of Charlotte that everything seemed to settle down. The servants adored the baby and loved Lydia for producing her. Lydia got used to English ways and was well liked by London society. There had been eighteen years of tranquillity.
Lydia sighed. Those years were coming to an end. For a while she had buried the secrets so successfully that they tormented nobody but her, and even she had been able to forget them at times; but now they were coming out. She had thought that London was at a safe distance from St. Petersburg, but perhaps California would have been a better choice; or it might be that nowhere was far enough. The time of peace was over. It was all falling apart. What would happen now?
She looked down at the open page, and read:
She would have given a world to breathe “yes” truly,
So much his life seemed hanging on her mind,
And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly
’Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.
Is that me? she wondered. Did I give my soul when I married Stephen in order to save Feliks from incarceration in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul? Ever since then I’ve been playing a part, pretending I’m not a wanton, sinful, brazen whore. But I am! And I’m not the only one. Other women feel the same. Why else would the Viscountess and Charlie Stott want adjoining bedrooms? And why would Lady Girard tell me about them with a wink, if she did not understand how they felt? If I had been just a little wanton, perhaps Stephen would have come to my bed more often, and we might have had a son. She sighed again.
“Pe
“What?”
“A pe
Lydia smiled. “Will I never stop learning English expressions? I’ve never heard that one.”
“Nobody ever stops learning. It means tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I was thinking about Walden Hall going to George’s son when you die.”
“Unless we have a son.”
She looked at his face: the bright blue eyes, the neat gray beard. He was wearing a blue tie with white spots.
He said: “Is it too late?”
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking: That depends on what Charlotte does next.
“Do let’s keep trying,” he said.
This was an unusually frank conversation: Stephen had sensed that she was in a mood to be candid. She got up from her chair and went over to stand beside him. He had a bald spot on the back of his head, she noticed. How long had that been there? “Yes,” she said, “let’s keep trying.” She bent down and kissed his forehead; then, on impulse, she kissed his lips. He closed his eyes.
After a moment she broke away. He looked a little embarrassed: they rarely did this sort of thing during the day, for there were always so many servants about. She thought: Why do we live the way we do, if it doesn’t make us happy? She said: “I do love you.”
He smiled. “I know you do.”
Suddenly she could stand it no longer. She said: “I must go and change for lunch before Basil Thomson arrives.”
He nodded.
She felt his eyes following her as she left the room. She went upstairs, wondering whether there might still be a chance that she and Stephen could be happy.
She went into her bedroom. She was still carrying the book of poems. She put it down. Charlotte held the key to all this. Lydia had to talk to her. One could say difficult things, after all, if one had the courage; and what now was left to lose? Without having a clear idea of what she would say, she headed for Charlotte’s room on the next floor.
Her footsteps made no noise on the carpet. She reached the top of the staircase and looked along the corridor. She saw Charlotte disappearing into the old nursery. She was about to call out, then stopped herself. What had Charlotte been carrying? It had looked very much like a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk.
Puzzled, Lydia went along to Charlotte’s bedroom. There on the table was the tray Lydia had seen the maid carrying. All the ham and all the bread had gone. Why would Charlotte order a tray of food, then make sandwiches of it and eat it in the nursery? There was nothing in the nursery, as far as Lydia knew, except furniture covered with dust sheets. Was Charlotte so anxious that she needed to retreat into the cosy world of childhood?
Lydia decided to find out. She felt uneasy about interrupting Charlotte’s private ritual, whatever it was; but then she thought: It’s my house, she’s my daughter, and perhaps I ought to know. And it might create a moment of intimacy, and help me say what I need to say. So she left Charlotte’s bedroom and went along the corridor and into the nursery.
Charlotte was not there.
Lydia looked around. There was the old rocking horse, his ears making twin peaks in the dust sheet. Through an open door she could see the schoolroom, with maps and childish drawings on the wall. Another door led to the bedroom: that, too, was empty but for shrouds. Will all this ever be used again? Lydia wondered. Will we have nurses, and diapers, and tiny, tiny clothes; and a na
But where was Charlotte?
The closet door was open. Suddenly Lydia remembered: of course! Charlotte’s hideaway! The little room she thought no one else knew of, where she used to go when she had been naughty. She had furnished it herself, with bits and pieces from around the house, and everyone had pretended not to know how certain things had disappeared. One of the few indulgent decisions Lydia had made was to allow Charlotte her hideaway, and to forbid Marya to “discover” it; for Lydia herself hid away sometimes, in the flower room, and she knew how important it was to have a place of your own.