Dorothy Eden (5 page)

And long before they were ready to be laid in that gloomy family vault, and in spite of their disparate natures and interests, she would have made him love her…

Then that whole awkward business of the money and her being an heiress would matter less than nothing.

T
HEY WERE CATCHING THE
boat train to Dover, crossing by ferry to Boulogne where they would spend the night, then on to Paris the next day. Beatrice would adore the Champs Elysées, the Rue de Rivoli, the famous restaurants. Funny little unsophisticated thing, she had never been out of England.

An endearing thing about William was that he regarded all women as delicate dainty creatures to be protected and pampered. He had been accustomed to the delicate women in his own family. Beatrice didn’t want to emphasise her good health or point out that her sturdy body was the opposite of dainty. Also, lack of sophistication was not the reason for her never having travelled abroad. It was simply because she had parents who, like most of their class, were suspicious of all things foreign.

So Beatrice’s childhood holidays had been spent at Brighton or Bournemouth, splashing in the chilly sea, or joining her parents who sat in deck chairs, Mamma wrapped in rugs and Papa wearing his stout tweed overcoat and grumbling that he would rather be behind his haberdashery counter than paying good money to freeze at the seaside.

Beatrice remembered a particularly ugly bathing costume she had worn, striped yellow and black, like a wasp. The other children had laughed at her, which had made her feel extremely lonely and vulnerable. She had been even lonelier than usual on holidays, partly because of her nature, but more because Mamma would not let her associate with children of a better class because they were so enclosed by a hedge of nannies, nursemaids, and hovering mothers or aunts.

When she had reached her teens the annual holiday had become a much grander affair, with a first-class sleeper on the train to Harrogate where Mamma had decided it was fashionable to take the waters, and where Papa walked briskly in the park all morning and snoozed in a cane chair in a corner of the ornate Palm Court lounge in the afternoon. They all had to dress up for dinner and pretend to be people of importance from London. Papa did look important with his glossy black moustache, his glittering forceful expression, the heavy gold watch chain hanging across his stomach. Mamma never escaped gentility. Beatrice was simply uneasy, awkward and bored.

Holidays had always been desperately boring.

But nothing could be more different than this one, for which Hawkins had packed so carefully.

At the last minute it had been decided that Hawkins should accompany them. How could Beatrice, who was so careless about clothes, make the elaborate toilettes her husband would expect if she didn’t have a maid?

William thought it an excellent idea, and only hoped that Hawkins was a good sailor. He was a splendid one himself, and he was sure his wife would be. So it would be too bad if they had to look after a seasick servant.

Hawkins said she was sure she would be fine, but whatever happened she wouldn’t lose sight of the baggage.

To Beatrice’s unsophisticated eyes they seemed to be taking far too much, three trunks, three valises, two hat boxes, her jewel case, travelling rugs, William’s umbrella and her parasol, William’s heavy fur-trimmed greatcoat (because Channel steamers were notoriously chilly) and her long mohair cape with matching hood. Her trunks, so carefully packed by Hawkins, contained hand-made nightgowns and chemises, petticoats, peignoirs, shoes and slippers, gowns for all occasions, a sewing box equipped with materials for every eventuality, and a small medicine chest similarly equipped, books (because she cherished the idea of reading aloud to William while he lazed in the sun), sketching materials, in case she should feel like sketching on an Italian lakeside, her bathing gown in the event of really hot weather, opera glasses (they might go to the opera in Paris or Milan), a picnic hamper with Crown Derby porcelain, silver-handled knives and forks and small silver flasks for tots of rum or brandy.

Really, Beatrice thought, Mamma’s extravagant forays into the lower middle class wealth of Harrogate, were nothing compared with this. They might have been preparing for an absence of years.

Papa hooted with astonishment at the variety of the baggage. Did they think they were going to some benighted African continent where there was no civilisation? Mamma said briefly and crushingly that as Mrs William Overton their daughter had a position to keep up. William merely said that Beatrice seemed to be bringing too many dresses. After all, he would want to choose some things for her in Paris, the home of fashion.

Mrs Overton added in her sighing voice, “And perfume, William. She must have perfume.”

Did she smell badly? Beatrice wondered furiously. She knew she should have been pleased by William’s thoughtfulness, but two thoughts raced through her head. The first was a strong suspicion that he didn’t like the clothes she was wearing, and the second, that it was her money he was proposing to spend.

Before the marriage there had been endless legal discussions, with the Overton solicitor, a grey suave shrewd man, on one side, and Papa’s solicitor, less polished but equally clever, on the other. Papa, backed by his solicitor, persistently refused to transfer any real property into William’s name. Bonnington’s was to be Beatrice’s absolutely. What she did with it when he died was her affair, but that wouldn’t be for a long time, and by then she would know how this humiliating marriage had worn.

All Beatrice thought was how stupid and blind Papa was. Why would she be different and harder in, say, twenty years? She would still be a woman, she would still be in love. It was a long time to wait to give William all that she wanted to give him. Although twenty years was a hypothetical time. It might be less, or it might be more. Certainly at fifty Papa looked the picture of health and vigour. One could imagine him reaching the age of eighty without any effort at all, which meant that when William was fifty, he would still be living on Papa’s generosity. Which fact made it all the more important now to insist on her husband’s independence. He must have a generous allowance which would be paid annually into his own bank account.

“He mustn’t feel dependent on me,” she urged. “That would be too humiliating.”

“That’s my word exactly,” Papa said sourly. “A thousand a year?”

“Generous,” said his solicitor.

“Oh,
no
, Papa! At least two thousand. And I must pay the upkeep of Overton House. Please, Papa. We are your family.”

“You are,” Papa corrected. “So this young man is to get two thousand a year to fritter away.”

“To be a gentleman,” said Beatrice in her quiet stubborn voice.

“Poppycock!” Papa exclaimed, crashing his fist on the table. “You’re nothing but bedazzled and besotted. Time will bring you to your senses and then you’ll thank us for our caution.”

The solicitors exchanged pained glances. Men themselves, they thought the recent Married Woman’s Property Act was loaded unfairly against their sex. For after all even an heiress went into marriage with her eyes open. And it looked as if this quite ordinary young woman was getting a pretty good bargain, a handsome young man from an illustrious family, as well as an ancient house. One would have thought old Bonnington would have been smug about it, instead of suspicious and outraged.

Finally, protesting all the way, Papa was prevailed on to add his signature to what he called an infamous document. William Overton Esquire got his two thousand a year. It seemed he had no desire at all to own a thriving drapery Emporium. He was well content with the cash—and the Emporium’s daughter.

Even if it were her money William intending spending in Paris, Beatrice knew that she must forget that fact once and for all. How else could she enjoy his generosity? It would be the greatest fun and happiness to have him choose clothes for her.

“M’sieu Worth, I think,” he said.

“Poor Miss Brown. I must never let her see me wearing them.”

“Why not? She might learn better taste.”

“Oh! Don’t you like my going-away coat and skirt?”

“Going away is what it is, my dearest. We’ll give it to the first suitably-sized chambermaid. You must never wear that particular shade of green again.”

Beatrice laughed uneasily, her confidence diminishing. One would have thought the gold band on one’s finger and William’s hand possessively on her elbow as he helped her board the train would have been enough to give her a soaring and permanent confidence. But it wasn’t, she found. But she was too newly a bride. Time would take care of this situation. She would grow less vulnerable.

Humiliatingly, it was Beatrice who was ill on the little Channel steamer. She was furious with herself. The swell was barely noticeable, but she could not bear to look through the porthole at the lazy up-and-down sea. She suffered Hawkins’ ministrations with a nasty yellow basin, while William hurriedly disappeared to stretch his legs on the deck.

She was
not
seasick, she kept insisting miserably, yet even when on dry land in France she remained stricken with nausea and dizziness.

William must be revolted by her. She was far from being his jolly girl pursuing butterflies. His remark about the particular shade of green she was wearing came back to her and, her sense of humour feebly returning, she choked on a sudden snort of laughter. William thought it was a sob. He gallantly took her clammy hand in his.

“You’ll be better when you’ve rested. You’re only overtired.”

His expression was kind and gentle. He was happier now that he had discovered she had feminine frailty after all. It must make him feel pleasantly superior. He certainly looked very handsome in his travelling clothes, and she loved him with a sensation as sharp as pain.

At the hotel he insisted on her going straight to bed. He would order a little light supper to be sent up to her. He himself had a magnificent appetite and intended dining downstairs. He knew this hotel from the past. It had a superb chef.

“But wait until I take you to Maxims in Paris,” he said enthusiastically. “Thank God it’s got back its pre-war splendour. That Prussian siege was barbarous. It’s a great pity the Germans are so under the influence of Bismarck, or we’d have taken a trip up the Rhine. But I detest all this militarism. One hopes when Prince Frederick becomes Emperor things will change. He’s far from being a warmonger, they say. You must ask my mother to tell you about the Princess Frederick. She met her on various occasions when they were girls, although I believe she preferred Princess Alice who was less clever and opinionated.”

Hobnobbing with royalty, Beatrice thought hazily. Not that she wouldn’t like to. It had always been Papa’s ambition to have the Palace patronise Bonnington’s.

“I would like to go to Germany one day,” she said politely.

“So you shall. We’ll go to Vienna, too, and Budapest, and St Petersburg. I’ve always travelled in the Latin countries, for the sun, but why shouldn’t we broaden our itinerary?”

“The Grand Tour,” Beatrice murmured, thinking again how unbelievable it was that this should be happening to her.

To be realistic, however, at this moment she only wanted to be back in England where the walls didn’t spin and her stomach behaved itself.

Hawkins diagnosed her sudden illness as nerves.

“That’s all it is, madam. It will pass. What shall I unpack? Your nightgown and robe with the blue ribbons?”

But that was for her wedding night, she thought, then nearly burst into tears as she realised that this was her wedding night. Fancy being so weak and dazed as to forget, even for a second, that after he had dined, William would be coming to keep his part of the bargain that had been begun over the solicitor’s desk, and completed in God’s hearing before the altar this morning.

He would keep it because he was honourable. But how much, or how little, did he want to?

It was all very well to dream of her ability to make him love her, it was quite another thing to face this task in reality.

Beatrice sipped a little clear soup, then asked Hawkins to take the tray away and leave her.

“Couldn’t I brush your hair, madam?”

The anxiety in Hawkins’ face told Beatrice that she was looking her lamentable worst. But when her hair was loosened and brushed it was glossy and abundant. Her husband, who had never seen it like this, was going to be agreeably surprised.

However, Beatrice was not in the mood for feminine wiles. If their marriage were to be a success it must begin now with absolute honesty. She wouldn’t try to be seductive, hiding behind a curtain of hair. She would be herself, honest, quiet, loving.

And if ever she were the type for blue ribbons on a nightgown, it wasn’t tonight.

She undressed, washed, put on a simple white lawn nightgown, and plaited her hair into two plaits. She was sitting by the dying fire when William returned.

He said at once, “Why aren’t you in bed, resting? I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

“Asleep?”

“Dearest, you can’t think I’d want to bother you tonight when you’re so poorly. One must have the right time, and all that.”

Beatrice stared at him. Was he so experienced?

“It’s really quite important, I assure you. So I’ve taken another room for myself. You go to bed and get a good rest. I only looked in to say goodnight.”

He came to kiss her on the brow. There was nothing but solicitude in his face. Yet, right time or not, she had to say what she intended, what she had sat up in her plain nightgown in this hard chair, to say.

“Don’t go for a minute, William. There are some things I do want to say.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“Curtain lectures already?”

“Don’t be silly. I only want to say that I know you’re not in love with me. I’ve been afraid to mention this before in case it made you change your mind about marrying me. And I did want that so badly, because I’ve loved you ever since the day we caught that butterfly together. Do you remember? The Swallowtail.
Papilio Machaon.
I even remember its Latin name.”