3
KINGSBRIDGE MANOR was one of the largest houses in England. Maisie had stayed there three or four times and she still had not seen half of it. The house had twenty principal bedrooms, not counting the rooms of the fifty or so servants. It was heated by coal fires and lit by candles, and it had only one bathroom, but what it lacked in modern conveniences it made up for in old-fashioned luxury: four-poster beds curtained with heavy silk, delicious old wines from the vast underground cellars, horses and guns and books and games without end.
The young duke of Kingsbridge had once owned a hundred thousand acres of best Wiltshire farmland, but on Solly’s advice he had sold half of it and bought a big chunk of South Kensington with the proceeds. Consequently the agricultural depression that had impoverished many great families had left “Kingo” untouched, and he was still able to entertain his friends in the grand style.
The Prince of Wales had been with them for the first week. Solly and Kingo and the prince shared a taste for boisterous fun, and Maisie had helped to provide it. She had substituted soapsuds for whipped cream on Kingo’s dessert; she had unbuttoned Solly’s braces while he dozed in the library, so that his trousers fell down when he stood up; and she had glued together the pages of The Times so that it could not be opened. By hazard the prince himself had been the first to pick up the newspaper, and as he fumbled with the pages there had been a moment of suspense when everyone wondered how he would take it—for though the heir to the throne loved practical jokes, he was never the victim—but then he began to chuckle as he realized what had happened, and the others all laughed uproariously, from relief as much as amusement.
The prince had left, and Hugh Pilaster had arrived; and then the trouble had started.
It was Solly’s idea to get Hugh invited here. Solly liked Hugh. Maisie could not think of a plausible reason to object. It had been Solly who asked Hugh to dinner in London, too.
He had recovered his composure quickly enough, that evening, and had proved himself a perfectly eligible dinner guest. Perhaps his manners were not quite as refined as they might have been if he had spent the last six years in London drawing rooms instead of Boston warehouses, but his natural charm made up for any shortcomings. In the two days he had been at Kingsbridge he had entertained them all with tales of life in America, a place none of them had visited.
It was ironic that she should find Hugh’s manners a little rough. Six years ago it had been the other way around. But she was a quick learner. She had acquired the accent of the upper classes with no trouble. The grammar had taken her a little longer. Hardest of all had been the little subtleties of behavior, the grace notes of social superiority: the way they walked through a door, spoke to a pet dog, changed the subject of a conversation, ignored a drunk. But she had studied hard, and now it all came naturally to her.
Hugh had recovered from the shock of their meeting, but Maisie had not. She would never forget his expression when he first saw her. She had been prepared, but for Hugh it had been a complete surprise. Because of his surprise he had shown his feelings quite nakedly, and Maisie had been dismayed to see the hurt in his eyes. She had wounded him deeply, six years ago, and he had not got over it.
The look on his face had haunted her ever since. She had been upset when she learned he was coming here. She did not want to see him. She did not want the past brought back. She was married to Solly, who was a good husband, and she could not bear the thought of hurting him. And there was Bertie, her reason for living.
Their child was named Hubert, but they called him Bertie, which was also the name of the Prince of Wales. Bertie Greenbourne would be five years old on May 1st, but that was a secret: his birthday was celebrated in September, to hide the fact that he had been born only six months after the wedding. Solly’s family knew the truth, but no one else did: Bertie had been born in Switzerland, during the world tour that had been their honeymoon. Since then Maisie had been happy.
Solly’s parents had not welcomed Maisie. They were stiff-necked snobbish German Jews who had been living in England for generations, and they looked down on Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews just off the boat. The fact that she was carrying another man’s child confirmed their prejudice and gave them an excuse for rejecting her. However, Solly’s sister Kate, who was about Maisie’s age and had a seven-year-old daughter, was nice to Maisie when her parents were not around.
Solly loved her, and he loved Bertie too, although he did not know whose child he was; and that was enough for Maisie—until Hugh came back.
She got up early, as always, and went along to the nursery wing of the great house. Bertie was having breakfast in the nursery dining room with Kingo’s children Anne and Alfred, supervised by three nursery maids. She kissed his sticky face and said: “What are you having?”
“Porridge with honey.” He spoke with the drawling accent of the upper classes, the accent Maisie had been at pains to learn, and from which she still occasionally slipped.
“Is it nice?”
“The honey’s nice.”
“I think I’ll have some,” said Maisie, sitting down. It would be more digestible than the kippers and deviled kidneys the adults had for breakfast.
Bertie did not take after Hugh. As a baby he had resembled Solly, for all babies looked like Solly; and now he was like Maisie’s father, with dark hair and brown eyes. Maisie could see something of Hugh in him now and again, especially when he gave a mischievous grin; but there was no obvious resemblance, fortunately.
A nursery maid brought Maisie a dish of porridge with honey and she tasted it.
“Do you like it, Mama?” said Bertie.
Anne said: “Don’t speak with your mouth full, Bertie.” Anne Kingsbridge was a superior seven-year-old and she lorded it over Bertie and her five-year-old brother Freddy.
“It’s delicious,” said Maisie.
Another maid said: “Would you like some buttered toast, children?” and they all said yes in a chorus.
Maisie had at first felt it was unnatural for a child to grow up surrounded by servants, and she feared that Bertie would be overprotected; but she had learned that rich children played in the dirt and climbed walls and got into fights just as much as the poor, and the main difference was that the people who cleaned up after them got paid.
She would have liked to have more children—Solly’s children—but something had gone wrong inside her when Bertie was born and the Swiss doctors had said she would not conceive again. They had been proved right, for she had been sleeping with Solly for five years without once missing the monthly curse. Bertie was the only child she would ever have. She was bitterly sorry for Solly, who would never have children of his own; although he said he already had more happiness than any man deserved.
Kingo’s wife the duchess, known to her friends as Liz, joined the nursery breakfast party soon after Maisie. As they were washing their children’s hands and faces, Liz said: “You know, my mother would never have done this. She only saw us when we were scrubbed clean and dressed up. So unnatural.” Maisie smiled. Liz thought herself very down-to-earth because she washed her own children’s faces.
They stayed in the nursery until ten o’clock, when the governess arrived and set the children to work drawing and painting. Maisie and Liz returned to their rooms. Today was a quiet day, with no hunting. Some of the men were going fishing and others would stroll in the woods with a dog or two, shooting rabbits. The ladies, and the men who liked ladies better than dogs, would walk around the park before lunch.
Solly had eaten breakfast and was getting ready to go out. He was dressed in a brown tweed lounge suit with a short jacket. Maisie kissed him and helped him put on his ankle boots: if she had not been there he would have called his valet, for he could not bend down far enough to tie the laces himself. She put on a fur coat and hat and Solly donned a heavy plaid Inverness coat with a cape and matching bowler hat, then they went down to the hall to meet the others.
It was a bright, frosty morning, delightful if you had a fur coat, torture if you lived in a drafty slum and had to walk barefoot. Maisie liked to remember the privations of her childhood: it intensified the pleasure she took in being married to one of the richest men in the world.
She walked with Kingo on one side of her and Solly on the other. Hugh was behind with Liz. Although Maisie could not see him she could feel his presence, hear him chatting with Liz and making her giggle, and imagine the twinkle in his blue eyes. After about half a mile they came to the main gate. As they were turning to stroll through the orchard Maisie saw a familiar tall, black-bearded figure approaching from the village. For a moment she imagined it was her papa; then she recognized her brother Danny.
Danny had returned to their hometown six years ago to find that their parents no longer lived in the old house, and had left no other address. Disappointed, he traveled further north, to Glasgow, and founded the Working Men’s Welfare Association, which not only insured workingmen against unemployment but also campaigned for safety rules in factories, the right to join trade unions, and financial regulation of corporations. His name started appearing in the newspapers—Dan Robinson, not Danny, for he was too formidable to be a Danny now. Papa read about him and came to his office, and there was a joyful reunion.
It turned out that Papa and Mama had at last met other Jews soon after Maisie and Danny ran away. They borrowed the money to move to Manchester, where Papa found another job, and they never sank so low again. Mama survived her illness and was now quite healthy.
Maisie was married to Solly by the time the family was reunited. Solly would cheerfully have given Papa a house and an income for life, but Papa did not want to retire, and instead asked Solly to lend him the money to open a shop. Now Mama and Papa sold caviar and other delicacies to the wealthy citizens of Manchester. When Maisie went to visit she took off her diamonds, put on a pinafore and served behind the counter, confident that none of the Marlborough Set were likely to go to Manchester and if they did they would not do their own shopping.
Seeing Danny here at Kingsbridge, Maisie immediately feared something had happened to their parents, and she ran to him, her heart in her mouth, saying, “Danny! What’s wrong? Is it Mama?”
“Papa and Mama are just fine, so are all the rest,” he said in his American accent.
“Thank God. How did you know I was here?”
“You wrote to me.”
“Oh, yes.”
Danny looked like a Turkish warrior with his curly beard and flashing eyes, but he was dressed like a clerk, in a well-worn black suit and a bowler hat, and he appeared to have walked a long way, for he had muddy boots and a weary expression. Kingo looked at him askance, but Solly rose to the occasion with his usual social grace. He shook Danny’s hand and said: “How are you, Robinson? This is my friend the duke of Kingsbridge. Kingo, allow me to present my brother-in-law Dan Robinson, general secretary of the Working Men’s Welfare Association.”
Many men would have been dumbstruck to be introduced to a duke, but not Danny. “How do you do, Duke?” he said with easy courtesy.
Kingo shook hands warily. Maisie guessed he was thinking that being polite to the lower classes was all very well up to a point, but it should not be taken too far.
Then Solly said: “And this is our friend Hugh Pilaster.”
Maisie tensed. In her anxiety about Mama and Papa she had forgotten that Hugh was behind her. Danny knew secrets about Hugh, secrets Maisie had never told her husband. He knew that Hugh was the father of Bertie. Danny had once wanted to break Hugh’s neck. They had never met, but Danny had not forgotten. What would he do?
However, he was six years older now. He gave Hugh a cold look, but shook hands civilly.
Hugh, who did not know he was a father and had no inkling of these undertones, spoke to Danny in a friendly way. “Axe you the brother who ran away from home and went to Boston?”
“I sure am.”
Solly said: “Fancy Hugh knowing that!”
Solly had no idea how much Hugh and Maisie knew about one another: he did not know that they had spent a night together telling one another their life stories.
Maisie felt bewildered by the conversation: it was skating over the surface of too many secrets, and the ice was thin. She hastened to get back onto firm ground. “Danny, why are you here?”
His weary face took on an expression of bitterness. “I’m no longer the secretary of the Working Men’s Welfare Association,” he said. “I’m ruined, for the third time in my life, by incompetent bankers.”
“Danny, please!” Maisie protested. He knew perfectly well that both Solly and Hugh were bankers.
But Hugh said: “Don’t worry! We hate incompetent bankers too. They’re a menace to everyone. But what exactly has happened, Mr. Robinson?”
“I spent five years building up the Welfare Association,” Danny said. “It was a mighty big success. We paid out hundreds of pounds every week in benefits and took in thousands in subscriptions. But what were we to do with the surplus?”
Solly said: “I assume you put it aside against the possibility of a bad year.”
“And where do you think we put it?”
“In a bank, I trust.”
“In the City of Glasgow Bank, to be exact.”
“Oh, dear,” said Solly.
Maisie said: “I don’t understand.”
Solly explained: “The City of Glasgow Bank went bankrupt.”
“Oh, no!” Maisie cried. It made her want to weep.
Danny nodded. “All those shillings paid in by hardworking men—lost by fools in top hats. And you wonder why they talk about revolution.” He sighed. “I’ve been trying to rescue the Association since it happened, but the task was hopeless, and I’ve given up.”
Kingo said abruptly: “Mr. Robinson, I am sorry for you and your members. Will you take some refreshment? You must have walked seven miles if you came from the railway station.”
“I will, and thank you.”
Maisie said: “I’ll take Danny indoors, and leave you to finish your walk.” She felt her brother was wounded, and she wanted to get him alone and do what she could to ease his pain.
The others obviously felt the tragedy too. Kingo said: “Will you stop for the night, Mr. Robinson?”
Maisie winced. Kingo was being too generous. It was easy enough to be civil to Danny for a few minutes out here in the park, but if he stayed overnight Kingo and his lotus-eating friends would soon get fed up with Danny’s coarse clothes and working-class concerns, then they would snub him and he would be hurt.
But Danny said: “I have to be back in London tonight. I just came to spend a few hours with my sister.”
Kingo said: “In that case allow me to have you driven to the station in my carriage, whenever you’re ready.”
“That’s real kind of you.”
Maisie took her brother’s arm. “Come with me and I’ll get you some lunch.”
After Danny left for London, Maisie joined Solly for an afternoon nap.
Solly lay on the bed in a red silk bathrobe and watched her undress. “I can’t rescue Dan’s Welfare Association,” he said. “Even if it made financial sense to me—which it doesn’t—I couldn’t persuade the other partners.”
Maisie felt a sudden surge of affection for him. She had not asked him to help Danny. “You’re such a good man,” she said. She opened his bathrobe and kissed his vast belly. “You’ve already done so much for my family, you never have to apologize. Besides, Danny won’t take anything from you, you know that; he’s too proud.”
“But what will he do?”
She stepped out of her petticoats and rolled down her stockings. “Tomorrow he’s meeting with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. He wants to be a member of Parliament and he hopes they will sponsor him.”
“And I suppose he’ll campaign for stricter government regulation of banks.”
“Would you be against that?”
“We never like the government to tell us what to do. True, there are too many crashes; but there might be even more if the politicians ran the banks.” He rolled on his side and propped his head up on his elbow to get a better view of her taking off her underwear. “I wish I weren’t leaving you tonight.”
Maisie wished the same. A part of her was excited at the prospect of being with Hugh when Solly was away, but that made her feel more guilty still. “I don’t mind,” she said.
“I feel so ashamed of my family.”
“You shouldn’t.” It was Passover, and Solly was going to celebrate the ritual of seder with his parents. Maisie was not invited. She understood Ben Greenbourne’s dislike of her, and half felt she deserved the way he treated her, but Solly was deeply upset by it. Indeed, he would have quarreled with his father if Maisie had let him, but she did not want that on her conscience too, and she insisted he continue to see his parents in a normal way.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” he said anxiously.
“I’m sure. Listen, if I felt strongly about it I could go to Manchester and spend Passover with my own parents.” She became thoughtful. “The fact is that I’ve never felt part of all that Jewish stuff, not since we left Russia. When we came to England there were no Jews in the town. The people I lived with in the circus had no religion at all, mostly. Even when I married a Jew, your family made me feel unwelcome. I’m fated to be an outsider, and to tell you the truth I don’t mind. God never did anything for me.” She smiled. “Mama says God gave you to me, but that’s rubbish: I got you all by myself.”
He was reassured. “I’ll miss you tonight.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over him so that he could nuzzle her breasts. “I’ll miss you too.”
“Mmm.”
After a while they lay side by side, head to tail, and he caressed her between her legs while she kissed and licked and then sucked his penis. He loved to do this in the afternoon, and he cried out softly as he came in her mouth.
She changed her position and nestled in the crook of his arm.
“What does it taste like?” he said sleepily.
She smacked her lips. “Caviar.”
He giggled and closed his eyes.
She began to stroke herself. Soon he was snoring. When she came he did not stir.
“The men who ran the City of Glasgow Bank should go to jail,” Maisie said shortly before dinner.
“That’s a bit hard,” Hugh responded.
The remark struck her as smug. “Hard?” she said irritably. “Not as hard as what happened to the workingmen whose money was lost!”
“Still, no one is perfect, not even those workingmen,” Hugh persisted. “If a carpenter makes a mistake, and a house falls down, should he go to jail?”
“It’s not the same!”
“And why not?”
“Because the carpenter is paid thirty shillings a week and obliged to follow a foreman’s orders, whereas a banker gets thousands, and justifies it by saying he carries a weight of responsibility.”
“All true. But the banker is human, and has a wife and children to support.”
“You might say the same of murderers, yet we hang them regardless of the fate of their orphaned children.”
“But if a man kills another accidentally, for example by shooting at a rabbit and hitting a man behind a bush, we don’t even send him to jail. So why should we jail bankers who lose other people’s money?”
“To make other bankers more careful!”
“And by the same logic we might hang the man who shot at the rabbit, to make other shooters more careful.”
“Hugh, you’re just being perverse.”
“No, I’m not. Why treat careless bankers more harshly than careless rabbit-shooters?”
“The difference is that careless shots do not throw thousands of working people into destitution every few years, whereas careless bankers do.”
At this point Kingo interjected languidly: “The directors of the City of Glasgow Bank probably will go to jail, I hear; and the manager too.”
Hugh said: “So I believe.”
Maisie felt like screaming with frustration. “Then why have you been contradicting me?”
He grinned. “To see whether you could justify your attitude.”
Maisie remembered that Hugh had always had the power to do this to her, and she bit her tongue. Her spitfire personality was part of her appeal to the Marlborough Set, one of the reasons they accepted her despite her background; but they would get bored if she let her tantrums go on too long. Her mood changed in a flash. “Sir, you have insulted me!” she cried theatrically. “I challenge you to a duel!”
“What weapons do ladies duel with?” Hugh laughed.
“Crochet hooks at dawn!”
They all laughed at that, then a servant came in and announced dinner.
They were always eighteen or twenty around the long table. Maisie loved to see the crisp linen and fine china, the hundreds of candles reflected in the shining glassware, the immaculate black-and-white evening dress of the men and the gorgeous colors and priceless jewelry of the women. There was champagne every night, but it went straight to Maisie’s waist, so she allowed herself only a sip or two.
She found herself seated next to Hugh. The duchess normally put her next to Kingo, for Kingo liked pretty women and the duchess was tolerant; but tonight she had apparently decided to vary the formula. No one said grace, for in this set religion was kept for Sundays only. The soup was served and Maisie chatted brightly to the men on either side of her. However, her mind was on her brother. Poor Danny! So clever, so dedicated, such a great leader—and so unlucky. She wondered if he would succeed in his new ambition of becoming a member of Parliament. She hoped so. Papa would be so proud.
Today, unusually, her background had intruded visibly into her new life. It was surprising how little difference it made. Like her, Danny did not appear to belong to any particular class of society. He represented workingmen; his dress was middle class; yet he had the same confident, slightly arrogant manners as Kingo and his friends. They could not easily tell whether he was an upper-class boy who chose martyrdom among the workers or a working-class boy who had risen in life.
Something similar was true of Maisie. Anyone with the least instinct for class differences could tell she was not a born lady. However, she played the part so well, and she was so pretty and charming, that they could not quite bring themselves to believe the persistent rumor that Solly had picked her up in a dance parlor. If there had been any question of her acceptance by London society, it had been answered when the Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria—and future king—had confessed himself “captivated” by her and sent her a gold cigarette box with a diamond clasp.
As the meal progressed she felt the presence of Hugh by her side more and more. She made an effort to keep the conversation light, and took care to talk at least as much to the man on her other side; but the past seemed to stand at her shoulder, waiting to be acknowledged, like a weary, patient supplicant.
She and Hugh had met three or four times since his return to London, and now they had spent forty-eight hours in the same house, but they had never spoken, of what had happened six years ago. All Hugh knew was that she had disappeared without a trace, only to surface as Mrs. Solomon Greenbourne. Sooner or later she was going to have to give him some explanation. She was afraid that talking about it would bring back all the old feelings, in him as well as her. But it had to be done, and perhaps this was a good time, when Solly was away.
A moment came when several people around them were talking noisily. Maisie decided she should speak now. She turned to Hugh, and suddenly she was overcome with emotion. She began speaking three or four times and could not go on. Finally she managed to get a few words out. “I would have ruined your career, you know.” Then she had to make such an effort not to cry that she could say no more.
He understood right away what she was talking about. “Who told you that you would have ruined my career?”
If he had been sympathetic she might have broken down, but luckily he was aggressive, and that enabled her to reply. “Your aunt Augusta.”
“I suspected she was involved somehow.”
“But she was right.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said, getting angry very quickly. “You didn’t ruin Solly’s career.”
“Calm down. Solly wasn’t already the black sheep of the family. Even so, it was difficult enough. His family hates me still.”
“Even though you’re Jewish?”
“Yes. Jews can be as snobbish as anyone else.” He would never know the real reason—that Bertie was not Solly’s child.
“Why didn’t you simply tell me what you were doing, and why?”
“I couldn’t.” Remembering those awful days, she felt choked up again and had to take a deep breath to calm herself. “I found it very hard to cut myself off like that; it broke my heart. I couldn’t have done it at all if I’d had to justify myself to you as well.”
Still he would not let her off the hook. “You could have sent me a note.”
Maisie’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I couldn’t bring myself to write it.”
At last he seemed to relent. He took a gulp of his wine and averted his eyes from her. “It was awful, not understanding, not knowing if you were even alive.” He was speaking harshly, but now she could see the remembered pain in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said feebly. “I’m so soriy I hurt you. I didn’t want to. I wanted to save you from unhappiness. I did it for love.” As soon as she heard herself say the word “love” she regretted it.
He picked up on it. “Do you love Solly now?” he said abruptly.
“Yes.”
“The two of you seem very settled.”
“The way we live … it isn’t difficult to be contented.”
He had not finished being angry with her. “You’ve got what you always wanted.”
That was a bit hard, but she felt that perhaps she deserved it, so she just nodded.
“What happened to April?”
Maisie hesitated. This was going a bit too far. “You class me with April, then, do you?” she said, feeling hurt.
Somehow that deflated his anger. He smiled ruefully and said: “No, you were never like April. I know that. All the same I’d like to know what became of her. Do you still see her?”
“Yes—discreetly.” April was a neutral topic: talking about her would get them off this dangerously emotional ground. Maisie decided to satisfy his curiosity. “Do you know a place called Nellie’s?”
He lowered his voice. “It’s a brothel.”
She could not restrain herself from asking: “Did you ever go there?”
He looked embarrassed. “Yes, once. It was a fiasco.”
That did not surprise her: she remembered how naive and inexperienced the twenty-year-old Hugh had been. “Well, April now owns the place.”
“Goodness! How did that happen?”
“First she became the mistress of a famous novelist and lived in the prettiest little cottage in Clapham. He tired of her at about the time Nell was thinking about retirement. So April sold the cottage and bought Nell out.”
“Fancy that,” said Hugh. “I’ll never forget Nell. She was the fattest woman I’ve ever seen.”
The table had suddenly gone quiet, and his last sentence was heard by several people nearby. There was general laughter, and someone said: “Who was this fat lady?” Hugh just grinned and made no reply.
After that they stayed off dangerous topics, but Maisie felt subdued and somewhat fragile, as if she had suffered a fall and bruised herself.
When dinner was over and the men had smoked their cigars Kingo announced that he wanted to dance. The drawing room carpet was rolled up and a footman who could play polkas on the piano was summoned and set to work.
Maisie danced with everyone except Hugh, then it was obvious she was avoiding him, so she danced with him; and it was as if six years had rolled back and they were in Cremorne Gardens again. He hardly led her: they seemed instinctively to do the same thing. Maisie could not suppress the disloyal thought that Solly was a clumsy dancer.
After Hugh she took another partner; but then the other men stopped asking her. As ten o’clock turned to eleven and the brandy appeared, convention was abandoned: white ties were loosened, some of the women kicked off their shoes, and Maisie danced every dance with Hugh. She knew she ought to feel guilty, but she had never been much good at guilt: she was enjoying herself and she was not going to stop.
When the piano-playing footman was exhausted, the duchess demanded a breath of air, and maids were sent scurrying for coats so they could all take a turn around the garden. Out in the darkness, Maisie took Hugh’s arm. “The whole world knows what I’ve been doing for the last six years, but what about you?”
“I like America,” he said. “There’s no class system. There are rich and poor, but no aristocracy, no nonsense about rank and protocol. What you’ve done, in marrying Solly and becoming a friend of the highest in the land, is pretty unusual here, and even now I bet you never actually tell the truth about your origins—”
“They have their suspicions, I think—but you’re right, I don’t own up.”
“In America you’d boast about your humble beginnings the way Kingo boasts about his ancestors fighting at the battle of Agincourt.”
She was interested in Hugh, not America. “You haven’t married.”
“No.”
“In Boston … was there a girl you liked?”
“I tried, Maisie,” he said.
Suddenly she wished she had not asked him about this, for she had a premonition that his answer would destroy her happiness; but it was too late, the question had been raised and he was already speaking.
“There were pretty girls in Boston, and pleasant girls, and intelligent girls, and girls who would make wonderful wives and mothers. I paid attention to some of them, and they seemed to like me. But when it came to the point where I had to make a proposal or back off I realized, each time, that what I felt was not enough. It was not what I felt for you. It wasn’t love.”
Now he had said it. “Stop,” Maisie whispered.
“Two or three mothers got rather cross with me, then my reputation spread around, and the girls became wary. They were nice enough to me, but they knew there was something wrong with me, I wasn’t serious, not the marrying kind. Hugh Pilaster, the English banker and breaker of hearts. And if a girl did seem to fall for me, despite my record, I would discourage her. I don’t like to break people’s hearts. I know too well what it feels like.”
Her face was wet with tears, and she was glad of the tactful dark. “I’m sorry,” she said, but she whispered so softly that she could hardly hear her own voice.
“Anyway, I know what’s wrong with me now. I guess I always knew, but the last two days have removed any doubts.”
They had fallen behind the others, and now he stopped and faced her.
She said: “Don’t say it, Hugh, please.”
“I still love you. That’s all.”
It was out, and everything was ruined.
“I think you love me too,” he went on mercilessly. “Don’t you?”
She looked up at him. She could see, reflected in his eyes, the lights of the house across the lawn, but his face was in shadow. He inclined his head and kissed her lips, and she did not turn away. “Salt tears,” he said after a minute. “You do love me. I knew it.” He took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and touched her face gently, mopping the teardrops from her cheeks.
She had to put a stop to this. “We must catch up with the others,” she said. “People will talk.” She turned and began to walk, so that he had to either release her arm or go with her. He went with her.
“I’m surprised that you worry about people talking,” he said. “Your set is famous for not minding anything of that sort.”
She was not really concerned about the others. It was herself she was worried about. She made him walk faster until they rejoined the rest of the party, then she let go of his arm and talked to the duchess.
She was obscurely bothered by Hugh’s saying that the Marlborough Set was famous for its tolerance. It was true, but she wished he hadn’t used the phrase anything of that sort; she was not sure why.
When they reentered the house the tall clock in the hall was striking midnight. Maisie suddenly felt drained by the tensions of the day. “I’m going to bed,” she announced.
She saw the duchess look reflexively at Hugh, then back at her, and suppress a little smile; and she realized that they all thought Hugh would sleep with her tonight.
The ladies went upstairs together, leaving the men to play billiards and drink a nightcap. As the women kissed her good night Maisie saw the same look in the eyes of each one, a gleam of excitement tinged with envy.
She went into her bedroom and closed the door. A coal fire burned merrily in the grate, and there were candles on the mantelpiece and the dressing table. On the bedside table, as usual, there was a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of sherry in case she got peckish in the night: she never touched them, but the well-trained staff of Kingsbridge Manor put a tray beside every bed without fail.
She began to take off her clothes. They might all be wrong: perhaps Hugh would not come to her tonight. The thought stabbed her like a pain, and she longed for him to come through the door so that she could take him in her arms and kiss him, really kiss him, not guiltily as she had in the garden, but hungrily and shamelessly. The feeling brought back an overwhelming memory of the night of the Goodwood races six years ago, the narrow bed in his aunt’s house, and the expression on his face when she took off her dress.
She looked at her body in the long mirror. Hugh would notice how it had changed. Six years ago she had had tiny turned-in pink nipples like dimples, but now, after nursing Bertie, they were enlarged and strawberry-colored, and stuck out. As a girl she had not needed to wear a corset—she had been naturally wasp-shaped—but her waist had never quite returned to normal after pregnancy.
She heard the men coming up the stairs, heavy-footed and laughing at some joke. Hugh had been right: not one of them would be shocked by a little adultery at a country-house party. Did they not feel disloyal to their friend Solly, she thought derisively? And then it hit her like a slap in the face that she was the one who ought to feel disloyal.
She had put Solly out of her mind all evening, but now he came back to her in spirit: harmless, amiable Solly; kind, generous Solly; the man who loved her to distraction, the man who cared for Bertie, knowing he was another man’s child. Within hours of his leaving the house Maisie was about to let another man come into her bed. What kind of woman am I? she thought.
On impulse she went to the door and locked it.
She understood now why she had disliked Hugh’s saying Your set is famous for not minding anything of that sort. It made her feeling for Hugh seem commonplace, just another one of the many flirtations, romances and infidelities that gave society ladies something to gossip about. Solly deserved better than to be betrayed by a commonplace affair.
But I want Hugh, she thought.
The idea of forgoing this night with him made her want to weep. She thought of his boyish grin and his bony chest, his blue eyes and smooth white skin; and she remembered the expression on his face when he looked at her body, the expression of wonder and happiness, desire and delight; and it seemed so hard to give that up.
There was a soft tap at the door.
She stood naked in the middle of the room, paralyzed and dumb.
The handle turned and the door was pushed, but of course it would not open.
She heard her name spoken in a low voice.
She went to the door and put her hand to the key.
“Maisie!” he called softly. “It’s me, Hugh.”
She longed for him so much that the sound of his voice made her moist inside. She put her finger in her mouth and bit herself hard, but the pain did not mask the desire.
He tapped on the door again. “Maisie! Let me in?”
She leaned her back against the wall, and the tears streamed down her face, dripping off her chin onto her breasts.
“At least let us talk!”
She knew that if she opened the door there would be no talking—she would take him in her arms and they would fall to the floor in a frenzy of desire.
“Say something. Are you there? I know you’re there.”
She stood still, crying silently.
“Please?” he said. “Please?”
After a while he went away.
Maisie slept badly and woke early, but as the new day dawned her spirits lifted a little. Before the other guests were up she went along to the nursery wing as usual. Outside the door of the nursery dining room she stopped suddenly. She was not the first guest to rise, after all. She could hear a man’s voice inside. She paused and listened. It was Hugh.
He was saying: “And just at that moment, the giant woke up.”
There was a childish squeal of delighted terror that Maisie recognized as coming from Bertie.
Hugh went on: “Jack went down the beanstalk as fast as his legs could carry him—but the giant came after him!”
Kingo’s daughter Anne said in the superior voice of a knowing seven-year-old: “Bertie’s hiding behind his chair because he’s scared. I’m not scared.”
Maisie wanted to hide like Bertie, and she turned and began to walk back to her room, but she stopped again. She had to face Hugh sometime today, and here in the nursery might be the easiest place. She composed herself and went in.
Hugh had the three children enraptured. Bertie hardly saw his mother come in. Hugh looked up at Maisie with hurt in his eyes. “Don’t stop,” Maisie said, and she sat down by Bertie and hugged him.
Hugh returned his attention to the children. “And what do you think Jack did next?”
“I know,” said Anne. “He got an ax.”
“That’s right.”
Maisie sat there hugging Bertie, while Bertie stared big-eyed at the man who was his real father. If I can stand this, I can do anything, Maisie thought.
Hugh said: “And while the giant was still halfway up the beanstalk, Jack chopped it down! And the giant fell all the way to the earth … and died. And Jack and his mother lived happily ever after.”
Bertie said: “Tell it again.”