The Land of Summer (12 page)

‘I think possibly all brides look a little special, Agnes. As I’m sure you will when you get married.’

‘Me, madam?’ Agnes stared at her in astonishment. ‘I won’t never get married, madam. Likes of me? I won’t never get married. My mum says I’m as plain as a poker.’

‘My mother thinks the same of me, Agnes.’

‘Never. She never could have. You, madam?’

‘I assure you she does, Agnes. She is forever telling me how plain and how commonplace is my appearance. My sisters are the pretty ones. I have three sisters and they are all considered to be beauties.’

‘Perhaps so, madam,’ Agnes muttered. ‘But I still don’t know why anyone thinks that of you. Everyone downstairs, everyone below stairs that is, Dolly and Helen and me, George and Alan – even old Mr Wilkinson – we was all saying how beautiful you are and what a lucky gentleman Mr Aubrey is.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Agnes.’

‘We were not being kind, madam, with respect. That’s what us all thought when we first saw you. And again now, when we seen you in your wedding gown.’

‘You are flattering me, Agnes,’ Emmaline said, smiling and getting up from her dressing table now that Agnes had finished helping to put up her hair again. ‘But I don’t mind.’

‘I’m not flattering you, madam,’ Agnes insisted, now quite readily. ‘We all think so.’

‘Then you are all very kind. Thank you.’

‘You got a lovely silhouette as well, madam,’ Agnes added. ‘Sure I shouldn’t be saying as much—’

‘You can say what you like, Agnes.’ Emmaline laughed. ‘As long as it continues in this vein.’

‘Well, so you has, madam,’ Agnes continued, carefully doing up the back of her mistress’s dress. ‘I’d die to have a figure like you – and hair like you – and as for complexion—’

Instinctively Emmaline raised a hand to her face and stopped smiling, realising that everything her maid had said, the feelings she had attributed to her colleagues, must have been
rooted
in sympathy for her as a lonely young woman from another country with not even a father to give her away, only her fiancé’s butler, who had slipped back into servant mode as soon as the service was over.

‘Thank you, Agnes,’ she said, giving one last longing look to the beautiful cream gown that would doubtless never be worn again. ‘That will be all for now, thank you, Agnes.’

Agnes hesitated, standing scratching the back of her neck as she stared at Emmaline, worried by her mistress’s sudden change of tone.

‘Madam,’ she said anxiously, ‘I haven’t said nothing improper, have I? I mean, what I said—’

‘No, Agnes.’ Emmaline smiled at her maid and put a hand on one of hers. ‘You have been very sweet and very kind. I just want a little time to myself now, that is all.’

‘I meant what I said, madam.’

‘I’m sure you did, Agnes. But really, that will be all now.’

‘You really looked so beautiful today, madam.’ ‘Thank you, Agnes.’ Emmaline smiled again, but Agnes still showed no sign of leaving. ‘Thank you, Agnes?’ she repeated a little more firmly, and finally with a bob the maid was gone.

When she had left, Emmaline went and stood in front of her cheval glass, regarding herself. There was no doubt that she did indeed have an exemplary figure, whose natural grace and shape hardly needed corseting, so that she was able to get away with only the lightest of stays and the
minimum
of tightening, and there was also no doubt that she was well proportioned as far as the length of her limbs and the set of her head went. She had a smooth and creamy complexion, made even more so by the contrast with her lovely dark brown hair and pale green eyes. Yet how could she be beautiful, when she did not think of herself as being even pretty? But now she was married, she must force herself to outgrow her lack of self-confidence. After all, looked at from the outside, Emmaline had to all intents and purposes married well, wedding a rich and successful man with his own business. Julius must be considered by everyone as a man of taste and elegance, although perhaps a little eccentric, and he was certainly very well connected in English society.

As she prepared to take herself back downstairs to the drawing room, to read while she sat and waited dutifully for her new husband’s return, Emmaline determined on keeping calm, on making the most of her position. She was married. Her marriage mattered a great deal more than any wedding reception crammed with cheering guests. She was
married
.

She kept repeating the words in her head all the way down the stairs to the drawing room, because it seemed to her that if she didn’t she might start to forget that she was indeed married, and only remember that she had been to church, and then had lunch, which, looked at bleakly, was all it felt as if she had done. Still, as she entered
the
drawing room and remembered all the fine paintings and the beautiful furniture, it was good to remind herself that she had at least married a man of erudition and learning, a man of education who was consulted by important people who thought a great deal of him. And she was now living in their house, her home, and she had a wedding ring on her finger. And certainly, given all the misgivings about herself with which she had grown up, she had never expected to find herself in such a position. So all she had to do was be patient, as indeed she had been brought up to be.
Good things come to those who wait
, her governess had always instructed her.
Patience is one of the great virtues and must be practised wherever possible
. So if she was right in thinking that Julius was just a little introverted, even shy, and perhaps even timid about the union that had just been blessed by the Church, then if ever there was a time to practise the art of patience, this must surely be it?

With that in mind, and confident that her appearance was everything that it should be on the afternoon of her marriage, Emmaline sat herself down by the fire that Dolly had laid and lit in the drawing room, and it was there that she took tea, alone, while forcing herself to start reading a book about the latest movements in French painting which had been left out on the side table, perhaps for her edification.

* * *

Since Julius did not return that afternoon Emmaline sat and read until finally she could read no more, and with time still to kill before she needed to dress for dinner, greatly daring, she sat herself down at Julius’s grand piano and played for the best part of an hour. During that time Dolly came in to see to the fire, and Wilkinson arrived with consummate timing just as Emmaline finished playing a Chopin
étude
, one of several pieces to which even her father had always considered she did justice.

Wilkinson waited for her to recover from the emotion she had put into the piece before politely informing her that dinner would be served in one hour. Emmaline repaired upstairs with Agnes to change for dinner.

When the gong sounded Julius had still not returned.

‘Do you not think perhaps we should wait for Mr Aubrey?’ Emmaline, who was beginning to feel understandably desperate, enquired when Wilkinson appeared at the drawing-room doors.

‘I quite understand, madam,’ Wilkinson replied with great courtesy, ‘but Mr Aubrey’s strict instructions are that all meals are to be served at the given times whatever the circumstances.’

‘Even when Mr Aubrey himself is not yet returned?’

‘Indeed, madam,’ Wilkinson assured her. ‘Your husband was quite adamant on the matter.’

And so on her wedding night Emmaline found herself sitting down to dinner alone, a dinner
served
by Wilkinson and Dolly and supervised by Mrs Graham, who looked in after every course to make sure everything was satisfactory, a five-course dinner which Emmaline felt she could barely even begin to eat, but to which she tried to do full justice, if only to please the servants, who somehow made sure that full and due ceremony was observed, as if there was nothing untoward in the sight of a bride dining alone on her wedding night. Nor was any comment of a forward or untoward nature made; far from it. The faces and manners of the servants were nothing if not caring and concerned.

Afterwards, Emmaline sat alone by the fire, waiting. She did so in vain, because by the time the clock chimed eleven and the fire had begun to die down there was still no sign of her husband. However, she was determined to play her part in this particular pantomime with as much dignity as her quite obviously dedicated set of servants had demonstrated at dinner time, so she rang for her maid and announced she was retiring for the night.

She was uncertain at first where she was to sleep, but Agnes was not. Once her mistress was attired for the night, Agnes opened the door from Emmaline’s dressing room to what Emmaline now saw was the main bedroom, Julius’s bedroom. A fire was lit in the grate, there were bowls of sweet-smelling early spring flowers set about the room, and the bedding on the large four-poster bed had been turned back on both sides. Having
made
sure that her mistress had everything she required, Agnes wished her goodnight and went, leaving Emmaline alone and more than a little fearful in her wedding bed.

Still Julius did not return. Even when the clock in the hall struck midnight there was no sign of the errant bridegroom. Half an hour later, in spite of her best efforts to stay awake, Emmaline was finally fast asleep, only to be woken almost at once by the sound of what appeared to be someone falling upstairs, if such a thing were possible. Sitting bolt upright in bed and grabbing the bedclothes around her, Emmaline waited, her whole being turned to gooseflesh as the person making all the noise proceeded to do so along the landing outside the bedroom. Finally the door opened and an extremely dishevelled Julius appeared.

Although Emmaline had only read about people being drunk before, she recognised her husband’s state at once, even before she became aware of the fumes of alcohol overpowering the scent of the flowers. She knew it from his unsteadiness as he leaned against the doorpost but most of all from the tragi-comic expression on his face.

‘What have I done?’ he muttered, before throwing back his head and shouting aloud. ‘
What have I done? What have I done!
’

‘Julius?’ Emmaline asked anxiously, not knowing whether to stay in bed and see out the nightmare of the scene in front of her, to go and try to help him, or to get out of bed and for her own safety’s sake try to shut him out of the
room
. ‘Julius – what’s happened? What is the matter?’

Julius focused on her and to her horror she saw his eyes slowly filling with tears.

‘How could I do this?’ he mumbled, swaying dangerously as he stood away from the doorpost. ‘How could I do such a thing? A terrible thing.’

‘I don’t understand, Julius,’ Emmaline said, keeping her voice as calm as she could while deciding it was safer to stay where she was. ‘What have you done? What is this terrible thing—’

‘How could I
do
it?’ he interrupted, shaking his fuddled head slowly from side to side, the tears now running down his face. ‘How could I
do
such a thing?’

‘Julius—’

‘How
could
I?
How could I!
’

‘Julius, hush! You’ll wake the whole household.’

‘So what?’ Julius replied, switching moods suddenly. ‘So what! It’s my damned house and I’ll damned well wake who I damned well like!’

‘Julius—’

‘I’ll wake who I like, I tell you! And then everyone can hear what a terrible thing I have done! What a terrible,
terrible
thing.’

‘I think you ought to go to bed, Julius,’ Emmaline told him feebly, all too aware that she was quite unable to think of anything else to say. ‘I don’t think you’re very … well.’

‘I think I shall go to hell, that’s where I think I shall go,’ Julius muttered darkly. ‘I shall go to hell,
that’s
where
I
shall go. For doing such a terrible,
terrible
thing.’

‘I really think you ought to go to bed rather than to Hades,’ Emmaline repeated fearfully, frightened now and preparing to grab the gown that was lying on the chair near her side of the bed and to do a bolt into the sanctuary of her dressing room.

‘May God forgive me,’ Julius whispered. ‘May God forgive me because you never will.’

And with that, he slowly slipped down the doorway to collapse in an unconscious heap on the floor.

For a moment Emmaline stared down at him, horrified, while a feeling of utter helplessness filled her. Then she jumped out of bed, grabbed her dressing gown and threw it on. Just as she was tying the cord round her slender waist another figure appeared at the door: Wilkinson in a tartan wool dressing gown, flannel pyjamas and a pair of beige felt slippers.

‘Wilkinson? Is that you?’ Emmaline said in amazement, although it clearly was.

‘It is indeed, Mrs Aubrey. Now, if you will, please leave this to me, madam, if you would,’ Wilkinson replied, bending down and beginning to try to sort out the crumpled form at his feet. ‘I think this will be much the best left to me.’

‘How, Wilkinson?’ Emmaline enquired. ‘I can’t see how you can possibly cope with this by yourself.’

‘I am not by myself, madam,’ Wilkinson replied
quietly
, indicating with one hand for someone to come out of the shadows behind him. ‘I was waiting up, you see, madam, for the master,’ he continued as the sturdy figure of George appeared by his side. ‘I had to wait up because he had gone out without his keys and we couldn’t have the house left open all night, do you see.’

Emmaline stepped back. ‘Of course.’

‘And so then when I saw the master returning, I thought it best to get George here up as well,’ Wilkinson continued. ‘Just in case, do you see.’

‘Of course,’ Emmaline said again. ‘Very thoughtful of you.’

‘So if you take yourself back to bed, madam,’ Wilkinson suggested, ‘young George and I will make sure the master here gets safely to his dressing room. A man in his state ought to be in his bed. A man in his state is heavy too, madam, very heavy.’

By now they had the comatose Julius back on his feet, holding him up under his arms on both sides, and were beginning the unenviable task of guiding their dead weight along the corridor.