Right through the stunned recognition that a wife was even less than a slave—because a slave was at least recognized as a separate entity—Arthur found it surprising that Roger should secure Leonie’s property in such a way that he could not touch or manage it except by her direct permission.
“Didn’t Leonie trust you?” he asked.
Roger laughed. “It had nothing to do with Leonie. She was rather annoyed with me when I explained it all to her, but I am nearly twenty years older than she, and there is always a chance, no matter how slim, that one will fall on his head in the hunting field and recover with a twisted brain. Besides,” he looked keenly at Arthur, “I had no desire at all to have anything Leonie was not willing to give me simply because she loved me, and to constrain her by the common law regulating matrimony would mean that I did not trust her, would it not?”
“That is just what Abigail said.” Arthur stared back at his uncle. “Has she spoken to you?”
“Not since that dinner your mother gave,” Roger replied, his eyes bright and interested. “I imagine that congratulations are in order?”
Arthur sighed and described the conditions under which Abigail had consented to marriage.
“A very clever girl.” Roger nodded approval. “I believe you will be very happy with her.”
The words held some comfort for Arthur and yet annoyed him, too. As he rode home, he mused on the fact that everyone kept telling him that he would be happy with Abigail. But when he considered the past months, it almost seemed that he had not been happy since he met Abigail. He had been happy before she turned his life upside down; he had been calm and contented. If he had not known the peaks of joy Abigail had brought him, he had not known the constant turmoil and the depth of misery she had brought him, either. And it was not likely to get any better, Arthur reminded himself. She would be as independent of him after their wedding as before it. Part of Arthur felt warm and righteous, but there was an odd sense of doubt in him as well.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was significant of his emotional condition that Arthur’s doubts always disappeared with his first sight of Abigail. He felt a fool, but during the months of legal wrangling he could not mention his uncertainties to her. Not that Abigail took any part in the quibbling or was even much aware of it. As soon as she understood that Arthur was himself arranging to protect her possessions, she abandoned any idea of interfering in any way. All she had wanted was the independent ownership of her bookshop and its income. Since she had never had any fears that Arthur would be unfair or unkind to her or her children, that possession was enough. If the unimaginable took place and marriage turned Arthur into a monster, she could flee to the United States with Victor and Daphne, where distance and independence would protect her.
Naturally, it was Abigail’s indifference to every aspect of the marriage settlement aside from the articles concerning her shop that spurred Arthur into providing protections of her freedom that had never entered her mind. Thus, it was the beginning of October before the betrothal could be announced. Even then, the date for the wedding could not be set because the arrangements devised to defeat any attempt to challenge Arthur’s position as executor and trustee of the Lydden estate were far more complex than those for establishing a separate estate.
Arthur’s problems were only intensified by the fact that Eustace appeared totally indifferent to the possibility of raising a question of conflict of interest. In view of Eustace’s attitude, the solicitors were puzzled by Arthur’s hair-splitting, and even Bertram seemed to grow doubtful about the wisdom of expending so much time and effort to defend a position that was not under attack. Now and again Arthur wondered whether he was transferring his uneasiness about the terms of his marriage to the terms of his trusteeship, but he persisted.
Abigail had also begun to have doubts about giving up the total independence she was enjoying. Before they had left Scotland, she had felt as if she would be torn apart by her desire for Arthur because his nearness would mount a constant assault on her senses. After returning to Rutupiae Hall, she soon realized that her fears had largely been generated by her imagination. Because she was busy, first with her children and, after they left for school, with details concerning the estate that had piled up over her two months’ absence, she felt little stress. And then Arthur was seldom at Stonar Magna during September. Most of the time he was in London, very much occupied between the conferences with solicitors about the legal arrangements for their marriage and the political events.
There had been important developments in the war against France during August and September. The truce had ended on 10 August and on the eleventh Austria had confirmed her alliance with Prussia and Russia by declaring war. Although Bonaparte repulsed the Austrians at Dresden on 26 August, his marshals were not so successful. Vandamme, who pursued the retreating Austrian troops, was trapped by the Prussians and lost about twenty thousand of his thirty thousand men. Oudinot was thrown back by von Bülow in his attempt to take Berlin, and when Ney repeated the attempt on 6 September, worse befell him. He lost twenty-four thousand men and eighty guns. In fact, all through September a series of minor defeats were inflicted on the outlying French forces, and the foreign troops that made up a considerable part of the Grande Armée began to defect. By the end of September, the army Bonaparte had built up since the beginning of the truce had been nearly destroyed.
Naturally, as soon as news of these events reached England, debate began about how far it was necessary to pursue the war. Since England supported the Prussians and Russians with huge subsidies, some members of Parliament were in favor of an early peace to ease the burden of taxes, even if it meant allowing Bonaparte to keep part of the territories France had overrun. Despite the fact that most of those who wished for an early peace were members of Arthur’s party, he was unalterably opposed to any treaty that would leave Bonaparte as ruler of France. He felt that it would be more expensive in the long run to make peace because Bonaparte would be at war again, treaty or no treaty, as soon as he gathered sufficient strength.
Arguments on this subject against men he supported on other causes sometimes became personal and bitter, but at least Arthur had the comfort of total and enthusiastic agreement from Abigail when he drove out from Town to see her and report on the progress of the legal affairs. Her fervent support of his ideas was particularly satisfactory because he was certain, even after their formal betrothal, that it was totally sincere and owed nothing to ordinary female pacification of her male.
It was fortunate that Arthur was too absorbed in his activities to analyze Abigail’s reactions. He was more than clever enough, had he thought the matter through, to realize that her enthusiasm for his opposition to an early peace owed more to her fear for America and her friends there—for should peace be made, England would be able to apply her full strength against America—than to any absolute conviction about the need to depose Bonaparte. Even more fortunate was the fact that he did not notice how tepid was her interest in their betrothal. Again his preoccupation with legal details and political maneuvering allowed him to accredit to womanly delicacy her failure to urge him to cut short the bickering over details. Even a few moments of unclouded thought would have made him laugh at himself. Abigail had many virtues, but patience and female delicacy were not notable among them.
If Abigail did not push to hurry the wedding, neither did she try to delay it. She had given her word that she would marry if she could be assured of independence, and Arthur had more than fulfilled his part of the bargain. Besides, it soon became clear that with regard to being her lover, Arthur had weakened only during the time they were in Scotland when he felt that she and her children might be in danger. He would kiss her and caress her until they were both half crazy, but he would not make love. And when she complained—once even been driven to begging and weeping—he soothed her as best he could but insisted that he wanted a wife, not a mistress, and would not settle for less.
T
hey were married very quietly on 20 December as soon as Victor and Daphne came home from school, only a few days after all the legal work was complete. When Arthur arrived on the fifteenth with a special license and the obvious intention of dragging her off to church and to bed that very day, Abigail had protested that she could not marry before her children arrived. To this Arthur agreed at once, but when she suggested waiting until after Christmas, he refused. Abigail then pointed out that he had told her it was traditional for the St. Eyres to gather at Stonar Magna for a family celebration, and it would be a good way to introduce her to the entire clan. Arthur had recoiled in horror from the notion.
“First of all,” he exclaimed, “if you are implying that my family might object, I must tell you that they have no right to do so. I am the head of the family and am the arbiter of propriety within it.”
“Heaven help your family,” Abigail interjected.
“Quiet,” Arthur ordered. “I am propriety itself. Who, may I ask, has been complaining bitterly about my ‘antique morality’ these three months and more? In the second place, I am not a lunatic—whatever you may think—and I have no intention of allowing you to meet the odds and sods that make up the St. Eyres before we are married. Afterward it will be too late for you to back out.”
Although Arthur was joking, he had touched a rather tender spot in Abigail’s conscience. She smiled at him and shook her head, but she raised no more objections when he settled on the twentieth. Indeed, she had to admit that the choice was clever and considerate because it was the day after Victor and Daphne would arrive. Arthur felt the wedding would just blend in with their general excitement and thus stand out less and have less chance of hurting them or bringing their father to mind. A second reason was that marriage on the twentieth would permit him and Abigail a few days of peace before the descent of what he called the ravening horde.
Arthur felt a pang of conscience when he rejected Abigail’s suggestion that they delay their wedding until the St. Eyres arrived. He knew he would be depriving the large and lively family, most of whom he truly loved, of the intense pleasure of teasing him unmercifully about at last being trapped into marriage and also celebrating his wedding with exuberant joy. However, for some reason he could not agree to wait even the few days. He found all sorts of reasons, including his aching physical need for Abigail, but he rejected the real driving cause—an uneasy feeling that she might slip away from him.
Kindest of all, Arthur proposed that he and Abigail remain in Rutupiae until the twenty-fourth, which would give Victor and Daphne a sense of continuity and make moving to Stonar just when all the other guests were arriving seem more like a visit than a great change in their lives. Until New Year’s, there would be too much going on all the time for them to brood over having a new father, and the oddity of it would wear away. Then they would have a few days after the guests left to get used to the house, he said thoughtfully, and by the time they returned at Easter, Stonar Magna would seem like home. As Abigail thanked him, she wondered how she could be such a fool as to consider for a moment whether total independence was preferable to marriage to such a man.
A quiet, private wedding seemed to be the best solution. Griselda attended Abigail, and Bertram served as groomsman. The only guests were Alexander and Anne Louisa Baring, Roger and Leonie, and Violet. Perce and Sabrina had left for Vienna in August to join the diplomatic mission that was part of Tsar Alexander’s entourage. Hilda and Eustace did not attend. Hilda had been so furious when the betrothal was announced that she had left Rutupiae on a round of visits to her sisters and brothers after openly accusing Arthur of trifling with her daughter’s affections and marrying Abigail only because she gave him a better hold on the Lydden estate.
Eustace had accompanied his mother, and Abigail was not sorry to be rid of him. He had been irritatingly attentive to her from the time she returned from Scotland until her betrothal was announced. That seemed to have shocked him, and he turned angry and sullen. The behavior was completely incomprehensible to Abigail. She had made no particular effort within the family to hide her love for Arthur, and she was totally unaware that Eustace had expected her to turn to him when she was at last rejected by her rakish and inconstant lover. Abigail was thoroughly infuriated when Griselda explained that Eustace and her mother, who often talked to each other in her presence as if she did not exist, assumed from the infrequency of Arthur’s visits that he had tired of her. Eustace was preparing to step into the breach when Arthur “broke her heart”. Then Eustace would offer to marry her “despite her past immoral relationship”. The whole idea seemed so ridiculous and disgusting that Abigail thanked God that Hilda and Eustace were gone, and dismissed the whole subject from her mind.
Nothing could have been more unlike than Abigail’s first and second weddings, both physically and emotionally. The first had been a major social event for her parents’ friends and business acquaintances, and she had been wildly eager to assume the bonds she did not really understand. This second time, although she desired Arthur more than she had ever desired Francis and had good reason to be eager—for she had learned through the mostly good-natured envy of the neighboring families how magnificent a catch she had landed—she was filled with doubts. However, the quiet ceremony calmed her, and the behavior of the guests at the wedding breakfast reassured her even more. In some ways it hardly seemed like the celebration of a marriage. Everyone was far more interested in talking politics than congratulating the bride and groom.
This was not really surprising, since both Arthur and Alexander Baring were members of Parliament and Roger was deeply involved in government through his friend Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, even though he held no office. Moreover, events were moving very fast. Bonaparte had lost the disastrous battle of Leipzig shortly after Arthur and Abigail had been betrothed, and the echoes of the defeat of the “invincible Emperor of France” were still vibrating through Europe. The British army in Spain had had further successes and was actually on French soil.
Ordinarily the talk would have concentrated on these events and on the efforts of Bonaparte to rebuild still another Grande Armée, but in this case at least two of the group had a deep interest in a different war, minor and secondary as it seemed in England. There had been changes in the situation in America, too. Commodore Perry had defeated the British fleet on Lake Erie in September, and General Harrison had recaptured Detroit from the British and invaded Canada in October. The British general Henry Proctor had fled, abandoning his baggage. Furthermore, the chief of the Indian allies, Tecumseh, had been killed, and the federation of Indian tribes he headed had been broken.
Baring spoke soberly to Abigail about the American situation, deploring these victories, even though they had been somewhat deflated by the withdrawal of Harrison from Canada soon after the battle and the failure of two other attempts to invade English territory.
“It will only make peace harder to achieve,” Baring said irritably. “These little victories mean nothing when viewed in the perspective of the whole war, and they infuriate our people.”
Abigail’s head agreed with what her friend said, but her heart leapt with a fierce, if rather surprising, joy when she thought of the American successes. Still, she answered calmly enough, “You may think it nothing, but to the Americans, the death of Chief Tecumseh and the destruction of his league, which now nearly eliminates any new fear of Indian attacks, means a great deal. The use of the savages by the British is considered most dishonorable by all Americans, even those who most bitterly oppose this war.”
“It is common British custom,” Roger pointed out. “The British army has always used native troops, most successfully in India.”
“That is quite different,” Abigail replied rather sharply. “Those troops are incorporated into the army and trained—and they are used against rebellious native governments. In America the savages have simply been armed and allowed to do as they like. There have been several cruel massacres of prisoner
s, quite unnecessary and, to my simple mind at least, totally inexcusable.”
Roger laughed. “There is nothing simple about your mind, my dear, and I suspect there are others who feel uneasy about some of the actions taken in this war. You must understand, however, that the small number of troops stationed in Canada and the inability to send any reinforcements, owing to the war in Spain and on the Continent, made necessary the use of whatever weapons lay to hand.”
“Perhaps,” Abigail conceded, then shrugged. “As long as there will be no further opportunity to use the Indians, I can see no purpose in arguing about them.”
“No,” Arthur put in, “but having employed them in action raises other problems. I do not know whether any treaty has been signed, but the fact that they must be considered allies might make it necessary to include them in any peace arrangement.”
“I do not think the American government will make any concessions about the Indians,” Abigail said. “In the new states and the western territories, feeling is very strong on that subject. Possibly if the territory of Louisiana had not been purchased, the more moderate sentiments of the original states could have prevailed, but so large an investment mandates full use of the land.”
“What do you mean, full use of the land?” Arthur asked heatedly, quite forgetting he was not arguing with a political opponent but with his new-made bride. “The United States cannot simply seize Indian property just because they purchased France’s claim to that territory.”
As unaware as her husband of the unsuitability of their conversation, Abigail frowned thoughtfully. “I do not think it is fair to say the government simply seizes Indian lands. I believe there is usually some payment or exchange of goods. I admit, it is not a subject in which I was much interested, living in New York as I did, but Albert would sometimes talk about the problems of dealing with the Indians.” She smiled, and her expression cleared. “And I cannot believe that any arrangement made by Albert would be unjust. He is the fairest and most honest man in the world.”
A Woman's Estate Page 34
