A Woman's Estate

by Roberta Gellis

  What Arthur saw in his new wife’s face made his heart contract. Abigail had not looked as warm and joyful when she took her vows at the altar only a few hours before as she did now at the mention of this damned Albert, whose name kept coming into her conversation. Arthur was struck so hard by jealousy that he could not speak, but Alexander Baring saved him from making an utter fool of himself.

  “I agree that Albert Gallatin is a paragon of virtue,” Baring said, half laughing, “but even if he has urged or made equitable arrangements for the Indians in the past, this situation is different. If the tribes are not protected by some mention in any peace treaty made with England, the American government might claim that the Indians were vanquished enemies and deprive them of their lands as reparations.”

  “Come now,” Anne Baring exclaimed, turning away from her conversation with Leonie and Violet and laying a hand on her husband’s arm, “I have seldom heard a sillier argument. As far as I know, there is no immediate plan for negotiations on any terms. Did you not tell me, my love, that the Cabinet had refused for a fourth time Rumiantsev’s proposal to mediate?”

  “True enough, Anne,” Baring replied, “but I have received very favorable answers concerning direct talks from the American commissioners. Unfortunately, they only have authority to act under Russian mediation, but they hinted strongly that if Lord Castlereagh would suggest direct negotiations to President Madison, the President would give his approval without delay. Naturally, I passed the message to Castlereagh, and I have reason to believe that he acted on it.”

  Anne laughed. “Very well,” she conceded, “you are not quite as silly as I assumed, but still this is no time to be discussing such matters. This is Abigail’s wedding.”

  “But Anne,” Abigail protested, smiling, “I could not have a better wedding gift than Alex’s news. I am so glad to learn that direct negotiations between England and the United States are possible. I have been very worried about the failure of any chance of peace. You must realize yourself that once Bonaparte is beaten—”

  “Let Arthur and Alex worry about what will happen when Bonaparte is beaten,” Anne said, her pleasant voice unusually sharp. “It is not a suitable topic for women.”

  Alexander Baring put his arm around his wife in a comforting gesture. “Talk of the war makes her a little nervous,” he said.

  Abigail felt dreadfully guilty, realizing that Anne must be far more worried than she. Anne had family as well as friends in America, but before Abigail could think of any easy way to change the topic, Arthur said aggressively, “I cannot see why you think that Bonaparte is at his last gasp, Abigail. One of his problems in the past has been the lack of reliability of his foreign troops, but his new army—”

  Leonie and Violet, who had now also joined their group, combined to cut him off and forbid any more talk about so grim a topic, but Abigail squeezed his hand gratefully, aware that what he had said had been just an oblique, and therefore more convincing, device to reassure Anne. But even after politics had been declared out-of-bounds, there was little to mark the occasion as special.

  Later the men rode out for a while, and the women talked of their children and grandchildren and of the coming Season in London. After dinner, Roger and Leonie left. The evening passed quietly and pleasantly. Bertram played, and after a few whispered words from him, Griselda sang. Abigail was amazed by her voice, it was slight but beautifully pure and sweet. And when Griselda was tired, they all sang—rather discordantly but with much pleasure and laughter. Finally, the Barings reminded their hosts that they must be up early to travel home the next day. Bertram escorted Violet back to Stonar Magna, and Arthur and Abigail went up to bed.

  Abigail had warned him when he proposed staying at Rutupiae that he would be inconvenienced by the lack of a dressing room because she was still using the countess’s bedchamber and Victor was in the earl’s suite. The door between Victor’s rooms and hers could be locked, and Daphne now had her own bedchamber so that Abigail herself had a dressing room, but it was not suitable for Arthur. He had smiled at her, his eyes half-closed, and said, “I think I might just survive such an inconvenience,” but there was such sensual promise in his indolent murmur that Abigail had felt herself flush.

  Now, as they entered the room, Abigail automatically reached for the bell to summon her maid, but Arthur caught her hand. “My valet is not here,” he reminded her, “and I am not the self-mortifying type that likes to suffer alone. No valet for me, no maid for you.”

  Ridiculous as it was, considering that she and Arthur had been lovers, the tension dissipated by the pleasant day had rebuilt in Abigail as they came up the stairs, but she could not help laughing at the injured indignation in Arthur’s voice. “You should have gone onto the stage,” she said. “I cannot think where else adequate use could be made of your talent for projecting utterly false emotions with such conviction.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he replied, laughing also. “I have a far more interesting and difficult audience in the Commons. If I can convince them—” He stopped abruptly, shook his head, and took her gently into his arms. “Have you become so spoiled by being a countess that you can no longer undress yourself? You have come down in the world today, I am afraid. You are only a baronet’s wife now, so you must be content with somewhat less elegance. Will you take me for substitute, my love? I will gladly play maid.”

  He was speaking playfully. Abigail now knew that in wealth and influence the St. Eyres far outstripped the Lyddens, title or no title. Nonetheless she wondered whether there was not a thread of uncertainty in his voice under the teasing. If there was, it was her fault. She felt guilty, and she put her arms around his neck and kissed him lightly. “Then just to show you that I am quite content with my reduced state, I will play valet.”

  They played in more ways than assuming roles, removing one article of clothing at a time and using the slow revelation of each body as an excuse for a lingering form of foreplay that Abigail had not expected. On both earlier “first times”—in the house in London and in Scotland—Arthur had been sudden, even violent, in his lovemaking. This time, although it was plain enough that he was extremely excited, he was in no hurry to bring their sensual play to its natural culmination. He caressed each part of her body as it was exposed, her arms and legs, her back, her breasts and belly, breaking off from time to time to come back to her lips. But each time their heads were close enough, he whispered in her ear, “For the rest of our lives, Abigail. For the rest of our lives.”

  At the moment, Arthur could have been reciting the multiplication tables or uttering curses in Chinese. His voice was an additional caress, the faint breath in her ear as he whispered sent thrills over her body, but the words themselves were meaningless. Her brain recorded without comprehending. All she understood then was the need to draw him into her and to give and receive the ultimate pledge of love.

  In the morning, however, the words came back to Abigail with an oddly dichotomous effect. One part of her could not help being enchanted by her husband’s joy in their permanent union, but in the back of her mind was the knowledge that no woman had been able to hold Arthur for very long. In that sense, “for the rest of our lives” could almost be a threat—although she knew very well that Arthur had not meant it that way. There was no sense in worrying that bone, she told herself. Only time could prove the case one way or the other.

  It was easy enough to dismiss that problem, for Abigail had a more immediate worry. She realized that in London and Scotland, she had not truly shared Arthur’s life. There was little in common, she suspected, between Arthur’s normal activities and the pleasant make-busy days of sightseeing and amusement-seeking in London or the lazy country occupations with which they had filled their time in Scotland. What a selfish beast I am, she thought, all wound up in whether I will be satisfied. Poor Arthur, I’ve never considered him at all.

  Without realizing it, she patted his hand lovingly and then was startled by a low chuckle
. Arthur’s bare arm slid behind her neck and pulled her onto his chest. The worried expression alone might have hurt him, but combined with the tender touch it soothed him. Although he was not certain what had brought the faint frown to Abigail’s brow and the slight, sad downturn to her lips, he knew the concern was on his account.

  “Not to worry, love,” he said. “I’m not at all regretting throwing my cap over the windmill.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” she replied, smiling. “It just came to me that I may not be at all a suitable wife for you. I am not the most tactful creature in the world, and that cannot be a good characteristic for a political hostess.”

  “You picked a fine time to think of it.” Arthur laughed out loud. Could that have been the reason for his odd feeling that Abigail had been looking for a way out? If so, he had been a great fool, for the fact that she had never raised the point was proof of her desire to marry him. He hugged her tightly again and bit her ear. “It’s too late now,” he pointed out. “All you can do is pave hell with energy and hope for the best.”

  “Pave hell with energy?” Abigail echoed.

  “Have good intentions, my love,” Arthur explained, first stretching luxuriously and then lifting himself on one elbow to better see his bride and pick the best target for his mouth. “Have you never heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?” He chuckled again and began to run his tongue around her ear. “But you will get plenty of chance to practice tact over the next two weeks.” His speech was becoming slurred and absent as Abigail responded to his invitation by sliding her hands down his body, but he managed to finish. “You will find my family can be extremely unrestrained. They will all jump on you with both feet if they disagree with you.”

  The threat did not much alarm Abigail, and when they moved to Stonar on the twenty-fourth to welcome their guests, she found her confidence was justified. It was true that the St. Eyres were outspoken and opinionated, but most of them were also intelligent and kind. Arthur endured the jokes and teasing with a combination of easy good humor and smug satisfaction that delighted Abigail by making very clear his contentment with his marriage. The two weeks they spent as a family party passed in a whirl of friendly argument and energetic amusements, and Abigail knew when they dispersed that the St. Eyres had taken her to their hearts.

  Equally important, it was soon apparent that her fears about being an inadequate—or rather, embarrassing—hostess for her husband were unnecessary. After Daphne and Victor returned to school and Violet to Bath, Abigail and Arthur moved to the St. Eyre mansion in London, taking Griselda with them. It was too early for the purely social events of the Season, but anyone concerned with politics was in Town, and every evening there were dinners, large and small, either to host or to attend. It was clear that the final convulsions of the war in Europe were about to take place, and the two topics of conversation at every dinner were the terms of peace and the rather unsavory trades and bargains being suggested by the various nations that hoped to fatten on the corpse of the French empire.

  In these discussions Abigail had no difficulty at all in holding her own and making her husband proud of her. As long as no one mentioned the American war—and events in Europe were far too fascinating to be put aside for talk of minor skirmishes thirty-five hundred miles away—Abigail’s opinions were orthodox. Moreover, since her emotions were not at all involved in such matters as who would absorb Saxony or rule in Spain or Italy, her opinions were always stated in a calm, pleasant manner, and she was always ready to listen with genuine interest to contrary arguments.

  Thus Abigail was a great success with both Arthur’s friends and opponents. Seeing the way her husband looked at her and talked to her, Arthur’s opponents actually courted her subtly, hoping that if they could convince her of the validity of their ideas, she would influence Arthur. And sometimes she did—although they would have been horrified if they knew her method. The techniques of business served Abigail very well in her new life. She recognized easily enough the attempts to make her a wedge to “open” Arthur’s mind, and simply told him frankly who was doing it and why. If she agreed with the arguments presented though, she would support them.

  These direct methods sometimes caused shouting matches that drove Griselda and Bertram from the room with their hands over their ears, but Arthur and Abigail found their “free exchange of ideas” very refreshing. Any real difference of opinion was swiftly smoothed out in the marital bed, which they continued to share all night, every night, in a most unfashionable manner. As the days slid into weeks and the weeks into months, Abigail forgot she had ever had any doubts, and Arthur recalled his only on a few occasions when some chance remark indicated that Abigail had not been where she had said she would be. She always had a good reason and never looked either startled or guilty, so Arthur told himself he was being a fool and buried his uneasiness in the darkest part of his mind.

  There was one subject on which Abigail was not being perfectly honest. Although little attention was paid to the American war over the first few months of 1814, she did not forget that the end of Bonaparte would mean trouble for the United States, and she set about winning her husband over to the American cause. When she wished, Abigail could be subtle, and before 6 April, when Bonaparte abdicated and renounced the throne of France for himself and his heirs, Arthur began to see a great deal of sense in Baring’s position—that peace and strong trade balances with America were worth more than petty revenge.

  Not all the credit for this change in Arthur’s views was owing to Abigail’s influence. Part at least, was simply his sense of mischief and fondness for being the devil’s advocate. Most of his fellow M.P.’s, he had discovered, were rabid against America largely because they still thought of the United States as a collection of rebel colonies and resented any independent action they took. Arthur now realized he had also suffered from that disease, but Abigail, and to a certain extent Alexander Baring, with whom he was now very friendly, had cured him.

  The general public and many members of Parliament believed that America had declared war only to assist Bonaparte. Arthur had never agreed with that, but in the past he had regarded as petty American complaints against impressments and other British naval practices. He had felt strongly that during the life-and-death struggle with Bonaparte, the practices were necessary, however, now that the war had ended, he was willing to consider that some allowances might be made for a new nation’s pride. In fact, once the heady events of Bonaparte’s fall were over, Arthur found the desires and opinions of Americans—as related by Abigail—more and more interesting. Quite often Arthur transmitted the information she gave him to Roger, who also found it very interesting and passed it along to Lord Liverpool, although, naturally, Roger did not mention Abigail was the source and implied that the information came from Arthur himself.

  At the time, Lord Liverpool was in no mood to make concessions to the United States. President Madison had very quickly accepted Lord Castlereagh’s offer of direct negotiations, and notes concerning the place in which the meetings might be held were being exchanged, but the British were in no hurry to begin the talks. Orders for a tight blockade to lock Americans into their own country and bring economic ruin had gone out early in the year and were being implemented by April. In addition, arrangements were already under way to transfer hardened veteran troops from the European campaign to Canada and to ships detailed to raid American coasts. It was the intention of the British government to give the nasty rebellious little upstart that had challenged them a sound beating and then dictate their own terms of peace. Still, Lord Liverpool made a note of the fact that Roger’s nephew had considerable expertise in American affairs, a commodity sadly lacking in his own party.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The concern Abigail felt over the end of the war in Europe was to some extent mitigated by a letter she received on 12 April. It was much delayed, having been sent to Rutupiae, where Mr. Jameson held it for a few days long
er while he finished work on some documents that needed Arthur’s approval. The letter was not marked urgent, and it seemed most economical to send all the papers in one packet. The packet was set next to Arthur’s place at the breakfast table with other letters that had come in the morning’s post. When he got to it, Arthur took one look inside, saw Jameson’s heavy, square handwriting, and pushed the whole thing across to Abigail, who, though it was most unfashionable, always joined her husband for breakfast.

  “I’ve no time for it, love,” he said, “and you know more about Rutupiae anyway. Read it through for me and tell me what you want done.”

  Abigail felt like saying she didn’t have time for it either, and then was shocked at her desire to shuffle the responsibility for her son’s property off to Arthur. It served her right, she thought, as she drew out the thickest and dullest looking document. If she had not demanded independence, Arthur would never have thought for a moment of asking her to mind Victor’s affairs. Sighing, she left unopened a pile of social notes and began to read. Two leases later she was interrupted by Arthur, who kissed the top of her bent head and said he was off to see Lord Howick, that he did not know whether he would be home for luncheon, but he would certainly be home for dinner unless he were summoned to the House, which he did not expect.

  “No, don’t come home for luncheon, Arthur,” Abigail said, looking up at him. “I have a Venetian breakfast at Lady Sarah’s, and that means I won’t be home until three o’clock or so. And you had better be home for dinner since we have guests coming. Oh, I wish Griselda hadn’t insisted on going back to Rutupiae. She could have done the menus and seen Butler and Cook and all the rest for me. I thought she was having such a good time. Her ball card was always filled and—”