So, it seemed to Gerald as if all of a sudden all his problems with his wife were cured. It looked as if finally she could become an asset to him in County Society, the way his wife should be for a man, charming important people, but not being too charming, and certainly not being in any way alluring, even in private. He did not realise that the happy ending he was envisaging came only at the expense of sacrificing all that made Lydia a unique woman in order to make her a carbon-copy perfect County Wife. But then, he didn’t realise that it was a sacrifice. And as final proof that Lydia had taken upon herself the mantle of the County Wife, she said, “I know what we should do. We should go and call on the Beaconsfields; I hear poor Anne is sick, and she must be terribly lonely, what with having no friends to keep her company. I’ll go and get my hat.” Gerald wasn’t pleased at the idea of more walking, but having Lydia suggestion was a brilliant idea: the Beaconsfields were County to the core, so any sign of befriending their lonely daughter would surely work wonders for his position in County Society. And, of course, getting in with Anne Beaconsfield meant getting in with Miss Sparrow, the sole and final arbiter of what was and what was not acceptable to the County. So all in all, Gerald was prepared to put up with the pain in his feet, so when Lydia came back downstairs, suitably modestly apparelled for walking, he was happy to join her in making his way through the hall and door.
Just as they had left the house, Lydia took both of Gerald’s hands and, turning so they faced each other, said “Oh Gerald, I’m so happy now things are back to normal. I really do l-l-love you so much.” Then something changed in her face; her loving smile was replaced by the deranged one from earlier and she said, in that curious distant tone, “I can hear it again; something saying I really l-love that woman not you. Wait here.” With which she pulled away from Gerald, grasped an axe that the gardener must have forgotten to clear away and started to attack a large rose-bush which grew near the front door, shouting “How dare you remind me of what I threw away?” as she did so. Gerald had no idea what to do; he had no desire to get too close to his wife while she was wielding the axe so ferociously, but something had to be done to stop her: what if somebody from the County came by and saw his wife sobbing hysterically as she hacked away at the roses? The consequences would be incalculable. Gerald looked around, seeking anything that might help or give him any clues as to what he should do next; as he did so, he happened to look up at the sky. The new star was gone.
Chapter 4c: The Ending where Lydia lives happily ever after
Round about lunchtime, Gerald staggered back to his home. Not only were his feet now distinctly painful after two long walks, but he had had experiences strange and unpleasant enough to make any man stagger. First there had been the strange visitors, then he had been forced to tolerate the society of that dreadful nouveau riche Hardcastle, and then, then, to make things worse, there was his visitors’ strange disappearance, taking that flighty Bertram girl with them. And that had only exposed him to the wrath of David Barton who, rather unfairly Gerald thought, had put the blame for his fiancée’s disappearance squarely on Gerald’s shoulders. It was not surprising that Gerald was feeling rather battered and in considerable need of female sympathy as he let himself into the house (having had to remind himself, to fresh shudders of reminiscence, that he no longer had a maid) and called out “Lydia, where are you?”
There was no answer as such, but Gerald distinctly heard a happy laugh, almost a giggle coming from somewhere within, and though it had been a very long time since Lydia had responded to his conversational sallies with anything other than the deepest of dolour, and so he had not heard her laugh, other than hollowly, for some years, he distinctly thought that it was her voice, for, apart from anything else, whose else could it be? Gerald had not intended to be funny when he said “Lydia, where are you?” but, being an English County Male, he had an innate tendency to over-estimate his own intentional humorousness, and so he saw nothing unnatural in Lydia’s finding it worth laughing at. In fact he felt rather pleased, because she had seldom before shown any sign of appreciating what a witty fellow he was. So it was a preening Gerald who stood in the hallway, attempting to determine where the laugh had come from. But then his blood froze, and all the well being that he had, oh so briefly felt, turned to anxiety, for there was another laugh, almost a giggle, but this time in a distinctly deeper voice, a voice that he had last heard telling him to bugger off or else. He had hoped, prayed even, that by the time he got home the ‘Admiral’ would have vanished like her men, and that he would not have to undergo another encounter with her dangerously labile temper. But it seemed she was still here, and it seemed that she had become unduly friendly with Lydia (that is, if one didn’t count the passionate embraces he had already seen pass between them as being unduly friendly) during his absence. And it also seemed that they were both finding something very funny, and he feared that it was him (it never occurring him, not even for one moment, that the coincidence of his speech and their laughs might be just that).
Gerald was far from happy that he still had the ‘Admiral’ under his roof, but he was an Englishman and so, by definition, fearless, and he still wanted to have a good whinge about how miserably humiliated he felt and how much his feet hurt, and, in the absence of Flossie, who was a mile away in the wrong direction, Lydia was the only available repository for such whinging, so he bravely set about seeking her out, even if it did mean meeting that woman again. First he tried the breakfast room; he found the un-tidied-away relics of breakfast, he shuddered at the sad little grey heap which constituted his former domestic help, but neither of these really counted as being unexpected; what was totally unanticipated was his discovery of Lydia’s backless evening gown lying sadly crumpled on the floor, almost as if its wearer had wished to get out of it in a hurry. What could be going on? Gerald could quite see why Lydia would want to change out of the evening gown, for it was entirely inappropriate for this time of day (and for a County Wife), but why do so down here, when she had a perfectly good dressing room upstairs? And then, as he tried to force his inflexible mind to accommodate these strangely complex facts, Gerald heard another low laugh: that was definitely Lydia, and it sounded to be coming from the drawing room.
Gerald immediately strode out into the hall intent on confronting his wife with how far she had fallen from the ideals of County housekeeping (for no County wife should, no matter how provoking the circumstances, so mismanage her house as to leave loose clothing and disintegrated domestics lying around the house for all and sundry to find and comment on) but was held up in a dead stop on the threshold of the drawing room by what he saw: a blouse, he was almost certain it was one of Lydia’s, lying abandoned. The clothing theme continued: just beyond the blouse he saw a brassiere desolate in its deflated solitude, and though Gerald had no idea what kind of underwear Lydia habitually wore, he was willing to guess it was hers. So what was Lydia doing? That she should have changed out of the evening gown Gerald understood, but why, having then, apparently, changed into something more suitable, did she shed that clothing also? And why in the drawing room? And did that mean, the idea suddenly struck him with the force of a thousand pound bomb, that she was in there, right now, only partially clad, together with that woman? The thought was too terrible to contemplate: perhaps Queen Victoria had been wrong after all, in which case, what kind of monstrous... There was nothing for it; he stepped into the drawing room and was transfixed with horror.
Lydia and the Admiral were kneeling facing one another on the sofa, each holding the other in her arms, kissing one another as they embraced. Not the grandiose passionate kisses that Gerald had seen this morning, but a series of short, intimate kisses, between which they gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes. As Gerald looked on, too amazed (and, though he dared not admit it to himself, aroused too) to move or speak, the Admiral whispered something in Lydia’s ear and Lydia kissed her and whispered something back, at which the Admiral said out loud, “Why you dirty-minded sex-fiend.
How’d you learn so quickly?” to which Lydia replied, batting her eyelashes, “I had a good teacher” and then they both laughed again. This was almost too much for Gerald. To discover that his wife was a pervert was bad enough, to discover that this fact excited him in some vague and disquietingly indefinable way was worse, but the discovery, when he tried to drag his eyes away from the spectacle on the sofa, of another small sad pile of grey dust lying in the wreckage of what had once been an occasional table was just too much. He broke down and let out a small shriek, which at least had the effect of breaking off the love-scene on the sofa. Lydia and the Admiral jerked apart, Lydia producing a squeak of her own, and the Admiral saying “What, what, what’s that? Who’s there? Oh bloody hell; it’s Stinker again. Trust him to spoil the fun.”
Gerald was shocked enough already, but he was even more shocked by what happened next. His gloomy, doom-laden Lydia spoke, and she did not say that her life was a deep pit and she was at the bottom; no, she said, “Really Gerald, I do think it’s a bit much you interfering like this. The Admiral and I were just having an intimate moment before we leave, and you have to go and ruin it. Typical.” Gerald just didn’t know what to say to this, but he focussed in on what was probably the most significant part of the speech and blurted, “Leave?” “Yes, that’s it, Stinker, Leave” said the Admiral. “Young Lydia here’s decided to give you the old heave-ho and shack up with me instead.” Gerald tried to get his head around this, and, showing his English County Male prejudices to the full, said “But what can you give her compared to a husband and a place in society?” “Oh, I don’t know,” said the Admiral, counting off on her fingers, “love, an interesting life, lots of good sex, things like that.” Of course, none of that made any sense to Gerald, as County Wives didn’t expect to be loved, were meant to be reconciled to having no function in life other than bearing offspring and passing sandwiches, and were accustomed to lying back and thinking of England, so he just gawped, looking so puzzled that Lydia took pity on him and said “You see Gerald, I finally realised when I met the Admiral that I don’t love you any more, and I doubt if I ever really did. And I want to do interesting things and see other worlds, and have orgasms, and the Admiral can give me all of those. Plus I think I do love her anyway” and then, after some thought, she added the coup de grace, “And even if I don’t, she’s a damn sight more interesting than you are.”
None of this really sank in; Gerald was still concentrated on the key facts: his wife was talking about leaving him for another woman; what would the County say? The thought was so terrible that it forbore contemplation; surely Lydia would understand that she just couldn’t do something so unfair as to make that unthinkable fact come to pass, so he made an appeal which, or so he thought, she would be unable to resist, namely “But what about me, Lydia?” This did not get the response he expected; Lydia seemed to be positively angry and said “What about you? What about me all these years, when you were ignoring me and my needs and having your fun with that tart at the Dog and Duck. Yes, I did know,” she said in response to Gerald’s astonishment at seeing his deep secret laid bare, “Only a fool wouldn’t, and I am not, whatever you may have thought, a fool. Oh,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, “I’ve no time for you any more.” “But what about the County?” said Gerald, at which Lydia finally erupted, “What about the County? What about the County?” she shrieked, “I don’t give a flying fuck about the County. Are you saying I should give up on my life, my happiness because of that Sparrow woman? Who the hell do you think you are, you, you... here,” this being said to the Admiral, “give me your vanishing thing; I want to get rid of the bastard.” Gerald quailed, anticipating immediate dust-hood, but at this point the Admiral stepped in, taking Lydia in her arms and saying, calmingly, “Now, now, darling, there’s no need to bother about Stinker; he can’t hurt you any more. Let’s just get out of here and leave him to explain all this to that ‘County’ thing of yours; that’s a far greater punishment than death.” Lydia initially looked doubtful, as if she still hankered after more violent measures, but after a moment she laughed unpleasantly and said “Nice. Okay, let’s go then. Good-bye Gerald. Give my love to the County.” The Admiral pulled a small device from her pocket, fiddled with it for a second or two, and then, as Gerald looked on, unable to comprehend what was happening before him, they vanished, leaving only an echoing “Bye-bye Stinker” behind.
Gerald was stunned; staring into the emptiness before him, he mumbled “But she can’t leave me” because denying the obvious was easier than having to acknowledge the events he had just witnessed. He continued in this way for a moment, but then it occurred to him that obviously when Lydia and the Admiral had appeared to vanish they had not in fact done so; they must have just left the room too quickly for him to see them go, which meant they must be somewhere outside, so he could still catch them and impose his Male Authority on Lydia to force her to return to her proper place. Invigorated by this thought, he rushed out of the house, to try and catch them, but there was nobody there. He looked around wildly and, as he did so, happened to look up at the sky. The new star was gone.
The New Star Page 7
