by Joan Wolf
The Duke’s smooth entrance into the political scene surprised few of the seasoned European diplomats. It was more surprising to the British, who had, with their usual insularity, paid little attention to European affairs since the close of the war. The Duke had not been in London for a month before it became clear to all interested observers that, in regard to foreign affairs, there were now three men who counted in Britain: Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington and the Duke of Hastings.
It took Tracy longer than most to recognize her husband’s position. It was many weeks before she succeeded in seeing him as anything but Adrian, her husband, the man she adored.
Their physical relationship was still new and, to her, all absorbing. No matter what he might be when he was away from her, when he was with her he was her lover. The passion that had been born between them at Thorn Manor grew and deepened as the weeks passed. It seemed to Tracy that Adrian was as absorbed in her as she was in him. She remembered vividly the first time he had skillfully extricated her from a particularly glittering party at a ridiculously early hour. She had been talking to Lord Holland and someone else about the strange new novel Frankenstein when she felt Adrian’s hand lightly touch her shoulder. After a few words with Lord Holland he expertly detached her from the two men and turned her toward the door. “Let’s go home,” he said softly in her ear.
She had moved with him willingly, but at his words she protested, “What will people think if we leave so early?”
He smiled with devastating charm at Lady Jersey. In a low voice he murmured to Tracy, “They will think I am taking you home to bed. And they will be right.” Tracy had blushed, but she made no further protest.
It was a scene that was repeated more than once. Tracy sometimes felt as if she were walking through the world in a fog, blind to everything except one man. It astonished her—the incredible rapture of their lovemaking. He had released something in her that she had not known existed, and she found herself responding to him with an abandon she would not have thought possible a few short weeks ago. She thought sometimes of her fears on her wedding night. And she laughed.
It was only gradually that it began to impinge on Tracy’s consciousness that Adrian was something more than just her husband. He was the Duke of Hastings, of course. She had always known that. She had even known that his position was bound to make demands on her, but that knowledge had somehow been buried beneath the sensuous haze of love that had enveloped her since her honeymoon.
Lady Bridgewater had sounded the alarm first. “I do not think you ought to spend so much time with Lord Holland, my dear,” she said to Tracy one afternoon. They were drinking tea in the drawing room of Hastings House when she brought up the matter that was the reason for her call on her nephew’s wife.
Tracy stared. “Why ever not? Isn’t he respectable?”
Lady Bridgewater put down her cup. “I realize that our ways and our politics are strange to you, Tracy, but really, you must make an effort to learn. Lord Holland is perfectly respectable, but he is a Whig. Good heavens—Charles Fox was his uncle! Certainly you must be polite to him. But, politically, he is not one of ours. Do you understand?”
“I guess so,” said Tracy unwillingly. “You mean, it’s like the Crowinshields and the Derbys in Salem. The Crowinshields are Republicans and they have their balls in Washington Hall while the Derbys are Federalists and hold theirs in Hamilton Hall. Only, we went to both. Papa was a Federalist once, but they kicked him out when he supported Mr. Jefferson’s embargo.”
She had a suspicion she wasn’t making much sense, a suspicion confirmed by Lady Bridgewater’s reply. “Really, Tracy,” said that lady in icily composed tones. “I don’t understand a word of what you are saying. Pray, what have these people got to do with Adrian, with your position as his wife?”
Tracy sighed. “Nothing, I guess,” she answered glumly.
It was a phrase she was to hear with ever increasing frequency: “your position as his wife.” She rebelled against it at first.
“Sometimes I wish I was just plain Mrs. Deincourt,” she said to her husband one night when he came into her room to say goodbye. He was dining with Lord Castlereagh and she was going to the theatre with a party of Lady Bridgewater’s.
He looked at his wife’s slender back for a minute in silence. She was seated at her dressing table waiting for Emma to come and fasten a necklace around her throat. The Duke stepped forward, took the diamonds from the girl and said calmly, “Her Grace will not be needing you until later.” Emma immediately left the room and Tracy swung around to face him, laughter in her eyes.
“Really, Adrian! How do you know when I’ll be needing my maid?”
He didn’t answer her but stood holding the spill of diamonds, his gaze steady on her lovely, slightly flushed face. “You really mean that, don’t you?” His voice was very serious.
“Mean what? About my maid?”
“No.” He gestured impatiently and the diamonds flashed. “You really would be happier being plain Mrs. Deincourt.”
“Yes,” she answered a little mournfully, “I would. In fact, I remember just before we were married, when I was wondering whether or not to marry you, that I thought I would do it like a shot if you were an American. It was your being a duke that worried me.” She sighed. “I don’t know if I can live up to you, Adrian.”
“You don’t have to live up to me,” he said, his voice deepening to a note she knew well. “All you have to do is be yourself.” He came toward her, but it was not to put the necklace around her throat. Tracy closed her eyes as she felt his lips on her bare neck. “I wish I didn’t have a dinner engagement,” he murmured, and Tracy shivered.
“I know.”
After a minute he raised his head and looked deeply into her eyes. She felt herself melting in a way that was all too familiar. “I won’t be late,” he said softly. His fingers lightly caressed her bare shoulder and then he was gone.
She had great difficulty paying attention to the play. She kept seeing a face that was very different from the ones on the stage, hearing a voice whose timbre turned her whole insides to jelly. Lady Bridgewater was annoyed by her obvious inattention and even more annoyed when she insisted on returning home immediately after the play was over.
Adrian was waiting for her. He didn’t seem at all perturbed by the thought that she might have offended his aunt.
Chapter 13
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame.
—Shakespeare
The Duke was very pleased with his marriage, and not solely for financial reasons. In fact, when Mr. Bodmin had offered him a great deal more money, he had instinctively and unhesitatingly refused. It was a decision he did not regret making. He was not a man who was inclined to examine his own motives deeply; he always acted largely out of his own beautifully refined instincts and his instinct in this case had bade him refuse the inheritance. It had something to do, he knew, with his feelings for Tracy, which were very different from what he had thought they would be.
It seemed to him part of his astonishing luck that he had gotten such a girl for his wife. It did not worry him anymore that she was an American; it was part of her charm for him. He loved the knowledge that she cared not the snap of her lovely fingers for his titles or his possessions. Such unconcern had seemed incredible to him at first, but he soon saw for himself that it was real.
They had been important to her father. Beneath William Bodmin’s republican exterior there lurked the soul of an Englishman. The Duke knew that Mr. Bodmin would never have allowed Tracy to marry a nobleman of whom he did not approve, but the Duke was also in no doubt that it was his ancient title and his possessions that had made him, in Tracy’s father’s eyes, an eligible parti.
But Tracy would rather be plain Mrs. Deincourt. His wife. When she had told him that, when she had said she would have married him “like a shot” if he had been an American, the Duke felt only enormous gr
atitude. He had married the one woman in the world capable of loving him for himself alone. In his eyes, his marriage had turned out to be virtually perfect. He looked to the future with the beautiful serenity of a happy man.
It was a serenity Tracy did not share. As the weeks went by, and she began to surface from the submarine depths of pure passion and fix her eyes on the surface of the world, she began to feel uneasy. Much as she might desire to be “just plain Mrs. Deincourt,” the fact remained that she was not. She was the Duchess of Hastings, wife of one of England’s premier noblemen and rising political stars.
Her uneasiness did not stem, at least at first, from her husband. He never said or did anything that even slightly indicated he was dissatisfied with the wife he had chosen. His aunt was less sanguine. Lady Bridgewater had made several pointed remarks indicating that she thought Tracy was not living up to her newly acquired position in life.
Adrian was dearly destined to be a government minister, and all the wives of government ministers were deeply involved in their husbands’ careers. That fact became quite clear to Tracy during the month of August, which she and the Duke spent in London. The majority of the ton had deserted town for the pleasures of Brighton, but the government and the embassy personnel had remained. Tracy saw a great deal of the political elite of England without the softening addition of the purely social element, and what she saw caused her deep concern.
She brought her problem to the Duke one evening toward the middle of August. They were spending a rare evening at home, both of them sitting comfortably in the drawing room with the French windows open to let in the cool air from the garden. Tracy was holding a book and Adrian was intently reading some Foreign Office papers Lord Castlereagh had sent over that afternoon. She watched him for a minute in silence, quietly closed her book and said, “I never realized you were so interested in politics, Adrian.” He looked up, surprise on his face, and she added, “I guess I mean I hadn’t realized you were so involved in politics. You weren’t, were you, before we were married?”
Courteously he put down his papers. “No,” he replied, “I was not. But that was not because of lack of interest, ma mie. I had the affairs of my father’s estate to attend to. Then, I was busy getting married.” He sent her a charming smile. “Now that we are settled, of course I will take up the duties of government.”
She sat silent for a minute, pondering that “of course.” She had finally come to understand that Adrian belonged to that class in English society that went into government as a natural part of their heritage. She looked now at his beautiful, slightly puzzled face, and realized he was puzzled because she found his swift involvement surprising.
“I did not realize you would be a part of the government,” she explained. “In America, our politics are so different. One doesn’t simply go into government because of one’s class.” Tracy had a way of saying the word class that made it sound as if she were talking about a peculiarly noxious odor. “In my country,” she concluded grandly, “one must first be elected.”
“We have elections as well,” he pointed out in a reasonable tone. “All of the House of Commons is elected. The only difference is that we have the House of Lords and you do not.”
“That is not the only difference!” she replied hotly. “The House of Commons may be elected, Adrian, but they are not elected by the people. They are elected at the whim of some great lord. The suffrage in England is limited to the moneyed class.”
“Certainly it is,” he agreed pleasantly. “Surely that is the only sensible arrangement. How can one possibly give the vote to uneducated, illiterate people? How can one entrust the policy of one’s country to men whose minds are unused to thought and undisciplined to study? Of course the government of the country is commended to men who have the tools both of intellect and wealth to undertake it successfully.”
She gave him a very green stare. “It is not like that in my country.”
His eyes glinted with amusement. “Oh, yes it is, ma mie,” he replied. “Who are your presidents? Men from the landowning, slave owning ‘aristocracy’ of Virginia. As is quite natural. They are the men who have the leisure and the fortune to undertake the business of government.”
“Are you telling me that you think the governments of our countries are the same?” she asked incredulously.
“No, of course not.” He was beginning to sound a little impatient. “America is a republic. It believes, at least in theory, that ‘all men are created equal.’ That is not the case in England.”
“I certainly understand that difference,” she retorted.
“The reality of the matter, Tracy,” he said seriously, “is that there are men who are bred to be leaders, and there are those who are not. And, if one is fortunate enough to be one of the former, one has a duty and a responsibility to exercise one’s talents for the common good of all.”
She regarded him for a moment in silence. Then she said slowly, “In short, you regard yourself not as responsible to the people, but rather as responsible for them.”
He smiled. “Precisely.”
It shook Tracy to hear him voice so clearly a philosophy with which she was in complete disagreement. “But I don’t believe that, Adrian,” she said passionately. “I shall never believe that.”
“I don’t ask that you should,” he returned tranquilly. “You are an American; quite naturally your political views do not coincide with mine.”
“But don’t you see how awkward a situation that puts me in?” she asked earnestly. “Lord Castlereagh is a Tory—Lady Castlereagh is a Tory; Lord Bridgewater is a Tory-Lady Bridgewater is a Tory; Lord Holland is a Whig—Lady Holland is a Whig. You are a Tory— and I am a Republican!”
“Practically a revolutionary,” he said good-humoredly.
“It’s not funny, Adrian! I do believe that all men are created equal. I am proud that my country elects men like Mr. Adams, a farmer from Massachusetts, to be our president. I hardly agree with a single solitary thing I hear the people in your party say!”
His face became very serious. “Listen to me, Tracy. I am not asking you to change your opinions. I do not want you to change your opinions. I am perfectly capable of representing what I believe in; you do not have to carry my flag.” He got out of his chair and came across to the sofa on which she was seated. “Ma mie,” he said softly. “Do you understand what I am saying? You are not to worry about such things. Just be yourself.”
Tracy was not totally convinced by his words, but she lacked the will to resist. He had possession of both her hands and was bending toward her. She wanted to tell him that it was not quite so easy, but it was impossible to think when he was so close to her. She felt herself to be, as always, completely in his power. “Yes,” she heard herself murmuring weakly. “I understand.”
That discussion had clarified for Tracy some worrying things about Adrian that she had been noticing for a while now. It seemed to her that, below the level of a certain social class, he never really saw people. As far as he was concerned, one footman was interchangeable with another. He was always courteous, sometimes he even knew their names, but they didn’t exist for him as persons.
Tracy was very different. Democracy to her was not a political theory or a form of government; it was a way of life. Her sense of human equality was as natural to her as breathing. She found the class-consciousness of the English profoundly disturbing. It disturbed her most of all that her husband so spectacularly represented all of its blindest beliefs.
And yet—much of what was most admirable in Adrian sprang from his feelings about aristocracy. He was, in so many ways, deeply admirable. Aside from his extraordinary personal charm, he had intelligence and seriousness. His sense of duty was as integral a part of him as his title.
He was a duke. It was an inseparable part of him. She had thought, once, that she would be happier marrying him if he were an American. But as the weeks went by, she realized that the very idea of Adrian as an American was ludicrous. If he
were an American, he would not be Adrian.
She thought deeply about their discussion and made some choices. She would not change her politics, but she would do whatever else she could do to help him advance his career. She would do it, she told herself grimly, or die trying.
She figured out that she ought to entertain for him. Parliament was not in session, but the government had remained in town to try to deal with the country’s economic crises, and there was a long succession of dinners and receptions, which she and Adrian attended. The wives and daughters of some of England’s highest nobles were her hostesses and the important role of these women became clearer and clearer. She would have to do something to show Adrian’s world that his wife was up to standard as a political hostess.
She also took the step of announcing her own political beliefs instead of just standing mute while other people talked. Her first sally came at a dinner party, when she and Adrian were standing with a group of people waiting for the meal to be announced. The discussion, as usual, centered on politics, and Mr. Park, who was at the Treasury Board, turned to her with a courteous smile. “What would you do, Duchess, if you were in Parliament?”
It was the sort of question she would previously have turned aside with a laugh and a comment about her ignorance. Tonight she took a deep breath, sent a dazzling smile around the group, and answered him. “If I were in Parliament, Mr. Park, I should vote for every reform that could possibly be voted for. I should be for universal manhood suffrage, workers’ rights, tenants’ rights, the education of everybody, and the abolition of the House of Lords.”
When Tracy had smiled all the men in the group had imperceptibly leaned toward her. When she finished speaking they were all still staring with pleasure at her lovely, animated face. Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister and a very stiff Tory, said to her husband, “You’ve married a regular revolutionary, Hastings.”
