‘Poppycock and tosh, James, you were never idealistic nor fervent—unless it came to war, a good claret or an adventure of a dubious nature,’ called out Charles Sutton, a gentleman of fifty and an associate of the Colonel’s since his days at Sandhurst Military Academy.
‘Not at all, sir! I have always been passionate about Nature and Science.’
Charles tapped his wine glass. ‘We can thank Darwin for the current national obsession with such matters, and perhaps the explosion of industry. Together they threaten to dissect Nature and give us an anatomy of Beauty that will exorcise all spiritual mystery and quite ruin my morning walks.’
‘Science does not destroy the spirit, Charles; in fact it reveals it. There is God in evolution, just as there is God in a snowflake. We have just given him Reason,’ the Colonel parried.
Hamish Campbell, Lady Morgan’s young companion, gestured to a footman who obliged him by pouring him another glass of claret. As the manservant poured, Hamish Campbell took the opportunity of the two military men’s banter to observe his host. James Huntington was one of those fleshy handsome men whose magnetism emanated from a sense of coiled power. In the Colonel’s case, it was neither wealth nor a commercial understanding but intellectual amplitude. The Colonel was an interesting mixture of both soldier and scholar, his appearance and manner showing the controlled habits of the military man, while his easy wit and natural intelligence gave him a cosmopolitan demeanour.
The Colonel’s ruby signet ring flashed in the candlelight as he lifted his wine glass, one eyebrow raised. He was the modern Renaissance man, the perfect embodiment of the Victorian intellectual. I shall endeavour to study him closely, Campbell vowed. James Huntington’s life was one the young Hamish Campbell badly desired, and was now intent on emulating.
Still burning at Lady Morgan’s patronising manner, Lavinia barely heard the conversation that was propelled across the table in short bursts, filling the room with laughter one moment, emptying it the next, the hidden meaning beneath the clipped English consonants as thick as the glutinous liquorice jelly she watched falling from her spoon. It made her yearn for more frank and open conversation, in which emotions and intuitions could be freely expressed.
She examined the countenances of the individuals before her, and couldn’t help wondering, as she observed Lady Morgan’s twitching mouth, why they couldn’t all just say what they mean? The pretence was so mannered that for a moment Lavinia imagined the guests had suddenly turned into figures from a commedia dell’arte. She was ill-equipped to navigate the artifice of these people; even her accent— which would have been considered English in the drawing rooms of Dublin—sounded hideously provincial. As she sat there contemplating the demure dress of the other women, she was suddenly horribly aware of the inappropriate elaborateness of her headdress.
‘I remember a time when you were a very vocal detractor of Mr Darwin, Colonel,’ the Punch cartoonist, ever the antagonist, interjected.
‘We are allowed to change our minds. I believe it was On the Origin of Species that converted this soul.’
‘But to suggest we are related to the gorilla?’ Lady Morgan shivered with disgust.
Lavinia leaned forward, seeing an opportunity open in the conversation.
‘There seems to be a patent logic to the notion that form is affected by environment. As a river shapes a rock, so animals must adapt over time to their environments. And we ourselves must have sprung from somewhere. We are, after all, inherent to the Natural world.’
Surprised by her eloquence, the other diners turned; at last they saw how this provincial young Irishwoman might have captivated the Colonel.
‘Does this mean, Mrs Huntington, that you are an atheist,’ Lady Morgan retorted. ‘For surely belief in Darwin must preclude a belief in God?’
The Colonel took Lavinia’s hand, the first gesture of affection he had made towards his wife during the three hours they had been dining. ‘Frances, you are wrong. My wife is a practising Christian. So there you are: it is possible to invest in both Science and the Spirit.’ He turned to Lavinia. ‘But be careful, my love, Frances has set a trap for you. One like the insect-eating plants of the Amazon, in which I, the fly, have been caught many a time.’
‘I am quite able to fend for myself, James. After all, have I not the naivety of youth on my side?’ Lavinia replied.
Inwardly wincing at the barb, Lady Morgan made a mental note never to take the girl’s ingenuousness for granted again. At forty-three, she was already depressed by the ever-increasing stratagem required to maintain the appearance of her own legendary beauty.
‘My dear, I simply cannot believe that God did not have a hand in the development of Man. After all, there is such an extraordinary leap of physical and emotional development between a man and an ape; it seems preposterous to think that they might have shared the same mother. And so I can only conclude there must have been divine intervention.’ Lady Morgan’s tone was finite, but Lavinia persisted.
‘I agree; however, the rationalist in me also asks the question: could it not have been simply a set of fortuitous circumstances that advanced Man over his ape cousin—the wielding of tools, the move to two feet?’
‘Not to forget that most momentous event—the eradication of fleas?’ the cartoonist added helpfully, an irreverent grin on his face. At which the whole room dissolved into laughter.
11
THREE HOOPS STRUNG WITH pearls. Lavinia held the earrings up to the candlelight remembering the occasion James first made love to her in the hotel room on the Rhine. She tried to recognise herself in that woman: it was impossible.
She still loved her husband; if anything, her desire had intensified as James had increasingly distanced himself. At first she had thought it due to the intrusion of the child, but Aidan was almost eighteen months now and James was an adoring father. No, it must be something else. A hidden dissatisfaction he had with her? But what? Back in Ireland he had loved her many times, professed desire for her, but since their arrival in London his attentions had waned. Increasingly, Lavinia felt as if she were absent to him; only at social events and in discussion of his work did he seemed appreciative of her presence. All of which would be tolerable if she were not in love with him.
After dismissing the maid, she unpinned her headdress and lay it carefully across the polished wood of James’s dresser, taking care not to scratch the surface. The formality of the bedroom was intimidating; it was a territory that was very much the Colonel’s. Heavy maroon velvet curtains, hung with a brocade, covered the windows, and the Louis XVI bed’s ornate headboard was adorned with carvings of pine cones interwoven with garlands. Alongside the bed stood a Japanese porcelain and metal mounted cabinet—where James kept his secret papers and his pharmaceuticals. Opposite, beside the window, a walnut marquetry cabinet displayed James’s medals, received for his service in the Crimea. The clasps were engraved with the names Balaclava, Sebastopol, Inkerman and Alma, indicating he had fought in all four battles. Every surface radiated luxury in a manner Lavinia was unaccustomed to, and it was hard not to feel a little awed by the value of the objects that surrounded her.
The order of the room reflected her husband’s soldierly habits. Lavinia knew it was also his way of dealing with his hidden terror of the uncontrollable. His dreams were often nightmares—of the battlefield, of a tribal sacrifice in a smoke-filled rainforest, of dying suddenly like his mother. Lavinia forgave him this foible, but within such a controlled environment there was no space for natural chaos, and certainly not the chaos she had been used to as a child.
She reached across to his pocket watch, which was sitting on the rosewood cabinet. The exquisitely crafted timepiece, its miniature springs and cogs marking off eternity, ticked loudly. It reminded her of the relentless heartbeat she heard when she lay with her head upon her husband’s chest, drawing them closer with each subterranean thud. It had been months since they had lain together like that.
‘That was rather a success.�
��The Colonel stood ready for bed in his Turkish robe, the silk of his nightshirt visible beneath. At six foot one he was a striking figure, despite the corpulence of middle age. His features boasted a luminous ferocity—people often took him for a statesman—and his eyes were large and heavy-lidded, conveying an intelligence that was penetrating and, at times, intimidating. Luxuriant eyebrows betrayed his Celtic heritage, and his upper lip, although on the thin side, was counterbalanced by a full lower companion that suggested a hidden sensuality. The shape of his face was oval, with fashionable sideburns and a beard serving to hide his jowls. It had the contours of both the optimist and the realist, the Colonel himself would have remarked if asked—regarding himself as an authority on such matters, having trained under the phrenologist George Combe. Skull and face shape, he was convinced, were a strong indication of character.
Caught now in her husband’s gaze, Lavinia felt she was being examined and judged.
‘It was successful, except for my little disagreement with Lady Morgan.’
‘My dear, it is perfectly appropriate to call her Frances. She is, after all, a dear friend of mine.’
Again, Lavinia wondered about her husband’s association with Lady Morgan. Her father had made an oblique reference to some great disappointment in love when the Colonel was younger—an engagement that had been broken off, with no explanation—but the Reverend Kane had the delicacy not to press the Colonel for further information, and James himself had never mentioned such a thing. Was it a fiction? Or could his acquaintance with Lady Morgan have been more than mere friendship?
‘What did you think about her young companion?’ the Colonel asked. ‘He’s another Etonian, I believe.’
‘The sycophantic Hamish Campbell? He seemed presentable enough.’
‘Sycophantic but charming, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Is he Lady Morgan’s consort?’
Irritated by the artlessness of the query, the Colonel pulled at his whiskers. ‘Frances has a weakness for the conversation of handsome young intellectuals, especially ambitious ones, but then she has some gifts of her own so it is a fair exchange of talents, one could say.’ He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and took off his slippers. ‘I think she took a liking to you, my dear.’
‘I think not.’
‘Come now, Frances adores an opinionated woman.’
‘She thinks I am an Irish heathen with unruly manners and she cannot fathom why you have married me. This makes her both curious and nervous.’
‘Succinctly observed; you have the callous eye of the scientist. You do realise her father was a Jew and her mother’s family are in the wool trade. It was sheer beauty and strength of character that propelled her into a profitable marriage. You must charm her; she will be your entry into society. It was Frances who introduced me to Darcy Quinn, the portraitist whom I commissioned to paint you as Diana. Frances knows everyone.’
He leaned over to kiss the top of her head before slipping between the sheets. Lavinia watched as he picked up a copy of the latest newsletter from the Entomological Society and placed his spectacles on his nose.
‘I sat for him myself once, when I was young—Icarus on the Mount, about to make his leap of faith. There was some rationale to it at the time—rash youth or something…Couldn’t see it myself.’
Lavinia knew the painting—it hung in the library above a desk the Colonel liked to work at, which was usually covered by his drawings of the various specimens he’d collected. Some specimens sat on the drawings themselves: outlandish seed pods that looked like bunches of withered grapes, the skin carefully peeled back to reveal the small yellow fruit nestled against the blackened leaves; plants with fronds so exotic in shape Lavinia found it impossible to imagine the landscape they could have been plucked from; exotic sea shells; desiccated ocean monsters—one he had once humorously described as the foot of a mermaid: a frail arched ivory bow that looked as if it had been carved by centuries of rushing undercurrents.
The painting, looming above, dominated this plethora of objects. Mounted in an ornate gilded frame, it displayed the heroic figure of Icarus—a pale-skinned youth of no more than twenty—entirely naked and standing on a boulder below which shimmered the outline of Crete, the columns of its temples and citadels a hazy blur in the afternoon sun. The boy’s wings were spread as if he were about to plunge defiantly into the abyss, the evening sun streaking his sweaty face. The soft down of his cheeks, the faint shadow of a moustache, heightened the poignancy of his imminent demise.
Lavinia had gazed at it, transfixed. Recognising the muscularity of the body, she’d initially wondered whether it was not in fact a portrait of some lost younger brother of her husband’s, so youthful was the figure’s stance—so different from the solid uprightness of the man she knew. But there was a look about the eyes that she recognised, the same gleam of inspired ambition Lavinia had seen in James as he worked on his illustrations and scribbled observations of the Bakairi, the Amazonian tribe he had studied, and other indigenous peoples.
In such moments, his inspiration transported her along with him into the fecund world of the Amazon, and provided an escape from the stifling atmosphere of the household—of dealing with Mrs Beetle, the contemptuous housekeeper; the territorial struggles with her son’s nursemaid; and the ennui of being trapped in the endless grey of the English winter.
She glanced over at the bed. The Colonel was propped up on the pillows peering through his reading spectacles.
‘A woman like that does what she wants, does she not?’ Lavinia asked.
‘Within social protocol, Frances is happy to provide a modicum of scandal but she would never be foolish enough to risk ostracism.’
‘Would you?’
James looked at her over his paper, aggravated by her persistence. ‘Don’t be absurd. What is it? You have that curve to your mouth that indicates disappointment.’
Lavinia sat on the edge of the bed. The physical distance between them had mysteriously lengthened. Why was it so hard to broach such matters? When they were courting, she had assumed he would treat his wife as an equal, both intellectually and emotionally. It was an understandable delusion: James had been so respectful of her own ambitions, so attentive to her own amateur scientific hypotheses—even those absurd notions created from snippets of information she had gleaned from her father: how the starfish might have got its legs; why the anteater had a snout. But far from ridiculing her strange fusions of fact and fiction, James had gently pointed out biological truths without patronising her.
He had also captivated her with his stories of the battlefield. He regarded heroism as residing in the small gestures: a medic entering no-man’s-land to carry out an injured infantryman; a horse leading a blinded soldier to safety; a drummer boy who saved a brother. And yet he expressed heavy criticism for the blundering war strategies that had caused so much catastrophe and unnecessary bloodshed in the Crimea—commands he had often been forced to carry out. All these doubts and revelations he had shared with her before their marriage. But now here she was, her unspoken question a turning stone in her mouth.
Lavinia stared down at the lace counterpane. A wedding gift from her father, it had once belonged to her mother.
‘You have not lain with me for over six months.’
The Colonel took off his spectacles, folded them neatly and placed them on the side table.
‘Am I failing you as a husband?’
There was a peevish tone in his voice which angered Lavinia. An older cousin had once warned her: Do not expect love in marriage. It is an illusion that does not fit with the pots and pans of domesticity. Besides, men only love you before they have had you. We are not the same as them, do not ever forget it.
Shocked, the fourteen-year-old Lavinia had sworn she would never make such a compromise, and had every intention of expecting both passion and love, as much as any man, gentleman or otherwise. Smiling sadly, her cousin had accused her of trying to imitate the heroines in the French novel
s she read so avidly.
Later that same day, fearful that she might, indeed, be unnatural in her ideas, Lavinia had furtively perused the medical treatise of the great physician Dr William Acton, a tome her father regarded as the ultimate authority on the human psyche. In a chapter headed ‘The Married Woman’, the eminent doctor declared that the ‘proper female’ lacked sexual feeling. The phrase had terrified Lavinia. Was she improper, then, to feel such sensations?
As her mother had died before she was two, Lavinia had received little feminine guidance, and the range of sensations that had invaded her adolescent body had been both bewildering and frightening. The only image she had ever stumbled across which seemed related to the curiously pleasurable sensations that threaded themselves through her nightly was an old woodcut of Eros and Psyche. Psyche was leaning over her lover, holding up an oil lamp so that she could see him for the first time. The dishevelled abandonment of the beautiful sleeping naked youth and the look of awe and lust on the girl’s face had intrigued Lavinia; she found herself wanting to be both in the body of the supine youth and in the skin of the excited girl.
‘You were so attentive when we were first married,’ she answered softly.
‘Lavinia, you are a mother now.’
‘And that precludes congress between man and wife?’
‘It should not, but I thought it might be intelligent to wait before conceiving another child.’
Lavinia reached across and lifted his large hand in her own. He kept the contact deliberately expressionless, his fingers a dull weight across her palm.
‘Do you no longer desire me? I still want you.’ Her voice tightened in her throat. Why ask the obvious when she knew the answer? Her eyes traced the line of black hair that led down to his naked chest beneath the silk. James said nothing. So she waited, his scent drifting across the bedspread lulling her body into tumescent hope. If only she were a man, or as audacious as Lady Frances Morgan, then she would take him anyway.
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