Page 51 of A Marriage is Arranged

Louise had spent most of the morning in her rooms, eaten a solitary lunch and then rung for Rose to come with her for a walk. Their afternoon perambulations had recently been interrupted by the rainy weather but today it was dry. Louise felt she would go mad if she didn’t get out of the house.

She was still trying to come to terms with her husband’s announcement the previous day that she would be staying in the capital while he went to Overshott. The thought appalled her. To be away from him for as much as three months! Oh! She had tried to tell herself she didn’t care, that Diane was welcome to him, but she knew it wasn’t true. Even after everything that had happened, after his cold words to her and hers to him, she loved him. She loved being next to him, putting her hand on his arm, feeling his hand under her elbow, sensing his solid form beside her. He had said women needed protection, and as much as she wanted to believe otherwise, she thought he was right. She couldn’t be away from him for three months!

Rose came in now, and Louise was shocked how pale she had become. She had been so tied up with her own misery she hadn’t realized she was seeing much more of Susan than of Rose.

“Rose, my dear,” she said, sounding to her own ears like her mother, “whatever is the matter? Are you ill? Is something bothering you?”

Rose just shook her head mutely .

“Please tell me if there’s something wrong. I should like to help you if I can.”

Rose seemed on the point of saying something, but then shook her head again.

“No, m’lady,” she said. “It’s just all this rain. I ’ate bein’ cooped up inside. It’s much worse ’ere than at ’ome. I’ll feel better for a walk.”

And it did seem as if this were so. They walked down the now familiar streets and both smiled behind their gloves at the sight of the stout gentleman who had been unable to mount his horse before. This time he was chasing his hat down the street. It was an enormously tall effort, and a sudden buffet of wind blew it clean off his head. They never saw if he recovered it, as it was blown right across the road and down a side street, with the gentleman in hot pursuit.

But Rose was unusually quiet. She seemed lost in her own thoughts and only spoke when spoken to. When they got home, and the girl had disappeared downstairs for the tea, Louise rang for the housekeeper and asked her if she had noticed a problem with her.

“Yes, indeed,” replied Mrs. Smith with a rueful smile. “I’m afraid she is unhappy in love.”

“Oh!” This was something Louise could easily relate to and she nodded. “I see!”

“Yes. She was walking out regularly with a young man. A Freddy something. He was always at the kitchen door. I had to chase him away a couple of times. One of those cheeky, charming chaps all the maids go for. Then about two weeks ago he suddenly stopped coming. I know Rose waited a whole day for him in her best bonnet. She finally said something about having made a mistake, but we all knew he’d stood her up. ”

Louise remembered the young fellow who had raised his cap to them that day. “He’s the one who delivers newspapers?”

“Yes, though how he got his job done with all the time he spent hanging around here, I don’t know.”

They were interrupted by the broad shape of the Earl, who appeared at the garden sitting room door. There was silence for a moment, and then Mrs. Smith, divining that he wanted to speak to his wife, curtseyed and left.

He came in and shut the door. “Louise,” he said abruptly, “There’s something I need to…,” then, remembering his grandmother’s admonitions, “No, goddam it! Look, Louise, I’m sorry.”

She had risen and now came towards him.

“Sorry? What for?”

“For everything. For thinking that marriage was only…, that I could carry on… for Diane… for the bracelet….”

Louise made a choking sound and turned away.

“No! I mean, not for Diane, because I didn’t… I mean, I hadn’t seen her since we were married and in the garden she was trying to…. Dammit, Louise! I don’t know what you think you saw but I didn’t! Can you believe me?”

The effect of this incoherent speech was to make Louise turn around and fling herself against her husband’s broad chest.

“Oh Gareth! Is it true? You haven’t been…?” She turned her streaming eyes up at him.

“No, I haven’t.” Her husband regained his power of speech. “On my honor I haven’t been with that woman since we were married. At the Ball, she insisted on seeing me in the garden and I told her it was all over. I should have told her before but I didn’t. It was unfair to both of you. I’m sorry.”

“Oh! How stupid I’ve been!”

Louise held her face against his waistcoat and cried. The Earl held her tight but said nothing. Finally, her sobbing ceased and she looked up at him again. She was not one of those women who could cry beautifully. Her plain face looked even worse than usual.

“Can you ever forgive me?” she hiccupped. “I’ve been so very, very foolish! I was angry and I wanted to make you pay. That’s why… my expensive gowns… and refusing you. But not the bracelet! I didn’t… I would never… Oh,I love you Gareth! That’s why I did it all. I love you so much I couldn’t think straight!”

Her husband didn’t even notice how ugly she looked. At her words, he held her tighter and said with a laugh in his voice, “If loving me makes you give away the family jewels, order half a dozen of the most expensive gowns in the kingdom, and most of all, refuse to get rid of that damned contract, I’d definitely be better off if you didn’t!”

She tried to smile. “I wanted to get rid of it, you don’t know how much, Gareth! I’ve been so unhappy. I tried not to love you, but I couldn’t!”

He looked down at her seriously. “You must know, Louise, when I married I didn’t bargain for love. I just thought marriage was a necessary inconvenience. But if missing you when you’re not there, and thinking about you when I should be thinking about something else, and wanting to punch the face of every man who puts his arm around you, my funny, clever, intensely irritating Louise Grey, I love you.”

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Upstairs,” he said, when he could speak.

“What do you mean, upstairs?”

“You know very well what I mean.”

“But what about the routine?”

“Damn the routine. ”

That night they missed dinner entirely and mortally offended the noble couple to whose Ball they had been invited but completely forgot to go.