London, February 1911
The day after her return to London, Ursula awoke bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. It was a cold, clear late-February morning, but as she opened the curtains to take a glimpse of the world, all she could see was the pale outline of the street below through the damp veil of condensation that had formed on the windowpane overnight.
She heard the grandfather clock in the stairwell chime eight o’clock. The Marlow household, of course, would have been up for hours already. All the coal fires would have been lit, the downstairs rooms swept and dusted, and preparations for breakfast would have started as soon as Julia heard Ursula stir from her bed. Ursula, however, felt ill-prepared to face the day. She was unsettled and tired after the long journey across the Atlantic and confused by the conflicting emotions aroused by Lord Wrotham. She didn’t know what to think or feel anymore. Ursula pressed her forehead against the windowpane, overcome with foreboding. She was engaged to marry a man she did not love and time was running out. The ceremony and small wedding luncheon was scheduled in two weeks’ time.
Ursula spent the morning catching up with correspondence and was just finishing a letter to Alistair Fenway requesting a copy of all her father’s companies’ accounts when Biggs entered the drawing room with an announcement.
“There is a telephone call for you Miss Ursula,” he said, the very essence of formality now that she was mistress of the house. “Miss Stanford-Jones, calling from the north, I believe.”
Ursula leaped to her feet. The last she had heard (via a cable from Harrison when she was aboard the Lusitania), Winifred was recuperating from her time at Broadmoor with her aunt in Yorkshire. Biggs held open the study door and Ursula hastened past and hurried down the hallway. She lifted the telephone receiver with a sudden pang of nostalgia. Now she really did feel she was home.
“Freddie?” she cried.
“Sully, is it really you? Are you finally returned to us?” Winifred sounded just like her old self and Ursula laughed. “Yes, though it’s hard to believe after all that’s happened. Where are you?”
“Still in Yorkshire, but I had to call as soon as I heard you were home.” They continued chatting until Winifred said, “I heard you set a date…” Ursula remained silent. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Winifred finally asked.
“I owe it to my father…” Ursula sighed, leaving the rest unsaid.
“You know what I think, Sully?” Winifred responded quietly. “I think it’s time you weren’t in the shadow of any man.”
Ursula inhaled sharply. Winifred’s words cut her to the bone.
She made up a feeble excuse to end the conversation, put down the receiver, and returned to the study, uneasy. She tried to push Winifred’s words aside and immerse herself in her father’s business files. There were still boxes and boxes to sort through. Still unsettled but determined to focus on the task at hand, Ursula knelt down on the carpet to separate out what she should keep and what she should discard.
She was surrounded by piles of paper and account books when Biggs interrupted her again.
“Yes?” she lifted her head expectantly as he closed the door and approached her.
“Mr. Tom Cumberland to see you. Should I ask him to wait in the front parlor or do you wish to meet him in here?”
Ursula had been so deep in concentration she hadn’t even heard the front door bell ring.
“What? Oh, right…”
“And Lord Wrotham telephoned a few minutes ago to see if he could call upon you after supper this evening. If that is convenient, I can telephone him and confirm the appointment.”
“Yes. Yes, thank you Biggs. Tell Lord Wrotham to call around eight. And tell Mr. Cumberland…tell him, to come in. He needn’t wait for me in the front parlor.”
“Very good, miss.” Biggs bowed his head and Ursula thought she saw a glimmer of the old humor in his eyes.
She got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt. She was wearing one of her suffragette dresses, as her father used to call it. Functional and plain, it was pale lavender with white trim and collar. Hardly her best day wear but apart from her hair, which was growing out and looked a little wild as a result, she deemed herself perfectly presentable enough for Tom.
Tom entered the room waving a bouquet of pink roses in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“I’ve taken care of all of the arrangements for us,” Tom began. “The vicar at Holy Trinity Church is obviously delighted to be of service. He was very fond of your father, you know.”
She closed her eyes to try and calm herself but she felt the claustrophobia of marriage closing in. “I’ve also taken the liberty of contacting your relations in Scotland.”
“You contacted my mother’s family?” Ursula exclaimed. She hadn’t seen any of them since she was a child, which made Tom’s actions all the more inappropriate. “What on earth did they say?” she asked.
“Haven’t heard anything back as yet,” Tom responded airily. “Oh, and I mustn’t forget. Fenway’s drawn up a whole lot of papers for you to sign. I brought them with me—thought we may as well get that all sorted.”
“What sort of papers?” Ursula asked suspiciously.
“Oh, just some transfers, that sort of thing. It will ensure that you don’t have to worry about any business affairs of your father’s. After we are married, everything will be placed under my control. It’s really just a formality, you understand, my love?”
Ursula was trembling with anger. Winifred’s words echoed in her ears.
“I’m afraid signing those papers is quite out of the question,” Ursula said with an icy calm. And suddenly she knew what she must do.
Tom eyed her warily. Ursula took a deep breath and continued. “Tom, I cannot marry you. I’m sorry. I know it was my father’s wish that we wed, but I simply cannot…”
“Cannot marry me?” Tom put his finger under her chin and turned her face toward him. “Nonsense!” Ursula flinched. Tom’s mouth tightened, and suddenly, an unmistakable feeling rose up inside her: fear. Detecting her discomfort, Tom relaxed his grip on her and made a visible effort to regain his composure.
“I’m sorry, if I’ve done anything to—”
“You’ve done nothing. I simply cannot marry you. I’m not sure I’m ready to marry anyone. Don’t you see I need to stand on my own now?”
Tom got to his feet and walked over to the fireplace. “You’re making a terrible mistake, of course. How can a woman like you possibly survive on your own? You have been cosseted your whole life. What do you know about being independent?” He suddenly sounded bitter. “What do you know of the world?”
“Tom, I really am sorry—”
“Enough!” Tom snapped. His whole demeanor had changed. Gone was the carefree lover. Instead she saw the real Tom, and he was cold and calculating.
“I have heard quite enough.” He almost spat out the words before leaving the room.
Ursula sat at the dinner table glancing now and then at a book propped up against a vase filled with hothouse flowers. After her confrontation with Tom she had little appetite. She pushed the roasted squab idly around her plate with her fork. The room was gloomily quiet with Ursula having only her thoughts for company or comfort. She found it hard to concentrate, as every time she peered hard at the page full of words, her eyes read a sentence before wandering to look at the mantel clock sitting on the mahogany sideboard. It was not even seven o’clock. Finally, with a sigh, she put down her knife and fork, closed the book, and rang for Moira to clear the dishes.
“I’ll wait for Lord Wrotham in the front parlor,” she told Biggs as she exited the dining room. “You may as well decant the wine and bring it in there.”
“Yes, Miss Marlow. Would you like dessert or coffee brought in before then? I believe Cook has made trifle, or there’s always her rhubarb pie you’re so fond of.”
Ursula bit her lip. It wouldn’t do for her to fuel any more gossip, given she had left dinner half eaten. “Please tell Cook I’ll have a small helping of trifle and then bring some coffee in, as well.”
“Of course.”
Ursula made her way down the hall and into the front parlor. Already she noticed changes to this room. There was a pile of books and magazines on the flat-topped side table that, when her father was still alive, she would not have dared to leave out. She had also moved some new items of decoration downstairs; a Ruskin pottery vase now stood on the mantelpiece alongside a bronze miniature of the sorceress Circe. On the small coffee table under the stained-glass lamp, Ursula had placed a Cymric silver bowl from Liberty which she filled with rose petals and lavender. Touches, she thought, that made the parlor seem different somehow, more her own.
She picked up the top book, Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, from the pile on the side table, kicked off her satin shoes, and sat down on the sofa. As she was all alone, she curled up her knees beside her and opened to the front pages. More at ease now, she nearly forgot her determination not to look at the grandfather clock nor concern herself with the time (what was it to her whether Lord Wrotham arrived on time!), and soon found herself successfully immersed in poetry. She didn’t even notice Moira enter bearing the tray of dessert and coffee. She tucked her feet in under her and continued reading, content to have her worries subsumed at least for a few minutes in the beauty of Yeats’s poems.
“What, no welcoming party?” Lord Wrotham’s voice startled her, and she dropped the book in surprise.
“Doesn’t anyone knock anymore?” she replied crossly. “I must have words with Biggs. He really should not have allowed you to just barge in here like that.”
“Don’t take it out on Biggs. I told him not to bother with introductions. I did knock though, you just didn’t hear me.”
Lord Wrotham crossed the room and picked up the book from the floor. Closing it, he peered down at the title with a smile. “Yeats? Hmm, I would have expected Lord Byron.”
“I’m still astonished you can name any poet at all,” Ursula replied as she stood up and slipped her feet back into her shoes.
“Your feather is crooked.” Lord Wrotham remarked, pointing to her head, and Ursula couldn’t help but look over at herself in the mirror that hung above the fireplace. Self-consciously, she tried to straighten the feather band in her hair.
Lord Wrotham walked over and replaced the book on the table. He gazed briefly at the spines of the other books that lay there and smiled again.
“You find my choice in literature amusing?” Ursula asked. When Lord Wrotham did not reply but merely continued to smile, she tossed back her head a little and met his eyes defiantly.
“Not amusing, just surprising,” came his reply.
“What brings you at this hour, Lord Wrotham? It’s a little late for a social call, isn’t it?” Ursula demanded.
“May we first sit down perhaps? Could I even impose on you for some…oh, I see you have already requested coffee.” He gazed down at the untouched tray, the coffee cold in the pot, and the uneaten trifle. His smile this time was softer but it irritated Ursula all the more.
She rang for Biggs, who entered shortly thereafter.
“Biggs, we would like some refreshment. Perhaps Lord Wrotham would prefer wine to coffee.” She turned to look at Lord Wrotham who was just seating himself in the satinwood armchair. “Biggs has decanted a fine Bordeaux, haven’t you, Biggs?” Lord Wrotham raised his eyebrows in apparent amusement and Ursula, not so amused, asked Biggs to bring in two glasses. Biggs merely nodded and retreated as Moira hurried in to pick up the tray.
Ursula sat back down on the sofa, crossing her ankles demurely beneath her dress, as she attempted to regain the calmness she wished to portray.
“I came to discuss the question of your allowance,” Lord Wrotham coughed. “As trustee of your father’s estate, until you are married of course, I find myself in the awkward position of having to ask about your monetary needs.”
“You came here to discuss my ‘monetary needs,’” Ursula said with a deadpan expression.
“Yes.”
“At this hour?”
“Well, what other time was there? I assume you need to purchase spring apparel, and with your, your impending nuptials, I wanted to ensure that you had all the funds you needed for—”
“There aren’t going to be any ‘impending nuptials,’” Ursula interrupted him sharply.
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand…”
“I told Tom this afternoon that I couldn’t go through with it—the marriage I mean. There isn’t going be a wedding.”
Lord Wrotham opened his mouth but Ursula cut in before he had a chance to speak.
“I decided it was time I asserted my own independence. I plan to take control of my father’s business. I’ll need your support of course, as trustee of my father’s estate, but I’ve had a long, hard think on it and what would be most satisfying to me, I believe, and honor Papa most greatly would be for me to run them as an independent businesswoman.”
“I see…” Lord Wrotham couldn’t keep the note of skepticism out of his voice.
“You think a woman incapable of doing such a thing?”
“You know my politics,” was all he replied.
“Your politics hardly serve as an answer to my question. Tell me, do you think I’m incapable of running my father’s business because I am a woman?”
“You are also very young,” Lord Wrotham commented.
“So was my father.”
“That he was, but he had great instincts, and when he was unsure, he was willing to take advice from those he trusted.”
“I will accept advice. I may not trust as my father did, but I am not such a fool to think I can run this alone. I will draw upon all my father’s advisers. Will they accept me, though, that is the question? Will you accept me?”
“I’m not sure that at the moment you even accept yourself,” was his reply.
“Maybe not—but I must face up to my responsibilities.”
“What of your plans to be a journalist?”
“I must give them up.”
Lord Wrotham sighed. “It seems to me that you give up much to gain possibly nothing. They may never accept a woman. They may never accept you. And your politics…How can you reconcile your position—”
“Will you remain as you are?” she asked after a pause.
“As I am?” he queried.
Lord Wrotham got up suddenly and paced across the room. Ursula tried to read his countenance but his expression was inscrutable.
“Yes, as my father’s trusted adviser. Will you remain so with me? As trustee of the estate, will you support my decisions? Will you grant me the financial freedom to do what I must for the sake of my father’s business interests?”
“I’m not sure I could promise to always agree with your decisions but yes, I will remain as an adviser…if that is what you wish me to be.”
The question hung in the air and Ursula flushed. The implication was clear. But she wasn’t ready to make any commitment, least of all to him. She needed to succeed on her own terms first. If she succumbed now, she feared losing all her newfound independence.
“It is.” Her words were quiet, but they seem to echo through the room.
Lord Wrotham stood by the fireplace, his expression still un-readable. Ursula arose and started to approach him. For a moment, as their eyes met, it looked as if he might speak. But he remained silent and Ursula could take little comfort from the manner of his leaving. He merely flipped open his fob watch, commented on the late hour, and then said, with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders, that he had to be going.
“I have to leave for Ireland tomorrow.”
“Ireland?” Ursula exclaimed.
“Yes, I am advising counsel on an important trial that begins in Dublin tomorrow.” He walked across the room and opened the door.
“But when will you return?” she called out.
“I’m not sure. Hargreaves will let you know when I am back.”
And with that he left her standing in the room, wishing he would stay.