‘I understand.’ Charles Cavendish could not bear to look at his wife as he said the words, which perhaps undermined the sincerity of his claim. Or perhaps his embarrassment came from the fact that he understood too well, better than she could have imagined. Certainly, he was embarrassed.
He found it easier to focus his attention on the blue willow pattern teapot that sat between them on the kitchen table. The tea set had been a wedding present from Ursula’s parents. A reminder of happier times? He did not think so. He was not sure there had ever been happier times. And if he was honest, he had never liked the china. It was more her parents’ taste than theirs. At times, it gave him great satisfaction to imagine smashing it. All seventeen pieces of it.
‘How can you?’
The undisguised bitterness in her voice did at last draw his gaze, if only for a fleeting instant. He was both relieved and disappointed to see that she could not look at him either. She was looking out of the window, almost with longing at the filthy weather as it swirled through the sky. As if she would rather be out there in that than in here with him.
Her face was flushed and glistening from the heat of her emotions. He could not in all honesty say that Ursula was a beautiful woman, but there was something fierce and defiant about her looks, something profoundly unapologetic, that fascinated. That fierceness was concentrated in her eyes, which were dark and glowering beneath heavy brows that often met in a frown, though never of confusion – of anything but. Of dissatisfaction, impatience, frustration, anger, or as now, contempt.
It would not be true to say that Ursula did not care what people thought of her. It was rather that she believed she had a right to be thought highly of.
It was a point of view that made her easy to admire but difficult to love.
It struck Cavendish as almost comically English that they were having this conversation while waiting for a pot of tea to brew. For all the tense emotion of the moment, for all Ursula’s bitterness and misery, there was the milk jug, there was the sugar bowl with its tiny silver-plated tongs for lifting out the sugar cubes, there were the waiting cups and saucers. They must drink tea. Whatever else happened, they must drink tea.
They were three storeys up in a mansion block in Hampstead. This was their home. But Cavendish felt curiously cast adrift, as if the violence of the wind outside was about to rip the room they were in from the fabric of the rest of the building and hurl them into the void.
He knew that his marriage to Ursula was not perfect. But it was all he had.
The fault was undoubtedly his. He fell short in some way. She found him lacking and she was right to. He was dull. Unimaginative. Weak. Cowardly.
If he had been married to Charles Cavendish he would have been unhappy.
And so, he braced himself for the onslaught of her complaints, while all the time fantasising about smashing that damn tea service.
‘How can you understand? You have no idea!’
‘No, of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest that I …’
‘She’s here! In the building! Our building. Our home. With that … bastard!’
‘Ursula, really! Is it really necessary …?’
‘It is a bastard child! I am merely using the word in its correct, literal sense. She is unmarried. An unmarried mother. The child therefore is a bastard.’
‘Yes, but I really think … she has to live somewhere. They have to live somewhere.’
‘Why here?’
‘Would you have her cast out on the street?’ Charles let his glance flit to the storm-lashed window, as if to underline his point.
‘I don’t care! Why should I care where she goes?’
‘But to get up a petition? I … I … I … Isn’t that rather harsh?’
‘This is a decent, respectable block. Or at least it was until she moved in here.’
‘But what about the child? The child is innocent in all this.’
‘If she does not go, then we must go. I will not live in the same building as that harlot.’
Cavendish picked up the teapot and felt the weight of it. The handle of the pot felt precarious. He imagined it snapping off, the pot smashing against the wooden surface, the hot tea spilling everywhere, dripping off the edges of the table and scalding his lap. He would welcome the physical pain as a relief from the intractable misery of his emotions.
But there was something instantly comforting about the trickle and gush of the tea into the cup. It made it seem possible that there would be a solution, that they would find a way through. If only they could all just sit down and have a cup of tea together.
Ursula was not a heartless woman. He knew that. She did not really want Anna Seddon cast out on the street. Not just before Christmas. Not when there was practically a storm raging outside. Not at any time. In any weather.
It’s just that she was hurting. And the only way she knew to process her hurt was to inflict a greater one on someone else.
There were things he needed to say to his wife, but it was not a conversation that he wanted to have. Not now, not ever. It was a conversation that, once begun, could take them to a very dangerous place. It might easily destroy everything. But perhaps everything needed destroying.
Charles Cavendish sighed deeply. ‘Sit down, Ursula. Come, drink your tea.’
She glared at him in outrage, as if he had just struck her. But she did as he had bade.
‘It seems to me that this is not about Anna.’
Her fierce eyes bulged at the mention of that name. Not merely at the mention of it, but at the provoking sympathy in his voice as he said it.
But he pressed on. He had begun the conversation now. He had no choice but to see it through. ‘It seems to me that this is about him.’
‘Him?’
‘Sir Aidan. Fonthill.’ He added the surname as an afterthought, as if to distinguish between multiple Sir Aidans of their acquaintance.
‘What about him?’
He sensed that somehow the balance had tipped in his favour. There was a tremor in her voice, trepidation – fear, even. He thought about standing up to push home his advantage. But he had no wish to make this more difficult for her than it was already.
‘I know that you’re in love with him.’
‘What?’
‘I understand. Practically all the women are.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But the flinch of her head away from him told him that he had hit home.
‘Apart from Emma, and that’s only because she knows him better than the rest of you.’
Ursula pursed her lips in distaste at the mention of Fonthill’s wife.
‘Would it make you happy if you had his baby?’ He had not meant to ask such a question, so directly. And the boldness of it almost took his breath away. Almost had him laughing out loud. It was something he had thought, but never meant to voice.
‘Are you suggesting that Sir Aidan is the father of that bastard?’
That was not the response he had expected; he considered it a diversionary tactic on Ursula’s part. ‘Who else could it be?’
‘Who can say?’
This was getting away from the point. Cavendish laded three sugar cubes with determined energy into his tea. He pressed on. ‘Perhaps not have his baby. But become his mistress. Would that make you happy?’
‘What has got into you, Charles?’
‘I am just trying to find some way forward for us. I am just trying to discover what it is that you want. What would make you happy, as I so evidently do not.’
He had her attention now. She watched him closely, her mouth gaping. ‘You sound like you are about to make some kind of a proposal.’
Cavendish stirred his tea thoughtfully. ‘It’s not for me to propose anything. For one thing, I do not know what has occurred between you and Sir Aidan. For all I know, your present unhappiness may be the result of his already having rejected you.’
‘Why do you say that? He has not rejected me!’
‘So you are lovers?’
‘No.’
‘But that is what you want?’
‘Are you sure you want me to answer that question, Charles?’
Cavendish raised his teacup to his lips. The drink was satisfyingly strong and sweet. ‘It depends what the answer might be.’ He gave a disarming smile. ‘I have been thinking, Ursula. The war, and everything, rather focuses one’s mind. I am not too old to sign up. Or rather, apply for a commission. They might have me. I am not the most splendid physical specimen, I know that. But they might overlook my obvious shortcomings if things get any more sticky over there. A word in the right ear might do the trick. If there was nothing for me here, no one who wanted me to stay, then I should think it would be a good thing to do, all things considered.’
‘I don’t want you to go off and get yourself killed, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry, I don’t intend to get myself killed, either. I’m pretty sure I could get myself a cushy billet, what with my accountancy qualifications and all. The army needs bean counters, I dare say, as much as it needs frontline soldiers. I’ve pretty much made up my mind to do it, if I’m honest.’
‘Then I don’t see why it is necessary to have this distasteful conversation.’
‘Because I want to know how things stand between us. I wouldn’t want to entertain any false expectations. Especially if anything should happen.’ He left that thought ominously vague. ‘And after it’s all over, it would be good to know if I have anything to come back to.’ At that he risked a glance at her over the top of his teacup and added: ‘Or not.’
‘This is all rather unexpected, Charles.’
‘And there’s one other thing too.’
Ursula cocked her head.
‘If I should take myself off and leave you to … to do whatever you want. With him. You must promise me one thing.’
‘What?’
‘That you will leave that poor girl alone. That you will not petition for her to be evicted. You do realize, don’t you, that it is the height of hypocrisy when the thing you want most of all is to be his mistress?’
Cavendish drained his cup and replaced it in its saucer with meticulous care, as if the blue willow china tea set was his most treasured possession in the world.