A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 23: Fred

I fell asleep more easily that night, the notebook containing the address of Mary's cousins clutched in my hand.  I sent my valet and Mary's maid on a paid holiday, pretending that their mistress was called away on family business and then I wandered down to the train station.

Discreet enquiries at the ticket office had confirmed that Mary, or a woman who looked very like her, had booked a first-class ticket for Dover and I supposed that was a good indication that she had headed to Kent. I boarded the train with a nervous certainty, I believed that I would find her but had no idea what I would say when I saw her.  I supposed I would just fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness, there was something inside Mary that always made it impossible for her to reject a sincere apology.

There were two handsome houses on either side of a fair-sized lake,  I was informed that my destination was the house on the left.  Mary's cousins lived in more splendour than I had imagined, and as soon as I stepped into the home I could smell the new money.  A large portrait of the patriarch of the family confirmed it, the owner was a banker without a doubt.

As I waited in the picture-perfect room, I wandered over to the photographs arranged on the pianoforte.  I saw the banker again, fat-jowled and pompous, an elegant woman who was clearly his wife, their sour-faced daughter who had clearly inherited the worst of her parents' features, a white-haired grandmother, an elderly man with a walrus moustache and then, amongst it all, was a young Mary.  She must have been about sixteen, already blossoming into her beauty.  Next to her was the sour-faced girl, their arms around one another in easy kinship.  

The stiff rustle of taffeta alerted me to the arrival of the lady of the house, I prepared my most charming smile.  Although she was still a handsome woman, I was disappointed to see no resemblance to Mary. I'd hope to see a glimpse of those features I was missing so much.

   "Mr Frederick Wilkes, I presume?" she said, my card in her hand.  "I am afraid my husband is in Town."

   "It was you that I came to call on," I said.

There was a flicker of surprise on her face, and why not indeed, for I was a stranger to her.  She glanced down at the photograph in my hands and took it from me gently, her gloved fingers traced the faces underneath.

    "My daughter, Harriet Mordaunt and my cousin Mary Taylor," she said.

       "It is Mary Wilkes now," I said.  "We married last year."

Her gaze travelled up and down my body, as always I was grateful for the impeccable tailoring from my man on Saville Row, for clearly she was a woman who judged a book by its cover.

     "Then you must call me Lydia, as we are family."

     "And you must call me Fred."

She indicated to the sofa and sat down opposite me, a sadness fell over her face as she looked at the photograph again.

     "Mary never wrote to tell me," she said with a sigh.  "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, she really is terrible at correspondence."

    "Mary is not one for letter writing, that is true," I said, wishing that was the only reason I had not heard from her.

   "Wasn't she a pretty child?" Lydia said.  "Is she still as pretty now?"

This question did not bode well for Mary staying in the house, if the lady in front of me was being truthful then she had not seen Mary in years.

   "She's one of the most beautiful women in England," I said.  "You say you haven't heard from her?"

   "No, not really," Lydia said.  "There was the perfunctory letter to say she had arrived at Miss Chorley's then just a card at Christmas once a year.  I tried writing to her about news from the village but, I think it just made her homesick."

The colour grew a little deeper on her cheek.

   "I think when my daughter Harriet married, Mary felt there was no longer a place her for her and perhaps she was right," Lydia said, looking up at me.  "There are certainly very few eligible bachelors in the neighbourhood and it appears she has married well."

 There was something uneasy about the woman that I could not put my finger on, it seemed out of character that Mary had estranged herself from the family who had taken her in as an orphan.  Had there been cruelty or jealousy?  Something did not sit right.

   "You haven't heard from her recently?"

   "What is this about, Mr Wilkes?" her voice became sharper.

The key to any deception is to tell the shortest amount of truth you have and believe it.  I gave a sheepish smile, the sort that had once brought my scorned lovers back to their knees. I hoped it would work on dear Cousin Lydia too.

   "It's shameful really," I said.  "I committed what I considered to be a minor indiscretion and Mary has taken herself off to punish me."

   "And you thought she had come here?" Lydia said, clearly unimpressed by what she assumed was my lack of faithfulness.  "As much as I would like to help with your marital woes, she has not been in contact."

  "Would she have confided in your daughter?"

  "No, of that I am certain," Lydia said.  "Harriet and Mary do not speak to one another. I'm afraid Harriet was always rather jealous of Mary, always in her shadow."

  "I'd just thought that as her only family..." I started.

 "Yes, well apart from her mother, " she said.  "I did try, Mr Wilkes, I really did, but Mary had no interest in maintaining contact with me.  What could I do?"

I sat in shocked silence, trying to think how to respond to the news that Mary still had her mother.  Surely her mother was dead?  Every mention of the woman spoke of her as a person of the past, Mary called herself an orphan.  Was her mother the sick relative that Mary visited? There must be a scandal attached to her mother that was so bad, Mary preferred to think of her as dead.  Could that be why Mary resented my past mistresses because she saw her mother's disgrace reflected in their fall? And yet, a mother's love is where we run to for comfort.  If her mother was alive, then perhaps that is where she was.

   "I suppose she must be with her mother then," I said. "But I am afraid I do not have her address."

   "Now that I can help with," Lydia said.  "It's such a gloomy place, but then I suppose those sort of places always are, aren't they?"

She hurried over to her writing desk, leaving me to wonder what sort of place it could be.  A boarding house, I supposed. 

   "I mean the whole business was terrible," she shook her head.  "Which is why none of us ever speak of it."

  "Yes, of course," I said, without understanding at all.

I bid my hostess an uneasy farewell and boarded the train once more.  Instead of finding my wife, I had found more mystery and had started to uncover a darker layer of her past.