Page 110 of The English Wife

“And have people say I’m running away? Let Teddy eat food soaked in oil.” Anne arranged herself in a proprietary way on the divan. “Here I stay.”

Please, no, thought Georgie. Two weeks of Anne had been more than enough to last her a lifetime. The only consolation was that Mrs. Van Duyvil had grudgingly condescended to take Anne back to town once the ball was done. Only one day more.

One day more. Georgie realized she had been looking at the ball as one might the distant towers of a town in the desert, assuming, without quite thinking it through, that once the ball was done, everything would be different.

Once the ball was done, the house would be officially finished. Once the ball was done, they would have no more need for an architect. Once the ball was done, Mrs. Van Duyvil would stop pestering them about neglecting their duty to society. Once the ball was done, they could settle into their life as a family again. Once the ball was done …

But as the ball drew closer, Georgie was beginning to suspect that the towers might be a mirage, that the weary journey wasn’t ended at all, that beyond the sands were only more sands, trekking endlessly on.

She wished the house had never been begun, that Bay had never had the idea of making a doll’s house of Lacey Abbey for Viola, that Anne had never introduced David, that they were still living in the comfortable old house Bay’s great-great-grandparents had built. This new house, this Lacey Abbey in exile, felt more like a stage set than a home. Everything was too new, too shiny, too rich. It didn’t feel like coming home. It felt like a judgment, like a judgment for all the times she had envied Annabelle, the times she had imagined herself mistress of Lacey Abbey, queen of all she surveyed.

This wasn’t a house but a penance.

Georgie fantasized, for a moment, about the whole thing burning down, going up in a blaze of flame. Flame purified, they said. She could exorcise it all, send the past and present winging into the sky in one great bonfire, all purified and made new.

But then David would only have to stay on to build another one, wouldn’t he?

Have the abbey, Annabelle had said. I don’t want it.

And she had half hated Annabelle for that. No, not half hated, had truly hated Annabelle for that, for her casual rejection of all Georgie’s desirings. It had seemed so unfair that Annabelle should have everything she, Georgie, wanted, and not even take joy in it.

Love and hate, mingled all together …

“My dear,” said Anne, “are you quite all right? You look as though someone’s been dancing on your grave.”

And wouldn’t you like that, Georgie almost said, but controlled herself. “If you’re at loose ends,” she suggested, “you might find Mrs. Gerritt for me. I want to make sure she puts the right flowers in the right room.”

“I live to serve.” But Anne made no move to take herself off to the housekeeper’s quarters, a spacious apartment utterly unlike the inconvenient dark rooms Georgie remembered from the Lacey Abbey of her childhood. Anne propped herself on one elbow and looked at Georgie through a plume of cigarette smoke. “What would you do if you weren’t married to Bay?”

“Go on the stage,” said Georgie, only half paying attention. In the old house, she could hear the children from rooms away. But here, the walls were too solid. The silence bothered her.

“Wouldn’t that be an upset for Aunt Alva! But really. There must be something—or someone—you dream about.”

If there were, she wouldn’t tell Anne. “I’m quite happy here.”

“I forgot. You have your house.” Anne made it sound like something sordid, blood money. “Is it worth it?”

“Was yours?” retorted Georgie, and then regretted it. It would be one thing if sinking to Anne’s level silenced her. But it only encouraged her to go on. And on.

Anne took it as an excuse to follow Georgie from the Blue Room, saying confidingly, “We really are in the same boat, aren’t we? Both of us, rich in possessions, abandoned by our husbands.”

“I wouldn’t say abandoned. The last time I saw Bay, he was dealing with the vintner.” Who had delivered the wrong cases of champagne. Georgie paused on the landing, where David had, from somewhere, unearthed genuine Jacobean oak, blackened with age. It was an odd feeling, being both in the present and the past. “Bay does periodically like to wander off with a book of poetry, but he generally comes back in time for tea.”

That stymied Anne for a few moments. She followed Georgie in silence down the stairs before saying conversationally, “I’m surprised you haven’t divorced Bay.”

Georgie had had enough of cat and mouse. Looking at Anne, she said distinctly, “Why would I?”

“My dear.” Anne’s voice was thick with pity. But that was as far as she dared go.

“Mrs. Van Duyvil?” It was one of the gardener’s boys. Mrs. Gerritt would have his head if she found him in the house, trekking mud onto her floors. “Gentleman wants you down by the river.”

Georgie could have hugged him. “Pardon me, Anne. David had some questions about the decorations for the folly.”

Ha! Let Anne see what a happy family they were. Even if they weren’t.

“If you want to be useful,” she added, handing Anne her notebook, “you can take this to Mrs. Gerritt. We need orchids in the Red Room, sweet peas in the Blue Room, and Gerritt needs to have someone do something about the chimney in the small parlor. It’s smoking again.”

It was almost worth it to be able to leave Anne behind, marooned in the grandeur of the hall. Georgie cut through the door beneath the Minstrel’s Gallery, through the passage that cut between the billiard room and the music room. Just as she used to do when she was a child, when she and Annabelle and George had known the back passages of Lacey Abbey as a pianist knew his notes or a blacksmith his tools.