A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 30: Harriet

Neither of us spoke a word on the journey home. Mary insisted on us being driven home in the motorcar, no doubt to spare any train passengers the sight of Daniel's face. It was the very least she could do, considering what her husband had done.

Daniel's handsome face was so grotesquely swollen that he could have been mistaken for the elephant man. Every inch of his skin seemed to be a shade of red or purple. In some places the skin was split and you could see the flesh beneath. I could not bear to look at him and yet I could not resist.

In some way it helped to see him without his beauty. Even in the most miserable times of our marriage, his beauty still dazzled me. I would find myself staring at him, lost in the perfection of his features. Now he was as repulsive to me as he said I was to him, albeit briefly.

When we got home, he announced he had been injured from a riding accident and took to his bed. The doctor may have been dubious about the cause of injuries, but he doled out the morphine and said nothing. Daniel refused all visitors but the nurse. Broken nose, broken ribs, broken heart. I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

The cause of the brawl was still unclear, but the victor wasn't. Mr Frederick Wilkes had won both the fight and Mary's love. I fluctuated between jealousy and curiosity. Had Fred Wilkes caught my husband in flagrante with my cousin? It was not like Daniel had not paraded his affairs in front of me before. Or had Daniel had something more sordid in mind, like blackmailing Mary for money? After all, he had kept her letters all those years.

Those bloody letters. I still read them in secret, torturing myself with the passion between them. Each time I read them, it was like picking a scab. At night I would lie awake, thinking about them bundled in their hiding place in the boathouse, in their black metal box underneath the floorboards. Even locked away, I could still see the words... "I will love nobody else, Mary, for there is nobody else I can love.", I had howled the first time I had read those words. It was the moment I had truly realised what a mistake I had made in marrying him.

Briefly, I had thought about burning the letters, imagining my satisfaction at watching them turn to ash. I'd resolved to do it and had slipped down to the boathouse, not realising Daniel was already there. When I'd peeped through the dusty window, he was sat on the floor, his head bowed down in anguish. The box of letters lay open at his feet and I realised they were his torment too. I wished he'd known that was something we had in common, that I understood his pain but it could never be. He'd know that I had been prying on his letters, that I had seen him at his weakest and he would hate me for it.

After the catastrophe at Loseley Hall, I pretended life was normal. I paid visits and received guests. Daniel and I quarreled over a bill from my dressmakers and he continued to sulk about Mary. He remained aloof, I remained infatuated.

Daniel's wounds healed, but his need for morphine stayed the same. He claimed he still had pain in his ribs, but I had my doubts. Still in the warm afterglow of his medicine, I irritated him less and sometimes he was almost affectionate. Sometimes he would drink and become quarrelsome.

What we needed was something to bring us closer, to bind us together. What we needed was a baby.

The biggest obstacle to this was Daniel's reluctance to share my bed. His nuptial visits had been begrudging in our first year of marriage and had faded to nothing. Almost as a rebuke to me, six months before the visit to the Wilkes, he got our parlour maid in trouble. I sent her packing with a slapped face and no reference. It made it clear though, the lack of child was my fault alone.

A baby would solve everything. He would see his infatuation with Mary for what it was, an empty obsession. Once I gave him a son and heir, he would be happy. I would triumph over Mary, giving him something that she could not. Her shadow would leave us. So I did what I did when I wanted anything, I demanded it.