The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(66)
The offer was graciously accepted, and the four of them walked toward Wells’s carriage, the two men receiving the odd clap on the shoulder from the crowd. They located Emma’s aunt, who had devoted the past half hour to the pleasurable pastime of criticizing her niece’s insufferable fiancé to her friends, completely oblivious to what had been happening behind her back. The old lady screwed up her face as she climbed into the carriage, like someone entering a pigsty. Only when the three ladies had sat down did the men prepare to climb aboard as well. Murray smiled politely and stepped aside to let Wells pass.
“You first, George.”
Wells smiled back sardonically and, stepping aside, replied, “No, please, you first. I’d rather not turn my back on you . . . Monty.”
12
IS ONE OBLIGED TO BECOME the friend of someone who saves the life of your spouse? What if that person is your fiercest enemy? These questions tormented Wells for weeks after that night at the opera, which he was having difficulty describing because of the changes in mood he had experienced that night. Jane kept insisting he thank Murray—Monty, as she called him—for saving her life. Shouldn’t courtesy transcend resentment? Wells nodded glumly, like a child attempting to digest some grown-up truth, but was content to remain stubbornly silent until Jane stopped nagging him, and he assumed his passive resistance had finally won out over his wife’s eagerness to be courteous. But again he was mistaken, because one morning, without any warning, he heard Jane say from the kitchen that Monty and his fiancée were coming to lunch that day.
The Wellses had moved to Sandgate, where the fresh air would be more beneficial to Wells’s fragile health, and had rented Beach Cottage, which was proving less permanent than they had hoped, for it was too close to the sea and in stormy weather the waves would break over the roof. Nonetheless, at noon on that day, a coach with a pompous “G” on the door drew up at that cottage. Murray’s new coachman, an old fellow who moved slowly, opened the carriage door, and Murray and his fiancée emerged, radiant and smiling, anticipating a pleasant day in the company of their new friends, the Wellses. Needless to say, the reception they got from Wells was rather frosty, but Jane, who had no intention of allowing her husband to spoil the lunch she had so lovingly prepared behind his back, took the couple by the arm and led them into the garden and began pointing out the virtues of the place. Disgruntled, Wells stayed behind with the coachman, who gave him an incongruously meaningful smile. Suddenly, Wells felt an overwhelming desire to cry—not to shed a few quiet tears, but to fill the oceans, because a deep melancholy had begun gnawing at his insides. Taken aback by that violent unhappiness, which not even Murray’s presence could explain, Wells went back inside the house, afraid he would end up weeping on the coachman’s shoulder. Once in the dining room, he thought it opportune to spend a few moments mulling over the sporadic attacks of melancholy he had been experiencing lately, but he had no time because at that very instant he heard the voices of Jane and their guests.
The guided tour of the garden and cottage, forcibly brief, ended in the dining room, where Wells was waiting for them with the brooding expression of a cornered rat. Murray promptly described the room as “cozy,” making Jane glow with pride, since that morning she had filled the room with roses in an attempt to make it look less bleak. Wells, on the other hand, instantly made it clear that he had no intention of making his guests feel at home there. On the contrary, the first thing he did when they sat down to lunch was make a sarcastic remark about the “exuberant youth” of Murray’s new coachman. However, ignoring his impertinence, Murray simply observed that the fellow was a careful driver and didn’t drink, and that was all he asked. He was clearly much too happy to engage in a duel of words, and Wells’s truculence soon proved as futile as it was inappropriate amid the festive mood that had settled over the table. Emma and Jane soon behaved with the ease of those who have known each other since childhood, and Murray, content to see his beloved having a good time, spoke casually about this and that, laughing at anything and everything, praising Jane’s cooking and her and Emma’s beauty, and, at every opportunity, lavishing his affection on Wells, who responded with growing irritation at the turn the lunch was taking. At one point, Murray slipped a great paw inside his jacket and conjured out of nowhere an invitation to his engagement ceremony. Jane insisted they would attend, but Wells merely made a vague gesture that could have been taken to mean anything, hurriedly slipping the invitation into his jacket pocket in the vain hope that everyone would forget it had ever been there. Later, when Jane whisked Emma away to show her the hibiscus bush adorning the back wall of the garden and the men sat down in front of the fire to smoke, Murray informed Wells, as if there could be any doubt, that he was the happiest man alive and that all that happiness he owed to the advice Wells had given him in his letter. It mattered little that for the umpteenth time Wells denied having written it: Murray was delighted by Wells’s stubborn refusal to confess to that splendid gesture.
When the couple finally left for London, Wells reluctantly admitted to himself that Murray’s enthusiasm had caused a tiny crack to appear in the fa?ade of his hostility. But there was no reason for alarm: it was such a small chink it would take years to open up, and Wells had no intention of letting that happen. And yet, he soon discovered that what he thought or ceased to think had little bearing on his own life, for as they stood in front of the hibiscus bush the two women had already conspired to arrange another rendezvous for the following week, this time at Ascot, where the cream of English society would come together. Wells received the news with equanimity and during the intervening week made no objections, as he knew that arguing with Jane about it would be a waste of breath. He had already shown his reluctance to forge a friendship with the couple, for what he considered the most sensible of reasons, and the fact that his wife insisted on arranging those unnatural gatherings made it clear how little his opinion mattered to her.