The Giver of Stars(62)

‘I told him maybe I should deal with all these matters how I liked and he just said, “hmm, yes, quite,” and then said he had to leave.’

Dear Alice

I am sorry married life is not as you expected. I’m not sure what you think marriage should be about, and you have not given us details of what it is you find so dispiriting, but Daddy and I wonder if we haven’t given you false expectations. You have a handsome husband, financially secure and able to offer you a good future. You have married into a decent family with significant resources. I think you need to learn to count your chickens.

Life is not always about happiness. It is about duty, and taking satisfaction from doing the right thing. We were hoping you had learned to be less impulsive; well, you’ve made your bed, and you’re just going to have to learn to stick things out. Perhaps if you have a baby it will give you a focus, so you don’t dwell on things so.

If you do choose to return without your husband, I have to inform you that you will not be welcome to stay here.

Your loving mother



Alice had held off opening the letter, perhaps because she had known the words she was going to find within it. She felt her jaw tighten, then folded it carefully and placed it back in her bag, noting once more as she did so that her fingernails, once highly polished and filed, were now ragged or cut down to the quick, and some small part of her wondered, as she did daily, whether that was the reason he didn’t want to touch her?

‘Okay,’ said Margery, appearing at her shoulder. ‘I ordered two new girths and a saddle cloth from Crompton’s and I thought maybe this for Fred as a thank-you. Think he’ll like it?’ She held up a dark green scarf. The department-store assistant, transfixed by Margery’s beaten-up leather hat and breeches (she couldn’t see the point in dressing up to come to Lexington, she had told Alice, as she’d only have to get changed again when she got back), had needed a second to remember to take it from her, ready to wrap in tissue. ‘We’ll have to hide it from Fred on the ride back.’

‘Sure.’

Margery squinted at her. ‘Did you even look at it? … What’s going on, Alice?’

‘Look at what? … Oh, Lord – Bennett. I have to find something for Bennett.’ Alice’s hands flew to her face as she realized she no longer knew what her husband liked, let alone his collar size. She reached for a set of boxed handkerchiefs on the shelf, decorated with a sprig of holly. Were handkerchiefs too impersonal a gift for one’s husband? How intimate could a gift be when you hadn’t seen more than an inch of his bare skin for the best part of six weeks?

She startled as Margery took her arm, steering her towards a quiet part of the men’s department. ‘Alice, are you okay? ’Cause you got a face on you most days like blinked milk.’

‘There are no complaints, are there?’ Alice glanced down at the handkerchiefs. Would it be better if she had his initials embroidered on them? She tried to imagine Bennett opening them on Christmas morning. Somehow she couldn’t picture him smiling. She couldn’t imagine him smiling at anything she did any more. ‘Anyway,’ she said, her tone defensive, ‘you’re a fine one to talk. You’ve barely said a word the last couple of days.’

Margery seemed a little taken aback, and gave a shake of her head. ‘Just … just had a little upset on one of my rounds.’ She swallowed. ‘Rattled me a bit.’

Alice thought of Kathleen Bligh, the way that the young widow’s grief would cast a pall over her own day. ‘I understand. It’s a tougher job than you think, sometimes, isn’t it? Not really about delivering books at all. I’m sorry if I’ve been miserable. I’ll pull myself together.’

The truth was that the prospect of Christmas made Alice want to weep. The idea of sitting at that tense table, Mr Van Cleve glowering across from her, Bennett silent and simmering at whatever she had supposedly done wrong now. The watchful Annie, who seemed to delight in the worsening atmosphere.

Derailed by this thought, it took Alice a minute to realize that Margery was regarding her closely.

‘I’m not getting at you, Alice. I’m …’ Margery shrugged, as if the words were unfamiliar to her. ‘I’m asking as a friend.’

A friend.

‘You know me. Been content my whole life to be on my own. But this last few months? I’ve … well, I’ve grown to enjoy your company. I like your sense of humour. You treat people with kindness and respect. So I’d like to think we’re friends. All of us at the library, but you and I most of all. And you looking this sad every day is just about breaking my heart.’

If they had been anywhere else Alice might have smiled. It was quite an admission from Margery, after all. But something had closed over these last months, and she didn’t seem to feel things in the way she used to.

‘You want to get a drink?’ Margery said finally.

‘You don’t drink.’

‘Well, I won’t tell no one if you don’t.’ She held out an arm, and after a moment, Alice took it, and they headed out of the department store towards the nearest bar.

‘Bennett and I …’ Alice said, over the noise of the music and the two men yelling at each other in the corner ‘… we have nothing in common. We don’t understand each other. We don’t talk to each other. We don’t seem to make each other laugh, or long for each other, or count the hours when we’re apart –’