Fifty Words for Rain(89)

Hope.



* * *





ALICE





Kensington & Chelsea

London, England

April 1964

In the moment of waking, I am happy.

I slip out of bed, careful not to wake my husband. There’s no fear of that. George sleeps like a dead man after a few drinks, and last night, he had more than a few.

I go inside the adjoining master bath without turning on the light, and I look at my face in the mirror.

I still have my looks. I am comforted by this, at least. My skin is flawless, my gray eyes are bright, and my hair is thick and shiny, still that rare shade of silver blonde that has me so renowned.

My figure is intact, even after two children. I still have the ability to make men walk into walls when I pass by.

But the older I get, the more I realize how empty this is.

I am married to the Duke of Norfolk’s only son. When my father-in-law dies, which can’t be very long from now, for he is ancient if he is a day, I will be the premier duchess in all of England.

It is the best marriage I could have possibly hoped for. As fortune would have it, when I turned up, George was in need of a wife and my past was delightfully forgotten.

He has never asked me about my time in “finishing school,” and I have never asked him how much money my father gave him to marry me.

We have two girls: Charlotte, who is five, and Matilda, who is two.

Charlotte takes after her father. She is brawny, brown-haired, brown-eyed, and clever. But God forgive me for thinking it, she will never win any beauty pageants. They will write no poems about her looks.

Matilda is my little doll; she looks like me, and actually, I think she will be a greater beauty than I ever was. My husband adores them both, and though he has no passion for me, he is respectful and kind.

But we still need a boy. Such is the world.

I am still young, amen, with at least a decade of fertile years ahead of me. But I have a secret fear.

I dress in a hurry and go down to the kitchen, where a maid is already serving my breakfast. I always eat breakfast alone.

While my husband sleeps, while my children are upstairs in their nursery, I can be the selfish woman I was always meant to be for a few short moments in the day.

The light pours in from the bay windows I had installed last spring.

It is April again.

She was supposed to come to me in April. I was expecting her, there was a letter sent ahead by the maid, but she never arrived.

She did not come the next year either, or the year after that.

And so here I am, seven Aprils later, and still waiting for the girl I loved like a sister.

She is probably dead. As much as it pains me, I can see my sweet, melancholy girl tying stones around her waist and walking into the ocean.

She adored her brother, with a fervor I did not understand until I had my own children. If anything happened to them, I think my heart would seize in my chest. I would simply cease to be.

I feel the tears coming and I push them back. I miss her. Even after all these years, even though I am exactly where I need to be, in the place I was born to be, I still miss her.

She had the softest touch and this deceptive fragility—I thought she needed protecting, but it was she, all along, who protected me.

She told me once that she was born under a mercurial star.

It has taken me all of these long years to believe her.

The commotion on the stairs tells me that the children are up. Charlotte comes flying down the steps in her new blue dress, and the nanny comes down behind her with Matilda still groggy in her arms.

I hug them both close to me, and I breathe in the scent of their innocence and their joy.



* * *



—

My husband finds me in our garden. I never used to favor the gardens, but now I do. Yet another gift she gave me.

He sits on the bench beside me, and I try not to be irritated by the sight of him. He is a good man, to do him justice, but he is terribly plain and boring, so boring. I am confident I’ve met more interesting silverware.

“Any word from the doctor?”

The hope in his voice is like a child’s.

I turn to him and try to smile. “Yes. I am expecting after all.”

He turns the color of a strawberry and then kisses me on the lips, as clumsy as always.

I endure our lovemaking with the patience of a saint, part of my duty as his wife. I don’t expect to ever feel the rush of passion again; I don’t expect to be feverish with desire the way that I was long ago, with that beautiful, beautiful traitor.

But the last few sessions I have tolerated have done their work. I am fourteen weeks now.

“I was thinking of going shopping today. I’ll take the girls.”

He shakes his head as if to clear it. “Of course, of course. Take however much money you need.”

He’s a good man. Not for the first time, I wish that were enough for me.

I load the girls into the pram and off we go. I want to keep my mind off of the child growing in my belly. I am full of fear, and I don’t want my fear to poison him—or at least, I am hoping it to be a him.

I have a secret. I have a sin. And all these years, I have evaded punishment for it. But it is always there, beneath the glittering surface of my charmed life.

I buy two stuffed bears for the girls and stop for lunch at a little café that has just been opened by an Indian fellow.