I didn’t wish that to be true. I wished this to be something spiritual, something real, something that went all the way to the depths of the both of us, something permanent.
But whenever I brought up the tea with my aunt, it shattered this illusion that everything between us was so rosy and perfect.
She was not interested in the “practice” I had suggested. When I brought it up again, she was entirely offended.
I tried to explain that it was not that I thought that she did not know what to say or that she had not been properly instructed in how to have a conversation. Instead, it was onlythat I thought that she would lose her temper or say something sharp or be a bit too sarcastic.
“Well, then,” she said, “I don’t think practice is going to cure that.”
“It could,” I said. “It could help you see where the trouble spots are, and then you could practice how to avoid them.”
Her nostrils flared. “I am such an embarrassment to you, am I?”
“No,” I said, adamant. “No, indeed.”
But then later, when I brought it up again, I had thought it through a bit more, and I had to try to explain that to her, but it only made it worse.
“You knew how it was going to be with us at the beginning,” I said to her. “You taunted me with the short engagement. You said that I liked you because you were scandalous. You knew.”
“So, you admit that you’re ashamed of me.”
“That is not what I said.”
“You didn’t use the word ‘ashamed’ but it is what you meant,” she snapped.
“You know that I am in love with you,” I said. “You know that you are everything I ever wanted in a woman.”
“You love me when we are alone,” she said.
“I love you all the time,” I said. “But other people, they might… not understand you. I know they won’t, because they don’t understand me. And we have to do things as they like it, you see.”
“I do see,” she said. “I see that I have come out of my mother’s household, where she never approved of me—”
“Well, I hardly think your mother’s approval is worth anything,” I said.
She drew back, stung.
I blew out a huff of air.
“And now, I have a husband who does not approve of me,” she said. “Perhaps I am not capable of achieving approval.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The tea happened.
Obviously, I did not go, because I was not invited. Instead, I stayed home and paced the entire house, more nervous about it than Elizabeth had appeared to be, though she hadn’t much spoken to me that day.
We were growing more estranged as the time went on.
I hoped, after the tea, everything would go back to normal.
And, indeed, she came home, said that it went fine, and then we settled back into our lives, such as they were.
In two days’ time, a missive came from my aunt, actually addressed to my wife, but I intercepted it. It was inviting us to a dinner at the Matlock house, and I hid the invitation, did not tell Elizabeth about it, and wrote back that we were ever so sorry, but we had a previous engagement that evening and could not attend.
A letter came back from my aunt saying that she had been so very careful to ask around and to make sure that she was not having her dinner party on a night that was free and open. She wondered if she could be so bold as to ask where we were engaged.
I did not answer the letter.
