She was searching for couve tronchuda in an encyclopedia when her husband surprised her by striding into the drawing room—she’d thought he’d remain out until long after she was abed.
“Good evening,” she said.
Perhaps it was the light, but he looked…strapping. Her heart stuttered.
“Evening,” he answered, standing with his hands behind his back. “I was at the village pub tonight. We’ll have twenty able-bodied men here tomorrow to dismantle the north wing—or at least to begin the work.”
“So soon!”
Her father took forever on his decisions. Even when he agreed to a change in principle, he’d still dither for years over the specifics of its implementation. She had not remotely anticipated that Lord Fitzhugh would set about the overhaul of Henley Park this quickly.
He looked about the drawing room. She’d had makeshift new curtains and carpets brought in, but it was still a dismal place—there was no point in replacing the curling, water- and soot-stained toile wallpaper until they had a new roof and better chimneys. “Not soon enough,” he said. “At least fifty years too late.”
When they’d first arrived in the country, she’d worried that he might re-embrace whisky. But it was sobriety that he clasped tight and did not let go. During the day he, like she, threw himself into his duties. At night, instead of turning to the bottle, he turned to the outdoors. Sometimes she, waiting beside her window in the dark, would see him return, hunched over before the manor, his hands on his knees, breathing hard with exertion.
All because of this cursed house, half of which someone should have demolished fifty years ago.
But his voice was calm. What had been done had been done. There was no use pointing fingers at the dead or at forces beyond his control that had sent agricultural prices stumbling in their lifetime.
“And this is for you.” He handed her a brown-paper package that he’d hid behind his person. “I stopped by the general merchandiser’s. But the selection was paltry. I chose the least terrible of the lot.”
She was astonished. “You didn’t need to.”
Inside the package was a rather plain music box that must have sat on the shop’s shelves for the better half of a decade. Even with the obvious signs of recent cleaning, its corners and creases were still encrusted with dust. When she opened it, it played a few tinny, scratchy bars from “Für Elise.”
“As I said, it’s not much good.”
“No, it’s fine. Thank you.” It took a great effort for her to not hug the music box to her chest. “I will keep it well.”
“I’ll do better next year.” He smiled. “Good night.”
“Good night,” she answered.
Some hopes were weeds, easy to eradicate with a yank and a pull. Some, however, were vines, fast growing, tenacious, and impossible to clear. As she played the music box again, alone in the drawing room, she began to realize that hers were of the latter kind.
She would never stop hoping.
The last thing Millie expected to see was her husband on the roof of the house, stripping the slate tiles alongside the men he’d hired. He was in old tweeds and a woolen cap. She’d nearly mistaken him for a village lad until someone addressed him as “milord.”
“What are you doing, Lord Fitzhugh?”
“I’m supervising the men.”
“You seem to be working with the men, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”
He tossed a tile at an older man, who passed it to another, who in turn slid it down a long chute set at forty-five degrees. The tile was caught on the bottom by one of two waiting men and, after passing through a few more hands, carefully placed in stacks.
“Your eyes do deceive you!”
“So they must,” she shouted back and left him to it.
It was quite ungentlemanly of him to be performing manual labor. But come to think of it, his days at Eton had been heavily driven by sports—association football in the Michaelmas Half, field game during the Easter Half, and come the Summer Half, cricket. The sedentary nature of married life must contribute to the ennui of it. And the demolition of the north wing, besides the satisfaction of literally destroying the house that had derailed his life, provided an outlet for a young man’s pent-up energy.
It also gave them something to talk about at dinner, the only time of the day they spent in each other’s company and not much time at that, as he had no use for protracted dinners—in fact he still ate like a student, with a speed she found difficult to match.
So it was during the taking down of the north wing that she learned about the nest of bats in the attic, the mold that had been growing inside the plaster, the fact that the oldest man in the demolition party had fought in the Crimean War in his youth. She told him of her plans to build an electrical plant on-site, wire the house with electricity, and modernize the plumbing.
“You would not believe the flush commodes that the man in London tried to sell me. They had the queen’s face painted in the bowl.”
Lord Fitzhugh choked on his lamb. “You are making this up.”
“I am not. I was aghast, while the man tried to reassure me that it was all perfectly proper.”
“I hope you did not buy any. I don’t think I can—” They stared at each other for a moment and both burst out laughing.
“No, neither can I—ever!” she declared emphatically, still laughing. “No, our new commodes will be blue enamel, with white daisies.”
He choked again. “Daisies?”
“Believe me, I tried to find a more masculine commode—something with maybe a hunt scene or a dragon painted inside—but such a thing apparently does not exist.”
“Daisies,” he still sounded dazed. “My friends will never stop laughing.”
It was the first time he ever alluded to the possible presence of his friends at his home. For a moment her imagination ran away and she saw a crowded drawing room, full of laughter and high spirits. And she saw the two of them at the center of all that cheerful goodwill, Lord and Lady Fitzhugh. And someone raising his glass, crying, “To our delightful hosts.”
“Good thing I’m not inviting anyone here,” said the real-life Lord Fitzhugh.
She bent her face to her plate, so he would not see her disappointment.
She accepted this marriage for the alliance of convenience it was. But when they worked toward a common purpose, when they conspired to keep the secret of the house’s “repairs” from the rest of the world, and when he sat across from the table from her and laughed, it was nearly impossible to believe that they were not building something together.
They were: a better house.
And nothing else.
Lord Fitzhugh left Henley Park frequently. Most of the time he left in the morning and returned at night—he’d stop by Oxford to see both Helena and Lord Hastings, and then call on Venetia, whose house was not too far from the university. But occasionally, he stayed away for longer.
When he told Millie he’d be gone a week, she issued an invitation to her mother to come stay with her—her father would be indignant about the north wing, but Mrs. Graves would understand their choice to not burden themselves and their heirs with a house that could never be adequately maintained.
Mrs. Graves, when she came, was more than a little shocked at the architectural skeleton of what had once been the north wing. “Whose decision was this?” she asked, her jaw slack.
“It was a joint decision,” answered Millie. She could not help the note of pride seeping into her voice. “Our thoughts are exactly aligned on this matter.”