Page 35 of The Quiet Wife
“What do you mean, a facade?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Well, Frederick is either entirely without sympathy or sentiment, with no capacity for love, fun and laughter, or he hides all this behind a facade. It’s like he hides behind a wall. You know him better than I,is he… warmer in private?” he ventured boldly.
Frances looked mortified. Beyond mortified.
“Ah, you don’t have to answer that.” He shook his head, realising his mistake.
“I’ve never seen any facade, as you put it. I think that is simply how he is.” Frances pleated the handkerchief awkwardly.
“Whereas with you, I see your social face. The one where you stand beside Frederick, where you are a remarkably successful society hostess. Cool and calm and gracious. But I also see you with your children. With my mother, with your sister and your friends. And I see a woman who is warm, loving, funny, spirited, effervescent and beautiful… but this wonderful, sparkling Frances hides when her husband is around.” Jemie said softly.
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
His thoughts crystallised as he said the words. He wanted to take her in his arms. Ached to, but he didn’t. He just sat beside her.
“This… sparkling Frances must tread with caution because her husband doesn’t understand this part of her. The part that wants to shower love on the children, her friends. Who wants to be gloriously informal, who wants to gather everyone up in her love and make them happy. She tries to gather her husband up in that love, but he doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t want it. He’s safe behind his wall and won’t come out. In fact, he gets quite cross when she tries.”
Frances hiccupped, between quiet sobs.
His voice lowered, and he leaned closer to her. “So, this sparkling Frances has to be on her guard; always cautious, always careful.”
Frances leaped up and began pacing the room, the handkerchief pressed tightly to her lips.
“My sparkling Frances hides and faces the world as the wife of an important man. Oh, she’s bright and sociable, but in a very controlled way that her husband approves of. He wants, no, needs, aquietwife. One who obeys, one who keeps out of his way, one who lives in his shadow.” He paused. “One who doesn’t look beneath his facade and disturb his peace by asking him to feel.”
He stood up and went to stand beside her. “My sparkling Frances peeps over her shoulder and sees her friends, her family, the people who love her and yearns for those moments where she can be free.”
“Jemie?” she whispered, breathing heavily. “You know what happened with Freddie, don’t you? You know what Frederick did?”
“I saw him just afterwards,” he admitted.
“He told me how kind you’d been.”
Jemie didn’t know what to say.
Frances put her fingertips to her mouth and blinked rapidly before casting a heartbroken look at him. Something inside him cracked open and he simply offered his arms. She hesitated a second, then walked into his embrace and clung tightly to him.
Arms stronger than he’d imagined bound him to her as she leaned her head against his shoulder. He swallowed and rested his atop hers, wrapped her up in his arms, and closed his eyes wishing things could be different. The knowledge that they could never be settled inside him like an ache in his soul.
CHAPTER 13
London – Kensington
Lizzie’s face was a picture when Frances detailed the vision for the portrait. It was difficult because she couldn’t even begin to explain in the way Jemie had. Not that she’d forgotten what he said. No, those words would never leave her as long as she lived. What she needed to do was find a more socially acceptable way of explaining it to her sister, then another way still of explaining it to her husband so that it wouldn’t raise eyebrows. She had been working on both without a great deal of success.
“He said that he wants to portray me in a way that people rarely see outside the family. Something more natural. The way I am with my children, with my family, with…” the words stuck in her throat. “Frederick.”
Lizzie’s eyes widened.
Frances laughed. “It will be quite respectable, I assure you.”
“What has Fred said?”
“I haven’t broached the subject with him, and he hasn’t bothered to ask Jemie how he is going to paint me. He’s currently preoccupied about the dining room at the new house in Prince’s Gate.”
“Is there something wrong with the dining room?” Lizzie enquired.
Frances shook her head. “Not at all. It’s a charming room. He’s commissioning an architect to come and put up a structure of sorts where he can display his collection of porcelain ‘in an original way’,” she said, mimicking her husband.
