Paula McLain - The Paris Wife

“Oh, dear. I never thought of it like that. Is it too late to turn around?”

“Much too late,” he said, and we pulled into the long, circular drive.

Ernest’s mother, Grace, met us at the door herself, literally pushing the servants to the side to do it. She was plump and plush, with a sheaf of graying hair piled on her head. I was barely over the threshold when she charged at me, swallowing my hand in hers, and even as I smiled and did my best to charm her, I could see why Ernest fought against her. She was bigger and louder than anything else around her, like my own mother. She changed the gravity in the room; she made everything happen.

In the parlor, there were fine sandwiches on finer plates and pink champagne. Ernest’s older sister, Marcelline, sat near me on a chaise, and although she seemed a pleasant enough girl, it was a bit unsettling that she looked so much like her brother. Ursula, too, had his looks, his smile to the letter, and his dimple. Sunny was sixteen and sweetly turned out in pale yellow chiffon. Little Leicester, only six, trailed Ernest like a puppy until he submitted to a round of shadowboxing in the dining room. Meanwhile, Grace had me pinned in the parlor, talking about the superiority of European lace, while Dr. Hemingway hovered with a plate of cheeses and beets he’d preserved himself, from his garden at Walloon Lake.

After dinner, Grace asked me to play the piano as she stood by it and sang an aria. Ernest was clearly mortified. Greater mortification arrived when Grace insisted on showing me a photo in an obviously much-cherished album of Marcelline and Ernest dressed alike, both in pink gingham dresses and wide-brimmed straw hats trimmed with flowers.

“Hadley doesn’t want to see any of that, Mother,” Ernest said from across the room.

“Of course she does.” Grace patted my hand. “Don’t you, dear?” She fingered the photograph in a proprietary way. “Wasn’t he a beautiful baby? I suppose it was silly of me to dress him like a girl, but I was indulging a whim. It didn’t hurt anyone.”

Ernest rolled his eyes. “That’s right, Mother. Nothing ever hurts anyone.”

She ignored him. “He always loved to tell stories, you know. About his rocking horse, Prince, and his nurse, Lillie Bear. And he was a terrible card, even as a baby. If he didn’t like something you’d done, he’d slap you hard, right where you stood, then come around for kisses later.”

“Mind you don’t do that with Hadley,” Marcelline said, arching an eyebrow at Ernest.

“She might go in for that,” Ursula said, flashing a smile.

“Ursula!” Dr. Hemingway snapped.

“Put the book away, Mother,” Ernest said.

“Oh, pooh,” Grace said, and flipped the page. “Here’s one of the cottage at Windemere. Beautiful Walloona.” And she was off again, rhapsodizing.

The evening went on and on. There was coffee and little thimblefuls of brandy and delicate cakes, and then more coffee. When we finally had permission to leave, Grace called out after us, inviting us to Sunday dinner.

“Fat chance,” Ernest said under his breath as he led me down the walk.

Once we were safely back in the car and on our way to Kenley’s, I said, “They were awfully civil to me, but I can see why you’d want to distance yourself.”

“I’m still a child to them, even to my father, and when I strain against that, I’m selfish or thoughtless or an ass, and they can’t trust me.”

“It wasn’t so different for me when my mother was alive. Our mothers are so alike. Do you suppose that’s why we’re attracted to each other?”

“Good God, I hope not,” he said.

With the onset of our engagement, new rules applied to our living situation at Kenley’s. I was still invited to stay in my usual room, but Ernest was asked to impose on other friends for the duration of my visit.

“I don’t know why Kenley’s acting so square suddenly,” Ernest said when he delivered the news. “He’s hardly pure as the driven snow.”

“It’s my reputation he’s protecting, not his own,” I said. “It’s rather gallant if you think about it.”

“It’s a pain in the neck. I want to see you first thing, just after your eyes open for the day. Is that too much to ask?”

“Only for now. As soon as we’re married, you can see me any way you like.”

“What a nice thought.” He smiled.

“The very nicest.”

It wasn’t any great secret that I was a virgin. Aside from a passionate kiss here and there from various suitors, my experience as a lover was nil. Ernest liked to hint that he’d known lots of girls. I assumed he’d been with Agnes in Italy-they were going to marry after all-but more than that, I tried not to think about. It made me too anxious to wonder if I could satisfy him, so I pushed that thought aside and focused on how making love would be a way of knowing him, in all the ways that were possible, with no obstacles or barriers. It wouldn’t matter that I was inexperienced. He would feel me loving all of him and holding nothing back. How could he not?

Ernest seemed prepared to wait for our wedding night-he’d certainly never pushed me in any way-but on the night of our visit to Oak Park, after a lingering kiss good night at Kenley’s door, he told me he wasn’t heading off to Don Wright’s place to sleep that night after all. “I’m camping out.”

“What?”

“C’mon. I’ll show you.”

I followed him up the fire escape to the rooftop, expecting it to be freezing up there-it was March, and weeks away from true spring in Chicago-but tucked into a sheltered corner, Ernest had piled up quilts and blankets to cozy effect.

“You’ve made quite a little kingdom here, haven’t you?”

“That’s the idea. Do you want some wine?” He reached into his nest and pulled out a corked bottle and a teacup.

“What else have you got hidden in there?”

“Come in and find out.” His voice was light and teasing, but when I was lying beside him on the quilt, and he reached to wrap a blanket around my shoulders, I felt his hands shaking.

“You’re nervous,” I said.

“I don’t know why.”

“You’ve been with plenty of girls, haven’t you?”

“None like you.”

“Well, that’s the perfect thing to say.”

We tented the blankets around us and kissed for a long while, cocooned and warm and separate from the rest of the world. And then, without even knowing that I was going to do it beforehand, I took off my jacket and blouse, then lay down beside him, not minding the scratching of his wool jacket on my bare skin or the way he pulled back to look at me.

I didn’t feel as shy or exposed as I thought I might. His eyes were soft and his hands were, too. They moved over my breasts and I was surprised at the charge his touch sent running through me. I arched automatically into his body and everything happened very quickly after that, my hands searching for his urgently, his mouth on my eyelids, my neck, everywhere at once. It was all new, but natural and right feeling, somehow, even when there was pain.

When I was a teenager, my mother had published an article in the New Republic saying that a wife who enjoyed sexual activity wasn’t any better than a prostitute. Submission was required for children, of course, but the final goal for women could only be a strict and blissful celibacy. I didn’t know what to think about sex or what to expect but discomfort. As I grew older and more curious, I scanned excerpts of Havelock Ellis’s Psychology of Sex in Roland’s Literary Digest for much-needed information. But there were things I had a hard time thinking too specifically about-such as where our bodies would meet, and how that would actually feel . I don’t know if I was repressed or just dense, but in my fantasies about our wedding night, Ernest carried me across some flower-strewn threshold and my white dress dissolved. Then, after some sweetly vague tussling, I was a woman.