Did Betty love Edward ?
I've responded to the question before, several times. There's not a shadow of doubt in my mind.
Frankly, I thought most of us agreed on that point.
Why did they get married if they didn't love each other ?
People get married for different reasons. To marry for love and forsaking all others is the ideal.
(It was the reason for my getting married. It was not what my mother wanted.)
But people also marry for other reasons : monarchs, for example, when a spouse could not produce a male heir; or for financial reasons, perhaps to unite two famous dynasties and double he wealth. Sometimes they are called "marriages of convenience"= a marriage decided on when reason prevails, rather than the heart.
Edward needed a wife by his side at this point in his life. He told the disappointed Loss all about Betty's good attributes. Love was never mentioned. Betty was 28 and tired of wandering through Asia. She remembered that her mother had wished she'd make a good marriage. And she did. She kept her promise never to leave Edward, until her tied heart could bear no more.
And, as I've also said before, I saw no evidence in the book that Betty had other furtive meetings with Veneering. The meeting in The Hague was coincidence - Filfth had asked her along. When she learned of Harry's death, she wavered. She was almost ready to leave Edward then. The tulip bibs had to be planted, and her heart no longer had the strength.
JoanP, in Chambers we learn that Loss had no time for celebrating with Edward because he had to fly off aghain soon, and also had to see his buildiers, for he was buying another house in t he Nash Terraces of Regent Park. "All in ruins. Practically free at presenyt."
(Talking of war profiteers. Arrrggg.)
I don't think Loss had anything to do with Veneering's house in Dorwset. I saw no specific mention of that at all. If he was sighted in the road, as the 74-year old paper carrierr swore, it was something JG planted without telling us why. But we know that snooping and knowing everything was very much Loss's business.
The tree house is another matter. Did you notice Betty's impression the first time, when she's on her way to meet Veneering, and how sordid it all appears when Loss detoured there with her ? Loss rented the plae out, he told her, out the place by the hour or night. So he takes back there, whe they shoukd really \be on the way to a celebration for Edward having been made QC. The little dwarf climn our of the car, uo the ladder, vanishes into the room, comes back down and throws her green evenig bag at her that held her passport. The utimate humiliation.
Rubbing it in, forcefully. Showing who t he boss is. And Edward rusted him completely !
On the way over Loss had told her he owned a house, and she asked if Edward knew. "Of course not," he said. The perfect personification for the untranslatable German word "Schadenfreude = undiluted glee and delight at the misfortune of another.
But there are a few more facts to ponder and they come out at the end.
Was there really a bond of friehdship between Filth and Veneering as we happily discovered in the first volume ? May be, may be not.
But it's plain that OF bore a grudge and had suspicions all these years, even knew there was another pearl necklace like his. He saves all tha for the lst evening before Veneering us to leave for the cruise.
He brings a bag of groceries over from his fridge. OF takes them into the kitchen and puts them in the waste bin. Then OF returns to the past and baits Veneering. Veneering does not bite and says that it was long ago when they were young. Then Filth rstartlingly confesses that right after having proposed to Betty, he went incomunicado for two (days and) nights with Isobel, without contacting his bride. And, he asks, wasn't that the most terrible thing to her ? Veneering does not react.
And relentlessly continues : Wouldn't the only thing even worse than that have been if someone had been with Betty that same night ??
Veneering gives nothing away. Filth sees Veneering home over the rocky path. Then Filth mentions "the child'. Veneering stumbles. Stops.
"Child" ? he asks.
"The baby Betty lost in the miscarriage before the hysterectomy..."
OF lies in bed thinking I have won. But it gives him little pleasure, no feeling of triumph.
A phyrric victory, we might say, right, Jonathan
There's another important point, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. It is still hot and humid and I cannot sit in this chair any longer.
I will be back.
