His new bride moved into the family house, a beautiful old Robert Adam house in Gloucestershire, a Georgian mansion with Delphic columns and a long sweeping driveway. It was set amid the green of a hundred acres of lush farmland, with its own private hunting, and running streams to fish. At the back of the house was a park that had been laid out by “Capability” Brown.
The interior of the house was stunning. The large front hall had a stone floor and walls of painted wood. There were pairs of old lanterns and marble-topped Adam giltwood tables and mahogany chairs. The library had original eighteenth-century built-in bookcases, and a pair of pedestal tables by Henry Holland, and chairs designed by Thomas Hope. The drawing room was a mixture of Hepplewhite and Chippendale, with a Wilton carpet, and a pair of Waterford glass chandeliers. There was a huge dining room that would seat forty guests, and a smoking room. On the second floor were six bedrooms, each with an Adam fireplace, and on the third floor were the servants’ quarters.
Six weeks after she had moved into the house, Vivian said, “Let’s get out of this place, Alec.”
He looked at her, puzzled. “You mean you’d like to go up to London for a few days?”
“I mean I want to move back to London.”
Alec looked out the window at the emerald-green meadows, where he had played as a child, and at the giant sycamore and oak trees, and he said hesitantly, “Vivian, it’s so peaceful here. I—”
And she said, “I know, luv. That’s what I can’t stand—the fucking peace!”
They moved to London the following week.
Alec had an elegant four-story town house in Wilton Crescent, off Knightsbridge, with a lovely drawing room, a study, a large dining room, and at the back of the house, a picture window that overlooked a grotto, with a waterfall and statues and white benches set amid a beautiful formal garden. Upstairs were a magnificent master suite and four smaller bedrooms.
Vivian and Alec shared the master suite for two weeks, until one morning Vivian said, “I love you, Alec, but you do snore, you know.” Alec had not known. “I really must sleep alone, luv. You don’t mind, do you?”
Alec minded deeply. He loved the feel of her soft body in bed, warm against him. But deep inside, Alec knew that he did not excite Vivian sexually the way other men excited her. That was why she did not want him in her bed. So now he said, “Of course I understand, darling.”
At Alec’s insistence, Vivian kept the master suite, and he moved into one of the small guest bedrooms.
In the beginning, Vivian had gone to the House of Commons and sat in the Visitors’ Gallery on days when Alec was to speak. He would look up at her and be filled with a deep, ineffable pride. She was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman there. And then came the day when Alec finished his speech and looked up for Vivian’s approval, and saw only an empty seat.
Alec blamed himself for the fact that Vivian was restless. His friends were older than Vivian, too conservative for her. He encouraged her to invite her young companions to the house, and brought them together with his friends. The results were disastrous.
Alec kept telling himself that when Vivian had a child, she would settle down and change. But one day, somehow—and Alec could not bear to know how—she picked up a vaginal infection and had to have a hysterectomy. Alec had longed for a son. The news had shattered him, but Vivian was unperturbed.
“Don’t worry, luv,” she said, smiling. “They took out the nursery, but they left in the playpen.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked away.
Vivian loved to go on buying sprees. She spent money mdiscriminately, recklessly, on clothes and jewelry and cars, and Alec did not have the heart to stop her. He told himself that she had grown up in poverty, hungry for beautiful things. He wanted to buy them for her. Unfortunately, he could not afford it. His salary was consumed by taxes. His fortune lay in his shares of stock in Roffe and Sons but those shares were restricted. He tried to explain that to Vivian but she was not interested. Business discussions bored her. And so Alec let her carry on.