The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  She wandered slowly back across the lawn, glad that in an hour or two she would be back at Rushmere, for she was impatient to resume work on it. There were still many last-minute things to be done before the now almost imminent Epsom races. She could expect an influx of guests, Dominic having kept his word about recommending Rushmere to his racing acquaintances. Letters booking rooms had flowed in; some she had gathered up with her before leaving for the house party and had answered and sent them to post with one of the Manor servants during the short lulls in the proceedings when she had had a few minutes to herself.

  She was surprised when she passed into the Manor to be told that her brother was waiting to see her and had been shown into the Blue Drawing Room. She found him standing with hands in his pockets, gazing glumly out of the window.

  “Roger! What brings you here?” she asked anxiously, seeing that something was wrong.

  He turned a face haggard with distress and ambled toward her. “Young Oberon didn’t win. He came in next to last.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said compassionately, “but it was his first race. He’s what Papa would have called a baby yet.”

  “But he could have won!” Roger insisted desperately. “He didn’t pay attention. I watched him. He was looking all round right from the start in the saddling enclosure, flicking his ears as if he had never seen a fellow race horse or a jockey before. He even looked back at me when I let go of his bridle at the line-up. Looked back! Instead of being wound up ready to leap off at the start when the flag went down he wanted to know where I was going!”

  “What did the jockey think of him?”

  “He said Young Oberon didn’t stretch himself as he does at the gallops when given the touch.”

  “Perhaps next time —”

  “Next time! It should have been this time!” Roger lifted his hands and let them flap down to his sides. Then he managed a rueful grin. “Thanks for listening to me. I shouldn’t have come charging in here, but I felt I had to talk to you. Seven false starts didn’t help Young Oberon either.

  “I’m sure it didn’t,” she said with a sympathetic smile, putting an arm about his shoulders. He was still shorter than she was, but there was a wiry strength about him.

  “At the race before Young Oberon’s the jockeys didn’t know whether the starter had shouted Go or not, there being quite a wind blowing, and some started and some didn’t. That sort of confusion happens often.”

  Together they had walked out into the hall and he took his cap from the footman’s white-gloved hand. Twirling it, he turned on the threshold.

  “Mr. Reade gave permission to come along and see you. He would like to call on you later today.”

  She experienced the usual ambivalent reaction at the mere mention of his name, the stab of excitement at the very core of her being combined with an intense abhorrence of all he stood for. “Tell him he will be expected,” she said.

  When she made her way to the breakfast room she knew well enough why she had found the house party long and tedious: she had missed Dominic’s presence, missed his eyes waiting for hers at every turn, desire like black fire deep within them.

  She and Judith left soon after breakfast, Nina remaining with Edward to see the departure of the last guests, whom they were to accompany to Epsom railway station. At Rushmere, Amelia did not open the door for them and Tansy had to find her key and unlock it for the groom to carry in their boxes ahead of them, she herself drawing back to give Judith some support with her arm.

  “Thank you,” Tansy said to the groom, who bowed before leaping back up onto the carriage as it began to move. The hall was dark after the sunshine outside and at first she did not notice the change that had taken place in it, being intent on seeing Judith safe on her stick before releasing her. It was Judith who spotted it first.

  “Look!” she gasped. “Everything has gone!”

  Tansy jerked her head round and stared in disbelief. The once crammed hall was empty and looked twice the size. The enormous clothes stand, the ornate umbrella pot, the side tables, and the Gothic-backed chairs had vanished. Dark oval and square patches on the green papered walls showed where the many small pictures had hung.

  She found her voice. “Amelia!” she cried. But even as she ran forward into the first room, flinging the double doors wide, she knew for certain that the woman had departed, taking everything she possessed with her. Yet not quite everything. In the small drawing room were two chairs, which Amelia had always declared uncomfortable, and the looking glass above the fireplace, which was set into the wall as a fixture within its carved frame. It reflected the white flurry of Tansy’s petticoats under her bell-shaped skirt as she whirled back out of the room again, bonnet ribbons streaming. While Judith hurried after her as best she could, Tansy made a lightning tour throughout the house, upstairs and down, and finally they met again on the landing at the foot of the attic stairs.

  “She’s left only those pieces of furniture that she never liked or were here before she came,” Tansy gasped. “Even the best kitchen pots are gone.” Then she went white to the lips. “Dear God! Papa’s books!”

  She hurled herself downstairs again and flew into Amelia’s long drawing room, giving a sob of relief when she saw the huge bookcase, which must have been her father’s own, still in its place, the contents apparently intact. She pressed herself against it in relief, scanning the shelves to make sure, and saw that Amelia had overlooked, either by intent or through forgetfulness, a number of her own red, green, and blue-backed novels with which she had filled the gap that had long stayed empty on one of the higher shelves since the night when Tansy, thinking she had been Judith wandering about, had given her such a start.

  Opening the glass doors Tansy reached up and took out the novels to put them elsewhere, the languishing heroines and moustachioed villains within the covers slipping about together as she put them in a pile on the floor. They had never been in harmony with the carefully treasured and collected volumes that took up the rest of the long shelves, but while Amelia had been in the house she had never interfered with their being there. Now she was free to do as she wished.

  Judith came into the room, her stick tapping on the carpetless floor. She came to a halt, breathless. “There’s an envelope propped on the mantel,” she pointed out. “Have you seen it?”

  “No, I’ve been too agitated.” Tansy crossed to the fireplace and saw that the envelope was addressed to her. She ripped it open.

  “Dear Tansy,” she read aloud. “You must not think that anything you said to me during our talk in the attic room was the cause of my departing. It simply accelerated it. I am leaving Cudlingham to go far away to a new place and a new community where I might live again without the danger of any finger of scorn pointing at me. You see, I have long been afraid that once Rushmere became a hostelry I should find myself received less and less and finally dropped altogether by people of quality in the district, a humiliation I did not know how to face. Nina is secure in her betrothment, and you and Judith are able to command social respect as a natural right, but that has never been my good fortune. There was only one way open for me to change things and I took it. For you and your sisters’ sakes as well as for my own, for I wish to leave agreeable memories behind me, I have written short notes to local acquaintances with a white lie to explain my unexpected departure — a sick friend who will wish me to make my home with her — and these letters I shall post in London when I change trains. I regret not being able to leave you sufficient furniture for you to receive those noble guests you had intended to accommodate, but I had to take the possessions that mean so much to me and could not tolerate the thought of leaving them behind. I loved your father and I know that what I have done is not what he would have expected of me, but I hope that in Heaven he looks down and forgives me. I ask you to do the same. Amelia Marlow.” Tansy lowered the letter. “A hundred pounds,” she said under her breath. “It must have been much more than a hundred pounds. More like a thousan
d pounds for her to set herself up in a new home, wherever it may be.”

  “What are you talking about?” Judith questioned urgently.

  Quickly Tansy took her sister’s face between her hands. “I swear you to secrecy! Not even Nina must know, because she might let fall a word to Edward. Amelia was blackmailing Dominic.” At long last she told Judith of the secret meeting she had witnessed and all she had overheard, ending with an account of what had passed between herself and the woman they should never see again. “That’s why I’m fearful for Roger. That’s why I want you to be wary of Matthew Kirby, no matter how pleasant a young man he may be.”

  A shadow of regret passed across Judith’s eyes. “You need have no fear there on my account. My refusal of his invitation was a rebuff to him.” She tilted her head on one side. “Why have you taken this personal crusade upon yourself to bring justice to Dominic? Is being his debtor so increasingly unbearable to you? Or is it that you have come to love him and want to make him see the error of his ways?”

  “Love him?” Tansy gave an uncertain laugh. “You’re being absurd! I find it exhilarating to challenge such a formidable adversary, and I heard so many tales from Papa of the abominable crimes committed against horses and human beings alike when high winnings are at stake that I’ll not rest until I’ve put to rights at least one small corner of the Turf. As Mama was fond of saying, out of the acorn the mighty oak tree grew. But love him? I’ve never heard anything more preposterous. He is a ruthless, domineering man who is actively aroused by my defiance. He was from the very start. Such men do not love or look for love. It is the chase and the conquest that is all-important to them. I tell you he shall not add me to his conquests!” Angrily she pulled the bow of her bonnet strings undone and snatched it from her head. “We’re wasting time talking about him when we should be listing all that has been left in the house and see how we might utilize it all. I’ve booked every room and I’m not going to cancel those bookings. Amelia’s departure gives us extra sleeping accommodation and I shall see that it is used.” She swept out of the room and Judith followed her.

  Later in the kitchen they sat on the bench at the long table, the smaller one having been taken together with the wheel-backed chairs, and went over the list they had made between them. “We must think ourselves fortunate that Amelia left us most of the beds,” Tansy said, “which suggests her new home will not be as large as Rushmere by any manner of means. All the best linen and blankets have gone, but there’s plenty of mended sheets and we can switch them top to tail so that the patches don’t show. Except for the absence of all those curtains, which took me such a time to hang, the rooms under the eaves are virtually untouched, but the rest of the bedrooms are lacking chairs or chests or washstands — and there’s nothing at all left in the room that was Amelia’s and the one that was mine. What Nina will say when she finds all her garments out of her vanished chest of drawers on the floor as ours are I cannot imagine. The downstairs rooms present a tremendous problem. There is almost nothing left.” She tapped her fingers on the table, looking thoughtful. “Amelia said once there was a lot of old and broken stuff that wasn’t sold stored in the stable loft. I looked in there on the first or second day after we came to Rushmere, but it was too dark and dusty to make any close inspection and most of it was covered with ancient tarpaulins. We might find some pieces there that would be usable if Roger could repair them for us.” She leaped up and clambered over the bench. “I’ll go at once to see what there is. The loft steps are rather dangerous for you. I won’t be long.”

  She was gone almost an hour. When she returned she had the look of one who had seen a vision. There were dust streaks on her face and cobwebs clinging to her skirt.

  “What do you think!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “The loft is full of the most splendid pieces! I could only find a few things broken. It’s my belief that Papa couldn’t bring himself to part with all the furniture that belonged to Rushmere’s early days when Amelia wanted it replaced, and he sold some and had the rest put in the loft.” She pressed her hands together almost in a praying attitude. “I hardly dare say it, Judith, but I believe Rushmere is going to look again much as it did when my ancestors lived here.”

  They hugged each other in their exuberance, Judith demanding to know more about all that had been unearthed. Then Tansy went out to make inquiries from the local saddler as to whether his two strong sons would be willing to move some furniture for her. She returned to tell Judith that they would be coming later that same afternoon. At that point Nina returned.

  “What on earth has happened?” she screeched, looking about her in the hall and flapping the gloves she had removed.

  “‘Amelia’s gone,” Tansy answered. “Practically lock, stock, and barrel, but things aren’t as bad as they look.”

  Judith broke in eagerly. “Papa Oliver kept a lot of the Elizabethan furniture after all — it’s in the stable loft. There’s even a magnificent four-poster with a carved canopy.”

  Nina, her eyebrows high in astonishment, drew in her breath and then flung back her head and laughed. She laughed so hard and so long that her sisters started to laugh too, her mirth infectious.

  “She’s gone!” Nina choked, doubled over and wiping her eyes with her gloves. “That dreadful woman has gone. I’m so glad! Oh, you don’t know how glad!” She flung out her arms and twirled like a top in the middle of the hall floor. “Glad! Glad! Glad!”

  She no longer had the others laughing with her, there being some gloating element in her merriment that they did not feel at ease with, and when she swept Judith into an embrace, almost knocking her off balance, Tansy spoke with unaccustomed tartness

  “You’ll find it less amusing when you see how your possessions have been taken from their places and not all that tidily. Be thankful that there are walk-in closets in all the rooms or else our dresses would have ended up in the same state.”

  Nina gave a shriek of dismay and went bounding up the stairs. They heard her banging about in her annoyance, but after a few minutes she was singing to herself. Apparently the disarray she found in her room was nothing compared with the relief of having seen the back of Amelia once and for all.

  The saddler’s sons, one of whom had an eye for Tansy although she was unaware of it, were more than obliging. They not only brought all the furniture down from the loft, but brushed and cleaned the dust from it all out in the small cobbled yard, giving the girls little to do. One of them had nails and hammer in his apron pocket and had brought his bag of carpenter’s tools, so that emergency repairs were done on the spot — several hinges on cupboard doors and chest lids being loose or rusted — and the four-poster, which was in pieces, was soon put together in the room that had been Amelia’s. Made of superb English oak, the furniture had mellowed with age to a rich, dark colour. The chairs with stout arms and high backs and the long table with its huge, bulbous legs must have seen many a banquet in their day. One day couch had been reupholstered at a later period and when placed in the drawing room gave a warming touch of amber velvet to its setting.

  “The house looks beautiful,” Judith said when the workmen had departed. “I never realized before how it needed simplicity to show its interior to best advantage.” She placed a hand against the oak-panelled wall appreciatively. “As you know, I didn’t like Rushmere when I first saw it, thinking it looked a frightening and unwelcoming place, but now at last it seems a little more like home to me.”

  Nina, about to fetch her cloak for an evening walk, looked round the long drawing room approvingly. “Even these wonderful floors never showed up before with Amelia’s carpets and rugs all over them. What are you going to do about the bare windows, seeing how she took all the best curtains with their rods and fittings?” she asked.

  “We’ll leave them as they are for the time being.” Tansy said. “The windows are proudly shaped and inset, and there wouldn’t have been curtains covering them in the sixteenth century.” She raised a finger, listening. “Ah! Th
e doorbell. That will be Dominic.”

  Nina flew upstairs, saying she did not want to be delayed, Judith tactfully withdrew to the kitchen, not knowing if he would wish to speak to her sister privately, and Tansy herself went to the door and admitted him.

  “Good evening,” he said, letting her take his tall hat and cane to place them on a rush-seated chair. He showed no surprise at the otherwise barren state of the hall. “Amelia took everything, did she?”

  Tansy straightened slowly. “How did you know she had gone?” she asked warily, determined to give nothing away.

  “I received a letter from her this morning, posted in London. I understand we shall not be seeing her again. A sick friend needs her company.” His face was unreadable to Tansy, his air relaxed and friendly, but she guessed he was well pleased to be rid of a threat to his security, not knowing another remained in the knowledge that she had gained.

  “In a way she has done us a good turn by her departure,” Tansy said, leading him into the long drawing room where a fire had been lighted in the wide hearth to keep the evening chill at bay. She gestured toward the furniture. “All these Elizabethan pieces came to light in the stable loft.” Briefly she gave him an account of the discovery.

  He was lost in admiration for all that he saw, declaring the pieces to be remarkably fine examples of sixteenth-century handiwork. He spent such a long time studying the carved hunting scenes on a large oak and ash cupboard that she began to feel awkward that she had no wine to offer him, Amelia having taken every bottle as well as the crystal decanters. Fortunately some glasses remained for the use of the racing guests she expected.

  He came away from the cupboard, almost as if the turn of her thoughts had given him a cue, and he took from an inner pocket a letter, which she saw at once was not in Amelia’s writing.

  “I happened to receive this letter by the same delivery,” he said, sitting down comfortably and informally on the edge of the hearth, almost at her feet where she sat in one of the high-backed chairs. “It’s from a racing acquaintance whom I particularly wish you to accommodate. His name is Selwyn Hedley, a North countryman, who probably knows as much about race horses as any man alive. Are you able to do this for me?”