The Marriage Mart

by Teresa DesJardien

  She shook her head.

  “Come now, you would not want me to be alone in my discomfiture, would you?”

  Other ladies might have answered “Yes” to make him laugh, or “No” to make an end of the matter, but Annalee seemed uncertain, unable to answer either way, and so he pressed again.

  “Come now.”

  “I should...I mean…” she stammered.

  “A little ditty. Nothing much.”

  “It is so disconcerting. To sing in the garden!” she cried.

  “Try it. The novelty is refreshing.”

  Finally she agreed. She sang “Fair Bonnie Maid of Upton Glade”. Her voice, well trained, was pretty and even, though not truly perfect, and understandably lacking in emotion. Still, he was sincere when he complimented her efforts, even though he could not help but recall the clarity and emotional appeal of Mary’s voice.

  They walked a while longer, and he asked her all manner of questions about her days of youth (a thought which made him smile to himself), and came to learn the lady knew much about the management of a household. She had been well-schooled by her mama, who appeared to be only slightly less (he thought to himself with another smile) an authority on all matters than the girl’s papa. He knew, even as he smiled, that it was quite the thing for her to think so well of her parents, and indeed what other experience of life had she been given by which to judge? He found she had a sincere love of painting, and when he escorted her into the house, she took him on a tour of her works, well represented in the rooms of the household and tolerably well done.

  After a fair time had passed, he bid the lady and her parents farewell, put on his curly crowned beaver, and climbed into his dog cart, at last firmly sure in the matter of his marriage to Miss Annalee Yardley.

  Chapter 17

  When next Mary and John met it was at her betrothal party.

  She had not seen him, not even so little as across the park, in three weeks. She hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to avoid him; had he avoided her? Either way, gone were her tears now, replaced by a calm and composed demeanor.

  His sister, Hortense, had arrived at Edgcombe House before him. Hortense’s greeting had been all it should be, but Mary fancied she’d detected a touch of censure from the other lady.

  Mary had gone on to accept the best wishes of thirty or forty other souls before Rothayne walked through her door, eclipsing everyone else in the room--yes, even Charles. But that was not to be wondered at, for she did not love Charles, and she did love John.

  That fact was inescapable to her since she had lain all that first betrothal night weeping copiously into her pillow, never well enough because Gladys had overheard her. She thought perhaps she had always known how deeply she’d fallen for John, but there had been a time when she’d thought she could simply will it away. What a lie! What a fool’s dream.

  Now it was all she could do to appear as composed before him as if he were the fishmonger delivering wares, and not her heart’s desire. She was able to look him in the face, if not exactly in the eyes, to form a smile, to say softly that he was looking well, all the while immensely aware of Charles at her elbow. She wanted to ask John where he had been, but that would not have been fair. He had called twice at her home, both times when she was out and about on errands for this very party. She could have sent him a note or two, telling him when to find her at home, but she had not.

  She’d been correct to allow a separation to begin, certainly.

  But all her carefully arranged notions, alas, fell to nothing when he took her hands between his own, and leaned forward to place a light kiss on her cheek. She had read in books of women who, tortured by the pangs of love, had behaved as nothing more intelligent than geese, and finally she knew it could be so. Her thoughts were shattered, her composure in shreds, her ability to smile, even idiotically, erased.

  “Mary, I wish you well,” he said, in the spirit of the evening, and then he hesitated. He gave a kind of tiny shrug of his shoulders, his hands tugging slightly at hers. He then walked away, leaving her devastated, but not so completely that she’d missed a certain light in his eyes, a light she did not know, had never seen before. It was not anger, nor irritation, nor judgment. She had seen those things on his face before. This was…something softer than those others, yet just as intense.

  When she turned to Charles, the light in his eyes was different, too, not his usual open, friendly, pleasant gaze. He looked annoyed or confused, or perhaps both. In her befuddled state she could not say. When she forced a smile up at him, his odd look faded and he brought forth a smile in return. As he turned to greet another guest, she closed her own eyes for a moment, willing away cognizance, praying for a blissful state of numbness. It came to her, not completely, but in a fashion that allowed her to smile and nod, rather as though she were watching another person perform the duties for her.

  Dinner was served once everyone had arrived. Mary felt the food slide down her throat, knew enough to nod and attempt a smile or two when the many toasts were raised to her and Charles, and felt the warm touch of the wine as it slipped into her veins. Yet still she seemed to be standing a little beside herself, half-marveling at her own talent for maintaining an outwardly calm demeanor. Though it was true she could not think what to say, and so said nothing at all, everyone must have taken her silence as either a variety of shy gentility or perhaps bride-to-be jitters. None chastised her for her silence, nor did they try to coax forward more than a word or two from her. Charles, seated next to her at the broad end of the long formal table, was quite verbose enough for both of them, and even she had a brittle smile or two at the quips and tales he shared with such easy abandon with the table.

  John, seated many seats from Mary’s side, looked up once or twice to give Mary a nod or a smile, but mostly he gave his attention to those seated around him. She saw, however, that near the end of the meal he excused himself, and that he did not return.

  Servants came to light the many tapers of the overhead chandeliers against the approaching gloom of summer nightfall, just prior to the arrival of a large and elaborately iced cake. The many tiers were arranged to look like a set of grand stairs, bedecked with all manner of candied flora, fauna, and winged cherubim leading up to the church at the top, which was out of all proportion to the stairs leading up to it. The church’s doors were open, and a tiny marzipan bride and groom were just stepping out its doors, hand in hand. Mary had never seen a cake like it, a thought that for some reason only added to her feeling of discomfort. The party of well-wishers murmured at the sight of the sweet, and then broke into applause, saluting the cook’s master work as well as the couple whom it was intended to celebrate. Charles’s hand slipped over Mary’s, but she found she could not turn her head and look to him, could not smile, and so she settled on merely leaving her hand where it lay under his. Again she felt the need to close her eyes and hide away from everything and everyone in the room.

  Charles and she were the first served, and when she had raised a bite of the cake to her lips, Mrs. Everett, on her right, asked her if it was tasty. She nodded even though her mouth had gone dry. She moved her fork on her plate, but not another morsel could she bring to pass her lips.

  It was with an enormous sense of relief that she found the men now wished to take their port, pulling Charles along with them to drink to his health and that of his lady. The relief was not long standing, though, for the ladies were just as inclined to surround the bride-to-be, and she found herself at last having to crawl from her virtual silence to answer a hundred questions on where they would live, and what she would wear, and how did they meet? It kept her mind busy; at least she could say that for the assault.

  ***

  John knew the house well enough to easily find the most deserted room. It was at the back of the house, far removed from the gaiety in the front rooms. Longing for solitude, he had made his way without a candle. The room was dark and with no fire on the grate, it mirrored the growing gloom outside.r />
  The room’s air was still as well, and he found he longed for a fresh breath. He crossed to the double French doors leading out to the garden and threw open the doors. He leaned against the doorframe, letting the fresh air touch the skin of his face and hands, pulling it into his lungs as though he had been deprived for some while of its sweet flow.

  He let the night sounds--of both the house and the garden beyond--override his own jumbled thoughts. He heard them without trying to comprehend them. It was a kind of music, soothing, steadying. The three-quarters moon was still low in the sky, but its light was not obscured by even the tiniest of clouds, so once his eyes adjusted, there was much that could be seen. Inside, a chair, a desk, a pile of unorganized books, while out of doors he saw gray shadow blossoms nodding in the night breeze, saw the pattern of the trellis, and the glistening of a little pond. It was a scene of serenity, and yet, he knew he was not really a part of such a vastly desired thing as serenity.

  And so, despite his attempt to find a measure of peace, he was not particularly surprised when a voice invaded his wished-for obscurity.

  “There’s the very fellow,” Lord Bretwyn said from the doorway, holding a lighted candlestick aloft. He squinted through the gloom, the small light only serving to make the darkness more apparent.

  “You were looking for me?” John made no move to come away from the doorframe. So here was one of the very players who was disturbing his mind, making him restless in a way he had not been in many a year.

  Bretwyn strode into the room, the light revealing a face not over-filled with jolliness, despite his hale-and-well-met tone. John felt his shoulders tense, Bretwyn’s tone telling him this was no accidental meeting. Mary’s fiance proved the point by saying, “I think we should talk. Each say what we would, yes?”

  “Yes,” John said at once, allowing his relief at the lack of need for any more pretense to come into his answer.

  “About Lady Mary, of course,” Bretwyn said.

  “Yes,” John agreed again. “You must know she is very special to me.”

  “I know it.” Bretwyn gave him a long up and down look, measuring him. “I’ll tell you true, my lord, there was more than once when I thought perhaps I should step aside, let you have the girl.” The statement hung in the air for a long moment. Bretwyn, perhaps a trifle flustered, went on at last. “But then, at other times I got the distinct feeling even if I did, you’d not make a move in that direction.”

  John looked back to the garden, as though to assess the quality of the roses whose color he could only guess at, but then he turned once more to the other man. He said simply, “I doubt I would have, at that.”

  Charles turned his head a little, in the way a dog does when it hears a far and faint sound. “I hope…you realize of course that a man must declare himself at some point or other? One cannot string a woman along forever. That is to say…” his voice trailed away.

  John stood straight, away from the door frame, his eyes narrowing. He did not like that there was something in Bretwyn’s voice that made him not entirely clear if the man spoke of John or himself. Surely one of them ought to be sure of the state of things…?

  “Charles,” John said on a sigh, making himself relax once more against the open door’s frame. The man had been one of his few friends for some years now, since before his banishment, and John hated the unwanted but nonetheless tangible restraints springing up between them this night. “I know it is wrong-headed of me to speak-- but I want you to understand how easily Mary could be hurt. I want to be sure in my own mind that you know the manner of temperament which is hers. She’s been…overlooked, when she ought to have been the catch of any season.”

  Bretwyn stared, scowling, and giving John the impression he wasn’t taking in the words.

  In frustration, John went on. “She wouldn’t stand up well under those conditions which are normal in most households. The mistresses. The lengthy leaves. Liquor, whoring, all of it. She could not abide to be used and forgotten. If you want just a brood mare, then I beg you, do not take this woman to wife…” His words trailed away, for there was so much more he wanted to say, so many cautions and restrictions and guidelines, all of which he had absolutely no right to utter.

  “I’m not an oaf,” Bretwyn said, a crackle of anger in his voice.

  “No. No, of course you’re not.”

  “I know how to treat a woman.”

  “She won’t be just ‘a woman’. She’ll be your wife. She’ll expect...so much. She would deny it, if she heard it said, for she believes herself capable of a marriage of convenience, but in truth she would look to you, expecting fidelity. Affection. Support. All those finer instincts a husband is supposed to show, but which our gender so seldom seems capable of for long.”

  “Well then!” Charles said, as he turned abruptly back toward the door to the hall. “Is there anything else you think I do not know about my betrothed?” he threw over his shoulder. It was not gently asked, and John could not fault him for being insulted.

  There must have been something in the set of John’s face, for when Bretwyn spoke again, some of the edge had dropped away. “What if I were to tell you something of the lady, Rothayne? I will tell you, to ease your mind.”

  He turned to stare out the open doors as John had done before him. John looked to the carpet at their feet.

  “I know Lady Mary is not passionately in love with me. Sometimes I think I see a softening... She is ever gracious, of course. But, affection?” He pursed his mouth and considered. “Truth, I think I see it for…for someone else. And, yet, other times I think that is nothing more than merely a reflection of Mary’s sweet nature. I know...I like to think, once we are married, we will deal well together. Like most everyone, we’ll have to find our way.”

  He paused, but seemed compelled to go on. “I have seen her looking upon me, judging me. But too, it...is as if she is searching me for…well, I do not know for what exactly. A kind of knowledge, I suppose. I see in her eyes that she is struggling. And there is something else--something I betray only to you, for I know how close the two of you are--that though I have had the privilege of three kisses from the lady, they have been very chaste kisses, very circumspect.”

  Behind him, John slowly began to raise his head, a question flickering up into his eyes.

  “Although I can only applaud her, er…rectitude, one could be excused for being surprised that a lady of her--well, face the truth!--a lady of her years is so well sheltered, let us say. One could be excused for expecting some more response than…” he gave a self-conscious laugh, “well, than your sister might give you.”

  John stared unblinkingly at Bretwyn’s averted face.

  “Don’t mistake me,” the man said with some fervency, still staring out at nothing, choosing not to meet John’s steady gaze. “I am pleased to find Mary of such fine, upstanding morality, and there’s time enough for...refinements of behavior later. Still, one could hope for a hint of ardor, just a flicker…” Bretwyn frowned of a sudden, and then cleared his throat, scowling even more deeply as he fell into silent thought, obviously disturbed at the tenor of his own mind.

  The silence hung between them, uncomfortable and awkward.

  Not quite able to keep from shaking, John almost screamed at Bretwyn, horrified by his obliviousness. Mary, passionless? Filled with rectitude? Which Mary was this? It cannot be my Mary! Not the woman who had kissed John back, had made him smile like a fool that he might not reach into her carriage and snatch her back into his embrace and return her kiss even more deeply.

  What kind of Mary did the man think he was to take to wife? Could Bretwyn then so easily take and mold her into the very model of every other man’s wife? Was that in fact what Bretwyn really wanted, especially of Mary? And could he, John, bear it? To have Mary lose that which made her separate, different, special, wonderful? And to think he had helped her to achieve this point and place in time! It was a travesty, an injustice, to each and every one of them.

/>   Yet, worst of all, by what right was he to say such a life was not for her?

  Finally Bretwyn pushed back his shoulders, and lifted his chin. He said a trifle gruffly, “There is something specific I wished to say, Rothayne. ‘Tis why I came to search you out, for a moment alone together.”

  John waited, his eyes now straightly meeting those of his friend, only the faint drawing together of his brows reflecting John’s inner turmoil.

  “I would ask of you a particular favor.”

  “Yes?” John said sharply. He leaned just as nonchalantly as ever against the doorframe, but his hands at his sides were balled into tight fists.

  “I would ask that you no longer refer to Mary as ‘my pet’, or ‘my love’, or “my own’. You understand, I’m sure?”

  John felt a bolt of lightning whip through his body, and for a moment he wondered if the fellow would also deny him food, water, breath, and life entirely, but with a great effort he managed a nod. “Of course,” he croaked out.

  “Do you leave our little party now, my lord?” Bretwyn said, the broadest of all possible hints, and again John could not fault the man. It should, after all, be a day of only pleasure and gaiety for him.

  John repeated, his voice barely a whisper, “Of course. Yes.”

  “Then I will meet you at the church tomorrow,” Bretwyn stated. He turned crisply and, candle in hand, made his exit, leaving the room filled with a darkness much deeper than the mere lack of light.

  John sagged against the doorjamb, the night breeze that caressed his face now feeling as cool as a specter’s touch against his overheated cheeks. “Mary!” he whispered into the night.

  He did not know how long he stood there thusly, but in time he sensed that once again he was not alone. He lifted his head slowly, becoming aware the observer must have been standing there a while, watching him as still and silently as he now observed her. It was a full three beats before he again whispered the name, “Mary!”