“I don’t believe it.” But Mrs. Mauleverer’s voice lacked conviction.
“Or perhaps,” Martha went on ruthlessly, “she is a member of some gang of robbers—that would account for there being no name on anything. Or maybe it’s a kidnaping: the poor little boy to be held to ransom, till his sorrowing parents pay their fortune for his release.”
Marianne pulled herself upright in the bed. “It’s not true,” she said. “I’m not like that.” The room whirled before her eyes. But she could not, would not let herself faint. This accusation, so dangerously like the vicar’s, must be answered at once. “The idea is absurd,” she went on more steadily. “If I am part of a gang, where are the rest of them? Besides, how would that account for the way the box was packed? If I had kidnaped the child, surely I would have had sense enough to do it at leisure? After all, from the evidence of the box, I was living in the same house as him. And as for your suggestion that I am a robber”—she was speaking directly to Martha now—“where, pray, is my loot?”
“Precisely.” Mrs. Mauleverer sounded relieved. She was not, Marianne had already recognized, a woman of much intellectual capacity and was liable to take her cue from the strongest, maybe even the loudest arguer.
Luckily, Gibbs chose this moment to come out strongly on Marianne’s side: “I’ve never heard such a farrago of nonsense in my life. I’d as soon believe myself capable of such wickedness as Miss Lamb. And I’ve nursed her night and day, and should know. She’s a lady, if ever I saw one.”
“Of course she is,” said Mrs. Mauleverer as if that settled it. “Anyone who can see anything, can see that.”
For the first time, Marianne slept deep and dreamlessly that night. Waking early, she lay for a while, listening to the first twitterings of sparrows outside and savoring a new sensation. She felt well. Yesterday’s lassitude, and its terrors seemed to be gone together. She stretched luxuriously between linen sheets, giving herself up, for a moment, to the illusion of well being. Her head was clear; she felt ravenously hungry; she remembered—nothing.
The realization had her out of bed in a bound. Yesterday, she had somehow assumed that when her strength came back, her memory would come too. Today showed her mistake. “Maulever Hall,” she told herself, coaxing memory backward. Mrs. Mauleverer ... the vicarage ... and then, the moor—and nothing. The past, then, still a blank. What of the present? Shivering a little, she moved to the window and drew back the heavy curtains. Early sunlight on a stable yard that lay quiet, with nothing stirring but doves, busy about the flagstones. Beyond the low range of stable buildings, a well-kept garden, and beyond that again, the moor, sunlit and smiling this morning. Was it along that little winding country road that she had come, drenched and exhausted—how many nights ago?
Don’t think about that. Don’t think about Thomas; or the vicar’s suspicions. Let it come naturally, she told herself. “Marianne,” she moved, now, to the big looking glass above the dressing table. “Marianne?” How strange to be seeing oneself for the first time. Dark hair, curling in wild confusion around a pointed little face—too thin, surely, and the violet eyes too large over dark shadows. “But how do I know that?” Instinctively, she picked up the comb and began coaxing the curls into place.
“You’re better, miss.” Gibbs’s voice startled her. “You shouldn’t be up though, not before the girl lights the fire. Back into bed with you, at once.” And then, as Marianne complied: “Mrs. Mauleverer sent me to see how you are. She had one of her bad nights again: been awake since goodness knows when, poor lamb. She will be glad to hear you’re better. But—have you remembered anything, miss? It’s the first thing she’ll ask me.”
“Nothing.” Marianne shivered a little in the cold bed. “Except how I do my hair, and what’s the use of that?”
Dr. Barton, when he came, pronounced her perfectly well enough to get up. As for her memory, he shook his head: “I had hoped to find it restored. As it is, we can but wait and see. In the meantime, don’t worry, it will do no good; may do harm.”
“But how can I help worrying. Why should I stay and be a burden to Mrs. Mauleverer?”
“Burden? My dear young lady, you’re not a burden, you’re a crowning mercy. I’d been anxious about her—wondering whether to write to Mr. Mauleverer. Now, with you for company, she should go on swimmingly. You’ll earn your keep; don’t worry.”
When he had gone, Gibbs insisted on helping her dress. “Anyone can see you’re used to being waited on. I don’t know what you were doing gallivanting about the country all on your own but for that hell-brat.”
“Thomas? Is he a hell-brat?” Strange to have thought so little of him.
“Martha don’t think so, but if ever there was a spoiled, neglected, ill-conditioned little ... Here, let me button your cuffs for you.”
“It’s a funny thing”—she held out her wrist obediently—“but these don’t feel like my clothes. I thought the same thing yesterday when Martha was unpacking them. And yet I remember how my hair should be done. I don’t understand it.”
“Then don’t fret about it,” said Gibbs firmly. “But they’re your clothes right enough, for they are every stitch the same as what you had on when Mrs. Mauleverer brought you home. And they fit you well enough, too, except that you’ve lost some weight, which is hardly surprising. But you’ll soon pick up now, and get some color in your cheeks. Not but what the pallor and the dark circles are becoming to you, but if you ask me, you’re used to have a good high color. Whatever else you may be, I think you country bred, not one of those lackadaisical town misses.”
“Do you? That’s strange; I remember thinking the same thing myself.” But this was a dangerous memory, one from the time of the terror. It was good to be interrupted by Mrs. Mauleverer who now tapped at the door to ask after the invalid and exclaim with pleasure on finding her up and dressed.
“Do you think you are strong enough to come downstairs and eat luncheon with me? I shall be so glad to have company.”
“But—should I? You know nothing about me. Think”—she made herself say it—“think what the vicar said.”
“Mr. Emsworth? I hope I am not to be guided by his ridiculous notions. No, no, Miss Lamb, you are my guest, and must behave as such.”
“But I am not even Miss Lamb.”
“I am sure your real name is much prettier. Now come along downstairs, do, and stop arguing. What do you think of our grand stairway? Pitiful, is it not? I keep urging Mark to have it rehung with that striped paper you see everywhere, but he won’t do it. Some nonsense about the portraits—that’s my father-in-law, the old tyrant—” She crossed the large downstairs hall. “I keep begging Mark to have his likeness taken, but he won’t do that either ... it’s all of a piece. One of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits would have been some kind of company for me, but of course Mark was always too busy— and now he’s dead—Sir Thomas, I mean.” She sounded personally affronted about it. “This way, my dear. I usually lunch in the breakfast room when I’m alone.”
It was a sunny, comfortably shabby room, with more family portraits round the walls. Seating herself obediently at the small oval table, Marianne made her last protest: “But what will Mr. Mauleverer say? May he not object to my presence here?”
“Mark?” Mrs. Mauleverer bridled. “I hope he knows better than to be making objections to the company I choose to keep. Particularly when he favors me with so little of his own.”
Marianne was amazed. “But, dear madam, even if you feel you can brave his displeasure, I must be thinking of it.”
“My good child, have you taken leave of your senses? It is true that Mark is of a somewhat impatient turn of character, and indeed never could brook being crossed from a child, but I have yet to learn that a mother must be asking permission from her son before she provides herself with a companion.”
Her son! It was Marianne’s turn to exclaim. “What an idiot I have been! You must forgive my stupidity, ma’am, but I quite thought Mr. Mauleverer was you
r husband.” She stopped, horrified at what she had said, and wondering what deep springs of grief she might not have touched.
But to her delighted amazement, Mrs. Mauleverer burst out into her gay, almost childish laugh. “Oh, that’s too rich,” she said. “Mark, my husband! No wonder you looked so shocked when I spoke of how he neglects me. It is bad enough in a son, but in a husband ... No, no, my dear, poor Mr. Mauleverer has been dead these twenty years or more—I do not precisely remember the date. I am afraid I found wearing widow’s weeds a dead bore and abandoned them years ago, which, I suppose, is what misled you. But now you can see that though I love Mark dearly I do not need to be deferring to him on matters that concern me alone. Though as a matter of fact I did write to him the other day to tell him all about you and Thomas. I don’t suppose he’ll trouble to answer, though.” Again the faintly querulous tone. “I have not heard from him this age. And as for Thomas”—she took one of her characteristic leaps of subject—“Mark will never notice whether he’s here or not. And don’t, pray, say anything more about your looking after him. For one thing, Martha dislikes you quite enough as it is without your taking him away from her. For another, I don’t want to share you with a brat like him. Tell me, do you play cards?”
“Cards? I—I believe so.”
“I was sure you did. Andrew.” She turned to the footman. “The card table in the library; at once.”
For a moment, an expression of—what? flickered over that marble countenance. Then, “Very good, madam,” said Andrew.
Marianne was surprised to find that Mrs. Mauleverer’s favorite game was bezique, delighted to find herself entirely mistress of the complicated rules of the game, and then surprised all over again to find she lost so steadily. Of course, in a sense it made no difference. Mrs. Mauleverer had suggested that they play for sixpence a thousand and had got over the difficulty of Marianne’s having no money by starting her off with ten shillings out of her own purse. She derived such simple pleasure from winning them back again that Marianne was reluctant to admit to herself that she was steadily, systematically and quite obviously cheating.
It was a relief when Andrew appeared and interrupted the session by drawing the curtains against the early dusk, making up the fire, and announcing with lugubrious pleasure that “that child’s been at it again. Cook’s in a proper passion, I can tell you.”
“Well, don’t,” said Mrs. Mauleverer. “Tell Martha, it’s her business. Miss Lamb and I are busy. No, no, don’t move, Miss Lamb, you must have your revenge.”
“But should I not see what Thomas has done?”
“Why? Not still harping on what the vicar said, I hope. Anyone can see he’s no child of yours. Doesn’t care a straw for you; nor you for him. I’m a mother; I should know. How surprised Mark will be when he hears about you! It would be just like him, after leaving me lonely all winter, to come down now to make sure you’re fit company for me. He’s a terrible stickler, is Mark. But no need to look so bothered, my dear, he can’t help but approve of you.”
Marianne wished she were so sure. Everything his adoring mother said about Mark Mauleverer made him sound more autocratic, bad-tempered, selfish, and unreasonable. She awaited his letter with dread, but found herself, just the same, settling down with amazing ease into the peaceful monotony of life at Maulever Hall. Days slid past placidly, variegated only by Mrs. Mauleverer’s choice of bezique, piquet, or two-handed whist to beat her at. The high point of each was the ceremonial arrival of the mailbag, but every day, as Mrs. Mauleverer unlocked it, Marianne’s fear of an angry letter ordering her expulsion seemed more absurd. She was not, it seemed, worth writing about.
The weather was improving. She contrived to lure Mrs. Mauleverer out to walk with her down the drive to where she had found the first snowdrops and was congratulated by Gibbs on her achievement: “She’s looking so much better, you’d hardly believe ... and so are you, miss. I’d hardly know you for the waif mistress brought home that night.”
A waif. It was all she was: homeless, rootless, and still, sometimes, in terror. She pushed the thought aside, and ran downstairs to find Mrs. Mauleverer unlocking the mailbag, which had just arrived from the village.
“Look!” She greeted Marianne eagerly. “It’s come at last. Now let’s see what he has to say about you.” She opened the letter, exclaiming, “A double one, too; there’s a compliment for you.” And then, on quite a different note: “Oh, how dreadful. Oh, my poor Mark, what a disaster! And the poor child too! Oh dear, I’ll never look forward to a letter again—and he says nothing about you, my dear, after all—well, no wonder. What a terrible thing ... we must have the chimneys swept at once. Oh the poor dear little baby—and he says he must start North at once, so there go my hopes of a visit. Well, maybe that’s just as well; we’d never agree about it. I know he thinks it a terrible misfortune, but I confess for my part if it were not for the disastrous way it had happened, I should be inclined quite to like it. After all, a title is a title. Of course it’s true, as Mark always says, that there have been Mauleverers at Maulever Hall since Doomsday Book, while some of our peers—well, you know as well as I do that they get made for the oddest reasons. But just the same, if he did not mind it so terribly, I should quite like the idea of Mark’s being Lord Heverdon. But ring the bell, will you? I must give orders at once about the chimneys.”
Marianne rose obediently from her chair, but hesitated for a moment. “My dear madam, I must beg that you will explain yourself. I am quite devoured with curiosity.”
Incorrigibly, Mrs. Mauleverer’s eyes now sparkled with delight. Gifted with an insatiable passion for gossip, it was not often that she had such a story to tell. “Why”—she picked up the letter again and her face sobered as she looked at it—“Mark’s ward, poor little Lord Heverdon, has been burned in his bed—and all because of a neglected flue, my dear, which is why we must have ours swept without delay. And poor Mark is Lord Heverdon and cross as two sticks as a result.”
“But, dear madam, why?”
Oh dear, with a complacent sigh. “What a scatterbrain I am, to be sure, telling my story so back-to-foremost. Though I should have thought that you, so clever as you are, would have found it out for yourself. Mark has longed, all his life, to sit in the House of Commons, but he is so high-minded—quite impossibly so, if you ask me, but of course no one ever has—that he will not accept any seat that has the slightest whiff of patronage about it. Well, of course, you can imagine what the result has been; he has never found a seat, and has had to content himself with working for his friend Lord Grey in what I have always thought an almost menial capacity. But all his hopes have been set on the new Parliament that will come in after his precious Reform Bill has been passed. And now look what has happened. He must sit, poor Mark, in the Lords. It is no wonder that he is so angry. And he’s executor, too, for that hussy, Lady Heverdon, and must go North at once, he says, to Heverdon, to arrange for the funeral. From all I’ve heard of her, balls are more in her line than funerals though it’s true she buried Lord Heverdon fast enough.” She sighed theatrically. “So much for my hopes. I really quite thought Mark would want to see my romantic protégée and might, for once, pay me a visit in the Easter Recess. Oh, well”—here a sigh of resignation—“he would probably be in a terrible passion anyway, and, thank goodness, I have you, my dear. Now, ring the bell and let us make arrangements about those chimneys.” She cast an anxious glance at the huge fire that roared in the hearth. “I am sure I have no wish to be burned in my bed.”
III
The spring evenings drew out; snowdrops gave way to daffodils in the park and village children came begging at the back door with draggled little bunches of primroses, but no further word came from Mrs. Mauleverer’s son. “I must remember to call him Lord Heverdon, my dear. He may not like it, but there’s not much he can do about it.”
Marianne had learned by now that when her hostess had one of her bad nights and came down to breakfast with clouded eye and shaking
hand, the best way of drawing her out of herself was to turn the conversation to her absent, neglectful son. She might grumble about him most of the time, but, quite obviously, she adored him. Marianne, listening, day in day out to the bitter-sweet stream of praise and blame, had developed a hearty dislike for this young man whose tedious perfections must be more than counterbalanced by his selfishness. No wonder if he neglected his mother so shamefully now, since from his earliest years she had evidently lain down and let him trample on her. He had been a delicate child, it seemed, and she had wanted to keep him at home with a private tutor, but he had insisted—“Yes, absolutely insisted, my dear, you never saw anything like it”—on going to Eton as his father had done before him. And after that, when his mother had entertained some lingering hope that he would stay at home, keep her company and learn to manage the estate, he had taken himself ruthlessly to the University, only to leave it again, despite her tears and prayers, vividly described, on the escape of the monster, Bonaparte, from Elba. “He was only a child, my dear, but he would go, and though I do not like to say it of my brother-in-law, his uncle connived at it, I am sure, from the most interested of motives. He and my husband had divided the estate between them, you see. If Mark had been killed, it would all have reverted to Lord Heverdon, and what would have happened to me, I tremble to think. There is not even a dower house here, as you know, and I should have been reduced to living on my jointure.”
For once, Marianne found herself faintly sympathizing with the absent Mark Mauleverer, whose mother seemed to think of his possible death in such forthrightly financial terms. Perhaps, after all, there might be some justification for his persistent course of neglect. And another thought now struck her: “You mean that this house belongs to Mr. Mauleverer?”
“Of course it does. To whom else? You do not think, do you, that I would be living here, in the dead heart of the country, boring myself to distraction winter after winter, if there was anything else I could do? If it had been mine, I should have sold it years ago, and moved to London, or maybe Bath—the season there is mighty pleasant—but as it is I am condemned, through my husband’s fault, to drag out the rest of my life here. You never saw a more iniquitous will than his—never. He left everything he could to Mark —everything, and I am dependent on him practically for the bread I eat.”
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