Thomas was tired and fretful after his fright, and longing to go home, but though her peaceful afternoon was irrevocably spoiled, she lingered in the wood as long as she could, putting off the awkward moment of return and confrontation. Not that he would find it awkward. He was obviously equally devoid of shyness and of shame. Feeding on her anger, she entertained Thomas as best she could by helping him to collect empty snail shells, but he was soon crying with fatigue and there was nothing for it but to pick him up and head for home.
Home! She stopped for a moment. Home! It had never been more than a temporary refuge, but seemed an even more unpromising one now that its master was come back. Oh if only she could remember ...
What she did remember was that the bad-tempered master of Maulever Hall was going to find his ancestral home in a state of unexampled chaos. The sweep had doubtless finished his work by now—always provided that his boy had not got stuck, or worse still lost in one of the proliferating chimneys of the old house. But the results of his labors in dirt and confusion would be with them, she feared, for some days, specially since the servants were so obviously resentful of the extra labor involved.
She took Thomas in through the kitchen, on the pretext of collecting some supper for him on the way. She hardly admitted even to herself that she wished to avoid meeting Mauleverer again until she had had time to change her crumpled dress and tidy her disheveled hair. To her surprise, she found the kitchen and servants’ hall in a state of unwontedly cheerful bustle. A scullery maid was plucking chickens as if her life depended on it, the cook was busy over a perfect battery of copper saucepans, and such a polishing of glass and silverware was going on as if they were to entertain the whole county. With a conscience-stricken start, Marianne realized that in her capacity as housekeeper she should have hurried home to direct operations as soon as she had parted from Mauleverer. Oh well, she shrugged to herself, things seemed to have gone on admirably without her.
“Master’s home.” The cook turned from the huge stove and saw her. “We dine late. He always does. You’d best take something as well as the boy, or you’ll be famished before it’s ready. Not but what it will be worth the waiting for, I promise you.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Marianne, sniffing appreciatively. “But I’ll not be eating with them. I’ll fetch myself something on a tray when Thomas is in bed.”
“Oh?” The cook shrugged. “You know best, I’m sure. Oh, drat the sauce.” She bent, red-faced, to her work.
Marianne took Thomas up the back stairs, got him, protesting but weary, into his bed and reached the safety of her own room with a sigh of relief. A quick recourse to her glass confirmed her worst fears. Her bonnet had got tilted to one side when she was playing with Thomas, her hair was wildly untidy and there was a smudge of something on her left cheek. No wonder he had called her a dragon, though hoyden would have been nearer the mark.
Of course she would not meet him this evening, but it would have made for peace of mind if only she had had something respectable to put on, just for safety’s sake. She looked gloomily in her closet where hung the two limp brown stuff dresses and the cotton that was almost exact twin to the one she had on. On so mild an evening she had no choice. It would have to be the cotton, which, at least, she had just washed, starched and ironed as exquisitely as if it had been finest India muslin. She put it on rebelliously. These were not, somehow, her kind of clothes ... Or was she deluding herself? Was it only in dreams that she had once worn silks and gauzes? Very likely. She shrugged irritably and went to work with a will on her rebellious hair. Her hands, working almost without her volition, were doing something different with her curls tonight. Mrs. Mauleverer, in the enthusiasm of turning out her wardrobe, had made her a present of various bits of tarnished ribbon and lace. Most of them, though she had, of course, received them with proper exclamations of delight, were fit only for the Jew’s basket, but she had kept out one length of silver tissue as more promising than the rest, and had contrived to clean it with soft soap and honey. Now, she bound it round a coronet of hair on the top of her head, leaving only short curls to cluster round her face. The result, her glass told her, was charming—but totally unsuited to her plain, high-necked dress. She exclaimed angrily and was about to pull down the whole elaborate erection when Mrs. Mauleverer burst into her room. “There you are at last, my dear. I was quite giving you up in despair.” And then, in obvious surprise: Why, you look charming. What have you done to your hair?”
“I was only playing with it.” Marianne hurried to draw up her one comfortable chair for Mrs. Mauleverer, who settled into it with a little sigh of what was intended to suggest exhaustion.
“Such a bustle as we have been in,” she said. “And you, wicked girl, not there to help. But, of course, you do not know the great news. Mark is come home.”
Yes, they told me...” So he had not mentioned his meeting with her. Well, that was kind of him, perhaps. Since he could say nothing good, he had said nothing at all about her.
“Yes, rode in as cool as a cucumber just when I had finished my luncheon, and the sweep still here, and the whole house in dust sheets, and my poor Gibbs almost in hysterics. I really thought I should have a spasm myself, but he has a wonderful way of taking charge, has Mark. I wish you could have heard what he said to that poor sweep, it would have done your heart good, my dear, after all your sighings over the little boy—an imp of satan if ever I saw one, by the way, and left soot marks all over my bedroom carpet. But he’s to have baths, and Sunday school, and I don’t know what not, or Mark will know the reason why. You never saw so surprised a man as poor Mr. Bond. Though I expect the child will be more astonished still when he gets his first bath—if ever he does. The trouble with Mark is that he has so many irons in the fire that most of them get cold when he’s not looking. But, dear me, where was I? I came to tell you something most particular, and now I have quite forgot what it was.” She paused, pleating the frills that ornamented the front of her purple satin dinner dress. “Ah, I have it. Dinner, of course. We dine late, you know, when Mark is home. He has town ways and will agree to no other.”
“Yes, Cook told me. But of course I shall have a tray in my room.”
“Nonsense. Mark is quite longing to meet you; he said so himself. He says I look years younger”—she rose to prove the satisfactory truth at the glass—“and do you know, I agree with him. I must try my hair the way you have done yours. You shall do it for me tomorrow; I am sure it will be vastly becoming to me. I only wish there were time tonight; we could pass as sisters, could we not? But Mark is a perfect tyrant for punctuality; we had best not risk it. What a fortunate thing you are”—she hesitated—“dressed.”
It was the cue Marianne wanted. “My dear madam, you must excuse me from dining. You know perfectly well that I have nothing to wear ... I cannot appear like this ... it would be quite unsuitable.”
“I confess I wish I had thought of it sooner. Perhaps my old gray silk? But, no, you are inches taller than me; it would merely look ridiculous. No, no, my dear, you must not refine too much upon it; you look charming, as indeed, you always do.” She turned from the glass as the gong sounded below. “There, Mark will be waiting in the drawing room. Come, my dear.”
IV
The sight of Mark Mauleverer waiting for them by the huge fire that had been kindled in the drawing room did nothing to make Marianne feel better about her own shabby appearance. This afternoon he had been muffled in a heavy riding cloak. Now, an elegant but not too closely fitted dark blue coat showed off a fine pair of shoulders and did full justice to a spare, athletic figure. His cravat was snowy white, but not overcomplicated, his waistcoat innocent of embroidery, his studs in the most exact of taste. If she had wanted to, she could have found no fault with his appearance. She did want to—but, as so often she stopped at the thought—how did she know what he ought to look like?
The scarred side of his face was turned away from them as they approached him and she thought again
what a pity it was that some wretched, unnecessary duel, no doubt over the merest of drunken trifles, should have marred what could have been so handsome a face. Looking at the good side of his face, before he turned to greet them, she realized that he was younger than she had thought at their first encounter. The scarred and angry face, the air of command, had made him seem somewhere in the settled forties, now, relaxed in his evening dress and smiling a greeting for his mother, he seemed barely thirty.
Mrs. Mauleverer was introducing her and once more the smile lit up his eyes and warmed one side of his face. “The mysterious Miss Lamb.” He took her hand. “I have much looked forward to this meeting.” There was something, surely, faintly mocking in his tone, or was she imagining it?
Vaguely disconcerted because he had not thought fit to refer to their previous encounter, she felt herself at a loss, acutely conscious of her shabby dress and unsuitably frivolous hairstyle. But it was her place, after all, to be silent and, luckily, Mrs. Mauleverer could be relied on to talk enough for two, though Marianne could have found it in her heart to wish that she had chosen some other theme than her own, as her patroness put it, “romantic history.”
The story of their first dramatic encounter at the vicarage lasted them through the first courses of an unusually elaborate dinner, and, as he listened with becoming deference to his mother’s tale, Marianne was increasingly aware of an occasional sidelong, cynical glance from her host.
“So you remember nothing?” he said when his mother had paused, at last, for breath.
“Nothing.” Her voice sounded too loud in her own ears. “And yet I know so much.”
“What kind of things?”
“Why, about books, and politics, and world affairs. How can I know that Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo, and yet not know my own name?”
“It is certainly very strange. What does Dr. Barton say about it?”
“He says”—without thinking Marianne fell into a parody of Barton’s richly self-important tone—“he says that ‘The human brain is an unfathomable mystery.’” She colored at her own presumption in mimicking the family doctor, but Mauleverer was laughing.
“Bravo, Miss Lamb, you have hit him to the life. I can see you are a consummate actress.”
Once again there was something she did not quite like about his tone, and it was a relief when Mrs. Mauleverer changed the subject. “But you have told us nothing of yourself, Mark,” she said with her habitually plaintive intonation. “And I am simply dying to know what you make of the beautiful Lady Heverdon. Is she really no better than she should be?”
The color rose in his face, leaving the scar disconcertingly pale. “No,” he said angrily. “I believe Lady Heverdon to be a much maligned woman. I have no doubt my cousin led her a dog’s life, and when she tried to improve it by seeing a few of the intellectual friends whose company she quite innocently enjoyed, he spread the most malicious slanders against her. And as for the stories about her treatment of the child, her stepson, if you had but seen how she mourned his tragic death, you would have known them for the libels they are.”
“Poor little thing,” said Mrs. Mauleverer sentimentally. “Did they ever discover how the fire started?”
“No. The nursery wing was so completely destroyed that there was not the slightest indication. It was only a mercy that the fire did not spread to the rest of the house, but that is of stone, while the nursery was the oldest part of the house and largely built of wood. But as it was they all had to turn out in the middle of the night and I do not believe Lady Heverdon has recovered from the experience yet. Combined with her grief for the poor child left in her care it has caused such a depression of her spirits that I strongly advised her, when I was there, to stay no longer than she must in a place fraught with so many painful memories. Of course she is in deepest mourning still, and a residence in London, in full season, would hardly be the thing. But I rather hope I have contrived to persuade her to pay you a visit, ma’am.”
“Me?” Mrs. Mauleverer’s amazement was comical to behold. “You have invited Lady Heverdon to come here!”
“Yes. Is that so surprising? You are, after all, the senior lady of the family into which she married—however unluckily. What could be more natural than that she should come to you at this time of double mourning? And I am sure that when you have met her, you cannot help but love her.”
Mrs. Mauleverer’s eyes were bright with curiosity. “She is very beautiful, they say.”
“Yes, and much younger than you would think from the stones the world has told about her. You will find her, I am sure, the easiest of guests. She begs you will make no effort to entertain her; all she longs for is country peace and quietness.”
“My goodness,” said Mrs. Mauleverer, “she must have changed greatly since she came out. Was she not known as the gayest debutante of her season? I am afraid she will be bored to distraction here.”
“No, no, all she wants is country air, some riding and the atmosphere of home. I promise you I will see to it that she is not a charge on you.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Mauleverer took this in. “You stay then, to give her the meeting?”
“It would scarcely be courteous if I did not. I have it heavily on my conscience that under her husband’s iniquitous will I inherit much that should by rights have been hers. I have tried in vain to persuade her to let me deed it back to her, but perhaps you will have more success.”
“I wonder.” Mrs. Mauleverer rose with a swish of purple skirts. “Come, Marianne, we are keeping Mark from his wine. But do not be lingering too long, dear boy. I have so little of your company that I must be a little greedy of you when I have the chance. As for your Lady Heverdon, I shall be delighted to receive her, and all the more so if it means that you are to pay me a proper long visit.”
He had risen to open the door for them, and Marianne could hardly help smiling at his expression on being called “dear boy.” But the fact remained that there had been something almost boyish about his enthusiasm over Lady Heverdon. She was not at all surprised when Mrs. Mauleverer, after making sure that the drawing room door was safely shut, turned to her with conspiratorial enthusiasm. “My dear, I do believe he has fallen at last! And for Lady Heverdon of all people. Oh, well!”—she looked, for her, almost thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged—“I expect it is all for the best. And indeed I was getting quite into despair and beginning to think I should never have a daughter-in-law. She must be a clever woman, whatever else she is, to have made him forget that scar of his sufficiently to think of paying his addresses to her.”
To Marianne’s relief, she was so absorbed in speculation about the prospective visit that she actually did not propose their usual game of cards and they were still sitting talking by the fire when Mark Mauleverer made his appearance twenty minutes or so later. Meanwhile, the conversation had reminded Marianne that he was no longer Mr. Mauleverer, but Lord Heverdon, and she searched anxiously back through her brief talk with him to make sure that she had not wrongly addressed him at any point. To her relief, she was able to decide that she had not, since shyness had kept her from addressing him by name at all.
Now, as he moved the tea tray a little more conveniently for his mother, she thought he would make an admirable lord, quick-tempered, autocratic, and proud, though kind enough, in a lordly way, when it suited him to be so. He was also, she had to admit, wonderfully tolerant of the string of new questions about Lady Heverdon which had occurred to his mother during their brief separation. Yes, she would probably be with them next week; no, she was a natural blonde; twenty-five at the most ... His answers were brief and to the point and Mrs. Mauleverer’s questions began to flag. She put her teacup down on the tray and leaned back more comfortably in her big arm chair. “It has been a long day,” she said meditatively, and her eyelids flickered shut for a moment, then opened again, “How old did you say she was?”
“Twenty-five, ma’am.” He spoke low and soothingly and flashed a warning glance at Mar
ianne. The silence lengthened. Mrs. Mauleverer’s head dropped back against the dark blue velvet of her chair. She began to snore very gently.
Mauleverer, or rather, Marianne reminded herself, Lord Heverdon, moved the tea tray to a safe distance and crossed the room to the comparatively obscure corner where Marianne had contrived to settle herself.
“Now, Miss Lamb,” he said, “a word with you.”
“Yes?” She had been correcting the false stitches in Mrs. Mauleverer’s embroidery but now laid it down in her lap and looked up at him with wide, enquiring eyes.
“This story of yours,” he said, “is all very well for my mother, and indeed you could hardly have chosen one that was more certain to take her fancy, so sodden as she is with romantic novels. But I hope you will not expect me to be caught with the same chaff. No, do not interrupt me, let me say my say and then you shall protest to your heart’s content. But do not expect to make me believe your absurd pack of lies that way: I warn you, I am come forearmed. So soon as my mother wrote me of your ‘romantic arrival’ I checked with the Bow Street Runners. No one of your appearance—or the child’s—has been reported missing. It is absurd to suggest that either of you could have vanished without some enquiries being made. You know as well as I .do that you are no servant girl, however carefully you may disguise yourself as one”—an expressive glance summed up her now wilting cotton dress—“and the child, too, though by all reports an ill-conditioned brat and deplorably spoiled, clearly has good blood in him. His absence, even more than yours, must have caused comment if this had not been a put-up job of some kind. I tell you, I came down intending to send you packing without delay, but what I have seen today has made me change my mind. I do not care what devious reasons of your own have brought you here; that shall continue your own affair. What I can see is the good you have done my mother—that is my business. I have long deplored the ascendancy Martha had obtained over her. However shady your antecedents, you cannot help but be an improvement on her. So I suggest that we make a bargain, you and I. You will stay on as my mother’s companion, doing for her what you have so admirably done. In exchange I shall cast no doubt on your ridiculous story. Of course, if you should wish to tell me the true one, I shall be honored by your confidence, and give you my word it shall go no further. I cannot think, now I have met you, that it is anything worse than some kind of young girl’s freak. Would you not feel better for having told me the whole?”
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