After her first attempt to interrupt him she had listened to him in the silence of mounting fury. Now, at last, came her chance to speak. “I am sorry you do not choose to believe my story,” she said. “And sorry, too, that I cannot provide you with a more palatable one. I am only amazed that under the circumstances you are prepared to let me stay with your mother, but in truth that is all of a piece with your general negligence of her. I only wish I was in a position to throw your words in your teeth and leave your house tonight, but, since my story is true—every word of it—I have nowhere to go. I shall have to continue to eat your bread, however unwillingly, but I promise you I will earn every bite of it—and of the child’s too. And I promise you, too, that if ever I do regain my memory you shall not be troubled with my support for an instant longer than it takes me to find my friends. If, indeed, I have any friends.” His report of the blank he had drawn with the Bow Street Runners had gone deep with her. There had always, before, been the hope that somewhere she was mourned and searched for. Now he had taken even that from her.
“I am sorry you take it thus.” His face, which had warmed somewhat as he urged her to confide in him was now a chill mask. “I would have felt happier if we could have reached some better understanding, you and I, but if this is how you want it, so be it. My offer still stands. As for earning your bread—I am no fool, Miss Lamb, however negligent you may think me. I have seen for myself all you have done in this house—and in the village too. No one I met as I rode through but was full of your praises, indeed, I confidently expected to meet some flat-faced sister of charity, rather than a bad young girl romping in my hay.”
“I was not romping!” She stopped, aware of a hopeless loss of dignity.
“Of course you were not.” His voice was kind again. “Merely contentedly dozing over—if I am not much mistaken—Sir Walter Scott’s latest. My mother tells me you read aloud to her in the evenings.”
“Yes, it makes a change from playing at cards.”
“Ah, cards ...” It seemed as if he would have said something more, then he changed the subject. “And talking of my mother, I fear it would be too much to hope that she had thought to pay you anything for all the services you render her.”
Marianne colored, “Why, no,” she stammered, “but her goodness has been such...”
“Quite so, and you are indeed indebted to her for believing your story—but I beg your pardon, we’ll talk no more of that. The fact remains that so far as I can see you have been acting at once as companion and housekeeper, not to mention taking over many of the charitable duties in the village that she should do, and, I fear, has always neglected.”
Once again her face was fiery hot. “I hope you do not think I have been taking too much upon myself, my lord,” she said. “I promise you, what I have given has been merely from the household surplus.”
“So I have already learned,” he said. “You must be aware that you have made enemies as well as friends, Miss Lamb, and they wasted no time in complaining of you. And have done you nothing but good by so doing, I may add. But we shall arrange things better in future. First of all, you must have a salary. I have never engaged a housekeeper-companion before. Do you think £50 a year would be adequate?”
“Adequate?” she exclaimed. “I may have lost my memory, my lord, but not my senses. It is absurdly lavish.”
“I do wish you will stop calling me ‘my lord,’ ” he said irritably, the scar once more white in an angrily flushed face. “Has not my mother told you that I do not mean to accept the title?”
“Not accept the title! But surely you cannot help yourself?”
“That is what I mean to find out. I have sent my disclaimer, already to the College of Arms and to the House of Lords, and must await their decision. All these years I have worked for the Reform of Parliament with the idea that then, at last, I should be able to achieve a seat in the House that I need not blush to own. And now, when victory is in sight, I am frustrated like this. That poor little boy—I never met him—but God knows I have cause enough to lament his unlucky death. Of course my mother cannot understand—”
“What is it your mother cannot understand?” came an irritable voice from the far side of the room. “What are you two whispering about over there? I hope you do not mean to insinuate that I have been asleep! I merely closed my eyes for a few moments because the light hurt them. I heard every word you said, Mark, and Miss Lamb is quite right: £50 is a quite ridiculous sum to give her. Ten or fifteen would be nearer the mark. A governess, I know, would think herself lucky to get ten.”
“Yes,” said her son, “but Miss Lamb is not a governess. Besides, ma’am, you must see as well as I do—and I am sure Miss Lamb herself as well—that if she is to go on acting as your companion she must be in a position to dress herself rather more in keeping with her position.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Mrs. Mauleverer fretfully, “I knew I should have given you that old gray silk, my dear, but I am afraid Martha thinks she has established a prerogative right to my clothes.”
Crimson with mortification, Marianne found herself quite unable to say anything, but Mark Mauleverer, as, it appeared, he wished still to be called, had taken up the argument. “It is not a question of outfitting her in your cast-offs, Mamma,” he said curtly. “I can imagine nothing more unsuitable. I suggest that you take the carriage tomorrow and go into Exton together. I am sure that between you you will be able to hit upon exactly what Miss Lamb needs. And I am sure, too, that it will make a pretty sizable hole in the £50 I intend to give her as this year’s wages, so we will have no more argument about that, if you please. Remember, Lady Heverdon is coming next week.”
Marianne had not thought she could be angrier, but the idea that she must be reoutfitted so as to avoid shocking the delicate sensibilities of this unknown but already, somehow, heartily disliked beauty was the last straw. But she was a helpless dependent in this house which had become so odious to her since its master’s return. With a heroic effort, she said nothing.
“Miss Lamb is angry with me.” He was teasing her now. Why should she have to stay and bear it? For a moment, she considered rising and sweeping from the room, but this would merely be to give him the satisfaction of knowing that his shafts had gone home. Instead, she smiled at him very sweetly. “On the contrary,” she said, “how could I be angry with someone who is prepared to put up £50 to ensure that I am respectably clad. But do you think it will be enough, my—Mr. Mauleverer?” She had been tempted to call him My Lord, since this annoyed him so, but lost courage at the last moment.
He laughed. “Touché, and I beg your pardon, Miss Lamb. As penance, I can only say that if it is not enough I shall have to stand your banker for whatever other sums you may require. Mamma, you shall be the judge...”
“I think it is all a great deal of nonsense,” said Mrs. Mauleverer crossly, and rose to retire.
But in the morning she found the idea of a shopping trip to Exton more attractive, even if the purchases were not to be for herself. And even Marianne, however set she might be, on principle, against the idea of accepting money from Mark Mauleverer had to enjoy the spending of it. She had, she discovered, very definite ideas in the matter of dress, and the various mantua makers and milliners whose establishments they visited were soon treating her with respect on her own account, as well as in her character of Mrs. Mauleverer’s protégée. Business was slack, it seemed, in Exton, and all the things they ordered would be sent home within the week. Best of all, Mrs. Mauleverer’s own dressmaker, on learning the nature of the case, produced, from the back of her little fitting room, a dark green dinner dress that had been commissioned, she said, by one of her customers who had then had to go abroad in a hurry so that it had been left on her hands. “It would just fit miss, I am sure, and she could have it to wear while the other things are making.”
“Oh, do try it on, Marianne,” said Mrs. Mauleverer, “the color should suit you admirably, and Mark will never notice if the bill
s come to a little more than the £50 he promised.” For Mauleverer had proved all too true a prophet. Even at country prices, the minimum necessary outfit for a young lady had already run them dangerously near to their limit.
The modiste added her persuasions to Mrs. Mauleverer’s and Marianne agreed to try on the dress. It did indeed suit her admirably and fitted as if made for her.
“Five pounds,” said the dressmaker. “It will hardly pay the cost of the material, but since you are a friend of my dear Mrs. Mauleverer’s...”
Marianne had been thinking fast. “Very well,” she said, but in that case I shall not need the blue dinner dress I ordered. This will do excellently instead and I can wear it tonight.”
The woman’s face fell. The blue dinner dress was to have cost well over five pounds, and she had counted on selling both to this strong-minded young woman, but Marianne was obdurate. The green dress was wrapped up and the blue one, she thought, countermanded. It was therefore a surprise, and a maddening one to her when, a few days later, her purchases were sent home to Maulever Hall and she found the blue dress among them. Angry, at first, with the dressmaker, she soon learned that she had Mrs. Mauleverer to thank for the dress. Not, that is, that her friend intended to pay for it, “But my dear,” she protested, “you know as well as I do, that even with the other dress your bills will come to only £49 and a few shillings. I never saw such an admirable manager as you: the way you kept the count as we went along was a wonder to watch. And we cannot have you appearing for dinner in the same gown every night when Lady Heverdon is here.”
“I do not intend to come down to dinner,” said Marianne mutinously. She was very angry indeed, and with cause, for Mrs. Mauleverer’s interference meant that she was penniless once more, instead of having at last a few pounds in her pocket for emergencies.
“But what should you want with money, my love?” asked Mrs. Mauleverer. “Surely you have no need for it here, though it is true it would make our games of cards more interesting if I did not have to pay for both. And as for the idea of not coming down to dinner when Lady Heverdon is here, I never heard such nonsense in my life. You know as well as I do that Mark provided the money for your outfitting with that very idea in mind; it would be scarcely honest to refuse to oblige him with your company after that. I suppose,” she sighed, “that he does not think I will be lively enough company for Lady Heverdon, who has lived, I believe, in some of the gayest of fashionable circles. Do you know, my dear, I really believe that it is a case with Mark. I wonder how I shall find Lady Heverdon as a daughter-in-law. I expect all the stories about her are mere gossip really, the kind that is bound to arise when a beautiful young girl with no fortune marries a much older man with a great one.”
“Was she so much younger than Lord Heverdon then?” Marianne had been longing for an opportunity to learn something more of their prospective visitor.
“Oh, yes. He was a widower, you know. It was the saddest story; he married quite young, some quite produceable girl, I do not exactly remember who she was, and they lived for years together without a sign of an heir. I believe he was quite in despair, and so, I can tell you, was my poor Mark, with the prospect of the House of Lords looming nearer and nearer. And then, one fine day, My Lady finds herself pregnant at last—and died, poor thing, when the boy was born. It was only natural, I suppose, that Lord Heverdon should look about for another wife to mother his orphaned child, though it might have been more suitable if he had found someone a little nearer his own age. But I do not believe the stories that Lady Heverdon neglected the child. Mark says they are mere slanders. Poor little thing, what a terrible end, and so soon after his father’s death too; no wonder Lady Heverdon wants to get away from the scene of so much tragedy. And anyway, of course, the house is no longer hers; it belongs to Mark now. I wonder what she will do. Mark says she has been left in sadly straitened circumstances under the terms of her husband’s will, which tied up everything for the child, and for Mark after him. I know it is the way things are done, but it seems an iniquitous business to me just the same. I do not see why women should not have a few comforts too, but it is only estates and property that get thought of. Look at Mark. He has been home nearly a week now, and has not come out in the carriage with me once yet, but spends all his time riding about, surveying the property as he calls it. If I have asked him once, I have asked him a dozen times when he will be ready to come with me and pay the visits that he owes to the neighbors, and every day he puts it off and is away on his horse again.”
Marianne murmured something sympathetic, but, in fact, could not help, just a little, sympathizing too, with Mark Mauleverer. The weather all week had been exquisitely fine and when she had seen him setting out, each morning, on his big brown horse, she had not been able to suppress a pang of envy. How much better to be riding freely about the countryside than sitting chained to his prosy mother’s side in the frowsty family carriage. Still, of course, it was odiously inconsiderate of him.
“Perhaps you will see more of him when Lady Heverdon arrives,” she suggested.
“Perhaps I will. And that reminds me that she is coming in two days. Is everything ready for her reception? It must be the best linen sheets, mind, and a full course dinner every night. I’ll not have her saying that I skimp my guests at Maulever Hall.”
‘It is all quite ready,” said Marianne soothingly and for the hundredth time. “If Lady Heverdon were to arrive this instant, we are ready for her. Indeed, I rather wish she would.” And get it over with, she added, rebelliously, to herself. It irritated her to see Mrs. Mauleverer putting herself out so much for this unexpected guest, and still more did it annoy her to see how her son took it for granted that she would do so. But then, perhaps this was understandable enough, for she, like his mother, was beginning to suspect that his interest in the beautiful widow was a good deal more than that of an executor and trustee. His nerves had grown more and more evidently on edge as the day of her arrival approached and, since she was now the universal confidante of the household, Marianne heard about it all. Gibbs came to her near tears because he had found fault with the crystalline sparkle of the drawing-room chandeliers: “A thing I’d never a’ thought to see him notice in a thousand years, miss.” The cook threatened to leave if master came making suggestion in the kitchen once more, and even Boxail the bailiff, who had welcomed Mauleverer’s arrival with visible enthusiasm, stopped Marianne in the cutting garden to ask her what had come over him.
As for his mother, she was in despair. “I have longed so long for this visit,” she confided to Marianne in her dressing room on the night before Lady Heverdon was expected. “And now, to tell truth, I am not getting much pleasure out of it. What is the matter with Mark? If he has read me one lecture today, he has read me six, and all about how I am to treat Lady Heverdon. Between you and me, I am sick of the sound of her name. Anyone would think she were Queen Adelaide herself, instead of a jumped-up widow with not the best of reputations.”
Marianne laughed. “Dear madam, do not let Mr. Mauleverer hear you say that.”
“I should rather think not. But, really, the way he goes on, you would think it was I that was up for approval, not Lady Heverdon. I am not to weary her with domestic chat, because her soul is above it—and a pretty housekeeper she must be, in that case. I am not to drag her about the countryside, making her on my old friends, since she is used to the very best society ... And, I ask you, if I may not take her visiting with me, what am I to do with her? I promise you, if she is really used to the best society, which I take leave to doubt, she is going to find it tedious enough, in all conscience, cooped up here with no one but you and me for company. Why, I am not even to suggest a game of cards with her!”
“Not play at cards? But my dear ma’am why ever not?”
Oddly, Mrs. Mauleverer colored. “Oh, I don’t know, my dear, some megrim of Mark’s, I suppose. I only hope Lady Heverdon has not turned Methodist, for that, in a daughter-in-law, is more than I could bear.�
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“Oh well,” said Marianne with an optimism she was very far from feeling, “she is not your daughter-in-law yet. And how do you like your hair?”
Easily distracted, Mrs. Mauleverer turned to admire the coronet of real and false hair that Marianne had built up on the top of her head. “Admirable,” she said, “you must do it for me every night of Lady Heverdon’s stay. What a talented girl you are, to be sure. My poor Martha’s nose is quite out of joint, is it not, Martha?”
It was all too evidently true. Martha had been flouncing about the room tidying her mistress’s clothes while Marianne usurped her function at the dressing table, and now slammed out of the room with some half-heard but all too obviously saucy rejoinder. “Oh dear,” sighed Mrs. Mauleverer, “that was foolish of me. I shall pay for it later. But come, my dear, I hear the second gong, and you know how Mark hates to be kept waiting.”
Following her, Marianne felt almost tempted to emulate Martha’s sauciness. She was tired of the way the whole household revolved around Mark Mauleverer and his crotchets. Following Mrs. Mauleverer into the drawing room, she saw at once that he was in one of the black moods she had learned to dread. Tonight, he would drink fast and take his mother up shortly on her sillier remarks, instead of merely ignoring them, or teasing her gently as he sometimes did. It was going to be an exhausting meal, with her part—that of peacemaker—one she was very far from wanting to play.
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