I thought it enough to tell you.” His brow was as black as ever and he ignored the pretty disorder of golden curls, the pouting appeal of a red mouth turned up to him. “Ah, Miss Lamb. Tell me, how is my mother?”
“Very unhappy,” said Marianne, “and far from well. She begs, Lady Heverdon, that you will excuse her absence from dinner.” She longed to say: “And excuse mine, too,” but knew that the proprieties demanded her presence. She could only hope that Mauleverer would change his mood with his costume, but one glance at his face, when he joined her in the drawing room an hour later, showed it as overcast as ever. She was glad that she had taken the precaution of coming down early and establishing herself, apparently very busy, with some work in her accustomed corner. He did not seem to see her for a moment, then came across to her, “Is my mother better?”
“No.” Marianne did not mean to spare him.
He looked taken aback at the curt monosyllable. “You think me, then, a brute, Miss Lamb?”
“Frankly”—she looked up at him with wide, thoughtful eyes—“and since you ask me, Mr. Mauleverer, yes.” He gave a smothered exclamation and turned away to pace the room, as she bent once more to her work to hide her face, now crimson at her own daring.
“You do not understand.” He had come back to stand over her again, as he had over Mr. Merritt.
“No,” she agreed calmly. “You are quite right. I do not understand. But you cannot frighten me as you do your mother—and that poor Mr. Merritt.”
He laughed, a short harsh bark of a laugh. “Yes, poor man, he was almost in a jelly of terror, was he not, but, as to my mother ... Miss Lamb, you must let me explain.”
“I would not dream of troubling you so. Explain to Lady Heverdon, if you like. She is your guest.”
“And you?” He looked at her quizzically.
“I am your mother’s friend, if you do not think it presumptuous of me to say so. Indeed, I do not care what you think, I love your mother, and I think you treat her monstrously.”
“Oh I do, do I?” She had shocked him out of the sullens into anger. “I suppose I should let her go about the country, to Bath, to London, wherever she likes, and make a laughingstock of herself and a nayword of me by her cheating at cards. That would be kindness, would it?”
“It might be better than to leave her cooped up on her own here, so wretched for lack of company that she has become subject to a woman like Martha. What are those drops she takes? Have you ever thought that there might be worse things than a little innocent manipulation of the cards?”
“You mean?”
“I do not know what I mean, but I am not happy about Mrs. Mauleverer. I think you should take her to London to see a doctor—even if it does mean that she may disgrace you at the card table.”
He winced at the scorn in her voice, and turned, with relief, to welcome Lady Heverdon who came sweeping into the room in all the confidence of a low-cut and desperately becoming gown of violet silk. “Mauleverer!” She held out both hands to him. “You have forgiven me?”
“How can I help it?” His glance, as he bent over her, joined his words in tribute to her absolute beauty.
The evening was a success after all—at least, from Lady Heverdon’s point of view. Mauleverer, suddenly in tearing spirits, entertained them with a vivid description of the scenes, worthy, he said, of Hogarth’s pencil, that had taken place at this, the second to last day of the Exton election. Lady Heverdon hung on his words, the perfect listener, and Marianne had nothing to do but eat her dinner, enjoy his turn for vivid description, and wonder how Mrs. Mauleverer would be in the morning.
It was, disconcertingly, Marianne’s part to rise, when dessert was finished, and lead the way back to the drawing room, but Lady Heverdon, pausing only to give Mauleverer her best smile and urge him not to be long behind them, took her arm as amicably as if, she thought, she had been one of the proud Misses Lashton.
“Lord, what an exhausting day,” sighed the beauty, drooping onto a sofa with a great swish of silk. “The Lashtons are well enough, in their way, but I had not thought to have to entertain them, with not a gentleman to help me—and those two hangers-on of theirs merest nothings, as I’m sure you will agree. Heavens, I thought I should never keep from laughing outright when Mauleverer gave poor little Merritt that set down. I have never seen a man so frightened in my life: he really thought it would be pistols at dawn. And so did I, for a moment. What a temper Mark Mauleverer has! But I confess I like it in a man—except when it is directed at me. I believe he was really angry with me for a moment when he came in. Well, of course, it is true he did tell me some long story about how it was not good for his mother to play at cards, but, I ask you, my dear creature, what else could I do, with the rain pouring down and those two Lashton girls far too stupid for charades? But it is all over now, and we are better friends than ever for the quarrel. Do not they say that quarreling is the beginning of—”
She paused, colored prettily and was silent for a moment, then, since Marianne said nothing, went on: “But who would have thought that a sweet old lady like Mrs. Mauleverer should be such a shameless cheat at cards. My dear, you never saw anything like it, and the Misses Lashton getting more frigid every minute, and Merritt and Fenner exchanging glances and the old Countess sitting there with her eyes practically starting out of her head—she is much too rich to like losing money. It would have been comic if it had not been so embarrassing. But, I ask you, what could I do? I was never more grateful for anything than when you and Mauleverer appeared. I must say, if I were he I should consider seriously having the old lady put away where she will be free from temptation. I am sure there are very good sort of homes for people who are afflicted like her. Nothing like a madhouse, you understand, but some comfortable country house where they would have an eye to her. Do you not think it would be the best plan? As things are, he can never have a quiet moment when he is away, wondering what she may not do next to disgrace him.”
“But she is so happy as she is.” Marianne could not bear the idea of her old friend’s being shuffled out of sight into some genteel form of prison. “After all, it is merely to keep her from playing cards.”
“By the simple expedient of never being able to play oneself! It would not suit me, I can tell you, but maybe she would do well enough here.” Lady Heverdon was talking half to herself, and Marianne realized with an odd little pang that she was already planning her married life with Mauleverer.
“Mrs. Mauleverer has been kindness itself to me.” She began what she herself felt to be a fruitless plea for her patroness.
“Of course she has, and I have no doubt her son breathed a hearty sigh of relief when he heard of your arrival. Or did he, do you think? Tell me, my love, does that memory of yours show any sign of returning? I have been absolutely drowned in questions from the Lashtons all day about your mystery and found myself hard put to it to know what to answer. The Countess was not best pleased to meet you, I am afraid. She has an idea about you—but no, I am ashamed even to remember it.”
“An idea about me? Who I might be, you mean?”
“Why, yes, but you would not like it, my love, and indeed I myself do not for a moment believe it. It is all very well for the Countess, she has not had the pleasure of knowing you, as I have. But it is true that it would explain one point that I have found puzzling in your story—and you too, I have no doubt.”’
“What’s that?” Marianne’s voice was sharp with interest.
“Why, the question of where you were going in that coach. Why had you asked to be set down at Pennington Crossroads? Nobody, it seems, knows anything about you in the village, and this is the only house of any size in the district. It almost looks as if you must have been coming here.”
“Yes, I have thought that very thing myself.”
“Well, then, why?”
“I cannot imagine. If you have any idea, or the Countess either, I beg you will tell it me. You have no idea what I suffer: I would rather anyt
hing than this total blank.”
“Is it still total?” Lady Heverdon’s voice was oddly insistent.
“Yes. I dream, sometimes, of terror, but when I wake it is all vague, all confused ... If only I had some clue—something to start from—I sometimes feel that it might all come back. Lady Heverdon, I beg you will tell me what the Countess said.”
“Very well then, but remember it comes from her, not me. For my part I do not believe a word of it. It is perfectly obvious that the child is nothing to you.”
“The child?” Marianne had had terrors of her own along these lines.
“Why, yes. Lady Lashton is a worldly old person you know, and thinks the worst of everyone. She says the only reason she can think of why a young lady, which, by the by, she concedes that you are, should be wandering about the countryside with a child—is, well, the worst one.”
“You mean she thinks the child is mine?”
Of course, and Mauleverer the father. Why else were you coming here? That is what she says, of course. For my own part, I do not believe a word of it, and nor, I am sure, will you, but I think it the part of a friend to tell you what the world is apt to say.” And then, putting out a hand to take Marianne’s: “My dear Miss Lamb, you must not take it so hard; it is only the slander of a gossiping old woman. But you can see, on the surface, how patly it all fits together. Your arrival—and Mauleverer’s calm acceptance both of you and of the child, which, frankly, does not seem to me at all in character. What a stroke of luck for him if it is true to have you so conveniently deprived of all memory of his offense. But of course,” she said again, “I do not for a moment believe it.”
“Thank you.” Marianne could hardly speak. In her most fevered and desperate imaginings, she had never thought of anything so appalling as this, though it was true that she had often wondered why she had been on her way to so remote a spot. There was a horrible logic about the explanation, and yet, by instinct, she rejected it utterly. “No,” she said at last, “I do not believe it. But thank you, Lady Heverdon, for warning me. Forewarned, I hope, will be forearmed against such a slander.” But though she spoke boldly, her heart was sorer than it had ever been during this time of trial. It could not be true ... and yet it explained everything. There was a sound of stirring in the hall. Mauleverer must be coming to join them. She rose hurriedly to her feet. “Lady Heverdon, will you make my excuses to ... to ...” She could not even manage the name. “I am sorry to desert you, but, truly, I cannot stay tonight.”
“Of course not,” said Lady Heverdon kindly. “I understand just how you feel and am only sorry I chose so unfortunate a moment to speak, but, truly, I thought you should know.”
“Yes, thank you ...” Marianne hardly knew what she said as she made her escape through the side door. It was only afterward, when she lay, her tears sobbed out, on her bed, that she found herself thinking that the result of Lady Heverdon’s ill-timed confidence had been that she had achieved an evening alone with Mauleverer. No doubt in the morning they would announce their engagement.
The terror was black that night, worse than ever, and she woke, sobbing with fright, in the small hours of the morning. From then on, she lay, staring at the ceiling as it gradually whitened, and asking herself what she should do. She remained perfectly certain that there was no truth in Lady Lashton’s slanderous suggestion. Mauleverer’s character, as much as her own, assured her of this. She thought him hard, but not dishonest. She might not like him, but she respected him. If he had, indeed, been her lover, he would have acknowledged her, at whatever cost to himself. No, after the first anguish, she felt sure about this, but the fact remained that her presence at Maulever Hall laid her—and worst still, Mauleverer too— open to this kind of slander. She had achieved, in the last few weeks, a kind of twilight content, a feeling that if the worst came to the worst, she had found, here, a not too bad kind of life for herself. Now, this was all over. How could she stay? And anyway, Mauleverer’s engagement to Lady Heverdon would change everything: if the beauty were to get her way and poor old Mrs. Mauleverer be put away in a home, her own occupation would be gone. More than ever, it was imperative that she find out about herself. But how? Lady Heverdon’s probing questions of the evening before had merely brought home to her once more the absolute blank in her memory. How pierce this curtain of forgetfulness? She lay, torturing herself with vain attempts until the sounds of movement on the floor above told her that the servants were stirring and she heard the maids giggling their way down the back stairs. Soon it would be time for her to get up and, at last, suddenly she knew what she must do. She must have had a reason for coming to this district. Somewhere, surely, she must be known. It was up to her to find out where. She would set about it this very day. And, soothed by this determination, she fell asleep.
It was late when she woke and she hurried into her clothes, hoping against hope that she might be down in time to see Mauleverer before he rode off to Exton, where, she knew, he intended to stay late to hear the result of the election which ended today. She enjoyed their early morning encounters and found this a good time to get him to settle any outstanding business of the household. However moody and difficult he might be in society, he seemed uniformly brisk and cheerful in his dealings with his servants, and she liked to watch him settle a handful of problems produced by steward or butler between breakfast and the saddle. And, at last, when house and estate were set in train for the day, it was pleasant to watch him swing himself up on to his big brown horse and head up and over the moor to town. But today, hurry as she might, she was too late. Dressed at last, she heard the stir in the courtyard below, and ran to her window in time to see the well-known figure ride out of the stable yard. No use hurrying now. She lingered on a pretext of rebrushing her hair until she saw Mauleverer emerge from the little wood beyond the house and set his horse to the slope of the moor. It was maddening to have missed him, for she had counted on learning from his manner this morning whether he had, as she expected, proposed and been accepted the night before. Besides, she needed his permission before she could carry her new plan into action.
But at least she could make a beginning. She drank a quick cup of coffee in the breakfast room where an empty place and a chair carelessly pushed back still bore witness to Mauleverer’s presence, then hurried upstairs to his mother. Already, her conscience was pricking her because in her absorption with her own problems, she had clean forgotten her friend’s indisposition of the night before. It was at once a relief and faintly disconcerting to find Mrs. Mauleverer sitting up in bed and making a hearty breakfast, apparently as cheerful as if there had been no painful scene yesterday. She certainly made no reference to it, greeting Marianne with the news that she and Martha intended to hold a root and branch inquisition into her wardrobe this morning.
After all,” she said archly, “we may have an engagement to celebrate any day now, and you know what that will mean in the way of visiting and society.”
“Yes.” Clearly, if Mauleverer had proposed last night, his mother had not heard of it, but then, she was not likely to have, since he never, to Marianne’s knowledge, visited her before he left in the morning. But this project of Mrs. Mauleverer’s came most handily for her, and she made her request at once, feeling herself infuriatingly blushing as she did so. It was horrible to have to ask even so small a favor as this, but what else could she do, penniless as she was?
“A riding habit?” Mrs. Mauleverer exclaimed. “Why, I am sure I must have several put away somewhere, and, goodness knows, they are no use to me: my riding days are over long since. And Martha does not ride, so you are most welcome, my dear, though I am afraid they will be horribly out of style, and not the best of fits. But do you ride? I had never thought of it.”
“I am sure I do. And Jim Barnes was saying only the other day that the old bay mare needs exercising. If Mr. Mauleverer would but give me permission to ride her, I could get about the countryside a little, and, who knows, someone might recognize me.”
“Oh, I see. Because you must have been going somewhere.” Suddenly scarlet, Marianne wondered whether Mrs. Mauleverer, too, had been treated to the Countess’s theory about her. Probably not, for she was going on in her calm inconsequent way: “Yes, I have sometimes wondered if we ought not to take you about the district more, but I am afraid I have been selfish: I do not want to lose you, my dear. Still, you are quite right, and anyway, if you do ride, it will be a good thing for you. You have not seemed quite yourself just lately, your color is not so good as I like to see it; Gibbs was remarking on it to me only yesterday. Yes, you must certainly take up riding, and as to my habits, I remember now, they are put away in the closet in the red room. Go and help yourself; it will be better than to trouble Martha.”
Marianne quite agreed with her, although, as so often, she felt vaguely troubled at this new instance of the curious power Martha seemed to have over her mistress. Meeting her in the hall, she hurried to disarm criticism by explaining what she was doing.
“The mistress’s riding habits? Yes”—Martha looked merely amused—“they are in the red room all right, but you’ll find them a shabby enough lot, I’m afraid.” And then, with her usual near-insolence: “Going riding with Lady Heverdon, are you?”
But Marianne, hurrying away down the corridor, pretended not to have heard.
The riding habits were indeed, at first glance, a sufficiently depressing spectacle. It looked as if the closet in the red room bad not been turned out for several years and the habits hung in it, limp, and dusty and smelling of age. Carrying the whole armful to her own room, Marianne once more encountered Martha who smiled derisively: “Not exactly the height of fashion, I am afraid.”
“No,” said Marianne shortly, closed her door and laid the miserable garments out on her bed. All but one, she dismissed at once, as hopeless, and determined to get Mrs. Mauleverer’s permission to take them to the village next time she went there to take her Bible class. The poverty-stricken mothers of some of her children would be glad enough of the material, she knew. But in the meantime she turned her attention to the one possibility, a dark-blue worsted habit, very much less worn than the others, presumably because there was a long, jagged tear in the skirt. The first thing was to take it downstairs and out by the side door into the garden. In the privacy of the little cutting garden, she shook and brushed and brushed and shook until she had got rid of every particle of dust. Then she took it back indoors and tried it on. It was as she had suspected. The whole outfit was so much too large for her that she would be able to get rid of most of the tear in the course of altering it. Dressmaking, fortunately, seemed to be another of the things she could do. She pinned her alterations firmly together, borrowed some blue sewing thread from Gibbs and returned to the garden to air the dress as she sewed it.
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