“Yes, indeed. She has even, she tells me, tried her hand at writing a play herself, and promises to let me see the result. Is she not a talented young lady? Mrs. Norton will have to be looking to her laurels.”
Marianne looked up at him quickly. This was surely an odd comparison for a lover to make. Mrs. Norton was brilliant enough, by all reports. She had had a play produced, published two books of poems, and now ran almost a salon at her house at Storey’s Gate, but though gentlemen flocked around her, the better sort of ladies tended to look at her just a little askance, particularly since her name had been linked, in the gossip columns, with that of the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne. No, it was an odd comparison for a man’s beloved.
But Mrs. Mauleverer noticed nothing. She had drunk three glasses of her favorite sweet sherry to celebrate her son’s arrival, and her tongue flowed freely as a result. “Beautiful, brilliant, accomplished,” she said. “Yes, she is all of that, and more. But what I want to know, Mark, is when I am to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. I know she is in mourning still, but she carried it, I thought, lightly enough.”
“Yes,” said her son, “she does not wish to burden the world with her woes.”
Once again, Marianne gave him a quick glance. She had often heard Lady Heverdon use this very phrase. Had Mauleverer really reached the point of parroting his beloved’s words:, almost regardless of their sense? Or had she detected the very faintest trace of irony in his tone? No, she was deluding herself.
His next words confirmed this. “You are ready then, ma’am, to be relegated to dowagerdom? I am glad to hear it, for I do not believe Lady Heverdon, beautiful and brilliant as she is, would take kindly to sharing a house with her Mamma-in-law. From various remarks she has let drop, I rather think her view is that the elderly should keep themselves to themselves. Will you like retiring, with a companion, of course”—he sketched a bow in Marianne’s direction—“to genteel seclusion at Bath or Cheltenham?”
Her eyes shone. “You know I should like it of all things. I do not know what Lady Heverdon intends—if you have given her the right to be thinking thus—but I am sure I do not wish to be the kind of old lady who advises the housekeeper and dotes on her grandchildren. Bath will suit me very well.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “but I am not quite sure that it was precisely Bath that Lady Heverdon had in mind.”
“Oh well,” said the old lady, “Cheltenham will do well enough.”
Marianne was watching Mauleverer’s sardonic, almost harsh expression. Could Lady Heverdon have told him of her plan about the asylum for the elderly, and could he, already, have agreed to it? If so, he was far gone indeed.
But Mrs. Mauleverer had returned to the attack. “I can see that it is all settled between you,” she said, “and I do not see why you insist on maintaining this pretense of secrecy. If she is planning my retirement to Bath, of course she must have engaged herself to you.”
“One would think so.” He was still looking at her with that strange, sardonic expression. “What would you say then, ma’am, if I told you that she also has plans for this house? That will show you how deeply she is concerned over all that affects me. Heverdon Hall, she tells me, has such painful associations for her that she would as lief not live there—and truly it was a gloomy old barrack of a place, even before the fire. But Maulever Hall—this house she thinks quite unworthy of my dignity. It needs a whole new front; Gothic towers at each corner; a ruin in the shrubbery—oh, and I quite forgot, the kitchen wing is to be redesigned to resemble an abbey.”
“Good gracious,” said Marianne. “With those little pointed windows? How on earth will the servants see to do their work?”
So far he had addressed his remarks exclusively to his mother, now he turned almost as if he had forgotten Marianne: “Miss Lamb, you prove yourself a sordid soul. What are mere considerations of the servants’ convenience compared with the poetry of a Gothic elevation?”
She had never found him so irritating. “I am sorry if I strike you as sordid, but I cannot help thinking you will have a great many spoiled dinners. And as for the Gothic frontage, I think it a horrible idea. Maulever Hall has no great architectural distinction, it is true, but it looks what it is, a gentleman’s house, with all the marks on it of a family’s life. I know that one wing does not balance the other, but I like to think that that is because the Mauleverer who built the first one died fighting for his king against Cromwell and so diminished the family fortunes by his loyalty that the other wing had to be botched up as best the architect could. There is all of history in the appearance of your house as it now stands: give it a Gothic front and you will merely be making yourself ridiculous. And now, ma’am, I beg you will excuse me. I have a visit to make.”
Mauleverer rose to open the door for her and favored her with one of his baffling smiles. “Tactful Miss Lamb. You leave me, then, to discuss my prospects of happiness with my Mamma? I should, I suppose, apologize to you for discussing family matters so freely in your presence, but I look on you quite as one of us...”
“Why, thank you.” She could not keep the irony out of her tone, and swept him a faintly mocking curtsy as she spoke. Then instantly, she reproached herself and went on: “And thank you again for your goodness this morning.”
His smile was suddenly warm. “It was a pleasure, Miss Lamb.”
Marianne had promised to visit the cottage in the valley this afternoon and though the events of the morning had made her later than she liked she did not feel she could disappoint her friends there. Saddling Sadie for her, old Jim looked doubtfully at the sky. “There’ll be a storm later, miss, don’t ride too far. Sadie don’t like storms.” And then, with a glance across the yard to where a boy was rubbing down Prince, “It’s lucky you’ve got the master’s permission to ride her, ain’t it, miss?”
Should she confess that she had not? No, if she did, he would refuse to let her go, and she had been anxious about her friends since the last time she had visited the cottage. Mary had not been well; she must get there today and make sure she was better, or, if not, prevail upon Mrs. Bundy to allow her to find them some other assistance. Besides, she wanted passionately to get away from the house and, if possible, even from memory of the day’s galling events. It would have been better, she told herself, if Mauleverer had not come back so soon. If only she had had time to forget him, to teach herself to think of him as engaged to Lady Heverdon ... but instead there had been a moment this morning as he dealt ruthlessly with Mr. Emsworth when incorrigible hope had suddenly raised its head. Absurd, of course. She had known it at the time, and the conversation over luncheon had amply confirmed that knowledge, but hope is a hard-dying plant. She wrestled with it still as she rode over the moors toward Mrs. Bundy’s lonely house. Even at lunch there had been something, surely, a little odd about Mauleverer’s tone as he spoke of Lady Heverdon?
“Stop it!” She spoke aloud and Sadie pricked up her ears. It was time for the burying of hope, time too to be thinking of finding herself a new home. That, doubtless, was the reason for something she had felt as strange in Mauleverer’s tone. He was trying to work his way round to breaking it to her that among the other improvements Lady Heverdon planned for Maulever Hall was her own banishment. She would be well advised to burn her bridges today and ask Mrs. Bundy whether she might come and live with her. That she would be welcome she had every ground for believing, particularly since Mary’s illness ... And yet, dearly though she had grown to love her new friend, the idea was a misery. She did not want to leave Maulever Hall, and the less she wanted to, she told herself, the more essential it was that she do so. No use deluding herself that it was affection for Mrs. Mauleverer that kept her there, though of course she was fond of the kind, crotchety old lady.
Despite Jim’s warning, she had chosen the long way over the moor to Mrs. Bundy’s valley, hoping to bring some order into her tumultuous thoughts as she rode, and was still hardly halfway there when the air grew dark around her. Ji
m had been right; one of the moorland’s quick, violent storms was blowing in from the sea. She looked around her. No hope of shelter on these bleak uplands. Whatever she did, she was in for a drenching—but she must not burden Mrs. Bundy by arriving in such a condition. She turned Sadie’s head toward home and reproached herself as she did so for the sudden joy she felt that, after all, she need not arrange her own exile today. Tomorrow would be time enough...
Thunder growled far off, there was a flicker of lightning on the horizon and Sadie started nervously. “Sadie don’t like storms,” Jim had said, and suddenly Marianne remembered the episode of the snake and wondered if she had been wise to come. But it had seemed, at the time, weak-minded and timorous to give up her ride ... and besides, she had had to get away. Wise from experience, she took Sadie along at a steady pace, talking to her soothingly as she went. Big drops of rain began to fall; the next flash of lightning was nearer, and closely followed by its roar of thunder. Sadie shivered, but kept steadily on as the isolated drops thickened into a downpour. Marianne’s hat and habit were drenched in a few moments and the brim of the hat, drooping damply over her eyes, proved such an impediment to her vision that she pulled it impatiently off and threw it away. It was past praying for anyway. She had hardly done so when lightning forked down the sky above her and one tremendous crash of thunder deafened her for a moment. Her first instinct was to take a firmer grip on the reins for fear Sadie should bolt, but instead, the horse gave one convulsive start of terror and stood stockstill, shivering all over. Nothing would move her, neither persuasions, threats, nor blandishments. As the thunder roared on and the rain poured down she stood there, a shivering effigy of a horse, while water trickled from Marianne’s hair down the back of her neck. There was nothing for it, at last, but to dismount and try to lead the terrified mare toward home, inwardly cursing Jim as she did so for his far too casual warning: “don’t like storms” indeed. It was going to be a long walk home. At each lightning flash and thunder peal Sadie stopped again and had, once more, to be coaxed and blandished forward.
They were not even in sight of Maulever Hall when Marianne heard the sound of a horse being ridden hard toward her. Illogically, absurdly, she knew at once that it was Mauleverer, come to look for her, and the knowledge was its own misery. He would be furious, of course, because she had been riding Sadie against his will; he would think her ridiculous not to be able to coerce the brute into obedience, and, worst perhaps of all, he would see her in her present hatless, drowned, and disheveled state. Her habit was clinging to her now, like Caroline Lamb’s muslins and, at thought of Mauleverer, she was hotly aware of every emphasized curve.
There he was now, slowing Prince to a canter as they came over the hill and he saw the draggle-tailed procession she and Sadie constituted. Well, there was nothing for it but to set her teeth and go steadily on to meet him. Or at least, there would have been, if the closest flash and peal yet had not rent the sky just above her. Even she admitted terror this time: it seemed as if the lightning had struck the earth just beside her and, for a moment, stock-still like Sadie, she was shudderingly expecting to find herself hurt. But, no, the moment passed, she was merely cold, and wet and wretched. As for Sadie, she seemed beyond movement now, her head down in such a posture of terror and despair that Marianne forgot her own wretchedness in feeling, simply, sorry for her. Besides, as she whispered consolation and endearment into the velvety ear, she could pretend not to see Mauleverer, not to hear the infuriatingly regular beat of Prince’s hoofs. When she had listened to a horse’s hoofs before...?
He was beside her now, pulling Prince up and looking down at her. “Miss Lamb, I thought I told you Sadie was not safe for you to ride.” She had expected scorn, but this was fury; his face was white, the scar livid across it; he seemed not to notice the rain that streamed from the brim of his hat and down his cheek; his whole attention, like his angry eyes, was fixed upon her.
She would not lose her head. “You seem to have been right.”
“Of course I was right. Jim Barnes shall lose his position for this.”
“No, no; you cannot do that. I let him think you had given me permission.”
“I might have known it. Efficient, devious Miss Lamb: you did not exactly tell him, you merely let him think you had my permission. No wonder he looked so amazed, and so frightened, when the horse I had ordered for you arrived today.”
“Ordered for me?”
“You think me, I can see, totally neglectful. Did we not agree, some time ago, that riding exercise would do you good? Did I not say I must find you a horse? Well, it took me a little longer than I had expected to find just what I wanted ... and, in the meanwhile, you have been risking your life on Sadie.”
“No, truly, it was not as bad as that. She minds me well enough as a general thing.”
“Yes.” The old sardonic expression was back and it was a relief to her to see it. “I can see she does. That is why you are drenched to the skin and reduced to leading her. But I suppose I should be grateful it is no worse. She might have bolted with you, you know.”
“Oh”—how safe she felt now he was here—“she did that long ago.”
“And you went right on riding her! I hope you do not expect me to admire your courage, Miss Lamb.”
“Of course not. I know precisely what you think of me.”
So far he had been leaning down from the saddle to throw his words at her, but now he leaped lightly to the ground beside her. “Do you so? And how, pray, do I think of you?”
“Why, as a burdensome dependent who must be sent packing on your marriage.”
“I see. When I marry Lady Heverdon, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“You think you will accompany my mother to the Home for Distressed Gentlefolks Lady Heverdon has picked out for her. I believe you delude yourself, efficient Miss Lamb. I doubt if my beloved would consent to my making funds available for both of you. We will have our dignity to consider, remember: naturally I must take up my title; we could hardly be announced, at a ball, as Lady Heverdon and Mr. Mauleverer. There will be no need, even, to change the monogram on the bridal sheets, so in some ways it will be economical enough, but I do not believe we shall be able to keep you, Miss Lamb, able-bodied as you are. No, I think you must be thinking of packing up and moving on.”
“And so I have been.”
“Admirable. And who, pray, is to be the lucky man, if not Mr. Emsworth?”
“You seem to think there is no other career for a female but matrimony.”
“Well, is there? I grant you a few Phoenixes—a Miss Mitford or a Miss Austen may do well enough. Do you propose to commence author—and spinster—all at once, Miss Lamb?”
“I am convinced I have not the slightest talent that way, Mr. Mauleverer. Anyway, for the moment my one thought is to get home and into some dry clothes. I will think about my future some other time.”
“Practical Miss Lamb! But I am not sure that even I can persuade Sadie to move on while the storm still rages so. We will shiver here a few moments longer, I think, before we make the attempt, and you shall pass the time by telling me what you think of my bride-to-be.”
“What I think of Lady Heverdon! I hope I know my place better than that.”
“You speak like a kitchen maid! Your place indeed! Sometimes, Miss Lamb, I think you have a perfect genius for making me angry—indeed, I suspect you of doing it on purpose. I am sick to death of this mystery of yours.”
“Not half so sick as I am.”
“I expect not. You were not meant to be a patient companion, a humble dependent ... I have seen the flash in your eye often enough, the ironic twist of your lip when you thought no one was noticing you, humble and quiet-seeming in your corner. Why are you not afraid of me, Miss Lamb?”
“Afraid of you? Why should I be?”
“Because I have the devil’s own temper. Everyone knows that: servants tremble at my frown, my mother knows better than to rouse me—even my Lady
Heverdon—but you have made it clear you do not wish to discuss her. And here are you, dependent on me for the bread of charity, and without so much proper respect as will prevent you from taking my horse without permission—in direct contradiction of my orders—and risking laming her, or worse—in your mad gallops about the moors.”
She could not help laughing. “Hardly a mad gallop today.”
“There, I said so: you are not in the least afraid. Where are your tremors, Miss Lamb?”
“I am sorry to disappoint you—and, indeed, I was afraid, when I first heard you coming, only, you see, I was so very glad to see you.”
“Mauleverer to the rescue, eh? But do not delude yourself: I am no parfit gentil knight, Miss Lamb. I am a bad-tempered, ugly, frustrated man. They’ve thrown out my Bill again, you know, and Grey says I must go to the Lords, like it or not, and fight for it there.”
“Oh—I’m sorry.” Forgetting rain and cold she turned to him impulsively. “I am so sorry.”
And now, amazingly, he was smiling. “You really care, don’t you, Miss Lamb?”
“About your politics? Of course I do.”
‘To the devil with my politics. You care about me, Miss Lamb. The curling lip, the flashing eye were for my folly, but there have been tears, too, for my sorrows, laughter for my joys. Did you think me totally blind?”
“Not blind so much as besotted.” It was out before she could stop herself.
He laughed his harsh laugh. “As well you might. And indeed, it is true that Lady Heverdon had me enthralled for a while. I am not even ashamed to confess it to you. It is pleasant for an ugly brute like me to find himself so publicly adored, and by such a beauty. You thought she had me fooled to the top of my bent, did you not, observant Miss Lamb, sitting at your piano night after night and wasting your Beethoven on her dull ears? Well, perhaps I was, at first. She is surpassingly beautiful, you must admit—far far more lovely than you, even when you color up with anger, and your eyes sparkle as they are doing now. And she is a lady of family, of title, of accomplishments—there is no mystery about her. Am I not mad, Miss Lamb, to prefer a waif, a beggar who does not even know her own name?”
Maulever Hall Page 17