Since Isidore and Fanny were both perfectionists, it was a long and exhausting time before the last tiny silver button was fastened and Marianne was pronounced ready.
“You’ll be the belle of the ball, miss, and no mistake.” Fanny handed Marianne her long white gloves and stood back to survey her handiwork. “Oh, miss, do you think he’ll pop tonight?”
“Pop?”
“The question, miss. The betting’s even in the servants’ hall. I don’t see as how he’ll be able to help it, the way you look tonight. Oh! Your Grace!”
The Duchess stood in the doorway and looked Marianne over: “Excellent,” she said at last. “Just what I intended.” And then, with a laugh: “And what do you think of me? Will they think they’re getting their money’s worth of Mad Duchess?”
‘They must think you superb, ma’am.” And indeed Marianne was amazed at the transformation that Isidore, dark-brown velvet, and diamonds had made in her friend’s appearance.
“I think they will treat me with respect, which is what I intend. A great bore, but worth it for once. Come down and let’s see what John thinks of his reformed aunt. Not that he’ll have eyes for me. Time we were down anyway. I asked the Duke to come early.”
“The Duke?”
“The Duke. Wellington, of course. Wellesley, when I knew him and no higher in rank than my James. A long time ago, but not one to forget his friends. Said he’d be early; he’ll be early. With two Dukes to support you, I should think you’ll do. There, John”—he was awaiting them at the bottom of the sweeping stair—“what do you think of us?”
“Magnificent,” he took her hand, and, “Enchanting,” he took Marianne’s, and held it for a moment before turning back to his aunt. “I am afraid you are going to be a great disappointment to the people who expect to find you wearing cavalry boots, ma’am.”
“I intend to be. Is everything ready?”
“Down to the last bon-bon dish. And here, I rather think, is the first guest. To your places, ladies; the battle begins. Remember my dances, Miss Lamb. A host must have some privileges, and I think I shall have earned them.”
From then on it was a whirl of introductions, curtsies, and compliments. At first, Marianne tried to remember the names that were shouted, in stentorian tones, down the great entrance hall, then she gave that up and concentrated on remembering faces, and, still more, on watching for a flash of recognition in one of the pairs of eyes that met hers with admiration, or curiosity, depending on the sex of their owner. It never came. Her program was scrawled full of the initials of her intended partners, but she knew none of them, and, it seemed, none of them knew her, though most of them apparently wanted to. The rooms were full, now, though not yet crowded, and it was almost time for the dancing to begin. If she was not careful, her program would be quite full, and still Mauleverer had not come. If he did not, the whole evening was dust and ashes so far as she was concerned.
The musicians were striking up in the long hall. “Good,” said the Duchess, “you two children must go and lead the set. I’ll stay on duty here a while. Did I see D’Orsay asking you for a dance, my dear?”
Marianne consulted her program. “Yes, I believe so.”
“Then your social worries are over. Though why that French dandy should have such influence is more than I can imagine. Tell him I said so, if you wish. No, perhaps best not.”
The Duke took her arm to guide her through the crowd. “How does it feel to be a success, Cinderella?”
Dust and ashes were bitter in her mouth, but she managed a smile. “Unreal,” she said.
Since no royalty was present, the Duke was to take out the Princess de Lieven for the first dance. His aunt, who intended to leave nothing to chance tonight, had told the Duke of Devonshire that he was to partner Marianne, and he had laughed and cut short Marianne’s protestations by thanking his old friend for the privilege. Now, with the musicians striking up their first notes, and the couples forming below them down the long hall, Marianne found herself grateful for the choice. The Duke was kindness itself, but now that the music had begun his slight deafness made conversation impossible. She was free to spend all the attention she could spare from the half-forgotten intricacies of the quadrille in searching the room for Mauleverer. By the end of the first dance, she was sure he was not, at least, on the floor, and was glad to take the Duke’s arm for a stroll about the rooms before the next set was formed.
Still there was no sign of Mauleverer, though she half-thought she had caught a glimpse of Lady Heverdon in one of the farther rooms. But they were so crowded that it was difficult to be sure. The Duke was complimenting her in his diffident pleasant way on the crowds who had come to do her honor. The music was striking up again, the loud preliminary chords proclaiming that the next dance was to be a waltz. Her own Duke—absurd to think of him like that—the Duke of Lundy was approaching to claim her hand.
As she took his arm, she was aware, for an instant, through a gap in the crowd, of a tall figure making, it seemed, an unusually purposeful way toward the dance floor. Could it be? She was almost sure it was Mauleverer—but a huge dowager in a saffron-colored turban bore down on them, effectively cutting off her view. The dowager, it seemed, was some kind of a cousin of the Duke’s and must, positively insisted on being presented to what she archly called the belle of the ball. She had a pair of snapping gray eyes with which she looked Marianne up and down so sharply, while pouring out a flood of flattery, that Marianne felt out of proportion relieved when the Duke made their apologies and led her once more toward the floor. This, she knew, was the other side of the picture. On the surface, perhaps, society was welcoming her enthusiastically, but what of the currents below?
The Duke gave her arm a little, encouraging shake. “You mustn’t mind Cousin Hester,” he said. “I’m afraid she has let herself be a trifle embittered by a family of five plain daughters.”
“Oh dear.” Laughing, grateful to him, Marianne could not resist turning for one last eager glance in the direction where she thought she had seen Mauleverer.
Once more, the Duke seemed to read her thoughts. “I do not believe he is here yet,” he said.
“I thought I saw him.” She did not pretend not to understand.
“Do not...” and he swung her into his arms without finishing the words of—what? advice? warning? that he had intended. How kind he was—and how well he waltzed. Impossible, now, to be looking about the room, and yet, as she surrendered herself to the intoxication of the dance, Marianne could not help wishing that it was other arms that held her. To waltz with the Duke was pleasure, with Mauleverer it would be ecstasy. Angry with herself for the ingratitude of the thought, she bent backward to smile up at her partner, and, as she did so, saw Mauleverer standing on the stair that led up to the musicians’ gallery. Just time to take in the white, set face, then the swoop of the dance had taken her clear across to the other side of the room. When she next looked at the little, winding stairway, he was gone. But, surely, he had seen her and would approach her at the end of the dance?
It seemed as if it would go on forever. At each climax of the music she thought, now—now it will be over, now I shall see him ... And each time the musicians slowed, swooped, and went on again. Distracted, she missed the beat and would have stumbled if the Duke’s firm arm had not held her up.
“You are tired? Would you like to go and see who my incorrigible aunt is bullying now?”
“A little. Yes, do let us.” Might not Mauleverer have gone to demand an explanation from the Duchess?
But when they found her, surrounded by an admiring group of elderly men who had once been her husband’s fellow officers, there was no sign of Mauleverer.
After that, the evening began to seem endless, and Marianne, fighting down despair, went through the motions of pleasure with a smiling face and a heart of lead. It was almost a relief when, dancing the third quadrille with an enthusiastic young cavalry officer, she heard an ominous tearing of material as he trod heavi
ly on one of her silver flounces. Excusing herself, while he muttered his horrified apologies, she made her way to a small downstairs saloon that had been turned into a ladies’ retiring room for the evening. The room seemed heavenly dark and quiet after the color and confusion outside and, for a moment, she thought it was empty and that at last she could give way, if only for a moment, to the misery in which she felt herself drowning. Then, as she moved forward, she was aware of movement in the darkest corner of the room. Someone was before her in wretchedness. She was sitting there, a dark figure bent almost double on a little sofa and shaking with silent sobs. Forgetting her misery, her flounce, her waiting partner, Marianne hurried across the room. “My dear madam, what is the matter? What can I do for you?”
“Marianne!” At her voice, the woman raised her head. It was Mrs. Mauleverer, but Mrs. Mauleverer appallingly changed. She seemed to have aged ten years since Marianne had last seen her. Her cheeks had fallen in and her eyes were shadowed with enormous dark circles, but worst of all was the tremor that shook her despite herself. She held out a trembling hand. “Oh, Marianne, why did you leave us?”
Marianne took and held it gently, feeling it icy cold. “I had to, ma’am. But—you are ill. You should not be here. Let me have your carriage sent for.” No time now—and yet how could she help it—to be thinking of Mark.
“No, no.” The hand in hers shook more convulsively than ever. “I am not ill. Do not say so. They will send me away; I know it. Lady Heverdon has it all planned: to an asylum for aged persons. Marianne, why did you leave me? Oh, if only I had my drops!”
“Your drops?” Marianne thought she was beginning to understand.
“Yes. Mark made Martha stay behind in the country. I cannot manage without my drops; I don’t care what they say. Is it better to be like this?” She raised her ravaged face to Marianne’s. “Perhaps I had got to depend on them, but surely it is better to be able to sleep ... to enjoy life ... than to be like this. Oh, Marianne, what shall I do?”
“Come up to my room, to begin with. You cannot possibly appear as you are. Fanny, my maid, will look after you.” She was helping her, as she spoke, to the second doorway, which, fortunately for her plan, communicated directly with the back stairs. “But how could Mr. Mauleverer let you come like this?”
“He did not know. He notices nothing these days. Oh, Marianne, how could you do it? I am afraid he will marry her, and we shall all be wretched.” She was sobbing now, and shaking so hard that Marianne had difficulty in getting her up the stairs. Luckily, the upstairs corridor was empty, since every available servant had been pressed into service below. Marianne settled the shaking, sobbing old lady on her own bed and rang for Fanny. She came almost at once, exclaimed at sight of the tor flounce, and went busily to work with needle and thread while Marianne gave her her orders about Mrs. Mauleverer. “She must stay the night, of course.” She let Fanny run a comb through her curls. “Arrange about a room, Fanny. No”—in answer to her question—“I do not think a doctor will be necessary. At least it can wait till the morning. There, thank you, that will do admirably. I must not stay longer from the ball.”
“No indeed, miss. Your partners will be missing you sadly, such looks as you are in. Oh, miss, has he—”
“I must go.” Marianne cut short the question. “Take good care of Mrs. Mauleverer for me.”
Hurrying downstairs, she found the Duke looking for her. “My dance,” he said. “I began to fear you had played me false, Miss Lamb.” He took her hand to lead her out on to the floor, but she held back for a moment.
“Will you do me a great kindness?”
“You have only to name it.”
“I must speak to Mr. Mauleverer—Lord Heverdon—alone.” Furious, she felt her color rise as she spoke and hurried to explain. “His mother is ill; I have taken her upstairs; I must speak to him about her.”
“Of course.” He spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world and she could have kissed him for it. “I will find him at once; but where shall I bring him?” He looked about the crowded room. “I know—the little office; it is stacked full of furniture, but you will not mind that. Go there, and I will bring him to you.”
“Oh, thank you.”
The little office was indeed full of the furniture that had been moved out of the other rooms, but Marianne managed to find the corner of a chair to sit on, and rested for a moment, tormenting herself with how to begin her interview with Mauleverer. She need not have troubled herself. He began it. Shutting the door behind him with the carefully controlled gestures of white-hot rage, he loomed over her, taller, surely, and gaunter than she remembered him.
“Well, Miss Lamb, so you condescend, at last, to see me. Are you sure you can spare the time? With your ducal messenger waiting outside, too! Have you been contriving at ways to insult me still further than you already have, that you make him, of all people, your messenger?”
This was worse than she could possibly have imagined. “Insult you? What can you mean?”
“You thought it a compliment then, to accept my suit, and then vanish in the night when you discovered a better prospect? I grant you, Mauleverer of Maulever Hall is but a poor catch compared with the Duke of Lundy; what I cannot understand is why you troubled to play me at all. Was it merely for the entertainment of the thing? Or, perhaps, to keep your hand in? You must have been deathly bored in our country solitudes. I cannot imagine how you stood it so long, with nothing but a crazy old woman for your companion.”
Mercifully, this brought anger to her assistance. “The crazy old woman you speak of is your mother, sir, and it is about her that I wish to speak to you. Oh, it is true that I had had some idea of explaining that disappearance of mine. I had meant to tell you about the letter I wrote to you, and the tears that fell on it, but what is the use? You have condemned me unheard. It would merely be wasting my time, and yours, for which, I understand, you have found better occupation. I will not keep you long from Lady Heverdon, but there is something I must say to you. It is my fault, I think, that you discovered the hold Martha had over your mother. I should have known that you would act with your usual rashness. Have you no affection for Mrs. Mauleverer? Do you not understand that such an addiction as hers must be handled gently? To cut her off, so brutally, from the drops on which she has relied, who knows for how long, for the comfort and companionship you have so signally failed to give her—it is surprising she is only ill, and not mad indeed. And as if that was not bad enough, you have let Lady Heverdon threaten her with being put away in some prison of an asylum for the aged—I did not think you could be so cruel.”
“Oh, now I am cruel, am I? It does not occur to you, I take it, that the beginning of her present affliction—and I grant you that she is very far from well—but have you stopped to think when it was that she became ill? It was the day you left us, Miss Lamb, without a word, without a sign. Do you at all remember how happy we thought we were, the three of us, that night? And, in the morning, we woke to find you gone. We will not speak of what I felt, since I am sure it cannot interest you, but my mother had become devoted to you. I think she would have minded less if it had been I who had vanished. If you could not bring yourself to explain to me, you might at least have left some word for her.”
“Oh, my God.” This was turning the tables indeed. “I never thought of that. But you must believe me when I tell you that I did write the fullest explanation I could to you. I can only imagine that Martha destroyed it, in the hopes of making still more trouble.”
He laughed, the wild sardonic laugh that she remembered and feared. “She certainly succeeded. But tell me, pray, what was this explanation of yours? You were my affianced bride, remember? It is hard to believe now, is it not? We were to be married within a week. Can you imagine it? My mother’s first words when she came downstairs that morning were of wedding favors. Then—I had to tell her. And you blame me that she is ill.”
“You must let me explain.”
“I am
eager to do so.” But his face remained closed and hard as ever.
“You see—I had learned that I was married—or so I thought.”
“Married! Not, I take it, to His Grace, the Duke of Lundy?” His fierce, sardonic glance swept over her figure in its flounces of silver gauze. “I must say that for a married lady, you give a very good imitation of a debutante. If I did not know better, I might fall in love with you myself, so innocent you look in that dress. I wish you the best of luck, Miss Lamb, but spare me, I beg, your explanations, which can only insult my intelligence still further.”
She was fighting back tears. “Mark, try to understand. A man came—a stranger—and told me he was my husband; proved it to me, as I thought. And—there was worse than that. It must have meant a scandal ruinous to your career.”
“Should not I have been the best judge of that? If you had loved me as I loved you, you would at least have given me the chance. Oh, don’t cry, Miss Lamb; it is too late for that. And you will ruin your ball gown.” Angrily, he held out his handkerchief. His use of the past tense had been too much for her self-command.
“As if I cared for that. Oh, Mark—” But the door behind him had opened, to reveal Lady Heverdon and, behind her, anxiously hovering, the Duke.
“Thank God I have found you.” Lady Heverdon swept forward with a swoosh of crimson draperies. “Your mother has vanished, Mark. I have looked for her everywhere. I hardly dare think what new mischief she may have got herself into. Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Lamb. I declare I quite failed to recognize you in that dress. I hope I see you well.” Her curtsy, as she spoke, was the most delicate of mockeries.
Returning it, Marianne spoke to Mark. “Your mother is upstairs, in my room. My maid is looking after her. I think it will be best if she spends the night here.”
“You are very kind,” he said formally. “If it is not too much trouble.”
“Of course it is no trouble. I love Mrs. Mauleverer.” She added it almost angrily.
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