“So we’ve found you at last,” she said. “I have the whole family outside in a hackney carriage, and two lawyers. What do you propose to do?”
To her chagrin, her stepfather did not seem disturbed. He leaned back in his chair and pulled out a newspaper from his pocket.
“I can always read them the Advertiser,” he said. “ ‘Missing from her home since April the seventeenth, Mary Anne Thompson, alias Farquhar, daughter of Elizabeth Mackenzie Farquhar, of 2 Black Raven Passage, Cursitor Street, being fifteen and three-quarters years of age, blue eyes, light brown hair, fresh complexion, neat in person, etc., etc.’ Or have you seen a copy of this already?”
He tossed it across to her and she caught it from habit, as she might have done the pamphlets in old days, in Bowling Inn Alley.
“Since we’ve both given your mother the slip, let’s call it quits,” said Bob Farquhar. “Meet Mrs. Farquhar number two, or Mrs. Favoury as she used to be called, and Martha, the hope of our declining years.”
Dignity was out of the question, further pretence impossible. In a moment Mary Anne was sitting with them, eating bread and cheese. “The point is,” she said, “if I give you away you do the same to me. There’s nothing in it. We’re dependent on each other.”
“That’s fair sense,” he answered.
“You’re a bigamist.”
“And you need slapping.”
“I’ve only known Joseph eight weeks, but he’s the one man in the world for me.”
“I’ve known Mrs. Favoury seventeen years, and it’s taken me that long to decide between her and your mother.”
“You went backwards and forwards between them?”
“I could hardly fix both at the same time.”
Mrs. Favoury, not in the least put out, drank tea and beamed upon them. Mary Anne, remembering the silent reproach of her mother, thought it odd that her stepfather had taken as much as seventeen years to come to his decision. Still, he had made the best of both worlds. And it was no longer remarkable that Martha had his nose and eyes.
“So you’ve set your heart on this fellow?”
“We’ve set our hearts on each other.”
“Prospects good?”
“He has a rich father.”
“That’s more than you have. Will his father play fair?”
“He will when he meets me.”
“H’m. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.”
“Marry at length, no youth together.”
She was not going to wait seventeen years for Joseph Clarke, whatever her stepfather might have done for Mrs. Favoury.
“All right. What do you want me to do?”
“Give your consent, as my father.”
“Who’ll pay the license?”
“Joseph will. He does as he’s told. I’ll arrange it. We can be married here, in Pancras. I saw the church from the road.”
Bob Farquhar sighed. “We’ll have to flit again afterwards,” he said. “Once I put my name to your marriage certificate here they’ll find me. Your mother will demand her dues.”
“I’ll take care of Mother.”
“Come along, then, and let’s take a look at your fancy fellow.”
Mutual suspicion made both men wary. The contrast between them was great. The one tall, elegant, disdainful; the other short, thickset and bluff. They eyed each other like two dogs before a fight. It was no moment for parlor talk, for pleasantries, for exchange of views. The situation called for an immediate visit to the nearest tavern. They remained within for two hours, and emerged like brothers.
“Remember always, my dear,” said Mrs. Favoury to Mary Anne, as they watched the two men coming towards them arm in arm, “there is nothing in life that can’t be settled with a glass. Or perhaps two glasses. It opens the heart and deadens the brain, which is just what we women want with our men. You can take it, the marriage is on.”
She was right. Consent had been given. The following day, while the two men slept off the effect of the bond between them, Mrs. Favoury and Mary Anne bought the license and saw the curate of St. Pancras church. Mrs. Favoury agreed that neither she nor the round-faced Martha, her eyes agog with excitement, should be present at the ceremony, for fear of disclosure. Mary Anne slipped two shillings into the hands of the gravedigger, who agreed to act as witness on the day. Nothing remained but to bring the bridegroom to the altar.
“Joseph, wake up! It’s our wedding morning.”
“Wet or fine?”
“Fine. Not a cloud in the sky.”
“All the more reason to stay in bed. The day will keep.” He yawned, he stretched, he permitted himself to be dressed. That shirt, the cambric one, not worn before. No, no, the satin waistcoat. Cravats? But it would take him half the day to match that waistcoat. He had seen just the thing in a hosiery shop in the Strand. Could they not take a hackney carriage and drive to the Strand before going to the church? Impossible. The time was fixed. The curate waited.
“Do you like my gown? I bought it yesterday. Mrs. Favoury was generous.”
“I think it enchanting. But why pink? Pink will clash with the salmon of my cravat.”
“No one will notice. Not in the early morning. Please make haste.”
It was the nineteenth day of May, seventeen hundred and ninety-two. They walked across the fields to the little church of Pancras in warm sunshine, hand in hand. It was not only Mary Anne’s wedding morning, but her sixteenth birthday.
Halfway to the church Joseph clapped his hand to his coat pocket. “Something fearful has happened. I’ve forgotten the license.”
“I have it. And there has to be a second witness. I thought of that too.”
“Who is it?”
“The gravedigger at Pancras church. I’ve given him two shillings for his pains. Hurry. They’re waiting.”
Bob Farquhar, a flower in his buttonhole, was standing in the porch with the minister by his side.
“We thought you’d changed your mind after all,” he said.
Mary Anne held on to Joseph’s arm and smiled. “Never in this world,” she answered.
Her stepfather looked at them and wondered. The young dandy, with his remote, disdainful air. Mary Anne, flushed, excited, radiant in her new pink gown. “Let’s hope you feel the same about him in ten years’ time,” he said.
The Reverend Sawyer led them into the church. It was very simple, very plain. A gleam of sunshine filtered through the stained window to the whitewashed walls. Outside they could hear the birds singing from the cluster of elms beside the church, and the distant baaing of the sheep in Pancras Fields.
Mary Anne made her responses in a clear, decided voice. Joseph was inaudible. Afterwards, in the vestry, she signed her name first, above his, in the book.
“And the honeymoon?” enquired the minister, charmed to have made the innocent couple man and wife. “Where is that to be spent?” He passed the marriage certificate to Joseph and awaited the reply. Joseph turned enquiringly to his bride. The honeymoon having gone delightfully the past five weeks, surely there was to be no change? Life was to continue as before—driving, dining, spending in the busy whirl of London, bed long after midnight, rising around noon.
Mary Anne smiled. Curtseying to the Reverend Sawyer, she took the marriage certificate from Joseph’s hands.
“We are going to Hampstead,” she said. “My husband is in need of rest, fresh milk and country air.”
She stared steadily at Joseph. Joseph stared back at her. Bob Farquhar chuckled and nudged the gravedigger in the ribs.
It was the first challenge.
7
They had been into the subject again and again, but nothing ever came of it. Argument was useless: they had reached an impasse.
“Then you lied to me all along?”
“I never lie. It’s far too much trouble.”
“You told all of us, that first evening in Black Raven Passage, that you had plenty of money.”
“So I had, at the time. It went very fast. I
can always make more.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“By cards, by speculation, by backing horses. Something will turn up.”
“But your father. You told me your father was rich, that you could always get money from him?”
“It’s a little involved.”
“What do you mean, involved?”
She put her hands on his shoulders and turned his face towards her. Why always the careless laugh, the apologetic shrug of the shoulder?
“Joseph, you must tell me the truth. Now, and have done with it. I love you. I promise I won’t be angry.”
They had been married six weeks, and although she had had her way with him—they had lived quietly in lodgings, and the air had brought some color to his cheeks, so that he had lost his dissipated look—he still refused to discuss the future, and when she asked if he had written to his father changed the subject.
The quiet of Hampstead was beginning to pall. She wanted to return to town, to see her mother and the boys, to parade as Mrs. Joseph Clarke, daughter-in-law of the well-known builder, to enjoy to the full the honest status of a married woman.
Already they owed two weeks’ lodging, and it was ridiculous to live in this shabby furtive fashion when a word to Joseph’s father would establish their footing and bring them respect wherever they chose to go. Mary Anne wanted the usual perquisites of a bride—the wedding presents, the congratulations, the gifts of linen and silver, the settling into a house of her own (it needn’t be large, to start with). What was the sense in being married if none of these things was yet hers?
There would be a baby in the autumn, too—she was certain of it now. Nothing but the best would do then; Joseph must understand that. She looked at him closely again. The dark eyes flickered and would not meet hers.
“What is it, Joseph?”
Suddenly he put his hand in his pocket and brought out a letter. “Very well,” he said, “you win. I saw no sense in spoiling our amusement with it before. You had better read it.”
There was no beginning to the letter. It was dated the twenty-third of May, four days after their wedding, and headed Angel Court, Snow Hill:
“Since you have proved a continual disappointment to me from your early boyhood, I was not surprised to hear of your disgraceful conduct from Thomas Burnell. I would remind you that it is not the first, nor the second time that you have misbehaved in such a fashion, and it was the hope of keeping you out of mischief that caused me to apprentice you to Burnell in the first place. I never had any belief in your talent, which Burnell confirms is negligible. Your only hope, as far as I can judge, is to earn an honest pound or two as a jobbing mason, under supervision. I note you have married the young person whom you seduced, which knowing your character, surprises me, but the matter is of little interest as I have no intention of receiving either of you. For the sake of your mother I will allow you, for your lifetime, the sum of one pound a week, or fifty-two pounds annually, but you may expect nothing further from me than this, and at my death what money I possess, and the business also, will go to your brothers.
“Your father, Thomas Clarke.”
Joseph watched his bride as she read the letter. Would she keep her promise that she would not be angry? Her temper was quick, he knew that. Already there had been scenes, battles, words of anger, which, so far, he had been able to disperse by acts of love.
But what would she say to the reference “misbehavior” in his father’s letter? “Neither the first, nor the second time.” That was the poser. Must he confess to the unfortunate affair of the innkeeper’s sister? Or the more lamentable business of the wagoner’s wife? Must he face reproaches, tears, a storming from the room, followed by a slamming of doors and a return to her mother?
Joseph did not know his bride as well as he thought he did. The allusions to his former conduct left her unmoved. His method of approach the first week at Black Raven Passage had explained, without words, all she wished to know about his past. One sentence above the others in the letter hit her hard, “I never had any belief in your talent, which Burnell confirms is negligible.” This alone mattered. And the suggestion for the future, “A jobbing mason, working under supervision.” Was this the only outlook for the years ahead?
She tore the letter into pieces and smiled at her husband. “So much for your father,” she said. “What about your brothers?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “John is the eldest,” he said, “the son of my father’s first marriage, and years older than the rest of us. Married, with a family, and living in Charles Square, Hoxton. We get along well together. Thomas is my father over again, hardworking, careful, always suspicious of me. James has nothing to do with the business—he is at Cambridge, studying to be a parson—and I have a sister too. But what’s the use of discussing them? I’m the black sheep. They’ve always had it so.” It helped his mood to disparage his family. By throwing the blame on them he absolved himself. Nothing was ever his fault.
“What about your uncle?”
“What uncle?”
“You told us, at home, that your uncle was Alderman Clarke, who might be Lord Mayor of London one day?”
“Oh, that.” Joseph shrugged his shoulders again. “In point of fact the relationship is very distant. I don’t know him at all.”
Every word he uttered confirmed her worst fears. The truth was, she realized it now, he had misled her all along. The Clarkes were not the wealthy family she had imagined them to be. They were tradespeople, like hundreds of others, with no very great connection, living in a small way. She had been so much in love with Joseph, and so blinded by his charm, that it had never entered her head to question him deeply. Had been in love. Was she already thinking in the past? No… never… never… She thrust the thought away.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” she said, “and that is to approach your brother John. Better leave it to me.”
Her natural optimism returned to her, as it always did when she had something to think about, something to plan. She would outwit brother John, just as she had outwitted Mr. Day, when he had allowed her to take back copy to read to Bowling Inn Alley. And quite a lot would depend on brother John’s wife.
She went to Hoxton alone. She chose a Sunday afternoon, when brother John, mellow from his morning in church and his Sunday dinner, would be comfortably at home, in the bosom of his family.
Charles Square, pleasant and quiet, the houses lately built, gave forth an air of stolid respectability.
“We could have the top floor,” she thought. “There must be two rooms in front, another at the back. No rent to pay.”
She wore her wedding gown of pink muslin. She looked very innocent and very young. The door was opened by brother John himself. She recognized him instantly. He was an older, flabbier, less elegant edition of Joseph, and, she decided, even easier to manage.
“Forgive me,” she said, “I’m Joseph’s wife,” and burst into tears. The effect was like magic. The brotherly assistance to the parlor, the anxious summons to his wife (thank heaven, a motherly face), the curious eyes of children, hastily thrust from the room, and, when calm had been restored and a cordial given, she told her story.
“If Joseph knew I had come, he would never forgive me. I told him I was going to see my mother. But I knew, from the way he has spoken to me about you both, that you wouldn’t turn me from the door. He has such an affection for you, but you know his pride.”
They doubted his affection and his pride, but when she smiled at them through her tears she turned doubt into sincerity.
“He nearly broke his heart over his father’s letter. You know about it, of course?”
They knew. It was distressing, but nothing could be done about it.
“The marriage was all my fault. I made him run away. I was unhappy at home, and my mother sent me to be housekeeper to a man called Mr. Day.”
She told the story of Mr. Day. The forcing—no mention of his diffident knock—the forcing of
the door at ten o’clock at night, the escape to Joseph.
“What would you have done in my place?” She turned to Mrs. John.
Mrs. John expressed horror, shock, concern. Poor child, what an experience.
“I knew my mother couldn’t protect me, and my brother Charley was not old enough. I had to go to Joseph, whom I could trust. It was improper to live together, so of course we were obliged to be married. My stepfather gave me permission.”
She realized, with growing wonder, that her story was really true. The forcing of the door was the only fabrication, but somehow it made all the difference.
“And where is your stepfather now?”
“He has gone to Scotland. We owe two weeks’ rent at our lodging in Hampstead, and they’ll turn us out by next Saturday. If only we had somewhere to go. You see, in the autumn…” She looked at Mrs. John. Mrs. John understood.
In less than a week Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Clarke had moved into Charles Square. The top floor was theirs. It was not what she had expected, standing before the altar in Pancras church, but no one need ever know that except herself. And the neighborhood was superior to Black Raven Passage. This gave distinction. She was able to assume a little air of condescension when she called upon her mother for the first time.
“So you see, it really suits us very well. The two households live separate, but we are there, if they want company. Joseph, of course, has his allowance from his father, and is quite independent.”
It was a different story from the one Mrs. Farquhar had heard from Thomas Burnell, but it served. She had missed her daughter. All was forgiven. The only thing she did not understand was the sudden reappearance of her own husband, who had chosen to vanish again after the wedding.
“How am I to live? What is to become of Isobel and the boys?”
“You must continue to take lodgers.”
“But how could you let your stepfather go? Surely you could have detained him, so that I could have some redress through the law?”
“Useless. He hasn’t a penny.”
Bob Farquhar was dismissed. He had done what was required of him, and could be forgotten. He did not fit into the picture of Charles Square. Neither the John Clarkes nor the Joseph Clarkes sat down to dinner in their shirtsleeves. Appearance and good manners before all. Mary Anne was prepared to thrust her stepfather out of her mind forever, but she had reckoned without the round-faced Martha.
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