Harriet got on tremendously well with them, although it had to be said that Harriet got on pretty well with everyone, when she was around. She tended to hop here and there a lot, but when she was present she was very good company, if she chose to be. Now, it seemed, she chose to be good company to the Hays, and, to judge from the laughter emanating from her when she was with them, she was good company for them too.
The Hays were a curious couple, with a strong family likeness which manifested to odd effect in them. They both had hair of an auburn tint, which looked striking on Miss Hay, but was merely a nondescript red on her brother. Her delicate, small-boned prettiness on him looked like frailty. Both of them were so slender that one feared a strong wind would blow them over. On her, this made men rush to protect her, whereas they thought her brother a weakling. He was, however, very clever, and when the covers were removed and the port was passed around, he could discourse sensibly and with a great deal of cogency on almost any subject. Monty suspected Miss Hay of the same capability, but if she had such a skill, she wisely kept it to herself.
“Well, Hay,” Carrbridge said one evening after dinner, as the gentlemen lingered over their port, “I promised you the earth if you would but save my wife, and you have delivered on your part of the bargain. It remains for me to keep mine. What would you ask of me, and if it be reasonable and within my power, you may have it.”
“My lord, I ask nothing of you,” Hay said at once. “I entered upon my profession with the aim of saving life, so I expect no undue reward for doing so. Under normal circumstances, I would present you with the bill for my professional services, but it seems to me that I have eaten enough of your beef and drunk enough of your excellent claret to more than offset that amount. There is no further debt to be discharged.”
“No professional debt, perhaps,” Carrbridge said with a smile. “Nevertheless, I would express my gratitude to you in some way. Do you want to practise your skills in London? Then let me buy you premises, and tell everyone I know about your abilities.”
“I have no wish to minister only to the very wealthy,” Hay said quietly. “The poor, the hard-working and suffering poor, who cannot pay for a doctor, or even an apothecary, and must depend upon the village herbalist for treatment — I should always wish to help them as well.”
“Then let them be helped,” Carrbridge said. “How would you do it? Travel from place to place, treating all who need you? Or a hospital, where your patients may come to you?”
“Sagborough has no hospital,” Merton put in.
“I…” Hay stopped. “My lord, you would do that?”
“Of course, if that is what you wish.”
“The Carrbridge Hospital,” Merton said, and there was a murmur of approval around the table.
“No, no,” Carrbridge said. “The Hay Hospital. Credit must be given where it is due, to the man with skilful hands, not the man who happens to have inherited a great deal of money. How wonderful it must be to be useful, Dr Hay, to be able to use your talents to do some good in the world. I may have a noble lineage, but I am a very ordinary fellow at heart and sometimes I feel very ineffectual.”
“But you have a seat in the House of Lords, my lord,” Hay said in astonishment. “You have the best position in the world to do some good. You could take a role in government, you could introduce bills to protect those unable to protect themselves, you could mitigate the effects of poorly worded bills. You have great power, my lord.”
“Good lord, I suppose I do! I could make speeches when something comes up that I disagree with, instead of merely grumbling about it. I have the right, after all.”
“The right and the duty,” Hay said. “Just think how much good you could do.”
“Careful, m’boy,” Uncle Ambrose said, patting Carrbridge on the arm. “Fellow will turn you into a Whig if you are not on your guard.”
Hay smiled. “There are worse things to be, Lord Ambrose.”
“Not many,” he muttered.
~~~~~
Melissa was thrown into a whirlwind of preparations for her wedding. Every day, she spent hours in the library attic choosing rugs and chairs and sideboards and paintings to fill the house at Kirby Grosswick. The villagers had rallied round, and already several of the main rooms were ready to be furnished, more servants had been engaged and they had the use of the marquess’s third best carriage, for they could not afford their own. Monty had been to the village several times, riding through the snow-covered fields, for the roads were still impassable, to conduct services or to oversee the repair work, and he reported that there would be several rooms ready for use not long after the wedding.
“I shall be able to sleep there occasionally,” he said. “But you will want to stay here until all is in perfect order.”
They were in their apartment, engaged in putting books on shelves in the sitting room, her four books, and his scores of collections of sermons and theological works.
“Why should you think so?” she said. “I am not used to grand living, so having only a few rooms open will not trouble me at all. So long as there is a parlour and dining room, and enough bedrooms for ourselves and a guest, that will be enough. It will be exciting to watch all the work going on around us.”
“A guest? Are you planning to entertain so soon?” He stopped, book in hand, to gaze at her in bewilderment.
“I thought Miss Hay might like to stay,” she said. “I like her. She is not so grand as all your relatives, and she wishes to do something for the villagers. She has a great deal of medical knowledge that she would like to put to use.”
“Oh. Well, why not?” Monty said. “If Connie can spare her.”
“I think it is more a question of whether her brother can spare her,” Melissa said with a laugh.
Monty looked puzzled. “Why should her brother not spare her?”
“Because she helps him with his medical work. That is why she came with him, when he arrived that dreadful night. She knows as much as he does about anatomy and medicines and illness.”
“Surely not! For he has trained at university and at several hospitals, and must have attended many patients.”
“And she goes with him. She reads every book and journal and treatise that he does, and he relates to her the information he learns in lectures. She is every bit as capable a physician as he is. It would be very helpful to have her examine some of the poorer villagers at Kirby Grosswick, who cannot afford even the apothecary’s fees. Unofficially, of course.”
She could see Monty struggling with this idea. “I am not convinced,” he said at length, “that a woman is suited to such work. A woman may have practical skills, in midwifery, for instance, but for diagnostic work and for the proper management of illness, why, that is more suited to the abilities of men, I should say. It is not seemly for a woman to step outside her own sphere.”
“It may or may not be seemly,” Melissa said, “but Lady Carrbridge would have died without Marina. She it was who suggested a way in which the baby’s position might be altered, and she it was who put the attempt into practice. She has such small, delicate hands, and she is very deft, and so she succeeded, where Dr Hay, perhaps, might not have done. Think how dreadful it would have been if Lady Carrbridge had died, and the child too. Yet now they are both well, and there is only happiness in this house, instead of grief. Is that not a conclusion worth having, even if it required a woman to step outside her own sphere?”
He thought about it. That was something she liked about Monty, he never dismissed an idea immediately, he always thought through the ramifications first.
“It is a dangerous way of thinking,” he said, and his face was serious. “To argue that the end result is good, and therefore the steps necessary to achieve it must be good — that is false logic. If a family is starving, and a man steals food for them, why, they are no longer starving and that is a good thing, therefore the theft must be good, too. Is that what you would assert?”
“No, because stealing r
emoves something from a person with a legitimate claim to it, so there is a loss to balance the good. But if Marina helps one of her brother’s patients — where is the harm? No one is injured by the action.”
“Only society itself, which is unsettled by the event. Life goes on a great deal more smoothly if everyone knows their proper place, and keeps to it. But let us say no more of this. It pleases me that you chose to tell me of this matter, for there should be no secrets between husband and wife, but it would do no good to broadcast it more widely.”
She bowed her head under this husbandly edict, rather uneasy at his reference to secrets. No doubt he still wanted to know all her history, but she had no intention of telling him — not yet! When her birthday came and she was of age, then she would confess all and let him respond however he saw fit, but oh, not yet! He must not know yet.
“This one,” he said, with a heavy volume in his hand. “This must go beside my bed, for I refer to it every morning. Which is my bedroom?”
“This one,” she said, opening the door to the empty room, waiting for Monty to stamp his own character on it. “Your dressing room is through that door, and that door—” She broke off, blushing.
“Your room?” Monty said, gently.
She nodded, almost unable to speak. But she must! She had to try, in order to keep things right. “Monty…”
He was not listening, for he was staring at the door, mesmerised. “I daresay I shall spend more time in there than in here.” And he turned his head, and smiled down at her in a way that made stomach flutter.
Oh, if only! How lovely it would be! But she must try to deter him. “Monty… would you mind if… if… you stay in this room… just at first?”
The disappointment on his face tore at her like a knife wound. Poor Monty! But he answered her with the utmost gentleness. “You are still upset about Connie. That is understandable. And your life has been very unsettled — so many changes, and… and all happening so swiftly. It is a great deal to come to terms with. I will not press you, although… no, you must do what is best for you, Melissa.”
“Thank you,” she said, with heartfelt sincerity. It was one less thing to worry about in the coming weeks.
The final days until the marriage flew past. The village road was still so deep in snow that, in the end, it was deemed too bad to take the horses out, and several grooms were dispatched to the parsonage with a hand-pulled sledge to bring Mr Hay to Drummoor. There in the chapel Melissa became Lady Montague Marford, and wondered greatly at her elevation in rank, from nobody in particular to a titled personage, and even though it was only a courtesy title, nevertheless as she walked out of the chapel everyone, from the kitchen maids to the marquess himself, bowed or curtsied, and addressed her as ‘my lady’.
The wedding breakfast featured a vast array of delicacies, and twelve different flavours of syllabub, which made Melissa laugh, although she felt obliged to try every one. That evening, Lord Carrbridge took her in to dinner as the guest of honour, and later, when the carpets were rolled up for some impromptu dancing, he led her onto the floor to take her place at the head of the set. Then she danced with Monty, and then with Lord Reggie, and Lord Humphrey, and everyone was wonderfully kind to her. Even the aunts were smiling. She felt like the worst kind of impostor, and wondered what they would say when they discovered that she was not yet of age and the marriage was invalid.
Later, much later, Monty took her arm and they made their way upstairs to their apartment, where he kissed her gently and bade her good night in that soft voice of his without a hint of reproach, and disappeared into his own room. And when her maid had readied her for bed and left her, Melissa buried her face in the pillow and cried herself to sleep.
14: Hopes And Fears
Monty felt curiously changed by marriage. Becoming a clergyman should have been more of an earthquake in his life, but he had wanted that, had dreamt of it, for years, and he accepted it as his God-given right, something he was destined to be. But he had never seen himself as a married man, and it was a strange experience. Sharing morning chocolate in their little sitting room, still in their robes, or hearing his brothers speak about Lady Monty, or receiving letters of congratulation addressed to ‘Lord and Lady Montague Marford’ — all of it was oddly different. He would get used to it in time, but for the moment it was unsettling.
Merton came to see him the morning after the marriage. “My lord, I am having a little difficulty with the notice of your marriage to be sent to the Gazette.”
“You want to know something of the lady’s father, I daresay,” Monty said with a sigh.
“It is usual,” Merton said apologetically. “’…daughter of Mr So-and-so of the county of Something.’ Or even, ‘Miss Melissa Frost, lately of Wherever.’ What should you prefer me to say, my lord?”
“Since we know nothing of her home or her family, or even whether she has a father, legally, it is best to say nothing. Just put, ‘…lately married to Miss Melissa Frost.’”
“Might I enquire of Lady Montague what her wishes are in this respect?” Merton said.
“If she wished us to know anything of this nature, she would have disclosed it,” Monty said. “Therefore let us not trouble her needlessly about such matters.”
“Very good, my lord.”
That Saturday, Monty rode over to Kirby Grosswick with his valet and groom to spend his first nights at his new home. He expected to find a parlour fit to be used. What he did not expect was to find his sister and a dozen other ladies in residence there, with fabrics and ribbons and thread spread over every surface, and several small children playing with wooden toys on the rug before the fire.
“Hatty? I am very pleased to see you, and pray feel free to use my home as your own, but whatever are you doing here?”
She laughed. “Oh, Monty! You are such a good brother, not to explode with outrage, for I am taking advantage of you shamelessly. Is Lady Monty with you? Oh, thank goodness, for I knew you would not mind but Melissa is more of an unknown.”
Monty could not but agree with her on that point.
“This is Bridget, Monty,” Harriet went on. “You have heard all about Bridget Kelly, of course.”
“Of course. How do you do, Miss Kelly.”
“And these are Bridget’s girls. They have been obliged to leave the house in Sagborough rather suddenly, and Carrbridge has been so stuffy and refused to do anything at all for Bridget, just because she is female. He is perfectly happy to help all father’s little offshoots, but only if they are male, which is so annoying. I plan to make Westbury House over to the girls just as soon as I can get the tenants out, for it will be so much better for the children to be out in the country, would you not agree? And no censorious neighbours to worry about. But that will take time, so we were a little stuck for somewhere to live just for the moment, until I remembered the house you leased for the female servants, which is perfect, quite perfect. But then there was not enough coal at Oakdown House and so we came over here so that they can work, you see, just until I can get some coal delivered. Please say you do not mind, Monty dear.”
“I do not mind, so long as ‘obliged to leave rather suddenly’ is not a euphemism for ‘burnt the house to the ground’ or ‘hiding from the constables’, or anything of that nature.”
Harriet chuckled. “Nothing of the sort, but the neighbours discovered that Bridget’s girls are not, as they had supposed, respectable widows of soldiers killed in the Peninsula, and took umbrage. They seemed to think that having a child out of wedlock is an infectious disease, and all their daughters would be struck down by it immediately.”
“Oh dear,” Monty said.
Miss Kelly rolled her eyes. “We lived in that house for three years, my lord, without the least difficulty, living very quietly, but then Lady Harriet came along and—”
Monty laughed. “Harriet is not terribly good at living quietly. Well, you may have Oakdown House for the moment, at least so long as the Drummoor maids do not mi
nd, and you may use my coals and, no doubt, eat my mutton, too. Do you have everything else you need? Beds and so forth?”
“Oh yes, the house is decently furnished, unlike yours, and Bridget was able to pack up everything from Sagborough, so they have blankets and mutton, and you need not fear that you have to feed anyone. And it will only be for a little while… a few months, perhaps, until Westbury House is empty.”
“I believe grandfather expected you to live at Westbury House when he gave you the use of it,” Monty said, smiling.
“And so I did, for a while,” Harriet said. “But it is so dreadfully dull living out in the country on one’s own. One cannot always fill the house with friends, and you know me, Monty, I like to flit here and there. So Bridget may have it, and we must hope I live for a great many years, because it reverts to Carrbridge when I die. Monty, it is very late in the day to be arriving. I was just about to go back to Drummoor myself. Are you staying here tonight?”
“And tomorrow night also. That way I shall be able to conduct two services tomorrow, and I shall expect Miss Kelly and her ladies to attend one of them.”
“Three days married, and already you are leaving Lady Monty all alone at night,” Harriet said with a sigh. “There is no romance in your soul, Monty.”
“As a clergyman, my first duty is to God and my parishioners, not my own wishes,” he said gently, but his heart was filled with sadness. Lady Monty was always alone at night, and so was he, and only one of them was happy about it.
That evening he dined alone, and retired to the truckle bed in what would one day be his dressing room. On Sunday, he conducted Matins and a sung Eucharist, preached a sermon on the subject of love, for he felt his congregation would expect it of him, and returned alone to the parsonage.
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