First Comes Marriage

by Mary Balogh

  Margaret Huxtable was now twenty-five years old. As the eldest of the family—their mother had died six years before their father—she was the one who, at the age of seventeen, had taken charge of the home and her siblings. She was still unmarried as a consequence and was likely to remain so for at least a few more years since Stephen, the youngest, was still only seventeen. No one had thought, perhaps, to point out to her that he was the same age now as she had been when she had shouldered such a huge responsibility. To her he was still just a boy. And heaven knew he needed someone to look after him.

  Margaret was a rare beauty. Tall and generously proportioned, she had shining hair of a chestnut brown, large blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, and a classically lovely face. She was reserved and dignified in manner, though there was a time when she had been known more for the warmth and generosity of her character. There was also a thread of steel in her that was all too ready to show itself if anyone threatened the happiness or well-being of any of her siblings.

  Because they had only one servant—Mrs. Thrush had remained with them after their move even though they could not really afford her, because she refused to leave or to accept more than her room and board in payment for her services—Margaret did a great deal of the housework herself and all the gardening. Her garden in summer was her pride and joy, one of the few outlets for the more sensual, spontaneous side of her nature. It was also the envy and delight of the village. She helped anyone who needed her and was often called out to assist the village physician in changing bandages or setting broken limbs or delivering babies or feeding gruel to the elderly and infirm.

  Margaret had had a number of would-be suitors over the years, even a few who were willing to take her and her siblings, but she had quietly and firmly discouraged them all. Even the man she had loved all her life and would probably love until she went to her grave.

  Katherine Huxtable was twenty. She too was beautiful in the tall, slender, willowy way of youth. She had a figure, though, that would mature well. Her hair was lighter than her sister’s —a dark blond highlighted with golden threads that glinted in the sunlight. She had an eager, mobile, lovely face, her best feature being dark blue eyes that often seemed fathomless. For though she was good-natured and almost always cheerful in company, she loved also to be alone, to take solitary walks, to lose herself within her own imagination. She wrote poetry and stories whenever she had the time.

  She taught the infants — the children aged four to five—at the village school three days a week and often helped the schoolmaster with older pupils on the other days.

  Katherine too was unmarried though she was beginning to feel a little uneasy about her single state. She wanted to marry—of course she did. What else was there for a woman except to be a burden upon her relatives for the rest of her life? But though she had admirers galore and liked most of them, she could never decide which one she liked best. And that, she realized, probably meant she did not like any one of them sufficiently to marry him.

  She had decided that it was sometimes a distinct disadvantage to be a dreamer. It would be far more comfortable to be a practical person without any imagination. Then she could simply choose the best candidate and settle into a worthy life with him. But she could not simply wave a magic wand and make herself into what she was not.

  And so she could not make a choice. Not even a sensible one. Not yet, anyway, though the day would come, she supposed, when she would have to decide—or remain forever a spinster—and there would be an end of the matter.

  Stephen Huxtable was tall and very slender, not having yet quite grown into his man’s body. And yet there was an energy and natural grace about him that saved him from appearing either thin or awkward. His hair was almost purely golden, and it fell about his head in soft curls that defied taming—much to his occasional despair and just as much to the eternal satisfaction of almost all who knew him. His face was handsome and brooding when it was not filled with laughter. His blue eyes gazed intensely at the world, the outer sign of a restless nature that had as yet not found sufficient outlet for his energy and curiosity and need to master his world.

  He played hard. He rode and fished and swam and played sports and indulged in 101 other energetic activities with his peers. If there was any scrape to be got into, he was sure to be there. If there was any scheme to be dreamed up, he was sure to be the chief dreamer. He was liked and admired and followed almost worship-fully by all the boys and young men in the neighborhood. He was adored by women of all ages, who were charmed by his good looks and his smiles but were captivated most of all by the brooding restlessness of his eyes and lips. For what self-respecting woman can resist the challenge of taming a potential bad boy?

  Not that he was bad … yet. He worked as diligently as he played. For as the only boy of the family, he was the privileged one. It was for him that Margaret had set aside the portion their mother had brought to her marriage so that when he was eighteen he would be able to go to university and thus secure a good future for himself in steady and perhaps even lucrative employment.

  Much as Stephen sometimes chafed against the yoke of his eldest sister’s authority, he understood too the sacrifice she was making for his sake. There was very little money left for her daily needs or for Katherine’s.

  He studied with the vicar and worked long and hard at his books. The career that a good education might bring him would be his means of escape from the confinement of life in the country. But because his was not an entirely selfish nature, he planned one day to repay his sisters for all they had done for him. Or, if they were married by then and did not need his support, then he would shower them and their children with gifts and favors.

  That, at least, was his dream of the future. But in the meanwhile he worked to make his dream come true. And played hard too.

  There was a fourth member of the family.

  Vanessa, formerly Huxtable, now Dew, was twenty-four years old. She had married Hedley Dew, Sir Humphrey’s younger son, when she was twenty-one and lost him a year later. She had been a widow for a year and a half now, but had remained at Rundle Park with her in-laws rather than return to the cottage to be an added financial burden there. Besides, her in-laws had wanted her to stay. They had needed her. She was a comfort to them, they had always assured her. How could anyone resist being needed? Besides, she was fond of them too.

  Vanessa was the plain one of the family. She had always known it and had accepted it with cheerful resignation. She was not as tall as Margaret or Katherine. Neither was she small enough to be called petite. She was not as shapely as Margaret or as willowy as Katherine. The least said of her figure the better, in fact, since really there was nothing much to say. If the family hair color went in a descending scale from Margaret’s vibrant chestnut through Katherine’s gold-flecked dark blond to Stephen’s golden, then Vanessa’s fell somewhere on the line that was difficult to describe with a single word—or even a word with an adjective added. Her hair color was really quite uninteresting. And the hair itself had the misfortune of waving without curling. If ever she wore it loose, it fell in heavy ridges down her back rather than in a single shiny column like Margaret’s.

  And her face—well, it was a face on which all the features were exactly where they ought to be, and all of them functioned just as they ought. But there was nothing outstanding, nothing memorable, about any of them. Her eyes fell short of being blue though no other color quite described them either. Perhaps the best that could be said of her face was that it was not exactly ugly.

  None of her family had ever called her ugly—they loved her. But she had been her father’s favorite because she was willing to curl up in his study, reading, while he worked. And he had often told her that reading was a pastime she should continue to cultivate since it was very possible she would never have a home of her own to run. It was a roundabout way of telling her that she could never expect to marry Her mother had stated the fact more baldly and had encouraged her to acquire houseke
eping skills that she could offer Stephen and his wife after he married—or Margaret or Katherine after they married. She had been her mother’s favorite too.

  Her parents had felt a special tenderness for their plain Jane—her father had sometimes called her that with a fondness that had taken any sting out of the words.

  But she had married. She was the only one of the family to have done so thus far, in fact.

  She had always marveled over the fact that Hedley Dew had loved her so passionately, since he had been as beautiful as a god. But he had. Loved her passionately, that was.

  Vanessa was not the sort of person to resent her sisters—or even her brother—for being better-looking than she. And she was certainly not the sort to hate herself merely because she was not beautiful.

  She was as she was.

  Plain.

  And she adored her siblings. She would do anything in the world to secure their happiness.

  She left Rundle Park on foot early in the afternoon of St. Valentine’s Day, as she did three or four times every week, in order to call upon Margaret at the cottage. They had always been each other’s best friend.

  She set out on her walk at perhaps almost the exact time when Viscount Lyngate and George Bowen were settling into their rooms at the inn, blissfully unaware of what was in store for them for the rest of the day.

  And Vanessa herself was unaware of their arrival— of their very existence, in fact.

  Fate very often creeps up upon people without any warning.

  She walked briskly. It was a chilly day. And she had something particular to tell her sister.

  “I am going,” she announced as soon as she had removed her winter cloak and bonnet inside the cottage door and greeted her sister in the parlor.

  “To the assembly?” Margaret was seated beside the fire, busy as usual with her needlework, though she looked up to smile warmly at her sister. “I am so glad you have decided, Nessie. It would have been a shame for you to stay away”

  “Mama-in-law has been urging me for the past week to go,” Vanessa said. “And last evening Papa-in-law himself told me that I must attend and moreover that I must dance.”

  “That was very kind of him,” Margaret said, “but no more than I would expect him to say. And it is high time. Hedley has been gone for well over a year.”

  “I know” Tears threatened, but Vanessa blinked them away. “Which is exactly what Papa-in-law said. I cannot mourn forever, he told me, and Mama-in-law nodded her agreement. And then we all had a little weep and the matter was settled. I am going.” She smiled a slightly watery smile as she took a chair close to the fire.

  “What do you think?” her sister asked, shaking out the garment she had been working on and holding it up for Vanessa’s inspection.

  It was Katherine’s primrose yellow evening gown, which had been looking slightly limp and tired when she wore it at Christmas. It was at least three years old. Now it sported shining blue ribbon sewn in two bands close to the hem and in one thin band around the edges of the short sleeves.

  “Oh, very smart indeed,” Vanessa said. “It makes the dress look almost new again. Did you find the ribbon in Miss Plumtree’s shop?”

  “I did,” Margaret said. “And a pretty penny it cost too. Cheaper than a new gown, however.”

  “And did you buy some for yourself too?” Vanessa asked.

  “No,” her sister said. “My blue gown is just fine as it is.”

  Except that it was even older than Katherine’s yellow—and more faded. But Vanessa made no comment. Even the one length of ribbon was an extravagance that would have put a dent in Margaret’s purse. Of course she would not have spent so recklessly on herself.

  “It is,” she agreed cheerfully. “And who notices your dresses anyway when the person inside them is so beautiful?”

  Margaret laughed as she got to her feet to drape the dress over the back of an empty chair.

  “And all of twenty-five years old,” she said. “Good ness, Nessie, where has the time gone?”

  For Margaret it had gone in caring for her siblings. On being unswervingly unselfish in her devotion to them. She had rejected a number of marriage offers, including the one from Crispin Dew, Hedley’s older brother.

  And so Crispin, who had always wanted to be a military officer, had gone off to war without her. That was four years ago. Vanessa was as sure as she could be that there had been an understanding between them before he left, but apart from a few messages in his letters to Hedley Crispin had not communicated directly with Margaret in all that time. Nor had he been back home. One could say that he had not had any chance to come home with the country constantly at war as it was, and that it would have been improper anyway for a single gentleman to engage in a correspondence with a single lady. But even so, four years of near-silence was a very long time. Surely a really ardent lover would have found a way.

  Crispin had not found one.

  Vanessa strongly suspected that her sister was nursing a severely bruised heart. But it was one thing they never spoke of, close as they were.

  “What will you be wearing this evening?” Margaret asked when her question was not answered. But how could one answer such a question? Where did time go?

  “Mama-in-law wants me to wear my green,” Vanessa said.

  “And will you?” Margaret settled in her chair again and for once sat with idle hands.

  Vanessa shrugged and looked down at her gray wool dress. She had still not been able to persuade herself to leave off her mourning entirely.

  “It might appear that I had forgotten him,” she said.

  “And yet,” Margaret reminded her—as if she needed reminding, “Hedley bought you the green because he thought the color particularly suited you.”

  He had bought it for the summer fete a year and a half ago. She had worn it only once—to sit beside his sickbed on that day while the revelries proceeded in the garden below.

  He had died two days later.

  “Perhaps I will wear it tonight,” she said. Or perhaps she would wear the lavender, which did not suit her at all but was at least half mourning.

  “Here comes Kate,” Margaret said, looking through the window and smiling, “in more of a hurry than usual.”

  Vanessa turned her head to see their youngest sister waving to them from the garden path.

  A minute later she burst in upon them, having divested herself of her outdoor garments in the hallway.

  “How was school today?” Margaret asked.

  “Impossible!” Katherine declared. “Even the children are infected with excitement about this evening. Tom Hubbard stopped by to ask me for the opening set, but I had to say no because Jeremy Stoppard had already reserved it with me. I will dance the second set with Tom.”

  “He will ask you again to marry him,” Vanessa warned.

  “I suppose so,” Katherine agreed, sinking into the chair closest to the door. “I suppose he would die of shock if I were to say yes one of these times.”

  “At least,” Margaret said, “he would die happy.”

  They all laughed.

  “But Tom brought startling news with him,” Katherine said. “There is a viscount staying at the inn. Have you ever heard the like?”

  “At our inn?” Margaret asked her. “No, I never have. Whatever for?”

  “Tom did not know,” Katherine said. “But I can imagine that he—the viscount, that is—will be the main topic of conversation this evening.”

  “Goodness me, yes,” Vanessa agreed. “A viscount in Throckbridge! It may never be the same again. I wonder how he will enjoy the sounds of music and dancing above his head for half the night. It is to be hoped that he does not demand we stop.”

  But Katherine had spotted her dress. She jumped to her feet with an exclamation of delight.

  “Meg!” she cried. “Did you do this? How absolutely lovely it looks! I will be the envy of everyone tonight. Oh, you really ought not to have. The ribbon must have cost the earth. B
ut I am so glad you did. Oh, thank you, thank you.”

  She dashed across the room to hug Margaret, who beamed with pleasure.

  “The ribbon caught my eye,” she said, “and I could not possibly leave the shop before I had bought a length of it.”

  “You want me to believe it was an impulsive purchase?” Katherine said. “What a bouncer, Meg. You went there deliberately to look for some suitable trimming just because you wanted to do something nice for me. I know you of old.”

  Margaret looked sheepish.

  “Here comes Stephen,” Vanessa said, “in more of a hurry than Kate was.”

  Their brother saw Vanessa looking out at him and grinned and waved a greeting. He was wearing his old riding clothes, she could see, and boots that looked as if they were in dire need of a good brushing. Sir Humphrey Dew allowed him to ride the horses from the Rundle stables whenever he wished, a favor Stephen had accepted gladly, but in return he insisted upon doing some work in the stables.

  “I say,” he said, bursting into the parlor a minute later, smelling of horse, “have you heard the news?”

  “Stephen.” Margaret looked pained. “Is that manure on one of your boots?”

  The smell alone would have answered her question.

  “Oh, dash it.” He looked down. “I thought I had cleaned it all off. I’ll do it right away. Have you heard about the viscount staying at the inn?”

  “ I told them,” Katherine said.

  “Sir Humphrey has gone to bid him welcome,” Stephen told them.

  “Oh,” Vanessa said with a slight grimace.

  “I daresay,” Stephen said, “he will find out what the man is doing here. It is a strange thing, is it not?”

  “I suppose,” Margaret said, “he is just passing through, poor man.”

  “Lucky man,” Stephen said. “But whoever passes through Throckbridge? From where to where? And why?”

  “Perhaps Papa-in-law will find out,” Vanessa said. “And perhaps he will not. But doubtless we will all live on even if our curiosity is never satisfied.”