The two women left the room, Marianne feeling that her billowing silk dress sounded like a small typhoon. She could not wait to get it off, to be herself again. When they reached the foot of the stairs she turned to Ivy and found the other woman's blue eyes observing her while a thin smile twisted one corner of her lovely lips.
'Goodnight,' she said with nervous abruptness. 'Forgive me for leaving you so early but I am very tired and—'
'And you want to go and prepare yourself for the most important night of your life!' Ivy finished for her with a little crow of laughter which the bride found extremely irritating. 'You are right; Francis is not an easy man—'
The directness of this remark brought the colour flooding into Marianne's face but she said nothing. Picking up her wide skirts, she ran upstairs, her lace veil floating comet-like behind her. But Ivy's light, mocking laughter pursued her all the way to the door of her room.
CHAPTER TWO
Duel
The room was like a miniature archipelago with lace panniers, the great satin gown, wicker hoops and inumerable petticoats strewn about like a succession of pale islands. Marianne, now wearing only a simple bedgown made of fine lawn edged with lace and trimmed with narrow green satin ribbon, found herself gazing once more at her own familiar image mirrored in her glass. She saw a tall girl regrettably dark for an age which liked its women fair, and with a figure not yet fully rounded out. She had long, shapely legs, small hips and the neatest waist in all England. Her neck was long and slender, supporting an unusual heart-shaped face with high cheek bones and strong, proud features. The eyes, curving a little upwards at the corners to meet the sweep of delicately arched brows, were an elusive sea-green flecked with gold, and, almost as striking as their strange colour was their wilful, challenging expression. Even so, odd as it was, Marianne would have liked her face if it had not been for the big, soft mouth and the pale amber colouring of her smooth skin which gave her a faintly gypsy-like appearance and, in her own opinion, ruined everything. The canons of beauty of the day demanded cheeks all lilies and roses and Marianne was made miserable by her gipsy complexion for which not even her faultless hands or the heavy mass of silky black hair that fell below her hips could make up. Marianne's looks came from her father. Her mother had been all fairness but there was too much of the old stock of Auvergne in the girl's blood, with its occasional reminders of the Moorish knights of Abd-ar-Rhaman, joined to that of a Florentine ancestor. Gentle Anne Selton's British looks had been submerged.
Marianne sighed regretfully, thinking of the languishing eyes of Ivy St. Albans. She tried to restore her confidence a little with the thought that Francis had chosen her, had asked for her hand and surely that must mean beyond doubt that he liked her. Only, he had never told her that he loved her, had never even shown any disposition to make love to her although it was true there had been scarcely time. It had all happened so quickly. All the same, Marianne faced the night with trepidation, as though she stood on the borders of an unknown land, filled with half-suspected pitfalls. The books she was so fond of were generally rather reticent on the subject of wedding nights. The young bride would appear afterwards, blushing with her eyes modestly downcast, but with an invariable inward glow which, for the moment at least, Marianne was at a loss to explain.
She turned from the mirror to smile at Mrs Jenkins who having roundly refused to allow anyone else to attend her 'baby' on this great occasion, was now picking up the scattered garments. She smiled back.
'You look lovely, Miss Marianne,' she said comfortingly, 'and everything will be all right. So don't look so dismal!'
'I am not dismal, Jenkins – only nervous. Do you know if the gentlemen have left the table yet?'
'I'll go and see.'
Mrs Jenkins went out, her arms filled with lace and petticoats, while Marianne drifted aimlessly over to the window. The night was still and black with not a star in sight. Long trails of mist rolled wraith-like across the park. There was practically nothing to be seen but Marianne did not need sight to see in her mind's eye the vast, sweeping dark green lawns of Selton Hall, barely touched as yet by autumn. She knew though that they lost themselves in the distance beneath the heavy shade of centuries-old oaks. Beyond lay the quiet hills and deep woods of Devonshire where she could gallop for days at a time on the track of fox or deer. This was the time, before the onset of winter, that Marianne loved: the misty mornings and long evenings spent around the wood fire roasting chestnuts and, later on, skating on the frozen ponds, silver blades flashing with the exhilarating rush of speed past reed beds white with frost. All these had been the simple joys of her girlhood. Marianne had never known, until tonight, how much she loved the old house and grounds and the English countryside, the red earth and soft hills which had closed like strong arms round an orphan child. Standing on the brink of the night which would give her to Francis, she wished that she could run out once more into the wood, because the trees seemed to communicate to her some deep power against which fear and worry broke in vain. And, just at this moment, she knew that she was dreadfully afraid, afraid of disappointing him, of being thought plain or stupid. If only Francis had taken her in his arms once, just once. If he had only murmured some words of love to give her confidence and overcome her modesty – but no, he had always been polite, even affectionate, but Marianne had never yet glimpsed in the grey eyes of her betrothed that flame of passion she so longed to arouse. No doubt tonight would bring her all these things. The words to sweep her off her feet and the overmastering caresses. Meanwhile, she waited in a state of feverish anticipation which left her mouth dry and her hands icy cold. Surely, no girl was ever half so ready to become her husband's adoring and submissive slave, for Marianne admitted secretly that there was nothing she would not do for love of Francis.
She was, of course, largely ignorant of what was meant by the phrase, 'belonging to someone'. Aunt Ellis was no longer there to tell her, even supposing she herself had ever known, and old Mrs Jenkins certainly could not but she had a vague idea that its effect would be a transformation so complete that her whole being would be altered by it. Would she love the trees and the countryside tomorrow if Francis did not love them too?
A slight creak as the door opened broke into her thoughts. It was Jenkins coming back and Marianne turned quickly from the window to meet her.
'Well' she asked. 'What is happening? Have our guests retired yet?'
Mrs Jenkins did not answer at once. She took off her spectacles and began wiping them carefully. Marianne knew instantly that something was wrong. Jenkins always did that when she wanted time to think before she spoke.
'Well?' Marianne asked again.
'Most of them have gone up, my lady,' the housekeeper said at last, restoring the spectacles to her nose.
'Most? Who is still down there?'
'Your husband – and that foreigner, the man from America.'
Marianne's lips tightened ominously. What business had this American to keep Francis downstairs at an hour when all his thoughts should have been for his young bride? Certainly Jason Beaufort was the last person she wished to hear of just at that moment.
'Are they still at their port?'
'No. They are at cards.'
'At cards! At this hour?'
Mrs Jenkins spread her arms in a gesture of helplessness at Marianne's incredulous expression. The girl opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind. Slowly, she turned on her heel and went back to the window. Not even to old Jenkins who had brought her up would she show her disappointment. How could Francis dawdle over a stupid game of cards while she waited for him, trembling with an excitement that tied her stomach in knots and made her feel sick.
'Cards!' she said between her teeth. 'He plays cards while I wait for him!'
A spark of anger had begun to mix with her disappointment. Aunt Ellis had set great store by good manners and she would never have tolerated Francis's playing cards with a friend on his wedding night. It was not done in novels either. It was
a small thing, perhaps, but the incident brought home to her just how much she missed her aunt.
'Now he is all I have,' she thought bitterly. 'Surely he must understand that? I – I need him so.'
She shut her eyes tightly to force back the tears. Her anger rose. Patience was never her most shining virtue and now it made her so cross to think of her husband wasting his time with Beaufort that she had to fight back a sudden impulse to rush downstairs and drag him away. It was bad enough that the man had been invited to spend the night in the house at all. It seemed to Marianne that his presence hung over it, if not exactly as a threat, certainly as an incubus. This may have been due simply to her dislike of him but, however much she tried to talk herself out of it, the sense of a shadow looming over Selton Hall remained.
'Won't you let me put you to bed?' Mrs Jenkins spoke hesitantly from behind her. 'It would be best – well more fit for you to be in bed when your Francis comes.'
'When will he come?, Marianne blurted out angrily. 'Will he come at all?'
Her pride and her love were both suffering. She must count for very little in Francis's eyes. But perhaps, after all, his concept of love was very different from a seventeen-year old girl's. But she saw Jenkins looking at her unhappily and relented.
'I'm not feeling sleepy,' she said with an assurance she was far from feeling. 'I would rather stay up. But you, my good Jenkins, you go to bed. I – I shall read for a while.'
To support her words she took a book at random from a small bookcase and, settling herself in an armchair, bestowed on Mrs Jenkins a smile which did not deceive that good woman in the least. She knew Marianne too well not to see through any such attempt to pull the wool over her own or anyone else's eyes. However, thinking it quite right and proper for her young lady to behave with a dignity in which, to Mrs Jenkins way of thinking, her husband was at that moment singularly lacking, the housekeeper did not insist. With a prim 'goodnight, my lady,' she dropped a curtsey, smiled warmly and withdrew.
She was hardly gone before Marianne flung the book into a corner and gave way to scalding tears.
Was it possible a game of cards could take so long? Two hours later Marianne had exhausted every possible outlet for her disappointment and exacerbated nerves. She had walked up and down the room until her feet trembled, gnawed her handkerchief to shreds and wept her heart out until she was forced to wash her face in cold water to remove the traces of tears. Now, dry eyed but with burning cheeks she admitted at last that she was frightened, simply frightened.
What could be keeping him so long? No game of cards could warrant such behaviour on one's wedding night. Perhaps something had happened to Francis. At once, the girl's imagination began building up a succession of improbable catastrophes. He might be ill. She was seized by a mad, childish longing to run downstairs and see what was the matter but some remnants of pride made her pause in the doorway. Suppose Francis were really sitting calmly in the drawing room playing whist? What a fool she would look—
Forcing herself to think calmly, she decided to do the only thing which seemed to her properly dignified and at the same time to offer a little balm to her wounded feelings, lock her door, go to bed, put out the light and sleep or at least pretend to since she knew that underlying her anger was a wretchedness that made the chance of sleep remote.
All around was the silent house. The noises of the sleeping countryside came to her through the open window. The belated shriek of a nightjar sounded somewhere deep in the woods. Marianne went to the door, shot the bolt and, tugging off her dressing gown as she went, hurried into bed. But she had hardly laid her dark head on the lace pillow, after first hurling the one intended for Francis viciously to the ground, when there was a soft tap at the door.
Her heart lurched in her breast and she lay frozen, not knowing what to do. She was torn between resentment, whispering to her to leave the door shut and pretend to be asleep, and love telling her to run to meet him with open arms now that he had come at last. The tapping came again, a little louder. Marianne could bear it no longer. She slipped out of bed, ran barefoot to the door and opened it. Then she stepped back with a gasp of surprise. There, standing in the doorway, was not Francis but Jason Beaufort.
'May I come in for a moment?' the American said. He smiled, revealing a flash of strong white teeth. 'I have to speak to you—'
Suddenly conscious of the extreme thinness of her nightgown, which offered nothing in the way of concealment, Marianne fell upon her robe with a cry of horror and wrapped it hastily around her. Once safely enveloped in its many flounces of lawn and lace, she felt sufficiently confident to face her unexpected visitor. Anger at being so surprised made her voice tremble as she said coldly:
'You cannot be aware of the impropriety of such a visit at this hour, sir, or you would scarcely have ventured to knock on my door. What you have to say must be very grave to justify such behaviour. I am awaiting my husband and—'
'Precisely, and I am here to tell you he will not come – not tonight at least!'
Instantly all Marianne's anxieties returned and she blamed herself bitterly for disregarding them. Something had happened to her Francis! But the American had read her fears in her eyes before she had time to utter them.
'No,' he said, 'nothing terrible has happened to him.'
'Then you have been making him drunk?'
Without waiting for a permission which was not forthcoming, Jason came inside and shut the door carefully behind him regardless of Marianne's frown. He was inside the room almost before she was aware of it. He looked at her and began to laugh.
'Well, what kind of education have you had, my lady, to make you think that only the fact that he was dead drunk would keep a husband from his marriage bed? Where the devil were you brought up?'
'My education is no concern of yours,' she snapped, stung by the American's laughter. 'Only tell me what has happened to Francis and then go!'
Jason made a face and bit his lip.
'Hospitality would not seem to be your strong point either. However, what I have to tell you will take a little time – besides being somewhat delicate. May I?'
With a slight, mocking bow he went and sat down in a large tapestry-covered armchair that stood beside the fire, stretched out his long booted legs comfortably and looked up at the girl.
Marianne stood quivering beside the bed, her arms crossed over her breast, visibly struggling against a growing anger which made her eyes gleam like two hard green stones. The intruder looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, touched despite himself by her obvious youth and perhaps also by some private scruples. She had the animal grace of a young thoroughbred yet at the same time a warm femininity which touched some deep cord in the American. He found himself dwelling with a good deal of pleasure on the tantalizing and delightful vision he had beheld a moment before when she opened the door. But as he looked at her, a kind of rage welled up in him against Francis Cranmere and also against himself for being, through his own fault as much as the Englishman's, in this impossible situation.
At length, his silent scrutiny became too much for Marianne.
'Sir,' she broke out furiously, 'I warn you if you do not leave my room at once, I will have you thrown out, perhaps not by my husband, since you tell me he will not come, but by my servants!'
'If I were you, I would do no such thing. We, that is your husband, yourself and your humble servant are already in a somewhat delicate situation without your making it any worse by causing a scandal in the middle of the night. Leave your servants in their beds and listen to me. Come over here now and sit down. I have told you, I must speak to you seriously and I ask you to hear me with patience.'
All trace of mockery had vanished. The sailor's blue eyes were hard as granite. The words were an order and, automatically, Marianne obeyed. She came slowly and sat down facing him as he had said, forcing herself to be calm. Her instinct told her that something was coming for which she would need all her self control. She took a deep breath.
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'I am listening,' she said coldly. 'But be quick. I am very tired—'
'It doesn't show. Listen, Lady Cranmere (he stressed the name deliberately), what I have to tell you may seem strange but I reckon you can stand a shock without flinching.'
'You are too kind. To what do I owe this good opinion?'
Marianne said lightly making an effort to conceal her growing alarm. What could the man be getting at?
'Mine is a hard life and I can judge a person's worth,' Beaufort answered curtly.
'Then be good enough to cut these preliminaries and come to the point. What are you trying to tell me?'
'This. I played cards with your husband this evening—'
'At whist? I know – for several hours, I believe.'
'That is so. We played and Francis lost.'
The girl's lovely mouth curved in faint scorn. Was that all? She thought she knew what the American had in mind. A mere matter of money.
'I do not see how that concerns me. If my husband has lost, then he will pay, of course.'
'He has paid, but that is not all. Will you pay, also?'
'What do you mean?'
'That Lord Cranmere has lost not only everything that he possessed, which was little enough, but also all the dowry you have brought him—'
'What!' Marianne had gone very pale.
'He has lost your fortune, your lands placed in his keeping, and the house itself with all that it contains – and more besides!' Beaufort spoke with a contained fury that frightened Marianne. She stood up but her legs refused to bear her and she had to lean on the arms of her chair. Everything seemed plunged into confusion, she felt as though she was going mad. Even the solid walls of her room seemed to be swaying and lurching wildly.
She had often heard her aunt and the abbé de Chazay discussing, in shocked whispers, the extraordinary passion for gambling which possessed the youth of England, the endless, hectic gaming parties at which fortunes changed hands, the absurd bets on the most improbable things for the sake of which men were willing to stake even their lives. But it had never occurred to her that Francis, so calm and aristocratic, with his extraordinary self possession, might indulge in such follies. It was not true! It could not be true! It was not possible.
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