An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy)

by Lizzie Church

  Maggie knew not what to say, so for a very long time she just sat there and said nothing. Indeed, Mrs Berkeley did not appear to expect her to say anything. So they sat there in the window, drinking their coffee, looking out onto the bay. They watched the gentle wavelets, now shimmering in a bright afternoon sunshine, curling softly onto the sandy beach. They heard the screams and shrieks of the children as they raced each other in and out of the water, and the mewing gulls as they glided lazily overhead in the newly blue sky. Maggie began to feel as if she were dreaming – that she should awaken at any moment and find herself in her little bed overlooking the buildings at the rear of Grosvenor Place. Indeed, the feeling was so strong that she actually felt the need to pinch herself. Ouch! No, she was not dreaming. The situation was real. Yes, she was sitting here in Harvey’s library, drinking coffee with Mrs Berkeley. Yes, she had just heard a story that she already knew she would remember her whole life through. And yes, though she wanted to believe it little enough, she could now clearly see that – whatever her feelings, whether she were truly in love with William or not – there was no way in which she should be trying to prize him from the woman he had married – that it was entirely wrong of her to do so, and that, in thinking about it, that she would not wish to succeed in gaining him anyway.

  When Mrs Berkeley had first started to talk to her Maggie’s only feelings had been of fear and irritation. She had felt quite annoyed that the woman sitting before her had felt at all able to talk to her about what she was doing in her employer’s household, and had dreaded what she might say. She had expected a lecture – a smug, prim lecture about the questionableness of her morality and the need to remember her place. But now that the story was over, now that Mrs Berkeley had given her the honour of explaining her own situation so honestly and so unjudgementally to her, now that she realised just how much of an effort it must have cost her to raise the subject with her – well, what could she do but respect the woman for her generosity, and agree to take heed of her warnings after all?

  ‘Just one further word of advice, then, Miss Owens,’ said Kathryn, obviously feeling encouraged enough to capitalise on the progress she had already made. ‘Look to Mr Staveley instead. Mr Staveley is in grave danger of making a mistake of his own. Be there for him when he realises that he’s made that mistake – when he realises that he needs someone to help him through it. For need someone he most certainly shall, and when that happens you could do a lot worse than to be there for him by his side.’

  Chapter 15

  Maggie was so impressed by what Mrs Berkeley had just told her that she resolved to put an immediate end to her unsatisfactory flirtation with William and to put him completely out of her mind. After all, she was not blind to his flaws, just as she was not blind to his attractions. She knew full well that he was self satisfied, weak and easily led, that he was terrified of his wife and would do nothing to protect her – Maggie – in the face of that gentle lady’s wrath. Nor could she quite forget the almost arrogant complacency in his assumption that she would dress to please him, be happy to kiss him and – a thought that made her shiver equally with fear and anticipation - give herself to him and make herself his own. So she decided to take Mrs Berkeley’s advice, to take herself in hand, and to ensure that she was never in a position where she would be at risk of being alone with the wretched man again.

  This was the resolution, at any rate, and to some extent it was translated into action. For instead of putting herself in places where she knew that William might find her alone she altered her habits to ensure, as far as she could, that she should always either be in the company of others, or that she should evade his presence altogether. Rather than remain in her chamber of an evening she took to visiting Mrs Robinson, the housekeeper, in her little room downstairs. Rather than seeking out his looks, smiling at him, manufacturing opportunities to gain his admiration and attention she kept her glances entirely to herself, or engaged Mr Staveley in conversation, or concentrated on her sewing or a book – anything to avoid giving him the slightest encouragement. And whenever he did manage to catch her eye, whenever he did manage to engage her attention, she tried to ignore his pained expression and simply looked elsewhere instead.

  To some extent, therefore, her noble resolution was translated into action. But, sadly, Maggie was finding that intention, will, determination – call it what you like – was quite insufficient to school her mind into forgetting William altogether. She tried to tutor herself into seeing him just as he was – her employer, a man who found his wife tiresome and dull and was seeking some more attractive proposition with as little effort on his part as might reasonably be expended. She tried to tell herself these things, and at one level she managed to believe them. After all, she was an intelligent young woman. She could see that this was true. But no. It would not do. Even as she told herself this, even as she reminded herself of all the wise words that Mrs Berkeley had so kindly bestowed upon her – even then, deep down she was finding it singularly impossible to tame herself into seeing him in this way and letting her romantic dreams entirely slip away.

  Even worse, having not had the opportunity or the courage to tell William directly of her new resolve, the gentleman himself seemed intent upon becoming ever more attractive, ever more enticing to her in an effort to make her his. Although she tried not to look at them she was yet acutely and despairingly aware of his dark eyes following her wherever she happened to be, and was just as acutely and despairingly aware of her own wish for, and gratification in, him doing just that. It was actually quite disturbing. Maggie had always seen herself as a particularly resolute individual – someone who could easily get what she wanted, as long as she wanted it badly enough. That was all well and good when gowns or shoes or even employments were concerned. But on an occasion when it really mattered – on a question of love and lifelong happiness – she was finding that her resolution was simply not up to the job she was requiring of it. This was disappointing and she was a little annoyed with herself. And yet, in a contrary sort of a way, she was also just a little pleased. Perhaps Mrs Berkeley had been wrong. Perhaps she had weaved a magic spell over her that afternoon in Harvey’s library and persuaded her that what was actually true, was not. Perhaps she had led Maggie to believe that she was not in love with William, when it was patently obvious that she was. What then? Where did that leave her, in her own eyes and in those of the rest of the world?

  So one afternoon, when Mr Wright entered the schoolroom and closed the door behind him as Will and Augusta were taking their bread and milk with their brother and sisters in the nursery upstairs, instead of requesting that he open the door once again and avoid being entirely alone with her as she knew she should, she found that she was blushing uncontrollably, that her heart was beating noisily enough to awaken Mrs Staveley from her afternoon nap upstairs, and that instead of a polite little curtsy she was offering him a shy but beaming smile instead.

  ‘So you smile at me at last, you fascinating little puss,’ was her reward as he stepped close to her and took her hand. ‘I had feared that I had offended you, you have seemed so cold and remote of late. Perhaps you have been playing a little game with me? But if you were hoping to attract me more than ever you have certainly succeeded. You are making me mad with desire for you – and the more you ignore me, the more it seems to grow.’

  Maggie felt lost for words. She had certainly not intended to play with him, though perhaps deep down she had been hoping to attract him still.

  Mr Wright still held her hand and used it to encourage her from her seat and into his arms.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, shuddering a little. ’Oh, how I have dreamed of doing this – of holding you in my arms. All the time, I dream of this all the time. Every night I have lain awake next to Georgiana, wishing that it was you who lay beside me, knowing that you lie in that little bed of yours in the room next to ours – so close next to mine - not daring, not able to come and caress you and love you as I should, as I need to.
You are so soft, so gentle, so absolutely desirable. You know that I want you, don’t you, Maggie? You know that I want you and that one night I shall come and make you my own.’

  Maggie shivered – shivered through being in his arms, where part of her felt she belonged, and shivered at the thought of sharing her bed with him, of having him to herself in the darkness of the night.

  ‘Aye, you quiver – you respond to me, don’t you? - you cannot deny it. You cannot pretend to be unmoved by me, just as I cannot pretend to be unmoved by you. We were destined to get together like this, Maggie, you know we were. Aye you may resist me for a while – you may resist yourself for a while - but after that – eventually, when the passion and desire for each other become just too much to bear – then we shall get together and share the joys that I can promise we will share together.’

  Maggie could hear the nursery door banging loudly above them, and the sound of children shrieking noisily down the stairs. Will and Augusta’s break must be over. In another moment they would be back in the schoolroom. They must not catch their governess embraced within their father’s manly arms.

  Mr Wright must have been sensible of it as well.

  ‘Damn,’ he muttered, kissing her briefly before letting her go once again. ‘The wretched twins will be back directly.’

  He stood aside and pretended to look out of the window as his eldest children resumed their disorderly places in the schoolroom.

  ‘I have come to hear you read to me, Will,’ he said, picking up the first book that came to hand and passing it to his son. ‘I want to be assured that you are progressing entirely as you ought.’

  Unfortunately, the book that he had so randomly selected from the pile turned out to be ‘Lessons for Children of Two to Three’ and whilst it would scarcely be fair to say that Will was advanced for his age – far from it – his lessons were yet so far progressed that he felt totally insulted that his papa should ask him to read from so juvenile a work. And Will, being Will, this unintended insult was sufficient to incense him to a blinding passion. Indeed, it incensed him to such an extent that he instantly gave out a great yell of anger, wrenched at the pages with all the strength that he could muster, kicked viciously at his father’s ample shins and catapulted furiously out of the room.

  Maggie took a deep breath, marshalled her thoughts and allowed a giggling Augusta her chalk board while Mr Wright chased his errant son entirely down the stairs.

  Chapter 16

  Will having been invited to the house of an acquaintance the next afternoon, Mrs William finally felt herself obliged to drag a reluctant Augusta to the premises of the premier modiste in Weymouth in order to acquire for her the rather inappropriate gown she had identified as being ‘just the thing’ in ‘Ackerman’s Repository’ a couple of months before.

  Knowing her eldest daughter as she did, however, and perhaps recalling the disastrous outcome of her previous outing into town with one of the twins, she managed to swallow her dislike of Miss Owens sufficiently to ask her to accompany them as reinforcement on their visit. And so it was that a month or so after her previous momentous outing Maggie found herself in the middle of St Mary Street once again, Augusta in hand, walking a few paces behind Mrs William’s broad back in their sedate if somewhat erratic progress towards Madame Laplanche’s tailoring establishment in an elegant building quite close to Weymouth quay.

  Mrs William, perhaps determining that she should not be outshone by any modiste of her daughter, had decided to use the occasion to try out the effect of her newest outfit - a dark green morning gown with no fewer than five ruffles to the hem, complemented by a matching pelisse à la Mameluk, and the most becoming bonnet that she could readily discover in her more-than-adequate collection - on an admiring local populace. The outfit in question had been the result of several weeks of hard work by one of the top modistes in Dorchester, necessitating a number of inconvenient visits to that town in the preceding month or two, as well as not a few strong arguments when the outfit in question had failed to come up to Mrs William’s exacting standards of fit. Indeed, an unkind observer might have been tempted to suggest that the modiste in question had been set up to fail from the outset, being required, effectively, to produce a silk purse of the sow’s ear that Mrs William had become, but in the end, and at great personal cost to herself, the modiste had finally succeeded in sending her exacting client away with an outfit whose making had cost three times what she eventually managed to secure for it, and had secretly resolved never to accept any commission from the same obnoxious woman ever again.

  And as luck would have it, no sooner had Mrs William rounded the corner from St Alban Street into St Mary Street than she spied an acquaintance, still innocent of her presence, tripping quickly along the pavement towards her, little girl in hand. The acquaintance was no other than Mrs Berkeley, on her way with little Kate to visit the elderly parents of one of her maids, and with the added intention of delivering to them some cast-off but newly refurbished clothing which the maid had assured her would be most gratefully received.

  The availability of so distinguished an admirer as Mrs Berkeley might well have satisfied a lady of even more demanding a nature than Mrs William - always assuming, of course, that a more demanding lady could possibly exist - but considering the effort that had been expended in achieving the required effect, it is hardly surprising that it had apparently earned the approbation of yet another devotee into the bargain. This new admirer, however, was considerably less worthy of impressing than Mrs Berkeley certainly was, taking – as he did - the form of one of the numerous local herring gulls which usually loitered noisily and superciliously together around the quay. Much to Mrs William’s singular misfortune he selected that very moment of all moments to demonstrate his appreciation of her outfit in the way that was unfortunately commonplace amongst Weymouth gulls – that is, in the form of a white, splodgy and particularly fishy deposit which arrived from the heavens without any warning at all. The deposit ended up exactly on the cusp of his target’s left shoulder, enabling its more liquid elements to spread most artistically down both the front and the rear of the otherwise pristine dark green garment. Mrs William, who had just at that moment been peering over her right shoulder at a particularly becoming satin bonnet in Mr Davison’s display window whilst making a bee-line towards her victim, was not immediately aware of this disaster and for a second Maggie, following along behind with Augusta, was in two minds as to whether or not to point it out to her. Augusta, however, felt a lot less circumspect than Maggie did. Giggling gleefully, she tugged at her mama’s generous skirts and – a little inelegantly – pointed out the deposit which was newly decorating the shoulder of her stylish green pelisse.

  Mrs William spotted the deposit at last and emitted a monstrous shriek.

  ‘Oh, good grief,’ she expostulated, standing stock still and twisting her neck awkwardly to ascertain the extent of the modifications to her outfit. ‘Oh good grief. Of all the....whoever allows all these odious gulls to fly about the place and deposit on everybody? Really, it is the outside of enough. I wonder that the Corporation should allow it. Miss Owens – Miss Owens, be good enough to take out your handkerchief and wipe this mess away this instant.’

  Sorry to say, Maggie was feeling a little rebellious that day. She did not see why she should ruin a perfectly good handkerchief of her own just to pander to Mrs Wright’s insatiable vanity. So instead of taking out the silk that she knew full well was residing at the bottom of her reticule she replied, sweetly and not altogether untruthfully: ‘Oh, I am so sorry, Mrs Wright – I had not expected to have the need of a handkerchief this afternoon’, thus requiring her irritated employer to provide her with one of her own instead.

  Sadly for Mrs William’s pride – and the hoped-for effect of her new outfit – before Maggie was able to effect her commission Georgiana’s shriek had alerted Kathryn to her presence and caused her to look straight at her, making it impossible for either lady to pretend not to hav
e seen the other. Mrs William’s embarrassment was immediately obvious both to Kathryn and to Kate, although Kathryn was by far the more successful of the two in hiding her amusement at it. Indeed, Kate was so immune to the poor lady’s embarrassment that she could plainly be heard to giggle in much the same way as Augusta had done as she pointed out the unsightly white mess on the cusp of the stranger’s shoulder.