A Lady Awakened

by Cecilia Grant

  All the more reason. So Martha told herself, her mind newly disposed to wander, while Mr. Smith expounded on all he knew of dairy cows and the local thatching labor, and Mr. Mirkwood scribbled notes. You’ve ceded so much ground already. Keep what you can.

  Ceded ground to whom, though? He wasn’t her adversary. If he did want to command her—and only for a little while—was that any worse than what she herself had enjoyed with him?

  She would not deceive herself on this point. She had enjoyed, to a certain degree, his loss of mastery. His helpless response to what she did with her mouth. His wholehearted renunciation of the quest to make her say vulgar words. She’d triumphed over him, absolutely, and how could she blame him for wanting a turn at that triumph himself?

  Of course it was different for a man. A man could play at surrender, safe in the knowledge he still had more power than the woman with whom he played. He could overwhelm her physically. He tread a wider path in the world. For a man—particularly a man like Mr. Mirkwood—what happened in bed was all one great game.

  He said something, scratching away with his pencil. Some question about cows. His head bent toward his paper, he looked up at Mr. Smith from under those six-pews-away lashes, studious attention limning his profile. Women in London no doubt thought him beautiful. Poor short-shrifted women of London, never to have seen him looking like this.

  A GENTLEMAN KEPT his word. Even careless words scattered in a failed attempt at most deviant seduction. So Saturday he let her introduce him to her steward, and Sunday after church they sat down with the curate in his makeshift schoolroom.

  “A boy who grows up on a farm today cannot count, as his father and grandfather did, on farming in his own turn.” Mr. Atkins perched on the edge of the table where presumably he would hold court once the school began. He’d changed his cassock for a black coat. Probably he looked rather dashing to feminine eyes. “With the advances in machinery, and the gradual vanishing of the small farms, many such boys shall have to leave home and work for wages.”

  “Girls do too. The eldest of the Cheatham girls went away to Lancashire only this spring.” Mrs. Russell sat in a straight-back chair a little to Theo’s right, hands folded in her lap, feet flat on the floor.

  “Indeed.” The curate sent a bow in her direction. “Mrs. Russell has been a fierce champion for the young ladies. We’ll come to her part presently.” A smile, a wholly unnecessary smile, volleyed between the two of them before he went on. “Education is more than ever important in broadening opportunity for a rural boy. If the time comes when he must look for a situation, then instead of ending in a mill or a mine, he might find a place as a clerk in some establishment, and work his way up from there.” Now the smile came his own way, with a rueful edge to it. “That’s the kernel of the argument I made to the families here, and that I would make to your families if you desired it so. However I’m lacking in arguments framed to persuade you the venture would be worth your while. Mrs. Russell can tell you I made no headway with Mr. Russell until she came along and involved herself in the persuading.”

  “Mr. Russell had many demands on his attention.” She said this with her eyelids lowered, as though addressing her still hands. “He saw the merit of the scheme from the beginning, I’m sure, and only wanted some near person to urge it above all the other schemes and pursuits in which a landowner might make some investment.”

  “I’m sure I’d like to hear from Mrs. Russell.” And she knows just what words I’d like to hear. He covered that thought with a bland pensive look. “Will you tell me what hopes you have for the educated girls? I presume you don’t foresee them as clerks.”

  “One day, perhaps. Now women go to work in mills, who can say what might come next?” She angled her body toward him, eyes lit with ardent determination. “But chiefly I hope to equip these girls for marriage to educated men. When such a man goes to choose a wife, I’m sure he will prefer a woman with whom he can discuss all the matters on his mind, to one with whom he can discuss only the evening meal and the health of the baby.”

  “Mrs. Russell has a most noble vision of marriage.” Mr. Atkins’s mouth quirked up as he watched his own hand run along the edge of the table where he sat.

  “On the contrary, I have a practical vision.” She spoke to both men, though her body still faced his. “I’m thinking, too, of those cases in which a marriage should prove unequal to the hopes with which it began. A man in that marriage might still find a full life out in the world, perhaps in some occupation that allows him to do good. But what of his wife, who has no occupation but the marriage and the household? Even without she can have a profession, an education will teach her to take an interest in things beyond her own smaller sphere. And surely that could serve as consolation in her less hopeful hours.”

  She’d been lovely the first time he’d spied her, distant and disapproving in church. She was lovely each time he peeled away her clothing, and when she lay in his arms, and when her features went dim and unfocused as he lost himself. But she was never lovelier than when she spoke this way, all afire with the knowledge of wrongs to be righted and good to be done.

  “You see, I think, how she convinced me.” The curate was watching him, and probably seeing altogether too much himself.

  “It wasn’t so easy as that.” She flashed a smile at both men. “I also had to argue for the utility of older girls in a classroom where their younger sisters will be taught.”

  “We plan to follow the Madras system somewhat, if you’re familiar with the methods of Mr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster. A school in which the older pupils help to teach the younger.”

  “Only not their methods as to punishment.”

  “No, no black book filled with every least transgression. No miscreants hung from the ceiling in nets. I should lose my place in the lesson, if I had to look at that.”

  “And of course the older girls won’t be present at first. We’ve had all we could do to convince a few parents to an hour of instruction on Sundays. We shall have to begin there, and work our way forward.”

  “Mrs. Russell has done wonders.” The man bowed at her again. “I think we may almost count on seeing the Farris girls next week.”

  Didn’t she glow at that. The easy rapport between the two of them; the way they all but finished one another’s sentences; the evident fruit of hours engaged in intellectual discourse—and this at a time, surely, when her marriage offered no pleasures of companionship—could make a man cast up if he were subjected to very much more of it. Theo put a knuckle to his frown, massaging it into a merely thoughtful expression. “There’s one child in particular for whom I’d like to be able to do something in order to broaden her narrow prospects as far as possible.”

  He could feel the widow’s warm attention like a torch held in an outstretched arm. “That eldest girl in the Weaver family,” she said.

  He inclined his head to her. “One of my laborers has a simpleminded daughter. A young lady of fifteen or sixteen. I have no idea whether such a child is teachable, but perhaps that will have come up in your own research?”

  Mrs. Russell’s gaze lingered on him a second or two more before swinging, bright and hopeful, to the curate, who was raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t know of any scholarship on what can be done for such children in the way of education.” His attention had gone somewhere inward, reviewing everything he’d studied on the topic. “But why shouldn’t we try? If she has the mind of a younger child, she might learn alongside the primary class. I should like to meet her parents, and hear what they think of her capabilities.” He couldn’t be happier, Mr. Atkins, now he faced a new challenge. Little wonder the widow liked him.

  But Theo himself could not quite dislike him to the degree he’d intended. “You might come by my property two days hence,” he said. “We’ll be rethatching their roof and another, and as the families will be turned outside for the afternoon, I thought to throw a sort of picnic for them. It should be a festive occasion; good opportunity
for you to make the families’ acquaintance and begin to lay the groundwork for your schooling recruitment. I hope you’ll come too, Mrs. Russell. You may see what you think of the young ladies.”

  She was staring at him now with force enough to singe his hair. Stunned, no doubt, that he’d arranged the thatching on his own, and planned the picnic too. Really, she must think very little of him, to suppose he had no capacity for responsibility but in her presence. He would show her he could do a few things by himself.

  MR. MIRKWOOD,” she said late that night, when he’d begun to think of sleep. “I want to tell you something. Will you listen?”

  “Of course.” He turned on his side, just making out her shape in what moonlight seeped between the curtains. She hadn’t proposed moving their assignations back to daylight, and to the other set of rooms. They’d made their visits to Mr. Smith and Mr. Atkins in the afternoon, and she must surely have concluded he was free again by day. But she hadn’t said anything, and neither had he.

  “Mr. Russell never agreed to the school.” He could hear that she was facing straight up, addressing the canopy. “Do you remember I told you he lost the memory of things?”

  “I remember.”

  “I waited for a day when he was particularly not himself. And then the next day I told him how commendable was his decision to provide for the school.”

  “Neatly done.” Something told him not to caress her, as his hand was demanding to do.

  “I suppose I ought to be sorry, but I’m not. Someone needed to see that his resources were put to good use.”

  A thought occurred. “The cottage roofs as well?”

  “Exactly so. I told him what a generous thing it was, replacing every last roof from the rafters up. And he couldn’t remember enough to gainsay me.”

  “Generous indeed. We’ll only be replacing a layer or so of the thatch.” His fingers, restless for her, swirled about in small patterns on the sheet, filling the lapse in talk with a rhythmic soughing. “Does the curate know?”

  “He hasn’t the least idea.” The sound of her voice told him she’d turned her head his way. “He wanted to halt the school when he learned how the will had come out, and that everything was likely to pass to Mr. Russell’s brother. But I told him I would write to Mr. James Russell and secure his approval for the school.”

  “And did you?” One finger, just one, set itself in the crook of her near elbow.

  “He thinks so, Mr. Atkins. But I never did.” She faced the ceiling again. “He’ll think very poorly of me if he finds out. When he finds out. It’s almost a certain thing.”

  “That’s a pity. I like you the better for it.”

  “You like bad behavior wherever you find it.” Her words had the shape of a smile.

  “Perhaps. But in your case it’s something else.” His finger stroked a line across her inner elbow. “You risk yourself for what matters to you. You risk the good opinion of people for whose good opinion you deeply care. That’s to be admired.”

  She inhaled, and exhaled, probably turning over his words. “Mr. Mirkwood,” she said, and hesitated. “Theo. I can’t tell you what it means to me, your taking an interest in the school. My hope is that, if I should fail …” Her voice quavered suddenly, and he took hold of her elbow with all his fingers while she collected herself. “If the house does go to Mr. James Russell, or if Mr. Atkins, on discovering how he has been deceived, should decide …”

  “You’d like me to take your place in supporting the school, you mean. If circumstances render you unable to continue in that role yourself.”

  “It’s a great deal to ask, I know.”

  “Not really. Not between a man and his mistress.” Finally he let himself reach for her. “And besides it won’t be necessary. We’re going to disappoint your Mr. James Russell. Don’t forget that.” His arms drew her against his chest, his leg tangled with hers, and his chin fitted itself to the top of her head. Her breaths stayed calm and her pulse untroubled; indeed one might think she had been only waiting for the moment when his limbs would gather her in just so.

  MONDAY BROUGHT a surprise. The footman found her in the library, where she’d gone to gather any book that might have some reference to dairy farming, and he presented three cards announcing three women whose names she did not recognize.

  Mrs. Canning. Mrs. Kendall. Miss Leigh. “Did they state their business?” She turned a book sideways to mark her place along the shelf for when she might resume this project.

  “They’re callers.” The footman cleared his throat. “Social callers,” he added, as though unsure of her familiarity with the concept.

  And well might he be. Martha brushed her hands together to rid them of dust. “Is there cake?”

  “Cake, madam?” A single faint line impressed itself in his otherwise impassive brow.

  “Yes, cake. Mr. Mirkwood quite enjoyed that lemon cake, when he came to call. And I think you’d better send the tea things as well. I’ll give them tea and cake.” The more she could occupy them with this novelty, the less conversation she’d have to make. Heavens, but one wished for the aplomb of Mr. Mirkwood, who would view unknown callers as just the latest in a string of marvelous adventures. “I’ll go to them, then. The peony parlor, or the larger one?”

  Mrs. Canning, Mrs. Kendall, and Miss Leigh had been shown to Seton Park’s large formal parlor where they sat in a row on a white velvet sofa with gilt arms and legs, craning about at the room’s Moorfield carpet, heavy chandeliers, and gilded plasterwork. “What a charming room this is,” said Mrs. Canning once the introductions were done and all four ladies seated. She made an impressive presence in it, solidly built as she was and equipped with a gimlet eye.

  “Charming, to be sure.” Mrs. Kendall was a little dormouse of a woman, bright-eyed and quick in her movements. “Just the word I was going to choose.”

  Miss Leigh, tall and thin as a sapling, made one more sweeping survey. “Did you manage the decorating?”

  “Oh, no.” Martha poured hot water to rinse the teapot. Really, charming was the last word she should choose for this ornate cavern. “Someone in my husband’s family did that. It’s after the style of Robert Adam, I’m told.”

  “Ah.” Mrs. Canning inspected the ceiling afresh. “And what does that mean, exactly?”

  “Well, the plasterwork, I suppose. The decorated walls. These arched tops to the doors and windows, perhaps, and …” Her words trailed off as she swirled water in the pot. She looked up. “To be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea.” She poured out the water. “I grew up in a plain country house, and should never have heard the name Robert Adam—or Capability Brown, for that matter—but that I married and came to live here.”

  This admission seemed to put the ladies at some ease, thank goodness. Condolences were exchanged for Mr. Russell and Mr. Canning, though the latter proved to have departed some great while ago, and recommendations were given on the best ways for a widow to pass the early part of mourning, while Martha measured tea from the caddy into the pot, filled it with boiling water, and put on the lid.

  “You live in town, I collect?” Eight minutes for the tea to steep meant eight minutes in which she must find more right things to say. One wished again for Mr. Mirkwood’s easy manners, for his quick light tongue. “I’m afraid I’ve spent little time there and of course I cannot now venture abroad. I’m sure there must be so many opportunities to do good in town too.”

  Indeed there were. The three ladies had strong opinions of what could be improved in town, from the vicar’s overly expressive sermons to the landscaping on the green to a young man or two who’d been stringing a young lady along and ought to hurry up and come to the point.

  “I cannot approve of that conduct.” It wasn’t her business, of course. But the other ladies had brought it up. “If a man doesn’t mean to offer for a lady, he ought to withdraw his attentions and let her move on to other prospects. I’m sure I should say so to any young man who presumed to trifle with one of my t
enant-daughters here.”

  “I’m all but resolved to say something myself, at our next assembly.” Mrs. Canning lifted her chin and delivered this fact in a tone of royal decision. “If young Nelson and young Warrender haven’t come up to scratch by then, they may count on hearing from me between dances.”

  “Very good.” She picked up the strainer and teapot. “I doubt such careless young men even recognize the grief they may cause. To point it out to them must be a kindness.” What sensible, sensible women. The young ladies in town were lucky to have their patronage.

  “We should be glad to see you at an assembly one day.” Mrs. Kendall spoke with sudden shyness as she accepted her tea and a plate of cake. “They’re quite respectable. The gentry do come sometimes.”

  “Mrs. Rivers and Miss Atcheson have sat down to cards more than once.” Miss Leigh, too, took tea and cake.

  “Perhaps next year.” Mrs. Canning eyed Martha as though fitting her for a new gown. “You’ll be in lavender then, I expect, and looking both distinguished and presentable.”

  “I’m sure I should like that. Thank you.” Distinguished and presentable. One would like to be thought of that way. One felt oddly touched by this kind invitation, and one felt an utterly unsuspected hunger, too, for the chance to take one’s place among these matrons at a humble town assembly, conferring over which young man or lady must be pulled aside for a judicious word, and furthermore scheming ways to better the public landscaping, and inspire the vicar toward subtlety.

  The conversation continued more sensible by the minute. What odd quirk of whimsy should have brought them to call on her, a perfect stranger with only her widowhood to recommend her? But she would be grateful for whatever quirk had done the deed.

  “My son is in the infantry, you know, and we’re daily hoping to hear of his return home.” Mrs. Kendall chased the last crumb of cake about her plate. “Do you hear anything of when to expect your brother?”

  She paused, cup halfway to her lips, and felt color coming to her face. Only one person in Sussex knew that Will was a soldier. Only one person even knew of that brother’s existence. Her quirk of whimsy took a shape, tall and fair-haired. She dropped her eyes to the cup, and set the cup in its saucer. What question had the woman asked, exactly?