Jennie Kissed Me (18 page)

“She hasn’t been ridden in a decade.”

“Then we have not lamed one of your good mounts,” I said with relief.

I thought he would be in a hurry to return to his party, but he sat down and had a cup of tea while we all regaled him with the details of our outing.

“Jennie was splendid, Papa,” Victoria said. “And she said I was splendid, too. She taught me all about compasses and moss and flowers and pistils and stamens. I helped her bandage Belle’s ankle, and we ate awful food—leaves and twigs and bark—because Belle fell into the stream and our food got all wet.”

“A highly cultural expedition!” he laughed.

It was hard to go on being furious with him when he looked so handsome. Relief at seeing my disgrace being magically transformed into a victory softened my mood. But I remembered Lady Pogue and asked in a thin voice, “How is the party, Marndale?”

“Excellent.”

“If we hurry, we can still have a few dances,” Victoria said. Behind her father’s back she flicked a quick glance at him, then at me, in a meaningful way. This is your chance, that look said.

Marndale saw my interest and said deliberately, “It will take you ladies three or four days to clean up.”

This snub took the edge off my enthusiasm. To retaliate I said, “You must give my apologies to Lord Anselm. I had promised him a waltz.”

“If we hurry, we can still have a few dances,” Victoria repeated. She emptied the remains of her tea on the ground, and the Hubbards began gathering up the utensils.

“You have had enough excitement for one day,” Marndale said firmly. “Jennie will want to see that Mrs. Irvine is comfortably settled in for the night, and you will go straight to your bed, miss.”

“I’m not a bit tired,” she insisted, but he feigned deafness.

It was as good as a prohibition on our attending the dance. I turned my back on Marndale and began making a fuss over Mrs. Irvine. I found her makeshift cane, helped her up, and ordered Hubbard to bring the mount forward. It took the two gentlemen to get her into the saddle with Victoria holding Silver Star’s head quiet.

Hubbard quenched the fire with water from the stream, and soon we were back on the trail homeward. Marndale offered me his mount, which I refused. Next he tried to get Victoria to take it, but if I was going to walk home, she was going to do likewise, so no one rode the beast. Marndale just walked along beside it.

Hubbard, who had the instincts of a homing pigeon, led the way followed by Meg and Belle with Mrs. Irvine behind them. Marndale walked his nag behind her with Victoria and me bringing up the rear. How Hubbard found a path through the pitch-black and perfectly impenetrable forest I do not know—or care. I never intended to willingly set foot in a forest again, even in daylight. Conversation was practically nonexistent as we forged our way onward. An occasional warning of a rock in the path or a wayward branch was about the sum of it. Once Marndale waited in a clearing for me and asked again if I was sure I did not wish to ride. Vickie left us alone, hoping for some romance to develop.

“You must be fagged,” he said solicitously.

“I am not in the least tired, but you must not worry. I am not going to insist on attending your dance.”

“You are perfectly welcome to attend, if you feel up to it. Is it anticipation of that waltz with Anselm that overcomes your fatigue?”

“Very likely,” I said offhandedly. I did not inquire if it was Lady Pogue’s monopoly of his time that made him wish I were too fagged to dance.

“There is still the morning to see him,” he said.

“True, but I hardly ever waltz in the morning. Especially when there is no music available. Let us go on, before we lose Hubbard.”

He cocked his head and said playfully, “Would that be so bad? We have the formidable Miss Robsjohn to lead the way.”

“You overestimate my abilities.”

“Perhaps you underestimate them.”

“Is there a point to this conversation, Marndale, other than delaying our return?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently not,” he said curtly, and hurried off after the caravan.

As we continued I noticed my petticoat ribbons around two or three trees. They were not at all far from Wycherly. But then our entire excursion had not really taken us far as the crow flies. We must have made a crinkum-crankum trip into the woods, which made our trip seem longer than it was. Hubbard took us home in a straighter line.

While Hubbard took the other mounts to the stable, Mrs. Irvine rode Silver Star right up to the back door of the house. She slid off with no difficulty but needed assistance to walk. As soon as we entered the kitchen, Marndale asked Cook to send a girl upstairs to help Mrs. Irvine. He put his strong arm around her waist, she leaned her other arm on my shoulder, and in that fashion we got her up the servants’ stairs and into her room. Victoria tagged along behind, still chattering and boasting about our outing.

“I’ll send for a doctor,” Marndale said when my companion was laid out on the top of the counterpane.

“I’ll just take one of Jennie’s headache powders, and if I still feel below the weather in the morning that will be time enough to call a sawbones. A twisted ankle isn’t going to kill me. All I want now is to close my eyes and sleep,” she said wearily. “I am even too tired to eat, though we haven’t had a decent bite since we left.” She did look burnt to the socket.

“I’ll get my powders,” I said, and left her.

Marndale was outside her door when I came out from delivering the medication. He looked a trifle sheepish, which made me wonder what had happened.

“Vickie has decided she will go below for a dance after all,” he said. “As Mrs. Irvine plans to sleep immediately, perhaps you would like to join us. After you have made a toilette, I mean,” he added, his eyes flickering over my condition.

Though I had insisted I was not tired, I did, in fact, feel as if I had run a steeplechase. The manner of the suggestion was more diffident than enthusiastic, but even if he had gone down on his knees, I would not have accepted an invitation by that time. “It will take me eons to get the dirt scraped from my body. Even my hair should be washed. You had best return to your guests, Marndale.” It irked me greatly that he was happy with my answer. The satisfied lift of his lips revealed it.

“We’ll have another dancing party before you leave,” he said by way of compensation.

“That will be about five tomorrow morning, I assume? I have not had an opportunity to speak to you, but as we are home early from our outing, there is no reason Mrs. Irvine and I cannot leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! You were to stay till Monday!”

“No, we changed our minds.”

“You cannot leave when Mrs. Irvine is ill.”

“She is not ill. She has wrenched her ankle. Sitting in a well-sprung chaise will not punish it much.”

“You cannot go tomorrow. The furniture is not even in the apartment yet. It is to be moved in over the weekend.”

“The apartment?” I frowned, as if I scarcely knew what he was talking about. “Oh, we have decided against accepting your kind offer. We shall hire rooms somewhere. Mrs. Irvine feels it might look odd for me to be accepting favors from you.”

“It is not a favor! It is payment for your looking after Vickie this past week.”

“I no longer have to work for pay, sir. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.”

I turned and strode angrily to my room. Marndale came hurrying after me, still arguing. “I don’t understand!” he said in frustration. “What has happened? Why are you suddenly rushing off and refusing to use the apartment? I thought it was all settled.”

With my hand on my doorknob I turned on him in a fury. “Nothing was settled! You think you have only to say the word and the whole world jumps to do your bidding. I never said I would take the apartment.”

“But you asked when it would be ready.”

That stymied me but not for long. “I was considering the matter. I have decided against it.”

“But why?”

I did not wish to dredge up the whole unsavory business of Mrs. Pogue slipping into his room after the house was asleep, but at his badgering it came out. “Because I have my reputation to consider, sir. I was not aware when I agreed to stay here that you were in the habit of having your mistress under your own roof. What will anyone think to hear that I am making a prolonged visit to Wycherly and especially that I have accepted an apartment in London from you?”

He looked perfectly blank.
“Mistress?”
he exclaimed.

“You dissemble uncommonly well, Marndale. At least you take pains to conceal that Lady Pogue joins you after the rest of us are asleep.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your discretion is not necessary with me. I know, and your daughter knows, what is going on here. I should think you might wait till you are in London at least.”

His brows drew together in a sharp frown. “What do you mean, my daughter knows? What have you been telling her?”

“Nothing. It was she who informed me of the relationship.”

“This is impossible,” he said brusquely.

“Is it? Then no doubt you will straighten Victoria out.”

“You may be very sure I will!” he growled, and went stalking off in the direction of Victoria’s room.

My knees felt about as firm as water and my heart was hammering in my throat, but I managed to get the door open and went into my room.

Chapter Fifteen

My room was like a mausoleum. All was silent blackness around me, but as my eyes adjusted I discerned a watery moonbeam piercing the window. By its ghostly glimmer the chamber took shape. There was a pale rectangle of mirror at my toilette table, a larger, higher rectangle of canopied bed. Gradually the smaller furnishings took form as I stood, drawing in the sweet scent of flowers from the roses on my desk. By the moon’s eerie illumination I found the tinderbox and lit one lamp, then fell down on the bed in a state of disorientation.

Why had I not held my wretched tongue? Now Marndale would go badgering Victoria, and she would hate me, too, for betraying her confidence regarding the coal scuttle in Lady Pogue’s bed. But really it was infamous of him to deny it when there was hard, tangible evidence of what was going on. It seemed a gentleman was permitted to lie in defense of a lady’s reputation.

Time was irrelevant. I lay, not so much thinking as letting my mind drift where it would. Some time later the idea came to me that life must go on. I realized that part of the pain inside me was due to hunger, and I crawled up from the bed to ring for a tray. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and saw that bathing must take precedence even over eating. I did indeed look as if I had been battling wild animals. My Titian hair was dulled with dust. Bits of twig and dry leaves clung to it. Dogs who have been rolling in the muck look as I looked. My face and gown suggested I had been dragged through the woods, not walked. Every square inch of me bore some disgusting filth from the bog.

I rang for a servant and asked for a tub of hot water to be followed by food. Any kind of food. I would have eaten the pig’s breakfast by that time. I peeled off my clothes and threw them into the wastebasket—stockings, shoes and all. They were beyond redeeming. Till the water came I wrapped myself in a blanket and sat, shivering. It was not cold, but my thoughts sent trembles down my spine. The morning, with the Eldons and Lady Pogue, could not possibly be anything but ignominiously embarrassing. I would not leave my room till I learned the other guests had departed.

Three girls brought the tub and water and poured my bath. The tub was a pretty white enamelled affair trimmed with pink flowers. I washed my hair in my china basin then gratefully sank into the warm tub and let the water ease the aches from my poor battered body and spirit. The future seemed endurable with the warm water lapping over me. I just lay my head back against the tub and closed my eyes.

When the water began to cool down I scrubbed myself all over and got out, wrapping myself in a soft towel. I pulled on my nightdress, wrapped my peacock peignoir around me, and rang to have the tub exchanged for a tray. After I had towelled my hair and combed it I went down to visit Mrs. Irvine till my dinner arrived. The servants had helped her to wash and change into her nightclothes. She was just on the verge of sleep, so I left her.

I rather thought I might have an incendiary visit from Victoria after her father spoke to her, but she didn’t come. She was disgusted with me then. She had accepted my mismanagement of the excursion, but betraying her to her father had finally turned her against me.

“Has Lady Victoria gone downstairs yet?” I asked the girl who brought my tray.

“She changed her mind, Miss Robsjohn. She just went to bed—with a flea in her ear, I believe,” the girl said, holding back a titter. “I could hear them at it, the pair of them, when I brought up your tub. His lordship—”

I gave her a blighting look to show her I was not interested in gossip. “That will be all, thank you,” I said.

Once I held the tasty tray in my hands I realized how impossible it would be to eat. The food looked delicious. It was from the supper table Victoria and Cook had devised to feed the dance party, but neither ham nor fowl, lobster nor even cream chantilly appealed to me. I sat at the desk and nibbled on a leg of chicken and a piece of bread, as I did not wish to return the tray untouched.

I was sitting, looking at a dish of lobster and thinking, when a knock at the door startled me out of my reverie. I moved quietly to the door and listened. Victoria or Marndale? If it was Victoria, I wished to speak to her, but I really could not face her father again that night. I waited a moment, undecided.

“Jennie, are you there?”

It was Marndale’s voice. I stood silent, frozen to the spot. He tapped again, more loudly. “Jennie?”

I didn’t move. I hardly dared to breathe. Soon I heard his footsteps recede down the hallway. Of course, I wondered what he wanted, but I did not regret my behavior. Even when I realized he must have seen the light beneath my door and knew I was awake, I wasn’t sorry. I extinguished the lamps and got into bed. Through the embracing silence soft echoes from the ballroom wafted up the stairs. I mentally danced a quadrille with Marndale; then the waltz music began. That was to have been Anselm’s dance, but in my mind it was Marndale whose arms were around me, his dark eyes that gazed lovingly into mine. He was probably dancing with Lady Pogue. I turned over angrily. Three waltzes and a cotillion later, I slept. I didn’t hear the houseguests coming upstairs.