Maulever Hall (10 page)

“It does not serve
me
at all.” His emphasis on the word “me” made it a pretty compliment. “What, Mother, are you leaving me so soon? Well, I promise I will not be long behind you.”

“I am sure you will not,” said his mother dryly as she rose to lead the way from the room. She was not used to sitting so long silent at her own table.

Lady Heverdon had noted her tone and, pausing only for one long golden-lashed glance upward at Mauleverer, who was holding the door for them, she hurried to take her hostess’s arm. “My dear madam, I have bored you with my talk of politics—but your son makes them so fascinating.” Her raised voice ensured that he heard her. And then, as he shut the door behind Marianne: “Really, with him for my teacher, I feel that I might even end by understanding the difference between a Whig and a Tory, which, I can tell you, is something I have never been able to fathom yet, though I would not dare say it in any other company but yours, and beg you will be sure to keep my guilty secret. But now we are alone”—and for all the notice she took of Marianne they might well have been—“I will make bold to ask, what I have been dying to do all evening, how, deep in the country as you are, you contrive to keep so devastatingly in the mode. Why, that dress could dine out in St. James’s tomorrow—and as for the arrangement of your hair!—I do beg you will let your maid confide the secret to mine.”

Thus shamelessly flattered, Mrs. Mauleverer relaxed and expanded in talk of leg-of-mutton sleeves,
mousseline de soie
and her new gospel,
La Belle
Assem
b
lée
.
She did not, much to Marianne’s relief, mention her responsibility, both for the magazine and for the hair style. If there was one
thing
she did not wish to find herself doing, it was acting as coiffeuse to someone for whom she had contrived, in the course of the evening, to develop a hearty and not altogether unreasonable dislike. It was not, she told herself, doing her best, in her corner of the room, to pretend that she was merely a part of the chair she sat on, that Lady Heverdon ignored her in so insulting a manner. She had resigned herself to this in advance. It was the hypocrisy of the creature that she could not bear, and still harder to bear was the sight of Mauleverer so patently its dupe and her slave.

Before Lady Heverdon’s arrival, the initial dislike his brusque manners had aroused in her had given way to a reluctant respect for his intelligence. It galled her to see that keen brain bemused, those sharp eyes blinded by a pretty manner and a battery of languishing glances. Oh yes, the lovely Lady Heverdon had fooled him to the top of his bent. He was her slave, and, from her manner, she intended to have him. They would be engaged, no doubt, before the visit was over. Perhaps, indeed, they were so already, for Lady Heverdon’s mourning, however lightly she might take it, would prohibit any official or public engagement for some time to come. But, watching Mauleverer’s manner as he joined them a few minutes later, Marianne decided that they were not even privately engaged yet. His eager attentions were those of a hopeful, but not of an accepted lover.

The evening seemed interminable. Lady Heverdon sang a succession of Scotch ballads in a pretty, well-trained, thin little voice and contrived to suggest that she was doing Marianne a great honor in allowing her to accompany her. Then, at Mauleverer’s unexpected request. Marianne played for them. “I have heard you many times,” he said, “when you thought no one was listening.”

It was quite true. One of the things she had discovered about herself was that she was never so happy as when seated at the piano sight-reading her way through the sonatas by Haydn and Mozart that she had found in a great, dusty pile in the cupboard behind the piano. She acquiesced now without fuss or protest. After all, she was happier playing to herself than sitting neglected in her corner, and she was comfortably certain that no one was listening. Mrs. Mauleverer was nodding in her chair, while her son was seated close beside Lady Heverdon, talking to her in what was very nearly a whisper. Once, pausing to turn the page, Marianne heard him say, “Miranda
...
she who ought to be admired,” and skipped several bars to burst into a violent rondo and drown the rest of it.

Next day was the beginning of the Exton election, and Mauleverer had apologized to his guest in advance for the
f
act that he must spend the day there. Marianne rather suspected that Lady Heverdon would have liked to be invited to accompany him, but, if so, she was disappointed, for he rode off before anyone but Marianne herself was up. She was superintending the early morning activities in kitchen and dairy when he came in to her, dressed for the road. “Give my apologies to Lady Heverdon,” he said. “And may I count on you, Miss Lamb, to help my mother to entertain her? I am afraid she will find life here somewhat dull after being with the Countess of Lashton.”

How could he be so stupid? Help to entertain Lady Heverdon, when the beauty hardly admitted that she existed? But he was looming impatiently over her, waiting for her answer. “I will do my best,” she said dryly. And then, with relief,
“
But it is my day to take the Bible class in the village.”

“Invite her to go with you. She has told me”—dark color suddenly flooded his face—“how much she is interested in our village arrangements. She had so little time at Heverdon that she had not properly got into the way of things there
...”

“I will certainly ask her to come.” Marianne’s tone suggested, despite herself, that the answer was a foregone conclusion, but if he noticed this, he did not show it.

“Do, Miss Lamb. I knew I could count on you.” And with that he was gone.

Sleeves rolled to the elbow, Marianne had been helping the dairy maid make butter and now the girl recalled her to herself: “Miss Lamb—you will spoil it.”

“And indeed,” she said afterward to her special friend the between maid, “If looks could curdle, we’d not have a drop of fresh cream in the house today. And the butter rancid, too, I should think.”

The cook had planned a demonstration for that
mo
rning.
It should have been a long and satisfying scene, beginning with her handing in her resignation, and ending, as such scenes always did, in Marianne blandishing and persuading her into staying. But today, nothing went according to plan. Marianne listened, almost, it seemed, absent-mindedly to her recital of grievance, and then, when it wound to its expected climax of notice given, said carelessly: “Oh, very well, if that is the way you feel. You will work your month out, of course.” No persuasion: no blandishment. The poor cook, guns effectively spiked, had to go to work and talk herself
out of her predicament—“And she hardly listened to me then
either,” she told her friend the butler.

“I don’t expect she did. Mark my words, Mrs. Manning, this Lady Heverdon will have us all at sixes and sevens before we are done with her.”

Marianne had taken her bad temper out into the garden and had contrived to soothe herself by her favorite daily occupation of doing the flowers before Lady Heverdon made her appearance. Like Mrs. Mauleverer, she had had her breakfast in bed and now appeared in the full glory of a daringly fitted plum-colored riding habit. Marianne, entering the little saloon with her arms full of roses, found Mrs. Mauleverer in full tide of apology. Lady Heverdon, it seemed, had been positively ordered by her doctor to ride every day for her health, and she had brought her own saddle horse, but today there was no one to accompany her. “It is too tiresome of dear Mark to be gone out today,” said his mother. “But you must forgive him, Lady Heverdon, for you know, I am sure, how much his politics mean to him.”

“Oh yes, I know well enough,” said the beauty petulantly. And then, with a quick recovery: “But he could scarcely help the election’s being today.” Belatedly, she noticed Marianne. “Good morning, Miss Lamb. You do not ride, I suppose?” It was hardly a question, and Marianne, surprised at being noticed at all, contrived, among her roses, to answer the greeting without the question. She did ride, she was sure of it, but had neither horse nor habit.

“Oh well”—Lady Heverdon shrugged beautifully tailored shoulders—“I shall have to make shift with the groom, I suppose. I will not be gone long, dear ma’am”—she was talking to Mrs. Mauleverer now—“and then I shall be entirely at your disposal for the day.”

Mrs. Mauleverer looked, Marianne thought, a shade frightened at this prospect and, indeed. Lady Heverdon’s tone did suggest that a galaxy of entertainment should naturally be ready for her. The time had come to do Mauleverer’s bidding, however unwillingly.

“Mr. Mauleverer sent you his apologies before he left this morning,” she bolted into it. “And suggested that you might care to accompany me to my Bible class in the village this afternoon.”

“Oh?” Arched eyebrows rose. “A Bible class!” And then, with a sudden and surprising change of tone: “Why, thank you, Miss Lamb, I shall be delighted to accompany you. How thoughtful of Mr. Mauleverer. He knows, you see”—once more, this was for Mrs. Mauleverer—“how ignorant I feel myself in country living, and has promised to set about my education while I am here. So, I will make a beginning today under Miss Lamb’s admirable guidance. Is this a daily duty of yours, Miss Lamb?”

“No, no,” said Mrs. Mauleverer, “I could not spare her so often. No, it is only on Wednesday afternoons that she walks over to the village to hear the children their catechisms. And that reminds me, you will scarce wish to walk, Lady Heverdon. I will order the carriage for you.”

But Lady Heverdon insisted that a walk was what she would like above all things. “Though that does put me in mind, dear madam, of a favor I must make bold to ask of you. Could one of your men, perhaps, take a note for me to the dear Countess? I must thank her for all her goodness to me, and then, there is another thing. They talked, when I left, of making a party and riding over here to call on me. Would you be appalled, ma’am, to be the object of such a visitation? There would not, I am sure, be more than six at the most. The Countess and her companion in the carriage, my cousin and the young ladies on horseback.”

“Your cousin?”

“
Yes, my cousin, Ralph Urban. Though, truly, he is more like a brother to me, since we were brought up together. And that puts me in mind that I must write a note to him, too, and have him bring me the pelisse I left behind. I do not like to be charging the Countess with my commissions, but Ralph is quite another matter. He has been running my errands for years. But the first question is, whether you care to have them come. It will be merely an afternoon’s visit, since Lady Lashton never sleeps from home. No need to put yourself out for them: a cold collation, perhaps, a ramble in the garden, a game at cards ... I am convinced you would find the Countess the easiest of guests, and as for her daughters, they are the most delightful girls in the world; to meet them is to love them.”

“By all means invite them.” Mrs. Mauleverer was touchingly pleased at the idea of being visited by a Countess, and an invitation for any day that suited the party was despatched before Lady Heverdon went out for her ride.

To Marianne’s surprise, she returned in ample time to keep their afternoon engagement, and made her appearance dressed in a close-fitting gown of palest gray muslin that made her look something between a nun and an angel. She proved herself, too, a surprisingly pleasant companion on the walk to the village. Last night’s haughty manner had entirely disappeared and she plied Marianne with friendly questions about herself: Could she really remember nothing! It was the most romantic thing, and what did the doctor think? Was there no hope at all?

She really seemed to want an answer to these questions, and Marianne rather reluctantly explained Dr. Barton’s continued hope that something might suddenly bring memory back to her in a flood. The subject was an increasingly painful one to her, since she herself had become, as the slow weeks passed, less and less hopeful, and was now almost convinced that she was doomed for life to her present anomalous position.

“And yet”—she had said something of this to Lady Heverdon—“how ungrateful it is of me to say so. After all, if I did recover my memory, it would probably be to find myself in far worse case.”

“Well, yes,” said Lady Heverdon. “I would rather be Mrs. Mauleverer’s companion than little Thomas’s nursemaid any day. A spoiled brat if ever I saw one.”

“What, have you met him already? I do hope he has not been making a nuisance of himself. I will speak to Martha about it if he has.”

“No, no, pray do not. It was nothing.” And then, breaking off: “Oh, what a love of a little village!”

She proved an admirable audience at the Bible class and the children, impressed by her beauty and the elegance of her dress, behaved so well that the lesson was over more quickly than usual. Emerging from the room where it was held, they found the village street unusually full of people. Mothers who usually took not the slightest interest in their children’s whereabouts had come, today, to fetch them from the Bible class and were waiting outside in a little talkative knot. Marianne, who knew how close was the liaison between servants’ hall and village, was not surprised to hear whispers indicating that the village women were well aware that Lady Heverdon was likely soon to be their landlord’s wife, and from her high color and elaborate pretense of indifference, she suspected that Lady Heverdon, too, had a pretty good idea of what was going on in the women’s minds.

As they passed the vicarage, Mr. Emsworth came hurrying out of the gate and stopped to pantomime surprise at sight of them. There was nothing for it but to introduce him to Lady Heverdon and watch with dry amusement as he did his fawning best to ingratiate himself with her. Marianne’s dislike of him had grown rather than diminished as her encounters with him in the village had become more numerous. These days it seemed impossible to visit a sickbed or call on the parents of one of her Bible class without his putting in a “coincidental” appearance and, more often than not, insisting on seeing her home to the park gates. Today, however, he was obviously too much in awe of Lady Heverdon to suggest this, merely bowing to her a great many times, very low, in the middle of the village street, and promising himself the pleasure of calling on her in the near, the very near future.

“What an absurd little man,” said Lady Heverdon as they turned into the footpath across the long meadow. “I take it the living is in Mr. Mauleverer’s gift.”

“Yes.” Marianne felt bound to defend Mark Mauleverer’s choice. “I believe he and Mr. Emsworth were at the University together.”

“I expect he is a good sort of a man enough,” said Lady Heverdon carelessly. “Fit to fill a gap at a dinner table, or make a fourth at whist. But, I forget, Mrs. Mauleverer does not play cards, does she?”

“Not play at cards! Indeed she does.” Marianne stopped and colored, wishing she had not spoken. It had not occurred to her before, but of course Mauleverer must be aware of his mother’s habit of cheating at cards, and must have taken this means of preventing his beloved from finding out about it. It all proved—if more proof were needed—the extent of his devotion to her.

They had reached the stile that led into the home wood now, and Lady Heverdon changed the subject to exclaim at the loneliness of the path: “Surely you do not walk this way unaccompanied, Miss Lamb?”

“Why not? There is no one here who would hurt me.”

“I am sure of it. I could see that they all love you dearly in the village, and, of course, with good cause. But what about poachers? You know as well as I do that they will stop at nothing when they are out after game. I heard some dreadful tales at Lashton House about savage attacks, and even murders they have committed when surprised at their work. After all, merely to be caught means transportation, so why should they stick at murder, if they think it will save them?”