Maulever Hall (18 page)

She shook her head. “I have almost given up hope.”

“Never do that, it would not be like you. And now, I think we must go and break it to my mother that she is to be foiled of her romance. It is really very inconsiderate of you, Miss Lamb. She had it all planned, even down to the decorations in the church and the dishes for the wedding breakfast.”

Marianne could not help laughing. “I am sorry to disappoint her.”

“Never mind, perhaps we shall have another romance to offer her. She certainly seems convinced of it. And that reminds me: Lady Heverdon sends her kindest regards.”

IX

To Marianne’s relief, Mrs. Mauleverer’s delight at her son’s unexpected visit quite outweighed her disappointment at the failure of Mr. Emsworth’s suit. “I think you foolish, my love, and so I told Mark, but he seems convinced that you mean what you say, and I have promised that Mr. Emsworth shall trouble you no more. At all events, it is delightful that I shall not be losing your company. But only think of Mark coming all this way merely to arrange your affairs for you: frankly, I had no idea that he would come. There have been times when I have written and urged him to visit me—and on matters of far greater moment too—and not had so much as an answer for my pains. But I think I know how it is; your business is merely his pretext; he has news, I am sure, about the course of his suit to Lady Heverdon.”

And over luncheon, which was an unusually elaborate meal that day, in honor of the traveler, she teased him unmercifully with questions designed to elicit some declaration of how matters stood between him and the beautiful widow. He answered them all readily enough: yes, indeed he had seen Lady Heverdon frequently; she had taken an elegant set of lodgings not far from his own rooms in Mount Street. No, he did not think she had yet decided where she was to live; he was still settling her late husband’s estate, which had been left in considerable confusion. No, she had no house of her own, but was thinking of buying one in London when the estate was settled; in the meanwhile she seemed to amuse herself well enough, despite the emptiness of town. “And, of course, it is not so dead as it usually is at this time of year, owing to the excitement over the Reform Bill. I had the honor to escort Lady Heverdon, one day last week, to listen to the debate in the House.”

“Did she enjoy it?” Marianne could not help asking.

He laughed. “She said it reminded her of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and could not imagine how our legislators survived
being cooped up for hours on end in such an atmosphere. I think she enjoyed the visit we paid, next night, to the play a good deal more.”

Mrs. Mauleverer, who had drooped at the mention of politics, brightened up at once. “Oh, the play: I am sure Lady Heverdon is an admirable critic of the drama.”

“Yes, indeed. She has even, she tells me, tried her hand at writing a play herself, and promises to let me see the result. Is she not a talented young lady? Mrs. Norton will have to be looking to her laurels.”

Marianne looked up at him quickly. This was surely an odd comparison for a lover to make. Mrs. Norton was brilliant enough, by all reports. She had had a play produced, published two books of poems, and now ran almost a salon at her house at Storey’s Gate, but though gentlemen flocked around her, the better sort of ladies tended to look at her just a little askance, particularly since her name had been linked, in the gossip columns, with that of the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne. No, it was an odd comparison for a man’s beloved.

But Mrs. Mauleverer noticed nothing. She had drunk three glasses of her favorite sweet sherry to celebrate her son’s arrival, and her tongue flowed freely as a result. “Beautiful, brilliant, accomplished,” she said. “Yes, she is all of that, and more. But what I want to know, Mark, is when I am to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. I know she is in mourning still, but she carried it, I thought, lightly enough.”

“Yes,” said her son, “she does not wish to burden the world with her woes.”

Once again, Marianne gave him a quick glance. She had often heard Lady Heverdon use this very phrase. Had Mauleverer really reached the point of parroting his beloved’s words:, almost regardless of their sense? Or had she detected the very faintest trace of irony in his tone? No, she was deluding herself.

His next words confirmed this. “You are ready then, ma’am, to be relegated to dowagerdom? I am glad to hear it, for I do not believe Lady Heverdon, beautiful and brilliant as she is, would take kindly to sharing a house with her Mamma-in-law. From various remarks she has let drop, I rather think her view is that the elderly should keep themselves to themselves. Will you like retiring, with a companion, of course”—he sketched a bow in Marianne’s direction—“to genteel seclusion at Bath or Cheltenham?”

Her eyes shone. “You know I should like it of all things.
I do not know what Lady Heverdon intends—if you have given her the right to be thinking thus—but I am sure I do not wish to be the kind of old lady who advises the housekeeper and dotes on her grandchildren. Bath will suit me very well.”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “but I am not quite sure that it was precisely Bath that Lady Heverdon had in mind.”

“Oh well,” said the old lady, “Cheltenham will do well enough.”

Marianne was watching Mauleverer’s sardonic, almost harsh expression. Could Lady Heverdon have told him of her plan about the asylum for the elderly, and could he, already, have agreed to it? If so, he was far gone indeed.

But Mrs. Mauleverer had returned to the attack. “I can see that it is all settled between you,” she said, “and I do not see why you insist on maintaining this pretense of secrecy. If she is planning my retirement to Bath, of course she must have engaged herself to you.”

“One would think so.” He was still looking at her with that strange, sardonic expression. “What would you say then, ma’am, if I told you that she also has plans for this house? That will show you how deeply she is concerned over all that affects me. Heverdon Hall, she tells me, has such painful associations for her that she would as lief not live there—and truly it was a gloomy old barrack of a place, even before the fire. But Maulever Hall—this house she thinks quite unworthy of my dignity. It needs a whole new front; Gothic towers at each corner; a ruin in the shrubbery—oh, and I quite forgot, the kitchen wing is to be redesigned to resemble an abbey.”

“Good gracious,” said Marianne. “With those little pointed windows? How on earth will the servants see to do their work?”

So far he had addressed his remarks exclusively to his mother, now he turned almost as if he had forgotten Marianne: “Miss Lamb, you prove yourself a sordid soul. What are mere considerations of the servants’ co
n
venience compared with the poetry of a Gothic elevation?”

She had never found him so irritating. “I am sorry if I strike you as sordid, but I cannot help
thinking
you will have a great many spoiled dinners. And as for the Gothic frontage, I think it a horrible idea. Maulever Hall has no great architectural distinction, it is true, but it looks what it is, a gentleman’s house, with all the marks on it of a family’s life. I know that one wing does not balance the other, but I like to think that that is because the Mauleverer who built the first one died fighting for his king against Cromwell and so
diminished
the family fortunes by his loyalty that the other wing had to be botched up as best the architect could. There is all of history in the appearance of your house as it now stands: give it a Gothic front and you will merely be making yourself ridiculous. And now, ma’am, I beg you will excuse me. I have a visit to make.”

Mauleverer rose to open the door for her and favored her with one of his baffling smiles. “Tactful Miss Lamb. You leave me, then, to discuss my prospects of happiness with my Mamma? I should, I suppose, apologize to you for discussing family matters so freely in your presence, but I look on you quite as one of us
...
”

“Why, thank you.” She could not keep the irony out of her tone, and swept him a faintly mocking curtsy as she spoke. Then instantly, she reproached herself and went on: “And thank you again for your goodness this morning.”

His smile was suddenly warm. “It was a pleasure, Miss Lamb.”

Marianne had promised to visit the cottage in the valley this afternoon and though the events of the morning had made her later than she liked she did not feel she could disappoint her friends there. Saddling Sadie for her, old Jim looked doubtfully at the sky. “There’ll be a storm later, miss, don’t ride too far. Sadie don’t like storms.” And then, with a glance across the yard to where a boy was rubbing down Prince, “It’s lucky you’ve got the master’s permission to ride her, ain’t it, miss?”

Should she confess that she had not? No, if she did, he would refuse to let her go, and she had been anxious about her friends since the last time she had visited the cottage. Mary had not been well; she must get there today and make sure she was better, or, if not, prevail upon Mrs. Bundy to allow her to find them some other assistance. Besides, she wanted passionately to get away from the house and, if possible, even from memory of the day’s galling events. It would have been better, she told herself, if Mauleverer had not come back so soon. If only she had had time to forget him, to teach herself to think of him as engaged to Lady Heverdon
...
but instead there had been a moment this morning as he dealt ruthlessly with Mr. Emsworth when incorrigible hope had suddenly raised its head. Absurd, of course. She had known it at the time, and the conversation over luncheon had amply confirmed that knowledge, but
hope is a hard-dying plant. She wrestled with it still as she rode over the moors toward Mrs. Bundy’s lonely house. Even at lunch there had been something, surely, a little odd about Mauleverer’s tone as he spoke of Lady Heverdon?

“Stop it!” She spoke aloud and Sadie pricked up her ears. It was time for the burying of hope, time too to be thinking of finding herself a new home. That, doubtless, was the reason for something she had felt as strange in Mauleverer’s tone. He was trying to work his way round to breaking it to her that among the other improvements Lady Heverdon planned for Maulever Hall was her own banishment. She would be well advised to bu
rn
her bridges today and ask Mrs. Bundy whether she might come and live with her. That she would be welcome she had every ground for believing, particularly since Mary’s illness
...
And yet, dearly though she had grown to love her new friend, the idea was a misery. She did not want to leave Maulever Hall, and the less she wanted to, she told herself, the more essential it was that she do so. No use deluding herself that it was affection for Mrs. Mauleverer that kept her there, though of course she was fond of the kind, crotchety old lady.

Despite Jim’s warning, she had chosen the long way over the moor to Mrs. Bundy’s valley, hoping to bring some order into her tumultuous thoughts as she rode, and was still hardly halfway there when the air grew dark around her. Jim had been right; one of the moorland’s quick, violent storms was blowing in from the sea. She looked around her. No hope of shelter on these bleak uplands. Whatever she did, she was in for a drenching—but she must not burden Mrs. Bundy by arriving in such a condition. She turned Sadie’s head toward home and reproached herself as she did so for the sudden joy she felt that, after all, she need not arrange her own exile today. Tomorrow would be time enough
...

Thunder growled far off, there was a flicker of lightning on the horizon and Sadie started nervously. “Sadie don’t like storms,” Jim had said, and suddenly Marianne remembered the episode of the snake and wondered if she had been wise to come. But it had seemed, at the time, weak-minded and timorous to give up her ride
...
and besides, she had had to get away. Wise from experience, she took Sadie along at a steady pace, talking to her soothingly as she went. Big drops of rain began to fall; the next flash of lightning was nearer, and closely followed by its roar of thunder. Sadie shivered, but kept steadily on as the isolated drops thickened into a downpour. Marianne’s hat and habit were drenched in a
few moments and the brim of the hat, drooping damply over her eyes, proved such an impediment to her vision that she pulled it impatiently off and threw it away. It was past praying for anyway. She had hardly done so when lightning forked down the sky above her and one tremendous crash of thunder deafened her for a moment. Her first instinct was to take a firmer grip on the reins for fear Sadie should bolt, but instead, the horse gave one convulsive start of terror and stood stockstill, shivering all over. Nothing would move her, neither persuasions, threats, nor blandishments. As the thunder roared on and the rain poured down she stood there, a shivering effigy of a horse, while water trickled from Marianne’s hair down the back of her neck. There was nothing for it, at last, but to dismount and try to lead the terrified mare toward home, inwardly cursing Jim as she did so for his far too casual warning: “don’t like storms” indeed. It was going to be a long walk home. At each lightning flash and thunder peal Sadie stopped again and had, once more, to be coaxed and blandished forward.

They were not even in sight of Maulever Hall when Marianne heard the sound of a horse being ridden hard toward her. Illogically, absurdly, she knew at once that it was Mauleverer, come to look for her, and the knowledge was its own misery. He would be furious, of course, because she had been riding Sadie against his will; he would think her ridiculous not to be able to coerce the brute into obedience, and, worst perhaps of all, he would see her in her present hatless, drowned, and disheveled state. Her habit was clinging to her now, like Caroline Lamb’s muslins and, at thought of Mauleverer, she was hotly aware of every emphasized curve.