Maulever Hall (22 page)

“Not now,” said Marianne.

“Oh?”

“It’s all over.”

“At—what? Twenty? Seems a bit premature. But we’ll talk about it later. It’s time poor Mary had her breakfast. Lord, she’ll be glad to see you. Hates like poison to have me waiting on her, poor thing. Habit’s the devil. Water gruel and hot milk.”

XI

Mary was obviously very ill indeed, but her faded eyes lit up at sight of Marianne. “You will look after milady?” Her voice came feebly from one side of her face only.

“Yes, if you will eat your gruel.” Marianne had to feed her like a child, but when, at last, she settled her back against the pillow there was a little more color in her cheek. She caught Marianne’s hand with her good one—for
the other lay limp and useless on the bedspread; “You will stay?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Bundy was in the tiny kitchen boiling up a noxious smelling brew of herbs. “She is better today, I think.” She poured the concoction into a jug. “She must have this with her lunch.”

“Should you not call a doctor?”

“And have him bleed her? She’s as weak as a cat already. No, I have seen this kind of case before; the worst is over now; she will get stronger gradually, though I fear she may never regain the use of her arm. You are really come most happily, my dear. Your horse has gone, by the way.”

“Oh.” Marianne put down the tray she had been holding and moved half consciously toward the window. It was high morning now and rich autumn sunshine picked out the colors of late hollyhocks and Mrs. Bundy’s favorite dahlias. But she looked at the quiet garden through a veil of tears. The last link was broken. Sadie was on her way back over the hills where she must never go again. At Maulever Hall, the search would be out for her. It seemed impossible that she would never know how Mauleverer bore it.

“Come into the other room.” Mrs. Bundy’s voice was unusually gentle. “You can cry in comfort there. Will it help, do you think, to talk of it?”

“If only I was sure I did right
...”
It was a relief to pour it all out to so understanding a listener.

“Yes, I see,” said Mrs. Bundy at last. And then: “I suppose he really is your husband? Ever seen a marriage certificate before? That you remember, I mean.”

“
No. I thought of that. It’s quite true; I have no way of being sure it was genuine—though it looked it. But—there were things he knew.” She had omitted Rossand s reference to the mole on her shoulder and now colored crimson at recollection of what he had said.

I see. Poor child. But as to the document—I will have enquiries made. Best to know the worst, I always think: Marianne Loudon, you say, and Paul Rossand?”

“Yes.”

Very well. She was sitting at her writing desk and made a note of the names. “You believe him, then, about the marriage. But not the rest of the story?”

“No. Do you think me mad, ma’am?”

“No. Very level-headed young woman, I’ve always thought.
Aside from loss of memory, which could happen to anyone.
You think you were running away from him?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“And the child?”

This was a sore point. Increasingly, Marianne’s conscience had been troubling her about little Thomas. “I ... I do not know what to think.”

“Then best not trouble your head about him,” said Mrs. Bundy robustly. “Sounds a tedious brat enough, if you ask me. Just as glad you didn’t bring him. What was Rossand’s story? You’d stolen him from the vicarage? Should be easy enough to check. He didn’t say where, or who, I suppose?”

“No.” Looking back, Marianne realized that Rossand’s story had been oddly free from proper names. “The church was on a hill, he said.”

Mrs. Bundy laughed. “Like a few other English churches. Still, the child’s disappearance should have caused a stir. There’s no harm in a few enquiries.”

“You think his story was true then?”

“Not for a moment, but you’ll feel better if I prove it false. But you’re not mad. Had it not occurred to you that a shock like this morning’s would have sent you over the edge at once? I think Mr. Rossand disproved his whole case by the way he approached you.”

“Oh. I had not thought of that.”

“You had no time to think of anything. One might almost think he had planned it that way. I suppose you were right to come away.”

The doubt in her voice found its echo in Marianne’s heart, but she answered firmly enough: “I am sure I was, ma’am. I love Mark Mauleverer too well to let him involve himself in my disgrace.”

“Quite so,” said Mrs. Bundy thoughtfully. “But he might feel differently about it. Never did believe in sacrifice much, myself. Too selfish, I suppose. But don’t look so wretched, my dear. You know more of the state of the case than I do, and anyway it’s done now. Waste of time to fret. We’d better air your room.”

She kept Marianne occupied with practical matters for the rest of the day. Delicate old lavender-scented linen sheets had to be aired in the sun and then made up on the cot bed of a tiny attic bedchamber whose dormer window looked up to the hills over which Marianne had come. Then, laughing and apologizing for her own poor housewifery, Mrs. Bundy set Marianne to work on cleaning and polishing
the living room back to its usual state of shining comfort. Meanwhile, she was busy among the trunks she kept in yet another attic and emerged at last with an armful of clothes to be altered for Marianne. “You don’t mean to send for your box, I take it?”

‘How can I? It would spoil everything. Do you think there is any chance of their learning that I am here?”

“
Not the slightest. All my connections are with Exeter, quite the other way from Maulever Hall. I know of them, of course, but I am positive no one there has the slightest idea that there is even a house here.”

This confirmed Marianne’s own impression. She had never heard anyone at the Hall speak of this lonely house or its strange owner, and some instinct had prevented her from speaking of it herself.

“Three coaches at least stop at Pennington Cross in the early morning,” said Mrs. Bundy. “They will certainly think you have taken one of them.”

“Yes.” She had intended the break to be complete, and yet could not help a wild hope that somehow Mauleverer would find out where she was. If only she should look out the window and see him riding down the path. She had cried too much already. She jumped to her feet: “Let me clean the kitchen now,” she said.

Mrs. Bundy let her wear herself out with housework and sent her to bed at last so exhausted that she slept in spite of herself. “Things will look better in the morning,” were her farewell words.

At least they looked no worse. How could they? The sun shone, there was a great deal to do; Mary was a little better. Avoiding thought, Marianne scoured and polished till the little house smelled throughout of Bath brick and beeswax. It was interesting to discover that she knew how to cook, and gratifying to have Mary drink up all the broth she made her. Mrs. Bundy congratulated her on her housewifery: “Though I fear that it casts the gravest doubts on your antecedents, my dear. Where can you have learned to manage a kitchen range and bake such good bread?”

Marianne sighed. “I wish I knew. But I have given up hope, now, of remembering. If meeting my own husband did not bring back my memory, what will?”

“It is certainly hard to imagine.” Mrs. Bundy had retired to her writing desk while Marianne was busy in the kitchen and written a long letter to her man of business in London. In the afternoon, a boy from the farm at the bottom of the valley paid them his daily visit, bringing provisions and the two-day-old London papers, and took the letter which, Mrs. Bundy explained, would not get into the post until next day. “But time, it seems to me, is the one thing you have, my dear.”

“Do you think so?” Marianne was haunted by anxiety for Mauleverer. Measuring his passion by her own, and keenly aware of the desperate streak in his character, she was tormented by visions, each one grimmer than the last, of the excesses into which despair might plunge him. There was no one at the Hall to whom he would turn for comfort. He would not think of making his mother his confidante, and Marianne could not blame him. Her exclamatory sympathy would be merely a last straw. What, then, would he do? He might do anything. It did not bear thinking of, nor did she dare let herself remember his words, up on the moor that day: “You are my happiness, my life ... if you should fail me.” She must not think of it, for—it all came back to this—what else could she have done?

Daily budgets of bad news from the farm boy, George, merely intensified her anxiety. In London, the rejection of the Reform Bill had touched off riots that had only just been controlled by Sir Robert Peel’s new uniformed police. The Duke of Wellington’s windows had been broken and so had those of many other Tory Peers who had voted against the Bill, and similar riots were reported from all over the country. The only ray of comfort, from Marianne’s point of view, was that Lord Grey had not resigned on the defeat of his Bill. Parliament had merely been prorogued until December and a committee was already at work in drafting a new bill to be introduced then. No doubt Mauleverer would be engaged in this work. She had found that constant activity was her only comfort and could only hope that the same would be true of him.

It was the uncertainty that was such anguish. Night after night, tossing on her pillow, she beat her brain for ways of getting news of Maulever Hall—and found none. Her own misery, she told herself over and over again, would be bearable if only she could be sure that Mauleverer was making head against his. And yet, when she did, at last, learn that this seemed to be just what he was doing, it proved the very coldest kind of comfort.

It was a bright afternoon when late October was playing at August although the first frost had already picked out, here and there, a leaf in gold, and laid blighting fingers on
Mrs. Bundy’s dahlias and climbing nasturtium vines. She and Marianne were out in the garden, working sociably together at lifting the dahlias, while Mary sat on a bench in the sun and grumbled because she could not help. Convalescent now, she was very far from being resigned to the diminished usefulness of her left arm, and could not quite hide her displeasure at watching Marianne doing what she considered her own duties.

Her mild, persistent stream of complaint was interrupted by the whistling appearance of young George from the farm, with his usual bundle of papers and letters. It was no wonder, Marianne thought, as she watched Mrs. Bundy take the little bundle, that she was so completely informed about what was going on in the world.

George always enjoyed being the bearer of bad news, and today he had a fine packet: “Terrible goings on in Bristol, ma’am,” he said, lingering beside Mrs. Bundy. They’ve burned the bishop’s palace, and sacked the Mansion House and I don’t know how many private houses besides. Father says there’ll be bloody revolution if they don’t pass this Reform Bill soon. There’s wild talk in Exeter already; I
’
ve heard it myself. Riot and rick burning and I don’t know what all is what we’ll be having; and how you dare stay here, three women alone, is more than I can imagine.”

Mrs. Bundy laughed. “Who would hurt us, George? And, indeed, who, but you and your father, knows we are here. And, really she looked down at her mud-stained black skirts and the inevitable Hessian boots—“you could hardly say that I looked like a typical bloated aristocrat. Do I grind your face, George?”

He looked puzzled. “Grind my face, ma’am? I should think not indeed.”

Or make you eat cake? But it’s not fair to tease you. Take him indoors, Marianne, and give him his cider.” And she picked up her bundle of mail and papers and went to join Mary on her bench.

Always talkative, George excelled himself that day, and when Marianne finally got back to the garden Mrs. Bundy had finished her letters and was deep in the papers
.
She smiled over them at Marianne: “Has that ancient manner left at last? Not that he’s got a long gray beard, but he talks enough. How he does love a disaster! But it seems to have been largely mismanagement at Bristol. Imagine allowing Sir Charles Wetherell to go in procession there after his attacks on the Bill in Parliament. He was lucky to escape with his life if you ask me. And over the roofs of the Mansion House too! But there’s good news in the papers for you, Marianne. At least, I think it good.” She sounded faintly doubtful. “I know you have been worrying yourself to death over Mark Mauleverer. It seems you need not have been. He has been behaving, by all accounts, as sensibly as you could wish.”

“Oh?” Why did the words strike so chill?

“Yes; look.” Mrs. Bundy’s earthy finger pointed out a paragraph of London gossip, which described a great Whig ball at Devonshire House. Among the celebrities listed as present was, “the new Lord Heverdon, who took his seat in the Lords, our readers will remember, in order to vote for the Reform Bill. Last night, he was consoling himself, we thought, pretty well for its failure at the side of the beautiful Lady Heverdon, who is not, we should point out, his wife—yet.”