Maulever Hall (32 page)

Fanny was in her room mending the silver flounces that had been to
rn
last night. How long ago it seemed.

“Mrs. Mauleverer is awake and asking for you, miss.” Fanny bit off her thread and admired the set of the flounce.

“I will go to her presently, but first I must see the Duchess. Ask her maid if she is well enough to see me for a few minutes, will you?”

“Of course she’ll see
you,
miss.” But Fanny returned almost at once with the news that the Duchess had got up and gone out. “A gentleman came to see her, miss, and wouldn’t be denied. She saw him at last, it seems, then asked for you, found you were out and sent for her carriage and is gone off with him. Goodness knows where.”

“Did you happen to learn his name?”

“Yes, miss. Barnaby, it was, John Ba
rn
aby. He wouldn’t say at first, but when he sent up his name, the Duchess saw him at once.”

That settled it. Hope drooped and died. “You don’t know where they went?”

“No. But out of town, I should think. The Duchess has taken her maid.”

Could they have gone to Maulever Hall? It seemed the most probable explanation, and yet, what new development could have made John Barnaby change his plans? He had been so urgent that she tell no one. Now, apparently, he himself had taken the Duchess into his confidence. Surely this was flying in the face of his instructions from Lord Grey, for the Duchess, as the known friend of the Duke of Wellington, might well feel in honor bound to tell
him
a story that redounded so gravely to the discredit of one of his political opponents. And it was the political argument, she knew, that had really convinced her. It made appalling sense that Lord Grey might stretch many a point to save the character of a man who was so identified in the public
mind
with his Reform Bill. So—what was she doing sitting here? Perhaps Ba
rn
aby had decided to sell out to the Tories
...
There were all kinds of possibilities, none of them pleasant. The only certainty was that she must act without further delay.

“Fanny, I must have a traveling carriage. At once.”

“A carriage, miss?” Fanny’s tone underlined incredulity.

“Yes, I must leave for Devon as soon as possible. Give the orders, will you? There is no time for talk.”

“But, miss—”

“Don’t argue, Fanny. Give the orders and then pack me a cloak bag—merely the barest necessities. I shall return directly.”

F
anny
looked more and more puzzled. “But you will take me with you, surely?”

“No.” Her tone made argument impossible, but as Fanny went reluctantly off to order the coach, she admitted a qualm to herself. Impossible to take garrulous Fanny, but—to make so long a journey unaccompanied? The Duchess would not like it—she did not much like it herself.

There was a little timid knock at the door of her room, and Mrs. Mauleverer put her head anxiously round it. “Oh, there you are at last, my dear.” She looked much better this morning. “I have been longing to see and thank you. I cannot think what possessed me to make such a spectacle of myself last night. I am afraid this London life does not suit me so well as I thought it would.”

Here was the answer. Who better than Mauleverer’s own mother to accompany her on this chancy journey? She kissed the old lady and went straight to the point. “Do you really feel that? And are you strong enough for a journey?”

“I’d go anywhere with you. And indeed I feel a different creature this morning. But what do you mean?”

“I have to go down to Devon—to Maulever Hall—at once. I cannot take my maid, but do not like to go alone. Will you come with me?”

“With all the pleasure in life, my dear. But do you really mean to start at once? I do not see how I could be ready so soon.”

“I must,” said Marianne. “I will lend you what you need for the journey, and, surely, you must have left clothes at home.”

“Oh, yes.” The old lady was brightening up every minute. “And Martha will be there. Do you know, I shall be glad to see Martha. But I must write a note to my son and explain. What an adventurous creature he will think me, to be sure.”

Here was a new difficulty. Marianne tackled it at once. “My journey must be a secret one, for reasons I hope to be able to explain presently.” How devoutly she hoped she would never have to do anything of the kind. “Could you not merely write Mr. Mauleverer that you intend to spend a few days here with me?”

“I suppose so. I am sure he will never miss me.” Her voice held such bitterness that Marianne found herself once more reluctantly forced toward believing in the villainous Mauleverer of Barnaby’s description. And yet, as always, there was an argument for the defense. What, after all, had his mother ever done for him?

While Mrs. Mauleverer wrote her note to her son, Marianne, with very much greater difficulty, composed one to the Duchess. Whatever John Ba
rn
aby had said, she found that she could not simply go off without any explanation. Very likely there was no need—very likely she would find the Duchess and John Barnaby at Maulever Hall before her. And yet—why should she? Nothing was safe, nothing was certain. Nor was it safe to say much in her note. Suppose some prying servant should open and read the letter. She wrote, therefore, briefly, and to the point:
I have received news that makes me anxious about the child I left behind me, and am gone to fetch him. Mrs. Mauleverer accompanies me.
And then, with a brief apology for the suddenness of her departure, she signed,
Marianne,
the only part of her name that was certainly hers. For along with her anxiety for Mauleverer, her interview with Ba
rn
aby had brought renewed and bitter misery on her own account. She had so hoped that he knew who she was, but all he had told her was that she had been the nursemaid at Heverdon Hall. He had not even, it now occurred to her, told her her name. Perhaps he had never known it. Why should one know a nursemaid’s name?

And yet—she could not believe it. That she was gently bo
rn
, no one who knew her had questioned. Of course, some family disaster might have left her compelled to earn her her own living, or she might be, as Mauleverer had once suggested, a penniless refugee from France, but why, knowing herself as she now did, should she have chosen to go out as a nursemaid? She was, she now knew, remarkably well educated for a female, and indeed the Duchess, on discovering that she could write Latin verse and translate some of the easier bits of Homer, had laughingly told her she must be the only child of a scholar who had wanted a son. “You have certainly been educated like a boy.” She could speak French, too, and also possessed the more generally accepted female accomplishments. So equipped, she could surely have aspired at least to a governess’s position. What depth of disaster had sent her out to seek her fortune as a nursemaid?

She began to think she would never know. Nothing had come of the ball on which the Duchess had pinned such
hopes. Or at least, she supposed, John Ba
rn
aby’s visit had probably come of it, but that was cold comfort enough. She was back where she had started from, fighting all over again to believe Mauleverer innocent and Ba
rn
aby either himself misled or purposefully misleading her. But why should he? He had told her, and his actions confirmed it, that his purpose in coming to her was to protect Mauleverer, for political reasons, from the consequences of his action. How then, could she possibly go on distrusting him? But she did, and justified herself by the memory of their first interview. She had believed him then in what he now cheerfully admitted to have been a pack of lies; why should she believe him now?

While her thoughts chased each other round and round in this tormenting spiral, she and Fanny had been busy making preparations for their journey. Now they were interrupted by the groom of the chambers, who brought Mrs. Mauleverer an answer to her note. She looked frightened as she opened it, then sighed with relief. “Thank goodness, Mark makes no objection. It seems he is going out of town himself. I knew nothing of it; I thought he was fixed here till Parliament resumed. But I suppose it is for another of their political meetings. Of course, he does not tell me where he is going.”

Marianne was afraid that she knew. Everything tended to confirm John Barnaby’s story. She picked up her pelisse and fur muff. “We must leave at once,” she said.

XVI

The journey, made in an old barouche of the Duke’s that was usually employed for the conveyance of servants and baggage, was far from luxurious, but Marianne’s only concern was for speed, and this, fortunately, she was able to pay for, since the Duchess had insisted on making her a lavish allowance. Marianne began by bribing the coachman, who had not been best pleased at the prospect of setting off so far from London, “and with Christmas just coming too.” But his sullen expression changed to a beaming smile when
Marianne handed him a handsome pre-Christmas tip, and promised him as much again if he could beat the time she had made when she came up from Devon with the Duchess.

He was sure he could do it. The barouche
might
be old, but had been well built in the first place. Its springs were still good, and, like all the Duke’s possessions, it had been kept in admirable order. “Not much fear of busting an axle or a splinter bar and being held up that way,” he promised her. “If we’re half lucky in the cattle we find on the way—some of them post horses is nobbut dirt, and fit for wagons if that—but if so be as we has a bit of luck, I hope I can get you there tomorrow evening. It’ll be a rough night for the old lady, I reckon?”

“Better than freezing on the road for two days or so,” said Marianne. “Besides, we are in a hurry.”

He grinned at her. “So I reckoned.”

Everything was ready. The hamper of provisions Marianne had ordered for the journey had been stowed in the capacious old-fashioned coach, along with hot bricks for the ladies’ feet and a positively arctic supply of furs. “Anyone would think we were retreating from Moscow,” said Mrs. Mauleverer with a rare flash of humor as she settled luxuriously in her corner. And then, anxiously: “You are sure the Duke will not mind?”

“Positive. Besides, it all belongs, as a matter of fact, to his aunt.”

“To the Duchess? Lucky woman.” And Mrs. Mauleverer prattled contentedly away on the theme of money and its advantages, until Marianne was compelled to pretend sleep in self-defense. Then, when Mrs. Mauleverer’s voice dwindled apologetically away, her conscience pricked her. What right had she to criticize Mauleverer for impatience with his mother when she herself was just as bad? She opened her eyes again, sat up straight in her corner, and forced herself to enter into a long and circumstantial description of last night’s ball. The old lady listened avidly. “If only I had not been indisposed,” she said over and over again. And, “I shall be better when I am back with Martha.”

Night had fallen by now, and the coach lumbered on through the darkness. They stopped to change horses, and coachman and groom changed places. Like all the Duke’s servants, they were a thoroughly reliable pair of men, and Marianne had no qualms about settling back in her corner and composing herself to rest as best she might during the long night’s drive that lay ahead of them. Mrs. Mauleverer, on the other hand, was full of characteristic anxieties, of fears of highwaymen or an accident on one of the lonely stretches of road that lay ahead. Marianne was brisk with her, almost, she feared, ruthlessly so, but she could not help herself. Her own anxieties were concentrated on what tomorrow held.

At last, restlessly, she slept and dreamed, inevitably, of danger and a horseman pursuing. It was reassuring, somehow, on being wakened by the carriage’s lurching over a particularly rough bit of road, to hear nothing but its familiar noises and, close to her, Mrs. Mauleverer’s little, bubbling snore. Rain was beating fitfully against the carriage windows and she thought sympathetically of the coachman and groom, out there in the cold and wet. But at least their discomfort should be a powerful inducement to speed. She peered out of the rain-spattered window, but there was nothing to be seen but a blackness that varied slightly in intensity. They were driving, she decided, through a forest. It did not really matter. Nothing mattered, except that they should get there in time. In time for what? Her mind nibbled restlessly at all the old questions. She must not let it, for that way lay wakefulness, and she would need all her wits about her tomorrow.

Deliberately, she made herself relax in her corner, and began to count guests at last night’s ball, as if they had been sheep: the Duke of Wellington, in his garter ribbon; the Duke of Devonshire—an income of £140,000 a year, someone had told her—Lord Grey, courteous but preoccupied, and no wonder; Lord Melbourne teasing her about an imagined kinship—“So you’re a Lamb too, are you?” And then urbanely changing the subject when he saw her color up at the question, so that she wondered just what stories were circulating about her. But everyone had been wonderfully kind. The Princess de Lieven had admired her dress, and, at once, the Duchess of Dino, her rival in the diplomatic corps, had congratulated her on her dancing. Lady Cowper had smiled at her, and even the fierce old Tory Lady Stafford had murmured something that might easily have been construed as a compliment. But then, all the time, the Duke of Lundy had been quietly there, ready to support her in any difficulty. No wonder if the world had been kind, seeing her so seconded. And, in return, she had refused
him
—would do so again if he should repeat his offer. And—for what? For Mauleverer, of the short temper and the brooding face. For Mauleverer, perhaps a murderer, in intention at
least. She stiffened in her corner of the carriage. For Mauleverer, whom she would always love. There is no logic in loving, and the time was past when she could help herself. Now, deliciously, for a while, she gave herself up to memory of that rain-drenched, delirious day on the moor. Whatever else she might be compelled to believe of him, she would always believe that, then, he had loved her. There was comfort in the thought and, at last, dreamlessly, she slept.