Maulever Hall (6 page)

The scarred side of his face was turned away from them as they approached him and she thought again what a pity it was that some wretched, unnecessary duel, no doubt over the merest of drunken trifles, should have marred what could have been so handsome a face. Looking at the good side of his face, before he turned to greet them, she realized that he was younger than she had thought at their first encounter. The scarred and angry face, the air of command, had made him seem somewhere in the settled forties, now, relaxed in his evening dress and smiling a greeting for his mother, he seemed barely thirty.

Mrs. Mauleverer was introducing her and once more the smile lit up his eyes and warmed one side of his face. “The mysterious Miss Lamb.” He took her hand. “I have much looked forward to this meeting.” There was something, surely, faintly mocking in his tone, or was she
imagining
it?

Vaguely disconcerted because he had not thought fit to refer to their previous encounter, she felt herself at a loss, acutely conscious of her shabby dress and unsuitably frivolous hairstyle. But it was her place, after all, to be silent and, luckily, Mrs. Mauleverer could be relied on to talk enough for two
,
though Marianne could have found it in her heart to wish that she had chosen some other theme than her own, as her patroness put it, “romantic history.”

The story of their first dramatic encounter at the vicarage lasted them through the first courses of an unusually elaborate dinner, and, as he listened with becoming deference to his mother’s tale, Marianne was increasingly aware of an occasional sidelong, cynical glance from her host.

“So you remember nothing?” he said when his mother had paused, at last, for breath.

“Nothing.” Her voice sounded too loud in her own ears. “And yet I know so much.”

“What kind of things?”

“Why, about books, and politics, and world affairs. How can I know that Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo, and yet not know my own name?”

“It is certainly very strange. What does Dr. Barton say about it?”

“He says”—without thinking Marianne fell into a parody of Barton’s richly self-important tone—“he says that ‘The human brain is an unfathomable mystery.’” She colored at her own presumption in mimicking the family doctor, but Mauleverer was laughing.

“Bravo, Miss Lamb, you have hit him to the life. I can see you are a consu
mm
ate actress.”

Once again there was something she did not quite like about his tone, and it was a relief when Mrs. Mauleverer changed the subject. “But you have told us nothing of yourself, Mark,” she said with her habitually plaintive intonation. “And I am simply dying to know what you make of the beautiful Lady Heverdon. Is she really no better than she should be?”

The color rose in his face, leaving the scar disconcertingly pale. “No,” he said angrily. “I believe Lady Heverdon to be a much maligned woman. I have no doubt my cousin led her a dog’s life, and when she tried to improve it by seeing a few of the intellectual friends whose company she quite innocently enjoyed, he spread the most malicious slanders against her. And as for the stories about her treatment of the child, her stepson, if you had but seen how she mourned his tragic death, you would have known them for the libels they are.”

“Poor little thing,” said Mrs. Mauleverer sentimentally. “Did they ever discover how the fire started?”

“No. The nursery wing was so completely destroyed that there was not the slightest indication. It was only a mercy
that the fire did not spread to the rest of the house, but that is of stone, while the nursery was the oldest part of the house and largely built of wood. But as it was they all had to turn out in the middle of the night and I do not believe Lady Heverdon has recovered from the experience yet. Combined with her grief for the poor child left in her care it has caused such a depression of her spirits that I strongly advised her, when I was there, to stay no longer than she must in a place fraught with so many painful memories. Of course she is in deepest mourning still, and a residence in London, in full season, would hardly be the thing. But I rather hope I have contrived to persuade her to pay you a visit, ma’am.”

“Me?” Mrs. Mauleverer’s amazement was comical to behold. “You have invited Lady Heverdon to come here!”

“Yes. Is that so surprising? You are, after all, the senior lady of the family into which she married—however unluckily. What could be more natural than that she should come to you at this time of double mourning? And I am sure that when you have met her, you cannot help but love her.”

Mrs. Mauleverer’s eyes were bright with curiosity. “She is very beautiful, they say.”

“Yes, and much younger than you would think from the stones the world has told about her. You will find her, I am sure, the easiest of guests. She begs you will make no effort to entertain her; all she longs for is country peace and quietness.”

“My goodness,” said Mrs. Mauleverer, “she must have changed greatly since she came out. Was she not known as the gayest debutante of her season? I am afraid she will be bored to distraction here.”

“
No, no, all she wants is country air, some riding and the atmosphere of home. I promise you I will see to it that she is not a charge on you.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Mauleverer took this in. “You stay then, to give her the meeting?”

“It would scarcely be courteous if I did not. I have it heavily on my conscience that under her husband’s iniquitous will I inherit much that should by rights have been hers. I have tried in vain to persuade her to let me deed it back to her, but perhaps you will have more success.”

“I wonder.” Mrs. Mauleverer rose with a swish of purple skirts. “Come, Marianne, we are keeping Mark from his wine. But do not be lingering too long, dear boy. I have so little of your company that I must be a little greedy of you when I have the chance. As for your Lady Heverdon, I shall
be delighted to receive her, and all the more so if it
means that you are to pay me a proper long visit.”

He had risen to open the door for them, and Marianne could hardly help smiling at his expression on being called “dear boy.” But the fact remained that there had been something almost boyish about his enthusiasm over Lady Heverdon. She was not at all surprised when Mrs. Mauleverer, after making sure that the drawing room door was safely shut, turned to her with conspiratorial enthusiasm. “My dear, I do believe he has fallen at last! And for Lady Heverdon of all people. Oh, well!”—she looked, for her, almost thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged—“I expect it is all for the best. And indeed I was getting quite into despair and
beginning
to think I should never have a daughter-in-law. She must be a clever woman, whatever else she is, to have made him forget that scar of his sufficiently to think of paying his addresses to her.”

To Marianne’s relief, she was so absorbed in speculation about the prospective visit that she actually did not propose their usual game of cards and they were still sitting talking by the fire when Mark Mauleverer made his appearance twenty minutes or so later. Meanwhile, the conversation had reminded Marianne that he was no longer Mr. Mauleverer, but Lord Heverdon, and she searched anxiously back through her brief talk with him to make sure that she had not wrongly addressed him at any point. To her relief, she was able to decide that she had not, since shyness had kept her from addressing him by name at all.

Now, as he moved the tea tray a little more conveniently for his mother, she thought he would make an admirable lord, quick-tempered, autocratic, and proud, though kind enough, in a lordly way, when it suited him to be so. He was also, she had to admit, wonderfully tolerant of the string of new questions about Lady Heverdon which had occurred to his mother during their brief separation. Yes, she would probably be with them next week; no, she was a natural blonde; twenty-five at the most
...
His answers were brief and to the point and Mrs. Mauleverer’s questions began to flag. She put her teacup down on the tray and leaned back more comfortably in her big arm chair. “It has been a long day,” she said meditatively, and her eyelids flickered shut for a moment, then opened again, “How old did you say she was?”

“Twenty-five, ma’am.” He spoke low and soothingly and
flashed a warning glance at Marianne. The silence lengthened. Mrs. Mauleverer’s head dropped back against the dark blue velvet of her chair. She began to snore very gently.

Mauleverer, or rather, Marianne reminded herself, Lord Heverdon, moved the tea tray to a safe distance and crossed the room to the comparatively obscure corner where Marianne had contrived to settle herself.

“Now, Miss Lamb,” he said, “a word with you.”

“Yes?” She had been correcting the false stitches in Mrs. Mauleverer’s embroidery but now laid it down in her lap and looked up at him with wide, enquiring eyes.

“This story of yours,” he said, “is all very well for my mother, and indeed you could hardly have chosen one that was more certain to take her fancy, so sodden as she is with romantic novels. But I hope you will not expect me to be caught with the same chaff. No, do not interrupt me, let me say my say and then you shall protest to your heart’s content. But do not expect to make me believe your absurd pack of lies that way: I warn you, I am come forearmed. So soon as my mother wrote me of your ‘romantic arrival’ I checked with the Bow Street Runners. No one of your appearance—or the child’s—has been reported missing. It is absurd to suggest that either of you could have vanished without some enquiries being made. You know as well as I .do that you are no servant girl, however carefully you may disguise yourself as one”—an expressive glance summed up her now wilting cotton dress—“and the child, too, though by all reports an ill-conditioned brat and deplorably spoiled, clearly has good blood in him. His absence, even more than yours, must have caused comment if this had not been a put-up job of some kind. I tell you, I came down intending to send you packing without delay, but what I have seen today has made me change my mind. I do not care what devious reasons of your own have brought you here; that shall continue your own affair. What I can see is the good you have done my mother—that is my bus
i
ness. I have long deplored the ascendancy Martha had obtained over her. However shady your antecedents, you cannot help but be an improvement on her. So I suggest that we make a bargain, you and I. You will stay on as my mother’s companion, doing for her what you have so admirably done. In exchange I shall cast no doubt on your ridiculous story. Of course, if you should wish to tell me the true one, I shall be honored by your confidence, and give you my word it shall go no further.
I cannot think, now I have met you, that it is anything worse
than
some kind of young girl’s freak. Would you not feel better for having told me the whole?”

After her first attempt to interrupt him she had listened to him in the silence of mounting fury. Now, at last, came her chance to speak. “I am sorry you do not choose to believe my story,” she said. “And sorry, too, that I cannot provide you with a more palatable one. I am only amazed that under the circumstances you are prepared to let me stay with your mother, but in truth that is all of a piece with your general negligence of her. I only wish I was in a position to throw your words in your teeth and leave your house tonight, but, since my story is true—every word of it—I have nowhere to go. I shall have to continue to eat your bread, however unwillingly, but I promise you I will earn every bite of it—and of the child’s too. And I promise you, too, that if ever I do regain my memory you shall not be troubled with my support for an instant longer than it takes me to find my friends. If, indeed, I have any friends.” His report of the blank he had drawn with the Bow Street Runners had gone deep with her. There had always, before, been the hope that somewhere she was mourned and searched for. Now he had taken even that from her.

“I am sorry you take it thus.” His face, which had warmed somewhat as he urged her to confide in him was now a chill mask. “I would have felt happier if we could have reached some better understanding, you and I, but if this is how you want it, so be it. My offer still stands. As for earning your bread—I am no fool, Miss Lamb, however negligent you may
think
me. I have seen for myself all you have done in this house—and in the village too. No one I met as I rode through but was full of your praises, indeed, I confidently expected to meet some f
l
at-faced sister of charity, rather than a bad young girl romping in my hay.”

“I was not romping!” She stopped, aware of a hopeless loss of dignity.

“Of course you were not.” His voice was kind again. “Merely contentedly dozing over—if I am not much mistaken—Sir Walter Scott’s latest. My mother tells me you read aloud to her in the evenings.”

“Yes, it makes a change from playing at cards.”

“Ah, cards
...
” It seemed as if he would have said something more, then he changed the subject. “And talking of my mother, I fear it would be too much to hope that she
had thought to pay you anything for all the services you render her.”

Marianne colored, “Why, no,” she stammered, “but her goodness has been such
...
”

“Quite so, and you are indeed indebted to her for believing your story—but I beg your pardon, we’ll talk no more of that. The fact remains that so far as I can see you have been acting at once as companion and housekeeper, not to mention taking over many of the charitable duties in the village that she should do, and, I fear, has always neglected.”

Once again her face was fiery hot. “I hope you do not think I have been taking too much upon myself, my lord,” she said. “I promise you, what I have given has been merely from the household surplus.”

“So I have already learned,” he said. “You must be aware that you have made enemies as well as friends, Miss Lamb, and they wasted no time in complaining of you. And have done you nothing but good by so doing, I may add. But we shall arrange things better in future. First of all, you must have a salary. I have never engaged a housekeeper-companion before. Do you think £50 a year would be adequate?”