Miss Lindel's Love (15 page)

“Though it would mean a lifetime of misery and regret for them both. You’ll pardon me speaking so free, Miss Maris, but that’s not my idea of mother love. No. It sounds to me like nothing but pride and covetousness made her act so. She wanted that girl to be rich, not for her sake, oh, no, but for her own. The mother-in-law of our Lord Danesby will be able to swagger it among her high-and-mighty friends and hold her nose very much up, no matter how dirty an arrangement she’d had to make to salve her daughter’s honor.”

Suddenly, Mrs. Cosby clapped her hand to her mouth and a rich flush deepened the still-girlish pink of her cheeks. “Not that you need worry about your reputation. You’re a decent girl and so I’ll tell anyone that asks me.”

Maris laughed and shook her head. “Don’t worry, Cosby darling. No shame attached itself to me. They could not make me marry him for such a foolish reason as my supposedly damaged virtue when it was perfectly plain that it remained entirely unsullied. The footman told them that I’d not been in his lordship’s company for even five minutes. There’s some sort of rule about that in law, I think. I stopped listening when they started saying the same things over and over again.”

“And his lordship?” Mrs. Cosby asked. 

“His lordship?”

“What did he say?”

“His lordship was very amiable. He said everything that a gentleman could say under the circumstances and even tried ...” Despite herself, Maris sighed. “At one point, he even tried to make me believe that he had intended all along to propose to me once I had taken more time to look about me for a husband to my liking.”

All in all, it had not been the sort of romantic proposal a girl dreams of, what with four onlookers and a feeling that the gentleman was being forced to say beautiful things. Had they been alone and the words spontaneous, Maris knew she would have consented at once. Then again, perhaps she would not have done so, no matter how her dreams would have prompted her to seize the opportunity with both hands. To have done that, being only concerned with her own longings, would have made her no better than Mrs. Paladin. Maris couldn’t be sure, yet it seemed to her that love meant caring as much about the other person’s wishes as one’s own. She knew perfectly well that she was not made of the stuff a nobleman wants or needs in a wife. Nor, upon reflection, did she possess those qualities that Ken ton Danesby wanted and needed.

“They do say he has beautiful manners.”

“Who does?”

Mrs. Cosby took a sip of her tea, all but cold now.

“I’ve not seen him often, you know, though I’m well acquainted with his housekeeper. A fine woman for all she’s a trifle slow and Cosby’s been known to pass the time of day with his butler, Tremlow. A haughty sort but Cosby says he knows his business.”

Maris picked up the thread of her narrative. “Naturally, such a secret could not be kept long.”

“I’ll wager that Mrs. Paladin creature never buttoned her lip a moment.”

“She was rather disgruntled. I’m not sure whether she was more displeased that Lilah had slipped through the net of her weaving or that I had been caught. I think she did believe she could do Mother a good turn by forcing his lordship and me into marriage, having failed to do so well for Lilah.”

“What became of the young lady, if I may make so bold?”

“Lilah decided to wait no longer to return to Hay. She will be staying with her aunt. I fear there was a breach between herself and her mother.”

“Just as well, by my way of thinking.”

“Oh, no,” Maris said. “No, that was hardest of all on Mrs. Paladin. She never meant for that to happen, I know. Lilah and I have promised to write. I hope to hear soon that she and Mrs. Paladin have reconciled. It would be a great blessing if they did so before her wedding to Mr. Preston takes place.”

“You’re too forgiving, Miss Maris.”

“Not at all. But to lose her daughter over this foolish ambitiousness would be too cruel. She doesn’t deserve that, no one does.”

Mrs. Cosby shook her head but said nothing. She stood up and brought the kettle over to freshen the pot as well as bringing another plate of iced biscuits. “But how, Miss Maris, did your uncle come into it?”

“Naturally, I wrote to Mother at once, telling her everything that had happened. She couldn’t leave Sophie so she sent my uncle. He took me, bag and baggage, to his home in Yorkshire.”

“Miss Sophie’s blooming like a rose, Miss Maris. I’ve not seen her look so since before she took the fever.” Maris smiled and lifted her eyebrows in a knowing way. This silence was even more fascinating than the tale of wicked London ways.

“Never say it’s a man?”

“Not just a man. A poet.”

“A poet?” Mrs. Cosby said incredulously. “She’d be better off with an honest sheep farmer like that there Miss Paladin.”

Maris laughed, mentioning old local history, and their talk passed into other areas, new love stories, new and old bones of contention, and all the ordinary ways and means that Maris had missed.

“You didn’t mention Miss Menthrip,” Maris said when a full account of the Charity Sewing Circle had been given, down to the last stitch in the clothes and the last sultana in the cake.

Mrs. Cosby’s round, smiling face lost some of its serenity. “We’re all that worried about her, Miss Maris. She’s not been ordering half so much food as she used to. The little Gladding girl who used to ‘do’ for her has been turned off. She gave her a good reference and she’s been taken on as the new ‘tween maid at Finchley Place but never a word as to why she didn’t want her no more. She’s not been in church neither and you know she never misses.”

“Has Dr. Pike spoken to her?”

“Not yet. But Mrs. Pike tried to see her and she didn’t answer the door, though she was at home.”

“But this is frightful,” Maris said. “I’ll tell Mother.”

Maris stepped outside when Cosby noticed the fast-setting sun with a shriek of dismay. “Get along with you, do, Miss Maris, or dinner will never be on the table.”

The kitchen garden looked neat as Hampton Court’s, for Cosby’s love of enormous vegetables surpassed even his passion for well-polished silver. Maris breathed a sigh of relief as she passed through the archway in the high brick wall that separated Finchley Old Place’s kitchen garden from the formal ones. It wasn’t like Mrs. Cosby to let a half-told tale get by her. Fortunately, she’d turned to talking of the village before she could question Maris about her uncle’s visit to the metropolis.

A big, bluff man, able to mill down a Luddite with one blow of his hairy fist, he had made the china on the sideboard ring when he’d entered the room, calling for Maris. Mrs. Paladin, interrupted in mid-grumble, had dropped her cup, so she greeted Mr. Shelley with tea all down the front breadth of her skirt. This had not improved her temper. Their hired butler had entered behind Mr. Shelley, looking like an ineffectual sheepdog escorting a giant ram, trying to make it all look like his idea.

“Sir, I am Mrs. Paladin,” she’d said, trying to gather her dignity.

“I know who you are. Where’s m’niece?”

Maris found herself enveloped in an all-encompassing embrace which, after an instant, she returned wholeheartedly, though her arms couldn’t possibly meet across his broad back. She felt stitches give in her sleeves. “You must be my Uncle Shelley.”

“God’s bones, who else would I be?” He held her out at arm’s length, searching her face. “You don’t remember me, I’m bound, but I remember you right enough. Four years old, you were, with eyes the size of a broad crown and dandelion fluff hair every which way all over your head.” He nodded as if she’d passed inspection. “God’s bones but you’re a beauty now.”

“You’re very kind, Uncle.” He must have been six feet tall and the thick soles and heels on his country man’s boots gave him even greater inches. He wore his white hair so closely cropped that one could see the pink scalp underneath. His huge white mustache compensated for any loss on top. When he smiled, which was often, his cheeks folded back like concertina pleats, leaving more room for large white teeth. “Would you care for some breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” He snorted. “I ate mine three hours ago.”

“Then luncheon?”

Mrs. Paladin said, “I fear I am de trop at this touching family reunion. I will see you later, Mr. Shelley.”

“Aye, missus. And I’ll be seeing you as well.”

Maris put forward her theory, a little later, that Mrs. Paladin had acted unwisely but from the best motives. “Don’t you believe it,” her uncle said. “I know her sort. I read your mother a proper scold for letting herself be so taken in. I never liked the scheme of setting up household with some woman she knew for twenty minutes when she was a girl. For that’s what it comes to, when all’s said and done.”

“People change, I suppose, and not always for the better.”

“Don’t you believe it,” he said again. “The person you are at seventeen is who’ll you’ll be your whole life.”

“Heavens, I hope not!” Maris cried, thinking of her own sins of identity and ability,

“That Paladin woman proves my point. I pried it out of your mother that this Paladin woman was a liar and a cheat even then, willing to do down her best friend for a chance at a beau. I’ve told your mother what a proper dry-boots I thought her to be such a fool.”

Maris drew herself up. “Mother is no fool, sir. She was forced to make shift as best she could.”

“Meaning I ought to have paid down my blunt for your come-out?”

“I have not said so. But I will not have my mother sneered at for her sacrifices when those sacrifices were for me.”

“I’m not one to hide my teeth, girl.” Uncle Shelley puffed through his mustache, setting it fluttering.

“In truth, Uncle? I should not have guessed it.”

He laughed, his broad shoulders shaking, the china tinkling anew. “That’s the way. Hit out. I’ve no time for a milk-and-water miss and neither has any other man worth his salt.”

“How is Mother? And Sophie?”

“I’ve letters for you from both of them in my cloak bag. But you’ll see ‘em yourself end of the week.”

“Then Sophie is well enough to travel?” Maris cried out happily.

“She’s much improved but you mistook my meaning. You’re going to them.”

“I beg your pardon?” Maris said, drawing back.

“How soon can you pack your fribbles? We’ll go north as soon as damnit. I’ve one or two errands to tend to first then we’ll away on the post road.”

“But I can’t...” Maris scolded herself. Could it be that she cherished even now the faintest, tiniest hope of seeing Lord Danesby again? His only feeling toward her now must be one of disgust if not absolute detestation. Though they had parted well at Durham House, he going so far as to kiss her hand, he would never permit himself to associate with one who had shared with him that ultimate embarrassment.

Mr. Shelley took no notice of her hesitation. “Your aunt is agog to see you. The entertainments she’s planning may not have that London air but I doubt you’ll mind. You look a sensible sort, niece.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” Even in the midst of her interior confusion, she would have been much too hard to please had she found her bluff, bold uncle anything but charming. He seemed to live to lift burdens off confused young women’s shoulders.

What he said to Mrs. Paladin was never divulged but the constant stream of complaints dried up. He paid for Lilah to return to Hay, broke the lease of the house, and arranged for the paying off of the servants. He even offered Mrs. Paladin the return of her half of the rent. Mrs. Paladin declined haughtily enough at first, though later changed her mind when she discovered that Tunbridge Wells Spa was more expensive than she’d been told.

Only when he proposed calling upon Lord Danesby did Maris try to stop the whirlwind that was her Yorkshire uncle. “Why do you want to do that?”

He looked over his magnifying lenses at her, pushing aside the sheets of the lease. “I want to see him for myself. You’ve said little enough about him.”

“He is a gentleman, Uncle, and did all that a gentleman could have done under the circumstances. It was I who refused to marry, not him.”

“I know it,” he said. “To my way of thinking you couldn’t have done anything else. And I don’t care a jot or a tittle what all those grand folks were telling you what must be done. God’s bones! Their daughters’ honors might be so easily lost but I’ve known your mother since she was in her cradle and no child of hers would ever do wrong.”

“I hope you told her so.”

“I did.”

“Then you needn’t see his lordship,” Maris said a few minutes later, after her uncle had returned to his reading.

“Eh? No, no. Certainly not. My God, couldn’t she find a lawyer to vet this paper before she signed it?”

Yet the next day, when she couldn’t find him, the butler told her where he’d gone. She’d spent a good deal of time asking herself why that meeting haunted her imagination. Had Lord Danesby been cold or welcoming? What measure had he taken of Mr. Shelley? Did he understand that his hearty manner was not that of a Captain Sharp trying to bluff his way into his lordship’s good graces but of an honest man who dealt with the world as he himself would like to be treated? Mr. Shelley had no time for pretty phrases or delicate fencing. He was a blunderbuss and cutlass man.

Yet, when she saw her uncle again, she asked no questions. If Lord Danesby had refused to see him or had been coldly polite, she did not wish to know it. If he’d been the merry friend she’d met and liked, that, in its own way, would have been worse. She didn’t want him to suffer because she’d refused him and yet it didn’t seem right somehow that he should be unchanged.

* * * *

The next day, after breakfast, Mrs. Lindel wrapped up a basket of Mrs. Cosby’s iced biscuits, a bottle of her own black currant wine, and a copy of the latest scandalous novel, acquired in town. “One or the other of these should get you through Miss Menthrip’s defenses,” she said confidently.

“Don’t you want to go, Mother?”

“Not this time. You have a better chance of getting over the threshold than I. You look too young to be our spy.”

“I’ll go,” Sophie volunteered. “I like Miss Menthrip. She says what she thinks.”