The Shocking Miss Anstey (10 page)

‘Certainly.’

‘An interesting viewpoint, though I did not see much of the Navy.’

‘We were always at sea. You’d meet the Army, no doubt?’

‘Wellington, from time to time, and frequently his staff. That’s how I met Hildersham.’

Again the talk had slipped, and again unfortunately; for Hildersham meant Anice, who was with him in Paris, and the mention brought the memory alive again. The man was all but present, sitting easily on the box of his barouche, a hand protectively on Anice, his deep voice pleasant in its confidence and courtesy. But he would be doing more now than put a hand on Anice. They were in Paris, and he would be sleeping with her. The thought stabbed and burned. He could give her everything, and what could a lonely sea officer---

‘What’s the matter?’

Again the quiet voice broke in, and he turned to see Barford watching him intently. For a moment he was embarrassed, and then he told himself it was needless.

Barford was a man of the world, who would understand these things. He had not kept strictly to the path himself.

‘It’s all right. I was just thinking of--Hildersham.’

‘And the lady?’ Barford nodded gravely. ‘I can understand that feeling. I’ve known it too well. My advice, if I may presume . . .’

‘Of course.’

‘If you feel like that, go and get her. And be damned to Hildersham.’

‘It’s what I’m tempted to. I’m not sure it’s wise.’

‘Because she’s--what she is?’ Again Barford nodded, and for a moment he hung in thought. ‘Do you know I’m called cynical?’

‘No. But why?’

‘Some views I hold. I’m not in tune with this age. But--where’s Lady Hildersham? We may suppose she’s not with him.’

‘You say he didn’t marry her for that. Or perhaps didn’t.’

‘Certainly didn’t, in this age. Men marry for estates, not for wives. And when they’ve estates they lose them at play, or by horses, or Cyprians. I can at least vouch for the play.’

‘But I don’t see---‘

‘It’s simple. If your heart’s engaged, follow it--and don’t think too much of worldly circumstance. It’s what many do. They think of the world, not the woman, and all they get is--the world. Ah well...’ He sat back, smiling thoughtfully as if memories had roused. ‘At least I never did that. I played whist for money, but I did not marry for it. And now I’m called cynical.’

‘Not by many, I hope.’

‘Then try a word with Mary, and see what
she
thinks. Though John, I’m glad to say, shows some natural instincts which is more than his father ever did. She doesn’t approve of that, either.’

Whatever he might have meant was allowed to wait. Grant was in no mood now to chase the unnecessary. His mind was in turmoil--the face in the locket, the boy with the hair and eyes, Anice, Hildersham, and now this advice from Barford. It chimed exactly with his wish. But who
was
Anice? The face in the ivory hung before his eyes again--and suddenly he remembered that he was a guest in Barford’s house, most courteously received, and he must not drift into a reverie and forget his host. The thought was insistent, and he roused himself. He even managed a smile.

‘We’ll let it wait, my lord. It’s too deep for me at this moment. And the wine too good.’

‘Then let’s go to dinner. Did you know Captain Harvey, I wonder, of the
Amphitryon?
He was also off that coast.’

‘A little earlier, I fancy. They gave him a seventy-four.’

They kept it on that level throughout dinner in the graceful room that overlooked the garden, and even afterwards, when they were at wine again in the library, there was nothing more disturbing than some talk of the boy who had known this room and would not come to it again. Though even that was delicate, for Grant’s memories were thin and Barford’s overflowing, and the boy had looked like Anice. The devil would not lie down, and with one thing and another Grant was not sorry when the clock at last showed half past seven and he could decently take his leave. But neither did he regret the visit. He was beginning to like Barford, and to see him as a lonely man who had come to wealth and title, and had lost what he cared for most.

They parted cordially with expressions of goodwill that were certainly sincere, and then Grant walked alone across the park once more. It was dark now, with bright stars and a chill in the September night, and for a moment his eyes were on the stars, picking out Arcturus
and noting that his path led west-by-north. Then he remembered that he need not. He was ashore now, without a ship to care for--or anything else to care for, as far as he could see. She was in Paris, and Hildersham had wealth and manners, anything but a man of straw. It was a thought to be chased away, but the others closed in, the face that was his and hers, and Barford’s displeasure at mention of a sister. There was a tangle here, and he had not yet all the threads of it; but Mary would know. Though it might be safer, he suddenly thought, to put the point to John. There was something, it seemed, that Mary disapproved of, though he did not remember what.

He came to the house, and he found Mary by herself. She was sitting alone by the fire, giving grace, he thought, to a room that was beginning to look old-fashioned. It was a room from another day, built in Queen Anne’s time, panelled in golden oak as the way then was, with a silver grain to make it brighter, but dust and polish had dimmed it now to a deep brown, and the sparkle was gone. It was different, but attractive still, and someone had made the most of it. It had a carpet of deeper brown, soft and thick, that made the oak seem lighter. It had some good furniture, light and graceful, chairs that could have come from Heppelwhite, an inlay table in satinwood and rose, and a round tea-table of the latest style, slender on a single leg. It had a fireplace newer than the room, with a basket grate and a stone surround. Curtains of gold brocade hid the tall sash-windows, and on the walls were three good water-colours and an oil above the hearth---a scene of a gentleman’s park, with trees and rolling grassland and a fine old house beyond. It was not Barford’s house, and again for an instant Grant was wondering whose it was and why it had place of honour here. Then he put that aside and turned to speak to Mary, who was his hostess now.

‘John still busy?’ he asked.

‘It depends on what you mean by busy.’

‘I meant with the attorney.’

‘Did you really?’

The dry tone was unmistakable and it set him looking at her with full attention. She looked back with calm steadiness.

‘You evidently don’t know John. Did you really think he’d spend all day with an attorney, and an evening too?’

‘Well, he said---‘

‘He says a good deal, and he did spend an hour with the man this morning.’ ‘And afterwards?’

‘An attraction of a different sort. There’s one in every village.’

‘Oh, I---‘ There could be no mistake about her meaning, and he cut his comment short. ‘Who is it?’

‘This particular one, I think, is Mary Ann Masheter. An unpleasing name, though we mustn’t blame her for that. Will you have tea?’

‘If you are.’

‘I am.’ She leaned across to the tasselled bell cord on the wall. ‘And I shall be glad of your company.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Oh no.’

She had turned quickly to face him, looking directly into his eyes, and suddenly he was aware of her as he had never been before. Her eyes were alive, her clear face firm and strong. But it was feminine too, which he had hardly seen before. She had been his friendly hostess, and with his thoughts on Anice he had looked no further. Now it was different, suddenly different. He was alone with her, eye to eye, and for the first time he was seeing her as a woman. The thought occurred that she was perfectly aware of this.

His thoughts were broken by a tap at the door and the deferential entry of a parlour-maid. She was told to bring tea, and as the door shut softly after her he looked again at Mary, who was now comfortable in her chair, seeming very much at her ease.

‘I’m glad you’ve come in,’ she told him, ‘even if it’s only to drink tea. I’ve been short of company for some time past.’

‘Since your father--er . . .’

‘Died. You may as well say it. And my husband too, the same day.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘But I didn’t really mean that. Being short of company goes much further back. My father, after all, was a Regular officer, and he’d been away for years. As for Charles . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘As I’ve told you. There’s one in every village.’

‘He left
your

‘They leave all of us. It’s reckoned fashionable.’

‘I didn’t know it was as bad as that.’

‘Didn’t you?’ A touch of amusement was showing in her smile. ‘I’m afraid, Richard, you’ve been at sea too long.’

‘If you mean I don’t know things, you’re quite right.’

‘But don’t sound apologetic. I rather like you for it.’

‘Thank you. But when you said every village I thought you were speaking of John?’

‘Certainly.’ Again, for an instant, the smile appeared, and then there was a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘I don’t think the Wickhams were ever much noted for constancy. My grandfather seems to have been the nearest we’ve ever come to it, in spite of eloping, and he passed something of it to my father--and there it stopped. The old strain seems to be breaking out again.’

‘John?’

‘Of course. Too good-looking, I suppose, and he can always babble at girls. He’s had some practice.’ The smile became a laugh, and then she changed the topic. ‘But how’s Uncle Barford? Still talking about Dick?’

‘Oh yes.’ He said it quickly, and the way began to open before him. ‘I’ve been hearing about the boy’s mother, and his grandmother.’

‘Granny Hart? You
must
be privileged. He won’t usually speak of them.’

‘Why not? Is he annoyed at something?’

‘How did you guess that?’ She was suddenly sharp, and then she relaxed again. ‘Well, perhaps he is. Of course, they
are
rather a skeleton in his family cupboard--and he never seems to notice that they’re in ours too.’

‘Yours?’

‘Didn’t he tell you we’re related to them? Wrong side of the blanket, of course. Great-Uncle Wickham.’

‘Who?’

The door was pushed quietly open, the light tap of a finger hardly giving warning as the maid came in again with the tea. Mary sank into smiling silence as the tray was put on the single-legged table at her side, and then, as the door was shut again, she turned thoughtfully to the cups. He watched her carefully, considering now that she seemed to come of a family that had--in Barford’s phrase--some natural instincts. At all events, the men seemed to have, so . . .

‘I’m wondering,’ she said slowly, ‘if history’s repeating itself. Here you are. What do you think John’s doing with Mary Ann?’

‘The village girl?’ He carefully took the cup she was holding out to him. ‘She’s attractive?’

‘Uncommonly. That can happen, even in a village.’

‘Do you think it’s serious?’

‘I’ve never known John serious yet. As for Mary Ann, I don’t know. She’ll be wanting something, of course, and we’ll find out later.’

‘Ye-es.’ He spoke slowly and tried to turn the talk back to what he wanted. ‘But what were you saying about your Great-Uncle Wickham?’

‘Old Harry? Oh, that was the Ann Hart affair.’

‘But what happened?’

‘You do sound interested.’

‘Well, yes--if it produced Dick Barford. After all, I did know him.’

‘More or less.’ She paused for a moment, and then seemed disposed to humour him. ‘That part of it’s fairly simple. Ann Hart came here with my grandmother.’

‘Village witch, I’m told?’

‘An odd sort of witch. She was about seventeen, they say, and attractive beyond anything you’ve ever seen. But at all events, she came, and a little while later Harry Wickham turned up too. That was my grandfather’s elder brother, coming on a visit, I suppose. Of course, he’d known Ann, when she lived on
his
estate, and he seems to have had another look at her. Result, a daughter--this Mary Atkins, as she called herself, though nobody ever told me why. She had her mother’s good looks, or some of them, and she attracted Barford. That’s all.’

‘No.’ He shook his head gravely. ‘It isn’t all, from what Barford said at dinner.’

‘He
does
seem to have been talking.’

‘More than he intended, perhaps. He showed me a locket--a miniature of Dick.’

‘I didn’t know he had one.’

‘He has, and it’s an excellent likeness. It reminded me---‘

He stopped suddenly, telling himself to be careful. ‘Dick, I imagine, took after his mother?’

‘Well, he didn’t take after his father. As to his mother, I was only three when she died, so---‘

‘Died?’

‘Didn’t you know?’ She sounded suddenly suspicious. ‘I don’t make out how much Barford
has
told you.’

‘Not very much, really. I think perhaps there was a quarrel.’

‘There was. Do you really want me to tell you?’

‘Briefly, if you will.’

‘All right.’ She looked at him steadily, and still seemed puzzled. ‘You’ll understand I’m giving you hearsay? It was all before I was born, or just a little after. However, Dick was born, as I’ve said, and apparently everything was lovely--Barford doting on both of them--he even built a house for her, on the estate--and then, unfortunately, she had another child,
not
his. Don’t ask me whose it was. I don’t think anyone’s ever known that--unless Barford does--but you’ll guess that he wasn’t pleased. To make it worse, she died from the birth, and that really
was
the finish. He took Dick to the Manor House and called him his son, but of course he’d have nothing to do with the infant, who
wasn’t
his. She was brought up in a cottage here by her grandmother--Ann Hart, of course.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He spoke quietly, and was seizing on the detail that it had been a girl. ‘What became of her?’

‘If you mean the grandmother, she lived to be about eighty. She died six years ago. If you mean the girl--another Ann, by the way--she ran off when her grandmother died. She’d have been sixteen then, so I suppose she found work somewhere. However . ..’ There was a distinct change of tone, as if she had now had enough of this. ‘I was in London by then--higher education with my Uncle Barford--so I can’t tell you much about it.’