The Shocking Miss Anstey (12 page)

‘Good day to you--ma’am.’ He was not quite sure how to put it, but he must at least show courtesy. ‘I’m happy to make your acquaintance.’

That was conventional enough, but she did not seem to take it so. Her eyes sparkled at it, and her smile was charming as she answered.

‘Sir . . .’ She spoke in a clear fresh voice that had hardly a trace of the country accent. ‘It’s I that should be happy. First the Army . . .’ For a fleeting instant she turned her eyes to John. ‘. . . and now the Navy. I hardly know myself.’

‘I’m sure you know yourself excellently.’

‘She does,’ said John. ‘At least she knows what she wants, and if you do happen to be in London this winter you’re likely to see a little more of her.’

‘That sounds mysterious.’

‘Not at all. She can’t spread wings in this place, so she would like a change--which means London. And by the way things are going I look like taking her there.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He stopped short, hoping again that he was not standing stiffly. Then he turned to Mary Ann, and tried to speak gallantly. ‘I’ll be honoured if we meet, ma’am. If I can be of any service . . .’

‘Sir!’ Smile and eyes seemed brighter than before. ‘You are very good. I may perhaps ask some small thing--some day---if I may?’

‘Of course.’

He had to say it. She had taken him at his word with a devastating speed, though she must have known that he had meant no more than a vague politeness, and he began to look at her with a new respect. There was more in her than he had expected. But he had enough on his hands already, without Mary Ann as well, and he decided to make an end of this at once.

‘I’m happy to have met you, ma’am.’ He said it a little stiffly, and then at once he turned to John. ‘I’m expected at the Manor, to take Mary home, so you’ll forgive my leaving you?’

‘Of course, if Mary wants you. I’m sure that Mary Ann will forgive you too.’

Mary Ann was equal to it. For a moment she stood poised, while her head went back, and then she dipped into a curtsey, deep and graceful, admirably done.

‘There is nothing to forgive. Sir--your most obliged and humble servant.’

It sounded old-fashioned, oddly so in Mary Ann, and for an instant he wondered where she had picked it up. It sounded like something borrowed; but that, he remembered, was true of the rest of her manners. They did not fit a village girl, and she had certainly learned them elsewhere.

‘Yours, ma’am.’ He bowed quickly as he spoke. ‘A most pleasant meeting. But now, if you’ll give me leave . . .’

He walked quickly away, hoping it would not seem too abrupt, and then, as he continued his circle of the park, he began to be grimly amused. John, he thought, was finding her a handful--and serve him right. He was no beginner, of course, and Mary Ann might have some shocks before she had done with him, but certainly she was not the village girl. Yet she had been: and again he wondered where she had learned her manners. It brought the memory of Anice to him, who had also been a village girl, and had learned her manners as a lady’s maid. Could this girl . . . ?

He all but stopped in his walk as another thought came flashing. They must surely have known each other. They would be almost of an age, and if Anice
had
come from this village they could not have avoided each other. They might have been friends, or the opposite, and he could make no guess, but it would be strange if one small village should turn out two such girls as these; unless, of course, there was more to it than chance, and one was following the other. He must learn a little more, he told himself, of Mary Ann, and he was not altogether glad that he had met her.

It was a little after half past two when he came to the Manor House, and as he walked up the terrace a footman opened the mahogany door between the Doric columns of the portico. Evidently he was expected, and the man took him at once to a long drawing-room, white-and-gold, with a deep-red carpet and slender chairs in golden satin. The tall windows were open to the park to let the shafts of sunlight come pouring in, though a fire was twinkling in a hearth of golden stone under a mahogany surround that had silver candlesticks and a gilded clock. Mary was in a chair by the fire with a tea-tray at her side, and Barford, in white pantaloons and a mulberry coat, was sitting cross-legged on a sofa, much as his ease. He rose lazily to his feet as the footman ushered in his guest.

‘Come in,’ he said affably. ‘You’re very welcome. Do you drink tea?’

‘Not just now, thank you.’

He was looking round the room, noting the elegance and the blaze of colour, and thinking that this was typical. Barford would probably prefer his library, and he would have wine there with a man, but he would use this room to give tea to a lady. He would think it her proper setting, a courtesy to which she was entitled, and a glance at Mary, poised in her chair by the sparkling silver of the tea-tray, suggested that he was right. She gave grace to the room, and the room enhanced her own.

‘I’m glad to see you.’ She was smiling happily as she spoke. ‘I’ve taxed my uncle’s patience long enough.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t.’

‘Oh yes, I have. He finds me quite unreasonable.’

‘The privilege of your sex, my dear.’ Barford spoke easily, leaning now against the mantelpiece. ‘Don’t alter it. You’re charming as you are, and I wouldn’t have you otherwise.’

‘That isn’t quite what I gathered. However . . .’ She came briskly to her feet. ‘I think I need a walk. Would you ring for my cloak?’

‘Of course--if you must have one.’ He pulled gently at the gilded tassel of a bell cord. ‘A pelisse is more the fashion.’

‘In London, no doubt. But not here.’

‘I’m sure you know best. But when you come---‘ He broke off, and then turned pleasantly to Grant. ‘I shall be in Town for the winter season, and I hope Mary will be with me. I’ve taken a house in Curzon Street, and if you should be in Town I shall count upon you to call.’

‘I shall be most happy.’

‘Then I’ll call it unfriendly if you do not. I’ll leave Mary to say what
she
would think.’

‘I should think the same,’ came the prompt answer.

‘Then I’ll most certainly call.’

‘It’s settled then,’ said Barford. ‘Curzon Street, October and November.’

He turned as one of his trim young parlour-maids came quickly in with Mary’s cloak, and then he helped her into it. He kissed her lightly, and then let them out through the library and walked with them across the velvet lawn to the fringe of cedars and the view along the lake to the Grecian temple.

‘Why do we build such things?’ he asked at large. ‘Except that it’s fashionable, or was. In my day a gentleman was expected to have such things in his park. Well, well . . .’ His easy smile broke out again. ‘Call on me again, Captain Grant, whenever you please. Formality is not needed. Now I think Mary looks impatient for your arm.’

She accepted it with a laugh, and then they walked together across the park, slowly in the afternoon sunshine. He had meant to learn something now of these village affairs, but they were no longer in his thoughts. These were only of Mary, who was at his side, and was gracious, and of his own kind. The touch of her fingers was friendly on his arm, and his thoughts were of her and of her talk with Barford. He wondered whether they had really been irritating each other.

‘How’s Barford?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Have you been arguing?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘It sounded like it.’

‘Hmm.’ She stayed in silence for a moment. ‘I suppose it did. He’s too much the guiding uncle at times. Worldly wise, and he can’t forget it. I might be his ward by the way he’s been talking.’

‘What about? May I ask that?’

‘Yes.’ She was suddenly terse. ‘He thinks I ought to marry again. Suitably, of course--which means into the nobility. He says I could.’

‘I’m quite sure you---‘

‘Don’t be silly.’ She laughed, as if she had understood his meaning and was not displeased. ‘It’s nothing to do with whether I’m fit to look at or not. A man of rank doesn’t think that way.’

‘Can’t he feel like other men?’

‘When he chooses a mistress. A wife’s rather different.’ She was distinctly sardonic now. ‘I can marry, if I wish to, first because I’m properly connected--a peer’s widow.’

‘And a general’s daughter.’

‘You’re improving. And Lord Barford’s niece, of course. Don’t forget that.’

‘I’m sure
he
didn’t.’

‘How did you guess? And second . . .’ Her forehead wrinkled for a moment, and then her tone changed. ‘I must say this was good of him. He said I’d expectations--meaning from himself, of course. So I’m heir to something, I don’t quite know what, but it will no doubt have been nicely calculated. Suitable bait, you see, and between that and the right connections . . .’

‘You’re fortunate.’

‘No. I’m ungrateful.’

‘But why?’

‘Don’t you understand?’ She glanced sharply at him, and for an instant she seemed impatient. ‘I’ve had that sort of marriage once, and I’m not having it again. It isn’t worth it, whatever he thinks, and he can disinherit me if he wants to.’

‘He’d not do that, surely?’

‘He might. He’d like his money to go to the right place, and he’d like a peer living in his house after him, not a commoner. Well,
I’m
a commoner. At least, I was brought up as one, and from now onwards I’m going to live in my own rank and take things easily. Barford’s different, of course. He’s spent his whole life climbing to what he wasn’t, and now he’s become it. Well, good luck to him, but I don’t happen to want it for myself. That’s all.’

‘Can’t he understand that?’

‘He’s too sure he knows best. In a lot of ways he does, of course, but not quite in every way. Now let’s talk of something else. You’ve been for a walk, it seems, by the dust on your boots. Did you see John?’

‘You’re guessing well.’

‘I know his ways. What did you think of Mary Ann?’

She had stopped in her walk, turning directly to him as she put the question, and the steadiness of it told him that she wanted a proper answer. He took a moment to consider it.

‘She’s remarkable,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s the least I can say.’

‘Would you call her dangerous?’

‘I think I would.’

‘I’m glad you agree. Why do you call her remarkable?’

‘Oh . . .’ For a moment he hesitated. ‘She’s vital--full of life--and so quick, and so sure of herself. Her manners, too. They didn’t come from the village.’

‘She had those from Barford.’

‘What!’

‘Oh, it’s all right.’ She was laughing suddenly at his concern. ‘I’m not suggesting an affair with Uncle. Mary Ann isn’t quite of that standard. She was his parlour-maid--that’s all. You’ve noticed he has dinner served by maids? He has the butler, to see to the wine, but no other man. He says the girls look better.’

‘So they do.’

‘Said like a man! But Mary Ann had about five years of it, as first parlour-maid, and I must say she was good at it. But that’s how she learned her manners--copying him and his guests. She’ll have been good at that too.’

He could well believe it, and it explained also the old-fashioned style he had found in her manners. That could be expected, if she had copied Barford.

‘Why did she leave?’ he asked slowly.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I think it was when her mother died, but does it matter? It’s John I’m thinking about now. What does the girl want?’

‘From what she said--though it wasn’t much--she wants to be taken to London.’

‘By John?’ She turned sharply to him, with her lips pressed tight for a moment. ‘Why are men such fools with girls?’

‘I’ve heard of girls being fools with men.’

‘As I was? Oh, it’s all right, I’ll cry
touché.
All the same, I wish John wouldn’t do it. What’s put this into her head, I wonder?’

‘London?’ He hesitated, and then saw his chance. ‘Wasn’t there another girl from here who went off? Atkins, I think she was called.’

‘Ann? But did she go to London? I never heard where she went.’

‘I just wondered if it was one girl following the other. I suppose they knew each other?’

‘Oh yes. But . . .’ Again she stopped, and then a smile came to her, slowly broadening to amusement. ‘You’ve pretty well promised Barford you’ll call on us in London. Now suppose John has Mary Ann there at the same time? It’s, the sort of thing he
would
do. You may find yourself meeting her again.’

‘Very likely. But it won’t be what I’m in London for.’

‘I hope not. But didn’t you say something about being in Paris too? When will that be?’

‘I don’t know. In fact . . .’ Thoughts of Anice were blending with it now, but Mary’s eyes were charming. ‘It’s time I was thinking what I
am
going to do.’

It was certainly time. He lay thinking of it that night, after he was in bed, and the more he thought of it the more plain it seemed that he must have another talk with Anice. Who she was hardly seemed to matter. It was the memory of her that would not leave him, and until he knew how he stood with her he could not know how he even wished to stand with Mary. Yet Mary, in her different way, was becoming important. So he must find Anice; and not until then would he know how he really felt to either of them.

So far, so good. He must find Anice. But how to set about it was another matter. He did not know whether she was still in Paris, or even whether she was still with Hildersham. If she was, he did not know where they were staying. He had never been in Paris, and his knowledge of French was just enough for the simple questions he must put to a prisoner of war. It seemed all but hopeless--until he remembered that Hildersham, with rank and wealth, was perhaps important enough for his whereabouts to be known to the Embassy in Paris; or the Charge d’Affaires, if an Embassy had not yet been established. But did Embassies give addresses? That was an awkward point, and he worried over it for the next half-hour until the obvious solution occurred to him--ask Barford, who had been an Ambassador. This was precisely the world he had lived in, and he would know all these points. He was friendly, and would probably enjoy showing his knowledge.