Fragile Mask (30 page)

Denzell left her at the front door, and she knocked in some
trepidation. It was opened almost immediately by Mrs Quirk, the
landlady. The woman was looking quite agog, Verena noted, but she
refrained from asking any questions. The reason for this was not
far to seek, for as Verena started up the stairs she discovered
Betsey waiting for her above, in full sight of Mrs
Quirk.

‘
A rare day’s entertainment for her,’ whispered Betsey,
seizing her young mistress’s arm.

‘
Betsey, what has happened?’ Verena asked.

‘
He’s gone,’ reassured the maid. ‘And Mr Adam with
him.’

Verena fixed eyes of painful enquiry upon Betsey’s face.
‘Mama?’

‘
In the parlour, waiting for you.’

‘
Oh, thank heaven!’

She hurried along the passage and threw open the door. Mrs
Peverill, who was seated in the armchair that half faced the door,
looked up at her entrance. She smiled, and stretched out a
hand.

‘
My dearest girl!’

Verena ran to her, dropping to her knees beside the
armchair, and seizing her hand. ‘Dear heaven, Mama, I was so afraid
you might have gone.’

Mrs Peverill stroked her face. ‘As if I would have done so
without your knowing.’ She smiled again, with an effort, Verena
thought, and gestured to the other chair. ‘Sit down, dearest. I
want to talk to you.’

Rising from her knees, Verena was conscious of an
instant drop in her chest. This boded ill. What did Mama wish to
talk
about
? She was not distressed, but she seemed subdued,
and thoughtful. On what had she determined?

‘
What had he to say for himself?’ she asked, seating herself
in the other chair.

Mrs Peverill gave a tiny sigh. ‘He assures me he has
changed.’

‘
I thought he would say so.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘Do not speak so harshly,
Verena. I believe he was speaking the truth. There can be no doubt
that he is—different. He does realise his wrongs to me, and he has
had a lesson, which he will not forget.’

‘
Until the next time,’ cut in Verena on a bitter
note.

‘
No,’ said Mrs Peverill. ‘He is truly repentant.’

‘
I cannot imagine why you should think so. He always claimed
to be repentant, and yet he always did it again.’ A note of
desperation entered Verena’s voice, for she was beginning to fear
the worst. ‘Why should you think him changed? Why should you
suppose it will be any different?’

‘
Because it is as I said,’ stated Mrs
Peverill.
‘
He
is
different. He knows that he may lose me entirely, and that is new
for him.’

Verena looked at her, acute suspicion writ large across her
countenance. ‘Mama, do you tell me you are contemplating a return?
In your sane mind, can you even think of it?’

Her mother chose not to answer this directly. She met her
daughter’s eyes. ‘What of your future, Verena?’

‘
We have been through all that,’ she returned with
impatience, brushing it aside.

‘
But it is another case now, is it not?’ insisted Mrs
Peverill. She smiled. ‘I am not blind, Verena. And I could not
mistake Betsey’s veiled hints.’

A trembling began inside Verena. This was what she had
feared all along. Now what was she to do? Before she could think
what to say to dismiss this wholly unwanted subject, her mother
threw her into even more confusion.

‘
Does he love you, Verena?’

It was out before she could stop it. ‘He says
so.’

‘
And do you love him?’

‘
No!’ She knew her hands were shaking; and she
bunched them into her lap. ‘No, Mama. I don’t...I can’t. There is
no possibility of—I
told
him so. I cannot
love
anyone
.
Heavens
above, Mama, you must know how it is with me!’

Mrs Peverill sat up, and leaning across to the other chair,
reached her fingers out to close over those unquiet
hands.

‘
Because you have set your face against it, that does not
mean it cannot happen, my dearest.’

‘
Mama, don’t speak of it, pray,’ begged Verena
shakily. ‘
You
loved, and look how little good it
has done you.’

Mrs Peverill nodded and sat back again. ‘That is true, but
only because there was so little time.’

The trembling abated, for this did not make
sense.

‘
What in the world can you mean, Mama? You must have loved
Nathaniel once, I quite see that.’

Mrs Peverill looked full in her face, a note of finality in
her voice. ‘You are wrong, Verena. I never loved
Nathaniel.’

‘
What?’

‘
I never loved him,’ she repeated. ‘Which is the reason he
used me so shockingly. He knew from the beginning, for I never
pretended. I tried to love him, God knows. Perhaps if he had not
taken to abusing me, I might have succeeded. When that began, I
tried even harder. But it is difficult to love someone who
mistreats one so badly.’

Impossible, Verena would have said, could she have said
anything at all. She was astounded. Could it be true? It did not
make sense.

‘
Why did you not leave him years ago?’ she asked, finding
her tongue in a rush. ‘How could you stay, allow him to use you
thus, if you did not love him? And how can you speak of having
loved, Mama—and try to tell me that I should love?’

At that, Mrs Peverill’s features softened into a smile of
such tenderness that Verena was startled.

‘
I do not mean Nathaniel when I speak of having loved,
dearest. I am talking of your father.’ Her eyes glowed. ‘Lambert
and I were so much in love that we neither of us cared for the
consequences.’

Verena was feeling more and more bewildered. ‘But Grandpapa
Whicham told me that the Chaceleys treated you shockingly, refusing
to assist you when you were widowed. You have yourself told me that
Nathaniel rescued you from an unenviable situation.’

‘
He offered me the chance of respectability, of security,’
corrected Mrs Peverill. ‘Come, Verena, you know very well that my
station in life was not what I am raised to now. Papa was a
lawyer.’

‘
I know, and therefore the Chaceleys cast you
off.’

‘
Not me, Verena. They cast off poor Lambert for making a
misalliance. At least his father did.’

Verena knew the story. Mama had been sent to the seaside
under the care of a cousin to convalesce after a bout of fever.
There she had met with Lieutenant Lambert Chaceley, on his way to
re-join his vessel at Chichester. After they were married, Lambert
had returned to sea, and was drowned in a skirmish in which his
ship had been engaged.

Verena had been born fatherless. It was Nathaniel whom she
had known in that capacity from her earliest years, but him she had
repudiated once she knew what he was doing to her mother. She had
never again called him ‘Papa’ from the day she found out,
preferring to be fatherless once more, and forever. This possible
aspect of Mama’s feelings for her real father had never entered
Verena’s head.

‘
But if you loved my father—’ she began.

‘
We fell in love at first sight,’ recounted Mrs Peverill, a
long-forgotten dream in her countenance. ‘It was on the beach at
Little Hampton.’

‘
Little Hampton?’ echoed Verena. Then that was why her
stepfather had chosen to search in that place. But Mrs Peverill was
still lost in memories.

‘
Nothing would do for him but my promise to marry him on his
very next leave. We would not have waited as long, but that there
was no time to arrange a marriage and I was under age. His papa
refused his consent, but we were married in spite of it, and my own
papa swore he should house us both.’ She sighed. ‘I do not know how
it would have gone had Lambert lived. Perhaps his father might have
relented in time.’ She looked at Verena again. ‘But this I do know.
Our love was strong enough to have withstood any amount of trouble,
and Lambert would have died before he raised a hand to
me.’

‘
How can you be sure?’ Verena uttered, out of
those deep-seated fears that would not allow her to feel—what she
knew she
could
feel. ‘How can you possibly
know?’

‘
I know, Verena, because Lambert had my heart. You see, my
dearest, Nathaniel knew me before my marriage to Lambert. He had
always an eye to me. Papa persuaded me to accept his proposals in
the end, for I had you to think of, and Papa was ill, and he feared
for my future if I was left alone with a young child to bring up,
and already you were two years old. So I married
Nathaniel.’

‘
To your cost,’ Verena said.

‘
And his, Verena,’ said Mrs Peverill. ‘I married
him without love, for advantage only. He was jealous, you see,
dearest. He
did
love me, and he never could forgive
me for loving Lambert instead of him.’ She gave a rather wan smile.
‘Sometimes I think it was a judgement on me for marrying above my
station.’

‘
Oh, Mama,’ Verena protested. ‘God is not so
cruel.’

‘
No, no, dearest. The judgement was that I should have lost
Lambert, not that I should have been punished by Nathaniel.’ She
sat forward again and leaned across to take one of Verena’s hands.
‘I am telling you this, my dearest, to show you that love can be a
very different thing from my experience with Nathaniel. So, if you
do care for this young man—’

‘
That will do, Mama,’ said Verena, rising to her feet.
‘There is no question of that. I know what you are thinking. That
you must make it possible for me to be free to marry. Well, I tell
you now, I will not hear of such a thing. You must not think of it.
Where is Nathaniel now?’

‘
He has gone back to the New Inn with Adam,’ her mother told
her, getting up. ‘He is waiting for my decision.’

Verena turned a face of horror upon her. ‘You mean you have
allowed him to hope? No, no, Mama. You should have sent him
packing. Lord in heaven, he will come back and coerce you, I know
he will!’

Mrs Peverill came to her and patted her arm. ‘Verena, don’t
fret yourself to flinders. He has promised he will not create any
scenes, but will wait for my decision, and respect it.’

‘
And you believed him? Heavens, Mama, what does it take to
convince you? He has broken so many promises. I have lost count of
the times he promised never to hurt you again, yet he did so—I know
not how often.’

‘
Yes, that is true, dearest,’ Mrs Peverill conceded. ‘But
you and I, Verena, cannot continue in this way forever, of that I
am certain. Don’t you see? I must seriously consider this
opportunity.’

Verena thought she was going mad. Opportunity! Had Mama
taken leave of her senses? Desperately, she clutched her mother’s
arms.

‘
Mama, you are out of your mind! Believe me, I
will
kill
Nathaniel before I allow you to return to him. Do
you imagine I could enjoy an instant’s happiness with Denzell,
knowing what you must be suffering?’

Mrs Peverill reached her hands up to her daughter’s
shoulders, an odd look in her face. ‘Verena, do you realise what
you have just said?’

Verena’s heart stilled. What had she said? She
had talked of Denzell—and enjoying
happiness
with him.
Oh, sweet heaven, she
was
going mad! This
could not be. She wrenched herself away.

‘
You have confused me, Mama—all this talk of love
and my father. Don’t you know
you
are more important
to me than anything in the world?’

With that, she turned and rushed out of the parlour, almost
running into Betsey as the maid came towards her.

‘
Now what’s amiss?’ demanded Betsey, catching at her young
mistress and holding her. ‘Steady now, Miss Verena. What’s to
do?’

‘
Oh, Betsey, help me,’ Verena cried. ‘We must
leave here at once. Go far away—abroad. Yes, abroad! Anywhere—only
so that we get away from
here.’

She glanced back to the parlour door, but Mama was still
within. Hustling Betsey, she pushed her into her own bedchamber and
shut the door.

‘
Betsey, give me an answer!’

‘
I would, my dove, if you would but tell me the question,’
said the maid, bewildered. ‘Now simmer down, do, and talk
sense.’

Verena drew a steadying breath. ‘Betsey, how am I to
persuade Mama that I have no interest in Denzell? You must help me
to disabuse her mind. We must convince her I am not in love with
him.’

‘
And what about you, Miss Verena?’ demanded the maid
shrewdly. ‘Are you convinced?’

‘
Oh, Betsey, don’t you begin. In any event, he has
not
asked
me to marry him. He has promised, besides, that
he will not speak of the matter again.’