Grace Gibson (3 page)

With the passage of days, the Marquis of Denley began to succumb to his new circumstances. He was strangely relieved by the sheer wholesomeness of his surroundings. Mr. Fanley and he fell rather quickly into harmony, for Robert found nothing in his host but goodwill. He was used to holding a perpetual guard against fawning social climbers, moral authorities, gamesters and the vulgar
bourgeoisie
. With Mr. Fanley he found himself unable to be guarded at all, a state of relaxation in company that he had never known.

His standing with Mary Fanley, however, remained precarious. When he exclaimed surprise at the early dinner hour, she said airily, “Oh, indeed we are quite
passé
, but you will allow
we
at least are odiously prompt at breakfast.” As he fussed over mud splatters on his coat of dark blue superfine, she stood in the doorway of the salon with an arch look of satisfaction.

“Is it always so dirty here?” he exclaimed disgustedly.

“Oh, I think it is dirtier
here
than anywhere in the world! I cannot imagine why no one goes about fixing it so that there is no
dirt
in the country. But it is above all things what I admire in you, Lord Robert: that certain pertinacity that drives you to wear finery although it may be ravaged by the country.”

If he asked to play cards, she would yawn and say, “Well, of course we can play, but you will find me quite stupid. I have spent the day in the linen room, and I’ve counted silver until I can count no more.” If he asked her what book she was reading, she would exclaim in a mockingly stricken voice, “Oh, it is only a recipe for a poultice,” or “’tis a story about a housewife who’s lost her favourite chicken.” One evening, he ventured into the charade, and said, “I’d no idea Milton ever wrote directions for a mustard plaster. May I see it?” She slammed the book shut and minced over to the shelf, where she briskly put it in place. “I know what you are about, sir. You would defame me for trying to better myself with a book, when in your heart you believe my place is in the kitchen.”

This flippancy maddened him to the point of incivility. “You are mistaken. I would have helped you cipher some of the longer words.”

Rather than bursting into tears, as would befit any gently bred woman, Mary Fanley openly laughed in his face. “Very well, I
was
reading Milton. But you astonish me! There is nothing about you to suggest you are bookish. I can guess the sort of education
you
might have received, and I sincerely doubt you would be able to assist
me
in the improvement of my mind.

Mary was delighted to see by Lord Robert’s expression that she had nettled him.

“I do not even pretend to understand you. No expense was spared in my upbringing I assure you, and although I do not admit to an academic turn of mind I am not a duncecap.”

She countered his attack with airy unconcern. “No, I do not suppose you are, particularly when it comes to blood sports and gaming dens and…other places that would put me to the blush.”

At
point non plus
, he coloured darkly and bowed. “I beg your pardon, Miss Fanley. I thought only to play whatever game amuses you. You are certainly in no need of my help in reading or any other regard.”

After many days of dealing him rough treatment following this rather direct exchange, Mary felt she had taken sufficient revenge on the Lord for his criminal manners. As with most females who smell victory over a male adversary, she began to be in charity with him. She could not take him seriously, for he was a Marquis, and that fact made him somewhat ridiculous to her. But she could now banter with him, having cleared the hurdle of her raw feelings over his initial high handedness.

But just as she would have relented, Denley began to view his progress with Miss Fanley with the gravest of misgivings. He felt certain he would never recover from such an unlover-like error as to mistake her for a household servant; indeed, Mary had begun to treat him with a comfortable familiarity and disdain which spelled doom to romance. At this perfectly unprofitable time, after his first month of exile, the Marquis of Denley waited upon his uncle, who returned to Greenly to judge for himself the progress of his plan.

After all the necessary politeness, tea and comfortable conversation, Lord Eversham at last found Denley alone in the main salon of the house perusing a list of improvements he planned for Treehill. There being no familial affection to overcome, the Marquis started straightaway with his business. “I have here an account of the work to be done to make Treehill a habitable estate. Will you approve it? Or perhaps I had better ask — will you fund it?”

Eversham took the proffered paper and carefully read it through. “How is your suit with Miss Fanley?”

“She is civil enough to me.”

Eversham’s face turned sharp. “That does not sound to me to be promising.”

“I did not intend that it would.”

“You have faults enough, Robert, but I had not thought lack of understanding was among them. She is a young woman of some sense and a little education, who has seen nothing of the world. Any man who applied himself could make an impression on such a person.”

“I cannot make her love me!”

“Of course you can.”

“As I arrived here at Greenly Manor, a rabbitty, brown-haired creature opened the door, dressed in a blue muslin gown such as my old nurse would own. She welcomed me with an air of such relaxation that I mistook her for the housekeeper.”

“You amaze me. You arrived in the country and expected Miss Fanley to wear silk at some morning hour?”

“Ah, now you, Uncle, lack understanding. The devil is in the fact that she
perceived
my mistake and has punished me since.”

Lord Eversham looked back at the inventory of work for Treehill. He spent several silent moments doing calculations in his head before he gravely put it down. “I have been too subtle for you, Denley. You are, I believe, surrendering before you have begun to fight.”

“I see no point!” cried the young man. “I willingly go to Treehill upon completion of a habitable residence. Thus you are relieved. But to force me to woo a woman for whom I have no real inclination and who returns me nothing but wit and impertinence is a cruelty, Uncle!”

“Have I been unclear? I cannot believe so. You remove to Treehill when you are married, Robert, not before. I cannot expect you to stay there a full month: erelong your gamesters and profligates will descend on Treehill to avail themselves of your, er, hospitality. The place will be a gaming hell in a matter of days. No. I will not let that pass. Only a wife, and an uninteresting one at that, will deter your companions from reattaching to a man of such good blood and bad habits as you.”

Robert took in this speech with a gravity he had not possessed on the first occasion of meeting his uncle. After a moment’s silent reflection, he spoke. “Why do I not relinquish my ducal claim so that you can become the heir? I see all your objections to me in a clear light, for I have drunk nothing but ale and weak claret for nigh on a month. I’ve had nothing to do but reflect on my history.” With a farsighted glint in his eye, he spoke with a calculating finality. “You take Devonshire, Uncle. I am not capable of duty to my family name.”

Eversham, not much fooled by his nephew’s sudden turn of mind, showed nothing but shrewdness in his gaze. “That is a fine plan — but for the fact I do not want it. I am of too great an age, not married and with no taste for it. You must, I am afraid, be made to do your duty and produce an heir, one who is — God willing — of sounder mind than those before him. My duty is in what I have undertaken: I preserve the fortune, the lands and the respectability of the name. That accomplished, I will die in peace.”

Denley struggled with a sentiment he could not, or would not, utter. Upon perceiving it, Lord Eversham said, in his business-like way, “You will favour me with your company for a month, Robert. We go south, for I’ve a desire to see my old friend Bromley in Somersetshire. As to these improvements, I write this instant to my man of business to see to them.”

Denley replied with characteristic lack of graciousness. “May I presume I am to meet an alternative bride to my pert Mary?”

“As a sign of good faith, Robert, we depart a se’enight.” As an afterthought, Eversham added, “You will allow me to tell Fanley nearer to our departure. He will no doubt feel slighted by our removal.”

Once the Marquis perceived the totality of the requirement of his uncle —marriage and complete retirement from Society to pay for his escape from a term in the hole at Marshalsea for debt, abduction, seduction, duelling and various other misdemeanour charges — he began to adjust to his new circumstances.

Heretofore he had been somewhat dazed by his Uncle’s tour de force attack on his independence, hazily believing it would, in the end, come to naught and that he would be restored to his former life. Yet, in the medicinal country air and the company of the mild and wholesome Mr. Fanley, removed from the perdition to which he had become inured, he had lately begun to wonder at the attraction of such an existence. No, he was not reformed. It would be safer to say he had no clear idea of who he was or what he was about. He waited for clarity.

Mary Fanley, however perceiving her guest’s robust colour, vigour, the easing of lines around his eyes and even an occasional genuine smile, could only tease.

“Oh, my Lord!” she exclaimed the following morning, as he approached the breakfast parlour before the food had gone cold, “am I to call the apothecary?”

“I beg your pardon?” As always, her manner threw Lord Robert into angry confusion. He had not yet gauged her quickness, for he was still used to languid women with a degree of worldly cynicism, or shy girls who would not speak unless spoken to.

Mary graced him with a brilliant smile. “But you appear so
well!”
I am wondering if that means you are feeling poorly?”

He could not help but feel chagrin. He returned her teasing smile with a frigid bow and a flat look of disdain. “I believe I am perverse enough to feel well
and
look well, today.”

“It
is
a pity you are so complex, my Lord,” she clucked. “I admit I am disappointed.”

This was outside of enough. “You are no such thing!”

She started at his flash of temper. “Oh, dear! I believe you are not yourself. I have rarely seen you out of countenance, yet you bloom, sir. You are proven right, and I am much mistaken, for your looks are the very reverse of your constitution.”

“If my wife were to ever accost me thus at the breakfast table,” he snarled, “I am afraid I would have to beat her.”

His vicious set-down delighted her. “Well, she would deserve to be beaten if she were stupid enough to marry
you
and expect any levity at all.”

He did not answer, and she, perceiving that she had teased the gentleman beyond his endurance, fell into a silence of her own. She felt a new sensation — she was uncomfortable. She put down her fork and lowered her head, admonishing herself for her lack of respect. Indeed, Mary Fanley would have apologized to the Marquis of Denley that very instant, had not Lord Eversham appeared, making private conversation impossible.

“We will make a tour of Treehill today,” Eversham said, peremptorily, “and shall take with us a man Fanley has suggested as overseer. He may be suitable as your steward, but I shall let you be the judge.”

Denley gave his uncle a faint, sarcastic bow. “Generous. Since you are in such a mood, I will ask your blessing to petition our host to bring Miss Fanley with us.” He bowed again, this time in Mary’s direction. “If she will favour us with her company.”

Mary lifted her eyes from her coffee in a little alarm. “I am obliged, sir, but I cannot comprehend how I would contribute to such an expedition.”

The Marquis of Denley let an acid smile curl his lips as he looked her over in a most unmannerly way. He filled his plate and took his place at the table. “I would like your opinion of the kitchens and the garden and of the servants’ quarters, you know, to establish if they would be suitable to modern housekeeping.”

Eversham lifted a single brow and looked at Mary with something close to curiosity as she answered in a small voice, “In that case, I would be honoured to go.” She rose, made a lovely curtsey, and added with her eyes glittering and downcast, “I will see my father and tell him of your plan. I am sure he will be gratified by your condescension.”

After she had gone, Eversham remarked blandly, “You are a savage, Robert. I could almost pity the girl.”

“If you knew her, you would pity
me.”

Whatever sympathies his uncle had for her, the Marquis did not pity Mary Fanley. He rode to his estate alongside his uncle’s coach and four with the sprightly seat that particularly comes to the victorious. He had chosen to ride his chestnut stallion, Lucifer, a famously high-bred, bad-tempered beast that fidgeted and demanded a manly degree of discipline. The mastery his horse required supported his feelings of superiority and lessened the impression of Mary Fanley’s late domination over him.

She had taken her set-down hard, he thought, and more quickly than he had anticipated. He had figured her to be a hardened sharp-tongue, in need of several brutal insults to take the hint, but she was now so subdued he amended his opinion. She had simply never been put in her place. Certainly, Mr. Fanley would never check her behaviour. So Denley had taken it upon himself to amend her manners, and now that he had done it, he expected her teasing ways to come to a proper end. He congratulated himself periodically during the ride to Treehill for having performed something like a good deed. He made a decided effort not to see Mary looking wide-eyed out the window of the coach, as if the poor girl had never gone anywhere in her life.

Once at the estate, Mr. Fanley handed Mary out of the coach and asked her proudly — as if it were his very own property — “Well, what do you think Mary?”

Her reply was breathless. “Oh, Papa!” She did not mean to let the others hear her, yet even Eversham seemed to linger at the coach steps for that purpose. “This is the most beautiful place…”

The Marquis was perversely pleased by her reaction, but her father was astonished.

“Beautiful? I declare, I do not understand you. Shockingly wild! But do not despair, Denley. I daresay in ten years’ time you will have a suitable estate.”

The Marquis smiled charitably. “I thank you for your faith in me, Mr. Fanley. but I give you fair warning, sir, I will not make a move without you.”

This gratified Mr. Fanley to such a degree that Mary was thrown into more confusion than ever. Lord Robert seemed to lavish her father with approval and attention; in so doing he excluded her altogether. Nor did he spare any opportunity to show her his back. While the men gathered in a group on a crumbling stone terrace and surveyed the grand expanse of work to be done, she stood a little apart and partook of a smaller, less portentous view of the long-abandoned garden.

The hall she thought positively medieval. The public rooms were dark and cold, with an excess of shields, armour and the heads of great stags. “I dare say, sir, it could use a woman’s touch,” remarked Mr. Tinkerton, the new overseer.

The Marquis looked down his nose at the man. “I have never known taste to be a faculty reserved only for the female sex.”

To this, Mr. Fanley exclaimed impatiently, “But, good God, man, you will not want to be picking the wallpapers and the draperies!” This observation forced the Marquis to stammer briefly. Mary, sobered but not entirely unable to laugh, was forced to retreat to a far corner of the room and pretend careful observation of a dust covered table.

The review of the mansion of Treehill continued at a stately pace. Many rooms were observed and notations made about windows, repairs, modernizations and elemental changes. The lower reaches were also seen, rather hastily and in passing on the way to the stables and tack room. Here Mary felt apprehensive, thinking that at any moment she would be called upon to make some comment on changes that would be needed in the kitchen, the linen rooms, the cellars or any other lower level apartment. But his Lordship never looked her way, so she lingered behind and made all her observations in peace. She felt a good deal of feminine chagrin that the men in her party, who availed themselves of astounding feats of cookery with nary a thought to who or where it came from, would pass through such an ancient, unequipped cave as was Treehill’s kitchen and think only of horses.

The talk of cattle and horse flesh being interminable, Mary was long forgotten. She stepped out for a long walk in the kitchen garden, through the small copse on the far side of the garden wall and along a lovely little stream lined with ferns just to the north of that. In such beautiful, forgotten scenery, she entertained all her feelings of depression and contemplated the rest of her life taking care of her father and then her brother and, when he married, his family. She would no doubt keep house, be a governess to the children of Greenly Manor and make lace into her dotage.

She was forced to admit the arrival of a guest had been a great respite from the unvarying scene that was her ordinary existence. Mary had taken delight in creating confusion in such a proud person as the Marquis of Denley; she had never refrained from pointing out his stupidity as regards country life nor had she felt shy when poking at all his thunderous looks over her wry observations. She had overstepped, beyond a doubt, treating him as saucily as she did her brother Will, and she felt the loss of his good will in the strangest way — as a pain in her breast bone.

Mary was not a gloomy person and she searched for some restoration of her spirits. Thinking that in providing the Marquis with a great deal of good advice she might redeem herself in his opinion, she began to look forward to the evening, when he would no doubt ask her to advise him. But the moment never came. His Lordship, sensing the opportunity to crush all her aspirations to be on terms with him, chose to forget that he had invited Mary Fanley to Treehill at all. Indeed, by the end of the day, he had fallen into one of his moods.

In truth, Lord Robert was a brooder. He was known to fall into moods so foul as to evacuate his house in town of all but the staunchest servants.

In the city, he could express his depression with weeklong bouts of Blue Ruin and vicious betting at the fights in Brown Station. In the country, he could only sit and indulge his gloomy thoughts, particularly on rainy days when riding couldn’t raise his spirits.

Mary reflected with a tinge of remorse how she had made use of his low spirits to suit herself. She would find the Marquis seated in the library while her father read silently at his side. Rather than try to relieve his boredom, she would go to the pianoforte to escape the obligation of lightening his mood.

But one evening, having walked by the library door and witnessed just such a scene, an impulse of charity caused her to bring up a bottle of sherry and two glasses on a small enamelled tray.

Mr. Fanley never moved his eyes from the page. “I’m much obliged, Mary. How did you know we were in need of a glass?”

“Oh, by the glower on Sir Robert’s face, I surmised that you had bored him to within an inch of his life.”

“I am not glowering,” growled His Lordship.

“No, my dear.” Mr. Fanley took his wine and turned back to his book. “Denley has assured me this is exactly what he likes.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said tartly. “I did not mean to disturb your brooding then.”

“Brooding?”

They had both learnt the art of violent argument in benign accents that would not catch her father’s attention.

“I would rather say so.” She filled his glass and handed it to him.” You look like a dragon hen lording over some devil’s egg.”

“You mistake serious and peaceful contemplation for moodiness.”

“And you mistake my attempts at assuring your comfort as an odious disruption. Forgive me sir, for cutting up your peace, if peace is what you call that black scowl.” She graced him with a sanctimonious curtsey and departed in a bustle of skirts.

Mary angrily retreated to her music, never suspecting that Denley found sitting in the library and listening to her play in the parlour a sad, strange comfort.