Maulever Hall (24 page)

Martha’s thoughts must have been moving along similar lines. “I am sorry not to seem more hospitable,” she said. “The fact of the matter is that I am up to my eyes in business, since the whole task of tidying and cleaning the house has been left to me, and, between ourselves, we expect a happy announcement daily. I must have everything in apple-pie order. But you are cold and wet.” She pretended to notice it for the first time. “There is a good fire in the servant’s hall, I am sure. You had best go there and dry yourself and I will have them give you a cup of tea.” She reached grandly for the bell pull, but Marianne intervened.

“No, thank you,” she said coldly. “I have come a long way, and must not linger. Only, when you write Mrs. Mauleverer, tell her I was sorry not to find her.”

“Of course.” The bright black eyes said, more clearly than words, that she would do no such thing.

Totally routed, Marianne turned and made for the big front door. Martha made no move to summon a footman to see her out, but merely stood, at the foot of the stairs, gazing at her, with the same faintly supercilious smile that had played over her face throughout the interview.

“Goodbye, Martha.” With an effort she kept her voice cool and courteous as she pulled the heavy door open.

“Goodbye, Miss Lamb.” The emphasis on her name mocked her as she pulled the door to behind her.

It was raining harder than ever and she stood for a moment in the shelter of the portico, wondering what to do next. Almost, for a moment, she wished she had swallowed her pride and accepted Martha’s offer of shelter, even in the servants’ hall. Her friend the cook would have made her welcome,
she knew, and, more important still, might have given her some of the information she yearned for. But the tone of Martha’s offer had made acceptance impossible. Martha had not intended her to stay. Why had she never realized before how completely the woman was her enemy? And what had happened that she was here, lording it at the Hall, instead of in London at her mistress’s side? But this was no time to be standing dreaming. She was miles from home and seemed to have no means of getting there. Her eyes wandered drearily across the rain-drenched park and lit on the lodge cottage at the far end of the drive. Jim Barnes, the groom, lived there; his wife had always been a friend of hers. She moved out into the rain and walked slowly down the drive. The idea of friendly shelter at last made her acutely aware of how cold and wretched she was, and it was an enormous relief when she saw the red light of a fire glowing in the cottage window.

“Miss Lamb!” The warmth of Mrs. Barnes’s greeting brought sudden tears to Marianne’s eyes. “Well, this is a surprise—but you’re drowned. Come in by the fire this instant and let me get those wet things off you before anything else. Have you been to the Hall?”

“Yes, I am just come from there.”

“And got but a chilly welcome, I’ll be bound. Jim says that Martha’s neither to hold nor to bind now she’s mistress there. He’ll be right glad to see you, Jim will. We’ve often worried about you, he and I, since you went off that day. Lord, miss, how I do chatter, but it’s so good to see you.” She had been busy helping Marianne out of the drenched cloak as she talked, and now stooped to feel her skirts. “Soaking too! Miss, it’s a terrible liberty, but let me fetch you something of mine. You’ll catch your death else. Jim won’t be back for his tea for hours; you can get dried out by the fire and changed again before he comes.”

Marianne accepted the offer gratefully and was soon settled in front of the roaring fire, while her clothes steamed nearby and Mrs. Barnes plied her with cups of tea and questions. She had meant to say nothing of where she was living, even to Mrs. Mauleverer, but Mrs. Barnes’s interest was so obviously sympathetic that she felt bound to tell her, in general terms, about her new life.

“Well, I’m glad you’re happy,” said the old woman at last, but with a doubtful look that belied her words, “but it was a great blow to us, miss, just the same, your going off like that. I suppose you acted for the best, but I never want to see the master look like that again, I can tell you. He was over here, you know, before we’d finished breakfast, to ask if Jim knew where you were
...
And his face; there was death in it, miss. You might have left him some word, something to soften the blow
...
For a blow it was, and to the heart, if you ask me. We’d all thought, if you’ll excuse my saying so, that you’d be the new mistress, and dearly welcome you’d have been. And then to go off like that, without a word—well, I suppose you knew what you were doing.”

“Without a word?” Marianne had listened in amazement. “What can you mean? I left a note for Mr. Mauleverer, explaining everything.”

“He never had it, miss. He was like a madman all morning, questioning everyone, but of course no one knew anything, except the stable boy. Jim said when he gave the master your brooch, and the message—just your love, like that, he thought he’d faint clean away. He’s never spoken of you since, miss, not to anyone, so far as I know.”

Jim, when he came home for his tea, confirmed this. “No, he didn’t exactly give orders that you wasn’t to be spoken of, miss, but he might just as well have.” And then, in answer to her eager question: “Martha? I never heard that she’d said anything about your having a visitor that morning. I heard her talking about your going often enough in the servants’ hall, when she thought fit to honor us with her presence there. Her idea always was that you’d remembered who you were, all of a sudden, not liked it much, and gone off for very shame.
C
ook always argued with her, and so did Gibbs and I, but the rest of them
...
well, you know how it is, miss: things were a lot easier in the servants’ hall before you took over the housekeeping. Many’s the quarter of tea or sugar that I’ve seen slipped out unbeknownst
...
They’d got to think they had the right to it, see, so of course they didn’t like your meddling overmuch. And when we all thought you were to be the mistress—well, there were some that were pleased, and some, if you’ll excuse it, that weren’t.”

“Martha!” Marianne had been half-listening to what he said, while her thoughts raced ahead of him. “Of course. She saw me write the note; she must have guessed where I would put it, and destroyed it. No wonder she was not best pleased to see me.”

Jim Barnes laughed. “I’ll warrant she wasn’t. She’s in her glory now, running things here. You must be the last person she wants to see. And that was a funny business
too,” he added thoughtfully. “I’d never have thought to see the day mistress would part with her—all in all she used to be to her before you came. But the night before they left for London there was a great carry-on up at the Hall, Cook told me, with the master raging and the mistress in tears, and Martha packing her things one moment and unpacking them again the next
...
And the long and the short of it was that Gibbs went to town with the mistress and Martha stayed here to make life a misery to the staff at the Hall. But what it was all about, miss, I haven’t the faintest, and nor has Cook, nor any of the others, save Martha herself, and she’s always been one to keep her own council. You’ll be writing the master now, won’t you, miss, and
ma
kin
g
it all right with him?”

Marianne shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” It was all inconceivably worse than she had imagined it could be. But what could she do now? She rose, suddenly longing to be home discussing it all with Mrs. Bundy. “Jim, I have a favor to ask of you. I thought Mrs. Mauleverer would send me home in the carriage; I cannot possibly walk it. Will you lend me Sadie, ride part of the way with me, and bring her back?”

He rose at once. “With all the pleasure in life, miss. We’ve missed you, Sadie and I. But—” He paused unhappily and then went on in a rush: “Will you mind, miss, if I bring the horses round to the park gates? I’d as lief that cat Martha didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Of course. Indeed, I would prefer it, Jim.”

“Then I’ll go and fetch them. But—won’t you ride the other—the one Mr. Mauleverer bought for you? She’s a honey, miss, and you’ve never even been up on her.”

“No, no.” The idea was somehow unbearable. “I thought she would have been sold long since.”

Again he looked uncomfortable. “The talk in the Hall is that she’s being saved for Lady Heverdon.” And then, impulsively: “Oh, miss, write to the master, do, and explain.”

“I’ll think about it.” If only she could. But if the first letter had been difficult, this one seemed impossible. And, besides, what was the use? Nothing could alter the fact that she was married. Perhaps she should be grateful, for Mauleverer’s sake, to Martha for making the break even cleaner than she had intended. No wonder he had been dancing attendance on Lady Heverdon again when he must have thought that she had jilted him even more shamelessly than that other girl, so long ago. The thought was intolerably painful and it was a relief to be busy changing back into her own clothes.

The rain had stopped at last, but it was a cold, gray evening and she and Jim rode fast and silently for as far as she would let him take her. She did not intend that even this good friend should know where she was living now, although, in answer to an anxious question, she assured him that she was with kind friends. She parted from him at last near Pennington Cross, which would mean another four miles of rough walking for her, but refused his suggestion that she take Sadie. “Master would want it, miss, I know.”

“Jim, I cannot. And—do not tell him I came.”

“I shan’t have the chance, miss. I don’t know when he and the mistress are returning. Not before his Bill is passed, I’m sure. Martha does all the writing—and you can be sure she won’t mention it.”

“Yes indeed.”

“Best write him yourself, miss, do.”

She had dismounted now and looked up at him through a blur of tears: “I will, if I can think what to say.”

XII

It was dark when Marianne reached the valley at last, and one look at her face made Mrs. Bundy stifle her own and Mary’s anxious questions and urge her brusquely into bed. The bad news, for it was clearly that, could wait till morning.

Marianne slept late next day and woke aching in every limb. But her physical sufferings were nothing to her mental ones. Mrs. Bundy had urged her to spend the day in bed, but she soon found she could not bear to lie there, alone with her thoughts, and crept shivering downstairs to huddle over the fire in the living room and tell Mrs. Bundy all about it.

“Might have known it,” was that lady’s summing up. “Perfectly obvious that that Martha’s no better than she
s
hould be. You don’t think she was in your husband’s pay?”

Marianne thought for a moment. “No,” she said at last. “I think she just wanted to be rid of me, once and for all, and took her chance. What a fool I was that day.”

“You were under great pressure.”

“It’s no excuse. Oh, if only I had it to do again.”

“What would you do?”

It was a good question. Marianne shook her head. “I don’t know. More to the point: What shall I do now?”

“Nothing,” said Mrs. Bundy. “What else can you do?”

It was true. All night, in the intervals of her restless and dream-haunted slumbers, Marianne had tried at different versions of a letter to Mauleverer, and none of them would do. She had stepped out of his life. What purpose was to be served, except a selfish one, by trying to re-enter it?

As the days dragged by Mrs. Bundy began to be afraid that this new misery was going to be too much for her young guest. Marianne attended punctiliously to all the domestic duties she had taken over from Mary and did her best to seem cheerful and composed as she went about the house. She and Mrs. Bundy still had a nightly game of chess, but now Mrs. Bundy always won. Marianne tried to eat, and pretended that she slept, but the house was too small for the pretense to be successful. Mrs. Bundy wrote another letter to her man of business in London and did her best to help Marianne in the gallant pretense that everything was all right.

Perhaps luckily for them, the news provided an ample pretext for anxiety. The riots touched off by the Lords’ rejection of the Reform Bill had not died down, as optimists had said they would, but had rather increased in violence. The usual bonfire night celebrations of November 5 had turned into a demonstration for Reform, with the mitred figures of the Lords Bishops who had voted against the Bill burning, instead of Guy Fawkes, all over the countryside. Most ominous of all, “Captain Swing” the legendary popular leader and rick-burning Robin Hood of the time was out again. The insurance companies raised their premiums in the affected districts and the Political Unions began to drill their members in pseudo-military movements.

As for George, he was in a daily seventh heaven of premonitory disaster. “They’ve burned down Gisbu
rn
e Park in Yorkshire,” he would announce one day, and “stoned Lord Tankerville’s coach,” another—“and nearly killed the lady who was with him.” When a riotous mob set light to a pease rick near Devizes and gave three cheers for the conflagration as they watched it burn, he brought his presages of disaster nearer home. “It is not safe for you ladies, here alone.” He was sitting in the kitchen drinking his cider and indulging in the daily chat that was part of his reward.