Maulever Hall (37 page)

Mauleverer said nothing, but his face was confirmation enough. Lady Heverdon did the only thing left to her. She went into violent hysterics.

“How tedious,” said the Duchess. “What shall we do with her?”

Inevitably, Marianne moved forward. “I will take her upstairs,” she said.

“
Good.
Sal volatile
and bed, I should think. As for me, I am absolutely perished with cold. Is there a fire anywhere in this freezing house?”

“In the kitchen,” said Marianne, as she put her arm around Lady Heverdon’s waist and prepared to help her upstairs.

“Then let us adjourn to the kitchen. With your good leave, Mr. Mauleverer?”

“Of course. I am only sorry you find my house so at sixes and sevens.”

“Oh well,” she shrugged, “let us hope there is ham—and eggs. It occurs to me that I am starving too. Don’t look so shocked, John. Have you never eaten in a kitchen before?”

He laughed. “Do you know, I don’t believe that I have. But what are we to do with Mr. Urban there?”

The Duchess looked at him reflectively and he returned look for look. “Personally,” she said at last, “I am inclined to take him to the kitchen and feed him ham and eggs too, but it must be entirely your decision, Mr. Mauleverer.”

“Marianne!” Mauleverer’s voice made her turn halfway up the stairs. “What do you think?”

“I
think
he is punished already,” she said, and turned back to guide the sobbing, screaming Lady Heverdon round the curve of the stairs.

XVIII

When Marianne reached the kitchen half an hour or so later, it was a scene of the most sociable activity. All the lamps were burning, wood had been piled on to the big open fire and the Duchess was supervising Ralph Urban as he built up the fire in the huge cooking range. Under her orders, Mauleverer had just fetched up several bottles of champagne
from the cellars, while the Duke was standing in the middle of the room concluding what seemed to have been an impassioned speech of protest.

“Yes,” said the Duchess as Marianne entered the room, “that is all very well, but Mr. Urban can light a kitchen fire, which is more than I can say for either of you two. Ah, Marianne, you are just in time. Eggs from the larder, please.”

“Yes.” Marianne looked around. “What did you do with Mr.
Barnaby
?”

“Sent him to bed, of course. And Lady Heverdon?”

“Martha gave her some of Mrs. Mauleverer’s drops.” Her eyes met Mauleverer’s as she spoke. “She will sleep now, I think.”

“Good. John, if you will stop arguing and slice that ham, we are almost ready to eat. There will be time enough for argument in the morning. But where is my champagne?”

“Any minute now.” Mauleverer sounded almost lighthearted as he deftly loosened the cork, which promptly flew out and hit the cook’s ginger cat where it slept majestically by the fire. Inevitably, the wine began to foam out of the bottle and Marianne hurried to his help with a miscellaneous collection of glasses. “Thank you.” His voice lost all its lightness as he spoke to her, and his eyes would not quite meet hers. There was an awkward little silence as they poured out and passed round the wine, their hands working in perfect unison, their minds, it seemed, a world apart.

The Duchess broke the silence. “There!” Triumphantly, she brought the huge iron frying pan to the table and began to serve delicately fried eggs on to the slices of ham the Duke had cut. “Food at last. Mr. Urban, you may leave the fire now, and come and eat. John, I’ve had enough of your arguing. Mr. Mauleverer, perhaps you will cut the bread. Marianne, come and sit here by me, and you on the other side, Mr. Urban.” She had thus separated h
im
by the greatest possible distance from Mauleverer and the Duke.

Mauleverer was smiling again. “A truce, is it? Very well, ma’am, if you wish it.” He began to cut great slices off the loaf and pass them around, while the Duke took his place on the far side of Marianne, still muttering to himself about law and order.

The Duchess raised her glass. “A toast,” she said. “Marianne, and her memory.” And then, “Come, Mr. Urban, you
have nothing to lose by drinking, and making yourself
pleasant.”

“And not much to gain either.” But he spoke lightly now, and raised his glass with the others in the toast to Marianne.

Blushing and thanking them, Marianne tried, once more, in vain, to catch Mauleverer’s eye. If only she knew whether it was himself he could not forgive, or her. But the Duchess, busy spreading her bread with half an inch of butter, was dauntlessly initiating a general conversation about, of all things, the Reform Bill. She soon had Mauleverer and the Duke at it hammer and tongs. The Duke maintained that the first election after what he admitted to be the Bill’s almost certain passing would mean the end of all order and true democracy in the country. Mauleverer, on the other hand, urged that the Bill was the only hope of saving democracy; without it, there would be revolution, maybe as bloody as that in France.

Urban was silent at first, but Marianne, who felt as if she was in some fantastic dream, could see that he was following the argument with close interest. Soon, he joined in, offering some shrewdly sensible suggestions—on Mauleverer’s side. The Duchess smiled at Marianne, pushed aside her well-cleaned plate and rose to pass Mauleverer a second bottle of champagne and put on the huge kettle. “Coffee, I think,” she said quietly to Marianne, and then: “There’s nothing like politics.” She and Marianne worked quietly together, clearing the table and putting out heavy Queen’s Ware coffee cups, and still the argument raged. The fire in the big hearth was burning high now and the kitchen made a wonderfully snug scene, with its check cotton curtains, tiled floor, and huge scrubbed table. Pouring coffee, Marianne could tell that Mauleverer and Urban had got the Duke cornered with historical analogies and were forcing him to admit that after all the Bill might not, perhaps, be quite the dramatic disaster he expected. Just the same, he shook his head gloomily, and had the last word: “You may be right,” he said, “but I still
think
it the end of all true order. I do not like to think what the results may be, say, in a hundred years’ time. Why, anyone, then, may get to be First Minister! Cobblers in the cabinet—”

“A hundred years’ time!” His aunt interrupted him, with the effect of calling the meeting to order. “We have more immediate problems to consider. It will be dawn soon. Mr.
Barnaby
and his conscience will be awake. We must decide what we are going to do with Mr. Urban.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The Duke came back from a great distance. “So we must. What is your view, Mauleverer? After all, he was going to kill you.”

Mauleverer, too, had been far away. Now he drained his glass and turned to look at his late companion in argument. “What do you suggest, Urban?”

He shrugged expressively. “Well, since you ask me, I should very much prefer not to be turned over to that Mr. Barnaby, who struck me as a singularly unimaginative character and not at all the kind of man with whom I should wish to associate. My cousin”—here a courtly bow across his coffee cup to Marianne—“was so good as to suggest, some time ago, that I have been punished enough. And”—his face darkened—“I am not sure that she is not right. Lady Heverdon—” He stopped, with an obvious effort. “We will not talk of that. Though I might, perhaps, point out, in passing, that any scruples I might have had about exposing her part in the business have been most effectively laid to rest by her behavior. Take me to court, Mr. Mauleverer, for what I have failed to do, and I shall have the greatest pleasure in dragging her down with me.”

“Quite so,” said the Duchess, almost Marianne thought, with approval. “That is just what I thought you would say. It would make a nine days’ wonder for Mr. Westmacott and
The Age.
There’s been nothing like it since the trial of Queen Caroline, or that uncomfortable business of the Duke of Cumberland and his page. Hard on the child, of course, being left to bear the name.”

“Yes, I had thought of that,” said Mauleverer. “Poor little creature, he starts life with heavy enough disadvantages as if is.” He shrugged. “I confess it goes a little against the grain with me, but I believe we are going to have to let you go, Urban. With proper safeguards, of course. A signed confession, to begin with. Preferably one that does not involve Lady Heverdon.”

Still harping on Lady Heverdon! Marianne scalded herself with a great draught of hot coffee and would almost have started a protest if she had not felt the Duchess’s restraining hand on hers under the table. She choked, and was silent.

“I should find that difficult to do,” said Ralph Urban.

Mauleverer’s hands clenched on the table. “You have the insolence, I believe, to think that we will bribe you into silence about her part in the affair. Bribe you!” His scar stood out livid white in his angry face. “Consider yourself
bribed enough if you escape imprisonment—transportation,
perhaps.”

Urban smiled. “What a trial scene it would be,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I should act as my own lawyer
...
When I had finished describing the spell Lady Heverdon cast over me, I should turn to cross-examine my accusers.” He looked from Mauleverer to Marianne and then back again. “How would you like answering my questions?” he asked mildly. “Myself, I think I should enjoy showing in open court what a couple of gullible fools you were. You”—he turned to Marianne—“believing me a Bow Street officer, Mr.
Barnaby
himself—Lord, how the court would laugh. And coming haring down here to save Mr. Mauleverer from the consequences of his crime! I spun her a fine ya
rn
, at that.” He turned to Mauleverer now, boasting, Marianne realized, as he had the night before when he thought he had them in his power. “I told her Lord Grey had given special instructions for your protection—if possible—because it would be such an embarrassment to him for you to be arrested. I don’t suppose,” he said casually, “that he would like it overmuch even to have you involved in such a case. And then, you, too, so easy to deceive. You really believed that my cousin here”—again a mocking bow for Marianne—“that my dear cousin had carried off the child the first time in a moment of madness and would do so again to prevent her crime being discovered. It will indeed, as Her Grace remarked, make a quite notable scandal for
The Age
.”
And he leaned back, hands in pockets, very comfortably in his chair and surveyed them all blandly.

Mauleverer pushed his own chair back and rose. “I’ll stand no more of this!”

“Quite right,” said the Duchess, “we need another bottle of champagne, and, when you have opened it, I have a suggestion to make. In the meanwhile, Mr. Urban, I recommend that you keep quiet, if you can manage to. You have said, I think, quite enough. John, some more wood on the fire, if you please. It is perfectly obvious that we are none of us going to get to bed tonight; we may as well be comfortable while we sit up. More coffee, Marianne?”

“No, thank you.” Marianne watched with amused admiration as the two men obeyed the Duchess’s commands, which had effectively eased the tension that had built up in the room. It would not be her fault if reason did not prevail tonight. And, more and more, she was herself convinced that any attempt to prosecute Urban must bring nothing but
disaster in its train. Besides—she did not want him prosecuted. The habit of affection dies hard, and they had spent their childhood together.

He turned his head and his eyes met hers with a flash of comprehension. He smiled, and leaned toward her across the table. Behind him, the Duke was still busy with the fire and Mauleverer concentrated on easing yet another cork out of its bottle. “I have been the greatest fool of all, have I not, cousin,” said Urban softly. “Imagine losing my heart to that pretty doll upstairs, when I knew you. I suppose the only explanation is that I knew you too well. Do you remember hide-and-seek along the cliffs? And the day the smuggler’s ship was thrown ashore? And Uncle Urban acting the perfect magistrate, as if everyone did not know where
his
brandy came from? And the time I ran away? And how you pleaded my case with him?”

“Yes, I remember.” Marianne’s eyes were far away, seeing the past.

“W
hat a fool.” His hand struck his forehead. “Marianne, is it too late? You and I—home on the island together. You admit that my uncle has been unjust: there is the perfect solution. Is your heart large enough to forget and forgive? It is what the islanders have always wanted, as you must know.” His intimate, pleading tone was for her alone. The Duchess, leaning back in her chair between them, might not have existed.

Marianne raised her eyes to meet his. “God knows, you’re a brave man, Ralph, but—no.” She could not help s
mili
ng at the monstrous bravado of his proposition. “You have fooled me, as you boasted yourself, quite enough already. Enough is enough. I’ll not add marrying you to my lunacies.”

He smiled back at her amicably. “I was afraid you would not. A pity though; it would have solved so many problems.”

“For you,” she said.

“I must say”—the Duchess leaned forward to join in the conversation—“one can but admire your spirit, Mr. Urban. What a pity that you should not have thought fit to use your capacities in a more profitable direction.”

He bowed ironically. “I am still hoping that I may have the chance to do that very thing, ma’am. Ah, thank you.” Mauleverer had just refilled his glass.

The Duke returned to his place, and now Mauleverer, too, sat down again at the table. From their behavior,
Marianne could only infer that the rattling of the fire tongs had drowned out Urban’s remarkable proposal. She leaned forward. They were calmer now. It was the moment for her own suggestion. “Cousin.” She found she could speak to Urban with perfect calm. “My proposal is still open to you. Why should you not be steward of Barsley. I truly do not wish to go back there.” Impossible to explain her reasons for this, but then, why should she? “You would be the best possible substitute—indeed, better than I could ever be, since you love the island so dearly.” Dearly enough to have been prepared to do murder for it, she thought, but did not add.

“You really mean it?” His eyes were very bright.

“Yes. The business details would have to be worked out, of course. And—I should ask that you sign a paper of the kind that Mr. Mauleverer was talking about earlier. One that would cause embarrassment neither to Lady Heverdon, nor, in the future, to little Thomas.”

“Nor to you?”

She looked at him steadily. “Nor to me. Write out such a confession, cousin, at once, and I will ask Mr. Mauleverer and the Duke, since they know all about it, to act as my agents in making the arrangements with you. I promise you that, so far as I can, I will leave you a free agent on Barsley.”

“You would have to come over once a year, for the islanders’ homage-taking.”

“Yes, so I would.” She had forgotten this medieval ceremony which was much valued by the islanders.

“This is essential?” The Duchess looked very straight at Urban, who nodded. “And how does the island’s succession lie?” she asked.

Urban looked at her, almost, it seemed, with respect. “My uncle stipulated in his will that if my cousin died childless, I should inherit.”

“Quite so.” She gave him a friendly smile. “How wise you are, Mr. Urban, to admit what we could so easily find out for ourselves. In that case, Marianne, I do not recommend that you visit the island—under Mr. Urban’s benevolent jurisdiction—until you have taken the precaution of equipping yourself with an heir. Aside from that,” she went on, ignoring Marianne’s crimson confusion, “the suggestion seems to me an admirable one. Miss Urban says she does not wish to live on Barsley; Mr. Urban, it seems, loves the island almost too well. What do you say, Mr. Urban?”

“Give me pen and paper,” he said. “I had best begin confessing.”

“You do not propose to thank your cousin for her extraordinarily generous offer.”

He smiled his cynical smile. “What would be the use,” he said, “since you are all convinced I would murder her if I got the chance? Besides, she is right. I shall make a very much better governor of Barsley than she ever would.”

“You are an honest villain, I must say,” said the Duchess approvingly. “I think, perhaps, you had best give us an undertaking not to leave Barsley until we give you permission.”

“You think I might try again?”

“I think you capable of anything, Mr. Urban. Mr. Mauleverer, do you think you could find us paper and a pen for Mr. Urban?”

“Of course.” He took a candle and disappeared through the green baize door to the front of the house. He had been very silent, Marianne thought, during this last interchange. If only she knew what he was thinking. Did he understand that she would gladly give away all title to Barsley, if only that would make him feel free to ask her to marry him? But very likely he no longer wanted to. She could not forget his anger on the night of the ball—and, since then, she had made matters infinitely worse by her readiness to believe him capable of murder. How could he forgive her? Wryly, she admitted to herself that her readiness to make Urban her steward on Barsley was partly the result of gratitude to him for his admirably lucid explanation of how he had gone about to deceive her. Perhaps, after that, Mauleverer would not think her so culpable. And, besides, there was infinite comfort in the thought that he had been similarly deceived and had hurried down here in an attempt to save her from the consequences of what he thought she had done. She smiled to herself, recognizing her cousin’s cleverness. Of course he had intended to rouse both their gratitude in just this way. He might have played—and lost—but there was no questioning his skill.

Once again he seemed to read her thoughts: “Grateful to me, cousin?”

She was spared the need to answer by Mauleverer’s return from the front of the house. He laid down pen, inkwell, and paper on the far end of the big table. “Now, Mr. Urban?”

Urban rose. “It will take me a little while,” he said.

“
I should think so,” said the Duchess. “Lord knows, you have plenty to confess. I do urge that you make a thorough job of it the first time and spare us the trouble of a repetition. John, I think it would be best if you were to sit with Mr. Urban in case he should be struck with another of his bright ideas.
I am going to exert the privilege of age and fall asleep, here by the fire.” She removed the cook’s cat from the rocking chair and settled herself luxuriously in its place. “Marianne, a stool for my feet, if you please? And then, perhaps, you and Mr. Mauleverer would feel like clearing up the kitchen a little. After all, so far as I can see, we are going to have to make breakfast for ourselves presently. We can hardly do it among empty champagne glasses. Washing dishes should prove a novel experience to you, Mr. Mauleverer.”

“This night has been full of them.” He rose and picked up a couple of glasses. “I am ashamed to confess that I am not quite sure where it is done.”

“Down the hall here.” Marianne was already stacking plates on a big tin tray, while silently blessing the Duchess for this ingenious means of giving her a little while alone with Mauleverer. The Duke had drawn up a chair across the table from Urban, who had begun to write, slowly and with a good deal of scratching out. It looked like being a long business. She put the last glass on the tray and pushed it gently across the table to Mauleverer. “I will bring the kettle.” She had taken the precaution of refilling it after making the coffee.

He followed her down the long flagged hall that led to the sculleries. “Do you know, I am not sure that I have ever been out here before.”

“Why should you?” She put the candlestick she was carrying on the shelf above the sink. “It is not exactly the purlieu of the master of the house.”

“I suppose not.” He looked around the shadowy room. “You would hardly call it luxurious, would you?”

“No—and absurdly far from the kitchen. I have often thought that if you ever were altering the Hall, the kitchen quarters could well be improved.”

“But not by a Gothic front?”

She laughed. “No, indeed. I should like to see much more light in here, rather than less. You have no idea what a damp and dismal room this is in the daytime.”

“I can imagine.” And then, in a completely different tone: “Marianne!”

“Yes?” Her hand shook as she carried glasses over to the sink.

“What can I say to you? Or is it not too late to say anything? I said too much, I know—horribly too much, at the Duchess’s ball. What is the use of saying that I had been grossly misled about you! You cannot help but think me the world’s greatest fool to have believed Lady Heverdon when she told me you were as good as engaged to the Duke. Nor can I expect you to forgive me for what I said. And, besides—you are an heiress now. Barsley is yours. It is plain that the Duke adores you. He will ask you again, I am sure of it. It is in every way a most suitable match, and God knows he will make you a better husband than I ever could have. I have no fortune—and very likely no career if this night’s doings get out. Your cousin is quite right there. It is not at all the kind of scandal Lord Grey would relish. I shall end up as a bad-tempered old failure, the terror of his servants, the recluse, no doubt, of Maulever Hall.”

Marianne dried a glass and put it carefully down on the table. “Poor little Thomas,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You are his guardian, are you not? You surely cannot intend to let Lady Heverdon have him. Or—do you?”

“You mean, am I a complete, a hopeless fool? No, no, give me credit for that much sense. It was pride, Miss Lamb; mere, miserable pride that made me appear once more her slave this autumn—and a damned tedious business I found it, too. No, no, Thomas stays here—Martha can look after him. She seems to do that well enough.”

Madness to have hoped anything from this conversation. Give it up. Give it all up. Let it be over with—quickly. But there was something she must say. “Do you know”—she managed to keep her voice steady—“I am very much afraid that I have been mistaken about Martha. I begin to think that I made a fool of myself—and misled you about those drops she gives your mother.”

“You a fool? Never.” Was there resentment in his tone? “But I am glad to have your favorable opinion of Martha, for I do not see what else I can do with the boy.”

“No?” If his pride was a fatal obstacle between them, so was hers. How could she say, “Marry me, my love, and I’ll look after Thomas.” The answer was, that she could not. It was all hopeless. Her fortune and his pride stood between them, insuperable barriers. And yet—she was almost sure that he loved her still. And equally sure that though it might just possibly work for the moment, an overture from her, now, would be fatal for their future happiness. He would never forget that it was she who had made the first move. He was not the kind of man who could allow the initiative to be taken by a woman. And, more and more obviously, he would do nothing himself. She had quietly finished washing the dishes while they talked. Now, keeping her face carefully turned away from him, she began to put them away on their shelves. It was all over. Tears ran silently down her cheeks as she moved past him to the china cupboard that opened off the far corner of the scullery.

Something crunched under her foot. She looked down—and screamed. The floor here was alive with cockroaches.

“Marianne!” As she dropped the glass she was holding and backed out of the pantry, he came toward her, arms outstretched.

She stumbled into them and felt herself enfolded in that firm embrace she had feared never to feel again. “Oh my darling.” His lips were on her hair. “Is there really something you are afraid of?”