The Six Month Marriage (17 page)

Of course! thought Madeline. Clarissa had heard of the
disturbance at the Manor, and delighting in innocent gossip, had decided to pay
a call. Luckily, Clarissa appeared to have accepted the story about a poacher,
which Philip had put abroad.

‘Good morning, Miss Rogers,’ said Philip.

‘Oh, yes, good morning, my lord! Goodness, where are my
manners? I was so concerned for Madeline that I almost forgot to greet you. But
yes, my lord, good morning indeed! And it is a good morning, if dear Madeline
is all right.’ She looked at Madeline anxiously. ‘You are all right, are you
not?’

‘Never better,’ said Madeline comfortingly.

‘Oh! That is such a relief.’ Clarissa untied the strings
of her bonnet and then, catching sight of the couple who had followed her into
the room, said, ‘Goodness! I am forgetting everything this morning. Madeline -
Countess - may I present to you my brother, Percival, and his wife, Amelia.
They are paying us a visit at the rectory.’

Madeline felt a slight frisson of fear as Clarissa
introduced Percival and his wife. The only marriage she had seen, the only real
marriage, had been the marriage of her parents, and she assumed that all
marriages would be equally dreadful. As she took in Percival, a stout gentleman
of some forty years of age, she felt sorry for Amelia, as she anticipated the
belittling remarks Percival would address to his wife during the course of the
visit. But to her surprise, Amelia did not seem to share her dread. Instead of
looking pale and drawn, Amelia looked alert and happy instead.

Once divested of their outer clothes, Clarissa, Amelia
and Percival took the seats offered to them and as Clarissa continued to
condole with her on her accident, Madeline could not help her gaze wandering to
Amelia and Percival again. She found their attitude to each other surprising.
No matter how hard she looked for it, Madeline could detect no trace of fear in
Amelia’s voice when she spoke to Percival. Indeed, Amelia seemed to have no
fear of her husband at all. And as the conversation went on, ranging over a
wide variety of topics that were of local interest, Madeline had to admit there
seemed no reason for Amelia to fear him. He was kind, gentle and polite. He
didn’t belittle Amelia. He seemed to genuinely welcome his wife’s ideas, and he
and Amelia often exchanged a kind but humorous look as Clarissa’s garrulous
tongue ran away with her.

But why? Madeline could understand why Philip was on
occasion kind to
her
, as she was helping him to claim his inheritance.
But she couldn’t understand why Percival would be kind to Amelia. Percival’s
marriage was real, and he therefore had no reason to treat Amelia well. He had
already taken charge of her dowry, and had nothing more to gain. And it was
when men had taken charge of their wives’ dowries that their cruelty started;
as her mother had tragically told her. But Percival’s cruelty, it seemed, had
not started. And if it had not started by now, surely it never would?

Could marriages actually be happy? wondered Madeline.
She would not have believed it, but she had the evidence of it before her own
eyes. She thought of her mother and father again, and for the first time she
asked herself whether their marriage had been the exception rather than the
rule.

‘ . . . do you not agree, Countess?’ asked Clarissa.

‘Wool-gathering?’ asked Philip wryly, seeing Madeline
start as she gathered her wandering thoughts.

‘I’m afraid so,’ she admitted ruefully.

‘It’s not to be wondered at, after the shock you had
yesterday,’ said Clarissa consolingly.

The accident was much discussed, and afterwards the
conversation turned to the war and other topics of the day. When at last there
was a lull in the conversation, Percival directed a meaningful look at his
sister.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Clarissa. ‘We have kept you far
too long, Madeline, and we must leave you to rest, but I am so glad to have
seen you. It is such a relief to know that you are all right.’

‘Will you be staying in
Yorkshire
for long?’ asked Philip, as Percival and Amelia stood up.

‘A few weeks, I hope,’ said Percival.

‘Then you will join us at our ball?’

Amelia and Percival expressed themselves delighted to
accept the invitation before taking their leave with Clarissa.

Madeline gave an inaudible sigh of relief. Their visit
had done much to dispel the tension that had filled the Manor since the
previous evening, and she felt that she and Philip would now be able to talk to
each other without open hostility. In fact, Philip seemed on the verge of
speaking to her even now.

But instead he frowned as his eyes suddenly fixed
themselves on her forehead. Despite the fact that Madeline had arranged her
hair differently in order to cover the cut, he had noticed it.

‘I didn’t realise you had been injured yesterday,’ he
said.

‘It’s nothing,’ said Madeline. ‘When the carriage
overturned I was slightly scratched, that’s all.’

He lifted his hand and pushed aside her ringlets, as if
to reassure himself that the cut was indeed slight. Then he ran his hand over
the smooth crown of hair.

She felt the pressure of his fingers and instinctively
turned her head back and forth, the better to feel his touch. He lifted his
other hand and unravelled her glossy chignon, running his fingers through her
flaxen hair like a comb. The feel of them against her scalp was soothing and
stimulating both at once. But then his fingers stilled. He took her chin
between them and turned her face up to his, looking deeply into her eyes.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He held her so for a heart stopping moment, but then, as
if coming to his senses, he released her chin and took a step back. ‘I have
made a mess of your hair, I fear,’ he said.

‘Never mind.’ She tried to appear calm, as though it was
an everyday occurrence for him to loosen her hair and run his fingers through
it, but even so her voice was breathless. ‘Jenny will soon put it right.’

He looked as though he wanted to say something further.
But then a formal mask came down over his face and he walked out of the room.

Madeline
saw little of Philip over the following week. He had a lot of business to
attend to on the estate, and then he had to make a trip to
London
to deliver Jack’s message, as well
as Peters, to Callaghan.

Jack himself had not been seen again.

Madeline, too, was very busy. First of all she decided
on one of the
York
properties. Though
she did not relish the decision, she realised she could not put it off. Then
she spent her time organising flowers, food and musicians for the ball,
frequently consulting the old Countess’s diaries so that she did not forget to
make any of the arrangements necessary for such a grand occasion.

At last nearly everything was ready. It had helped, of
course, that Mrs Potts had already made a few preliminary preparations, and
that the neighbourhood had been expecting the ball; if not for that fact
everything would have taken far longer to arrange. But local tradesmen had been
holding themselves ready, knowing what would be required of them, and the
county gentry had kept their diaries clear.

The one disappointment was that Emma, Philip’s sister,
had a slight indisposition and was not well enough to travel. She had spent the
early part of her holiday from the
Bath
seminary, where she was a pupil, with her aunt and uncle, who lived
in
Bath
, but she had been
meaning to travel to
Yorkshire
once Philip and Madeline had settled into the Manor. But now she would not be
able to join them for the time planned. She would, however, visit them as soon
as she was well enough, and Madeline was pleased that her visit had been simply
delayed instead of cancelled as she was looking forward to meeting the young
girl.

On the day before the ball, preparations were so well in
hand that Madeline took the opportunity for a ride. Her habit, a delightful
outfit of dark blue decorated with gold frogging, was ready, and had been
hanging in her wardrobe for some time. She had been wary of going out by
herself after the incident with the horseman, and had even considered telling
Philip that she had changed her mind about having a man with her to protect
her, but as the days had passed, her confidence had returned, and she now
enjoyed riding on the estate without anyone in attendance. She had had so many
people watching her when she had lived with her uncle, and all of them paid to
act as her gaolers, that now she loved to be free. And besides, she wanted to
see the cottages that Philip meant to replace.

Although he was kept busy, Philip liked to discuss his
plans for the estate with Madeline, and in the evenings they spent many
enjoyable hours talking over a variety of ideas. One of these ideas had been
for the replacement of a group of cottages which were badly damp, and Madeline
wanted to see the problem for herself.

She went down to the stables and before long she was on
her way, riding on her white mare. It took her a little over half an hour to
reach the cottages and once there she dismounted, tethering her mare to a
stunted tree.

A little boy, drawn by the noise of the horses’ hooves,
ran out of the middle cottage and stood staring at her. It was not an insolent
stare, more an interested one, and she guessed he did not see very many people,
and certainly not many ladies. A man followed him and stood behind him, resting
his arms over the boy’s shoulders.

The man nodded, and said, ‘Areet.’

This, Madeline had learned, was a greeting, meaning, she
supposed, “All right”; which in turn seemed to be short for “I hope you are all
right”. Or, as she would have put it, “I hope I find you well.” And so she had
explained it to Jenny, who had gone into peals of laughter and had had to wipe
the tears of laughter from her eyes with her apron.

‘Good morning,’ she said in reply.

She had found that the “
Yorkshire
folk” did indeed speak a strange dialect, but she had also found
that most of them could make themselves understood when they wanted to. The
dialect, she suspected, was a useful way of keeping outsiders at bay.

The people themselves she had found to be friendly once
their initial hostility had worn off. They had looked at her suspiciously to
begin with, as though they had expected her to start telling them how to cook
their dinners and how to dress their children. But once they had discovered she
was interested instead of interfering they had become welcoming.

The man before her, however, was unknown to her as she
had not ridden out this way before. She knew from experience that it would take
a while before he began to accept her.

‘I wanted to see the cottages,’ she explained. ‘The Earl
has told you of his plans to rebuild them, I understand?’

The man nodded, being neither friendly nor unfriendly;
as if he were summing her up.

‘I was wondering whether I might have a look inside.’

The man was silent. Then he stood aside and let her go
in.

‘Shall you be pleased to see the cottages rebuilt?’ she
asked.

The man shrugged. ‘I reckon they need summat doing.’

Something doing
, Madeline
translated for herself.

‘Summat doing?’ came a woman’s voice, and a minute later
a buxom, red-faced woman came down the stairs. ‘I’ll say they need summat
doing. As damp as anything in the winter, they are, and the chimneys won’t
draw. The old Earl would’ve done summat, but he lost heart after the old
Countess died.’ She looked at Madeline as her husband had, as if summing her
up, then nodded. ‘I reckon you’ll do.’

Many Countesses would have been horrified at this last
remark, but Madeline was impressed by the
Yorkshire
people’s honesty. They liked to speak their minds, and out here in
the wilds of
Yorkshire
, away
from the polish – and the insincerity – of
London
, it seemed right and proper they should do so. And to Madeline, who
had lived for so long with a father who had put a gloss on his dreadful
behaviour, and an uncle who had declared she was being “looked after” when she
was in fact being kept a prisoner, their honesty was refreshing.

‘Wouldst’a like to see up yonder?’ asked the woman,
indicating the upstairs with a jerk of her head, having taken Madeline’s
measure and deciding she was to be trusted.

‘Thank you, I would.’

The woman showed her over the cottage, which was leaky,
draughty, cramped and damp, and Madeline saw why Philip wanted to rebuild it,
and others of its like. With the
Rochdale
fortune there was a lot he could do to improve life for everyone;
and it did not escape her notice that Philip was planning to use his money for
the benefit of the estate, and not to waste it on drinking, gambling or
womanising as her father and uncle had done.

Madeline thanked the woman, and went outside. To her
surprise she found that each other cottage had a woman standing outside it,
arms folded over capacious bosoms, and she realised she must go into each
cottage in turn so as not to slight anyone. She discovered a young couple in
the first, who would benefit from improved conditions when their children were
born; a man and his two children in the next; and an elderly couple in the
third, the bed-ridden old man having a definite twinkle in his eye. He spoke
only the broadest dialect for the first few minutes, but when he saw that
Madeline was not put out he gave a lusty laugh, saying ‘Tha’s all reet, lass.
Tha’s all reet;’ making his wife, a very respectful woman, almost apoplectic!