The other visitor—Captain Pulteney—was not invited. Indeed, Marianne had no notion of his being anywhere in the vicinity until she spied the captain speaking intently to Belinda in the Grecian folly as Marianne strolled outside one day. There was little to sketch at Sweetser Park that she had not already captured at the rectory: distant hayfields, dull proper English houses with dull proper gardens, a leaden sky that was working itself up into another summer thunderstorm. But she remembered spying a spider-web draped over the columns of the folly in a way that reminded her of the draperies at the fairy ball, and she had gone to the folly to sketch it. Finding Captain Pulteney and Belinda alone together was a shock, but the two greeted her casually enough, and the captain soon strode off to the house to inform Lady Sweetser of his arrival in the area.
“What is that about, Belinda?” Marianne asked her tentatively, when the captain was out of hearing.
“What is what about?” Belinda’s smile was too wicked to give Marianne any comfort.
When Marianne returned to the house, she discovered that Captain Pulteney’s charm had worked a wonder. Despite staying at the village inn, he was permitted to visit Sweetser Park, so long as he solemnly promised never to enter Mr Lowes’ sick-room nor have any interaction with any servant tending Mr Lowes, lest the fever spread to Lady Lucy or her dutifully concerned mother.
Given the number of her friends who had come near Sweetser Park, Marianne wondered if every London acquaintance she had ever made would soon turn up on the door-step. A letter from Aunt Harriet assured her that at least Lady Angela would not be of the number.
I cannot uncover what exactly happened, but Lady Angela left London very suddenly—soon after you left. She left no address and very few instructions for her household, so things were rather in uproar for two weeks. I heard from her at last, Marianne, and the news is sad. She apparently left London in the company of a gentleman and stayed with him at a watering place. She insists he intended to marry her, although no one has actually said as much. He certainly did not give her anything in writing that she could use as evidence of breach of promise. After a week he left her, and with time it became clear to Lady Angela that she had been abandoned.
But as wretched as her situation is, there is more. Before his desertion, the gentleman borrowed several thousand pounds from her, and the two ran up considerable bills among the town’s tradespeople. I fear Lady Angela did not handle her windfall any better than most do. My lawyer has been kind enough to find out what he can, and I will try to help her meet her obligations, but I fear she will return to much the same position, in pecuniary terms, she was in before.
You will think it strange, but I think she bears the loss of the money better than the loss of the man. Who knew Lady Angela possessed such a romantic side? She always condemned such behaviour in my presence, but now she talks as though anything is to be risked for love. Worse, she refuses to give me the name of the man, although I suspect it was Captain Pulteney. She cannot believe he will ever come back to her—and yet she shields him. I cannot understand it.
Marianne could. She remembered her own failings with her aunt’s generosity, and her own silly penchant for Captain Pulteney. Jenny had said Lady Angela secretly read romances, and the older woman’s carping about illicit love affairs in public was likely a bitterness that such experiences were likely never to occur in her own sad life. Captain Pulteney had often amused himself by flirting with the prude, and once she suddenly came into wealth, she made a target tempting enough to risk his reputation for.
But Marianne could not prove that the man who had run off with Lady Angela was the captain; probably they had both used assumed names at the watering place, and Lady Angela still held enough romance in her heart to keep her lover’s secret—for now.
Aunt Harriet had not exactly given Marianne leave to discuss Lady Angela’s ruin with anyone, but considering Belinda’s vivacious flirting with Captain Pulteney, Marianne felt justified in warning her of her suspicions. Belinda merely laughed, saying her flirting meant nothing, and promising she had no intention of allowing the captain any foolishness with her.
Lady Lucy apparently disagreed; the young lady’s eyes followed the captain and Belinda with a wistful fidelity, and her normally blank features heated into a semblance of jealousy whenever the captain and Belinda fitted themselves into a snug corner to chat, or strolled outside to the folly. The captain did not neglect Lady Lucy by any means—he was too alive to the pleasure of flirting to really ignore any woman, and Marianne and Miss Stokes received even smaller shares than Lady Lucy—but Lady Lucy seemed unsatisfied with the portion of attention allotted to her.
Lady Sweetser, on the other hand, viewed Belinda’s friendship with the captain with relief. Although Marianne had kept her aunt’s letter a secret, Lady Sweetser’s numerous acquaintance had not hesitated to send her gossip about Lady Angela and the man who had deserted her. Lady Sweetser, too, seemed inclined to suspect Captain Pulteney of being the faithless swain, but so long as the charge was not proven, society was willing enough to accept the captain into their good graces. Lady Sweetser had not only the sanction of society in allowing Captain Pulteney to continue his visits, but also her indomitable confidence in her own powers of social finesse and authority. Still, she admitted to Marianne she was glad Belinda was at Sweetser Park.
“With Belinda about, Captain Pulteney will not think too much of my sweet Lucy,” she said, stitching another neat row in her embroidery.
“And supposing he runs off with Belinda instead?” Even deference for her employer did not dampen the heat in Marianne’s voice.
“Oh, your sister has too much sense to do that, I am sure. She is used to flirtation, while my Lucy is quite an innocent little thing.”
Marianne struggled to hold her tongue. Everywhere around her, it seemed the world conspired to permit Captain Pulteney to drag her sister into his nets. Belinda’s love of mischief settled her to flirt with both the captain and Mr Nabbles, and her only disappointment seemed to be that Mr Lowes remained in his sick-room instead of doing her proper homage. Lady Lucy pined after the captain, but would not lift a finger to cut out Belinda and win her place.
The maids seemed to giggle slyly when they saw Belinda and Captain Pulteney together. Marianne even overheard the maids conversing as she descended the staircase one morning.
“She said he is the dearest thing in the world, and she is bound to snap him up now before anyone else can have him. I thought Lady Lucy was like to choke her! But everyone knows he will end up in Miss Belinda’s arms after all.” The senior housemaid leaned against the railing, and her junior eagerly questioned her.
“But are you sure Miss Belinda shall have him?”
“I heard as distinct a promise as you could wish for.”
“Imagine that! But to secure him, you would almost need it in writing!” They both laughed, and Marianne descended into their midst with a stern gaze that scattered them back to their work. The ache in her heart weighed too heavily for her to chase down the maids and interrogate them further.
She made another effort to enlist Lady Sweetser’s help, but that lady affirmed a paradoxical array of judgments: that Lucy would never stoop to falling for a man with such rumours flying about him, that she was glad Belinda was there to keep the captain occupied and away from Lucy, that the captain no doubt meant honourable marriage with Belinda, that the flirtation between Belinda and Captain Pulteney meant nothing, and that Marianne ought to warn Belinda not to spend so much time with the man.
Warning Belinda a second time got Marianne no further. “Oh, Marianne, I told you I was not the least bit interested in him like that,” Belinda said. She tugged her nightgown over her head with a petulance that matched her sharp tone and the twist of her rosy lips.
“Lady Sweetser agrees with me that you have been paying the captain far too much attention.” Admittedly, Lady Sweetser had also disagreed, saying that it all meant nothing, but Marianne had given up her attempt
s to untangle Lady Sweetser’s true thoughts on the matter.
Belinda muttered something unladylike. “All you do is preach at me. I am only trying to enjoy myself.” Her drawn brows suddenly relaxed, and she winked. “Perhaps I just want to make Mr Nabbles jealous.”
“He has not looked jealous to me.”
“Nor I!” Belinda admitted. “No matter what I do, he smiles on me as if…as if I was only a lamb gambolling in the field. It would be saintly if we were already married.” She climbed under the coverlet, only to throw it off a moment later. The July heat was only a little mitigated by the night air drifting in the window. “Too bad Mr Lowes is still ill! He would surely be jealous. Do you think he is dying of love for me?”
“I hope not,” Marianne said sourly.
“Oh, I think he is. I gave him the most languishing smile the last time I refused him. That was just before he became ill, you know.”
“If I could visit the inn and promise you will marry him, perhaps he would recover faster.” The joke fell flat, even to Marianne. She did not like to think of poor Mr Lowes, sick at heart and in body at the inn, and she forbidden by Lady Sweetser to even bring a basket to him. Mr Hearn had chosen to visit his old schoolmate, and therefore been exiled from Sweetser Park, so Marianne had no news of either gentleman. She was proud of Mr Hearn for choosing Mr Lowes’s side, but she found herself wondering more and more how Mr Hearn was getting on with shadowing his gentleman farmer friend. Mr Hearn had been non-committal about his feelings for the countryside at the start of his visit. Did he now find farming as tedious as Marianne did? Or had his experiences renewed his devotion to regaining Hearn Hall? Perhaps that was the real motive in aiding Mr Lowes at the inn—perhaps it was yet another manoeuvre in trying to placate the enemy and persuade Lowes to sell. The thought that his motive might be obsession, not kindness, depressed her.
Belinda’s chatter did nothing to elevate her spirits. From Lowes’s hopeless love to the merits of her new bonnet, Belinda bounced from topic to topic and joined forces with the sweltering heat to keep Marianne awake. The girl’s last subject for rumination startled Marianne. “Did I tell you Mama wrote to me—and what do you think has happened? She sent off both Roger and John to be prepared for the Navy! Just like that! The house must seem half-empty with those two gone. And little Harriet and Matty are taking lessons with the Walters’s governess.”
“Be quiet, Belinda.”
Although Marianne could silence her sister, she could not silence the chatter of her own mind. It was surely good for the boys to be doing something, and good for the household to have some relief from their antics. And if Miss Stokes ousted Marianne from her position as companion and she had to return home, then surely it was reassuring to know that life at the rectory would be less troublesome than it had been before. Aunt Harriet had been right: left to themselves, her parents had managed to sort some of the chaos at home. But a small part of Marianne faltered at the thought that now she would be less needed. Time might press her into being a hanger-on at the rectory—and after the eventual deaths of her parents someday, a hanger-on in some sibling’s household. The prospect of not being needed was something ghastly and half-real.
For a moment, Marianne refused to consider it. She could make herself indispensable to Lady Sweetser, or perhaps shift the household of the rectory to lean helplessly on her strength. She had been the responsible one for so long. She had sacrificed her desires for so many years, until the lure of a glittering Season had galvanised into a force too strong to resist. But in the hot darkness swelling the country house, Marianne finally admitted the possibility that no one had truly needed the responsible Miss Mowbrey she had striven to be.
Had she pressed for more freedom, her parents might have made shifts to accommodate her. Her sisters Belinda and Clementina might have made more efforts to manage the younger siblings. She might have been able to persuade Aunt Cartwright or Aunt Harriet to do something more substantial for them all. She could not know exactly how it might have been, but there were more possibilities than Marianne had been able to admit. She always thought of herself as being forced into a position of responsibility, enslaved to her family’s expectations, tormented—and then making a fearful rebellion in a mad dash for another life. But it had never really been her parents’ desires, or her siblings’ needs, that had imprisoned her. It was her own insistence that the only importance Marianne Mowbrey could hold in the world was as the dutiful rescuer of a troubled family.
But if her dedicated years at the rectory had involved more choice than she had realised—if she could indeed decide that the meaning she had in the world was something different than just being needed—what did that mean for her now? If she did not have to be the obedient daughter, and could not be the starry heroine of fashion, then who was she going to be?
The darkness did not hold any answers.
July 1812
The hot noonday sun did not enlighten Marianne any more than lying awake in the darkness had, even though she made an effort to clear her mind with a long walk to the village. In the humidity, sweat dampened the lace at her collar, but Marianne hardly noticed as she plodded down the main street. A glimpse of Mr Hearn finally woke her from her musing and she hurried after him.
“Mr Hearn!”
He turned aside in front of a shop window and waited for her, greeting her with a swift doffing of his hat.
“I have hardly seen you since Mr Lowes became ill,” Marianne said, joining him beside the dust-smeared window. The brightness of the July sun made it hard to tell what was inside the shop, but Marianne had walked into the village enough times to know every shop display by heart anyway. It was a far cry from Bond Street. “How is he?”
“Not at all well.” Mr Hearn’s face was regaining its tan now that he was learning the art of farming. His sorrow made his face darker still.
“But he wrote that he would soon be well—ˮ
“Politeness, I am afraid.”
Marianne was nonplussed. “Had you not better inform his family?”
“He does not have family. I have written to the gentleman who acted as his guardian for many years, however. I hope he will be able to come.” Mr Hearn stepped aside to allow a passer-by to inspect the window, but she soon moved off again. No doubt she knew the window display by heart as well.
“I did not know he was so ill. Is there any—serious danger?”
Mr Hearn sighed. “The doctor is sanguine one day, and stern the next. I cannot tell.” His eyes searched Marianne’s. “ ’Tis a pity that the matter keeps us from speaking.”
“I have missed speaking with you, too.” For once, Marianne did not blush. She just felt glad. “Everyone is well at Sweetser Park. Miss Stokes has been entertaining us with some new music at the pianoforte, and Lady Lucy sings a little.”
“And are you playing new music, and singing?” His forthrightness did not disconcert her.
“Not really. I dislike admitting it, but I do not think I will ever do much in that line. I sit and talk to Lady Sweetser, or sketch by the window, read, or scold my sister.”
He laughed, and Marianne’s heart warmed. “That is not a great deal of news, but I am glad to hear it.” His gaze alighted on her face speculatively. “I did hear news from London.”
“About Lady Angela?”
He grimaced. “Yes, but that is not what I was thinking of. I heard that Sir William Clogg was courting the youngest Miss Wilkinson.” The breeze tugged at his hat, and he adjusted it. “You look disappointed.”
“No, of course not,” Marianne said, but the remembrance of the comfortable honesty of their previous talks soon shamed her. “Well, perhaps I am a little disappointed. But not because—not for any reason you might suspect.”
It was hard to speak of it without betraying the fact that Sir William had proposed and been rejected. Every novel agreed that revealing such a fact without permission of the rejected suitor was forbidden. “I had resolved against being…any close compa
nion of Sir William…and I hold to that, really. I suppose it just feels very final.” In the back of her mind, she must have held the opportunity out as a last resort. Now that chance was probably gone for good.
“I see,” Mr Hearn said.
Marianne believed him. He probably understood everything she could not say on the matter. “What about your own news? Are you learning much about farming?”
“Oh, a vast deal,” he said, his voice flat.
“And?”
He glanced over the street, where the height of the day’s business drew a few squeaky carts and a milling crowd of pedestrians. “I think I can master the ideas well enough, and the work is not too tiring to the body, compared with tramping around India. Mostly I ride about and supervise with my friend.”
“You hate it.” Marianne could not hide the glee in her voice. It was horrible for Mr Hearn, but she felt vindicated in her judgment.
He hesitated, clearly unwilling to admit defeat. “It is a little dull—perhaps because it is not my own land.”
“I was honest about Sir William, Mr Hearn,” she said, her eyes flashing.
A sigh swept over him, and he wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead. “Very well. I—am having difficulties adjusting. I remembered country life differently as a boy. Rolling in haystacks, playing with dogs. My mother cutting flowers from the garden.”
The Irish lilt swelled in his tone, like a winding creek broadening into a river. “Listening to the servants’ tales. Singing old ballads with my nurse. There was always something new and wondrous, or something familiar and happy. Today, it seems as if I have heard all the stories, and they are all dull. The shopkeepers that would have seemed so knowing to me then now just seem…illiberal.” His voice hardened. “But I do not want all of Ireland cursing the Hearns of Hearn Hall and laughing at my drunken father. I will learn to be a good landholder, and I will get Hearn Hall back—ˮ
Flirtation & Folly Page 28
