The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  Outside in the lane before Nina branched away to go up to the farmhouse, she gripped Tansy’s arm. She had been silent since they had left the Websters’ house, although barely listening to all Tansy had been telling her about the interview with Mr. Webster. “I wish we were leaving tomorrow. Don’t let anything delay our departure, Tansy. I don’t want to see Adam ever again.”

  Only then did Tansy realize the extent of the trouble between them. A throb of regret assailed her for what might have come about between herself and Adam if Nina had not coquetted with him that day on the hill. But it was folly to think of that now.

  “We’ll get away on time, I promise you,” she said. Nina gave a trusting nod and set off up the winding track that led to the farmhouse, her veil still covering her face.

  The day of the Marlow family’s departure dawned crisp and clear. Roger, the reins in his hands, was in the driver’s seat of the wagonette, Tansy beside him. Judith lay with her feet up on one of the passenger bench seats, a cushion behind her, a crocheted rug donated by a neighbour over her knees. Opposite her sat Nina, straight-backed, her head held proudly, trying to ignore the fact that she was sharing the seat with an ungainly bundle of their belongings, another boxful by her on the floor of the vehicle.

  Although it was early, a number of well-wishers gathered at doors and garden gates to wave to them as the wagonette clattered over the cobbles. Hopefully Tansy scanned the faces for a glimpse of Adam, but she was doomed to disappointment. Judith, her quick tears making everything a sparkling blur, clutched to her breast a posy of flowers that someone had darted forward to hand up to her. Few spoke to Nina, whose haughty ways, like those of her late mother, had always kept them at a distance. Nina did not notice that the shouted farewells included her only through old-established country courtesy, and she would not have cared if she had. She was rejoicing inwardly that she was leaving at last.

  The wagonette rolled on and soon the village was left behind. Tansy swallowed when they passed the spot where she had met her father on that fateful day, which now seemed months instead of a mere ten days ago, but she made no comment and neither did any of the others. The wheels rattled over the bridge that spanned the river and the countryside spread out all around them. A mile farther on Roger reined in briefly, giving his sisters the chance to catch a last view of the village lying in its hollow before the hills folded together and hid it from their sight. Only Nina did not turn her head in its direction, but kept her gaze set rigidly ahead. None of them spoke. Then Roger slapped the reins and the horse moved on again.

  From his vantage point on horseback higher up the slope under the trees Adam watched the wagonette trundle on along the lane. His love for Nina burned in him like an angry torch, and he half-wished he had ridden down and waylaid her with a few well-chosen words, not of apology for having struck her, but a simple statement that would have let her know she had not seen or heard the last of him. It would have given her something to think about on the journey and made her realize that no girl spurned Adam Webster except to her cost.

  The wagonette vanished from his view. With hard hands he jerked the horse about, digging in his heels and adding the sting of his riding crop for good measure. The hooves thudded on the grass, carrying him away through the coppery woods and back toward the village, and the steady rhythm was like the echo of a name to his ears. Nina! Nina! Nina!

  Jogging along the road Tansy shivered and glanced skyward to see if a cloud had blotted out the thin warmth of the sun, but the only ones to be seen were gathered far in the distance. The chill persisted like a sense of premonition, knotting her stomach, and a quiet dread of what the future might hold for all of them settled heavily upon her.

  3

  They came to Cudlingham in early evening when the sun had gone long since from the day and heavy rain threatened a storm. The three girls had pulled the hoods of their cloaks over their bonnets, Nina and Judith sharing the additional protection of a tarpaulin, which had been taken out from under one of the seats where it was stored in readiness for times of inclement weather. Apart from the rain, which had started to fall in mid-afternoon, the journey had gone well. They had stayed overnight in some cheap and comfortable lodgings and, contrary to Tansy’s earlier fears, Judith had taken the travelling remarkably well, the fresh sights and scenes keeping her lively and attentive and forgetful of her small physical aches and discomforts.

  The village of Cudlingham had a Saxon church with a square bell-tower, and one inn, called The Winner in deference to nearby Epsom racecourse. The rest of it consisted mainly of thatched cottages with a few grander houses set back in wide grounds behind high walls. It was a richly wooded area with tall elms, poplars, and thick groves of beech and ash and oak. A woman hastening in through her cottage gate paused to direct them to Rushmere and then stood, heedless of the pelting rain, to stare after them with open curiosity.

  Tansy was never to forget the first sight of her new home. Gloriously surrounded by trees like those she had already seen, it appeared behind iron gates, the gravelled drive short and straight, opening into a narrow forecourt. The house, framed by the dancing branches, was Elizabethan; built of stone mellowed by time to a greenish gray, it had projecting bays enhanced by a grid of mullions and transoms, gabled dormers running their own pattern along the entire front of the house, the tall chimneys lost from sight behind the treetops.

  Jumping down from the wagonette before Roger could bring the horse to a complete standstill, Tansy saved herself from stumbling into a fall and ran with her cloak billowing to the gates, but before making any attempt to open them she gripped two of the rain-wet iron bars and looked through at Rushmere with cautious, critical eyes. It was somewhat larger than she had expected, but nevertheless it was still a house of undaunting size, most probably built originally to be the unpretentious home of a country gentleman of modest means, for it was not large or grand enough to have been the residence of some local squire of the time or any other person of more distinguished standing. She tried to analyze her feelings toward it: mainly relief that it looked manageable, but underlying that relief was a nagging doubt, a curious throb of — not fear, but something more complex — a wariness born of simple intuition that Rushmere represented an additional burden to her shoulders and was far from the haven she had hoped in her heart that it would be.

  She had expected the gates to be padlocked, and took her father’s bunch of keys out of her cloak pocket, but when she turned her attention to opening them they swung in freely on oiled hinges. A new uneasiness assailed her and with quick running steps she hastened up the drive, framing her hands about her bonnet brim for additional protection against the slashing rain as she glanced upward at the chimney pots. A thread of smoke! It was as she might have expected, but hadn’t given thought to beforehand. How typical of her father’s carelessly generous nature that he should let travelling acquaintances of his, particularly his friends in the racing world, have access to the property and use it whenever they were passing through the area. All she could hope for was that she wouldn’t find that every room had a guest in it.

  Roger drove through the gates, following Tansy, but his eyes were on the house. The well-kept appearance of it and the garden in which it stood was startlingly offensive to him in a way he could not have imagined possible, and he regarded it with a hostility that had nothing to do with his previous disappointment that it had been bequeathed to Tansy and not to him. He knew Nina begrudged the money that had been spent on it because she felt it had deprived her over the years of sundry fripperies that were all-important to her, but he was remembering other, more serious privations that had encompassed them all. He thought of the countless times that his father had declared he had no money to spare when the leaking cottage most needed a new thatch, or there were rotten floorboards to be replaced, or fresh plaster wanted over the cracks. A shaft of almost unbearable anguish pierced him when he recalled the crumbling wall behind the cooking range where the ancient beams had caugh
t fire through lack of repair and reduced their home to charred ashes with all the terrible consequences. Everything had been spent on Rushmere. The sooner it was disposed of the better. Had it been his he would have arranged to have it sold without even stepping inside it. Maybe that was why it had been left to Tansy and not to him. His father would have known that he’d harbour no sentimental attachment for it simply because it had been owned by his forebears. If Tansy had any sense she’d not allow herself to be tied down by their father’s last wish, but he knew her well enough to guess she’d do what she could to abide by it.

  “It looks gloomy, doesn’t it?” Judith commented with a shiver from her seat in the wagonette. “The sort of place where a ghost might walk.”

  The house frightened her. She did not know why, but she wished herself far from it, back within the confines of the Hartsworth cottage with its age-polished furniture and the comfortable ticking of the grandfather clock—but the cottage was gone, and there was no going back for any of them. Her hands were shaking in her lap and she tightened them together, being stern with herself and forcing herself to banish her fears with the reminder that once long ago the cottage had been strange and alien to her, but she had soon settled down. So it must be with Rushmere. She saw that for a few heart-sickening moments it had caused her to lapse back into the abyss of insecurity that change inflicted on her, but this was going to be her home and she would not shrink when she crossed its threshold.

  “I like it,” Nina said with satisfaction. She alone had no misgivings. In such a house she would be established socially, no matter that they were poor as church mice. Her sharp eyes had not missed the other good properties that they had passed on their way through Cudlingham. She intended to get invited to those grand houses at the earliest opportunity. Oh, yes, she liked Rushmere. From it she would be able to fulfil her long-cherished ambition. She had learned at first womanhood that she had the beauty and breeding and sexual magnetism to get — given the right circumstances—the kind of husband she wanted, a man of wealth and position, who would lift her out of the life of poverty that was abhorrent to her. From Rushmere she could do it. At Rushmere she would come into her own and be the lady that she was born to be.

  Roger had alighted from the driver’s seat, and he came round to open the little door of the wagonette. Nina stepped out quickly and ran across the forecourt to peer in one of the windows, cupping her hands against the glass to see better into the evening-darkened room. To her surprise there were no dust sheets covering the furniture and she could pick out the polished gleam of wood, but before she could see more Roger gave her a shout to call her back to the wagonette where she linked hands and wrists with him to form a bandy chair for Judith, whose limbs were stiffened by lack of exercise during the long day of travelling. Together they swung her swiftly to the entrance steps and set her down, both still supporting her.

  “Hurry up,” Nina said impatiently to Tansy, who was trying to find the right key for the door out of the bunch she held. “We’re soaked already and I’m chilled to the boner

  “I have it!” Tansy rattled the key triumphantly. Unaware that she was holding her breath she inserted the key in the lock and turned it. The door swung wide into the hall and the air smelt warm and welcoming after the damp coldness outside and there was the fragrance of apple-wood smoke.

  “Somebody’s in here!” Roger said sharply, stepping forward defensively in front of his sisters.

  At the same moment a door opened, letting through a shaft of lamplight from the kitchen quarters, and a young maidservant with a crisp, frilled apron tied about her narrow waist, a cap with streamers pinned to the top of her head, stood there gaping at them, one half of her in shadow, the other bathed in the golden glow. In her hand she held a lighted taper.

  Domestic staff, too. Roger thought with fury. Servants to keep this hateful house clean. Had there been no end to his father’s obsession for Rushmere? “I’m Roger Marlow,” he announced in a hard, fierce voice. “My sisters and I—”

  “Yes, sir! Yes!” She came hurrying forward, her apron rustling. “You’re expected. Your aunt said you would be coming. She would like to speak first with Miss Marlow on her own.”

  “Our aunt!” Roger exclaimed in astonishment, the girls behind him giving gasps that expressed their similar reaction to the amazing piece of information. “But —”

  Tansy’s sudden sharp grip on his arm silenced him, making him turn his head quickly to her, and her warning glance told him not to blurt out anything about the old family rift before a servant. Whatever they were shortly to discover it must be kept to themselves. “I’m Miss Marlow,” she said to the girl.

  “One moment, if you please, miss. I was about to light the rest of the lamps and I mustn’t let visitors wait in the gloom.” She opened another door into a drawing room and busied herself putting the taper to the wicks of several lamps before showing Roger and his two companions into it, and they took seats on an enormous sofa amid the other newish and ornate furniture. Tansy, looking about her through the doorway after them and in the hall itself, could see no sign of the antique furniture that the lawyer had led her to believe she would find in the house and a surfeit of small paintings in heavy gilt frames, some of them executed by artists of little talent, almost covered the walls.

  The maid closed the drawing-room door and bobbed to Tansy with a smile. “Come with me, please. I was told to take you straight to Mrs. Marlow when you arrived.”

  Mrs. Marlow! Tansy hid her bewilderment as she followed the maid down the hall. Her father’s only brother had died several years ago — she well remembered hearing her parents talk of it, Oliver having been given the news by an old acquaintance whom he had chanced to meet on his travels. Was it her late uncle’s widow whom she was about to meet? But what need had her aunt to live in another’s house — especially that belonging to one who had been the black sheep of the family.

  The maid opened double doors into a long room, which stretched the length of the rear of the house and was of fine proportions with a wooden bossed ceiling. Here standing lamps were already alight, glowing in patterned, globe-shaped shades, and a cheerful fire blazed on the hearth, the flames reflected on the mahogany surfaces of the many large pieces of furniture, all highly polished and elaborately carved, which managed to crowd the room in spite of its size. On every flat surface there were lace mats and tasselled runners, covered in turn by vases of dried ferns and pampas grass, porcelain figurines, silver dishes, candlesticks, wax flowers under glass, and fancy knickknacks of every kind. A plush pelmet covered the mantel shelf on which stood a tall clock with a floral-painted face, flanked on either side by a host of ornaments and a pair of stuffed parakeets under glass domes. All these things Tansy noticed in a startled, sweeping glance as the maid ushered her into the room and announced her.

  “Miss Marlow, ma’am.” The girl withdrew, and Tansy was left alone with the sole occupant of the room, who rose slowly from a velvet-upholstered chair by the fire.

  Tansy’s first impression was that the woman exactly matched the tasteless clutter of the room itself, which had so effectively destroyed the simplicity needed to set off the splendid ceiling and panelled walls. Small-waisted, full-bosomed, and with pale, floating hands, the woman wore a flounced and frilled gown of black silk, with bows and buttons and tucks ornamenting it, a brooch pinned at her throat and several rows of jet beads looped about her neck. Her hair, a suspiciously bright tea colour, was dressed in fussy little curls and ringlets over which flowed the narrow, black streamers of her dainty little mourning cap. She was no longer in her first youth, but her doll-like features had retained a cherubic plumpness of cheek and her exceptionally fair complexion was as smooth as her white throat, and under deep lids now quivering nervously, her blue eyes were round and girlish. She spoke first, her voice carefully modulated.

  “How do you do, Miss Marlow — or may I call you Tansy? I have heard so much about you from poor dear Oliver. Pray come and sit down, do.
”

  Then in a flash of revelation Tansy understood. How or why it should have come to her so quickly she could not begin to comprehend, but she knew for a certainty that this woman was no aunt of hers, no relative of any kind. This overdressed, voluptuous little creature had been her late father’s mistress. Shock turned her cold and made her immobile. She stayed where she was as though the soles of her shoes had become glued to the crimson-patterned carpet, and she stared across the room at this sudden personification of a secret part of her father’s life that she had never suspected existed.

  Though her throat felt stiff and frozen she managed to speak, trembling with the shock of her discovery. “Your surname cannot be Marlow through any blood relationship to me. I suggest you have no right to call yourself by it. I want to know who you really are and by what right you occupy this house, which my father bequeathed to me.”

  The answer came with some dignity and a dash of bravado, although the woman’s voice quavered. “I changed my surname by deed poll before I came to live in this house twelve years ago. I am Amelia Marlow. Nobody can dispute that. Everybody in Cudlingham believes me to have been Oliver’s legal spouse and they now consider me his widow.” Unexpectedly a sob overtook her and she put up her shaking hands to form a peak of fingertips over her nose and stroke away the spurt of tears that had overflowed to trickle down her cheeks.

  Tansy scarcely noticed that obviously genuine submission to sorrow, for she was staring at those cared-for hands with the polished, manicured, almond-shaped nails and she was remembering her mother’s calloused palms and swollen knuckles, which in winter became raw with chilblains, the flesh breaking red and sore. How could her father have allowed his wife and family to struggle against poverty in the bad times while putting this woman first, seeing that she was well-clothed, well-fed, her every comfort catered for! Suddenly Tansy was certain that her mother, an intelligent, farsighted woman, must have known of her husband’s unfaithfulness. Yet he had truly loved Ruth in his heart and been broken by her death. Nobody could have made him a whole man again. Perhaps Amelia least of all.