The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  6

  That evening when Tansy was dressed and ready to leave for the Manor with her sisters, Judith waiting with her cloak on, Nina still titivating before her looking glass upstairs, she set the kitchen table with a cold supper for Roger, who had not returned home since going from it soon after six o’clock that morning. She could only suppose he was staying until the last possible minute at the stables to see Young Oberon through to the head stable lad’s final check before bedtime to see that all was in order, something he had mentioned feeling inclined to do the previous evening but had come home in order that she should not start worrying about him. The sooner he was away once and for all from that place the better. When the owner of the stud was involved in racecourse villainy there was the chance that everyone employed there, from the trainer to the humblest stable lad, was tainted by it, and she did not want Roger to fall in with bad company.

  Her dress rustled as she moved about the kitchen. She was wearing a plaid taffeta in rose and white, the low neckline modestly filled in with a muslin chemisette, all of which she had made herself. There had been no problem about what to wear that evening for any of them, for each possessed a share of pretty dresses made from the materials that Oliver had brought home in the past. There were lengths still to be made up, which had been discovered in his horse’s saddlebags, and a Cashmere shawl, which they guessed had been bought for Ruth, was by common consent given to Judith, who was more often in need of an extra layer of warmth and possessed nothing so fine to put around her shoulders. There had been no doubt either about for whom a length of deep-blue velvet had been intended, but Nina had coveted and taken it, giving neither of the others the option, and intended to make a grand gown out of it. It was fortunate that Ruth had been skilful with a needle and had passed on her accomplishment to each one of her girls, although it was only Judith who had developed the ability to give a garment a bandbox look and in later years she had taken over the checking and fitting and correcting of the clothes that the others made. Nina hated sewing, but she had always loved new clothes, and whenever Oliver had brought home the usual lengths of fancy materials she had been the first to get down on her hands and knees to cut out a new dress. Ruth had often shown disapproval of her husband’s choice, saying that more practical colours and materials would be of greater use, but to the relief of his daughters Oliver never took her advice, and continued at his home-comings to swirl out of his saddlebags the pinks and blues and greens and golds of silks and muslins, taffeta, lawn, and softest grenadine.

  Tansy removed the apron she had popped on to protect her dress and went out into the hall as Nina descended the staircase, her splendid hair arranged simply but with style, and her dress was her favourite, a self-striped, amber-coloured silk.

  “How do I look?” she asked, always avid for praise.

  It was Amelia who answered, darting forward from the open door of the long drawing room where she had been waiting. “Beautiful! Did you use some of the scent out of the bottle I loaned you? Gentlemen like a delicate perfume that is full of promise. What about your hands? My lotion softened them, didn’t it. Which of my fans did you select? Ah, the ivory lace! Very pretty!”

  Tansy, watching Nina turn and pirouette as much for her own benefit in the hall’s pier glass as for Amelia’s approving eye, thought that no Derby horse could be better groomed and encouraged toward victory than Nina was being by Amelia at this moment on the brink of her marriage campaign.

  “It’s time we left.” Tansy, who had donned her cloak, held Nina’s out to her. “You don’t object to walking the short distance, I suppose. It’s a fine night, although cold.”

  “‘I wouldn’t have ridden in the wagonette anyway,” Nina announced grandly. “You see, I intend to be driven home by Edward.”

  Amelia clapped her hands girlishly. “Well said!”

  Nina ignored her and addressed Tansy and Judith. “Don’t worry about anything. I prepared the way completely with Edward the day I met him. I was careful not to entangle myself with any outright lies beyond claiming to be Papa’s niece. I told the truth, and simply left out the parts I didn’t want him to know. That’s why everything went so well when Sarah was here. I could tell he had given her all the information he had gathered about me when she mentioned the Yorkshire Marlows. I let slip to him that you and I, Tansy, are related to them, but although he knows them to be a respected and wellborn family he has never met any of them nor is he acquainted with anyone who has, which is exactly what I expected, knowing how Papa always said they were too parsimonious to go anywhere or do anything.”

  “What did you say about me?” Judith asked uneasily, being as unhappy as Tansy at the way they had become enmeshed in Nina’s web with no chance of escaping except by destroying all her plans.

  “There was nothing to evade there,” Nina replied airily. “I told him you were our foster sister and your parents were dead. He knows your father was killed in a racing accident and assumed from what I said that he was a gentleman jockey, and not a mere professional, which put everything right for you.” She looked from one to the other of them. “Is everything clear?”

  Judith, happening to catch Tansy’s eye, saw that she was finding Nina’s pompous, school-dame attitude highly ridiculous, and felt her own giggles rising within her. It was either to giggle or to cry.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she replied in unison and quite spontaneously with Tansy. Then they both exploded with laughter.

  Nina, more exasperated than annoyed, swept toward the door. “Oh, come along, do!”

  She gave them one more instruction as they set off down the drive. “Just say ‘Papa’ when it fits in, and ‘Oliver’ when it doesn’t. In that way neither of you will be straying from the truth — not that you would anyway,” she added in a mutter to herself.

  The windows of Cudlingham Manor streamed with light. Broughams and landaus and barouches passed the girls along the drive and drew up to let their passengers alight at the great porch entrance. When they left their cloaks, Nina dallied deliberately, whispering to them that they should go ahead of her, because she wanted to give Edward a scare and make him think she hadn’t come after all.

  He was receiving his guests in an anteroom that led into the music room, and when they were announced he greeted Judith and Tansy most warmly. “Miss Collins — the pleasure is mine. And Miss Marlow—this is indeed a privilege. Is your sister not with you?”

  He glanced quickly beyond them to some other guests who were arriving, but seeing no sign of her he half-craned his neck anxiously. Tansy thought wryly that Nina had succeeded with her artful ploy. The coquetry had worked just as she had planned.

  Judith compassionately put him out of his misery. “She is on her way.”

  He beamed at her in his relief, and seeing that she was fumbling a little with her stick he gave her his arm and went with them to the door of the music room where he left to go back to receiving his guests. They saw before them a setting of silk-panelled walls and fine chandeliers in which at least thirty people were engaged in conversation, some standing, others sitting already in the gilded, cushion-seated chairs that had been arranged in semicircular rows facing the palm-backed dais set ready for the musicians with harp, grand piano, and music stands.

  Tansy felt someone’s gaze fixed on her. She knew instinctively who it was even as her head jerked involuntarily in his direction. Dominic’s jet-dark eyes met hers across the room. He stood tall in his black evening clothes against one of the jade-green panels, the glow from the chandelier above his head casting blue lights into his thick hair. He bowed to her and she acknowledged the courtesy coolly, her heart beginning to pound as though alerted by a silent alarm. She felt her colour come and recede again.

  Sarah, playing hostess with verve and a superficial charm, gathered the two sisters into her charge and conveyed Judith to a sofa placed to make extra seats near the dais where she could converse with an elderly gentleman whom Sarah thought too boring to inflict on anyone else, and
Tansy was swept into other company. Out of the corner of her eye Tansy saw Dominic move slowly and deliberately to take up his solitary stand again where his view of her was unimpeded by those who had come between them. She felt his glittering gaze absorbing her as if on this occasion, not being engaged in talk with her, he could give himself up to finishing the appraisal of her face and figure he had first started making in the smoky atmosphere of a village tavern.

  She found it difficult to concentrate on what was being said to her, knowing if she turned her head his eyes would be waiting for hers. There was surely not a wispy strand of hair straying loose from a ringlet, a ripple of the ribbon band taut about her waist, or a gather over her bodice that was escaping his penetrating gaze. It had not crossed her mind before that she was likely to meet him at any social function to which she was invited, but she was determined to find an escape from his unwanted attentions somehow.

  In the anteroom Edward saw Nina approaching, her hair a glorious bronze in the candlelight, her skin creamy, and almost translucent over the lovely bones of her triangular face. She made all the other young women attending the musical evening seem pale and insignificant by comparison, their prettiness doll-like, their expressions simpering. Nina had a unique poise; in all his experience of women, which was wide, for he was sensual by nature, there had never been one who had fascinated him as much as Nina. If she liked him at all he could not tell, but he knew himself to be falling in love with her and it was a pleasurable sensation.

  “Good evening, Mr. Taylor.” She was extending her white-gloved hand gracefully to him.

  He realized he was staring at her as if struck dumb, and he recovered himself, smiling broadly, and bowed, holding her fingers a fraction longer than was necessary. “How glad I am that you could come, Miss Nina.” To his relief she was the last to be received and there were no other guests after her, and he offered her his arm. “Everybody has arrived. Allow me to take you through.”

  She smiled at him, warm rosy lips parting to reveal pearly little teeth. “How kind,” she murmured.

  Although outwardly she was utterly composed, inwardly she was riotously jubilant. Heads turned as they entered the music room together, and she saw another ripple of movement follow as people whispered or exchanged knowing glances. She was amused. Let the local young ladies pout and their matchmaking mothers frown. She, Nina Marlow, had taken the first decisive step toward getting Edward Taylor’s ring on her finger.

  The five musicians were taking up their places, the pianist flicking out his coattails as he settled himself at the grand piano. Sarah was ushering people into chairs. Tansy saw her loop a familiar arm through Dominic’s, say something that caused him to bend his tall head to catch her low-spoken, laughing words and then unexpectedly give a wide, wicked grin, his eyes half-closing in amusement before she led him away to sit with her somewhere at the back of the room. Tansy decided there were probably many facets to his nature and she herself did not want to know one of them. She sat rigidly, gazing ahead, between two of the people with whom she had been talking. Near at hand Judith made room on the sofa for Nina and Edward to sit beside her. With clear and pure notes from a violin the concert began.

  The quintet was of high repute from London and the classical selection enthralled Tansy, who loved music and had never heard such quality of performance before. When the interval came she stirred as though from a blissful dream and found Dominic standing before her.

  “It’s my pleasant duty to take you in to supper, Tansy.”

  Whether that duty was self-appointed or had been set upon him by the host or hostess she did not know and could not very well ask, seeing that they were in the hearing of others. Everyone was pairing off to go through the double doors that had been opened to reveal a long, candelabra-lit buffet table.

  “I don’t feel very hungry,” she said distantly, rising to go with him.

  “I should have thought the walk from Rushmere to the Manor would have stimulated your appetite.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “How did you know that Judith and I walked?”

  “Because you were the only two who entered the room with roses in your cheeks that had come from the night air and not from a vanity jar.”

  “Nina walked too.”

  “After you arrived I didn’t look at anyone else.”

  Why did everything he ever said to her play such havoc with her emotions? She had not felt pleasure at his compliment, because heaven alone knew how much she disliked and even feared him, but nevertheless the way he had looked at her had made his words touch off some deep, trembling chord within the most intimate depths of her being and she was desperately afraid that he knew it.

  To her relief, although he waited on her and brought every kind of delicacy he thought she would like from the buffet, they ate with others in a little group that included her two sisters and Edward, which made the conversation general. Judith, sitting on Dominic’s other side, engaged his attention for a considerable time, making Tansy wonder what on earth they could be finding to talk about at length, but it did give her the chance to discuss Roger’s possible prospects with Edward, who brought up the subject with her.

  “Townsend, my trainer, thinks he is a dashed promising youngster. He has seen him ride twice today and watched him handle a stallion that was fighting for his head, mouth wide open, and never once did Roger lose control. He has all the makings of a good jockey — that’s provided he stays more or less the same height and weight that he is now, but there’s many a disappointed fellow who starts to shoot out of his socks when he reaches sixteen or seventeen, don’t you know.”

  “What makes a good jockey? It cannot be just a question of size and an ability to ride well.”

  “Indeed not. He needs plenty of courage, keen intelligence, and trigger-quick reactions.”

  She smiled. “I like to think Roger has all those qualifications.”

  Edward gave her a serious nod. “Townsend thinks he might have them too. He gave me his opinion when I saw him earlier this evening. I have agreed that Roger shall be offered a traineeship when he keeps an appointment with Townsend tomorrow morning, but in the meantime say nothing to him and keep what I have told you to yourself. Townsend has a right to tell Roger himself.”

  She was overjoyed. “I quite understand, and thank you for giving your sanction. All I have wished for Roger is to see him accepted by good stables where he can work hard and fulfil his ambitions.”

  “It’s a pity your brother cannot start off with his own horses because this is a hard way for a gentleman’s son. However, I have arranged with Townsend that Roger shall live with him and his wife, which will save the boy mixing more than is necessary with the ordinary jockeys and others not of his class.”

  “Roger wouldn’t wish for any special privileges,” Tansy insisted.

  “Nonsense. He’ll be treated as strictly as anybody else, have no doubts about that.”

  Tansy knew she should feel relieved that her fears of Roger’s involvement at Ainderly Hall had been lifted. As a trainee at an-other establishment he would fall in naturally with the rivalry that existed between stables in the racing world, and she hoped he would soon make friends and settle down.

  Nina, engaging Edward’s attention again, continued to spin her half truths, the subject of their conversation having turned to travel. “How fortunate you are to have seen so many faraway places,” she declared, wide-eyed. “My late parents never took us abroad — Judith’s health would not have permitted it. Travelling tires her. But that’s not the reason why I’ve never met any of the Yorkshire Marlows. Papa and Mama had no particular interest in them and preferred to suffer no interference from outside members of the family. Therefore I don’t know them and neither do they know us.”

  He laughed, his eyes dancing at her. “How wise! I’m plagued with dashed more relatives than I can count. Fortunately they only descend on Cudlingham Manor for important family occasions such as weddings and funerals — and chris
tenings.”

  Her glance fell away from his, and her lips parted slightly before she spoke again. “Don’t they come for the Derby?”

  “No, thank the Lord! None of them is a racing chap, and you’ll find none of my aunts betting in pairs of gloves. They hunt, don’t you know. We Taylors prefer the hunting field to the racecourse — my father was the exception. My great-grandmother rode to hounds until she was over eighty.”

  “How splendid! But who would surrender willingly the excitement of the chase.” She sparkled with a delighted enthusiasm that managed to suggest it was customary for her to indulge in the sport from November to April.

  He beamed at her. “You enjoy it as much as I do, I can see that. Capital! There’s a meet at Ewell next Saturday. I trust you will join me.”

  Her mind raced. It would be the first time she had ever ridden to hounds and she had never possessed a riding habit in her life, but there was that length of deep-blue velvet, which the others had let her have. Judith should help her make a fine habit from it, even if it meant sitting up all night and every night to get it finished. And she could ride well and knew she looked elegant in the sidesaddle, for her father had seen to it that she and Tansy rode in the manner born. Her mouth curled prettily at him.

  “I accept with pleasure.”

  It was time to adjourn from the supper room to take their places again for the second half of the concert. When it was over Edward expressed his wish to drive her home, intending that Tansy and Judith should be included under his escort, but Dominic took over there from him.

  “It’s pointless for you two to wait until every guest has departed,” he said to Tansy, “and that could be some time with the way many people delay. Miss Judith looks tired. I will take you home.”

  His arrogant assumption that she would prefer to ride with him than wait for Edward and Nina took her breath away. He seemed to have a knack of putting propositions to her that she had no choice but to accept. She thought Sarah looked askance when thanks for the evening’s hospitality had been said and Dominic escorted them out of the door. The interior of his carriage was comfortably upholstered in dove-gray velvet with silk-tasselled blinds at the windows and carpeting underfoot, a luxurious indulgence that caused Tansy surreptitiously to slip off her shoe and test its softness with her stockinged toes. Then to her embarrassment she lost her shoe and no amount of frantic searching about with her foot could discover it, the movement of the carriage having caused it to roll away somewhere.