The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  Tansy mulled over what Judith had said. She supposed it was not surprising that Amelia, who had been chatelaine in what had been virtually her own house for such a long time, should have recovered from her initial shock to develop a resentment at the position in which she found herself. She had been told that Rushmere was to be her home until the end of her days without her needing to fear she might have to leave it other than by her own will, but that still left her in limbo, being neither head of the household nor head of the family, the ignominy of it all having come home to her at last.

  Tansy gave a deep sigh. Had she owned two houses she would gladly have removed to the other one and left Amelia at Rushmere. Judith had remarked at her first sight of it that it was a gloomy house, and Tansy had come to agree with her, but she was certain that the depressing atmosphere was created by the heavy furnishings of ill taste and the clutter of bric-a-brac, which included a number of stuffed birds other than the parakeets in the drawing room as well as — horrors! — a pug with staring glass eyes, which had once been a cherished pet of Amelia’s. The house seemed suffocated, unable to breathe, and even in daylight the heavy drapes at the windows gave a sombre touch to every room.

  The murmur of conversation in the hall reached her. Judith had been right in guessing that the visitor would not be Dominic. Instead it was a woman whose voice she did not recognize, and she wondered if it was a maidservant sent from the house of an acquaintance with more flowers or fruit.

  She realized she had dropped the violet she had been holding and searched for it. It came to light a trifle crushed in a fold of the coverlet, but she carefully tucked it back into the bowl with the others. She let her mind dwell on the day she was taken so desperately ill, and found she could not recall driving home from the market. Her memory also played her false over the time she must have spent in the kitchen. It could have been hours or seconds that she was there, for it was only a brief recollection of struggling with the pump handle that had come back to her. She could recall Dominic’s concerned face coming down toward her as though from a distorted ceiling height and she supposed that was when he had bent over her. He had carried her upstairs, too, and laid her on this same bed, although it could have been in any other room in the house for all she could remember of it. He had been talking to her. No, not to her. He had been answering Amelia, that was it. What had he been saying? It seemed to her he had spoken harshly, but why? And what had been the reason for his visit in the first place?

  The effort of trying to recall any more was momentarily too much for her. She was almost asleep when Judith re-entered the room alone, a letter in her hand. Tansy smiled lazily, her lids drooping. “Who was it?”

  “Your retired Rector’s sister. She came down from Lancashire to look after him when you were taken ill and he was without a housekeeper. She has decided to stay and make her home permanently with him.”

  Tansy made a rueful little grimace. “I’ve lost my post then?”

  “I’m afraid so. Would you like me to read his letter?”

  It was a letter of appreciation. The Rector was going to miss her, but his sister wished to take over and would do his writing for him. Again he expressed his regret for having to dispense with her services and he wished her a speedy return to health.

  Judith folded up the letter, “He doesn’t put it into words, but it sounded to me as if he wasn’t overjoyed that his sister had moved in with him.”

  “He only spoke of her to me now and again, but the impression I got was that she was something of a busybody.”

  “I thought the same thing myself downstairs. You mustn’t worry about losing your post. It won’t be long now before Nina gets Edward up to scratch and then we can go ahead with your plan for Rushmere.”

  “Do you think she is really going to manage it?”

  “I should say there’s little doubt. He is obviously in love with her.”

  “But how much in love?” Tansy’s brows came together in a little frown of concern. “Enough still to go ahead and marry her if by some fluke the truth should come out about our relationship with Amelia and the scandal of it all break forth? It would not appear to be a very savoury situation, would it? Oliver Marlow’s daughters living in the same house as his mistress? People would be angry and humiliated, feeling that Papa, whom they had all liked and respected, had made fools of them by causing them to receive into their homes a woman who would otherwise never have crossed their threshold. Then they would cut each one of us for living under the same roof with her.”

  Judith was absently rubbing the edge of the letter she still held between her finger and thumb, her expression thoughtful. “Everything you say is true. Do you remember that time at home when Squire Waltonbury at the Grange married his housekeeper? That created a most dreadful scandal even though she was a respectable woman and there was no suggestion that he had behaved dishonourably toward her before their marriage. Even Mama Ruth was shocked and she, bless her, hadn’t been received in those upper-class circles since she had chosen to settle in a humble village cottage. He was asked to leave the local hunt and after that rode to hounds with farmers from his own estate. It’s small wonder that he took to drink when everybody he had ever known turned their backs on him.” She gave an uncertain little shake of her head. “I hope Edward loves Nina enough to weather any storm that might break, but if he’s put to the test in the face of scandal I fear that it would immediately be at an end between them.

  “I share your view and I’m convinced that Nina does too.” Tansy turned her glance toward the bedroom door and Judith followed suit as Amelia entered in her outdoor clothes, untying her bonnet strings and unbuttoning her coat.

  “How is our invalid feeling now, then?” she inquired brightly, but she did not wait for a reply. “My! I’ve had the most agreeable morning. Two calls made and a most pleasant chat with Sarah, whom I met by chance in the lane. She is most anxious to see you when you feel able to receive visitors, Tansy, and sent her kindest regards. She said you must be well in plenty of time for the ball she is arranging for next month when Edward will have returned from Newmarket after the opening of the flat-race season there.”

  “I thought Edward wasn’t particularly interested in racing,” Judith remarked.

  “I don’t think he is as a rule, and keeping race horses at the Manor is simply part of a tradition he doesn’t want to drop, but when there’s a possible Derby winner in the stables anyone would be interested. Sarah said that Wild Wind did splendidly last year and Edward is eager to see him run again.” She slipped off her coat and looped it over her arm. “Mr. Reade is going to Newmarket too, but then he always does. He has a three-year-old filly called Merry Day, which is expected to give Wild Wind some opposition.”

  Tansy was thinking that Judith was right about Amelia. She had changed. She had become decidedly more bouncy. “Since you have brought Dominic’s name up I must ask you why he was in the house the day I was taken ill.”

  “He called to let me know he had met an old friend of Oliver’s, who had sent a word of consolation for me, not having heard of his passing before, learning of it from Mr. Reade’s lips.”

  Tansy was puzzled. The explanation rang false. There had been no consoling tones in Dominic’s voice, but presumably they had been talking together for a while before her untimely entrance, which could have caused a change of mood to the sharpness of urgency out of a natural concern for her feverish state. Yet there had been a patness about Amelia’s reply as if she had been expecting the question and had prepared herself for it.

  “I thought — oh, I suppose it due to my fever — that he was annoyed and impatient,” Tansy admitted tentatively. “I seem to remember there was some kind of argument.”

  Amelia ran her tongue over her lower lip with a little flick, leaving it pink and moist, and her smile did not reach her eyes. “You’re quite right. Fancy you recalling that! He picked you up in his arms and told me to go out to his carriage and tell the coachman to go at once for t
he doctor. I was in such a panic that I think I was running round in circles saying he must do it and I would attend to you. He had to speak sharply to pull me to my senses.” There was the slightest hesitation. “What else do you remember?”

  “Nothing else. At least I don’t think I do. I seem to have lost the power of concentration and I fall asleep when I lie alone thinking.”

  “That’s nature’s marvellous way of healing,” Amelia said, fluffing up her curls that had been flattened by the bonnet which she had removed. “Don’t trouble your head with the past. Think of the future and being well and strong again. None of us must miss the Manor ball. Of course, being in mourning I cannot dance, but enough time has elapsed now for me to attend such a function and watch from the sides with the other matrons.” Her face became impish in the girlish manner that she had. “Do you think Edward might pop the question to Nina that night? Sarah didn’t actually say it was being held in anybody’s honour, but with half the county there it would be an apt time to make an announcement of a betrothal during the evening. That’s how it’s often done.”

  “We shall have to wait and see,” Judith said in her calm way. “Now I think we’ll leave Tansy on her own to sleep again for a little while. She looks very tired.”

  Tansy did not hear the door close after them. Sleep was drawing her down into its soft, dark depths. Then suddenly an echo of Dominic’s voice rang through her brain: You shall have your price!

  Jerked out of sleep she sat upright with a fluttering lurch of the heart and put the fingertips of both hands to her temples. Her memory of what he had said had returned to her as clearly as if he had repeated his words at a shout within the bedroom walls, and almost at once there flowed back into her mind all the rest that had passed between Amelia and him. Tansy was at a loss to understand what Amelia had meant in those persistent, truculent whispers, but what she had said could be linked to Judith’s fears that the woman might be hatching a plot to take their home from them. And there was no more obvious person for Amelia to turn to than the one man from whom they had no secrets.

  She tossed restlessly in the bed. Anything could happen while she lay helpless. Judith was already alert to possible danger, but Nina must be warned to keep her eyes and ears open; as for Roger, he was not often enough in the house to be of any practical help. Tansy thumped her clenched fists down on the bed on either side of her. She must get her strength back soon! She must! Amelia was the traitor in their midst. She had known her to be foolish, weak, and lazy, at times even a trifle greedy, but never once had she thought her capable of cunning and betrayal.

  Whatever happened, Amelia must not suspect that they were wise to the fact that she had some mischief afoot. Nor must Dominic gain the slightest inkling that his participation in Amelia’s plot — whatever it might be — was known. If only there were someone to whom she could turn at this troubled moment! Someone like Adam. The thought of him soothed her. In her mind’s eye she saw him as he had looked on that sunny day when he had climbed the hill to where she and Nina had sat side by side on a grassy knoll. His hair blowing. His eyes searching her face and then Nina’s as though he were Paris with the apple and two graces instead of three sitting there before him. A dream state took over. It was to her he was holding out his arms, and of Nina there was no sign. In slow motion she rose up to meet him, every tassel on her shawl lifting lazily as though lighter than air, her skirt swirling slowly out in the gentlest of ripples. She felt weightless. One foot and then the other brushed the grass tops as she went like a drifting leaf toward him. His arms enfolded her and she shut her eyes blissfully. But when she opened them again it was Dominic who held her. In despair she closed her lids again and he kissed away the tears that ran from under them.

  The disturbing dream was embarrassingly vivid in her mind a few days later when, relenting, she received Dominic as one of her first visitors. He found her propped against her pillows, a shawl about her shoulders, her white linen nightgown buttoned high to the throat. She was overwhelmed that he had brought her more flowers as well as several newly purchased novels, including one by Miss Austen which she had never read.

  “You are too generous!” she exclaimed a little helplessly.

  “Not at all,” he replied, waving aside her thanks impatiently, and he seated himself in the chair drawn up in readiness at her bedside. “How are you? I’m told you’re feeling better.”

  Judith, who had shown him into the room, withdrew to a chair by the window, not wanting to make her chaperonage intrusive. Glancing up from her embroidery from time to time, she studied their profiles and thought them a remarkably handsome couple, and she wished he could make Tansy forget Adam Webster. They certainly seemed to find each other’s conversation stimulating, and she could not think why Tansy was always so wary of him, so quick to slam shutters between them. That, at least, had nothing to do with her old love.

  He had noticed a pair of field glasses lying on the side table, and he picked them up, glancing at the initials embossed in gold. “Your father’s?” he said to Tansy.

  She nodded. “I watch the birds in the garden and in the trees with them. It passes away the time. And every morning I use them to see as far as the hill slope of the gallops above Ashby Woods where the strings of race horses from both Cudlingham Manor and your own stables are worked daily.”

  He put the field glasses to his eyes and adjusted them to look in the direction she had indicated. “Training for the season has begun in earnest now. Yes, I can see that you have a good view. Are you able to pick Roger out with these?”

  “Quite easily. Soon after half-past seven he’s up there on Young Oberon with the first lot of horses being exercised, and later he comes back with a second batch and rides several different ones. I’ve noticed two or three older men riding with him in place of stable lads, and there have been the same number on Edward’s horses.”

  “They’re the jockeys, who — including Roger — are getting the feel of the horses and trying out the new ones. It’s important for them to get to know the length of stride of each horse that they’re going to race, as well as being able to sum up an animal’s individual capabilities, temperament, and willingness to try.” He returned the field glasses to the side table. “Hasn’t he told you that?”

  Judith answered for her from across the room. “Not even Roger has been allowed to stay long on his visits to see her. The doctor was most insistent that she shouldn’t be overtired by company.”

  He took the hint with a rueful smile, rising to his feet. “I mustn’t be guilty of that fault, or else I’ll not be allowed to come again. Good day, Tansy. It gladdens me more than I can say to see you on the road to recovery.”

  After that day he came often to see her, but as her convalescence progressed rapidly and the number of her visitors increased accordingly, so that he rarely found her without company, he called less frequently.

  Her first outing was with Judith and Nina to dine quietly with Edward and Sarah at the Manor. Tansy would have preferred not to go, for although she liked Edward and enjoyed his company, Sarah could never resist giving her vindictive little digs in the conversation, and in her present, still weakened state she was not sure that she could suffer them. It was worse than she had expected. Sarah’s attitude had taken a new turn for the evening: she was effusively friendly, overconcerned for Tansy’s comfort, and constantly fidgeting about an extra cushion or a more comfortable chair while all the time her eyes flicked cold and hostile, her smiles a mere parting of the lips. She had hoped I would die, Tansy thought despairingly, and is trying to placate her conscience.

  Finally Judith, who had been watching Tansy grow paler and become more exhausted as the evening wore on, rescued her. “I really think I should take you home if Edward and Sarah would excuse us,” she said firmly, getting up from her own chair to help Tansy to her feet.

  Edward summoned the carriage, but even as they reached the open air and stood on the steps saying good night Tansy’s tired mind register
ed a pink star above the treetops in the grounds, which vanished almost immediately. The significance of what it meant made her catch her breath.

  “Fire!” she gasped. “Over there!”

  Edward and the others spun about to look in the direction she was pointing. “Dear God!” he exclaimed in horror. “The horses!”

  He charged down the steps, shouting for the servants to come with him, and in the same instant the fire bell began to jangle wildly as someone else raised the alarm that the stables were on fire. Flames began to flicker, tinting the sky, and silhouetting the trees, and from all directions people were running to converge on the distant buildings, some carrying buckets and others trundling a hand pump. Sarah had gone darting off in her brother’s wake, and Nina was left with Judith and Tansy, who had sagged against the pillar of the portico, shock having sapped the last of her strength. The terrified neighing of the horses reached them above the general pandemonium.

  Nina spoke urgently. “Take Tansy home. She looks on the point of collapse. I’ll stay and see what I can do to help.”

  The coachman, who had jumped down from the box to soothe his own horses, who smelled the smoke from the fire and were stomping restlessly, assisted first Tansy and then Judith into the equipage. Judith, looking back out of the window, saw Nina running toward the stables like a white wraith in the darkness.

  Afraid that Tansy might have some kind of relapse, she got her into bed as soon as they arrived home. Amelia, who had not been asleep, came into the room, clad in a floating peignoir over her nightgown, a frilled lace cap on her curls, but she did nothing to help, simply settling herself down in a chair at the window to have a grandstand view of the fire in the distance, exclaiming at the flames.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it! Mercy me! Oh, listen! That sounds like the arrival of the fire brigade! I can hear galloping hooves and a bell clanging!”

  In the bed Tansy moved restlessly, agitated and upset, thinking only of the horses that might have been trapped. Judith did her best to quieten her.