The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  “It’s too late,” she said in sorrow at having to disappoint him. “Nina and Edward will become officially engaged during the first dance after the supper interval.”

  His grim expression did not change and he showed no surprise. “Since I arrived here this evening I’ve heard whispers on all sides that an announcement is expected at any time. I was honoured with an invitation simply because two of Taylor’s cousins were at school with me, otherwise I should not be among the elite of the county at this moment.” His tone was cynical and it did not change as he continued. “I knew this betrothal was in the wind weeks ago. It’s been a high topic of speculation among the local people. You see, I made it my business to find out all about Nina as soon as I had unpacked my good and chattels. It wasn’t difficult. I came into Cudlingham and made the first of many calls at The Winner. The tongue of the barmaid there wags with all the gossip for miles around. I soon learned all I wanted to discover about the Marlow family, although,” he jibed cuttingly, “I must say I was amazed on that first occasion to be told that Oliver Marlow was your late uncle and that you inherited Rushmere over the head of his well-to-do widow, with whom you live.”

  She bit deep into her lower lip. “You may find this hard to believe, but never once have I denied that Oliver Marlow was my father or said that Amelia is my aunt. The tale was — spread. For reasons I don’t feel able to disclose, one of them being my father’s last request of me through this will, I haven’t contradicted the story, because it would only reveal private matters that are best kept from the ears of outsiders.”

  “Such as Amelia having been your father’s mistress?”

  She went pale. “Has that become common knowledge too?”

  “No, it hasn’t. I simply drew my own conclusions after hearing that Oliver Marlow had lived for short periods of each year at Rushmere, more often absent than at home, and that his wife must have been lonely many a time there in the house without him.”

  “You’ve discovered the truth of it,” she admitted regretfully. Then she hesitated, but felt compelled to ask him the question uppermost in her mind for Nina’s sake. “Have you spoken of what you know to anyone?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve kept my mouth shut. Is the secret shared with any person other than myself outside the family circle?”

  “Only one man who knows how to hold his tongue. Otherwise nobody else is aware of the true circumstances.”

  The corners of his well-cut mouth tucked inward as though he smiled to himself with a certain malevolent satisfaction. “As I thought, a well-kept secret indeed! If the merest hint of the old scandal, linked with the new one of you and your sisters appearing to condone the whole unsavoury affair, had leaked out, then I wouldn’t mind wagering my last penny that not one of you girls would be at the ball this evening.”

  She gave an unhappy nod. “I know that well enough. I cannot thank you enough for having kept silent. It isn’t often in life one discovers how staunch a friend can be.”

  He got up from his chair and stood in front of her, taking her chin into his hand and tilting her face upward to meet his downward gaze. “If you did but know it, you shame me with your compassion and your loyalty,” he said soberly. “You are the pick of the bunch. It will be a fortunate man who gets you for his own one day.”

  Such final, final words! She was not the first woman to hear them spoken by a man loved in vain, nor would she be the last. But let him not know, let him not suspect at this late hour the true nature of her feelings for him!

  “The present dance is ending,” she said, rising to her feet, “and my poor partner will be looking for me everywhere. Come with me to the supper room and I’ll explain to him we became lost in talk of old times. Judith will want to chat with you, I know.” She scanned his face considerately. “How do you feel about meeting Nina again?”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he said on a note that was dangerously soft, although she did not realize it, “but whether she’ll be pleased to see me is another matter. At least she cannot order me out. She’s not lady of the Manor yet by any manner of means! Taylor himself promised to present me, not realizing I was already acquainted with her. It’s probably best if we keep it that way. It will save a deal of awkward questions better not asked, don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said on a sigh. “I hate all this subterfuge, but at the present time I can see no way out of it.”

  “Family love and filial loyalty have made you a conspirator against your will. Maybe some good will come of it in the end, you never know.” He turned sideways to her, offering his arm. “Come. I’ll take you in to supper. You had better warn Judith not to exclaim in astonishment at the sight of me. That would ruin everything.”

  She rested her fingers in the crook of his arm. “What about Nina?”

  “Don’t worry about Nina. She has her wits about her. You’ll see, she won’t know why her future husband is introducing me as a stranger, but she will be thankful for it and play out her part to the letter.”

  They emerged from the anteroom to join the throng of people drifting in the direction of the supper room. Spotting Judith close at hand, Tansy seized the opportunity to breathe a few words of explanation. Judith, who was on the arm of the young man who had first asked for her dance programme after Dominic, shot an amazed look over her shoulder in Adam’s direction and flashed him one of her sweet smiles.

  In the supper room, the occasion being in Edward’s eyes one of great importance in the long history of Cudlingham Manor, the candelabra on the buffet table were of gold instead of the silver ones normally used, and the porcelain plates and dishes were thickly bordered in gold leaf. Edward, who was an excellent host, was making sure that all his guests were being comfortably seated and attended to. When he saw Adam and Tansy approaching he smiled broadly and singled them out.

  “You’ve made each other’s acquaintance already, I see. That saves one introduction anyway. Now, Webster, you must meet Miss Marlow’s sister.”

  He guided them to where Nina, not yet seated, stood talking to some people. When Edward spoke her name she turned with a graceful swirl of her apple-green skirt, its flounces fluttering, and she was excited and happy, looking more beautiful than Tansy had ever seen her look before.

  “Yes, Edward dear —?”

  It was as if her vocal cords had snapped in her throat, so abruptly did she cut off her words. Tansy saw her pupils dilate as she stared at Adam standing there, and she went white about her delicate nostrils and around the mouth, yet her smile, although it appeared to have become transfixed, did not falter after an initial quiver.

  Edward, blissfully unaware, performed the introductions, to which Nina replied with a certain stiffness. “Mr. Webster knows my cousins, Bertram and George Haversham,” he explained to her. “He’s the good fellow who’s going to rebuild the stables for me. He’ll tell you all about it.”

  She looked startled and held out a hand in appeal to Edward, who was already turning away. “You’re not leaving me again, are you?”

  “I must make sure that everyone is being looked after. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He was gone. At this point Tansy’s supper partner, locating her at last, came to sweep her away. Nina and Adam were left to themselves in the midst of the busy, crowded room.

  “Where can we talk?” he demanded tersely, his voice lowered against being overheard.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” she retorted coldly. “It was all said on the evening that you struck me.”

  “But I have much to say — not necessarily to you if you should refuse to be alone with me for a short time, but to the rest of the gathering.”

  “What do you mean?” She was still not seriously alarmed. It had been a shock seeing him, but obviously Tansy had had the good sense to warn him against revealing anything about their past village life that could put a dangerous light on their present situation.

  “I have only to circulate in this room for five minutes for
everybody to pass on to each other the fact that you are not the late Oliver Marlow’s niece, but his daughter, and that the woman you profess to be your aunt was his mistress, a former actress from a sleazy travelling company — or perhaps you didn’t know about her background? A chance word in a certain quarter gave me the opportunity to find out — I won’t bore you with the details. Those whom I entertain with this bawdy tale won’t be bored, I do assure you.”

  She had put a shaking hand to her throat. “You wouldn’t! Oh, you couldn’t!”

  His inexorable expression did not change. “You underestimate me. Now where can we talk?”

  Trying to keep from appearing frightened she glanced to the right and to the left to make sure they were not being listened to by straining ears or carefully observed, but amid the settling down to eat and drink no one was throwing more than a casual glance in their direction. “I cannot leave the supper room now,” she stammered. “Edward will be back at any moment —”

  “Then we had better depart before he comes. I’m not playing games. I mean what I say.”

  She saw that he did. There was something desperate, almost fanatical about his determination to talk privately with her. As if he had some matter of great urgency to relate that could not wait under any circumstances. She decided she must humour him.

  “Let Tansy come with us,” she implored. “It will look better if I leave the supper room with her.”

  “Alone, I said! I’ll have no company.”

  She saw Edward coming back in their direction, although he was stopping here and there to bend over a seated guest or signal to a footman to pour champagne into a half-emptied glass. Time was running out.

  “Very well,” she capitulated quickly. “There are anterooms off the ballroom —”

  “Not secluded enough. Anyone could interrupt us there.”

  There was only one other place she could think of that was within easy reach of the supper room and from which she could return as quickly as she went. “Do you know where the conservatory is?” He gave a nod. “Then go by way of the ballroom and the drawing room beyond. I’ll take another way there and meet you in a minute’s time.”

  He nodded again and went back in the direction of the ballroom, threading his way through the groups of seated and standing guests. She, after one swift glance to make sure Edward was still a safe distance away, hurried toward a door barely discernible in the panelling and slipped through, noticed only by one or two people sitting nearby.

  She almost sobbed as she ran along the corridor that backed the anterooms on one side and the full length of the library on the other. Along this carpeted route she had expected to go joyfully hand in hand with Edward, but instead she had to traverse it first for a hateful, clandestine meeting with a man she had thought never to see again.

  The only illumination in the conservatory came from the moonlight and a single rose-shaded lamp which had been placed by a white, intricately patterned wrought-iron seat that stood amid the green potted plants and tall palms and feathery ferns. It wrenched her heart to look at it, knowing it was there that Edward would propose. Adam swaggered forward from the shadows.

  “Well?” she said impatiently, stimulated by anger now that the danger she had faced in the supper room was removed. “What was it you wished to say to me?”

  “You’re not to accept Edward’s proposal of marriage this evening.”

  She gaped at him, her mouth falling open. And then she laughed, bravely but not far from hysteria. “You’re mad! In less than half an hour he’ll propose to me and I shall accept him. Right here in this conservatory. I’m going to be his wife and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  “You misunderstand me. I don’t intend to stop you becoming his wife, but it is not to be yet. I want to pick up our relationship where it left off. That’s why you’re not to say yes to him this evening.”

  She became calmer, suddenly certain of power herself through this somewhat untimely revelation of the fact that he was still in love with her, and she was more than a little flattered that he should have acted so decisively in a last-minute attempt to gain a reprieve in which to continue to court her. His pretence that he would not eventually bar her from marrying Edward was pathetically transparent.

  “I was attracted to you,” she confessed frankly, “and had I expected nothing more from life than that which you were able to offer me I might have allowed myself to fall in love with you. But I’ve always known I wanted more than that. Edward can give me everything I’ve ever dreamed of. We shall travel abroad, lead a splendid social life, and go to London for all the great events of the season.” She clasped her hands together in her ecstasy at the thought of it all, her good humour returned, quite amused that he should have laid his heart at her feet as a final tribute to her single status before she promised herself to another. She decided to be gracious and magnanimous. “You must forget me. I forgive you for your behaviour toward me on the night we parted and for all that has taken place now. Being in love can make a person act illogically and without reason.”

  He gave a derisive snort. “In love? Who’s talking about being in love? Not I! And you have yet to learn the meaning of the word. I mean to teach you one aspect of it.” Deliberately and insolently he cupped a palm against her breast and squeezed it.

  She struck his hand away, all calmness gone from her, suddenly consumed by fear. “This nonsense that you’re talking has gone far enough,” she stammered. “And your insults, too. I cannot and will not reconsider my decision to marry Edward. Now I must return to the supper room or else everyone will be wondering where I am.”

  She turned to go back the way she had come, resisting the impulse to bolt like a panic-stricken fawn, but his next words, dry, and taunting, halted her. “Suppose Edward reconsiders his decision to ask you.”

  She stayed motionless, her back toward him. “Why should he do that?”

  “Haven’t you learned yet that a man like Edward would never think the world well lost for love? Let him catch one whiff of the scandal that trails after your skirts and the doors of Cudlingham Manor will be slammed in your face. By living under the same roof as your father’s whore you will have appeared to condone the association, which puts you on the same level socially — the dregs! Mistresses, courtesans, streetwalkers are all ladies of ill-repute and are bracketed together in the eyes of society. Genteel poverty is one thing, but associating companionably with a low woman like Amelia Marlow is another. Not for Edward the ostracism he would have to suffer on your behalf, not for him the turned backs in his club, the dwindling of invitations, the whispered request that he should leave the Royal enclosure at Ascot. A hard truth for you to accept, but Edward will not take a bride from the gutter.”

  It was as if she had become immobilized in stone, a glowing-haired statue under an arch of foliage, her gown in the diffused light almost as pale as the scoop of her bare shoulders revealed by the low back of her gown, her skin holding the sheen of creamy marble. “This is blackmail,” she hissed accusingly.

  “Call it what you will.”

  Still she did not move, but the beautiful curve of her shoulders bowed as though under an invisible weight that she could scarcely bear. “Tell me what you want me to do,” she moaned brokenly.

  “I thought you understood.” Leisurely he strolled across and sat down on the wrought-iron seat, resting one arm along the back of it. “I’m not a spoil-sport. I’ll not deny you the pleasure of being proposed to, but you’ll just have to avoid giving him a direct acceptance. Tell him you must have more time to reach a decision. Let’s say” — he pushed his lips together and tilted his head reflectively as if he had previously given the matter no thought, an action that she was aware of although she did not see it —”six months.”

  “No!” She came alive in her wretchedness, snatching hold of her skirts and rushing across to throw herself to her knees on the tiled floor beside him. She clutched at the white-cuffed wrist of the hand that rested on his
crossed knee. “We’ll starve in that time! I’ll have no new dresses to wear to anything and the soles of my only best shoes will be worn through. We’re penniless. The gowns Tansy and Judith and I are wearing this evening are made out of Papa’s last gifts to us. Amelia has nothing either. She was as improvident as Papa, who left debts behind him that have to be paid. Tansy held back with turning Rushmere into a lodging house to make money in order to let me establish myself socially, and how can I ask her to wait another half year? At least when I’m betrothed to Edward I can receive gifts from him of gowns and other garments, for he knows that we’re impoverished, and then I’ll see that the others are clothed and fed too, but he cannot do that until I’ve promised to be his wife. Oh, relent, Adam! I’ll do anything — anything — if you’ll only let me accept the ring he wishes to put on my finger.”

  He sucked in his cheeks sardonically, viewing her distraught face with a bright and mocking eye. “You are selfish to the core, Nina, and naïvely you still seek to bargain with me. You have nothing to offer that isn’t virtually already mine. If you were Tansy you would tell Edward the truth and if he didn’t love you enough to go ahead and marry you with feelings unchanged you would think yourself well rid of him no matter what heartache it caused you. But you are not Tansy, and in any case she would never have embarked on such a course as you have taken in the first place.”

  “Stop talking about Tansy!” She hammered both her fists on his fingers spread out on his knee, and swiftly he moved to capture her wrists in the grip of his other hand, bringing his face close to hers.

  “You can thank your lucky stars I am talking about her. I’ll not see her suffer privation through any action of mine or yours. I came too near to loving her myself once, and even though it is all over and done with I’ll not land her with additional misfortunes. You may accept Edward’s rings tonight, but you’ll not marry for a year.”