Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence

by Catherine Bowness

  This was not the case with Signor Pontielli, who was an unusually handsome man. He was not young either, being much the same age as Monsieur Lapideau, but on him maturity only added to his charm. Matrons were every bit as seduced by his appearance as their daughters but were reassured by his flirtatious manner towards them that he was more interested in mature females.

  In addition, his duties did not require him to put an arm around his pupils or take their hands to lead them on to the floor; he did not twirl them around when the dance required it or catch them in his arms when they tripped. He placed himself beside the pianoforte, either standing or sitting, while the pupil performed. Unless a girl were gifted at the instrument, she more often detested it than enjoyed it; and, if she were gifted, her parent would not judge it necessary to employ a specialist teacher to improve her technique; he was almost bound, therefore, to be instructing an unwilling pupil.

  “Will you begin, Signor?” the dancing master asked, assuming an air of authority over the musician.

  Signor Pontielli began to play and Monsieur Lapideau approached Susan, who was standing awkwardly beside her mother. He was several inches shorter than she and Susan hated dancing with him. In spite of his inferior appearance, once he began to move he was graceful and assured, his limbs blending seamlessly with the music while she, towering above him, blundered ineptly; she felt like a giant: her feet seemed too big and were constantly in the wrong place, crushing his little ones in their soft pumps, an action which made him grimace horribly like a malevolent monkey.

  He led her through the steps of the cotillion, a stately dance which required a whole set of other persons to make up the figure and who, by their absence, left Susan and her teacher dreadfully exposed upon the polished floor. He attempted to make up for the absent couples by describing what they were doing and how she was to take the next man’s hand and so forth, dropping hers as himself before taking it again as though he were the next in the set. This confused her. She found it difficult to concentrate because all she could think of was that she wanted it to end; she was certain she would never be able to do it properly and, in any event, doubted that anyone would be likely to invite her to stand up with him.

  Her mama kept her lips closed for the duration of the demonstration but Susan felt what she judged to be her disapproving eyes upon her.

  When Signor Pontielli came to the end of the piece and the last note died away, the dancing master bowed deeply to his partner and led her back to her parent.

  “Is that an improvement on yesterday’s performance?” Mrs Porter asked, a note of incredulity in her voice.

  “Oh, yes, indeed, Madame. Mademoiselle is beginning to enjoy the exercise, n’est-ce-pas, Mees Porter?” he asked, turning his dark monkey eyes towards her, their usual expression of sardonic scorn exchanged for one of supplication. But Susan, who disliked him intensely, was not looking at him.

  She moved away saying, “If you think that, you must have taken leave of your senses, Monsieur. I dance like a bear – probably worse than a properly trained one,” she added despairingly and saw, out of the corner of her eye, the amused smile of the music master, hidden from her mother by the angle of his head.

  “Is she? It was not apparent to me; she looked as sour as a lemon. Are you beginning to enjoy dancing, dear child?” Mrs Porter asked sceptically, the endearment sounding strangely sarcastic in view of the fact that the ‘child’ towered above both her and the teacher and there was scant evidence of affection in either the words or the tone. “There is certainly much still to be done,” she added flatly. “Perhaps it would be better to start more slowly – concentrate on only a portion of the dance to begin with and add the later moves only when my daughter has fully understood – and can remember and execute with less awkwardness the earlier ones.”

  Chapter 9

  Mary, deposited at the front door of her employer’s house some time later, trod carefully up the steps in her bare feet, her half-boots dangling from one hand and the bunch of flowers, still in the embrace of the sodden bonnet, in the other. As she approached, the door opened and a middle-aged man emerged.

  “Good afternoon, Miss,” this individual said with what Mary considered excessive and, in view of her dishevelled appearance, probably ironic obsequiousness.

  She wondered fleetingly, as the butler stood aside for her to enter, who the man might be but, intent upon changing her apparel and putting on some shoes as soon as possible, she greeted him cursorily and hurried up the stairs to her own chamber without enquiring of Clarkson either his identity or his business.

  By the time she had attended to the demands of the flowers, changed her dress, brushed her hair and put on some shoes she had forgotten him and hastened to join Lady Leland in the green saloon.

  “You have caught the sun,” her ladyship observed.

  “I was afraid I might have done. I have had quite an adventure, my lady. I hope my face is not as red as a tomato.”

  “Not at all; it is charmingly pink – more like a rose. But I am persuaded there is a much deeper change in you than the bloom upon your skin. It is as though the sun has entered your heart: you have a brightness about you which was sadly lacking before.”

  “I was a dull creature,” Mary murmured, translating her ladyship’s remark with a slight twitch of the lips.

  “Not dull, never that, but sad. Tell me of your adventure.”

  So Mary did. Most females in her position would have suppressed the telling of such an improper tale to an old and frail employer, but Lady Leland knew a great deal about Mary and her past – and Mary knew a good deal about Lady Leland.

  When she had finished, her ladyship said, “Where are the precious flowers now?”

  “I have put them in my bedchamber. They make a somewhat discordant picture on account of the clash of colours.”

  “Is that the sole reason you put them there?” the old lady asked innocently.

  “Well,” Mary admitted, “I was not certain that I was going to tell you the whole, but then I thought you would be amused. Would you like to see them?”

  “I should, very much. May I send for them?”

  Mary nodded, the butler was called and a maid despatched to fetch the vase. When it was brought, Lady Leland had it placed on a small table in the window. After staring at it for a little while, she declared that it could not be seen properly in that position on account of the sun.

  “The other side of the room,” she said and nodded with satisfaction when the vase was transferred to a handsome and highly polished cabinet, which stood against the wall opposite the long windows.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I like the style of your arrangement: it has the same bold and artless charm as the blooms. They go very well together in spite of the clashing colours, perhaps even because of them. None of the three is prepared to give ground. Appearances can be so deceptive, can they not? I’m thinking of the irises which have, apparently, such thick, inflexible stalks and yet, when you examine them, they appear to be stuffed with nothing more substantial than cotton-wool. The willowherb looks positively airy-fairy in comparison although its colour is equally uncompromising; the whole is anchored by the daisies, do you not think? They are so very robust and last for so long that it is difficult not to grow weary of them long before they are ready for the compost. The same of course cannot be said for either the irises, whose life is dazzling but depressingly short, or the willowherb, which is never quite at what one feels should be its best – one is always waiting for it to reach its zenith. Its habit of incessantly dropping its florets all over the furniture will no doubt infuriate the maids.”

  “Go on; pray do not stop there, my lady. I can see that you are leading towards an analogy which you believe I shall find enlightening.”

  But the old lady was not to be drawn any further. “Why did you want the irises so much that you threw caution to the winds and plunged down a perilous bank to reach them?” she asked, leaving Mary to find an analogy herself.
<
br />   “I am not at all sure. It was certainly unwise: I nearly drowned and they will most likely be dead by tomorrow. But I will essay an explanation: most wild flowers are quite small - vivid in colour and exquisite in shape but, to appreciate them, you generally have to examine them closely. None of these is like that. The daisies are exceedingly down-to-earth, but none the worse for that to my mind; their simplicity and regularity is, I would hazard, the very nature of their beauty. The willowherb? Well, it is a startling colour and each little flower is bewitching, but it is indeed never perfect. There are always the dead and dying florets low on the stem, which spoil the whole – and of course their tiresome habit of simply dropping off in an almost continuous stream. The two together – the daisies and the willowherb – made an acceptable bunch but there was, not only too great a contrast between that almost painful pink and the dull white – somehow not a dazzling white, is it? - but it was also – and I think more importantly - lacking in …” She paused and the old lady waited. “Muscle,” she finished.

  “Ah!” Lady Leland exclaimed as though she had come upon the Holy Grail. “So you risked your life for muscle – and found more than you expected, I’ll warrant.”

  Mary did now flush as red as a tomato. “I was not looking for that sort of muscle,” she muttered.

  “No, I daresay you were not. But you recognised it when you found it, did you not? You have come back all aglow.”

  “It was merely my brush with death that has had such a stimulating effect.”

  “Not only death. Love and death are so often intertwined, are they not?”

  “I am not in a position to judge, having experienced neither.”

  The old lady did not make a direct answer to this. She said, “Does he make a long stay? I have a mind to invite him to something or other before the Autumn Ball. We cannot wait that long: the iron will have grown quite cold.”

  “I have not the least idea. He did not volunteer the information and I did not think to ask.”

  “No, of course not. I think I might get up a little card party – just a small, low-stakes game or two of loo. That is the sort of thing that old ladies are supposed to enjoy, so he will see nothing odd in my inviting him to such a thing. The only snag may arise if he turns out to be a man who habitually plays for high stakes in White’s or Watier’s. If he should be that kind of man, he will find it dreadfully tame to play for pennies. We could invite Sir Adrian – he is excessively sober and will not at all wish to risk his inheritance in my drawing room. I think we should aim for a party of about eight so that a couple of people can sit down to piquet at the same time.”

  “Have you sent out the invitations to the Autumn Ball?”

  “No, not yet. As a matter of fact, I think a card party is an excellent scheme. Did you say that Marklye has some guests staying at present? We could invite them too so long as there are not too many of them. How old is he, do you think?”

  “Marklye? Nearer forty than thirty, I should say.”

  “No doubt his guests will be a similar age. I daresay he will call tomorrow to enquire after you and I will mention the idea then.”

  Mary did not raise the topic of learning to swim until they had sat down to dinner.

  “I see your afternoon has given you quite an appetite,” Lady Leland observed.

  Mary smiled. “Yes, I splashed around a great deal before I was rescued. His lordship has offered to teach me to swim.”

  “Indeed? Where and when does he propose to hold the lessons?”

  “He said there was a shallower part of the river which he thought might be suitable.”

  “I hope you pointed out that your time is not entirely your own and that permission must be sought from me before you can undertake such a thing.”

  “Yes, my lady, of course I did. Would you have any objection?”

  “Are these to be public swimming lessons? You will not be alone with him, will you?”

  “I cannot imagine that he is setting up a school for females who might fall in rivers when there is no hero within hailing distance. I did not ask – and now that you cast the cold light of reason upon it – I can see that it would not do.”

  “No, I am afraid it would not. Females who can swim have generally learned in the company of their brothers. And what would you wear?”

  Mary laughed. “I have no notion. What do females commonly wear when swimming, do you suppose?”

  “Something which does not become altogether transparent when wet. How do you think the dress you were wearing this afternoon stood up to its soaking?”

  “I do not think it became transparent although I own I did not look at myself.”

  “I daresay he looked though. What was his reaction?” her ladyship asked, adding as Mary hesitated, “Well, obviously he must have been fascinated.”

  Mary flushed. “He did not stare at me.”

  “Did he not? Concealed it, I daresay. Really, my dear, I do not know what to say. Obviously, it would be most improper to immerse yourself willingly in the river in the sole company of a gentleman who sounds, from your description, to be positively heroic. In addition, I suppose that, in order to teach you, he would consider it necessary to be in the water with you and no doubt support you from time to time. I think it would be an excessively dangerous thing to do. I cannot give you permission.”

  “Not even if I take Brill?”

  Brill was Lady Leland’s personal maid, a stern person who had little opinion of her ladyship’s companion, considering her too young to provide real companionship for an old lady.

  This suggestion sent her ladyship into peals of laughter. “Will you make her join you in the water or shall you expect her to sit upon the bank and watch you with strict instructions to intervene if he attempts to take advantage of you?”

  “The latter. I do not think we want her in the water and in any event how could he be expected to deal with two women thrashing about at the same time?”

  “No; the picture you describe is horrifying. I should think she would give in her notice at once and then she would carry her shocking tale to wherever she went in the future. I am afraid I cannot give you permission, my dear.”

  But the way the old lady spoke by no means convinced Mary that her ladyship was altogether opposed to the idea, only that she saw it as her duty to withhold outright agreement to such a venture.

  And so a second list of guests, this time for a card party, was drawn up but the invitations were not written because Lady Leland intended to speak to Lord Marklye and ascertain the number and nature of the people presently staying with him before finalising the arrangements.

  “Will his lordship not suspect that we are laying a trap for him?” Mary asked, putting down her pen.

  “I should not imagine that a man of near forty would be afraid of being caught; he must have avoided any number of traps to have reached such an age unwed; rather, he will see it as an opportunity for diversion. And, even if he did suspect a trap, would he really be likely to expect one to be set by someone such as me on behalf of a paid servant for, when all is said and done, that is what you are, Mary?”

  “But he may think I have persuaded you in order to lure him to the house?”

  “Perhaps; do you suppose that he thinks you cast yourself in the river purely in order to have him jump in to rescue you?”

  “He would have to be excessively arrogant to think that. In any event, I must possess remarkable hearing or sight to have divined that he was in the area for I spent some time in the water before he appeared – and very nearly did drown.”

  “You do have remarkable hearing,” her ladyship observed.

  “Well, I did not hear him. If I had, I should not have set off down that bank. Why, whatever would he have thought?”

  “That you wished to make his acquaintance, I should imagine.”

  As her ladyship had expected, a visitor was announced soon after breakfast the next morning.

  The butler appeared with the salver bearing
a single card, carefully placed in the very middle.

  “You had better give it to Miss Best. I don’t suppose I shall be able to read it,” her ladyship said. “Is it by any chance a gentleman who has called?”

  “Yes, my lady. He says he is Lord Marklye.”

  “And what does his card say?” her ladyship asked.

  “The very same,” Mary replied, picking it up, reading it and dropping it back upon the salver.

  “Excellent; send him up, Clarkson. I wonder what refreshment we should offer him. Do you think it too early for Madeira? He might think us dreadfully tame if we offer him coffee.”

  “Perhaps we should ask him – after all he may not want anything nor wish to spend so long here as it would take him to drink either,” Mary said, trying to disguise the fluttering of her heart and the shaking of her hands by implying that she expected him barely to have time to say how do you do before taking himself off again.

  “We can certainly ask him but, since we do not want him to leave too quickly, I think we should make sure that we have equipped ourselves with something to detain him – other than your face - for at least a quarter of an hour. Clarkson, we should like Madeira and coffee, please – and pray look sharp about it.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Lord Marklye, ushered into the saloon a few minutes later, was in riding dress. He carried two bunches of roses whose scent immediately filled the room.

  “A fine, dramatic entry,” her ladyship muttered, removing her spectacles, with which she had earlier been trying to decipher his card, and substituting a lorgnette, through which she peered at the man who stood just inside the room. If she had meant to discountenance him with that rudeness which old ladies sometimes take pleasure in displaying, she must have been disappointed with the reception her stare received.

  “Your ladyship,” he said, his lips twitching appreciatively. “I don’t doubt your garden is more plentifully supplied with roses than my own but I brought you these by way of an apology for having waited so long to introduce myself. I picked them this morning and am covered in small pinpricks as a consequence.”