Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence

by Catherine Bowness

  He handed one bunch to her ladyship with a graceful bow and fell to examining his hand. “I am your nearest neighbour, I believe,” he went on, stepping back.

  Lady Leland buried her face in the petals. “Lovely,” she said. “They are quite ravishing but I am extremely sorry to hear that they have wounded you. I have not seen this variety before; I daresay they are new, are they not? We have nothing so up-to-date in this garden.”

  He smiled. “I own that I am something of an upstart, my lady; I have not long been in possession of my property and only recently moved in. So much restoration of both house and garden has taken place that I daresay you will find it unrecognisable. I hope you will honour me by calling upon me soon when, if the sun is out, I shall take pleasure in showing you the roses.”

  “You may be surprised to learn that I have never seen either the inside or the outside of your property. Your predecessor’s father was already dead when I first came here – or rather to the main house - and your immediate predecessor spent little time in yours. I believe I must apologise for not having called upon you – after all I have been here for aeons. The thing is that, once one has become a widow and been shunted into the Dower House, one seems to lose something of one’s standing and in no time at all one retreats from Society almost completely. I have been remiss in not welcoming you to the neighbourhood, but I assure you that I intend to put that right. Indeed, an invitation has already been written – although not, I think, yet posted - for my Autumn Ball and I am planning to hold a small card party next week. I hope you play cards, my lord?”

  “I do, but I have never been particularly keen on gaming in the London clubs – the stakes are too high and I find it fatiguing to be constantly on the look-out for card sharps.”

  “You have answered my chief anxiety about my little party,” she said warmly. “I was quite afraid that you might find a few games of loo or piquet with your neighbours too tedious to endure.”

  “I should no doubt enjoy the evening enormously. There is only one difficulty that I can perceive and that is that I have at present a couple of ladies staying with me. It would, I fear, be unmannerly were I to abandon them to spend an evening elsewhere. They are here for the whole summer.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Her ladyship’s face had fallen; she had intended to extend the invitation to Marklye’s guests but, now that he had disclosed that both were female, she found herself reluctant to burden the party with yet more ladies.

  He, reading her face more accurately than she had expected, said, “There was a gentleman – the husband of the more senior lady – but he has been obliged to return to London to attend to business.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You have guessed the reason for my hesitation; we are already a trifle short of gentlemen, but pray do bring the ladies.”

  Chapter 10

  “I do not think the sexes need to be perfectly balanced for a card party,” Lord Marklye said. “How many do you have so far? I may be able to drum up a few more gentlemen to balance my female guests if that would be of assistance.”

  “Sir James and Lady Armitage – are you acquainted with them? He is the local squire and JP. They have two sons: the younger is at Oxford; only, now that it is the vacation, I presume he is not. The other, John, is older and not usually at home – fortunately - for he has already acquired a somewhat disturbing reputation. He spends most of his time in London and is, I am sorry to report, a source of continual worry to his mama. The younger is a pleasant boy. Then there is Sir Adrian Turnbull. If Mr Armitage is at home and consents to accompany his parents, we would be ten - with your guests - and the sexes perfectly balanced. But, if Mr Armitage is not at home, there will be but nine of us and someone will be obliged to sit out.”

  “I can do so,” Mary interjected. “No one would expect your companion to be one of the card players, my lady.” It was the first time she had spoken since his lordship had entered the room.

  He turned towards her where she stood by the window. “I am sorry, Miss Best. I have not greeted you although be sure that I was not unaware of your presence hiding there in the shadows. I hope you are well.”

  Lady Leland said, “I have been monopolising you with my plans for a card party and should have introduced you earlier although I understand that in fact you have already met. Come and shake his lordship’s hand, Mary,” she added as though speaking to a recalcitrant child.

  “How do you do, my lord?” Mary said humbly, advancing and dropping him a small curtsey.

  “Very well, thank you. And you, Miss Best? You look well.”

  “Indeed, I am. I do not – yet – show signs of having contracted any disagreeable disease from my immersion yesterday. I have told her ladyship all about your rescuing me,” she added, guessing that he was uncertain whether she had explained the precise nature of their meeting.

  “I must thank you,” the old lady said, “for your prompt action in pulling my companion from the river. I understand you arrived in the very nick of time.”

  “Indeed. I heard her cries and galloped to the rescue.”

  The butler returning at this moment with the Madeira, followed by a footman bearing a tray with coffee, the trio fell silent until they were once more alone.

  “Will you sit down, my lord?” Mary asked when Clarkson had retreated.

  “Thank you. No, it is too early in the day for Madeira but a cup of coffee would be delightful.”

  As Mary busied herself amongst the coffee cups, he stood up again and proffered the second bunch of flowers, saying, “I brought you some roses too, Miss Best.”

  “That is very kind of you, my lord, although I cannot help feeling that it is I who should be offering you something in gratitude for your saving my life.”

  “Just to see you there, dry and well, is recompense enough,” he said formally but there was a constraint in his manner, as in Mary’s, which caused her ladyship to sigh heavily as she replaced her cup in its saucer.

  “What is the matter with you?” she enquired, probably rhetorically for surely she did not expect either to answer.

  “Nothing at all, my lady,” Mary murmured mendaciously for, in truth, she was much put out by the sight of his lordship in his riding attire; although he had been similarly dressed the day before, by the time she noticed him he was in fact only partially clothed. There was something almost intimidating about his presence fully clad. He seemed, somehow, a little too tall and a great deal too forceful to be sitting in her employer’s pretty saloon. The delicate coffee cup looked no bigger than a thimble in a hand which, although large, was beautifully made with long, graceful fingers and neatly polished nails.

  “I am struck dumb by your companion’s beauty,” his lordship said, robbing the words of any romantic implication by the ironic tone in which they were uttered. “I likened her to a water nymph yesterday but this morning I am greeted by a young woman who more closely resembles a sun goddess.”

  “Pray do not be absurd!” Mary exclaimed, blushing.

  “Yes,” her ladyship said surprisingly. “I dare swear you are surprised: there is such a very great difference, is there not, in yellow hair when it is dry as opposed to wet? Dark hair does not display nearly such a dramatic change of colour.”

  “No, it is as the difference between the sun and the moon. Indeed, when I first beheld your companion, her hair appeared green, being at the time adorned with strands of weed.”

  “I am so thankful that you were on hand to rescue her,” her ladyship said with a return to gravity as she pictured the drowning girl besmeared with detritus from the depths of the river. “She can be imprudent. Have you seen the flowers you procured for her?” She gestured towards the vase which still stood upon the chest.

  “No, I did not notice them, my eyes being wholly engaged by you, my lady.”

  “Not wholly,” the old lady corrected. “What do you think of the flowers? Mary, would you go and find a couple of vases for the roses? It would be a shame if they were to begin to dr
oop.”

  Mary rose, bobbed a curtsey to her ladyship and another to his lordship, laid her own bunch upon a table and left the room.

  “She is excessively dear to me,” the old lady continued when the door had closed behind her companion. “I cannot, I believe, adequately convey to you the high regard in which I hold her.”

  “You do not need to,” he replied, “for I can see it in the way your eyes rest upon her. If you are minded to warn me not to lead her astray, I can assure your ladyship that I have no intention of doing so.”

  “I am relieved to hear it. She told me that you suggested teaching her to swim …” Her voice trailed off, leaving his lordship to supply from his own conscience whatever she did not complete as to her thoughts on the matter.

  “I thought it would make it less likely that she would drown the next time she falls into a river; after all, I cannot engage to be within hailing distance again.”

  “Indeed. She is rash but she learns quickly from her mistakes. I have never known her to repeat an error committed in the heat of the moment. Because I care for her so much, and because I believe you to be an intelligent man, I shall not beat about the bush but lay my cards upon the table – to employ two metaphors where no doubt none was necessary. It is my belief that you thought such an exercise would enable you to pursue your acquaintance with a person whose situation puts her outside your usual social circle.”

  “I own I do wish to pursue my acquaintance with Miss Best and that I should vastly enjoy teaching her to swim, but I did not think it likely that you would grant permission. I therefore came armed with an invitation to a small dinner I have decided to give next week and which I hope to be able to persuade both of you to attend. We keep country hours so that you need not be afraid of its going on too late and keeping you from your bed.”

  As he spoke he extracted a letter from his pocket and gave it to the old lady.

  She broke the seal and removed the card. “I should like very much to attend and will make sure that Mary accompanies me.”

  “Good. I shall look forward to showing you my home.”

  As he spoke, Mary re-entered the room, preceded by a footman bearing a tray laden with two vases filled with water, a pair of scissors and a small bowl. When the servant had withdrawn, Mary untied the ribbon which had bound the bunch of roses and laid them upon the tray.

  “Be careful you do not prick your fingers,” Marklye warned.

  Mary ignored this piece of what she clearly considered unnecessary advice and cut an inch or so off each stalk before slitting it vertically and putting it in the vase. She removed a few of the leaves at the same time, dropping them, along with the superfluous pieces of stalk, into the bowl.

  As she worked, neither of the other two spoke, both watching her as she went about her task, a fact of which Mary was by no means ignorant and which caused her, eventually, to become careless so that the point of the scissors slipped and pierced her finger. She drew her breath in sharply and put the finger to her mouth.

  Neither of her observers missed this.

  The old lady exclaimed, “Mary!” and rang the bell.

  Lord Marklye was at her side in a moment, removed the scissors from her hand and drew the other, wounded, one away from her mouth. “You have hurt yourself!” he said with a lack of originality which clearly added to her vexation.

  “It is nothing,” she replied sharply, attempting to withdraw her hand, “the merest pinprick.”

  “Let me see,” he said, still holding it and examining the small wound. It was only the minutest cut but the blood welled and dripped from the rosy tip now that it was not in Mary’s mouth. His lordship withdrew a spotless handkerchief from his pocket and bound up the finger with firm but gentle movements.

  Mary, perhaps touched by his action, ceased to struggle to repossess her hand and submitted gracefully to his ministrations. “Is there no end to your ability to rescue a damsel in distress?” she asked, somewhat overcome by his closeness and determined to put a distance between them.

  “I hope not,” he replied, “but I hardly think this requires a hero. It would be more accurate to describe my ministrations on this occasion as those of a nursemaid.”

  “A most necessary adjunct to life when one is small but not perhaps essential when one is fully grown. After all, without nursemaids, I suspect many of us would not have survived infancy.”

  “And without heroes damsels must often find themselves in grave peril. I daresay it is not the first time that a nursemaid has been obliged to undo the o’er-hasty actions of a hero though. On this occasion, I am afraid that it was my fault that you cut yourself: I made you self-conscious and your concentration slipped. I apologise.”

  “Oh no,” she said at once, eager to deny that she had been affected by his presence. “I was conscious that you were both watching me but I assure you that I am excessively clumsy and am forever pricking myself whenever I attempt any mending – which is one of the jobs of a companion at which I am particularly poor.”

  “She is not very good at mending,” Lady Leland agreed as the door opened to admit the butler in answer to her summons. She had been watching the pair and had not liked to interrupt; indeed, she had never felt so acutely the disadvantages of being a chaperone.

  “I am not sure that we need your help now, Clarkson,” she said. “His lordship has leapt into action and performed the job himself. I think we could do with some more coffee though and perhaps a few cakes. I find myself suddenly afflicted with hunger.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Pray sit down, Mary, before you swoon from loss of blood,” she implored her companion.

  “But I have not finished the roses,” Mary protested, “and really I am hardly bleeding at all. You are both making a piece of work over nothing.”

  “You cannot perform such delicate surgery now that your finger sports a bandage,” Marklye pointed out. “If you will sit down, as her ladyship suggested, I will do the surgery and you shall place the blooms in the vase as you wish. I cannot lay claim to much artistic ability and should, no doubt, simply cram them into the vessel in a manner which you might find positively coarse.”

  “But you have already been wounded - when you picked them,” Mary said, peering anxiously at his hands, “and are in no fit state to handle them any further.”

  He held them out to her and turned them over so that she could see the marks upon them. “It is nothing,” he said, quoting her, “the merest pinpricks.”

  “But so many of them!” she exclaimed. “Your hands resemble a piece of lace! You must be sure to keep an eye upon them; wounds from roses can cause grave inflammation.”

  “Oh, dear!” he exclaimed. “Will you be obliged to rescue me from my sickbed when I succumb to a fever brought on by my attempt to ingratiate myself with you?”

  “I am afraid such a rescue would be beyond my powers,” Mary said, turning down the corners of her mouth. “I have no medical knowledge and her ladyship will no doubt corroborate my lack of nursing skill.”

  “You do not seem to be well equipped to perform many of the duties of a companion,” his lordship observed, laughing. “I find myself wondering why her ladyship employs you.”

  “I am quite good at reading,” Mary said, “and I am competent, if not gifted, at the pianoforte.”

  “She does herself an injustice,” Lady Leland said as another interruption occurred in the opening of the door to admit Clarkson with more coffee, followed by two footmen bearing plates laden with cakes and little tarts. “She is, in point of fact, more than competent at the keyboard. But it is her company, her wit and, in no small measure, the pleasure of looking upon her face, which make her a companion so ideal that I do not know how I should go on without her.”

  “Lud!” Mary said. “You do me too much honour, my lady.”

  “She will not, now that her finger is bandaged, be able to play,” her ladyship lamented. “I am hoping that she may sing instead. I should like that above all thin
gs.”

  Mary flushed. “I cannot sing.”

  “Then perhaps you should join my guest at her music lessons. She has brought a dancing master and a music master with her in order to prepare for her come-out next spring,” Marklye said lightly.

  “Mary can already dance and does so beautifully,” her ladyship said in the same tone. “She is an excellent pianist and she was used, once, to sing in a manner which could, with little exaggeration, be described as divine. She has a voice to charm the birds from the trees but she will not use it now and that is a great sadness for me.”

  “I have it no longer,” Mary said.

  “Were the gods so afflicted with envy that they snatched it from you?” Marklye asked.

  Mary looked up then, startled, straight into his eyes. “I cannot conceive that it was envy precisely but certainly they were exceedingly displeased,” she said before closing her mouth abruptly as though she had suddenly remembered that opening it formed part of the gods’ punishment, imposed additionally lest she be tempted to sing.

  “Can you not propitiate them in some way or another?”

  Chapter 11

  “No,” Mary replied succinctly.

  “I think she has taken fright,” Lady Leland explained. “She has refined upon the matter and convinced herself that the gods will punish her yet more cruelly if she should even try. But the truth is a great deal more prosaic: Mary blames her beautiful voice for leading her into imprudence a long time ago when she was little more than a child. It is all nonsense and I have tried to convince her that her rash conduct then had nothing to do with the way she sang – and is, moreover, a matter best consigned to the past.”

  “It was my vanity which led me into imprudence,” Mary explained. “I was puffed up with conceit and have no doubt been justly served for it. As a result I can no longer sing. If I open my mouth to do so, no sound emerges; it is as simple as that.”