Her new clothes not yet having arrived, she was dressed in her accustomed humble manner in a grey cotton dress, made up to the neck, with the dark blue merino spencer on top to keep out any chill which might be expected when travelling in an open gig. On her bright curls she wore a simple poke bonnet – not the one which had taken a soaking, which was in any event too old and decrepit for anything other than a walk about her ladyship’s grounds. This one was also fashioned from straw but was embellished only with a wide yellow ribbon which encircled the crown before being tied firmly under the chin. Her reticule, filled with more than enough money to purchase several packs of cards and sets of counters, lay on the seat beside her.
She was driven by the groom, a middle-aged man by the name of Potter. They set out briskly, the sun shining out of a sky lightly scattered with white clouds. Mary sat back and surveyed the fields on either side of the road where cows grazed peacefully. She noted with some relief, since she was in the gig which had no hood, that none were lying down; evidently they did not expect rain.
They had joined the main road and were bowling along merrily when they met the mail being driven too fast and somewhat erratically by a young gentleman who had coerced the proper coachman into allowing him to take the reins.
“It should be made a criminal offence to allow young men to take charge of the mail like that,” Potter exclaimed with some irritation. The road on which they were proceeding was neither wide nor smooth in spite of being the main route into Tunbridge Wells.
“How fortunate that we are in the gig,” Mary said. “If we had taken the coach, as her ladyship wished, there would not have been room for us to pass.”
“There is not room for us as it is since that jackanapes is choosing to drive down the middle of the road,” the coachman said, taking evasive action and drawing the gig to the side.
The mail thundered past, the passengers on the roof shouting and laughing; several exclaimed upon Mary’s beauty and expressed the wish that the mail might stop so that they could engage her in conversation. Mary averted her face but she could not help a little smile hovering at the corners of her mouth; it was not often that she received acknowledgment that she was a pretty young woman.
When the mail had gone, Potter attempted to return to the road but, unfortunately, the nearside wheel caught on a large stone which had been partially buried in the long grass and, the little vehicle rocking wildly for several minutes, Mary was bumped up and down so sharply that she was obliged to hold on to the side for fear of being catapulted into the road.
“Sorry, Miss,” Potter called back to her, holding manfully to the horse which, startled by the bucking object behind him, had begun to jib and dance in a manner not conducive to their onward progress.
The vehicle bounced and shuddered as the horse continued to cavort, Potter spoke firmly to the animal, Mary ceased to see much humour in the situation and a few minutes later there was a violent lurch followed by the gig coming to rest, lopsidedly, in the long grass.
“We’ve lost a wheel, Miss,” Potter told her unnecessarily, pulling the horse up. “Can you hold on, Miss?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, I am doing so. What shall we do now? I suppose the wheel is some way back. Will you be able to put it on again, do you think?”
“Most unlikely, Miss – at least not without any tools. It’s probably broken off at the axle.”
“Oh! Well, I suppose it is fortunate that we have not gone so very far. It will not take me much more than an hour to walk back and then I shall be able to send help.”
When the groom had helped her to climb down, he ran back along the side of the road in search of the missing wheel. He soon found it, picked it up and returned to her side.
“As I thought, Miss: it’s broken clean off and can’t be fixed by the side of the road even if we had a whole box of tools. You’d be much better not to walk back such a long way by yourself. If I unharness the horse, we can walk together, leaving the gig here.”
“It seems rather illogical to lead the horse when you could ride it and get help all the sooner,” Mary pointed out. “Do you go on ahead and I will begin to walk. I shall be perfectly safe and you will no doubt be back in the twinkling of an eye.”
“Are you sure, Miss? You aren’t dressed for riding but I could put you up and lead you back.”
“No; that will still take most of the afternoon. If you ride, all will quickly be made right. Off you go, Potter; it is a pleasant afternoon and I shall come to no harm on my feet.”
The groom, seeing that Miss Best’s mind was quite made up, bowed to the inevitable and began to unharness the horse. Mary did not wait for him but set off back the way they had come, walking briskly along the side of the road. After she had gone a short distance, she was overtaken by Potter, now mounted on the horse. After a short colloquy, during which he endeavoured once more to persuade her either to allow him to seat her on the horse’s back or to walk beside her, he set off at speed, leaving her behind.
Mary, as she walked along, reflected that being thus stranded and obliged to walk along the main road was entirely her own fault since, if she had not allowed herself to be persuaded by misplaced pride to take the gig rather than the coach, she would now be well on the way to Tunbridge Wells.
She beguiled the time in looking about her and saw, to her delight, that the fields on either side of the road were bright with wild flowers. Supposing that she had plenty of time before Potter returned with the carriage, she decided to leave the road and gather a bunch.
She had returned to the carriageway, without suffering any mishap greater than a green stain upon her fingers, and was trudging along in the direction of home when she heard the sound of a horseman approaching rapidly from behind. The road was busy with a great many carriages, a few curricles, a number of gigs (mostly driven by farmers or farm hands) and the occasional lone horseman. At the moment when she became conscious of the rapid drumming of hooves behind her, she noticed that there was a curricle approaching from the opposite direction – also with some speed – and took the precaution of stepping off the road on to the verge again. She had no wish to be run down.
As the horseman bore down upon her, she turned to look at him, curious to know who was galloping down the road in the middle of the afternoon, and recognised a man she had seen a few times before. She knew him immediately; his was not a face that one would be likely to forget for it was exceedingly handsome if a trifle dissipated; and yet the dissipation added, oddly, to its attraction for it rendered the beauty of the features more ephemeral than they might otherwise have seemed; it was a face almost, but not quite, ruined, like a flower that is past its best but still retains enough of its original beauty to fill the mind of the beholder with a sort of awful pity. A rose thus blighted would make one sigh and wish that one had seen it last week; a man thus damaged could make a damsel’s heart swell with longing to halt the decay before it was too late.
The man, recognising her too as she raised her face to stare at him, wrenched his horse to a halt, turned and came back.
“Miss Best?” he exclaimed, the interrogatory note on account of his not being well acquainted with her and uncertain of her name; he was as unlikely to forget her face as she was to forget his. Mary Best’s beauty was by no means ruined but it was subdued by the dullness of her garments and the cheapness of her bonnet.
“Mr Armitage!” she returned for it was that elder son of Lady Leland’s friend, whom Mary and her employer had recently been discussing – and dismissing.
Mr Armitage slid from his horse’s back. “You have chosen an odd place to take a walk,” he observed with a lift of the eyebrow.
“It is proving more pleasing than I had expected,” she returned lightly, raising the bunch of flowers she had picked to indicate the reason for her pleasure.
“Are you fond of flowers?” he asked, fixing her with his dark eyes.
“Why, yes, I believe I am. The older I grow the more I value those things which have a
short life. One can see the whole in the space of a week.”
“And why should such a very odd interest – not, I hasten to add, in flowers, which is surely perfectly usual – but in the wholeness of a life viewed almost in a flash have begun to interest one so young as you, Miss Best? For you are surely still not much more than a girl.”
“I am a great deal more than a girl, Mr Armitage. I take it that you are presently staying with your parents since you are in this part of the world. You are not often here, are you?”
“No. I am in point of fact on my way there even now. A carriage is lumbering along somewhere behind me with my baggage but I could not bear to travel in such a torpid manner and decided to ride on in front. As for my spending a lot of time here, I own that I am not a great lover of the country but, having suffered a few quite devastating losses recently, I felt a pressing need to escape London. I am delighted to see that what had initially appeared to be an ill wind has in fact brought unexpected good fortune.”
Since Mr Armitage’s eyes continued to linger warmly upon her features, Mary could not pretend that he was not referring to their chance meeting as the good fortune of which he spoke.
“I suppose then that you will be coming to her ladyship’s card party?” she queried, wondering, as she spoke, whether in the circumstances, a reference to cards was quite tactful.
“I was not aware that I had been invited; shall I find the invitation when I reach home? And will the stakes be high?” he asked, teasing.
“I should not imagine so. I daresay you would find the evening tedious beyond bearing, sir, and may wish to decline,” she added, hoping that he would immediately confirm that he had no intention of attending.
But she had given her own face less than its due; Mr Armitage not only smiled in a manner which she found a little too warm but also took her hand, holding it firmly in his own.
“When is such a delight to take place and will you be in attendance?” he asked.
Mary, understanding at once that, if she were not, he might be disinclined to attend, said evasively, “I am not certain; her ladyship has not yet made it clear whether she requires my presence or not.”
As it turned out, resorting to prevarication in her desire to avoid a future encounter with a gentleman possessed of such exceedingly bold eyes, did Mary no good at all; she had jumped directly from the frying pan into the fire.
“Then we had better make the most of our meeting now,” Mr Armitage replied and kissed her without more ado.
Chapter 17
Susan found Signor Pontielli sitting on the same log as before in the little wood. She guessed that he had not long arrived since he was not yet playing his violin but tuning it. He looked up as he heard her approach.
“Miss Porter.” He rose and bowed in what she took to be an ironic fashion.
“I am not certain that it is a good idea for us to meet in such an out-of-the-way place without a chaperone,” she said stiffly, reacting to what she saw as his making fun of her by taking a step back.
“But you like to meet out here, do you not?” he asked, putting the violin into position beneath his chin and raising his eyes to her above its shining surface.
“I am not at all sure that I do, Signor. I believe I became carried away last time but, in truth, being in the open air makes me only too conscious of my deficiencies.”
“If you are looking for praise you will have to earn it,” he said unkindly and began to play the scale he had made her sing before.
She turned away. This was too bad. She would not sing if he was minded to speak so harshly before she had even begun. She wished she had not come.
She was painfully aware that so far her stay at Lord Marklye’s house had not been an unmitigated success: her papa had left; Marklye – although always kind – had fallen for the charms of a tiresome woman whom he had fished out of the river and was as a consequence somewhat distracted; her mother was, as always, censorious; Sir Adrian – about whom in retrospect a glow had developed - had almost certainly conceived a disgust for her after her appalling conduct; Monsieur Lapideau went through the motions of teaching her dance steps, which his manner clearly indicated was a complete waste of his time for she was by far too clumsy to be able to execute them with any grace; even the maid laughed at her and – as for Signor Pontielli – he had nothing but contempt for her.
She was behaving like a perfect idiot in his presence, one moment flattered and elated, the next cast down, and all – she acknowledged with a sudden burst of self-knowledge – because he was the most handsome man she had ever seen and because, sitting beside him at the pianoforte, she was quite shamingly conscious of his beautiful hands and their ability to draw magic from the instrument.
Away from her own home and her small coterie of friends, she was lonely and rapidly becoming mired in self-pity; she must pull herself together at once. She raised her chin, squared her shoulders and began to walk rapidly away. She had not reached the edge of the wood when her arm was seized and she was turned forcefully towards her teacher.
“Where are you going?” he asked – indeed almost hissed.
“Back to the house. As I told you, I do not think it appropriate to meet you here; I cannot conceive why I agreed to do so and I think it abominable that you have encouraged me in such improper conduct. I shall tell my mama and she will no doubt dismiss you.”
She expected this accusation to result in an apology, which she might have been prepared graciously to extend to him; she did not receive one; she received instead something entirely unexpected: a kiss.
“If that is your attitude, I will give you something substantial to report to your mama,” he said, pausing for a moment before applying himself to his task with a good deal of skill.
Susan was unable to speak for some time. Her initial shock having robbed her almost of her senses and, with his lips pressed to hers, rendered physically unable to form words, she stood passive beneath the onslaught. Of course, later, she realised that she should at the very least have put up something of a struggle, preferably she should have hit him. But she had had no time to do so, being taken so completely by surprise that she was as though stunned.
Signor Pontielli was a man in his thirties and therefore many years older than she and vastly more experienced, no doubt, in the matter of kissing. Indeed, Susan had neither kissed nor been kissed by anyone other than her parents and occasionally her grandparents; certainly she had not been kissed in this manner, full on the lips; indeed, she had not been aware that men and women, even if they were married to each other, behaved in this way. This was the explanation for her failure to struggle or bring her teacher’s action to an immediate end. The difficulty was that, the longer she permitted him to continue without exhibiting outrage, the more he was encouraged and the more she discovered that she enjoyed it. If she had not shown much ability at either playing the pianoforte or singing, she showed a good deal in the matter of kissing. It seemed to her that it was very easy.
When at last Signor Pontielli withdrew his lips from hers, she found herself asking for more by the simple means of drawing closer to him and presenting her face to his. He obliged at once, seemingly as eager as she to continue a lesson which his pupil was not only keen to learn but at which she was very much more apt than in the subject for which he had been engaged.
“I am sorry,” he said at last. “I should not have done that but I am afraid I could not resist.” He stepped back but took her hand and held it tightly, an expression in his dark eyes which she was unable to read.
“No, you should not,” she agreed, “and I should have slapped your face.”
He smiled. “Pray do not hesitate to do so.” He presented a smooth cheek, the skin as fine as silk and the colour of a perfectly ripe peach. “It is no more than I deserve.”
“Less,” she said. “If my father had seen such behaviour he would have taken a horsewhip to you.”
“Will you tell him?”
“He is not here.”<
br />
“No. Will you tell your mama or Lord Marklye?”
“No, for I daresay they would both hold me responsible. They would say, with some justification, that I had encouraged you by agreeing to meet you here without a chaperone.” She rubbed her hand across her mouth in a gesture which was not altogether flattering to Signor Pontielli. “Why did you do it?”
He looked somewhat flummoxed by this question: perhaps no one had ever asked him to explain his reasons for such an action before. It may have been that he had behaved impetuously, prompted by the combination of Susan’s naïveté and unconcealed admiration followed, unexpectedly, by a touching show of pride, which had prompted him to kiss her rather than embark upon another argument.
He ran one of his beautiful hands through his hair and said ruefully, “I do not know precisely. I just wanted to; it is not the first time I have wished to kiss you but I kept a better hold on myself until just now. I am sorry; all the same, I have the impression that you enjoyed it.”
“Yes, I did, when I had got a little used to it. I have never done such a thing before. I am sure it is wrong, is it not?”
And then suddenly, no doubt struck by the depth and breadth of innocence revealed by such a question, his expression, which had resembled that of a schoolboy caught in some wrong-doing, changed to one of such tender gravity, that she almost ceased to breathe. “Wrong to enjoy it? No, I don’t think so, but I was very wrong to do it; I took advantage of you. I should like to marry you but I don’t suppose your papa would consider me a suitable parti.”
“What?”
Signor Pontielli divining, from the tone in which this single syllable was uttered, that Susan would not frown upon such an unequal match, cast himself down on one knee before her, lifted the hand which he still held to his lips and said, “Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife, Miss Porter?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I would like that above all things, but I don’t suppose Papa would approve – or Mama. They are very ambitious for me, although I shall have a fortune of my own.”
Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence Page 15
