Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence

by Catherine Bowness

  “I suppose he might if he is as much of a scoundrel as you seem to think. I can only advise that you do not wander about by yourself but take a maid with you when you go out – as other heiresses do.”

  “I should not like that.”

  “She would certainly have been something of a drawback this afternoon because curricles only carry two. Would she, do you think, be able to perch at the back as the groom does on more conventional occasions when we have not found a good reason to do away with him? Where in the world are our grooms, do you suppose? Mine is supposed to be walking home to fetch another vehicle since you ran off with mine; where is yours?”

  “Engaged on exactly the same mission – and he set off some time before yours did, on horseback.”

  “Well, since they are both going in the same direction – and we are now driving that way too – I suppose we shall come upon them eventually. Let us hope that it is not too soon.

  “You say that you would like me to teach you how to fight,” he continued. “With swords or pistols? Or perhaps fisticuffs? Would Lady Leland approve of that, do you think?”

  “She would most likely say the same as you: that I should have a maid to accompany me, although I am persuaded she would understand why such an adjunct would be an affliction. I cannot imagine anything more tedious than having a person trail after me all the time; she would soon grow bored with my meandering and judge me weak-minded to be forever pausing and gazing at flowers – or picking them.”

  “But she would be there to run for help when you fall in the river, or down a mountain, or into a bad man’s arms.”

  “By the time she found help I should most likely be dead. You never worry about such things, do you?”

  “Which things? Falling in a river? I can swim; falling down a mountain? There are not many round here; indeed I have not seen even one; falling into a bad man’s arms? I hardly think he would want me there. But you are quite right; I take it you are implying that a man’s life is less restricted than a woman’s and that nobody thinks it odd if he goes about by himself? Indeed, they do not but it is because women are weaker than men that they need protection. Does that annoy you?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, I will teach you to fight as well as to swim, but not today. It must be almost time for dinner and my guests will be wondering where I am.”

  It was not until several more minutes had passed that they noticed a man walking briskly at the side of the road.

  “That looks like Manning, my groom. I daresay we shall come upon yours soon. Do you think there will be room for them both to perch at the back? Now that we are about to acquire at least one chaperone, I wonder if we should take advantage of the freedom of our present position before it vanishes.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, I suppose you have had enough of being kissed for one day. I hope that, when I rescue you next, you will be so grateful that you will fling your arms around my neck.”

  “Do you wish to kiss me?” she asked, startled.

  He turned a laughing face towards her but, at sight of her bewilderment, his features sobered. “Yes, of course I do. I want to kiss you every time I see you but the moment never seems to be quite right. The first time you were barely able to breathe and it seemed unwise to stop your mouth; the second time you were in my lady’s saloon and I could hardly sweep you into my arms in her presence; and this time I am subject to all the eternal guilt of a man coming upon a woman being manhandled by another man. Should you like to kiss me – as an expression of gratitude of course?” This last was uttered with some wistfulness.

  Mary turned a fiery red for she had indeed thought of kissing him but not on any of the occasions when he had rescued her; she had thought of it in the privacy of her bedchamber when his face, with its serious grey eyes and curling mouth, was inclined to come unbidden before her mind’s eye.

  “No, not in gratitude,” she muttered so low that the words were muffled by the sound of the hooves.

  But he heard. He drew the horses back to a walk and turned to gaze into her face.

  “Not? Best of Miss Bests, am I to hope that something else, some warmer feeling, might prompt you to place your lips upon my cheek?”

  “It is too late – if your man should turn he will see us,” she muttered in confusion.

  “We will have to leave any discussion concerning our feelings for another occasion,” he said, teasing, but bent his head and presented his cheek to her so that she had little choice but to apply her lips to its smooth, cool surface.

  When she had done he straightened and said, still teasing but with an odd look upon his face, “I shall treasure your kiss so that I may call it to mind when next you lose your temper with me.”

  “You will no doubt remind me of it!”

  “Will you forget so quickly?”

  “What do you mean by that? Are you implying that I frequently lose my temper?”

  “I was not although, now you point it out, I cannot help but agree with you. I was merely afraid that such a paltry kiss might slip your memory.”

  “I am not in the habit of kissing gentlemen – in a paltry manner or otherwise.”

  “I hope not indeed. I should like to think myself singled out for special attention, although I am aware that it was not offered freely; I was obliged to beg for it.”

  “I shudder to contemplate what you might have thought of a female who kissed you without an invitation.”

  “It is so hard being a man,” he observed on a sigh. “It is indeed rare to receive a kiss without initiating it oneself and yet …”

  “How fortunate you are!” she retorted. “A woman is only too often subjected to such things, not only without invitation, but positively against her will.”

  “I am sorry,” he said at once on a different note. “I was teasing you on a subject about which you no doubt feel particularly strongly just now. Thank you; I hope you did not find it disagreeable.”

  “Not in the least; it was no different to saluting an uncle or some such.”

  But Marklye did not take this set-down in bad part; he uttered a shout of laughter. “Touché!”

  Mary flushed and said to cover her confusion, “You are driving very slowly. We shall follow your man all the way home at this pace.”

  “We do not want to catch him up too soon, do we?”

  “Have you a mind to make him walk a long way?”

  “Mary …”

  “My lord …”

  “Will you not reciprocate and call me by my name?”

  When she did not avail herself of the invitation, he went on, “Perhaps I should tell you something of my past; otherwise you might, later, accuse me of pulling the wool over your eyes. My family is not at all respectable. The man whom I succeeded was selfish, dissolute and cruel. He gambled away every last penny of his inheritance – indeed he lost more than he owned for the house in which I now live was mortgaged to the hilt and so run down that it was almost a ruin when it came to me. He lived there during his childhood and returned only during the last days of his life.

  “I am his nephew; he did not marry and neither did he keep in touch with his family so that it was only when I became Viscount that I learned the full extent of his debts. I thought I had no choice but to sell the dilapidated house, together with the land, to try to pay off at least some of the creditors. Indeed, I had already told the lawyer that he should look for a buyer when I came into a fortune, left to me in a will by a woman I had known many years before. Clearly she retained a fondness for me – as did I for her.”

  He paused but Mary said nothing.

  “Do you not wish to know why she chose me in preference to any number of blood relations?”

  “It is none of my business,” Mary replied primly.

  “Why do you think I am telling you this?”

  “No doubt in order to reassure me that you, too, have had a less than respectable past and that you received a sizeable legacy from
a person to whom you were not related.”

  “Just so.”

  “It is kind of you to wish to set my mind at rest about my prospects but I do not think the situations are at all similar; whatever your connexion to this woman – and I assure you I have no wish to know more – I am certain that it was entirely different from mine to Lady Leland.”

  “Of course the cases are not identical; all the same, the woman who transformed my life did so for the same reason – give or take the degree or nature of the attachment. The explanation is simple: my benefactress held me in affection as Lady Leland does you. I think there is a danger that she will think you are rejecting that if you show displeasure.”

  “Did you know, while your benefactress was still alive, what she planned to do with her fortune?”

  “No; I had not seen her for many years.”

  “If you had known, would you not have tried to dissuade her? Would you not have felt suffocated beneath the weight of such an imbalance of attachment? In short, would you not have feared that you did not deserve it?”

  “Yes, of course I would; I did; and yet, thinking about it afterwards – which is the only timescale I have been permitted – I have changed my mind and come to the conclusion that labouring under a sense of guilt and obligation is nothing but a piece of self-indulgence. But what you call ‘an imbalance of attachment’ is hardly relevant to you and Lady Leland because, unless I am all at sea, you have quite as great a fondness for her as she for you.”

  “Yes, I would not deny that; all the same I do not deserve it.”

  “I do not imagine that she has acted on account of how deserving she judges you to be – why, I have heard her complain about your poor skills with the needle – but because she is deeply attached to you and wishes your life to be as agreeable as possible after her death. Your feelings are beside the point, my dear, and, since they appear sadly jaundiced, are probably best kept to yourself.”

  “I daresay you are right but I do not know quite why you think you are in a position where you can read me a lecture. Is it because you saved my life? Do you believe that gives you the right to assume the role of preceptor over the way I behave – and, indeed, even feel - towards my employer?”

  “No! Good God – that would be outrageous! I did not mean to be so high-handed although I own I wish I did have the right – not to order your behaviour or your feelings – never that – but to offer advice and perhaps on occasion allay your anxieties.”

  “Advice?” Mary exclaimed, so incensed by what she saw as interference – and indeed disapprobation – that she barely registered the rest of his explanation. “I did not ask for it – at least I do not recall doing so – and there is something horridly oppressive about unsolicited advice.”

  “You are perfectly right and I don’t doubt I would have been equally irritated in the circumstances. I had intended only to suggest that I know, from my own experience, that a gift can weigh as heavily as a burden upon the recipient.”

  “I apologise if I jumped down your throat,” she said, not much mollified but determined both to curb her temper and put the past behind her. “Clearly the recipient is not responsible for the donor’s action, unless it is as a result of merciless bullying; but surely one is bound to question oneself as well as endeavour to look at it from others’ point of view – to say in effect: what will Society make of it?”

  “Society makes a great deal too much of a great many things and there is bound to be gossip but it does not last for long; the wind changes and something else happens so that one’s small affairs fade into the background. Have you suffered on account of gossip before?”

  “Not without reason.”

  “You told me on the river bank that you had no reputation to lose and we argued about it; I said, if I recall correctly, that no one would hold infantile misdemeanours against you indefinitely; you disbelieved me and told me to hold my tongue – which I did. At the risk of sending you into another miff, what did you do which you still believe Society would judge unforgivable?”

  “My ‘misdemeanour’, as you call it, was not infantile. I was old enough to know better but not wise enough to curb my desires. I still behave with a woeful lack of caution; after all, I attempted only recently to climb down a precipitous bank and would, on that occasion, have lost my life if you had not saved me.”

  “I hardly think Society would condemn you for misjudging the steepness of a bank. Is the original misdemeanour the reason why you are living in the back of beyond as companion to Lady Leland and is it your sense of guilt - because you are quite as condemnatory of yourself as ever Society could be - that makes you so reluctant to, as it were, profit from it?”

  “Yes, I believe so.” Mary’s animation had vanished to be replaced by an almost humble compliance.

  “Well, I think it absurd; you have already admitted that you are neither a thief nor a murderer. What the devil did you do? I suppose it was something improper with a man and I suppose that Mr Armitage has some inkling of the matter and thought it gave him licence to assault you.”

  Chapter 23

  “Yes.” She spoke very low.

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “You were a child. As you say, not an infant, but by no means old enough to understand the ways of the world or the consequences of your actions. Having some small knowledge of your character, I daresay you flew into a dander about some ‘advice’ someone had given you and defied them by doing precisely what they had tried to prevent.”

  “Not exactly, but as near as makes no difference.”

  Having allowed him to draw a partial confession from her and seeing, to her surprise, that he did not appear to be in the least horrified but on the contrary perfectly understanding, Mary expanded almost willingly upon the matter without waiting for close questioning to prise the information from her.

  “It was a long time ago but it is not something which Society will ever overlook. If Lady Leland had not taken me in, I would very likely be dead. I owe her my life and it is my consciousness of that which makes it difficult for me to accept more from her. It is almost as though, in the end, my transgression will reap a reward – and somehow that seems wrong, even to a person who is notably deficient in morals.”

  “I think you are refining upon it immoderately. I daresay you have too much time to think. From my observation of you and Lady Leland, I would say that, no matter what prompted her to employ you in the first place, she keeps you there because she loves you and it is for that reason that she has made you her beneficiary. Although I do now understand something of your reluctance to, as you believe, benefit from what you see as wrongdoing, I feel bound to point out – at the risk of once more offering unsought advice – that it is stretching a point almost to absurdity to connect a lapse from virtue when you were excessively young with your present expectations; they are unrelated. You have paid your debt to Society – more than paid it – and should put it all behind you.”

  “That is what her ladyship says but how can I?” she asked miserably. “It is too late.”

  “Nonsense! Too late for what?”

  “To wipe the slate clean! On account of what I did – how I behaved - I will never be considered respectable again and as a consequence can never be married, never have a family of my own! I must always be alone – or a companion or something of that nature.” This was such an appalling thing to be obliged to admit to a single man who made her heart beat faster whenever she thought of him that she positively shouted the words.

  “What? Why the devil not?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Oh, how can you be so obtuse?” she cried. “I am not … if anyone should offer for me, I would be obliged to confess the whole and he would be a fool if he did not run away at once.”

  “He would be a knave and a fool if he did,” Marklye said. “Is that what you have been led to believe: that no man would contemplate taking a wife who had once done something foolish? When a man falls in
love, do you really suppose that something his beloved did years before would change his mind? That he would, in short, fall out of love with her in a moment? You have a very odd idea of men.”

  “Very likely I do; I have not known many; I had a great many sisters and only one tiny brother who was little more than an infant when I left home.”

  “And a father presumably?”

  “Yes, but he was not an admirable person.”

  “I see.” He fell silent so that Mary wondered if, by demonstrating her distinctly unfilial attitude, she had finally succeeded in putting an end to his no doubt kindly-meant arguments.

  “I find myself in an awkward position,” he began again after a pause.

  “Only fancy!” she said sarcastically.

  He drew the curricle to a halt. “I suppose you are implying that it serves me right to find myself lost for words after offering you so much ‘unsolicited advice’. The thing is that I was working myself up to ask you to marry me. Now you will no doubt accuse me of feeling obliged to do so in the light of our recent conversation.”

  “Neatly put,” she exclaimed, almost spitting. “You have managed in one sentence to show how very much above such ‘knavery and foolishness’ you are whilst at the same time making it abundantly clear that it is only civility which prompts you to make me an offer.”

  “What?” he exclaimed so loudly that the horses’ ears twitched nervously. “Have I somehow fallen into another trap? Why, in Heaven’s name is it beyond impossible to engage in any conversation with you without you flying off the handle?”

  “Because I am an ill-tempered shrew!” she returned. “How can I believe you speak for any reason other than to prove how charitable you are for, when all is said and done, what precisely have you said?”

  “Must I repeat it when you have taken such exception to the content? You heard me, Mary, and I will not be forced into a position where you can humiliate me to assuage your own sense of bitterness. By the way, I do not feel in the least ‘obliged’ to make you an offer. I have not reached the age of six and thirty without learning that quixotic gestures are, at best, imprudent. Do you really suppose that I would be prepared to marry you merely from a sense of obligation?”