“Ohh!” Susan cried on a long note of pain, as though she were the deer being torn limb from limb. She rose to her feet, swayed and made some attempt to walk, whether towards the teacher or towards Miss Best was unclear because she took no more than a step before her knees buckled and she collapsed into Sir Adrian’s arms.
“I did not! You made it perfectly clear that you did not want me; all you saw was an instrument you could use to defy your family, a tool you believed would help you on to the stage. She wanted to be a singer,” he added in explanation to his audience before addressing himself once more to his accuser. “You used and discarded a poor teacher with no thought for his future.” Signor Pontielli had begun his defence in a tone no less outraged than Miss Best’s but, by the time he reached the end, he had crumpled into self-pity and tears glittered in his beautiful eyes.
“It did not signify one way or the other though, did it?” Mary asked in a weary voice. “In the eyes of the world I was ruined; I had spent several nights in your company before I was found. You see,” she added with a faint smile towards Lord Marklye, “I have been in need of rescuing since I was a girl.”
Now addressing the astonished guests as though declaiming from a pulpit, she continued, “My brother-in-law was obliged to buy me from that man before he would release me. He threatened to expose me, which would have ruined my sisters’ chances of making good marriages, unless he was given a large sum of money. He was not, you may be interested to learn, called Signor Pontielli then – he was plain Mr Taylor and he taught in the school I attended. His intention was never seduction, nor was it putting me on the stage. What he sought – and obtained – was money.”
Having delivered herself of this succinct explanation, Mary walked across the room towards Susan, where she trembled in Sir Adrian’s arms, her face alternating alarmingly between red and white.
“Did he promise you something similar?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes – no; it would be impossible to make me into a singer of any kind; he offered me marriage; we were to elope later tonight. He said we must go to Gretna Green because my parents would be unlikely to consent.”
“I don’t doubt his supposition was correct,” Mary said dryly. “In any event, unless he has by some means or another become a widower since his escapade with me, he could not marry you as he already has a wife and at least half a dozen children – probably more by now. I don’t suppose he has seduced you, has he?” she added with gentle compassion.
When Susan shook her head wordlessly, Mary nodded as though she were not at all surprised and continued in a louder voice, “Unless he plans bigamy – or his poor wife is dead - he cannot fulfil his promise but it is my belief that it is not the lovemaking he seeks but the money that wealthy families will pay to rescue their daughters. I suppose, in my case, he must have had his eye on my brother-in-law for my parents are perpetually on the brink of ruin and neither could nor would have paid a brass farthing for me.”
“Did he declare his love for you?” Susan asked, desperate to salvage something from the ruin of her dream.
“No; he declared it for my voice,” Mary said with some bitterness. “It never was about love in my case – or not love for me, in any event.”
“You did not love him?” The girl’s voice trembled but something like hope glimmered in her eyes; the man had declared – several times – his love for her and, if he had not done so – and had not indeed felt it – for the beauteous Mary, there was something, some shadow of pride, which she could rescue from the chaos into which she had been plunged.
“No; I thought I did but the fact that I missed him not at all when I was brought home makes me realise that I did not and that he is right when he says that I used him – or tried to. I was very young – even younger than you are now – and my nature was selfish and disagreeable. It still is,” she added in an undertone before continuing her explanation. “I had been sent to school because I was considered unmanageable at home. I wanted above all things to be a singer – I think because it was the one thing I knew that I could do better than most people and the one action that made me feel happy and free.”
“I cannot sing at all,” Susan confessed. “I have no musical ability of any kind.”
“In that case,” Mary said, appearing to lose interest in describing the depravity of the music teacher and instead striving to find a way to save Susan’s pride, “he may have spoken the truth when he declared he loved you but he could not have fulfiled his promise to marry you – unless he is now widowed, in which case it is possible that I have wronged him. Does your wife still breathe, Mr Taylor?”
But the music teacher could not speak. He looked now not so much white as green; he nodded wordlessly, almost paralysed with terror so that he was no longer capable even of looking for a way out.
Susan said, “I appreciate what you are trying to do, Miss Best, but I am sure he did not; why should he have loved me when he did not love you, who are so beautiful and can sing like an angel?”
“Because love is not inspired solely – or perhaps at all - by a person’s looks or indeed by what one is good at; it is both simpler and more complicated than that. He is very handsome,” Mary added, the scorn returning, “and yet I did not love him.”
While the two young women were commiserating over their experiences at the hands of Signor Pontielli, Mrs Porter – on hearing her daughter’s admission that she had been intending to elope that very night – strode up to the teacher, raised her hand and slapped him so hard across the face that he staggered backwards almost into the arms of Sir James, who still stood in front of the door.
“You are a repellent snake in the grass!” Mrs Porter hissed at him, her face only inches from his. “You came here – no doubt with false references – to steal my daughter from under my nose! Nothing is too bad for you. He should be arrested at once, my lord, and thrown into gaol. I wish,” she added, descending suddenly from justified outrage to mawkishness, “that my husband was here. He would smite you instantly.”
“Come, Jenny! Do not upset yourself any more than necessary. He has done a dastardly thing and will be dealt with in one way or another in due course. Susan has had a lucky escape but she is safe now and Miss Best and she will no doubt take comfort from each other,” Lord Marklye said reasonably, leading Mrs Porter away from the trembling music master and consigning her to the care of Lady Armitage and Lady Leland, who were sitting together on a sofa.
There was nothing in Mary’s declaration that Lady Leland had not known before and she was more glad than sorry that the young woman had at last ‘broken cover’ and owned not only her loss of reputation but also the injustice of it. The girl had lived under a cloud of shame for quite long enough in the old lady’s opinion when her only fault lay in imprudence. Some might have thought it unwise to confess all in such a public manner but Lady Leland strongly believed that it was the right thing to do; if the Armitages and Mrs Porter – though she was hardly in a position to criticise – decided to cut Mary, her ladyship considered it unimportant. The only person now who could damage – indeed destroy – Mary was Lord Marklye and she did not for a moment fear his reaction.
As he handed over the quivering Mrs Porter, she met his eyes briefly and was reassured.
“What have you to say to these accusations, Signor?” he asked, returning to the affrighted music teacher.
Signor Pontielli’s colour was returning in odd patches to his face now that he realised that Marklye was not about to run him through with a sword or take a horsewhip to him but, on the contrary, seemed prepared to listen to his side of the story as well.
“I have been grossly maligned. Although it is true that I did leave the country with Miss Benstead a number of years ago, it was she who persuaded me to fly. She used me in an attempt to fulfil her ambition; she did sing well – probably still does – but she was an unruly child who would never have been able to sustain a career on the stage as she frequently flew into rages for no di
scernible reason; I was only too glad to hand her over to her brother-in-law, who offered to defray my expenses and to compensate me for losing my job at the school.”
“How long did you spend with her?”
“Not quite a week.”
“I see; and how much did Lord Knill – I believe it was he, was it not? - pay for the week you spent squiring a child around Europe? Did you set a price or did he kindly offer you something?”
“He – I cannot disclose that.”
“And Miss Porter? You meant to snatch her away later tonight? What did you plan to do with her?”
“I … I care deeply for her.”
“Yes, no doubt; but you cannot marry her, can you?”
“No.”
“Did you intend to sell Miss Porter back to her parents and promise to keep your lips closed on whatever had taken place between you during the time you had her in your possession? Is this how you make a living - seducing your pupils and persuading them to run away with you before selling them back to their families? How many times have you done it?”
“You are mistaken, my lord. No doubt it amuses you to describe me thus but I assure you I had no such intention; I hold Miss Porter in great affection.”
“Indeed? So much affection that you intended to snatch her from her parents’ care and ruin her for you have just admitted that you could not have married her?”
“Not at the moment,” Signor Pontielli admitted.
“So, when? When you have somehow managed to dispose of your wife? And what of your half dozen or more children? Would Miss Porter have been obliged to act as stepmother to them?”
The music teacher had grown red under his lordship’s half-amused questioning. He did not look comfortable, discovering to his surprise that he could no more wriggle away from the gentle probing than he could slip out of the door into the night and that his lordship’s softly spoken scorn was, if anything, even more disagreeable than Miss Best’s anger.
“I meant every word I said to you,” he cried, tearing his gaze from his lordship’s cool grey one to fix on Miss Porter’s stricken face.
“You cannot have done so,” she argued in her practical way, “for you begged me to marry you. That was simply a lie and I see no reason to suppose that anything else you said could have been true. You have behaved abominably and I have been a perfect fool to believe you and, worse than that, to agree to fly with you tonight.”
“You took some persuading,” he muttered almost beneath his breath.
“Yes, I did, for I knew that it was wrong and that it would break my parents’ hearts. Of course it was absurd of me to believe you for who in the world would be likely to – to feel that way about me?”
“I would,” Sir Adrian declared, blushing in his turn. “I do! Miss Porter, you have been horridly ill-used but I beg you will not blame yourself; it is easy to be swayed by a beautiful face. I cannot compete with your teacher’s eyes but I promise that I would never treat you so shabbily.”
Susan, thrown from one extreme to another and, it seemed, from one man to another, was uncertain of Sir Adrian’s meaning: was he declaring his love and indeed offering himself as a substitute? She stared at him for a moment, at his large, bony face and serious eyes and then she looked for help to the woman beside her.
“I think he is admitting that he was influenced by my face,” Mary said prosaically, “but that his eyes have recently been opened to your worth.”
She continued in an undertone, directly into the girl’s ear, “I believe he has made some sort of a declaration of intent – if not an actual offer. Since he has not in fact asked a question I am persuaded you do not have to give him an answer. What should you say or do in the circumstances? I think an expression of gratitude for his partisanship would not come amiss and would no doubt encourage him to continue on the path on which he has embarked – if, that is, you wish to encourage him. In other words, say ‘thank you’ and reward him with a wan smile.”
Susan’s face cleared, she pressed Mary’s hand and turned with remarkable grace to Sir Adrian to say, “Thank you, sir, for your kind words; they are a great comfort to me.”
Sir Adrian’s anxious face relaxed; he smiled, took Miss Porter’s hand and kissed it, retaining it in his when he had done.
Chapter 37
Meanwhile Lord Marklye found himself compelled to deal with a man whose services as a music teacher he had not engaged but about whom it now seemed he must make a decision. It was his house and the Porters were his guests; no doubt if Mr Porter had been present he would have taken matters into his hands but, since he was not, the responsibility seemed to fall upon his lordship.
“And what of Miss Benstead?” he asked, his voice becoming frighteningly stern. “It appears that you, not only never felt any affection for her, but apparently lay the blame for the flight which ruined her upon her shoulders. At the time she was fifteen years old and you must have been more than five and twenty, were already married and the father of several children. Whatever paltry excuses you advance for your conduct with Miss Porter, the fact remains that you took possession of Miss Benstead when she was a child and sold her back to her family for a large sum, her reputation ruined and her childish mind so filled with shame for her actions that she has hidden from Society ever since and was convinced that she was too damaged to marry. Your actions even deprived her of her ability to sing until a few days ago. What have you to say to her?”
But Signor Pontielli found nothing to say to Mary whose presence that evening had led to his unmasking; of all the people in the room, she was perhaps the one he feared most because it had not taken him long to discern Marklye’s feelings for her and to conjecture that, if she wished him to be run through or beaten to within an inch of his life, that was what would most likely happen.
“Mary,” his lordship said, when, after a sufficient interval had elapsed to allow Signor Pontielli to find an answer, none had been vouchsafed, “may I trouble you for a word?”
She accompanied him to the other end of the room.
“What would you like me to do with him?” his lordship enquired in a low voice.
“Run him through with your sword,” she replied, a tentative smile beginning to hover at the corners of her mouth.
“Must I? If that is truly what you wish, I suppose I must do so, but I own I would rather not take quite such drastic action – although he undoubtedly deserves it. Would you like me to hand him over to the law?”
“What will happen to him if you do?”
“Probably not a great deal. I suppose he may be fined for breach of promise to Miss Porter but, unless someone gives him a large sum of money, I should not think he would be able to pay it. So far as you are concerned, I doubt the law would be interested. You have admitted that you fled with him of your own accord, although, since you were a child at the time, you might be assumed to have little responsibility for your actions. But, against that, you are still alive and it was a long time ago.”
“Just so,” she said, turning down the corners of her mouth. “He ruined me and, like a fool, I allowed the repercussions to continue to wound me. My grandmama has repeatedly told me that I should put it behind me but I stubbornly refused to believe that I could. I daresay the law has no interest in ruined girls – no doubt it is considered to be our own fault if we are deceived by the blandishments of bad men.”
“I am afraid so. Would you like me to endeavour to extract a promise from him that he will never try this trick again? I am tempted to horsewhip him but may perhaps be better advised to threaten the whip in exchange for the promise. I am sorry. Such a punishment is wholly inadequate.”
Mary shrugged and said, with an unusual degree of spite, “I am fairly certain that I have now succeeded in ruining him by declaring in front of you all what he did to me and what, most fortunately, we have prevented him doing to Miss Porter. Could we send a notice to the Morning Post along the lines of ‘Inadvisable to engage this man as a tutor – dishonest and u
ntrustworthy’ - or something of that sort? I think the important thing is to prevent him continuing with this lucrative branch of his career.”
Abandoning Lord Marklye, she walked back toward Signor Pontielli and said, “Miss Porter confided to me that she felt sorry for you; I doubt if, when it came to the point, she would have gone with you. Do you not think that perhaps, now that you induce more pity than passion in a sensible young woman, it is time to abandon your Casanova antics?”
“I care much more for her than I ever did for you,” he spat at her, his face contorted with malevolence.
“I am not surprised; she is a far more agreeable person,” Mary agreed pleasantly.
“But not half so bewitching,” Mr Armitage whispered in her ear. “I knew there was something scandalous in your past, but my offer stands regardless.”
“It stands rejected, regardless,” Mary snapped.
“Shall we get up a party for the horsewhipping?” he asked out loud. “Our host will no doubt wish to lead the group, I’m ready to join in and I daresay Sir Adrian will not wish to be left out.”
“I would not, if I were you, draw attention to such a punishment, Mr Armitage, or you may find yourself at the wrong end of the whip,” Lord Marklye advised softly.
“If you will hold him until my husband returns, I am certain he will wish to punish him,” Mrs Porter said.
Marklye regarded the terrified music teacher with a considering eye.
“Mary?”
She nodded. “It is past. Surely you cannot wish to keep him here, locked in his room, until Mr Porter returns? Miss Porter?”
“I have learned my lesson and shall not forget it,” Susan said and received a press of the hand from Sir Adrian.
“Lady Leland?”
“Thank God it is not my decision,” the old lady said. “He is a scoundrel but it is an ill wind, as they say. For me, he has, quite without meaning to, brought great joy; without his abominable behaviour, I should never have come to know you so well, Mary.”
Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence Page 32
