“Thank you. Mama?”
Lady Benstead had, during this entire scene, most unusually kept her own counsel. She was sitting at the back of the room in a small chair against the wall. Immediately prior to the dinner party she had been boasting about the beauty of her daughters and internally preening herself upon the likelihood that she would soon acquire another rich son-in-law.
Hearing Mary’s denunciation of the man who had ruined her and witnessing the approval of everyone in the room as they listened to her brave stand, she had found herself astounded. Mary – or Miranda as she had been then – had always been the child who was the sharpest thorn in her flesh: a girl who would not do as she was bid, who had a nasty habit of answering back and who, when despatched to school – frankly to be rid of her – had defiantly absconded with a male teacher. ‘It gives me no surprise,’ she had sobbed when informed of Mary’s disappearance from her seminary; she had learned to expect nothing but trouble from this child and yet, to her astonishment, her own mother had not only taken to her but had taken her part. Indeed, she now saw what a remarkable likeness there was between grandmother and granddaughter; neither she herself nor Lord Benstead had anything like the resolution this child had always displayed; now that she was a grown woman, she was a force to be reckoned with and Lady Benstead, strong neither in intellect nor resolution, found herself almost unable to speak for pride in her daughter – and perhaps a certain shame at her own past conduct towards this child.
“Whatever you wish, dear child,” she managed.
Marklye said to the tutor. “It looks as though you may be fortunate enough to avoid a beating but you had better be out of my house and off my land within half an hour if you do not wish me to change my mind.”
Chapter 38
The next morning brought Lord Marklye to the Dower House, bearing a letter.
Shown into the saloon where he had first met Lady Leland, he was regaled with coffee and macaroons while he delivered the missive into the old lady’s hands.
“Pray open it at once,” he said. “I am aware of the contents and would like to be able to carry the answer back with me.”
Her ladyship did as she was bid and, glancing first at the signature, looked up in some surprise at his lordship.
“Pray read it,” he said.
“I think it concerns you more nearly than it does me, Mary,” she said when she had done and held out the single sheet to her companion.
Mary rose from where she had been sitting in the window embrasure and took the letter.
“I suppose,” she said, when she had made herself mistress of the contents, “that she thought it necessary to seek your permission, Grandmama; no doubt she sees me as belonging to you. Has she also sought yours, my lord?”
“No, for it does not concern me unless you choose to come to my house – and that, of course, would mean abandoning her ladyship for an hour or two a few times a week.”
“What does Miss Porter feel about taking lessons from me?”
“I am not certain that she has been asked.”
Mary said, “If she is agreeable to my teaching her, I would be happy to do it so long as it does not incommode you, my lady.”
“Not in the least – if she comes here. But why cannot you do it, Marklye, in your own house? I understand that you play quite well enough.”
“She has not asked me; perhaps Mrs Porter would rather Susan is taught by a woman after her recent experiences with a man.”
“I think she is being absurd,” Mary said. “I have not heard Miss Porter play, nor seen her dance, and am therefore not in a position to comment upon her level of skill. But, to my mind, the whole thing is completely unnecessary because, before the summer is out, she will be engaged to Sir Adrian – and I should not imagine he would care whether she ever played another note in her life.”
“Is he not your admirer?” Marklye asked. “You seem very sanguine about his forming an attachment to Susan.”
“He was my admirer but has clearly abandoned me in her favour.”
“And you do not mind?”
“Not in the least. He will make Miss Porter an excellent husband; judging from her conversation last night before the – er - diversion, she is more interested in horses than anything else and, since this is his main interest, I am persuaded they will deal excessively well together. Equines are not one of my abiding passions so that I fear I should never have been able to share Sir Adrian’s enthusiasm – and I have not seen any evidence to show that he is either musical or cares for flowers.”
“Are those the two things that you require in a husband?” Lord Marklye asked.
As he spoke, Lady Leland, trying to be discreet, got to her feet but dropped one of her sticks, stumbled and was caught and steadied by his lordship.
“Oh dear,” she said. “I was trying to slip out of the room unnoticed but have instead interrupted what looked likely to prove a fascinating discussion.”
“Did you really wish to leave the room or was your intention simply to leave us alone together?” he asked, amused.
“You seemed to be getting somewhere,” she muttered, embarrassed.
“If we are to get to where I think you believe we ought to be going, Mary and I can leave the room, my lady; there is no need for you to do so.”
“If you are trying to provide a situation where his lordship will make me an offer, I wish you will not, Grandmama,” Mary said, much embarrassed. “Lord Marklye is no longer very young – and I assume he is not in the least green – if he cannot find a time and place to say such a thing for himself, I can only assume he does not wish to do so.”
“What do you wish?” he asked, teasing.
“It is not up to me to wish.”
“Nonsense; anyone can wish; of course it may not come true. Mary, will you come into the garden with me for a few moments so that we may continue our conversation without embarrassing her ladyship?”
Mary flushed and opened her mouth. Lady Leland, obviously afraid that her companion was about to say something rash, murmured, “Imprudence, Mary, is your besetting sin. Pray hear his lordship out – in the garden.”
“Very well.”
Mary bowed her head in obedience and went out of the room when his lordship opened the door.
Without a word, she led the way into the garden.
“The roses are nearly over now,” Marklye observed. “What comes next?”
“Oh, vast numbers of differently coloured – and indeed sized – daisies.”
“You have a great deal to teach me about flowers,” he said softly.
“If you are not interested in flowers by your age, I should not think you would wish to learn about them now.”
“I have in the last few weeks developed a positive passion for them; I may be ill-informed but I am willing to learn. Do you not feel a strong desire to pick those?” he asked, pointing to a pond filled with water lilies.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do, but it is not done to pick water lilies,” she admitted, her voice quivering slightly. “If one wishes to admire them, one generally sits down on a bench – thus – and gazes at them in rapt contemplation.”
He sat down beside her. “Mary ..,” he began.
“My lord?”
“Albert.”
“I cannot think of you as Albert.”
“I hope you will not find it impossible when we are married.”
“I suppose that, if we were married, I should be obliged to think of you – even address you from time to time – as Albert, but since we are not, I see no necessity for me to wrestle with yet another name. Why do you suppose that everyone has so many alternative names?”
“That is a very odd question coming from you. Should I call you Mary or Miranda?”
“To you I think I am Mary.”
“Why? Is that to cut me off from becoming closer – from reaching the real woman?”
“No!” she exclaimed with sudden passion. “It is because I have been Mar
y all the time I have known you; I have almost forgotten Miranda, who was in any event a foolish, disagreeable girl.”
“I am sure she was not; I daresay there were a great many things which, quite justifiably, made her angry. To me, Mary and Miranda are almost without fault; that is, their flaws are an integral part of what makes them – her – you – I seem to have become inextricably tangled in pronouns – so entirely fascinating. Let me begin again. Mary: in my eyes you are the most enchanting, delightful woman I ever met even if you do show a slight tendency to indulge in irrational pettishness from time to time – but … in short, dearest Mary, you are without equal. Will you become my wife?”
“Irrational pettishness?” she exclaimed.
“Is that all you heard?” he asked, smiling at her with such tenderness that she thought her heart would burst.
“No, but it was the only thing I felt comfortable taking you up on.”
“Pray, darling Mary, do not take me up on anything until you have answered my question. Then we will argue about irrational pettishness for as long as you like.”
“But it seems to me that that is a vast drawback – are you certain you can get over it – put up with it?”
“Yes!”
Without waiting for a reply, he swept her into his arms and kissed her in a manner which left no doubt in her mind that he did not see pettishness, whether rational or not, as an obstacle.
AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Catherine Bowness has only begun to write novels since she retired. Partly, this was lack of time; mainly, it was lack of confidence.
Now, living in the country with several cats and two dogs, she is able to indulge herself. She says she writes escapist novels because that's what she wants to read and there never seem to be enough of them.
Her parents lived abroad and she went to boarding school. She spent the holidays with her Victorian grandmother and thinks that she would have been a different person – and might write different books – if she had not been alone so much during her childhood. She passed the time reading 19th century and early 20th century novels and suspects this may be the reason why she writes in the way she does.
She is a counsellor and hypnotherapist. It was when she began writing scripts for her hypnotherapy training that she realised how powerful and soothing escapism can be and how images, led by the hypnotherapist but conjured by the client, can open the mind and soothe the soul. It was this, and the joy she felt when writing them, that inspired her finally to start writing the novels she had wanted to since early childhood. Practising hypnotherapy gave her the courage to share her writing with others.
She is enjoying her new career.
Mary Or The Perils 0f Imprudence Page 33
