Mariel

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  She was startled at how familiar the child felt in her lap. So many times she had held Rosie in the dark to comfort her in the midst of some nightmare. Then there had been no light to let her see the little girl’s tear dampened face. She did not need to see now to know the fear Rosie had been feeling.

  In a whisper, she murmured against the twisted curls, “Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. It will be all right.”

  “I-I-I thought y-y-you w-were d-dea-ea-dead,” she hiccuped through her sobs. “Miss Ph-Phipps, sh-she wouldn’t l-let me come to-to see you.”

  “Hush, baby.” She stroked the slender line of Rosie’s back. “Don’t blame Phipps. I did not want you to see me when I looked like this.”

  Rosie drew back to look at the bandaged face of the woman she loved. She remembered what Phipps had told her. She must not make Mariel sad. “You look beautiful, Mariel.”

  “Do I?” She laughed with honest delight for the first time since leaving the Cloister. “I thought I must look quite grotesque.”

  “Your face looks like the turban of the snake charmer at the circus,” pronounced the child.

  A rumble of male laughter near the door brought Mariel’s head up. She had been so engrossed in greeting her beloved child, she had not realized Ian had returned to the room. She wanted to offer him her hand, but did not dare to touch him.

  Rosie’s voice drew her attention from the man. “What is it like to be blind, Mariel?”

  She heard gasps from near the door and knew Ian was not the only one watching this reunion. She could imagine the paleness of Phipps’s face as her young charge asked the one question she had likely been instructed not to ask. Ian’s expression would be as strained.

  Softly, she said, “Close your eyes, Rosie. Put your hands over your eyes so no light can come through. Then imagine you are in the deepest cave on the darkest night. It is something like that.”

  “I am sorry you are blind, Mariel.”

  Phipps said in a broken voice, “Rosie, I think you have spent enough time—”

  “No, no, it is all right,” said Mariel hurriedly. She put her hand on Rosie’s face. It startled her how her fingers moving along the child’s damp skin reinforced the image in her mind. Rosie’s cheeks, as plump as a well-fed squirrel, her pert nose and fine eyebrows. Each touch brought an answering memory. Quietly, she continued, “I am sorry too, Rosie. I am glad you are here to love me despite this.”

  “Always!” she declared stoutly as she burrowed closer to Mariel’s heart.

  When she felt a loving hand on her shoulder, Mariel raised her fingers. She did not have to say what she wanted. Ian pressed them to his face. As she had with Rosie, she ran them along the textures of his features, features that were far more rigidly carved than the child’s. She touched his forehead, scored with lines far deeper than the day he left in anger from the Cloister. Moving along his patrician nose, she smiled as she felt his upturned mouth.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He pressed her palm against his lips and kissed it lightly. They had far to go to convince Mariel to reach out avidly for life again, but a beginning had been made this afternoon. For the first time, he believed they might succeed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ian did not speak when he took his seat at the back of the schoolroom. No one looked at him or at the empty chair at the table where Mariel should have been sitting with her papers spread before her, prepared to do battle with the stalwart resistance to change.

  Mr. Gratton picked up his gavel, then lowered it to the table. There was no need to call for silence. The inside of the school was as silent as a tomb. At the thought, a pang coursed through him. Lady Mariel had been moved to Foxbridge Cloister only this morning. Although that bespoke of her expected recovery, no one wanted to jinx her good fortune with premature celebrations.

  When Mr. Stadley started to call the roll, he halted abruptly. In a voice thick with distress, he said, “All present but Lady Mariel.”

  Rushing through the reading of the minutes of the previous meeting, the chairman asked if there was any old business. For a long moment, no one spoke. This should have been the time for Lady Mariel to ask for a vote on the textbooks she wanted.

  A chair scratched the floor at the back of the room. Each one relieved at not having to be the first to speak, the men looked to see Reverend Beckwith-Carter rising. He walked toward them and leaned on the end of the table. When he spoke with anger, they were astonished.

  “She is not dead! This is not, thank God, her wake. Will you stop this mournful keening?” he demanded. “She is going to recover. Abusing yourselves because you have thought less than kindly of her in the past will change nothing. If it helps, I can tell you with total honesty that she has belittled each of you in my hearing for your refusal to see things her way. Do not beatify her because of this accident.”

  Mr. Jones spoke in his bass rumble, “Is it true, Reverend, that the doctor does not expect her to regain her sight?”

  “Dr. Sawyer is unsure. As soon as she is well enough, he wants her to see a specialist in London.” Ian glanced around the table to view each long face. When his fist struck the top, the men sitting there started. “Dammit!” he snapped. “You are so shortsighted you will let this accident ruin everything she has attempted. Vote on the appropriation for the books, but don’t change your minds because of the accident. You know as well as I what Mariel would be saying if she was standing here.”

  “That we are pigheaded reprobates.”

  Ian grinned at Mr. Gratton’s muted humor. “Exactly.”

  When they urged him to sit at the table with them, he shook his head silently. “I will leave you to your deliberations. I came only to observe so I could take her the news of the vote.” He crossed the room to resume his seat in the back.

  Although he let them think he did not want to intrude, he could not imagine sitting in the only empty chair at the table. It was Mariel’s, and it sat as a silent reminder of what should never have happened. Many were asking questions about why the automobile had failed. Some said it was simply that such modern toys were too dangerous and should be banned by Parliament. Others wanted to know how the steering and the brakes could malfunction at the same time. They would never know, for little of the vehicle had survived the ferocious heat of the fire.

  The twisted metal remained by the curve at the bottom of the shore-road hill. No one knew what to do with it. Nothing like this had ever happened in Foxbridge or the surrounding shire. It was a monument nobody wanted to see, for it reminded them how easily it could have been a memorial to a young woman whose life was part of theirs.

  Ian did not look at the men speaking quietly at the table. The sorrow that burned directly behind his eyes all the time now might embarrass him in front of them. With Mariel gone from the rectory, it might be days between each time he could see her.

  He leaned his head on his fist and listened to the muted debate at the table. The words he spoke so vehemently to others he could not heed himself. He could not pretend Mariel would be the same. Although he knew the accident would change many things, he did not want that to happen.

  Those thoughts remained in his head as he drove to Foxbridge Cloister. The starlight guided him and helped to keep his eyes from going to the wreckage by the stone fence. He refused to look at it again. He kept his eyes on a spot directly in front of his horse’s nose until the buggy had passed through the gate.

  Dodsley greeted him at the door and took his hat. “Good evening, Reverend. Miss Phipps said you may go directly up to Lady Mariel’s room.”

  “How is she doing?”

  The butler lost his professional demeanor. “It’s like Lady Mariel left here last week and someone else came back today. I don’t know how to explain it, sir, but …”

  “I understand,” he said quietly. “She needs to mourn for what could be. Only then can she rebound.”

  “Will she?”

  An expression of fierce determination harden
ed his face. “If I have anything to do with it, she will.”

  The sound of his cane preceded him up the stairs. He tried to keep it as quiet as possible, for he knew Rosie would be in bed, but stairs had been his bane since his accident. What he could do easily on a flat or sloped surface seemed much more difficult on these steep steps.

  Miss Phipps met him at the door and told him she would be back in a few minutes with a tea tray. She scurried away before he could say anything other than a hurried “Good evening.”

  He looked about with interest as he entered Mariel’s private rooms in the Cloister. It did not surprise him to note the two portraits hanging over the fireplace. The style of clothing and the shape of the faces told him these must be the portraits of Mariel’s parents that were missing from the gallery. She must have kept them here to ease the loneliness she had known before he and Rosie came into her life.

  That sense of being adrift alone sent a pang through him. Even in his darkest days, when he had been abandoned by the one he thought he could always depend on, he had had his mother and grandfather to comfort him and urge him to do what he thought was impossible. Then his grandfather had died. A feeling of being bereft swept over him again.

  His thoughts were interrupted as he heard a soft voice from the next room. “Ian?”

  “Yes, Mariel.” He went into the luxurious room to see her propped among the pillows on the wide bed. The hopefulness in her voice brought a painful memory from him. He remembered lying in his bed, praying that someone, anyone, would come to break the monotony of the days.

  He moved to the bed and sat in the chair by its side. When her hand, nearly hidden beneath the wide lace of her chamber robe, sought his, he put his fingers where she could find them easily.

  “It must feel good to be back home.”

  “I miss you, Ian.”

  Squeezing her hand gently, he said, “I told you, I will come every morning to read the newspaper to you if you wish.”

  She leaned her head back against the headboard. Tears balanced on her dark lashes as she fought the rage within her. Every kindness done for her was only out of pity. She did not want Ian to come to Foxbridge Cloister to read to her. She wanted him to hold her, to feel his mouth sliding along her skin, but that was impossible.

  “That would be very nice,” she replied quietly.

  “I just attended the school-board meeting.”

  “Did you?”

  He longed to take her and shake that dull sound from her voice. Even as he thought that, he saw the spasm fleeing across her blank features. Mariel continued to try to hide the truth from him, but when she had offered him her heart, she had opened her soul to him. He could sense the horror she struggled with each waking hour.

  “Honey, they voted to appropriate the money for the books you wanted. Mr. Jones is ecstatic.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Ian put his hand on the side of her face and turned it to meet his eyes. “Glad? Is that all you have to say after the hard battle you have waged to get this?”

  “Why should I be happy about books I will never see?” Sobs ripped from her as she buried her bandaged face in her hands.

  He fought his longing to comfort her. Instead, he snapped, “You have every reason to be happy. You have done what I would have said was impossible. That tightfisted board has parted with some of its money for a most worthy project. Not only that, but they agreed to give the old texts to the orphanage as you requested.” When she did not reply, he grasped her shoulders and shouted, “Dammit, Mariel! Don’t give up on yourself when everyone else wishes you only success!”

  “Let me go!” she screamed.

  “No.”

  “I said let me go!” She enunciated each word as she struggled to escape him. When he took her hand and dragged her out of her bed, she shrieked again. Fearfully she clung to him as he led her rapidly across the room. “No! Ian, don’t! Let me go back to bed.”

  He released her. “All right. Go back to bed.”

  “Where is it?”

  Sitting down in one of the chairs, he smiled coldly. “That, my dear Mariel, is something you must find for yourself.”

  “Ian!” she moaned. “Help me.”

  “I am.” He folded his arms across his chest to keep from taking her outstretched hands. Although he wanted to assist her back to the bed, only this way could he truly help her.

  Mariel spat a curse at him and heard his outrageous chuckle. He wanted her to become so angry that she would bounce off the furniture in the room until she bumped into the bed. That, he thought, would help her. Determined not to play his games, she dropped to the floor to sit cross legged. She glared in the direction she thought he was.

  Hands under her arms lifted her roughly to her feet. When she was about to fold up, he said sharply, “Do it, Mariel! Or are you scared?”

  “Yes!” she cried. “If it satisfies your sadism, I am scared.”

  “Of what?”

  She started to reply, then realized she had no answer. For the past week, she had huddled in bed, afraid to move, afraid to think. Slowly she turned and put her hands on Ian’s chest. Her fingers moved along the front of his shirt, past the clerical collar and to his face.

  He was not smiling. That comforted her. In the midst of her mind numbing terror, she had forgotten the most important thing. Ian loved her. He would do nothing to harm her, but would force her to help herself.

  “I am afraid of failing,” she whispered as his arm slid around her waist to hold her close.

  “You never have been in the past. Each time someone told you that you could not do something, you struggled even harder. Now it is Mariel Wythe saying you cannot be reasonably independent anymore. Are you going to listen to her, or are you going to do what you know you must?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He held her tightly as he felt her tears wet against his shirt. Perhaps this was enough for today. He had pushed her to recognize her fears. It might be too much to expect her to conquer them in the same day. Recalling his long months of convalescence, he relented.

  Mariel said nothing as he turned her to walk the few steps to the bed. It startled her how close she had been standing to it. If she had extended her arms, she might have been able to touch it. When she stubbed her toe against the steps of the bed, she climbed up onto its high surface. Pulling the covers over her, she sighed in relief.

  As much as she hated being confined to this bed, it was safe. She knew the dimensions of it and did not have to fear being confronted with something she could not handle. Stroking the chenille bedspread, she waited for Ian to speak.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Tomorrow what?”

  “Tomorrow you will do it by yourself.” He took her hand and pressed it to his weakened leg. “I had to learn to walk again. So will you.”

  The sound of a throat clearing by the doorway made him look up in what he was sure appeared to be guilt. Mariel’s hand against his thigh clenched as she heard Phipps’s steps entering the room. Moving away from the bed, Ian waved aside the offer of tea.

  “No, thank you, Miss Phipps. I must return to the parsonage. I will be back tomorrow, Mariel. You will try again.”

  “I don’t know if I can!” she cried.

  He smiled grimly. “Of course you don’t know. You haven’t tried yet. Good night, ladies.” With the determination he had shown Mariel, he walked out of the suite. He could not allow his heart to soften to Mariel’s plight.

  Mariel leaned back against the pillows. Of all the people in her life, she would have thought that Ian would understand how helpless her situation was now. He had had to struggle to regain his ability to walk. That had been minor in comparison to what faced her.

  She took the cup Phipps placed in her hands, but left it on its saucer. She said nothing. All she wanted was to wake from this horror and be well again. To try to live with this handicap would be to admit she expected to be like this forever.

  That she could not do
!

  The days passed slowly. Ian kept his promise to come each day to read to her. Mariel enjoyed his company until he pressed her to try to regain her independence. Every visit ended in recriminating tears and frustrated words. Their shouts resounded through the Cloister until Phipps hinted to Ian it might be better if he relented. He refused, sure that only this way could he help Mariel.

  Then one day he did not come. Although they had exchanged heated words the previous day, Mariel had been sure Ian would not forsake her. As the morning ended and the afternoon sun burned into the room, she wondered if he grew tired of the battle, which she showed by loud words and uncooperation that she wanted no part of.

  If he did not come to visit her, the last bright light from beyond the Cloister would die. With the slow ticking of the clock reminding her of the time, she wondered if he would return. In the weeks since the accident, she had not once told him aloud what she felt in her heart. Her love for him had grown while he tried to be patient with her.

  Suddenly, she felt a yearning for the escape that had always comforted her in the past. The piano in the drawing room could fill her with music and wash away some of the pain. Before she realized what she was doing, she tucked her loosened shirt into her skirt and slid to the edge of the bed.

  She could reconstruct the room easily in her mind. The location of the chairs, the tables, where the door opened to the sitting room, and the hallway beyond. Her feet moved confidently down the steps of her bed and sank into the thick carpet.

  Afraid to move quickly, she scuffed her feet along the floor. She smiled as she found the chair exactly where she remembered it. That discovery encouraged her enough to keep her going on this strange journey. Her fingers groped for the doorway.

  The carved wood of the molding was smooth and cool. She walked through the door. When the floor went from stone to carpet, she knew she stood in the center of the antechamber. Walking with more assurance, she swore vehemently as she impacted harshly against a stand. She rubbed her shin, but did not turn around. She had come this far. If she returned to her bed, she did not know if she would dare this again.