The Marquis of Westmarch

by Frances Vernon

  Neither of them had felt the slightest stir of carnal lust last night, and that was a wonderful, perfect thing. Lust would be glorious, but it would come later; in fact she could not bear to think of it just yet.

  Meriel, dismounting in her stable-yard at Castle West, ripped off her hat as though to throw it in the air, and exposed her red head to the sky. She raised her face, and saw her servants come running to her while she stood confidently waiting. Never before had the Marquis been properly aware that it was the business of dozens of people to look after her, and that she had an absolute right to their services, did not command them under false pretences. She had shown her true self and she was loved for it, and no one could challenge her now.

  The mischievous and understanding smile which she thoughtlessly gave her head groom considerably startled the man. Noticing this at once, she composed her features and addressed him quite normally, but she looked no less bewitchingly at peace with the world than before, and he replied to her with some hesitation. The Marquis had been surprised to see in the mirror at the inn that her face was neither ravaged by tears nor puffy with lack of sleep. It was god-like; and she decided that it was bound to be so, because she had defied the law of nature by showing weakness and not suffering for it. This ought to have been the worst day of her life.

  *

  “I saw Hugo Longmaster in Fountain Court,” said Philander Grindal.

  “Well! And his lordship told me only a few days ago he wasn’t expected before the end of Flowers,” said the Mistress Dianeme.

  “Did he so?” He paused. “I understand he has the intention of remaining some while. In which case ought you not to send him a card for your rout-party, ma’am?”

  “Mr Grindal, I’m fair astonished. Send a card to a man who sold you a horse that was touched in the wind with the positive assurance that it was perfectly sound, complete to a shade if I rightly remember! Marquis’s heir or no, he’s a shameless commoner and a Captain Sharp, sir, and besides his lordship don’t like him.”

  “That was quite my own fault!” snapped her husband, and went on, “I don’t need your protection, Dianeme. Longmaster’s not a man whom even you, with Meriel’s friendship to add to your consequence, may snub with impunity. I wish you will learn that such an excess of loyalty to your particular friends won’t recommend you to the notice of persons of taste if it leads you to be uncivil to the rest of your acquaintance. I don’t ask you to invite him to a private dinner, after all.”

  “Well, what a high flight!” said his wife, opening her eyes very wide. “Whatever have I said to make you so out of reason cross? You ain’t jealous of Westmarch, are you sir, after all these years? I don’t think I’m just to his taste.”

  “Don’t be vulgar, Dianeme,” said Philander more mildly.

  “Where’s Longmaster been all this while?” she asked, tossing off the rug which lay over her knees and going across to her sewing-table.

  Her husband rearranged various cards on the chimneypiece. “He did not inform me and I was not so inquisitive as to ask, but I had it from Tovey that he’s thought to have been at Bury Winyard visiting Tancred Conybeare.”

  Dianeme stood up straight and exclaimed, “Well, his lordship will be pleased to hear that! Oh, he’s a hateful, scheming creature, would do Westmarch a mischief without so much as a second thought, so envious as he is, I’ll warrant you. Westmarch ain’t never at ease in his company.” She waddled back to her chair, conscious of her pregnancy, and sat down with her tambour.

  “Westmarch, my dear Dianeme, is very well able to take care of himself. Your maternal concern is admirable, but as needless as it’s out of place, believe me.”

  “You will always be giving me one of your scolds, Mr Grindal, when it’s your liver that’s out of order, makes you sound shockingly pompous, which you ain’t. Take a Mercury Ball, do, you’ll feel very much more the thing.” This was said with a smile which was neither mocking nor too arch to be suitable in a wife. “Now sir, how much will you allow me to spend on this rout-party of yours? I’m sure you don’t want people to be saying I’m a nipcheese, as well as a Cit, but that’s for you to decide.” She looked innocently out of the window, and reflected that she had often been called a clever female.

  Philander, taken aback by the sudden change of subject, said, “As much as is necessary, ma’am, need you ask?”

  “First-rate wine or second-rate, sir?”

  “First-rate, of course.” He smiled. “Yes, you always contrive to take me by surprise and put me out of countenance. Not pompous, indeed! I shall order the wine.”

  Philander Grindal did not love his wife, though she amused him as much as she annoyed him. He had married her in a fit of conscience three years ago, and his family had not yet forgiven him.

  Dianeme had been perfectly willing to be seduced by Philander. She had come from a very dull home, and had become his mistress in order to escape marriage to an elderly merchant. Her price had been two hundred crowns a year for life, and in return for this she had always intended to be faithful to Philander and if he left her, to accept no other man’s protection. She had never expected him to propose, and had hesitated before accepting him, knowing that he would suffer socially for marrying her.

  Neither of them had suffered much, because of Meriel, and when she had nothing better to think of, Dianeme used to wonder whether she ought not to become Meriel’s mistress out of gratitude. I’d be able to show him the way to go on, thought Dianeme, I’d make him happy just as I’ve made Mr Grindal. She smiled. Neither man was to her sexual taste: she found Hugo Longmaster far more attractive.

  “Philander? Dianeme?” said Meriel, coming in. Not even with Auriol had she been so informal as she was with the Grindals, till now. As she entered, she remembered many visits to Philander and Dianeme in previous years, before she had even met Auriol Wychwood. It was charming to return to the past.

  “My lord! Well, this is a surprise.”

  The Marquis stood in the doorway, smiling, dressed in crumpled riding-clothes which she had not changed since yesterday.

  “You look to be in high force, Meriel,” said Philander, thinking that his friend seemed to be two inches taller than yesterday, and very much more bright-faced.

  “Certainly I am! Rode back from the Green Garter early this morning.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” the other said doubtfully. “Will you ever love anything so much as you love your horses?”

  “Oh, there are my dogs, you know,” Meriel teased.

  “Now, whatever’s happened to put you in alt? Last time I saw you you was regular blue-devilled, my lord!” said Dianeme, who had not seen Meriel for over a week.

  “My dear ma’am, I shan’t tell you,” said Meriel. “May I sit down, or are you too busy to entertain me?”

  “No such thing,” said Philander.

  Meriel pulled out a chair, parted her coat-skirts and sat down next to Dianeme. She had avoided her recently, because the sight of a pregnant woman, the mere thought of anyone’s being pregnant, stuffed her mind with panic and shame and despair. It had been as though she herself were possessed by a baby; but now she could distinguish between herself and the rest of the world.

  The world could not invade her now, and so other people’s affairs seemed far more interesting than they had ever done when she was frustrated, trapped with Juxon, without a personality. Meriel would have expected victory in love to put everything else out of her mind, but the opposite seemed to be true. She had even enjoyed her interview with the Senior Member this morning, and been able to concentrate intelligently for quite half the time.

  “How do you go on, Dianeme? No, no, if you are in a delicate situation you must not be getting up! Allow me to fetch whatever it is you want?”

  “My scissors!” said Dianeme, immensely surprised at Meriel’s mentioning her condition, which she knew he found too repulsive to speak of. “I go on very well, thank you, Westmarch.”

  “We are hoping for an heir this time,
” Philander told her, as puzzled and pleased as his wife at the Marquis’s change of attitude.

  Meriel smiled at her secret joke and said, “Ay, so you must be, Philander. Though boys can be the devil.”

  “If you think little girls ain’t the devil you must have windmills in your head, my lord,” said Dianeme. Meriel had almost never acknowledged her daughters’ existence. “I never saw two naughtier than mine and Celandina’s not yet eighteen months. As for Laurinda, do you know what she did yesterday? No, to be sure! Well —”

  “My dear, you must not bore Westmarch with tales of our offspring,” said Philander, quite indulgently. “Bachelors take no interest in these matters.”

  “No, you do me an injustice, it don’t bore me.”

  “Well, he won’t always be a bachelor,” said Dianeme.

  Philander closed his eyes at her familiarity.

  “Perhaps I shall. God knows I hope so.” The light seemed to go out of Meriel’s eyes as she spoke, and the Grindals saw this. Then she managed to take possession of her new happiness again, as she remembered how enormously amusing and delightful her position was.

  Philander faced her, with his hands behind his back. “Since Dianeme has brought up the subject, Meriel, I hope at least that your mother don’t succeed in persuading you to set up your nursery just yet, if you don’t feel inclined to marry,” he said, and she almost hated him; even though she had the strength now to confront her difficulties, and win.

  “Much obliged to you! She won’t.”

  “I met Maid Rosalba Ludbrook in the Circus this morning,” said Dianeme. “She’s to be married in Roses, it’s a settled thing. The announcement appears tomorrow, so she told me.”

  “It has been known any time these two months,” said Meriel, thrusting her hands deep into her pockets. “And does she seem to be well satisfied now there can be no going back?”

  “I wouldn’t say she was as happy as a grig, my lord, but it’s the way of the world and she knows it. She’ll be very comfortably established and Mr Marling seems to dote on her. Make a comfortable wife, I daresay.”

  “I should have liked to marry her myself, once,” said the Marquis leaving her chair.

  Philander decided that if he showed astonishment, it would excite Meriel in his present mood to an undesirable extent. “You speak as though of a period at least five years in the past,” he said, and rubbed the back of his neck. “And she only came to Castle West in Wind, you know, Meriel.”

  “Well, upon my word!” muttered Dianeme. “Do you leave my silks be, my lord, pray!”

  “Oh, it was not possible, I knew that well enough,” said Meriel, as she fiddled with the contents of Dianeme’s sewing-table. “I don’t think I ever had a real intention of, of making her an offer in form. Pity I had not.” Easy tears sprang up in her eyes: she had never loved Rosalba so tenderly as she did at this moment. Glowing memories, some exaggerated, poured into her, and Auriol went quite out of her mind, which was surely odd. Meriel understood that because she could never publicly acknowledge her love for him, she would loudly proclaim her love for Rosalba, which was not a lie, only different. “Poor child! Damme, it is an iniquitous thing, this forcing girls into marriage. Why, I have a mind to run off with her even now, I can’t but think it would be only chivalrous.” As she spoke, the Marquis sincerely meant this.

  “Oh, Westmarch.”

  “Meriel, I fancy that even if Maid Rosalba had been an eligible bride for you, you’d soon have come to think her — well, very little more than a pretty wet-goose, to speak candidly,” said Philander. “She wouldn’t be the woman for you, you know.”

  “Oh, take a damper! Who wishes for a clever wife?” Meriel raised her head, and laughed a little. It was such a glorious irony that Rosalba’s future should have been settled on the same day as her own, and settled so differently, in the helpless way of women. “She’s such a shy little puss, a man must long to take care of her — surely you agree with me, she’s vastly taking?”

  “Taking, yes, now, but what she will be like at forty I can imagine only too well,” said Philander.

  “Damn it, Philander, I’m in earnest. I would to God I had been able to marry her,” said Meriel; physically able, she thought. “Oh, I do indeed.”

  “You’re an original, my lord,” said Dianeme. A short silence followed her true observation.

  Meriel thought that she wanted to live the rest of her life in society, even though it were frivolous, to be surrounded by friends, she never wanted to be alone again. She did not need her high eminence any more.

  “Tell me, do you think it would be very shocking if I were to resign the Marquisate to Hugo and retire into private life?” she said amiably, dabbing at her eyes. “To be a mere gentleman has always been my wish, you know.” Her lips quivered as she felt boisterous love for Dianeme and Philander. She was so grateful to them for having taken care of her.

  Philander looked at the Marquis, and there was a kind of pity in his face. He had been very fond of Meriel when they were boys, and in recent years he had seen that he was dependent on his continuing affection; though he had often wondered why Meriel did not make other friends. He said nothing.

  “Yes indeed, my lord, it would be shocking!” said Dianeme.

  *

  Sitting alone in his top-floor chamber, Auriol tried to control an excitement he thought childish, though it was something he had never known and which he found delicious. He tried to make a sober comparison between Meriel and other women, remembering always that he had never been attracted to anyone like her, that since his widowhood he had imagined himself falling in love only with prettier, less intelligent, more dependent and affectionate versions of his little blonde wife. Such perfect women had seemed to be thin on the ground; he had slept with no one since the death of Clorinda, and had often wondered why he could not compromise.

  Surely, he thought, it was not possible that she could differ so very much from the many high-spirited, strong-minded, rough-tongued women whom he knew and liked though never loved; perhaps it was only because she adored him that she seemed to be unique. People deceived themselves so often, he wearily reminded himself, in thinking their lovers extraordinary and perfect; but nonetheless, this love of his, if it went any further, must be an exception to this humiliating rule. The pleasure the thought of Meriel gave him was too sharp to be borne. He told himself that he feared to lose his wits, and knew that on the other hand, he longed to lose them for her sake, which embarrassed him and made him want to cry.

  “Of course she’s unique,” he said aloud, enjoying the brave eccentricity of talking to himself exactly as though there were someone else present, “whatever can you be thinking of? And of course she is not perfect, far from it, by God.” Auriol got up and began to pace the floor, conscious of what he was doing.

  It was still rather difficult always to think of the Marquis as ‘she’. “Oh, Meriel,” he said, and smiled, and continued to address her spirit in a whisper. “What a strange creature you are, other women don’t like to feel a rough hand on their bridle, but you — well, you would never let me bridle you at all.”

  She’ll bridle me, Auriol thought, but did not speak the words aloud. Passing the mirror at the end of the room, he saw that the titillating fear he felt had made him colour up and sparkle like a girl.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Tower of Castle West

  The tower of Castle West rose up above the main gateway. It was sixty feet wide and three hundred feet high; and though it had been built more than five centuries before, it was still the tallest building in the whole of Westmarch.

  A symbol of might of which Meriel was proud, the great tower was disused now, though it was kept in good repair. The lower guard-rooms were full of relics of war, and rubbish of a kind to be found in the attic of any mansion, but the topmost ones contained only stony dust and spiders. On the tower’s platform roof, there was a little garden, consisting of four curved flower beds grouped round a belvedere,
and trellises which covered the inside of the battlements. The garden had been made by Juxon when Meriel was young, and for a couple of years it had been popular with those who thought it would be good for them to walk up six hundred and fifty steps. The novelty of the tower-garden had worn off quickly enough, and now, though the beds were well tended and the young plants were good ones, it had a slightly ridiculous look.

  Meriel pushed open the door of the belvedere, and Auriol followed her out. Both were a little out of breath, and rather ashamed to admit it.

  “The view,” Meriel announced, “is very much admired.”

  When they came out, they were facing west, and beyond the parapet, the sea stretched out as flat as the country. On its blue surface, cloud-shadows made dark stains, but no foam was visible from this height, and there were no ships in the water. Meriel, filled with unaccustomed awe at the plain and mirror-like expanse, said, “Exceedingly calm today.”

  “I imagine that on a windy day it would be very unsafe up here.”

  “Yes, indeed, in the old days the guards were tied to their posts when there were storms out at sea.” She rubbed her hands together, and stood still, because she was afraid of heights, and would not approach the battlements. Auriol meanwhile walked slowly around, looking over.

  It was the variety of prospects, each one corresponding roughly to a point of the compass, that made the view from the tower extraordinary. The sea to the west curved round and met the rocks and many inlets of the north-running coast, while southwards from the tower it surrounded Castle-town.

  The roofs of Castle-town were chiefly grey-blue, with patches of red tile, and pale green copper, divided by a multitude of threadlike streets. Auriol had never seen an entire city laid out before his eyes in this way, and he was fascinated, though he was made to feel a country bumpkin by Meriel’s being clearly unimpressed. The only other city he knew, Bury Winyard in Southmarch, happened to be infinitely grander, for it had been built according to an elaborate plan: the houses were all of pale grey stone, decorated according to the rank of their inhabitants, arranged in streets which radiated out from a vast square, in the middle of which was the Marquis’s grey and gold Island Palace. Auriol had not liked Bury Winyard, and could not think that an aerial view of it would be half so interesting as this of Meriel’s town, where a squalid quarter of once-whitewashed cottages pushed right up against a parade of new sea-front brick and stone villas. That, he thought, was life. Auriol turned away from the southern prospect, not wanting to question Meriel about it just yet.