Lady Anne's Deception

by M C Beaton

  “That was because I was afraid,” Annie flashed back. “I had just seen a dead body for the first time in my life, and a pretty awful one at that!”

  “And what went on between us last night? How do you interpret that, my fair lady?”

  “Lust!”

  Although he did not move an inch, it was as if he were retreating from her, step by step, moving away, moving far away to the other side of a great, black gulf of resentment and hurt and misunderstanding.

  The silence seemed to go on forever.

  Then he gave a little shrug. “I have business to attend to,” said the Marquess of Torrance.

  And so he left.

  Annie had never felt more alone in her life.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Annie sat in front of the Houses of Parliament, surrounded by ranks of silent women, all demanding the vote with their long vigil.

  The only comfort she had was the realization that she was doing it because she really thought women should get the vote and not to revenge herself on her husband.

  During the past few weeks, she had hardly seen him at all, and when she had he had been polite and punctilious. At that moment, he was in the House of Lords. He had been up most of the night before preparing his speech. That much Annie had gleaned from the servants, who were most impressed that his lordship wrote his own speeches and did not employ the services of a secretary.

  Annie had, however, seen quite a deal of Detective-Inspector Carton. He had returned on one occasion, bringing with him Chief Superintendent Delaney who, he said, was in charge of the case.

  The chief superintendent was a large, fatherly man who quickly put Annie at her ease. He took her over the whole business again, starting with her first meeting with Miss Hammond.

  Mr. Shaw-Bufford had appeared as a genuine champion of women’s rights, Mr. Delaney had said. Annie wondered whether to pass on her husband’s cynical opinion that the chancellor wanted to buy a peerage but decided against it.

  Miss Hammond, it transpired, had been a country solicitor’s daughter, living on a small annuity left her in her parents’ will. Her lodgings in Bayswater had been depressingly shabby, Mr. Delaney had said. A rifle, recently fired, had been found hidden under the mattress, together with a diary that left very little doubt in the minds of the police that Miss Hammond had been guilty of the attempt on the life of the prime minister.

  “He tells me it is the only way,” Miss Hammond had written after describing how she meant to go about shooting Mr. Macleod outside the House of Commons. “I trust him because he is wise, although some call him Evil.”

  Annie shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. The “he” of the diary, Mr. Delaney had decided, was probably the devil. He had asked if Miss Hammond had shown any signs of being a religious fanatic, but Annie had said that Miss Hammond only appeared fanatical on the subject of men.

  The women who surrounded Annie during the vigil were mostly well-to-do, middle-class women. Annie had been sitting there for seven hours and she was feeling chilled to the bone. But if they could do it, she could, she told herself sternly. She had decided to wait until the House rose in three hours’ time, then go home and have a hot bath.

  Several times she had thought of going to her husband and explaining what had driven her to say those things. That it was not just because he had made her feel like a fool in front of the police; it was because he seemed to have joined the serried ranks of authority figures who always made her feel like a fool.

  Her mother and father were in London to begin the preparations for Marigold’s wedding. The countess had called on Annie to exclaim with horror over the fact that her younger daughter had got her name involved in a murder scandal. How Annie had longed to unburden herself. To cry for advice! But her mother had seemed as chilly and aloof as ever and was completely taken up with relishing the idea of what a beautiful bride Marigold would make.

  Annie had then called on Mrs. Tommy Winton, hoping that that lady might have some advice on the difficulties of marriage.

  But it seemed that Mrs. Winton and her society friends in some way blamed Annie for the ruin of their ball. Annie should have known, Mrs. Winton had said, rattling the teacups, that Mary Hammond was the sort of woman to do a terribly embarrassing thing like hanging herself in the most public manner possible.

  Annie had tried to point out that it was a case of murder, not suicide, to which Mrs. Winton had replied with a superior smile that it was just like Annie to side with the police. She had added insult to injury by saying that she had decided that the whole idea of the vote for women was quite ridiculous and rather distasteful. Much better to leave the running of the country to the men. Equality was ridiculous. Had women had to fight the Boers? No, of course not. Well, if Annie and her ilk pursued their mad course, they would end up on the battlefield, fighting alongside the men and absolutely ruining their complexions. Although mud was said to be beneficial. Had Annie heard of the latest treatment at Solange? It was at this point that Annie had left.

  And so Annie was left feeling more than ever like a child adrift in an incomprehensible adult world.

  She longed to apologize to her husband. But she was terrified that he would reject her apology. And her stubborn pride kept telling her that he should be the one to apologize first.

  Annie had met Marigold and her fiancé at the opera three nights ago. Harry Bellamy had twirled his moustache and leered at her, and Marigold had looked angry and hurt.

  The minutes dragged by. Now she realized why some women preferred more militant action. At times anything seemed preferable to this long, silent war.

  All at once she remembered the laughing tenderness in her husband’s eyes after they had made love. Surely that was love! Did one have to say it? Had he not shown her that he loved her, that it was more than lust?

  Annie clenched her frozen hands in her lap. This evening, this very evening, she would apologize to him. And, having made that decision, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  Rain started pattering down on her felt hat, a few little drops, then more, then a steady downpour. She was glad that she had had the foresight to bring her umbrella and broke her silence by offering to share its shelter with the woman next to her.

  “Thank you very much,” said her companion, briskly. “I was so sure it wouldn’t rain. I hope I don’t catch a cold because my husband will really be angry with me. He told me it would rain.”

  “I suppose it’s all right if we talk,” ventured Annie. “I know it’s supposed to be a silent vigil….”

  “Well, nobody will hear us in this deluge. I think we ought to stand up, don’t you? Our skirts will be soaked in no time.”

  “No one else is standing up,” said Annie, looking around.

  “Oh, well.” Her companion sighed. “I suppose we should all stick together.”

  “I’m Annie Torrance,” said Annie, feeling an introduction was necessary.

  “Very pleased to meet you. I’m Agnes Merriweather. Did you say Torrance? You’re not the Marchioness of Torrance?”

  Annie nodded.

  “Oh, you poor thing! I saw your name in the papers, my lady. I was reading about that Hammond business. We’re all mystified. If she had been a member of a large militant group—you know, the kind who smash windows in Oxford Street and snipe at passing trains—I could have understood it. But no one in any of the feminist movements had ever really heard of her. She was a member of the Women’s National and Political Union at one time, I believe, but she didn’t make any friends. Who do you think would kill her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Annie. “I keep thinking it must have been a woman. But perhaps it was one of the men who got so infuriated with all she stood for.”

  “But she didn’t really stand for anything but herself,” protested Mrs. Merriweather. “I gather she made vague sorts of speeches, all down with men and that sort of thing, traveling around the country and speaking in damp chur
ch halls to tiny audiences of bored women.”

  “I first met her at Britlingsea,” said Annie. “She had some idea that we should cease all intimacy with men until we got what we wanted.”

  Mrs. Merriweather laughed. “What woman in her right mind wants to do that? You don’t think some woman took her seriously and her husband strangled Mary Hammond in revenge? Of course, any woman who does that ought to end up in the divorce courts.”

  Annie flushed. “Or man,” she said.

  Mrs. Merriweather shifted a large handbag to her other arm and stole a look at her companion’s face.

  “Forgive me, my lady,” she said. “But you look very unhappy. Is this business of Miss Hammond’s murder preying on your mind?”

  “That… and—and other things. I need a woman to talk to.”

  “I’m one. We’re not acquainted, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger.”

  It was Annie’s turn to study her companion’s face. Mrs. Merriweather was middle-aged, with gray hair peeping out from under the brim of her hat. She had round, red cheeks and rather pleasant, faded blue eyes.

  “It’s this,” Annie burst out. “I’m not on speaking terms with my husband.”

  “And you married so recently! Perhaps he does not approve of what you are doing. Oh, how silly. Of course he must. That was a splendid speech he made in the Lords about women’s rights.”

  Annie turned a dull red. “I didn’t know,” she faltered. “Nobody told me….”

  “Well, it was in all the newspapers. He came under a lot of fire, but then he’s so witty his adversaries were left standing. But that’s not the problem between you?”

  “No,” said Annie. “Look, I’m going to tell you about it. I must get advice from someone….”

  And so Annie proceeded to unburden herself, feeling as she did so that she was breaking some rigid social code. Men, she knew, did not discuss their wives. Perhaps that was why so many of them died of high-blood pressure.

  Mrs. Merriweather listened in attentive silence.

  When Annie was finished, she said gently, “He must be very much in love with you.”

  “But he never said so.”

  “You don’t go by what people say but by what they do. There are some happy marriages, where, I am sure, the word love has never been mentioned. If Lord Torrance had not been in love with you, then he would not have been so hurt when you told him you had only married him to get revenge on your sister.”

  “Perhaps that was just hurt pride,” said Annie. “My pride gets dreadfully hurt.”

  “Now you move in a much more elevated society than I, my lady,” said Mrs. Merriweather. “But the social columns can’t all be wrong. I was under the impression that the Marquess of Torrance could have married anyone he wanted to.”

  Annie nodded.

  “But he didn’t. He married you. And very quickly, too.”

  “That—that could have been to get my money,” said Annie, who had already told her companion of the legacy.

  “But your husband is one of the richest men in the country! Didn’t you know that? His wealth is legendary, and that home of his, Frileton House, is a palace!”

  “I didn’t know,” said Annie. “But,” she burst out, “if there is to be equality in a marriage, surely he should apologize to me.”

  “Well, it seems he was in the wrong, too. But I think he has the advantage over you. He married you for love. Also, if you think enough of yourself, there’s nothing wrong with apologizing. If you don’t learn to do that, then marital rows can go on for weeks. It’s no use thinking the whole time that your husband is being nasty to you just because he is nasty. Goodness, how wet we’re getting! All this rainwater. My boots feel like swimming baths. Not long to go now. I’ll tell you a story to pass the time.” Mrs. Merriweather poked a strand of gray hair under her hat and adjusted her heavy handbag.

  “Now Albert, my husband, was very moody when I started going on these vigils. Every time I came home, he was more angry and crusty than the day before. I naturally assumed, therefore, that he was like most men and thought all this feminist business was a farce, and so, as he became angrier, I became more silent and bitter, and by the end of one week we weren’t speaking to each other at all.

  “But somehow I suddenly found myself thinking, this is silly. So I simply went and asked him what the matter was, and he told me he thought I hadn’t been sitting outside the House of Commons, but that I was meeting some fellow on the sly. Well, I was very tempted to laugh because it’s very flattering when you come to think of it, considering my age and the fact that we’ve been married twenty years! It sounds funny now, but it was nearly the end of our marriage before I explained things. Lack of communication is a dreadful thing.”

  “I had already made up my mind to apologize,” said Annie shyly. “I think I’ll find it a lot easier after talking to you.”

  At last the House rose, and so did Annie and her companion. They were soaked to the skin, and Annie was shivering so much her teeth rattled. She said good-bye to Mrs. Merriweather.

  Neither woman thought of exchanging addresses or of arranging to see each other again. For Annie was of the aristocracy and Mrs. Merriweather was middle-class and lived in Camberwell. Later in life this would strike Annie as very strange and she would often find herself thinking of Mrs. Merriweather. But, for the moment, the vote for women was revolutionary enough and left little space in Annie’s mind for any thoughts of breaking down the English caste system, or, indeed, of questioning it at all.

  She did, however, feel a pleasurable sensation of guilt to have a mansion full of servants to return to, to have her bath drawn and scented with rose water, to have her clothes laid out for her. She hoped the rest of the women who had been on the vigil were half as lucky.

  “Tell my husband I shall join him in half an hour,” Annie called to the maid, Barton, who was arranging jars and bottles on the toilet table. “We are going to the Bunburys’ tonight.”

  “My lord has already left,” came Barton’s voice. “It’s ten o’clock, my lady. He thought you did not have any intention of going.”

  Annie appeared from the bathroom, wrapped in a fleecy towel, and stared at the clock in dismay. It had been a late-night sitting in the House and she had been so absorbed in listening to Mrs. Merriweather that she had not noticed the passage of time.

  “Then I will follow him,” she said. “Tell Perkins to have the carriage brought around in half an hour.”

  Annie stood at the entrance to the Bunburys’ ballroom, feeling as shy and as gauche as she had done a few months ago. Her gown of lilac silk had a corsetlike, close-fitting bodice with a round waist. The décolletage was low and off the shoulder with large, “balloon” short sleeves. The skirt had a train and lace-trimmed side panels.

  Her red hair was brushed back off her forehead in a simpler style than she usually affected.

  Mr. and Mrs. Bunbury were a bright young couple who adored giving balls and parties, and their mansion in Kensington always seemed to be full of guests. They had long ago left their stance at the top of the stairs to join the ball. Couples whirled around in the inevitable waltz. There was Marigold, looking enchanting in sky-blue silk and lace, in the arms of Harry Bellamy. And among the chaperones was Aunt Agatha, painted like a mask. Mr. Shaw-Bufford was dancing with Mrs. Tommy Winton. He saw Annie and bent his head to whisper something in Mrs. Winton’s ear, and Mrs. Winton threw back her head and laughed.

  After some hesitation, and being unable to see her husband, Annie walked around the edge of the floor and took a seat beside Aunt Agatha.

  Aunt Agatha promptly unfurled her large, ostrich feather fan and proceeded to grumble behind it.

  “It quite ruins my evening to see you here, Annie,” she said. “Poor Marigold’s nerves were in shreds after that terrible scene in the park. Miss Higgins and old Nanny Simpkins are in town for the wedding—dear Marigold is always so considerate and had invited all the old servants from Scotland—an
d they tell me that you have always been terribly jealous of Marigold. I thought your silly behavior would have ceased when you married Torrance, for after all he is a marquess and a better catch than Bellamy. But no! You simply had to pick on the poor girl…”

  “Aunt Agatha,” said Annie, grimly. “Cease this tirade immediately. I behaved badly, but the provocation was great. But I am a married lady at a ball. I am not a girl in the schoolroom. Now, where is my husband?”

  “Torrance? Probably still in the supper room. But I must warn you…”

  But Annie had left.

  It was eleven-thirty. Supper had been served at nine-thirty, which was very early, but the Bunburys were proud of their French chef and liked to make sure that all of their guests were fed, even the dowagers who did not like to stay all night.

  The supper room was nearly empty. A few couples were still seated at small tables shaded by lamps. In the far corner, by the window, sat her husband. He was entertaining a diminutive blonde who was laughing with delight at everything he said. Annie’s hands in their suede evening gloves clenched and unclenched.

  He was wearing a new evening suit: a dress coat with a plain collar and silk-covered revers, worn over a white waistcoat, and long, narrow trousers trimmed down the side of each leg with braid.

  He looked debonair, relaxed. He looked as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  He looked as if he hadn’t a wife.

  Annie moved forward and put a hand on the back of his chair. The pretty blonde was telling him about some musical comedy she had just seen and did not even look up. The marquess did not turn around although Annie could have sworn that he was aware of her presence.

  “Jasper,” she said, hoping her voice was not as shrill as it sounded to her own ears.

  Then he turned around, smiled, and got to his feet.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” said Annie.

  “Don’t worry,” said her husband. “I have been well entertained. Allow me to present Mrs. Freddie Bangor. Mrs. Bangor, my wife.”