“It is very unlikely that Uncle Stanton would know the Marquis,” Marilyn said quickly. “He moves only in the most exalted circles and his racehorses win all the Classic races, so that he is acclaimed wherever he goes.”
She gave a little sigh and said in a voice that sounded very human,
“As his wife I would have a position that would be almost Royal! Everybody would be extremely envious that I had managed to capture him.”
“And do you think he would make you happy?” Hermia asked.
Marilyn hesitated before she replied,
“I would be very very happy to be the Marchioness of Deverille and that is what I am determined to be!”
There was a hard note in her voice that Hermia knew only too well.
When Marilyn made up her mind about anything, it was always more comfortable for everybody concerned to let her have it immediately.
When she was a child, she had found that her tantrums would upset her nurse and Governess to the point where they decided it was pointless not to give way to her.
Hermia knew only too well that behind a very pretty face there was a steel-like will.
This had meant, when they were in the schoolroom together, that, if Marilyn found the lessons boring, she just refused to listen to anything the Governess said.
She would flounce out of the room leaving Hermia alone with a flustered teacher who had no idea how she could control such an obstreperous pupil.
Because Hermia had been anxious to learn everything she could even when she was quite young, she smoothed down the elderly woman who had been insulted and coaxed her into continuing the lesson so that she could learn what she wanted to know.
She thought now that, if Marilyn had made up her mind to marry the Marquis or any other man, he would have great difficulty in escaping from her.
Then she thought that was rather an unkind assertion and she said softly,
“If you marry the man you love, Marilyn, I can only wish you all the happiness in the world!”
“I thought you would say that,” Marilyn replied, “and that means you will have to help me to win him.”
“He has not proposed to you?”
“No, of course not! The minute he proposes to me I shall put it into The Gazette before he can change his mind and every unmarried woman in London will be wanting to scratch my eyes out for succeeding where they have failed!”
“Is he very attractive and do you love him very much?” Hermia asked softly.
“At this moment I find him extremely elusive and somewhat unresponsive,” Marilyn said, almost as if she was speaking to herself. “He accepted Papa’s invitation to stay and, while I know it was more to see the new mares that Papa has imported from the Continent than to be with me, I have made the very most of having him at The Hall.”
Now Marilyn was speaking in the way she used to before they grew up and, as if once again she was thinking of her cousin as somebody very close to her, she insisted,
“I have to win him, Hermia! You do see I have to make him propose to me! But it’s not going to be easy.”
“Why not?” Hermia asked. “You look so very pretty, Marilyn and I cannot believe that he would stay at The Hall and not be interested in you.”
“That is what I would like to think,” Marilyn confided. “At the same time he is fawned on by all the most beautiful women in London.”
She paused and then said as if she was talking to herself,
“Of course they are all married, but the Marquis will have to marry some day in order to produce an heir. I have heard rumours that he bitterly dislikes his cousin who will inherit if he has no son.”
“I am sure he will want to marry you,” Hermia said reassuringly.
There was silence as if Marilyn was thinking it over before she added,
“I was told in confidence by one of his relatives that they have all been begging the Marquis on their knees for the last five years to marry and have a family.”
“Does it matter if he does not?” Hermia asked.
“Do not be silly, Hermia! I have just told you that he hates the cousin who would succeed him and so do his sisters, his aunts, his grandmother and everybody else in the Deverille family.”
“What is wrong with his cousin that they hate him so much?” Hermia enquired curiously.
“I have never met him,” Marilyn replied, “but they say he is always disgustingly drunk and spends his time hanging round very disreputable actresses.”
She gave a little laugh.
“Nobody would ever expect the Marquis to behave like that, for he is very conscious of his own consequence! But he has been disillusioned through having a very unfortunate affair when he was a young man.”
“What happened?” Hermia asked.
She felt this was almost like one of the stories she told herself and everything that Marilyn was telling her she found intensely interesting.
Marilyn shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know all the details, but I gather it happened when he was very young and it has given him a very poor opinion of woman and as a result he is far more interested in his horses!”
She drew in her breath before she went on,
“But he has to marry and I am determined that I shall be his wife!”
“And I am sure you will be, dearest,” Hermia said, “but I don’t see how I can help you.”
“That is what I am going to tell you.”
Marilyn’s voice grew more intense as she continued,
“The Marquis was talking to Papa at dinner last night and he was saying that he thought things had changed a great deal since the war. Noble families, because they were hard-up or could not attend to their estates as they used to, were not looking after their people as his father had done when he was alive.”
Marilyn glanced at her cousin to see that Hermia’s blue eyes were fixed on her face with rapt attention and she carried on,
“‘My father,’ the Marquis said, ‘knew the name of every man he employed, just as he knew the names of his foxhounds, and my mother called at every cottage on our estate. If somebody was ill, she took them soup and medicine and when the children grew up she found them employment, either on our own land or with one of our relatives’.”
It flashed through Hermia’s mind that that was what her father and mother did in a very small way.
Marilyn continued,
“‘Nobody appears to behave like that today,’ the Marquis said, ‘and I therefore understand why the labourers are dissatisfied in the North and there is a great deal of dissent, I am told, in the Southern Counties’.”
Marilyn paused and asked,
“Now do you understand what I want?”
She saw that Hermia was looking bewildered and the sharpness was back in her voice as she said,
“Don’t be silly, Hermia! I have to convince him that, like his mother, I am interested in the people on the estate and help them.”
“But, Marilyn – ” Hermia began and then stopped.
She had been about to say that, in all the years she had known her cousin, she had never known her take the slightest interest in anybody on the estate.
What was more the Countess had always sneered at the way her father and mother spent so much time looking after the people in the village.
Once when the Earl had had a man dismissed because his agent had reported his work was shoddy and he was taking a long time over it, her father had pleaded with his brother to give the man a second chance.
“He is sick,” he explained, “and cannot afford to stay at home and lose his wages. His wife is expecting another baby and there are three small children in the house.”
The Earl had refused to listen.
“I leave all those things to my Farm Manager,” he said. “I never interfere!”
It was her father, Hermia remembered, who had kept the man and his family alive out of his own pocket and had by some miracle found him another job with a wage that had at least sa
ved them from starvation.
Hermia knew that this was just one example of what often happened on the estate and that her father, although he never said so, deplored his brother’s indifference and lack of interest in the people he employed.
“I cannot think what you want me to do for you, Marilyn,” she said apprehensively.
“I have thought it all out, Hermia, and all you have to do is exactly what I tell you.”
“I will do it if it is possible – ”
“It is quite possible,” Marilyn replied. “Now listen – ”
She bent forward and lowered her voice almost as if she was afraid of being overheard.
“I have decided that I will accompany the Earl tomorrow morning when he goes riding. I know neither Papa nor William intend to ride early, but the Marquis likes to ride before breakfast.”
Hermia raised her eyebrows.
“I have never known you to be up before breakfast!” she said.
“I am quite prepared to get up at dawn if I have good reason to,” Marilyn declared. “Now listen to what I am saying – ”
“I am listening.”
“I shall join him in the stables and suggest we ride towards Bluebell Wood. You know how pretty and romantic that is!”
“Yes – of course,” Hermia agreed.
“I shall be there at about half after seven,” Marilyn went on, “and we will ride slowly through the wood. Then I want you to come galloping in search of me.”
“Me?” Hermia exclaimed.
“Just listen!” Marilyn snapped. “You will come riding as quickly as you can and say to me,
“‘Oh, Marilyn, I have been looking for you! Poor old Mrs. Thingumabob is dying, but she says she cannot die until she can say goodbye to you and thank you for all your kindness to her’.”
Hermia stared at her cousin in disbelief.
It seemed a strange way for Marilyn to try to impress the Marquis and she did not think it would sound very plausible.
Almost as if her cousin read her thoughts, Marilyn said,
“You can put it in your own words, but make it sound convincing and urgent as if the woman was really crying out for me.”
“I-I will do my best,” Hermia said, “but what happens – then?”
“I have thought it out carefully,” Marilyn answered. “I shall exclaim, ‘Oh, poor Mrs. Thingumabob! Of course I must go to her!’ I shall start to ride away, but in case the Marquis should attempt to follow me I shall say to you,
“‘Show his Lordship the way home!’ Then before he can accompany me, as he will obviously wish to do, I shall be almost out of sight.”
“Supposing he insists upon following you?” Hermia asked.
“Then you must somehow prevent him from doing so,” Marilyn said. “I shall ride towards the village, then go slowly back to the house by a different way so that no one will see me.”
Her lips curved in a little smile as she added,
“Later I will tell the Marquis how a poor old woman died happily because I was holding her hand and he will realise that I am just like his mother and that I care about the people on the estate.”
Now there was silence and after a moment Marilyn said,
“Well, what do you think of my idea? It cannot be very difficult for you to play the part I have asked of you!”
“N-no – of course – not,” Hermia replied. “I am just – hoping that the Marquis will – believe you.”
“Why should he doubt it?” Marilyn asked aggressively. “And if he does, it will be entirely your fault!”
“Please – don’t say that,” Hermia pleaded. “You know I will try in every way I can to sound as if somebody really is on their – deathbed, just as they always would send for Mama – but – ”
Her voice died away.
She knew she could not express in words that she felt it unlikely that any man, unless he was very stupid, would believe that Marilyn really cared for anybody except herself.
Then she was ashamed of being so ungenerous!
She told herself she would try very very hard to persuade the Marquis that the people on the estate looked to her cousin for comfort and consolation in their troubles.
She still had a feeling it was not going to be easy, but, because it was something she knew she could not put into words, she merely said simply,
“I will do what you ask, Marilyn, but you are aware that I have no horse to ride at the moment and it might seem strange if I fetched one from your stables.”
“I will send you a groom with a horse late this evening, so that your father will not be aware of it,” Marilyn replied.
“I shall enjoy riding it,” Hermia managed to smile.
She glanced at her cousin and now saw an expression in her eyes she had never seen before.
“There will be no reason for you to stay long with the Marquis,” Marilyn said sharply. “You must give me just time enough to get out of sight, point the way back to The Hall and then follow me.”
“I will do that,” Hermia agreed.
“And what is more, you need not doll yourself up because you are meeting the sort of gentleman you are never likely to see in Little Brookfield!”
“No – of course not,” Hermia answered.
“If there was anybody else I could trust, I would not trust you.”
“That is an unkind thing to say!”
“I cannot help it,” her cousin answered. “You are too pretty, Hermia, and it has made me hate you ever since I knew that, however expensively I was dressed, you would always look better than I do.”
Hermia made a little gesture with her hands before she said,
“We also used to have such happy times when we were young and I miss them, Marilyn – I miss them very much!”
“If that is an attempt to coax me into asking you to the parties we give now that I am grown up,” Marilyn replied, “I am not having you there! I have seen the expression in gentlemen’s eyes when they look at you and I am not so stupid as to want that sort of competition.”
“I realise that,” Hermia said, “and I cannot help my looks. But since you yourself are very pretty, Marilyn, I am quite certain that you will capture your Marquis.”
“That is what I intend to do.”
Hermia was silent for a moment.
Then she said,
“I don’t believe love depends so much on people’s looks. Mama said once that having a pretty face was only a good introduction. I think that, when people begin to fall in love with each other, there must be many other factors to attract them, rather than just the outward appearance of the person in whom they are interested.”
“If you are preaching to me about having a kind heart, a compassionate nature and a love for old people and animals,” Marilyn retorted, “I am not going to listen!”
Hermia laughed because she sounded just like the petulant little girl she had been when they used to quarrel in the nursery.
Marilyn went on,
“I am quite content with myself as I am. The only thing I am concerned with is getting married and making sure that my husband is the most important man available.”
“Papa always says that, if you want something badly enough, with willpower and prayer you will get it.”
Unexpectedly Marilyn laughed.
“I am sure Uncle Stanton would be delighted to know that I am in fact praying I will get the Marquis and I shall be extremely angry if my prayers are not answered!”
“I am sure they will be,” Hermia said soothingly. “And I can think of nobody Marilyn, who would look lovelier wearing a Coronet.”
“That is what I intend to have,” Marilyn said, “and the smartest wedding that has been seen in London for years!”
It flashed through Hermia’s mind that the one person she would not ask to be a bridesmaid was herself.
Marilyn was, however, already rising to her feet and pulling her elaborately decorated skirt into place.
“Now don’t make any mistakes, Hermia,
about what you have to do!” she admonished. “We should reach the Bluebell Wood at about twenty minutes to eight o’clock. I can make all sorts of excuses to linger in the centre of it, but you had better not keep me waiting too long!”
“I will be there, I promise you,” Hermia said, “and don’t forget the horse. It would not be so impressive if I arrived on foot, which is my only means of transport these days.”
“I realise that you are reproaching me in a very obvious manner for not allowing you to ride Papa’s horses,” Marilyn said. “The truth is, Hermia, you ride too well and I am sick of hearing the grooms and everybody else say that I should ride like you.”
There was nothing Hermia could say to this and there was silence as her cousin walked towards the door.
“Be exactly on time,” Marilyn persisted as she walked into the hall, “and I will repay you by remembering to send you the clothes I have promised you.”
It was difficult for Hermia to refrain from saying proudly that she could keep them.
Instead she forced herself to answer gently and without the slightest note of sarcasm in her voice,
“It’s very kind of you, Marilyn dear, and both Mama and I will be very grateful.”
She walked to the front door with her cousin as she spoke to see an elegant open carriage with a coachman and a footman on the box standing outside.
When they saw Hermia, they both touched their cockaded hats and grinned at her.
She had known the coachman since she was a little girl and the footman was a lad from the village.
He jumped down in order to open the door of the carriage for Marilyn and carefully placed a light rug over her knees.
As he clambered back up onto the box, the horses started off and Marilyn raised her gloved hand with a graceful gesture of goodbye.
Hermia had a last glimpse of her pretty beribboned bonnet passing through the drive gate, which was badly in need of a coat of paint.
Then she went back into the house thinking that Marilyn’s visit was like one of her Fairy stories.
It was hard to believe that it had happened or that she had been asked to take part in what seemed a ridiculous charade.
She could understand Marilyn’s reasoning and her motive in working out what seemed a very complicated plot to capture the Marquis of Deverille, but privately she had her doubts as to whether she would be successful.
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