The Five-Minute Marriage

by Joan Aiken

  8

  Greatly to Delphie’s relief, four or five days passed without incident after Mr. Penistone’s visit to Greek Street, and his shattering announcement that he and Delphie were married in good truth. Mr. Browty twice took Mrs. Carteret driving in the park, but on neither occasion did he come upstairs; and beyond repeating what a charmingly considerate man he was, and how agreeable the park had looked, Mrs. Carteret had nothing remarkable to report of these excursions; the notable result of them was in the improvement of her health and spirits. Her energy seemed to be redoubled after each airing; she began to perform small tasks about the house again, and Delphie’s only anxiety was that her mother might recommence her former undesirable habits, such as spending too much time and money at the ladies’ gambling saloon in Orchard Street, or placing wild lavish orders at grocers and booksellers. But so far all was well.

  Delphie’s own spirits, however, remained in a very considerable state of perturbation, which she did her best to conceal from her parent. She still had been unable to come to any decision as to what answer she could make to Mr. Browty. She was persuaded that she must refuse him—how could she not, since she was married already?—but what reason for doing so could she give him? She felt that he deserved the truth from her—but how could she tell it? To do so would be to give away Mr. Penistone’s part in the matter. Still—she sometimes thought—what right had Mr. Penistone to exact such secrecy from her? He had done little enough for her, in all conscience.

  And yet she felt a decided reluctance to betray him.

  She could, of course, merely tell Mr. Browty, as she had done already, that she thought they would not suit. But to Delphie’s scrupulous conscience this smacked of hypocrisy, not to say downright dishonesty. For in many ways, after thinking it over, she was bound to admit that they would suit very well. She was not blind to the fact that this was so. There was nothing romantic about Mr. Browty, but she felt that she could learn to love him for his unfailing kindness and good humor, for his practical abilities, even for his clumsy, but endearing sense of humor. As a father she knew him to be kind but firm; he was fond of his girls, but they were not overindulged. And he seemed disposed to take the same amiable care of Mrs. Carteret; he had shared little jokes and arranged small treats for her on their excursions; Delphie felt quite certain that her mother would receive the most kindly welcome if she should become a member of the Browty family.

  It seemed almost wicked to turn her back on all this kindness and good fortune which merely awaited her acceptance!

  Consequently Philadelphia gave her lessons, performed her household tasks, and attended to her mother, with a very heavy heart.

  Of the fifth day she chanced to return home from giving a lesson to a pair of sisters in Westminster, just in time to see an exceedingly well-dressed young lady entering the Baggotts’ millinery establishment. The lady was wearing a French cambric dress adorned with knots of blue velvet ribbon, a Zephyr cloak, Roman boots of blue Denmark satin, and a Lavinia chip hat, tied down with ribbons to match those on her dress. Even Delphie’s low spirits rose a little at such an elegant vision, and at the thought of the handsome purchase that the lady must be about to make from the Baggotts—very probably she might buy as much in ten minutes as they were used to sell in the whole of a day.

  What was Delphie’s surprise, therefore, on entering the shop, to hear the young lady demanding, in a loud and somewhat arrogant voice, whether or not a Miss Carteret lived here. As she did so, she glanced impatiently around the shop, and her supercilious glance met that of Delphie.

  “I believe I am the person you seek,” Delphie said with quiet civility, moving forward. “How can I serve you, ma’am?”

  Inwardly she was entertaining herself by wondering what need this haughty stranger could have of her. The young lady did not look as if she were capable of demeaning herself sufficiently to take lessons and pay deference to the bidding of a teacher; but yet she did not look old enough to possess children of an age for music lessons. Putting aside her fashionable accouterments, she was handsome in a somewhat stolid way, with round blooming cheeks, a straight nose, a full chin, china-blue eyes, which held a decidedly disparaging expression as she glanced about her, and a profusion of light brown ringlets, elaborately dressed.

  “You are Miss Carteret?” said the young lady.

  The disparaging glance swept up and down, subjecting Delphie to a complete scrutiny, from her basket willow bonnet to her sprig-muslin skirts. “Oh! How very—how very queer it all seems!” She stared about her with apparent disgust, and said impatiently,

  “Is there no place where we can be more private than this? I did not bring my maid with me, and I am not minded to stand talking in a shop!”

  “Pray step upstairs, ma’am,” said Delphie politely. “Allow me to lead the way.”

  When they reached the small, neat apartment, Delphie offered the visitor a chair.

  “Thank you—I prefer to stand,” she replied. “I hope my business need not take long.”

  And again she surveyed Delphie, in her muslin dress, dark blue jean half boots, and shabby shawl, with a kind of astonished disdain.

  She said,

  “I understand that you pass yourself off as Miss Carteret?”

  “Pass myself off? I am Miss Carteret,” Delphie replied, surprised, but with a dim inkling of what might be to come.

  “How can you be?” demanded the other in an angry tone. “I am Miss Carteret!”

  Delphie’s ready sense of the absurd betrayed her into a small smile, which increased the young lady’s look of indignation.

  “Excuse me!” Delphie remarked. “But surely there must be room enough in the world for more than one Miss Carteret? Or is the breed so singular?”

  “You are pleased to jest, ma’am, but it is no joke, after all! I understand that you have had the effrontery—the indecorum—the extraordinary pretension—to go through a form of marriage with my husband!”

  “If he is your husband,” Delphie pointed out, “it cannot be possible that I have married him.”

  “When I say husband,” the young lady amended, “I should explain that the arrangement between us had not yet culminated in matrimony, but was of such a long-standing, binding, and thoroughly predetermined nature that its claims were equally strong! We have been promised to each other by family consent from earliest youth. I have considered him as my spouse, any time this ten years. When we met, it has been on this footing. And now—to have the arrangement overset by a nobody—by a vile pretender without respectable connections—by a vulgar upstart—this passes the bounds of what may be borne!”

  The young lady’s unconciliating manners were beginning to offend Delphie, and she was greatly tempted to reply,

  “Yet it seems they must be borne, since, apparently, the gentleman has not been so decided in considering you as his spouse!”

  But as this was not exactly the case, and as there would be no purpose in merely bandying words, and sending the affronted young lady further up into her high ropes, Delphie temperately answered,

  “Am I to conclude that the gentleman you refer to is Mr. Gareth Penistone?”

  “Who else? I have been affianced to him forever!”

  “And may I inquire from what source you have the intelligence that he and I are married?”

  “That is of no moment!” she irritably answered. “I have it on good authority, however. In any case, I am not here to be questioned by you, ma’am!”

  “What are you here for, then?” Delphie politely inquired.

  “I am here to demand that this disgraceful, improperly fadged-up arrangement be instantly annulled and set aside!”

  “As to that,” Delphie replied, “even should I wish to oblige you—which, in consideration of your insulting language and wholly unpropitiating demeanor, you have no right to expect to be the case—it is quite out of my power to take such a step unless the gentleman agrees. And I am informed that there are reasons why he wishes not to
take such a step. However, it seems to me that your best recourse is to make application to him. If the bond between you is as strong as you claim, you will surely have no difficulty in persuading him?”

  The young lady drew herself up even more rigidly.

  “I am not accustomed to being treated in this way! You provoke me beyond all reason! In any case, who are you? How dare you lay claim to the name of Carteret?”

  “I claim it by right,” Delphie shortly answered. “My father was Captain Richard Carteret, of Barham, in Norfolk, who died in 1797 at the Battle of St. Vincent. My mother is Mrs. Elaine Iseult Carteret, daughter of Lancelot, Fifth Viscount Bollington; she married Captain Carteret in 1784.”

  “That cannot be true! That must be a monstrous piece of falsehood! I am all those things! Those were my parents!”

  “Then there are two of us,” Delphie answered, with an endeavor at calm, though her heart was beating rapidly.

  “I have been brought up all my life—supported by my great-uncle Mark—in the knowledge that I was Miss Carteret!”

  “Perhaps we are sisters?” suggested Delphie doubtfully, though she could see or feel no resemblance between herself and this arrogant girl. “May I inquire your age—the date of your birth?”

  “I do not see what business it is of yours,” she resentfully answered, “but I am twenty-three. I was born in 1793.”

  “Then I do not think we can be sisters—unless we are twins, which seems improbable in the highest degree,” Delphie remarked thoughtfully. “For we were born in the same year.”

  “I must request that you instantly desist from putting yourself forward under this deceitful designation!” cried Miss Carteret. “You must immediately take some other name!”

  “Come, come, ma’am! That is hardly a reasonable request, since I have worn my name all my life,” Delphie replied, raising her brows. “I might ask the same of you—”

  “Oh! Such impertinence!”

  “—But, as it falls out, I have taken another name,” Delphie continued equably. “It seems that I am now Mrs. Penistone. You may address me as that if you so choose.”

  She glanced out of the window.

  “I am afraid I must now bring this interview to its close, ma’am. I see one of my pupils across the street, on her way here; and also my mother, returning from an airing. My mother is but just convalescent from a severe illness, and I should most certainly not wish her to be troubled by disputes of this nature. So I will take the liberty of bidding you good day.”

  She held open the door in a marked manner.

  “You will give me no satisfaction of any kind?” demanded Miss Carteret in a voice almost choked by passion.

  “What can I say? I cannot cease being who I am, simply because you demand it! And as to the other matter—all I can suggest, as I have said before, is that you should apply to Mr. Penistone.”

  “But I do not—” began Miss Carteret. Then she pulled herself up, and said,

  “Very well! I shall do that!” and ran angrily down the stairs.

  Delphie, who, after a short pause, followed her down, saw with relief that she had quitted the Baggotts’ establishment (both sisters gazed after her with admiring but disappointed looks) just before Mrs. Carteret entered it. They did, indeed, pass one another on the pavement, and Delphie observed the other Miss Carteret pause and check, as if taking careful stock of her rival’s parent.

  Then she walked swiftly away.

  “Really I do not know what can be the cause,” said Mrs. Carteret, upstairs, taking off her bonnet, “perhaps it is resulting from my illness—or just old age coming upon me!—but I seem to keep seeing faces that remind me of the past. Last week I thought I had seen the ghost of my cousin Gareth. And now today I observed a young lady whose face, for some reason, was an irresistible reminder of a period long gone by—though I cannot exactly call to mind which period, or of whom she reminded me—”

  “Do you refer to the young lady in the blue and white, with the ribbons?” Delphie inquired.

  “Yes—how did you guess, my dear?”

  “She has just been calling here. She said that her name was Carteret too,” Delphie cautiously divulged.

  “How very curious! Some cousin of your dear father’s? Could it be?” Mrs. Carteret was extremely perplexed. “For Richard was an only child, and so was his father—he had no Carteret cousins that I ever met. Yet stay—I believe there were some distant connections in the North—but they never came to London. What a singular occurrence! How I wish that I had been at home when the young lady was here. You should have persuaded her to stay a little longer, my child.”

  Delphie could not but be glad that she had not done so. “However, perhaps she may come again; or we could wait upon her,” Mrs. Carteret reflected. “Yes, that would be the civil thing to do. I wonder from what quarter she found out our direction? Perhaps from some of your great acquaintance, Philadelphia—perhaps from Lady Dalrymple. The Carterets are an exceedingly well-connected family—you have often heard me say so. They are cousins of the Cecils. If some Carteret cousins are come to town, it is certainly time that we gave our ball.”

  Delphie sighed, and suggested, “Let us postpone the ball for a few weeks yet, Mamma, until you are more completely restored to health and strength,” hoping, as she said so, that the acquisition of better health would cure her mother of these grandiose fancies.

  “Very well, if you think so, dear child; it is true that June is a better month for a ball ... Where did you say Miss Carteret was residing? It will be proper to leave cards.”

  With some relief, Delphie was able to disclose to her mother that, unfortunately, Miss Carteret had omitted to leave her direction. Mrs. Carteret was very disappointed.

  “That was not well done in you, child, not to find out. But never mind. I will ask Mr. Browty when he comes again. By the by, Philadelphia, he has invited us for dinner in Russell Square, on Thursday next. He is all kindness—full of the most delicate and pleasing attentions.”

  Delphie wondered, rather sadly, how soon her mother would realize that these were the attentions of a suitor for her daughter’s hand; and what would her response be to them then? Would she consider Mr. Browty as an eligible parti? Or would she dismiss him as she had a chemist’s assistant who four years ago had aspired to Delphie’s hand, with the comment that he was “well enough in some circles—but smelt of the shop—quite unsuitable for my daughter,” a verdict which had not perturbed Delphie, since she had heartily disliked the chemist’s assistant, who had very encroaching manners, a passion for pickled onions, and a repertoire of most objectionable songs. But Mr. Bowty was in quite a different category...

  “I shall ask him about this other Miss Carteret next Thursday,” decided Delphie’s mother. “He is so clever and capable that he will know how to set about finding where she lives. I daresay it will be in some rented house.”

  There was no need for Mrs. Carteret to take this step, however, for on the next day a note arrived, addressed to Mrs. and Miss Carteret, inviting them to take tea with Miss Carteret, who lived, it seemed, in care of a Lady Bablock-Hythe, at an address in Brook Street.

  Delphie was instantly suspicious of this invitation. She felt sure that no good would come of it, and if she could have found a means of dissuading Mrs. Carteret from accepting the invitation, she would have seized on it. But Mrs. Carteret was by no means to be dissuaded; she set to work immediately, furbishing up her bonnet with a fresh piece of satin, and, with Mrs. Andrews’s assistance, making herself a new sarcenet mantle.

  Two days after that, a letter arrived for Delphie, in a crabbed and unfamiliar black hand.

  “Dear Ma’am” it said. “Circumstances have arisen which make it urgently necessary that I should speak with you privately. If it is not inconvenient to you, I should be glad to call at your house in Greek Street at two o’clock this afternoon, to take you driving in the Park.

  Yours,

  Gareth Penistone.”

  Ha
! thought Delphie at once, Miss Carteret has tracked him down. (For she had had a shrewd suspicion that, at the time of her visit, Miss Carteret did not know where to find Mr. Penistone, though naturally she would not admit this.)

  Now she has found him, and is constraining him to have his marriage dissolved, thought Delphie. Well, it is a very good thing. No doubt she will be able to exert a great deal of influence on him, and he will be obliged to accede to her wishes, and so he ought! I am sure I do not wish to be tied up in this odious, havey-cavey manner!

  But she could not help feeling a little sorry for Mr. Penistone, and wondering that he should be willing to marry a lady who seemed so full of self-consequence, so lacking in kindliness or humor—particularly if he were so devoted to his poor little mistress in Curzon Street.

  But it’s entirely his own affair, thought Delphie; no doubt it is all because he is in need of money—and I do not know why I should concern myself in the matter, after all! I shall be heartily glad to come to the end of it.

  Fortunately she had no pupil at two. The day was cloudy, and had not been thought suitable for one of Mrs. Carteret’s excursions with Mr. Browty. Instead, Delphie’s mother was sitting by the fire, carefully trimming her sarcenet mantle. Delphie found no difficulty about stepping out, on the excuse of purchasing some fastenings for the mantle, and another reel of silk.

  “I shall be back in an hour’s time,” she promised. “Long before you have finished the silk that you have there.”

  “An hour? It does not take an hour to buy a reel of silk! Why do you not procure it from the Baggotts?”

  Delphie said that she had one or two other commissions to execute, and escaped; she had seen Mr. Penistone, driving a rather old-looking curricle, pull up his horses in the street outside.