The Wizard’s Daughter

by Barbara Michaels

"But I will suffer a loss -"

  "I doubt that. And if you did, it would be trivial compared with the sums the squire has paid you over the years. I always suspected you overcharged him; and goodness knows your profits have not been spent on those starved, overworked girls you employ."

  She continued to move forward, and Mrs. Maclean, recognizing a superior will, beat a hasty and undignified retreat. She was muttering to herself as she flounced out, and she took care to make her comments audible.

  "Paupers… charity… taking advantage…"

  Marianne slipped her hand into Mrs. Jay's.

  "You were wonderful! I would never have had the courage to stand up to her. She was always friendly and respectful; who would have supposed she could be so unkind?"

  "You will find that adversity brings out the true nature of false acquaintances," Mrs. Jay replied. "And you must learn to defend your rights, Marianne. That coat is far too frivolous for your new station in life, but at least it is warm, and you will need it. Now let us do as I suggested and see what that wretch has left you. I wouldn't put it past her to take things that are not rightfully hers."

  Resolutely ignoring the desolation around her, and the rude voices of the workmen, she started up the stairs. In this small way at least she could be useful.

  There were after all quite a number of boxes to be taken away. Not all the squire's creditors were as hardhearted as Mrs. Maclean, and the trinkets and frivolities so dear to the heart of a young girl had little monetary value. By the time Marianne's possessions had been transferred to Mrs. Jay's house and put away, the old lady was more than ready for her tea.

  There could not have been a greater contrast between two places than the rotting elegance of the manor house and the neat, overcrowded parlor of the cottage. Every table was decently swathed in cloths of heavy plush, and every surface was covered with ornaments, photographs, and the memorabilia of a long, active life. The windows had been sealed against the unhealthy night air, and Mrs. Jay had ordered the fire to be lighted. She felt the cold rather more than she used to.

  Marianne found the room uncomfortably stuffy, though of course she did not say so. The day had been unusually warm for the beginning of October. A beautiful day – the last day in her childhood home. She tried to feel sad, but even her memories of "poor dear papa" could not quench her rising spirits. It is hard, she told herself sagely, to think of winter when the sun is shining. Then she smiled. I do believe, she thought, that I have composed an epigram!

  Guiltily conscious that she should not have smiled, she glanced at Mrs. Jay. That lady, worn out by woe and emotion, and by another cause Marianne was unaware of, had nodded off, her head resting against the worn leather of the highbacked chair. In her white lacy cap and black gown she resembled the engravings Marianne had seen of a more famous widow, the royal widow of Windsor, who had been mourning her German prince for twenty years. Except, Marianne told herself disloyally, Mrs. Jay had a much more pleasant face than did the Queen. Once she must have been a pretty girl.

  A strange little chill ran through her body, despite the excessive warmth of the room, as she contemplated the inevitable tragedy of time; but she was too young to think of disagreeable matters for long, and much too young to believe that such a tragedy could happen to her. Surely, she knew that one day she would grow old; but that would not be for a long, long time. Before her hair whitened and her cheeks grew withered (oh, impossible!) there was a great exciting world to be explored and conquered.

  Of course it was very sad that poor dear Papa had died so suddenly. She had enjoyed her first eighteen years of life enormously, for her father was no disciplinarian, and she would have run quite wild had it not been for the admonitions of Mrs. Jay. Marianne loved her godmother and was always amenable to the old lady's suggestions; but Mrs. Jay had been a busy woman, as the wife of the pastor of a large parish always is, and during Marianne's childhood she had not had time to interfere unduly.

  Marianne's father had taught her to ride – it was the one skill he did teach her -and he had not objected to her playing with the village children, though Mrs. Jay never failed to point out that they were beneath Marianne's station in life. As a child Marianne had never understood why this should be so. Billy Turnbull and Jack Daws and the others were far cleverer than she. They had taught her many useful things – how to set a snare for a hare (though they never could persuade her to take the poor thing out of the snare), how to fish with a bit of string and a pin, how to play ball and jacks and marbles.

  Then, when she was thirteen, Mr. Jay had died, and Mrs. Jay had been free to devote all her time to her goddaughter. She had spent hours coaching Marianne in the manners and skills required of a young lady. Thanks to Marianne's instinctive gentility and affectionate disposition, this task had not proved as difficult as one might have supposed it would be, after thirteen years of neglect. The squire had also neglected the girl's formal education. Her governesses had been of two types: distressed gentlewomen, who found it impossible to adapt to the squire's boisterous life-style and invariably departed in a huff after a few weeks, and women of quite another sort, who adapted only too well and had, thereafter, little time for their pupil.

  Fortunately, Marianne liked to read. She had acquired this skill early and had improved it by daily practice. At thirteen she had had no other educational advantages, but the squire, intimidated by the icy courtesy of the vicar's lady, was easily persuaded to make up the deficiencies. "Anything for a quiet life" was his motto. So they came and went – drawing masters, French masters, instructors in dancing and music and German. At eighteen Marianne had the usual young lady's repertoire of half-developed talents: a smattering of French, a soupcon of German, the ability to sketch a pretty stretch of woodland (if the drawing master outlined it first). She had also embroidered half a dozen fire screens and five pairs of house slippers for dear Papa. The squire never wore the slippers, but he thanked her for them nicely, after studying their patterns of pansies and forget-me-nots with poorly concealed astonishment.

  Since she had never been told that children are entitled to develop their own personalities, Marianne had accepted the change of routine docilely. She really was a nice girl, with an affectionate heart; and if a bright October afternoon, crisp with frosty sunlight, made her yearn to be out playing tag with Billy and Jack instead of conjugating servir in all its possible tenses, she never said so. The new regime had its compensations. The changes in her body and heart, which coincided with Mrs. Jay's full-time tutelage, made it easier for her to abandon childish pursuits; performing prodigies of Berlin work, she dreamed of the young curate's soulful looks. (This was no adolescent fantasy; the curate was the first of many victims, and Mrs. Jay had been obliged to lecture him about his behavior.)

  And there was music.

  The squire had, upon demand, bought his daughter the finest available pianoforte, of carved rosewood with puckered silk panels and gold candleholders. Why should he not? He never paid for it, although, to do him justice, he fully intended to do so. If the piano dealer had not gone bankrupt first… Before that, Marianne had heard no music except for birdsong and the earnest but untrained efforts of the church choir. When M. George, the music master, flipped up his coattails, seated himself, and plunged into a Mozart sonatina, Marianne knew what she had been missing all her life. She made astonishing progress with her music, and for several years the squire avoided his own drawing room during the hours of Marianne's practice. She practiced quite a lot, and classical music made him want to howl like one of his own hounds.

  The inadvertent mixture of educational styles had, in fact, produced a rather remarkable personality. From Mrs. Jay Marianne had learned that a lady did not acknowledge the existence of her own nether limbs – never to be thought of, much less referred to, as "legs." But before Mrs. Jay took over her education Marianne had watched the stable cats copulate and had been present when the squire's favorite bitch had her litters. Mrs. Jay had told her that ladies swooned at the
sight of blood; but in childhood she had often torn up a petticoat to bind the scrapes and bruises she and her playmates incurred. Once she had even cut a fish hook from Billy's "nether limb."

  How, one might ask, did Marianne manage to reconcile these opposing viewpoints in her own mind? In the same way most human beings are able to accept the shocking discrepancy between the ideal and the actual; as the merchant is able to nod piously at Sunday sermons adjuring him to relieve the poor and suffering, and on Monday watch complacently as his overworked, underpaid factory children drowse over their looms. As Mrs. Jay herself could trust in the loving kindness of the Creator after beholding countless examples of that same Creator's failure to relieve death, suffering, and pain.

  When dusk was far advanced, the vicar's widow roused herself and ordered the candles to be brought in. Gas lighting devices had not reached the village, and if they had, Mrs. Jay would not have tolerated them. On this particular evening the pale, limited light seemed scarcely to relieve the darkness; Mrs. Jay had to force herself to reach for one of the pieces of fabric laid out on the table. Black thread on black fabric – difficult even for young, strong eyes to see. But the work had to be done, especially now, in view of the unexpected diminution of Marianne's wardrobe. Mrs. Jay had bought the black wool herself when the shocking news of the squire's financial situation had become known. At least the girl would have a few decent black gowns to wear when she left for… where? That was the question, and Mrs. Jay applied herself to it with her customary fortitude.

  "We must discuss your future," she said.

  Marianne, her head bent over a seemingly endless pattern of black braid, did not stop sewing.

  "I must find work, I suppose," she said.

  "You have, I take it, no other – er – option?" Mrs. Jay inquired. She was sure Marianne did not. The girl had always confided in her.

  This belief was, of course, an illusion. No young girl is foolish enough to tell a strict older woman about her romantic daydreams and adventures. Marianne's encounters had been innocent enough; all the same, the flush that spread over her averted face would have been a dead giveaway if the light had been stronger and the vicar's widow had not been distracted.

  It would have been better for Marianne if she could have forced herself to tell Mrs. Jay about the particular incident that had caused the blush. The older woman would certainly have interpreted the occurrence correctly, and she might have been shocked into giving her goddaughter a few useful hints.

  It had happened that very morning. Marianne had insisted on spending the last night in her old home, and Mrs. Jay had reluctantly agreed, since a few of the servants still remained. The girl had arisen early and had gone for a solitary walk through the grounds, bidding a sentimental farewell to her favorite spots. When she returned to the house she found a visitor waiting.

  John Bruton was a neighbor, the son of one of the squire's favorite drinking and hunting cronies. Mr. Bruton was of the new gentry; having made his fortune by the efficient exploitation of child labor in his mills, he had been able to retire from trade and purchase gentility, in the form of a country seat, which he promptly renamed Bruton Hall. His eldest son, John, had been one of Marianne's playmates until he was sent away to school. Returning, he had been astonished to find the hoydenish child grown into a beautiful woman. The fathers had talked vaguely of a possible match, and John had been enthusiastic. Marianne had not. Her dream hero, like that of most young ladies of that period, was dark and slim and melancholy. John's round pink face and plump, sweating hands roused no tremor in her heart.

  Still, he was an old friend, and when she entered the hall and found him pacing up and down, irritably switching at the dying plants with his riding crop, she was glad to see him.

  "Dear John, how good of you to come," she exclaimed, giving him her hand. "I trust your mother is better today?"

  "Nothing wrong with the old lady but overeating. Now you – by Gad, you look absolutely first-rate today, Marianne."

  "I don't feel first-rate." With some difficulty Marianne freed her hand and wiped it surreptitiously on her skirt. "Papa's creditors will be here soon – or their agents – I don't really understand what is going to happen, except that they will take everything. These are the final hours. I must leave the home of my childhood, never to return."

  "Oh, well – Gad – yes, that's so. You always do put things so well, Marianne."

  His eyes fixed themselves on her face with a look she had learned to know, and dislike, over the past months. Marianne turned away. He followed as she walked toward the drawing room.

  "Yes," she went on musingly, "the end has come. I will see my ancestral halls no more. The orphaned child must wander, seeking her fortune in the cold, unfeeling world."

  This touching sentiment ended in an inappropriate grunt as two arms wrapped around her waist so vigorously that the air was expelled from her lungs. The young man's moist cheek flattened the curls at her temple; his hot breath stirred the tendrils of hair above her ear as he whispered, "It don't have to be that way, m'dear. Er – that is – demmit, I can't talk elegant like you, but- er – I mean – I'll take care of you. No need to wander, eh? Pa don't ask what I do with my allowance, he gives me all I want, enough for a nice little house with a garden- you're fond of flowers and all that – even a carriage, if I can screw a bit more out of the old… oh, Marianne…"

  It was not the first time Marianne had felt a young man's arms around her; but when John's hand groped for her breast, encased as it was in layers of corset, camisole, and bodice, a violent thrill of outraged modesty ran through her. She wrenched herself away. Turning, she faced the young man with flashing eyes and a look of such indignant innocence that he actually fell back a step.

  Seeing his confusion, Marianne's quick temper subsided. Perhaps,, she thought charitably, he had been reaching for his pocket handkerchief.

  "I forgive you," she said coolly. "So long as you promise never to do such a thing again. I esteem you as a friend, but I could never marry you."

  John's fleshy mouth dropped open. "Marry?" he began.

  A rumble of wheels outside, on the graveled drive, announced the arrival of the first of the carters who had come to carry away the squire's mortgaged property, thus sparing the young man the necessity of an explanation that would have been painful to all concerned.

  Marianne remembered this incident as she bent more closely over her sewing. She was not experienced enough to understand why John Bruton's fumbling hands had offended her, as the tentative embraces of other enamored youths had not. Victorian young ladies were not as stupid as their elders fondly believed, but they were, for the most part, armored against rude behavior by the social conventions that made ladies immune from the sexual demands their female inferiors had to accept. What Marianne did not realize was that the death of her father had not only robbed her of a male protector, it had removed the social status that had made her sacrosanct. She only knew that her former playmate's proposal, as she believed it, had been unacceptable – and that she had better not mention it to Mrs. Jay.

  Mrs. Jay took her silence for a negative reply and went on with her speech.

  "I thought not. Well, one can hardly blame your father for not having made arrangements; you are quite young. And without a dowry, it is most unlikely… I fear that you must indeed consider some means of earning a livelihood."

  "I understand that Lady Verill is looking for a companion."

  "Out of the question!" In her agitation Mrs. Jay stabbed her needle into her thumb. "Lady Verill is always looking for a companion. She is… Her affliction is of a nature that… It would not do for you."

  Lady Verill drank. This fact was well known to all the neighborhood, as was the corollary, that her companions were expected to see that she was supplied with just enough brandy to keep her in a mild stupor. It was no easy task to judge this correctly, and the consequences of misjudgment were horrendous. If sober, the lady fell into deep melancholy and attempted suicide; i
f too drunk, she flew into a maniacal rage and attempted homicide upon Lord Verill.

  "I only suggested it," Marianne explained, "because it would be one means of my remaining in the neighborhood. I see no other opportunities here – unless I attend the next Mop Fair, displaying the proper uniform for the trade in which I seek employment. If cooks wear colored aprons and nursery maids white linen, what is the symbol for a companion, I wonder? A genteel but worn morning dress of gray cambric, adorned only by a neat white collar and cuffs? I might borrow Lady Verill's lap dog."

  Mrs. Jay let her ramble on in this vein while she marshaled her arguments. She had no intention of explaining her real reasons for wishing Marianne out of the area. Luckily there were others.

  "There are no opportunities in this backward country region. And it would be too humiliating for your neighbors to see you reduced to such a position. I have given the matter much thought, I assure you, and I see no help for it. Your only chance of finding a suitable situation is in a large city."

  Marianne dropped her sewing and clasped her hands.

  "London?"

  "You needn't look so pleased," Mrs. Jay said, with some asperity. "I suppose that like all girls you think of London as gay and exciting. It is a great filthy hive, riddled with sin and vice and crime. However, it happens that I have a friend there who has turned her home into a boarding house for young ladies in your position – those of respectable family, but reduced circumstances. The need for such establishments is so great, and the supply is so limited, that her rooms are in constant demand, but I feel sure that if I ask she will find a place for you."

  "Oh," Marianne said.

  Mrs. Jay did not notice the flat tone. She was sincerely pleased with her plan; indeed, the recollection of her old friend, so conveniently situated to do Marianne good, was the only bright spot in an otherwise dreadful state of affairs, and it never occurred to her that her description, with its reiteration of "respectable," might not thrill her auditor.