Chapter Four #3
“What did you come for, then?” she tossed back at him. “Have you information to share? We already know Lord Dere secured the license from the bishop and that Mr. Egerton proposes to perform the ceremony next Thursday—unless no one told you, and you have been left to wonder.”
“Of course I have been told,” he returned. “I have been in correspondence with Lord Dere throughout, and it was I who told him we might go forward, after I was successful in finding lodgings.”
“Oh!” breathed Maria, her snappishness abandoning her as she remembered her mother’s fears on that head. “And are they—near the workhouse?”
For the first time that morning, he looked directly at her, bemused. “No. Not especially. Do you want them to be?”
“No. In truth I haven’t any notion where the workhouse is.
I don’t know my way around Oxford terribly well,” she admitted.
“Because we live in Iffley. Or—I used to.” Her voice thickened, and she hurried on.
“I only really know Cornmarket and the High Street because of visiting my oldest sister at Keele’s School. ”
“Ah. Well, the lodgings are in Pembroke Street, not a three-minute walk from Keele’s. I—have signed the lease and begun to remove there already.”
He said this last tentatively, as a lion-tamer might offer a portion of flesh to an unfamiliar beast, but Maria gave a sudden glow of pleasure. “We will be so near to Della and Gerard? Oh, Mr. Ellsworth, that was well done. I am very, very glad. Will you…tell me more about them?”
“About…the Weatherills?”
“No,” she laughed. “About the lodgings! What could you possibly tell me about Della and Gerard?”
“I wondered that myself, since I have yet to meet them,” he replied with the beginnings of a grin.
For the first time since he entered, his posture relaxed a little.
“Well then, they—the lodgings—comprise the entire second and third floors of Number 12 Pembroke Street, which means there will be a great number of stairs to climb, but Mrs. Chop and her sister and the maid occupy the lower two floors.”
“And are Mrs. Chop and her sister tenants themselves?”
He shook his head. “Mrs. Chop is the owner. A widow, I believe, unless she has stashed Mr. Chop where he cannot be found. She and her sister Miss Pork—”
“Fiddlestick, ‘Miss Pork’!” interrupted Maria, before she could stop herself. “They cannot be Miss Pork and Mrs. Chop. You are making that up.”
With judge-like solemnity he replied, “On my honor, Miss Barstow.”
“Oh. Very well, then,” she muttered, embarrassed for her outburst. “Go on.”
But his eyes twinkled. “As I was saying, Mrs. Chop is the owner, and I believe Miss Pork cooks and the maid cleans.”
“What is—the maid’s name?” asked Maria, thinking that if he told her it was “Gravy” or “Apple-Sauce” she would leave the room.
“Rundall, I think. Or Tyndall. Something. I get confused because one of the scouts at New College is Bundle. In any event, Miss Barstow, I was going to ask Mr. Egerton to tell you about the rooms. You have not seen them, of course, but—er—Lord Dere has.”
If Maria knew anything about the baron, she suspected he might also have offered to share the cost of them, but she did not know if Mr. Ellsworth would have accepted such an offer. Indeed, she knew only the handful of things from Mrs. Dere about her soon-to-be husband.
Doubt swallowed her again, followed by trepidation. How did Mr. Ellsworth truly feel about what lay ahead? Though he had brought it upon himself, did he nevertheless resent her for separating him from the beloved ring lady?
“Will you want to see them?” he asked, when she said nothing. “Before the wedding, that is?”
Several responses bubbled up which could never be spoken. Among them, “What would be the use, when they are already taken?”; “I never want to see them because I want to go home to Iffley”; and “This is all so frightening! Can it really be happening?”
As it was, she said nothing, only shaking her head.
Rising, he took up his hat again. “I will take my leave, then. Er—Miss Barstow, apologies in this situation are wholly inadequate, I know. It all feels like a nightmare from which we cannot wake. But I am glad I saw you this morning because I wanted to say that—my hope is—we may become friends. Enduring marriages have been built on less. Far less.”
She swallowed, aware that he had planted a dagger in her by his honesty. A “nightmare from which he could not wake? He had said “we,” of course, as if Maria surely shared his feelings, but she did not.
He, with the resignation of a doomed man, valiantly offered her the hope of friendship.
Which she did not doubt was possible—there had been glimpses of its potential even in this brief interview.
But though such a foundation for marriage was indeed possible, Maria could not be satisfied with it.
No—she wanted a marriage like her sisters’!
Like her mother had, when Maria’s father was alive.
Like Sarah had with Maria’s late brother and now, again, with her Horace.
I will not be the only one with a friend for a husband, she promised herself. He will love me, and I will love him, if it can at all be managed.
Taking a deep breath, she fixed a smile on her face and answered, “Thank you, sir. We will do our best.”