Chapter Thirteen
Though this was all a Fiction of his own, yet it had its desired Effect.
Maria had just measured her length on the sofa she and Benjamin carried upstairs after breakfast when she heard Rundell below, flinging open the door and bawling, “Callers for you, Mrs. Ellsworth!”
Callers? In the plural? When her mother-in-law might arrive at any moment? Springing up, Maria straightened her cap before hurrying down.
“Should I say you are at home, Mrs. Ellsworth?” asked Rundell when she appeared.
The maid could hardly claim otherwise, she had yelled so loudly, but Maria said with dignity, “Did you ask their names?”
“I did. It’s a Miss Allen and Miss Hancock.”
“I will receive them in the parlor,” she answered, spinning on her heel before Rundell could see her dismay.
But the maid inexplicably followed her, only to stop short and point to the bare expanse of carpet. “Where is the sofa?” she gasped. “Where will your guests sit?”
Had she been five years younger, Maria might have snapped, “Mind your own business!” but now she only said curtly, “Mr. Ellsworth and I took it upstairs. My chamber—our chamber, that is, needed—additional places to sit. Now go along and call them, please.”
Servants knew everything, of course. Doubtless Rundell, in making two separate beds every morning, had told everyone under the sun that the Ellsworths slept apart.
Perhaps she even declared it to be the cause of their noisy quarrels; never mind that many couples of greater means occupied separate chambers.
But there was no more time to consider this, for soon enough she heard the trooping of her visitors on the stairs, and soon enough Rundell preceded them into the parlor, bellowing their names.
Maria’s Distraction of the Moved Sofa was forgotten at once, supplanted by the Distraction of the Unwanted Acquaintances. Not Miss Hancock, of course, who smiled at her with timid liking when she straightened from her curtsey, but rather the less welcome Miss Allen.
That young lady ran her cool gaze over her surroundings, and Maria blessed Lord Dere inwardly for his gifts.
While Benjamin might view them as acts of outrageous generosity, Maria suspected Miss Allen found the furniture and decorations modest to the point of bare respectability.
Only imagine what she would have thought of Mrs. Chop’s original rickety chairs and deal table!
I suppose if Benjamin had married Miss Allen, her portion would have supplied any lack and put Lord Dere’s fitting-up to shame.
“Won’t you sit down?” asked Maria.
With the sofa gone, there remained the window seat, the two chairs before the fire, and the desk chair across the room, which Maria fetched, so they would not have to turn away from the fireplace to converse.
But when they were all seated, it became no easier.
Miss Allen seemed disposed to sit in silence, but Miss Hancock smiled again at her, and Maria desperately plunged into her hostess duties. “What a cold morning!” she remarked. “How was your walk?”
Small talk consumed two minutes. Then another silence fell. Below, they could hear muffled voices, probably Rundell telling her employers about the sofa removal.
Confound it all, Maria thought. Never mind courtesy. I’m just going to talk to Miss Hancock, and if Miss Allen dislikes it, she can join in.
“Miss Hancock, do tell me how you and George Denver met,” she urged abruptly.
“Mrs. Terry said you were visiting your grandmother in Headington. Did he pay a clerical call, and you both were…coup de foudre, or did the sunlight hit him just so as he stood in the pulpit, and your heart was no longer your own?”
Miss Hancock’s blushes matched Maria’s because Maria had colored at her own use of “coup de foudre.”
“Mrs. Ellsworth, you will never believe this, but we met the very first Sunday in church after I arrived at my grandmother's. He was processing up the aisle and caught the tip of his foot on someone’s cane, and very wrong of them it was to let it stick out past the end of the pew! Poor George’s—limbs—tangled up, and the next thing I knew, he careered across the aisle to tumble into the pew where I was sitting! ”
Maria laughed outright, all too able to picture the scene after long years of knowing the young man. “I believe it with no difficulty at all, Miss Hancock. How perfectly George! You take your life in your hands by engaging yourself to him, I daresay. Did he ever tell you about the time that he…”
Merrily the two young ladies exchanged a host of George-Denver stories until they were breathless with amusement, both smiling and glancing at Miss Allen to include her, but she (perhaps understandably) appeared increasingly impatient, her own smiles perfunctory.
When a natural pause fell again, Miss Allen made her first contribution. “Speaking of courtships, Mrs. Ellsworth, do tell us how you and Mr. Ellsworth came to be fond of each other. It must have been sudden indeed, for the times I danced and spoke with Mr. Ellsworth, he never mentioned you to me.”
Maria’s eyes brightened, despite Miss Allen’s skepticism, for here was a stroke of luck! She and Benjamin had prepared a fitting story against his mother’s arrival, and now she could measure its credibility.
“Simplicity is key,” Benjamin advised. “I said we fell in love when we woke up together, but that need not have been our first encounter. We must stick to the truth where possible, however, and make our story fit the immovable events.”
“Which immovable events?”
“Namely, our first meeting must take place after I last saw my mother, when Austin was elected to his fellowship, because she will know I was—er—not yet in love with you or even acquainted with you at that time.”
Had he almost said, “She will know I was in love with Miss Allen at that time”? Did his mother in fact know? Maria had not asked, and now she could only hope that the last time he saw his parents coincided (or nearly coincided) with when he last saw Miss Allen.
Straightening in her chair, Maria folded her hands in her lap.
“If Benjamin did not mention me to you on previous occasions, it was because the interval between meeting and marriage was shockingly brief,” she recited.
“It happened on the very first day I arrived in London with my family. Our trip was a Christmas present from my mother’s cousin Lord Dere.
He invited us all to see the sights and window-gaze, and he even bought tickets for Love in a Village at the Lyceum.
It happened that, as you know, Mr. Ells—Benjamin, rather—was staying at the same inn.
But I saw him for the first time when walking in Westminster.
He was intending to call upon the publisher of his cousin’s book, but when he saw us go into the Abbey, he went in as well because he—liked my looks—and I his.
” She ducked her head modestly, but the blush came without effort.
“Well. I was standing with my brother in Poets Corner, and we were pointing out the monuments to each other. Gordy and I were wondering why the sculptor of Handel’s tomb made him with his left hand so oddly posed—you know, his fingers bent and thumb sticking up—and a voice over our shoulder said, ‘I believe the forefinger has broken off.’ And that was Benjamin, of course.
We fell to talking a little, and he wandered the Abbey with us until it was time for his appointment.
I didn’t learn his name then, but I—thought of him afterward—and he tells me he was—er—similarly disposed.
So that, when he fell ill and—turned up in my room at the inn—thinking it was his own in his fever, one might almost view it as Providence.
Benjamin tells me that, even at the Abbey, once he learned I lived near Oxford, he determined he would find me again in any event. ”
Miss Hancock clapped her hands, and Maria was surprised and gratified to see tears in her eyes.
“Oh, it was indeed Providence, Mrs. Ellsworth, which brought you together! Perhaps a little sooner than you expected, but it is like the hymn, isn’t it?
‘God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.’”
“Stuff,” scoffed Miss Allen, smiling a little to take the sting from her words.
“It sounds to me like Mr. Ellsworth made up his mind and proceeded to do something about it. I don’t fault him, Mrs. Ellsworth.
Indeed, I rather admire his boldness. I suppose—” she broke off and cleared her throat.
“Pardon me. I mean to say, I suppose when he found what he was looking for, passion, so to speak, overpowered prudence.”
The door banged open at the end of the passage, causing all three young ladies to jump.
“They’re coming, Mrs. Ellsworth!” roared Rundell. “Up the street! Nearly at the door!”
The maid was gone again before anyone could respond, but panic flooded Maria. Coming? So soon? And with Miss Allen here?
Leaping up, she scurried to the edge of the window to peek out. If she could have hidden behind the curtains she would have, but they were the ornamental sort festooned up by cords which couldn’t be closed without ripping them from the walls.
Her childish response proved infectious, for Misses Hancock and Allen yelped in fear, flying to join her, clutching her arm and peeping over her shoulder.
“What is the matter? Who is it? Who is coming?” they cried in whispers, as if Maria might be expecting hobgoblins.
Miss Allen’s death grip on her upper arm at least recalled Maria to her senses, however, and she twisted to look at them. “What are you doing? No! Sit down again. Please. I lost my head.”
“But who is it?” insisted Miss Allen, not stirring an inch. Even Miss Hancock’s hold tightened.
Hearts hammering, the threesome listened to the door opening below and the rumble and buzz of greetings. Then footsteps and voices, more distinctly.
“It’s only my husband and his mother,” Maria whispered, vexed at her own conduct. “Let us return to our seats.”