Chapter Fourteen
I hear something very much amiss of this man.
As if afraid of letting silence fall, the moment the visitors were gone, all three spoke at once.
“Did you have a pleasant journey?”
“What pleasant friends, chérie.”
“Isn’t this pleasant?”
Their unanimous choice of the same colorless word stymied them at once, though if they had not each been fretting about Miss Allen and what the others thought of her, or what the others thought they thought of her, they might have got over the difficulty more easily.
As it was, Maria and Mrs. Ellsworth feared Benjamin suffered to have seen his love again, his forsworn love.
Benjamin and his mother feared what Miss Allen might have said to Maria before they came, and if Maria were going to see a great deal of her new acquaintance.
And finally, Maria and Benjamin feared Mrs. Ellsworth would see through their pretense of affection before it had been well and truly undertaken.
“Come,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, leading Maria to a chair. “Let us simply say my journey was a journey, and now I am here and anxious to know you better. Benjamin, why do you stand so far away? Come sit with us. It is too bad there is no sofa, so you two might sit together.”
Of course they twitched at this reference.
That confounded sofa! Maria thought. Was everyone going to remark on its absence? But if she and Benjamin must share a bedroom, whoever did not occupy the bed needed something softer than the floor to sleep upon.
“I should carry up your trunk, Maman,” said Benjamin. “Rundell—the maid—will never be able to manage it.”
“Bah. Wait until Austin comes, and you may carry it up together.” His mother beckoned him again to take the empty chair, pushing it nearer Maria’s.
“It is kind of you to let me come, so soon after your marriage,” she told her daughter-in-law.
“I was overjoyed to hear that Benjamin loved you. I could not wait to see you and love you for myself. My husband Charles says I must be his eyes and ears as well, and he is very sorry he could not accompany me. His teaching duties, you know.”
Maria lowered her eyes before Mrs. Ellsworth’s keen ones, afraid she could not look sufficiently enamored and hoping it would be interpreted as modesty.
“Oh, madam, you are very welcome here,” she murmured.
As her husband took his seat, his legs entered her field of view, the material of his trousers strained in fascinating ways by the muscles beneath.
“My Maria is a warm-hearted creature and very close to her own family,” he declared, extending a hand as if he might pat her knee but veering away at the last moment to brush a nonexistent something off her chair’s upholstery.
“Non. Do not mind me, or I will go straight back to Winchester on the next coach. You must be yourselves,” urged his mother, snatching up his hand and depositing it firmly in Maria’s lap.
“Dear girl, my son was raised in a family where great affection was shown.
I am French, you know, for better or worse, and he has always been affectionate himself.
Therefore, faites comme si je n'étais pas là, you understand? Pretend I am not here.”
But Maria was gawping at the hand now lying in her lap.
Lying there, like a frog on a lily pad. A heavy frog.
On an unstable lily pad. It required Benjamin’s greater presence of mind to save the moment: he seized her hand in his, gripping it eagerly enough to express the attachment his mother expected but adding a jab to Maria’s palm with his thumb, meant to communicate, “Bestir yourself!”
She bestirred herself. She returned his squeeze.
That turned out to be the easy part, for, to her growing alarm, her body began to behave oddly.
Though she pinned an appropriate smile to her face, it threatened to slide right off.
Though she lifted her eyes once more to her mother-in-law, her vision blurred.
The rush of her pulse filled her ears. In her chest, her heart fluttered like a captured bird.
And—most disturbing of all—the warmth of her husband’s clasp spread upward and outward.
Up her arm to her neck and face. Outward to flood every inch of her person.
Warm, warmer, warmest.
She trembled.
“We—should have a dinner,” she cried, breathless, springing up and almost flinging Benjamin’s hand away. “If you can stay, that is, Benjamin. If you don’t have to return to New College. Perhaps your brother might join us. Shall I inform Mrs. Chop?”
He rose—he had to because she had risen—and she might have noticed his own face was flushed if she had been able to notice anything. But she wasn’t. Everything was still drumming and rushing and palpitating.
“I did already propose it to him,” he admitted. “Because he graciously took charge of a few of my students this morning, so I might fetch my mother. Therefore I invited him to join us.”
“Splendid,” trilled Maria. “I’ll just pop downstairs then—Mrs. Chop will want—”
“Already done.”
“Oh.”
“I hope you don’t mind—Maria.”
The sound of her name penetrated her confusion, and she blinked at him. He was studying her intently, trying again to speak to her without words. Remember our plan. Only see how queerly you are behaving.
Oh, heavens, he was right. She was.
She took herself in hand.
“Right,” she said. “You’ve spoken with Mrs. Chop.
Thank you—dear heart.” This last emerged with an effort, which she then tried to mask by reaching up to tap his cheek.
She meant it to be a playful gesture, but somehow her finger lingered—it almost pressed—before sliding downward, tracing his jaw as it dropped.
So much for not behaving oddly!
It is one thing to wish my husband would begin to love me and quite another for me to begin to love him.
Not that she did, did she? Begin to love him?
Wheeling away, she threw herself at her mother-in-law. “Mrs. Ellsworth—will you make a tour of our apartments?”
“I will,” she accepted, rising lightly. “And I would be grateful to wash my face before dinner. No, no,” she added to her son. “You stay here. Let Maria—may I call you Maria, chèrie?—show me.”
Shyly, her heart still galloping, Maria led Mrs. Ellsworth through their apartment. It did not take long: the dining room, the stairs to the third floor, Benjamin’s room now neatly made up as the guest chamber, and the Ellsworths’ bedroom.
On the pretense of taking in the view, Mrs. Ellsworth swept to the front-room window, veering around the newly-placed sofa. “What a lovely piece of furniture,” she observed. “Though, perhaps when you can afford another, a second sofa would be very convenient in the parlor.”
The suggestion was innocent enough, so why did Maria feel Mrs. Ellsworth guessed it had been moved from below?
Perhaps because anyone with eyes might guess.
With the bed already filling half the space, the sofa had been placed athwart, running along the wall under the window, where its back blocked the sill.
“Oh, yes,” agreed Maria airily. “This one is too large for here, but it is so convenient to have a place to lounge in one’s room.”
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Ellsworth agreed with her agreement. “A seat with a view! Come, my dear, join me upon it, and let us get to know each other.”
Maria went, reminding herself to play the role of besotted bride convincingly. And was it such a role? Another shiver ran through her, remembering him holding her hand. Did she not like him better and better as each day passed?
“Tell me about yourself,” her mother-in-law urged. “Tell me about your family and how you grew up. Benjamin wrote to me a little of it, but I want to hear it from your lips.”
As the fourth of five children, and as the fourth daughter before a sole son, Maria could not say she had often in her life been the object of undivided attention.
She had always been loved, of course, and attention had been given when asked for from her mother, but truly—apart from being discovered with a man in her bed and apart from her wedding day, neither of which could be called experiences of unmixed delight—no one had ever focused all rays of attention upon her.
No, that isn’t entirely true, she amended inwardly.
Benjamin has focused his attention on me, but more as a problem to be solved.
There was no denying Mrs. Ellsworth’s interest. She held Maria’s hand; she bent her dark, keen eyes upon her face; she waited eagerly, lips just parted.
It was irresistible. So that, although Maria politely began with only a general outline, Mrs. Ellsworth’s many questions led to her going on at some length.
“Ah, but this is fascinating,” said Mrs. Ellsworth.
“You say Adela was your father’s favorite, and Jane was the most beautiful, and Frances was Mrs. Dere’s favorite, and Gordon is the only boy, but what is Maria?
Besides my Benjamin’s darling, I mean.” She said this last with a press of her daughter-in-law’s hands. “Do not be overmodest, my child.”
At this Maria giggled. “If you ask any of my family, surely none of them would ever accuse me of overmodesty, madam. They would be more likely to say I made the most noise, for fear of being overlooked. They might say I talked the most and complained the most. And consider the way Benjamin and I came to be married—! That wasn’t a bit modest, I’m afraid.
If you ever meet Mrs. Markham Dere, she will be the first to tell you. ”
But Mrs. Ellsworth gave a particularly Gallic shrug, as if she snapped her fingers at Iffley’s chief lady. “Perhaps you are this baron’s favorite. This Lord Dere’s.” Waving her finger, she indicated the furniture. “Benjamin tells me of his many gifts.”
“But they were wedding gifts, and the baron would have done as much for anyone in my family,” Maria said artlessly.
“Anyone who was similarly circumstanced, I mean. It is only that Benjamin and I are the poorest and most disgraced.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she clapped a hand to her lips, but Mrs. Ellsworth laughed, looping an arm through hers.
“Do not fear, Maria. Disgrace is temporary, and my Benjamin is both ambitious and energetic, which means you will not always be the ‘poorest.’ You may never be rich, but he will ensure you lack for nothing.”
To Mrs. Ellsworth’s surprise, instead of appearing comforted, Maria slumped.
“What is it? When I say you will never be rich, your love for him already begins to fade?”
“Oh, no, not a bit of it,” was Maria’s quick reply, though she then winced at this indirect admission of her love.
(But—in for a penny, in for a pound.) “Nothing could diminish that,” she added recklessly.
“It’s that, Mrs. Ellsworth, do you think I might tell you something…
in confidence? Or do you feel obliged to tell your sons everything? ”
“What mother tells her sons everything?” demanded Mrs. Ellsworth. “There is not a one! Of course, I say that because now I die to know what you want to tell me, but it is nevertheless true. I can keep a secret from Benjamin—unless it will harm him not to know.”
“It won’t harm him,” Maria said at once. She leaned nearer. “It’s just that—I know he wanted to marry someone else. Before he met me, I mean. And I know that if he had married—this other person—he would have been neither poor nor disgraced.”
Her mother-in-law stiffened abruptly, drawing a sharp breath. She relaxed again the next instant, but it was an effortful relaxing, followed by too-offhand an offhand chuckle.
“Nonsense,” uttered Mrs. Ellsworth. “Surely Benjamin did not tell you such a-a fable.”
“He did not tell me, madam. But when I told him I had learned of it, he did not deny it.” Briefly, she recounted the story of the ring, leaving out, of course, how it led to her barring him from her bedroom.
“And I have learned, moreover, the identity of the young lady,” Maria concluded, chin lifting.
Mrs. Ellsworth slipped her arm free and sprang up from the sofa, eyes sparking.
“Who told you her name? Was it she herself, then? Wretched creature! Too cold to care, but not willing to see others happy! Je le savais! I knew it!” She stamped an outraged foot, letting fly a torrent of French so rapid and colloquial that Maria caught nothing but the very end: “Quelle coquine, cette fille! Boastful minx!”
“Is everything all right up there?” called Benjamin, his voice concerned. “Maman?”
Without thought, the two women reached to clutch each other, wordlessly enjoining silence.
“T’en fais pas!” called back his mother, at the same time that Maria shouted, “Never mind! We’re perfectly well.”
More quietly to her companion she murmured, “I’m afraid this building transmits sound quite well, madam.”
Nodding, Mrs. Ellsworth put a finger to her lips. “I am too passionate. I will be quieter. But you must listen to me, my Maria. Listen to me and not to that other person.”
“In all fairness, she never said Benjamin loved her,” admitted Maria. “She only said she knew him and had danced with him, and I drew my own conclusions. Because you do refer to Miss Allen, don’t you? Miss Verity Allen, who was just here. On a subject so important, it is best to be clear.”
But Mrs. Ellsworth neither confirmed nor denied this, merely making a chopping motion in the air with her hand.
“Who says the subject is important?” she countered. “In fact, it is now completely hors sujet—beside the point. Because now you are Benjamin’s wife. You are the one he loves. You are the one who left him coup de foudre.”
However reassuring her mother-in-law meant to be, any comfort she provided was considerably undermined by Maria knowing the “coup de foudre” story was fantasy from start to finish. Oh, it was all so confusing!
“Don’t feel badly,” Mrs. Ellsworth urged, misreading Maria’s crestfallen expression. “We all like to think our husbands never loved anyone but us, not before, during, or after! But if my boy loves you and only you now, nothing else matters. Forget about her and be happy.”
Easy for you to say, Maria sighed to herself. But what if your “boy” does not, and has not ever, loved me?
Indeed, Mrs. Ellsworth’s efforts only succeeded in persuading Maria more firmly than ever that Benjamin’s heart still belonged, alone in all the world, to Miss Allen.