Chapter Seventeen
Habit is Motion made more easie and ready by Custome.
The week passed in an eyeblink, Maria felt, and she enjoyed it more than she could have hoped.
Every evening she went to sleep upon the sofa, and every morning she awoke in the bed.
Once she was even lucky enough to be half conscious for the transfer, though it took every ounce of her acting ability to let herself hang limply, wishing Benjamin had to carry her down a mile-long passage, rather than just five feet across the room.
Still, he didn’t seem to hurry at all over his task (please let it not be because her length or weight made hurrying impossible!), and it lasted quite long enough for her blood to thrill at his nearness and the firmness of his hold.
She even managed once to tangle her fingers in the fold of his shirt cuff so that he required an extra moment to detach them.
He didn’t speak again that morning, but maybe he had not the first time either, and it had only been her dream… ?
And even better than waking up, knowing she had been in her husband’s arms for however brief a time, was saying goodbye to him after breakfast and then greeting him again when he returned.
For somehow, these expected gestures, which should have grown more humdrum with each repetition, proved the precise opposite.
Somehow, Benjamin had only to rise from the breakfast table for Maria’s heart to begin drumming a quickstep.
He no longer needed to whisper warnings in her ear, but he still chose that vicinity for his salutes: the top of her ear one day, the lobe the next.
The day after, the clatter of a fork falling from the sideboard surprised her into turning her head at the key moment, and his kiss landed just under her jaw at the tender spot where her pulse beat.
When he returned home, Maria’s anticipation mounted as she heard him climb the stairs, and whatever happened to be in her hands or mind at the time suffered.
Books were dropped; stitches were dropped; trains of thought were dropped.
He would appear in the doorway of the parlor, smiling and throwing a word to his mother, and then he would stride across the parlor to Maria, laying a hand on her shoulder and brushing the top of her head with his lips.
By the third day her own hand stole up to cover his fleetingly, and by the fourth she tilted her head so that her temple received his kiss.
“How many ribbon rosettes have you made today, my beloveds?” he would ask.
Maria had watched him very intently when they mentioned that Friday’s assembly and how they met Miss Allen and Miss Hancock again, and though she thought he paled, he met the challenge with manly courage, saying merely, “Certainly we will go, if it pleases you. And we’ll get that lazy brother of mine to come along. ”
The lazy brother agreed to it, having joined them on another occasion for dinner and backgammon and once after dinner for reading.
During the days when the ladies were left to their own devices, Maria received her first family calls, one from Adela and her little boys, and the second from her mother and sister-in-law.
She had, of course, taken the precaution of writing to her mother of the happily-married ruse she and Benjamin adopted, not that she thought it likely Mrs. Barstow or Sarah would say anything to the contrary.
Nevertheless, an ounce of prevention was certainly worth a pound of cure.
“How did you and Sarah come today, Mama?” Maria asked, when the courtesies had been satisfied and they were seated (the chairs having been rearranged to face the window bench in the everlasting absence of the sofa). “It is very cold for a walk.”
“So it is, but Lord Dere kindly sent his coach,” her mother replied, “and he speaks of getting a donkey and donkey cart when the weather warms.”
“I knew it!” crowed Maria. “I knew he would think of it. The baron is my mother’s cousin and a good, good, generous man,” she added to Mrs. Ellsworth. “He always thinks of the little things which would make others’ lives more comfortable.”
“And the not-so-little things, I imagine,” purred her mother-in-law. “Benjamin says he is like the fairy godmother in ‘Cendrillon,’ only he is flesh and blood and a godfather.”
“How is Lord Dere? I hope he is in good health. I haven’t dared to write to him, I’m afraid, because I know Mrs. Dere would see it and possibly object.”
“He has made us promise to tell him everything when we return,” Sarah said, “but I think he will call at Iffley Cottage to hear it.”
“I know she was very upset by the circumstances of my marriage, but has Mrs. Dere…moved on to other concerns yet?”
Mrs. Barstow and Sarah exchanged a glance, and then Mrs. Barstow began gently, “It isn’t that she ever mentions it, sweeting—”
“It’s that she doesn’t mention it at all,” Sarah finished. “If anyone asks after you in company, as Mrs. Terry did after church on Sunday, Mrs. Dere affects deafness. And you know how she has her little band of followers—the Chaunceys, the Lanes, Mrs. Bellew—they follow her lead, naturally.”
“It reminds me of when everyone discovered Frances’ husband Mr. Hearne was not as he first presented himself,” Mrs. Barstow said, shaking her head.
“What a fuss there was then, with everyone in Iffley taking sides, and this is just like it. The only one who derived any enjoyment from that situation was Mrs. Lamb the postmistress, and she is enjoying this one just as much, I suspect.”
“She is indeed,” Sarah agreed, with a chuckle. “Mrs. Lamb can be depended upon to ask after you, and I think she’s half tempted to walk into Oxford herself because how otherwise will she ever lay eyes on Mr. Benjamin Ellsworth?”
“I do not blame her,” spoke up Benjamin’s mother cheerfully. “He is worth seeing, and I myself could not wait to ‘lay eyes on’ Maria.”
“Ah,” Maria sighed. “How I miss Iffley! I like Oxford very well, but I think I would gladly brave Mrs. Dere’s disapproval and Mrs. Lamb’s inquisitiveness just to see Iffley Cottage and the meadows again!”
“And so you will, my love,” Mrs. Barstow promised. “It’s only been a fortnight or so.”
“It’s been longer than that since I was in Iffley,” Maria pointed out. “Not only was there the time in London, but then I was exiled before the wedding to St. Lawrence with Jane and Philip.”
“Mm. True. Have patience. Perhaps come spring…”
Mrs. Ellsworth leaned to pat her daughter-in-law’s knee. “Yes. Patience. It is not all bad.” With a wink she added, “You still have my son, who adores you. Shall we show them our progress on your dress?”
The rosettes were admired, less consequential news shared, and the acquaintance with Mrs. Ellsworth duly furthered before Maria’s family members rose to go.
“I will walk you down,” Maria announced. “Is the coach at the stables on Blue Boar Street?”
When they were out of doors and out of hearing her mother asked. “How are you really? Is he kind to you?”
“Yes, yes, he is lovely,” Maria replied, her sincerity plain. “I like him very well. I daresay I would have chosen him for himself, had I had the chance.”
“You get on well, then?” Mrs. Barstow pressed.
“Very well,” declared Maria. “The only thing we have disagreed about to this point is that, though he hasn’t any money, he is very proud.
And so he didn’t like the baron giving us so many wedding gifts.
The furniture, you understand. He considered it charity.
Therefore it would probably be best if a way were found to hint, Mama, without hurting his feelings or making me sound ungrateful, that Lord Dere should please refrain in future. ”
Biting her lip, her mother nodded. “I will think of something to say. No other disagreements? I am glad it is no worse.”
“But what about—that other person?” whispered Sarah.
Though Maria couldn’t help frowning at her sister-in-law—what would this do but cause her mother worry?—there was no time to pretend incomprehension. She told them briefly about meeting Miss Allen, drawing gasps of dismay and sympathy.
“So we did, in fact, have another little disagreement about her,” Maria admitted, “though I named no names. Mrs. Ellsworth knows who it is.” Her brows drew together.
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t let it! Because I am determined he will never regret the loss of her.
It is one reason I want to go to this assembly.
I want to see them together and reassure myself that he renounced her. ”
“But—to help him renounce her—wouldn’t it be better to avoid her altogether?” Mrs. Barstow suggested. “Just for a time? You may go to an assembly next month, say.”
Maria winced, shaking her head. “It’s too late to change my mind. And I had rather know what confronts me than guess at it.”
Mrs. Barstow and Mrs. Langworthy knew well that she would do things her own way, so they pressed no further and parted from her with resigned embraces.
“I like your family very well,” Mrs. Ellsworth declared when Maria returned. “If the rest of them bear any resemblance to the ones I have met, I will think my son could not have chosen better.”
With doubts about Miss Allen swirling in her head, Maria could have embraced her for such words.
“Oh, Mrs. Ellsworth, the rest of them are very like what you have seen. Perhaps the next time you come you will meet them, and if I am allowed to return to Iffley, there will be other delights to share.”
“I look forward to it. Now come, let us make more rosettes.”
By week’s end, Maria did not want to make another ribbon rosette if she lived to be one hundred.
Her mother-in-law had told the truth, however, in having an eye for style and dress, and though she could only see a portion of herself at any one time in the dressing-table mirror, Maria could not but be pleased with the results.