Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Do you like that, Mama?” asked Miss Cheney, now smiling to see her mother smile. When Miss Cheney smiled, Maria observed that she did not look at all like a bedpost.
The rest was soon settled. Maria would begin the very next day at ten and stay until one o’clock.
Miss Cheney did not even mention testimonials again, and Maria floated back to Pembroke Street, bestowing smiles on even Mrs. Chop and Miss Pork and Rundell before dashing up the stairs to find her mother-in-law.
“I got the post!” she whisper-yelled, taking Mrs. Ellsworth’s hands and dancing her about the room. “Come upstairs, where I may tell you every splendid detail, without us being overheard. Especially since I cannot share the news with Benjamin, nor crow about it to Miss Hancock.”
Mrs. Ellsworth shared her enthusiasm, asking question after question, and it was only much later that Maria had leisure to remember her unexpected sighting of Miss Allen.
“It cannot have been anything sinister,” Mrs. Ellsworth mused when the tale was told.
“Especially if Miss Hancock believes her cousin wishes her gone. Miss Allen would have no reason to intercept her letters. No, chérie, it was simply a coincidence. And what do you care, if you see Miss Allen behind every tree and under every rock? She is nothing now. Less than nothing.”
Maria wanted very much to agree, but Benjamin’s touchiness about Miss Allen made her uneasy.
And even supposing his original beau ideal was nothing to him now, it did not appear that she, Maria, had yet supplanted her.
If she had, would he have stared at her hand on his knee as if it were a poisonous toad?
Give it more time, she reminded herself. And do not force yourself on him. Be patient and let him make up his own mind. Think, moreover, how he will look at you when he comes home one evening to find you sitting upon a new sofa!
But her mood was dampened. More likely, if Benjamin found her sitting upon a new sofa, he would accuse her of accepting another unwanted gift from the baron. She would be hurt; a row would ensue; Mrs. Chop would bang on her ceiling with a broomstick.
Maria returned from her reverie to find her mother-in-law frowning at her.
“What is it, Maman?”
“If you fret so much about that Allen person, it is because my Benjamin does not tell you often enough how he loves you.” Seeing Maria’s lips part, she pressed harder, demanding, “Is it not so?”
“He—he shows his affection for me,” floundered Maria. “You have seen it.”
“Bah! Do you mean to say he never tells you in words?”
“Of—course he does,” she lied. “Not when others are around, naturally.”
“Then I should return to Winchester tomorrow, Maria, that he might speak more often and more freely! Come. You are not shy. When you say, ‘Benjamin, what are your feelings toward this Miss Allen?’ how does he answer?”
“He—he says—” But no quick story came to mind, and she was forced to tell the truth. “I haven’t asked him, Maman. And you must not say anything to him. Promise me! Let him tell me himself, or he will think I was complaining to you. Promise me, Maman!”
Her mother-in-law scowled. “But you are unhappy with him.”
“I’m not! I adore him. Which is why I don’t want you to force him to say things just to say them. It will not reassure me at all. Do you promise?”
Mrs. Ellsworth grumbled, but when Benjamin came home that evening, accompanied again by his brother, she held her tongue, merely grimacing when Benjamin gave Maria his perfunctory kiss and muttering under her breath when he made courteous conversation about her day and his.
But awkward as her mother-in-law’s private opinions on her marriage might be, Maria was still grateful for her company, not only because perfunctory kisses from Benjamin were better than none, but also because Jeanne Ellsworth was as interested in Maria’s new adventures at the Cheneys’ as Maria herself.
And they were adventures for Maria, however dull they might strike more experienced people! The first day Miss Cheney admitted her before rushing away to give lessons, and Maria played country dance after country dance until Mrs. Cheney fell asleep.
The second day the maid Molly admitted her, and Maria sewed and chattered during Mrs. Cheney’s wakeful period.
The third day the sun emerged, and Maria wondered if she might propose pushing the old woman’s chair in the street, but before she could make her bellowed question understood, Molly opened the door and announced, “Mrs. Skeet!”
Mrs. Skeet proved to be Mrs. Cheney’s younger daughter, and she and Maria held a stilted conversation for a quarter hour before Mrs. Skeet kissed the top of her mother’s cap and ran away again.
When informed of her sister’s visit, Miss Cheney nodded, saying nothing, but before she dismissed Maria she counted out six shillings.
Six shillings! No miser ever admired his hoard more than Maria did her first earnings, and Mrs. Ellsworth shared her delight, helping her to find a hiding place for the coins.
The following week, before going to the Cheneys’, Maria put in two more of Miss Hancock’s applications at the Angel Inn, one for a schoolteacher position in Holywell Street and another for a governess post in Wheatley.
“My hopes are not high for either,” Miss Hancock admitted, having called at Pembroke Street one afternoon when her cousin had again stolen out.
“Because they ask for experience, but since they both provide bed and board, I thought I would try.”
“Perhaps they will not receive many responses,” Maria suggested, “and they will like you when they speak with you. Surely they will.”
“Miss Cheney and her mother liked Maria,” put in Mrs. Ellsworth, “and she came with nothing but herself to recommend her!”
“Yes, well, Mrs. Benjamin is very charming,” agreed Miss Hancock matter-of-factly, which led Mrs. Ellsworth into further praises of her, and Maria had to hush them out of politeness, though she hugged their kindness to herself. If only her husband said such things!
Maria’s second week at the Cheneys passed in the same fashion as the first, this time with Miss Cheney’s older brother and his wife paying the duty visit and Maria succeeding in pushing Mrs. Cheney’s chair in a circle out to the High Street and back.
When she had played her entire repertoire of country dances, she leafed through Miss Cheney’s sheet music and began to practice new pieces.
And again Miss Cheney counted out six glorious shillings.
“Won’t you please, please ask Mr. Ellsworth if you might stay another week or two, Maman?” Maria begged. “I know he wanted you back by Candlemas, but that’s far too soon.”
“Have you no pity for my poor, suffering Charles?” laughed Mrs. Ellsworth.
“What is one poor husband, to two sons and a daughter?” Maria returned. “Or why not have Mr. Ellsworth join us in Oxford?”
“But what of my husband’s post at Winchester College? Soon we will all be responding to advertisements in the Journal.”
“It’s just that I hate for you to go,” sighed Maria. “Not only because you are already ‘Maman’ and my friend, but because you bring us good luck.”
Later she would think those were truer words than she realized, for it was after dear Mrs. Ellsworth climbed into the return coach, waving and blowing kisses, that Maria’s luck took some unfortunate turns indeed.