Chapter Twenty-Three
Do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?
“Mice?” squeaked Maria, sounding not unlike one and lifting the hem of her skirts in alarm.
Quick strides followed, and the door opened wider. “Maria?” exclaimed Austin Ellsworth in astonishment. “That is—Mrs. Ben, whatever are you doing here?”
“I hoped to speak with Benjamin.”
“Ah.”
He stood aside to permit her entrance, and she looked about curiously.
The apartment consisted of two rooms. In this one stood an oval table, broken leg buttressed with books; a scattering of chairs; one capacious armchair with sagging seat and threadbare upholstery; and a press cupboard bursting with more books, papers, and crockery.
Through the connecting door she glimpsed a bed and bolster, but in neither room did she see her husband.
“Is he not here?”
Austin hesitated. “Er—no.” Clearing still more books off the armchair, he gestured for her to sit.
Despite the sagging cushion, the armchair proved comfortable, and she wondered how many hours her husband had spent in it. “Do you occupy these chambers now?” she asked.
“No. I’m along the adjoining staircase. But I’ll take these ones when Ben is done. Quieter and less drafty. That’s why—er—I can often be found here.”
“Lovely,” said Maria, her mind returning to her concern. “Austin, do you know if he will return soon? I expect something unlooked-for called him away, or you would not have needed to take his place.”
“Take his place?”
“Didn’t you call that boy Stubbs? I assumed that was Master Nicholas Stubbs of Nixon’s just now, wasn’t it?”
Austin coughed. “Oh ho. So it was, the very same. What a good memory you have. As it happens, Ben did get called away on some task or other and deputized me to instruct his thick-headed charges. To which end, I will shortly have to expel you when Binns arrives. The second one, you know.”
“I see,” said Maria, not seeing at all. Nor did she stir from her seat as she frowned meditatively at the fire.
She couldn’t help thinking that Benjamin would have to give that day’s wages to his brother.
Not that she begrudged Austin the money—it was only that she had hurried over from the Cheneys’, her confession burning in her breast, and pictured making her amends by giving up her position.
But now, if I tell him I intend to quit my post, even if I did so to prevent people like that wretched Mr. Cheney saying bad things about him, wouldn’t Benjamin’s feelings be conflicted?
Wouldn’t he feel obligated to say, yes, I had better leave them?
But when I show him what I’ve earned already, it would haunt him later.
Once he knows about the additional money, he can never not know.
“So—forgive me—do you have any idea when he will return?” she asked.
“I do not, as a matter of fact,” replied Austin uneasily. “And I’m afraid I’ll be off myself, once I deal with Binns.”
“I’ll write a quick note, then,” she announced, rising and looking around for a piece of paper. When she took one up from atop a stack of books, Austin fairly hurtled across the room to pluck it from her fingertips.
“Let me find you one,” he said, just managing not to thrust the paper behind his back. “A blank one.”
“What on earth?” she laughed, more in surprise than amusement, but then a dart of curiosity pierced her, and she wondered very much what the paper had written upon it.
Well, she could hardly demand to see it, nor knock him down and snatch it from him.
When he turned away (with exaggerated nonchalance, Maria thought) to rummage in the press for a clean sheet, she inched forward and glanced about without moving her head for possible clues.
In vain. No other writing lay about. Disappointed, she took the top volume from the stack of books and inspected it.
“Young’s Farmer’s Calendar!” Maria read in amazement. She reached for the next. “Horse-hoeing husbandry!” And the next: “The Practical Farmer?”
This time, when Austin Ellsworth launched himself across the room, his foot caught a chair leg, and he nearly ended in the fire.
At least it made Maria drop the books in her alarm, but when he staggered up, brushing the dust from himself, he was as red as a reddish-haired person could be, and she blurted, “Upon my word, Austin, you look as if your whole head has caught fire. Why do you keep rushing about so? Is there something you are afraid I will discover?”
“Yes,” he answered curtly. “Clearly. And I’m being an ass about it. It’s only that—that I—I’ve been thinking of training as a land steward.”
“What?”
“A land steward. One who—er—stewards land.”
Her shoulders rose in perplexity. “All right, then. Please yourself! There’s no need to whip things out of my hands or to hurl yourself into the fire about it.”
“Yes, well, it’s an odd choice of occupation for an Oxford don, you know. We’re supposed to be clergymen and schoolmasters. What do we know about sheep and pigs and tillage?”
“You can learn,” she reassured him. “But what does Benjamin think of your ambition?”
“Ben?” Austin raked fingers through his hair. “Ben thinks ‘extremis malis extrema remedia.’ Extreme remedies for extreme evils, that is. We aren’t rich, as you know, and—young men must live on something.”
“That’s what the fellowship was for, I thought.”
Now he kicked the armchair absently with the toe of his boot. “Mm. As you and Ben know, there’s no marrying on a fellowship, and I’ll be confounded if I want to spend the rest of my life desiccating in the SCR and hall.”
“Oh, Austin.” Maria touched his sleeve. “Is there someone you would like to marry?”
“Now don’t you start, Mrs. Ben,” he warned her, but his eye held a teasing gleam.
“There’s no one yet, but it doesn’t hurt to make plans.
So…you wouldn’t mind having a brother in such a profession?
Our cousin Tyrone Ellsworth does much the same thing for his stepmother’s estate, and he has the same education we do. ”
“Of course I wouldn’t mind, if it’s what you would like. It’s good, honest work. I should like to meet this Tyrone Ellsworth. Isn’t he the one who wrote the book you and Benjamin published?”
“The same.” Austin grinned at her now. “Well, then. That’s splendid. You’re a peach, Mrs. Ben, and I’ll tell my brother so.”
Footsteps in the passage heralded the arrival of little Binns from Nixon’s, but Austin promised Maria he would write the note himself, if he didn’t see Benjamin first, and he all but pushed her out of the apartment.
The last thing she heard before the door shut behind her was Binns piping, “But is Mr. Benjamin Ellsworth ever going to do my lesson again?”
Binns’ question niggled at her as she walked home.
Indeed, what was Benjamin doing, that he made Austin take his lessons, and more than once?
She suspected nothing worse than him abandoning one paying task in favor of another which paid better, but why had he not mentioned it to her?
Were they not one flesh now, with all joys and sorrows, cares and interests to be shared?
No sooner did righteous indignation fill her, however, than she remembered her own secret-keeping. And hers truly was secret-keeping, where Benjamin’s might only be absence of mind.
Still, that made two thorny subjects to be handled with care.
Firstly she must ferret out the truth of his activities, and then she must tell him of Mr. Cheney’s unpleasantness.
Or perhaps the order should be reversed.
Should it? She didn’t know! But no matter—the trick would be making such talk light, casual.
Just an evening’s conversation before the fire.
She did dawdle a few minutes on the way home because it occurred to her that Benjamin might already be there, and the conversation upon her.
But he was not. There was only a note from Miss Hancock, who had been sorry to miss her but who would call again in the next few days because “Verity has taken up riding lessons, of all things!”
He arrived just as Maria was finishing dinner, and her first feeling was relief, for when Rundell laid the table and found only Maria there to eat, she gave an eloquent sniff, one which clearly expressed, “Just so. Mrs. Charles Ellsworth may have believed your happy-marriage pretense, but not I.”
This relief—that, see, he could still be said to be joining her for dinner!—mixed with nervousness by the time he thrust his head into the dining room. “Good evening. I’ll join you shortly, after a quick wash.”
Before she could respond, he disappeared again to thunder up the stairs, and her nose wrinkled when a familiar scent wafted in. Only, it could not be what she thought it was, for why, in heaven’s name, should Benjamin smell of horse?
“Wheels within wheels,” she murmured to herself.
He returned within minutes, face and hands washed, hair brushed, and sporting a clean shirt and waistcoat.
Maria’s eyes narrowed. Where had he been, and what had he been doing?
But first things first.
She took another serving of the cauliflower ragout to keep him company. Then, when he filled his own plate: “Did you see Austin’s note?”
The pause of his fork en route to his mouth was infinitesimal.
“I did not,” he answered carefully, after having chewed and swallowed. “Did he send one? I will read it now.”
“It isn’t here. It’s at your chambers in New College. He told me he would leave one for you.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Are you saying Austin came here to tell you he would leave a note for me at the college?”
“No. I’m saying I went to the college in search of you but found Austin, who said he would leave you a note.”
“You came to—? Ah. Well—I didn’t stop at my chambers this afternoon, so why don’t we never mind the note and Austin and all other middle men, and you simply tell me your news?”
Setting down her fork, Maria steeled herself for Task #1.