Chapter Twenty-Five
I believe, by her flighty airs, she is upon no good errand.
The next day Benjamin was gone.
Maria sat at the Cheneys’ instrument, drumming out for the dozenth time her country-dance repertoire, strangely close to tears but grateful that Mrs. Cheney required no conversation.
Austin’s visit the evening before had been a fortunate interruption, she supposed, since she was clearly willing to let Benjamin do whatever he pleased, when and how he pleased, provided that he paid her attentions. Mortifying.
Had Benjamin married Miss Verity Allen, she would never have permitted him to fob her off with a kiss or two, Maria was certain.
Although, if he had married Miss Allen, his little vision of a furnished lodge would already be a reality because her portion would have supplied any want.
It was Benjamin Ellsworth’s bad luck that mischance saddled him with a penniless wife whom he must learn to love through will and diligent practice.
Love one has to work at is still love, a stubborn part of her pointed out. And better than no love at all.
But did he love her?
He had not said so. He had kissed her of his own free will, yes, but perhaps he too found kissing pleasant and told himself, Here she sits, so why not have at her?
And how much more should he kiss her, when he learned there was something to be gained by it?
Something which had been gained by it. Her permission to do as he pleased, go on as he pleased—even to disappear for “a few days”—with only the offhand assurance that, never fear, all would be made clear by and by.
Yes. It was just as well Austin interrupted them. For who knew what Maria might have done next to abase herself. Declared her love? Fallen on her knees and begged him to declare his own?
“Good evening, lads and lasses,” Austin had greeted them, bounding in.
He made his bow to Maria before snapping up the desk chair and placing it beside his brother’s.
“Again the charms of your hearth lure me from the New College SCR, as I mentioned they would in my note which you surely got, Ben.” This he said with a friendly but very firm grip of Benjamin’s shoulder.
“What say the two of you to a few rubbers of cassino? Otherwise there’s a concert or something at Christ Church we might attend, or a reading of something or other at St. Martin’s. ”
“Tempting,” said Benjamin dryly. “I am especially fond of ‘or somethings’ at Christ Church.”
“As am I!” returned Austin, unruffled. “Therefore I am willing to go and participate in any or all or none.”
“Let Maria choose,” replied his brother. “Only do stop bouncing around. What has overexcited you?”
“Overexcited? What?” He dropped half the deck of cards on his first attempt to shuffle them and had to bend down and scrabble on the carpet to retrieve them. “Nothing at all has excited me, much less overexcited me. Or perhaps—if I seem—er—in high spirits, it is the—the freedom of candor—”
“The what?”
“Freedom of candor,” Austin repeated. “I didn’t have time to mention it in the note I left for you in your chambers which you must have seen before coming home, but surely Maria has told you about—my ambition to become a land steward.”
“I did tell him,” Maria spoke up. “And we both agreed it’s a splendid profession, if that is what you like.”
“Did you?” His face brightened. Rising, he clapped his older brother again by the shoulder, this time giving it a shake. “That’s wonderful news. Did you hear that, Ben? Maria thinks I’ve chosen a splendid profession.”
“Of course I heard it, you blockhead. I’m sitting three feet from you.
And you needn’t go on about that note in my chambers because I never saw it.
She asked me about it too, but I told her I came straight here.
A lucky thing, since Maria was looking for me, and she was able to tell me her news at once. ”
“Oh! Hurrah.” The hurrah hadn’t much brio behind it, but Austin grinned in relief and began to deal out the cards. “There’s everything taken care of, then.”
“She’s taken a position as an elderly lady’s companion,” Benjamin went on, “which I heartily approve, if it suits her, but she went seeking me because she met the lady’s son, who claimed to know me.
Raymond Cheney.” Seeing Austin’s grimace he added, “Precisely. So if he catches you around town, be prepared for a sneer or two. But such is life.”
“Such will be Cheney’s life as well,” rejoined Austin. “For I can sneer with the best of them. Mrs. Ben, you’re an Ellsworth now, and we stick together.”
“Thank you,” Maria said. “And thank you as well for your willingness to help me earlier. I was burning to make a clean breast of it all to Benjamin.”
“What an admirable conscience! So she and I have both enjoyed the delights of candor today and highly recommend it. Haven’t you anything, Ben, of which you’d like to make a clean breast?”
Inspecting his hand, Benjamin proceeded to capture the nine with his three and six. “As it happens, I did tell Maria that I am entertaining a secret plan which I am not yet prepared to discuss. But I have promised to disclose all soon, whether I succeed or fail.”
Austin blew out a breath. “Better than nothing, I suppose, though there is such thing as making mountains of molehills.”
“Then you know something of it, Austin?” Maria wondered, trailing her eight. The brothers exchanged a lightning glance. So that was how the land lay?
“Never mind,” she retreated at once. “That wasn’t fair to ask you.”
And to her disappointment, Austin accepted this opportunity for evasion. “Then thank you, my dear sister. I will gladly hide behind my noble brother’s reticence, while I capture your eight and the two.”
Which is how Maria learned no more that evening and lost, moreover, at cards.
After her twentieth time through Lady Day, Maria pounded out the final bars, looking over at Mrs. Cheney.
Fast asleep. Nor did she awaken when the room fell quiet.
With a sigh, Maria removed to the armchair to read and wait for Miss Cheney’s return.
Not that she was in a hurry to go, with only an empty home to return to. Perhaps she would put this off with a call upon Miss Hancock, which meant she had better go first to the Angel Inn to see if that young lady had received any replies to her recent applications.
The day was cold and dreary, with a sleety wind that funneled down the High Street to whip at her.
“For R. Hancock?” repeated the clerk, his eyebrows lifting with what Maria deemed indecorous interest.
“Yes, please.” She hoped there weren’t too many replies, for she doubted she had more than sixpence in her reticule, and though Miss Hancock would reimburse her, it would be a nuisance in the meantime to run back to Pembroke Street for one of Miss Cheney’s shillings.
“Ink is barely dry on that one, I’d say,” he remarked, placing a letter upon the counter and tapping with an ominous forefinger. “Wrote it in a fearful hurry before she leapt into the post coach with her sweetheart, all a-giggling and cooing.”
Confused, Maria stared at him. “I beg your pardon. You are referring to that letter’s writer?”
“Aye. Pretty thing, though she was ice and marble to everyone but the gent in the coach.”
Had one of Miss Hancock’s prospective employers eloped that morning?
Well, if she had, perhaps she wrote to say the position no longer existed.
That, or the employer had taxed an eloping governess or schoolteacher with putting in a letter as she whistled off.
Neither guess made any sense. Quite odd.
“Are—there any others?” she asked.
“Not a one.”
Retrieving her sixpence, she pushed it across the counter to him, and he fetched her change before giving her the letter. The outside of it bore nothing but Miss Hancock’s name and direction, so there was nothing more to be learned until she delivered it.
The clerk gave her an impudent wink. “Next time you come, miss, you’ll have to tell me what it said,” to which Maria made no reply, apart from pressing her lips together and sweeping haughtily from the inn.
Clearly the man thought anyone with such an immodest correspondent must be immodest herself, and if he knew Maria’s own history he would doubtless congratulate himself for hitting the nail on the head.
At St. John’s College the porter sent her up to the president’s apartments with a muttered, “Regular bee-hive up there, it is,” which made Maria think Miss Allen’s beaux certainly demonstrated perseverance.
But as she climbed the stairs, she met with Mr. Gleek and Mr. Hoppe descending.
They bowed to her, grumbling about Miss Allen not being at home before they continued on their way, and she heard one add before he was out of earshot, “This is the third time. I can take a hint. She must be after bigger game.”
When the maid admitted Maria to the Marlows’ parlor, only Miss Hancock and Mrs. Marlow were found therein, and Maria feared her appearance had interrupted a sensitive conversation, for both ladies were flushed, and whatever words had just been spoken between them still lingered in the air.
“Good morning,” said Maria timidly. “I hope I find you both in good health.”
The expected courtesies followed, with no one paying much attention to what was said. Maria was already wondering how she might give Miss Hancock her letter undetected by Mrs. Marlow when that august lady addressed her abruptly.
“Mrs. Ellsworth, your husband hires his horses from Beechey’s Livery Stables, I believe.”
Maria blinked at her, caught off guard. “Er—is it Beechey’s?” she asked. “He—never said.” (Not even when he came home smelling of them!)
“Verity has seen him there, she told us,” Mrs. Marlow informed her. “She has been taking riding lessons, as Rebecca might have told you.”
“She did…mention them. The lessons.” Uneasiness pricked at Maria. Benjamin and Miss Allen crossed paths at Beechey’s?
“And did—Mr. Ellsworth—also speak of seeing her?” ventured Miss Allen’s aunt, attempting to sound offhand.
“I’m afraid not,” answered Maria. “But then, he rarely talked to me of such things. Riding, I mean.” Rarely, as in never. “Is there…something you would like me to ask him about Beechey’s, madam?”
The grunt Mrs. Marlow gave in answer surprised Maria, and the president’s wife shortly excused herself and stalked from the room.
“Oh, dear,” whispered Maria to Miss Hancock. “I’m afraid I offended her or came at a bad time.”
“It’s nothing to do with you, Mrs. Ellsworth. She and I were having a—thorny—discussion before you came.”
“About Miss Allen?”
“In part. I tried to tell Mrs. Marlow I was seeking a new living situation because Verity did not seem to prefer my company,” Miss Hancock explained with one eye on the door.
“But I thought you weren’t going to say anything until you had a post in hand!”
“I wasn’t, but Mrs. Marlow has been concerned by her niece’s absences, and this morning brought all to a head.
Verity said she was going to her riding lesson, even in this wretched cold, though Mrs. Marlow tried to dissuade her.
Then Mrs. Marlow pounced upon me, asking why I did not accompany Verity on all these outings, as she had imagined I would.
Because heaven knew who Verity might encounter at such places—and what if they followed her into the surrounding country, and so forth. ”
“I see,” breathed Maria thinking of the young men she passed on the stairs—and thinking of Benjamin. “So you had to tell her, of course.”
“Yes. I had to defend myself! I could not have her think I was ungrateful and neglectful of what she expected of me, but I can’t help it that Verity doesn’t love me and doesn’t want my company!
So I told her I would take myself off as soon as I found a respectable post, and she told me I must do no such thing, for how would it reflect on Mr. Marlow?
Everyone at St. John’s would think they cast me out.
Therefore, I must stay, whether Verity wants me here or not. ”
Maria shook her head in sympathy. “And will you?”
“I don’t see how I have a choice,” Miss Hancock sighed, “though I hardly want to remain, if I must pass mornings tête-à-tête with Mrs. Marlow, for it isn’t as if she is wild about me either.”
“Oh, Miss Hancock.” Maria had been—and still was—so wrapped up in her own woes she felt guilty at this reminder that she was not the only young lady facing difficulties.
Producing the letter she had brought, she gave it to her friend.
“Well, even if you cannot accept any post, it is gratifying to see that one of the advertisers replied.”
Miss Hancock frowned at the direction in puzzlement. “But where did you get this?”
“At the Angel Inn, of course. I have just come from there. Why do you look like that?”
“Because it is Verity’s hand.”
Maria’s mouth dropped open to an unladylike width, but Miss Hancock failed to notice because she was unfolding and reading her cousin’s note.
Then two things happened at once: Mrs. Marlow re-entered the parlor, and, with a moan, Miss Hancock collapsed over the arm of her chair.
“Rebecca!” cried Mrs. Marlow. She and Maria reached her at the same time, each taking an arm to lay her upon the sofa. From a drawer in the library case Mrs. Marlow produced a bottle of sal volatile, removed the stopper, and waved it with abandon under Miss Hancock’s nose.
The young lady’s eyelids fluttered, and she lifted fingers to her temples, mumbling. Then she gasped, her eyes flying wide as she struggled to sit up.
“Calm yourself, Rebecca,” Mrs. Marlow urged, pressing her back down.
“But, madam!” She thrust the letter in Mrs. Marlow’s hands. “Verity!”
Later, much later, when Maria remembered the scene, she would laugh. Because Mrs. Marlow no sooner carried the note to the window to read by the stronger light than she inhaled—choked—coughed—groaned—and slumped to the floor.
“For heaven’s sake,” Maria exclaimed, snatching the sal volatile from Miss Hancock to apply it to Mrs. Marlow. “Is it that bad, Rebecca?”
“Read it yourself,” Miss Hancock replied, plucking it from Mrs. Marlow’s nerveless fingers and taking over the pungent bottle.
It was brief.
Rebecca.
I will not call you my dear Rebecca because no doubt you will repudiate our connection after you read this.
I am gone with the one I love. You now understand my secrecy of recent weeks.
I know it is wrong and that my family and likely the whole world will condemn us, but we cannot help ourselves.
How many times we declared to each other that it could not be and that we would break off with each other!
But my dear one says he could not forget me, no matter how he tried or how duty to family weighed upon him.
We struggle no more, however. We have yielded to love.
I have been a poor companion to you, but may I give you a final task? (And I do not envy you it.) Please tell my aunt. At some point I will write to her again, far, far in the future.
Verity