Intrigue (Daughters of Mannerling 2) (6 page)

‘You have added some charming touches,’ said Jessica, noticing the French clock, the Chinese wallpaper, and the new pianoforte.

‘Aren’t you going to eat anything else?’ asked Harry, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘No, I thank you.’ Jessica looked at Mrs Devers as she spoke, but Mrs Devers was slowly eating a slice of seed-cake, nibble, nibble, nibble, and continued to go on as if Jessica did not exist.

‘In that case,’ said Harry, ‘I would like to show you the roses.’

Jessica got to her feet. ‘I should like that. Pray excuse me, Mrs Devers.’

Mrs Devers poured herself another cup of tea. Her cheeks pink, Jessica allowed Harry to lead her from the room.

She could not help remembering when Mary, daughter of the vicar, had come to Mannerling to call in the old days. She and her sisters despised Mary as a toad-eater, and so they had decided one day to pretend she was invisible. How they had laughed about it afterwards. Jessica felt ashamed of herself now. She tried to remind herself that Mary was a creeping, slimy creature, and of how dreadful Mary had been when she had got her revenge on all of them by becoming, however briefly, mistress of Mannerling. But the shame she now felt would not go away. She said to Harry as he led her out of doors, ‘Your mother does not seem to relish my company.’

‘Hey, what’s that? Mama? Oh, she has always been a trifle high in the instep, don’t you know?’

‘Do you mean she considers a
Beverley
beneath her?’

‘I suppose she does. The rose garden is this way.’

‘I know,’ said Jessica crossly. ‘Why?’

‘Why, what?’ Harry was beginning to find Jessica a trifle fatiguing. Women were not for talking to, only for more interesting pleasures.

‘Why on earth should Mrs Devers consider me socially beneath her?’

‘It’s the talk of the neighbourhood how you lot would do anything to get your hands on Mannerling again.’

The mortified pink on Jessica’s cheeks deepened to a painful red. She had never stopped to consider for a moment that their ambitions should appear so transparent to Harry, despite what she had overheard at the ball.

‘That is not true,’ she said furiously.

‘Let’s not jaw on about Mama. Ain’t the roses fine?’

They had entered the rose garden and were enclosed by roses and their heavy scent.

Harry decided it was time he made a move. He stopped and turned to face her. ‘I can understand your desire to get Mannerling back,’ he said. ‘Damme, I love the place myself.’

He suddenly seized her in his arms and kissed her hard.

Jessica did not experience any of the swooning rapture she had read about in novels. He had not been barbered properly and his chin felt scratchy and he smelt of brandy.

She disengaged herself as quickly as possible and said on what she hoped was a passionate sigh, ‘Why, Mr Devers, you quite overset me.’

‘Thought I might,’ grinned Harry. He was about to try out a more intimate kiss when a footman came running up.

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but Mrs Devers wishes you to return.’

‘Oh, blast it,’ said Harry wrathfully. ‘Can’t a fellow get any peace?’ He began to walk rapidly back to the house. Jessica ran for a little to try to keep up with him, but then slowed down and let him go ahead. She was suddenly revolted at her own behaviour, that she should put up with first being insulted by Mrs Devers and then by Harry, who had not turned once to see whether she was following.

Now it seemed to her that Mannerling was a malignant presence sucking dignity and sanity from her. She quickened her step and went as far as the hall where the maid, Betty, was waiting patiently.

‘We are leaving,’ said Jessica. She then summoned a hovering footman. ‘Be so good as to fetch my carriage, and tell Mrs Devers I must go,’ she commanded haughtily.

And yet, as she waited outside with Betty for Barry to arrive, she began to feel a longing that Mrs Devers would descend the stairs and come to ask her what the matter was, beg her to come back. But Barry arrived and jumped down to assist her into the carriage, his round honest face for once impassive. Jessica leaned back and fanned herself vigorously. She would face her sisters and tell them how she had been treated . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . he had kissed her. A gentleman did not kiss a lady unless his intentions were honourable and serious. How silly she had been to run away! She had an impulse to call to Barry to turn back but suppressed it. She had sent that footman with that message.

On her return she was aware of Miss Trumble’s sharp scrutiny and did not want to describe her visit in front of the governess. She escaped with her sisters as soon as possible, and they all walked to the far end of the garden.

‘Well?’ demanded Lizzie, her green eyes shining.

‘It was difficult,’ said Jessica slowly. She began to describe Mrs Devers’s coldness, but when she got to the bit about Harry kissing her, they all laughed and clapped their hands.

‘Capital!’ cried Abigail. ‘He must propose marriage now!’

‘But what if his mother and father won’t let him?’ asked Lizzie.

‘Tish, he is a grown man and can do as he pleases,’ said Jessica airily, trying to show more confidence than she felt.

She might have been reassured could she have heard the conversation taking place at that moment in the drawing room of Mannerling. Present were Harry, his father and mother, and Robert Sommerville.

‘I have just been remonstrating with Harry,’ said Mrs Devers. ‘I went to the window overlooking the rose garden, and I saw him
kissing
that Jessica Beverley person. Then the Jessica person left, sending me a curt message of goodbye by my own footman.’

‘What did you expect?’ demanded Harry. ‘You insulted her by pretending she did not exist. Course I told her you thought she was beneath you . . .’

‘I am not surprised she left,’ said Robert drily.

Mr Devers twisted his head so that he could see his son over the barrier of his high starched shirt-points. ‘You’ve made a bad mistake there, Harry, my boy. You’ll have Lady Beverley here on the doorstep demanding you marry the girl.’

‘And what would be so wrong with that?’ demanded Harry. ‘You’re always on at me to settle down.’

‘You cannot marry Jessica Beverley, and that is that,’ said his mother.

‘No?’ Harry rose to his feet and picked up a Dresden shepherdess from the mantel. ‘Like this piece, don’t you, Mama?’

‘Harry . . . don’t,’ cried his mother, knowing her son’s temper of old when he was thwarted.

Harry smiled at her, dropped the piece of fragile china on the carpet, stamped on it, and then ground the shards into the carpet with his boot. He walked to the door, saying over his shoulder, ‘I mean to have her, and marriage is the only way.’

Robert Sommerville also rose to his feet. He saw in his mind’s eye Jessica, beautiful and fragile like the piece of china that Harry had just broken. She must be made to see sense, made to see that her ambition to get Mannerling back was going to lead her to a life of shame and degradation.

Marriage is like a cage: one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Early that evening, Lady Beverley was startled to receive the intelligence that Mr Robert Sommerville had called again.

But she had finally heard Jessica’s story of her visit to Mannerling and found nothing to be elated about, although she had kept her own council. For one moment, she felt it her duty to warn Jessica that contrary to popular opinion, a kiss did not mean a marriage. She considered Mrs Devers’s treatment of her daughter disgraceful, not recognizing in such haughty behaviour much of her own.

And so she graciously welcomed Robert, seeing in him some sort of thread that joined the Beverleys to Mannerling. Robert made general conversation and then said, seemingly idly, that as the evening was warm, he would be grateful if Miss Jessica could find the time to show him the garden again, as he had had to rush off the day before.

Jessica tried to signal with her eyes that she did not want to, but Lady Beverley said, ‘By all means.’

‘I thought you had seen enough of our gardens . . . and of me,’ said Jessica when they were clear of the house.

‘I came to see you only because I thought it necessary. Harry Devers is determined to marry you.’

He looked sadly at the glowing look Jessica gave him. ‘There is nothing to be happy about, nothing to celebrate. I beg you to realize that the man is a brutal lecher.’

Jessica was too happy and too elated to be angry. She thought he was jealous.

‘I am persuaded you are too hard on him, sir,’ she said, wishing he would go and leave her to tell her family the marvellous news.

‘No, I am not. He is also a drunkard and a wastrel. You think you would be happy to get Mannerling back again. But at what a cost! My dear, I am not jealous – I see you think I am – it is only that I cannot bear to see you ruined, and believe me, you would be ruined by such a marriage.’

‘I will not listen to you,’ said Jessica firmly. ‘You said you wished to see more of the gardens, so here we are in the gardens, sir.’

‘I have tried to do my duty,’ he said, half to himself. ‘I can do no more.’

He looked around. They were screened from the house by a tall yew hedge. Jessica’s face was alight with happiness in the setting sun. Despite her awful ambition, he sensed a sweetness in her. She had been warped by her upbringing, but her character could still be saved.

Before he could stop himself, he drew her into his arms. Jessica was too startled and surprised to resist. He bent his head and kissed her gently but firmly, full on the mouth. For one little moment, Jessica felt a surge of sweetness, of yearning, and then she pulled away and said breathlessly, ‘I think perhaps it is you and not Mr Harry who is the lecher.’

‘That was a kiss from a man who respects you,’ he said, his black eyes fathomless. ‘The kiss you received from Harry in the rose garden was something else.’

He turned and strode away. She watched him go, her hand to her lips, thinking how tall and athletic his figure was, thinking that he looked so little like a professor. Now she was free to tell her sisters of her success, but the elation she had felt when Robert had told her that Harry wanted to marry her was gone. She tried to tell herself that Robert’s behaviour had been disgraceful, shocking. But the better side of her nature forced her to admit that he had been genuinely concerned about her, a concern that was entirely unnecessary, however.

Although the congratulations of her family raised her spirits, she was aware at the same time of Miss Trumble’s eyes watching her with a look of pity.

After the next two weeks, the Beverleys, prepared every day for the arrival of Harry and his expected proposal, began to lose heart. Every day Barry had been sent over to the squire’s with a request for ice to chill the champagne that was to be opened to celebrate the betrothal, until the squire rebelled and said his ice-house was becoming sadly depleted and the Beverleys could have no more.

And then the fine weather broke, not in a dramatic way either, but with a thin grey drizzle and mist. Jessica fretted. She thought and thought about the problem. She began to hate Robert Sommerville. He must have turned Harry against her. That must be it. Or could it be . . . could it be that they had got together and found that she had allowed
both
of them to kiss her? Although they had been stolen kisses, she had not, in either case, blushed or pushed either gentleman away. Day after grey day, she had to cope with her sisters’ patent disappointment and her mother’s voluble fretting about what had gone wrong.

One day, another rainy day, Jessica pleaded a headache in order to escape from the schoolroom. Miss Trumble let her go reluctantly. She did not believe Jessica had a headache but could think of no good reason to detain her.

Despite her mother’s orders not to speak to the servants, Jessica was suddenly determined to seek out Barry and find out what was going on over at Mannerling. At the same time, she dreaded hearing that Harry had left to rejoin his regiment.

She slipped quietly into her bedroom and put a calash over her hair, pattens over her thin shoes, and a cloak around her shoulders, and then went out into the garden. At first she could not find Barry but then she heard sounds of activity coming from the garden shed. She pushed open the door and went in. Barry was sitting on a box in the corner, sharpening a scythe. He stood up when he saw Jessica.

‘Good day,’ said Jessica awkwardly.

‘May I be of service to you, miss?’

‘I . . . I have never been in here before,’ said Jessica, looking around vaguely in the darkness of the shed at various implements and flowerpots. ‘How interesting.’

Barry merely continued to look inquiringly at her.

Jessica drew forward another box and sat down with a little sigh. ‘You may continue your work, Barry.’

Barry sat down obediently, picked up the stone, and recommenced sharpening the scythe with long, easy strokes.

‘I wonder how they are getting on at Mannerling,’ said Jessica after some moments had passed. ‘Do you know if they are still in residence, Barry?’