The Marquis of Westmarch (13 page)

“As you wish, sir!”

They moved over to a sofa by the wall, sat down, and looked out over eighty foot of empty polished floor. Berinthia was rigid; Meriel worried, but relaxed.

“Don’t you wish to demand an explanation of me?” Meriel said.

“Have I a right to one?”

“Yes, indeed.”

Berinthia wanted to cry with anger, but she would never do so. She realised now that although she had tormented herself with superficial doubts, she had never feared secretly that she would not marry Meriel in the end.

She said, “Well sir, having once shown as little sense of propriety as you have yourself, I may as well go on as I began. Why did you not tell me till now that — that you wish you
might
marry me — if things were otherwise, as I collect? Why not when I first came, why not weeks ago? Do not tell me you knew nothing of your mother’s wishes!” She stopped, paralysed for a moment by the realisation that she, a Winyard, had spoken her true thoughts. It was Meriel’s fault for being frank himself.

“Cowardice,” said Meriel.

The far doors opened and Berinthia thought furiously that never in her life would she be safe from untimely interruption. Once in a day was surely enough. But it was not a servant who entered this time, it was Maid Rosalba Ludbrook.

“Oh!” the girl cried on the threshold. “Oh, Marquis — Lady Berinthia — forgive me, I, I, I left a scarf, on this chair. I am so very sorry! No one warned me! I’m sorry.”

The three of them were immobilised.

“It is of no consequence, Maid Rosalba,” said Meriel.

Rosalba had never heard such a cool reserve in the Marquis’s voice before. Her lips trembled.

Meriel did not mean to be unkind and was not especially annoyed: it was only that the girl in the doorway had surprised her by not seeming at all like the little tender creature she would have wanted to possess had she been a man, and had thought of with rather guilty but pleasant affection for weeks. A trick of the light made Rosalba look plump and brown, and her expression was certainly stupid. Meriel, thinking of a period two months gone, was curious.

“Forgive me,” whispered Rosalba.

“To be sure we do,” said Berinthia. “Perhaps you will now relieve us of the honour of your presence?”

“There’s no need to talk in that style,” Meriel told Berinthia lightly, getting up. She did not approach Rosalba, but said: “Indeed, ma’am, don’t be thinking you have committed an unpardonable crime! It is no such thing, we’re not even vexed.”

“Yes, Marquis!”

When Rosalba left, she almost slammed the doors.

“The deuce,” said Meriel, sitting down again.

“
Deuced
unfortunate!” agreed Berinthia, altering her position
on the sofa. “Have you a taste for bread and butter, cousin? How kind you are! I had not thought you to be so good-natured.” Her voice shook a little.

“No, I haven’t, though I shouldn’t call her that.” Meriel turned her head. “Good God, you can’t be thinking
that’s
the reason for my being unable to marry you?” Meriel then remembered that once it had been, or that at least, she had wanted it to be the reason.

Berinthia looked across at one of the murals. “You seemed at one time to show a decided partiality, but I could hardly suppose, then, that it would affect us, affect your judgement in so important a matter as your marriage. What am I to think now, pray?” She hesitated, and turned back. “If my rebuke to her was ill-bred, which I confess it was, it was no business of yours to point it out, Westmarch, however things may be between us!”

“No, very true,” said Meriel, admiring Berinthia more and more. Auriol Wychwood was now such a constant and familiar and happy background to all her thoughts that only he, when he came to the forefront of her mind, could affect her very deeply. She felt safe from everyone, even Berinthia.

Berinthia was Meriel’s second cousin once removed on the Longmaster side, and third cousin on the Quarterman, and more distantly related in several other ways. She was dark like Marquis Elphinstone, with waving tough black hair, and large eyes with unusually brilliant whites. She did not have the height of the Longmasters, but she had excellent proportions, and a pure skin. Her bosom, half-exposed in her blue afternoon dress, was particularly fine, and so were her arms and her neck. Only her rather beaky nose prevented her seeming a beauty, but Meriel thought it gave character to her face, and was glad that unlike herself, Berinthia had none of the Quarterman delicacy of frame. She no longer wanted everyone to look like an inferior version of herself, as once she had done.

Why, she thought calmly, only to think of Mamma’s being right; she would have been the wife for me in more ways than one, a woman of spirit, almost my equal — no, my equal indeed. Yes, I do wish I were a man and could kiss her and shake her, so long as I could kiss Wychwood as well. At once, she remembered that Berinthia was too Southmarch-bred to tolerate either kisses or
shakes from a husband, remembered Rosalba, and felt amusingly absurd. She might say: I’m a woman too, you know, alas.

“So I see you are laughing at me,” said Berinthia on a level, vicious note. “Is my situation so diverting, or have I a smut on my nose?”

Meriel started. “Laughing at you? Cousin, I should not dare, upon my word. No, I was smiling a little at — it don’t signify, but I beg your pardon. I know how damnably I have treated you.” Berinthia left the sofa, and began to walk across the room, pulling at the rings on her hands. “Tell me, when your mother invited me to Castle West, did you
know
what she intended? Did she order you to make an offer from the first?”

Meriel rubbed her boots with a handkerchief. “She dropped a hint merely, and I thought it a high piece of meddling and told her so. I told her I should never marry and she told me not to talk like a coxcomb and there the matter rested.” This was true.

“I see. You will never marry?”

“No.”

“Undutiful, perhaps?”

“Possibly, ma’am, but that’s of no importance.” Meriel paused, and said what she had intended to say when she entered the room. “I must explain that I made a vow to live entirely chaste, not to marry even, some years ago, for important reasons of my own. I lacked the courage to tell anyone about it. You are the first person I have ever told, cousin.”

“Ah,” said Berinthia, shocked by the thought of total chastity, but not betraying it. “A vow. Quite in the style of high romance. No doubt you will think me impertinent, but may I ask whether you — lacked the courage to mention it not only because you feared to run the gauntlet of your mother’s vapours but because you were more than willing for Cousin Hugo to imagine that you would soon be setting up your nursery and cutting him out of the succession?”

Meriel smiled at her, and held out a hand, which Berinthia ignored.

“Yes, yes, it was very bad, but irresistible, you see! You know there would be no bearing Hugo if he thought himself
certain
to inherit my dignities. But now, he will have to know, don’t you think? Now I’ve made such a mull of it, and hurt you.” Meriel
looked almost pretty as she thought how intelligent Berinthia was.

“What do
I
think? What have I to say to anything?”

Meriel said affectionately, “Oh, a good deal, ma’am. Tell me, what do you say to marrying Hugo instead of myself, if I let it be known — by spreading on-dits, you know, not publicly, to be sure, that would present a very odd appearance! — that I shall never marry? You’d stand a very fair chance of being Marchioness,” Meriel went on, looking all the while at her astounded cousin, but as though she were not really seeing her. “I can give Hugo fifteen years, but his constitution is excellent, you know, and I may break my neck in my curricle like, like Auriol Wychwood’s brother, any day.”

Berinthia gasped. “You — you have you spoken to Mr Longmaster about this
scheme
? Have you?”

“But cousin, why do you find it so shocking? You must surely be aware that this is no time for delicacy. No, no I haven’t spoken to him.”

Berinthia, who found Hugo extremely attractive, was blushing violently. “This is beyond anything! Oh, my God.”

“I seem bound to offend you in whatever I do! Perhaps you think me lightminded, cousin, but I swear I’ve thought long and hard and my intention was wholly good. I never thought you missish, I must say,” she added.

“
Missish
? I? Because I have s-some sense of — just a little
pride
? You desire to speak with me
alone
, and what am I to think of that, but no, first you say you can never do as your mother wishes — I daresay you dared not tell
her
about your ridiculous vow — then you say that oh, I may as well take Cousin Hugo instead of yourself! And Cousin Hugo knows nothing! It is abominable, insufferable, and if
you
can make such a figure of yourself,
I
cannot!”

“But Lady Berinthia! Surely you can see that my — my plan is entirely rational, the best solution we can find to extricate ourselves from this coil?”

Berinthia could see it very well. She did not know why she was so angry and upset; Meriel’s good sense and good humour and care for her interests ought to have impressed her. They did impress her, and perhaps, she thought, that was the trouble. She
was beginning to think despite the vow of chastity, that her cousin was neither as bloodless nor as stupid as she had imagined. One part of her mind was amused, even now, by Meriel’s casual bluntness, something she had merely found a little distasteful before.

She would never have supposed that Meriel Longmaster could take someone else’s outburst, a woman’s outburst, in good part, and behave as though it were excusable to feel within polite circles; yet in some ways, he was as insensitive and unaware as he had ever been.

“Do you know cousin, I shall not find it easy to remain all my life a male virgin. I am a passionate man,” said Meriel. “I beg of you, don’t be angry!”

Berinthia looked at her, and covered her own twitching, smiling face with her fingers. “Oh, my God, I never in my life had such a shockingly vulgar conversation!
You
are not the person to — to —”

Meriel sat down again, a little flushed herself. “Devilish dull it is at Bury Winyard, I know,” she said, patting the sofa beside her.

Berinthia remained standing, staring down at her. “Yes, it is! But excessively comfortable! You are extraordinary.”

“Don’t go back. Marry Hugo, cousin, I don’t doubt he’ll have you. You are a splendid creature, you know. I was used to think you a model of, of devious propriety, but you are not.”

The two cousins looked at each other, cautiously, fixed in their positions, wondering whether to fight, or laugh, or discuss, or part with dignity. Both realised fully, then, that in many ways they were very much alike: it was only their upbringings that had been so different.

“Cousin —” Meriel began. Her eyes were moist and very gentle.

“Oh, I am a model of devious propriety,” Berinthia interrupted. “That is
my
true nature, I promise you. We should not suit, Cousin Meriel!”

“No more we should, Berinthia,” Meriel agreed.

It had been Auriol’s idea that Meriel should claim to have made a vow of chastity, and then marry Berinthia to Hugo.

The plan had come to him one day when he was waiting for her in a certain dip behind the cliff-top four miles north of Castle West, which had become their usual private meeting-place. The distance from Castle-town was so short that they were able to make love there at least twice a week; it had been a marvellous discovery. The little hollow was encircled by gorse-bushes and a long way from the coast-path. It was as safe and comfortable as any place could be, for them, though the ground was lumpy, salt air had thinned and dried out its grass, and it was much frequented by rabbits.

Auriol had swept out the rabbit-droppings with a flowering twig. He pulled his coat round him against the breeze and sat down to wait, looking out over a sea which that day was like a clouded grey jelly, under a lumbering sky. The more he thought about his scheme, the more impatient he grew for Meriel’s arrival, longing to tell her that if she were to make a vow of chastity, she would be saved from any future attempts of Saccharissa’s to marry her off as well as from Berinthia. Briefly his thoughts were distracted as he realised that in another five minutes the Marquis truly would be physically present, and would probably waste little time in conversation, would kiss his hands and his head and encircle his waist and nudge him to the ground and push away his clothes.

It was possible that she would not like him to interfere in this problem of hers, because he could not very well describe his plan without reminding her that it was out of the question for her to marry a woman even in the far future, that she must think about
an ugliness she wanted to bury deep down in her mind. Adoring him, almost fully at ease though she was after a month of love, Meriel seldom allowed Auriol directly to mention the fact that she was not a male. He had been surprised and a little hurt at first to learn that even with him she could not enjoy being an unusual female instead of a man, but he gradually came to agree with her that the question of their sexes was unimportant.

Waiting for her — he seemed always to be waiting and anticipating, like a woman, and he liked it — Auriol had thought how very satisfying it would be if he could serve Meriel not only by giving her his body and his love but by being a wise and useful counsellor to the high-handed Marquis she became when she was apart from him. By the time she joined him on the cliff-top, he had elaborately imagined the scenes in which she would arrange the lives of her unpleasant family as he let her arrange his own, and he had laughed to himself, taking pleasure in her triumph which would be chiefly owing to him.

*

“Hugo, I think you will know best just how to let slip the true story, the news of my vow that is, in the most unexceptionable way,” said Meriel agreeably. “You’ve been spreading all manner of half-truths about me any time these ten years.”

They were in the crimson bedchamber, and the doors into the ante-room were closed. Meriel was standing in front of her official bed, Hugo was at ease in a carved armchair, and Saccharissa was lying down on her favourite sofa, which she had had carried in from her own apartments. Berinthia, who was being discussed, sat behind her on the window-ledge.

“Westmarch, may I say one word?” Hugo sighed, taking snuff.

“I daresay you wish to say a great many. But is not the business settled?” said Meriel, looking briefly at her mother, whose lips were pinched together and whose eyes were fixed firmly on the wall. She had been hysterical when Meriel told her privately about her vow, and had cried and reproached and protested throughout this family conference, with gradually decreasing force. Now she was feeling slightly foolish.

“So clever as you are, coz. But no. I fancy it will not do to inform the town of this vow of yours, however discreetly. Because, do you know, I suspect that no one will believe it. As
Knight Auriol’s mamma-in-law so often observes, the Polite World of today is more notable for cynicism than for simple faith.” Hugo paused, enjoying himself.

“Continue, cousin.”

“If you have no wish to provoke vulgar speculation, Westmarch, laughter indeed, the less said about your reasons the better.”

Berinthia spoke before Meriel could argue with him. “I had thought, sir, that it was to
prevent
vulgar speculation that the truth was in some way to be made known? Why besides do you say no one will believe it — though, indeed, it is the oddest thing, chastity is quite improper in a man of Westmarch’s condition.”

Saccharissa said: “Quite so, my love!”

Meriel cut in. “No, cousin, it is to protect you! Everyone will know you to have been disappointed, that we can’t avoid, but this way there should be fewer sneers.
I
shall look a fool and not you. But for my part, fool or not, I’d as lief have everyone know, I hate secrets.” She thought she saw a tear in Berinthia’s eye, guessed at her bewilderment and humiliation, admired her bearing, and wished she could comfort her.

“Chivalrous as well as clever, Westmarch,” said Hugo.

“Chivalrous,” repeated Saccharissa, not taking her eyes from a portrait of Meriel’s great-great-grandfather with his scared child of a bride. “He is no better than a designing rake.”

“Mamma, I’m sorry for it.” Both she and Hugo hid smiles at this, smiles caused by different reflections.

“But my dear aunt, his motives are indeed noble,” said Longmaster. “Only, you see, his knowledge of the world is not yet quite perfect.”

Saccharissa turned her head. “Hugo, what are you trying to say?”

“Next you will be saying that Westmarch is romantical,” said Berinthia, with a little laugh. “Do but explain yourself. Why will there be more — scandal if Westmarch’s vow becomes known? I collect that’s your meaning?”

Hugo recrossed his legs. “Now, don’t take me up, pray! I can only assure you that it
is
so; at all events, Berinthia, to spread this — the news of his vow will do you no good and may do
Westmarch harm.” He surprised them all by speaking with more authority than smoothness.

“Are you developing a care for my interests, cousin?” asked Meriel.

“Why?” said Berinthia, leaving her place by Saccharissa’s side, and challenging him with a look. “Tell me.”

“Did I not say, don’t take me up?” He raised his eyebrows. “Now, it’s no such great matter, I mean only that for very dull reasons which need not concern you, Westmarch’s plan is somewhat ill-judged.”

“You may explain these reasons to me at your leisure, though I expect it is all a great piece of nonsense,” said Meriel, sitting down on the edge of the bed, which creaked. “How do you suggest the thing is done? You’ll own that
some
explanation must be made!”

“Certainly. But I fancy that it would cause least remark if we were to give this whole affair the appearance of a romance. You are surprised? In which case, Juxon will not be obliged to send the notice of my forthcoming nuptials to the Gazette for a little while.” He bowed to Berinthia. “Ma’am, with your permission, I shall begin to court you from today. I shall make you the object of something more than gallantry, sigh in the most affecting way in your presence, and such stuff, and generally appear desirous of cutting Westmarch out. No one will be surprised at it. Oh, you must pardon my frivolity!” he said, seeing her frigid expression. “Never fear, I shall make it seem a genuine growing passion and not a mere attempt to irritate him. You, meanwhile, will perceive that my charms are greater than our cousin’s and let it be known that although you were reared in the strictest propriety and have a very just notion of your own consequence, you will not marry altogether without affection. You will also desire to infuriate your uncle Southmarch by accepting my offer rather than Meriel’s.” He turned to the Marquis, and Saccharissa, whose mouth was hanging open, followed the movement of his head. “I am afraid
you
will not appear to great advantage, coz, but is that so great an objection? It is a question of our cousin’s reputation, after all.”

Meriel rather admired him: he clearly took such pleasure in being a man of the world, the centre of attention at all times.

“It is no objection, Hugo,” she said.

“My reputation? Nonsense,” said Berinthia.

Hugo took snuff and threw her a glance. “My dear, I don’t mean your reputation for virtue. Put bluntly, you have a reputation for overweening ambition as regards your marriage. It will be as well for you if we can destroy it.”

Furious, but sexually impressed by his candour, Berinthia said, “As you wish sir.”

“This,” said Saccharissa quietly, “is the outside of enough. The vulgarity, the stupidity, the — a love match, my God, and so
unlikely.
Berinthia’s overweening ambition, indeed! How dare you say it is preferable? Hugo, what is this, this piece of information unfit for our ears that makes your scheme preferable to Meriel’s?”

“Indeed,” said Berinthia, folding her hands, “you are treating us like children, Hugo. Come!”

Meriel looked from one woman to the other, and sucked in her lips. “I have never understood why it is considered necessary to conceal some — knowledge of the world from females, even young females,” she said at last, “keep them in ignorance of all that matters. I don’t myself know what it is Hugo has in mind but when he has enlightened me, I’ll tell you, if he will not.”

“Thank you,” said Berinthia. Saccharissa was looking strangely at her son. Calmly now, she wondered whether he knew that her knowledge of the world was enough to let her suspect that if he had made a vow of chastity, it was because such a vow would entail no sacrifice to a man of unusual tastes.

“My dear Westmarch!” said Hugo. “As a rule, you know, it is vastly imprudent to make promises.”

“Well,” said the Marchioness, “I am sure it is of no consequence — if Meriel himself has no notion of what maggot you have in your head, Hugo. I find that most comforting, for I myself had not the least suspicion until Meriel — Berinthia my love, where are my lavender drops?”

“Oh,” said Meriel.

“My dear aunt,” murmured Hugo, taking more snuff.

“I never suspected you was a prude, cousin,” Meriel whispered in his ear.

“And I never suspected you was shameless,” Hugo returned.

“Oh, quite! But I am still puzzled, you know.”

The Marchioness, seeing that Berinthia was now looking out of
the window with a very stern expression on her face, adjusted her veil and said lightly, “Now my love, you have said remarkably little. What is your opinion of Hugo’s falling in love with you? Do you not find the notion distasteful?”

Berinthia turned. “Vastly, ma’am, but do you know, I think less distasteful than — than your son’s vow.” She hesitated. “Do but consider! Would it be proper for such an intimate piece of knowledge about him to become the — the common gossip of the gaming-rooms, even if it is circulated in the form of a mere rumour? If we can possibly help it. There would be all manner of disagreeable talk, I am sure. Better always to maintain a dignified reserve.”

“My dear bride, what a very fine piece of Island-Palace good-sense! I need have no fear that you will not do me credit. Such propriety of taste will quite make up for any — very slight — deficiency of worldly knowledge. Reserve, dignity, discretion, pride, how I do reverence them all.”

“You will make the devil of a husband, sir!” said Berinthia; aware that she was showing Hugo, for the first time, the coarse and undisciplined side of herself which she had inadvertently shown to Meriel a week before. She glanced at Meriel, thought: I hate you, and turned to Hugo again.

The Marquis then perceived that Berinthia needed to be loved, and felt horribly guilty, the first such sensation she had known for weeks. “I wish you will —”

“Berinthia!” cried the Marchioness, interrupting her so loudly she made them all jump. “I
beg
of you, do not be — be
jilting
Hugo like this in a mere distempered freak! I
cannot
bear
to leave this hateful affair unsettled one moment longer. Marry Hugo and I can die in peace, no matter
how
Meriel’s want of conduct has poisoned my declining years.”

Realising as she spoke that it would now be impossible for her to press Meriel into renouncing his vow and marrying Berinthia after all, Saccharissa ordered Hugo to ring for her sedan-chair. Out of respect for embarrassment and ill-temper, the others remained silent for a short while, and this indulgence of her foolish mind made Saccharissa rather tearful. She looked at Meriel, sitting on the bed, rubbing her knees and seeming mildly distressed.

Her son was so much improved in the last month, he was neither haughty nor rough; he was in fact an adult now, though a disobedient one, and she who disliked children ought to be able to love him at last. She did love the idea of her son the Marquis, born when she had given up all hope; but she had never been able to love Meriel, because the boy had been the darling of his father, and had been brought up at Longmaster Wood to think of her as meddlesome and frivolous.

Meriel looked at her mother across the room, and their eyes met in understanding. Meriel thought, I can never love her. She perceived that the new warm but rational interest she felt in the world could never be extended to Saccharissa. Her mother had frightened and displeased her as a child, and filled her with terror of discovery in her teens. She had never been able to endure the thought of what Saccharissa would have done to a girl.

Just before her chair arrived, the Marchioness said gently, “Do you know, I wish you had been a daughter, Meriel. So proud as I was of bearing a son! But a man can care nothing for his mother. If I had had a daughter, I would have had someone to bear me company and comfort me — and a girl would surely have been dutiful. Don’t you think so?”

“But if I had been a girl I would have been far less dutiful than I am now,” said Meriel, speaking just a little too late, but still concealing a surprise at Saccharissa’s words and tone which felt like cold water dribbling down her back. “I should have been one of those ready to tie my garter in public rather than submit to authority. You know that, Mamma.”