The Marquis of Westmarch (21 page)

“Oh, I told him, sir.” Meriel began to feel a little silly, talking about this subject from her bed in this way, but she crushed the sensation. “I fell violently in love with him pretty shortly after making his acquaintance and one day, well, I could not prevent
myself telling him of my feelings. And after that I was naturally obliged to tell him that it was not a case of what he thought — I mean that I had to tell him I was not a man, as of course he thought me.”

Juxon sat down, without her permission, and maintained silence for longer than before. Meriel was not disturbed by this.

“He did not discover it for himself? He is not blackmailing you?”

“No,” she said.

“You swear to me that you, Marquis, told him of your own volition? That you threw away all I have so sedulously built up for you over the years for — for nothing?” His voice rose sharply, and he shook all over. “For some notion of — you
fell
in
love
with
him
! How could you, you of all men, be subject to base and vulgar passions? And for such a man, too!” he shrieked. “Such a man! A beefwitted giant with neither address, nor riches, nor even modishness! Do you lie beneath him unclothed like any harlot from the stews?” This vision was brilliantly clear to him.

Outrage drowned Meriel’s simple shock and distress at his earlier remarks. “
How
dare you
by God!” she roared at him.

He touched a chair back nervously and said, “I beg your pardon.”

“So you ought! Upon my word, a pretty notion you have of me, for all your talk of my perfections!” She was thinking of all he had said to her on the night of the midsummer ball, and the thought made her blush with anger. “
You
are indeed mad, Juxon, and so I tell you.”

“But I am not,” he said.

“What you did, when I was twelve, was mad, sir. You have accused me of ingratitude but what cause have I to be grateful to you? Oh, it was what I wanted, how should it not have been, at the time, but it was no kindness you did to me in teaching me how to conceal my sex instead of how to reconcile myself to it! You did it, I believe, to give yourself an absolute ascendancy over me. No, I am not grateful, Juxon, when I look back upon my life since then, wretchedly full of fear as it has been. And lonely. You taught me to hate myself, sir. To hate all women, because you hate them, don’t you?”

“I? I, who have all but worshipped you, who have said over and
over times out of mind you are
above
a woman, unique?”

“And you lied to me. Yes, I believe it was all a lie, about how if anyone were to discover my deceit I should be either garotted or confined to a Female College! Why, what College would consent to have me against my will? No, I should be married off in haste — as I’m marrying myself off, thank God — or perhaps sent to Longmaster Wood — at the very worst I’d be exiled temporarily to one of the Isles — and in time I don’t doubt my curious history would make me a person of considerable interest to a great many people. Ironic, ain’t it? I should be very much in demand, I fancy — I shouldn’t wonder if when I were an old lady, I were quite the cynosure of the Polite World.”

Juxon had felt disgust and terror and hatred at her revelation about Auriol Wychwood, but it was only now, when he heard her talking in this easy way about the worst possible future that he seemed to feel the world he had created and trained her for turning unpreventably to dizzy dust. That was the metaphor that foolishly occurred to him as he stared at her.

“Is that,” he said, “what Auriol Wychwood told you?”

“Yes, and I knew at once that he was very likely right. I think you bewitched me, Juxon, used my own fears against me.”

“He was not!” screamed Juxon. “He was
not.
Think of your cousin! Think of the revenge he would delight in — think how he hates you! Do you think he would allow you to escape? Do you think he would not watch you writhing like a crushed worm?”

Then Meriel had to make a great effort not to relapse into the old world, the old way of thinking before Auriol came, and said, “Hugo wants to be Marquis, he hates me not as a man, as his cousin, but because I’m Marquis. If I were to resign my office to him, he would not for one thing be such a
fool
as to begin his Marquisate by punishing me in such a way as you have suggested God knows how many times — in any way which might very likely set up a great many people’s backs, make them sympathetic to me, revenge or no. Besides, he’s sense enough to see that I should in any case necessarily suffer the torments of the damned.”

“Oh, in spite of Wychwood? Yes, indeed you would,
Mar
quis
!” said Juxon. “And I tell you that Auriol Wychwood lied. You are a traitor. You’ll be brought back from Southmarch, and they’ll try you, and punish you, oh, they will, for masquerading,
usurping an office to which you have no possible right!”

The side of Meriel’s face developed a tic. “I thought you said many times that I did have a right. An absolute right, not being as low as true women? I thought you thought any number of details in my life pointed to my being especially chosen by Providence to be Marquis in spite of my sex? Especially the fact that I fell into
your
hands.”

“You drive me distracted!” he cried. “I hope you will come to your senses. I hope you will regret your decision, upon my word!”

“Compose yourself, Juxon.”

“I shall go,” he said, picking up his coat-skirts as Meriel sat there, tensely examining the seal-ring on her finger.

“If that is what you think would be for the best,” she replied, “I shan’t stand in your way, sir. You may very well be wise — I told you I did not want you to suffer in any way — and in some ways I
am
grateful to you, Juxon, indeed. You meant it all for the best. At all events — well, God go with you!”

She stretched out a hand, meaning every word of what she had just said, and he responded, opening the door into the bedchamber, “I did not mean,
Marquis,
that I would
go
in any such way as you seem to think.”

He left, and his excess of dignity almost made Meriel want to laugh; but she knew she had made a mistake in telling him to his face, instead of leaving a written warning of her intention to be discovered when she and Auriol were on their way to South-march. She ought to have controlled her temper, to have allowed him to scold her tyrannically for carelessness one last time, for surely nothing he might have said could have had any effect on her, now. But she hated him too much, and though she had said nothing, had found his bleeding her quite the last straw.

*

Auriol sat at his breakfast table re-reading a note from Meriel which had arrived the night before. It said only that she would come and see him early today, and that she loved him, but he thought he would never grow tired of looking at it. As he slowly ate his fourth slice of bread and drank up his ale and coffee, he contemplated her peculiar, childlike but not illiterate handwriting, and her excessive, old-fashioned use of abbreviations and capital letters. Meriel did not like writing: she had once told him
that whenever she had a pen in her hand, she felt as though she were betraying something bad about herself.

He raised his eyes from her note to carve himself a piece of cold venison, and thought for a moment how much he still liked this long narrow room of his, after six months of living in it, despite the fact that he could only stand upright under the central beam, and had to bend down to look out of the windows because they were set so close to the floor, like hatches in a pigeon-loft. Creamy morning light came through them now, and warmed his feet and lit the floorboards while leaving his head in easy shade.

Meriel had long since given up trying to persuade him to hire a grander set of rooms closer to Marquis’s Court. She too liked the feeling of enclosure and privacy, the fact that almost no one but herself had ever visited Auriol in this lodging, which he kept undisturbed by his late wife’s relations; it was a pity that they could not depend upon the seeming privacy, and could very rarely take the risk of making love up here.

But they would make love when she came this morning, Auriol knew, and he stirred in his chair at the very thought. If Meriel had been present at that moment, she would have thought his face looked like that of an angel.

He heard the door swing genty open, but did not turn his eyes towards it, knowing that it could only be the staircase chambermaid coming in to clear away his breakfast. Meriel always rapped twice before entering.

“I have not finished yet,” he said.

“My Knight,” said a male voice, “you’ve a morning-caller.”

He looked up then, and saw the footman who usually waited on him standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Behind him were a little fat man in grey, who was holding out a piece of paper, and two more footmen, dressed like the first in the red and blue livery of the Castle West servants. The grey man stepped forward. He was one of Juxon’s clerks, but Auriol did not know him.

“My Knight, do you read this!” he said, thrusting the paper at him. It was as thick as parchment, and sealed at the bottom with the Steward’s black wax.

Auriol took it, and slowly laying down his fork, read: ‘The Steward of Castle West presents his compliments to Knight Auriol Wychwood, and begs leave to inform him that he is
sorrowfully suspected of Complicity in the late Plot most traitorously to murder Justin Winyard, Marquis of Southmarch, Knight of Knights, Island Marshall, Defender of the Revolution, etc. The Steward regrets his obligation to tell Knight Auriol that he is, therefore, to be confined to his present Lodging in the Roof Chamber, Staircase Seven, Medlar Court, Castle West, thirty days: beginning this seventeenth day of Month of Corn, Year of the Revolution, —. This done, Sir, upon the authority of the Steward as granted to him by the Castle-law Amendment of III Marquis Hugo.’ The letter had been copied out by some clerk, but it was signed with a flourish in purple ink: ‘Florimond Juxon.’

Auriol’s lips moved silently as he re-read it.

The grey man cleared his throat and said, “Such a house arrest as this, my Knight, is imposed chiefly for your own protection, as Mr Juxon desired me to explain to you. Merely for your own protection! I must tell you that you will not be under
formal
guard. Two footmen will be posted outside your door, but no more — no constables, no Western Guardsmen, sir! You may order what you will from the kitchens, my Knight, and receive what visitors you choose, and —”

“Go,” said Auriol, getting up from the table. “Go!”

“And Mr Juxon will do himself the honour of waiting on you very shortly,” finished the clerk, stepping backwards, but looking Auriol straight in the face. Auriol threw Juxon’s paper down on his plate.

“Get out!”

They went, and he heard them lock the doors behind them, fumbling with the keys.

Auriol leant his head against the ceiling above a window and let out a deep, low, hideous cry. He knew that by betraying such fury as he had just done, he had made Juxon’s servants, who knew nothing, think him guilty of treason. Perhaps, in fact, he was so — because he had not betrayed Meriel to the rightful Marquis Hugo. Auriol clutched his face, and made himself sit down.

“For his own
protection
? Do you take me for a flat? Don’t lie to me! You have dared to confine him, under this trumpery ruling, because of what I told you yesterday. And I tell you this Juxon, if you do him the least harm, the least, I shall see to it that you stand trial for murder, no matter what, and I’ll see you condemned as a man of the common people too!”

This meant that instead of being executed as a noble, or imprisoned as a member of the middle class, Juxon would be beaten and put to forced labour. For the first time in that morning’s interview, Juxon was angered and frightened; and he felt humiliated by her as never before. He must remember not to forgive those last words, remember to store them away.

“You have no need to fear that I shall murder him, Marquis,” he said with as much soothing contempt as he could summon. “Indeed, I wonder that such a possibility could cross your mind — unless you are either quite addled, or wish yourself, perhaps, to murder him. No, pray let me finish, Marquis! Let us talk rationally. See — see here — I had this by the first post this morning. He
is
under suspicion, and not by me.”

After a moment’s pause, she snatched the paper which he was holding out to her: an official letter which purported to come from the Marquis of Southmarch’s Minister of Police, and which had been opened by Juxon in his capacity of First Secretary.

As Meriel read it, Juxon went on, “I did not explain myself as I ought. I was quite overset myself, when I first examined it, knowing how very deeply distressed you would be — and so — but I came to you directly I had made myself master of its contents, as I told you — and you may see for yourself, Marquis!”

The letter asked that Knight Auriol Wychwood be sent to Bury
Winyard under guard, because Mr Endymion Conybeare had provided evidence which indicated that Knight Auriol might have been involved in an attempt to assassinate the Marquis of Southmarch, nearly two years ago.

Meriel fingered the paper’s red seal, a seal whose stamp, though indistinct, was clearly recognisable as that of the Bury Winyard police authorities. “Oh, my God, it is not possible,” she whispered.

“It seemed to me, Marquis,” said Juxon, leaning forward, “that you would vastly prefer your friend to be under house arrest here, than sent back into Southmarch to face an inquisition which I, at least, have not the least doubt would be shockingly unjust. For you could scarcely refuse outright to send him, could you, in the circumstances? My dear! I am so very sorry.”

They were in her dining-room, and it was mid-morning. Meriel laid the paper down on the great table and did not answer. She believes it! thought Juxon, seeing in the sun’s glare that her face had aged five years.

He went on talking, explaining, sympathising, while the grey-faced Meriel said nothing. The fact that she was obviously deep in thought worried him. At last she said, “There is something devilish smoky about this whole affair, Juxon, and nothing will persuade me that you have not had a hand in it. No, don’t answer me! I can prove nothing, but I’ll give Southmarch a piece of my mind — and we shall see what he has to say in reply. About you, as well as Wychwood.”

Juxon said, a moment later, “Do but give me your reply to have copied by my clerk, Marquis. I cannot but feel it will be more efficacious to write as formally as he has written himself — to be dignified.”

“Very well. But I’ll see it before it’s sent, I shan’t have you making alterations just as you think fit.”

“No, Marquis.”

Meriel took the letter from Southmarch’s Minister of Police, stuffed it into her coat-pocket and quitted the room before Juxon could advise her to leave it in his keeping.

When she left, Juxon was in a state of considerable excitement. None of her previous rages, however white-faced and flashing-eyed, had given him quite so much dangerous pleasure as this
controlled and despairing one over Wychwood. Meriel had never physically attacked him, and he knew that he would not really have enjoyed it if she had, but he always liked to wonder quite how close she was to striking him on any given occasion.

Oh, he thought, as with his outspread hands pressed to the window-pane, he watched her march out across the court; oh, but what would she have said if she had guessed!

Meriel passed through the archway into the next courtyard, and Juxon sighed and turned away, but his excess of energy did not disappear with her. He walked round and round the long table, pulling at his fingers, taking snuff, gazing distractedly at the old battle-mural on the walls. He wished sometimes there were a war on now, so that he might see Meriel on a white horse, dressed in white armour and girt with a sword, leading her troops into the fray. In his opinion, she was made to be a hero, and he regretted that armour was no longer worn.

It had been obsolete even at the time of the Northern War, when the Steward of Castle West had been given his emergency power to confine faintly suspicious persons to their lodgings for a period of thirty days, during which it would be decided what was to be done. No Steward had made use of the privilege since the end of that war, in which the Conybeares of Northmarch had been defeated, and so no Marquis had troubled to abolish it. Juxon dwelt lovingly on the thought of his being the very first to make use of it in over a century.

But I am not corrupt! he thought as he looked at the chief hero of the mural. I love her, and I shall save her, without doing anything in the least degree unlawful, for all I am indulging in intrigue! And did not Providence bring me up from a back-slum to the heart of the Castle solely in order that I might protect her? And have I not been, till now, as humble as — as a mole?

But now, he thought, that she is defiled and weakened by man, it is I who must ride into battle on her behalf. I grudge it not. She is still noble, Meriel Longmaster!

*

“But it is
Juxon
who has confined me,” said Auriol. “Do you deny it? Not Southmarch, but your Steward.”

Meriel had not been with him for long. Ten minutes ago she had brushed past the footmen, come in without knocking, and told him why Juxon had done as he had. Nearly two hours had passed since
Auriol had been disturbed at his breakfast by Juxon’s clerk. He was still sitting over the remains of that meal, and Meriel was standing in the middle of the floor.

She looked at his face, and saw that it was set in lines which made his heavy chin look unusually large. His eyes were steadily regarding her, and he was massaging his left arm with the other hand, pushing his shirtsleeve up and down over the muscles.

“Sir,” she said, swallowing further explanations as she realised what he meant, “for God’s sake — you are not thinking that
I
had a hand in this?”

He replied without moving, “I don’t suppose it would occur to you that I might think that, if you were entirely innocent.”

“But — no, no, you can’t think I would!”

“Why not? You love me, so you say, but you don’t wish to marry me. To have me under house arrest must suit you very well. How much you do like power, Meriel.”

“This is unbelievable,” she whispered. “I’ve explained. Explained. H-have you listened to nothing I’ve been saying? How can you speak with such abominable cruelty?”

His eyes blinked at that, and he made a slight movement towards her, but he said, “Very well, I will assume it is all just as you say — after all, here’s the written evidence.” The letter from Southmarch was lying on top of Juxon’s notice of arrest. “My own idea was somewhat fantastic. I will own that. But all you will say, now, is that it is impossible to release me, and that I don’t believe. How should I? You could very well release me if you chose.” He saw that she was gaping at him, and became angry. “And I had liefer by far go down to Bury Winyard,
under
guard,
and fight my own battle, than hide behind your damned coat-skirts! What
right
have you to manage my affairs without so much as a by-your-leave? I find it insulting, degrading — particularly when you
dare
to make use of that man. I want to be released. Does it not even occur to you that your action, your trying to shield me now, makes me appear
guilty
?”

“I do not follow you,” she said, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?”

She seized on one of his remarks. “I
cannot
release you. It’s not in my power. Only Juxon can.”

“What? You can’t overrule your own Steward? Do you expect me to swallow such a tale as that?”

“On this matter, no, I cannot! He explained the whole to me, because of course I said I would release you immediately on my authority no matter what, thinking it was all one of his high pieces of meddling, and damnable, before I understood that it was indeed necessary for your protection that you be arrested! We quarrelled, didn’t I tell you, and he was good enough to explain to me that it is not in my
power
.” She drew breath. “The ruling was made during the occupation, and then changed, so that it might be used in
defiance
of the Marquis himself. Whatever devil was Steward then was in Northern pay, and Marquis Hugo was forced by one of the damned Conybeares to give him the privilege so that he might imprison his own supporters, Westmarchers! It’s never been revoked, by some hideous oversight — what Steward but Juxon would dream of using it — and there is nothing I can do but try to persuade him.” She took a step towards Auriol and said desperately, “So have you the least idea how
impotent
I feel?”

“
You
feel impotent, that’s rich!” he shouted at her, banging his fist down on the table. She jumped. He had never once raised his voice to her before.

“I should have supposed that was not one of your difficulties,” she muttered.

“Oh yes,” he said, hardly able to speak, “a very useful sort of stallion I have been to you, have I not, God forgive me? But of no further interest to you, oh no!”

“I beg your pardon sir, though it is perfectly true. And will you please understand me when I tell you the truth, tell you I c-can’t release you. And I would not, now, if I could — I wouldn’t let you run into danger when
I
can put an end to this vengeful idiocy of Endymion Conybeare’s. Wychwood — I beg of you.”

Breathing heavily, and thinking, they were quiet for a little while. Meriel sat down on the sofa, and Auriol looked across at her. His hour-and-a-half alone, unvisited by her, had not been good for him. It had induced ridiculous fancies in his mind, made him imagine that Meriel was evil, was behind a plot which he could now only believe was Juxon’s. If he continued to think her responsible, he would go mad — in fact, he realised it was mad to have supposed it for a moment.

“So Juxon has done this,” he said, keeping calm, “and you are supporting him because you desire to protect me, Meriel. That’s the case? I should not have shouted at you! I am sorry, believe me.”

“Yes.” She was looking at the floor, thinking miserably of his potency, which perhaps had poisoned her as Juxon said, and which she might never feel again.

“But I have no wish to be protected in such a fashion,” he said. Meriel moved on the sofa. “I swore I would never let harm come to you.”

“I know. But you will please allow me the use of my own judgement as to what will harm me!”

“You would not allow me mine,” she said, “not when I told you I believed it would do
me
terrible harm to abandon my — my independence. You persuaded me otherwise.” Her voice was dull: she had only just fully absorbed the fact that he was blaming her, that he did not trust her and thought power bad for her. Knowing this made her begin to doubt herself and her feelings for him. She reminded herself that his life was in danger.

Vehemently she told him, “I love you so very dearly still, I’ll save you, whatever is happening at Bury Winyard!”

Bury Winyard, Auriol thought. Of course, the Conybeares were involved, he might be carried off there before he could carry off Meriel. He must take the whole tale seriously. Yet somehow, he could not believe in the suspicions of the Minister of Police, because only Meriel and Juxon were real to him. And the thought that the outer world might really take possession of him when he had so much else to contend with was terrible, as terrible to him as perhaps it was to Meriel.

An idea came to him. He picked up the Southmarch letter and scratched at the edge of the seal with his fingernail. Meriel saw, and thought it merely a nervous movement, but then she noticed the intense expression on his face and the bobbing movement of his Adam’s apple. “Sir?”

A chip of wax fell on to his plate, and Auriol saw that there was a pale red stain on the paper where the wax had been.

“Sir? What is it?”

He said, laying the paper down, “I had been hoping that this might be a forgery. I thought perhaps — Juxon had taken the seal
from some other letter and glued it on to this. But it is genuine.”

There was a pause, both felt they were being unnatural.

“What precisely I suspect him of I don’t know,” he said.

“I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that it is Juxon’s doing, either,” Meriel interrupted in a small voice, which attracted his attention, “and I have reason, because I know this has happened at such a very opportune moment, for him, or at all events he might well think so.” She went on, pulling her coat about her as though it were cold in the room, “Yesterday I told him that I meant, mean to elope with you — told him the whole as I must have done at some point before we left, for his sake — and he was — outraged, sir. Oh, I daresay I should not have done it! But I
could
not
endure
his fretting and fuming, about my swoon, and so I told him to take a damper because it would very shortly be of no consequence — everyone would know I was a female!”

Auriol said nothing, and she gestured towards the Southmarch letter. “But it is against all reason to suppose that what’s behind this is his doing — it is a terrible, hideous coincidence, this plot against you and my telling him, what else can it possibly be? Oh, Wychwood — oh God sir, if it is my blame, I am so very sorry!” Her voice rose an octave as she said this. She burst into tears, and rocked on the sofa, helplessly cuddling herself because she had lost control.