The Marquis of Westmarch (7 page)

“I believe, Mistress Dianeme, that you are acquainted with my niece.”

“To be sure I am, ma’am! Why, the Marquis himself presented her to me not a week ago.” She bowed to Rosalba, who dropped a slight curtsey.

Mistress Dianeme Sandeman Grindal was Philander Grindal’s wife and Meriel’s only woman friend. Because of this friendship, which all agreed was nothing more, she was generally accepted at Castle West in spite of her being a tradesman’s daughter who people said had trapped her husband into marriage. She had round and staring, bright blue eyes, a well-corseted figure, and an incipient double chin. Her nose was aquiline and her mouth was
narrow, and she would have been a distinguished-looking woman as well as a pretty one, if she had not been both overweight and pregnant.

Mistress Dianeme gave Rosalba a swift, searching look. “His lordship tells me you’re to marry Mr Valerian Marling, my dear. When is it to be?”

Mistress Philoclea closed her eyes at this vulgarity, and Rosalba said, “I don’t know, ma’am.”

“The notice of my niece’s engagement has not yet appeared,” said her aunt.

“Then I expect I did ought to pretend to know nothing about it, for all that everyone’s aware,” said Dianeme, smiling. “But however that may be, a very good marriage it is, I’m sure, and I felicitate you, Maid Rosalba! Mr Marling’s a very amiable gentleman,
I
should say, not to mention full of juice.”

Knowing from a younger friend that Rosalba was to spend this afternoon with her aunt, Dianeme had found an excuse to call on Philoclea in order to observe the girl. Meriel had told her only that he felt sorry for Rosalba and thought her pretty, yet she guessed, not that he was in love with her, but that he wished to fall in love with some girl or other. Dianeme was secure in her position as his friend, as the woman who uttered ill-bred truths he would like to utter himself and in general dared not, and she did not object to his having a mistress.

She pitied Rosalba because she thought her unlikely to hold his attention for long if she were made happy; in fact, she believed that even now Meriel had no real interest in her, that his true emotions were directed otherwhere. Dianeme meant to be extremely kind to Rosalba and, in order to save her pain, to reconcile her somehow to her country squire. To understand others, and to make them contented with their own fates and dispositions as she perceived them, was Dianeme’s greatest pleasure in life.

“I do not think he is full of juice, ma’am,” said Rosalba quietly. “I think he has no more than an easy competence.”

“Rosalba!” said Philoclea.

Rosalba presumed that Mistress Dianeme was secretly in love with the Marquis, who could give her nothing more than
friendship; and she pitied her, for Dianeme’s love must be more hopeless than her own.

At this moment, the two young women felt attracted to each other, and repelled by Philoclea, but both realised that this was no time to talk and to compare themselves, for heavy footsteps could be heard mounting the stairs outside.

“I daresay your aunt means that you ought not to use such expressions as I’m in the habit of using, Maid Rosalba,” said Dianeme, standing up, her eyes crinkled in amusement. “Well, I never could learn to act the fine lady, as it won’t surprise you to hear. Now, if Mr Marling’s coming to call on you, Mistress Philoclea, I’ll take my leave. I only came to speak with your aunt about the Respectable Orphans, my dear, for she’s on the committee with me, as I’m sure you must know, and so I can’t be staying in any case, but I hope and trust as you’ll be so good as to call in on me should you feel so inclined. Staircase Number Six, it is, in Chapel Court.”

“You are very good, ma’am! I —”

“I do not allow my niece to pay morning-calls without a chaperone, Mistress Dianeme,” said Philoclea.

“Well, to be sure not! I didn’t mean that she should come without. I’d be very well pleased to receive
you
, ma’am, and Maid Rosalba may come if she chooses.”

The footman who served the staircase came in, and announced Mr Valerian Marling.

“Ah, Mistress Philoclea! Your servant, ma’am. Devilish good in you it is to — Upon my word, the weather has taken a turn for the worse, I was within a moment of being caught in a shower.”

Rosalba had got up at his entrance and walked across the room. Seeing her, Mistress Dianeme wished she had not said she would go, for the girl looked so spiritless that any protector would surely be better than none, and even she could prevent personal talk by staying. But for her part, she could see nothing wrong in Mr Marling: he seemed to her an upstanding man, tolerably good-looking and the blustering sort who would be easy to manage.

“May I present you, Mistress Dianeme, to Mr Marling?” said Philoclea.

“We’ve met before, I fancy, sir,” said Dianeme, giving his hand a vigorous shake and looking into his eyes.

“Delighted, ma’am!”

“Well, I must be off, as I was telling Mistress Philoclea, pray don’t be thinking me uncivil. Maid Rosalba — goodbye.”

“Goodbye, ma’am.” Rosalba raised her head and threw her plait, with which she had been fiddling, behind her shoulder before she let Mr Marling kiss her hand.

When Dianeme had gone, the three remaining sat down in a semi-circle on Mistress Philoclea’s hard little chairs, and Philoclea’s maid poured out glasses of wine. Rosalba, sitting between her aunt and her betrothed, listening to their conversation (Mr Marling was pretending to agree with Philoclea about the laxity of modern manners) and thinking of Meriel, had a stifling desire to scream and to throw something. The thought of what would happen if she were to do this made her knees shake under her dress.

Mr Marling was thirty-five, and to Rosalba he seemed to be in late middle-age. He was a stocky, big-shouldered, big-featured man, with an inflexible mouth, a sandy complexion, and light grey eyes set under protruding brows. His clothes were plain, well-made, and provincial in cut; for his coat was too narrow for modishness, his boots were too high, and his shirt was trimmed with lace as a concession to the town fashion prevailing fifteen years before. He wore his undyed tawny hair tied back with a ribbon, and Rosalba wished he favoured any other style but that, for it seemed to her an insulting irony that Mr Marling should be almost the only other man at Castle West to dress his hair in Meriel’s unaffected, old-fashioned way. In spite of this she sometimes thought he would have been tolerable if only he had not had a little wart above his left eyebrow.

Mr Marling never took his eyes from Rosalba, except when politeness required him to face Philoclea. He had been married once before, to a woman of fifty, and he never grew tired of comparing Rosalba with his first wife. He wondered whether she appreciated the sacrifice he had made in leaving his estate and following her to Castle West, which he had visited only once in his life, in order to look after her and to court her properly.

There came a pause in Mistress Philoclea’s conversation. Mr Marling opened his snuff box, and said, without seeming to speak more to one than to the other, “Do you know ma’am, I should very much like to discuss the arrangements for our wedding.”

Rosalba, who had been studying his figure with a kind of weary dispassion, jumped in her chair in a way he thought maidenly, and dropped her eyes to her lap in a way her aunt thought proper. Philoclea gave Marling an amiable smile, spread out her fan, and prepared to speak.

“I trust Maid Rosalba’s modesty will not be affronted if I ask her to name the day,” Marling continued. His voice was hoarse and jocular, but he tried to make it tender, for Rosalba touched his heart just as she touched Meriel’s, and Mistress Dianeme’s.

“For my part, sir,” said Mistress Philoclea slowly, “I should like to see you married at the end of the season. You must know that my niece owes a certain duty to the Marchioness, which will scarcely allow her to be married within these next few weeks. But the wedding might take place with perfect propriety after the Harvest-quarter Ball.”

“What ma’am?” he said, pretending to be shocked. “Five months, no less! Why, if I were not seeking to become your nephew, I know I should beg of you not to talk such fustian nonsense, upon my word I should!” He laughed, got up, and planted his hands in his breeches pockets. “Upon my soul, I can’t be waiting that long. Eh, Maid Rosalba? What do you say?”

“I shall be very happy, sir, to oblige anyone — to oblige my aunt!”

“Now, Rosalba, such die-away airs will very likely give Mr Marling a disgust of you, my love,” said Philoclea, smiling as she looked hard at her niece and toyed with her fan. “You lack decision of character! If I have said so once, I have said so a thousand times. Do you wish to oblige
me
— or to oblige Mr Marling?”

“To my mind, ma’am, your niece’s reserve does her a deal of credit,” said Mr Marling, and it made Rosalba raise her face to him, as she wondered for the first time whether her aunt and her future husband really liked each other as she had supposed they did.

There was silence for a while; then Mistress Philoclea made a difficult decision and said, taking out her watch: “Pray excuse me one moment, Mr Marling. Several persons are to dine with me this evening and if dinner is not to be quite spoilt, I must consult with the cook directly — Mistress Melusina was so good as to
recommend a cook to me, for I find that in general, the kitchens which serve this court are quite the worst at Castle West. No chafing-dishes, and the food always perfectly cold. Rosalba my love, I am persuaded you will wish to talk a little with Mr Marling. Don’t get up, child. I do not require you, and shall be back upon the instant.”

Mr Marling bowed her out of the room, and then went to sit beside Rosalba, whose hand he took and squeezed.

“My dear girl, I wish you will name an earlier day,” he said.

But I ought to be talking, thought Rosalba, I ought indeed to be shouting, forcing my views upon them both, upon the world; I would save myself if only I could do that. She felt she could do nothing, that in a crisis, she was a coward; and meanwhile she had a proud image of Meriel in her mind, standing up and telling his mother to go to the devil. He could not know what fear was, because he was a hero.

Mr Marling continued. “Upon my word, I’m half afraid that if we don’t at least announce our engagement in a regular way — not but what it’s as good as public already — some dashing sprig of fashion will run off with you from under my nose! Eh, Maid Rosalba?”

“I don’t like dashing sprigs of fashion, sir,” she said, listening carefully to her own words.

“Famous! Then I have nothing to fear on that head. But such very young ladies as yourself are often — well, well!” He patted her hand and cleared his throat. “Come my dear, when is it to be?”

Rosalba choked a little as she said, “S-some time in Month of Corn, sir? Towards the end of Month of Corn?”

Mr Marling took a pinch of snuff and looked towards the door, then at Rosalba, who was trying to hold up her head. He became suddenly aware of the shabbiness and gloom of Mistress Philoclea’s lodging, and of the rain now pattering down the windows. In dismal irritation he said in quite a different voice, “Maid Rosalba, have you some objection to marrying me? Does your aunt force you to it? Do you know, I have no fancy for a reluctant bride.”

“No sir, she does not — force me to it, precisely. But — but I owe her obedience, after all — she is, is the
h
ead
of our family — we have no male relations.”

He allowed Rosalba to get up and walk over to the fireplace on jerky legs. She looked dazed, for she was thinking: that was brave in me, brave not to lie.

He said, “Do you hold me in aversion?”

“No, sir.” She pressed both her hands tightly to her ribcage. Mr Marling rose from his chair and joined her by the fire.

“Your aunt will be back in a moment or so. Well, since you are so good as not to hate me, I’ll tell you just what it is I can offer you — and we shall see whether you like it or not.

“As my wife you will be mistress of a very pretty establishment — I can offer you the elegancies of life though not its luxuries, for I’ve no patience with town ways. You’ll
owe
obedience
only to me, and I shall endeavour to make you happy, be sure. Now, do you understand me?”

Rosalba’s aunt did not endeavour to make her happy, though she was impatiently fond of her, and believed in doing her duty. Rosalba said nothing in reply to Mr Marling’s hint. She felt not so much miserable as dull and sickly, for she saw the force of what he was saying, and a realistic vision was now before her. Choose between
them,
she thought — he seemed to think she was able to choose.

At that moment Mr Marling picked up her chin, shocking her very much. She could feel the smelly heat of his mouth above her own.

“Have you formed another attachment since you came to Castle West?” he said.

“No, sir! No, I have not!”

He dropped her face. “You have no hopes of catching another husband? For to own the truth, I believe your aunt has some notion of your doing so.”

Rosalba stared. “Oh, no! Not my aunt! It is not possible — why —” She found Marling’s suspicion frightful, not a delightful revelation or even a relief: for she did not want to think that she had any feeling in common with the ugly aunt whom she could not love. Yet the news that perhaps Philoclea shared her most foolish ambitions ought to have pleased her, she knew.

She was thankful that Marling appeared not to have noticed her ill-phrased protest; she in turn hardly listened to what he was saying.

“It is for that reason she has not yet announced our betrothal, as I suspect, but I tell you this, my dear, it’s damned unlikely you will ever do so. Your portion is paltry, and though I daresay you have a great many missish, romantical notions, the fact is that most men will not offer
marriage
to a girl who has only a pretty face to recommend her.” Rosalba noticed that he had discoloured teeth, and a shiny nose, while he was putting his views to her with such overwhelming masculine confidence.

Something about his present manner calmed her and gave her courage, and she was able to say, “I know, sir, you are perfectly right.”