The Marquis of Westmarch (9 page)

“The innkeeper’s daughter?”

“Oh, you see, she was the first woman ever to take a fancy to me, something I had not thought possible. It prejudiced me at once in her favour. She was a deuced pretty girl, too, with an
excellent figure — famous frontal development.”

“Oh.”

“Though I am not sure but what I don’t prefer slenderness in women — have always done so.”

“Indeed?”

He smiled a little. “I had not meant you — that is, I had, but I was not thinking of you just at that moment.”

“Why, sir, was it necessary for you and your wife to form an alliance against your father and brother?” said Meriel, handing back the watch.

“We all lived together,” he replied after a moment, winding it and putting it away. “We were forced to do so for lack of money — my marriage was intended to put things to rights but no such thing, Blandy took one look at my father and tied up all Clorinda’s fortune, which was not great in any case, I was no match for an heiress. A better one than either of them, though,” he added. “I must have told you that they were both of them gamesters, my father and Chrysander — needless to say they detested country life.”

“I see. Yes, I can picture the scene.”

Auriol continued, swinging the wine in his glass. “They tried to make me break the entail on Wychwood. Matters were so arranged that the thing could not be done without my consent — which I would not give.” He paused and shrugged. “Well, it was after that they insisted on my marrying. I was not yet twenty, Chrysander was ten years my senior — I think you can imagine what kind of pressures were brought to bear on me.”

“And I daresay you was big enough even then to floor the pair of them with one finger, Wychwood.”

“Oh, yes, they detested me for that! Though I was by no means so strong as I looked to be.”

“But you did not submit.”

“No, not to that, but it was a damnable life,” said Auriol, pouring himself more wine. “Do you know, they all died within a year, and I never expected any of them to die, thought they’d live forever to plague me — not Clorinda, I mean, she was a good girl as I said. Yes, it was Clorinda in Month of Flowers if I remember, my father’s apoplexy in Fruit, and then Chrysander was killed only two days later, a most extraordinary thing.
Drove into a tree when he was foxed and broke his neck with the jolt, so I was told.”

The deadpan way in which he told his story made tears come to Meriel’s eyes. Auriol noticed this, and was mildly pleased, but he did nothing about it, did not touch her sleeve as it occurred to him to do. It gave him triumphant pleasure now to contemplate the miserable youth from which he was free, and it was because he treasured his old memories that, strange as it seemed to him, he did not really want to tell Meriel everything or to speak of them in the tones they deserved. But to remember the past made him feel deep down that he would be happy now with the incredible woman who loved him, and who had finally rescued him from isolation, from rustic boredom, and from the sense that he was ordinary. The friendship of the young, male Marquis of Westmarch had done a great deal for him and this, now, must do very much more.

“You hated them both?” said Meriel. “Always?”

“No, not when I was a child, before my mother died. She had a measure of control over both of them, and besides, in those days, before my father was rolled-up, he lived very largely at the Island Palace, not with us. Yes, my mother was an admirable woman.”

“You told me once you lived all your life down at Wychwood until your brother died. Did your father not take you even once to the Island Palace? I can scarcely credit it.”

“Oh, my dear Westmarch, he considered that the world of Fashion would do very well without me, and besides that in any case, I should not enjoy the life! In which he was quite right, a most irritating circumstance — naturally I had not liked being considered a boorish gapeseed, I even tried to turn myself into a dandy when I was sixteen or so. I blush to remember it — I was a little wiser, thank God, by the time I did go up to Bury Winyard!”

Meriel laughed. “Ay, you must have looked a figure of fun.”

“That is what I always felt myself to be,” said Auriol quietly, turning towards her.

“Of all things in the world you are least — Are you happy now?” she said with equal seriousness.

“Now? I — I think I am going to be. And I hope, so are you.”

Meriel found his shyness and awkwardness enchanting,
though she herself was no more at ease. They were both of them blushing. “Damn it, yes, indeed, I hope so, though it is the most hideous coil and I know I ought never to have told you.”

“I must leave you, only for a moment,” he said, and pressed her shoulder as he rose, harder than he knew, so that it hurt her.

When he came back, the sight of Meriel gave him a shock. Unconsciously, he had expected to see her looking more female and beautiful than ever, perhaps even wearing a dress; but instead, she had rung for a clay pipe in his absence, and was now smoking it with her boots crossed on the fender. One hand was dug into her coat pocket, and her well-padded shoulders were hunched up so that they looked very large. Auriol, who in less than an hour had grown used to thinking of the Marquis of Westmarch as an enchantress, thought sickeningly that Meriel’s story could not possibly be true. It was just the same face he remembered, glowing red there in the shaky firelight, but now it seemed undoubtedly the face of a boy. He managed to say, “You do not look like a woman.”

“I hope I do not,” she said, turning, and looking no more feminine than before as she did so.

“I begin to think I must have imagined the whole.”

“No, you did not.” Meriel smiled slightly.

His eyes became accustomed to the sight of her and he sat down, reminding himself that her new attitude was in fact familiar. “You are extraordinary, Westmarch!”

“Well, what do you expect, of course I am.”

“Do you know,” he said, “for a moment just then I felt positively murderous — not certain whether it was you I wanted to murder, or myself, thinking it was all untrue.”

“The devil you did!” said Meriel, unable to cope. “Come, blow a cloud with me, Wychwood, I had the waiter bring a pipe for you.”

Auriol obeyed her and for a long time they remained smoking by the fire together, in silence. As they sat there, purposely immobile, watching the logs burn away before them, their minds each developed a calm, tough surface. Underneath there were feelings, shared, but not experienced always at the same moment. Waves of suppressed panic passed over them from time to time, and yet often, there seemed to be no tension in the room at all, not
even a prospect of joy. They neither dared nor wished to speak, but sat on, smoking, like a peaceful old couple.

At length the clock struck ten. Auriol roused himself and his chair creaked as he moved and studied the clock-face.

“We can’t ride back to Castle West tonight,” he whispered, as though there were someone to overhear, and they were talking scandal. “Only see how late it is, they must give us rooms for the night.”

Meriel collected her thoughts. “The Senior Member is to wait on me at nine tomorrow, sir.”

“Then we must be up at five and go to bed directly.” Auriol raised his voice to normal level at this mention of her governmental life.

“We ought to ride back, you know we meant to do so.”

“I am too tired, and so ought you to be. Surely no one will think it odd in us, suspicious, if that’s what you fear. Will they?” he said.

“Very likely not. Ring the bell, then.” Meriel, having listened to his appeal, left her chair and stood up in front of the fire.

Presently the landlord came to attend them, but it turned out that none of the bedchambers was to be had.

“I’m sure I’m very sorry, my Knight, your honour, but the house is as full as it can hold. I’m sure I wish I could oblige you.”

“You have no rooms at all?” said Meriel.

“If it is necessary we will share a bedchamber,” said Auriol. Meriel put her hands behind her back and looked grim, at this. Her stomach was fluttering.

“Surely you have an attic or some such thing?” said Auriol. The landlord waved his hands.

“Well your honour, the only room I
might
offer you ain’t by any means fitting for such a gentleman as yourself! Indeed your honours would both of you be more comfortable at the Oaktree, they’ll have beds aplenty to spare, I’ll warrant.”

“My friend has taken a chill and I’ve no fancy myself to ride out at this hour.”

“Ay, where is this room?” said Meriel.

“It’s above the stables, sir, and just the one bunk, though it does have a feather mattress, that I will say. A common-sized
bunk,” he added, turning to Auriol. “But if your honour would not object to sleeping on the floor …”

“I would not.”

“Very well, sir, I’ll have blankets taken up and I hope you will be comfortable enough.”

“Thank you,” they said together. They exchanged no words when they were left alone.

*

The bedchamber over the stables was cold but clean, lit by wax candles which the landlord had had quickly taken up to replace the tallow ones whose smell still lingered in the room. There was a warming pan in Meriel’s bunk, and a straw mattress on the floor had been provided for Auriol.

Meriel and Auriol began to undress, the Marquis throwing her clothes on the floor as she did so, and Auriol placing his with unnecessary care on top of a rickety table. When they had stripped down to their shirts and breeches, they faced each other, and Meriel held out her hand. “Goodnight, sir,” she said. Her skin was dark yellow in the light of two candles.

Auriol shook her hand, but dared not kiss it reverently as he would have done a lady’s, though he wanted very much to do so. He was a little hurt, thinking she did not need him, but at the back of his mind he knew that at another time, if things had been only a little different, he would have wanted to smile at Meriel’s attitude.

Each blew out one candle, and they climbed into their beds in the dark. Auriol lay stretched out on his back with his eyes open; he did not believe he would be able to sleep, and he did not mean to try. Meriel curled up in her bunk, and pulled the covers right over her head.

Five minutes later, she began to cry. She tried to remember who she was, but she could only sob and not let out the noise, as she had never let out any noise, until today. No sound came from under the bedclothes, but Auriol guessed. His eyes had grown accustomed to the faint light which came through the window from the other side of the inn’s courtyard, and when he slowly rolled over and stared at the bunk in the wall, he thought he could see the blankets shaking. For a few moments, he was unable to move, not knowing whether to ignore it, or to go to her. He knew
that either way his decision might be of great importance, that Meriel might take his doing nothing as cowardly neglect, or might on the other hand be thankful for his not disturbing her. She might think that he meant to attack her, if he came near now. But when he consulted his own wishes, and realised that his pity was deep and he longed to comfort her and to receive comfort from her, he got up, and very nearly knocked over a chair.

As he looked fearfully down at the bunk, Auriol wondered whether these were tears of rage, despair and terror such as she had shed on the beach, or of sorrow, relief and hope. He thought he would never find out; then he lifted the bedclothes from Meriel’s head.

“Westmarch,” he said quietly, before there was a response. “Meriel, why are you crying? My dear, don’t — I can’t bear it.” He could not have said this if he had been able to see her, or she him. “I can’t bear you to cry.”

“I never meant you to hear,” she said, her voice just audible. “Never, d’you hear?”

On impulse, Auriol threw off the blankets, picked Meriel up, and held her body against his chest. Immediately he wondered at his own boldness, but he did not release her when she choked: “Leave me, damn you, let me go. Oh, Wychwood. Oh God in heaven
what
have
I
done
! Let me go, I tell you.”

She is clinging to me, he thought, aware simultaneously of quite how thin she was, of how little her bones were, how her hair smelt of tobacco smoke, and of how cold were his own feet on the splintery floorboards.

“I won’t leave you. I won’t hurt you. I promise,” he muttered. “Little one, little Marquis. You’re so warm.” Auriol’s eyes began to water and Meriel, gripping his shoulders, gave a low wail.

“Meriel, Meriel.” Wrapping his arms more sternly around her, he lowered himself and her on to the bed, which sank under the weight. When she raised her face to shriek, he pressed it into his shoulder. “No, no, darling, others will hear.” She was shrieking for her Marquisate.

“Ah, God. Ah, I love you.” She gave a cry, and coughed wretchedly. “Thank G-God it was you I chose.”

“Ay, that was well done in you!” he whispered, weeping freely but silently himself.

“I wish I were dead. I do.” She scratched him on the neck. “I do wish — it.”

“No, no. Eh, don’t cry. No, cry if you wish. I am here. So are you.”

When Meriel tried to wriggle out of his hold, he would not let her, and she soon abandoned the physical struggle. She cried on, in an ugly way, for some time more. After a while, the quality of her tears did alter, and Auriol noticed it at once; though, afraid of gentle but penetrating sadness, she tried to regain her rage, because it was explicable and familiar to her as open sadness was not.

But at last, Meriel found herself quietly weeping away the friendlessness and silence of a dozen years, into his chest which she could not see.

Auriol Wychwood was not the Marquis's first love. Since she was fourteen, she had suppressed passions for three different men: a second footman at Longmaster Wood, Mr Everard Salamon, and Mr Justin Quennell. They had all been little, willowy, pretty, clever, rather effeminate darlings, all extravagant, impractical, and emotional men. It had been impossible to befriend them. Love-stricken as soon as she had heard their first words (for a soft voice in a man was important to Meriel), she had avoided them for fear of betraying herself, and simply watched them from a distance, feeling ill. It had never occurred to her to trust them with her secret; she had only imagined over and over again what it would be like to rule and cherish them if she were really a man, and able to tell each one how vilely she adored him.

Her love for Auriol had been a comparatively slow growth, for when he was first introduced to her she had thought he looked amiable, stupid, and plain. His voice, though light, was hoarse, and marred by a disconcertingly strong Southmarch accent. He lacked all the qualities which she valued in her love-objects: wit and elegance and grace and ease, and seemed to share many of the qualities which she disliked in herself, except bad temper. At first this had shaken her, gradually it had intrigued her, then she had found a friend, and now it seemed impossible that love could have anything to do with the attraction of opposites, a theory in which she had always believed. Love was the friendship of true equals, that was all, something no man and woman could ever have. She and Auriol were not man and woman, but two people.

For weeks after she had begun to love him, Meriel remembered, she had found Auriol physically disturbing, rather than attractive. The memory of this delighted her now, because it
proved to her that her vision was not obscured by lust, and that Auriol really was what she thought him. His size had frightened, even repelled her, and she had thought it quite impossible to make love to a person so much larger and stronger than herself, whom she could not crush in her arms and throw down on a bed. Meriel's fantasies, though extravagant, never departed entirely from the possible, and she could not pretend, even when alone at night, that she would be capable of playing the man to Auriol's woman quite to that extent. But in time she had come to think that even his weight was no obstacle. She could climb and subdue a mountain, though she could not knock it down.

Neither of them had felt the slightest stir of carnal lust last night, and that was a wonderful, perfect thing. Lust would be glorious, but it would come later; in fact she could not bear to think of it just yet.

Meriel, dismounting in her stable-yard at Castle West, ripped off her hat as though to throw it in the air, and exposed her red head to the sky. She raised her face, and saw her servants come running to her while she stood confidently waiting. Never before had the Marquis been properly aware that it was the business of dozens of people to look after her, and that she had an absolute right to their services, did not command them under false pretences. She had shown her true self and she was loved for it, and no one could challenge her now.

The mischievous and understanding smile which she thoughtlessly gave her head groom considerably startled the man. Noticing this at once, she composed her features and addressed him quite normally, but she looked no less bewitchingly at peace with the world than before, and he replied to her with some hesitation. The Marquis had been surprised to see in the mirror at the inn that her face was neither ravaged by tears nor puffy with lack of sleep. It was god-like; and she decided that it was bound to be so, because she had defied the law of nature by showing weakness and not suffering for it. This ought to have been the worst day of her life.

*

“I saw Hugo Longmaster in Fountain Court,” said Philander Grindal.

“Well! And his lordship told me only a few days ago he wasn't expected before the end of Flowers,” said the Mistress Dianeme.

“Did he so?” He paused. “I understand he has the intention of remaining some while. In which case ought you not to send him a card for your rout-party, ma'am?”

“Mr Grindal, I'm fair astonished. Send a card to a man who sold you a horse that was touched in the wind with the positive
assurance
that it was perfectly sound, complete to a shade if I rightly remember! Marquis's heir or no, he's a shameless commoner and a Captain Sharp, sir, and besides his lordship don't like him.”

“That was quite my own fault!” snapped her husband, and went on, “I don't need your protection, Dianeme. Longmaster's not a man whom even you, with Meriel's friendship to add to your consequence, may snub with impunity. I wish you will learn that such an excess of loyalty to your particular friends won't recommend you to the notice of persons of taste if it leads you to be uncivil to the rest of your acquaintance. I don't ask you to invite him to a private dinner, after all.”

“Well, what a high flight!” said his wife, opening her eyes very wide. “Whatever have I said to make you so out of reason cross? You ain't jealous of Westmarch, are you sir, after all these years? I don't think I'm just to his taste.”

“Don't be vulgar, Dianeme,” said Philander more mildly.

“Where's Longmaster been all this while?” she asked, tossing off the rug which lay over her knees and going across to her sewing-table.

Her husband rearranged various cards on the chimneypiece. “He did not inform me and I was not so inquisitive as to ask, but I had it from Tovey that he's thought to have been at Bury Winyard visiting Tancred Conybeare.”

Dianeme stood up straight and exclaimed, “Well, his lordship
will
be pleased to hear that! Oh, he's a hateful, scheming creature, would do Westmarch a mischief without so much as a second thought, so envious as he is, I'll warrant you. Westmarch ain't never at ease in his company.” She waddled back to her chair, conscious of her pregnancy, and sat down with her tambour.

“Westmarch, my dear Dianeme, is very well able to take care of himself. Your maternal concern is admirable, but as needless as it's out of place, believe me.”

“You will always be giving me one of your scolds, Mr Grindal, when it's your liver that's out of order, makes you sound shockingly pompous, which you ain't. Take a Mercury Ball, do, you'll feel very much more the thing.” This was said with a smile which was neither mocking nor too arch to be suitable in a wife. “Now sir, how much will you allow me to spend on this rout-party of yours? I'm sure you don't want people to be saying I'm a nipcheese, as well as a Cit, but that's for you to decide.” She looked innocently out of the window, and reflected that she had often been called a clever female.

Philander, taken aback by the sudden change of subject, said, “As much as is necessary, ma'am, need you ask?”

“First-rate wine or second-rate, sir?”

“First-rate, of course.” He smiled. “Yes, you always contrive to take me by surprise and put me out of countenance. Not pompous, indeed!
I
shall order the wine.”

Philander Grindal did not love his wife, though she amused him as much as she annoyed him. He had married her in a fit of conscience three years ago, and his family had not yet forgiven him.

Dianeme had been perfectly willing to be seduced by Philander. She had come from a very dull home, and had become his mistress in order to escape marriage to an elderly merchant. Her price had been two hundred crowns a year for life, and in return for this she had always intended to be faithful to Philander and if he left her, to accept no other man's protection. She had never expected him to propose, and had hesitated before accepting him, knowing that he would suffer socially for marrying her.

Neither of them had suffered much, because of Meriel, and when she had nothing better to think of, Dianeme used to wonder whether she ought not to become Meriel's mistress out of gratitude. I'd be able to show him the way to go on, thought Dianeme, I'd make him happy just as I've made Mr Grindal. She smiled. Neither man was to her sexual taste: she found Hugo Longmaster far more attractive.

“Philander? Dianeme?” said Meriel, coming in. Not even with Auriol had she been so informal as she was with the Grindals, till now. As she entered, she remembered many visits
to Philander and Dianeme in previous years, before she had even met Auriol Wychwood. It was charming to return to the past.

“My lord! Well, this is a surprise.”

The Marquis stood in the doorway, smiling, dressed in crumpled riding-clothes which she had not changed since yesterday.

“You look to be in high force, Meriel,” said Philander, thinking that his friend seemed to be two inches taller than yesterday, and very much more bright-faced.

“Certainly I am! Rode back from the Green Garter early this morning.”

“Ah, that explains it,” the other said doubtfully. “Will you ever love anything so much as you love your horses?”

“Oh, there are my dogs, you know,” Meriel teased.

“Now, whatever's happened to put you in alt? Last time I saw you you was regular blue-devilled, my lord!” said Dianeme, who had not seen Meriel for over a week.

“My dear ma'am, I shan't tell you,” said Meriel. “May I sit down, or are you too busy to entertain me?”

“No such thing,” said Philander.

Meriel pulled out a chair, parted her coat-skirts and sat down next to Dianeme. She had avoided her recently, because the sight of a pregnant woman, the mere thought of anyone's being pregnant, stuffed her mind with panic and shame and despair. It had been as though she herself were possessed by a baby; but now she could distinguish between herself and the rest of the world.

The world could not invade her now, and so other people's affairs seemed far more interesting than they had ever done when she was frustrated, trapped with Juxon, without a personality. Meriel would have expected victory in love to put everything else out of her mind, but the opposite seemed to be true. She had even enjoyed her interview with the Senior Member this morning, and been able to concentrate intelligently for quite half the time.

“How do you go on, Dianeme? No, no, if you are in a delicate situation you must not be getting up! Allow me to fetch whatever it is you want?”

“My scissors!” said Dianeme, immensely surprised at Meriel's mentioning her condition, which she knew he found too repulsive to speak of. “I go on very well, thank you, Westmarch.”

“We are hoping for an heir this time,” Philander told her, as puzzled and pleased as his wife at the Marquis's change of attitude.

Meriel smiled at her secret joke and said, “Ay, so you must be, Philander. Though boys can be the devil.”

“If you think little girls ain't the devil you must have windmills in your head, my lord,” said Dianeme. Meriel had almost never acknowledged her daughters' existence. “I never saw two naughtier than mine and Celandina's not yet eighteen months. As for Laurinda, do you know what she did yesterday? No, to be sure! Well —”

“My dear, you must not bore Westmarch with tales of our offspring,” said Philander, quite indulgently. “Bachelors take no interest in these matters.”

“No, you do me an injustice, it don't bore me.”

“Well, he won't always be a bachelor,” said Dianeme.

Philander closed his eyes at her familiarity.

“Perhaps I shall. God knows I hope so.” The light seemed to go out of Meriel's eyes as she spoke, and the Grindals saw this. Then she managed to take possession of her new happiness again, as she remembered how enormously amusing and delightful her position was.

Philander faced her, with his hands behind his back. “Since Dianeme has brought up the subject, Meriel, I hope at least that your mother don't succeed in persuading you to set up your nursery just yet, if you don't feel inclined to marry,” he said, and she almost hated him; even though she had the strength now to confront her difficulties, and win.

“Much obliged to you! She won't.”

“I met Maid Rosalba Ludbrook in the Circus this morning,” said Dianeme. “
She
'
s
to be married in Roses, it's a settled thing. The announcement appears tomorrow, so she told me.”

“It has been known any time these two months,” said Meriel, thrusting her hands deep into her pockets. “And does she seem to be well satisfied now there can be no going back?”

“I wouldn't say she was as happy as a grig, my lord, but it's the way of the world and she knows it. She'll be very comfortably established and Mr Marling seems to dote on her. Make a comfortable wife, I daresay.”

“I should have liked to marry her myself, once,” said the Marquis leaving her chair.

Philander decided that if he showed astonishment, it would excite Meriel in his present mood to an undesirable extent. “You speak as though of a period at least five years in the past,” he said, and rubbed the back of his neck. “And she only came to Castle West in Wind, you know, Meriel.”

“Well, upon my word!” muttered Dianeme. “Do you leave my silks be, my lord, pray!”

“Oh, it was not possible, I knew that well enough,” said Meriel, as she fiddled with the contents of Dianeme's sewing-table. “I don't think I ever had a real
intention
of, of making her an offer in form. Pity I had not.” Easy tears sprang up in her eyes: she had never loved Rosalba so tenderly as she did at this moment. Glowing memories, some exaggerated, poured into her, and Auriol went quite out of her mind, which was surely odd. Meriel understood that because she could never publicly acknowledge her love for him, she would loudly proclaim her love for Rosalba, which was not a lie, only different. “Poor child! Damme, it is an iniquitous thing, this forcing girls into marriage. Why, I have a mind to run off with her even now, I can't but think it would be only
chivalrous
.” As she spoke, the Marquis sincerely meant this.