Those Endearing Young Charms (10 page)

"I do not see what distresses you so," said Mary cautiously. "He wrote to me thus, if you will remember. It does not seem to be in his nature to write words of love."

"You are right," said Emily, mopping her eyes. "It was just that I thought perhaps the long absence would..."

"Make the heart grow fonder," Mary finished the sentence for her. "Emily, tell me the truth. I have consoled myself with the thought that you were happy, although you seemed to have grown exceedingly haughty and hard. I am to marry Mr. Cummings, and all because of your brave action. We have not yet asked Papa, but I am sure he will give us permission. Please tell me the truth about your marriage."

"Oh," said Emily wretchedly, "I did not want you to know. There is nothing very wrong. It is only..."

She told Mary the whole story. How she had run away on her wedding night, how angry Devenham had been, and how she suspected he had another woman in keeping.

"You must not go back," said Mary firmly. "I will tell Papa that his lawyers must have the marriage annulled. Since you have not had a wifely relationship with him, the matter should be easily resolved.

Calm yourself, Emily, there is no need to return."

Emily's lips were set in a mutinous line. Mary did not understand. If her husband had not missed her, then a lot of other people would -- the tenants, the Misses Parsons, oh, so many. And she was his _wife_. No other woman was going to take that role away from her without a fight.

"I am going back," she said.

"I will not let you!" cried Mary. "You have suffered enough."

"I am not suffering," said Emily wearily. "My nerves are overset. I do not think I could live here again, Mary. I love you, and, yes, I do love Mama and Papa. But around Maxton Court, there are so many people, so many useful things to do. I could not possibly return to this monotonous existence."

But Mary, who now thought Malden Grand the most beautiful place in the world, since it contained Mr. Cummings, would not be persuaded. It was all very simple. Devenham had turned out to be an ogre, Emily was wretched, and therefore some means must be found to terminate the marriage. Mary resolved to speak to their parents about it in the morning.

She tried to argue with Emily, but got no further.

Left alone at last, Emily berated herself for her weakness. She had only to wait until the twenty-second. "But that's tomorrow!" screamed an alarmed voice in her head. Her first thought was to call Mary back. But then she realized all that Mary would do would be to redouble her entreaties for her young sister to stay.

Emily rang the bell for Felice and told her to start packing immediately, deliberately ignoring the sullen look on the French maid's face. Felice's second footman was still in the Anstey household and had so far shown no signs of seeking employment at Maxton Court.

In the next room, Mary, exhausted with worry, had fallen asleep, and so was not aware of the frantic bustle of packing going on in Emily's bedroom.

Emily carefully wrapped her own Christmas present for her husband, thinking guiltily that she had not even sent it yet, although she had been upset that he had been late in sending hers. It was a diamond stickpin, a diamond of the first water, bought in the city by her complacent father, who had had it set at the local jeweler's.

The Anstey household was startled next morning by the arrival of the Earl of Devenham's coach, which rolled up the drive shortly before breakfast. In all the flurry of good-byes and partings, Mary did not have time to protest.

Mary quailed at the idea of telling her parents the truth of Emily's marriage. They were so proud and happy, and Emily had re-donned her haughty countess mask.

But as the carriage rolled away, Mary took a last look at the thinner, paler Emily who sat wrapped in furs, languidly waving her hand, and resolved that no time should be lost. After sending a servant to fetch Mr. Cummings, she went indoors to call a council of war.

--------

*Chapter Seven*

The day was still and cold, with a lowering sky threatening snow. The Earl of Devenham's well-sprung carriage rumbled over the frost-hard roads, setting a good pace.

Opposite Emily, Felice was fast asleep, her head rolling with the motion of the carriage. The maid had regained her spirits. The second footman had promised to join her as soon as possible, and it was a very fine thing after all to be lady's maid in a noble mansion.

They were to break their journey at the same inn in which Emily had spent her wedding night.

The horses suddenly swerved, and the nearside wheels went into a ditch. Adjusting her hat, Emily soothed Felice, who had wakened with a scream of alarm, crying, "Highwaymen!"

"It is probably a rock or a patch of ice on the road," said Emily soothingly.

The carriage dipped and swayed as the coachman and servants climbed down from the roof. The coachman's beefy face appeared at the window.

"Twere a cat, my lady. Just a scrap of a thing. If my lady would alight, we'll put turf under the wheels and pull the carriage clear."

"Where is the cat? Is it hurt?" asked Emily, climbing down stiffly onto the hard road.

"Not it, my lady. Pesky thing's over there in the ditch."

While Felice stood outside the carriage, anxiously looking up and down the road for highwaymen, Emily made her way over to the ditch on the other side of the road. Behind her, the servants were getting to work, sliding turf and stones under the wheels to give them purchase.

_Miaow._ A weak, plaintive sound. Emily parted some stalks of long, frozen grass and looked down. A little kitten looked up at her with a green, unwinking stare. It was painfully thin, and one ear was torn. Its gray coat was striped with black, and when it moved slightly, its small bones stood out sharply against its dusty fur.

"Oh, you poor thing," said Emily, kneeling down on the road, unmindful of the damage to her gown.

She held out her hand. The kitten sniffed it cautiously.

Emily reached into the grass and picked the kitten up and held it to her breast, protecting it from the cold with her large fur muff. It half closed its eyes and began to purr, a roaring sound which seemed to vibrate through the whole of its small, starved body.

"You are coming with me," muttered Emily. "And I don't care what _he_ says. In any case, you'll be better off in the kitchens at Maxton Court than out here in the cold." The kitten purred louder, and with its purring, a little of the anguish and loneliness left Emily's young heart.

Felice came up, her black eyes snapping. "Put that nasty thing down, my lady," she exclaimed.

"_Tiens!_ Think of the fleas!"

With a lurch, the carriage behind them regained the road and two footmen rushed to open the door to help the ladies inside.

"I'm taking this cat with me," said Emily, climbing into the carriage.

"But my lady, 'tis well known his lordship does not like animals in the house. This I know, for the housekeeper, Mrs. Macleod, she tell the butler, and he..."

"Felice! I am taking this animal with me. I have said so. That is enough!"

Felice eyed the kitten nervously. Felice did not like animals and hated cats. Before she had come to work for the Ansteys, she had been lady's maid to a Mrs. Baxter who had had five of the beasts, and it had been Felice's job to groom the horrible cats as well as her mistress, which was the reason Felice had left to join the Anstey household.

The Anstey home had pleased Felice's housewifely, French soul. Everything was so new, so clean, so free from fur and hair.

The maid decided to keep silent. But when they stopped for the night, she would find some way to chase the animal away. One animal, Felice thought dismally, would lead to another and another, and then her whole day would be spent chopping liver and carrying saucers of milk.

As if to underline this thought, her young mistress said thoughtfully, "We will soon be stopping for the day, so we will be able to nourish this poor, starved thing."

To Felice, the poor starved thing's answering purr was like the roar of a lion.

"I will call you Peter," said Emily to the cat, "because you are like a little rock, a little rock by the roadside."

Felice closed her eyes in despair. Once they started talking nonsense like that, it was the beginning of the end. These English! Put the cat on a cushion and put the children to work in the manufactories.

Then she found something to distract her from worrying about the cat. "Look, my lady," she exclaimed. "Look at the snow!"

"Good heavens!" said Emily. "I hope we reach safety. One can hardly see."

Great, white, roaring sheets of snow were rapidly blotting out the landscape. She stood up and opened the trap in the roof, gasping as the icy snowladen air struck her face. "John!" she called. "How far to The Green Man?"

"Only about five miles, my lady," came the coachman's reassuring shout. "Master reckoned the weather might be bad, and so he said to rack up not too far from Malden Grand."

"There you are," said Emily to Felice. "We shall soon be safe. Whether we can continue our journey on the morrow is another matter."

_Not that he will care if I get lost in a snowdrift,_ said a dismal little voice inside her head, and she hugged the kitten for comfort.

* * * *

Cap in hand, Farmer Althorp stood in the earl's estate office earlier that day. His head was singing with all the talk of new crops and improvements. "Well, my lord," he said, touching his forelock, "It's all very interesting. The old earl, he never really troubled his head about such matters," said the farmer, implying that this was just the way a real earl was supposed to behave.

Farmer Althorp hesitated in the doorway. "We will be seeing her ladyship soon?" he asked, and then blushed, mentally cursing his wife for nagging him into being impertinent.

But the earl replied, mildly enough, "I am expecting Lady Devenham tomorrow. She sets out from her home today."

"Never today!" said the farmer.

"Why not?"

"There's a great snowstorm coming, my lord."

"Are you sure?" The earl's features became sharp with anxiety. Farmer Althorp's ability to forecast the weather was already a legend in the county.

"Mortal sure, my lord."

After the farmer had left, the earl sat looking out of the window at the lowering sky. If Farmer Althorp said there was going to be a bad storm, then he meant it was going to be very bad indeed. The earl ran over in his mind the servants he had sent to collect Emily. The coachman, John, was old but had a good head on his shoulders. The groom was a strong young man, and the two footmen were surely young and healthy enough to see to the safety of their mistress. But they had all been trained to obey his every command, and his command had been that they should rack up at The Green Man. Fortunately, The Green Man was only a short journey from Malden Grand, and he had warned them to make the journey in easy stages if the weather looked bad. So there was no cause for concern.

But it was not possible to imagine Emily behaving herself.

She was very young and quite hen-witted. Then he had to admit that he had tried his best not to miss her, only to find, to his fury, that he thought about her quite a lot.

He had spent Christmas not at Maxton Court but in London with his mistress, Mrs. Cordelia Haddington. Since it was quite _comme il faut_ to have a mistress, no matter how newly married one was, and because Mrs. Haddington was a lady of the ton, he had been seen in her company at many society events. It was not as if tonish gossip would reach the unfashionable Ansteys of Malden Grand, he had thought, quite forgetting that the Ansteys had become fashionable by dint of his marriage to one of their daughters.

Mrs. Haddington's charms had seemed too full-blown, and her manner had become increasingly possessive. The more guilty the earl felt about betraying Emily, the more determined he became to prove to himself that she did not mean anything to him. Let her perish in a snowdrift.

But he was really not very surprised to find himself in the stables ten minutes later, ordering his horse to be saddled and telling his Swiss, John Phillips, to get ready to accompany his master.

They were halfway on their road and not one snowflake had fallen. The earl began to feel like a fool, and was on the verge of turning back.

Then one little flake brushed against his cheek, then another, and another.

"Here it comes, m'lord," shouted the Swiss. And here it did come -- a great, white, blinding blizzard.

The earl bent his head before the storm and urged his horse to go faster.

* * * *

The early winter's evening was closing down when Emily, Felice, and the servants struggled on foot to the inn. It seemed amazing that they had lost their way and managed to end up in the middle of a field, but that was where the earl's carriage was resting, half-buried in the snow. Despite Emily's protests, the servants had insisted on bringing the trunks. They had elected to walk rather than risk being thrown from a stumbling horse into a drift. The coachman brought up the rear, leading the horses. Emily led the way with the cat, Peter, hidden in her muff. In her other hand, she was carrying a bandbox by its ribbons.

It was the early darkness that had guided their footsteps, because, through the whirling nightmare of snow, they had caught glimpses of the lights of the village.

The landlord came bustling out to meet them, assuring them of roaring fires and good food. "And some milk and food for my cat," said Emily.

"Well, now, my lady, if you'll just give me the creature, I'll take it along to the kitchens."

"No," said Emily firmly. "I want it here with me."

Felice rolled her black eyes to the rafters. Cat mania was setting in early.

Emily felt they were all too exhausted to stand on ceremony and insisted that after the horses were rubbed down, fed, and stabled, they should all eat together in the dining room of the inn.

She regretted her democratic impulse after the food had been served. Felice was quite at ease, although her black eyes kept sliding to the cat, crouched on the floor and noisily lapping at a saucer of milk. But the menservants were silent and awkward, and Emily realized that they would have been much happier without her. But she was too hungry to really care.