Elizabeth Mansfield (3 page)

Mr. Halford took off his pince-nez and rubbed the marks the glasses had left on his nose. “Perhaps, when His Lordship arrives, and you both can speak face-to-face, you and he can come to some amicable agreement about such matters as the size of the staff and the disposition of the horses.”

“Judging from the man’s ‘instructions,’ it seems to me that His Lordship, the former Captain Meredith, is much too arrogant to come to amicable agreements,” Caro snapped.

“Now, now, ma’am, we don’t know that, do we?” the lawyer said placatingly. “We mustn’t leap to unwarranted conclusions.”

“Oh, mustn’t we? Well, I, for one, find my conclusions perfectly warranted. I therefore intend to vacate this house well before His Lordship appears on the scene. Let him have his peace and quiet and be damned!” With those unladylike words and an equally unladylike stride, she flounced from the room.

That was why, a mere week later, the two boys were waiting on the stairs to learn if their sister truly intended to wed the vicar who never laughed. “I still don’t understand why the letter means that Caro has to marry someone,” Gilbert said.

Arthur sat down beside him and put an arm about his shoulders. “The letter implied that the new viscount doesn’t want us here. Caro needs to find another place for us.”

“That damned letter,” Gilbert muttered, still not fully understanding how and why everything had so quickly changed.

Arthur sighed. “You’d better learn to curb your foul tongue if we’re going to be living with Mr. Lutton.”

Gilbert shuddered at the thought. “Living with a vicar, ugh! Sermons at breakfast.”

“Homilies with luncheon,” Arthur agreed glumly.

“Prayers at dinner. Damn.”

“Watch it, Gil. From now on, every time you say
damn,
you’ll be treated to a sermon on profanity,” Arthur warned, not unkindly.

“As if you never swear,” Gil threw over his shoulder at the older boy. “You say damn ten times more’n I—”

But the sound of the knocker at the front door stilled his tongue. Both boys immediately flew to the banister and looked down to the entry hall four flights below. They watched the butler cross the marble squares of the hallway and throw open the door. “Good evening, Mr. Lutton,” they heard him say as he took the visitor’s hat. “Miss Whitlow is awaiting you in the library.”

The two men below them crossed the floor and disappeared from view. The boys exchanged foreboding looks.
“Now
do you want to wager on it?” Arthur asked. “My top boots for your arrowhead?”

“No,” the younger boy said glumly. “You’re probably right. She’ll have him.” He stalked off down the hallway to his room, muttering as he went, “Damn Mr. Lutton. Damn the damned letter. And damn Captain Meredith, even if he was a dragoon!”

“Watch it, Gilbert,” Arthur called after him. “I warned you about the need to curb your vile language.”

“I may as well use vile language while I still can,” the boy retorted before slamming his door.

THREE

Mr. Henry Lutton, the vicar, followed Sowell down the hall. He was a small man, but his lean frame made him appear taller than he was. He had dark eyes and hair but a scholar’s pallor. His lips were thin, his nose sharp, and his eyes piercing. He was balding on both sides of his forehead, which left a peculiar triangle of dark hair in the middle, the apex pointing down to his nose. This pattern of baldness was, however, not disfiguring. Rather, it enhanced his appearance of sober, almost cold, intellect. Nor did his appearance contradict his character. Mr. Lutton was not known among his congregants as a man who was particularly friendly or convivial. They consoled themselves with the awareness that what his sermons lacked in warmth they made up for in depth.

Once over the library’s threshold, Mr. Lutton closed the doors in Sowell’s face and turned with a smile to the girl sitting on the sofa. “So, Caro, my dear, is it true? You’ve reconsidered?”

Caro, perched primly on the edge of the seat, her hands folded in her lap, looked up at him. “That’s what I wrote in my note,” she said softly.

The vicar studied her with satisfaction. She would make the perfect vicar’s wife, he thought. Her face, with its slightly pointed chin, high cheekbones, and wide, gold-flecked brown eyes, was quite lovely, but the short, naturally curled, auburn hair that framed it indicated that she was a woman not given to vanity. Those abundant curls that fell so charmingly over her forehead had never felt a curling iron or the attentions of a hairdresser. The same lack of vanity was apparent in her form. She was as slim of waist and shapely of bosom as a man might wish, but her gown was not designed to show her off. It was modestly cut and trimmed with only a simple white lace collar, perfect attire for a churchman’s wife. Yes, he said to himself complacently, the men will envy me, but the ladies will not resent her for it.

He crossed the room in three quick strides and took a place beside her. “Dearest!” he exclaimed, taking her hand. “You’ve made me more happy than I can say!”

“No, Henry, please, restrain your happiness for a moment. We must talk this matter over honestly.” She looked into his face, her brows knit worriedly. “My feelings have not changed since the last time we discussed this matter. I do not love you.”

“But your note. Your change of heart ...”

“It was not a change of heart but of mind.”

“I see.” He leaned back against the sofa cushions calmly. “May I ask what changed it?”

“Necessity. I must leave the Grange. I need a home for my brothers and me.”

“But, my dear, you needn’t look so upset. I guessed as much.”

“Did you?” She turned her whole body round to face him squarely. “Nevertheless, it must be painful for you to hear.”

“Not at all. It has the virtue of honesty.”

“Yes, but you cannot wish to wed someone who comes to you out of selfish need.”

He smiled at her fondly. “I can and I do.”

“But why?” she insisted. “Surely you desire more of marriage than the little, I can give you.”

“You can give me a great deal. Your lively companionship ... the exciting challenge of your mind ...”

Her eyes fell, and she turned her head away. “But not ... intimacy.”

Henry Lutton reached out, took her chin in his hand, and forced her to meet his eyes. “I am not a person much interested in, shall we say, the physicality of wedlock. I am quite content living a life of the intellect.”

This surprised her. “Don’t you wish for children?”

“Having children is not, for me, a strong desire,” he replied without emotion, although his hand fell from her face.

“But ...” Her brow wrinkled in sudden distress. “What you are describing is ... is a marriage of convenience!”

He smiled. “But, my dear, isn’t that what you yourself had in mind?”

She blinked, aghast. “Good heavens! I didn’t think of it that way before, but it
is!
”

“Then we’re in perfect agreement.”

She stared at him. “But a marriage of convenience is, essentially, a dishonest arrangement, is it not?”

“Dishonest? Well, I suppose, in a way ...”

“In
every
way. The very
vows
are taken with ... with reservations.”

“But when you wrote me that you’d reconsidered, knowing you did not love me, didn’t you realize all this?”

She rose from the sofa and began to pace about the room. “I think I ... I believed that I might ... that you might ... that someday, with the years, we might
come
to love each other.”

He thought about that for a moment and then said gently, “I suppose that prospect is not inconceivable.”

She came to a stop in front of him and looked down at him frankly. “But you don’t really believe it will happen that way, do you? Or even want it.”

“To be honest, Caro,” he murmured, not meeting her stare, “I would be quite content with the arrangement you call a marriage of convenience.”

“You, a man of the cloth? You can’t mean it! Do you actually propose taking vows with reservations in your heart? How can you possibly assuage your conscience while living such deceit?”

“It’s a small deceit. I think I can live with it, if you can.”

She looked at him sharply, aware of a keen disappointment in him. Then she turned away. “But I don’t think I can,” she said dully. “I should have realized before that this solution to my problem is immoral.”

“It seems to me, my dear, that your judgment of your plan is too critical,” Mr. Lutton said.

She shook her head. “It’s dishonest. You’ve admitted that.” Honesty, to Caro, was the most prime of all virtues, as, conversely, dishonesty was the worst of all the vices. She had assumed that Henry Lutton, being a man of the cloth, would surely feel the same. “I don’t believe either one of us would be comfortable with dishonesty.”

“Dishonesty is too harsh a word for the marriage I envision,” the vicar suggested, still hopeful.

But Caro would not be swayed. She began to pace again, realizing that she’d come to a firm conclusion. “Dash it, Henry, this is all that horrid Captain Meredith’s fault! If it weren’t for him, I would never have sent you that note. But I won’t let him push me—push
us!
—into a dishonest marriage. I won’t!”

Mr. Lutton, recognizing defeat, sighed and looked down at his hands. “That means, I take it, that you won’t have me after all.”

She couldn’t face him. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Henry.”

He rose and crossed the room to her, taking her hands in his. “Then what will you do?”

“I don’t know.” She pressed his hands affectionately, smiled sadly, and walked away from him to the door. As she disappeared down the hall her voice floated back to him, strong and determined. “I shall simply have to think of something else.”

FOUR

“We must do something for poor Caroline,” the elderly Lady Whitlow announced to her sister in her strong, surprisingly youthful voice. But the butler’s entrance with the tea tray stilled her tongue. She remained silent while he handed out the teacups, unwilling to go further into the details of poor Caroline’s dilemma until she and her sister were alone. Lady Whitlow, who in her youth had been the famous beauty Martha Meredith, was now a heavyset, overbearing octogenarian whose straight back and uplifted chin were evidence of her ongoing rebellion against the encroaching infirmities of age. Everyone who knew her agreed that Martha, Lady Whitlow, was remarkably sharp and agile for her eighty-two years. However, at this moment, her usual strong-mindedness had given way to anxiety. She’d received a disturbing letter from Caroline this morning. A very disturbing letter.

She picked it up from her lap and, opening it, glanced over at her sister, who was sitting on the sofa opposite her armchair, huddled over her teacup. Letitia Meredith, although three years younger than Martha, was thin and stooped, and looked almost emaciated in her black, high-necked dress that, even in its neck ruff and cuffs, held not the least suggestion of color. Like a black crow, Lady Whitlow thought, pushing a vagrant gray curl back into her widow’s cap. If she weren’t so troubled about poor Caroline, Martha would have smiled at the ridiculousness of her sister’s garb, especially the black silk rose that adorned the crown of her black bonnet. But she could not allow her thoughts to be distracted. It was her niece on whom she must concentrate. “We must do something for poor Caroline,” she said again.

“Yes, of course we must,” murmured Letitia absently, her shaking, high-pitched voice quite unlike her sister’s rusty growl.

Lady Whitlow eyed her sister in disgust. Letitia, who’d never married (having refused all her offers because, she’d claimed, they hadn’t lived up to the suitor of her dreams), was considered by the world to be of a softer, more agreeable nature than her elder sister. But Martha knew Letitia could be as stubborn and contrary as any member of the family, except of course when she was daydreaming. Unfortunately, she was often given to daydreaming and, in that condition, was wont to agree to whatever was being said, even—as in this case—if she didn’t know quite what she was agreeing to. “How can you say ‘of course,’ Letty, when you don’t yet know what the girl’s written? I do believe you’re growing senile.”

Letitia Meredith, roused from her woolgathering, rose angrily from her chair, fumbling for the cane she always carried. “If you’re going to insult me, Martha,” she said, her voice rising in pitch, “I shall take my leave. I came the moment I got your note, but now I’m very sorry I obeyed your summons. I was in the midst of reading in the
Times
about Napoleon having left Elba and landing on French soil. It was bad news enough for me today. If I’d stayed home, I wouldn’t have had to endure the added discomfort of your insults and your freezing drawing room.” She pulled a handkerchief from the cuff of her long sleeve and sniffed into it. “Dash it, I
knew
I should’ve kept my shawl with me instead of surrendering it to your insistent butler.”

“You always surrender to insistence,” Martha said, putting the letter aside and rising. “Here, take mine.” And she tossed her blue wool shawl to her sister.