Lady John (8 page)

Had Menwin been able to lay his head upon his arms and shout
with the sheer frustration of such an evening he would have done so. Instead,
he ate his dinner, drank Mardries’s excellent wines and, when the ladies rose
to take their leave, stayed on with his grandfather to drink port in close
silence. It was rather a relief when the taciturn Whelke stood and curtly asked
Lord Mardries’s pardon. Once he was gone, leaving Menwin to wonder at this
strange piece of behavior, Mardries rose and stared fixedly down at his
grandson.

“A word with you, Matthew. In the library?”

Feeling like a schoolboy expecting a caning, Menwin followed
his grandfather’s lead, settled himself again in the library, and withstood it
with passable fortitude when Lord Mardries stood, regarding him intently. The
expression he wore was unreadable and might as easily have been attributed to
dyspepsia as well as parental displeasure.

“Well, boy, I mean to know the whole of it.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t shill-I-shall-I about with me, Matthew. I’ve spoke to
that man of yours—and no use to look daggers to me, either, the man had no wish
to betray your confidence; I
made
him.” The
Earl appeared to consider the coercion a virtue. “I know you’re deep in River
Tick with your father’s debts, and I might be persuaded to assist you—perhaps
to absorb the debts entirely.”

Fighting an optimism he suspected was wholly unfounded,
Menwin asked what the conditions of such assistance would be.

“Don’t make me out to be such a demned shylock, boy. I’ve
grown used to the fact that I am the only Polry with a scrap of sense or of
familiar duty. I am considering your welfare, though you will hardly believe
that, if you’re anything like your father. I am also considering the family.
How old are you?”

Menwin suspected that his grandfather knew his age to the
minute. “Nine and twenty, sir.”

“Exactly!” Mardries exclaimed triumphantly, as if a point
were proved for him. “And not wed yet.”

An image of Olivia Temperer, demure and smiling in her
lavender gown on the previous night, flashed through Menwin’s head and was gone
before he could summon the will to banish it. “I’ve been soldiering for most of
my majority, Grandfather, I would not ask any woman to share those hardships
with me.”

“You’ve not been soldiering for the past year, Grandson. In
a year—no, more—could you not find yourself a bride?”

In truth, Menwin thought, he had not been making much of a
push to do so. “I had no idea that you wished me to do, sir.”

Mardries cackled. “And do you tell me that that would have
made a difference to you? T’hare and hounds! Matthew, your brother and your
father have both died within a two-year. D’you think I want to see my title
descend to some beggarly curate in Hampshire? I want you wed and I want you
with an heir, do you understand me?” The old man eyed his grandson fiercely, as
if he expected a wife and an heir to materialize in accordance with his wish.

“If you feel so strongly about it, sir, I shall make a push—”
Menwin began, but was cut off.

“You need make no push at all. I’ve arranged the matter for
you.”

Controlling himself admirably, Menwin repeated this
announcement.

“Yes, boy. Don’t you wish to know to whom you’re to be wed?”

“I suppose so, sir. Do I know the lady?”

“You might. Miss Casserley. Miss Jane Casserley. Lord and
Lady Whelke’s oldest girl.”

Repressing a strong urge to throw the whole matter back in
the Earl’s face, Menwin said, with admirable calm, “And why Miss Casserley,
sir?” Inwardly he told himself that if he became son-at-law to Lady Whelke it
would be a relationship of short duration: he would assuredly murder her within
a fortnight.

“That was your aunt Chloris’s doing,” Mardries confessed. “She’s
an old bosom-bow of Claire Whelke’s, and the two of them were gossiping, and it
seems that Miss Casserley has been—well, difficult to suit—in the matter of
marriage. Lady Whelke—a mother’s heart easily affected, you know. Most
distressed. Chloris took it into her head that you were the very man for her.
Talked to your grandmamma, who talked me round. Mind, I’m not saying it is the
best match that ever was made: the Polrys can look as high as they like.” The
Earl, lost in his periods for a moment, recovered himself and continued. “The
more I consider the matter, the more eligible I judge it. The chit—I’ve met
her, yes—she’s a little stiffish, but handsome enough looking. All fine airs
and advanced notions, and should balance the tendency toward volatility which
your father seems to have introduced into our strain. Has a respectable portion—were
you marrying for money it would not do, of course, but you’ve no need of funds
with your income as Menwin.”

“I will not have much of that income long if I must swallow
my father’s debts,” Menwin reminded pointedly. “And perhaps this Miss Casserley
will not like to be married to
me
.”

The Earl fixed his grandson with a singularly obnoxious
stare. “Not
wish
to be married to you? A
Viscount with the expectancy of an Earldom? One of the Duke of Wellington’s
heroes? With eight thousand a year, and the expectation of twice that when you
become Mardries? Not wish to marry you?” The Earl’s manner laughed the idea
into oblivion. “Besides which,” he added, “the girl’s parents have spoken with
her. I expect you will find her all complaisance and everything that is
agreeable.”

“Well, then,” Mardries continued with a growing sense of
entrapment. “Perhaps I do not wish to be married to Miss Casserley, whatever
her qualifications.”

“What is that to the point? D’you wish to bear your father’s
debts on your head for the next ten years? Not to mention that I could cut you
out of all the property that’s not entailed.”

“To whom would you leave it, sir?” Menwin adopted a tone of
polite interest.

“Eh? Well, never mind that. Look, Matthew, have you someone
else you’ve fixed your interest with?” For the first time that evening Menwin
sensed a softening in his grandfather. “If there’s some woman you prefer, I can
be reasonable. But I want you married. I want an heir.” For the second time that
evening Olivia Temperer’s smile flashed in his mind; Menwin forced himself to
return to the matter at hand.

“I’ve no wish to be unkind to you, my boy,” Mardries was
saying. “Now, if you marry Miss Casserley I will settle all your father’s debts—”

“And Richard’s?” Menwin asked quickly.

“And your own. And I will settle the Sussex property on you
as well.”

“You’re very generous, sir,” Menwin said. “I should like
some time to think upon this.”

“What need have you to think? If there is no other woman you
wish to marry, you had as well wed Miss Casserley. She will make you a
satisfactory wife, and I’m certain she will make no demurs at any little
affaires
you may have. Seems to be the sort of
woman who’s everlastingly doing good works. A follower of one of those
evangelical fellows, a paragon, to hear Chloris Bellingside speak of her. And
mighty nice, trim ankles. You could do far worse, even without the assistance I’m
offering. But don’t trifle with me, Matt. I want your reply this evening.”

“May I consider for five minutes, sir?”

“I’ll leave you alone for just that time,” Mardries agreed. “When
I return I shall expect you to agree to my proposal.”

“I imagine you would expect it,” Menwin said, but
fortunately the Earl had already left the room.

Five minutes was either too little time or too much time for
such a decision. On the one hand, there was his very reasonable dislike of the
idea of marrying a perfectly strange female, and one who sounded, from his
grandsire’s description, none too amiable. All choice in the matter was
virtually denied him, since there was no other female he could claim to feel a
partiality for; here Menwin sternly repressed a thought of red hair and a
lavender dress. It was a source of disgust to him that in two and a half years
he had never successfully banished Olivia Temperer from his mind, and the fact
that she, obviously, had had no such trouble, only deepened his resentment. He
returned his thoughts by main force to the matter at hand: marriage. The other
side of the matter was that, in his own way, his grandfather proposed to be
extraordinarily generous with him. All his debts, and Richard’s, and his father’s
paid. The Sussex property, which he recalled as a pretty manor house with some
excellent farmland attached to it, to be given him outright.

He had not reached his decision when the Earl returned.

“Well? What’s the answer to be?”

“I will—take her,” Menwin said slowly. Wished the words
unsaid immediately. Then, quick as turn over, thought that perhaps this would
be the best solution to all his problems. A housekeeper, a wife, a companion.
None of those were bad things. Perhaps the woman would prove more prepossessing
than Mardries’s description of her. “What is the lady’s name again, sir?”

“Jane, her name is Jane,” the Earl answered. “You’ll not
regret this, boy. Best thing you could do. Marry. Get a couple of heirs. Then,
who’ll care what you do? Miss Casserley will probably devote herself to
improving the poor, or to church work, and leave you to your own devices: a
very comfortable way to go on, I can tell you. Come, we’ll go tell your
grandmother and Lord and Lady Whelke the news.”

Menwin stopped dead in his tracks. “Lady Whelke? Sir, my fiancée
does not bear any resemblance to—”

For the first time in twenty-nine years Menwin detected a
hint of fellow-feeling in his grandfather’s eye.

“Good God, no! What sort of unnatural grandparent do you
think I am? The chit’s tall and willowy and not in the least.—well, suffice to
say she don’t share that saccharine manner of her mamma’s. But I warrant you
that once Miss Jane is properly married off, Lady Whelke won’t trouble you at
all. Probably Miss Casserley will be happy to see the last of her mamma as
well.”

“Well, that’s some sort of blessing, I suppose,” Menwin murmured.
“All right, Grandfather. Shall we go and speak to my parents-at-law?”

“That’s the dandy.” Lord Mardries patted his grandson
heartily on the back and led him toward the drawing room. Menwin, close behind,
tried to feel as if all bridges were truly burnt. There was, after all, nothing
to tie him to Brussels or his memories now, was there? He arranged his features
to assume the aspect of a happily engaged man.

When Olivia learned, the morning after her passage at arms
with Lord Menwin, that the gentleman had decamped, “summoned away on urgent
business,” she was a trifle annoyed but not surprised. Breakfasting with Kit
and Lord Reeve in the dining parlor the next morning, she received the news
impassively, as she did Lord Christopher’s assurance that Menwin had begged him
to beg her pardon.

“Whoever the thought came from, Kit, thank you,” she said
dryly. “I don’t suppose Menwin happened to mention to
you
why he made me the butt of his sarcasms?”

Kit looked uncomfortable, and owned that Menwin had been
silent upon that score. “Never saw him behave so peculiarly before, Livvy. You
knew him in Brussels:
was
there cause for a
quarrel between the two of you?”

“So far as I know, none at all. John, when he spoke of him,
spoke with that peculiarly offhand affection—you recall his manner, Kit. ‘That
old fool Matt Polry; ought to give him the name of my tailor.’ That sort of nonsense.
Gentlemen have the strangest notion of how to comport a friendship.”

Lord Kit and Lord Reeve, entertained as they were by this
feminine view of masculine camaraderie, said nothing.

“Dyspepsia,” Reeve suggested at last around a final mouthful
of egg. “Fellow should try some Henley’s Salts.”

There was no answer for that; Lord Reeve departed the
breakfast room and Olivia and Kit finished their meal in bemused silence.

It appeared that the Duchess had spent a good part of the
evening brooding over Menwin’s behavior and, true to her promise, summoned
Olivia to her apartments shortly before noon that morning. Apprehensively
Olivia gathered up her workbag and followed the Duchess’s abigail, Miss
Glessock, through the galleries and down the long hall into the Duchess’s
rose-pink sitting room.

“My dearest child, how good of you to come so quickly,” her
Grace drawled. She herself was still
en deshabille
,
large and elegant in a dressing gown of puce satin which agreed poorly with the
pink brocade of the sofa on which she was settled. Her graying hair was down,
partially hidden by a delicate lace cap, and for the first time since her
arrival at Catenhaugh, Olivia was privileged to see her mother-at-law without
the benefit of maquillage or rouge. Much struck by this spectacle, Olivia stood
some moments in the doorway.

“Sit, child, sit,” the Duchess urged. “I feel I have been
remiss: I have let Sue and Bette amuse you, and let you amuse
me
with your silly tales of John’s outrageousness
in the Army. I mean for the best, you know: I made sure that after the
experiences you must have had this past year you would want a little gaiety and
some young companions for a while. But,” a sly smile passed briefly over the
older woman’s round face, “I am dying of curiosity, not least to know what on
earth could have occasioned Menwin’s behavior to you last night.”

Olivia started on a deprecatory answer and was cut off. “You
will say you have no idea, and I will believe you. After all, one rarely knows
why other people do the remarkably stupid things they do, does one? But
obviously Menwin was no stranger to you.”

Olivia fought between irritation at the great to-do which
was being made of her meeting with Menwin, and amusement at the look of obvious
expectation on the Duchess’s face. “As I’ve said before, I met Lord Menwin
nearly two years ago, just after Mamma and I removed to Brussels.”