Page 43 of To Catch a Husband
‘No it is not. Do not forget I have known you since I was in short coats, and I know when you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes.’ Harry’s tone softened. ‘You know, Mary, gentlemen do not grow on trees.’
‘I saw enough “young gentlemen” fall out of them when we were children.’ She did not look him in the eye.
‘But we are grown up now. You understand me, Mary. I am not telling you to be mercenary, but think, my dear, and do not raise barriers just to prove your independence.’
‘I do not need to “raise barriers” to repel men, I assure you, Harry. I can do that perfectly well248just by being me.’ She sounded bitter. ‘All they ever want is prettiness and patience, and I have neither in abundance.’
‘Ah, so—’
‘And since when have you been such an expert on … on affairs of the heart? You are the one who said they did not sigh over females until you saw her.’ The ‘her’ was not difficult to comprehend.
‘Ah’, repeated Harry. So that was it. Well, the impression he had from Kempsey was rather different to Mary’s view, but then, the girl had no experience of men showing interest in her.
‘What do you mean “Ah”?’ Mary sounded cross.
Harry just shook his head. She was impossible in this sort of mood.
‘Well?’
‘I tell you straight, Mary, if you are determined to fold your arms and defy all the male gender to find you attractive, you will succeed. Are you afraid?’
‘Me, afraid? Of men? Goodness no,’ she snorted.
‘No, not of men, but of falling in love. Do you fear being that vulnerable? Lacking control over your feelings?’
‘I do not know what you mean,’ she lied, and looked at the floor.
‘You do, but I will not press you upon it, just suggest you think about it.’
‘I cannot hold a candle to Madeleine Banham,’ she muttered.249
‘Stop thinking that you have to do so. You are a practical woman. There is one Madeleine Banham and many gentlemen. We, they, cannot all marry her or wear the willow thereafter.’
‘You want me to wait for her cast-offs?’
‘No. I am just saying not every man who looks at her and “sighs” will not be able to form an attachment to another woman.’
‘Does that apply to you, Harry?’
‘I … I think I would be very disappointed if she married a man like Cradley, and would be over the moon if she felt … but the chances are slim, and I am sure, in time, I would find someone else. I have to be sure.’ He gave a twisted smile.
‘I am sorry.’ Mary closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I did not mean … or rather I did mean and ought not to have … Forgive me, Harry. I do not deserve good friends like you when I treat them so badly.’
‘Do not talk fustian. Now, we have completely lost where we were in the dance, and I need all the help I can get to impress Madeleine Banham.’
When Lady Damerham returned some ten minutes later, Mary and Harry were putting the furniture back in place, and the only change that she saw in her daughter after the visit was a tendency to frown as though unravelling a very knotty problem.
The ensuing week was one Mary would choose to forget. When the dower house ladies attended church,250she felt as though some magnetic force made her aware of Sir Rowland’s presence in the ‘lord’s pew’ where she had been used to sit, set apart from the rest of the congregation by the sturdy oaken panels and opposite the pulpit rather than in the main part of the nave. She gave him one glance only as he and his brother entered, and thereafter kept her eyes lowered to the page of her hymn book. She could discern the sound of that baritone voice from among all the rest of the congregation, that voice that had sung with Miss Banham. It freshened her feeling of despondency and ill-usage, and then, by ill fortune, she found he was standing outside the porch, speaking with the vicar’s wife as she and her mama left and exchanged words with the vicar. She responded to his salutation without looking him in the eye, gave a cool ‘Good morning, Sir Rowland. The weather is indeed colder’, before passing on hurriedly.
She had given what Harry Penwood had said some thought. She did not think she had been afraid of ‘losing control’ until after the fact. However minor hertendrefor Sir Rowland, and she told herself, frequently, that it was only minor, finding that he did not reciprocate her feelings had wounded her, pride and heart both. Now she regretted being so foolish as to let herself be hurt. She had set out to catch Sir Rowland and had failed. Well, one did not always fish successfully, and she had long ago learnt not to be too disappointed at returning home with an empty basket. If she had kept to that intent and not let her silly emotions get tangled in her251‘line’ she would not feel so miserable.
She was torn with regard to the ‘real’ fishing, for the days remaining of the season could be counted in single figures, and she would have months without her favourite pastime. Yet she dreaded encountering him. Having put it off for five days, and been told by her mama that moping about the end of September was no use, she decided to brave the park, but devised a way in which she could fish without being at all visible from the house, and indeed from the place where she and Sir Rowland had previously made their casts. If she ‘skulked’ on the far side of the old boathouse, only the most keen-eyed would notice her rod and line. It did mean that she felt for the first time as though she really was a poacher, creeping in to remove his fish illicitly, and she was almost relieved that she came home with an empty basket. It had not improved her mood, and in fact she felt worse. It was as though standing by the lake heightened her thoughts of what could have been, if only Rowland Kempsey had not been ensnared in the net of the beautiful Miss Banham.
Mr Tom Kempsey walked over to the dower house a few days later to take his leave of the ladies, since he was returning early to Oxford and his studies. Lady Damerham, who found him ‘a lovely boy’, if rather too quick-witted for her, sighed, and remarked how lonely his brother would be all alone in the big house.
‘“All alone” with the servants, Mama, and it is not252as though he will suddenly be isolated.’
‘No, dearest, but servants do not really count, do they?’
