Page 42 of To Catch a Husband
Tom took the hint, though his brother was right, and he spent more time sighing over Miss Banham than tricky grammatical constructions.
Left alone at last, Sir Rowland rubbed his hand across his frowning brow and sat down in the chair in which he had read the Hesiod, which lay on a small table to one side. He grimaced.
‘Well, Hesiod, old fellow, not only neighbours would laugh at me saying I wanted to marry the woman from whom I have parted in such a bad temper. What on earth possessed her? She is in so many ways the most sensible, pragmatic woman I have ever met and then she—’ He stopped. ‘Good grief. It was thinking that I was singing with Miss Banham. She thought I was happy about that, and she was jealous. Jealous!’ He said it with almost an air of triumph, not because he wanted her to be jealous, but because it showed that she cared about him, and because it meant that her outburst, howsoever much based upon a distortion, made sense at last.
She had heard the pianoforte, an instrument she had told him she had never really mastered, and heard ‘him’ singing with Madeleine Banham. Well, she was not to242know that Tom sang in a baritone too, a little lower than he generally spoke. In fact, Sir Rowland thought his speaking voice had not quite found its final timbre. He had then come to her, all smiles, and invited her, in her disreputable clothes, which were, he admitted, very out of place in a drawing room, to come and see the reason for his delight. She had snapped. Well, she always said she was not a patient woman, and the fuse on her temper was not long, so this should not be a surprise.
‘But I have not done wrong, not this time, Mary Lound. I shall not write a grovelling apology for your misunderstanding of the situation. I told you why I was happy and you chose not to believe me. It is therefore up to you to decide what to do next.’ What worried him was that she might seek to break contact beyond the formal exchanges outside the church door of a Sunday morning and occasional public encounters. He did not wish that to happen, for all that she had angered him, tried to hit him. She had displayed the very faults he had tried to enumerate earlier, and to a marked degree, but now that he comprehended why, he felt … He realised why he had cut away from her so quickly. It was not just the best way out of an increasingly painful argument, but what he had really wanted to do was not let go of her at all, but pull her into his arms and hold her to him, soothe her, feel her anger and pain, for there was pain in her expression too, now he came to think of it, and reassure her that Madeleine Banham was nothing243to him, and that she was more and more with every passing day. For one lingering moment he imagined it, feeling her against him, kissing the flushed cheeks, kissing the anger from her mouth. He had wanted all that, deep down. He still wanted it. ‘Mary Lound,’ he said softly, staring at the flames in the hearth, ‘do not sever what we have between us, because it is, or at least could be, something very precious.’
Mary made her way back to the dower house more by instinct than anything else, blinded not by tears but by confusion. She had gone to Tapley End so eager, excited even, anticipating an afternoon of companionship and that strange extra special feeling that had wound through their last meeting, and it had all collapsed about her. He might deny all he wished, but she had heard the singing, the male and female voices joined, and she had seen his face. He could not have looked so happy just at seeing her, so heaven knew why he had tried to use it as his placatory lie. The only time anyone had ever looked at her like that was when James came home on furlough after eighteen months absence with his regiment in Ireland. And what man who thought about her at all would have invited her to step into his drawing room, with guests, in her fishing garb? Out of its context, her clothing looked a shabby mess, and, in her angry mood, she had no doubt that it would have been halfway round the shire in days that the ‘peculiar Miss Lound’ paid calls dressed as though244she were on the parish and in dire need. That neither Madeleine Banham nor Lady Roxton would have ever spread such gossip was immaterial. Just at this moment the entire world was out to belittle, mock and deceive Mary Lound and she felt very alone.
She went straight up to her room and changed, her fingers trembling slightly, then sat upon her bed and tried to calm herself. She realised that what hurt so much was the feeling that Sir Rowland had played fast and loose, being one day affable and approachable as though nothing were more important than the hours they had together, and had then made a complete about face as soon as Madeleine Banham had, as she must surely have done, enchanted him with smile and voice. She ignored the fact that he had met Madeleine before. Why had he come after her, though, if he did not care? Ah yes, because she had shown spirit, and he did not want to feel bested by her, that was it. He had accused her of immaturity, of childishness. Well, he need not be exposed to it any more. She would avoid him, be cool and aloof in public encounters, and show him she did not care.
The trouble was that she did.
It was two days later when Harry Penwood came to see them, focused, at least initially, upon his own problems. Lady Roxton had mentioned, when he had ‘chanced to visit’, that she was already making her first preparations for a ball before Christmas, at which245Madeleine, though not officially out, might make her first real steps into the adult world among friends and neighbours. It was Harry’s concern that Lord Cradley, suave member of the Ton, would eclipse him on the dance floor and gain further ground with Miss Banham.
‘I am a clunch not to have considered it before. I am not even sure I recall all the steps of the boulanger,’ he opined, ‘so if there is more than the simplest of country dances, I fear I am lost. Can you remind me of the figures, Mary?’
‘Yes, but …’ Somehow, telling him that he need not only be concerned about the ascendency of Lord Cradley but of Sir Rowland Kempsey felt like kicking a puppy.
‘But what? You must know them better than I do.’
‘Well, perhaps, but you know I am no great dancer.’
‘I know you have no especial love of it, not that you have two left feet. Come, aid me, dearest Mary.’ He pleaded, his grin accompanied by begging eyes.
‘Oh well, I suppose I shall have to do so,’ she replied, grudgingly. ‘I do not think Atlow ought to be moving furniture, though, not with his back, so if you desire a dancing lesson you will have to move the chairs about yourself.’
‘No sooner said than done, if you do not object, ma’am?’ He looked to Lady Damerham, who smiled, and shook her head.
‘But do be careful not to trip over the edge of the carpet or forget a footstool. If you are going to have a246short dancing lesson, I will leave you for a while, since I really must send a reply to Mrs Lissett’s note, dear boy.’
She left them disarranging her morning room, and within a few minutes there was space enough for a single couple to perform the moves of the dance without risk to furniture or ornaments. Firstly, Mary interrogated her partner as to what he did remember. It was definitely a case of reminding rather than teaching afresh, and he was only very vague about two ‘manoeuvres’, as he termed them. Once he had tried them a few times he suggested going through the whole dance just once. As they began, he asked her how her fishing pupil was getting along.
‘Seemed a jolly decent fellow when I met him and his brother. Quick-witted, or at least quick-tongued, is Mr Kempsey.’
‘Yes, a nice boy, and ought to be well suited to the Foreign Office, which is where I gather he would like to go after his studies are complete.’ Mary carefully avoided answering the question, and managed to sound sufficiently disinterested.
‘Oh, is that his aspiration? Yes, I would think he would suit that. But you were right about Kempsey and our likelihood of getting on well. Took to the fellow straight away, and not just because I felt you would expect me to do so.’ He gave her a quizzing look.
‘I never said that.’ She coloured this time.
‘Not quite. You must be glad that it is he and not247Cradley at Tapley End.’ He was watching her closely.
‘Of course. Anyone would be better than a Risley, and that Risley especially.’
‘Oh, be fair. Kempsey is not just an “anyone”. You could do a lot worse, an awful lot worse.’
‘What do you mean?’ she exclaimed, tensing.
‘Why, as a neighbour. What else did you think?’ Harry Penwood looked innocently at her, but she had already given him the information he wanted. ‘He is happy for you to fish the lake, looks just the sort to stand to in an emergency and be neighbourly and … you do like him, don’t you?’
‘He is indeed a – good neighbour.’ She coloured.
‘Just that, Mary?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘So why the blush?’
‘I am not blushing. It is merely the dancing.’
