“Lorraine is
begging
me to stay on,” she said, with a sapient eye to me.
Here
I am appreciated, the look said. “Certainly
someone
must be hired to oversee the running of the Grafton collection. Mr. Morley admits quite frankly he doesn’t know a thing about art.” The word ‘hire’ was slid in quietly, but it told me she meant to extract a salary for her help. He looked, as usual, worried.
“And Lorraine will be making her come-out next year,” Kitty spoke on. “She will require a respectable female for that job, and as her mother’s second cousin once-removed, I am well suited for the post.”
That was the only light I perceived in the matter for Miss Grafton. Her position under Kitty’s thumb would be brief, if she found a husband who could stand up to the old witch. The collection would be in good hands, however, and as it made up the better part of the girl’s fortune, this was no small consideration.
“What are
your
plans, Elizabeth?” she demanded next.
“I plan to marry Sir Ludwig and remain here.”
She fairly grinned at this intelligence. Not that she was happy to see me nab a good husband. She would have been infinitely happier to see me make a runaway match with a penniless rake, but my marriage would put the Knightsbridge Museum back in the hands of the Knightsbridges, where she felt, perhaps rightly, it had always belonged.
“Ivor will take over in Edinburgh, then,” she smiled. The smile was followed closely by a frown. Her staying down south would put her out of close touch with Ivor and the museum, but then Ivor had a mind of his own, and she would play only second fiddle there, while she could be the
maestra
of the whole here. She was already speaking of a trip to London to appeal to the gentlemanly instincts of those who had purchased ‘her’ pictures, the ones Uxbridge had sold, to see if they could not be recovered.
Kitty still considered myself to be her responsibility, and her next move was to ascertain what sort of a man I was marrying. I was happy I had got the main saloon redone. It gave a good impression, but she was soon disparaging my future home. “Your facade, Sir Ludwig, is a poor copy of Schloss Ludwigsburg, I believe? Something of the main part of the original has been attempted out front, I think?”
He admitted it to be the case, and sat listening while she outlined where the builder had gone wrong. Entablatures were but inferior imitations of the original, the charming little oval window on the third story had been forgotten, statues were missing—in short, the worst had been badly copied while the best was omitted, but in the end she allowed it to be ‘a pretty little place, if one cared for that misapplied touch of Baroque on a basically Renaissance building.’ For herself, she would rather have a good honest cottage than a botched copy of anything. Ludwig allowed, with a raised brow to her befeathered bonnet, that there was certainly no accounting for taste.
He
had always found it repugnant that ladies reconstructed dead birds to wear on their heads.
She next tried to hint him into a disclosure of what capital and income I was marrying into. “Beth is used to the very best, you must know. That is to say, after she married John she became accustomed to the best. Had her own carriage and team and even a set of small diamonds. They will stay with the estate, of course.”
“If my diamonds are too large for her, she is free to buy a smaller set,” he replied. “Nor have I any objection to her limiting herself to a single team for her carriages.”
Stymied on this score, she rushed in to ascertain what I had not yet got out of Ludwig myself, namely, when the great day was to be.
“That will be up to Rose,” he told her.
“Rose who?” she asked, ready to take umbrage, and glancing angrily to Abbie and Annie.
“Rose Trelawney of course,” Annie snapped. She had taken Kitty in dislike from the first moment. The dislike had mounted to hatred when Kitty told her she took too much sugar in her tea.
“Who is Rose Trelawney that she has anything to say in the matter?” Kitty demanded, struck nearly speechless at the idea.
Rose was explained, and received with disdain. “I suppose the marriage will take place at once?” she asked knowingly. She might as well have said what she meant. If you don’t nab him fast, he’ll shab off on you.
“In a few months,” I answered, when I wanted to do it as soon as possible.
Ludwig looked surprised, but he was coming to know me well enough to understand my answer, I think. “Perhaps in the summer,” he added, with a smile behind her back.
“You never want to wait so long,” she cautioned me. “I rather fancy a fall wedding myself,” I said, pushing the date ever farther away.
Abbie said, “Oh, Rose, you won’t want to wait so long!”
“Pooh, what’s the difference?” Annie scoffed. “They’re as good as married already.”
Kitty’s eyes were in danger of leaving her head. They flew from myself to Ludwig, in joyful condemnation. Annie rattled on, heedless of any indiscretion. “Mind you, Lud, Rose don’t care for the way your bedroom looks. She tells me she is not happy with it at all. She will be smartening it up now that she’s actually to marry you.”
“Yes, when she is
legally
mistress of the place, she may do as she pleases with our bedroom,” he answered, stolid as an owl.
“Well upon my word!” Kitty said, and sagged back against her chair. “Lorraine, I think it is time we leave. Until you see fit to legalize your status, Elizabeth, I shall not return to this house.”
“There’s nothing illegal about Rose Trelawney,” Annie defended me. “What does she mean? What is she getting at?” she demanded of us all. “You can’t mean the creature thinks you and Lud are carrying on an affair! Well, upon my word! Leave it to an old spinster to think the worst.”
Kitty very soon left, but not before another request to be informed of the date. It was put off by Ludwig and myself till it began to seem we would be rolling to the altar in a couple of bathchairs. When at last she was gone, Lud asked calmly, “When shall we actually be married?”
“I’d like a proper wedding, with banns read,” I told him. “In Italy it was such a scrambling little do that I’d like to have a larger ceremony this time.”
“I’ll have the banns started next Sunday, then,” he answered.
Abbie looked at us as though we were mad. “Hadn’t you better tell Miss Empey?” she asked.
“Oh no, she will take over the whole if she knows. I’ll send her a card, but not till the last minute,” I answered.
A card could not actually be held off till the very last minute, of course, and as soon as it was received, Kitty took the dreadful habit of dropping in every third or fourth day to check on the progress of the nuptials. “Of course you will go to Edinburgh for your honeymoon,” she told me.
This appalling idea sent Ludwig into a state of shock. It is only natural a husband not wish to return to the wife’s first home on his wedding trip, but really there was some merit in the suggestion. I had all my personal belongings to be gathered and brought south. I had, most of all, my share of the triptych I wished to get. A compromise was struck between us. We were to go to London for our wedding trip, which would put me back in touch with my wardrobe at Mayhews, and at an early date were to go to Scotland to wind up affairs there.
Before either the wedding or any trip, Mr. Uxbridge was apprehended by Mr. Williker on Wight, where he
did
go to oversee all his prisoners. He and the Dobbles were turned over to the authorities for punishment. They all escaped the noose, to Kitty’s consternation. But then it was a fitting climax to the ‘infamous affair’ that the culprits get off scot free, as she termed twenty years in prison. We learned the actual sentence from the McCurdles in Wickey. They always knew everything, sometimes before it happened. Kitty, as I might have foreseen had I given the matter any thought, struck up a wonderful friendship with this pair of harpies, who filled her head with all manner of evil doings on my part, while she filled them in on my earlier history. My torturing of the schoolboys at the rectory, refusal to take up a
decent
home with themselves, preferring to pitch my cap at the neighborhood’s richest bachelor, my lazy way of going on while with Miss Wickey, my constant running to the shops to order up new gowns, all was magnified out of all proportion to Kitty, till I had the very character Kitty always wanted me to have. She could learn no ill of Ludwig except that he was the most gullible of the works of God to have been taken in by me. Her last visit sunk to a weary hour of her shaking her head sadly at him, eyes full of pity for his bleak future with a trollop.
The wedding went forth on the announced date, followed by the trip to London. We had a perfectly marvelous time, with not more than half a dozen fights a day, always concluded in the time-honored manner of kissing and making up. I expect I was a perfectly wretched wife to John, who was too easy to bearlead. I shall deal much better with Ludwig. He is the sort who would turn into a domestic tyrant if he were allowed. He wants a wife who will give him a little opposition. He has acquired one who will give him a great deal.
Being rid of the hunter-green drapes and salmon carpet is by no means the end of my plans for Granhurst. There is the matter of the bedroom awaiting my talents. I refer to decor. And there is the grass rug, and the dull food placed on the table. Plenty to keep me busy.
Lud was difficult to get moving once we were back at Granhurst. It was necessary for me to point out his company was not really necessary in the least, for once I was there, either Ivor or Mr. Soames would be delighted to squire me about Scotland. It was actually the visit of Lord Baxford which got us shot off without being at all prepared for the trip. He was visiting Lorraine at the Graftons’, and Kitty brought him over to show him off to us. He took into his head to be rolling his eyes at me, silly old fool. I only encouraged him to make Kitty jealous, but when he mentioned coming back the next day, Ludwig suddenly decided we were leaving for Scotland early the next morning.
What should happen but that Kitty took the abominable idea of dragging Miss Grafton up north to see the Knightsbridge Museum as a part of her artistic education. Did it while we were there, but it could not be helped. Her real aim was to promote a match between Ivor and Lorraine while the girl was young and foolish, but the scheme did not take. It was Soames that caught the girl’s eye, and vice versa. In the end, Kitty left a good deal sooner than she had intended to separate them. We stayed not a moment longer than necessary, just long enough to gather up my belongings and sign some papers. I didn’t get the hundred pounds. They said I had been overdrawn on my allowance, having taken an advance to finance the trip south. In fact, I owed them fifty pounds, and I now owe Ludwig fifty more.
Ivor was alerted by Kitty to keep a sharp eye on my packing, lest I pack up any
bibelots
that did not belong to me. I didn’t, but Ludwig was so incensed at their scrutiny that he pocketed a pretty little Renaissance inkwell in spite, and threw it out of the window of the carriage into a ditch before we made our first stop, as I convinced him Ivor would have the constable after us. We were back at Granhurst before we heard anything else about it, in a letter from Ivor. I declined to reply at all, but Kitty, I am sure, relayed my ire at the suggestion.
So I am now settled in comfortably at Granhurst, known in the village as Lady Kessler, a female of shady background, but tolerated because of my husband. I am still in a rant occasionally when I meet opposition at home to my renovations. We are busy as bees pulling down curtains and up carpets. We have quit pretending to look for either a governess or school for Abbie. We will not part with her, and a strange female around the house bothers Ludwig.
Kitty managed by some unknown means to get the missing madonna out of Gwynne for her collection. He speaks highly of her, and has twice had her and Morley and Lorraine to dinner, along with ourselves. Thus far the invitation has not been returned, but one day I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kitty overseeing yet a different collection of paintings. I hope not, as Gwynne’s place is so close to our own.
She got the madonna from him while we were in London. The romance had not yet blossomed at that time, and I don’t know what price he extracted for it, but if she thinks she will now get the other piece from me, she is mad as a hatter. I wouldn’t let her have it for a million pounds. I didn’t put it in the chapel after all, as it was too damp and draughty. It sits in the blue Saloon, to annoy Kitty every time she drops in.
After her last visit, Ludwig turned to me with a consoling smile. “I know now why you were so eager to forget your past,” he told me. “It must have been hell, under that cat’s paw from dawn to dark.”
“Indeed it was. Had it not been for Soames to amuse me, I daresay I would have lost my mind much sooner.”
“That caper merchant! And a mere boy, to boot.” He had been jealous as sin of Soames from the moment he had met him, maybe sooner. He was very handsome and elegant.
“I am two years younger than Soames. Not quite an old hag yet myself.” I had passed my twenty-third birthday while without memory.
“I noticed that detail right from the beginning, Rose,” he said, arising from his chair and joining me on the sofa, where I was taking in his jacket. I had made him lose ten pounds. “Even in blue bombazine you were not quite an old woman.”
I wore, at the time, a blue taffeta gown, cut low off the shoulders and with the Kessler sapphires around my neck, for we were dressed for dinner. I made the family dress properly for dinner every evening, and frequently displeased my husband by inviting company as well. We were dining alone on this particular evening, however. “Now you shall look less like an old man, with your jackets fitting your new trim figure.”
“I wonder what gave you the notion you could be happy with an old man,” he asked, hinting for some praise.
“It was living with Mr. Knightsbridge that led me to find you not quite ancient.”
“I want you to have another small bout of memory loss to obliterate that part of your past, Beth.”