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CHAPTER XXX

‘Well, at last and thank goodness,’ exclaimed Lady Banks from the depths of her armchair as the footman announced Mary’s name. ‘I know you have been in Town for three weeks and had started to think you have forgotten me. Indeed, I’d surrendered all hope.’

‘Dear Aunt.’ Mary traversed the gloom of the great Portland Place drawing room and planted a kiss on a cheek heavy with rouge. ‘Here you are, snug in your mansion, yet speaking as one who has dropped down a well and is waiting for rescue.’

‘My dear girl, you have quite put your finger on it.’ She tossed aside her embroidery ring which had not, Mary noticed, moved forward in more than a year. ‘Summed up old age. Half deaf, half blind: praying for release. Now.’ Lady Banks put both hands in Mary’s and squinted up. ‘Let me look at you. Ah, yes. Peak perfection, I’d call it. A remarkable specimen. If my husband – God rest his soul – were still with us, he’d put pins in both hands and frame you in glass. Is my god-daughter not lovely, Miss Fairfax?’

Mary had not before noticed the grey, almost elderly lady asleep by the fire. She was clearly the latest in a long line of companions; none was yet to find favour.

‘Miss Fairfax!’ This met no reaction. ‘The Lord only knows why one bothers. Now, tell me your news.’

Mary presented a careful, anodyne account of the last turbulent weeks.

‘Very good.’ Lady Banks pursed her lips and raised one emphatic brow, artlessly blackened with coal dust. ‘Thank you for that, dear. Now, why don’t you sit down and pay me the compliment of speaking the tr-r-ruth ?’

Mary sat, all astonishment. ‘Lady Banks, I cannot believe that my father would relate …’

‘Of course he did not! I gather that temper of his won out yet again. Your dear late mama could always control him, you know. This new one, though – simply not up to the job. He is become quite incor-r-rigible.’

But then, how had Lady Banks heard? Mary started to panic. It had not previously occurred to her that the fact of Ned’s proposal was known even in East Kent. That it had somehow reached London was mortifying enough; that she might now be the subject of gossip would drive her father demented!

Lady Banks continued as if Mary had spoken aloud. ‘Never mind how I heard it. Let us say one has one’s sources and leave it at that. What I want to hear are your own feelings on the matter.’ She sat back, preparing to listen, then noticed Mary’s reluctance. ‘Ah. Miss Fairfax? FAIRFAX! Yes, thank you for joining us and I do hope you sufficiently rested. Now, off you trot to your room, dear, there’s a good thing …’ She watched with contempt as her companion grabbed her knitting and scuttled away, then turned back to Mary.

‘I love him, Aunt,’ Mary said then, perfectly simply. ‘I have for some time and am secure in the belief that he loves me.’ And then, to her horror, she started to cry. ‘He is such a good man with so much to recommend him. But my father is set dead against. He has turned us down twice! And now they have forced us apart and brought me to Town …’

‘My dear girl.’ Lady Banks rummaged and produced a clean handkerchief. ‘London is hardly a haystack . If this gentleman wants you, then he will find you. Let it be his first test. And as for meeting, in private …’ She looked into the fire, seeming to consult with the flames.

‘A few years ago, I promised you my help if it were needed. Now’ – she looked stern for a moment – ‘I shall not, I cannot go against Sir Edward’s express wishes. My views on rank disobedience are more than well known.’

‘Yes, Aunt, and nor would I expect—’ Mary sniffed and gulped at the same time.

‘ However, ’ Lady Banks declared to the room as if to some vast assembly. The grandeur of manner brought Sir Edward alive in Mary’s mind. ‘It would be perfectly natural for this Mr Knight to call on me one afternoon – our families are closely connected, after all. And it would be equally natural for you, my dear, to be here when this visit occurred. And, if I happen to like him – Will I like him?’

‘Oh, very much so, dear Aunt. Everyone does! Other than my father, that is, and none of us can quite understand it.’

‘If that proves to be so, well …’ Her ladyship was starting to enjoy herself. There was an unmistakeable twinkle in her old eye. ‘Who could deny the odd nap in a chair to one of my advancing years? I shall oblige you by coming over all Fairfax, and afford you some privacy.’ The mention of her companion’s name seemed to darken her mood again. ‘Wretched woman. She will have to go.’

Cheered though she was by this scheme, Mary could not see a way of getting word through to Ned. Though she did not believe herself to be under arrest, still she could be sure that Fanny was monitoring her letters, because that had gone on for some years. And while she suspected that Cassy would come to her aid, still Mary was loath to ask her. There was now so much friction between the Knights and the Knatchbulls and it would be wrong to create more. Mary felt awkward enough as it was.

The following day was the last of the holidays for the younger boys before their new term in Winchester, and Fanny had granted them one, last, special outing. She could not herself go, being both loath to leave her first baby and made to feel exceedingly indifferent by the next. But a manservant was commissioned to provide a suitable escort, with Mary and Booker in strong support.

When the party arrived at the Exeter Exchange, the boys were in a state of advanced excitement, but Mary was in no sort of mood for it. While they admired the yeoman on guard at the entrance, loudly wishing one day to be him, she heard them with bitterness. The dear little fools: they still lived under the illusion that adulthood was all choice and potential, while she knew it brought only laws and denial.

Nor, once they had fought their way through the multitudes and queued up the stairs for something close to eternity, could she like what she found. Gawping at wild animals trapped behind bars in close, airless rooms was very much not her idea of a treat. Of course, the boys were transported, one moment teasing an old lion with mange; the next throwing peel, stolen from Cook for the purpose, at the monkeys. And Booker was having the time of her life. Mary kept a large handkerchief over her face – the smell was appalling – and longed for it all to be over.

But at the final exhibit – the menagerie’s pièce de résistance – even she could not look away. The sight of an elephant in the small upper chamber of a building just off the Strand was, obviously, somewhat out of the ordinary. Mary pushed with the rest of the crowd, was buffeted, bruised – at one point, lifted clear from the ground – until at last she found herself pressed to the cage. And there her eyes met with those of not only the largest, nor just the most magnificent, but also the unhappiest creature she had ever beheld.

While he thrashed with his trunk and bellowed out his frustration, Mary’s heart spilled over with a feeling of fellowship. He, too, was trapped. He, too, was the victim of a malign higher force. He, too, was destined to live in eternal—

Suddenly, Booker’s elbow dug into her ribs. ‘Quick, miss! There – over there, by the back wall! Hurry, while they’re all still occupied.’

What could it— Surely not – he could not be here? Pulse throbbing at her throat, Mary turned, pushed. The crowds parted before her. And there, indeed, leaning quite happily, as if idly waiting for no one in particular – with his feet crossed at the ankle and dear head tilted in greeting – stood Mr Knight.

‘How did you—’ she began.

‘No time for all that. We only have minutes. It has been almost insufferable – merely to glimpse you—’

She dropped her handkerchief, took a step forward and each stared at the other. Discreetly, he picked up the bait and stretched out a hand. While his eye scanned the room, he found, with his fingertip, the space on her wrist at the hem of her glove: flesh met with flesh. Mary shuddered with longing and feared she might faint.

Instead, quickly she gathered herself and spoke in a rush. ‘My aunt, Lady Banks, is happy to receive us. Together. In Portland Place. We can be alone!’

‘Then God bless the lady,’ he said, though with a look quite as sad as the elephant’s. ‘And how much do I long for it. Sadly, I must quit Town tonight. It will be mid-March, I fear, before I can come here again. My darling! ’ He bit his lip then, looked quite close to fearful. ‘I hardly dare ask, but do you still wait for me? Will you still wait for me?’

‘Oh, my dear sir!’ The idea she might not made her smile. ‘I will never —’

But her speech was interrupted. The chime of the hour brought with it a surge of incomers. The mass moved like an organ in the throes of convulsion. The boys were spewed out from their places, fetched up beside Mary.

And Ned was nowhere to be seen.

‘ Honour thy father and mother ;’ Sir Edward intoned, ‘ which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. ’

Mary kept her head bent over the tapestry on which she was working and blinked back her tears of frustration.

‘ Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling. ’

There had been no reading of novels for weeks now. And, though he might still be popular on Drury Lane, in Number 20 Great George Street even Shakespeare had fallen from favour. Instead, she was expected to perform to her parents – sing prettily through her great misery – until the Bible came out every evening. It seemed that her father, always God-fearing, was now close to petrified. Mary could not decide whether the current craze for religiosity was to be put down to his wife’s condition – with this second baby, the doctor came every day – or if it was all part of a programme to subjugate Mary.

The month had dragged on, a sequence of lessons and visits – church twice on a Sunday – and all of it played out against a background of hopelessness. Would March never come? If her parents had thought that, by this deprivation, Mary might forget Ned, or look again at Dr Knatchbull – or be somehow reborn as a quite different person – then they were to be disappointed. With each passing, tedious day, her heart hardened against them. Each night was passed in a state of delirium – neither conscious, nor sleeping – at the edge of her nerves, until Booker came in and roused her.

‘They killed him then,’ the maid announced with great satisfaction one morning, as she swept back the curtains.

‘Who?’ Mary sat upright. ‘Dearest!’ Being so obsessed with her own private drama, her mind went at once to the one person who mattered. ‘ Whom did they kill? ’

‘Chunee,’ Booker replied merrily. ‘The elephant.’ She went to the fireplace, picked up the poker and added, with relish: ‘Shot him. Point blank.’

‘But that is an outrage! How dare they? And why ?’

‘Went for the keeper, according to Cook. She heard from the milkman—’

‘But he was not a bad animal! Merely unhappy. They should never have trapped him. What else would he do but strike back at his captors? What would any of us do if our freedom were taken away? Oh, if only he had found some means of escape.’

‘Lower your voice, if you please. There’s no use getting at me, madam!’ The fire now built – coals starting to catch – Booker turned to the wardrobe. ‘I ain’t been killing no elephants.’

Mary collapsed on to the bolster; let the hot tears fall unabated; considered the fates of Marianne Knight and poor, dear Miss A.

And began to think the completely unthinkable.

At last, the trees in the park became bridal with blossom. The daffodils smiled. The air lifted and sharpened. The world was not turned yet, but still Mary could feel it: the green was upon them. And Mr Knight would return.

Furtive, she started to plot how and when they might meet. With the Mother’s mind so much on her health, Mary had gained slightly more freedom. She was now allowed to move around Town with only Booker for company. The situation was promising.

But then, just as Ned’s arrival was imminent, Fanny brought her sister Marianne up to town. And suddenly, Mary was never alone.

Every morning of the season, she was engaged to take lessons at the fashionable stables of Mr Allen in Bryanston Square. Riding was thought to be beneficial for the health of the body, as well as the more difficult mind. An hour out with a horse, and a troop of young ladies of her age and class, would be all to the good. And Mary enjoyed it, in fact. It was the only pleasure she knew.

But when Marianne was also signed up to the course, her suspicions were heightened. The lady was a Knight! They needed no lessons. And now at twenty-four years of age, would she not, in that company, look rather odd?

The one explanation Mary could come up with was that Marianne was employed as her gaoler, and it left her dismayed. Not only was it irksome to be spied upon, it was most disappointing to think that Marianne, of all people, had agreed to act as the spy. For had not she too been thwarted in the fulfilment of her ideal match? And yet now she betrayed Mary! Was there no sisterhood?

While being only ever polite, Mary now held back from treating this Miss Knight as a friend. On their outings together, she listened impassively while Marianne’s tongue tripped on with news of nieces and nephews, of her dear father’s gout, as if she had no other life of her own.

Until, one day after their lesson, as Mary and Booker were exiting the stables, Marianne cried out that she had somehow forgotten her bonnet. It must be retrieved. She begged that they saunter on, and promised to catch up.

‘Ah, a moment of peace,’ Mary began, rather uncharitably, as she took Booker’s arm. ‘If I hear one more word about teething , I do believe I shall—’

‘Ooh, well I never!’ Booker squealed as they turned on to Montague Square. Before adding mysteriously: ‘I’ve got a stone in my boot, so if you’ll pardon me, miss.’

And there was Ned, rushing towards her with the wind at his back.

‘You!’ was all Mary could manage. She had to grab at the railings to hold herself up. ‘You have come.’

‘You cannot have doubted me?’ With one hand, he lifted his hat; the other worried his hair. ‘I have been counting the days …’

‘But are you quite well, sir? You seem somewhat different.’ Though never pale after a season out hunting, still there was a tinge of grey to his face, which lurked ’neath the bronze. He was not quite his full self, away from the country and apart from his dog.

‘Nothing ails me, as such.’ His demeanour was grim. ‘But the past weeks have come at a cost, madam!’

‘Oh, unendurable!’ she gasped. ‘The atmosphere at home with my parents … Mr Knight, I can bear it no longer.’

‘And I fervently hope you will not have to.’

He was so close to her now, she caught the scent of cologne on his neck. Did he wear it for Mary? The idea of him picturing her as he dabbed at his own skin brought with it a shivering thrill.

‘There is a new plan.’

‘Yes!’ Mary exclaimed, all at once presuming his mind to be at one with her own. Sensing then Booker’s approach from behind, she dropped her voice low and spoke urgently. ‘I, too, am convinced of it. If we simply keep going to my father with the same question, we will hear only the same answer. Present him with a fait accompli, though, and he will be left with no choice but to accept it. It is time! Darling.’ She looked into his face; felt tears brim at her eyes. ‘My dearest.’ It was the most auspicious moment. The bravest, most noble action of Mary’s short, timid life. ‘I am willing, for you – with you by my side – to settle this forever. Let us take the ultimate step.’

He fell back, astonished. ‘By God, madam! You mean – you cannot mean – Scotland ?’ He was aghast. ‘Pray believe I care nothing for my own name, but to have yours, my love, mired in the dark pit of some scandal— ’

‘But you must see !’ How could he be so obtuse when her own mind was clear? ‘There is no other solution.’

‘If you would but listen,’ he shot back, ‘I have formed a new plan.’ Ned stretched out a hand to her; then, recalling their situation, cast about himself wildly and wrenched it back down to his side. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered, looking over her shoulder. ‘My sister will not be long.’ He brought a finger to his lips to instruct her to be quiet. ‘At my entreaties, my father has agreed to act for us. It might just make the difference. Sir Edward will hear from him tomorrow. Our case will be made for us in a calm, sensible manner which—’ He started. ‘She is coming! It is for the best that she is not made into a witness.’

And with a tip of his hat, he was gone.