the marquis's memory 23

 

Chapter 23

 

Effie’s first thought was to go straight to the Priory; she would tell Mr. Endicott about it. A man of affairs would know what to do about a wilful, romantic child who could not tell truth from fiction.

She was let in by Mrs. Keeble, and shown to the dining room where Geoffrey and Simon were discussing a sizeable breakfast. They rose for her.

“Sit down, sit down,” said Geoffrey. “Coffee? Tea? Have you breakfasted? You need not worry, I will give Alethea a season, even though I do plan to put up the banns with Pip right away.”

Effie gaped. She had still not sat down, and the men, perforce, must remain standing.

“You… she is just a foolish child, if nobody speaks of it, nobody need know she is compromised, you don’t want to marry a girl so childish that she makes up the most ridiculous stories, of course, my lord.  I won’t let her spread them, once I get her home, and I won’t even let her leave the house until she has forgotten this nonsense.”

Geoffrey frowned, and Simon looked puzzled.

“What are you talking about, Miss Congreve?” asked Geoffrey.

“You must recall, she has lived as a boy, lived as younger than her years, it is not unnatural for her to make up Banbury tales,” said Effie.

“I asked, Miss Congreve, what you are talking about,” said Geoffrey. His voice had become very cold.  He lowered over Effie, who backed back to the chair Simon was holding for her, and fell into it. The men sat down.

“Why, I upbraided her for hanging onto the back of a curricle and told her she should have alerted me, and we could have fetched Simon… Mr. Endicott… who would have known what to do. And she had some story of you being taken to Shotley point, and Mr. Marks, whom she called ‘James’ though his name was Matthew, I thought, threatening to torture you, kill you, and take your place!  Honestly, this is England!”

“Yes, it is disgraceful that there are people capable of such iniquity,” said Geoffrey. “But why were you angry with Pip? If she had come back and wasted time while you dressed and roused Simon, you would not have known which direction he had taken.”

“And neither of us thought of Shotley, did we, Effie, dear, when we chased him,” said Simon, ruefully. “We both thought he would make a run for it, and had not thought that he must have concealed Geoffrey somewhere, and went to check on him.”

“But… torture… killings…” said Effie, faintly.

“See this wound on my head, Miss Congreve?” said Geoffrey. “That from when James James, which is his real name, hit me on the head with a pistol.  I woke up with my wrists tied to a beam in a shack, and James hitting me across the face to try to wake me up. I heard him say that he would return later to torture me until he knew enough to kill me.”

Effie’s mouth fell open.

“You mean… you mean, she was not romancing?”

“She most certainly was not,” snapped Geoffrey. “That girl has gone through hell, which your brief but relatively minor ordeal of being a hostage does not nearly equal!  She hung onto the back of a curricle for an hour, almost rattled to pieces, hid to hear what he was up to, hurt herself by falling off a barrel in cutting me down, got me into a boat, dragged it down to the water, falling several times, got soaked through, and then rowed five miles up river. And you berate her? I’m removing her from your care; I will damn well live in sin with her until we marry. I won’t go back on my word to give your niece a season, but I won’t have her live with a ninnyhammer!  And I don’t suppose for one minute you even gave her breakfast, there hasn’t been time.  Now I suppose she’s in her sty, crying.”

“She said she was going to live on the Calypso,” said Effie.

“Fine. Let me see, ham, pickles, bread and butter, I need the letter and commonplace book as evidence… NOAH!  We’re leaving on the tide, it must be almost at flood.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Noah-Nelson, appearing at the yell.

“And you, get back and bring some of the clothes I bought for Philippa down to the staithe, right away,” snapped Geoffrey to Effie. He whirled out.

“Oh, dear, you did make a mull of that, didn’t you, dear?” said Simon. “I’ll walk you over to collect some clothes for Pip, just a couple of gowns and underthings will do, I am sure.”

“But Simon! I cannot be blamed for thinking it her desire for romance and adventure; things like that don’t happen to real people,” said Effie.

“Unfortunately, people who have a very public life, like marquises, are more likely for people who are jealous of their position to cause trouble,” said Simon.

“You mean, it could happen again?” gasped Effie.

“Unlikely; he has shown himself strong enough to evade such wiles, and it is a coincidence that James James resembles him slightly,” said Simon “Come now; you don’t want to keep Geoffrey waiting. He’ll stop long enough to shave and change, wanting food before wanting fresh clothes, but he’s no dandy, and dresses fast enough. You do not want him angry.”

“But… but he was angry!”

“No, Effie, that is not angry. He was irritable. You do not want to put Geoffrey in a real rage.”

Effie hurried. She was terrified.

“I… I should take Philippa away from him if he is so intemperate,” she said. “She must not be made to marry him, just because she is heedless enough not to take note of her reputation.”

“She wants to marry him, and when I visited them yesterday, they were feeding each other Jinny Pigeon’s pie,” said Simon.  “He adores her, and she adores him; and as she is his ward, you have, I fear, no say in the matter. And since you have managed to alienate her, she would run away in any case.”

“I would lock her in her room until she saw sense.”

“She’d go out of the window,” said Simon. “And then you would lose her affection forever. You’re going to have to eat humble pie, and apologise to her, if you want to retain a relationship with her, you know.”

“But what have I to apologise for?” asked Effie. “I made reasonable assumptions….”

Simon took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake.

“You have called her a liar,” he said. “You have belittled the suffering she undertook willingly to rescue the man she loves by calling it naughtiness. You have belittled the suffering Geoffrey has been through by declaring it nonsense. I love you, Effie, and if you do not apologise, I will still marry you, but you are aware, are you not, that Geoffrey will not forgive, and we shall doubtless be living in one of his other houses, maybe even here, to take care of his business in a smaller way than I currently do, and Alethea will be brought out by the marchioness, because you will not be welcome in Geoffrey’s house in London.”

“But… but I thought the marchioness was in an insane asylum?” said Effie.

“Effie, when Geoffrey marries, his wife will be the marchioness,” said Simon. “I doubt Pip realises it, but all she has to do in London is to fail to recognise you, and neither you nor Alethea will receive even common civility. I will become a nobody, instead of the marquis’s friend, because of my wife.  I’ll give up society for you, my dear, but you need to know that it would be pretty lonely. The society, such as it is, in wherever we ended up as steward and wife, would soon get the word that the steward’s wife went out of her way to be rude to the marchioness.”

Effie was staring at him in horror.

“So much, just for not believing what sounded like a young girl romancing?” she gasped.

“Pip was reared by her mother to be a gentleman,” said Simon. “Her word is her bond. And you called her down as a liar.”

“Oh, dear,” said Effie.

“If you had been a man, you do realise that Pip might well have called you out?  In her persona as Pip, and protecting her supposed sister’s reputation from someone damaging it by calling her honesty into account.”

“But… nobody fights duels these days!”

“Grow up, Effie; Geoffrey has fought several duels. Non-fatal, of course, but still duels. You’re not moving in the circles of the bourgeoisie where doctors constitute high society.”

Effie stared at him in horror.

“But duels are illegal!”

“So what?” said Simon. “It’s understood that they happen. Well, it is with our sort of people. Do you want me to release you from the promise of marriage? I will if you want me to, because I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, but though I am Geoffrey’s servant, I am still a member of his class.”

“I… I want to marry you, Simon; you make me feel safe,” said Effie. “But I need to assimilate all of this and… and understand where I stand.”

“There’s my brave girl,” said Simon, kissing her. He did not point out that if her niece was brought out under the aegis of the Marquis Calver, then Alethea was also likely to marry up, and away from Effie, if she remained a country mouse.

 

Geoffrey got to the Calypso ahead of anyone else, and Pip threw herself into his arms.

“Geoffrey!  Effie was so cross and unreasonable!  She called me a liar!” she sobbed.

“Yes, she came to the Priory like an outraged hen that you had run away,” said Geoffrey. “And demanding that you not be made to marry me just because you are too young to understand that you compromised yourself.”

“Oh, she is impossible!” cried Pip.

“I understand that, but do remember that she was trying to protect you from being forced into marriage against your will,” said Geoffrey.

“But it isn’t against my will,” said Pip.

“But she’s still thinking of you as being a young child, because of how Pip was acting,” said Geoffrey. “And she was trying to protect you. Don’t get me wrong, I am furious with her for failing to believe what you said, but she did stand up to me to protect you. I think she cannot imagine the horrors we, and especially you, have been through, so she cannot cope with it being true.”

“So, if he had caught me and violated me, she would think it couldn’t happen, or that it was my own fault?”

“I don’t know, love,” said Geoffrey. “I think she would recognise your distress. But she is scared and is not listening because she doesn’t want scary things to happen. I hope she will apologise to you, and I have given her a chance to do so in telling her to bring you more clothes.”

“And you want me to let her talk to me, and not turn my back,” said Pip, mutinously.

“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “She is kindly and has worked hard to help you.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Pip. “Very well. She is kind. But I was so shocked that she should treat me like a naughty little girl for doing what I had to do.”

“I know. And I wanted to shake her,” said Geoffrey. “But I do, honestly, think it was because she was too scared to accept reality.”

 

 

Pip was waiting when Effie came with Simon, he carrying a bandbox of clothes.  Effie pulled Pip into her arms and burst into tears.

Pip, rather awkwardly, hugged her back.

“I didn’t like being called a liar and being censured for saving Geoffrey’s life, you know,” said Pip. “It was as if you had struck me in the face.”

“Oh, Philippa!” sobbed Effie. “I did not mean to call your honesty into question! I… I thought you had forgotten that there are people you can rely on and go to for help, and I was angry you had put yourself in danger instead of making a man do it… and that it seemed so like a novel, that you had imagined yourself in such a novel.”

“I’ve never read any novels, so how am I to know? But how could anyone have got there fast enough? I had already woken you, and said he was up to no good; you hadn’t got up to join me, though, or to wake up Murfitt, or go next door for Gaffer Keeble. You didn’t take me seriously at all, even from the moment I woke you. I nearly didn’t, and nearly went out on my own without waking you, so I did trust you. I trusted you to be there and you weren’t,” said Pip.

Effie sobbed more.

“I did not refine much on him driving out here and hitting Sarey, though that angered me, of course,” she said. “I… it did not occur to me that you might need help beyond having a salve to put on her poor back.”

“I couldn’t see what he was up to apart from something nefarious,” said Pip. “And when he came back with Geoffrey, all bloody and unconscious, I had to jump on the back to find out where it was going.  What would you have done?”

“Screamed, and hoped someone heard,” said Effie.

“He’d have shot you,” said Pip. “Or hit you so hard across the mouth with his whip you might never speak properly again. Or across the throat, to kill you. A man who will leave a mark like he did on Geoffrey is not a man to trifle with.  If I’d had a pistol, I’d have shot him. But I did what I had to do, and it wasn’t in the spirit of being naughty, and I don’t appreciate you treating it as mischief.”

“Oh, dear, you are such a little boy, still,” sighed Effie. “A normal girl would have screamed or swooned.”

“Well, I’m glad I’m not a normal girl, then,” said Pip. “If I had been, Geoffrey would very likely be dead now, and probably Mr. Endicott too, as he planned to kill him as the only person who knows Geoffrey well.”

Effie gave a little moan of distress, and Pip sighed.

“You… you don’t have to marry the marquis, if you don’t want to,” said Effie. “I will swear you were with me, so nobody will know you are compromised.”

“But I want to marry him,” said Pip.  “And really, we have to, in case I am with child; I took advantage of him being hors de combat, you see, and swived him all night.”

Effie fainted.

Simon sprang forward.

“What is it?” he cried.

“I really don’t know,” said Pip. “After all, it’s not she who might be with child, only Geoffrey.”

“I’ll take her home,” groaned Simon, foreseeing another long period of soothing Effie. “You should not shock her like that.”

“I’m not going to be badgered into giving up Geoffrey,” said Pip.

 

 

this is the penultimate chapter; so, on with my bronze age fantasy, or a bit of Black Falcon?