The Weeping Ash Read online

  “Why, that’s famous! Dear little wild rose, I’m delighted to hear it. Good luck to you both,” said Barnaby, not very interested; and after he had informed the Herriards that his regiment was ordered out to India to keep a sharp eye on Tippoo Sahib, he bade them all a carefree good-bye and swung happily off into the dusk.

  “Barnaby’s very pleased with himself,” said Harriet.

  “You’d think the squire would wish him to marry and get an heir before he goes off abroad,” said Maria.

  “Maria, such thoughts are unbecoming to you and, in any case, no concern of ours,” reproved her father.

  “At one time I quite thought that Barnaby had an eye to our Fanny,” said Kitty with a spiteful sidelong glance at her youngest sister. But Fanny said nothing, merely bent her head lower over her stitching—they were all hemming sheets for her bride linen—and was immensely relieved when the rector said, “Enough chatter, children; it is time for evening prayers.”

  By September the hot, haymaking weeks were a thing of the past, long forgotten, and it was in weeping gray autumn weather that Captain Paget assisted his youthful bride into the carriage which, after the simple wedding ceremony had been performed by her father, was to take them from Sway, in the New Forest, where Fanny had spent the whole of her life up till now, off to the new home in Sussex.

  It was a cold and dismal journey. Rain penetrated the cracks of the ancient hired conveyance, turned the roads to quagmire, and reduced the stubble fields on either side of the turnpike to an uninviting dun color, but nevertheless Fanny, who had never traveled in her life, was prepared to find interest in all that she saw. Although she did not feel it likely that she would ever come to love her taciturn bridegroom, she was exceedingly grateful to him for taking her away from her sharp-eyed sisters and a home which had come to be associated with excruciating unhappiness; she fully intended to be friendly, affectionate, and biddable, to do as much as lay in her power to make her marriage a success.

  However she soon found that her polite questions and comments about the villages they passed through met with but a brusque reception; the necessities of Captain Paget’s rather dismal profession took him traveling about the country for large parts of every week, on horseback or by coach; landscape was of no interest to him, and his only present wish was to reach home and inaugurate the new period of connubial comfort with as little delay as possible; sharply, ignoring Fanny’s polite remarks, he ordered the coachman to flog up his brutes of horses and get them to Petworth before the rain turned to a deluge.

  Fanny prudently resolved to keep silent; but after a few moments a wish to learn something about the house toward which they were bound made her forget her resolution, and she inquired wistfully:

  “Will your cousin Juliana be there to greet us, sir, when we arrive?”

  A cousin, such a kindly, well-disposed cousin, would, she thought, be more inclined to be friendly than those three rather daunting unknown figures, her stepdaughters, whose presence their father had not considered necessary at his wedding.

  “Juliana? No, no, she is halfway across the Atlantic already, she and that fancy Dutch husband of hers.”

  Considering the benefactions that Countess van Welcker had heaped upon him, Mr. Paget’s tone did not sound particularly cordial, Fanny thought; it is much harder to receive gracefully than to give, and perhaps he was already discovering that to be the recipient of such generosity posed its own problems.

  “What is the name of your cousin’s house, sir?”

  “It is called the Hermitage,” he replied shortly, his tone suggesting that he considered this name far too fanciful and would, if it lay within his power, change it to something plainer. He added, “I believe there was once some monastic foundation upon the site; no doubt the name derives from that.”

  “The Hermitage!” Fanny shivered; to her the name had a chill and dreary sound. She pulled the carriage rug more closely around her shoulders. “And what is the house like, sir?”

  “Like? Like? Why, it is just a house.”

  “No, but I mean, is it old or new? Does it lie within the town of Petworth or in the country outside?”

  Captain Paget replied briefly that the house was a new one built within the last twenty years, he understood, and that it lay on the edge of the town, which numbered about three thousand inhabitants.

  “It will be very strange to live in a town,” murmured Fanny, and added in what she hoped was a cheerful and lively manner, “I greatly look forward to seeing the shops and warehouses and the stalls in the market place.”

  “I trust your recourse to them will be infrequent. A good housewife contrives all that she may without quitting her own home,” was her husband’s somewhat discouraging rejoinder.

  Fanny had learned already that there were to be four servants in her new home: a cook, a housemaid, a knife- and bootboy, and an outside man who would sleep over the stable and attend to the garden and the horses; she found the prospect of responsibility for ordering such a large establishment an alarming one and said timidly:

  “And shall you continue in your profession, sir, now that you have bought the mill?” For she had been told that, with part of his cousin’s gift, Captain Paget had been able to acquire a small flour mill at Haslingbourne, a mile outside the town of Petworth, the revenues from which would make a comfortable addition to his income.

  “Continue in my profession? Certainly I shall!” he said sharply. “What can have given you the notion that I should not?”

  “I did not—I had not meant—” Fanny knew that she must never, at any cost, betray how odious she thought her husband’s calling; she faltered out something about regretting that it required him to be so much from home.

  Thomas Paget glanced impatiently out of the carriage window—they were slowly descending a steep hill and the driver had been obliged to put on the drag, or the vehicle would have rattled away faster and faster, out of control. Fanny, looking out in the other direction, over a wide prospect of blue-gray, misty weald without a house in sight, battled desperately with the onset of tears. Her throat felt tight and choking; she swallowed and clenched her hands together. For the thousandth time she remembered an afternoon during haymaking—the peak and pinnacle of her flirtation with Barnaby, as it turned out, though at the time she had thought it but a prelude to greater and greater happiness. He had encountered her behind a new-made rick and rained a shower of light, laughing, impudent kisses on her face and neck, until the voices of two other approaching haymakers made them fly guiltily apart. Dizzy with joy, her blood sparkling in her veins like home-brewed cider, she had believed during that moment that a life containing unimaginable radiance and bliss lay stretched ahead of her.

  And it had all ended so soon!

  Peeping around the corner of the carriage rug at her grizzled bridegroom, Fanny thought, Could I ever feel like that about him?

  Captain Paget had kissed her only once—a brief, formal touch of the lips after the marriage ceremony. He is a cold man, Fanny thought in some relief; well, he is old, after all, probably no longer interested in kissing and fondling. Which is just as well, on the whole, for I’m sure I don’t want it. At least, not from him.

  Bred up in conventual ignorance with her sisters in the rector’s household, Fanny had only the vaguest, most rudimentary notion of what husbands and wives did together. Her mother had died shortly after her birth, and the Herriard girls were discouraged by their father from gossiping with servants, who, in that busy, straitened household, were, in any case, too hard worked to have time for telling tales to the young ladies. Upon her engagement her father had held a short, reluctant conversation with her, during which he had informed her that she and her husband would be one flesh—an obscurely repugnant phrase—and that she must bear herself wifely and dutiful to him in all that he might demand of her. Well, she had promised, and would do so, Fanny resolved; gulping, she trie
d to put away the recollection of Barnaby’s firm young lips at the base of her throat; but she did fervently hope that wifely duties would prove not to entail too much. Perhaps Mr. Paget, who, after all, had three children already, would just hug and cuddle her, as a father might, as her own had never had time to do. That would be pleasant and comforting, Fanny thought hopefully, and if he did so she might easily come to love him, in a friendly, daughterly way.

  He glanced around at her, drumming his fingers on the elbow loop, and she gave him a strained, nervous smile.

  “Are those tears in your eyes? Why, pray?” he demanded, his voice sharp with suspicion.

  “It—it is a little cold. And I was—just for a moment—missing my home,” Fanny stammered.

  Her husband subjected her to a curious, raking scrutiny; there seemed to be anger in it, hostility, even jealousy; surely nobody, she thought in horror, could have told him anything about her brief acquaintance, nobody could have mentioned the name of Barnaby Ferrars? Nobody had known—not a soul—not even her sisters. Besides, none of them had ever been left alone to converse with Captain Paget. She had never been alone with him herself until now. And fortunately her father had not the least notion that she and Barnaby had ever exchanged more than a few words.

  No, Captain Paget could know nothing. His next words reassured her.

  “It is true, you are hardly more than a child,” he said. “When your father suggested that I might marry one of his daughters, I purposely picked you, as the youngest.”

  “We—we did wonder why—when Kitty is so much prettier—” ventured Fanny.

  “Pretty,” certainly, was not a term that could be applied to Fanny herself. Her face was a clear oval, with a pointed chin, a straight delicate nose, a pair of dark hazel eyes, and a sensitive mouth. A mole on her left cheekbone had been the subject of many malicious comments by her sister Kitty and was regretted by Fanny herself; she did not realize that it gave her face a pleasing touch of irregularity and that a fashionable lady in London would have placed a beauty spot in just such a position to add piquancy to the classic calm of her countenance. Her looks were not striking, but the eye of the observer, once caught, tended to linger on her; what seemed at first a serene, demure symmetry could break up in a flash to a most vivid awareness—intensity—sympathy of intelligence. Her hair, a shining, silky, hazel exactly the same shade as her eyes, was banded smoothly around her small nut-shaped head and knotted on the nape of her neck.

  “Tush!” said Captain Paget rather shortly. “What are looks? When a flower is showy, the bees gather around. I wished to secure a bride whose fancies had not been—could not have been—allowed to stray. Your father assured me that this was so in your case.—Is that the truth?” he suddenly rapped out.

  “Y-yes, sir!” lied Fanny, digging her nails into her palms.

  “I am relieved to hear it! Let it continue so, always.—Now, at last, we are approaching Petworth,” he went on in a different tone, glancing out at the rain-streaked dusk. “Another ten minutes and we shall be at home, thank heaven. I hope those two idiots, and my sapskulls of servants, will have succeeded in arranging the furniture with some tolerable degree of order and comfort.”

  “Was the house not furnished, then, sir?” inquired Fanny, immensely relieved at a change of subject.

  “Would I be obliged to bring in furniture if it had been?” he demanded. “No—my cousin Juliana—for reasons best known to herself—chose to take all her furnishings and household goods with her to Demerara.”

  By now they had reached the town of Petworth, of which little was to be seen in the twilight, save a tollhouse and a few timbered cottages. The carriage rattled through narrow, cobbled streets and shortly drew up on the graveled sweep in front of what could only dimly be seen to be a plainly built stone and brick gentleman’s residence.

  The door instantly flew open as the carriage came to a halt; Fanny’s apprehensive gaze beheld what seemed like at least half a dozen persons waiting inside. However several of these were servants, whom Thomas instantly ordered to unpack the baggage; and he hustled Fanny through the door, pushing two young ladies and a child unceremoniously out of the way.

  “Martha, Bet, will you shift aside? Pray, how do you expect me to get into the house? No, Fanny does not wish for a cup of tea—why should she need to maudle her insides and spoil her digestion with such stuff when dinner is only an hour or so away? She will do very well till then. Good God, what a hurrah’s nest do I see here—what in the world have you all been doing with yourselves?” he went on furiously, looking around the hallway which they had entered. It was a medium-sized room which did, in fact, present a very forlorn appearance, with half-unrolled rugs, boxes in process of unpacking, straw scattered about, and a haphazard air of furniture standing in temporary positions.

  “The carts only came with the furniture an hour ago—” began the taller of the young ladies.

  “Be silent! Do not trouble my ears with excuses! Why could you not have sent a messenger to hurry them? No, I do not wish to hear any more now, thank you! Well, I will take Fanny up to my room now—I trust that, at least, has been set in order?” he said in such a threatening tone that both girls instantly chorused:

  “Oh yes, Papa! And there is a fire lit—”

  “Very well. And when we come down I shall expect this disorder to have been cleared away and dinner made ready. See to it!” he snapped, pushing Fanny before him up a narrow but short flight of stairs, around several corners, and at last into a fair-sized bedroom.

  Fanny felt quite dazed. She had hardly been given time to take in her stepdaughters—apart from the fact that one was tall and pale, one moderately pretty, and one a mere child—or to make any acknowledgment of their welcome—and she would have liked a cup of tea! Doubtless her husband would feel better after his dinner, she thought, recalling her father’s shortness before meals, particularly in Lent.

  “Wh-what a pleasant room!” she ventured in a placating manner, glancing around her. The bedroom was scantily furnished as yet, with a chest, a small rug, a bed, and two chairs; a hastily kindled fire burned rather flickeringly in the grate. One charming feature was a large, semicircular bow window which commanded a prospect of dusk-shrouded lawn, rosebushes, and yew hedge: “How delightful this will be in summer—” Fanny was going on, wondering if it would be in order to voice a wish for hot water, when her husband said curtly:

  “Take your clothes off.”

  “What—?”

  “Make haste—undo that dress.”

  “But it was such a short way from the carriage—I am not at all wet—”

  “Don’t be a fool—do as I say!”

  And as she was still slow to follow his meaning, gazing at him with startled eyes, he began himself pulling undone the fastenings of Fanny’s striped muslin overdress—breaking a couple of tags in the process—dragged the garment off her shoulders, and tossed it on the floor. “Now your petticoat—don’t just stand there staring!”

  “But—”

  “Your petticoat, girl!”

  Exasperated by her slowness, he kicked off his own boots and breeches, then flung her on the bed.

  What followed was so appalling to Fanny that, though it was to be re-enacted over and over during the weeks and months to come, every grim detail of the first occasion remained stamped on her memory for the rest of her life. The furious intentness of her suddenly red-faced, blind-eyed husband on his own purpose, as he thrust and battered at her, panting, cursing, and muttering to himself, only, it seemed, occasionally noticing her existence enough to snarl, “Open your legs wider, idiot!”—the totally unfamiliar shock of the whole experience, and its suddenness—the complete disparity of her expectations with this aspect of Thomas Paget—all these things in combination worked upon Fanny with almost shattering effect.

  Some ten minutes later, when her husband matter-of-factly pulled him
self upright and began hunting for his breeches, which had got kicked under the bed, Fanny lay still, limp, gasping, and shocked, horrified not so much by the pain—though that was certainly the worst she had ever felt—as by her own ignorance and fear of what he had done to her, what damage he might have done, tearing and bruising areas of whose very existence she had not previously been aware.

  “Well, don’t lie there like a gaby,” he said irritably. “Get up and put your clothes on! Dinner won’t be long. Some of those fools will be along soon, I daresay, with the baggage.”

  “I’m bleeding—”

  “So I should hope—or I’d have had a word to say to your father!”

  “There’s blood all over the sheets,” she said, beginning to sob.

  “Well, tell the maids to wash them! Where’s my cravat? Damn it, Frances, can’t you be some help? Don’t just lie there! I want to go out to the impress rendezvous and see if my placard has brought in any volunteers. For heaven’s sake,” he broke out in exasperation, “I thought I had got myself a wife, not a whining little mawkin. I’ll have you show me a cheerfuller face than that when I get back, my girl, or I’ll know the reason why!” And, slamming the door to demonstrate his justifiable annoyance, he ran smartly down the stairs, shouting for Jem the bootboy to bring him his officer’s greatcoat.

  Fanny lay dazedly for a few minutes longer, then, hearing muffled footsteps on the stairs, she huddled among the untidy bedclothes and pulled the sheet over her nakedness.

  * * *

  Thomas Paget was a many times disappointed man. Indeed, by the middle of his life he had fallen into a habit of setting up his expectations so high that it was inevitable he should be disappointed; this was possibly the only way in which he found any gratification.

  Son of an ineffectual younger son, in a family of decayed aristocracy, he had discovered in his teens that, while his cousins were all due to inherit money or places, the most that he could expect was to be assisted into a naval or military career by wealthier relatives, whether or not such a prospect was congenial to his taste. This was indeed done, a great-uncle bought him a commission in the navy, and Thomas might, with luck or ability, have prospered and risen in his profession; but luck was lacking; in his very second engagement—and that a wholly unimportant one, with a Spanish privateer—he was so unfortunate as to have the finger and thumb of his right hand shot away, thus rendering him ineligible for further active service. Other sailors might, perhaps, have surmounted such a disability; but Thomas Paget was not of this caliber. It is true also that he was not a favorite with his companions or superiors, being of a jealous, exacting, contentious nature, prone to argue the rights of every matter, however trifling, that touched on his own prestige or position; his messmates were thoroughly glad to see the last of him.