Page 40 of The Widower Without a Will
Martha wondered what Mr.Maulvi would have said of her, had they known each other well enough for him to stop her on the street.
She wondered if Martin had confided in his friend about their affair, and whether Mr.Maulvi had approved.
The dance called for them to cross the line and change partners for a figure.Now Martha was with the wheelwright, a young man who was already sweating from the heat of dancing.To ease his obvious nerves, Martha asked, “Did you know Mr.Maulvi well?”
“Not well, ma’am, no, but he was the one who told me to stop dawdling and propose to my wife.I wasn’t done with my apprenticeship, see, so we couldn’t yet marry, but he said, ‘Tell her you love her and that you plan to marry her, and then it will all work out.’And so I did, and she said she loved me too, and she waited for me.If not for Mr.Maulvi, she might have married Joseph Duncan in Reading, and then we’d both be miserable.”
It was a beautiful story, and it filled the time they had together.She and Mr.Cropper moved up the line while the wheelwright and his partner moved down it.Mr.Cropper said, “I’ve often thought of Mr.Maulvi as the heart of Northfield Hall.His lordship must set the example about right and wrong, you see.Mr.Maulvi was the one who saw gray, and never with judgment.He made allowances for us to be human.”
Martha chewed on this as they changed partners again for the next figure.Before she had known him, she had considered Lord Preston upright and reserved—the epitome of what a lordshouldbe, rather than rakish and loud and overly familiar with everyone.He certainly held himself to high standards when he made decisions, but wasn’t that right when his decisions impacted so many people?
Did Lord Preston not allow the people around him to be human?
Did he not allowhimselfto be human?
She was so absorbed in this line of thought—and, perhaps, growing winded from the quadrille—that she didn’t notice that Lord Preston and Ellen were the couple beside them until Lord Preston met her in the middle of the line to dance the change-in-partner figure.One moment she was woolgathering, and the next, her eyes were filled with him.
“Good evening, Mrs.Bellamy.”His words were stiff, but Martha felt his true feelings in the way he gripped her hand as if he would never let go.
“Mr.Cropper asked me to dance,” she said.As the words came out, she cursed them as a waste of these precious instants they had together as figure partners.
“I’m glad.It can be good for the soul to dance.”
“Everyone has wonderful things to say about Mr.Maulvi.I begin to think he was an angel who walked among us.”
Martin smiled.Her breath stopped for that moment.She was so accustomed to him in his home, but here he was in a formal black evening coat, his cravat perfectly starched and tied to frame his chin.He was so handsome that she wanted to kiss him right there on the dance floor.
“He inspired Adam Grigg to confess his love to his sweetheart so that she would wait to marry him.Isn’t that romantic?”
“Indeed, Maulvi was quite the romantic.”
Which wasn’t quite the same thing as agreeing with her.Martha added, “I think he was right that it is better to be courageous and honest than to stay silent and hope your love story will work itself out.”
Lord Preston tugged her closer, which was part of the dance, and didn’t say anything.
He held himself to too-high standards.He didn’t allow himself to be human.He did not consider that hecouldbe in love because he did not think heshouldbe in love.
And, Martha realized, he had lost his best friend, who would have told him to listen to his heart instead of gossip.
She wouldn’t do it now, in the middle of the dance floor with everyone from Thatcham and Northfield Hall watching.But as they stared at each other through the tune of the quadrille, Martha resolved that when this was all over, she would not permit him to retreat to the quiet arrangement they had enjoyed before.When they finally were able to speak plainly again, she would tell him she loved him madly—and see what waited on the other side of that confession.
Chapter Fifteen
Martinhadneverbeenone for parties, and he was especially glad when Maulvi’s assembly ended.It was too strange to dance in a room full of mourners and too hard to try to avoid looking Martha’s way.He wanted to be done with all of it: the obligation of displaying his feelings for Maulvi, the small details about Thatcham villagers he needed to remember of which normally Maulvi would have reminded him, the press of so many people in the barn, the threat of scrutiny if he so much as smiled at Martha.
They had danced together for only a moment, during an early quadrille, yet when Ellen had reclaimed him as her partner, she had given him so searching a look Martin thought he must have kissed Martha in front of the whole assembly.
That was, of course, what he hadwantedto do.If he could have had his way, he would have pulled two overstuffed chairs into a corner of the room and sat with Martha all night.That being impossible, he would have settled for dancing with her as his sole partner through all the sets of quadrilles and minuets and reels.That being ridiculous, he would have eaten his supper beside her to hear her observations on the evening.
As it was, he could not even ride home in the same carriage as her.To avoid talk, Martha climbed into the gig with Mr.and Mrs.Chow to return to Northfield Hall, while Martin took the family carriage with his daughters and Eddie.When they got home, he would have to surrender her to her bedroom without following her in, for on this night of all nights, Sophia and Ellen and Caroline would likely stay up talking and catch anyone sneaking through the corridors.
He was a horrid old man to consider threatening Martha’s reputation like that, anyhow.He knew the correct way to behave, and it was high time he showed her the respect she was due, which was tonottake advantage of her just because she told him he could.
He had bid everyone goodnight and retreated to his dressing room when his daughters knocked on his door.
At first, he thought it was only Ellen, and he assumed he had dropped something in the corridor as he shrugged out of his coat.Then Sophia and Caroline followed her into the room, and true fear gripped his stomach.
“Is there bad news from abroad?”he asked—devil that he was, hoping this was about a topic that had nothing to do with him.
