Читать книгу: «The Wager»

Chapter One

The night was warm for so early in the summer. The windows were open, inviting every passing breath of fresh air to enter, but they were few and far between and often merely flirted with the window shade.

A young girl sat on the end of the bed, fully dressed.

The ensemble she wore was too warm for the season and too complete for the hour, so it was not surprising if little droplets of sweat had gathered on her brow. But, in fact, the perspiration was there, and running down her back in hot, lazy rivulets, for another reason.

Marianne was waiting for her uncle Horace. His temper was usually vile, but he became violent if he lost at cards. And unfortunately, more often than not, when Horace Carstairs gambled he lost.

The man was not actually her uncle. After the death of her parents the previous year, her father to a hunting accident and her mother three months later to an influenza that found her in a weakened condition owing to her grief, the girl had been assigned by the court to Mr. Carstairs, whose misfortune it had been to be bequeathed some monies in her father’s will to clear an outstanding debt.

“I cannot take the girl,” Carstairs had objected. “I am unmarried. Surely you would not burden an old bachelor like myself with such a responsibility?”

But the court reminded Mr. Carstairs that with the girl a ward of the state, it could, in fact, dispose of her and her modest legacy as it saw fit. Carstairs might have objected further, but the judge agreed to pay him, as guardian, an annual stipend out of the girl’s inheritance.

Mr. Carstairs pursued various ventures in order to make money—some, but not all of them, legal—and being no more an astute businessman than he was a clever card player, he often found himself in need of extra cash. The payment the judge named appeared very attractive to him just then.

Thus it was that Marianne Trenton, so recently part of a loving home and family, had her grief compounded by suddenly becoming the ward of a man she did not know and soon found detestable.

Her schooling had been haphazard, and at the death of her parents, her formal education ended abruptly. But Marianne, alone and largely unnoticed in Mr. Carstairs’s house, became an avaricious reader—almost exclusively of the penny dreadfuls she was able to purchase with the small allowance her “uncle” afforded her.

Tonight, though, as she waited for her guardian, she was too distracted and tense to concentrate on her latest novel, Leonore, Jeune Fille. And when she finally heard Uncle Horace’s key grating in the lock, she jumped in alarm.

Fearfully she listened to her uncle’s progress through the house. She could hear him hanging his overcoat on the tree by the front door. He paused by the table in the foyer to look through the mail. She thought he might turn into the sitting room to read the paper, but after a pause, during which she could imagine him scanning the headlines, his footsteps continued to the stairs.

The heavy clump of shod feet on the risers sounded as if they were produced by a large man. Though relatively tall, Mr. Carstairs was not heavyset, but lean and lanky. His shoulders were narrow, his face, with its pursed lips, pinched nose and close-set eyes, long and thin. Yet his slow, heavy steps up the stairwell seemed almost to shake the house with their weight.

Marianne stiffened, the book in her hands entirely forgotten. If all had gone well tonight Uncle Horace would continue down the hall to his room, and she could finally undress and go to bed. But if he had lost, he would kick the door open and would be upon her before she could assume a position of defense. The amount of abuse she would suffer—the shouts of rage, the blows to her face and bodywould depend on the size of his losses.

His steps neared her door and slowed. Her green eyes opened wide; her breathing grew shallow and almost stopped. “Go on, go on,” she whispered, as he stopped and turned to her door. She sucked in her breath and held it, waiting for his boot to hit the thin panel that separated them.

Instead, there was a soft tap at her door.

Surprised, she released the breath she had been holding. “Come in,” she said.

The door opened slowly. Uncle Horace peeked carefully around the corner, for all the world as if he were making sure she was decent. Such a concern had never suggested itself to him before.

“You are still up,” he said.

“I am,” she replied.

“You were unable to sleep?”

“No, I was waiting…” Her voice trailed away to silence.

“Waiting? For me? I am touched, Marianne.”

She did not reply.

“I have been reviewing our situation here,” he continued when the brief pause indicated the girl was not going to speak. “You know that I am ill suited to raise a young woman, and I suspect you have not been happy here, alone so often, with no young people for companions, no chance to socialize. You are of an age when you should be socializing.”

The girl shifted her feet uncomfortably, one toe nudging the book she had dropped when Carstairs knocked. She had pictured herself of late in situations similar to the ones Leonore, the young heroine, encountered.

“I suppose—” she began.

But the man cut her off. “Perhaps it is time we looked into a new position for you. Something with broader perspectives.” He had half turned, his voice casual, as if he were speaking the thoughts as they occurred to him, but now he peered at her from the side, studying her face.

“Another position? You sound as if I should be seeking employment. Am I seeking employment, Uncle Horace?” she asked.

“No, no. I misspoke. You misunderstood. But another house, a broader acquaintance, that is what I am suggesting.”

“I am to visit someone? An old friend of mine, perhaps?” she said.

“Not exactly,” Carstairs said, hedging.

“Then what, exactly?”

“Not an old friend of yours. A gentleman of my acquaintance. You will be leaving at the end of the week.”

“Leaving?” If Marianne sounded more surprised than saddened by Carstairs’s announcement, it was due to the fact that leaving this house had been her fondest wish since the day she had entered.

“A coach will be by to collect you on Friday morning. You must be prepared to leave by then.”

“A coach? Where am I to go?” Marianne asked, making every effort to understand the frightening man who was her guardian.

“The gentleman has a private estate outside of Reading. I believe he intends for you to stay there.”

“I am to leave London?”

“It is not far,” Carstairs told her. “And you will doubtless be returning in a few weeks.”

Horace Carstairs was embarrassed to admit that until tonight he had never seen the possibilities Marianne presented. She was a fresh young girl, as far as he knew, a virgin. When Desmond was finished with her, Carstairs could sell her services again.

Surprisingly, especially if one knew Carstairs and the depths to which he was willing to descend in the name of business, that had not been his intention when he offered Marianne to the gentleman. He had honestly expected to win when he wrote his little IOU. He’d had three jacks and two twos. A full house would have won any of the other hands all night long. But it did not win that hand, and consequently Carstairs had finally realized the practical value Marianne represented.

“You need not worry about me,” Marianne said, in response to his promise she would soon be returning to him. “I will stay away as long as you like.”

“We shall see how things turn out,” Carstairs said.

“And who is this person I am to visit?” Marianne asked, at last coming to the question of most pressing interest.

But her guardian shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “You do not know him,” he said.

“A philanthropic gentleman.” It was not a question. To Marianne it was an obvious statement of fact that any man who would take her away from Uncle Horace was a philanthropist.

But the next morning, when Marianne arose, she learned that Mr. Carstairs had left very early for Barnet, to collect on a loan.

She was confused and alarmed. Uncle Horace had left without telling her anything about her new placement or the situation facing her. When Bette first informed her of Mr. Carstairs’s unannounced business trip, the girl was not at all certain she had not dreamed the episode of the night before. It had gotten late, and perhaps she had fallen asleep. In her uncomfortable position at the foot of her bed she must have had a particularly vivid dream.

A letter arrived with the four o’clock post, though, which confirmed her flickering memory.

Miss Trenton,

Your guardian has by now, I am sure, informed you of your approaching relocation. I am looking forward to meeting you. My man will be there at seven o’clock Friday morning. The drive to Kingsbrook will take the better part of the day, so you will have to make an early start. Until then, je suis le tiens, ma biche.

P. Desmond.

Marianne, having quit her schooling after only a few French lessons, did not know Mr. Desmond had called her “his fawn,” nor did she realize how indecently familiar the gentleman had been in his concluding sentence.

She rose with the sun on Friday morning and was dressed to greet Mr. Desmond’s coachman when he rang the bell, a little before seven o’clock.

As Mr. Desmond had said in his letter, the trip to his home and lands outside of Reading took all of that morning and most of the afternoon. The day was unseasonably hot for so early in the summer. By eight o’clock Marianne regretted that she had chosen her three-piece ensemble, which required the jacket to look complete.

They stopped at a little roadside tavern for lunch. As always, Marianne’s finances were meager, and she was not sure she could afford to buy even the plainest meal on the menu. She was relieved, touched even, when the coachman produced two pound notes and told her Mr. Desmond had sent them, for any expenses she might incur along the way.

She therefore enjoyed her meal immensely, even drinking a glass of wine, and as a result was able to sleep very comfortably in the jogging, sweltering coach for the remainder of the journey.

She woke with a jerk when the coachman, who had identified himself as Rickers, opened the carriage door.

“Just ‘Rickers’?” Marianne had asked him doubtfully.

“Rickers usually suffices, miss, unless the missus gets impatient with me, as she does every now and again, and then it’s ‘Eus-tice!”’

“We’re there, miss,” he said now.

“There?” Marianne felt as if her wits had been scrambled by an eggbeater, which was a fair description of the coach ride and its effects.

“Kingsbrook.” With a flourish Rickers opened both doors of the coach, and Marianne caught her breath.

They had just crossed a wooden bridge over the brook after which the estate was no doubt called. Its banks were covered with moss and pretty pink centaury blossoms. The untamed beauty of the landscape continued into the park itself, which Marianne knew must be planted and cared for to some degree because of the buddleia and poppies, the dahlias and azaleas growing in such colorful beds among the shrubs and trees.

To complete the picture, a delicate doe tiptoed down to the brook, mindful but not fearful of their presence.

And then Marianne raised her eyes to the house and drew in her breath again. Kingsbrook Manor, rising from the ferns and meadows surrounding it, looked like a fairy-tale castle to the young girl. Then her breathing evened out, her wine-induced sleepiness lifted completely from her brain, leaving behind the dull throb of a headache, and she saw that of course the structure was not quite as awe-inspiring as she had first thought.

There were three stories, with tall windows all along the bottom floor, to the right and left of the big double doors set squarely in the middle. The upstairs windows were smaller, and the panes under the gables mere pigeonholes.

Rickers helped her down from the carriage, and as he accompanied her to the house, she realized some of the impression of overwhelming magnitude was due to the structure rising starkly from its wild setting. If it had been surrounded by a paved courtyard, with a wide, winding drive in front of it, it would not have startled the senses so, nor seemed so colossal.

Still, it was the largest private dwelling she had ever stayed in, and she had to force herself to keep her mouth from dropping open as she looked up at it.

At first Rickers seemed to be leading her aimlessly through the tall grass, but in a moment she realized there were flat, even stones under her feet. The path, like the beds of multicolored poppies, had been carefully and meticulously planned to convey the impression of artless natural beauty.

When they had nearly reached the doors, the path finally widened and the grass was cut back. Mr. Desmond had evidently made a minor concession to visitors and guests who might prefer civilization. There was a paved walkway around the house, and the flowers blooming near the windows were confined in planter boxes. But one had to be very near the structure before the illusion of a fairy castle in an enchanted glen was disturbed.

Rickers stopped before the large double doors.

“Mrs. River will get you situated,” the man said.

“Mrs. River?”

“Housekeeper here at Kingsbrook.”

“And where is Mr. Desmond?” Marianne asked. She was anxious to meet the gentleman, to thank him for his generosity.

“Oh, ‘e’s ‘ere about someplace, I would wager. Let Mrs. River show you around a bit and you’ll ‘ear about it when ‘imself gets in.” Rickers put her belongings down and touched his cap.

“Miss Trenton?” Startled, Marianne turned to face the speaker, a tall, angular woman, who had opened the door. With her hair turning gray at the temples and pulled back into a knot, she was not beautiful, but her face was interesting. Her eyes saw a great deal, Marianne suspected. Her ears heard more than what was said and her mouth spoke the truth. The girl instinctively liked Mrs. River the moment she saw her.

“Miss Trenton, I believe. We have been awaiting your arrival. Will you come in?” Judging from her icy tone, the housekeeper did not reciprocate with her own favorable impression.

“Yes. Thank you,” Marianne mumbled, reaching down for one of her bags.

“Leave them. James will take them up for you.”

Mrs. River turned sideways to allow Marianne to pass, and the girl stepped across the threshold into the dark receiving hall. “Mr. Desmond is…?”

“Mr. Desmond was attending to business this morning. He left instructions to serve tea when you arrived, and said that he would try to be back in time to join you. Tea is ready, Miss Trenton, but perhaps you would like a chance to freshen up first?”

Mrs. River had modified her unfriendly tones so that her voice was now perfectly expressionless. But if her eyes saw a great deal, they revealed certain things, too. Marianne felt a sinking sensation in her stomach at the housekeeper’s unmistakable disapproval of her.

She smiled sweetly, though, at the woman’s offer to freshen herself, and hoped it would mean a cool, damp washcloth—her head still ached a bit from her luncheon wine—and a brush. “I would like very much to wash my face and hands, if I could.”

“Certainly, Miss Trenton. Alice, show Miss Trenton to her rooms and then bring her down to the front sitting room when she is ready,” Mrs. River said, and Marianne was startled to see a maid in a dark skirt with a white cap and white apron suddenly materialize at her elbow.

“Yes, Mrs. River. Will you follow me, miss?” the maid inquired.

Alice led her through the receiving hall, up the stairs and along the balcony. “This is Mr. Desmond’s suite,” she said, clearing her throat. “And these—” she indicated the next door along, facing, like Mr. Desmond’s rooms, the front doors on the ground floor “—are your rooms.”

Rooms?

Indeed, the apartment Alice showed her was almost as large as the little cottage where she had grown up, in which she and her parents had lived comfortably.

“Is this all to be mine?” she gasped. “Am I to be in here—alone, I mean?”

“Well, yes, miss. That is, unless you bring…I mean, until such time as you should care to invite—anyone else in. I did not mean to suggest…” The little maid, barely older than Marianne, stammered uncomfortably, colored brilliantly and finally stopped talking altogether.

Marianne was too overcome by the proportions of her chambers to pay much attention the girl’s confusion. “I was not expecting anything so…grand,” she said softly, looking around her and finally turning wonder-filled eyes on the maid again.

Alice bobbed a curtsy and left her alone, unable to keep from shaking her head slightly as she closed the door. This young woman was not the sort of person she had been expecting, judging from the low-toned conversations between Mrs. River and Mrs. Rawlins she had overheard downstairs in the kitchen.

In her grand apartment, Marianne washed her face in a porcelain bowl, dried her hands on one of the fluffy towels set out in the private washroom, then rearranged her hair with the tortoiseshell brush, part of an elegant set placed in front of the large looking glass. She smiled into the mirror, then drew her face into more serious lines, trying to assume the proper expression of a deserving waif. Before she had the chance to practice her presentation any further, there was a nervous tapping at her door.

“Come in,” she called.

Alice slipped into the room. “He’s come, miss. Mrs. River sent me straight up to bring you. Mr. Desmond doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and in any case, Mrs. River said you would want to see him.”

“Mr. Desmond? By all means,” Marianne said, putting the brush down, smoothing her dress, checking her reflection one last time. At last she was going to meet the kindly old gentleman and have the chance to offer her heartfelt appreciation for his selfless benevolence.