“When they go home, Captain?” Fanny asked immediately.
The captain smiled. “How quick are your ears, mademoiselle! Yes, I shall make no secret of it to you—there is nothing for me to return to in France. My poor mother may have my pension, if there is to be one. I will seek some honourable employment here in England, if England will accept me.” The captain made a graceful bow. “I am not made for a dancing-master, but there is scarcely any occupation which would be contemptible to me if I could earn my bread honestly.”
Here of course was a warm smile for Madame Orly, who said not a word.
“Oh, I am certain...” Fanny said. “Do you know anything of wine, Captain Duchesne?”
A knowing smile hovered on the captain’s lips. “A little. My family once owned extensive vineyards in Bordeaux. You have perhaps heard of Bordeaux.”
“Perhaps—” Fanny started, and then stopped, and the captain bowed again.
“Mademoiselle is thinking, and thinking kind thoughts on my behalf. I shall not pry into her counsels.”
Fanny blushed, and nodded. The thought she had, was of applying to Mrs. Butters’ friend, Mr. Meriwether, a retired wine merchant. She resolved to speak to Mrs. Butters about the matter, so soon as they returned home.
Madame Orly, in the meantime, had been gazing earnestly at the captain.
Fanny decided there was something amiss with her bonnet-strings which could not be ignored, and which naturally required her to turn away and focus all her attention on tying and untying and tying them again, and then she discovered a loose button at the wrist of her glove, and was busy removing the glove and teasing out some thread so she could tie a knot and make it secure, and to her very great gratification, by the time she had finished all these necessary adjustments, it appeared that Captain Duchesne and Madame Orly were engaged to be married!
Chapter 8: Belfast, Spring 1815
Edmund Bertram was often in the habit of observing his wife—studying her, in an abstract fashion, for this was surely to be preferred to examining his own feelings.
Of one thing he was convinced; his wife Mary needed more admiration and attention than only one man could provide—without it, she could not survive. To blame her for this susceptibility would be like blaming a fish for needing water.
He himself had once loved and admired her—extravagantly, passionately—but his love alone was not adequate. He could only offer her a quiet existence on a modest income in a small country village.
In retrospect, he should have known better than to try the experiment. She had suffered and writhed when taken out of her natural environment. She had suffocated. He should not have been surprised when she ran back to London without him.
Now, several years later, Mary was a leading light of Belfast society, her beauty undimmed, her wit and conversation as charming and lively as ever, and he beheld her as happy and content as it was possible for a person like Mary to be.
That was the public Mary Bertram—the charming hostess, the valued dinner guest, the admirable patroness of the Harp Seminary for the Blind. She adroitly manoeuvred around Belfast society, divided as it was between Scots-Irish and English, Protestant and Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian. Dr. Ritchie and his wife might invite Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm to dinner, they might all attend a meeting of the Society for Promoting Knowledge, but on Sunday the Ritchies went to their Catholic church, the Malcolms to their Presbyterian church, and Edmund Bertram led the Anglican service at St. George’s Academy.
Edmund did not know if the ladies of Belfast, the ones who called his wife “dear Mary,” and greeted her with a kiss, really liked her as much as they professed to, but he had no doubt that she was admired by the gentlemen of their acquaintance. They laughed at her sallies; their eyes followed her as she moved elegantly from parlour to dining room; they vied to be the one chosen to turn the pages of her music book.
Edmund was not consumed with jealousy because Mary—to do her justice—accepted these tributes in a manner to which no reasonable man could object, and Edmund was a reasonable man. Yes, she had briefly been another man’s lover, during the period of their estrangement, but in Belfast, her mild flirting was all well within the bounds of polite society.
“You’re a lucky fella, Bertram!” one or another of the gentlemen of his acquaintance would exclaim in that interval after dinner, when the ladies had retired. “A lucky fella, indeed, to have such an enchanting creature for your wife!”
And Edmund would nod and reply, “Only I can know how lucky.”
For the private Mary Crawford Bertram was a trial to Edmund and the entire household, frequently restless and dissatisfied—but only, Edmund reminded himself, when she was thwarted, as when, for example, he vetoed the purchase of a new set of dinner china or a trip to London. At those times, the nursemaids knew to take Thomas and Cyrus out for a stroll in the park, to be away from the sound of their mother’s angry voice, raining down denunciations on Edmund’s head.
Little Thomas was old enough, and wise enough, to imbibe some of his father’s philosophy. Edmund told
