Mrs. Mayhew leaped up as well and marched toward him until her nose was but a few inches from his. “You fool! The only thing she has to impart is a bill for her services, which you pay month after month without any consideration of our finances. And she is your mistress, you insufferable buffoon. Just because she reads the tarot while you are having relations does not mean it isn’t intercourse!”
“She has a harelip, for god’s sake,” he shrieked, as if that put an end to the notion of anything inappropriate about their conduct. “And I only compensate her generously because her advice helps the business.”
Mrs. Mayhew found this statement so maddening, she actually screamed. “I help the business by providing you with a gracious home and a serene hostess at your table!”
The banker cackled in contempt, a harsh and unsettling sound. “You gracious and serene? You are a shrew, a vile virago I have had to put up with all these years. And now you’ve ruined everything. Everything! And for what? For why? A wild misconception based on female intuition.”
His wife leaned forward until her nose was actually pressing against his and yelled at the top of her lungs, “He was going to send a letter.”
“Good God, yes, let’s hack up the cook because he was going to put pen to paper. What a very great horror!” he shouted with sarcastic fervor. “Get it through your head, you abhorrent termagant: My brothers would not have cared. They wouldn’t even have noticed a letter from a disgruntled chef. And if they did—so what? Not a single one of them would begrudge me a stipend for all my hard work.”
“A stipend?” she squealed with disdain. “A stipend! It’s not a stipend, you bacon-brained rattleplate! It’s thievery plain and simple.”
“You were the one who called it a stipend,” he spat.
“I was trying to help you appease your conscience because you are a sniveling twit,” she sneered.
Around and around they went, a swirling whirlwind of hatred, contempt and anger, and Bea, suddenly weary of it all, turned to the duke. But she was flummoxed by the display of untethered viciousness and realized she had no clear thought to impart. She desired the scene to be over but wanted no part in the ending of it, and could not imagine either possibility. Consequently, when she looked at Kesgrave she was at a loss for words and when she did finally speak, it was more of a plea than a rational request for help: “Your grace.”
Kesgrave, as if he had been waiting for just such a cue, nodded abruptly and asked her to wait there for a moment. Then he crossed swiftly to the doorway and disappeared into the hall. Mrs. Mayhew howled savagely at the mention of a scarlet gown and shrieked that if anything had led them into penury it was his Arabian stallion.
“I ride Caesar daily,” he bellowed in outrage. “You wore that dress once!”
“To dine with Brummell,” she sputtered.
Only a minute later the duke returned with—inconceivably—Marlow at his heels. In the hallway, just outside the room, Parsons hovered with an appalled expression on his face, which contrasted sharply with the other butler’s bland impassivity.
“A Runner has been sent for,” Kesgrave explained mildly, “and Marlow is going to monitor the situation until he arrives. We may go.”
Although the butler’s presence in the house was wholly inexplicable, Bea was not entirely surprised by it. She did not believe, no, that the duke had anticipated the horrible scene unfolding in the drawing room, but he’d had enough concern about the confrontation that he had stationed Marlow nearby: outside the door, on the pavement in front, in the square across the road.
Heartfully, gratefully, she said, “Thank you, Marlow.”
As stoic as ever, the butler acknowledged the deeply felt sentiment with a barely perceptible nod, then winced uncontrollably when Mrs. Mayhew hurled a string of invectives at her husband over a certain gilded high-perch phaeton he lacked the skill to drive. “Thank you, your grace,” he said with unprecedented emphasis. “It appears Monsieur Alphonse did not suffer an accident after all.”
’Twas an admission—a quiet one, to be sure, dignified, understated, butler-ish, but an admission nonetheless—and Bea felt the respect it conveyed. “It appears not.”
“You insufferable gorgon!” Mr. Mayhew cried. “You dare mock my imbalance condition when you are utterly useless with an embroidery needle?”
“You know I suffered a terrible injury to my thumb as a small child!”
Kesgrave murmured further instructions to Marlow, then escorted his wife from the room just as a porcelain vase slammed against the wall. Parsons shuddered in alarm, and the duke placed a firm, comforting hand on the man’s shoulder and assured him Marlow had the matter under control. Although the butler’s expression plainly indicated he did not think it was true, he expressed profound gratitude for their assistance.
Outside, the air was crisp and Bea sighed with deep relief to be away from the stultifying atmosphere of the drawing room. Although the decay of the Mayhews’ relationship was particularly their own, something about it felt oddly similar to the deterioration of the Skeffingtons’. Both enterprises, presumably optimistic at the onset, had ended in murder and enmity, which Bea, scarcely two days into her own union, found almost too dispiriting to contemplate.
And yet she seemed unable to think of anything else, the two awful scenes appearing to play concurrently in her head, Lady Skeffington’s cool indifference, Mrs. Mayhew’s blistering rage. So much contempt and hatred.
Thoughtfully, as if genuinely considering a problem, Kesgrave said, “Obviously, I cannot deposit my money with Mayhew & Co. now.”
Bea smiled faintly at this comment, for she had a deep appreciation for the value of well-conceived understatement, and agreed that his current situation was largely superior.
