Lady in Rags

Chapter Nineteen: An Arrangement

The rest of their honeymoon remained forever in Verity's memory as a sort of hazy, golden dream. Decades later, she could recall the oddest, most insignificant things with crystal clarity: the ornate seashell-patterned tea set that was Mrs Prothero's best; Henry playing with the three broken pieces of tile on the kitchen steps; picking up Neil's vest from the chair one night, to put away properly – he was always leaving his clothes lying about. But for the most part, she was left only with the impression that she had been impossibly, overwhelmingly happy. The concrete details of her memories were obscured in the mists of that emotion, the same way the concrete details of her memories of her childhood were obscured in the mists of misery. She knew she had been miserable as a child, but she could never remember exact reasons why, until some chance event reminded her, like when the fired coach-driver's wife had come to the manor to ply Prothero with excuses for his behaviour and beg for his job back. Too many times, Verity had seen her mother with the exact same expression on her face, the exact same tone to her voice, as she had begged Lady Duvalle to not be so harsh on a poor, weak, gentle man. For Verity, the stain of strong emotions lingered longer than the memories of what had caused them.

It was then in early May that they returned to Great Hough, Verity knowing she had been happy, without knowing why, and faintly nervous at her return to the old surroundings, where so much misery had been felt.

The first week of their arrival was a hurricane of visits from curious neighbours. Verity found that Clair had grown taller, and prettier, and somehow indefinably older. She and her father were the only pleasant visitors that week. It was awkward for Verity to find herself suddenly removed from low society to high. She did not know how to be sociable to the well-dressed ladies and gentleman who had previously scorned her company. Nor did she find it easy to walk under the dirty glares of servants and labourers, who were perhaps jealous of her change of fortune, or perhaps merely resentful of her attitude, which had always been prideful and prickly, and was now marred also by a sort of hesitating and grating condescension towards them. Verity didn't mean to be condescending, but in endeavouring to show some respect to the butcher's daughter or the footman's wife, she only made it seem like she was trying to remind them of their place.

After a week or two, the village came to the consensus that Mr and Mrs Armiger were snobbish and cold and prideful.

"Well-suited to each other," Mrs Stanley sniffed to her two eldest nieces, neither of whom had succeeded in ensnaring the attentions of any gentleman over the past year, and were very disheartened by their prospects. "Them both so proud and above us all! And with nought to be proud of!"

For somehow it had come to the village that Mr Armiger had been virtually exiled from his family and the society he was born to: a black sheep, come to hide far away from the flock. No one knew exactly how true the rumours were, or exactly why he might have been exiled, but the villagers were highly imaginative, and with no truth to dispel any lies a clever fishwife might come up with, the gossip flamed high and wide.

Despite this, the married couple were very content, living up in the manor in their own company and ignorance of all gossip. There were a few blights, their first few weeks back, it was true. They had argued about Neil's distressing habit of leaving his clothes where he dropped them, for one thing. For another, Verity's father had bullied his way through the butler, and refused to leave until he had seen Verity; Neil had sent him away eventually, with a pound in his pocket, and the footman's boot up his backside.

It was at the end of their second week home that Lady Duvalle sent Verity a message asking to receive her, and Verity went, as called.

When she entered the parlour, there were the usual formal and expected greetings, and then the maid was sent away, and Lady Duvalle poured tea.