A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 7: William

The Glorious Twelfth, the start of every sportsman's calendar and indeed the highlight of mine.  To be away from the stifling heat of London was a sweet release and as I strode across the moorlands, gun under my arm and dog at my heel, I breathed deeply.  Happily, I headed back to my host, with joy in my heart and a good number of red grouse in my bag.  When I picked up the letter from Mary Taylor, I had not one care in the world and yet when I had finished reading it, it seemed as though my life had fallen to the floor. Mary Taylor was gone.

It is commonly held that the Chorleys are a good-natured bunch, honest and steady, yet there is always some battle-axe maiden aunt who likes to buck the trend in every generation. Agatha Chorley was that battle-axe.  She'd inherited her money from an even more mean-spirited great-aunt, who gave her a fortune on the condition that she would never marry.  A condition that was readily met and with great joy, because Aunt Agatha was never one to tolerate the company of foolish men.  She preferred female company on the whole and engaged a steady stream of grey-haired companions who she tired of within the year.  Not so Mary Taylor, who came to her as a girl of seventeen and had stayed with her an impressive four years. Miss Taylor had backbone, Aunt Agatha said and would not scrape like the old pussycats before her.

The first-time I met Mary Taylor, I was unprepared.  I had bounced into room as was my way, prepared to take a swift sherry with my aunt before passing onto more pleasant activities and had stopped in my tracks.  Next to Aunt Agatha sat a pretty girl in her late teens, a very pretty girl. Golden hair, smooth cheeks and a smile like a summer's day. I stood gaping at her like a fool, there was a glimmer in her green eyes as she cooly observed by dumbness.

  "You must be Mr Chorley," she said sweetly.

  "W-w-william," I said turning red. "I mean, please call me William."

She held out her hand, which I took in my clumsy bear-paw and shook awkwardly.

  "It is nice to meet you, William.  I am Mary Taylor, your aunt's companion."

  "Oh Mary dear, look at him!" Aunt Agatha laughed cruelly, "He was not expecting a pretty young thing like you I wager, he is blushing to the end of his nose."

Throughout the next few years, it had amused my aunt to see men's heads turn as her young friend passed by.  Mary responded to them with a light indifference, she was arch and witty but never cruel.  I watched from a distance but despite myself, I was pulled into her orbit.  When Agatha gave permission, she danced with the young men at balls but I never asked.  The thought of holding her in my arms, gazing into her green eyes and knowing she could not be mine was a torment I could do without.  Now it seemed I had found fresh torment, that of regret.

Since the day I shot my first gun, I could not have believed much would tear me away from a fine hunting season and yet as soon as I received that letter, I did not hesitate.  For the first time in my life, I found myself admitting how much I needed the girl.  How much I loved her.  Sighing, I looked at my face in the mirror.  It was not a handsome face, I knew that and yet I was a good honest man with a steady income.   Mary was a practical girl in many ways, I did not expect my proposal to excite her but it would at least be welcome.  I had tried in my bumbling roundabout way to broach the subject before but had been rebuffed, in the sweetest, kindest way. My greatest fear was that Mary would see it as some sort of dreadful charity on my part.  Poor girl although she was, Mary Taylor had her pride and I admired her greatly for it. 

The journey was wretched, I barely slept in my bunk as I made the journey down from Scotland.  Tired and disconcerted, I went straight to Aunt Agatha's.  She sat hunched in misery, looking old and alone.  A misery of her own making, I reminded myself as my resolve started to melt.