‘You’re quite right, Bessie, of course you are, but I think we need to talk about certain things, don’t you?’
‘I would say we do, sir.’
‘Where shall I see you?’
Bessie Maunderfield thought quickly, and said, ‘This evening, sir, have your groom saddle your horse, and tell the family that you are riding to Chiddingfold.’
‘On what pretext, Bessie? What can I tell them?’
‘That’s for you to decide, sir. I shall be walking home, and you will pass me on your horse and turn into the Hurst, and if there is no one about, then I shall follow you in. The Hurst is full of hidden places, sir.’
Somewhat in advance of the hunting season, Piers de Mandeville set off one evening to scout the Hurst for fox earths. He encountered his particular little vixen at a place near one of the ponds where, within living memory, Prince George of Denmark had got bogged down in his carriage on the way to Petworth, and the men of the village had gathered to disembog him. Checking that no one else was about, he dismounted, and together they walked into the wood, he leading his horse by the bridle. The latter was tied to a sapling of ash, and the couple spread his cape on the ground by a little stream, barely a pace wide, which in those days was populated by diminutive brown trout.
They sat shoulder to shoulder, with their arms around their knees. ‘Do you love me, Bessie?’ he asked at length.
‘The question is, sir, do you love me?’
‘I asked first.’
‘My question is more urgent, sir.’
‘How so?’
‘A maid has more to lose. A maid might lose her very self, a maid might be sore hobbled, but a gentleman might lose very little.’
‘Very well, then, I do love you. You know that I do. I can think of very little else but my pretty distant cousin. Does she love me, though? Is she tormented, as I am?’
‘But how is it possible? What can we do? I know you would never marry me, and I would never be a mistress.’
‘Are you saying that you love me, then?’
‘Oh sir, I am miserable with love.’
‘We shall be married then, Bessie. There is no other way.’
‘Don’t be goosey, sir. Your family would never accept it. I can just imagine your father roaring and your mother weeping. What a furore there would be. You know it.’
‘Yes, I know it. Even so, love makes all things possible.’
‘Only in fairy tales, sir. Here in this place everything depends upon who you are.’
He fell silent, and finally said, ‘I will marry you. I have resolved upon it.’
‘You have yet to ask me, sir.’
He got to one knee, and spread his arms wide. ‘Bessie Maunderfield, my pretty distant cousin, will you marry me?’
‘I will marry you on one condition.’
‘Oh Bessie, what is that?’
‘When we are married and in a public place, or at dinner before the servants, you must call me madam, just as your father does your mother.’
‘This is a very small condition, Bessie.’
She shrugged and smiled. ‘I have always wanted to be addressed as madam.’
‘Then madam you shall be. Of course, under similar circumstances I shall expect you to call me sir.’
She suddenly became deeply grave, and looked at him directly, as if searching his eyes for honesty. ‘Do you swear that we shall be married?’
He tried to field the question lightly. ‘I swear by these trees, and the yellow kingcups, and the bluebells, and by my right hand, and even by His Majesty the King’s best gilded chamber pot.’
‘Don’t make me laugh, now. I am serious. Do you swear that we shall be married? Do you swear it on the Holy Bible?’
‘I do. I swear it on the Holy Bible, and may the Devil have my soul if I don’t.’
‘You swear that the Devil may have your soul if you don’t?’
‘I do, Bessie, I do.’
‘Put your hand on your heart and say, “I Piers de Mandeville do solemnly swear that if I do not marry Bessie Maunderfield, then the Devil may have my soul.”’
The squire’s son sighed, and lifted his eyebrows in humorous resignation. Nonetheless he put his right hand over his heart and swore the oath. ‘There,’ he added, ‘the deed is done. I am yours, or Beelzebub’s.’
‘Now you may kiss me, sir, if you please,’ said Bessie. Piers de Mandeville discovered that she kissed very sweetly indeed, and soon they were lying side by side on the cape, kissing with ever greater degrees of oblivion. De Mandeville’s mare watched them indifferently as she waited to go home to her stable.
Their recklessness and ardour increased by the day, especially after a small room on the top floor of the house fell vacant owing to the departure of another servant. The housekeeper, wishing to spare Bessie her long trudges back and forth through the Hurst, allowed her the room, which was at the back of the house next to the top of a narrow flight of stairs. It was perfectly placed for a furtive liaison. They made love with his hand over her mouth as she bucked beneath him. Sometimes there was a full moon hanging in the window, filling the room with delirious silver light, and Piers de Mandeville and Bessie Maunderfield would lie crammed together on the narrow bed, confounded to find themselves in paradise, incredulous with happiness.
Their liaison had been established for about six months, when four things happened in quick succession. Firstly the Rector died of an apoplexy brought on by becoming infuriated about politics when drunk on claret, leaving behind him no son to inherit the living. Secondly the new Rector arrived with three accomplished and charming daughters who were looking for husbands to match their station. Thirdly the Rector’s wife quickly discovered that there was an unmarried son in the manor house, and the fourth thing was that Bessie Maunderfield came to the inescapable conclusion that she was pregnant.
Bessie said nothing for a month, frightened to tell her love, and believing that he would be angry with her. At St Mary’s Church on Sunday, beneath the stern gaze of Earl Winterton and his family in their own private gallery, she even begged God for a miscarriage. During that time she became ever more alarmed at the frequency of the visits from the Rector’s wife and her three marriageable daughters. They seemed to have an inexhaustible appetite for cakes, scones, tea and lively chatter, and it was quite plain to all that the eldest daughter was making specific efforts to be charming to Piers de Mandeville. She tossed her golden ringlets very fetchingly, praised his playing inordinately and listened wide-eyed to his opinions. When she passed by him, she brushed just a little closer than one ordinarily would, and he often caught the scent of lavender from her clothes. Emily Sutton went to the lengths of learning the fortepiano accompaniments to certain violin pieces that he had always wanted to play. Everyone who observed them also observed that they seemed a very well-matched pair. This thought was not lost on Piers de Mandeville, who now began to waver in his determination to marry Bessie Maunderfield.
Not least among his worries had been that he had proved himself too cowardly to confess his intentions to his parents. Terrified of their rage, and equally terrified as to what would become of him, once disowned, he procrastinated daily, despite many bold resolutions to grasp the nettle.
Bessie Maunderfield, entering and leaving the withdrawing room invisibly and discreetly as a servant must, could not help but notice what was happening, and she quickly became desperate. She foresaw fatal chasms opening up beneath her feet, a storm of recrimination and disgrace about her head. She was forced to tell her lover about the child.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked her repeatedly, as if there might be the slightest possibility that the swelling was an attack of colic.