Since she had never been told that children are entitled to develop their own personalities, Marianne had accepted the change of routine docilely. She really was a nice girl, with an affectionate heart; and if a bright October afternoon, crisp with frosty sunlight, made her yearn to be out playing tag with Billy and Jack instead of conjugating servir in all its possible tenses, she never said so. The new regime had its compensations. The changes in her body and heart, which coincided with Mrs. Jay's full-time tutelage, made it easier for her to abandon childish pursuits; performing prodigies of Berlin work, she dreamed of the young curate's soulful looks. (This was no adolescent fantasy; the curate was the first of many victims, and Mrs. Jay had been obliged to lecture him about his behavior.)

And there was music.

The squire had, upon demand, bought his daughter the finest available pianoforte, of carved rosewood with puckered silk panels and gold candleholders. Why should he not? He never paid for it, although, to do him justice, he fully intended to do so. If the piano dealer had not gone bankrupt first… Before that, Marianne had heard no music except for birdsong and the earnest but untrained efforts of the church choir. When M. George, the music master, flipped up his coattails, seated himself, and plunged into a Mozart sonatina, Marianne knew what she had been missing all her life. She made astonishing progress with her music, and for several years the squire avoided his own drawing room during the hours of Marianne's practice. She practiced quite a lot, and classical music made him want to howl like one of his own hounds.

The inadvertent mixture of educational styles had, in fact, produced a rather remarkable personality. From Mrs. Jay Marianne had learned that a lady did not acknowledge the existence of her own nether limbs – never to be thought of, much less referred to, as "legs." But before Mrs. Jay took over her education Marianne had watched the stable cats copulate and had been present when the squire's favorite bitch had her litters. Mrs. Jay had told her that ladies swooned at the sight of blood; but in childhood she had often torn up a petticoat to bind the scrapes and bruises she and her playmates incurred. Once she had even cut a fish hook from Billy's "nether limb."

How, one might ask, did Marianne manage to reconcile these opposing viewpoints in her own mind? In the same way most human beings are able to accept the shocking discrepancy between the ideal and the actual; as the merchant is able to nod piously at Sunday sermons adjuring him to relieve the poor and suffering, and on Monday watch complacently as his overworked, underpaid factory children drowse over their looms. As Mrs. Jay herself could trust in the loving kindness of the Creator after beholding countless examples of that same Creator's failure to relieve death, suffering, and pain.

When dusk was far advanced, the vicar's widow roused herself and ordered the candles to be brought in. Gas lighting devices had not reached the village, and if they had, Mrs. Jay would not have tolerated them. On this particular evening the pale, limited light seemed scarcely to relieve the darkness; Mrs. Jay had to force herself to reach for one of the pieces of fabric laid out on the table. Black thread on black fabric – difficult even for young, strong eyes to see. But the work had to be done, especially now, in view of the unexpected diminution of Marianne's wardrobe. Mrs. Jay had bought the black wool herself when the shocking news of the squire's financial situation had become known. At least the girl would have a few decent black gowns to wear when she left for… where? That was the question, and Mrs. Jay applied herself to it with her customary fortitude.

"We must discuss your future," she said.

Marianne, her head bent over a seemingly endless pattern of black braid, did not stop sewing.

"I must find work, I suppose," she said.

"You have, I take it, no other – er – option?" Mrs. Jay inquired. She was sure Marianne did not. The girl had always confided in her.

This belief was, of course, an illusion. No young girl is foolish enough to tell a strict older woman about her romantic daydreams and adventures. Marianne's encounters had been innocent enough; all the same, the flush that spread over her averted face would have been a dead giveaway if the light had been stronger and the vicar's widow had not been distracted.

It would have been better for Marianne if she could have forced herself to tell Mrs. Jay about the particular incident that had caused the blush. The older woman would certainly have interpreted the occurrence correctly, and she might have been shocked into giving her goddaughter a few useful hints.

It had happened that very morning. Marianne had insisted on spending the last night in her old home, and Mrs. Jay had reluctantly agreed, since a few of the servants still remained. The girl had arisen early and had gone for a solitary walk through the grounds, bidding a sentimental farewell to her favorite spots. When she returned to the house she found a visitor waiting.

John Bruton was a neighbor, the son of one of the squire's favorite drinking and hunting cronies. Mr. Bruton was of the new gentry; having made his fortune by the efficient exploitation of child labor in his mills, he had been able to retire from trade and purchase gentility, in the form of a country seat, which he promptly renamed Bruton Hall. His eldest son, John, had been one of Marianne's playmates until he was sent away to school. Returning, he had been astonished to find the hoydenish child grown into a beautiful woman. The fathers had talked vaguely of a possible match, and John had been enthusiastic. Marianne had not. Her dream hero, like that of most young ladies of that period, was dark and slim and melancholy. John's round pink face and plump, sweating hands roused no tremor in her heart.

Still, he was an old friend, and when she entered the hall and found him pacing up and down, irritably switching at the dying plants with his riding crop, she was glad to see him.

"Dear John, how good of you to come," she exclaimed, giving him her hand. "I trust your mother is better today?"

"Nothing wrong with the old lady but overeating. Now you – by Gad, you look absolutely first-rate today, Marianne."

"I don't feel first-rate." With some difficulty Marianne freed her hand and wiped it surreptitiously on her skirt. "Papa's creditors will be here soon – or their agents – I don't really understand what is going to happen, except that they will take everything. These are the final hours. I must leave the home of my childhood, never to return."

"Oh, well – Gad – yes, that's so. You always do put things so well, Marianne."

His eyes fixed themselves on her face with a look she had learned to know, and dislike, over the past months. Marianne turned away. He followed as she walked toward the drawing room.

"Yes," she went on musingly, "the end has come. I will see my ancestral halls no more. The orphaned child must wander, seeking her fortune in the cold, unfeeling world."

This touching sentiment ended in an inappropriate grunt as two arms wrapped around her waist so vigorously that the air was expelled from her lungs. The young man's moist cheek flattened the curls at her temple; his hot breath stirred the tendrils of hair above her ear as he whispered, "It don't have to be that way, m'dear. Er – that is – demmit, I can't talk elegant like you, but- er – I mean – I'll take care of you. No need to wander, eh? Pa don't ask what I do with my allowance, he gives me all I want, enough for a nice little house with a garden- you're fond of flowers and all that – even a carriage, if I can screw a bit more out of the old… oh, Marianne…"

It was not the first time Marianne had felt a young man's arms around her; but when John's hand groped for her breast, encased as it was in layers of corset, camisole, and bodice, a violent thrill of outraged modesty ran through her. She wrenched herself away. Turning, she faced the young man with flashing eyes and a look of such indignant innocence that he actually fell back a step.