Cecilia Or Flight From A Shadow
Page 22
He had joined the navy as soon as he was able and left them in the same house, promising to send a portion of his salary home for them. He had been as good as his word but when, as was, she realised later, inevitable, the scandal from which they had originally fled caught up with them, they had packed their bags and moved, this time in a northerly direction.
Since then, they had moved every few months, each time renting a smaller house until the next brother had gone to London, where he had managed to secure an extremely junior position in a chamber of law. He, James, had been fifteen when their father died and, although he had been doing well at Harrow, had been forced to leave without completing his education. Endymion, in his first year at the time, had also left and been taught nothing further except what she could offer – which was not much. In truth, he was more or less unemployable except in a manual capacity.
She supposed that she should have accepted the first offer of marriage which she received. They had been living in Somerset at the time and she had been eighteen. Her suitor was a rather bovine young man, whose father owned a small farm. Now she shuddered to remember how she had despised him because he was not ‘Quality’ and lacked the finesse she had learned to value while she was at school. She was not Quality either and she would most likely have had a perfectly comfortable life with him; he was kind and honest and thought her the most wonderful creature he had ever seen. He had even offered to provide for her widowed mother and damaged sister, but she had not appreciated how generous this offer was. Her mother had not encouraged her to accept it for she too, at that point, had hoped for more. Puffed up with pride because her school friends had led her to believe she could marry anybody because of her looks – and still hoping for the sort of love affair that was depicted so seductively in cheap romances – she had rejected him. At the time she had barely felt the icy wind of scandal which had pursued them ever since and from which they were still running.
And what of that? Now that she was seven-and-twenty and past marriageable age, she would have been tempted to outface it – for what did it matter? There was nothing for her in the future but increasingly heavy manual work. But there was still Phyllis - for whom a kindly farmer would be ideal, if only one could be found before the scandal finally floored them all and there was nothing left for her but what her mother already sought – a liaison without marriage.
And there was Endymion, who might perhaps not be damaged so dramatically by the scandal as the women but for whom, at present, if he did not succumb to his growing gaming habit, there was still the hope of finding an heiress, marrying her and stepping out of the deepening mire.
Her mother, as the years passed and the prospects of finding husbands for her remaining daughters dwindled, had taken increasingly to drowning her sorrows in whatever spirituous liquor she could lay her hands upon. It was not often brandy and she thought it ironic that the Earl, who had offered to pay their bill, would have to pay for that too.
She tried to convince herself that her mother’s conduct had not so disgusted Lord Waldron that he would rescind his offer to help her find employment but, even if it did, his having thought of such a thing made her determined to seek a position herself. She had not done so because she had been unwilling to abandon her innocent sister to the sole care of their mother, who, she was convinced, would hand her over to a loose screw without hesitation. There would be no saving her then.
But either she or Endymion must find a proper position which would bring in enough to pay for lodgings, food and sufficient heat and clothing for them all. The other – either she or he – would have to look after Phyllis alone from now on and she rather thought it would be easier for her to find a position which would pay enough than for him to do so. All he could do was stable work unless he were to join the army or the navy, like his eldest brother. But that would take him away from them which would leave her alone with their mother and Phyllis.
She thought that his lordship’s suggestion of finding sewing work for all three of them would be ideal, although she doubted that any employer would want to take them all on. If such work could be procured, it would set Endymion free, although he would be at the bottom of whichever service he joined, a position where his life would be in continual danger. She hated to think of him exposed to danger and perhaps killed in whatever skirmish might develop in the next few years.
Chapter 25
Helen did not sleep much that night either.
The day had begun badly: her nose put out of joint by Mr Moss having hung upon her chaperone’s every word the previous evening, she had risen in a sour mood which soon succeeded in poisoning the atmosphere in the Waldron carriage to such an extent that even his lordship’s spirits had flagged.
Miss Godmanton, who had followed up her success by apparently shedding at least ten years overnight and appearing quite grotesquely skittish at breakfast, wore an expression of such ghastly smugness that Helen could not bear to look at her, much less speak to her.
Only a few hours later there had been the awful anxiety over Mr Moss’s fate – and she was surprised by how distressed she had felt to think of a man with whom she had barely exchanged a word lying dead at the bottom of a mountain. This was followed, after an excruciating period of idleness, by her cousin’s setting off to look for the missing family – probably solely on account of the pulchritude of Miss Moss, a suspicion which had caused her considerable irritation, not because she wanted Lord Waldron herself, but because it was another instance of the pernicious influence of pretty women over weak-willed men and the way that plain women were so frequently left to fend for themselves.
The result of this was that she had been forced to kick her heels in a dull inn with no company other than her chaperone, who, in spite of having flirted outrageously with Mr Moss the previous evening, seemed not to be particularly concerned about his fate. Helen drew the conclusion that Miss Godmanton was shallow and had not deserved the young man’s attention.
It was at this low point that Fate had taken a hand in her affairs by delivering two gentlemen to the inn while a large portion of the staff was absent, having abandoned their posts in favour of accompanying the Earl on his rescue mission.
Helen felt proud that she had not allowed this extraordinary opportunity to pass without taking advantage of what Providence had supplied. It was the first time in her life that she had done so – if speaking to Lord Merdle in the hall could be described that way.
Lying in her bed that night, she thought of the Merdles and wondered what they made of her. She was afraid that, after catching Fate’s offering so neatly, she had allowed it to slip from her fingers through her own negligence and – if the truth be told – fascination with Mr Moss. She was certain she had angered Lord Merdle by her constant jumping up and leaving the room during the course of dinner and knew that her conduct had been, at the very least, impolite, but, upon hearing Mr Moss’s heart-stopping tones outside, what maiden would be able to resist running out to ascertain that he was indeed still alive?
And from that point, Fate, perhaps becoming more confident of success, had heaped favours upon her for Mr Moss had not only smiled at her, but had spoken to her, looked at her for what had seemed like hours - although of course she knew it had really only been seconds – and generally evinced an interest in her which had quite cut out Miss Godmanton.
The evening from that point onwards had been nothing less than magical. Watching Mr Moss devouring his meal had been quite as stimulating as watching a tiger despatching its prey, and, although Miss Godmanton’s increasingly sour expression had cast a blight upon the company, it had at the same time reinforced Helen’s belief that she, dull, plain misnamed Helen, had transformed into a fascinating wit. Everyone - except her chaperone - had hung upon her words, laughed at her jokes and smiled warmly upon her.
The two young Moss women, having succeeded in shedding their vulgar mother, had between them afforded her cousin such an agreeable evening that, when everyone finally retired t
o their chambers, she had been convinced that she not only had new friends but also an admirer – in point of fact two because the first man who had hung upon her words and expressed a strong desire to see her again had been young Mr Merdle. She did not care two straws for him or his admiration, but she was self-aware enough to know that it was his earlier approbation which had given her sufficient confidence to sparkle in Mr Moss’s company.
So happy had she been when the party went upstairs that she had told the Misses Moss they could keep the gowns for they looked much better on them than they ever had on her, and she was certain that it would take no more than a few minutes to shorten the one Phyllis was wearing. This generous gift was greeted with rapture by the recipients, approval from her cousin and almost equal disapproval from Miss Godmanton.
“What do you want to go giving your gowns to two hussies for?” the chaperone asked, really quite vulgarly as well as ungrammatically, as they reached the upper floor where their rooms were located.
“I thought they would like them – and they did,” Helen said simply.
“You do not have so very many yourself that you can afford to hand them out to the poor,” Miss Godmanton snapped.
“I was not giving them ‘to the poor’ but to two young women who have lost most of their clothes in what must have been a frightening accident – and in any event they didn’t suit me half so well.”
“That,” Miss Godmanton said acidly, “is only because those two are so extravagantly pretty that almost anything becomes them. Do you really wish to be outfitting two women who will almost certainly end on the streets?”
Helen, as much to her own surprise as her chaperone’s, lost her temper. This was another new experience – she had never done so on anyone’s account but her own before.
“That is odious speculation. Miss Moss seems perfectly respectable, as does her sister, and, if their mother is a trifle vulgar, I really don’t think you ought to hold the daughters responsible.”
“The sins of the fathers …” Miss Godmanton murmured.
“We know nothing of Mr Moss’s nature,” Helen snapped, “and it is scurrilous to jump to such a conclusion merely because his daughters happen to be pretty.”
“You cannot deny that they are in hot pursuit of his lordship,” Miss Godmanton said darkly, “and, if you are minded to take their part in such an idiotic manner, you will assuredly lose him.”
“Nonsense! He is not a dog to run away and never come home; he is my cousin; I shall not ‘lose’ him, as you so vulgarly put it, because I do not own him. How much,” she added in a stifled tone, her face burning with rage, “has my mother promised you, in addition to your usual wage, to make certain of him?”
But this was a step too far for the chaperone, who had spent her whole life at the beck and call of others, suppressing her own feelings until she hardly recognised them. She had grown sour over the years of poverty, humiliation and the gradual seeping away of youthful hope. She had accepted this last employment – she was certain now that it would be the last – with a renewal of hope that perhaps the rebarbative Miss Lenham might conceive an affection for her and wish to keep her by her side when she became the Countess of Waldron, that perhaps she would live the remainder of her life in relative comfort, even have a hand in shaping a new generation, rather than eking out a chilly existence alone in a gloomy room in a lodging house.
She had not, unfortunately, grown fonder of Helen during their enforced intimacy, and she knew that Miss Lenham disliked her quite as cordially as she had at the beginning so that she was perfectly aware that there would be no soft retirement in one of Lord Waldron’s houses because, even if he did come up to scratch, Helen would be bound to dismiss her immediately.
Once again, it seemed to her that the main determinant for this particular falling-out was the predictably destructive effect pretty women never failed to have on everyone around them. It seemed that Helen, previously as hostile to the breed as she was herself, had been sucked in by the easy charm that so often went with prettiness, although it was even more likely that she merely wished to further her acquaintance with the young women in order to have a chance to ogle Mr Moss again.
But, whatever it was, Helen’s betrayal, coming as it did on top of Mr Moss’s – for he had shown a great deal more interest in Helen that evening – was the final straw which broke Miss Godmanton’s lifetime of self-control.
She raised her hand and slapped Helen across the face.
Both women gasped with shock; each took a step back, Helen coming sharply up against the door behind her, where she bruised her back against the knob.
After an ominous minute of heavy silence, Miss Godmanton turned on her heel and walked with unsteady steps to her own door, turned the knob and went in, shutting it behind her with a decided click.
Helen retreated to her own chamber, her cheek stinging and her temper beginning to throb in her temple. In such circumstances, if she had been at home, she might have given way to a prolonged bout of spasms, an example of behaviour which her mother had set, but not only were her parents hundreds of miles away but, for the first time in her life, she was convinced that, although she should perhaps not have said what she had, she was nevertheless largely in the right.
Hannah was not waiting for her, a fact for which Helen was thankful. She did not feel up to offering any kind of an explanation for either the red mark on her cheek or the burning tears which squeezed themselves out of her eyes.
She had a strong desire to throw something and picked up her hairbrush with a view to hurling it either into the mirror or through the window but, recalling that they were in an inn and that a hole in the window would render the room unspeakably cold, she merely clasped it with suppressed vicious intent for at least ten minutes before deciding not to brush her hair that night and putting it down.
After sitting in front of her mirror for some considerable time and staring rigidly at her reddened cheek while working herself up into a crescendo of righteous rage, she stripped off her clothes, put on her nightgown and climbed into bed, still possessed with fury. Such an emotion did not lend itself to sleep and she lay for many hours, tossing and turning, before she fell into restless slumber.
It was Hannah who woke her.
“Oh, Miss, there’s been another fall of snow in the night! The servants here say they’ve never known so much to come so early in the season.”
Helen turned over with a groan. She still had the headache, indeed it had worsened during the night and this morning she felt sick as well. She pulled the blanket over her head, dazzled by the light which Hannah had let into the room when she pulled back the curtains.
A wave of despair rushed over her for how in the world was she to face the odious Miss Godmanton this morning? And was she in a position to send her packing at once? Indeed, how did you send a person packing when you were stuck up a mountain with no mail coaches and large quantities of snow on the ground?
“I cannot get up!” she said. “I have the headache so bad!”
“Oh, Miss; pray do not try; I will go downstairs at once and see if I can procure you a cup of tea. How fortunate that we brought the laudanum.”
Sick headaches were not new to Helen; she had suffered from them intermittently all her life – or ever since she had been quite a child; they were, everyone had always feared, only a precursor to her succumbing to the vapours and spasms which plagued her mother.
She heard the door open and shut again and waited, not daring to move for fear of exacerbating the pain, for the maid to return.
She suspected the headache had been caused by her anger the previous evening which had built up inside her head and was striving to get out; she felt as though her skull would burst. All that joy earlier in the evening had led inexorably to Miss Godmanton’s sudden viciousness, prompted, she was convinced, largely by jealousy. What business had a dried-up old stick like her to compete with her charge, even if Helen possessed neither beauty nor amiability?
Helen fumbled for it with her eyes closed and began to drink in tiny sips as though swallowing pained her too.
“What is the time?” she asked when she had almost finished.
“Gone nine, Miss. His lordship said there was no hurry because he doesn’t intend to leave until near ten. He’s waiting for the doctor to call to have another look at that coachman who was hurt. Shall I ask him to see you too, Miss?”
“No, no; it is only my usual headache; I daresay it will go soon. Thank you, Hannah. Is his lordship downstairs already then?”
“Oh yes, and so are the young ladies and Mr Moss. They are all eating breakfast as though it will be their last meal for a week!”
“Lud! They ate dinner like that last night. Is Lord Merdle still here – are he and his son eating breakfast too?”
“Oh, I understand they finished hours ago; they have already left.”
“Oh!” Helen was disappointed to hear that one of her suitors had already fled.
“The young one left you a note, Miss,” Hannah said with barely suppressed excitement and fished a folded and sealed missive out of her pocket.
Helen took it, broke the seal and unfolded the single sheet while Hannah busied herself with folding her mistress’s clothes from the previous evening and laying out some for today.
Mr Merdle did not have much to say and nothing that he had not already said the previous evening, but it was the first letter Helen had received from a gentleman to whom she was unrelated, and she thought it showed that the young man had been sufficiently impressed by her to wish to reiterate his eagerness to pursue their acquaintance.