The Undoing Of A Lady

by Nicola Cornick

  Jerrold laughed. “That’s never stopped me before.” His smile vanished. “No, it’s nothing to do with you. You’re beautiful and I like you very much and I thought that I wanted you, but-” He stopped and ran a hand over his hair. “Devil take it, Lizzie, I think I’m in love, too, and it is the most damnable thing.”

  Lizzie’s eyes grew huge. “You’re in love with Lydia!” she burst out. She pressed a hand to her mouth. “I thought that you liked her when first she came to Fortune’s Folly last year. Oh, that is bad, for Lydia will never give you a chance. She has been so hurt by Tom I doubt she will ever trust a man again.” She broke off. “Sorry,” she said. “That isn’t very helpful.”

  “No,” Jerrold said, “but it is accurate.” He picked up his wineglass. “I have been trying not to kill your brother for months,” he added conversationally. “It is very difficult, for I hate him more than any man on earth.”

  “There’s a long queue,” Lizzie said. “You’ll have to wait your turn.” She sighed. “Don’t give up on Lydia. When we go back to Fortune’s Folly I’ll help you-” She stopped dead.

  “You’re thinking,” Jerrold said, “that you can’t go back. You have run away from your husband and by now everyone will have heard that you are with me and that you are ruined.”

  “Yes,” Lizzie said. “And I am thinking that although I love Nat with all my heart, he does not love me and nothing can change that.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jerrold said, smiling at her. “Perhaps I can help. After all, we’ve got all night.”

  NAT’S HEAD HURT. His body hurt. Everywhere hurt. Even in the worst excesses of his youth he had not appreciated that alcohol could have such a devastating effect. Then he remembered that he had not taken any drink. As memory rushed in, irresistible and damnably painful, everything started to come back to him. He had lost Lizzie. Hurt and confused by his betrayal, she had run off with John Jerrold. The grief crashed through him again and he closed his eyes and wished for oblivion.

  Oblivion did not arrive. Gradually Nat’s senses started to register information, whether he wanted it or not. He appeared to be lying on sawdust and rough stone. The floor was cold beneath his cheek. There was a sour smell in his nostrils, a smell of damp and neglect. He could hear water dripping. He raised his head, groaned, and let it fall again. He could hear voices above his head. Someone said:

  “For pity’s sake, Waterhouse…”

  It sounded like Miles Vickery.

  Nat opened his eyes again and saw a pair of highly polished boots. Definitely Miles. He wished his friend would go away.

  Someone hauled him to his feet. Dexter Anstruther this time. Damn it, why couldn’t they leave him alone? He blinked at them, squinting to get them in focus. His head was throbbing as though he had taken too much cheap wine. He tried to form some words.

  “What time is it? Where am I?”

  “It is eleven o’clock and you are in Skipton gaol,” Dexter said. “You were arrested last night for breach of the peace.” He pushed Nat down onto a wooden chair. Nat winced as various bruises and cuts made their presence felt.

  “You’d better start talking and it had better be good,” Miles said, his face tight and white with fury. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere after we got your message last night. What the hell are you doing here and what’s been going on? Where’s Lizzie? And why is Tom Fortune telling anyone who’ll listen that he has been blackmailing you to the tune of twenty-five thousand pounds?”

  “Because he has been,” Nat said. “It’s true.” He put a hand up to his head. It seemed the only way to support it.

  “You bloody fool,” Miles said with blistering contempt.

  “You were a blackmailer yourself once,” Nat said bitterly. For a moment he felt so angry and violent that he almost considered knocking Miles down. But to lose his friends as well as his wife would only make him feel worse. It wasn’t Miles’s fault that he was telling him some long overdue home truths. And besides, he was not sure he could stand up straight enough to hit anyone.

  “So?” Miles said coldly. “That does not make it right.”

  “Never mind that now,” Dexter said, always the peacemaker. “We’ll sort it out. We’ll get you out of here, too. Nat.” His voice changed, grew more urgent. “Where is Lizzie? Tom is also saying that she found out you married her for revenge and that she has left you. The on dit in the village is that she has run off with John Jerrold.”

  “It’s true,” Nat said again. “I was out all night looking for her, but I do not know where they have gone.”

  It was all coming back to him now. He remembered his anguished and exhausting hunt through the night, taking the road to Skipton, searching through all the inns and boardinghouses on the way in the vain hope that he would find Lizzie. No one had seen her; no one knew anything. As he drew a blank at each place so his despair had grown. Lizzie and John Jerrold…He could not bear to think of it. It tore him apart, ripped to shreds all the newly discovered love and tenderness he had for her. He had had no idea he could feel like this nor that it could hurt so very much.

  By the time he had arrived in Skipton late the previous night he had been almost beside himself with anguish and worry. He had found the town awake and feverish with the Goose Fair celebrations and had been in the Market Square when the night had erupted into a full-scale riot. The alehouses had emptied and more and more men had piled into the fight. Despite trying to calm matters, Nat had found himself plunged into a brawl and then ignominiously dragged off to cool his heels in gaol with the malefactors, a disastrous end to his night’s search.

  Nat grimaced. When Richard Ryder, the Home Secretary, heard what had happened he would be furious. It was perhaps a good job that he was planning to resign his post before he was sacked.

  Dexter and Miles exchanged a look. Miles’s face was still white and tight with fury. “I have known you a long time, Nathaniel,” Miles said, and his eyes were so cold that Nat almost shivered, “and so I feel that I can say without fear of reprisal or contradiction that you are the most abject fool in Christendom.”

  “Miles,” Dexter intervened, “is this really the time and place-”

  “Damn right it is,” Miles said. “He’s an idiot and someone should tell him. Lizzie has no father-and only a poor excuse for a brother-to protect her, so I will take the role.” He gave Nat a tight smile. “Yes, even I can see the irony of me preaching morality to others, but…” He took a deep breath. “None of us can keep silent any longer, Nat. You must be the only person in the whole of Fortune’s Folly who has not realized that Lizzie has been in love with you for months and you have ridden roughshod over her feelings and emotions with a wilful cruelty that can only remind her of how little people have cared for her throughout her entire life!”

  “I know,” Nat said. “I know.” He felt wretched. “I did not intend it to be like this,” he added. “I’ve been trying to do the right thing. I love her, too.”

  “Then find her!” Miles bellowed. “What are you waiting for? Why are we even having this conversation? Damn it, man, get out there-”

  “Don’t shout,” Dexter said. “You’ll make his headache worse. Besides, we’ve got to get him out of gaol first.” He looked at Nat. “Go and douse yourself under the pump in the yard. You look appalling. If Lizzie sees you like that she won’t want you back.”

  He slapped Nat on the back and all Nat’s bruises winced in response.

  “Come on,” Dexter said, not unkindly. “You have a wife to claim.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “B ACK ALREADY, EH?” Josie Simmons said, as Lizzie collected Starfire from Half Moon House that afternoon. “And wearing the same clothes as you were yesterday.” She shook her head at Lizzie, her expression suggesting that she had seen any number of unfaithful aristocratic ladies come a cropper. “Your husband was here last night looking for you,” she added. “I told him you’d gone with Lord Jerrold.”

  “How kind of you,” Lizzie sa
id. “I really do appreciate that.”

  “Whole village knows now,” Josie said with what seemed to Lizzie to be grim satisfaction. “Never seen a man so distraught as Lord Waterhouse,” she added. “Except perhaps Major Falconer when he thought Mrs. Falconer would refuse to marry him. Or Mr. Anstruther,” she continued, “when he found out that Mrs. Anstruther had been a highwaywoman.” She sighed massively and placed her hands on her hips. “Any road, he was proper upset was Lord Waterhouse,” she said. “She’s a bolter,” I told him, “just like her mama. Sees a man and goes after him like a dog after a rabbit-”

  “No, I am not,” Lizzie said, jumping up onto Starfire’s back. “A bolter runs away. She doesn’t run back again.”

  “Aye well,” Josie said, “you might be right there, milady. Hope your husband sees it that way. You’ll be wanting to creep back meek and quiet and beg his forgiveness, I’ll wager.”

  “I’ve never been meek and quiet in my life,” Lizzie said, “and I am not going to start now.”

  She kicked Starfire to a gallop down the track to Fortune’s Folly. She felt exhilarated, excited and dreadfully nervous, but through her anxiety and her desperation she clung on to the thought that Nat had been distraught at her disappearance. He had been searching frantically for her, according to Josie. That must mean that he cared for her a little even if he was angry, and believed she had betrayed him. She shivered. She would never be able to prove that she had not been unfaithful with John Jerrold. Nat would have to trust her, to take her word. She wondered if he was generous enough, strong enough, to do that.

  The previous night Jerrold had helped her to see that running away could never be the answer. The truth might be painful; it might not be what she wanted to hear but Lizzie knew she had to be courageous and face it. So she knew she had to talk to Nat, to beg him to explain Tom’s blackmail. In her heart there was renewed hope that they could finally lay all their secrets to rest and this time she would notlet it be extinguished. She would fight for what she wanted. She was not like her mother. Nat was the one person she was no longer prepared to lose.

  “I won’t come with you,” Jerrold had said to her as he had put her into a hired carriage in the inn yard that morning. “I doubt my presence would help soothe the situation and I have no desire for your husband to put a bullet through me.” He had kissed her cheek. “I know I can trust you to explain to him that I behaved with honor. Be happy,” he had added as he slammed the door and gave the coachman the order to move off.

  Lizzie galloped down Fortune’s Folly High Street, scattering the crowds like chaff, hearing the gasps of shock and speculation and seeing the scandalized faces of the crowd. So the news was already out. Josie had been right-gossip spread faster than the plague in Fortune’s Folly and no doubt Tom would have fanned the flames by telling everyone she had run away just like her mother.

  At Chevrons she discovered that Nat was from home and had not been back since the previous night. Her appearance at the house caused a minor sensation; her maid screamed on seeing her and threw her apron over her head

  “Oh milady!” The girl gasped, “They are saying such terrible things about you! They say you ran off with a handsome lord and that you are a bolter just like your mama, and they are taking bets in the Morris Clown Inn that Lord Waterhouse will divorce you! Your brother has staked a thousand pounds on it! Oh, milady!”

  “Thank you, Clara,” Lizzie said. “This is one bet I will ram down Tom’s throat until he chokes on it.” Even so, the nerves that had been tormenting her ever since she had set off home from the inn at Keighley did an extra large somersault in her stomach. Would Nat divorce her for her supposed adultery? The panic closed her throat. That was what had happened to Lady Scarlet and the shame and dishonor had been appalling. Lizzie had wept for her mother every day whilst the lurid court case was dragged through the newspapers and penny prints, each detail more sordid and humiliating than the last. She could not believe Nat would do such a thing to her.

  In an agony of impatience and anxiety she dashed out of the house again. She simply could not sit at home and wait for Nat to return. She had to do something, so in the end she called at The Old Palace to see if Laura or Dexter knew where Nat had gone. There was no answer to her pull on the bell, though she could hear the jangle of it echo deep inside the building. Carrington the butler did not shuffle up to see who was calling. No one came.

  Deeply disappointed, Lizzie turned to go and then, suddenly, the door was flung wide and Alice Vickery stood on the threshold. She looked hot, harassed and flustered and when she saw Lizzie her hopeful expression melted into one of deep disappointment.

  “Lizzie! Oh, no! I was so hoping that you were Dr. Salter!”

  “Alice,” Lizzie said, catching her friend’s arm, “please, I need your help. Do you know where Nat is? I must see him.”

  Alice did not respond immediately and Lizzie felt chilled. She had known that her friends must also have heard the gossip, but if they did not believe her innocent, if they would not help her, then all truly was lost.

  “I know things look bad,” she said desperately. “I know you will have heard terrible scandal about me, but I swear I did not betray Nat with John Jerrold! Oh, I was stupid and hurt and I behaved badly but I need to find Nat and tell him I love him and explain everything-” She stopped as Alice looked at her as though seeing her for the first time.

  “Oh, Lizzie,” Alice said, grabbing her hands, “I want to help you-of course I do-but I cannot do so now! There is no time. Laura and Lydia both went into labor some time ago and they are about to give birth and Dr. Salter is attending a confinement over near Peacock Oak and the midwife is with him, and lord knows how long they will be gone and in the meantime I am alone here with the servants and none of us know what to do!” She looked despairing. “We have boiled some water and found clean towels but what to do with them-” She shrugged hopelessly.

  “Laura and Lydia have both gone into labor at the same time?” Lizzie repeated, so stunned by the news that she momentarily forgot her own troubles. “What are the odds against that?”

  “I don’t know!” Alice snapped. “I don’t have time to calculate odds right now.” Lizzie heard a wailing noise float down the stairs toward them, followed by the sound of Rachel, the maid, with an edge of hysteria to her voice, exhorting calm. “That’s Lydia,” Alice said. “Oh Lizzie-” Her blue eyes were frightened now. “What shall we do?”

  “Where are Dexter and Miles?” Lizzie demanded, following her into the hall.

  “They are out looking for you!” Alice said. “They found Nat in gaol in Skipton this morning. I have just had word from them. Apparently Nat had been searching for you all night and ended up in a brawl. Nat of all people! Anyway, I have sent Carrington out to fetch them back. Laura keeps asking for Dexter.” She bit her lip. “Lydia has no one,” she finished softly.

  A sort of fatalistic calm took hold of Lizzie. She had absolutely no idea about childbirth, either, for its secrets were shrouded in mystery that was hidden from the uninitiated. A part of her wanted to leave Alice and to ride out to find Nat-Nat who had spent the entire night looking for her-but she knew she could not do that to her friends. They needed her now. Everything else would have to wait.

  “Lydia has me,” she said. “I am the baby’s aunt.” She squared her shoulders. “Very well then, Alice. We shall have to deal with this ourselves.” She gave Alice a little shake. “Laura has done it before, so she knows what happens-”

  “I don’t think that helps, judging by the things that Laura is saying in between the swearing,” Alice said miserably.

  “First we send for Josie Simmons,” Lizzie continued firmly. “She used to be a midwife before she became the landlady of Half Moon House. Send Frank on a fast horse. He can take mine. I know he is the gardener, but he rides well. Then send someone for your mama, Alice. She is only next door and she has given birth to two children, so she must know what to do.”

  “Mama is hopele
ss in a crisis,” Alice said, staring at her.

  “Well, she will be good in this one,” Lizzie said decisively. “I have a feeling she will do us proud. Go!” She gave Alice a little push and then when she had made sure that her friend had hurried off she turned toward the stair. As she put her foot on the bottom tread there was a scream from above that almost made her turn and run, then she stiffened her spine. She had lost so many people. She hoped she would not lose Nat, too. What was certain was that she would not lose Lydia and Laura, two of her best friends, through ignorance or folly or neglect. She would give her last breath to help them even though she had little real idea what she must do. She was praying very hard as she ran up the stairs, harder than she had ever prayed before in her life.

  WALKING INTO THE Crossed Hands Inn in Keighley, Nat Waterhouse was assailed by the now familiar and deeply repulsive smell of ale and sweat. He doubted that he would ever want to drink a pint of beer again. He had seen the inside of every inn on the road from Skipton to Keighley and he hated the lot of them, but on the way he had picked up news of a traveling coach with two occupants, one of whom was a flame-haired woman of staggering beauty and he had known that it was Lizzie.

  There was only one occupant of the taproom at the Crossed Hands, a man sitting in the corner by the window placidly drinking a glass of brandy and reading the newspaper. As Nat came in he rose to his feet.

  “Waterhouse,” he said. “I thought you would come.”

  Nat, dragging up every ounce of civilized behavior he could muster and finding it exceedingly difficult, just about managed not to hit him across the room.

  “Jerrold,” he said. He looked around. “Where is Lizzie?”

  His mind was already conjuring up images, unbearable, intolerable pictures of Lizzie lying in bed upstairs, naked, sated and blissful, having shared a night of tempestuous passion with her lover. His fingers itched to take Jerrold by his immaculately tied neck cloth and murder him without further ado. He had played this moment over and over in his head, time and again, telling himself that if he really loved Lizzie and she wanted to be with Jerrold and not with him, he should let her go. Perhaps a more generous man would indeed free his wife so that she could be happy. But Nat was damned if he was going to let Lizzie go without a fight.