The American Heiress

by Daisy Goodwin

  A bell rang and Mabel came in.

  ‘The Duchess is down, Miss Jackson. You’re wanted upstairs.’ She saw Bertha’s face and stopped. ‘Are you all right? Was it bad news?’ She seemed eager for details

  Bertha nodded. ‘Yes, it was bad news, but it was a long time ago.’

  She folded the quilt carefully and wrapped it up in the tissue paper. She went upstairs to her bedroom and laid it out. Only then did she go down to Miss Cora.

  Cora was sitting in the window seat when Bertha came in, her face pressed against the glass. She had taken her hair down and the russet weight of it fell over her shoulders like an animal pelt. She had lost her Duchess look, Bertha thought.

  ‘Oh, there you are. I have got such a headache, Bertha.’ Her voice sounded weak and uncertain.

  Bertha poured some eau de cologne on to a flannel and pressed it to Cora’s temples.

  ‘Thank you.’ Cora looked up at her for a moment, as if deciding something, and then said, ‘Bertha, have you ever been in love?’

  Bertha stiffened, she wondered where this was leading. ‘I couldn’t say, Miss Cora.’

  Cora shook her head. ‘Well, have you ever known someone who is nice and nasty, who makes you love them one minute and hate them the next? Who makes you feel wonderful and terrible and you never know which one it is going to be?’

  Cora’s hands were twisting through her hair, rolling it around her fingers so tightly that they went white from lack of circulation. Bertha thought that the only person in her life who fitted Miss Cora’s description was Miss Cora herself, who did an excellent job in being nice and nasty. But that was not a thought she could utter. She knew that her mistress was talking about the Duke, so she kept her answer as non-committal as possible.

  ‘I guess the world is full of contrary folks, Miss Cora.’

  ‘Oh, but he’s not just contrary, Bertha, it’s as if he wants to unbalance me.’ Cora stopped. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, you’re my maid and he’s my husband but I don’t know what to think any more.’ Bertha saw that one of Cora’s fingers was turning blue and she gently disengaged it from the hair.

  ‘Why don’t you talk to Mrs Cash? She knows a lot more about married life than I do, Miss Cora.’

  ‘Oh, I tried that. All Mother wants is a duchess for a daughter. She doesn’t care how I feel.’ Cora knocked her head against the glass.

  Bertha could say nothing to this as she knew it was true.

  ‘I just don’t know who Ivo is any more. Sometimes I think – no, I know – he loves me but then the next moment he is someone else entirely. Last night, just before Odo made that scene, I saw something between Ivo and Charlotte. I know there is something there, some feeling that I can’t be part of. Yet when Ivo says he loves me, I believe him, but he can’t love us both, can he?’ She looked at Bertha in entreaty as if the maid’s answer had the power to decide her fate.

  Bertha wanted to wipe Cora’s face clean of worry, but she could not lie to her. She knew that Jim would be angry with her for what she was about to do, but she could not stand by while Miss Cora tortured herself.

  ‘Miss Cora, if I tell you something, do you promise not to be angry with me?’

  Bertha sat down on the window seat opposite her mistress so that she could look directly into her eyes.

  ‘Of course, why would I be angry with you?’

  ‘Because you won’t like what I have to say. Do you want me to go on?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I promise that nothing you say can be worse than I have imagined.’ A tear slid out of Cora’s eye, but she did not appear to notice.

  Bertha fumbled in her bodice and drew out Jim’s pearl from its resting place next to her heart.

  ‘Do you recognise this, Miss Cora?’

  Cora picked up the pearl and rolled it around her palm. ‘This looks as if it could be from my necklace, but it can’t be, unless someone has broken it…’ She looked over at her dressing table in alarm.

  ‘No, your necklace is quite safe. This pearl came from another necklace, just like yours.’

  Cora tested the pearl against her front teeth. ‘It’s real enough, but what’s it got to do with me?’ She held the pearl in one hand and with the other she rubbed her neck where the necklace would have sat. She thought of Ivo fastening it for her that afternoon in Venice.

  ‘All I can tell you, Miss Cora, and I am sorry to be the one to do so, is that Lady Beauchamp had a necklace of black pearls just like yours. It broke one night when we were staying over at Sutton Veney and I…’ Bertha paused; she did not want Cora to know that it had been Jim who had stolen the pearl. ‘It was the night you didn’t come back from the hunt. She was wearing it at dinner and it snapped. I guess she picked them all up except this one.’

  Cora spoke slowly as if she was trying to add things up in her head. ‘Are you saying that Ivo gave Charlotte a necklace like mine?’ She frowned.

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  Cora stood up and went to the dressing table. She took her necklace out of its green morocco leather box. She compared her pearls to the one in her hand.

  ‘Identical.’ She turned and looked at Bertha.

  Bertha stood up to face her. She could not tell from Cora’s expression whether she was to be blamed for what she had said. She had broken through the invisible wall of deference that lay between them by speaking out. But then she thought of all the things she had never said to her mother and she decided that she could not stop now. She had gone against Jim’s advice, her own self-interest even, to tell Miss Cora something that she might very well decide not to hear. But then she remembered how certain and bright Cora had once been and how dim she seemed now. She was only her maid, but Cora mattered to her. She would not just be a bystander.

  ‘There’s something else as well,’ she said. ‘Just before your wedding, you got a letter from Mr Van Der Leyden. Your mother didn’t want you to read anything that might upset you so I kept the letter. I didn’t read it, and I didn’t give it to the Madam, but I thought you should know.’ Bertha hoped that Miss Cora would not ask her for the letter, but her mistress did not seem to have heard what she had said. She was rolling the pearls between her fingers.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ She gestured with the pearls.

  Bertha hesitated. ‘It wasn’t my place to, Miss Cora. So long as you were happy, what good would it have done?’

  ‘So why are you telling me now?’

  ‘Because now I think you need to know the truth, Miss Cora.’

  The pearls clattered against the wood as Cora dropped them on the table.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them wide, pulling back her shoulders as if she was rising from a long sleep. She looked at herself in the pier glass and made a face. ‘I need you to put my hair up again.’ She sat down at the dressing table and handed Cora the brush. Her eyes met Bertha’s in the mirror. ‘And then I want you to find out whether Lady Beauchamp has gone to bed. I think it’s time I paid her a visit.’

  Bertha nodded and began to brush the conker-coloured hair, which crackled to life with every stroke. When her hair was fully alive like a crown of flames, Cora put her hand on Bertha’s.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Chapter 29

  ‘Taming a Sea Horse’

  CHARLOTTE BEAUCHAMP’S ROOM WAS IN THE MEDIEVAL part of the house in one of the towers above the long gallery. Cora had not wanted to put her there, as this part of the house had not yet been modernised, but when she had been discussing the accommodations for the house party with Bugler, the butler had said that Lady Beauchamp preferred the tower room. And when Charlotte had written to her accepting her invitation to the christening, she had said, ‘Please can I sleep in my old tower bedroom, Cora? It was my room when I lived at Lulworth and it always reminds me of those happy days.’ At the time Cora had thought nothing much of it, besides surprise that anyone would choose to sleep in the coldest part of the h
ouse, but now as she walked up the worn stone steps to the tower, she realised that Charlotte had been claiming her territory. It was also true that the tower bedroom’s isolation meant that Sir Odo had been housed some distance away.

  Cora rubbed the black pearl Bertha had given her between her fingers. She had wanted to pulverise it into dust, but now she held on to it and welcomed the anger it aroused in her. The idea that Ivo had given her and Charlotte the exact same necklace made her kick the stone flags as she walked. She had been deceived, not just about his relationship with Charlotte, but also in his feelings for her. She had held on to that necklace as if to a talisman, she had treasured the memory of that afternoon in Venice through all the long dark months of her exile in Lulworth; at that moment, she had told herself, they had been quite married. But now as she felt her way along the stone corridor, she had no such comfort. Nothing was hers alone. He may have loved her in his way but there was nothing special about it; all he had given her was her allotted ration of love, nothing more, nothing less. He had not cared enough to think of a different present.

  She stopped outside Charlotte’s door. Next to it was a brass bracket with ‘Lady Beauchamp’ written in her own best handwriting on the card. Cora took the paper out and ripped it into as many pieces as she could. She knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for an answer.

  The room was dark but Cora could see Charlotte silhouetted against the moonlit window. She was clearly waiting for someone, for she turned round expectantly when Cora entered, her arms stretched out in welcome. As she stepped into a patch of moonlight, Cora could see that she was wearing a peignoir made of some silvery material trimmed with swansdown. With her pale hair shining down her back, she looked like some ethereal water nymph.

  Cora lit the gas lamp on the table with her candle and adjusted the wick so that the golden flame obliterated Charlotte’s shimmering aura. She wanted to look at Charlotte properly. When they had been friends, Cora had enjoyed Charlotte’s elegance and beauty, rather as she appreciated her thoroughbred, Lincoln, or the statues of Eros and Psyche in the summer house. Cora liked the best and Charlotte was undoubtedly the most attractive woman in her circle. Too many English women looked weathered, but Lady Beauchamp had skin as smooth and waxy as an orchid. It had never occurred to Cora before to feel jealous of Charlotte’s poise or perfect clothes but now she was looking at her not as a friend but as a rival. Charlotte was only four years older than her, but the years had given her face more character. They were about the same height, but despite all the afternoons strapped into the spine stiffener, Cora knew that Charlotte was the more graceful. When Charlotte walked across a room, her movements were so fluid that she appeared to glide. She looks more like a duchess than I do, thought Cora angrily.

  Charlotte tried to hide her surprise at seeing Cora instead of the visitor she had been expecting.

  ‘I am so glad you are feeling better, Cora. I heard that you had gone down with a migraine. I was going to bring you a cachet fièvre – I have them sent over from Paris as I find they are the only things that work, but I thought you would be asleep.’ She spoke in her usual breathy drawl, but her hands were picking at the swansdown trimming of her gown.

  Cora held out her hand where the pearl lay in the oyster of her palm.

  ‘I believe this belongs to you.’

  Charlotte looked at Cora for a moment. Then she took the black pearl from Cora’s hand.

  ‘I thought there was one missing. But I never knew for sure. After they broke I never had the heart to have them restrung.’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘But you’re not wearing your necklace, Cora. I hope finding this didn’t put you off,’ and she smiled, a fulsome smile that showed her dimples.

  Cora wanted to speak but the sight of Charlotte’s dimples made her mute with rage.

  Charlotte gestured towards her. ‘So now you know how it feels, Cora. To be a duplicate.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Do you know how rare pearls this size and colour are? God knows where Ivo managed to get a second necklace.’

  Cora said almost to herself, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see this. I have been so stupid.’

  Charlotte ignored her; she was pacing up and down the room, her body sinuous even in its agitation. ‘I was to wear it when we were apart to remind me of him. I have never understood why he gave you pearls too. Was he trying to torment me? He knows how to be cruel. He never forgave me for marrying Odo, even when he knew I had no choice, even though he knew what kind of man he is.’ Charlotte took a deep breath. ‘And then you came out of nowhere. An American, who knew nothing and understood nothing. I thought he had done it for your money at first but when I saw you at Conyers wearing your black pearls, I realised that he was punishing me too. But I had my revenge, I introduced you to Louvain. I knew you were exactly the kind of pretty spoilt creature who would find Louvain irresistible. I knew that once Ivo saw you for what you were, he would come back to me.’ She turned to Cora and smiled again, showing her small white teeth.

  Cora felt that she knew about the kiss in Louvain’s studio. She felt ashamed that this woman had known how she would behave. But one kiss was all it had been.

  ‘He’s my husband, Charlotte,’ she said, ‘whether you like it or not. He married me, we have a son. And I believe that Ivo loves me.’ Cora thought of the way he had embraced her last night in the nursery.

  ‘Really.’ Charlotte’s dimples were in evidence again. ‘Just because you have bought yourself a title and all this,’ she gestured around the tower room, ‘doesn’t mean that you have bought his love. He’s grateful to you, of course, for saving Lulworth and giving him a son. In many ways you have made his life easier, but Ivo’s not the sort of man who settles. Yes, you are his wife but I am the woman he loves. Sadly it’s not a position you can buy.’

  Cora could not bear to hear any more. She picked up the lamp on the table and threw it as hard as she could at Charlotte. But the other woman dodged and the lamp hit the cheval glass behind her, causing the mirror to shatter. The paraffin poured out over the floor and rivulets of fire spread out across the carpet. Cora watched as flames began to lick the bottom of the curtains. Charlotte wrapped the silvery peignoir round herself and walked to the door.

  ‘I see I will have to find somewhere else to sleep’, she said as she left the room. ‘Perhaps you should ring the bell. Of course, you can afford to rebuild the house from scratch but I know that your husband is rather attached to the place as it is.’

  Cora tugged the bell pull as hard as she could, but no one came. Realising that Charlotte could not be trusted to raise the alarm, she picked up the pitcher of water and threw it over the burning material. Only some of the flames were extinguished. Cora snatched up the velvet counterpane from the bed and threw it over what was left of the blaze. The brocade sizzled faintly under the counterpane. The singed material smelt like her hair did when the curling irons were too hot. She remembered the smell of her mother’s hair burning, and she stamped on the heaped velvet until she was sure that all the flames were out.

  The room was dark now but as she turned to leave, the moon came out from behind a cloud and the silvery light revealed something small and dark lying on the exposed bed sheet. Cora thought it might be the pearl from the necklace but as she bent to pick it up, she realised that although it was a black pearl, it was a small one. This pearl was framed in gold, with a shank that went through the buttonhole of a shirt to fasten it. Cora dropped it in disgust and ran out of the room. She blundered down the dark corridor without a candle and ran into someone coming the other way.

  ‘Cora?’ It was Teddy’s voice. ‘Is it really you?’

  Cora said nothing for a moment, she just put her head against the wool of Teddy’s jacket. He smelt of cigar smoke. She leant against his warm solidity, and felt safe.

  ‘You’re trembling, Cora, what’s going on? I was just going to bed when I heard an almighty crash. But this isn’t your room. What have you been doing?’ Teddy sounded worried bu
t he was holding Cora in his arms, one hand was stroking her hair and the other was pressing her closer to him. They stood there for a minute in silence and then Cora said, her voice muffled in his jacket, ‘I am so glad you are here.’

  Then she pulled back and looked at him. Her face was shadowed, her eyes dark sockets.

  She said, ‘You wrote me a letter before my wedding. But I never got it, Teddy. My mother didn’t want me to read it. But now I would like to know what it said.’

  Teddy took one of her hands and kissed it. ‘It said that my biggest regret was leaving you that night in Newport. It said that I left you out of fear, because I thought that I would always be in the shadow of your money, but when I got to Paris I realised that I had been a coward. Yes, I was following what I believed to be my vocation but the cost of losing you had been too great. And then I offered you my love, Cora, even though I knew it was too late.’

  She nodded and put her hand to his cheek. ‘I wouldn’t have listened to you then. But it’s different now. I can’t bear it any more. I’ve been such a fool, Teddy. I thought it was me he wanted. But it could have been anybody, so long as they were rich.’

  Teddy squeezed her hands. ‘Leave him behind, Cora, leave all of it behind. I want you, only you, and I will take care of you.’

  She looked at him. ‘But you have to understand that I am not the girl you left in Newport. I have changed. I have a child, and I can’t leave him behind. I don’t want Guy to grow up like this. Helping me means helping him too.’

  He took her hands. ‘If that’s what you want, Cora. I won’t let you down again.’

  In the darkness they heard the chapel clock strike one.

  Bertha was waiting up when Cora got back to her room. She gasped when she saw that Cora’s dress and hands were covered in soot. She looked at her mistress for an explanation but Cora waved away her unspoken inquiry.