by M C Beaton
Clarisse picked up the gown the countess had discarded. It was of the finest India muslin, ornamented with a dainty sprig. There were four deep flounces at the hem. It had arrived only the other day from a London dressmaker.
“I told you, my lady,” said Clarisse, “that most women do not ‘show’ until after six months. You could have put off wearing a cushion for some time.”
The countess ceased her pacing. “I had to keep him happy,” she said tetchily. “But we must be in London for the time of the supposed birth. When he is gone from the house, you will do as instructed and buy some pauper’s newborn brat and bring it back and then we will say I gave birth to it. But it must be in London. Gossip travels like wildfire among these mountains, but in London it is different.”
“Do not worry, my lady,” said Clarisse, smoothing the gown she held with a covetous hand. “All will be arranged.”
“I sometimes wonder why I bother with all this. But that Duchess of Hadshire, that little milkmaid, was free of her husband directly after the ball. It was as well Torridon was bound close to me.”
“Such a pretty gown,” murmured Clarisse, holding it up against herself and looking in the long mirror.
“Is there no end to your greed?” demanded the countess harshly. “No, you shall not have it!”
Clarisse eyed her mistress speculatively and then reluctantly hung the gown away. In a few days she would return to the attack, and then the gown would be hers.
The Earl of Torridon rode along a hill track, glad to be away from his wife, glad to be away from southern society. He had read of the murder of the duke and had wondered how Matilda was faring. She was now free to marry again. He longed to see her just one more time. What a monster she must think him, a man who could court her and yet still share the pleasures of his wife’s bed. That is how she must have seen it. The longing for her was like a sickness. Some days it dimmed to a faint regret, giving him some peace, but this day, it was as sharp and intense as it had ever been. He hoped she had survived the shock of her husband’s murder, but he could not hope she was happy. He could not bear the thought of a Matilda entirely free of him. And yet what else could she be? She must look back on his behavior with a shudder of distaste. In fact, it was more than likely that she did not think of him at all.
And Matilda tried very hard not to. The shock of her husband’s murder had left her feeling tired and empty. At last she had the freedom she had craved, but she could not enjoy it. She would rather have had him still alive, to confront, to do battle with, to gain her freedom by her own efforts. She was plagued by a superstitious feeling that she had wished him to death, and although she told herself resolutely that such an idea was sheer nonsense, it lurked at the back of her mind through the hot, empty days of summer.
The servants she had hired were all local people who had to be trained to their various posts. She had the minimum number of servants: a butler, a cook-housekeeper, a footman, a scullery maid, two housemaids, a coachman and groom, and Peter, the page. They were a contented staff. They all had a great deal of leisure as the dowager duchess did not entertain at all and was content with light simple meals. Only Peter, the devoted page, fretted over his mistress’s listlessness and loss of looks. Matilda was growing quite thin, and she had had her hair cropped short. She could not be bothered wearing curl papers at night, and so she wore her short straight hair covered with a variety of caps.
She had had the dower house decorated, the walls being painted in light colors. But she could not bring herself to change the furniture, paintings, or ornaments. They were the duke’s rejects and so was she, and so she felt an affinity with them.
The garden was her great solace. She enjoyed working in it, planting a multitude of flowers and bushes and trees.
She had received various letters from Annabelle and Emma and had replied to them but had refused to go to either on a visit. Matilda simply wanted to stay in the country and busy herself in her garden and try to let the scars inflicted on her soul by her unhappy marriage gradually heal. She did not read the social news in the newspapers. Somewhere in a dark corner of her mind was a fear that she might see the Earl of Torridon’s name. Any time any memory of that episode entered her mind, she quickly banished it.
One day, at the end of September when the days were ripe and mellow and the leaves were beginning to turn to gold, she was working in her garden, wearing an old straw hat and a plain gown, when she heard the rattle of carriage wheels and straightened up.
Visitors!
Her heart beat hard. She had no desire to see anyone. The callers that she had received in the weeks following her husband’s death had only served to remind her of his murder. The servants all had instructions to tell anyone who called that she was not at home. She knelt down and continued to weed a flower bed, waiting for the sound of the carriage driving away.
Then she heard the sound of voices and approaching footsteps and got wearily to her feet, wondering why her now well-trained servants had seen fit to ignore her instructions.
She looked in amazement, for down the garden path came Emma and Annabelle. Emma was heavily pregnant.
“You cannot keep us away,” said Annabelle. “Do not be angry with your servants. They did try. But our coachman saw you in the garden from his box and so we insisted on seeing you.”
Matilda hugged them both, her eyes filling with tears, a terrible lump in her throat. Her old friends seemed to belong to another world, a world free of dark dreams and guilt. And yet Emma’s husband and Annabelle’s had been murdered by French spies before both had married again and happily.
Matilda led the way into the house, while Annabelle and Emma exchanged worried glances. Both were shocked at the change in their friend. Matilda, the exquisite and beautiful Matilda, was now thin and weary-looking and dressed worse than one of her own servants.
When they were seated in the drawing room over the tea tray, Annabelle said her husband was planning to take her to Paris on holiday and Emma said that she was bound for Brighton, the comte insisting that an unfashionable Brighton with the prince regent absent was just what she needed—sea breezes and no crowds of people to entertain. “So why we are come,” said Annabelle at last, “is to try to persuade you to come away with one of us. So which is it to be? Paris or Brighton?”
“Neither,” said Matilda. “I go on very well here.”
Again the friends exchanged worried glances. “You do not look well,” said Emma. “You cannot still be in mourning for that dreadful husband of yours.”
“He was murdered last May,” said Matilda. “Not so very long ago. I was not a very good wife to him.”
“My dear Matilda,” pleaded Annabelle, “where is your usual good sense? No one could have been a good wife to that horror. When I was mourning Guy because I had wished him dead so many times, your practical approach to the matter helped me immensely. We should not speak ill of the dead, but there is no need to pretend to ourselves that our late husbands were not most difficult and dreadful men.”
Matilda turned her face away, tears beginning to run down her cheeks. Annabelle put out a hand, but Emma said, “Let her cry. It is my belief it is the first time she has done so.”
They let her cry in peace and then Emma said, “There is more to this than the death of your husband, is there not?”
Matilda dried her eyes and said wearily, “Part of my guilt stems from the fact that before he died, I was contemplating running away with another man and living with him in adultery.”
“And what would have been so bad about that?” demanded Emma, who had become infected with her husband’s insouciant and Gallic attitude to life. “A lover would have done you a power of good. Who was he?”
“The Earl of Torridon.”
“Immensely handsome,” said Annabelle, “but with an angry and bad-tempered wife. What happened?”
“We met one day in Hadsborough,” said Matilda in a low voice. “I had managed to escape from the palace by a secret pas
sage. Normally I could not go anywhere without being watched, for as you both know, the duke rewarded his servants for spying on me. In Hadsborough, I went to the coffee room of an inn for some refreshment and he was there and recognized me. I talked to him openly of my husband in a way I should not. But… but he seemed to care for me. We arranged to meet the morning after the ball. He—he kissed me and I said we should run away together, to Naples, anywhere where we might be together. He told me he could not. He told me his wife was with child.”
“And?” asked Emma.
“I was so disgusted and betrayed, I ran away from him. After that, the duke was murdered.”
“Let us look at the facts,” said Annabelle. “This earl took advantage of the fact that your marriage was unhappy. He may even have been in love with you. It is not odd for men to sleep with wives they loathe, as we all very well know.”
“Oh, really?” said Matilda with a return to her old forthright manner. “Are all men so? Would either of your present husbands take you to bed if they had a disgust of you?”
Emma and Annabelle looked at her sadly and shook their heads.
“So he was not the man I thought he was,” said Matilda.
Emma rallied. “So because of one cruel husband and one philandering earl, you are burying yourself in the country, dressing like a serving wench, and half starving yourself. By your actions, dear Matilda, you are keeping the duke alive in your head and lending too much importance to the flirtation of a Scottish buck. I am now going to be very rude. Your beautiful hair, or what I can see of it under that depressing straw hat, is ruined, your figure is scrawny, and your face is become set in lines of sadness. Pooh! There is a world of handsome and kind men out there. You are comfortably off, are you not?”
Matilda nodded.
“There you are then! You can marry again and this time for love, not necessity. What of your own family? Why were they not here to support you?”
“The duke did not approve of them,” said Matilda with a sigh. “He felt they were socially beneath him. He married me for my appearance, not my background. I have not seen them for some time. I did not wish to inflict his funeral on them. They live so very far away. They did write often, begging me to come home, but I could not. Perhaps I cannot help blaming Mama and Papa for having insisted I marry the duke, although both of them knew I did not like him very much even at that time. Dear friends, I am not recovered from the happenings of this year. Perhaps I might remove to London for the Little Season and meet you then.”
“You are merely putting us off,” said Annabelle. “As soon as we leave, you will sink back into a torpor.”
“Do not nag me,” said Matilda. “Talk of other things. Talk about your baby, Emma, and when it is expected.”
And so the friends talked. They stayed two days, two days in which they had the satisfaction of seeing Matilda begin to eat more and to laugh more, but neither could persuade her to leave with them.
Matilda eventually waved good-bye to both. But when they had gone, she found she had become restless and the miserable torpor into which she had been sunk since the duke’s death had lifted. She went up to her bedchamber and studied her appearance in the glass. Her friends were right. Why should she ruin her looks and her life for two men who did not deserve a bit of it? Peter, the page, wept with relief when the butler informed him that the duchess was still eating well, even though her friends had left.
Matilda began to think about London. If she went there for the Little Season, she could go once more to operas and plays and call on Annabelle and Emma. She knew that the new duke would let her take up residence in the Hadshire town house in Grosvenor Square, but that would mean living with some of the old servants and a lot of unhappy memories. She wrote instead to an agent in London who hired a small house for her in Bolton Street, just off Piccadilly. Now that she had made up her mind to go, she found she was becoming excited at the prospect. She had not had a lady’s maid since she had dismissed Betty. Now she elevated one of the housemaids and trained her for the post. The servants, all of them country people, were excited, as well, at the prospect of a visit to Town.
Soon she was ready to leave. The dower house was locked and shuttered and Matilda and her servants set out on the road to London.
November in London was cold and foggy that year, but against this gloomy backdrop, the Little Season glittered as cold and hard as hoar frost. Not since the last century had women worn so many jewels. The age of simplicity in dress was over and with it the vogue for simple coral necklaces and garnet ornaments. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds sparkled and shone in the lights of thousands of candles as London society set out to banish the winter darkness.
And among the hardest and most glittering members of society was the Countess of Torridon. She had told her husband that the health of her baby would be endangered by the Scottish mists, and although he found it hard to believe that the unborn babe would fare better in the fogs and smells of London, he fell in with her wishes. But although she pleaded nervousness and fatigue to win every argument, she seemed to have endless stamina when it came to balls and parties. As the birth of her child was supposed to be imminent, she had a large enough cushion strapped under her gowns to maintain the fiction. She was content to sit with the dowagers at balls and parties, watching the dancers, and so it might have gone on until she finally gave birth to her cushion or, rather, cast it off and presented her husband with some pauper baby bought for the purpose by Clarisse. But then the Dowager Duchess of Hadshire appeared back in London society.
Matilda had been persuaded to attend a ball at Courtney House in Piccadilly, home of the Earl and Countess of Courtney, by Annabelle. Emma had given birth to a pretty baby girl, and she and her comte were content to remain at home. It was left to Annabelle to bring the reluctant duchess “out.”
More for the sake of peace and quiet and a desire to please her friend than from any real desire to go to a ball, Matilda was persuaded to accept the Courtneys’ invitation.
She had learned the Earl of Torridon was in London and that his wife was big with child, but the news had caused no distress in her heart. Her mind, as usual, flinched away from any thought of the earl. But she did not expect him to be at the ball, for a gossip had told her, mistakenly, that the Torridons had left town.
Matilda had been used to dressing with meticulous care when her husband had been alive, for he used to walk round her, scrutinizing her closely with his quizzing glass, to make sure she was perfect in every detail. Since the summer, her appearance had improved. Her light-golden hair was longer and she had put on some much-needed weight. New gowns had been made for her, all of the most fashionable design. The only thing that worried Annabelle and Emma was her lack of animation. There was something frozen about her, as if some of the November fogs had crept into her very soul.
The dress that was laid out ready for her to put on was correct half-mourning, pale-gray lace edged with purple velvet. Matilda sat down at the toilet table in her petticoat, as she preferred to arrange her hair herself. She removed her curl papers and brushed out her hair and then pinned it up on top of her head. Her maid, Esther, handed her a diamond tiara, which Matilda carefully placed on top of her head. Esther then held out a diamond necklace of five strands of gems of the finest water. Matilda nodded and Esther clasped the gems around her neck. And then Matilda heard the sound of a tambour and flute drifting up from the street below. She rose and went to the window and looked down. A shabby pair of dancers was performing below. There was a thin, gaunt young man in a bashed tall hat, a long tail coat, and black tights leaping about. His partner was a plump little girl with blond curls, wearing spangled tights and a black velvet laced bodice. But they were in love, that unlikely pair, and their love lent them grace and beauty as they circulated to the jaunty music of the flute and tambour played by two urchins.
“Fetch my reticule, Esther,” said Matilda, without taking her eyes off the dancers. When her reticule was handed to he
r, Matilda fumbled in it until her groping fingers found a sovereign. She opened the window and tossed it down. It lay glittering for a moment on the frosty pavement. Then the girl stooped and picked it up and bit it in her strong teeth. She said something to the man. Then both looked up to where Matilda stood at the window, wearing only the diamonds and her petticoat. The girl curtsied and the man bowed. They nodded to the two urchins who began to play again, and then they began to perform a minuet, their oddly clothed figures moving with stateliness and grace. The fog was thickening and the two dancers moved across the frosty pavement like figures in a dream. When they had finished, they saluted Matilda again, the man put an arm about the girl’s waist, and she leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked off followed by their miniature “band.”
Matilda gave a little sigh and closed the window. Esther was standing by the bed, holding up the gray lace dress.
“I do not want that,” said Matilda with a shiver. “It would be like wearing fog. I want something gay. Fetch me the rainbow gauze.”
The maid tried to protest. “Folks will be shocked, Your Grace.”
“Society is never shocked. It only pretends to be. I want to wear that gown, Esther.”
Matilda had fallen in love with that rainbow gauze material and had chosen it and had it made into a ball gown with a view to wearing it in some happier and future time. After it had arrived, she had told the maid to hide it in the back of the wardrobe, wondering what could have possessed her to order such a frivolous gown when she had no intention of ever wearing it. But now, she thought of the love and happiness and, yes, brave gallantry of the dancers. She would put on an appearance of being merry and then perhaps some of it might permeate to the cold inside her that never seemed to go away.
The rainbow gauze had been fashioned into a simple gown with wide sleeves, a deep neckline, and pretty flounces at the hem. “The diamonds are too cold,” murmured Matilda after the gown had been put on. “Rubies, I think. Something to warm me.”