Vice and Virtue

by Veronica Bennett

  Josiah went towards the door. “Fare you well, both of you,” he said. “If you should need a physician, or if there is anything I can do…”

  “I will send for you,” Aurora reassured him, curtseying. “He must rest now.”

  Josiah nodded and took hold of the latch. But when he opened the door an unexpected noise assailed Aurora’s ears. The shrill keening of a distressed female rang throughout the upper floor of the inn. Layered within it was the equally loud rumble of a man’s protests. Aurora could not make out their words, but sensed the panic in them. She picked up her skirts and followed Josiah out onto the landing.

  Missy, Celia’s maid, was sprawled across the floorboards as if she had fallen there from a great height. Harrison, greatly agitated, repeatedly tried to raise her to her feet.

  “For pity’s sake, Harrison, what is the matter?” demanded Josiah.

  Missy was wailing now, a sodden handkerchief held to her streaming eyes. There was no interruption to her anguish.

  “’Tis Miss Celia,” said Harrison curtly. “She’s gone. Run away.”

  These words inspired more vigorous sobbing from Missy. Josiah leaned against the banister post, his brow in the crook of his elbow. “Dear God, dear God,” Aurora heard him murmuring. She advanced across the landing and placed her hand upon his arm. Beneath his coat sleeve he trembled uncontrollably. Fate had inflicted all it could upon the man; he was almost broken. “Mrs Francis,” he gasped. “Mrs Francis—”

  “Aurora,” said Aurora. “Please call me Aurora.”

  He raised his head. His hat and wig were askew, and tears covered his cheeks. “My daughter, my darling Celia…” He strove to control himself before his man-servant, but in vain. His sobs were loud and heartfelt. “Why has she forsaken me?”

  Aurora wondered the same thing. It seemed a cruel desertion of her father. But Celia was cruel. By now she would have missed the phial and decided to flee rather than face the consequences of its discovery. Edward had refused to confront her, but she had instead brought her own punishment upon herself. Where would she go, and how would she live?

  “I cannot say, sir,” she told Josiah. “But perhaps she can be found.” She crouched down beside Missy. “Did your mistress hint where she might be going?”

  Missy gulped back tears. “No, ’m. She never spoke to me. It … it was in my apron pocket when I put it on, and I never, I never—”

  “What was in your apron pocket?” asked Aurora.

  “This note, Miss,” said Harrison. He held up a folded paper. “The girl gave it to me to read for her, as she weren’t never taught her letters.”

  Aurora took the paper. “Missy, will you allow me to see what Miss Celia wrote?”

  Missy nodded, too miserable to care, and Aurora unfolded the note.

  Dearest Missy,

  I am very sorry to leave you, but I cannot stay in this house. I am going far away. Do not try to follow me; you will never find me. Mr Harrison will attend to your references. You and your sisters may have all the clothes I have left in my closet.

  Yours,

  Celia Deede

  Aurora gave the note back to Missy. The girl had calmed somewhat. Her small face, blotched by misery, touched Aurora. She wondered how long the girl had been Celia’s maid. Whether her mistress’s whereabouts became known or not, she would, she decided suddenly, keep Missy as her own personal maid. “Do not worry, Missy,” she told her. “All will be well.”

  Aurora stood up and went to Josiah. His forehead was deeply lined, the corners of his mouth drawn downwards. His eyes held such unspeakable despair that Aurora could hardly bear to look at him. “Sir,” she said gently, “this is very distressing, but it seems Celia has, indeed, run away.”

  He was not listening. “My daughter must have known what her brother was about,” he said grimly. “She fears her own guilt will be discovered.” Seemingly unaware that both servants were staring at him, uncomprehending, he went on. “But she will be punished, you may be sure. I will not rest in my search for her, and when I find her, I will place her in a convent for the rest of her days.”

  Aurora could think of no answer. She pressed her father-in-law’s arm, then she turned to Harrison. “Make sure your master returns home safely, and stay by his side until he is recovered.” She bent to the maid, who was still sitting on the floor. “And, Missy, you may give notice to Mr Deede. I will come and bring you away, and you can be my maid instead. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, ’m,” whispered the girl. “Thank you, ’m.”

  “Sir,” said Aurora to Josiah, “I will call tomorrow, but now I must attend to Edward. I bid you farewell. Go now with Harrison, I pray you, and lean on him.”

  When Aurora returned to Edward’s room she saw that his white face was taking on a grey tinge. His jaw had stiffened against the onslaught of pain, and the animation had gone from his eyes. “Celia has admitted her own guilt by running away,” she told him. “Now I must dress that wound and you must sleep.”

  “Where do you think Celia has bolted to?”

  “I cannot imagine,” replied Aurora. “Though as she once told me, she has hundreds of friends. Someone will hide her.” She regarded her husband pensively. “And, as we well know, in this city anyone – even a young girl with nothing but her wits to protect her – can pretend to be someone else, and no one is any the wiser.”

  “Why, Mr Drayton! And your pretty sister!” Samuel Marshall approached from the back of the shop. “I had begun to wonder if I would ever see you again!”

  Edward made an awkward bow, not out of embarrassment, but because his bandaged shoulder restricted his movements, and he was loath to betray his injury to Mr Marshall. “We were detained at the Black Swan for a few days,” he explained. “But now we are come back, and we are pleased to see you well, sir.”

  Aurora dropped a curtsey. “Tell me, Mr Marshall, is Mary in the house? I must speak to her.”

  “Aye, and William,” replied Mr Marshall, returning to his chair. “The lock on your door is replaced, and Mary has the new keys. Shall I see you later, Mr Drayton, for a glass of port?”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Edward politely, “but I am afraid it will not be possible to accept your invitation. My sister and I have a visit to make to Westminster, and may not return until late.”

  “Tomorrow, then!” said Mr Marshall, with a wave of his hand.

  “Indeed.” Edward gave Aurora a glance that told her to remain silent. Tomorrow, when all had been revealed to Mrs Eversedge and her daughters, they would tell Mr Marshall the truth. Today, they must still be Mr Drayton and his pretty sister.

  “I am glad you are come back!” called Mr Marshall as they left the shop.

  “Until tomorrow!” returned Aurora. Then, softly, to Edward, “How I hate deceiving him!”

  “Then thank the Lord we do not have to do it for much longer,” he said, unlocking the street door.

  Mary emerged from the kitchen, her plate-like face more animated than Aurora had ever seen it. “Miss Drayton! And Mr Drayton, sir!” she exclaimed, curtseying.

  Aurora had been touched by the actions, and the discretion, of this good-hearted girl. “Thank you, Mary,” she said, “for helping me when I was hurt, and so distressed.”

  Flushing, Mary bobbed several curtseys. “You better now, Miss?”

  “Much better.” She turned to Edward. “And my brother also has reason to thank you.”

  “You did right, Mary,” said Edward, “to keep what happened on Sunday and Monday to yourself, and to tell only Mr Marshall where Miss Drayton had gone. It was very important that certain people did not know. Now that there is a new lock, we may return.”

  Still red-faced, Mary fumbled under her apron and produced two keys. She proffered them to Edward, who took them with a smile. “Thank you,” he said. With his good arm he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat. “And here is something for you. Hold out your hand.”

  He placed a sovereign in her palm. She stared
at it with such astonishment Aurora wondered if she had ever held one before. “Do not tell William,” said Edward, “or he will want one.”

  “Oh, sir…” Mary’s small powers of speech failed her, and she ran back into the kitchen, her apron at her eyes.

  “You know that she is in love with you, do you not?” asked Aurora as they climbed the stairs.

  “Of course.”

  “You are very sure of yourself.”

  “I am a man of means,” he said, with such satisfaction that Aurora laughed aloud. “And have every reason to be sure of myself. Now, will this key work, I wonder?”

  “If it does not, you may use the skeleton key,” joked Aurora.

  “Do not remind me.”

  The key worked; the door swung open to reveal a swept, tidied room, the bed made, the table clear. Edward’s trunk stood at the foot of his bed. New candles filled the holders, and the window had been cleaned. Aurora opened the inner door. The same neatness and cleanliness met her. “Bless the girl,” she said. “She can be a good servant when she wants to be.”

  Edward laughed. “And she did this before I gave her that sovereign!” He took off his wig, threw it on the bed and opened his trunk. “I must make myself look presentable to meet your sisters,” he said. “They are severe critics of male attire, I would imagine.”

  Aurora hesitated, but could not allow the opportunity to pass. “They are your sisters, too, you know.”

  He was sitting on the bed, rummaging one-armed in the trunk. “For the time being,” he said, without looking up at her.

  Boldly, she sat beside him. “I must change out of this.” She indicated her creased and dirtied silk gown. “I have been wearing it since Monday evening, when Mary helped me into it. It is astonishing, is it not, that almost three days have passed since then, and I have not yet taken it off? Today is Thursday, you know.”

  He still did not look at her. “Very strange,” he agreed. “And yes, today is Thursday.”

  “Edward.” She edged nearer to his side. “Before I change my gown or do anything else, we must resolve our … the future.”

  He turned towards her at last. His face was full of serious purpose. She was reminded of the moment when he had taken hold of the tassel on Richard’s bed curtain and twisted it between his fingers as if it were the most important task in the world. His hands were empty now, but instead of seizing something to concentrate on while he sought for words, he took Aurora’s hand, and kissed it.

  As she looked at his bent head, she was struck by the simplicity of his quickly scissored hair, which stuck up in little tufts on the crown of his head, as unregarded as that of a boy. She felt the softness of his lips upon the back of her hand, and then, when he closed his eyes and laid her palm against his cheek, the scratchiness of his unshaven skin.

  She had seen Edward as many things, in many moods and many guises. But above all, he was a man who had placed himself in danger not merely for honour, but for love. She caressed his face as she spoke. “Edward, we made a bargain. You agreed not to—”

  “Importune you for any favours due to a husband,” he recited. “Your exact words. I remember them well.”

  Aurora remembered them too, with shame. What a prim little vixen she must have seemed! “And I agreed to help you expose the truth about your father’s death and your disinheritance,” she said. “We agreed that one month from that day, which will be the twenty-ninth of this month, seventeen days from now, we would…” She withdrew her hand. She could not speak while she was touching him; the sensation it produced rendered coherent thought impossible.

  “We would part,” he supplied. “With or without fortune.”

  Aurora said nothing. He had opened his eyes and was regarding her with such tenderness, yet with such a dream-like intensity, her heart had leapt into her throat.

  “When matters became more dangerous than I had anticipated, I offered to set you free,” he said, his voice as gentle, yet purposeful, as his expression. “Yet you refused. You said you had made a bargain and you would keep it. It was then that I allowed myself some small glimmer of hope that you might care more for me than for my money.”

  “Oh, Edward…” Gingerly, fearing to hurt him, Aurora laid her head upon his uninjured shoulder. “I cared about the injustice that had been done to you, it is true, and wished to see right done. But I also wanted the freedom to live as I wished, which only a married woman has, and although I was shocked when you revealed that you were not ill, I was thankful too.”

  He slid his arm around her waist. She was sure he was in pain, but she could not bear – any more than he could – to forego this makeshift embrace. “So my plainness and thinness did not thoroughly repulse you, then?” he asked.

  “Repulse? No. If I am truthful, I will confess that I was disappointed, not only in your appearance, but in your avowal that you did not follow country pursuits or go into society. But you must remember that I was comparing you to an invisible man. And I had not the imagination to understand that an educated man can be many things, not merely what he presents to an ignorant girl.”

  “You were never an ignorant girl, Aurora. Your father and mother saw to that.”

  “I was not far from it. But I hope I have learned some severe lessons, and will not judge by appearances quite so readily in future.”

  The name of Joe Deede hovered between them, but neither spoke it. Aurora gazed at Edward, wondering how her tight-lipped, indignant bargain had become this unshakeable desire never to be parted from him again. She already knew he could do magic, but here surely was alchemy, transforming not metal into gold, but indifference into love.

  “May I hope, then,” asked Edward, his lips so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, “for the happiness that making you my true wife would bring me?”

  Aurora smiled. “You may hope, indeed, that your wound heals well, and you are soon able to give your wife the embraces she longs for.”

  He had kissed her lips before, at their wedding, when she still expected to be his “true wife”. But when he kissed them now it was with a different kind of kiss, the joy of which came from deep within him, and surprised her with its passion. She found herself returning it with equal passion, hoping he felt her own joy, and willing God to prolong the moment. To return the love of a man who had never wavered in his love of her was surely the most perfect union two people could have on earth.

  “We shall have our marriage blessed, in the sight of God, before many more weeks have passed,” promised Edward as they drew apart. “At St Margaret’s.”

  “I care not where, as long as you are by my side,” said Aurora, trying to conceal the flush that had risen into her cheeks. What need had she to colour? This man was her husband. And yet, as they both knew, she was not yet his true wife.

  It was as if he had read her thoughts. He took his arm from around her waist and regarded her solemnly, though with an immodest gleam in his eyes. “But before that, my dearest Aurora, sword wound or no, you shall be mine.” He glanced at the door. “I did lock it, did I not?”

  Mrs Eversedge’s small sofa was in its usual place, the worked cushions still covered the window seats and the straight-backed chairs, and the gap at the top of the half-closed shutter where it had slipped on its hinge still revealed a thin slice of the brightness outside. But this familiar room, the room where Edward had made his extraordinary proposal, now gleamed with more than sunlight. Aurora’s mother and sisters at last knew the truth, and once their astonishment had been tempered, they embraced her and her husband with more happiness than the parlour had ever contained.

  “A house in Lincolnshire!” exclaimed Mrs Eversedge. “With a park, for riding! Girls, imagine!”

  Edward smiled. “I am not much of a horseman, but—”

  “Yes, he is,” interrupted Aurora. “He said he was not much of a swordsman, and that was a downright lie, so you may be assured that he is the best horseman in the whole of Lincolnshire.”

  Flora waited f
or the laughter that followed this to subside, then she said, “I simply cannot believe such a thing can happen! And it all began that day in the park when we saw Edward and that other man!” She threw a look at Edward, her round face aglow with delight. “I can say this now because you are my much-beloved brother, but my sisters and I agreed that day that your companion was both taller and fairer than you. How disappointed we were that it turned out to be you that was interested in pursuing Aurora! That other man was only watching her.”

  Aurora looked at Edward, who was watching Flora keenly. “You are speaking of Richard, are you not?” he asked her.

  Flora’s smile faltered; her glance slid to Aurora, then back to Edward. “Well, Richard is tall and fair, and when I saw him at the wedding I thought I might as well flirt with him a little. He may have been with you in the park, but I do not remember him there. I mean the man standing near you at the gate, a little behind you, as I recall.” She stopped, puzzled. “Why are you looking at me like that? I have not offended you, have I?”

  “No, my dear Flora,” said Edward hurriedly. “Do you remember enough of this man’s looks to describe them more fully?”

  Flora tapped her chin with her finger, happy to be the centre of attention. “He wore a suit like any other man, and a wig… Oh! I believe his coat cuffs were decorated with a great deal of gold. I remember how they glinted when he raised his arm to shield his eyes from the sun. I thought he must be very rich. And his hat was very fine, with white plumes.”

  “Good God,” said Edward blankly, “Joe Deede.”

  “He must have been following you,” said Aurora. “He knew from the start that you were suspicious of your father’s actions. That day in the park, he saw you looking at us, and watched you and Richard follow us out of the park gates. So when he saw me at the Theatre Royal, he had his sister intercept Mrs Fellowes so he could meet me. Not because he thought I was beautiful, as he said, but because he wanted to find out if I was up to mischief.”

  “Hah!” interjected Flora. “All the time you thought you were deceiving him, he was deceiving you! How funny!”