Marrying the Mistress

by Juliet Landon

  ‘When someone demands an entry? Anyone I know?’

  ‘Lady Slatterly, ma’am. She was none too pleased to find that his lordship’s not here, you see. Didn’t believe Mr Treddle when he told her. Kicked up a bit of a fuss, she did.’

  ‘He’s gone over to Foss Beck,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am, though we didn’t tell her ladyship that. She drove out of here like the devil himself was after her. She’ll ruin her horses if she drives ’em like that.’

  I would like to have asked if she’d gone to Abbots Mere where my Jamie was, but that would not have been discreet. ‘Yes,’ I said, looking away down the covered passage to the street beyond, imagining Veronique clattering through, desperate to see Winterson. Well, there was nothing I could do about it, but my first thoughts were for Jamie’s safety rather than for Veronique’s peace of mind.

  * * *

  I cannot say I enjoyed the drive to Osbaldwick, being forced to concentrate fully on the frozen mud ruts that knocked the phaeton about in a most uncomfortable fashion. I was obliged to walk the horses for most of the way, to save their hooves. The countryside was white, the dried grasses laced with cobwebs that shimmered in the sun, and soon we caught up with other carriages travelling towards the sound of tolling bells, then groups of black-clad people walking from cottage to church. It was obvious that Prue’s parents had been well loved, for there were several phaetons and carriages already lining the narrow street, and crowds passing through the lych-gate into St Thomas’s Church.

  Inside, I sat with our staff from the shop, and because I was placed to one side of a thick stone pillar, I doubt that Medworth Monkton knew I was there. But it gave me the chance to watch him closely, to see how he fluffed his lines and almost dropped his prayer book as he turned the pages with shaking hands. Something, I thought, was wrong with the man, usually so amiable and at ease. The traipse out to the burial site was, as always, a sombre affair that reminded me too closely of my late lover and his winter resting place, and had it not been for my promise to support Prue, I would have chosen to stand some distance away so as not to see. As it was, I stood with my arm around her shoulders as she had done for me, which appeared to do nothing to ease Medworth’s trembling, and he hurried through the service of commital as if he too would rather have been elsewhere. Perhaps, I thought, this was too near his brother’s burial for him to distance himself.

  I looked for him after that, while Prue greeted her friends, but he had disappeared. This was very odd behaviour, for a curate ought to stay with the bereaved as a matter of courtesy, if not duty. So I slipped quietly back to the church ostensibly to congratulate him on his forthcoming advancement, though in fact to remind him where he was needed most. He had offered me the benefit of his advice; I would offer him some of mine.

  The sound of voices from the vestry ought to have made me turn about and return to Prue, having only recently eavesdropped on a private conversation. I was not at all comfortable with the underhandedness of it, but while it was not in my nature to enjoy such a thing, my curiosity was at once alerted by Medworth’s unusually sharp tone and by the answering one, in some distress, of Lady Veronique Slatterly. Yes, I was quite sure it was her because it was her name that Medworth snapped out, impatiently.

  ‘You should not have come here, Veronique, on such a day. You must know I cannot see you. Go back home.’

  There was a sound like a cough or a sob, and I froze, hating myself for staying, half-turning to go, but held back by my heart that told me I was in some way involved, willing or not. This was undoubtedly not a good time for her to seek counselling from her adviser, and his tone must have convinced her of his lack of sympathy, in case she had other ideas.

  ‘You’re avoiding me,’ she whimpered from the vestry side of the curtain, a heavy purple thing with a fringe along the bottom meant to conceal the changing of vestments rather than conversations. ‘Everybody is avoiding me. And you lied to me about Mrs Monkton.’

  ‘Shh!’

  She ignored his command. ‘You told me you and Mrs Monkton were not intimate any more, but you were, weren’t you? And you let me find out about her condition at the ball, of all places, when I couldn’t…couldn’t…’ The sobbing voice faded and choked. ‘So…so unkind of you. I don’t suppose she knows about my condition, does she?’

  ‘Hush, for pity’s sake, Veronique. Of course she doesn’t. Why would I tell her that? It has nothing to do with Cynthia. And I did not lie about not being… well…affectionate. It was true at the time.’

  I heard again the sanctimonious tone he’d used to me, excusing, validating, squirming with righteousness. I wanted to burst through the curtain to take her side and demand a proper hearing, but perhaps I had no need, for he had made her angry too, and she was unwilling to be brushed aside simply because he had a funeral party to attend.

  ‘Stop! Don’t go!’ she insisted. I saw the curtain billow. ‘You’ll have to tell her, Medworth. This is your doing too, you know.’

  If I had not been told of her condition beforehand, I would not have guessed that she must be pointing to herself, the connection never having occurred to me after what he’d told me on Wednesday. Her accusation hit me like a thunderbolt. Not Winterson, but Medworth himself, taking advantage of those advisory sessions with his patron’s unhappy daughter.

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ he rasped, half-whisper, half-yelp. ‘And I have not been avoiding you. I have duties to perform that I’ve already neglected for your sake. And I told you before that it must be Winterson’s. You know the reason, Veronique. He’s free and I’m not, and with enough pressure from you and your father, and from me, and eventually from Miss Follet, he’ll be obliged to accept it. Think of that. You’ll be Lady Winterson. That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?’

  ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Not at that price, Medworth. He would not give in to that kind of pressure when he knows as well as I do that it cannot possibly be his.’

  ‘Cannot? What nonsense is this? Of course it can.’

  ‘No. I lied to you too.’

  ‘What d’ye mean, lied? About what?’

  ‘I’ve never been to bed with your brother. It’s your child, not his.’

  There was a pause, then the shocked, disbelieving reaction that I was fortunate not to have received from Linas when I’d told him about Jamie. That was something that had lain heavily on my conscience ever since, that I had been obliged to lie to everyone about the child’s father for his sake, not for my own. It had been unforgivable, even while sparing me the gossip.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Medworth said, coldly. ‘You told me—’

  ‘Of course I did. It was what you wanted me to say, wasn’t it? That your brother and I had been lovers too. Well, now I’m telling you the truth—I have never been to bed with him, not ever. He would never be alone with me, and, yes, I did want him, have always wanted him more than anyone, but you didn’t want to hear that, did you? You said you could offer me your comfort for his offhandedness, and now you don’t want to know about it. But you can’t foist it off on to your brother, Medworth. It won’t work, and he knows it. It’s his twin’s woman he’s always wanted, not me.’ Her voice wavered and, at that point, I almost turned and left, for my guilty heart was not so well seasoned that I was immune to her anguish. She had felt his indifference too.

  ‘You’re lying again. I thought you and my brother would surely have…’

  ‘I’m not lying. It’s the truth. Why d’ye think I needed your comfort? Because you’re irresistible? I’ve resisted better men than you, Medworth.’

  ‘The father must be one of those you didn’t resist, then. There have been plenty of them, I’m sure.’

  ‘Not recently there haven’t. You’ll have to accept it because you’re the only one responsible and there’s no reason why I should pretend otherwise. You told me Mrs Monkton was ill and that you’d always wanted me. You said you loved me more than anyone. You didn’t say she was ill with morning s
ickness, as I have been, did you?’

  ‘Oh, God, this is terrible. It will be the end of me.’

  ‘Have you told anyone about…about my condition?’

  ‘No, of course not. I have to go, Veronique. I have people to see. I’ve done all I can for you. Really…no… let me go…please!’

  The curtain billowed again as I watched, horrified, imagining the tussle that was being enacted in that confined space, her desperation, his determined cowardice, the terrible spinelessness that convinces men that black is white, that up is down, that no means yes if that is what will serve their purpose best. Guiltily, I shrunk back into the shadows, expecting one of them to emerge like a bullet within the next moment.

  But it spoke volumes for Veronique’s mettle when her shape appeared with arms outstretched, bulging across the curtain, preventing his escape. ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered, growling with menace, ‘oh, no, Medworth Monkton. Don’t you walk away this time and pretend innocence just because you think your word will be believed above mine. This time, there’s your brother’s word too, isn’t there? Tell him about it, if you wish, and see what he tells you when he’s stopped laughing. And tell my father too. He knows that Winterson isn’t stupid enough to get me pregnant while he’s hoping to catch Linas’s woman, even if you are.’

  ‘You tell your father,’ he replied, cuttingly. ‘You tell him and see if he can’t come up with half a dozen names who could easily have fathered your brat, Lady Slatterly. Why, you could have had a stableful by now with the kind of generosity you practise. How else could it have happened but by your own stupid carelessness?’

  The bulge in the curtain disappeared, and a loud crack swayed it in the draught. Then, after a hiss of pain from within, the curtain was thrown aside with a rattle and Medworth stumbled through the gap with one hand pressed to the side of his head, bent very low.

  Pressing myself back against the wall, I saw him pause and cling to one of the pews, take a look at his hand, then continue on round the corner to the small north door, the way he had apparently entered. Inside the vestry, the low sound of sobbing tore at my heart and filled my lungs with the painful beginnings of a wail. I could have gone in to her; I could have offered her whatever comfort a rival has to offer, but I had to choose between her and Prue. And I chose Prue because that was why I had gone there.

  If I had been in the same dreadful position, I told myself, I would have preferred privacy after what had just happened, and that poor Veronique would probably want the same. And for all my odious guilt at having overheard what I had absolutely no right to know about, my regard for her privacy and my silence on the matter gave me some comfort all through the wake that followed the burial, the usual noisy gathering for refreshments, condolences and reminiscences.

  Prue’s appreciation was demonstrated in a motherly hug that, had she but known it, I was in need of almost as much as she, while the shock of what I’d discovered resounded in my head like the clamour of church bells. When Prue asked me where the curate had disappeared to, I murmured something in his defence that he had looked very unwell and had probably had to hurry home, which was better than saying that he would not wish to appear with a distinctly red hand-print on his cheek.

  Prue understood when I asked to leave the wake before it had run its course, for now she was amongst friends who would talk far into the evening. Naturally, my mind dwelt on what I’d heard, on Medworth’s betrayal of his position, on Veronique’s misery and on my own decision to withhold offers of help for fear of being thought intrusive. It was none of my business, my conscience told me, without conviction. It was a lie, of course. If it had not concerned me, I would not have stayed to listen. Yet my guilt gave me little respite, and my punishment was a pounding headache.

  Back at Blake Street I sat beside a roaring fire with my child and his nurse, a tray of tea, lemonade, and a dish of buttery muffins hot from the kitchen, listening to his back-to-front accounts of how he’d ridden without a saddle, ‘To strengthen my thighs,’ he said, glowing with three-year-old pride. ‘And now they ache, Mama, but Uncaburl’s man says it’s good for me.’

  I hugged him to me, smelling the straw and stables on him. ‘Well done, little one,’ I said. ‘You shall have a warm bath to soak the aches away. Did they show you how to groom Penny and make her shine?’

  ‘Yes, I stood on a box to reach her back an’ she stood still an’ liked it, an I fed her carrots, and I ate all my…’ a mighty yawn interrupted the flow before the final ‘…greens for Nana Frances and Grandpa, Mama.’

  To keep him awake until bedtime, I took him with me to the shop’s deserted workrooms while I assessed all the available spaces in the property that Prue would have been able to use as living quarters if she’d not been obliged to live with her parents. There was no reason now why she could not live above the shop, rent free, if only we could clear some of the rooms and provide the basic amenities for her. It was an arrangement that might help to soften the blow of not having Pierre’s bounty to sell.

  * * *

  After dinner that evening, as we sat by the fire in the drawing room, the sound of the door-knocker made us look up in the hope that it might be Lord Winterson, although I did not expect him. The footman tapped and entered. ‘Lady Slatterly, ma’am,’ he said.

  My astonishment must have lingered on my face as she came forwards, for although she had indeed been at the forefront of my mind, I never expected her to show up here. ‘What a pleasant surprise,’ I said, responding to her curtsy. ‘Please forgive the informality. Will you sit with us a while?’

  I had seen her in all sorts of conditions over the years, ever since her first acid comments meant to wound me and, more recently, when she had been thankful to accept my goodwill. So my reading of her manner on this occasion was well informed, and clearly she was not a picture of happiness. There were red rims to her eyes, and she wore an air of uncertainty that was very different from the usual and, although she con¬ cealed her anguish with courage, it showed through in so many small ways. Forcing a smile, her eyes darted to Mrs Goode and Jamie.

  ‘Mrs Goode,’ I said, ‘will you take Jamie up for his bath now, please?’

  Once we were alone, Veronique’s shoulders sagged with relief. As if unsure whether she was doing the right thing in approaching me this way, she took sleepwalking steps to the nearest chair and sat sideways on the edge of it. This was most unlike the Veronique I knew. And no wonder.

  Fidgeting with her reticule, she blinked at me as if deciding how best to explain her visit. ‘Helene,’ she said at last, ‘you were once kind enough to speak out for me.’

  ‘At the ball. Yes, I remember. Men can be so insensitive, sometimes.’

  ‘Yes. So I’ve come to ask…er…to ask you a favour. To ask your advice, actually…er…not for me, but for a friend of mine. She has a problem, you see, and I told her you might know how to…er…advise her what’s best to do. She has no one else but me to turn to. Her other friends would not wish to be involved. It’s all so…so difficult.’

  My heart softened and ached for her. No one else to turn to but the one who had last said something kindly in her defence. Such unhappiness. What rejection she must be feeling. ‘Of course I’ll help your friend if I can,’ I said. ‘Is she about our age, or older?’

  ‘Yes, she’s our age. My age, actually. We’ve been close for years. She’s done something foolish. Very… very…foolish.’

  I saw that she struggled to hold back her tears, so while she took a few moments to compose herself, I went to pour a glass of wine and place it beside her. ‘Take a sip,’ I said, ‘then tell me how I can help your friend. I take it there may be a man involved?’

  She sniffed, then nodded, but this time the fair ringlet did not bounce. The white fur collar reflected its pallor upon her mottled skin, and despite the brightly patterned pelisse-robe, she was far from the winter cheer it was meant to represent. At last, her wide-brimmed bonnet lifted. ‘Yes, there is a man involved, but he doesn’t wa
nt to know.’

  ‘Know what, Veronique?’

  ‘That she’s going to be a mother. You’re not shocked?’

  ‘No, I’m not shocked. I am an unmarried mother too.’

  ‘That’s another reason why I thought you might know what to do.’

  ‘If the man involved doesn’t want to accept his responsibility, it makes life very difficult. Do her parents know about her problem?’

  ‘No. She has only one parent.’

  ‘I see. I had only one parent too.’

  ‘Did you? That makes it even harder then, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not really. Not if the parent is on her side, and loves her.’

  Her eyebrows lifted at that. ‘Doesn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘No. There’s only one opinion, one reaction, one shock. It often makes things simpler. Is there some reason why your friend may not wish to tell her parent? The point is, you see, that if she lives at home, her parent is going to discover it sooner or later, so perhaps it would be best if she said something herself before someone else does.’

  ‘But it would hurt him so, wouldn’t it?’ she whispered.

  ‘My dear, it would hurt him even more if he found out by accident. If it’s from her father your friend is hoping for most help, then surely it’s only fair to confide in him at the beginning so that they can discuss what to do about it. Is he the kind of man to fall into a rage, your friend’s father?’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t do that. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘He loves her very much, does he?’

  ‘Indeed he does, but he’d want to know who’s responsible, and she cannot tell him that.’

  ‘She cannot…because…?’

  ‘Because he’s married, Helene. That’s why he doesn’t wish to accept the responsibility. I believe,’ she added, as if she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Then I would not wish to persuade her otherwise,’ I said, thinking quite the opposite. ‘She’s obviously a loyal young lady whose affection for the father runs very deep. Most of us would prefer him to be honest and admit that he has a part to play in the affair, and most parents would wish to know who’d sired their grandchild. But that decision must remain with your friend, after all.’