by Jane Juska
“In return for you. You, my dear, provided the protection I needed.”
I was becoming even more confused. “Protection from what?”
“I was to deliver you to him dressed like a lady with the manners of a lady but with the yearning of a woman. And, now that we are about it, why do you think I dressed you in so unusual a fashion, a veritable curtain overflowing your ever-burgeoning belly? I could not chance that he would reject you should he discover your swelling, you his virginal country girl. Because, you silly goose, do not suppose that you are his only one. He fills his time with all sorts of women, you offering the greatest challenge given that you are married. Perhaps it is your stupidity as well that attracts him. Perhaps he hoped that your motherhood would make you even more of a challenge, that’s all. But of course you with your simpering ways turned out to be no challenge whatsoever; no wonder he fled. With very little cause, he could have deserted us both long ago had I not been so vigilant and industrious on your behalf. And now he has! Thanks to you!”
I gasped; every word she uttered took the breath from me. “And you!” I sputtered. “You carried out your part of the bargain. How can you then be ruined? Surely you are owed! By him!”
“We will never see him again. Oh yes, he would have snatched you away to some destination known only to him, and I suspect he would have tossed you out once he’d had his fill of you. But by then I would have departed the scene with savings enough to assure my return to the tables wherever and whenever I wished. But not now, you strumpet! Do you not know, you idiot child, that you provide a cover for me?”
I stared at her, dumbstruck. What can she mean, a cover? I did feel, at that moment, like an idiot child, so like an idiot child I began to weep.
“Stop your bloody crying,” Mrs. Littleworth ordered. “You are no good to me now. To think of the money I spent on you just so that I would have good reason to appear in Bath sans husband and in the gaming rooms, my true destination. As long as you were visible, I could appear the chaperone, the friend, the protector you thought I was and be received in the most respectable homes during visiting hours. At night you would be holding hands with the colonel, thus freeing me to apply my talents elsewhere in a place where no one, not even the cleverest card-player, would think to question my estimable presence at the tables.”
Here she must have called up a pleasing reminiscence, as a smile appeared on her face. I took heart. “You used me,” I said. “You betrayed me.”
“Of course I did, and I would have continued to do so had you not pushed yourself forward like the peasant you are. You are not the first innocent I have shepherded into Society, though you will likely be my last. You with your nattering on about children. Why couldn’t you have slowed things? Good heavens, one kiss and you are ready to throw your entire life into the gutter—and mine—for a few hours of what you call love. How could you have been so stupid?”
She moved toward me as if to strike me. I covered my head with my hands and said, as if to assure her that I had learned her lesson, “I am stupid no longer.”
“Only a few more nights and I would have made off with a fortune,” she said, “and with it, I would have gained entry into the grandest houses in England. Such a future I envisioned! Fleecing the highest, the most noble, the richest denizens in the land! My dream would have come true. And now? Now word of this will get out and I will be persona non grata at every table in the country. Drat! And with the London season just beginning. Thanks to you, I am left with no season at all!”
By now she stood towering over me and once more I begged. “O Mrs. Littleworth, take pity on me,” I said. “I, too, am left with nothing.”
What an ugly laugh! I glanced up to see her wide-open mouth. How could I have failed to notice the absence of all those teeth before now? She leaned down to me, her bosom heaving this way and that, and bellowed, “You deserve every bit of suffering that has come to you, you useless piece of baggage. You brought about your own downfall—and mine. And now? I am left with demands from every tradesman, every dressmaker, every ribboner in town. I will be penniless before dawn. And all because of you, a stupid little tramp.”
“I am stupid no longer.” It was all I could think of to say, and so I said it over and over until finally she swept from the room.
Dear Jane, if there is anything to be gained from this terrible time, perhaps it is that though I would gladly have done without it, the shock forced me to see my world as it is: my love a prowler upon the innocent, a black-hearted reprobate, a wicked man; my friend, my confidante a liar, a panderer, a pimp, a procurer of flesh, just as if I were a scarlet woman in some bordello. I count myself fortunate to have been cast from such a society. Why, then, am I so miserable?
And I am with child. No, not the colonel’s, thank heaven. I am carrying little Edward’s twin. I had thought that the cessation of my flow was caused by the miscarriage or by the grief thereafter. I had thought that my burgeoning belly was the result of my childish desires for sweets and butters. I had, if I am to tell the truth, not thought at all, perhaps not for most of my life. But I must begin now. I will write Mr. Bennet. I will go home where I belong. I will beg him to forgive my foolish wandering with that blackguard, though of course I will not apprise him of the extent of the liberties I allowed the cad to take. I beg you to keep my secrets, in particular that of little Jane’s paternity. In return, I promise to become a faithful wife and a peerless mother. You will be proud of me. And perhaps I will, too.
Ch. 38
October of ’87
Dear Husband,
I shall return to you within the week. It seems that you were correct: Mrs. Littleworth has mounted such losses at the gaming tables that Mr. Littleworth stopped her credit. She is furious with him but not as furious as I suspect he is with her. Penury is not in her nature so she is closing up the house and returning, so I assume, to her husband. And I will take my proper place next to you and my children.
I look forward to my homecoming. My girls must be ever so grown and I am determined to be the mother they deserve and hope for. With that in mind, I shall make extra efforts on behalf of Elizabeth, who, as you know, has not been much in my favour. I shall change all that.
Now I hope you are sitting down, for what I am about to tell you will come as a shock, a pleasant one, I hope. I am bringing you an unexpected gift. I am carrying your child, our little Edward’s twin. I had not known until a few days ago but find myself quite happy that little Edward will be with us by way of his sister or brother. I do hope it is a boy. You would be so pleased, I know. I am most desperate to keep this baby safe within. I cannot lose this child, nor any child. I pray each night that I may keep him safe. I love this child already and cannot wait for his arrival—or hers—in December.
I long to take my rightful place as
Your Wife,
Marianne.
Ch. 39
A man may shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who attempts to break into his house.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON
My wife thinks that with her sweet note all will be forgiven and we will resume life as a married couple. She thinks that to present me with her unborn child will make amends for her behaviour. She thinks to pass off this latest child as mine. She is wrong on all counts. I have not forgiven her. Nor will I ever forget the humiliation heaped upon me when, in Bath, she tore herself from my grasp and raced after that bounder, leaving me to stand in the middle of the path, a figure of scorn should anyone venture past, a husband abandoned in a public place by a wife whose contumely knew no bounds. Unsuccessful in her attempt to throw herself into the arms of her lover, did she then return with me to Mrs. Littleworth’s of her own free will? No. Was she successful in her attempt to seduce me into allowing her to stay in Bath? No. Did she return with me at that moment to her rightful home? No. And so, at the end of my encounter during which I attempted to show her the
folly of her ways, I had no recourse but to leave the premises and make the sad and dreary journey back to Longbourn.
I had been shown to be a man without honour, a cuckold, a worthless appendage to a woman who had abandoned her husband and her children and her place as a respectable woman in society. What could I possibly do to repair such damage?
I had not held a firearm since my youth. My father, thinking to teach me manly habits, took me often into the woods where we sought to flush out a few grouse. He showed me his gun, how to load it, and where to fire it. I did so, though without much enthusiasm, for I had no quarrel with birds and small animals, and grouse was not much good for eating anyway. So I paid as little attention to the workings of firearms as I could get away with, reminding myself to call out “Good shot!” every time I heard the crack of my father’s gun.
As for pistols—those instruments integral to dueling now that swords, thanks to the vagary of fashion, had fallen from favour—I was quite unacquainted with them save to look at them in Father’s study where they lay side by side upon a bed of velvet within an oaken case. Fortunately, or so it would seem now, Tom, when only a boy like me, took it upon himself to show me the rudiments of pistol shooting, and together we would borrow the pistols, unloaded, of course, and play at being highwaymen. Great fun as I recall.
The venture I was about to undertake would be not at all amusing nor would it be for sport. I could be killed. I could kill another. What price honour?
And so the duel. If I could not restore Marianne’s reputation, I could, with luck, restore mine.
Tom was not at all enthusiastic about being my second. “Surely, sir, there is a less dangerous way to settle a dispute.” I would have none of it, yet he continued his argument. “But, sir, I know nothing about dueling.” I answered that he knew enough about pistols to give me some reassurance that I would not make a fool out of myself. To that, he agreed. I made my way to Northfield, where, only a few days before, the colonel had made his return. Heedless of his servant’s “I will see if the master is at home,” I brushed him aside and stomped into the sitting room. “Millar! Edward Bennet here. I come to call you out!”
Millar drew himself up from the chair he had been sitting in. “Surely you jest,” he said.
I threw my glove on the floor. “There,” I said, “the die is cast. Choose your weapons.”
I had never before seen such insolence as in the way he stood, in the way he looked at me—a veritable curl in his lip—and in the languid way he picked up the glove. “You cannot be serious,” he said. “I am after all a military man and am accomplished in the way of weapons and, if the truth be known, dueling.”
“I am well aware of your history, all of it,” I said. “Choose your weapons. Our seconds will agree on a time and place.”
“Now, hold on, my man. If you are set upon shooting someone, you might turn your attention to that idiot woman who is your wife. She is a silly creature, a mere trifle, surely not so worthy as to warrant our discommoding ourselves in so dramatic a fashion.” He bowed slightly. “Be assured that I return her to you with the same alacrity with which she left you. You have my sympathy.”
I repeated, “Choose your weapons.”
He smiled, again the curled lip. “As you wish. Pistols.”
“Pistols it shall be. Good morning to you.”
And thus it was that on an overcast morning, the light of day just beginning to show through the forest, we two found ourselves selecting pistols, readying ourselves for what could be the last hour of our lives. Our seconds stood nearby. Tom looked wary. The colonel’s second, a lowly private—could he find no one of his class friendly to his cause?—looked terrified.
As for the colonel, he had dressed himself in full military regalia no doubt to intimidate me into withdrawing from an exercise that he considered beneath him. “’Tis not too late, Bennet, to save ourselves this trouble and return to our warm beds.”
“It is too late. You have impugned my honour and sullied the reputation of my wife.”
“I know nothing of your honour, but the reputation of your wife, such as you put it, is her own doing. And yours, if I may be so bold. A husband who cannot control his wife has only himself to blame for her excursions into questionable territory. I have nothing to do with any of this foolishness.”
“You are a coward, Millar. All your talk is nothing but an attempt to save your own hide, but this time your slick tongue will not protect you. I will have my satisfaction. Proceed, Tom.”
Tom read out the rules from the pamphlet I had secured from my library, placed there long ago I expect by my father. “You will, after choosing your pistol, walk thirty paces in the direction opposite to the other. You will turn, then, and on my signal, you will fire. Once. Is that agreed?”
We nodded, each took up one of the pistols, and glanced briefly at one another. It gave me great pleasure to see that Colonel Millar was not quite so haughty now; after all, he could not know for certain my level of expertise with firearms, but he could be certain of my seriousness. This, he knew finally, was not a joke.
I turned my back, he turned his, and I walked thirty paces toward the dawn. We turned. Tom tossed his neckerchief onto the ground, our signal to fire. We faced each other and aimed. I felt the shot sting my breast. I fell, certain that this breath would be my last. As I lay there on the cold grey ground where sunlight would never again show itself, a truth, as if it were a bullet itself, struck me: that honour is a poxy whore, my wife is wicked, the world is wicked, and I am wicked. I took my hand from my chest expecting blood to gush forth and not caring that it would. My life—not an especially distinguished one—was quite over. It was of little matter that my existence ended in such a ridiculous way, a bullet bleeding the life out of me. I readied myself to sigh a final good-bye when just at that moment, Tom reached beneath my torn shirt to ascertain the extent and the site of the wound, and to his amazement and mine, he pulled forth my pocket edition of Montaigne, its cover shot through. “You are saved, sir,” said Tom. “A miracle.”
To the astonishment of my opponent and of the hapless private, I rose unsteadily to my feet and said with all the force of one so nearly dead, “Stand, sir, and be fired upon.” Colonel Millar did as I demanded and in his eyes I read more fear than contempt. He all but turned away entirely, perhaps intending even to run. What a waste of a man, I thought. He is not worth the powder. Nor is she. I have risked my life for a woman who can never love me, nor I her, but to whom I am forever bound. I am about to shoot a man who is of no import to me, who is incidental to the downward spiral of my life, no matter that I stand here unharmed. And with that and out of pure disgust I raised my pistol and fired into the air. What little satisfaction was to be gained from this ridiculous situation was now mine. Quite amazing how little it mattered. Then, like the wounded man I was expected to be, I fell once more to the ground.
When the smoke cleared, the colonel exclaimed, “My God! What can have happened? I did not mean to wound you.” He stood transfixed, holding the revolver, while the private, now as pale as his commanding officer, raced to aid Tom, who by this time had wrapped his neckerchief about my breast. “The pistol, something must have gone awry with the weapon. It aimed where I would not have it. It is not my fault! I will not have it so!”
“He thinks you are wounded, sir,” Tom whispered. Millar continued from his position sixty paces away: “Please forgive the poor aim,” he shouted. “I never meant to hit you; I meant only to frighten you.” I groaned loudly. Millar babbled on: “We must keep all this a secret; no one must know.” Tom shot him a look far more dangerous than any bullet. “Afraid we can’t do that, sir. This man needs medical attention.”
Millar covered his face and his voice shook: “And now my reputation as an officer and a gentleman—and yes, as an excellent shot—is ruined.” I pretended to struggle to stand, then to lose my balance, steadied by Tom and the priva
te. “Good going, sir,” said Tom. “We’re with ye,” said the private.
“Private! Stand here with me!” the colonel ordered. The private did not move. “Oh, God,” Millar moaned. “Good grief, now I am deserted, and soon everyone will know that only I fired at my opponent and that you, you damned commoner, shot into the air. Everyone will believe that you are the gentleman and I the cad.” With that he fell to his knees and, in the presence of his inferiors, began to weep.
Glorious surrender. Satisfaction is mine. My honour is restored. I care not a jot.
Ah yes, of course, at home and with my dutiful wife, another scene: “What has happened?” she shrieked. “You are filthy, your boots muddy to the knee! Oh, what is that hole in your jacket? Why is such a hole . . .” Apparently she realized that a gunshot might do that sort of damage because she began to tear at my coat. “Take it off! Get it away from here! What has happened? No, do not tell me! Who is dead? Do not tell me! Are you hurt?” And on and on. She whirled about the room, shrieking for the servants, plucking first at myself and then at the draperies and the lace coverings on the chairs, all the while dancing further and further away from my disordered appearance. Ah yes, my wife has returned. And as expected, she is of little use. I shrugged off my jacket and proceeded into my library from where I write this entry.
She adds to my household another child, a boy, I hope, but if not, a girl will do. The parentage of such a child will always remain a mystery, at least to me, but she or I hope he will be welcome in my house nonetheless. Whichever its sex, it will always remain a stranger to me; indifference is preferable to cruelty, and I have no need of the latter. Although still babies, Jane and Elizabeth have become company quite delightful enough, I suppose, in their own though different ways. They scoot about the house, Elizabeth crawling behind Jane as together they sing songs taught them by Mathilda, she who is now mercifully absent.