Cressida's Dilemma

by Beverley Oakley

  As the final chime faded into silence, Catherine exhaled on a gusty sigh and turned back from the fire. The lines of her face were pulled taut with the disdain now ingrained in her character. Why had Cressida not noticed it before? Catherine’s dissatisfaction with life was poisoning her from within, and her remedy was to make everyone else as miserable as she was. She looked twenty years older than she had last week, twenty years older than Cressida, who had been born in the same year. Bitterness had sucked her dry, and Cressida realized in that moment what happened to women who could not, or would not, forgive. Women who wouldn’t even give their husbands a hearing, much less a little of the kindness they were forced to seek elsewhere. Like a dog with a bone, she kept chewing. “Really, Cressida, I don’t know how you can even contemplate forgiving your husband’s disgraceful behavior. He was at Mrs. Plumb’s for goodness’ sake. His conduct is deplorable. When will you learn to trust your instincts?”

  When will you learn to trust your instincts? Had Catherine really asked her that? Like a virtuous virago desperate to sink her teeth into another juicy victim, mauling Cressida and Justin at each other’s expense? Rage burned slowly through her veins, filling her with the fire and fortitude she needed to make her own decisions against a formidable opponent.

  Before Catherine could take a breath to launch further into her theme, Cressida decided she’d heard enough. With quiet majesty, she smoothed her skirts and rose. “Actually, Catherine, I am going to finally trust my instincts,” she said in clipped tones, enough at odds with her character to make Catherine raise her eyebrows. “I’ve had enough of your hectoring for one night. Actually, for a lifetime.” She straightened her décolletage in the looking glass above the mantelpiece, pinching her cheeks to heighten the color. Businesslike, she said, “My poor coachman will have to be roused so I can return to find Justin and let him tell me what he was doing at Mrs. Plumb’s before I tell him my side of our little domestic drama of the past ten months.”

  “Justin? How can you believe a word of what he says?” Catherine looked mightily put out at her uncharacteristic determination, Cressida noted as she glanced at her cousin’s reflection in the mirror. Catherine gripped the fire screen behind her. “You heard the way he lied to you, telling you your eyes deceived you when you know very well what you saw.”

  “What I saw does not confirm Justin was unfaithful.” Cressida continued to make those subtle but important improvements to her appearance in front of the looking glass, enjoying the novelty of Catherine’s helplessness to stop her. “What’s more,” she added crisply as she tucked a curl behind one ear, “if he was unfaithful, I now know what I intend to do about it.”

  “That’s the spirit.” But Catherine sounded uncertain as she watched Cressida continue to preen. And when Cressida turned back to her after plumping up her breasts and tugging at her black lace-edged décolletage, Catherine was frowning.

  Cressida smiled. “First I intend telling him how sorry I am not to have known how to tell him of my fears of conceiving another child.”

  “Cressida—!”

  “Then I intend to inform him that I’ve now resolved those fears and am ready to be the good wife he once loved—no, enjoyed—so much.” Cressida slanted a wickedly suggestive glance at her cousin. “He will soon be in no doubt as to where my affection and loyalty lie.”

  She stroked her hands over her belly and breasts in a gesture Catherine had probably not seen before, and the shock on her cousin’s face made Cressida laugh.

  “When did you last please your husband, Catherine?” she asked. She began to count on her fingers. “Let me think, your two sons were born less than a year apart. Baby William, your second son and final child, was born four years ago. Once you’d provided James with two sons, you felt you’d done your duty, didn’t you? You’ve denied James access to your bed ever since, yet you blame him for seeking his pleasures elsewhere?”

  “How…dare…you.”

  For once, Cressida felt no fear in the face of Catherine’s anger. She shrugged. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s speculated that. Of course, it is only speculation, but I’m not the innocent I was, Catherine.” Excitement bubbled inside her at the thought of what lay ahead. Taking another quick look at herself in the looking glass, she dragged down the lace-edged black silk at her décolletage, enjoying the fact that her behavior was, for once, scandalizing her cousin. She swung back to face her, not hiding her pleasure at the prospect of seeing Justin again. “You see, Catherine, I realize how lucky I am. I’ve enjoyed a love most women never experience, and I’m not about to squander the opportunity to take it in a new and exciting direction.” She raised her eyes heavenward and said in an adrenaline-fueled rush, “I went to Mrs. Plumb’s last week and again this week, Catherine, and I’ve seen things you’d not believe.” If she sounded like a schoolroom miss, she didn’t care, especially as she saw the effect her admission had on Catherine.

  Yet all her cousin could manage was, “Oh, Cressida!” as she took a step forward, no doubt prepared to stop Cressida physically from leaving.

  “So now that I am weary to the bone of listening to you tell me how to make my marriage as miserable as yours,” Cressida said. “I am leaving this very minute to go back to Justin.” She gave Catherine a challenging look. “And to show him what a loving wife he has, now that I have power like no mother, aunt, sister or cousin ever told me was possible.”

  Catherine took a very slow, deep breath and a measured step toward Cressida, who was now halfway to the door. Her lips were a thin line in her gaunt, bitter face, like a smear of plum juice over a piece of gray leather.

  “You’d do better collaring Madame Zirelli and forcing her to admit everything,” she hissed.

  Cressida cocked her head as she contemplated the idea, one hand on the bell rope. “The trouble with you, Catherine, is that you always believe the worst. Someone is always to blame. Except you, of course. I used to pity you, married to philandering James.” She sighed. “Now I pity James. But, yes, I will take your advice and pay a call on Madame Zirelli, despite the late hour. I’m dressed for the occasion, after all, and Wednesday nights at Mrs. Plumb’s are always most intriguing.”

  * * * *

  Madame Zirelli had long since retired to her bed, but in her dimly lit little sitting room she graciously—and with little surprise—received her visitor. She’d thrown a thick paisley shawl over her nightgown, and now in her muslin nightcap with her dark hair braided over one shoulder, she looked very kind and motherly and very different from Catherine—or any kind of mistress.

  “I thought—no, hoped—I’d see you before the night was through,” she said as she knelt by the grate to build up the fire. “I gather you’ve been held hostage by your ghastly cousin. At least, that’s how Justin described her.”

  Cressida took the seat Madame Zirelli waved her into, and considered the woman whom Catherine would have her believe was the great threat that stood between her and her husband. Madame Zirelli might once have been Justin’s mistress, but regardless of whether she now was or not, the real barrier in Cressida’s marriage, Cressida realized, was not just her own ignorance but her lack of courage.

  With a modest fire sending out a weak heat, her hostess eased herself into a chair opposite Cressida, clasped her hands in her lap and said, “I gather you’ve come to me for help and information, just as three weeks ago, I sought help and information from Justin. Information which he supplied and which tonight has brought me both joy and sorrow.” Her enigmatic smile brought mystery and youthful beauty to her face. She sighed and leaned back in her chair, regarding Cressida with interest. “So you see, it has been a momentous night for both of us. Do not apologize for disturbing my slumber, for I’ve been unable to sleep, on both your account and mine. I did so hope you’d come,” she repeated, adding with renewed energy, “for Justin’s sake.”

  “Justin’s sake?” Cressida dropped her eyes, accepting now that she was about to be severely shamed. “Please
tell me,” she said softly, “why Justin was here?”

  When she found the courage to meet the woman’s eye, she saw only concern.

  “You do know I was his mistress before he met you?”

  Cressida nodded and said in a whisper, “I thought he’d returned to you when he found so little love from his wife at home.” She felt the color tickle her cheeks as she amended, “I mean, of the married variety.”

  “Of course you’d have assumed the worst. I should have told Justin to acquaint you with the nature of the business with which I charged him—” She raised her hands, palms outward in that peculiarly expressive Gallic gesture, before adding, “But I was afraid you’d inadvertently reveal it to your cousin Catherine, or to Mrs. Luscombe, who are both on the board of the Sedleywich Home for Orphans. You see, until three weeks ago,” Madame Zirelli clarified, in response to Cressida’s frown, “I’d not seen Justin for eight years. Nor did I intend to rekindle our friendship, until a shock sighting of a young woman I believed to be my lost daughter gave me no choice but to approach him. I knew Justin was patron of the Sedleywich Home for Orphans, to which my baby had been sent a few days after her birth. I wanted him to look at the records and discover for me what had indeed happened to my baby. To that end, Justin has been assiduous in his task and a kind and understanding friend when I could reveal my secret and suspicions to no one else.” She closed her eyes briefly. “What you saw, Lady Lovett, was my gesture of gratitude toward your husband, who had just confirmed that my daughter still lives”—there was a catch in her voice as she continued—“but that, as a loving mother with her best interests at heart, I was barred from making contact with her.”

  Cressida’s own breath hitched in her throat, her fears escalating rather than dissipating at the story so far. Madame Zirelli had had a child years ago? Madame Zirelli had been Justin’s mistress years ago.

  “You told me you didn’t have any children.” Cressida studied her trembling hands. What had started as vague uneasiness had taken root and was fast growing until Madame Zirelli’s next words banished that fear. “My daughter is eighteen years old now, and her father, Robert, was the love of my life.”

  With a sigh of relief, Cressida understood that this must be just the start of a painful tale. Justin was helping Madame Zirelli as an old friend, not with a vested interest. This business of discovering the identity of Madame Zirelli’s daughter was what had preoccupied Justin the past three weeks—coupled, of course, with Cressida’s erratic behavior.

  “I’m listening,” Cressida prompted in a murmur, feeling the first surge of pity for the woman as Madame Zirelli closed her eyes and smiled, as if remembering happier times.

  Cressida’s fears had been laid to rest, but Madame Zirelli needed to tell her story now, and the least Cressida could do was listen.

  “Robert was the youngest son of a well-connected family in the local village, where my father had brought us to live from Spain when I was ten, after Robert’s father had employed him as singing master to Robert’s sisters. Though I knew Robert by sight, it wasn’t until I was sixteen that we spoke for the first time, after he offered me a lift in his carriage in the midst of a snowstorm.” The older woman opened her eyes, the joy of that memory transforming her face. “After that, we found many opportunities to meet. We were in love, but Robert was only nineteen, and we were both too young and powerless to direct our own lives. Robert wanted to marry me, but of course his father refused, while mine was furious at what he considered my trying to rise above my station.” As Madame Zirelli glanced at Cressida, her gaze falling to the smooth silk of Cressida’s gown, to the curve of her belly, her expression became bleak. “I tell you this to bolster the case that I was more than qualified to speak to you of the miseries we women face when we cannot control our ability to have children.” Her voice wavered. “For the sake of my father and, I believed at the time, Robert, I was coerced into not revealing to Robert that I was carrying his child, and I was sent away. Under directions from his mother, I told Robert I was taking up a position as a governess.” She clenched her fists and her voice thickened with emotion. “Robert swore that in two years’ time, when he was twenty-one and of age, he would gallop into the grounds of my employer on a great white charger and whisk me off to the nearest church to get married. He said if I loved him enough to be patient for just two years, all would be well.”

  Cressida bit her lip. “But all was not well. You were carrying his child.”

  Madame Zirelli’s voice became bitter. “Robert’s mother arranged everything. I had no mother who could even tell me what to expect, much less to forewarn me of the consequences of intimacy with Robert, and my father was the great family’s minion.” She took a painful breath. “For five months, I was all but imprisoned with a cottager and his wife, who gave me food and who had clearly been directed to monitor all correspondence. I wrote to Robert, begging him to help me, but I knew my letters never reached him and that his would never reach me. We were both minors and powerless against the will of his parents.”

  Weary resignation replaced the bitterness as she went on, “My daughter was removed from me when she was a few days old. Once again, Robert’s mother arranged everything. When I returned home to nurse my father, who was now very ill, from the trauma of my disgrace, no doubt, Robert had joined his regiment on the peninsula. I never saw him again.”

  Cressida shook her head. She’d heard tales of heartbreak like this before, and she knew the impossibility of a single woman keeping her infant under such circumstances, yet she had to ask the question. “You did not seek your child’s return before this?”

  “Why torment myself when I had no means to support myself, much less an illegitimate child?” She threw up her hands. “My father was very ill, but his employer graciously agreed to let him remain in the cottage they’d rented for him, on the condition I found my own way in the world on account of my fall from grace. Father died three months later.”

  Cressida glanced at the few meager possessions around the room, contemplating a woman’s vulnerability when she had no protector. Women like she did not tend to dwell on such matters but rather to dismiss fallen women like Madame Zirelli as arbiters of their own fates, she thought guiltily.

  “After struggling to support myself through my singing,” Madame Zirelli resumed, “I found myself, several years later, in the power of another man. Lord Grainger was my employer, to whom I gave myself willingly and recklessly one night, which meant”—she gave a small, ironic laugh—“that I was now to bear his child. The thought of being forced to give up another child I could not support was intolerable. I sought the offices of a woman who apparently”—her mouth quivered as she uttered the word—“dealt with such matters. A woman whose brutal butchery nearly killed me and left me scarred and infertile. An irony, since Lord Grainger made me his wife shortly afterward, then divorced me because of my inability to provide him with an heir…compounded by his fury at learning of what I had done.”

  Cressida gasped.

  Madame Zirelli gave an eloquent shrug. “For years, I have lived alone, accepting that my daughter was lost to me until, by chance, three months ago, I saw her. The resemblance to the Castilian side of my family was remarkable. So certain was I that I had seen my own daughter, and so horrified by the circumstances, I sought out your husband in the hope he would be able to trace her background and confirm my suspicions.”

  Wearily, she indicated the table in the corner of the room by the window. Upon it was a small, portable writing desk. “All the answers to your questions are there,” she said. “You are free to examine any correspondence…anything at all…if it will satisfy you that your husband’s relationship with me has been purely on a business footing.”

  Cressida did not argue. The hour was late and Madame Zirelli wanted the catharsis of knowing Cressida believed in and trusted her.

  “Take the whole box,” Madame Zirelli directed. “There is other correspondence which little Dorcas slips in when
it arrives, but the document prepared by your husband and various letters pertaining to the matter are all in there.”

  When Cressida was halfway to the door with the writing box under her arm and the interview at an end, Madame Zirelli stopped her. “Lady Lovett, your husband severed contact with me eight years ago…the very day after he first set eyes on you, in fact.” Her smile gained warmth. “Few women have the power over their husbands you seem to wield, yet it would appear you do not know what to do with it. Go to him, my dear. Use the knowledge I have given you. And be happy.”

  * * * *

  Cressida was borne home by a very weary looking John the coachman and let into the house by a rather crumpled looking housemaid. She’d never been out so late on her own, but while she felt guilty, she felt not the least bit tired.

  Nervous energy and anticipation bolstered her. She hurried up the stairs and, at the landing, hesitated as to whether she’d turn right to Justin’s apartments or left, to hers.

  She was still clutching Madame Zirelli’s little writing desk. She needed to put that down somewhere. Also, she wanted to make some discreet improvements to her appearance because…

  It mattered.

  The details of Madame Zirelli’s story were not important. Not right at this moment, because Madame Zirelli’s tragedy had occurred in the past, and neither Justin nor Cressida could help her, though Justin had done what had been asked of him. Cressida was saddened and moved by the woman’s story and grateful, too, that Madame Zirelli had shared it with Cressida in order to help her. Now it was time for Cressida to help herself. Madame Zirelli had given her the tools.

  Cressida moved the candlestick that her maid had lit beside her bed to her dressing table. She’d told the girl not to wait up for her, assuming when she left for the night that Justin could perform the necessaries of undressing the lady of the house.