The Devil's Daughter

by Marguerite Bell

  Lady Fanny explained for Harriet’s benefit that they were part of a wardrobe originally intended for the daughter of a favoured customer who had been obliged to leave London before the purchases were ready, and had later changed her mind about them. And by some fortunate chance they were exactly Harriet’s size.

  Then the saleswoman brought forth a selection of pelisses which had also been designed for the same young lady, and Lady Fanny selected one of grey Berlin silk and another in dark blue velvet. At another emporium they purchased half-boots, kid slippers, some very fine silk stockings, and two enchanting bonnets; and at yet another they acquired gloves and shawls. Harriet simply could not believe that all these items were to be worn by herself, and in any case she considered the number of purchases vastly in excess of her needs. When Lady Fanny instructed that the goods were all to be charged to her various accounts she found the courage to protest with some vehemence, but Lady Fanny pinched her cheek and ordered her to forget all about the matter and to take pride instead in her new possessions.

  “Believe me, my dear, you are going to create quite a sensation when you make your appearance in all this splendid new finery,” she assured her. And when my brother Bruce claps eyes on you in that beguiling bonnet with the rose velvet lining you will have him falling at your feet.”

  Harriet looked even more anxious.

  “But I would not wish Lord Bruce to fall at my feet,” she protested. “I consider that he has suffered enough in the service of his country and I would not wish him to—to conceive any ideas about me.”

  Lady Fanny smiled at her.

  “Do you not think it possible that he has already conceived ideas about you?”

  “I—I hope not.”

  “Meaning that that empty sleeve of his offends you?”

  “No, no, of course not! But I am Verbena’s governess, and as such he will surely see me...?”

  “Why, yes, of course, my dear,” Lady Fanny soothed her, and gave instructions to her coachman to carry them back to Hill Street.

  The next morning the dressmaker arrived, and Harriet spent hours standing in front of her in the schoolroom which had been set aside for the use of herself and Verbena, submitting to pins being stuck into her and having her waist pinched in and her shoulders held back by force whenever she displayed a tendency to droop. The dressmaker, a pleasant little woman who plainly delighted in her craft, was very enthusiastic and promised all the dresses within such a short time that Harriet wondered whether she was going to sit up all night and work on them; but Lady Fanny seemed to think it perfectly normal and rational and understandable that the dressmaker should be prepared to damage her eyesight in the interests of anyone connected with such an eminent personage as the Duke of Coltsfoot’s only daughter. And as Harriet was a guest in her house an aura of importance began to surround her, too, which did not make her feel entirely happy.

  She did feel better a few days later when Verbena arrived from the country. Verbena, from whom she had been parted, for what now seemed to be an excessively long time, was so delighted by the reunion that she hugged her continuously for several minutes, and declared that she had been terrified lest she was never going to see Harriet again. The child was very pretty and had engaging ways, and even Lady Fanny seemed to take to her. Once more she lamented that if the girl had only been a little older she could have done so much for her, but since she was obliged to take an interest in her and had undertaken on her brother’s behalf to supervise her upbringing it was very much in Verbena’s favour that she was presentable and that she, Fanny, need not feel in the least ashamed of her.

  Once some expenditure had been devoted to seeing her suitably attired, she would be prepared to take her up in her own carriage when driving in the park, and if the two boys were as happily manageable then they were welcome to stay with her whenever they were not engaged with their studies.

  But for the first few days after Verbena’s arrival in Hill Street studies were set aside and Lady Fanny encouraged Harriet to take the child about and let her see a little of the great city, about which she must often have felt curious when living in such a rural county as Sussex. A carriage was placed at their disposal, and the coachman had instructions to take them for drives in the park, and to such edifices as the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Verbena was a little afraid of the dimness of the cathedral, but she was rather more intrigued by the Tower of London, and particularly the boats on the river which it overlooked. She loved the high-stepping horses which carried them in style through the park, and hoped that one day her brother Robert might purchase just such a team, and perhaps also a pony for herself—this after she had admired the ladies riding side-saddle in the park, and been considerably intrigued, despite her youth, by the gentlemen who escorted them.

  Beside her on the seat of the carriage was an enormous doll, dressed in the very height of fashion, which was her very dearest possession, and which Harriet had been astonished to learn had been presented to her by the Marquis of Capel when he had apparently taken it into his head to visit Lowthan Hall and his three wards after Harriet had departed from Hollowthorne. He must have gone there immediately, Harriet realised. Apparently the Duke had not accompanied him, so he must have ridden over alone from Coltsfoot.

  Verbena had been so much impressed by him that she did not need to be pressed for her opinion concerning him when Harriet enquired. She declared rapturously that she had thought he was “very much kinder than Papa”, and that in addition to the doll, he had presented her with boxes of sugared confections and some satin ribbons for her hair, and he had promised her a brand-new dress for her birthday, and a pair of high kid boots like those which the daughter of their nearest neighbour already possessed. He had promised Ferdie a new fishing line and his own hunter before the summer was over, and Robert was to acquire a handsome new gun and his own sitting-room at Oxford.

  According to Verbena the boys had been as much taken with their guardian, about whom they had always been intensely curious, as she was herself, and they no longer felt in the least apprehensive about his handling of their affairs, at any rate until Robert came of age. Robert was frankly not looking forward to responsibility so he was perfectly happy about an arrangement whereby the Marquis made his decisions about his young sister’s upbringing and his young brother’s future education. Apparently both boys had voted him a regular “out-and-outer”, in addition to being much impressed by his elegance and dandyism which they considered entitled him to be known as “a Corinthian of Corinthians”. Robert was already striving to emulate the manner in which he tied his cravat, without much success, and Ferdie had decided to make a supreme effort to resemble him as closely as possible when he reached his advanced years.

  And as for Verbena, she thought him “so much handsomer than Papa,” and quite as generous. And as the late Sir Willoughby had indulged his only daughter to such an extent that those near to them had considered he would ruin her character altogether if he continued with so much indulgence, this was quite an admission.

  Hugging her doll in her arms and gazing out of the carriage windows with entranced eyes, Verbena added yet another titbit of information to Harriet, confessing happily that the Marquis had promised to invite her to stay with him before very long.

  “When he is married,” she added. “He is to marry a very beautiful lady before very long, and I am to spend at least a part of every year with them when they are staying in the country. And I shall have a lot of new dresses which I am to choose myself, and a large nursery where there will be other children I can play with, and our governess will be someone very kind whom I shall like very much indeed—almost as much as I like you,” giving Harriet’s hand a squeeze. “Do you think that Lord Capel is thinking of you, Miss Yorke? When I asked him he smiled and said I would have to wait and find out.”

  “Did—did he say that?” Harriet enquired, rather faintly.

  “Oh, yes. And when I told him I would rather have
you than anyone else he said it was just possible that you, too, would be getting married. But you’re not, are you? You’re not going to get married and go away and leave me again?”

  “I have no intention of doing anything of the kind at the moment, or indeed in the foreseeable future,” Harriet reassured her.

  “And does “foreseeable future” mean that you won’t ever get married?”

  “I think it is very likely that that is what it could mean.”

  “Then Cook must be right,” Verbena exclaimed with satisfaction, “for when you went off to London and didn’t come back she said that of course you would come back sooner or later for governesses had to earn their living, and what else would you do if you didn’t return to Lowthan Hall? She didn’t seem to think you would get married.”

  “She must have been looking at the tea-leaves again,” Harriet replied, absentmindedly watching one small dog chasing another across the open spaces of the park.

  Lord Bruce arrived in London a few days later, and presented himself in Hill Street. He had smartened himself up so very considerably that Harriet was quite amazed. In place of his country attire he wore a new bright blue coat and well-fitting pantaloons, and he looked as if he had just left the hands of a really experienced valet, which must mean, she thought, that he had established himself in some temporary headquarters in the capital and was proposing to lead a very different kind of life from that which he had led in the country.

  In confirmation of her assumption, Lord Bruce admitted that he had no plans to return to Hollowthorne immediately.

  Since he was of no further use in the Army he had decided to try a different style of living, and his sister had suggested he should shun solitude for a while and take an interest in Society. He had never previously been interested in Society but—damn it all!—he wasn’t a helpless cripple just because he had lost an arm, and who knew what the future might have in store for him if he ceased bemoaning his lot? He recognised that he wasn’t the only one who had suffered at Waterloo, and that there were a number of people in the world who wouldn’t despise him.

  He looked with such open admiration at Harriet that, although she stammered in agreement, she felt acutely uncomfortable as a result of his arrival. She was wearing one of her new grey silk dresses, and with her chestnut curls caught modishly up on to the top of her head and secured there with a velvet ribbon—an attempt on the part of Lady Fanny’s maid to turn her into a fashionable young woman—she presented an appearance of charming sophistication which might well have overcome an Army officer who had once been accustomed to meeting many pretty ladies but had been denied that pleasure for so long. His capacity for recognising exceptional merit was as sharp as ever and Lord Bruce had been hit in a very vulnerable spot the moment he met the limpid greenness of Harriet’s clear gaze.

  He accepted an invitation from his sister to stay to dinner, and afterwards he arranged to collect Harriet and Verbena the following day and take them on another expedition to discover more of the sights of London.

  Verbena thoroughly enjoyed the outing, but Harriet was left feeling a trifle fatigued. She had already seen Madame Tussaud’s wax museum on two previous occasions, and she was not as enthusiastic about the Royal Mint as she might have been, although it certainly proved instructive to her charge. They went on to stand beneath the whispering gallery in St. Paul’s, and explored a narrow network of streets in the heart of the City, which left them feeling distinctly footsore. The following day, since Lady Fanny insisted on it, Lord Bruce again escorted them, and this time it was Lord Elgin’s collection of marbles at Burlington House which was the highlight of their morning’s entertainment. This proved highly diverting to Harriet, although she privately considered it was not an ideally suitable exhibition for a child fresh from the country, particularly in the company of a comparatively unknown gentleman. In the afternoon they went on to the British Museum which once again was instructive, and after that, because Verbena particularly desired it, they returned to the Tower of London, where Lord Bruce took pains to explain to the child as many details as he could recollect about the princes who had been incarcerated there, and the ravens that haunted Tower Green.

  Verbena’s eyes grew wide and fascinated as she listened, and Harriet was a little afraid she might have nightmares that night, but nothing of the kind occurred.

  After that expedition even Lord Bruce was limping more noticeably than he usually did, and this provided Harriet with a perfectly sound excuse for refusing his escort the next day. In addition to that the dressmaker was once more visiting them, this time to create a wardrobe for Verbena, who was highly excited by the prospect of possessing many new dresses in pretty muslins and ginghams. So Lord Bruce went off, not entirely depressed, to begin a round of his clubs and hitherto neglected acquaintance. But before he did so he exacted a promise from Lady Fanny that she would allow him to make up a party for the theatre, which would of course include Harriet, and which would be followed by supper at one of the more discreet restaurants, the popularity of which he could vouch for.

  Harriet wore her pale blue satin for the theatre outing, and as it was her first experience of sitting in a box and being viewed with open interest by the people sitting opposite she found it a little disconcerting, particularly as the other members of her own party did much the same thing from time to time. Lady Fanny had insisted on lending Harriet a pearl necklace, and provided her with a little pearl-handled fan with which to deflect the glances of the curious when they became overwhelming. Lord Bruce, sitting beside her, stared fixedly at her throughout the performance. In his opinion, the shimmer on her chestnut hair from the subdued lighting and the lustre of the pearls nestling against her creamy throat were far more fascinating and deserving of his attention than the actors who preened and postured before them.

  Harriet thoroughly enjoyed the play, but she would have enjoyed it still more if Lord Bruce had not been so attentive. At supper afterwards he was even more so since champagne was served and Harriet, quite unaccustomed to it, merely sipped at hers, while everyone else drank liberally. Lady Fanny beamed, as if everything about the evening was entirely satisfactory to her, and whenever her eyes encountered Harriet’s the latter became convinced they were sparkling with both secret amusement and genuine pleasure. When Lord Bruce left them in Hill Street he said that he would call upon them the following morning, and his sister replied immediately that naturally he would remain and take a light luncheon with them. He could escort Miss Yorke to the park, and there was a little shop in Bond Street where she could match her new kid slippers with gloves of exactly the same hue.

  “I am sure she will be delighted if you will accompany her there,” she said.

  But Harriet protested immediately:

  “But, ma’am, have you forgotten that Verbena is being fitted for her new pelisse? And Miss Frobisher has not enough silk for the redingote she is to make for her—I was proposing to visit the silk warehouse and see if a match can be obtained.” Lady Fanny shrugged dismissingly.

  “Nonsense, my dear, Miss Frobisher can attend to all that. It will be much pleasanter in the park.”

  Harriet turned away, alarmed for the first time because it seemed to her—indeed, it was becoming increasingly clear—that her life was being taken over and that she was being allowed less and less freedom to make her own decisions. Since leaving Lowthan Hall so much had happened to her that she was more than a little bewildered, and when she met Lord Bruce’s eyes—honest and brown and appealing—she began to feel genuinely frightened. His admiration for her was so very transparent, that Lady Fanny approved of his admiring her, so that unless she was very strong-minded| she might find herself whirled into a situation from which there would be no possibility of escape.

  She thought of the Marquis of Capel and although he was probably miles away her lips started to bum at the memory of his kisses. But astonishingly enough that recollection was a salutary thing, and she heard herself stammering awkwardly, “Of
course, ma’am, if—if Lord Bruce is prepared to devote to me so much of his time.”

  Lord Bruce bowed, and regarded her with faint reproach. “As if, Miss Yorke, I could do anything else,” he said with reproach in his voice as well.

  For the next two weeks he was a constant caller in Hill Street, and although Harriet now received remuneration for looking after Verbena and supervising her daily lessons and walks and other diversions, she was constantly deprived of the opportunity to carry out these duties faithfully in a manner which satisfied her conscience. There was always a housemaid to take over most functions (apart, that is, from the lessons), and even the cook obliged by entertaining Miss Verbena in the kitchen. This meant that the child was regaled with indigestible cakes and tarts and home-made orange cordial while Cook indulged her weakness for highly-priced tea and determined the pattern her future was to take by studying the tea-leaves left at the bottom of her cup. On more than one occasion she offered to perform this service for Harriet, who refused, while rebelling inwardly because the orderly walk to watch the riders in the Row, or the ladies in their carriages, was denied her. Lord Bruce almost inevitably arrived whenever she was planning to set forth after a reviving shower of rain or in the pleasant warmth of an early summer evening, either to act as her escort or to detain her in the library for a talk, which he endeavoured to make as intimate as possible, concerning the manner in which she was passing her time.

  And even if she succeeded in avoiding him in Hill Street she was bound to encounter him in Piccadilly, or in the Green Park, or in a favourite bookshop, or even on one occasion while choosing ribbons for Lady Fanny in a fascinating emporium in Bond Street which she had visited previously in her charge.