Keeping Faith

by Beverley Oakley

  But in terms of reinforcing to Lady Vernon that Faith was making inroads into her task of winning Crispin’s heart for Mrs Gedge’s evil plans, it was ideal.

  “Mr Westaway seemed reluctant to relinquish you in order to meet Lord Athlone.”

  “He loves me.” Faith paused in the midst of pulling the pins from her hair and viewed Lady Vernon with interest in the reflection of the looking glass. “Madly, deeply, unreasonably.” She smiled. “I have him,” she added slowly. “Are you pleased? After all, you’ll get your money now.”

  “My loyalty is towards Mrs Gedge. I was more concerned that her three-year investment in you should be adequately repaid. Her desire to see justice done through you is more important to me than the pin money I shall receive to compensate me for the dreary time I’ve had chaperoning you about the place.” Lady Vernon smoothed her black skirts over her knees. “You have to break his heart now, of course. That is, once you’ve proved beyond a doubt that you do have his heart.”

  “A pile of letters. You didn’t guess, did you?” Faith hugged herself. She wanted to pretend ingenuousness. It would be her defence. Lady Vernon mustn’t know that Faith was secretly plotting to forgo her own payment in order to disappear from the country without trace.

  Lady Vernon sent her a glance laced with suspicion. “And how will you break his heart? You never actually discussed that part, did you?”

  Faith shrugged. “He wants to run away with me. I shall disappear. With my money. With the money Mrs Gedge has promised me, and that is my payment for working for her for three years with the end agreement being all or nothing.” Faith shook her hair free and wandered to the window. She stared out at the sun. “Mrs Gedge will have all the evidence she needs. Mr Westaway is a very passionate correspondent.” She sighed. “And I shall have my freedom. At last.”

  “You speak as if you’ve been under ball and chain, when most girls in your position could only dream of what you’ve had: a roof over your head, an education, fine clothes, an introduction to society, all so that you might know how to behave.”

  “Oh yes, and I’m very grateful. I’ve made the most of all that she has insisted it suits her to bestow upon me…as her slave.”

  She took a few steps into the centre of the room and presented her back to Lady Vernon so that she could help unlace her. It was good to treat the old termagant like a servant; the way she looked upon Faith.

  “So, you have no gratitude for Mrs Gedge? None for taking you out of poverty and giving you the tools to prosper?”

  “I’m grateful that I now have manners and know how to use a knife and fork properly. But not for the years I languished in a brothel where I was surrounded by nothing but misery.” She closed her eyes. “Each night it was like listening to my potential punishment. The moans of the gentlemen; the pretended cries of ecstasy of the girls—my friends—before they’d weep their eyes out and tell me everything the next morning. It was a constant reminder that that was my fate if I should fail at my task. And now I am about to fulfil it; fulfil my destiny. It is a joyous moment.”

  Lady Vernon stared at Faith as she moved around to help her remove her gown.

  “And you have no regrets?”

  Faith raised her eyebrows. “Regrets? For gaining my freedom? Why, I am fashioned in your own image, Lady Vernon. My heart is made of stone.”

  Lady Vernon turned her with a light hand on her shoulders and smiled her first real smile. At least, that’s what Faith thought it was until the woman said, “And so tonight I shall help you disappear, Faith, for of course that is the only way to fulfil Mrs Gedge’s decree, which of course is what you’ve just told me you’re in the process of doing.”

  Faith managed to smile. With every ounce of willpower, she managed to keep her mouth steady and her voice even as she replied, “You’d really do that? Help me? Though, of course, when I have the money I’m owed, I can get as far away as I want.”

  “But he would find you, and that would not be pleasant for you. It would not further Mrs Gedge’s aims. No, have no fear, Mrs Gedge knew you would succeed, and she has everything in hand. You will be spirited away to a safe house, just for a short time because, as you say, you’ve earned your freedom. But it will be necessary; I’m sure you’ll agree. For everyone concerned.”

  Faith blinked, smiled, and blinked again. She took a few steps to the bed and sat down with as much grace as she could before Lady Vernon said, “Now, where are those love letters you’ve received from Mr Westaway?” She held out her hand. “Mrs Gedge will naturally want to see evidence though I could vouch for the truth. You don’t think I’ve been as blind as I’ve pretended, do you?”

  “I have them in my escritoire. I’ll…fetch them for you in the morning. I’m very tired, you know. It has been an awfully big day.”

  “I think we should well get it over and done with, Faith. Give them to me now so that you might sleep in longer without troubling yourself over it in the morning.” Lady Vernon’s bright tone was so false Faith felt like calling her out on it, but she could not afford to unleash even a suggestion of anger; not even a hint that she was feeling suddenly beleaguered and frightened and as far from being in control as she ever had.

  She knew when she was beaten, so she forced herself to rise and took a few unsteady steps to the small writing desk in the corner of the room. They were in a bundle, tied up with red ribbon, and the very sight of them made her heart sing before it dropped like a stone to the pit of her stomach.

  What did Mrs Gedge intend doing with her? Where would she take her? No, Faith had to be prepared. She wasn’t going to go with anyone, anywhere. Except Crispin. She’d pledged her love to him, and to him she would be faithful until the end.

  When she turned, having picked up the bundle with all the reverence that such true and honest sentiment deserved, Lady Vernon was standing right behind her, hand outstretched, a speculative look in her eye.

  “Ah, just imagine…” Her own attitude was reverential as she took possession of the only testament to loving feeling Faith had ever been shown. But Faith couldn’t snatch them back. She had to be so very careful to hide her feelings. And she managed, for it’s what she’d been trained to do her entire life.

  Lady Vernon scanned the pages. She chuckled. “So, he really did fall hard for you, Faith. You were so sly I wasn’t quite sure what was happening behind my back. And behind closed bedchamber doors. I’m sure you put into practice, admirably, everything you’ve learned from all the harlots you’ve associated with these past years.” She fingered the letters, stroking them as she spoke, and all the time Faith battled the urge to fly at her, whisk them from her and scrape her across the fingers with catlike claws, if only she had them. Instead, she whispered, “That was unnecessary, Lady Vernon. It makes me wonder who, here, is the real lady.”

  “You’ve done well, Faith.”

  Mrs Gedge smiled at Faith from across the table. Pots overflowing with luxuriant foliage and crystal chandeliers endowed the room with an opulence Faith found slightly overwhelming, in much the same way she’d been overwhelmed the first time Mrs Gedge had brought her to the Dorchester a little more than three years before.

  “Not only have you blossomed into the great beauty I suspected you would become, but you also had the intelligence and cunning I saw in you when we made our acquaintance.”

  Faith smiled dutifully.

  “Furthermore, you have conducted yourself with the grace and sophistication of the most well-brought-up debutante. And yet you’ve not allowed your fancies to get away from you. No, you have shown that you have a will and determination as rigid as mine, and a heart that is just as hard.” She leaned back in her chair and put the tips of her gloved hands together as she contemplated Faith. “So, are you excited to receive your reward?”

  A little part of Faith’s heart leaped at the prospect of an independent fortune. Five hundred pounds was beyond imaginable. She could set herself up for life with careful maintenance of such a sum. And then s
he could find Crispin, and this would be her dowry.

  But that would not work anymore.

  She’d chosen love over independence, and for that, she could afford no delays.

  “Men hold the purse strings, and despite modern advances, a woman is still beholden to the males in her life for everything. Yet you, Faith, will call the shots, as they say in my country. I don’t wonder you’re excited. So very ready to break this man’s heart and claim your reward? I wonder how you plan to do that, Faith? Lady Vernon says you’ve been playing your cards very close to your chest. Well, we shall talk about it in the morning. It’s late.” She pushed back her chair, signifying that their tête-à-tête was at an end.

  “And Lady Vernon is waiting for you. She has a special surprise, too. After all, tomorrow is the beginning of a new chapter in all our lives.

  Faith had no choice but to rise when Mrs Gedge did. She was aware of the flickering interest of the other diners, for there was undeniably something arresting about the wealthy American woman that went beyond her sumptuous dress. Her greying hair gleamed beneath the bright lights of the restaurant, like the diamonds of her choker. Her ageing skin was lustrous, and her teeth were small and sharp and very white for a woman in her fifth decade.

  “Mr Westaway is basking in the glory of his sudden notoriety. He is being recognised for what he’s always wanted—his talent. If only his father would appreciate him for it, too, the young man could be no happier. But you are his compensation for the lack of family support. In you, he has found something to love that loves him back. He thinks you are his rock; his salvation.” Mrs Gedge chuckled as they wandered towards the double doors. “My Constancia could have been all that and more to him, if only he had let her. If only he’d been prepared to accept her as one of his set. But men like Mr Westaway are leery of outsiders, Faith. Outsiders like my Constancia. Outsiders like you, although he doesn’t know it yet.”

  Faith glanced from a table of diners staring at them to Mrs Gedge’s granite-like eyes. The pieces were starting to fall into place. “You sponsored the prize so he had a greater height from which to fall?”

  Mrs Gedge looked satisfied. “I did indeed, Faith. But surely you guessed that long ago. Just as you guessed at my motive.”

  “To punish Mr Westaway for not falling in love with Miss Constancia? Your daughter…” She remembered the headstrong, beautiful, often rude and thoughtless young woman she’d been employed to serve three years ago.

  “I did, Faith. Mr Westaway and Constancia were the perfect couple. But he spurned her, you know. Belittled her because she was not of his set. Oh, on first appearances he’s every young woman’s dream: handsome and charming, in line for a title and a fortune, earnest and ardent, intelligent and artistic. But at heart, he’s like all the young men of his kind—completely unwilling to accept an outsider like my Constancia, even with a grand fortune.”

  She hooked Faith’s hand in her arm and patted it in a motherly fashion as they wove their way through the restaurant. The doors opened, and the evening breeze blew in to greet them. A conveyance would soon arrive for Mrs Gedge. She would have made arrangements for Faith too, and no doubt that meant being conveyed back to Lady Vernon’s.

  But Mrs Gedge’s unkind assessment hung heavily in the air. This was not how Mr Westaway was. Faith knew that, yet how much did Mrs Gedge really know him?

  “So, Faith, tomorrow you will attend the ceremony to publicly honour Mr Westaway. You will be the shining star at his right hand, and you will be fêted and lauded. But that is not the path to freedom, Faith. You’re clever enough to know that. Only you have the power to chart your own course. And, Mr Westaway’s affections will be transient. You know that, also. He will not forgive your past and your lie. No love is that strong.” She looked fondly at Faith as her carriage drew up. “So that is why I am confident you’re going to visit me for that very large cheque I am looking forward to giving you.”

  Mrs Gedge raised her chin and adjusted the fur stole about her neck, no doubt as much to block out the cold as to hide the crepey neck which gave away her age. She squeezed the tips of Faith’s fingers lightly.

  “Enjoy your last evening together with this young man. Make him wring every last drop of joy from it, too. I shall think of you both…and the happiness that my Constancia might have enjoyed had she not died.”

  A vision of the crimson-red rose petals drifted across Faith’s mind. It was Mrs Gedge’s way of calling forth the last image Mr Westaway would have had of her. She realised that now. In a bath filled with the blood that pumped from the wrists Miss Constancia had sliced.

  On the top step outside the hotel as the wind ruffled her hair, Faith finally understood why Mrs Gedge wished for vengeance against Mr Westaway and why she’d chosen Faith.

  It had been Faith who’d shown Miss Constancia Gedge the secret entrance to the guest room that Mr Westaway would be occupying that weekend. Faith’s reward would be Miss Constancia’s gold and garnet bracelet. Miss Constancia had promised.

  Faith knew nothing of any of the guests spending the weekend with the Gedge’s, though she’d suspected Miss Constancia had lost her heart to someone on the invitation list. Why else would she ask Faith to help her to slip into a gentleman’s bedchamber wearing nothing but a diaphanous, cream silk peignoir?

  Faith was unaware of the extent to which her mistress was unhinged by her romantic entanglement—her unrequited feelings.

  But when Miss Constancia had been rejected, she’d killed herself in Mr Westaway’s own bathtub.

  Mrs Gedge was already heading towards the carriage, the doors of which had been opened by the footman standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Come along now, Faith,” Mrs Gedge exhorted her, and Faith moved forward reluctantly and took her seat inside the carriage beside her, as was clearly required.

  Patting Faith’s hand as they rounded the street corner, and the horses set off at a more even trot, the older woman said upon a sigh, “You must have guessed by now the association between my daughter, Constancia, and Mr Westaway. That I have sought to use you to avenge his poor treatment of her that led to her death.”

  Faith said nothing as she stared into the darkness, turning her head slightly to observe Mrs Gedge’s sharp-featured profile as she listened to the crackling of a piece of parchment the American drew out of her reticule and held up as they passed the glow of a street lamp.

  “I do not need to see to read the last words he penned to her.” Her tone had grown tighter, and there was a bitterness in the delivery that had been absent in her former breezy manner towards Faith.

  “I know your daughter’s death was a great blow, Mrs Gedge.” Faith chose her words with difficulty. “But she died by her own hand.” It was not the moment to declare that Mr Westaway was blameless. Mrs Gedge’s trust in Faith depended upon her belief that Faith would follow through with the long-held agreement between them.

  “My daughter believed she could do nothing else when her honour had been compromised to such a degree, that public shame and humiliation was inevitable after Mr Westaway reneged on the pledge made between them.”

  Mrs Gedge held out the letter for Faith to take while she began to relay its contents.

  “First, he told Constancia that she was charming, every man’s dream, but that he had intended marrying his childhood sweetheart upon her twenty-first birthday, which was four years hence. That is, a few months from now, Faith.”

  Faith tensed at the sympathetic hand Mrs Gedge placed briefly on her thigh before she went on. “When Constancia and Mr Westaway first met, it was like a flame was ignited in both of their hearts. I never wanted Constancia to marry an Englishman. At least, not one who had relatively few expectations and no title, when I knew that with Constancia’s fortune, she could have married a Rockefeller back in America or an earl at the very least.”

  She sent Faith a scornful look. “But Constancia was not one to listen to reason. No, not my beautiful, wilful girl. The two lovers ha
d become far too inflamed by their feelings for one another and their intention to run away together before…I don’t know what happened.” Mrs Gedge’s face was a mask of derision now. “Perhaps his ardour actually did cool overnight. Perhaps he was contacted by his childhood sweetheart and persuaded to adhere to a previous, more compelling promise which prompted this letter.” Snatching it back from Faith, she tapped it with a gloved finger. “But his words scored grooves of the deepest despair in my Constancia, and she, who obviously knew how to gain secret entrance to his chamber, and you will attest to that, Faith, I know! went there to persuade him otherwise. When he remained unmoved, she did what a young woman will do who is compromised, embarrassed…ruined.” The word was a whisper, a half hiss, a half choke, while Mrs Gedge’s face was a mask of malice. “She slit her wrists in his bathtub. Yes, Mr Westaway returned to find his former lover dead…by his hand.”

  Faith didn’t know what to say to this. She remembered that night as if it were written in indelible ink upon her brain. Mrs Gedge had come upon Faith picking up Miss Constancia’s bracelet in the young lady’s bedchamber and gazing at it with indecision. Miss Constancia had promised it to fifteen-year-old Faith in a hurried whisper if Faith could help her gain admittance to a young man’s bedchamber. There had been several young men staying at the house for that particular Friday to Saturday. Faith had not remembered seeing Mr Westaway, for she surely would have remembered him.

  Now, Mrs Gedge was declaring, not only that Mr Westaway had once been a faithless lover to her daughter, but that Mr Westaway had all but forced the young woman’s hand in taking her own life.

  “Why did you not tell me this before you instructed me on what I must do with regard to Mr Westaway?” she asked.

  “I felt that if you held him in such aversion, the naturally occurring mutual interest might be inhibited. You knew, of course, that he must be sacrificed, and you were a willing accomplice in this.”