Devotion

by Meg Kerr

  “I am quite well,” she replied, making a forceful effort to recover herself. Nevertheless she burst into tears again as she spoke, and for a time could not utter another word. At length however she managed to say, “He will not be forgot, he will live in my memory always.” With a stronger voice she added, “I have received this solace, of seeing where he lies.”

  “I am grieved for you indeed,” said Amaury in a voice infused with such sincerity, that in spite of herself Georgiana was a little distracted from her pain.

  With gentle urgency he assisted her to return to her conveyance, which was now freed from the mud and turned around. He handed her into it to join Mrs. Younge, but finding that he could not leave her without some further speech he quietly assured her of his readiness to perform any service for her and again expressed his sorrow for her loss. Then with one intense parting look he stood back to allow the carriage to proceed.

  Georgiana as the carriage drove off was ashamed, really ashamed, of having been overcome so in the presence of a stranger, but at the same time she felt herself much affected by his attitude towards her, which his behaviour had made apparent. She took it as proof of his warm and kind heart. The turmoil of her reflections, both on Wickham and on Amaury, made her feel unequal to the catechism she feared Mrs. Younge intended carrying out, and she turned her gaze to the window as they drove back to their hotel. Once there she hurried away to her room knowing that it would take an hour or more of solitude and rest to restore her.

  Amaury watched Georgiana’s vehicle until it was out of sight, and then began walking along the muddy track as if heedless of where he was. He could not contemplate their tryst without emotions so diverse and so powerful, that he knew not which prevailed, and he had far from recovered himself when the elderly mourner stepped out of their carriage and advanced towards him.

  “I could not bide longer in there. Who was those ladies, Johnny?”

  Amaury, seeing that the departing coach was well out of earshot, drew a smile from somewhere and said, “Molly, I have a plan.”

  “I’ve never known you be without a plan,” said Molly, raising her veil. “What is it this time?”

  Uncovered, the elderly lady was a distractingly beautiful young woman: the most critical esthete would have experienced the greatest difficulty in finding a fault with her. Who had ever seen such skin, so smooth and fine! a delicate transparent brown, and uncommonly brilliant with the bloom of youth; her hazle eyes were large and well-shaped, and there was a spirit in them that could not be glimpsed without creating delight. Her rich brown hair just peeped out a little under her rusty black bonnet. Her figure was perfectly formed; her smile sweet and attractive; her voice low and musical; and her face held the clearest promise of good temper.

  Molly Lyon was the daughter of a farmer. When she was sixteen, affection and promises had subjugated virtue, and she had been seduced by a young gentleman who took her to London and established her there. This seducer, however, had left her, after a year, in utmost hardship, with no home and no friends, and she had soon accepted the assurances of a second gentleman, thus sinking deeper into a life of sin. He was a well-meaning man and she had lived with him for two years, but being an English officer he had been called to the Continent to repel the advancing French army, and had been among those who lost their lives on the field of Waterloo. She was left in Brussels without any legacy for her maintenance, and her fate then had been harsh. Grim poverty had obliged her to take action for her immediate relief, and surrender herself. It was thus that she had made the acquaintance of John Amaury, and had consented to be taken under his protection even knowing that the young man had little enough for himself. She was nearly illiterate, the only education she had received being that connected with the life she had led since withdrawing from her father’s house. But she was intelligent and perceptive, and although her manners were not refined they were nonetheless beguiling.

  At the moment Amaury appeared strangely unmoved by her beauty, which had dazzled many another man. His gaze followed the retreating carriage. “My plan, Molly, is to make that young lady my wife.”

  She looked so astonished, that he was obliged to repeat what he had said, and more seriously. His companion gazed at him and at last said. “What a lucky girl! There’s a match for her – how glad her family will be!”

  Sounding a little more himself he replied, “It is a most eligible match for me, as to fortune. But I have only a few days or a week to win her; though if I cannot achieve my end within a week, she must have an indestructible constitution.”

  Molly studied his visage, and then said, “What about us?”

  Amaury regarded her with a dispassionate air. “Would it not be better for us, for both of us, to break off our relationship?”

  A suspicion of his having such thoughts had never been far from her mind, and she heard his words almost without surprise. Nevertheless she spoke sadly. “Sometimes I think so. Then at other times I cannot stand the thought of it.” She made a long pause and then asked gravely, “Will you not marry me, Johnny?”

  “I have told you before I will not.”

  “But we are good company together, an’t we Johnny?”

  “You are not what I want in a wife. The young lady whom I am going to marry does not have all your beauty, but still she is lovely, and she has birth, education and manners, all the advantages of connexion, and a wealthy family besides.” Imbuing his tone with greater earnestness he continued, “You have the means to find a rich man. If we stay together we will both be poor forever.”

  “What has wealth to do with happiness?” said Molly harshly.

  “A great deal, in my experience. It is the best recipe for achieving it.”

  “Johnny, for shame! Money can only give happiness when there is nothing else to give it.”

  “Well, I have nothing and you have nothing.”

  She turned away from him almost angrily but he took her by the shoulders and softly forced her to behold him. “If we part, I predict your happiness just as much as I desire it. One day you will have a rich husband.”

  Another woman might have pleaded her point longer, but Molly knew Amaury too well. She had no difficulty believing that her own entreaties would not in any way move him, or that neither the young lady’s virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling easy prey to him. Without attempting any farther remonstrance therefore, accepting her own fate and leaving Georgiana to hers, she re-entered the carriage.

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  CHAPTER

  9

  Brussels, February 1816

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  That evening Mrs. Younge had ordered dinner in the hotel and she and Georgiana descended to the dining room at seven o’clock. They had not long been served, and were speaking little to each other, when John Amaury appeared in the doorway.

  Almost very female eye was turned to him on his entrance, but accustomed as he was to receiving the admiration of women, he took no notice, glancing about the room only long enough to identify the table at which Mrs. Younge and Georgiana were seated. He made his way towards it.

  Mrs. Younge’s greeting could not have more strongly expressed her desire to recognize him as an acquaintance, but Georgiana was nearly overcome with confusion at his approach, and when he reached them she instinctively turned her head away, receiving his civil enquiries with a discomfiture impossible to disguise. She dared not lift her eyes to his. There was nothing to puzzle the brain in that, for to her natural shyness had been added not only the consciousness of a young lady when addressed, without forewarning, by a handsome young man, but also the embarrassment of their previous meeting. What was remarkable was Amaury’s lack
of ease. To his chagrin, the sight of Georgiana deprived his mind of its habitual composure and discipline. He stood by the table with a heightened complexion, attempting to ask the conventional questions but forming inarticulate sentences in a way that increased both his and her feelings of awkwardness. As Georgiana said nothing in reply and as he heard but did not listen to Mrs. Younge’s comments he was none the wiser for his queries. He could soon think of nothing to do but bow and withdraw.

  Georgiana could not determine whether she thought his retreat too soon or not soon enough; but he was immediately called back by Mrs. Younge’s invitation to eat his dinner with them. The possibility of the young man’s taking a meal with them provoked even more disturbing sensations, and Amaury himself looked as if he did not know how to react. This was precisely the case, even though he and Mrs. Younge had earlier arranged the matter between them, but he was so convincingly urged by Mrs. Younge that after a moment or two he sat down at her side. Georgiana did not think she could countermand the invitation, and had not resolution or courage enough to rise and depart, and she therefore said and did nothing; but her spirit was deeply afflicted.

  On his being seated, an uncomfortable interval succeeded while Mrs. Younge gave him the opportunity to open a conversation, thinking that he would best know how to show himself to advantage. He was at all ordinary times not wanting in the self-possession required to speak to any one with confidence, but at this instant he could not do it. He had not enough for the demands of the occasion, was not able to feign the poise required for empty chatter. Something prevented it – whether cognizance of his own wrongdoing or, perhaps more likely, the simple presence of Georgiana.

  The silence was broken by Mrs. Younge, who, perplexed at not getting her pennyworth for her penny, now endeavoured to introduce some kind of discourse with him, variously trying the weather, the landmarks of the city, and the amenities of the hotel, but his words declared the distraction of his thoughts, for he answered her in a random and disconnected fashion. Mrs. Younge’s astonishment at his behaviour was extreme, and she was continually repeating to herself, “Why is he so altered? What is the cause?” She was alarmed that the change would put their scheme in jeopardy, for it hardly seemed likely that Georgiana would fall in love with a bumpkin who could not speak two intelligible sentences together, be he never so handsome. A blistering glance from Mrs. Younge at last brought home to Amaury the absolute necessity of mastering himself. With a struggle he called his intellect to order and began to uphold his side of the dialogue. Not a look, not a monosyllable did Georgiana contribute, for anxiety that he might speak to her. All her attention was seemingly for her plate; she appeared determined to be interested by nothing else, even though she hardly touched the food on it and would, indeed, for all her downcast look, have been unable to say what lay beneath her knife and fork. The degree of nourishment that Amaury might extract from her manner would have seemed non-existent to an impartial observer, but a kind of instinct prevented him from misinterpreting the averted eyes and motionless tongue. If he needed more than his own love to warm hope, her aloofness did not at any rate cool it.

  Mrs. Younge was impatient for the two young people to become acquainted – or rather, for Georgiana to become acquainted with the tempting portrait of Amaury that she and he had concocted – therefore she prodded Amaury to talk of the circumstances of his happening to be in Brussels. With her supporting interrogatories he informed them that he was paying a visit to a friend, M. de Mérode, with whose family his own had a long-standing tie, but as de Mérode’s wife and children were gone to Spa their house was shut up and he was forced to stop at an hotel.

  Mrs. Younge, with a significant look at Georgiana, said to Amaury, “I believe this hotel will be a favourite of yours, from now on.” Georgiana blushed painfully at this vulgar comment, and even Amaury reddened a little. Mrs. Younge was not in the least disheartened by the reception with which her witticism had met and like a veteran campaigner quickly fired off another shot. “Are not the de Mérodes a great family hereabouts? I believe that M. de Mérode is a Grand Marshall, is he not?” She intended to elicit the details of Amaury’s pretended connections in Brussels and such an opening could not in the regular course have been wasted on him. He had a practised facility for disclosing affiliations with the wealthy and titled, which had served him well in his trade. Nevertheless he now could not bring himself to deceive Georgiana quite so directly. He felt a sudden revulsion for the tactics of duplicity. “The elder M. de Mérode,” was the full reply he made.

  It had not been Mrs. Younge’s plan to charm Georgiana with a young man who was completely tongue-tied, and she was becoming increasingly irritated with her colleague. With some determination she therefore continued, “Have you been much in Brussels?”

  Amaury simply nodded an affirmative, and the conversation halted once again.

  Most unexpectedly Georgiana said, in a timid voice, “Were you here – then?”

  Amaury had no need of further particulars as to the time of which she was asking, and a sudden pang of jealousy pricked him. The knowledge that Georgiana’s first feelings had already been given, and that her question showed that she was thinking not of him but of Wickham, inhibited him from saying more than, “Yes, Miss Darcy.”

  Georgiana would have hung on his words had he enlarged on this statement; but she had not the audacity for persistence. Mrs. Younge thought she saw the danger of allowing Georgiana’s mind to dwell on Wickham and she was quick to change the subject. “I believe the de Mérodes have a castle at Westerlo,” she said firmly as she pulled apart a squab. “It is in the guide-book. As an intimate friend of the family you must have stayed there, I suppose?”

  “Where?” said Amaury.

  “Westerlo,” said Mrs. Younge.

  “Oh. Westerlo. It has some fine paintings and tapestries.” Then intrepidly he asked, “Do you like to look at paintings, Miss Darcy?” Georgiana did not dare to return more than a reserved affirmative, and he did not make a further attempt to engage her on another theme, but allowed Mrs. Younge to lead him.

  One may become inured to almost any situation with length of exposure, and Georgiana grew more composed the longer Amaury talked with Mrs. Younge and showed no sign of desiring to address her again, an action of which she understood the solicitude. As she could not render herself deaf, she was forced to listen to their conversation; she perceived that he spoke well, and appeared to be knowledgeable. After a time she began to wish for the resolve to insert a word herself, and although such fortitude is not bestowed for the mere wishing, she gradually found she could raise her glance from the cloth until it was suddenly resting on his face. The weight of her gaze instantly drew his notice upon her and she quickly lowered it and blushed; but it had been enough to give him encouragement. Indeed it gave him a little more than encouragement, in the manner that a hail of bullets directed towards a soldier might be said to have a stimulative effect. His heart gave a leap that stopped his voice and drove the words he was speaking completely out of his thoughts, and a colour that matched Georgiana’s own spread over his features.

  It was in the silence that now descended upon the table that Mrs. Younge realized to her confoundment that Amaury had fallen prodigiously in love with Georgiana. She was instantly deluged by a potent mixture of shock and indignation. What right had this young man to transform her commercial venture into a matter for his own entertainment? As a woman of business, however, she did not long allow annoyance to occupy her. The same instant that had revealed to her Amaury’s emotions had also showed a responsiveness in Georgiana, a sensitivity to his interest in her, that she thought had a favourable look, and so she determined to take the assault a little deeper into the opponent’s territory.

  “Mr. Amaury, what part of England do you come from? I do not believe you have told us.”

  To reduce his contemplations to the level of such a pedestrian enquiry was temporarily beyond Amau
ry’s ability. But Mrs. Younge dispensed this application for information with such a look as she thought must either slay him or restore him to his senses, and it was no more than handful of seconds before he replied, “Kent. My family live in Kent.”

  As she had given up expecting much assistance from Amaury she did not wait any great length of time before asking, “An old family, I suppose? Your name seems to suggest it.”

  He gave her a rote response. “My father comes from a line that, although untitled, is as ancient as the Darcys.”

  “Do you perhaps know Lady Catherine de Bourgh, of Rosings Park in Hunsford?”

  “My parents were long acquainted with Sir Lewis and Lady Catherine.” Amaury’s ignorance of Lady Catherine, Rosings Park and indeed of all of Kent was in fact comprehensive and unclouded, or had been so prior to his discussion with Mrs. Younge on the evening before. She had had the idea of increasing Georgiana’s comfort with Amaury as a connexion of her own family.

  Georgiana had no desire to talk about Lady Catherine. She was still angry with her for her inconsiderate remarks about Wickham – although why she would expect Lady Catherine to show consideration for Wickham when she showed none for any one else in the world must be left as a topic for private speculation. Nevertheless, the allusion to Amaury’s acquaintance with her family, although not having the anticipated consequence, in fact worked on some hidden latch and enabled her finally to speak more freely. Nerving herself, she asked, “Mr. Amaury, can you tell me – can you tell me anything about it, about the battle? I would very much like to hear something about it from one who was nearly present, in the wish of knowing more about what passed and – and what our brave soldiers endured.”