The Strange Adventures of H

by Sarah Burton

  “What is the reason that you use me so inhumanly, Dollie? You must know that I am consumedly in love.” He had grasped my hands between his and was now squeezing them unmercifully. “I am furiously in love. Up to the ears. I stand on thorns.”

  “Jasper, stop this nonsense at once!” I confess he had my bones rattling. Apart from feeling most uncomfortable at Jasper’s outburst of ardour, I was afraid my sister would return at any moment.

  “No! By Hector, it is you who must stop!” he almost shouted, then seeming to collect himself, laid his finger gently to my lips, and added in a softer tone, “Prithee hold your peace a little till I have done.” Shocked and surprised into submission, I allowed myself to be led to the couch and sat down. Jasper knelt beside me. “The first glance you cast upon this poor soul, your servant, leapt straight into my heart with a… ” Here he stopped and seemed to search for the word. “… with a tickling kind of pain. That little kind of scurvy pain has remained there ever since. Nothing will make me happy my dear sweet Dollie until you agree to be mine, mine exclusively, only mine. And now I have my fortune and can do as I please, I want to reserve and keep you all to myself.”

  “I see,” I said thinking fast. “I will have to have time, Jasper, to think about this. You know I already have a keeper.” And already my mind was racing ahead, calculating whether I could make Jasper become my keeper – or at least let him think that he was – and how much I could get of him, and how long it might take to persuade him to settle an independent income on me, indentured for life, and how long I would have to put up with him before I could jump ship, and when, perhaps, I could finally retire. And so my mind ran on…

  “Stone the crows and shoot the ravens, Dollie! I don’t mean to keep you, dear heart! I mean to marry you!”

  For a moment I was dumbstruck, and then my throat emitted a sharp sound, somewhere between a shout of laughter and a scream.

  “Have you been in the sun without your hat?” I eventually asked, searching Jasper’s face for signs of insanity. He looked excited and rather flushed, but not, so far as I could tell, deranged.

  “I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I will attract the scorn of society by marrying a… lady of your calling. You may be right. I have examined my heart on this score and have discovered the amazing truth: I don’t care. I honestly, truly, do not care what the world thinks. You may be the arrantest whore that ever wore a petticoat, but I’m dying of love for you, and I would have you for my wife.”

  “I… I… I… ” I could not find the words to express my astonishment and I realised I was trembling.

  Jasper reached into his pocket and I prayed he would not produce a ring on the spot. “Here’s the best softener of a woman’s heart!” he said, and emptied a purse of gold coins into my lap. “Two hundred pieces, and plenty more to come! Come, kiss me Dollie, and seal the bargain.” And he proceeded to smother me in kisses, pushing me backwards on the couch.

  At that moment Janey came in, and quickly taking in the scene, tried to prevent Diana following her through the door, but it was too late.

  To my sister, in common with most modest women, appearances are everything, and certainly more to be trusted to, in the long view, than mere facts. Despite the unusual circumstance that she had come into the room on one of the rare occasions that a quite legitimate act was taking place – that is to say, that Jasper was proposing marriage to me – the presence of gold tumbling from my lap and the familiarity which my suitor took with my person all added to the doubts she had begun to entertain as to the character of my household, and confirmed beyond question that I was a woman of the lowest and loosest kind. As soon as Janey had succeeded in bundling Jasper out of the house, Diana opened her attack.

  Her angry reaction was driven in the first place by fear: fear of her association with me, and what the world, and especially her husband, would make of it. Were he to discover that she had been residing in a house of wickedness, she declared, his power over her would be boundless: he would hold her reputation in his hands and could damn her to social Purgatory at the moment of his choosing. Her emotions ran back and forth between angry recriminations and expressions of self-pity: my thoughtless actions had made it impossible for her to remain under my roof – her one place of safety – and she should have to return to her husband immediately. She repeated the old saw, which I began to find most tiresome, though true, that once a woman’s character is stained not all the water in the Thames will wash it clean, and I did not argue with her, except to beg her not to go back to Mr Pincher, who had shown her such unconscionable cruelty, but instead to take refuge with Aunt Madge, whom Godfrey had said was improving, but this suggestion brought forth a most unexpected tirade.

  “Aunt Madge,” she sneered, “I suspect is no better than she should be.”

  “Diana!” I exclaimed, horrified at where this madness was leading.

  “Why did she not inform us you were alive and well? Why did she not apprise us of your whereabouts? Because she knew! She knows not only where you are, but what you are!”

  “This is not true, Diana! She does not know! Aunt Madge is innocent of any wrong!”

  “Ho! You must think me an easy fool, H. Her secretary – if indeed that is what he is, for I begin to form a nasty sneaking suspicion as to his true position in her retinue – he knew! He brought me straight here!”

  “It does not follow that Aunt Madge knows! Godfrey is my… my… special friend.”

  The sneer this statement drew from my sister was indescribably horrible.

  “Your special playhouse friend! Don’t think I don’t know about you and your dancing lessons! I know what you are!”

  I did not know what to say. What could I say?

  “I am going to pack,” said Diana, and swept out haughtily, only to return a few moments later, looking a little foolish, for of course she had nothing to pack. “Good-bye,” she said with a stiffness that precluded any kind of embrace or token of affection passing between us, “and may God have mercy on you, for the world will not.”

  “Diana!” I caught hold of her hand as she turned to go. “Don’t tell your husband you have been here. He cannot find it out himself. Say you have been with Aunt Madge – he believes you there, or he would not have sent the letter. I swear she is beyond reproach.”

  “You live a life of falsehood and now you would draw me in and have me lie too?” asked Diana.

  “It is only for your own good,” I said. “I am truly sorry Diana.”

  “So am I,” she said, and was gone.

  I went into the kitchen to look for some comfort from Janey, but was most displeased to find William’s footman there again, and Janey flushed with pleasure and guilty-seeming. I had neither the energy nor appetite for a confrontation, and went out again feeling worse than ever. My life was unravelling from both ends.

  I lay on my bed considering what could be done and was a little cheered in the remembrance that tomorrow was Sunday, and Kat as well as Godfrey were coming to eat dinner with us. They would be full of good counsel.

  63

  In the event, no one was interested in Diana. Janey and Godfrey had pitied but not liked her, and Kat, who only knew her by repute, declared that if she valued her good name above her health and happiness, that was entirely her concern and I should not trouble myself about it. As to my infamy being carried to the rest of my siblings, they did not comprehend why I cared. Was it not years since I had seen them? And was it likely I would ever see them again? What did their opinion matter? I thought carefully on this. I realised that my craving for Clarissa and Diana’s good opinion was childish, but still the mere thought of Clarissa and Reverend Grimwade’s chilly, damning gaze made me shiver. But I should certainly have liked to see Grace and Frances again, and had every intention of doing so, now that I had an idea where they lived.

  There again, Kat pointed out, if Grace and Frances had sunk so low in Diana’s estimation, would they judge me so harshly? I pondered this
and agreed that no, they possibly would not, as I would not judge them. Godfrey then observed that he knew I valued Aunt Madge’s ignorance of my condition of life, but he believed she would rather know I lived at any rate, and in any case the rest of my family never saw her. “But you have not told them the most important thing!” said Janey.

  “What most important thing?” I asked.

  “The Earl!” she prompted.

  “What owl?” asked Godfrey, mystified.

  “Earl, cloth-ears! Her faithful servant, the Viscount Jasper,” Janey announced, “is come into his earldom and wants to marry her!”

  There was an astonished silence round the table.

  “Fuck me, H!” said Godfrey at last.

  “Godfrey!” chided Janey, for Mary was playing with her doll under the table.

  Kat raised her glass and laughed slightly hysterically.

  “May I wish you good cheer of your most amazing good fortune, H! You deserve it.”

  “Fuck me,” said Godfrey again, under his breath, and they all drank to me.

  “Hold, hold! Not so fast!” I exclaimed. “I have not agreed.”

  Kat looked utterly confounded and Godfrey choked on his wine.

  “Incredible ain’t it?” Janey said to them. “Madam don’t know whether she wants to marry an earl, if you please.”

  Kat and Godfrey stared at me as though I had gone stark staring mad.

  “Well! To be obliged to live with such a fool!” I objected. “With his ‘slit me breeches!’ and his ‘kiss me bollocks!’ Imagine waking up every morning to hear the idiot lying next to me shout: ‘Damn me if it ain’t Miss Dollie!’ What thought or fancy could make my hours supportable with such a bafflegab?”

  “Why, a thousand acres and ten thousand pounds a year, H!” cried Janey. “Take hold of that and then of what you will!”

  “Besides, he might die, and leave you rich, and then do as you please!” added Kat hopefully.

  “Money isn’t everything!” I caught myself saying. They all stared at me again.

  “I begin to think we should carry you to Bedlam and chain you up until you come back to your senses,” sighed Janey.

  “I cannot credit this, H,” said Godfrey. “What possible objection could you have to such an offer? He behaves well towards you, does he not? He does not abuse you?”

  “Oh, he dotes on her,” Janey averred. “He always has. They’d live like doves.”

  “So what is it, H?” demanded Godfrey.

  “Can you see me as a silly, pretty household thing?” I asked. “Paying and receiving visits from ladies? Passing the endless hours of leisure with trivialities? Occupying my time in the assassination of characters and the murdering of reputations?”

  “Not all ladies are such arrant bitches,” insisted Kat. “You may find a friend. Perhaps even a gentleman friend, who may help your hours pass more tolerably.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that to Jasper,” I said.

  They all stared at me agape again.

  “Not if we were married,” I added.

  “Pfffff!” said Janey, standing up to clear the plates away. “I don’t know what’s got into you, I don’t. This is your chance to get out of the game, to be rich, to be happy. You’ll never get a better offer. So what you waiting for?”

  What was I waiting for? All I knew was that Charlie’s face inconveniently invaded my thoughts whenever I did not work hard enough on banishing it.

  “Would you really see me a wife?” I found myself pleading. “Yes, now Jasper makes me his queen, his mistress, but soon enough I’d be his slave. We know – of all people we know – what men truly think of their wives. They swear at the altar they will be kind to none beside their bride, and soon enough they are kind to everyone but her. What do I offer up to gain all his acres? I sell my liberty, my freedom, my very self.”

  “To speak plainly, H, what else do you sell, nightly, but yourself?” inquired Godfrey. “What’s the difference – except that this is a safer, more enduring bargain?”

  “My freedom!” I cried.

  “Your freedom to do what, may I ask?” chimed in Janey. “Your freedom to open your legs to anyone who can pay your price?”

  “Yes, if it comes to that! My freedom to say yes and no, where and when. My liberty to come and go when I please; to answer to no one.”

  “And when you grow old?” asked Kat, staring darkly into her glass. “What then?”

  “Then I shall have my little fortune. And Janey, and little Mary, to comfort me.”

  Here I detected Janey squirm in her seat a little.

  “A mistress is a name that implies command,” I declared. “Why should I choose to be a slave?”

  Godfrey sighed.

  “Your friends would choose to see you settled, H; that is all. This remarkable, unlooked-for offer would remove all your cares at a stroke. And think on your precious family: what a prize this marriage would be to your sisters!”

  “Ho, yes!” exclaimed Janey. “To see dear Diana’s face would be a prize itself! Oh, H, think of it: you an earless—”

  “Countess,” Kat corrected her.

  “—a countess! And your rotten sisters spitting nails!”

  “Do it,” said Godfrey, taking my hands in his, and looking as earnest as I think I ever saw him. “Marry Jasper.”

  “You realise,” I said, “it would be the end of us. Just as I am not a fit wife for an earl, you are not suitable companions for a countess.”

  A silence fell on the table.

  “Oh, I don’t know but Jasper’s a good sort,” said Janey at last, “one of your Dear Hearts. He mightn’t object to H seeing her old friends once in a while.”

  “No, Janey,” sighed Godfrey. “H is right, in this at least. She would have to let us go. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Never!” I declared.

  “Then it might be up to us,” said Kat standing up, “to let you go. For your own good.”

  “You know she’s talking sense,” said Janey gently. “If it was me what had an offer – and he wouldn’t have to be an earl or be rich – but if I had someone what loved me and wanted to make an honest woman of me and give Mary a name and make me happy, you’d let me go, wouldn’t you?” I guessed this was not merely a device of reasoning, but that William had something to do with the way her mind was working, and I think she sensed this. “I’m only saying,” she added.

  The party then broke up, somewhat to my relief, as I sorely wanted my bed. One advantage of Diana’s sudden departure and Jasper’s proposition had been to crowd out Charlie from exclusively occupying my thoughts, but as I lay in bed, he took his accustomed place, removing other cares. I looked forward with mixed sensations to the next day, for Charlie was coming to claim his ‘lesson’ and it would be our last meeting.

  64

  When Charlie arrived late the next morning, we fairly fell upon each other the moment he came through the door, leaving a trail of clothes, as Janey later disapprovingly remarked, leading to my chamber. Charlie’s love-making was intense as it was fast, but I did not mind this as he was up for several repeat performances. My emotions were in a tumult, as were his, and we laughed and wept by turns, like deranged people. We talked, loved, drank, loved, mused, loved, compressing whatever future we might have had, in some other life, into a few short hours. Neither of us wanted the day to end, so after we were exhausted to the point of being sore, we took a bath together, again to much huffing and puffing from Janey, who grumbled that she had better things to do than heat and carry water when it wasn’t even Saturday (our usual bath night), and that she hoped he was paying well, but I didn’t care, for I was with my Charlie, and nothing else mattered.

  We both fell to smiling and weeping again in the bath, though this may have been the effects of the wine we had been taking copiously, at the thought that it should be the first and last we should take together, for I think in his own way Charlie was as smitten with me as I was with him, the difference being that I had dis
covered the real folly and enduring pain in such an attachment, and believed I should go to my grave in love with someone I could never have, whereas for him it was merely his first romantic adventure.

  Out of the respect he had for the sanctity of marriage he did not even suggest pursuing our friendship after his wedding, and I should not have agreed in any case, knowing how important the marriage was to everyone, including myself, for we were bound through Lord A in a chain of financial dependence, to a greater or lesser degree. So there was not the faintest hope of this being anything but a farewell, and as is always the case with such bittersweet assignations, the hands raced almost visibly round the clock on the mantelpiece.

  After our bath we went back to bed and lay in each others’ arms, and I remember to this moment how exquisitely our bodies seemed to fit together, not as in the passionate act of fucking, which is a different kind of congress, but in soft and sweet embraces and divine encirclings, as if we had been made originally from one piece of flesh and only happened to be divided into two people, and had at last found our original fellow half. When one of us moved, the other moved after, so that we were always in some way connected. I think I have never experienced a sensation so close to complete and perfect contentment, nor so deep an appreciation of the power of human intimacy, and I wished we could stay there, entwined for ever. I guessed the feeling approached what it was like to be married to a husband you really loved, and who really loved you back, and that you could have this bliss every night, just as a matter of course, so that you even might take it for granted. As Charlie drifted into sleep beside me I let fall tears of gratitude to God for affording a sinner such as myself this insight into pure and true happiness.

  But the evening which began almost as a beautiful dream turned in an instant to a living nightmare, for when I awoke it was dark, Janey was shrieking my name in shrill panic and Lord A stood over the bed, having ripped off the bedclothes, waking Charlie and myself in confusion. I do not know how I had forgot my appointment with Lord A, as in the morning I had remembered it, but then Charlie and the wine… I had not intended to sleep for so long, and now I awoke to an utterly horrible reality.