The Strange Adventures of H

by Sarah Burton

  “And have you seen any records? Of her marriage? Of her fortune?”

  “In common with many people, as you must know, all her records were lost in the great fire. As for proof of her fortune, I am gentleman enough to take the word of a lady.”

  “Do you not see it, sir?” I cried. “She could be anybody!”

  “Even assuming your fairytale were true, why on earth would this woman wish to marry Charlie?” he demanded.

  “I would guess that you have rather over-represented your own fortune in this case,” I said, not unkindly, and Lord A had the decency to blush a little, “and that she looks merely for an easy husband, a comfortable life and, in the long view, a title and a fortune. It is not such a strange ambition for a young woman.”

  “And what about you, H? Do you not want the same things? Is not all this nonsense prompted by you wanting to snare my nephew?”

  “Now there I have the moral advantage,” I replied, smiling a little sadly. “I appear to be the only one that knows there is no fortune, on either side. I never intended to see Charlie again, certainly not after his marriage. But I do love him; I cannot deny it and I cannot help it, and I cannot bear to see him enter into a marriage that will make his life a misery. I want him to be happy. That is all.”

  Lord A seemed to think for a while. Finally he said, “I do not now think you mean us harm, H, or that you are moved by vengeful reasons. But I think you are mistaken. However, you have warned me of what you believe to be a real threat to us. You have discharged what you perceive as your duty. Now please let the matter rest.”

  This, I recognised, meant he intended to do nothing to prevent the marriage.

  “Allow me to offer one final solution,” I said. “You sought this marriage purely for financial reasons, did you not? To save your estate?” He nodded ruefully. “What does she bring, then? Twenty, thirty thousand pounds?”

  Lord A laughed.

  “I wish it were so! Six, I believe, all told.”

  “I will give you the money,” I said. This was my trump card.

  Lord A said nothing for a moment as a strange expression came over his face, of having discovered a terrible truth.

  “Dear God,” he said huskily, and I perceived tears welled in his eyes. “You do love him. And it has made you mad.” And he left without another word.

  67

  I had deliberately remained calm during my last interview with Lord A as I did not want him to suspect that I still fully intended to stop the wedding if he did not stop it himself. If he were on the lookout for me I could find myself ejected from the church – perhaps even carried forcibly to a madhouse – before I had had the chance to act. Janey was also keeping a close eye on me, so I tried to appear normal, though I was extremely apprehensive at the thought of what I intended to do. Though even dear Nell had once suggested I might make an actress, because of my seeming confidence, I had been so shaken by the whole affair with Charlie that I pondered whether I would be able to stand up in church and speak in front of everybody. I had lost so much belief in myself that I began to wonder whether I really was insane, or at least a little unbalanced. The face I saw in my looking glass seemed a stranger to me, and bore a relation to myself that was at once distant and familiar, like a sister I had never met.

  I set forth early in the morning so as to give Janey the slip. I walked for a long time before the city was properly awake, and it reminded me how the city had seemed during the plague year, with few people about, except that London now lacked the neglected, closed appearance it had then had. Also, in the early-risers, the milkmaids carrying their pails into the city and the carters bringing in their produce, there was the promise of the bustle, activity and business of the day ahead, which I had missed in the dead days of plague. This gave me courage, for it brought home to me how things could transform themselves, how my life had at other times seemed hopeless or miserable, but how fortune’s wheel had turned again for me, and I now had a home, and money and a little family of sorts in Janey and Mary. Still, every time I rehearsed the speech I was to make, I shuddered, and felt quite ill with nervousness, and at those moments would have exchanged places with someone going to have a tooth pulled. I watched the sun rising over the river and consoled myself with the thought, as Evelyn had taught me to do when I was indeed once going to have a tooth pulled, that before it was high in the sky my ordeal would be over and I could get on.

  Charlie had mentioned the name of the church and I knew the wedding was due to happen at ten o’clock, so I installed myself in an ordinary over the road, took a table in the window where I had a clear view, and ordered up a fine breakfast, for which I had a good appetite after my walk, which was spoiled only by some disagreeable coffee which tasted of soot and cinders.

  The wedding party arrived just on the stroke of ten. I had decided to wait until the ceremony had begun before going into the church, thinking that if I went in quietly, they would be too engrossed in the service to notice me, and besides would have their backs to me. And so it proved. I was surprised there were not more people there – no one, of course, on Sylvia’s side, but a rather portly maid of honour who stood beside her – and only Lord A, his wife and two elderly relations, as I supposed them, on Charlie’s.

  They had clearly got off to a late start, for the priest only now began with “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God” and all that, words I had heard my father intone countless times. Lady A suddenly turned round, searching in a little bag and then drawing out a handkerchief. I noted what a sweet face she had, and Lord A had indeed said she had a most kindly and affectionate disposition, though she had a strong dislike for anything carnal, which was why he visited me, and it suddenly struck me that the revelation about Sylvia I was about to make would inevitably lead to other revelations. This sweet-faced lady would doubtless learn that for several years her husband had been regularly visiting a prostitute, otherwise what was my connection to the family? And even if he managed to muddy the waters concerning this… But I had no time to think, for the priest was already at the third cause of marriage, and after that… Before I could think what to do I heard the words: “Therefore if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.” I was shaking from head to toe and discovered I could not stand. The silence extended, as though giving me time to pull myself together. In my anxiety I dropped my prayer book. Only Sylvia turned round to see whence the noise came, and quickly turned back, and then the vicar began speaking again. No matter, I knew there was a second opportunity, despite the business of holding my peace for ever if I did not speak now. There was definitely a second opportunity, I felt sure I remembered.

  But seeing her face had given me further pause for thought. This was not the angry selfish face I remembered, that had told me not to wrap my dead sister in one of the best sheets. This was the face of a hopeful young bride. Do not mistake me, it was definitely Sylvia, but it was a different Sylvia. Was Godfrey right? Was she merely making her way in the world, as I was? What right did I have to get in her way? To be brutally honest, as I now was with myself, I was not even sure that my evidence constituted a ‘just impediment’. Usually a just impediment meant a pre-existing spouse. My ‘just impediment’ was that Sylvia represented herself as other than she was. But was it a crime to claim to be a virgin, when one had had a child? (And where was that child? I wondered.) Was it a crime to change one’s name, as she was about to do, anyway? Was it a crime to claim to be an heiress to a great fortune, when one was no such thing? The truth was, I did not know. I now trembled from head to toe, felt a fool, and was in a parlous state when the second, and final, opportunity for intervention occurred.

  “I require and charge you both,” intoned the priest, “as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in M
atrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.”

  I saw Charlie turn to Sylvia, and his dear profile opposed to her most hated one redoubled my strength. I dragged myself, with an immeasurable effort, to my feet. “At which day of Marriage,” the priest continued, speeding up now, as this was so much dross to be got through, “if any man do allege and declare any impediment, why they may not be coupled together in Matrimony, by God’s law, or the laws of this Realm; and will be bound, and sufficient sureties with him, to the parties.” My head now spun as if I were drunk, and I tried to speak, but merely gaped like a fish out of water, and nothing came out but a squeak, and Lord A spun round with a most murderous expression, and I think recognised me, though I was right at the back of the church. “Or else put in a caution, to the full value of such charges as the persons to be married do thereby sustain, to prove his allegation: then the solemnisation must be deferred, until such time as the truth be tried.” The priest finished and turned the page. I think I must have fainted, for I languished in my pew gasping for air when the most astonishing intervention occurred.

  The door that I had opened so quietly was now flung open with a crash. I, and everyone else, turned to see, most astonishingly, Godfrey and another man burst into the church and march down the aisle. The other man I quickly recognised, though I had not seen him for several years, as my cousin Frederick.

  “Hold!” he called, and I think the sound of his dear voice almost made me faint again. Was I dreaming? Sylvia turned white, and drooped like a dead white flower, for of course, I had at least sense enough to realise, Frederick was the spit of her dead abandoned husband.

  “Hold!” he said again.

  He made his way to the front of the wedding party and took a good look at the swooning bride.

  “This woman is not Miss Sophia Phipps. This woman is Mrs Sylvia Hardcastle, widow of my late brother. Learn this of me as truth: she is a liar, a cheat, and as good as a murderer for her infamous conduct in our family. She is no heiress that I know of, or if she is, why has she sunk so low as to beg money from my mother, her mother-in-law, who has given her, out of human pity, an annuity merely to leave her in peace?”

  I was too transfixed by this shock to take this moment to leave, as I should have done. Frederick handed Charlie a piece of paper. “Come and see me,” he said, “and I will lay all the evidence before you.” Then they both stormed back up the aisle. Frederick threw me a casual glance, and did not seem to recognise me, but Godfrey raised his eyebrows at me, before following my cousin out.

  I left the church in a daze, while Lord A’s family attempted simultaneously to revive, question and berate Sylvia, and was overtaken only by her maid of honour, who fairly fell over me in her haste to get away, and who I now recognised as Melissa, somewhat fatter.

  68

  I felt very tired coming home and my nerves still jangled, for I had been in a state of anxiety for some days, and though the cause of the anxiety was now removed, I still felt ragged round the edges and jumpy. I wondered whether Janey would make me a bath, even though it was not Saturday, and thought she would, as she went out of her way to make me comfortable in what she considered to be my derangement. She would be as glad as I that the cause of all my disquiet was now resolved. But when I climbed the stairs to our rooms I found no sign of her. I went down again to Mrs Snags, who seemed always to be in a state of cheerful untidiness.

  “Where’s Janey?” I asked, after exchanging the usual pleasantries.

  “I don’t know, dear. She left you a message. She got me to write it down for you. Now where did I put it? Where did silly Mrs Snags put it, Mary?”

  I saw that Mary was sitting in the corner playing with Mrs Snags’s peg bag. “She has left Mary?”

  “She just asked me to take care of her until you came back. I must say she looked a picture. We’ve had our dinner, haven’t we, Mary?”

  “How long will she be gone?” I asked, panic rising in me.

  “She didn’t say, but she took a trunk with her. That footman that’s always in and out – he came for her.”

  William’s footman! She had gone off with William! I left Mrs Snags rummaging for the note and bounded back up the stairs. Janey’s best dress and bonnet were gone, but her trunk was still in her room. It did not make sense. Feeling sick to the very stomach I ran to my own room. I sank to my knees before the open cupboard door. The trunk containing our fortune had vanished.

  I heard Mrs Snags calling up the stairs and made my way unsteadily down to her.

  “Found it. Here we are.” She carried the note to the window and read: “‘Dear H, You are always saying as how I should think of myself and do what is best for me in my eyes and I have. Janey.’ And then she said you were to look after the little one, but I didn’t write that down.” She looked up. “Oh dear, you do look queer. Sit down and I’ll make you some tea. Oh look, here’s another letter for you. It came last night. I had quite forgot. Silly Mrs Snags.”

  I gathered up Mary and carried her and the letter wearily upstairs. I was still in a state of shock, I think, at the extent of Janey’s treachery. Had she taken her share of our hoard and gone without a word, it would have been a terrible blow, but to leave me without a penny! It was incredible. My misery was compounded by recognising my own foolishness in not anticipating this event. Had not Janey given me a hundred hints that she was considering leaving me for William? I should have debarred that servant of his from the house as soon as I realised what was afoot. And had I not, as she reminded me, told her over and over to put herself first and consider no one and nothing greater than her own interest? I was the author of my own misfortune, and this was the most galling of all. My throat actually ached from grief, from suppressing the sobs that I knew I could not express, for fear of never being able to stem the flow. How was Janey capable of such a thing? I asked myself repeatedly. How could she? And then I remembered with a frisson how I had once cautioned myself never to entirely trust her, when I had seen her on the stage at the King’s Playhouse, and realised what a consummate actress she really was.

  My mind continued to race. It puzzled me why she had left Mary behind, though I was glad she had, for to lose both of them would have been a loss I do not think I could have recovered from. But as well as a blessing Mary was a burden, for how could I work and look after her? Janey had left us both to starve together, I thought bitterly. Thank God, I suddenly thought, for Jasper. Now I should have to marry him, and perhaps being a countess wouldn’t be so bad as I thought. This made me smile, and then laugh, until I was crying at last.

  Mary was as tired as I, and I lay down with her on the couch and must have slept for a while, for when I came to, it was getting dark. The recollection of Janey’s desertion hit me as hard as ever, and I carried Mary to her own little bed and then realised I was hungry, for I had not eaten since my breakfast at the chop house. How very long ago that now seemed! And how far and how violently had fortune’s wheel turned in that time!

  As I lit the lamps in the kitchen, I was surprised to hear the front door opening, and footsteps running up the stairs. I could not face a visitor of any kind and considered remaining quietly in the kitchen and hoping whoever it was would go away. To my utter astonishment, Janey sailed into the kitchen, in her best dress and bonnet, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Give me great joy, H,” she shouted, “for you see before you a married woman!”

  “Janey!” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  “Where’s Mary?” she asked, taking off her bonnet and slinging it across the table.

  “Asleep,” I said, still taken aback and mystified. “What made you come back?”

  “I live here, don’t I?” she said. “Now don’t frighten me, H, by going completely off your head. What about some dinner? We should celebrate.” She took a bottle from the shelf and set about opening
it.

  “Janey, stop a minute! What’s going on? Where’s our trunk?”

  “Oh, Thomas is bringing it up,” she said. “I may say, I hoped you wouldn’t miss it.”

  Thomas was William’s footman. Why was he bringing it up? Why didn’t she think I’d miss it?

  “Janey, I don’t understand any of this. I demand an explanation. You have married William, that much I understand—”

  “William!” shrieked Janey. “Pffffffff! Not William! Thomas!”

  And at that moment, Thomas dragged the trunk into the kitchen. He took his hat off and stood in front of me looking somewhat abashed.

  “Are we forgiven, mistress?” he asked at last.

  I was lost for words. I pointed dumbly at the trunk.

  “Now, you mustn’t mind, H, but I thought it the safest thing,” said Janey. “I heard you offering to give it all away to stop your darling Charlie marrying that woman. Now, I couldn’t risk that, could I? You haven’t been quite right in the head, have you? Now, no, don’t take on so, H. No tears now, please. This should be a happy day, shouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes!” I cried and embraced them both. “A most happy day!”

  69

  Happily married couples, I have observed, never seem to feel the need to stop and wonder what it is that makes them fit together comfortably, but when things go awry, they can give you a dozen reasons why. Happiness, perhaps, does not bear close examination. Evelyn once told me about the centipede who was asked how she walked: as soon as she thought about it she fell over. I believe happiness is the same. It is simply the state of things not going wrong.

  The morning after the wedding that wasn’t, and the wedding that was, I awoke with the intensest feelings of happiness because of things that hadn’t happened, rather than because of things that had. Most of all, Janey had not betrayed and abandoned me. I decided there and then, as I drank my tea in bed, with Mary babbling away, that I would stop chasing after some future imagined happiness, and stop believing that I knew, better than other people, what would make them happy, and from now on would enjoy the very real happiness I had not valued, until I believed I had lost it. As Janey had said: what was I waiting for?