Eliza’s Daughter (17 page)

Hurriedly, feeling like an interloper, I jotted down the addresses from the title-pages of various novels. (Why did not Elinor borrow some of them? Surely Marianne could have not the slightest objection?)

As I closed the first volume of
Evelina,
a paper fell out from between the pages.

It was a drawing – a pencil portrait by the same hand that had created many of the pictures on the walls.—It was a portrait of a man, a young man with dark hair, brilliant black eyes, a sensitive mouth and a handsome, lofty forehead partially concealed by a soft windblown lock of hair.—I found myself studying this unexpected trove with a strange intensity. The fact that it had been tucked away between the pages of a book, rather than displayed in a frame on the wall, seemed to suggest that it had a special significance for its owner. Could it be Colonel Brandon? But no, his likeness, along with that of his wife, hung in the rectory parlour; Colonel Brandon's hair was brown, not black, and somewhat receding; his eyes were of a greyish tint, not dark and sparkling; so this could not even be a portrait of him at a younger age. Besides, Marianne had not
known
him at a younger age; he had already been five-and-thirty, Elinor told me, when her sister met him. And I was sure the likeness had been taken by the hand of Marianne, it resembled the portraits of Elinor and Mrs Dashwood on the walls.—No, this was certainly not Colonel Brandon. I peered more closely at the drawing, to see if any further clue to the identity of the handsome stranger might be discovered, and was almost able to convince myself that I detected a hastily scratched letter W among the ruffles of the cuff at the foot. Had the Dashwood sisters any acquaintance whose name began with a W? I would ask Elinor, if I found a suitable opportunity. I found in myself a strange, an eager curiosity to know the identity of this person – among other reasons, because he bore a certain resemblance to my dear Mr Sam.—Then I laughed at myself, returning the portrait to its hiding-place. Descrying a resemblance to Mr Sam had put me in trouble once already.

Running downstairs, hastily, like a thief, I made for Colonel Brandon's business room. It was here, Edward Ferrars had told me, that maps were kept.

On my way I passed the cellar entrance. ‘You might,' Edward Ferrars had observed, stiffly, ‘you might, if you are up at the Manor, be so obliging as to check the cellars, to ascertain that flood-water has not seeped in. Do not omit to provide yourself with a candle.'

So – provided with candle – I checked the cellars. No flood-water, but wall after wall, rack upon rack of dusty bottles up to the brick-vaulted ceiling. Port, claret, Malaga. Constantia. Cognac. Diabolino. Why in the world, I wondered, when the village was dying from the effects of drinking filthy water, had not Edward Ferrars availed himself of this plenty?

I had half a mind to carry a couple of bottles back for the comfort and benefit of myself and Elinor. In the old Byblow Bottom days I would have done so without a second thought.

What prevented me? Some buried prohibition. I could not analyse it.

Up the stone steps again, blowing out the candle, I found my way into the large cold orderly office, with its big table and its maps, from which Colonel Brandon superintended the running of his property. It was so bleak, so dull, and yet it gave me a curious sense of comfort and security. In such a room as this, I thought, I too could run a business and feel useful.

Then, for the second time, I was brought up short.

For on the wall, behind the bare desk, hung two miniature oval portraits, framed in simple twists of gold. The pictures, at first glimpse, appeared to be of the same girl; until one realized that the two had different-coloured hair. One, with a serious countenance, was dark, like the portrait of Marianne Dashwood in the rectory; the other, Titian-coloured, smiling, could have been myself! I gazed at it for many minutes in total astonishment; then swiftly picked out the required maps, shut the business-room door and, trembling, crept away down the sloping drive and back to the parsonage.

There I discovered a most unwonted state of affairs.

Elinor, who for the past few days had risen and dressed herself in the afternoon, but still remained upstairs, had now ventured below and established herself in the parlour. Edward had returned home unusually early from his parish duties, and was with her. And they were in the midst of an argument.

‘I tell you, once and for all, I will not countenance it,' I heard him say, coldly and flatly. ‘It would be wholly unbecoming. No right-minded person who is in any way connected with a clergyman in holy orders ought to be capable of even entertaining such an improper – such an ambition.'

He stopped short as I came round the screen which I had installed in order to prevent the worst draughts from blowing from the front door straight through the house to the kitchen.

‘Oh. It is you. You are back,' he observed needlessly. ‘I see that you found the maps; I hope they are the right ones. Mr Grisewood's messenger is waiting in the kitchen. You had best take them to him directly.'

When I came back from doing so, Edward had gone out into the garden, slamming the door behind him, as was his wont. He could be seen through the window, digging with great difficulty in the wet and heavy soil.

I said: ‘Cousin Elinor, you are not warmly enough dressed. You are shivering. Wait, and I will fetch you a thicker shawl. And the fire wants mending.'

Edward Ferrars, like most men, was incapable of maintaining a decent blaze. His frugality permitted no more than a handful of smouldering sticks. When I had fetched warmer wrappings (observing with concern that the calico gown Elinor had put on might have been made for somebody twice her girth) and had coaxed the fire into a mild radiance, I said, ‘I brought the addresses you asked for.'

She sighed. Her fine, careworn face did not change its expression. After a moment she answered, ‘I am afraid it was a wasted errand. Mr Ferrars will not consider such a scheme.'

‘
He forbade
you?'

My blood boiled within me. For two pins I would have run out into the garden and launched a furious tirade against the man, as he dug there, doggedly, in the cold wind. What right had he to frustrate his wife's efforts? When they were intended for the benefit of both?

Elinor was going on soberly: ‘Edward, you see, has family in London. His mother – a wealthy society lady; his brother, his sister-in-law. They would not care for it to be known that any connection of theirs could be involved in such an activity as writing novels. And he is – he is a man of the cloth –'

‘There is nothing wrong in writing a novel! Think of Fanny Burney! She is a lady-in-waiting at Court – so I have heard.'

‘That would be no recommendation to Mr Ferrars.'

‘You could publish anonymously. “By a lady”. Many do that.'

‘Yes,' she said doubtfully. ‘But how would I convey the novel to the publisher? Or engage in correspondence? And I do not think I could – no, I could not – run flat counter to Edward's wishes.'

‘But it is unfair!'

She gave me a long, candid look from her grey eyes, which seemed larger because of the shadowed hollows in which they were deeply sunk.

‘All of Edward's life has been so very unfair, Eliza. He was the elder son of a wealthy parent, and yet, because of a wilful, vindictive act by his . . . by a member of his family, he received only a younger son's portion, and a penurious portion at that. If it had not been for Colonel Brandon's bounty, we should be beggars, Edward and I. And – and Edward finds it excessively hard, at any time, to accept favours.
I
do not repine at our situation here in Delaford, because I am so very fond of Marianne. She and I have no secrets from one another, and there can be no envy or rancour between us. Never, never. But Edward and the Colonel have – have little in common, except for a sense of rectitude. It grates on Edward to be obliged, continually, to receive aid and indulgences from the Manor. Just in order to survive.'

And not so many of them, I thought. Now I was sorry that I had not brought that bottle of Constantia wine.

‘Indulgence? What indulgence does he receive? He works harder than any bailiff.'

‘Eliza, it is no use. I am sorry now that I raised the subject. Let us talk of something else.'

I was longing to ask her who the young man might be – the subject of the portrait hidden between the pages of
Evelina.
But now some scruple prevented me. The handsome young man was Marianne's secret, not mine; I could not betray her confidence.

So I said instead: ‘Cousin Elinor, who are the young ladies – one with dark hair, one of them with m-my c-colouring – in the two miniatures that hang on the wall above the desk in Colonel Brandon's business room?'

Elinor appeared startled to death. ‘I have never been in that room – ' she began. ‘I never had occasion to – when I was at the Manor – ' talking rapidly, I could see, to bridge the gap while her thoughts raced. For it was plain that even if she had not been in the room, had not seen the miniatures, she knew, or could easily make a guess as to whom the subjects of those two portraits must be.

‘One of them was s-so like me!' I stammered. ‘Cousin Elinor, could she – could she have been my mother? And – if so – who was the other one? Were they sisters?'

There followed a silence. Then she said, ‘Eliza, I am sorry. I am not at liberty to answer your questions. You will have to address them to Colonel Brandon.'

‘But how can I? He is not here!'

The door slammed. Edward Ferrars had come back into the house. We could hear him impatiently scraping his shoes with the brush by the kitchen door. Then he entered the parlour, wiping the wet off his hair.

‘It rains too hard to work outside any more. And there is somebody riding this way along the Bath road.' He frowned. ‘It looks like Mrs Jebb's servant Thomas.'

In many ways, I was happy enough to be driving back to Bath with Thomas, catching a glimpse here and there of daffodils in cottage gardens, or a clump of primroses budding under a hedge.

Nobody enjoys feeling unwelcome, and I had felt so, more and more, latterly, in the presence of Edward Ferrars. His cold eye was singularly reluctant to meet mine; always a bad sign; I had heard him say several times to Elinor, ‘Surely we can manage without her now? You and Mrs Ashcott can surely manage?' when he thought I was out of hearing. Which filled me with impotent rage, because I knew that Elinor would never contradict him, though she was still far from having made a return to complete health. I knew that without my vigilant eye about the house, fires would dwindle and die into ashes, linen would go unwashed, and evil-smelling little dishes of left-over food would begin to proliferate again in the larder, and would reappear on the dining-table as apologies for meals, because nobody in the kitchen had the resolution or the inventiveness to concoct more nourishing fare.

I had grown fond of Elinor, and believed that she deserved better at life's hands than lonely privation shared with a gloomy, disappointed man. Learning that her daughter Nell had travelled south with the Lauderdales, and was again in their mansion in Berkeley Square, I seized the opportunity, when Elinor wrote to her, of enclosing a short note of my own, stating in firm terms that it was Nell's plain duty to come down to Delaford for a period and take some of the burden off her mother's shoulders.

(Meddling in other people's affairs has never yet brought me any advantage – or them either, in general; but I never seem able to remind myself, beforehand, of this melancholy truth.)

In honest fact, I was glad to be leaving Delaford. I had grown very weary of the continual stench of mud, soaked thatch, and rotting vegetables. I had missed my music (the Ferrars' piano, after standing for ten days in half an inch of water, would never be the same again), the singing, the teaching – even my lazy pupils. I had missed Mrs Jebb's tart, hard-headed company, and the friendly gatherings in the kitchen with Mrs Rachel, Pullett and Thomas. Strange as it may seem, I had even missed Pug.

But the tidings of the New King Street household, now imparted by Thomas, filled me with dismay and apprehension.

‘Why I made bold for to come and fetch ye, Miss Liza,' he explained as we drove along. ‘Missus ain't been her old self, not nohow, since ye went away.—Or, to put it otherly – she
have
been her owd self.'

Thomas always found it difficult to express himself without laborious beating of the air. He had to drop the reins and clench his fists; luckily the horses were old and meek. ‘She've been the same way she were before, when she were Took.'

By ‘Took' I knew he meant the time when she was committed to Ilchester jail for eight months awaiting trial for theft.

‘What was she like then, Thomas?'

‘Bad.' He shook his head many times. ‘On the loddy. Brandy, too. Mr Jebb, poor gentleman, he couldn't abide it, but there were no way to ease her mind, no way at all, save she kept on with the loddy. And, Lord bless ye! what a deal she did use to take! Two quarts a week, in double-distilled brandy. Made her right dull and dazed-like, I can tell ee, for days on end. Then – after it was brought in Not Guilty – she pulled herself up, like, and come right to rightabouts. But now – and it's a fair trouble to us in the kitchen – she'm back on it agen, Miss Liza. I got to keep fetching her more and more from Mr Watkyns.'

Mr Watkyns was the druggist who kept the pharmacy on the corner of Cheap and Union Streets.

‘Oh, the devil, Thomas! Is she dull now, and dazed-like?'

‘Terrible, if you'll believe me, Miss. I and Rachel and Pullett just hope that you can someway fetch her out of it.'

Well, I thought, with the confidence of youth, and why not? I had made myself thoroughly useful in Delaford, why not in Bath?

But the first sight of Mrs Jebb was enough to strike chill into my heart. And, previous to that, another trifling occurrence had disconcerted me very much: as I alit from the chaise in New King Street, taking great care not to jolt a basket of eggs I had brought from Delaford, I came face-to-face with Mrs Busby, chief of Mrs Jebb's whist-playing cronies. To my dismay, she drew herself up, turned her face sharply away from me, and puttered hurriedly on down the street.

‘What's amiss with her?' I demanded of Thomas.

He looked troubled, but said, ‘Pullett'll tell ye, Miss,' leading the horses away to the livery stable.

Pullett said, ‘Go and see Missis first, love. And after, I'll tell ye.'

So I went to see Mrs Jebb, who lay on the sofa in her parlour, with the shades pulled half down.

Her greeting was a compound of bitterness and sarcasm.

‘Humph. So you've deigned to come back, hey? Grown tired of your virtuous kin? Hey? Or did they show you the door?'

The heavy lids drooped over her eyes – which seemed to have diminished in size, slanting upwards like those of an oriental. Her face was leaden-pale, and her mouth set in a wry twist, as if she were prepared to disbelieve my answer, even before spoken.

I said: ‘Ma'am, I am sorry to see you in such poor case. I had hoped to find you out of doors, enjoying this pleasant spring day.'

‘Hah! A fine chance of that I'd have, when all my friends give me the go-by. Show myself in the street? You'd think I had the pestilence!'

A dismal suspicion stirred in my breast. During the hard-driven weeks at Delaford, my encounter with Harry ffinch-ffrench and his friends had sunk to the bottom of my mind. Other matters were of greater moment. But was that wretched affair not lost to view, as I had fondly hoped?

‘Is all this
my
fault, ma'am?'

She went off at a tangent – as was often her way when she wished to administer a reprimand – launching into a mumbled tirade against cocksure, self-seeking, puffed-up folk who thought of nothing but displaying themselves in public even when their talents were nothing out of the common, and who required fine clothes and bedizenments – vanity, vanity – outrageous vanity. And to what end? For the applause of a lot of old quizzes, Puts, and fud-duds.

I saw that, while she was in this frame, there was no sense in opposing her with rational argument or excuses. She wished to castigate me – well then, let her, if it did her good.

‘Ma'am, I believe you are hungry,' I said – for this was often the case, when she fell into this cantankerous mood – ‘Let me fetch you a biscuit and a glass of Constantia.'

‘Hah! You think to soft-soap me, girl. Well, you won't!' But she drank the wine when Pullett brought it – the biscuit she impatiently waved away – then sank into a sudden heavy sleep, which alarmed me, for she lay so very inert, snoring loudly.

My heart was heavy. This return was not at all what I had anticipated.

***

And the goodbye to Elinor had been surprisingly painful.

‘I shall miss you, Eliza,' she had admitted – rare words from Elinor, who never alluded to her own feelings. ‘I wish
you
were my daughter.' And she laid her hand gently on the farewell present I had made her – a muff I had contrived – clumsily enough – from an old remnant of horsehair blanket, with the hair still on the outside, and lined internally with sheepswool from the hedges. It was a poor enough sort of gift, but I had noticed that her hands were always cold; she had a trick of tucking them into her armpits.

‘And I wish, very much, Cousin Elinor, that you were my mother.' (But not that Edward Ferrars were my father, I thought. Perhaps it was due to his bleak parentage that Nell had become such a pattern of selfishness and spite?)

‘As to your own mother,' Elinor said hurriedly, ‘my very best advice to you, Eliza, is not to speculate about her. There can be no profit – none, none! – in any conjectures – rather the reverse. Put her entirely out of your mind. That is my most earnest counsel. There – I hear Edward calling. Goodbye, child. You have been such a comfort to me – run along.'

She had raised the clumsy muff to cover her shaking mouth.

‘Goodbye, Cousin Elinor. I – I hope that we meet again soon.'

But a brief gesture of her head seemed to deny any such possibility.

***

By the holy mistletoe, I thought furiously, women lead miserable, driven lives. And why? There is poor Elinor, frozen and half-starved all because of the stupid pride and illiberality of that block she chose to marry; and here is Mrs Jebb, who has friends, a house of her own and a comfortable competence, yet cast into such a state of distress, perhaps, by an act of injustice that did not even
happen.

If that is what had led to her condition?

I sought the company of Pullett, who was in my bedroom putting away my clothes.

‘Lord bless ye, Miss Liza, what a state your chemises be in! Anyone can see there was no fine laundress at Delaford.'

‘Why, you see, I had to wear one on top of another, in order not to freeze to death. And there was only cold water for washing. But, Pullett, what in the
world
has happened to Mrs Jebb? And where is Pug?'

‘Someone smashed his head in with a brick,' said Pullett, tight-lipped. ‘My belief, it was that Wetherell from the draper's store.'

‘Why? Why would he do such a thing?'

‘To put a fright on Missis. He'll not let up on her. He still hopes to prove she took his goods. And – trouble is – she've been in the shop a couple more times – when she can give me or Thomas the slip – to turn over the things on the counter and tease him. She have a fair streak of wickedness, the Missis – there's no denying. And when she's a bit glum-spirited – why, then, the wickedness come out uppermost.'

I found it hard not to sympathize with Mrs Jebb. Wetherell was such a tallowy, bracket-faced fellow. But I could see the provocation on both sides.

‘And what about Mrs Busby? Why did she give me the cold shoulder?'

Pullett looked even more troubled. ‘Well, Miss, there's been sad tales going around since ye left Bath.'

‘About me? Was it that wretched business with Lord Harry and his mates?'

She nodded unhappily. ‘Yes, love. Seems that young – well, I won't soil my mouth with the word – seems he went up to London and spread the tale about that he and his cullies had all tumbled ye, in the beeches. And he carried off your shawl to prove it.'

‘In London? But who knows or cares about me in London?'

Then, with a sinking heart, I remembered Nell Ferrars and the Lauderdales.

‘And the word come back to here. So, I'm feared, Miss,' Pullett went on, with a nod towards the mantelshelf, ‘that they won't have ye no more, up at Mrs Haslam's. And Mrs Jebb's friends have all fallen off, too.'

I had not noticed the letter leaning against the candlestick. My hands shook with anger as I opened and read the single page.

‘Yes; you are right. This is my quittance from Miss Orrincourt. What a fool I was, to think it would all blow over so readily. But why should Mrs Jebb's friends fall away because of me? I can leave her house – I will do so directly – why should she suffer for my errors?'

‘No, no, don't leave her, love. That'd be as much as to say the story was true. Besides, Rachel and Thomas and me, we just about reckon as how you be madam's only hope.'

‘Oh, no, Pullett! Don't say so! She wasn't at all happy to see me.'

‘Nay, that scolding's only her way, Miss. She missed ye sore. If
you
can't get her off the laudanum, Miss Liza, nobody can.'

Pullett gathered up an armful of bedraggled muslins and left me.

I went over dejectedly to the sill, and looked out. Beechen Cliff, the scene of my reputed defloration, looked green and verdant. A thrush sang loud trills in a garden nearby. If only those gossips knew half the real truth about me, I thought sourly. How much more ammunition they would have for their spiteful onslaughts. I looked over towards the distant hills where Byblow Bottom lay, and remembered my first arrival in Bath, when I had sorrowed and yearned for Triz and Lady Hariot and Mr Bill and Mr Sam. Where were those friends now? Lost! Irretrievably lost!

I remembered lines by Mr Bill:

Poor Outcast! return; to receive thee once more

The house of thy father will open its door

And thou once again in thy plain russet gown

May'st hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.

If only my father's house
might
open its doors to me, I thought, how gladly would I dart between them and disembarrass my friends of my inconvenient presence. But where was that house?

No: that was the wish of a coward. Pullett and Rachel were placing their dependence on me. They hoped that I could restore Mrs Jebb's spirits.—But to what end, poor woman? Her friends had deserted her, Mr Wetherell was persecuting her; it seemed to me that she had fair justification for wishing to dull her senses with laudanum. Why try to drag her back to a sharper awareness of all these ills?

Squaring my shoulders, I walked downstairs.

***

Life in New King Street for the next three weeks was decidedly odd. I spent most of my time playing cribbage with Mrs Jebb. Going out of doors during the hours of daylight was not advisable. It was too uncomfortable. So many people in Bath – from the school, from the concerts – knew me well that I could not go as far as the chemist's shop on the corner without encountering a raised eyebrow, a hastily unfurled fan, an averted profile or an open sneer. What irked me more than all was the need to maintain control, not to retaliate in kind, not to hurl a Byblow Bottom expletive after these credulous scandal-carriers.

But that would only injure Mrs Jebb. As to myself, I cared little. The very moment that she was back on her feet, I intended to shake the dust of Bath off my own. My next destination remained for the moment uncertain; perhaps to Plymouth, to sell soap to sailors; or to Lisbon, to seek out little Triz and Lady Hariot; or, possibly, to London-town, to follow my fortune. Hoby was there; he had done poorly in some Tripos examination at Cambridge, and his father had accordingly found him a post in a government office.