Eliza’s Daughter (24 page)

But his voice carried me straight back into the past. He spoke without notes and, as I say, very rapidly, yet each word came clear as a hunting horn. Listening, I was transported in a flash to the bridge over the Ashe River. He seemed to be speaking directly to me.

He was talking about Hamlet. ‘Compare the easy language of common life in which this drama opens, with the wild wayward lyric of the opening of Macbeth . . . Then the shivery feeling, at such a time, with two eye-witnesses, of sitting down to hear a story of a ghost . . . O heaven! words are
wasted,
to those that feel and to those who do not feel the
exquisite
judgment of Shakespeare!'

I listened, rapt, as the words poured out of him in precisely the manner that I remembered – a wonderful, exhilarating, sparkling spate. This man is a genius, I thought. No question about it. He is a genius.

At the close of the lecture there was tumultuous applause. Mr Sam hardly heeded it. He gave a perfunctory sort of bow, making for the door, stumbling somewhat.

‘Do you wish to step up and speak to him, my dear?' said the Duke kindly. ‘Let us go round to the back of the stage.'

But, by the time we had done so, Mr Sam was making for the lobby of the hotel.

We pursued, and caught him close by the entrance.

‘Sir!' said the Duke. ‘Mr Coleridge! My ward, here, Miss FitzWilliam, wishes to recall herself to you.'

Mr Sam looked at me vaguely. His eyes, I saw, were darkly bloodshot and their black pupils reduced very small. He was sweating and pale as lard. His hair was lank with the sweat and greatly disordered.

‘
Sir! Mr Sam!
Don't you remember me? Back in Somerset? At Ashett? At St Lucy's church? How you and Mr Bill used to take me for walks?'

‘Ashett?' he mumbled. ‘Ashett? – No, no, I do not remember. Excuse me –' and he pushed hastily past us, and out into the gusty cold rain which was falling.

I was
quenched
with shock and disappointment. The transition from the nobility and brilliance of the lecture to abrupt, ugly reality was too severe; I held tight on to the Duke's arm, almost fainting from pain and grief.

Fortunately the Duke's coach was close at hand – he was always well served in such matters; he and Tark helped me to my place and we were soon back at the house in Dowry Square, where fires were burning, and the Duke obliged me to drink a glass of warm wine.

‘You must not blame him too much, my poor child; I have talked with his doctor, who informs me that he is suffering terribly from rheumatic heart disease and erysipelatous inflammation – not to mention the atrocious quantity of laudanum and brandy that he regularly imbibes. We should rather wonder that, in such a case, he is able to deliver a lecture
at all –
let alone such a one as we have just been privileged to hear! Bless me! How the sparks did fly. Poor fellow! Poor fellow! They say he is all to pieces. Even his friend Mr Wordsworth did not scruple to describe him as a rotten drunkard and an absolute nuisance.'

I could not sleep all that night, but tossed and turned, soaking my pillow with tears, and came to breakfast so heavy-eyed that although we had planned to stay in Bristol and hear the other seven lectures the Duke counselled against it.

‘You will only distress yourself all over again, my child. Rather return to our own library and read over the man's poetry to yourself; that, after all, still remains and will always be his monument, when he is long underground.'

‘I daresay you are right, sir,' I said faintly. And so we returned to Zoyland. (In fact, as we heard afterwards, several of the later lectures were cancelled, due to Mr Sam's ill-health.)

‘And I do not believe that the Hot-Wells have had any good effect on my gout, whatsoever,' said the Duke.

***

Not long after this, Sir John Middleton came over to Zoyland, bringing with him his cousin the elderly Mrs Dashwood – even skinnier, vaguer, paler, more fly-away as to white hair and untidy raiment than she had been when I had seen her at Delaford; but still, it seemed, clinging tenaciously to life.

‘Bless her, she likes an outing,' said Sir John comfortably – he was a burly, cheerful, red-faced man, who looked as if he would be more at ease striding through a pheasant copse than sitting in somebody's drawing room being offered sherry and biscuits. ‘And to tell truth, m'wife sometimes finds her a trifle fatiguing – m'wife's mighty close to her confinement, now, y'know, so small matters become irksome which, at an easier time, would never trouble her. Some of the old lady's little ways – her habit of talking to houses, about birds, y'know.'

‘Oh, yes, I remember,' said I. ‘When she was at Delaford –'

‘Just so! Just so!'

Mrs Dashwood was wandering about the room, ignoring the glass of ratafia which had been poured for her, crooning to herself and sometimes murmuring a few words.

‘But we hear cheerful news from my cousin Elinor,' Sir John went on, once assured that his elderly relative was doing no harm. ‘Elinor, it seems – believe it or not – has writ a book! And found some publisher fellow prepared to print it! And sport the blunt to the tune of one hundred and ten pounds! Pretty handsome, hey? And they, the publishers, are prepared, as well, to take on
five other books
that she has been scribbling away at all this time – why, bless my soul, Elinor was always such a quiet, civil-spoken lass; who would ever have expected so much inventiveness to have been fermenting away inside her head? Now, if it had been Miss Marianne, always up in the boughs over something – But Elinor! You could have knocked me down with a feather when the news came. And, if the books
take –
and these publisher fellows appear to think it altogether probable – that will make a most advantageous change in the circumstances at Delaford Rectory – which, I venture to say, have been pretty straitened. Cousin Elinor writ a very pretty letter to m'wife to say they would soon be happy to have the old lady back with them again. Young Nell's home, it seems.'

I sighed, thinking that to have Mrs Dashwood back would place yet one more burden on Elinor's shoulders. Yet she was fond of her mother; no question of that.

‘Did she say – did you gather – how
Mr
Ferrars had taken the news of his wife's authorship?' I inquired.

Sir John gave me a broad, conspiratorial grin. ‘Now
there's
a pompous, puritanical, touchy, self-regarding fellow if ever I met one,' he said. ‘Reading between the lines, y'know, I fancy he didn't like it above half. But some friend of theirs had shown the book to the printer-fellow –
not
Elinor herself, it seems – so he couldn't blame
her.
And the blunt will come in mighty handy – no question of that. Since Brandon and Mrs Marianne are still away, the Lord only knows where.'

‘My ward wishes to know, Sir John,' said the Duke, ‘whether you have any recent knowledge as to the whereabouts of her father, Willoughby, you know.'

‘Why, bless me, yes!' said Sir John. ‘Had a letter from Willoughby not above two months back. Poor devil! Poor Willoughby! Such a pleasant, good-humoured neighbour he used to be, and had the nicest little black bitch of a pointer as ever I saw.'

‘Why, sir, what has become of him?' cried I.

‘Ah, well, you see, he outran the barber, got himself gazetted, had to sell up. Came to a complete smash, and if he'd not left the country pretty smartly would have found himself in Newgate. At the last he borrowed £250 from me, but I don't regard it; I doubt I shall ever see it again,' he added to the Duke in a low voice.

‘Oh, how dreadful!' said I. ‘But what became of Miss Grey, his wife?'

‘Ah, she died, some while since. By all accounts, he didn't grieve overmuch. No, poor fellow, 'twas a false scent – full cry in the wrong direction – all his heart, all his regrets, were fixed on Miss Marianne. ‘If only I'd stayed with her,' he was wont to say to me, ‘I should be a better man now.' Mind you, I always held that to be a load of fustian; for Miss Marianne was
not
a lady to live on bread and scrape. They would have been in the basket just as soon, or even sooner, with his gaming ways, and she with no fortune to bring him.'

‘So what country is he in now, sir?'

‘Why, in the letter he writ me he said he was off to Portugal – Lisbon, I daresay. Living is cheap there, I understand, now the French have been rompé'd; and the poor deluded fellow – having picked up from some piece of gossip that Brandon and his lady proposed making a stay in Portugal on their way back from India – I truly believe that Willoughby goes there in hopes he might gain a glimpse of Mrs Marianne; though, for the matter of that, I fancy Brandon would as soon send a bullet through his chops as not. Ay, the two of them did stand up together once, to my knowledge. Fegs, Brandon has a touch of steel in him, withal he's such a quiet, mumchance sort of fellow.—And damme, after all,
he
paid to rear the other fellow's daughter all those years!'

‘Myself, Sir John!' I reminded him.

‘Ay, bless me, so you are; begging your pardon, my dear! You've no look of Willoughby, that's why I forget; Willoughby was such a black-haired, black-avised romantical sort of fellow, all the young ladies were setting their caps at him. But you, now, I dare swear, take after your mother.'

‘Yes, she is the image of her mother,' said the Duke, smiling at me fondly.

‘I always had a notion,' went on Sir John, who seldom listened to what other people said if it was more than two or three words in extent, ‘that Brandon and his lady went abroad because of Willoughby. There he was, you see, only forty miles off at Combe Magna, making it known to all and sundry that he still hankered for Mrs Marianne; what is a poor husband to do in such a case? No, depend upon it, if they knew that Willoughby had gone overseas, Brandon would bring her back in the bounce of a cracker.'

Presently the Duke took Sir John off to look at his coverts – and to converse, no doubt, in a more masculine and confidential manner; I was left to entertain Mrs Dashwood.

She was still wandering, prowling, fidgeting and gazing at my mother's water-colours.

‘There's a bird in this house,' she remarked.

‘Several, ma'am,' I said. ‘A parrot, two canaries, a goldfinch –'

‘No, no, a bird, a bird. A bird.'

She had said the same thing at Delaford, I remembered. Where there was no bird.

‘What kind of a bird, ma'am?'

‘A caged bird, a prisoner bird.' She looked at me very intently, frowningly, and yet I felt she hardly saw me at all. It seemed as if she searched for something buried deep down in my very essence.

‘My daughter Elinor, my daughter Marianne, my daughter Margaret – where are they now? Where are they? Are they well?'

‘Your daughter Elinor is well – you will surely see her soon,' I soothed the poor lady. ‘She has written a book.'

‘A book, a book?'

I picked up a volume of
Camilla
from a small table.

‘A book like this. It is called
Charlotte.
It will be published.'

She nodded, thoughtfully. I could not tell whether she understood or not. But she seemed to take in
some
intelligence.

‘And Margaret?'

‘Up in London. Enjoying the pleasures of society,' I said, though I doubted if this was the case.

‘And Marianne? My beautiful Marianne?' Her voice trembled.

‘She is with her husband – Colonel Brandon,' I said quickly. I hoped that what I said was true. ‘You remember Colonel Brandon – so kind, so good?'

Sometimes I felt as if I were in a play, the only human character acting among a cast of puppets – Brandon, Marianne, Willoughby, Eliza – puppets or masked characters, whom I was never to be permitted to meet.

I persuaded Mrs Dashwood to come into the small dining room – as the men still remained out-of-doors – to eat a nuncheon of cold fowl, fruit and cake. Then, with Pullett's assistance, she was induced to lie down upon a day-bed in a cool chamber and rest.

But still she kept casting anxious glances about her and crying pitifully, ‘There is a bird, a bird, a
bird
in this house. Please let it fly away! House, house, answer me! Where is that bird? Why will you never let it go free?'

After a year at Zoyland, as my voice had greatly improved under the tutelage of Dr Fantini – or, so said Dr Fantini – the Duke began to invite professionals down from London, musicians and singers, and to hold performances of operas and oratorios,
Armide, Orfeo, Jephtha
and so forth, in which I sang the lead parts. And he would give house parties on these occasions.

It was understood, at such times, that though I sang in the performances and sat at the Duke's table during mealtimes, I was not to be spoken to by his guests. It might be all very well, was the Duke's view, on informal occasions, if such old friends and connections of the family as Sir John Middleton should come visiting, for me to engage in conversation with them; but on no account was there to be any social intercourse between myself and persons of the ton, of Polite Society.

Particularly, of course, with ladies.

Indeed on one such occasion, when Mrs Marsonby, the wife of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, happened to sit opposite me at dinner and so far forgot herself as to lean across the table and say to me, ‘My dear, you sang the aria “Hush ye pretty warbling quire” with the most exquisite sensibility! It was all I could do to keep the tears from flowing!' the Duke was quietly outraged, and later took the Bishop on one side to tell him that his wife had transgressed the unseen but acknowledged boundary line that existed in his establishment, and that another such trespass ‘might occasion the overthrow of our pleasant musical evenings'. The Bishop apologized for his lady and promised that such a
faux pas
would not occur again.

Some may inquire, why should I remain passively in a situation of such ambivalence, not to say indignity? And the answers are manifold and complicated.

First, I sincerely loved the Duke, and he on his side seemed deeply attached to me. He had loved my mother; and I was her replacement. He was like a relative. I never relaxed the formality of my demeanour towards him, calling him always ‘Sir' or ‘Your Grace' but none the less there existed a warm, teasing friendship in our relations, which were delineated by invisible frontier lines and transacted with as much grace as a minuet or passacaglia. Nobody had ever loved me before – except for Triz – how could I resist such a lure?

– Nor, to be truthful, did I feel any great deprivation in being excluded from intercourse with persons of the ton; as I have mentioned before, I found their elaborate, cultured, structured conversation excessively tedious, and had no particular wish to take part in it. If the talk related to matters on which I was informed, books the Duke had brought me to read, music that I knew, political issues with which I was familiar – then, to be sure, I listened eagerly and drew my own conclusions as to the knowledge and wit of the speakers. And afterwards, with the Duke, I would often exchange comments and impressions. But I was never tempted into expressing opinions publicly, or wishing to play a part in such exchanges. I saw no need for that.

Then, in all material ways, my situation was one of great comfort and self-respect. I lived in much luxury and was treated with deference – and, I may add, with affection – by all the people in the Duke's household, who deferred to me as their mistress and brought me all the small problems that were considered too trivial for the Duke's own ears, yet required some practical solution.

I accompanied him on his visits to the house in Grosvenor Square and met a number of his political friends. I went with him to the picture gallery in Pall Mall and to the Royal Academy, to Covent Garden and Drury Lane where I was able to see works by Shakespeare, Sheridan and many another; even a play called
Remorse –
not a very good play, I thought – by my Mr Sam. The Duke and I passed some weeks in London during the notably cold winter of 1814, when the Thames froze for weeks on end and, for the duration of the period, a great Frost Fair was set up on the frozen river (christened Freezeland Street) with stalls where one could purchase oysters, cockles, gingerbread and brandy-balls. But the Duke caught a severe cold at this time, which worsened to a congestion confining him to his bed for several weeks; and though he made a good recovery, he was somewhat aged by the severity of the indisposition, thereafter spending less time in town and more at Zoyland.

It was during this period that I met Hoby again.

I had been pained and angered – very much so – by the encounter with Hoby at Mrs Widdence's showroom in Bond Street. I have not alluded to these feelings in my narrative before, because they went too deep. That he who, when we were younger, had been so much my friend and ally, in his rough and carefree way, who had so often taken my part and shielded me from trouble should, when we met again after so long a period, have no kind greeting, no kind remembrances – nothing but anger and cold, critical reproof – this vexed, this chagrined me beyond measure. I had hoped that he might afterwards repent of his harshness and write some note, make some attempt to meet or some gesture towards reconciliation – but he had not done so. And my removal to Zoyland shortly afterwards had effectively nullified the hope of any future such understanding.

It took me many, many months to digest the pain that meeting had occasioned.

Therefore I was no little taken aback when the Duke informed me that he had invited Mr John Nash and his young assistant, a Mr Robert Hobart, to come and pass a few days at Zoyland, in order to advise him about digging a canal.

I had long since recounted to the Duke many tales about my early days at Nether Othery – or such parts of it as I considered suitable for disclosure – and he had of course learned from other sources details regarding the subsequent histories of some of my childhood acquaintances – such as Fanny Huskisson, and the numerous progeny of Lord S——— who now, mostly grown, were leading variegated lives in the Metropolis, some received into Polite Society, others not. Hoby's name, however, had never been mentioned between us, though I had sometimes descried it in
The Times
or the
Morning Post
when these journals carried articles relating to work on the new Regent Street or Regent Canal. And I had – I cannot deny – sighed over the social ordinances which permitted Hoby to make his way respectably in the world, but denied the same right to me.

Now I told the Duke that I had known Hoby as a child, and I tried to express to him some of my views on society's unfairness. He shook his head indulgently. ‘Ay, but you see it ain't the same, my dear, it ain't a parallel case for men and women. For a man it don't greatly signify if he be a bastard or not. Many bastards have made great names in the world. Why! William of Normandy was one. And look at all the dukes who are descended from side-slips of Charles II! But the ladies, bless their hearts, have to mind their reputations – else where should we all be? You may think it unfair, my child, and doubtless to some degree it is; but, on the other hand, the fair sex do have compensations, in that they can expect to be provided for and looked after.'

A flood of argument swept into my mind: that many women were
not
provided for but, on the contrary, lived wretched lives; and further, that many women who moved in the highest circles bore reputations that were far from unblemished – consider Lady Melbourne, for instance, who was thought to have borne several of her six children to fathers other than her husband. But I forbore to argue. The Duke tired easily these days, and I had come to recognize the gestures that denoted this fatigue: he would rub and rub at his forehead with a silk handkerchief, as if hoping to clear his brain.

And it ill behoved me to argue with him on the latter point, since I myself was so cherished, all my slightest wishes considered. (It was only my deepest wishes that went unregarded.)

When Hoby and Mr Nash came down to Zoyland I saw little of them at first, save at supper-time, for they were out with the Duke all day, riding over his demesnes, debating suitable sites for water-courses. But on the third day the work was concluded, and they came home early.

I arranged for a nuncheon to be served and, at the Duke's request, kept them company in the room he called his observatory, for it ended in a glass-walled greenhouse, and here he kept his great brass telescope with which on a fine night he would walk outside and study the planets.

I sat somewhat apart and occupied myself with knitting a silk cravat for the Duke, when suddenly he said to me: ‘Liz, my dear, did I not hear you, some time since, express a wish for a water-garden?'

‘Why, yes, sir, I did – but it was of no great consequence; just an idle fancy.'

‘A fig for your idle fancies! Here we have a young fellow who is as skilled with a dowsing-rod as Patrick the steward with his fiddle-bow; let us walk out and find you a suitable spot while we have this expert help at command.'

It was a fine, balmy May afternoon, so we all strolled out through the wide glass doors on to the green lawn beyond, which extended for some three hundred yards to the foot of a gentle rise, where narcissi were just giving way to bluebells and orchises.

‘Now then, young Hobart, let Miss here have a demonstration of your virtuosity,' said the Duke, who had plainly taken a huge fancy to Hoby. I, meanwhile, had taken (or chosen to take) an equal fancy to Mr John Nash, who had a round, creased, humorous face, a smiling mouth and two tilted eyebrows which shot up and down with great velocity. He would I suppose at this time have been about sixty – but very brisk and active. He was describing to me the huge hall that he was in course of building for the Regent behind Carlton House in which the latter was to entertain the Tsar of Russia, the King of Prussia, and other European dignitaries during the summer celebrations.—For, thank heaven, the Continental war was now as good as over.

I told Mr Nash with sincerity that, considering all his notable public works, it was amiable of him to spare time to come down and give my guardian the benefit of his advice and experience.

‘My dear, it is a great treat for me to get out of London once in a way and come to so beautiful a spot. Especially just now when the city is so abominably crowded. And it is a joy to spend time in the company of the Duke, who is one of the best-natured and most intelligent men of my acquaintance.'

‘Come here, my dear Liz,' called the Duke. ‘Come and try your hand at Mr Hobart's contraption.'

For the past three days I had been keeping as far distant from Hoby as was compatible with the requirements of hostessly politeness; I had avoided falling into talk with him, or even meeting his eye; but now it seemed there was no help for it.

I walked across the grass and took the forked hazel twig he was extending in my direction.

‘You must hold it in your hands – so – with the two prongs pointing towards you and the single prong pointing ahead,' he explained in a careful, colourless tone. ‘Turn your palms upward, and let your thumbs point back.'

None of which was news to me, since I, with Hoby, Will and Jonathan, had on several occasions watched old Gathercole dowsing for a well when the village source had dried up.

But the unexpected sensation of Hoby's hands on mine – the live, rough, active warmth as he laid firm hold of my wrists and, with professional care, adjusted my fingers on the hazel wand – that was very startling indeed and, in a flash, swept me back to a distant time that I had believed was long buried and gone out of mind.

Also I could see – from his startled look of recollection – that Hoby had, in the interim, forgotten about my elf-hand. It formed, for him, a reminder of the same kind. His own hands shook as he relinquished the rod to me.

‘Come then, Liz, my dear!' called the Duke cheerfully. ‘Let us see if you can strike water from the rock, like Moses with the waters of Meribah!'

‘You must pace backwards and forwards over the grass,' Hoby instructed me, still in the same level, dispassionate tone. ‘Don't try to move the fork at all; only hold it steady. And try to empty your mind of thought or expectation; let the stick do the work for you.'

So I walked.

‘Don't look at the stick!' called Hoby again.

So I kept my eyes up, looking at the gentle green hill, or the old, rose-red house with its trees around it, or the three men who stood smiling in the sunshine as they watched me. At least Mr Nash and the Duke were smiling; Hoby's face remained very grave. He had fewer freckles now, I noticed, though still a fair sprinkling over his nose and cheekbones; he was dressed with great neatness and propriety in a well-cut riding jacket and buckskins; he was uncommonly pale. I wondered what kind of a life he led in London these days; did he have a wife? Children? A house? A mistress? Was he ambitious? Did his manner of life satisfy him? It seemed very singular indeed to me that, in one way, I knew him so
very
well – I could have made a map of all the scars on his thighs and stomach where he had fallen down the rock face of Growly Head and gashed himself so badly – yet, on the other hand, I had no clue, no clue at all, as to what was passing through his head.

The hazel twig suddenly sprang violently downwards, thrusting itself away from me so that, taken completely by surprise, I dropped it on the ground.

‘Rabbit me! Look at that! I believe she's got it!' exclaimed the Duke, utterly astonished.

‘Why – I do believe she has!' cried Mr Nash, equally startled.

‘Try it again,' said Hoby quietly. And he picked up the fork and handed it back, settling my hands on the two prongs, as before.

I do not know if his hands were trembling this time. Mine certainly were.

‘Go back to where you were before, and walk from that spot.'

So I walked the same track again, and the stick behaved in the same way, violently wriggling, twisting itself out of my grasp.

‘Well, well!' cried Mr Nash. ‘It seems as if Miss has the gift, Your Grace. Bless me! You need never trouble to hire us professionals again, you have the talent residing here in your own household! – Now
you
make an essay, Robert; see if the rod agrees in your hands with what Miss has told us.'