Mistress of My Fate (17 page)

“Dear child.” He sighed, attempting a twitch of a smile. “There is a matter upon which I wish to speak to you,” he began, before advancing to his desk. I watched with a mounting sense of concern as his fingers fumbled with the lock on the drawer. “These were brought to me this morning by Lewis, who had had them from Sally Pickering,” he stated as he drew forth that which I most dreaded seeing in his possession.

At that instant, I believe the blood drained entirely from my face. I stared at the bundle, too shamefaced to meet his gaze, my eyes pooling with tears.

How brutal was Fate! thought I, for I had endured Sally’s torments so I might have been spared this end. Oh, how my heart heaved to stand under the glare of this disgrace. My cheeks began to burn as the tears started down them.

As I had not the strength to raise my head, I knew not what expression Lord Stavourley wore, if it was one of bitter condemnation or pity.

“Forgive me, child,” he uttered after a long spell of heavy silence, “for there is much you do not know.”

Oddly, there was no censure in his voice as he spoke, but rather an unexpected note of anguish. I cautiously lifted my gaze and found that he had turned from me, having chosen instead to fix his eyes upon the view from his windows.

“You see, my dear, the fault, the blame for this… terrible misfortune, lies with me,” he announced, “and I fear it will not please you to hear what I must say.”

I waited for him to turn towards me, to proffer me a look of reassurance, but he did not.

“I was a man much like Lord Allenham,” he began, twisting his hands behind his back. “Young men are… by nature passionate, and as a result flawed. It may sadden you to know it, but none of us are the gallant heroes that your novels would have us be. Most men are of a type, generally unbridled in our desires and terribly foolish, and I, dear girl, I was no different.”

He paused and studied the landscape for a beat. Turning to the side, I saw in his blue-grey eyes a muted sparkle, not mirrored elsewhere in his expression.

“There is much you are too young, too innocent to know about the world, Henrietta. Indeed, I should not expect you to know of what I am about to speak.” He shut his eyes quite suddenly, as if struggling to find his words. “You must understand, not every woman is an honest one… which is to say, there are some who go out into the world to make their living, not by a respectable trade, but rather by pursuing a life of debauchery.” He sighed. “Love, you see, love is not always to be found in the matrimonial bond. Ladies may find it there, but gentlemen often seek it elsewhere. I did just this.” His words were now coming in a rapid, uneasy stream. “There was one… woman whom I loved, much in the way that Lord Allenham loved you, with as much ardour… but it was not in my power to marry her, nor would it have been appropriate, given her position, and it is she, Henrietta, she who gave birth to you.” There he stopped, and turned his pallid face to me. “I, dear girl, am your rightful father.”

We stood, our gazes held together for a moment or so; his tired eyes a picture of remorse, and mine wide and unflinching in disbelief.

“Do forgive me,” he murmured, shutting them once again. “I should have informed you many years ago… indeed I am surprised you did not hear of my indiscretion through some other source.” He wagged his head. “Your father is no better than a coward.”

“No,” said I. It was the only word I could think to say, perhaps the only sound I could pronounce, for now I wept great, bitter tears. Seeing my distress, my father, for that is what he was, came to me and placed a gentle hand beneath my elbow.

“Sit…” he ordered, guiding me into a chair, but the feel of his kind touch only heightened my sense of grief.

“Dear little sparrow.” He spoke softly, taking a seat beside me. Awkwardly, he reached for my hand; the firmness of his enveloped my small one. I marvelled at the touch of it, that my father—my papa!—comforted me.

“Your mother… your mother was called Kitty Kennedy. So now you know it.” He nodded. “She had you in her care for near two years, dear Hetty, and it was not her design to give you up. You see, there was a gentleman who wished to marry her, and to do right by her, but he would not have the child of another man under his roof. So she wrote to me and begged that I should take you in. Your aunt… Lady Stavourley was not pleased by this, not at all. She objected to your coming here—greatly. In the end, I believe my insistence upon it destroyed her health.” My father lowered his gaze and his tone. “She consented, but with reluctance—and there were to be conditions. She would not have you here on the footing of a fine lady, by which she meant you should have none of the fortune entailed upon her lawful daughter… your… sister, or any of my heirs. As she had been an heiress in her own right, her trustees, when hearing of this matter, took recourse to law and insisted that I swear an oath to this effect,” said he, drawing a long, sorrowful breath, and pressing my hand in his. “You must know I wished only the best for you, dear Henrietta. I insisted that you were raised with Catherine, to be her companion, so you might benefit by proxy from whatever fortune passed to her upon marriage. But I see now how misguided was this plan.” Gradually, my father moved his sorrowful eyes from where they rested upon our joined hands, and slowly, silently, studied my face. It struck me then how many of his fine features I possessed: the round visage, the small chin, the arch
of his brows. My eyes were a lighter shade than his, though they bore a similar shape. For a moment, I observed his, moving, dancing along my countenance. He shifted in his seat and then, reaching into his waistcoat pocket, removed a white silk handkerchief, which I believe he intended to use. Instead, he gently passed it to me and gestured that I should rub my nose with it, before continuing with a sigh, “These are not your sins, my dear. The failure is entirely mine.”

As I sat beside my father, quietly sobbing, I could not decide which element of this story struck me most, or how my head should absorb it. I knew not if I should feel pity or horror or sadness or joy upon learning this. My heart was gripped with all four sensations at once: the thrill of learning that here was my papa, my own true flesh and blood, which was then countered by a jolt of sickening remorse for the young lady who had been my sister. My bosom friend, my dearest companion, my beloved
sister
. For so many years I had dreamed her to be just this. Oh, the regret was intolerable. I wept harder still and pressed the handkerchief against my aching eyes.

It was at that point my father rose from my side. I believe my anguish was more than he could bear. Instead he moved to his desk and recovered the bundle of letters from where he had laid them. I watched as he turned them over in his hands, examining their worn corners and tear-stained script. Then, quite suddenly, he reached over and dropped them into the flaming grate before him. Taking the poker, he made certain that each of the little packets caught light and curled and twisted into blackness. So came to an end the only proof of Allenham’s love I had ever possessed.

“I shall not tolerate the rumours that have been put about below stairs that you brought about your sister’s demise,” he commented as he stoked the coals. “But Lady Stavourley is of a different mind. You know her disposition, that she is not given to reason.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “My fear is that she will persist with this notion and divide my household. I cannot have that. Nor could I bear it if she
were to inflict further damage to her health.” My father then laid down the poker and wiped his hands together, before turning from me and directing his gaze once more out of the window.

“As you know, or perhaps suspected, the Reverend John Pease has made an offer for your hand. In the past I have put him off, thereby allowing you the opportunity, however slim, of making a match more agreeable to you. He knows that you have no fortune, but your beauty and charms have captivated him, and he is willing to accept you notwithstanding. For my part, I have offered him the promise of a larger living at a parish within my gift in the north of Ireland. The marriage”—my father inhaled and then sighed—“is to be settled very soon and the banns to be published immediately. It pains me a great deal to force your hand in this affair, Henrietta, but I have taken the liberty of writing to Mr. Pease that you will agree to these terms.”

This, when added to my woes, my miseries and confusions, was more than I could bear.

My father waited for my response to this news, but I could bring myself to say nothing, for my sobs had silenced me entirely.

“Dearest little one,” he whispered, “I grieve for your distress… I wished it differently, but it will be for the best.”

“But I do not love him…” I managed to gasp. I thought instantly of Lady Catherine, who had once bleated this same lament. “I do not believe I could ever love him…”

It was then that
my father
, my cherished and adored father, approached me. I shall remember for as long as I live how he took my girlish hands into his and offered me comfort.

“Dear Hetty.” He spoke softly. “Love is but a luxury. We may taste it briefly in our lives but cannot expect to sustain ourselves on it.” He then placed one finger under my chin and raised it. “Remember its delights, but do not pine for it.”

His words I did not wish to embrace, but his gesture of affection was one of the sweetest gifts I have ever received.

“Go now,” he directed me. “Do not trouble yourself by thinking on the matter further. It is done, dear daughter.”

In times of extreme distress, I believe it is possible to commune with the soul. The soul knows all the answers, even when the heart and the head cannot find a path through the darkness. Before I had so much as quit my father’s study, my soul understood what lay ahead for me. It knew it as I ran through the library and into the corridor. I recognized it as I fell to my knees upon the floor of my apartments and convulsed in wailing agonies.

My heart and head were full of fear and injury. My father had sold me. I was no better than a slave. My happiness was no more considered than that of a sultan’s dancing girl, thrown weeping into a Constantinople market. Lady Stavourley would have me banished from my home, the only place of refuge I had ever known, have me torn from my only parent. She had despised me from the day I had arrived: the wretched bastard of her husband. Melmouth hated me. The servants wished me dead. They had tried to murder me and might yet succeed, long before the odious Pease carried me off.

Pease. The thought of his girth, his slack jaw, his idiot’s stare, the dullness of his company, made me recoil with disgust. Oh reader, it struck me then that I was not the devoted child I had believed myself to be! Were I truly dutiful, such thoughts would have never entered my head. I would have never questioned my destiny, but gone to it with the open heart of a martyr, wishing to sacrifice myself for the good of my father’s name, for the contentment of Lady Stavourley, she who had no fondness for me. For this, this would be a true surrender, and a noble act. But my soul, that lively, kicking thing inside me, would not accept this as my fate.

Had I not had the misfortune of tasting love, as my father had suggested, I believe I would have agreed to a life spent in a distant country rectory as the drudge of a disagreeable man, filling his austere house
with children. Too poor to repair the leaking roof or to lay more than a meagre table, there would be little by way of gaiety and less by way of interesting conversation. There would be no genteel company. I would never again see Melmouth, or London. I would never again know love. So it would be until the day I was laid in earth.

I lay all evening upon the floor of my untended chamber, staring into the cold and contemplating my future course.

My soul whispered to my heart. Its urgings became stronger and louder, till the pleas could no longer be dismissed. Once convinced, my heart then began to persuade my head. My soul begged me to let it live, but in doing so, there would be a price: I would leave behind all that I was.

For it had occurred to me that I had but one friend in the world now, one person upon whom I might call. There existed no guarantee that he would assist me, for a good many months had elapsed since I had been assured of his affection. In that time, I supposed he might have purged himself of my memory. If only I had been so thorough in ridding myself of his!

No, I fear that Allenham haunted me, as did the passions I held for him. No ghost was ever more real to me than he, for I saw him everywhere. I shared every thought with him; he was present in every quiet moment, with every book I read or natural wonder I spotted. The rich tones of his voice vibrated inside me, his luminescent blue eyes glittered behind my own. While my soul moved within me and fired heart and head, I could not permit myself to believe that his love for me had been extinguished, when once it had flared like a star. Did Werther’s love for Lotte not increase with separation?

All that I possessed was a hope, a butterfly at the bottom of this box of horrors. That, dear readers, was enough for my soul. And so I listened to its calling and I did its bidding.

Chapter 12

My friends, we have now returned to where I began my narrative, to that moment when I sat trembling behind a bolted door at the Bull in Royston. I suspect that you see the irony of my situation: that I had fled from one perilous bedchamber only to find myself trapped in another!

My assailant, Mr. Fortune, continued to hammer upon the door for a good half-hour or more, all the while bellowing curses and oaths. I had never before heard such terms of abuse. He was a brute, to be sure. After some time his thumps subsided into taps and scratches and then into silence. I suppose it was then that I fell into a sleep.

My next memory is of being roughly shaken awake by a maid, who had slipped into my chamber through the jib door. She stood over me in a dirty cap and apron, marvelling that she should find me dressed and lying upon the coverlet.

A breakfast of coarse bread and ale was put upon the table, and she warned me to eat quickly as the stage to Oxford was shortly to call. Anxiously, I enquired after my attacker, fearing that I should meet him upon the stairs or, worse still, inside the stage.