Mistress of My Fate (37 page)

“I have no love for Lord Barrymore, sir, and you know this.”

St. John smashed his hand down upon the table, sending both me and the tableware into a jump.

“Damn that devil! I do not mean him. I mean the others…”

“There are none, sir. I have pleaded this to you before.”

“When you learned of my debts you began to scheme your escape. Do not deny it,
chaton
.”

“No, you know that not to be true!” I protested, lifting myself from the chair. I own, I could not bear this inquisition, for I was certain that with enough cunning he would winkle out of me the dreadful truth of the matter.

“I shall watch you like a hawk, madam!” he cried as I fled from the table. “You will feel my eyes upon you for ever more!”

While I had escaped St. John’s scrutiny on that evening, I could not avoid it altogether. The grumbling and the questioning now came at regular intervals, so that I attempted whenever possible to avoid spending time in his company. Worse still, I found that something in his demeanour had altered quite significantly. He had taken on a sourness.

“Jack has often been prone to depressed sprits,” Mr. Selwyn explained to me, “but I have not known him to be so distant and bitter since your mother’s death.”

St. John had retreated into himself. He seldom engaged me in chat and often sat sullenly beside me at the opera or while sipping tea. To be sure, he was not indifferent to me—quite the contrary! Just as he had promised, there was rarely a time when I felt free of his gaze. Even as he sat at a card table, when it seemed as if his attention was consumed in a game, I felt the presence of his scorching black pupils upon me. He followed me wherever I chose to recline or stand, and studied
the recipients of my conversation. Heaven forbid that any among them should be male. Why, he would be upon his feet before they could so much as make a bow to me. Suddenly he would appear, having slipped sylph-like to my side, to place a firm hand upon my elbow and turn me from their attention.

He studied me too closely. When I spoke, I felt him observing the very movements of my mouth and brow, as if he hoped to find some poorly disguised falsehood upon them. He was forever paying me that look of incredulity; that suspicious sidelong glance, inspecting me like a beady-eyed bird.

“You are scheming something,” he would say to me as I read or embroidered or dined, occasions when he had not the least cause to suspect any treachery whatsoever. “You have the look of a schemer, just like your mother.” Such spiteful accusations would often reduce me to tears, tears of shame and fear.

“Oh Jack,” I would weep. “How could you be so cruel, when you know I carry your child?”

Reader, how I detested this deception. I was certain he would find me out. I knew that the day and hour of the discovery of my hideous fraud would soon be upon me, and I quaked with dread at the thought of what would ensue. Heaven preserve me, I exclaimed to myself, when had I become so base and artful in my ways? Invariably, I would soon be reminded of the reason when the child inside me fluttered its feet.

During the month that followed the Roman feast, St. John forbade me to associate with anyone who was not of the fair sex. Perhaps the greatest absurdity in all of this was that he had chosen Gertrude Mahon for my chaperone. Had he known what strategies were being hatched by the dear Bird of Paradise, he would have fairly extinguished himself in a fit of rage.

Wherever we went in company, she attended me, sporting one of her vast, colourful hats, so that “we might draw the male eye,” she whispered with a knowing look.

“Oh no, St. John will murder me!” I breathed with genuine fear, but she only laughed.

In those last weeks before I was brought to bed, Mrs. Mahon became my constant companion. When I was not receiving her visits and those of my other associates, Lady Lade, Miss Greenhill, Mrs. Cuyler and Miss Ponsonby, she was escorting me out in her coach to call upon the
demi-monde
in their drawing rooms and to make excursions to all manner of places.

You are surprised by this, by what polite and regular lives we led? Why, what else do you think we might have done? You cannot believe that because a lady loses her reputation, she goes without society? Dear me, no. This is not the case at all. We amused ourselves no differently from any set of married ladies: eating ices and sweetmeats at the Pot and Pineapple, visiting Mrs. Salmon’s waxworks, Kensington Gardens, and all the shops between Mayfair and the Strand. To be sure, I had more friends once fallen than I might ever have hoped to make while virtuous.

On one occasion the Bird of Paradise suggested that we, and the gentle but flighty Caroline Ponsonby, pay a visit to Rackstrow’s Museum on Fleet Street. There, an officious woman showed us through the jumble of rooms, in which were displayed an assortment of marvels, including a full skeleton of a whale, Egyptian mummies and a collection of anatomical waxworks made so lifelike that the vessels ran with blood. We gasped and exclaimed over these wonders, though the dim-witted Miss Ponsonby could not make sense of half of them.

“And this model should be of great interest to you, madam,” said our guide, addressing me. She then pushed us towards a waxwork specimen unlike any I had ever seen. There, before us, was a cross-sectioned woman, heavy with child. Every vein and sac, every organ imaginable, including those of the infant within her, was open to view. Our guide then pressed some hidden lever and, as if by a miracle, the object began to breathe. Air poured through her lungs and sent all the fluids
coursing through both bodies, from mother to child and back again. To see the creature within me illustrated so plainly filled me equally with wonder and horror. Though, to be sure, what alarmed me most was not the spectacle of the inner workings, but the size of the infant. It appeared so large and its passage to the world so small that I was immediately overcome with a sense of terror. Mrs. Mahon and Miss Ponsonby, noticing my distress, instantly removed me to a quiet chair.

Later, in Gertrude Mahon’s coach, my friend comforted me.

“Dear Hetty,” she began, “you need not fret, for every day women are brought to bed safely. Nature has formed us for birth. You must trust in her.”

I nodded, though her words did not entirely calm my anxieties.

“You are young and strong and will fare well.” She took my hand and gave it a squeeze of reassurance. “Come now. Think no more of it. Let us go to Parson and Son and purchase something for your childbed linen.” She smiled. “A bed gown or lace cap or some such item.”

Her tenderness was not lost on me, a girl who had never known a mother’s affection. It must be said that, while I had been somewhat suspicious of Mrs. Mahon at first, my heart began gradually to soften towards her. I saw that she was no mere schemer who simply wished to amuse herself by meddling in my life, but rather that her intentions were for my happiness.

“I have seen no small share of myself in you,” she confessed to me. “When I eloped with that blackguard, Gilly Mahon, I knew nothing of the world. I was not much older than you when he abandoned me to my fate—and would that I could preserve you, or any young miss, from my youthful errors.” She sighed and shook her head. “Take care to listen, not just to my words, but to all you hear. Intelligence, my dear,” she warned. “Do not dismiss gossip, for you can learn all you need know about yourself from it.” And this, faithful reader, was why my wise friend was intent on introducing me to every one of her associates.

One morning, I was fortunate enough to be granted an introduction
to an old, cherished companion of hers, Mrs. Armistead, who was then the mistress of Mr. Fox, the politician. “She is not often in town, as she and Mr. Fox live quite privately in the country.” She smirked. “In truth, they are as good as married.”

Indeed, it was not until I had entered into this way of life that I had even known that my father’s close political associate kept a mistress. The unkempt, loud Mr. Fox had been grudgingly received by Lady Stavourley at Melmouth and at Berkeley Square. She did not find him charming, though I suspect her dislike of him stemmed more from his association with the notorious Elizabeth Armistead than it did fromhis unwashed linen. As you might imagine, I was a good deal curious to meet this lady, though prayed I should not encounter her keeper, who I feared might remember the tow-haired little Henrietta who ran about the rooms of Melmouth.

When we arrived, her dressing room was already filled with boisterous acquaintances. The Greenfinch sat in the corner with Spark upon her lap, her white muslin gown spread proudly around her. Mrs. Armistead sat before her dressing table, looking as plump as a plum in a lavender summer gown. As her maid arranged her hair, she held forth, chatting and blowing gossip about the room with the ferocity of the four winds. My friend made an introduction and I curtseyed to my hostess as best as my bulge allowed.

“Ah,” said she, her face flushed with heat, “you are Mr. St. John’s catch. I have heard much about you.” She examined my belly and smiled. “So, it is proved then, he has made good on his manhood at last.” The company tittered at this. “But tell me, is it true what they say, that he is ruined?”

I looked at her and then at Gertrude Mahon. “Why, why… I have not heard anything as to this.”

“They say he owes money to every man in town, that he has run through his income and Lord Bolingbroke will make him no more advances upon it.”

“I… have not… heard anything of this matter,” I responded uneasily.

Just then, Mrs. Mahon laid a hand upon my arm. “I have warned Miss Lightfoot that she must be prudent and cast her sights abroad for another keeper, but she pays no heed to me.”

“If St. John cannot discharge his gaming debts, then what hope is there that he can keep you in French silk for much longer?” added Miss Greenhill from across the room.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Armistead, straightening herself in her chair, “one is never entirely safe. Why, although Mr. Fox loves me to distraction, and I him, I have in my mind the names of two men who would come to my rescue should some calamity befall me. Of course, I should never be so foolish as to let him know that.” She smiled, flashing her sparkling violet eyes at me. “You must consider your future.”

“Poor Lord Barrymore is broken-hearted on account of you,” scolded Mrs. Mahon.

“But I am not to blame for that! St. John found him out…”

“Mr. St. John believes you will abandon him as did your mother,” the Bird of Paradise replied. “He keeps you locked away in a manner that is detrimental to your prospects, my dear.”

“Have you not heard? The
Morning Post
has called you the Fair Princess in the Tower!” sang out Miss Greenhill with a satisfied smirk.

“Why not fix your sights on one of Lord Barrymore’s brothers?” offered Mrs. Armistead. “I hear that Mr. Henry Barry is turning out as much of a rakehell as his lordship.”

“The crippled one? With the limp?” said Miss Greenhill, crunching her nose in disdain.

“A fine thing for you to say when Lord Sefton is a hunchback!” shot back Mrs. Armistead.

“There are many others,” Gertrude Mahon interjected. “We are to visit Ranelagh Gardens in a few days’ time and I shall arrange to have St. John distracted, so that we might take a turn around the grounds.
One never knows who is to be met in such a place. It may be the making of you, my dear.”

So, gentle reader, you see quite clearly, it was not I who laid these stratagems, but those who could not possibly have known my inner thoughts. I must confess, there were times when I felt myself a leaf upon a fast-moving stream. I was forever pulled this way and that, dragged into eddies and floated into dark pools, where I never wished to go. To think I had once believed myself to be the mistress of my fate seemed to me at that moment preposterous. On my inside, an unborn child determined my life, and on my outside, it was St. John. All around me were other forces, equally wilful. The words I had once read, Werther’s liberty to roam, to love freely, Monsieur Rousseau’s call to live from the heart: all seemed to me nonsense, absurdity. We were, none of us, unshackled. Even my dear, lost Allenham complained that his fate was no longer his own. Oh, thought I, sinking under the weight of these reflections, had I made any error in my life, it was to believe in the philosophy of men.

So, perhaps it was with some resignation to finding another protector that I permitted the Bird of Paradise to launch her scheme on the night of 12th August 1790; a date I recall very clearly indeed.

Over the months, I had carried both my secret and my child remarkably well. Such was the case that by late July, when I might have rightfully entered my period of confinement leading to the birth, I did not appear so vast as to rouse suspicion. I had not worn my bulge as do many women, as if they carry Mr. Lunardi’s balloon beneath their skirts. Instead I bore a closer resemblance to those portraits of the Madonna, with a ripe but modest pear shape. I am ashamed to admit that it was this small mercy that enabled my deception to be such a successful one.

Although I had no true understanding of what the birth might hold, I knew it to be a hard and terrible course. I lay many nights unable to sleep for the heat and the discomfort, but also on account
of my anxieties. I knew that the great falsehood was soon to come out of me, in one way or another. There were indeed so many things that plagued my mind: the pain, the chance that my life might end where my child’s began. I feared, too, that my labour might set in when I least expected it. To be sure, I had my linens in place, and all the equipage for the arrival of the little stranger, but I had made no arrangements for a nurse. How was I to explain my need for one so early, when St. John believed me but seven months gone? With his hot eyes upon me at every turn, I was too fearful to make more than a peep in his presence. All might be undone by a simple indiscreet word—and then where would I be? Condemned to give birth in the squalor of a lying-in hospital, or alone in a draughty garret? Left to bear down atop a hessian sack, with rats in place of a midwife and servants? Oh, the cursed thought of it! No, no, this would not be my fate. I had not come so far and endured so much to be thrown out at the critical time. And so I continued to hold my tongue and swallow my fears, fretting all the while that the child should come at a moment when I was furthest from my bed.