Another Heartbeat in the House (19 page)

I did not tell her that my mother's most famous composition had been a song entitled ‘When Venus Roams by Eventide', which she had sung to popular acclaim at the
Théâtre des Variétés
in Montmartre, nor did I tell her that I had not been to church since I had been christened. Miss Pinkerton had required me to write weekly reports every Sunday for the students (insisting that those who came from the most well-to-do families were awarded ‘O' for ‘Optimus'), and because these works of fiction took the best part of the day to compose, I had remained behind at the academy while the other young ladies attended the service at St Nicholas's.

On the morrow, I would simply have to observe how my fellow churchgoers behaved, and do my best to emulate them.

The next morning, the small church of St Mary's, which had been built by the St Legers two hundred years previously, was crowded with gentlefolk clad in their Sunday finery: the blades in fancy waistcoats of silk and velvet; the young ladies in pretty dresses, beribboned and trinketed, like figures that had just stepped from the pages of a book of fashion.

I knew that the eyes of the congregation were upon me as I walked down the nave in the wake of Lady Charlotte. I knew, as I sat demurely in the great family pew of the St Legers, that the gentlemen assembled under that vaulted roof were inspecting me the way they had done since I was twelve years old: some in a knowing way, with narrowed eyes, some in a slippery way, as if afraid to be caught looking, and some agog, because they simply couldn't stop themselves. The expressions I saw when I raised my eyes after murmuring a devout ‘Amen' made me want to laugh out loud, but because I knew that would be a scandalous thing to do in the house of God, I diverted myself by conjugating the Latin verbs I had used to scan of a Sunday in my previous life.

After the service the parishioners congregated outside the church: the ladies to exchange gossip and admire each other's dresses and parasols, the gentlemen to recount hunting anecdotes and talk politics. It was now the turn of the fairer sex to examine my figure. While at prayer under the watchful eye of the minister they had maintained a front of piety, but now they could look with impunity.

‘May I present –' began Lady Charlotte, and in the time it took for me to assume my most amiable expression, I was surrounded by a circle of rustling skirts and bobbing bonnets.

Somehow the story of my arrival in Ireland had become the stuff of local legend. It had percolated, I imagine, through the substrata of the servants' quarters last evening to the breakfast rooms of the gentry this morning, for I had taken care to let Lady Charlotte's housekeeper know that I was descended from a noble Gascony family, and that I had found myself in Ireland, an orphan all alone without a protector.

Dear Lady Charlotte! How charitable she was to take me in as her companion! What a pleasure it had been last night to sit together at the pianoforte and sing
lieder
! And why, yes, I had read Mr Dickens's
Nicholas Nickleby
– did they know that Queen Victoria had stayed awake until after midnight to finish it? – and I had devoured every instalment to date of
The Old Curiosity Shop
, but no! I would not reveal what became of little Nell and her unfortunate grandfather, no matter how they might plead! Yes – I
was
a tease!

The post-church ritual of simpering and preening for the delectation of the young bucks went on for some time. While keeping the full beam of my attention fixed on each sweet, silly face that importuned me for scandal from London, I had, like a raptor, kept my peripheral vision honed. There was Sir Silas, holding forth on some arcane subject to the clergyman who had bored us earlier, there was the stout, bald gentleman with the protruding teeth who had partnered me at the agricultural ball, there was Lord Doneraile honking about horses. I could, however, discern no sign of the only gentleman who had piqued my interest since arriving in Ireland.

What had led me to expect that he might be there? I suppose the fact that the church had been built by St Legers. I suppose because I thought his residence might be one of the many studded throughout this prosperous parish. I suppose because he was a cousin of my employer. I suppose, in the end, I had believed he might be there simply because I so wanted him to be.

Gradually the company dispersed: the young married ladies were driven off in smart phaetons by their husbands, the debutantes dutifully followed their mammas into the family landau. Lady Charlotte was engaged in earnest discussion with another dowager. As I approached them I overheard the word ‘climacteric' and at once sought some pretext to make myself scarce.

‘Lady Charlotte,' I ventured, ‘I thought I might walk down to the shop on the main street to purchase some peppermint oil. May I bring you anything?'

‘Oh, you are a thoughtful young person, Miss Drury! Some lavender oil, now that I think of it. I am having trouble sleeping at night.'

At this, Lady Charlotte's companion nodded sagely. I left them confabbing about night flushes, and set off towards the main thoroughfare of the pretty little town.

The maid who had brought me my hot water that morning had told me that Mr Shinnors's shop was the rendezvous for the neighbouring gentry at post time in the afternoon. It was also, she said, a favourite destination for officers garrisoned at nearby Buttevant, who liked to ride over in the hope of a romantic dalliance with a house- or dairymaid in the lower orchard. As it was Sunday, the shop would close at midday, and since I would have no call to visit it next week at post or any other time, I thought it worth my while to reconnoitre while I had the chance.

The shop stocked a miscellany of items: gloves, wine, spirits, soap, essences, tobacco, pocket handkerchiefs, good-quality beeswax candles. The interior was dim: a gentleman was there before me, his back to me. He had not heard me come in. He asked for snuff – the best they had. I listened to him banter with the shop girl, I watched the way he watched her when she turned to slide open a drawer, I saw his hand stray towards his privates, I inhaled a scent I remembered from the night I had lain on a bed, gagged by his neck-cloth, with his hand on my throat … I made for the door, pressing my handkerchief to my mouth.

Before I could reach it, another gentleman entered the shop. His tall frame in the doorway made escape from the confined space impossible.

‘Why, Miss Drury!' said Jameson St Leger. ‘Whatever is the matter? Are you not well?'

At the counter, Mr O'Dowd turned to see what was happening.

It was an instance of
pis aller
. I had never before played the card which so many ladies keep concealed under the lace edgings of their sleeves, but it was finally time to resort to that threadbare feminine trick. I fainted.

Mr St Leger took charge at once. ‘Prop the door open,' I heard him say. ‘Quickly! The window, too. Clear a space – remove yourself, sir, if you would be so kind.'

I heard the rap of a cane against the floorboards, felt them shift beneath me at his heavy egress. From between my eyelashes I saw the shadowy bulk of my rapist leave the premises.

‘Have you salts?' St Leger asked the shop girl.

‘Yes, Your Honour,' she said, ‘I'll fetch a bottle right away, Your Honour.'

I continued to lie there, waiting for the bile that had risen in my gorge to subside, and for my thoughts to order themselves. Had Mr O'Dowd recognized me? I had taken care to keep my face averted, but he had heard my name called, glimpsed the silk moiré that his wife had used to wear. He had undoubtedly missed the watch: it would have been easy for him to apprehend me just now, and have me arraigned for larceny. But perhaps he had chosen not to know me? Perhaps he was fearful that I would bring a charge against him? Unlikely, as such a charge would never stick. What hope had I, his erstwhile servant, against a man of his standing in a court of law?

Whether he had recognized me or not was a matter of indifference to me, I realized. I was glad not to have to look him in the face again, glad to be beyond reach of his loathsome touch. I heard the jingle of harness outside and a ribald laugh as he exchanged some jest with his coachman, and hated him anew. The odious Pether shouted
Gee-up!
and as the vehicle took off, I hoped passionately that it would end up in a ditch between here and the city.

I felt a hand on my brow; a finger smoothed a tendril of hair away from my cheek, brushing the edge of my ear as it did. I felt St Leger's breath on my skin as he brought his face closer to mine, smelt the subtle scent of leather and soap, heard his low voice enquire if I could hear him.

I was uncertain how long I should maintain this masquerade. How long might a swoon endure? Two minutes? Three? However, once the phial was held to my nose I had no choice but to revive, for the vile and pungent odour of
sal volatile
was an assault.

I opened my eyes, fluttered my lashes briefly, and made a vain attempt to bat the bottle away; but St Leger took hold of my wrist and kept the phial in place until I sneezed, rather indelicately.

‘I'm quite well,' I told him, trying to reclaim my hand.

His grip was unyielding. ‘You must keep still,' he said. ‘Any sudden agitation could bring a rush of blood to the head.'

He took my handkerchief from me and wiped my nose.

‘Leave me alone!' I cried in affront. ‘I'm perfectly well, now that I can breathe again.'

It
was
a relief to breathe without the stench of that beast O'Dowd clogging my throat. I would have preferred to inhale
sal volatile
for the rest of my life than be obliged to share the atmosphere with that man.

The shop girl had hunkered down beside me and was starting to pull at the bodice of my dress.

‘What are you
doing
?' I snapped.

‘I'm loosening your clothing, ma'am.'

‘An excellent notion,' observed St Leger. ‘You are perspicacity personified, young Florrie.'

‘Thank you for your concern,' I said, brushing dust from my skirt, ‘but there is no need to go to such lengths. I came here for peppermint oil: that will clear my head.'

The shop girl bustled back to her place behind the counter, and consulted the labels on a row of small bottles. ‘Peppermint oil is just the thing, ma'am,' she agreed. ‘It will see you rightly if you dab it on your handkerchief.'

‘And lavender oil too, for Viscountess Doneraile,' I said, extending my hand to St Leger so that he could help me to my feet.

‘You are here with my cousin's wife?' he asked in some surprise.

‘I am,' I told him, raising my chin. ‘I am living at Doneraile Court, as her companion.'

I looked at him levelly, my hand still in his. And even as Florrie set the packages on the counter and stood meekly waiting for payment, he seemed reluctant to let it go.

For several weeks thereafter Jameson St Leger made a habit of visiting Doneraile Court on the slightest pretext, to stalk me as I imagine a hunter stalks … I would have said a fox, but that analogy is not quite right. I fancied myself a rather more elusive quarry, mercurial as one of Diana's dryads.

I was dallying in the lime tree walk one evening when he ‘happened' upon me, as he often did at this hour. Together we strolled towards the summerhouse, a jewel box of a folly that Lady Charlotte had had copied from a book of Persian gardens and in which it was her fond fantasy to lounge upon a sofa taking tea as the memsahibs did in India.

Unfortunately, the vagaries of the Irish weather had not allowed her to indulge in this ritual on a routine basis. Cook had told me that after completion of the structure, tea had been served there but once, by footmen who had stood apart under umbrellas while Her Ladyship had sat beneath the fluted roof with rain pelting tinnily down. When a fork of lightning had struck perilously close to the ornamental cupola, Her Ladyship had retreated unceremoniously to her boudoir to take tea there instead. The little summerhouse had languished like a child's derelict playhouse ever since.

As I preceded St Leger through the Byzantine archway, I noticed that the ribbon on my shoe had come loose. I made a little moue and ‘Alas,' I said, raising the hem of my gown a bare inch, and arching my foot prettily in the way Monsieur Cabriole had taught me as a prelude to a
pas de bourée
.

‘Allow me,' St Leger said, effecting a low bow.

But instead of retying the ribbon, he slid my shoe off and trailed a finger along my instep.

Smiling, I raised the hem of my gown another inch, wondering whether I should draw it above the ankle to allow him a glimpse of my well-turned calf.

That was not necessary. An inch was all it took.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
after breakfast Edie poured herself a fresh cup of tea, shambled through to the library in her slippers, and opened the shutters to allow in the morning light. The picture postcards she had bought yesterday were lying on the window seat; one was of Doneraile Court. It was a big, imposing block of a mansion, with seven bays, numerous windows and a great roof beneath which there was ample attic space to accommodate a battalion of servants. The blurb on the back read, ‘Seat of the St Leger family; built
c
.1725 by the second Viscount Doneraile.' So Eliza had lived in the Big House just five miles down the road! How had her belongings ended up here, at Prospect House?