Another Heartbeat in the House (21 page)

‘I would swear to abandon Him, if there was a way for me to present my husband with a son.' The emphasis she put on the pronoun made me deduce that she meant God, and not St Leger.

From the pavement beyond the Venetian window, I heard Lady Charlotte calling me. I rose to fetch Sooty for her walk, and glanced down at Sophia's head bowed over the embroidery frame. I would have felt sorry for her, had I not been conducting an intimate intrigue with her husband.

Suddenly Sophia looked at me from under her sparse lashes. Without breaking eye contact, she reached for a little cloisonné thimble. Then she held it at arm's length, opened her fingers and cast it upon the floor. It skidded across the marquetry and ended up under a console table. ‘How clumsy of me,' she said, regarding me pointedly.

I rose, and as I went to pick it up I thought very fast and very hard. St Leger and I had been circumspect. For us there was no groping or fumbling against a tree trunk in the lower orchard, or rolling in the hay in Nugent's field. Instead, I had found a way of admitting him to my apartment at the dressing hour for a
rendezvous galant
. I knew that my way to St Leger's heart lay in civilized seduction – the type he may have encountered among the
poules de luxe
in Paris or London, but to that I added a little humour, a little comradeship, a little repartee. We were well matched.

But I had not factored Sophia St Leger into the equation. I had never dreamed that she would prove to be more than just a cumber-ground. I had made that most elementary mistake: I had underestimated my opponent.

‘Attend.'

Sophia's voice stayed me as I was on my knees, fishing for the thimble under the table. It was authoritative; a command rather than a plea. Steeling myself against invective, I turned. She had set aside her needlework and was sitting very upright and composed, her hands folded in her lap.

‘I have a proposal for you,' she said.

My dear Eliza
,

I have something stupid and ridiculous to impart. Foolish as ever, I am writing to you instead of telling you this, which I should have done the last time I saw you, in Mrs Fagan's house in Cork.

I am in love with you. I thought I would cure myself by seeing you quite simply as a friend, and then I thought my feelings would abate when we said our farewells. I know, Eliza, that you will say, ‘Oh! Another fellow who has become a nuisance' (for I am sure I am not the first to have fallen in love with you). But I beg of you, if you intend to say you doubt the truth of what I am writing, then I had rather you did not answer me at all. I dare say I have nothing to hope for in imparting this. But I know that you are kind, and I put my trust in you, not as a mistress, but as a frank and loyal comrade.

William Thackeray

My dear William
,

I am replying to your letter, not because I doubt the truth of what you write, but because I know all too well how you feel, and I
must
– must – tell you that you cannot express such sentiments again, because I do not want to lose a friend.

Please write a more cogent letter. I should like to hear news of you and Isabella and Brodie, and Annie, of course. Tell her that a horse very like Bucephalus comes galloping by here every now and then.

Eliza Drury

PS: Please send news from Paris of what the fashionables are wearing.
This is very important as I need to keep the ladies here informed and up to date
. Also, tidbits from
Galignani's Messenger,
and a list of all the new novels.

My dear & ever-valued friend
,

You are right. If ever I write such sentimental balderdash to you again, please take no notice. I am heartily sick of myself. I want simply your friendship and respect more than anything else in the world. From now on, I shall write only with news, and with some sketches diligently copied from the latest book of fashion. Tell your North Corkoniennes that it is
de rigueur
in Paris to wear pineapples on the head, to carry little piglets instead of pugs, and to wear very high pattens indoors.

I am living with my parents on the Avenue Sainte Marie. Isabella is now installed in the Maison de Santé of which I spoke. She has become more docile; less silly, talkative and excitable and less prone to the hysteria that makes her mad. I visit her often, and I did begin to think we were at last to have her well, but I was discouraged latterly when I saw some fierce wild women rambling in the gardens there. I do not want her to associate with mad women. I am planning to take her to a sanatorium in Germany for hydrosud therapy, which might prove to be the great remedy for which we have been searching. I confess that I feel old, very old, and sad.

The fees at Ivry are twenty pounds a month. I embarked on this journey with just that sum to my name, and am now at a loss as to how I will manage. I can no longer scrape by on bits and pieces of newspaper work – I am writing for my life. If I could find time to start on my great novel, I tell myself that all would be well! Perhaps I will find inspiration in Ireland. I am determined to go back there, not just to fulfil my financial obligation to Messrs Chapman & Hall, but to see you, my dear
friend
.

Your own wretched W.T.

My dear William
,

A lady of my acquaintance in the county Cork travelled to a convent in Marienbad to undergo the therapy you mention, for it is very much in vogue. This is how it went for her: she was roused at five in the morning and rolled in blankets like Cleopatra in her rug. Once unrolled, she had gallons of icy water flung over her. Then she was rolled up again, then sluiced with more water, & so forth & so forth. If you think that journeying all the way to the Rhine to see a quack who will subject your poor wife to such treatment is an act of altruism, then ‘Good luck to your honour'.

When are you coming to Ireland? If you are decided on a spree, I should love to accompany you.

Your friend
,

Eliza Drury

OF THE MANY
diversions and festivities I organized for Lady Charlotte in the first months of that year eighteen hundred and forty-one, the most ambitious was a treasure hunt, to celebrate her birthday. Some two dozen local gentry were invited. Having engineered the event I was, of course, ineligible to compete, and had to sit the hunt out. And because St Leger had sustained an unfortunate sprain to his ankle, he elected to keep me company.

Together we observed the goings-on from one of the ornamental gazebos that studded the grounds of Doneraile Park. From our vantage point on a hillock we could see the gentlefolk scampering towards the lime tree walk where the first clue was hidden, and hear their distant squawks: from their perspective below we must have looked like a pair of birds in a latticework cage, sitting side by side on a filigree'd perch.

I knew the treasure hunt would take two hours or more to complete, for I had laid the trail over several acres of parkland, and contrived to make it fiendishly difficult, culminating as it did in a boxwood maze. Until the victor returned, St Leger and I had plenty of time to ourselves. I had packed a basket with fruit, lemonade, quails' eggs, some bread and cheese, and my sketchbook, to make a pictorial record of the pastorale.

‘Where do you stay, when you go off hunting for days at a time?' I asked St Leger, as I shaded in the bole of an oak tree with my pencil. ‘Sophia tells me that you keep the location secret from her.'

He looked surprised. ‘You and my wife are Christian-naming each other?'

‘We have become quite good friends.' That was a lie. Sophia and I would never be friends, but between us we had come to an arrangement that promised to be to our mutual benefit. I dimpled up at him. ‘Where is this place? Is it an inn?'

‘No. It is a bothy. It lies some half-dozen miles from here, on the shores of Loch Liath.'

‘Whatever is a bothy?'

‘A bothy is a … type of dwelling. I built it myself with the help of my ghillie and some stout men.'

‘What's a ghillie?'

‘Oh, you are too sophisticated, Eliza! A ghillie is a guide for hunting or fishing. A local man who's skilled in tracking and other country lore.'

‘What made you decide to build this bothy?'

‘We were on a hunt one day –'

‘What were you hunting?'

‘Wolves.'

‘Liar. There have been no wolves in the British Isles for a hundred years.'

‘They were roaming wild here in Ireland more recently than that. You'll find that the skin of a great grey is more efficient than a quilt at night for keeping the cold at bay.'

‘You have a wolfskin on your bed?'

‘I do.' He gave a smile that made me want to pull his hair and kiss him, but because we were in view of all at large, I resisted. ‘I like to picture you as Diana, goddess of the hunt,' he continued, ‘supine across my bed on a spread of fur. Perhaps I should commission an artist to paint you like that.'