Eliza’s Daughter (12 page)

While staying in the village of Delaford I had made cautious inquiries about my guardian Colonel Brandon and his helpmeet, the lord and lady of the Manor. Everybody agreed that he was a fine, excellent landlord, serious and grave in aspect but considerate and benevolent; and she was a lovely young lady, only eighteen at the time she wed the Colonel, less than half the age of her bridegroom, but wonderfully devoted to him, and, though very different in character – for she was as lively, spirited and talkative as he was sober and silent – yet they got on so well together that their mutual fondness was the admiration of the whole country. And when he rejoined his regiment, nothing would serve but she must pack up and accompany him to India, despite the wicked climate, and the ferocity of the natives, despite the warnings of her friends, and the fact that she had seemed very happy at Delaford; and she had thrown herself with vigour and enthusiasm into many schemes for the welfare of the villagers. And although it was a pity that she did not show any signs of conceiving – yet it was early days still, she only just out of her twenties, and just as well she should not bear a child while off in foreign parts.

Could she have borne me before she married the Colonel?

But no – for she could hardly have married the Colonel so soon after I was born. It had been told me that my mother was only seventeen when she gave birth to me. That only a few months later she had become Brandon's bride seemed in the highest degree improbable.

So my mother must have been somebody else – but who?

Nell Ferrars had no information about my parentage, of this I was certain, for if she had any clue as to my origins she would indubitably have made use of it to tease and taunt me. She always addressed me as
Miss FitzWilliam
with satirical emphasis, as if she entirely questioned my right to use that name; but she could never have withheld a real fact, if she had been armed with one, any more than she could have addressed an inferior person with civility, or a superior without sycophancy.

Mrs Jebb, I suspected, knew somewhat more than she communicated; but there was no prying information from Mrs Jebb; one might as well put questions to the statues of Peter and Paul on the Abbey front.

If I were ever to discover anything about my parentage – and dearly did I wish to – it must be by my own unaided efforts.

***

The years of my attendance at Mrs Haslam's school crept by – slowly enough – marked only by the dogged, painstaking acquisition of more knowledge and more musical proficiency; until another accidental encounter placed further information within my grasp.

But I anticipate.

Previous to my first Christmas in Bath, on learning that the school closed for a week, I had wondered if there was any possibility of my being invited to pass the holiday at Delaford Rectory. I knew that Nell expected to return home. But I was soon disabused of such a notion.

‘Taking all the circumstances into consideration,' wrote Elinor Ferrars in a letter delivered by the carrier; ‘my mother's precarious state of health, the inclemency of the weather, the expense of the journey, the bad condition of the roads, and the value set by Aunt Jebb upon your company, we think it best you remain in Bath over the Christmas holiday.'

Most of this was news to me. That the weather was inclement and the roads bad, I thought, need form no greater impediment to my visiting Delaford than it did for Nell; and that Mrs Jebb set such particular store by my company I took leave to doubt, though we got on comfortably enough. But still, on the whole, I was quite content to remain in New King Street. A whole week in close proximity to Nell's hostility would be no treat, even with the opportunity to walk in green fields and breathe country air.

‘Please convey our warm seasonal greetings to Mrs Jebb,' continued Cousin Elinor's spiky writing, ‘along with this pincushion which I made her. It is stuffed with coffee grounds, sovereign against rust. If you can inform me of any other small token that would be acceptable to her – thread-cases or card-racks – or any hand-knitted garment that would be of use to her, which I could make, I should be obliged to you for the information. And I hope, my dear Eliza, that you yourself have been able to procure some small but appropriate seasonable gift in acknowledgement of your obligations to her . . .'

Obligation be blowed, thought I, reverting to the usage of Byblow Bottom; Mrs Jebb gets paid for my lodgement, does she not? And further to that, I walk Pug for her twice a day, I read aloud the paper and the works of Mrs Edgeworth, I sing to her, I play the harp to her snuffy friends four evenings out of five, I write and deliver her notes, I buy her cakes at Sally Lunn's shop and fetch her novels from the circulating library, besides trimming her black satin cap with new feathers and hemming her a great square muslin shawl. In fact I might, if I were Miss Margaret Dashwood, expect to be paid a substantial wage for my services as
dame de compagnie.

(And pray that this will not be your occupation for the rest of your life, said an inner voice.)

When I presented the tatting-trimmed pincushion ‘with the compliments of Cousin Elinor Ferrars' Mrs Jebb looked at me very sharply and shrewdly over the rims of her spectacles.

‘Humph, gel! So they employ you as a messenger? To enlist my goodwill, hey?'

I said mildly that it was the season of goodwill.

‘Ho! But I notice they do not invite you back to spend the holiday with whey-faced Miss Nell?'

‘I am happy to remain in Bath, ma'am.'

‘So I should think! The only night I passed in that parsonage I was nearly brought to my terminus by lumbago and spasmodic bile – I never entered so cold a house in my life and do not intend ever to do so again. So: I know how it is; the poor creatures are expecting to come in for something handsome in my will. And – if at any time they should ask you (though I daresay they are too genteel to come flat out with it) – you may inform them that you have no information as to my testamentary intentions. But they may as well know they can have no claims on my future consideration. Nor, my child, can
you –
supposing they should have encouraged you to entertain any such notion.' Another sharp look over her glasses.

‘No, ma'am, that they never have. Nor, indeed, would I dream of such a thing.'

Though Nell had, in fact, oftentimes hinted about ‘expectations.'

‘I am happy to hear it,' she rejoined drily. ‘So all you do is done for love, eh?'

‘No,' I said calmly, ‘not for love. But from – from friendship, and because you are kind enough, ma'am, to supply me with a comfortable, respectable home.'

. . . Which was true enough. I did feel a sober regard, a tolerant comradeship for the stoic, gritty quality which I recognized in the old lady. And, though I could not say that I felt a warm welcome when I entered the door of Number Two New King Street, I had come to understand that a place had been established there for me as part of the household.

If Mrs Jebb wished to be alone with her whist-playing cronies, I retired to my bedroom with its view of far-away hills; or I descended to the kitchen. Here Pullett and Mrs Rachel the cook were always ready to tell fortunes with cards and tea-leaves.

– ‘Shall I ever find my father?' was always my first question at these sessions. But that was a question Mrs Rachel was never able to answer satisfactorily.

‘There's two figures here, dearie – an old king and an old queen. Neither of 'em's going to bring ye much in the way of fortune. But there's a building. And there's a little tiny child – like a dwarf – and here's a fellow looks like as he's had the pox – never did I see such a pitted front, maybe he's a coal-miner – and a whole heap of money sliding about – like water on a ship's deck. That man have it in his power to do ye a plenty good or a plenty harm, best keep the right side of him, dearie –'

‘If I knew who he is.'

‘All in good time ye'll find that out. Hark! There's Mistress's bell a-ringing. Tom, go see what she wants . . .'

***

‘So!' said Mrs Jebb, scowling at me as was her way when she wished to conceal any deeper feeling. ‘I know as well as any what it means to be isolated and have no refuge in the festive season.—Now run along, child, and take Pug with you, or he will make water on the Turkish rug.'

So on Christmas Day I accompanied Mrs Jebb twice to Divine Service, and then was given my liberty to amuse myself and escort Pug into the Sydney Gardens. It was a damp, misty freezing day, not a soul stirring in Bath except myself.

Later I ate beef and Christmas pudding solemnly with Mrs Jebb, and remembered how little attention had been paid to the festival in Byblow Bottom. Seldom did Hannah serve any meal at all, by noontide she would be incapably drunk, half of her condition left over from celebrations the previous night.

Stealing up to my cold bedroom I wrote a couple of long letters, one to Lady Hariot and Triz at Lisbon, in care of Lady Anna Ffoliot. I had heard from them once or twice, briefly, I knew they were there. But now there was talk that Bonaparte had sent Junot with an army into Portugal, as he had already spread his armies over Europe. Portugal was our ally, but such a small, helpless country. Would my friends be safe there? Would they return to England?

Then, without much more confidence, I wrote a letter to Hoby. (A girl in my class at school, Tilly Percival, had a brother at Eton; she had furnished me with the address.) I asked Hoby how he was, and told what I thought might interest him of my own doings . . .

Then I sat, dejected, for an hour longer, listening to the pat of rain on the casement, until summoned downstairs to sing ballads to the old ladies.

In my fourth year at Mrs Haslam's school I began giving music lessons to some of the younger pupils. And in my fifth year the lessons were extended to pupils of my own age, and singing was added. This was an occasion of considerable spiteful comment on the part of Miss Nell Ferrars, who had never become my friend; indeed as we grew older our mutual dislike increased. Nell made it her business to propagate the story that my advancement in the school was due solely to the partiality of Mr Tregarron the music master, a handsome and melancholy-looking man. This, in fact, was not so, though he and I were excellent friends and I was to some degree in his confidence. When I was seventeen he became involved in an affair of honour which terminated in a duel; Mr Tregarron was shot in the thigh, inflammation ensued, and for some time his life was despaired of; and even when that anxiety was allayed, it was still considered needful that his leg must be sacrificed.

Miss Orrincourt, naturally, was outraged and shocked by this episode. If Mr Tregarron had not been such a particularly well-liked and capable teacher, with very superior connections among those of the highest consequence in Bath, he would certainly have been given his marching orders. But since the school's high reputation depended largely on the excellence of its musical curriculum, of which he was the prime buttress and support, she found herself obliged, not precisely to condone the disgraceful affair, but at least to turn a blind eye, like the noble Nelson.

Mr Tregarron's connections had procured the young ladies of the school choir a series of engagements in the weekly winter concerts held at the Assembly Rooms, which must add substantially to the prestige of her establishment; she therefore swallowed her indignation and contented herself with transferring many of his duties to myself. Indeed, I foresaw with gloom that in years to come, if I did not soon make some move to alter my prospects, I should find myself fixed for life as Senior Music Teacher at Mrs Haslam's.

Fate, however, decreed otherwise.

A few of us were to sing solos at the concerts, and I was one of those so chosen. ‘Not,' as Mr Tregarron kindly told me, ‘that your voice is anything out of the common, my dear Miss Fitz, but it is loud and clear and well-pitched; and that is all that the dyspeptic old grumblers in our audience will care about.'

You may be sure that Miss Nell Ferrars had plenty to say about this preferment, also; but just then, very fortunately for me, she received a greatly prized and much-laboured-for invitation to accompany her chiefest crony, the handsome but sour-tongued Lady Helen Lauderdale on a visit to the latter's parents in London. Nell's absence was, I must confess, no small relief to me and I heartily hoped (as no doubt she did too) that she might catch the eye of some eligible
parti
while under the Lauderdale roof in Berkeley Square.

Some of the young ladies chosen to sing alone were in a rare fright about it, others were as proud as peacocks; but I had no strong feelings in the matter, either way.

A childhood passed in Byblow Bottom carries this benefit: it engenders great fortitude and a wholesome indifference to mere social anxieties. Taking part in a public concert would be no especial ordeal compared with some episodes in my past; or, for example, with the indignities and misusages that poor Hoby had been suffering these last four years at Eton. (I had received some information about these, for he had in due course replied to my letters, not very often, but once or twice a year; and the tales he had to tell of dire doings in the Long Chamber, even conveyed in Hoby's blotched, ill-written and mis-spelled orthography, were enough to make any normal person turn faint with horror.—Yet thanks to Fortune, Hoby seemed to be surviving, and even learning to give as good as he got. He wrote his approval of my being so creditably established in Bath. This interested me as of old he would probably have despised such a humdrum existence.)

Mrs Jebb and Pullett, on learning that I was to make an appearance at a public recital went into conference, and came to the unsurprising conclusion that my wardrobe was inadequate.

‘She has to do New King Street credit,' Mrs Jebb declared. ‘Which, as matters stand, she emphatically does not. You cannot sing in public, child, wearing a five-year-old cast-off Sunday gown that once belonged to Nell Ferrars.'

‘The difficulty is, ma'am, that I have nothing better.'

To me, my wardrobe had never been a matter of much concern; so long as my things were not in actual holes, I was satisfied; and this was just as well, for it seemed that the funds assigned by Colonel Brandon, which had been used for my education and support, had begun to run low and had recently dwindled away altogether.

‘It appears that my brother-in-law quitted India, after he suffered a severe wound at the Battle of Gavilghar,' wrote Elinor Ferrars. ‘But we are still wholly uncertain as to Colonel Brandon and my sister's whereabouts. It seems most likely that they have been obliged to make a stay somewhere on their journey back to Europe, perhaps in order for him to undergo further medical treatment, or to pass some months in rest and convalescence.'

Or perhaps he has just died, I thought . . .

At the same time I had a letter from the lawyers.

‘We deeply regret, Miss FitzWilliam,' wrote Mr Melplash, ‘that we cannot continue to authorize the allocation of funds for your educational requirements since the sum allotted for contingencies has been used up, and lacking any further direction from Colonel Brandon on the matter.'

Since by now a good three-quarters of my time at Mrs Haslam's seminary was passed in teaching, my position at the school was not in jeopardy; Miss Orrincourt found me too useful for there to be any suggestion of her dispensing with my services. And, as I had begun giving a few private singing lessons in the city, I was able to continue paying Mrs Jebb a small amount for my board and lodging. New clothes I simply managed without; since I had arrived in Bath my height had not greatly increased, and the substantial wardrobe of cast-off clothes supplied by Mrs Ferrars, all the garments which were of heavy and durable stuffs, had survived being patched, let out, darned and periodically made-over by Pullett and myself. Nell Ferrars had long since grown bored with her own witticisms about them. But my only superior gown, a skimpy sprigged muslin with a blue trim, sadly worn and faded, though doubtless well-enough for evenings spent playing and singing to Mrs Jebb and her whist-minded cronies, would be but a poor advertisement for Mrs Haslam's school.—Indeed Miss Orrincourt had expressed concern in the matter. She hoped I was provided with ‘something unexceptionable to wear, some suitable toilet', and I had hastily assured her that this would be no problem.

‘If, ma'am,' I said to Mrs Jebb, ‘you would be kind enough to wait for your week's lodging money until Saturday – I understand the performers are to be remunerated for the concert –'

‘Tush, child, never trouble your head about that. Funds will be found.' And she added drily, ‘I shall enjoy an excursion to Wetherells'. There no doubt we can find some suitable stuff and Pullett shall make it up for you.' Catching a gleam in her eye and detecting also a faintly anxious look on the face of Pullett, I recalled that, when Mrs Jebb had been accused of stealing lace, Wetherells' had been the draper's shop in Stall Street where the alleged misdemeanour had taken place. No doubt my hostess enjoyed returning there at intervals to tease them.—Mrs Jebb, though she very seldom smiled, had her own bleak and dour sense of humour.

The trip to Wetherells' began uneventfully enough. A piece of India muslin was chosen and purchased. It had a small black dot and a fine black trim.

‘In view of the colour of your hair and your complexion,' Mrs Jebb observed with her usual dispassion, ‘you will do well never to indulge in bright or gaudy colours.'

‘So I have always understood, ma'am.'

Some pairs of gloves were inspected and discarded. Gloves were always a problem for me. ‘I daresay I can find an old pair of my own to lend you,' said Mrs Jebb, who was never, at any time, lavish in her disbursements. ‘And your feet, at least, will be out of sight behind the piano, so we need not worry about shoes or stockings unduly.'

On the way home from Stall Street, Mrs Jebb stalked ahead with Pug. She had a curious, stately gait, setting each foot very firm and flat upon the ground, as if to prevent the paving-stones from rising up in rebellion against her. Following behind with Pullett, who carried the bundles, I murmured in her ear:

‘Pullett, the man from the draper's shop is coming after us. Do you not think that is rather queer?'

Pullett looked round, and her hare's eyes started in fright.

‘Oh, Miss!' she breathed. ‘What ever can he be after?'

Now Mrs Jebb turned round.

‘What are you two mumbling about?'

She twitched on Pug's lead, he set up a yapping, and she dropped the muff which she carried as well as an umbrella, for the usual chilly Bath drizzle infused the atmosphere. I caught up the muff, brushing off a little mud, and restored it to Mrs Jebb just as the man from the draper's shop came alongside of us and blocked the footway.

‘Well, sir, well?' said Mrs Jebb. ‘What is this about? Why, pray, do you impede our passage? Did you perhaps discover that you over-charged me?'

‘No, ma'am' – Mr Wetherell was a tallow-faced, nervous fellow, given to thrusting his hands in and out of his pockets, then rubbing them rapidly together; he did so now – ‘No, ma'am, but being uneasy in my thoughts I made so bold as to run after you, besides calling Mr Sunwill the constable of the watch' – another man appeared, as if by clockwork, behind him – ‘being, you see, Missis, uneasy in my mind, I couldn't think it right or proper to allow – er, that is to say, ma'am,
not
to allow –'

‘Not to allow
what,
you tiresome man?' demanded Mrs Jebb impatiently. ‘Will you kindly stop jabbering at us, here in the wet, and permit me to proceed on my way?'

Mr Sunwill the constable, in top hat and shabby frock-coat, now spoke up. ‘Mr Wetherell, you see, ma'am,' he said in a tone of apology, ‘he tells me that he reckons he saw you tuck a pair o' black silk gloves into your muff – when it was laid down upon the counter of his shop back there, do you see. O' course, maybe it was done quite accidental-like, these little occurrences
do
occur. So, you won't raise any objection to our just taking a look, ma'am? In the muff ?'

‘That is a wholly nonsensical and outrageous accusation,' replied Mrs Jebb with total calm. ‘And I
do
have the strongest possible objection to your making any such search.'

After which we all remained gazing at one another, at a stand, in the drizzle, entirely blocking the footway.

Pullett, casting me an anxious, frantic, imploring look, then addressed her mistress: ‘Ma'am, wouldn't it just be simplest to do as the man says? In order to save time and bother, like?'

I judged that it was the moment for me to intervene.

‘There is unquestionably some foolish mistake here,' said I. ‘Certainly we did look at a pair of black silk gloves in the shop, I remember them well' – which I did, for I had tried them on; the left was a tolerable fit but the right one too small. And, of course, there was the finger difficulty – ‘but this person here, Mr Wetherell, then himself removed them from the counter. In fact, I seem to recall seeing him put them in his pocket.'

‘A likely story!' said the constable. ‘Why in the world would he do that, Miss?'

‘I cannot imagine why, it struck me as very odd at the time.'

‘Ma'am, why not
let
them look in your muff, where's the harm?' implored Pullett. ‘It will save us all standing here any longer in the mizzle.'

Which by now had increased to a regular downpour.

So, with the utmost ill-will, Mrs Jebb handed the grey squirrel-fur muff to Sunwill. He with his large gnarled hands explored inside it – I observed Mrs Jebb give this process a distasteful glance – but he discovered nothing, save a small paper of brandy-balls.

‘Now,' I said briskly, ‘perhaps Mr Wetherell will be so obliging as to turn out his own pockets.'

To which Mr Wetherell responded with a most indignant outcry.

‘A fine notion! Why should I do any such thing? It is
my
goods that were pilfered.'

‘Nay, but I think you should,' remonstrated the constable. ‘After all, the lady allowed us to look in her muff. And no one's said anything about pilfering.'

‘It ain't right! It's as good as making out I bore false witness –'

Without more ado, I stepped up to him and thrust my hands into his pockets. Sure enough, in the right-hand one was a pair of black silk gloves, fastened together by a short twist of black silk cord.

‘There, what did I tell you?' I remarked mildly, handing them to the constable. ‘We all commit such absent-minded acts at one time or another. Without being aware of it, the man put them in his own pocket. Now, I trust, we can all be on our way.'

I moved past Mr Wetherell, contriving, as I did so, to kick him pretty sharply on the shin – a manoeuvre I had perfected years ago in Byblow Bottom where it was a necessity of life to conduct one's attack unobtrusively and then remove oneself with the greatest dispatch.

I saw him turn white with pain and outrage as our little convoy proceeded smoothly on its way.

Afterwards, I was to regret this piece of foolish self-indulgence.

Mrs Jebb did not ever allude to that incident, then or later. But she lent me a handsome cashmere shawl to wear over the pretty black-and-white muslin dress which Pullett and I fashioned from the material we had bought. And Pullett herself crocheted me a pair of black net gloves, taking great pains to construct them with two fingers joined together, so that my deformity need not be too obvious.