Eliza’s Daughter (18 page)

‘Failure in scholarship seems the best recomentation for such work,' he wrote cheerfully – spelling had never been Hoby's strong suit – ‘two-thirds of the other fellows in the office have arrived by the same path.'

No wonder our country seemed in imminent danger of being captured by the French!

Mrs Jebb slowly clawed her way back to her usual state of pallid but rational inactivity and dour cynicism. Her own obstinacy and some bullying by myself were the main factors in this partial recovery.

‘I have beaten you three times running at cribbage, ma'am; you are not concentrating on the game,' was the sharpest weapon in my arsenal. She could not concentrate with her brain dulled by laudanum. And she could not bear to be beaten, specially by me. So by degrees the doses were lowered, from two quarts to a pint, from a pint to a dram or two.

I began to have hopes. And Mrs Jebb began to make plans.

‘I shall sell this house – which I have never liked above half – and we shall transport ourselves elsewhere. But where? – that's the question, as Hamlet kept on saying.'

By now I had a possible answer.

‘Oh, ma'am! Let us go to Portugal!'

‘To Portugal, child? Why, in the name of goodness?'

‘I have some good friends there. And it is said that the climate is very healthy. And – and – and the wine is very agreeable. And the ways of society are free and friendly.'

‘
English
society? I am not, at my age, about to learn that barbaric Portuguese tongue.'

‘No, no, very many English families live out there. Because of the port-wine trade.'

‘Well – well –' she said. ‘It may be worth considering.' A faint gleam came into her eye. She added, ‘I will consult Penwith about it.' Penwith was her lawyer. By now I knew that Mrs Jebb lived on an annuity which, with her usual sense, she had bought with the final remnants of her husband's estate.

My thoughts began to range, hopefully, around a midsummer removal to Oporto. We could get a ship from Bristol. I began to make notes of sailings.

Pullett and Rachel were quite in favour of the scheme.

‘Missis needs a change of air,' said Pullett. ‘Bath never did suit her above half.' ‘I always did want to see some foreign place,' said Rachel. ‘And Miss's hand shows a removal overseas, plain as plain. Haven't I allus said so? And the tea-leaves likewise.'

Only Thomas was doubtful. ‘Learn that lingo? Never!' he said.

Matters were in this train when I encountered Mrs Jeffereys, née Partridge.

I had not forgotten her letter. But at Delaford there had been no opportunity to answer it. And now that I was in disgrace, elected by popular accord to be the Black Sheep of Bath, I could not imagine that she would wish to initiate an acquaintance with such a person. So I had not answered her communication. (Though I hugely regretted the loss of a chance to learn, perhaps, something about my mother, I judged it unfair to Mrs Jebb to lay open any more possible avenues of scandal and gossip.)

However one evening when I had slipped out, after dusk, for a breath of fresh air, I heard myself accosted by a voice, an eager whisper.

‘Miss FitzWilliam! Oh, Miss FitzWilliam!'

I had made for the river and was walking on the quayside, immersed in reflections about boats, and sailors, and the voyage to Portugal.

‘
Miss FitzWilliam
!'

I turned and saw a smallish female figure tripping rapidly after me. When she came up, I fancied that her face was someway familiar; I must have seen it, several times, perhaps, in the Pump Room or at the Assembly Rooms. Twenty years ago it must have been ravishingly pretty: round-eyed, neat, and pink; the black curls were still assembled in girlish clusters over the brow and beside the cheeks. And she dressed, as ladies will who as yet strive after their lost youth, in a pink mantle with rosebuds peeping coquettishly under the brim of her hat. A gauze scarf did little to veil her features. She carried a pink parasol.

‘Oh, dear! I have had such ado to follow you! How very fast you walk! I thought that I should never catch up! It is Miss FitzWilliam, is it not? I could not mistake?'

Her voice had a Welsh lilt. Not strong, but perceptible. Very appealing.

‘Yes, I am Eliza FitzWilliam.'

‘Clara Jeffereys,' she panted. ‘Partridge that was. My husband – Mr Jeffereys – he keeps the big ironmonger's store in Cheap Street – you must know it – and my mother – Mrs Partridge – lets rooms in Edgards Buildings –
very
select rooms, and to ladies only; any lady who goes into public under the auspices of my mother is sure of meeting very superior society.'

I was happy to hear it, but not certain how any of this applied to me.

‘Mrs Jeffereys – I am not certain if you are aware that – I am under something of a cloud, at present, here in Bath? In fact you may be courting social ruin merely by speaking to me here in the street.'

‘Oh, such stuff! As if I cared!' Though in fact she took a careful glance up and down the quay, which was, at that hour, deserted. ‘It is true that Mr Jeffereys did not think – which is why I hoped to encounter you some day, in the street – but it is all great nonsense, and I daresay will blow over soon enough – though most vexing for you naturally – and I can see how the story about your poor mama – if
that
should be revived – would, most unfortunately, incline people to believe the worst.'

‘Mrs Jeffereys!' I cried. ‘What
is
the story about my poor mama? Nobody will tell me. Nobody answers my questions. Who
was
my mother? What
happened
to her? Do you know? Can you tell me? All I know of her is that she died at the age of seventeen!'

Mrs Jeffereys looked very astonished.

‘Why, who in the world ever told you that? What stuff!'

‘You mean – she is still alive?'

‘When I last heard – dear, oh dear, how long ago was that?' She counted on her fingers. ‘Ten or twelve years ago, perhaps. She chanced to be passing through Bath, with Lord – with a friend – and they stayed at the White Hart – and she sent me a note – and we met – of course I did not dare to let Mr Jeffereys know, but very fortunately he was away visiting his elder sister in Taunton. Oh, we had
such
a gossip over old days! We were at school together, you see, your mama and I, here in Bath – not Mrs Haslam's, but another, very select school. And then – you see – Colonel Brandon took her away, but he permitted her to come back here for a visit to my family – my dear papa was still alive then, of course. And Eliza and I had such charming walks and talks together.'

This recital left me quite breathless.

‘Wait a minute, ma'am – you say that my mother was in Bath
a few years ago
?'

‘Yes, yes – that was later on, of course. Eliza said she had called in at the place where you were brought up – Nether Hinton, was it? – but there had been no chance to see you.'

‘Did she leave me a fan?'

‘That I cannot tell you, dear, but it is very probable. Eliza always had the kindest, sweetest disposition; indeed, that has, so many times, led her into difficulties, for people will so often take advantage of her good nature –'

‘You are telling me that my mother is still alive?'

‘But that is what I am wishful to ask
yow!'
Halted in her flow, Mrs Jeffereys stared at me, round-eyed. ‘That was why I have been so anxious to seek you out! I made sure you must be her daughter – you are so very alike in feature and colour – I thought you would be certain to have knowledge of her whereabouts.'

‘But I have always understood that she was dead.'

She bit her lip. ‘I suppose – people are so – and then, Colonel Brandon – a kind man, but strait-laced. Yes, I see how it must have been. Well, and the Colonel had his troubles too. Eliza's mother – she was the Colonel's own cousin – she
did
die, in horrid straits, I believe, and the Colonel, by all accounts, he himself reared little Eliza,
my
Eliza, you know – by hand, as you might say. She was his godchild.'

‘Not his daughter?'

‘Oh, no, my love. Nobody knew who her father was. Her mother had been married to the Colonel's elder brother, you see, dear – but then, she ran away from him – he was a monstrous brute, by all accounts. And he died – very fortunately – so the Colonel inherited the estate and came back from India, and sought out Eliza – he had loved her himself, you see, to distraction – but he was only the younger brother so might not marry her – but it was too late and by the time he found her, she died. And so he reared her child – your mother.'

‘Colonel Brandon loved my grandmother and she died? And he brought up her daughter?'

‘I'm
telling
you, dear! So then, the daughter –
my
Eliza – fell in love with Willoughby.'

The name struck my heart like a gong.

Willoughby. W.

Willoughby.

‘Did he have black hair?'

‘Oh, like a raven! I think he was the handsomest man I ever saw in my entire life!'

‘Where did she meet him?'

‘Why, here, in Bath. When she was staying with my family. Willoughby came from a place in Somerset, Allenham – he used to stay there with his aunt. Some day it would be his, he said. He met us at the Pump Room. That was after Eliza and I had left school. Oh, he was so charming! So spirited! So full of elegance, and wit, and humour, and poetry. And address! To see him and your mother together – why it was like – it was like –' Mrs Jeffereys sought about for a simile, but in vain. At last she said simply, ‘Well, there was never
anything
like it.'

‘So, what happened?'

‘Well,' Mrs Jeffereys said. She furled and unfurled her parasol once or twice. ‘In the end, he persuaded her to run off with him – to Gretna Green, he
said
they were going; but I am afraid they never did reach Gretna – and I am afraid he never did marry her, for a year or two later I read in the paper that he married a Miss Grey, a lady of property, up in London – it was said she had fifty thousand pounds. Ah, he had a fickle nature, I fear. And no money of his own. By that time I myself was engaged to be married – to Mr Jeffereys, you know – and Papa was very – so I never did discover, at that time, what had become of my poor dear unfortunate friend. But I believe that the Colonel called Willoughby out, and that shots were exchanged.'

And much good that did my poor mother, I thought.

‘Do you know anything about the lady the Colonel married? Miss Marianne Dashwood?'

‘Ay, that I do!' she said readily. ‘For my cousin Alice, who is a milliner in Clerkenwell, has a friend who was in service to a wealthy lady, a Mrs Jennings. The Dashwood ladies were staying with Mrs Jennings in London at the time when Willougby got married to Miss Grey. Poor Miss Marianne – ah, and a beauty
she
was, by all accounts! – she was the one that Willoughby left my poor deceived Eliza for. And no wonder! if she was one-half as good-looking as they say. But she had no portion, either, poor thing, so he stayed at her side barely three months, and then, dear, it was off and away to Miss Grey and her fifty thousand. Poor Miss Marianne nearly died of grief, they say. And I fear my poor Eliza must have had her heart broke likewise – besides being left in the family way, you know. All men are black villains at heart, if you will believe me, dear.—All except Mr Jeffereys,' she added generously.

‘So Marianne Dashwood was also jilted by Willoughby, and married the Colonel.' And hid Willoughby's portrait in a book, I thought. ‘Poor girl.'

‘Still, before that she was spoken for by another fellow, but she would have none of him, so then he went after her sister and married her,' Mrs Jeffereys told me, as if to show that Marianne, though disappointed of Willoughby, at least had her fair share of offers.

‘Indeed?' I cried with lively curiosity. ‘Who could that have been?'

But that she did not know.

‘Mrs Jeffereys – are you quite sure that you have no clue as to my mother's whereabouts?'

‘Dearie – I'd tell you if I did. You are
so
like her, you know,' she exclaimed again, wiping her eyes unaffectedly. ‘I knew you must be hers, the very first minute I caught a glimpse of you.'

‘But the last time you saw my mother she was well – and – and happy?'

‘Yes, my love. The time I'm telling you of, when she came and stayed at the White Hart.'

‘With whom was she staying at that time?'

Mrs Jeffereys gave me a shrewd, careful look.

‘Well, my love – not to put too fine a point on it – with some lord. She never told me his name. But she told me she had a plan – when Eliza and I were at school together she was always feather-witted enough, but I could see that since those days she had learned to keep a weather-eye out for herself; she had a plan to start up an establishment in London. As soon as she had some money saved, she said.'

‘An establishment! What kind of an establishment?'

‘A gaming house. Many of those, you know,' quickly explained Mrs Jeffereys, ‘many of them are
perfectly
respectable.'

Dazed with all this information, I said, ‘Mrs Jeffereys, two gentlemen are walking along the quay in this direction. If you would rather not be seen talking to me –'

‘Oh, thank you, my love, that is thoughtful.—Yes, well, I'm afraid Mr Jeffereys would be greatly – anyway, you will let me know, dear, will you not, if ever you have news of dear Eliza? I should be so happy to hear –'

With fluttering gestures of her parasol and hasty steps, Mrs Jeffereys fled off up Avon Street, and I took my own slow and thoughtful course homewards to New King Street.