Indiscretion (41 page)

‘So am I, Lord, so am I
...’
He glanced down at her with a jerk. ‘D’you mean
—
sorry for me?’

‘Yes. Because it is painful to see someone suffering what you must be suffering. That is, watching someone you love be so cruelly hurt
—
and be unable to say or do anything about it.’

Captain Brunton looked at her as if she were a witch. ‘How
—
how could you tell? I have never
—
I have striven never to betray myself in the slightest
...’

‘Oh, I know. But one can sense these things.’

‘I don’t know how,’ he said wonderingly, ‘unless one is in love oneself.’

She shrugged that off. ‘I’m sorry if this is — intrusive. I speak only from sympathy; and you may be sure I have breathed no word of it to anyone, nor will. It is only my private observation.’

‘Oh, I trust you, Miss Fortune, there’s no doubt of that. I’m just astonished. I never could see these things, never understood them in the slightest indeed, until
...
well, no matter. Oh, great God, it
is
a matter,’ he burst out, ‘what I have heard today
—
I hardly know how to bear it, Miss Fortune, and that’s a fact. To see Miss Milner so abominably treated — to think of the deceit and insolence of that man
...
But, of course, you will not have been so taken by surprise: you did your best to warn us of his real character — and I fear got a poor return for it.’

‘I’m not sure I did do my best. Tell me, did you have no suspicions?’

‘Oh, I was inclined to believe all
you
had said about him, and my own heart was ready to supply more aspersions; but that was precisely the trouble, you see: I was not, am not, impartial in this case. I could not even be sure myself how far my feelings against him were the mere result of jealousy. But then it is all such an infernal maze
—
this judgement of others. When can one be sure? When should one speak, and when keep silence? I have a poor, blundering sort of brain for such things.’

‘You have described my late situation exactly, Captain Brunton, and believe me, I think no brain could have blundered more than mine.’

‘Yours has been a fearfully difficult position. But then without wanting to sound like Mrs Leabrook, so I think has mine. Here
—
with my cousin’s family — I have always been conscious of seeming to interfere where I had no business. Miss Fanny used to tell me that very plainly ...’ He slowed his pace, as if he had more to say before the Rectory drew near. ‘There too — in that regard — I wonder whether I should have spoken.’

‘About Fanny?’ Caroline said in surprise.

‘Not exactly ... Again it is a matter of hearsay, of suspicion: of wondering whether to let sleeping dogs lie. But I will tell you now, and let you judge. When Miss Fanny began to be intimate with Mr Carraway something about his name — which is not very common — taken together with his avocation, his manner, all revived a memory. It was something that occurred two years ago. My ship was refitting and I was a temporary landsman, sharing a set of rooms at Deal with a friend, a brother officer, name of Harvey. Poor fellow, he was dead of the East-India fever six months after
—
but that’s by the by. Mrs Leabrook again. Harvey was the sole support of his sister, a gentle little creature, at a boarding-school in Chelsea. Well, there was a young visiting drawing-master at this school who — well, I regret to say he seduced her, and prevailed upon her to run away with him. I say prevailed upon her, not because I mean she had no mind of her own: only that what sixteen-year-old girl, with no experience of the world, can really know that mind? Well, Harvey was much distressed, and took off for London at once to try and trace them, and I went with him to offer such help and company as I could. He did find his sister at last: alone. The drawing-master had deserted her, having
—
well, having enjoyed her.’ Captain Brunton’s cheeks reddened, though it was his neck that flamed: just like Isabella’s. ‘She was living still in the lodging they had taken together
—
and, alas, would not leave it, from some wild hope that the man would return to her. My friend remonstrated with her in vain. She could not come back to her old life, she told him, even if she would: why not? Well, I think you may guess her condition. Saddest of all, Harvey went to this lodging one day to find she had gone. There was rent owing, and the landlord was turning ugly about it
—
and she had simply taken herself off, in Lord knows what mixture of despair and resolution and shame. He never heard any more of her. Poor fellow, I remember he was shockingly cut up. And I remember
—
well, look here, if you had asked me, I would have said the drawing-master’s name was Garraway or perhaps Garrity
—
but I am a noodle when it comes to remembering names. But it seems he was young, talented, a dazzler, with no known connections
...
well, you may see the trend of my thought. But I had no
certainty,
none. And it was partly on account of this
—
as well as the need for a position
—
that I went to London myself last month. I knew there were fellows aplenty about the East India Dock who had been mates with Harvey, who started in East Indiamen; and so I asked around if anyone remembered his sister, and whether anyone knew what had become of her. On that last, alas, no: and though everyone remembered the story, all they could say for sure was that it was a drawing-master. So you see I was no more certain. But it has nagged at me
—
by God, it has nagged at me in a way you cannot conceive, Miss Fortune!’

‘I think I can conceive it very well, Captain Brunton. And I can imagine your feelings also, on coming back to find that Fanny had eloped with Mr Carraway.’

‘I doubt you can,’ he said, with ferocious gloom. ‘It seems to confirm
—
and yet still it is only seeming. If this
is
the same man, then I fear it is a poor outlook for Miss Fanny. I wish with all my heart I had spoken before
—
yet even then I wonder if I might not have been reproached for mere scurrilous hearsay.’

‘By Fanny, I think you would indeed: it would have taken a great deal to alter her resolution, and I fear opposition, or warning, would be the one thing that could strengthen it,’ Caroline said: a little more lightly indeed than she felt; the image of Captain Harvey’s sister, disappearing alone into a wilderness of indifferent streets, was vivid to her mind. She tried to counter it with the picture of Fanny: Fanny who was all buoyancy and pluck, Fanny who would not, surely, allow herself to be easily abandoned.

‘I’m afraid I am a useless fellow with my Carraways and Garritys,’ Captain Brunton said gruffly, misinterpreting her silence.

‘No, no. I’m just trying to think, on my own account, whether there is anything in what you have told me that may furnish us with a clue. All I can take hold of is this lodging that your friend found his poor sister in — do you recall where it was?’

‘I never went there. But I know it was in the Borough, hard by Guy’s Hospital, for my friend would lament on his sister ending up in such a dingy sort of place: rooms above a tallow-chandler’s, if you please. But apparently they got them on easy terms, because of some past association of the fellow’s. Dallying with the chandler’s wife, by the sound of him.’

Caroline had another picture: the tearful face of the stationer’s daughter. Again, this did not look good, none of this looked good - and yet, after all the various and bewildering emotions she had been through today (and one, yes, was vindication - Caroline was human), there was now another, faintly and unexpectedly stealing upon her from an inner distance: and it was excitement.

‘It is better to know now,’ Isabella said.

The weather had relented sufficiently the next morning to allow Isabella and Caroline to take a short splashy walk. Isabella had the careful, wakeful, oddly fresh look of someone emerging from a long bout of illness.

‘It is far better to know now what his true character is,’ she said sturdily, or with an attempted sturdiness, ‘rather than if I had married him, and then found out. For that I have you to thank, Caro: if there had been no postponement, I might have been married to him now
—
or, Lord knows what, actually left standing at the altar by him perhaps. However, I don’t imagine you particularly want those thanks just now. All I’ll say is
—
oh, Caro, how could he?’

‘I’m afraid he simply
—
followed his heart,’ Caroline said temperately. ‘And that was the direction it led him. Selfish
—
greedy
—
duplicitous
—
but natural. And I don’t suppose you want to hear those things just now either.’

‘Oh, I’ve said them all, believe me,’ Isabella said, with a wave of her hand. ‘No, what I mean is, how could he behave so to
you?
You told the truth about him, and he absolutely traduced you, would have seen you shunned and mistrusted by everyone, and all the time — well, all the time, my dear, you were right.’

‘Well, I suppose that must happen once in a way’ Caroline said, with a smile, thinking of Stephen.

‘I never disbelieved you about Richard: but I would not believe you either, in my heart, Caroline; because
I
was selfish. In that I was very wrong to you.’

‘Oh, I shall bear up,’ Caroline sighed, with a mock-suffering look. Some instinct told her that only lightness would do now: otherwise they might end up howling. She was pleased to see, at any rate, Isabella with her serious pensive look quite unconsciously jumping over a puddle.

‘Well, even though I was so pig-headed, you did make all the difference.’

‘Did you — did you still love him?’

Isabella thought for several, precise seconds. ‘I loved what I thought was him,’ she said; and then, with her face averted, but her hand tightening on Caroline’s arm: ‘Have I not, in fact, been rather lucky?’

‘My dear Bella, of course,’ Caroline said, returning the pressure, ‘you met
me:
how much more lucky can a person be?’

The tallow-chandler’s in the Borough, hard by Guy’s Hospital: Caroline visited it in her dreams that night and the night after; she concentrated her imagination so intensely upon it that she could almost smell the tallow. And at the end of the second night, yawning but wakeful in the foredawn hush, Caroline was packing a couple of bags, her decision made.

The Borough was not a part of London she knew particularly well. Her peripatetic father had never lodged there, not indeed because of its generally drab and unlovely character
—
he had lived in worse places
—
but because the looming presence of the debtors’ prisons, the King’s Bench and the Marshalsea, made him deeply uncomfortable. ‘Like a pig living next door to a sausage-maker’s,’ as he put it feelingly. But she knew she could find her way around: nor did the prospect of going to London alone trouble her in the least, as it might many young ladies. And as she sat composedly waiting for first light, when she could slip out of the house and walk to meet the early carrier who passed on the Alconbury road, she seemed to hear her father’s shade remarking on this, and saying, in tones of modest self-congratulation: ‘Ah, Caro, you see, that’s your old papa’s influence, and so I think I can say I didn’t bring you up so badly after all!’

Aunt Selina, Uncle John: I love you very dearly. Indeed I love you more than I can express, or can ever hope to express in what I hope will be our long, long association; and certainly more than I could get into that rather craven little note I left you before slipping out this morning. But I had do it this way, because if I had announced my intention of going to London to find Fanny, you would surely have tried to prevent me
—
or, worse, you would have tried to come with me, which would have meant having to face all your fears of travelling on bad winter roads, for miles and miles
—
and that I could not bear for your sake
—
so this is better. And you must understand (pursued Caroline in thought, as the coach struggled muddily up Highgate Hill, and she got ready to kick the amorous old gentleman seated opposite, just woken from a doze and under the striking misconception that a snail-trail of drool added to the already debatable attractions of a dropsical belly and luxuriant nose-hair) — you must understand that I am very well used to going about alone and will be perfectly safe until my return which I hope will be soon
—
And also — my dear aunt, I think after all you will understand this — while I feel that contrary to general opinion I have done absolutely nothing
wrong
at Wythorpe, I do have a great wish, an unconquerable wish, to do something
right.

She had forgotten it, and she remembered it, all at once: the hurry, glare, stare, stink, and busy brilliance of London. Most striking, after the country, was the fact that all this was not a whit diminished by night-time, which was when the coach shuddered over the City cobbles into the Bull and Mouth. That was not the end of her journey, however: the Borough, south of London Bridge, was where she needed to be, and recollecting the White Hart as a notable inn of that district, Caroline paid for a hackney to take her and her bags thither. She meant to be sparing of her money, which, though she had a generous allowance from her uncle and aunt, she could not help feeling she was using without their consent; but the hackney was a necessary expense, as even Caroline did not fancy the long walk alone to Southwark at this hour. The Thames was a web of lights, tented with smoke: she felt the thrill of the city, along with a certain oppression; and she was desperately tired. The White Hart was a huge and ancient inn, galleried around its great central yard, and just a little dank and dusty compared with the prosperous hotels out west among the squares, with their sash windows and French sauces. But Caroline rather liked its creaking welcome, its superannuated bow-legged porter, who valiantly lugged her two light bags up the endless scranching stairs as if they were cannonballs. As a young woman taking a lodging alone, she was given her share of sidelong glances, but having taken the precaution of wearing her soberest clothes, along with a ring on her left hand
—
a brass ring from her bed-hangings at home
—
and of calling herself Mrs Milner (the first name that came to mind), she avoided the worst censure, and was able to retire to her gallery bedroom
—
wormy panelling, a faded tapestry screen showing white deer apparently leaping with joy at having arrows shot into them
—
free of the suspicion that she was there to entertain gentlemen on a rotational and commercial basis.

She woke to the rumble of wagons and the smell of coffee and
—
surprisingly
—
a protracted shiver of misgiving: just what
was
she doing? Tucked into a pocket of her mind was the thought of Stephen, and for a weak moment she reached for it. Stephen was here in London, Stephen was engaged in the search for Fanny: why not just call on him at Batt’
s
Hotel, give him her information, and simply hand the business over
...

‘To his superior male brain?’ she concluded. ‘No, no.’ He would like that too much.

Fortified by pride and breakfast, she went out into the Borough. If there was one thing this district was famed for, it was mud; and as overnight there had been a thaw, there were more than usually copious quantities of it about the old constricted streets; and as this was the main highway down to Kent, there were plenty of lurching coaches and wagons to spatter you with it, or to run you down if you preferred. It was a slow and dirty morning’s work for her. The little winding streets around Guy’s Hospital were represented by every noisome trade, it seemed, from tanneries to dung-farmers, but not a tallow-chandler was to be found. It was only when she emerged in Borough High Street again, baffled and back to her starting point, that she saw what had been there all the time. Directly in front of her, on the west side, was a row of tall square-bayed houses with latticed shop-fronts, and in the middle hung a signboard
—
peeling and faded, which was perhaps why she had missed it:
Gerrard
&
Son, Tallow-Chandlers.

She was so excited that she did not stop to think how she might best approach this. She hurried across the road, burst into the dingy ill-lit shop, and only then, as she waited for the cracked bell to summon someone from the glassed-in counting-house at the back, did she reflect again on what Captain Brunton had told her. ‘Some past association of the fellow’s.’ It might mean anything: it might mean, however, that the people here would seek to protect Mr Carraway. All she could think to do was look unthreatening and innocent. Unfortunately when she glimpsed herself preparing this look in the dark window, she found the effect positively half-witted, which muddled her for a moment. ‘May I be of service to you, madam?’

A pale pretty watercolour of a woman in her worn thirties, wiping her hands on her apron and presenting a smile of habitual propitiation that suggested an awkward husband.

‘Oh, good morning. You must be Mrs Gerrard.’ Caroline took what she hoped would be an inspired plunge. ‘Charles has told me so much about you. How is he? I was wondering if this was a convenient time to call on him.’ She reinforced her own smile as that of Mrs Gerrard faded. ‘Charles Carraway, you know.’

‘I’m sorry, madam,’ the woman said at last, in a mechanical tone, ‘I don’t know to whom you’re referring. I rather fancy you’ve got the wrong house.’ She began to retreat.

‘Oh, surely not
—
Charles told me he was lodging here again. Charles Carraway the painter, you know: we are old acquaintances
—’
‘There’s no one here of that name, madam. Now if you’ll be so good
—’

‘Not Milner then? Miss Fanny Milner? I’ve come such a long way, Mrs Gerrard, just to seek out old friends, and could you not at least tell me
—’

‘I don’t know who you mean,’ Mrs Gerrard said, shaking her head, avoiding Caroline’s eyes. ‘It’s like I said
—’
She stopped, tight-lipped, and smoothed her apron. ‘Now I must be getting to my work, madam, and I’ll bid you good-day.’

‘Like you said? Pray, what do you mean? To who?’ Caroline cried; but already the chandler’s wife had shut herself up in the counting-house.

Whom, Caroline thought, whom, going out into the street with a peculiar acrid feeling of mixed triumph and dismay. Mrs Gerrard was not a good actress: she
did
know something, at least; but short of invading her premises like a bailiff, Caroline could not think how
to get at it. Most tantalizing of all, this last inadvertent revelation: like she said
... ?
It suggested someone else had been asking after the fugitives. Again she fingered the pocket in her mind: could it be? Should she go to Batt’s Hotel and find out?

Coming out of abstraction, she saw a lounger in greatcoat and pulled-down hat lean out of a doorway ahead, and readied herself for evasion. That was another trouble with this district: it was full of seedy fellows
—
‘Oh, my God!’ she cried, as Stephen Milner lifted the hat and smiled his lopsided smile.

‘It would appear we’ve followed the same trail,’ he said, offering her his arm. ‘Will you? I know I look rather disreputable, but it is a necessary disguise, because I’ve been watching the house, you see. And I’m not entirely sure whether Fanny and friend may have a view from the front windows, though I don’t
think
so: my guess is they have the rooms at the second pair back.’

‘Then they
are
there! I thought
—’

‘Oh, yes. That little downtrodden woman said she’d never heard of ‘em, no doubt? Same with me yesterday, when I tracked them to this charming spot. But the lie was written all over her, poor creature: and I definitely glimpsed
him
this morning, slipping through an alley near Guy’s. My guess is there’s some tortuous back way behind those rambling old places, and they use that, but I can’t find it. Well, how are you, Miss Fortune? Quite tol-lollish, I hope? I have always wanted to ask someone if they are tol-lollish, and now I have.’

‘Oh, Stephen, stop it. You saw Mr Carraway — actually saw him? Oh, thank goodness.’

‘Why? Never tell me
you
have a taking for him as well.’

‘Stop it again. I’m relieved because — well, it means he is still here, that he hasn’t abandoned her.’

‘Ah, I see.’ He looked into her face. ‘I see more. You are serious, Miss Fortune. A bad sign. What more have you to tell? — and incidentally, how
did
you end up here, and are you all alone?’

‘I am alone, Mr Milner, and quite comfortably so, and I will tell you — but I long to know how
you
found this place?’

‘It was rather brilliant of me, wasn’t it?’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘Oh, it has been a long, frustrating business, and at first I thought my case was absolutely hopeless. The key at last was thinking of Fanny’s character, and putting that together with what Augusta told me, that she had taken her jewels with her.’

‘I didn’t know Fanny had any jewels.’

‘Exactly, because she doesn’t wear them, because she scorns such artificial frippery and prefers to appear in natural simplicity
et
cetera. Which suggests that she had a purpose in taking them, which purpose must have been to sell them to help finance the clandestine liaison, which again sounds entirely characteristic of Fanny: don’t you think? Picture it. Carraway: “But these are yours, my darling, your property
...”
Fanny: “Pooh, I care naught for property, and besides all I have is yours, let us sell them at once.” Carraway — not very reluctantly: “Well, if you say so, my bewitching angel
...”
Ugh,’ Stephen said, with a grimace, ‘I’ve made myself feel sick — but convincing, yes? So, it was then a simple matter of seeking out such jewellers as are unscrupulous enough to buy family jewels from an obviously deluded schoolgirl, and proceeding from there. In fact I presented myself as the vengeful father, and was believed, which is unflattering from the physical point of view, but it served its turn. The rogue who had bought them was canny enough to require an address from the vendors in case of trouble — and so, here we are.’

‘You say a simple matter — but from what I know of London, there must be scores of such jewellers all over the city. How did you
... ?’

‘Aye, well: she is my sister, and I love the crazed vixen, and as has been rightly pointed out to me, I am sometimes too careless of my responsibilities.’ Before she could speak — and something pressed at her heart to be spoken, though she could not tell what — he went on briskly: ‘Now where are you staying? Somewhere, I presume: and can one get a good meal there? I’ve been haunting that dreary street for long enough.’

So: the White Hart, where with a feeling of unreality by no means unpleasant, she ate luncheon with Stephen in a private dining room — dusty red curtains, Hogarth prints hanging askew on the panels, and an ingrained immemorial smell of gravy. Much to tell. Captain Brunton’s story first, because it was germane, and because she still hesitated over the other.

‘That was why I was so relieved to hear you’d seen Mr Carraway — because I was afraid of Fanny being deserted, as he did with this poor Miss Harvey.’

‘I see, I see.’ Stephen was thoughtful. ‘There
may
be some other side to this story — even though, to be frank, it simply confirms my suspicion of soulful young men who pride themselves on their spontaneity. What a sibilant sentence. Hm, hm. The problem I anticipate is Fanny’s stubbornness, or what she would call independence of mind. I still doubt we will wean her from him, even if she were to know this discreditable tale — don’t you think?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Caroline admitted.

‘Which suggests — and I hope you don’t think I’m being heartlessly practical here — that we must pin him down, if she is determined not to give him up. In other words, if there has not been a marriage ceremony, as I presume there has not, then we must remind the forgetful Mr Carraway of this little omission. Will you take a little more of this veal-and-ham pie? And will you tell me what else is troubling you?’

‘How can you tell something’s troubling me?’ she said, rather sharply.

‘Because you’re drinking a lot of wine.’

‘That’s not a sign of trouble, Mr Milner: that is me: I like drinking a lot of wine,’ she said loftily, drinking.

‘I’m glad to hear it, for I do too, and we topers must stick together. Still—’

‘Oh, Stephen, it’s Isabella. No, no, don’t be alarmed, she is quite well — but plainly you have not heard the news?’

‘The last letter I had was from Augusta, last Thursday I think.’ His eyes were flinty. ‘Tell, tell.’

She told. At the end of the telling, he called for another bottle of wine, and they silently drank while the fire popped and new-shod hoofs chocked on the cobbles outside.

‘If you wish to use a bad word,’ she said at last, ‘about Leabrook, I mean, then don’t be shy of it. Captain Brunton used a very good one. He called him a
—’

‘Yes, to be sure. I am thinking of — well, I am thinking of a great many things. I am wishing Leabrook all the ill-luck in the world, of course, but also I am
—
well, I am surprised, and yet I am not at all surprised, and I am thanking heaven for Isabella’s escape.’ In absorbed agitation Stephen did wild things to his hair. ‘Indeed, this may be the most amazing stroke of luck, because even with what
I’ve
learned about Leabrook, I wasn’t confident of being able to cure Bella of him.’

‘You mean you know more
—
worse about him?’

‘Oh, yes: and that’s why I left instructions that there was to be no reconciling while I was away. Yes, I found out about our friend Leabrook, when I went away from Wythorpe the first time in November
—
remember? How nice it is to rhyme, I must do it all the time. No, don’t hit me, hearken. It was when Leabrook said that you had thrown yourself at him at Brighton, and you said that he had sought to seduce you in same.’