Mistress of My Fate (12 page)

I knew that my cousin would later recount to me every detail of the transaction.

Apparently, Allenham had asked her to take the air with him after breakfast. “Hetty, I was so very anxious, for I felt certain he would do it then…”

“And did he?” I asked, though I knew the answer perfectly well.

“Oh,” she squeaked, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands to her breast. “He did!”

“And you accepted?”

“But of course! Of course I accepted!”

“Oh cousin!” I exclaimed. “You are to be wed!” And at that we embraced as ardently as we had ever done.

As we held each other tightly, Lady Catherine leaned her mouth to my ear: “And I let him kiss me.”

I paid no mind to that part of her confession.

As you may imagine, that day was one of high spirits at Melmouth. The housemaids gathered in the corners and whispered the news between them. Cook made up Lady Catherine’s favourite orange pudding as a dinner-table surprise. My cousin’s feet hardly trod upon the ground, while my aunt’s face seemed to take on the lightness of springtime itself.

I was by no means immune to the happiness of this event. If nothing else, it provided me with an overwhelming sense of the correctness of my actions, that I had conducted myself with dignity and duty throughout. I pushed to the back of my mind the other thoughts: Allenham’s words; the professions of love in his letters; how my physical person had throbbed under his touch. Now I would be as a lump of cold stone. After all, what right had I to entertain, even for a moment, a sensation of love? None, I reproached myself. None whatsoever! I would not permit myself to feel so much as a thimbleful of despair at my cousin’s triumph. This was a cause for celebration, for Lady Catherine’s nuptials promised all three of us a life of contentment. As I sat in her company that evening, watching her glow as brightly as the candles, I permitted myself to feel nothing but her elation. I swore that I would hollow out my heart till it was empty of everything but her desires. I would bind myself to her more fervently than I had ever before. I would mould myself into her handmaiden and my life would be dedicated to serving her. Her joys would become mine; I would live through her completely.

Oh reader, you know as well as I the impossibility of this. I fear that dear Allenham understood it too, and loathed himself for it.

At dinner, he looked at me not even once. It was as if I were nothing
but the leather of the chair upon which I sat. Instead, his gaze rested all night upon the lovesick features of his fiancée. He could hardly tolerate my presence, and immediately withdrew with from any room in which he found me. I was not foolish enough to mistake this for rudeness, but rather some commendable effort on his part to conquer his weakness.

It was accident that brought us together at the end of the night. Upon climbing the stairs on my route to bed, I found him at the top of the landing. We were not entirely alone, as two housemaids were occupied in laying Melmouth to rest, snuffing out candles along the corridor where we met. I stopped awkwardly, and lowered my eyes.

“I have not yet offered you my congratulations, my lord,” said I, with a curtsey.

“I am most grateful for them, madam,” Allenham responded, before a heavy silence began to expand between us.

Slowly, I removed my gaze from the floorboards, and for the first time that day, took in the spectacle of his striking features. The shadows were resting softly along his cheek and chin.

“What would you have me say?” he asked in barely a whisper. He brought his eyes down upon mine, heavily.

I looked away, not on account of shame, but because his stare had been so deeply loaded with longing that I believed it almost indecent.

“I feel as if I have become Werther,” he declared, shutting his eyes and shaking his head. “And you, you are to me as Lotte was to that poor soul.” He exhaled and regarded me once more. “But it is done, my angel. This is our fate. And now I shall fulfil my obligations to your family and to mine. My fortune will be repaired. We shall have much to celebrate in future, Miss Ingerton.”

Allenham fixed a smile over his mouth and dipped his head to me graciously before proceeding down the dim corridor to his bed.

I struggled to sleep that night, my mind rolling with thoughts. Among them was the name Werther. I had heard much talk of the
book,
The Sorrows of Young Werther
, but had not read it. Lady Stavourley certainly claimed to know enough of it to condemn it outright.

“Was there not a young lady who drowned herself on cause of it? In Brandenburg or Baden, or some such place?”

“A dreadful matter, to be sure,” replied her companion. “And there have been others too. I have heard the book is prone to make its readers run mad.” She sighed. “Those with weak natures should not read such violently sentimental novels.”

“Well, I should not like to read it,” declaimed my aunt, before turning the conversation on to paper flowers or some such subject.

Regardless of Lady Stavourley’s objections to the work, by the following morning I had thought enough upon the matter to decide that I would like to—no, that I
must
read this book, for in it I believed lay some key to Allenham’s thoughts.

As soon as I was able, I went to my uncle’s library and there found a translation of Mr. Goethe’s novel among the shelves. I drew it down and opened the covers of this unassuming text, entirely uncertain of what I should find within it.

I was greatly engaged by the character of Werther, a young German gentleman of some means who desired to discover something of life through his travels. In the course of his wanderings he was introduced to Lotte, with whom he formed a friendship. Werther did not intend to fall in love with Lotte, who was betrothed to another, Albert, but found himself so enthralled by her that he could not do otherwise, and as Werther tumbled further into a vortex of passion, he brought me plummeting with him.

“I can no longer pray except to her; my imagination beholds no figure but hers; and I see the things of the world about me only in relation to her. And as a result I do enjoy many a happy hour—until I have to tear myself away from her again!” Werther cries. And then once more:

When I have been with her for two or three hours, entranced by her ways and the divine expressiveness of her words, and my senses gradually become excited, my sight grows dim, I can hardly hear a thing, I have difficulty breathing, as if a murderer had me by the throat, and then my heart beats wildly, trying to relieve my tormented senses and only making their confusion worse!

Oh reader, I hung upon Mr. Goethe’s every word. I positively ate each metaphor and verb from the page, for what struck me was that these were not merely Werther’s thoughts, but Allenham’s! Here lay a picture of his lordship’s sufferings for me! Did he not call me his Lotte? Had he not confessed his similar torments?

I read more and more, my entire person quaking, my eyes barely able to take in this feast of revelations.

Werther leaves Lotte to marry Albert, a cold, selfish man incapable of feeling the warmth of love expressed by his rival. “How cruel is life!” I found myself exclaiming. Werther then returns, determined to conquer his passions, but fails. Even after befriending Albert, he is powerless to staunch the outflow of love he feels for Lotte and begins his descent into madness. “I am resolved to die!” poor Werther declares to the object of his passion. “It is not despair: I am convinced I have endured my fill of sorrows, and I am sacrificing myself for you. Yes, Lotte! Why should I not say it? One of us three must die, so let it be me!”

How I wept at this. Why, I nearly soaked my uncle’s book with my tears. My heart begged Werther not to take his own life, but as I read line upon line, I saw how his own destruction neared, until that very instant when he pulled the trigger and extinguished himself. “What grief! What senseless tragedy!” I mourned. “And Lotte, stricken by her loss, and Albert made miserable too.” In truth, until I ventured to read
The Sorrows of Young Werther
, I did not think it possible for a human
heart to ache and rejoice with such fervour. Dear friends, I was dizzy with this thought, stunned, like one who has been hit upon the head.

The novel was a very short one, and without so much as leaving my chair, I had consumed it whole. Indeed, by the time I shut the book, I was surprised to learn that dinner was to be called. My stomach turned over at the thought of sitting opposite Allenham. After reading so far into his soul, I wondered how I might ever look upon him again. Fortunately, fate intervened and spared me this discomfort.

“My fiancé has taken his leave,” moaned Lady Catherine as Sally assisted her out of her day dress. “Business has called him to London.” I was at first surprised at this news, but then understood why Allenham had not made his farewell to me: did Werther not ache whenever he quit Lotte’s company? No, Allenham could not have remained among us for long while his thoughts spun with such confusion. He required some distance to restore his composure. Indeed, we all required some time to catch our breath.

As you well understand, a wedding creates a fair deal of work for both sexes. My uncle and his solicitors were soon consumed with the business of negotiating the marriage contract. There were stocks to be disposed of and property to be purchased. Documents were to be inspected and disputed before the men could press their hard seals into the soft red wax beside Lady Catherine’s name. As for the ladies, there was the matter of the wedding trousseau.

Lord Allenham’s coach had hardly passed through Melmouth’s gates before talk of this had begun. There were all manner of practical things to be gathered in London; the purchase of gowns appropriate for a married lady of quality was only the half of it. There was the childbed linen to be assembled, nightdresses and nightcaps, sporting attire, and a hoop procured for wear at court. But even if there had not been a reason to set out for the capital, my aunt would have invented one. It was June, and as Parliament was to be in session for several weeks more,
many of the families of quality remained in town. Lady Stavourley would not have them depart without all of London hearing her news. She wished to make a very visible show of her daughter upon the arm of Lord Allenham.

Reader, I cannot describe to you my uneasiness at the thought of meeting with the Baron again. I confess that since his feelings had been put so plainly to me by way of Werther, my mind had been thrown into a turmoil. My heart pulled this way and that. While strolling with my cousin or idling beside the fortepiano as she played, my thoughts would stray to Allenham until, horrified by the sensations I felt, I shook my head to rid myself of them. At other times, when I believed myself quite distracted in sketching a landscape or a still life, he would come to me again; his words—Werther’s words! Then I would drop my chalk and fly to Mr. Goethe’s novel, to read some passage or other that would set my heart alight. When alone in my bedchamber, I would unlock my escritoire and feel for the small cache of his letters, hidden at the back of a drawer, and take secret delight in them. What sickness this was that overtook me! How I struggled to free myself from it, and to set myself back upon the correct path!

All the way to London I trembled in the coach as I sat beside my cousin.

“Hetty, are you ill?” she finally enquired.

“No,” I answered, mortified. I immediately corrected my conduct and berated myself for my foolishness, until my heart, like an unbroken horse, attempted to bolt from its restraints once more.

I could not imagine how Allenham fared in the midst of this tempest, though at our next meeting, which occurred in the drawing room of my uncle’s house in Berkeley Square, he was all good humour and politeness. In fact, he came upon us by surprise, as we had not expected to see him until that evening. This was truly a blessing, for otherwise the anticipation of meeting with him would have undone me. There he found us, my aunt attending to her morning correspondence and Lady
Catherine and I upon the sofa with our embroidery. I blushed as much as my cousin when he entered the room, and averted my gaze when he placed a kiss upon her cheek. It was only then that I noticed the book I had so carelessly left upon the table beside my embroidery:
The Sorrows of Young Werther
. Unable to part with it, I had carried it with me to London. It is with shame I admit that by then it was as indispensable to me as a prayer book. I was forever thumbing through its pages, searching for some reminder of Allenham’s love for me. Oh, and as I did it, I despised myself all the more!

As Allenham greeted me, I saw that his eyes briefly landed upon it, and in an instant I felt as if all my vices had been unmasked. I shrank back, ashamed of my conduct, and resolved once more to dispel all my absurd longings, however impossible this task may have seemed.

It was not until the following day, as we took our constitutional in Hyde Park, that he made mention of the novel to me. He had Lady Catherine upon his arm for the entire afternoon, while I hung back, strolling beside my aunt, who had hardly uttered more than three or four words to me. It was not until meeting with Lady Carlisle and her daughters, who distracted my cousin with gossip, that Allenham turned to me.

“You have been reading
The Sorrows of Young Werther
?” he asked, a hint of eagerness in his tone.

“Yes. Yes, my lord,” I confessed, colouring furiously.

“And what think you of it?”

If I had one accomplishment as a young lady which outshone all others, it was my ability to tie my tongue in knots.

“It… Well, my lord… I… It… is the most extraordinary book I have ever read…”

He smiled at this, seemingly reassured by my response.

“Indeed, I believe it is matchless,” he agreed. “
The Sorrows of Young Werther
has no equal. I have found nothing to rival its true portrayal of anguish.” He looked at me, his features softening. “Not even
Monsieur Rousseau can describe as well the expressions of true passion… of love… the sufferings…”

“Yes,” I exclaimed, my eyes wide with ardour. “I have never read such a depiction…”