Mistress of My Fate (8 page)

As I have explained, there was never a time when I was not mindful of my place within my uncle’s household. Like Sally, I too recognized that I was no more than a minor player within this larger drama. By the time Lord Allenham made his entrance into our lives, I had acquired a great deal of practice in performing my part. I knew precisely what would be required of me: I would be called upon to participate in most small social occasions, though not expected to contribute much by way of conversation. I had grown accustomed to providing a fourth pair of hands in a game of cards, to quietly turning sheets of music for Lady Catherine, and accompanying her on walks with her suitors. Where a party set out for a ride or a visit to the theatre or some public exhibition, I was always among them, simpering demurely with lowered eyes. I never once expected any mind to be paid to me; I never wished for any notice. It was Lady Catherine’s place to radiate, like a diamond set among garnets.

In the daily visits that Lord Allenham began paying to our lodgings, when he joined us for dinner, or came for an evening of entertainment, I never once courted his attention. I was adept at sliding from a room, or retreating into a sunlit corner with a book or some piece of embroidery. It therefore surprised me, or shall I say caused me embarrassment, that no matter where I hid or how silent I kept myself he seemed always able to locate me. On one occasion, I had been so entirely engrossed in my book that I had not even been aware of his entrance into the small parlour.

“
The Vicar of Wakefield
,” he had announced, startling me terribly.
“Dear Miss Ingerton!” he apologized, “I did not mean to frighten you.” He stood quite still, afraid perhaps that I should faint from fear, until he noticed the appearance of my bashful smile. This caused him to laugh, and I soon joined him, my cheeks growing ever hotter and ruddier under his gaze.

“You find Mr. Goldsmith to your liking?” he questioned me, when at last we caught our breath.

“Very much so,” I answered, before Allenham took a seat beside me. I could hardly bring myself to look upon him, knowing that if I did, I should begin to tremble. Why he took an interest in my thoughts, I could not comprehend, but he soon drew me into a discussion on the merits of the book and its characters.

Incidents such as this occurred on several occasions. They lasted but a few moments, before Allenham, realizing he would be missed, or that my cousin had thrown me a jealous look from across the room, made his excuses and rejoined the others. I must admit I thought nothing of these friendly exchanges at the time, though I cannot say the same for my aunt, who monitored them with some interest.

“It is rare to see a young man so generally concerned with all members of a party,” she had stated to Lady Jervas, a relation of Lord Allenham’s who had joined us for a game of whist one evening. The Baron was at the fortepiano with my cousin and well beyond earshot. “His manners are so cordial. He has the air of a courtier.”

Lady Jervas smiled archly. “He learned it from his father, who was Minister Resident at Turin for a good many years. Such is to be expected in a family of diplomats. His lordship spent his boyhood learning to tip-toe across marble palace floors.” Then, thoughtfully, she pressed her cards to her chest, and leaned towards Lady Stavourley’s ear. “There are many benefits to a foreign education. He rides and fences as well as a French chevalier—and speaks the language as well as one. Of course, he has also mastered Italian.” She looked at him across the room. “He will be a catch indeed.”

My aunt gazed over the top of her cards towards her daughter with an expression that spoke of both pleasure and concern.

I understood what preoccupied her thoughts: she did not trust Lady Catherine. My cousin bore that familiar mischievous look when she stood near Allenham; her narrowed eyes and mild smile gave her a feline air, as if she were preparing to splay her claws.

“Yes,” Lady Stavourley replied, “and someone need catch him quickly.”

But as the days folded over into one another, my cousin failed to bare her teeth. She did not resort to her usual trickery. There were no cutting remarks and no turned backs; on the contrary, her habitual ebullience seemed muted, she seemed contained, calm, tamed by Allenham’s influence. She hung upon his every utterance, as did we all.

He had that particular gift, you see. He possessed a unique ability to compel and captivate with his words and, when this gift was coupled with his startlingly handsome features, there was no one whom he had not the power to persuade. It was for this reason that gentlemen such as my uncle, Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan saw a great future for him in politics. He was by all regards a natural statesman. Why, to this very day you may go to Brooks’s Club in St. James’s and there speak with half a dozen or more fellows of an august age who will vouch for his talent at telling a good tale. Everyone around the table, or riding with him in a carriage, would fall silent as he painted scenes all about us. Of course, in his youth, he spoke a great deal of the places he had seen as a boy: the Forum ruins in Rome, the carnival at Venice, Pompeii and Herculaneum. For ladies who had seen very little of the world, this was greatly diverting. We listened with fascination, not knowing which was more enchanting, the stories or the animated, tenor-voiced storyteller.

I remember distinctly our visit to Spring Gardens and how he regaled us with talk of the luxurious palace gardens at Caserta. Allenham insisted on taking us to view the rows of pink-blossomed trees, which had recently burst into colour. It looked like a fairy landscape,
with the breeze sending rose-coloured petals in swirls around us, but I was hardly aware of this picturesque scene, so lost was I in his words.

“The park spreads for almost as far as the eye can see, and at the end of it there is a cascade which tumbles down what looks to be a row of steps into Venus’s Grotto,” he told us as we strolled, my cousin and I with our arms resting upon his.

“I have read of this,” said I. Lady Catherine looked at me with a cold expression. “There are several fountains within the cascade. There is one dedicated to Diana and Actaeon. All around the cascade are placed statues representing the winds and zephyrs. I should like to see it one day.”

“I cannot imagine such a thing,” said my cousin. “I should have to see it to know you had not invented, Hetty.”

“No, I have seen it and it is quite real. Miss Ingerton is correct; it is decorated with all manner of fantastic things. There is another cascade just like it at Vienna and at the Palace of Versailles.”

Lady Catherine did not enjoy being proven incorrect. She replaced her merry face with a downcast one and fell conspicuously silent. Noting this, Allenham stopped, placed his hand upon hers and addressed her in a gentle tone.

“There is a book I would like to show you. You may see a print of the cascade in there and many of the other sites I visited as a boy. Tomorrow we shall go to Pratt and Marshall’s Library.”

As he gazed at her, she raised her eyes to him adoringly.

You have heard of bee charmers and snake charmers, lion tamers and those who have a calming way with wild dogs? Allenham was a person such as this. He had an instinct for sadness or disappointment, and an understanding of how to lift it. On that day, he must have sensed it in me. In fact, I believe he had seen it in me all along, even before I myself understood what I felt.

There had been a moment, as we advanced towards the carriage, when Allenham and I found ourselves separated from the others by
several paces. We had walked for some time without speaking, listening to the breeze and to the calls of a noisy flock of blackbirds. It was then that he turned to me, his handsome face candid.

“It is difficult to be always in the shadows,” he stated.

When I looked at him quizzically, not comprehending his meaning, he continued. “Most do not know that I had an elder brother. I was not intended to be my father’s heir.” He glanced at me, the wind teasing a strand of his dark hair. “He died of scarlet fever when I was but fourteen.”

“I did not know this,” said I, apologetically.

“It is no matter.” He shook his head. “He was far better formed for this role than I. He excelled in all things. In strength… as a scholar—he was barely nine years old and reading Pliny!” Allenham exclaimed with a sniff of laughter. “I, by contrast, was always awkward.”

“I cannot believe that, my lord,” I spoke up, chiding him slightly.

“No, it is true. As a boy, I was very shy. Naturally, my father favoured my brother…” The Baron looked wistfully at me. “Miss Ingerton, I know what it is to be considered the lesser of two. Sometimes it is the cause of genuine pain.”

I listened to these words with a sense of unease, but chose to say nothing in response. My first thought was to deny what he was claiming, to state that I had no such experience of this pain that he described. But it was not true, and it surprised me greatly to hear someone depict so plainly that which I held privately inside me.

After he disclosed this, I realized why he had been so intent on never excluding me and on always paying my cousin and me equal attention. Although my position was no more than that of a chaperone, I was aware of a warm friendship taking root between us. We had many similar interests, more, it must be said, than his lordship and my cousin. Although Lady Catherine entertained him with her merry wit, filling our suppers with droll remarks about Bath’s swaggering or gouty visitors, it was to me that Allenham turned when he wished to
discuss opinions and ideas. He spoke of the sublime beauty of the Alps, he mused on the subject of painting, on architecture and on Rome, but nothing animated him as vividly as did mention of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. To see him, you would understand, dear reader, how the writings of this great philosopher burned within his mind, for his very eyes flickered with admiration.

Unfortunately, talk of such lofty subjects did not amuse my cousin. As we stood around the long library table at Pratt & Marshall, examining an illustrated volume of palace gardens, she wearily wandered off.

She left Allenham and me to pore over the detailed engravings, each diagram more intricate than the last. I opened a page to reveal images of all the statues in the gardens of Versailles. The Baron and I bent our heads to study these mythical figures more closely. At times, his cheek would pass so near to mine that I could feel its warmth upon my own. His fingers crept across the page as he spoke, brushing once or twice against my hand or wrist.

“Daphne and Apollo,” I announced. My voice was higher and more nervous than usual. “That is my favourite.”

“But it is such a sad tale,” said he. “You surprise me. It is about a broken heart, a god who loves, who will never be loved in return.”

“But Daphne’s virtue is admirable, do you not think?”

“What I think, Miss Ingerton,” said he, lowering his voice, “is that you have read but a few of these ancient tales, and only those selected by your governess.”

“Perhaps that is so…” said I, recalling all too well how my tutor attached a moral lesson to each of these readings, carefully prescribing which pages among the many volumes we were to examine.

“One day you must read all these stories, with all their brutality and beauty…” He paused thoughtfully. “… And not merely the mythology of the ancients, but truthful accounts of the human heart… Monsieur Rousseau, his
Confessions
. There are few pictures so well painted of life… of the joys of love…”

My mouth grew suddenly dry when he spoke that phrase. My heart began to beat quite rapidly. Unknowingly, I moved away from him.

“Perhaps, once you are married,” he corrected himself with a hopeful note in his voice. But Allenham knew as well as I how limited were my prospects of that.

I recalled that episode in my mind many, many times. It stayed with me, spinning round and round like a globe, returning with each revolution to the same point: the word “love.” From the moment I had met Allenham, I did what was expected of me and smothered at birth those feelings to which I felt my heart succumbing. The thought that my pulse should leap at the mention of his name sickened me. Throughout my young life I had become very good at learning to want nothing, joining my wishes and dreams with those of my cousin’s. Allenham was not and would never be for me, and, my dear reader, I swear to you I adhered to this belief with every particle of my being. Whenever I felt the forbidden spark begin to smoulder in my heart, I stamped upon it. I turned my every attention to making him love Lady Catherine.

By then, you see, an engagement was inevitable. A young man cannot pay so much attention to a young lady without it leading somewhere. In fact, my aunt and cousin and Mrs. Villiers had talked of nothing else since the evening he accompanied us to the theatre.

At the end of our second week at Bath, my cousin had begun to sulk. For days she had swung from giddiness to weepiness. Patience was not one of her greatest virtues. She was unaccustomed to waiting for anything. “But certainly he must be in love with me by now!” she exclaimed in exasperation, after another night of dancing with Allenham at the Assembly Rooms failed to produce a proposal of marriage.

“Love is only the half of it,” sighed her mother. “The rest is a matter of business between men.”

“He must put his affairs in order first,” comforted Mrs. Villiers, who, as a widow, claimed to know more about the inner thoughts of
men than most. Lady Catherine listened, but never seemed entirely satisfied. Her disbelieving scowl was only softened, not erased.

Strange as it may sound to you, her temper did not change until she received word of Allenham’s departure. It came in the form of a letter, accompanied by two parcels wrapped loosely in brown paper. These items were delivered into the hands of a housemaid who brought them up to us. My cousin cooed and clapped like a child at the sight of her round, thin box.

“There is one for Miss Ingerton as well,” said the servant, gesturing to the flat object upon the card table. Bemused, I rose to examine my package as my aunt read the letter.