Sylvia Or The Moral High Ground

by Catherine Bowness

  “You have been out for an excessively long time,” she said accusingly.

  “We had tea at Gunter’s,” Melissa explained from halfway up the stairs. She did not descend.

  “I should like a word with you, Miss Holmdale,” her ladyship said in tones icy enough to rival the Duke’s.

  “Now, your ladyship? Or would you prefer me to return when I have removed my bonnet and pelisse?”

  “At once.”

  Sylvia inclined her head and followed her employer into the saloon, untying the ribbons of her bonnet as she walked. She carried the now somewhat ill-wrapped lavender confection by her side.

  “With whom did you sit down at Gunter’s?” her ladyship asked.

  Sylvia suppressed a smile. “His grace the Duke of Rother, Lord Furzeby and his nephew, Mr Harbury.”

  “Those three seem very thick,” her ladyship observed. “It was that trio with whom we spoke for so long yesterday afternoon.”

  “Yes, so I gathered and today they seemed keen to pursue the acquaintance.”

  “Indeed? I noticed the young man’s eagerness yesterday. He is a person whom I would prefer you to discourage. He is very young and his prospects are not promising. The Duke is another matter. Did you form the impression that he was taken with Melissa?”

  Sylvia hesitated. His grace had declared that he had a mind to pursue the girl and she was certain that he would, if only to spite her. But she did not think that he showed any sign of developing a tendre for her. Beyond greeting her in a courteous, but by no means marked, manner, he had barely looked at her until he kissed her hand on parting – and, again, Sylvia was convinced that the gesture was designed merely to make a point of contrast between his contempt for the governess and admiration for Melissa. She was not sure whether she should encourage Lady Sullington’s ambitions by saying that she thought he was interested in the girl or whether it would be better for Melissa if she denied it.

  “It is hard to tell at this juncture, my lady. They have only met twice but he seemed very ready to repair to Gunter’s at Lord Furzeby’s suggestion.”

  Sylvia’s adherence to the moral high ground made her uncomfortable at uttering this falsehood but she found herself reluctant to admit that it was Mr Harbury who had issued the invitation, and unwilling to assign the gesture to the Duke, for fear that Lady Sullington would immediately jump to the conclusion that Rother was indeed attempting to fix his interest with Melissa.

  “I shall expect you to do everything in your power to encourage Melissa to look favourably upon his grace. My lord would consider the Duke to be an excellent catch. I am sure I do not need to tell you that I am disappointed that Mr Harbury was a member of the party. He is to be discouraged and I shall expect you to denigrate him at every opportunity.”

  “I shall certainly not encourage Mr Harbury but I believe that, where very young persons are concerned, it is unwise to make too active a discrimination between one suitor and another. It might, you know, have the opposite effect to the one intended. I daresay Melissa will soon fall victim to his grace’s superior address.”

  “Very well. Taking tea at Gunter’s with the Duke was an excellent notion and I am glad you encouraged the entertainment. That was well done. This evening I shall be taking Melissa to Lady Acland’s; she is giving a small party for her niece, who is staying with her. You will have the evening to yourself.”

  “Thank you, my lady. I believe I shall use the time to write a letter to my mama.” She moved towards the door but turned back to say, with every appearance of wishing to please her employer, “If the posy I saw delivered earlier is any indication, I believe Melissa has already acquired at least one admirer.”

  Lady Sullington’s gracious expression hardened at this confession. “Did you mention it to my daughter?”

  “No, and she did not tell me about it. No doubt it slipped her mind when we were preparing to go out.”

  “I am relieved that you have brought that up. If you happen to see another being delivered, you must give it at once into my hands so that I may check its provenance. That one came from an unsuitable source and I prefer my daughter to remain ignorant of its arrival.”

  “Yes, my lady. If his grace should send one, would you object to my giving that to her directly?” This was uttered with a straight face but, try as she would, Sylvia was unable to suppress a slight tremor from her voice. Fortunately, her ladyship, not being equipped with a sense of humour, did not detect the irony.

  “No; I should like all posies and gifts – in short, anything at all addressed to Melissa – to be given to me. I will make the decision on whether to inform my daughter. The same applies to letters. I do not wish Melissa to be receiving letters from all and sundry without my having been able to cast an eye over them first.”

  “Very good, my lady.” Sylvia dropped a small curtsey and removed herself from the room.

  It was not until she had gained her bedchamber and put the package containing the hat on a table, that she remembered the parcel she had received that morning. It undoubtedly fell into the category of unsuitable gifts, indeed so wholly unsuitable that it must be returned at once to the sender.

  She could not at first bring herself to look at it; its very presence caused her a considerable degree of anxiety. She sat down at her dressing table and stared anxiously at the drawer in which she had hidden it.

  If you allow it to turn you into a coward, you are already under its sway, she told herself sternly, and opened the drawer. She was unable to withdraw it from beneath her stockings, however, for at that moment Melissa burst into the room, preceded by a perfunctory knock.

  “Was not that a lovely afternoon?” the girl asked, sitting down upon the bed with a bounce. It was only then that she noticed two spots of blood on Sylvia’s dress. “But your knees, Miss Holmdale! They have bled right through your dress. Let me see how badly they are hurt!”

  Sylvia turned down the corners of her mouth. “It is of no consequence and I daresay, once it has been washed, there will be no stain to speak of.”

  “I am not concerned about your dress! It is, in any event, almost threadbare and should most probably be thrown away. Let me look at your knees!”

  Sylvia showing no disposition to lift her skirt, Melissa jumped up, fell upon her own in front of her governess and rolled up the thin material, exposing a pair of knees adorned with barely clotted blood.

  “Oh, they look quite dreadfully painful. I will call Rose at once and get her to bathe them with warm water in which a little boracic has been dissolved; that was Lord Furzeby’s advice, was it not? Then she must bandage them – and you can change your dress. Poor Miss Holmdale! However did you come to hurt yourself so badly?”

  Sylvia, offering up a silent prayer that Melissa would have forgotten her explanation concerning her own attack upon the Duke’s foot and his revenge by removing it so that she fell, said, “I tripped upon the pavement. I daresay there was an uneven stone. That was how Lord Furzeby came to join our party: he was passing and saw me fall.”

  “But where was the Duke?”

  “Oh, I am not perfectly certain,” Sylvia replied evasively.

  “Why did he not pick you up? You were talking to him.”

  “Yes; perhaps he had turned away for a moment; I cannot recall exactly.”

  Melissa, still on her knees, observed, “He is not very agreeable, is he? I suppose he thinks himself of too much consequence to speak to mere mortals like you and me.”

  “I daresay he is shy,” Sylvia muttered.

  “I do not believe him to be in the least shy; I think he is top-lofty and I own I do not like him above half. He has a cold look and – which is something I will never forgive – he was uncivil to you.”

  “You must not judge him too hastily,” Sylvia said.

  There were several reasons why she was reluctant to encourage the Duke’s suit, but, having been most strenuously enjoined to do so by her employer, and mistrusting her own reasons for not wanting to, s
he hardly knew what to say or how to promote Lady Sullington’s wishes – or even whether she ought to do so. She did not for a moment think that the Duke would ever look at her again and, that being the case, she supposed that, if he were to fall in love with Melissa, he would probably make her a perfectly amiable husband. If his affections were to be truly engaged by her former pupil – and if Melissa should exchange her burgeoning interest in Mr Harbury in favour of the Duke – why then, she should encourage the match.

  Chapter 10

  “No. I am too old for him.” Cassie agreed.

  “That is not the only bar to your walking down the aisle with him,” Mrs Farley observed drily. “Was he a Duke when you met him?”

  “No – and did not expect to become one either. He was Lord Robert Trimaron. He had an older brother who was killed in a duel when Robert was five and twenty.”

  “Good Gracious! How old was he when you began your affair?”

  Cassie flushed. “Sixteen – more or less.”

  “Lud! Was he still at school? He must have been a pretty boy. And you were – how old at the time?”

  “Seven and twenty. I am eleven years older. He came to the stage door after a performance and asked me if I would take supper with him. I suppose I should have declined but he was, as you say, so very pretty – and so eager and charming. He was so different from all the men I had encountered before and treated me with such tender respect that I am afraid I could not resist. You will say that supper is one thing but that I should have sent him away afterwards.”

  Mrs Farley was watching her with a curious expression compounded of curiosity, sympathy and not a little scepticism.

  “Well, I suppose he had to learn somewhere and a boy a few months shy of sixteen is not precisely a child. He has stayed with you a long time; do you think he is in love with you?”

  “No, more’s the pity. I wish he were but he never has been, not even in the beginning. I hoped he would eventually; I have done everything I could to make him love me but he has never thought of me in that way. He did fall in love, when he was four and twenty, with the sister of one of his fellow officers.”

  Mrs Farley, in spite of being Cassie’s oldest and dearest friend – indeed she could with some accuracy have been described as her only friend – had never heard this before. She recognised that Cassie had once been a lady and might, but for her fall from grace, have married as high as she chose. Unfortunately, she was too old – and always had been – for Lord Robert. When she was snatched from the marriage mart and ruined he would have been a boy of six.

  “Was she a débutante?”

  “No, she was a country parson’s daughter. Robert went to stay with the brother that summer while on furlough. When he came back to London he told me that he had become engaged to be married. As a consequence he broke off our connexion.”

  “I see, but he did not marry, did he? What happened to her? Did she contract some frightful disease and die before they had been able to exchange vows?”

  “No – or at least I do not think so. He went off to the Peninsula soon after and was seriously wounded almost the minute he set foot in Spain. After he had been shipped back to England, I visited him in the military hospital where he was recovering and discovered that he was no longer betrothed. He has never spoken of what happened.”

  Mrs Farley nodded. “But he resumed his connexion with you? When? The moment he was well enough?”

  “Yes, but it has never been the same. When I first knew him, he was open and loving. Since he recovered from his injuries, he has been perfectly kind, but distant. I think he has a fondness for me – almost as though I was a member of his family or perhaps an old retainer – but his heart is not mine – and I do not believe it to be free.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that he has worn the willow for this female for more than seven years?”

  “Yes, I am certain that he has.”

  “What has become of her?”

  “I do not know. She may be dead, I suppose; if not, she is probably married and has a string of children.”

  “Well,” Mrs Farley said with emphasis. “He may have buried his heart with the parson’s daughter but he will be obliged to marry eventually in order to secure the succession. He will not marry you: apart from the facts that you are no longer respectable and that he has shown no interest in marrying you in all this time, you are now too old.

  “To my mind, the best thing you can do at this juncture is to find a husband and it strikes me that Lord Marklye would be a good choice. He is probably about the same age as you. There is no doubt that the time has come to dismiss his grace, preferably before he dispenses with you. Then, if you can but attach Lord Marklye, you will be free and not under the protection of the Duke.”

  Cassie looked horrified. “But if I were to leave Robert, where could I go?”

  “You could stay with me. I know that I am not altogether respectable and not at all the same rank, but I have a large house in a fashionable part of town. I am not, it is true, a member of the ton and I do not have access to the highest salons; nevertheless, since I married Mr Farley and became so rich, I have become almost acceptable to Society and have the entrée to most houses.

  “Lord Marklye is quite a dark horse himself; where has he been all this time and what has he been doing? Judging by that exceedingly well-cut coat and the diamond pin, which I could not help noticing, he is not short of blunt. Heaven knows how he acquired it, but he clearly has - and the title, which he must have inherited from your unpleasant seducer, who, incidentally, I am extremely pleased to hear came by his just desserts in the end.”

  “Yes,” Cassie agreed, unable to repress a shudder. “But this Lord Marklye will also be wanting an heir, particularly since he seems somehow to have acquired a fortune. He will not be interested in me because, as you say, I am too old.”

  “His is not such an ancient or high title; he is older than Rother and not yet married so I daresay he doesn’t care who succeeds him; after all, he only came by it himself fairly recently. Buck up, my dear, you must make an effort to attach him.

  “I shall go home now. Rother might arrive at any minute and, if you are to break it off with him, I believe it would be inadvisable for him to have seen me here just before. He might connect the two, you know. We will go to the opera tomorrow, as promised, and hope that Lord Marklye will be there but, if he is not, I am sure it will not be difficult to track him down and throw you in his way again.”

  She stood up and said, as they waited for her carriage to be brought to the door, “You must leave Rother as soon as possible – certainly before he throws you out. Will it be the first occasion on which you have done such a thing?”

  “Yes, I believe it will. Oh, Prue, I was never cut out for this way of life, was I?”

  “You have the looks, my dear, but not the nature. Never mind, we shall have you well set up in no time. You’ll see.”

  Mrs Farley kissed her friend’s cheek and sailed out of the room.

  Cassie went to bed, but she did not sleep. She lay anxiously waiting for the Duke to arrive and trying fruitlessly to think of how she was to break the news that she wished to leave him. She wondered if Prue would disapprove if she postponed the scene she dreaded until morning.

  In the event, as with so many other things in her life, the choice was not hers. The Duke did not come.

  It was not until the following afternoon was well advanced and she had begun to consider what she would wear to the opera, that he walked into the saloon. She was sitting at the pianoforte, as she often did when she wanted to calm her mind.

  “How was Bisset?” he asked pleasantly. She knew that something was amiss because he did not kiss her but walked straight past to stand with his back to the fire.

  “Excellent. Thank you so much for the tickets.”

  He did not reply and she rose from the stool.

  “Sit down,” he said, warding her off with his words before she reached him. “I have something t
o say to you.”

  “What is it? Have I displeased you?” she asked, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be taking the lead in causing displeasure.

  “No, of course you have not. Pray sit down. I cannot say what I must while you are standing so close wringing your hands.”

  “And I cannot hear it while you stand so coldly before the fire,” she replied, clasping her hands so tightly together that the knuckles whitened. “Will you not sit down beside me?”

  “I will sit if it makes you more comfortable,” he agreed, “but not beside you, Cassie, for I have come to break it off with you.”

  “That is not what you said yesterday,” she argued, tears gathering in her eyes. “You promised that you would not put me away for a long time.”

  “I do not recall making a promise, although it is true that I reassured you that we would continue as we are for some time to come. It was not my intention to mislead you and I apologise for it.”

  Cassie’s brows drew together and her lips began to tremble, but he continued, ignoring these signs of a gathering storm. “I have met a young woman whom I am thinking of asking to become my wife but am unable to make a push to engage her affections while I am still, as it were, attached to you.”

  “No,” she said bitterly. “May I ask who the girl is?”

  “Her name is Miss Sullington. She seems a pretty-behaved girl and it is time that I married. She will fit the purpose.”

  The ice in his voice made her exclaim, “Fit the purpose? Have you fallen in love with her?”

  “No. But I daresay I may grow fond of her in time. Love is not a necessary prerequisite, or even particularly desirable, in marriage.”

  “Is it not? Then why have you not married before? How old is this poor girl whom you have designated as fit for purpose?”

  “Seventeen.”

  Cassie drew her breath in sharply. “Has she developed an attachment to you?”