Sylvia Or The Moral High Ground

by Catherine Bowness

  Whatever the Duke’s dastardly plan might be, she resolved to be ready to thwart it and defend herself as soon as the carriage stopped. If it should pause, or even slacken its speed a trifle in order to avoid some other vehicle, she would take her chance, jump out and run away immediately. To this end, she leaned forward, clasping her reticule with one hand and the door handle with the other, ready to leap out at the first opportunity. She would be obliged to abandon her portmanteau but that seemed a small price to pay if she could contrive to escape with her life.

  The sickening speed with which the hackney was driven meant that it soon reached its destination and came to an abrupt halt, flinging her back once more against the squabs. It must, she thought, be the river, and was glad that she had grown up in the country and was a good swimmer.

  The door was opened by the driver. “Here we are, Miss, safe at Mivart’s,” he said with a perfectly straight face, apparently unaware of any irony, letting down the steps.

  Sylvia, now that her mind had stopped racing round the infinite variety of methods for hideous torture and death that the Duke might have been planning for her, felt sick as she saw that the carriage had drawn up outside a grand portico bearing a sign in gold lettering proclaiming it to be Mivart’s Hotel.

  The driver, noting the extreme pallor of his fare’s face and the thin sheen of sweat which bedewed it, drew the correct conclusion and leaned forward to offer his arm.

  “I’m sorry to have driven you so quickly, Miss; no doubt that’s why you look ready to cast up your accounts. You’ll feel better once you get into the air. That’s right.” He took her arm firmly and got her on to the pavement where she took several deep breaths and wiped her arm across her face.

  “It was a little hair-raising,” she said mildly. “I cannot think that such a fast pace in a crowded city is wise.”

  “No, Miss,” he agreed, this time with a twinkle in his eye.

  “I fear there has been some mistake,” she went on, gathering her wits with an effort. “I did not wish to come here. Would you please take me to a hotel close to the spot where I may catch the stage to Cornwall? I am not familiar with London and do not know the right direction.”

  But the driver, who had let go of her arm once she seemed to be fairly steady on her feet, took hold of it again and, grasping it firmly, led her towards the hotel’s entrance, rather in the manner of a gaoler, Sylvia thought.

  “His grace was insistent that you come here,” he said.

  “I daresay he was; it was an excessively kind thought, but this is not the sort of establishment in which I am accustomed to stay. Pray let go of my arm. If you will not take me, I shall order another carriage to do so. Would you be so kind as to unload my portmanteau?”

  As she spoke, she reflected that another journey with this driver in charge of the horses was not something she wished to undertake; it was sheer laziness that had led her to ask him to drive her. She would be better off in a different carriage with a man who was prepared to do as his fare requested, rather than one who had been engaged by a third party.

  “Miss here is a cousin of the Duke of Rother, newly arrived from the country and feeling unwell after a difficult journey,” the driver told the gorgeously clad employee of the hotel who had appeared to welcome a new guest to his establishment. “I will help her up the steps before I go back for her portmanteau.”

  “I can perfectly well support myself upon my own legs,” Sylvia exclaimed pettishly, trying to shake off the two men who, between them, were leading her inside.

  “Please sit down, Madam. I will fetch the housekeeper. Do you have a room booked?” the flunkey asked, depositing her in a chair beside the fire.

  The coachman, directing a grateful look at the employee and avoiding Sylvia’s eye, went out.

  Sylvia thought that her best way of escaping was probably to appear to comply with everyone’s wishes, remain seated and wait for the driver to depart, along with his hackney.

  When he returned with the portmanteau, he bowed and wished her all the best in a kindly manner.

  Sylvia opened her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing, Miss; his grace has already settled the account.”

  “I see. Well, thank you,” she replied, offering him a placating smile instead and hoping that he would not delay his departure.

  He did not; having safely delivered her and her baggage as instructed, he felt able to leave without more ado – preferably before she began to argue again. Bowing once more, he retreated. Sylvia remained where she was, having decided to allow a reasonable length of time to elapse before she left in case he should be hanging about outside.

  She had stopped shivering and was beginning to regain her sangfroid by the time a woman, presumably the housekeeper, appeared.

  “I am Mrs Brown,” this person explained, dropping a curtsey. “I understand you are not feeling well. Pray allow me to help you to your room.”

  “That is very kind of you but, to tell truth, I am not intending to stay.” Sylvia favoured the housekeeper with a smile and went on, “My cousin very kindly arranged for me to be brought here after my carriage suffered an accident on the way to London, but I own that, from what I have seen so far, your hotel is far above my means. If you would be so kind as to call me another hackney, I will leave at once.”

  “I beg your pardon, Madam, but, from the look of you, it would be unwise for you to travel any further tonight. I should not like it upon my conscience to send you off into what promises to be a chilly evening in your present state of health. We can provide you with a modest room at the top of the house, if that would suit, where you will be quite comfortable. Did I understand you to be a cousin of the Duke of Rother?”

  “Yes – we have a connexion,” Sylvia said helplessly. Having taken up a position on the moral high ground, it went ill with her to tell such a blatant lie but she could see no other way to proceed. If she denied the connexion, she was putting him to the lie and, although he no doubt deserved it, she felt it would be dishonourable to repay his kindness in such a mean fashion.

  “He is not likely to wish you to go anywhere else at this time of the evening, Madam. I can assure you that there is no need to worry about the expense of staying in one of our smaller rooms.”

  “No,” Sylvia agreed, guessing that there would be no difficulty in her occupying a grander one either since Mivart’s would have no hesitation in claiming any money owing from the Duke. “Very well, that is kind of you. I own I do feel unwell and should like to lie down for a while.”

  “Certainly, Madam, I will take you up at once.” Ordering a lackey to bring Madam’s baggage, the housekeeper possessed herself of a key and led the way up the stairs.

  They climbed some way, walked along an interminable corridor and at last reached a door which the woman threw open. The room was larger than the one she had been assigned in the Sullington house, but Sylvia hoped that its position high up in the building would render it within her means for one night.

  She nodded her acceptance and, when the lackey had set a match to the fire and he and the housekeeper had withdrawn with much bowing and curtseying, she went to the window.

  She felt a wave of sadness engulf her as she looked down upon the vehicles coming and going beneath. What a busy place London was! She had not been eager to come here but this abrupt - and shameful - end to her short sojourn was curiously distressing. She had not seen any of the sights she had meant to visit. No doubt this was her own fault for, if she had not been diverted by a set of diamonds glittering in a jeweller’s window, she might have managed to visit at least one.

  It seemed to her that all her subsequent difficulties, including her imminent departure from the capital, had flowed from that momentary yielding to temptation: her manifest desire to own those shining stones had led a complete stranger to buy them for her; this was bad enough but, had she not chosen precisely the moment she had to attempt to return them, she would not have met Rother, would not have
quarrelled with him yet again, would not have been blisteringly kissed by him and consequently dismissed by Lady Sullington. The whole sorry story could be laid entirely at the feet of those cursed diamonds.

  Chapter 21

  Afternoon was already giving way to evening by the time Sylvia began to unpack the small number of her possessions which she had crammed into the portmanteau before leaving the Sullington household.

  It was the first time in her life that she had been entirely alone; she no longer belonged anywhere and had no obligations to anyone. Or had she? Had her servitude in the Sullington household ended only for her to fall under the protection of her former fiancé, something she suspected that he had engineered for the purpose of a particularly unpleasant form of revenge. She believed she understood his intentions and yet, in spite of that, she was curiously reluctant to escape from him. The thought of never seeing him again, even in his most disagreeable mood, filled her with despair.

  It had done so once before, when she had broken off her engagement, but then she had been carried forward by her youthful enthusiasm for doing what she believed to be right and a corresponding inability to look very far ahead. She had acted, she knew now, without giving much thought to the future or the depth of grief which she had brought upon herself. If she had known then how long the anguish would last or how deep it would cut, she would not have been able to do it. Now she knew that the moral high ground was no substitute for a life by his side.

  To be in Rother’s power was something she had once wished for with all her heart; now that she had become uncertain of his character and feared to trust him, she still could not help a little leap of joy at finding herself in that position, although now the elation was tainted with shame for she knew that she could no longer trust herself. Had she spent over seven years in the employ of the odious Lady Sullington only to fall victim to the man she had once – still - loved? Had she rejected him as a husband only to succumb to him in another, far less respectable, way for that, it seemed to her, was how he wished to repay her for her past sanctimonious criticism of him? No doubt it would serve her right.

  She had elected to dine quietly in her room and, after the small but excellent repast had been served, eaten and cleared away, she sat down once more by the fire with her book and endeavoured to read. She soon found, however, that deciphering the words upon the page failed to detach her mind from the constant circular stream of thoughts and anxieties with which it appeared determined to occupy itself in preference to the hectic actions of the hero and heroine of the novel. After she had ploughed through more than twenty pages, she realised that she had completely lost interest in the tiresome female and, indeed, had no idea what had occurred to cause that damsel to descend into a bout of uncontrollable weeping. Why did she not simply say ‘no’ to one man and ‘yes’ to the other? Irritated as she was by the fictional heroine’s lachrymose response to her predicament, she was nevertheless uncomfortably aware that she was in a not dissimilar position herself. Real emotional decisions were not half so simple as saying either ‘no’ or ‘yes’ – and yes or no to what precisely?

  Abandoning the book, she went to bed but not to sleep. The night seemed almost endless and she was vastly relieved when she discerned daylight between the curtains. The hours tossed upon her bed had brought no counsel; she was still balanced uncomfortably upon the horns of her dilemma: should she run home, find another job at the other end of the country and continue, for what seemed likely to be the rest of her life, to regret her idiotic rejection of her fiancé or should she put herself in his hands and allow him to do whatever he had in mind? Whichever course she chose, it seemed likely that the remaining portion of her life – after he had taken his revenge - would be one of unalleviated misery.

  By the time she had washed, dressed and repacked her portmanteau, daylight had driven some of her despair aside and pride had come to her rescue. Of course, she could not allow him to ruin her. She must pay her bill, leave this establishment, find the spot whence the stage departed and make sure that she and her portmanteau were upon it.

  She had begun the long descent to the ground floor when she was met by a lackey, breathlessly hurrying towards her.

  “Oh, Madam, you’re wanted downstairs!”

  “Indeed? By whom and for what?”

  “Mrs Brown sent me to tell you, Madam. You have a visitor.” He peered at the card which he held and read: “The Countess of Wey. She has been shown into a private parlour to await you. Would you like me to conduct you there?”

  “Lady Wey?” Sylvia repeated, quite at a loss. So far as she was aware, she had never met such a person but she held her tongue and followed the man down the stairs, hoping that the person awaiting her was not an emissary from either of those whom she wished most particularly to avoid: the Duke of Rother or Lady Sullington.

  Ushered into the parlour, she saw an elegant lady in her mid-thirties, who rose from her feet as Sylvia came into the room. As soon as she beheld her visitor’s face, Sylvia was in no doubt which of her persecutors had sent her. Lady Wey bore a marked resemblance to the Duke; her hair, beneath the wide brim of an exceedingly handsome bonnet, was an almost identical shade of butter yellow and her large eyes the same cornflower blue, although their expression differed considerably, being both friendly and full of curiosity.

  “Pray forgive me, Miss Holmdale, for calling upon you so very early in the morning but I was afraid that, if I did not, you might already have bolted by the time I got here.”

  Sylvia, in her hat and pelisse, her reticule over her arm, certainly bore the appearance of a person on the point of departure. “I was about to leave,” she admitted, stopping on the threshold.

  “In that case I have arrived in the very nick of time,” the Countess observed brightly. “Allow me to introduce myself: my name, as I daresay you were informed, is Wey, but I do not suppose that will mean a great deal to you. My Christian name is Marianna and I am Robert’s sister – his elder sister.” As she spoke, she held out her hand.

  Sylvia dropped her a little curtsey. “How do you do, my lady? It is very kind of you to call upon me.” After an infinitesimal pause, she added, “Did your brother ask you to do so?”

  Lady Wey smiled a little guiltily. “I own that he did, but I have wanted to meet you for many years. He did indeed request my help in your mutual dilemma and I am delighted to make your acquaintance at last.”

  Sylvia, repossessing her hand, looked uncomfortable; there were a good many points in her ladyship’s statement which caused her some degree of disquiet. She was, firstly, put out of countenance by hearing her visitor use the Duke’s Christian name so unceremoniously for, although when she had been betrothed to him, she had herself called him ‘Robert’ she had tried, since meeting him again, to think of him only as ‘Rother’ – a name she did not connect so closely with the man she had known as ‘Lord Robert’; secondly, she had not before considered that she and he were involved in anything mutual, least of all a ‘dilemma’; and, thirdly, her ladyship expressing a long-standing desire to make her acquaintance implied a most definite, possibly intimate, connexion between his family and her, which she had believed to be at an end.

  “Oh,” Sylvia said. “Really there was no need. I was about to go out for a little walk to find out what time the mail leaves for Cornwall. My parents live in Launceston, you see,” she added by way of explanation.

  “Do they still? I know they were used to do so. Of course, when you were engaged to Robert he was not yet Rother, was he? His main home now is in that same part of the country –near Penzance.”

  “Fancy!” Sylvia exclaimed faintly, resolving that, since she would not be safe from him in the west, she must be sure to look for her next position in a wholly different part of the country. “Can I offer you some refreshment?” she asked. “I daresay this establishment could furnish us with some coffee and perhaps some cake.”

  “That would be delightful,” her ladyship agreed, sitting down again, “for
we have a great deal to discuss, you and I.”

  Sylvia’s heart sank; she wished that she had not allowed herself to be delivered to this hotel. She should have made good her escape when she had the chance.

  She pulled the bell and ordered coffee and cakes. Still standing, she untied the ribbons of her bonnet and removed it. She was, after all, by way of being the hostess and it seemed inappropriate to entertain her guest whilst dressed for the street. She laid the bonnet upon a small table along with her pelisse. By the time she had completed her disrobing and sat down opposite her visitor, the lackey had returned with a pot of coffee and a large plate piled high with pretty little cakes. She poured the coffee and handed a cup to her guest, who was watching her closely.

  The Countess took a sip and returned the cup to its saucer without speaking.

  Sylvia said, “Will you have one of these little cakes? They are so very pretty!”

  “Indeed they are!” Lady Wey agreed readily. “And so, my dear, are you, although your clothes are remarkably unbecoming! You look a deal better now that you have removed that perfect fright of a hat – is that what governesses generally wear? It must be perfectly horrid to be a governess in almost every conceivable way, but I cannot help feeling that the worst of it would be being obliged to wear such dreadful garments! Forgive me for being so frank, but I feel as if I have known you for years.”

  Sylvia was unable to return Lady Wey’s compliment. She could not remember a great deal about the Duke’s family. She supposed that he must have told her something of them but she had clearly not paid a great deal of attention since she had not even taken in that his brother was the Duke of Rother at the time.

  It had been a whirlwind romance; they had had eyes only for each other and by the end of his furlough she had agreed to marry him. Her parents had been delighted. Now, she guessed that he must have told them of his family for her papa surely would not have consented to her marriage to someone of whom he knew nothing, even though everyone had liked him so well. So far as she could recall, he had not mentioned his brother – or his sister. For all she knew, he might have several sisters and brothers, but he must be the second son, unless he had lost more than one, to have inherited the dukedom when the eldest died. It was only after the engagement had been announced in the Gazette that she had received an anonymous letter telling her of his mistress.