by CE Murphy
(52)
The topic was not broached at supper after all; Mr Penney was too full of praise for Mr Archer’s pond and grounds, and whilst it was agreed that the ladies had found remarkable success, it was not until the meal was done and the party had retired to an opulent sitting room that Persephone could no longer contain her hopes and plans for the books of magic.
Elsabeth found she could hardly look at Mr Archer as Persephone waxed enthusiastic; it felt too much an imposition to ask that they might copy the books, knowing as she did that they might easily have been hers. But Archer, self-confessed to be more comfortable with the practise of magic now that he had been introduced to those who used it, was the soul of generosity, solemnly agreeing that they must be preserved and copied, even conceding that the Dover family as a whole was well suited— by dint of being a known commodity, if nothing else—for the task. Every gracious word from him sank anchors more deeply into Elsabeth’s soul, until she felt entirely weighed down with mortification.
A maid appeared in the doorway with a most apologetic expression and, upon gaining Archer’s attention, bobbed a curtsey. “Forgive me, sir, but a letter has come for Miss Dover. It was sent to the inn, and yer man there took a fast horse to Streyfield; it was marked that urgent, it was. I thought it best to bring it in, though I hope I haven’t spoilt your evening, Miss.”
This last was addressed to Elsabeth, who had risen at her name and now extended a hand for the letter whilst smiling at the maid. “Not at all. Thank you.” Indeed, nothing could be more welcome than urgent news from home; perhaps Ruth’s child had arrived, and Mrs Dover couldn’t bear to wait an extra night for Elsabeth to know it. “Forgive me,” Elsabeth said to the room in general, and was forgiven to open the missive and read without interruption.
She knew, in time, that she sat; she did not realise she had sunk to the floor until Mr Archer himself, concerned, appeared beside—above!—her, to say, “Miss Dover?” in a tone of genuine worry. Elsabeth gazed up at him without seeing, then returned her attention to the letter, written in her father’s business-like hand. The words there remained unchanged; she wet her lips, trying to speak, and could not. Mr Archer, with quite infinite gentleness, knelt and lifted her; Elsabeth could not even protest as he carried her to a chair by the fire and settled her there before backing away to give Mr and Mrs Penney the access to her that relatives must be afforded.
He had seen Elsabeth Dover in nearly every imaginable fit of passion, from joy to rage; they had all brought colour to her cheeks and liveliness to her countenance, but whatever intelligence the letter carried had drained all that life from her. He had not imagined she could be so pale and retain consciousness; her dark hair now seemed a deathly cloud, so white was she, and her eyes were hollowed. She tried again to speak, and Mr Penney passed her a glass of brandy to sip before she could. It brought fire to her cheeks, but not healthy fire: two burning bright spots that reminded Archer too much of Rosamund Dover’s face the night she had fainted.
A death; it had to be a death, to wrack her with such terrible emotion. Not her father, he hoped, knowing Elsabeth to be unsurpassingly fond of Mr Dover, and yet there was no one else he might hope for it to be, either; no one whose passing could affect her so dramatically could be better suited for death than the father, who had at least seen a full component of years.
Fortified by the brandy, Elsabeth whispered, “We are ruined,” and then could once more say nothing else; instead, she thrust the letter into Mr Penney’s hands, and, as a whole, the gathering could only watch as he, too, paled, though his expression crushed with more anger than loss.
“Elsabeth,” whispered Mrs Penney, urgently. “Elsabeth, what is it? You are frightening me.”
“Leopoldina.” Elsabeth forced the words out even as Mr Penney closed the letter and lowered his forehead into one hand. “She has eloped. No. She has run away. She has run away with Captain Hartnell—”
At this name, Persephone cried out, and, for an instant, regret sparked in Elsabeth’s eyes: she would not have said so much in front of Persephone, Archer believed, had she been in full command of her faculties. But she was not: the flicker of regret died as she turned her gaze toward the fire and spoke in a voice devoid of hope. “Mama has had a letter from Dina, who says she will one day be Mrs Hartnell. One day; that means there is no chance they are married. She is ruined. We are ruined. Thank God Rosamund is married; thank God Ruth is wed. They have done well and will not be tarnished by this, but oh, Matilda. My sweet Tildy. There will be no hope for her.”
“You are generous to think of your sister at such a time,” Archer replied with a degree of surprise. “Surely, your own fate must be of some concern?”
Elsabeth turned a look so bleak that it might be considered tinged with disgust upon him. “I have every confidence in my ability to secure my own future in a manner both suitable to the world and acceptable to me. Matilda is much younger, and easily led; of course my worries are for her, Mr Archer. I am not so selfish as that.”
Shame touched him, though before he could offer an apology, Mrs Penney, struggling to comprehend the dread news that Elsabeth had so tonelessly imparted, finally spoke. “Surely...no. Surely she cannot have been so...so foolish. Surely....”
“Of course she could have. She has fancied him since the day they met, and I—more fool I—I did not warn her away from him after I found him unsuitable for my own regard. I thought—I believed—I knew that to do so would only drive her toward him, but I never imagined—” Her agitation could not be contained; Elsabeth Dover rose, paced and sat again in despair before being driven to her feet again. “Mr Archer, Miss Archer, please forgive me for bringing this dread news into your home. Had I any notion, I should certainly have—” What, she could not say; it was preposterous to imagine she might have returned to the inn and taken a room for the purposes of reading a letter, and this Archer dared to say.
“You have no need to ask forgiveness, Miss Dover; indeed, if any fault is to be laid, it might be at my own feet, for not speaking to your father of what I knew about Captain Hartnell.”
This begot him a hint of Elsabeth’s usual disdain and a muttered “I am quite capable of speaking for myself on such matters, Mr Archer, and my father would be more predisposed to listen to me than a gentleman of your...stature.”
“I believe you may mean ‘nature’,” Archer replied almost as softly, and was not gladdened to see a flash of weary pain cross Elsabeth’s features.
“Your nature as presented at Newsbury, sir; I should not like to abuse you now for the goodness and kindness you have shown me and my family.” Elsabeth turned to her uncle, who had not lifted his head from his hands. “Uncle, what will we do? We must prevail upon Hartnell to marry Dina, and yet, should we throw the whole of Papa’s fortune his way, I cannot think that it will be enough to satisfy him.”
“Perhaps there is some magic that might be done,” Persephone suggested in a voice so thin that it could hardly be known for her own. “Some trick of gold, or sentiment....”
“Even if we might conjure coin, surely it would fade, and, without money, there would be no chance of him staying with her, and in all of our studies today, we have yet to find any hint that magic might be used to sway the heart. Indeed, our reading implies that the æther that is in each of us—the spirit—whether so abundant as to make a magician or merely that which sustains us, is incorruptible in such a fashion; it is what makes us entities of free will and individualism rather than simpler, sheep-like creatures. Emotion is born from within; it might be awakened by art or oration or beauty, but it cannot be forced upon us from without. I could no more make Captain Hartnell love Leopoldina than—” A flush came over Elsabeth and she looked away from both Archers, leaving them to imagine where her thoughts had flown. For Persephone, Elsabeth’s speech reflected on Hartnell’s lack of fondness for Persephone herself and her ill-treatment there, treatment which she only now appreciated the potential horrors of, and could only now
begin to truly be thankful for her brother’s interference.
Elsabeth’s sudden cessation of words cut Fitzgerald Archer as deeply, for he imagined that, had she continued, she would have spoken of the impossibility of making herself love him. As she looked away, so too did he, with a regret and sorrow as deep as any he had ever known. Elsabeth saw this from the corner of her eye, and thought he turned away for all the reasons that he ought to: she, like Matilda, would never be considered eligible again; the words that had nearly flown from her lips were to equate Hartnell’s loving Leopoldina with the likelihood of Elsabeth herself winning back Archer’s affections, a whimsy she had not even fully acknowledged harbouring.
Before the silence betwixt the three of them, Archers and Dover alike, became too obvious, Mr Penney rose heavily and spoke. “Your father writes that they have gone to Brighton, of all the cursed places; it is half a country away from us. But I see no other choice: I will go there myself, and apply a pressure that we will hope this Hartnell creature cannot deny. Mr Archer, I must thank you for your hospitality, but I think it best if I myself leave at once, and the ladies depart for Oakden in the morning.”
“I must agree. I also must insist, Mr Penney, that you take my own carriage and horses; they will be faster than any hack you can hire. I will join you, in fact, at least until we are near to London, where I am afraid I have had urgent business arise. I know, Persephone,” he said to his sister as she once more cried out with dismay. “I had intended to wait until morning to tell you, as to not spoil the evening, but if Mr Penney is to leave at once, it is only sensible for me to accompany him.”
“But you are only just back! Your business had concluded!”
“And yet I cannot stay.”
“You must not let us keep you, no, Mr Archer. I am certain it is only suitable for us to remove ourselves from under your roof at once; we will call our carriage and return to the inn for the night.”
“That is not necessary, Miss Dover. The morning will be soon enough. Mr Penney, we will leave within the half-hour. Ladies, good night.” Archer bowed to each of them, then left, Mr Penney in his wake, to call for the carriage and his belongings to be packed once more for travel.
“It is a wonder he can bear the thought of a long carriage-ride with Mr Penney,” Elsabeth said bitterly, if quietly, to her aunt, “though perhaps Uncle is less stained with our dishonour than the rest of us, being only related through marriage.”
“You cannot blame him, Elsabeth. This is...this is unspeakable business.”
“I blame Leopoldina, and that wretched man Hartnell,” Elsabeth replied with heat. “I truly do not know what to do, Aunt. Even if he can somehow be prevailed upon to marry her, there is nothing preventing him from carrying on with his seduction and gambling. He will leave her, or even worse, he will not, and she will be dragged further and further down whilst the rest of us are forced to either be tarred with her or cut ourselves off from her entirely. She has ruined the family. Damn the girl!” she cried with sudden fury. “Why could she have not waited just a little longer? We are so close here to so much she wanted, and now she has thrown it all away!”
“Not all of it.” Miss Archer spoke tremulously, but with increasing certainty. “Miss Elsabeth, Mrs Penney, you must choose some of our books to bring with you on your journey to Oakden. We are already agreed that the books must be copied, and if you cannot stay—and you cannot, not for my reputation’s sake but for your family’s support—then you must take some of them with you to copy when you have arrived home. In the meantime, you will have days of study; not comfortable days, perhaps, but days nonetheless, and in those days, you will surely be able to find something that will help to rectify this situation. Spells of forgetfulness, or of eliding; you may not be able to cast glamours, but we are already creatures in the habit of allowing unpleasantries to pass us by unnoticed. Perhaps there is something to emphasise that; you will take the books, and study and find an answer.
“You must,” Miss Archer concluded more softly. “You must, for your sister Matilda’s sake; you must for my own, for I was all too close to being lost as they both now seem to be. You have said we might take these books and with them change the world, Miss Elsabeth. Let us begin here. Find a way to make it fade, or find a way to throw it so boldly in Society’s faces that they will be unable to do anything but accept it.”
(53)
To study within the confines of a carriage was no easy feat, but Mrs Penney and Elsabeth both found it to be easier than dwelling on the horror that awaited them at Oakden. Mrs Dover had, by Mr Dover’s account, taken to her bed; Elsabeth did not expect her to have risen from it by the time they arrived. Nor could Ruth, the sole bastion of uncorrupted sense birthed in the Dover household, be expected to have arrived to take matters in hand; she was far too near her time, and, indeed, Elsabeth had every expectation of hearing upon their arrival at Oakden that there was a son or daughter Cox now in the world. Rosamund toured Europe; Elsabeth did not even know with certainty where she was, nor did she have any expectation of the dire news reaching Mrs Webber until—Elsabeth hoped with all diligence—after the matter was settled. And Matilda would be heart-broken; there was no chance of calm or reason from her. Had there been two other sisters still left at home, or even Sophia Enton to call upon for support, Mr Dover might well have travelled to London or Brighton in search of the eloped pair, but he could not leave a household so shaken. These were the thoughts that gnawed Elsabeth’s mind when she left off her studies; these, and disquieting recollections of Mr Archer, of his generosity and geniality. Had he only shown more of that nature at Newsbury; but those were fruitless dreams, and so Elsabeth studied until she could keep her eyes open no longer, thence to dream of magic.
A week of hard travel saw them to Oakden, where Elsabeth’s departure from the carriage was met by the sobbing embrace of a younger sister and a grim kiss on the brow from a father who had aged years in the weeks she had been gone. An arm around each of them, and Mrs Penney at Mr Dover’s other side, they retired to the sitting room, where Mr Dover reported once more all that had passed, and carried on by saying, “It seems that there is some question whether they have gone to Brighton after all; there are no reports from the regiment there that anyone has seen Hartnell, and we have not asked about Leopoldina. We hold some thread of hope that they might yet be married, and that the untowardness of it all might be overlooked.”
“Is it possible, Papa?” Elsabeth asked. “He would not marry—another—without the considerable fortune at her disposal; surely he cannot be made to marry Dina, who has nothing.”
“I have done badly by all of you” was Mr Dover’s response to this. “I ought to have laid aside some portion of my income each year, my dear, that we all might have some greater means of support. We are fortunate beyond measure that Rosamund and Ruth have done so well—and do not look at me so, Elsabeth; I hear what it is I say when I think of Mr Cox as having done well. But there is no denying that she has done well, exceptionally well given our expectations, and Mr Cox, magnanimous soul that he is, had no care for any portion of the inheritance due to her upon marrying. He has a living already; why should a portion of Oakden matter now, when it will all be his later?”
“It will be his son’s!” Matilda interjected then. “Elsabeth, you cannot yet know, for we have only received the letter today! Ruth has had a boy, whom they have named Jonathan, after Papa. Oakden will be his!”
A great gasp escaped through Elsabeth’s lips, and, for some little while, she was overcome with glad tidings made even gladder in the face of calamity. News that there was a son at last to inherit Oakden, that it should not likely pass directly into Mr Cox’s hands, and that surely any boy expected to inherit a dear old manor house should also be expected to spend many long and happy days there as he grew up, could not have fallen on ears happier to hear it than Elsabeth’s that day. Mrs Penney shared her delight, and Matilda, greatly daring, intruded upon Mr Dover’s library only to return wit
h a bottle of sherry, which was shared around in celebration. For a little time, there was talk of nothing more than the wonder of a grandson, nephew and heir, and when conversation returned—as it inevitably must—to the troublesome Leopoldina, the rich wine eased that discussion, too.
“Rosamund has no need for her inheritance either,” Mr Dover went on. “Mr Webber would not hear of it, in fact, not with four other daughters for us to tend to. So, there are two parts, and Leopoldina’s own, that might be settled on Hartnell to make him marry her, but I do not like to think of how unfair that is to you, my dear Elsabeth, or you, my good Tildy.”
“Do not think of me for a moment,” Elsabeth replied. “If I marry, it will be to a man who does not care if I have money; if I do not, then I will be content here in Oakden, and will not cost you the earth with my fanciful desires for lovely things. Think of Matilda, Papa; take what inheritance is left and apply it to her if need be, but we must all be aware that unless Hartnell is made to marry Dina, there will be no other marriages at all. We would be fools to begrudge Dina that inheritance, when it is all that stands between her and ruin.”
“Mr Penney has gone to find them,” Mrs Penney said. “You must join him, brother; together, the two of you must be able to press sense into the Captain.”
“I have only been waiting for your arrival before I left,” confessed Mr Dover. “I will leave in the morning. Elsa, I am sorry to ask, but your mother will need attending to. She is apoplectic with the sorrow of never seeing her youngest again, whilst I am equally so over the poor management I have had of this family. It is, I know, too late now to correct my errors, but know that I will forever regret my carelessness, and the toll it has taken on all of you.”
“Papa, it is...” Elsabeth was too honest to wholly exonerate him and, in the end, could only sigh. “It is done, if not yet over. We will somehow carry on, and, in time, it will be resolved. You have not written to Rosamund, have you? She does not know? It would only distress her, and there is no reason to ruin her wedding tour.”
