Louisa Elliott

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  ‘—there’ll be trouble from the rest, land-owners and peasantry alike. But Louisa will be safe,’ he said patiently. ‘Do you think I’d endanger her life?’

  ‘I don’t know. You seem to have scant regard for her future happiness, and even less for her reputation!’

  Again there was that sudden flash of anger, sustained this time. ‘I’ll let that pass,’ he said icily. ‘Under the circumstances, you’re entitled to think that. Nevertheless, it’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Edward demanded. How dare this stranger, with his fine clothes and cool self-confidence, walk into Louisa’s life and so blithely ruin it? However miserable and unfair life had been to him, he had no right to assuage his sores at Louisa’s expense. For she would be the one to pay in the end, of that Edward had no doubt.

  Abruptly, he stood up, his gaze travelling between the two of them. ‘It’s wrong,’ he said shortly. ‘However you phrase it to yourselves, it’s quite wrong.’

  ‘I think that rather depends on your point of view.’

  ‘No, Captain. Morally, practically, ethically – it’s wrong. Louisa will suffer, not you. I should have thought you were intelligent enough to see that.’

  Before he could reply, Louisa stepped in. ‘Edward, you don’t understand, the decision is mine to take.’

  ‘Then you’re a fool,’ he said bitterly, before the words could be stopped. ‘I expected better of you! People will talk, you know – and you, above all, should know how malicious they can be. And what of your mother? Don’t you think she’s suffered enough?’ He knew she was hurt, but he could not hold back the final thrust. ‘What if she should disown you?’

  ‘That’s a matter for her to decide,’ Louisa said, and he could see that she was angry. ‘And what about you, Edward? Now that you know, will you disown me?’

  He saw that her decision was made. Saddened beyond measure, he gathered up his coat and hat and walked towards the door. ‘Would it matter if I did?’ he asked quietly, and as he uttered the words, he felt sick and defeated.

  She grasped his arm, made him turn to face her, and he saw his own anguish reflected in her eyes. ‘Of course it matters!’

  ‘It would be easier to deny my own existence,’ he whispered. Removing her hand from his sleeve, he closed the door quietly behind him.

  Later that night, as he lay in bed with Louisa curled up beside him, Robert stared into the darkness and thought about Edward Elliott. Apart from one meeting, Robert’s impressions had come largely through Louisa, and it seemed she had omitted far more than she had revealed.

  Robert had imagined a father figure without benefit of wife or child; an inflexible man, old before his time. Now he knew the error of that assumption, for Edward Elliott was far from old, and while he possessed a fine sense of duty and the morality of his class, he was obviously willing to sacrifice that, and more, on the altar of his love for Louisa.

  Briefly, he re-lived that palpitating moment of her arrival, seeing again, like an intruder, the naked intimacy between those two. He felt the same astonishment as she flew to her cousin, and his arms, at first raised in protest, slowly tightened across her back. In the darkness that contorted face came back to him; angrily, he turned, trying to block the image which stayed so clearly in his mind. Louisa had never hinted at the depth of that relationship, and the revelation shocked him still.

  Disturbed by his sudden movement, Louisa stirred; her voice, blurred by sleep, murmured his name.

  ‘I ought to go,’ he said. ‘I’m on early duty.’

  ‘It can’t be morning yet,’ she protested sleepily.

  ‘It’s just after two, and I haven’t slept at all. If I fall asleep now, I’ll never wake in time.’

  ‘But if you go now,’ she recited, ‘the remarkable Harris will make sure you don’t oversleep.’

  Disengaging her arm, he sat up. ‘That’s right. That’s what he’s there for.’

  Louisa sighed. ‘Why haven’t you slept? Were you thinking about yesterday?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Oh, Robert, I’m sorry. I thought we’d said it all, and I was so tired, I’m sure I fell asleep before my head touched the pillow.’ Lightly, her fingers touched his arm. ‘Won’t you tell me what’s on your mind?’

  Privately, he acknowledged the justice of her words. They had talked for hours, covering every imaginable aspect, every contingency which could possibly follow the events of the day; discussed all bar the one thing which lay at the forefront of Robert’s mind. In the silent, sleepless hours, he had tried to view the relationship between Edward and Louisa from every conceivable angle. Each time, he returned to his original conclusion. Now he must face her with it.

  ‘That’s better,’ he murmured as he lit the bedside lamp. ‘I can see you now.’

  Her eyes, large and lustrous in the gentle glow, blinked as they scanned his face. ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘A little,’ he admitted.

  ‘Whatever for?’

  As ever, he was touched by that quality of innocence she had when newly woken, as though for her each night’s sleep erased the cares and irritations of a heartless world. He tried to suppress the tension in his voice, to speak gently and reasonably. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Edward?’ he asked. ‘I’d have tried to understand.’

  Perplexed, Louisa shook her head. ‘What is there to understand? I don’t know what you mean.’

  With a sharp sigh of frustration, he lowered his eyes, trying to control the jealous anger which threatened, suddenly, to erupt. ‘To my mind, Louisa, there’s a lot you haven’t explained. You might have told me how important you are to him.’

  ‘Of course I’m important to him — he practically brought me up. He’s been like a brother to me. No,’ she corrected, ‘more than a brother, he’s been a friend.’

  ‘If that’s all he was,’ Robert said tensely, ‘why were you so reluctant to tell him about us?’

  Crossly, Louisa turned away. ‘After what happened this afternoon,’ she said, ‘I should have thought it was obvious.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ he whispered. ‘Believe me, it is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you really not know?’ Robert demanded. ‘The man’s in love with you!’

  Three

  After Robert left, Louisa slept little. She rose at six and made a pot of tea, but breakfast seemed out of the question. Her stomach threatened revolt at the thought of food, cramps knotted her abdomen and her head ached.

  Shivering in the damp chill of early morning, she recognized the symptoms for what they were, but instead of relief, she felt merely betrayed, as though her body had joined a painful conspiracy to make her suffering complete. It seemed grossly unfair that the curse of womankind should inflict itself upon her on a day when she was least able to cope with it. She found her supply of neatly hemmed and folded sheeting, washed carefully, and began to dress.

  Wearing a large apron, she set about her everyday tasks, carrying the covered chamber-pot down two flights of stairs to the privy in the back yard. The ashes from yesterday’s fire were riddled and tipped into a bucket, and, with an effort, coal was brought up the same two flights, the fire laid ready to light. After cleaning the hearth and polishing the brass fender, she washed her hands and made the bed, desiring nothing more than to creep back into it.

  A second cup of tea, hot and sweet, revived her a little. Donning her cloak, she set off in the half-light towards the river. There was a shortcut to the station via a footpath attached to the railway bridge; too short a journey to improve the circulation, yet long enough to chill the bones.

  With pinched cheeks she warmed herself for a moment by the office stove, chafing her hands in an attempt to restore the flow of blood. She was earlier than usual, and by the time her chattering companions arrived, Louisa had managed to regain something of her usual demeanour. Trying hard to concentrate, she worked slowly, her mind more preoccupied with Robert than columns of figures. He was wrong about E
dward. Absolutely wrong. Last night, however, it had been impossible to convince him.

  Robert had no conception of the kind of life she and Edward had led, marked by the secret stigma of illegitimacy, unable to form close friendships for fear of being found out. It had thrown the family in on itself, made each dependent upon the others, protected by a conspiracy of love which had existed for so many years they were hardly aware of it. Back in Tanner Row, Louisa thought, they had all been party: her mother, Aunt Elizabeth, Bessie. Later, in Gillygate, the pact was stronger than ever, because at last the secret appeared to be safe.

  Blanche had years ago blotted out the past, and, in her own way, escaped; Emily had stepped right out into marriage and respectability. The enclave had grown smaller, and had it not been for Robert, Louisa knew she would never have wanted to break away. The pain she was suffering now was largely because the security of that life was all she had known, was all she was ever likely to know; she had been desperately afraid that, with Robert, her bridges were burned, and was even now unsure of the way back.

  Only through Robert’s stubborn insistence did she begin to see the peculiar insularity of the Elliott household. He thought her work as a governess should have broadened her outlook, helped her to understand its abnormality, but that had not been so. The world of great houses was too far removed for it to have had any bearing on her personal life. Children lived apart from their parents, belonging to the realm of nannies and servants. Sent away to school, often at an early age, family became for them a part of duty and heritage, abstract and strangely impersonal. Louisa thought it unnatural and said so. Affronted, Robert accused her of exaggeration: his life, for one, had followed a different pattern. If anything was unnatural, he had cruelly added, it was Edward’s relationship with her. In his opinion, Edward should have been married years before, and so should she. Robert loved his sister, but had he ever been guilty of such a display of unrestrained passion, people would have thought him very odd indeed.

  On that bitter, accusatory note, he had left. Anguished and smarting, Louisa relived the words and emotions of their first quarrel, wondering when, and if, he would be back. He had muttered something about Tuesday, but she doubted him. His anger had been intense, his convictions so opposed to hers, she wondered how either of them could forget it.

  Walking wearily home through town, she bought fresh bread, bacon and eggs at a grocer’s on Bootham. It was not a meal she particularly relished, but it was easy enough. For her, cooking was more of a trial than a pleasure. The new-fangled gas-ring unnerved her, so that she served things either half-raw or burned; nothing tasted as it should, and she longed, suddenly, to go home, to have her mother set a beautifully prepared meal in front of her. She could have found her appetite then.

  Robert always laughed at her apologies, stoically eating all she presented. Secretly, it was a relief to her that he ate most of his meals in the Mess, that his demands for food were usually limited to breakfast or an occasional light supper. Occasionally he took her to a discreet hotel where they were able to eat in comparative privacy. The first time, she had worn her best black dress, but after that he had insisted on something a little less sombre, had even accompanied her to a dressmaker’s to view a selection of evening gowns. Knowing her sense of frugality, her fixed impression of herself as a plain woman, he had not trusted her to choose the kind of gown he had in mind. Envisaging arguments, she had been surprised, and forced to admit he had excellent taste. He had chosen a rich russet velvet, simply and modestly cut. As Louisa held the soft material against her shoulder, she saw that it brought out gold lights in her hair and, by contrast, heightened the colour of her eyes.

  ‘You’re as lovely as the autumn,’ he had whispered the first evening she wore it. ‘And autumn was always my favourite season.’

  And was their affair to be as briefly beautiful? With a heavy heart she mounted the two flights of steps, found her key and let herself into the cold and strangely lonely apartment. It had lost its charm; as she bent to retrieve a letter from the mat, she swore she would not stay.

  Staring at the envelope, she wondered who could have sent it. The writing was open and unformed, like a child’s. She thought of Victoria Tempest, then dismissed the idea; her handwriting was surely neater than this. Quickly, she tore the envelope open, glanced at the bottom of the flimsy sheet, and saw that the sender was Moira Hanrahan.

  ‘Dear Miss Elliott,’ the letter began, ‘I hope ye are well as I am. I no ye be workin now from ye last Letter but Dearly wud I like to see ye Miss. I will call Tuesday near seven. If ye be out dont upset yeself. Ye obdnt servant Moira Hanrahan. I niver went to shcool much. I hope ye can read dis.’

  Sitting down suddenly, Louisa pressed the letter to her breast. Dear, dear Moira! She had seen her once, while still in Gillygate, but not since. Well, she would try to make a decent meal for them both, something easy which would surely be an improvement on Mrs Petty’s leftovers.

  Strangely heartened by the letter, Louisa set to lighting the fire, then made herself a cup of tea. Hastily, she penned a reply to Moira, telling her to wait if she should happen to be delayed, then a few lines to Robert, informing him of Moira’s visit, asking him to delay until later in the week.

  Glancing at the clock she hurried out, determined to catch the post from the main office on Lendal.

  It was bitterly cold, full moon and stars struggling to shine through the usual pall of smoke; her face tingled, and her gloved hands were bloodless by the time she returned.

  While she fumbled for her key the door was opened, and, by some undeserved miracle, Robert was standing there, his eyes troubled and apologetic.

  They faced each other for a moment, then he reached for her and held her close. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I was angry and jealous — forgive me.’

  Louisa nodded. ‘I’ve had an awful day.’

  ‘Me too,’ he admitted, and kissed her forehead. ‘By the time I’d walked all the way to Fulford, I was thinking rationally again. There’s nothing like a cold night and a long walk to restore a modicum of sanity. I couldn’t wait to get back to see you. Then, when you weren’t in, I thought you’d gone home.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I did indeed. Then I saw the fire and guessed you’d be back sooner or later.’

  Louisa explained where she had been and why. Studying her face intently, he asked whether she had eaten; when she shook her head, he tut-tutted impatiently.

  ‘If you gave up that ridiculous job, my love, you’d have time to cook yourself proper meals. But we won’t argue the point,’ he added hastily, as her chin came up. ‘What is there?’

  With a heavy sigh, Louisa indicated the packet of bacon and the small bag of eggs.

  ‘Very well. Sit yourself down in front of that fire, while I attempt to cook them. You look absolutely dreadful — not at all fit to look after yourself.’ Removing his jacket, he tied one of Louisa’s capacious white aprons round his waist and proceeded to light the gas.

  Smiling at the picture he made, she said: ‘And when did you last cook yourself a meal, Robert Duncannon?’

  ‘Ah, every now and then, the remarkable Harris gives me what he calls survival lessons. He’s afraid that in the rather unlikely event of war, he may be killed, and I shall subsequently starve!’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar, Robert!’

  Cutting thick slices of bread, he emphatically shook his head. ‘Not at all. I can make a fire, brew tea, make a disgusting cup of cocoa, fry bacon and draw a chicken. Harris informs me my next lesson will be rabbit stew.’ Sticking the slices of bread onto a toasting fork, he handed it to Louisa. ‘Here, toast that while you toast your toes!’

  ‘But first catch your rabbit!’ she taunted, her nose twitching pleasurably at the aroma of sizzling bacon.

  ‘No problem,’ he assured her. ‘I was poaching my father’s game and outwitting the keepers when I was twelve years old. Of course,’ he admitted with a shrug, ‘it was simply a jape to m
e, but for my companions, a little more serious. I suppose they involved me because they knew I’d get them off if we were caught.’

  ‘And were you?’ she asked, amazed by that casual revelation.

  As he set a tray with plates and cutlery, salt and pepper, Robert shook his head. ‘A man is easier to stalk than a deer. Than most game, come to that. I had some rare companions,’ he said reflectively. ‘I sometimes wonder whether they’re still at it. I hope not – William’s not nearly so tolerant as my father was.’

  ‘Do you ever see them —when you go home, I mean?’

  ‘We exchange words in passing. And Letty,’ he added cryptically, ‘keeps her eyes open for me.’ With a sudden, soft curse, he said: ‘I’m afraid I never passed the egg test, my love. Your eggs are more scrambled than fried!’

  She watched him buttering the toast, hands capable, eyes calm and good-humoured, so very different from the man who had slammed out of the house the night before. This morning she had thought never to see him again, yet here he was, displaying a most unexpected side of himself.

  ‘You’re a remarkable man, Robert Duncannon.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re also insufferable,’ she muttered, taking a forkful of the crisply delicious bacon. ‘You even cook better than I do.’

  ‘But I don’t look as pretty in an apron,’ he retorted, and promptly removed it. ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Good.’ Reaching into the cupboard where she kept the brandy, Robert poured himself a tot and sat down, stretching his long legs out towards the fire. For a moment, with a contented sigh, he closed his eyes. ‘I think I might just allow you to make your own cup of tea, darling — you’re decidedly better at that than I am.’

  Louisa laughed. ‘It might not be much, but we’ve all got to be good at something!’

  Slyly, watching her from beneath lowered lids, he said: ‘Oh, I don’t know, I can think of other things...’