Louisa Elliott

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  She shivered suddenly, embracing him again. ‘I won’t forget.’ As she stepped into the compartment, a porter hurriedly shut the door.

  While the train shuddered and creaked, slowly picking up speed as it left the station, Louisa hung out of the window, seeing her mother waving from the platform, a scrap of white lace in her hand.

  But Edward had already turned away, and did not look back.

  Book Three

  1893–1896

  Rain on the windows, creaking doors

  With blasts that besom the green.

  And I am here, and you are there,

  And a hundred miles between!

  O were it put the weather, Dear,

  O were it but the miles

  That summed up all our severance,

  There might be room for smiles.

  From ‘The Division’

  By Thomas Hardy

  One

  August was a miserable month of grey skies and pouring rain; a month of umbrellas and galoshes, forlorn and solitary walks along muddy lanes and sodden towpaths; a month in which the chill of autumn descended before the full glory of summer had bloomed.

  Edward felt Louisa’s absence even more keenly than he envisaged. The week she had spent in Gillygate had been the first for many months, but it was there he missed her most, standing often by his window in the early morning, looking out at weeping trees and remembering the unexpected closeness of those last, precious hours. Knowing she would go had heightened every sense, so that even while sitting apart, he had felt his soul reach out and mesh with hers. It seemed an equal awareness, since in those few days she was more open to him than she had been since girlhood. Recalling it, Edward’s heart swelled with love, swelled until he thought it would burst.

  The pain of loving her, missing her, was agony at times. Every moment at home he thought of her, conscious of his masculine jealousy, a black hatred of the man who had claimed her, who took her to his bed each night and forced his way into her secret heart. Impossible to ignore, forget, wipe out that side of their relationship; and while he knew very well that Louisa could not have gone to a man who abused her, it was easier to feed his hatred than picture her welcoming Robert Duncannon with open arms.

  He hated the wild visions which kept him awake; hated the sordid depths of imagination, the reactions he found so hard to ignore. If he had suffered badly on first discovering that illicit affair, Edward suffered more deeply now, simply because now he knew he loved Louisa, and wanted her for himself.

  How could she leave? That question became the punctuation to every conscious thought, in his mind at sleeping, still there at waking, so that he dragged himself out of bed each morning, spoke little to Bessie or his aunt, while haggard cheeks and hollow eyes gave evidence of suffering he thought so cleverly hidden.

  As though by tacit agreement, nothing was said. Bessie was covertly sympathetic, saving all the best portions of whatever she cooked for him. Despite his lack of appetite, Edward allowed himself to be fussed over and cajoled, knowing she meant well, and wanting to respond to that motherly affection. His aunt, however, was less well-disposed. Had he not known better, Edward might have suspected she knew of his uncomfortable conversation with Louisa in the early hours of that Sunday morning, for behind the grim set of her mouth, in the swiftly-dried tears and pained, averted eyes, he saw as much guilt as sorrow at Louisa’s going. It was not an emotion his aunt normally allowed herself to feel, and he knew she hated it, blaming him in return. He felt almost honour-bound to recover from his grief as quickly as possible, in order that things might return to normal.

  The idea crossed his mind one evening after a particularly wearing stretch of silence; it made him smile, and at the unaccustomed pull of muscles which had lain unused for weeks, Edward shook his head. I’m being ridiculous, he thought, nursing grief like a babe in arms; and with an effort he forced himself to list the things for which he knew he should be thankful.

  The next day he deliberately walked along Walmgate, opening his eyes to the poverty and squalor. The journey thinned his pocket, but by the end of the day Edward knew just how valuable were a sound roof, good food and kindly companionship. That night, before he went upstairs to bed, he dropped a kiss on Mary Elliott’s forehead, and for the first time in weeks she smiled at him.

  Work which had been no more than a distraction began to catch his interest again. It was still no more than a steady trickle, and he completed every order ahead of schedule; so with time on his hands he turned to carpentry jobs, fixing extra shelves for his tools, repairing gaps in doors and windows in preparation for the winter. The mammoth task of cleaning and sorting the storeroom above was soon demanding his attention.

  In trying to discover why the fire would not draw, he investigated the chimney, finding birds’ nests, loose brickwork, and, at the level of the upper storey, a baby’s shoe packed in with loose mortar. For a moment he was shocked, fearing what else he might find: clothing, perhaps, or the blackened bones of a tiny child. He searched, scrabbling at the, crumbling bricks inside the flue, but there was nothing more.

  Holding that twisted shape of hardened leather like some fragile, injured thing, he showed it to an old stonemason who had premises a few doors down. Examining it with gnarled, arthritic fingers, the old man smiled as though at a most familiar object, advising Edward to put it back. A good-luck charm, he said, built into the house with the chimney; he had come across many in the course of his work, and always replaced them.

  ‘Superstition, so they say – but there again, lad, you never know...’

  Uneasy with such barbaric ideas, Edward took it back with him and placed it on one of his new shelves. There it stood for many weeks, like some kind of black reproach; every time it caught his eye he thought of the child whose shoe it had been, the child who had lived here perhaps, grown to adulthood and subsequently died, centuries past; whose bones were no doubt mouldering in some nearby churchyard. Such thoughts of life and death unsettled him at a time when his spirits were still low, and eventually he gave in. With the chimney repairs almost complete, he returned the shoe to its former hiding-place, curiously relieved as he smoothed new mortar round concealing bricks.

  After that, the chimney drew excellently. Assured of a warming fire throughout the chill months ahead, and with incoming work no more than he could handle in half the working week, he began to think of taking a few days off.

  One thing held him back; one thing which was still a source of considerable anxiety. As the debate on the Home Rule Bill continued its heated progress, Edward watched the newspapers anxiously. On the second day of September the Bill was carried through the Commons with a meagre majority of thirty-four votes. It was hardly a triumph, and its ultimate defeat by the Lords seemed a foregone conclusion. Torn between his sympathy for the Home Rule Bill, and fear of the trouble its implementation would cause in Ireland, Edward waited on tenterhooks for the results of that second vote.

  As he had both feared and hoped, the House of Lords turned the collected opinion of their elected brethren upside down. A mere forty-one peers and bishops were in favour of loosening the Kingdom’s hold on that recalcitrant island, while the rest of those hereditary rulers, all four hundred of them, were overwhelmingly against such radical ideas. It mattered not, however, how hard Gladstone ranted against the dead wood of the upper house, how loud his calls for the destruction of that power of veto; the Lords could smile, secure in the knowledge that any such decision by the Commons could be similarly thrown out. They were immovable and they knew it.

  Regretful though he was, Edward’s sigh was one of relief. Since Parnell’s disgrace and death a couple of years before, the Nationalist elements were tigers without teeth; whereas the Unionists’ fangs seemed to have sharpened by the week. The Conservative member for Dublin University, Sir Edward Carson, would, Edward thought, be celebrating not only a most successful lobby, but the downfall of the Liberal Government. For after this, Gladstone was most surely finished
.

  But the true irony of the news that week lay not in Ireland, where it seemed the native Nationalists had accepted their lot without a fight, but in England, and very close to home. An important review of troops by the Duke of Cambridge which was to have taken place in York had had to be cancelled, those same troops being absent, quelling riots in the pit districts of the West Riding. A coal strike had rapidly escalated into full-scale unrest from Barnsley and Pontefract to as far north as Leeds. Troops had been called in from all areas, including York. By the end of that violent and alarming week, Lord Masham’s collieries were wrecked, his pit yards in flames, and five men had been shot dead.

  It was a salutary reminder of the true nature of Robert Duncannon’s job.

  ‘So different from those picturesque displays on the Knavesmire!’ Edward remarked, his voice loaded with irony.

  Mary Elliott shivered. ‘Well, I’m glad the Captain’s in Ireland, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘You were worried about that before Louisa left,’ he reminded her. But for the moment it made Ireland’s problems seem very small beer indeed.

  He wrote to Louisa that week, asking for the latest news on the Home Rule issue. Her reply came a few days later, but although he suspected her reply of being well-tailored for the family’s benefit, she did include a macabre anecdote calculated to produce a wry smile rather than confirm any latent fears.

  ‘The day after the announcement of the Lords’ decision,’ Louisa wrote, ‘a horse was murdered in one of the outlying areas of Dublin. Cruel, yes – and one wonders why the poor horse should suffer. But in our newspaper, the act was dismissed as one of political spite! It seemed so ludicrous after all the serious debates in Parliament that I’m afraid I laughed. Poor Robert was incensed and even more cross because I laughed. Clearly, I did not understand, so I had to have it explained to me – that it was not the horse that was being attacked, but its value to the Very Important Person who owned it. But I’m afraid Robert’s sense of humour is somewhat lacking where horses are concerned…’

  Setting the letter down without a smile, Edward concluded that, with regard to Robert Duncannon, his own sense of humour was also lacking. But clearly, things were done differently across the Irish Sea.

  He wondered whether she was happy. From her letters it was hard to tell. There was a stilted quality in some, which spoke of things hidden, difficulties she was perhaps trying to gloss over. With no sense of guilt whatsoever, Edward prayed for the difficulties to multiply and become unbearable; prayed that she might miss him, suffer as much as he was suffering. Then, surely, she would return to York.

  With too little work to occupy him, Edward was suddenly desperate for a change of scene. He thought about his friends in Whitby, and then he thought of Lincoln, wondering whether it was time to renew that very brief acquaintance made back in February. He considered whether to simply turn up, as he had done then, or to write first, reminding the elderly cleric of his months’ old invitation. In the event he wrote a brief letter, stating his intention of taking a few days’ holiday in the area, and asking for a convenient date on which they might meet and explore the village church together.

  Setting Edward’s latest letter down on her dressing-table, Louisa sighed. He wrote well, she thought; too well, since every line was eloquent of home and family, evoking images and scenes she would do well to forget. Even his elegant copperplate made a pleasing picture on the page, flowing as easily as the words, each loop and curl perfectly balanced, his signature simply: ‘Edward’, without the emphasis of line or flourish. He did not even sign himself: ‘Your loving cousin’, as she did when replying; no stress, no pleading, not even that he was missing her in the smallest way. There were times when she thought he was being brave, sparing her what depths of misery he might be feeling, and others when she wondered if she had imagined the revelations of that late summer dawn, or the poignancy of their last hours together. Louisa knew only that she was missing home and Edward far more than she had either expected or imagined. Knew also, with a sense of disloyalty, that he left a gap in her life that Robert simply could not fill. A gap, ridiculously, that she had hardly been aware of before that last day in York.

  It’s your own fault, she silently admonished her reflection in the glass, you should have left well alone, instead of raking up the past.

  ‘The past is dead,’ she said softly, looking into her own blue eyes, and then beyond, at the reflected image of her bedroom, its dusky pinks and creams, rose velvet drapes at the deep Georgian window, the matching cover on the newly-made double bed.

  Not that it had taken much making this morning, she reflected sadly. With Robert away yet again she had slept alone; and alone, Louisa barely disturbed the sheets.

  She missed him too. Not just his physical presence, but the Robert she knew and remembered in York. Here, albeit in subtle ways, he was different. Not less caring, not even less attentive, but busier, infinitely busier, his comings and goings abrupt and often unannounced. Even Letty was sometimes thrown into a spin, her meticulous housekeeping disrupted by demands for meals late at night, or sudden absences when she had planned a dinner especially for him. He said it was because the regiment was so newly arrived that there were many unexpected demands on his time. The regiment’s summer manoeuvres at the Curragh were cut short by the Home Rule Bill; troops were being moved, not only into Dublin but all over the country. It was the military’s task to keep outbreaks of trouble isolated, and Robert’s job to see that those orders were followed to the letter.

  Edward’s graphic description of the riots at home, coupled with shorter reports in the Irish papers, brought a surge of thankfulness; had Robert been in York he would surely have been involved, and in greater danger, it seemed, than he was here in Ireland.

  Ironic, she thought, that the expected quarter should give so little trouble, and the unexpected, so much. Or was it simply as Robert explained: that expected problems could be nipped before they grew, whereas the others caught everyone unawares and blossomed out of hand. Whichever, she was glad he was here and not in York; and if the job kept him busy at her expense, it was better that way. In that little apartment off Marygate Louisa could see that she and Robert had eaten the lotus, not even aware that they were doing so. Here the sharp wind of reality was blowing, and if he was often absent, his love all too brief, then she must learn to put up with it, stop moping for times and places which were never likely to be again.

  Telling herself these things, however, did not make that reality any easier to bear. Despite the blossoming friendship with Letty, Louisa was both lonely and homesick, her days barely filled by the self-imposed task of teaching Georgina. The house was Letty’s responsibility and Louisa was pleased to leave it that way; her position with regard to the servants was difficult enough, without attempting to impose her will on theirs.

  At first, with staunch Catholic disapproval, their hostility towards the Captain’s mistress was scarcely veiled. Letty said it was best to ignore it; they would come round in their own time; but Louisa saw what sheep the under-servants were, taking their lead from the elderly martinet of a butler, McMahon. He was a relic from Robert’s mother’s time, never losing an opportunity of referring to that honest, good-living Protestant lady, daughter of such a noble house.

  While never denying her mother’s virtue, Letty simply laughed at that, privately informing Louisa that her mother had had something of a reputation of her own, preferring to live separately in Dublin as a kind of literary hostess, surrounded by a wide circle of friends who shared her passions. She had possessed a marvellous sense of humour, allowed both children and servants far too much licence, and turned a consistently blind eye to her husband’s peccadilloes. The estate at White Leigh, Letty stated bluntly, was well-populated by families whose eldest sons and daughters bore a striking resemblance to each of the three legitimate Duncannons.

  Faintly shocked, Louisa first smiled and then laughed, sharing Letty’s slightly rueful amusement; she w
ondered why Robert had never revealed those facts about his family, about the ‘friends’ he had consorted with as a boy. But, recalling the high regard and affection he had for his mother, she wondered if it was her free spirit that he longed to see echoed in Louisa.

  Once again she was struck by the gulfs which existed between people of Robert’s class and those of her own. With money and position, it seemed virtually any behaviour could be overlooked as singular or eccentric; while those who had their livings to earn must toe a very narrow social line in order to survive. Grossly unfair though it was, Louisa hardened herself to embrace life on Robert’s side of the gulf; in his wake, perhaps she could flout the rules and get away with it.

  Armed with Letty’s knowledge, Louisa began a concerted campaign to win over the elderly butler. She never crossed him, was unfailingly pleasant, and only once took him up on something he said. ‘Oh,’ she remarked with feigned innocence, ‘you mean the time when Lady Duncannon gave all those marvellous parties? The Captain and his sister were talking about it only the other day, and I must say I wish I’d been here then. Such a fascinating lady, so Bohemian!’

  Whether McMahon understood the reference to artistic gypsies or not Louisa could not tell; he certainly realized that his little game was over. Slowly, he began to thaw, and with the relaxation of his thin-lipped disapproval, the other servants followed suit.

  Having worked in a grand house herself, Louisa understood their motives. Understood too that it was purely cultural differences which prevented them from seeing what English servants would have spotted immediately: that she was of a different class from the Duncannons. In Ireland, to be English and Protestant ensured immediate elevation; and, drawing on past experience, Louisa knew that within the household, at least, the part she played was convincing enough. Even Moira, bolstered by pride in her new position, and reluctant to have it dented, unwittingly added authenticity to her mistress’s role. Exaggerating with the best, Moira gave the impression that her previous post had been with one of the most elevated families in York, and that the Elliotts themselves owned one of the largest hotels in that city. Although it connected Louisa with ‘trade’, which would have been unforgiveable in the cream of English society, it made her out to be wealthy in her own right. That was almost acceptable. That she had received an academic education was another plus, making the time spent teaching Georgina a matter of simple eccentricity.