by Lara Blunte
John had told her that he wouldn't try to see her or seek her out, and he had meant to keep his word, but he thought that if he only looked at her from afar there could be no harm.
Except to him, he realized. He had bought a place in a box across from hers and it had cost him a sum he should not spend, but he did not care. He stood at the back of the box, in darkness, and didn't look at the stage but at Georgiana.
She was in one of the best boxes in the house, at an enviable proximity to the stage. Cecily and Dorothea were on either side of her. John saw that Cecily had become a woman of eighteen, and that Dotty was still a child at fourteen, with her round cheeks, blonde curls and dimples. He loved these girls, who had been present during his courtship of their sister. Cecily had carried notes between them, and Dotty had never been able to keep herself from hanging onto his arm or holding his hand to tease Georgiana, who was not a child and could not touch him whenever she wanted to. He loved them, and yet he had not stopped to think of how he would frighten them when he had, in fury, climbed the steps of Halford House on his horse.
There was someone else with them in the box, a woman. Hugh was absent: perhaps he was still nursing the scar on his face.
The welt from the whip lash on Georgiana's shoulder was covered and might be starting to fade, just as the mark of the gash on his cheek. The memories of that day, however, were vivid. He could still see how she had looked in his bed, he could still feel her skin, and her lips.
Many lorgnettes and opera glasses were being turned on the Countess of Halford with the peculiar freedom Londoners employed to watch each other. People stared openly so they could admire or envy her beauty, and copy her finery.
He could not stop looking at her either, because of the different quality she had acquired in his absence: the womanliness of her expression and her shape, the soft bosom which rose and fell with the music as she looked towards the stage, seeming to feel so much. The diamonds around her face and neck at this moment did not shine more brightly than a tear at the corner of her eye, as she listened to the words being sung.
Lascia ch'io pianga
Mia cruda sorte,
E che sospiri la libertà！
Let me weep for my cruel fate, and sigh after freedom!
John had needed to possess Georgiana, to secure the happiness she would bring to him, but now he longed to devote himself to her until joy returned to her eyes, and her sadness was entirely gone -- a sadness that yet made her irresistible.
She is preparing herself to let her life go to waste, he thought, just so that others may thrive.
I won't let it happen! He had had enough of being a shadow, and left the box, starting to make his way to the exit. He would not follow her like some helpless thing, he would give her happiness and security, and her sisters too -- enough of the useless longing!
Just as he turned a corner with a scowl of determination on his face, he found himself face to face with Cecily and Dorothea.
Both girls gasped and stared at him in horror.
"No!" Dotty cried, like a child who was about to be hurt.
His face showed grief at the fright he was causing them. Cecily must have seen his distress, as she touched his sleeve and asked, "Oh, John, why?"
He realized that Georgiana would scarcely have told them what had happened afterwards. They could not know the immensity of his repentance, or the intensity of his love.
"I am sorry, Cecily. I lost my head. I asked her forgiveness, and she has given it!"
Cecily's eyes were soft, as she knew that John could not, at times, control his rage, and that losing Georgiana to Hugh would have driven him half mad. It was a story of impossible love, one that awakened her deepest sympathy, and made her suffer with them.
But Dotty was looking at him with a terrible frown, and tears in her eyes.
"You don't forgive me, Dotty?" John asked.
"She has the kindest heart in the world, how could you? How could you?"
John reached out slowly, as if trying to touch a wild deer, and pinched Dotty's earlobe with tenderness, as he used to do when they had known each other before. The tears spilled out of her eyes, tears of stubbornness, pity for her sister, and love for John.
"If you only knew!" the girl said.
"What?" he asked sharply. "If I knew what?"
But the girls were looking beyond him now. He turned to find the fourth occupant of their box, a woman about twenty-four years old, whose dress and hair were too simple for the theater. She had a serious face with a long nose, but she was beautiful. There was a fierceness in her gaze which was not anger, but something else. She never took her eyes off his as she came forward, holding her hand out.
"I am your cousin, Hester Stowe," she said in a low voice.
It took a moment for John to shake her hand, for there was something powerful and strange about her. And, it seemed, she did not mind owning him as a cousin, though he was a bastard. Yet she was probably making a show of her genteel poverty, because he knew that Georgiana would have offered her better clothes, and anything she needed.
A woman who wants no finery, John thought. God save us from them, even more than from the ones who want too much of it.
Then, fearing that Georgiana might soon come out after them, he said to the girls, "Don't tell your sister I was here. It will only make everything worse."
Cecily nodded in understanding, and Dotty suddenly stepped forward and made him bend so she could kiss his cheek.
"I will make up for what I did -- I promise you, darling," he whispered with grateful affection.
John went down the stairs as quickly as he could, but found, upon looking up, that the strange young woman who now lived with Georgiana had come to the banisters to watch him leave.
Fourteen. The Days
In her husband’s magnificent London home, Georgiana could not stop thinking of John, as she had known she would not have been able to once he returned.
It was even worse now, when she finally understood what physical love was meant to be like. She longed for him day and night, and the insult and betrayal of having her sister live under her roof as her husband's mistress was mitigated by the relief she felt in not having to be in Hugh's bed.
She hoped she would never have to sleep with Hugh again. It made her nauseous to think of it, whereas before John had returned she had come to accept it and bear it like many other obligations in her life.
It had been worse at the beginning, when Hugh had been so overwhelmed by her that he hadn't been able to stop touching her and asking to see her naked. The things he had said to her then had seemed abominable, though they might be things that two people in love would say to each other.
Then he had started to come to her drunk, after meals, his eyes bleary and his hands moist. He would sometimes insult her, or fight with her, telling her that she did not act like a wife, that she did not love him.
John had said nothing at all; everything had been in his eyes, in the way he touched her. Georgiana pressed a hand over her breast, to feel as it had felt when it had been his hand, she kissed and nuzzled her own shoulder as he had done, but nothing could compare to being with him for those few hours. She felt as if every pulse in her body beat for him.
Why did they have to be honorable, when Hugh and Bess were not, when they flaunted their affair in her face? She asked herself that sometimes, then she remembered the danger that she might conceive, and thought of the scandal for the poor innocent, and John's grief in doing to his own child what had been done to him.
And there was that other terrible reality, that she might be destitute, and her sisters too. She would go to John, were she alone – she would not be frightened that he might fail her, or die; she would believe in him, and in her own strength. She would work alongside him.
But how could she do that when her sisters might also end up poor and unmarriageable? She could not. Life was much harder than anyone of them had known, when their father had been finding the money to keep the
m safe and well. Life could be terribly cruel to women.
Yet passionate love made people selfish, and many times Georgiana wanted to walk through Halford House tearing out her earrings, bracelets, necklace, her hair piece, her ribbons, her dress, her stays and her high heeled shoes until she was quite bare. She would then run through the streets on her naked feet, to find John as she had found him before, to be in his bed again, and feel his wildness and his love.
Instead she looked out the window as her sisters played music and stared at the rain, knowing that she would do nothing at all except sit at luncheon or dinner and pretend that all was well, that Bess and her husband were not lovers, that she liked that strange silent girl, Hester, and that she was happy, so that Cecily and Dotty would not be vexed.
She would then say goodnight to everyone and go to her room, knowing that Hugh would not come. He hated her too much now, though he still liked to show her off; better, she imagined, than he would have liked to parade Bess.
Georgiana was the prize horse, the thoroughbred, and Bess the everyday mare. What would happen if Bess had a bastard, after she had used that name for John so often with venom? Poor Bess, how foolish she was. She wondered if Hugh would marry her, even if she died, and didn't think so.
With her impatience and her need to be first and foremost, Bess had sold herself short. She did not understand what needed to happen in the house of a nobleman. She did not understand that Hugh would not break the rules a second time by marrying another poor commoner, and one whose body he had already enjoyed.
Georgiana would go to her room, alone, and she would lie on her bed longing so much for John that she thought she might forget everything, she might go to him, she might go to him now, and he wouldn't be able to refuse her.
But she wouldn't get up from her tortured bed, and the next morning the thought that she might do it was gone. She sat, motionless, as her maids dressed her in her undergarments, her stays, her bodice and skirt; as they put lace, furs and jewels on her; as they teased her hair, powdered it and placed ribbons on it. She waited until she was unrecognizable to herself, until she was the Countess of Halford and no longer Georgiana.
Then the day would begin, a day with nothing in it for her to do, except think of John again.
Fifteen. The Wig Business
Wig stealing was a profitable business for thieves who didn't expect to retire on their earnings.
A good wig of horse hair was expensive -- and sought after, as the middle classes were determined to wear them so as to resemble the nobility as much as possible. Therefore thieves could sell the wigs they stole to seemingly respectable traders, who would then sell them to eager prospects looking to save a little.
A wig of human hair would, of course, be much more expensive, and an elaborate puffy wig could cost 800 shilling; but these would hardly ever be seen walking down the street, and a thief would have to be fast and cunning to snatch them from noble heads as they entered Parliament or the theater.
London streets had become treacherous to navigate if one were wearing a wig, or if one didn't take enough care. Pickpockets tended to avoid tall strong men like John, who might catch them and give them a good beating before having them thrown into jail, but the poor round-bellied sot strolling in front of him in his sky blue satin trousers and coat, his high heels and walking stick was just the sort to call the attention of London's merciless underworld.
Right now the man in blue satin was passing some street ragamuffins who were laughing unabashedly at him. One boy kept running ahead of him to turn around and put his hands to his face, pretend his knees were buckling and his heart was beating fast, as if he were dying of love at the sight of the popinjay.
The man frowned and pushed the boys aside with his stick, and when clear of them put his nose in the air to continue walking with dignity, but the boy would appear again, and again start his pantomime.
At one point the boy simply ran at the man and jumped in his arms, pretending to kiss him. The man tried to get rid of him, but the boy took his fashionable hat and put it on his own head, and pursed his lips to be kissed.
The man in satin did not notice, with the boy in his arms, that his wig was rising from his head as if it were a bird flying off. John could not help laughing with the rest of the street as the hairy thing with its rows like sausages rose higher and higher in the air.
Looking up, John saw that there was a thread pulling it, and could even make the stick that was being used to reel the wig in, as if it were a fish caught in a hook.
A face topped by natural fair hair showed itself for a second over the banister of the public building where the wig was going, and John would have recognized it anywhere.
He smiled and leapt around the building and up the stairs, to the hidden spot at the top of the columns where the thief was fishing, and found himself behind his friend, Lieutenant Marcus Brennan.
"You're caught sir!"
Marcus almost threw himself out of the building, thinking the law had really caught up with him, but John stopped him by grabbing the back of his coat.
"Oh, you goddamned ass!" Marcus exclaimed, a hand over his heart, when he saw it was John. He did not forget to secure the wig and tuck it inside his coat.
John was still laughing. "I like a thief who never loses his head!"
Marcus smiled with his usual charm. "Let's get out of here, it's very important that I shouldn't be at the scene of the crime! Look how the creature is squealing!"
Indeed, the man in his satin suit was shouting, his hand to his head, and calling for the police, as he pointed fingers at everyone in the street.
"Where are you meeting your accomplice, then?" John asked as they moved away together.
"You made him out, did ye?"
"It doesn't take genius to see the ploy. I hope you use variations of it."
Marcus shrugged, "Well, it has worked so far, and everyone in the street only wants to see the fops get stiffed!"
"A man with a plan, I see," John scoffed.
They were going through back streets and alleyways, and John was not surprised when they arrived at a public house, The Midday Cup.
"Apt name," John said with a smile, as Marcus liked to start drinking early, and it was not even noon.
"Ah, abandon that irony and let us drink to the success of my business!"
Marcus was none other than the lieutenant who had acted as John's second, and served under him in India. He had managed to be honorably discharged by making much of an eye injury sustained in battle, which presumably made him see double and put his fellow officers in danger. He liked to say that it was only time he was "honorably anythinged”.
He had ordered two pints of ale and came back to set one before John. He drank deeply from his own glass and smiled, "Ah! All is right with the world."
"How bad is it?" John asked, after taking a sip of his ale.
"What?"
"Your situation."
"Ah, you know! I make do with my wig business!"
John looked at Marcus' threadbare clothes and scruffy appearance." I can smell you from here!"
"Put your nose in your ale glass and you won't smell me anymore!"
"Sleeping in the streets?"
"Not that bad, not that bad, lad!" Marcus scoffed, waving his hand with largesse.
"Considering the only women who would have you in their bed would have to be paid, I can only imagine…"
"Well, that's the thing," Marcus said brightly. "I do give myself a couple of girls per wig, so I am set for a while.""
"The money for the wig would go fairly quick if you want to stay all night with a London whore!" John exclaimed.
"What are ye, an accountant? And what whores do you go to, for God's sake, who cost so much?" Marcus shook his head in mock grief. "And I thought it would be amusing to see ye. Why don't you lay off me and tell me about your whoreson brother and what happened after you gave him that hidin'?"
John shrugged. "Nothing happened. I had already
resigned my commission, which would have been taken away, and I have not seen him since."
"What about his wife, then?"
John considered his friend. "She is off limits for the moment, though I am working on that."
Marcus narrowed his merry eyes as he looked at John. "You don't look so flush yourself! I'd have thought you'd come back to some inheritance, since your father was an Earl."
John didn't mind that Marcus should mention his parentage, as he did it with no malice.
"I even thought I might get a few bob off you," Marcus added.
"Or a big fat wig off my head?"
Marcus' eyes flew up to John's head. "Good natural hair, that. You wouldn't be shaving that to wear a damn wig, unless you were planning to prance around in a minuet with some ladies of the court."
"No dancing for me."
"So, John, no money, no lady? A newspaper in your pocket and some advertisements circled? Ye not looking for a job, are ye? Don't break me heart!"
"I hope you are going to spare me that intolerable talk of how free and special the bloody Irish are, and what poets!"
"All right, I will amuse you with the talk of what shits the English are, and what tight fists!"
John laughed, "I like that better!"
"Why are you looking so hard for a job, the great man made it difficult for you?"
"Well nigh impossible. So far."
Marcus repressed a hiccough. "Have you looked overseas? If you're willing to work, the shipping agencies might not care about the Earl, or going abroad might change everything. There are places to go and make money!"
"You don't seem tempted."
"I have my wig business," Marcus said with hauteur. "And I hear ale is bad anywhere but here. And in Germany. And I wouldn't go there."
John shook his head. "I can't go abroad. I can't leave England again."
"Ah!" said the perspicacious Marcus. "I see. Well, that makes it difficult, don't it?"
