Starrbelow

by Christianna Brand

  ‘Nonsense! Go to Italy! Your wedding is planned for next month.’

  ‘Then it must be postponed; I must go to my father.’

  ‘You are mad, Sophia: you have a trousseau in the making, a thousand matters to deal with.’

  ‘What does that matter, Aunt Marcia? My father is ill and my mother needs me.’

  ‘A ruse, you foolish child; a ruse on her part to get you back to Venice, and to keep you there.’

  ‘Then it partly succeeds, for I shall go; and partly fails, poor mother!—for I shall not stay.’

  ‘If you go,’ said Lady Corby grimly, ‘you may as well stay.’

  ‘What does that mean, Aunt?’

  ‘It means that your lover seems not so hot, Sophia, but that your absence may cool him off altogether. How much have you seen of this man you are to marry? Almost the very day after your betrothal he rushes off abroad leaving his guests to the mercy of his Aunt Lillane: a week later he returns—without Lord Frome—and crosses with you coming back from Starrbelow. Now he is heard of in Bath, and is content to have you, it appears, lounging with Christine about London with Anton at your heels—’

  ‘At your behest,’ said Sapphire, ‘as my “watchdog”.’

  ‘I put a good face on it, Sophia, lest Weyburn hear of it. And now,’ said Lady Corby, angrily, ‘when surely he would be coming soon to Town to assist with the wedding arrangements, you, forsooth, must go flying off to Venice.’

  ‘I will come back,’ said Sophia.

  ‘But will your lover come back? Have a care, Sophia, lest he elude you altogether. Though that, I suppose,’ she added, thoughtfully, ‘he can hardly do, after all.’

  ‘Why do you say so?’ said Sapphire, sharply.

  ‘Why, because—only because he has given you his promise.’

  ‘As to his promise, from that I can release him.’ She shrugged. She said with affected nonchalance: ‘Why should you suppose him likely to wish it? Is this not the usual conduct of an affianced gentleman of the ton? I had assumed more assiduous attention to be not the fashion.’

  ‘Of course, of course! Weyburn is not a man for outward demonstration; he loathes all appearance of weakness.… It will be difficult, I warrant you,’ said Lady Corby, confidentially winking, ‘in the privacy of marriage.’ Heaven forbid, she thought, that the filly take fright now and rush off out of the contract! And as to Italy—she supposed the girl would go, and if so she must go, too, or heaven knew when she would return; and one must, for the sake of the future, keep in her (increasingly capricious) good books. ‘Of course, dearest, you must go to your parents if they need you; and I could not let you travel alone. Bertram and I will come with you.… We shall be back, I dare say, before the month is over.’

  But before the month was over the father, for whose poor, unworthy ambition the lamb had been sacrificed on so bitter an altar, had died, still unsatisfied; and it was March before Sophia could leave her mother and come back with her aunt from Venice. Of Lord Weyburn, there was still nothing to be seen; but Prince Anton of Brunswick met the coach at the Rochester stage.

  March, April, May. May at Starrbelow, with a thousand candles shimmering like fireflies in the silver gloom of the tiny chapel in the park, and a thousand, thousand bright flowers starring the fields and gardens in the bright sunshine outside.… And Lady Corby brilliant in velvets and furs and Sir Bertram discreetly splendid in black and silver brocade; and Prince Anton hang-dog in sober brown and Christine, muted yet radiant, in sky-blue to match her eyes—for the Earl of Frome, returned at last from abroad to stand friend at his friend’s wedding, was calm, friendly, solid, as though they had all met here but yesterday.… And Lord Weyburn, standing before the altar, awaiting his bride, tall and straight in his dark flowered waistcoat and dark, magnificently embroidered, yet sombre coat—too sombre altogether, whispered the household servants, clustered round the chapel door, peering in at the great folk—disappointingly few—assembled for the wedding: but the bride’s father was recently dead and the bride herself not long returned from abroad so perhaps there had not been time for a more elaborate show.… And now …

  And now, standing in the shadows of the arched doorway, a mist of white, a blaze of blue, poised there for a moment, moving softly forward, materializing out of the gloom into the candle-lit brightness before the altar.… A few words spoken, a gold ring given, a name written for the last time: the new Lady Weyburn comes down the short aisle, white lids lowered, on her husband’s arm.

  Outside the door of the chapel stood a coach and six horses, the coachman on his box, a man at the leaders’ heads. Lord Weyburn paused in the tiny porchway, Sophia’s hand still on his arm, and called a name. A steward stepped forward, astonished. ‘My lord?’

  ‘Coram, I leave Starrbelow in your charge. My lawyers in London will communicate with you: otherwise, take orders from Lady Weyburn.’ He took from his sleeve a folded paper and handed it to Sapphire. ‘Here, madame: this empowers you to collect, on my behalf, a thousand guineas owing from your accomplice. You may have the spending of it together with all my heart.’ He bowed to her briefly, bowed to the company, standing open-mouthed with amazement grouped about her, and before anyone could collect himself to speak, had leapt up to the box, taken the reins from the coachman’s hands and was driving furiously down the long curve of the drive. The mud churned up by thundering hooves spattered the bright faces of the flowers as he passed.

  SEVEN

  It was a very lovely spring at Starrbelow that year—that year of Sophia’s marriage, 1754: a lovely spring, lying over the grey-and-green Cotswolds like a golden blessing, soft skies, soft sunshine and soft, warm rain to bring out the sticky chestnut buds to their furled green leaf, to bring the clear sheen to the fresh young meadow grass—to wash away the mud from the bright faces of flowers, bespattered by churning wheels.…

  She remained there very quietly, the new Lady Weyburn: saw no one, went nowhere, did nothing: waited, perhaps—but no sign came. People said, later, that she gave him a week—two weeks; that she wrote to him, but received no reply. That she heard from his lawyers in that time, it is certain: his financial arrangements long planned with this knowledge in his mind were made clear to her; she found herself free (under certain restrictions) of his homes in country and town, free of a large income placed unreservedly at her command, free to come and go—as long as she kept out of his way; free, a girl barely eighteen, to live as she would—as long as she left him alone. So she gave him a week—it was said—and then another week; and at the end of that time she sent for her friend, Christine, or Christine came unbidden—came down from London carrying with her, no doubt, a journal with a gossip paragraph (which certainly appeared there on June the eighth or ninth of that year): L—d W—n reported very snugly established at Bath, dicing nightly for high stakes at intimate parties, presided over, in the regrettable absence of her newly wedded ladyship, by Miss L—y P—e, with her accustomed charm.…

  What is known is that on a late afternoon, three days after her friend’s arrival with these tidings, Lady Weyburn ordered a horse saddled for herself and dismissed the groom (over his respectful protest) and alone rode forth—past the gilded gate where so short a time ago she had raced with Lord Weyburn and he had claimed his reward, along the silver path through the woods, now bright with young green: across the broad meadow where Red Reddington had halted her bolting mare and had promised her, ‘I won’t tell!’; up the steep incline, the mare’s head pecking gallantly as she picked her elegant way through the lush young grass, up and up to the ridge above Frome Castle.… Red Reddington spotted her there, a rider sitting motionless as though awaiting something, as he rode up to the ridgeway crossroads with Sir Pardo Ryan, both on mischief bent. They had had some idea in their heads of calling in at the hostelry at Camden where there were two pretty wenches for the tumbling, if it suited their fancy; but the rider had seen them, had spurred the horse into action—and out of the sunset, cantering towards them on Weyburn’s lit
tle bay mare (he had christened her in the end The Kiss), had come, of all people, her ladyship herself, who had not been seen since her marriage and desertion, now nearly three weeks ago. ‘By all the saints, Red!—the bewitching grass-widow in person!’

  ‘She’ll not want to meet us,’ said Reddington. ‘We’d better turn back.’

  But she waved her crop and called out gaily to them and came bucketing up on the pretty little bay and reined her in. She looked very little like a widow, moreover, in green velvet and a gaily feathered hat. ‘Sir Pardo! Mr. Reddington! Good evening. How charming to encounter you here!’

  Two such rakes and a pretty woman alone with them on a summer’s evening! Even the gentlemen themselves were shocked. ‘Have you no attendant, my lady, no groom with you?’

  ‘No, I’m a rebel, Sir Pardo, against attendant grooms—and unattendant bridegrooms to boot. I have mouldered long enough in my decent obscurity, done penance enough for the crime of being wronged and deserted. All of a sudden the devil was in me and I banished my attendants and have ridden forth in search of—’

  ‘Another devil?’ prompted Red Reddington, laughing.

  ‘And have ridden this hour; but until this moment—as Sir Pardo would say, divvle a devil have seen!’

  ‘But now see two of us to make up for ut,’ said Sir Pardo in his soft Irish brogue.

  She laughed at them, the blue eyes flashing, looking up at them from beneath smooth eyebrows, under the curving rim of her riding-hat. ‘Which makes three.’

  ‘Two ugly devils and—Lady Lucifer, Daughter of Light.’

  ‘What shall we do, brother devils, in this brief respite from the ardours of Paradise?’

  They concealed their astonishment, somewhat taken aback. Was this the silent, disdainful beauty, thought Pardo, that he’d striven to make some headway with during Christmas week while Charles Weyburn made good his wager?

  ‘Is it not true, Mr. Reddington, that you have a famous peach brandy up at the Manor House?’

  ‘For gentlemen, madame. Rede Manor for a lady, unchaperoned.… What, Pardo, is not Lady Ryan at home?’

  ‘Why, sure, and would be happy to entertain her ladyship.’

  ‘That would be most kind; and yet, I have heard Lady Ryan, Sir Pardo, described as an angel.…’

  ‘Which she is to put up with me, sure,’ agreed Pardo, readily.

  ‘“An angel from heaven”—so I have heard it said. But, gentlemen, are we not for the moment refugees from heaven? So, Mr. Reddington—peach brandy?’

  ‘So ho!’ said Sir Pardo to Squire Reddington, as they swung their horses’ heads and trotted after her. ‘It seems that the gossips were right—and we need not ride to Camden for wenches after all.’

  ‘It seems so,’ said Reddington, but he remembered her simple gratitude when he had stopped her horse in its nervy flight across the great meadow—and for the first time in his life could find it in his heart to be sorry that a pretty woman should turn out to be easy game.…

  She rode with them next day; and the next day and the next—and once again all the county was agog with gossip. Miss Lillane was reported (via the Starrbelow housekeeper) disapproving, in dudgeon, declaring herself ill and keeping her room. Lady Lillane was distraught, wringing her hands outside her daughter’s locked bedroom door and imploring her not to involve herself in any more of Sophia’s scandals, now that Lord Frome was at home again and everything so promising. ‘Running backwards and forwards between us and the Castle,’ gabbled the outraged housekeeper into eager ears, ‘beseeching the Earl not to credit that Miss Christine would lend herself to her ladyship’s goings on: as if she would—our young lady that’s been in and out of Starrbelow since the day she was born and knows how to conduct herself, I hope, if others don’t.… But the Earl knows our Lily better than that. “Compose yourself, madame,” he says—I had it from Thomas Footman there, he heard it with his own ears—“Compose yourself, madame. I’ll believe no ill of anyone till I see it for myself; and never any ill of Christine.” And it’s my belief, and Thomas Footman’s too, we’ll have her Countess of Frome before the year is out. But as for this other … Caught my lord, we all know that, with her witching ways and pretending to want none of him: and him tied fast by the wager.… And now! Quiet enough, I’ll grant you, the first days, sitting moping like a bird, staring out all day over the drive where he drove off, as though he might at any moment come riding back up it and take her in his arms like a prince in a fairy-tale. But then suddenly—up and off she goes, riding out by herself: and that evening she’s drinking like a man at the Manor with the Squire and that no-good Sir Pardo; and it’s my belief she rode deliberately to intercept them, for the stable boys say she asked a couple of times if it were not true that the Squire would ride over of an evening to Camden; and which way lay Camden from the crossways upon the ridge?…’

  And now it was whispered that Old Nick himself, in the person of Lord Franks, had joined the new partnership; and if that were so, Lady Weyburn’s frail reputation indeed was gone. Moreover, it was true. She had met him while she sat at her ease with her new friends on a bench in the sunny garden of the Camden tavern (Lady Weyburn of Starrbelow, in such company, in such a place!). He had strolled up and said a casual word to Red and Pardo, and leaned from his great height and looked into her eyes with his own glittering, black eyes and—chucked her under the chin. And she had raised her hand that held the half-finished tiny glass of cherry brandy and coolly, unhurriedly, you might say almost without animosity, thrown the contents of the glass in his face. ‘Mind your manners, sir,’ she had said, and put the glass back quietly on the wooden table between them.

  He had started back, half losing his balance, recovered himself, wiped the sweet red liquor from his blanched cheek; never taken his glittering eyes—grown cold—from hers. ‘Your pardon, madame. I took you—naturally—for a village wench.’

  Sir Pardo and Squire Reddington had leapt up, of course, enraged for her, and alarmed; but she waved them negligently back to their places. ‘Put up your cudgels, gentlemen, my lord has learned his lesson and will be more civil, for the future—to the village wenches.’ And she had motioned him to a seat beside her, laughing in his face, and called out in the new, gay, arrogant voice she used, for more brandy; and drawn him, the incident apparently forgotten, into the conspiracy that had been the subject of their interrupted murmurings. Aunt Corby was coming to Starrbelow—she had that morning had a letter—with all her train. And the very thought of it filled her with ennui; but how to get rid of her now?

  ‘Why, by writing, madame, and telling her not to come.’

  ‘But she comes already, and at my request; and with her band of friends. I wrote several days ago, inviting her, telling her to bring a party with her. I detest my aunt, but I thought I must bear with her company for the sake of the company she’d bring; for what other friends has my lord and master left me?’

  ‘He has left you a fine choice of neighbours, at least,’ said Sir Pardo.

  ‘Alas, I had written before I met with my two devils—my three devils,’ she amended, bowing an invitation to Lord Franks, somewhat to Reddington and Sir Pardo’s dismay. And the worst of it was, she said, ruefully, that the advent of this unwanted guest had lost her the best friend in the world she had. ‘For Miss Lillane, my dear Christine, disapproves, my devils and gentlemen! She disapproves of you and of my rides with you; she thinks Lord Weyburn would not welcome Lady Corby’s friends in his house, and therefore I should not. For Lady Corby will bring down Miss Eustis, of whom, specifically, our Lily disapproves, and Mrs. Mettle, a gossip of hers; and such rakes, I dare say, as Miss Eustis and Mrs. Mettle can persuade. And Prince Anton, whom, I confess, in the past I have found—not inattentive, comes with her ladyship, of course; and of this, above all, my dear Christine disapproves. And she will not stay by and see the wife of her dear cousin Charles so indiscreetly conduct herself, she cannot give such goings on at Starrbelow the countenance of her presence there. Wherefore
she and her mama have withdrawn themselves, have left me: Christine and I have quarrelled.’ And she laughed a little wildly and waved the empty glass in the small white hand with its meaningless wedding-ring and confessed that one must not whisper it, but her dear Christine was something of a little prude—nor, perhaps, would they be astonished to learn that the affronted ladies had betaken themselves no further than Frome Castle. The Earl had opened his gates and taken in the refugees from scandal, and who dare swear they’d have run so fast, had no such tempting asylum offered sanctuary?…

  But meanwhile she had found her—three—devils, and she owed no duty to anyone, and life was gay: and now she was to be plagued by Aunt Corby. Was there not a man among so many, cried Sapphire, who would save her from this turbulent aunt?…

  So began, on a sunny evening outside a village alehouse, the first adventure of the Treasure Seekers’ Circle—which in the few brief weeks of its existence bade fair to outrival in notoriety all the hell-fire clubs put together, not excluding Medmenham itself: so began the first of Weyburn’s Sapphire deplorable ‘escapades’.

  Lady Corby, needless to relate, was delighted with the present condition of her niece’s affairs. True, upon the first shock of her desertion at the church door, Sophia had turned away all company, her aunt’s included—even her dear Christine, white and weeping, had been packed back ruthlessly to Town; and had insisted with unexpected strength and purpose upon being left alone at Starrbelow. But so young a girl, rich, beautiful and now entirely unconstrained, would hardly remain for long buried in the country with only the company of a pack of grudging servants, feeling their master tricked into marriage and now banished by it, and resenting her presence there. Friends, company, she must soon have; and where should she turn for them but to Aunt Corby, the fountain of all the place, wealth and splendour which she now enjoyed? There was an anxious moment when Miss Lillane appeared to have got in first: what if Sophia threw in her lot completely with the Frome Castle set and after all failed in her duty to closer kin? But Christine, ever moping after her dreary earl, proved, evidently, an unstimulating companion: hard upon her departure for Starrbelow, the much-desired letter arrived. Sophia found herself very dull in the country; Christine had arrived, but had brought her mother with her and the old lady was grating on already raw nerves. Would not Aunt Marcia, of her mercy, collect a few friends and come down to Gloucestershire, losing as little time as possible?…