Starrbelow

by Christianna Brand

  Witnesses. Witnesses, witnesses, witnesses.… She drove home alone when the court was ended for the day, sitting upright and lovely in her carriage, not concealing herself from view, disdainful, unruffled, serene; but her maid could have witnessed that she spent the long evening lying motionless, exhausted, on her bed; touched no food, sipped only at a little wine. No visitors came. The men, perhaps, unwontedly delicate, were afraid to compromise her by outward attentions at this time: only Reddington and Pardo, friends and neighbours still at Starrbelow where, since her return from Italy with the child, she had exclusively spent her time, sent her billets, folded into cocked hats. She glanced at them languidly. Dearest lady—you were magnificent, down with the lot of them, how you put down that bawd from the inn and she with her glasses of claret, devil a sovereign more shall her brat see of mine, God bless you, Pardo, and Love of my life, you were splendid, you were magnificent, you are the love of my life.… Ill-written, half illiterate, brought by the hand of some tavern runner. My only two friends in the world, she thought wearily, and even on this night they can’t stay sober for me. And yet … ‘Love of my life.…’ God help him, she thought, I believe it is true: and if it is true, who is to cast a stone at him because in wineing and wenching he dulls down the pain? Not she: not Sapphire Weyburn who also had loved once and for a lifetime; who also was not loved in return.

  The verdict of the court—if not of the jurymen—after that first long day: Lady Weyburn found guilty of wanton conduct with any of a dozen men—and the child as likely the son of one of these as not.

  TWELVE

  The second day: the day that was to prove the secret marriage to Prince Anton: Lady Corby called upon to testify against her niece.…

  Marcia Corby at the age of fifty-two, lived with a dream—with an illusion and a dream: which, as the years crept by, as the ageing, haggard face more and more broke through the terrible mask of youth, and the philanderers and the flatterers fell away, grew strong within her: filled up at last every crevice of a mind grown sick with feeding on the illusion and the dream. For she saw herself now as a woman who had been loved, who in turn had given a great love: whose chevalier had been sans peur et sans reproche, whose own weary heart had been refined afresh in the fires of that clean young spirit. And this great love, Sophia Devigne had tried to steal from her; and, failing, had condemned to the murderer’s hand. This was the illusion: and the dream—revenge. That Anton had been in fact Sapphire’s lover—let alone that he had married her—she did not believe because she would not believe him faithless to herself. But even this, if it would harm the enemy, she was willing to swear. ‘I did what I could to prevent it, but I believe that Prince Anton of Brunswick was Lady Weyburn’s lover, both before her marriage to Lord Weyburn and afterwards; and may well have married her as has been supposed.’

  ‘Your ladyship knew of this from the beginning?’

  ‘Not at first, no. I saw that my niece was—attracted to him.’ But spite burst out of her, she hissed out suddenly and shatteringly into the avidly listening court that the girl was a natural wanton, a slut, who had seen that he was handsome, strong, manly and had lusted after him.… ‘I did what I could to prevent it.…’ She said at last, almost sobbing: ‘Many will testify to that.’

  Many indeed could testify to that—to that and to its apparent unsuccess. The first casual, kindly notice of this lovely protégée of his middle-aged mistress, the increase of intimacy after the disaster of her entry into society, the insistence upon the Christmas visit to Starrbelow (‘I haf accepted, Marcia: I shall go ass I said I would’). Taken unawares at the ball by the opportunity, suddenly presenting itself, to bring about what he had known would be his mistress’s pleasure, he had cried out the challenge; but afterwards had gone out alone into the gardens and not returned to the ballroom that night; and later he had struggled to be allowed to go back upon the bet, had desisted only when she threatened him with his father’s wrath. Had he married Sophia to prevent the challenge from being made good? And, perhaps, later tired of her?—or never loved her at all, married her only out of shame and now that it was done, grown afraid again, penniless as they both were, of Hanoverian repudiation? Obliged to be present at her wedding, he had looked white and sick; later, fool that she had been, she had taken him with her to Starrbelow again. ‘Your niece, in the June following her marriage, Lady Corby, invited you to Gloucestershire?’

  ‘She invited me, yes, begging me to bring with me a party of friends. It was one “friend” that she wanted, I see that now. She dared not invite him alone; but she knew he would be with any party of mine.’

  ‘You did not appreciate that at the time?’

  ‘Not at first. When I saw that she was—though now a married woman—still seeking him out, I did what I could to prevent it.’

  ‘Lady Weyburn—took steps to remove your surveillance? This adventure of the highwayman …?’

  ‘I was ill,’ said Lady Corby briefly. ‘My nerves were shocked.’

  ‘You kept your room? And were later obliged to return to London?’

  ‘To see my doctors. But she came also, she would not leave him alone, he came with me and so she followed.…’ But meanwhile at Starrbelow, she had disgraced herself with her pursuit of him, all the world knew it, ask the servants, ask the grooms in the stables, ask the Earl of Frome.…

  Witnesses. Witness of a lady’s maid to assignations in locked rooms, witness of stablemen to horses saddled for solitary rides.… Painful witness from the Earl of Frome, dressed in deep mourning for his wife’s death, of these accidental encounters with the lovers in the Starrbelow woods.… ‘The Countess, my lord—then Miss Lillane—had left Lady Weyburn’s house?’

  ‘She left because she would not tolerate Prince Anton’s being there,’ said Lady Corby. ‘She would not be a party to such infamous conduct in her cousin Weyburn’s absence.’ She flung out a shaking hand at her niece. ‘Even her friend was disgusted with her behaviour and left her. Let her deny it.’

  Sapphire looked down at the painted fan she carried that day, and her own hands also were trembling. ‘I think Lady Corby is unlikely to have been at that time or any other in Miss Lillane’s counsels.’

  ‘It is true, nevertheless,’ said Lord Frome in his dry, reluctant and yet grimly determined way, ‘that she left, with her mother, because she disapproved Lady Weyburn’s companions.’

  ‘Who did not at that time include Prince Anton; she had left before he entered the house,’ said Sapphire. ‘Or her ladyship, either—who professes to know so much of Miss Lillane’s intentions.’

  ‘Her intention was to disown you,’ said Lady Corby.

  ‘She never disowned me. She was my friend to the day she died.’

  Dates. ‘In the December, madame, when you became betrothed to Lord Weyburn, you had known Prince Anton of Brunswick already two or three months—since, indeed, the time of your arrival in England? In the January, you departed for Italy; but you were in Town again about the middle of March?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophia.

  ‘You were certainly in London on the twenty-fifth of March when, it is alleged, this secret marriage took place?’

  ‘I was in London on that date, yes.’

  ‘Can you tell us, in fact, how you spent that day, Lady Weyburn?’

  She shrugged. ‘At this distance—hardly. I was shopping, no doubt, for my approaching wedding: very possibly in the company of Lady Corby, though I think she is less likely to remember it even than I!’

  ‘On May the twenty-seventh, at any rate, you married Lord Weyburn, two months after that alleged marriage in secret. On August the first, did you, in company with Prince Anton, embark upon what proved to be the last of your “escapades”?’

  The last of their escapades, the last adventure of the Treasure Seekers’ Circle: Lord Franks with his dressing-case, Lord Warne with his convent wine-cup, Sir Cecil with his petticoat-hoop, Honjohn, Greenewode, Tom Jeans, Francis Erick, Pardo, Reddington, the rest of them,
each with his trophy—Prince Anton with the page from a Fleet Street wedding registry still to get. Tom Jeans called as witness. ‘Looking back upon that challenge, Mr. Jeans: does it now strike you that Lady Weyburn and Prince Anton may have determined it between them long before it came?’

  Poor Tom Jeans, shambling down to the mahogany table, a sick man nowadays, living on old memories, never at best acute of mind. ‘Determined beforehand? Why, who can say? I remember that several alternatives were put to the Prince and he refused. In the ordinary way,’ he ruminated, innocently, ‘her ladyship would have no challenge refused: once spoken, it was made.’

  ‘Who was it set the challenge of the page from the registry?’

  ‘Her ladyship suggested first, as I remember, a page from Gossip Wit—from her Grace of Witham’s visiting book; the rest,’ he agreed, nodding his head with slowly dawning comprehension, ‘led from that. She said we must have it—a certain page from a certain book; and she would assist him.’ He nodded and dreamed: back again in the days of his youth, far enough already down the path to doom, but not so far as now. ‘I remember … I remember that he said—it was when they suggested he filch a snuff-box from His Majesty—he said he could not, for he must not forget he was a prince: though he might forget he was a gentleman.’ He nodded and dreamed. ‘She said she would not contradict him in either; and she smiled. I don’t know why she said that: nor why she smiled so. ’Twas as though he had not conducted himself as a gentleman towards her.’ He came-to with a start. ‘But I ramble, Sir Henry: I was far away …’

  And Sapphire, too, was far away: was dressing herself again in the wedding-dress she had worn in the candle-lit chapel at Starrbelow in the last days of innocence: was hanging herself about with diamonds, painting her face to a travesty of its own bright beauty, perching a rubbish of wedding finery on her golden hair.… Was rushing, cloaked and veiled, down the curving stair. ‘Have wine and refeshment ready in the blue drawing-room: if any arrive before my return, show them up there and wait upon them until I come.’

  ‘Your ladyship will not have forgotten that his lordship returns tonight from Bath?’

  ‘No, no, I have not forgotten: his lordship, I daresay, will not trouble my friends.’

  ‘Very well, my lady,’ the man said wretchedly, standing with bent head. She rushed on past him and into the waiting hackney coach.

  Anton was already in the coach and Tom Jeans and—a woman: a woman with a raddled face beneath wedding finery to outdo her own in tawdry vulgarity as the sun outshines the moon; for the jewels were false, the dress cheap and shabby, the veil and feathers bedraggled and no longer clean. She stopped short at the door of the carriage, offended; but they were all hysteric with laughter and dragged her in. ‘We agreed to employ no women in these adventures,’ she whispered angrily to the Prince, jerking back into a place at his side as the coach rattled off. But he only shrugged. ‘Tom would bring her: he’s far gone in drink.’

  ‘And you not much better; upon this of all occasions,’ she said indignantly, ‘when so much rests upon it—’ She broke off. She said bitterly: ‘But you care nothing, you never have: what have you to lose?’ She paused again, she said sharply: ‘This is not the way.’

  (‘We have heard from Mr. Tom Jeans, my lady, that you spoke reproachfully to Prince Anton on entering the coach; that you appeared to remember the way to the chapel?’

  ‘I was incensed that they should bring a woman with them: it had been agreed otherwise, I reproached him for that. As to my knowing where we were going: it had been arranged we should get a certain page from a certain book—the registry at the Savoy chapel where Mr. Wilkinson was then performing marriages: the coach was not taking us there, it was going to the Fleet.’)

  ‘We are going to the Fleet first,’ said Anton. ‘Tom, here, and his doxy have a fancy to be wed.’ The three of them went off into hysterics again; but under cover of the darkness in the coach he pressed her hand. ‘Be patient, have no fear—all shall be well.’

  Marriages were performed no longer within the precincts of the Fleet by the dissolute parsons committed there for their debts: the warden of the prison had long ago been forbidden to suffer them there. But within the Rules of the Fleet, there still existed, despite the penalties imposed by the Marriage Bill, taking effect from March 25th of that year, innumerable rooms in lodging-houses and taverns where at a moment’s notice, and without enquiry, a couple might be married by a so-called chaplain, who might be truly in order and empowered to marry but who frequently was not. From the moment they arrived within sight of Ludgate Hill and the bridge across the Fleet Ditch, the coach was surrounded by a hoard of hacks and ‘plyers’ only a trifle more furtive than in the days before the Bill. Hands in ragged sleeves clawed at the windows, faces seamed with dirt, bleared with drink, were thrust in. ‘Parson, sir?’ ‘This way, sir, this way, ladies.…’ ‘Have no truck with these, my lords, these are no true parsons, come where the register is, my lords and ladies, come where it’s legal.…’ At sight of the wedding finery within, a howl went up that brought out a parson himself, in full canonicals, who was soon embroiled in hand-to-hand fighting with the barkers of a rival chapel. ‘For God’s sake,’ said Sapphire, even her high heart failing at the filth, depravity and violence all about them, ‘let us get out of this: tell the man to drive on.’ But the man could not drive on, a drunken mob barred the way, howling in delight at the promise of liquor that would flow to celebrate the nuptials of such great folk as these. She grew desperate. ‘We shall be clawed to pieces, what can we do?’

  Anton only laughed. ‘They will not harm us: not while ve haf money to buy gin for them. Haf no fear.’

  To her right the other woman giggled and screamed with hinneys of high laughter. ‘But I am afraid, Anton: these two are in drink, they are no help to us. And I have jewels; suppose the mob guesses they are real and—attacks us.’ She huddled the cloak about her to cover the diamonds.

  ‘Thiss iss not like you, Sapphire,’ he said, ‘you are usually more brave.’ And he looked down at her with something of contempt in the handsome face that was usually kind enough and only rather weak. ‘You were brave enough when poor Marcia cowered before the demands of a highwayman for her jewels.’

  For once she had no reply: her pale cheeks flamed beneath their patched-on rouge, she looked down at her hands. But the sharp sting, nevertheless, had stimulated her. She rose from the seat, the cloak close around her; with her free hand, protected by its great fur muff, she thrust back the evil faces from the window, forced away clinging hands, herself leaned out of the window and above the heads of the crowd, suddenly falling silent at so unexpected an apparition—a lady of such beauty, such a wealth of bright hair, such magnificence of apparel where, nowadays, only the drunken sailors came with their bawds to be tricked into appearance of matrimony—cried out aloud, ‘Come, come, good people, let the coach pass! We are married already in May Fair and come home from carousing there, all our money is spent.’ As a low moan went up, becoming, with increasing realization of their loss and disappointment, rather a growl than a moan, she added, hastily: ‘Unless we can find a few coins in a purse, maybe, the which you shall willingly have to drink our health. But meanwhile—let us pass on! We are married an hour already and’—she laughed provocatively—‘and long to be home.’ She had held out her hand behind her, dropping the great muff, and Prince Anton thrust a purse into it. ‘Fling out some coins from the other window also,’ she said, and held the purse high. ‘See you here, good friends—a purse of gold! Here a coin!’—the crowd swung, watching its gleaming flight and the upthrust of a dozen hands, like spears, into the air—‘and here another!’ The crowd swung again, in the opposite direction, there was a swaying movement towards the falling guinea; she screamed out at the top of her voice, ‘And here the whole purse!’ and to the man, ‘Drive on! Drive on! Drive on!’ As the vehicle lumbered off, lurching over the filthy cobbles, she was tumbled once more back into her place. ‘You have done a wrong an
d stupid thing,’ she said, furiously, to Anton, ‘in coming here: you may well have spoilt all.’ To the still foolishly laughing Tom Jeans, to the wildly giggling woman in the opposite corner, she paid no attention at all. ‘Direct the driver to the chapel in the Savoy: Wilkinson’s chapel,’ she said to Anton; and sat in her own corner with folded arms in an icy rage.

  ‘I supposed these outings were intended for outings of pleasure,’ said Anton, sulkily, looking between the two laughing faces and her face of cold fury.

  ‘This one was not,’ she said sharply, ‘as well you know.’ (This also was faithfully reported by Tom, dreaming stupidly in the court that sat in judgement on her ten years afterwards: not aware how he damaged her.)

  Parson Wilkinson’s chapel, where he presided with his partner in villainy, Grierson, was something more of a chapel than the usual tavern room where a table covered with a cloth served for an altar and constituted all the religious appointment of the chamber. He himself came forward and welcomed them in: he had kept a high standard, both he and his partner were, in fact, in orders and, though it was no longer legal for them to officiate, the marriages they had performed to the time when the Act took force had been legal and binding: their registers, probably for purposes of subsequent bribery and blackmail, were carefully kept, though nine-tenths of the signatures, or even mere initials, were false. Sapphire saw them at once as she entered the room, a row of big, leather-bound books, marked by their dates, quarterly. While they waited for his partner, the Reverend Wilkinson put up a casual hand and hauled one down. Next to it, she saw the year’s first quarter. She hustled the other three over towards it, all four tipsily gay. ‘Let’s see who else comes here to be wed, let’s look up our friends. Was not Lady Anne Paulett married here but recently?’ Lurching slightly under their weight, she began to tug down the great books.