An Impossible Confession

by Sandra Heath

  ‘Miss Fairmead? It’s Mary, she’s very distressed.’

  Helen’s eyes widened anxiously. ‘Distressed? What’s happened?’

  ‘Peter was set upon by the highwayman on his way to Windsor this afternoon. A shot was fired at him, grazing his head, and he lay unconscious in a ditch until a wagoner found him and brought him back here a short while ago. He’s conscious now, but Mary’s in a terrible state.’

  ‘Take me to her.’

  ‘Yes, miss. This way.’

  He led her toward the door opening from the entrance hall into the kitchens, where a number of servants were seated quietly around a wellscrubbed table, evidently discussing what had befallen poor Peter. They rose hastily to their feet, their chairs scraping, but Helen waved them to sit down again, hurrying on after the footman through another door and into the servants’ wing extending from the rear of the house.

  Mary was in Peter’s room, together with Morris and the cook, and her stifled sobs could be heard long before Helen entered. The room was small, but adequate, its walls crisply whitewashed, its chintz-curtained window facing toward the stableblock. There was a small wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a chair, and a narrow bed, upon which Peter lay now, his face wan and his head bandaged. Morris was standing at the bedside, and Mary was weeping on the chair, the plump cook doing her best to offer comfort.

  Morris turned the moment Helen appeared. ‘I trust it was in order to send for you, miss?’

  ‘Yes, of course. How is Peter?’ Helen went to the bed and looked down at the injured coachman.

  ‘The head groom, who has experience of such things, having been a surgeon’s man in the same regiment as Colonel Bourne, says that he’s only slightly hurt, Miss Fairmead. He says Peter was lucky, the highwayman’s shot only scraped him, and apart from a headache tomorrow, he’ll be none the worse. I wouldn’t have bothered you, miss, but Mary seemed to think you’d be particularly concerned.’ The butler couldn’t hide his curiosity, for why on earth should a lady be interested in a mishap to an under-coachman?

  Concerned? Yes, thought Helen, for if the waylaying took place before Peter had reached Windsor, then the letter hadn’t been delivered, and she was no nearer explaining everything to Adam than she had been before putting pen to paper. She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been hurt, Peter.’

  ‘Thank you, miss,’ he replied.

  ‘Was it Lord Swag?’

  ‘I – I think so, miss, but I couldn’t really say. I thought Lord Swag only came out at night, but this was broad daylight, right in the middle of the great park. He was bold as brass, miss, robbing me of the money I was taking to my mother. She’s a widow, miss, she lives alone and needs what help I can give.’

  ‘I’ll replace what was stolen, Peter,’ Helen reassured him, seeing how anxious he was.

  ‘Oh, no, miss. I couldn’t ask that of you.’

  ‘You didn’t ask, I offered. Besides, one good turn deserves another, and I can quite well-afford to dip into my purse, so let’s not hear any more protests.’

  ‘But, miss, I didn’t get to do the good turn.…’

  ‘I realize that, but you still meant to help me, and I’m grateful to you.’

  ‘I – I don’t know what to say, miss.’

  ‘Then say nothing, just try to sleep; you’ll need it if you’re going to be nursing a sore head tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, miss. Miss…?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please persuade Mary I’ll be all right, she’s crying fit to burst, and nothing we say will make any difference. I’ve had a knock, but that’s all. Please tell her.’

  ‘I will.’ Helen rose to her feet, going around the bed to the chair where poor Mary was in such a flood of sobs that she was hardly aware of her mistress’s presence.

  ‘Mary?’ Helen put a gentle hand on the maid’s shaking shoulder.

  The tear-stained eyes were raised immediately, and Mary’s breath caught as she found herself looking at Helen. ‘Oh, miss, fforgive me. I – I didn’t know y-you were here.’ More tears welled from her eyes. ‘I should have attended you….’

  ‘I’m not angry with you, Mary, for the circumstances are rather pressing.’

  ‘But your letter, miss.…’

  ‘I know.’ Helen glanced uncertainly at Morris and the cook, who had been listening to everything. ‘Now then, Mary, you’re to come with me, and leave poor Peter to try to sleep. He’s going to be all right, so you don’t need to cry any more. I’m sure the cook will see that some hot drinks are sent up to my room. Then you and I can sit together like we used to at Cheltenham.’

  The maid’s eyes were grateful. ‘Oh, yes, miss. I’d like that.’

  ‘Come on, then.’ Helen held out her hand, glancing at the cook. ‘Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Miss Fairmead, I’ll attend to it straightaway.’ The woman hurried out, her starched brown cotton skirts rustling and the huge mob cap on her graying hair wobbling a little on its pins.

  Morris inclined his head to Helen. ‘I will remain with Peter until he’s asleep, miss. Then I’ll see that someone looks in on him through the night.’

  ‘Yes, Morris, that will be excellent. I don’t think we need wake the colonel or Mrs Bourne.’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘But when the colonel leaves in the morning, I wish you to tell him what’s happened, for he shouldn’t travel unarmed if Lord Swag has taken to daytime activities.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Fairmead.’ The butler bowed gravely.

  Helen took Mary’s hand and led her up through the quiet house. A few minutes later the cook personally brought a tray on which stood two porcelain cups and a jug.

  ‘I’ve made bold with a bottle of the colonel’s best claret, miss, for I thought you’d like some good cardinal.’

  ‘Cardinal?’

  ‘Yes, miss. Cinnamon, cloves, orange and lemon, sugar, and good hot claret. It’s called cardinal, and is just the thing for times like this.’

  Helen smiled. ‘Thank you, it smells excellent.’

  The woman carefully put the tray on the dressing table.

  ‘It’ll warm young Mary up a treat, miss, and she’ll sleep like a top in spite of her nasty shock.’

  ‘I’m sure it will. I’ll dispatch her to her room directly, and no doubt you’re eager to retire to yours, so I won’t keep you any longer. Oh, and don’t concern yourself about having purloined a bottle of the colonel’s claret, for I distinctly remember instructing you to make some cardinal.’

  The cook smiled. ‘Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.’ Bobbing a curtsy, she withdrew.

  Helen went to pour the spicy drink, pressing a cup into Mary’s trembling hands. ‘Drink up, it’ll do you good.’

  ‘It’ll make me tipsy, miss.’

  ‘Then you’ll fall asleep immediately when you go to bed, which is what you need tonight.’

  ‘When I saw poor Peter like that, all pale and weak, I just went to pieces. I didn’t know I cared so much about him, I didn’t think it was possible after knowing him for such a short time.’

  Helen smiled wryly. ‘Oh, it’s possible, Mary. I should know that, should I not?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ The maid looked at her and then put down her cup in order to take a crumpled, mud-stained letter from the pocket of her apron; it was the one Helen had written to Adam. ‘It’s all spoiled, miss, for Peter fell in a ditch when he was shot, and the water and mud …’ She held it out. ‘The address can still be read, so I suppose the rest can too.’

  With a sigh, Helen took it.

  ‘What will you do now, miss? Write it again?’

  Helen was silent for a moment. ‘No, I think I’ll try and screw up the courage to tell him to his face tomorrow night at the ball.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to, miss?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’

  Mary was sipping her cardinal again. ‘You could always give him the letter as it is, miss, and explain why it never reached him. If
you said all you wanted to say in the letter … you did, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Well, then, maybe it will still do.’

  Helen smiled. ‘I’m supposed to be comforting you at the moment, Mary Caldwell, not the other way around.’

  ‘But you are comforting me, miss, for I feel a lot better now I’ve been sitting here for a while, just like we did at Cheltenham. You’ve always been more than just my mistress, Miss Fairmead, you’ve been my friend, too, and there’s not many maids can say that of their ladies. Tonight you’ve been a friend first and foremost, and I know that Peter will think the world of you from now on. If there’s ever anything we can do for you, you know you just have to say.’

  ‘Thank you, Mary. You’re a friend to me, too; indeed, you’re the only person I’ve been able to confide in since.…’

  ‘Since Lord Drummond?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’ll come all right in the end, miss, I’m sure it will.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, but when I think of all the obstacles, difficulties, and downright bad luck that seems to be besetting my every move, I’m afraid I’m not very optimistic.’

  ‘You mustn’t lose heart, miss, not if you love him.’

  Mary fell silent then, for her mistress’s apprehension was well founded. A gulf of mistrust and misunderstanding separated Lord Drummond from his former friends at Bourne End, and it was Helen Fairmead’s extreme ill fortune to be caught in the middle.

  CHAPTER 15

  The following night seemed to come only too quickly, and as it was also the eve of Royal Ascot, Windsor and its environs were filled to overflowing not only with London’s beau monde, but also the entire world of racing. Constables were out in force on the roads, for it was feared that Lord Swag wouldn’t be able to resist so many rich pickings. In the town there wasn’t a room to be had anywhere, and every available horse had been hired, as devotees of the turf prepared for one of the highlights of the racing as well as the social calendar; but first there was the costume ball to enjoy, and enjoy it they intended to do, to the best of their considerable ability.

  As twilight fell, the great house was ablaze with lights, and a jam of carriages blocked the drive. Farrish House was a formal seventeenth-century mansion with a hipped roof and dormer windows, and had been designed by Robert Hooke for one of Charles II’s favorite courtiers. It had large ugly chimneys, but the rooftop was also graced by a balustraded promenade, where an elegant cupola afforded fine views over the town and the Thames. The rectangular windows of the house itself were set out in perfect symmetry on three floors, and the pedimented main entrance was approached up a flight of shallow steps that were strewn with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs for the great occasion.

  Music drifted from the glittering ballroom out onto the wide terrace above the water gardens. The strains of a stately minuet soon became lost amid the jingle of harness and rattle of wheels, as the endless procession of carriages made its way toward the house. A thousand lanterns shone in the grounds, bright torches flickered on the tiny island in the center of the ornamental lake, and all was set for a dazzling night of music, laughter, and dancing.

  In the Bourne End landau, the three occupants had very little to say. Margaret was brought very low again by Gregory’s absence, Helen was nervous about her tryst with Adam, and Ralph seemed to have something important on his mind.

  He was inappropriately attired as Richard Lionheart, for he wasn’t kingly or lion-hearted, and Helen certainly couldn’t envisage him embarking upon anything as noble and creditable as a crusade, he was too contemptible and poisonous for that. Tonight was the first time she’d seen him since their unpleasant confrontation on the veranda, but the moment they’d come face to face she’d known how smugly confident he was that he had her exactly where he wanted her.

  She surveyed him secretly. He looked splendid enough, wearing mock chainmail beneath a long white tunic that sported a crimson cross. There was a splendid golden crown on his head, and his brown hair looked almost reddish enough to be Plantagenet, but behind his black velvet mask his eyes were sly, clever, and cold, if somewhat preoccupied for the moment.

  Margaret was a porcelain figurine come to life in a pale-pink satin shepherdess dress that was all flounces and petticoats. Tight-waisted, with a very full skirt, the dress came audaciously to just below her knees, thus revealing her white-stockinged legs and high-heeled satin shoes. Her honey-colored hair, so like Helen’s, was curled in ringlets to her shoulders, and she wore a wide-brimmed gypsy hat tied on with wired pink ribbons. A slender little satin mask hid her eyes but very little else of her face, so that she was instantly recognizable as Mrs Gregory Bourne, and anyway she wore around her neck a golden locket on which was engraved the Bourne family coat-of-arms and the initials G and M, which meant that it was virtually impossible not to know exactly who she was. A crook adorned with pink ribbons and a garland of flowers rested against the seat next to her. On her lap there was a basket containing a very unconvincing lamb that had a peculiar squint, and it was this lamb that had prompted Ralph to make his only amusing remark of the evening, when he’d observed rather dryly that the lamb might benefit more from a mask than the shepherdess.

  Helen gazed through the lanternlit night toward the house. Had Adam arrived already? Margaret’s lack of real disguise had dismayed her a little, for it could be that Adam would see the goddess of the rainbow in company with Mrs Gregory Bourne; it might be enough for him to decline to keep his assignation at midnight. She glanced in her reticule at her gold fob watch. It was ten o’clock, and she had two more hours to wait; it seemed like a lifetime.

  Her hair was dressed up in a classical Grecian style, and the jewels in her stephane headdress flashed, as did those on the mask of her domino. A light night breeze fluttered through the rainbow ribbons adorning her ice-blue gown, touching her bare arms and making her shiver a little. The letter to Adam was in her reticule, to be used as a Iast resort. So very much depended on tonight, but she knew that her courage was as weak as ever, and having to reveal her wretched secrets was going to be so difficult it was almost impossible. Above all else she was afraid of alienating him, and it was this that colored her entire approach; fear of losing him was so strong it was in danger of once again allowing her heart to overrule her head, and if that happened, she’d leave the ball tonight without a word of confession having passed her foolish lips. How her life had changed since she’d left Cheltenham; then, she hadn’t had a care in the world, now, she was beset by problems.

  At last the landau reached the flower-strewn steps, and two Farrish House footmen in green and silver livery hastened to open the carriage door and lower the rungs. Ralph alighted, pausing to adjust his crown, then he turned to assist first Margaret, complete with basket, lamb, and crook, and then Helen, who snatched her fingers away from his at the earliest opportunity, recoiling from any physical contact.

  There was such a queue of guests waiting to enter the house that for a minute or so it was impossible to move. Helen glanced around at the variety and ingenuity of the costumes, and she immediately perceived another goddess Iris, whose gown may not have been as exquisite, being merely paneled in rainbow colors, but whose hair was a very similar shade of blond to Helen’s own.

  There was a preponderance of Stuart ladies and gentlemen, especially Old Rowleys, Prince Ruperts, Duchesses of Cleveland, and Nell Gwynns, for far too many guests had been seized with the inspiration of dressing to suit the period of Farrish House. Apart from them, she saw several Britannias, three Queen Elizabeths, some Indian rajahs, and a sprinkling of pharaohs. Among the more original were a Madame de Pompadour, a Nero complete with fiddle, a Cyrano de Bergerac with the most ridiculously long nose imaginable, and a lady so swathed in flowing sea-green muslin that she could have been just about anything, but was, so Helen was to learn later, the spirit of the ocean.

  Another carriage had drawn up behind the landau, and a Russian cossack alighte
d, turning to assist down a high-ranking naval officer whose hand he tenderly kissed! Helen was taken aback to say the least, but just as she was beginning to think the worst, she realized that the naval officer was a very bold lady.

  Margaret perceived the duo as well. ‘Good heavens,’ she murmured, ‘do you see what I see? I vow she’ll shock every matron in the house. Look how she swaggers, swinging her hips from side to side like a tar! No wonder she hides her face so well behind that mask, for she’d have no reputation left if her identity were known.’

  ‘Her identity is known,’ said Ralph. ‘It’s Caro Lamb, and she has no reputation anyway.’

  ‘That’s very true,’ agreed Margaret. ‘What William Lamb ever saw in her I’ll never know.’

  ‘Whatever it is, he still sees it, for if I’m not mistaken he’s the cossack. Yes, I’d know that laugh anywhere,’ said Ralph as a lazy and very familiar guffaw carried to them.

  ‘I despair of him,’ sighed Margaret. ‘She’s behaved abominably, betraying their marriage vows and making a fool of herself and of him, and yet he still seems to dote on her. Mind you, he isn’t a great judge – he remains Adam Drummond’s crony. Still, that’s his problem, I have enough of my own to worry about, not least of which is having to deal with the endless inquiries I’m going to face concerning Gregory’s absence tonight. Everyone will be most put out, for it’s quite unheard of for Gregory Bourne to be absent from this occasion. I shall lay the blame for it fairly and squarely at the odious feet of Lord Llancwm.’ Adjusting the lamb in its basket, and brandishing her crook, she swept up the steps.

  Helen made to follow, but Ralph detained her for a moment. ‘Remember what’s expected of you tonight, my dear.’