False Angel

by Edith Layton

  It was a gentleman’s strong white hand suddenly appearing from behind the young female, encompassing one of those bare mounds so completely as to hide it from view as the frock had not, that caused Leonora to take in her breath and avert her eyes at once. And she would not have looked back, she was so distracted and dismayed with her twin emotions of embarrassment and arousal, had she not heard that one word, spoken by that one voice, in that one moment when there was no other thing to divert her from it.

  For the young woman had wrenched away from the gentleman’s encircling hand with a charade of annoyance, when he had pulled her back and said, “Phoebe.” And though she knew no one by that name, Leonora looked back toward the young woman, her eyes very wide. Then the gentleman had pulled his Phoebe even closer and taken her in a heated embrace, kissing her most violently as his hands roved about the front of that shameless gown in even more shameless fashion. But now, embarrassed or not, Leonora continued to stare. And then the gentleman pulled back his head and laughed and said clearly, “Phoebe, you little wretch. You want me as much as I want you. Now come with me and let’s finish it.” And he ended the display by abruptly dragging his chosen young woman with him, even as he continued dragging the meager top of her gown down, and they disappeared into the draped recesses of tine little tent beside the great willow tree.

  No one else had heard it And none of her company had seen it, for Georgie had just succeeded in getting Ann to stand with him, and Charles had turned about eagerly to get Leonora to do the same. In that same moment, the chaperones came to a unanimous decision and rose themselves to cluck like goose girls and chivvy their little flock away from the green and wicked meadows of Vauxhall Gardens this night

  And between Charles and his friends imploring the chaperones not to herd their charges into their coaches to take them home, and the chaperones huffing their displeasure, and the other girls tittering softly, no one noticed that Leonora had lost all her color. In the darkened coach they could not see that her deep rose cheek had turned sallow, and with all the accusations and counteraccusations flying, they couldn’t notice that the usually ebullient young woman said not a word, but only sat and stared straight ahead as though there were something vital there in the dark that only she could see.

  When they got home, and Miss Thicke got her charge safely to her rooms and into her bedclothes, her strange behavior was noticed. But then it was richly commended, for it was taken to be a good thing and was thought to be either a sign of remorse or excessive gentility. And since Lady Leonora immediately if absently agreed that since no harm had come to any of the participants, it would be as well to forget the entire incident, Miss Thicke, who had convinced herself that it was not deception but discretion that prompted her to spare her employers any mention of the matter, breathed a sigh of relief and was happy to leave her charge in peace.

  Only it was not quite peace, unless the quiet of a battlefield after a massacre can be called peaceful. And it would never be forgotten.

  Lady Leonora had passed that interminable night watching and listening to the same incident again and again as she replayed it in her mind’s eye, just as she did now, five years later, as she sat before her looking glass in the same bedchamber in London. For she had known that voice, and had known it instantly. And so she had not needed the gentleman to pass beneath the Japanese lantern to have seen and known the exact contours of his face, although that avid, sharpened expression he wore was alien to her. And she had known his name. And she breathed it now just as she had uttered it then, involuntarily, almost as a plea for help, and almost in the same, sick, shocked tones.

  “Father!” Leonora whispered to her looking glass, as she sat alone in her room.

  THREE

  Leonora blinked. Another face slowly swam into view and came into focus in the looking glass before her. She had been so intent upon her visions of the past, it was as if they had begun to take on reality and actually come into physical being again before her eyes. But now as she relaxed her attention, she eased her hold on them, and they faded as all day and night dreams do and must do. Then the only thing she saw in the glass, and that so unexpectedly as to be completely alien at first sight, was her own face made unfamiliar by its surprising presence where a moment before there had been only phantoms.

  It is hard to judge the passage of years upon one’s own visage, even in the finest glass, so Leonora could only hope that she could truly read wisdom and knowledge in die great brown eyes that stared steadily back at her now. Although the features had finned from their puppy softness of five years ago, there was no other hint of the extreme change that had been wrought behind them. But for a certainty, the girl that had occupied this chamber then was vanished forever. And good riddance to her, Leonora thought, with the first lightening of spirits she felt since she had begun her reverie. Because she had been such a chucklehead, such an innocent, and such an utter goose, that it was no wonder that even her own sister had grown all out of patience with her.

  How she had moped about this room then, she thought, smiling now at the childishness of that former self, snuffling and wringing her hands and sending back her dinner trays untouched, until her mama had begun to confer with Cook as to how to conceal physics in savories so that they might be ingested undetected. But it was not until Father had knocked upon the door and requested speech with her that she knew she must somehow learn to deal with the problem. As a stopgap measure, she had answered him in monosyllables, and then hung her head and replied, missishly and so cravenly as to make her cringe even now in recollection, that her problem was some female indisposition that would surely pass.

  But she had been unable to look at him. Even with her head down, the unavoidable glimpse she got of those strong white hands which once had tossed her in the air until she shrieked with laughter, and had placed her on her first pony, and held the books she loved to hear him read aloud, distressed her. For she remembered their most recent employment and the words stuck in her throat. If she dared look him in the eye, she knew she would tell him all, as she always had, and then all would be lost. And he was a great deal for her to lose.

  She had always adored him. And it was not only because he was so infrequently home with her. She was proud of that absence, since she knew it was highly important work with the government or the foreign office that kept him from the family. But when he could come home, wasn’t it always their laughter which matched when an amusing thing happened, even though everyone else at the dinner table would look at them in incomprehension? And didn’t they come to share the same taste in books and poetry? And as she grew couldn’t they talk politics together until everyone else had gone to bed, until the footmen shuffled their shoes in the hall, hinting at the cold late hour?

  So she had yearned for her London Season as much to be with her father as to find herself a husband. And that husband, she hoped, would be a friend of his, and like to him in many ways, for she could think of no finer thing than to find a gentleman she could have all to herself, for all time, who would be so much like her father. And now, she could not even look at him, much less go out upon the town to find a fellow like him.

  She couldn’t speak to Mama. It wasn’t a thing she could mention to her, even if they had enjoyed that sort of confidential relationship. Although Mama was a very good sort of parent, and they rubbed along together very well,

  Leonora had always been aware that her mama had given her whole heart away to Sybil, her eldest daughter, years before she herself was ever born. Leonora could see nothing wrong in that, for Sybil and Mama were very like in both appearance and preferences. Both had smooth dark hair and smooth white faces, and knew all about fashion and fads and followed them explicitly. Leonora reasoned that if one liked oneself a great deal, why then it only stood to reason that it would be very difficult not to admire someone who so nearly resembled the object of your deepest affections. Sybil was taller, thinner, and colder than Mama, to be sure, but then Sybil had been married to Lord Ben
jamin since Leonora had left the nursery, and she thought that might account for a great many things.

  Leonora could not admire Sybil’s taste so thoroughly as Mama did, but Lady Benjamin had been in the thick of the ton for over a decade and was, if not the most understanding sibling, then at least a very worldly one. Besides, Leonora’s problem wasn’t a thing that she could discuss with the viscount’s own heir, and it was unthinkable that little Bertie should ever hear anything but golden tales about his father. No friend ought ever to learn of it, so by default, and by despair, Leonora had decided that she would seek Sybil’s counsel, since she felt that if she didn’t tell someone soon she would burst, either into tears or literally into pieces.

  Sybil had reclined upon her recamier and listened to her sister’s hushed retelling of the tale, and her fine-featured, thin-browed face had remained still, her expression hadn’t changed at all throughout the narration, except perhaps her chill little smile had grown more marked. Then when Leonora had done, and was mopping up the few foolish tears that had escaped her vigilant self-control, Sybil uttered not one word, but only made a sound of exasperation. Then she rose and rang for her maid and told Leonora to wait until she dressed.

  An hour later, when she felt she could be seen by the world, she at last left her chamber and beckoned for her sister to follow. But instead of telling the butler to send for her carriage, she told him instead to call for a hackney. She said nothing to Leonora’s quizzical expression until they were within the hired carriage, and then she simply said, in her bored drawling accents, “It would be best if we went unremarked.”

  Sybil had given the driver an address on Curzon Street, and yet when they arrived there, she only told the fellow to go to the head of the street and wait until she gave him further directions. Then she sat back and gazed at her sister. “It is nearly two in the afternoon,” she said in bored fashion. “I expect we shall have to wait here no more than a quarter of an hour; he is very punctual and predictable in all things.”

  “Who is?” Leonora asked in confusion, for although Sybil enjoyed being oblique, this was, in her sister’s opinion, coming it too strong.

  “Lord Benjamin,” Sybil replied coolly.

  And “Oh,” Leonora replied, just as though she knew what was going on. But she didn’t say a word more, since that gentleman was never her favorite subject. As she waited and gazed out the window at the relatively empty street, Leonora thought that it was typical that after all these years of marriage Sybil still referred to her husband only as “Lord Benjamin,” as she had done for so long that no one in the family could readily remember what his Christian name was, if indeed he had been given one.

  He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow actually, being fair and of middle height and having regular, if undistinguished, features, although Leonora considered him a bit too stout even if Mama termed his physique “robust.” But that might have been because Leonora was always looking for fault in him. It wasn’t any one thing that she could specify that he was or had done that made her dislike him, it was just that she always found him too pedantic and straitlaced. In fact, she could not remember what his laugh sounded like, since his highest expression of good humor was evinced by a tight, toothy grin and a sound something like a clearing of his throat. Still, he must have suited Sybil perfectly: they were a well known couple in society, and Leonora had never heard Sybil breathe a syllable in his disfavor.

  Just about the time that Leonora was about to break the silence within the hackney and ruin Sybil’s dramatic gesture, whatever it was, that lady sat up and peered out the back window. “There,” she said with smug satisfaction. “Now just watch, simpleton.”

  And as Leonora looked through the window, she saw Lord Benjamin come strolling up from the foot of the street. He was neatly, if unremarkably, dressed as usual. The only thing that was a trifle unusual about him was his outsize air of casual disinterest. He took out his fob watch, glanced at it, and permitted himself a smile as he tucked it back into his pocket. Then, swinging his walking stick in almost jaunty fashion, he went up the stairs of the third house on the street and employed the door knocker. A moment later, he was admitted, and before the door closed, Leonora could see him doffing his greatcoat “There!” Sybil said with infinite satisfaction.

  “There what?” Leonora asked.

  “And where do you think Lord Benjamin was going?” her sister said with a great air of vindication, as she sat back and rapped upon the ceiling of the carriage with her parasol.

  “Good grief, Sybil,” Leonora answered with some unhappiness, for she had come for advice and only been treated to another example of her sister’s disinterest. “How should I know? To his physician, or to his weekly chess match, or to a visit with his elderly uncle, I suppose. I wish Mama had named you Frances or Mary Jane or something else, for I believe that you take this Delphic oracle pose far too literally,” she complained.

  “He was going to his mistress,” Sybil announced with a certain pride, ignoring her sister’s outburst. “Didn’t you see the creature?”

  “I saw a maid take his coat, I think,” Leonora murmured in confusion.

  “Then she was most likely waiting for him in her bed. Sometimes he likes the idea of finding her unclothed and waiting for him in her bed in the middle of the day,” Sybil replied thoughtfully.

  Instead of asking any one of the myriad questions that swarmed in her mind, Leonora was so shocked and appalled by her sister’s attitude and revelation that she only said challengingly, “How do you know?”

  “Why, she told me so,” Sybil answered on a yawn, and then after telling the driver to go around the park a few times, she settled back to tell Leonora everything she knew about Grace Webb, her husband’s third mistress.

  “That Adele creature didn’t last long,” she finally commented wisely, “and though he and Mary Small were together so long that they were become almost a settled thing, he threw her over last year. I do think she took him too much for granted, and Lord Benjamin dislikes that enormously. Grace, I believe, is a good choice, and will work out very well, for she is an obliging girl, and very sweet-natured and flexible,” Sybil said contentedly.

  “And you know of it and have to countenance it? Ah, poor Sybil!” Leonora cried before she could stop herself.

  “Now that is precisely why we are here,” Sybil said testily. “Please open your ears, Leonora, and mark me well. You must not be such a rustic. Of course I know of the creature, and believe me I do not have to countenance it. I do, and gladly. I owe a great deal to the poor chit, indeed, I believe my life, as well as those of so many of my contemporaries, would be far more difficult if such arrangements were not in the common way of the world.

  “Yes,” Sybil said with some satisfaction as she saw her sister’s jaw drop open, “you heard me correctly. Good heavens, Leonora, you are of an age to wed, you must know these things. Gentlemen require certain attentions, Leonora. I am sure Mama told you about that years ago.”

  At Leonora’s nod, her sister sighed and went on, “The thing is unavoidable if we are to bear their heirs. But no matter how it is dressed up, the getting of children is just as unpleasant as the having of them. For a lady, of course,” Sybil added thoughtfully.

  “That,” Leonora blurted, fighting up from her dismay like a swimmer in distress trying to break to the surface of the water to get a good clear gulp of air, “is rot, Sybil.”

  Her sister arched one impeccable eyebrow, and said smoothly, “Oh yes? Tell me, my dear, has that been your experience?”

  “Well no, and well you know it,” Leonora said, stung, “but it can’t be such a dire thing when poets have sung about it for ages. And it wasn’t Mama that told me, she had the headache that day Nurse said, so she told me, for it was the day I first got my courses and Mama felt it was time I knew.”

  “That explains it,” the older lady said complacently. “Poets are all men, my dear, and they write a great deal of rubbish anyway. And Nurse was a great hulking farm w
oman before she came into service with our family, and that class enjoys the basest diversions. I don’t know what she told you, but believe me, Leonora, it is the most uncomfortable, unpleasant, and demeaning activity possible for a lady to be party to. In fact, though I respect Lord Benjamin enormously, and so you must know, still, just between us as sisters, it has always lowered my opinion of him to watch him enjoy that which is so repugnant to me.”

  “You watch him with Grace Webb!” Leonora gasped.

  “I watch him when he is with me, for there is nothing else to do,” Sybil said angrily, and then added censoriously, “I don’t know what sort of mind you possess, Leonora.”

  She paused and fixed her sister with a look of great distaste, which showed her enormous displeasure, since she was always careful to avoid strong facial expressions in order to prevent premature wrinkling. Then she recalled herself and went on to say somewhat defensively.

  “It is not my wish, of course, but even though we have our heirs, still every now and again, Lord Benjamin feels it necessary. But it would doubtless be far more frequently than every so often if it weren’t for Grace Webb, and that is why I am so grateful to her. And that is why so many females of our class are tolerant of these sorts of liaisons. He, of course, does not know that I know of her existence, but unlike many wives, who prefer to remain in ignorance, I believe it is a good thing to know where and how he disports himself. I should not want him in some shocking place displaying unhealthy passions. That would be fodder for blackmail, my dear, or a source of disease to myself. So the more fool I, if I didn’t pay well for information and keep abreast of his activities.”

  After a silence in which Leonora did some rapid thinking, she asked quietly, “And so, you are trying to tell me that is also the case with Mama and Papa? And that what I saw was commonplace?”

  “What you saw was unfortunate,” Sybil said carefully, for once seeming a trifle discomposed with the subject herself. “But yes, it was commonplace.”