Marrying the Mistress

by Juliet Landon

  ‘I suppose it must,’ she said, looking into the fire, ‘and I’m sure she ought to take her father into her confidence. He’ll be very upset, though.’

  ‘Veronique, I think you’ll find that fathers often understand how such things can happen. He may well be upset, and angry, and concerned for your friend, but if he loves her as you say he does, he won’t wish to hurt her more than she is already. My advice would be for her to go and talk to him about it without delay, apologise for the pain she’s caused and ask for his help. No hysterics. No blaming anyone. No threats or unkind words that she’ll regret later. And no packing of bags, tell her.’

  ‘Yes. I will. Thank you.’

  ‘If you would like to talk about it some more, I shall be happy to listen, and to help, if I can. But go to your friend now and see what she thinks. Let me know, will you?’

  ‘You’ve been very kind,’ she whispered, pulling on her soft kid gloves. ‘Men can be so unpredictable, can’t they?’ Placing a light hand on my arm, she brushed a kiss upon both my cheeks, which surprised me.

  ‘Men are governed by different forces from us, but there are some exceptions out there. Does your friend have any exceptional men friends?’

  Stretching out the fingers of one hand, she stroked the back of her glove as if imagining a wedding ring there. ‘There is one… yes…who’s been in love with me… her…for years. It’s possible that he may help her out of her troubles. But it wouldn’t be quite fair, would it?’

  ‘Only if he’s given the full story and is allowed to choose, not otherwise. He would have to know the facts and, even then, only if your friend truly believed she could be a loyal and faithful wife to him. Such things are not uncommon and often turn out to be very happy. I feel hardly in a position to act as adviser here, but it may be worth thinking about, especially since the child’s father is not in a position to offer any help.’

  ‘It would serve him right if I made his name known to everyone,’ she whispered, fiercely. ‘He’s getting away without a blemish.’

  ‘Yes, probably. But he’s not the only one who’d suffer, is he?’

  She turned her hand over to stare at the palm, then closed her fist. ‘He didn’t let that thought bother him. I shall go and tell her what you’ve said, Helene. Thank you. It’s at times like this when she misses her mama most.’

  ‘When did your friend lose her mama, Veronique?’

  ‘When I was fourteen, she left Papa for another man, but then she died only six months later in Scotland and we never saw her again. Papa was broken-hearted. He loved her too.’ The distress still showed in her voice.

  ‘Which is perhaps why,’ I said, hearing the shift in her account from third to first person, ‘you ought to confide in him, to let him know that he’s needed. It sounds as if you may need each other’s comfort.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.’

  I surprised myself then by taking her into my embrace and holding the motherless miserable creature as if she were my sister while my secret knowledge burned holes in my conscience.

  When she had gone, I found that my legs were shaking, whether from the effort of the last half-hour or from relief that Veronique had unwittingly verified all that Winterson had said about their relationship. I could not condone his apparent heartlessness any more than I could condone his earlier coldness to me, and I was sorry, in a way, that my own peace of mind had been bought at the price of her deep unhappiness. Yet it had been bought, and I was both glad and flattered that she had come to me, of all people, for honest objective advice. That was the least I could offer her, though I would like to have done more. On reflection, the only other thing I could do was to keep silent and respect her confidence, as her faithless lover had failed to do.

  As for my enquiries about the possibility of a beau who might help her out, I had no qualms on that score, impersonal though it may seem. Wealthy fathers were often able to find bidders in the marriage stakes willing to take on an erring daughter, with enough inducement. The added benefit of knowing a man who had loved her for years cast a very positive light on the proceedings, and clearly Veronique was not against the idea in principle. In fact, I had never known her speak with such a lack of waspishness or self-pity.

  With my head in my hands I stared into the fire, watching the flames lick around the logs and thinking how fortunate I had been compared to Veronique, whose life of wealth and luxury had not compensated one bit for the tragic loss of her mother at the age of fourteen. I was exactly that age when my father had gone from us in such frightening circumstances, yet although I’d had to venture out into the world owning next to nothing and expecting little, Fate had treated me with kindness, though until now I had failed to appreciate its methods. Is that what it had taken, I asked myself, to make me see how carefully Fate had taken me under her wing, providing me with a protector, then a child, and finally a promise of marriage to the man I loved? So, there had been deceptions, but not of the kind that Medworth used on Veronique and his loyal wife. There had been a loss of pride when I discovered how I had been used, as mistresses are used. But of what good was it to perpetuate my grumbles when I had my adored Jamie to bring me such joy? The rejection Veronique had suffered from both Winterson and his devious brother was of a more heartbreaking kind than I had suffered, including the thoughtlessness from his twin.

  As my thoughts turned to Linas, I saw another day passing without having found the notebooks that might tell me, if nothing else, what his accounting was like and how much he had paid out for my upkeep. So when I had tucked Jamie up in bed, told him a story and said prayers, I left him in Goody’s safekeeping and went down to begin the search again, eventually finding the books in a cupboard where the spare napkins and table covers had been put away.

  Placing Veronique’s untouched glass of wine at my elbow and the three leather-bound notebooks on my knees, I turned up the wick of the lamp and opened the first and smallest of them. As I suspected, it consisted of payments to the grocer, the chandler, the butcher and fishmonger, the carriage-maker and farrier, money paid to his tailor, bootmaker and hatter, the snuff-maker and, before my time with him, a record of payments to the jeweller for trinkets, a fob-watch, chain, and quizzing-glass. Running my finger down the more recent pages, I saw expenses for Jamie—bed linen, a cot, a small chair and a walking-frame from the carpenter—though all his clothes had been made by myself and Mrs Goode from fabrics obtained from the shop, costing Linas nothing. Even my own clothes, except for shoes, has cost Linas nothing. There were no surprises here.

  The second notebook was no more than a catalogue of the volumes in his study on ethnography, geology and geography, on Greek and Roman sculptures and artifacts from Japan and India, on seashells and fossils, and rare plants from South America. Linas was never happier than when he was studying amongst his books.

  The third one appeared to be a collection of his own essays on various topics, like one on Charles Townley’s collection of antiques in his Park Lane house. That, I remembered, had been on our last visit together to London. Flipping through the pages, I saw another one headed ‘Greek Vases in the Sir John Soane Collection’, and another, ‘On Earthquakes and Volcanoes’. I was just about to close it when I saw the familiar name of Helene, which I assumed would be Helen of Troy in that kind of company. It was his last entry, and I would have closed the book but for the word ‘Burl’ that sprang out of the pages as if it had been written in red ink instead of grey-black.

  I was intrigued, feeling once more like the eavesdropper choosing to listen in to someone’s private musings. This was getting to be a habit. I closed the book and sat with my hand on the cover, hearing the voices of conscience yet again, then Linas’s voice telling me to go on.

  Open it. Read it. It’s meant for you.

  I caressed the pages where his hand had rested, absorbing the touch of him from the faintly lined creamy paper. The voice faded and left me to my own devices and to the burning need
to know why my name was there with Burl’s. There was no heading to this last essay, only the date, October 10th, 1805, which was only days before he was taken to Abbots Mere to live out the last of his time. It was addressed to me, Beloved Helene.

  Beloved? He had never called me that. ‘Love’ was his only tag for me, the usual Yorkshire form of address to anyone remotely friendly. ‘C’mon, love,’ he would call to me. Adjusting the book to catch the best light, I sat back in my chair and, to the sonorous ticking of the clock, began to read.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Beloved Helene. Dubiously, my gaze hung over the words.

  The house is quiet now and I am unable to sleep until this story is told, for I shall leave here in the next day or two with little prospect of a return. You came to me this evening with our Jamie, as always, to perform those countless little services for me, too intimate to delegate to anyone except family. I never thought a three-year-old child could be so helpful or bring us such happiness, nor did I ever think I would have the love and devotion of a woman like you to take me to the end of my life. Beloved, I am truly blessed, and I wish I could say that I have no regrets, but, alas, that would be untrue. I have. And it is those regrets that must be explained while I still have time and strength, and although I would prefer to have explained them to you face to face, I fear that I would express myself so clumsily, thus undoing any advantage of spontaneity. No, I see you smile, spontaneity was never Linas’s forte, was it? A planner, a deliberator, a scholar, perhaps, but hardly a creature of impulse.

  You will know by now the regrets to which I refer, for although you never allowed that knowledge to colour your devotion to me, it placed upon you an unfair burden that was sometimes too hard for you to carry.

  Oh, Linas, it did colour my devotion. If only you knew.

  To tell you how and why may not earn your forgiveness, after all, but perhaps Burl will put in a good word for me now that he is claiming what was rightly his to begin with. How do I know that? Because I know my brother well; he would not delay for a day on something as important as this, and by now he will have begun his re-conquest of you.

  You were seventeen when we met, beloved Helene—no, Linas, I was not seventeen until April—a flower of a woman, a dazzling beauty who outshone every other female at the Assembly Rooms on that St Valentine’s Day, and if I am not so articulate now, I was even less so then. Tongue-tied. Mute. I did not stand a chance with you. Together, Burl and I saw you enter, and I felt his reaction immediately. Yes, felt it. Don’t ask me to define it. I cannot, except to say that his quietness took on a different quality that only a close relative would recognise. It was never his way, was it, to crowd in with the others?

  Nevertheless, it was not long before you stood up with him, nor was it long before everyone who saw you together knew that something momentous was happening before their eyes, and when Burl introduced us, I doubt if you heard a word he said. I remember it better than you think, dear Linas. Still, you politely danced with me without realising that I was as smitten as he. How could you have known that my desire was like a pain, all the more intense because whenever Burl looked at a woman, she was as good as his?

  You could not have known how it was between us, Burl and me, close-coupled in mind and spirit, though not in body. The very best of friends, yet rivals in love. Whatever woman came my way, Burl’s magnetism drew her irrevocably towards him instead. Any woman I managed to attract, one-tenth of Burl’s tally, would also see him, and whether he responded to her or not, I might as well have been invisible for all the attention I won. I grew used to it, yet I resented it even though I knew it was never his intention, and, although I did have flirtations, I was glad to move to Stonegate where the chances of keeping a woman to myself for longer were marginally better.

  But that St Valentine’s Ball, dearest Helene, was a milestone for me, having just received from my doctor a period of three years at the most in which to cram every happy circumstance before it was too late. So live life to the full, he advised me. I had never been strong, as you know, but I think his prognosis surprised even me. And now I had seen the woman of my dreams, the one I wanted above all others, already beyond my reach. What galled me most, I think, is that Burl’s relationships with women had always been fleeting affairs before the inevitable diversion of another more alluring creature. Yes, it was the hunt that Burl enjoyed most—the chase, the capture, the capitulation. And that night, I saw the possibility of you being caught, flaunted and then left while I watched again from the side, seeing my chances and my life slip quietly away together. He was in love with you, there is no doubt of that, but then so was I. Impotently, disastrously, angrily in love.

  But I knew something that, at the time, Burl did not know, that you had no means, that your family were unable to help you, that you had been supported by two lovers for a short period, and that you worked for the milliner and mantua-maker on Blake Street. How did I know that? By overhearing the gossip that spread like a forest fire through the ballroom while you and he were dancing. You were vulnerable, chère Helene, and while Burl would offer you the moon to hold for a few fabulous weeks, or even months, I wanted to offer you the security of my home and all the amenities that a mistress needs who has nothing of her own. I had only three years left; no long drawn-out sentence for you to endure and better, I thought, than being yet one more of Burl’s castoffs. I was what you needed, dearest love, and you were what I needed. You were all ready to fall into my brother’s arms. I decided to take matters into my own hands, truly the closest I have ever been to being spontaneous.

  The next day I went to Abbots Mere, ostensibly to tell Burl of my doctor’s prediction for my short future. We wept, trying to think of ways round the sentence, but there were none. Our parents and Medworth should be prepared, he said. It was only fair. He would see that I had everything I wanted in my last years. Everything. Nothing would be denied. What was it I wanted most? Funds? To travel to Italy? Or Switzerland?

  Wanting only you, I saw my chance. ‘Miss Helene Follet,’ I said. ‘She is my only desire.’

  Oh, Linas. Dear Linas. Is this how it happened, then?

  I recall how Burl went to stand by the mantelpiece, resting his head on his arm across the shelf as if it was too heavy for him, and his silence almost made me change my mind. ‘Why?’ he said at last. ‘Why her?’

  ‘I need her,’ I replied. ‘Three more years are of no use to me unless I have her beside me, and I doubt I could even live them at all, seeing her with you, Burl. That’s asking too much of me.’

  It was asking too much of him too, I knew that, but I was convinced that although he too was in love with you then, it would not last and you would soon be broken-hearted, bewildered, and no better off materially than you were before. As love triangles go, this was the worst it could get, I thought. I was wrong, as you know.

  For a while, the light seemed to go out of him, Helene. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ I told him. ‘Leave her to me. She’ll accept me, if only because I’m your brother and what I can offer her will be too good to refuse. She needs a patron, Burl. And anyway, I have only three years. If you feel the same way about her then as you do now, you’ll be able to carry on from where you left off. She’ll only be twenty. But I want an heir, Burl. Sounds daft, I know, but the thought of leaving without even a son to carry on my line is the saddest thing that could happen. I’ve never got a woman with child yet, but with her I could. I know it.’

  ‘How can you be sure she’ll accept you?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve told you. She needs a place of her own and long-term stability. If she becomes a mother to my child, she’ll be glad of my protection.’

  ‘At Stonegate? Let her have Blake Street, then. It’s not far to walk.’

  That much of the conversation I can remember clearly, but I was winning him over, Helene. Blake Street is his property, and he was already planning to give you the use of it as if it was mine. Lookin
g back, I see that it must have given him some small pleasure to know that you would be living in his house, even if you didn’t know it. He offered me the use of his servants, too. And to pay all the running costs. He was always generous.

  He did, however, have some provisos of his own. About the offspring. If it happened, he said, that you were to produce a Monkton heir, then the child would need a guardian, the obvious person being himself. I must appoint him as such in my will. I agreed. It will bind you two together for many more years after I have gone, for one thing. Forgive me, Helene. I did it for the best. If I had known then what I know now, I would not have made such a fateful request of my brother, but how could I have foreseen that Burl’s passion for you would burn so fiercely for so long? At the time of our agreement he tried to put me off, saying you were sure to be unreliable, a vision too good to be true. But my heart was already yours, my dear, and my three years already beginning to shine with contentment.

  Ah, the unreliable part. I see now. But Burl’s passion? Is that true?

  He agreed to leave you alone, not to do anything to attract you or to win his regard, not to allow you one speck of hope or to add fuel to your desire for him. Oh, yes, I could see it, dear Helene. You tried to hide it, but yours are not the kind of emotions that can easily be hidden. And though you did your best to hide your anguish too, and your hurt, you kindly accepted my offer for reasons I shall never quite understand except that the arrangement would allow you to see the one who had misled you about his interest.

  No, Linas, that was the hardest part of all, seeing him. I accepted your offer because, as you said, I needed you and you needed me, and the fact that the house on Blake Street was so convenient for my work with Prue Sanders.