Consequences of Sin

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

  A gong sounded, signaling that dinner was served.

  “Shall we?’ Lord Wrotham asked, proffering his arm to Lady Ashton. His request prompted another flutter of eyelashes and a light trill of laughter. Both sent a shiver of irritation through Ursula that she found hard to hide. Her father held out his arm to escort her to the dining room. Dobbs excused himself briefly from the room to make a telephone call, while Daniel Abbott had to content himself with Elizabeth Anderson’s company as they made their way to dinner.

  Gerard Anderson always excelled when entertaining his business partners, and tonight was no exception. The first course was turtle soup, followed by turbot with lobster sauce. Then came the guinea fowls, a forequarter of lamb, and a roasted duck. Conversation over dinner focused on free trade and tariff reform, but Ursula was distracted. Seated opposite Lady Ashton she sensed throughout the meal that she was being critically appraised, like some prize pig at a fair.

  Lady Ashton hardly spoke but seemed to be weighing something in her mind as she watched Ursula carefully. Ursula felt her gaze every time she placed her fork on the plate and with every sip of wine she took. It was only when her father started to engage Lady Ashton in conversation that Ursula felt her attention shift. Her father was on about one of his perennial topics, what he termed the “degeneration of England,” when he asked Lady Ashton what her views were on the role of upper-class women in today’s society. Ursula sighed; no doubt this line of questioning was designed to emphasize her father’s displeasure at his own daughter’s politics. Lady Ashton replied vaguely that she would have liked the opportunity to have a family, thereby contributing to the much-needed next generation. Ursula’s father nodded vigorously, expressing his concern that while the birth rate among the educated and the wealthy continued to fall, the poor were overrun by poverty, disease, and squalor and they perpetuated this through an alarmingly high number of births.

  “Havin’ been brought up in the slums,” Robert Marlow said with a wave of his knife, “I know what it’s like to have nothing, tryin’ to feed a family of eight on a mere miner’s wage. Where I grew up children were taken by either disease or the work-house. We cannot allow the national degradation to continue unchecked. Why once a criminal would have been merely hanged, now we provide him with soup kitchens and shelters. With attitudes like that we may as well all sleep out on benches in Green Park!”

  Ursula sighed. She disagreed, but as they were in company she restrained herself from starting an argument. Besides, from the look on the faces of Anderson, Dobbs, and Abbott, her father’s sentiments were more than shared. Lady Ashton, however, fell silent, her eyes once again moving to Ursula.

  By the time the cheese soufflé was being served, Ursula began to sense an atmosphere of anticipation. Whatever it was, it remained unsaid and almost imperceptible, like a thin thread of cobweb hanging in the corner of a room.

  After dessert Robert Marlow suggested that the ladies might like to retire for a bit while the gentlemen enjoyed port and cigars. Ursula stifled a groan—she always hated having to leave just when the discussion had any possibility of becoming interesting. Nevertheless, she quietly followed Elizabeth Anderson and Lady Victoria Ashton as they made their way out of the dining room and up the stairs in silence.

  In the upstairs drawing room, each took a seat. Lady Ashton was the first to speak. “Tell me, Ursula, have you traveled much?”

  Ursula was surprised by her abruptness. Gone were the eyelash flutters and the smiles.

  “No…hardly at all,” Ursula replied slowly. “I’ve been to Scotland, of course, to visit my mother’s family, but other than that I haven’t. Why do you ask?”

  “It is of no consequence,” Lady Ashton replied quickly. Then, with a sly smile, she continued, “I hear that you have quite a wit—and a dangerous capacity for getting yourself into trouble.”

  “I’m sorry, Lady Ashton, I don’t understand what you mean,” Ursula replied, though she understood the woman’s meaning perfectly. Winifred.

  “I may be able to assist you and your father,” Lady Ashton went on, unfazed.

  “Assist?” Ursula echoed.

  “Yes. I am in need of a companion—someone who can amuse me on my travels.”

  Ursula frowned. Surely all the complicity and silence was not about this? “I’m sorry, but I still fail to understand—”

  Lady Ashton nodded and Elizabeth Anderson quietly left the room.

  “Your father and Lord Wrotham believe that I may be able to help you at this difficult time. You must leave England, and I require a companion to accompany me abroad. How much simpler can this be?”

  “But again you are mistaken,” Ursula replied. “I have no desire to leave England. I’m sorry to say, but there really isn’t anything that I need your assistance with.”

  Lady Ashton sighed and smiled. “Ursula, you will leave England. Your father will make sure of this. I’m just giving you an opportunity to see the world before your impending nuptials.”

  Ursula’s stomach dropped. “There are no impending nuptials that I am aware of,” she replied carefully.

  Lady Ashton smiled again. “My dear,” she replied, “everything has been arranged by your father. I would leave it in his hands if I were you.”

  Ursula’s own hands gripped her skirt. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Oh, really, aren’t you over that Russian boy yet?! Your father has told me all about that ill-favored relationship. You need to accept the inevitable: Marriage to a man like Tom Cumberland would be the very best thing for a family such as yours.”

  Ursula’s eyes narrowed. She heard the gentlemen’s voices on the stairs. No sooner had they entered the drawing room to join the ladies than she rose to her feet and, with a defiant glare at Lady Ashton, pronounced that she was suddenly feeling “most unwell.”

  “Papa,” Ursula instructed her father, “please take me home immediately.”

  “I don’t think so, lass. You aren’t going anywhere.” Her father’s reply was swift.

  There was a shy knock on the open door, and a young maid entered, head bowed, carrying a tray of china cups and saucers and a large silver coffeepot. Nobody said a word until she had left.

  “Papa, I insist.” Ursula could barely contain her fury.

  Her father ignored her. The others moved to take their seats. Lady Ashton busied herself straightening her brocade silk jacket. Humiliated and angry, Ursula was determined to thwart any plan that involved getting her wedded off to the insufferable Tom Cumberland.

  She grabbed the side table, appearing to sway unsteadily.

  “Papa…I…” she cried out softly, and with that she fainted to the floor, sending the china cups crashing.

  Ursula opened her eyes to find herself in an unfamiliar bedroom. Lord Wrotham was bending over her, a curl of dark hair falling over his eyes as he loosened the buttons on the high collar of her blouse, and she could feel his breath, warm and steady against the nape of her neck.

  “Neat trick,” he commented, and Ursula couldn’t repress a smile.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Elizabeth standing next to the bed wringing out a warm facecloth. She politely moved Lord Wrotham out of her way and placed the cloth on Ursula’s forehead. As Lord Wrotham straightened up, Ursula noticed a hollowness around his eyes that belied his apparent lack of concern.

  Just then her father hurried into the room.

  “How is she?” he asked anxiously. Ursula felt a pang of guilt at deceiving him.

  She tried to sit up slightly, saying, “I am feeling a little better, I think, Papa—please don’t fret.”

  “Fret!” Her father exclaimed. “If you only knew what I feared!”

  “Do not concern yourself, Robert.” Lord Wrotham placed a reassuring hand on her father’s arm. Ursula’s eyes widened at Lord Wrotham’s informality. “I assure you she is fine now,” he continued. “I expect it was just the heat. The temperature in here is really quite infernal.”

/>   “Oh, dear,” Elizabeth said. “Gerard will be angry. Can we…will Lady Ashton…?”

  “Nothing can be answered tonight,” Robert Marlow replied, exasperated. “I must take Ursula home. Tell Gerard we will resume discussions tomorrow.”

  Ursula slowly tried to raise herself further.

  “And Lady Ashton?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Leave her to me,” was Lord Wrotham’s harsh reply.

  “Gerard is arranging for his footman and Samuels to carry you down to your car. Ah, here they are now.”

  As Ursula started to open her mouth to protest, she was lifted into the arms of the two young men and carried cautiously down the staircase, out of the house, and into the waiting car.

  As they descended, she caught a glimpse of Lady Ashton following.

  Robert Marlow and the others remained upstairs, deep in conversation. Ursula was deposited in the backseat of Bertie with a tartan rug placed over her knees to keep her warm.

  “My dear.” Lady Ashton’s face appeared before her in the open window. “You needn’t have resorted to such a spectacle.”

  “I don’t know what you mean….” Ursula replied tartly.

  “Only that you should not have worried. About the nuptials, I mean.” Lady Ashton smiled. “You are so very young and silly, m’dear, not to consent to my proposal. My offer would be the perfect opportunity for freedom before having to fulfill that particular obligation.”

  Ursula stared at her stonily. Voices could be heard coming closer.

  “And to think, “Lady Ashton concluded, “they were really concerned about your safety.”

  “Victoria?” Lord Wrotham asked, sounding very guarded.

  “Just checking on the young’un,” Lady Ashton replied breezily. “I think she’s fine now.”

  The drive back home was tense and silent. Sitting beside her, her father seemed distant and preoccupied.

  “Papa?” she prompted.

  But her father just gazed out the car window, his face submerged in the dark shadows of London.

  Ursula felt full of disappointment and fear. Her father lit a cigarette. She watched the blue wisps of smoke coil their way up and around his head, like a snake unfurling.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I just want everyone to leave us in peace.”

  “Peace would have been your acceptance of Lady Ashton’s offer!” her father responded angrily.

  Ursula choked back tears. “And what of Tom’s offer?” she whispered.

  Her father did not reply.

  Would there be no respite, she wondered, from disappointing him? Perhaps in that, if in nothing else, she was constant. She could not be what he wanted her to be, but now she was certain of the pain this realization caused him. He was, after all, her father. Her heart longed at this moment to be true to his image of what she should be, to satisfy him in that regard at least. She felt adrift, longing for the comfort of his embrace, for the comfort of his approval.

  “Papa, I want to know what everyone is so afraid of.”

  Her father looked dumbstruck.

  “Why do you want me out of the country? Why have the Andersons sent their girls away? Does it have something to do with Laura’s death?”

  Her father’s face, caught in the sudden glare of a streetlight, remained impassive.

  “Oh, Papa, please tell me, I beg you! What really happened on the Radcliffe expedition? Why are you all so afraid?”

  Her father did not answer.

  The motorcar pulled up outside the house, and Samuels opened the curbside passenger door for Ursula before making his way around to the other side to assist her father.

  “Never mind, Sam!” Robert Marlow snapped. “I’ve got it.”

  Samuels hurried back to Ursula. “Do you need me to help you inside, miss?” he asked kindly.

  Ursula shook her head. “Run along, Sam, and tell Mrs. Stewart to put the kettle on if you would.”

  Samuels hurried down the stairs that led to the servants’ entrance and went inside, leaving Ursula and her father alone.

  She clambered out of the car awkwardly, the back of her silk court shoes catching on the slippery edge of the pavement. Straightening her skirt and pulling her coat closely around her shoulders, Ursula looked across the road, expecting to see the familiar face of Harrison’s policeman standing opposite the house by the entrance to the Chester Square Gardens. The street, however, was empty and quiet. By then Biggs had opened the front door and let out a welcoming gleam of light that cheered her spirits.

  Ursula walked tentatively up the steps, trying to avoid sliding on the ice that had already hardened on this cold November evening. At the top she waited for her father, framed against the light of the open doorway. She watched as he extinguished his cigarette underfoot before making his way up toward her, his greatcoat pulled in tight, collar lifted against the wind. Judging from her father’s face, there seemed little chance for reconciliation between them tonight. Ursula sighed.

  Suddenly the form of a man emerged from the shadows.

  Her father turned quickly.

  Ursula thought she saw the flash of metal as the stranger lifted something up and pointed it at her. The rest was a blur. Her father called out to her, but she seemed incapable of movement. Her father flung himself across her. Then there was a loud, resounding bang, and they both collapsed to the ground. Her father’s weight was upon her.

  “Papa…” She tried to speak, but she could hardly breathe.

  Her father groaned as she tried to shift his weight. Ursula started to panic.

  “Papa?” She managed to sit up. Her father’s limbs felt heavy and dull as she struggled out from beneath him.

  She looked down to see a dark stain spreading across her dress from where her father lay. There was blood on her hands, blood on her clothes, blood seeping out across the ice. She gathered him against her.

  Her father looked up into her eyes and died in her arms.

  Ten

  Time had a peculiar resonance in London. Ursula could sense its passing as a rising swell beneath the earth. It uncovered the centuries before—as if an archaeological excavation were occurring before her eyes. She saw the hills of Roman Londinium rise up, felt the presence of a great sea of people coursing through the byways of a medieval town, like dark blood through the veins. She traveled with the ebb and flow of the Thames. She saw faces clouded in the mist, darkened images against a great fire. Smoke. Fog. Water. The elements of London past. She wondered now about her own past, of where she belonged and how she fit into the scheme of things. The shards of her world lay on the pavement before her. Her father was being taken away. A black hearse had arrived to take the body to the railway station. Men in dark coats moved around her. She was isolated in time. The tick of the clock meant nothing to her now. London moved to a separate time. Inside, she had stopped.

  Ursula refused to receive any visitors. Their cards piled up on the table by the hat stand at the front door. The servants trod quietly, unobtrusively seeing to her needs, which were declining day by day. She shunned food. Drank only water. Lay in bed without bathing or dressing.

  After nearly a week of this, she sensed that the household servants were determined to make a change. She felt it as surely as she felt London time echoing through the empty rooms. Mrs. Stewart became brisk and more demanding. She flung open curtains, cheerfully instructed her to get ready for the day. Ursula even started to obey. Mechanically and silently, she carried out the tasks of her existence. She dressed. She ate toast and marmalade. She drank tea. She allowed herself to be led downstairs.

  Once the unpleasantness of a coronial inquiry had been completed, a funeral date was finally scheduled, and her father’s last wishes would be fulfilled; he would be buried alongside his wife in Lancashire.

  Lord Wrotham was to accompany Ursula on the train ride up to the Marlows’ house in Whalley, the aptly named Gray House, for the funeral. Up till now Ursula had refused to see Lord Wrotham. Every day he called and
left his card, and every day she instructed Julia to present her apologies. By the time she was due to leave for the funeral, though, she had lost the will to refuse him. When Lord Wrotham arrived at the appointed hour, he was clad in full mourning attire: jet-black three-button frock coat, stiff white shirt, slate gray waistcoat, and gray cravat held in place by a pin of white gold and onyx. As always he was the epitome of London present. Only Ursula noticed the tiny shaving cut on his jaw-line, just below his right ear.

  She sat on the parlor sofa swathed in her black crepe dress, feeling weary.

  “You should get some sleep,” she said listlessly as Lord Wrotham made his way toward her. He knelt down and took her hand, first in one, then in both of his own.

  No formalities. No paying of respects. He merely stared at her as she sat there, his eyes telling her what words could not. Ursula blinked back her tears.

  “My lord,” a voice from the doorway said, “I have placed Miss Marlow’s trunk in the motorcar. We are ready to leave whenever you are.”

  “Thank you, James,” Lord Wrotham replied, getting to his feet.

  Lord Wrotham’s chauffeur was driving them to Euston Station, where they were to catch the morning train to Manchester. Everyone except Julia had already been sent on ahead to open up the Gray House to prepare for the reception that would follow the funeral. As lady’s maid, Julia had the privilege of accompanying Ursula and Lord Wrotham on the journey up north.

  Ursula had rarely been back to her childhood home, her father keeping it only to have somewhere to stay when visiting his local mills and factories. Usually Miss Norris, Ursula’s old nanny, would make any necessary arrangements for his stay. She lived alone in the back cottage and kept one bedroom and the drawing room aired and ready for whenever Ursula’s father visited. Ursula could only imagine what manner of changes Mrs. Stewart and Biggs had now wrought. She had left all of the arrangements for the reception to them, giving them only two instructions. First, provision should be made for the workers likely to attend the funeral—brown ale and sandwiches, perhaps in the Co-operative Society Hall. Second, she wanted a formal reception to be held in the front drawing room of Gray House, just as it had been for her mother.