Reckless Griselda

by Harriet Smart

  “What do you mean?” said the judge.

  “I cannot bear it. I cannot!”

  And then Clarke dived into his coat pockets and drew out a pair of duelling pistols which he aimed directly at Wansford.

  And fired twice, with formidable accuracy.

  ***

  Tom, accompanied by Will Randall, were put by the butler to wait on Lady Mary in the exotic vulgarity of the Chinese drawing room at Wansford House.

  “Hardly an appropriate place for this conversation,” said Tom, gazing up at the gilded and tasselled pagoda-style silk canopy which had been suspended over the long banquette on which they sat.

  “This is the sort of room that would give you a headache if you had to spend more than ten minutes in it,” remarked Will.

  “I already have a headache,” said Tom, massaging his temples. “Lord, what a business.”

  “He seemed so rational when Woburn was examining him,” said Will. “And who would have thought he would be such a good shot. I couldn’t fire a pistol that straight. Nor could you – and you are a much better shot than I.”

  “No,” said Tom. “I invariably shoot to the left.”

  “You’d have got the judge then,” said Will.

  “I admit it – I can’t say that it hadn’t occurred to me from time to time, to shoot Wansford myself. But now it’s done and he’s…” Tom broke off and got up from the banquette, crossing the huge room. “Where is she?”

  Will made a slight inclination of his head and Tom turned to see the double doors opening.

  Lady Mary walked into the room. She was dressed in a very plain white morning gown that Tom felt became her better than any of the expensive clothes he had previously seen her in. It emphasised her delicacy. She looked fragile and simple, and the task with which he was faced seemed worse still. But he was glad to see she was accompanied by a middle aged, respectable-looking female who looked like a governess.

  “Sir Thomas, good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning,” he said, making his bow. “Lady Mary, I am afraid I have some very grave news for you. Won’t you please sit down?”

  “What sort of news?” she said, obediently sitting down. Tom pulled up a chair close to her.

  “About your father. There’s been an – ” he hesitated. “An incident. I’m afraid he’s been killed.”

  She stared at him.

  “Killed? A carriage accident or some such?”

  Tom shook his head.

  “A man called Clarke shot him. In the court this morning.”

  “Shot him?” Lady Mary’s doll-like blue eyes widened for a moment and then she looked away, grimacing as she did so. “No, no, that can’t be true…”

  “I am very sorry, it is.”

  “He died almost instantly,” said Will coming forward. “He would have felt nothing.”

  She looked back at Tom. He could see the tears starting in her eyes.

  “I am sorry, this is…” she began and gave up. She sniffed hard, trying to stop herself breaking down, pressing her fingertips to her lips.

  “Lady Mary, I will fetch the salts,” the woman who attended her said.

  “No, no, Miss Price, I am not going to faint,” she said, with a resolution that both surprised and impressed Tom.

  “You might want this,” said Will, and produced from his coat pocket a neatly folded white pocket handkerchief, which he held out to her.

  “Thank you, Mr…?”

  “Randall,” Tom said. “Mr William Randall. He is my friend – and he was present also.”

  She nodded an acknowledgement and then reached out and took Will’s handkerchief. With both hands she pressed it to her eyes for a moment and then she got up and walked away down the room, and stood with her back to them.

  “How did this happen?” she said, after a long pause and without turning to face them. “How?”

  “Ma’am, if you might permit me to explain,” said Will stepping forward. “For Thorpe ought in fairness to go to his mother now.”

  “Oh Lord, of course!” she exclaimed and turned back to them. “Of course he must. She will be…” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “A man called Clarke, did you say?”

  “A clergyman. You met him, I believe. He came with his wife to Felsham,” Tom said.

  “Oh yes, I remember them. Why should he want to kill my father?”

  “Because…” Tom began but Will had gone straight up to Lady Mary.

  “It was Clarke who forged the letters that you thought were from Sir Thomas. It was your father’s idea. He gave him a living for his pains,” he said. “And although Clarke admitted it under oath, your father would not admit his part in the scheme. So Clarke shot him, I suppose because he had nothing more to lose. He had already admitted to being a common forger.”

  “They were forgeries?” she said, covering her face with her hands, and starting to cry in earnest. “Oh dear God…”

  “Come, sit down,” said Tom, taking her arm and leading her to one of the banquettes that sat against the walls for the room. Tom and Will sat down beside her and she wept bitterly into her hands for some minutes.

  Then she took control of herself and sat up straight again, looking directly at Tom, brushing the tears from her face with Will’s now sodden handkerchief.

  “I am sorry. Very sorry,” she said. “For any distress my stupidity has caused you. I should have seen it. I should not have been so…”

  Tom could not bear it any longer. He remembered the nervous little girl he had once sat on a pony.

  “It is not your fault. You owe me nothing,” he said, and took her into his arms and held her. She clung to him for a few seconds and then broke free. She stood up, and took a few paces down the room to compose herself.

  “Well,” she said, in a dry, cracked voice. “We are free of him then. You and I, at last, we’re free. I must confess that I found it very hard to love him at times. Especially after what he did to my poor mother.” She was silent for a moment, twisting the handkerchief in her hands before holding it out towards Will. “Thank you for that. I think I have ruined it though.”

  “You may ruin as many of my handkerchiefs as you please, Lady Mary,” Tom heard Will say. He glanced to his side and watched his old friend get up from his place and go towards her. “I will always be at your service,” he said, taking the handkerchief from her. They stood for a moment, face to face, still both holding the handkerchief, and Tom saw a faint flicker of a smile lighten her features as she read the calm sincerity of the man who stood in front of her.

  “I had better go and talk to my mother,” said Tom, getting up from his seat, sensing that Lady Mary was now in safer hands than she had been for many years.

  ***

  “Oh, it’s you – what do you want?” Lady Thorpe said, when Tom was shown into her boudoir in Portman Square. “Have you come to reproach me? It was merely a friendly conversation.” She was sitting at her card table, laying out a game of patience and she did not look at him as she spoke. “Don’t you want us to be friends, Thorpe?”

  Tom came in and sat down, chilled into silence by her apparent indifference.

  “I told her about your nonsensical journey to Italy,” she went on. “She did not appear to know about it. That was careless of you, not to tell her. But I suppose she is a rather insignificant object. You had better send her down to the country and make sure she stays there. She does not look well in town. She has as much style as a milkmaid. No wonder Renfrew was all agog over her. He has a terrible passion for servants. Still, her blood is good enough and I daresay she will breed well. That is your intention, I suppose?”

  Tom was speechless, unable to believe what he was hearing.

  “You could have had good blood and doubled your fortune if you had listened to me,” went on Lady Thorpe. “How unpleasant and disobedient you must always be. It is a terrible burden to have a disappointing son. Well, you will understand that one day. Who knows what red-haired, long-shanked h
orrors she will produce for you?”

  “And pray how did you discover I am going to Italy?” said Tom.

  “When he was a footman, Manton had a terrible case of light fingers,” she said, examining the cards critically. “He could have gone to the gallows for it. He is always very grateful to me for that.” She glanced up and gave him a dazzling but unpleasant smile. “So why are you here, cluttering up my room?”

  “I have some unpleasant news for you, ma’am,” he said. “Very unpleasant, I’m afraid.”

  Chapter 26

  “No sign of Lady Thorpe yet, Manton?” said Tom, getting back to Upper Brook Street.

  “No, sir, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I shall be in the book room, Manton. Tell me as soon as she comes back.”

  “Of course sir.”

  If she ever comes back, Tom thought as he threw himself down in his chair by the fire. She had run away from her house in Scotland, and from Cromer. Why not run away now? The circumstances merited it. It would be exactly what she would do, especially after a bruising session with his mother. She would not stay put if she knew that he was leaving. She would have seen the gesture in the harshest light – as a rejection, and he knew she would be too proud to stay in her place and hear him out. Of course not. Not his sweet, red-haired, indomitable, reckless Griselda who would not let herself belong to anyone.

  He poured himself a large glass of claret and drank it too quickly. After an hour or so of his mother’s banshee-like wailing, his nerves had been twisted up to breaking point. If only Griselda had been there when he came back. He had hoped so desperately to find her sitting by the fire.

  Now, he found himself starting at every sound in case it was her returning. He had more wine and decided he would absolutely throw himself at her mercy – if she returned. He could not bear the thought of leaving her. He would live with her on whatever terms she chose, so as long as he could live with her. Half a decanter of claret decided it. He had the speech quite worked out when he heard the jangle of the front door bell.

  He dashed out into the hall as Manton opened the door.

  “Mr Randall, good evening to you, sir.”

  “Good evening Manton. Is your master at home?”

  “I’m here, Will,” said Tom, coming forward. “How did you leave Lady Mary?”

  “She was calm,” he said, as they went into the book room together. “She has great resolution.”

  “I was astonished how well she took it.”

  “She is like a queen coming into her inheritence,” said Will. “It was impressive, certainly. More than impressive, perhaps,” he added, with a slightly embarrassed smile.

  “A queen needs a consort,” said Tom, handing him a glass of wine.

  “I don’t suppose her trustees will let me within five miles of her,” said Will. “I had better not even think of it.

  “They ought, if they have any sense. I wonder who they are. I will write to them for you if I know them. Though perhaps you don’t think very highly of my abilities as a matchmaker,” Tom went on, sitting down again, “when my own affairs are in such disarray.”

  “What progress then?”

  “None. I haven’t even had the chance to speak to her yet. She’s not here. I am beginning to think she has bolted. She knows, you see. My mother was here and told her I was going.”

  “Bolted? What do you mean?”

  “She has an adventurous temperament, Will,” said Tom. “That’s how I met her. Do you suppose she was presented to me in somebody’s drawing room? No.”

  So he explained the circumstances. He finished his account and then added: “And instead of marrying me, she proposed that I keep her as a mistress instead so she could steal my silver and run away again.”

  “And have you checked the plate?” Will said.

  Tom managed a brief smile.

  “She will take nothing from me. That’s the worst of it. And if she does come back, I shall just make a perfect fool of myself and it won’t change a thing.”

  “I think we should go and look for her.”

  “It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “So we sit here getting drunk and maudlin? What happens if she does come back and you are in your cups? That won’t impress her. Where do you think she might have gone?”

  “How in God’s name should I know?” he said.

  “You are already in your cups, aren’t you, old man?” said Will.

  “If you could conceive of the agony of my position,” said Tom, “you would have taken twice as much by now.”

  “But you had better not have any more. Come, let’s get the carriage brought round. At least if we drive for a while, we might spot her.”

  “And then what?” said Tom. “No, leave it. Let us leave it. If she wants to come back she will. And if she does not, then…”

  “You must find her,” Will said. “This is ridiculous.”

  “And say what to her? Attempt to force her out of pity to come back to me, when I have just proposed abandoning her? What self-respecting person would do that? Certainly not Griselda. Even if I am the most pitiable object alive on this earth I won’t do that to her. I will not look for her.” He refilled his glass and then handed the decanter to Will. “No. Talk to me about Mary Liston, Will. Tell me if that is a love story that might have a happy ending.”

  ***

  Griselda walked through London in the looming dusk, without any object. She hardly knew what she was doing, let alone where she was going. Anger mixed with misery pushed her already tired feet forward. She did not notice the curious glances directed at her – a woman in a fur-trimmed pelisse and an expensive bonnet wandering at dinner time in the City, when most respectable women were presiding over their tables.

  She had not been able to stay in the house. It had been like being in a prison awaiting an execution, sitting there, waiting for him to return, waiting to hear him say it to her face: “I am going away. I do not want you.” That above all things was the most unbearable prospect. To be dropped, as she had been picked up, by a man for whom she would have gladly ripped her heart out.

  She found herself by the river, standing at the water’s edge, in the shadow of the Tower. She caught her breath. Had not Manton said, when she had pressed him for the truth, that Thorpe was to leave on a boat from a landing by the Tower? His escape route, the great roadway that was the Thames, steel grey and slippery, stretched out into the far distance. She frowned. How dare he run away from her?

  She knew then that she must confront him. She would not let him go without giving his conscience a good whipping. It was the only thing that she could think to do to bring herself any comfort.

  A man sat in a rowing boat, waiting for a passenger. He saw her approach and got up.

  “A penny to take you over the river, ma’am,” he said.

  “I don’t want to go across, thank you. But I’ll give you a penny if you can tell me if any of these boats are sailing to Italy tomorrow,” she said, handing him a coin.

  “I believe that brigantine, yonder, the Fair Lucia, is leaving for Italy tomorrow,” said the man, pointing out a double-masted ship moored at the far end of the pontoon. “Captain Marshall did mention it to me. But I think a gentleman has chartered it – a baronet no less – so there’d be no berths to spare on her. Now, Captain Brown takes his ship to Leghorn end of this week – and he’s always willing to take a passenger. Would Leghorn do you, ma’am? I take it you are looking for a passage?”

  Griselda smiled, not knowing how to answer. Perhaps a voyage to Leghorn was just the thing. It would be like vanishing into thin air. A dangerous but fascinating prospect. She had a few gold guineas in her reticule. Would that be enough, she wondered.

  “How much does Captain Brown usually charge for such a passage?”

  “I couldn’t say. You would need to come to some arrangement with him yourself, ma’am. You’ll find him in the Dog and Grapes on the south bank. I’ll gladly take you to him.
”

  It was tempting, but she had to be sensible. For once in her life, she told herself. She had come to wait for Thorpe and that is what she would do.

  “No, thank you, not this time,” she said.

  The ferryman shrugged and settled down in his boat again and Griselda walked on until she reached the pontoon that led out into the river. The pontoon was a little slippery and she had to walk carefully along it until she reached the Fair Lucia.

  There appeared to be no-one aboard. Well, she would wait until someone came. If they questioned her there would be no difficulty. Where else would a wife be but waiting in the boat her husband had just chartered for a long voyage?