Mistress of My Fate

by Hallie Rubenhold

  “Perhaps that is so…” said I, recalling all too well how my tutor attached a moral lesson to each of these readings, carefully prescribing which pages among the many volumes we were to examine.

  “One day you must read all these stories, with all their brutality and beauty…” He paused thoughtfully. “… And not merely the mythology of the ancients, but truthful accounts of the human heart… Monsieur Rousseau, his Confessions. There are few pictures so well painted of life… of the joys of love…”

  My mouth grew suddenly dry when he spoke that phrase. My heart began to beat quite rapidly. Unknowingly, I moved away from him.

  “Perhaps, once you are married,” he corrected himself with a hopeful note in his voice. But Allenham knew as well as I how limited were my prospects of that.

  I recalled that episode in my mind many, many times. It stayed with me, spinning round and round like a globe, returning with each revolution to the same point: the word “love.” From the moment I had met Allenham, I did what was expected of me and smothered at birth those feelings to which I felt my heart succumbing. The thought that my pulse should leap at the mention of his name sickened me. Throughout my young life I had become very good at learning to want nothing, joining my wishes and dreams with those of my cousin’s. Allenham was not and would never be for me, and, my dear reader, I swear to you I adhered to this belief with every particle of my being. Whenever I felt the forbidden spark begin to smoulder in my heart, I stamped upon it. I turned my every attention to making him love Lady Catherine.

  By then, you see, an engagement was inevitable. A young man cannot pay so much attention to a young lady without it leading somewhere. In fact, my aunt and cousin and Mrs. Villiers had talked of nothing else since the evening he accompanied us to the theatre.

  At the end of our second week at Bath, my cousin had begun to sulk. For days she had swung from giddiness to weepiness. Patience was not one of her greatest virtues. She was unaccustomed to waiting for anything. “But certainly he must be in love with me by now!” she exclaimed in exasperation, after another night of dancing with Allenham at the Assembly Rooms failed to produce a proposal of marriage.

  “Love is only the half of it,” sighed her mother. “The rest is a matter of business between men.”

  “He must put his affairs in order first,” comforted Mrs. Villiers, who, as a widow, claimed to know more about the inner thoughts of men than most. Lady Catherine listened, but never seemed entirely satisfied. Her disbelieving scowl was only softened, not erased.

  Strange as it may sound to you, her temper did not change until she received word of Allenham’s departure. It came in the form of a letter, accompanied by two parcels wrapped loosely in brown paper. These items were delivered into the hands of a housemaid who brought them up to us. My cousin cooed and clapped like a child at the sight of her round, thin box.

  “There is one for Miss Ingerton as well,” said the servant, gesturing to the flat object upon the card table. Bemused, I rose to examine my package as my aunt read the letter.

  “These are from Lord Allenham. He regrets to say that he will be quitting Bath this afternoon…”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Lady Catherine, who had failed to note her mother’s announcement. She gently removed one of Allenham’s gifts from its box and raised it up to be admired. Four opalescent pearls set into a comb of gold swirled with light. This was a genuine lover’s gift, a confirmation of her suitor’s affections. My cousin squealed with delight as my aunt leaned in to admire the tokens.

  So distracted were they that my gift slipped their notice altogether. I slid the paper off to reveal the rich leather binding of a small thin book. I opened the cover. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, by E. Burke, read the title page. On the inside of the volume, I then noticed he had written an inscription: “To Miss Ingerton, so she might know beauty when it appears before her.” I was astonished at this, that he had recalled our conversation that night in the Lower Assembly Rooms. I could not conceal my smile, or my blush. I was only pleased the others were too preoccupied to see it upon my face!

  That afternoon, Lady Catherine’s admirer appeared in person to make his farewells. He was shown into the drawing room, which he had come to know so intimately over the fortnight. There he found my cousin, with her set of pearl combs arranged in her hair, sitting at the edge of her chair, more uncomfortably than usual. The Baron’s gifts had made her more convinced than ever that a proposal was imminent.

  Allenham explained that he had business with his solicitor in London, and at the mention of this, I watched a sly smile creep across my cousin’s lips, and then across my aunt’s. There was a long, heavy pause. Whether it was this that prompted him to leave or the need to make haste for London, I know not, but Allenham then rose to his feet.

  “I shall miss you all very much. You have been exceptional company and I have enjoyed myself greatly.”

  “And we shall miss you terribly, my lord,” answered Lady Catherine in her softest, most kitten-like voice. She stared at him with pleading eyes.

  He swallowed hard. For a fleeting moment he glanced at me, and then back at my cousin. “I would be especially honoured, Lady Catherine, if you would permit me to correspond with you.”

  My cousin beamed. My aunt attempted to suppress her elation. “I should like that very much,” said Lady Catherine.

  And what more need I say, reader?

  As there was no reason for us to continue at Bath without Lord Allenham, we too took our leave and returned to Melmouth, where Lady Catherine prepared to receive her suitor’s written professions of love.

  Chapter 6

  Of course, there was no question of Allenham not writing. The dance of courtship had begun in earnest and everyone expected it to be taken to its natural conclusion.

  We had been at Melmouth for a little under a week before a small packet arrived with a London postmark for Lady Catherine. The letter was laid before her at breakfast. With deliberate slowness, she placed down the roll she was buttering, wiped her fingers and smiled nervously.

  “It is from Lord Allenham.”

  My aunt and I paused as she broke the seal and began to read its contents. Her hands trembled.

  “Might you read us some of it, my dear?” asked her mother.

  “Oh, there is nothing in it, really,” my cousin answered with a hint of disappointment. “He has gone to some masquerade at Almack’s and talks of politics a good deal…” Then she let out a satisfied titter. “He thinks of me often and of our time in Bath…”

  Lady Stavourley corrected her posture. “As he rightly should.” Her eyes lingered on her daughter for a good deal longer than they ought. My aunt was never completely certain of what trick Lady Catherine might play, whether she would awaken one morning and decide she had had enough of Allenham, and that it might indeed be more fun to tease him, like a cat with a string. But from what I could see of her, this was unlikely to happen. My cousin had been truly smitten. In fact, since we had returned from Bath, I had never known her to be so serene. She was less prone to sulk, and enjoyed long periods of stillness, sitting at her piano or simply staring out of a window, with the mild, fixed expression of a Madonna. In these respects, her character had been altered, but underneath still remained the capricious creature with whom I had always been acquainted. I was reminded of this that very day, after we had left the breakfast table.

  There were few games my cousin and I enjoyed more than sharing the flowery outpourings of affection she received from her suitors and I had expected to be entertained by Lord Allenham’s letters just as I had been with Bedford’s, Digby’s, Coote’s and Wentworth’s.

  “Oh, do tell me, Cathy, what he writes!” I had begged her. I knew she would never have revealed its complete contents to Lady Stavourley, but I was privy to her dearest secrets; my position was sacred. On most occasions, she would have grabbed my arm and pulled us into some shielded corner, but instead she looked at
me and nibbled at her lower lip.

  “He writes of personal matters, cousin. I would not wish to betray his thoughts publicly.”

  I felt as if my heart had been thrown upon the floor.

  “But you have always read to me…”

  “That was different,” she scolded. Her words came as sharply as a slap.

  I stared at her, the injury plain upon my face.

  “What?” she demanded.

  I could not bring myself to say any more, and seeing this, she turned on her heel in a huff, as if I had paid her some insult.

  Allenham’s first letter was soon followed by others. There were two more directly after this one; and a total of five in nine days. From what I could observe, some were very short, taking up only one side of one sheet, while others filled three pages in neat, tiny script. The arrival of another letter would always send Lady Catherine into a spin. She would snatch it up from wherever it had been laid and then run into a corner or to a chair where she would devour it like a hungry dog. As soon as she had consumed it, she would leap to her feet and dash to her escritoire. I would often see her, her head bent over her writing desk, grinning at the sport of what she wrote, her hand flying rapidly over the page. Sometimes, if she was especially excited by her correspondent’s words, she would press the letter to her heart and cry aloud, “Oh, my dear, dear Allenham,” as if she were Mrs. Siddons or some other artful lady of the stage.

  I hope you do not think me too contemptuous in my remarks? It is not my desire to appear scornful, for I was not in the least. In spite of my cousin’s coolness towards me, I remained elated for her. But, you see, those were difficult weeks, filled with anticipation. There was little more we could do than wait for a sign: a word from either my uncle or Lord Allenham that they had met and that some discussion or negotiation had been opened. All the time we forced ourselves not to think about what may (or may not) have been transpiring in London. We walked, we embroidered, read, played music, rode, painted and paid visits to local friends and to the shops in Bury St. Edmunds, pretending our thoughts were upon other matters. In truth we thought of nothing else. We paced, fidgeted and stared blankly at our stitching and books. If you have ever trapped a wasp beneath a glass and observed it spin round and round in a frustrated fury, you would know precisely how we felt.

  “This really cannot continue for much longer without his lordship declaring his intentions,” my aunt muttered one afternoon as I accompanied her through the garden. She was directing her woman, Betty, to cut some of the newly sprung flowers for her apartments. I assisted her, carrying the basket.

  “I cannot imagine why he delays,” she mused. “The Earl has sent him a letter, inviting him to Melmouth. I can only guess that he is fixing on a date to come.”

  “Perhaps it is Parliament that distracts him,” I offered in my small voice. My aunt looked at me as if I had trodden on the hem of her muslin gown. What could I possibly know of such things?

  “I do not like to contemplate what occupies him, Hetty,” she said finally. “Such a delay speaks of hesitation—whatever the reason may be.”

  It was after that exchange with my aunt, when the skies began to darken and fill with rain, that we returned to the house. I handed the basket full of lilacs and roses to Betty, slipped out of my garden pattens and returned to my bedchamber, where I hoped to replace my soiled stockings with a clean pair. As I opened the connecting door that led from the dressing room to my bedchamber, I noticed a small sealed letter sitting upon my writing desk. It was rare that I received correspondence, and even more curious that the note had not been brought directly to me by a servant. At first I thought the letter might have been intended for Lady Catherine, but it was addressed in a clear hand to Miss Henrietta Ingerton. As there was no postmark, I realized that it must have been delivered by hand.

  Carefully I opened the seal, which was a plain patch of red wax, void of any crest or design. That which lay inside gave me such a shock as to nearly make my knees give way.

  Over the years, for many reasons (most of which you will discover as you continue to read my history) I have learned to commit to memory the details of the more significant correspondence, books, documents, etc, that I have read. A very learned gentleman in Italy once taught me that it is possible to fashion the mind into a tablet and lay every essential fact upon it. Age makes this task rather more difficult. Much of the writing stored upon my own tablet has faded with the decades, but there are some things, some letters and conversations, which pertain mainly to matters of the heart, that have remained more or less permanently inscribed. This, reader, was one such letter, and I shall recount it to you the best I can. He began it thus:

  I hope you will forgive me, my dearest Miss Ingerton, for taking this enormous liberty in sending you this letter, but I have meditated a great deal on the predicament which I now face, and have alighted upon no immediate answer to it. I have concluded that there is nothing more I can do but present my dilemma to the one who is the subject of it, in the hope of finding some solution.

  I hope I do not presume to say that, at Bath, I believe we came to know one another intimately, though there is much about my current situation of which you are not apprised. As I write this, the Earl of Stavourley will be learning the truth of my income and the mortgages entailed on Herberton, the estate in Gloucestershire I inherited from my father. Due to some imprudent investments made by my father and my uncle during my childhood, I have found my income greatly reduced. Indeed there are a good many obligations which I must meet, not the least being the improvements begun on Herberton which I have not had the means of completing. This is a disagreeable situation with which I am faced, and one which I hoped to remedy though the usual means of making a good marriage.

  It has always been my belief that a marriage should be a union based upon friendship and enduring affection. This I feel for your cousin, Lady Catherine, but that which I had not anticipated were the sensations I felt when in your presence, Miss Ingerton.

  You, madam, are all I imagined that my wife might be. In you, I see all the qualities of a dear life companion; your soul is a sympathetic one, your heart is kind, you possess an understanding unrivalled in any young lady I have met. Indeed, your conversation and friendship have been so warm and artless that I have often imagined passing my days beside you in the manner so rarely seen among ladies and gentlemen. This in itself, madam, would have been enough to capture my heart entirely had you not also been blessed with such great beauty, charm and grace. You have in your looks the power to enslave any man in a mere glance!

  My dear Miss Ingerton, you have not been out of my thoughts since the evening I first danced with you and I have struggled, nay, I have literally torn my heart to pieces in an attempt to free myself from the love that has overwhelmed me. I cannot for the sake of my duties and obligations marry as my heart dictates, but madam, my heart dictates that I cannot live without you. What then am I to do? I have resolved to write these words to you in the hope that you will put me beyond my misery, that you will confirm to me your shared affection, or else deny me and send me into a life of desperate unhappiness.

  I am, madam, your most tormented servant,

  Allenham

  I stood for a long while staring at the words. I read them several times over. My heart beat so heavily that it jarred my stomach. I believed I might be sick. My skin prickled with heat and then a chill. Oh gracious heaven! I thought to myself, rubbing my wet hand across my brow. I paced the room. I read the letter again, and then I caught sight of myself in my mirror.

  There on my pale, frightened face sat a smile. It was to me like glimpsing the moon in the daytime, it was a sight so contradictory—as if my mind said one thing and my heart another. It was my heart that produced the smile, that heart which, like Allenham’s, had fought for weeks to deny the sensations pounding within it. Tears came to my eyes.

  What was I to do? He is to marry Lady Catherine, he is not for me! my head, the even-tempered philosopher
, argued. But the heart, it is a wilful thing. Once the heart acknowledges a truth, it refuses to relinquish it. The mind has the power of reason, it may ignore anything it chooses; but the heart knows no return, once a truth has penetrated its armour it has no ability to recant it. The truth lives within the heart, it ignites passion like a bonfire and the mind is helpless to extinguish it.

  Dinner was called, but I was so unwell that I rang for Sally to unlace me and climbed into my bed. “I believe I have caught a chill in the garden,” I told her, and she relayed the message to my aunt and cousin below. I lay there, my eyes wide open, my heart, that demanding, violent organ, thumping like horses’ hoofs in my head. I knew I must write to him, but what? I should remain guarded about my feelings, but remind him of his duty to my cousin. I should promise him a life of friendship.

  It was very late when I pulled myself from my bed and sat down at my writing desk.

  “My dear Lord Allenham,” I wrote, while listening for any stirrings outside my door. All was silent.

  As you may imagine, the contents of your letter have thrown my own heart into a great deal of turmoil. I know not the proper response to make, only that which is my duty to write. I must begin by declaring that in the time of our acquaintance at Bath, I did nothing to invite your attentions or to encourage the feelings that have taken root within you. You have indicated that you know the whole truth of my circumstances, that my position here is a precarious one. I have no fortune of which to speak, I have not even a hundred pounds entailed upon me and am dependent entirely on the goodness of my uncle and his family to maintain me throughout my life. Sir, in this condition, it is unlikely that I should marry. You know as well as I that few gentlemen would have for their wife a young lady of no means, however decent her character or winning her charms. Therefore, you cannot fault yourself for maintaining your familial duty and considering first the obligations you retain to Herberton.