My relations seemed almost indifferent to my reappearance. It was if I had never been away. My aunt was far more grateful to see Mrs. Villiers, who had been my companion upon our journey, than to receive me. My uncle I did not have chance to greet until supper, and even then his attention was distracted with some urgent matter of correspondence or other. Lord Dennington and his brother, whom I had not seen for nearly a year owing to their being at school, were as cool and formal with me as they might have been with their tutors. Worse still, my dear Lady Catherine, my chère amie, to whose life I was devoted, seemed entirely unmoved at our reunion. When I appeared in our apartments, she behaved as if we had only been parted since breakfast.
“Oh,” said she, “you are returned.” She rose from the writing desk where she sat and, with her attention still fixed upon the letter in her hand, beckoned me to her. “Come kiss me, Hetty.”
“Oh cousin,” I exclaimed, vibrating with the excitement of seeing my most cherished friend once more, “do tell me all your news.”
“I am afraid there is not much to tell.” She mustered a vague smile and then sat down with a sigh. “Herberton is not at all what I expected. It requires much improvement. There is an entire wing left unfinished, not even the rooms plastered. His lordship will have to order new furnishings…” She drifted off, her mind clearly preoccupied with some other matter.
“And what of Lord Allenham?” I enquired, my pulse quickening.
“Oh, there were a great number of relations and friends at Herberton to whom I was introduced,” she stated, her expression unmoved by the mention of his name. “Did I not write to you of this?”
I shook my head.
“I met his cousin Mrs. Ayres, who is only just wed. We became fast friends,” she pronounced, her expression suddenly brightening. “Mr. Ayres has a phaeton and we raced about in it through the villages, causing such a scene! What fun it was! I dare say she has the most fashionable hats and gowns I ever did see. I shall see her mantua-maker after I am married and spend all my pin money upon having gowns made up like hers!”
“But what of your wedding trousseau?”
She laughed haughtily.
“Hetty dear, you know so little of the fashionable world.”
“Oh, but you must instruct me… I should like to know everything. I should love to know what you do and what you see. Your stories are vastly entertaining…”
“Mr. and Mrs. Ayres have a house not ten miles from Herberton, and a house in town as well. We shall be constant companions! She pledged as much to me before we departed. I have received a letter from her nearly every day and she tells me all I should like to know of married life. She informs me of all the gossip and the intrigue… such things Mamma would never disclose!” She giggled.
The longer I regarded her, the more my smile began to sink.
“I was replying to her last letter when you arrived.” She looked over at her escritoire. “I should return to it. She will be anticipating my response.” Lady Catherine began to rise from where she sat, and then, recalling something of importance, turned to me. “Mamma spoke to me about the arrangements for you.”
“Arrangements?”
“Yes, after I am wed. Lord Allenham has offered you a home at Herberton.”
My expression brightened once more.
“But Mamma opposes it. She says you are too young by far to make your home with us, especially so soon after we are married. You are to remain at Melmouth for some time longer.”
So startled was I by her words, that I continued to stare in disbelief.
“But… what shall I do… without you…?” I managed to say.
She snorted. “Occupy yourself, dear cousin. You are accomplished at that. And I shall visit and see you… on occasion.”
My wounded gaze followed her across the room.
“Now, this letter must be closed before it is too late to send it.”
I confess, this unanticipated turn of events rattled me so greatly that my eyes began to fill with tears. I sprang from where I sat and ran directly to my little bedchamber. There I lay, gently weeping for theloss of all that I held dear. I dare say Lady Catherine could hear every sniffle of my sufferings, but chose to ignore them entirely.
Until that time, I had not experienced anything like the true despondency, the aching sense of desperation that poor Werther had endured. More than ever, I felt myself in a hopeless situation. I had no means of communicating with Allenham, no channel through which I might plead my case. For so long I had dreamed of the promised scenario, I had passed so many hours musing on our contented life, I had wished and wished and now it would amount to nothing. For several days I hung my head, speaking very little, observing the preparations and the merriment through moist eyes. “Dear child,” my aunt eventually remarked, “it would do you well to appear pleased at your cousin’s good fortune.” At her prompting, I attempted a smile, but it quivered and soon dropped. Dear reader, such a fit of melancholy consumed me that I took to wandering my uncle’s estate, searching out the most secluded groves and desolate spots. There I would throw myself upon the hard ground and give in entirely to my despair.
I confess that emulating Werther’s fate did enter my mind.
One of us three must die!
I thought on how I might do it. Perhaps I should sew stones into my skirts and drown myself like lovelorn Ophelia? I should not like to hang myself, nor resort to a pistol, as Werther did. I knew not where to procure poison.
After an hour or so of mourning my fate, I would then brush the leaves from my gown and lumber back to the house.
It was following one such fit of misery that I returned to a terrible shock.
I thought myself alone when I pushed open the door to our drawing room. The sun streamed in through the window, still full of the golden hues of summer. My cousin had thrown a book upon a chair and left some writing paper spread across her open escritoire. I wondered why Sally or one of the housemaids had not tidied it away. It was then that I heard a strange noise.
At first I was uncertain what it was, or whence it came. I stopped and listened to what sounded like wheezing and sniffling. It was then I heard my cousin’s strained voice and noticed that my bedchamber door had been left ajar. Cautiously, I approached it.
The scene that greeted me is one that has remained imprinted on my memory. To this day, I can still recall each detail, even the pinks and greens of my cousin’s gown and the browns and blues worn by Sally, who sat upon my bed, cradling her mistress’s head in her lap.
The drawer of my escritoire lay upon the floor, its contents scattered across the room. At the clawed feet of the desk, an overturned jar of black ink spread like tar. But this damage could be undone. The ink could be blotted away, the pieces collected, the drawer put back into place. That which could not be undone was clutched in my cousin’s left hand.
By my own admission, I had been exceptionally foolish to keep the letters Allenham had instructed me to burn. I had tried on several occasions, but simply could not bring myself to do it. I had wept at the prospect of destroying the only gentle words that had ever been written to me. Instead of doing what I ought, I had stuffed them into the drawer of my escritoire, just behind a jar of ink, and locked them away. I had not even the wherewithal to hide the key, but rather let it sit in its treacherous little lock for anyone to turn. Eventually, Lady Catherine opened the drawer. As I understand it, she had emptied her pot of ink and, knowing I kept some in my writing desk, came in search of it. Then, like Pandora lifting the lid of her box, all manner of horrors came flying out.
It was Sally who first noticed me in the doorway, and, sensing her alarm, my cousin then lifted her head. Her face, swollen and pink, appeared battered. Indeed, her cheeks had been so puffed by grief that her eyes had all but disappeared. I watched her eyebrows slowly arch and her mouth part, before it drew back into a snarl. Cautiously, I began to move away, like one retreating from a vicious animal, but before I managed to take two or thre
e steps, she sprang from Sally’s embrace.
“You… Jade! Judas!” she howled with fury as she grabbed for me.
“Cathy!” I cried as she raised her hand and slapped me in a rage. Horrified, I pulled away and collapsed into a shamed, frightened heap at her feet. “Please no, cousin, please…” I begged, raising my arm to shield myself from her blows, but it was of no use. She began to kick me, softly at first to see what damage her foot might incur, and then harder and harder still, until I shrieked with pain. I rolled away from her and attempted to rise, but all at once she was upon me, her face contorted with wrath. With her fingers curled into claws, she continued with her frantic attack, each strike of her hand cutting into my cheeks. Believing I might be murdered, I begged for mercy, calling to Sally to rescue me from the talons of this harpy, but rather than pulling us apart, the vicious little demon ran for the door and locked it fast!
In true fear for my life, I struggled to free myself, twisting, kicking and pushing with all my might. I heard some part of my gown rend as the taste of blood and tears dripped into my mouth. It was only when Lady Catherine got hold of my throat and began to squeeze that Sally saw fit to intervene. Until then, she had been content to stand over us like a judge at a bare-knuckle boxing match, grinning at the spectacle with a type of stupid pleasure. Having decided I had taken beating enough, the maid got hold of my cousin’s waist and pulled her on to my bed. There Lady Catherine sat, restrained like a beast, panting and growling until Sally took her into her arms and began to hush her. She smoothed her ruffled hair and rocked her gently, until her mistress’s howls subsided into whimpers, and eventually into silence.
I remained upon the floor, winded and sobbing. My face had been raked with scratches, my lower lip bled on to my chin. The seam that held my bodice to my skirt had been ripped open. My head ached, as did my shoulders and back. I coughed and wept, almost uncontrollably, though more from fright and shock than from pain. In all the years I had been victim to my cousin’s rages, I had never known her to attack with such viciousness.
For some time, I sat where I had fallen, too terrified so much as to wipe the blood from my face. I dared not raise my head, even when Lady Catherine began to address me.
“If my father learns of these letters, there will be no wedding.” She spoke in a cold and measured voice. “You must understand, cousin, I will marry Lord Allenham. But I shall also see to it that he will never have you. You will never look upon one another again. You will be dead to him.”
At that, the tears flooded into my eyes.
“Oh, you may weep, you treacherous, ungrateful vixen… scheming little harlot,” she hissed at me. “You may weep for your loss, for these will be the last days I ever call you cousin!”
She turned her head away, but Sally’s defiant eyes continued to press into me. It was a look that ordinarily might lose a maid her place, but as her triumph over me was now complete, she felt entitled to display it.
With her she-wolf’s gaze firmly fixed upon me, Sally assisted her mistress from my bed and, with a great show of tenderness, led her through the door. It was only when she turned to shut it behind her that I noted my letters, wet with tears, still in her hand.
Chapter 9
Now, my friends, I lived in true fear, for I understood too well my cousin’s temper. I knew this incident had been merely the spark that lit it, and that once ire had been ignited in her heart, it would continue to smoulder there, long after the initial injury had burned out. Worse still was the firm alliance she had forged with Sally. With the two united against me, there was no cruelty they were incapable of inflicting. Oh, how I trembled at the prospect of this.
To be sure, my heart had been deeply injured by her attack; the violence of it had left me terrified and shaken, but remorse, too, crippled me. If I could have unpicked the events of the past, if we had never gone to Bath, if I had refused to dance with Lord Allenham, I would have done it. I contemplated this unfortunate chain of events over and over, as I sat, alone and terrified, in my bedchamber.
It would be unfair to call me a coward; I had not yet developed that strength of character necessary to be resilient, so I remained in hiding, too distraught and frightened to show my face that evening. I lay curled upon my bed like an injured cat, listening with wide, fearful eyes to the conversation that transpired in the drawing room.
It at first appeared that Lady Catherine had recovered with remarkable speed from her shock. As Sally dressed her for dinner, she chatted with surprising good cheer about the night ahead, prattling about their neighbours, Lord and Lady Bristol: how her mamma disliked the Earl, and how disgusting she found his wife’s teeth. Then she sighed.
“What might we tell Mamma about Hetty?” she mused to Sally. At the mention of my name, my stomach bunched into a knot. “I do not suppose she will emerge this evening,” she snorted.
“Miss Ingerton has taken ill, my lady,” Sally suggested.
“But I dare say her face will be scratched mightily and I must account for that somehow. If I do not invent some tale to explain it, the little fibbing minx may confess it to someone.”
Indeed, to hear my cousin plotting in such a manner chilled my blood.
“Perhaps she took a fall, madam,” offered Sally, enjoying this sport far more than she ought.
My cousin thought upon this for a moment. “I shall say she took a tumble while out walking. She tripped upon the hem of her skirt and went face first through the shrubbery.” She laughed merrily. “My stars, Sally, what ingenuity have I for telling a tale.”
“I shall have cook send her up a tray. Some boiled chicken perhaps. Food for an invalid?” They both cackled at this.
My eyes began to smart with tears. Dear Lord, I knew not how I was to endure the trials that lay in store. I was certain this was only the prelude. I laid my head upon my pillow that evening, unable to fathom how I was to face the days ahead of me.
It is often said that for every predicted outcome, Fate invents one more, which could not have been foreseen. I had imagined a torturous string of days leading to my cousin’s wedding, where I would be made to suffer torments both to the body as well as to the heart—but this was not Fortune’s plan.
I confess, I had thought it queer how rapidly Lady Catherine had recovered her good humour following the discovery of my letters. Outwardly she seemed entirely mended, but inwardly the venom of her anger had only just begun its ruinous course.
She awoke the following morning with a fever upon her and insisted on remaining in bed. I listened at my door as Sally described her mistress’s symptoms to her concerned mamma. “Her throat is mightily sore and her voice nearly gone. She shivers a good deal too.”
“Then for heaven’s sake, girl, have the fire lit in her chamber!” snapped Lady Stavourley as she hurried to her daughter’s side, “And fetch some of Dr. James’s fever powder, you stupid hussy.”
Unfortunately, the powders did not succeed in suppressing her temperature and by that evening, she was shaking furiously. Lady Stavourley became greatly unnerved by this. She ordered a glass of sack whey to be brought up, but her daughter felt too unwell to take any nourishment. “I insist upon it, Catherine,” I heard my aunt protest, her voice high and anxious. “You are to be wed in scarcely a week, my dear—a week!” she pleaded, as if she believed her daughter’s illness to be another of Lady Catherine’s tricks, designed to vex her. “I will not countenance a postponement,” my aunt scolded.
But my cousin’s affliction could not be commanded away, least of all by her mother. It proved as stubborn as she had ever been. It wrapped itself around her chest and filled it with a racking cough. Higher still burned the fever, until, by the second evening, she could do little more than moan and wheeze. Sally had sat with her through the night, mopping her wet brow and speaking to her in gentle tones.
On the third day of her illness, when it appeared that she would not repair herself, my uncle sent for the physician. Dr. Stirling came directly from Bury St.
Edmunds that afternoon, escorted to Melmouth in Lord Stavourley’s coach. He arrived in a flurry, his apprentice carrying a box of potions and instruments necessary to cure her. They and my aunt disappeared into my cousin’s chamber and within the hour, Sally emerged ferrying a bowl of her mistress’s blood through our drawing room. She coughed violently as she did so, her face now plainly pallid and drawn.
Several moments later, Dr. Stirling and my aunt withdrew from the invalid’s room, discussing the sedative that he had administered.
“It will enable her to recover,” he assured Lady Stavourley, before putting his hand into the pocket of his frock coat. “Then, once she awakens, you must give her this powder,” he said, gesturing to a packet in his hand. “Foxglove is much recommended for respiratory ailments.” At that moment, Sally returned, rubbing the inside of the empty bleeding bowl with a cloth.
“Miss,” the physician began, preparing to instruct her in the administration of the medicine, but stopped as Sally fell into a fit of coughing. He examined her with a frown, and then turned to my aunt.
“My lady, your daughter’s woman is too ill to wait upon her,” he pronounced. “As it is necessary that Lady Catherine be kept from further contagion, is there not another among your number who may tend her?”
I had been sitting in the far corner of the drawing room, attempting as much as possible to remain invisible behind my book, but my aunt’s desperate eyes soon fell upon me.
“Henrietta,” she called harshly, as one might summon a wayward lap dog. I crossed the floor obediently, my gaze lowered.
“My niece is a most capable substitute.”
Mistress of My Fate Page 11
