Mistress of My Fate

by Hallie Rubenhold

  “Do you have any reason to believe that his lordship may think you have fled to me?”

  “Yes,” said I, “I fear so.”

  At that time, I had not yet informed Lord Allenham that my father had read his correspondence. I did not know how I might approach the subject, for certainly, I reasoned, it would cause him some pain to hear it, and me some shame to say it. Oh, I would that I had not been such a milksop and spoken it aloud right then! I might have spared myself the misery of it much later.

  “Then it is necessary that I write to him immediately. I shall tell him you came here and that I returned you post-haste to Melmouth.”

  My eyes widened. “But…”

  “Henrietta,” he began with a softer, pleading tone, “it troubles me a great deal to lie, and I do not doubt you think less of me for it, but these are circumstances for which there is no other remedy. You know I should risk injury to myself before I turned you out.” The Baron offered a timid smile.“ When you fail to return to Melmouth, he will believe you have gone elsewhere. To London. Then he will give up the search.”

  I imagined my dear father receiving this news, another tragedy to befall him. My heart sank.

  I looked up at Allenham, searching his expression for some hint of reassurance. He stood stoically, possessed, running his finger along his firm lower lip as he thought.

  “There is a cottage upon my estate. It has lain empty for some time…” He then looked over at me, suddenly inspired by some rush of genius. “Lightfoot. That was the family. That is who you will become.”

  “Become?” I regarded him with a quizzical expression. “I do not understand…”

  “There were many generations of them, now gone, I know not where. It would not appear so strange if you were to return… a Miss Lightfoot, a grown daughter who had some modest settlement placed upon her, returning to the home she once knew. The story put about need not be more than that.”

  I fear I was still unable to follow Allenham’s reasoning.

  “But why need I become someone else?”

  “We cannot very well call you Miss Ingerton after I have claimed that you are not here,” said he with a gentle tease. He then drew a breath and lowered his voice. “At present, there are guests at Herberton. There are often guests—political associates, gentlemen. You are aware there will soon be a General Election and I am favoured for a seat in the next Parliament?”

  I nodded.

  “It is imperative that you are not known to be here. It would lead to terrible suspicion if you are discovered. We should both be entirely ruined.” He held my gaze steadily as he spoke. “The servants, I shall see to. There will be no gossip, but while you reside in the house, you must remain confined to your apartments.”

  I was taken aback by the sternness of his tone. “I shall do whatever you ask of me, my lord,” I answered, turning my eyes to the floor.

  “Hetty,” he called softly, and then waited until I turned my attention upward. He gazed back, his features now mild and warm. “I never dared believe… I never thought it possible…” Allenham stopped and looked away. “You must recover from your journey. I shall have a maid prepare a set of rooms for you.” He began pacing once again. “There is much to be done. I must send away my guests… If you will excuse me, I must write to Lord Stavourley at once, and set about preparing Orchard Cottage. It will be some days yet before the house is mended and in an orderly condition.”

  I sat for a long while after he left me. As I was no longer beneath my father’s roof, no more the person I believed myself to be, as I had shed my past and all that belonged to it, it seemed appropriate enough that I should be christened something else. Miss Henrietta Lightfoot. It felt awkward to bear another identity.

  “Lightfoot,” I whispered. The name had an unusual resonance to my ear. “Lightfoot. Henrietta Lightfoot.”

  I shut my eyes and listened as I breathed the syllables again and again.

  So it was to be. So I became her, this other Henrietta. From that night, I pulled her character around me; I drew it on like a stranger’s cloak and wore it, though awkwardly at first, as my own.

  Chapter 14

  I was not to see his lordship again that evening. Shortly after he had left me, I was taken through a labyrinth of connecting rooms and up the back stairs to a set of apartments. I was truly so weary and shaken that I recall little of what occurred, only that a meal of cold venison and potted ham was laid out for me and that a shy maid had assisted in preparing me for bed. Her hands were slow and soft. She attended to my tangled hair with care, and then, with a basin of warm perfumed water, washed away the soil of the road from my body. Indeed, her ministrations were so gentle that I struggled to recall the last time I had been tended with such kindness. As you may imagine, I slept quite soundly that night.

  When I had arrived at Herberton, the sun had been waning and so most of its rooms were obscured by shadow, but when I awoke, the autumn light streamed through the windows, illuminating the plush interior of my rooms. Much to my delight, I discovered that the bed in which I had passed the night was made of a grand oak frame and hung with gold and burgundy fringed velvet. The dressing room seemed an exotic trove of treasures. Two heavy mirrors set in carved gilt frames drew in the daylight, casting a shine upon the japanned lacquer cabinets. All around was placed an assortment of blue and white Chinese vases and delft tulip stands.

  Although I was enchanted by the sumptuous surrounds, by the glittering splendour of it, I saw immediately why Lady Catherine had complained so. While these rich decorations may have been à la mode one hundred years earlier, they were far from fashionable in 1789. Their tired brocades and gold-painted fronds spoke of a family whose fortune had degraded with the interior.

  I ran my curious fingers along the sculpted marble of the hearth and then at fraying edges of the damask upon the walls. The fabric caught the fullness of the sun and felt warm under my touch. All I saw of Allenham’s home pleased me, its worn character charmed me and I yearned to learn its secrets.

  I would not be so bold as to explore Herberton’s corridors, especially as Allenham had warned me against it, but I ached to know what lay on the other side of the doors. There were three in the dressing room: one that led to the bedchamber where I had slept, a second adjacent to the hearth and a third, on the far wall, which I supposed led into an adjoining room. I approached the door nearest to the hearth and was about to bend forward and peer through the keyhole when I heard footsteps from the corridor beyond.

  “Miss Lightfoot,” came a whisper and a scratch. It was Allenham.

  I bade him enter and he shut the door very softly behind him.

  I stood facing him with anxiously folded hands, and offered a curtsey.

  He smiled somewhat bashfully and returned my greeting. A boyish awkwardness now replaced the formality of the day before.

  “I trust you slept well?”

  “I did, my lord.” I glanced at him, wary of admiring his features too closely and for too long. My heart beat very heavily.

  “Is all well?” I ventured uneasily. He knew of what I spoke.

  “Yes, the matters which we discussed have been undertaken.” Then his eyes rested on mine for a moment. “I have brought you a gift.”

  He took his hands from behind him, where they had been since he entered, and presented me with a book.

  “I had been meaning to give this to you for some time, but knew not quite how.”

  Along the spine was the name “Goethe.” I looked up at him with a gasp.

  “Open it,” he insisted. “Four pages in you will find a list of subscribers.”

  I thumbed through the volume and opened it wide.

  “My name is there,” he pointed, “and down here…” his finger moved along the lords and ladies, the honourables and the sirs to the very last line “… and the assistance of a generous lady who wishes only to be known as Miss H—I——”

  I squeaked in surprise and quickly placed a hand to my mou
th.

  Allenham smirked. “It is a new English translation of The Sorrows of Young Werther, completed and printed but two months ago.”

  “But…” I began, overwhelmed. “My lord, this is too kind. I know not what to say.” I flushed with embarrassment.

  “Nonsense,” he chided. “It is yours… to keep.”

  “I shall treasure it.”

  He was now standing quite near to me, and though at a respectable distance, the unease and lengthy pauses between us had grown too conspicuous to ignore.

  “Come,” said he, quite abruptly. “There is something I should like to show you.” With that, he pushed open the door against the far wall.

  For a moment, I hesitated. I could not do otherwise, for something had tugged me backward, some prick of pain in my heart. I knew I should not be there, at Herberton. I thought of my dear late sister, my father and Lady Stavourley, who had visited only months before. It was not my right to be here, to tread upon these floors, to have Allenham at my side. “These were my father’s apartments,” he announced. “Those in which you slept were my mother’s, and my grandmother’s before her.” He neglected to mention that his father’s rooms, those through which we passed, were presently his. An admission such as that would have rendered our being there entirely improper.

  He took me through a salon of sorts, a large, square room decorated in faded sea-green. A small rococo clock clicked and chattered upon the mantel. Surrounding it, hanging above it, reaching from the skirting boards up to the architraves, were row upon row of masterworks.

  “I had thought so often… so often of showing you this room, dear Henrietta,” Allenham began, sounding rather more breathless than I had heard him in the past. “I would often imagine you here, as you are now, copying the paintings. Learning from Titian and Caravaggio.” He smiled, gesturing to a lute-player and then to a bare-shouldered woman. “The sun comes in so brightly from the west, I had always thought you could make good use of the morning light to—” Then he stopped himself, recalling what terrible occurrences had prevented his plan from bearing fruit. He bore the shame and discomfort of my presence as much as I, and neither of us knew how to speak of it, or how to avoid it.

  “Rosalba Carriera. Do you know of her? The Venetian paintress?” said he, turning my attention to a pastel portrait beside the mantel. “That is my grandmother, Lady Allenham. She was a Scotswoman, a baroness. The family title came through her line. The gentleman with the mask in his hand, just there, is my grandfather, Sir George Allenham, after whom I am called.”

  “This is a marvel,” I announced, roaming my gaze about the walls, for it truly was. “There are so many treasures here. When you spoke of art and beauty, I did not appreciate you were a connoisseur…”

  “I fear it was my father, and his father, who were the collectors. There is not the means at present to further decorate the walls. And my tastes differ from theirs… I should like to commission Mr. Fuseli to create a grand series, or else purchase a fire scene, a view of Vesuvius by Mr. Wright. Images of the sublime; fire and snow and the like.” The Baron’s face was aglow. “Mr. de Loutherbourg too,” he added.

  “You have a taste for the modern, my lord,” I laughed.

  “But the ancient amuses me just as well,” he parried. “I shall show you what I mean…” He beckoned me towards another doorway.

  The sea-green room gave way to a smaller closet, the sort kept by gentlemen collectors. It was a space not much bigger than an antechamber, but filled with an assortment of curiosities. My eyes struggled to take in the profusion and variety of objects. From floor to ceiling were all manner of jewels: miniature paintings, landscapes and devotional scenes, surrounded with elaborate frames, some in gold, others in ebony and silver. There were triptychs, studded with rubies, a diamond-encircled portrait of Elizabeth I, and dancing shepherds and gods in nearly every corner. Were it not for the cabinets, the Roman couch and rosewood table, I might have imagined myself to have stepped into a strong box of valuables.

  Allenham permitted me to stare in wonderment as he pulled a drawer from a marquetry cabinet. He then laid it on a small table at the centre of the room.

  “Come,” he signalled me.

  There, nestling in a row of grooves, were perhaps eighty or more antique gems and cameos. They appeared at first like an assortment of large, colourful buttons, but as I examined them, their exceptional beauty and rarity grew apparent. Each was entirely distinct, no one among them resembled another in shape or hue or design. Some were of dark onyx stone, others green as moss, red like blood or the translucent violet of amethyst.

  His lordship held one to the light, so I might see it. There before me was a minutely carved scene of the Three Graces, their hands clasped together. The sight of it made me giggle with pleasure. He took another from the drawer. This one was set within a thin frame of tooled gold and featured a chariot drawn by charging horse.

  “These were made by Roman craftsman,” he marvelled, drawing forth a pale oval. “When I was a boy, my father would permit my brother and me to admire them—to hold the ancient world in our hands.” He then laid the object in my hand, resting his fingers along my palm.

  The intimacy of his action caused us both to fall silent. His hand sat in mine, a flat rose-coloured cameo residing between his touch and my flesh. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he slowly moved his thumb against the inside of my wrist. “Henrietta,” he began, his eyes fixed on our joined hands, “that you should be here, alone with me is… inappropriate. I would not wish any harm to come to you.”

  As he spoke, a sense of embarrassment came over me, for I recognized the truth of his words.

  “You know what the world thinks of a young lady who elopes from her home.”

  “I do,” said I solemnly.

  “You must understand, my good opinion of you will never alter, but others will not look so favourably upon your action. Your character will not be easily redeemed.”

  I swallowed hard and turned my head from him.

  “I know what the world thinks.” There was a note of pride in my tone. “I know what this deed will make me in the eyes of others. But what choice had I? To whom else might I have gone, my lord? I have not a friend in the world, not one person who bears any…” I stopped myself from uttering my thoughts and studied my hand in his. It appeared small and pink, like the cameo he pressed into it. “Do not think I have not considered all of which you warn me. I know what it is that I do.”

  Allenham listened to my words closely. Indeed, I had never spoken so plainly in all my life. These were not the sentiments of Henrietta Ingerton, the obedient child, the frightened mouse, the well-bred young lady. My admission was bold and shocking, even to myself.

  He continued to stand, composed and still.

  “What you intended to say… the word you withheld…”

  I looked up at him.

  “… was love. You wished to say that I bore more love for you than any one person in the world. But you prevented yourself.” Allenham’s clear blue eyes were full of question.

  I shook my head. “I did not… I was not… certain…”

  “My Lotte, my Lotte…” he breathed, suddenly full of fire. He took my other hand into his. “That I love you more than any one person in the world is undeniable, and now…” He guided me to the small sofa that lay behind us, his face beaming with a sort of feverish joy. “I had longed to have you here, beside me, but never dared believe it… my darling, my own dear love…” He stroked my cheek until it positively burned red.

  It was when he released my hand from his grasp that I noticed the cameo. There, rather to my surprise, was Venus, lying upon her side, bare but for her sandals, and her paramour Mars leaning in to love her.

  My heart sprang into a gallop, but how it maintained its speed, I know not, for I had hardly the means to breathe. Upon that instant I knew what was to become of me, for I held a picture of it in my very palm.

  I gathered the courage to look at the
smooth contours of his face, the dark, finely shaped brows that framed the cool colours of his eyes. He sat so near to me that I could detect the clean scent of his warm shirt.

  “My angel, my Venus,” he whispered.

  No sooner had he said it, than his lips were at mine.

  What words have not been written about a first kiss? And, my friends, this was the original kiss of all kisses. His mouth was the first I had ever tasted and it was far softer and more intimate than I had imagined. Yes, I, like any other girl, had spent many a day lounging upon the sofa nuzzling the back of my hand, dreaming of what it might be like. But when the moment comes, it is not at all how one could fathom it to be, but much sweeter and stranger.

  At the start, his kisses were laid delicately upon my lips, and then, when he saw I did not refuse him, he pushed his mouth against mine more forcefully. There seemed to me to be something of a rhythm about it; in fact, it felt to my innocent mind like a dance, where I moved my lips in time with his, meeting them and mirroring their motions. With his hand upon the back of my neck and the other stroking my cheek, the closeness of him became dizzying; so much so that I began to sway under his touch. I hardly knew my own thoughts; my mind grew dull and blank. Our lips were still locked in kisses as he moved to lie against me upon the Roman couch. His breath came steady across my cheek, intensifying with the tempo of his caresses. Soon his hands were upon my hair, my waist and running at the edge of my bodice. Everywhere he touched seemed to come alive, to glow and to throb. These were overwhelming sensations, so new and strong that they frightened me.

  “Oh Henrietta,” he murmured as he rolled his kisses up my neck, “I have thought of nothing but this. I have thought of nothing but you.” He placed his face directly above mine, so that our noses touched and our mouths and eyes were aligned. “I have loved no one but you.” His words entered me with the force of lightning, sucking the very air from my lungs.