Mistress of My Fate

by Hallie Rubenhold

  I was directed into the drawing room where St. John, looking most relieved at my appearance, rose to his feet immediately.

  “Dear little girl!” he exclaimed. “I cannot tell you what a fright you gave me! When I heard you had taken ill, I was simply beside myself. But you look most recovered now…”

  “I am indeed recovered,” I responded quietly.

  St. John examined me, and then, like an uncertain suitor, suddenly pulled his eyes away.

  “Miss Lightfoot,” he began, “I should not like to think that you feel in any way… awkward here, that there is anything which might cause you unease…”

  I recognized that St. John, in his discomfited way, was attempting to learn if his failed attempt to enter my bedchamber last night had been the reason for my distress.

  “Why no,” said I demurely. “Mr. St. John, I apologize if I appear in any way ungrateful for your hospitality, for I can assure you… I… owe you… much…”

  What magic my words performed. It was quite miraculous to behold, for all at once the lines of St. John’s face relaxed. Light filled his eyes and his mouth broadened into a gracious smile.

  “Well, my dear… well, no, it is I who is most grateful, most grateful for your company, madam.” He then turned to a side table upon which sat a large, flat case. “You had mentioned to me the loss of your jewels upon your arrival in London and I wished to make amends for this,” he said, humbly presenting me with the box.

  I looked up at him, his towering height, his sharp, pointed features and slightly weathered countenance, with uncertainty.

  “Go on then, you must open it.”

  Inside lay a pair of pearls nearly as large as the tip of my thumb, set as eardrops on mounts of gold and diamonds. Surrounding them sat a fat double collar of the same.

  “They belonged to your mamma,” said St. John with pride. “She wears them in her portrait.”

  I peeled my eyes from the exquisite jewels and gazed at the woman whose face I had never before clearly seen. She sat almost in profile, an eardrop resting against the edge of her cheek. Her fair head was tilted and her pearl-embellished neck turned as she leaned dreamily towards her right shoulder. Her red, heart-shaped lips were softly parted, her dark grey eyes cast into the distance. In her I saw the shade of myself, many years older and wiser, a veteran of the dissipated world. Her features were as round as mine, her mouth as full, her nose as small and straight. To see the reflection of one’s own face in an object other than a mirror is an odd thing indeed. I was dumbstruck by this image of my own visage on another.

  St. John approached me, delicately lifted the collar from the case and fastened it around my neck, his fingers pressing into my exposed skin. Carefully, he pushed the eardrops into place, running his hand across my cheek as he did so.

  “How beautiful,” he breathed. “You are as radiant as she ever was.”

  I knew what was expected of me. I knew that if I were to remain here, in this haven of peace and warmth, where I should be fed and clothed and protected, that St. John would demand something in return. Nothing goes for nothing in this world. Between my taste of life at the Bull and my introduction to the manners of London, I had learned this lesson quite quickly. I dread to think what might have become of me had I been dim-witted. No, I would give St. John what he desired, but I too would exact a price, and it would be one that my self-satisfied host did not even know he paid.

  And so I went to my bed that night prepared for St. John to renew his attempt to visit me. I left both doors unlocked and unbarred, but before I did, I also took a precautionary measure.

  As St. John believed me to have my virgin’s honour, it was beholden upon me to play my part, and to play it well. Should I shrink from this task, all would be overturned. I cast around my mother’s dressing table for some inspiration. At first I alighted upon the scissors, and intended that I should make a small cut along my inner thigh, near enough to my privy parts that St. John should think he drew the maiden’s blood from me, but stopped when my eyes fell on the hardened brick of carmine. Was this not a pigment like any I had mixed on my artist’s palette? And had artists from time in memoriam not replicated the precise sanguinary colour upon their canvases? I paused in thought for a moment, and then rang for a servant to bring me a glass of port wine.

  With some skill, I mixed a paste of reds, which I then took on my finger and pushed deep inside me. When St. John fired his attack, I figured all would come loose, and my honour would be preserved.

  I shall tell you, reader, this entire charade, this duplicitous and immoral act did not please me, not for one moment. What worsened it still was the thought that this deception was intended to secure yet another, larger falsehood. As I returned to my bed and extinguished the light, I lay perfectly still. I gently pressed my thighs together, fearing that my maidenhead might fall away before my seducer claimed it. My heart thumped very loudly indeed as I listened for his inevitable approach.

  There were many things I had considered before I had gone down to dinner that night. I had resolved that if St. John was to have me, he should also have my child. He should believe it was his own. He should never know of its true father, no matter how I pined for Allenham, no matter how determined I remained in my heart that we should be reunited. And oh, dear friends, I can assure you, this scheme disgusted me with the horror that you now suffer on my part! I recoiled at what I was forced to become—forced, yes, forced, I say, for you tell me, you disdainful censors, what other choice had I? Before you hurl this book across the room and condemn me with all the accusing disgust of Lord Dennington and his friends, I beg you to consider that I did it not to gratify some malicious urge within my breast but to secure the life of an innocent unborn. Were it in her power, no mother would willingly see her child brought into a life of poverty and illness. I would be a dullard indeed to let St. John exact his pleasure from me without seizing the moment to place a cuckoo’s egg in his richly adorned nest. Should my plan come to fruition, my child would enjoy all the gifts and protection of St. John’s wealth until the return of its true and adoring father. If not this, then what, dear reproachful reader, would you have done? Sent your infant on to the streets? To the foundling hospital? Orif they would not have it, would you hand it over to some slatternly nurse, who would allow it to starve? Have pity, my friends, have pity.

  Just as I had predicted, my intruder tried the handle of my door shortly after my candle had been snuffed. I shut my eyes tightly at the sound of his feet, for it was all I could do to contain my horror at what I knew must come to pass.

  “Henrietta, dear…” he whispered, “I fear I heard you cry out. Are you well?”

  “Quite well, thank you,” I murmured against my pillow. My face was turned from him, and a good thing it was, for his excuse to gain access to my bedchamber was so uninventive as to be laughable.

  My answer did not satisfy him, and how could it have? He came for one purpose alone. He lingered and then placed himself upon the edge of my bed.

  “Darling girl…” he ventured, beginning to stroke my hand, “perhaps it was the torments of my own mind I heard. Oh dear, lovely creature,” he breathed, “you have captivated me entirely. I am now without hope for happiness! Pray, my love, you would not see one who adores you so ardently in such anguish?” said he, moving his hand to my face.

  I jumped involuntarily.

  “Sir,” I commanded him, “leave me be or you will indeed hear me cry out!” These words, my friends, are a true record of my sentiments, for nothing repulsed me more than his touch. Yet I knew St. John would not desist. I recognized that my protests would only fire him further and that he expected me to enact the terror of a reluctant virgin on her wedding night. I would not disappoint him, though it sickened my heart to play this charade.

  I sat up in my bed and drew the coverlet around me, but St. John, as I had anticipated, saw this as a signal to begin his assault. Taking hold of my neck he pushed his lips against mine with great force. I st
ruggled to repel him, turning my head and squirming.

  “I beg of you, do not deny me, my love, my angel, for I should die if you do! I shall kill myself if I cannot claim your heart! What agony you cause me!”

  “Sir!” I cried, as if reading from the very pages of Samuel Richardson’s novels. “I beseech you! Please! My honour! Oh God, preserve me!” I shrieked as he lowered himself on to me and forced apart my legs.

  What cruel devils are men. Had I been truly in a state of innocence, St. John would have brutalized me. There was no tenderness in his actions, only the basest, most fiendish lust. He pushed one finger into my womanhood and I screamed, for not only did it cause me true pain and disgust, but I feared he would discover my carmine trick! Fortunately, the darkness kept my secret. In the morning he would find his nightgown, hands and member stained to his satisfaction.

  How loathsome it was to have him inside of me. The act of love is repugnant when forced. I pity you brides who have no desire for your husbands, for it is this battery that you will forever know, with no understanding of what you might have enjoyed. There is no reason why any woman should be made to submit to a man for whom she does not feel affection. I confess, while he took his pleasure, I sobbed as if my heart would break, the name Allenham unpronounced upon my lips. With his kisses and hands, St. John drew from me the sorrowful remembrances of true love. Under his touch, they rose like a ghost from a lifeless corpse. I can assure you, readers, the tears I shed were entirely real.

  I wept for myself, for my tragedy, for this wicked deed, until my wailing was matched by his groan of exaltation. Then I fell silent. I could not help it. The bargain had been sealed.

  Chapter 23

  I must confess I had been so dreading my intimate encounter with St. John that I could scarcely think of anything beyond it. Foolishly, I had not considered what he might demand of me afterwards, or that he would require me to roll upon my back whenever he desired it.

  The first fortnight was tiresome in the extreme, for he would not let me be. His appetite, once whetted, did not diminish. Though, to my relief, there were some difficulties that slowed his progress.

  A certain friend of St. John’s, to whom I shall soon introduce you, explained to me that long before my protector fell in love with my mother he had been a great enthusiast of women. As a result, he came to know the pox and the clap as well as every Polly and Betsy in Covent Garden. Too many doses of the mercury cure had—how shall I put it?—dampened his ardour. Raising it sometimes proved to be a problem, and, once up, it did not remain so for long. To be frank, I could not have been more pleased to discover this weakness, for it made my existence with him more bearable. Although my youth and beauty revived his powers, the effect was very much like a shovel of coal upon a fire: it flared to life, but soon burned out.

  In that period, he passed every night in my bed, and did not neglect an opportunity to draw me upon his lap, or fondle my thigh, or reach his hand into my bodice. I learned to withstand these pawings and maulings with detached coldness. The act itself I found disgusting on most occasions, until I taught myself some resolve. By this, I mean that I learned to manage by lying perfectly still with my head turned away from him. I left him to grasp and fondle with his heavy hands and probing mouth, while I floated my thoughts elsewhere, towards Allenham. St. John seemed not in the least bit bothered that I flopped as if dead, for I suspect he had never known a bedfellow of his to do otherwise!

  Now, I address my readers of the fair sex when I remark that there are few tasks more difficult for the female spirit to endure than intimacy with a man for whom one feels no passion. In my life, I have been asked by many a married lady, who whispers privately into my ear as we sit upon a couch, how I have learned to contend with the carnal demands of men. By this I have taken them to mean, how do I permit them to have their pleasure without expressing outwardly the revulsion and horror I feel within? I often respond to such delicate enquiries that it requires great fortitude. “But how, how?” rejoined my desperate confidantes.

  “It is not simple,” say I, “but once the strangeness of the man has worn off, it is replaced by a certain familiarity, which in itself gives comfort. Whether he is grossly fat or noisy or covered with wiry hair, one comes to see his humanity. One knows him, and in the breast there grows, if not love, then sympathy, or sometimes a kind of gentle pity.”

  “I suppose,” my questioner will often sigh, resigned to the difficulty of her position.

  The one exception I make to this rule is that of strong smell. I cannot abide it, but I have found that most gentlemen will oblige a woman when she requires them to wash or apply some eau de cologne. In the case of St. John, it was a small mercy that he believed in the use of perfumes and pomades and always kept himself clean.

  Necessity had driven me to depend upon St. John, but I remained determined to reap what I had sown. I resolved to endure my situation only for the time it took to bring Allenham’s child safely into the world. Until that day, my most heartfelt wish was to hide away from public scrutiny, to cower in my mother’s set of apartments, but I knew that my keeper (as I now might call him) would have none of that. Reader, do remember I was not devoid of modesty or sensibility and, at the time, I did not believe this sort of life to suit me. I was still a young girl and had not yet shaken off the yoke of duty and goodness that had been set so firmly upon my shoulders. Notwithstanding Allenham’s encouragement, I had no true independence of mind and no understanding of the world. I was greatly ashamed at what I had become and did not wish those who might recognize me to bear witness to it. More than anything, I feared that my father would see me or that Allenham would hear of my association with another gentleman.

  On the day that followed the loss of my carmine maidenhead, St. John declared that he would like to introduce me to his acquaintances and eventually to make a great show of me in his box at the theatre or to parade me through the Pantheon. We would dance and drink punch and be in company. The very suggestion of this brought an undisguised grimace to my face.

  “No,” I protested, “I would not like it. I should prefer to stay at home,” I added.

  “Come now, my dear,” said he, approaching me and taking my hands in his. “Do not act the fair, injured Clarissa. What came to pass last night happens to most women in their turn, one way or another. No young lady has ever died of it.”

  My chin began to tremble ever so slightly. “But I am ruined,” I muttered, which in part I knew to be true, but which I also understood St. John expected me to say.

  “Nonsense,” said he. “I am here and I love you most ardently. I shall not desert you, little one.” He placed a kiss upon my cold lips.

  “But what will they say of me?” I persisted, expressing a genuine concern.

  “They will say you are a true beauty, one of the most alluring creatures in all of London. And they will say, ‘That St. John, he is a fortunate gentleman to find an angel as lovely as Miss Lightfoot.’ ”

  I looked down at my feet.

  “Tomorrow morning,” he announced, “a mantua-maker will come to call. I have asked her to outfit you in entirely new apparel. You have seen your mamma’s gowns; they now belong to you, and you shall have more beside. A silk draper will also pay a call so you may choose a few more fashionable fabrics to your taste. You shall have pretty little shoes and hats and bonnets and jewels, and all the fripperies that ladies delight in. Now then, does that cause you to smile? May I see your smile?”

  He tipped my chin up and I squeezed a grin along my face.

  I confess, dear reader, at the time, I was not prepared for how much I would enjoy these promised visits. My shame and awkwardness vanished almost as soon as I glimpsed the silk draper, who dazzled me with a rainbow of fabrics in every colour and pattern imaginable. So overwhelmed was I that I suggested he choose on my behalf, and so he selected a lavender lustring and tarnished brass tissue, which he assured me was de goût for this season. These materials were ordered to be sent to the ma
ntua-maker, who arrived just as he was departing. Madame addressed me almost entirely in her native French tongue as she spent the better part of the morning pinning and tacking and measuring. Her two assistants helped her to straighten and pinch the florals, chintzes, silks, taffetas and Indiennes that had been my mother’s wardrobe. She brought with her engravings of the latest styles and suggested that we attach collars here, and make a compress bodice there, that a belt be added to this and a fringe to that. St. John lounged as a silent spectator in the corner of my dressing room, his face set in an expression of lustful approval, as skirts, petticoats, open gowns, stomachers and jackets were put on to and removed from my person.

  Although I had witnessed Lady Stavourley and Lady Catherine beneath the hands of a mantua-maker, until then I had never before been the subject of such a fuss. I do admit, a visit from a fashionable manufacturer of ladies’ attire never fails to tickle the vanity of most women, no matter how modest.

  As I was later to learn, St. John had it in him to be as much of a miser as a spendthrift, but his generosity on this occasion could not be faulted. However, his great show of extravagance was not entirely for my sole benefit. For those among you who are not familiar with the rules of the demi-monde, it is well known that a gentleman is judged not by how well he equips his wife, but by how handsomely he adorns his mistress. My keeper, unencumbered with a spouse and beginning to betray his age, wished to resurrect his standing by parading me about town. Of course, I was completely innocent of this at the time, and was willing to believe that St. John’s gifts were, as he claimed, “a proof of his undying love.” What I had failed to recognize, in the grip of my naivety, was that St. John was preparing me for my grand début. It was as if he had tripped upon an enormous unfinished diamond at his doorstep, and he wished to have it polished and set in gold, to wear for the edification of all who knew him.