My heart was heavy. This return was not at all what I had anticipated.
***
And the goodbye to Elinor had been surprisingly painful.
‘I shall miss you, Eliza,’ she had admitted – rare words from Elinor, who never alluded to her own feelings. ‘I wish you were my daughter.’ And she laid her hand gently on the farewell present I had made her – a muff I had contrived – clumsily enough – from an old remnant of horsehair blanket, with the hair still on the outside, and lined internally with sheepswool from the hedges. It was a poor enough sort of gift, but I had noticed that her hands were always cold; she had a trick of tucking them into her armpits.
‘And I wish, very much, Cousin Elinor, that you were my mother.’ (But not that Edward Ferrars were my father, I thought. Perhaps it was due to his bleak parentage that Nell had become such a pattern of selfishness and spite?)
‘As to your own mother,’ Elinor said hurriedly, ‘my very best advice to you, Eliza, is not to speculate about her. There can be no profit – none, none! – in any conjectures – rather the reverse. Put her entirely out of your mind. That is my most earnest counsel. There – I hear Edward calling. Goodbye, child. You have been such a comfort to me – run along.’
She had raised the clumsy muff to cover her shaking mouth.
‘Goodbye, Cousin Elinor. I – I hope that we meet again soon.’
But a brief gesture of her head seemed to deny any such possibility.
***
By the holy mistletoe, I thought furiously, women lead miserable, driven lives. And why? There is poor Elinor, frozen and half-starved all because of the stupid pride and illiberality of that block she chose to marry; and here is Mrs Jebb, who has friends, a house of her own and a comfortable competence, yet cast into such a state of distress, perhaps, by an act of injustice that did not even happen.
If that is what had led to her condition?
I sought the company of Pullett, who was in my bedroom putting away my clothes.
‘Lord bless ye, Miss Liza, what a state your chemises be in! Anyone can see there was no fine laundress at Delaford.’
‘Why, you see, I had to wear one on top of another, in order not to freeze to death. And there was only cold water for washing. But, Pullett, what in the world has happened to Mrs Jebb? And where is Pug?’
‘Someone smashed his head in with a brick,’ said Pullett, tight-lipped. ‘My belief, it was that Wetherell from the draper’s store.’
‘Why? Why would he do such a thing?’
‘To put a fright on Missis. He’ll not let up on her. He still hopes to prove she took his goods. And – trouble is – she’ve been in the shop a couple more times – when she can give me or Thomas the slip – to turn over the things on the counter and tease him. She have a fair streak of wickedness, the Missis – there’s no denying. And when she’s a bit glum-spirited – why, then, the wickedness come out uppermost.’
I found it hard not to sympathize with Mrs Jebb. Wetherell was such a tallowy, bracket-faced fellow. But I could see the provocation on both sides.
‘And what about Mrs Busby? Why did she give me the cold shoulder?’
Pullett looked even more troubled. ‘Well, Miss, there’s been sad tales going around since ye left Bath.’
‘About me? Was it that wretched business with Lord Harry and his mates?’
She nodded unhappily. ‘Yes, love. Seems that young – well, I won’t soil my mouth with the word – seems he went up to London and spread the tale about that he and his cullies had all tumbled ye, in the beeches. And he carried off your shawl to prove it.’
‘In London? But who knows or cares about me in London?’
Then, with a sinking heart, I remembered Nell Ferrars and the Lauderdales.
‘And the word come back to here. So, I’m feared, Miss,’ Pullett went on, with a nod towards the mantelshelf, ‘that they won’t have ye no more, up at Mrs Haslam’s. And Mrs Jebb’s friends have all fallen off, too.’
I had not noticed the letter leaning against the candlestick. My hands shook with anger as I opened and read the single page.
‘Yes; you are right. This is my quittance from Miss Orrincourt. What a fool I was, to think it would all blow over so readily. But why should Mrs Jebb’s friends fall away because of me? I can leave her house – I will do so directly – why should she suffer for my errors?’
‘No, no, don’t leave her, love. That’d be as much as to say the story was true. Besides, Rachel and Thomas and me, we just about reckon as how you be madam’s only hope.’
‘Oh, no, Pullett! Don’t say so! She wasn’t at all happy to see me.’
‘Nay, that scolding’s only her way, Miss. She missed ye sore. If you can’t get her off the laudanum, Miss Liza, nobody can.’
Pullett gathered up an armful of bedraggled muslins and left me.
I went over dejectedly to the sill, and looked out. Beechen Cliff, the scene of my reputed defloration, looked green and verdant. A thrush sang loud trills in a garden nearby. If only those gossips knew half the real truth about me, I thought sourly. How much more ammunition they would have for their spiteful onslaughts. I looked over towards the distant hills where Byblow Bottom lay, and remembered my first arrival in Bath, when I had sorrowed and yearned for Triz and Lady Hariot and Mr Bill and Mr Sam. Where were those friends now? Lost! Irretrievably lost!
I remembered lines by Mr Bill:
Poor Outcast! return; to receive thee once more
The house of thy father will open its door
And thou once again in thy plain russet gown
May’st hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.
If only my father’s house might open its doors to me, I thought, how gladly would I dart between them and disembarrass my friends of my inconvenient presence. But where was that house?
No: that was the wish of a coward. Pullett and Rachel were placing their dependence on me. They hoped that I could restore Mrs Jebb’s spirits.—But to what end, poor woman? Her friends had deserted her, Mr Wetherell was persecuting her; it seemed to me that she had fair justification for wishing to dull her senses with laudanum. Why try to drag her back to a sharper awareness of all these ills?
Squaring my shoulders, I walked downstairs.
***
Life in New King Street for the next three weeks was decidedly odd. I spent most of my time playing cribbage with Mrs Jebb. Going out of doors during the hours of daylight was not advisable. It was too uncomfortable. So many people in Bath – from the school, from the concerts – knew me well that I could not go as far as the chemist’s shop on the corner without encountering a raised eyebrow, a hastily unfurled fan, an averted profile or an open sneer. What irked me more than all was the need to maintain control, not to retaliate in kind, not to hurl a Byblow Bottom expletive after these credulous scandal-carriers.
But that would only injure Mrs Jebb. As to myself, I cared little. The very moment that she was back on her feet, I intended to shake the dust of Bath off my own. My next destination remained for the moment uncertain; perhaps to Plymouth, to sell soap to sailors; or to Lisbon, to seek out little Triz and Lady Hariot; or, possibly, to London-town, to follow my fortune. Hoby was there; he had done poorly in some Tripos examination at Cambridge, and his father had accordingly found him a post in a government office.
‘Failure in scholarship seems the best recomentation for such work,’ he wrote cheerfully – spelling had never been Hoby’s strong suit – ‘two-thirds of the other fellows in the office have arrived by the same path.’
No wonder our country seemed in imminent danger of being captured by the French!
Mrs Jebb slowly clawed her way back to her usual state of pallid but rational inactivity and dour cynicism. Her own obstinacy and some bullying by myself were the main factors in this partial recovery.
‘I have be
aten you three times running at cribbage, ma’am; you are not concentrating on the game,’ was the sharpest weapon in my arsenal. She could not concentrate with her brain dulled by laudanum. And she could not bear to be beaten, specially by me. So by degrees the doses were lowered, from two quarts to a pint, from a pint to a dram or two.
I began to have hopes. And Mrs Jebb began to make plans.
‘I shall sell this house – which I have never liked above half – and we shall transport ourselves elsewhere. But where? – that’s the question, as Hamlet kept on saying.’
By now I had a possible answer.
‘Oh, ma’am! Let us go to Portugal!’
‘To Portugal, child? Why, in the name of goodness?’
‘I have some good friends there. And it is said that the climate is very healthy. And – and – and the wine is very agreeable. And the ways of society are free and friendly.’
‘English society? I am not, at my age, about to learn that barbaric Portuguese tongue.’
‘No, no, very many English families live out there. Because of the port-wine trade.’
‘Well – well –’ she said. ‘It may be worth considering.’ A faint gleam came into her eye. She added, ‘I will consult Penwith about it.’ Penwith was her lawyer. By now I knew that Mrs Jebb lived on an annuity which, with her usual sense, she had bought with the final remnants of her husband’s estate.
My thoughts began to range, hopefully, around a midsummer removal to Oporto. We could get a ship from Bristol. I began to make notes of sailings.
Pullett and Rachel were quite in favour of the scheme.
‘Missis needs a change of air,’ said Pullett. ‘Bath never did suit her above half.’ ‘I always did want to see some foreign place,’ said Rachel. ‘And Miss’s hand shows a removal overseas, plain as plain. Haven’t I allus said so? And the tea-leaves likewise.’
Only Thomas was doubtful. ‘Learn that lingo? Never!’ he said.
Matters were in this train when I encountered Mrs Jeffereys, née Partridge.
I had not forgotten her letter. But at Delaford there had been no opportunity to answer it. And now that I was in disgrace, elected by popular accord to be the Black Sheep of Bath, I could not imagine that she would wish to initiate an acquaintance with such a person. So I had not answered her communication. (Though I hugely regretted the loss of a chance to learn, perhaps, something about my mother, I judged it unfair to Mrs Jebb to lay open any more possible avenues of scandal and gossip.)
However one evening when I had slipped out, after dusk, for a breath of fresh air, I heard myself accosted by a voice, an eager whisper.
‘Miss FitzWilliam! Oh, Miss FitzWilliam!’
I had made for the river and was walking on the quayside, immersed in reflections about boats, and sailors, and the voyage to Portugal.
‘Miss FitzWilliam !’
I turned and saw a smallish female figure tripping rapidly after me. When she came up, I fancied that her face was someway familiar; I must have seen it, several times, perhaps, in the Pump Room or at the Assembly Rooms. Twenty years ago it must have been ravishingly pretty: round-eyed, neat, and pink; the black curls were still assembled in girlish clusters over the brow and beside the cheeks. And she dressed, as ladies will who as yet strive after their lost youth, in a pink mantle with rosebuds peeping coquettishly under the brim of her hat. A gauze scarf did little to veil her features. She carried a pink parasol.
‘Oh, dear! I have had such ado to follow you! How very fast you walk! I thought that I should never catch up! It is Miss FitzWilliam, is it not? I could not mistake?’
Her voice had a Welsh lilt. Not strong, but perceptible. Very appealing.
‘Yes, I am Eliza FitzWilliam.’
‘Clara Jeffereys,’ she panted. ‘Partridge that was. My husband – Mr Jeffereys – he keeps the big ironmonger’s store in Cheap Street – you must know it – and my mother – Mrs Partridge – lets rooms in Edgards Buildings – very select rooms, and to ladies only; any lady who goes into public under the auspices of my mother is sure of meeting very superior society.’
I was happy to hear it, but not certain how any of this applied to me.
‘Mrs Jeffereys – I am not certain if you are aware that – I am under something of a cloud, at present, here in Bath? In fact you may be courting social ruin merely by speaking to me here in the street.’
‘Oh, such stuff! As if I cared!’ Though in fact she took a careful glance up and down the quay, which was, at that hour, deserted. ‘It is true that Mr Jeffereys did not think – which is why I hoped to encounter you some day, in the street – but it is all great nonsense, and I daresay will blow over soon enough – though most vexing for you naturally – and I can see how the story about your poor mama – if that should be revived – would, most unfortunately, incline people to believe the worst.’
‘Mrs Jeffereys!’ I cried. ‘What is the story about my poor mama? Nobody will tell me. Nobody answers my questions. Who was my mother? What happened to her? Do you know? Can you tell me? All I know of her is that she died at the age of seventeen!’
Mrs Jeffereys looked very astonished.
‘Why, who in the world ever told you that? What stuff!’
‘You mean – she is still alive?’
‘When I last heard – dear, oh dear, how long ago was that?’ She counted on her fingers. ‘Ten or twelve years ago, perhaps. She chanced to be passing through Bath, with Lord – with a friend – and they stayed at the White Hart – and she sent me a note – and we met – of course I did not dare to let Mr Jeffereys know, but very fortunately he was away visiting his elder sister in Taunton. Oh, we had such a gossip over old days! We were at school together, you see, your mama and I, here in Bath – not Mrs Haslam’s, but another, very select school. And then – you see – Colonel Brandon took her away, but he permitted her to come back here for a visit to my family – my dear papa was still alive then, of course. And Eliza and I had such charming walks and talks together.’
This recital left me quite breathless.
‘Wait a minute, ma’am – you say that my mother was in Bath a few years ago?’
‘Yes, yes – that was later on, of course. Eliza said she had called in at the place where you were brought up – Nether Hinton, was it? – but there had been no chance to see you.’
‘Did she leave me a fan?’
‘That I cannot tell you, dear, but it is very probable. Eliza always had the kindest, sweetest disposition; indeed, that has, so many times, led her into difficulties, for people will so often take advantage of her good nature –’
‘You are telling me that my mother is still alive?’
‘But that is what I am wishful to ask yow!’ Halted in her flow, Mrs Jeffereys stared at me, round-eyed. ‘That was why I have been so anxious to seek you out! I made sure you must be her daughter – you are so very alike in feature and colour – I thought you would be certain to have knowledge of her whereabouts.’
‘But I have always understood that she was dead.’
She bit her lip. ‘I suppose – people are so – and then, Colonel Brandon – a kind man, but strait-laced. Yes, I see how it must have been. Well, and the Colonel had his troubles too. Eliza’s mother – she was the Colonel’s own cousin – she did die, in horrid straits, I believe, and the Colonel, by all accounts, he himself reared little Eliza, my Eliza, you know – by hand, as you might say. She was his godchild.’
‘Not his daughter?’
‘Oh, no, my love. Nobody knew who her father was. Her mother had been married to the Colonel’s elder brother, you see, dear – but then, she ran away from him – he was a monstrous brute, by all accounts. And he died – very fortunately – so the Colonel inherited the estate and came back from India, and sought out Eliza – he had loved her himself, you see, to distraction – but he was only the younger brother so might not mar
ry her – but it was too late and by the time he found her, she died. And so he reared her child – your mother.’
‘Colonel Brandon loved my grandmother and she died? And he brought up her daughter?’
‘I’m telling you, dear! So then, the daughter – my Eliza – fell in love with Willoughby.’
The name struck my heart like a gong.
Willoughby. W.
Willoughby.
‘Did he have black hair?’
‘Oh, like a raven! I think he was the handsomest man I ever saw in my entire life!’
‘Where did she meet him?’
‘Why, here, in Bath. When she was staying with my family. Willoughby came from a place in Somerset, Allenham – he used to stay there with his aunt. Some day it would be his, he said. He met us at the Pump Room. That was after Eliza and I had left school. Oh, he was so charming! So spirited! So full of elegance, and wit, and humour, and poetry. And address! To see him and your mother together – why it was like – it was like –’ Mrs Jeffereys sought about for a simile, but in vain. At last she said simply, ‘Well, there was never anything like it.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Well,’ Mrs Jeffereys said. She furled and unfurled her parasol once or twice. ‘In the end, he persuaded her to run off with him – to Gretna Green, he said they were going; but I am afraid they never did reach Gretna – and I am afraid he never did marry her, for a year or two later I read in the paper that he married a Miss Grey, a lady of property, up in London – it was said she had fifty thousand pounds. Ah, he had a fickle nature, I fear. And no money of his own. By that time I myself was engaged to be married – to Mr Jeffereys, you know – and Papa was very – so I never did discover, at that time, what had become of my poor dear unfortunate friend. But I believe that the Colonel called Willoughby out, and that shots were exchanged.’
And much good that did my poor mother, I thought.
‘Do you know anything about the lady the Colonel married? Miss Marianne Dashwood?’