Next moment Hoby had wrapped his arms around me and, with his cheek against mine, was murmuring urgent phrases of comfort into my ear.
‘Liza-loo!’ (That had been his name for me in the old days.) ‘Little one! Dear one! Don’t! Don’t cry so! Hush! Listen! Don’t carry on so! I didn’t mean to be unkind. It’s just – I can’t stand to see you, like an apple on a tree, so far out of reach! It’s no use, I love you – I love you – always have, I do believe. Ever since the old days. That’s why – that’s why – oh, please try to stop crying!’
Like the Duke, he fetched out a kerchief and tried to mop my face.
‘I am not crying!’ I gasped. ‘I never cry. Perhaps I am laughing.’
Indeed, for one moment, I almost could have laughed from sheer astonishment. It felt so comfortable, so familiar, to sit thus, enclosed in the circle of Hoby’s arms; I leaned against him, thinking we might be up on the moor in a clump of heather, or snug under my windbreak on Growly Head.
But we were not.
Soon I pulled myself out of his arms, stood, drew in a deep breath and shook myself to rights.
‘No, dear Hoby, we mustn’t do this. It is wrong. We don’t belong to each other any more. I have my place here. You have yours in London –’
‘But listen, Liza! You are not married to old Cumbria, there is no binding legal tie –’
‘Oh, don’t be so – so nonsensical! Of course there is no legal tie. But there are a thousand other ties of – of affection, gratitude, respect – duty –’
‘But it is unnatural. He is more than twice your age –’
‘And what is so unusual about that? There are more disparate marriages made every day.’
‘If you come away to London with me –’
I said: ‘Are you asking me to marry you, Hoby?’
There was a long silence. And then he said, ‘It would not be possible to do that, Liza. Not at this time. My career, you see, is just commencing to make good progress – I have many first-rate connections – commissions – thanks to Mr Nash; I am invited to great houses and consulted by people who, three years ago, would not even have known my name – it is all beginning to move so fast –’
‘Yes, I quite understand,’ I said politely. ‘There would not in this dazzling scene be space enough for a wife who was a duke’s leavings, who had been rolled on Beechen Cliff by the Bath Beaux; who had come in the first place from Byblow Bottom.’
I began to walk away from him.
He ran quickly after me, and now he sounded most urgent, even heartsick. ‘But, Liza, I love you! I hardly understood how much, until now! Don’t you remember those old days at all? You must! You loved me then – I swear you did! Lord, how we used to go it! Don’t you remember?’
‘What I remember is of no consequence.’
‘Please don’t go in, Liza! Don’t leave me yet!’
But I did leave him, and walked indoors to where the Duke was bidding goodbye to his guests. As was customary on such occasions, I stood a pace or two behind him and curtseyed silently to them, receiving silent bows and a few smiles in return.
Next morning I kept to my room until Mr Nash and his assistant had departed. The Duke seemed a little disappointed that I had not come out to breakfast with them and bid them farewell.
‘I thought, my dear, that you would have more to say to Mr Hobart, your old playmate. Such a conversable, agreeable young fellow! Didn’t you have a fine time with him talking over the old days in Byblow Bottom?’
The Duke was always entertained by tales of that disorderly place.
But I said, ‘No, well, you see, sir, Mr Hobart has grown so very respectable now, that it is best not to remind him of those times.’
‘What a pity! And what about your water-garden? Shall I call in McPhee and give him orders about it?’
‘No, my dear sir, I have thought carefully about it, and I do not believe that it is worth breaking up your beautiful turf. So I have changed my mind. Instead I would prefer that you take me up to London for a few days; Mr Nash told me that the ladies’ shops are now full of wonderful French fashions, brought over from Paris.’
Chapter 13
That summer of 1814, when the whole population of England seemed to be singing, dancing, letting off fireworks, entertaining foreigners, or departing to visit the continent, which had been for so long out of reach, found me listless, disenchanted and forlorn. When the Duke visited London to observe the junketings, I had no wish to accompany him and most often remained at Zoyland.
‘What is the matter, my dear?’ he asked me, over and over. ‘What is it that you lack? What can I do for you?’
‘Nothing, my dear sir, thank you, nothing at all. You are kindness itself, and I have everything in this world that I can possibly ask for.’
Except, I could have said, the things that money cannot purchase: my childhood restored to me, with some alterations; my friends returned, my lost loved ones replaced, all the cracks and chasms in my life mended and refilled.
On one occasion when I was alone, the Duke being away in London making a speech in the House of Lords, I took a foolish toss while riding somewhat recklessly in the park at Zoyland and was obliged to lie abed for a few days with a cracked collarbone. The Duke came anxiously hastening back from London, and consulted over me with the faithful Dr Swinton, who had been his private medical attendant for the last twenty years, and who had looked after my mother also.
The two men remained in muttered conference at the far end of my bedroom for a long and tedious time, while Pullett fidgeted about, folding towels and unfolding them again, moving articles from one place to another, in order to have an excuse to pass near them and overhear what they were saying to one another.
‘Imagine it! His Grace is asking the doctor whether you might have thrown yourself down a-purpose!’ she reported indignantly.
‘How ridiculous! As if I would ever do such a thing!’
In any case, thought I to myself, if ever I wished to put a period to my existence, I would certainly never arrange to do it in such a hit-or-miss fashion.
‘And now they are talking about your mother,’ she reported, bringing me a piece of lemon peel to rub on my fingers.
‘My mother! What in the world has she to do with my falling off a horse?’
This the Duke told me, after the doctor had gone, in forthright terms (for which I was thankful, as Dr Swinton, though a skilled practitioner, was always so embarrassed when attempting to explain himself to a female that he sank into a morass of unintelligible euphemisms).
‘It seems, my dear, that the good doctor took the opportunity to examine you thoroughly while you were unconscious from your tumble. He feared, you see, that you might have done yourself a mischief in the lumbar region – or, possibly, that you might suffer from the same disability as your poor dear mother, so that it would be dangerous for you to give birth to an infant.’
I stared at the Duke, dumbstruck.
‘But,’ he went on, ‘although Swinton tells me that you are somewhat narrow in that area – so that due care and precautions should certainly be taken – he sees no inherent impossibility.’
‘Very obliging of him to concern himself,’ said I. ‘But the contingency seems a remote one; I do not precisely understand its relevance to my cracked collarbone.’
‘Why, my dear,’ the Duke said simply, ‘the good doctor and I are not blind, you see, and we can neither of us help noticing that you have been decidedly moped these last months; have pined, gone off your oats, grown somewhat peakish and mumchance. And we put our heads together, do you know, and wondered if it might not be possible to kill two birds with one well-aimed stone.’
Now I continued silent, half out of sheer puzzlement, half because I had a grisly guess as to what might be coming.
‘No use beating about the bush,’ went on the Duke. ‘L
ife you lead here ain’t really natural for a gel of your age. Can’t deny it. And here am I, unable to supply your needs but still, dammit! eager and wishful to secure an heir for this estate, so that it need not fall into the hands of that devilish bore, Stannisbrooke.’
‘But, sir –’
‘Let me finish, my dear,’ said he, holding up a hand. ‘Very attached to you – and I know that you are fond of me, any dunce could see that – but still, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse. —What I mean is, I would not take it amiss if you felt inclined to kick over the traces, just a trifle, and supply me with a little counterpart – ideally a boy, don’t you see – who might be just the thing to content us both; give me a successor for this house, which I dearly love, and you an occupation, someone else to care for and tend – hey?’
His rolling magisterial tones came to a stop, and he peered at me from under his bushy eyebrows.
‘But who, my dear sir,’ said I, after a careful pause, ‘who is to be – whom are you casting as the progenitor of – of this useful little person? I see many snags to your plan, but the first one is that so few – ahem – potential fathers come our way, here at Zoyland.’
And not a single one that I care a fig for, I added internally.
The Duke looked a little confused. ‘Well, my dear, I did wonder about that personable young spark who travelled down with Nash and gave you instruction in water-divining – hum? After all, he’s an old acquaintance of yours, you said that you had known him since childhood, it’s not as if he was a stranger – d’ye see? Old friends, you are. There need be no great delicacy in the matter.’
‘But – good God, sir – there are two sides to such a proposition. Quite apart from my feelings – which we will not at present enter into – Mr Hobart might not see his way –’
‘Hem!’ said the Duke. ‘As to that – not to put too fine a point upon it – I believe Mr Hobart might be persuadable. Indeed yes.’
My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. No words came to me.
‘Make substantial provision, naturally,’ said the Duke. ‘All drawn up legally and shipshape. Remain in Zoyland for your lifetime – goes without saying. Of course there will be a heavy sum to pay for the tax, since there is no kinship involved, but that would be no bar to your child inheriting – ’
He beamed at me, quite rosy with enthusiasm over his plan.
‘Your dear mother would be so pleased!’
‘You asked Mr Hobart? You put this scheme to Mr Hobart?’
‘Over a glass of claret at White’s,’ nodded the Duke.
‘And he said?’
‘Surprised at first – to be sure – a trifle confused – but – yes – though properly diffident, quite properly so – I believe he might be persuadable.’ The Duke added, after a moment’s thought, ‘He is a young man of very correct sentiments. Very correct. He talked about this house – about Zoyland – in a most discerning manner. He has an eye for beauty.’
As well he might, thought I.
‘I do not believe there would be any especial hindrance in that quarter,’ the Duke concluded.
Keeping my tone severely neutral, I replied, ‘No, my dear sir, I fear that the insuperable difficulty lies here – ’ and I pointed at my own breast.
‘Eh? My dear?’ cried the Duke, greatly disconcerted. ‘Can you not fancy the young fellow, then? I quite thought – I understood – I believed –’
‘I would prefer not to conjecture what you believed, sir,’ said I.
‘Coming from Othery – as you do – and then, you know, that other little escapade in Bath?’ pursued the Duke, now in rather a melancholy manner as if he felt ill-used. ‘I thought, you know, that you might find yourself in a more complaisant, accommodating frame – hey? It’s not, after all, as if you was one of those starchy, touch-me-not young ladies that one used to be obliged to take on to the floor at Almack’s – thank the Lord!’
‘I am truly sorry to disoblige you, my dear sir. But I cannot see my way to it.’
He seemed really cast down; made as if to speak several times, then checked himself; rubbed furiously at his brow with a silk handkerchief.
‘Curse me! And I had been so certain that this scheme would suit everybody,’ he muttered, looking like a forlorn child who has had the promise of a toy inexplicably and arbitrarily withdrawn. He wandered out of my boudoir to his own bookroom, where for two hours after he was to be seen, through the open door, furiously scratching away on paper with a quill pen, apparently crossing out as much as he wrote, crumpling the paper and throwing it down. I wondered if he were attempting to draft a letter to Hoby, informing him that the scheme to provide an heir for Zoyland had come to naught. And – I will not deny – I felt sorry for the Duke, and almost wished it within my power to further his design; but it was not within my power.
That evening, I noticed the Duke stumble when we walked across the hall to supper; and he seemed, once or twice, hesitating in his speech, as if words jostled in his mind like flood wreckage piled against a bridge in the Ashe River; but next morning he appeared his old self again, kindly and solicitous, watchful of my welfare as always.
‘That matter we spoke of yesterday, my dear,’ he said, when we were strolling in the lime avenue, ‘we’ll not speak of it again – hey? Unless, of course, at any time, you see fit to come to another conclusion – in one way or another? Then, you know, you have only to indicate your wishes. Just tip me the nod, and I’ll have the young fellow down before you can say hopscotch.’
‘Thank you, sir. You are very kind to me, always. But I believe I must abide by my decision.’
I sighed; and so did he; and we walked on for many yards in silence.
***
A month later I received a letter from Lady Hariot Vexford.
It was written from Amarante, in Portugal, and had taken, I realized, almost a year to reach me. It had been addressed to me in care of the lawyers at Dorchester (so evidently a letter written by me to Lady Hariot and Triz from Bath, giving Mrs Jebb’s address, had failed to reach them). The lawyers had readdressed the letter to Mrs Haslam’s school, who had passed it to Edward Ferrars who in turn had sent it on to Mrs Jebb’s house in Bath. And from there an uneducated hand (doubtless Mrs Rachel’s) had dispatched it to Mrs Widdence in London, who, amazingly, had directed it to me at Zoyland. (Perhaps she hoped for my custom, now that I lived under such august patronage.)
Dated from the autumn of the preceding year, the letter said:
My dear Eliza,
I write this appeal to you since you are now, I truly believe, the only hope left for my unfortunate daughter, to whom, I know, you once felt a genuine and deep attachment. So well do I remember how kindly, how patiently you helped her with her lessons, sang to her, told her stories, took part in her infant games and fancies, and supplied her with daily companionship in the nurseries and gardens of Kinn Hall. My heart aches almost unbearably when I recall those days which, at the time, seemed anxious and lacking in hope or security; but oh! how peaceful and prosperous they now appear, in comparison with what has befallen us since.
When we first arrived in Portugal we made our home, as I believe I informed you (supposing that my communication ever reached you) with my sister (Lady Anna Foliot) in Lisbon. Her husband was attached to the British Embassy there, but most unfortunately for us he was shortly thereafter transferred to Brazil. My daughter Thérèse had suffered acutely on the voyage out to Portugal; in fact at one point I despaired of her even surviving the sea-passage; so it was out of the question for her to attempt the long and hazardous voyage across the storm-tossed Atlantic Ocean. A Portuguese friend of my sister’s offered us house-room in Oporto; we therefore removed to that town, where I was able to support us (though precariously) by giving lessons in English grammar and literature and the Classics. When the French invaders arrived we were obliged to flee, but were given asyl
um by a kindly group of nuns from the Convent of Santa Clara who had betaken themselves to the inhospitable shelter of a ruined monastery in the mountains to the north of the Douro river. This refuge also we were obliged to leave, after Sir Arthur Wellesley, with wonderful intrepidity, flung his troops across the Douro on barges and drove the French northwards out of the city. We and the holy sisters were likewise driven northwards by the tide of battle and on many occasions barely escaped with our lives.
All that was four years ago. It had been, of course, our intention to return to Porto, as the Portuguese call it, once the invaders had been driven out of the city; but for a long time this was not possible, since the country was utterly wasted; there was no transport; all the horses and mules had been taken off, either by one army or another.
The retreating French were monsters. They fired farms and villages, destroyed crops, hanged poor peasants, put priests to death. For months we lived, if you will believe me, on crows stewed in vinegar, black bread and a little rice. There was no way to go southwards through the mountains except on foot. And my poor child was not equal to that. So we remained, with some of the nuns, in a deserted village where the houses were in ruins. For two years we stayed there, gradually effecting improvements in our situation, spinning and weaving goats’ wool, cultivating gardens, rescuing the shattered vines, growing a little maize by the brook sides, reclaiming pigs that had run wild in the pine woods. At last I was able to send a message to a Mr Croft in Porto (whose daughter I had taught Latin) asking for a loan to enable us to return to the city.
But during this period there were still troops of brigands and freebooters roaming the devastated country: some of them deserters from the defeated French armies, others merely the ruffians of all kinds that war throws up. A band of such vile creatures came to our hamlet. They were possessed by the mad notion that the retreating French army had hidden an earthen pot containing two hundred milreis in gold and silver coins and diamonds from Brazil somewhere in our humble mountain refuge. We could not persuade them otherwise. They dug up all our carefully tended vegetables, tore apart the walls that we had so painfully built and, when they found nothing, vented their fury and disappointment on our small colony of helpless women. Two they bayoneted outright. Perhaps they were the lucky ones. No doubt they are now in Paradise. Me, they did not dare maltreat. Such wretches are highly superstitious and possibly they believed, because of my cast eye, that I was under the protection of the Evil One. They merely tied me with ox-hide ropes to our own loom in the dovecote, where I was obliged, for hours, to listen to the screams of their victims. Among whom was my daughter. Then they left, first setting fire to some of the buildings. Luckily a mountain thunderstorm extinguished those fires, and after hours of struggle I was able to free myself and go to the help of the survivors. Thérèse I found cut, bruised, battered, almost entirely drained of blood. It was a wonder she still lived. The others, hardly in better case. Two died. Slowly, in the following weeks, they made some recovery. But my child has never recovered. She is palsied from the waist down, and cannot move her legs. Also mute. She does not speak, only tears pour from her eyes.