Читать книгу The Wolfe's Mate - Paula Marshall - Страница 6

July 1815

‘Jilted!’ screeched Mrs Mitchell, throwing herself carefully backwards into the nearest comfortable chair. ‘That a child of mine should be left at the altar. Call him out, or horsewhip him, do, Mr Mitchell, it is all he deserves.’

‘Difficult,’ responded her husband drily, ‘seeing that his letter informs us that he was setting sail for France last night!’

His restraint was all the more remarkable because, until an hour ago, he had been loudly congratulating himself on getting rid of his stepdaughter to a husband who was, all things considered, above her touch, he being a peer of the realm, and she a merchant’s daughter and not very remarkable in the looks department.

His wife’s only response was to drum her heels on the ground and announce that she was about to faint—which she did with as much panache as Mrs Siddons performing on stage. Her two young daughters by Mr Mitchell stood helplessly on each side of her, sobbing loudly. Mrs Mitchell’s companion was wringing her hands, and exclaiming at intervals, ‘Oh, the wretch, the wretch.’

The only calm person in the room was the jilted young woman herself, nineteen-year-old Susanna Beverly, who coolly wrenched a feather from her mother’s fan. She held it briefly in the fire and then placed it under Mrs Mitchell’s nose to revive her.

Revive her it did. She started up, exclaiming loudly, ‘Oh, Susanna, how can you be so unmoved when he has ruined you? The news will be all about town by tonight—it will be the sensation of the Season.’

‘Really, Mother,’ replied Susanna, who was clinging on to her self-possession for dear life, after just having been made the spectacle of the Season as well as its sensation, ‘don’t exaggerate. He hasn’t seduced me, only left me at the altar.’

‘Oh, Mr Mitchell,’ shrieked her mother, sitting up at last, ‘pray tell her that he might just as well have done so. Nobody, but nobody, will ever marry a jilted girl! Oh, whatever did you say to drive him away?’

She sank back into the chair again to be comforted by her companion, ignoring Susanna’s quiet reply. ‘Nothing, Mother, nothing. Perhaps that was what drove him away.’ Only her iron will prevented her from behaving in the abandoned fashion of the rest of her family.

Her unnatural calm, however, annoyed her stepfather as well as her mother, however much it was enabling her not to shriek to the heavens at the insult which had been offered her. To arrive at the church, to wait for a bridegroom who had never turned up, and had sent a letter instead of himself—and what a letter!

‘I have changed my mind and have no wish to be married, but have decided to set out for France this evening instead. Convey my respects to Susanna with the hope that she will soon find a more suitable bridegroom than Francis Sylvester.’

It had been handed to her by the best man who, to do him justice, had looked most unhappy while carrying out this quite untraditional role.

Susanna had read it, and then handed it to her stepfather who had been there to give her away. He had read it, then flung it down with an oath, before shouting at the assembled congregation, ‘There will be no wedding. The bridegroom has deloped and is no longer in the country!’

‘Deloped!’ Mrs Mitchell had shrieked. ‘Whatever can you mean, Mr Mitchell?’

‘What I have just said,’ he had roared. ‘Lord Sylvester has cried off. Failed to fire his pistol, or fired it in the air, call it what you will. Come, Susanna and Mrs Mitchell, we must return home before we become more of a laughingstock than we already are.’

Numbly Susanna had obeyed him. Noisily, Mrs Mitchell had done the same, abusing her daughter whose fault she claimed it to be.

Susanna scarcely heard her. Until an hour ago she had been secure in the knowledge that a handsome young man with a title and a moderate fortune, with whom she had just enjoyed several happy summer months, was going to be her husband. She had to confess that she did not love him madly, but then, who did love their husbands madly—other than the heroines of Minerva Press novels?

Nor did she think that he had loved her madly. Nevertheless, they had dealt well together, although their interests differed greatly. Francis Sylvester’s life had revolved around Jackson’s Boxing Salon and various racecourses in the day, and the more swell of London’s gaming hells, where he was a moderate gambler, at night. Susanna’s time, on the other hand, was spent reading, playing the piano, and painting—she was quite a considerable artist. These differences had not troubled either of them for they were commonplace in the marriages of the ton.

This being so, she could not imagine why he had behaved in such a heartless fashion. He had had ample time to cry off during the months of their betrothal when to have done so would not have ruined her as completely as his leaving her at the altar would do.

For Susanna knew full well that what her mother had said was true: to be jilted in such a fashion meant social ruin. Was it her looks? She knew that they were not remarkable—other than her deep grey-blue eyes, that was, on which Francis had frequently complimented her. Her hair was an almost chestnut, her face an almost-perfect oval. Her nose and mouth, whilst not exactly distinguished, were not undistinguished, either.

Her height was neither short nor tall, but somewhere in between. Her carriage had often been called graceful. Susanna, however, knew full well that she was not a raving beauty in the fashionable style which her two half-sisters promised to be. Both of them were blonde, blue-eyed and slightly plump: ‘my two cherubs,’ her stepfather called them.

Nor was her fortune remarkable. Like herself, it might be described as comfortable, her father having died suddenly before he had been able to make it greater. Her stepfather, having daughters of his own to care for—and still hoping for a son—had not considered it his duty to enlarge it.

She straightened herself and held her head as high as she could. There was no use in repining. What was done, was done.

‘I am going to my room,’ she said. ‘Send Mary to me, Mother. I wish to change out of these clothes. They have become hateful to me.’

Even as she spoke, she saw by the expressions on her mother’s and stepfather’s faces that she had become hateful to them: a symbol of their disappointment. Not only had they lost an aristocratic son-in-law, but they were saddled with a daughter who had become unmarriageable.

As her mother said mournfully as soon as she was out of the room, ‘No one will marry her now, Mr Mitchell. Whatever is to become of her?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do not distress yourself further, my dear. Leave everything to me. I shall make suitable arrangements for her. We cannot have Charlotte and Caroline’s reputations muddied by her continued presence. I have great plans for them, as you know.’

His busy, cunning brain had been working out how to deal with this contretemps ever since he had read Francis Sylvester’s letter.

‘Now follow Miss Beverly’s example, my dear, and change out of your unsuitable bridal finery. Let us put this behind us. I shall speak to her in the morning.’

His tone was so firm that his wife immediately ceased her repining. Although he was usually indulgent towards her and all her three daughters, he invariably spoke to them as though they were recalcitrant clerks when he wished to make it plain that they must obey him immediately.

It was thus he addressed Susanna on the following morning when she arrived in his study in response to his request made over breakfast.

‘It is necessary, Miss Beverly, that we discuss your unfortunate situation immediately. It brooks of no delay. I shall expect to see you in my room at eleven of the clock precisely.’

He had never called her Miss Beverly before. Indeed, in the past few months his manner to her had been particularly affectionate, but there was nothing left of that when he spoke to her then, or later on, when she arrived to find him seated at his desk writing furiously.

Nor did he stand up when she entered, nor cease to write, until he flung his pen down and said, ‘This is a sad business, my dear. I was depending on this marriage to see you settled. I was prepared to find the money for your dowry, seeing that the match was such a splendid one, but, alas, now that your reputation has gone and you are unlikely to marry, such charity on my part is out of the question.’

Susanna listened to him in some bewilderment. She had always been under the impression that her father had left a large sum of money in a Trust for her which should have made it unnecessary for her stepfather to extend her any charity at all in the matter of a dowry.

And so she told him.

He smiled pityingly at her. ‘Dear child, that was a kind fib I told you and your mother. Your father left little—he made many unfortunate investments before his untimely death. The Trust was consequently worthless. I was willing to keep you and even give you the dowry your father would have left you when I hoped that you would make a good marriage—as you so nearly did.

‘But, alas, now that your reputation is blown—through no fault of yours, I freely allow—there is no point in me continuing this useful fiction. I have the unhappy task of informing you that, whilst I will assist you towards establishing yourself in a new life, I cannot afford to continue to provide you with either a large income or a dowry.’

Susanna was not to know that there was not a word of truth in what her stepfather was saying. It was he who had made the unfortunate investments, not her father. He had been stealing from the Trust to help to keep himself afloat ever since he had married Susanna’s mother and he now saw a splendid opportunity to annex the whole of it to himself.

His wife would suspect nothing, for her way of life would continue unchanged: Susanna would be the only sufferer.

‘I shall,’ he continued, ‘settle a small annual income on you, for I would not have my wife’s daughter left in penury. Indeed, no. What I have also done is write a letter to an elderly friend of mine, a Miss Stanton, who lives in Yorkshire. She has asked me to find her a companion and I shall have no hesitation in recommending you to her. She will give you a comfortable home in exchange for a few, easily performed, duties. You may even be fortunate enough to meet someone who, not knowing of your sad history, will offer for you.’

He smiled at her, saying in the kindest voice he could assume, ‘You see, my dear, I continue to have your best interests at heart.’

Susanna sat in stunned silence, her heart beating rapidly. ‘I had no notion,’ she began. ‘Had I been aware of my true position, I would have thanked you before now—as it is…’

Samuel Mitchell raised a proprietorial—and hypocritical—finger. ‘Think nothing of it, my dear. I was but doing my duty. I shall send off the letter immediately, but have no fear, I am sure that Miss Stanton will be only too happy to employ you. Until then, continue to enjoy your position in my home as one of my daughters.’

Susanna nodded her head numbly. She felt deprived of the power of speech. The day before yesterday, she had been the only child and heiress of a reasonably rich merchant of good family. Yesterday, she had been about to become Lady Sylvester. Today, she had been informed that she was a poverty-stricken orphan who was to be sent away to be an elderly lady’s companion—with all that that entailed. Running errands, walking the pug: someone who was neither a servant nor a gentlewoman, but something in-between.

Later, alone in her room, she began to question a little what her stepfather had just told her. Was it really true that her father had left her nothing? That the Trust had been false, nothing but a lying fiction? That she had been living for the past twelve years on her stepfather’s charity? Surely she and her mother would have been informed of that if such had been the case.

She made up her mind to visit the family solicitors to discover the truth. She would not tell Mr Mitchell of her intentions, merely say that she needed to take the air in the family carriage.

But her stepfather, knowing her strong and determined character, so like her late father’s, had foreseen that she might wish to do such a thing, and was able to prevent it by informing her mother that, until it was time for Susanna to travel to Yorkshire, it would be unwise for her to go out in public.

‘The female mind is so delicate,’ he said, ‘that it might, in such a situation as Susanna finds herself in, be inadvisable for her to venture out of doors. A brief period at home, before she makes the long journey to Yorkshire, will do her a power of good.’

‘If you say so,’ her mother said falteringly.

‘Oh, I do say so, Mrs Mitchell. After all, like you, I have her best interests at heart!’

It had been her mother who told Susanna of her stepfather’s decision.

Susanna had stared at her, more sure than ever that something was wrong. She had been about to refuse to obey any such ban and even considered telling her mother of her suspicion that Mr Mitchell had been lying about the Trust and her father’s not having left her anything.

Then she looked at her mother with newly opened eyes and knew that she would not believe that her husband was lying, would simply see Susanna as trouble-making and ungrateful towards a man who had graciously taken the place of her father ever since she had married Mr Mitchell.

Not only would Mr Mitchell make doubly sure that she was confined to the house, but she would make an enemy of them both, to no profit to herself. He would simply assert that the misery of being jilted had unhinged her mind—and she had no answer to that. She was helpless and knew it.

Susanna had taken her mother in her arms and kissed her childhood innocence goodbye. She would go to Yorkshire and try to make a new life there, far from the home which was no longer her home, and where she was not wanted.

Somehow, some day, God willing, she would try to repair the ruin which Francis Sylvester had made of her life…