Sylvia Or The Moral High Ground Page 6

  “Did your predecessor have no children of his own?” Cassie asked faintly. “Or did he only have daughters?”

  “He had neither sons nor daughters – or at least none born the right side of the blanket; he never married. I believe he was, at least latterly, a somewhat sad and lonely man.”

  “I am sure he need not have been,” Cassie responded quite tartly, beginning to wonder if they were talking of the same person. Her seducer could, she had always believed, have married anyone. She had once thought that he would marry her and, at the time, could not have conceived of a happier outcome to their acquaintance.

  “You say that, no doubt from the goodness of your heart, but I am sorry to say that there are certain people whose natures are so disagreeable that most people instinctively avoid them. I believe my unfortunate uncle to have been one of those.”

  “I do not think that he was so much disliked when he was young,” Cassie contradicted. “If he is the man of whom I am thinking, he was a well-known rake at one time – excessively popular with females, in any event.”

  “I have heard that he was, but I am afraid that eventually he reaped the harvest of his earlier misdeeds. Were you acquainted with him?”

  “Why, here is Lord Furzeby with the refreshments,” Mrs Farley exclaimed loudly. The conversation between her friend and his lordship seemed to her to be taking a turn in a direction which she considered inappropriate in the circumstances – just before the performance of a Beethoven symphony - and unwise at any time for Cassie if she wished to find a husband. While they had been speaking, she had been assessing the ruined coat, together with the gentleman’s other garments – including an extremely fine diamond pin nestling in the folds of his cravat - and had come to the conclusion that he was exceedingly plump in the pocket. She wondered how he had managed to replenish the wealth which she was fairly certain his predecessor had squandered.

  He would, in her opinion, be ideal for her friend; his close physical resemblance to his predecessor would no doubt, once Cassie had ceased to be unnerved by it, actually endear him to her. She must not be permitted to throw a rub in the way of her future by admitting something which she would do well to suppress, at least for the time being.

  The musicians were at last resuming their seats and the crowd had begun to surge as Lord Furzeby came within hailing distance.

  “We had better return to where we were sitting before, I believe,” Mrs Farley said with relief, helping herself to a glass of wine. She had, between mentally considering what she would wear for her friend’s wedding and anxiously interrupting Cassie’s ill-considered comments and curtailing her tendency to spill the beans, been wondering for some time why it had been necessary to have quite such a long interval.

  “Perhaps you would join us for supper afterwards,” Lord Marklye murmured, giving Mrs Farley renewed hope for her friend’s future.

  “It is very kind of you but I am afraid we are already engaged with some other friends, who, sadly, could not make the concert,” Mrs Farley said firmly, taking Cassie’s arm and drawing her inexorably away. “We shall be at the opera on Friday,” she added, bestowing a dazzling smile upon the two men.

  Sitting down with a rustle of skirts upon her original chair, Mrs Farley whispered, “You must not be too open, my dear. It will not do his lordship any harm to be a little anxious as to when – and whether – he will see you again.”

  Cassie said nothing but took a long draught of her wine and leaned back to be beguiled by Beethoven.

  When the music finished, Mrs Farley took hold of her arm in a firm grip and conducted her to the door in some haste. “His grace’s carriage is probably awaiting us. I do not think it wise to allow Lord Marklye to see us getting into a vehicle with the Rother arms emblazoned upon the door; it would, I am convinced, be better if he did not, at this juncture, realise the nature of your connexion with the Duke.”

  When they reached Cassie’s house, Mrs Farley asked, “Are you expecting his grace tonight?”

  “I do not know. He did not say that he would come, but I suppose that he may. Will you come in with me for a little? I should not suppose that his engagement – which he may, in any event, have made up to excuse his not accompanying me to the concert – will be at an end for several hours.”

  Nothing loath, Mrs Farley accompanied her friend inside and sat down in the saloon beside a brightly burning fire. In spite of the extreme comfort of the house, Mrs Farley was not happy with her friend’s living arrangements.

  Cassie had been the Duke’s ‘peculiar’ for a number of years and Mrs Farley suspected that the arrangement had not a great deal of time left to run. The Duke was one and thirty, compared to Cassie’s two and forty. He would be looking to get spliced soon and, while such a state would by no means preclude his keeping a mistress, it was usual at least to begin married life without an attachment of that sort. Cassie would be put out to grass. Mrs Farley knew that her friend was not only aware of this but excessively anxious about it. She did not think that the Duke would turn her out into the street with nothing; indeed, judging by the comfort in which he kept her, he would most likely make generous provision for her. All the same, in her opinion, it would be much better for Cassie’s precarious self-confidence if she could decide to leave him, preferably with the benefit of a ring upon her finger, before she was given the push.

  Cassie ordered supper and sat down beside the fire, the flames playing across her face and hair.

  “I think you have a very good chance with Lord Marklye once you have become accustomed to the familiarity of his name. You looked as though you had seen a ghost when he was introduced,” Mrs Farley began, not wishing to waste time on small talk when the Duke might return at any moment and put an end to their tête-à-tête.

  Cassie twisted her fingers together. “He is very like him as to feature – alarmingly so. Such a connexion fills me with dread – and disgust – and yet, in spite of the similarity of colouring and feature, this Lord Marklye is clearly very different. He has smiling eyes and a courteous manner. I do not recall the other ever having been less than disagreeable; his stock in trade was a sneer which, at seventeen, I found astonishingly attractive. I suppose I believed I could make him happy. It is too horrible.”

  “Yes,” Mrs Farley agreed in a matter-of-fact tone designed to pull her friend back from engaging once more in waterworks. “You were not the only innocent he ruined. You do know that, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Are you of the opinion that not being the only one should be some sort of comfort to me?”

  “Yes, indeed. I never met him but, from all I hear, he was an excessively unhappy person who tried to make himself feel more comfortable by making others feels less so. I believe he was always at daggers drawn with his father, who did not scruple to show his affection for the younger boy – presumably this man’s father.

  “But, my dear, although you have in a sense been exceedingly successful in your career – there are, after all, not many who manage to engage a Duke’s affections for such a number of years – I do not believe that you have ever enjoyed it whereas I, in my heyday, found it amusing.”

  “How could I enjoy it? When I first came to London, I was expected to marry a Duke – or at the very least an Earl. How could I not feel that being mistress to one was a shocking outcome? I have been ostracised by my own milieu, abandoned by my parents and I have no certainty about what the future holds – and it is almost upon me. I have not been able to hold my head up for a quarter of a century. Sometimes I wish I were dead.” Cassie’s voice had risen in a crescendo of misery as she enumerated the injustices to which she had been subject, finishing on a sob of despair.

  Mrs Farley was looking at her with a mixture of impatience and sympathy. “The trouble for you has always been shame, has it not? I do not believe that you have ever recovered from your fall from the moral high ground, as you might put it, which is perfectly ridiculous since I do not believe that it was at all your fault. You were a child and
you were quite taken in, were you not?”

  “Yes, I was – but that does not undo, or even mitigate, what I have suffered. You are perfectly right: I have always been ashamed. It was shame that prevented me from returning to England as soon as the monster abandoned me. I do not know what I could have done if I had come home, but going to Rome – and then Paris - and continuing in a career which I abhor - was foolish beyond belief. At the time I could see no other way to contrive.”

  “Would your parents not have understood if you had come home and told them the whole? My dear, he forced you, did he not? I do not believe that, even having run away with him, you would have willingly submitted to his embraces without a wedding ring.”

  “No, I would not. I did not run away with him of my own volition: he snatched me from Vauxhall Gardens. I still thought it romantic – until later that night. It was only then that I understood that it was the very reverse.”

  Mrs Farley, who was inclined more to the practical side of dealing with difficulties, judging sympathy all very well in its place but ultimately not particularly helpful, considered that quite enough time – and a good deal too many tears – had been expended upon the past. She said firmly, “Well, that is excessively sad – and it must have been horrid at the time - but there is nothing to be gained from giving way to pointless regrets, my dear. What’s done is done. The important thing now is to do the best you can from your present position. The Duke is not going to marry you, is he?”

  Chapter 7

  Melissa, insulted at the suggestion that she might not have left the schoolroom, managed a polite titter but her voice, when she spoke, was noticeably at variance with this signifier of amusement; indeed, it was positively sharp. “No, of course I am not, but Miss Holmdale has consented to stay with me as a companion for – for a little while. Miss Holmdale, allow me to introduce you to his grace, the Duke of Rother, whom I met in the Park yesterday.”

  Sylvia, almost petrified by the sound of the familiar voice, had, as soon as she heard it, remained apparently riveted by the contents of the shop window. She had not altogether succeeded in mastering herself and her heart was still displaying a distressing inclination to jump out of her mouth, when Melissa spoke. The girl’s voice reminded her that she could not remain staring at a hat, however beautiful, when her attention had been called to the necessity of performing a social duty. She must turn and greet the owner of the voice, a man of whose life she had been entirely ignorant for more than seven years. He had not been a Duke all that time ago so that, when Melissa had spoken of meeting him in the Park, Sylvia had had no idea that the man dismissed as ‘quite old’ was her own erstwhile fiancé.

  By the time she was able to remove her gaze from the window and turn, he had been apprised of her identity – unless, of course, he had forgotten the name of the woman to whom he had once declared undying love. She held out her hand and dropped a little curtsey, for she supposed that was his due as a Duke, but she could not look at his face, fixing her eyes instead upon one of the buttons of his waistcoat, vividly conscious that behind it beat the man’s heart.

  He took her hand briefly, dropping it almost immediately as though it might communicate a fatal disease to him. “How do you do?” He spoke coldly. It seemed that either he had forgotten her or chose to pretend that they had never met. There was nothing in that glacial greeting to indicate that he had either heard her name or met her before.

  His manner acted like a bucket of cold water deposited upon her head. Gathering what composure she could, she shook herself slightly and blinked as though to disperse any remaining drops which might have clouded her vision, raised her eyes and saw why Melissa might have thought him old. It was not that his face had acquired lines or that his complexion was not as smooth and even as when she had last seen it; perhaps there was a trifle more of a hollow beneath the cheekbones, a suspicion of increased resolution about the fine mouth and a hardening of the jaw; but, these small alterations aside, it was the coldness of his regard which made him look older than his years: his eyes, a blue which she had once likened to speedwells, were like stone – the deep, uncompromising blue of sapphires; his lips, so finely wrought, so ready to smile in the past, now looked as though carved from marble; she could not imagine them smiling. She was to discover in the next few moments that they had grown very good at sneering. She shivered and turned away, both dazzled and chilled by what she saw.

  She guessed he turned away too, or at least removed his eyes from her countenance, because his next remark, uttered in a hollow voice, was addressed to Melissa. “Which hat were you admiring?”

  “That one in lavender silk with those exquisite trimmings. I wanted it yesterday, you know, but Mama persuaded me to choose a different one. It was only when I showed it to Miss Holmdale just now that I realised that the silk is the exact same colour as her eyes. I think she should have it.”

  “It is hardly suitable for a governess,” he said.

  “Why not?” Melissa exclaimed, firing up at the dismissive tone employed in what even she, in her innocence, recognised as an attempt to denigrate the woman she loved. “It is high time she had a new bonnet for the one she is wearing at present is exceedingly dull and unbecoming; I cannot think why you own such a horrid object, Miss Holmdale. You would look quite ravishing in that one; do you not think so, your grace?”

  “I? I am not the best person to ask, Miss Sullington. I really have no idea of the sort of hat that your governess should wear.” His tone was scornful; almost, Sylvia thought, as though such a person wearing a hat was as peculiar a concept as a horse wearing one.

  “Well,” Melissa replied in a sprightly manner. “Since she is no longer really my governess – my being quite grown up now – I think she could – and indeed should – wear such a hat. I consider you to be my friend now, Miss Holmdale, and I should feel much happier if you were wearing that bonnet than the one you have on at present.”

  Sylvia smiled. “Are you ashamed of me? My dear Melissa, I am immensely grateful for your loyalty, but I could not wear such a thing. Apart from anything else, it would not match the rest of my clothes. And what in the world would your mama say?”

  “I daresay she would not notice,” Melissa said hopefully, answering the last objection first. “I think you should have a whole new set of clothes, dear Miss Holmdale, for your present ones are excessively dowdy and make you look much older than you are. You are not a great deal older than I and quite as pretty. Does not your grace agree?” She appeared determined to draw him into the discussion in spite of his having already demonstrated his resolve to be as rude as possible.

  “Is she?” he asked indifferently.

  Melissa gasped and looked anxiously between the Duke and her governess. The Duke had stepped back and was looking down his handsome nose; as he spoke, his lips curled derisively.

  Sylvia said, “Much as I value your compliment, Melissa, and your kindness in seeking to reassure me, the truth is that I am almost as old as his grace. Of course, no one minds how old gentlemen are, particularly if they are possessed of lofty titles. I daresay most people in his grace’s position are too busy counting their titles and the number of acres they own to pay much attention to the lines upon their faces. I have frequently observed that quite old men seem to find nothing peculiar in dangling after females young enough to be their daughters.”

  She had wanted to hit back at the Duke but realised, too late, that she had embarrassed Melissa, who was caught, all unaware, between two people who had lost interest in everything but the desire to cut each other to the quick.

  The Duke seemed to have forgotten Melissa’s presence entirely. He said, “Age is a relative matter. Women age faster than men.”

  “And yet they frequently outlive them,” Sylvia retorted.

  “That depends upon their position in Society,” he replied.

  “No doubt. Would you care to expand upon that? Is it your belief that governesses age faster – and die sooner – than noble dukes?�
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  “I should not suppose that anyone would be likely to employ such a person in her dotage; there would always be the fear that she might have forgotten even that little which she might once have known – although it has to be said that most of them are extraordinarily ignorant from the get-go.”

  “So, do they, in your opinion, die for lack of a position? Rejected as being too old and stupid, they crawl away to a cold room in a boarding house and die for want of employment? I suppose they may, but it strikes me that dukes are quite likely to be murdered when their heirs can no longer endure their disagreeableness - or wish to get their hands upon the inheritance.”

  Both were glaring at each other by this time: he, with a cold, weary look and a sneer upon his beautiful mouth; she, with her lavender eyes blazing and two spots of colour high on her cheeks. The question a bystander might have asked was whether he would freeze her or she ignite him.

  Melissa clasped Sylvia’s arm. “I did not know that you so disliked dukes, Miss Holmdale.”

  “I did not know it either until I met this one,” Sylvia replied with a toss of her head.

  “Let us hope that you will not be obliged to meet him again,” the Duke said, adding in a different voice, “Miss Sullington, pray forgive this appalling demonstration of ill manners. Clearly, Miss Holmdale has taken exception to something in my demeanour. I trust you will not allow it to prejudice you against me.”

  “No,” Melissa said doubtfully. “But I wish you will be a little more agreeable to my friend. You have been positively rude and I can see that you have made her angry.”

  “I am sorry. I had not fully understood her status. You introduced her as your governess; now you claim her as your friend. I was merely treating her in the way to which she is no doubt accustomed: as a servant.”

  “She is not a servant!”

  “No? What then is a governess? She is a person employed and paid by your parent to perform a designated task, is she not? I should have thought that was the definition of a servant.”