Colonel Brandon's Diary (18 page)

Eliza’s eyes filled with tears.

‘Indeed, he is not,’ I said.

‘Ah, well, that’s a blessing,’ she said. ‘It’s an injury, I suppose. I was talking to my brother. “There’s a lot of people falls down stairs and breaks their neck,” he said to me. Poor dear,’ she added, looking at Eliza.

‘Thank you, we must hope for the best,’ I said, not wanting to give her any details, and then waited until she left the room.

Eliza handed me a cup of tea. I took it and drank it, more to encourage her than because I wanted it, and she seemed better for the drink.

‘You said you eloped, but in your letter you said you were not married?’ I asked her.

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘No. But he said we would be. He told me we would be married as soon as we reached town. It would be easier in town, he said, because no one would know us there and so no one could object on account of my age. And then we would go to Delaford and see you.’ She smiled. ‘I was looking forward to it so much. I wanted you to meet him, for I was sure you would like him. And it pleased me above all things to know that I would be a respectable wife and that you would be able to acknowledge me as your friend and that you need not be ashamed of me.’

I was startled.

‘I have never been ashamed of you!’

‘Susan’s maid said that people whose parents were not married are always a source of shame to those around them.’

‘Susan’s maid would have been better attending to her own concerns,’ I said angrily. ‘But go on. What happened when you reached town?’

Her face fell.

‘He found there was something wrong with the licence. I do not know what it was, something trivial, but it meant he would have to get another one. But then there was some difficulty about it, so he decided it would be better if he contacted a church in the neighbourhood and asked them to read the banns. So then we had to wait another three weeks for the banns to be read.’

I began to see how it had happened. She had been lured to London with the promise of marriage, and then lured to stay by circumstances; which, I did not doubt, had been manufactured, for her seducer must have known that no clergyman in England would officiate at a marriage with a sixteen-year-old bride unless her parents or guardians approved of the match.

‘And after the three weeks were over?’ I asked.

‘The clergyman who was to perform the ceremony was ill,’ she said.

She turned her handkerchief over in her hands, and I knew she suspected that it was a lie, but that she did not want to face it.

‘So you had to wait until he was better?’ I asked her gently.

‘Yes.’

‘And did you speak to the clergyman yourself?’ I asked, though I knew it was a vain hope.

‘No. I did not need to,’ she said. ‘He told me that everything was arranged and I believed him. He is a good man, he loves me. I know he does.’

‘If he was a good man, he would not have deserted you,’ I said gently.

‘He didn’t desert me. He had to go away for a while because his benefactress was ill, and then he was going to find a house for us to live in when we were married. He promised me he would come back soon, but it has been two months and I am dreadfully worried,’ she said, looking at me with sick apprehension. ‘I think something must have happened to him.’

‘It is possible,’ I said, more to soothe her pride than for any other reason. ‘If you give me his name, I will make enquiries and find out what has become of him.’

She did not want to do so, for I could tell that she was afraid of what I would say to him when I found him, but at last, reluctantly, she gave in.

‘His name is Willoughby,’ she said.

I stared at her, aghast. Willoughby! She could not have given me any name that would have shocked me more.

But then, as I thought over the matter, I realized it must be another Willoughby. The man I knew might be shallow and frivolous but he was at least a gentleman; he could surely not be so base as to leave a sixteen-year-old girl alone in London whilst she was carrying his child, and then go to Barton and make love to another young woman without a care in the world. No, it was impossible.

‘What is his Christian name?’ I asked.

‘John,’ she said. ‘Here, I have a sketch of him.’

She raised herself on her elbow and opened a small book which lay beside her. She turned the pages until she came to the sketch of a young man. It was poorly executed, but the likeness was unmistakable.

I shook my head in dismay.

‘Do you know him? ’ she asked.

‘I am sorry to say that I do.’

I did not want to hurt her, but I knew that she had to be told. As gently as I could, I told her that I had spent the last few weeks in company with him, that he had been happy and care-free, and that he had never once mentioned her, nor thought about her, for he had been courting another.

‘No! It cannot be true!’ she said, falling back on the sofa.

‘It gives me great pain to say it, Eliza, but I am afraid it is so,’ I said.

‘I do not believe it!’ she said, rallying.

‘Then you must ask Sir John Middleton,’ I said. ‘You have paper on your table. Write to him and ask him if he knows a man named Willoughby.’

‘I never suspected . . .’ she said, ashen. She looked at the paper and then said, ‘No, I will not write. I know you to be honest. If you say it is so, then it must be so. But Willoughby. To have abandoned me, promising to return, and then to leave and never to think of me again? Do I mean so little to him, and his child, too?’ she asked, as fresh tears began to fall.

‘Hush,’ I said. ‘You are with friends now.’

I knew that friendship could do little to alleviate her suffering, but what it could do would not be wanting.

‘He is not the man I thought he was,’ she said, drying her tears. ‘And I? What am I? I am not the person I thought I was, either, for I thought I was a dearly loved woman who eloped with her fiancé, but instead I am a dupe. And yet I love him still. Oh! I have been so wrong. I cannot bear it.’

She covered her face with her hands, and I put her head on my shoulder whilst she wept until she could weep no more.

‘Never fear, you are not alone,’ I told her. ‘As soon as your lying-in period is over, I will take you to the country. There you can grow strong and happy again.’

‘Strong, perhaps, but I do not believe I will ever be happy again,’ she said sorrowfully.

I made allowances for her circumstances and her condition, and soothed her and talked of pleasanter things. But she did not listen to me. Her mind was still in the past, with Willoughby.

 

 

I have found a nurse for Eliza, and hired a maid and a manservant to look after her, and installed her in more elegant lodgings, but now the only thing I can do for her is to sit with her and cheer her until her child is born, for her time is very near. She does not complain, though I can see that she is in discomfort, and she has begun to show an interest in her life after her child is born, for I tempt her with thoughts of her own establishment in the country, where she and her child can be together.

 

 

My feelings are all confusion, for Eliza has had her child, a girl, as like her mother as it is possible for a newborn baby to be. I am thankful for her safe delivery, and full of tenderness when I look at the child, but I am conscious of feelings of guilt as well, for I should have protected her from such a fate.

However, there will be no debtor’s prison for her, no consumption, no early death. I will make it my business to see that she is well cared for. I am convinced that she is young enough to regain her spirits and that, in time, she will be happy again.

 

 

Having seen Eliza through her ordeal, my thoughts turned to her seducer, and I went in search of Willoughby. I was about to board the stage and travel back to Barton when a chance remark from an acquaintance told me that he was in town.

‘Saw him at my club last night,’ said Gates.

‘Thank you, you have spared me a journey, and an embarrassing scene at the end of it,’ I said, for I had not been looking forward to confronting Willoughby at Barton, where it would worry my friends and neighbours. ‘Is he staying at the club?’

‘No, he is in lodgings.’

‘Do you happen to have his direction?’

He gave me the address and I went there straight away. Willoughby was out, but I said I would wait and the landlady let me in. I sat and waited an hour for him. He entered in high good humour, looking as handsome as ever, and with not a care in the world.

‘What, Brandon? I never thought to find you here. I thought you were attending to urgent business,’ he said impudently. ‘Well, what is it then? You must have some reason for coming here, and I cannot suppose it is for the pleasure of my company. You never struck me as a man who courted pleasure! Indeed, the last time I saw you, you were doing everything in your power to avoid it.’

I took my glove and slapped his face. He looked startled, and his hand went to his cheek, and then he laughed.

‘What! Are you calling me out! I cannot believe it. For laughing at you? No, that is impossible. For what then? I have done nothing — unless you wish to call me out for taking Miss Marianne for a drive when you were called away?’

‘I am not here about Miss Marianne, though, God knows, if I were her brother, I would be tempted to give you a thrashing, ’ I said. ‘I am here about Eliza Williams.’

‘Eliza Williams?’ he asked incredulously, and then something wary entered his eye and the smile left his face. ‘I know no one of that name.’

‘Then let me refresh your memory. She is the young girl you met in Bath, and then seduced and abandoned,’ I said.

‘Oh, hardly that. She took no seducing — ’ He stopped as he realized that he had admitted to knowing her, but then he shrugged and went on, ‘And as for abandoning her, I did no such thing.’

‘You left her alone in a strange city where she had no friends,’ I said, restraining the impulse to knock him down. ‘The very circumstances that should have aroused your compassion instead aroused your cruelty. She was an orphan, with no one to protect her, and so you used her as you pleased.’

He shrugged, and said, ‘And if I did, what business is it of yours? You cannot mean to champion every waif and stray you discover. Not even your chivalry would stretch to that.’

‘She is my ward,’ I said.

He went pale.

‘Your ward?’ he asked, and he put his hand out behind him and supported himself on the back of a chair.

‘Indeed. My ward. I am here to tell you that you must marry her. You cannot give her back her heart, but you can at least give her the protection of your name,’ I said shortly.

‘Marry her? Come, now, Brandon, you cannot expect me to marry her. She is not at all the sort of girl I would wish to marry, and besides, she has not a penny to her name. A man does not marry his mistress, Brandon, you know that,’ he said, gaining courage again and smirking at me insolently.

‘She is not your mistress. She is a young girl of good family who has been cruelly deceived. I have been lenient with you in offering you a chance to marry her, but I confess that I am pleased you have refused, for I would not have liked to see her tied to a man of so little worth. If you will give me the name of your seconds, we will meet at a time and place of your choosing and settle this matter.’

‘Now look here, Brandon, you are a man of the world. Let us settle this as men of the world.’

‘That is what I am here to do.’

‘On the field of honour? Oh, come now, Brandon, you are making too much of it. I am sure she will be happy as long as she has an income. I am not rich, but I can give her something, I am sure. And then, when Mrs Smith dies and I inherit my fortune, I can give her something more. I will set her up in her own establishment, with a maid and everything comfortable.’

‘If you will not repair the damage you have done to her by marrying her, then you will name your seconds. Which is it to be?’

He protested, but as he was adamant that he would not marry her, there was only one course of action open to me.

Leaving him, I sought out some of my friends from my regiment. As luck would have it, Green and Wareham were in town. I made my way to their lodgings and I found them in their shirtsleeves, cleaning their pistols.

‘Brandon! Come in, man, come in,’ said Green, as he opened the door.

I went in, and found that Wareham, too, was at home.

‘Good to see you again, Brandon,’ he said, looking up from cleaning his gun.

‘And you.’

After the customary greetings, I said, ‘Gentlemen, I am not here on a social visit. I am in need of your help.’

They looked at me curiously and Green said, ‘That sounds serious.’

‘It is,’ I said, taking off my hat and gloves. ‘I need you to act as my seconds.’

They were immediately alert, and wanted to know all the details. As soon as I had satisfied them as to what had happened, they agreed at once to act for me.

‘The dog!’ said Green.

‘He should have been in the army. It would have taught him a sense of duty,’ said Wareham.

‘I would not have wanted a man like that in my regiment,’ I said, to which they both agreed.

‘You have challenged him already?’ asked Green.

‘Yes. I have just come from his lodgings.’

‘You know we will have to give him a chance to marry her?’ said Green. ‘There is a code of conduct in these things and we must stick to it, if we want to consider ourselves gentlemen. ’

‘Of course. I have already given him a chance and he told me he would not marry a penniless girl.’

Green’s face showed his disgust.