A World Apart (21 page)

‘But there is nothing; nothing at the top of the cliff, just forest,' Eliza said. ‘It goes on forever.'

‘You mean you saw nothing,' Susannah persisted. ‘It's simply a lonely part of the coast. I've heard tell there are farms in Botany Bay. Taverns, shops, docks, churches, stables.'

‘We know that.' Eliza was forced to agree. In her lessons with Mr Harcourt, she had learned about the towns of Sydney and Liverpool and Windsor, and the farming of sheep and cattle. Yet she had no idea where these places were, nor where the two of them stood in relation to the towns. Above all, she was reluctant to walk into the arms of her gaolers. For all the world knew, the two of them were dead, along with the rest of the ship's company. Now they faced the twin horrors of being eaten by savages or discovered and imprisoned by white
men. What to do?

‘Thurber has sent me a message, Harry.' Viscount John pushed aside his brandy glass. ‘It is an invitation to another ball. A ball I have reason to believe is to celebrate your betrothal to Miss Agatha.'

‘But sir, I am not betrothed to her.'

‘Not yet. That is evidently the purpose of this invitation. To speed the betrothal.' He looked into his son's face, saw it pale.

‘Well then, my son.' Harry watched his father's expression harden. ‘You must go to the ball. This is an order, not an invitation on a square of pink paper with a lace border. And propose marriage to Miss Agatha. At the first opportunity. Do you understand? If you do not, I shall be dragged away to debtors' prison, and you will have to survive like a scavenging rat.' He waited. Harry hesitated. The silence began to set like wet mortar.

‘How many times must I tell you your duty, Harry?' Viscount John sighed extravagantly. ‘It is of the most vital importance that you marry Agatha. If you do not, then your estate will be lost. Your estate, and the estate that should have been home to untold numbers of your descendants. What will those descendants think of you, boy? Imagine a
soirée
a hundred years from now.' He leaned back in his chair, steepled his hands.

‘A handsome young man, your great-grandson, let us imagine he is also called Harry, courts a beautiful young woman, heir apparent to a title and a rich estate. He drops to his knees and proposes. She turns away with a wave of her bejewelled hand.

‘“I am sorry, Harry, but marriage between us can never be,” she says. “You are but a landless pauper. Thanks, I understand, to your great-grandfather, another Harry De Havilland. I'm told that he refused to support his sick and ageing father, Viscount John De Havilland. The result was a tragedy which will haunt numberless generations to come. Young Harry lost the estate which had been the family's pride and privilege for eight hundred years. And so I cannot marry you, peasant.”'

With a long sigh, Sir John slid a hand towards the decanter.

‘But sir, I — '

‘Say no more, Harry. Your duty is clear. The ball is to be on the thirteenth of the month.'

The evening had begun to chill as Harry rode up to Thurber Hall and dismounted. He handed his horse to the groom waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase. As he climbed the stairs, music washed over him — the sound of fiddles playing a lively dance. A young couple, seemingly much in love, stood at the entrance to the hall, the man smiling and holding the young woman's hand while she smoothed her crinoline with the other. He recognised them as Lord and Lady Barton-Smythe, neighbours of the De Havillands, recently wed in what everyone had seen as a love match.

A stab of pain shot through Harry's heart. He looked away. No such love match lay in store for him. If he married Agatha, his fate would be too horrible to imagine. He pictured a future of ugly arguments, lonely nights in his chambers, years of celibacy, or worse, occasional clandestine visits to a mistress. At balls,
soirées
, and visits to London he would suffer, year on year, the humiliation of having a cantankerous, selfish woman on his arm. Then there would be
the snide behind-the-hand comments between his male friends whenever they met as couples at social events.

He pushed such thoughts aside. He had come to the ball to perform a duty. Now he must execute that duty. A blaze of light shone through the open doors. A butler welcomed him and led him indoors. As they entered the ballroom, the fiddlers stopped. The dancers slowed, smiled and bowed to their partners. Some men walked from the dance floor arm in arm with their ladies while others melted into the crowd. Some eyed acquaintances with whom they could become inconspicuous while they waited for the next dance.

‘You are late, Mr Harry.' He turned at the sound of a voice which reminded him of fingernails scraping glass. Agatha Thurber; sallow, thin, wearing a high-necked, full-skirted blue silk gown, minced towards him in dancing shoes that must make her every step excruciating. She could be one of the ugly sisters who had gone to the ball, leaving Cinderella at home to scrub the kitchen.

‘I was forced to become a wallflower for the last dance,' she said. ‘At my very own ball. Shame on you, sir.'

‘My humblest apologies, Miss Thurber.' Harry bowed. ‘Could you not have danced with another man meantime?'

‘No, sir. I could not. Tongues would have wagged. And anyway, no one asked me.'

‘My horse…went lame a mile or so away from your manor. With the best intentions in the world I couldn't have — '

‘Goodness me, Mr Harry. Whenever we make arrangements to meet, some disaster overtakes you. What is it about you? How do you attract misfortunes so regularly?'

Harry bit his tongue. He would forbear to mention the life-threatening disaster that now loomed too close, too inescapable, a mere yard away.

‘Not at all, Miss Agatha. It will be my pleasure to accompany you in the very next dance.'

‘It's to be a cotillion. I trust you dance the cotillion well.'

‘Er, well enough, Miss, I hope.'

The fiddles began to play a lively introduction to the fashionable dance lately taken up by English society from its French origins. Couples gathered on the dance floor. The piercing voice of the caller, a lady of uncertain age but very certain presence, ordered the couples into line. Agatha took Harry's hand, tugged him into her place, as the formal hostess of the evening, at the head of the line.

‘When we dance, sir, pray do not make me trip over your boots,' she whispered loudly to him as they waited, poised, expectant. Then the music began in earnest.

‘
Allez
!' the caller barked. Then, swaying to the music, the couples began the complicated sequence of skipping, bowing, twirling, then the arm-extending introduction to the next partner. Harry struggled to keep his movements in time with the music, watching nearby couples with all his concentration. In time, he gained confidence. He told himself he might actually enjoy the complex ebbing and flowing of the dancers opposite as the line moved towards its climax. Then the stately bow by Agatha when she and her partner had returned to the head of the line would signal the end of the dance.

With one exchange of partners to come before the finale, the music sped up, became louder. All eyes turned to Agatha and Harry. Then, as they bowed and faced each other to take up the last movement, he extended his left arm. Her eyes shot him a fiery glance. She reached
for his right arm, missed it, and fell with a thud. Her petticoats flew out from her skirt, revealing a pair of bony stockinged legs. As one, the crowd burst into laughter. Mortified, Harry bent to help her up.

‘Idiot!' Her eyes flamed as she took his arm. He flinched, fought to keep his jaw rigid. Pain shot through his heart. ‘You were supposed to hold out your
right
arm, sir,' she whispered through clenched teeth in a voice heard across the suddenly silent room. ‘Do you not know your left from your right?'

‘My deepest apologies, Miss Agatha. I — '

‘Kindly escort me to the ladies' retiring room. Quickly!' She choked back a sob of rage. ‘I am…undone!'

As he walked her in the direction she pointed, he saw that she limped. Her unseemly crash to the floor might have bruised her bottom. With a flounce of her skirt, she disappeared into the ladies' sanctuary, firing a look of utter venom at him as she closed the door.

Harry took himself to the bar, avoiding the barely contained laughter of the assembled guests. The steward handed him a brandy, communicating his sympathy with a wordless smile. Soon, its healing magic began to work. Without a word, the steward presented him with another. An hour and several brandies later, Harry stood alone on the veranda in the cool of the darkness, another brandy in hand. Now, thanks to the brandies he had been forced to take as medicine, the night had become almost pleasant. He counted himself lucky to have escaped Miss Agatha's ire. As he looked into the garden, he felt a touch on his wrist. He turned in surprise.

‘Take me to the bower, sir.' The voice was laced with bile. ‘Now.' Agatha, now wearing another voluminous skirt of pale gold, took his wrist. Her grip was so strong it hurt him, despite his healing brandies. He drained his glass, left it on a table, and let her steer him towards a vine-covered structure near the far end of the long veranda.

‘Do you not think the guests might raise their eyebrows a little if they learn that the belle of the ball has disappeared into the dark with a…boring neighbour?' he asked. She did not answer. ‘You will understand that some may think me one of those men with a dubious reputation for their demeanour towards attractive young women.'

‘Reputation or no, sir. I require you to take me to the bower, and there to fall on one knee. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Indeed, Miss. And I must say that I am of the opinion that tonight is not the most, er, romantically appropriate occasion. Given your distress, entirely my own fault, at your present indisposition. And also — '

‘Fiddlesticks. You have a promise to honour, sir. Now honour it.' They reached the bower. She sat on a chaise longue, leaned back, and extended an arm in his direction. ‘Now, sir,' she said.

Harry sat frozen. In a moment he must perform an act that would cripple him for the rest of his life; cripple his mind, his soul. Condemn him to spend a lifetime in melancholy, separated from the woman he must always love, chained to a harridan who would hate him even more than he hated her. He would rather die from a kindly bullet.

Then a strange feeling jiggled low in his stomach. A nausea that had tickled at his insides ever since he had set foot on Thurber's estate suddenly swept through his body. He leapt to the railing that enclosed the bower, leaned over it and puked, long and hard. When he looked up, it
was to see Miss Agatha twenty yards away, skirts held above the ground, limping towards the ballroom. Even in the low light, he saw that she positively glowed with anger. He took his cue. Five minutes later, he mounted his horse and galloped through Thurber Hall's ostentatious gates.

As Harry rode by Thurber Hall next morning, he took stock of his situation. As month followed month, Ernest Thurber's excitement for the De Havilland's land waxed stronger. The work on the new gardens would soon be finished, and Thurber would settle his account with Harry's father. The day that happened, Thurber would be the new owner of Morton-Somersby. And Sir John De Havilland, lately Viscount of Morton-Somersby, would become a landless pauper. All the money paid by Thurber would be taken by the bankers who sat like vultures, waiting, waiting. Harry had learned from his father's man of business that the viscount would have not one penny to his name after the bankers had taken their dues.

What would the ailing, destitute man do to keep body and soul together? Harry had lately suspected he might throw himself onto the mercy of some notoriously cold-hearted distant relative who lived in remote Derbyshire. Or he might die. And he would die in shame. The estate had been in his family for the eight hundred years since they'd received it as spoils of war from William The Conqueror. Now he had lost it. No wonder the viscount had never stopped entreating, then begging, his son to become betrothed to Agatha.

When Harry reached The Great House, he took a brandy to his chambers and sat. For an hour, his mind churned like one millstone grating against another. Then he came to terms with the supremely obvious. On the morrow, he must return, cap in hand, to Thurber Hall, and beg forgiveness from the woman he hated more than anyone in the world. There was no other way to save his father from the horror of bankruptcy. And Eliza? By now he should have come to accept the too-obvious truth. She was gone from his life forever.

At four o'clock the following afternoon, Harry reined in his horse at the bottom of the staircase leading to Thurber Hall's grand entrance, and handed the reins to the groom. A voice called to him from an upstairs window — Agatha's voice.

‘Wait for me on the stairs, Mr Harry,' she shouted. Her voice reminded him of the sound of a saw cutting stone. ‘I'll be down presently.' In moments she joined him. ‘We will take a stroll in the gardens.' She clutched his arm. ‘Be good enough to help me down the stairs, Mr Harry. My…frame still hurts from my, er, accident at the ball. An accident that was the fault of a clumsy idiot who let me fall as we danced.' Harry looked down at her feet, saw that her shoes were bolstered by ridiculously ugly platforms. How on earth could she walk in them, even when her bruised hip healed?

‘We will sit on yonder seat, Harry,' she said, pointing. ‘Help me to it.' Harry winced at the steely grip on his arm as he dragged the limping woman along the path. At every step, her bony hips bumped against his thighs. He couldn't help but make a painful comparison — his revulsion at her closeness set against the ecstasy of his time beside the lake with the lissom-bodied Eliza three years before. He'd remember the magic of their love until the day he died. He knew again that he loved Eliza, would always love her. But she was as beyond his reach as the eagle which hovered above a nearby hilltop. They reached the seat. Agatha flopped onto it.