A World Apart (30 page)

‘Isn't this perfectly delightful,' her host said. ‘Let us not hurry back. We should give a little breathing space to Eustace and Lucinda. What say you, Mrs Bentleigh?'

Eliza winced at the thought. At this very moment, the pair would be walking side by side in the dark, very likely arm in arm.

‘So I'm wondering,' he continued, ‘What might be happening a little way ahead of us on this very path.' He chuckled. This time, a pang of jealousy bit at Eliza's heart. Soon they would
reach the house. Romance between Eustace and Lucinda would highly likely blossom in this beautiful setting.

‘May I suggest, Mrs Bentleigh, that we give our dear guests a little space?' Hailsham took her hand and steered her towards a bench she hadn't noticed. It offered views across the now glassy waters of the lake. They sat side by side on the bench. In moments, she felt him move closer.

‘Upon my word! Look there, Mrs Bentleigh. Next to the tall tree.'

He pointed. An orange glow shone through the leaves. The moon was rising. Soon its reflection would grace their view of the lake. Eliza held her breath at the thought. Silently, Hailsham took her gloved hand, meshed his fingers with hers.

‘My dear Mrs Bentleigh, I must tell you; I'm smitten.' His voice was a croaking whisper. She looked into eyes which seemed too close to her own. ‘From the very moment I first saw you, you…stole my heart. You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Ever imagined. The most sweet natured, the most agreeable. I should like to woo you.'

Benumbed by his words, his earnest face which seemed to be closing on her second by second, she could only smile up at him. It occurred to her to move away, but she chose not to. She felt in command of her situation, comfortable. Not romantic, merely at ease. She could never love anyone but Harry. Her detachment gave her a feeling of independence.

‘Thank you, sir. Please call me Alice in…moments like this. You flatter me. And I like it. But we really shouldn't tarry here.'

‘Very well, my dearest Alice.' He paused. ‘And I beg you, please use my name, Maynard, when we converse like this. But…' In a second, his lips found hers. She felt their hungry searching as they brushed her closed mouth. The feeling was pleasant enough, flattering even. But no magic explosion rocked her being. Maynard was not Harry. Slowly, she lowered her head.

‘Forgive me!' Maynard slipped away, pulled his arms to his sides. ‘My dear Alice. I shouldn't have done that. You're too much a lady.' He paused again. ‘We should go. As you asked. I simply want you to know that I…care for you. Will likely always care for you.'

‘Shouldn't we walk back?' Eliza said. ‘It would be extremely rude of us to be late for Lucinda's special dinner.'

He sighed; a long, sad sigh which might have been heard at John O'Groats. She stepped onto the path. He followed. The rising moon now lit the way. She could walk briskly without fear of accidentally falling into Maynard's arms.

But Maynard was not to be rushed. Placing her hand on his wrist, he led her slowly — and a touch awkwardly, Eliza thought — to the house.

‘I beg one last favour of you, Alice,' Maynard said as they closed on the house. ‘That you don't say a word about things to Eustace and Lucinda.'

‘Very well. It's our secret.' She smiled at him, imagined herself squeezing the hand he'd kept clapped to his side since they'd left the bower. Then she thought better of it and quickened her pace along the path.

After dinner, the quartet adjourned to the living room. In moments, Lucinda seated herself at the pianoforte and began to play a doleful love song.

‘May we not have something a little more spritely now, Sister?' Maynard asked after Lucinda had bowed and smiled at the end of her piece.

‘Presently, Brother,' she said. ‘For the nonce, love songs suit my mood.' Eliza winced. Was that a sad look of longing Lucinda slid in Eustace's direction? ‘Mr Eustace, what music suits your temper?' Again, she fixed her eyes on her fiancé.

‘Why, something perhaps a trifle more lively, I should think,' he smiled. ‘But pray, my dear lady, indulge yourself. Perhaps you pine for someone in faraway London?' He smiled at his own joke. ‘Now that the Season is over?'

‘Hardly, sir. My pining might be for someone not so far away. But no matter.' She attacked the keyboard with an energy that surprised Eliza. Maynard began to jig one foot as he sat. Then he stood, walked over to Eliza, and bowed. ‘Would madam care to join me in a little dance?'

Before she could answer, the music stopped.

‘Aha. My dear brother wishes to prove his mettle.' Eliza saw that Lucinda had read her brother's mind. ‘Methinks a waltz might suit. Provided, of course, you are broad-minded enough to indulge. You will know, Maynard, that the waltz is frowned upon in polite society. Though I suspect it will be all the rage next season. You understand, do you not, that the partners must embrace each other as they dance?'

‘Well, er, indeed.' Maynard smiled at the gathering. ‘I was hoping that Mrs Bentleigh might wish to escape from the fuddy-duddies of polite society for a moment. What say you, madam?'

‘Why, thank you, sir,' Eliza smiled. ‘It seems I'm always escaping from something or other. But I must confess, I do not know the waltz.' Or any other dance for that matter, she admitted to herself. While she had read much of the nobility's daily comings and goings, she had never so much as set foot in a gentleman's residence at night. She had absolutely no knowledge of how they entertained themselves in the evenings other than what she had read in novels. And if the real-life situations she'd encountered in the last few days were representative, then they were somewhat different from the world revealed by those novels. If Maynard persisted with his invitation to dance, she would find herself in deep, unknown waters. She must hope that she could swim.

‘Then I must become your dancing instructor.' Maynard beamed, reaching for her hand. ‘Music, Maestro!'

The pianoforte exploded with a lively melody. The moment Eliza stood, he took her hand. With one arm round her waist, the other held high, he looked at her feet.

‘Now follow me — so. Left foot first. One-two-three, one-two-three. So, and so.' Copying his movements, she slid her feet in time to the music, helped by the pressure of his hand in the small of her back. After a turn round the floor, she had slipped into the catchy rhythm. Maynard glowed. When the music dictated, he took her hand in his and swung her in time with the melody's seductive pulse. As they reached one end of the floor and turned about to return to the other end, he pivoted her so hard she feared she might fall. Anticipating her need, he held her tightly in his arms. She flowed into the moment, found it literally breathtaking. Each time they turned at the end of the floor she found herself enfolded in his steamy embrace.

So this was the purpose of the waltz: to create a socially acceptable excuse for a couple to fall passionately into each others' arms every thirty seconds.

‘Enough!' After a couple of circuits of the floor when Lucinda accelerated the music to a feverish pace, Maynard raised a hand. ‘My leg! The pain is too much. A brief rest, if you please.'

He bowed to Eliza, then limped to his chair. The music quietened, stopped. With a bow to Lucinda, a smiling nod to Eustace, Eliza sat, relieved that she now had some distance from Maynard.

Next morning, as arranged the night before, Eliza took her leave. Lucinda had not left her bed, having explained the previous night that she was still tired from her hectic London sojourn. As Eliza left the breakfast table, Maynard rose and followed her.

‘Please, Alice. Write to me,' he whispered as she walked briskly to her bedchamber to pack.

‘What should I write about, Maynard?' In answer, he reached for her hand as she kept her brisk pace. She flicked it out of his reach.

‘Why, to tell me you…might allow me to visit. May I hope?'

‘We must abide by polite convention, Maynard.' She hastened her pace a little, but Maynard was too quick for her. He took hold of her hand, then, dropping onto one knee, kissed it slowly, lovingly. She patted his head as he stooped.

‘Goodbye, kind sir.' She smiled down at him. ‘Now please excuse me.' She opened the door to her bedchamber and disappeared.

Soon a footman appeared and took her luggage to the courtyard. She followed him downstairs and climbed into the coach. Late that evening she reached her inn at Dorchester and fell into bed to dream again of the loving arms she had so nearly reached.

‘Open up! Open up!' The crashing knock on her inn room's door, the bellowed order, woke Eliza from blissful sleep.

Memories of her arrest at Marley two years before cascaded through Eliza's half-asleep brain. She slid out of bed, staggered to the door, opened it. In a trice, two constables had grabbed her arms.

‘…arresting you for escaping from lawful custody.' The man's gravelly growl was enough to shock Eliza into wakeful reality. Somehow, someone had recognised her, perhaps as she strolled through the village that recent afternoon. But who?

With a constable holding each arm, she was dragged down the inn's staircase and shoved onto a cart. The stench of old horse dung stung her nose as she lay with her face pressed to the cart's splintered floor. As she lay, her arms pinioned by the two burly men, she braced herself for the inevitable — to be locked in a windowless cell, with hay for a bed, until the next assizes.

Her sleepless hours passed exactly as she had imagined. Dawn came. As shafts of daylight filtered through the cracked roof, she realised she had been cast into the very same cell she had endured two years before. She clenched her teeth, determined not to give way to tears of hopelessness. She would have all the time she needed to consider her fate.

Unless she could find a messenger to collect her belongings from the inn, she was once more a penniless waif. Ah, Meg, the little maid who had shown her to her room. She would try to send a message to her. Then her day in court, and its aftermath. Would she find herself again on a convict transport ship, subjected once more to that hellish journey to the other side of the world? Unlikely. The law would expect that if she had escaped the somewhat lax imprisonment system of New South Wales, she could do so again.

Would the judge sentence her to be hanged? That was the fate of most hapless convicts caught after their escape from custody. She lay back on the pile of straw she had scraped together, daring to hope that her wait for the next assizes would be brief.

Mercifully, her gaoler agreed to send a message to Meg, and soon afterwards the young woman appeared with some more respectable clothes, and Eliza's reticule — including the purse which held her supply of golden guineas. She was to enjoy at least that token comfort.

Six days after her arrest she was taken to the courthouse and led into the dock.

‘…prisoner, thought to be one Eliza Downing, teacher…charged with escaping lawful custody,' the clerk mumbled.

‘Can the prisoner be reliably identified?' The moment she heard his voice, Eliza recognised him as the judge who had sentenced her last time she stood in this very same dock. She waited, staring up at his bewigged face, struggling to control her ragged breathing, as the man read and shuffled the papers on his bench. Indeed, he was Judge Charles Fortescue.

‘The prisoner will tell the court her name.'

‘Alice Bentleigh, widow.' She spoke slowly, clearly, in the gentlewomanly accent which had lately become her habit. The judge peered down at a paper on the bench.

‘You were thought to be one Eliza Downing, peasant maid, inhabitant of the village of Marley. If you — '

‘That she is! I can prove it!' The judge, the prosecutor, the lawyers clustered before the bench, all turned. Louisa De Havilland stood in the gallery, dominating the room.

‘Milud. My witness has something important to reveal.' The prosecutor's dry voice, his sere complexion, fed Eliza's memory. The man, still wearing the tall hat which had distinguished him at her earlier trial, was Obadiah Shaw. He had been the viscount's lawyer, a damning witness. And — yes! He was the man she had consulted but days before, in his Dorchester rooms, as to Harry's whereabouts. Her heart sank at her
naïveté
— at her innocent stupidity.

‘Very well. With what secret does your witness wish to assist the court?'

‘Something which may save the court much confusion.'

‘Let the witness speak forthwith. This court has no time to waste.'

Now Louisa stepped towards the judge.

‘If it please Your Honour, I can prove beyond all doubt that the prisoner is Eliza Downing.'

‘How, pray?'

‘Because I know she has a scar — here.' Louisa pointed to her right shoulder.' The judge looked down at her, evidently puzzled. ‘I saw the…accident which gave her the scar. In the schoolroom at the Great House, when she was but a wicked child. With ideas above her station.'

Eliza remembered the moment. Anger at some revelation of her ignorance in Mr Harcourt's schoolroom, and the implicit conclusion that Eliza was far brighter than she, had fired Louisa's rage. She had grabbed a cup and thrown it at Eliza with all her strength. The cup had smashed, cutting Eliza's skin. Mrs Hawkins, the kindly housekeeper, had bandaged the cut, tut-tutting at Miss Louisa's naughtiness as she fed the injured Eliza a modest spoonful of sympathy.

‘The prisoner will show her right shoulder to the court.' The judge sighed. Eliza reached for the top button of her dress. She remembered that Judge Fortescue was an impatient man. It would not help her case, doomed as it was, if she delayed her response. She peeled back her collar. The scar glowed red, jagged, on her white skin. A murmur spread across the courtroom.

‘I take it you are indeed Eliza Downing, prisoner at the bar.' Strangely, the judge now smiled down at her.