Mr Forster's Fortune (12 page)

‘Ooh – that’s y
our pa there, isn’t it, Mr Eff?’ she asked loudly, eagerly amending her direction – and, as she was firmly clasping her mortified companion’s arm, that of Mr Forster as well – to intercept the old gentleman before he could enter the building. ‘Get me introduced to ‘im, will you? I’ve always wanted to speak directly to a Lord.’

Cringingly, but perhaps realising that so much had already been lost that there was very little more to lose by complying with his gentle companion’s request, Mr Forster aimed a stiff little bow in the general direction of his father and begged the honour of presenting
him to the lady at his side.

‘Pleased t
o make your acquaintance, my lordship,’ smirked the lady. She had apparently determined on making a good impression and proceeded to offer him a curtsey as a sign of her respect. Unfortunately she allowed her enthusiasm to overpower her just a little, curtseying so low that she entirely lost her balance. With a strangled little shriek she staggered headlong towards him and for a moment it appeared that she was intent on careering directly through the door. But with creditable swiftness his lordship gallantly held out an arm and caught her. She beamed at him with impressive aplomb. He was looking exceedingly surprised.

‘And yours, to be sure,’ he managed to say, somewhat mechanically. ‘Miss...err?’

‘Mrs Wetherby,’ his son informed him. ‘Mr Wetherby’s widow, sir.’

‘I see,’ replied his lordship, and instantly turned tail and disappeared inside the baths.

It may well be surmised that an interview such as this one may have been acutely embarrassing to the gentlemen concerned, and perhaps, too, a topic of conversation between them when they next had a moment to themselves. But as so often happens when fate intervenes, it turned out that the father and son were destined to have even more to discuss when they found themselves conveniently on their own, for it was scarcely two hours later, when Mr Forster had divested himself of his fair companion and acquired the company of his brother James and cousin Tom for a short promenade, that they were ordained to stumble across each other again. Undaunted by their previous foray into the grimy streets of Lower Town – streets where no gentleman could have any possible half reputable business – but determining on taking the precaution this time of entering the area in the daylight, the young gentlemen had been in complete agreement as to the desirability of trying their luck with the ladies there once more. So considering that this was their first incursion in the daytime it was most regrettable that it was in the most disreputable street in the most disreputable part of town that father and son were destined to spot each other once again. Lord Barnham was in the process of escorting his grizzled acquaintance into ‘The Nelson Inn’ (shared rooms available, 3d a night). Mr Forster, Mr James Forster and their enthusiastic cousin were in hot pursuit of a delicate female who went by the particularly colourful, if unlikely, name of ‘Sweet Poppy Fields.’ The entrance to the inn being quite next door to the entrance to Miss Fields’ establishment, Lord Barnham and his heir had the acutely embarrassing and supremely uncomfortable experience of entering their respective openings at exactly the self same time. And though they did nothing to acknowledge each other, other than to share a spectacularly startled glance, it was perfectly apparent that this second encounter of the day was equally as unwelcome as the first had been. It was also perfectly apparent that each had a question or two to ask of the other, which would wait until they found themselves conveniently on their own.

‘Damn-it, Tom,’ muttered Mr Forster as they mounted the creaking wooden stairs
en route to the wonderland that was Miss Fields’ place of business. ‘Of all the bad luck – to see my father here.’

‘But whatever is he thinking of,
toodling in ‘The Nelson’, Forster? I cannot for the life of me think how he may have found it out, let alone what in the devil’s name would induce him to come here out of choice.’

‘I expect he’ll be wondering the self same things about me,’ muttered Mr Forster, dryly. ‘Though I have a nasty suspicion that he’ll
quickly work it out.’

‘What the devil do you think you’re up to, Robert?’

The interview had not been destined to take place until the next morning, for it had been late into the night before either gentleman had found his way home (in various stages of inebriation) and this time they had been so fortunate as not to encounter each other on the stairs.

It was apparent that the opportunity provided by a full night’s reflection had not proved particularly beneficial to his lordship’s temper.

‘Perhaps I might ask you the self same question, sir.’

Mr Forster
had apparently decided to bluster the whole thing out.

His father
glared frowningly at him for a minute. For a very brief moment Mr Forster wondered whether perhaps he had gone a little too far. But then, rather unexpectedly, his lordship let out his breath in a long, resigned sigh and briefly nodded his head.

‘Perhaps you might,’ he acknowledged, fairly. ‘And perhaps I might even tell you. But I
require an answer from you before I do so.’

‘And what is it, in particular, that you would like me to
tell you, sir?’

‘What the devil you are doing with that flighty city widow, and what in heaven’s name you are doing visiting prostitutes in Milk Street
Row.’

Mr Forster winced visibly.

‘Hem,’ he began, uncomfortably. This was not a promising start and it stumbled to a halt before he got any further. He was finding no easy way of confessing his activities to his father. ‘Well – err – Tom thought I should appreciate – um, well, all young gentlemen, sir – you will know – you were a young gentleman yourself at one time, were you not....?’

‘I was indeed, Robert, though it is longer ago than I would like to think of now. And I quite understand the need to – shall we say, hone your skills? – with young ladies who specialise in that sort of education – though I wish you’d asked me about it
first. Milk Street, I ask you. Young Springfield’s a clodpole if he’s taking you to places like
that
. There are much classier establishments for gentlemen like us. But what’s all this with Mrs Whats-her-name. She is obviously a more serious proposition, for I cannot for one moment think that you would introduce me to one of your common courtesans. I hope you are not seriously courting her? I thought you’d set your sights on Lady C?’

Mr Forster’s earlier embarrassment, though with him still, was completely
overwhelmed by a totally unexpected sensation of amazement and disbelief. For his father – the stern and stuffy Lord Barnham, a gentleman to whom his eldest son would have attributed no male desires whatsoever – for his father not only to approve of visiting ladies of ill repute but actually to know where best to acquire them. Well! But even more - even more than his astonishment at his father’s views on
that
– the suggestion that he was making a mistake in swapping Lady Cecily, with her extremely modest and totally insufficient six thousand pounds, for a woman worth more than three times as much – a woman who, were he to marry her, would thereby allow him to invest in the Brandrigg estate and thence increase the income of all of his family, had come as an absolute revelation to him.

‘But – but I thought that the
balsam was just what we wanted,’ he spluttered. ‘You told me we needed it. Lady Cecily has hardly anything. Mrs Wetherby has more than twenty thousand pounds. It’s just what we need in order to improve the estate. I thought...I thought that that was what you wanted - why you raised it when we had that talk the other day – that I should ignore my own inclinations and acquire some rag instead. Is...is that
not
what you wanted me to do?’

Lord Barnham regarded his son
pensively.

‘I daresay your mother has been talking to you, Robert
?’ he said.

Mr Forster
shook his head.

‘No, sir – my mother has said no more to me about it than you have done. I heard from Tom that Cecily has scarcely anything of her own. I don’t know where he got it from, though he assured me it was from a most reliable source.’

Lord Barnham sighed again.

‘He got it from his wretched mother, I suppose, and she’ll have got it from yours. I spoke to Mr King in the baths the other day. He told me about how small her fortune is. I mentioned it to your mother when I got home. She must have dashed str
aight out to tell her worthless sister about it. I should have known that it would be all around the city by now.’

‘Perhaps she did. But wherever he got it from – six thousand pounds. I daresay it’s a tidy enough sum for a young lady – but surely, sir – surely you would not expect me to marry
her for that?’

Lord Barnham eyed his son
enigmatically.

‘Sit down a moment, son,’ he said.

He poured two glasses of Madeira and sat down next to him at the table.

‘I want you to listen to what I have to say to you, Robert. I will not find it easy. It is a very long time since I have opened
up my heart to any human being on this earth, but it is time now for me to reveal some secrets about myself that I had thought I should take with me to the grave. There are things about me that even your mother does not know. I had not intended to mention them to anyone, even in a situation such as this. But something has happened to make me revise my plans a little. I shall show you what it is later today. But before I do so I want to tell you a tale. It is a salutary tale, I do believe, but I will leave you to reach your own conclusions about it.

When I was a young man – yes, it’s a long time ago now, Robert, though parts of it are as clear to me
now as if they had happened only yesterday – I was about your age, I suppose, or not much older. Well, when I was a young man I fell head over heels in love with a young lady by name of Rebecca McPhee. I can see her now – such a pretty little thing, pretty as a picture with her dark glossy curls and sidelong glances. Lady C has the self same look about her at times – such a lovely.... humph! Well, anyway, little Becky could have got anything she wanted out of me, anything at all. I was desperate to marry her – I begged her time and time again to marry me. And for some time I really thought she would.

But then a rival appeared on the scene. He was older, handsomer,
more charming – and rich. And, after all, there was nothing I could offer her – an impoverished youngster with a worthless peerage to my name – there was nothing I could offer her but my devotion – and of course we could not live our lives on that. So Rebecca would not marry me – she wanted a comfortable existence, and she had no money of her own. But my worthless rival deceived her – he had his way with her and got her with child – but even then I would have married her. I would have married her still, and worked the land, and accepted the child as my own. And eventually, when her lover had abandoned her and she’d discovered that he’d left her on her own – when she’d nothing more to lose, when he’d brought her down as far as anyone could go - she finally, finally agreed to take my hand. My joy that day was overwhelming. I remember it still in my heart. I loved that woman above my very life. Had I died that day I should have been the happier, knowing that my dear, sweet Becky had finally agreed to be mine. But my desperate joy was not to last for long. Four heady, wonderful, elated weeks saw the start and finish of it all. For she was brought to bed too early – on the very day that we should have been wed. The child was stillborn, and poor Rebecca died. She died in my arms, Robert, with the stillborn child in hers. And the look on her face as her lifeblood ebbed away – her lovely, innocent face, so racked with pain – it is a look that remains seared on my brain for all time. Perhaps I should wish that Rebecca had never been – that I had never known such heights of felicity and such harsh, dark depths of despair. Perhaps my life would have been the better, had I never set eyes on her at all. And yet I cannot wish for any such thing. I would gladly go through the self same pain – aye, every month of my life – just to know the joy – the intoxicating delight, of being truly and utterly in love with her again. But God in his wisdom has decided that one love is my lot in life – that his blessings extend no further than that, though I still feel blessed that he granted me even that one, that single respite from all my other trials and cares. So I was not destined to feel such emotion, such love for anybody ever again. I closed my heart to it – kept my love for Becky there, and threw away the key. But though I suffered in despair for many a long year I eventually realised that I could not lock myself away for ever. God had put me on this earth – puts us all on this earth – for some purpose. Yes, I had lost the love of my life and yes I was almost penniless. Becky had been and gone but there were other things for me to do. So then I started to look about me – to look at my life afresh. I wanted an heir. I wanted something to leave to the world – to make my life worthwhile. So that is why I married your mama. We both got what we thought we wanted. It suited us well at the time. And we have both, I think, made a reasonable show of – well, not happiness, maybe, but – equanimity. But we have never felt any affection for each other – not then, not now, not ever. There has been no meeting of minds between us. We have lived our lives effectively alone – not physically alone, though we may as well have done – but alone in our total inability to share each other’s loads. Our marriage is purely a civil contract. It was when we made it and it remains the same today. And whilst it enabled me to pay off a number of the debts I had been left with, and produced the heir that I so badly wanted – the heir of whom I am immensely, immensely proud - well, I do wonder, sometimes, how else things might have been. It is not fulfilling to marry for convenience, Robert – to feel isolated from any feelings of tenderness, barely tolerated in the place one calls one’s home. It is not a thing I would recommend to anyone who has half a chance of escape. You have more than half a chance, my son. I have tried to do my best for you – my best for you all. You will inherit few debts, if a meagre income. It is better to be happy on a small income, I should say, Robert, than to be rich and miserable with a wife whom you can never, ever esteem.’