The Misbegotten (18 page)

Though Richard Weekes chafed at the cost of the extra housekeeping Rachel had arranged, he chafed even more about widening their social circle, and about obeying Josephine Alleyn, and so was persuaded to fund them an evening at a public ball in the Upper Assembly Rooms. Rachel wore her new gown, recently back from the seamstress – plainly cut, wide across her shoulders and low at the neck, but of a wonderfully soft, heavyweight satin, silvery in colour, with long sleeves and a sheer muslin overlay. In spite of it, and the coat she wore over it, she felt the cold as they walked out of Abbeygate Street in search of a pair of chairs to carry them – since even Richard Weekes’s sense of thrift would not allow for arriving at a dance on foot. It was early October, and in the mornings the cold glass of the bedroom window was misted over with their night-time breathing. The air had a bite, even on sunny days; the leaves of the plane tree in Abbey Green had turned leathery brown and yellow, and made a clattering sound when the wind shook them. Rachel wrapped her arm tightly around Richard’s, and felt the breeze teasing her hair loose from its pins.

They arrived at around seven o’clock to a mêlée of carriages and sedan chairs; horses and people alike throwing their heads and stamping their feet. The scene was lit by oil lamps high up on the portico above the entrance, and by the glow from the tall windows, and Rachel felt a flicker of excitement. The place and the racket of footsteps and hooves and voices had not changed at all since her last assembly, when she’d been sixteen years old; only the fashions and everything about her own life were different. She glanced at Richard, in his best coat and cravat, who looked as tense as a schoolboy called up before the master. He was worried that they would have no acquaintances within, and would drift about all evening making no impression – which was entirely probable, Rachel knew, since the assemblies were always so crowded that even if you knew twenty people in the room, you might not manage to find any of them. But that evening she felt no urge to reassure Richard, so she merely gave him a thin, incomplete smile, and said nothing as they went inside.

A wave of heat poured out through the doors, and after the cold of the evening it felt smothering. From the cloakroom they moved through to the main ballroom, where the cacophony was almost too loud for conversation, and the press of bodies made it hard to move. Above it all, on a central balcony, the orchestra was playing a lively tune, and the floor had already filled with dancing pairs, who added the pounding of feet and the rustle of cloth to the swelling din. The room was a sea of faces, either flushed and happy or scowling and harried; the smell of sweat, perfume and powder was everywhere. Five vast glass chandeliers hung from the distant ceiling, glittering with hundreds of candle flames, banishing shadows from the elaborate plasterwork and columns of the walls. Rachel knew better than to stand directly below one of the lights. Once before, when she’d attended as a girl, the heat from the revellers had caused the candles to soften and droop, dripping hot wax into carefully coiffed hair and propped décolletages. Rachel felt a flush creep into her cheeks, and her underarms prickled with perspiration. Her dress was unfashionably plain, but at least the vogue for wearing few ornaments suited her situation.

The air of merriment was infectious. Rachel relaxed and began to glance around at their fellow guests. She could feel Richard’s expectation.

‘Well? Do you see any acquaintances here, Mrs Weekes? I understood you had some, in Bath?’ he asked, impatiently.

‘Had, at one time, indeed. But I see none yet. Shall we take a turn on the floor for the next dance, Mr Weekes?’ she said, raising her voice to be heard. Richard looked hot and unhappy, and answered her question with a shake of his head.

‘I shall need something to drink first of all.’

‘Very well. Can you see no acquaintances of your own, Mr Weekes? Some of your clients, perhaps?’

‘I’m looking, I’m looking,’ he muttered, and they resumed their slow procession around the room. Then, against all expectation, Rachel did see some faces she knew. An elderly couple, a Mr and Mrs Brommel, who had been her neighbours the year her family had taken the apartment in Camden Crescent. Mr Brommel wore a heavily powdered wig, and Mrs Brommel a gown of burgundy velvet cut after the fashion of twenty years past. She had been quite deaf when Rachel knew her before, and her condition had not improved with the passage of thirteen years. It took a great deal of prompting for her to know who Rachel was, and when she finally exclaimed:

‘Rachel Crofton, yes of course, I remember your family now,’ still Rachel suspected that she did not. Rachel thought Richard would be pleased, as the introductions were made, but he didn’t seem so. Perhaps the Brommels were too old, their garb too dated, their conversation too slow.

They moved on, into the Octagon room, where men and women played cards and gambled in a cluttered maze of tables and chairs. The roar of voices was lower, and underneath it was the soft slap and scrape of cards, the rattle of coins and dice and occasional exclamations of delight, or muttered displeasure. A steady stream of revellers made their way across the Octagon from the hallway and the ballroom to the tea room, and vice versa, and were scowled at by the players for the distraction they caused. At the far side of the room was the doorway to an additional card room, quieter and more private, where the stakes were higher and the mood more sombre. Richard and Rachel paused by the hall doors to enjoy a breath of cooler air, and then Richard stood up straighter, and smiled.

‘There! Captain Sutton!’ he cried, and was off at once towards a wiry-haired man in military dress. ‘Captain Sutton, what a great pleasure to find you here,’ he said, smiling as he gave a short bow. ‘And Mrs Sutton, you are looking extremely well.’ This was spoken to a tiny woman with mousy hair and lively blue eyes. She and her husband both appeared to be past forty, with touches of grey in their hair; they had an air of open happiness and vitality that immediately put Rachel at her ease.

‘Mr Weekes! Well met, sir; and who is this charming young lady?’

‘Captain Sutton, may I present my wife, Mrs Rachel Weekes? Mrs Weekes, this is Captain Sutton, a valued client and acquaintance of mine, and his wife Mrs Harriet Sutton.’

‘How do you do?’ Rachel said, as she curtsied.

‘How do you do. And may I offer you my congratulations on your recent marriage,’ said Harriet Sutton; a soft and gentle voice, perfectly matched with her appearance. Captain Sutton towered over his wife, though he was not of excessive height. Mrs Sutton stood only as high as his shoulder, and her narrow frame and tiny hands were childlike. The captain was not a handsome man – his nose was too large and too bent, and his ears stood proud of his skull – but like his wife’s, his voice and expression were so genial it was impossible not to warm to him.

With the introductions made and a polite conversation about health, family and recent events exchanged, the men drifted away towards a game of pontoon while the ladies found seats against the wall. Mrs Sutton had a painted fan which she used constantly, and angled so that Rachel might also feel the benefit.

‘Do you often come to the assemblies, Mrs Weekes?’ she asked.

‘This is the first time as a married woman, and the first time in thirteen years, truth be told,’ said Rachel. ‘I came as a girl, with my family. But then we left Bath and I had not been back since, until I wed Mr Weekes.’

‘Ah! So you are no stranger to our lovely city.’ Mrs Sutton smiled. ‘I have heard people say that Bath is out of fashion now – the haunt of invalids, widows and spinsters! Let such nay-sayers stay away, I say. It has been our home these past twenty years, and I would live nowhere else. My daughter has known no other home.’

‘And how old is your daughter?’

‘She is nine years old now. Her name is Cassandra, and she is a source of constant delight to her father and me.’ Mrs Sutton laughed at her own effusiveness, and Rachel hid her surprise that the girl was not older, since Mrs Sutton herself was no longer young.

‘That is a very beautiful name.’

‘She is a very beautiful girl. Thankfully, she has inherited only a measure of my stature, and nothing whatsoever of my husband’s beauty.’ She smiled. ‘You have the joy of motherhood all before you yet, Mrs Weekes, and I envy you.’

‘Well, yes.’ Rachel fumbled for something to say. ‘I do look forward to the condition, of course.’ She shouldn’t say that she couldn’t envisage raising a child in the small, dark lodgings in Abbeygate Street, where he or she would always have no choice but to share the one bedchamber with them; yet something about Mrs Sutton encouraged confidence. ‘Mr Weekes’s business increases all the time. Before long we hope to move to more spacious lodgings, so our family will have more room to grow.’

‘Ah, it can be hard, in the early days of a marriage. When I first wed Captain Sutton, we had just one room to live in, at a boarding house near his regiment. We slept on a bed of our own clothes, since the mattress was so thin! My family were none too pleased with my choice, I can confess. I did not marry for fortune! Thankfully, things have improved since then. We have an apartment on Guinea Lane now. And you must come to call! Do you know where that is?’

‘I think I do – near the Paragon Buildings?’

‘Just so. So, have you remade any old acquaintances in Bath since your return?’

‘No, I . . . I was just a girl when I was here, and not a great deal out in society. I met Mr and Mrs Brommel just now,’ she said, but Mrs Sutton didn’t know them. ‘I have made just one other acquaintance of late. A client and patroness of my husband, a Mrs Alleyn, who has a very fine house on Lansdown Crescent.’

Mrs Sutton put one hand to her mouth in surprise.

‘Oh! But I know Mrs Alleyn, of course,’ she said. ‘My husband fought alongside Jonathan Alleyn against Napoleon’s French.’ As she spoke, a new gravity came into her tone, and Rachel understood that she knew of Jonathan Alleyn’s decline. ‘His mother was once one of the most celebrated beauties in Bath. I understand she is beautiful still, though I have not seen her in a good few years.’

‘Does she never come out into society?’

‘I daresay she does, but only rarely. And never to a public ball any more. I think she prefers quieter gatherings, of close friends.’

‘I have met her on two occasions now.’

‘So . . . you understand that she is greatly troubled,’ Mrs Sutton said carefully.

‘This last time, I also met her son, Mr Jonathan Alleyn,’ said Rachel. At this Mrs Sutton’s eyes opened wide, and she grasped Rachel’s hand.

‘In truth? You saw him? How was he?’

‘He was . . . clearly most unwell,’ she said. To her surprise, Mrs Sutton’s eyes glittered with tears, and she blotted them with her gloved fingertips before giving herself a little shake.

‘Forgive me. I cry at the slightest thing – ask anybody. It’s only that . . . a more tragic tale would be hard to imagine.’

‘Do you understand what ails him, then?’ asked Rachel, curious in spite of herself.

‘Indeed. Thanks to my husband’s close association with him during the war . . . Perhaps I ought not to say. It is not really my place to, and perhaps Mrs Alleyn would not thank me, if you are to be further acquainted with her.’

‘It is my feeling that his current condition cannot solely be ascribed to the treatment he received from Alice,’ said Rachel, tentatively. In the back of her mind, her shadow companion stood up, and called for her attention.

‘But, then you know some of it already? You know about Alice Beckwith?’

‘I know a little. Only what my husband has told me, and then Mr Alleyn . . . mentioned it. He loved Miss Beckwith a great deal, I think.’

‘Truly. As much as any man ever loved a woman. There was some impediment to their being wed, I know not what it was. Yet they were betrothed, and determined to marry. Jonathan went into the army, and went with my husband to fight the French in Portugal and Spain, in the year 1808. Early in 1809 they returned to England, and were billeted in Brighton when he got word from Miss Beckwith that she was breaking off their engagement. Captain Sutton has told me . . . he has told me just how grievously Mr Alleyn took this news. He took leave of his regiment and rushed home immediately, only to find that she had already taken off with a new suitor, and presumably wed him forthwith. Mr Alleyn never saw her again, and had no word from her since that last letter she sent him in Brighton.’

‘But . . . where did she go? What became of her?’

‘Nobody knows. She and her new companion made good their escape. Alice Beckwith was the legal ward of Mr Alleyn’s grandfather, you understand – of Mrs Alleyn’s father. So her disgrace was a disgrace to them all.’

‘And so it is this alone that has driven Mr Alleyn to . . . that has left his health so ruined?’

‘In part. It is at the root of it, to be sure. He waited for word from Miss Beckwith for as long as he could, but to no avail. Then he returned to the war, and did not set foot on English soil until after the siege of the fortress of Badajoz, in 1812. He was injured in the battle, and fought no more after that. And upon his return he . . . he was most altered. Those of us who knew him before could hardly believe how altered he was.’ Mrs Sutton shook her head sadly. ‘I’m talking too much, I know I am. But you must know, if you are to call on them, how greatly that family has suffered. And that Jonathan Alleyn was one of the gentlest souls I have ever encountered. Before the war.’

‘Gentle? Truly?’ Rachel thought back to the violent fury in his eyes, and her hand went unbidden to her throat, where the marks of his fingers had only just faded. She swallowed, and could not make the two versions of the man meet up.

‘Oh, yes. He was a sweet, kind boy. Young man, I should say. Thoughtful, and prone to introspection, perhaps, but bright and loving and full of joy. To remember him as I last saw him . . . oh, it breaks my heart!’

‘When was that?’

‘It must be four years past, now. We took my daughter along to see him. I thought . . . I thought a child might help to remind him that there is still good in the world. But he ordered us to leave, and bade us not return.’ She sighed. ‘To my shame, we have heeded his wish. Cassandra was so upset, so frightened by the way he spoke to us. I forgive him, of course, but I will not put her in that position again. I had hoped . . . I had hoped he would realise – there is still time for him to make a new life, to start again. To find a wife and have a family. It isn’t too late. Though he seems older than his years, he is young enough to begin anew.’