CHAPTER TWENTY #3
They set off, with William in attendance to carry back any packages too small to be worth being delivered.
Louisa let Hetty chatter away, and found herself imagining being in the garden at the Court, with Lord Barkby at her side, and watching Emily at play.
She corrected herself, for she ought to have thought, with my husband at my side.
The word had become linked to misery and all things negative, but it was about to change entirely.
Her antagonism to the wedded state had been, she reasoned, perfectly natural, and she had not changed her view of men as a whole.
After all, Mr Brailes and Lord Orlando Hurstwood were examples of all she despised and disliked in the sex.
To counter them, however, there was Mr Gilmorton, who would make Caroline very happy, and Lord Barkby, who had proved himself a rock upon which to depend when in need, and yet did not make one feel a lesser being, or a possession.
She smiled to herself. He could be assertive and commanding, but, after all, he had commanded soldiers, so he was accustomed to doing so.
She felt no resentment as she had with Dembleby, for she was not made to feel incapable, inferior or insignificant.
Nor was he the sort to 347set a woman upon a pedestal as a goddess to be adored in a fatuous way.
The feeling she had was of partnership. She was realistic enough, even in the cocoon of love, to know that at times there would be frictions and argument, but at the base of it all was trust. Yes, she was trusting a man, completely.
The Louisa who had first donned her blacks was not the one now about to give her hand in marriage again.
The two ladies entered the haberdasher’s shop, and spent an enjoyable ten minutes choosing threads and fringes and were about to leave when a lady entered with her daughter.
They were known to Louisa, and generally exchanged pleasantries, but today the lady pointedly turned away, and almost pushed her daughter behind her, as if Louisa presented a threat.
Louisa frowned, bewildered. Surely she did not think that it would be possible for her to transmit the measles at this juncture?
Well, it was foolishness, but really rather silly and she would not correct her.
She and Hetty left the shop, and made their way towards the Pump Room, and it was as they did so that Louisa began to feel very uneasy.
Two ladies to whom she nodded and smiled stared right through her as if she did not exist, and she entered the Pump Room with her heart thumping.
All heads did not turn. There were no shrieks, nor did anyone faint. By the same token, nobody came up to her, or smiled at her to congratulate her upon Emily’s recovery. She felt as if people stepped back mentally, if not physically. She picked up whispers.
‘How she has the gall to show her face …’
‘Every day, it is said, and one dares not imagine …’
‘Brazen, utterly brazen.’
348Louisa began to feel that the room was spinning.
Towards the middle, her straight back towards her, was a figure she knew all too well.
The Dowager Lady Dembleby knew she was there, for her cronies had intimated it to her.
She did not immediately turn round, but continued speaking, raising her discordant voice a little.
‘My poor boy was so generous, so forgiving, but it wore him down so. No wonder he ended as he did. And that she should come here, with him, flaunting his paternity when my dear son lies in the cold earth …’
Louisa was, for a moment, stunned into silence as the import of the words hit her. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She could not speak; she could barely breathe. When she mastered her voice the words tore from her.
‘He lies in a dry family vault, and he broke his neck hunting. How dare you cast aspersions. How can you stand there and lie about your own flesh and blood, your own granddaughter?’
At this, the Dowager turned and looked at Louisa, her eyes ice cold.
‘She is no flesh and blood of mine,’ she said, slowly and very clearly.
Louisa went white, and felt her knees tremble. A hand was placed under her elbow.
‘You are not well, Lady Dembleby. Let me help you.’ Mr Gilmorton, who had abandoned his Caroline upon the far side of the room, not wishing her to be directly involved in such a scene, actually went further, and placed his other arm about her as she sagged.
‘Fetch a glass of water, you there.’ He addressed one of the water servers.
He supported 349her to a chair at the side of the room, hastily requested Mrs Goodworth to summon a sedan chair to the door, and pressed the glass to Louisa’s lips. ‘Drink this, ma’am.’
She drank without thinking, choked a little and then stared at Mr Gilmorton, her eyes wide, and with the blank emptiness of panic.
‘I will have you conveyed home, Lady Dembleby, and you should lie upon your bed.’
‘At least she may lie in it alone this once,’ came the discordant voice.
‘Help me,’ whispered Louisa. ‘Please.’
He wondered if it was wise for her to stand, but felt carrying her would look too dramatic. Caroline would have come across, but the Duchess laid a restraining hand upon her arm. ‘Not just now, my dear.’
‘But …’
‘Not just now.’ The Duchess’s eyes narrowed, as did her lips. Caroline thought it was disgust at her friend.
‘It is all lies,’ she whispered.
‘I know that, child. Shh.’
They watched Mr Gilmorton help Louisa Dembleby across the chamber, and leave, and for a moment there was silence, as though someone had died. Then the room erupted with exclamations, assertions and, in a few quarters, disbelief.
In blissful ignorance, Lord Barkby returned from his estate, and came to Edward Street even before visiting his parent, which meant he did not read the urgent letter from Mr Gilmorton.
When he was greeted yet again by a severe-looking 350Leece, he began to think the butler was making it a bad habit.
‘I regret, my lord, that her ladyship is seeing nobody at present.’
‘Do not be an ass, Leece; that does not apply to me. What has befallen this time?’
‘I believe it applies particularly to your lordship’s person, my lord.’
‘The devil it does,’ Lord Barkby responded, pushing past him and taking the stairs two at a time. He entered the drawing room without ceremony. Louisa was sitting in a high-backed chair, staring into space. She looked at him, but what she said stopped him in his tracks.
‘You cannot enter this house.’ Her voice held no emotion whatsoever.
‘What?’
‘You must leave, immediately.’
‘I will not. Tell me what has happened, Louisa.’ His voice was raised.
‘That evil woman has made it common gossip that I … I played Dembleby false, and that Emily is not his child. What can I do? No sane woman would declare her own grandchild base-born unless it were true, so of course it will be believed, and nothing that I can say will alter it. My own ruination is one thing, but Emily …’ Louisa’s expressionless voice failed her.
She covered her face with her hands. ‘If only you had not come to Bath!’ she cried from between her fingers.
‘What has that to do with it?’ Lord Barkby looked confused.
351‘Because …’ She lowered her hands. ‘Because she is saying you were, are, my lover.’
‘What?’ he repeated. His exclamation was so loud she flinched. ‘But that is ridiculous.’
‘Yes.’
‘We never met until last autumn, and I have behaved circumspectly, whatever my feelings towards you.’ He ignored his staying in the house, and his daily morning visits, since to him they were both necessary and entirely respectable.
‘Lady Dembleby has insinuated that Dembleby behaved rashly, was careless of his safety, owing to “his abject misery” over the liaison. It is all utter fustian, but already I am being shunned by the virtuous matrons of Bath. I went to the Pump Room yesterday and … I can only request that you do not come to the house again, nor speak to me in public.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘This is madness, and slander also. I will not let such a thing ruin … us. Louisa.’
‘There can be no “us”.’ Her shoulders sagged.
‘You cannot mean it. I love you. You love me.’
‘Yes, but it is still true. I wish with all my heart that we could be man and wife, but it would mean Emily would be forever ruined, as would you. She has won. That evil woman has spread her lies and ruined my chance of happiness. I cannot marry you. Go, please. Just go.’
He wavered, but, knowing his own emotions to be in such turmoil, he obeyed. Yet at the door he stopped and turned.
‘I go now, but I will come back, Louisa. I will come back.’