Chapter 6
My lessons continued steadily under Sebastian’s careful tutelage until I was reading short novels that he let me borrow from his study. I enjoyed the travel stories the most. I’d take them up to my room and devour them by candlelight, thirsty for knowledge of the world outside my own narrow existence.
One night, not long after I’d blown out my candle, I was awoken by an army of wind and rain locked in battle outside my window. First, the wind would howl like a wild animal and shake the windowpanes. Then the rain would splatter against them with a force so considerable that, at times, I thought they surely should shatter.
Underneath this commotion, I fancied I heard the rattle of carriage wheels on the gravel drive. Surely, there would not be anyone so foolhardy as to venture out in this! Curiosity got the better of me, and I hopped out of bed and stationed myself behind the blue curtain at the window. Sure enough, directly below was a black carriage complete with a wet stamping horse. As I watched, a figure in a black cloak exited the carriage in the whirling wind, and the thumping noise of the door knocker reverberated through the house.
Maggie will not be pleased to get up! I felt annoyed on her behalf at having to tend to a visitor this time of night (I knew not the hour except that it was very late). For a while, we waited, the visitor and I. There was nothing but the sound of the wind screaming like a banshee round the side of the house, looking for a way in, and the creak of the poplars on the road almost bent double by the force of it.
Then the door was inched open, and a strip of light broke through the darkness. Maggie said something (I couldn’t hear what), and the visitor went inside.
She knows them, I thought and felt relief, though I had not realised I was anxious.
Overcome by tiredness, I crept back to bed and fell asleep to the sound of horse hooves stamping on the gravel, thinking, Someone needs to give that horse some oats. And where will it be sheltered?
When I awoke the next morning, it was as if the storm had never been. The sky was clear, albeit with the odd scudding cloud here and there. When I looked down from my window, the horse was gone, most likely removed to the large adjoining gardener’s shed out the back. But there were debris, branches and leaves, scattered all over the lawn and the white dahlias were now stalks; the wind had guillotined their heads right off.
In the kitchen, Maggie was in a flap, bustling around but not actually doing anything as far as I could see.
‘Mercy! Finally,’ she said when I walked in. ‘We’ve got an unexpected guest, Mr Donne, Father Fannon’s friend. He’ll be staying with us while he takes a break from his studies in Oxford. Can you take them’s eggs in? I need to pluck the goose for supper.’
My eyes strayed upwards to a bloodied goose dangling by its feet from a hook in the ceiling, its neck crooked. I shuddered.
It wasn’t until I had entered the dining room and was walking towards the table that the feeling overcame me. I had felt it before on other occasions, and I always got a little spooked by it. It was as if my body didn’t belong to me and that I had walked into this room carrying this tray of eggs a hundred times before. I didn’t know what to make of the feeling so I pushed it aside and transferred the heavy tray to the sideboard with some relief.
Sebastian looked up from the book he was reading as I placed the plates on the table and gave me a warm smile. His companion, presumably Mr Donne, was obscured by a newspaper.
‘Good morning, Mercy. I trust the storm did not disturb you last night?’
‘Good morning, sir,’ I replied, ‘yes, it did a little. I heard your visitor arrive.’
‘Ah, yes, my friend here has quite the habit of turning up unannounced. Jasper, meet Mercy. She’s the clever girl I was telling you about.’
The newspaper lowered, and I just stared. For some cruel trick of fate had placed before me a man that I could never hope to win. And in that split second, when my heart felt like it had been scorched by fire, I wanted to win him very badly. But Jasper Donne was the kind of man who wouldn’t look twice at a girl like me or, in fact, any girl of my class notwithstanding her beauty, though I suspected beauty would help somewhat.
He was raven-haired with a wholesome complexion and breathtakingly handsome. Dressed impeccably in a navy silk morning robe with fawn breeches and an embroidered waistcoat, he wore no cravat; and his white ruffled undershirt was open at the throat, revealing a few black hairs.
I saw his perfectly formed mouth moving as he greeted me, and I knew I’d never forget the way he impertinently raked his gaze from the tips of my boots slowly upwards. But when he reached my face and our gazes locked, his scathing dark-brown eyes that were prepared to hold me in so little regard changed, and I saw a flicker of something else.
He shot a glance at Sebastian and said gruffly, ‘She’s had the pox.’ I could do nothing but stand there, my poor pockmarked face turning blotchy with shame.
But Sebastian said (and I’ll be forever grateful to him), ‘So she has. Not uncommon in these parts, my dear fellow.’ Then he took a large bite of poached egg and toast and munched away, unconcerned.
Jasper said nothing else and dismissively returned to his paper. Sebastian gave me a friendly wink, and I dropped a quick curtsy. As I turned to hurry from the room, I noticed Jasper was holding the paper tightly, and his hand was shaking.
I spent the rest of that day in a haze of befuddled thoughts and emotions. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Maggie had to tell me three times to take a saucepan of broth off the stove before it boiled dry that afternoon. I retired to my room soon after, pleading a headache.
The cool quiet of my bedroom soothed my frazzled nerves somewhat, but there was something very wrong with me. Is this love? I thought, bewildered. I concluded that it must be but had nothing to compare it against. I loved my family; but it was a love that was quiet and steady, a slow-moving stream that trickled over pebbles, making its way out to sea—nothing like this fire that had torched alight my whole being. Every time I thought of those fathomless brown eyes and sculpted lips, I felt like crying.
Jasper was not only exceedingly handsome; but I had also learnt from Maggie that he was educated, well-travelled, and about to be very rich. He and Sebastian had met in Venice on one of Jasper’s grand tours of Europe when Sebastian was taking sabbatical leave.
‘Most young men them’s have one grand tour,’ sniffed Maggie. ‘But not Mr Donne—he’s had five or six, and him not yet 25 years old! His grandfather is a lord. And once he carks it, Mr Donne will be rolling in it, so Father Fannon says.’
That evening, as Maggie and I were finishing a light supper of cold goose, bread, and watercress soup, the drawing room bell rang. Maggie got up, sighing, her joints creaking. She was soon back, saying that Father Fannon wanted to see me.
I was surprised to be summoned at such a late hour. We never usually communed in the evenings. Nervously, I went into the drawing room; and when I saw that both Sebastian and Jasper were there, my heart started pounding. Keeping my eyes firmly on Sebastian, who was seated on the sofa, I ignored Jasper, who was slouched in the armchair opposite, engrossed in a book.
Sebastian, ever the cordial host, patted the sofa next to him.
‘Come and sit down, child. I’m sorry that we missed our lesson this afternoon, but Maggie told me that you weren’t feeling well?’
‘No, sir,’ I replied, sitting on the sofa. ‘I had a slight headache, but I am quite well now.’
I stared at Sebastian, terrified that my eyes would stray to those slender, stockinged ankles that were right there at the edge of my vision.
Sebastian grinned and bounced up from the sofa. He disappeared into his study and returned with the book that I had noticed, the midnight-blue one with the silver stars.
‘Remember this, Mercy?’ he said. ‘I think you’re ready for it. Some words may be difficult, but just sound them out like I taught you. Lord Alby’s Venetian secrets will not be secrets for much longer!’
Jasper still hadn’t said so much as a ‘good evening’, but I could feel his presence was irritated by me. Every so often, a page would turn witheringly. This was proved all too true because as soon as Sebastian finished speaking, he drawled sarcastically from his chair, ‘Do you really think that book is suitable, Seb? If the girl must read, surely, it should be something a little more ... maidish.’
I looked at him and immediately wished I hadn’t. He’d lowered his book and was sitting there, watching us, his dark eyes glinting, his lips curled in amusement.
‘Oh pfft,’ said Sebastian, waving his hand dismissively. ‘Don’t listen to him, Mercy. Jasper thinks women don’t have a brain to toss between them, but I disagree. God made men and women to be equal after all.’
Jasper arched an eyebrow and looked me up and down, as if to say there was no way on earth he would ever believe that I was his equal. And I knew it—I knew that what I was doing was wrong and someone of my position should not try to rise above it. But I wanted so much more. So I firmly grasped the book that Sebastian was holding out to me.
‘Thank you, Father. I will take it to my room and peruse it before I go to sleep. I will let you know what I think. Good night.’ I didn’t say ‘good night’ to Jasper but curtsied to Sebastian and took my leave directly.
As I shut the door, I heard Sebastian say with a laugh, ‘That put you in your place, old chap. She’s more than meets the eye, that one!’
I heard a gruff reply from Jasper but luckily didn’t catch what was said; no doubt it would have been something that would sting and cause me more anxiety!