Enlightening Delilah (15 page)

‘Now!’ she said, when she and Effy and Sir Charles were inside.

‘Miss Wraxall is to marry me,’ said Sir Charles.

‘I should hope so too,’ said Effy, her cheeks pink. ‘How could you . . . ?’

‘I was lying on top of the bed with all my clothes on,’ said Sir Charles. ‘Miss Wraxall is still a virgin. She followed me out to the duelling ground at Parliament Hill Fields and there she saved my life. Berkeley had hired a ruffian to shoot me from behind a tree.’

The sisters exclaimed and demanded to hear more. When he had finished, Amy said, ‘But there is to be no marriage by special licence, Sir Charles. We owe it to our reputation to do things in the proper manner. That means announcements in the newspapers and a proper wedding with all society there at St George’s, Hanover Square.’

In vain did Sir Charles protest. Effy told him that if he was a proper gentleman, then he would be prepared to wait.

Sir Charles assured them at last that he would try to be patient and went off to purchase a special licence anyway.

The French tutor, Monsieur Duclos, was on his way later that day to Holles Street to give Miss Effy her lesson. The air was fresh and keen and he whistled as he walked along. He lived in modest lodgings in Bayswater and enjoyed the walk into Town. He was just approaching Tyburn Pike when to his surprise he heard himself being hailed.

A heavy travelling carriage lumbered to a stop on the other side of the road and there, leaning out of the window, was the Comte De Ville, a wealthy Frenchman who lived in Manchester Square. The colonel’s wife to whom Monsieur Duclos gave French lessons lived next door to the comte. The Comte De Ville had always had a kind word for this lowly countryman of his when he met him coming and going to the colonel’s. He knew, therefore, that Duclos was the son of a valet who had escaped the Terror with his family to seek refuge in England and that Duclos’ parents were now dead and of how the French tutor dreamt of being able to return one day to his native country.

‘Where are you bound, Monsieur Le Comte?’ asked Duclos, looking at the great travelling carriage.

‘Why, to France! I have hopes now of having my estates returned to me.’

‘I envy you from the bottom of my heart,’ said Duclos. ‘Oh, not for your estates, milor’, but for the fact that you will soon be in that land which I think I will never see again.’

‘Then come with me,’ cried the comte. ‘I have need of a valet, my English fellow having refused to go. Come with me. I shall supply you with all the necessaries.’

Duclos only hesitated for a moment. ‘Gladly,’ he said. The carriage door was opened and the tutor climbed in.

‘Is there anyone you wish to write a note to?’ asked the comte. ‘I have my travelling writing-case here.’

‘Yes, there is someone,’ said Duclos. The comte produced the writing-case and Duclos scribbled a hasty note to Yvette. ‘If this could be delivered,’ he said, ‘then I can leave with a free heart.’

The comte glanced at the address and then, leaning out of the carriage window, called on a young man who was strolling past and gave him the letter and money to deliver it to Holles Street.

‘That is that,’ said the comte. ‘
France, mon brave. En avant
!’

Amy rang the bell for the third time and for the third time asked Harris to go and fetch Yvette.

Harris came back with the same news. The dressmaker’s door was locked. She did not reply. She must be asleep.

‘Nonsense!’ said Amy. ‘At this hour?’

She marched up the stairs and knocked on the door of Yvette’s room.

Silence.

Amy rattled the handle and called out, but there was no reply.

Afterwards, Amy never knew why she did it, but there was suddenly something about that silence which unnerved her. She looked wildly about her until she saw a marble bust standing in a plinth in an alcove. She picked it up and swung it with all her force at the lock. There was a splintering of wood and the door swung open.

The French dressmaker was standing on a chair, a torn strip of sheet round her neck. A crumpled letter lay on the floor at her feet.

Amy went very carefully forward.

Yvette kicked away the chair, and, with a scream, Amy seized the swinging body and then howled for help at the top of her voice.

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead,
The dog star rages! nay ’tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

Alexander Pope

Delilah was never to forget the extraordinary scene which followed the dressmaker’s attempted suicide.

Yvette was lying on the sofa in the drawing room, where she had been carried by the servants. Effy was weeping copiously and was having burnt feathers held under her nose by Baxter. The smell of burnt feathers was so pungent that Effy had to stop crying to exclaim, ‘I am
crying
, Baxter, not fainting.’ Amy was sitting, grimly reading the letter from Monsieur Duclos she had found on the floor of Yvette’s room. And in the middle of all this, Mr Haddon and Sir Charles were both announced.

Sir Charles had returned to tell the sisters and Delilah that he was travelling immediately to Hoppleton to gain the squire’s permission to marry Delilah as soon as possible in the local church. He had obtained a special licence. He understood the sisters’ concern, their desire to have a fashionable wedding, but his wishes must come first.

The Tribbles barely heard him. Delilah was sitting in a chair by the sofa, holding the dressmaker’s hand.

‘Mr Haddon,’ exclaimed Effy. ‘Such a to-do! Poor Yvette has tried to kill herself.’

‘Why?’ asked Mr Haddon.

‘That French tutor of Effy’s,’ said Amy bitterly. ‘He’s been making love to her behind our backs and now he’s gone off to France and left her.’

‘
Je suis enceinte
,’ murmured Yvette weakly. ‘
Je suis sûr
.’

‘What did she say?’ demanded Amy.

Effy cleared her throat and said importantly, ‘She says she is sure she has scent on.’

‘I am afraid,’ said Sir Charles, ‘that what she actually said was that she is sure she is pregnant.’

‘Odd’s fish!’ said Amy, fanning herself with the letter. ‘How can you be sure? I mean, it’s early days yet.’

‘Me, I know . . . here,’ said Yvette, pointing to her belly.

Delilah turned her beautiful eyes up to Sir Charles. ‘Perhaps Yvette could come with us to Hoppleton until the child is born – that is, if there is to be a child.’

‘As you wish,’ said Sir Charles, sounding far from enthusiastic.

‘She should have considered what she was doing,’ said Mr Haddon. He sounded much shocked. ‘I think, by her actions, she has taken herself out of your care, ladies.’

Three pairs of eyes as hard as stones looked at the nabob. Instinctively the sisters and Delilah banded together against that cruel and unfeeling world of men, men who could not even begin to imagine the extent of Yvette’s disgrace and shame.

A silence fell on the room. Effy’s hand smoothed the silk of her gown, a gown made by Yvette, a gown which had been much envied by her contemporaries. What would they do without Yvette, whose clever needle created such fashions?

Delilah was thinking nervously of the cruelty of the world in general and the cruelty of men in particular. Sir Charles once more looked haughty and remote. She did not really know him, she thought. Perhaps after marriage he would turn out to be a tyrant.

Amy was thinking of the baby. It might be a little boy. It would be fun to have a child about the house. All through the years, Amy had longed for marriage and children. Now she was too old to have any children and it certainly seemed as if she would never marry.

‘Adopt it,’ she said. She waved her arm in her excitement and sent a coffee cup flying. ‘Yes, we’ll adopt it, Effy.’

‘You could not,’ said Sir Charles. ‘You would need to be married.’

‘Then we’ll just keep it here and look after it,’ said Amy impatiently. ‘What would you have us do? Turn Yvette off?’

‘Let me kill myself,’ said Yvette weakly.

‘You selfish girl,’ snapped Amy. ‘You will stay with us and have your baby, if there is a baby, and we will all bring it up together.’

‘We are too old to take on such a responsibility.’ Effy spoke quietly.

For one moment, Amy felt engulfed in despair. How fast the years were passing! As you got older, the faster the days and months began to race by. Then she thought again of the baby. How could anyone feel old with a baby in the house?

‘It is
our
baby,’ she said fiercely. ‘Men are wicked and heedless. Come, Yvette, it is not the end of the world. You will have a strong, sturdy English boy.’

‘It might be a girl,’ pointed out Delilah, beginning to feel amused despite her concern for Yvette.

‘A girl!’ Effy sat up straight. ‘A girl,’ she said again. She could see in her mind’s eye a pretty little creature like a doll, a doll to fuss over and dress in pretty clothes.

‘I think Amy has the right of it,’ said Effy. ‘This does not call for dramatics, Yvette. Now, you must go to your room and rest. Life will go on as usual. You have been betrayed. But that’s the French for you,’ added Effy, forgetting in the heat of the moment that the dressmaker was French herself. ‘No morals to speak of.’

‘I am glad that is settled,’ said Sir Charles. ‘May I have a few moments alone with my fiancée?’

‘No, you may not,’ said Amy roundly. ‘There has been enough whoopsadaisy in this house already. You may speak to Delilah, but we will be present as well.’

Sir Charles drew Delilah over to the window and said in a low voice, ‘I shall only be gone for a little. Please be careful. Berkeley is a foul creature and may want his revenge.’

Delilah smiled. ‘As you can see, sir, I am well guarded.’

‘As to that, I am beginning to wonder whether the Tribbles are suitable chaperones for you. Ladies who cheerfully arrange to take care of a servant’s bastard child are perhaps not the best people to instill good behaviour into débutantes.’

‘They are magnificent!’ said Delilah fiercely. ‘Unless you can bring yourself to see the nobility of their actions, then I fear I cannot marry you!’

‘My love . . .’

‘And next time you come across a weeping, pregnant servant girl who is being turned into the streets without a character, think only that it is a mere accident of birth which prevents me from a similar fate.’

‘A lady would not dream . . .’ he began. Then he flushed slightly under Delilah’s steady gaze. ‘Never mind. I love you and we will be married.’ He kissed her on the cheek and left.

Baxter took Yvette back to her room, gave her a draft of laudanum, and then sat by the dressmaker’s bed until she fell asleep.

Amy and Effy and Mr Haddon talked in low voices. Delilah stood by the window of the drawing room and watched Sir Charles walk off down the street below.

She was sorely troubled. Was this what marriage was going to be like? Would she not be allowed any thoughts of her own? Would she not be allowed to make any decisions? Passion was a cheat and a deceiver, and only look how it trapped poor women. She could not find it in her heart to blame Yvette.

Three days later, Lord Andrew was strolling down Bond Street when he saw Mr Berkeley approaching. He made to cut him, but to his surprise Mr Berkeley hailed him like an old friend.

‘Good day to you, Bergrave,’ said Mr Berkeley cheerfully. ‘As you can see, my poor face is still a mess.’

‘You deserved more,’ said Lord Andrew coldly.

Mr Berkeley spread his hands in a rueful gesture. ‘I deserved hanging.’

Lord Andrew frowned. ‘We would have had that fellow you hired hanging outside Newgate if there had not been a need to avoid scandal. It is you who are the murderer anyway.’

‘I did not hire him to kill Digby,’ said Mr Berkeley. ‘His instructions were to fire over Digby’s head and put him off his aim. I was going to fire in the air. I could not see any point in one of us taking the life of another over such as Miss Wraxall.’

‘Be careful what you say of that lady, sir,’ raged Lord Andrew.

‘I say nothing wrong. She drove me mad,’ said Mr Berkeley. ‘But only consider, would you not agree that she is a flirt? Even you must have noticed how she led me on.’

Lord Andrew had, in fact, been very angry at the way Delilah had so openly flirted with Mr Berkeley. And she had flirted with
him
!

‘Miss Wraxall is now Digby’s concern,’ he said. ‘They are to be married. Digby has gone to ask Mr Wraxall for his consent.’

‘I wish him all happiness.’ Mr Berkeley looked steadily at Lord Andrew. ‘I behaved disgracefully, I admit, but she drove me to the point of insanity. We all wondered why her father should find it necessary to place her in the Tribbles’ care, but now we know. Delilah Wraxall is dangerous. I am glad Digby will now have the schooling of her.’

‘Then there is nothing further to say.’ Lord Andrew nodded curtly and walked on.

Mr Berkeley stood for a few moments watching him go, his mind racing. So Digby was out of Town. Mr Berkeley thirsted for revenge. He took himself off to a coffee house to plot and plan.