The Misbegotten (11 page)

‘Of course you don’t. I am only trying to impress upon you the . . . importance of this acquaintance. Mrs Alleyn is a very great lady, much esteemed in the highest circles of Bath society. She has been something of a patroness to me; a loyal client of exquisite taste, since the very early days of my business . . .’

‘Yes, all this you have already said, and I am delighted to be invited to meet her.’

‘I’m delighted too. I had not heard from her in some time . . . not from her personally, though the household continues to buy its port and wine only through me. It’s you, Rachel.’ He gave her a little shake, breaking into a smile. ‘You have occasioned this invitation. And now we are invited as guests into as fine a house as you will ever have seen . . . Well,’ he corrected himself, perhaps remembering her upbringing and her employment at Hartford Hall. ‘As fine a house in Bath, anyway. I do hope she approves.’

‘Of me?’

‘Indeed,’ said Richard, returning to the mirror and recommencing with his tie.

‘As do I,’ Rachel murmured, suddenly more nervous than she had been.
And if she does not, what then?
asked the echo in her head, mischievously. Rachel hushed it.

However excited her husband seemed, she, who knew a little more of higher society and its workings, had no doubt that their invitation was some form of continued patronage. They were like as not invited as vassals, rather than as esteemed guests, but she decided then to make as good an impression as she could.
He hopes to impress this Mrs Alleyn with me, so let me play my part as best I can.
She put on her fawn cotton dress again, though it was too lightweight for the weather, and draped a tasselled shawl – soft grey, patterned with sprigged roses – around her shoulders. She took her mother’s pearl earrings from her trinket box and screwed them securely to her ears.

‘Do you think she might not approve, then?’ Rachel couldn’t help asking, as they left the house at last. To her chagrin, Richard seemed to consider the question for a moment. Seeing her expression, he smiled.

‘Please don’t worry, my dear. It’s only that . . . the lady has had great difficulties to suffer, in spite of her grand station in life. She can be somewhat . . . hesitant, to warm to people. But I am sure she will warm to you, dear Mrs Weekes.’

‘What difficulties has she suffered?’ Rachel asked. She saw a tiny flicker of impatience cross Richard’s face, but then he took a deep breath.

‘Rumours abound, so perhaps it will be better that I tell you the full truth, as I understand it. Some ten or twelve years back, I forget the exact time, it emerged that her son – her only child – had been engaged in secret to a most inappropriate girl, even though he was intended for another from birth . . .’

‘Oh, poor children . . .’ said Rachel.

‘Not so – Jonathan Alleyn was a man grown by that time, and ought to have known better than to bring such scandal upon his family.’

‘What made the girl so inappropriate? Hadn’t he fortune enough for both of them, if she was poor?’

‘It wasn’t her lack of dowry so much as her lack of breeding and manners, as I understand it. But I don’t know for certain – I never saw the creature. I only know what the servants have tattled: that the family objected to the match in the strongest possible way.’

‘And so he wed her? This inappropriate girl?’

‘Not a bit. She showed her true colours before it came to that – she abandoned him, and eloped with another man, and thus proved herself as fine as any cow turd stuck with primroses. Her low nature won out, in the end. She made an utter fool of the man, and left him broken-hearted.’

‘Feckless girl!’ Rachel breathed, somewhat taken aback by Richard’s language.

‘Quite so. She was not heard of after she fled, which ought to have been the end of the matter.’

‘Was it not?’

‘Alas, no. Her betrayal seemed to lead to a kind of . . . collapse, in Mr Alleyn. A madness of some type, from which he never recovered. His wild behaviour meant that many of Mrs Alleyn’s old acquaintances cut all ties with her. These days he keeps largely to his rooms, which is a mercy, perhaps. But the damage is done. His affliction weighs heavy upon the lady, constantly.’

‘You mean he has not improved, in all this time?’

‘It’s hard to say.’ Richard shrugged. ‘No one has seen him, not for years. So I cannot say. But the whole experience wounded Mrs Alleyn very deeply. She is . . . somewhat fragile, now; she does not trust easily.’

‘Indeed, poor lady.’ They walked in silence for a while. Rachel lifted her skirts carefully over the puddles on the pavement, not all of which were water.
Poor son
, the echo in her head whispered, softly and sad. ‘The poor man’s heart must have been in tatters, for the girl’s betrayal to cause such lasting damage,’ she mused aloud.

‘Perhaps, but I think his mind must have been frail to begin with, don’t you? To be so undone?’ Rachel considered this, but said nothing. After a minute, Richard added: ‘Say nothing of what I have told you to Mrs Alleyn.’

‘Of course, I wouldn’t,’ Rachel assured him.

They made their way slowly across the city, climbing the steep hill of Lansdown Road at a pace that bordered upon not moving at all, such was Richard’s fear of arriving dishevelled. Rachel looked up at her husband’s handsome face as they neared the top, smiling apprehensively, tightening her hand around his arm. Richard’s answering smile was distracted, and he loosened her fingers absently.

‘You will crease the sleeve, my dear,’ he said.

Number one, Lansdown Crescent, sat at the eastern end of the curved street. The house reared up four storeys above street level, and gazed imperiously to the south-east. The rain that morning had left dark, sorrowful water marks on the stone, as though the windows had been weeping. The house had a bay front, to match its opposite number at the far end of the row, and was fenced in by iron railings painted Prussian blue. There was an elegant filigree lamp-post on the corner of the pavement outside, and the main door opened through the side of the house, from an alleyway leading to the rear of the crescent. The door was sheltered by a columned portico, and reached by a fan of stone steps. To the left of this a set of steeper, narrower steps led down through the railings, to a lower level courtyard at the front of the building, and the servants’ entrance. In front of the crescent the ground dropped away steeply, so that even the trees at the bottom of the slope would not hinder the residents’ southerly views. Behind and beyond the crescent the high common stretched away, a sweep of pasture dotted with sheep, bordering the edge of the city. They were high above the river and the air was noticeably clearer and less humid. There was a faint tang of chimney smoke on the breeze but also a freshness, a purity which suggested that the lower reaches of the city sat huddled in a pall of their own stink.

As they paused to take in the house’s grand situation, a curricle drawn by two smart grey horses turned into the crescent, and Richard stepped forwards hurriedly.

‘Come, my dear. We must not be seen to stare like a pair of simple come-latelys,’ he said, and automatically began to descend the small stairs to the tradesman’s entrance. Rachel pulled his arm to stop him. With a pang of sympathy, she saw that he felt as unused to his surroundings, as conspicuous in them, as she had first felt in Abbeygate Street.

‘Mr Weekes, if we are invited here as guests, surely we ought use the main door?’ she said quietly. Richard blinked, and a slow blush crept into his cheeks.

‘Yes. Of course,’ he muttered, sheepishly. He cleared his throat as they climbed the front steps, cleaned his boots as best he could on the scraper, and tugged at the hem of his jacket as he rang the bell.

The door was answered by a liveried manservant, tall and monolithic, who allowed them ingress in spite of his obvious disdain. From the inner hallway rose a wide stone staircase, turning around on itself to the top of the house. A rich carpet, the colour of blood, was laid down on it, and the edge of every riser had been scrubbed as smooth as skin. The air smelled of beeswax and flowers; and oranges, from a bowlful of spiced pomanders on a side table. The ceiling, far above their heads, was patterned with elaborate plasterwork and lit by a sparkling glass chandelier. The walls were hung with painted paper, showing an intricate design of long-tailed birds and oriental blossoms in gold, teal and crimson. Two enormous mirrors faced each other on either side of the hall, so that ranks of Richards and Rachels stood shoulder to shoulder in both, stretching back into infinity.
Here’s an army of us, now, ready to conquer Mrs Alleyn
, said the voice in Rachel’s head, and she smiled inwardly.

The butler led them to a huge doorway on the left of the hall. Rachel’s heels tapped quietly on the stone floor, and she felt the strongest sensation of being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she glanced over her shoulder, seeing nothing and nobody behind her. And yet there was something unexpected, and somewhat uneasy about the house. It was too quiet, she decided. There was no music, there were no voices. No footsteps on the stairs or in the servants’ passageways behind the panelling; no muffled sounds of industry from below stairs, no guttering of flames in hearths. Even the sounds of the street receded to nothing as soon as the door was shut behind them. Rachel swallowed, and fought off a sudden, inexplicable impulse to flee the place. It seemed as though time had halted, as though the house slept, or perhaps held its breath. Her chest burned, and she realised that she was doing the same. Richard’s face was stiff with nerves; his fingers twitched, his eyes were restless.

‘Mr and Mrs Weekes, madam,’ the butler announced, bowing to the room’s occupant as Richard and Rachel walked past him.

‘Thank you, Falmouth.’ The lady who spoke was wearing an old-fashioned gown of green silk brocade, ruched and over-embellished with bows and ribbons. She was standing on the far side of the room, by the window, feeding seeds to a canary through the delicate bars of its gilded cage. If she had been there for two minutes or more, she would have seen Richard begin to descend the servants’ stair, Rachel realised. She hoped that Richard wouldn’t think of it. The room was choked with drapes and furniture, the walls dark with large paintings, their gilded frames gleaming dully. The canary cheeped, and its voice came loud through the still air. With the light behind her, it was hard to make out the lady’s features distinctly. ‘How do you do, Mr Weekes? It has been some months since I saw you,’ she said, brushing fragments of seed from her fingers.

‘Mrs Alleyn.’ Richard bowed deeply, so deeply that Rachel glanced at him in surprise. He’d shut his eyes, and seemed to gather himself.
What does he fear?
‘Please allow me the honour of presenting my wife, Mrs Rachel Weekes,’ he said, as he straightened up at last. Mrs Alleyn came a few steps closer to them, smiling graciously. At once, Rachel noticed her great beauty, and was about to curtsy when the older woman halted, and her smile faltered.

‘Good heavens,’ she murmured indistinctly, pressing the back of one hand to her lips. Her eyes grew very wide.

‘Madam, are you unwell?’ Richard asked, stepping forward to offer his arm. Mrs Alleyn waved him away.

‘I am quite well.’ She stared at Rachel for a few seconds more, silent, until Rachel, bewildered, made her postponed curtsy and said:

‘It is an honour to meet you, Mrs Alleyn.’
Do I shock her, somehow? Does she think she knows me?

‘Well,’ said the older lady. ‘Well. A pleasure, Mrs Weekes. Please accept my blessings on your recent marriage.’

‘You are most kind, Mrs Alleyn.’

‘Do come and sit down,’ said Mrs Alleyn, and with each moment that passed she regained more composure, until Rachel grew unsure of her first intuition – that it was something about her own appearance that had given the lady pause.

The conversation moved politely from the change in the weather to Richard’s business, and who was coming to Bath for the season. Mrs Alleyn gave all the names and addresses she could think of, providing Richard with a list of potential clients.

‘I shall mention you to them, when I write,’ she said.

‘You have my thanks, as ever, Mrs Alleyn. I have a shipment recently arrived into Bristol of a very fine Bordeaux wine, one of the best I have ever tasted.’

‘Ah! How wonderful. Jonathan will not be pleased, but I cannot change my tastes in this: it is the finest-flavoured wine to be had.’

‘Jonathan must be your son, Mrs Alleyn? Does he not care for Bordeaux wine?’ said Rachel. There was a tiny pause, and Richard gave her a look of mute appeal that told her she had erred in some way.

‘My son fought the French in Spain and Portugal, Mrs Weekes. And though he accepts that the war is now over, he cannot be reconciled to the old enemy. He would prefer that I buy wine from Spain, or Germany.’

‘And the King would agree with him, for the crown tariffs on French wine still greatly limit our imports.’

‘I can’t see what is to be gained in bearing such grudges,’ Mrs Alleyn said with a sigh. ‘But I am in the minority, I am well aware. An acquaintance recently wrote to chastise me for tactlessness! But I fail to see why we should have to drink unspeakable rotgut from Spain, and allow the French to keep all of the Bordeaux for themselves! It seems a curiously backward way to punish them, in my opinion.’

‘You are quite right, Mrs Alleyn,’ Richard agreed, readily. ‘And it grieves me also.’

‘But it keeps the prices high,’ she said, smiling knowingly. Richard shifted uncomfortably. ‘Oh, I understand how business works, you need not look shamefaced. And I trust you not to charge an overly inflated price. To me, in any case; though I must buy in small amounts, and hide it from Jonathan.’ She smiled again, but this time the expression was colder.

‘Does your son live here with you, then, Mrs Alleyn? I had not realised,’ said Rachel. Again came a pause, a significant look from Richard. ‘It must be a comfort to you, to . . . have him so near to you,’ she stumbled on.

‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Alleyn, tersely. ‘I quit our house in Box after my father died. It was far too large for a woman alone, and I thought that the city would offer more opportunities for society and company. When he had recuperated from the war my son joined me here.’ The words came in such a frigid tone that Rachel found no way to reply. The silence stretched on, and Mrs Alleyn watched her without blinking. When Rachel tried to find something light and innocuous to say, she found her mind entirely blank.