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Prologue

Posted on Saturday, 13 October 2007

It was the old, old story of star-cross'd lovers.

In the year 1762, two cousins were born, Eliza and James. Eliza Brandon was orphaned very young, and came to live in the house of her uncle, James's father. The cousins grew up together, fell in love, tried to elope at sixteen, were betrayed and separated. Eliza's uncle forced her to marry his elder son, who was heir to the estate and did not love her but loved her fortune. James, the disappointed younger son, joined the army and went to the East Indies, to give the couple room and perhaps to nurse his sorrow at having lost his beloved to a brother who neither wanted nor deserved her.

Her husband was a wastrel and an adulterer, and she turned to a lover, giving her husband grounds to divorce her and keep most of her fortune. She had a child by the lover, had no home and no skill in living within small means, and fell into vicious habits. By the time James learned of her divorce, returned to England and managed to find her, she was dying of a terrible disease. She was two and twenty, and her only legacy was a beautiful child of three.

James treasured little Eliza Williams as a precious trust from her mother. Although he was a bachelor living in soldier's quarters, he loved and reared her as if she were his own child, as she ought to have been.

When he was thirty and little Eliza was about eleven, his brother died and James unexpectedly became master of the principal estate in the village of Delaford, in west Dorset. He found his old home badly neglected and encumbered. He resigned his army commission and spent years in restoring the estate to what it should have been.

Still a bachelor, he understood better how to care for an estate than for a girl approaching womanhood. He allowed her to travel to Bath in the care of a school friend and that girl's invalid father, whom he knew and trusted. Sadly, Bath was no place for unsupervised young women. Eliza and her friend freely roamed the town and met whomever they wanted.

In March of 1797, when she was barely sixteen, Eliza disappeared. Her friend did not know much, and was willing to tell even less. Eventually she confessed that Eliza had met a handsome gentleman named John, and might have gone away with him. Though James was frantic and the friend's father regretful, for months no trace of Eliza was found until she herself wrote to James in November, in a panic because she was very close to her confinement and had nowhere to go.

He rushed to London, cared for her until her child was born and both were strong enough to travel, and then brought her back to Dorsetshire. He found a place for her in a village near Delaford. A woman who kept a school for neighborhood children pitied Eliza and gladly let the young mother join her household and help her with the school.

The baby was called Betsy. James did not think he could bear a third Eliza.

Chapter 1 - Home

October 1799

For two years, Eliza Williams had lived in a village near Delaford, where she made herself useful to Mrs Gordon and her pupils. Although Eliza had done something very foolish, for which she knew she must pay for the rest of her life, she was not generally a silly girl. She was intelligent, well spoken and well educated for her station in life, and she enjoyed teaching Mrs Gordon's charges their letters and sums. She and her baby Betsy were beloved among the pupils and appreciated by most of their parents. Who, in her situation, would not feel grateful?

So when her guardian and his young bride asked if she would like to live with them at Delaford, she was torn. It was, after all, her ancestral home. Her mother had lived there most of her life, Eliza herself had been conceived there and had often visited her guardian there as she was growing up, but until now Delaford had not had a mistress and so she had not had the opportunity to reside there herself. Perhaps if she had ....

In the end, she decided to accept the Brandons' offer and so bade tearful farewells to Mrs Gordon and the pupils.

Eliza had been in her new home little more than a month when her guardian received a call from a Mr Robert Cockrell, father to two of her former pupils at Mrs Gordon's. James Brandon and Robert Cockrell had grown up together, James in his father's house at Delaford, Robert at Thornhill, a prosperous farm on the other side of the village. Mr Cockrell lived there now with his daughters Maria (who was called Mimi) and Elizabeth (shortened to Libby), who were nine and seven years old.

Eliza knew she was not the only one in the neighbourhood with a scandalous past. Every one knew that, about six years previously, Mr Cockrell's wife had left him and her children to go to the Continent with a lover and had never been heard from since. Eliza had even heard some of the jokes that were made at Mr Cockrell's expense, twisting his name into a insulting epithet. She pitied him for that, knowing very well how it felt to be derided for something of that sort.

"James, I have come to congratulate you on your marriage and to beg of you a very great favor."

James accepted his old friend's congratulations and asked what he could do for him.

"You may know that my girls attend Mrs Gordon's school, and have done so for the past three years. They love Miss Williams and her baby, and are desolated by her departure from the school. They feel it as another abandonment, as you may imagine. I am unhappy because they are inconsolable."

James expressed his sympathy at his friend's plight and mentioned that he well knew the difficulties of a bachelor rearing young motherless girls.

"I have come to ask you to allow me to employ Miss Williams as their governess in my house. It is a respectable situation; I have a housekeeper and several maids. She would have her own comfortable suite of rooms. I would pay her the wages that she deserves, and she would be perfectly safe. My daughters would be relieved and happy, and so would I.

"You know me well enough to know that I will not do any thing improper or possibly scandalous. I know she has had enough of that. But at the same time I will not conceal my intentions from you, James. I have observed her with my children for two years, perhaps more than she realises. At home, they talk of her constantly. I admire her for qualities that I have seen, that you must be well aware of and have probably instilled in her yourself.

"I am two and thirty, as you know very well, and I want a wife. I would eventually like to marry her if she is willing. However, I have never attempted to court her, and I promise you solemnly that I will not do so until I am free to marry again. This coming March will be seven years since Maria went away. But for my children's sake, I feel unable to wait that long to restore Miss Williams to them, if I can."

James promised to think about Robert's petition, and to discuss it with his wife and the young lady herself. A few days later, he gave his consent.

Eliza and Betsy were joyfully welcomed into Robert's household. As governess, Eliza had rooms next to the nursery, which consisted of two rooms, the smaller with three beds and the larger given over to school. Eliza soon had the latter cheerfully arranged, with work tables, book shelves, maps, rugs and comfortable places to sit near the fire place. She believed it was better to keep sleeping and studying arrangements separate. Robert was impressed by her ideas; in nine years, no one had ever taken much trouble over the girls' living situation.

Robert found himself spending a great deal of his spare time in the school room, in the company of Eliza and the girls. The girls were happy and their squabbling and complaints had stopped. With Eliza in his house and the girls contented, it seemed to him that he almost had a family. All he had to do to maintain this illusion was to forget the inconvenient facts that Eliza was neither his wife nor the mother of his children and that he was not the father of Betsy.

One evening in particular, Eliza was seated on the sofa, Betsy in her lap and the two older girls cuddled up against her on either side, listening to a fantastical tale about a talking bird and a singing kitten who were best friends. When the girls demanded a third character, she introduced a dancing turtle with a delicately painted shell.

Seated across from them on the other sofa, as was his evening habit, Robert nearly lost his composure. As the girls giggled sleepily in Eliza's embrace, his vision dimmed with tears. How can I possibly keep my promise to James not to court her until I am free? I am the one likely to endanger her safety! He knew he ought to leave the room but could not bring himself to break up the peaceful mood. So he suppressed his desires and forced himself to think only of the contentment of his daughters. When Eliza rose to put the girls to bed, he also said good night and left.

A few hours later, Libby's screams awoke Eliza from a sound sleep.

She pulled on her robe and ran to see what was wrong. Robert had also heard and had already run upstairs.

Eliza sat on Libby's bed and cradled her like a big baby. The child's eyes were open but unseeing as her continuing screams were interspersed with sobbing. Eliza cuddled her tightly and crooned to her. Mimi was frightened, and Betsy had begun to cry. Eliza tried to soothe the older and younger girls while comforting Libby and gently waking her from her nightmare.

"My mama -- was here, -- she was -- she was -- running -- away from -- from me. -- I tried -- tried to -- to catch her -- but she -- she kept running -- faster and -- faster. -- -- And she -- she kept -- she was -- looking over -- over her shoulder -- and -- and when I -- almost caught up -- up with her -- then she ran faster. -- -- I could never -- catch her -- and she ran away. -- She was laughing at me! -- I'll never see her again!"

Eliza had never been so angry with someone as she was in that moment with Maria Cockrell, a woman she had never known. How could she! How could she leave her baby in such a state? But she pushed her anger aside to concentrate on comforting Libby.

"You might run away too, like my mama!"

"I could never do that, darling. I will never leave you, Libby." Eliza blushed to hear herself. How could I have promised that, when it may not be in my power to keep it?

By this time Robert was on his knees by the bed, stroking his daughter and murmuring to her. Through the turmoil, he had clearly heard Eliza's words and thought, I hope one day to be able to remind you of that promise, my girl! But of course he said nothing aloud.

Mimi said, "Sometimes I remember my mother, and I dream about her too. You might steal away, as she did, and we would never even be able to chase you!" So grown up seeming at nine, Mimi was clearly affected as well. Eliza cuddled her, too.

Much later, when Libby and Mimi were calm enough to speak and Betsy was nearly asleep, Eliza asked, "Libby, do you remember the game we played this morning, you were chasing me and I pretended to run away? But you and Mimi caught me? Don't you think that if I truly wanted to run away from you I could run faster than I did, because I'm tall and have long legs? But I never, never would. I never would. Do you think perhaps you had that nightmare because of that game? Could that be?"

Libby nodded, tentatively.

"Would you like to play that game again tomorrow, and you will catch me again, every time?" Libby and Mimi both nodded yes.

At last the girls fell asleep, all in Libby's bed. Eliza was exhausted, but felt too stimulated to sleep.

Robert asked her if she wanted a warm drink before bed. He led her down to the kitchen, where he heated milk, poured it into the clay mugs the servants used, and added sugar and rum. They sat across from each other at the kitchen table and drank in silence.

Eliza at last could no longer contain herself. "Mr Cockrell, I hope you will allow me to confess how very angry I am with your wife! I could not express myself with the girls present, of course, but .... I love both your daughters, and I cannot see how she, who bore them, could not! My own mother abandoned me when I was three, and I recall very well how it feels. But she did not leave me on a whim, because she held a lover dearer than she held me! She had no choice -- she was terribly ill and she died! And I shall never see her again."

Tears began to roll down her cheeks. Robert felt helpless. He could not embrace her, as he ardently wished to do. In the end, he patted her hand awkwardly and offered her his handkerchief.

He was tired, and his feelings were completely undefended. He had not intended to broach the subject that he did: "Shall I confess something to you, Miss Williams? I hope to marry you one day. Please, I don't ask you for an answer, but I hope you will allow me to speak."

Eliza could not protest.

"Before you came to live here, I told your guardian my feelings, that I hoped one day to marry you, but I promised him I would not court you until I was free to marry again. I am not free, not yet. I don't intend to dishonor my promise, and yet there are some things I would like you to know. If you don't wish to hear them, you may stop me at any time.

"My wife left me over six and a half years ago, with a man named Harry Wellworth. Libby was a few months old, and Mimi was two. I don't know how long they were lovers, but I became aware before Libby was born. I pretended ignorance, hoping to keep her, but to no avail. I was in love with her and had thought she married me out of love also. She was willful and spirited, and very beautiful. We were both two and twenty when we married.

"She simply left one day. She said, ‘Good bye, Robert, I am going with Harry,' and she walked out the door without looking back. She didn't even kiss her children. She and Wellworth went to the Continent, I believe. But it was very dangerous then, and I don't know what happened to them. I never heard from her again, and I believe his family also knows nothing. After seven years, she will be presumed dead and I may marry again. Until then, I would be considered a bigamist, without proof that my wife is dead. The seven years will be up in March.

"I don't even know if my daughters are mine or Wellworth's. But eventually I realised it didn't matter. They were motherless, and I was not going to abandon them. I love them, and legally they are mine, regardless of their parentage.

"Both girls were desolate at the time. Of course at the time Mimi could talk a little and understood that her mother was gone. I don't know if she really remembers her today, although she says she does. Libby, of course, was too small to remember anything at all. Maria did not even wait until Libby was weaned, and I had to find a wet nurse.

"So my girls have been reared by a succession of nurses and housekeepers. I had put them in Mrs Gordon's school about a year before you arrived there. She is very kind, as you know, and treated them as pets because they were so young, only four and six at the time. Of course, like everyone else hereabouts, she knew they were motherless. They received more attention there than they would have at home. Then you arrived with Betsy.

"I don't know if you realise how attached to you they have become. When you left Mrs Gordon's to go live with your guardian and Mrs Brandon at Delaford, they were inconsolable. They cried, had tantrums, disobeyed, quarreled with each other. They were very unhappy, and so was I. It was horrible in every way. All of us were supremely grateful when you consented to come here.

"The girls are afraid you will leave, like Maria. Of course, I hope you will not, although I have nothing to offer in order to keep you here just now."

During this recitation, Eliza's tears had started again, and she took some time to compose herself. "I have no intention of leaving, Mr Cockrell. I am very happy here, and so is Betsy. I think you must know that.

"I don't know how much you know about me, ...."

He said quietly, "I know you are Miss Williams and that you have Betsy. I must infer that nearly three years ago something happened that should not have." He blushed and hesitated. "I hope it was not against your will?"

"No, it wasn't. I loved him, even after Betsy was born. Only when I heard that he had married some one else did I most unwillingly give up hope that he would return for me and his child." She shrugged.

Robert compressed his lips to keep an epithet directed at the man from escaping them.

"Perhaps my sin runs in my blood," she said. "My mother had been married, but not to my father. I have never known him, although I suppose he may still live.

"I know that many believe I am my guardian's love child. I am not. He took responsibility for me when my mother died. There was no one else. His brother was my mother's husband. She betrayed him and conceived me, so he divorced her."

Comprehension dawned on Robert. He had been a youth when Eliza Brandon's divorce had been all the news of the neighbourhood. He had been at school at the time and had escaped the intensity of the gossip. It had not occurred to him to connect this Eliza with that long ago scandal.

Eliza continued, "My father abandoned her also, and she lived a life of sin until her death. How else could she have supported herself and me? She had no family, no money. Colonel Brandon was in India then, and did not know. After his return he found us, when my mother was already dying. Only he cared about either of us. Certainly the man she had cuckolded did not."

Robert winced at Eliza's matter of fact recitation. "I have heard that rumour that you were Colonel Brandon's child," he said, "but I never believed it. If it were true, he would have married your mother and given you his name, I am sure of that. I have known him all my life. To do as the rumour has it is not in his character."

He continued, "I believe I understand your sympathy with my children, not only because you are a generous woman. Your plight was much like theirs, losing your mother at such a young age."

"I understand them perfectly," she said. "But they are fortunate in having you as their constant. I imagine that is one reason they love Betsy. They pity her for having no father."

He noticed that she stifled a yawn. They both rose to go to bed, but before they parted he said, "Miss Williams, allow me to tell you again how much I admire you." And love you, he added silently. Aloud, he said, "You comforted Libby when she was beyond herself, and I am sure I should have been helpless before such a tempest. In fact, you have already made yourself indispensable here. Good night." And may you sleep sweetly, he silently added.

The next day, Eliza introduced a variant of the chase game which had seemed to engender Libby's nightmare. In the new game, she always collapsed onto the ground when one of the girls caught her, and then all three girls would pile on top of her to pin her down helplessly. She would embrace them all together and they would all laugh before they would get up and play again. By tacit agreement, Eliza and Mimi made sure that Libby won, first and last.

Robert watched them from a window, his heart swelling in further admiration.

They never spoke of that night's conversation. She supposed he did not really mean to marry her but had merely been influenced by the drama of the evening. His steady kindness to her was no different than it had been before. She did not feel uncomfortable after their mutual revelations.

For his part, Robert thought constantly about marrying Eliza, although to her knowledge he said and did nothing to forward it. He was not free yet. But he did ask James about Eliza's seducer. He learned the man was John Willoughby, who had married a rich woman in town, had an estate in Somerset and was heir apparent to another in Devon, where James had met his wife. James clearly held the man in contempt. Robert could not be surprised, given what the man had done to Eliza.

Robert also worried about the thirteen-year age difference. Eliza would turn nineteen in January -- still too young to make her own decisions about property or marriage and yet old enough to be a mother and to be responsible for her own child and others. A system which made a woman the property of her father and then of her husband -- like someone born or sold into slavery -- and yet would look to her alone to be responsible for any child born out of wedlock, seemed to him irrational if not iniquitous.

Robert could hardly ever think of Maria in a kindly light, but these thoughts led him fleetingly to pity her. She had left the protection of his home to go with a man on whom she was completely dependent, without the protection of any status. Had Wellworth taken care of her? Was she still alive, living happily somewhere with him or another man, or had she died, perhaps in misery? Robert did not expect ever to know.

At thirty-two he was younger than James, who had also married a woman of nineteen, but Robert felt his situation was different. He could not think cheerfully of the local gossip likely to flow from taking a pretty young wife who had once fallen, to replace the beautiful faithless one who had cuckolded him and abandoned her children to his care. Of course, there were only two reasons to care about such gossip: it might hurt Eliza, and it might reflect an underlying truth -- he might very well be an old fool.

But he was ashamed of such a suspicion. She was not pursuing him; it was the other way round. He had begged her to come into his house and was desperate for her to remain. She had no need to entrap him, unlike Maria. She had a loving guardian and his kind wife, who would keep her as long as necessary, even if it was for ever.

Meanwhile, Eliza was an increasingly indispensable part of his household. More and more she seemed like the mother of all three girls, loving them equally.

The fourteenth of March was exactly seven years since Maria had left. By the beginning of April, Robert was prepared with his proofs.

He went to the church to testify that his wife had left his home seven years earlier and had not been heard from since. He explained the researches he had done and showed letters to envoys in various European capitals, together with replies stating that neither Mrs Cockrell nor Mr Wellworth were known there. He had a letter from Maria's elder brother stating that her family had not heard from her for over seven years. There was a similar letter from the Wellworth family's man of business, who added that the estate of Harry Wellworth as younger son was about to be settled, upon the presumption that he was dead.

Robert's proofs were accepted, and the Reverend Ferrars made the following entry in the parish register: "Maria Cockrell, born Maria Horton twenty-seventh February 1768, last seen fourteenth March 1793, presumed dead second April 1800."

Robert walked back to his house with mixed feelings. He had just buried Maria, but now he was free to marry Eliza if she would have him.

Chapter 2

Posted on Saturday, 20 October 2007

Robert was free, but he waited a day or two to settle his feelings before he proposed.

"Eliza, you are inexpressibly important to me. Within a few months you have made my family seem almost intact, the girls have a mother, you have brought warmth into my house. I told you months ago that I intended to ask you to marry me when I was free. I am free now. I need you. Will you share my life, and my children, with me? Will you marry me?"

She paled and looked down. After a long silence, she looked up again. "No, Robert, I cannot."

"But why? Why ever not?"

"Because you are respectable, and so are your children. They were born in wedlock. And what I said that night in the kitchen is no more than the truth. My shame is in my blood, I was born in sin, Betsy was born in sin, I am meant to be wretched and hopeless, and I don't deserve better. I don't want to taint you and your girls."

"Eliza, stop it!"

Robert was angry, pleading, consoling, persuasive -- all at once. He took her hands, and in a softer voice said, "Please, Eliza, for my sake if not for yours, please stop saying that."

She did not withdraw.

He said, "Haven't you punished yourself enough by now? Surely Reverend Ferrars would admonish you for pride -- do you think you are the only one who has ever sinned? You were a child -- old enough to breed, yes, but still a child. An oler man seduced you and then abandoned you to your fate. Was not his sin far greater than yours? And yet did he ever suffer for it? I doubt it very much!

"And look at my wife. Maria dishonored her wedding vows and me, and then once Libby was born she abandoned both her children. She waited until Libby was born in order to leave her behind, because she did not intend to keep a child with her when she went with her lover. Wasn't that a sin?

"And I acquiesced when I suspected her adultery, trying desperately to keep her. Was that not also a sin?

"I am rearing cuckoo's eggs -- you must have noticed the girls look nothing like me. Mimi and Libby were born in degrading circumstances too, merely covered up by my acquiescence -- they are innocent even if I am not. If you desire expiation, think how you could rescue them by giving them a mother. They love you as if you were theirs, and you could be. They treat Betsy as their little sister, and she would be if you were their mother. Don't you know how desperately they want that? Libby's nightmare told you, if you didn't already know."

Tears were running down Eliza's cheeks. She did not even try to withdraw one of her hands from his, to wipe them away. But she asked, "And you, what do you want from me for yourself?"

"To live with you as my wife, for the rest of our lives. I have come not only to admire but to love you. You are serene, comforting, generous, strong, loving, you have brought laughter into my house for the first time in seven years. I have lost my heart to you. I only ask you to keep it safe.

"I know how you feel about yourself, and you know that I cannot agree. You are all that is good and kind, and innocent. But I don't know how you feel about me, what you think of me as a man, not as your employer."

"I don't know, I have never allowed myself to think of you in that way," she said softly.

"Not even after our frank conversation in the kitchen that evening?"

"No. You didn't change toward me, and I supposed our conversation was simply an overwrought reaction to Libby's distress."

"I didn't want to frighten you away," he replied. "I didn't know what else to do, how else to act toward you, so I was careful not to appear changed. But the truth is that my feelings for you have been growing. I can't deny them any longer, and I don't want to.

"But Eliza, I won't pressure you." She could not recall his ever having used her name before and had not noticed his use of it earlier in their conversation. "Take as long as you want to consider what I have asked. Your situation in my house won't change unless you want it to. And I will do anything you ask."

The next day she did not have an answer for him, but asked him to take her to call on her guardian. He left her at Delaford, after securing Brandon's promise to return her to Thornhill when she was ready. The Brandons were pleased to see her, but surprised that Robert did not intend to stay. His departure led Marianne to wonder if he had offered marriage. She recalled, of course, the terms under which Eliza had left Delaford to live in Robert's home.

"He wants me to marry him, and I don't know what to do."

"Do you want to?" asked Marianne.

"I don't know." And she told them what she had told Robert, and his reply.

James said, "Eliza, dear, he confided to me his feelings for you before I consented to your going to Thornhill. I didn't tell you, because they were not my feelings but his. And so I am not surprised that he has proposed. If you accept him, you will make him happy, I'm sure, and I believe he is a man who would make you happy as well.

"I am about to tell you something that Robert does not know. It may affect your decision, I don't know.

"Of course you and Betsy will always have a home with us, if you want it. But you need not be dependent upon us or any one. You have about fifteen thousand pounds of your own."

Eliza was astonished, and did not reply.

James went on. "Your mother had a large fortune, which of course was made over to my brother when he married her. It is monstrous that four years later she died sick and destitute." He had to pause to regain his composure.

"In the years after her death, while I was a bachelor soldier, I saved a substantial portion of my earnings toward a dowry for you. Then, when my brother died, I was able to recover something from his estate that should have gone to your mother.

"I also obtained a thousand pounds from your natural father. I reminded him that he had escaped being held liable in damages for corrupting a young married woman and had never accepted responsibility for the fruit of that wrongful liaison.

"The largest portion is from your grandfather -- your mother's father -- who provided for you in a form that my brother, and my father before him, could not touch. When she was a young child, a short time before his own untimely death, your grandfather settled two thousand pounds on her, to be held for her children and divided among them when each attained the age of one and twenty, or in the case of females, if they married at an earlier age. As your mother's only child, you are entitled to the entire amount. Of course, that money has been untouched for nearly three dozen years, and has been earning interest all that time. The other sums I mentioned have also been earning interest.

"I am telling you this so that you will not fear want if you decide not to marry Robert, or any other man. Circumstances have led to hardships in your life, but fear of poverty should not influence any decision you may be called upon to make.

"My dear, perhaps I was wrong not to tell you this long ago. If I was, I am truly sorry."

Eliza recovered her speech and whispered her thanks and her pardon. The three drank tea and conversed further, until Eliza said she was ready to go home. James and Marianne together accompanied her.

On their way back to Delaford, Marianne exclaimed, "Why did Willoughby fight you over Eliza's honor? Had he married her, as he ought to have, he would have had her fortune instead of Miss Grey's, with so much less trouble to himself!"

"Ah, but he didn't know that, did he? And of course Eliza's fortune, good as it is, was as nothing compared with Miss Grey's fifty thousand pounds.

"I fear that I have erred severely in my guardianship, Marianne. I thought that if her independence were known, she could become an easy target for fortune hunters. She became an easy target for a libertine like Willoughby in any event. Could I have hushed up her mistake and brought her out into society, as her fortune warranted? That would have been difficult in the circumstances, but perhaps not impossible. Perhaps I ought to have attempted it."

"Will we ever know, James? You acted for the best, as you believed."

On the third day after Robert's proposal, Eliza came down to breakfast as usual, smiled serenely and said yes.

Expressing his happiness, Robert took her hands and asked, "Will you tell me what made you decide?

"You. I have known you these two and a half years, have lived in your house half a year. I know you are kind, honest, loving and solid. I doubt there is a better man anywhere." She smiled. "Also, I don't want to leave your home."

"You needn't marry me in order to stay here, I told you that," he protested.

"But you must see that it would be impossible. We could never get along comfortably if I rejected your proposal. It is not a question of where to go -- I can always return to my guardian. But I should not like to leave your girls -- or you."

At that admission, he relaxed, but continued to hold her hands.

"And you love me," she added.

"Don't marry me only because of that -- anyone who knows you as I do would love you! But you worry me: marriage is not part of your self-imposed penance, is it?"

"No, Robert. Remaining single would be." Her eyes were glistening.

He laughed at himself. "Here I am trying to dissuade you from what I desire most, foolish man that I am!"

"I am not dissuaded," she replied, "I want to marry you."

And to his surprise, she kissed him to show how she meant it. "I love you," she whispered. "I want to marry you."

That evening, as the family relaxed together in the schoolroom before the children's bedtime, Robert said, "We have something to tell you, girls. Betsy's mama and I are going to be married. She will be Mimi and Libby's mama, and I will be Betsy's papa."

"And she will never leave us?" asked Mimi.

" I will never leave you," affirmed Eliza, and she hugged Robert's daughters tightly.

Meanwhile, Betsy had climbed into Robert's lap and was covering his face with baby kisses. Eliza's heart lurched when she realised what she might have deprived Betsy of, had she persisted in her refusal.

Another morning, Eliza told Robert, "I want to tell you all about him, so you will never have anything to wonder about."

"Darling, you told me the essentials a long time ago. You don't have to tell me any thing more."

"Yes, I do, and it will be easiest now, in this sunlit breakfast room, in the light of day. It is solid here, distanced from all that happened. I met him in Bath .... "

Robert winced, and murmured, "That is where I met Maria ...."

"I had just turned sixteen. I was there with my friend and her father, but he was too sick to supervise us. We did whatever we wanted, ranged over the town, talked to whomever we liked.

"I met him at a dance in the Assembly Rooms. He was charming and very handsome, about four or five and twenty then, a rich gentleman who was very attentive and flattering. Especially to me, or so I thought, and he said I was fascinatingly beautiful and that he loved me. He said he had an estate in Somerset, where he hunted and bred horses and dogs, and also had a house in town. He wanted to take me to see his estate, and the sights of London.

"Of course I believed him. Or perhaps I should not say of course. Probably other girls would have seen it was all lies and flattery, but I did not.

"At any rate, you may imagine how I fell. Soon I was sporting with him in his lodgings. I knew it was wrong, but somehow I managed to convince myself it was right.

"Then he left. He said he would return for me, and again I believed him. I was too naïve to make sure I knew how to reach him.

"He never did return, of course. Then I realised I was with child, and I was desperate. I was ashamed to tell my guardian. I thought he would cast me off."

"I know he would not have," Robert said softly.

"I know that too, now, but then I was barely sixteen, and I only knew that what I had done was very bad, very shameful, and my guardian was very good and upright, and I didn't believe he could forgive me, after all he had done for me." She added softly, "I believed I deserved to be cast off, as my mother had been." She ducked her head, knowing he did not like her to say such things.

"So I borrowed five pounds from my friend and told her I was going to Bristol. I didn't tell her I was with child, and I made her promise not to tell my guardian anything. I went to London instead.

"I found work in a scullery, with people who were willing to take me off the street. They must have seen from my manners and speech that I was a runaway, and they saw soon enough that I was increasing. They always said I could stay as long as I could work, but not after the child was born.

"In the end I became desperate and wrote to my guardian, but my letter was delayed and he did not come and rescue me until I was very near my time.

"At first I didn't want to tell him who it was, but at last I did. They fought a duel about me. I was afraid one or both would be killed, but somehow neither was.

"And he never returned for you, did he?" asked Robert.

"No, of course not. Even the challenge from my guardian did not accomplish that. He was already planning to marry his wife. She has a large fortune, I understand. He admitted to my guardian's sister, Mrs Ferrars, that he had been a libertine with me, and I doubt that I was the only one he treated so. But it doesn't matter anymore.

"After Betsy was born and I was recovered from my lying in, my guardian brought me to Mrs Gordon's, to have a home and be useful. He had Delaford, of course, but he wasn't married at that time and could not take me there.

"Then I heard Willoughby had married, and I was finally forced to give up all my hopes for him. How foolish I was you may judge from how long I held onto those hopes.

"And yet I was fortunate. At least I didn't end up like my mother in very dangerous and degraded circumstances -- providence and my guardian saved me from that."

"And you saved yourself," Robert said, "your good sense and your determination not to succumb."

Another day, he told her about Maria. "I also met her in Bath. We were introduced at a dance, and I was immediately smitten. She was brilliant and very beautiful. I didn't care that she was poor, because although I was not rich I was comfortable enough and she seemed to love me.

"But she was bored in the country. I don't know what she had expected in marrying a farmer, perhaps that gentlemen farmers spend most of their time in Bath.

"I may have been a dupe from the beginning. I learned that the acquaintance who introduced us also knew Wellworth. It doesn't matter now, of course -- it just shows that I was always a fool."

"She hurt you!" Eliza said fiercely, "-- she didn't deserve your love! But at least, did she love her girls?"

"Not as you do, certainly. I had supposed that she did, in her way, but then she left them without a backward glance!"

Eliza shook her head in disdain of Maria. "Would you like to tell me about Mr Wellworth?"

"He was a younger son of a gentleman with an estate near Taunton. I never met him, but I did see him once at an assembly. He was not paying attention to Maria, in fact he seemed to cut her. I was a fool again -- I didn't recognise that they were both playing a part in order to divert any suspicion. I merely thought it odd that any man would slight my beautiful wife.

"Now you know everything," he said.

Robert went to James, and of course he consented. He told Robert about Eliza's large dowry.

"I am astonished. She never said anything! I thought she was poor."

"She didn't know it herself until a few days ago, the day you left her here."

Robert calculated the date. "Then she hasn't accepted me out of necessity, has she?"

"No."

Eliza wanted to meet her natural father. She believed such a meeting could fill a great void in her understanding of herself.

"Are you sure, Eliza?" asked James. "It may be very painful. I have no opinion of his character. What if he rejects you or takes you lightly, how will you feel? Sometimes knowledge is painful, and ignorance once lost can never be recovered."

"Whatever his attitude to me, I want to know."

"That is spoken like a soldier's daughter. I truly wish you had been mine." He took her hand and continued, "I am proud of you, Eliza. You have overcome difficulties that I had thought insurmountable."

James had promised to make the necessary arrangements for Eliza, Robert as her fiancé, and himself as her guardian, to call upon Sir Stephen Worsley at his estate in Wiltshire. Eliza worried that he might refuse them.

"He won't," James assured her. "I told him that you were thinking of writing to Lady Worsley to solicit her patronage for the Dorsetshire Society for the Protection of Exploited Young Gentlewomen."

Robert looked at his friend in awe. "James, you astonish me! That's blackmail!"

"Not at all. It's diplomacy, or soldiery. One identifies the weakness of the other and then offers him a way to avoid its most damaging consequences. It is perfectly straightforward. Not every battle requires cavalry and musketry." But in fact, James was proud of his finesse.

Worsley's estate could not compare favorably with Delaford. There were signs of neglect everywhere. The visitors were not denied, and they did not see Lady Worsley, only Sir Stephen.

"I remember you, Brandon. You got the better of me a few years ago, over a matter of money, but before that I beat you to it. I suppose you had always wanted to have your cousin yourself, eh?" And he leered to make sure that all his visitors understood him.

To Robert he merely bowed. Unable to recall his name, he simply ignored him for the rest of the interview.

Taking Eliza's hand, he said, "You are very like your mother, my dear. She was lively and beautiful, and we had a good time together, while it lasted. You must be sure to treat this man here, your --, whatever he is to you -- treat him as well as your mother treated me, and he will treat you well."

They left as soon as they could. Eliza maintained her composure until they were back in the carriage, and then she burst into tears of indignation.

"Vile man! I should have listened to you, guardian!"

As both men comforted her, James said, "No, my dear, you were right to persevere. You had to discover for yourself what sort of man he was, and is. Now, any regrets you may have about him will be founded on the truth, not upon wishes for something that never was and never could have been. You know now that he would never have married your mother after her divorce and recognised you as his own. It would not have been in his character. And while he may have been your natural father, nothing of his character is any part of your own. Yours is all from your sweet mother."

"And from you, guardian," she replied. Then she turned to Robert and wept into his shoulder.

The Reverend Edward Ferrars married them in early May. Eliza was attended by the three girls and by Mrs Brandon, who was much increased, and Colonel Brandon gave her away. Mrs Gordon attended, and wept for the happy couple. The girls were to stay with the Brandons for a week after the wedding, while Robert and Eliza went away to Lyme.

The girls were not at all anxious about being left by their parents, as Mrs Brandon had promised to give them the run of the house and lovely grounds at Delaford and to show them their mother's room. She said there was even a harpsichord that had belonged to Betsy's grandmother.

They were in awe of the Colonel, but he seemed kind. He solemnly informed them that Delaford park possessed many delightful surprises for children of any age, and that they could not possibly have time in one week to discover them all. And he promised to let them play with the new puppies.

In their room that evening at the Royal Lion in Broad Street, Eliza and Robert both found themselves unexpectedly shy, afraid of disappointing each other. Eliza could not even bring herself to been seen by her husband unclothed, for fear of seeming -- and perhaps feeling -- wanton.

Robert, for all his longing for this very moment, felt similarly constrained. He had not been with a woman since Maria left, and was afraid of hurting this woman, who had been so badly harmed before.

In the end, they laughed at themselves and went to bed in their nightclothes. At least she allowed him to take down her hair. Robert promised her again, "I will never pressure you."

Eliza awoke in the night to find her limbs entwined with his, and his hand resting on her.

She realised that she wanted to give her husband his own child and woke him up to tell him so. He laughed and pulled her up on top of him. "Play with me," he urged.

So they played and laughed, gasped and moaned and giggled and swooned for the rest of the night. They forgot everything they had ever done before with another, and thought only of giving each other pleasure, and taking it. They spent the entire next day in their room, emerging only for dinner and then resuming their joyful occupation.

Robert had been in Lyme several times, but Eliza never. When they ventured out of their room a little, he showed her the places he liked -- Broad Street, the Cobb, St Michael's church, ancient structures dating back to Norman times, the fossil rocks. They found a very private bit of beach surrounded by rocks and sheltered from the surf, and they played there also.

One rainy afternoon, they were drinking tea in the private parlor of the inn when Eliza suddenly put down her cup, stood up, and whispered to Robert, "Chase me!" She swiftly left the room.

He caught her on the stairs and carried her into their room. He deposited her on the bed, pinning her down.

She said triumphantly, "I won!"

"No, I did!"

They argued thus, until Eliza said seriously, "Don't you understand yet, I won because you rescued me."

"You have never understood that you rescued me."

In full daylight, with the sun starting to break through the clouds and rain-spattered panes, they explored seriously and passionately and playfully and lazily who had rescued whom.

A little over nine months later, Eliza was delivered of a boy, whom they named for his father. The three girls were captivated by their baby brother. They mothered him mercilessly until forced by the arrival of even younger siblings to divide their loving equally among them all.

Chapter 3 -- Old Wife

Posted on Saturday, 27 October 2007

1803

One spring morning three years after her marriage, Eliza was in the school room, nursing baby Tommy while her other children, Mimi, Libby, Betsy and little Robby, studied or played. The housekeeper entered to inform Mrs Cockrell that there was a person to see her, in the kitchen.

"Not the parlor?"

"No, ma'am, I didn't think it proper. She is in the kitchen."

Eliza found a dirty, sunburned, ill-dressed and even worse-shod woman of indeterminate age, who might once have had good looks.

"I am Maria Cockrell," the woman announced. "This is my house."

Eliza was not as shocked as she might have been -- she had occasionally wondered whether Robert's first wife was really dead, and had supposed that if she lived, she might some day return to claim her former place and her children.

Turning to the housekeeper, who was shocked, Eliza asked her to send the scullery boy to fetch Mr Cockrell from his work that morning in the south field. "Tell him, please, that he is wanted at once in the house. Tell him no one is in danger here or in any distress, but that something requires his immediate attention." Eliza was not certain that the woman who claimed to be Maria was not in distress, but she did not intend to worry her husband until he could see for himself.

By the time Robert arrived, the visitor was drinking a cup of tea in the scullery.

"Maria," he exclaimed, "you are dead."

"I am not dead, as you see, although there have been times when I might have died. Are you not going to welcome me home, Robert? After all, I am your wife. And I have come to claim my children."

Moving to stand very close to Eliza, he answered, "You are not my wife. Mrs Eliza Cockrell is my wife and the mother of my five children. You may recall the eldest two, Mimi and Libby, whom you last saw when you abandoned them to my care ten years ago. They have not been your children since the day you walked out. Nothing was known of you in all that time, whether you were alive or dead or whether you even spared a thought for them, and three years ago you were formally presumed dead. This lady, to whom I have the honor of being married, has loved and cared for them since the day she met them, and she alone has the right to call herself their mother."

A decade of anger managed to dissipate itself through this little speech, and Robert saw the sad reality before him. He continued more gently, "Nevertheless, Maria, and regardless of what you have done, I am sorry to see you in this state. You appear to have suffered. What can we do for your comfort? Can we clothe and feed you, and take you back to your people?"

"I have no people, Robert, you know that."

"You are wrong, Maria. I corresponded with your brother and uncle a mere three years ago. They will no doubt be very surprised to hear that you are alive after all and in England, but I have no doubt that they will welcome you home."

He continued, "You must see that you cannot stay here for very long. Of course we will not turn you out before you are rested and returned to full health, but you cannot expect more from us. This is no longer your home, and I cannot have you here to disturb the peace of my family. I am sure you understand that. You were always practical, and you are too proud, I know, to cling to an untenable situation longer than you think necessary. I know that to my cost," he added bitterly.

Maria sat silently, slumped in her chair in some internal debate. At last she squared her shoulders and said, "Very well, Robert. You must tell me what to do. But first I should like to see my ch— that, is, I should like to see Mimi and Libby."

Eliza interrupted. "Maria," — she would not call her Mrs Cockrell! — "you have obviously traveled a long way to reach us, and I don't know what frightful experiences you may have encountered along the way. Perhaps you would like to bathe and put on a clean dress before the girls see you. I believe a dress of mine would fit you very well." She forbore to say aloud, You wouldn't want to frighten the girls, would you? Even an old dress and shoes of mine would be better than what you have, and if you washed and combed your hair, you would almost look like a handsome woman, although still much too thin. Eliza supposed Maria was thinking much the same as she acquiesced in the suggestion.

While one of the maids was assisting Maria with her bath, Eliza and Robert went upstairs to prepare Libby and Mimi to meet their birth mother.

"My darlings," Eliza began, "we have news that may shock you, but it is not bad news. Your mother is here and wishes to see you."

Libby protested, "You are our mother!" and Mimi echoed her.

Eliza swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. "I love you both with all my heart, as if I had borne you. But you know another woman did that."

Mimi said stoutly, "I won't accept any one but you! Whoever she is, she has no right to call herself my mother! Only you do!"

Eliza hugged them both together. "Dears, do you remember when Tommy was born, and also Robby, a couple of years ago? Remember how big my belly was before they were born, and then the day they were each born there was a lot of struggle and fuss and coming and going in the house, and you may have heard me scream a little, and then there was a tiny wet, red, crying baby where there had been none before? That is what this lady downstairs did for both of you. I didn't know you yet. I gave birth to Betsy and Robby and Tommy that way, but not you two. She did that.

"And yet now you are mine! Her having borne you does not lessen your claim on me at all!"

They all hugged and petted each other and talked further until Eliza and Robert at last persuaded the girls to meet Maria. Libby resisted longer than her elder sister did, but at length she agreed to go if Betsy could accompany them.

As they were going down the stairs, Mimi suddenly panicked and stopped, causing the other two girls to bump into her. "What shall I call her? I cannot call her mama."

"You might call her mother, Mimi dear, or even ma'am. I am still your mama, and I always will be. That will never, ever change," Eliza reminded her again.

Upon seeing a strange lady in their parlor wearing one of their mama's dresses, the girls stopped in confusion. Robert smoothly said, "Girls, this lady is Maria Horton. She was the mother of you two, Mimi and Libby." With that inspired introduction, he felt, he had solved the problem of two Mrs Cockrells in his house. While Maria might still have the legal right to use his name, he felt she did not have the moral right, and he hoped he had just made the position clear to both his wife and his former wife.

The three girls curtseyed to the stranger, and even five-year-old Betsy did her best. "How do you do, ma'am," said Mimi for all of them. She knew that greeting was more polite than "Pleased to meet you," a phrase that she knew was deemed in very polite society to be a little vulgar. It was not a greeting one could make to the Queen, although no one seemed able to explain to her what was wrong with it.

Maria had not expected to see three girls. "Who is this one?" she asked about Betsy.

"She is our sister," answered Mimi. "We like her to be with us. Her name is Betsy. She came to us when our mama did."

Maria felt that the meeting with her daughters had begun badly, and she tried to regain control. She awkwardly embraced first Mimi, then Libby, and said, "You have both grown so beautifully. I missed you both so very much. I missed this house and you too, Robert, and I am very glad to be back here with you, where I belong. Turning to Eliza, she added, "And you, Miss — , I hope you are not ...."

The two girls had both responded stiffly to the embrace. Mimi knew it was better to say nothing at all if the only words one could think of might be rude, and so she did not reply. Because Mimi was silent, Libby was also.

Robert said sharply, "Maria, I have already told you. This is Mrs Eliza Cockrell, my wife and the mother of my children, including the two eldest. I hope you are not laboring under any misunderstanding. This is no longer your home, I am not your husband, Mimi and Libby are no longer your children. We are now a different family from the one you left behind you. There is no going back to what was here before."

More gently, he said, "I am sure that with the assistance of Mrs Ferrars, our vicar's wife, we should be able to find you suitable lodgings in the village until you are quite recovered. We do not want you to be uncomfortable, or in any want."

The housekeeper had remained in the room partly out of loyalty to her employers and partly out of avid curiosity. Turning to her, Eliza said, "Mrs Hamm, would you be so kind as to walk over to the parsonage and ask Mrs Ferrars if it would be convenient for her to return here with you so that we might consult with her? You may describe our situation to her. And perhaps you could take her one of the meat pies that Mrs Edmunds has just made for us? I know how much Mrs Ferrars appreciates them." Mrs Hamm could not refuse to carry out her mistress's instructions, though she would much rather be allowed to observe the remainder of the interview.

Mrs Ferrars of course knew exactly who in the village had room for the supposed Mrs Horton (Elinor was relieved not to have to call her Mrs Cockrell) and would be glad of the extra money.

Eliza helped Maria to settle herself in the widow Bigby's spare room and brought an offering of food from Mrs Edmunds.

Over tea, Maria began, "Are you not very angry with me, Mrs Cockrell? I have interrupted your family's peace. You are a virtuous young woman and most likely would never consider following your heart rather than your duty."

Eliza did not intend to inform this woman of her own mistake, when she had ignored her duty and was left with Betsy as living proof of her fall from virtue.

"Shall I be honest with you?" Eliza said instead. "I have been very angry with you, not for returning now when we had all thought you were dead, but for what you did to my husband and the two girls ten years ago. My husband of course is a grown man and able to heal his own hurts.

"The two girls are different, they were both infants when you abandoned them. I still recall too well a very long evening when I had recently come to Thornhill. Libby was seven. She suffered a terrible nightmare in which you taunted her by running away from her and laughing at her when she tried to follow you. I don't know whether Libby still recalls that night, but I certainly do. Do you imagine I could easily forgive you for what you did that caused such a nightmare so many years later?

"I have five children, of whom I bore three and you bore the other two," Eliza continued. She thought, Let her calculate the difference between Betsy's age and the length of my marriage, if she cares to do so, and let her wonder why I have two daughters named Elizabeth. It matters not to me, to Robert, or to any one whom we care about. "I love all my children equally dearly. I cannot imagine a passion unnatural enough to make me forget them. So you will kindly pardon me if there is an imperfect understanding between us."

Soon after this conversation, Eliza took her leave. She could not feel proud of her lack of charity toward the other woman, but she had to admit that she felt better for having expressed her feelings after so many years.

After Mrs Cockrell's departure, Maria spent some time considering the differences between them. No doubt the younger woman had been carefully brought up and had never felt a moment's anxiety for her own safety in her life. She seemed to love Robert and was surely a more suitable wife for him than she herself had been. Maria saw her own life as something like a Fanny Burney or Anne Radcliffe novel, from which she had emerged with her mind, if not her honor, intact. Of course, she would never be able to tell anyone what had happened to Harry. Yet once she regained her health and looks, she would surely appear younger than her real age of five and thirty. There would be time to begin again.

Within a fortnight, Maria was gone, to return to her ancestral home near Birmingham. On the whole, she expected that Frederick Horton would not mind presenting his sister to local society as a fascinating if no longer very young beauty recently returned from a decade of residence on the Continent, most recently in Venice and Sarajevo ....

At dinner the evening after Maria's departure for the north, Libby stated flatly that she was glad that "she" had gone. "I didn't like her. She lied when she told us that she is our mother."

Mimi pointed out that Mrs er — Merton ... (or whatever her name was) could actually have been their mother once upon a time, because Mimi had noticed that she and Libby looked rather like the lady. "Her hair is dark and curly like ours, but papa's is sandy and mama's is straight and brown, like Betsy's. Robby's is like papa's and poor Tommy has hardly any."

With that little discourse on the inheritance of physical characteristics, also popularly summarised by the aphorism that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Mimi indicated that her curiosity about her birth mother had been satisfied.

Libby admitted that the lady might have been their mother when they were born, "but she isn't any more. She can't be, because she doesn't love us." As far as Libby was concerned, the discussion about the departed lady's status was finished.

"I'm glad she's not dead. I'm glad to find out what she was like. I pity her, because she voluntarily gave up what is so valuable to me and now, I believe, she saw its worth while she was here and regrets it.

"And you know I wouldn't be Mrs Cockrell if not for her. You would have had no children in Mrs Gordon's school, and you would not have been in want of a wife. And so I owe her all my happiness." She did certain wifely things to show to whom she really owed her happiness.

Laughing, he agreed with her demonstrated but unspoken meaning. "Oh no, my girl, I think you owe your happiness all to me. Had I been an unmarried man with no children, I would still have been a neighbour and old friend of James Brandon. Surely I would have met you in the village if not in his house, and I would have fallen in love with you, if not at first sight then within a day or two thereafter, because you are irresistible. And because I am so handsome, charming and youthful in my own right, even without the advantage that my children have indisputably given me in the marriage market, you would have fallen in love with me in return. And we would be about where we are right now."

Which was, playing in their marital bed.

Later, Robert said lazily, "Would Robby and Tommy like a little sister, do you think, to fuss over her when they are a little older, the way their big sisters fuss over them?"

"Are you certain it would be a little girl? Perhaps you are a man who sires only boys. That has been your record so far ...."

He chuckled, "Then we would have three boys to balance our three girls."

Eliza was nearly asleep in her husband's arms and did not bother to reply.

Chapter 4 ~ A Rake's Progress

Posted on Saturday, 3 November 2007

October, 1806

For Marianne, however - in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss - Willoughby always retained that decided regard which interested him in everything that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfection in woman; and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in after days as bearing no comparison with Mrs Brandon. Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 50

John Willoughby, Esquire -- handsome, educated, attractive to both men and women, still youthful, the possessor of horses, dogs, two estates and a rich wife -- was frightened. He had seen his future, and it was not what any sane man would hope for.

He had visited the famous architect, Mr John Soane, who was becoming known as a collector of important works of art. The centrepiece of Soane's collection was Hogarth's suite of eight narrative paintings called "A Rake's Progress."

To please the ladies, Willoughby had long affected an appreciation of the arts, without much honest interest or understanding of music, poetry or painting. But he had paid Hogarth's pictures more attention than he usually paid to such things, because they struck him with parallels to his own life:

In the first painting, the hero of Hogarth's pictures, Tom Rakewell, had come into his inheritance very young. He was confronted by the mother of a girl who loved him, whom without remorse he had left with child. This made Willoughby smirk: he had had several such conquests and proofs of his virility, whereas poor Tom apparently had only one.

In the second, third and fourth paintings, Tom squandered his fortune on all manner of vices: women, drink, gambling, sport, speculations. In the fifth painting, his need for more money drove him to marry a rich woman whom he did not love. Here Willoughby comforted himself that at least his wife Sophia was not old and ugly like Tom's. Unfortunately, like Tom in the sixth painting, Willoughby was well on his way to wasting his wife's fortune as well as his own.

The seventh painting showed Tom in debtors' prison. The last painting showed that Tom escaped, only to end up in Bedlam, where rich ladies amused themselves by visiting and staring at him as if he were one of the wild beasts on display at Exeter Exchange.

However strongly his life paralleled the stages of the fictional Tom Rakewell's progress, Willoughby did not intend to allow his life to escape his control so completely as Tom had done, and he certainly did not intend to follow Tom into Bedlam to be gawked at!

This particular evening, John Willoughby was on his way back to London from his estate in Devonshire. Only a very slight detour from the main London road was needed to bring him to Delaford, in Dorsetshire. He made the trip several times a year since his elderly aunt had died and left him Allenham, which lay a mere forty miles west of Delaford.

The master of Delaford was Colonel James Brandon, who would forever be Willoughby's enemy. Brandon's unforgivable sin was to marry the former Miss Marianne Dashwood.

In his fancies, Willoughby always overlooked the fact that he had put it out of his power to marry her long before she had married Brandon. For nearly two years after his own marriage, he had dreamt that Mrs Sophia Willoughby would die, leaving him a rich widower free to marry his true love, Marianne. In that fancy, only one life stood between him and happiness. But Marianne's defection in order to marry that boring old soldier had placed two such lives - those of his wife and her husband - between them.

Willoughby had once had an opportunity to kill Brandon in a duel, but had prudently deloped, and Brandon had done the same. Willoughby was older now and did not have any further plans for Brandon's death, but he still sustained himself with dreams of what might have been, and might still be. After all, Brandon was old!

Willoughby nurtured his dreams of eventual happiness with Marianne by spying upon her when she was at home with her husband and children.

He had been watching them for years, and they appeared never to have suspected. The first time, to be sure, he must have been clumsy, because the dogs had barked and he had had to run away. But he had returned the next night armed with meaty bones for each of them. A dog breeder himself, he knew how to befriend man's best friend. Brandon's dogs were large, but they were not vicious. It was well worth the little time it took Willoughby to gain their trust in a way that practically ensured they would remember him with pleasure whenever they might meet in the future. To strengthen the animals' memories, and for his own pleasure, he made sure the intervals between such meetings were never too long.

Thus it was that every few months he made the detour in order to spend an evening or two in the walled garden of Delaford mansion, lurking in the shadows as he looked through the windows at the Brandons in their little family circle. He was reminded of how he had used to lurk in doorways that fateful winter in London, when he had married Sophia. He would watch the comings and goings in Berkeley Street, where Marianne and her sister were staying with that old busybody Mrs Henry - no, Hennings - no, Jennings - that was it! But that was before Sophia had discovered his secret admiration for Marianne and had forced him to break it off in a way that no woman could ever have forgiven! He still hated Sophia for making him write that odious letter and return Marianne's sweet missives with it.

But some things cannot be undone, and one must work with what one has. By now the Brandons had three children, a girl about six, a boy about four, and another girl about two. He did not know their names, but in his imagination he had named them Mary, John and Anne. Although they looked as much like their father as their mother, Willoughby liked to imagine that they were his children. Sophia had proved to be barren, although she was not so old that all hope of an heir was at an end. She still submitted to him dutifully; probably they both hoped that such efforts would soon succeed so that each might pursue other interests without too much mutual blame. With two estates, he certainly required an heir!

Turning his attention back to the scene before him, he observed how contented they all seemed. Marianne looked as if she might be with child again, and Brandon himself looked to be a younger man than when they had all known each other at Barton nine years before.

I know Brandon is ten years older than I am, but how is it that he does not show such a gap in our ages? I am four and thirty now, and I know I look older, Willougby thought. Such was the toll on him from his manner of living.

The evening tableaux that Willoughby could watch from the walled garden never lasted more than an hour or two. Then the ground floor lights would be put out, and Willoughby would silently remove himself to the rose garden at the back of the house for the second act, so to speak. If he positioned himself correctly, he could see the children being put to bed, and then the action would move to the master suite. In warm weather, the Brandons generally left their window open, unknowingly entertaining their unseen audience out there in the garden with their pillowed murmurings and sounds of mutual pleasuring and satisfaction.

Willoughby always used these moments of exquisite torture, even more than the familial scenes downstairs, to fuel his hatred of Brandon. How else could a decent man justify so many hours spent lurking in another man's gardens?

It was a cloudy, chilly evening. Rain seemed likely, and there was not much satisfaction to be had from watching in the rose garden, when the windows were closed and the curtains were drawn against the weather. Having seen and heard all he could that evening, Willoughby bade Brandon's dogs a friendly farewell and began walking back to the little market town of Beaminster. He mused as he trod the familiar cart track, not paying much attention to his surroundings.

It was through his regular visits to Delaford and Beaminster that Willoughby had discovered that Ella - no, that wasn't quite right - Eliza, that was it! - also resided in the neighbourhood. He could not recall her surname, either. It was like a Christian name, perhaps Harris or Roberts.

Although he had forgotten her name, he recalled with complete clarity the pleasure he had had with her in Bath. Until then he had never been with a girl - and by his middle twenties there had been many - as sincerely eager as she had been.

The discovery that she now lived near Delaford had shocked him, until he realised it was the most expectable thing in the world. She had been Brandon's ward and was rumoured to be his natural daughter, after all, and what was more likely than that he would settle her where he could keep an eye on her once her child was born?

Willoughby did not consider it his child because the mother had meant nothing to him - merely a pleasant holiday affair in Bath. Of course, her intentions might have been different from his, but that was not his fault. No one expected anything serious to come out of Bath! He had had a bit of fun, and surely she had as well. That she might have suffered for it afterward had nothing to do with him. Someone should have taken better care of her. Or she should have taken precautions; she had been old enough to know the value of a lover's promises. He absolved himself with the thought that he had not forced her. He had never forced anyone, not when charm nearly always worked to such good effect. Yes, the fault had certainly been Eliza's, for being so foolish.

He had happened to see her in Beaminster during a prior visit. She was with a girl of about eight, the right age for the byblow from Bath. (He smirked at his modest little joke.) Although the child might be his, he had no feeling of regret or responsibility for her. After all, Eliza and the child were not Marianne and her family. No man of the world could blame him. He did wonder briefly, however, whether he would have felt differently if the child had been a boy. Willoughby had ducked into a doorway and was confident that Eliza had not seen him.

On another visit to Beaminster, he had glimpsed her again, with some other children, and with a man who could have been her husband. He had made some discreet inquiries about the family and learned they were named Cockrell, of a farm near Delaford village called Thornhill. He felt relieved that she had apparently married and was not in such bad straits as she would probably have been, had he wronged her.

Willoughby had walked the two miles from the town to Delaford mansion. Now, on his way back to town, the growing discomfort between his legs could not be ignored, and only reminded him forcefully of a mishap earlier in the day.

In the market town, he had spied a strikingly pretty girl walking with her sister. The older girl had the looks of a classic dark-haired English beauty, her locks loosely bound in a country fashion befitting a young miss. He could not explain to himself what had possessed him to act as he had done. He could only conclude that it had been a combination of impressions: his pilgrimage to see Marianne, associating Beaminster with Bath, and regret for Sally.

He had pinned the girl up against a wall, intending merely to steal a kiss. With a look of panic, she had yelled to her sister, "Run, Libby, tell Papa!"

He had suddenly felt the most appalling pain in his crotch, which forced him to release the girl and clutch that most treasured part of his person. In that position, he did not see the man who must have approached him from behind.

The man had seized him by the collar to forcibly stand him up, and punched his face so hard that blood spurted from his nose. His attacker ahd then let out a stream of epithets, some of which were new to Willoughby and some of which he understood well enough to take himself off as quickly as he could, despite his disabling pain.

Willoughby intended to avoid that particular street of shops in the future.

The necessity of avoiding further violence led his thoughts in another direction. His choice of lodgings in the town had narrowed from two inns to one. His horse was presently stabled at the Star of the East, where he had taken a room.

Until last spring, he had usually lodged at the Beaminster Arms, only occasionally varying his routine with the other establishment. The Beaminster Arms was not as grand as its name suggested, but it suited Willoughby. The landlord had a comely daughter, a wench who was very friendly with the customers. Her father had appeared to encourage her familiar manner in the belief that it was good for business.

In January, she had in fact been very familiar with Willoughby, in her father's hayloft. She had even taught him one or two things when, as a man of considerable experience, he had thought there was nothing new under the sun to be learned about that!

However, on his next visit to the neighbourhood, in April, the landlord had angrily warned him off. The result of his last romp with the comely Miss Sally had been discovered by her father and would soon become obvious to the most casual observer. Mr Gormley had threatened to kill him if he ever saw him again. From then on, he had transferred all his custom to the Star of the East, on the other side of the town.

Willoughby was prudent, but still he found Gormley's ire offensive. A man could not be expected to ignore his natural appetites, especially when deliberately stoked as Sally Gormley had done. It was her own fault, or her father's for letting her flirt like that. Willoughby knew he was not the man who had ruined her, and that very likely there were others after him, but somehow her father had pinned the blame solely on him. Willoughby felt it was most unfair, but he did not intend either to tender or to accept any challenges on her account. He was too old now for dueling.

Only the day before, he had heard a rumour that Miss Gormley had died, perhaps in childbirth. Because he took her father's death threat seriously, he did not express undue interest in the news, and so did not learn more. He was sorry for her, of course, but it had nothing to do with him.

As he continued walking toward the town, he felt it was coming on to rain. The growing discomfort in his groin and the increasing chill and dampness of the night air made him eager for the relative comfort of his lodgings.

His ruminations were cut short by a hard shove in the back, a sharp blow behind the knee, pitching forward, then ....

Nothing.

Chapter 5 -- The Inquest

Posted on Saturday, 10 November 2007

A farmer and his lad were on their way to market with two pair of laying hens and their dog. They were not surprised when the dog took an interest in the ditch, until they saw he had found the body of a gentleman!

The farmer sent his boy to inform Colonel Brandon, while he stayed with the body, the hens and the dog. The boy returned within a short time with the Colonel and a stablehand.

The farmer assured the Colonel that he had not touched the body, and together they managed to pull it from the ditch. There was blood on the front of the man's shirt, but they saw no wound. A search of the clothing revealed only a watch and some money, but no other clue to the gentleman's identity.

Yet despite the passage of nine years, Brandon recognised John Willoughby.

Colonel James Brandon, retired these fourteen years from the army, was the principal landowner in Delaford parish and thus the local magistrate. Once before, in his early years as master of Delaford, he had had to deal with the accidental death of a local workman who had fallen from a roof, and he knew what the law required of him. But never had he been faced with the unexplained death of a man so inimical to him and his family, who should have been miles away from where he was found.

Having arranged for the body to be kept in a makeshift coffin in a disused shed, James was at a loss. He told Marianne all he knew, and together they called upon Edward and Elinor Ferrars at the parsonage. A boy was dispatched to Thornhill, and within half an hour Robert and Eliza were with them as well.

Marianne was as shocked as James had been. "What would he be doing here?"

But Robert and Eliza astonished the others by describing their encounter with Willoughby in Beaminster, on what must have been the day of his death.

All agreed that an inquest ought to be held under James's authority as magistrate, but presided over by Edward to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Edward acquiesced, recognising that the Brandons' previous dealings with Willoughby might become relevant to the proceedings. They further agreed that every man in the neighbourhood who had any knowledge of Willoughby ought to be present. Of course, no such legal proceeding would be attended by ladies; it would be most improper.

Thus it was that the day after the body was found, seven men convened in Brandon's library. All knew each other, at least by sight and name. Robert Cockrell, James Brandon and Edward Ferrars, of course, knew and esteemed each other like brothers. The other four were polite but wary. Someone might have a great deal to lose.

Brandon began. "Gentlemen, I thank you for coming here to discuss this matter and to try together to find the truth. Did John Willoughby die by misadventure, or his own hand, or at the hand of another?

"I will confess to you that years ago I would have happily killed John Willoughby, to punish him for certain conduct toward both my wife and my ward when they were unmarried. I even fought a duel with him, and I wished him to the devil with all my heart. But since that time, he has prudently stayed away from us, and I have had no fresh reason to resent him.

"However, every man supposes himself to be like the sun, the center of all. I suppose that I, or my wife, or my former ward and her child, are Willoughby's reason for being present at Delaford and Beaminster. Why else would he come to this corner of Dorsetshire, a place where reason says he should never be? I cannot but suppose that his reason has something to do with us, whatever it is.

"It is because of this uncertainty that I have delegated to my brother Ferrars those responsibilities for conducting this inquest which I can delegate. He is wise and fair, and he has no personal animus against Willoughby, a man whom I, frankly, despised. Mr Ferrars will conduct this inquest and I trust will lead us to the proper determination."

Edward smoothly took up the reins. "I believe you have all visited the Colonel's shed and seen the dead man. Did you all know him in life, and do you recognise him now as John Willoughby?"

All nodded their assent.

Edward asked who wished to speak first.

John Frears was landlord of the Star of the East, an inn on the London side of the town. Willoughby had for several years patronised the Star about once a year, not always at the same season. However, that pattern seemed to have changed: this was his third visit of the year, after April and August.

"He arrived three days ago, and paid in advance for two nights. Yesterday morning, when I didn't see him, I supposed he had left early. I didn't notice that his horse was still here.

"I was always glad to see him, because he spent freely on food and drink. Everyone liked him, and his patronage was good for business in general. And he was never involved in disturbances.

"Perhaps," admitted Frears, "he was a little too free with my barmaid, but she seemed to put him in his place without any difficulty, and I never thought ill of the gentleman.

"I still have his horse, and the animal eats as if it supposed someone was paying for the hay. I don't know what to do with it."

Robert took up the thread.

"What I am about to say by way of background will be news only to those of you not of this neighbourhood. Hereabouts, everyone knows that my family has been touched by scandal more than once. Long after my first wife disappeared from her home and two children, I remarried and acquired my present wife and my third daughter when the little girl was about two. My first wife had nothing to do with Mr Willoughby, but I owe the present Mrs Cockrell and that child to him. He fathered Betsy when my wife was barely sixteen. He abandoned them, and so far as I know has never acknowledged any interest in them or responsibility for them.

"I do not deny that I will always despise him, living or dead, for what he did to them. But I never wished him dead for that, because I have benefited so greatly from it. I have even pitied him for his stupidity, but that does not signify. I knew his name, of course, but I had never seen him.

"But three days ago, I was with my wife and some of our children in Beaminster. Our two eldest girls had permission to leave the shop we were in, in order to look in a window across the street. A few minutes later, our second child, Libby, came running back to us with the news that her elder sister was being attacked and needed help.

"I ran out immediately, of course, and saw that a man had Mimi pushed up against a wall and was holding her by the wrists. She was screaming, but before I could reach them, she had apparently placed her knee where he would feel it most deeply. He was bent nearly double, holding himself and moaning. I confess that I acted upon my first impulse: I grabbed him by the collar to pull him upright and punched him in the face as hard as I could. I dropped him and tended to my daughter, who was upset but fortunately otherwise unharmed.

"My wife saw Mimi's attacker as he limped away. She said she had glimpsed him earlier in the day, looking at her and the children in an odd way, and afterward she had realised who he was. It was Willoughby.

"I cannot deny that I felt murderous toward him that day. My daughter is fifteen and beautiful, just coming into her womanhood. I would willingly kill any man who took advantage of her or hurt her, and no one more than Willoughby. However, I happened to appease my desire for his blood by punching him in the face; I had the satisfaction of ruining his nose and seeing his life's blood spurt from it. I had no need to spill more of it, especially since my daughter had obtained her own, most appropriate, revenge upon his person and his pride. She is a country girl, not at all missish, and I have taught her how to defend herself. I daresay she knows how to inflict more severe injuries than what she did. She rescued herself, and she knows how proud I am of her for it.

"I did not kill him. I did not even know that he was likely to venture out of Beaminster, where I had encountered him. Like my friend Brandon here, I suppose the world revolves around my family and my farm. But never did I expect that the man who had abandoned my wife and daughter nearly a decade ago when he ought to have stood by them, would now come to our town and even to our village in order to pursue them, or theirs. I cannot see the reason for it. I had only seen him in Beaminster. Why should he come out to Delaford where he might be fallen upon by an angry husband and father seeking to do rough justice? I already had my justice, although I do admit that it was rough."

At that, some of the other gentlemen chuckled appreciatively.

"I know the lanes hereabouts intimately," Robert added. "Where he was found, the ditch comes close to the track, and it would be easy to attack a man and tip his senseless body into the ditch, where he would likely die of exposure after a night such as we had the other night. But, at the same time, there are other places along that same track where one could easily hide a body so that it would not be found for days or weeks, and by then it might very well be unrecognisable. So I have no opinion as to whether this man's death was accidental or at the hand of another. It could have been either.

"It makes me choke," he growled after a moment, "to think that the man who fathered my youngest daughter put his hands on her older sister! Perhaps I would have killed him if allowed the opportunity on a lonely stretch of road at night."

Thomas Ellison confessed that he had owed a large gaming debt to Willoughby, whom he had met at the Beaminster Arms several years previously. Willoughby had been charming, and Ellison -- a mere shopkeeper, although a successful one -- had been flattered to be admitted into the gentleman's circle.

Whenever Willoughby was in town, he would invite Mr Ellison to join him and several others in a game. They played high, and the last time Ellison had incurred a debt of honour to Willoughby that he could not pay. Willoughby had merely laughed at his humble request for the debt to be forgiven, and had instead suggested that Ellison double his stake in the hope of winning it all back.

"He said it was foolish to play more than I could afford to lose. Had a friend advised me in that way, no doubt I would have taken his good advice and withdrawn. But Willoughby managed to say it in such a way that I took it as a goad. I understood he was calling me a fool, intimating that I could not afford to risk as much as I did. No doubt he had taken my measure and expected me to take his remark in exactly the way that I did.

"Fool that I was, I accepted his challenge and continued playing," Ellison admitted. "My state of mind and what I drank did not improve my play. On the contrary, I played more recklessly and less successfully than ever in my life, and I lost everything. I was completely ruined.

"My wife comes from a very Puritanical family, and she will not tolerate gaming or gamers. I never told her of my difficulty. I merely worried in secret. But as it happened, after that night I never saw Willoughby again, and I convinced myself he would never return to Beaminster to claim his payment. I swear I did not know that he had returned."

Ellison shrugged. "I cannot deny that his death is very convenient for me, since now the debt is wiped out. I did not kill him, but I do most heartily thank the man who did, or Providence if it was not a man."

As nearly an afterthought, he added, "Cockrell, I believe I may have seen a little of your confrontation with the man. My shop is in Church street, and I heard a commotion. I stepped out and saw you with your wife and children and a gaggle of onlookers. I saw someone scurrying away with an odd, limping posture. I realise now that may have been Willoughby."

Walter Gormley was ashamed of waiting until most of the others had spoken before taking his turn, because he felt he had more reason to hate Willoughby than any of them. He should have spoken first. At last he girded himself, and saw in the eyes of the others a look of sympathy that gave him courage. He sighed heavily and began.

"Some of you know that Sally was my only child. All of her siblings had died in infancy or childhood, and her mother died birthing the last one. Sally was truly all I had. I had kept her by me ever since her mother died, and from girlhood she always made herself useful in the inn. I relied on her, no doubt too much.

"She was a young woman before I ever realised it. I should have watched over her more vigilantly. I will always regret most bitterly that I did not. She had a way with her that the customers liked, and I believed ... I believed her friendly manner helped my business. I never thought I should be blaming her, and blaming myself for losing her.

James gently interrupted him. "Mr. Gormley, I know very well how difficult it is for a single man to rear a girl child, when she becomes a woman. I, too, have blamed myself many a time. It does not do to be too hard on yourself."

Gormley looked his gratitude, and continued. "I was always glad of Willoughby's patronage at my establishment, and God help me, I trusted him as a gentleman!" Gormley said angrily. "I suppose everyone but I saw what was happening between Sally and him under my nose, but I was blind.

"The birth was very difficult, as bad as her mother's last. The baby was born healthy but perhaps was too big, or Sally was too young. I don't know. At any rate, she contracted a fever soon after the birth, and died within a few days.

"I cannot care for the babe and, to be frank, I wish he were gone. He killed my girl, and yet he lives. A wet nurse in my street cares for him at present, but that arrangement cannot continue forever."

Gormley put his head in his hands. "I don't know what to do."

He looked up again. "As for Mr Willoughby, you may imagine my fury when Sally told me the truth. I told everyone that I would kill him if I ever saw him again, and I have no doubt that the rumour of my threat was pretty generally known. I intended him to know it. But I didn't kill him. I never had the opportunity, because I have not seen him since he stayed with us in January. That is, Colonel, until I saw him today in your shed."

No man there who was a father would have blamed Gormley for killing Willoughby.

Ellison broke the silence. "I had not heard of your threat, Gormley, but now I understand why he never returned to the neighbourhood of your establishment to claim payment from me. He had a far stronger motive to stay away. But I am sincerely sorry that what saved me was what cost you so much!"

After a further pause, Gormley continued. "It is a curious thing, Colonel, that during the years when I was on good terms with him, he sometimes mentioned that he was in Beaminster to see you. I was surprised to hear you say you had not seen him for nine years. I don't know what to make of it."

The last man to speak was George Godfrey. He was a farmer near Delaford, whom Robert knew well and James also knew a little. He bred horses in a modest way.

Willoughby had persuaded him to purchase an expensive stallion that was "guaranteed" to make him rich. Godfrey had invested all he had, and blamed Willoughby for what happened afterwards. The horse had proven to be weak. No one wanted any of its offspring; they had all been born deformed, or had died within two years.

As a result of his financial problems, Godfrey's wife had taken the children and gone back to live with her parents. He was bankrupt, and stayed on only to care for his remaining livestock.

"I should never have trusted the man," he said bitterly. "He was too smooth, too self-assured. I was a fool to believe him, but he was very persuasive. It is my own fault, that I did not undertake my own inquiries before investing so much.

"I am sure I would have killed him if I had ever seen him at any time during this past twelvemonth!

"There is an odd thing, though," Godfrey said. "Willoughby claimed he would guarantee that the horse would turn me a profit, or he would pay me. Instead, he laughed at me when I reminded him of it later, after we knew the horse had turned out bad. But now that he is dead, he is in no position to laugh at me or to refuse me. I understand he has two estates and a house in town. Perhaps not all is lost, after all."

Chapter 6 -- Other Questions

Posted on Saturday, 17 November 2007

Three sisters -- Marianne Brandon, Elinor Ferrars and Eliza Cockrell -- drank tea in Marianne's sitting room while the men were discussing Willoughby's fate. Marianne and Elinor lived just across the lane from each other, their children so frequently in each other's houses that a stranger would not have known to whom each child belonged.

Eliza was not really their sister, but only the cousin and former ward of Marianne's husband. The Dashwoods had not even met her until after Marianne's marriage. Eliza herself was now married to James's childhood friend, and lived just on the other side of the village. The former Miss Dashwoods both felt as close to Eliza Cockrell as if she were their sister, because of proximity, the bonds of family, and their peculiar tie through John Willoughby.

On this occasion, the ladies did not refrain from discussing that gentleman.

"I did love him when I was very young," said Marianne. "I believed he was all that was manly and true. And I wanted to die when he left to marry someone else."

She leaned forward. "That was before I knew about you, Eliza dear. Willoughby never did me a greater kindness than in jilting me. What if I had married him, as I had hoped and expected? How could I have continued to love such a man once I knew his true nature -- what he had done to you and to little Betsy without the least remorse? It would have been impossible. My love would have turned to contempt, and I should have been miserable, bound to such a man for life! Sometimes I feel I owe a great debt of gratitude to Mrs Willoughby, for having saved me from a miserable marriage!"

Over the years, Marianne had said something like this to Eliza many a time, but Eliza was always touched when she did so. She thought Marianne's willingness to expose her own failings showed a generosity of spirit. Eliza saw Marianne as the heroine of a novel, an impetuous girl who had once spurned -- and then fallen in love with -- the novel's steady hero, and that same hero was the man who alone had stood by Eliza all her life until she met Robert. Eliza saw herself as a minor personage in that novel as well.

She thought she had long ago overcome the shame she had brought on herself and on James by allowing herself to be seduced and impregnated by Willoughby, but at times those feelings washed upon her again and she had to speak of them.

"It comforts me when you say that, Marianne. I was spellbound, you know," Eliza nearly whispered. "I had always believed he would return for me, and nothing my guardian said to me could convince me that he would not -- until I learned that Willoughby had gone so far as to fight a duel in order to avoid marrying me and providing for Betsy. Until then, I had believed he would come back at any moment, but of course in fighting he proved that he would rather die than marry me. And after that, of course, I learned the same news as you -- that he was engaged and then married a rich lady. Then I had to admit what he was -- and what I was!

"I picture myself in poor Miss Gormley's situation -- carrying his child, hoping and expecting that he would return, when he had no intention of doing so, at least not for her. I hope she did not know that he was already married. I feel both sympathy and contempt for Miss Gormley -- contempt because she was so stupid, like me. But luckily I did not die, and am now very happy."

Marianne said urgently, "Eliza, it is not only luck that you are happy. It is your own generosity and goodness. Robert could no more do without you than could the children. You must know that."

Eliza nodded and pressed Marianne's hand.

"I always liked Willoughby," Elinor admitted with a sigh. "I believed in his contrition when he came to Cleveland during Marianne's illness and confessed his libertine ways and other faults. It mortifies me to know how very wrong I was about him -- I, who believed myself to be an objective and accurate observer of people! I believed he was capable of reforming himself and was on his way to doing so by his honesty to me," she said wryly.

The other two laughed at her affectionately. "Elinor, even before you married Edward you were the perfect parson's wife, ready to forgive and to see the possibility of redemption in everyone, even the most thorough rake!"

They discussed how to help Miss Gormley's baby. Less than a month old, he was presently farmed out to a wet nurse. Mr Gormley was unable to care for an infant, and it seemed he would not have wished to do so even if his circumstances had allowed. To him, the infant was but a constant reminder of the loss of his daughter and of the terrible consequences of his own carelessness as a parent.

"We have room at the parsonage for the little thing," Elinor said. "He would hardly be any trouble, with our own ...."

"No, Elinor," said Eliza firmly. "Robert and I have discussed this, and he agrees with me. The child should grow up in our home with his half-sister. He has no one else in the world -- both his parents are dead, and he is rejected by his grandfather, with only a wet nurse to love him. I know…" -- her voice began to quaver -- "I know how it is to be a child alone in the world, desperate to cling to whatever family one may have."

She had to take a big gulp of tea and her cup clattered in the saucer as she put it down. Marianne poured her another cup, and pressed another biscuit on her.

"I hope I don't sound ungrateful," Eliza continued hastily. "James Brandon was the best guardian an orphan could have. If not for him, I would have ...." She faltered.

Marianne came to sit on the sofa close to Eliza and put her arm around her shoulder. "You know -- don't you, Eliza? -- that his love for you during all those years after your mother died was sometimes all that supported him, in his loneliness and despair. You must not undervalue yourself. You were as important to him as he was to you."

Eliza had begun weeping. "He did so much for me ... and I ... I repaid him in the most shameful manner, with Willoughby! At first, I even refused to tell him that it was Willoughby. And at last I could not say I did not know -- of course I knew! I was not so wanton that it could have been someone else. ... This little kindness to Miss Gormley's infant is the only way I have to repay James for his kindness to me, by following his example!"

"Eliza!" Marianne spoke sharply to her. "You must stop this! Does Robert join you in this folly? Does he agree that you should repay James in some manner?"

"No ... no, he does not. But I am right, I know."

"No, dear," interrupted Elinor. "This time you are wrong. Your judgments are almost always correct, except when you judge yourself. If you made a mistake, anyone who had something to forgive you for has done so long since. And only consider what you have done, and still do: you make Robert happy, you have made his daughters your own and given them the motherly love that Mimi lost when she was so very young and that Libby never had, you are forming them into beautiful and kind young women of whom any parent would be justly proud, and you are rearing Betsy and the boys in the safety of a loving family as well."

Marianne said humbly, "Eliza, I am ashamed that you do not know how very proud you have made James! He believes that the woman you are now reflects well on him, as the guardian who reared you and is presumed to have formed you. Of course, he knows very well the mistakes he made when he thought he was acting for the best, and that you suffered as a result, not he. But he thought -- we both thought -- that you knew how proud he is of you. I am so very sorry that you did not know.

"While we are human, we all make mistakes. Edward says so very frequently in his sermons, and I'm sure you must listen to him, at least sometimes," Marianne joked, and at last Eliza had to smile.

"I agree that it may be best for baby Gormley to live with you and Robert," Marianne went on, "but not because you owe anything to anyone. He will be the youngest in a loving family. And, as you say, he will grow up with his sister."

"The poor little thing does not even have a name yet," said Elinor. "Have you and Robert thought of it?"

Eliza nodded. "We thought Benjamin, because his mother died in childbirth.* I believe Robert intends to ask Mr Gormley's consent this afternoon. They are both in the library now with the other gentlemen."

While the ladies were discussing matters of the heart and soul, the seven gentlemen were discussing Willoughby's body. They earnestly examined the facts from every point of view and at last agreed that he must have died through misadventure. It had been a dark night with no moon. Although there was blood on his clothing there was no visible wound, and Robert had accounted for the blood: Willoughby's nose had bled profusely when Robert punched him in the face. The dead man had an odor of alcohol about him and, under such influence, might have been careless. He might have lost his way on an unfamiliar road and decided to try to retrace his steps back to Beaminster. In the dark, he must have hit his foot against a stone and stumbled into the ditch, where he must have become unconscious, been soaked by the rain because he was unable to rise and seek shelter, and died of exposure. A sad fate but not an extraordinary one.

The men had done their best to obtain justice for him despite their various resentments against him, but had fairly concluded that it was no living person's fault. Colonel Brandon promised to have Mr Willoughby's body and personal effects returned immediately to the widow in London. An express had already been sent to her, informing her of her husband's regrettable demise.

One man there was thinking:

I fooled them. I hardly even had to lie. Misadventure, indeed! It was my misfortune ever to have met the man, and his that our paths ever crossed again. At least, I obtained justice for myself and these others.

And now I am safe.

I told them frankly what he had cost me, and how I felt about it. I even told them how convenient the death had been for me. No one can ever prove that I followed him that night.

I don't believe Brandon's assertion that he had not seen him these many years -- before his marriage -- because that night I followed him practically to the gates of Delaford mansion house. Of course, I did not see what transpired after he entered those gates. Those damn dogs he has. I have not the knack with them that Willoughby had. They knew him. I could tell he had been there before, perhaps often.

On the other hand, from all I know of Brandon, he is scrupulously honest. I have never known him to lie or even to mislead, and I have certainly known Willoughby to do so. To my cost! Perhaps one day this jumble will sort itself out, when no one any longer cares.

Unfortunately, the man who thus congratulated himself did not know that the misfortune of his connection with Willoughby was not finished. On the fateful night, he had been seen by someone who recognised him and intended to use the knowledge.

*Note: Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin, the youngest of Jacob's twelve sons. (Genesis 35:18)

Chapter 7 -- Danger and Redemption

Posted on Saturday, 24 November 2007

He was cleaning up the shop at the end of the day. All the customers had left, and his assistants were closing the shutters and locking the front door. He was alone when he saw a folded slip of paper stuck into a crack in the counter. He nearly swept it away without looking at it, but a moment of curiosity stopped him.

I saw you with Willoughby that night. You will hear from me regarding my price for silence.

Of course, there was no signature. He began to sweat profusely and had to sit down.

His senior assistant approached just at that moment with a look of concern. "Are you unwell, sir? Can I get you something?"

He could barely hear, for the sudden loud buzzing in his ears, but he managed to say, "No, thank you, Stearns. It is a momentary thing. Perhaps the onset of a little cold. You may go home now, and I will finish closing up." He locked the door securely after Stearns, then sat for a while in the gathering dark of the silent shop.

What did it mean? Obviously, someone knew what had happened that night on the Delaford road. Someone knew he had been there, perhaps had even seen him shove Willoughby! Was it one of the men who had attended the inquest, who had heard his pitiable story about fearing his wife? Or someone else, whose identity he could not even guess? He tried to recall everyone who had been in the shop during the afternoon but could not; there were too many. And even though he believed it was a man's handwriting, he could not be sure. Suppose it were a woman? Would his response have to be different?

He realised that he did not know enough. There was not even a tangible threat, let alone a shred of fact pointing to his adversary. He would have to wait patiently for a further contact, though nothing could be more difficult than patience.

Several weeks passed, and his anxiety had begun to dull. He even had begun to hope that the note had been merely a cruel prank.

One evening as he himself was closing the shutters, he noticed a bit of paper shoved into a crack at the back, where it would be noticed only by the person handling the shutter. He snatched at it quickly -- what providence had led him to close the shutters himself that night, rather than leave it to one of his assistants, as he usually did?

Delaford church has not been whitewashed inside for many years and has become shamefully shabby. That is my price, for now.

What did the writer intend? To demand good works rather than money? What kind of blackmail was that? He had never heard of such a thing. It was absurd!

He meant to dismiss it as another prank, but half an hour later knew he had better not. The two notes were obviously related. The first had threatened him with exposure. Surely he ought to take the second one seriously!

Could Mr Ferrars be a blackmailer? It hardly seemed likely, but if not ... why Delaford church?

In the end, he did as the note directed and went to talk to the incumbent.

Ferrars appeared surprised and said he of course recalled his visitor from the inquest into the death of Mr Willoughby. The parson was delighted by the offer to sponsor the painting of the interior of the church.

The two men inspected the small building together, and he could see that his frightener had been correct about one thing at least -- while the interior of the little church was tidy, the walls were sadly in need of a new coat of paint. A week's time ought to be sufficient in which to organise a crew to do the work, and the two men agreed upon the arrangements.

As they shook hands, Ferrars said, "I am most grateful to you, sir, for your kind generosity. I cannot imagine what prompts you in this, and I will not ask unless you choose to tell me. Only tell me one thing, sir. May I make your generosity known to my little flock, or do you wish your patronage to remain anonymous?"

"Anonymous, Ferrars, if you please." The idea of drawing attention for this deed alarmed him. "And you need not thank me. I was impressed when I met you the other time. This modest gift is within my abilities, and I wish to give it. That is all that need be known."

He was beginning to feel hot, and was glad that Ferrars merely thanked him again and invited him to have the work done whenever convenient, so long as the church was ready for use during Sunday services.

Work began on the Tuesday and was completed on Thursday. Mr. Ferrars and his benefactor admired the result together. The guilty man was truly pleased and proud, never having done anything of the sort before.

He decided to attend services at Delaford on the Sunday, in order to gauge the response. He asked his wife to accompany him, telling her that he had met the Reverend Ferrars some time ago and had been so impressed by his sincerity and the esteem in which his parishioners held him, that he decided to do something for the little church.

"That church is so small, I can well afford it as you will see, and there is much more need there than in the town," he told her. "Saint Mary's and Holy Trinity have plenty of patrons, as you know. But I have decided to make my gift to Delaford anonymously, and the incumbent will allow it."

They arrived late, sat in the rearmost pew and intended to leave before the benediction, as he was hoping to avoid notice. The congregation was so small that he easily recognised the Delaford men from the inquest: Brandon, Cockrell and Godfrey, and their wives. He was surprised to see Mrs Godfrey there, as he had understood she had left her home and returned to her parents.

To his chagrin, the sermon was about Cain and Abel. He did not wish to hear about murder, but there was no way to leave the service now, without being questioned by his wife. So he bore it.

It angered him to hear a sermon that appeared directed at him. However, as he listened, he realised that Mr Ferrars could not have expected him to attend services that morning, and that there was nothing in the sermon to remind the congregation of Willoughby's fate. He relaxed and began to listen more attentively.

The pastor recounted how the two sons of Adam and Eve, a farmer and a shepherd, had each offered a sacrifice to God:

"Cain brought the first and best of the fruits of his field, and Abel the firstborn and best of his flock. God accepted Abel's offering but rejected Cain's. Cain was angry and depressed that his offering had been rejected, and demanded an explanation. God said Cain could be forgiven if he did what was right; if not, sin was crouching at the door, but Cain could overcome it.

"But Cain did not overcome sin and instead gave in to it, and he resolved to kill his brother. He lured him into a field, where he beat him to death, and buried the body.

Later, as Cain was walking in his garden in the cool of the evening, God asked him, 'Where is your brother?"

"'I don't know,' lied Cain. 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

"But of course, God knows everything, and no one can conceal anything from God. God knew Cain was guilty and told him so.

But God has mercy even on the guilty, and although you may think Cain deserved to die -- as we hang murderers today -- yet God took pity on Cain and did not condemn him to death. Instead he made Cain a homeless wanderer. Cain was afraid that anyone who met him would kill him, since he was a killer himself, but God put a mark on Cain so that everyone would know not to kill him, on pain of death. And after many years, God freed Cain from his curse of wandering, and allowed him to found a city and to father many generations."

Mr Ferrars spoke for some time about God's omniscience and mercy, even toward the perpetrator of the most terrible crime, and the importance of avoiding sin and doing what we know is right. "Of course, Cain knew it was wrong to kill his brother, for if not, he would not have attempted to cover it up with a lie." The pastor emphasised that "we do not need God to tell us what is right, but like Cain and Abel, we are born knowing what is right and wrong."

The visitor knew Ferrars had seen him, and yet the pastor did nothing to distinguish him as he told the flock that they owed the newness of the little church's interior to the generosity of a friend.

"I hope that during the coming week, you would think of this unearned gift and be kind to each other, as God was kind to the undeserving Cain," Ferrars said in closing his sermon.

On the Monday, he found another one of the tiny notes. This one merely said:

Well done.

He felt a little glow of pride, in spite of himself. He knew it was well done and was only ashamed that it had cost him so little.

Some weeks later, he was crushed to receive another note. He had convinced himself -- irrationally, he now recognised -- that the blackmailer would be satisfied with refurbishment of the church. The new note read:

The widow Wilson will be evicted from her little home unless her rent is paid next quarter day. She earns a pittance cleaning St Mary's Church, and supports a crippled boy. Her daughter also works but has a young child and cannot help her mother and brother much. Speak to the rector of St Mary's.

Quarter day was only three days thence. He sighed and immediately called upon the rector. He found that Mrs Wilson's rent was really very little, and he offered to pay for two quarters, to be delivered to her by the rector as from an anonymous "friend."

On behalf of his needy parishioner, the rector was most grateful for the donation, and promised to take care of the commission immediately.

He expected his generosity to be applauded by his tormentor, as before. Instead, he received the following note:

It is not enough. Her rent must be guaranteed in perpetuity, so long as she needs it. It is a paltry amount per quarter but so important to her.

He sighed and immediately returned to the rector, explaining that he had not realised that Mrs Wilson's need was probably of a permanent nature, and that he wished to relieve her of all worry about future shelter for her family.

The next day, he received a new note:

Good.

His next good deed was not prompted by a note but was self-initiated. He heard of a boy who wanted to go to school, but the child's disabled father could hardly pay for the necessities of life, let alone school. He talked to the boy and to his father, and was satisfied. He promised to support the boy in school so long as he was diligent and earned good reports from the schoolmaster. He would even go so far as to support the boy at university if warranted.

Later he found another note:

I am proud of you.

That was the last of the notes.

Over the coming months, and in later years, there were other acts of benevolence, some costly. Oddly, he found in these acts an excitement reminiscent of what he had formerly found in wagering. Now, as then, he relied on his skill in assessing the abilities and intentions of other people. Sometimes he would be playing for all or nothing, as with the boy he sent to school; the boy might fail utterly, or he might turn into a scholar with an insatiable love of words and ideas, of learning and teaching. Unlike a game of cards, however, this new pastime did not usually provide an immediate reward. He did not care.

Continued in Next Section