The Flawed Mistress (The Summerville Journals) (7 page)

   
“What do you intend to do with the child when you have had your fun?”  I
asked bitterly as we
alighted
the coach.

   
“She is just an orphan,” he replied with a shrug.  “No one will miss
her.  It was different with you; you were important and had to be
returned.  That’s why Mr Carter made your father think he was taking
money.  I did not want to use
you,
it was him
that was obsessed.  I thought it was too dangerous.”

   
“So you intend to kill her?”

   
“What else? 
Once soiled she will be of no further use
to me.”

   
I could not believe that anyone would talk like that and mean it.  I had
no weapon with me, though why I had not thought to bring one I could not
say.  I was desperately afraid of being alone and penniless, of being
destitute, but who was more important? 
Me or another
helpless child?
  I had not had anyone to rescue me, but this child
would be different.

   
I said nothing as we entered the orphanage, as my illustrious husband
introduced himself and his Marchioness and expressed a wish, a deep desire to adopt
a little girl.

   
“Alas,” he said quietly to the warden in charge, “Her Ladyship is unable to
conceive.  We thought a little girl would be a good choice, someone she
can share her feminine skills with.”

   
The warden suspected nothing, but took us down some stairs into a large room
with many beds, on which sat many little girls, some as young as only two or
three.  They were each of them filthy dirty, as though nobody bothered to
see to their hygiene, and all looked thin and underfed.  A couple had lice
running through their hair and I shivered and wanted to scratch.

   
“What do you think my dear?”  The Monster said, turning to me.  “You
choose.  You are to be her mother.”

   
Me?  He wanted me to choose which child would suffer the same horrors that
I had suffered?  It could not happen; I could not let it happen.  But
what could I do?  If I gave him away, the warden would likely not believe
me.  A man with such a beautiful wife would never need to do such a thing.
That is what he would think and that is the reason he married me.  Not
only would it not work, but I could expect a savage beating on returning to his
house; then I would be of no use to this child or any future ones. 

   
Over the years I had dreamed of killing him and his friend, but now I hated him
more than ever.  If I had a knife, I would have plunged it into him with
no regrets.

   
I reached out my hand and pointed to a blonde child of about twelve years
old.  I chose a blonde child so that the Monster could better see the lice
running around her scalp and give me time to form another plan.

   
“A little old, perhaps?”
  He said with a frown,
knowing that I had deliberately chosen an older child.

   
“I think not.  A child of her age will be better company and more use
around the house,” I insisted.

   
He could do nothing without arousing suspicion and so I felt satisfied.  I
sat inside the coach with her while he drove the horses and when we arrived
back at the house the first thing to do was to wash her hair and bathe her.

   
“Very well,” he said impatiently. 
“Though it is hardly
necessary.”

   
While Lucy boiled water and took the child to
her own
chamber to bathe her, I went to the kitchens and looked about for any sort of
potion that might put the Monster to sleep. I had little knowledge of herbs and
the like but I knew poison when I saw it but I could find nothing so I settled
at last on the poppy juice I had taken for myself.  That would at least
send him to sleep; given enough of it, he might even not wake up.

   
I mixed it with wine and took it to him.  Had our positions been reversed,
I would not have drunk anything prepared by me, but he was arrogant enough to
believe that I would obey him as the law demanded.  If the law were half
as concerned with the welfare of children as it was in making sure that wives
remained in their proper place, monsters like him would be put to death. 
I was only doing what the law should be doing.  Did thou
shalt
not kill apply when it came to a freak of nature such
as this one?  I only knew one thing:  I was not going to let him hurt
that little girl nor any other little girl in the future, even if I had to kill
him myself.

   
I had no qualms about the idea of murdering him.  It was something I had
longed to do for years after all, and here was the perfect opportunity and the
perfect motive.  He drank the wine and fell asleep in his chair, while I
wondered what I could do to stop him from waking up.

   
Lucy had finished with the child and brought her to my sitting room.

   
“There, My Lady,” she said.  “Her name’s Louisa, so she tells me. 
She seems to have little to say and she is scared stiff, but who could blame
her?  What now?”

   
“He is sleeping,” I told her.  “Perhaps Louisa would like something to
eat.  She does not look as though she has had much before this.”

   
She took the child down to the kitchen where she served cheese and bread and
the little girl fell upon it ravenously.  So I had been right; she was
half starved.  But I had to find a way to keep the Monster asleep,
preferably permanently, and I had to do it without Lucy finding out.  I
did not fear she would betray me, but I did not want her involved.

   
I need not have worried; when I returned to the Monster’s bedchamber, he was
dead.  I knew I had not given him enough poppy juice to kill him, so it
seemed that his heart had given out and the mixture was just enough to tip him
over the edge.  I knelt beside him and gave a silent prayer of thanks.

   
But what to do with his body?
  I could hardly
bury him all by myself and I could not trust the servants.  They would
want to report his death to the authorities and I would be left penniless once
more, as I doubted he would have made a will or even if he had, I doubted he
would have included me in it.  My only hope was to hide him, tell the
servants and neighbours he had gone away, and carry on living there. 

   
But I could not stop Lucy from entering the room and seeing his foul body
slumped in the chair. 

   
“My Lady?”
  She enquired in a low voice. 
“Is he dead?”

   
“I am very much afraid he is, Lucy,” I replied without really thinking about
it.  “He seems to have suffered a heart attack.”

   
“What do you want me to do?”

   
I smiled slightly.  Trust Lucy to be thinking of how she could help me,
and not how she could help herself.

   
“I have no idea,” I replied.  “I do not want to involve you.”

   
“Well, it is late in the day for that.”  She said, striding forward and
putting her fingers on the Monster’s wrist to feel for a pulse.  “What
shall we do with him?”

   
“If we tell his servants he is dead, they will want to know why the authorities
have not been informed.  You and I will be homeless once more.”

   
“I have an admirer, I think, in the form of the older man.  I do not
believe that any of these servants will be sorry if I tell them that he has
already abandoned his new bride and gone away.”

   
So that is what we did and while I felt guilty at involving Lucy, I could not
have managed without her.  She had been right about her admirer and about
the servants’ general contempt for their master.

   
I found some gold coin hidden away in a drawer and wondered if it was part of
that stolen back from my father.  It would be ironic if it were.

   
They were all happy to go and as soon as they had we dragged the body into the
wine cellar, where it
lie
on the dusty floor to
stiffen and decompose.  I could not think about that; I had to decide what
to do with the child we had rescued.

   
“She is a nice enough girl,” Lucy assured me.  “If you and I are going to
manage to live in this place with no servants, we will need help.  She is
very pleased to be out of the orphanage so I think she will make a good
helper.”

   
She was right.  The three of us would have to manage and I just thanked
God that the house had little land to manage, no tenants and was remote, well
away from the village.  I am quite sure that this was the reason the
Monster had chosen it in the first place, no one to interfere with his perverted
pastime.

   
There were two horses trained to pull the carriage, but there did not appear to
be any others nor saddles for riding.  We spent a week or so driving the
horses about the small estate, so as to learn how to drive it.  It was not
something any of us had ever done before.

   
I went into the village to get supplies and when the gold coin ran
out,
I found valuable jewels to sell.  We brought up
some wine from the cellar, so as not to have to return there again.

   
It was from people in the village that I learned of the death of King
Henry.  He had murdered another wife since I hid myself away here and
married yet another and during this time had grown farther and farther away
from the catholic faith.  Although he still heard mass and persecuted
protestants
, it was said that his new Queen, Catherine Parr,
was fiercely protestant and was trying to convert him.  Meanwhile his son
and heir
was
being raised by Protestant uncles and I
could not help but worry about Richard Summerville who I knew was fiercely Catholic.

   
As to my own faith, God had done me no favours so I would not be persecuted for
His sake, not ever. 

CHAPTER
SEVEN

  I
worried about other things as well, like the mouldering corpse in the wine
cellar and how long we could stay here before someone found us out.  The
Monster must surely have someone who would come looking for him.

   
The three of us used only a few rooms in the house and spent most of our time
in the kitchens, because it was warm while the remainder of the house was
freezing in the winter.  The grounds were overgrown as that was not
something we could keep up and it was beginning to look from the outside as
though the place were abandoned. 
Something else to
worry me.
  Would someone come along thinking they could take
over?  I felt that I had all the burdens of the world on my shoulders, but
I needed to be strong for Lucy and Louisa, especially for Louisa.

We had managed to grow a few vegetables and they were mostly what we
lived on since the money was almost all gone and not one of us relished the
idea of hunting animals and killing them for meat.

   
The morning that Louisa came running into the kitchen I thought our little
world would be shattered once more.

   
“My Lady!”
  She cried in panic.  “A
gentleman just rode up!”

   
“Do you know who?”  I asked her fearfully.

   
“No, My Lady, I have never seen him before, but he is dismounting.  I came
straight to tell you.”

   
“Thank you Louisa,” I said taking her hand to reassure her.

   
“I’ll go and look,” said Lucy quickly.  “I may be able to get rid of him,
whoever he is.
Probably just someone curious about the place.
 
I am surprised he is the first.”

   
She went through to the front of the house where she could look through the
windows without being seen, but instead of returning as I had expected or going
outside quietly to persuade whoever it was to go away, I heard the door open
followed by a delighted cry of “My Lord!”

   
When she returned she was followed by Richard Summerville, striding toward me
as though he had never been gone.  He took me in his arms and held me in a
comforting embrace while all the tears that I had carefully held in check these
past years spilled out over his doublet.

   
I caught an exchange of glances between my two young serving girls. 
Lucy's was delighted, Louisa's was puzzled, but both had smiles on their lips.

   
“I have searched for months for you,” he told me.  “It was sheer chance
that brought me here.”

   
I led him into the little sitting room where a fire was roaring while Lucy
fetched ale and bread then left us together to talk.

   
“Where were you?  I needed you so much when my uncle died; I had no
one.  They told me you were in France.”

   
“I was.  I had to find a place for my cousin in one of the convents. 
There are none left here.”  He put his arm around me and held me
close.  “I am so sorry, Rachel, that you had to marry yet again.  I
should have been there for you; I feel that I have let you down.”

   
“You owe me nothing, My Lord,” I replied. 

   
“That is not how I see it but no matter.  What has happened to your
husband?” He turned my face up to look at him.  “Why is he not taking care
of you?”   

   
What could I say?  Richard was my dearest friend, indeed until Lucy and
Louisa came into my life, my only friend.  But could I really tell him
that my husband was rotting away in my wine cellar, where I put him?

   
“He is not here,” I answered quickly, not ready to talk about him.  “Tell
me about yourself, your wife?  Did you persuade her to annul the
marriage?”

   
“I did,” he said with a note of regret that I did not understand, “and now I
wish I had not troubled her with it.  I thought I could just let her
be.  I was not going short of affection, after all, but I began to resent
her so much.  I tried to be patient, but I will never really
understand.  By the time I decided to confront her with it, I really hated
her, and I expect that must have been clear in my tone.”  He stopped
talking and turned to look at me.  “Is that not awful?  She had no
help for how she was; it was not her fault.”  He sighed heavily before
going on:  “I explained it to her carefully, gently I thought.  I
could have got her woman companion to explain it to her, but I did not want her
to know our secrets and I doubt that Rosemary did either.  So I explained
it myself, even though I could see she was afraid of the subject.”  He was
quiet for a little while but I did not prompt him to continue.  He would
tell me in his own time.  “She agreed.”

   
“She did?  That is good news,” I said, but he did not seem to be happy
about it.

   
“I promised her a house, far away from me where she could live with her
companion.  I promised her a pension and the upkeep of such a place. 
She seemed happy enough with the arrangement.”

   
“But what happened?”  I prompted at last.  “I can see things did not
go to plan.”

   
“She killed herself,” he said with a look of utter dismay on his handsome
face.  “The next day, I found her hanging over her bed.”

   
“Suicide?”
  I was shocked and that surprised
me.  I did not think I could ever be shocked again. 
“But why?”

   
“She did it for me,” he replied with a frown.  “She left me a letter.
 You can read it if you like.”

   
He pulled a piece of rolled up parchment from his doublet and handed it to me.
I started to read out loud.

   
‘
My Lord,’
she wrote. 

“She never called me ‘Richard’.  In fact she never called me
anything at all.  The letter says more than she had ever put into words.”

 
‘My Lord, I do not want you to blame yourself, but I can find
no happiness in this world and you have been nothing but kindness itself. 
You deserve better.  I do this for you, to release you so that you can
find a real wife, one who appreciates your kindness and will be able to return
your affection.’

   
I squeezed his arm in a feeble attempt to comfort him.  I knew that people
would think him to blame and the disgrace to the Summerville name of having a
suicide in the family did not bear thinking about.

   
“I
am trusting
you to keep this a secret,” he suddenly
went on.  “The companion knows nothing.  It was her day to visit her
son and there was just me there.  I dismissed her and put it about that my
wife had gone to London
to stay with my aunt and uncle.  Their son was staying with me, and still
is as it happens.  My aunt and uncle died of plague two months ago, and
when Rosemary was found nobody looked too closely.”  He paused and looked
at me as though for guidance.  “Did I do the right thing?  I just
could not bear to have her buried without the sanction of the church.  It
meant so much to her, that sort of thing.”

   
“You mean you did not do it to avoid the disgrace,” I asked, surprised.

   
“Lord, no!  I never care about things like that.  I did it for her;
it was the only decent thing I ever did for her.”  He sighed
wearily.  “I tricked the priest into burying her in the family crypt, but
look what she did for me.  Who would have thought she had such compassion
in her?  Who would have thought she had the courage?”

   
“I think you did the right thing,” I said quietly.  “I cannot think of
anything more right.  From what little I knew of her, I think it would
have taken more courage to stay alive.  She was such a sad little thing.”

   
“So, I am free now to choose another.  And this time I shall choose for
myself and I shall find a woman who wants me.”

   
I had to smile, knowing his reputation.

   
“I do not believe it will be too difficult to find such a woman, Richard,” I
said with a smile.

   
“It will not be yet,” he said.  “Not until a decent interval has passed
and this protestant boy on the throne has outstayed his welcome.  I shall
savour the freedom of not having to worry about Rosemary.  Since she has
been gone I have realised just what a burden she was, hovering around my mind
all the time.  It is such a relief not to have to think about her. I shall
look for a new
Countess,
I shall look carefully before
I decide.”  He turned to look at me then kissed my cheek.  “I wish it
could be you,” he said.

   
I felt myself stiffen; there was no help for it, even though I knew he had
meant nothing by it.  That would always be my burden.

   
“Rachel, Rachel,” he said, taking my hand.  “I told you before that I
would ask nothing of you and I meant it.  I wish you could learn to trust
me.”

   
“I do trust you, Richard.  I really do, but how much do you trust me?”

   
“You know things about me, intimate
things, that
I
would never want anyone else to know.  What more do you want?”  His
eyes met mine then and held my gaze for a few moments.  “Are you going to
tell me where your errant husband is?”

   
I knew I had to tell him.  I had kept it a secret long enough, I had been
afraid, and made Lucy and Louisa afraid, every time there was a noise
outside.  I was always frightened someone would come, someone would find
him.  Wives who murdered their husbands were subject to harsh punishments,
death by fire in most cases.  If there was anyone in the whole world I
could tell, it was Richard Summerville.

   
“Do you remember the last time we met?”  I asked him.  “You told me
then that you hoped I would tell you one day what was done to me.  Is that
still your hope?”

   
“Only if it is yours,” he replied gravely.

   
I swallowed, wondering whether I would ever get the words out.  I had told
Lucy, had I not?  I had no choice and I had no choice now, not if I wanted
his help.  We could not go on like this, there was barely anything left.

   
“When I was ten years old, on my birthday in fact,” I began hesitantly, “my
father took one thousand gold pieces to loan me out for the day to two men.”

   
Richard caught his breath in shock and I looked up to see the horror in his
eyes.

   
“I was raped that day, repeatedly,” I went on.  “I was damaged,
inside.”  I had to
stop,
I did not think I could
go on.

   
“Shush,” he said, putting his fingers to my lips.  “You do not need to
tell me any more.”

   
“Yes, I do.  You have to understand if I am to ask for your help.”

   
“I will help you, whatever it is.  You do not need to subject yourself to
this.”

   
“I must finish,” I insisted.  “I want you to understand, not only because
I need your help, but because I love you Richard, and were it not for two
deviants and a drunken father, I might even have been able to love you as a
woman should.”

   
His reaction was to put his arms around me and hug me close against him and for
the first time in my life, I wished I could be like other women.  If only
I could, if only it did not cause me pain, but even with him, the idea revolted
me.

   
“When I was brought home there was no sign of my father and I never saw him
again.  I now know that he was murdered by one of the men, but I was just
relieved to know that he was gone.  My mother and I went to London, to my uncle the
following day, but she lived only a few hours in his house.  My father had
beaten her so severely that she died later that night.

   
“The physician who examined me at my uncle’s request said that I would never be
a mother, but that did not stop my uncle from arranging a marriage to the Earl
of
Connaught
.

   
“When I was thirteen, Uncle Stephen took me to watch the coronation parade for
Queen Anne Boleyn and that is where the Earl caught sight of me.  Once
more, this beauty everyone envies betrayed me.  He wanted an heir and I
could not give him one, my uncle knew that but he imagined it would be love at
first sight.  He did not understand but meanwhile I had to suffer the
disgusting and painful nightly ritual of a man who did not speak to me, who
barely knew my name.  I was fifteen when he fell from his horse and left me
a widow.

   
“I believed that he had left me his house for my lifetime and a pension, as
well as wages for the servants, but I found out later that he had left me
nothing.  It was my uncle who had bought the house and was paying for its
upkeep, out of guilt for arranging the marriage which he knew would not bear
fruit.

   
“When Uncle Stephen died, there was nothing left.  I looked for you then,
I sent a servant to Suffolk who learned that you
were in France. 
I could not afford to send anyone to France.”

   
“I am so sorry,” he said regretfully. 
“If I had only
known.”

   
“You would have helped, I know.  But you did not know and you were nowhere
to be found and I had no choice but to throw myself on the mercy of the King.”

   
“And he helped you?”

   
“He helped me to the altar with yet another stranger,” I replied
bitterly.  “This one I did not even look at.  I thought that if he
too wanted an heir I was not about to tell him I was barren.  I needed the
marriage more than he did, as I had nothing.  I would have been homeless
and starving.  But when I did turn and look at him, after the ceremony, I
found that I had married the monster who had ruined me! 
One of the two who had stolen my childhood, stolen my life, and
left me useless for any man!”

   
I was looking at my hands as they wrung themselves together.  Just
thinking about it was making me tremor uncontrollably, but talking about it was
more than I could bear.

   
Finally I felt his fingers on my chin, turning my face up to look at him. 
His expression was one of pity, but not a contemptuous sort of pity, not the
sort of pity I had seen when he looked at Rosemary.